A little more than a year ago a group of 80 Rabbis wrote a letter espousing their moral outrage for Israel’s behavior in Gaza, Yehuda and Shomron. The term people use for these rabbis is Orthodox. I have always rejected that term and never use it as it was placed on religious Jews by reformers. I am not an Orthodox Jew. I am simply a Jew. Only Hashem has the right to call me anything other than that. Therefore I reject it outright and will refer to these 80 rabbis as rabbis. To be sure, reformed rabbis will indeed get their definition as they created it to make that their thing so I abide by their wishes and follow suit.

In their letter, these 80 rabbis wrote, “Israel’s prolonged military campaign, now approaching two years, has devastated Gaza. The death toll is rising with very significant losses of lives, and Israel’s limiting of humanitarian aid, at times completely halting the entry of food and medical supplies, has raised the specter of coming starvation. We affirm that Hamas’s sins and crimes do not relieve the government of Israel of its obligations to make whatever efforts are necessary to prevent mass starvation. The justified anger toward Hamas has dangerously expanded by some extremists into blanket suspicion of the entire population of Gaza — children included — tarnished as future terrorists. Meanwhile, in Yehuda and Shomron (the West Bank), extremist settler violence has resulted in the murder of civilians and has forced Palestinian villagers from their homes, further destabilizing the region. Orthodox Jewry, as some of Israel’s most devoted supporters, bears a unique moral responsibility. We must affirm that Judaism’s vision of justice and compassion extends to all human beings.”

These rabbis made every effort to pimp their letter. It was on every website talking about Israel and Gaza, too many major US newspapers to count as well as every Jewish newspaper and periodical, every Jewish website and was, as one could imagine, obviously used as weaponry for all the enemies of Israel looking to destroy not only the Jewish state, but the Jewish people.

Last month, Uri Kurlianchik pointed out the fallacy of the famine in Gaza claims these rabbis hung their hat on. “A UNICEF-led survey published in July found that child malnutrition in Gaza is exceptionally low, not just by Middle Eastern standards, but by global standards. In fact, Gaza is doing better than some EU-member states! The survey found that acute malnutrition in Gaza based on WHZ (Weight-for-Height Z-score) was about 0.5% across regions. Gaza’s pre-war rate was 0.8%. This means that the “famine” in Gaza has actually improved the nutritional situation in this famously obese region. An often overlooked fact is that before the war, the obesity rate of Gazan men was 58.7% and Gazan women was 71.3%. And that’s already during Israel’s “terrible” blockade. The acute malnutrition in Gaza’s children is well below nearby countries such as Egypt (2.9%), Jordan (2.0%), and Syria (12%). In fact, it’s much better than Bulgaria (5%), Romania (5%) and Malta (5%). In Yemen it’s 16%. In India it’s 18%. Two orders of magnitude higher than Gaza!”

The Rabbi who spearheaded this letter sadly destroyed in one day a wonderful reputation it took him decades to build. I was a great admirer of his but suffice it to say I no longer am. I don’t know how many, if any, of these other 80 rabbis live in Israel, though I am sure some do. I also don’t know if any of them........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)