What Matters Now to Rabbi Rick Jacobs: Coalitions of faith and conscience
Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now.
The ripple effects of Hamas’s massacre of 1,400 people in Israel on October 7 are still being felt. The dead were mostly civilians — many entire families — whom Israel continues to identify and bury.
Israelis were the primary target of the barbaric attack, but their pain is shared by Jewish brothers and sisters in the Diaspora, just as, five years ago this week, Israelis shared the shock and pain of the deadly shooting at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue.
Here this week from New York to show his love and solidarity with Israelis is Rabbi Rick Jacobs, the president of the Union for Reform Judaism which represents some two million Jews in North America. He sat with The Times of Israel after touring the country and getting briefed on the situation here on the ground.
We speak about how Jews — even some from the most progressive edges — are pulling together today, with some humanitarian caveats.
“This is a moment when we have to be leaning into the kind of response that the world doesn’t like to see from us — when we have a strong military response to protect our community, our families, our country. And at the same time, can we hold, in whatever portion of our moral stance in the world, that we do not look at the suffering of innocents, not the suffering of those who are bringing this assault? That’s part of us retaining our Jewish religious sensibilities, which we can’t lose ever,” said Jacobs.
So this week, we ask Rabbi Rick Jacobs, what matters now.
The following transcript has been slightly edited.
The Times of Israel: Rick, thank you so much for joining me today in Jerusalem’s Nomi Studios.
Rabbi Rick Jacobs: It’s an honor to be with you.
Our lives have changed since October 7, everyone here in Israel feels it, I’m sure Jews around the world do, too. So I ask you Rick, we’re now 20 days into this war, what matters now?
What matters is something profound shifted on October 7. Obviously, the State of Israel and the Jewish people have known challenges. Israelis have known challenges pretty much every day, but when we awoke to the news of what was transpiring and what was still transpiring throughout that Shabbat, Shemini Atzeret, Simchat Torah, it literally went through us and shook us to the core. Obviously, how much the more so here in Israel.
Listen, before October 7, we were arguing and debating about everything. We’re Jewish people, we’re Jewish leaders, we debated the judiciary, halacha, everything. But, in that moment, something just shifted to say: There’s a more profound call at this moment, which is to stand intensely with the people and the State of Israel and to galvanize our community in every way. There’s no left and right, there’s no Orthodox and secular and Reform. There’s just a community that understood that witnessing the slaughter of our people in their homes. In the celebrated Jewish state which has all the ability, we thought, to defend our citizens everywhere, every moment. It just awakened the sense that we’re vulnerable, even when we’re strong. I think it also reminded us that underneath it all, there’s something that does bind us together. And I think we know that in our intellectual selves, but we know it at a very deep, visceral level. I think that not only is it in recent memory, I think it will be something we will recount for centuries to come.
I agree with you. To me, it’s one of those moments like watching the Twin Towers fall, and, I understand from my father, when JFK was assassinated — things of this stature. I want you to just take me through how you learned of this massacre.
Well, certainly it’s not the case that every Shabbat I’m glued to any media, but the word came, my phone, which I checked because we have a vast movement and we know that there are often times things that happen that we need to be aware of. So when I just, in the morning of that Shabbat, Simchat Torah, just checked my phone, it had just exploded with direct texts and emails from friends here saying something profound and overwhelming is happening.
And then I just leaned into it and had to stay glued to technology to find out what we could do. In those moments, even those first moments as we were just discovering the extent and hearing the accounts of some of our friends who were in their safe rooms right along the border in Kfar Azza, in Nahal Oz, and just witnessing in real time, their desperation, their pleading, somebody come and help us.
And then, of course, right away activating throughout our movement that we always, in a moment like that, have to think about security — not someday, a week from now, but right in that moment. And to figure out quickly, how do we mobilize our community on a holiday, on a Shabbat when people are doing what they should do, which is to celebrate and to be in that joyful moment. So that was that Shabbat that was not Shabbat.
So, immediately after seeing what was happening in Israel, your head went to protecting your communities throughout the Diaspora?
It went first and foremost to trying to understand what we needed to do to be helpful to our people here. They were the ones literally on the front lines. So let me be really clear, that was number one, two and three on the to-do list. And to figure out also quickly, in terms of the US government — we are a North American movement, we’re Canada and the US — but at this moment, to make sure that the US government was tuned in. We don’t have an [US] ambassador here at the moment. We hope that we soon will. But really to make sure that the powers that be — and obviously, as we’ve seen in recent days, there’s quite a lot of commitment.
But in that moment we felt so anxious and vulnerable and we didn’t know, none of us knew the extent. So people said the 100 murdered and then 200, and it just kept growing. And the desperation of the people who were in their safe rooms with their kids telling them to be quiet. I’m thinking to myself, how would I, when my kids were little, ask them to be quiet for 10 minutes let alone nine hours? So it would ratchet it up to a full emergency on every level. And I think the question of how to protect our communities here was in that mix. But it was clear where the absolute danger was, where the slaughter was happening. And we didn’t have a full sense of how many hostages. It just unfolded and got more horrific as more accounts and more news came across.
And still is. And pretty much immediately your movement, along with other movements throughout the US, started holding vigils. Tell me about how that unfolded.
So if you think about it, we were actually pretty organized about vigils before October 7. And they were obviously pro-democracy, pro-Jewish, democratic state. And we had a wonderful, amazing partnership with the Israelis, who are not just in New York, but San Francisco, Los Angeles, Florida, all around. That same network, in one second, pivoted and said: “Okay, we need to show up. We need to be public, and we need to be loud in this moment of not just celebrating Israel, but standing with it.”
Right away, there were counter-protests. Right away — I’m in New York City — there were, right away, people who were not protesting on behalf of the dignity and well-being of the Palestinian people. That’s legitimate. We cannot just say that’s okay, we can actually bless the respectful protests. These were not. These were pro-Hamas. These were celebrating the butchering of our people.
So, on a very basic level, we were not prepared that anyone who would be part of our modern world could witness or have any sense of what was unfolding and say: “Yes!” But that’s what we saw. And it just encouraged not just a few of us, but a lot of us, including the very progressive members of our community, to say: “This is different. Something has now changed in terms of our understanding of our role, our role as Jews, as supporters, progressive supporters of Israel.”
Quickly, the idea that this was a war against Hamas and they did something so egregious, so beyond what anyone had imagined, that we knew that there had to be a response other than hoping things would get better. That’s not a response. It’s not a plan. And that’s not what the Jewish community in North America is busy doing.
You are obviously part of coexistence efforts, and I wonder if there was any kind of conversation between you and any kind of Muslim leadership to come out and condemn what is happening.
I will just be clear that the most immediate interfaith colleagues who reached out were more in the Christian community. My phone was filled with those expressions of solidarity, including from people, I think, that the wider community would say are not strong supporters of Israel. They understood something different was unfolding, and I was heartened by it. And my request [to them was] not just, thank you, but could you post that? Could you say it publicly? It would really be important.
There are Muslim colleagues with whom I have that relationship. Some of them are not Middle Eastern Muslims, and for them, it’s usually a little bit easier to navigate those politics. But there were also expressions of solidarity. Again not, you know, the whole project of the Jewish people, not the whole project of the State of Israel. But, “We are outraged. We cannot imagine what it’s like to go through this as a Jewish community.” And the same thing that Joe Biden said when he was here: “You’re not alone.” Those are expressions that we received.
Locally, I heard from rabbis across North America that [heard from] their local partners — again, not all of them, some of them were quiet for too long — and there was a collective sense of, “We’re here. We’d love to hear from our partners. We’d love to hear from the people who we know are our friends, but this is a moment we really need you.” But many of them did come through, more slowly.
I think it was also for people who are very involved in the political world, who probably define themselves on the very progressive side of the spectrum. I think this moment also pulled them into a different mindset. Not that they forgot or let go of their political commitments, but to say, you know what? My political commitments do not include endangering the lives of families of people. And the people who live along the Gaza border, are as you know — I’ve spent a lot of time in those communities — they are the most idealistic, and the most committed to building a shared society.
It is ironic in a way that these people who are being held captive by Hamas are also the people who drove perhaps their family members to the hospital to get treatment for cancer. They are the peace activists of Israel — so many of them living in these kibbutzim along the border, these secular kibbutzim. I want to drill down a little bit more on the progressives, though, and many people have privately said to me: “Hey, we Jews showed up. We showed up for Black Lives Matter, we showed up for many other different movements, and we’re just not seeing our partners in activism show up for us.” Do you feel that is true?
I don’t feel that in a general sense. I think there are certainly many people who did show up, many people who did reach out. There are people with whom we work shoulder to shoulder on civil rights and on making a society in North America that is a place where people of all colors, all backgrounds, all genders, all sexualities can live in dignity and peace and equality. And I think that there are people who just saw Israel as the political establishment. The voices of this current Israeli government have not been voices that have, frankly, agreed with liberal Jews. It hasn’t agreed with a lot of progressives.
But this wasn’t about a new politician or a policy of this government. This was an attack on human beings, on families. And so I did feel that not all, but many, and I would say, some of the most progressive, were the ones who reached out and expressed in no “clouded, both sides.” None of that. Also [many said]: “Are you okay? What can I do?” And I meant in that moment to not just thank them, but to ask that in any way, in front of their congregations, in front of their wider communities, that to be able to withstand — and we knew at that moment also, this was likely not going to be a day, a week. And we understood that immediately. There would be a whole lot of solidarity, a lot of empathy, but over the course of a campaign, a war, as we have at this moment, the tide of opinion would turn quickly, as Israel did, what it needed to do, which is to push back against Hamas, not against all Palestinians, it’s not a war against them.
So at this moment, frankly, I would argue it’s more challenging and [asking for solidarity is] more required. And that’s where we’re really trying to work hard — to solidify some of those coalitions of faith and conscience.
For sure. We definitely see it on the international stage that the tide has turned. I wouldn’t say, “is turning.” The tide turned perhaps even a week ago in terms of international media. And of course, there is so much suffering in Gaza. There is no doubt, there’s no objective doubt about that. But yet we wonder here in Israel, so many of us, how can we lose this moment of moral clarity? That children were decapitated, raped, taken hostage, grandmothers, Holocaust survivors put on motorcycles, beaten with sticks? We’ve heard the testimony already of those who were freed. How can it be that Israel is not able to operate in Gaza without world condemnation?
Well, I think you’re absolutely right. And as we stand 1000 percent with Israel in this crisis, this disaster, this moment of overwhelming pain and loss. At that same moment, we are a people who also know that the suffering of the innocent is painful. There’s a commentary on this week’s Torah portion in Parshat Lech Lecha, in Chapter 15, right after Avram — he’s not yet Avraham — rescues his nephew Lot, who’s been taken hostage. (Like you open the Torah, you say, excuse me, how did they know that we’d be reading this week and need to hear these words?) And Avram gets a military band together and fights and wins and liberates his family member. So it tells us that’s also what people need in moments. Sometimes I think of Avram more like Elie Wiesel or Martin Buber, But here he’s more like Gary Cooper. He’s out there fighting.
In Chapter 15, it opens with “Al tira, Avram.” Don’t be afraid. And the midrash says, why was he afraid? Maybe he was afraid there was going to be another attack. It says in the Midrash Rabbah, he was afraid because he might have killed an innocent person in the war that he just fought. That wasn’t written by a Reform rabbi in the 21st century. It was written centuries ago. This is also part of our DNA. It’s part of what makes us who we are.
We can be 100% supportive of Israel and the IDF in responding in a way we have to. We have to protect our families, we have to protect our country. And it’s not going to happen by letting Hamas continue with its military strength, keeping probably millions of people hostage in Gaza. But also, they’re not trying to kind of make life “unpleasant.” They would like us not to be here. They’d like to wipe us off the planet. And they don’t also, only focus on Israel, they focus on Jews. So this is a moment we can’t just sort of sing “Oseh Shalom, od yavo shalom” (Make peace, peace will surely come). This is a moment when we have to be leaning into the kind of response that the world doesn’t like to see from us — when we have a strong military response to protect our community, our families, our country. And at the same time, can we hold, in whatever portion of our moral stance in the world, that we do not look at the suffering of innocents, not the suffering of those who are bringing this assault? That’s part of us retaining our Jewish religious sensibilities, which we can’t lose ever.
There are so many who say Hamas was voted into power in a free-ish election in the Gaza Strip, voted in 2006, then assumed power in 2007. So in this way, every resident of the Gaza Strip is a Hamas supporter. What would you say to that?
I think that’s a very simplistic read. I’ve heard it before. I’ve heard it some of the last few days here. I don’t think that there’s something called free elections in Gaza. I mean, elections 15-plus years ago don’t mean that they are endorsed by the people to do what they’re doing. I mean, can you imagine living through what they’ve now been having to live through? So I don’t think that they can claim the support [for Hamas] of the people of Gaza. At the same time, you’re right, they also are angry and they’ve chosen this leadership. But at the same time, we don’t target civilians.
One of our remarkable staff members here is doing his miluim, doing his reserve duty in education, and they work on the ethics code of the IDF and just reminding the soldiers, as they’re about to go now, for this ground incursion or wherever they’re serving. This is part of what it means to serve in the Israel Defense Forces. This is part of who we are and I think that’s critical. So we don’t target civilians.
Are civilians harmed in the conduct of war? Yes, but we’re not targeting them. So I think that’s also a difference. It’s one thing to say you voted or you didn’t vote, you currently support or you don’t support, but civilians also are people we should be worrying about. Now Hamas targeted civilians deliberately, we know the plans that they had when they came across the border. They were looking for families, they went into these communities, they drew maps, they knew where people were. So to me, that’s a moral opposite approach. So I think these are complex issues on some level, but on another level, they’re not.
Hamas is embedded within the civilian population. It’s like sifting for gold to find Hamas, versus the rest of the population. Of course, there’s going to be collateral damage. And already you talked about the progressives getting into the Jewish peoplehood a little bit more, but already we’re seeing splinters. If Not Now has already taken stances and had protests and things of that nature. Life on campus is always fraught, especially in this age group when everything is so clear and yet perhaps not fully understood. They’re standing up, they’re speaking out loudly against Israel right now, and many of them Jews. How do you speak to them?
Well, first of all, let’s be clear about the size of that group. There was a small group [of IfNotNow activists] that was in the US Capitol. They had a protest. And I know in Israel, as I’m traveling through these last days, people assume, well, that’s the Reform Movement. That is not the Reform Movement.
Our stance: We’re the largest Zionist organization, we stand with Israel. Are there people who hold dissonant views within our movement? Yes. Within the wider Jewish community? Yes. So let’s be clear about the size of those groups. But my feeling is, I want to talk to them, I want to be engaged with them. I’m not writing them off. I’m not saying, well, we all disagree. I want to get into a serious debate and discussion, and we do — before October 7, since October 7.
I also want people who are listening to the podcast to know that we’re almost 2 million people according to the Pew polling for the last two surveys. It’s not like a little sliver [of American Jews] that are with Israel, it’s the overwhelming majority. And every one of our synagogues had vigils for Israel and they invited their local faith communities and they came and filled our sanctuaries and stood with us in public spaces. This is the face of our movement.
There are also some who in this moment choose to be outside that pale. But I would tell you, I think many of those progressives actually were shaken and had to rethink even some of the ways in which they speak out and when to speak out and how to speak out. So those also feel like a very important part of our conversation.
I think it’s really important for the wider Jewish community to know, in this moment, we’re organizing our communities to adopt the hostages individually so they can feel a sense of connection. We’re doing that with the Conservative Movement and the Orthodox Union. Why? Because outside of Israel, we all seem to work together. How about that?! That’d be a good thing for the State of Israel to notice that we actually have a greater sense of klal Yisrael, achdut Yisrael, the unity of the Jewish people. And those are the things that I would put on the headlines. Those are the things I would say. This is the big takeaway. And here are some other stories that are worth hearing as well.
Life on campus over the past 20 years has been difficult for many Jews, you’d agree with that?
For sure. But I also think, and again, the rise in antisemitism isn’t only the rise in the whole question of Israel-Palestine. We’ve also seen over the last half-decade the increase in the white nationalists, the very deadly forms of antisemitism. And we feel that in our communities and we also feel that on campus. We also know that the sort of dominant view of the progressive world is that Palestinians are the victims and Israel is always the aggressor. Kind of like the story of the hospital [in Gaza] when it was bombed: The story was already written. People didn’t need to know, what are the facts? I don’t need to know the facts, I know Israel must be guilty. And of course it came out that Israel was not responsible, but the story was already out there.
I think that on campus for our progressive students who do stand with the students of color, they do stand up for the oppression against LGBTQ students and they do stand up for all of the things that have been going on politically in Washington in the previous administration. And these are essential things, and in some cases a lot of dissonance when it came to the subject of Israel. I think for us, we’re raising a whole new generation that knows how to hold liberal Jewish values and strong connections to Israel. And by the way, we know Israel isn’t just the government, it’s a group of people who hold all kinds of views. When we bring more of our students as we do to Israel before they go to college, they have a first-person narrative. They can say when they get to campus and someone says: “Israel is…” they say: “You know, I have a lot of friends in Israel.” That’s not something I’ve ever heard before. And let me tell you what I know, that’s a very different thing than trying to get them to memorize talking points or debating points they get to know and start yelling back, but to make this part of who they are.
We’re doing this in a wonderful way with the Ministry of Diaspora Affairs. It was created in the previous government with Nachman Shai who said: “What can we do together?” We just had our Israel Fellows, they gathered in our camp in Georgia this past Shabbat and they were learning all the tools that they need in their toolbox to first of all make sense of what’s happening in Israel and also in the Palestinian Territories, and how they would be leaders among their peers. Not just, having: “I went to Israel, here are my pictures, I had a great time.” That’s wonderful. That’s not enough. Through our program, we want to give them the ability to not have to take the talking points of the far-right, but who they are, consistent with their values, to say: “My values lead me to love Israel, my values lead me to stand up for these commitments.” And now I’m actually getting a little bit more practice, also, how do I show up on social media? I see some of my peers posting some really harsh things. Do I just duck and turn my phone off and say I hope it’s going to get better or do I find a way to engage in a constructive manner? Those are the things that we’re actually working very intensely on. So we’re not just watching this thing unfold on the campuses and saying: “Man, this is really serious. I don’t know.” But what are we doing in educating a new generation so that they have both facts and commitments and experiences that allow them to live out these commitments?
It sounds like a real plan for proactive nuance, in a way. I want to go back to the idea of antisemitism, and one of your first statements was, how can I protect my communities? Do you feel that right now during this war, that your communities are in danger?
We clearly know there are more threats, and we met with Homeland Secretary [Alejandro] Mayorkas twice in the last two weeks. He’s been monitoring and working closely with the ADL, with the Secure Communities Network. We work very seamlessly with all of these agencies. This past summer in Macon, Georgia, as our Reform synagogue was getting ready for Shabbat, the rabbi looked out her window and noticed neo-Nazis standing there. Well, in literally a heartbeat, they were able to activate our network. And law enforcement was not only there, but law enforcement that knew what to do. So that’s the garden variety. And we were pretty well prepared and effective in responding.
In the days since October 7, we’re at a whole new level. The threat level went up dramatically and our communities also have sophisticated security protocols. Those have been increased. It just is necessary. And it doesn’t mean that you have to be walking around with some sort of Israeli flag to incur the kind of wrath or maybe even a violent attack. You could actually just be wearing a kippah. You could be wearing a Jewish star. And simply identifying as a Jewish person was a set of assumptions.
Now, of course, we also have this Muslim Palestinian boy, a six-year-old boy in Chicago who was stabbed to death and what was his crime? He’s part of a Muslim family. So in America, hate is a big industry, and the kind of safety we’re working on for our community, we’d like the wider community to also have that kind of safety.
But this isn’t a moment of panic. It’s not a moment to say, well, let’s stop being Jewish for the next year and then we can come back to it. We have people very proud of being Jewish. We’re not going to stop going to our synagogues or to our schools or to our summer camps or our JCCs, but we want to be smart about this, and we want our people to feel that it’s safe. If you drop your two-year-old off at the synagogue nursery school, you want to know that there’s a protocol that really is, at this moment, what’s necessary. And I think we have that. And I know we’re vigilant. We’re never going to be complacent about, “Well, I think we have a pretty good system.” However our system works, we’re going to keep improving it, because that’s also part of being in solidarity. Again, the people along the Gaza border, in the communities that we know so well and with the reach of rockets, we know who is on the front lines. But also, we also understand the interconnectedness of our Jewish communities. We are interconnected in all good ways and with all the challenges. That’s an important thing for, I think, Israelis who have been very responsive to the reality of antisemitism and some of the hate and attacks we’ve seen. I love that this is a moment of mutual strengthening.
We are marking five years to the terror shooting at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue. Can you describe to me in some ways how the Jewish community has evolved, changed, shifted in its relationship with Israel since then?
I just remember when the attack happened on the Tree of Life Synagogue, I was here in Israel, and that Shabbat morning before it all unfolded, I was with our high school students at our Heller High School Program, about 70 of them, and we were having a sicha, a conversation at Shabbat lunch. What’s on your mind? And one student asked me: “Rabbi Jacobs, have you personally experienced something antisemitic in the last year?” And I actually answered no. But then I thought: “Be a rabbi, Rick, be an educator.” I said, you know what? Let me ask all of you. I have 70 of you. How many of you have experienced, in recent days, not read about it, experienced antisemitism in your communities? And they’re from all over North America, little rural communities, big cities. Two-thirds of the hands went up, and they told stories because I asked them, I said: “Tell me more.” In my school, in playing sports, in our community that they personally experienced. And in that moment, again, not that I predicted what was going to happen that day in Pittsburgh or in the coming years, but already it signaled something was different and the response of solidarity to that Tree of Life shooting.
One of the things I always want to point out to people on the Shabbat after the shooting, our synagogues overflowed, not just with our Jewish community, but with our interfaith partners. This had never happened in Jewish history. It didn’t happen in the 1930s when Kristallnacht happened. The whole community didn’t say: “How do we support you?” That’s what happened in our community, and in official levels, with the government responses, but also in our community responses, I want to also appreciate how amazing building those deep relationships is.
I don’t think there were any people in the wider Jewish community who didn’t take seriously the threats of antisemitism, not after the Tree of Life Synagogue attack. And the shooter was not motivated by something happening in Israel-Palestine, he was angry about the Jewish community’s care for the immigrants and the refugees and all of the things that our community is very proud to do. And he was fueled by a lot of hate, the various conspiracy theories that are passed around through centuries. So we also knew for those who told us there are only threats on one side of the political spectrum, excuse me, we face it wherever it is and we’re going to take it seriously, but we’re also not going to stop being proudly Jewish in our homes, in our communities. And that’s true today. We’ve got a whole new set of protocols, new institutions with new strength, with new funding, and we’re also proudly Jewish, in public and in private.
Rick, thank you so much for joining me today.
It’s been an honor. It’s a painful moment, but I so appreciate the ability to talk and to share the reflections about where we are. So, thank you.
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