There was a time I believed that if I just explained myself clearly enough, with nuance and compassion, people would understand, even if they disagreed. That faith has been tested in recent months.
In February, I returned from a trip to Israel. What I saw and felt compelled me to write honestly, critically, and with deep love for the country and its people. I wrote about the unsettling expansion of settlements in the West Bank, about the violence we ourselves experienced from settlers, about the pain and trauma I’ve seen in Israel, the terrible sites of the massacres of the 7th of October, about the daily realities I witnessed, and about the impact all of it had on Palestinians, Israelis, and on the soul of Judaism itself.
I wrote not out of anger, but out of love for Israel, a love that refuses to look away. I questioned what was being built or done in the name of security. I questioned the spiritual price we are paying for political choices. I spoke about the dangers I see in the current path of the Israeli government, as I understand them.
The reaction in my community was swift. Some members, especially those with ties to Israel, were hurt. Some were furious. Not necessarily at what I said, but that I said anything at all. I was told I had made people feel unsafe. That I had broken trust. That I had crossed a line. And this made me feel mortified. The last thing I want as a rabbi is to hurt those I have a duty of care for.
I understand this pain. We live in a time when everything feels precarious. For many Jews especially Israelis in the diaspora, criticism of Israel isn’t simply political. It feels existential. It touches something raw and deep, something ancestral, yet so present. And the need to defend, to protect, and to shield Israel from a world that has so often misunderstood it, condemned it, or sought its destruction, a need that I feel myself intensely.
And I agree: some people do hide behind so-called anti-Zionism to express old, unresolved hatred of Jews.
But silence is not neutral. For me, not speaking out also feels like betrayal, a betrayal of my values, of the truth as I perceive it, of the prophetic voice in Judaism that calls us not to power but to justice. I am not trying to harm; I am trying to hold up a mirror. And still, I ask myself: what is the point?
Recently, my colleague Rabbi Delphine Horvilleur took a public stand in France, feeling she could no longer remain silent. She wrote, “To truly love your neighbour means not to remain silent anymore.” She named injustices where she saw them, even at the cost of being misunderstood, attacked, and threatened physically. The backlash was swift and brutal. Yet she stood her ground with grace and courage. Her voice reminded me that moral leadership today cannot be separated from moral risk. If we only speak when it is safe, we are not leading; we are managing silence.
And here’s the painful part: even when we speak with care, empathy, and context, it often doesn’t matter. We don’t live in a culture of listening. We live in a culture of reaction. Say one phrase – settler violence, moral red lines, Palestinian lives – and suddenly you’re in a camp. Branded. Assumed.
Let’s be honest. We don’t listen anymore. We react. We sort. We label. We put people into boxes: pro-Israel or anti-Israel, self-hating Jew or moral hero, Zionist or traitor. One sentence, one word, can place you on the ideological battlefield. Dialogue? It feels like an antiquated idea from another era.
So why speak out at all?
It’s a question I keep turning over in my mind. Is it about integrity? About living in alignment with my conscience, even if no one listens? Is it about leadership, offering some model of moral courage? Or is it just shouting into the void, a cry of despair dressed up as a sermon, a blog, or an article?
Some days, I fear the consequences, professional, personal, and relational. I don’t want to fight with people I love. I don’t want to alienate my community. I don’t want to be dismissed as naïve or attacked as dangerous.
Other days, I fear the consequences of saying nothing. That I become complicit. That my silence will be louder than my speech. That the future will ask what I stood for, and I’ll have no answer.
This is not just about Israel. It’s about the crisis of discourse everywhere. The shrinking space for complexity. The suspicion of nuance. The erasure of uncertainty. The algorithms of our world reward outrage and punish curiosity. We live in a world incapable of subtlety, nuance, and complex thinking.
So again: what is the point?
Maybe the point is this: not to convince, but to witness. To testify. To say, “Here is what I see. Here is what I believe. And I say it not to hurt you, but because I care.” Maybe it’s about offering space for others who feel the same confusion, fear, or moral urgency but haven’t yet found the words. Maybe it’s about refusing to let cynicism win.
No, we may not change hearts with one article. We may not shift policy with one sermon. But if we stop speaking, silence becomes the only voice left. And I refuse to believe the loudest voices – the angriest, the most rigid – are the only ones that should be heard. They are actually the most dangerous of all.
I still believe in dialogue, not because it’s easy, but because it’s holy. I still believe in the power of words, not to defeat, but to reach. I still believe that truth-telling, especially when it’s risky, especially when it’s complicated, is the essence of spiritual life.
And I write this not because I have the answers but because I’m still searching. Still, I refuse to be silent. Not because I think I’ll win the argument. Not because I expect people to change their minds. But because something inside me says, Bear witness. Speak, even if your voice trembles. Speak so that when your children, or your conscience, ask what you stood for, you have something to say.
This is not a final word. It’s an opening. Not from an expert, but from someone trying to stay faithful: to the texts, to the people, to the values that brought me to this path.
And if I get it wrong sometimes and I will, I ask not for silence but for an honest reply. Let’s argue like Jews: passionately, with text, with tears, and above all, with hope that our tradition still has room for all of us.