Rabbi Gilad Kariv is well known in the Progressive Rabbinic world (7th from the right). He is a lawyer, was ordained at the Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem, and he was the former CEO of the Israeli Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism.
UK Rabbis with Rabbi Gilad Kariv, MK (7th from the left).
During our conversation, Gilad talked about the situation in Israel, the ongoing war in Gaza, the absolute necessity to end it, and to bring back all hostages. Hamas is an obstacle to peace, as they want only the complete destruction of Israel and, by extension, of all Jews in the world. They are aligned with Iran and Hezbollah, who seek the same outcome.
Rabbi Gilad Kariv didn’t shy from facing the challenging questions and existential threats that jeopardise Israel’s existence, both externally and internally. He has a prophetic voice; sometimes, he can be angry at his opponents, as during his last Chanukkah message. We need more people like him, passionate, with a clear vision of the future, who don’t employ the usual political cant of so many politicians.
I’ve been thinking of the writing of another of my Rabbinic heroes, Rabbi Delphine Horvilleur, whose book “Living with our Dead” was translated into English in 2024. When she recalled Baruch Goldstein, who massacred 29 Palestinians who were praying in the Cave of the Patriarchs in 1994, she questioned his vision of Zionism and how it is opposed to her. And to mine.
Baruch Goldstein, Yigal Amar, who killed the Israeli PM Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, and the kids who spat at us in Hebron, and the settler who tried to run over us as we were walking in the ruins of a Palestinian village that was destroyed in 2023, all these right-wing, messianic settlers are tainting the soul of Israel with blood and oppression and endangering the future of Israel as a Jewish state.
Sometimes, literature can say in words what the future might be far better than any journalist or essayist. I read recently a book written by Yishai Sarid called “The Third Temple“. I will post a review of this book, but I highly recommend it. Scary, but also an incentive to act and to do it now.
There is a Zionist voice that is not proprietorial, a voice that says, This land belongs to more than one people; let’s try to find a way to live together on it, to combine our efforts and strengths to make this land a haven on earth.
“The land must not be sold beyond reclaim, for the land is Mine, says the Eternal. You are but strangers resident with Me. Throughout the land that you hold, you must provide for the redemption of the land” (Leviticus 25:23-24).