I write these words with sorrow in my heart, but also with anger. Not political anger, not ideological anger, but the kind of deep, visceral pain that comes when something sacred is trampled on – not by our enemies, but by our own.
Last week, in Netanya and Ra’anana, we witnessed something shameful, outrageous, and utterly indefensible: Reform synagogues defaced with hateful graffiti, allegedly by Orthodox youth. I never imagined I would see such a thing in the State of Israel – in the Jewish state. A synagogue, daubed with words like “heretic,” its sanctity violated not by those who oppose Judaism, but by those who claim to act in its name.
Let me be clear about where I stand. I am a Modern Orthodox Jew. I am a rabbi. I believe in Halacha (Jewish law), I keep Shabbat, I daven (pray) in an Orthodox minyan (quorum), and I try to live my life in accordance with Torah. But I also believe – fiercely, unequivocally – that every Jew has the right to practice their Judaism in the way that speaks to their soul. That no Jew should ever be afraid to walk into a synagogue, to gather in prayer, to express their Jewishness – least of all in the Land of Israel.
I would be horrified if someone from the Reform movement came and spray-painted graffiti on my synagogue accusing me of fanaticism. I would feel violated, degraded, furious. And Reform Jews – no less than anyone else – have every right to expect that the Orthodox, ultra-Orthodox, or anyone else will not desecrate their spaces with the language of hatred and exclusion.
Attacks on Reform Jews harm all Jews
What happened this week is a stain on all of us. Not just those who held the spray cans, but on the environment that nurtured them, excused them, and perhaps silently encouraged them. The culture of contempt toward non-Orthodox Jews in some sectors of Israeli religious life is not new. It has been growing for years – through sermons, school curricula, political rhetoric, and a refusal to even acknowledge other streams of Judaism as legitimate expressions of Jewish identity.
IN MY own childhood and youth in Manchester, UK where I grew up in an Orthodox but only moderately Observant home, I was not allowed to go to any events in the Reform shul, Jackson’s Row – in fact it was almost like the name itself was a dirty word, not to be uttered.
And now we see where it leads: teenage boys, born into a world where “Reform” is a dirty word, turning that ideology into violence. This is not just a crime – it is a chilul Hashem, a desecration of God’s name, committed on the very walls of God’s house.
Have we forgotten that the Temple was destroyed because of sinat chinam – baseless hatred among Jews? That even a Torah scholar, if he lacks derech eretz (basic decency), is compared by the rabbis to a tree without roots? What could be more rootless, more hollow, than a Judaism that defaces a beit knesset (synagogue) in the name of religious purity?
We need to face an uncomfortable truth: parts of our religious community have taught our children that “the other” Jew – the one who davens differently, believes differently, leads differently – is a threat to be silenced or shamed. And we are now reaping what we have sown.
This cannot go on. We cannot be a people that defends the sanctity of Shabbat while violating the sanctity of fellow Jews. We cannot claim to defend Torah while trampling the most basic Torah values of kavod ha-briyot (human dignity), ahavat Yisrael (love of fellow Jews), and darchei shalom (the ways of peace).
It has to be also said that some on the more secular side of society also hold the religious in contempt – and that is equally shameful.
Israel is not the exclusive property of any one group. The Orthodox do not own it. The Reform do not own it. The Secular do not own it. This land belongs to all of Am Yisrael – all Jews, in all their diversity, all their longing, all their faith and complexity. And if we cannot make space for one another, we are failing not only as a people, but as servants of God.
The graffiti was not just an attack on a building. It was an attack on the very idea that we can live together, side by side, as one people in our ancestral home. And it demands more than just condemnation – it demands deep reflection, and change.
WE IN the Orthodox world must take responsibility – not for the actions of every individual, but for the atmosphere we help create. Are we teaching our children that Reform Jews are part of klal Yisrael? Are we giving them the tools to disagree with respect, to argue l’shem Shamayim (for the sake of Heaven), or are we feeding them a black-and-white picture where anyone outside their camp is a sinner or threat?
And beyond education, we need courage. The courage to speak out against our own when they cross a line. The courage to publicly affirm that we see all Jews as part of our people, even when we differ in practice or belief. The courage to say: this was a sin, and it disgraces us all.
This past week, I kept thinking about the words of the prophet Isaiah: “Your hands are full of blood… Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before My eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rebuke the oppressor.” (Isaiah 1:15-17)
We cannot hide behind silence. We must rebuke the oppressor – even, and especially, when the oppressor wears our own kippah.
To my Reform brothers and sisters: I am sorry. You should not have to fear worshiping in your own synagogues in the Land of Israel. You are part of this people, part of this story, and your pain is real.
To my Orthodox brothers and sisters: it is not a betrayal of Torah to respect those with whom we disagree: It is a fulfillment of Torah.
And to all of us: if we do not change course, if we let this hatred fester, we may reach a point where we no longer deserve to live in this land. Because a land founded on covenant cannot survive if we trample that covenant in the name of piety.
This is not who we are meant to be. This is not what Israel is meant to be.Let us do teshuvah (repentance) – not only for the spray paint, but for the years of silence, the jokes, the dismissals, the arrogance. Let us repair what we have broken.
Because if we continue down this path, the real heresy will not be what is practiced in this or that synagogue. The real heresy will be the loss of the Jewish soul itself.
The writer is a rabbi and physician who lives in Ramat Poleg, Netanya. He is a co-founder of Techelet-Inspiring Judaism.
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