Rabbis for Human Rights : Making an Enemy into a Friend

By Miriam Rabkin
Contributor to Tolerance.ca®

Rabbi Arik Ascherman is the Executive Director of Rabbis for Human Rights (RHR). The organization which he now leads was founded in 1988 and considers itself to be the “rabbinical voice of conscience in Israel.” With over one hundred ordained rabbis as its members, Rabbis for Human Rights spans the religious Jewish spectrum with members from the Reform, Orthodox, Conservative, Reconstructionist and Renewal streams.

Ascherman, who spoke at several venues recently in Montreal, including at Concordia University and at the Université de Montréal, reflected on the competing visions of Judaism in the Middle-East conflict. “How can there be such disparate visions supposedly in the name of Judaism?” he asked. “Yet, there is no such thing as ‘Judaism says this or that’; Judaism is too old and multi-layered for such a simplistic response.”

Ascherman remembers an incident where he was trying to protect Palestinian olive groves. An Israeli settler came up to the group of Israeli human rights activists and Palestinians and attacked them. Ascherman tried to reason with the settler, who also happened to be a rabbi. This affected Ascherman tremendously. “It’s as though we’re reading from two different Torahs,” he explained.

When Ascherman studies the Torah, he finds moral values on every page. He concedes however, that it is easy to hide behind religion in order to get a message across. Moreover, there has always been tension among varying interpretations of the Jewish tradition. Ascherman sees a new dimension that was not as poignant in previous centuries - that of the role of the Land of Israel. For some, particularly for settlers, there is a strong focus on the laws relating to the Land of Israel, often at the expense of other laws such as protecting the stranger. Ascherman quoted Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, who once said that “as holy as the Land of Israel is, human life is more holy.”

The universalism of RHR’s message

Ascherman has been arrested many times by the Israeli government, particularly for blocking the demolition of Palestinian homes. Though Ascherman is not alone in his plight, he knows that his role as a kippah-wearing rabbi makes him stand out as much among Israelis as among Palestinians. Ascherman, who has been involved in human rights activism in Israel since 1982, explained that on a smaller scale, he knows that he and his fellow human rights activists have played a significant role and have helped countless individuals and families. “Yet all it takes is one act of terror to undo a whole lot of understanding and dialogue,” he sadly pronounced.

The universalism of RHR’s message has allowed it to expand and establish an American branch: Rabbis for Human Rights – North America. It is currently waging a campaign called Honor the Image of God: Stop Torture Now, and calls on the U.S. government to abolish torture, inhuman and degrading treatment of detainees. The name of the campaign alludes to the verse in Genesis where man is said to have been created in the image of God, and therefore, to violate human dignity is to violate God. So far more than 700 rabbis have signed the statement. RHR engages in advocacy and education across the United States on human rights issues in North America. Its inspiration comes from Abraham J. Heschel, a prominent rabbi and civil rights activist, famous for having marched with Martin Luther King Jr. in the Selma Civil Rights March, who said: “In regard to cruelties committed in the name of a free society, some are guilty, all are responsible.”

This is the message that Rabbi Arik Ascherman and the members of Rabbis for Human Rights are trying to get across. They believe that through working with members of civil society, with individuals of different faiths and origins, with people who want to overcome conflicting visions of peace, they will help to make the world they live in a better place. Their brochure quotes the Mishna, written circa 200 C.E. and the first codification of Jewish law: “Who is the greatest hero? One who makes an enemy into a friend.”

American -born and Harvard-educated, 47-year old Ascherman moved to Israel in 1994 and has been active ever since in protecting the human rights of both Palestinians and Israelis. RHR’s mandate is twofold; alongside its efforts to prevent human rights abuses, RHR endeavours to introduce an authentic and humanistic understanding of the Jewish tradition. RHR gives voice to Jewish concerns for the stranger and other vulnerable members of society. This includes working in a coalition to fight women trafficking and guaranteeing health care and education for foreign workers. RHR also protests the policy of home demolitions, helps rebuild destroyed Palestinian homes, plants olive trees where they have been uprooted, reduces violent incidents toward Palestinian olive harvesters, and opposes the route of the Separation Barrier where it unnecessarily expropriates land, cuts people off from their fields, divides villages or surrounds them. Rabbi Arik Ascherman’s work is inspired by Jewish ethical concerns, as he tries to give voice to the Jewish religion's tradition of human rights.

^* Image : http://rhr.israel.net/rabbi-arik-w-ascherman

Comment on this article!





A Distorted Column

By Rev. Dr. Charles J. Edgbaston on September 22,2008
My dear young lady, I am sure you mean well. However, your article was unbalanced and took sides. Rabbi Ascherman represents a fringe group in Israel which is 99% composed of unorthodox rabbis, heavily invested in the Palestinian Arabs with little work done for Israeli Jews, Jewish immigrants, the Jewish poor, They do absolutely nothing for the limbless and mutilated Israeli Jewish children bombed on board israeli city buses by the Palestinian Arab terrorist suicide bombers. Tolerance.ca is supposed to be an objective webzine. By concealing this important information about this deviant rabbinic group, you are undermining the goals set for Tolerance by its founders. Dr. Charles Edgbaston, D.D., Ph.D. Christians for Moses Ministries Inc.



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