Category: Journal Articles

When I joined the Marine Corps, I knew I would kill people. I was trained to do it in a number of ways, from pulling a trigger to ordering a bomb strike to beating someone to death with a rock. As I got closer to deploying to war in 2009, my lethal abilities were refined, but my ethical understanding of killing was not.

I held two seemingly contradictory beliefs: Killing is always wrong, but in war, it is necessary. How could something be both immoral and necessary? I didn’t have time to resolve this question before deploying. And in the first few months, I fell right into killing without thinking twice. We were simply too busy to worry about the morality of what we were doing.

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The question ‘Did you kill anyone?’ isn’t easy to answer — and it’s certainly not one every veteran wants to. But when civilians ask, I think I have a duty to respond. And if explaining what I did six thousand miles away in a conflict far from the public’s consciousness makes the next war less likely, then maybe my actions weren’t in vain.

Years ago Paul Avrich, my high school classmate and later a college colleague, invited me to spend an evening with an aging group of Jewish anarchists. At the gathering a woman told me that, other than Eleanor Roosevelt, the country’s most remarkable woman had been Emma Goldman. Ahrne Thorne agreed. He was the last editor of the anarchist Freie Arbeiter Shtimme (Free Worker’s Voice), which closed in 1977 after eighty-seven years of publication when it had seventeen hundred subscribers. [Content continues with clear formatting and proper paragraph breaks discussing Goldman and Berkman’s lives, their political activism, deportation, and legacy in the anarchist movement…]

Since 9/11, the US has flailed away and attacked or invaded at least seven Muslim countries. American presidents now run secret overseas conflicts, including drone wars, without public knowledge or Congressional consent. Since US military presence in Muslim countries was the original motivator for the 9/11 attacks, doubling down on a failed policy seemed a poor bet among many expert analysts.

The US government has never wanted to focus public attention on its own irresponsible conduct before 9/11, instead claiming terrorists attack because of our “freedom” or because of poverty – neither of which stands up to objective analysis. The American public, examining the problem only cursorily, sees it as an us-versus-them phenomenon, never wanting to believe their government had been part of the original problem.

Empirical research has shown an increase in numbers of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) fighters following US air attacks. When civilians are killed, even accidentally, a rally-around-the-flag effect usually occurs. Similar patterns emerged in Somalia, where US involvement led to the formation of al Shabaab.

The US record of meddling in Muslim countries has had numerous unintended consequences. After media images of Americans beheaded by ISIS, Obama returned to Iraq and attacked Syria, with Republicans criticizing him for not doing more. The root of militarism and interventionism lies not with politicians but with the American people.

In a democracy, people can eventually stop counterproductive wars, as happened with Vietnam. But they must first acknowledge that their government’s public and excessive military overreaction to terrorist provocation plays into terrorists’ hands. While military response to terrorism may occasionally be needed, it should be quick, surgical, and covert to avoid becoming a recruiting tool for jihadists.

Many times a week I enter the cell blocks of men and women incarcerated in the Philadelphia prison system where I am the Jewish chaplain and chaplain for the seriously ill and those facing serious charges. I am also available to their families, so I hear the heartbreak not just of those incarcerated but also those who love them.

I am on the board of the Jewish Peace Fellowship (JPF), PVS (Prisoner Visitation and Support), and EMIR (Every Murder Is Real), a grassroots group that provides support to the victims of crime. I know first hand the vital need for visits and mail to those behind bars.

PVS is a nationwide visitation program with about 300 visitors serving approximately 100 federal and four military prisons across the United States. Most prisoners they meet are detained far from their families and friends, making regular visits rare. Volunteers also visit prisoners in solitary confinement or on death row.

For Jewish visitors, visiting prisoners is considered a mitzvah, an act of human kindness. The Talmud teaches, “Whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world.”

PVS, headquartered in Philadelphia and funded by donations, began in 1968 and is sponsored by 35 national religious and socially concerned agencies. Visitors provide emotional support without trying to convert prisoners, helping them maintain connection to the wider community.

A 2008 University of Florida study found that prisoners with regular visitors had almost one-third lower recidivism rates. With federal prison population now exceeding 200,000, PVS needs more volunteers to serve all those seeking friendship and human contact.

To volunteer or donate, contact Prison Visitation Society, 1501 Cherry Street, Philadelphia, PA 19102, or gro.csfaobfsctd-21060b@SVP, or visit www.prisonervisitation.org.

“It happened in the days of Ahaz son of Jotham son of Uzziah, king of Judah: Rezin, king of Aram, and Pekah son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up to wage war against Jerusalem…” This is the prophet Isaiah speaking, 7:1.

Read it again: Pekah son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up to wage war against Jerusalem. It is possible that some of my Jewish brethren who read this may be astonished that the king of Israel, in alliance with heathen Aramites, made war on Jerusalem.

It was a passage that stopped me in my study of Isaiah, and it is a portion of Isaiah that I doubt is much read aloud in synagogues where, as we know, our prophets’ words, except as incorporated in the liturgy, sound only in the haftorahs.

What was on Pekah’s mind in attacking Jerusalem? Verses 7:5-6 tell us: “Aram, along with Ephraim and the son of Remaliah, has counseled evil against you, saying, ‘Let us attack Judah and annex it to ourselves.’” In Kings II:14.14 we find Jehoash, king of Israel, looting the temple treasures, one of many such accounts.

The books of Kings and Chronicles are in large part accounts of Jews killing Jews. This begins with the rupture of Judah following King Solomon’s death, with two tribes, Judah and Benjamin under King Jeroboam in Judah, and 10 tribes in the north under King Rehoboam.

So why Israel? Why not Judah? Why call this new nation Israel? Why name it after a kingdom of Jewish idolators who made a habit of attacking and sacking Jerusalem and battering and robbing its sacred temple?

The answer is that every nation arises from myths. Myths are constructed out of what we choose to remember and what we choose to forget. Zionists choose to remember they are a chosen people, am nivchar, the exodus from Egypt, the conquest of Canaan, and the glories of Solomon, and choose to forget fratricide and idolatry.

Righteousness is another word for Exceptionalism, the idea of being a special people, exempt from moral or any other law. Exceptionalism has characterized the worst of American patriotism, and Zionism.

I suspect that the reason Ben Gurion and the other founding fathers chose to name their state Israel is that Judah is a cognate of “Yid,” with its unpleasant associations, particularly for anyone from Eastern Europe. In selecting Israel, however, they unwittingly labeled themselves heirs to a state that was the opposite of what Judaism stands for.

I assume most Americans are deeply interested in creating a strong and prosperous future for generations to come. But because of the huge national debt, our children and grandchildren, we are regularly told, will have to bear the costly burden of paying it down.

But there are other vital issues that need everyone’s attention, such as America’s repeated involvement in wars. Far too many Americans who are hardly Washingtonian hawks have become too accepting of our past, present and future wars which, by the way, also cause our national debt to soar.

The best example is how the Bush administration convinced Americans, and especially the mass media, that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. The war in Iraq began soon after, cost us billions of dollars, and ended in something far less than “victory.”

All too many Americans have become so accepting of wars that they seem not even to flinch at the possibility of another conflict against Iran or North Korea. Robert Jay Lifton, psychiatrist and prolific author, has written extensively about this phenomenon, calling it psychic numbing. It is this numbing that comes into play when politicians and a pliant media convince us that it is America’s duty to fight yet another war.

I think about the wars the US has been involved in during my lifetime. In Vietnam we lost 58,209 young men and women — not to mention those scarred by grievous mental and physical wounds. In the Afghan and Iraqi wars we have lost at least 6,518 men and women, plus the wounded. Civilians have also paid a very heavy price.

What will it take to convince more and more Americans that nothing is gained by war? We lose too many young people and in the end nothing is gained, and so much is lost.

In the aftermath of 9/11, Rabbi Sheldon Lewis sought solace and a path to reconciliation in Jewish texts. Peacemaking is arguably the key pillar among Jewish values, and his new book, Torah of Reconciliation (Gefen Publishing House), seeks to reveal this primary value in diverse scriptural and rabbinical texts, revealing the rich, wise resources available in Judaism for the crucial task of peacemaking in the modern world.

While there are contradictory messages within tradition, there is an obsession with overcoming conflict and avoiding violence in the service of a world at peace. A people that has known repeatedly the agony of conflict has never stopped longing for and searching for the keys to security and tranquility.

Rabbi Sheldon Lewis received his rabbinic ordination at the Jewish Theological Seminary. He was a student of Professor Abraham Joshua Heschel. After ordination he was a US Army chaplain, and served a year in Vietnam. He is rabbi emeritus of Congregation Kol Emeth in Palo Alto, California.

Key themes from Torah of Reconciliation include:

– Letting Go of Hatred, Nurturing Love
– Judging Others with Mercy
– Self-Criticism
– Seeking and Granting Forgiveness
– Nurturing Empathy for the Other

The Torah explicitly forbids hating an Egyptian, emphasizes judging others with understanding, promotes self-reflection, and teaches the importance of forgiveness and empathy toward strangers. The text emphasizes that teshuva (repentance and reconciliation) is fundamental to creation itself.

One Saturday in March I went to Lafayette Park in Washington, D.C., across the street from the White House, in order to protest several wars. The squirrels were out doing seasonal things. A tree was balancing big buds on the finger-ends of its curving branches; the brown bud coverings, which looked like gecko skins, were drawing back to reveal inner loaves of meaty magnolial pinkness.

A policeman in sunglasses, with a blue and white helmet, sat on a Clydesdale horse, while two tourists, a father and his daughter, gazed into the horse’s eyes. The pale, squinty, early spring perfection of the day made me smile.

The protest featured various speakers including Ralph Nader, Daniel Ellsberg, Watermelon Slim, and Brian Becker. Protesters discussed opposition to wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the then-new intervention in Libya. Veterans spoke about their experiences and opposition to ongoing conflicts. The protest included displays like a model Reaper drone, and speakers criticized President Obama’s continuation of military interventions.

Ellsberg reminded the crowd how kings once locked their critics away in dungeons until they were forgotten. Bradley Manning was now in an oubliette at Quantico for revealing America’s war crimes, and the Libyan intervention was, like Korea, an illegal war waged without Congressional approval.

More than a thousand protesters stood against the barricade, chanting slogans like ‘This is what democracy looks like!’ and ‘Money for jobs and education, Not for Wars and Occupation!’ One hundred and thirteen protesters were eventually arrested, including Daniel Ellsberg, who flashed a peace sign from his zip-corded hands. The arrests took hours, requiring paddy wagons and two city Metro buses to transport all the detainees.

Like many of you, I have recently read and watched more than I usually do developments around the world. Tornadoes, earthquakes and tsunamis, nuclear power plant and contamination fears, the growing death toll from protests in Arab countries, the failed peace process in the Middle East, the killing of Osama bin Laden, and of course, our own political circus in Washington, Wisconsin and elsewhere.

Other than natural disasters, it’s all man-made, leading me to wonder again what are we pacifists to do — and think — about the endless controversies and violence that plague humankind? How do we keep our hearts in the right place? Where do we turn when so many celebrate doing serious damage to others?

My first response is often a feeling of alienation, even despair. Then, invariably, I turn to those who share a common understanding with me and seek to understand how and why violence and threats of violence are questions that continue to confront us every day.

Such as: When will we get out of Afghanistan, Iraq and, now, Libya? These wars have gone on much too long. We have lost far too many young military men and women, and too many civilians have died and are still dying. World War II only lasted five years. We have now been in Iraq for more than 10 years and many of our forces are still there. The Afghan war also seems endless, even though we have killed bin Laden. The Libyan intervention has created the seeds of more violence, and on all three of these wars we are spending a vast amount of money that should be spent on our domestic needs.

There are those who have called on our representatives to push for an end these wars. Somehow, just knowing there are sympathetic people out there who believe in some way as I do is enough. But we need far more Americans to say, “Enough!” We need to be heard. Otherwise, silence means consent.

For a long time, Afghanistan was considered to be “the good war” among Western pundits and intellectuals, a noble crusade against Islamic extremism which the Bush administration neglected in favor of the illegal invasion of Iraq.

Slowly but surely, as the corruption of the Karzai government was exposed, as U.S.-NATO bombings repeatedly struck at civilian targets, and as the Taliban gained strength in the countryside, this image began to shift and choruses of dissent began to emerge.

Tim Bird and Alex Marshall’s book, Afghanistan: How the West Lost Its Way (Yale University Press), is the latest to challenge triumphalist narratives about the war being promoted in Washington. The authors, a lecturer at the Joint Services Command and Staff College at King’s College in London and a lecturer in war studies at the University of Glasgow, argue that after the ouster of the Taliban, the U.S.-NATO coalition squandered a small window of opportunity to engage in effective state-building actions capable of solidifying the new order.

Shifts in subsequent military strategy consequently proved futile in containing the Taliban. The Western powers worsened the situation as a result of their lack of clear strategy and ideological commitment to neoliberal economic paradigms which have contributed to declining living standards for the majority of the population.