A different take on the Western Wall controversy - by Stephen M. Flatow

...I understand that the Western Wall developments have ignited strong feelings in both camps. I do not doubt the sincerity of those sentiments. I am not taking a position or advocating any particular proposal. I am merely asking everyone to keep a little perspective.

Stephen M. Flatow..
JNS.org..
28 June '17..

The headlines of the Jewish press this week were filled with stories about angry American Jews arriving in Israel and denouncing the Israeli government’s decision regarding egalitarian prayer at the Western Wall.

Jerry Silverman, head of the Jewish Federations of North America, called the government’s decision “a direct insult” to diaspora Jewry and vowed to launch a “campaign” to “fight back.” Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, said the battle to reverse the decision is “worth fighting for.” A statement issued by the top institutions of Conservative Judaism declared that “the rising influence of an intolerant religious establishment”—as exemplified by the Western Wall decision—is “an existential threat to [Israel’s] future.”

This week’s other headlines, however, reported some threats to Israel that are genuinely existential, not merely a rhetorical flourish.

Mortar shells fired from Syria struck the Golan Heights on three consecutive days. A Hamas rocket hit the Sha’ar Hanegev region of southern Israel. There are new warnings of possible attacks on Israel’s northern towns from southern Lebanon, where the Iranian proxy Hezbollah has positioned more than 100,000 missiles.

I understand that the Western Wall developments have ignited strong feelings in both camps. I do not doubt the sincerity of those sentiments. I am not taking a position or advocating any particular proposal. I am merely asking everyone to keep a little perspective.

Jerry Silverman does not live on the Golan Heights, Rick Jacobs does not reside in Sha’ar Hanegev and the American leaders of Conservative Judaism do not live in towns along the Israel-Lebanon border.

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Stephen M. Flatow, a vice president of the Religious Zionists of America, is an attorney in New Jersey. He is the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995.

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