“In the joint memorial ceremony for Israelis and Palestinians who lost their lives within the framework of the conflict between their peoples…there is an explicit goal and clear message of reconciliation and peace....Sometimes bereavement, a kind of shared fate, can constitute a source of identification and solidarity....The heavy price exacted from the participants has within it the capacity to join hearts and break down walls that separate those who by definition belong to two camps.”

— Retired Israel Supreme Court Justice Anat Baron (bereaved mother of Ran Baron)

The Joint Israeli-Palestinian Memorial Ceremony has grown from 180 in-person participants in 2006 to ~15,000 in 2023. Hundreds of thousands of people worldwide participated in online broadcasts of the ceremony since the pandemic years.

WAYS OF PEACE is once again honored to be an international and local sponsor of the 2026 ceremony, alongside many Jewish and interfaith organizations — this year more than ever. Please join our in-person NYC satellite ceremony, other in-person satellite ceremonies throughout the U.S., or online from wherever you are!

“We console the mourners among non-Jews and the mourners among Jews, for these are ways of peace.” — Jerusalem Talmud (~400 CE)

Please also consider supporting the joint ceremony organizers.

Combatants for Peace are ex-combatant Israelis and Palestinians, men and women, who have laid down their weapons and rejected all means of violence. Parents Circle - Families Forum is a joint Israeli-Palestinian organization of over 600 families, all of whom have lost an immediate family member to the ongoing conflict. In the words of Combatants for Peace,

“When Palestinians and Israelis challenge the status quo and come together to acknowledge each other and remember – together, we start to build a new reality based on mutual respect, dignity, equality, freedom and peace.... Through joint nonviolence in the present, we lay the foundations for a nonviolent future.”

The slogan “Don’t mourn, organize!” abridges a message from immigrant labor activist and songwriter Joe Hill before his execution in 1915. But Hill’s final words actually expressed concern about what would happen to his body after he died. Grieving keeps us fully human — and able to respond more effectively.

Emerging from the 9/11/01 disaster relief — and gathering momentum since the 2016 elections — “How to Mourn AND Organize” brings together timeless wisdom of prophets, sages, activists and artists in dialogue with contemporary best practices for renewing kindness and justice across lines of diversity and throughout the life cycle.

Building upon Sacred Undertaking and Generous Justice, the established core initiatives of WAYS OF PEACE, “How to Mourn AND Organize” seeks to foster compassionate action / reflection as an essential component of social change.

Dedicated to the memory of Rasmie Farah / Umm Jafar — a steadfast, brave and generous Palestinian-Israeli member of Women in Black Haifa, who died in April 2019 of ALS.

Three decades ago at this time, as waves of terrorist violence stunned the Jewish community and called our very celebrations of Purim into question, I did not come to read the Megillah (Scroll of Esther) in costume. I came in uniform. Beyond a few colorful touches which were my compromise with how the holiday should have been celebrated, I wore the clothing which identified me as a Woman in Black.

From the first months of the First Intifada, through the 1991 Gulf War, to the signing of the first Israeli/Palestinian peace accords, the weekly vigils of Women in Black marked city squares and highway crossroads with a steadfast presence. Dressed in black to symbolize the tragedy of both peoples and holding placards calling for an end to occupation and bloodshed, Jewish and Palestinian-Israeli women of different generations, backgrounds, and political affiliations stood together week after week to communicate a shared message — often in the face of considerable verbal and even physical violence.

I learned a great deal about war and peace during those vigils, in Haifa, Jerusalem and elsewhere, every Friday afternoon before Shabbat (Sabbath) from 1989 to 1994. Women In Black uphold a policy of nonviolence, regardless of provocation, but it was difficult not to get pulled into the aggression of many passersby who saw us as a target for their frustration and rage — especially after terrorist attacks.

“Whores!” “Nazis!” “Daughters of whores!” “She-asses!” “Traitors!” As my Hebrew improved, I could gauge the full impact of the weekly insults, curses and threats. The periodic spitting, shoving, kicking and hurling of food and lit cigarettes were already abundantly clear. Of course, there were many positive responses as well, although expressions of support tended to be voiced in much more restrained tones. One male supporter in Jerusalem arrived every week with armfuls of roses, quietly giving one to each woman standing vigil.

Among the women with whom I stood were Holocaust survivors, war widows and mothers of soldiers, teenagers and grandmothers. I took special inspiration from steadfast Palestinian-Israeli students and their mentors like my friend Rasmie — and from all the elderly lifelong activists who stood firm even though they were sometimes targeted for particular viciousness.

I came to realize that my own nonviolent response could contain and diminish the potential violence of any given moment. This generally involved standing my ground, breathing quietly and maintaining calm — not hostile — eye contact with an attacker until s/he (usually he) simply tired of spewing rage and withdrew. Occasionally I would physically place myself between a harasser and a more vulnerable woman in the vigil line.

The Hebrew word for “standing” is amidah. This term also denotes a central piece of Jewish liturgy which I learned as a child to pray while “standing, in silent devotion.” Amidst the ups and downs of my takhlis (practical) work for peace and justice in Israel/Palestine during those five years, my weekly Amidah among Women in Black became a frontline meditation on the practice of peace, an act of rededication — and, over time, a conscious preparation for Shabbat. What began as an avowedly secular act took on the significance of a spiritual commitment.

In the morning liturgy preceding the Amidah, there is a prayer for rescue “today and every day from brazen people and brazenness [in myself].” Beyond brazenness, violence from without can also spiral its way inward, and this is perhaps the most terrifying aspect of terrorism. Through Women in Black I learned the connection between such external and internal forces, and the power of a mindful, nonreactive silence: “First, do no more harm.”

It is the very beginning of a lesson, one which I now try to follow, practice and deepen in my wounded, violent home city of New York — where I still wear black every Friday before Shabbat, in unspoken vigilance.

I have shared relatively little about my experiences (which included the 1991 Gulf War in missile-targeted “Area B”) for most of the 30-plus years since returning from The Land. The 1994 massacre in Hebron,1 perpetrated a short drive down the road from my last Purim observance in Jerusalem, still etches a scar across my memory — as do other acts of violence, on both sides, linked to Israeli Purim observances of previous and subsequent years.

With the 1995 assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin2 — against whose earlier military policies Women In Black had stood in protest — and the relentless escalations of violence since that time, I have felt that certain wounds must be touched in order to be healed. Even so, I try to decline arguments that seem to generate more words than actions, stretching instead to cultivate mindful presence and humanitarian support.3

I hope that our communities can offer places of dialogue where concerns for Israel/Palestine can be shared, easing the pain of recent events as well as their tangled histories. To paraphrase the concluding words of the Purim Megillah, may we seek the welfare of all our peoples — and speak peace for the sake of all our descendants.

Originally published in the newsletter of Park Slope Jewish Center, Brooklyn, NY, Spring 1997, and updated for 2026.

WAYS OF PEACE leads walks to to commemorate the NYC racial lynchings and related devastations of the so-called “Draft Riots“ of July 1863. Very few New Yorkers are aware of this most murderous civil insurrection in U.S. history, and to this day there are no commemorative markers.

Gathering at what was then St. John’s Burying Ground and is now James J. Walker Park, we bear witness at the lynching sites of William Jones and “Mr. Williams” (among 13 lynched citywide, including an unnamed infant). We also honor the historical connections with the first land grants given to former slaves two centuries earlier in July 1643, for what would become known as the “Land of the Blacks.” July 13th was proclaimed “Black Vision Day“ in 2021.

These connections highlight the interwoven struggles of Black and Native Americans. The 1643 land grants to former slaves were intended as a buffer between white settlers and the indigenous Lenape people who would later be violently displaced from their homes. One of the victims of the 1863 violence was a Mohawk military veteran and widowed father named Peter Heuston, who was “evidently thought…to be of the African race because of his dark complexion.”

The Community Remembrance Project of the Equal Justice Institute (EJI) partners with local communities to recognize the victims of lynching by collecting soil from lynching sites and erecting historical markers. WAYS OF PEACE hopes to support a local coalition led by directly-impacted descendants to participate in this nationwide effort.

Our next commemorative walk at James J. Walker Park is tentatively scheduled for SUNDAY, JULY 12TH, 2026. To receive notifications about this and the other walks below, please write to reginasandlerphillips@substack.com.

In early August, WAYS OF PEACE leads an annual remembrance walk at Maria Hernandez Park in Brooklyn, NY. Moving mindfully through each section of the park labyrinth, we bear witness to historical manifestations of ongoing injustice and trauma between August 6th and August 9th — and beyond:

• The 1989 killing of neighborhood activist Maria Hernandez

• The 1930 lynchings in Marion, Indiana that galvanized the writing of “Strange Fruit”

• The 2014 killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri

• The 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan

• The ancient and contemporary challenges of violence and exile in Israel/Palestine (traditionally mourned at this season)

• The theft, exile and destruction of Native American lands, families, and cultures

Step by step, we renew our commitments to remembrance, healing and just peace. The walk is held rain or shine, and peace cranes are shared.

WAYS OF PEACE leads peace walks at labyrinths and elsewhere in NYC, as below. Write to reginasandlerphillips@substack.com to join the “Labyrinth List.”

Walker, your footprints are the path, and nothing else. / Walker, there is no path: we make the path by walking. — Antonio Machado

Since the 20th anniversary of tragedies that shook our communities, our cities, and our world, WAYS OF PEACE has led periodic multi-faith peace walks at the Battery’s 9/11 Commemorative Labyrinth, south of what was once Ground Zero. As we walk, we share our memories, our pain, our unanswered questions, our personal quests for healing.

The 9/11 Labyrinth is located within the Jerusalem Grove — named in 1976 with a gift of fifteen cedar trees from that sacred and strife-torn city. In Arabic, Jerusalem is Al-Quds: “The Holy.” In Hebrew, Jerusalem is Yerushalayim: “City of Peace / Wholeness.”

Nearly two decades earlier in Vietnam, Zen master and peace worker Thich Nhat Hanh attracted a group of students whom he called the Thirteen Cedars. The Thirteen Cedars developed practices of engaged action in social work, education and relief projects amidst relentless violence and war.

Walking the labyrinth, we support each other as “cedars”: renewing our commitments to building cities of holiness, wholeness and peace with our own breath and steps.

According to an ancient Jewish teaching, our world stands on a tripod of learning, worship/work, and caring actions. Yet caring actions are the only “leg” that can truly support us over the long term.

This is demonstrated by a related teaching about a man who asked the sage Hillel to teach him the entire Torah while standing on one foot. Hillel’s response was decisive: “What is hateful to you, do not do to your counterpart. That is the entire Torah. The rest is commentary — go and learn!”

The aftermath of the September 11th attacks was a reminder of how caring actions can move just as decisively to the forefront of our concern. For days and weeks and months afterward, we reached out and supported each other “on one foot” of the global tripod.

But the trauma of that time also increased hatred and violence within the U.S. as well as beyond our borders. Now we need to bear witness more deeply, to learn from our mistakes so that we can take steps toward real healing and justice.

A labyrinth is one of the oldest contemplative tools in human history, a winding circular path that provides a continuous route to the center and then returns to where the walker began. It offers balance and perspective, reminding us that how we take each step — and navigate each turning point — is how we respond to life.

Walking the path together, we support each other in bearing witness to shattering and brokenness. One step at a time, we recommit ourselves to the still, small voices of peace and healing.

The memories of 9/11 call us to reconfigure our global tripod — perhaps as a tricycle, in order to move forward more effectively. The tricycle is believed to have evolved from the first wheelchair, invented in 1655 by a disabled 17th-century watchmaker named Stephan Farffler.

Can we reorganize our communities to move with caring actions as our leading wheel — while the two wheels of study and worship/work move back to supporting roles?

If we accept this challenge, we may find ourselves moving more slowly and mindfully through a frenzied world — and also more surely on the paths of kindness and justice.

WAYS OF PEACE leads peace walks at labyrinths and elsewhere in NYC, as below. Write to reginasandlerphillips@substack.com to join the “Labyrinth List.”

I’m thinking about one of those days, not long before the killing of Jordan Neely, when — on the same northbound F train line — a disheveled homeless man who had been sprawled out in the middle of my subway car sat up wild-eyed and began ROARING, cursing and glaring. One rider moved to another car, while the rest of us sat and kept our distance in stoic silence. Eventually the man stopped his screaming tirade, stood up as quietly as the rest of us, and shuffled off the train at the next station.

In order to “do no harm,” we each need to do what we can. Sometimes, that means sitting in discomfort without escalating a crisis. For some, it means moving to another subway car. For others, it means offering money or food. At our best, “do no harm” involves bearing witness to understand — and then resist — the deadening, deadly process of dehumanization.

“I didn’t kill Neely. But I didn’t do much to save him, either.” — Issac Bailey, CNN

While I generally don’t give money to people begging and don’t usually have extra food available, I always try to offer simple human acknowledgement and eye contact — unless I sense that this would not be safe or helpful (as with the man above, whom I simply monitored out of the corner of my eye while he roared).

And about 40 years ago, I spent my first of many overnights in faith-based respite shelters for individual homeless people. In the shadows of Jordan Neely’s death, I began to sign up for overnights again. Sadly, Neely himself would not have passed the necessary screening for these shelters, given his acute needs and arrest history. Yet respite bed programs can support many others who have not — or not yet — been pushed to the same extremes of trauma and despair.

A neighborhood-based organization provides single-mattress cots with linen service and blankets to participating houses of worship. Volunteer coordinators schedule and support other volunteers to cook and serve dinner, or to stay overnight on cots in another room and then offer snacks, leftovers or breakfast in the morning. A drop-in center screens and busses 8–10 unhoused fellow human beings to each site in the evening, and picks them up again in the early morning.

It may not be the most convenient or comfortable way to spend the night, but it’s one of the most safe, accessible and REhumanizing ways I’ve found to put my own body on the line. We bear witness — beyond finger-pointing — to our tangled tragedies of homelessness in a way that, however incremental and small, is part of a real solution for real people.

Simply by sleeping on a basement cot for one or two nights a year, I become a small but essential part of a greater solidarity network — one that can and does advocate for broader policy changes. Meanwhile, individual homeless people get a decent night’s sleep — which prevents the debilitating foot swelling that comes from sitting up all night in a chair, and increases the chances of moving into permanent housing.

Another way to bear witness is to to walk up a block or two from the subway station where Jordan Neely was left dead. There stands a building formerly known as 350 Lafayette Street, originally constructed in 1914 as the first free animal hospital in the United States. By the time the crises of NYC homelessness began to attract (affluent) public attention in the early 1980s, the animal hospital had become a central municipal shelter for homeless women. In 1988 the private nonprofit CUCS (now the Center for Urban Community Services) began to operate the site.

The best-practices success of CUCS at 350 Lafayette Street over the next 27 years involved placing more than 1,500 homeless women into affordable housing, working with an average of 55 women annually. That was not enough to prevent their eviction in 2015, when the landmarked building was sold to a major developer of luxury retail stores. For awhile, “upgraded” as 11 Bond Street, the building featured SHOWFIELDS NoHo: “a multi-level store highlighting unique, direct-to-consumer brands in wellness, home & design.” Showfields ultimately filed for bankruptcy, and 11 Bond is now poised to become an upscale fitness apparel store.

Every day is Election Day…when we vote with our money and our time.

“May all our work be for the blessing of the future of Israel, and of humanity.”
— From a Theresienstadt sermon by Fräulein Rabbiner Regina Jonas z”l

Toward the end of 1944, the first woman ever to be ordained rabbi perished in Auschwitz at the age of 42. As a chaplain and educator, she had offered inspiration and solace to many, especially the elderly. Throughout Nazi Germany and in the Theresienstadt concentration camp, she had worked tirelessly to affirm human dignity at the end of life.

And for nearly half a century afterward, her legacy was almost entirely forgotten.

I was named for my immigrant great-grandmother Regina Sandler z”l (of blessed memory). During the summer of 1978, in a book by Rabbi Sally Priesand — the first Jewish woman ordained in the U.S. — I discovered a few brief paragraphs about Rabbi Regina Jonas z”l.

Across continents and generations, here was a foremother with whom I shared not only my first name, but also my chaplaincy concerns and rabbinical aspirations. It seemed bashert (Yiddish for “meant to be”).

In May 1999 — the same month that an international conference honored her in her native Berlin — I invoked Regina Jonas at my own ordination in New York. I spoke about two Reginas, both of whose legacies I bore, and in whose name I stood.

Today, WAYS OF PEACE Community Resources honors the chaplaincy and education legacy of Rabbi Regina Jonas z"l in all of our services and programs. We foster the dialogue between generations that is essential for learning the lessons of history.

We have now [2025] moved through the 87th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the shattering that became the broader devastation of the European Holocaust — and we continue to face the relentless shatterings of hatred and violence in our nation and our world. How do we face our own brokenness?

In Buddhist tradition, an ancient compassion-activist who vowed to liberate all beings from suffering became so overwhelmed with the enormity of that suffering that s/he shattered into thousands of pieces. The broken pieces were restored as thousands of eyes and arms — perhaps a reminder of how those who seek the world’s healing must move through heartbreak into ever-expanding circles of connection and community.

In November 2005 I joined an international, multifaith Bearing Witness retreat on the grounds of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Memories of that experience are emerging powerfully now — and they shine light through the clouds of today’s pain, fear, and anger.

About 90 of us gathered in Krakow before the retreat: a third from the U.S.; about a dozen each from Poland and Germany; a handful each from the Netherlands and Switzerland; a handful from Israel; a few each from Belgium, Brazil, Canada, England, Ireland, Scotland; one from Austria; one from Bosnia; one from Pakistan; one from Palestine. The retreat was organized by the Zen Peacemaker Order around three tenets of Not-Knowing, Bearing Witness, and Healing (now Taking Action). We were advised that we were likely to have widely diverse reactions to what we would experience.

Every day several of us walked from our local hostel to Birkenau, the main concentration camp, where each participant walked the grounds. We sat together around the tracks leading to the crematoria. We were silent. We brought and chanted names of those murdered; I brought the name of Rabbi Regina Jonas z”l among others. We were silent again; we walked again. We took midday soup and bread outside the gates. We kept vigil in barracks — one night in a children’s barrack, singing lullabies in our diverse languages. At the hostel we recollected, ate, sang, and slept.

We wept, raged, shared and struggled with each other. We shattered. Fellow retreatant James Powell shared these reflections: “I am in the barracks and something keeps telling me to lift my candle; I have no idea to say what.... How do life, death and choice all relate to each other in my search for an understanding of what it means to be free?....The power of the question.”

Back in Krakow on my own after the retreat ended, I spent a few precious hours bearing witness in the Jewish cemetery, where many of the gravestones are post-war memorials to entire families. When a taxi dropped me off at the wrong part of the Krakow station and I would have missed the once-a-night train to Prague, a young Polish stranger appeared to translate for me, accompanied me from building to building with my luggage, and even ran ahead to hold the train. I never knew her name, but I will always remember her anonymous kindness. In Prague, I retraced the footsteps of the prototypical sacred burial fellowship through its rescued cycle of paintings and a visit to the grave of Rabbi Judah Loew.

Two decades later, my experiences and memories still accompany me. I find it imperative to lift my candle, to bear witness, to reclaim the vigil, to walk the walk — and “First, do no harm.”

Most of all, I find it imperative to sustain the poor, visit the sick, bury the dead, and console the bereaved — for these are ways of peace across the lines that continue to divide us. These loving actions send healing through space and time to all the shattered bodies and souls — past, present, and future.

“Peacemaking is the functioning of bearing witness. Once we listen with our entire body and mind, loving action arises.”

— Roshi Tetsugen Bernie Glassman / Benyamin ben Chana ve’Albert z”l (January 1939 - November 2018), Founder of Zen Peacemakers and the Bearing Witness Retreats

Deep calls to deep, in the voice of Your channels.... (Psalm 42:8)

In the NYC disaster relief efforts following September 11th, 2001, one of the sites I served as a chaplain was the Family Assistance Center at Pier 94. At one end of that huge complex, a long open corridor was designated as the “Walk of Bears.” Stuffed bears of all shapes, sizes and colors were arranged along the floor against the wall. Signs explained that they were a gift from the people of Oklahoma City, and were not to be removed.

The shipment of bears had arrived on September 19th. We learned that after the domestic terrorist attack of April 19th, 1995 on the Oklahoma City Federal Building, survivors and disaster relief workers there began to find teddy bears left on the chain-link fence. No one knew who was leaving them, but they kept showing up. Now the people of Oklahoma City had decided that it was time for the people of New York City — and Washington, D.C. and Shanksville, PA — to take comfort in these bears.

And posted across the long wall of the NYC Family Assistance Center, above the bears, were the photographs of the missing and the dead. Like the teddy bears, their faces reflected all shapes, sizes and colors — people from all over the world.

Every day, the Walk of Bears would be visited by family members and friends, law enforcement officials, support agency staff and disaster relief workers. People came to write and read messages on the wall, to meditate, to cry, to reflect, to remember, to tell and hear stories…to reach out and care.

The Walk of Bears was a refuge at a time of overwhelming pain. As we move through each memory of tragedies that shake our cities, our nation and our world, may we all take refuge in the memories that will help us to reach out and care for each other — day by day, over the long term.

On November 4th, 1995, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin z”l was assassinated by a young Israeli Jewish extremist — following a mass rally whose organizing call was “YES TO PEACE; NO TO VIOLENCE.” The lyrics of Shir LaShalom / Song for Peace, an anthem written in 1969 by two young Israeli soldiers and sung at the 1995 rally, were in Rabin’s breast pocket when he was murdered. The song remains popular today, and is sung in both reflective and upbeat versions throughout Israel and the Jewish world.

As we rededicate ourselves to hope on each anniversary, WAYS OF PEACE offers a singable English translation of Shir LaShalom. This translation was originally written in 1996 to commemorate the first anniversary of Rabin’s assassination.

SHIR LASHALOM / SONG FOR PEACE

Music by Yair Rosenblum z”l / Original Hebrew lyrics by Yaakov Rotblit
Singable English Translation © 2026 by Regina Sandler-Phillips

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

Let the sun rise as it must / To lift the morning haze
Prayers of the pure and just / Will not bring back our days
One whose candle has gone out / And in a grave lies slain
Won’t be stirred by bitter tears / To come to life again
No one now can bring us back / In our dark holes we lie — unmoved by either
Joyous shouts of victory / Or praises sung on high

So only sing a song for peace / If you would whisper prayer!
Better to sing a song for peace / And let it fill the air!

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

Let the sun shine through the flowers / From sorrow we move on
Do not keep on looking back / Release those who are gone
Dare to raise your eyes in hope / And not through rifle sights
Sing of love and not of war / Through all your days and nights
Do not say: “The day will come” / The day is in your hand! —
Make real the dream and
Cheer for peace in public squares / Wherever you may stand

So only sing a song for peace / If you would whisper prayer!
Better to sing a song for peace / And let it fill the air!

We need to listen to the diverse voices as well as the silences — neither denying nor exploiting any survivor’s experience.

Horrific sexual violence has returned to media headlines and volatile debates over 22 weeks of war in Gaza. How can we respond in ways that do not cause further harm?

First, we need to recognize what is mostly ignored between news cycles: the far-reaching scope and long-term devastations of sexual violence, across the globe and throughout millennia. This trauma encompasses conflict-related sexual violence and other assaults by strangers as well as more covert forms of sexual abuse and sexual coercion. Most sexual violence involves attackers and predators who are known to their survivors in family, work, school, and social relationships.

My own experiences of supporting survivors of sexual violence began more than 40 years ago, on telephone crisis hotlines and in hospital emergency rooms, faith-based shelters and public high schools of New York City. I bore firsthand witness to how survivors were often retraumatized by medical staff, police, and social service agencies.

I came to understand all too well why most experiences of sexual violence are not formally reported. As I struggled to advocate for changes in the multiple systems that impacted survivors, I learned to uphold a core principle of support and solidarity: survivor experiences must never be weaponized.

Non-weaponization is a path that neither denies nor exploits the diverse experiences of survivors. And that is complicated — because even the word “weaponize” has been seized upon by opposing parties to the war in Gaza. Simply put, any advocacy that is not primarily concerned with the protection and healing of survivors — all survivors , regardless of their national, religious, ethnic or political identities — carries the risk of weaponization.

Weaponization is not the same as contextualization. “It is our human obligation to contextualize [this] violence,” declared Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHRI) in the immediate aftermath of the October 7th attacks. “A contextualized understanding of the harm does not justify the offenses, diminish their severity, or devalue the lives of those murdered. On the contrary — such understanding is crucial to our wounded, life-affirming society.” PHRI subsequently published one of the first reports of sexual violence as a weapon of war in the Hamas attacks, and has consistently kept the welfare of Israeli hostages front and center.

Yet we should not rush to contextualize when responding directly to individual survivors. Sexual violence is trauma, and healing from trauma involves a grieving process. When showing up to console those who are grieving a death, Jewish tradition advises less talking and more listening. We should be mindful of this tradition when showing up to support survivors of what has sometimes been described as “soul murder.”

In the early years of the U.S. rape crisis movement, psychiatrist Dr. Judith Herman was among the first to document connections between the traumas of war combat and the traumas of sexual violence survivors, especially those violated within family relationships. “If trauma shames and isolates, then recovery must take place in community,” Herman wrote in her most recent book. “Listening, therefore, turns out to be a radical act” — an act that goes to the root and heart of the challenges before us.

The first Israeli rape crisis center was founded in 1978; there are now nine such centers affiliated with the Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel (ARCCI). ARCCI advocates continue to absorb secondary trauma from the October 7th attacks as they face a surge in overall requests for support. They have also expressed a deep sense of betrayal by international feminist and human rights organizations that did not immediately acknowledge or condemn the sexual violence of October 7th.

Yet ARCCI representatives, like other advocates, continue to center the needs of survivors. A survivor-centered approach recognizes that the responses of Israel’s political, military, and law enforcement leaders to sexual violence prior to October 7th were equivocal at best. This contrasts starkly with the outrage that some of these same Israeli leaders now express in the context of war.

Israeli medical and mental health services have even been mandated by court order to release post-10/7 treatment details to police without survivor consent. This reinforces the original trauma of survivors. It further violates them and further weaponizes their experiences. As the executive director of ARCCI [trigger warning for the full article] has declared:

The surviving women and men are not obliged to meet any expectations or demands of the state and society in connection with the trauma they experienced. They need only to think of themselves — their souls and their bodies — and regain the control they have lost….The Israeli government has an obligation to care for women [and men] who are trying to bring some stability back to the chaotic reality which has broken them.

These words parallel another clear, strong statement of how to believe and support survivors in the current conflict, from six Israeli Arab / Palestinian Israeli women’s organizations:

It’s crucial not to doubt the credibility of claims or directions taken by women or their relatives when brought to organizations dedicated to these issues. Women’s bodies should never be exploited for political gains or leverage.

Women who’ve experienced assault have the right to receive necessary medical, psychological, and emotional support. They should have the freedom to choose whom to share their experiences with and what information to disclose.

The signatories to this statement rarely make headlines. Their words are also too likely to be dismissed because they contextualize sexual violence with reference to other forms of violence experienced by Palestinian women.

Some Israeli Jewish advocates have called for condemnation of sexual violence without contextualizing. Again, listening should always take precedence over contextualizing when supporting survivors directly. It is understandable that advocates absorbing secondary trauma might seek this for themselves as well.

Yet collective survivor-centered advocacy must contextualize violence — which, again, does not mean justifying any of its horrific manifestations. A year before the Hamas attacks, ARCCI’s executive director observed that “Israeli society is a society bathed in sexual violence, and women pay a difficult and heavy price for it.” This is contextual.

The loosened restrictions on Israeli gun licenses are deeply contextual in how they exacerbate violence against women. Recent wartime measures have increased this very literal weaponization. And there is perhaps nothing more contextual than the welfare of hostages still in captivity, who remain vulnerable to further sexual violence.

Weaponization can also occur when an individual survivor uses personal experience to condemn entire communities or nations associated with particular attackers. One released Israeli hostage has described voyeurism among the harms inflicted by her Hamas captors, while declaring that “Everyone [in Gaza] are terrorists…there are no innocent civilians, not one.” In fact, nearly half of Gaza’s ~2 million residents are children and adolescents who have been traumatized by multiple wars.

Non-weaponization prevents further harm. Sensitive responses to the trauma of survivors should be accompanied by responsible countering of any dehumanizing statements not grounded in a survivor’s direct experience.

We should also listen to the voices of international advocates who have remained steadfast in centering the needs of all survivors. The Kentucky Association of Sexual Assault Programs (KASAP) has affirmed core values of shared safety and healing across all lines of conflict:

KASAP aims to establish a supportive and safe community for every survivor of sexual violence….As the fighting in Gaza continues, we call for all parties to protect civilians, especially children, and to forcefully condemn antisemitism and Islamophobia in the U.S and around the globe.

Traumatized and grieving survivors in Kentucky, with connections to loved ones in Israel and Gaza, are also contending with increasing hate and intolerance directed towards Jewish and Muslim communities in their local environment….Now is the time to stand together against hate….If you or someone you care about has experienced sexual violence and is having trouble, please know KASAP’s 13 rape crisis centers in Kentucky are available to provide both direct support and provide connection to other useful resources.

As this non-weaponizing statement reflects so powerfully, what was true about sexual violence — in Israel, Palestine, and beyond — before the attacks of October 7th remains true now. There are conflict brutalities and stranger attacks that make headlines, and there are conflict brutalities and stranger attacks that are never reported. There is sexual abuse that is exposed decades later, and there are many more sexual traumas in family, work, school and social relationships that remain shrouded in silence. At any moment, emotional wounds from any of these experiences may be ripped open by our violence-saturated media.

If any good can come out of current attempts to deny, exploit, or otherwise weaponize the devastations of sexual violence, it may take the form of responding with more careful listening to the diverse experiences of survivors on all sides of conflict. May we continue to heal and grow together toward our commitments to such response.

In “Wiping the Mirror Clean” I explored how the commandment in Deuteronomy to “Remember what Amalek did to you” was transformed by early and later rabbis to shine light on our own moral responsibilities in the face of violence.

In “Questioning Genocide” I examined the traditional linkage of that commandment with First Samuel 15 on Shabbat Zakhor, the annual Sabbath of Remembrance before Purim. I noted how ancient rabbis raised humanitarian concerns about the targeting of civilians in First Samuel — long before the recent charges at the International Court of Justice.

Now it gets personal. On February 25, 1994 I was all costumed up and celebrating Purim in south Jerusalem, with a wonderful group of developmentally disabled adults at a group residence on Hebron Road. One of the residents had recently completed the writing of an entire Megillah, or scroll of the book of Esther, in traditional calligraphy under the supervision of a local Torah scribe.

Then reports began to trickle in about terrible violence in Hebron, just an hour down the road. I went home, took off my costume and sat by the radio, listening to the news in Hebrew. My holiday celebration was over.

A Jewish settler from nearby Kiryat Arba had entered the Ibrahimi Mosque at the Cave of the Patriarchs, wearing his Israeli army uniform and carrying an automatic assault rifle. Like the biblical Amalek, he attacked from behind. He shot dead 29 unarmed Palestinian men and wounded 125 more, as they gathered in fasting and prayer during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

The mass murderer was known in Israel as committed to an ideology and political platform of anti-Arab racism. As audio clips of his previous inflammatory statements in Hebrew came through the radio, I listened to his accent and thought: He’s a New York Jew, like me. Somehow I also knew that he was about my age.

I have continued to trace my unavoidable connections with this terrorist and fellow Jew. Even so, I follow the example of the former prime minister of New Zealand in her response to the March 2019 gun massacre of 51 worshipers at two Christchurch mosques:

I implore you, speak the names of those who were lost rather than the name of the man who took them. He is a terrorist. He is a criminal. He is an extremist. But he will, when I speak, be nameless.

The names of those who were lost in the 1994 massacre have been overshadowed by the harsh restrictions placed on the remaining Palestinians in downtown Hebron. Meanwhile, two normative lines of Jewish reaction have emerged and persisted over the past three decades.

One attributes the massacre to an otherwise exemplary physician, overwhelmed by the trauma of tending to previous violence against Jews. Without dismissing any trauma in any way, it would be best to focus on the thousands of unsung medical workers — both Israeli and Palestinian — who continue to navigate relentless trauma in the protracted violence between their peoples. The vast majority of these healers uphold their ethical commitments to do no harm.

By contrast, the physician turned gunman was known to refuse treatment to Arabs. He had pursued early paramilitary training with the Jewish Defense League before moving to the West Bank, where he dedicated himself to anti-Arab racism within the Kach political party. These have long been classified as terrorist group involvements.

The other normative line of reaction is to acknowledge the 1994 massacre — as well as subsequent horrific incidents of Jewish terrorism — but to insist that their perpetrators “simply aren’t Jewish.” Yet the grave of the Purim gunman has served as a Jewish shrine, and remains a place of religious pilgrimage for thousands of Jewish extremists.

Prominent among these is Israel’s current national security minister, a Kach loyalist previously indicted on multiple counts of incitement and anti-Arab racism. Before he joined the current ruling coalition, this minister openly displayed a photograph of the Purim murderer in his living room. Since his rise to power, boundaries have further blurred between settlers and soldiers in the West Bank.

The gunman’s own inspirations for the 1994 massacre were undeniably Jewish. Before leaving for the Ibrahimi Mosque, he listened to the same Megillah as I did further north on Hebron Road. Until that day I never paid too much attention to what follows the downfall of the infamous Amalekite descendant whose name we love to drown out. But after the 1994 Purim massacre, it is chilling to face the particulars of Esther 9.

The chapter emphasizes Mordechai’s meteoric ascent into political power and the great fear that this engenders among the masses of non-Jews. “So the Jews struck at their enemies with the sword, slaying and destroying; they wreaked their will upon their enemies.” (9:5) The first 500 deaths, including the ten sons of Haman, are reported to the king.

Esther then asks that the bodies of Haman’s sons be publicly desecrated — even though they are never directly implicated in their father’s evil — and that the general bloodshed be extended to a second day. This time 300 men are slain in the capitol city. “The rest of the Jews, those in the king’s provinces, likewise mustered and fought for their lives. They disposed of their enemies, killing seventy-five thousand of their foes….” (9:16)

It is not difficult to see how passages like these have emboldened contemporary Jews intent upon incitement and violence. Last year on Purim, what a top Israeli general described as an anti-Palestinian “pogrom” was celebrated by both settlers and soldiers in the West Bank town of Huwara. One of the instigators of the Huwara violence has now been sanctioned by the United States. Last Purim also brought the publication of survey findings that ten percent of Israeli Jews still consider the 1994 mass murderer to be a national hero.

Now more than ever, we need to realize that any minimizing or justification of Jewish terrorism only serves to minimize and justify anti-Jewish terrorism. Even Israel’s representative at the International Court of Justice voted with the majority “to prevent and punish the direct and public incitement to commit genocide in relation to members of the Palestinian group in the Gaza Strip,” as well as to enable the provision of humanitarian aid.

To rephrase an immortal parody: we have met Amalek, and he is us. On this 30th anniversary of the massacre, how can those of us who observe the Sabbath of Remembrance and Purim stand responsibly against the scourge of growing violence and hatred — especially at a time of open-ended war? Summarizing the findings of this three-part series, here are a few suggestions for consideration:

• Reclaim the moral ambiguities of the original Hebrew commandment to “Remember what Amalek did to you” that have been obscured by English translations. Learn and share the rabbinic teachings of Hizkuni and Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev — neither of them strangers to European antisemitism — on subduing the Amalek within ourselves.

• Acknowledge the hazards of biblical accounts of extermination in an era of Jewish sovereignty and heightened extremism. Learn and share the rabbinic teachings of BT Yoma 22b and Israel Prize laureate Moshe Greenberg z”l — who warned shortly after the 1994 Purim massacre that

…the new empowerment of Israel stirs atavistic longings to act out what existed throughout all of Jewish history (and, on the scale depicted in the Bible, in its time as well) only in the imagination….Jews, a people massacred systematically on the basis of an ideology that justified genocide, cannot regard as timeless torah an ideological legitimation of mass killing.

• With explanatory introductions on the Sabbath of Remembrance and Purim, respectively, designate verses of First Samuel 15 and Esther 9 to be chanted in an undertone. This is a Torah reading tradition most commonly practiced when chanting extended passages of curses in Leviticus and Deuteronomy. Bringing this tradition to war passages of extermination offers us a time-honored Jewish way to highlight cautionary tales — and to commemorate the Purim massacre as we face our own shadow sides.

The Purim tradition of Ad lo yada is a state of not knowing the difference between cursing Haman and blessing Mordechai. It is most familiar as a pretext for Purim intoxication (whose shadow side will be addressed in a subsequent essay). Yet Ad lo yada also suggests a sobering — and sacred — disorientation: we can never be too sure of our own righteousness. In a world of hatred, each of us created in the image of God faces our own daily choices between dehumanization and redemption.

May we choose wisely, with full awareness of how much life is at stake.

In “Amalek: Wiping the Mirror Clean” I noted that this archetypal enemy originally appears as a rejected family member in the book of Genesis. I also explored longstanding moral questions about the later Deuteronomy commandment to remember him:

Remember what Amalek did to you on the way, in your going-out from Egypt. What befell you on the way, and he tailed you, all the weakened-ones behind you; and you, weary and exhausted — and not revering God.

Some early rabbis suggest that the Israelites — rather than the Amalekites — were the ones “not revering God.” This equivocal retelling of the battle in Exodus raises questions of how the Israelite leadership left its most vulnerable members exposed to attack.

Recent charges by International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague have propelled the moral questions of Amalek to the world stage. The ICJ charging document devotes many pages to allegations of public incitement to genocide by Israeli leaders, starting with the Prime Minister. His quoting of Deuteronomy is conflated with a later passage from First Samuel that he did not quote (although neither passage is cited specifically):

On 28 October 2023, as Israeli forces prepared their land invasion of Gaza, the Prime Minister invoked the Biblical story of the total destruction of Amalek by the Israelites, stating: ‘you must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible. And we do remember’. The Prime Minister referred again to Amalek in the letter sent on 3 November 2023 to Israeli soldiers and officers. The relevant biblical passage reads as follows: ‘Now go, attack Amalek, and proscribe all that belongs to him. Spare no one, but kill alike men and women, infants and sucklings, oxen and sheep, camels and asses’.”

“This false and preposterous charge reflects a deep historical ignorance,” declared the Prime Minister’s office in response. While it may have been disingenuous for Israel’s accusers to conflate Biblical passages in making their case at the ICJ, it is not clear that historical ignorance is at issue.

After all, these very same passages have been linked for thousands of years in the traditional Jewish readings for Shabbat Zakhor, the annual Sabbath of Remembrance before the holiday of Purim. Every year on Shabbat Zakhor, the First Samuel passage is read as an intentional commentary on the Deuteronomy passage quoted by the Prime Minister.

And regardless of whether or not one accepts the perspectives of the ICJ, the text of First Samuel 15 is certainly a “relevant biblical passage” where genocide is concerned. The prophet Samuel’s command to King Saul does not distinguish between combatants and civilians: “Spare no one, but kill alike men and women, infants and sucklings, oxen and sheep, camels and asses” (15:3).

Saul obediently musters his troops and proceeds to Amalekite territory — where he pauses to call for evacuation of the intermingled Kenite people, so that they will not be slaughtered as well. He seems ambivalent. In smiting the Amalekites, Saul decides to spare the Amalekite king Agag as well as the choicest flocks and herds, and this ultimately costs Saul his own kingship. After denouncing Saul, Samuel demands that Agag be brought before him. Before hacking the Amalekite king to pieces, Samuel tells Agag: “Just as your sword bereaved women, so shall your mother be bereaved among women” (15:33).

Lest we think that the early rabbis who connected and highlighted these ancient passages harbored no concerns about their negative repercussions, a remarkable Talmud text teaches otherwise. In BT Yoma 22b Rabbi Mani imagines that, just before warning the Kenites to evacuate, Saul argues directly with God:

In the hour that the Blessed Holy One said to Saul [by way of Samuel]: Go and smite Amalek, Saul said: If Torah prescribes a ritual of atonement for one life taken, how much more so for all of these lives! And if a person sinned, how did a beast sin? And if adults sinned, how did children sin?

A heavenly voice tries to deflect this moral challenge with a partial verse from Ecclesiastes: “Do not be overly righteous.” It’s an unconvincing response, and the Talmud goes on to explore other verses and viewpoints without drawing firm conclusions. But the moral challenge remains — and it affirms the value of all lives, not only Jewish ones.

In responding to the ICJ, the office of the Prime Minister pointed out that the imperative to remember Amalek is enshrined in a Holocaust monument at The Hague itself. However, the historical contexts are very different. Amalek has now been invoked by the head of a sovereign State of Israel, after its powerful military and intelligence forces collectively failed to forestall the deadliest attack against Jews since the Holocaust. And Amalek has been invoked not for commemoration or accountability, but as a call to open-ended war with contradictory priorities and unclear strategies.

Nearly 20 weeks into this open-ended war, that head of state continues to pursue an illusion of “total victory” and to reject diplomatic efforts. Meanwhile, Israeli military intelligence advisors increasingly concede what international security experts have long predicted: Hamas cannot not be eliminated by military force alone. In the absence of negotiated political agreements, Hamas is liable to grow stronger over time.

With each passing day, the illusion of “total victory” endangers not only hostages and IDF forces in Gaza, but the stability of the region generally. Growing numbers of traumatized October 7th survivors consider themselves abandoned a second time by the Israeli leadership that left them exposed to attack.

And the undeniable horrors of Palestinian civilian suffering raise the stakes of Rabbi Mani’s challenge. The Israelite ruler Saul was not a moral hero — but at least he showed ambivalence about pursuing the “total victory” of another people’s annihilation.

For more than two decades since the 9/11 attacks, I have been meeting with a wonderful group of Jewish, Black, Asian and Latino/a elders on the historic Lower East Side of New York City. Following one spirited discussion of the moral dilemmas of war, I was given the following handwritten note by Charlotte R (now of blessed memory):

World War 2: My uncle (7 years my senior) was a tail gunner based in Italy behind enemy lines. During a mission he shot down a German plane & was close enough to see the pilot’s face. In a letter to his mother (my Bubba) he related the incident & said he was tormented by the fact that — like my Bubba waiting for him — somewhere there was a German mother waiting for that pilot.

A young Jewish soldier’s compassion for a fallen Nazi pilot — as a mother’s son — was aroused by the sight of that enemy pilot’s human face. This quiet family legacy gives me much more hope for our Jewish humanity than does the violent public rhetoric of our prophet Samuel.

(“Just as your sword bereaved women, so shall your mother be bereaved among women” is also questionable. Since Samuel did not distinguish between Amalekite combatants and civilians, it is unlikely that Agag’s mother survived to mourn her son’s execution.)

We read First Samuel 15 every year before Purim because the unfinished extermination of the Amalekites is linked to Haman the Agagite, the murderous villain of the book of Esther. If reading about the near-extermination of the Amalekites before Purim is troubling, the recounting of vengeance wreaked upon Haman, his family and followers on Purim itself has proven even more troubling.

The final essay in this three-part series will commemorate a time when Biblical projections of Amalek onto contemporary Israeli realities reached one of their deadliest conclusions.

Amalek has returned to media headlines. Through the agonies of the October 7th attacks and nearly 130 days of subsequent war, the archetypal enemy of the Jewish people has been invoked, parsed, and expounded by international human rights advocates as well as by Israeli government leadership.

Amalek is the ultimate Jewish personification of evil in a family member.

Family member? Yes. Amalek was a grandson of Esau, the vilified twin brother of Jacob/Israel. According to rabbinic tradition, Amalek’s mother Timna joined Esau’s family after she sought acceptance into the Israelite community but found herself rejected as well. (“They should not have rejected her,” the Talmud concedes.) The high-profile violence between Amalek and Israel is rooted in this lesser-known background of intimate family conflict and rejection.

In Exodus 17 we read that, shortly after the redemption from Egypt, the tribal descendants who collectively bear Amalek’s name “came and fought with Israel at Rephidim.” There is no mention of unprovoked aggression at this point. The chapter does describe the battle led by Joshua, with Aaron and Hur literally holding up Moses’ hands to assure Israelite victory. God then promises that “I will wipe out the remembrance of Amalek from under the heavens.” Moses interprets this to mean a holy war through the generations. So do many subsequent commentators.

What did the Amalekites do that was so evil? Some commentators suggest that the Amalekites emboldened the Israelites’ other tribal enemies; they attacked at a time when no one else dared to do so. But our attention is primarily directed to how the story is retold later in Torah. Deuteronomy 25:17–19 makes an allegation that is curiously absent from the Exodus account.

The text is equivocal, and verse 18 can be translated literally as:

Remember what Amalek did to you on the way, in your going-out from Egypt. What befell you on the way, and he tailed you, all the weakened-ones behind you; and you, weary and exhausted — and not revering God.

There is general agreement that “and he tailed you, all the weakened-ones behind you” describes an attack on the most vulnerable at the rear. But the original Hebrew of verse 18 offers no pronoun to confirm exactly who was “not revering God.”

Both the Israelites and the Amalekites are referenced in the masculine singular, as Israel and Amalek. This means that either “you” or “he” would be grammatically correct as the pronoun. With the cantillation markings provided by later tradition, the literal Hebrew seems to point most directly to “you (Israelites), weary and exhausted — and not revering God.”

Yet virtually all published English translations of 25:18 insert another “he” to peg the Amalekites as the ones “not revering God.” The popular New JPS translation not only inserts the extra pronoun, but even switches around the sections of the verse to make its case.

Such interpretations follow the lead of medieval commentators like Abraham Ibn Ezra, who resolves the ambiguity by asserting that “‘not revering’ returns to Amalek, and functions in the past tense.” But Hizkuni (Hezekiah ben Manoah) ventures an alternative understanding, grounded in more ancient rabbinic sources:

Others say: ‘…and not revering God’ — these are the Israelites, who had commandments and did not fulfill them; but if you had been ‘revering God’ Amalek could not have overwhelmed you.

When we look more closely at the original Hebrew narrative, we can also face a stark but vital question that conventional translations obscure:

What kind of leadership — what kind of people — leaves its most vulnerable members exposed to attack from behind?

This same question could be asked of the Israeli political and military leadership who failed to foresee or forestall the horrific October 7th attacks. Now waging an open-ended war with contradictory priorities and unclear strategies, that leadership continues to deflect accountability.

Israeli hostage and military deaths continue to rise, alongside Palestinian civilian deaths in both Gaza and the West Bank. Meanwhile, budget projections for this open-ended war indicate that the most vulnerable — including the most traumatized survivors of massacre — will be pushed back even further to the margins.

At this time of crisis, how can we practice reverence for all who are created in God’s image? We can “remember” that Jewish spiritual wisdom locates Amalek inside as well as outside ourselves. Hasidic master Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev approaches the challenges this way:

It seems…that every person of Israel needs to erase the evil part, called by the name of Amalek, hidden within one’s heart; that as long as the seed of Amalek is found in the world, since a human being is also a miniature world, so there are traces of Amalek in the evil power of every human being….‘and not revering God’: and by this you will ‘remember’ indeed, so the power of Amalek does not overwhelm you. And this is what is written ‘wipe-out’ the evil root from your heart, and suppress it under the good.

We cannot wipe out Amalek without wiping clean the mirror of awareness that allows us to see ourselves clearly. The internal Amalek is identified as our yetzer hara — our so-called evil inclination. Commonly understood as the natural selfish instinct with which we are born, our yetzer hara must be mindfully channeled for good. We cannot destroy it entirely without destroying ourselves in the process.

This truth is reflected in the words of one hostage family’s placard at the recent tent encampment outside the Prime Minister’s office:

“We love our children more than we hate Hamas.”

The texts in Exodus and Deuteronomy speak of wiping out “the remembrance of Amalek.” The texts that touch on questions of physical extermination and genocide come later in Torah, in the books of First Samuel and Esther. These will be explored in subsequent essays.

For now, we can face the mirror and ask how much we ourselves may be strengthening the hands of a leadership that continues to leave its people behind — and whether our words and silences, actions and inactions are weakening or strengthening the Amalek that we seek to wipe out.

An ancient song renews the possibilities of singing in this world on fire: how we can, how we will.

According to rabbinic legend, the Second Temple in Jerusalem was not built with any tools that could be used to wage war. Instead, a magical worm was employed to drill through stone and metal. Perhaps it was an earworm — burrowing through our consciousness in playback loops of musical memory.

“By the rivers of Babylon” is the opening of Psalm 137. Among the multicultural musical settings of this psalm over thousands of years is an iconic reggae song. The reggae song became an international disco hit that accompanied my first sojourn in Jerusalem as a college student. The song has been reverberating through my mind during these painful weeks and months:

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down,
Yeah, we wept, when we remembered Zion….
There the wicked carried us away in captivity,
Required from us a song.
Now how shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?

In our diverse and often polarized communities, many of us have been moving through strange and alien territory as war continues to rage. Trust has been shattered on multiple fronts. Some of us find ourselves lashing out across lines that divide us, or retreating into silos and echo chambers.

Some of us search desperately for words of unity, only to discover that our words are salt to someone else’s wounds. We’re hypervigilant, fearing further betrayal. We don’t feel safe with each other. How shall we sing?

In the original Hebrew psalm, the exiles hang their harps upon trees as they are taunted by their captors. There is a vow to remember Jerusalem at all costs — lest one’s hand wither and one’s tongue be tied. God is urged to remember the destruction inflicted by the captives’ enemies. And then comes the gut-wrenching parting shot, aimed at the enemies themselves:

Happy the one who will seize and smash your little-ones against the rock!

Full stop. Deep breath. Here is the most brutal human rage, in the language of my own sacred scriptures. Some rabbis fervently wish this verse had been edited out. We would much rather see this kind of hateful expression identified with our enemies, not with ourselves.

Alternatively, some rabbis (I am one of them) believe that this most disturbing verse may hold up a redemptive mirror. Perhaps the courage to face our own human rage can bring us to greater compassion for the human rage of others across our lines of conflict — others who have also experienced exile, captivity, and horrific deaths of children.

Perhaps we can begin to understand how, beyond the flaring and subsiding of rage, the shattering of trauma persists: historical, collective, generation to generation.

“But centuries of hatred have ears that cannot hear,” sings Tommy Sands of the devastating violence in Northern Ireland that took the lives of two personal friends — one Protestant and one Catholic:

An eye for an eye was all that filled their minds
And another eye for another eye, till everyone is blind.

When blinding, deafening, unhealed trauma takes the driver’s seat, it can justify and perpetuate itself through endless acts of hatred and violence.

So how can we sing in today’s strange lands of trauma? Psalm 137 offers an opportunity to pause from relentless media onslaughts and come back to ourselves. As a song of remembrance, the psalm spans a range of human experiences beyond rage: despair, disorientation, longing, resolve, hope, even joy. When we stop and check in with ourselves, we can recall that we too have a range of feelings — and choices about what to do with them.

The psalm opens with the grief that has inspired musical compositions for millennia. This grief is vital to the process of trauma recovery. If we are in a place of relative stability and safety, we can allow ourselves to grieve — as often as necessary. This is the power of that Tommy Sands song “There Were Roses,” which he brought to Israeli and Palestinian concerts in 2010:

There were roses, roses; there were roses — 
And the tears of the people ran together.

One rehumanizing pause at a time — one rehumanizing song at a time — we can heal and bring an end to the reactive cycles of trauma and violence.

Remembrance and mourning can also embrace rage directly without giving it the last word. In a famous 1852 speech often called “What to the Slave is the 4th of July?,” American abolitionist Frederick Douglass connects the taunted captives of Babylon with American slaves compelled to endure celebrations of national “independence.”

Ablaze with moral indignation — and warning his listeners not to emulate the example of the Babylonian captors — Douglass begins to recite Psalm 137. Yet he stops pointedly before the vengeful finale. Instead, Douglass adapts the verses about remembering Jerusalem as I-statements that affirm his own commitments to true justice, regardless of what his listeners may do:

I hear the mournful wail of millions!…If I do forget, if I do not faithfully remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day, ‘may my right hand forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!’

Most of us struggling in the shadows of current war do not consciously uphold the violence of Psalm 137’s final verse. Yet too many of us flinch away or push back as competing traumas spill out into bias and hatred on all sides.

Overwhelmed by faces and names of “those bleeding children of sorrow” with whom we most identify, we unconsciously keep millions of other “bleeding children of sorrow” faceless and nameless. All too often, we are unable to summon enough courage and compassion to see the full human tragedy of which we are part.

Natural consequences follow. Whether we are tongue-tied or long-winded, lifesaving humanitarian pauses elude us. Inundated with warring words and images, we forget that our hands can actually reach out to all the bleeding children of sorrow. The children who manage to survive carry the agonies of war into scarred adult bodies and psyches. Trauma wins again.

Yet songs continue to offer themselves for the cleansing of rage and hatred. Even if we don’t identify as singers, streaming channels of musical memory keep ear-worming through our brains. With the awareness that music can be medicine, we can program our internal playlists for greater healing.

Like Frederick Douglass and Tommy Sands, the “Rivers of Babylon” songs on which I came of age do not give the last word to vengeance. Instead, those songs adapt the final verse of Psalm 19:

Let the words of our mouth and the meditation of our heart
Be acceptable in thy sight, here tonight.

The question of who is addressed by the singer remains changeable and open. Perhaps it is God — however we might understand “God.” Perhaps it is our fellow human beings whose hearts and minds we seek to change. Perhaps it is ourselves, as we struggle with our own suffering.

Perhaps it is those bleeding children of sorrow — all of them, not only the ones with whom we identify most easily.

For the sake of all the children past, present, and future, I sing: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable to you. One sacred pause at a time, may we learn the ways of peace and healing through trauma — so that true justice can be realized in our generations.

A cemetery for the indigent and unclaimed is known as a potter’s field, referring back to the New Testament. More than one million dead, most of them lost to family and forgotten by history, have been buried on Hart Island in layered trenches by prison inmates since 1869. Hart Island challenges us with a tangled thicket of ethical dilemmas, from mass incarceration through cadaver shortages to land use deliberations. In 2019, NYC Council took steps forward in public hearings on legislation that would expand community access to Hart Island, and address related issues of community access to burial information and resources.

Testimony of Rabbi Regina L. Sandler-Phillips, MSW, MPH, WAYS OF PEACE Community Resources

Good afternoon. I am Rabbi Regina Sandler-Phillips, executive director of WAYS OF PEACE Community Resources. I have worked as an advocate over the past twenty years to reclaim traditional, sustainable burial practices as quiet acts of justice and kindness.

I am here because the same time-honored ethical principles that call for sustainable, egalitarian, participatory Jewish burial—mipnei k’vodam shel aniyim, “for the honor of the poor”—also call for cooperative mobilization of resources in our cities of diversity, so that neighbors of all backgrounds can be buried with honor—mipnei darkhei shalom, “for these are ways of peace.”

I was privileged to visit Hart Island with family members in September 2017, and also gave testimony at the NYC Council hearings this past May. I want to express my gratitude again for the anonymous prison inmates who built monuments on Hart Island to honor those they buried; for the loving courage and tenacity of family members, friends, and community activists; and for the stewardship and accompaniment of supportive municipal representatives through decades of challenge and change.

The Department of Social Services is soliciting input at this hearing on a range of issues related to public burial. Like others here, I am in a position to offer insights and resources for several of them—but it is clear to me that we cannot do full justice to any of these issues within the time constraints of two and a half hours.

This is why I had intended primarily to express my support for Int. 1580, originally introduced by Council Member Deborah L. Rose as “A Local Law in relation to the creation of a task force on public burial and related issues”—with the representation of city agencies as well as non-profit leaders, family members, and community activists. In its original language,

“This bill would establish a task force to study the laws, rules, regulations, policies and procedures related to public burial, to recommend changes to these programs and to consider the feasibility of alternative programs. The task force would convene for one year and then submit a report with recommendations to the Mayor and the Council.”

However, in preparing my testimony for today, I was startled to discover that this crucial initiative seems to have been quietly replaced last month with Int. 1580-A: “A Local Law in relation to a public hearing on public burial and related issues.” In its current language,

“This bill would require a public hearing on public burial to allow the public the opportunity to discuss the laws, rules, regulations, policies and procedures related to public burial, to recommend changes to these programs and to consider the feasibility of alternative programs. Following the hearing, the Department of Social Services would submit a report with recommendations to the Mayor and the Council.”

I hope that that today’s one-time hearing has not actually been substituted for ongoing inter-agency input and coordination—since that would be a serious step backward in the process.

At the NYC City Council hearings in May, Speaker Corey Johnson declared that progress on public burial must be built up from the grassroots. Yet, at that same time, the voices of those most impacted at the grassroots—family members, community activists, and non-profit leaders with demonstrated experience in providing for indigent burial—were not heard for nearly four hours, after most elected and appointed officials had already left the room. Even the Department of Corrections officer with the most extensive experience on the ground at Hart Island was not asked to testify, but only passed discreet notes to his superiors to correct their statements as necessary.

The most integrated solutions to the challenges of Hart Island and public burial point toward the most equitable and sustainable choices facing all of us at death. But we cannot make real progress toward any of these solutions by trying to force decades of nuanced, collective experience and wisdom into a couple of high-profile, top-down public hearings. The nitty-gritty of real progress always takes place between such events.

It has taken too many years of dedicated advocacy—and even lawsuits—to get us to this crucial transition point. Please, let’s not waste this historical opportunity. If we are serious about making change, we need the coordination, oversight, transparency, and accountability of ongoing inter-agency efforts.

I hope that plans for a task force or similar coordinating body will be reaffirmed in good faith—so that we can avoid reinventing and spinning our wheels, and instead join forces in the real work of progress on public burial.

Progress can only be made when it is understood that the honor of the dead is not an isolated funeral product—or municipal event—but rather a continual process of learning and building community across all the lines that too often divide us.

Thank you for your consideration and time.

Testimony of Rabbi Regina L. Sandler-Phillips, MSW, MPH • WAYS OF PEACE Community Resources

I’m Rabbi Regina Sandler-Phillips, executive director of WAYS OF PEACE Community Resources. I have worked as an advocate for the past twenty years to reclaim traditional, sustainable burial practices as quiet acts of justice and kindness. Often identified as “green” today, these practices are upheld with minor variations by both Jews and Muslims throughout the world. I dedicate this testimony to the memories of two community burial leaders whose lives were cut short over recent months, but whose legacies of lovingkindness shine on across our lines of diversity: Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Ms. Husna Ahmed of Christchurch, New Zealand.

A Jewish funeral is called levayah, which literally means “accompanying.” Traditionally, levayah begins at the time of death, as a process that honors and protects both the human body and the earth. We watch over, cleanse, dress, and lay out the dead in simple, biodegradable garments and coffins. We accompany the dead to their graves, and we pick up shovels ourselves to participate in their burials. We return later to mark the graves, visit, and remember.

Accompanying the unclaimed dead is a supreme Jewish imperative. Long committed to providing the honor and protection of levayah in New York City, the Hebrew Free Burial Association has buried nearly 60,000 indigent Jews since 1888. Today my support for Hebrew Free Burial and my support for Hart Island are integrally connected.

The same time-honored ethical principles that call for sustainable, egalitarian, participatory Jewish burial—mipnei k’vodam shel aniyim, “for the honor of the poor”—also call for cooperative mobilization of resources in our cities of diversity, so that neighbors of all backgrounds can be buried with honor—mipnei darkhei shalom, “for these are ways of peace.”

The most integrated solutions to the challenges of Hart Island actually point toward the most equitable and sustainable choices facing all of us at death. This is reflected in the City Council bills now under consideration: for public access, with adequate budget provisions; for transportation planning; for a municipal office that will support and assist all New Yorkers to access vital funeral resources; and for an inter-agency task force on issues related to public burial. I affirm the call for greater family / community representation on the inter-agency task force.

The honor of the dead is not an isolated funeral product, but rather an ongoing process of building community across all the lines that too often divide us.

I was privileged to visit Hart Island in September 2017, and I want to express my gratitude for all that has brought us to this point: for the solidarity of anonymous prison inmates who built monuments to honor those they buried; for the loving courage and tenacity of Hart Island family members, friends, and community activists; for the stewardship and accompaniment of supportive municipal representatives through decades of challenge and change.

All of these have brought us to this historical moment of opportunity for justice and kindness to come together—off the coast of the Bronx, and beyond. Thank you all.

“They may deport her,” reported a disheartened accompaniment volunteer who had emerged from the building. She described how an enforcement officer had spoken harshly to an immigrant petitioner in the presence of the family’s frightened and confused children. As those who had gathered outside the building surrounded the veteran volunteer in a wordless hug, she was able to find some release in tears.

And then we began to walk.

Every Thursday for more than an hour, immigrant advocates and supporters participate in a Jericho Walk: seven silent circuits around the main ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) field office and court building in lower Manhattan. After each circuit, open hands are raised toward the building and a silent prayer is offered. At the end of the seventh circuit, the prayer is recited aloud in English and Spanish. Then we raise our voices for a collective shout and scream. “For me, it’s a cry of pain,” shared the accompaniment volunteer after that week’s culminating outcry.

Some weeks there are a few people; other weeks there are many more. Ravi Ragbir, the director of the New Sanctuary Coalition (NSC) of New York — who has walked alone as well as with hundreds who have supported his personal struggle against deportation — believes that the weekly walks are an essential component of the renewed sanctuary effort. The walks are usually led by Father Fabian Arias, an Argentinian-born priest who also “walks the walk” far beyond these weekly circuits by providing legal guardianship to dozens of young Latinx immigrants in danger of deportation.

In times of growing polarization, hatred and violence, it is tempting to view retaliation as a form of righteousness. The Jericho Walk offers a way to transform pain, despair, and rage into a recommitment to bearing witness in love and hope. Even the name “Jericho Walk” involves the transformation of an originally violent narrative into a contemporary nonviolent action — a reminder that our first step is to “Do no harm.” As reflected in a parallel Buddhist commitment in Oregon, this holds interfaith implications beyond the biblical metaphor.

We also have daily opportunities to “walk the walk” through our financial choices — and game-changing opportunities have recently emerged around the world in this regard . RAICES, a front-line immigrant rights network on the U.S./Mexico border, politely declined a six-figure grant from Salesforce, a corporation that indirectly profits from the separation of immigrant families.

“We will not be a beneficiary of your effort to buy your way out of ethical responsibility. We ask you to commit to ending your contract with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and we hope that we will be able to accept your donation under these terms,” wrote RAICES in a private letter that was publicized after the corporation demurred. RAICES was able to do this, in part, because of the democratic “just-giving” of more than a half-million people who nearly tripled RAICES’ original operating budget in less than six weeks.

As financial journalist Felix Salmon explains,

“When you give to a bail fund, your money doesn’t just get used to bail someone out once. It gets recycled with repayment, and used over and over again to help out the most neglected people in the justice system....A permanent bond fund, which has the resources to bail out every detained parent, and ideally every wrongfully detained immigrant, is a fantastic public good, and once it’s seeded with enough money, it can operate almost indefinitely.”

Across the ocean, as conditions remain untenable for tens of thousands of African asylum seekers in Israel, a coalition of immigrant advocates and supporters has launched the Kibbutz Resettlement initiative. Under the fiscal sponsorship of ATZUM-Justice Works, a veteran social justice organization, international support is sought to move vulnerable asylum-seeking families out of urban poverty into welcoming kibbutz communities.

Violence — whether verbal or physical — often springs from a sense of helplessness, and it is extremely contagious. The good news is that nonviolent action is also contagious, opening our eyes and hearts to the range of daily possibilities for hopeful, effective action in these painful times.

“Who here has ever accompanied anyone in any way?” Accompaniment training facilitator Sara Gozalo posed this question last week to a capacity crowd of volunteers, eliciting examples of accompaniment to schools, doctors’ offices, hospitals, courts, and beyond. These experiences were connected to ground rules for how to accompany those facing possible deportation — simply, respectfully, nonprofessionally. We were called to bear witness, with a paramount commitment to “Do no harm.”

Our trainer also shared a cautionary tale within the framework of “Do no harm”: certain polarizing actions and words may inadvertently increase the suffering of those we seek to protect. Immigrant accompaniment involves advocacy without confrontation — mainly through the emotional support of our presence. “Just being there lets ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement], security, immigration clerks and judges know that your friend is part of a community, and that community is watching. There is nothing more you need to do.“

The Hebrew word levayah is usually associated with accompanying the dead — but levayah actually includes the full range of ways we are called to show up and accompany each other throughout life’s transitions. Jewish laws of levayah emphasize the importance of escorting the living on their journeys: “Whoever does not accompany [wayfarers], it is as if one sheds blood.” This same power of witness and protective presence undergirds vigil-keeping and our related practices of ultimate kindness at the end of life.

“Let them make for Me a sanctuary, and I will dwell in their midst” (Exodus 25:8). A sanctuary does not actually “contain” God; it expands the sacredness of the spaces we share. Today’s immigrant accompanists agree: “Sanctuary is not a physical entity but the spaces wherein all of us can breath freely and in dignity.” The ultimate challenge is how to expand our sanctuaries for the widest possible inclusion of those among us.

While crises of violence and polarization may be endemic to this season, it is always possible to respond with ways of peace. No matter how heartbreaking the situation, there are always real, practical options for bringing people together across differences to affirm our shared humanity.

Now as in times past, accompanying each other and bearing witness may be among the most healing and effective recourses available to us. WAYS OF PEACE will continue to highlight and model such recourses in the challenging times to come.