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Clergy VoiceMay 2002 by Rabbi Marcia Zimmerman More than 1,000 people attended the community-wide gathering for solidarity with Israel, hosted by Temple Israel and organized by the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC), on Sunday, April 7. U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone, Minnesota AFL-CIO President Ray Waldron and Susan Shapiro, president of the JCRC, made brief remarks. Participating in the worship service were Twin Cities clergy members.In my introductory remarks, I said that this is an important day in the life of our community as we gather in solidarity with Israel. We are united by a common belief in a Jewish homeland. We link hands with our brothers and sisters in the land of Israel who have lived in fear many times before, and for many months, and on the first night of Passover were besieged by suicide bombings. We are united in our common hope for peace in Israel. We may have differing perspectives on how to achieve peace, and there will be time for that dialogue, but today we rise above our differences to find a united voice: a voice that will be heard in the streets of Jerusalem, a voice that will resound in the ports of Haifa and Tel Aviv, a voice that will lend our support, our prayers into the homes throughout the land of Israel. We are saddened by the events in Israel and worldwide. Our solidarity is also with the Jews of Europe who have been subject to physical assaults, their synagogues firebombed. We stand against this anti-Semitism and the incitement of anti-Semitism. On this eve of Yom Hashoah, we especially decry the comparisons linking Israel with Nazi Germany. It is our responsibility to speak out at this distortion of history. Some of us are fearful. The antidote to that fear is to gather in strength, in pride and in hope. We are people who love life, and accusations have recently been hurled at us as a fault, but today we claim our love of life with a resounding affirmation of who we are as a people. We thank our friends from the broader Minnesota community who are with us in our darkest hour—your presence will never go unnoticed. Besides the initiatives identified by the JCRC, you can help the people of Israel by making a donation to the Israel Relief Fund, c/o Temple Israel. Monies raised will be forwarded to Israel and used for the following purposes:
Let
us, as a community, raise
our voices in prayer for
peace in the Middle East.
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