Standing with Israel, praying for the safety of Jerusalem as tensions, conflict rise

Throughout my day I am often asked: What is happening in Israel?

Well I don’t have any insider knowledge, as someone with close ties to my brothers and sisters in the Holy Land I can often provide some nuance.

There are two separate issues taking place in Israel simultaneously.

The first issue is rising tensions in Israeli cities. As the only multi-ethnic democracy in the Middle East, Israel often faces divergent viewpoints with increased passion.

Tensions began to rise in Jerusalem last month when a trend of TikTok videos of Arab teenagers harassing and assaulting Jewish children began to take off. This stream of hate crimes led to protests, marches, and a palpable heat in the streets.

Also contributing was the overlap of Ramadan, the holiest month on the Islamic calendar, with Yom Yerushalayim, the Israeli celebration of the liberation and reunification of Jerusalem.

Every Ramadan, thousands gather to pray at the Al Aqsa mosque, the third holiest site in Islam, located on the Temple mount, the holiest site in Judaism. Too often, this service is marred by riots that take place on this hallowed ground.

Yom Yerushalayim is celebrated with parades and singing throughout the city of Jerusalem, as Jews rejoice in their ability to pray and live in the holy city again.

While both of these events often raise the stakes, their overlap created a combustible situation, exacerbated by the issues from earlier that month.

In addition, a legal dispute over land illegally seized by Jordanian soldiers in the 1940s, which has been making its way through Israel’s robust legal system is drawing to a close, with each impassioned side making assumptions on what that ruling will be and acting accordingly.

These issues all came to a head with tensions spilling over into violence, and police were forced to step in to restore order.

The issues listed above are serious, and need to be addressed, but as mentioned there is also a second issue taking place in Israel right now.

Hamas, the terrorist criminal organization which has a brutal stranglehold over Gaza, has launched a campaign of rockets against Israeli citizens. In the last week over 2,500 rockets have been fired, with a third of them falling back into Gaza, causing death and destruction.

While Israel’s Iron Dome, a modern technological miracle, disabled many of those rockets, hundreds have gotten through, murdering and injuring Israeli citizens including Jews, Muslims, and others.

Israel has responded as any country must, to defend its citizens, and in precision attacks has taken out multiple terrorist launching sites and arch terrorist members of Hamas, and despite the constant use of human shields by Hamas, Israel has done its utmost to protect all innocent life.

Make no mistake, any voice that does not place the rocket fire on Israeli cities at the center of this story is actively devaluing Jewish lives, and the lives of every other citizen of Israel.

These two issues, the rising tensions in Israeli cities and the terrorist activities of Hamas, are not linked to any educated observer, as Hamas has never before needed a reason to fire rockets at Israeli cities or to kidnap and murder Israeli children.

The only connection between these two events is that the near constant threat of Hamas rocket fire, for both Jews and Arabs living in Israel, has made resolving these tensions far harder.

Israel however, remains up to task, to both defeat Hamas and protect her citizens, while maintaining its morality and values and bringing peace to its cities once again.

The Lubavitcher Rebbe, my personal mentor and the foremost Jewish leader of the modern era would speak often of Israel as the country of which it says in Deuteronomy that God’s eye is upon from the first day of the year till the last day of the year, and we continue to pray for the safety of all the people of the region.

Our community is uplifted by the solidarity of figures from across the Commonwealth, from Senator McConnell and Representatives Barr and Guthrie, to many of our constitutional officers including Agriculture Commissioner Quarles, Treasurer Ball and Auditor Harmon, joining the voices of President Biden and Secretary Blinkin, in standing with the Jewish state.

We stand with Israel not only as the sole protector of the largest Jewish community in the world, but also as a source of democracy, morals and values in a region where democracy has few allies.

Above all else we continue to pray for the safety of Jerusalem and all her inhabitants.

Rabbi Shlomo Litvin is executive director of Chabad of the Bluegrass.