As horrible as Simchat Torah was in 2023, falling on October 7 that year, Yom Kippur two weeks earlier was also a tragedy. That was the day Jews physically fought other Jews in Tel Aviv over how to organize a public prayer service in the large central Israel city.
The lesson of both Yom Kippur and Simchat Torah was that Jews must unite, because internal rifts are dangerous.
Unfortunately, that important lesson was not learned by Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism (RAC), whose organization instigated that ill-fated Yom Kippur fight.
Pesner sent a letter last week to all 100 US senators criticizing President Donald Trump’s appointment of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee as America’s next ambassador to Israel.
In full disclosure, I will say that I have known Mike Huckabee for many years and consider him a friend. In fact, I consider him to be a friend of the Jewish people as a whole and the Jewish state. He is an ohev Yisrael, a man who loves the land, people, and State of Israel. Any organization that supports Israel, as Pesner’s claims to do, should overwhelmingly welcome the appointment.
Instead, Pesner bashes Huckabee, suggesting that his values and interests do not align with the best interests of Israel, the United States, and the Jewish people.
“The essential goal of any ambassador is advancing US interests and values abroad,” he wrote. “Gov. Huckabee’s record raises serious questions about his commitment to these values and interests that have persisted across Republican and Democratic administrations alike.”
Huckabee’s support for Israel
Pesner singled out Huckabee’s support for Israel annexing Judea and Samaria and opposing calling Israel’s control over the biblical heartland of the Jewish people “annexation.”
It is time for the RAC leader to wake up and realize that it is no longer October 6, 2023. Plenty of polls show that both Israelis and American Jews have understandably moved rightward after Israel faced its worst ever massacre.
The invasion of Israel by Hamas terrorists and ordinary Gazans who came to murder, rape, and kidnap did not whet the appetite of Israelis to give their enemies a sovereign state to use as a launching pad to infiltrate again. The monthly polls of the Israel Democracy Institute indicated that there has not been a majority for a Palestinian state among Israelis for many years.
HUCKABEE’S VALUES match mine and are more mainstream than ever, while Pesner represents a small minority fringe. He wrongly claims to represent 1.8 million American Jews, as if all secular Americans would choose his movement’s synagogues if they would ever go to one.
He actually represents a dwindling movement that is selling synagogues left and right. Orthodox Judaism is the only stream that is growing. Pesner’s movement never criticized former president Joe Biden, even when his administration blocked key weapons shipments to Israel at a sensitive time when the Jewish state was fighting its enemies on seven fronts.
How disconnected from reality can Pesner be to write every senator a letter rejecting the president’s candidate for ambassador because he does not advocate for the advancement of “Palestinian national aspirations?” Does Pesner not realize that those aspirations include eliminating the world’s only Jewish state and creating a 58th Muslim country?
Pesner wrote that Huckabee’s support for Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria did not “advance the causes of peace and regional security.” Why does the control over the land by the murderous Fatah or Hamas advance peace or security? Is it not obvious that if Israel controlled the land under the watch of the IDF, it would be more peaceful and secure?
Pesner then had the chutzpah to blast Huckabee’s Evangelical Christian faith. Evangelical Christians like Huckabee have been the cornerstone of support for Israel, when Reform Jews abandoned the Jewish state for the latest trendy liberal humanist cause. Pesner’s letter was also unwise for Reform Jews, because it instigated a fight that could not be won.
Huckabee’s appointment will be passed easily in the Republican-controlled Senate and House of Representatives, where a majority have views on Israel closer to Huckabee’s than Pesner’s. The letter’s only accomplishment was to send a message to the world that Jews are hopelessly divided. The good news is that Pesner is wrong about that, too.
Especially since October 7, 2023, American Jews have united behind Israel as the Jewish state faces countless harrowing challenges. They will not fight anymore on Simchat Torah or on Yom Kippur.
And soon-to-be ambassador Huckabee will attend those holidays and represent America and its values well, with pride.
The writer is the chairman of Religious Zionists of America, president of the Culture for Peace Institute, and a committee member of the Jewish Agency. He currently serves as a member of the US Holocaust Memorial Council, appointed by President Trump. The views expressed here are his own. Contact him at Martinoliner@gmail.com