I went to a talk today at Bluffton University by Arick Asherman, who is the executive director of Rabbis for Human Rights (RHR). The group was founded in 1988, in response to serious abuse of human rights by Israeli military authority in the suppression of the Inftifada. An impassioned Rabbi Asherman, who grew up in Erie, P.A., said among the Israeli citizenry and spiritual leadership, there has developed “extreme nationalism,” with little compassion for the innocent victims on the Palestinian side. And that’s why, out of a sense of spiritual principle, Rabbis for Human Rights formed. Rabbi Asherman said RHR has, for instance, volunteers who act as human sheilds to protect Palestinians as they harvest their olive crops. They visit Palestinians, and Israelis, in the hospital after a bombing. “We condemn Israeli, and Palestinian, violence,” said the Rabbi. Asherman said one of his acts of civil disobedience (which he is currently on trial for) is standing in front of an Israeli bulldozer that was just about to demolish a Palestinian home. What’s more, RHR volunteers try and stand side-by-side with Palestinians as they are rebuilding their demolished homes. He said this gesture might just keep another little 10-year-old Palestinian (who has watched his parents be humiliated with the demolition), from growing up to become a terrorist. Asherman said both sides seem to have “seemless world views” at this point that the other side, in it’s anger, isn’t listening. His group provides a ray of hope for helping metaphorically build a bridge, as opposed to a (not-so-metaphoric these days) wall. So what can we as Americans, on a grassroots level, do to promote peace in the Middle East? It would seem to me that instead of just tacitly waiting for another ‘governmental solution;’ the most impactful thing we could do is: support (financially, and otherwise) the Rabbis for Human Rights cause now. See: www.rhr.israel.net<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I went to a talk today at Bluffton University by Arick Asherman, who is the executive director of Rabbis for Human Rights (RHR). The group was founded in 1988, in response to serious abuse of human rights by Israeli military …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}