Faced with the enormous task of helping people understand how to move forward after the Black Saturday attack by Hamas on Israel on Oct. 7, South Fork clergy offered a diversity of perspective at Sunday's Rally Israel and Peace at Herrick Park in East Hampton.
The rally, organized by Larry Zimmerman and Mitchell Agoos, was well attended and featured local political representatives alongside clergy. Upward of 400 people showed up on the warm and windless day. Some in the murmuring crowd held Israeli flags and a handful of people had fliers taped to their backs with pictures of missing children kidnapped by Hamas. One read "Aviv, 3 years old, Israeli girl, #bringthemhome."
The Israeli Defense Forces say 240 Israelis, kidnapped by Hamas on Oct. 7, are still missing.
Tensions have been high locally after antisemitic graffiti was found in Montauk on the morning of Oct. 30, and there was a strong police presence at the rally Sunday, with a black armored Hummer, part of the town's tactical unit, and helmeted officers dressed in black holding long rifles, prominently placed. A police drone hung above the crowd, and when it maneuvered, attendees would glance up nervously.
Police have been working behind the scenes, too. At the East Hampton Town Board meeting on Nov. 2, Police Chief Michael Sarlo said they were "expending a tremendous amount of resources and effort through our detective division and working in coordination with outside agencies such as the District Attorney's office and the Suffolk County police, to feverishly work toward solving the hate crimes that occurred in Montauk."
East Hampton Village Mayor Jerry Larsen, behind a lectern adorned with the Israeli flag, introduced the politicians on the stage, who included Representative Nick LaLota, State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., State Senator Anthony Palumbo, and local officials. "We're here to stand in solidarity with all of you," Mayor Larsen said before turning the event over to clergy. None of the politicians spoke.
Rabbi Josh Franklin of the Jewish Center of the Hamptons tapped into the anger and frustration felt after the attacks, lambasting the "insane moral relativism" he felt was creeping into the discussion about the war. He came out staunchly against a cease-fire. "If Hamas were to lay down their weapons there would be peace. If Israel were to lay down their weapons, there would be another Holocaust," he said. He described Israel's moral dilemma: "No matter what choice Israel makes in this situation it's forced to compromise some moral value. That is not a position I want Israel to ever have to be in, but they were put into that position by Hamas."
"It’s far too easy to say that Israel should simply respond proportionately," Rabbi Franklin said, "like any response to the murder of 1400 individuals who were tortured, raped, and mutilated could have a proportional response."
Which is perhaps why later, when the Very Rev. Dr. Benjamin Shambaugh of East Hampton's St. Luke's Episcopal Church, questioned the objectives of the war — "What if instead of eradication and revenge, the strategic objective was a long-term safety and security of the people of Israel?" — scattered boos arose and one woman in the audience yelled, "Get off!" causing another to gasp "What?" in response. When Dr. Shambaugh said, "We can choose to love," a man audibly groaned.
Hamas attacked strategically on Simchat Torah, a Jewish holiday, to take joy away, said Rabbi Leibel Baumgarten of Chabad of East Hampton. "How do we counter that? What we have to do now is be joyful, to do things with joy, pray with joy, sing and dance!" He concluded his short speech by singing a song of peace, "Oseh Shalom," accompanied by a good portion of the crowd.
"When Hamas calls for the eradication of the Jewish people in their charter, they mean it, God forbid," said Rabbi Aizik Baumgarten of Chabad of Montauk. "That is the core obstacle to peace. We must stop appeasing terrorists and their supporters." He said people must familiarize themselves with the facts and history so they could be ambassadors for truth and peace. Ultimately, he said people should focus on doing good deeds. Standing in solidarity with the soldiers is important, he said, but good action would also help in the "spiritual battle."
A similar theme was echoed when Rabbi Daniel Geffen of Temple Adas Israel, brought up tzedakah, a Jewish concept of righteousness. As he spoke, the sound backdrop was the whir of a drone overhead juxtaposed by the sound of children on the playground. Rabbi Geffen said in a generation with righteous people, the righteous suffer the burden of the sinful. However, in a generation with no righteous people, the children suffer. The fact that children are now suffering served as an indictment of our generation. However, he said, it also hinted at "an answer."
"We must not rely on other people to be the righteous people, we ourselves must be the righteous people," he said. "If we are to answer this call, we must begin by examining the way we think about everything we do every single day."
Rabbi Jan Uhrbach of Gesher | the Bridge Shul also highlighted that the majority of Gazans are not Hamas, and while some of the audience grumbled when she said, "Sometimes Israel errs," she won them back over when she said, "It's never okay to use Israel's imperfections for hatred or to pretend that Hamas isn't based on the destruction of Israel."
She referenced the teaching of a first-century sage, who spoke of a many chambered heart for difficult times, a heart that can hold contradictory and complicated emotions. "This is not a situation that can be understood from photos or headlines, slogans tossed around at marches, or simplistic ideologies that are utterly inapplicable," she said.
"If we care about the Palestinian people as we should and must, we need to call for an end of Hamas which has been in control of Gaza since 2007," she said to the loudest applause of the day. "Extremists and ideologues with narrow hearts and minds know only how to hate."
