Desecration of Efrat Shul

10/25/00

Submitted by Rabbi Shlomo Riskin
Chief Rabbi of Efrat, Israel

My Synagogue was desecrated last night, it stood proudly at the center of Efrat, completed only a year ago and already filled beyond capacity every Sabbath and Festival.  It was desecrated with spray paint over the walls of the holy ark, with Arabic words preaching hatred and death.  It was desecrated with swastika signs around all of our holy objects.

As the Rabbi of Efrat it is my Synagogue - but it is your Synagogue too.

It is the Synagogue of every Jew,  not only throughout Israel, but throughout the world.  And it is the Church of every Christian, not only throughout Israel, but throughout the world.  It is your Synagogue and your Church, because the message expressed by the perpetrators of this bastardly desecration of the message of naziism and hitlerism, racism and hatred.

The swastika was the symbol, because Hilter is the model.  Racist hatred may begin with Israelis, continue with Jews, but it then extends to Christians and Americans and every non Moslem fundamentalist.  And so you see it is your Synagogue. And your Church too.

This has been a difficult period for us in Israel, but it has also been an eye opening period.  The PA, and especially its leader Yasser Arafat, has revealed his true intentions.  After having rejected the most generous offer of compromise - 92% of the West Bank, sovereignty of the Arab portion of East Jerusalem, and some extra territorial control of the Temple Mount-he opted for wanton violence, expressing clearly that he would not cease until he would receive total sovereignty over Jerusalem and the right of Palestinian return to the pre-1947 boundaries, in effect, the end of the state of Israel.

With the desecration of the Efrat Synagogue he has expressed one more intention.  The PA has turned the Middle East conflict between, Israel and the Palestinians, into a religious war of Moslem fundamentalist against Jews and Judaism.  Such a war cannot admit any compromise whatsoever, such a war extends beyond Israel and throughout the entire world.

The sight of our Synagogue desecrated with swastikas resonates with sights of broken glass, burnt torah scrolls, kristal nacht - November 9-10, 1938.

Thankfully, however, this is the year 2000 and we Jews of Israel have an Israeli Defense Force and an Israeli Police Force to bring the desecrators to justice and to end this round of violence.  The desecrated Synagogue is called Tiferet Avot, the Glory of our Fathers, and indeed the modern State of Israel is a fitting and glorious tribute to the generations of our ancestors who were exiled and persecuted, by racist peoples who wished us to be obliterated.  The message of Israel remains  Od Avinu Hai-Our Father in Heaven still lives and our earthly Fathers and Mothers who came before us did not die in vain.  We will make certain that our grandchildren and great-grandchildren will be able to proudly pray in the Efrat Synagogue or any generations to come.

But it was not only my Synagogue that was desecrated last night, it was your synagogues and your churches.  You, the world at large, largely remained silent between 1939-1945-until the nazi conflagration touched you personally, and your were saved only in the nick of time.  Will you make the same mistake again?  In the light of the words and deeds of the Palestinian Authority in its war against Jews, dare you remain silent?

Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, Chief Rabbi of Efrat, Israel