Yom Kippur 2020

Dear Friends:  It is Yom Kippur once again, and we are all locked down in our homes and unable to move.  Nothing new since the Corona pandemic has continued to be on the rise.  As a reminder of that day, I refer you to what I had written on Yom Kippur last year which was posted on my blog on October 9, 2019.  Israel,  which claims to be the only democratic state in the region,  insists on being a Jewish state, when 21% of its population is non-Jewish, and they do not have the same privileges as the Jewish population.  However  Mr. Netanyahu is always taking pride in quoting  the Bible in Hebrew on various occasions, and sometimes  incomplete quotations, to suit the occasion.  Even during the normalization ceremony with the Gulf states under the auspices of the US in the White House,  he managed a prayer in Hebrew by King David:  'May God give strength to his people, may God bless his people with peace.'

However when it comes to a quotation from  prophet Micah 6:8, Netanyahu fails the test as a good Jew, and especially on Yom Kippur.  “What does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, and to love kindness and walk humbly with God” 

He is certainly not doing justice to the Palestinians, and not even for a large sector of the Israeli citizens,  neither is he treating people with kindness, not even members of his own party or government.  And of course he is not walking humbly with God.  One of the Hebrew papers compared him recently  to a peacock, a very arrogant and proud species.  Where is all this leading to?

If Israel cannot have peace with its adversaries, no normalization with friendly countries will bring about peace to the region.  So I hope Mr. Netanyahu will be honest for a change on this holy day and make the proper vow to bring about justice to the region and to love kindness and walk humbly with God.