The famous rabbi, Abraham Joshua Heschel, was once asked by a journalist why he, as a religious leader, had come to a demonstration against the war in Vietnam. Heschel answered: “I am here because I cannot pray... Whenever I open the prayer book, I see images of children burning from napalm”

Now, as we approach this evening's Yom Kippur, the day when Jews traditionally reflect on the past and repent, I see the horrifying photos of Israeli and Palestinian children, women and men, who have been killed over the past year. The images of the dead and the brutal way in which they were killed, haunts me and I feel called to pray through protest as Rabbi Heschel once did.

The first anniversary of the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel was just five days ago and tonight we will remember the over 1100 Israelis who were killed, the 247 who were taken hostage, and the 97 Israelis still held as hostages in Gaza. It is not new for Jews to mark tragedies. But, this year, for the first time in more than 3,000 years of Jewish history, Jews will observe Yom Kippur as Israel continues a year long attack on Gaza that the International Court of Justice ruled is plausibly a case of genocide. Scholars like Raz Segaland Omer Bartov, and Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on Occupied Territories, agree.

“Prayer is meaningless unless it is subversive, unless it seeks to overthrow and to ruin the pyramids of callousness, hatred, opportunism, falsehoods.” —Rabbi Heschel

I was raised in a passionately Zionist community in Apartheid South Africa. My father was a leader of the Jewish community and the Judaism that I learned from him, in my Jewish Day school, and my Zionist youth movement, inspired deep loyalty to Israel no matter what decisions its leaders made. Despite this, I began to question Zionism. In 2003, I was one of the founders of Rabbis for Human Rights North America. In that role, I learned first-hand about the systemic injustice of daily life in Palestine, by trying to stop Israeli home demolitions. I also learned from Israeli and........

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