MERCAZ BACKS GAZA WITHDRAWAL

As part of a longstanding tradition to back the policies of the elected government of Israel in its negotiations with the Palestinians, MERCAZ USA signed on to the letter of support for the Israeli Prime Minister’s Gaza disengagement plan that was published in the New York Times on the eve of Sharon’s visit in May to the United States.

Joining the United Synagogue and Women’s League and twenty-five other American Jewish organizations in the declaration addressed to Prime Minister Sharon, MERCAZ “express[ed its] support for your courageous disengagement plan - possibly the most difficult decision of your political career and certainly a painful one for those Israelis who have to move out of their homes.”

As Rabbi Vernon Kurtz added, “while we feel deeply the sense of pain and loss that the Jewish settlers in Gush Katif are experiencing at being forced out of the homes in which they have lived for more than thirty years, as a Diaspora Zionist organization, MERCAZ has always deferred to the democratically elected government of Israel to define the appropriate policies designed to safeguard and protect Israel’s security.”

“Moreover, as a Zionist movement committed to Jewish Law, we rely on the responsa of the Masorti Movement’s Law Committee and specifically those of Rabbi Tuvia Friedman of 1987 and Rabbi David Golinkin of 1993, both of which appear in English translation on the Schechter Institute website www.responsafortoday.com, to justify in terms of Halacha the right of the government to withdraw from territories in the Land of Israel for the sake of peace.”