Natan Nestel writes:
By aberrant anecdote and omission Noah Feldman’s article on Jewish Orthodoxy includes numerous mischaracterizations, and generally slanders a faith defined by its commitment to universal justice.
First, Feldman tries to argue that Orthodoxy does not value the life of a Jew and a non-Jew equally. He uses a school debate about doctors violating the Sabbath to save another’s life to make his point; quoting one side of a chaotic 1,500 year old dialectic to try and show that Orthodox doctors should only violate Sabbath laws for Jews.
This is an egregious mischaracterization of both the faith and its practice. In fact, Orthodox doctors do not make any distinction between a Jew and a non-Jew. I have seen such Orthodox impartiality with my own eyes. I underwent surgery a year ago at the Tel Aviv Medical Center. Several wounded Palestinians, among them militant terrorists, were hospitalized at the same time. It so happened that on the three Sabbaths that I was in the hospital, the doctors on duty were Orthodox. I asked them out of curiosity about their feelings regarding treating militant enemies. All said that in their eyes all patients are equal and should be treated equally. Moreover, one said that it was precisely because of his religious schooling and beliefs that he felt Jews and Palestinians were created by G-d equally and should be treated accordingly. Indeed, this is the faith that created the maxim: "Do not do unto others as you would not have them do unto you."
Second, and more yet aberrant, is Feldman’s implication (qualified by “it would be a mistake to blame messianic modern Orthodoxy…”) that religious beliefs were behind Dr. Baruch Goldstein’s hideous massacre of 29 Palestinians at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron. Feldman attributes Dr. Goldstein’s act to his (erroneous) application of the portion of the Torah read the previous Sabbath about G-d’s command to remember what the Amalekites did to the people of Israel when leaving Egypt and to erase their memory from the face of the earth.
Hundreds of thousands of Jews (Orthodox and not Orthodox) read this portion every year and yet no massacres occur. But, obscenely, Feldman focuses on one disturbed person; and while doing so, Feldman omits all the relevant background relating to Goldstein’s hideous rampage. The instant facts, not religion, lay behind the crime. Dr. Goldstein, an emergency physician, lost several friends to terrorist attacks and treated many victims. What drove him off the edge was the shooting and killing of his best friend, Mordechai Lapid, and his son, Shalom, by Palestinian terrorists. Goldstein also witnessed how Hebron Palestinians attacked the Lapid funeral procession with stones and cinder blocks hurled from rooftops. Hebron Muslims had also been aggressive in threatening Jewish residents and worshipers at the Tomb of the Patriarchs. At Purim services, the evening before he committed his insane act, while Jewish worshippers including Goldstein were reading the Scroll of Esther, local Palestinian Muslims loudly disrupted the ceremony with chants of "It-bakh al Yahud" (slaughter the Jews), a cry frequently heard in Hebron.
Goldstein’s insane and suicidal act—which left his children orphans and his wife a widow—had nothing to do with Orthodoxy.
Feldman also incorrectly writes: "According to one newspaper account, when he (Goldstein) was serving in the Israeli military, he refused to treat non-Jewish patients.” In fact, Israeli Chief Justice, Meir Shamgar, who headed a special commission investigating the Goldstein affair, noted that Goldstein had treated Arab militants in October 1990. The commission heard many testimonies that "Goldstein had treated Jew and Arab alike." Feldman chose to ignore the Shamgar Commission findings. Note also that Goldstein had practiced medicine in the United States, treating Americans of all backgrounds, before moving to Israel.
Feldman also chose not to mention that Goldstein was affiliated with Kach (JDL), the fringe group founded by Meir Kahane. Feldman tellingly only identifies Goldstein with the Orthodox movement.
The list of Feldman’s material factual omissions goes on. Feldman also writes that Goldstein’s "actions were not met by universal condemnation." The contrary is the case. They were indeed universally condemned by all but his friends in Kach.
Feldman notes: "…his gravestone describes him as a saint and a martyr of the Jewish people." He fails to mention that only Goldstein’s immediate family selected these words. Contrary to what Feldman says, the grave prompted stormy condemnations in the Israeli public, media, in the Knesset (Israeli parliament), Interior Committee and the Israeli government—which even declared the shrine illegal in 1998. Despite much effort to change the writing on the stone, the family had the last word. One would have expected a more balanced account from a Harvard Law Professor.
Why did Feldman make all these omissions and obvious mischaracterizations? One may only surmise that bitterness was the root cause. It is sad to see such a defaming account from one whose dialectical skills are rooted in an Orthodox education. The question Orthodoxy must ask itself: How did we fail Noah Feldman?
