Alice Walker will be the Yom Kippur day speaker at a San Francisco High Holiday service run by Rabbi Michael Lerner.
Known for his far-left views on Israel, Lerner lurches completely off the charts by assigning a Yom Kippur sermon to Walker, who offers up a defense of terrorism against Israelis in the latest issue of Lerner’s magazine, Tikkun.
In her Tikkun essay, "Overcoming Speechlessness: A Poet Encounters ‘the Horror’ in Rwanda, Eastern Congo, and Palestine/Israel,” Walker calls suicide bombings “last-ditch resistance," and says it’s dishonest to engage in “blaming the oppressed for using their bodies where the Israeli army uses armored tanks."
She also is under the mistaken impression that the Palestinians are descendants of the ancient Philistines and that Rachel Corrie was Jewish and was killed by a tank (neither are true).
Here are a few more gems from Walker’s essay:
- She writes that women in Gaza wear headscarves (the hijab) because, “in desert countries, most of one’s hydration is lost at the back of the neck, which can quickly lead to heat stroke, so a headscarf that wraps around the neck is essential to block this loss.” While she does acknowledge that there is an “uglier side of the headscarf business,” there is no mention of how the Islamic regime in Gaza, Hamas, announced last month that it would expel any female student in Gaza who failed to wear a long coat, religious robe and headscarf while in school.
- She writes of her experience in the U.S. South during segregation: “These whites who tormented us daily were like Israelis who have cut down millions of trees planted by Arab Palestinians and stolen Palestinian water, even topsoil. They have bulldozed innumerable villages, houses, and mosques, and in their place built settlements for strangers who have no connection whatsoever with Palestine.”
Even for Lerner, this hardly seems like Yom Kippur sermon material.
Help ensure Jewish news remains accessible to all. Your donation to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency powers the trusted journalism that has connected Jewish communities worldwide for more than 100 years. With your help, JTA can continue to deliver vital news and insights. Donate today.
