A week ago we posted an important story (related by Felice Gelman) about two rabbis whose Op-Ed on Gaza was supposed to go online in an hour’s time at a major newspaper last Hanukah when the authors were presented with a lot of Israeli-tilted questions about the piece. And the piece never ran.

Readers, some rabbis are very brave! Rabbi Brant Rosen got in touch with us to say that the piece was his and Alissa Wise’s. And Wise agreed that we could use her name, too. Below, Rosen offers the piece, and then the newspaper’s edits! Maybe the editor in question will offer his or her story about the censorship next?

Alissa Wise and I were the rabbis in question.

For the record, here’s the article that never saw the light of day. Not seasonally appropriate any more, but hopefully still relevant.

The paper was the Washington Post (the online “On Faith” section). [The edits follow the piece] I rejected these edits and offered links to substantiate my original claims. Things got stalemated, and by this point Hanukah was over, so it never ran in the end.

Light a Candle for Gaza

By Rabbi Brant Rosen and Rabbi Alissa Wise On the morning of December 27, 2008, the sixth day of Hanukkah, Israel initiated a massive military assault against Gaza with “Operation Cast Lead.” The name of the operation was a reference to a popular Hanukkah song written by the venerated Israeli poet Chaim Nachman Bialik: “My teacher gave a dreidel to me/A dreidel of cast lead.” When Israel’s military actions ended on January 18, some 1,400 Palestinians had been killed. Among the dead were hundreds of unarmed civilians, including over 300 children. Personal testimonies from the Palestinians who lived through Cast Lead in Gaza indicate the profoundly tragic consequences of Israel’s military assault. Here is one such account – excerpted from Amnesty International’s 2009 Report, “Operation Cast Lead: 22 Days of Death and Destruction”: After Sabah’s house was shelled I ran over there. She was on fire and was holding her baby girl Shahed, who was completely burned. Her husband and some of the children were dead and others were burning. Ambulances could not come because the area was surrounded by the Israeli army… We drove toward the nearest hospital, Kamal ‘Adwan hospital…On the way to al-‘Atatrah Square we saw Israeli soldiers and stopped, and suddenly, the soldiers shot at us. My son Matar and Muhammad-Hikmat were killed. This Hanukkah, how will we Jews choose to commemorate a legacy such as this? Many of us will invariably retreat behind a veil of defensiveness, claiming Israel’s action was an appropriate, commensurate response to the threat posed by Hamas. Some of us might be troubled, but choose to look away from the hard and painful reality of this bloodshed. Still others may simply allow Gaza to become subsumed by the sheer volume of world crises that seem to call out for our attention. This Hanukkah, however, we are asking the Jewish community to light a candle for Gaza. After all, this is the season in which we rededicate our determination to create light amidst the darkness. And quite frankly, the time is long overdue for the American Jewish community to shine a light on the dark truth of “Operation Cast Lead.” Indeed, we have been deeply complicit in keeping this truth away from the light of day. Two years later, Israel still refuses to conduct a credible, transparent and independent investigation of its actions in Gaza. The sole attempt at such a proper investigation, the Goldstone Report, was successfully blackballed and eventually quashed under a campaign spearheaded by the Israeli and the US governments – and largely supported by the American Jewish establishment. This Hanukkah, we would also do well to shine a light on the larger context of the reality in Gaza. We cannot forget that Israel’s military assault occurred in the midst of a crushing blockade that Israel has imposed upon Gaza since January 2006. As a result of this collective punishment: – 80% of the Gazan population is dependent on international aid. – 61% of the population is food insecure. – The unemployment rate is approximately 39%, one of the highest in the world. – Power outages usually last 4-6 hours a day and often longer. – 60% of the population receives running water only once every 4 or 5 days, for 6-8 hours. – 50 to 80 million liters of untreated or partially treated sewage are released into the sea every day. – Approximately 90% of water supplied to Gaza residents is not suitable for drinking and is contaminated with salt and nitrates. – 78% of homes with major damages from Operation Cast Lead have not been rebuilt. (Source: Amnesty International USA Web Log, 11/29/10)

link to blog.amnestyusa.org Despite Israel’s claims to the contrary, its blockade remains very much in force. According to highly detailed research conducted by the Israeli NGO Gisha, Israel consistently lets through less than half of the required truckloads of essential goods mandated by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Just weeks ago, European Union foreign policy chief Lady Catherine Ashton, speaking on behalf of all EU foreign ministers commented, “At the present time, we think that what’s happened with Gaza is unsatisfactory, the volume of goods is not increasing as significantly as it needs to.” The most tangible way we can light a candle for Gaza is to support those who refuse to allow this crisis to remain the darkness. The most courageous example: the movement of civilian flotillas that seek to break the blockade with symbolic humanitarian cargo. The most recent flotilla tragically gained international attention last May when the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara was seized by Israeli commandos in a raid that left eight unarmed Turkish citizens and one Turkish-American citizen dead. (A recent report on the assault by a UN fact-finding mission said Israeli soldiers used “lethal force” in a “widespread and arbitrary manner, which caused an unnecessarily large number of persons to be killed or seriously injured,” and “carried out extralegal, arbitrary and summary executions prohibited by international human rights law.”) Despite this tragedy (or perhaps because of it), the flotilla movement is growing steadily. Here in the US, a group of peace activists is seeking to add the first American boat, “The Audacity of Hope,” which they intend to launch next spring as part of an international flotilla from over a dozen European, Asian and North American countries. The US Boat to Gaza organizing statement asserts: “The Audacity of Hope” will be a passenger ship with approximately 40-60 Americans on board including a 4-5 member crew and a small number of press and media professionals. We will not carry more than symbolic cargo: just as the students who sat in at Woolworth counters in the 1960s were not doing so because they wanted lunch, our voyage will be an act of civil disobedience and non-violent challenge to an illegal blockade rather than a mission to import humanitarian cargo. By the same token, one of our objectives will be to transport two Gazan graduate students who have been invited to visit and speak at a US university, but who have been prevented from leaving Gaza by the Israeli and Egyptian governments. Additionally, we plan to bring out Gazan products, which “Stand for Justice” is purchasing from a Gazan company. For those who seek justice in Gaza, the courageous activists who are willing to put their own bodies on the line are immensely deserving of our support. On Hanukkah, the festival that enshrines the ongoing human struggle for freedom, the season that seeks to shed light on the dark places of our world, it is time for us to stand in solidarity with all who are oppressed. It is time for us to light a candle for Gaza.

Now here are the edits that Rabbi Rosen says he was asked for: