Yosef Blau, author of Orthodox rabbis’ letter calling out Israel, responds to critics - interview- JPOST

Rabbi Yosef Blau urges moral clarity in Israel’s response to Gaza, advocating for responsibility in addressing hunger and violence, despite critics within Orthodox circles.

By ANDREW SILOW-CARROLL/JTA

AUGUST 28, 2025 22:55

For 48 years, until he moved to Israel earlier this year, Rabbi Yosef Blau was the “mashgiach ruchani” at Yeshiva University, a revered figure who served as a sort of spiritual guidance counselor to students at Modern Orthodoxy’s flagship seminary. 

In that role, he said this week in an interview, his job was to be “available to help students on issues that bother them, rather than issues that bother me.”

Earlier this month, he told the world what was bothering him, and the world took notice. Blau, 86, is the author of “A Call for Moral Clarity, Responsibility, and a Jewish Orthodox Response in the Face of the Gaza Humanitarian Crisis,” an open letter signed by 80 Orthodox rabbis. The letter forthrightly condemned Hamas, but took the Israeli government to task for its halting response to what most of the world sees as a hunger crisis in Gaza.

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 http://www.toratchayimrabbis.org/gazahumanitariancrisis.html

(This statement was authored by Rabbi Yosef Blau and signed by many Torat Chayim rabbinic members although he is not a member and some of the others below are also not members)
​
​The humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza is one of the most severe in recent history. While it began with the horrific terrorist attack by Hamas on Israel on October 7, 2023—a brutal act that justifiably demanded a strong military response and demand for the release of the hostages—this does not absolve Israel’s government from assuming its share of the responsibility for the profound suffering of Gaza’s civilian population.

Hamas’s actions have repeatedly shown a cynical disregard for the lives of the people it claims to represent, using civilians as human shields and rejecting ceasefire proposals. However, Israel’s prolonged military campaign, now approaching two years, has devastated Gaza. The death toll is rising with very significant losses of lives, and Israel’s limiting of humanitarian aid, at times completely halting the entry of food and medical supplies, has raised the specter of coming starvation. We affirm that Hamas's sins and crimes do not relieve the government of Israel of its obligations to make whatever efforts are necessary to prevent mass starvation.

There have been months when Israel blocked humanitarian convoys on the mistaken premise that increased suffering would bring about Hamas’s surrender. Instead, the result has been the deepening of despair. The justified anger toward Hamas has dangerously expanded by some extremists into blanket suspicion of the entire population of Gaza—children included—tarnished as future terrorists. Meanwhile, in Yehuda and Shomron (the West Bank), extremist settler violence has resulted in the murder of civilians and has forced Palestinian villagers from their homes, further destabilizing the region.

Amid this devastation, the absence of a clear post-war vision from Prime Minister Netanyahu has allowed the most extreme voices in the Israeli government—including ministers from the religious Zionist community—to fill the vacuum with disturbing proposals. These include the forced “voluntary” exile of Palestinians from Gaza and the sacrifice of remaining Israeli hostages in the pursuit of an elusive “total victory.”

This moment demands a different voice—one grounded in our deepest Jewish values and informed by our traumatic history of being victims of persecution. 
Orthodox Jewry, as some of Israel’s most devoted supporters, bears a unique moral responsibility. We must affirm that Judaism’s vision of justice and compassion extends to all human beings. Our tradition teaches that every person is created b’tzelem Elokim—in the Divine image. We are the spiritual descendants of Avraham, chosen to walk in the path of Hashem, “to do righteousness and justice” (Bereshit 18:19). Allowing an entire people to starve stands in stark contrast to this teaching.

As we reflect on Tisha B’Av, the words of our prophets ring with renewed urgency. The Haftorah of Shabbat Chazon reminds us: “Zion shall be redeemed through justice, and those who return to her through righteousness” (Yeshayahu 1:27). And on the morning of Tisha B’Av, the voice of Yirmiyahu echoes through our prayers: “Let not the wise glory in their wisdom...but in this: that they understand and know Me, that I am the Lord who practices kindness, justice, and righteousness on the earth—for in these I delight” (Yirmiyahu 9:23).

These are not just poetic phrases. They are the foundations of our ethical obligation—to demand policies that uphold human dignity, to provide humanitarian aid wherever possible, and to speak out when our government’s actions contradict the Torah’s moral imperatives, no matter how painful this may be to accept.

The future of Israel depends not only on its military strength but on its moral clarity. Let us be resounding voices for justice, righteousness, and peace for all people—even and especially in the hardest of times.
 
List of signatories

Rabbi Yosef Blau
Rabbi David Bigman
Chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich
Chief Rabbi Michael Melchior 
Chief Rabbi Jair Melchior
Rabbi Joav Melchior
Chief Rabbi David Rosen (former CR)
Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz
Rabbi Dr. Yitz Greenberg
Rabbi Hyim Shafner
Rabbi Daniel Landes 
Rabbi Herzl Hefter
Rabbi Shua Mermelstein 
Rabbi Yoni Zolty
Rabbanit Mindy Schwartz Zolty
Rabbi Frederick L Klein 
Rabbi Yosef Kanefsky
Rabbi Dr. Jeremiah Unterman
Rabbi Barry Dolinger
Rabbi David Silber
Rabbi Yonatan Neril
Rabbi Ysoscher Katz
Rabbi Isaac Landes
Rabbi David Polsky 
Rabbi Baruch Plotkin 
Rabbi Mikey Stein
Rabbi Elliot Kaplowitz
Rabbi Ariel Goldberg
Rabbi Ben Birkeland 
Rabbi Ralph Genende
Rabbi David Glicksman 
Rabbi Dr. Donniel Hartman
Rabbi Dr. Martin Lockshin 
Rabbi Dr. Pinchas Giller
Rabbi Avidan Freedman
Rabbi Daniel Raphael Silverstein
Rabbi Dr. Shalom Schlagman
Rabbi Dr. Daniel Ross Goodman
Rabbi Aaron Levy
Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller
Rabbi Dr. Mel Gottlieb
Rabbi Dr. Joshua Feigelson 
Rabbi Jonah Winer 
Rabbi Dr. Michael Chernick
Rabbi Dr. Eugene Korn
Rabbi Hanan Schlesinger 
Rabbi Elhanan Miller 
Rabbi Joel Hecker 
Rabbi Michael Gordan
R. Sofia Freudenstein
Rabbi David Levin-Kruss
Rabbanit Myriam Ackermann-Sommer
Rabbanit Ramie Smith
R. Shayna Abramson
Rabbi Zachary Truboff
Rabbi David A. Schwartz
Rabbi David Jaffe
Rabbi Steve Greenberg
Rabbi Gabriel Kretzmer Seed
Rabbanit Rachel Keren
Rabbi Benyamin Vineburg
Rabba Dr. Lindsey Taylor-Guthartz
Rabbanit Leah Sarna
Rabbi Dr. Wendy Zierler
Rabbanit Sarah Segal-Katz
Rabbi Shimon Brand
Rabba Melissa Scholten-Gutierrez
R. Emily Goldberg Winer
R. Dr. Erin Leib Smokler
Rabba Adina Roth
R. Dr. Meesh Hammer-Kossoy 
Rabbi Drew Kaplan 
Rabbi Dina Najman
Rabbi Emile Ackermann 
Rabbi Daniel Geretz
Rabbanit Tali Schaum Broder 
Rabbi Max Davis
Rabbi Tyson Herberger
Rabba Aliza Libman Baronofsky
Rabbi Professor Samuel Lebens
​Rabbi David Kalb
Rabbi Asher Shanabrook
Rabbi Dr.  Alon Goshen-Gottstein
​Rabba Amalia Haas
​Rabbi Michael Ascoli
​Rabbi Ezra Klein

Others:

 

ROME - David Grossman, one of Israel's most prominent authors, told Italian daily La Repubblica he has decided to start using the word "genocide" to describe the situation in Gaza.

"For years, I refused to use the word 'genocide.' But now I can't hold back from using it, after what I've read in the newspapers, after the images I've seen and after talking to people who have been there", he said in the interview published in the paper's print edition on Friday.

Grossman said coming to the realization that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza was an extremely painful process on a personal level, but that he now found such conclusion inescapable.

"I want to speak as a person who has done everything he could to avoid having to call Israel a genocidal state. And now, with immense pain and a broken heart, I have to say that it is happening before my eyes. Genocide," he said.

In mid-July, an opinion piece titled "I'm a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It" in the New York Times by Professor Omer Bartov, an Israeli professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University, made the case for the use of the word genocide.

“When I entered Gaza the Israeli military had a rule: I was only allowed to bring in three kilos of food. As I was weighing out protein bars, trying to get under the limit, I said to my husband: ‘How sinister is this?’ I’m a humanitarian aid worker. Why would there even be a limit on food? I’ve worked in many places with extreme hunger, but what’s so jarring in this context is how cruel it is, how deliberate. I was in Gaza for two months; there’s no way to describe the horror of what’s happening. And I say this as a pediatric ICU doctor who sees children die as part of my work. Among our own staff we have doctors and nurses who are trying to treat patients while hungry, exhausted. They’re living in tents. Some of them have lost fifteen, twenty members of their families. In the hospital there are kids maimed by airstrikes: missing arms, missing legs, third degree burns. Often there’s not enough pain medication. But the children are not screaming about the pain, they’re screaming: ‘I’m hungry! I’m hungry!” I hate to only focus on the kids, because nobody should be starving. But the kids, it just haunts you in a different way. When my two months were finished, I didn’t want to leave. It’s a feeling I haven’t experienced in nearly twenty years of humanitarian assignments. But I felt ashamed. Ashamed to leave my Palestinian colleagues, who were some of the most beautiful and compassionate people that I’ve ever met. I was ashamed as an American, as a human being, that we’ve been unable to stop something that is so clearly a genocide. I remember when our bus pulled out of the buffer zone. Out the window on one side I could see Rafah, which was nothing but rubble. On the other side was lush, green Israel. When we exited the gate, the first thing I saw was a group of Israeli soldiers, sitting at a table, eating lunch. I’ve never felt so nauseous seeing a table full of food.”

Aqsa Durrani is a pediatric doctor and board member of Doctors Without Borders USA, with nearly twenty years of experience in humanitarian projects 

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Lt. Colonel Tony Aguilar on the food relief sham:

More:

Talking to Tucker:

 

Professor Mearsheimer on the Israelis in Gaza:

IDF soldiers mocking orphans:

Jewish podcasters talking about response of average Israeli to Gaza:

Soldier desiring to kill everyone because "they all are Hamas"

But there are Jews with a conscience:

Former PM:

Former dep. head of Mossad

Haaretz:

Across the entire Gaza Strip, an estimated 70 percent of all buildings have been completely destroyed or damaged to the point where they are no longer habitable. This is in addition to the vast majority of public buildings, roads and infrastructure. The United Nations estimates that all the rubble in Gaza amounts to about 50 million tons, or 137 kilograms per square meter. Removing it will take at least 21 years, it predicts.

“Compassion is the feeling of sympathy which the pain of one being awakens in another; and the higher and more human the beings are, the more keenly attuned they are to re-echo the note of suffering, which, like a voice from heaven, penetrates the heart, bringing all creatures a proof of their kinship in the universal God. And as for man, whose function it is to show respect and love for God's universe and all its creatures, his heart has been created so tender that it feels with the whole organic world bestowing sympathy even on beings devoid of feeling, mourning even for fading flowers; so that, if nothing else, the very nature of his heart must teach him that he is required above everything to feel himself the brother of all beings, and to recognize the claim of all beings to his love and his beneficence.” R' Samson R. Hirsch, Horeb,125

Rav Schwab's letter in defense of secular studies and the Hirschian approach

 https://jewishlink.news/torah-and-derech-eretz-the-frankfort-approach

In response to your letter: I received the issue of ha-Ma’ayan (Tishrei 5724 [1963]) upon publication and read R, Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler’s (of blessed memory) essay. It was reissued in his Mikhtav me-Eliyahu, volume 3, which just appeared in print.

Who am I to render an opinion regarding a matter about which greater and better rabbinic scholars have yet to reach an agreement? The rabbis of the previous generation, indeed the ancestors of Rabbi Dressler who were the founders of the Musar movement, R. Israel Salanter (d.1883) and his disciple R. Simcha Zissel (Brioda, d. 1870) addressed this issue. I have heard that their view on these matters came very close to that of R. Samson Raphael Hirsch, but that they were outnumbered and opposed by the majority of (East European) rabbis at the time. It seems to me that this was always the case historically. The majority of the rabbis refused to engage in secular study, lest they be ensnared by it. On the other hand, in every generation a minority of Torah sages engaged in secular study, sensing it as a handmaiden to serve the cause of Torah. That minority pursued its own path and sanctified God’s name throughout the universe, as is well known. R. Moses Isserles (d. 1572) already wrote in a responsum to R. Solomon Luria (d. 1574) that it was an ancient debate between the sages (see She’elot u-Teshuvot R. Moses Isserles 6 and 7 cf: [R. Abba Mari b. Moses Astruc of Lunel d. 1300)] Minhat Qena’ot.)

Who knows! It may well be that both approaches “Torah and Derekh Eretz” and “Torah Only” are true, both reflecting the essence of Torah. What is crucial is that ones’s intent be for the sake of Heaven, always according the Torah primary status, and making secular study secondary. No rabbinic court ever banned secular study. Indeed, the Torah scholars of the various generations never ruled officially in favor of the one approach after the other. Everyone is free to select whichever approach finds favor in his eyes. Let him consult his teachers and follow in the footsteps of his forefathers. The advocates of one approach must respect the advocates of the other approach. They may not cast aspersions on the approach they reject. To the contrary, they must provide support for each other. In particular one must be very wary of repudiating the view of the opposing approach, without first mastering the fundamentals of the approach being criticized.

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R. David Friedman of Karlin: The Ban on Secular Study in Jerusalem

 

Rabbi David Friedman of Karlin (1823–1917), born in Poland, was a leading posek.

 

The Babylonian Talmud nowhere prohibits a father from teaching his son the vernacular. To the contrary, it would appear that it is obligatory for a father to teach his son the vernacular, just as it is obligatory for him to teach his son a trade. Similarly, we find that Rabbi Judah the Prince said: "Why use Syriac in the land of Israel, either Hebrew or Greek should be employed?“ So too R. Jose said: “Why use Aramaic in Babylonia, either Hebrew or Persian should be employed?” Clearly, it is obligatory to master the vernacular. Indeed, the Jerusalem Talmud states: “Therefore choose life (Dt. 30:19)--this refers to learning a trade.” The one passage in the Jerusalem Talmud that prohibits a father from teaching his son Greek refers to a specific period in the past when Jewish informers collaborated with the Greco-Roman authorities. The latter had banned the observance of the commandments; thus, they could only be observed underground. Jewish informers—consisting of heretics and disciples of Jesus—informed on those Jews who secretly observed the commandments. The rabbis therefore prohibited a father from teaching his son the vernacular, lest the son communicate with the governmental authorities. Indeed, the rabbis warned: “Seek not intimacy with governmental authorities.” The ban was issued against teaching young children who in their innocence could reveal damaging information to the governmental authorities. Thus, the ban was against teaching children the vernacular, and not against individual study of the vernacular. In our day, we have nothing to hide from the governmental authorities and nothing to fear. We participate with Gentiles in all our business affairs. Every child, as he matures, will have to master the vernacular in order to make a living. Thus, in our day there isn’t the slightest prohibition against teaching children the vernacular, mathematics, and whatever other scholarly disciplines they need to master in order to succeed in business and in life. The only constraint is that these studies be pursued under the guidance of God-fearing teachers who will know how much time to devote to such study, at what age, and at what level. in general, one needs to distinguish between different types of students. For some, Torah study will be primary and secular or professional study will be secondary; for others, secular or professional study will be primary and Torah study secondary. In this manner, they will fulfill the rabbinic teaching alluded to above: Therefore choose life (Dt. 30:19)—this refers to learning a trade.

In the light of the above, it is clear that the ban issued in Jerusalem was not valid. The Jerusalem ban was issued without constraints or qualifications. The study of all foreign languages was banned, even the vernacular. Moreover, the ban was issued for all time, to be applied to future settlers in Jerusalem. Regarding this last point, those who issued the ban had no authority to do so, without first receiving the approval of the majority of the diaspora Jewish community. All Jews in the diaspora aspire to settle on Jerusalem, all laws in the diaspora pray facing Jerusalem, and all Jews in the diaspora are regarded as residents of Jerusalem. It was inappropriate for one group of Jews to issue a ban that the rest of Jewry finds intolerable. Indeed, the ban discourages Jews from settling in the land of Israel and is, in effect, an enactment designed to prevent Jews from fulfilling a mitzvah. Indigent Jews in the land of Israel will be forced to seek employment outside the land of Israel. Worse yet, they will be forced to settle in distant lands, such as America and Australia, where they will assimilate and ultimately become extinct.

Now those East European rabbis in the diaspora who banned the study of languages and secular study, never issued a blanket ban, to be applied under any and all circumstances. They kept secular study at a distance so long as circumstances warranted it. Even in this guarded approach, they were not successful, for many students could not cope with the ban and were led astray when exposed clandestinely to secular study. Far more successful were the West European rabbis, leaders of the Orthodox Jewish community, who were zealots for the Lord and His Torah. They established educational institutions that provided Torah study on the one hand, and secular study on the other. Nonetheless, as indicated, the East European rabbis never issued an unrestricted ban against secular study. Moved by the Divine spirit, they understood that at certain times and under certain circumstances the majority of Jews would find it necessary to combine Torah study with secular study. Indeed, even those who would ordinarily engage in Torah study alone will have to engage in secular study. Some will be forced by circumstances to engage extensively in secular study. God, however, will come to their aid so that they will not forget their Torah study or abandon the commandments. “Let the clusters pray for the leaves, for if not for the leaves, the clusters would not exist.”

In sum, in my opinion the Jerusalem ban does not apply at all to Jews from the diaspora who choose to settle in Jerusalem [after the ban was issued]. The rabbis in Jerusalem had no authority to issue a ban that affects the majority of diaspora Jewry, in effect preventing Jews from settling in Jerusalem. Indeed, it is incumbent upon those who issued the ban to rescind it. For in these times when there are not sufficient funds to support the Ashkenazi community in Jerusalem, it is essential that Jews work for a living… I would advise that they rescind their unrestricted ban. Instead, let them institute rules and regulations governing the appropriate requirements and age for, and type and amount of, secular study. Torah scholars should be appointed to oversee the implementation of the rules and regulations. All this should be done calmly, without bans, for “words spoken softly by the sages are heeded” (Koh. 9:17). So shall peace be restored among the Jewish people.[1]

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[1] “R. David Friedman of Karlin: The Ban on Secular Study in Jerusalem,” Tradition, 26:4, 1992. Translated by Rabbi Dr. Shnayer Z. Leiman. This is a response to an inquiry from R. Yehiel Michal Pines (1849–1913), brother-in-law of R. Friedman, after R’ Pines was excommunicated for establishing an orphanage whose curriculum included secular studies. It is found in the book Emek Bracha (1881). Rabbi David Friedman of Karlin (1823–1917), born in Poland, was a leading posek. His two volume She’elos u-Teshuvos She’elas David and two volume Piskei Halahkos remain important halachic works.

inciting the public against the chareidim

 

הרב דב לנדאו הזכיר כמה נורא זה שאנשים עם כיפות סרוגות מסיתים את הציבור נגד החרדים בקריאתם לגייס בחורים ואברכים לישיבה. הרב שטרנבוך השיב שככל שנדבר איתם פחות, כך זה בריא יותר. בנו של הרב שטרנבוך נזכר שכאשר הרב שטרנבוך היה ילד בלונדון, בנים יהודים למדו או בבית ספר לא יהודי או בבית ספר יהודי שנוהל על ידי המזרחי. הרב אלחנן וסרמן פסק שבנים יהודים צריכים להעדיף ללמוד בבית ספר לא יהודי. (הרב לנדאו התפעל מפסיקה זו).

Rav Dov Landau mentioned how terrible it was that people with knitted yarmulkas were inciting the public against the chareidim with their call to recruit yeshiva bochurim and avrechim.

Rav Sternbuch responded that the less we talk to them, the healthier it is. Rav Sternbuch’s son recalled that when Rav Sternbuch was a boy in London, Jewish boys attended either a non-Jewish school or a Jewish school run by the Mizrachi (“religious Zionists”). Rav Elchonon Wasserman ruled that Jewish boys should rather attend the non-Jewish school. (Rav Landau marveled at this ruling).

Judge Caprio, may he rest in peace