A Piano Should Fall on His Head

I know some might think it a wee bit inappropriate to suggest that a piano fall on the head of Rabbi Moshe Sternbuch, the head of Israel’s extremist (and historically anti-Zionist) Eda Haredit rabbinic court, especially as missiles are being launched at Israel by Hezbollah guerillas in southern Lebanon. However, I cannot attempt to hide my contempt for a man so consumed by bigotry and dogmatic zeal that he blames those same missiles on Israel’s GLBT community.

In Fred Phelps’ fashion, Sternbuch has declared that Hezbollah’s assault on northern Israel is the result of G-d’s anger at Israel for playing host to the upcoming WorldPride, which is scheduled to take place in Jerusalem this coming August. “We have not protested enough against this parade of abomination and therefore we have received this warning,” he warned in a hand-written message to his followers. “Who knows where things will get to if we do not act further and more stringently against it.”

Notwithstanding the rhetoric of Sternbuch and the opposition of conservative Israeli politicians, Jerusalem’s mayor, and many religious leaders (this is one area where Jews, Muslims, and Christians seem to put aside their differences), the controversial event will proceed as planned, minus the parade, which has been postponed. In a recent press release, the Jerusalem Open House stated:

“As a result of the current hostilities in the region, the Jerusalem WorldPride march will be postponed. The march, that was scheduled to take place on August 10 in Jerusalem, requires extensive security, including police reinforcements from other parts of the country, which the police are unable to provide for at these volatile times. Therefore, Jerusalem Open House will hold the march at a later date, as soon as the circumstances in the region allow for the march to take place.”

In Sternbuch’s warped vision of the world, acceptance of GLBT people brings on God’s wrath. Not only does his Bible teach him that homosexual acts are an abomination, but his Scriptures are chock full of episodes in which G-d punished Israel for her wickedness by sending in the armies of neighboring superpowers like Babylon and Persia. In a way, one can hardly blame him. He sees the world as he has been taught to see it. One cannot condemn Sternbuch without also condemning his particular religious tradition as backward, divisive, full of hate, and utterly lacking in humanity.

One cannot regard Sternbuch as an isolated villain or zealot. The problem isn’t one rabbi who views Hezbollah missiles as G-d’s punishment of Israel for allowing WorldPride. The real problem is a religious fundamentalism (of any variety) that divides the world neatly into saints and sinners.

Of course, in a free society religious extremists like Sternbuch are free to express their views, however disagreeable they might be. Such is the high price of freedom of expression. At the same time, fundamentalists must never, ever be allowed to interfere with the rights of those they deem sinners. This is no less true for America than for Israel.

It is very easy to scapegoat GLBT people by pointing to Israel’s moral decline and divine wrath as the cause of the current crisis between Israel and Hezbollah, while ignoring the thousands of displaced Palestinians whose claims to the land and whose grievances are afforded no legitimacy whatsoever. That is not meant to suggest that the Israelis don’t also have a legitimate claim to the land. The problem is that each side tries to defend its claim in a way that invalidates the other’s claim. That alone is why missiles are falling in northern Israel. It’s certainly not because of WorldPride.