My Skype lecture in Gaza is postponed due to bombing

Marc H. Ellis on May 5, 2019

“..The organizers of my now-postponed lecture had asked me to focus on my writing during the Israeli invasion of Gaza in 2014, including my exchange with Max Blumenthal as he visited Gaza after the war. After I encountered Max’s reflections and photography of devastated Gaza, I sent an email expressing my concern for his safety and mental health. Viewing this devastation, let alone living within it, is harmful on every human level. I was heartened when I heard back from him, thanking me for my concern. Max asked a question that haunted him and haunts me today: What should he be thinking as he walked through the rubble of Gaza? My response: “Max, you are witnessing the end of ethical Jewish history.”

“…As bombs fall on Gaza, the ability to speak of Jewish particularity in a positive frame is becoming almost impossible. Like permanent occupation, my focus on Jewish particularity, especially the prophetic as the indigenous of Jewish life, is difficult to hear. Should I and other Jews of Conscience go silent?

Today I was to speak of Jewish life to the students in Gaza. Imagine this: A Jew from the United States speaking about the Jewish prophetic to Gazans being bombed by Israel.

The cognitive dissonance is too great to tolerate, let alone explain.

This is where we have arrived. As the bombs fall on Gaza – again.”