May God Give Strength to His Nation.
Cherished friends:
The sights and sounds of Israeli cities under unrelenting rocket attack are wrenching and painful and frightening. This is one of those moments when we each feel that visceral connection to Israel, as our hearts are burdened and anxious, and suddenly so many of our ordinary concerns seem to matter not at all. For all of us, for all of Am Yisrael, this is personal.
I had a brief conversation with our son Adin earlier in the week, as he and his wife were sheltering in the stairwell of their building, awaiting the person who had the key to the bomb shelter below. This is where our people, our nation, is right now. 
We are grateful to the men and women of Tzahal who are working to degrade Hamas and PIJ’s ability to indiscriminately attack Israelis, and to those who are operating the Iron Dome system. (I have just now seen that ground troops have entered Gaza as well. May God protect them.) May Tzahal be blessed with success in their missions, including in their mission to minimize civilian casualties. May God continue to grant them, and to all of Israel’s citizens, strength under fire. May God bring healing to the wounded, and consolation to the families who are bereaved.
 
As American Jews, this is a time to express our solidarity and support. It is an emergency. Among the things to do now are:
  1. Participate in the effort launched by AIPAC to express our support of Israel to our members of Congress.
  2. Contribute financially to organizations aiding the communities most in need right now. Three such agencies that BDJ has partnered with before are Magen David Adom , LEKET and the JNF’s campaign to support the communities of the Gaza Envelope. 
 
And, May God Give Wisdom to His Nation.
The crisis, as we know, has two prongs. It may well be that the ultimately more significant challenge is not the one emanating from Gaza. It is a challenge that cannot be addressed through strength alone. Even as we wish strength to the police and security forces who have been charged with the formidable and dangerous task of controlling the violent riots that are tearing Israeli cities apart, we know that fully confronting this challenge will require God’s blessing of Wisdom. As one of Israel’s most respected Anglo journalists David Horovitz wrote today, while proximate causes for the riots can be identified, the root causes are deep, complex, and explosive. I recommend your reading the entire article, difficult though it will be to absorb it. Below, I have pasted in two of the paragraphs that particularly struck me. They are disturbing and unsettling. But I submit that as Jews and Zionists who love Israel with all our hearts, and who are desperately concerned with her future, we cannot avert our gaze.  May God grant Wisdom to His nation.
 
Even as we are experiencing the very worst kind of emotional déjà vu, we must rouse ourselves to support, pray, and hope. Am Yisrael Chai.
 
With an aching and prayerful heart,
Rav Yosef
 
 From Horovitz: 
The explosion of Arab violence against Jews is, among other factors, a consequence of decades of government neglect in much of the Arab community. Crime has long run wild. Poverty, alienation from the state, a pervading sense of discrimination — all this and more constitute fertile ground for extremism, hatred, and violence. And that’s without factoring in identification with the Palestinian cause.
 
The explosion of Jewish violence against Arabs is, among other factors, a consequence of an emboldening of the extremists and racists that are present on the margins of all societies, and that thrive when they internalize a political climate moving in their favor, and a law enforcement establishment unable to cope.