It must be one of the most fearful words in the dictionary and in the vocabulary of our souls. Hunger hurts, hunger drives us to desperation, hunger gnaws at our stomachs as much as at our souls. Even those privileged to live with sufficient food know what it is to be hangry.
Hunger and food deprivation feature in every culture’s language and literature, and looms large in our Jewish tradition and culture.
It’s in the Bible and its exhortation to open our hearts and hands to those suffering hunger. It’s in the prophets who remind us that it is one of the most debilitating conditions, it’s in the rabbis of the Talmud who poured out pages of lamentation and law to address the scourge of hunger.
And just in case we mistakenly believe hunger is only felt by the drastically needy, the Torah and Halacha (Jewish Law) demand that we fast as part of our Jewish lifestyle. As the Talmud says: before a person eats, they have two caring hearts, after they have eaten, they are left with one selfish heart.
For a religious Jew, one of the most popular psalms, repeated every day, the Ashrei (Psalm 145), reminds us that the eyes of all are turned towards God in hope “and You give them bread when they need it”. Our Jewish sages tell us that if a person asks for food, you need to respond immediately and unquestionably; if they ask for clothing or other help you have a responsibility to first investigate whether they are genuine in their need.
Hunger in wartime poses many moral questions. For centuries besieging cities and starving recalcitrant populations was seen as a legitimate act of warfare. As Jews, we experienced the sieges of Jerusalem by the Babylonians (in the sixth century BCE) and Romans (in the first century CE), leading up to the destruction of the First and Second Temples respectively.
Today, especially in the Western world, the idea of starving a civilian population is seen as morally reprehensible. Social media postings of ghastly pictures of malnourished children – often doctored, AI-generated, or given a misleading context – naturally tear at the very heart of every caring human being. And that is why we need to talk about hunger claims in Gaza, myths and facts about the Israeli aid blockade from March 3 until May 19, and the larger picture.
Given Jewish traditions regarding hunger, it is not surprising the blockade was controversial in Israel, notwithstanding that it was known that enough food for several months had been stockpiled in Gaza. Moreover, when the IDF advised the Israeli Cabinet that starvation was potentially imminent, it resumed the food aid – while introducing new procedures designed to keep it from Hamas – as we have witnessed over recent weeks.
We also know how hunger is weaponised by Hamas, a terrorist death cult, how it uses food aid to terrorise its own people and fund its military activities through its illegitimate sale. How it stole and stored huge amounts of food, and how it is now desperately and brutally trying to prevent others from taking over food distribution. Recent reports tell of Hamas deliberately sabotaging the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s (GHF) distribution of aid by gross intimidation, firing at civilians approaching the distribution hubs, and urging them to cause chaos at these points. Despite this, and even if Israel itself has been forced to fire at uncontrolled mobs to restore order, hundreds of thousands of packages designed to last a family for days have been successfully given out – more than 7 million meals in eight days.
And yet the BBC and CNN, and our ABC, persistently fail to fact check before running with the assumption and contention that the IDF is indiscriminately killing Gaza civilians trying to get food aid, while offering little if any mention of Hamas’ complicity.
We also know, too well, that reports of mass famine are so often exaggerated or politicised. This was certainly the case last year when repeated claims of imminent famine in Gaza by UN officials and other organisations dominated headlines, only to prove baseless. This year we had a senior UN official lie that “14,000 babies” would die within 48 hours without aid.
The Israeli Government’s controversial policies regarding aid fortunately appear to be working – Hamas is certainly desperate to stop the GFH food distribution and reports say it is in dire straits without the looted aid flows which had been its lifeline. Yet these policies have seen Israel’s reputation badly damaged.
Moreover, cold and callous voices coming from some extreme right Israeli political leaders – people who would casually tolerate indiscriminate mass starvation as a way of destroying Hamas – have worsened the reputational damage. It is a dark stain on Jewish morality when they use our very tradition of compassion and fighting hunger to justify deliberately causing starvation.
Even as Jews should distance ourselves from such ugly distortions of our traditions, we also need to shout out that Israel recognises engendering mass hunger in Gaza cannot be part of its just war against Hamas, as Jewish tradition specifies, and stress that when the threat of such hunger became real, Israel responded. We also need to speak out about how our enemies are so quick to distort the facts and our erstwhile friends are too fast to accept pro-Hamas fiction.
We must loudly and clearly condemn Hamas which both withholds and weaponises food distribution. We also need to remind our fellow Australians that Hamas can end this war they started and stop the hunger immediately. And we need the world, and even our own extremists, to know that we are a people – and Israel is a nation – guided by caring, compassion, and intimate knowledge of the horrors of hunger, and that Israel is also a country that needs to be guided by self-care and security.
We have recently celebrated the Festival of Shavuot which not only reminded us about the ancient connection of the Jews to the land of Israel, but also about the horror of famine. We read about the loaves of bread offered on the festival and we recited the Book of Ruth, about how Ruth the Moabite collected the gleanings left for the poor to feed herself and her Jewish mother-in-law in their hunger and need. We are a nation with a tradition of feeding and healing a fractured world.
At this challenging hour I am confident that the people of Israel will not only continue to open their hearts, but also to find secure ways of opening their hands to all those who are hungry and in need.
Wishing you a Shabbat Shalom and restful weekend ahead
Rabbi Ralph .
A Great Tumultuous Love Affair with a Land