Borders, Violence and Values
What follows is Shabbat evening sermon following the killing of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis and the return of the last hostage Ran Gvili’s body from Gaza.
This week I am thinking about two people whose fate may shape the destiny of nations. One is Ran Gvili and the other is Alex Pretti.
This past Saturday Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA Hospital, was killed by ICE officers while protesting their immigration enforcement operations. And on Tuesday, Ran Gvili’s body was returned to Israel after being held captive for 843 days. I am wondering. Will their deaths lead our nations to change course? And will these coming days, and weeks, serve as opportunities for our countries to look within?
Let us first look at the events in Minneapolis. For the past several months the administration has increased its immigration enforcement, sending heavily armed ICE agents to Los Angeles, Chicago and now Minneapolis. In our own New York area these operations have also increased. From the CVS only a few miles from my home, and where day laborers often congregate, twenty-five people have been deported. One woman was arrested from there and deported, leaving her three young children to fend for themselves. The youngest is two years old. Two young boys, ages nineteen and twenty, were arrested at their scheduled immigration check in and then deported to El Salvador in shackles. They grew up here and have lived in this country since they were ten and eleven. They are alone now in a country that is unfamiliar to them. They have no criminal records and were in fact obeying the law. That is why they went to their check in hearing. One of the boys missed his high school graduation this past Spring. Such stories are far too numerous.
We are a nation of immigrants. My family immigrated here. All of our families immigrated here at one time or another. I doubt every one of my grandparents and great grandparents who left Czarist Russia escaping from antisemitic pogroms had their paperwork in order or even if all of them had any paperwork. We like to think otherwise. We like to believe we followed the immigration laws and people today are not. But that was probably not always the case. My family was running away from terrible evils just like these young boys and their families were fleeing from gang violence.
Although one might believe that a nation of immigrants should be in open to everyone and anyone, and that its gates be wide enough to allow millions and millions entry, this is an impossible dream. It is unrealistic. There must be limits and laws to police a nation’s gates. There must be an immigration bureaucracy. And bureaucracies by their very nature are impersonal and make mistakes. They can sometimes be inhumane.
But we can do much better than we are currently doing. We are a nation of laws. These laws are rendered meaningless unless they protect the weakest and even the stateless. And whether we agree with protestors or not, these democratic laws must also protect the whistleblowing, iPhone filming protestors, who interfere with ICE operations and who even spit and curse at officers or attempt to drive away. Protestors must not be killed. They must not be shot in the back. And they certainly should not be blamed for their own deaths. Immigration enforcement should not look or feel like a military operation. It’s never going to be perfect but certainly should not look like this.
This country is made great by its promise. It is supposed to welcome “your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” Those words penned by Emma Lazarus and etched on the Statue of Liberty represent what is best about this nation. We always sought to open our doors to those fleeing and seeking to better their lives. I am grateful for the welcome this country offered my ancestors.
We are commanded to love God and love the neighbor. Again, and again the Torah repeats, “Love the stranger.” The Book of Exodus commands, “You shall not oppress a stranger for you know the feelings of the stranger, having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt.” (Exodus 23) We know what it feels like. Our history and our tradition demand that we do better by constantly reminding us that we understand what oppression feels like. We know what being called unwelcome is like.
Immigration enforcement should not look like we are defending our borders against hostile enemies. We should very much start worrying when our leaders speak as if those enemies are within and when the borders that define our nation move from the periphery to the interior. This is why ordinary people in Minneapolis are rising up against these ICE operations. They refuse to see their neighbors as their enemies.
Yes, nations are defined by borders. They form the outlines of a state. But it is a dangerous thing, and even a deadly thing, when they are drawn within. Defending these external borders, and policing them, is what nations and their soldiers are expected to do.
On October 7, 2023, Ran Gvili, a member of an elite Israeli police unit was home awaiting surgery for a broken shoulder. When he heard what was happening on the morning of October 7th he put on his uniform and drove to Kibbutz Alumim, a fifty-minute drive from his home. He battled with Hamas terrorists for hours until he was killed. His body was then captured and taken to Gaza where it remained until Tuesday when it was brought back to Israel by the IDF. The operation to retrieve his body involved 700 soldiers, many of whom volunteered for this mission, including some who were on their fifth deployment and others who were injured in battle but nonetheless asked to participate.
Master Sergeant Gvili was the last of the 251 hostages to return home. The clock counting the days, hours and minutes from that harrowing moment of October 7th displayed in Tel Aviv’s Hostage Square stopped counting at 843 days, 12 hours, 6 minutes. I, along with many of my colleagues and friends, took off our yellow ribbons and pins. Rachel and Jon Goldberg-Polin, and millions of others, took off the masking tape marking the days. Our people let out a collective breath of relief. And then we started wondering, can we begin to find closure?
Gvili’s funeral was attended by thousands. Through sobs and tears, his sister Shira spoke and said, “The forest isn’t the same forest, nice clothes don’t feel the same and schnitzel will never taste the same. All the laughter is gone, and I’m left with only memories, and every motorcycle [Ran loved and collected motorcycles] I see takes me back. And sometimes I smile when I see one, and sometimes it feels like an arrow to my heart.” His mother Talik added a note of defiance, “You, our enemies, tried to scare us, look what’s left of you, and you’ll see what will be left of you.”
Fifty of the 251 hostages were murdered in captivity. Could their deaths have been prevented? A number of cease fire deals were scuttled during the course of these past 843 days, until the current deal was signed almost two months ago. This week the IDF affirmed that approximately 70,000 Gazans were killed. How many were Hamas combatants is still being debated. Gaza’s devastation is unimaginable. 1200 Israeli civilians and 900 soldiers were killed on October 7th and the war that followed. Will we ever be able to heal from October 7th’s traumas?
The vast majority of Israelis are desperate for there to be an independent inquiry about what went tragically wrong on October 7th and in the months and years preceding. They long to learn from the mistakes and missteps that were made. They long to hold their leaders responsible for these failures. There is no way that Israelis find any closure from October 7th’s ongoing pain without a Yom Kippur War like independent inquiry.
At Ran Gvili’s funeral, President Isaac Herzog said, “The nation must now rise to the next chapter of our existence as a people. Rise strong, confident in our way; rise hand in hand, believing in our State of Israel — Jewish and democratic — and guarding it with utmost devotion, as Ran guarded it.”
Nations are defined by borders. And these borders are sometimes defended at great cost. I long for the day when there will be peace rather than violence at nations’ edges. I remind myself. Nations are also defined by values. When borders are invaded our values can also come under attack. The resulting violence tends to drown out cherished values. And when borders are moved from the periphery to the interior violence inevitably ensues and our social cohesion is torn apart. But it does not have to be this way.
Ran Gvili and Alex Pretti were both fighting for their neighbors. They were battling for the nations they love. They were fighting for noble ideals. I am hoping and praying that their deaths will spark a better destiny for our nations. I pray. Let it not be said that they died in vain. May the memories of Ran Gvili and Alex Pretti call us to better lives. May their memories make our nations stronger, less divided and more humane. And let us say, Amen.