Rabbis for Human Rights

Rabbi Arik W.Ascherman

"For all of the wonderful things we have accomplished in such a short time, we have not lived up to our own dream in the area of human rights," says Rabbi Arik W. Ascherman of Rabbis for Human Rights, who was raised in Erie PA and came to live in Israel in 1994. He recalls that Israel's 1948 Proclamation of Independence promises to uphold the full rights of all citizens. But he says that Israel is not the worst human rights offender in the world, and we have to be careful of applying a double standard.

Rabbis for Human Rights was founded in the first Intifada, in 1988, when according to Rabbi Ascherman there was more sympathy for Palestinian rights. The model was Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, a friend of Martin Luther King, Jr., who marched with him in the U.S. civil rights struggle.  The group consists of about 120 rabbis from all sectors of Judaism. Rabbi Ascherman says many Israelis support what the group believes in, and most of them are secular. But he says religious Israelis are more likely to be racist and support settlements. He says, "There are few military people who continue to maintain that there is a security advantage to the occupation, and even most of those who would still maintain that there are places where we need to keep a military presence would say that the presence of settlements is a security burden." 

Rabbis for Human Rights protects olive farmers who are shot at and beaten by settlers. The group won a major victory in 2006 when the court ruled that the army must grant Palestinians access to their agricultural lands and protect them when they go there.  As a result, Palestinians safely get to lands they couldn't get to for up to 15 years.  However, the army is not living up to the additional court stipulations that they were to do more to prevent trees from being cut down in the middle of the night and bring perpetrators to justice. Rabbis for Human Rights has helped replant thousands of trees. Other programs of the group address economic justice in Israel, the rights of Israeli Arabs and the Negev and Jahalin Bedouin, Palestinian residents in East Jerusalem, human rights education for youth, and foreign workers and refugees.

In addition to litigation, Rabbis for Human Rights engages in civil disobedience. Rabbi Ascherman was tried and convicted for physically obstructing a bulldozer at a house demolition in 2003. He says,"I felt the Torah being ground into rubble. I had no choice." The court expunged his conviction in return for community service.Although he has been accused of being a traitor and anti-Israel, he believes that working for human rights is the best thing he can do for his children. "If we were really successful, we would  be out of business," he says. The RHR website is www.rhr.org.il/eng.