The Earth was full of Hamas
Did you know that this week’s Torah portion includes the word Hamas? Look at Gen 6:11 וַתִּשָּׁחֵ֥ת הָאָ֖רֶץ לִפְנֵ֣י הָֽאֱלֹהִ֑ים וַתִּמָּלֵ֥א הָאָ֖רֶץ חָמָֽס׃ “The earth became corrupt before God; the Earth was filled with Hamas.”
The Hebrew term Hamas can be translated as violence or lawlessness. Hamas is the reason for the Flood. God saw how corrupt the Earth was and how widespread this Hamas was, thus decreed the end of every form of life on Earth.
Hamas is an acronym of an Arab expression which means “Islamic Resistance Movement”. But they chose to name themselves with that acronym, Hamas, because their purpose, the purpose of their organization, is to ingenerate fear and terror among us Jews. In its 1988 Covenant, Hamas calls for holy war (jihad) against the Jewish people because -this is their perverse antisemitic fantasy- they believe that we Jews want first to take over the Middle East and then the rest of the world.
I want to state it again. Israel is not at war with the Arab world or with any Arab Country. Israel defends its citizens (and the rest of the world) from Hamas.
The problem is Hamas has sympathizers and supporters. Its leaders, who live comfortably in Qatar, have called the Muslims worldwide to rebellion and insurrection. Mobs have assaulted synagogues in Spain and Jewish schools in France. They throw Molotov cocktails at synagogues in Germany: every decent human being should shiver at the thought of Jews being attacked in Germany. Hamas’ goal is to make us Jews live in fear and terror. And they are succeeding.
We have seen horrible demonstrations in London, and in this city too. They are meant to terrify us. In Italy, Jewish families have been told not to order with Deliveroo because the raider can see the mezuzah, take note of the address, and pass the information.
The pretext for the current call to rage and violence is that fake news about the bombing of a hospital in Gaza last week.
We now know it was a lie. It has been debunked. But it took time. For 24 hours, the BBC, the Guardian, the New York Times and countless authoritative sources of information have parroted the lies of Hamas. They have blamed Israel for the bombing of a hospital and the murder of hundreds of Palestinian children. They spread a lie without carrying on the check that journalism ethics requires. They have instigated antisemitic violence.
Authoritative newspapers and TV channels fall so easily for antisemitic Hamas propaganda. This is not new. For years, for decades, they have ignored the genocidal terrorist, antisemitic nature of Hamas. We Jews cannot ignore that danger. But mainstream news outlets slander Israel daily. Israeli ordinary citizens are defamed, as they were all war criminals. Zionism is insulted as a colonialist project. The present-day inhabitants of Israel are considered all guilty of crimes allegedly committed by the halutzim more than 90 years ago.
Shamefully, there are Jews who echo these lies, these poisonous lies. Jews who repeat antisemitic propaganda such as “Israeli apartheid” without thinking to the mob that, inflamed by their words, will attack synagogues a few hours after they have tweeted their rants.
This is what they insinuate. Israel is such a horrible State and is not worth existing. That its Jewish inhabitants are racist and privileged and not worth being defended.
We have been told that “Israel dehumanizes the Palestinians” for decades. And some Jews have joined the choir. But in reality, Israeli Jews are dehumanized. Israeli Jews are slandered daily as if they were criminals brainwashed to hate the Arabs and the Muslims. Such an intense bias infects the newsroom. It is not a surprise that Palestinian lies find their way into major European news outlets. As a result, we Jews in Europe are scared, terrified, and deprived of our religious rights -such as attending synagogues or ordering kosher food.
I would like to sound optimistic, but this horrible situation will last long. Hamas has many friends and more supporters than we imagine. News outlets are more than willing to feed their readers with antisemitic lies, such as the story of the evil Israelis targeting a children’s hospital. We have just witnessed this.
Think about this. Last week’s massacre was horrendous, and it came as a shock for too many. Everybody wondered, “What the hell Hamas is doing?”. The horror of the action took everyone by surprise.
Except for us Jews. Because it was no surprise for us. We remember the suicidal attacks that plagued Israel between 2000 and 2005.
Remember? In those days, the birth of a Palestinian State alongside Israel seemed possible. Then, the Israelis lost faith in the peace process. Because almost every week, there was news of a Palestinian militia blowing up in pizza parlours, University campuses, clubs, buses… The Western media have forgotten, but we remember. We remember when siblings were sent by their parents on different buses to the same school, hoping that at least one could survive a suicidal attack, which was a real possibility.
For the large part, the suicide bombers were militants of Hamas and other Islamist organizations. After each attack, they celebrated, distributed sweets and danced in the streets. They joyously paraded the Palestinian flags so the world knew their goal and the kind of “coexistence” they aimed at.
And remember? Israelis started building a barrier to keep these terrorists out. The same media that today spread the Hamas propaganda accused Israel of colonialism at that time. The world looks at the defensive barrier, not as a national border -which is what it was meant to be. They don’t care that its existence saved human lives. No, the fence was, and still is, another evidence of the much-fabled Israeli apartheid. It was a sophisticated colonialist device. It embodied some Jewish neurosis (paranoia or racism) or what else the post-modern academia invents.
See how Hamas benefits from a benevolent, cultural atmosphere. See how the horror of its crimes is lessened. See how every assassination is “put into context”: excused, if not justified. Or even attributed to Israel.
This is sadistic: blaming Israel for antisemitism. We even hear that Israel should not attack Gaza because the attack will trigger a wave of antisemitic terror against European Jewish communities. Those who write that nonsense should get out of their flat, take a train, cross the Channel and try to live as a Jew in some suburb of Paris. Perhaps they’ll realize that the wave of antisemitic attacks is already here.
But let me return to Parashat Noah, this week's Torah portion. Because violence and lawlessness — Hamas indeed- are widespread, God decreed the destruction of every life form. As we know, Noah is tasked to preserve human civilization and the variety of animals. After the Flood, when the Earth returns to a hospitable place, Noah leaves the Ark.
This is a passage we sometimes forget: the first thing Noah does when humans return to inhabit the Earth is planting a vineyard, drinking wine and getting drunk.
“Noah, the tiller of the soil, was the first to plant a vineyard. He drank of the wine and became drunk, and he uncovered himself”. [Gen 9:20]
Not a good guy, Noah. Rabbis like him, but not that much. He seems not to have a moral fibre. He is a good man but not strong enough to resist temptations as he should. Nonetheless, his drunkenness is understandable! After spending such a long time on a boat and surviving a catastrophe, isn’t it evident that he wanted to celebrate? Wouldn’t you do the same?
Here’s the important point. Shem and Japhet, sons of Noah, cover their father’s nakedness.
“Shem and Japheth took a cloth, placed it against both their backs and, walking backwards, they covered their father’s nakedness; their faces were turned the other way so that they did not see their father’s nakedness” [Genesis 9:23]
They walk backwards in order not to see their father naked. Shem is the ancestor of Abraham. Shem is our ancestor.
Think about it. Humanity has been destroyed. The widespread, unhinged Hamas had made civilization impossible. Society has to begin anew. And how do they start again? From family values. From the respect of the children of Shem and Japhet for their father’s dignity.
Noah could not resist the temptation of getting drunk. That was a memory of what he was used to before the Catastrophe. He still carries part of the habit of the lawless world he grew up in. But his children are different. Shem and Japhet show so much respect to their father that they walk backwards. Tell it to those who see the destruction of marriage and family as a sign of progress, of moving things forward.
Family. That is a central value in Judaism. Monogamic, let me stress it. In the unbelievable world we live in, the same people who minimize the horror of Hamas also want to make “polyamory” accepted. And this runs against the basics of Judaism — and of morality.
Family and education are the basics of Judaism. Have you ever wondered why antisemites target Jewish schools and synagogues so virulently? Is it because they don’t like our Torah? On the contrary, Islamists proclaim their love for the Bible and the Jewish Scriptures. Not differently from Christian fundamentalists, They attack schools and synagogues because they want us to give up on education, to close the Cheder, and to stop raising our children as Jewish.
But we do not.
I want to conclude this sermon -longer than usual, I know- by sharing with you an incredible story. By now, we are all familiar with the name of Kibbutz Be’eri, a place in Southern Israel where the monsters of Hamas have murdered, slaughtered and tortured the inhabitants, including many children.
Be’eri. That’s the name of the place.
Last week, one Israeli couple, whose child was born in the shadow of bombs and rockets, gave that baby girl that name. Be’eri.
Of course, you don’t find the news on mainstream media. They don’t care about Jewish children; they also don’t care about the Palestinian children that Hamas sends to die. They care about children only when they can insinuate that the killers are Jewish.
But to me, that name matters. Naming Be’eri, a baby girl born last week, is a beautiful affirmation of life, of the values of Jewish family and Jewish education. It is an affirmation of Jewish dignity in front of the barbarism of Hamas — and of its supporters. And I pray, and we all pray, that that baby girl, little Be’eri, will grow up in a world without Hamas.
כן יהי רצון, may it be God’s will. And let us say Amen.