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Created: 11 June 2015

I’ve just been made aware of something that happened last week that should shake the conscience of every decent human being. There was a major terror attack in Jerusalem No, it wasn’t a suicide bomber or anything like that. But nonetheless it was a very serious tragedy. The most egregious part of this sad story, is that the major media didn’t even report on the event. I found out about it through an Israeli website to which a friend of mine directed me.

Last week around 50 Jewish graves were desecrated on the Mount of Olives. Almost an entire section of this historic cemetery was vandalized by terrorists and not a peep from the media or even any government authority. If such an anti-Semitic attack were to have occurred in any Jewish cemetery in the world, there would have been a major backlash. It would have made headlines in the national news, but when it happens in Jerusalem, in our largest and oldest national cemetery, there was only a deafening silence.

This is a shanda of the first order! This is both a national and international disgrace! Where are all our great political and religious leaders screaming out in pain? Where is the wonderful free press that is tasked with the responsibility to inform the public? How can we allow our ancestral cemetery, one of the oldest cemeteries in the world, to be disgraced in such a horrific way without there being any consequential outcry?! What would be the response of the media or the US leadership if there were an attack on Arlington National Cemetery? Silence? I’m sure not!

I’m at a loss in understanding how this attack has gone by not just under reported but not reported at all. It’s simply unbelievable – yet tragically true – see the pictures here.  

OK, so now that we know about what happened what do we do with this information? Seemingly, we can’t do anything here in SF that would make much of a difference in Israel regarding this sad state of affairs. However, Judaism teaches that every physical action in this world has a non-physical/spiritual impact as well. Therefore, when people do good things, their actions strengthen the spiritual forces of good in the world as a whole. Conversely, when people do actions that are evil, the forces of evil are strengthened.

This being the case, even though we are thousands of miles away, we actually can do something to counteract the evil that was done in Israel. When we mindfully do good with the intention of countering bad, we can negate or at least mitigate the impact of the evil that was done.

Since fifty graves were violated, how about we seek to do fifty acts of kindness over the next fifty days that otherwise we would not have done? Or let’s start a fund to cover the burial costs for people who can’t afford a proper kosher burial?  There are an endless amount of good things we can choose to do – we just gotta do them – and not let the the tentacles of evil gain a great grip on our world.