I spent Yom Kippur doing what Jews have done for generations.
asserted
Jews → spend → generations
I fasted.
asserted
I → fast → ?
I prayed.
asserted
I → pray → ?
I stood alongside other Jews and declared God King.
asserted
God → stand → Jews
I asked forgiveness.
asserted
I → ask → forgiveness
I prayed for my family, my community, the Jewish people, and a better year ahead.
asserted
I → pray → family
Brad Lander spent part of his Yom Kippur at Grand Army Plaza declaring that Israel is committing genocide.
asserted
Israel → spend → genocide
It is not a synonym for a terrible war, enormous civilian suffering, disproportionate force, or even alleged war crimes.
asserted
It → allege → war
It is a specific legal concept carrying a particular history.
asserted
It → carry → history
And before Lander uses that word again, there is someone I believe he should hear from: Joseph Lemkin.
asserted
he → use → word
Joseph Lemkin is a relative of Raphael Lemkin, the Polish Jewish lawyer who coined the word “genocide” in 1944 and spent years fighting to make genocide a crime under international law.
asserted
genocide → coin → law
The Nazis murdered 49 members of Raphael Lemkin’s family, according to Joseph Lemkin’s own account.
uncertain
Nazis → murder → account
Raphael Lemkin did not invent a rhetorical weapon.
asserted
Lemkin → invent → weapon
He invented a word because the existing vocabulary was inadequate to describe the deliberate destruction of a people.
asserted
vocabulary → invent → people
That distinction matters.
asserted
distinction → matter → ?
And it is precisely why the argument over Gaza deserves more intellectual seriousness than slogans shouted on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.
asserted
argument → deserve → calendar
Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed.
asserted
thousands → kill → Palestinians
Homes and infrastructure have been destroyed on an enormous scale.
asserted
Homes → destroy → scale
International investigators have alleged grave violations by Israel, and a United Nations commission has reached conclusions supporting allegations of genocide.
asserted
commission → allege → genocide
Those facts cannot simply be waved away.
asserted
facts → wave → ?
Israel says it is fighting Hamas and other armed organizations rather than seeking the destruction of Palestinians as a people.
asserted
it → say → people
Hamas began this war with the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre, killing civilians and taking hostages.
asserted
Hamas → begin → hostages
Palestinian armed groups embedded themselves in a densely populated battlefield.
asserted
groups → embed → battlefield
Estimates of how many Palestinian combatants have been killed vary dramatically, making confident claims about the civilian-to-combatant ratio extraordinarily difficult.
uncertain
claims → kill → ratio
And raw casualty numbers themselves do not answer the genocide question.
asserted
numbers → answer → question
Before the war, Gaza had roughly 2.2 million residents.
asserted
Gaza → have → residents
The reported death toll over more than two years of war represents approximately 3% of that prewar population.
asserted
toll → report → population
That statistic neither proves nor disproves genocide.
asserted
statistic → prove → genocide
Genocide law contains no mathematical threshold.
asserted
law → contain → threshold
The defining question is intent: whether prohibited acts were committed with the specific intent required by the Genocide Convention to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group as such.
asserted
acts → prohibit → group
That is exactly what remains contested.
The International Court of Justice has not issued a final judgment finding Israel guilty of genocide.
asserted
Israel → remain → genocide
Proceedings remain underway.
asserted
Proceedings → remain → ?
That nuance apparently did not fit comfortably into Grand Army Plaza.
asserted
nuance → fit → Plaza
What bothered me even more was the day chosen for this declaration.
asserted
bothered → bother → declaration
Yom Kippur is supposed to strip Jews of ego.
asserted
Kippur → suppose → ego
We confess collectively.
asserted
We → confess → ?
We remember our dead.
asserted
We → remember → dead
We ask God to seal us in the Book of Life.
asserted
We → ask → Life
We stand shoulder to shoulder, often with Jews with whom we disagree profoundly, because for one day, the arguments become smaller than the people.
asserted
arguments → stand → people
Lander sees his activism differently.
asserted
Lander → see → activism
…and 30 more, not listed.
The Aporia
