Israeli Rabbi Defends Palestinians.

• Author: Hirschfield, Robert
• Position: Essay

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Every hand he shakes on the West Bank enrages someone. Rabbi Arik Ascherman is the executive director of Rabbis for Human Rights, which describes itself as "the rabbinic voice of conscience in Israel, giving voice to the Jewish tradition of human rights." The group's mission is to "promote justice and freedom, while campaigning against discrimination and inhumane conduct."

Ascherman regularly puts his body on the line, interposing himself between Israeli bulldozers and Palestinian homes or between Israeli settlers and Palestinian olive groves. He was arrested and convicted a few years ago for his acts of civil disobedience. But still he persists. Settlers call him vile names and pelt him with rocks. Israeli soldiers on bulldozers threaten to plow him under.

But he tries to reason with the settlers, swapping quotations from the Old Testament. And he is the near enemy, or almost friend, of the soldiers he encounters on the West Bank.

"When it's an issue of trying to stop a housing demolition, we are definitely opponents," he says. "But in some cases, we are on the same side, like when we arrange for the army to protect Palestinian olive harvesters from the settlers. Then, we expect things from the soldiers. We speak with them, interact with them."

This does not go over well with some activists who are his usual allies. He recalls enraging volunteers with the International Solidarity Movement by shaking a soldier's hand.

"They said, 'Those are the occupiers!' I understand that," he says. "We see that soldiers often do evil things, but we don't see every soldier as evil."

I meet up with Rabbi Ascherman in the United Jewish Appeal Federation building in Manhattan early this year. The security in the lobby is so tight the building could easily have been transplanted directly from Tel Aviv. The occasion is a three-day conference that Rabbis for Human Rights has organized.

We talk about his work as a human rights activist. He speaks very quickly, as if at any moment he will be silenced. An Israeli who grew up in Erie, Pennsylvania, he wears a knitted kipa on his head of unruly black hair. He rubs his head slowly when I ask him what led up to his 2004 trial. A recidivist human shield, he had often been arrested, but never tried.

"It might have been that I did what I did one time too many," he says. "In this case, one month after the other."

In the spring of 2003, Ascherman planted his body outside Palestinian homes slated for...