Rabbis for Human Rights is an Israeli

human rights Human rights are Morality, moral principles or Social norm, normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for ce ...

organization that describes itself as "the

rabbi A rabbi () is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi – known as ''semikha'' – following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form of ...

nic voice of conscience in

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

, giving voice to the

Jew Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""Th ...

ish tradition of

".Rabbis for Human Rights home page
accessed 27 April 2011. Their membership includes

Reform Reform ( lat, reformo) means the improvement or amendment of what is wrong, corrupt, unsatisfactory, etc. The use of the word in this way emerges in the late 18th century and is believed to originate from Christopher Wyvill#The Yorkshire Associati ...

Orthodox Orthodox, Orthodoxy, or Orthodoxism may refer to: Religion * Orthodoxy, adherence to accepted norms, more specifically adherence to creeds, especially within Christianity and Judaism, but also less commonly in non-Abrahamic religions like Neo-pa ...

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization i ...

and Reconstructionist rabbis and students. According to their web site, the organization includes "over one hundred ordained rabbis and rabbinical students". The organization received the

Niwano Peace Prize The Niwano Peace Prize is given to honor and encourage those devoting themselves to interreligious co-operation in the cause of peace and to make their achievements known. Its foundation hopes that the prize will further promote interreligious co-o ...

in 2006.

Organization

The organization was founded in 1988. Its membership consists of Israeli rabbis and rabbinical students. RHR has a nineteen-member board of directors. Rabbi

Arik Ascherman Arik Ascherman ( he, אריק אשרמן; born 1959) is an American-born Israeli Reform rabbi, and Executive Director of the Israeli Human Rights organization "Torat Tzedek-Torah of Justice." For 21 years, starting in 1995, he served as Co-Directo ...

served as co-director of Rabbis For Human Rights, becoming executive director in 1998. Ayala Levi took over as executive director in 2010. In the past, the organization received funds from the EU, UK and Spain.

Activities

RHR is best known for dispatching volunteers to act as

human shield A human shield is a non-combatant (or a group of non-combatants) who either volunteers or is forced to shield a legitimate military target in order to deter the enemy from attacking it. The use of human shields as a resistance measure was popula ...

s to protect the Palestinian

olive The olive, botanical name ''Olea europaea'', meaning 'European olive' in Latin, is a species of small tree or shrub in the family Oleaceae, found traditionally in the Mediterranean Basin. When in shrub form, it is known as ''Olea europaea'' ...

harvest from vandalism and assault by settlers living on nearby land; every year, clashes are reported between settlers and Palestinian farmers. In 2008, the volunteer effort encompassed 40 villages. The effort was launched in 2002 when a Palestinian peace activist solicited RHR's help to protect olive pickers against attacks by settlers living near the village of

Yanun Yanun ( ar, يانون, translit=Yânûn) is a Palestinian village in the Nablus Governorate of the State of Palestine, in the northern West Bank, located southeast of Nablus, and 3 miles north of Aqraba. It lies within Area C, under total Israe ...

. RHR opposes the construction of the

Israeli West Bank barrier The Israeli West Bank barrier, comprising the West Bank Wall and the West Bank fence, is a separation barrier built by Israel along the Green Line and inside parts of the West Bank. It is a contentious element of the Israeli–Palestinian c ...

in any place where it entails the expropriation of Arab-owned land, the division of villages, or cutting farmers off from their fields. RHR achieved a major victory in 2006 when it won a lawsuit to prevent the division by the fence of the village of Sheikh Sa'ad. In December 2004, RHR executive director Rabbi

was among three defendants on trial in

Jerusalem Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...

for standing in front of

bulldozer A bulldozer or dozer (also called a crawler) is a large, motorized machine equipped with a metal blade to the front for pushing material: soil, sand, snow, rubble, or rock during construction work. It travels most commonly on continuous track ...

s in an effort to block the

demolition of Palestinian homes House demolition is a method Israel has used in the Israeli-occupied territories since they came under its control in the Six-Day War to achieve various aims. Broadly speaking, the house demolitions can be classified as either administrative, ...

East Jerusalem East Jerusalem (, ; , ) is the sector of Jerusalem that was held by Jordan during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, as opposed to the western sector of the city, West Jerusalem, which was held by Israel. Jerusalem was envisaged as a separat ...

. He was charged with "interfering with police performance of duties on two occasions in 2003, and the intention to commit acts to prevent police from performing their duties." In March 2005, a magistrate court ruled Ascherman guilty, but said that he wouldn't have a criminal record.Rabbi convicted for blocking demolition
AlJazeera. A movie produced in 2013 by RHR, ''Fiddler with No Roof'', compares the Prawer Plan to Jews' expulsion during the antisemitic

Tsarist regime The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. The ...

Durban UN Anti-Racism conferences

David Bedein David Bedein (born August 31, 1950) is an MSW, a community organizer by profession, a writer, and an investigative journalist. In 1987, Bedein established the ''Israel Resource News Agency'', with offices at the Beit Agron Int'l Press Center in ...

from ''Independent Media Review Analysis'' has criticized RHR, accusing it of joining "forces with the PLO to support the idea that Israel, was indeed, an apartheid, racist regime" at the 2001 UN Anti-Racism conference in Durban,

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

. Rabbi Ascherman strongly denies this account, saying: "I want to clarify that RHR’s representative at Durban, Rabbi Jeremy Milgrom, actively voiced our criticism of the inflammatory rhetoric and Israel-bashing". Rabbi Ascherman and RHR also expressed concern about the second Durban conference, saying "that Israel has committed human rights violations s an issue thatcan appropriately be discussed at a conference like this. But if you allow the conference to be hijacked as if Israel is the only place in the world where there are issues of racism and human rights, then it makes a farce of the whole thing. We're not trying to protect Israel from being criticized, but as people who are really concerned with human rights and racism, and think it is important that there be a body among the community of nations dealing with these things, we don't want to see another hijacking."RHR joins petition against Durban II
/ref>

Notes

External links

Official RHR Site

Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land: Media & the Israel-Palestine Conflict
documentary directed by

Sut Jhally Sut Jhally (b. 1955) is a professor of communication at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, whose work focuses on cultural studies, advertising, media, and consumption. He is the producer of over 40 documentaries on media literacy topics a ...

and Bathsheba Ratzkoff (2003) quotes Rabbi Arik Ascherman
VIDEO: Rabbi Arik Ascherman – Rabbis for Human Rights
talk at the

Neveh Shalom Synagogue The Neveh Shalom Synagogue ( he, בית הכנסת נווה שלום, lit. ''House of Peace'') is the only synagogue of the Ashkenazi community in Suriname. History The lot on Keizerstraat 82 was acquired in 1716 by Sephardi Jews. The origina ...

Portland Portland most commonly refers to: * Portland, Oregon, the largest city in the state of Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States * Portland, Maine, the largest city in the state of Maine, in the New England region of the northeas ...

Oregon Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...

, on May 5, 2003. {{Footer Niwano Peace Prize laureates Human rights organizations based in Israel Non-profit organizations based in Israel Jewish anti-occupation groups Non-governmental organizations involved in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict Rabbinical organizations Religious activism