A leading Maine rabbi is calling a foul on the state’s junior senator for dropping Israeli support based on false reporting in the legacy media.
King blindly followed the “reporting” that falsely blames Israel for whatever alleged humanitarian crisis exists in Gaza and parlayed it into a cheap political speech.
That’s the view of Rabbi Larry Rubinstein, a veteran respected cleric and board member of the Maine Policy Institute.
“Israel was attacked by Hamas October 7, 2023 and took many hostages, some of which are still being held under terrible conditions,” Rubinstein told The Maine Wire.
“Hamas views any treaty with Israel as a violation of its manifesto ‘from the river to the sea,’which means (according to them), no more Jews,” Rubinstein said.
“The western world ignores that this is genocide, not the killing of an unverified number of Arabs from Gaza, the number of which is provided to the western press by the Gaza Health Ministry, which is a front for Hamas, but never identified as such by the press.”
King recently said he wants the U.S. government to suspend its assistance to Israel, America’s key ally in the Middle East, until it changes its policies with respect to Gaza.
“I cannot defend the indefensible. Israel’s actions in the conduct of the war in Gaza, especially its failure to address the unimaginable humanitarian crisis now unfolding, is an affront to human decency,” King said.
“What appears to be a deliberately-induced famine among a civilian population – including tens of thousands of starving children – can never be an acceptable military strategy.”
Rubinstein is one of the only Maine rabbis willing to speak out on this question to defend Israel – and point out where Maine’s junior senator is getting his marching orders from.
Of a dozen rabbis across the state contacted by The Maine Wire for reaction to King’s wanting to withdraw U.S. support for the only democracy in the Mideast, none was willing to go on the record.
Not a one.
Except Rubinstein – who is brave enough to say out loud what the others are afraid to.
And he’s making no bones about how and why he believes King suddenly went south on Israel.
“Pictures of starving children, circulated by Hamas, have been printed and have received reactions that are hostile to Israel even though it turns out that most of the pictures are illegitimate and have been proven so, and the press has recanted on printing them, although in footnotes that no one reads or sees,” Rubinstein said.
“Angus King knows that most of his constituents have taken anti-Israel stances because of the images and stories they read in newspapers like the Press Herald, which prints AP stories verbatim which are guilty of much of this misreporting, and so he has come out withdrawing support for Israel.
“It has nothing to do with the real ethics of the situation, and all to do with the view of his voting public.”
Rubinstein, who holds a doctorate of divinity, was ordained as a rabbi from Hebrew Union College in 1965, with honors in history.
He served congregations in Omaha, Nebraska and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania for 13 years before going into administrative and fundraising work for the Jewish community.
Rubinstein served as director of the Young Leadership Cabinet of the United Jewish Appeal, director of the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia, and senior vice president of Brandeis University, where he ran its first Capital Campaign in 1987. He has also been senior vice president of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.
The rabbi also served in several other positions in the Jewish community. Before retiring to Maine, he was president of the Association of Alumni of Columbia College (Columbia University) and was a member of several other nonprofit boards.
In Maine, he has served on the board of the Bowdoin International Music Festival and was president of the board of the Friends of the Kotzschmar Organ.
He was on the board of the Bicycle Coalition of Maine from 2004 to 2016, serving as president from 2011-2015.
He is a trustee emeritus of the Portland Museum of Art and is the immediate-past president of the Portland Chamber Music Festival.
Rubinstein is also a board Member of ChoralArt, Opera Maine.
Disclaimer: The Maine Wire is a project of the Maine Policy Institute
