Rabbi Yosef Blau urges moral clarity in Israel’s response to Gaza, advocating for responsibility in addressing hunger and violence, despite critics within Orthodox circles.
ByANDREW SILOW-CARROLL/JTA
AUGUST 28, 2025 22:55
For 48 years, until he moved to Israel earlier this year, Rabbi Yosef Blau was the “mashgiach ruchani” at Yeshiva University, a revered figure who served as a sort of spiritual guidance counselor to students at Modern Orthodoxy’s flagship seminary.
In that role, he said this week in an interview, his job was to be “available to help students on issues that bother them, rather than issues that bother me.”
Earlier this month, he told the world what was bothering him, and the world took notice. Blau, 86, is the author of “A Call for Moral Clarity, Responsibility, and a Jewish Orthodox Response in the Face of the Gaza Humanitarian Crisis,” an open letter signed by 80 Orthodox rabbis. The letter forthrightly condemned Hamas, but took the Israeli government to task for its halting response to what most of the world sees as a hunger crisis in Gaza.
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