By Vanguard Staff
SAN FRANCISCO — Rabbi David J. Cooper has spoken out following the killing of his friend and longtime collaborator, Awdah Hathaleen, a Palestinian activist who was shot and killed on July 29 by Israeli settler Yinon Levi in the West Bank village of Umm al-Khair.
In a public statement published in the San Francisco Chronicle, Cooper said, “My friend, Awdah Hathaleen, was killed on Monday — supposedly in my name. I was one of his rabbis; he was my teacher.”
According to Cooper, Hathaleen was unarmed and “posing no danger to anyone” when he was shot by a settler who believes “that Palestinians have no right to live in the West Bank, or in any of Israel/Palestine, and that Judaism requires Jews to expel them from it.” Cooper rejected that claim outright, calling it “a sacrilege.”
Cooper first met Hathaleen eight years ago when visiting the West Bank village of Umm al-Khair as a concerned Jewish leader seeking to understand the realities of occupation. “Maybe it was my Jewish ethics, or maybe it was a guilty conscience that called me to see the situation for myself,” Cooper said. “Once I saw that degrading behavior, I could not turn away.”
The village, situated near the rapidly expanding and illegal Israeli settlement of Carmel, became the focus of Cooper’s advocacy. Through his synagogue, Kehilla Community Synagogue in Piedmont, he helped form Face-to-Face, a solidarity group that held monthly Zoom calls with Hathaleen and his community, raised funds for school supplies and emergency aid, and sought to amplify their voices in the U.S.
“Awdah… was diligently studying English. He wanted to communicate the plight of Palestinians under occupation,” Cooper recalled. Hathaleen believed that when people understood the situation, “they would become allies.” He was a co-creator of the documentary No Other Land, which aimed to raise international awareness about the impact of settlement expansion on his village and the broader Palestinian community.
In June, Face-to-Face worked with Hathaleen and fellow activist Eid Suleiman to bring them to the Bay Area for a speaking tour. But despite successfully securing visas, both men were detained by U.S. authorities upon arrival and deported after 26 hours. “We asked public officials to intervene, and demonstrated at the airport. All to no avail,” Cooper said.
Hathaleen, 31, was known for his commitment to nonviolent resistance. Cooper stated, “From my own interactions with him, I know that Awdah… was dedicated to the principles of nonviolent resistance to end the occupation.”
Yinon Levi, the settler identified in video footage as the shooter, is a known figure in the region. “President Joe Biden had him sanctioned in 2024 for his alleged role in violence against Palestinian civilians,” Cooper said. “President Donald Trump lifted that sanction on the first day of his second term.”
According to Cooper, when Israeli authorities arrived at the crime scene, Levi “pointed out the people that he wanted arrested.” Israeli forces reportedly detained Eid Suleiman and 13 others from the village, who remain held in Ofer prison. Levi was briefly held overnight before being released to house arrest.
“No one, not the villagers nor the settlers, expects him to suffer any serious consequences,” Cooper said. “No consequences is what killed my friend.”
Cooper criticized both the Israeli government and the United States for failing to hold violent settlers accountable, and accused mainstream American Jewish institutions of silence. “While claiming to support a two-state solution, [they] have never seriously criticized the expansion of the occupation,” he said.
In his last conversation with Hathaleen in August 2024, Cooper recalled a moment of deep anguish. “He confided he was struggling with what to tell his children. ‘I can’t tell them that everything will be OK and I can’t say that they’ll be fine.’ I’d never seen sadness disrupt his optimism. And I never expected that his children would be fatherless within a year.”
Rabbi David J. Cooper is rabbi emeritus of Kehilla Community Synagogue, which he co-founded in 1984.
Read the full op-ed by Rabbi David J. Cooper in the San Francisco Chronicle.
