This is the fifth in a series of posts that build on each other. To view the earlier posts in the series click these links:
1. Celebrating Israel 2. Middle East, not Middle Earth 3. Sayid 4. The Security Wall
"(M)an was created from the dust of a single spot. Man is committed to one locus. . . (H)e is a rooted being, not cosmopolitan but provincial, a villager who belongs to the soil that fed him as a child and to the little world into which he was born. . . Yes, man may roam along the charted and uncharted lanes of the universe, he may reach for the skies. Yet the traveler, the adventurer out to conquer infinity, will surely return home." (Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, Majesty and Humility.)
These words of Rav Soloveitchick pull at me as a description of loving parents might pull at an orphan, because I have no one locus I call home. My grandmother was born in Warsaw, my mother in New York. I am from Chicago, my children are Californians. The Jewish nightmare of fleeing from country to country in search of safety has morphed into the American dream of "Go West young man" to Stanford, or east to the Ivies, or mid-west or north or south or wherever opportunity calls. But still we are unrooted. The street names in my California neighborhood are exotic to me, and though the landscape is spectacular I am a transplant in it.
לבי במזרח ואנכי בסוף מערב
איך אטעמה את אשר אכל ואיך יערב
My heart is in the east and I am at the end of the west.
How can I taste what I eat and how can it be sweet? (Rabbi Yehudah HaLevi, 12th C., Spain)
Israel is aglow with ethnic fire. The colors are brighter here, the tastes crisper, I feel more alive in Israel than in any other place I have lived. This year, I have been walking the streets the prophets walked, living outside the walls through which Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakai was smuggled in a coffin to plead for a remnant of Israel. My backdrop has been the same hills and valleys that Maimonides saw in the final stage of his life. If I should forget for a moment who I am, the street names remind me, the songs on the radio and in the mouths of my own kids, the language itself.
But there is a dark side to this beauty. Because just as joy must be outlined by sorrow, so our ethnic identities are defined in part by who we are not -- Jew, not Arab.
I recently asked Dr. Avivah Zornberg why our tradition associates each of the patriarchs with the trait that seems most lacking in him: Abraham, who mounted his son on an altar, is classically associated with kindness, Isaac with strength, Jacob with truth. Avivah explained that these are not the traits the patriarchs lacked, they are the traits they engaged with most intensely. In fact, she has seen over and over that a person's most intense trait will reveal itself in complex ways, now as a burning presence and then as a striking absent, now as a great strength and then as a great failing.
If what Avivah said is true for individuals, I believe it is true for nations as well. The Jewish passion that makes Israel so beautiful is also her greatest moral challenge. An example is the advertising campaign I criticized in a previous post: "A Palestinian state is a disaster for the Jews". I've seen bumper stickers and graffiti with much more explicit statements of Jewish elitism, and chance comments from individuals that reveal a deep hatred of Arabs. (For example, about shopping in Arab-owned stores: "I don't want to give them any money if I don't have to.") But the most blatant mainstream example came home with my son from school.
The standard third grade literature curriculum in Israeli public schools is based on a book called פתחו את השער (Translation: Open the Gate.) It includes some beautiful pieces, but most are banal stereotypes of immigrant groups in Israel. The elderly American couple invites the neighborhood children in for ice-cream. The Russian girl bursts into tears at her friend's Seder, as she recalls loved ones back in Russia who are still refuseniks. The book also includes a traditional Yemenite story, about a Jewish jeweler whose Arab neighbor entrusts him with a ring to repair. The Arab then sneaks into the Jew's house at night and steals his own ring, spitefully hoping to frame the Jew. The Arab tosses the ring in the ocean, and a fish swallows it. A few days later the fish is caught by a fisherman, and the jeweler happens to buy the fish for his Shabbat dinner. He discovers the ring inside the body of the fish, and is able to repair it and return it on time to the Arab villain. When my son's class read this story, the teacher provided homework that included a chart in which the children were to compare the characteristics of the Jew and the Arab.
Let's be clear. Jews are not the only Middle Easterners grappling with the power, beauty and danger of ethnic pride. Such feelings are the emotional bread and butter of the region. In June our family vacationed in Petra, Jordan, where the locals readily identify one another as coming from Syrian, Bedouin, or (in some parts of the country) Palestinian or Groznian extraction. They were equally quick to identify us as Jews, despite our attempts to hide our kippot under sun hats. "We are two brothers of the same father," one vendor told my husband; and more than one local told us they hate Palestinians, mistakenly assuming we would share their hatred.
Back on the other side of the Jordan, Palestinian textbooks have been notoriously severe in their anti-Jewish rhetoric, mixing religious and violent language into accounts of modern history. The Palestinian Authority issued new textbooks in 2006 that are apparently improved over the older books, which had originated in Egypt and Jordan. But the Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) writes even of the newer textbooks: "PMW has found that the new 12th grade Palestinian schoolbooks make no attempt to educate for peace and coexistence with Israel. Indeed, the opposite is true: The teachings repeatedly reject Israel's right to exist, present the conflict as a religious battle for Islam, teach Israel’s founding as imperialism, and actively portray a picture of the Middle East, both verbally and visually, in which Israel does not exist at all." Other groups have pointed out that Israeli textbooks mirror the Palestinian ones, making no references to Palestinians or their history in this land, and using religious language to claim an inalienable Jewish right to the land. When you are taught from birth that God promised this land to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, it becomes very hard to see it as belonging to any people but yours. Clearly this is an ethnic struggle with two sides to it.
הלואי, if only it were a struggle that began and ended with textbooks. I don't believe there's a Jew born in Israel who has not had a personal friend or acquaintance killed by an Arab. Nor is there a Palestinian who has not had friends killed by Jews. Such experiences imprint on the soul, and are even harder to undo than the rhetoric of childhood.
It did not have to be this way. The Torah includes powerful messages about co-existence and peace and the essential value of every human being as created in the image of God. These messages could have formed the foundational ethic guiding Israeli's interactions with the Arabs that share their land. But let's not forget, the day after Ben-Gurion declared Israel an independent state, five Arab powers swarmed across the border in an attempt to drive the Jews into the ocean. They tried again in 1967, and again in 1973. Since 1973 Israel's larger neighbors have withdrawn from direct conflict, but still rockets and ammunition are pouring in through Egypt to Gaza with "Jew" as their final delivery address. Once caught in this ongoing, violent conflict, too many Israelis find themselves emphasizing a different ethic, for the Torah contains plenty of fuel for Jewish elitism as well.
On many levels, some real and some perceived, Israel is still at war, and government policies reflect those feelings. I already described the sorry situation at the security checkpoints. The situation in east Jerusalem is even more striking. Unlike the West Bank, east Jerusalem was annexed by Israel in 1967, but the people living there -- as a protective measure -- were not granted citizenship. (Note: this statement is misleading, please see my correction.) Instead, they are "permanent residents"; they have the right to vote in municipal elections but not national ones, and their status can be revoked at any time, seemingly arbitrarily, leaving them suddenly homeless and unable to earn a living. Nonetheless, the population in east Jerusalem has grown by an astounding 450% since 1967. This sharp population rise feels very threatening to many Israelis. According to the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), the Jerusalem municipality has responded with unreasonable zoning laws, home demolitions, and refusal to issue new building permits. As a result, east Jerusalem is overcrowded, with a population density nearly twice that of west Jerusalem. 65% of east Jerusalem residents live in poverty. Approximately 160,000 Palestinian residents of Jerusalem have no suitable and legal connection to the water network, and 50 kilometers of sewage lines are lacking. East Jerusalem is short approximately 1,000 classrooms in their schools, contributing to a school drop-out rate of 50%. The ACRI sees the residents of east Jerusalem as the victims of a systematic policy of discrimination, intended to limit the Arab presence in Jerusalem and secure a Jewish majority.
Yet layered in with all this fear and hatred are the Jewish prayers of hope that sustained us -- as a distinct ethnic group -- through centuries of oppression. For a millennium and a half at least, devout Jews have been reciting the same formula three time a day. "Blessed are You Ado-nai, redeemer of Israel . . .Blast on a great shofar, and set up a sign to gather in our exiles . . . Restore our leadership . . Destroy all wickedness . . . Place trust in the righteous . . . Return Your presence to Jerusalem, You who will build Jerusalem . . . Plant the roots of David's kingdom. . . May our eyes see Your return to Zion. . .Blessed are You, who blesses His people Israel with peace." בשוב ה' את שיבת ציון היינו כחולמים -- It seems a dream, that these words are coming true even as we continue to recite them.
Israel is a country built by refugees: from the Holocaust in Europe, from generations of humiliation as dhimmi in Arabia, and from complete vulnerability when even the dhimma relationship collapsed under the Ottomans; from famine and intolerance in Ethiopia; from communism and deadly anti-semitism in Russia; and from every corner of the world where Jews resided. The founding dream of Israel is that all Jews should finally have a secure place to call home. I believe we deserve that.
As America was founded on the myth that "all men are created equal", so Israel was founded on the Law of Return -- a profoundly beautiful, idealistic law, that discriminates based on ethnicity. But is that not so often the case, of people and of countries? The fires that burn hottest and ugliest inside of us are the same fires that make us most beautiful.
Monday, July 25, 2011
Thursday, July 14, 2011
The Security Wall
This is the third in a series of posts about politics in Israel. To view the earlier posts in the series click these links:
1. Celebrating Israel 2. Middle East, not Middle Earth 3. Sayid
It seems to me Sayid has another option: he could apply for a work permit. The upfront costs of a work permit would be insurmountable for Sayid himself -- the equivalent of two months labor on a six month work permit. But employers are willing to pay the costs, and then withhold part of the paycheck until they are paid off. The take-home pay is very, very low, but at least it is reliable.
One day, I was walking past a construction site when Sayid called my cell phone asking if I had work for him. I had nothing to offer, but the construction site gave me an idea. I screwed up my courage, approached one of the workers, and asked if they needed another set of hands. I was quickly introduced to the foreman, a Christian Arab named Rasmi. Rasmi told me to send Sayid to him, he'd be happy to put him to work.
Since then, Rasmi and I have been friendly, greeting each other every morning as I walk past his construction site. Once one of his workers offered me a cookie from the breakfast they were sharing.
But Sayid could not work anything out with Rasmi. I am certainly many factors contributed, and I only know a few them. I will tell you about one of the complications, which has to do with the Security Wall, also known as the Separation Barrier between the Palestinian territories and Israel proper.
To avoid the heat of the day, construction work starts at 7AM. In order to get across the security border to arrive at work on time, Sayid would need to leave his house at 4AM, to join the crowds of Palestinian workers lining up to get across. As people pass through one at a time, they are inspected and subjected to verbal humiliation. And no surprise. Most of the checkpoints are manned by 20 year old kids wearing guns.
Israel should do better than this. In addition to training checkpoint guards to identify terrorists, they should also be training them to show respect to the people legitimately passing through. They should increase the number of people manning the checkpoints, to be able to process workers faster. And they should lower the cost of work permits, so that people who are already living on the edge are not deprived of a third of their pay check. A little respect for the dignity of Palestinian people would go a long way towards promoting peace.
On the other side -- and yes, there is always another side in this conflict -- I am grateful for the security wall.
My husband and I lived in Israel for a year in 1995-96, when Yitshak Rabin was assassinated. That year, approximately 40 people were killed in terror attacks, mostly by suicide bombers. These attacks were among the most evil expressions of the human soul, to strap explosives onto the body of a 20 year old child and send him into a crowd.
Though the numbers of people killed in such attacks were small compared to the numbers killed in car accidents, the attacks were very successful in their aim of creating terror. With constant news stories about bus bombings, I avoided riding buses the entire year, sticking to taxis instead.
Once Israel built the security wall, terror attacks dropped to ten percent of what they had been. This year, only three people died in Israel proper as a result of the conflict with Palestinians: Daniel Viflic, who I mentioned earlier, Mary Jean Gardener, a British citizen who was killed by a bomb planted at the central bus station of Jerusalem, and Kristene Luken, an American stabbed to death in the woods by thugs from Hamas. My fear of buses and public spaces has faded into memory.
The next post in this series is called Ethnic Struggle.
1. Celebrating Israel 2. Middle East, not Middle Earth 3. Sayid
It seems to me Sayid has another option: he could apply for a work permit. The upfront costs of a work permit would be insurmountable for Sayid himself -- the equivalent of two months labor on a six month work permit. But employers are willing to pay the costs, and then withhold part of the paycheck until they are paid off. The take-home pay is very, very low, but at least it is reliable.
One day, I was walking past a construction site when Sayid called my cell phone asking if I had work for him. I had nothing to offer, but the construction site gave me an idea. I screwed up my courage, approached one of the workers, and asked if they needed another set of hands. I was quickly introduced to the foreman, a Christian Arab named Rasmi. Rasmi told me to send Sayid to him, he'd be happy to put him to work.
Since then, Rasmi and I have been friendly, greeting each other every morning as I walk past his construction site. Once one of his workers offered me a cookie from the breakfast they were sharing.
But Sayid could not work anything out with Rasmi. I am certainly many factors contributed, and I only know a few them. I will tell you about one of the complications, which has to do with the Security Wall, also known as the Separation Barrier between the Palestinian territories and Israel proper.
To avoid the heat of the day, construction work starts at 7AM. In order to get across the security border to arrive at work on time, Sayid would need to leave his house at 4AM, to join the crowds of Palestinian workers lining up to get across. As people pass through one at a time, they are inspected and subjected to verbal humiliation. And no surprise. Most of the checkpoints are manned by 20 year old kids wearing guns.
Israel should do better than this. In addition to training checkpoint guards to identify terrorists, they should also be training them to show respect to the people legitimately passing through. They should increase the number of people manning the checkpoints, to be able to process workers faster. And they should lower the cost of work permits, so that people who are already living on the edge are not deprived of a third of their pay check. A little respect for the dignity of Palestinian people would go a long way towards promoting peace.
On the other side -- and yes, there is always another side in this conflict -- I am grateful for the security wall.
My husband and I lived in Israel for a year in 1995-96, when Yitshak Rabin was assassinated. That year, approximately 40 people were killed in terror attacks, mostly by suicide bombers. These attacks were among the most evil expressions of the human soul, to strap explosives onto the body of a 20 year old child and send him into a crowd.
Though the numbers of people killed in such attacks were small compared to the numbers killed in car accidents, the attacks were very successful in their aim of creating terror. With constant news stories about bus bombings, I avoided riding buses the entire year, sticking to taxis instead.
Once Israel built the security wall, terror attacks dropped to ten percent of what they had been. This year, only three people died in Israel proper as a result of the conflict with Palestinians: Daniel Viflic, who I mentioned earlier, Mary Jean Gardener, a British citizen who was killed by a bomb planted at the central bus station of Jerusalem, and Kristene Luken, an American stabbed to death in the woods by thugs from Hamas. My fear of buses and public spaces has faded into memory.
The next post in this series is called Ethnic Struggle.
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Sayid
This is the third in a series of posts about politics in Israel. To view the earlier posts in the series click these links:
1. Celebrating Israel 2. Middle East, not Middle Earth
This year I befriended a Palestinian man named Sayid who, in the words of our landlady, "comes begging for work every now and then." We had been told by our landlady that we could trust him, though it took us a while to understand what it means for an upper-middle class Jew to trust a working class Palestinian. He won't hurt you, he won't steal anything from you; but don't let him in the house unless absolutely necessary, and don't trust the details of things he says.
In the beginning he seemed to lie to us, or at least he stretched the truth in irritating ways. Certainly he viewed us as money machines, and his job was to extract as much from us as possible. But over time, as he saw that I respect him as a human being and that I want to help him but that I do not have the financial resources to solve his problems, he and I developed a deeper level of mutual trust.
Sayid is the father of five children. The oldest is a teenager with severe developmental problems, who lives in an Arab boarding school for the disabled. His second child's growth seems delayed, and she is being treated at Hadassah hospital (Israel's premiere hospital, named for the Jewish women's organization that funds it.) His youngest child is still a toddler.
In talking to Sayid, it seems everything he does is for the sake of his five children. They live hand to mouth; many days Sayid himself eats nothing. His capacity for physical hardship astounds me. He can work in the hot sun for hours on end, with nothing in his belly but a cup of coffee and nicotine from his cigarette. More than once he has told me his electricity was disconnected, or he has no water this month and has to borrow from neighbors. Not long ago at a particularly desperate time he was talking about selling his refrigerator; I don't know if he went through with it.
Sayid hates coming to Jerusalem. He walks the streets searching for work, in constant fear of the police, as he has no work permit and could be jailed. On more than one occasion he has been hauled into the police station at a time when he was not engaged in work, he was kept standing on his feet for several hours and then set free. To anyone involved with working class Hispanic communities in America, this should all sound familiar. But Sayid keeps coming back, because on the days he finds work here he can expect to earn at least 40 NIS an hour -- that's about $11. A full day of hard labor in the Palestinian territories, working from 8AM to 5PM with no lunch break, earns him just 70 NIS in total. (I confirmed these numbers with other sources.)
A few months back, Sayid's wife left him. She told him, "This is no way to live," and she took the baby and ran to her father's house. Eventually she returned to her husband, but in the immediate aftermath of her departure Sayid came to me, desperate for work. He talked to me for almost an hour, telling me of the humiliations he suffers on a daily basis. He kept repeating two phrases, אני בן אדם, "I am a human being", I want to be treated as a human being, and אין לי, "I do not have" -- I do not have land to build a store, I do not have an education to get a salaried job, my wife has never worked for money and I don't have anyone who can share my financial burden. "All my children's needs, they all fall on my shoulders," he told me. As he spoke, his voice grew more and more desperate. And though I was sitting alone with him in my living room, and I trust him that he would never hurt me, still it was not hard to imagine that desperation turning to violence -- if the atmosphere were ripe, and if someone lit a spark.
This is the third in a series of comments about the political situation in Israel. To read the next comment in the series, click here.
1. Celebrating Israel 2. Middle East, not Middle Earth
This year I befriended a Palestinian man named Sayid who, in the words of our landlady, "comes begging for work every now and then." We had been told by our landlady that we could trust him, though it took us a while to understand what it means for an upper-middle class Jew to trust a working class Palestinian. He won't hurt you, he won't steal anything from you; but don't let him in the house unless absolutely necessary, and don't trust the details of things he says.
In the beginning he seemed to lie to us, or at least he stretched the truth in irritating ways. Certainly he viewed us as money machines, and his job was to extract as much from us as possible. But over time, as he saw that I respect him as a human being and that I want to help him but that I do not have the financial resources to solve his problems, he and I developed a deeper level of mutual trust.
Sayid is the father of five children. The oldest is a teenager with severe developmental problems, who lives in an Arab boarding school for the disabled. His second child's growth seems delayed, and she is being treated at Hadassah hospital (Israel's premiere hospital, named for the Jewish women's organization that funds it.) His youngest child is still a toddler.
In talking to Sayid, it seems everything he does is for the sake of his five children. They live hand to mouth; many days Sayid himself eats nothing. His capacity for physical hardship astounds me. He can work in the hot sun for hours on end, with nothing in his belly but a cup of coffee and nicotine from his cigarette. More than once he has told me his electricity was disconnected, or he has no water this month and has to borrow from neighbors. Not long ago at a particularly desperate time he was talking about selling his refrigerator; I don't know if he went through with it.
Sayid hates coming to Jerusalem. He walks the streets searching for work, in constant fear of the police, as he has no work permit and could be jailed. On more than one occasion he has been hauled into the police station at a time when he was not engaged in work, he was kept standing on his feet for several hours and then set free. To anyone involved with working class Hispanic communities in America, this should all sound familiar. But Sayid keeps coming back, because on the days he finds work here he can expect to earn at least 40 NIS an hour -- that's about $11. A full day of hard labor in the Palestinian territories, working from 8AM to 5PM with no lunch break, earns him just 70 NIS in total. (I confirmed these numbers with other sources.)
A few months back, Sayid's wife left him. She told him, "This is no way to live," and she took the baby and ran to her father's house. Eventually she returned to her husband, but in the immediate aftermath of her departure Sayid came to me, desperate for work. He talked to me for almost an hour, telling me of the humiliations he suffers on a daily basis. He kept repeating two phrases, אני בן אדם, "I am a human being", I want to be treated as a human being, and אין לי, "I do not have" -- I do not have land to build a store, I do not have an education to get a salaried job, my wife has never worked for money and I don't have anyone who can share my financial burden. "All my children's needs, they all fall on my shoulders," he told me. As he spoke, his voice grew more and more desperate. And though I was sitting alone with him in my living room, and I trust him that he would never hurt me, still it was not hard to imagine that desperation turning to violence -- if the atmosphere were ripe, and if someone lit a spark.
This is the third in a series of comments about the political situation in Israel. To read the next comment in the series, click here.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
The Middle East, NOT Middle Earth
I have a confession to make. In my last post, I apologized for a month long silence and blamed it on a time crunch. In truth, I have been experiencing a time crunch as my blissful year in Israel comes to an end, and I try to drain out every last drop of תענוג, spiritual pleasure, that I possibly can. But -- I was also avoiding my blog for another reason.
The post before last, I wrote a tribute to the state of Israel in honor of Israel's Independence Day. I had planned that tribute to be the first in a series of comments about Israeli politics and society, and I've been avoiding making those posts. Writing about Israel is likely to be career suicide for a rabbi; if she is critical of Israel, the hawks will have her head, and if she is supportive of Israel, the doves will skewer her heart. But even aside from concerns of how I will be received, I felt in all honesty קטנתי -- I am too small. The situation here so complex, what can I say that is not an oversimplification?
And yet, I have made worthwhile observations, and so, with a deep breath, I will share a few notes. Consider my post today to be the second in a series of seven about the political situation in Israel. To give you a sense of where I am going, here is a list of all the titles:
1. Celebrating Israel
2. This is the Middle East, not Middle Earth!
3. Sayid
4. The Security Wall
5. Ethnic Struggle
6. Borders
7. The Future
This is the Middle East, not Middle Earth
I am frustrated by the way conversations about Israel seem to flatten everything down to a battle between good and evil.
The BBC is possibly the worst main-stream offender on the anti-Israel side. Several organizations, for example Just Journalism, have been tracking their biased reporting. I am not a regular follower, but I recently came across one relatively tame example: take a look at this short article about Daniel Viflic, a 16 year old boy who was killed this year by a rocket fired from Gaza into Israel. The article concludes:
It was the most serious violence since Israel's conflict with Hamas in Gaza in December 2008 and January 2009.
About 1,400 Palestinians, more than half of them civilians, and 13 Israelis, including 10 soldiers, were killed.
I was shocked to learn that a single death had led to a conflict of such large scale, killing 1400 people, and that somehow I had missed the entire event! (It took me a few moments to realize that in recalling all those deaths, the article was reminding us of Operation Cast Lead of 2008-09, not the response to Daniel Viflic's death.)
Notice how the BBC typically refer to "Israel's conflict with Hamas", NOT the conflict between Israel and Hamas -- ignoring the fact that Operation Cast Lead, as brutal as it was, was a response to a daily onslaught of rocket fire from Gaza into Israel that has been traumatizing the residents of southern Israel, Jewish and Bedouin alike. Political science professor Jonathon Rynhold of Bar Ilan University refers to the BBC news coverage as reflecting a post-colonial mentality. He contrasts his own views: "I see this as a conflict with two sides."
So why does the BBC see this as Israel's conflict? Many Jews consider their one-sided views to be antisemitic. I actually think the BBC is racist in the opposite direction. My chevrutah Shaiya Rothberg -- whose views are usually quite left -- once pointed out to me that groups who see Israel as solely responsible for the conflicts in this region must think that certain types of people (third world? Muslim?) cannot be held responsible for their own actions.
But on the other side, I am equally frustrated by the all-too common Israeli view of Arabs as monolithic (they are all violent Jew-haters), or of Jews as the only humans in the region who really matter. Earlier this year, a private group paid to place larger-than-life pictures of the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, zt"l, on the sides of city buses. Next to the Rebbe's welcoming half-smile were the words מדינה פליסטנית אסון ליהודים. (Translation: A Palestinian State is a disaster for the Jews.) Imagine how Jerusalem's Arab citizens, or, worse, her Palestinian visitors, must have felt boarding those buses! If that is hard to appreciate, try imagining the reaction if there were to be adds on California buses announcing: "Spanish in our schools is a disaster for true Americans."
The post before last, I wrote a tribute to the state of Israel in honor of Israel's Independence Day. I had planned that tribute to be the first in a series of comments about Israeli politics and society, and I've been avoiding making those posts. Writing about Israel is likely to be career suicide for a rabbi; if she is critical of Israel, the hawks will have her head, and if she is supportive of Israel, the doves will skewer her heart. But even aside from concerns of how I will be received, I felt in all honesty קטנתי -- I am too small. The situation here so complex, what can I say that is not an oversimplification?
And yet, I have made worthwhile observations, and so, with a deep breath, I will share a few notes. Consider my post today to be the second in a series of seven about the political situation in Israel. To give you a sense of where I am going, here is a list of all the titles:
1. Celebrating Israel
2. This is the Middle East, not Middle Earth!
3. Sayid
4. The Security Wall
5. Ethnic Struggle
6. Borders
7. The Future
This is the Middle East, not Middle Earth
I am frustrated by the way conversations about Israel seem to flatten everything down to a battle between good and evil.
The BBC is possibly the worst main-stream offender on the anti-Israel side. Several organizations, for example Just Journalism, have been tracking their biased reporting. I am not a regular follower, but I recently came across one relatively tame example: take a look at this short article about Daniel Viflic, a 16 year old boy who was killed this year by a rocket fired from Gaza into Israel. The article concludes:
It was the most serious violence since Israel's conflict with Hamas in Gaza in December 2008 and January 2009.
About 1,400 Palestinians, more than half of them civilians, and 13 Israelis, including 10 soldiers, were killed.
I was shocked to learn that a single death had led to a conflict of such large scale, killing 1400 people, and that somehow I had missed the entire event! (It took me a few moments to realize that in recalling all those deaths, the article was reminding us of Operation Cast Lead of 2008-09, not the response to Daniel Viflic's death.)
Notice how the BBC typically refer to "Israel's conflict with Hamas", NOT the conflict between Israel and Hamas -- ignoring the fact that Operation Cast Lead, as brutal as it was, was a response to a daily onslaught of rocket fire from Gaza into Israel that has been traumatizing the residents of southern Israel, Jewish and Bedouin alike. Political science professor Jonathon Rynhold of Bar Ilan University refers to the BBC news coverage as reflecting a post-colonial mentality. He contrasts his own views: "I see this as a conflict with two sides."
So why does the BBC see this as Israel's conflict? Many Jews consider their one-sided views to be antisemitic. I actually think the BBC is racist in the opposite direction. My chevrutah Shaiya Rothberg -- whose views are usually quite left -- once pointed out to me that groups who see Israel as solely responsible for the conflicts in this region must think that certain types of people (third world? Muslim?) cannot be held responsible for their own actions.
But on the other side, I am equally frustrated by the all-too common Israeli view of Arabs as monolithic (they are all violent Jew-haters), or of Jews as the only humans in the region who really matter. Earlier this year, a private group paid to place larger-than-life pictures of the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, zt"l, on the sides of city buses. Next to the Rebbe's welcoming half-smile were the words מדינה פליסטנית אסון ליהודים. (Translation: A Palestinian State is a disaster for the Jews.) Imagine how Jerusalem's Arab citizens, or, worse, her Palestinian visitors, must have felt boarding those buses! If that is hard to appreciate, try imagining the reaction if there were to be adds on California buses announcing: "Spanish in our schools is a disaster for true Americans."
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Love That is Not Dependent On a Thing
Sorry for my month-long silence! The end of the academic year brought a time crunch. My post today is a comment I wrote for the Fuchsberg Center's eNewsletter about this week's Torah reading. If you were at Shevach around this time last year, you may remember I led a Torah discussion about Rabbi Mordecai Finley's concept of higher love and lower love. One is characterized by the question "What can I do for you?", the other by the question "What can you do for me?" Here is another view of those two types of love.
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A few months ago, my five-year-old daughter misbehaved and I took away one of her baby-dolls. That night as I tucked her into bed, she said to me:
"Mommy, usually I love you, but today I don't love you."
"You don't love me? Why not?"
"Because you took my baby away.”
I was amazed by her statement. Here it was, in the raw, what our sages referred to as Ahava HaTluyah B’davar,’"Love that is dependent on something": a type of love appropriate from a kindergartener, but plenty common among adults as well. Such love, if it does not mature into Ahava She’eyno Tluyah B’davar, "Love that is not dependent on anything", remains fickle – a love that comes and goes and easily flips to hatred.
Our parsha this week -- B'halotechah -- starts out with hopeful expectations of love. Hashem gives orders regarding the menorah in the Tabernacle, and Aharon prepares the menorah exactly to Hashem's liking. Israel and God are preparing a home together. But before the parshah ends, the Israelites are complaining about the food, then God hurls meat from the skies and kills people off while the meat is still between their teeth.
The food complaints seem as absurd as any family brawl when viewed from the outside. "We remember the fish that we ate in Egypt for free," the people moan (Num. 11:5). Rashi asks the obvious question, "If (the Egyptians) didn't give them straw (for making their bricks), could it be that they gave them free fish?" The explanation, says Rashi, is that the food in Egypt was "free from mitsvot." God's desert menu may have been delicious; mannah that tasted like honey, or oil pastries, or like any taste you can imagine. But the mannah was a gift with strings attached, and it's so easy to resent those strings.
Even Moshe gets fed up with the Israelites and turns to Hashem in desperation. "Did I conceive this entire nation, did I give birth to him? How can you say to me 'Carry him in your bosom as a nurse carries a suckling infant?'" (Num. 11:12) But were the Israelites really a nation of infants? Had they not stood at Mt. Sinai, like a bride at the Chupah? I cannot accept that Hashem chose a child-bride! And yet the adults of this nation behave like a bunch of children; whining about water and food, breaking the rules the first chance they get, viewing themselves as grasshoppers next to the giant adults who now occupy their land.
The Israelites seem like my five-year old daughter, who loves me because of the things she gets from me. But then consider the reality of the people in the desert, helplessly dependent for the basic necessities of life. The desert experience was infantilizing.
An intimate relationship demands interdependency. But when the dependency is too great, insecurities can diminish both the love and the person. What if I can't live up to his expectations? What if he stops giving me what I need? Why doesn't he give me more?
Any of us who search for God in our lives is not far from the desert. If we view Hashem in the way generations before us did -- as the Master of the Universe who holds each soul in His hand -- then our dependency is overwhelmingly great. But if, as is more common these days, we are overwhelmed by unanswered prayers, by our awareness of the cruelties of this world -- then we run to the opposite coast, banishing any sense of dependency on God, and any possibility of loving God, from our hearts. We must work to experience towards God a mature love: a love based on appreciation and joy, Ahava She’eyno Tluyah B’davar, a love that is not dependent on a thing.
What is true of our relationship with God is true of the all the adult relationships in our lives. Grown children must work to transition their feelings for their parents from dependency to mutuality. Lovers and dear friends must invest in each other, to feel the other's happiness, to feel the pleasure of giving as deeply as we feel the pleasure of receiving.
What is true of our relationship with God is true of the all the adult relationships in our lives. Grown children must work to transition their feelings for their parents from dependency to mutuality. Lovers and dear friends must invest in each other, to feel the other's happiness, to feel the pleasure of giving as deeply as we feel the pleasure of receiving.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Celebrating Israel
In America, for too many people Memorial Day has become the day after which it is again permissible to wear white shoes. Such a blasé attitude is impossible in Israel. Memorial Day here is a day on which nearly every Jewish citizen remembers and mourns someone they have lost. A father, a son, a neighbor, a friend: Israel has known too many wars in her young life, and no one is untouched.
A siren sounded at 8PM on Sunday night, and again at 10AM on Monday, and for their duration the country was silent. Cars pulled over to the side of the road, some mid-intersection or mid-turn, and the drivers stepped out and stood quietly . The siren sounded a solid blast, like a tekiah of the shofar, the all-clear sign during a war. The same sirens, played in broken bursts like a shevarim, are the alarm signals that mean run for your life. Every house and apartment in Israel is equipped with a bomb-shelter, usually doubling as a bedroom. At 8PM last night I was sitting in the dark of my daughter's bedroom as she fell asleep, and, because I was also in Israel during the Gulf War, it was easy for me to imagine that eerie wail as broken bursts, announcing an unknown terror rushing toward us in the form of a missile in the night sky.
It is characteristically Jewish to catapult from solemnity to utter, joyous release. Ta'anit Esther, a day of fasting, is followed immediately by Purim, the silliest day of the year. Yom Kippur, the day we throw ourselves onto the mercy of heaven, is followed quickly by Sukkot, a holiday of such happiness it is often referred to simply as חג, "holiday". And Israel's Memorial Day ends on the evening that Yom Ha'atzmaut -- Independence Day -- begins.
As Debbie Friedman wrote in the lyrics to Miriam's Song, "We just lived through a miracle, we're going to dance tonight." For two thousand years, we prayed for this miracle. Every Jewish prayer service since the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 CE centered on our pleas to God, to free us from our oppressors and return us to Jerusalem. ותחזינה עינינו בשובך לציון "May our eyes see Your return to Zion." Yom Ha'atzmaut is and should be a day of fireworks and barbecues, but also Hallel. Because I do believe history progresses, I am confident future generations of Jews will look back on this time as a period of miracles.
I cannot dance on a blog, but here is my virtual dance, a giddy tribute to this day -- a list of biblical, rabbinic and kabbalistic references that are sewn into the daily life of Jerusalem today:
מפני שיבה תקום On public buses, instead of a clunkily worded notice that passengers should vacate these seats for the elderly and persons with disabilities, three simple words from a biblical verse are posted at the front of the bus: "מפני שיבה תקום Rise before old age." (Leviticus 19:32)
אין סוף אפשרויות Outside the Jerusalem Theatre, a large banner proclaims "Infinite possibilities", where the term infinite is a kabbalistic reference to God as containing the entire universe.
השבת אבידה Lamp-posts, fences, trees throughout Jerusalem are decorated with hand-printed signs proclaiming an item lost or found, using the Talmudic term for a commandment to return lost items, originating in the bible but much elaborated on in rabbinic sources.
פריקה וטעינה בלבד "Loading and Unloading Only" This standard street sign recalls the Talmudic language discussing the biblical commandment to assist another person's donkey that has stumbled under its burden.
הנה אנכי שלח מלאך לפניך לשמרך בדרך Behold I am sending an angel before you, to protect you on the way (Exodus 23:20) God's words to Israel, as they set off on their journey through the desert to the promised land, now drive around Jerusalem on the front grille of a delivery truck.
And finally, my favorite:
וַיַּרְא אֶת־הַמָּקוֹם מֵרָחֹק "And he saw the place from a distance," (Genesis 22:4) These words describe Abraham, as he approached the place where he was to sacrifice Isaac. The ancient rabbis identified that place as the future Temple mount in Jerusalem. Our friends Dave and Toby Curwin own an apartment in Efrat, twenty minutes outside Jerusalem, and from their living room porch they can see, at the end of a series of brown desert hills, the green hills and buildings of Jerusalem. וַיַּרְא אֶת־הַמָּקוֹם מֵרָחֹק they posted above their porch door.
This is the first in a series of comments about the political situation in Israel. To read the next comment in the series, click here.
A siren sounded at 8PM on Sunday night, and again at 10AM on Monday, and for their duration the country was silent. Cars pulled over to the side of the road, some mid-intersection or mid-turn, and the drivers stepped out and stood quietly . The siren sounded a solid blast, like a tekiah of the shofar, the all-clear sign during a war. The same sirens, played in broken bursts like a shevarim, are the alarm signals that mean run for your life. Every house and apartment in Israel is equipped with a bomb-shelter, usually doubling as a bedroom. At 8PM last night I was sitting in the dark of my daughter's bedroom as she fell asleep, and, because I was also in Israel during the Gulf War, it was easy for me to imagine that eerie wail as broken bursts, announcing an unknown terror rushing toward us in the form of a missile in the night sky.
It is characteristically Jewish to catapult from solemnity to utter, joyous release. Ta'anit Esther, a day of fasting, is followed immediately by Purim, the silliest day of the year. Yom Kippur, the day we throw ourselves onto the mercy of heaven, is followed quickly by Sukkot, a holiday of such happiness it is often referred to simply as חג, "holiday". And Israel's Memorial Day ends on the evening that Yom Ha'atzmaut -- Independence Day -- begins.
As Debbie Friedman wrote in the lyrics to Miriam's Song, "We just lived through a miracle, we're going to dance tonight." For two thousand years, we prayed for this miracle. Every Jewish prayer service since the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 CE centered on our pleas to God, to free us from our oppressors and return us to Jerusalem. ותחזינה עינינו בשובך לציון "May our eyes see Your return to Zion." Yom Ha'atzmaut is and should be a day of fireworks and barbecues, but also Hallel. Because I do believe history progresses, I am confident future generations of Jews will look back on this time as a period of miracles.
I cannot dance on a blog, but here is my virtual dance, a giddy tribute to this day -- a list of biblical, rabbinic and kabbalistic references that are sewn into the daily life of Jerusalem today:
מפני שיבה תקום On public buses, instead of a clunkily worded notice that passengers should vacate these seats for the elderly and persons with disabilities, three simple words from a biblical verse are posted at the front of the bus: "מפני שיבה תקום Rise before old age." (Leviticus 19:32)
אין סוף אפשרויות Outside the Jerusalem Theatre, a large banner proclaims "Infinite possibilities", where the term infinite is a kabbalistic reference to God as containing the entire universe.
השבת אבידה Lamp-posts, fences, trees throughout Jerusalem are decorated with hand-printed signs proclaiming an item lost or found, using the Talmudic term for a commandment to return lost items, originating in the bible but much elaborated on in rabbinic sources.
פריקה וטעינה בלבד "Loading and Unloading Only" This standard street sign recalls the Talmudic language discussing the biblical commandment to assist another person's donkey that has stumbled under its burden.
הנה אנכי שלח מלאך לפניך לשמרך בדרך Behold I am sending an angel before you, to protect you on the way (Exodus 23:20) God's words to Israel, as they set off on their journey through the desert to the promised land, now drive around Jerusalem on the front grille of a delivery truck.
And finally, my favorite:
וַיַּרְא אֶת־הַמָּקוֹם מֵרָחֹק "And he saw the place from a distance," (Genesis 22:4) These words describe Abraham, as he approached the place where he was to sacrifice Isaac. The ancient rabbis identified that place as the future Temple mount in Jerusalem. Our friends Dave and Toby Curwin own an apartment in Efrat, twenty minutes outside Jerusalem, and from their living room porch they can see, at the end of a series of brown desert hills, the green hills and buildings of Jerusalem. וַיַּרְא אֶת־הַמָּקוֹם מֵרָחֹק they posted above their porch door.
This is the first in a series of comments about the political situation in Israel. To read the next comment in the series, click here.
Monday, May 2, 2011
Have We Progressed?
Two posts back, I shared my understanding of a talk by Reb Shmuel Lewis. The Torah insists that human morality can and must progress; that history is not cyclic but rather linear or teleological. We are heading towards a better world. The example Reb Shmuel gave was slavery, which was once accepted as an inescapable part of reality and is now abhorrent to all of us.
My post triggered complex reactions from many of you. No one left a comment on my blog site, but, as is always the case, I received many comments by email and Facebook, and each one made me think again.
I don't know any slave owners personally. But I am certain that my wardrobe includes clothing and my kitchen cabinets include foods that were produced in part by the hands of slaves. In the year 2000, a report by the US State Department noted that 15,000 children aged 9 to 12 had been sold into forced labor on cotton, coffee, and cocoa plantations on the Ivory Coast alone. And where is all that cotton, coffee and cocoa heading? You guessed it -- our wardrobes and kitchen cabinets. The Slave Free Chocolate coalition estimates that cocoa production worldwide uses 100,000 child slaves.
On the other hand, in 2008 the UK's Fair Trade Foundation announced a total of 4.12 billion dollars of fair trade sales worldwide, and the fair trade movement is slow but growing in the US and Canada. Many chocolate companies in particular make a point of selling only products that do not rely on exploitation (at least, not severe exploitation.)
So now I am posing it as an open question, on the evening after Holocaust Memorial Day. In the past millennium, humanity has made astonishing progress in science and technology, but have we made any progress in matters of the heart?
Please tell me what you think. If you are unable to leave a comment here on the blog site (many people have told me they've tried to leave comments, but their efforts were lost when they clicked "post"), send me an email at ilana@post.harvard.edu, and give me permission to copy your email into an anonymous comment on my site. Let's get a conversation going.
My post triggered complex reactions from many of you. No one left a comment on my blog site, but, as is always the case, I received many comments by email and Facebook, and each one made me think again.
I don't know any slave owners personally. But I am certain that my wardrobe includes clothing and my kitchen cabinets include foods that were produced in part by the hands of slaves. In the year 2000, a report by the US State Department noted that 15,000 children aged 9 to 12 had been sold into forced labor on cotton, coffee, and cocoa plantations on the Ivory Coast alone. And where is all that cotton, coffee and cocoa heading? You guessed it -- our wardrobes and kitchen cabinets. The Slave Free Chocolate coalition estimates that cocoa production worldwide uses 100,000 child slaves.
On the other hand, in 2008 the UK's Fair Trade Foundation announced a total of 4.12 billion dollars of fair trade sales worldwide, and the fair trade movement is slow but growing in the US and Canada. Many chocolate companies in particular make a point of selling only products that do not rely on exploitation (at least, not severe exploitation.)
So now I am posing it as an open question, on the evening after Holocaust Memorial Day. In the past millennium, humanity has made astonishing progress in science and technology, but have we made any progress in matters of the heart?
Please tell me what you think. If you are unable to leave a comment here on the blog site (many people have told me they've tried to leave comments, but their efforts were lost when they clicked "post"), send me an email at ilana@post.harvard.edu, and give me permission to copy your email into an anonymous comment on my site. Let's get a conversation going.
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