Mount Zion responds: Can religious pluralism succeed in Israel?

Jeremy Fink

I used to see religious pluralism working in the western world, including Israel- but the tolerances and understandings that allowed and supported this seem to be breaking down. Having lived in Israel on two different occasions- I’ve witnessed the fractures in Israeli society first hand, albeit from an American perspective. The tolerances I mentioned above are, as I see them: the core understanding that a government can not or should not enforce a version of religion on it’s citizens. Moreover, a healthy pluralistic society discourages public favoritism of one religion over another. Those restraints, when maintained with vigilance- protect the rights of all religious observers. In the real world, larger individual religions, more devout or zealous adherents or powerful denominations typically care little for such ideas- generally finding such restraints as hinderances to their expansion or the implementation of their ‘TRUE’ ideas over all of society. Think how some Christians in the US often complain about how they are being ‘persecuted’ or discriminated against because they are not allowed to teach their version of religion in a public school.

In Israel, society is hamstrung since the ultra-orthodox are often unified, politically and ideologically in certain beliefs- and see no conflict in attempting (and often succeeding) in imposing them on the rest of the country. The security affects, financial, internal and international political costs and general degradation of comity for Israel created by the actions of the ultra-Orthodox are hard to over estimate. Additionally, the Haredi views are ‘supported’ by the literal reading of the TANACH. The TANACH is replete with examples of society being punished for a lack of purity or zealousness in the observance of God’s commandments. As a reform Jew, I generally view these portions of the TANACH as allegorical, illustrative example or interesting ‘history.’ The Haredi, however, see these stories as TRUTH and in some cases literal examples of how society should be run- regardless of the consequences of the application of ~3000 year old strictures to modern life. The deleterious effects are rarely taken into account by the Haredi. Much of the rest of Israeli society strongly resents those actions since most of the Ultra-Orthodox do not serve in the army and many benefit from a tax protected / subsidized financial structure and end up bearing far less than their fair share of the costs of their decisions. The animosity this situation creates is a poison pill. The extremely high birthrates of the ultra-orthodox as compared to the rest of Israeli society only worsen the problem.

Settlements serves as just one example to illustrate my point. Some of the building in Israel is a simple expansion of largely developed areas- not much different than building in empty lots or redeveloping areas in St. Paul or Minneapolis. Yet as we know it causes more than enough difficulty for managing current and future relations between Israel and her neighbors. However the Jewish religious zealots who intentionally put themselves in remote locations in disputed territory and in some cases just drop shipping containers (‘settlements’) overnight to create facts on the ground which then force the IDF to either defend them or remove them are, in my view, no better than the Arabs or Palestinians who engage in hostile diplomacy or paramilitary actions against Israel. The current policies of the Israeli government are, in large part, due to a ultra-orthodox party that is necessary to retain a governing majority & forces the government to kowtow to their demands regardless of the costs. These settlement moves are the acts of people who don’t care that they are making an impossible situation even more difficult for their own country. They believe: “God is on our side.” Well, much of Israel knows this is the perspective of the Haredi & yet is forced to contend with what some would consider a 5th column determined to prevent any future that doesn’t conform to their very narrow view.

When I lived in Israel- even as a Jew, I often felt judged and unwelcome in Jewish parts of the country due to my Reform Judaism. My experiences with stoning and hostile blockades were not from Arabs or other non-Jews, but from the ultra-orthodox. In fact, on my last trip back, as part of a Reform Jewish Educators conference I distinctly recall beginning a conversation with a Black Hatter & everything went along swimmingly until he learned my wife was a Reform Jewish Educator. At that point he looked at me as if I were something nasty he’d stepped in & refused to speak to me any longer- another Jew! I was really surprised and disturbed. When I talked to Steph about this- she informed me about the common attitude of Haredi Jews towards reform Judaism in general and women educators specifically.

I realize my perspective paints a grim picture, but in my view when the will of one group of people is imposed on another- regardless of who they are- that doesn’t bode well for the future. I, for one, hope the power the ultra-orthodox wield over the rest of Israel is soon broken. In my experience, the more liberal elements of Israeli society generally act in a way that is more than happy to let the Haredi live as the wish, now if only they could see fit to return the favor.

 

Stuart Goldbarg

In Israel, the people are free to make their own associations and political parties. The people and their organizations are free to publicly disagree with the government on any subject, and they do.  There is equality under the law in Israel, and institutional respect for people of both genders, and for people of all races, all religions, all classes, and all ethnicities. While governments may occasionally violate the legal principles upon which the nation is based, as all governments do everywhere, in Israel the law itself respects everyone, and errant governments are always forced to relent – eventually.

 No country for thousands of miles in any direction, no nation on the triple land mass of Europe, Asia, and Africa, not even Switzerland, can make these claims. Yet it is not in order to boast that Israel is so egalitarian, but because Jews know the sting of injustice better than any other people, having been repeatedly scorned, spit upon, beaten, made homeless, robbed, raped, murdered, and forced to convert under real threats of crucifixion and burning alive. More than anyone, Jews and Israelis know that every human deserves dignity and justice.

 

Tom Marver

I have been struggling with writing something about this question for over three weeks and am now beginning to understand why it has been so difficult.  First, I have never been to Israel.  Secondly, most of my perceptions about Israel and Israelis have been formed from watching television news shows and reading U.S magazines and international newspapers in English.

 My struggle with this question is intensified by the multiple meanings of the term “religious pluralism.”  The result of having multiple definitions can be chaotic. 

Some consider religious pluralism and religious diversity synonymous; that is, pluralism is a simple recognition of the fact there are many different faith groups active in the country.  This makes religious pluralism a mere statistical fact. 

Another definition of religious pluralism involves accepting the beliefs taught by other religions other than your own as valid and also extending this to different streams within your own religion.

Religious pluralism involves both inter-religious and perhaps more importantly, intra-religious dialogue where all engaged parties are treated as equals, seeking solutions to real problems and not just merely tolerated for forming temporary political parties and influencing world opinion. 

 Being that we are Americans, we tend to define religious pluralism and what is meant by success thru American definitions, eyes and values instead of those in Israel.  An example of this is the ongoing struggle by the international group of women known as Women of the Wall.  Any discussion of religious pluralism cannot and should not be separated from the struggle for equal rights for all.  Claiming religious pluralism exists without such rights is a sham.

 I think the more important question should be not “can religious pluralism succeed in Israel?” but whether “can a divided government striving for religious plurality succeed in Israel?”  Religious pluralism and religious plurality is not the same thing.  By “religious plurality” I am referring to the appropriate balances necessary for maintaining the character of the State of Israel as stated in its Declaration of Independence as preserving a specific Jewish majority while concurrently guaranteeing equality and rights of all non-majority groups.

 Can “religious pluralism” succeed in Israel?   Yes.  To my latter question regarding religious plurality, no, it will not succeed in the long term as is with all of its institutionalized dichotomies. 

 

Steve Levin

Israel, like America, is a nation of immigrants.  Jews came from the shtetls of rural Russia and from the academies of Germany; from secular communities in France and England and from Hasidic settlements in Poland;  from suburban Zionist clubs in New York and Kansas City and from thousand-year-old communities in Iraq.  With so much diversity in background, tradition, and culture, and with so many ways of defining what it means to be a Jew, how can Israel—like America—be anything but a pluralist society?

 Not everyone sees it this way.  Israel’s most austere fundamentalist groups, like fundamentalists everywhere, want there to be just one right way, one right answer.  In their system, there is one absolute truth, and you are either “in” or you are ”out”.  And if you are “out”, you are relegated to some illegitimate “other”, almost a 2nd-class state of being.  It is hard for me to see, rationally or theologically, how such an inherently intolerant and dehumanizing ideology can lead to a world where God is more present, or to some hoped-for coming of a Messiah.  If anything, it would seem to be delaying that day.

 So, in the contest of pluralism and fundamentalism in Israel, can pluralism prevail?   Of course it can!  It’s not just a matter of politics.  It’s also, at the most profound level, a matter of faith.

 

Anne Starr

For me, there are many ways to be Jewish.  We are a very small minority in the world, and when we exclude those who identify themselves as Jewish, we are making a judgment on whether their beliefs are acceptable.

 

 

Don Mains    

Can religious pluralism succeed in Israel?  Not in the near future.  Ultra-orthodox have always had disproportionate influence in the Israeli government.   Pluralism would require change in the threshold needed for a party to get seats in the Knesset.  By raising the minimum number of votes, there would be fewer parties, and small parties – like those of some ultra-orthodox – would lose political influence. Increasing frustration by liberal congregants and secular Jews could also curb the influence of ultra-orthodox.

 To help foster the growth of pluralism in Israel, we can and should give financial support to the reform movement there.  We should also write the Israeli Prime Minster to say that Israel must have religious pluralism for it to be a true home for world Jewry.  We should urge him to champion measures to increase pluralism.

 

Charlie Levine

A healthy Israeli society depends on different flavors of Judaism.  Sadly, it may require a change in government – to reduce politicians’ dependency on extreme parties to form a coalition – to achieve equality for all.

Mount Zion responds: What is Israel’s greatest contribution to the world?

 

 You said…

Israel’s contribution to telecommunications has changed the way we communicate now and for the future.

 -Marc Salita

Possibly one of the greatest contributions to the world is the ability to connect with chat and instant messaging technology. This has impacted society throughout the entire world.

-Lela  MacGregor

 Israel has significantly contributed to the world’s business productivity based on its computing and communication innovations. WithoutIsrael’s contributions, we would be without voice mail, chat rooms, and instant messaging.

-Doreen Gwin

Reflections on A Conversation Among Jews, Christians and Muslims

Israelis and Palestinians: A Conversation Among Jews, Christians, and Muslims

Mondays October 4, 11, 18 7:00-9:00 p.m.

All sessions at the Kay Fredricks Room, Klas Center (3rd floor), Hamline University

 October 4:    Telling our Stories: Two Palestinian Voices

Hussein Khatib and Ziad Amra

October 11: Telling our Stories: Two Israeli Voices

Mira Reinberg and Oren Gross

October 18: Roads to Resolution: What is Our Role as Americans?

Ron Young, National Interreligious Leadership Initiative For Peace In The Middle East.

Responses by local Muslim, Christian, and Jewish leaders.

(For 25 years Mr. Young has brought Jewish Christian and Muslim leaders together nationally to work for peace.) 

This event is free* and open to the public

For all who wish to listen openly to Israelis and Palestinians tell stories of home, dreams, conflict, and hope.

Each evening attendees will be led through a facilitated process for sharing and dialogue.

*donations will be invited

Directions: Klas Ctr. Is on Taylor Ave. next to football field, just east of Snelling Ave.  aylor Ave. is one-way eastbound, between Hewitt Ave.(south) and Pierce Butler Hwy (north); parking on streets and permitted for guests in campus lots (general parking spaces) after 6:00 p.m. Map: http://law.hamline.edu/files/Campus_Map.pdf

Mount Zion responds: What surprises you about the diversity of the land and people of Israel?

Sandy Weisberg

I like numbers, so here is a number I find interesting.  A recent international Gallup poll asked, in many countries:  Is religion an important part of your everyday life?  In Israel, only 51% replied in the affirmative, less than the 65% yes in the US.  By the numbers, Israel is a very secular country, much more secular than here.

For a country with a near-secular majority, here are some surprising things we experienced on our congregational trip last June:

• We visited an elementary school in Tiberius, our sister area in Partnership 2000.  We did crafts with the kids and then they sang for us and we all danced together.  But the boys danced with the boys, the girls danced with the girls, and the singing included only overtly religious songs.  This was an orthodox, public school, which sounds like an oxymoron to American ears.  There are many school systems, all of them supported by the government, all of them held to academic standards, except, of course, the ultra-orthodox who are exempt from the standards.
• The progressive, or reform, movement is alive and well with a few synagogues in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and elsewhere.  Their services felt comfortable and familiar.  These congregations appeared to be made up of immigrants from English-speaking countries.  There is no culture of “joining” a synagogue in Israel, so they pay for themselves by charging for b’nai mitzvahs, performing wedding ceremonies (not recognized by the state because of control of weddings by the ultra-orthodox), running schools, and I would guess philanthropy from abroad.
• On Shabbat, most everything stops.  Well, not quite.  Busses don’t run by taxis do run.  Most, but not all, stores and restaurants close.  The beaches in Tel Aviv and their parking lots are jammed.  Jerusalem is quieter.
• Secular Israelis who grew up in Jerusalem generally move elsewhere in Israel when they finish their army service.  Jerusalem belongs mostly to the Orthodox, and to the tourists.
• Israel is a vibrant, prosperous place.  It has absorbed about one million from the Former Soviet Union, and these immigrants and their children are the backbone of Israel’s high-tech boom.  I’ve read that Russian is often the first language in the local offices of Intel, Medtronics, and the other multi-nationals in Israel.
• Soldiers are evident everywhere.  The conflict with the Palestinians is obvious in principle when the separation fence is in view, but in practice it seems to have little effect on the day to day life of Israelis.
• We were told that in most secular schools, children were more likely to have travelled abroad than to have ever met a Palestinian.

Israel is messy, confusing, exasperating, and, most of all, the Jewish homeland.

Batya Spector

What surprises me is the complexity of meanings contained within the concept of diversity in Israel, as reflected in the articles on www.mzisrael.wordpress.com.  I encountered in the readings intra-diversity, as it were, among Jews, and inter-diversity among Jews and non-Jews;  diversity derived from the length of time people have called the land home;  diversity resulting from competing social, religious, and political values;  and diversity resulting from resources — land, political power, education, employment –that are shared unequally among the groups living there.

Reading aside, I also have experiential awareness of a facet of Israel’s diversity of people. Five months after the six day war in June, 1967, I arrived in Israel as a very young adult seeking adventure. I spent several months on Kibbutz Yad Mordechai, near Ashkelon, where I enrolled in a Hebrew ulpan (language program) part-time and picked oranges, cleaned chicken houses, and worked in the communal kitchens the other part of the time. Sharing the ulpan experience with me were newly-arrived Jewish immigrants from many countries who intended to make Aliyah!  In the classroom and the fields with me were Jews from South Africa, Algeria, India, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States. All had taken advantage of new opportunities provided by the outcome of the June war and were on the path to citizenship by studying Hebrew.   I wish I could reconnect with many of those fellow students, now 43 years later, and learn how each – who stayed in Israel – found his/her place; that would be a wonderful, but possibly biased case study in the marvel that is Israeli society today.

Again, reading aside, I have another experiential reservoir to consider the idea of diversity in Israel, for I grew up on Minnesota’s Iron Range in the latter part of the last century.   I was imbued with the pride-filled dogma about this area of the country being a showcase of our country’s “melting pot” values. Diversity’s face was Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant, and within all three religious groups, variations based on ethnic origins.  Native Americans were also my classmates. The reality of life for immigrant and first generation mining families (non-Jews) and merchant families (Jews) was more a smorgasbord of variation than a melting pot.  There is much to savor in a smorgasbord, as long as all components receive equal care, attention and replenishment.  That would be my hope for Israel.

Sally and Mitch Rubinstein

Evidence of Israel’s diversity presented itself almost daily to our Mount Zion tour group. Upon arrival at Ben Gurion International Airport on that sun-drenched Monday afternoon, crowds speaking many languages and reflecting many religious and cultural backgrounds — bewildered but energized flight-weary passengers  — awaited their turn at passport control. It was a foretaste of what we would experience for the next thirteen days.

Encounters with the diverse branches of Judaism became a hallmark of the tour. We saw Ultra-Orthodox Jews in many places, but especially in the Old City of Jerusalem, where their presence is emblematic of their dominant position in Jewish life.  In Efrat, a settlement in the Territories east of Jerusalem, we met with Rabbi Shlomo Rifkin, a prominent modern orthodox rabbi, who shared his perspectives regarding religious laws in the country.  In Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, we attended Shabbat services with Progressive (Reform) congregations and heard firsthand of their growth, aspirations, and challenges. No doubt, too, we saw non-observant Jews going about their lives with seeming indifference to their religious background.

The ethnic diversity of Israeli Jews – Middle Eastern, Ethiopian, and European – was evident in faces throughout the country. We saw this diversity in a detachment of soldiers in the Israeli Defense Forces strolling through the Old City of Jerusalem. We saw it in the immigrants from Russia on vacation at the resort where we stopped to bathe in the Dead Sea. On a daily basis, we saw and heard it in our tour guide, Muki, who made Aliyah from South Africa, the country in which his Lithuanian-born parents found refuge from the Holocaust.

Diversity was evident in many other settings: in synagogues, mosques and churches; in tourists – Jewish, Muslim, and Christian, from all continents – seeking out their respective heritages;  in members of Christian denominations asserting their right to oversee religious sites in Jerusalem;  in Israeli Arab shop owners in the Old City of Jerusalem; in Palestinians in the Territories, whose shops we visited and whose cities and villages we saw on our journey from the Kinneret to Jerusalem;  in the Bedouin settlements that dotted the landscape in the Territories and the Negev; and in individuals from southeast Asian countries working in farm fields and strolling along the beach in Tel Aviv.

Perhaps the most inspiring and poignant engagement with diversity occurred one evening in Jaffa at a play whose cast members were blind-deaf individuals. Each had a personal story that was told to the audience as they prepared bread under the guidance of the theatrical crew. At the end of the performance when the baking was done, everyone – audience, actors, and crew – broke bread together.                

David Wark and Mary Ann Barrows Wark

On the congregational trip to Israel in June, our group drove north from Kibbutz Lotan one day, through the mountains of the Negev, to see the Ramon Crater (Machtesh Ramon). The Negev between Lotan and the crater itself is very barren and sparsely populated with dramatic, wide open spaces. It receives very little rain, even by the standards of a desert. Sometimes the only precipitation it gets is from winter snow from the high Negev mountains.

We stopped to view the amazing natural crater with spectacular cliffs around the rim. Our tour guide, Muki, explained the theory of the geological formation of the crater over millions of years. Most craters are formed by meteors hitting the earth, or by volcanoes, glaciers or rivers.  Makhtesh Ramon came from a different process: horizontal layers of microscopic shell fish were deposited over millions of years. Eventually, the layers were compressed into flat limestone. The volcanic pressure from below pushed the layers up, forming sharp peaks. Rain falling on those tall peaks ran off, eroding the mountains with canyons.  Flash floods and sand slides occurred again and again, and the sides of the canyon eventually collapsed, leaving a huge crater. It is possible to view geologic layers on the sides of the cliff — a window into geologic time.
When we left that site, we saw a wild ibex standing on its hind legs, eating leaves on a carob tree. Our bus then drove farther north and we learned that we were passing through the wilderness of Zin, where our forefathers spent much of their 40 years of desert wandering.  Frequent road signs: Beware of camels near the road! 

We got back on our bus for the long drive to Tel Aviv, where we had started our trip. The vegetation increased the closer we got; Tel Aviv flora looks like Los Angeles!  The difference in flora and fauna on a single day’s trip brought home to us that Israel is a place of incredible geographical diversity.  It encompasses both deserts and wineries, densely populated cities and vast swaths of uninhabited land; snowy peaks and salty seas, and everything in between.  Like the people of Israel, the land is enormously diverse, with geologic extremes packed into small spaces, creating a broad palette of environments.

Yael Miriam

After filling myself with prayer, challah, apples and honey, and many new foods that bless us against hate and the destruction of our enemies (which felt very Israeli) I am back in secular Tel Aviv feeling the newness of the year and the adventures to come. I have 10 days to repent for my sins, reflect on the year past and create goals for the year to come. 10 short days and so much to do.
I will begin my first adventure of the New Year tomorrow by heading up north to Kfar Yassif, an Arab Muslim and Christian village where I will stay for the week. This powerful time between the holiest of Jewish holidays I will be in one of the few places in Israel where I am the only Jew. I will begin my coexistence work by coexisting. By sharing my own cultural and religious beliefs and simultaneously learning those of my neighbors, particularly celebrating the completion of Ramadan and learning from my host family about Palestinian women in the workplace, I am starting the New Year actively seeking understanding and peace. I also hear it’s the best hummus in the country.

(Yael Miriam is a recipient of the Dorot Fellowship, and is living in Israel from August 2010 through July 2011.  Dorot fellows have been tasked with sharpening the characteristics and skills, acquiring the experience, and broadening the networks required for Jewish leadership in the 21st century.  Through travel, study, and dialogue, the Dorot Learning Community seeks to develop a sophisticated understanding of Israeli society and to address both the breadth and depth of issues critical to the future of American Jewry.)

Rabbi Stock Spilker’s Rosh Hashana 5771 Sermon

We all are connected to Israel, but how will we listen to each other?

Rabbi Adam Stock Spilker, Rosh Hashanah 5771, September 9, 2010

Mount Zion Temple, St. Paul, MN

The cover of Time Magazine this week features a large Star of David made up of daisies with the headline in the middle: “Why Israel Doesn’t Care about Peace.” 

In response, some of us may jump to Israel’s defense.  Some of us may shrug our shoulders: “Doesn’t involve me.”   Some may be confused how to respond.  Some may be outraged by media bias.  Some may feel exhausted by years of defending Israel. 

One thing, however, seems perfectly clear to me:  we may have many different reactions and hold varying opinions, but all Jews are implicated by that cover, whether we like it or not, whether fair or not.  A Star of David accompanies the words, “Doesn’t care about Peace.” 

This year, we are asking everyone to wrestle with their relationship with Israel in the spirit of our ancestor Jacob who wrestled with a divine being and became Yisrael, literally one who wrestles with God.  Today I am speaking of Medinat Yisrael, the State of Israel, not the other aspects of Israel, Am Yisrael, the people of Israel, which Rabbi Adler addressed last night nor Eretz Yisrael, the land of Israel, which I will discuss on Yom Kippur. 

Today is about the Israel we often think about, the democratic nation-state founded in 1948 as the third sovereign commonwealth in Jewish history.  The first Medinat Yisrael was under Joshua, the Israelite Judges and Kings; the second was under Ezra through the Maccabees and the Herodians   Each of the three have had different boundaries; each one with different forms of government, from monarchist to theocratic to democratic.

If you are comfortable in your relationship to Israel, I ask that you engage even more deeply this year and not check any of your values or beliefs at the door of support.  As will become clear, I also ask that you help create a safe place for others to speak freely, something that is so needed in the American Jewish community today. 

If you are uncomfortable in any way or not engaged, I invite you to raise your questions and critiques, also to help create a safe place for dialogue, and to consider taking a leap of loyalty about why Israel is important to Jewish identity. 

We have a broad spectrum within our congregation, from those who do not connect in any way with Israel to two people, Madeline Stander and Mara Finver, who have recently made the most significant choice of aliyah, moving to Israel.   We ask of everyone to be open, to listen, and to learn.

In that spirit of learning, I want to share a story from 63 years ago.  Since younger generations only know an Israel beginning with wars in Lebanon and through intifadas and Time Magazine covers, and baby boomers grew up with an embattled Israel that miraculously survived in ’67 against the entire Arab world, then it is clear how different it would be — and how far removed from our perspective today – to know what it felt like to live through Israel’s founding. 

In his autobiography, A Tale of Love and Darkness, Amos Oz describes the night of November 29^th, 1947 as the United Nations voted to create a state for the Jews.  Oz’s description as an 8 year old boy at the time is so poignant that I am compelled to quote it in mostly in full: 

After midnight, towards the end of the vote, I woke up.  My bed was underneath the window that looked out on the street, so all I had to do was kneel up and peer though the slats of the shutters.  I shivered.

Like a frightening dream crowds of shadows stood massed together silently by the yellow light of the street lamp, in our yard, in the neighboring yards, on balconies, in the roadway, like a vast assembly of ghosts.  Hundreds of people not uttering a sound, neighbors, acquaintances and strangers, some in their night clothes and others in jacket and tie, occasional men in hats or caps, some women bare headed, others in dressing gowns with scarves round their heads, some of them carrying sleepy children on their shoulders, and on the edge of the crowd I noticed here and there an elderly woman sitting on a stool or a very old man who had been brought out into the street with his chair.

The whole crowd seemed to have been turned to stone in that frightening night silence, as if they were not real people but hundreds of dark silhouettes painted on to the canvas of the flickering darkness.  As though they had died on their feet.  Not a word was heard, not a cough nor a footstep.  No mosquito hummed.  Only the deep, rough voice of the American presenter blaring from the radio which  was set a full volume and made the night air tremble, or it may have been the voice of the president of the Assembly, the Brazilian Oswaldo Aranha.  One after another he read out the names of the last countries on the list, in English alphabetical order, followed immediately by the reply of their representative.  United Kingdom: abstains. Union of Soviet Socialist Republics: yes. United States: yes. Uruguay: yes. Venezuela: yes. Yemen: no. Yugoslavia: abstains.

At that the voice suddenly stopped, and an other-worldly silence descended and froze the whole scene, a terrified, eerie silence, a silence of hundreds of people holding their breath, such as I have never heard in my life either before or after that night.

Then the deep, slightly hoarse voice came back, making the air shake as it summed up with a rough dryness brimming with excitement: Thirty-three for.  Thirteen against. Ten abstentions and one country absent from the vote.  The resolution is approved.

His voice was swallowed up in a roar that burst from the radio, overflowing from the galleries in the hall at Lake Success, and after a couple more seconds of shock and disbelief, of lips parted as though in thirst and eyes wide open, our faraway street on the edge of Kerem Avraham in northern Jerusalem also roared all at once in a first terrifying shout that tore through the darkness and the buildings and trees, piercing itself, not a shout of joy, nothing like the shouts of spectators in sports grounds or excited rioting crowds, perhaps more like a scream of horror and bewilderment, a cataclysmic shout, a shout that could shift rocks, that could freeze your blood, as though all the dead who had ever died here and all those still to die had received a brief window to shout, and the next moment the scream of horror was replaced by roars of joy and a medley of hoarse cries and “The Jewish People Lives” ands somebody trying to sing “Hatikvah” and women shrieking and clapping and “Here in the Land our Fathers Loved”, and the whole crowd started to revolve slowly around itself as though it was being stirred in a huge cement mixer, and there were no more restraints, and I jumped into my trousers but didn’t bother with a shirt or pullover and shot out of our door and some neighbor or stranger picked me up so I wouldn’t be trampled underfoot and I was passed from hand to hand until I landed on my father’s shoulders near our front gate.  My father and mother were standing there hugging one another like two children lost in the wood, as I had never seen them before or since, and for a moment I was between them inside their hug and a moment later I was back on Father’s shoulders and my very cultured, polite father was standing there shouting at the top of his voice, not words or word-play or Zionist slogans, not even cries of joy, but one long naked shout like before words were invented.

….But my father said to me as we wandered there, on the night of the 29^th of November 1947, me riding on his shoulders, among the rings of dancers and merrymakers, not as though he was asking me but as though he knew and was hammering in what he knew with nails, Just you look, my boy, take a very good look, son, take it all in, because you won’t forget this night to your dying day and you’ll tell your children, your grandchildren and your great-grandchildren about this night when we’re long gone.

And very late, at a time when this child had never been allowed not to be fast asleep in bed, maybe at three or four o’clock, I crawled under my blanket in the dark fully dressed.  And after a while Father’s hand lifted my blanket in the dark, not to be angry with me because I’d got into bed with my clothes on but to get in and lie down next to me, and he was in his clothes too, that were drenched in sweat from the crush of the crowds, just like mine (and we had an iron rule: you must never, for any reason whatever, get between the sheets in you outdoor clothes.)  My father lay beside me for a few minutes and said nothing, although normally he detested silence and hurried to banish it.  But this time he did not touch the silence that was there between us but shared in it, with just his hand lightly stroking my head.  As though in this darkness, my father had turned into my mother.

Then he told me in a whisper…what some hooligans did to him and his brother David in Odessa and what some gentile boys did to him at his Polish school in Vilna, and the girls joined in too, and the next day, when his father, Grandpa Alexander, came to the school to register a complaint, the bullies refused to return the torn trousers but attacked his father, Grandpa, in front of his eyes, forced him down on to the paving stones and removed his trousers too in the middle of the playground, and the girls laughed and made dirty jokes, saying that the Jews were all so—and-sos, while the teachers watched and said nothing, or maybe there were laughing too.

And still in a voice of darkness with his hand still losing its way in my hair…my father told me under my blanket in the early hours of the thirtieth of November 1947, ‘Bullies may well bother you in the street or at school some day.  They may do it precisely because you are a bit like me.  But from now on, from the moment we have our own state, you will never be bullied just because you are a Jew and because Jews are so-and-sos.  Not that.  Never again.  From tonight that’s finished here. Forever.’

I reached out sleepily to touch his face, just below his high forehead, and all of a sudden instead of his glasses my fingers met tears.  Never in my life, before or after that night, not even when my mother died, did I see my father cry.  And in fact I didn’t see him cry that night either: it was too dark.  Only my left hand saw.”[1]

*   *   *   *   *

Oz brings alive what is now a historic footnote. His words touch the euphoria, the surreal sense of the miraculous that after two thousand years of homelessness, Jews would have a place to call home. 

Today Israel is not simply the result of that vote of ’47. Like any country, Israel is the sum total of decisions by leaders over sixty two years, many both supported and vehemently opposed by Israelis and Jews around the world.  Unlike any country, because of its significance also to Christians and Muslims, Israel is under a microscope of world attention that highlights its challenges, not the least of which is the perspective and context of being in the middle east.  Because of the reality of its growing military strength since ’47, its unasked for role as occupier, and successful PR against Israel, over the past decades, Israel has been transformed from David to Goliath.  But that is only the beginning of its challenges.  In this past year, headlines of the Gaza flotilla, a woman arrested at the Western Wall for carrying a Torah, gender segregated buses in Jerusalem, a Knesset bill about conversion to Judaism that would have alienated the vast majority of Jews in the world if passed, and continued building in disputed areas that affect future peace agreements result in many American Jews feeling more alienated from Israel.  Even the renewed peace process which actually shows signs of potential success is met with what is called “peace fatigue” as if that should even be allowed!  If it were not for Birthright and other successful ventures in the Jewish community, we would be seeing many more Jews alienated from Israel.

In a seminal and widely quoted article in the New York Review of Books this past June, journalist Peter Beinart diagnosed this disengagement from Israel as a result of the Jewish community leadership’s promoting a pro-Israel right or wrong attitude. [2]  He argues that there is healthier debate within Israel about any decision the government takes than appears to be allowed in the American Jewish community.  The results are a wake up call:

In a 2001 survey, American Jews were asked whether they would say yes to the statement: “I am very emotionally attached to Israel.”  About 70% of Orthodox Jews said yes; 40% of Conservative Jews and only 20% of Reform Jews.[3]  20% could imagine conveying the importance of Israel in their lives to someone else with the power of Oz’s father. 

Without a new approach to Israel, liberal Judaism is ceding the relationship to the Jewish state to Orthodoxy who in general are more comfortable with Israel, who do convey the importance of Israel parent to child and, who are, in general, more content with the status quo religiously in Israel and in relations with the Palestinians.

And the numbers of Orthodox are growing.  This is shared not begrudgingly only factually.  “According to a 2006 American Jewish Committee survey, while Orthodox Jews make up only 12 percent of American Jewry over the age of sixty, they constitute 34 percent between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four.”  A third of young Jews are now Orthodox.  Not all Orthodox have the same views on issues such as settlements, but the majority certainly support them which has significant future political implications as well. 

There are simply far too few Jews in the world not to engage everyone about Israel. Consider that in 2010 there is just now the same number of Jews in the world as there were in 1914, 13.5 million Jews in the entire world.  It is a staggeringly small number considering the impact of our people.  It is also a chilling number considering there were 17 million in 1939.  Today, a little over 40% of the entire world Jewish population lives in Israel and another 40% in America.  These are the two poles of Jewish living today.  Our relationships have become more inter-dependent than ever before.  Whether we see it or not, our destinies are linked.  Israel has, for the first time, recognized this.  Recently the government created a department for Diaspora Affairs aimed at strengthening Judaism outside of Israel.  And, as one example of our dependency on Israel, The Knesset can pass laws that affect our Jewish status.  We have a connection to Israel.  The only question is: What voice do you want in it?

Beinart concludes his article: “[C]omfortable Zionism has become a moral abdication.  ..Let’s hope [we] can foster an uncomfortable Zionism, a Zionism angry at what Israel risks becoming, and in love with what it still could be.”

 

It is possible to follow Beinart’s plea.  When we have speakers from differing perspectives and organizations — as we will this year — including J-Street in October and AIPAC in November, we are fostering uncomfortable Zionism.  When our Bulletins all year will include many voices reflecting on core questions and a blog available for everyone to respond, we are not shying away from what Israel risks becoming.  When we can “Stand with Israel” as our sign prominently says on our lawn, but also “pray for peace in the Middle East” as it also says, we are loving what Israel still can be. 

In June, when forty five people, ages spanning eight decades, joined for a 15 day Mount Zion trip, we saw a more nuanced Israel and listened to more voices than many first-timer trips.  We saw a theater production in Jaffa, unique in the world, of actors who are deaf and blind teaching in their performance art the yearnings of the human soul.  One remarkable day began waking up in Jerusalem looking out from our hotel over King David’s tomb on the original Mount Zion with the sounds of church bells, the call of the Muslim muezzin, the chants of Jewish prayers. We met Robi Damelin, from Parent’s Circle, whose members are Palestinians and Israelis who tragically have lost a child in the conflict and have nevertheless chosen to work for peace, building relationships with each other and teaching groups around the world.  We drove to Efrat, a Jewish settlement in the West Bank, and met with its spiritual leader orthodox Rabbi Shlomo Riskin who brought a human face and reasonable voice to at least one of the many different groups of settlers.  We ended that day in the foothills of Jerusalem at Neot Kedumim, the beautiful Biblical landscape reserve in Israel, where we planted trees and tasted each of the seven species of the land of Israel mentioned in Deuteronomy. 

Seeing Israel first hand makes a difference; you too should go if at all possible, but we can engage Mount Zion in Jerusalem without leaving this Mount Zion. 

Friends, our voices are needed in this conversation. 

We will listen to each other in the spirit of the ancient debates between Hillel and Shammai.  According to the Talmud, after three years of debate between the students of Shammai and Hillel, a bat kol, a voice of God descends into the study hall and announces, Eilu v’eilu divrei Elohim Chayim, “These and those are the words of the Living God.”  Both opinions are honored and even given divine sanction.  Who are we to know that our approach ultimately is the right one?  In truth, different views are often right for different times.  When we listen, we learn. 

The bat kol, divine voice, continued, “These are those are the words of the living God, but the law is in agreement with the rulings of Beit Hillel.” Why Hillel?  Because “they were kindly and modest, they studied their own rulings and those of Beit Shammai, and were even so humble to mention the words of Beit Shammai before their own.”  (Babylonian Talmud, Eruvin 13b). Our conversations, even when debates, should emphasize humility, flexibility and embrace of dissent which has been fundamental to our survival for 2000 years.

We no longer have the outdoor scene that Amos Oz described where people share a historic moment, listening to a radio.  Natural community moments and conversation are hard to come by.  We will have them at Mount Zion this year.  We will show how to have difficult conversations, wrestling with Israel, and still be one community.

Even during the debates between the schools of Shammai and Hillel, we learn that they socialized together thus putting into practice the biblical text “love truth and peace.” (Zech 8:19)”   We can love truth, but peace trumps truth.  Despite Time Magazine’s provocative question and limited journalism, Israelis do want peace.  And so do we, both at Mount Zion in Jerusalem and within our St. Paul Mount Zion by listening well to each other.  

 

---

[1] Oz, Amos (2003). A Tale of Love and Darkness. New York: Harcourt Inc. p. 355-59.

[2] Beinart, Peter. “The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment,” New York Review of Books.  June 10, 2010. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/jun/10/failure-american-jewish-establishment/

[3] Exact numbers were: 68% Orthodox; 39% Conservative; 21% Reform.

Rabbi Esther Adler’s Rosh Hashana 5771 Sermon

Am Yisrael Chai

Rabbi Esther Adler, Mount Zion Temple

Erev Rosh Hashana, 5771

You are doing some last minute shopping at Cub Foods and you have, among other things, apples and honey and grape juice in your basket.  You finish checking out, and are about to leave when the person behind you smiles and says, “Shanah Tovah.”

You’re at the gym, working out, and the sweaty stranger on the next Stairmaster leans over and says, “I haven’t been this thirsty since last Yom Kippur!” 

You have just been Bageled.   Bageling is the habit Jews have of creatively “outing” ourselves to others we suspect are also Jewish.  It often leads to that other familiar pastime that we call Jewish Geography. 

 Why do we do it?  It seems that we Jews have a powerful need to connect with one another.  

On Yom Kippur morning, we will read from Deuteronomy, “Atem Nitzavim kulchem hayom”

You stand this day before your Eternal God,

all of you, men, women, and children,

and those who have joined your camp…

to enter into covenant with your God.  …

And it is not with you alone

that I make this covenant –

I make it with those who are standing here with us today,

and with those who are not here with us today.

Elie Wiesel elaborates: 

We are bound by tradition to believe that together we have stood at Sinai, that together we have crossed the river Jordan, [entered the land,] and built the Temple.  That together we have been driven thence by the Babylonians and the Romans; that together we have roamed the dark byroads of exile; that together we have dreamed of recapturing a glory we have never forgotten – every one of us is the sum of our common history.

We were all there.  Every Jew who was yet to be born, every person who would one day choose to be part of the covenant, we all shared those formative experiences together.  And so, when we meet on the street or in the gym or the grocery line today, the memory of Mount Sinai is stirred in our souls, and we long to connect. 

It is the same impulse that makes us take extra notice when an actor or politician or God Forbid a Ponzi Schemer is Jewish.  It is the knowledge that we are all part of Am Yisrael, the Jewish People. This year, Mount Zion’s programming theme is Yisrael: Wrestling with our relationship with Israel.  The term Yisrael literally means “Wrestles with God” from Jacob’s riverbank encounter with an angel.  In modern discourse, it refers to a number of different things – the patriarch, the land, the state, the people.   Tonight we wrestle with our relationship with Am Yisrael – the People Israel.

I came of age in a time when we rallied under the banner of Am Yisrael Chai – The People Israel Lives – We sang with great enthusiasm (sing Am Yisrael Chai).  We were passionate; we were motivated.   The ’67 and ‘73 wars gripped us in fear; our victories gave us hope.  We marched on Washington in solidarity with embattled Soviet Jewry.  The generation before me was united by the horror of the Holocaust, the founding of the State of Israel, and its romantic pioneering years.  The generations before that belonged to Am Yisrael because they were not allowed to fully belong in their local communities. 

I have a sense, though, and the statistics confirm it, that this feeling of connectedness to Am Yisrael is now waning among American Jewry.  Am Yisrael was an essential aspect of Jewish identity as long as external forces bound us.  Sometimes the fences were chain link and barbed wire; sometimes they were invisible – anti-Semitism, discrimination, exclusion from universities and professions.  As restricting as they were, they served to bind Am Yisrael together.  Those bonds are gone now for us, Thank God. 

In under a century, the modern Jewish community has managed to realize many of our grandparents’ dreams: security, wealth, power and control over our own destiny.  For the first time most of the world’s Jews do not have to worry about day-to-day anti-Semitism or poverty. 

According to Irwin Kula, of CLAL, “This means that the era of worrying about the Jewish people is over.”

Is it?  For the first time in history, Jews have the opportunity to choose whether or not to consider themselves part of Am Yisrael.  I think it may, in fact, be the time to start worrying.

There is a game that is played at the closing campfire of the family camp my girls and I attend every summer.  The Camp Director gets up and calls out different things, and if they apply to you, you stand up, raise your arms, and shout “That’s me!”  Usually they start with something like, “Stand up if you didn’t brush your teeth this morning.” Or “Stand up if you went on a hike this week” and usually it ends with “Stand up if you had a great week” and everyone jumps up and joins in a rousing “That’s me!”

I wonder what would happen if we played that game here tonight.  I imagine if I asked who had to rush through dinner to get here tonight, or who loves listening to our cantors, everyone would be on their feet shouting Hineini – That’s me.

But if I asked who feels a strong bond with Am Yisrael, who feels that this is important, I wonder how many would say “Hineini.”  In 2001 the National Jewish Population Study asked people to respond to the statement, “I have a strong sense of belonging to the Jewish people.”    Those who “strongly agreed” went from 75% among people aged 65 and over, to just 47% among those 35 and under.  Only 37% of respondents believed that Jews in North America and Jews elsewhere share a common destiny.

American Jews today are motivated by a dialectic of individualism and universalism.   On the one hand, the Me Generation has left its mark.  Individualism and personal autonomy are dominant in our society and culture.  The goal of the Jewish Continuity movement over the past few years has been to bring people back to their own Judaism by asking the question “Does my Judaism provide a sense of meaning and purpose to me?” 

It worked, and Jews are returning with renewed energy and creativity.  However, an unintended consequence of this success is that it reinforces the American cultural trend of personalism, bordering on spiritual narcissism.  The question we now need to ask is “How does my sense of belonging connect me through time and space to the Israelites in Egypt, to the Golden age in Spain, to Yiddish culture, to Jews today in Europe and China and Israel?  

On the other hand, we are  not totally narcissistic.  Our commitment to universalism and multi-culturalism has also grown.  But global citizenship renders particularistic loyalties as morally problematic.  Why should we single out members of one community or one people for special concern when so many need so much?

Another factor weakening our sense of belonging to Am Yisrael is, ironically, the shrinking of our world through technology.   Jonathan Ariel, executive director of Makom – The Israel Engagement Network,  has noted that the more Jews around the world are active partners in the global economy, the more we come to share in universal lifestyle, habits, and customs, the less we have to talk to each other meaningfully about as Jews.  

Aaron Bisman, 30-something founder and president of JDub, a non-profit dedicated to innovative Jewish music, content, community, and cross-cultural dialogue, claims that the age of peoplehood is over.  “If peoplehood means that we feel a connection to all Jews,” he says, “[then] we are all stuck, because young people feel responsibility to all people, and some might feel that the idea of peoplehood might be racist…”

I hope he is wrong.  If the age of peoplehood is, in fact over, then I will join the ranks of those who fear for our survival.  Yes, we need to reconsider what it means to belong to the Jewish People in an age of individualism, universalism, and technology.  But rather than declare the demise of Jewish peoplehood, I believe we need to do everything we can to grow and nurture it.

Elie Wiesel recalls that many years ago, the Dalai Lama wanted to meet him. When Wiesel asked why, the Dalai Lama said, “I’ll tell you why.  Your people suffered a lot and you went into exile 2,000 ago, but you are still here. My people just left our homeland; we are in exile. Teach us how to survive.”

Mark Twain posed a similar question in his 1898 essay “Concerning the Jews:” 

The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed, and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other peoples have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished

…All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but the [Jews remain]. What is the secret of [their] immortality?

What is the secret indeed.  Part of the secret lies in our very name, Yisrael, and the fact that it is not just a name.  It is the will to wrestle with the ever-changing mix of faith, ethnicity, culture, and nation that comprise the Jew. Daniel Gordis believes that peoplehood is at the core of our survival.  Lamenting the move towards seeing ourselves solely as a faith community, he writes: 

Almost without our noticing, American Jewish life is being dramatically redefined. Especially among the young and the liberal, American Judaism is being recreated in the model of American Protestantism.  —   Judaism has become a faith system, a purely personal – and highly individual – means of constructing meaning in our world.   Judaism as a faith system, of course, is nothing new. But from time immemorial, we have also seen ourselves as a people. …We cultivated bonds of mutual obligation, even when we profoundly disagreed, even when our faith wore thin. Kol Yisrael areivim zeh la-zeh, all Jews are responsible one for another, the tradition has long insisted.

 And it has actually worked. It was peoplehood that got American college students to wage a relentless battle to free Soviet Jews…  It was due to peoplehood that Israeli Air Force pilots flew converted cargo planes into an Ethiopian civil war in order to save people of a different race in Operation Solomon.  And it is peoplehood that has continually led American Jews – despite their profound differences with Israel about conversion policy and the peace process – to support Israel both financially and politically.

 So what exactly is peoplehood?  Mordecai Kaplan, who coined the term in English, understood it as cultivating knowledge of our people’s past so as to make it an integral part of our personal memory; as dedicating ourselves to our people’s future, seeing in it our own personal futures; as accepting responsibility for the welfare of all world Jewry.  It is, Kaplan wrote, “to be imbued with a Jewish consciousness that reaches down into the secret places of the unconscious.”

Yehuda Amichai, considered by many to be Israel’s greatest modern poet has expressed it this way: 

The Jews are like photos in a display window,

All of them together,

short and tall, alive and dead,

Brides and grooms, bar mitzvah boys and babies.

Some are restored from old yellowed photographs.

Sometimes people come and break the windows

And burn the pictures.

And then they start

Photographing and developing all over again

And displaying them again, sad and smiling.

Rembrandt painted them wearing

Turkish Turbans with beautiful burnished gold.

Chagall painted them hovering in the air,

And I paint them like my father and my mother.

The Jews are an eternal forest preserve

Where the trees stand dense,

and even the dead

Cannot lie down.

They stand upright, leaning on the living,

And you cannot tell them apart.

just that fire

Burns the dead faster.

A Jewish man remembers the sukkah

in his grandfather’s home.

And the sukkah remembers for him

The wandering in the desert

that remembers The grace of youth

and the Tablets of the Ten Commandments

And the gold of the Golden Calf

and the thirst and the hunger

That remember Egypt.

The Jews are not a historical people

And not even an archaeological people, the Jews

Are a geological people with rifts .

And collapses and strata and fiery lava.

Their history must be measured

On a different scale.

Some time ago, I met a beautiful woman

Whose grandfather performed my circumcision

Long before she was born.

I told her,

You don’t know me and I don’t know you

But we are the Jewish people,

Your dead grandfather

and I the circumcised

and you the beautiful granddaughter

With golden hair.

We are the Jewish people.

Simply put, peoplehood is the concept that each Jew, whether by birth or by choice, is connected through a shared history and destiny with, and a shared responsibility for every other Jew.  

This, of course, is not as simple as it sounds.   There is the real concern about parochialism in our universalist culture.   And, as pluralism gives way to extremism, we might ask, are we really responsible for fellow Jews who would deny that we are Jews at all, deny us equal rights to worship at our sacred sites, or even throw stones at us?   Still, I believe that nurturing strong bonds with Am Yisrael is crucial and that if we commit to the struggle, like our ancestor Jacob, we will prevail. 

For a sense of peoplehood to remain vital, we need to stand for something, we need an “errand on earth” to use Abba Hillel Silver’s words.  In the past, the catalyzing causes were, as one observer put it, “existentially prominent and morally unambiguous,” in other words, they were crises that threatened our very survival. 

Our world today is much safer for Jews, but also more complicated.  It is much more difficult to figure out what we can all stand behind.  So the question is, how can we reimagine Jewish peoplehood not as parochial and limiting, but as a platform for forging meaningful bonds with our fellow Jews while actively engaging in the larger universal enterprise?

God’s promise to Abraham in Haran was to make him a numerous people.  God’s promise to us at Mount Sinai was to make us a covenant people.  The difference is that the covenant requires our ongoing participation.  The covenant gives us our identity, our community, and our purpose.  It also gives us a language for expressing and a vehicle for acting on the universal values we share.  The covenant, I believe, is the link we seek between peoplehood and universalism. 

We read in Isaiah, “I am God that summoned you through justice, and I have taken you by the hand and kept you, and appointed you to be a covenant people, a light unto the nations. (42:6)

 

I have always struggled with the “light unto the nations” concept, and with the idea of “Jewish values.”  In Biblical times our values were unique, even radical, but today we cannot make that claim.  Yes, there are certain values that are distinctly Jewish, but most are shared by all ethical cultures.  If we want to strengthen Am Yisrael, I believe we need to express our shared values in Jewish terms rather than in universal terms.  

So when a preacher in Florida wants to publically burn the Koran, we can, and must express our outrage based on the fundamental American values of freedom of speech and religion. But we can also remember in the “secret places of our unconscious,” the pain of our own holy books being burned.  We can remember the stranger, for we were strangers in the land of Egypt.  

As Rabbi David Saperstein said at the National Press Club yesterday, “We know what it is like when people have attacked us verbally, have attacked us physically, and others have remained silent.  This cannot happen.”  

We can join together as Jews, to protest such an unholy project.  In this way we strengthen Am Yisrael even as we reach out to support our Muslim neighbors.  We have a rich tradition, and a far-reaching textual legacy, which give us a Jewish vocabulary to express universal values.  We might need to study a bit more, learn some more Hebrew, but the benefit of that study will be no less than the realization of Am Yisrael Chai – The People Israel lives. 

So I will leave you with a question tonight, and invite you to wrestle with it. As Jews in America, we are in a position of unprecedented security.  Where does this place us in terms of our shared destiny with the Jewish people?  Will it strengthen the threads that connect us across time and space or weaken them?  When we ask the next generation about their sense of belonging to the Jewish People, will they stand up and say Hineini? 

We are the Jewish people,

Your dead grandfather

and I the circumcised

and you the beautiful granddaughter

With golden hair.

We are the Jewish people.

The Grand Opening of Mount Zion’s Israel Blog!

Welcome to Mount Zion’s Israel blog! This will be a resource for Mount Zion congregants to share viewpoints and read others in an open, spirited dialogue.

As part of a long range plan, Mount Zion is focusing this year on our relationship with Israel.  In future years, the focus will be on Torah/Life-Long learning, Tzedek/Social Justice, and Shabbat.  We will explore all of these core Jewish values in a way that fosters community building, panim el panim, face to face.  At times, we will use tools of the modern era such as this blog.  We hope it will help us when we see each other in person, to have meaningful dialogue.  When you post, please keep in mind that only respectfully written views will be kept (ie, if disagreeing with a viewpoint, to do so in a way that respects the person who wrote it.).  All viewpoints are welcome.

Mount Zion’s Israel committee will also post Israeli news, articles with provocative insights, and local events on this site.  If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to contact Rabbi Spilker, aspilker@mzion.org, or visit the “About” section of the blog.

Why Care About Israel?

September Issue: Why Care About Israel?

Feel free to contribute your thoughts about the topic “Why Care about Israel?” in the comments section of the blog. In addition to the comments in this month’s Iton Tzion/Mount Zion’s bulletin, below are some articles that may be of interest.

1. Originally Published in Makom, September 2008
By Robbie Gringras

The truth is that we don’t fundamentally disagree about freedom of expression, or about the need for Jewish cultural institutions to relate to their audiences. We just haven’t fully worked out how American Jewry can relate to Israel.
We have become used to only one way of relating to Israel: “hugging.” We give Israel warmth, love, and support – with our eyes closed. This hugging was once entirely appropriate. The fledgling state was in need of support – immediate, instinctive, even blind support. But can hugging alone be a sufficient response to all of Israel’s current complexity? Will a hug help us past Israel’s attitudes to progressive Judaism? How much can a warm embrace move us beyond the nature of the Iranian threat?
Hugging is not enough: We must also learn how to “wrestle” with Israel. Just as its biblical echoes suggest, wrestling with Israel requires an effort, a fight, a struggle. But it also demands an intimacy and a commitment. If I don’t care about Israel, I will never be upset about the way it operates.

2. Why Are We Allied with Israel? By Kenn Jacobine
January 94, 2009
http://blogcritics.org/politics/article/why-the-hell-are-we-allied/

The latest violence in the Middle East has gotten me to question once again, why Israel is a major ally of the United States? The one lesson I learned from my college foreign policy classes was that countries act to assure their survival, period. Nation-states are not people. They do not have altruism. They do not sacrifice the wellbeing of their people for high principles or ideals. As a matter of fact, this stance would ultimately put at least a portion of a country’s population at risk. Pacifist leaning countries go to war all the time to ensure their survival…

So what is it that Israel gives us that makes it indispensable to our national interest? Does it have a natural resource that we need for economic or military reasons? No, as a matter of fact the direct opposite is true — those countries that are Israel’s sworn enemies have oil. Being friends with Israel has placed the lifeblood of our economy at risk many times throughout the years, yet we continue to support Israel with aid, both military and economic, votes in the United Nations, and rhetorically through our leaders.

Does Israel’s location provide us with security of a trade route or a convenient military outpost? Again the answer is no…As far as military outposts are concerned, the United States has fought two gulf wars in the last twenty years and has never used Israeli soil to encamp or to launch an attack. Bases in Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia were used with great success.

Lastly, one could ask, does Israel produce some good or service that Americans need to warrant the cozy relationship between them and us? I can’t think of any. Certainly our countries trade with each other, but that might continue even if we were not necessarily allies. Didn’t the United States and the former Soviet Union trade with each other?

As far as I can understand from our leaders, the reason the United States and Israel are such close allies is because Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East. This view is a throwback to Woodrow Wilson’s idea that the United States is ultimately responsible for “making the world safe for democracy”. Under this mindset, the United States must support Israel unconditionally to ensure its survival and help spread the ideals of representative government throughout the Middle East. This of course runs counter to what I learned in college about the pragmatic actions of nation-states. Why would the United States support a country on high principle and at the same time jeopardize its own well-being?

The answer to the above question is, it wouldn’t. The real reason our government has close ties with Israel is because our shameless politicians love to be reelected.