Category Archives: Israel/Zionism

WOW & Anat Hoffman – The Ultra-Orthodox & Rabbi Ovadia Yosef – Israel Journal Part VIII

03 Sunday Nov 2013

Posted by in Ethics, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Social Justice, Uncategorized, Women's Rights

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On Tuesday, October 8, Israel’s daily Haaretz featured a photograph (front page above the fold, right-hand column) of Anat Hoffman, the Chair and public “face” of Women of the Wall (WOW). Adjacent to her photo (also above the fold, left-hand column) was a photograph of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the 93 year-old spiritual leader of the Shas Party, who had died the night before.

The article accompanying Anat’s photograph reported that by a majority vote, the Board of Women of the Wall accepted a “compromise” proposal presented by Natan Sharansky, Chair of the Jewish Agency, that would grant equal rights to women’s prayer groups and egalitarian prayer services at the Western Wall (Kotel) at a third section to be located south of the traditional prayer area and under Robinson’s Arch, now a limited space and part of an archaeological park.

The Chief Rabbi of the Wall, Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, agreed to the compromise and that he would have no authority over prayer in the new area.

Our synagogue group had attended WOW’s monthly Rosh Hodesh Cheshvan services on Friday morning, October 4, in which thousands of ultra-Orthodox had crowded into the prayer areas at the Kotel.

The last time I attended WOW Rosh Hodesh services was three years ago. Then, I witnessed a display of behavior by so-called “religious” Jews that was as ugly and undignified as anything I had seen anywhere in Jewish life. Ultra-Orthodox men screamed curses, filthy epithets and insults at the women of WOW as they prayed quietly at the back of the women’s section, and ultra-Orthodox women spit on them.

This October’s experience was not much better. Loud-speakers blasted prayers making it difficult to hear oneself think, and a group of religious settlers danced and screamed their prayers on the men’s side of the mechitzah just feet from the WOW women. The purpose of the loud-speakers, allegedly, was to offer prayers of healing for the very ill Rabbi Yosef, but effectively they drowned out WOW prayers (and everyone else too) thus fulfilling the “religious” prohibition against kol isha, the voice of women praying.

The women’s section was packed with hundreds of young ultra-Orthodox girls and women, a strategy the ultra-Orthodox had used in the past at the behest of Rabbi Rabinowitz to make it virtually impossible for WOW to find space in which to pray.

The juxtaposition of the photographs of Anat Hoffman and Rabbi Ovadia Yosef in Haaretz was, of course, coincidental, unless you believe that “coincidences are God’s way of staying anonymous!” Regardless, that morning’s headlines visualized the culture war engulfing Israel.

My synagogue group had an appointment with Anat at 10 AM that day, but she was late because as soon as WOW made its decision, she was deluged with calls from the international press seeking comment. Under the circumstances we forgave her happily.

The WOW Board voted by a large majority in favor of the compromise; however, there are WOW members living in the United States and Canada who were angered by this decision because  they wanted prayer rights in the women’s section of the Kotel and not the “new“ area.

After voicing their criticism openly, Anat responded that the compromise, assuming all conditions are met, is the first time the government of the state of Israel recognized equal rights of women to pray openly at the Kotel, to be led in prayer by women, to wear tallitot and lay t’filin, and to chant aloud from the Torah. She said:

“This space is revolutionary. It will allow every Jew, man and woman, to pray, celebrate and hold religious ceremonies at the Western Wall. However, know that we are resolved: We will pray there only if it is built in this spirit and according to our conditions.”

There are sixteen conditions that WOW insists must be met for the compromise to go forward. (For details see “Women of the Wall issue list of demands for prayer space” – UPI.com – October 28, 2013 http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2013/10/28/Women-of-the-Wall-issue-list-of-demands-for-prayer-space/UPI-31671382962197/?spt=rln&or=1

This Monday, November 4th (Rosh Hodesh Kislev), marks the 25th Anniversary of Women of the Wall. The compromise agreement is a tipping-point victory not just for WOW, but for world Jewry.

PM Netanyahu, Jewish Agency Chair Sharansky and the Israeli government are to be congratulated for affirming the dignity and integrity of the Kotel, Judaism’s most sacred site, the rights of world Jewry at that site, and for affirming the principles of religious pluralism and equal rights for all Jews, as so stated in Israel’s Declaration of Independence.

On Tuesday, December 3rd (7:30 PM) Anat Hoffman will speak at Temple Israel of Hollywood (7300 Hollywood Blvd., LA 90046).  The community is invited at no charge. We ask that you RSVP to www.tioh.org/rsvp so we may plan appropriately.

Eritrean and Sudanese Asylum Seekers in Tel Aviv – Israel Journal Part VI

29 Tuesday Oct 2013

Posted by in Ethics, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Social Justice, Uncategorized, Women's Rights

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Walking in a three square block area of south Tel Aviv earlier this month with Sigal Rozen, the Public Policy Coordinator for Israel’s “Hotline for Migrant Workers,” was like moving through an urban African slum. This is the neighborhood, run-down, dirty and vastly over-crowded that has been designated by the Israeli government for 35,000 mostly African migrant workers and political asylum seekers to live.

Three years ago thousands of Eritrean and Sudanese refugees began entering Israel illegally from the Sinai desert seeking political asylum. Alarmed by the large numbers and concerned that Israel could be overwhelmed by hundreds of thousands more refugees, the Israeli government began constructing a security fence along the southern border to stop the human flow. As a gauge of the dimension of the migration, in 2012, 285,142 Eritreans and 112,283 Sudanese sought asylum all around the world, and for good reason.

For years the Sudanese government has conducted a genocidal war against the people of Darfur as well as widespread human rights abuse including sexual violence against women, torture, drafting and arming children for the military.

Eritrea, a small African nation adjacent to Ethiopia, is among the world’s most egregious human rights offenders, and Eritrea’s President, Isaias Afewerki, is among the world’s most brutal dictators.

The UN reports that the Eritrean government pursues systemic and widespread human rights abuse including extrajudicial killings, shoot-to-kill orders of those attempting to leave the country, enforced disappearances of citizens without family notification, arbitrary detentions, physical and psychological torture by police and army interrogators, inhumane detention conditions, sexual violence against women and children, drafting children into the armed forces, compulsory and indefinite military service, no free speech, assembly, religion, or movement.

Sigal Rozen told us that there are currently 54,201 African asylum seekers in Israel, among which are 36,067 Eritreans and more than 15,000 Sudanese. However, no one has been granted asylum by the state of Israel despite the fact that 84% of Eritrean asylum seekers around the world are recognized as refugees. In fact, since signing the Refugee Convention in 1951, for unexplained reasons, Israel has recognized only 202 refugees in total for political asylum.

Israel claims that the Eritreans and Sudanese in Israel are “work infiltrators” who come solely to improve their quality of life, and that there is no basis upon which to grant them political asylum.

The presence of so many Africans in Tel Aviv today has provoked a strong negative public outcry by many Israelis. In response the Knesset passed an amendment to the Anti-Infiltration Law to allow the incarceration of asylum seekers for up to three years. However, on September 16 the High Court of Justice unanimously invalidated the amendment as unconstitutional because it compromised Israel’s Basic Law regarding human freedom and liberty. The Court instructed the government to examine all cases of Africans currently incarcerated (i.e. 1750 people) within 90 days.

To Israel’s credit, the government has not deported any of these refugees, most likely because Israel’s leaders understand the fatal consequences should these people be returned to their home countries.

The Israeli public’s ire against African migrants has grown and was heightened this year following two highly publicized criminal acts by Eritreans in south Tel Aviv. One case involved the alleged rape of an 83 year-old Tel Aviv woman in her home. A second was the near fatal encounter of a young Israeli husband and father who was dragged out of his car at a stop light and beaten by five Eritreans as his wife and children watched in horror. As bad as these incidents are, Sigal Rozen says that the actual crime rate among African migrants is six times lower than the crime rate among Israelis.

These refugees want badly to go home, but they fear for their lives. In Israel they quietly do whatever work comes their way in order to survive. They live crammed together in dilapidated apartments, many to a room sleeping on the floor and on boarded-up balconies. Refugee children do attend school, as required by Israeli law, and have done well, passing Israeli High School matriculating exams at high rates.

Sigal urges Israeli employers in agriculture, construction and the nursing sectors to employ these people and help relieve their hardships, and she urges the government to grant them extended work permits so they can remain in Israel legally until they feel safe enough to return home.

Judaism teaches, “You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” (Exodus 22:20).

One would hope that the Jewish people and the state of Israel will treat these refugees with kindness and open hearts. As a people we have been where they are today. We know the heart of the stranger.

Why Resettlement of Bedouin Arab Israeli Citizens is a Moral and Democratic Wrong – Israel Journal Part V

27 Sunday Oct 2013

Posted by in Ethics, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Social Justice, Uncategorized

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I am one of 620 rabbis and cantors who signed a letter to Prime Minister Netanyahu (http://bit.y/BedouinRabbis – “Clergy United Against Bedouin Dispossession”, organized by T’ruah and Rabbis for Human Rights) asking the Israeli government to set aside the Begin-Prawer Bill as unjust.

The bill’s authors say that the bill will settle land ownership disputes between Israel’s Bedouin Negev citizens and the state, compensate the 30,000 to 40,000 Bedouin being moved from their homes to new recognized villages, and ensure their well-being by affording them regular access to water, electricity and other services.

However, there is far more here than meets the eye.

The 190,000 Bedouin Arabs of the Negev, among the poorest in the country (71% live below the poverty line), are full citizens of the State of Israel. 90,000 of these Bedouin live in 45 villages of which 35 have not been recognized by the government and are therefore not provided the most basic services. Only ten of the 45 villages are expected to receive formal government recognition.

The bill will forcibly move these Bedouin from villages in which they have lived for generations because the state does not recognize their property claims. Why?

First, the Bedouin who lived on their land under Ottoman and British Mandate control had “understandings” with the authorities about which lands belonged to them. The formal process of regulating land ownership under the British Mandate (1917-48), however, was never carried out in the Negev, though many landholders elsewhere in the country were officially registered.

Second, the Bedouin had their own traditional system of property acquisition that was acceptable under Ottoman and British rule, and so they were given the impression that registering their land in the government Land Registry was not necessary.

Third, Israel’s War of Independence dislocated thousands of Bedouin. Immediately after the 1948 War, Israel declared the lands temporarily evacuated by Bedouins to be “abandoned land.” The IDF confiscated that land and turned it into military training zones and built yishuvim (Jewish communities) on the land of abandoned villages.

Dr. Dan Gazit, an archaeologist who has spent decades living and working in the Negev, claims that an archive in the Beersheba Municipality that existed during the British mandate era documented all land ownership data for the Bedouins of the province, but was “lost” during its transfer to the State Archive. He has written:

“The State of Israel, which disappeared the Bedouin ownership date of their lands in the Negev, is now expelling them from their land, claiming that they have no official ownership documentation.”

This is a classic “Catch 22!”

“The Begin-Prawer Plan” will force the displacement and eviction of dozens of villages and tens of thousands of Bedouin residents, dispossess them of their ancestral property, and damage the social fabric of their communities thus putting thousands of families at risk of falling further into poverty, unemployment and crime.

What is recommended instead is for the Israeli government to recognize formally the unrecognized 45 villages, all of which have met the same criteria required of new Jewish communities to be registered, and thereby afford them adequate water, electricity, plumbing, health care, education, and employment.

The unfairness of this bill is stunning in another way. There are currently 100 Jewish villages in the Beer Sheva District of the Negev with an average population of only 300, far fewer than the Bedouin villages which have between 400 and 4800 residents. Jewish villages, however, have had no difficulty attaining land and formal recognition thus affording them the necessary infrastructure from the Israeli government including water, electricity, plumbing, health care, education, and employment.

The premise behind the Begin-Prawer Plan is that Bedouin Arabs are usurpers of the land upon which they live because they lack documentation, but that is a problem created by the state of Israel, not the Bedouin themselves who are victims of bureaucratic neglect.

The Prophet Micah (2:2) warns us: “And they covet fields, and seize them; and [they covet houses and] take them away; thus they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage.”

What pans out at the end of the day is that this Begin-Prawer bill is a land grab by the state of Israel of property lived on and possessed by Israeli Bedouin Arab citizens.

Jewish tradition teaches that the highest moral duty is to treat strangers and the most vulnerable in our midst with kindness and justice. The irony in the case of the Bedouin is that as citizens of Israel they are NOT strangers at all, but part of the fabric of Israel’s democracy.

If Israel is to embody the best of Jewish ethical tradition (as it does in so many areas) and the highest democratic standards, then the Knesset must defeat this bill.

The Cauldron that is Hebron Today – Israel Journal Part IV

24 Thursday Oct 2013

Posted by in Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Social Justice, Uncategorized

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I had not visited Hebron for forty years ago until my synagogue group did earlier this month. In this time so much yet so little has changed.

In 1973 the city and surroundings had 40,000 Arab Muslim residents and 150 Jews. Today, there are 250,000 Palestinians and 8500 Jews.

A holy city to both religions because of the patriarchs’ and matriarchs’ burial caves (Genesis 23 – in this week’s Torah portion Chayei Sarah) and it being located along an ancient trading route, Hebron has been vulnerable to multiple conquests and violence since the time of Abraham.

Israel has controlled the area since 1967, and as part of the Oslo process, Israel and the Palestinians signed the “Hebron Agreement” in which the city was split into two sectors: H1, controlled by the Palestinian Authority and H2 controlled by Israel.

Our group visited H2 with David Wilder, the spokesmen for the Hebron Jewish community.

Wilder is a religious settler who packs a pistol on his hip over which is draped his tzitzit. He is a passionate defender of the religious right of Jews to Hebron. He says there is no such thing as the Palestinian people, that the Arabs there have no distinct identity separate from Arabs in the Middle East, and that they have contributed nothing of lasting value to the advancement of civilization, in contrast to Judaism and the Jewish people.

While denying Palestinians their national identity he demands that they recognize our Jewish religious and national rights. He is resentful that Arabs have access to 97% of the city under the Hebron Agreement while Jews have access to 3%.

Wilder denies that he is an “extremist!” Palestinians and most Israelis don’t agree.

He opposes a two-state solution, and when challenged by evidence of settler and Israeli mistreatment of Palestinians, he said these are lies disseminated by anti-Israel and anti-Semitic groups.

Here are some of those “lies.”

In 2013 Palestinians were barred from using Shuhada Street, their principal commercial thoroughfare in H2. In recent years due to settler violence, half the Arab shops in H2 have gone out of business.

The Israeli human rights organization B’tzelem says that “grave violations” of Palestinian human rights have occurred in Hebron because of the “presence of the settlers within the city” and that there has been less than an adequate response from Israeli security forces in stopping the violations. B’tzelem cites regular incidents of “almost daily physical violence and property damage by settlers in the city.”

In 1994 the Israeli Shamgar Commission of Inquiry concluded that Israeli authorities consistently failed to investigate or prosecute crimes committed by settlers against Palestinians.

Though much of Hebron’s Arab community is thriving in business, education and commerce, still the violations continue as is clear by the testimony of many Israeli soldiers who have been stationed there, one of whom said (courtesy of “Breaking the Silence”):

My main difficulty … was the … Jewish community… The feeling was that we were protecting the Arabs from the Jews, … [and] … the Jews really did whatever they pleased and no one would care…I was standing guard duty … and I see a six-year Palestinian girl [whose] whole head was an open wound….Th[is] extremely cute [Jewish] child … would regularly visit our position decided that he didn’t like Palestinians walking right under his home, so he took a brick and threw it at [this little girl’s] head. Kids do whatever they please there. No one does anything about it. No one cares. Afterwards, his parents only praised him. The parents there encourage their children to behave this way. I had many such cases. 11-12 year old Jewish children beat up Palestinians and their parents come to help them along, set their dogs on them; a thousand and one stories.”

The violence, of course, goes both ways over a long period. The most egregious attack on Jews occurred in 1929 when Arab rioters murdered and butchered 70 Jewish men, women and children, and wounded 60. At the same time, 455 Jews survived because their Arab neighbors protected them.

As a delayed payback, in 1994 Baruch Goldstein, a resident of Kiryat Arba, entered the Mosque and machine-gunned 29 Muslim worshipers dead and wounded 130 before being killed.

Just last month, an Israeli soldier was murdered in Hebron.

I asked Wilder what he and his community would do in the event of a two-state solution in which Hebron becomes part of the State of Palestine. He said that it won’t ever happen!

If it does, and I hope that it will, both Israeli and Palestinian security forces are going to have their hands full dealing with these fanatic religious settlers.

I pray that there will be no loss of life on either side when a two-state agreement is reached, hopefully this year. However, the history of Hebron suggests that such prayers are pipe dreams.

Israel Journal – Part I

20 Sunday Oct 2013

Posted by in American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Social Justice, Uncategorized, Women's Rights

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I have just returned from two weeks of meetings in Washington, D.C., Israel and the West Bank.

Immediately before embarking for Israel, I attended the national conference of J Street in Washington, D.C.  J Street is a pro-Israel pro-peace political and educational organization that has for the last five years been a consistent and strong advocate for a two-states for two people’s resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is the fasting growing political action committee in Washington and though many Jews are supporters, it is has garnered the support of Americans of many religious, ethnic and racial communities who understand the critical importance of a peace resolution of the conflict.

Leading Israeli and American government officials spoke to the nearly 3000 delegates (which included 900 college and university students), along with Palestinian leadership about the challenges and opportunities for a two-state solution. Included among the speakers were Vice President Joe Biden, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Rep. John Lewis, US Chief Negotiator Martin Indyk, Israeli Chief Negotiator Tzipi Livni, Likud MK Tzachbi Hanegbi, Israeli Labor opposition leader Shelly Yachimovich, members of the Knesset from the Avodah, Meretz, Likud, Yesh Atid, Shas, and Tenua parties, Israeli human rights activists, and journalists.

Then my wife and I took off for Israel to lead a mission of members of my synagogue community to meet with Israelis on the left and right, settlers, human rights activists, journalists, and members of the Knesset, as well as with Palestinian Authority officials in Ramallah and Palestinian business and community leaders in Rawabi. We did not nor would we meet with anyone from Hamas.

Our purpose was to gain deeper understanding of the current attitudes of Israelis and Palestinians towards each other, and to express our American Jewish support for a two-states for two peoples resolution of the conflict.

In the next two or three weeks I will post blog entries on many of the themes that J Street and our mission addressed including:

·       Israeli and Palestinian hopes and fears

·       West Bank Settlements, militant and not-so-militant settlers, and the consequences of Israeli west-bank development

·       The BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanction) Movement and American Jews

·       Palestinian business development in the West Bank and its role in securing a future peace agreement

·       Political asylum seekers in Israel from Sudan and Eretria

·       “Solidarity Sheik Jarrah” and Sara Beninga’s activism in East Jerusalem

·       The struggle for Judaism in the Jewish State

·       The problem in defining a “Jewish State”

·       “Women of the Wall,” the ultra-orthodox and the Sharansky Compromise

All of these issues are complex. The challenge is to make sense of the numerous ideologies, truths and strong emotions on all sides.

One overriding truth is that Israel, the Palestinians and the peoples and nations of the Middle East are inextricably intertwined with each other and that Israel’s destiny as a Jewish democratic state depends on how it resolves the conflict with the Palestinians.

I do not claim to have answers. What I will attempt to do is shine a light on some of these issues we confronted.

More to come!

We Are The Descendents of Believers – A Response to Ian Lustick in Light of Sukkot

20 Friday Sep 2013

Posted by in Divrei Torah, Holidays, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Uncategorized

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University of Pennsylvania Political Science Professor, Ian Lustick, touched a raw nerve in the Jewish world this week after a piece he wrote called “Two-State Illusion” appeared on the front page of the New York Times Sunday Review (September 15). He said, among other things, that the State of Israel’s lease has expired, that the Zionist project is dead (or almost dead), and that the only way forward, after a catastrophic war, is a one-state solution combining anti-Zionist extremist religious Jews, post-Zionist secular Jews, Jews from Arab countries, and secular Palestinians. It was an outrageous and defeatist piece, depressing to Zionists and lovers of Israel the world over, and embraced by few if any Jews or Palestinians.

Ian Lustick wrote:

“The disappearance of Israel as a Zionist project, through war, cultural exhaustion or demographic momentum, is…plausible…Many Israelis see the demise of the country as not just possible, but probable.”

The timing of his piece the day after Yom Kippur and days before Sukkot was upsetting and challenging because not only were his ideas unworkable, but they were contrary to everything this festival of Sukkot is about.

Much has been said about the symbolism of Sukkot. The Rashbam, Rashi’s grandson, says that Sukkot is connected to Moses warning the Israelites at the end of his life that there’s danger in feeling too secure and affluent, recalling Deuteronomy 8:11-14 – “Hishamer l’cha pen tishkach et Adonai Eloheicha…Take care lest you forget Adonai your God. When you have eaten your fill, and have built fine houses to live in…beware lest your heart grow haughty and you forget Adonai your God, who freed you from the land of Egypt, the house of bondage.”

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, the former chief Rabbi of Great Britain, points to a verse from Jeremiah, “Zacharti l’cha chesed n’urayich ahavat clulotayich – I remember the loving-kindness of your youth, how as a bride you loved me and followed me through the wilderness, through a land not sown” (Jeremiah 2:2) (God is speaking to Israel) as a key in understanding Sukkot. He notes that the Jeremiah verse is one of the few in the Hebrew Bible that speaks in praise not of God, but of the Jewish people’s love for God and that this is what this festival is really all about.

Yes, the sukkah represents the Jewish people’s vulnerability throughout our history, that our tents and homes are flimsy, our lives impermanent, and the future uncertain, but that in building a sukkah we exercise control over our lives and communities, and that we can take history into our own hands just as we did when Nachshon ben Aminadav led the way with Moses in crossing the Red Sea, and just as did the founding generations of Zionists and Israelis who built the state of Israel. It has taken a lot of faith for the people of the State of Israel to do what they’ve done against great odds, and that is one of the most remarkable aspects in the history of the Jewish people.

Reish Lakish, a Babylonian 3rd century sage, 1700 years ago reminds us in the Babylonian Talmud that when Moses questioned the people’s faith during the period of the wandering, God knew their hearts and reassured his prophet saying, “The [children of Israel] are believers, [and] the descendants of believers.” (Shabbat 97a) In other words, don’t worry, my servant Moses, my people have what it takes and they will not only do well but they will do what is necessary to survive and thrive as a people.

As we think about Ian Lustick’s article, the festival of Sukkot reminds us on the one hand that, yes, we’ve always been historically insecure, but also that this is our season lismoach, to rejoice, in spite of whatever circumstances we have faced in our history. Indeed, another name for this festival of Sukkot is Z’man Simchateinu – the Season of our Rejoicing.

We Jews are experts at insecurity, but we’ve never lost faith because we are  “believers and descendents of believers.”

Shabbat shalom and chag Sukkot sameach!

Ian Lustick’s NY Times Review Rant on the “Illusion of a Two-State Solution”

16 Monday Sep 2013

Posted by in American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Ethics, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Uncategorized

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I was stunned by Ian Lustick’s front page above-the-fold NY Times Sunday Review (September 15) article of 2339 words (long by most standards) with huge graphics not only because of the immense space The NY Times gave to a very small minority position within any community, but also because of its timing – the day after Yom Kippur and in the middle of serious negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians to find a two-state solution. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/15/opinion/sunday/two-state-illusion.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

I knew Ian Lustick when we were students together at UC Berkeley in 1970-71. We were both part of a left-wing Zionist group on campus that published a newspaper called “The Jewish Radical.” Ian was a brilliant and charismatic graduate student in Political Science, as I recall, and he was a strong Zionist at that time.

What happened? I honestly do not know as we were only acquaintances and I have had no contact with him since. But, in reading his article, he has clearly changed and given up on the most extraordinary phenomenon in modern Jewish history, the restoration of the Jewish people in the historic homeland, the establishment of a Jewish state for the first time in 2000 years, and the dreams of Israel’s founders as expressed in Israel’s Declaration of Independence.

Ian’s analysis of the growth and number of Jewish settlements in the West Bank is not wrong. As he says, the United States should have put pressure on Israel to stop this long ago when a two-state solution would have come more easily.

It did not happen, but that does not mean that all is lost, and Ian’s conclusion that a two-state solution is an illusion is defeatism in the extreme especially at a time when the United States is engaged actively in negotiations that represent the only chance there is to preserve Israel as a democracy and the national homeland of the Jewish people.

I am including, by permission, a “Letter to the Editor” penned by my friend and teacher, Rabbi Richard Levy, past president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, who has been involved in the peace movement reaching back to the days of “Breira,” (the first American Jewish organization calling for a two-state solution in the early 1970s) and who is now an important voice amongst J Street Rabbis. Richard shines a strong light on the absurdity of Ian’s prescription for a one-state solution. I hope the NY Times Letters page publishes Richard’s piece. They should!

TO THE EDITOR:

Seldom have I read a crueler, more heartless prescription for the Israeli-Palestinian struggle than Ian Lustick’s condemnation of Israelis and Palestinians to enduring the horrible trials of the Irish under Great Britain and South African blacks under apartheid. If the two-state solution is illusory, what are we to make of Mr. Lustick’s fantasy that if Israelis and Palestinians are forced to endure mutual violence long enough in a single state that “anti-nationalist Orthodox Jews might find common cause with Muslim traditionalists,” bridging a huge abyss not only of political but religious animosity, and “Israelis whose families came from Arab countries might find new reasons to think of themselves not as ‘Eastern’, but as Arab”–when the way Jews were treated in those countries led them to be among the Israelis most hostile toward Arabs? Furthermore, secular Palestinians in Israel and the West Bank are already finding allies among secular (and liberal religious)

Israelis–allies for a two-state solution. And if diplomacy has to give way to decades more of “blood and magic”–what are we to make of the successful diplomacy ending the strife in Northern Ireland? Why should the Israelis and Palestinians be denied the opportunity to attempt diplomacy once more in the quest for two states?

Perhaps the answer to these questions lies in Mr. Lustick’s comments about “post-Zionist” and “statist Zionism.” For him, Zionism would appear to be the main culprit, for which a two-state solution is but a scapegoat. For a two-state solution would preserve a Zionist state, run democratically by a Jewish majority–and Mr. Lustick wants to eliminate that possibility.  Not only to eliminate it, but to crucify it on a one-state platform of “ruthless oppression, mass mobilization, riots, brutality, terror, Jewish and Arab emigration and rising tides of international condemnation of Israel,” all of which would result in the withdrawal of American support.

It is easy to condemn a policy of supporting two states if the only state that currently exists is the one a person wishes to be destroyed. Mr. Lustick’s piece was well titled. It is an illusion to think he opposes a two state solution–it is the Zionist state that he opposes, and sets out a blueprint to destroy.

Rabbi Richard N. Levy

Hebrew Union College, Los Angeles

Syria, Russia, Israel, and American Moral Responsibility

15 Sunday Sep 2013

Posted by in American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Uncategorized

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I chose not to comment on the Syrian atrocity during the Ten Days of Repentance because my attentions were primarily elsewhere, on the greater themes of the High Holidays and with my congregation. However, I have been thinking about it, and the following are some of those thoughts:

For me the greater issue, beyond the tragedy in Syria itself, is on what moral responsibility the United States bears as the only world superpower. Though the UN does some important work in international relief (i.e. in Jordan today), the Security Council is a dysfunctional body because it demands 100% agreement to do anything, a demagogic principle if ever there was one. That being the case, moral responsibility for such tragedies passes to the US.

It is distressing that this Syrian crisis is the only world tragedy that seems to garner American interest, given other catastrophes in Darfur, the Congo and Burma.

Of course, this is nothing new. American bombers could have destroyed the train tracks leading to Bergen Belsen in WWII, but did not. The US was absent during the genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, after chemical weapons use on civilians by Sadaam Hussein in the first Gulf War, and after Hafez Al Assad’s murder of 20,000 civilians in Hama in the 1980s.

I understand the quagmire into which the United States would step if it becomes the world’s policeman, and that gives me pause, but it is painful as a Jew to stand by idly while others bleed (Leviticus 19:16) especially in the wake of our people’s experience in the Shoah when no one came to our people’s aid. Given these two opposing impulses, I stand on the side of active engagement whenever and where ever a humanitarian crisis, such as those I listed above, occurs.

I understand American hesitancy to get involved in Syria, because there is no good-guy in the Syrian opposition, and the next dictator is likely to be just as bad as the current one. However, President Obama’s “red-line” is a critical one to enforce every time it is crossed, and it needs enforcing now.

Another worry I have is concerning the perceived loss of American credibility relative to the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. There are a number of causes behind the weaker perception of America today including the serious damage done by the Bush Administration’s wrong-headed and tragic Iraqi War adventure, current congressional timidity and partisanship, and misjudgments by President Obama. For the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations to succeed with a two-state solution resulting, the United States must be engaged actively and, I believe, with muscle. The weaker America appears, the worse that is for the future of a secure democratic and Jewish State of Israel.

Finally, though I understand the international power play in which President Putin is engaged, I do not accept the view that President Obama has somehow sunk the American ship. If the Russian-American agreement on Syrian chemical weapons succeeds in keeping Assad from ever using them again, it is a win-win-win for the United States, Russia, and any future population that could be similarly attacked.

Before Yom Kippur, the Central Conference of American Rabbis (representing 2500 Reform Rabbis world-wide) made the following statement on Syria, with which I agree:

The Central Conference of American Rabbis condemns the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons to kill more than 1400 persons, including some 400 children, as a violation of international law and a crime against humanity. As Jews, we are well acquainted with a tyrannical regime’s use of lethal gas to commit mass murder and of the failure of democratic governments to intervene.

The CCAR applauds the President’s decision to respond to the Syrian authorities’ illegal and morally reprehensible conduct and to seek the complete, prompt, and verifiable removal of chemical weapons from Syria by means of diplomacy, if possible, before resorting to the use of military force.

We reaffirm the principle that the use of force should be undertaken with utmost reluctance, only when reasonable alternatives have been exhausted or prove unavailable.

We call on other governments throughout the world to join the effort to ensure that Syria does not commit another such atrocity.

We believe that effective action regarding the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons is essential to deter the use of weapons of mass destruction by others and reinforce the credibility of U.S. policy concerning such weapons.

We support the firm and unequivocal determination of the President and Congress to prevent Iran from developing or obtaining nuclear weapons.

We express our deep concern for the State of Israel and its citizens, who have been threatened with retaliation in the event of American military action, and reaffirm the CCAR’s steadfast support for Israel’s right to defend its citizens from all who seek to harm them.

We yearn for the arrival of “the days to come” that Isaiah foresaw, when nations “will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks: Nation shall not take up sword against nation; they shall never again know war.”

We pray that the Jewish New Year, recently begun, will see the dawning of peace for the entire human family.

 

 

 

40 Years Later – Memories of Jets and Sirens

11 Wednesday Sep 2013

Posted by in Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Stories, Uncategorized

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Forty years ago on Yom Kippur I was studying as a first-year rabbinic student in Jerusalem. I will never forget that day as long as I live.

I left my student dorm near the President’s House in Rehavia at 5:45 AM that morning, and walked the quiet streets to the Kotel to pray. When I reached the bottom of the then undeveloped valley between the King David Hotel and Jaffa Gate, three US-made Phantom jets flew in formation going south over the city of Jerusalem.

I was stunned and wondered; ‘On Yom Kippur – the holiest day of the year over the holy city!? Where are they going and why?’

Eight hours later, just before 2 PM, the air raid sirens sounded throughout the country. I turned on a small transistor radio to learn on the BBC that 1300 Syrian tanks had crossed into Israel over the Golan Heights and that the Egyptian army had crossed the Suez Canal and breached the Bar Lev line in a coordinated surprise attack on the Jewish people’s holiest day of the year.

Israeli radio called up all units. Within 24 hours Israeli soldiers were in place and the fighting was intense. The civil reserve took up residence on the ground floor of my dorm in the event that Jerusalem would come under attack.

Classes ceased, and I worked throughout the war in one of Jerusalem’s two large bakeries producing 75,000 loaves of bread nightly. The only workers there were Jews over the age of 55 and foreign students. Young Israelis had been called up and Arabs were frightened to come in.

Each night I walked through blackened streets to a pick-up point, and worked the 8-10 hour shift until 6 AM.

Israeli casualties were high. By the end of the three-week war Israel had suffered 2656 dead and 9000 injured, equivalent  to 230,000 Americans.

Despite Israel’s heavy losses and the catastrophe of the war itself, the Yom Kippur War is considered the greatest of all Israeli military victories. In three weeks Israel pierced through Egyptian lines, built a bridge across the Suez Canal, surrounded the Egyptian army, and threatened Cairo.

In the north, Israel pushed the Syrian army back into its own territory, and threatened Damascus.

Secretary of State Henry Kissinger understood that hope for a future peace would require preserving a measure of Arab pride. Consequently, the United States forced a cease-fire permitting Egyptian President Anwar Sadat to claim victory. Five years later he traveled to Jerusalem eventually resulting in the Camp David Accords.

Historian and Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren spoke to American rabbis just before Rosh Hashanah this year and reflected on the Yom Kippur War’s 40th anniversary. He described four stages in the war against Israel.

The first stage constituted wars waged by Arab armies (1948, 1956, 1967, 1973).

The second stage was a war of terrorism that began soon after 1967. Prosecuted by Arab fedayin guerrillas and Palestinian terrorists, it includes the War of Attrition (1968-1971), the murder of eleven Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics (1972), the murder of children in Maalot (1974), ongoing attacks on the northern town of Kiryat Shemona, two Intifadas, multiple suicide bombings, and rocket attacks from Lebanon and Gaza on Israeli civilian communities.

The third stage was the “internationalization of the conflict” in the United Nations using diplomacy with the intention to delegitimize the State of Israel.

Ambassador Oren says that we are now in the fourth stage, bi-lateral negotiations intended to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a two-state agreement.

So much history has transpired during these past forty years. Israel is a very different place than it was then, as is the Middle East and the world as a whole.

This coming October 6 I will be once again in Jerusalem, and I expect I will ruminate on those three phantom jets flying over Jerusalem on that quiet Yom Kippur morning forty years ago and upon the piercing scream of the sirens that shattered the holiest day of the year and the hearts of Israelis.

I am bringing 23 members of my synagogue community with me to lend our support to the people of the State of Israel, and to meet with Israelis from all political points of view inside the Green Line and living in the West Bank to better understand their thinking and current state-of-mind, and we will meet with Palestinian leaders in Ramallah and Rawabi to learn more about who they are, what has been their experience under occupation, and what are their needs and dreams.

“Sha-alu shalom Yerushalayim – Pray for Jerusalem’s weal!” (Ps. 122:6 – The Book of Psalms, translated by Robert Alter)

G’mar chatimah tovah – May you be sealed in the Book of Life.

J Street’s Unfair Exclusion From Denver JCRC

26 Monday Aug 2013

Posted by in American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Ethics, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Social Justice, Uncategorized

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I am a member of a closed list-serve called RAVKAV that includes all Reform Rabbis. There everything under the sun is discussed on a daily basis. The agreement is that all communications are confidential.

That being said, there has been some confusion of late about J Street and JStreetPAC that I and several other colleagues cleared up, and since we rabbis were confused I must assume that many in the Jewish community beyond rabbinic circles are likewise confused. Hence, the purpose of this blog-post.

The matter was raised concerning the Denver JCRC’s exclusion of J Street as a member organization in May of this year. One of my colleagues pointed to JStreetPAC’s endorsement of candidates for national political office (i.e. the House and Senate) as justification for the Denver JCRC excluding J Street from membership.

The Denver JCRC is a coalition of nearly 40 organizations, synagogues and at-large members in the Denver area and acts as a service provided to the community by the Allied Jewish Federation of Colorado.  The purpose of this JCRC is to convene the ‘common table’ around which member organizations can engage in civil discourse through open dialogue to address issues and design strategies on issues of concern to the Jewish community. Included in the list is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). The nearly 40 member organizations can be found here http://www.jewishcolorado.org/page.aspx?id=241337

If this is an inclusive organization, why did the Denver’s JCRC exclude J Street?  I do not have an answer, but I do believe it is important to clear up confusions about what J Street is.

J Street’s mission is simple – “We believe in the right of the Jewish people to a national homeland in Israel, in the Jewish and democratic values on which Israel was founded, and in the necessity of a two-state solution.” www.jstreet.org

J Street includes an Educational Fund and has a division within it called JStreetPAC. My colleagues confused the two divisions of J Street, their functions and the legal distinctions, and on that basis one stated that the Denver JCRC’s position vis a vis J Street is correct and appropriate.

The J Street Education Fund is a 501c3 entity and is legally independent of the JStreetPAC that does the political work.

For the record, J Street is a member of other JCRCs including in Boston, Westchester, Atlanta, and Baltimore that all recognize that J Street’s community based work is done by the J Street Educational Fund.

With regards to the Denver JCRC, an overwhelming majority of those voting yay and nay on J Street’s application voted in favor. The final vote was 18 in favor, 12 opposed, and 8 abstentions. J Street did not attain the needed votes because of arcane rules for JCRC membership that require a two-thirds majority (a super-majority!).

For the record, the litmus test is not whether a candidate is Republican, Democrat or Independent for an endorsement by JStreetPAC. The litmus test is whether said candidate supports a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and advocates an activist American involvement in mediating between the parties, as the United States is currently doing.

JStreetPAC has supported two Republicans in the past on this basis. The fact that all 71 candidates that JStreetPAC endorsed in the last election cycle, of whom 70 won their elections in the House and Senate, were Democrats is a reflection not of JStreetPAC’s partisan orientation at all (it is not partisan in the sense of supporting one American political party over another), but rather because the two state issue was not embraced according to J Street’s principles openly by Republicans, nor did Republicans welcome JStreetPAC’s endorsement in the last cycle.

JStreetPAC would be delighted to work with any Republican or Independent that embraces openly the principle of the two-state solution.

One colleague justified excluding J Street from the JCRC based on the fact that the JCRC then would have to include the Republican Jewish Coalition. But would the RJC be open to Democratic candidates for office? Obviously not, as it is purely partisan whereas JStreetPAC endorses candidates based on a clear policy position not party affiliation. This is a distinction with a clear difference.

I suspect that as time progresses Republicans may be open to JStreetPAC endorsements given that even the Israeli ruling coalition (or that part of it that is not against a two state solution) and a significant majority of members of the Knesset are in favor of an end-of-conflict two-state solution with a state of Israel sitting securely side by side with a state of Palestine.