Category Archives: Israel/Zionism

“Yehudei America: Limdu ivrit!” (American Jews: Learn Hebrew!)

03 Thursday May 2012

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History

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In a recent article published in the Jewish Forward (April 13, 2012), [http://davidhazony.typepad.com/david-hazony/2012/04/memo-to-american-jews-learn-hebrew.html] reflecting on the ever-widening cultural gulf between American Jewry and Israelis, the journalist and author David Hazony challenged the American Jew to learn Hebrew. Here is some of what he wrote:

“…there exists no greater threat to Jewish Peoplehood than the cultural disconnect between Israeli and American Jews. And unlike so many of our people’s other problems, this one actually is quite simple to solve – but only if American Jews decide they want to solve it… Growing up in American public schools, I studied French for six years. By 12th grade I’d read Moliere, Camus, Voltaire and Ionesco in the original. Later in life I was able to revive my French in a couple of months of a weekly conversation class, and after a number of brief visits to Paris I was getting by, or at least making a noble effort… such an education gave me something much deeper than just lingual training. It gave me an incredible amount of insight, appreciation, respect and fondness for French culture, French thinking, French joie de vivre…”

Then he says:

“American Jews have to learn Hebrew…there are at least two overwhelming reasons that they should. Leon Wieseltier covered one of them last year, in a jaw-dropping essay called ‘Language, Identity, and the Scandal of American Jewry,’ who said ‘American Jews…have inhumanely and un-Jewishly cut themselves off from the vast oceans of their own biblical and rabbinic past because they don’t bother to relate to Hebrew the way that Western countries until recently related to Greek and Latin – as a basic building block of cultural literacy. The assumption of American Jewry that it can do without a Jewish language is an arrogance without precedent in Jewish history. And this illiteracy, I suggest, will leave American Judaism and American Jewishness forever crippled and scandalously thin… Without Hebrew, the Jewish tradition will not disappear entirely in America, but most of it will certainly disappear.”

Hazony continues that

“…the time is coming very soon – if it has not already arrived – when one will not be able to fully participate in Jewish cultural life without knowing Hebrew. This is true in part because of the sheer quantity of cultural creativity, but also because of the trends: Israel is quickly growing in wealth, population and global influence, while American Jews are, in the optimistic view, marching in place. American Jews have much to contribute to Hebrew discourse and our collective Jewish future. Their tradition of tolerance and religious liberalism, their democratic experience and their philanthropic habits, to name just a few things. But they will do so only if they dispense with the ignorance-as-wisdom arrogance that locks them out of Hebrew-based culture.”

It is true that in the United States Jewish scholarship is available in English. It is true as well that English is spoken widely in Israel. Consequently, many American Jews have concluded that they do not need to speak or read Hebrew to get along. What is lost, however, is something deeper and more essential that goes to the heart of Jewish peoplehood.

The language of prayer and Jewish faith, of Torah, philosophy, mysticism, and literature, of Zionism and the Israeli experience is Hebrew – not English. If we American Jews are ever to be a part of the culture of the Jewish people, we must be able to converse in the language of our people.

David Hazony was spot on when he said, “Yehudei America: Limdu ivrit!” (American Jews: Learn Hebrew!) – one letter, one word, one phrase, one verse, one idea at a time!

Yehuda Amichai Poems on this Yom Haatzmaut

26 Thursday Apr 2012

Posted by in Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Poetry, Quote of the Day

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No nation in the world honors its poets as does the State of Israel, and Yehuda Amichai is among Israel’s greatest poets.

An Arab Shepherd Is Searching For His Goat On Mount Zion

An Arab shepherd is searching for his goat on Mount Zion / and on the opposite hill I am searching for my little boy. / An Arab shepherd and a Jewish father / both in their temporary failure. / Our two voices met above / the Sultan’s Pool in the valley between us. / Neither of us wants the boy or the goat / to get caught in the wheels / of the “Chad Gadya” machine. / Afterward we found them among the bushes, / and our voices came back inside us / laughing and crying. / Searching for a goat or for a child has always been / the beginning of a new religion in these mountains.

Jerusalem

On a roof in the Old City / laundry hanging in the late afternoon sunlight: / the white sheet of a woman who is my enemy, / the towel of a man who is my enemy, / to wipe off the sweat of his brow.

In the sky of the Old City / a kite. / At the other end of the string, / a child / I can’t see / because of the wall.

We have put up many flags, / they have put up many flags. / to make us think that they’re happy. / to make them think that we’re happy.

Wildpeace

Not the peace of a cease-fire, / not even the vision of the wolf and the lamb, / but rather / as in the heart when the excitement is over / and you can talk only about a great weariness. / I know that I know how to kill, / that makes me an adult. / And my son plays with a toy gun that knows / how to open and close its eyes and say Mama. / A peace / without the big noise of beating swords into ploughshares, / without words, without / the thud of the heavy rubber stamp: let it be / light, floating, like lazy white foam. / A little rest for the wounds – / Who speaks of healing? / (And the howl of the orphans is passed from one generation / to the next, as in a relay race: / the baton never falls.)

Let it come / like wildflowers, / suddenly, because the field / must have it: wildpeace.

The Truth About the Palestinian Christian Populations of Israel and the West Bank – a serious study

25 Wednesday Apr 2012

Posted by in Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism

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In September I posted on my personal blog a link to a background paper recently published on the Palestinian Christian population. This study was an eye-opener for me and I recommend it to you (see link below).

In my own journeys to the Israel and the West Bank I was left with the same impression reported on CBS 60 Minutes this past weekend, that over the past 100 years [1] that the Palestinian Christian population is dramatically shrinking, and [2] that it is shrinking because of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank on the one hand and Muslim extremism on the other.

After reading this excellent paper by Ethan Felson at the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA) – “JCPA Background Paper – The Palestinian Christian Population” I was surprised to learn that both impressions are substantial distortions of the truth.

This paper is a careful analysis of the demographics and politics around this controversial issue. It is well worth reading and sharing with any Christian Ministers, Priests and Christian friends you might know.

Click to access JCPA%20Background%20Paper%20on%20Palestinian%20Christians%207%202.pdf

Yom Haatzmaut – Reflections 2012

24 Tuesday Apr 2012

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Holidays, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History

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Who could have imagined 64 years ago that Israel would become as economically viable, politically and militarily strong, technologically advanced, and creatively cutting-edge as it is today?

Who would have dreamed that Israel’s Jewish population would grow from 600,000 souls in 1948 to 5.5 million today?

Who would have thought that after having had to fight seven wars, endure two Intifadas and bear-up against ongoing terrorist attack that the Jewish state would remain democratic and free despite little peace with its neighbors and no resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

All told, even with her imperfections and challenges, Israel is a remarkable nation, testimony to the spirit, will, ingenuity, aspiration, creativity, and sacrifice of generations. Today Israel is like none other in the world, more culturally, linguistically, and religiously diverse, more intellectually and academically productive. The depth and breadth of her accomplishments are nothing shy of breath-taking.

On the occasion of Israel’s 64th Independence Day, Jews the world over are well to take stock, celebrate her accomplishments, mourn and honor her dead, and ask what unique place the Jewish state holds in the innermost heart, mind and soul of the Jewish people.

This is no easy task. Permit me to offer some thoughts as I reflect on Israel’s meaning:

Israel is far more than a political refuge as envisioned by political Zionists. It is more than the flowering of the Jewish spirit as dreamed about by cultural Zionists. It is more than the fulfillment of Jewish memory and religious longing.

Israel starts with the land, with Jerusalem at its heart, for the land has been a key focus of Jewish consciousness for three millennia. The land of Israel is at the center of our history and is an essential element of our Jewish faith. But Israel is far more than land.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel put it this way in his moving volume Israel – An Echo of Eternity: “Israel reborn is an answer to the Lord of history who demands hope as well as action, who expects tenacity as well as imagination.” (p. 118) “The inspiration that goes out of Zion today is the repudiation of despair and the example of renewal.” (p. 134)

In this spirit the Zionists sought to create a new kind of a Jew, at home in the land, self-activated, self-realized, independent, creative, and free. They understood, however, the limitations of their state-building endeavor. Heschel said it this way: “The State of Israel is not the fulfillment of the Messianic promise, but it makes the Messianic promise plausible.” (Ibid. p. 223) In other words, the political state is not and cannot be regarded as an end in itself. Rather, the Jewish state represents a challenge and a promise that will rise or fall based on how our people and Israel’s government uses or misuses the power that comes with national sovereignty. With this in mind a Jewish state worthy of its mission must challenge our individual and communal ethics, our nationalism, our humanity, and our faith.

May Israel be an or lagoyim, a light to the nations, and may her citizens and all the inhabitants of the land know justice and peace. 

[Yom Haatzmaut is celebrated on the 5th of Iyar which falls this year on Friday, April 27. We will celebrate at Temple Israel of Hollywood in Los Angeles during Kabbalat Shabbat services on Friday evening beginning at 6:30 PM in song and poetry, led by our clergy, volunteer choir, quartet and instrumentalists. All are welcome.]

Gunter Grass, Eli Yishai and Israel’s Policy of “Nuclear Ambiguity”

11 Wednesday Apr 2012

Posted by in Israel/Zionism, Jewish History

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It is not often that I agree with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but I do regarding his reaction to German Nobel Laureate Gunter Grass’s poem “What Must Be Said” that has taken media by storm in the past two weeks. In this poem printed in The Atlantic http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/04/gunter-grasss-controversial-poem-about-israel-iran-and-war-translated/255549/, Grass repeats the canard that Israel is the most dangerous nation in the Middle East because of its threats of a first strike on Iranian nuclear facilities. He charges hypocrisy given Israel’s own alleged nuclear capability. Netanyahu called such a comparison a “shameful moral equivalence.”

For good reasons Israel maintains a policy of “nuclear ambiguity.” The Jewish state is thought to have begun developing nuclear capability decades ago because of threats by her neighbors to destroy “the Zionist entity” and drive the Jewish people into the sea. Most Arab nations now accept the existence of Israel even if they do not have formal peace treaties with her. However, threats to destroy the Jewish state have not stopped. Today, Iran is the chief culprit.

Given Iran’s denial of Israel’s right to exist, we cannot ignore the significant differences between Iran and Israel when it comes to their each having nuclear weapons. First, Israel is a democracy and Iran is a military theocratic dictatorship. Second, Israel has never called for wiping any other nation off the map as Iran repeatedly does concerning Israel. Third, no other nuclear nation (e.g. Israel, Pakistan, India, Russia, or the United States) has ever threatened genocide against another people as Iran has done towards Israel. And fourth, no other nuclear nation has repeatedly denied the historicity of the Holocaust as has Iran, which leads a reasonable observer to conclude that fanaticism drives Iran’s foreign policy.

To complicate matters, a report in Haaretz this week reveals that there have been secret meetings between Israeli and Finnish officials on the issue of the International Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty conference scheduled for Helsinki in December, and that the Obama Administration wants to discuss a Middle East nuclear-free-zone at that gathering. Should this conference result in a demand to inspect Israel’s nuclear facilities, the ambiguity that is at the core of the Jewish state’s deterrent strategy would be destroyed. I would hope that the United States would push for an indefinite delay of this conference until such time as the Middle East stabilizes following the Arab spring.

All this being said, for Israel’s Interior Minister Eli Yishai to take the step as he did last week to bar the poet Gunter Grass from physically entering Israel is an overreaction, and is unbecoming of the only democracy in the Middle East that values free speech. Alan Dershowitz, who does not make a habit of criticizing Israeli officials, made an exception with Minister Yishai when the Harvard professor wrote that Yishai’s decision was “both foolish and self-defeating,” and that the “ridiculous poem doesn’t pose any security threat to Israel that would justify his physical exclusion from the country.”

In truth, there are two main security threats to Israel. The first is Israel’s actual outside enemies who threaten harm, and the second is the anti-democratic trend promoted regularly by the current Israeli government. If left unchallenged, this official intolerance and demagoguery will chip away at Israel’s own democratic traditions and leave it just like the other oppressive nations in the region.

 

 

 

Readings for Your Home Seder – 5772

04 Wednesday Apr 2012

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Ethics, Holidays, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life

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I offer 4 items to include in your Seders with suggested placement in the ritual. Why 4? Because the #4 and multiples (i.e. 40 – 400) occur repeatedly in Jewish tradition, cross-culturally and in the Seder itself. The number “4” is symbolic representing sh’lei-mut (wholeness, completion, stability, continuity, and renewal).

Examples of “4”:

In Jewish literature the flood lasted 40 days and nights signaling at once a return to primordial darkness and to new beginnings. There are 4 matriarchs and 3 patriarchs (plus 1, if we include Joseph, as suggested by some commentaries) who embodied all human virtues and vice. Tradition holds that the Hebrews were enslaved for 400 years and wandered for 40 years before entering the land of promise, time-spans representing long periods that closed generations and ushered in new ones. Moses received the Torah including the Written Law (the Hebrew Bible – Tanakh) and the Oral Law (Rabbinic tradition – the Talmud and subsequent rabbinic law and lore) in 40 days and nights representing the complete Revelation at Mt. Sinai. There are 4 poles of a chupah symbolizing the beginning of a new generation and a fulfillment of the old. And the holiest name of God (YHVH) is composed of 4 letters. Mystics teach that this four letter Tetragrammaton represents the entirety of existence; the lower and upper worlds, the hidden and the seen, the concrete and the abstract, the physical and metaphysical, eternity and infinity.

The number 4 is significant cross-culturally, as well, suggesting the totality of existence: 4 directions, 4 seasons, 4 elements.

In the Seder we ask 4 questions, tell of 4 kinds of human beings and we drink 4 cups of wine symbolizing all the ways God inspired the Hebrews to be freed from bondage. For Jews, freedom is not the endgame. It is, rather, a necessary precondition for a covenantal partnership with God that will usher in the messianic era. In the “time to come” tradition teaches that the Jewish people will be gathered from the 4 corners of the earth to Jerusalem (Y’rushalayim, also known as Ir Salem, the city of wholeness, a city possessed of 4 quarters, like the 4 chambers of the heart).

4 suggested additions to your Seders:

1. Say a blessing for the people and state of Israel – place following the recitation of the 15 steps of the Seder ritual:

Eternal God, receive our prayers for the peace and security of the state of Israel and its people. Spread your blessings upon the Land and upon all who labor in its interest. Inspire her leaders to follow in the ways of righteousness. Awaken all to Your spirit. Remove from every heart hatred, malice, jealousy, fear, and strife. Let the Jewish people scattered throughout the earth be infused with the ancient hope of Zion and inspired by Jerusalem as the eternal city of peace. May the Jewish state be a blessing to all its inhabitants and to the Jewish people everywhere, and may she be an or la-go-yim, a light to the nations of the world. Amen!

2. Affirm that to be pro-Israel means to be pro-Palestinian – after Halachma Anya (“This is the Poor Bread”):

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a tragedy because it is a struggle between two rights. Therefore, to be pro-Israel must mean also to be pro-Palestinian, for as long as the Palestinians are an occupied people without a state of their own, not only are they not free but neither are the Israelis free. Peace will require painful concessions from both sides of this conflict for each people to find peace, security and fulfillment. Amos Oz has warned that those who refuse to compromise will be doomed to destruction for “the opposite of compromise is fanaticism and death.”

3. Include the olive on the Seder plate – read following Ba-shanah Ha-ba-ah Biy’ru-sha-la-yim (“Next Year in Jerusalem”):

The olive embodies our prayers for peace in the Middle East and in every place where war destroys lives, hopes and the freedoms we celebrate this night. Today, in the land of Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Hagar, and Ishmael, living olive trees bring sustenance and roots to their families. Where they are uprooted, let them be replanted, for the sake of life, for the sake of justice and peace.

Next year, wherever we may be, may we be whole and at peace.

4. Offer these words as the final statement in the Seder:

May I recognize my failure to understand those who oppose me. May I be able to look at the face of my enemy and see the face of God. May we all be instruments of peace. (Rabbis for Human Rights, North America)

Chag Sameach!

Chatati l’fanecha v’tislach li Nelson Mandela

02 Monday Apr 2012

Posted by in Ethics, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism

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I am grateful to David Bedein, the Director of the Israel Resource News Agency, Center for Near East Policy Research at the Beit Agron International Press Center in Jerusalem for his comment and input on Marwan Barghouti’s crimes and demeanor at his trial for multiple murders. Mr. Bedein and  I have communicated privately. I also wish to express my appreciation to him for the way he communicated in both his comment and his private communications with me. He was more than civil and respectful, virtues which are too often lacking in public discourse.

In posting Uri Avnery’s piece which the journalist titled “The New Nelson Mandela” I did not intend to impugn Mr. Mandela’s integrity. However, by association with Marwan Barghouti I clearly did and I wish to apologize publicly to Mr. Mandela for this slight. He did not deserve it.

Response to Readers Regarding My Recent Blog – “The New Mandela”

02 Monday Apr 2012

Posted by in Ethics, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism

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In addition to this personal blog, I post most of what I write here on my blog at the Los Angeles Jewish Journal. I have received some exceptionally hostile comments in response to my my recent blog “The New Mandela” there, and I responded with the following, which I share with you.

First, the article I posted titled “The New Mandela” was written by long-time veteran Israeli journalist and peace activist Uri Avnery, and not by me. I did say that I thought his analysis was generally correct and enlightening, which is why I posted it for those who would not have seen his piece otherwise. One may not like Avnery, nor agree with him, nor welcome his comments, but no one can question his love for the state of Israel and for the Jewish people. Uri Avnery is not naïve nor is he a wolf in sheep’s clothing. He is an astute Israeli political analyst who has spent his life thinking and writing about all things Israel. Israel’s press is filled with such voices.

Second, I believe the point he was making about Marwan Barghouti being the “New Mandela” is that Nelson Mandela, in his early years, was also deemed a terrorist who was involved in actions that resulted in the killing of others, just as Barghouti has been so characterized. The fact that Mandela grew past his terrorism and became the remarkable leader that he did does not cancel out his early career. The same can be said of Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir. Both were involved in what David Ben Gurion and much of the Jewish world at the time considered terrorist acts, and both became Israeli Prime Ministers. Menachem Begin, in particular, became a man of peace in the truest sense.

Third, yes – Barghouti was convicted of murdering Israelis during the 2nd Intifada as the commander of the Tanzim. He sits in an Israeli prison after being sentence to 5 life sentences. Yet, there is precedent for releasing people with blood on their hands from Israeli custody. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu exchanged more than 1000 Palestinians for Gilad Shalit, and among those 1000+ were more than 300 Palestinians with “blood on their hands.” This was not the first time Israel has done so. Should Bibi have done so? Most Israelis said “yes” with deep concerns and fears about the real possibility that some of these released terrorists would kill innocent Israelis again.

Given Barghouti’s past position in support of negotiating a two-state solution non-violently to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (a position he supported during the Oslo period and which he now has returned to, according to many reports) the question is whether he should be released so that he might become the “New Mandela.”

And finally – I respect the strong and passionate feelings of Jews and Israelis for the state of Israel. I feel passionately myself. Yet, before I respond to anything anyone else says or does, I ask myself whether I am responding out of rage, fear and hate, or out of love and concern for the people and state of Israel. I would ask everyone else to do the same. We are, after all, a people that thinks and critiques and asks the hard questions. Let no one question another’s motives. Rather, critique the ideas thoughtfully. We all gain when we all do so.

Chag sameach.

“The New Mandela”

01 Sunday Apr 2012

Posted by in Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism

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I met Marwan Barghouti in his Ramallah offices with a group of Reform Rabbis in 1998. He was a soft-spoken moderate then and told us that he accepted the principle of a negotiated two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Much, however, has transpired since then.

The following is an edited version of Uri Avnery’s March 31 letter on Barghouti. Though the words are his, I agree with Avnery’s description of Mr. Barghouti, as well as his analysis and perspective of what has transpired in the now defunct “peace process,” relative to Israeli policy and Palestinian response. I present it here with apologies to the author for shortening his original piece.

“MARWAN BARGHOUTI has spoken up. After a long silence, he has sent a message from prison.

In Israeli ears, this message does not sound pleasant. But for Palestinians and for Arabs in general, it makes sense.

His message may well become the new program of the Palestinian liberation movement.

I FIRST met Marwan in the heyday of post-Oslo optimism. He was emerging as a leader of the new Palestinian generation, the home-grown young activists, men and women, who had matured in the first Intifada.

He is a man of small physical stature and large personality. When I met him, he was already the leader of Tanzim (“organization”), the youth group of the Fatah movement.

The topic of our conversations then was the organization of demonstrations and other non-violent actions, based on close cooperation between the Palestinians and Israeli peace groups. The aim was peace between Israel and a new State of Palestine.

When the Oslo process died with the assassinations of Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat, Marwan and his organization became targets. Successive Israeli leaders – Binyamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon – decided to put an end to the two-state agenda. In the brutal “Defensive Shield operation…the Palestinian Authority was attacked, its services destroyed and many of its activists arrested.

Marwan Barghouti was put on trial. It was alleged that, as the leader of Tanzim, he was responsible for several “terrorist” attacks in Israel. His trial was a mockery, resembling a Roman gladiatorial arena more than a judicial process. The hall was packed with howling rightists, presenting themselves as “victims of terrorism”…

Marwan was sentenced to five life sentences…

IN PRISON, Marwan Barghouti was immediately recognized as the leader of all Fatah prisoners. He is respected by Hamas activists as well…

NOWADAYS, MARWAN Barghouti is considered the outstanding candidate for leader of Fatah and president of the Palestinian Authority after Mahmoud Abbas. He is one of the very few personalities around whom all Palestinians, Fatah as well as Hamas, can unite…

SO WHAT did Marwan tell his people this week?

Clearly, his attitude has hardened. So, one must assume, has the attitude of the Palestinian people at large.

He calls for a Third Intifada, a non-violent mass uprising in the spirit of the Arab Spring.

His manifesto is a clear rejection of the policy of Mahmoud Abbas, … Marwan calls for a total rupture of all forms of cooperation, whether economic, military or other…[and] for a total boycott of Israel, Israeli institutions and products in the Palestinian territories and throughout the world…

At the same time, Marwan advocates an official end to the charade called “peace negotiations”… Marwan proposes to renew the battle in the UN…

TO SUMMARIZE, Marwan Barghouti has given up all hope of achieving Palestinian freedom through cooperation with Israel, or even Israeli opposition forces. The Israeli peace movement is not mentioned anymore. “Normalization” has become a dirty word.

These ideas are not new, but…it means a turn to a more militant course, both in substance and in tone.

Marwan remains peace oriented – as he made clear when, in a rare recent appearance in court, he called out to the Israeli journalists that he continues to support the two-state solution. He also remains committed to non-violent action, having come to the conclusion that the violent attacks of yesteryear harmed the Palestinian cause instead of furthering it.

He wants to call a halt to the gradual and unwilling slide of the Palestinian Authority into a Vichy-like collaboration, while the expansion of the Israeli “settlement enterprise” goes on undisturbed.

…For some time now, the world has lost much of its interest in Palestine. Everything looks quiet. Netanyahu has succeeded in deflecting world attention from Palestine to Iran. But in this country, nothing is ever static. While it seems that nothing is happening, settlements are growing incessantly, and so is the deep resentment of the Palestinians who see this happening before their eyes.

Marwan Barghouti’s manifesto expresses the near-unanimous feelings of the Palestinians in the West Bank and elsewhere. Like Nelson Mandela in apartheid South Africa, the man in prison may well be more important than the leaders outside.”