10 Tuesday Apr 2018
This is an important article not only because it profiles Rabbi Rick Jacobs, the President of the American Reform movement so well, but it articulates the progressive liberal Zionism that is the hallmark of Reform Judaism. The American Reform movement represents about 1.5 million American Jews.
This is an important read, and I hope you will take the time to read it.
The Lonely Man of Faith, New York Magazine
Abraham Riesman profiles Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism.
09 Monday Apr 2018
Posted in Ethics, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Social Justice
Note: The following is a blog posted today on the Times of Israel site. Rabbi Donniel Hartman is the Director of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. His integrity is beyond reproach and never takes partisan positions. Rather, he speaks from the heart of Jewish tradition and always with thoughtfulness and a moral sensibility. Rabbi Hartman’s letter is written in the spirit of the Biblical prophet who criticizes power when leaders of our people’s morality goes awry.
April 9, 2018, 3:19 pm
Dear Mr. Prime Minister:
It’s not easy to be both proud and ashamed at the same time. As a politician, it is particularly difficult, as protecting yourself from constant criticism is a prerequisite of the job.
As prime minister, you have much to be proud of, both personally and nationally. You have navigated our country through perilous times and circumstances. As we approach our 70th birthday, we do so with confidence and joy, for Israel is strong and secure, prosperous and successful. The source of your political success and longevity is that so many Israelis feel indebted to you and feel secure because of your leadership.
However, together with your well-deserved pride, you should also feel a measure of shame. It seems like a lifetime, but it was less than a week ago, that you forged a new low. Instead of embracing the moral high ground on the issue of the African refugees in Israel and following through on what was your negotiated agreement with the United Nations, you chose the path of moral obtuseness, while making sure to lay the blame on others. Such actions, although common in our world, are not worthy of Israel and the Jewish people.
Shame on you for turning human rights discourse in Israel into a political football, dividing the Left and the Right. Shame on you for peddling fear to buttress your political standing. Shame on you for singling out false enemies for vilification to galvanize national loyalty and self-righteousness.
Your morally bankrupt rhetoric, branding all asylum seekers as “infiltrators,” instead of allowing that, at the very least, some are refugees, and supporting the false claims that they pose a danger to the Jewishness of Israel and the well-being of southern Tel Aviv, caught up with you. Or more correctly, infected us all.
When you propagate fear and hatred of so many different “others,” and employ fake enemies to encourage phony nationalist sentiments, it is indeed difficult to turn around and admit that the strong and vibrant Israel you helped to produce has nothing to fear from 16,000, 26,000, or even 36,000 refugees. It is difficult, even during Pesach last week, to speak of our people’s responsibility to remember that we were slaves in the land of Egypt.
Fear and hatred are cancerous, and once introduced into the national discourse, have a destructive life of their own. While you have mastered their political use, as we saw last week, they have become your masters.
For the sake of a short-term high as the proclaimed “protector of Israel,” “lover of Jews,” and “the one who cares about the disadvantaged neighborhoods,” you were willing to throw the lives of tens of thousands of human beings into chaos and turmoil and yet again divide the Jewish people. You know that the Supreme Court will challenge any policy of forced expulsion, further weakening it, and will also lead to extensive divisiveness, both within Israel and among the Jewish people.
Tomorrow’s problems, however, are not allowed by you to outweigh a bump in the polls, today. This is doubly true, when tomorrow you, or your coalition partners, can transform the Supreme Court itself into the enemy du jour of Israel and Zionism, and blame all of poor Government of Israel’s problems on all-powerful foreign conspirators, such as the New Israel Fund.
The Bibi of just a few years ago would be ashamed. It was you who in your previous terms served as the ultimate protector of the Supreme Court, the rule of law, and the unity of the Jewish people. In the past, these were values that you held as central to Israel. Today, outside of national security and preserving your coalition, it is difficult to identify anything that you hold as holy.
When you withdrew your support for your resolution, you knew that Friday was but a few days away, and that you could count on Hamas and Gaza to change the focus of our national discourse. You knew that the next car-ramming in Europe or gas attack on innocent civilians in Syria were but a few news cycles away. Who could reasonably criticize you for deporting a few Africans, when our country and soldiers are facing a new threat from Gaza? Who can criticize you as morally wanting, when such moral depravity surrounds us? Only an anti-Semite or an anti-Zionist, of course.
As Israelis we live in a macabre reality. Together with our well-deserved sense of strength, prosperity, and success, we know that danger and instability constantly threaten us. Be it Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iranians in Syria, or lone wolf Palestinian terrorists, we live with the ever-present sense that somebody wants to kill us. Someone sees our destruction as their principal mission. I don’t know of any other Western democracy whose citizens have to live with this consciousness, daily. Most Israelis trust you, Mr. Prime Minister, above all others, to help navigate us through this treacherous reality. In truth, much of that trust has been earned and well-deserved.
Israel, however, does not merely have to learn how to survive in the Middle East, but also survive the Middle East itself. Remaining a liberal democracy and a Jewish and democratic state and upholding our commitments to human rights and the Jewish values of peace, justice, freedom, and equality, as outlined in Israel’s Declaration of Independence, is a challenging task in today’s Middle East. It is difficult to achieve and even more difficult to continue to care. However, after survival, doing precisely that is Israel’s greatest challenge and responsibility.
Israel needs a leader and not merely a politician. A leader provides vision and challenges the people to expend resources for the sake of their values. A leader inspires sacrifice for a greater cause. A leader also experiences shame when they fail in their responsibilities.
There are voices in Israel and in the Jewish world who, after your debacle last week, expressed shame in Israel. I am not ashamed of Israel. Israel and Zionism transcend our political leaders and are not defined even by the current will of the majority. Israel embodies the mission to build a safe and secure homeland for the Jewish people which is committed to the noblest of Jewish, moral, and democratic principles. I am not ashamed of Israel, because we are in the middle of Zionism’s journey, a journey undertaken under the most challenging of circumstances.
Mr. Prime Minister, I am not ashamed of Israel. I am ashamed of you.
28 Wednesday Feb 2018
Posted in Ethics, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Social Justice
The following was written by Mattityahu Sperber, a leader in Israel’s Reform movement, and a resident at Kibbutz Yahel. He writes with passion and urgency.
A mitzvah repeated more times in the Torah than any other is “Do not mistreat or oppress a foreigner, for you were foreigners in Egypt.” [Exodus 22:20]
Today there are 38,000 refugee seekers from Eritrea and Sudan and another 7,000 of their children still in Israel. In what can only described as a Purimesque absurdity, the government has decided that even though the flow of refugee seekers into Israel has been reduced to zero, these foreigners must be expelled out of fear that the “Jewish State” will be destroyed if we were to accept an additional half a percent of non-Jewish blacks to our population. (Once they have been deported, we will bring in foreign workers from other countries to take their place in the workforce.) So, in a secret agreement with two African countries, Israel has begun to expel these refugee seekers.
Stage one of the process is to issue deportation notices to all men who have no children and who do not have an unanswered request to be recognized as refugees made before 31/12/17. Out of the 15,000 requests for refugee status that have been made to date, only 12 were granted. The government seems determined to ignore who these people are and what they have been through. The government position is that these people, who escaped from brutal dictatorships, and many from an unending army service that can only be described as a form of slavery, are only people seeking employment and a higher standard of living. The government says they are to leave “voluntarily” or to be imprisoned until they agree to volunteer. The fact that virtually none of the thousands who have so far “volunteered” to go to these “safe” African countries have found there a home that was open to absorb them and to provide them with the minimum of a legal opportunity to work and to support themselves and their families does not affect the government’s position. So what if virtually all continued on to country number two or three and from there tried to make it somehow to Europe, where refugees are still being accepted? Israel will continue to pay the secret countries to temporarily accept these deportees and to pretend that it has found a humane solution for their very real and personal problem.
Today, I met Yamane on the line to his deportation interview. He came to Israel from Eritrea, through Sudan and Egypt, in 2009. Yamane had received assistance from the Hotline for Refugees and Emigrants in preparing a document which presented his case for receiving an exemption from his slated deportation. As a representative of HIAS, I was allowed to accompany him in his deportation interview. Unfortunately, all of his arguments were rejected as not reaching the accepted criteria for such an exemption.
Two weeks ago, Judge Elad Azar, sitting as the head of an immigration panel court, ruled against blanket denials of refugee status for Eritreans whose asylum requests were based on army desertion and their fears that the Eritrean authorities would persecute them if they returned. Yamane served in the Eritrean army for 7 years, until he was tortured and imprisoned after requesting the opportunity to visit his family. After 6 months in prison he managed to escape. Over a course of months, he managed to make his way to Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt on his trek to Israel. It is difficult for me to imagine how his case might not be seen as that of a legitimate refugee.
When asked whether he accepted the government’s demand that he volunteer to be deported to a friendly African nation, Yamane said no. He explained that all of the information that he has received from friends and acquaintances who had gone to this country made clear to him that this would not be safe for him or for his ill wife. He would rather go to jail permanently in Israel.
Today’s interview ended with my making a plea to see that the above arguments, even if each individually does not answer the government’s defined criteria, when taken together, form a strong case for making an exception. I requested that Yamane’s deportation be delayed, at least until he has received a response to his refugee asylum request. The interviewer asked to consult with his supervisor. When he returned, he presented himself as generously deciding to make no decision today. The decision will only be made on the 8/4/2018, when Yamane returns to renew his temporary visa. Perhaps by then Yamane will have a refugee asylum request interview or even receive an answer to his request. Perhaps by then, he will have an answer from Canada which can demonstrate that he is officially in their refugee asylum process. Or perhaps, as I heard from Laura that her “client” had received the exact same non-answer, they will use that opportunity to arrest him and send him to prison or to forcibly deport him.
I am known by friends and family as the eternal optimist. I think that tonight I will have to drink much wine to maintain that optimism and to believe there will be a solution for Yamane that is worthy of the Jewish State that I hope I live in.”
16 Friday Feb 2018
This appeared this week – fyi
https://www.jweekly.com/2018/02/15/liberal-rabbi-tells-jewish-millennials-judaism-matter/
15 Thursday Feb 2018
Posted in American Politics and Life, Ethics, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History
The parallels are obvious. Though both US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu deserve due process, their narcissism has resulted in similar behavior and potential criminal charges being waged against them.
This week we have learned that there is solid evidence that Bibi has engaged in bribery, fraud, and breach of the public trust. His response has been to attack the police and his political enemies as conducting a witch-hunt.
Trump has throughout his presidency attacked the FBI and intelligence services, the courts, the free and independent press, the independent investigator, and any opponent or critic as conducting a witch-hunt against him.
After a painstaking year and a half investigation by the Israeli police, the police issued a non-binding recommendation that there is credible evidence that the Prime Minister has engaged in bribery, fraud and breach of trust in two separate cases.
Case 1000 involves Netanyahu receiving $286,000 in cigars and champagne as gifts primarily from Israeli mogul Arnon Milchin in exchange for Netanyahu pushing to extend the so-called “Milchin law” that cuts taxes for Israelis who make their money outside of Israel for another 10 years. Bibi had appealed to former Secretary of State John Kerry to institute this provision.
Case 2000 involves Bibi trying to make a deal with the owner of Israel’s second-largest newspaper, Yidiot Achronot, that he would get favorable coverage if he would persuade Israel Hayom’s owner Sheldon Adelson, who owns the largest free newspaper in the country, to not publish on weekends. Though the deal was never made, the conspiracy to manipulate the press is considered by many in Israel to be a criminal offense.
In response to the accusations by the police this week, Netanyahu defended himself as a loyal servant of the Jewish people and State of Israel, as a former commando in the IDF, as a former UN Ambassador, and as Prime Minister who always put the interests of Israel first. He accused everyone involved in these two cases and the opposition of trying to get rid of him for political purposes. His main Likud whip accused current opposition leader Yair Lapid, when he was Finance Minister in Bibi’s government, of being a “malshin” (a “rat” which according to Halacha carries a death sentence and was the justification that Yigal Amir used when he assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin).
Lapid met at the request of the police for one hour in this year and a half investigation to answer the question about whether Bibi pressured him to act on behalf of Milchin when he was finance minister. Lapid answered honestly.
It remains to be seen what will happen in these two cases, and the Israeli Attorney General, Amichai Mandelblit (from the Likud party and an honest man and public servant) may take months to go over the evidence provided by the police.
Many are saying that if an indictment is brought against the Prime Minister, he should resign immediately. There is precedent in Israel for this so it isn’t out of the realm of possibility. PM Rabin resigned the first time he was Prime Minister in the 1970s when an illegal checking account was discovered in the name of his wife Leah during the time that Rabin served in Washington, D.C. as Israel’s Ambassador to the United States. More recently, former PM Ehud Olmert resigned when he was indicted and later convicted of bribery. He served time in prison for his crime.
Bibi and Trump really are two peas in a pod of narcissistic self-aggrandizement. Each equates himself with the “state” and seems to think that each is above the law and basic ethics.
Like Trump, Bibi is using the cynicism that appeals to his voters who don’t believe in the governmental system as a base upon which to attack the very system that distinguishes Israel as a democracy, the only democracy in the Middle East.
We will have to wait for the independent counsel in the US and the Attorney General in Israel to finish their work and make their determinations. If it is decided that Trump and Netanyahu are culpable and guilty, both should resign their office. Anyone in their respective parties who sides with the guilty party once a determination is made ought to be defeated handily in the next election.
As Trump would say – “Sad!”
08 Thursday Feb 2018
Posted in American Jewish Life, Ethics, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Women's Rights
26 Friday Jan 2018
Posted in Ethics, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Social Justice
You shall not wrong nor oppress a stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. (Exodus 22:20)
January 26, 2018 – The statement below is issued by the following organizations of the Reform Jewish Movement, the largest movement in Jewish life:
We strongly urge the Israeli government to reverse its decision and recognize the legitimate status of the 37,885* asylum seekers in the country.
These asylum seekers, including men, women, and children—primarily from Eritrea and Sudan—are likely to face imprisonment, indefinite military conscription, additional expulsion, physical harm or even death if they are deported. The plight of Jewish refugees inspired the nascent State of Israel to ratify the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention, a commitment that is being ignored today. A State founded by refugees should feel a special responsibility to provide safe haven to those facing persecution and violence.
We are equally disheartened by the rhetoric used to incite the public against asylum seekers. Prime Minister Netanyahu’s blanket rejection of the status of “refugees” for those who have fled to Israel (calling them all “infiltrators”) and his assertion that granting refugee status to these asylum seekers endangers the Jewish character of the State belie the facts.
We recognize that there are many in the world in need of assistance, and it is unreasonable to expect Israel to accept an indefinite number of newcomers. Still, Israel has the ability to assist and absorb the 37,885 asylum seekers already in the country. The real threat to its Jewish character is the refusal to provide shelter to the persecuted.
*According to the Israeli Population and Immigration Authority
American Conference of Cantors
Arzenu – International Federation of Reform and Progressive Religious Zionists
Association of Reform Jewish Educators
Association of Reform Zionists in Canada
Association of Reform Zionists of America
Central Conference of American Rabbis
Early Childhood Educators of Reform Judaism
Men of Reform Judaism
North American Federation of Temple Youth
Reform Pension Board
Union for Reform Judaism
Women of Reform Judaism
World Union for Progressive Judaism
16 Tuesday Jan 2018
My book by the above title was first published in October, I wanted to offer it again. Here are the endorsements for the book on the book jacket. You can also check out what readers have said at amazon.com. This is not only for millennials, but for their parents and grandparents.
“John Rosove does what so many of us have struggled to do, and does it brilliantly: He makes the case for liberal Judaism to his children. As Rosove shows, liberal Judaism is choice-driven, messy, and always evolving, “traditional” in some ways and “radical” in others. It is also optimistic, spiritual, and progressive in both personal and political ethics. Without avoiding the hard stuff, such as intermarriage and Israel, Rabbi Rosove weaves all of these strands together to show the deep satisfactions of living and believing as a liberal Jew. All serious Jews, liberal or otherwise, should read this book.” —- Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie is President Emeritus of the Union for Reform Judaism and a regular columnist for the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz.
“Rabbi John Rosove addresses his intellectual and well-reasoned investigation of faith to his own sons, which sets this book apart for its candor and its ability to penetrate not only the mind but also the heart.” — Matthew Weiner is a writer, director, producer, and the creator of the AMC television drama series Mad Men and he is noted for his work as a writer and producer on the HBO drama series The Sopranos and earned nine Primetime Emmy Awards Matthew has received nine Primetime Emmy Awards.
“Rabbi John Rosove gets it. Here is a religious leader not afraid to tell it like it is, encapsulating for his audience the profound disaffection so many young Jews feel towards their heritage. But instead of letting them walk away, he makes a powerful case for the relevance of tradition in creating meaningful lives. In our technology-saturated, attention-absorbing age, Rosove offers religion-as-reprieve, his fresh vision of a thoroughly modern, politically-engaged and inclusive Judaism.” —-Danielle Berrin is a columnist and cover-story journalist for the Los Angeles Jewish Journal. She is known for her Hollywood Jew blog, has appeared as a commentator on CNN and MSNBC, and published work for The Guardian, British Esquire, and The Atlantic.
“Rabbi Rosove has written a wonderful book, a love letter to his children, and through them, to all our children. Prodigiously knowledgeable, exceedingly wise, and refreshingly honest, Rabbi Rosove has described why Judaism matters. It should serve as a touching testament of faith, spanning the generations for generations to come.” —-Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch is Senior Rabbi of Stephen Wise Free Synagogue, New York City and is the co-author of One People, Two Worlds: A Reform rabbi and an Orthodox rabbi explore the issues that divide them with Rabbi Yaakov Yosef Reinman.
“Rabbi Rosove’s letters to his sons are full of Talmudic tales and practical parables, ancient wisdom with modern relevance, spiritual comfort, and intellectual provocation. Whether his subject is faith, love, intermarriage, success, Jewish continuity or the creation of a meaningful legacy, you’ll find yourself quoting lines from this beautiful book long after you’ve reached its final blessing.” —- Letty Cottin Pogrebin is a writer, speaker, social justice activist, and author of eleven books including Deborah, Golda, and Me: Being Female & Jewish in America and Single Jewish Male Seeking Soul Mate. She is also a founding editor of Ms. Magazine, is a regular columnist for Moment Magazine.
“Rabbi John Rosove has given a gift to all of us who care about engaging the next generation in Jewish life. The letters to his sons are really love-letters from countless voices of Jewish wisdom across history to all those young people who are seeking purpose in their lives. From wrestling with God, to advocating for peace and justice in Israel and at home, and living a life of purpose, this book is a compelling case for the joy of being Jewish.” —Rabbi Jonah Pesner, is the Director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism in Washington, D.C and is Senior Vice President of the Union for Reform Judaism.
“If you’re a fellow Reform millennial, give yourself the gift of John’s insights. This book is written in a breezy, gentle, readable style that is welcoming without losing sharp insight. It makes an even better case for Judaism than challah. It was so enjoyable and refreshing to read and persuasive without ever being pushy. Rosove managed to do what only a truly worthy slice of kugel or chance viewing of Fiddler has done for me: reactivate my sense of wonder and gratitude about being Jewish. I am a huge WJM fan.” —-Jen Spyra is a staff comedy writer on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (CBS) and formerly was a senior writer for The Onion.
“John Rosove’s letters to his sons based on his life, philosophy, and rabbinic work address what it means to be a liberal and ethical Jew and a lover of Israel in an era when none are automatic. He writes in an unassuming personal style steeped in traditional texts as he confronts conflicts of faith and objectivity, Zionist pride and loving criticism of the Jewish state, traditional observance and religious innovation. He is never gratuitous and invites his readers into his family conversation because what he says is applicable to us all.” —-Susan Freudenheim is the Executive Director of Jewish World Watch, was formerly the Managing Editor of the Los Angeles Jewish Journal and an editor at the Los Angeles Times.
“Rabbi John Rosove has written a book of the utmost importance for our time. It is an imperative read for all those who struggle with the changing and evolving attitudes towards belonging, behavior and belief. His analysis, stemming from deeply personal contemplation and decades of rabbinic experience, offers clear yet sophisticated approaches to tackling the challenges facing this generation and those to come. This book offers a treasure of wisdom through the lens of Jewish texts – both ancient and modern – which help to frame life’s major issues taking the reader from the particular to the universal. Israel is one of the most complicated of issues tackled in this volume and his chapter on Israel bridges the divide between Israel’s critics and staunch supporters offering a comforting approach to those who are deeply at odds with Israel and offers and important opportunity for a shift in our basic narrative. Moving beyond the conversation of crisis is critical for the millennial generation.” —-Rabbi Josh Weinberg is President of the Association of Reform Zionists of America and is a leading young voice in world-wide Zionist politics and affairs.
03 Wednesday Jan 2018
Posted in Ethics, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Social Justice
I have written about the tragedy of the 40,000 Eritrean and Sudanese Refugees who walked across the desert to Israel escaping chaos and terror in their own countries several times over the past years and am heartsick that the government of Israel refuses to welcome these tempest-tost people for political asylum or in any other temporary status.
I love Israel but this government action is unacceptable and contrary to the liberal Jewish values of welcoming the stranger.
The following is a report from the Hotline for Refugees and Migrants, Amnesty International Israel, ASSAF – Aid Organization for Refugees, ACRI – The Association for Civil Rights in Israel, Kav LaOved, Physicians for Human Rights – Israel, ARDC – African Refugee Development Center:
“Israel is sending refugees to an unsafe state and many of them to their deaths. Rwanda is not safe. All eyewitness accounts tell us that those who are deported from Israel to Rwanda find themselves without status or rights and exposed to threats such as kidnapping, torture, and human trafficking. They are forced to continue their lives as refugees. Few of them succeed in surviving the journey and arrive in the end to a safe haven. The expulsion to Rwanda endangers the very lives of these refugees.
Israel deliberately prevents Africans from applying for asylum and then says that since they did not submit their requests, they will expel them. This year alone, 7,000 Eritreans and Sudanese tried to submit asylum applications, but the Population and Immigration Authority prevented them from physically doing so. The only office in the country where one can apply for asylum doesn’t even allow for Africans to use their rights and refuses to take in the asylum applications of the thousands of them that wait in line for days.”
24 Sunday Dec 2017
The Trailer for this moving documentary describes the film this way:
“In Israel and Palestine, the road to peace is a steep climb. For three activists, one Israeli, one Palestinian and one American, the challenges seem insurmountable. And yet they try to see and understand the humanity in “the other” and forge connections that promote empathy, understanding and, in their wildest hopes, peace. Hotel Everest is their story.”
This 40-minute film was created by the documentary film-maker Claudia Sobral with her writer Sophie Sartain [full disclosure – both are friends and members of my congregation] and centers around the conversations of three peace activists, retired Israeli Colonel Eden Fuchs, Palestinian Ibrahim Issa, and Buddhist American Whit Jones.
Eden attended the showing of the film at my synagogue and Ibrahim spoke to the assembled via skype from Bethlehem. We were joined in Los Angeles by 80 Israelis, Palestinian Arabs, Middle Eastern Muslims, American Jews, Christians, and others.
The film opens with Whit Jones flying from Boise, Idaho to Tel Aviv. A brief history of the conflict is reviewed that includes footage showing the 1947 UN Partition vote that called for the establishment of a Jewish state and an Arab state in Palestine, and then states that in 1948 the State of Israel became independent, a coordinated attack by all the surrounding Arab nations followed, and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians went into exile many of whom settled in refugee camps.
Colonel Fuchs explained that at the age of 45 he realized that he knew no and had never known any Palestinians personally. It was then that he discovered the Everest Hotel in Beit Jala, an Arab village between Jerusalem and Bethlehem. There, Palestinians and Israelis meet freely, talk and listen to one another, learn of each other’s losses, fears, despair, and dreams, and discover that they share the same fate and must find a way to live together in peace.
When he was 14, Ibrahim was shot by Israeli soldiers in a demonstration. He grew up to understand, however, that violence is not the way to peace. Sitting in Beit Jala alongside Eden, Ibrahim said: “Eden is my brother and I trust him.” Eden responded simply with a full and loving heart: “Thank you!”
In the Q and A I asked Ibrahim how he came to love and trust Eden given their different histories and identities. He said that having a safe space at Hotel Everest opened their hearts to compassion and friendship.
The film did not address the politics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but I couldn’t resist asking what each of them believed to be the best political solution. They agreed that peace can only come when there are mutual respect and acknowledgment of the dignity of the other, when compassion replaces hatred, and Israelis and Palestinians meet as human beings and not as enemies.
Ibrahim said that he believed once in the two states for two peoples resolution of the conflict, but now believes that settlement expansion in the West Bank has foreclosed a two-state solution. A one-state solution, he says, is the way forward, a state in which Palestinians and Israelis share equal rights and acknowledge the dignity and humanity of the “other.”
Eden confessed that he is not a politician and would not express a political position. Rather, he believes that trust, respect, and compassion will result in the right political solution whatever that may be.
Each man has faced dangerous challenges. Eden has been characterized by fellow Israelis as a traitor and as the “seed of Amalek.” He often despairs about this unending conflict, but when he reaches out to his Palestinian partners and they accept his hand with friendship, he knows that “peace can come and my dreams are restored.” He seizes each of the moments as they come.
The film shows Eden arranging for permits with Israeli security services to allow 15 Palestinian Arab women to travel to the Mediterranean Sea to swim in the waters, fully clothed, for the first time in their lives. Though he was gratified to arrange this outing, he felt that his actions forced him to participate in the occupation that he abhors.
Eden worries that the young generation of Israelis who as children were once open-hearted and pure have become hardened as a consequence of serving as occupational soldiers in the West Bank.
Ibrahim too was accused by Palestinian extremists of being a traitor. These extremists regard any Palestinian who cooperates with Israel as contributing to “normalization” of the occupation. Ibrahim rejects the charge explaining that the only way to peace is to engage with and speak to those with whom we disagree.
Hotel Everest is a heart-wrenching and inspiring film that ought to be seen by every Israeli and Palestinian, and especially by their political leadership.
See http://www.fjproductions.com/hoteleverest/ and http://www.hoteleverestthemovie.com/
Rabbi John Rosove's Blog 