Are you confused about what led to the recent war between Israel and Hamas? Who ought you to trust when reading the volume of op-eds now being written about who did what when?

These are just two broad-based questions so many of us are asking. To understand what has happened and will likely continue to happen, it is important to self-educate. To that end I have listed a number of books that address the history of relations between Israel and the Palestinians, the history of Zionism, Jewish and Palestinian narratives of the conflict, and personal statements by a number of individuals about the meaning of Israel and Palestine in their lives.

What should you read first? It doesn’t matter. Start anywhere, but if you are serious about understanding as much as possible this seemingly intractable conflict of more than a century between two peoples that claim the same land as their rightful homeland, then keep reading. Here are my recommendations:

ISRAEL, ZIONISM AND THE PALESTINIANS

ISRAEL – A HISTORY – Anita Shapira – offers a breath-taking history of Israel from the origins of the Zionist movement in the late 19^th century to the present day.

THE PALESTINIANS – Benny Morris – researches the development of the Palestinian national consciousness in response to the establishment of the State of Israel.

THE LEMON TREE – Sandy Tolan – a true story of the experience of exiled Palestinians who return to their home in Jaffa from which they had been driven out by Israeli forces in the War of Independence to discover Holocaust survivors as the new occupants. The book tells the story of the evolving personal relationship between the two families set in the historical context of the founding of the State of Israel.

TALES OF LOVE AND DARKNESS – Amos Oz – the autobiography of one of Israel’s greatest writers from his early years as the nephew of a prominent Zionist revisionist to his own evolution as a member of a left-wing kibbutz.

ONCE UPON A COUNTRY – A PALESTINIAN LIFE – Sari Nusseibeh with Anthony David – a personal memoir of the President of Al Quds University whose story dramatizes the consequences of war, partition, and terrorism.

A NEW VOICE FOR ISRAEL – Jeremy Ben Ami – a personal memoir and a political analysis of what American Jews need to do to advocate for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in Washington to the administration and legislative bodies by the founder and President of J Street, a pro-Israel pro-peace political and educational organization.

PATHWAYS TO PEACE – AMERICA AND THE ARAB-ISRAELI CONFLICT – Edited by Daniel C. Kurtzer with a Foreword by James A. Baker III and Samuel Berger – a series of articles by experts on how to advance the peace process.

DEAR ZEALOTS – LETTERS FROM A DIVIDED LAND – Amos Oz – 3 essays on the universal nature of fanaticism and its possible cures, on the Jewish roots of humanism and the need for a secular pride in Israel, and on the geopolitical standing of Israel in the wider Middle East and internationally

LETTERS TO MY PALESTINIAN NEIGHBOR – Yossi Klein Halevi – letters that help to understand the painful choices confronting Israelis and Palestinians that will ultimately help determine the fate of the region.

WHY ISRAEL [AND ITS FUTURE] MATTERS – LETTERS OF A LIBERAL RABBI TO HIS CHILDREN AND THE MILLENNIAL GENERATION – Rabbi John L. Rosove – makes the case that American non-Orthodox Jews need Israel as a source of pride, connection, and Jewish renewal, and Israel needs them for the liberal values they bring to the Zionist enterprise.

THE WAY TO THE SPRING – LIFE AND DEATH IN PALESTINE – Ben Ehrenreich – a journalistic gathering together of the stories of Palestinians living under occupation and near Israeli settlers who want to drive the Palestinians from the land.

SIDE BY SIDE – PARALLEL HISTORIES OF ISRAEL-PALESTINE – Edited by Sami Adwan, Dan Bar-On, and Eyal Naveh – a dual narrative of Israeli and Palestinian history comprising the history of two peoples, set literally side by side, so that readers can track each against the other, noting both where they differ as well as where they correspond.

APEIROGON – A NOVEL – Colum McCann – an Israel father and a Palestinian father each lose a child in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and learn of each other’s stories, recognize the loss that connects them, and attempt to use their grief as a weapon for peace.

CATCH-67 – THE LEFT, THE RIGHT, AND THE LEGACY OF THE SIX-DAY WAR – Micah Goodman – sheds light on the ideas that shaped Israelis’ thinking on both sides of the debate, and among secular and religious Jews about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

THE UNMAKING OF ISRAEL – Gershom Gorenberg – offers a penetrating and provocative look at how the balance of power has shifted toward extremism, threatening the prospects for peace and democracy as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict intensified.

Each week my friend Rabbi Josh Weinberg, President of the Association of Reform Zionists of America (ARZA) and Vice President for Progressive and Reform Zionism for the Union for Reform Judaism, writes a d’var Torah that discusses both the Torah portion of the week and our relationship to the State of Israel and progressive Zionism. His column this week, as every week, is worth reading. Here he unpacks among the most complex issues facing the Jewish people, State of Israel, and the Palestinians.

https://arza.org/guide-to-the-complex/?utm_source=ARZAWeekly&utm_campaign=Feature&utm_medium=email&utm_content=2021_5_21

My friend Rabbi Ammi Hirsch of the Stephen S. Wise Free Synagogue in Manhattan always speaks eloquently, with insight, and with moral precision, and his sermon delivered last Friday on the 73^rd secular anniversary of Israel’s birth is worth listening to and watching here –

https://swfs.org/sermons/a-tragic-week-of-war-five-comments/

The following is a letter sent by Rabbi Jill Jacobs, Executive Director of “T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights” representing over 2000 rabbis in the United States. It is a balanced, moral, and thoughtful reflection on what is taking place currently in Israel/Palestine and how we got to where we are.

“I have been watching the events in Israel and the occupied territories with fear, pain, and anger. First, I am mourning the deaths of those killed in Israel by Hamas rocket fire, including, as of this writing, a five-year-old boy, an Indian home health aid, and six other Israelis, including both Jews and Palestinian citizens; the more than 100 Palestinians — including 28 children — killed in Gaza by Israeli airstrikes; and the Palestinian citizen of Israel killed seemingly by a vigilante in Lod earlier this week.  

And my heart breaks watching the violence between Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel in the streets of Lod, Ramle, Akko, Haifa, and other “mixed” cities. The images and videos of attempted lynchings, of synagogues burning, and of destroyed businesses and homes are devastating. 

Throughout this week, I have been in close contact with friends and colleagues in the human rights and civil society community in Israel, who have spent the last few weeks protesting on the street, and some of the last few days ducking into bomb shelters. This includes Palestinian citizens of Israel, who are attempting the impossible task of simultaneously fighting for equal rights within Israel, and protesting in solidarity with Palestinians living under occupation. Even yesterday, we saw Jewish and Palestinian Israelis stand together throughout the country calling for an end to the bloodshed. 

Some within our Jewish community describe the current conflict as starting when Hamas launched rockets into Israel earlier this week. But we can’t start the story there. 

Over the past several weeks, we saw protests in East Jerusalem over the attempt by Israeli settlers and the state that backs them to evict Palestinian residents from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah, East Jerusalem, based on 19th century legal deeds. (While some have attempted to portray this as a real estate dispute, and as a just attempt to restore lost property to Jews, Palestinians have no parallel right to return to homes that they lost in 1948.) These protests, as well as protests against the closure of Jerusalem’s Damascus Gate, a popular hang-out area for Palestinian teenagers, were met with police violence, including stun grenades and rubber bullets. We also witnessed police violence against worshippers in the Al Aqsa mosque.

The shocking violence in the streets is the result of years and years of provocation by Prime Minister Netanyahu and others, who cast Palestinian citizens as a fifth column; passed the Nation-State Law, which enshrines legal inequality; and neglected Palestinian communities, who spent much of the past year protesting against the indifference by the Israeli government and police to intracommunal violence. In the past few days, Israeli Jewish extremist groups have organized on Telegram and WhatsApp to travel to mixed cities in order to carry out violent and destructive attacks against Palestinian citizens, their homes, and their businesses. In these same towns, Palestinian citizens have torched synagogues, seriously wounded Jews, and attacked Jewish homes and businesses. There is no justification for such violence, by either party. But it is not random — it is the direct effect of years of government policies and incitement. 

Part of the background is also Netanyahu’s desperate attempt to hold onto power, during a week when a potential new governing coalition came close to ousting him. Hamas, too, is playing a power game with their rivals in the Palestinian Authority, after President Abbas canceled planned Palestinian elections. 

The real background, of course, is the occupation that has lasted more than half a century, and that violates the human rights of Palestinians in East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza every single day. Like everyone else in the world, Palestinians have the right to citizenship in a country, to self-determination, to freedom of movement, and to safety and security. Those of us who want these things for Jews must support the same for Palestinians, and the reverse is true as well. 

Shavuot celebrates Matan Torah — the giving of the Torah. It’s no accident that we received the Torah in the wilderness, on our way out of Mitzrayim (Egypt), and before we arrived in Eretz Yisrael (the Land of Israel). In order to assume sovereignty in a land of our own, we need first to accept a moral legal code aimed at ensuring justice for everyone living in this land. The Torah warns of the danger of power: “When you have eaten your fill, and have built fine houses to live in…beware lest your heart grow haughty and you forget the Eternal your God — who freed you from the land of Egypt, the house of bondage…and you say to yourselves, ‘My own power and the might of my own hand have won this wealth for me.’” (Deuteronomy 8:12-20)

The establishment of Israel as a modern nation-state brought with it the obligations to follow international law — including the laws of occupation. And the Torah serves as an ever-present reminder not to let strength and success get in the way of making Eretz Yisrael a place that reflects the divine presence.

As American and Canadian Jews, we cannot ignore our own communities’ role in justifying decades of occupation, and the rise of right wing extremists. Too many of our organizations made their first statement on the weeks of violence and tension only when rockets from Gaza started flying toward Israeli towns, and ignored the experience of Palestinians both in East Jerusalem and in Gaza. Too often, we have given Netanyahu and other right wing politicians standing ovations in our own communities, even as they incite violence against their own citizens, woo Kahanists into the Knesset, and implement de facto annexation of the West Bank.

And too often, we have invested our donor money in the status quo — whether in supposedly apolitical organizations like JNF-USA that contribute to the settlement project — or in outright extremist groups, as documented in my recent Haaretz article, written after a right-wing Jewish mob rioted through Jerusalem. Or we have thrown up our hands in exhaustion and diverted our money altogether from groups — both at home and in Israel — trying to make positive change there. By pulling back, we create a vacuum for right-wing donors laser-focused on turning Israel into their fantasy of a fundamentalist fortress. 

To paraphrase an old slogan, if we’re not investing in solutions, we’re investing in the problem. 

All of us who care about the future of Israel and Palestine, and of Israelis (Jewish, Palestinian & other) and Palestinians should be putting our money, advocacy energy, and organizing power into working to end occupation, investing in organizations both here and there that are doing so, and supporting the extraordinary activists on the ground who are devoting their lives to this work.

With wishes for a speedy end to violence, and a recommitment to building a better future.

Shabbat Shalom and Chag Sameach,

Rabbi Jill Jacobs 
Executive Director”

I am posting this 10-minute clip from Israeli television – though it’s in Hebrew – so you can “feel” the anger, fear, and frustration of the Arab Israeli community through Meretz Knesset Member Issawi Frej who expresses eloquently and passionately his raw emotions and worries – watch it all as Issawi’s raw emotions build to a crescendo.

Frej was involved with Peace Now and the Geneva Accord. I have met him, and he represents the hope of Israeli Jewish and Arab-Israeli coexistence.

What is most dangerous right now is not only a war with Hamas, but another Intifada sparked by thugs in both the Israeli Jewish and Palestinian Israeli communities. Given that there is no government of Israel that is functioning at present, and that this violence serves Netanyahu’s interests to distract the public from the negotiations for a new government led by Yair Lapid of Yesh Atid and reminds everyone that Netanyahu can be a “strong man,” that the complete lack of leadership in Israel (regardless of Hamas’ true intentions and willingness to call for a cease fire) can lead Israel and the Palestinians off a cliff. If that should happen, it will be impossible to calculate the consequences.

This moment reminds us that though there has been quiet since 2014, that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict must be resolved in a two states for two peoples diplomatic resolution that assures Israelis security and democracy and Palestinian national rights, justice, and security. There is no other solution to this conflict.

watch this – https://youtu.be/bvCMeqJHiuE

As violence spreads like a wild fire throughout Israel and the Palestinian lands, as complex as the underlying causes are, we can still look to Jerusalem as metaphor and as a dream for what might be. Here are my thoughts today with prayers that violence may cease, that Palestinian and Israeli may begin talking again leading to two states for two peoples, security and peace for each other.

4 Quarters of Jerusalem

Jewish – Muslim – Christian – Armenian

Is a beating heart

All must be healthy and safe

For the whole to live and thrive

And if one is suppressed – or two – or three

The fourth isn’t safe or whole

All must beat alongside the others

Equal and engaged with each other

In dignity and with respect for the other

In deference and concern for all

That Shalom may be also Salaam

Whole!

Note: The following is the complete text of an inspired speech delivered by Reform Rabbi Gilad Kariv as a new Member of the Israeli Knesset in the Labor Party. This is an historic first, and Rabbi Kariv not only offers a review of his own life that led him to become a Rabbi and the leader of the Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism, but led him to become the first Reform Rabbi ever to serve in that august parliamentary body. I salute my friend Gilad, and wish him and those who share his outlook and values courage, stamina, and success in this coming term.   

“Speaker of the Knesset, my dear friends in the Labor faction: Omer, Emily, Efrat, Ram and Ibtisam; my inspirational – and dare I say faithful – friend MK Meirav Michaeli; and all members of the Knesset:

Before I begin, I must pay my respects to the memory of all who have perished in the great tragedy in Meron last week, and I pray for the speedy recovery of those who were injured in the terrorist attack in the Shomron.

With great excitement, I stand here before you today, and I am reminded of the first verses of Parashat Netzavim in Deuteronomy:

“You stand this day, all of you, before the Lord your G-d […] and I make this covenant […]not with you alone, but both with those who are standing here with us this day before the Lord our God and with those who are not with us here.”

I have immense gratitude first and foremost for those who are here with us today – my parents Avital and Shlomo, my partner Noa, my three children Amalia, Avigail and Amos, my sister Lihi and her son Amitai, my aunt Yali and my in-laws Tzvika and Dalia.

As Rabbi Akiva said of his love Rachel – all that is mine is theirs. I am also grateful for those who are not here with us today, in particular my four grandparents, who I was blessed by their good influence for many years. Many happy hours of my childhood were spent visiting my grandparents in Tel Aviv. Their homes were both Israeli, Zionist and very secular, bursting with love for the land of Israel. One of the homes belonged to Savta Elka and Saba Shimon – who was injured during his military service in the Haganah in Kibbutz Ramat Hakovesh and years later joined the Lechi.

The second home belonged to Savta Chana – who had left her Haredi family at age 16 without severing their loving relationship – and Saba Emanuel, who had made aliyah as a child in 1921, with his widowed mother and young siblings. When he was 33, he was called upon by Ben Gurion to help establish the IDF’s engineering corps, on the eve of the Independence War. Later, he worked as the CEO of the Dead Sea factories, in the days before our precious natural resources had been carelessly privatized.

It was near this home that I discovered the neighborhood synagogue, as a strictly secular young child who was always attracted to Jewish tradition, prayer and literature. This moderate religious-Zionist synagogue was my home throughout my youth. These were years filled with studying, scouting, political activism and friendship. Later on, as I neared the end of high-school, I embarked upon yet another spiritual journey from the Orthodox synagogue of my youth to the Reform community in Tel Aviv, and the many endeavors of the Reform movement in Israel and all over the Jewish world. Throughout this journey I was well aware that Jewish tradition and culture are a central part of my identity, alongside the belief in equality between men and women, and the recognition that dignity for humankind, love of the stranger and the pursuit of justice and peace are values inseparable from my Judaism. Even then I was adamant that in 4000 years of Jewish thought, one can find both inspiring human sensitivity as well as fundamentalism, outbursts of creativity alongside deep conservatism. The question that always guided me was not “What is Judaism?”, but rather “Which interpretation of Judaism will I choose?”

In the Beit Daniel community in Tel Aviv I met many committed partners who shared with me a longing for an Israeli egalitarian Judaism. This is the community where I met my life partner – Noa; the community where I became a rabbi; where both my daughters read the Torah at their Bat-Mitzvah; and where they continue to lead prayer to this day. It is in this community, during the Shavuot holiday of 1996 that Lea Rabin carried a Torah scroll dedicated to her late husband Yitzchak Rabin of blessed memory. In this community, I was honored to read the Torah with special needs youth.

In this community hangs to this day a rainbow tapestry in honor of Shira Banki, of blessed memory, who was taken from us in the Jerusalem Pride Parade by those who had violently distorted the Torah of Israel. I share this story with you today not only as a personal biography. I want to suggest that there are a growing number of Israelis who seek to deepen their knowledge of Judaism and make it a meaningful part of their lives, without giving up on liberal values. These Jews are standing up for their right to navigate both Western democratic liberal culture as well as the richly diverse world of Jewish thought.

For these people, there is no contradiction between these two worlds. There is a third path, through which we can together balance both our private and communal spiritual lives; accept social and political responsibility as well as tikkun olam; and combine creative religious innovation with a deep respect for our intergenerational roots. There is no contradiction between Zionism, Jewish solidarity, and a universal, humanitarian worldview.

The growth of the Jewish pluralist renewal movement, which I have had the honor to be among its leaders over the last two decades, is the explicit expression of this important process. This movement has raised several important ideological flags – tolerance, equality and most importantly, the recognition that there is more than one way to be a Jew.

This movement is not just directed externally, but internally as well. It is a broad and diverse Israeli movement that includes a wide range of communities: orthodox, conservative, Reform and secular, as well as batei-midrash of all types, educational institutions, pre-army seminars and youth movements, adult communities and educators, cultural institutions and civil society organizations; and most importantly, we are a diverse community with many different lifestyles but we are all Israeli – secular, traditional and religious as one. As is the way of any young ideological movement, the Jewish renewal movement is finding its path step by step, navigating many obstacles. The biggest obstacle, not surprisingly, is the monopoly over Israeli Judaism that has been given to one particular denomination and institution, in a gross breach of the core values of the Israeli Declaration of Independence. This grim reality of monopoly, coercion and discrimination in the name of religion, continuously violates the basic rights of millions of Israeli citizens: women, hundreds of thousands of immigrants and their children, members of the LGBTQ community, liberal citizens as well as Jewish renewal communities, Israeli citizens of other religious affiliations and many others. This violation in turn severely undermines Israel’s commitment to democratic values, equality and freedom of religion and belief. No less important, are the severe consequences these policies have for Israel’s basic identity as a homeland for the Jewish nation, and for the relationship millions of Israelis have with their own Jewish culture. These policies deepen feelings of alienation and anger, and cause a

very broad part of the public to view the state religious establishments as a source of corruption and power struggles rather than as an inspiration and moral, social and unifying power.

I believe these harsh words tell the story of the upsetting processes Israeli society is experiencing, but they are also true of Israel’s relationship with world Jewry. In the last few years, the Israeli government has explicitly turned its back on millions of diaspora Jews, because of their communal and religious identity, and often because of their political views—as if the Zionist tent has enough room only for those who support the current incumbent government.

Mending Israel’s relationship with the liberal Jews of the world on the basis of mutual respect and recognition are worthy Israeli and Zionist goals. I am happy to be standing here today and to speak the voice of my brothers and sisters in the Diaspora, whose love of Israel is genuine but sadly, they rightly feel all too often that this love is one-sided. The distortion I’m talking about in the relationship between religion and state, which I worked on as a civil activist, does not only entail the freedom of religion and the freedom from religion of the citizens of Israel – which they are supposed to be granted naturally. It also relates to the complicated relationship between the Jewish state and the Jews of the Diaspora. Regarding this relationship, in the eighth decade of the country’s existence, Israelis are standing at a profound crossroad.

In the lively political and civil debate that the Israeli society holds on its path and values, there are great forces that search to take advantage of the Jewish tradition and the Zionist vision in order to justify nationalism and racism. Others do so in order to deny the legitimization of their political opponent’s opinion, to denounce any appeals against the government’s actions, whether by individuals or organizations, and constantly measure the absolute loyalty of citizens. They do so while totally ignoring the ancient holy prophets of Israel, whose vision was mentioned in the Declaration of Independence. They were the first to stand bravely opposite the king and ruling authority. The leaders of these maneuvers do not hesitate to quote any slogan, reference or Zionist saying. But truth be told, more often than not, their rhetoric is merely pseudo-Zionist. This rhetoric seeks to reestablish the public and political discourse of a pre-sovereign era.

According to these forces, we are not dealing with leading a mature country, but rather with the continuation of the pre-mandate Jewish struggle against forces of darkness from within and without. This tactic does not derive from any sentimental feelings. It is entirely a dry political calculation to attempt to excuse Israel and Israeli society from the burden of challenges that are upon its shoulders, as a country that is modern, civilized and advanced, that seeks at once to be both a national home for the Jewish people and all of its inhabitants, and a democratic state of all its citizens regardless of religion, ethnic origin, language and gender. Amongst these challenges – is the promise of equality and opportunity to each and every citizen; the protection of human rights; the reduction of economic inequalities; the reparation of the relationship between the Jewish majority and the Arab minority and encouraging coexistence; the prioritizing of the public interest over individual preferences; the promotion of social mobility and equal access to resources; the cultivation of a pluralist and tolerant society; the deep concern for the environment; and of course the striving for apolitical agreements and peace – not only with the Gulf state, but more importantly with those with whom we share the promised land.

As the continuation of the Israeli Labor movement, these challenges of creating a just, tolerant and peaceful society are exactly the weight we are willing to carry. For us these are not only political assignments, but also a deep expression of the way we understand the essence of our Jewish and democratic state and the great challenges of the Jews in Israel. The way we see it, if there is someone who forgot how to be Jewish, then he or she are turning their back to these challenges, or even worse – sees them as an expression of national weakness, or of distancing from the Zionist vision whilst blurring the lines of Jewish identity. From this Israeli, Zionist and Jewish position, derives our decisive refusal to give any institution or religious denomination ownership and exclusive monopoly on Judaism and Zionism.

Naturally, this refusal incites a strong argument, which echoes in this political house at all times. As always, achieving compromises and approval are worthy and important goals. But the basic condition of these goals is that around the negotiation table no-one will shout and demand: “It’s all mine”, whilst the other side is constantly forced into a defensive mode. The two sides must hold the prayer shawl and be willing to share it. Only in this kind of discussion, we can build bridges wide enough that will allow more than one to cross them at once.

Speaker of the Knesset, my friends: In the last 20 years as a Reform Rabbi in Israel I was able to accompany thousands of individuals, couples and families in moments of sorrow, but mostly in moments of joy and new beginnings. The happiest of these moments were the thousands of weddings I ordained from all the spectrum of the Israeli society. Couples who could not get married through the Orthodox institutions, and many more who consciously chose a Jewish egalitarian Chupah. Couples born in Israel raised by Olim; couples in which one partner was Jewish by birth, and the other – by choice. Couples of a bride and groom, and also couples of two grooms or two brides.

At the end of the seven blessings, after we bless the couples with “love, comradeship, in peace and in deep friendship,” and after we ask that only voices of happiness and joy will be heard in the “cities of Judaea and outskirts of Jerusalem,” I would always read a song of prayer by Lea Goldberg, that is included in many new Hebrew and Israeli prayer books for the Reform Jewish communities in Israel, alongside the traditional prayers.

“Oh Lord my God – please teach me how to bless and pray. / The truth of falling leaves. / And fruits of summers day. / The freedom that it brings – / to see to feel to breathe to know to yearn and even fail. / Teach my lips a song that tells us how to praise. / The morning and the nights the secrets of your ways. / Guide my mind to find the truth, / see through the haze / ’cause I don’t want no ordinary days.”

With the beginning of a new officiation that I hope will be the beginning of a long term and that makes a positive difference, I pray that I will continue carrying blessings every day and a song of grace for the great privilege of being a public servant in this institution – alongside both partners and challenging rivals, and that this mission will never become habit for me.

Blessed are You God, who created me in Your image.

Blessed are You God, who created me free.

Blessed are you God, who created me Israel.”

On May 1, 1921, exactly 100 years ago this week, massive Arab rioting broke out in Jaffa against the Jews of Palestine. Many were murdered including Yosef Chaim Brenner, a pioneer of Hebrew literature known as a moral conscience of the Yishuv. New immigrants, who had recently disembarked from a ship in the harbor, were killed by Arab rioters who raged unhindered under the eyes of the British mandatory authority. From Jaffa, Arab unrest spread throughout the region including the small agricultural settlement of Petach Tikvah that was first established by a group of religious Jewish families from Jerusalem in 1878.

Word came to the leadership of Petach Tikvah that it was about to be attacked, and Abraham Shapira (1870-1965), the head of the town’s Jewish guards (shomrim), organized the settlement’s defense. He tried to keep the peace first by meeting with Arab leadership in the region with whom he had shared friendship and who respected him as a man of honor and dignity, but these Arab leaders stood aside and allowed the storm to rage.

First, K’far Saba and Ein Hai, two small villages fell. Their Jewish residents were evacuated to the larger town of Petach Tikvah.

Then, on May 5 thousands of rioters marched towards Petach Tikvah, attacked from the north, and set fire to the Moshav. The front, approximately two kilometers long, was guarded by a handful of Jewish defenders. The campaign intensified, a number of young Jews were killed, and replaced by their elders who with sticks and pitchforks fought ferociously. In the end, miraculously, Petach Tikvah’s Jews were victorious in the defense of the settlement.

Word circulated throughout the Land of Israel that the courageous few defending Petach Tikvah had held the rioters at bay, and news of their heroism spread throughout the greater Jewish world.

When British soldiers met with Shapira after the battle, they expressed their amazement that he, as the commander of the shomrim, had never been formally trained in tactical warfare. That aside, the British arrested him, allegedly due to his carrying a weapon, but in fact as leverage to justify their imprisonment of the head of the rioters against Petach Tikvah, the Sheikh of the Bedouin village of Abu Kishk, two kilometers from Petach Tikvah. It was not, according to the British, possible to imprison an Arab without also imprisoning a Jew, and so that fate fell upon Shapira. After interrogation, he was released. However, Shapira then led a second front in the battle against the release of the Sheikh until he paid a penalty for the damage he inflicted on the Moshavah. He was sentenced to more than fifteen years in prison. He was released on condition that he forge a peace treaty with Petach Tikvah.

Despite the heavy causalities and deep resentments, over time Shapira and the Sheikh stabilized their relationship and the relationship between the Arabs of Abu Kishk and the Jews of Petach Tikvah for years to come. Theirs was a relationship based upon strength and respect on the one hand and cooperation and mutuality of interest on the other. They knew one another well personally, and those relationships were critical to the maintenance of a stable peace. Shapira was so well respected that Arabs and Bedouin came to him to settle disputes between themselves.

Shapira is known in Israeli history as “The shomer of Petach Tikvah.” He came to be respected throughout the Land of Israel by Jew and Arab alike. As the foremost guard of the Yishuv, he guided Lord Edmond Baron de Rothschild (the great benefactor of the early Jewish settlements in the country), Chaim Weizmann (the first president of the State of Israel), and many dignitaries from around the world whenever they visited Palestine. Chaim Weizmann wrote of Abraham Shapira in his autobiography Trial and Error (New York: Schocken, 1949, pages 252-253):

“Abraham Shapira was in himself a symbol of the whole process of Jewish readaptation. He accompanied me on most of my trips up and down Palestine, partly as guide, partly as guard, and all the while I listened to his epic stories of the old-time colonists. He was a primitive person, spoke better Arabic than Hebrew, and seemed so much a part of the rocks and stony hillsides of the country that it was difficult to believe that he had been born in Lithuania. Here was a man who in his own lifetime had bridged a gap of thousands of years; who, once in Palestine, had shed his Galuth environment like an old coat.”

Abraham Shapira was my great-grand-uncle. My maternal grandmother was his niece. He and his family left Lithuania in 1878 for Palestine, lived in Jerusalem for two years and then joined the few families in Petach Tikvah. My branch of the family left for North America twenty years later, entered the new world through Nova Scotia, journeyed to Winnipeg, Manitoba, and then, in 1932, moved to Los Angeles.

My maternal aunt and uncle visited Israel in 1953, and for the first time in 75 years the two branches of our family reunited. Uncle Avram (as we all called him because that was how my grandmother called him) visited our family in Los Angeles in 1956 when I was six years old. My mother told me on our way to the gathering to welcome him: “Uncle Avram is a very great Israeli.”

Though I was only six years old, I remember Uncle Avram clearly. He was a large man who sat quietly in my aunt’s family room and spoke Yiddish and Russian to my grandmother who translated for the rest of us. I sensed his dignity and simple nobility, and then when I lived in Israel from 1973 to 1974 as a young rabbinic student, I visited his niece and nephew in Petach Tikvah over numerous weekends. They told me many stories about him.

When my aunt died in the mid-1990s, she left me a two-volume Hebrew biography of Uncle Avram written by Yehuda Eidelshtein in 1939 as well as a smaller Hebrew volume written by Gezel Kressel in 1955. These volumes sat on my bookshelf for all these years and at last, after I retired as a congregational rabbi in 2019, I read them. I was stunned by the dramatic significance of his life as the founding shomer of one of the first settlements established by early Zionists at the end of the 19^th century. I realized that though many Israelis over a certain age know about him, non-Hebrew speaking Jews in the Diaspora likely have never heard of Abraham Shapira. It was then, for the sake of my family most of all, that I decided to translate the smaller volume.

As I read the story of the Arab attack on Petach Tikvah on May 5, 1921, I realized that we are fast approaching the 100^th anniversary of that fateful battle – hence, this blog.

Many Petach Tikvah Jews were lost on that day, among them Avshalom Gisin, Chaim Tzvi Greenshtein, Natan Rapaport, and Ze’ev Orlov. They were young, and they gave their lives for the safety and well-being of others. For many decades Abraham Shapira and the people of Petach Tikvah mourned them on the 27^th of Nisan – Zichronam livracha.

Israeli, Palestinian and U.S. figures virtually addressed about 5,000 activists, signaling a new willingness from mainstream figures to apply pressure to influence Israeli policy

WASHINGTON – J Street concluded their 12th annual conference on Monday, virtually hosting nearly 5,000 activists who listened to lawmakers, experts and activists discuss the current respective political moments in Israel and the United States, as well as the current state of the U.S.-Israel relationship.

Note: For those of my readers who do not follow closely the ins and outs of politics in DC vis a vis Israel, this piece in Haaretz by Ben Samuels (April 20, 2021) offers a fine review of what happened at the just-completed J Street National Conference.

In addition to what is noted here, the Jerusalem Youth Choir including Israeli Jewish and Palestinian singers were highlighted. Their music, spirit, and efforts to join together above the fray of politics was inspirational, and their music was uplifting and beautiful. Also, there was presented a fine medley of work by Israel Jewish and Palestinian artists. One artist said that the way for Israeli Jews and Palestinians to understand each other is through the arts.

As I have noted many times over the years, to understand what is happening in Israel and Palestine, a subscription to Haaretz is most helpful. It is the NY Times of Israel. Why not take this opportunity to take out a subscription? I get no kick-back except the knowledge that more people are reading what’s important in Israel.

https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium.HIGHLIGHT-j-street-conference-marks-a-new-day-in-washington-for-u-s-israel-relations-1.9730515?utm_source=mailchimp&utm_medium=content&utm_campaign=daily-brief&utm_content=0d3e7a03b2

Israel News | Israel Election 2021

[Note: The Reform movement in Israel, the United States, and around the world is thrilled that our Israeli leader, Rabbi Gilad Kariv, is now a Member of the Israeli Knesset from the Labor Party. Gilad represents and advocates – as this article by Judy Maltz in Haaretz indicates – the best values and policies of progressive Reform Judaism that advances the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. I wish Gilad and Labor success that will mean growth and prosperity for Israel and Israelis as a whole and will stand as a source of continuing pride of the vast majority of the American Jewish community that loves Israel.]

In an interview with Haaretz, Kariv, past leader of the Israeli Reform movement, talks about relations with ultra-Orthodox lawmakers, what he aims to achieve as a lawmaker, and Israel’s relations with the U.S.

Judy Maltz

Apr. 11, 2021 10:13 PM

Israel Eichler, a veteran parliamentarian for the Haredi party United Torah Judaism, wasn’t going to waste any time. He chose the day the Knesset was sworn in last week to issue a frantic warning about the dangers posed by one of the legislature’s newest members.

When asked in an interview with a Haredi news site if he would greet Gilad Kariv, the first Reform rabbi ever to serve in the Knesset, when they crossed paths in the building, Eichler responded: “God forbid. You don’t greet wicked people.”

Reform Jews, Eichler went on to explain, “falsify Judaism like Christians.” In fact, he said, they are even worse than Christians “because they lie and don’t observe any of the mitzvahs.”

With these remarks, Kariv received a taste of what he can expect in his new career as a lawmaker. But they came as no surprise. After all, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ultra-Orthodox allies have already let it be known they would prefer a coalition with an Islamist party – if that’s what it takes to keep the religious right in power – to a government that includes a proud representative of the Reform movement.

The campaign to delegitimize Kariv did not begin with his recent election to the Knesset. The new Labor Party lawmaker spent the past 12 years serving as executive director of the Reform movement in Israel. Whenever he showed up to a Knesset committee session – and that happened quite regularly – the Haredi lawmakers in attendance would, as a matter of practice, walk out in protest.

In an interview last week in his new Knesset office, Kariv said he would not stoop to their level. “Orthodoxy is definitely not my Jewish choice, but I don’t delegitimize it,” he told Haaretz. “Boycotting someone because of their religious practices and beliefs is just not something I do. In fact, I hope that through our joint work in the Knesset, through the public debates and the small talk in the corridors, perhaps these Haredi lawmakers will come to realize that we have many things in common.”

Whatever could you have in common with ultra-Orthodox lawmakers?

“Well, I hope that they’re as disturbed by the poverty rate in Israel as I am, for example, and I hope that they are as troubled by the living conditions of thousands of Holocaust survivors in this country as I am. That doesn’t mean, though, that I plan to make special efforts to reach out to them.”

Where his tolerance ends is with the far-right Religious Zionism party, known for its anti-Arab and anti-LGBTQ platform.

“That’s where I draw the red line,” says Kariv. “While I’m not going to leave the Knesset hall every time the Kahanists get up to make a speech, I will do whatever I can to block their policies and their philosophy, and I will never ever sign my name onto any bills that carry their names, even if it’s something I believe in, because I cannot fathom any cooperation with them whatsoever.”

Fifth time’s a charm

This was Kariv’s fifth try at getting elected to the Knesset – he ran four times with Labor and once with the more left-wing Meretz. Thanks to an impressive showing in the primary, he placed high enough on the slate this time to finally get in. Labor, under the new leadership of Merav Michaeli, won seven Knesset seats in the March 23 election.

Kariv’s introduction to Reform Judaism was not very typical. He grew up in Tel Aviv in a very secular family, but as a young boy in grade school he found himself drawn to the synagogue experience and began attending services on his own at the neighborhood congregation, which was Modern Orthodox. These visits sparked a broader interest in Judaism, and he began studying Jewish texts on his own. 

As a teenager, he spent a summer in Memphis, Tennessee, as a delegate of the Israeli Scouts movement, and it was there he got his first taste of non-Orthodox Judaism and learned, as he likes to put it, that “there is more than one way of being an active Jew.”

Kariv was one of the original members of Tel Aviv’s Beit Daniel — the flagship congregation of the Reform movement in Israel – when it opened in the early 1990s. He began his rabbinical studies at the Jerusalem branch of Hebrew Union College while studying law. He was eventually able to use his legal expertise when he served as director of the Israel Religious Action Center, the advocacy arm of the Reform movement in Israel.

But he certainly doesn’t see Reform Jews as his only constituents. “I’m here in order to represent a large Israeli audience that I believe is the vast majority of Israeli Jews who embrace the concept that there is more than one way to be Jewish,” he says. “That is how I see my main role.”

But it is not only the obvious issues of religion and state that will concern him in this role, he says. “The way we in the Reform movement understand and experience Judaism is relevant to many other issues, whether it be immigration policy, relations between the Jewish majority and Arab minority in this country or the question of our claim to the territories. I see my role as presenting a progressive, inclusive and egalitarian Jewish perspective to all these core issues that concern Israeli society.”

The Labor Party drew criticism in certain leftist circles in the recent election campaign for steering clear of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and avoiding the fraught issue of the settlements. “I don’t think Labor set these issues aside,” says Kariv, coming to his party’s defense. “We identify as a center-left Zionist party, and in this regard we are deeply committed both to national security and to finding a reasonable and sustainable solution to the conflict.”

While he strongly supports a two-state solution (“I think it’s a catastrophe that there haven’t been any real negotiations with the Palestinians in recent years”), Kariv doesn’t delude himself into believing that any real progress will be made in the near future. “But in the meantime, we have to avoid creating obstacles, such as expanding the settlements and recognizing illegal outposts, that could prevent a future solution,” he says.

As past leader of the Israeli Reform movement, Kariv served as the chief representative in Israel of the largest Jewish denomination in the United States. It was a denomination that increasingly found itself at odds with the governments headed by Netanyahu, especially during the Trump years. But he doesn’t believe relations will necessarily improve under the new Democratic administration. “That’s because the ultranationalists and ultra-Orthodox in Israel have Netanyahu by the throat,” he says. “He can’t move without them, and world Jewry needs to understand that if there is another Netanyahu government, things will only get worse. One of the first things that Netanyahu will do – because there won’t be anyone standing in his way now – is to pass a law that will overturn the recent [Israeli] Supreme Court decision to recognize non-Orthodox conversions. That will be a precondition of the Haredim” for joining the government.

Busy first days in office

His first days in office have been incredibly busy, he says. Kariv has already submitted formal requests to establish two new Knesset caucuses: one devoted to promoting religious freedom and Jewish pluralism and the other devoted to promoting the triangular relationship among Israel, the United States and American Jewry.

“There’s always been a tendency on the right to separate Israel’s relations with the U.S. from Israel’s relations with American Jewry,” he says. “The message of this new caucus will be that this is a trilateral, rather than a bilateral, issue. You can’t talk about cultivating relations with American Jewry but close your eyes to the fact that 70 percent of these Jews support a progressive administration that wants to see something new when it comes to relations with the Palestinians.”

Since the new Knesset was sworn in last week, the Labor Party has already submitted 17 legislative proposals. They include bills to legalize civil marriage and divorce, to permit public transportation to operate on Shabbat and to prohibit the Chief Rabbinate from invalidating conversions.

“I know that there’s little chance of passing such bills into law without a center-left coalition in power, but at the same time it’s important to put out the message that there is, indeed, an alternative Zionist vision for this country,” Kariv says.

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/elections/.premium-where-the-first-reform-rabbi-to-serve-in-the-knesset-gilad-kariv-draws-the-line-1.9702299?utm_source=mailchimp&utm_medium=content&utm_campaign=daily-brief&utm_content=31344b4a71