Tag Archives: Jewish History

Eritrean and Sudanese Refugees in Israel Need our Help – Now!!!!

03 Tuesday Dec 2013

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

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Last month upon returning from Israel where my synagogue group met Eritrean and Sudanese refugees living in squalor in south Tel Aviv, I wrote a blog about their plight and argued why the Israeli government’s efforts in amending the Prevention of Infiltration Law, contrary to the High Court’s ruling to release all detainees within 90 days, so as to incarcerate and/or deport these people was contrary to Israel’s own Basic Laws and not befitting Israel in its role as the last resort of refuge for the Jewish people.

Anat Hoffman, Executive Director of the Reform movement’s Israel Religious Action Center, has called upon all friends of Israel to sign a petition to Prime Minister Netanyahu asking the Israeli government to reverse its draconian intention to deal harshly with these refugees.

Below is Anat’s letter and how you can include your signature on this petition to Prime Minister Netanyahu. The goal is 25,000 signatures. Please sign it and distribute this blog to your friends to follow suit.

Thank you.

For those in Los Angeles, Anat Hoffman will be speaking tonight (Tuesday, December 3, 7:30 PM) at Temple Israel of Hollywood. All are welcome.

Sign our letter to the Prime Minister

Dear Friends of Israel ,

One year ago, I wrote to you about the 53,000 asylum seekers in Israel, the vast majority of which come from Eritrea and Sudan.  Many of these individuals are the survivors of unspeakable horrors at home as well as during their Exodus through the Sinai to Israel.  They have arrived to Israel over the last decade, believing the country to be a haven free from the evils of their home countries and neighboring countries.

Today, I come to you with a question: how can Israel—a country founded by refugees—continue to imprison and deport African asylum seekers who desperately need her protection?  Just over 2 months ago, Israel’s High Court of Justice unanimously ruled that amendments to the Prevention of Infiltration Law, which were being used to hold asylum seekers in detention for 3 years or more, were unconstitutional and contradicted Israel’s Basic Laws.  The High Court demanded that the State release all imprisoned asylum seekers within 90 days, by December 15th, 2013.

Since the High Court’s decision, only a quarter of the asylum seekers in detention have been released.  In defiance of the High Court, the Israeli government instead has begun the legislative process to pass new amendments to the Prevention of Infiltration Law, which will keep the same asylum seekers who the High Court ordered to be released to Sadot, an “open” detention center, where they will be held indefinitely.

Sadot is not an “open” center.  Prisoners there will have to submit to a headcount three times each day, which, because of Sadot’s isolation along the border with Egypt, will ensure that prisoners will not be able to leave the facility.  The Israel Prison Service, which has no prior experience operating an “open” detention center, is slated to run the facility.  Anyone who breaches the conditions of the “open” center risks immediately being transferred to the closed prison for anywhere from three months to a year.

Sadot currently has room for 3,300 prisoners, nearly 2,000 more people than those that are currently detained at Saharonim and Ktziot.  To fill the other available spaces at Sadot, the Israeli authorities have indicated that they plan to actively arrest asylum seekers who currently are living freely in Israeli cities and to force them to relocate to Sadot facility.

Once an asylum seeker is forced into the “open” detention center at Sadot, the only way that he or she can leave the facility is to consent to “voluntary” deportation to his or her country of origin or a third country.  Given that asylum seekers in Sadot will be coerced into making an impossible choice between indefinite imprisonment in Israel and torture and indefinite imprisonment in their home countries, their “consent” to deportation cannot be considered “voluntary.”

Capturing the desperation of asylum seekers in detention, a Darfuri asylum seeker told human rights groups, “I would rather die in my own country than be in prison forever in Israel.  I would do anything to get out of prison.”

These detention policies are contrary to the democratic and moral values of the State of Israel and have one clear aim: to force those who seek help and protection out of Israel.

Speaking on November 24th, 2013, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could not have made the Israeli government’s intentions any clearer: “We are determined to remove the tens of thousands of infiltrators who are here.”

We are calling on the Israeli government to end these unjust policies.  Israel has long championed refugee rights—we must help Israel reclaim this position, and fight for those fleeing persecution.

Yours,
Anat Hoffman
Executive Director, IRAC

Action Alert: Sign the letter to the PM!

We are asking our supporters to sign this letter to Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, insisting that Israel release asylum seekers from detention and provide them with a legal, moral, and fair path to apply for asylum in safety. Our goal is 25,000 in the next two weeks so please forward it to your friends and family and post it on your Facebook page and Twitter feed.

Anat Hoffman’s Speaking Tour Dates

Tuesday, Dec 3, 19:30  – Temple Israel of Hollywood – Hollywood, CA

Jewish Survival is NOT a Given – Miketz Meets Hanukah

29 Friday Nov 2013

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Divrei Torah, Holidays, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Stories, Uncategorized

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This week Joseph finds himself imprisoned on the false charge of trying to seduce Potifar’s wife. Already known as a dream interpreter, Joseph is called from the dungeons to interpret Pharaoh’s seemingly inscrutable dreams, and convinces Pharaoh that God has blessed him with far-sighted wisdom and the grace of success. Consequently, Pharaoh elevates Joseph to the position of the kingdom’s chief overseer, second in power only to Pharaoh himself.

In his position Joseph deftly manages the realm, and when the years of famine arrive as predicted, word spreads that Egypt has stockpiled an overabundance of grain, and that surrounding peoples can seek sustenance from the throne.

Suffering the effects of the famine along with everyone else, Jacob instructs his surviving older sons to procure food for the family, lest they all die, and they appear before Joseph.

In the dramatic conclusion in next week’s parasha, Joseph will reveal his true identity to his brothers and explain that their sale of him served his life’s purpose, that God had sent him ahead into Egypt as a slave to save his family.

Joseph is a key transitional figure between the patriarchal era in Genesis and the birth of the spiritual nation of Israel in Exodus. As such, he was the first court Jew in history. He understood Egyptian culture and society. He spoke the language, dressed as a native, took an Egyptian name, married an Egyptian woman, and sired children, the very first Hebrew children to be born in Diaspora.

Despite his acculturation, Joseph did not become an Egyptian, nor did he forsake his ancestral faith. Indeed, he is the prototype of a politically powerful leader who assures Jewish survival.

Fast forward to the second century B.C.E. For 200 years Greek culture had been spreading throughout the lands of the Mediterranean. Jews were attracted to Greek population centers, to the abstract sciences, humanism, philosophy, and commerce.

By the time of the Maccabees (165 B.C.E.), Jews living in the land of Israel had divided into three distinct groups; traditionalists living in villages who followed the priests and observed Jewish law; radical Hellenists living in the cities who saw no advantage in remaining Jewish, who named their children using Greek names, spoke Greek, stopped circumcising their sons, ceased celebrating Shabbat and the Hagim, and rejected kashrut; and the moderately Hellenized Jews who lived as Greeks but maintained their Jewish cultural identity.

When finally the radical Hellenizers conspired with the Greek King Antiochus IV to introduce a pantheon of gods into the Jerusalem Temple, including the sacrifice of the detested pig, moderate Jews were shocked and rose up to fight alongside the traditionalists and save Judaism and the Jewish people from destruction.

For Joseph, Jewish survival meant remembering who he was as an Israelite living in exile. For the Maccabees and their moderate Jewish allies, it meant war in the ancestral homeland.

In these opening years of the 21st century, we liberal American Jews are confronted with a serious challenge. Of the 5.5 million American Jews, 2 million identify with the liberal non-orthodox religious streams, 600,000 with the orthodox and the rest as “just Jewish” and marginal at best.

The recently published Pew Study of the American Jewish community makes it clear that if current trends continue, 30 years from now liberal Jews will diminish by 30% to 1.4 million total, assuming that our current 1.7 children per family birthrate continues and we do not reverse the loss of 75% of the children born to intermarriages who do not identify as Jews. The current intermarriage rate is upwards of 60%. The orthodox community’s birthrate is a shy less than 5 children per family, meaning that in 30 years orthodox Jews will double their numbers.

The declining birthrate in liberal American Jewry is a real threat to our survival. We will need to increase our birthrate, create a more compelling liberal faith that attracts more converts, more intermarried families, more LGBT Jews, and retains all who struggle with faith and claim to be atheists but who feel culturally, ethically and ancestrally Jewish. And we will have to educate everyone better than we do in Jewish history, literature, tradition, and thought.

The core of the challenge is as old as Joseph, and is as Ari Shavit writes in “My Promised Land – The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel”:

“…how to maintain Jewish identity in an open world not shielded by the walls of a ghetto,…[with] secularization and emancipation eroding the old formula of Jewish survival…”

and, I would add for those who have faith, that places God in the center of our people’s daily life and identity.

Hanukah and Miketz remind us that Jewish survival is not a given, that the State of Israel and American Jewry, especially now, need each other to thrive and depend upon each other to survive.

Shabbat shalom and Hag Hanukah sameach!

Israeli Military Chiefs are NOT Panicked – PM Netanyahu is a Doomsday Prophet

27 Wednesday Nov 2013

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

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Much is being written on the Israeli response to the Geneva agreement. One can find reasoned arguments for and against, that it is a “bad deal” and “historic mistake” (ala PM Netanyahu) and a “mitzvah” (ala former Deputy Prime Minister and Oslo negotiator Yossi Beilin).

The two pieces below published in today’s Al-Monitor offer insight into the security and diplomatic realities and opportunities that will be considered during the next six months of diplomacy hopefully leading to a final agreement, as well as politics in Israel itself.

I find it noteworthy that so often Israel’s military chiefs and former heads of Israel’s security services Shin Bet (ala “The Gatekeepers”) are the least panicked and most clear-thinking people in Israel.

I also have come to believe that though PM Netanyahu, by all accounts, is sincere in his worries over Iran’s nuclear weapons program, as are most Israelis across the political spectrum, Bibi so often plays to the politics of fear, and that usually does not result in the wisest of policies, public statements and consequences.

Fear keeps people stuck in the wounds and sufferings of the past on the one hand, and disallows them the freedom to create new, wiser and more secure realities moving forward on the other. Though there are risks in every option, there are also risks and dangers in doing nothing.

Netanyahu’s alarm about Iran balanced by military chiefs, Al-Monitor – According to Ben Caspit, “There’s no panic at all among Israel’s professional military echelons. Nobody talks about a catastrophe or an imminent second holocaust. People discuss the merits of the agreement with levelheadedness and discretion. After all, doomsday prophecies are not their thing. For this we have Netanyahu.” http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/11/iran-agreement-israel-defense-apparatus-not-alarmist.html#

Netanayahu plays the Iran card in Israeli politics, Al-Monitor – Mazal Mualem makes the case that Netanyahu is “using the Iranian nuclear project for internal political needs.” http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/11/benjamin-netanyahu-deal-nuclear-iran-israeli-public.html

Note: I have just discovered the Al-Monitor Middle Eastern news service. Here is a description of its mission taken from its web-site:

“Al-Monitor – launched February 13, 2012, features reporting and analysis by prominent journalists and experts from the Middle East, including through its Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria and Turkey Pulses. Al-Monitor’s content is regularly referenced in The Wall Street Journal, Time, Reuters, Le Monde, The New York Times, The Economist and many other publications. The Washington Post has called the site “invaluable,” The Huffington Post referred to it as “increasingly a daily must-read for insightful commentary on the Middle East” while The Economist recommended Al-Monitor’s Egypt and Iran coverage in its What To Read section. Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/about#ixzz2lrdUKijU

The Mitzvah of Diplomacy and the “2 Campaign of J Street”

24 Sunday Nov 2013

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President Obama and Secretary Kerry are to be congratulated, along with Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany, for this diplomatic success between Iran and the P5+1 on the road to eventually eliminate Iran’s nuclear weapons capability in future agreements.

Contrary to naysayers and cynics who say, including Israeli PM Netanyahu, that this is somehow a “bad deal,” one need only read what the agreement actually requires to realize that that this deal effectively stops advancement of Iran’s nuclear progress for six months, leaves most of the sanctions in place pending continued progress, while a stronger agreement is developed.

The President and Secretary of State are also to be congratulated on their diplomatic efforts to rid Syria of chemical weapons.

Each of these successes, despite them being imperfect, is a mitzvah because each pursues and effects the fulfillment of our duty to save lives (pikuach nefesh).

President Obama and Secretary Kerry are also to be congratulated for devoting enormous time and political capital in bringing the Palestinians and Israel to the negotiating table with the goal of peacefully and diplomatically bringing about a two states for two people’s resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Their initial efforts are only a beginning. The road will be very tough because a viable and fair peace agreement will require Israel and the Palestinians to make difficult concessions and compromises on all the core issues of borders, settlements, land swaps, Jerusalem, water, and refugees.

The alternative to an agreement, however, for the Jewish people is unthinkable – namely, the end of the Zionist dream and the erosion of the Jewish democratic state of Israel.

J Street, a pro-Israel pro-peace political organization in Washington, D.C. that supports a two-states for two-peoples agreement, has answered Secretary Kerry’s challenge to America and to America’s Jews to be part of the “great constituency for peace.” J Street’s response is “The 2 Campaign”:

The 2 Campaign answers Secretary of State John Kerry’s challenge to rally a “great constituency for peace” behind the administration’s initiative to achieve a two-state solution.

In particular, Kerry turned to the Jewish community to enlist our support, because he recognizes “no one has a stronger voice” when it comes to Israel. Most in the organized Jewish community are now on record supporting a two-state solution and have applauded Secretary Kerry’s efforts. However, too many are then quick to list the reasons why an agreement isn’t possible.

The 2 Campaign is a concerted effort across the country to convey to Secretary Kerry that he has the support of the American Jewish community and beyond in pushing negotiations forward, especially in the most difficult moments. Achieving a two-state solution is in the American, Israeli and Palestinian national interest.

Together, we will demonstrate the resolve of pro-Israel Americans to see a two-state solution reached. We will show policymakers and political leaders that we support US leadership in helping the parties make the difficult, but necessary choices with regard to Jerusalem, borders, refugees and security.

The 2 Campaign will consist of a major multimedia effort that will unfold as the negotiations progress, a national petition, educational outreach across the country and major events in key American cities. Join Us!

Become part of the solution – sign the 2 Campaign petition here http://www.jstreetu.org/latest/2campaign

Note that I am a national co-chair of the 700 member J Street Rabbinic Cabinet.

Israel’s Chief Negotiator Slam’s Naftali Bennett as a Radical Minority on Settlements – Israel Journal Part XIII

21 Thursday Nov 2013

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

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Chief Israeli negotiator in the Israel-Palestinian talks, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, posted the following extraordinary statement about the settler movement and their representatives (Naftali Bennet’s Bayit Hayehudi party and the right wing of Likud) for trying to determine for the minority of the Israeli population what the majority of Israelis want, a two-states for two-peoples solution.

More and more former Israeli right-wing politicians (e.g. Tzipi Livni, Tzachi Hanegbi whose mother Geula Cohen founded the “Greater Israel Movement”, former Likud leader Meir Shitreet, and former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, as well as all six living former heads of Israel’s security service, Shin Bet, as documented in the film “The Gatekeepers”) have come to the position that there is NO alternative to a two-state solution – NONE! A one-state solution is unsustainable and would end Israel’s democracy and Jewish character.

Minister Tzipi Livni wrote:

“Those who decide for the majority are in fact a radical minority which has taken control of our lives. …They call us ‘brother’ and ‘sister’, but the truth of the matter is that they don’t care about their ‘family’, they are motivated by narrow interest at the expense of our children’s future – with more and more announcements of settlement construction they attempt to prevent us from reaching an agreement which will secure the existence of a strong, Jewish and democratic Zionist state….Let’s stop for a moment and ask the people right now whether they are willing to pay the price for construction that might or might not happen, for building in places like Eli, we should ask whether we are ready to pay the price of serious damage to our strategic relations with the US, Israel’s isolation in the world, severe damage to our economy, a worsening boycott against us, ongoing damage to the legitimacy of the IDF to act, and the freedom of our soldiers to travel the world without fear of being arrested, and most importantly – the cost of losing our identity as a Jewish and democratic state….This is a direct, genuine question which is not related to whether we have a partner or not. What the impact is on security is a question that is related only to us: In what kind of country do we want to live, and what country do we want to leave our children.” I also want to make another thing clear: Violence will not bring political achievement. And we will fight against terrorism and extremists firmly and without compromise.”

-Chief Negotiator, Tzipi Livni on Settlement Building and Naftali Bennett’s Party Bayit Hayehudi, Ynet News, November 13, 2013 from Livni’s Facebook Page.

The leader of Meretz, Zahava Gal-on, said at the national conference of J Street in Washington D.C. at the end of September, “Bibi tells the world one thing and his policies are entirely different.”

I wrote about East Jerusalem settlements in former blogs, and the following article published by Al-Monitor, confirms those blogs and Geveret Gal-on’s observation of the discrepancy of rhetoric and actions of the Prime Minister and the government of Israel.

Netanyahu government ‘Israelizes’ east Jerusalem Al-Monitor – http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/11/jerusalem-two-state-solution-building-plans-netanyahu.html

Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert – The Search for Peace and the Arab Spring

18 Monday Nov 2013

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

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I took the time to listen to all 90 minutes of Former Prime Minister of Israel Ehud Olmert’s speech about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Arab Spring, and American-Israel relations, and it was well worth my time – every minute of it! I recommend that you do the same (see link below).

Olmert met with Palestinian President Machmud Abbas 36 times to negotiate a peace deal, but had to resign before they could finalize an agreement. Olmert is clear thinking and direct, at times blunt in this talk! He admits, despite the complexity of the Middle East and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, to being “an optimist” and says that nothing ever improves unless “optimists” are behind it and who refuse to take “No” for an answer.

He believes “without a doubt in my mind” that the possibility for peace between Israel and the Palestinians is possible, but that it will take “leadership” to make it happen. To date, he says, Israel has demonstrated a lack of leadership.

The following introductory comment to Olmert’s talk was posted by Bernard Avishai on his blog, where I first learned of this speech.

Bernie Avishai is Adjunct Professor of Business at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Visiting Professor of Government at Dartmouth College, where Olmert spoke on November 12, 2013.

Avishai wrote:

“It’s hard to remember a blunter defense of John Kerry’s peace process, or statement of impatience with the Netanyahu government, than Olmert’s talk, …. [He] reiterated to me that he is determined to challenge Netanyahu the next time around; he is waiting for the Israeli courts to clear him of charges in outstanding cases against him. … Olmert listed, in private, an impressive array of people who’d be with him if things do fall into place. So if you’ve been skeptical of him in the past–and who hasn’t?–this lecture will be of particular interest.” 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqHFRxL6bb0

 

 

Secular Israelis are Studying Judaism by the Thousands – Israel Report XII

17 Sunday Nov 2013

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

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A new kind of Judaism is developing in Israel. Thousands of secular Israelis are turning to the classic sources of Judaism (e.g. Torah, Midrash, Mishnah, Talmud, Codes, Jewish philosophy, ethics, and mysticism) to gain deeper insight, wisdom and knowledge about our people’s essence and roots, and they are learning these texts not from Orthodox rabbis but from secular teachers.

What is emerging is a way of being a modern Israeli Jew that is more than the secular Zionism that emphasized the centrality of the land, the Hebrew language and political sovereignty, and which has nothing to do with the religious Orthodoxy that has alienated the vast majority of Israelis. It is a return, in part, to the Cultural Zionism of Ahad Ha-am that sought to inspire the flourishing of the soul of Judaism and Jewish peoplehood, but with a modern contemporary emphasis.

My synagogue group visited one of the centers of secular Jewish learning called BINA, also known as “The Secular Yeshiva,” located in the Neve Sha’anan district of Tel Aviv. As we entered we saw bookshelves filled with rows of beautifully bound religious books. That, however, is where the similarity with an orthodox yeshiva ends.

Most BINA students don’t believe in God, don’t wear kippot, tallitot, tzitzit, nor keep kosher. Women and men learn together, dress in shorts, jeans, tee-shirts, halter-tops, and sandals, and come from every segment of Israeli society and world Jewish communities.

BINA was founded by scholars from the kibbutz movement in the wake of PM Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination. They pondered how a “religious” yeshiva student could murder the Prime Minister of Israel, and they determined to provide an alternative Jewish environment to attract young Israelis to learn about Judaism, counteract the extremism of the religious right, and close the gap between Israeli Orthodox and non-Orthodox Jews.

BINA volunteers spend many hours weekly helping the poor, children, the elderly, infirm, disabled, foreign workers, and migrants. The center is deliberately located in a depressed area of Tel Aviv so its students can work towards tikun olam (“restoration of the world”) as an integrated component of their learning.

A week before coming to Israel, I attended the annual conference of J Street in Washington, D.C., (J Street is a pro-Israel pro-peace American political movement supporting a two-states for two-peoples end-of-conflict agreement between Israel and the Palestinians) and was fortunate to join a small group of J Street leaders for dinner with Ruth Calderon, a new Yesh Atid MK, who had addressed our conference.

Ruth is an Israeli academic turned politician with a Hebrew University PhD in Talmud. In 1989, she established the first Israeli secular, pluralistic and egalitarian Beit Midrash for women and men. In 1996, she founded ALMA which brings secular Israelis to study Hebrew culture. She became famous when she hosted a television program on Channel 2 that discussed classic Jewish texts.

Ruth’s first appearance in the Knesset (January, 2013) where she introduced herself to her colleagues took Israel by storm. It is considered the most unusual speech ever delivered by a new MK. Her 14 minute address went viral on Youtube with hundreds of thousands of views (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8nNpTf7tNo).

In that talk Ruth told her story, how she fell in love with Talmud, and that it is impossible to know one’s future without knowing one’s roots. She spoke about the importance in Jewish tradition of open and honest debate, of nurturing the values of inclusivity, diversity and tolerance in Israeli life, and that the state of Israel ought to provide equally of its resources to all religious streams and educational endeavors; not just the Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox communities.

Ruth’s party, Yesh Atid, is committed to the principle of shivyon ba-netel (“sharing the burden”), that all citizens of the state have an obligation to serve in the military, work for a living, pay taxes, and that the here-to-for privileged status of the ultra-Orthodox has to end in order for both Judaism and democracy to flourish in the State of Israel.

In addition to BINA and ALMA, the Israeli Reform movement (i.e. “Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism – IMPJ”) has grown in recent years attracting thousands of Israelis from secular backgrounds to practice liberal religious Judaism.

The IMPJ includes nearly 50 synagogue centers throughout the country, with adult learning led by Israeli Reform rabbis and scholars, a system of schools and a youth movement, summer camps, pre-army mechinot, kibbutzim, and social justice projects addressing poverty, hunger, immigration, foreign workers, women’s rights, homosexual rights, racism, the environment, and religious pluralism.

According to recent polls 34% of Israelis now identify with the Reform movement, whereas only 23% identify as Orthodox.

BINA, Ruth Calderon and ALMA, the Israeli Reform Movement (IMPJ and IRAC), and other grass-roots efforts are transforming Israeli Jewish identity thus bringing hope for an enriched, open, pluralistic, and democratic Jewish State.

East Jerusalem Jewish Settlement and “National Parks” Make a Two-State Solution Impossible – Israel Report XI

13 Wednesday Nov 2013

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My synagogue group stood on a hill near the Mount Scopus Campus of the Hebrew University looking east towards the Dead Sea. To the far right, about 7 km away, stood the Jewish settlement-city of Ma’ale Adumim (population, 40,000 Jews). To the north and adjacent to it was the last open area in the circular ring around Jerusalem called E-1 (about 12 square km – 4.6 square miles) that falls between Jerusalem and Jericho.

Beneath us down the hill and towards the two East Jerusalem Palestinian neighborhoods of Isawiyya and A-Tur is another open area that Jewish settler organizations are working to declare “Mount Scopus Slopes National Park.”

Whenever the Israeli government has designated an area as a National Park, there is usually some archeological, historical or nature significance to it. This area, however, has no significance in any of these ways.

Jerusalem expert Daniel Seidemann explained that the primary goal in designating this area a national park is

“…to link between the inner encirclement of the Old City and its visual basin, as designated by the governmental Old City Basin Project, and the outer encirclement in Greater Jerusalem, as disclosed by the E-1 plan between Ma’ale Adumim and East Jerusalem. The new national park will be a bridge, creating [and] forging a geographical link between the Old City basin and E-1.”

Daniel Seidemann is the founder of “Terrestrial Jerusalem,” an Israeli non-governmental organization that works to identify and track the developments in Jerusalem that could impact either the political process or permanent status options, destabilize the city or spark violence, or create humanitarian crises. His organization says that

“Israel has already expropriated more than 35% of the privately owned land of East Jerusalem for the purpose of building settlement neighborhoods (in excess of 50,000 residential units for Israelis). Now, additional lands owned by the residents of Issawiya and A Tur will be, to all intents, expropriated by Israel. While declaring the site a national park does not nullify the owners’ property rights, it inevitably deprives them of the ability to exercise these rights in any meaningful way by denying them the ability to develop or sell their land. The declaration of the park will, in effect empty ownership of virtually all practical significance.”

The larger goal of the settlement groups and the Israeli right-wing is to effectively surround the city of Jerusalem with Jewish settlements and national parks and cut off direct access to the east that would allow contiguity for a future state of Palestine, thus making the achievement of two-states for two-peoples impossible.

The following short video (7 minutes) features Israeli experts in Jerusalem who show exactly how this will occur http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tuGALhavoc.

Polls indicate that the majority of Israelis accept that the city of Jerusalem will have to be shared as the capital for both Israel and Palestine. The Palestinians have stated consistently that there can be no agreement without their capital in Jerusalem. The challenge, of course, will be security, which is what negotiations are for.

Given that the sharing of Jerusalem is among the most important and central issues on the negotiating table, anything that deliberately changes Jerusalem’s status-quo until an agreement can be achieved is ill-advised. Those Israelis, aided and abetted by the settler movement and Israel’s right wing, that insist that Jerusalem cannot and should not be shared are doing everything possible to create facts on the ground that will condemn negotiations to failure and assure continuing violence and war.

See a map of the area: http://www.t-j.org.il/Portals/26/featured_maps_2011/TJ_ScopusPark_B.jpg

East Jerusalem and Sheikh Jarrah – A Study in Bad Policy and Injustice – Israel Report X

11 Monday Nov 2013

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

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In 1968, then Attorney General Meir Shamgar (who would become President of Israel’s High Court from 1983-1995), determined that the “Absentee Property Law” may not be used in East Jerusalem. All Israeli governments complied, until now.

The “Absentee Property Law,” passed during the fledgling years of Israel (1950), allows the state to seize and assume ownership of lands abandoned by Palestinians after November 29, 1947 who left to live in Arab states, the West Bank or Gaza. In their absence their forfeited property could be taken over by the Absentee Property Custodian and title could be transferred to the State of Israel.

To accommodate East Jerusalem Palestinians after the 1967 War, the Knesset passed a law (1970) excluding them from exposure to the Absentee Property Law. [Note: East Jerusalem Arabs are not “citizens” of the state of Israel, though they are entitled to vote in municipal elections.]

Ir Amim (lit. “City of Peoples/Nations”) is an Israeli non-profit and non-partisan organization that has monitored East Jerusalem neighborhoods since 2004. Its mission is “to … engage in those issues impacting on Israeli-Palestinian relations in Jerusalem and on the political future of the city.” Among its chief concerns is the status of East Jerusalem Palestinian land.

My synagogue group toured one of East Jerusalem’s neighborhoods, Sheikh Jarrah, which is wedged between formerly Jordanian held-East Jerusalem and Israeli-held West Jerusalem (1948 to 1967) on the slopes of Mount Scopus very near to the American Colony Hotel and Old City.

After the 1948 war, Jews fled the neighborhood while many Arabs remained. In 1957, the Jordanian government moved 28 Palestinian families to houses in Sheikh Jarrah who had fled their homes in West Jerusalem during the 1948 War.

Founded in 1865, Sheikh Jarrah was once home to Jerusalem’s Muslim elite. At the turn of the 20th century, 30 large homes housed 167 Muslim families (about 1250 people), 97 Jewish families, and six Christian families.

In 1972, the Sephardic Community Committee and the Knesset Yisrael Committee went to court to justify Jewish claims of property ownership in Sheikh Jarrah using documents from the days of the Ottoman Empire. Based on a supportive Israeli court ruling, Palestinian Arab residents could remain as tenants as long as they paid rent to the Jewish community.

The Palestinians, however, also produced Ottoman Empire documents showing their ownership. Though the Absentee Property Law superseded Palestinian claims, there were no efforts to evict them from their homes based on Shamgar’s 1968 decision.

Beginning in 2008, Palestinians began receiving eviction notices initiated by Jewish settler groups. In August 2009, an Israeli court evicted two Palestinian families from two homes in Sheikh Jarrah, followed almost immediately by Jewish settler families moving in.

In applying the Absentee Property Law, Palestinians have no rights, no redress, no appeals, and receive no compensation. In contrast, relative to the same contested land, Jews have certain legal rights based on their Israeli citizenship.

In Sheikh Jarrah we met with Sara Beninga, a 30 year-old Israeli Jewish activist, and Salach Diab, a Palestinian resident, who told us the story of this small neighborhood. Sara has been the inspiration of the “Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity Movement” (now called simply “Solidarity”) formed in 2010. She is a bright, principled and passionate Israeli who believes that gross injustice is being done to the Palestinian Arabs living in this neighborhood.

From 2010-2012 every Friday afternoon, hundreds of Israelis and Palestinians gathered on the main street of Sheikh Jarrah to protest the government’s unfair policies and the Jewish settler land grab.

As we arrived, Sara pointed out settlers returning to the house they occupy yards from Salah’s house, and Salah showed us photographs of settler violence against him and his neighbors.

Daniel Seidemann, a founder of Ir Amim and an attorney who has advocated on behalf of the Arab residents of East Jerusalem neighborhoods for the past nine years, explains the nature and importance of this property conflict:

“After 45 years, you now have 2300 Jewish settlers [living] in existing Palestinian neighborhoods of East Jerusalem, [and while] that’s negligible numerically, symbolically it’s nuclear fusion, because you take the two radioactive subjects of the [Israeli-Palestinian] conflict, which are Jerusalem and refugees, and you fuse them…By insisting on a Jewish right of return to Sheikh Jarrah, Israel is opening the 1948 file and strengthening the Palestinian claim of a right of return to Israel.” (Reported by Sarah Wildman, visiting scholar at the International Reporting Project at Johns Hopkins University).

Jewish settlers are clear about their larger goal; to prevent, through the establishment of facts on the ground in East Jerusalem and throughout the West Bank, an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement resulting in two states for two peoples with Jerusalem as the shared capital of each state.

I will continue this discussion of East Jerusalem neighborhoods and Israeli land policy in my next blog.

High Holiday Sermons – 2013/5774 – Ayeka? Where are You?

10 Sunday Nov 2013

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This past High Holiday season (2013-5774) I asked myself and my congregation one central question in three different ways: Ayeka? (Lit. – “Where are you?”).

The question, of course, is not about one’s location. Rather, it asks about our identity, how we think and what believe, who we are and what values are central in our lives.

Ayeka is the first question to appear in the Hebrew Bible (Genesis 3:9). It was asked by God of the first humans in the Garden of Eden immediately after they ate from the forbidden tree.

Ayeka – Where are You?  Part I – American Jews

Ayeka – Where are You?  Part II – The Jewish People and State of Israel

Ayeka – Where are You?  Part III – God

I include here as well my Yizkor sermon on “The Death of Moses” based on a compilation of midrashim (rabbinic legends and commentaries).

In the context of my synagogue mission’s to Israel and the West Bank in October (2013) about which I am still writing in a series of Reports from Israel, the second sermon, in particular, informs my thinking.  All three sermons, however, ought to be considered together.

The sermons are posted on the Temple Israel of Hollywood web-site at http://www.tioh.org/worship/clergy/clergystudy