Jewish Reconstructionist Federation

Two posts from today’s blogosphere offer spot-on responses to yesterday’s tragic killings in Hebron:

From Mitchell Plitnick’s “The Third Way:”

I very much appreciate President Obama condemning yesterday’s murders of four settlers in the South Hebron Hills.

But that condemnation would be an awful lot more meaningful, to myself and to many others I’m sure, if we saw similar outrage in Washington when Israel killed over 700 Palestinian non-combatants in Operation Cast Lead. Or when a border policeman killed Bassem Abu Rahmeh by firing a gas cannister directly and intentionally at him. Or for any of the 100 Palestinians killed since the end of Operation Cast Lead (many of whom were killed as combatants, to be sure, but 32 of whom were not taking part in hostilities nor were counted as “targeted assassinations”).

From Paul Woodward’s “War in Context:”

Whether or not Hamas had a role in yesterday’s attack it is too soon to tell. And even if some or all of the gunmen turn out to belong to the movement does not necessarily reveal a great deal about the level of command and control or political motives for the attack.

Whatever the motives, the outcome itself has opened political opportunities to each constituency that now portrays itself as a victim.

Given that the attack took place in an area controlled by the IDF, President Abbas could have taken the opportunity to point out that the attack underlines the fact that there can ultimately be no security solution to the political conflict. Instead, Palestinian security services have been quick to launch what is being described as one of the largest arrest waves of all time in the West Bank.

At the funerals of the four Israelis killed, settler leaders took the opportunity to push for settlement expansion, call for vengeance (a call which has already been acted upon), deny the existence of the Palestinian people and made a thinly-veiled appeal for ethnic cleansing…

When President Obama tries to press Benjamin Netanyahu to extend the so-called settlement freeze, the Israeli prime minister will no doubt tell him solemnly that in light of recent events, his hands are well and truly tied.

They shoot and we build has become the settlers’ slogan — one that is almost certainly to Netanyahu’s liking.

Huge “way to go” to my colleague Rachel Barenblat (aka “The Velveteen Rabbi”), who recently posted this story on her blog:

Last week, a drunk man barged into the Al-Iman masjid in Astoria, Queens, and urinated on the prayer rugs. I tweeted about it, horrified at this display of Islamophobia (and also just plain atrocious behavior.) On Thursday, @stumark suggested that we raise money to replace the prayer rugs at the Al-Iman mosque in Queens. On Friday, I posted to this blog and to twitter asking for donations toward reimbursing the mosque for the costs of steam-cleaning their prayer rugs. My hope was to raise a few hundred bucks as a gesture of interfaith good will, a way of showing this one Muslim community that the actions of that drunk man do not represent the beliefs of most Americans.

While it’s a story that begins with a pathetic act of Islamophobia, thanks to Rachel it has a very happy ending. Make sure to read all the way to the end and donate accordingly.

A commenter on my last post asked me what I thought of Martin Indyk’s recent NY Times op-ed, in which he expresses a powerful optimism about the upcoming I/P peace talks in Washington.

My answer?  Indyk’s article represents a picture-perfect example of the inherent inequity of the peace process as it is currently defined.

In his op-ed, Indyk lists four factors that he believes distinguish this round of direct talk from previous attempts. Number one, he claims that “violence is down considerably in the region.” Thanks to the PA’s security measures in the West Bank and Hamas’ in Gaza, Indyk explains, Palestinian violence against Israelis has decreased considerably.

His analysis, however, completely leaves out the other side of the equation: Israel’s violence against Palestinians, which remains as brutal and oppressive as ever. The examples are legion: Israel’s military assault in Gaza in 2008/09 that left 1,400 dead, the structural violence of its ongoing blockade of Gaza, which is having a devastating effect on Gaza’s economy, health care system, infrastructure and Gazans’ freedom of movement. In the West Bank, the IDF continues its armed crackdown on weekly non-violent protests and has increased its arrests and incarceration of non-violent Palestinian leaders.  Home evictions and demolitions continue throughout the territories, East Jerusalem and even in Israel proper.

Indyk’s myopia on this front is fascinating. Indeed, it offers an important window into a fundamental injustice that currently pervades the peace process – a process where only Palestinian violence against Israelis is considered germane to negotiations. It might reasonably be asked: is this process about delineating the terms of a equitable peace treaty or dictating the terms of a Palestinian surrender?

Indyk’s second factor: Israel’s “settlement activity has slowed down considerably.” To demonstrate his claim he quotes from the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics, which reports that

(No) new housing starts in the West Bank were reported…in the first quarter of this year. What’s more, there have been hardly any new housing projects in East Jerusalem since the brouhaha in March, when Vice President Joe Biden, during a visit to Israel, condemned the announcement of 1,600 additional residential units. The demolition of Palestinian houses there is also down compared with recent years.

It is a clear sign of Indyk’s abiding prejudice that he turns to the Israeli government for an accurate report of facts on the ground. I’d suggest a more trustworthy source: namely, Peace Now, who has been indefatigably tracking Israel’s settlement activity in the West Bank.

According to its most recent report:

(On) the ground, there is almost no freeze or even a visible slowdown, despite the fact that legal construction starts have been frozen for 8 months (and) that the Government of Israel is not enforcing the moratorium.

The report’s main findings:

• At least 600 housing units have started to be built during the freeze, in over 60 different settlements.

• At least 492 of those housing units are in direct violation of the law of the freeze.

• During an average year (when there is no freeze) approximately 1,130 housing units start to be built in 8 months in the settlements. The new construction starts during the moratorium constitute approximately half of the normal construction pace in the settlements.

• Some 2,000 housing units are currently under construction in the settlements, most of them started before the freeze was announced in November 2009.

This means that on the ground, there is almost no freeze or even a visible slowdown, despite the fact that legal construction starts have been frozen for 8 months.  It also means that the Government of Israel is not enforcing the moratorium.

In short? Indyk’s claim is misleading and spurious. Palestinians have been reasonably concerned about entering into direct talks while Israel’s settlement activity is ongoing.  As things currently stand, the “freeze” is slated to be lifted next month – precisely the same time talks in Washington are scheduled to commence.

For factors three and four, Indyk points out that a majority of the public on both sides support a two-state solution – and that there really isn’t that much left to negotiate anyway.  He blames Arafat exclusively for the breakdown of Camp David in 2000, a failure that left “Palestinians and Israelis mired in conflict.” This is, of course, the conventional Israeli narrative regarding the failure of Camp David: the Israelis made a generous offer, the Palestinians spurned it, and the Second Intifada ensued.

This is a simplistic, one-sided narrative that has long been challenged by compelling accounts of the actual negotiations.  Most famously, this narrative asserts that Israel was prepared to offer 96% of the Occupied Territories to the Palestinians. It has since been pointed out that this 96% number more accurately represented the percentage of the land over which Israel was prepared to negotiate. It did not include, among other things, East Jerusalem, the huge belt of Jewish settlements around the city or a ten mile wide military buffer zone around the Palestinian territories. In fact, after factoring in an obligation to lease back settlements to Israel for twenty five years, the total Palestinian land from which Israel was prepared to withdraw actually came to approximately 46%.

Regardless of which narrative we choose to believe, it is clear that ten years after Camp David many difficult complicated issues remain unaddressed. In the meantime, Israel has continued to expand its settlement regime across Palestinian territories, which likely means the amount of land from which it is prepared to withdraw has shrunk all the more. Under these circumstances, Indyk has little cause to treat the current round of negotiations as pro-forma.

Albert Einstein once famously remarked that “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results each time.” For the past twenty years the peace process has been defined by the same basic – and one-sided – parameters. Each time the process has been rebooted, we’ve heard the same kinds of hopeful tropes that Indyk expresses here. Each time we’ve been told that we have an unprecedented opportunity for peace. Each time we’ve been told that those who criticize the process are the “enemies of hope.” But each time, this flawed political process has brought us no further along toward a viable two-state solution.

Perhaps it is time to envision a different process. One that takes values of justice and equity as seriously as it does peace. One in which the United States acts as a truly honest broker, in which Israel is held to account for its violence against Palestinians, for its oppressive policies and its ongoing settlement of the occupied territories. Then, and only then, will there truly be, as Indyk puts it, “hope in the Middle East.”

Since my recent post on the current round of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process I’ve received many responses, via comment, in person, and email. Here’s one of the most thoughtful and challenging, sent to me by a good friend. Click at the finish for my response:

As the Midrash (Leviticus Rabbah 9) teaches, “Great is Peace, since even in a time of war, one should begin with peace…”

Even now, when the prospect of achieving peace seems so remote and the hostility from some in the Netanyahu government so hostile, we as Jews are commanded to pursue peace. This doesn’t mean that we should be Pollyannaish about the possibilities of success in the upcoming talks, but neither should we give up before they’ve started. There is always the possibility, however remote, that Netanyahu will decide to take the bull by the horns and do a Nixon to China like move. Those of us who care deeply must encourage the best possible outcome. After all, if these talks fail and the Palestinian Authority disintegrates, where will this leave in terms of security in the West Bank and international credibility? Where will it leave President Obama who has hinged so much of his foreign policy on resolving the conflict? These are serious and weighty matters for Israel and the U.S.

I know that the political maneuvering around peace talks can be very discouraging for those like you who are trying to improve the situation on the ground. Politicians make all sorts of moves that are hard to swallow. Hillary Clinton, for example, started out very strongly on human rights issues leading the way for international financial assistance to Gaza following the war and strong denouncing settlement building in East Jerusalem. To get to these talks, she has become much more restrained in response to both the failure of the settlement freeze policy and to fear of attacks from the right wing (both Jewish and Christian) in characterizing Obama as anti-Israel. There is a place for politics in moving things forward, but it operates in a very different manner than truth telling. Mobilizing support from people with a broad range of perspectives involves compromises that can be very hard to swallow, but until we find a way to win over broader grassroots support, this is the price we will pay until then.

I admire your decision as a prominent rabbi to telling the truth about the on the ground situation in Israel and Palestine. This is extremely difficult to look at for many of us, and yet you have decided to unflinchingly dive in headfirst. However, I believe that your framing the political process in opposition to justice on the ground is quite problematic and ultimately more harmful to your dreams than heuylpful.

I cannot praise your glorification of hopelessness and the messianic like idea that we cannot pursue peace until there is justice. We cannot stop seeking peace and we cannot stop seeking justice, and we must use all of the tools at our disposal including politics and including truth telling.

Most importantly, if you really want to “extend civil rights, human rights, equity and equality for all inhabitants of Israel/Palestine” then you will need every possible ally. Please don’t make yourself the leader of an exclusive club that turns away your natural allies for lack of moral purity. It’s so much easier to stand on supposed high moral ground and criticize those who imperfectly seek to bring about change than to do the dirty work of making it happen. In the end, we all need each other if we’re going to move this forward.

__________________________________________________________________________________________

Thank you for your very thoughtful response. After receiving a great deal of feedback – and re-reading my post – I realize now that my words conveyed no small amount of righteous anger and despair. That was partly by design of course, but it was certainly not my intention to “glorify hopelessness.” Knowing me as you do, you must know that I am not a hopeless person by nature and that I’ve long believed that hopelessness and cynicism is a luxury we simply cannot afford in this day and age.

Although I will plead guilty to occasional bouts of self-righteousness, I ultimately consider myself to be a realist like you. I also believe that in order to achieve peace, we must engage in “the dirty work of making it happen” – this was in fact the spirit in which I wrote my post. I was not interested in claiming a “moral high ground,” but in simply facing facts: I do not believe any more that the peace process as it currently is defined offers a realistic hope for a true and lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

To say that those who advocate for justice as part of the peace process are more interested in claiming an ivory tower “moral high ground” than actual results is exceedingly unfair. I do believe that advocating for justice to be as much a part of the nitty-gritty as anything else in this process. To be clear: it is not my position, as you put it, that “we cannot pursue peace until there is justice.” Rather, I’m suggesting that as long as we ignore an inherently unjust status quo in I/P, any peace process will ultimately be built upon sand.

In my opinion, it is time to stop pretending that we have any kind of level playing field upon which successful negotiations might be built Think of it this way: when we think of a US-brokered peace process, we invariably compare it to past efforts such as the treaties between Israel and other Arab states. But when it comes brokering a peace between Israel and Palestine, we face an entirely different situation. When two sovereign states come to the negotiating table, there is a relatively balanced power dynamic. When it comes to I/P, however, that is simply not the case.

In truth, the Palestinians are the overwhelmingly disempowered party in this particular equation. Whether we are comfortable admitting it or not, Israel’s founding entailed significant injustice toward the Palestinian people. This historical injustice is experienced and re-experienced daily through Israel’s oppressive occupation. Whether we are comfortable saying it out loud or not, Israel is the party that wields overwhelming power over its ostensible peace partner in this equation.

Moreover, Israel also enjoys a “special relationship” with the US – the party that purports to be the “honest broker” in this process. Israel continues to receive billions of dollars in annual military aid from the US, with which it obtains the state of the art weaponry, equipment and security apparatus that is uses to maintain its occupation over Palestinians – their ostensible partner in negotiations. In short, there is an radically imbalanced power dynamic at play here. And it is not unrealistic to suggest that this injustice is an ongoing impediment to the success of the peace process.

Rather than looking to past Arab-Israeli peace treaties, I would suggest looking to the South African experience as a more helpful model. Indeed, this was a negotiation between two unequal parties that consciously pursued peace with justice. There was nothing “‘messianic” about this process – the successful peace brokered between whites and blacks in South Africa involved the very real, difficult work of restorative justice. In this process, peace negotiations were pursued in the context of the South African regime’s acceptance of responsibility for its oppressive behavior toward South African blacks.

I realize how immensely difficult it is for Israelis and many Jews to countenance such a comparison. I fully understand the psychology of vulnerability experienced by Israelis and many Jews vis a vis their relationship to Palestinians and the international community. But those of us who advocate a realistic peace in I/P simply cannot afford to look the other way on these issues for fear of alienating our potential “allies.”

I remember once that you told me “shaming ” Israelis is not the way to bring them to the table. But somehow, some way, Israelis will have to find a way to reckon with the inherent injustice that has become a part of the fabric of their society. As for American Jews, though it pains me to say so, those of us who care deeply about Israel will have to find a way to look this oppression in the face and call it out for what it really and truly is. Then we will have to have an honest conversation about how far we, as Americans and Jews, will be willing to go to end our complicity in this oppression.

Unless or until that happens, I believe that the latest version of the peace process will we destined to go the way of previous incarnations: a process that simply seeks to formalize inequity. This is not the way to a real and lasting peace for Israelis and Palestinians.

You opened with one of my favorite Jewish texts – I’ll close with another:

Rabban Shimon Ben Gamliel says: “The world stands on three things: On truth, on justice and on peace, as it is written: ‘render truth and peace – and justice in your gates.’” (Zechariah 8:16)

- Pirke Avot 1:18

Thank you for your challenging words. Please know I take them very seriously. I hope that our dialogue will help in some small way, to clarify these difficult and very painful issues for all who share our hopes and dreams for Israel/Palestine.

‘

It was my honor today to join with Hyatt workers and supporters for a press conference to announce that Unite Here Local 1 is now urging patrons to boycott three Chicago Hyatt locations.

From the union’s press release:

Today, UNITE HERE Local 1 members are gathering in front of Hyatt Global Headquarters in Chicago to call for a boycott at several area Hyatt Hotels—the Hyatt Regency Chicago, the Hyatt O’Hare, and the Park Hyatt. Hyatt workers will be joined by Jewish allies, who are releasing a pledge signed by over 250 Rabbis and other Jewish leaders nationwide in support of Hyatt workers across North America. The boycott and national pledge represent the latest escalation of a labor dispute with Hyatt, which has become the target of labor demonstrations across North America in recent weeks.

The boycott announcement comes almost one year after union contracts with Hyatt in Chicago have expired (Aug. 31, 2009). Hyatt workers have taken several actions in recent months, including a work stoppage on May 26, 2010, a picket of Hyatt’s annual shareholders meeting on June 9, 2010, a massive demonstration outside the Hyatt Regency Chicago on July 22, 2010, and a strike vote on July 29, 2010. Hyatt protests in Chicago have been echoed by other major demonstrations this summer in 15 cities across the U.S. and Canada.

The three Hyatt boycotts in Chicago, which join seven other active boycotts of Hyatt properties nationwide, signal a growing crisis for Chicago-based Hyatt and its billionaire owners—the Pritzker Family—who have become a symbol among hotel workers for how the wealthy are trying to take unfair advantage of the recession. Hotel workers in Chicago have endured staff cuts, reduced hours, and excessive injury rates. Frustration among area workers has deepened, as Hyatt has tried to make further job cuts and lock workers into recession contracts even as the economy rebounds.

In the clip above: behind me stands Rabbi Alison Abrams of Temple Chai in Long Grove and Cantor Michael Davis of Lakeside Congregation, Highland Park, both of whom spoke at the press conference as well.

Israelis and Palestinians are being brought back to the table, but no one really seems to be all that happy about it. Indeed, I can’t remember a time when renewed peace talks were greeted with such widespread cynicism. And that’s when you can even read about it at all – as I scour my usual media outlets for news and commentary on the peace process, I’m getting the distinct impression that this kind of thing is simply not considered to be news any more.

The only significant piece I’ve read recently is Ethan Bronner’s front page article in Saturday’s NY Times. The first few paragraphs pretty much tell you everything you need to know:

The American invitation on Friday to the Israelis and Palestinians to start direct peace talks in two weeks in Washington was immediately accepted by both governments. But just below the surface there was an almost audible shrug. There is little confidence — close to none — on either side that the Obama administration’s goal of reaching a comprehensive deal in one year can be met…

“These direct negotiations are the option of the crippled and the helpless,” remarked Zakaria al-Qaq, vice president of Al Quds University and a Palestinian moderate, when asked his view of the development. “It is an act of self-deception that will lead nowhere.”

And Nahum Barnea, Israel’s pre-eminent political columnist, said in a phone interview: “Most Israelis have decided that nothing is going to come out of it, that it will have no bearing on their lives. So why should they care?”

I used to believe where there’s talk, there’s hope. (In fact, I think I’ve even written those very words on this blog once or twice before). I don’t think I really believe this any more – not, at least, when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. For almost two decades, the US and the international community has been brokering talks between both sides and now this is what it has come to: beyond the pro-forma diplomatic statements, everyone seems to agree that it’s really just a road to nowhere. And a half-hearted attempt to bring the “crippled and the helpless” to the bargaining table simply doesn’t inspire hope. Quite the opposite.

I’m not even tempted any more to engage in an analytical discussion of how/why/where talks have failed. There are still more than enough pundits out there ready to parse the political maneuvering. To my mind, it’s all fairly moot at this point. For so many years, so many of us have been working overtime to advocate for the peace process. But while so many of us have held forth the two-state solution as a kind of Holy Grail, the prospect of a viable Palestinian state has grown increasingly remote.

Again, from Ethan Bronner:

Most Palestinians — and many on the Israeli left — argue that there are now too many Israeli settlements in the West Bank for a viable, contiguous Palestinian state to arise there. Settlement growth has continued despite a construction moratorium announced by Mr. Netanyahu.

Moreover, support for many of the settlements remains relatively strong in Israel. In other words, if this view holds, the Israelis have closed out any serious option of a two-state solution. So the talks are useless.

As someone who has fervently supported peace talks from the beginning, I write these words with great sorrow: it is time to face the facts and declare that the peace process is dead. I respect those who honestly disagree with such a position, but for myself at least, I cannot in good conscience advocate for a peace process that is so fatally flawed in so many ways. For me, the much more critical and pressing question at this point is not “how can we get both parties to the table?” but “how can we find a way to extend civil rights, human rights, equity and equality for all inhabitants of Israel/Palestine?”

That’s really the crux of the issue for me: peace without justice is no peace at all. Whether or not there is eventually a one-state, two-state or fifteen-state solution, it will need to be a just solution. And at the moment, justice seems to be precisely what is missing from the peace process.

At the end of the day, Israel simply cannot claim to take the concept of Palestinian statehood seriously while it establishes Jewish settlements throughout the Palestinian territories with impunity. Israel cannot say it accepts the concept of a Palestinian capital in Jerusalem yet at the same time evict Palestinians from their homes in East Jerusalem with a clear intention of Judaizing these neighborhoods. And perhaps most critically, Israel cannot claim to meet the Palestinians across the peace table in good faith while it oppresses Palestinians on a daily basis.

My friend and colleague Cantor Michael Davis once said to me that the real problem with the peace process is that “we are focusing exclusively on the future at the expense of the present.” I agree. For far too long we have been using the peace process as a shield to keep us from honestly facing the very real and troubling human rights abuse Israel is committing on the ground right now. Yes, there will need to be a political solution to this conflict. But until a present justice is consciously attached to a future peace, I believe in my heart that the peace process will remain as good as dead.

Land can be deemed “sacred ground” for many reasons, but I’m struck that much too often this concept has less to do with the experience of divinity than it does the exercise of human power.

The latest debate over the Cordoba Islamic community center is only the latest example of this phenomenon – on this point I believe blogger Paul Woodward hit the nail squarely on the head with this recent insight:

Another way of saying “sacred” is to say “off-limits.”

Something can be sanctified by placing a barrier around it constructed from rigid taboos. The most extreme among those taboos dictates not only silence but also exclusion.

In such a way, for many Americans, 9/11 has been sanctified. The sacred idea occupies a sacred space and only those willing to display sufficient awe and reverence can be allowed to enter.

Woodward is absolutely right that sacred space and exclusion can invariably go hand in hand. When we read in the Torah, for instance about the Israelites’ construction of the Tabernacle (and later in the Bible, the Temple itself), we learn that certain sacred areas correspond to the specific social hierarchies within the Israelite community. Rank and file Israelites are allowed into the outer courtyard, but the inner precincts are off limits to all but the priests. And only the High Priest himself is allowed into the innermost Holy of Holies – and only on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year.

Ironically enough, Jewish tradition teaches that it was precisely hierarchy and division that led to the loss of our most central of sacred spaces. According to the Rabbis, the destruction of the Second Temple was due not to the greater military might of the Romans, but because of the divisive, internecine hatreds (“sinat chinam”) harbored by the Jewish people between themselves. I often think about this teaching when I read about the power politics raging over the Western Wall or ongoing attempts to claim the areas in and around the Old City of Jerusalem in the name of the Jewish people alone.

When it comes to the area that is considered to be the holiest of places for Jews, I can’t help but think it has more often been a place of sacrilege, not sanctity. It has ever been thus: the more we press our own claims upon the places we deem sacred, the more we manage only to defile them in the end.

And so, as I have read about the horrid political wrangling over Cordoba House, it is becoming clearer and clearer to me that this little patch of land in Lower Manhattan will only truly become hallowed ground if we resist the temptation to yield exclusive political claims over it.

If there is any Biblical image we might look to for guidance, I would argue it is less the hierarchical, exclusivist priestly model than the universal, inclusive prophetic vision famously expressed in Isaiah 56:7: “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”

To this end, I commend to you this recent statement from Faith in Public Life, to which I am honored to be a co-signer. I can think of no better definition of “sacred space” than this:

The profound tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001 revealed the horror that can unfold when a small minority of violent extremists manipulates religious language for political gain and falsely claims to represent one of the world’s great religions. We have witnessed this sinful corruption of religion across faith traditions throughout history and must condemn it without equivocation whenever or wherever it occurs. However, we fail to honor those murdered on that awful day – including Muslim Americans killed in the Twin Towers and Pentagon – by betraying our nation’s historic commitment to religious liberty, fueling ugly stereotypes about Islam and demeaning the vast majority of Muslims committed to peace. The proposed mosque would be part of Cordoba House, a center open to all Americans that will provide Islamic, interfaith and secular programs. The project aims to support “integration, tolerance of difference and community cohesion through arts and culture,” according to the Cordoba Initiative, which promotes improved “Muslim-West relations.” These are exactly the kind of efforts that foster dialogue, break down barriers and begin to build a world where religiously inspired violent extremism is less likely.

JewishReconFed: Beautiful High Holiday cards for sale through the Reconstructionist Press. The front of the card features... http://fb.me/H4xRfgqG

The next fast day sponsored by Ta’anit Tzedek – Jewish Fast for Gaza will take place on Thursday, August 19. To mark the occasion, we will host “A Conversation About Women, Health, Children and Human Rights in Gaza,” a conference call with Dr. Mona El-Farra, Director of Gaza Projects for the Middle East Children’s Alliance.

Dr. El-Farra is a physician by training and a human rights and women’s rights activist by practice in the Gaza Strip. She was born in Khan Younis, Gaza, and has dedicated herself to developing community-based programs that seek to improve health quality and link health services with cultural and recreational services throughout the Gaza Strip.

Our conference call will take place on Thursday, August 19, at 12:00 pm (EST).

Call info:

Access Number: 1.800.920.7487

Participant Code: 92247763#

There will be a question and answer period during the call.

If you’re starting to feel cynical and worn out at what’s going on in the world, just remember how long Pete Seeger has been fighting the good fight for us all. Check out his latest protest song, “God’s Counting On Me, God’s Counting on You.” (Note among other things, his pointed reference to the BP oil disaster.)  Click below for the lyrics:

When we look and we can see things are not what they should be
God’s counting on me, God’s counting on you
When we look and see things that should not be
God’s counting on me, God’s counting on you
Hopin’ we’ll all pull through, Hoping we’ll all pull through,
Hopin’ we’ll all pull through
Me and you.

It’s time to turn things around, trickle up not trickle down
God’s counting on me, God’s counting on you
It’s time to turn things around, trickle up not trickle down
God’s counting on me, God’s counting on you
Hopin’ we’ll all pull through, Hoping we’ll all pull through,
Hopin’ we’ll all pull through
Me and you.

And when drill, baby, drill turns to spill, baby, spill
God’s counting on me, God’s counting on you
Yes when drill, baby, drill turns to spill, baby, spill
God’s counting on me, God’s counting on you
Hopin’ we’ll all pull through, Hoping we’ll all pull through,
Hopin’ we’ll all pull through
Me and you.

Don’t give up don’t give in, workin’ together we all can win
God’s counting on me, God’s counting on you
Don’t give up don’t give in, workin’ together we all can win
God’s counting on me, God’s counting on you
Hopin’ we’ll all pull through, Hoping we’ll all pull through,
Hopin’ we’ll all pull through
Me and you.

There’s big problems to be solved, let’s get everyone involved
God’s counting on me, God’s counting on you
There’s big problems to be solved, let’s get everyone involved
God’s counting on me, God’s counting on you
Hopin’ we’ll all pull through, Hoping we’ll all pull through,
Hopin’ we’ll all pull through
Me and you.

When we sing with younger folks, we can never give up hope
God’s counting on me, God’s counting on you
When we sing with younger folks, we can never give up hope
God’s counting on me, God’s counting on you
Hopin’ we’ll all pull through, Hoping we’ll all pull through,
Hopin’ we’ll all pull through
Me and you.

When Tony Judt passed away from ALS on August 6, the world lost a brilliant historian and a brave, unflinching observer of current political events. In the Jewish community, Judt was famous (some undoubtedly would say infamous) for his views on the Israel/Palestine conflict; particularly for a piece he wrote for the New York Review of Books in 2003:

The problem with Israel, in short, is not—as is sometimes suggested—that it is a European “enclave” in the Arab world; but rather that it arrived too late. It has imported a characteristically late-nineteenth-century separatist project into a world that has moved on, a world of individual rights, open frontiers, and international law. The very idea of a “Jewish state”—a state in which Jews and the Jewish religion have exclusive privileges from which non-Jewish citizens are forever excluded—is rooted in another time and place. Israel, in short, is an anachronism.

Judt’s historical/political analysis of Zionism, needless to say, ensured that he would become persona non grata in many Jewish circles. But whether or not you agreed with his conclusions, I believe he courageously raised crucial, if painful questions that we continue to confront today – and whose relevance, I predict, will become only more critical in the coming years.

One of his final editorials on the subject was this trenchant analysis of the recent Gaza flotilla tragedy. Click above to get a poignant glimpse of the man himself. May his memory be for a blessing.

JewishReconFed: Shabbat Shalom!

When I was twenty or so and living in Israel, I made a valiant attempt to plow my way through the classic 1949 Hebrew novella, Khirbet Khizeh by S. Yizhar. Alas, there was only so much a young American college student could really understand, but I persevered because I was just so eager to experience this seemingly radical counter-cultural work of Israeli literature.

Khirbet Khizeh, which painfully portrays an Israeli unit’s expulsion of Palestinian villagers from their homes in 1948, has long been considered a seminal work in modern Israeli literature, fusing stream of consciousness style Hebrew with poetic Biblical literary allusions.  Even more remarkable is the fact that despite its profoundly controversial subject matter, Khirbet Khizeh has generally been accepted as a classic by Israelis. Indeed, the book has long been included in Israeli high school curriculum and the the author himself went on to enjoy a long and distinguished career as a member of the Knesset.

So imagine my pleasant surprise to learn that almost thirty years later, the great Khirbet Khizeh has finally been published in English translation by a boutique press called Ibis Editions. And I must say that having just now finished it, I am all the more moved by its literary power and moral urgency.

At the same time, however, reading it today left me with a baffling set of resonances. How could a work of such abject moral outrage be widely considered as a classic in Israel? How could a society embrace a work such as this, and be so unwilling to face its essential message? (In Yizhar’s words: “We came, we shot, we burned, we blew up, expelled, drove out and sent into exile.”)

Witness the devastating conclusion of the novella, which is told from the point of view of a morally conflicted Israeli soldier who has just participated in the expulsion of Arab villagers from the fictional village of Khirbet Khizeh:

When they reached their place of exile night would already have fallen. Their clothing would be their only bedding. Fine. What could be done? The third truck began to rumble. Had some astrologer already seen in the conjuncture of the stars in the sky over the village or in some horoscope how things would turn out here? And what indifference there was in us, as if we had never been anything but peddlers of exile, and our hearts had coarsened in the process. But this was not the point either.

And how does it end?

The valley was calm. Somebody started talking about supper. Far away on this dirt track, close to what appeared to be its end, a distant, darkening swaying truck, in the manner of heavy trucks laden with fruit or produce or something, was gradually being swallowed up. Tomorrow, both painful humiliation and helpless rage would turn into a kind of casual irritation, shameful, but fading fast. Everything was suddenly so open. So big, so very big. And we had all become so small and insignificant. Soon a time would arise in the world when it would be good to come home from work, to return exhausted, to meet someone, or walk alone, to walk saying nothing. All around silence was falling, and very soon it would close upon the last circle. And when silence had closed in on everything and no man disturbed the stillness, which yearned noiselessly for what was beyond stillness – then God would come forth and descend to roam the valley, and see whether all was according to the cry that had reached him.

I am particularly taken by Yizhar’s reference to silence – and how he subverts it with a final allusion to the anguished cries of Sodom and Gomorrah. Yizhar, who himself fought in the 1948 war as an intelligence officer, was already able to articulate a deep dark silence descending upon the land in the aftermath of those deep, dark days. Now over sixty years after the terrible events recorded in this novella, it seems that this silence has only deepened all the more.

So how could such a devastating book be considered to be an Israeli classic by Israelis?  By any other yardstick, one might assume that such a work would be considered something of an underground novel. In a recent NY Times feature, Israeli author A.B. Yehoshua suggested that “there was no scandal” when it was written “because the society felt itself so just that it could absorb a critic.”

I interpret his comment to mean that as the victorious party, Israel could certainly allow itself a bit of angst over how its victory was achieved. In this regard, you could well draw a straight line from Khirbet Khizeh to the deep moral challenges represented in works of contemporary Israeli writers such as Amos Oz or David Grossman, or films such as Waltz with Bashir or the just-released Lebanon.

In fact, the Hebrew term “shoot and cry” (“yorim u’vochim“) was actually coined in the wake of the 1982 Lebanon war to describe this unique form of Israeli cultural angst, as if these powerful expressions of moral accounting could somehow erase the guilt of what Israel had perpetrated – and continues to perpetrate – against Palestinians.

And so in the end, despite all of the genuinely anguished soul-searching, we are still left with the terrifying silence. But ironically enough, whatever the statement Yizhar was intending to make with Khirbet Khizeh, whatever its literary/cultural legacy, I find that it still cries out with unbearable intensity.

(Click here to hear a very interesting and informative interview with co-translator Yaacob Dweck.)

ReconPress: The High Holidays are coming up - do you have your Mahzor? Last day to place Mahzor order and receive it by Rosh Hashana: Monday August 30!

On July 27, an Israeli police force of 1,500 evicted over 300 Bedouin Israeli citizens – mostly children – from the village of Al-Arakib in the Negev, leaving them homeless, expelled from their land, and bereft of their possessions. Bulldozers from the Israel Lands Administration then proceeded to demolish their homes, sheep pens, fruit orchards and olive tree groves, so that the Jewish National Fund can plant a forest on their land.

You can read more about this shameful episode here in the LA Times and here in the BBC News. I also encourage you to read the reactions of the New Israel Fund and Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority rights in Israel.

From an Adalah press release:

Residents of the Arab Bedouin unrecognized village al-Araqib in the Naqab (Negev) in the south of Israel were woken up at dawn on 27 July 2010 to find themselves surrounded by police officers, some of them on horseback. The police declared the village to be a “closed area”, and warned residents that any attempt to resist their orders would lead to their forced evacuation. The police ordered the residents to leave their homes in two minutes. The residents tried to take their belongings from their houses, but the police did not wait and began to immediately demolish their homes. No less than 1,300 police officers, accompanied by the Green Patrol, a unit within the Nature Reserves and Parks Authority that often harass the Arab Bedouin, took part in the brutal destruction of the village. Throughout the demolition operation, a helicopter flew above the village. When the demolition ended, all 45 houses of the houses were razed to the ground and its 250 residents – men, women, elderly people and children, were left without a roof over their heads and all of their belongings confiscated.

In violation of law, most police officers who took part in the raid covered their faces and did not wear identity tags. They had weapons, tear gas, truncheons and other arms. Apparently in this way, the police officers sought to prevent the residents from identifying them. T-he residents did not respond violently to the destruction.

One of the most shocking aspects of the raid was that a bus filled with dozens of radical right-wing Jewish youth accompanied the police to the village. The youth began to tease the Arab Bedouin residents, who are citizens of Israel and who just lost their homes, and applauded when the police officers demolished the homes. This conduct amounts to vigilantism, a punishment outside of the law.

During the operation of destruction, the police confiscated all personal possessions of the residents from their homes including refrigerators, ovens, closets, bedroom and dining room furniture, textiles, carpets, crafts, etc. They also took other property from the area surrounding the houses such as electricity generators, plows, flour bags and the like.

Representatives of the Tax Authority also accompanied the police and seized property of residents in debt to the tax authorities. This confiscation was undertaken without prior warning or demand from the residents to pay their debt, and therefore, it too was illegal. Residents were required to pay NIS 22,500 (almost US $6,000) to retrieve their property.

One final encouragement if you are a member of the Jewish community: while this action is clearly a violation of international human rights, it is also of critical importance to Jews, who are implicated in all actions taken by the Jewish state. Please sign and pass on this petition which is being disseminated by the Jewish Alliance for Change. The campaign hopes to add American Jewish voices to a growing Israeli petition, which will be hand delivered to the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem on August 10.

The latest issue of the Chicago Jewish News contains a wonderful cover story about my congregation and how we’ve been working to find a way to talk openly, honestly and civilly together about Israel. (The eye-grabbing headline: “HELL FREEZES OVER, CUBS WIN WORLD SERIES, JEWS FIND WAY TO DISAGREE AGREEABLY.”)

Here’s an excerpt:

“I have very strong feelings about Israel and I express them pretty openly. My activism is very public,” (Rabbi Rosen) says. “That is my own truth as a Jew and a rabbi, and it is very important to me to be true to my private personal conscience.”

But as the rabbi of JRC, “I also feel strongly that my job is to create the kind of environment where people, even those who don’t agree with me — and there are many — feel welcome to express those views and have those views heard. I respect the diversity of opinion at JRC,” he says. “We may be (perceived as) left-leaning, but on the subject of Israel, we are more diverse than people think.”

The largest group of congregants, he says, fall somewhere in the middle of a continuum, with some on both ends of the spectrum.

With these thoughts in mind, Rosen says, he and a number of congregants “decided together that rather than raise all this dust, it would be a great opportunity to use these emotions in some kind of constructive way.”

What else can I say other than that I’m enormously proud of my congregation?!

Interfaith Worker Justice has just launched its annual “Labor in the Pulpits/on the Bimah/in the Minbar” initiative, encouraging houses of worship around the country to dedicate Labor Day weekend (September 3-5) to worker justice awareness.

You can access the resources and materials by clicking here. I encourage you to share them with your Priest, Rabbi, Pastor or Imam, as the case may be. (I contributed a piece to the Jewish resources – click here to download the pdf.)

The LA Times reports:

Israel moved Sunday to deport the offspring of hundreds of migrant workers, mostly small children who were born in Israel, speak Hebrew and have never seen their parents’ native countries.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the new policy was intended to stem a flood of illegal immigrants, whose children receive state-funded education and healthcare benefits, and to defend Israel’s Jewish identity.

“On the one hand, this problem is a humanitarian problem,” Netanyahu said during a meeting Sunday of the Cabinet, which had debated the move for nearly a year. “We all feel and understand the hearts of children. But on the other hand, there are Zionist considerations and ensuring the Jewish character of the state of Israel.”

My two cents:

In many ways, this story is reminiscent of the immigration policy debate here in the US. (I encourage you to learn about and support “The Dream Act” which has been considered by Congress in one form or another since 2001 but shamefully, has yet to be signed into law).

Still, there are important differences between the American and the Israeli situations.  Perhaps most critically, although Netanyahu cites concern over illegal immigration, Israel is moving to deport children of immigrants who entered the country legally.

As the article points out, Israel began allowing Chinese, Thai, Filipino and other workers into the country in the 1990′s to replace Palestinians as a source of cheap labor in the wake of the First and Second Intifadas. Today there are 250,000 to 400,000 foreign workers in Israel – but now that they have (quite naturally) begun having families of their own, Israel is growing increasingly concerned over the “demographic makeup” of the Jewish state.

To be sure, every nation has the right/responsibility to regulate its own residency and citizenship laws. Nonetheless, the criteria it uses to maintain these regulations is crucial. And this raises another important difference between the American and Israeli immigration policy debates. Here in America, no one but the most abject racist would openly suggest it is appropriate to cite the religious/ethnic identity of immigrants when considering their children’s legal status.

In this regard, Netanyahu’s comment – framing it as a choice between humanitarianism and Zionism – in profoundly telling. Is this indeed Israel’s ultimate choice? And if so, which will it ultimately choose?

Bravo to Rotem Ilan, chairwoman of an Israeli advocacy group for migrant workers’ families, who is quoted in the article thus:

It’s the deportation of children that threatens Israel’s Jewish character. The obligation to act with kindness and compassion to foreigners is the most frequently repeated commandment in the Torah.

As the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement gains momentum, I’ve been pleasantly surprised to see at least two internal Jewish community conversations in which this painful, volatile issue with was debated with intelligence and mutual respect.

Last month, the New York-based org Jews Say No sponsored a debate/discussion featuring Israeli activist Yonatan Shapira, Birthright Unplugged director Hannah Mermelstein, Forward editor JJ Goldberg and J Street board member Kathleen Peratis.  It takes thirteen YouTube clips to see the entire program, but I highly recommend watching it from beginning to end. I found it informative, intelligent, passionate – and ultimately inspiring for the way a Jewish gathering could discuss such a potentially divisive subject so gracefully. (Click above for the first clip, then surf to the Jews Say No website to watch the next twelve.)

For its part, Tikkun Magazine held its own Jewish roundtable on BDS featuring Tikkun editor Rabbi Michael Lerner, Jewish Voice for Peace director Rebecca Vilkomerson; Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb, founder of Shalom Shomer Network for Jewish Nonviolence, J Street president Jeremy Ben Ami; and Israeli Shministit (refuser) Maya Wind. The entire conversation can only be accessed by purchasing the July/August edition of Tikkun Magazine, but you can read key excerpts at the JVP website.

JewishReconFed: What has more than 800 legs, lots of singing and dancing, great Reconstructionist ruach (spirit), and comes every... http://fb.me/uaWL8v6f