Disconnect

For the past several months I watched what's been happening on the Israel front from my Kansas redoubt. I don't think it's a surprise to anyone who has been keeping up with me that I think the Gaza incursion was counterproductive and morally questionable, and that I am against the vilification of the human rights community (Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, etc) that has come in the aftermath of their reports - and in this category I include Goldstone and his report, which whatever you may think of its provenance, was not markedly out of step with the rest of the reports coming from the HR community.

I have also been greatly disturbed by the election of a hard right government in Israel, including the inclusion of stone racist Avigdor Lieberman in the cabinet, which if it happened in any other country would be met with the kind of protest it deserves. Netanyahu himself, like too much of Israeli leadership, thinks tactically rather than strategically, figuring that if he kick the can of - what? reconciliation? reason? reckoning? - down the road a few yards, he will have done his job. Along with this is the complete collapse of the Israeli left, which has 3 mandates (Meretz) in the Knesset and an annual Rabin day commemoration in Tel Aviv and not much else.

So I've been following the increase in volume of those who are anti-Israel (particularly the BDS movement, which has made great inroads in the aftermath of the hell in Gaza), as well as those who, like me, are pro-Israel but see clearly that the current course is unsustainable, both politically and morally.

It's interesting that none of this consideration was in evidence at all at last week's General Assembly. With the exception of a small presence by Americans for Peace Now, and one protestor against Nethanyahu's speech (pulled out of the room and dismissed with a chuckle), the entire tenor of the gathering was that all criticism of Israel is illegitimate (well, they may admit that criticism of Israel that isn't anti-Semitic is theoretically possible, but they can never find an example), that Goldstone is at best a pawn and at worst an anti-Semite, that Bibi is doing what's best for the country, that Gaza was a necessary and well-executed operation, that "delegitimization" of Israel is just this year's version of the age-old hatred of Jews. This, I believe, is self-inflicted blindness of the most astonishing kind.

One of the more reasonable criticisms of J Street's recent conference that I heard at the GA (and by reasonable I mean not that I agree with it but that that it wasn't spittle-inflected vilification of J Street as Saudi proxies or self-haters or whatever) was that people were disturbed that there were non- and anti-Zionists there, and vocally part of the proceedings. I heard this from both left and right. This is surprising to people because many on the left, such as Brit Tzedek and Eric Yoffie, have seen it as their role to define what acceptable discourse is - exactly how far left one is allowed to go. Jeremy Ben-Ami doesn't seem to be interested in this, probably because J Street is not a plenary organization, so people can say whatever they want but he's the one who decides what the policy of J Street is.

To me, J Street's conference didn't cause that discussion, it revealed it. Most OJC types are so into their own interpretation of what's happening that they have no idea that the discourse, even within the Jewish community, is moving far beyond it. That's why Jay Michaelson's piece in the Forward, for instance, was such a surprise to so many people. People like Uriel Heilman can continue to say, in response to Roger Cohen (who I'll get to in a minute):

Again, no word on what the Palestinians must do to prepare for peace, such as giving up the goal of eliminating Israel entirely, championed by Hamas, or electing a leadership free of corruption and capable of delivering on a peace deal....

Typical, in that when Israel is criticized the OJC response is to point the finger at the other guy. Tired, because largely not true - the leadership of Fatah, Abbas and the rest, have done what they were called on to do in the Road Map - stopped incitement and cracked down on violence. Israel has not done what it was supposed to do - end settlement activity. These are facts, and if you don't believe me, you can ask the US government.

The biggest disconnect, which was in full bloom at the GA as in this piece, is the inability or refusal to recognize that settlements are illegal, that they are counterproductive, that Israel has twice committed to ending them, and that restricting them would signal as nothing else could Israel's good intentions, as continuing them signals the opposite. Not recognizing this means you are not serious about pursuing peace. And by the way, the only person I heard mention "settlements" at the GA was Rahm Emanuel, and the word "occupation" was uttered not at all.

But I went back to read Cohen's piece, and it strikes me that he's largely correct. (Contra Heilman, he doesn't exclusively blame Israel, but then again, neither did Goldstone.) First, he says, Obama came into office thinking that he could pick up from Taba, but there's a lot of water under the bridge since then:

[Obama's] approach ignored the deep scars inflicted in the past decade: the killing of 992 Israelis and 3,399 Palestinians between the outbreak of the Second Intifada in 2000 and 2006; the Israeli Army’s harsh reoccupation of most of the West Bank; Hamas’ violent rise to power in Gaza and the accompanying resurgence of annihilationist ideology; the spectacular spread of Jewish settlements in the West Bank; and the Israeli construction of over 250 miles of a separation barrier that has protected Israel from suicide bombers even as it has shattered Palestinian lives, grabbed land and become, in the words of Michael Sfard, an Israeli lawyer, “an integral part of the West Bank settlement plan.”

These are not small developments. They have changed the physical appearance of the Middle East. More important, they have transformed the psychologies of the protagonists. Israelis have walled themselves off from Palestinians. They are less interested than ever in a deal with people they hardly see.

He concludes by saying, like Thomas Friedman the other day, that Obama should dial expectations way back, and that a tense detente may be the best we can hope for at this point.

Stop talking about peace. Banish the word. Start talking about détente. That’s what Lieberman wants; that’s what Hamas says it wants; that’s the end point of Netanyahu’s evasions.

It’s not what Abbas wants but he’s powerless. Shlomo Avineri, a political scientist, told me, “A nonviolent status quo is far from satisfactory but it’s not bad. Cyprus is not bad.”

I recall my friend Shlomo dreaming of peace. That’s over. The last decade destroyed the last illusions: hence the fence. The courageous have departed the Middle East. A peace of the brave must yield to a truce of the mediocre — at best.

There are only two things wrong with this. First, without an Israeli commitment to ending settlement activities - well, they've already committed to it, so let's say, without an implementation of the Israeli commitment to end settlement activities - they will continue apace, and five years from now there will be 500,000 settlers in the Palestinian territories, making it all that much more impossible to retract them. Second, the other pressures on this situation will not abate in the absence of action: first, the demographic issues will continue to grow, meaning that the pressure of Israel as Jewish state vs. Israel as democratic state will not go away (you can't have both and the territories) and second, delegitimization will continue to grow, becoming ever more powerful as people who would normally oppose it become increasingly frustrated with Israeli intransigence and pull out of the conversation. And in this, I include the many progressives and young people represented by the 1,500 people who attended the J Street conference, who are at J Street on their way out the Zionist door, should this situation continue as it is with no hope of resolution.

Bibi's, with his tactical thinking, is not prepared to deal with any of this. The OJC, with it's mythology about how everything is either the Palestinians' fault or motivated by anti-Semitism, is not prepared to deal with this. Their aversion to recognizing that time is not on their side is the biggest disconnect of all.

Parshat Hayei Sarah

At the beginning of this week’s parshah, Hayei Sarah, Sarah dies, and Abraham goes to the neighboring Hittites in order to buy a plot in which to bury her. The plot – a cave, actually - belongs to a fellow named Ephron, who says, “No, my lord, hear me: I give you the field and the cave that is in it; I give it to you in the presence of my people. Bury your dead.” (Gen. 23:11)

I would venture to say that most of us, when someone is willing to give us something that we were willing to buy, would put our wallets away and try to take possession before they changed their minds! But not Abraham: “Abraham … spoke to Ephron within the hearing of the people of the land, saying: ‘If you would only hear me out! Let me pay the price of the land; accept it from me, that I may bury my dead there.’” (v. 13). He doesn’t want it for free; he wants to purchase it. Ephron responds:

A piece of land worth 400 shekels of silver – what is that between you and me? Go bury your dead.’ Abraham accepted Ephron’s terms. Abraham paid out to Ephron the money that he had named in the hearing of Ephron – 400 shekels of silver… (v. 15-16)

I always liked Ephron’s approach here: I’ll give it to you, but if you won’t buy it, I won’t let a little thing like 400 shekels stand between us! Thereby naming the price without naming it as the price, if you see what I mean.

But the more interesting response is Abraham’s. Why does he insist on paying for that which he could have gotten for free? Perhaps Abraham fears that the Hittites will later claim that they, rather than he, own the land that his beloved late wife is buried on. It’s also possible that Ephron was being a little sly with Abraham, first by including the field with the cave - the cave was the part Abraham wanted, but he accepts the increased plot; and then by asking for what may have been considered an exhorbitant price, which Abraham accepts – perhaps to Ephron’s chagrin!

One notes that although God has repeatedly promised the entire land of Israel to Abraham, and the cave (called, then as now, Machpeleh) is part of the land, Abraham does not rely on this divine promise when it comes to this real estate deal. In this, Abraham reminds me of the Jewish National Fund in the early part of the 20th century, which made sure to purchase, in a way that was clearly legal and above-board, all the land it could for the settlement of then-Palestine by the Jewish settlers arriving from Europe as elsewhere. For although their need was great, and although many people – then and now – held that the Biblical promise to Abraham was all the “deed” the Jews needed, to the Zionists it was important that their claim to the land of Israel was not only necessary, not only moral – but was legally binding as well.

Just like our father Abraham, who I suppose we might rightly call the JNF of the ancient world.

This week's links

Coverage of the GA by JTA, including new Jewish Federations’ CEO Jerry Silverman; the military chaplains’ Torahs for the Troops campaign; and various blogs and speeches.

Also JTA, Sholom Rubashkin, former owner of the massive Iowa kosher slaughterhouse Agriprocessors, convicted on 86 of 91 fraud charges.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday called for an "immediate" resumption of Middle East peace talks, but Palestinian and Arab leaders responded coolly to the speech, which had been seen by the White House as an opportunity for new concessions by Israel. Wall Street Journal. Money quote:

"Palestinians still find it difficult to resume negotiating the end of the occupation while the other party is busy consolidating this occupation by expanding settlements," said Palestinian Authority spokesman Ghassan Khatib.

One of the popular items at the conference was the new book “Start-Up Nation,” which tells the story about the Israeli “economic miracle”: how a country with almost no resources became one of the most innovative in the world. Review in Ha’aretz. Money quote:

The "untold story" of Israel's economic accomplishments actually has been told not a few times, mainly in the country's daily papers. Senor and Singer's unique contribution is to tie together the myriad stories of Israel: Take a young nation born in bloodshed, add a melting pot of nationalities and ethnicities, mix in the Jewish cultural aspiration to excel in one's profession, and an army that is light on officers but heavy on grunts who need to do the thinking for themselves (or die ). Toss in a healthy dose of audacity, an indefatigable willingness to hurl oneself into the maelstrom time and again, contempt for the trappings of hierarchy -- and presto. What we receive is a unique combination of factors that, combined with sound science, birthed an "economic miracle": From a base of almost no natural resources and an economy ravaged by one war after another, Israel created a flourishing, booming sector producing one breakthrough technology after another.

I Hate Abraham

I have a book from Israel called "Al Tishlkach yadkha el ha-na'ar" - or, Don't Send Your Hand Against the Boy, which is the line that the angel uses in this week's parshah, Vayera, to stop Abraham from sacrificing Isaac. The book is all kinds of poetry, prose and art on the theme of the Akeidah.

I translated a couple of the pieces from the book, which I've used over time whenever we read this parshah, not only in the yearly cycle but also on the second day of Rosh Hashanah, when this story is also read.

Here is a selection from a book called Days of Ziklag (Hebrew: ימי צקלג, Yemei Tziklag), a novel by S. Yizhar, first published in 1958. It is widely considered to be one of the most prominent works in Israeli literature, but it isn't available in English, perhaps because it's over 1,000 pages long. In any case, the novel follows a squad of IDF soldiers trying to hold to a post in the Negev desert during the Israeli War of Independence. The snippet is called, "I Hate our Father Abraham":

I hate our father Abraham, who went to sacrifice Isaac. What right does he have over Isaac? Let him sacrifice himself! I hate the God who sends him to sacrifice and closes off every other option – that only the path of Akeidah is open to him. I hate that Isaac is nothing but the subject of an experiment – an experiment between Abraham and his God. This demonstration of Abraham. This proof of love. This demand for a demonstration of love. God sanctifying himself through the sacrifice of Isaac. I hate that the slaughter of sons is taken as a proof of love! To take strength and to gamble and to take life in order to settle an argument. And because the world is silent, and doesn’t rise up and rush forward to stop it. Scoundrels, why do sons need to die?

I hate the need to obtain something at the price of destruction, or annihilation, or torment, or compulsion. I doubt it’s even worth as much as a clove of garlic – that which can only be acquired through such destruction. Better to give up, to put up your hands and pull away – from battle, from kidnapping. I hate this warfare more than anything else. This arming of everything.

And I sit here waiting to murder, to kill, to destroy, and I collect all my strength and my nerve and my muscle and my mind – for that final moment when it will by my lot, according to my ability – to burst forth, and to take prey, to save my life in the devouring of what I will devour, to bite what's near, to slit a throat with a touch. And there isn’t any escape. That’s the way the world is built. It’s the way life is designed. That’s how it is – decree.

And it isn’t even possible to run away. If you are not okay with killing and being killed – there won’t be any good in the world. No justice, no love, no beauty. All of this – this is their path. If you are not ready to hand over your soul, to leap at the flame, to go out and draw near and kill, with skill, with finesse, even with bloodthirst, there is no world and there is no life, and all is chaos and emptiness. That is the way the world is made. And for me, myself, there is no other, more personal way. Only to take part.

Closing Remarks for 2010 Campaign Event (undelivered)

This was written to be the closing remarks at the MKJF's Campaign event on November 1, but in the end they didn't get delivered (nobody ever complained that a rabbi spoke too little). But I thought they were interesting (at least, they're interesting to me), so I'm posting them here and to the blog on the MKJF website.

I'm often looking at Jewish texts with one eye toward their use in Federation settings, writings with the themes of peoplehood, Jewish unity, charitable giving and Israel. I found a quote from Mordechai Kaplan, the founder of Reconstructionist Judaism, that addresses all of these, and I want to share parts of it with you. Now, Kaplan can be a difficult writer, so rather I'll hit the highlights.

What are the implications, Kaplan asks – social, political, cultural, and religious – of thinking of the Jews as an international people with its cultural center in Israel?

The social implications in their relations with one another is the sense of oneness and the mutual responsibility for each other’s spiritual and material well-being. In relation to the non-Jewish community, it means the right to continue to possess and develop our identity as a unique group, “combined,” Kaplan says, “with the readiness to cooperate as Jews in all endeavors for the establishment of a free society based on justice and peace.”

The political implications of Jewish peoplehood are the concern of Jews everywhere with a responsive society that looks after the less fortunate among us, as well as our concern with the freedom, stability, and security of the state of Israel.

Culturally, Jewish peoplehood means the fostering of Hebrew language and Jewish cultural expression by Jews in both Israel and the Diaspora, as well as each community's interest in the experiences of each other. In relation to the non-Jewish world, it means, where appropriate, the integration into Jewish culture of values found in other cultures which are compatible with Judaism, and the sharing of Jewish cultural creations with other cultures. This is what Joshua Nelson does with his melding of African American musical forms with Jewish religious content, and what we're going to be doing by sharing this music with our community and with the entire city of Wichita.

Although religion as such is the direct concern of the Federation, Kaplan points out that the modern conception of Jewish peoplehood has legitimated Jewish presence in the Diaspora even when settlement in Israel is available, and recognizes that freedom of conscience, even in religious matters, has become an integral component of Jewish life.

The conception of the Jewish future as the culmination of these factors, Kaplan writes, “marks a higher stage in the development of the Jewish [people]. It places the basis of Jewish unity not in an authoritative traditional creed or code but in the common purpose of Jewish to raise the moral and spiritual level of their group life.”

That's Kaplan's take. This is a Jewish Federation text if ever I saw one. For where is it that members of Jewish community of all customs, backgrounds, and beliefs come together in the shared endeavor of building Jewish peoplehood? Where is it that we organize ourselves to care for one another, for Jews all over the world, and for the well-being of the city and society in which we have chosen to live? Where is it that we organize ourselves politically in order to represent our communal interests, and culturally, to bring Jewish cultural expression to ourselves and to the community around us? Where is it that we are free to choose the means of Jewish expression that are most meaningful to us? It is in the Jewish Federation that we accomplish all these things.

As we begin our campaign year, may we keep these factors close to our hearts, as the main motivation for the work we do. May always remember that, the adage kol yisrael arevim zeh le'zeh – all members of Jewish community, all over the world, are responsible for one another – is never as fully expressed - socially, politically, culturally, even religiously - as in the work of the Jewish Federation. And may fulfilling that adage be our goal, as it has ever been the goal of Jewish people everywhere.