Jewish People, Jewish Texts, Jewish Homeland

Trust and Suspicion

2012-01-13T13:17:00.001Z

It seems like the overarching story will run and run. As the UK's Jewish Chronicle uncovers incident after incident of Jewish individuals and organisations 'fraternizing with the enemy', the mutterings in opposition to its stance grow louder and louder. You can almost see the two sides drawing their swords, shaping up for battle, determined to prove at all costs the objective truth of their position. I don't think this is going to end well.

Perhaps, fundamentally, the issue is about the extent to which we view the world with suspicion or trust. It is undoubtedly possible to regard the organisation London Citizens with suspicion - there are, apparently, individuals involved who have said appalling things about Israel, and who have been associated with others who have said and advocated even worse. It is equally, if not even more possible to view the East London Mosque with suspicion - preachers expressing sentiments that are abhorrent to many within the Jewish community are clearly given a platform there.

However, London Citizens is not defined by extremist Islamists. Indeed, the vast majority of people who are involved have never spoken about Israel or Jews, and are more than happy to engage in dialogue with members of our community both for its own sake and for the benefit of the people of London. They are open to learning about Judaism and Jewish life, and interested to hear about our range of opinions about Israel. There is no reason to be suspicious of them, and every reason to trust. The East London Mosque is a more complex case, but even there, it is simply wrong to stereotype. We should be aware, for example, that construction work taking place at the mosque was stopped on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur so as not to disturb Jewish worshippers at the Fieldgate Street Great Synagogue, which backs onto it. Indeed, there are both members and trustees of the mosque who are genuinely open to engagement with Jews, and welcome the opportunity to do so; they are willing to listen to Jewish perspectives, and appreciate the chance to discuss Israel. In the course of discussion, we may not always agree, but we may come closer to an appreciation and understanding of one another's narratives, and, in this way, add an important human dimension to what is so often a fractious and damaging political debate.

On the spectrum of suspicion and trust, the JC seems to sit closest to the suspicion end. They are not wrong to choose to sit there; certainly there is much about which to be suspicious, and there are genuine dangers lurking for Jews which we would be naive and foolish to ignore. However, the questions are: to what extent should we allow that suspicion to cloud all of our interactions with others? To what extent should we feel compelled to do our due diligence on everyone and anyone, just in case they may have associated with an unsavoury individual at some point in the past? To what extent should we assume the worst about people until they prove to us the opposite? In short, how suspicious do we really need to be?

One reading of our recent past would argue we should be highly suspicious. It would point to the Shoah, Arab states' history of seeking to delegitimize and destroy Israel, two Palestinian intifadas, 9/11, 7/7 and Iran's determined efforts to secure nuclear weapons, and conclude that we have no choice but to be. However, an alternative reading of our recent past would highlight the facts that we live at a time in which an All-Party Parliamentary Group Against Antisemitism exists and has published a ground-breaking and highly influential report on the issue, a high profile Holocaust denial trial has been fought and won, Holocaust Memorial Day has become part of the UK's annual calendar, learning about the Holocaust has become an established part of the national curriculum, and a controversial decision to provide a platform for the leader of the BNP on the popular TV programme Question Time, resulted in him being ridiculed and humiliated. Viewed from a historical perspective, ours is almost certainly the most accepted and socially-integrated generation in all of Jewish history.

It is possible, indeed it is entirely legitimate, to read our contemporary circumstances in this way, and to situate ourselves on the 'trust' side of the spectrum. That is the side that Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg naturally leans towards – perhaps even feels compelled to lean towards – and I love him for it. It is what allows him to continually invite people into his home, to constantly reach out to those in need both within and beyond his community, and to actively seek out opportunities to engage across political and religious divides. It is what drove him to write to the Chairman of an Orthodox synagogue in his neighbourhood at a time of particular difficulty and sadness within that community, simply to say he was thinking of them. It is what spurred him on during his recent fundraising walk from Frankfurt to London (yes - you read that right - he walked), when he stopped off numerous times on his journey to meet with Christian leaders to discuss with them, in impeccable German, how to heal the centuries-old rifts in Christian-Jewish and German-Jewish relations. It's why he recently wrote to Stephen Lawrence's parents, Doreen and Neville, to let them know that there are people within the Jewish community who feel their pain, and support and respect the tremendous courage and dignity they have shown in their pursuit of justice. And it's what motivates him to be part of London Citizens. It provides a framework for him to genuinely engage with others many of us rarely bother to meet - people from different socio-economic backgrounds, people from different ethnic backgrounds, and yes, even the odd Moslem or two. In each and every one of these instances, there was a possibility that his good intentions may have been spurned or used, and no doubt they have been on several occasions, but how much poorer would our community, indeed our world be, without his profound belief in the good of humankind? If that makes him a “useful idiot,” I aspire to such useful idiocy.

Trust and suspicion are both human imperatives; they are not either/ors. Ultimately, a balance appropriate to the circumstances needs to be struck between them. The wholly suspicious individual values safety above everything, and therefore never engages with anyone outside her closest circle for fear of what may happen, and remains eternally isolated. In her apprehension, she sees only the dangers of caricatures and stereotypes, and loses the opportunity to expand her horizons beyond her warm, all-embracing and protected shell. In contrast, the wholly trustful individual values relationship above everything, and pursues those blindly despite the inherent risks, engaging with everyone and anyone in an on-going and possibly naive pursuit of redemption. In his openness, he sees just human beings, and seeks to build bridges, even when those with whom he is trying to engage are simultaneously blowing those bridges up. It is the rare individual who sits at the extremities of the spectrum, and none of the characters writing, or being written about in the JC situate themselves there; they, and most of us, are more than aware of the foolishness of doing so. But each of us must find our place on that truth/suspicion spectrum; each of us must determine how we are to balance these two imperatives of human existence. And if we find ourselves leaning in one direction or the other, we should listen carefully to the voices on the other side. As my teacher and friend Yonatan Ariel said recently: “You will rob people of the richness of the educational grappling if you don’t bring a range of views to bear. There are idiots on the other side that disagree with you, but I promise you there are also smart people. And I promise you too there are idiots on your side, whatever your side is.”

As for me, fundamentally I choose to situate myself alongside the trusting and inspiring presence of Rabbi Wittenberg, whilst ensuring too that I read the editorial line of the JC from time-to-time. I am no longer young enough to know whether that is the ‘right’ thing to do. But I don't want to live in a world of suspicion, nor do I feel it is necessary to do so. Whilst I fully acknowledge the importance of protecting the interests and security of the community, I don't want my Judaism to be constantly on the defensive. It is possible to play the game by putting everyone behind the ball, but it offers no guarantees and it severely hampers our chances of scoring any goals. And I want a goal-oriented Judaism that is committed to affecting change for the better, determined in its efforts to build a better world, dedicated in its pursuit of justice not just for Jews, but for all humanity. That, I'm afraid, involves taking some risks. Perhaps the most important question facing the Jewish People today is whether or not we are courageous enough to do so?

Tears for Gilad Shalit and Israel

2011-10-18T13:30:00.004+01:00

Sometimes it is just too hard to hold back the tears. Like during the unetaneh tokef of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur when contemplating the simple words “who will live and who will die; who at their predestined time and who not at their predestined time” and trying to come to terms with our extraordinary vulnerability. Or while singing hayom harat olam after hearing the blasts of the shofar on Rosh Hashana – “today is the day of the world’s creation” – and trying to behold just how beautiful our world can sometimes be. Or when watching our young children’s sheer delight on entering the sukkah for the first time and seeing the world for an all too brief moment through their eyes.

And then there is Gilad Shalit’s release. It’s impossible to imagine what he has endured for the past five years and four months since his capture. It seems that he was treated well and has returned in good physical health, but the psychological scars inflicted by living in near solitary confinement and in the knowledge that his life hung in the balance every single moment are just too much to contemplate. What his parents must have been through too is simply unimaginable – to have your own child taken away from you in that way and to live with the constant possibility of tragic news is too horrendous for words. I could not hold back the tears this morning upon hearing the news that he had been safely released; I have never met him or any members of his family, but the relief and gratitude I feel upon his return overwhelms every other emotion. Gilad Shalit is free.

I am aware, of course, that there is another side to his release. 1,027 Palestinian prisoners are also being released, over one hundred of whom are hard core militants. Amongst them include the perpetrator of the Park Hotel bombing in Netanya, who was given 29 life sentences for his despicable crime, as well as many others who contributed to similar atrocities. The tears shed by the friends and families of the victims of these attacks are immeasurable. Not surprisingly, the details of those being released and the 1027:1 ratio has been the cause of much debate and considerable anger in Israel. There can be no doubt whatsoever that the risks involved in this deal are huge; it seems not only likely but probable that Israelis will lose their lives as a result of it. And this is not an isolated incident; Haaretz journalist Bradley Burston notes that the overall ratio in these prisoner exchange deals now stands at 13,509:16.

I have watched the debate from the sidelines for the past week, partly in the media and partly via friends’ postings on Facebook. And amidst all the relief, the anger, the joy, the vengefulness and the often sickening way in which people engage with one another online, I am struck most by the casual nature of discourse about “us” and “them” and “life” and “death”. Some have chosen to quote Hasan Nasrallah’s infamous line – “the Jews love life and we love death” as proof text of the inhumanity of “them”. A dialogue included the insight that whereas “life is cheap for them”, “life is dear to us”. One person almost gleefully noted that even Hamas agrees that 1000 terrorists = 1 Israeli life. Another called for a law to be made now: “for every Israeli kidnapped, we will execute 1,000 terrorists”. Many have called for the death penalty to be instituted in Israel for terrorist acts. And arguably the quote of the week comes from former IDF Chief Rabbi Avihai Rontzki who stated the terrorists like those who killed members of the Fogel family “should just be shot, exterminated. They were terrorists that murdered people and should be killed in their beds". If this is the voice of a Jewish moral authority deserving the title “Chief Rabbi” of anything, then I cry tears of despair for Israel’s future that vastly outweigh any emotions I feel for Gilad Shalit and his family.

There is a culture of death that exists in parts of Islam and the Arab world. It is not all pervasive, it is held only by a small minority, but it is there. There is no question about that. But there is an imperative that sits at the heart of Judaism that holds the opposite position that should be repeated and repeated and repeated again: "I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both you and your seed may live." We cannot change others; only they can do that. But we can live up to the core principles of Judaism – that life trumps death. Every time, in every instance.

I don’t deny for one minute the difficulties that entails sometimes. “Choose life that both you and your seed may live” is not always a simple proposition. But we choose life. That is who we are. We don’t kill people in their beds. We don’t indiscriminately kill 1,000 people, irrespective of who they are and what they have done. And we don’t institute the death penalty. Why? Because we choose life. Every time, in every instance.

If we struggle to hold back the tears of joy we feel on seeing the sheer delight of our own children at play, if we struggle to hold back the tears of anguish we feel as we contemplate the enormity of the words of unetaneh tokef and the vulnerability of our lives, if we struggle to hold back the tears of relief we feel on seeing Gilad Shalit returned to his family, we have no right to deny others the opportunity to shed similar tears. Indeed, we have a responsibility to ensure that our belief in life compels us to guarantee those rights at all times, not just for us, but for all humanity.

In the first interview with Gilad Shalit after his release, he said he missed three things during his captivity – family, friends and freedom. When push comes to shove, they are all that matter. May his release cause us to renew our commitment to ensure that all people – Israelis, Palestinians, and all humanity – are entitled and able to live their lives with these three immeasurable gifts that were denied to him for so long.

Exams and jobs the key concerns: Reflections on the National Jewish Student Survey

2011-10-06T17:47:00.000+01:00

It is difficult to avoid the impression that British universities are a hotbed of anti-Israel sentiment to be approached with considerable caution. The issue has even caught the attention of Matthew Gould, Britain's ambassador to Israel, who has questioned the validity of the hypothesis, and noted that it is deterring Israeli students from studying here.

Our research provides, for the first time, the students' eye view on the issue. In addition to the study of Jewish students, JPR ran a parallel survey of students in general and learned that a majority of those at British universities actually have no feelings either way about Israel. They are neither pro nor anti; they are indifferent.

Of the remainder with an opinion, they are evenly split: half have negative feelings, and half have positive feelings. Only four per cent are "very negative". This supports Israeli ambassador to Britain Daniel Taub's assertion that the impression created by anti-Israel campaigns "is disproportionate to the size and the core of people that are involved".

It may also explain why relatively few Jewish students are worried about the issue: whereas 76 per cent are concerned about passing exams and 69 per cent about finding a job,
38 per cent are worried about anti-Israel sentiment at university. Furthermore, the vast majority are open about their Jewishness on campus.

So while we would be wrong to minimise the issue of anti-Israel sentiment, not least because Jewish students report that it is difficult to talk about Israel at university without inviting some degree of "grief", we should also put it into perspective.

The question of how anti-Israel hostility is reported and tackled is important. The community should be aware of the issues, and those tasked with combating it should be given the support they require to succeed.

However, it should not dominate our view, not least because over-emphasising it appears to be affecting the Jewish identities of this young generation.

They exhibit considerably higher levels of commitment to supporting Israel or combating antisemitism than they do to charitable giving, volunteering or supporting social justice causes, all positive Jewish values of which we, as a people, are rightly proud.

One wonders whether all the apprehension and negativity is causing us to lose sight of the most important questions: who are we, and what contribution should we be making, both to the Jewish and wider world?

(Also published in the Jewish Chronicle)

What kind of Jewish grandchildren will we have?

2011-10-06T13:55:00.000+01:00

Almost twenty years ago, the Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks published a book with a title that asked a provocative and era-defining question: “Will we have Jewish grandchildren?” His work helped to launch an enormous programme of investment in Jewish education in Britain. Since then, Jewish day school enrolment in the mainstream sector has increased by almost 30%, participation in Israel Experience summer tours has averaged at over 1,000 Jewish sixteen year-olds each year, and the community as a whole has witnessed a renaissance of activity that has transformed much of its educational and cultural landscape.

However, twenty years on, we still do not know the answer to his question, and we will have to wait a few more decades before we do. Indeed, one of the great frustrations about education is how difficult it is to evaluate its effects; whilst one can measure knowledge levels, assessing the long-term impact of any educational intervention is a much more complex endeavour. Nevertheless, one of the most important contributions of JPR’s National Jewish Student Survey (NJSS) is that it provides us with some early indicators of how valuable all the investment has been. It may not tell us directly whether or not we will have Jewish grandchildren, but it provides some strong hints to help answer the interim question: will we have Jewish children?

Today’s Jewish students were born when the Chief Rabbi was developing his ideas and beginning to write them up. They have grown up in a Jewish communal environment heavily shaped by his agenda. Indeed, as a cohort, they have probably had more invested in their Jewish development than any previous group in British Jewish history.

So, what is the verdict? In many respects, the news is good. The vast majority of Jewish students feel comfortable with their Jewish identity, and they are open about it on campus. Most have positive feelings about Israel and exhibit a strong sense of Jewish peoplehood. Whilst their levels of Jewish practice diminish a little when they are at university, the shift is not dramatic; they are certainly not displaying signs of throwing away Jewish ritual practice at the first opportunity. Many have wide Jewish social networks and actively choose to live with other Jews when given the chance. In fact, their Jewish profile is strikingly similar to their parents, so if continuity is the long-term goal, the early signs look quite positive.

However, there are aspects of the students’ identity that have raised some eyebrows. Perhaps the most striking is that, despite all the Jewish educational investment in their generation, almost half does no voluntary work for Jewish or non-Jewish charities. Of those who do volunteer, most only do so once a month or less. Furthermore, over a third of Jewish students polled disagreed with the ideas that being Jewish is about volunteering, or donating to charity or supporting social justice causes.

What this suggests is that whilst the messages about Israel and Jewish peoplehood have been heard loud and clear, the notion that being Jewish requires one to make a personal contribution to Jewish and wider society has simply not been internalized to the same extent. It is as if the Judaism they have received has given clear primacy to the campaigning messages of supporting Israel and combating antisemitism over and above the fundamental values-driven behaviours that sit at the heart of Jewish practice.

We should be concerned about this for several reasons. First, it seems likely that young people’s Jewish identities are being shaped more by the negative forces that seek to do damage to the Jewish People than by Judaism’s own positive internal value system. Second, the apparent failure of some young people to understand their individual responsibility to contribute should give pause for thought to those who will rely on this group’s generosity in the future. However, third, and perhaps most important, it raises questions about the nature of this group’s understanding of Jewishness itself. Who are we if we are not actively committed to tikkun olam (repairing the world)? Whilst we may well be on the way towards having Jewish grandchildren, a more pressing question today is what kind of Jewish grandchildren are we going to have?

(Also published in the Jewish News, 6 October 2011)

Home and Away: Jewish journeys towards independence

2011-10-03T18:45:00.001+01:00

JPR's latest report - based on the National Jewish Student Survey that was carried out in February and March this year. Aside from the findings themselves, it positions JPR where I think it ought to be - producing data on issues that are of direct importance to the UK Jewish community, and trying to offer open-ended commentary and questions designed to encourage debate.

Ki Tavo

2011-08-04T10:48:00.002+01:00

“My father was a wandering Aramean, and he went down to Egypt and sojourned there with a small number of people, and there he became a great, mighty and populous nation. And the Egyptians ill-treated us and afflicted us, and they imposed hard labour upon us. So we cried out to the Lord God, God of our fathers, and the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil and our oppression. And the Lord brought us out from Egypt with a strong hand and with an outstretched arm, with great awe, and with signs and wonders. And He brought us to this place, and He gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.”

The Torah tells us that it was this text that we were required to recite at the moment we presented one of the kohanim with the first fruits of our harvest. Why this one? Of all the other obvious possibilities – Sh’ma Yisrael, aseret ha-dibrot – why this text?

In his remarkable book, Zachor, the Jewish historian, Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi z”l, calls this text “capsule history.” In effect, it takes the entire story of the Jewish People, and encapsulates it in just five verses. It deals with our origins, our development as a people, our history of persecution, our deliverance from slavery and our connection with God and the land of Israel. In short, it tells us who we are.

It does all this in an intriguing way. This is not history as we typically understand it today – there is no attempt to analyze historical events in order to establish their veracity or reconstruct precisely what happened to the Jewish People. There’s no detail, no evidence, no data. Instead, it is more accurately characterized as “collective memory” – it is our mythic narrative or shared story. And myths don’t need detail or evidence or data – their purpose is less concerned with truth and fact than it is with identity and purpose.

So, at that moment of great relief and gratitude – a moment when, after months of anxiety, we knew for certain that we would be able to put food on the table to feed our families – we were required to take our first fruits to the Temple and make a public declaration of our identity and purpose. At that moment of satiation, we had to acknowledge that they were not a given. It is as if the Torah recognizes that this was a particularly vulnerable moment for us – a time when the potential for us to forget ourselves and succumb to the ideas that we have control over nature and our needs come first. In order to counteract any such possibility, we were required to remember our origins, our story, and what we had been given by the grace of God.

Our lives today are littered with many similar vulnerable moments when we might forget ourselves. We have so much – personally, communally and nationally. Perhaps most significantly, as a People, we have the State of Israel, and located in the context of history, we have only very recently reaped that particular harvest. Yet so many of us forget ourselves – some forget just what a remarkable gift it is; others forget what it felt like to be ill-treated and afflicted, and that we were given it too by the grace of God. In Temple times, we had this text and custom as a device to counteract any such lapses in memory; what we wouldn’t do for a similar tool today.

(Also published in Reflections)

Child poverty and deprivation in the British Jewish community

2011-03-31T22:24:00.005+01:00

JPR published its report on child poverty and deprivation today. To download it, click here.

Limmud: The Exception That Disproves the Rules

2010-12-01T00:59:00.002Z

There are rules in education. We all know them. Teachers should be trained, qualified and have proven expertise in their field. Students should be guided carefully through a coherent curriculum, and assessed to measure their progress. Content should be divided up logically into disciplines, and determined by recognized authorities. And the entire endeavour should be driven by a vision of an ideal end product – a strong and compelling portrait of the model graduate.

In most instances, Jewish education has assimilated these rules hook, line and sinker. In day schools, universities, adult education initiatives and even summer camps, they exist in force. All Jewish teachers should be qualified; all Jewish students should learn a coherent and organized Jewish studies curriculum; all Jewish texts should be interpreted by Jewish authorities. And all Jewish educational institutions should have a clear and compelling notion of “the educated Jew,” an idealized picture of the type of Jew their institution seeks to mould.

But there is one exception at least, in the world of Jewish adult education, that does things differently and may be rewriting the Jewish educational rule book. Limmud.

From its modest beginnings thirty years ago as a rather amateurish and hastily thrown together conference for a small group of Jewish educators in Britain, Limmud has blossomed into an international network of activity capturing Jewish hearts and minds in over fifty Jewish communities on five continents. Limmud now reaches an estimated 35,000 people every year, attracts some of the most acclaimed Jewish thinkers, artists and activists in the world, and appears to have hit on a unique Jewish educational formula that, somehow, just seems to work.

Viewed simply, a Limmud event is a festival of Jewish life and learning. It is organized almost exclusively by volunteers, it may take place over one day or several, it offers a rich multiplicity of sessions at any moment of any day, and it provides a fabulous opportunity for anybody attending to learn from anybody presenting. Yet this simple description offers little to explain what Limmud represents, and how it may be altering the Jewish world.

Limmud’s tagline – “Wherever you are going, Limmud will take you one step further along your Jewish journey” – is a remarkable statement in two connected respects. First, it instantly establishes an expectation of movement. For Limmud, standing still as a Jew is not an option. However you understand your Jewishness today, that understanding should be challenged and enriched on a continual basis. That principle is applied equally to young and old, as it is to the most and the least learned. Without ever saying this explicitly, one of Limmud’s messages is: No one alone knows the whole Truth. Truths can be found from multiple people in multiple places. Go seek them out.

Second, Limmud does not espouse a particular destination for “your Jewish journey.” No authority figure is telling you – implicitly or explicitly – what specific type of Jew you should become. Unlike most Jewish educational institutions which actively aspire for their students to become more observant, or intellectual, or liberal, or conservative, Limmud simply offers Jews a chance – on their own terms – to become more Jewish. In effect it says: You’re an adult. You know better than us what interests you and what you find meaningful. We trust you. So we’ll create a space within which you will find the most interesting and diverse buffet of Jewish experiences, and invite you to partake. Choose whatever you want. We know your plate won’t resemble anyone else’s. That’s fine. People have different needs and interests. Oh, and we’d love you to bring your own dish to the next buffet so that you can share part of yourself, as others have shared part of themselves this time.

Contrary to the argument of some of its critics, there is nothing parve or bland about this. Indeed, in articulating its mission in this way, Limmud is making a profoundly empowering statement about the future of Jewish life. It is saying: Jewish life is not determined by others. Jewish life is determined by us. Let’s work together, give of ourselves, and make it the way it is meant to be.

Expressed slightly differently, Limmud is offering Jews an opportunity to create and live within Jewish community as they believe Jewish community should be. It is a supremely democratic model of Jewish education: power rests with the community rather than with any singular authority. In a Limmud community, no one is formally defined as “teacher” or “student,” because everyone has something to teach and everyone has something to learn. No one is explicitly categorized as “Orthodox,” “Reform,” “Secular” or “Religious” because people are more complex than that and labels might create barriers that restrict the possibility of dialogue and free engagement. No formal curriculum or linear learning process is set, because adults should be free to determine their own learning, and trusted to seek meaning wherever they might find it. No one determines the singular correct meaning of any text, because everyone is free to interpret every text. And no one is held in particularly high regard because of the size of their financial donation, because everyone who gives something of themselves should be held in equally high regard.

These are challenging ideas. They threaten existing authority. They undermine power bases. They break down walls. And they re-write the Jewish educational rule book. Here’s to thirty more years of the same.

(Also published in The Jerusalem Report)

Parshat Shoftim

2010-08-19T12:56:00.002+01:00

In Parshat Va'etchanan, which we read a few weeks ago, there is a rather strange short interlude in the narrative just before the repetition of the ten commandments, which describes how Moses established "cities of refuge" – places to where the accidental killer can flee and gain sanctuary.

I have often wondered whether the placement of this text is entirely deliberate: the only one of the ten commandments of which Moses himself was actually guilty was lo tirtzach - thou shalt not murder - and after he killed the nameless Egyptian and buried him in the sand, he himself fled to Midian to seek refuge. Some may regard Moses’s violent act as heroic - indeed, it is often portrayed as such - but was Moses haunted by it for his entire life? Did he in some way equate, on the grounds of his belief in the pursuit of justice, his own deliberate killing with an accidental one? And did he, at this critical moment just before reiterating the ten commandments, seek compassion and understanding for his own transgression of one of the laws he was about to decree?

It may be that this week's parsha, Shoftim, adds some fuel to this idea, as it refers once again to the cities of refuge, and includes the famous dictum tzedek tzedek tirdof (justice, justice, shall you pursue). Moreover, parshat shoftim is always read on the first Shabbat of the month of Elul – traditionally the period of reflection and repentance leading up to yamim noraim (the High Holy Days). Indeed, there is a beautiful Chassidic idea that draws a parallel between the cities of refuge and Elul – the former being a sanctuary in space for contemplation and atonement, the latter being a similar sanctuary in time. So at this very particular juncture in the Jewish year, the notions of a sanctuary in time, accidental wrongdoing, and the pursuit of justice coalesce in an intriguing and challenging way, and invite us to steady ourselves on the path to teshuva (repentance).

According to the Rambam, the pathway to a physical city of refuge is meant to be as clear as possible. In the Mishneh Torah, he writes that "the court is obligated to straighten the roads to the cities of refuge, to repair them and broaden them. They must remove all impediments and obstacles ... bridges should be built [over all natural barriers] so as not to delay one who is fleeing [to a city of refuge]. 'Refuge' should be written at every crossroads so that the murderers should recognize the way and turn there." The Chassidic parallel above perhaps leads to a similar conclusion about the temporal refuge that is Elul. Justice in this instance would be for us to clear and repair every possible route to allow those who have done wrong – whether accidentally or deliberately – to be given some respite and a little sanctuary in order to reflect on, and make amends for their actions. We would often like others to make it as easy as possible for us to apologise for our own misdemeanours; but are we making it as easy as possible for them to do likewise for theirs?

Elul is a signpost at a crossroads in our lives. Judaism gives us this brief window in the year to clear the pathways towards our own atonement, and that of others. Many of us live, as perhaps Moses did, under the various weights of misdemeanours committed long ago that were never resolved, and with a longstanding wish for compassion and understanding for that wrongdoing. Now is the time to clear away all the existing impediments and build all the necessary bridges towards achieving those resolutions. Doing so may just bring a little more justice to the world.

(Also published by Limmud).

The Writing on the Wall

2010-08-09T08:22:00.001+01:00

On the face of it, the news coming in from the UK is pretty good. A survey published last week by JPR, the London-based Institute for Jewish Policy Research, showed that 90% of Jews in Britain believe that Israel is “the ancestral homeland of the Jewish people,” 82% consider Israel to play an important, and even central role in their Jewish identities, and 72% categorize themselves as Zionists, in contrast to only 21% who do not. Furthermore, an estimated 95% of Jews in Britain have visited Israel at least once, 77% agree that Jews have “a special responsibility to support Israel” and 87% agree that Jews are responsible for ensuring “the survival of Israel.”

The report, entitled Committed, concerned and conciliatory: The attitudes of Jews in Britain towards Israel, is the result of the most extensive and definitive research ever conducted on this topic, and in its exploration of some of the political views of the Jewish population of Britain, it contains findings that will warm the hearts of those both on the left and the right of the political spectrum. The dovishness of the community comes across very clearly: 67% favour giving up territory for peace; 74% are opposed to the expansion of existing settlements in the West Bank, and perhaps most strikingly, 52% think that Israel “should negotiate with Hamas in its efforts to achieve peace.” However, at the same time, the hawkishness of the community is also apparent: 72% consider the separation fence/security barrier “vital for Israel’s security” and the same percentage viewed Operation Cast Lead as “a legitimate act of self-defence.” Furthermore, fully 87% of respondents believe that “Iran represents a threat to Israel’s existence.”

We struggled with how to interpret this combination of dovishness and hawkishness when we were initially analyzing the data, but on reflection, came to the conclusion that, in many respects, the apparent paradox captures perfectly the nature of Israel’s ongoing dilemma. The peace versus security equation needs to be balanced on a daily basis; most overtures towards peace involve taking risks on security, and most clamp-downs on security involve damaging prospects for peace. What Jews in Britain are saying – in much the same way as Israelis are saying – is that we want both.

The findings were greeted positively by the British Jewish community’s best known newspaper, the Jewish Chronicle, which ran with the headline “UK Jewish bond with Israel as strong as ever.” Whilst it is distinctly possible to read the data in that way, my personal view is that there are signs of considerable disquiet in the findings, which indicate that all is not quite as rosy as some would like to believe.

Consider the following. In our investigation of the state of Israeli society, 67% agree that there is “too much corruption in Israel’s political system.” Approximately 6 out of 10 believe that both Jewish and non-Jewish minorities in Israel “suffer from discrimination.” Three-quarters think that “Orthodox Judaism has too much influence in Israel’s society” and that includes, surprisingly perhaps, almost half of those who self-define as “Religious.” Each of these findings suggests that a majority of Jews in Britain is looking at these aspects of Israeli society and struggling in some way to reconcile the realities they see with the values they believe ought to underpin a Jewish state. Perhaps it is the allegations against Ehud Olmert or Moshe Katzav, perhaps it is the growing alienation of Arab Israelis, perhaps it is the stranglehold Orthodox authorities have over the conversion process, but whatever the reason, it is clear that these types of difficult issues are leading some Jews in Britain to view Israel through quite critical eyes.

There’s more. A clear majority considers Israel to be “an occupying power in the West Bank.” 40% do not think that Israeli control of the West Bank is vital for Israel’s security. 43% do not believe that Israel has “little or no choice in most of the military action it takes.” And one-third thinks that Israel holds either as much responsibility – or even more responsibility – for the failures of the peace process than its neighbours.

To date, none of this appears to be eating away at the foundations of the relationship Jews in Britain have with Israel. On the fundamentals, the support is still overwhelming. But below the surface, there is evidence to suggest that a significant number of people are starting to ask some probing questions. One can only guess at what the long-term impact will be, but we should not rule out the possibility that the currently strong foundations might begin to crumble in the years to come. Right now, Jews in Britain remain deeply tied to Israel; the future, however, looks far less certain.

(This article was also published in The Jerusalem Post)

The JPR Israel Survey: Key Headlines

2010-07-19T11:37:00.002+01:00

While there are plenty of sensationalist headlines in the findings of JPR’s new Israel Survey, it is extremely important that we do not miss the big picture view of Jews in Britain that the data reveal. Here, there are three overwhelming messages which, together, paint an important and, in many respects, compelling portrait of our community.

The first is that, as a community, we really care about Israel. Almost all of us have visited the country, for most of us it forms an important, even central part of our Jewish identity, and many of us regard it as the ancestral homeland of the Jewish people. That doesn’t detract from our Britishness – most of us have strong British identities and feel comfortable living here – but the fact that Israel exists so powerfully within our Jewish identities goes a considerable way towards explaining why it stirs our emotions in the way that it so often does. It is personal; Israel is a part of who we are. We share in its successes, it hurts us when it is in pain, and it disturbs us when we see it fall short of the standards we would wish it to uphold.

The second is that we really want peace. A clear majority believes in territorial compromise and the two-state solution, and three-quarters of us are opposed to the expansion of settlements. Perhaps because we have been to Israel and seen it for ourselves, perhaps because so many of us have friends and family living there, perhaps because peace is a central value in Jewish tradition, we desperately want to see the country at peace. Indeed, we are so eager to see Israel reconcile its differences with the Palestinians that just over half of us are willing – albeit rather reluctantly and tentatively – to accept the Israeli government conducting negotiations with Hamas, an organization that has, in the very recent past, committed all manner of terrorist atrocities against Israelis. There is something truly extraordinary about that finding, and it should be understood primarily as an indication of just how much Jews in Britain want to see Israel at peace.

The third is that we are very concerned about Israel, in two respects. On the one hand, most of us support the security fence, most regarded Operation Cast Lead in Gaza as “a legitimate act of self-defence,” and almost all of us are deeply worried about the potential threat posed by Iran’s rhetoric and nuclear ambitions. Again, perhaps because we have such strong and personal connections with Israel, perhaps because the memories of Jewish persecution and attacks on Israel continue to be so potent and vivid, we want to ensure that Israelis are safe, and able to live their lives free from the threats of terrorism and hostile attack. There is no evidence to suggest that these attitudes are motivated by anything other than a simple wish to see Israelis live in security.

However, a majority also has real concerns about some of the internal aspects of Israeli society. Whilst most feel that Israel’s democracy is alive and well, many of us are disturbed, for example, about political corruption in the country, and discrimination against both Jewish and non-Jewish minorities. The primary motivation underlying this type of disquiet seems to be that we want Israel to be a country of which we can be proud, and one that lives up to the moral pronouncements included, for example, in its Declaration of Independence.

In essence, the survey findings show that Jews in Britain care deeply about Israel. We are very eager to see it at peace, and are concerned both about the external security threats it faces, as well as the internal issues that seem to weaken some of the values that underpinned the State’s creation. In many respects, respondents have captured perfectly the heart of the dilemma faced by Israel on a day-to-day basis. There is a difficult and precarious balance to be achieved between peace and security, and any compromise Israel makes on either side of that equation has an impact on the other. What Jews in Britain are saying – in much the same way as Israelis are saying – is that we want both.

This article first appeared in The Jewish Telegraph. The report can be accessed here.

The Moral Imperative

2010-06-07T16:12:00.033+01:00

"Let me get this straight: Israel just killed humanitarian workers in international waters, and the author has the nerve to call that provocation? Unbelievable."

So writes one individual in response to one of the many journalistic attempts to defend Israel's position in the recent Gaza flotilla affair.

Let's be clear: we are losing the PR battle. Badly. Read the international press, read the talkbacks all over the Internet, witness the worldwide demonstrations, listen to international government statements, watch the TV coverage. It all points in one clear direction: Israel is either becoming, or has already become, morally bankrupt.

Those of us who know Israel well know that such a perception is far from the truth. The country has its faults certainly, and many of the concerns that are being expressed by its close friends around the world are entirely legitimate. Israel needs to clean up its act in all sorts of ways. But, let's not deny that the country is also in an impossible situation that no other nation state could better tolerate or manage. It is being goaded time and time again by those who wish to destroy it, and the tactics that are being employed against it are becoming increasingly clever, sophisticated and dangerous. Yet all of our attempts to re-write the headlines are failing. And miserably so.

Why? In short, because we are operating in defensive mode. Time and again, the headlines are written and the storyline is sealed before we have time to present our version of reality. And when the initial victims of the story are starving Palestinians or abused human rights activists, we do not stand a chance. There is right and wrong in this world, and those deserving the most support are people denied their human rights and attacked by military force. In the eyes of the world, those people are not us.

It is time to change strategy. It is time to move into attacking mode. Not with weaponry, tanks and the pursuit of terrorists, but with wisdom, courage and the pursuit of justice. It is time to write the story that we want to tell, generate the headlines that we want to generate, show the images that we want to show. It is time to respond to Haaretz journalist Anshel Pfeffer’s cry to Diaspora Jewry to tell Israel why it has erred and what to do about it. And, most importantly, it is time to reclaim and live the human rights agenda as a core part of our heritage, our values, and our fundamental way of being. Some of us may well have been trying to do that, but the world’s reaction to the Gaza flotilla affair demonstrates more clearly than ever that we have completely failed.

What does an attacking strategy based on the moral imperative entail? Here are my suggestions:

1) A National Moral Ombudsman

In response to all the criticism that has been levelled against the Israeli government and the IDF in recent years (think Gaza flotilla, think Operation Cast Lead, think Lebanon 2006) Israel should establish a new position of National Moral Ombudsman. It should be held by someone of great standing in the Jewish and wider worlds – perhaps a Nobel Prize winner. Or perhaps it is better structured as a committee of several such people. Either way, the job is (a) where possible, to ensure that all moral issues have been appropriately considered prior to any military action, and, without necessarily having a veto, to approve or disapprove such action accordingly; and (b) where not possible, to examine all of Israel’s military activity on moral grounds after the event and, as a matter of course, publish the findings.

Inevitably, some will argue that this happens anyway - it's the role of the Supreme Court and/or the State Comptroller - and they may well be right. But we need to create a new position or bolster the existing ones for two main reasons: first, Israel needs to make a clear statement about just how seriously it takes its moral responsibilities; and second, it needs to put in place appropriate mechanisms that will limit the possibility of it succumbing to the all-too-real temptations and dangers of unnecessary force.

2) An international Jewish humanitarian aid initiative

It appears that whilst the aid provided by Israel meets the UN-set minimum guidelines of 1,800 calories per-person per-day, it lacks sufficient protein and, as a result, malnutrition is a serious issue. Let me just clarify that: under the terms of the Fourth Geneva Convention, the State of Israel is legally responsible for Gaza, and whilst the people of Gaza are not starving, they are becoming sick in part because the quality of aid we are providing is insufficient.

So let's recruit world Jewry to help solve the problem. Let's work with the Israeli government to create a new international Jewish humanitarian aid initiative or organization. There are several of these already, but we need them either to come together, or to build a new one. Let’s build an international Jewish effort – in close collaboration with the Israeli government and the UN – to ensure that the UN’s recommendations about both the amount of aid and the quality of aid are met. We cannot fully control how (or indeed whether) that aid is appropriately distributed (Hamas or others may choose to undermine our efforts), but let’s make sure that we - the State of Israel and the Jewish People - are doing all in our collective power to ensure that the people of Gaza are receiving enough food of sufficient quality, and let's put a clear and unambiguous end to any suggestion that this is not the case.

3) Create “Habitat for Humanity” in Gaza

Habitat for Humanity is an American charity that enables volunteers to build homes for, and in partnership with, the impoverished. So let’s set up a similar initiative with and for the people of Gaza. Let’s recruit Jews from Israel and the Diaspora, together with Palestinians from Gaza, the West Bank and elsewhere, to rebuild Gaza. Let’s partner with the PA, the State of Israel and the UN and pull in architects, engineers, town planners, builders, plumbers, electricians, painters and decorators to do what needs to be done. There are all sorts of security concerns associated with such a venture of course, but any attempt to sabotage an effort like this is likely to be seen as utterly contemptible. And maybe, just maybe, by working on such a project together, a whole set of new relationships might emerge which would dramatically alter perceptions on both sides of the current divide.

4) Up the ante on the Gilad Shalit campaign

Let’s involve every synagogue, every JCC and matnas, every Jewish school, every Jewish organization throughout the Jewish world in this one. Let’s encourage them to send, or, if possible, personally deliver a small aid package every single day to either the United Nations, the International Red Cross or the Hamas government, with a simple request that it be delivered directly to Gilad Shalit. Let’s generate maximum press, let’s monitor exactly what happens, and let’s see if we can’t change attitudes and opinions throughout the world. But fundamentally, let’s free Gilad Shalit. We did it for Soviet Jewry; now let’s do it for him.

5) Create a “No Hate Speech” certificate

Similar to a kashrut certificate in kosher restaurants, and along the same lines as the Tav Chevrati certificate that is now being awarded to Israeli restaurants, cafes and wedding halls that abide by certain guidelines regarding workers’ rights. In this instance, the no hate speech certificate would be awarded to Israeli and Jewish public bodies – charities, NGOs, Israeli government institutions, educational institutions – that abide by a new set of guidelines concerning the manner in which other people (Jews and non-Jews) are spoken about or represented. To gain the certificate, organizations would have to commit to a no hate speech agenda; certified organizations would be listed as “kosher” on a specially-created website, and would be entitled to use the no hate speech kite mark on any of their publications or publicity.

6) Establish an online dialogue initiative

Every Israeli, every Jew, every Palestinian and every Muslim with a Facebook page should seek to build social links with one another on Facebook. Let’s use the Internet tools that exist to bridge divides, establish links and encourage dialogue. And let’s sing about that from the rooftops. Let’s put advertisements in the international press, sponsored by major Jewish organizations, the Israeli government and Israeli NGOs, saying and demonstrating as clearly as possible, “We Want To Talk.”

Those are my ideas. Some are more practicable than others, and no doubt many people will put up all sorts of barriers to prevent them from gathering steam. You may knock them down with pleasure, but in doing so, come up with better ones that similarly abide by both of the underlying principles in each case: first, the absolute centrality of the Jewish moral imperative within each initiative; and second, the public relations exercise designed to highlight the centrality of the Jewish moral imperative within each initiative.

If we want to see a secure Israel, a supported Israel and a successful Israel, we have to do three things: (1) publicly announce that we are on the side of justice; (2) demonstrate precisely how we are on the side of justice; and (3) genuinely be on the side of justice. We have to overcome our fears, our insecurities and our prejudices, and we have to take some courageous steps that are fundamentally grounded in Judaism's moral imperatives - to be a goy kadosh, a mamlechet kohanim and an or l'goyim. Security will come by building relationships with others, support will come by creating opportunities to partner in shared moral endeavour, and success will come by having the courage to live up to our most fundamental values. We can do no more and no less.

(Also published on Haaretz Makom)

Media Commentary on the Gaza Flotilla

2010-06-03T16:48:00.037+01:00

Aside from all the stuff about the boats, the activists, the aid, the terrorists, the IDF, the weapons, the Israeli government, the Turks, the UN, etc., etc., one of the most extraordinary things about this whole affair has been the struggle to win the PR battle. Here is a selection of articles that I have seen (thanks to everyone who shared these with me, especially Jono Rose, who deserves a major chunk of the credit for this as he posted several of them on Facebook, and also to Doubi Schwartz for pointing me in the direction of a handful of others). This began as an exercise in collecting together a number of articles that struck me as interesting; it has become a means of recording media coverage of the whole affair. Just for the record, I don't agree with every view expressed; I have simply tried to include as many different perspectives as possible.

Margaret Atwood, “The Shadow over Israel” (Haaretz)

Gershon Baskin, "Israel's Gaza policy has strengthened Hamas" (Jerusalem Post)

Peter Beinart, "Israel's Indefensible Behavior" (The Daily Beast)

Aluf Benn, "Israel needs national enquiry into deadly Gaza flotilla clashes" (Haaretz)

Andrew Bolt, “Boatloads of bloody-minded pacifists” (Daily Telegraph, Australia)

Bradley Burston, "The Second Gaza War: Israel Lost at Sea" (Haaretz)

Nick Cohen, "Sympathise with Israel, but not the blockade" (The Guardian)

Robi Damelin, "In response to the recent events" (unpublished)

Alan Dershowitz, “Israel’s Actions Were Lawful Though Probably Unwise” (Hudson New York)

Editorial: Israel and the aid covoys: How to make enemies" (The Guardian)

Editorial: “Turkey’s Erdogan bears responsibility in flotilla fiasco” (Washington Post)

George Friedman, “Flotillas and the Wars of Public Opinion” (Stratfor Global Intelligence)

Thomas Friedman, “The Ballgame and the Sideshow” (NY Times)

Thomas Friedman, “When Friends Fall Out” (New York Times)

Leslie H. Gelb, "Israel Was Right" (The Daily Beast)

Jeffrey Goldberg, "On the Disappearance of Jewish Wisdom, Far Out At Sea" (The Atlantic)

Marc Gopin, “A note on the disconnect of world opinion and parochial Jewish opinions on the Flotilla tragedy, and what the future holds” (Unpublished)

Daniel Gordis, “The Storm Ahead” (Unpublished)

Hanan Greenberg, “Hamas refuses to allow aid into the Gaza Strip” (YNet)

David Grossman, “The Gaza flotilla attack shows how far Israel has declined” (Guardian)

Amos Harel, “Straight Into The Trap” (Haaretz)

Harris, Shabi and Beaumont, "Gaza flotilla attack: A week that changed Middle East politics" (The Observer)

Donniel Hartman, “Using Prepared Scripts after Gaza Flotilla Seizure Perpetuates Hateful Rhetoric (Shalom Hartman Institute)

Charles Krauthammer, "Those Troublesome Jews" (The Washington Post)

Bernard-Henri Levy, “Recent entries in my diary” (Haaretz)

Charles Levinson and Jay Solomon, “Israel’s Isolation Deepens” (Wall Street Journal)

Gideon Levy, “Israel has no opposition and no alternative” (Haaretz)

Michel Oren, "An Assault, Cloaked in Peace" (New York Times)

Amos Oz, “Israeli Force Adrift At Sea” (New York Times)

George Packer, “Israel takes the bait” (The New Yorker)

Ilan Pappe, "The deadly closing of the Israeli mind" (The Independent)

Ethan Perlson, "Bibi's unlikely new fan club" (The Daily Beast)

Anshel Pfeffer, "In its hour of need, Israel was let down by the Diaspora" (Haaretz)

Political Desk, IRGC Navy ready to escort Gaza-bound aid convoys (Tehran Times)

Robert L. Pollock, “Erdogan and the Decline of the Turks” (Wall Street Journal)

Queen Rania of Jordan, “Hardliners are now the face of Israel” (The Independent)

Seth Rose, “Israel had no choice over Gaza flotilla” (Guardian)

M. J. Rosenberg, “Lying About the Gaza Flotilla Disaster” (Political Correction)

Ari Shavit, “Fiasco on the High Seas” (Haaretz)

Jacob Shrybman, "Debunking the Gaza Siege Myth" (Huffington Post)

Brian Stelter, “Videos Carry On The Fight Over Sea Raid” (New York Times)

Amir Taheri, "Propoaganda war latest: Tehran 3 Israel 0" (The Times)

Joshua Teitelbaum, “Turkey is calling for a jihad against Israel” (The Guardian)

Khaled Abu Toameh, “Turkey’s Support of Hamas Worries PA” (Jerusalem Post)

Michael J. Totten, "So How About That Blockade?" (Commentary)

Leon Wieseltier, "Operation Make The World Hate Us" (The New Republic)

Michael Sean Winters, "Judging Israel" (National Catholic Reporter)

Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg, message to his community (New North London Synagogue)

Yagna and Liss, “Israeli Arab MKs face growing wave of death threats” (Haaretz)

Associated Press, “Egypt Restricts Marriage to Israelis” (Jerusalem Post)

The Daily Mash, "Israel Just Making it Easier for Guardian Readers to Look Good"

Haaretz service: Turkish paper releases ‘censored’ photos of beaten Israeli commandos (Haaretz)

Times Online, "Gaza flotilla deaths: The World Reacts"

Turkish press: ‘Censored’ photos of beaten Israeli commandos (Hurriyet)

And here's one from me: Time to write A New Story

Time to write A New Story

2010-06-01T00:29:00.007+01:00

It really was a no-win situation from the outset. What do you do with a flotilla of ships carrying activists bent on bringing humanitarian aid to Gaza, but determined, above all, to score a public relations victory against Israel’s blockade? Turn them away? Then Israel stands accused of preventing humanitarian aid from reaching Gazans, and the parallels with historical episodes like the St. Louis or the Exodus are easily, although spuriously drawn. Offer them the chance to dock at an Israeli port? Then they probably refuse, and, if forced, the parallels with historical episodes like the St. Louis or the Exodus again are easily, and again, spuriously drawn. Allow them in? Then the blockade is broken, running the risk of armaments entering the territory, and Israeli civilians being put in danger. Risk face-to-face confrontation? Then people are killed, Israel stands accused of bungling operations and using disproportionate force, the UN goes into overdrive, and a raft of international condemnation comes sailing in, docking happily at every major media portal and outlet across the world.

You have to admire the organisers of the flotilla for that. The purpose of the exercise was only ostensibly to bring humanitarian aid to Gazans; it was really designed to score a public relations victory by telling a story. And the story is a compelling one: the innocent Gazan people need humanitarian aid which the guilty Israelis have been refusing to give them. So the innocent, well-meaning social activists tried to break the blockade and bring the aid themselves, and in response they were met with extreme Israeli brutality which resulted in several fatalities. It’s a great headline-grabbing story, and it achieves perfect full-colour black and white results: Gaza = oppressed, denied, victim; Israel = violent, inhumane, murderer. Viewed from a certain perspective, this whole episode was a brilliantly scripted reality TV show, which ensured that, however the story unfolded, the result was in the bag from the moment the flotilla set sail.

This time, at least, Israel was prepared. They knew about the flotilla weeks in advance, so they had plenty of time to plan. And plan they clearly did. They played through the various scenarios, and were determined not to lose the PR battle. They filmed an Israeli Naval officer addressing a ship and offering to let it dock in Ashdod. They filmed the Israeli troops as they landed on the ships, and quickly released the footage of them being quite viciously attacked. They had footage from the air, footage from the sea, they added explanatory subtitles in English, and got it out to the waiting international media within hours. But, in spite of all this, the condemnation kept coming.

On Facebook, Israel’s supporters also went quickly into overdrive. Armed with Israel’s film footage (quickly available on YouTube), they shared it with friends, found new footage on MEMRI TV, wrote articles and blogs, shared insights, passed comments, etc., all of which was designed to quickly re-write the narrative. But, in spite of all this, the condemnation kept coming.

Why? Why is it that, whatever Israel does, it is condemned? Even when the footage seems to be crystal clear, it makes no difference. They attacked us, yet we are criticized for trying to defend ourselves???

The condemnation keeps coming because of the power of The Story. The dominant narrative surrounding the Palestinians, Gaza, humanitarian aid, occupation, check points, human rights abuses, has Israel clearly cast as the bad guy. That casting is certainly not without some justification. The Israeli response to the threat posed by the flotilla may well have been inappropriate and disproportionate. That it was bungled is completely self-evident. The Israeli actions in Operation Cast Lead in 2008-9 could be similarly criticized. But there are two sides involved in this conflict, and its rights and wrongs are far from being black and white. It remains complex and nuanced, and neither party has justice exclusively on its side. Quite simply, it’s messier than that.

But Israel’s consistent mistake is to try to fight back against The Story. Every time the conflict escalates, the same pattern emerges. The pictures quickly tell The Story. The Story makes it perfectly clear who is in the right and it isn’t Israel. So immediately, the Israeli government, the military, social and political commentators, not to mention the army of Facebook activists, go into reactive defensive mode, trying to tell a different story. And each time they fail because The Story won the battle from the first moment it was told.

Perhaps it is time to change tactics. Instead of reacting to events and going into defensive mode to try to fight back against The Story, maybe it’s time to go into proactive and attacking mode and write The New Story. Maybe it’s time to take our fate into our own hands. Maybe it’s time to stop feeling powerless, and to create our own new sources of power. Maybe it’s time to put an end to the endless condemnation that seems to come with greater and greater force from every corner of the globe. (Blimey, that almost reads like a speech from the First Zionist Congress...)

I suggest taking the offensive on three fronts. First, there is a PR battle to be won. But it won’t be won by simply trying to defend ourselves against The Story. We need to actively create The New Story. We need to write our own script, and create ways to make it live and breathe on an international scale. The villains in The New Story should not be difficult to construct: in general, the world isn’t exactly fond of Islamic extremists, and there are, after all, one or two living in our backyard. And it’s not as if we don’t have a few good men of our own. It’s just that we can’t afford to wait for earthquakes in Haiti to unveil them; we have to put them in front of the camera as often as possible, in motion pictures that are of our own making, not in response to those made by others.

Second, and far more importantly, we need to go on the moral offensive. Going into attacking mode needn’t only involve helicopter gunships, M-16s and rubber bullets. It could also draw on Judaism’s moral imperatives. There are probably countless ways to take the moral high ground, and I have no doubt that others could come up with better ideas than this, but how about a vast international effort – involving Jews in the Diaspora and Israel working in partnership with as many Palestinians as possible – to rebuild Gaza? How about joining together to construct new homes, schools, hospitals, community centres and industries in the area, in order to change the face of the region? How about turning a conflict based on "us" and "them" into a cooperative venture based on "us"? Idealistic nonsense? Perhaps, but I seem to remember that’s what they called Zionism a hundred or so years ago too.

Come to think of it, maybe an effort of this type would end up becoming The New Story. Maybe it would demonstrate that Israelis and Diaspora Jews can in fact come together with the Palestinian people to undertake a massive project to solve the century-old conflict. Maybe it would generate a totally different set of headlines in the international media. Maybe it would alter the discourse at the United Nations. Maybe it would sideline Hamas and reveal its members to be the bigoted extremists that at least some of them are (particularly if they try to undermine the efforts). Maybe it would bring new cause to the Jewish world, and help to foster a renewed sense of energy and collective spirit in the Jewish people. Maybe it would create opportunities for genuine dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians, Jews and Muslims, and create an unprecedented sense of understanding and mutual respect. Maybe it - or a similar type of project - is worth a try, if only to attempt to engineer a shift from Israeli reactive powerlessness to proactive power.

Oh yes – I nearly forgot. The third front. Look, I know Israel didn’t qualify, and even though the USA did, most Americans barely noticed, but I want to suggest that we all watch the World Cup this summer. If we do, we are likely to notice that few, if any teams, play with all eleven players in defence. The reason for this is that doing so would result, at best, in a draw (that’s a “tie” if you’re American). The message is clear: you don’t win anything if you only concentrate on defence. That’s why most, if not all teams, dedicate at least a few players to attack as well. That way, they have a fighting chance of actually scoring a goal or two. We Jews may just have something to learn from that. Just a thought.

Creativity by Critique: The Unseen Force Behind Innovation

2010-04-08T19:17:00.005+01:00

During the year I spent studying in Israel after I graduated high school, I learned an organizational planning formula that consisted of three simple words: vision, critique, method. The formula maintained that any successful communal endeavor requires all three components: a clear and compelling idea of what ought to be, a sharp and engaging critique of what actually is, and a clear plan of how to get from the latter to the former. I have always found it clear, simple, and concise, and for that reason, have returned to it time and again in my work.

Studying and working the past twenty years in London, Jerusalem, Paris, and New York, I have come to appreciate that the notion of vision is essential; it is almost impossible to engage seriously in conversations about Jewish education or community development without questions about vision emerging. The existential vision question (how should the Jewish world be?), as well as the organizational vision question (in what ways does my initiative establish an element of that ideal in reality?), have increasingly become part of normative Jewish educational discourse. Similarly, in the arena of method, analysis, discourse and training focusing on what to do or how to do it are ubiquitous both within and beyond the Jewish world.

However, serious thinking seems to be lacking when it comes to the concept of critique. This is unfortunate because critique may be the primary emotional driver of innovation. By critique I do not simply mean objective analysis of the problem to be solved, but, more importantly, subjective and affective experience of Jewish reality. The decision, for example, to create Limmud — the annual pluralist British Jewish educational conference — was inspired in part by a strong critique: shared feelings of frustration with the British Jewish establishment, the staid Jewish educational scene, and the lack of cross-communal dialogue and exchange.

Other more recent innovations in the U.K. similarly contain within them a powerful and motivating critique of supposed reality. Indeed Jewdas, an innovative and controversial Jewish cultural and educational organization that has become known for events like its “radical cosmopolitan yeshiva,” “PunkPurim,” and a film festival called “Treifspotting,” wears its critique clearly on its sleeve. In many respects, its underlying motivation, and certainly its notoriety, comes from its edgy and often subversive critique of the mainstream community establishment. It rejects community obsessions like “defending the State of Israel and making Jewish babies,” and draws instead for its inspiration from the anarchist and socialist heritage of London’s early twentieth century Jewish East End. Its leadership has even been arrested on occasion: suffice to say not everyone regards the distribution of tongue-in-cheek leaflets promoting the “Protocols of the Elders of Hackney party” at a major public communal event very funny.

Grassroots Jews is another, albeit far less controversial, example. A new spiritual and learning community that began in part because of a clear dissatisfaction with synagogue services on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, it has actively taken Judaism out of the synagogue and relocated it within informal spaces — people’s homes, Bedouin tents, villas in Tuscany — and has replaced authoritarian and hierarchical models of leadership with far more democratic and collaborative ones. In so doing, it has been partly inspired by an acute critique of the community’s assumptions about the meaning of belonging or affiliation, the neat denominational boxes that comprise its essential structure, and its existing funding models. And its efforts are yielding results: it is offering serious and compelling Judaism and is attracting some of the community’s most passionate and dynamic young adults.

The jury is still out on the latest arrival on the innovation scene, NuMa, but again, the underlying critique is barely concealed beneath the activity. The organizational name says it all — NuMa comes from the Hebrew “Nu… Mah?” which can be loosely translated as “So… what are you going to do about it?!” NuMa’s definition of the “it” is a distinct lack of creative passion in the community, and the organization exists to encourage new thinking and to build networks of people that might work together to instigate new initiatives. The people drawn to it tacitly or explicitly share a critique: the Jewish community is simply not sufficiently well set up to respond to the real problems and challenges that confront us.

The hypothesis emerging out of all three of these examples might be expressed thus: behind every innovation, there is a stinging, convincing, heartfelt, and personal critique. This is not the same as objective analytical criticism. Intellectual analysis clearly differs from emotional critique, and in the context of understanding innovation, what may be really essential to understand is the psychological impact of negative experience. While intellectual objective criticism is certainly valuable, it is rarely associated directly with innovation. Anecdotally, it seems that many of the best innovators feel personally disappointed, aggrieved, angry, short-changed or frustrated about something on a subjective level, and then channel that emotional energy into something that serves as a corrective.

There are other factors, of course, that will inspire individuals and groups to innovate: the desire to belong, the quest for power, the drive to succeed. But underlying it all may be the personal experience or narrative that generates passion for change. Understanding more about that may help us to identify at least one of the jigsaw puzzle pieces of effective innovation.

(Also published in Sh'ma)

The Choosing People

2010-03-09T15:43:00.002Z

Simon Rocker at the Jewish Chronicle has made the following comment about JPR's latest publication, "New Conceptions of Community."

“The traditional Jewish community, bounded by a combination of external hostility and limitations and internal comfort and familiarity, has had its walls battered, breached and broken, not so much by antisemitism but rather by the winds of sociological change. We are now free to come and go as we please.

“…In many respects, we are no longer a chosen people, compelled by God, or fate, or history to be part of the Jewish community, but rather a choosing people, deciding day-by-day, minute-by-minute whether or not we want our Jewishness to inform our lives.”

So writes Jonathan Boyd, executive director of the Insititute for Jewish Policy Reseach in the introduction to a collection of short essays on changing Jewish society and the challenges ahead.

Contributors to New Conceptions of Community range from chief executive of the London School of Jewish Studies Raphael Zarum to Reform executive director Rabbi Shoshana Boyd-Gelfand to Moishe House musician Joseph Finlay. Worth a look.

To see the JC post, click here. To download the publication, click here.

20 Ideas to Transform Jewish Community Life

2010-02-24T12:06:00.004Z

Miriam Shaviv, the Foreign Editor of the Jewish Chronicle, invited me to contribute one idea to a series she plans to publish on her JC blog entitled "20 ideas to transform Jewish community life". Each working day in March, she will be publishing a short piece by a different communal figure with one original, innovative suggestion for British Jewry.

Here's my contribution:

A Sukkah in Trafalgar Square

Throughout Sukkot, there ought to be a sukkah in Trafalgar Square. The bigger, the better – halachically, a sukkah can be too low or too high, but there are no restrictions on its length or breadth. It would be staffed by Jewish volunteers and serve as a temporary shelter and soup kitchen – a place for the homeless to come during the day or night for a free hot meal.

Why? First, because a sukkah is a temporary dwelling, a fragile place of refuge that reminds us, in part, of our own vulnerability. Sukkot itself is also a temporary experience – a brief period in the year when we are not protected by the walls, roofs, locks and alarm systems that, for many of us, have become part of our daily existence. In contrast, homelessness is not a temporary state – it is a permanent reality. Could we take a symbol of our own homelessness and exposure, and turn it into a shelter for those who need no symbolic reminders of what it means to have no home or to feel exposed?

Second, the notion of sukkah as soup kitchen bridges the particular and the universal. It both celebrates the particular simcha of a Jewish holiday, and extends our hearts and hands out into the wider world. It actualizes what the sociologist Peter Berger calls “cognitive negotiation,” or what Samson Raphael Hirsch called torah im derech eretz. It helps to cultivate Jews who care about the internal and the external, who are capable of dealing simultaneously with our own challenges and those that beset humanity as a whole.

Third, it clearly associates Judaism with social justice. It makes a clear public statement. To be Jewish is to take responsibility, to reach out to others, to affect change, to create places on earth in which God’s presence can dwell. It demonstrates – in a tangible and genuine way – how Jewish ideas and symbols can, and should be interpreted for good. At a time when religion generally is often associated with violence and extremism, it offers a dramatically different perspective. It should not cost much to set up, but its practical and symbolic value could be immense.

(Also available on the website of the Jewish Chronicle. The JC later published a summary of several of the ideas, and Tablet, an American Jewish daily online magazine, also featured it).

Your People Shall Be My People: What is the Big Theory of Jewish Peoplehood?

2010-02-17T10:59:00.005Z

Podcast of the session I co-presented with Yonatan Ariel at the Limmud conference at Warwick University in December 2009.

Click here to listen.

Jewish Community 2.0: How the Internet may be changing the face of Jewish life

2010-02-17T10:33:00.003Z

It must have been in the early or mid-1990s. I was sitting in my 80-something great-uncle’s kitchen chatting with him over a cup of tea, when he asked me a question that completely stumped me. ‘What’s the Internet?’

I seem to recall that I mumbled something about it being a kind of online magazine with lots of information about more or less everything, but the truth was I really did not know. I had never surfed the net, had no idea what a search engine was, and had only very recently been introduced to the wonders of email. Trying to imagine a similar conversation in 2010, it is difficult enough to conjure up an image of an eighty year-old who is not at least vaguely familiar with the rudiments of the technology, never mind someone in their mid-twenties as I was at the time.

The organized Jewish community may not be known for being at the cutting edge of technological innovation, but it has embraced much of it. Email use has become all-pervasive, organizational websites are a community-wide norm, and there is increasing use of social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace. However, while there is plenty of evidence of the Jewish community’s embrace of technology, scant attention has been paid to how the Internet may be altering its contours, shape and nature.

Nevertheless, the growing literature on how the Internet may be impacting society as a whole raises some challenging questions for the Jewish community. Regardless of whether analysts ultimately see new technologies as a force for good or bad, they do appear to agree on one key point: the mere existence of the Internet alters our lives in ways we are only just beginning to comprehend. Indeed, two leading commentators with dramatically different views – Jean Twenge, professor of psychology at San Diego State University, and Don Tapscott, researcher, best-selling author and teacher at the University of Toronto – have gone so far as to suggest that the generation born after the late 1970s/early 1980s that grew up with the Internet, should actually be labelled the ‘iGeneration’ or ‘Net Generation’ because of its influence on them. Twenge is a pessimist: her research leads her to conclude that the iGeneration can be characterized by its narcissistic, disrespectful and miserable nature.[1] Tapscott, in contrast, paints a highly optimistic portrait of youthful tolerance, wisdom and collaboration. Nevertheless, the two commentators find common ground in a shared belief that the Internet has changed the very way in which people function, interact, think and learn.[2]

Consider one of Tapscott’s most intriguing insights. In previous generations, education was linear. We worked our way through a prescribed curriculum in a highly ordered fashion, beginning with the first lesson and ending with the last, referring at all times to a set textbook, and deferring at all times to the classroom authority – the teacher. Today, children do more and more of their learning online, and, driven by their personal preferences, interests and needs, explore the vast world of cyberspace on their own terms. In seeking to complete a given task, they do not follow a set pathway; they blaze their own trail, clicking at will on the links that appear most intriguing or compelling. Tapscott’s claim is that learning thus becomes non-linear; there is an inevitable shift away from content-driven education to student-centred learning, and the role of the teacher shifts away from being the authority and towards becoming the enabler. In essence, one of the main debates of educational philosophy – whether to locate content or the student at the heart of the enterprise – has been resolved in favour of the student simply by the existence and pervasiveness of the Internet.

There is also clear evidence that the Net Generation increasingly collaborates online. The image of the loner sitting in front of the computer screen for hours on end may have been true before the advent of Web 2.0, but is not any more. In the past few years, the Internet has shifted from being a platform capable mainly of broadcasting information to individual users to becoming an interactive facility capable of engaging with and responding to user-choice and opinion. As a result, all sorts of shared activities are happening on the Internet: from multi-user video games, through chat groups and file-sharing, all the way to product analysis and creation. Brands are being discussed, opinions are being shared, and articles, activities, music and video are being assessed. Far from the dystopian vision of a world comprised of socially-inept recluses, the Internet is actually building connections between people in new and highly imaginative and intriguing ways.

Indeed, Web 2.0 alters the nature of community. Traditional communities were geographically bound. We mixed with people in our immediate vicinity, and whilst we may have encountered others through business or travel, a combination of internal familiarity and external distrust tended to buttress the real or metaphorical walls that surrounded us. The world was opened up in new ways as a result of the Enlightenment, Emancipation and Industrial Revolution, but it is only as a result of the Internet that we have become able to create forms of community that ignore both natural and man-made boundaries. Today, social networking platforms such as Facebook and MySpace create, sustain and deepen ties across continents and oceans in ways that allow us to remain as up-to-date with someone we have not seen for twenty years, as we might be with someone who lives across the road. Other sites create other communities: Mumsnet allows mothers to ask questions of one another and share wisdom; Beliefnet brings people together from one faith group or many to discuss religious issues and share personal or spiritual concerns; Care2 builds connections between social activists, organizations and responsible businesses from around the world in order to affect social change. Each of these examples, and countless others, build online communities, and in so doing, redefine the very concept of community.

What might all of this mean for the Jewish community? Educationally, it would appear that the shift Tapscott describes – from content-focused education to student-centred learning – means that it is increasingly difficult to teach an established formalized curriculum controlled by a centralized authority. Because Jewish students are, and will continue to be able to explore multiple ideas from multiple sources, any attempt to control or limit that which is ‘kosher’ and that which is not is likely to fail. Any attempt to protect young people from alternative versions of Jewish life and existence (not to mention non-Jewish life and existence), becomes largely impossible. The Internet allows Judaism, in all its various forms and styles, to become freely available and accessible in ways that were completely unimaginable until very recently. It simultaneously locates Judaism alongside every other cultural and religious lifestyle option, and demands that it stand up and be counted in that broad context. It is difficult to predict what the consequences of this will be, but it is clear that, if Judaism is to continue to be a serious choice, the quality, integrity and creativity of the Jewish product will be critical in the ever-expanding marketplace of ideas.

The collaborative culture that Web 2.0 has engendered may also be highly significant from a Jewish perspective. Consumer assessment of products and services is becoming more and more commonplace; applied to Jewish products and services, only the best and most valuable are likely to survive and thrive. We will have to become far more attuned to the needs and wishes of our members or participants, particularly in densely-populated Jewish areas where numerous other educational, spiritual and cultural options exist. Mistakes – particularly those that indicate inconsistency between values and practices – are likely to be costly. Whereas in the past there was a strong sense that individual behaviours were being judged by those in positions of communal authority, the existence of Web 2.0 turns that power balance on its head, enabling individuals to judge the behaviours of communal authorities and institutions, and then share those opinions with the widest possible audience. When the judged become the judges, the world inevitably becomes a very different place.

The result is that new Jewish organizations and initiatives are becoming ever more commonplace. Feeling coerced, bored or alienated by the offerings of the mainstream, more and more committed young Jews are simply bypassing it and setting up on their own. Recent research conducted by the New York-based Jewish innovation research unit Jumpstart identifies more than 300 new initiatives of this type that have been established in the USA over the past decade, reaching in excess of 400,000 Jews. There is evidence to suggest that the UK is following suit – LimmudFest, Grassroots Jews, Wandering Jews, Moishe House, Jeneration are just a handful of examples of new initiatives that have appeared on the British Jewish communal landscape in the last few years. New minyanim are being formed, new educational programmes developed, new social causes highlighted, new websites set up and new cultural forms created. It is difficult to know where this type of activity is heading – whether it is simply a fad or represents the beginning of a fundamental change in the way the Jewish community functions – but there is little doubt that Net Generation Jews feel more empowered than any previous generation to redefine the shape and contours of Jewish life.

Mark Twain is quoted as once saying that ‘The art of prophecy is very difficult, especially with respect to the future.’ Yet several commentators are claiming that the Internet Age may be compared to the Renaissance or Industrial Revolution, and has already changed human society in ways that we are only beginning to comprehend. As two of these commentators write: “For the first time, human beings can act in mass collaboration, using the kind of collective intelligence once reserved for ants and bees, but now with the human IQ driving the mix. The result is a quantum increase in the world’s ability to conceive, create, compute, and connect.”[3] Whether or not this is a good thing depends, of course, on how we use that intelligence.[4] Tapscott’s claim is that the “companies able to adapt to the new demands of the Net Generation will gain a tremendous source of competitive advantage.” His warning, however, is stark: “Those that don’t will be left on the sidelines, unable to refresh their workforces at the Net Generation flows to other opportunities.” Applying these sentiments to the Jewish community, the charge is clear: adapt, or face the consequences.

Notes
[1] Twenge, J. Generation Me. Why Today’s Young Americans are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled – and More Miserable Than Ever Before. (New York: Free Press, 2006).
[2] See: Tapscott, D. Growing Up Digital. The Rise of the Net Generation. (New York: McGraw Hill, 1998), and Tapscott, D., and Williams, Anthony D. Wikinomics. How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything. (London: Atlantic Books, 2007).
[3] Libert, B., and Spector, J. We Are Smarter Than Me. How to Unleash the Power of Crowds in Your Business. (New Jersey: Wharton, 2008).
[4] See: Shirky, C. Here Comes Everybody. The Power of Organizing Without Organizations. (London: Allen Lane, 2008).

(This article was written for the JPR publication, New Conceptions of Community)

One People

2010-01-04T17:20:00.005Z

Many of the traditional texts that are employed to discuss the notion of Jewish unity and togetherness highlight ideas that are extremely powerful. A shared covenant, a call to be “a light unto the nations” a “kingdom of priests,” and a “holy nation;” notions of shared responsibility, shared pain and shared purpose. Indeed, many of these ideas are so potent, one wonders why our oneness is in such trouble nowadays.

Because the truth is it is in trouble. Denominational differences, political differences, ideological differences, geographical differences, cultural differences are all becoming so pronounced that sociologists of world Jewry increasingly claim that Jewish peoplehood is in a serious state of decline. The reasons for this are many and varied, but two in particular stand out.

First, we simply don’t trust the concept of collectiveness in the way we may have done in the past. There were just too many examples in the 20th century when collective and unifying ideals were used to exclude others, discriminate against others, and, in the worst excesses, commit genocide. Second, and partly in response to the first point, we live in an age of rampant individualism. We prioritise the right to self-fulfilment, to pursue our own dreams, to be true to ourselves, and to be free from any ideas that seek to coercively impose themselves upon us.

Yet the ideas of oneness, unity and community are absolutely central to Judaism. Judaism is not a solitary pursuit – it cannot be done alone. And the moment we embrace the notion of the collective, we inevitably have to compromise somewhat on our individual freedom. So how do we live with both individual freedom and collective responsibility? How to we square the circle and live both as individuals and as members of a collective?

In thinking about this question, I have been drawn to a remarkable text from Pesikta D’Rav Kahana, a midrashic tome dating back to the fifth or sixth century CE. Discussing events at Mount Sinai, it writes the following:

"How is it possible that 600,000 Israelites stood at the foot of Sinai and one Voice addressed an entire people, yet every individual was convinced that the Voice was addressed to him personally? Rabbi Levy answers, 'The Holy One appeared to them as a mirror. A thousand might look into the mirror, but it will reflect each of them. Do not marvel at this, for God spoke to each person according to that person's capacity. Do not wonder at this, for when the manna came down from heaven, each and every one tasted it according to their capacity – the young, the old, the sick, the healthy. So too with the Voice of God: 'the Voice of the Lord in its strength' means the Voice is heard according to the power of each individual. Do not be mistaken because you hear many voices. Know that I am He who was and is One and the same.'"

The suggestion appears to be that, even though everyone present heard exactly the same words, and even though, according to the account in the Torah they responded by saying “n’aseh v-nishma” ("we will do and we will obey"), each individual actually heard something slightly different. Even at Sinai, even at that foundational moment in Jewish history, there were differences between one Jew’s experience and another’s, between what one person heard, understood and committed to, and what another heard, understood and committed to. Yet every one of those interpretations was authentic, real and true.

Fast forward to 2010, and we are comprised of 13 million people, living throughout the world, each of us with a different understanding of Judaism’s core message based on the ideas and values we have received, experienced and understood. Yet, every one of those interpretations is surely legitimate, as it is based on reality as comprehended and internalised by each one of us. As the midrash claims, each one of us has heard the voice of Judaism according to our capacity – and perhaps opportunity – to do so.

If we could adopt this view, we might be able to rebuild our sense of shared responsibility and shared purpose based upon it. Such a position would claim that every Jew’s understanding of Judaism contains within it an element of that One Voice that spoke to us at Sinai. If we remove ourselves from the conversation, we remove a piece of the Divine word; if we silence others eager to participate in the conversation, we do likewise. It is, therefore, the dialogue between us – the imperative to share our own thoughts and to listen intently, respectfully and openly to those of others – that will allow us to genuinely reconstruct the Voice of God, and to hear most authentically the command that emanated out from that place all those millennia ago.

(This is a d'var torah given at the recent Limmud conference as part of its "Chavruta" programme on the theme of "One.")

Feeling Slightly Queasy

2009-11-19T23:15:00.002Z

I had my first article published in the 'Comment is Free' section of The Guardian yesterday. It appears to have created quite a storm; I wish I could get the Jewish community to listen to some of my ideas in the way that wider society seems to have latched on to them!

To be honest, I feel a bit sick from the whole experience. Reading through the comments is a humbling and quite shocking experience. The amount of sarcastic and vitriolic abuse is really disturbing. I deliberately tried not to get involved in the rights or wrongs of the Israel-Palestinian conflict in the article; my own view, for what it is worth, is that it is a profoundly complex affair comprised of territorial, political, historical, social, economic and religious components, and anyone claiming that absolute and exclusive right resides with either side simply doesn’t fully understand it.

It is exactly this complexity that calls for context in journalism and politics, and, to my mind, that was sorely lacking in the programme. The pro-Israel lobby wasn’t placed in the context of other lobbies (I have no idea whether the sums of money discussed were large, small or average compared to other lobbies), the highlighted Jewish leaders weren’t located in the context of other Jewish leaders (I would happily have pointed the documentary makers in the direction of wealthy Jews who invest significant sums in Israeli Arab causes for example), and the footage of the conflict itself focused exclusively on Palestinian suffering without any reference to the experiences, feelings, views, or efforts of the Israelis. I regard all of that as shoddy at best.

I wrote about its barely-concealed antisemitic undertones because, as a longstanding student of antisemitism (my BA and MA are in modern Jewish history, and I was very fortunate to study under Professor Robert Wistrich and Professor Sir Martin Gilbert among others), I am highly attuned to it. I don’t believe that all, or even most, criticism of Israel is motivated by antagonism towards Jews, and actually think much of the mainstream British media’s coverage of Israel is reasonably fair. I also believe that it is entirely legitimate for any credible television outlet to investigate British Jewish support for Israel (although, if they are going to do that, they should at least research it properly). But I am quick to sense a classic antisemitic motif not least because I am probably far too familiar with all of them, and I sensed one quite strongly in Dispatches. It was an overarching sense – not so much in the words spoken, but in the documentary style. Blurry images suggesting shady underhand deals; organizational names – like the Jewish Leadership Council and the Board of Deputies – highlighted on screen in such a way as to suggest a hint of danger, threat or conspiracy; the juxtaposition of shocking images from Gaza and a CFI dinner which, without ever saying it, created an illusion that the lobby groups were essentially raising funds to kill Palestinians.

Perhaps I am too sensitive to it. From what I can figure out about the documentary maker, I don’t think he intended in any way to perpetuate an antisemitic myth. Perhaps those who argue that Jews cry wolf too often are right – certainly, there are occasions when I feel the antisemitism card is played inappropriately. Perhaps one commentator on my article is right when he says that he knew nothing about all these antisemitic myths until Jews started accusing people of perpetuating them! But then again, if a Jew feels threatened in some way on the basis of his/her ethnicity or religion, surely s/he should express that? It’s something of a conundrum. And it’s a conundrum that is irresolvable because ultimately people will write and say what they want.

Anyway, I will certainly think twice before writing about antisemitism in the national press again. On reflection, I’m not sure what, if anything, the article achieved.

Channel 4 Dispatches: Shoddy, Shallow and Shameful

2009-11-17T19:51:00.004Z

Apparently, according to Channel 4’s Dispatches programme on Monday night, there are some wealthy Jews out there bent on influencing British government policy on Israel. What a shocking finding. I wonder what they will uncover next? Lobbyists trying to influence government health policy perhaps? Pressure groups seeking to change government policy on the war in Iraq? Business leaders trying to alter government thinking on economic policy?

Aside from the shoddy research and the barely-concealed antisemitic undertones (the idea of a shady, morally repugnant 'cabal' of Jews seeking to control the world is one of the classic antisemitic myths), it was this lack of context that was most disturbing about the programme. There are numerous lobbying groups working with government and the media, trying to influence policy and opinion on a wide range of issues. Some of these even try to represent the Palestinian cause. There are also numerous Jewish leaders and philanthropists who support and invest in Palestinian Israeli causes, including the single-largest pro-Israel charity in the UK, and, according to the Jewish Chronicle, the single-most influential philanthropist in the British Jewish community. Jewish leaders differ on how best to support Israel, and the opinions range from unquestioning support to intense criticism. But Channel 4 struggled to include any of this contextual framing in its hour-long documentary, presumably because it might have in some way undermined its highly spurious argument.

But then context is always the problem. There was no effort throughout the programme to contextualize Operation Cast Lead in Gaza. There was no mention of the Israeli government’s withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, and the fact that, after that, Hamas used the territory to launch countless randomly-targeted missile attacks on Israeli towns and villages. In its analysis of the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, it failed to mention the thousands of missiles Hezbollah had assembled with Iranian and Syrian support on Israel’s northern border, which it used with great effect to terrorize the Israeli population.

Perhaps most importantly, it failed to mention in any detail why some Jewish leaders may feel compelled to support Israel. Leaving aside the politics of the region, the notion that Israel is the ancestral homeland of the Jewish People, or that Israel is the only nation state in the world in which Judaism is mainstream, Jewish culture is the norm and the Hebrew language is widely-spoken and celebrated, were all ignored. Perhaps, just perhaps, these are the reasons that underpin the support of Jewish leaders and philanthropists.

But much easier to trot out the old antisemitic myth. After all, the public deserves to know what these nasty, rich Jews are up to. And what could possibly be wrong in uncovering the truth? There cannot conceivably be a connection between the way Israel and Jews are presented in the media and antisemitism on the streets of Britain.

Or so Alan Rusbridger would have us believe. In the documentary, he maintained that he found it 'difficult to believe' that any journalistic coverage of events in Israel could result in acts of violence against Jews on the streets of Britain. Well, allow me to present myself as Exhibit A. In April 2002, at the height of the Palestinian intifada, media reports quickly began circulating that a massacre had been committed by the Israel Defence Forces in Jenin in the West Bank. Rumours circulated that hundreds of Palestinians had been killed. The BBC suggested 150. Saeb Erekat, interviewed on CNN, claimed 500. Yasser Abed Rabbo intimated 900. The overarching impression was that the IDF had clearly committed a horrific atrocity.

On the following Saturday morning, I was walking to synagogue, wearing my kippah (skull-cap) in the north London suburb of Finchley. On the way there, I was punched in the face by a young man. It was an entirely unprovoked assault. We were simply crossing paths, when he delivered a sudden, forceful, right hook. Taken aback, my first response was to ask him why he had done it. 'That’s what happens to Jews', he responded, 'when they behave like that'.

That is the only time in my life that I have been a victim of an antisemitic assault. It is, I suppose, possible that it had nothing to do with the events in Jenin at the time, but I find that very difficult to believe. My attacker saw me as a legitimate target directly linked to the so-called 'massacre'.

In the final analysis, it was established that no such massacre took place in Jenin. The United Nations report into the fighting eventually concluded that, in actual fact, 52 Palestinians were killed, at least half of whom were militants. 23 Israeli soldiers were also killed. Of course, any loss of life – on either side of the conflict – is tragic, and serious mistakes have been made by both Palestinian and Israeli leaders over the years. But the way in which the conflict is reported and analyzed has a direct bearing on levels of antisemitism. And, thanks to Channel 4 and Dispatches, we can now assume that those levels will rise yet again.

(This article was also published in the 'Comment is Free' section of The Guardian)

Grassroots Jews

2009-08-24T12:07:00.013+01:00

Logging onto Facebook recently, I received an invitation to join an initiative called “Grassroots Jews,” a project led by a small group of people working together to put on High Holy Day services in north west London this year. Not within an existing synagogue, not even in partnership with an existing synagogue, but entirely independently. They are flying in Yossi Chajes - a guest cantor and teacher from Israel who is not only a remarkable Jewish leader and musician, but also a professor of medieval Jewish history at the University of Haifa – and are going it alone. They are raising the funds by charging a £45 flat fee for all Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur services (less if that is prohibitive), and they are not offering one service, but two – a traditional option and an alternative option. The somewhat curious fact that the traditional option is happening in an alternative setting isn’t really acknowledged, any more than the completely bewildering fact that the alternative option is, of course, an alternative to a traditional option that is, in and of itself, an alternative. If that makes sense. The organizing group includes some well-known characters in the 30-something age band – former senior players in the Union of Jewish Students, Bnei Akiva, Noam and RSY-Netzer, highly-involved Limmudniks, Moishe House activists, children of well-known rabbis, etc. In short, people you would think the community would be bending over backwards to include within existing frameworks.

What they promise, in a funky downloadable video produced to recruit participants, is “the most exciting autonomous & non-hierarchical Judaism ever to surface.” The unstated and implicit critique is that the Judaism they find elsewhere in the community is rather dull, meaningless and stuffy, and that they are largely unwilling to buy into a model of community that implicitly, if not explicitly, demands that they sign-up for the whole synagogue package at considerable expense. What they want is to go to services on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur that touch them, inspire them, and speak to them. They want to be part of a community – albeit just for three days – that wants to daven in a serious way, participate, sing, and engage in the underlying meaning that permeates the High Holy Day liturgy. Perhaps most of all, they want to do it their way, on their terms, and with their people. They’ll pay £45 for that.

On closer examination, it turns out that Grassroots Jews is actually loosely associated with an informal Carlebach-style minyan which meets from time to time in Belsize Park or West Hampstead, and that suggests these Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur services will be quite an experience. I went along to the Carlebach minyan a few weeks ago, and participated in a kabbalat shabbat service that could proudly stand alongside the best of what Jerusalem or Tzfat has to offer. There were 100 or so people present, packed into a small living room, overflowing out into the garden, singing so vibrantly and passionately that the room itself was literally reverberating with excitement. This was grassroots, informal, non-ideological Judaism at its best and most vibrant.

Who can blame them for wanting Judaism this way? It is possible to get anything we like “our way” nowadays. When we buy a car or a computer, we choose the make, the model, the accessories, the financing plan. When we buy a holiday, we have the possibility of building our own itinerary on our own terms – no one imposes anything on us unless we wish to choose from one of the numerous package options that are available to us (which is hardly an imposition). When we buy a meal, we select our preference from the menu of options, and even then, are fully entitled – and expect – to be able to replace one side dish with another, or ask for our selected option with or without certain ingredients. In such a social context, the very idea of a one-size fits all Judaism doesn’t exactly resonate.

But it’s actually more complex than that. Grassroots Jews is also loosely connected to another similar initiative called “Wandering Jews” that currently meets to daven and to eat in a different home twice a month (“we never go to the same house twice”). Describing itself as “a little bit Fight Club, a little bit minyan, almost 100% good,” the hosts determine the minhag at each meeting – they do it their way according to their style of Judaism. Everyone brings some food to share. There are no leaders controlling the agenda, just “custodians” who care for the group’s continued existence. Not indefinitely mind; just for as long as there is demand. If Wandering Jews wander off elsewhere, the entire initiative may disappear or morph into something else. In the meantime, they are open to “all Jews and the people who love them” and they “do not ask questions in relation to people’s Jewish status or level of observance.” And perhaps most intriguingly, they are “post-philanthropic” – that is they “eschew funding or offers of funding” as “asking for funding is akin to asking for permission to exist.”

In defining its philosophy thus, Wandering Jews actually goes a significant step further than Grassroots Jews. It is not comprised of a clearly homogeneous group of Jews looking for a particularly type of shared religious experience. It is more experimental, more open, more willing to accept – or at least explore – multiple versions of Judaism and Jewishness. It is also more anti-establishment – whilst Grassroots Jews has neither requested nor sought out communal approval, Wandering Jews actively shuns it.

Together, Grassroots Jews and Wandering Jews are being spearheaded by people in their 20s and 30s – predominantly single, unmarried or recently-married young adults who do not feel the need for the more concrete and stable versions of community that one typically finds within an existing synagogue framework. Yet some in the community mainstream tend to adopt a rather laissez faire attitude to these and other similar endeavours. Their argument is that with the passage of time, as these people settle down and start families, their passion for Judaism will almost inevitably ensure that they slot into the mainstream and the structure and stability it offers.

But is this the case? I’m not so sure. As Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams have argued in their international bestseller Wikinomics, members of the “Net Generation” – those who have grown up with the Internet as a norm rather than a novelty – may well differ significantly from their forebears in terms of outlook, expectations and foundational conceptions of community. They have little faith in the "authoritative” or “authentic” view – they scrutinize and sift through information at the click of a mouse, and figure out what makes sense to them on their own terms. They are not content to be passive consumers – they increasingly satisfy their desire for choice, convenience, customization and control by designing and producing their own products and initiatives. And they don’t retreat into an individualized, lonely and closed world behind their computer screen – they collaborate and network in the vast array of communities online. We can see all of these trends in the Jewish initiatives described above, and we shouldn’t be surprised if they continue to inform Jewish behaviour patterns as the cohort enters its 40s, 50s, 60s and beyond. The likelihood is surely that, even if this generation does begin to gravitate towards the more established communal frameworks, they will do so with a set of assumptions that will demand and necessitate significant change.

Grassroots Jews may well be a small, fringe endeavour, that barely registers on the communal Richter Scale in 2009. But the principles, attitudes and behaviours that underpin it are likely to herald a whole range of changes to Jewish life in the coming decades that are almost impossible to predict. Grassroots Americans recently elected the first Afro-American president; who knows what Grassroots Jews might achieve?

An abridged version of this article appeared in the Jewish Chronicle on 27 August 2009. The full version was published in Zeek on 1 September 2009.

One people separated by a common language

2009-05-20T12:49:00.003+01:00

The British Jewish community rarely seems to feature on the worldwide Jewish map. It may have been significant a century ago, although probably only then because a handful of its leaders had access to the corridors of power of the British Empire. Today, however, it is seldom the focus of international Jewish attention; in the context of Israel-Diaspora discussions, ‘Diaspora’ tends to be a synonym for America, and the other countries that comprise the Jewish world outside of Israel barely seem to feature in the discourse. Britain is no exception.

To be fair, there is reason for this. The British Jewish community numbered 450,000 at the end of the Second World War, but its population has declined to fewer than 300,000 today, the loss being variously attributed to assimilation, emigration (in part to Israel), and a low birth rate. Arguably, no other comparable community has suffered such numerical decline in the same period. And the numbers only tell part of the story; in his 1985 book Diaspora, the scholar Howard Sachar variously described British Jewish organizational life as “pedestrian,” its cultural life as “somnolent,” its religious-educational life as “exceptionally shallow,” and its religious establishment as “a bore.”

I don’t know if Sachar has visited the UK since that time, but if he were to drop in on us today, I’m not convinced he would issue quite the same report. Visit the leafy north London suburbs of Golders Green and Hendon, and you’ll encounter a growing range of kosher restaurants, creative educational initiatives and innovative organizations that are breathing new life into the community. Come on Shabbat, and you’ll find a mounting array of interesting spiritual possibilities, ranging from the inspirational Orthodox community of Ner Yisroel, the melodic traditional egalitarian community of Assif, and the funky band playing at Finchley Progressive Synagogue’s monthly ‘Shabbat Resouled.’ Come at the right times of year, and you’ll have opportunities to attend Jewish Book Week – an impressive literary festival by anyone’s standards – the Jewish Film Festival, and the real jewel in the community’s crown, Limmud.

The story of Limmud is a truly remarkable one, particularly given Sachar’s rather bleak view of British Jewry a generation ago. Founded in 1980 as a conference for Jewish educators based on the American CAJE model, it has become one of the great international celebrations of Jewish culture and learning. It attracts 2,500 people annually to its December festival, including some of the biggest names in Jewish music, politics and education, and, as its reputation has grown, it has inspired a whole range of Limmud spin-off events in 26 other communities around the world at the last count. In many respects, the success of other Jewish initiatives in Britain and elsewhere can be traced back to it too – a number of people behind some of the more creative endeavours that pepper Jewish life around the world today were initially or at least partially inspired by their own experiences of Limmud. It has even spawned a love child of its own – Limmudfest – an eco-friendly summer Jewish festival that is starting to have a whole unique impact on the community.

Its success can be attributed to a number of key factors. It doesn’t impose any particular version of Judaism onto participants; instead it provides open space for people to celebrate and engage with Judaism on their own terms. It doesn’t differentiate between those who know and those who do not – participants inevitably flock to hear big names, but everyone is encouraged to be both participant and presenter, and to contribute whatever it is they have to the success of the event. It is run almost entirely by volunteers – Limmud is a space for anyone – provided they can garner sufficient support from the team as a whole – to try anything, to push any boundary or to test any theory. In that regard, it’s a profoundly empowering space – the Judaism one encounters there is vibrant, creative and alive precisely because participants are given the opportunity to make it so. And yet, at the same time, Limmud is deeply committed to an implicit set of values that underpin virtually everything it does – community, responsibility, tolerance, mutual respect, openness, diversity – and somehow it creates a space in which everyone seems to instantly and organically understand and embrace those.

Limmud’s example teaches some important lessons about the future of the Jewish People. It demonstrates that it is possible to be a serious Jew without necessarily identifying with any particular denomination or belonging to a formal community. It demonstrates that if we provide an inspiring and empowering space that allows Jews to shape Jewish life and community, they can be trusted to do so in ways that are more creative, more inspiring, and more thoughtful than we could ever have imagined. Perhaps most importantly, it demonstrates that Jewish creativity can happen anywhere – even in a somnolent, shallow and boring place like the Jewish backwater that is (or once was) Britain.

The implication of this final point may well be that the geographically and ideologically-loaded language of ‘Israel-Diaspora’ has become somewhat redundant. The term, which has long been the standardised language of Jewish discourse, clearly differentiates between Israel on the one hand and everywhere else on the other, it merges all Diaspora communities into a singular bloc, and then often reduces that bloc down to its largest component part, the USA.

I don’t reject Israel’s implicit primacy in the duality. It is the centre of the Jewish world, what happens there affects Jews everywhere, and its Jewish religious and historical significance vastly outweighs any claims from any other part of the world. What I question is the duality itself. The Diaspora is not a coherent or cohesive bloc, it cannot and should not be reduced down to a singular entity, and that entity should not be captured or represented by the United States alone. If Jewish creativity can happen anywhere – and Limmud demonstrates that it can – we ought to develop a new kind of language that seeks to include Jewish communities everywhere, recognise their uniqueness, and empower them towards great things.

The language I believe we ought to adopt gives primacy to Jewish people over and above Jewish places, not least because our future may be far less reliant on ‘place’ than we often think. Place is not unimportant – it provides an environment within which Jewish creativity can either flourish or flounder – but ultimately it is the contribution of individuals or small groups of people that will propel us forward. Different places generate different responses in people, and it was precisely the stuffy and drowsy nature of the British Jewish community that prompted a group of British Jews to first create Limmud and then transform it from a small conference into an international phenomenon.

Language influences the way in which we view the world and ultimately shapes policy. The language of Israel-Diaspora diminishes our view of the Diaspora, and turns millions of vibrant, varied and valuable Jews living throughout the world into a singular and amorphous mass. That fails to capture who we are, the nature of our experience, and the possibilities we could create. Change the language, and we might just start to change the results.

(Also published in Zeek and in New Jewish Thought)

Losing face in the Facebook war

2009-01-17T21:36:00.001Z

I like the status update facility on Facebook. Since I signed up it has helped me to keep up-to-date with friends who have just become engaged, moved home, found a new job, or given birth. It has kept me up-to-speed with bad news too – I’ve found out about friends who are about to go in for surgery, who have split up with partners, who have been made redundant, or who are just feeling low. Occasionally, it is simply entertaining. My favourite status update of all time is “Michael is stuck in an elevator at work between the 34 and 35th floors. If anyone has a moment, could they call 212 467 3019.” But most of the time, it simply reflects general day-to-day stuff: x is tired, y is about to get on a plane, z is having a productive day, etc. – normal, routine feelings and actions that are part of all our lives.

However, over the past couple of weeks, people’s status updates have started to change. More and more of my friends have “donated their status” to Qassam Count, a facility designed to inform everyone they know of the precise number of Hamas rockets that have been fired from Gaza into Israel each day. What this effectively does is allow http://qassamcount.com to fill in people’s status update for them. Tali is no longer “going out for a drink tonight.” David is no longer “looking for a greater sense of fulfilment.” And Noa is no longer “hoping that people finally come to their senses.” Instead, all three of them have become “12 Hamas rockets fired from Gaza hit Israeli civilian areas on Thursday morning.”

I get the motivation behind this. For eight years Hamas has fired rockets into Israel, and for eight years the international media has barely mentioned it. The rockets are the primary reason behind Israel’s military action in Gaza. It’s essential that the world knows this, and Qassam Count is a clever public relations device designed to share it.

What I didn’t immediately realise is that Qassam Count is not alone in this virtual war of statistics. My sister, a social anthropologist currently doing doctoral work on a remarkable grass roots organisation designed to build trust and understanding between Israelis and Palestinians (The Sulha Peace Project), told me that opponents of Israel have been doing exactly the same. They too have donated their status, but to “Support Gaza,” a Facebook facility for the other side. As a result, Mahmoud is no longer “enjoying Barack Obama’s first novel.” Nadira is no longer “looking for love.” And Hassan is no longer “at a complete loss.” Instead, they have all become “In 21 days 1170 Palestinians have been killed by Israel including 368 children & 105 women, 5220 injured.”

There is something deeply disturbing about this that goes way beyond the handful of mouse clicks required to allow either facility to function. It is not simply that the war has become diminished to simplistic statistics. It is not even that the battle over numbers targeted and killed suggests moral equivalence between the terrorists targeted by Israel and the civilians targeted by Hamas. It is that on both sides of the divide, people are losing their humanity. Instead of being human beings living lives full of hopes, disappointments, humour and normality, they have become entrenched political positions bent on simple point scoring. On Facebook at least, they are no longer real people, but numbers standing on either side of an ever-greater divide.

War does that. It diminishes humanity. And peace, if we really desire it, doesn’t come from point scoring. Neither does it come from voluntarily conceding our humanity to become political statistics. It comes from holding onto our humanity – at all costs – and seeking out the humanity in the other. Tali, David and Noa, and Mahmoud, Nadira and Hassan may well have much to talk about, much to share, and much to learn from one another. Who knows – they might even have the potential to become Facebook friends. Hopefully one day soon they’ll get a chance to find that out.

Choose Life: Asarah B'Tevet 5769

2009-01-06T23:10:00.002Z

Today, January 6, is asarah b’tevet – the 10th of Tevet – the day, according to tradition, that the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar began his siege of Jerusalem, an act which ultimately ended in the destruction of the First Temple in 586 BCE and the first exile. We still mourn this chapter from our past; it is a sad and desperate moment in the Jewish year when it is difficult not to feel drawn into the pessimism and tragedy of this and other similar episodes in Jewish history. And when that pessimism is fused together with the images from Gaza that are flooding our television screens, it becomes even harder not to despair. Despair for the Israelis who have had to live for so long with the almost daily missile attacks from Gaza, and despair for the Palestinian civilians whose lives have been decimated by the sheer force of Israel’s military action. It is surely impossible to be an authentic Jew and to fail to be impacted by the suffering of the Palestinian people, and I fear for those of us whose hearts remain hardened to the TV images. To quote a well-known midrash, we do not sing when our enemies are drowning. Nevertheless, I stand alongside Israel in this conflict – I understand its conundrum, its fears, its motivations and its actions – and I maintain my long-held belief that when it goes to war, it surely does so far more out of necessity than desire.

So when this latest conflict in Gaza began, I adopted my default position. That position runs as follows: Israel wants, above all, to resolve this conflict. It has tried everything it possibly can to make peace with the Palestinians. Its first strategy was to hold onto the occupied territories as a bargaining chip for peace with the Arab nations on its borders. That failed as far as the Palestinians were concerned – their response was to inflict terror upon Israelis throughout the 1970s, followed by a lengthy and bloody intifada in the late 1980s. So Israel tried to negotiate a bilateral agreement with Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Authority. That also failed. Progress was made with the Oslo Accords, but when push came to shove – when the Palestinians were offered the Gaza Strip, the vast majority of the West Bank plus compensatory land on the Israeli side of the Green Line, and East Jerusalem as their capital – they responded with a second intifada, even bloodier than the first. So Israel tried a third strategy, not directly related to the Palestinian conflict, but highly informative nevertheless: to cede control of previously occupied southern Lebanon to a third party, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), as demanded under the terms of a UN resolution, in the hope and expectation that it would keep Israel’s northern border quiet. But that failed too. Under the watchful but largely impotent eyes of UNIFIL, Hezb’allah constructed an intricate network of tunnels and bunkers, and stockpiled thousands of missiles all pointed in Israel’s direction, some 4,000 of which were deployed to great effect in the conflict in summer 2006. So Israel tried a fourth strategy. Forget bilateral agreements, forget third-party interventions, forget negotiations of any kind, just give up territory. Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005, a bold political move which could have caused civil war in the country, in the hope that maybe, just maybe, if the Palestinian leadership was actually given a strip of land, it might take the opportunity to start to build a peaceful nation, and thereby demonstrate to the world than it can act responsibly when given the chance. But yet again, that didn’t work. Since the disengagement from Gaza, Hamas has sent thousands of rockets into undisputed Israeli territory, causing untold physical and psychological damage to the Israelis impacted. The feeling in Israel in summer 2006 and the feeling in winter 2009 seems to be much the same. Nothing works. We can’t hold onto the territory, we can’t negotiate with the Palestinian leadership, we can’t bring in a third party to ensure a lasting peace, and we can’t just unilaterally withdraw. And given all of that, we are left with only one more possibility. To fight. Not because we think that will work as a long-term strategy either, but because we have no choice. Every-so-often – every two to three years or so – we will have to fight, not because we believe that fighting will solve the conflict (we know it won’t), but because we have to manage the conflict in this way from time-to-time before it becomes completely unmanageable.

The realist in me accepts this analysis. I know the history of the conflict. I know the contours of the land. I know what Israel means to the Jewish People, and what it has meant to us for thousands of years. And I know enough about Hamas and other similar Islamic extremist organisations to recognise that this has become a religious rather than political affair for them, and their hatred of Israel – and Jews in general – runs terrifyingly deep. I don’t believe that Hamas wants to make peace with Israel, and I don’t believe it has any interest in the two-state solution. I believe its solution is one state, run in accordance with its own understanding of Islamic law, in which Jews are at best ‘tolerated,’ and at worst, persecuted, oppressed and murdered. As abhorrent as it sounds, the realist in me knows that Hamas not only wanted this conflict, but wanted Palestinian civilians to die in it, because they know that Palestinian deaths increase both Palestinian militant extremism and international sympathy for the Palestinian struggle. What better than an Israeli airstrike on Palestinian homes to ensure that another generation of Palestinians grows up with hatred in its heart? And what better than an Israeli airstrike on a UN school in Gaza to ensure that public opinion throughout the world moves a little closer towards the Palestinian cause? So it has goaded Israel with missile attacks for year after year – particularly since Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 – in the hope that Israel might finally react. Even the accusation that Israel never truly withdrew from Gaza because it continued to control its borders, ports and airspace doesn’t hold much water. There is truth in it to be sure, but the fact is, with Iranian support and Egyptian blindness Hamas managed to smuggle countless rockets and rocket launchers into Gaza. It could have opted to smuggle other things through the tunnels – like textbooks, computers, or agricultural supplies for example – but for Hamas, Israel’s death has always been prized over and above Palestinian life. That, I believe, is the harsh reality of this conflict, and we would do well to remember it.

All of that stated, realism must always be tempered by idealism. And the very existence of the State of Israel, and perhaps Judaism as a whole, represents above all the triumph of the idealism of what is possible over the realism of what is current. A Jewish State was an impossible dream throughout almost two thousand years of Diaspora existence. A Jewish State was widely regarded as an impossible dream at the turn of the twentieth century when the Zionist movement began its pursuit of Jewish nationhood. And a Jewish State was surely viewed as an impossible dream as the gas chambers and ovens of Auschwitz and Treblinka worked overtime. Yet just three years after the end of that terrible chapter, a Jewish State was born.

Similarly, Judaism’s narrative runs from slavery to freedom, from despair to hope, from ruin to redemption. It shuns death at almost all cost – the preservation of life trumps more or less everything. “Choose life, so that you and your children may live” says Deuteronomy. It is possible to construct an argument that maintains Israel is choosing life right now, opting to fight precisely in order to allow the Israeli civilians of Sderot and Ashkelon to be allowed to live. But the terrible images of blood-stained, lifeless Palestinian children, overwhelms that position. The realist in me recognises that this “collateral damage” (a sickening phrase) is a necessary price to be paid for life to be maintained in Israel, but the idealist in me refuses to accept the inevitability of this reality. There has to be another way.

I don’t know what that other way is. I see no alternative to the pathways that have already been tried and failed. Yet there is such a thing as a Jewish heart, and it is one that refuses to celebrate either the death of ourselves or our enemies, and that upholds the right to life wherever and whenever possible. There is also such a thing as a Jewish head – a yiddische kopf – that prides itself on its capacity to solve insoluble problems, and that wins Nobel prizes out of all proportion to our population size. These are dark, terrible days in the land of our dreams, soaked in pessimism, despair, ruin and death. It is easier to accept the reality that war is the only option open to us, than to struggle to find a new, unseen pathway to peace. It is easier to recall the destruction of Jerusalem by our enemies on asarah b’tevet, than it is to remember that Tu b’Shevat – the beginning of spring and the new life it brings – is just over a month away. It is easier to hear the warning sirens in Aviv Geffen’s song Hamilchama Haba-ah (the next war), than the promise to the little girl in Yehoram Gaon’s song that this will be Hamilchama Ha-acharonah (the last war). But that’s not us. It never has been, and it never should be. If there is one positive that comes out of this awful Gazan winter, let it be this: that we resolve to strengthen our Jewish hearts and use our Jewish minds to finally solve this conflict. Maybe then we will at last be able to choose life, not just for us, but for our neighbours too.

Also published in Haaretz and on jeneration.org. For a printable version published by the American organization Makom, click here.

Shoftim: The Justice of Teshuva

2008-08-10T20:52:00.006+01:00

In Parshat Va’etchanan, which we read a few weeks ago, there is a rather strange short interlude in the narrative just before the repetition of the ten commandments, which describes how Moses established “cities of refuge” – places to where the accidental killer can flee and gain sanctuary. I have often wondered whether the placement of this text is entirely deliberate: the only one of the ten commandments of which Moses himself was actually guilty was lo tirtzach – thou shalt not murder – and after he killed the nameless Egyptian and buried him in the sand, he himself fled to Midian to seek refuge. Some may regard Moses’s violent act as heroic – indeed, it is often portrayed as such – but was Moses haunted by it for his entire life? Did he in some way equate, on the grounds of his belief in the pursuit of justice, his own deliberate killing with an accidental one? And did he, at this critical moment just before reiterating the ten commandments, seek compassion and understanding for his own transgression of one of the laws he was about to decree?

It may be that this week’s parsha – Shoftim – adds some fuel to this idea, as it refers once again to the cities of refuge, and includes the famous diktat tzedek tzedek tirdof (justice, justice, shall you pursue). Moreover, parshat shoftim is almost always read on the first Shabbat of the month of Elul – traditionally the period of reflection and repentance leading up to yamim noraim. Indeed, there is a beautiful Chassidic idea that draws a parallel between the cities of refuge and Elul – the former being a sanctuary in space for contemplation and atonement, the latter being a similar sanctuary in time. So at this very particular juncture in the Jewish year, the notions of a sanctuary in time, accidental wrongdoing, and the pursuit of justice coalesce in an intriguing and challenging way, and invite us to steady ourselves on the path to teshuva (repentance).

According to the Rambam, the pathway to a physical city of refuge is meant to be as clear as possible. In the Mishneh Torah, he writes that “the court is obligated to straighten the roads to the cities of refuge, to repair them and broaden them. They must remove all impediments and obstacles... bridges should be built [over all natural barriers] so as not to delay one who is fleeing [to a city of refuge]. ‘Refuge’ should be written at every crossroads so that the murderers should recognize the way and turn there.” The Chassidic parallel above perhaps leads to a similar conclusion about the temporal refuge that is Elul. Justice in this instance would be for us to clear and repair every possible route to allow those who have done wrong – whether accidentally or deliberately – to be given some respite and a little sanctuary in order to reflect on, and make amends for their actions. We would often like others to make it as easy as possible for us to apologise for our own misdemeanours; but are we making it as easy as possible for them to do likewise for theirs?

Elul is a signpost at a crossroads in our lives. Judaism gives us this brief window in the year to clear the pathways towards our own atonement, and that of others. Many of us live, as perhaps Moses did, under the various weights of misdemeanours committed long ago that were never resolved, and with a longstanding wish for compassion and understanding for that wrongdoing. Now is the time to clear away all the existing impediments and build all the necessary bridges towards achieving those resolutions. Doing so may just bring a little more justice to the world.

(Also available at www.limmud.org)

Creativity, not Exclusivity

2008-07-04T21:57:00.002+01:00

The knives are out again. The Orthodox establishment is condemned for annulling numerous Reform conversions and causing widespread despair and misery for the potentially thousands impacted; the non-Orthodox establishment is condemned for allowing numerous inauthentic conversions and wreaking havoc across the Jewish world. Who should we let into our exclusive club called the Jewish People? How difficult and unpleasant can we make it for people so that the wrong sorts are never allowed in?

Of course, whilst this impassioned debate about Jewish status is going on, in the real world, more and more Internet-Generation Jews are defining their Jewish identities on their own terms. They are creating Jewish summer festivals, Jewish record labels, Jewish intellectual salons and Jewish experimental congregations. They are developing innovative ways to help people connect with Torah, constructing Jewish websites and running Jewish events that build global Jewish connections, launching Jewish social justice initiatives that alter the Jewish calendar, and transforming everything we have ever understood by the term ‘Jewish music.’ They wouldn’t dream of demanding to know anyone’s Jewish credentials before letting them in; they simply invite anyone interested to encounter and experience the richness and creativity of Jewish life.

Rather than investing resources in buttressing walls and filling up sandbags to protect the Jewish community from all those horrible sociological realities out there, they are focused on creating a new reality inside. According to Steven Cohen and Ari Kelman’s recently-published report "The Continuity of Discontinuity," they don’t like being sold an agenda, they feel uncomfortable with social exclusionism, and they are bored by cultural blandness. Yet all-too-often, this is what they find within the Jewish community. So they create spaces for open conversation, they cross previously barred social boundaries, and they create their own Jewish culture. They might not affiliate, but don’t misunderstand that as apathy.

Of course, people will argue that Cohen and Kelman are talking about Americans, so their research has no bearing on young adults in Britain. They will maintain that we Brits are completely different. But are we? Do we really like being sold an agenda? Do we have no interest in fraternising with non-Jews? Do we experience Jewish life as rather bland or uninspiring from time to time? And have we not responded with a few innovations of our own? What about LimmudFest, the Jewish answer to Glastonbury? Or Jewdas, with its irreverent commentary on the British Jewish community and highly popular events? Then there’s YadArts, producing and commissioning new types of Jewish music and art. And Moishe House, taking Judaism out of its conventional locations and trying to create a new form of community. And I’d put Assif on the list too, bearing in mind its engaging approach to Jewish prayer, and the numbers of people it has managed to attract through its educationally inclusive and warm approach.

As Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams argue in their best-seller Wikinomics, the 'Net Generation' – those who grew up with the Internet as a norm rather than a novelty – function differently from their forebears. They have little faith in the "authoritative” or “authentic” view – they scrutinize and sift through information at the click of a mouse, and figure out what makes sense to them on their own terms. They don’t retreat into an individualized, lonely and closed world behind their computer screen – they collaborate and network in the vast array of communities online. And they are not content to be passive consumers – they increasingly satisfy the desire for choice, convenience, customization and control by designing and producing their own products and initiatives.

The truth is I don’t reject the importance of figuring out who is and who isn’t a Jew. We need to know who we are and what we stand for. But maybe the best way to do that is to focus more on encouraging the creativity and dynamism that is going on within our community, rather than investing so much time and energy on guarding the gateways in and out. The problem with spending all our time defending the walls is that when we do finally remember to check out what’s going on inside, we might just find that it’s empty.

A Changing Jewish Community

2008-07-02T07:25:00.002+01:00

Several months ago, I joined Facebook. To date, I have exactly 150 friends based in 25 cities and towns, and am part of seven different networks on four different continents. I am also part of twelve groups, which link me in with people I was friendly with during my teens, people with whom I spent my gap year, people with whom I was in a youth movement, people with whom I helped establish a minyan, people with whom I studied, people with whom I worked, and people involved in various British, Israeli, American and global initiatives that I quite like the sound of. And I’m not even particularly committed to this whole endeavour – in fact, by most people’s standards, I seem to be thoroughly anti-social.

My interest in Facebook emerged partly because I thought it might be fun, but partly because it – and social networking sites in general – are really interesting sociological phenomena. The technology involved allows for entirely new forms of connections to be made and new forms of community to be constructed. The construction, maintenance and growth of community are topics that have intrigued me for some time now, and have formed an important part of both my professional and academic work. I am particularly intrigued to explore how technology, and a variety of other new trends may be impacting some of the dynamics within the Jewish community, and what might be done in response.

Joining Facebook coincided, by chance, with my taking up a new position running JDC’s International Centre for Community Development. JDC-ICCD is a new initiative designed to provide data, insight and training to Jewish communal professionals in Europe and beyond, in order to help them work more effectively in the field. As part of my induction process, I have been travelling around Europe to learn more about what is going on in different Jewish communities. This experience has allowed me to meet with numerous interesting characters, encounter a number of intriguing phenomena, and ask a whole set of questions that previously wouldn’t have even occurred to me. Yet when I look back on the past few months, three particular experiences keep coming back to me, opening up lines of enquiry that appear to strike at the very heart of the future of the Jewish People.

The first took place whilst I was attending a JDC seminar in Oxford. There I met with two Jewish community professionals from Argentina. As part of the programme, they presented an initiative they have set up with the somewhat unfortunate name “YOK” (but pronounced “jok” with a soft “j” as in the French “je.”) YOK has become most well-known for a large-scale Jewish street festival it runs annually in the fashionable Buenos Aires neighbourhood of Palermo. Last year, it attracted an estimated 16,000 people, and had 40 different Jewish food and craft stalls, plus 13 different musical performances. 1,746 people entered its Urban Passover Gefilte Fish competition, which was eventually won by a 73 year-old grandmother. The event took place just before Pesach, so Pesach-related food, gifts and information was available more or less everywhere, ranging from boxes of matzah to kneidl-shaped soap. And given that it was a street festival held out in the open, there were even a few things available for non-Jews, most notably the item that ultimately turned out to be the best-selling t-shirt. Its slogan? “Orgullo Goy” – Goy Pride. Watching a film of the event, it was difficult not to be impressed by the sense of fun that permeated the entire event, and the fact that so many normally uninvolved Jews seemed to be revelling, albeit for a short time, in their Jewishness.

In the break after the presentation, I asked one of the organisers about security arrangements. He told me there were none. The community’s head of security had strongly recommended the standard array of measures, but he had been turned down by the organising committee. They wanted the event to feel open and free, and were more concerned about damaging that atmosphere than about a possible terrorist attack. And this in a city that saw 29 people killed in a terrorist attack on its Israel Embassy in 1992, and 87 people killed in a second attack on the AMIA Jewish community centre in 1994. Irresponsible? Courageous? Naive? Or a breath of fresh air?

The second encounter occurred when I was in Tallinn, Estonia. There are 3000 Jews living there in total, of whom no more than 2000 are actually involved in the community. I met with several Jewish communal leaders in the city, all of whom had much of interest to say, but the conversation that has stuck with me most took place in the newly-opened kosher restaurant in the newly-built synagogue with two barely 20-something youth movement madrichim. Both are extraordinarily committed; both regularly give up their university vacation time to plan and run activities for young people. Both went to the Jewish day school in the city when they were younger, both grew up thoroughly engaged in Jewish communal activity, and both have participated in various major Jewish initiatives like the Israel Experience and March of the Living. Yet, one had a Jewish mother and a non-Jewish father, and the other a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother. I asked the non-halachic Jew if he was concerned about what might happen if he met a Jewish woman and wanted to marry her according to halacha. He answered that he’d like to marry a Jew, but had never really thought about the potential status problems. Nevertheless, he wasn’t worried about it – he more or less dismissed it out of hand, suggesting that he would do what he wanted, and bring up his family however he wished. His friend – the halachic Jew – was equally dismissive and laughed the whole thing off, playfully teasing him about a potential dilemma that clearly felt both unreal and ridiculous. Naive? Realistic? Foolish? Or a sign of things to come?

The third experience took place while I was in Budapest, Hungary. During my trip, I went to a funky new café in the centre of the city that is listed in the Time Out guide as one of Budapest’s hottest destinations, and met with its owner – or perhaps founder is a better term – a 28 year-old son of a Conservative rabbi. Whilst Time Out explains that this hot destination began its life as a non-profit cultural centre, it fails to mention that it was, and still is, a non-profit Jewish cultural centre. Sirály (pronounced “shirai” and meaning “seagull” in Hungarian, as well as “my song” in Hebrew) is located in a three-storey building, complete with café, library (containing almost exclusively Jewish books), bookshop (again, lots of Jewish books), performance space (mainly Jewish performances), and exhibition space (mainly Jewish art). It doesn’t say that it’s Jewish anywhere, and most of the people I saw sitting in the bar weren’t recognisably Jewish, but it clearly is. Indeed, Adam Schonberger, the founder, produces educational pamphlets about the chagim that are available for anyone to read, has just created an on-line haggadah in Hungarian that he used during the seder he ran in the café, is working on a website for Jewish cultural and intellectual discussion which he publicises openly at the venue, and freely gives out stickers promoting his own Hungarian-language Jewish radio station. No one is a member of Sirály – fundamentally it’s a café that has some nice performances from time-to-time – but it provides a kind of home for unaffiliated Jews in the city, if indeed, as Adam himself asks, affiliation means what we traditionally think it means any more. Provocatively anti-establishment? Pragmatic? Faddish? Or visionary?

What links all of these experiences is that each one of them radically challenges traditional conceptions of community in general, and traditional conceptions of Jewish community in particular. Facebook allows for a version of community to be constructed and created in cyberspace, and builds links between people across cities, countries and continents, irrespective of when they met one another, what they really have in common, or how much they really care about one another. Its Jewish groups have no regard for space or time – they are active everywhere at every hour – and they offer both potentially serious engagement and light-hearted fun. They demand nothing at all: no money, no obligations and no commitments, features which, depending on your standpoint, either characterize them as the greatest threat or greatest boon to Jewish communal life.

YOK opens Jewish community up to the wider world, ignoring the once-impenetrable boundaries that separated Jews from non-Jews, in a way that almost sticks up the proverbial finger to the idea that Judaism can only happen safely and securely behind guarded walls – virtual or real. YOK is open and free, fleeting and sporadic, attracting Jews from the mainstream and the periphery as well as their non-Jewish friends and neighbours. Walls have often played an essential role in Jewish community, serving as divisions between them and us, and hermetic seals around Jewish life, ritual and practice. Removing them, or allowing them to become increasingly porous, may either run the risk of destroying everything, or, alternatively, open up the way to new vistas of unbridled creativity.

The Estonian madrichim demonstrate the remarkably porous boundaries that exist around Jewishness, and cause me, at least, to question whether the halachic definition of who is a Jew can be seriously countenanced in light of some of the stark realities of the contemporary Jewish world. Indeed, I am struck by this issue throughout Eastern Europe. The Shoah decimated Jewish life – Estonia was the first country to be declared officially Judenfrei in the Wannsee protocols of January 1942 – and the post-war experience of Communism provided little, if any, opportunity for the tiny remnant that either remained or migrated there after the war, to rebuild anything of substance. Yet, in 2008, there are community members who are not halachically Jewish, making remarkable – perhaps even miraculous – contributions to Jewish life. Are there any situations where halachic standards can be ignored or overruled? In general, should halachic standards continue to be applied? Or does halacha stand above everything – immune to the trials and tribulations of history – because without clarity of definition, the damage to community could be even greater?

And Sirály is intriguing for several reasons, not least because it conveys an almost nonchalant and certainly carefree conception of belonging, one that neither demands nor requires anything from the individual, yet appears to attract numbers in a manner that puts to shame some of the key initiatives of the organised community. Is Jewish community something unique, heavily grounded in our ideas of what has always been, or should it continually reinvent itself to be in line with contemporary sensibilities, culture and society? If the former, are we willing to give up on those members of the community who count themselves out? And if the latter, is there any kind of unchanging core to Jewish community, without which an initiative is no longer allowed to count itself in?

Perhaps the cynics are right. Perhaps YOK and Sirály are simply flash-in-the-pan endeavours that are unsustainable in the long-term, and of little significance to anyone beyond those who happen to stumble across them – barely even a footnote in Jewish history. But perhaps they, along with my Estonian madrichim, reveal the tip of an iceberg that is destined to sink our longstanding ideas about how Jewish community ought to operate and function, and herald in a new era in which we begin to dramatically redefine what Jewish community means, where, if at all, boundaries are drawn, who is Jewish and who is not, and what one needs to do to belong.

(This article launched the "New Conceptions of Community" initiative at JPR, the Institute for Jewish Policy Research, in London)

Reflections on British Jewry in 2007

2007-10-16T06:55:00.000+01:00

I don’t know if I am suitably qualified to write an authoritative article about trends or developments in British Jewry, particularly because I have spent most of the past few years elsewhere – working for the Jewish Agency in New York and on a two-year academic fellowship in Jerusalem. That may or may not be an advantage – it certainly helped me to look at British Jewry through a different set of lenses, but it equally distanced me from some of the day-to-day realities of British Jewish communal life. I offer the thoughts below therefore with that caution, along with the caveat that everything that follows is a personal view, shaped, of course, by my personal experiences, background, preferences and prejudices.

Antisemitism is interesting right now. For a while in the 1990s it almost seemed to disappear – Israel was engaged in a peace process that appeared to bode well for an end to conflict, few people anywhere had even heard of Al-Qaeda, and books like Fukuyama’s The End of History and the Last Man which pointed to the apparent victory of liberal democracy over other more dictatorial forms of government, suggested that all forms of oppression and discrimination were on the wane. Then came 9/11, 7/7, Afghanistan, Iraq, the second intifada, the rise in antisemitic incidents in Britain and elsewhere, and Hamas’s election victory, and suddenly we were back on familiar ground – a world which hates Jews. The truth is, I don’t know if the world ever stopped hating Jews, or indeed, if the world hates Jews any more or less in 2007 than it did in 1907, 1807, 1707 or 1607, but I’m deeply struck by the community’s embrace of the issue. While I was abroad, CST seems to have discovered its sense of purpose and is now an organization renewed, the recently-rebranded JC has a bizarrely gleeful regular column entitled “They Hate Us, They Do,” and Melanie Phillips’s view of the world appears to strike a much greater chord in the community than Jonathan Freedland’s or Daniel Levy’s. Antisemitism seems to fuel us in some way – we abhor it yet thrive on it, it simultaneously repels and attracts us. I’m not a psychologist, but I am far from alone in thinking that we remain a profoundly traumatized people, still haunted by the horrors of Auschwitz and Treblinka in spite of the fact that we have probably never lived in a more tolerant, open, and free society. I wonder what we ought to do about that – whether it is more important for us to leave behind those horrendous chapters of our history, or whether we need to carry them with us always, as a reminder of who we are. In short, as Berl Katznelson asked almost a century ago, is it more important to remember or to forget, and what ought to be the appropriate balance between those two forces?

Right-wing Orthodoxy is intriguing. Many argue that it is winning the battle for Jewish hearts and minds – organizations like Aish Ha-Torah, the Jewish Learning Exchange and Ner Yisroel appear to be thriving, and the birthrate figures in the charedi sector alone indicate that an ever greater percentage of British-born Jews will grow up within that realm. Indeed, some community leaders and commentators, including Manchester University’s Dr Yaakov Wise, suggest that in two or three generations’ time, the vast majority of identifying British Jews will sit in this part of the community, and, by implication therefore, the more secular and progressive forms of Judaism will go into decline, or even cease to exist. The data partially backs up this thesis, yet it ignores other factors – British society’s secularist and liberal tendencies, and the small matter of ‘events’ – unknown future developments that will inevitably impact on our identity in all sorts of unknown ways. Furthermore, even if British Jewry was to become 100% charedi, that moment wouldn’t spell Fukuyama’s end of history – time will move on, and Jews will continue to be attracted to forces and ideas outside of Judaism. Indeed, the growing data on living conditions within parts of the charedi community – reports of families of ten existing in one or two bedroom apartments – will surely take their toll over time. In Israel, the problem is even more acute – the government currently forecasts that by 2019 charedim will make up 25% of the population, and is increasingly concerned by the fact that two-thirds of charedi men don’t work for a living, many rely heavily on welfare, and all are exempted from military service. How much longer can that trend continue before charedi society simply implodes? Nevertheless, the shift towards right-wing Orthodoxy concerns me – partly because I was brought up as a liberal-minded pluralist Jew – but mainly because I don’t think a singular monolithic, “authentic” and “true” version of Judaism is good for the Jewish People. It closes down discussion, dialogue and debate, it closes us off from some of the positive forces and ideas that exist in wider society, and potentially takes us off in the direction of fundamentalism and fossilization. I happen to regard multiple versions of Judaism and Jewish practice as a blessing because I think it does the opposite, yet the question remains: what will become of British and world Jewry religiously?

Connected to that, I find the lack of interplay between the organized Jewish community and the wider social concerns of British society of more than passing interest. When one considers the issues that dominate general political discourse – the environment, poverty and disease in the developing world, the ever-increasing gap between the richest and poorest parts of the world – it is striking how irregularly these seem to feature on the communal agenda. How can it be that 22% of the world’s population lives below the poverty line, at least 841 million people go to sleep hungry each night, and 30,000 people die every day from preventable diseases, and the Jewish People barely comments? Instead, our internal conversation focuses on intermarriage, assimilation, antisemitism, Israel – all important issues, but largely removed from the wider context. America and Israel are slightly better than us in this regard – they have organizations like the American Jewish World Service and Latet that have high profiles and do valuable work – here, in contrast, Tzedek, the Make Poverty History Jewish Coalition and JCore are little-known and desperately struggle to raise the funds they need. Trevor Pears is starting to invest in and champion this agenda – a development that ought to be greatly welcomed – and Jonathan Sacks is increasingly speaking and writing about it, but ‘Jewish’ issues continue to feel different from ‘social’ issues. Judaism has much to say on these concerns, and there are plenty of Jews who are involved in them on an individual basis, yet these factors rarely seem to a coalesce in any meaningful sense to create a state of affairs in which the Jewish People is at the forefront of social change in the world. Is it not remarkable that we have been given a noble tradition with a strong social conscience, yet in most instances, when we study that in depth, the result is insularity and particularism? Why is that, and can, indeed should, it be changed?

I’m struck by the fact that the number of opportunities that exist to learn more about Judaism have sky-rocketed. The London School of Jewish Studies, the London Jewish Cultural Centre, the new Jewish Community Centre for London, Limmud and LimmudFest, Jewish Book Week, the Jewish Learning Exchange, the Florence Melton Adult Mini-School, individual synagogue learning programmes – the list goes on and on. Jewish learning in Britain has probably never before been so varied and vibrant, dynamic and diverse. Why is this? Partly because we can create these opportunities today – we no longer feel compelled to rely on others to do it for us. Partly too, lifelong learning has become a norm in contemporary society, and we are expected, even compelled to develop new skills and understandings as we travel through adulthood. However, perhaps most importantly, it may reflect a certain quest for identity and meaning – a growing desire amongst us to figure out who we are, where we come from, and where we ought to go. This is particularly interesting in Britain, because, as Professor Steven M. Cohen has argued, British Jews are typically “dwellers” rather than “seekers” – that is, content with the status quo of Jewish communal life, as opposed to being open to change and rejecting the notion of a right way to be Jewish. On the other hand, Alan Hoffman has questioned whether the trend may be likened to the last vestiges of a pot of boiling soup – in the same way as that is the often the richest and most tasty part of the pot, it also spells its end. I wonder whether the flowering of educational opportunity represents a new dawn for British Jewry, or whether it is simply a final desperate attempt to save us from our inevitable demise.

Lastly, in contrast to the communal culture of the late 1990s, I don’t see much evidence of serious thought going on in the community today. My teacher, mentor and friend, Jonny Ariel, has an almost anthropomorphic view of community change. He has likened strategic change to acupuncture – the key is to locate and focus on the critical points in the community’s infrastructure that would, if stimulated, improve its health generally. He has also spoken of the equal importance of “head, heart and hands” – thinking, feeling, and doing. Looking around the community today, I don’t experience a great deal of tolerance for serious or iterative thought; the dominant culture seems to have moved much closer to gut, raw action. On too many occasions I hear the sentiment that communal renewal or revival is very straightforward – it is obvious what to do, we just need to find people to do it. I’m afraid that simply isn’t true – if Jewish communal regeneration was simple, thirteen million Jews around the world would be thoroughly engaged in their Jewishness and find inspiration in it on a regular basis. The reality is that community development is profoundly complex, constantly influenced by the forces of sociological and philosophical change, always requiring a dialogical combination of reflective thought, affective sensitivity, and creative action. The moment any one of these three components is lost or downplayed, the others suffer. There are thought centres in our community – the Institute for Jewish Policy Research and the Board of Deputies’ new Community Policy Research Group, and both are important bodies – yet, the real challenge is how to integrate their thinking into the realm of community action. In too many instances, decisions about what to do in the community are taken without reference to the research or analysis, but rather purely on the basis of what individual lay or professional leaders feel compelled to do. We have limited funds; my own belief is that we ought to spend them more thoughtfully than we often do.

These are a few reflections. There are more, of course, yet these are the five that have struck me most powerfully since my return. I am happy to be challenged on any or all of them – I may well be wrong, and if so, I would certainly welcome the feedback. However, one thing is absolutely clear to me and is no different today than in the past: the community needs intelligent, active and wealthy leaders to drive it forward – people who want to engage in the debate, act on their beliefs, and invest their own funds in the community’s future. With these, the sky is the limit.

(Commissioned for the Adam Science Foundation, and also published on www.ujia.org)

Letter from Jerusalem: Lebanon War, July 2006

2006-07-31T23:53:00.001+01:00

We have a beautiful view from the balcony of our apartment in Jerusalem. The majestic King David Hotel stands proudly on the horizon, and the walls of the Old City can be clearly seen in the distance. On warm sunny days, there is nothing like looking out over this awe-inspiring city, and taking in the wonder of it all.

Our television sits in front of the French windows leading out onto the balcony. Often a mere ornament, it has dominated my view for the past week or two. Desperate for news of events on the borders with Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, I haven’t really noticed the sun-drenched golden stone of Jerusalem. When I think about it, there’s complete dissonance between the two images at the moment: warm, peaceful Jerusalem, and the embattled, blood-soaked TV screen. It’s difficult to imagine sometimes that what I’m seeing on TV is going on just a couple of hundred kilometers up the road.

Of course, every-so-often it hits home. Like during a mundane phone conversation with one of the secretaries at work who, in the midst of the conversation started to cry because she’d just spoken to her family who were sitting huddled together in a bomb shelter in Haifa. Or when an Israeli friend suggested that it was probably reasonably safe for my sister to go back to her home to Zikhron Yaakov – a few kilometers south of Haifa – assuming she has a bomb shelter in her house. (She doesn’t by the way, but she went home anyway. Life has to carry on.) Or, when looking around synagogue this Shabbat, and noticing the eerie absence of twenty- and thirty-something men. In the Diaspora, Jewish organizations are involved in extended debates about where that demographic group is and why it can’t be found in the synagogue; in Israel this week, there was no such debate. We knew exactly where they all were.

And then there was Friday morning’s conversation with our neighbours, Greg and Nicole, just outside their front door. Greg, an Irishman in his mid-thirties who made aliyah several years ago, had just received orders to report for army reserve duty that afternoon, and they were on their way out with their three-year old daughter, Noa, for a final lunch together. Wearing his army uniform, he seemed to be taking it all in his stride. “I’ll probably just get sent to some outpost in the West Bank,” he said, smiling. “They’ll probably want me to replace a young soldier based there, and they’ll send him to Lebanon.” Then he paused for a moment, and continued: “Mind you, you just never know. I was in Lebanon for six months in ’98, so maybe they’ll want me for my experience.” Pointing to his young daughter, he said: “She knows exactly what the uniform means, you know. Daddy’s going to be away for a while.” Just then, Noa slipped on the stone floor and banged her head. Greg, a normally mild-mannered, relaxed man, lost it for a moment, screamed at his wife, ran to pick up his daughter, and slammed the door in my face. The tension they must have been feeling is unimaginable.

Israel is right to be pursuing its course of action right now. Hezb’allah launched an unprovoked attack against a sovereign state, and crossed over the border to abduct Israeli soldiers. Lobbing Katyushas randomly into another country, with utter disregard for where they land and who they maim and kill is unmistakable terrorism. Twenty percent of Israeli society is under siege right now, a larger proportion than was the case during the Six Day War. Israel cannot allow such blatant vindictiveness and hatred to fester on its northern border, and neither should the rest of the world tolerate it. It is wrong, full stop.

The fact that the abduction happened two weeks after a soldier was abducted from within Israel’s sovereign borders following an attack launched from Gaza is no coincidence. Hamas and Hezb’allah are in cahoots over this – both motivated by profound hatred for Israel, and both determined to draw Israel into a conflict in order to foment that hatred, build support for their cause, and distract the world from other more pressing issues.

The fact that the abduction coincided with the G8 summit in St Petersburg was no coincidence either. Top of the agenda for the meeting of the world’s most powerful leaders was meant to be Iran’s intransigence over the nuclear weapons issue. By enabling Hezb’allah to launch an unprovoked attack on Israel – which it did by funding the organization to the tune of an estimated $100 million per year – Iran successfully managed to divert discussion away from its nuclear programme, and onto that old, tried and tested topic, the Arab-Israel conflict. And, in doing so, it bought itself a few more weeks, perhaps months, towards achieving its ambitions.

It’s been a brilliant strategy. Hezb’allah has gained support in parts of the Arab world – in the short term at least – if only for giving arrogant Israel a damn good battering. Lebanon has been decimated by Israel’s military response, dramatically weakening the democratically-elected government that has been backed by Europe, the UN, and the United States, and that won its mandate on an anti-Syrian occupation and influence platform. Syria has strengthened its justification for being in Lebanon in the first place – surely, Israel would have thought twice before launching such an extensive and bitter attack on Lebanon if Syrian troops had still been stationed there. Iran has diverted attention away from its nuclear activities, and, best of all, hundreds of thousands of Arabs have had their lives disrupted in all kinds of traumatic ways by Israel’s military response, thereby sowing widespread seeds of anti-Israel sentiment for at least another generation, if not two. And all this simply by abducting a couple of soldiers, and hurling a few Katyushas across the border.

Given these strategic aims, Israel’s response has indeed been disproportionate. The human being in me cries out for the innocent Lebanese civilians who have experienced such unbearable levels of fear and pain, and the father in me is torn apart just trying to imagine what it must like be to see one’s child killed or maimed by an Israeli bomb attack. And yet, I understand so well why Israel has responded as it has, and why, tragically, it has had no alternative but to respond in this way. The reason is clear. Everything else has been tried. And nothing else works.

The dominant feeling I sense here at the moment is that we simply cannot win. We tried holding onto territory – both as a bargaining chip for some future peace agreement, and in order to defend our citizens from attack. It didn’t work. We were maligned by the world for being an occupying power, and our presence only served to fan the flames of anti-Israel hatred. So we tried withdrawal under the terms of an international agreement – pulling out of Lebanon six years ago on the clear understanding that the Lebanese government would take responsibility for removing the Shi’ite militant threat against Israel. That clearly didn’t work – Hezb’allah has used the last six years to build an intricate network of tunnels, bunkers, stations and minefields in southern Lebanon, and to stockpile an estimated 13,500 rockets all pointed in our direction. We tried negotiating a direct settlement – to give up territory in return for a peace agreement. It didn’t work either. We went as far as we possibly could, offering the Palestinians all of the Gaza Strip, the vast majority of the West Bank plus compensatory land from within pre-1967 Israel, and the sharing of Jerusalem. In response, we ended up with an intifada. Hundreds of Israelis murdered in suicide bombings on buses, in restaurants, on university campuses and in hotels. So, last year, we tried unilateral disengagement. Forget agreements, forget our needs or interests, just get the hell out. The pain that permeated Israeli society in the months leading up to the disengagement of August 2005 persists to this day, but it won the support of the Israeli majority because it was worth a try. Perhaps, just perhaps, if the Palestinians actually have a piece of unoccupied land, they’ll start to build the infrastructure of a democratic, or at least peaceful, state. But that didn’t work either. Hundreds of Qassam rockets launched from Gaza into the sleepy Israeli town of Sderot, terrorizing the residents, and, despite the primitive nature of the weaponry, murdering several innocent civilians. And then, the underground incursion across the border into undisputed Israeli territory, the killing of Israeli soldiers, and the abduction of Corporal Gilad Shalit.

Nothing works. We can’t hold onto territory. We can’t negotiate its return. And we can’t just give it away. Whatever we do, we get violence, followed by more violence, followed by more violence. And sadly, tragically even, that was the state of the Israeli mind the moment Hezb’allah began its latest little game. Given that, given our profound frustration and deep deep anger, there could be only one response to an unprovoked attack: war.

What makes it all so much worse is that we know that this approach won’t work either. We know it fuels hatred. We know that Israel will be condemned – in some quarters at the very least – for its actions. We know Hezb’allah will be back – even if it is utterly obliterated – whether under the same guise or another. But that’s life here. Every-so-often, every few years or so, we’ll have to fight, kill and be killed, because even though that doesn’t work, nothing else works either. And if we don’t fight and kill, we’ll be killed ourselves.

My sister (the one without the bomb shelter) reminded me this week that breakthroughs are made from time to time. For example, no one would have predicted the peace accords of the 1990s while scud missiles were raining down on Tel Aviv during the first Gulf War. The following day, my wife reminded me of her belief that Judaism is, at its very core, about redemption – the bizarre, irrational but profoundly important idea that reality can be overcome, that the future can be better, that we can indeed change the world. Perhaps they are right. For the sake of the Israeli soldiers who are being held hostage by terrorists in Lebanon and Gaza, for the sake of Greg who is stationed somewhere in the West Bank or Lebanon as I write, for the sake of the Israeli Moslem father from Nazareth who lost two of his children in a Hezb’allah attack last week (and who blamed Israel for their deaths), and for the sake of all those innocent Lebanese civilians who have been caught up in this mess, I really hope they are. And for the sake of the simple hope that perhaps one day soon, just perhaps, I’ll be able to avert my gaze away from the TV screen, and admire the view over Jerusalem again.

Also published on www.peoplehood.org

"Passionate Openness:" A New Aggadah for Conservative Judaism

2006-02-19T19:01:00.001Z

Co-authored by Shoshana Boyd Gelfand

"How is it possible that 600,000 Israelites stood at the foot of Sinai and one Voice addressed an entire people, yet every individual was convinced that the Voice was addressed to him personally? Rabbi Levy answers, 'The Holy One appeared to them as a mirror. A thousand might look into the mirror, but it will reflect each of them. Do not marvel at this, for God spoke to each person according to that person's capacity. Do not wonder at this, for when the manna came down from heaven, each and every one tasted it according to their capacity – the young, the old, the sick, the healthy. So too with the Voice of God: 'the Voice of the Lord in its strength' means the Voice is heard according to the power of each individual. Do not be mistaken because you hear many voices. Know that I am He who was and is One and the same.'"

(Pesikta D'Rav Kahana)

We may worry about the trend today, but the midrash tells us that an element of individualism was present even at Sinai. Every Jew heard God's voice differently, according to his or her own capacity to do so. One assumes however, that we were bound together both by the shared experience, and the sense that everyone else held a component part of God's message, without which we were incomplete as a collective. Today, when individualism is rife, little seems to hold us together anymore. Six hundred thousand interpretations have become six billion interpretations, and our own single one quickly becomes lost in the vastness and rapidity of the discourse. We are left standing alone, with our solitary view, an individual in an individualistic paradise, with a dramatically-reduced capacity to be heard by anyone.

Like it or not, individualism is a fact of modern life, and any aggadah of modern Judaism will need to grapple with the concept in a serious way. Therefore, it may be worth taking a few moments to look at the sociological data on this contemporary American trend, and reflect on its implications both for the Conservative Movement and the Jewish community in general. In this way, at least we will have some shared language on part of the challenge that exists.

It was probably Robert Bellah et. al. who first introduced us to the phenomenon in Habits of the Heart,[1] and then Robert Putnam who sharpened our understanding of it in Bowling Alone.[2] In the more particular context of the American Jewish community, Steven M. Cohen and Arnold Eisen then demonstrated how the same force is at work in their study of American moderately-affiliated Jews.[3] In their book, they describe how the "Jew Within" – our inner-self, our personal quest for meaning – increasingly determines what to observe and what not to; external forces, like God, halacha, the family, community, even elements like guilt, play an ever-decreasing role. "More and more," argue Cohen and Eisen, "the meaning of Judaism transpires within the self."[4] Bethamie Horowitz has similarly pointed out that these Jews' ongoing involvement in Judaism "depends on it being meaningful and fitting in with their lives."[5] In short, much of the sociological evidence that we have points to the fact that a significant proportion of American Jews is unwilling to be told that there is a right or a wrong way to be Jewish; they will decide that for themselves, mainly on the basis of what their inner voice tells them.

Part of what this means, as Cohen and Eisen indicate, is that many of us "are simply not concerned with disputes about what constitutes proper observance."[6] Personal meaning trumps any notion of what is 'correct' according to a particular movement. Indeed, "Eclecticism is now the rule when it comes to practice. Consistency is no longer prized. Theology is virtually irrelevant."[7] Internal movement debates – mechitza or no mechitza, gay rabbis or straight rabbis, the relative validity of Reform, Conservative or Orthodox Judaism, etc. – are becoming increasingly meaningless to many members of our community. They know what is right or wrong, engaging or dull, persuasive or non-credible because they feel it in their all-American gut, and frankly, to them, that is what matters most.

Horowitz's research offers another important insight which we must also take into consideration. She writes: "Jewish identity is not something static that a person either has or does not have. Rather identity can evolve and change, ebb and flow, in relation to all sorts of influences, internal and external. A person may be much less connected to Judaism at one point in his/her lifetime and more deeply identified at another."[8] According to her, most of us are on non-linear lifelong journeys during which we will encounter various forms of Judaism. To hope to attract people, we will need to provide them with multiple gateways, or, as she articulates it, "an entranceway with many portals."[9]

This concept of journeys is playing itself out in a whole host of intriguing ways. According both to Hillel's recent research on the "millenials,"[10] and to Steven M. Cohen in his recent article on young adults,[11] Jews in their 20s and 30s (including fairly traditional Orthodox ones) are being very inventive and creative about their Judaism. Their physical and virtual journeys allow them to experience and sample multiple cultures and aesthetics, which many then try to blend with received Jewish norms. The result is that their Judaism is contemporary and inventive, and it is their very embrace of flexibility and the freedom they assert to innovate that allows it to be so. Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett has described this as "a tectonic shift in the ways that Jewish youth and young adults relate to one another and understand themselves."[12]

The shift she describes has been heavily influenced by technology, not just in a technical sense – i.e. the simple increase in the use of the internet, MP3 players, Weblogs, etc. – but much more importantly, in a figurative way. We know that our social context impacts who we are; sociologists have long pointed out that "an individual's existence takes place under certain external conditions" (technological, economic, political, etc.), and that "there is an internalization of at least some of these".[13] The new technologies create dramatically different external conditions to those that existed a generation ago, making it entirely normative today to search out information for yourself rather than having it broadcast to you by an "authority," and to share your ideas with the world, rather than having the world impose its ideas on you.[14] To borrow Kirshenblatt-Gimbletts's phrase, the "born digital generation" – the future of our community – is particularly influenced by these forces.

In short, a distinct portrait of the contemporary American Jew is emerging. Our ways to express our Jewishness are informed and shaped by our social context, which places a strong premium on self-construction by navigating our way through life in our own way, on our own terms, in a manner that allows us to encounter interesting people and opportunities, and that is fundamentally enjoyable and life-enhancing. We determine that which is Jewishly-valid on the basis of our experience of it rather than via more authoritarian means, and our shifting social realities cause our preferences to change and develop over time. We enjoy sampling multiple options and experiences, and blending them together to create something that is interesting and personally meaningful. That, according to almost all of the sociological data, and confirmed by much of our own experience, is the reality, and whilst we should not be slaves to these trends and simply mould contemporary Judaism so that it aligns itself with them, we ignore them at our peril.

Of course, this is not the only portrait of contemporary American Jews. Whilst the social context impacts all of us, there are still plenty of us who wholly reject the notion that Judaism is such a subjective matter. Some of us are able to transcend the intense pressures of modernity, and live with the dissonance between the received idea that our Jewishness is our destiny, and the reality that it is actually our ongoing choice. But none of us can ignore sociologist Peter Berger's painful reminder that "all the individual has to do to get out of his alleged Jewish identity is to walk out [of the 'artificial shtetl'] and take the subway."[15] The boundaries around us, even those of us who buttress and fortify them on a daily basis, are extraordinarily porous.

The question then, is how to respond to all of this, and maintain, even enhance Judaism and the Jewish People in spite of it. As Berger has taught us, there have been three typical responses to such challenges in the past: the reductive option, the deductive option, and the inductive option. The reductive option is to reduce Judaism's and the community's demands and obligations, and adapt, even surrender to the forces of wider culture. The deductive option is to steadfastly maintain everything that Judaism has always been, and fence it off from modernity's pressures in order to protect it. The inductive option simultaneously seeks to find a balance between these first two poles, searching for something that is both passionate about tradition, but open to contemporary forces.[16]

Conservative Judaism has always been good at the inductive option. Indeed, its aggadot of pluralism and "tradition and change" are the epitome of the inductive option. Conservative Judaism has always sought to find a balance between the richness and depth of our tradition and the ideas and realities that exist beyond it, and has actually shown remarkable ability to contain the complexity of that dialectic. The movement has always valued multiple means of exploring and interpreting religious ideas, and has espoused a philosophy that doesn't lament this plurality as an unfortunate reality to be tolerated, but rather celebrates it as a rich opportunity to be embraced. Indeed, for Conservative Judaism to thrive, it needs the fuel of open debate and discussion, because it is in this very openness that we find the source of our passion. In contrast to those who are overly passionate about their beliefs without being open to ideas that might challenge them, as well as to those who are overly open to all ideas without being passionate about a core set of beliefs to root them, the Conservative movement has always embraced both Jewish passion and openness to ideas, and has thrived on any inherent tensions that have emerged. It is this notion that ought to form the basis of our new aggadah: the two poles of passion and openness in creative tension with one another. "Passionate Openness" is the perfect articulation of our ideals for the early 21st Century, both because it expresses something that has always been part of our movement's weltanschauung, and because it poses a critical challenge to some of the idols of our age. The former case we hope has already been established, the latter requires further elucidation.

America, the Jewish People, and perhaps the world as a whole, are currently being pulled in two different directions, both, in their own ways, deeply problematic. The sociological dynamics we described earlier are causing two particularly prominent reactions: either to go with the flow and bask in the huge range of possibilities now available, or to shut the windows, lock the doors, and fill up the sandbags in order to protect everything we believe to be sacred. These are Berger's reductive and deductive options, and whilst neither is inherently bad, both in their most extreme forms are acutely dangerous. The former – an over-emphasis on openness at the expense of passion – tends to lead to purposelessness in the general context, a life led without secure and enduring sacred values, built instead on the quicksand of instant self-gratification. In a Jewish context this is a path that begins with apathy and boredom and ends in disaffection and meaningless superficiality. The latter – an over-emphasis on passion at the expense of openness – tends to lead to religious fundamentalism in the general context, an unbending application of a Singular God-Given Truth, resulting in anything from intolerance to suicide bombings. In a Jewish context, this is a force that begins with narrowness and self-righteousness, and ends with our own forms of fanaticism and, in our recent past, even assassination. The idols of our age, avodah zara in the early 21st Century, can be found at either end of these two poles: purposelessness, apathy and instant gratification at the end of the reduction option, bigotry, extremism, and butchery at the end of deduction. Whatever aggadah we ultimately choose for our movement, it has to offer both a harsh critique of these forces, and a powerful and compelling alternative able to counter them.

However, in our context, the inductive option seems to be having a hard time. The pull to the extremes is strong, and if we were to base our view of the world entirely on the version of it presented by the media, we might assume that the middle ground is rapidly being consumed. The truth, however, is somewhat more complex. A large silent majority still exists that continues to passionately believe both that there are certain core values that are essential to pass on to our children, and that we can benefit significantly from our interaction with and openness to other people and ideas. However, at present, many such people seem to be struggling to find a home in any of the pre-existing categories or places, and so perhaps it is no accident that in wider society, according to Steven M. Cohen, "the party label with the healthiest growth over the last few decades has been 'Independent,' at the cost of both the Democratic and Republican labels."[17] In a not dissimilar manner in the Jewish sphere, the attraction of 'post-denominational' or 'multi-denominational' initiatives is growing – institutions like Pardes and the Hartman Institute in Jerusalem are attracting significant numbers of Jewish students and rabbis from almost all denominations, and Boston's Hebrew College proudly advertises its general specialization in "trans-denominational Jewish education" and the option of "Rabbinic ordination in a trans-denominational setting."[18] None of these are passing fads; indeed, similar phenomena can be observed in the various post-denominational minyanim that have been set up in recent years (Hadar, IKAR and Keshet to site just three examples), in independent or collaborative educational initiatives like Limmud and Alma/JCC Manhattan's Tikkun Leyel Shavuot, and in cross-denominational cooperatives like Chicago's City North Kehillah.[19] The beauty of all these initiatives is that they play into the social dynamic described earlier: they allow people the opportunity to navigate their way through Judaism in a serious way, sampling different options and ideas according to their preferences and needs, but without making rigid statements about what is acceptable and unacceptable. They work because they capture the spirit of the age without sacrificing the central importance of content. But whilst all this is going on, the inductive specialist par excellence – the Conservative Movement – is being described as "the grayest denomination in American Jewry."[20] What on earth is going wrong?

The critical error of the Conservative Movement is neither its core beliefs, nor their applicability to our contemporary context. The critical error is all about our movement's capacity to figure out how to allow its core values to live and thrive in our contemporary context. We know that out target population is searching for meaning. We know that they are on lifelong journeys to discover it, and that what captures them at one stage in their life may not do so at another. We know that they don't want to be told what is right and wrong; that they can figure that out for themselves. We know that they want to sample different styles of Judaism, different approaches, different ideas, and that this very diversity is what makes Judaism interesting. Yet for all our movement's pluralism, for all our belief in multiple voices, we continue to maintain very rigid boundaries around ourselves. Certain ideas exist beyond the borders of Conservative Judaism, and we are reluctant to allow them in, whether they come from the left or the right of our particular stances. And herein lies the inconsistency. To be a pluralist in an age of journeys to self-meaning demands that boundaries be drawn as widely as possible, precisely in order to allow those journeys to take place. The options that exist within the boundaries need to be as diverse and multi-faceted as possible, to clearly demonstrate that this is a genuine version of pluralism that enables diverse, contradictory and even oppositional voices to speak, because truth is not something that exists in any one place or any one person, but in the genuine dialogue or machloket that takes place between us.[21] It cannot be that if you, as a pluralist open-minded Conservative Jew, want to explore alternative modes of Jewish thought and practice, you either have to leave the movement and join a different one, or you have to go to a multi-denominational program where you can sample whatever you choose. If that is the case, there are few compelling reasons to remain within the movement. For all our talk about pluralism, our continued existence as a particular movement with a particular worldview and narrowly-drawn boundaries undermines core components of that which we are attempting to espouse. "Not surprisingly," notes Cohen, "signs point to the out-flow of some of the most committed and capable Conservative Jews, be they to Orthodoxy or, in a few cases to post-denominational institutions."[22] We're not allowing the real richness of the conversation to take place within our boundaries; in short, there is a paradoxical closedness to our openness.

The question, of course, is where then should the boundaries be drawn? If we draw them too narrowly, we close off options, but if we draw them too widely, we create an environment where absolutely anything goes. The answer lies again in the notion of "Passionate Openness", and the creative tension and dialogical relationship that exists between passion for Jewish people, traditions and ideas, and openness to diversity and multiple truths. To be a "Passionately-Open" Jew, you have to be able to say with conviction both that you are committed to exploring Judaism in a serious and thoughtful manner, and that you are open to considering manifold views and perspectives. If you can only say one of these statements with conviction, you are not a "Passionately-Open" Jew; if you can say them both with conviction, you are.

The real issues of import in the Jewish world are not the existence or absence of a mechitza, or the acceptability or unacceptability of homosexual rabbis. The real issues are how to counter violence and vicious religious extremism at one end of the spectrum, and apathy and meaningless instant gratification at the other. The only response to both of these is to gather all the positive energy and passion that can be found throughout Jewish tradition and open ourselves up to all the positive creativity and dynamism that exists throughout our wider context. If we can fuse these together and create a dramatic and spark-filled genuine dialogue between them, perhaps we'll start to reconstruct that One Voice that spoke to us at Sinai, and in doing so, we'll create something of genuine significance and allure, both for the Jewish People and the wider world.

NOTES

1. Robert Bellah, et. al., Habits of the Heart. Individualism and Commitment in American Life. (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1985).
2. Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000).
3. Steven M. Cohen and Arnold M. Eisen, The Jew Within. Self, Family and Community in America (Indiana University Press, 2000).
4. Ibid., pp.183-184
5. Bethamie Horowitz, "Connections and Journeys. Assessing Critical Opportunities for Enhancing Jewish Identity." (New York: Report to the Commission on Jewish Identity and Renewal, UJA Federation of New York, 2003), p.186.
6. Cohen and Eisen, Jew Within, op. cit., p.92.
7. Ibid.
8. Horowitz, "Connections and Journeys", op. cit., pp.186-187.
9. Ibid., p.189.
10. Unpublished data, presented by Avraham Infeld at the Mandel Leadership Institute, Jerusalem, February 2006.
11. Steven M. Cohen, "Engaging the Next Generation of American Jews. Distinguishing the In-Married, Inter-Married, and Non-Married." Journal of Jewish Communal Service, Fall/Winter 2005.
12. Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, "The 'New Jews': Reflections on Emerging Cultural Practices" downloaded from: http://www.nyu.edu/classes/bkg/web/yeshiva.pdf
13. See: Peter Berger, The Heretical Imperative. Contemporary Possibilities of Religious Affirmation. (New York: Anchor Press, 1979), p.5.
14. For a more detailed analysis of this trend, see, for example: Don Tapscott, Growing Up Digital. The Rise of the Net Generation, (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1998).
15. Berger, Heretical Imperative, op. cit., p.30.
16. Ibid.
17. Steven M. Cohen, "Non-Denominational and Post-Denominational: Two Tendencies in American Jewry," in: Contact, Vol. 7, No.4. (Jewish Life Network/Steinhardt Foundation, Summer 2005/Av 5765), p.8.
18. See: http://www.hebrewcollege.edu/
19. For further details of these initiatives see: http://www.kehilathadar.org/ (Hadar); http://www.ikar-la.org/ (Ikar); http://www.limmudny.org/ (Limmud New York); http://tikkunny.org/intro_flash.swf (Tikkun Leyl Shavuot); http://www.shurekehilla.org/ (City North Kehilla).
20. See: Cohen, "Non-Denominational," op. cit., p.8.
21. We use the term "genuine dialogue" in its Buberian sense. See: Martin Buber, Between Man and Man (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1947).
22. Cohen, "Non-Denominational," op. cit., p.8.

(Also published in Conservative Judaism)

Tzav: Commands and Choices

2006-02-19T15:50:00.001Z

"Tzav." "Command." "The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Command…"

"Tzav" is a tricky word nowadays. In pre-modern times more or less everything and everybody we encountered (both within and beyond Judaism) accepted as a given the existence of an omnipotent and omniscient God who commands us to act in accordance with certain principles and ideas. Today, in contrast, more or less everything and everybody we encounter accepts as a given that we're not obligated to believe or practice anything because it is up to the individual to decide such matters on his or her own. What was a world of command has become a world of choice, and suddenly, everything feels entirely different.

In a world of command, multiple choice is impossible; in a world of choice, singular command is untenable. Yet the latter world is our home, a place where there is profound dissonance between the commanding voice of God, and the multiple voices of choice. How should we manage this discord? How should we resolve this tension?

The truth is I'm not so sure that it is resolvable, and, even if it is, I'm not sure I want to resolve it. Perhaps all I can do is to share my own thoughts and struggles, and invite you to do likewise. I have difficulty with the idea of a singular commanding voice that imposes itself on me, not least because I know that voice will always be mediated through something or someone. My capacity to understand any text is always compounded by my own limitations: even when I read Torah in its original Hebrew with as many of the m'farshim as I can collect, I can never know for sure its "true" meaning or intention. It will always remain a text as interpreted by me, influenced by the people and forces that surround me. Therefore, I can have no certainty about what constitutes a "true" version of Judaism – I am no more convinced by the certainty of a haredi rabbi living in Bnei Barak than I am by that of a Reform rabbi living in the Borough of Barnet.

On the other hand, I don't know how to function in a world that rejects the idea of "tzav" – the idea that there is no commanding voice that contains within it an eternal notion of truth. If there is no notion of truth, it becomes easy to slide into relativism, where there are no notions of right or wrong either. Judaism does command me to behave in certain ways, even if my capacity to know those ways is imperfect due to my own limited ability to interpret the tradition, not to mention my own weakness to always live up to the standards it sets. My responsibility, therefore, if I reject a world built on the quicksand of relativism, is to uncover that tradition, both by delving deeply into it, and by learning about it from those who are similarly engaged in the pursuit. To do that I need both the haredi rabbi living in Bnei Barak and the Reform rabbi living in the Borough of Barnet, because within both of their voices, as within mine, exists a small component of the commanding voice of God.

Alasdair MacIntyre suggests that a tradition is "a historically extended, socially embodied argument," and makes the claim that it may be considered to be "in good order" if it is dynamic and generative, responding to internal debate and changing circumstances as it seeks to realize its vision of the good life. Part of the historically extended, socially embodied argument that enriches us today concerns the place of "tzav" in our lives – the notion of command, the nature of command, and our capacity to hear the command and respond to it, both in spite of, and with the help of the vast array of choices that are perpetually available to us.

(Also published at: www.limmud.org)

The End of Centrality

2005-08-01T04:19:00.000+01:00

The debate about whether Israel is, or is not the center of the Jewish world is hereby declared over. The good news for Israel is that it won: it is indeed the center of the Jewish world. The bad news is that it doesn't matter anymore.

Israel's victory was sealed in the midst of the intifada. It happened in the most subtle ways – when Diaspora Jews who were otherwise uninvolved in Jewish life were asked for their opinions on the conflict by work colleagues; when CNN forced us to ask complex questions about the nature of our Jewishness simply by beaming images of Israel into our living rooms; when new books about Israel – like Alan Dershowitz's The Case for Israel – had a habit of finding their way into our lives. Today, for good or for bad, Israel has a way of impacting the life of Diaspora Jews.

And yet, wider sociological trends have simultaneously made the whole notion of centrality completely obsolete. However we may wish to construct the Jewish world in our hearts and minds, the sociological changes of the past decade are forcing us to redefine the very way in which we see it. Globalization has created a radically different world to the one we are used to, and in this new era the very duality of Israel/Diaspora ceases to make sense.

In a global world, Israel can no longer be in the center. It can no longer even be primus inter pares. In a global world, nothing holds center stage. Instead, all places, all people are linked to one another in cyberspace, and all vie with one another for attention. No single place holds more significance or value than another. The potential for creativity and innovation exists everywhere and in everyone. In the new technological age, nothing is central and everything is central simultaneously. In short, today Israel is both as extraordinary and as extraneous as everything else.

In policy terms, this forces us to think in new ways. If every Jew and every Jewish community now has the potential to influence and be influenced by others, we have to develop new methodologies to really benefit from this. We have to find ways to maximize the unique qualities of individual Jewish communities, educators and thinkers and allow as many Jews as possible access to them. Conceptually, we need to reconstruct our understanding of Israel as medina (state) or eretz (land) – a place, a resource, a classroom – to include the notion of Israel as am (people).

What does this mean in reality? When we think about Israel Experience programs, we should move beyond the Diaspora notion of sending kids to Israel to get their injection of Jewishness to bring back home, or the Israeli notion of bringing Diaspora kids to Israel to bolster tourism or aliyah. Instead, we have to think about how to bring Jews together from Israel and the Diaspora, in Israel or the Diaspora, in order to learn from one another, and to work together to strengthen the Jewish People.

When we think about shlichut, the emissaries Israel traditionally sends to Diaspora communities, we should no longer simply think of Israeli educators in the Diaspora teaching about Israel and encouraging aliyah. Instead, we have to start seeing shlichim as Jewish educators who come from any Jewish community, and go to any other Jewish community. Shlichim could be American Jews in England and vice-versa, Canadian Jews in France and vice-versa, and Israeli Jews in the Diaspora, and, dare I say it, vice versa too.

And when we think about organizational partnerships, we have to reach beyond our immediate community and beyond Israel, and strategize how our institution – our synagogue, JCC, seminary, school, etc. – can both enhance, and be enhanced by individuals, institutions and communities throughout the Jewish world. The overarching principle is that every Jew matters, and every Jew – wherever he or she happens to live – has something to learn from and to teach to others.

This is the new paradigm. It no longer positions the land or the State of Israel at the center of the Jewish world, because, sociologically at least, that notion is becoming increasingly meaningless. It rather positions the people of Israel – the social capital of the Jewish People as a whole – at the heart of the Jewish world, and asks all of us to strive to learn from, and contribute to the collective task of strengthening the Jewish People. In this way, we will encourage a global cross-fertilization of ideas and build a real sense of commonality, not simply for the benefit of Israel, but for the benefit of Jews everywhere.

(Also published on ynet.com in July 2005
- see: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3120533,00.html,
in the November 2005 edition of the KolDor Review
- see: http://www.koldor.org/imagez/1132069125.pdf, p.10),
and originally in Sh'ma Magazine in December 2004)

Acharei Mot: Struggling With Difficult Texts

2005-04-22T23:46:00.000+01:00

Homosexuality is an "abomination". Homosexuals "shall be cut off from among their people". So states this week's parsha, Acharei Mot, in Leviticus 18, verses 22 and 29.

Is this true? If it is, should we understand it literally? If it's not, what does that say about the Torah – traditionally understood as the word of God dictated to Moses? How should we deal with such challenging components of our heritage?

In modern times at least, there have been three typical responses. The first has been to read the text literally – to shun, reject and demean Jewish homosexuals, and to turn their lives into the kind of living hell that Sandi Simcha Dubowski managed to capture so well in his ground-breaking film, Trembling Before God. The second has been to effectively remove the text from the living tradition – to exclude it from the sections of Torah that are read in the synagogue on the grounds that it is obscurantist and immoral, and simply doesn't square with western liberal sensibilities. The third has been to continue to include it within the tradition, but not to talk about it too much because it's one of those tricky parts of Torah that, frankly, feels slightly unpleasant.

All three responses are problematic. If we always read Jewish texts literally, and blindly follow the letter of the law, Judaism becomes wooden and inflexible, a series of ideas frozen in the past and imposed on the present. Halacha becomes like the actor who rigidly follows stage instructions without putting anything of him or herself into the performance. At its worst, it turns into fundamentalism, rejecting anything other than itself as falsehood. However, if we always reject those Jewish texts that are problematic or foolish to the contemporary heart and mind, Judaism becomes disconnected from reality, a series of moral or intellectual ideals which have no Jewish means of being actualized through regular collective ritual. In this context, bowdlerized Judaism starts to feel perfect, ethereal, and almost other-worldly, and, as it spiritually elevates itself, it loses contact with the complexities, struggles and veracity of day-to-day existence. But then again, if we continue to include difficult texts but try not to talk about them too much, we become dishonest both with ourselves and with Judaism. The metaphorical elephant sits in the centre of our world, and is ignored until it eventually and inevitably stampedes its ways through everything we hold to be important.

There is a fourth option. It is neither to embrace the difficult texts within Judaism as absolute truth, nor to reject them as absolute falsehood, nor to ignore them as absolute taboo. Rather it is to regard them as life-enhancing elements within our rich, complex and challenging living tradition. In the same way that our lives are often beset with difficulties and problems which, confronted constructively, help us to grow and develop as human beings, so the more problematic elements of Judaism can serve to ennoble us too. We needed slavery to understand freedom; we needed exile to understand statehood; we needed dependence to understand independence. Ultimately the challenge of contemporary Judaism may be less about the question of what to include or exclude from our tradition, and more about how we continually grapple with, and respond to what actually exists. Only through that struggle will we grow, both as Jews and as human beings.

(Also published at www.limmud.org)

Misplaced Passion: The Underlying Threat in Mel Gibson's Movie

2004-04-02T19:21:00.000+01:00

There’s only been one topic of conversation in New York for the past few weeks: Mel Gibson’s latest film, The Passion of the Christ. Newsweek dedicated an issue to it, and the discussion continued into the following week’s publication and beyond. The Jewish Week has been struggling with it over the course of several issues. Go to church or synagogue, and every religious leader seems to be speaking about it. Check your e-mail and there are inevitably a handful of messages passing judgment on it. Go out for a meal, and it’s bound to come up in conversation sooner or later. Frankly, it’s incessant. There’s no escape. And, of course, the big question that keeps coming up is: is it antisemitic?

Based on the images of Jews in the film, the answer is a clear and categorical yes. With one or two minor exceptions, Jews are variously portrayed as money-grabbing, arrogant, blasphemous, corrupt and demonic trouble-makers, who taunt, scorn, mock, beat and spit at Jesus. On reflection, Gibson’s Jews are not entirely dissimilar to those of medieval Christendom or even Nazi Germany. I think that more or less says it all.

But what about the film as a whole? Is that antisemitic? From a Jewish perspective, it is certainly dubious. It tells the story of the death of Jesus in graphic and gruesome detail, pinning responsibility for his death – at least in part – on the Jews. The most damaging line from the Gospel According to Matthew – “His blood be on us [the Jews] and on our children”, which was used for centuries to justify anti-Jewish legislation and violence – is heard in the film in Aramaic, although not translated. But its presence at all directly contravenes the declaration issued by the Second Vatican Council in October 1965 which noted that Jesus’ death “cannot be blamed upon all the Jews then living, without distinction, nor upon the Jews of today.”

Nevertheless, Gibson seems disinterested in Vatican II. He innocently claims that he is simply telling the story according to the biblical account. And how can that be antisemitic? After all, it is just the truth.

Putting aside the matter of whether the film fully aligns with the biblical account (which it doesn’t), this whole question of truth begins to point to the real issue raised by The Passion. The fact is, at least part of Christian truth, if one reads the New Testament literally, is damaging to Judaism. It accuses the Jews of the most heinous crime possible – deicide. And Vatican II, in spite of its rejection of this idea, nevertheless states: “All should see to it, then, that… they [Christians] do not teach anything that does not conform to the truth of the Gospel and the spirit of Christ.” But how do you do that? Do you follow Gibson’s “truth of the Gospel” which clearly accuses the Jews of deicide? Or do you follow Vatican II’s “spirit of Christ” which clearly states that the Jews are blameless? In short, what do you do when “the truth of the Gospel” and the “spirit of Christ” appear to completely contradict one another?

This contradiction brings us right into the real issue raised by Gibson’s film, which is not antisemitism, but is rather religious extremism. On the one hand, Christianity has inspired many to perform profound acts of love. On the other, it has inspired many to perform despicable acts of hatred. It all depends on how one interprets the tradition, and which parts of it one elects to highlight. The new battle lines that are starting to be drawn today lie directly between these two traditions – between the literal and the more allegorical interpretations of religious texts.

Islam suffers from this tension most acutely. Fundamentalist, literal interpretations of Islam have resulted in murderous acts being perpetrated in the United States, Afghanistan, Indonesia, Chechnya, Kashmir, East Africa, Israel and elsewhere. But certainly a more moderate form of Islam exists, which doesn’t preach hatred and intolerance, and which is willing to recognise that other religious traditions are also ‘true’.

Judaism isn’t immune from the tension. One only has to think of Baruch Goldstein, and Yigal Amir to encounter two fairly recent examples of Jews adopting fundamentalist interpretations of Jewish texts to legitimise murder. But normative Judaism is utterly removed from such abhorrent behaviour. It has deeply tolerant and compassionate traditions – loving the stranger, visiting the sick, giving charity, etc. are all fundamental tenets of Jewish religious practise.

And Christianity seems increasingly to be drawn into the same dynamic. Gibson’s film is just the tip of the iceberg; Christian fundamentalism is growing, and almost inevitably, intolerance of other interpretations of religious truth is rapidly following in its wake. It needn’t be this way – Christianity doesn’t need to malign others to uphold its profound traditions of tolerance, peace and love.

This new politicisation of religion is potentially as dangerous as the ‘religiousization’ of politics that occurred in the 20th century. When the political ideology of fascism was turned into a neo-religious movement, Hitler became a demigod, the NSDAP became the church, Nazi ideology became dogma, and Jews and other undesirables became the evil forces that needed to be destroyed. Today, the opposite is happening – religious ideals are being turned into political movements. But the dangers are equally frightening. Fundamentalist interpretations of religion are politicizing religious traditions in order to use them to abuse, defame, and murder outsiders. The greatest threat to Western civilization is not religion or Islam or Islamic extremism per se – it is rather any form of religious extremism that regards itself as Truth, and all else as falsehood.

I don’t oppose Mel Gibson’s work on the simple grounds that it might incite antisemitism, even though there is a genuine possibility that it will in parts of the world. I oppose it because it’s turning a great and loving religious tradition, which has so much good to offer the world, and presenting it as absolute Truth. In doing so, it’s denying the validity and authenticity of other religious traditions, and is sowing the seeds of division, tension and violence. Gibson’s passion for his religious beliefs is very apparent, but frankly it’s misplaced. Religious passion that denies the legitimacy of other people’s religious passion is arguably the greatest threat to world peace today. Sadly, Gibson’s passion – with a large and small ‘P’ – is yet another damaging example of this phenomenon.

Going Back: Yom Kippur Sermon 2003

2003-10-06T19:42:00.000+01:00

Just before Rosh Hashana last year, two young women – Marla Bennett and Amanda Pogany - both of whom were learning at Pardes Yeshiva in Jerusalem, sat down together to look over and learn the famous Unetaneh Tokef prayer. They read and re-read its famous words together: mi yichyeh u-mi yamut – who will live and who will die?; mi v’kitzo u-mi lo v’kitzo – who will die at their predestined time, and who before their time? Of course, for both Marla and Amanda – two young women in their twenties - the text must have been pretty metaphorical – this time of year is all about self-reflection, and developing a consciousness of one’s own mortality is a key part of that process.

This year, however, when Amanda looked again at the Unetaneh Tokef, it was all too real. Her friend Marla, aged just 24, was murdered in the bomb that went off in the Frank Sinatra cafeteria at the Hebrew University a few weeks ago. For her, and for all too many others, mi yichyeh u-mi yamut – who will live and who will die – has taken on an entirely different, and frighteningly real meaning this year.

During the yamim noraim – Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur – we are meant to feel a sense of fear and trepidation about our own futures. Much of the imagery surrounding this time of year pushes us to consider our own frailties, and in light of our immense weaknesses and shortcomings, demands of us that we reflect on our own behaviour and resolve to do teshuva – to return to the ways of God. On Yom Kippur, our life almost depends on it – the imagery of the closing gates during the Neilah service tomorrow as we seek desperately to be entered into the sefer chayim – the book of life – is immensely powerful and deeply awe-inspiring. Today, our task is to take a good long hard look at our selves, and to resolve to do more, to be more in the year to come.

But when I look ahead at the year to come, I cannot but help to feel a sense of anxiety and apprehension about it. The past year has been so full of terror and tragedy that it has become increasingly difficult to see beyond the horrific images that have littered our television screens. Two particular events stand out for me: the horrifying attack on the seder at the Park Hotel in Netanya, in which 29 people were murdered including several survivors of the Shoah; and the more recent attack at the Hebrew University, in which eight people were murdered, including a friend of several people in the community this evening – Marla Bennett. For me, there was something about both of these incidents that was somehow even worse than the countless terror attacks on restaurants and buses. I think it was the fact that these incidents were not simply random terror attacks on innocent civilians; they seemed instead to have much deeper and more insidious motive behind them. In the case of the Hebrew University, it was the notion that this was not just an attack on innocent people, it was an attack on values – on the values of learning, on educational pluralism, on cultural diversity that the university is so well known for. And in the case of the Netanya seder, it felt like an attack on Judaism itself, and the very notion of being able to practice Judaism in freedom, in our own homeland. I’m not sure that it is appropriate to pass comment on the legitimacy of the Palestinian cause, but there is no doubt in my mind that all suicide attacks are the ultimate chilul hashem – the ultimate desecration of God’s name – and they can never, and should never be legitimised in any way, shape or form.

But, however wrong they may be, it seems almost inevitable that we’re not over this stage yet. In spite of the fairly sporadic coverage in the British media recently, incidents are still occurring on a daily basis. Perhaps most disturbingly, a couple of days before Rosh Hashana, the Israeli army intercepted a group of Palestinians attempting to bring a 600kg bomb into Israel. I don’t know a whole lot about bombs, but suffice to say, the controlled blast, when the bomb was detonated, was heard 25 kilometres away. So when I reflect back on all of this and then think ahead to the year to come, I cannot help but feel that we are standing on the edge of an abyss, almost waiting for the next tragedy to unfold. It feels like it is no longer a question of whether it will happen, but rather just a question of when it will happen.

As each one of the tragedies unfolded over the past year, it was difficult not to feel that sickeningly raw sense of shock, bewilderment and outrage that is becoming all-too-familiar. My questions are always the same. What is this? How do we get out of this mess? How can we stop the bloodshed? How can we ensure that Israel survives this wave of unprecedented terror, not to mention the impending threats from Hizballah, Iraq, Syria? Is there anything that can be done? Is there anything that I can do? The lack of vision that seems to exist at the moment is really frightening. Where on earth will we find the strength and courage required to ensure that the names of all those who ought to be inscribed in the Book of Life today, achieve their deepest and most profound wish?

These kinds of questions though, are not simply limited to the realm of Middle Eastern politics. They are also the kind of questions we ask in our personal lives – the kind of questions we often ask in times of personal and individual distress and tragedy. When we become seriously ill, when we lose a parent, a spouse, a sibling, a friend or a child, when our relationships and our marriages break down, we ask: what is this? How do I possibly get beyond this? How can I stop the suffering and the pain? How can I survive this? Is there anything that can be done? Is there anything I can do?

These are also the questions of Yom Kippur. What are we? How do we transform our selves from what we are, to what we ought to be? How do we make the changes we all know we need to make in our lives, to enable us to live the kind of lives we all know that we have the potential to live? How do we become the kind of parents, the kind of spouses, grandparents, siblings, friends that we should be, that, if we genuinely put our minds to it, we could be? Is there anything that can be done? Is there anything that I can do?

In thinking about these questions, I was drawn to the story in Bereishit, in the Book of Genesis, that we read in shul at the very beginning of this ten-day process, on the first day of Rosh Hashana. The story begins after Hagar, Avraham’s concubine, and Yishmael, Hagar and Avraham’s son, have been banished to the desert by Sara, Avraham’s wife. Before long, Hagar and Yishmael find themselves lost in the wilderness of Be’er-sheva without any water. In a state of utter desperation and despair, Hagar places her young son Yishmael in the shade of a bush, in the full knowledge that he will die of thirst there, and then she distances herself from him, so she doesn’t have to witness his suffering. And she sits down, completely resigned to the tragedy that is about to unfold, weeping and wailing, and crying desperately to God.

And then, in the midst of this tragic scene, God hears Yishmael’s weeping and He intervenes, and He calms Hagar down with the reassurance that Yishmael is not about to die. God tells Hagar that Yishmael’s destiny remains unchanged: he is to be the father of a great nation. And then the text relays that “God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. And she went, and filled the skin with water, and gave to the boy to drink.”

I’m intrigued by this story. I’m intrigued because it’s a story that begins in a desperate place. There’s no hope. Death is imminent. There’s no way out. And yet, just a few pasukim later, just a few verses later, the story has changed to one that is infused with hope, optimism and the possibility of future greatness. It seems to me that this brief story may just have something to teach us about how to transform our own lives from a state of desperation to the possibility of future hope – both on an individual and very personal level, and on a collective, even global level.

Let’s look at the story a little more closely. At the beginning, Hagar is desperate. She is lost. Her son is about to die. She is weeping. There is no hope. Like the Netanya seder, like the Hebrew University cafeteria, like September 11, like those awful moments most of us have experienced in our personal lives at one time or another, it’s almost impossible to see even a glimmer of hope.

How does Hagar respond? She weeps. She wails. She beseeches God. From the text, Yishmael appears to weep too, although his crying is inaudible. So they both genuinely feel their pain and cry out to God. And it seems to me that this is an important part of the story – the tears, the expressions of genuine suffering, the physical and tangible images of pain, and the pleas for help. All of these things are important parts of the process of transformation – having the ability and the opportunity to express the pain that we feel when people are murdered in Israel, or when terror strikes at the heart of America, or when personal tragedies strike at the heart of our own lives, and then articulating our desperation in our prayers and our pleas for help. This appears to be stage one.

But of course the story doesn’t end there. It goes on. Hagar and Yishmael’s suffering is witnessed by God, and Hagar hears God’s voice. “What ails you Hagar? Fear not. For God has heard the voice of the child where he is. Get up, pick up the boy, and hold him in your hand, for I will make him a great nation.”

What’s happening here? For me, the critical factor is that Hagar is being reminded of God’s promise to make Yishmael a great nation. She’s being reminded that her life, that Yishmael’s life was not meant to end like this. She’s being reminded that the future could be different. That the future should be different. That the future will be different. Suddenly, there’s a vision, an alternative scenario, a new possibility. And now the tears dry up, as they often do when we begin to imagine new possibilities, when we begin to imagine new hopes and new dreams. So the second stage of the transformation process then, appears to be to recall the vision. To recall the idea on a collective level that when we think about the State of Israel, we’re not meant to instantly see images in our minds of tragedy, bloodshed and despair, but are rather meant to recall the beauty of the land, the vast achievements of our remarkable State, and the profound values and principles upon which it was built. We’re meant to recall the compelling and inspirational words of David Ben Gurion – that the State of Israel was to “prove itself not by material wealth, not by military might or technical achievement, but by its moral character and human values.” And, on a much more personal and individual level, it’s about reminding ourselves that our lives need not be as they currently are. That, at some point in our lives at least, we had real dreams for ourselves, we had genuine hopes and desires that we would be better people than we know we currently are. Recalling that vision of ourselves – a strong and compelling image of ourselves as the kind of people we ought to be – that’s the next step in the transformation process.

But then the visionary image alone isn’t enough. For Hagar, the vision enables her to see something that has been there all the time, but, in her despair, she has been unable to see thus far. She sees a water well. She sees a way out. She identifies a course of action that might just work. And for us, and for Israel, this too surely becomes a possibility from the moment we remind ourselves of the vision of what we could, of what we should, of what we must become. And the course of action that Hagar identifies is not complicated – all she has to do is get up, go to the well, draw some water, and give it to her son. So, I believe, it could be for Israel if the vision was a little clearer, and certainly so it can be in our own personal lives. The right course of action is often simple and obvious – in our heart of hearts we probably know what we have to do. It’s just that sometimes, even when the solution is staring us squarely in the face, we just can’t seem to take the small step that we know we need to take.

But that is what the fourth and final stage of the process demands of us. It wasn’t enough for Hagar to cry out to God in her despair. It wasn’t enough for her to recall the vision of Yishmael as the father of a great nation. It wasn’t even enough for her to, on the basis of that vision, to determine an appropriate course of action. To genuinely transform her situation, she had to do one more thing – she had to act. She had to actually get up, walk over to the well, draw the water, and give it to Yishmael to drink. And so it is with us. Israel needs to act, and we in our personal lives need to act. Until we do so, we have not completed the process. And yet this is often the hardest part – having the courage to act, when we are almost transfixed in fear by the possible implications of our actions – that’s really tough. Yet if we are to transform our situation, we have to do it. There is no other way.

At the end of the story, Yishmael is not a great nation. Actually, the Torah tells us simply that he grew up, lived in the desert, became a great archer, and got married. But the important thing about the story is that, in just five pasukim, in just five verses, we’ve witnessed a situation being transformed from one that is immersed in utter despair, to one that is infused with a profound sense of possibility. How did it happen? Hagar cried out to God in pain and anguish; Hagar recalled a different vision of an alternative future; on the basis of that vision she identified a course of action; and finally she took the critical steps that needed to be taken.

Put another way, Hagar used three devices that are extremely familiar to us. She prayed to and beseeched God – tefilla. She returned to the path and the vision that God had determined – teshuva. And she gave water to Yishmael to drink – tzedakah. And through these acts, she ma’avirin et ro’a ha-g’zerah - she averted the severity of the decree.

At certain times in our lives we can all feel a sense of fear or desperation, and perhaps more of us feel that at this moment than usual. For some, it may simply be a general sense of fear about the state of our world. For others it may be something small – the apprehensions associated with starting a new school, university, job, or life stage. For others it may be a much deeper sense of desperation – the fear of losing someone close to us, the fear of confronting a serious illness, the fear of a possible relationship or marriage break up. On Yom Kippur, all of these fears come into sharp focus, as we stand here in the presence of God, with all our frailties and weaknesses on display.

But the story of Hagar and Yishmael should remind us that we can transform our own lives. We need to cry and we need to pray. We also need to envision a different future for ourselves – a future in which we are part of a goy kadosh u-mamlechet kohanim – a holy nation and a kingdom of priests – and a future in which we are all, every single one of us, made b’tzelem Elohim – made in the image of God. And we need to identify, on the basis of the power of these revolutionary and visionary ideas, the small things that we can all do in our lives that will make a difference both to ourselves and to others around us. And then we need to act – to perform the type of simple and basic mitzvot that, over the course of time, have the power to change the world.

And perhaps this year, we are even more compelled to change our selves than usual. If we are standing on the brink of yet more destruction and devastation, it is surely even more incumbent upon us, every one of us, to repair our lives. Because if we don’t, who will? Our every deed matters, because our every deed has the potential, in its own small way, to affect change in the world.

I should add one final comment in parentheses. There is clearly something ironic about building a Yom Kippur message around a story about Hagar and Yishmael – two characters traditionally associated with Islam. And yet I do so unashamedly and unapologetically. I do so because the story teaches us both that we can learn from the texts of our own tradition, and that we can learn from individuals outside of our own tradition – even those we might regard as our enemies. Perhaps we can learn most from those who have been afflicted by tragedy. When a friend of Marla Bennett’s introduced herself to Marla’s mother at the funeral in San Diego, her mother, with great warmth in her words, said to her: “Go back to Israel next year. Don’t even think about not going back. Marla would have wanted you to go back. It would be a waste of Marla’s life and everything she stood for if you don’t go back.” If we are to transform our lives this year, we too must go back – to Israel, to Judaism, to our true inner selves – because that is the essence of teshuva – that is the true essence of Yom Kippur.

Israel Independence Day 2002

2002-04-01T19:22:00.000+01:00

It is difficult to tear myself away from the TV screen at the moment. Satellite technology has enabled me to gain access to a host of different news channels, so I can pretty well ensure continual news coverage of the situation in Israel. I finally have it more or less sorted – if you channel surf carefully enough between CNN, BBC, ITN, SKY and FOX it is possible to spend days on end in front of the television without ever hearing about anything else, which is great if you are an information obsessive, although apparently not so wonderful if you value things like social lives, relationships, etc. At times like these, however, little else seems of great significance – every twist and turn in the conflict seems critical as the crisis unfolds.

Looking back over a year, I was angry with the Israeli political and judicial system for allowing Ariel Sharon to stand as a prime ministerial candidate after his record during the Lebanon War. I don’t think any politician who has been implicated in incidents like Sabra and Chatilla should be allowed to stand for any position in government again, and frankly, I expect better of Israel. Nevertheless, I have learned to accept that he was elected to serve as Israel’s Prime Minister in fully democratic elections, and, in that capacity, he took on a mandate to protect Israel and its citizens. I respect him in as much as he is passionately committed to the State of Israel and he clearly has Israel’s interests at heart; I was dubious, and I remain dubious about his leadership style and often non-compromising policies.

I am convinced that Sharon is not entirely innocent in the current conflict. I think he could have done more to quieten the situation, and create more peaceful circumstances on the ground. However, to regard him as the primary cause of the current problems is nonsense; to blame him entirely for it is nothing short of outrageous.

I keep returning to the much-discussed events at Camp David and Taba in the autumn and winter of 2000. It is undisputed that Ehud Barak offered Yasser Arafat more than any Israeli Prime Minister ever has. Despite the contrasting versions of the events that took place at that time, Bill Clinton himself testified to the fact that at Taba, when both Barak and Clinton could almost reach out and touch the end of their terms in office, Barak went probably as far as is conceivably possible to settle the conflict with the Palestinians – practically the entire West Bank (plus compensatory land from within the pre-1967 borders), the Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem, and the right of return for a limited number of Palestinian refugees were all on the table. Arafat had a clear opportunity to accept the offer and begin the process of creating a Palestinian State. He said no.

The question is: why would he do that? I can only see two possibilities: (i) he wasn’t happy with the offer – he genuinely felt that it wasn’t enough; or (ii) he didn’t want to put an end to the conflict – it was in his and/or the Palestinian people’s interests to continue their struggle. If the offer wasn’t sufficient, presumably the appropriate way of dealing with it would have been to tell Clinton and Barak that it wasn’t enough, and to begin another round of negotiations. That didn’t happen. Instead, talks broke down, and a new intifada broke out. Regardless of whether the current intifada was prompted by Sharon’s walk up to the Temple Mount or not (the most convincing evidence seems to indicate that it was largely irrelevant), if Arafat really wanted to continue to negotiate a settlement, he would have clamped down on the Palestinian protestors without delay. But he didn’t do that. Therefore, the only possible conclusion one can reach is option (ii): that Arafat wanted to escalate the conflict. One can speculate why this might be the case – perhaps he felt he had been negotiated into a corner, and had to make compromises that his people would then hold him accountable for. Perhaps he was concerned about going down in history as the ultimate appeaser, rather than a great freedom fighter. Perhaps he wanted a new showdown with Sharon – after all, Sharon clearly won their last battle in the 1980s. His motivations remain cloudy, but one fact is absolutely crystal clear: the primary responsibility for the return to the current violence rests squarely with Yasser Arafat.

That established, it is therefore clear that this is violence imposed on Israel, and therefore a battle of ayn brera (no choice). One can criticise Israel for the way in which it has handled this war of no choice, for its uncompromising position, for its reluctance or refusal to create channels for negotiation, for its lack of vision, etc., but any such criticism should always be properly placed in appropriate context – this is a battle that has been imposed on Israel, not one that has been caused by it.

But what about the occupied territories? Surely this conflict was caused by Israel’s continual refusal to get out of the territories? Surely if Israel would just accept UN Resolutions 242 and 338, this would all just end? Isn’t Israel the last remaining occupying force in the entire world?

Hang on a minute. Some history. The United Nations did not call for Israel to simply withdraw from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Resolution 242 from 1967, also calls for the “termination of all claims or states of belligerency” and “respect for or acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area, and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force.” Furthermore, UN Resolution 338 from 1973 states that “concurrently with the cease-fire, negotiations shall start between the parties concerned under appropriate auspices aimed at establishing a just and durable peace in the Middle East.”[1]

Correct me if I’m wrong, but Yitzchak Shamir, Shimon Peres, Yitzchak Rabin and Ehud Barak spent the 1990s following the example set by Menachem Begin in the late 1970s, attempting to build agreements designed to terminate belligerency and acknowledge sovereignty. They even achieved some degree of success, and, as a result returned territory: Bethlehem, Jericho, Hebron, Nablus, Jenin, etc., were all returned, as the Sinai Peninsula had been almost two decades earlier. So Israel has clearly and continually demonstrated its desire for peace. It has signed agreements with Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority. Regarding acknowledgement of every state in the area, there is no problem on Israel’s side here. No Israeli has ever said that Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, etc., have no right to exist. No Israeli has ever maintained that the Arab nations have no right to live in peace within secure or recognized boundaries. The only reason this clause is included in United Nations resolutions is because these Arab states have continually and consistently refused to accept Israel’s right to exist as a free and independent Jewish State within the region.

But hold on, you argue. What does all this have to do with the Palestinians? They don’t have a state. Fair enough – Israel has not yet managed to achieve a lasting peace with various Arab nations because of those Arab nations’ refusal to accept Israel – but the occupied territories issue is not about the whole Arab world. Isn’t it simply about the Palestinians’ right to live in their own independent homeland?

On the most simplistic level, yes. And statistics show that most Israelis recognise that the Palestinians do indeed have a legitimate claim to part of the land, and a large percentage of Israeli society is willing to cede land for peace. But the United Nations resolutions that are continually quoted by Palestinian leaders, call for an end to belligerency. They call for the right of all peoples in the region to live in security and peace. Now we were well on our way to achieving that eighteen months ago, but then Arafat said no to Barak’s offer, and returned to his old belligerent tactics. Israel didn’t do that. Arafat did. So, entirely legitimately and very much in the spirit of UN Resolution 338, Ariel Sharon called for a cessation of violence as a precondition for negotiations, just as the United Nations did in 1973. In fact, all he wanted initially was seven days of quiet, and he recently agreed to back down even on this demand. But the belligerency continued. The suicide attacks continued. Israelis’ continued to be murdered and maimed in their home.

Furthermore, Arafat, the Palestinian Authority and extremist groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad have singularly failed to comply with Resolution 242, and the demand to recognise the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of the Jewish State of Israel. Indeed, the Palestinian school textbooks, that were developed in the second half of the 1990s at more or less exactly the same time Israel and the Palestinians were attempting to implement the Oslo Peace Accords, fail to recognise Israel’s existence in any graphics or illustrations. This is aside from the fact that the same textbooks also blame the Jews for the death of Jesus, and contain numerous antisemitic stereotypes tied to ancient religious disputes and enmity.[2]

In short then, it is not just Israel that has failed to comply by UN resolutions 242 and 338; the Palestinians’ belligerent tactics and their most basic failure to recognise the legitimacy of the Jewish State in spite of some of their rhetoric, clearly demonstrate that they too have much further to go before these two United Nation resolutions are finally actualised.

But these factors are generally dismissed as mere details. Much more important at the moment is the whole issue of suicide bombings, so let us briefly return to them. Hundreds of Israelis have been killed by suicide bombers in the past eighteen months. Sbarro, Moment, Matza, all familiar names of Israeli restaurants, have now become synonymous with murder and massacre. Today, Israelis live in terror. When tensions are high, many refuse to leave their homes for fear that they will never return. Palestinians argue that this is the only way to get Israel and the world to listen to their plight, yet Israel and the world are more than aware of their situation, and made every possible effort throughout the 1990s to negotiate a settlement. Yitzchak Rabin, one of the truly great leaders of Israeli history, even paid the ultimate price for his efforts – he was assassinated by an Israeli right wing extremist.

But, it is argued, suicide bombers are extremists. Surely a distinction should be drawn between the actions of Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority, and extremist groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad? Well, so the Israelis thought when Rabin, Peres and Barak sat down with Arafat. But the facts have become clear. Between August 2001 and Israel’s military incursion into the West Bank in April 2002, one organisation - the Al Aqsa Brigades - was responsible for 22 attacks on Israeli citizens killing 26 people and injuring 613. The Al Aqsa Brigades, recently declared a terrorist organisation by the United States, is a cover name for Fatah, Yasser Arafat’s political faction. Fuad Shoubaki, the finance officer of the Palestinian Authority, pays salaries to known terrorists. He also funded and organized the operation to smuggle arms on board the “Karine A” ship, which contained dozens of tons of quality weapons, including anti-tank, anti-aircraft and steep projectory weapons, which were transferred to the Palestinian Authority from Iran. Similarly, Marwan Barghouti, who is head of the Fatah’s supreme council in the West Bank and operates directly under the authority of Arafat, directs the Al Aqsa Brigades, fires up his people to fight the Israelis and is directly responsible for passing concrete directives to operatives. So let’s be clear – the Palestinian Authority, headed up by Yasser Arafat, has created an organisation within itself to conduct suicide attacks on Israeli civilians.

One could argue, as some members of the British National Union of Teachers recently did, that these suicide bombers are simply so desperate that all they can now do is give up their lives in acts of martyrdom to rectify their situation. I’m sorry – I genuinely feel for the Palestinians, and passionately believe that they have every right to live in a free and independent state with dignity and all basic human rights – but let’s not forget our recent history. Statehood was there for the taking – everything Israel could legitimately offer the Palestinians without severely compromising its own security was on offer, and Arafat not only said no, but he returned to violence. Israel teetered on the brink of civil war over these negotiations and lost one of its greatest and most courageous prime ministers in the process. If the Palestinians are desperate – and they clearly are – they might want to spend a few brief moments considering how and why their own leaders have failed them time and time again.

But the western world should go further than this. It shouldn’t need historical data to make the case against suicide bombings. The notion that an individual can walk into a crowded public area and murder innocent civilians is wrong. Full stop. There can be no justification for this kind of violence. There can be no tolerance for it. It is despicable, immoral and abhorrent. Quite simply, it is wrong, wrong, wrong. The moment we even begin to suggest otherwise, we start to undermine some of the most basic principles of liberal democracy – principles that millions of Allied soldiers gave up their lives for in the Second World War. If we believe that all human beings have the right to all basic freedoms, then we must also believe that Israeli civilians, both Arabs and Jews, have these rights too.

So for the extremist Palestinian groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad, there must be no sympathy and no understanding ever. These organisations openly claim that they are not committed to a Palestinian State alongside a Jewish State; they are committed to a Palestinian State instead of a Jewish State. It has become abundantly clear that for them this is not a conflict about territory. Rather, this is a conflict about Muslims and Jews, and the notion that no Jews should have sovereignty over any part of the region.

For evidence of this, consider the truly shocking and horrifying suicide attack in Netanya on the first night of the Jewish festival of Passover, 27 March 2002. According to the latest figures, 28 people were murdered in the Park Hotel that evening, whilst taking part in a Passover seder, or ritual meal. For those unaware of this fact, the seder commemorates the biblical exodus from Egypt, and there is no single meal in the Jewish calendar that is more religiously significant or meaningful. In Christianity, the equivalent would probably be a communal church lunch on Christmas day, although arguably even that underplays it. Historically, the Passover seder was the meal Jesus and his disciples sat down to at ‘the last supper’, but it is a tradition that dates back much further than that. So, when 250 Jews gathered together at the hotel in Netanya that evening, they were doing so to participate in one of the most ancient religious rituals known to humankind. Murdering innocent people in the midst of such worship is horrific enough; the fact that five Holocaust survivors were amongst the 28 massacred only adds to the continuing sense of shock and outrage.

I don’t know whether the suicide bomber in this particular instance fully understood what he was doing. However, I have no doubt whatsoever that Hamas as an organisation was totally aware. This was a deliberate and calculated attack not on the State of Israel, but on Judaism and the Jewish People, and as such was clearly and undisputedly an act of the most aggressive form of antisemitism possible. It was this act that broke the back of Sharon’s government. It was this act that prompted the Israel Defence Forces to begin their operation in the West Bank, because it, unlike most of the western world, is able to distinguish between the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people, and blatant antisemitism.

There has been a lot of talk about antisemitism recently. Some examples are blown out of all proportion, and clearly not every criticism of Sharon, the IDF, or the State of Israel can be categorised as Judeophobia. But a shift has taken place in recent months. Research indicates that antisemitic incidents are on the rise. Perhaps most disturbingly, in the last few weeks a number of synagogues in France have been firebombed – in Marseilles, Le Havre and Montpellier. In a separate incident, a bus belonging to a Jewish school in a Paris suburb was also set ablaze. There are countless other more minor examples – in Britain, Belgium, Canada and Finland – but these incidents rarely make their way onto the national and international news. To my mind, this only serves to suggest that the western media, along with some of the western pro-Palestinian liberal “peace” activists, consistently fail to see the wider context within which the entire Israeli-Palestinian conflict is taking place. The fact that Arabs can firebomb synagogues in France at exactly the same time as an escalation in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is taking place, is as blatant evidence as should be needed to indicate that, for some at least, this battle is not primarily motivated by a desire for Palestinian sovereignty and independence, but is rather grounded in an uncompromising and fanatical mistrust of, or hatred for Jews.

Amos Oz, the left-wing Israeli activist and writer, recently wrote in the Israeli daily Yediot Achranot, that there are currently two struggles taking place. The first is the entirely legitimate struggle of the Palestinian people to be freed from occupation and to establish an independent state. The second is the utterly despicable and morally repugnant battle fought by fanatical Moslems from Iran to Gaza, from Lebanon to Kalkilya, to destroy Israel, uproot the Jewish people from its historic homeland, and murder Jews everywhere.[3]

Out of this latter school come individuals like Dr Umayma Ahmad Al-Jalahma, the Saudi Arabian journalist, who last month published an article in the Saudi government-sponsored daily, Al-Riyadh, in which she described in meticulous detail the way in which Jews use the blood of Christian and Moslem children to bake ‘hamantaschen’ – small cakes made for the Jewish festival of Purim. This idea dates back to medieval Europe, when Jews were falsely accused time and time again of killing Christian children in a re-enactment of the death of Jesus in order to use their blood for various ritual purposes – normally baking matza, the unleavened bread Jews eat during the festival of Passover. Hopefully needless to say, there is no evidence whatsoever that any such ritual ever existed – indeed, the mere notion of Jews using blood in any such way, shape or form is entirely anathema to Jewish law. However, there is clear historical evidence to indicate that these attempts to dehumanise and demonise Jews in the medieval and early modern period ultimately helped to create an environment in which the Holocaust could take place. Admittedly, the editor of Al-Riyadh later issued a somewhat muted apology for the article, but the fact that it was published at all is indicative of the level of ignorance, mistrust and hatred of Jews that permeates parts of the Arab world.

Similarly, according to recently published statistics, a significant proportion of the Arab world believes that the State of Israel was responsible for the September 11 attack on the World Trade Centre in New York. As was the case with medieval Christian anti-Jewish myths, there is no evidence for this whatsoever, but the idea has taken hold, and will ultimately only serve to demonise the Jews and the State of Israel yet further. If anybody should be in any doubt about the point here, let me make it clear: an environment is being created within parts of the Moslem world that has the potential, at an appropriate moment in the near or distant future, to enable another horrifying genocide of the Jewish People to take place. And this next genocide will not require the technological sophistication or meticulous planning of the Nazis; what took them several murderous years to achieve, the chemical and biological weapons of the 21st Century will probably manage in a few devastating moments.

In essence, Israel finds itself caught desperately between a rock and hard place. The vast majority of Israelis, as has been proved by successive governments’ attempts to give up land for peace throughout the 1990s, have little interest in continuing the occupation. They are tired of the conflict, and have no desire to oppress others. However, they are deeply apprehensive about making territorial concessions – not because they are colonial imperialists, but because of a number of significant wider risks that are involved.

Chief among these is that they would be giving up territory without having achieved peace deals with Syria, Lebanon or Saudi Arabia, all of which border Israel, deny Israel’s right to exist, and continue to pose a very real threat to Israel’s security. Secondly, Israel is deeply wary of making compromises in the face of terrorism. In doing so, Israel would be making a de facto statement that terrorism works, and that if one applies sufficient pressure on the Jewish State and makes the lives of its citizens intolerable enough, they will be rewarded. For a country that has deeply hostile neighbours continuing to attack its northern border, such concessions could ultimately be tantamount to political suicide. Thirdly, Israel doesn’t trust Arafat. The direct connections between the Palestinian Authority and terrorist acts mentioned above, and the use of the Palestinian Authority’s official television channel to give air time to people like Sheikh Ibrahim Madhi, who typically, in his televised official Friday sermon on 21 September 2001 called for the ultimate dream of the Palestinian people as “an Islamic caliphate with Jerusalem as its capital” – these factors only serve to deepen mistrust. Finally, the process of withdrawing from territory is fraught with domestic dangers for Israel – dismantling settlements, which admittedly Israel is entirely responsible for constructing and supporting in the first place, has the potential to unleash unprecedented tension between Israeli civilians. That said, Ehud Barak clearly demonstrated his willingness to dismantle settlements at Camp David and Taba in 2000/1, but, as has already been stated here several times, Arafat rejected the offer and allowed an uprising to begin.

What is the solution? I don’t know, but given all the fears involved, the most important thing Israel needs today is support. It needs the support of world Jewry, and it needs the support of the international community. It does not need people to necessarily support its government’s policies, but it does need people to fully empathise with its plight. It needs the world to stand squarely behind its right to exist as a Jewish State in the Middle East, in the land that Jews have prayed for and dreamt about for literally thousands of years. It needs the world to see the clear connection between anti-Zionism (i.e. opposition to the basic right of Jews to live in their own independent Jewish sovereign state in the Middle East within secure and recognized borders) and antisemitism (i.e. written, verbal or physical assaults on Jews throughout the world simply because they are Jews.) The Jewish People are not perfect, but Judaism is the cradle of many of the basic values of the western world, and whilst the State of Israel may at times find it difficult to live up to all these values in the face of deeply aggressive hostility, a secure Jewish State of Israel has untold benefits to share with the entire world.

This Wednesday, 17 April, is Yom Ha’Atzmaut, Israel’s 54th anniversary. Typically, this would be an occasion for partying and celebration throughout Israeli towns and villages, but this year the atmosphere will be different. Few Israelis will be in the frame of mind to celebrate, knowing that their children are engaged in a conflict of no choice in the occupied territories and that there is the ever-present danger of suicide attacks. This year, I imagine, many Israelis will be at home, glued to their television screens, fearful that a ringing phone will bring more tragic news.

There is little any of us can do to alter this, but one or two gestures may help to make Israelis feel a little more secure, and a little more able to find the incredible courage required of them to take even the smallest step forward towards peace and reconciliation. Possible options include:

1) Call or e-mail a friend or family member in Israel, just to say that you are thinking of them.

2) Send Yom Ha’Atzmaut flowers to a friend or family member in Israel. (I received an e-mail from a florist in Jerusalem on the day before Passover, who said that he was about to have to lay off staff at his previously successful shop, because people were too afraid to leave their homes to buy flowers. On that day last year, he took 14,000 shekels; this year, he took only 500. I have no personal connection with him whatsoever, and have never even met him, but I was touched by his plea for help, and you can contact him of you want to on 00 972 2 566 5161 ).

3) Go out of your way to buy Israeli produce at your local supermarket or shop. (The European Union is currently considering sanctions against Israel because of its military incursions into the occupied territories. As I have argued, this is only likely to serve to isolate Israel further and deepen the already intense sense of insecurity Israelis feel, thereby increasing the possibility of further violence).

4) Plan a holiday in Israel. Even if you feel uncomfortable about visiting now because of the situation, pencil in your next trip within the coming year.

5) Go to synagogue. Most will mark Yom Ha’Atazmaut and Yom Hazikaron in some way, and being part of the Jewish community at this time helps to reinforce a sense of solidarity with one another and the State of Israel that is being eroded by the current crisis.

6) Donate some money to a Jewish or Israeli charity. The UJIA is running a campaign to help Israeli victims of terror. Magen David Adom needs support to buy new ambulances and to encourage people to donate blood. The New Israel Fund is heavily involved in projects designed to help build bridges between Israelis and Palestinians, even though many such schemes have been damaged by the present conflict. And some local synagogues are attempting to raise money for individual projects they have chosen to highlight. There is scope to support Israel in a whole host of ways that allow individuals with a variety of political perspectives to feel comfortable about where their donation will end up.

7) Light a yahrzeit (memorial) candle on Yom Hazikaron (Monday night, 15 April, and Tuesday 16 April). Victims of terror attacks are now officially included amongst those remembered on the State of Israel’s annual Memorial Day.

8) Start reading a book about Israel, a novel written by an Israeli author, or subscribe to an Israel-focused magazine or journal. Deepen and improve your knowledge of Israeli history, culture and society.

9) Add the Haaretz website to your list of favourites. It provides a moderate Israeli perspective on current events, and is updated on a continual basis. It contains easily accessible articles, and is a vital source of information to pass on to others.

10) Play an active role in the debate. Challenge misconceptions: write to, phone or text the media to add your voice to the debate, or if you feel Israel’s plight is being unfairly represented. Seek opportunities to discuss the situation with friends and colleagues, and resolve to raise levels of awareness about the legitimacy of the Jewish State wherever and whenever possible.

All of these minor acts have the potential to contribute in their own small ways to help bring peace and security to the State of Israel. Chag sameach.

(This article was written particularly in memory of the five Holocaust survivors who were murdered during the Passover seder in Netanya in March 2002: Frieda Britevich, 86; George (Meir Shlomo) Yakobovitch, 76; Ernest Weiss, 80; Eva Weiss, 75; and Marianne Lehmann Zaoui, 77).

[1] See the United Nation website for copies of complete texts.
[2] See: Goetz Nordbuch, Narrating Palestinian Nationalism. A Study of the New Palestinian Textbooks. Middle East Media Research Institute, Washington DC. 2001. It should be noted that the Palestinian educators involved in writing the textbooks did take some significant strides forward regarding education towards democracy.
[3] See: www.ynet.co.il, 1 April 2002