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.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Channel 4 Dispatches: Shoddy, Shallow and Shameful
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)
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)
Monday, August 24, 2009
Grassroots Jews
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.
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.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
One people separated by a common language
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)
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)
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Losing face in the Facebook war
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.
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.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Choose Life: Asarah B'Tevet 5769
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.
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.
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