No issue commanded the attention of Jews and the Jewish community this past year as much as the crisis in Israel. The campaign of suicide bombings have exacted a horrendous physical and psychological toll on Israelis. Just about two years ago it seemed as if Ehud Barak and Yassar Arafat’s Palestinian Authority were on the verge of a breakthrough peace agreement. What we have witnessed instead is a progressive unraveling of a peace process that took years to develop and a return to the cycle of violence that leaves everyone bereft of simple solutions.
Many are weighing in with opinions about how to resolve the Israeli-Arab conflict which has now gone on for more than 100 years. My concern here is a bit different. In the face of this conflict many Jews are questioning the very basis for their relationship to a state that is supposed to be central to Jewish identity and consciousness. Can we continue to talk about Israel as part of the larger Jewish family of which we are part? And if so, how?
I ask myself the question: "How large is the universe of Jews who wake up each morning and hasten to open the paper to see if the headlines bring news of another terrorist attack in Israel?
When hearing the news of another suicide bombing in Israel with fatalities and casualties, how many Jews get that queasy feeling in their stomachs that is our bodies way of telling us this is information that is not just being processed rationally in our brains but has somehow entered our kishkas, the antennae of our souls?
How many Jews see a Newsweek cover story entitled "Will Israel Survive?" and read it as "Will your People Survive?"
There is much evidence that, in America, what has accompanied the general acceptance of Jews in society and our socio-economic success is a weakening of our feelings of ethnic connection to Jews around the world and to Israel. This, perhaps, explains an interesting change that has taken place in the American Jewish community. In 1975 the UN passed a resolution that equated Zionism with racism. The Jewish community responded with a campaign which included widespread distribution of buttons which said "I am a Zionist". At least in the circles I ran in in those days, Jews wore those buttons proudly.
Today, the Jewish community attempts to respond to one of the most widespread and sustained campaigns of anti-semitism we have seen in our lifetime but it does not include an affirmative expression on the part of Jews that "we are Zionists".
A good friend of mine who is a generous supporter of numerous Jewish causes and in fact, went to Israel last spring on a solidarity mission, said in my presence that while he will do whatever it takes to defend Israel, he is not a Zionist. My attempts to make the case that much of his behavior would suggest otherwise, were politely but vehemently resisted. Pro-Israel yes, Zionist, no.
I fear that this is a view that is widespread. Judaism has become an increasingly personal, inner, spiritual pursuit for American Jews. It is bad enough that only about a third of American Jews identify in any affirmative way with their Jewish identity. What is even more distressing is that many of that one-third would resist extending their sense of Jewish identity to some sense of civic commitment to the Jewish people. This manifests itself in alienation from umbrella Jewish federations that are the umbrella planning, fundrasing and allocation arm of the Jewish community; lack of concern with endangered Jews in places like Argentina, Europe and the former Soviet Union; and an aversion to thinking about what it means to be a Zionist.
These were among the concerns that motivated me to go to Israel this past June. I was a delegate to the 34th World Zionist Congress which first met in Basel, Switzerland in 1897. It was at this international gathering of Jews, on the eve of the 20th century, that Theodore Herzl, who was the moving force behind the Congress, earned his status as the father of modern Zionism and something of a prophet for he declared in that year, 1897, that in 50 years, there would be an independent Jewish homeland for the Jewish people. He got it exactly right.
There is much to tell, even after only a week in the country. Life seems telescoped in Israel. There is an intensity that is both intoxicating and exhausting. Every event seems to take on historical, if not theological importance.
The connection of Jews to Israel could hardly be better conveyed than it was in a letter written by Marla Bennet, the American studying in Israel to be a Jewish educator, killed in June, 2002 by a terrorist bomb at Hebrew University. The letter was written shortly before she became a victim to the campaign of terror which has targeted Israeli civilians for the past two years.
She wrote: "I love living here. The air is charged with our debates and discussions. We are trying to absorb all of the lessons that life here offers. Life here is magical. But life here is also difficult. My time here is dramatically affected by both the security situation and by the events happening around me. I feel energized by the opportunity to support Israel during a difficult period. I have the honor to be an American choosing to remain in Israel and assist, however minimally, in Israel’s triumph."
Marla Bennet’s words ring in my ears because virtually every Israeli I met--cab drivers, teachers, soldiers, public officials, housewives--asked the same question: where are all the American Jews during our time of trial?
However troubling and psychologically traumatic the two years of terrorism have been, Israelis say that the country has always lived in a sea of hostility, amid both actual and threatened attacks. What is far more debilitating is the sense that the same Jews who raised money on the slogan: "we are one", are now nowhere to be found in Israel. The total disappearance of Jewish tourism has both devastated the Israeli economy and undermined Israeli morale because never before have they felt so alone.
This is the backdrop to two incidents that drove home to me yet again, on my recent visit, how we--Jews and Israel--are part of the same family.
As part of my participation in the World Zionist Congress, I chose to sit on a committee on "Israel as a Jewish and Democratic State". A day earlier there had been a sucide bombing on a street not a mile from the convention center in Jerusalem. Ariel Sharon changed his plans to speak to us and instead, visited the site even as the bus was still in flames. Now, in the middle of our deliberations, word came to us of another suicide bombing in French Hill, a prosperous neighborhood near Hebrew University. The Magen David Adom, the Israeli Red Cross, set up a blood drive in the convention center and delegates took turns giving blood. Meanwhile, the chairman of our committee was a Jew from Germany who was not religious but who turned to some of the kipah wearing delegates from the religious parties to lead the room in the saying of Psalms, a traditional Jewish practice to pray for the souls of those whose lives had just been extinguished and their loved ones, who would now mourn their loss. He asked all of us, Jews from all over the world, representing the full spectrum of political ideologies, to stand in respect.
Next to me sat a member of the Meretz party, an ideologically committed secularist from France. He stood with the rest of the room but because his english and hebrew were so poor, it took him about a 10 seconds to realize that he had been drawn into a moment that he deemed to be religious, and against his convictions. He started screaming at the top of his lungs: "this is an outrage, I do not agree with this religious action; I protest".
The room was stunned. We were taken by the appropriateness of what the chairman had proposed we do as a symbolic act of solidarity and respect. Then the delegates started screaming back at the French Jew. Above the din, was our chairman, who controlled the mikes and who chastised the Frenchman: "How dare you desecrate this moment. I was in Auschwitz. I saw my entire family, my entire community perish, and now Jews are being killed again and you have the chutzpah to bicker at this time!"
The Frenchman responded: " I too was at Auschwitz. It is this damned religion that got us killed. Don’t you go trying to impose it on me". The room fell quiet. As angry as the entire room was a moment before, we were now looking into the eyes of a survivor. It confers a certain level of deference. The French Jews’ anti-religious stance was forged by the fires of the crematoria. It was not easily dismissed. The quiet in the room was deafening. We wept silently.
We wept at our common historical fate; we wept because the Holocaust’s looming shadow, which seems never very far away in Israel, was suddenly in the room with us; we wept over the intensity of the anger that was expressed just a moment earlier, a family squabble that erupted because of the tension we all were under; we wept out of fear for ourselves and the future of Israel and the Jewish people.
The second incident took place when, during the week I was in Israel, I had the chance to go to Ben Gurion Airport to welcome arriving immigrants. Zionist ideology talks about the "ingathering of the exiles", by which it means, that one of the functions of a Jewish state is to be a haven for Jews anywhere in the world, offering the opportunity to become a citizen of the Jewish state by simple declaration and moving one’s life to Israel. I knew of others who had witnessed the arrival of new immigrants, but nothing prepared me for the emotional power of the experience. Here in a week that saw three terrorist attacks on Israelis, in a country barren of any signs of tourism, some 400 Jews were moving their entire families and lives to Israel. One plane was from the Ukraine, one from Russia and one from Argentina. Off the plane came young and old, men and women. Some looked religious; most did not. One Russian Jew, looked to be in his 90’s, was being assisted by his grown son and followed by his grandchildren. He had no teeth, walked with a cane, and was wearing his WWI uniform with a chestful of medals. The Argentinians were mostly young families which had witnessed the bottom drop out of a once thriving economy. Most had gone from comfortable middle class lives to poverty, almost overnight.
We who were delegates there to greet the new olim, formed a human corridor. Those who came off the plane seemed stunned to be greeted by several hundred well dressed western Jews, cabinet ministers of the state of Israel and a band. As they trudged slowly through the human wall we had created, they began to respond to our gifts of flowers, Israeli flags and stuffed animals for the children. I was not the only only one shedding the kind of tears that one cries when witnessing a miracle.
Soon I along with other delegates started kissing each and every oleh chadash, every new immigrant. These were Jews who were about to start a new life; with almost nothing. They were coming to a place they had never been before, but they were coming home. And we were their welcoming family. A band struck up some music and despite the barriers of language and geography, we mixed together and danced. Like family.
This went on for over an hour, in the mid-day heat. The new immigrants had been on planes for over 12 hours. We were all physically and emotionally drained. But there was one last rite of passage. An official greeting from member of Knesset and Minister of Absorption, Yuli Edelstein. Yuli was one of the heroes of the Soviet Jewry movement. Raised a secular Russian, he discovered his Jewish identity as a young man and taught himself impeccable Hebrew. At great risk, he organized cells of Hebrew clubs throughout Russia, under the nose of the Russian KGB in the late 70’s and early 80’s. He was arrested and jailed in 1984, serving three years as a prisoner of conscience before being released and making aliyah in 1987. I had the privilege to meet Yuli in Russia before his imprisonment. He is one of my personal spiritual heroes. I’ve met several other times on my trips to Israel.
Yuli’s message to the new olim boiled down to this: "Don’t let anyone tell you that absorption will be easy. It won’t be. But I am here to tell you that you are home; you are among family. We will take care of you".
These are two powerful examples of what it means to see the extended Jewish people as part of one family. Being part of a family has many rewards; but it also carries obligations. The reward is receiving the embrace of a set of people who will always be there for you. But the obligation is reciprocal. You must be there for other members of your family when they are in need.
We cannot rejoice in the privilige of being part of the Jewish people and its legacy to the world unless we act in support of members of the Jewish people whom we can help. When we acquire that understanding, that consciousness, the implications are clear. The Jewish tradition is filled with the lesson:
Pirke Avot, The Ethics of our Ancestors says: "You shall not separate yourself from your community". Talmud Sanhedrin teaches:"all of Israel is responsible, one for the other". In the tractateTaanit we receive one of the best lessons about the reciprocal obligations of being a member of a community of history and fate: "At a time when Israel is in distress, one cannot go about eating and drinking in his or her own home, acting as if nothing is wrong".
I want to suggest that there is noone in this room this morning who could not legitimately add one extra al chet line in this year’s Yom Kippur liturgy that would read: "for the sin we have committed for going about our daily business, while Israel and the Jewish people is in crisis:"
Our tradition teaches that acknowledgement of a misdeed or a sin is only half the battle. We must then set about rectifying the wrong with positive actions. Let me here then suggest three things that we can, no, that we must consider doing, to act in a way commensurate with our obligations of being part of an historic and global Jewish community.
1. Be advocates for Israel by monitoring the media, responding where you think imbalance or inaccuracies exist, and by making contact with members of Congress with your views on middle east issues. Your involvement as informed American citizens on this front is crucial to help the state of Israel.
2. Seek to buy Israeli products. It is a tangible way to help the Israeli economy and there are websites that can help you identify a wide array of Israeli goods which local retailers could be encouraged to stock.
3. Seek to visit Israel in the next year. You may be interested in joining one of two specific missions to Israel being planned by our local Jewish federation. Nov. federation mission (11/3-7)and special Adat Shalom mission with me (Jan. 30-February 5).
A closing story: It took place on my cab ride from my hotel to the airport to return home from Israel. I got in the cab in Jerusalem at about 4:30am to make my 8am flight. My driver was in his 20’s, clean shaven and appearing Jewish, but with a dark complexion, I couldn’t be totally sure. In Israel, especially today, one is always making judgements about peoples’s tribal connections: religious or secular? Ashkenazi or Sephardic? Jew or Arab? native born or emigre? hawk or dove? We are a fractious, divided people. I sized up my driver as a secular, native born Israeli, but I wasn’t totally sure. And then I put it out of my mind, lost in thought over my intense week in the land.
As we approached the airport, the darkness of night yielded to the first signs of daylight. Suddenly my driver reached for the radio, turned it on and I recognized the sounds of one of Israel’s state sponsored stations. According to Jewish law, upon the first signs of dawn, alah hashachar in Hebrew, a Jew is required to recite the shma. And here on the radio, was a voice reciting the shma. Here was my cabdriver reciting the prayer with the radio, and with the rest of the people Israel--Shma Yisrael, Adonay Eloheinu, Adonai Echad.
As I looked at my bareheaded cabbie recite the shma in tandem with Israel’s state sponsored radio station at the halachically indicated time, all of the conflict and divisions and tensions of the previous week dissolved. I was overtaken by the primary meaning of the Shma-- Oneness, unity, cosmic harmony. I was in the Jewish homeland, hearing a prayer that has been the anthem of our people for over 3000 years.
I was experiencing the very oneness that is the message of the Shma. Isn’t it ironic how we learn some of the most profound lessons by sheer coincidence. Or perhaps, it was the hand of God that put me in that cab, a hand that we see only when we are fully present to the holy moments that happen to us every day.
So what’s a rabbi to do when his secular cabdriver becomes his rebbe? I joined my cabbie and, the rest of my family, past, present and future, and said the Shma.
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Wishing you, your families and our extended Jewish family, a year of health, harmony and peace.