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Why I Am Voting for Sen. Klobuchar This Tuesday

#thinkinparagraphs

For my NH undecided friends, and for people out there in states voting soon who haven’t picked a candidate:

I’m not registered as a member of a political party, but on Tuesday I am going to take a Democratic ballot and vote for Sen. Amy Klobuchar.

I didn’t decide finally until about a week ago. I’ve been thinking about a small number of candidates, some of whom aren’t in the race anymore and some of whom are. I just posted about how it is that I go about choosing whom to vote for in general, and hopefully this post will look like an application of what I wrote there.

I have heard Senator Klobuchar speak twice now in person. Apart from the policy proposals, which she shares with some of the other candidates, Sen. Klobuchar has a combination of intelligence, forcefulness joined to openness, and humor. She has a record of accomplishment on matters large and small, first in her (my!) home state of Minnesota and then as a Senator in Washington in the most challenging legislative environment in recent memory. She feels a connection to people whose lives are affected by what public policy has and has not done, and that connection seems rooted in her biography and the story of her family. She has a record of building coalitions beyond the Democratic Party. She projects in her words and her public manner the qualities of decency, dignity, and empathy that belong in the Oval Office.

One of the hardest things in the campaign is going to be battling with President Trump and talking about divisive issues and where division is coming from, while also staying connected to as many Americans as possible. Even without President Trump, the political environment would be polarized. Solutions in Congress to complex problems like health care and immigration reform have been elusive. I am looking for someone whose whole package of leadership skills and experience under fire gives her a fighting chance to detoxify our politics and also make an impact. Of the candidates remaining, Sen. Klobuchar strikes me as the one with the best chance to do all of that.

It also means something to me that she has the support of people in my community whose wisdom and fundamental values I know and trust such as Joe Foster, Helen Honorow, Bill Barry, and Rep. Latha Mangipudi.

For people in the Jewish community who wonder about issues of special concern to us, Senator Klobuchar has a record of supporting Israeli security as an American national interest, and being part of what has been and should be a bipartisan consensus on Israel’s right to self-defense and the desire for a negotiated two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She has spoken out against anti-Semitism in our society.

I like to think I am not voting for Sen. Klobuchar just because of the Minnesota connection (though it doesn't hurt!)

I have thought about Mayor Buttigieg, whom I admire particularly for his reflectiveness and his willingness to talk about faith and about moral dilemmas in leadership. I think it says a lot about him that after Harvard and other experiences he chose to go back and try to make a difference where he came from even though it’s a small city, not the center of the world. Executive governmental experience is very important to the job of president. I think Senator Klobuchar has more experience and mettle for the job at hand in all its dimensions today.

I admire Sen. Warren particularly for her work on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which was one of the most important actions with teeth that was created after the financial crisis. Exploitation in finance isn’t as easy to talk about as health care or education. The lessons Sen. Warren draws from her personal history are also compelling. What has put me off have been some of her attacks on people or groups who disagree with her. There is a way to disagree and to work strongly from one’s principles without mocking people or painting all opponents on an issue with the same brush, whether it’s a social issue or an economic one. Right now, we need a leader who is especially good at both winning and not-demonizing.

There is a lot of good in Vice President Biden’s record and his long experience, and also some bad policy judgment in that record. I admire the clarity of Sen. Sanders, and have been thinking more and more about his take on wealth and inequality and poverty than I have in a long time. I have in the past had less of a black-and-white approach about wealth (see my previous post, referring to philosopher John Rawls), but even if I agreed with Sen. Sanders, this is a moment when a politics that rebuilds the center is also necessary if we are really going to make headway on issues related to inequality (also see my previous post). Because of that, I haven’t done a lot of looking into his record or story.

If you’ve read some of my previous posts or blogs about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it won’t surprise you that I have issues with recent statements from both Sen. Sanders and Sen. Warren.

I thought briefly about taking the Republican ballot and voting for Governor Weld to make a statement about the president. But as I wrote in the other post, I do not vote for symbolism but to make an impact.

So I have made my choice. I will be voting for Senator Amy Klobuchar this Tuesday, after being undecided for longer than I can ever remember being. Good luck making your choice well, and see you at the polls.

Embracing Chanukkah

This was my column in the December 2019 bulletin for Temple Beth Abraham:

I love Chanukkah. I love the row of chanukkiot, the special menorahs, set up by the window for each member of the family. Just the simplicity of light and then a bit more light every day, with a bit of color, and before you know it the difference between one candle for each and eight. Hope, lights kindling more lights, a simple melody for blessings with voices of different ages.

What I have really come to love about Chanukkah is that the story itself is actually about having a holiday when other people are having another holiday. That’s not a new thing, an American thing, even a Judaism-and-Christianity thing. It’s way back at the beginning. Chanukkah, like Purim (stay tuned in a few months), is the festival about us.

The simplest Chanukkah story is about King Antiochus outlawing Judaism and defiling the Temple in Jerusalem, until a band of Jewish priest-warriors said no, fought a battle for four years, drove out the king’s forces and purified the Temple. A story of religious freedom instead of tyranny, and self-determination in our land, and miracle.

Around that story is another story, and it’s longer. It starts in the 300s B.C.E., with Alexander the Great. He led a military campaign through the Middle East and established an enormous empire from Europe to Persia to Africa, including the Land of Israel. His conquests also brought a culture, the Greek-infused Hellenism that changed the language people spoke as well as art, architecture, athletics and ideas.

Jews, both in and out of Judea, wrestled with what it meant to live in a Hellenistic world. In the century or so after Alexander the Great, the Jews in Egypt translated the Torah into Greek, a version that is known as the Septuagint. They didn’t speak or know very much Hebrew and needed a Torah in their own language.

One of my favorite ancient Jewish stories is a legend about the writing of the Septuagint. The Letter of Aristeas to Philocrates is a Jewish text that invents a different origin for the Greek version of the Torah. The Letter of Aristeas says that the Hellenistic emperor in Alexandria, Egypt, heard that there was a book he was missing for his great library of all the world’s wisdom: the Torah.

In order to complete his library, he would need it translated into Greek. So he sent for a group of seventy scholars to come down for Jerusalem, and he threw them a kosher banquet. This story, written by a Jew in Greek, even presents the scholars as though they were excellent Greek philosophers!

By the time of Antiochus and the Maccabees, a lot of Jews were wondering whether they needed Hebrew, or even Judaism (much of it's opening chapters are different than our version, another story). There was social pressure to become like other people. Even the Jerusalem priests took on Greek names, like we generally have English ones. There was a fierce debate within the Jews of the time about how much to integrate with others, and how much Hellenism to integrate into Judaism.

Sound familiar?

So while Antiochus was a madman and a tyrant, his rise was also the catalyst for getting all of this into the open. In fact, one of the oldest historical books we have about Chanukkah spends most of its time talking about these debates among Jews, about our relations with others and about how much Greek culture to bring into Jerusalem.

Even the date of the start of Chanukkah is connected to these themes. We celebrate beginning on the 25th of the month of Kislev in the Jewish calendar. The 25th of the final month of the solar year was, in the surrounding cultures, a pagan holiday already. Both Jews and later Christians took that festival of light period from others, and made it a symbol of our own lights. In the very act of claiming that day as our own, we remember that Jews of the time battling for their own culture.

The Hellenistic world that was Alexander the Great’s legacy is an analogy for our world, particularly for the Jewish community in America. So it’s absolutely right that we end up presenting ourselves to others, to the majority, at this time of year – explaining things, being ambassadors, talking about what connects us through the winter festivals and what is unique about us.

So embrace that. Be Chanukkah. Get ready when people ask you about Chanukkah and Judaism. Be ready with more than “Chanukkah isn’t our Christmas” -- your favorite thing about being Jewish, your favorite mitzvah or custom or story or idea. Your story of why and how you are Jewish in this modern-day version of a Hellenistic world.

Then you’ll be the candle that lights another candle. You can be a candle of pride that shines, and a candle that lights more understanding among other people who look at us, as we glow uniquely at this time of year.

Chag Urim Samayach – A Joyous Festival of Lights,
Rabbi Jon

Chanukkah Is About Today

Each year in the Temple Beth Abraham bulletin I tend to write about the same thing at this time of year. This is as good as I've done so far in articulating why Chanukkah is important, and why it is important for American Jews at this holiday season. This is my December column:

You’ve probably heard over and over that Chanukkah is a “minor” holy day. Something we make a big deal about especially in modern America – something especially for Jewish children in a Christmas-saturated environment.

It’s true, Chanukkah is no Passover. But in fact, it’s not a new thing, the question about how significant Chanukkah really is. In fact, the Jewish religious authorities in the time of the Talmud were anti-Chanukkah. At a time when Jews were under the thumb of Roman, Byzantine, and Sasanian emperors, the rabbis were none too keen on celebrating an uprising against imperial power. They managed to wrestle Chanukkah down to just a couple of paragraphs in the sprawling Talmud and left pretty much a story about divine light alone, the cruse of oil in the Temple that lasted eight days.

In fact, Chanukkah has always been about the relationship of Jews and Judaism to the majority culture, its values and its forces. That’s in fact what the original events were all about. So it’s worth taking an adult, “Judaism 201” look at the Chanukkah story.

The events of Chanukkah took place in the period of about 180-160 B.C.E. This was about 150 years after the conquests of Alexander the Great of Macedon, who brought the Land of Israel into the cultural and political world of Hellenism.

In many ways, Hellenism was the American culture of its time. There was a language, Greek, that spread to become a common language through much of Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. Hellenism was a dominant world culture. Its positive elements included philosophy, art, and international trade that linked people together and brought prosperity and material advancement. The negative side of Hellenism included a worship of the physical body and a focus on beauty and strength above other values – pagan values.

The Jews in the Land of Israel, as well as those in exile all around the Mediterranean Sea, were deeply influenced by Hellenism. Each regional Jewish community faced the question of how much to adapt to Hellenism, whether to assimilate completely in part, or whether to remain separate.

It wasn’t a one-way street. Because the Hellenists valued learning and culture in general, some non-Jews learned about Judaism and decided that it was a kind of pure philosophy, a truth without all the trappings of pagan gods and rituals. About a century after Alexander the Great, who himself had been a student of Aristotle, the Torah was translated into Greek.

There was corruption among the kohanim, the priestly leadership of the Jews at the Temple in Jerusalem. The Temple was not only a religious center, but a because of the gifts and offerings that people would bring. Ambitious people among the priests were vying for authority over the Temple. Some tried to curry favor with different imperial officials, by offering political support or outright bribes.

Just like today, the Land of Israel was situated geographically at a military and economic crossroads. Around the time of Chanukkah, in fact, the land changed hands. When Alexander died, his empire had been split in half, ruled from capitals in Egypt and in Syria. Initially the Egypt-based rulers controlled Judea, and they were on the whole tolerant of the Jews. But then the Seleucids, the “Syrian-Greeks” we know from the Chanukkah story, took over. Even then, the situation of the Jews did not change right away.

Then a new and crazy emperor, Antiochus IV, came to power in Syria. He believed that he was himself a god. He ordered the takeover of the Temple in Jerusalem and banned key Jewish practices. Some of the historical sources say that he took advantage of the weakness of both Jewish society and the officials beneath him. Others say that the Jewish assimilationists actively invited his intervention and his decrees.

The group we know as the Maccabees came to lead the revolt against Antiochus. They were themselves kohanim, but separate from the corrupt priests of Jerusalem. Their family name was Chashmonai; their patriarch was Matityahu (Mattathias) and his sons included Yehudah (Judah).

They believed in Jewish distinctiveness, but they also believed in some modern adaptation to Hellenism. So for instance, during their three-year revolt that begin in 165 B.C.E., they made certain decisions that were not so traditionally Jewish. They decided fighting on Shabbat was permitted in order to save lives. Their battle plan had some of the same features that the modern Israel Defense Forces would use in 1948 and 1967.

When they finally drove out Antiochus' forces, the Maccabees led both a traditional religious revival and a new approach to Jewish culture and power. They instituted a new annual festival, Chanukkah, but based it on the Sukkot festival that had gone unmarked in the Temple in the prior years. (That's initially why Chanukkah is eight days; the story of the oil came hundreds of years later.) They installed themselves as kings, even though they were not descendants of King David. Their leaders were known by both Hebrew and Greek names.

For me, celebrating Chanukkah reminds me that these issues of politics, value priorities, war, corruption based on money, and majority-minority relations are not new things. The candles remind me that light has to be shed on these matters, all the time.

The candles, against the darkness, are a symbol of the dedication and integrity it takes to keep our eyes open and to find and hold our moral center of gravity. The candles also remind me that Judaism could have been extinguished, could have burned out against all the political, military, economic, and cultural forces of that time. But it was not –Judaism bounced back, renewed and even began to reinvent itself.

So Chanukkah is not just a children’s story. And it resonates for us in America today for the same reasons it has resonated since the days of the Maccabees. Maybe it’s not Passover, but Chanukkah is hardly minor.

Chag Urim Same'ach – A Joyous Festival of Lights,
Rabbi Jon

Israel's 70th Anniversary

This was column in the bulletin of Temple Beth Abraham for April 2018. 

This spring, the State of Israel marks its 70^th anniversary. By the Hebrew calendar, it falls on April 18-19, and by the secular calendar, on May 14. We are looking forward to celebrating together on Sunday, May 13 at the synagogue. We have a remarkable program with architect Stephen Schwartz and 70,000 Lego ™ pieces, who will guide us to build a model of Jerusalem! There will be music with our New Hampshire sh’licha Noam Wolf, food and all kinds of fun.

And in the meantime, we welcome the Deputy Consul-General of Israel in New England, Matan Zamir, to join us for a lunchtime talk on Saturday, April 27.

We each have so much to celebrate this year, whether you are an Israeli, an American Jew with family in Israel, or simply a Jew. Israel’s reality has always been on two levels, which go back to the emergence of modern Zionism in the mid- to late-1800s.

First is simply the saving and protecting of Jewish lives. The Zionism of Pinsker and Herzl began as a response to anti-Semitism in Europe. It was an era of weakening or crumbling empires and autocracies, when nations were claiming their identities, and often Jews were left on the outside or actively targeted.

Starting literally the day after its independence in 1948, Israel began taking in Jewish refugees from Europe and the Middle East. One of the incredible Israeli stories is the integration of hundreds of thousands of Jews in the first decade of the state. Imagine a country doubling its size in a short time – building homes and infrastructure, trying to create a national culture, all under conditions of war and the shadow of the Shoah. Not everything was done perfectly, to say the least. But lives were saved in massive numbers.

In more recent times, the suddenly freed Jews of the former Soviet Union and the Jews of Ethiopia found safety in Israel. And now, the Zionism of Jewish survival continues as Israel defends itself, against terror groups and the threat of Iranian nuclear weapons.

Israel has also from the start been about even more than protection and survival. We celebrate the Zionism of Jewish excellence. Even in the 1800s, when the imperative of saving lives was front and center, Zionists dreamed of creating an ideal society and a new Jewish personality.

A. D. Gordon’s celebration of working the soil. The socialist vision of Syrkin and Borochov. The religious idealism of Rav Kook. The cultural renewal called for by Ahad Ha-am. Each generation has taken pushed these visions of Jewish cultural and spiritual and ethical excellence further and further.

As a result, Israel is a society of social and cultural creativity – and also a society of intense self-criticism. That too is part of the Zionism of moral excellence.

The Israel of Jewish excellence is the Arava Institute, leading the way in both environmental sustainability and Jewish-Arab coexistence. It’s the Shalom Hartman Institute, developing a modern Torah applying Jewish values to dilemmas of sovereignty and war.

It’s the Yerushalmit Movement, which started as a response to hate murders in and around Jerusalem, as people gathered weekly in Kikar Tziyon in the center of Jerusalem to talk across difference – religious and secular, Israeli Jew and Palestinian Arab, gay and straight.

Israel at 70 years old is not finished on either level. The matter of Jewish and Israeli survival, and the challenges of Zionist excellence, continue and they are not easy. Certainly the conflict between official state Orthodox Judaism and others is not resolved. Nor is seventy years of war, including more than fifty years of ruling Palestinians in the West Bank.

But celebrations are for celebrating!

This anniversary is an Israeli celebration and a Jewish celebration. A lot of times, we think about the overlap between our connection to Israel and supporting the Israel-America alliance as good for both countries. That’s part of my own advocacy work with AIPAC. But one thing that this anniversary is not: an American holiday.

I support the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel by the U.S. government and the long-overdue establishment of an embassy there. But to Prime Minister Netanyahu, and to the Jewish community here, I would say: This anniversary period has nothing to do with the United States, and it should not be shared or rented out for that purpose.

I hope the Israeli government will have the self-respect to say to President Trump: Dedicate the embassy in June or later. Israel’s anniversary is not an American celebration, though we welcome you to celebrate alongside us. This spiritual, existential, and peoplehood moment is ours, not yours.

I hope to see everyone together on May 13, as we build a physical Jerusalem and contemplate the ideal Jerusalem. Happy 70^th anniversary to the State of Israel!

L’shalom,
Rabbi Jon

Jerusalem and the U.S. Embassy

Here are some thoughts in response to President Trump's announcement yesterday about recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital and initiating the transfer of the U.S. embassy there from Tel Aviv. I'm thinking about this spiritually and emotionally as a Jew, as well as politically as an American and as a person tied to Israel.

All day yesterday, I felt like I was thinking about the Jerusalem announcement through clenched teeth. This felt wrong; we are taught to “lift Jerusalem above my highest joy.” Then in the evening two people asked me what I was thinking, right before the daily minyan (service). That helped me find my starting point. I thought about the first words of the opening psalm, Ashrei yoshvay vaytecha – “Happy are those who live in Your house.” One of the meanings of that house is the House of God, the Beit Hamikdash in ancient Jerusalem.

The meaning of that House in Jerusalem for me is in the second chapter of the book of the prophet Isaiah, which is almost the same in the fourth chapter of Micah:

“It shall be, at the end of days, that the mountain of the House of Adonai will be established as the highest of the mountains, and will be lifted up over hills, and all the nations will flow toward it in joy. Many peoples will come, and they will say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of Adonai, to the House of the God of Jacob, that God may teach us of God's ways and we may walk in God's paths.” For out of Zion shall come forth Torah (teaching), and the word of Adonai from Jerusalem. God will judge among nations, and set right many nations, so they will beat their swords into ploughshares and their swords into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, and they will not experience war any more.”

That is what Jerusalem and the holy mountain are all about. This vision, and many others related, are why Jerusalem is a holy city and such an important symbolic place in our world. Lose the vision, and there is no point in quarreling about the city.

Here is something that seems too obvious to have to say: Jerusalem is Israel's capital.

“Jerusalem” could mean two things. There is the core of Jerusalem – the Temple Mount and nearby, the oldest parts of the city where the holy sites of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity are. Then there is the modern city of Jerusalem, almost all of which is less than 150 years old. By now the modern city is on all sides of the Old City, not just east and west. Both “West Jerusalem” and most of “East Jerusalem” are that modern city. (See my column here for more detail.) The importance of those modern areas derives from being attached to the core. They aren't particularly holy in and of themselves. What exactly did President Trump recognize yesterday?

No one who accepts that there is an Israel denies that at least some part of this modern Jerusalem is part of Israel and always will be. It's in that modern Jerusalem that President Trump wants to put the embassy.

Everyone knows I am no fan of President Trump. But really, his statement and decision don't decide anything about the core of Jerusalem. He did not say, for instance, that all of ancient and modern Jerusalem should be under exclusive Israeli sovereignty. He left in place everything that has been standard peace-process policy. To be determined in negotiations: what exactly are the official boundaries of Jerusalem, what would the arrangements be in Jerusalem in the future if there were two states.

But he said the obvious and indisputable, that the capital of Israel is in Jerusalem.

People other than Israelis, and Jews generally, have strong ties and claims in Jerusalem. It is a holy space for them. It is a politically significant space for the Palestinians in particular. My own view is that there is room for both Israeli sovereignty and other sovereignty. It's not zero-sum, and recognizing Palestinian political claims in Jerusalem does not mean surrendering Israeli sovereignty by the Temple Mount. In fact, the current arrangement on the Temple Mount is built on Israeli sovereignty with Muslim/Jordanian administration from day to day. This is already a creative solution, which has held up for the past fifty years even during times of tension, and it has never been the obvious one. Israel rarely gets credit for this. Other creative solutions, for a time when the Palestinians have full sovereignty, are certainly possible.

No solution is ruled out by moving the American embassy somewhere in the area of pre-1967 Israeli Jerusalem.

I have to say that I was astounded, though not surprised, to see how much coverage was devoted yesterday evening on National Public Radio to the matter. So out of proportion. There are so many things going on in the country and the world that have more practical effect on people, in the short and long term, that never get this much attention.

There is a sneaky imbalance, especially in the media and in Europe and on some parts of the American left. Israel is not allowed to say that any part of Jerusalem is its capital. But the Palestinians are entitled to say as a starting point of all negotiations that the oldest parts of Jerusalem are their capital.

When Israel or any country moves to formalize the reality of Israeli sovereignty in the “undisputed” part of Jerusalem, “West Jerusalem” – it turns out that it's disputed after all. Today Hanan Ashrawi, a PLO leader, pulls that move in the New York Times today: “Since Israel was established in 1948, the United Nations and the United States, like most countries, have refused to recognize any country’s sovereignty over Jerusalem, a city holy to Muslims, Jews and Christians.” That's smoke and mirrors, meant to confuse people who don't know their history. There is no peace plan of any sort that has not envisioned Israel sovereignty in some of Jerusalem. Even the Saudi peace plan talked about the pre-1967 borders, where some of Jerusalem is part of Israel. And yet, anyone who says even this much is considered to be violating Palestinian national rights.

An imaginative Palestinian leader could have seized the high ground yesterday. She or he could have taken what the president actually said, and responded: “We welcome President Trump's recognition of our rights and role in Jerusalem, and his invitation to begin negotiations about Jerusalem and our statehood. Peace with Israel means sharing Jerusalem with the Israelis. Peace with Israel means sharing the intertwined holy sector. We reach out our hand to the Israelis, to negotiate an arrangement that recognizes the complexity of Jerusalem. When that is achieved, this is how Palestine will show its commitment to the peace and holiness that al-Quds represents: the very first foreign embassy we open as a sovereign state will be our embassy to Israel in its capital in Jerusalem.”

Instead, as one of my thoughtful colleagues pointed out yesterday, it is assumed ahead of time that Arabs react with violence, and violence is therefore not their responsibility in any way.

Now I absolutely believe that President Trump cares very little about Israelis and Palestinians, and was motivated by nothing other than his own political needs at the moment. The careless rollout of this policy puts American in danger, as our own State Department says, and this was a reckless way to do it that will cost lives.

I believe that Palestinians are justified in their fear that Prime Minister Netanyahu has no intention of making a shared Jerusalem possible. He is proposing expanding the definition of “Jerusalem” as a way of taking certain territory off the table for negotiations. The prime minister too could have seized the moral high ground, and made the kind of statement I imagined for a Palestinian leader: “We thank President Trump for acknowledging our eternal capital in Jerusalem. From that city, we as Israelis will show our commitment to all that Jerusalem, the City of Peace, represents. Our capital is already unlike any other capital in the world. We reach out our hand to the Palestinians to negotiate an arrangment that recognizes the complexity of Jerusalem. Together, we can fulfill the vision of Isaiah: 'My House will be a house of prayer for all peoples.'”

Next week is Channukah. The story begins with corruption and desecration in Jerusalem, and it ends with rededication, with miracle, with hope. All of it on the very ground we are talking about this week. We will retell that transformation for eight nights, and it should center us as we think about the conflict of our day. For Jews, Jerusalem is a site of holiness and awe and aspiration. That is why we claim it still, as a capital and more.

The U.S., The U.N., Sec. Kerry and Israel This Past Week

Last Friday, the UN Security Council approved a resolution declaring that Israeli communities in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are the primary impediments to peace between Israelis and Palestinians. It passed 14-0-1, with the United States abstaining rather than vetoing the resolution. Then yesterday, Secretary of State John Kerry delivered a long speech outlining his views of the conflict and focusing in great depth on how the Israeli occupation of the West Bank impairs an eventual two-state solution and imperils Israel's identity as a Jewish and democratic state.

It is hard to say something new about the conflict or to bring a new perspective for those who have thought about it and are knowledgeable. I am writing for a few reasons. One, whenever something this major happens that affects Israel and Jews, it is important to stand up, even to repeat things that I have said or written, or that others are also saying. Two, there are among the readers here people who could learn something new or be sparked to go and learn more. Third, even though what I am writing is interpretation and evaluation, rather than adding new facts, there is a value for people in hearing what things sound like from a particular perspective. I think if you know me, you know that even when I am in my own voice, I try to speak or write with respect for people who don't share my perspective.

It's important to start by reading the two documents themselves: UN Security Council Resolution 2334 and Secretary Kerry's speech at the State Department.

This has all been about the time and place of these statements, since there is nothing new in them. And my reaction is that the resolution and the speech are careless, ineffective, and to some degree insulting attempts to advance peace. I say this as a rabbi who declared on Rosh Hashanah 2014 from the pulpit that Palestinian life and freedom have become part of the Jewish story, and that I hope one day that we will see ourselves as Jews as among of the agents of Palestinian freedom.

Careless -- because the language of the UN resolution continues the trend of lumping together historic Jerusalem, including the Western Wall, with the small settlements in the middle of Palestinian areas that have no specific relation to Israeli security. The resolution enshrines the practice of BDS (boycott-divestment-sanctions), the primary tactic of western anti-Israel groups. Though the language distinguishes between economic boycotting of pre-1967 Israel and the territories, BDS groups claim for instance that all Israeli defense activities are intertwined with Palestinian suffering.

Ineffective -- because the moves only strengthen hard-liners on all sides – Israeli, Palestinian, BDS activists. Those are the only groups that have gained something this week. There is no group supporting a two-state solution, or some other imaginative solution, that is stronger because of the American acts and words than they were a week ago. There is no group in that category that has more resources, power, or influence so far as I can see. From a cost-benefit analysis, the U.S. moves are counterproductive.

And I say that the resolution, and Secretary Kerry's speech, are insulting, because of the particular haughty tone. I have been trying to put my finger on it, and what I came up with is that Secretary Kerry in particular sounds like a father or an older brother. President Obama has often spoken in a similar tone. Here's the experiment: Read Secretary Kerry's speech and imagine an American leader or diplomatic speaking in parallel terms about France, Great Britain, India, or even Russia. This sounds like family talk. You never hear an American leader rhapsodizing about his or her many experiences in France as preface to a policy speech, or invoking Churchill in the way that Secretary Kerry and President Obama speak about Shimon Peres. (This isn't a recent thing – President Clinton was the same about Prime Minister Rabin, and many American politicians on the right and to some extent on the left talk about Israel in this way.)

And so Secretary Kerry declared with indignation that Israel has to choose between being a Jewish state and a democracy... as though no Israeli has thought of this, and as though that is not the present debate within the State of Israel! At one point in his speech, he actually stated that most Israelis don't know what he knows about the extent of Israel's system of control in the West Bank. This is ludicrous.

The six principles that Secretary Kerry outlined for an Israeli-Palestinian peace are squarely within the consensus for those who do believe that Palestinians have national rights. They aren't new in any way either. If Secretary Kerry were serious about doing something to advance peace, he would also lay out thoughts just as meticulous and well-informed about the other obstacles to peace right now. Again, the fireworks here about Israel are in the way of an actual strategy for bringing peace closer.

I do realize that the familiar, family relationship of the United States and Israel of course is the source of the unique alliance, and that Israel benefits in many concrete and consequential ways. This is part of a broader theme about Jews' place in this country, which I plan to write and speak more about, especially after the inauguration at some point. 

Within my own Jewish world, I do believe that Zionism is about Jews' taking responsibility for our own power and decisions. The debate over the West Bank, which has intensified since Prime Minister Netanyahu's reelection, is a real one in Israel right now, even within the governing coalition. For those of us who are Jews not living in Israel, we have responsibilities both in solidarity with Israel and vis-a-vis the Palestinians who live under Jewish-majority jurisdiction. That's why I take the role of both fighting back against unfair and counterproductive moves against Israel, and facing the moral responsibilities of governing another people against their will. In the latter vein, I encourage you to follow Rabbi Donniel Hartman, an Orthodox-Zionist teacher in Jerusalem -- here are thoughts regarding this week.

If you are anywhere near us in New Hampshire, I urge you to come on Sunday morning, February 12, to a presentation about the Six-Day War by Michael Harris, cosponsored by the Southern New Hampshire Jewish Men's Club and Temple Beth Abraham's Lifelong Learning Committee. As we roll out more programs, toward the 50^th anniversary of the unification of Jerusalem, I hope you will both attend and help us plan. This is only the beginning of a year that will see both that anniversary, and the 100^th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, the first official international recognition of the idea of a “Jewish National Home.” We have much to learn and to do.

Chag urim sameach – may you all have a joyful rest of this holiday, filled with light in all ways.

 

Ari Shavit's My Promised Land

This post is based on my bulletin column of April 2014.  At Temple Beth Abraham, the Sisterhood's book club is discussing this book on Wednesday, Nov. 5 at 8:00 PM.

The most important new book about Israel this year is called My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel, by Israeli journalist Ari Shavit. If you read only one nonfiction Jewish book, this is the one you have to have.

My Promised Land is a history of Israel and of Zionism, told through a loving and critical lens. Shavit is one of the Israel's most probing commentators. He writes for Haaretz, one of Israel's three main daily newspapers.

Shavit begins the book with the story of his great-grandfather, Herbert Bentwich, a British Jew who came see Palestine in 1897. Shavit talks about what his great-grandfather saw and experienced, and also what he didn't see or chose not to see, namely the Arabs in the villages all around the new Zionist towns.

For each decade he profiles, Shavit zeroes in on an emblematic storyline. He chooses “tragedies” in the ancient Greek sense. Moral dilemmas with no obvious right or wrong answer, dilemmas that could not be avoided in real time.

The Israelis of 1948 sent away Arabs from their homes in parts of the land. There wasn't time to figure out how to integrate Arabs into every part of Israel, with Arab armies bearing down. In order to take in hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees in the 1950s and 1960s, Israel created standardized housing and a single dominant culture. There wasn't time, with military and economic challenges, to make room for differences, or to deal with communal traumas in the open.

Shavit criticizes something about each layer of Israel's history. But he is emphatic that the ideal path is only available in hindsight. He is equally hard on those who believe in sheer military power, and those who believe in a perfect peace with all the Arabs.

For me, one of the strongest impressions from the book is just how many social challenges Israel has had to face in less than sixty-five years. Without civil war, Israel has absorbed Jews who survived the Holocaust, those who become unwelcome in Arab countries, and those who were suddenly liberated when the Soviet Union collapsed. Israel's largely secular culture has had to face a powerful religious revival.

After the near-defeat in 1973 during the Yom Kippur War, suddenly Israel's army was no longer an invincible force and an automatic source of pride. As the peace process of the 1990s collapsed, the idea of coexisting with Arabs in mutual understanding was exposed.

Through all of this, Shavit keeps his faith in the necessity of Israel. He considers whether all the mistakes mean that it would be better for Jews to live only in the diaspora, or in a binational state with the Palestinians. Shavit is emphatic: There is no future for Jews in the world without Israel. The moral responsibility for the past is real. Recognizing and taking responsibility for past mistakes is what it means to be a modern nation.

My Promised Land is not an easy book to read. Shavit does not point the way out of Israel's current struggles – not with the Arabs or internally. I kept reading because despite all his research and reflection, despite all the moral questions, Shavit is never disillusioned with Israel. 

It is a tribute to the American Jewish community, and to the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC, that Shavit has been invited across the country to speak as a Zionist and defender of Israel. He represents the notion that Jews are strong when we are honest and self-critical, and avoiding the honest look can only weaken Israel and the Jewish people.

We'll need some way to talk about this book. It's more than one discussion. I'll have the book in our library, but there should be a line out the door. Get a copy, and start reading.

A Must Read on Israel and Palestine

Yesterday's New York Times Sunday Review section published an important analysis and proposal from Dennis Ross, who has served Republican and Democratic presidents as an emissary to the Middle East.  It is a realistic, hard-headed take on the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, and the supporting maps/diagrams are very helpful.  He suggests a path forward, with steps that both sides can take even as they are skeptical of each other.

Read here.

First Reaction: Palestine and the UN

Yesterday, the United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to give Palestine the status of a "nonmember observer state", represented by the Palestine Liberation Organization, within the territory of the West Bank and Gaza Strip that bordered Israel before the Six-Day War of 1967.

This is truly a first reaction.  I decided to read a few things last evening:

• the text of the speech delivered today by Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian National Authority
• the speeches delivered on Sept. 13, 1993 at the White House by Mahmoud Abbas, Yitzchak Rabin, and Yassir Arafat

The earlier speeches were delivered when, unexpectedly, Israel and the PLO decided on mutual recognition and the first phases of a face-to-face process of negotiations.

I wanted to read the speeches sympathetically, as gestures of peace from all sides.  I wanted to read with understanding that the Palestinians, for all kinds of reasons, have lived an often terrible existence since 1948, and have lived with poverty and restrictions especially lately.  You may already well know that I favor a state for Palestinians, and view the increasing settlement of the West Bank by Israel as a profound obstacle to peace.

I wanted to try to read with sympathy even though I read these speeches as a Jew, as part of the family of Israel, worried for Israel's safety today.

It is typical in speeches before the world, in speeches outside one's own land, to make gestures of peace and understanding even to one's opponents and enemies.  It is what Prime Minister Rabin, zichrono livracha, did in his speech in 1993.

President Abbas yesterday did no such thing toward Israel.  In his speech, Israel is at best something that is there.  He said nothing at all about Israelis and their homes or hopes.  He extended no olive branch, did not so much as admit that Palestinians and Arab countries have participated in wars, have been fighters against Israel.  When I looked back at his speech in 1993, when he was the P.L.O. foreign minister, essentially, it was the same.  Even on a day when things looked brighter for everyone.

And I am afraid of what this means, that the Palestinian leader most regarded as the partner for negotiations with Israel cannot bring himself even to any of the niceties or cliches about what peace would mean for Israelis, or what Israel means as a homeland for its people.

Others will elaborate on the incredible version of history that President Abbas put forth.  How unbelievable that he would invoke the U.N. partition resolution, passed by the General Assembly on the same day 65 years before -- which would have created the Palestinian state on far better terms, had the Arabs only accepted it as the Jews did.  In President Abbas' speech, the Palestinians are peaceful people who were "ethnically cleansed" from their homes, who have never engaged in war or terror, whose leaders have always stood for fundamental human rights.

Read the speeches I've linked for yourself.  This is my first reaction, and I share it in great worry and sorrow.

Celebrating Israel at 63

Tonight begins Yom Haatzmaut, Israel's Independence Day.  For now, think about celebrating!  If you are in New Hampshire, come tonight from 5:30-8:30 to the Jewish Federation of New Hampshire's celebration for Jews across the state!

Whatever your thoughts about the situation in Israel and the MIddle East, tonight and tomorrow are days to celebrate.  Here are a few links:

David Ben Gurion reading Israel's Declaration of Independence (text here) on May 15, 1948:

Download or listen to Ben Gurion original rec 14.5.1948

One of my favorite Israeli songs:  "Noladti Lashalom" (I Was Born for Peace) -- turn up the volume!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkObTTDhu2A&playnext=1&list=PL93772CF54D63BE0F

I was born to the melodies
and to the songs of all countries
I was born to the language and the place too
to the few and many who will give peace a hand.
I was born to peace - let it arrive
I was born to peace - let it come
I was born to peace - let it appear
I want, I want to be in it already.

I was born to the dream
and in it I see that peace will come
I was born to the desire and the belief
that it will come after thirty years.

I was born to a people two thousand years old.
that have a land and it has a piece of heaven
and it sees, watches the day unfold
and it's a beautiful moment, moment of peace.

 

Here is a recording of the Zionist anthem Hatikvah, sung by survivors of the Shoah, recorded at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp not long after the liberation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syUSmEbGLs4

More song:  Ofra Haza, representing Israel at the 1983 Eurovision song contest, singing "Chai":

Alive, alive, alive - Yes, I'm still alive!
This is the song that Sabba (grandfather)
Sang yesterday to Abba (father)
And today I [sing]
I'm still alive, alive, alive
The people of Israel live
This is the song which Sabba
Sang yesterday to Abba
And today I [sing]!

(For a little background on the conflict, listen to my two-part podcast.  But wait for a couple days first and savor the anniversary.)