Growing up in Israel, I joined a lot of organizations: Youth Against Racism, Hashomer Hatza’ir, Reut Sadaka, and maybe one or two groups even further to the left. I attended Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam and Meretz Youth weekend seminars, a kind of experience I’ve never seen in the US, not even when I was a college student. At these seminars, high school students would listen to Members of Knesset, well known professors and journalists, professional youth educators and others as they dissected Israel’s social issues.
During this entire formative period, regardless of where you stood in the left wing spectrum, certain things were true:
Our side was in favor of dialogue with the Palestinians, while right wing Israelis were racists who denied the Palestinians essential humanity, let along their human and national rights.
Our side addressed a combination of moral elements and enlightened self-interest. The occupation might be wrong, but it is also suicidal.
Our side drew inspiration from Western values that flowed from the enlightenment. Rationality, skepticism, a slight fear of the mob, an emphasis on individual identity over collective identity.
Our side was focused on liberating Israelis (Jews and Arabs alike) from the burden of having to represent anything else other than who we were. In other words, even the hard core Zionists were often in favor of ‘post Zionist’ measures like removing religion from identity cards, affirming the validity of the Palestinian narrative, and de-mythologizing the founding of Israel.
I was part of the lucky minority of Israel Jews that interacted with Israeli Arabs and Palestinians from the Occupied Territories on a regular basis. They represented a fairly diverse range of opinions and backgrounds, though less from among the poor and seriously religious, a bit more from the upper and middle classes, the Christians, and those from larger cities and villages. At a certain point, my identity as an Israeli changed into one that wholeheartedly embraced the reality of Israel: one fifth Palestinian, one fifth Russian, inclusive of countless racial, ethnic and religious minorities, with a tragic mix of conflicting impulses. Together, we were Israeli, and deserved to be truly equal for all our sakes. More »
Recently, Rabbi Daniel Gordis published an article making allegations of a seeming tidal wave of anti-Israel sentiment in rabbinical schools. This is my reaction.
Dear Rabbi Gordis,
Before I proceed, let me preface this letter with the following disclaimer: I write this with great honor and respect. While you and I have never met, we do hold mutual friends amongst whom I count some of my dearest rabbis and teachers and family members. The dedication you have given to the Jewish people holds special significance for me as you were the founding dean of the rabbinical school which will soon be ordaining me as a rabbi. Therefore I am indebted to your vision and determination. Your words have, at times, been a source of inspiration for me and whether I agree or disagree with any given viewpoint you share, I am always duly impressed by your command of the written English language. I do hope that our paths cross one day, as I would be honored to have the pleasure of meeting you in person. I also want to make clear that it has been at least two years since I have shared my own personal views on Israeli society, the conflict with Arab states and the Palestinians or any other similar matter in a public forum because of fear of being made into a pariah. I am making these statements here, publicly, because I feel it to be incredibly important. I write in my own name, and not in the name of the institution which will be ordaining me, nor in the name of the movement with which it affiliates. Again, I write only in my own name.
I read your recent article, Of Sermons and Strategies, with great interest, as it is a topic near to my heart–both as a rabbinical student and as a person who has been erroneously dubbed “anti-Israel.” I was even accused of being one of the students referenced in your article, which I assure you I am not. That is not to say I would be ashamed to be, I would not be ashamed, but the truth must be told that I am not responding to your letter as one of the selected few whom you wrote of. More »
Coming of age in Israel, I encountered quite a few reminders of how strange politics can be. In the mid-80s, I went with members of the scouts (Tzofim) to protest Meir Kahane outside a venue in Petah Tikva. An elderly man came to argue with us. He didn’t yell and wore a forgiving smile. And a kippa. He said that Arabs are dogs, they only look human. Looking back, I can finally appreciate how bizarre he was. Only… he was one of the more normal Kahane supporters. And he didn’t try and assault anyone (that I saw). Not like the other guys spitting and throwing punches at us.
A few short years later, Kahane came to my little hometown. I only found out because the bus passed the town square he was using. A couple hundred folks had gathered – more than I’d ever seen assembled (outside of the soccer games). I got off the bus, put away my schoolbag, put on my keffiyah, and marched over there to protest. By myself. While I didn’t have a sign, I did have bright yellow stickers reading ‘say no to racism’. I held one up and stood not four meters away from him.
Again, looking back, I have to say that was stupid. Even if thugs hadn’t followed me in a car and given me a stomping outside my apartment building in front of all the neighbors.
Later still, when I was a soldier, I was forced to attend a lecture by the commander of our corps. Which is to say, he was above the head of our training base and in charge of all sorts of things related to our specialty, though he would never again lead troops into battle. In this lecture, he gave a military-political survey of the situation with Lebanon and the Occupied Territories. When he opened up the Q and A, I said: “Officer sir, since the conflict with the Palestinian people can only have a political solution, not a military one, aren’t you deceiving us by talking about ‘winning’?”
Boy was he mad. I never got punished though. Just ostracized.
These incidents surely paint a picture of the young man as a foolish dissident. But grant me that I had heart – lots of heart. Whatever my politics, however wrong headed my political analysis or ideology, it was sincere and flowed from a sense that my reference group, my peers in Israeli society, included both Palestinian and Jewish comrades. Whenever some right winger or patriot made a bloviating reference to ‘we’ meaning Israeli Jews, I always thought to myself – yes, ‘you’, because my ‘we’ is made up of Arabs AND Jews. Of all Israelis, exactly in the way that in America, ‘we’ includes whites AND blacks.
How odd then, to find myself dismissed as a ‘Zionist’ here and there in the Palestinian solidarity movement. Not like so many people actually know me or anything. But… there was that JATO woman at the UFPJ gathering, the trainer at the Student PSC conference, the outright verbal assualts on the activist listserve, and a picture comes to mind.
The Palestinian solidarity movement, especially as it has coalesced around the strategy of BDS, has two faces. One face is warm, friendly and intelligent. It says that BDS is a tactic not a preferred political solution. It doesn’t require B, D and S, and it can be directed at the occupation or at Israel in general – no coercion. It makes Gush Shalom feel right at home.
The other face is quite clear that the one state solution is preferred and the two state solution is dead – and good riddance. Anyone in support of an Israeli identity is a Zionist. Anyone seeking compromise with Zionists is a Zionist. Anti- or non-Zionists who refrain from calling for an end to Israel are ‘soft-Zionists.’ Israelis are ‘butchers’ who commit ‘massacres’, their peace camp isn’t really for peace except for a handful, the Palestinian Authority is not only corrupt, it is ‘only corrupt’, lacking in any other attributes or identity. It’s everything awful about the 90s campus culture wars/identity politics madness, with the eager pleasure in despising whatever isn’t politically correct.
Everything I used to hate and fear about the Israeli right wing: the extremist language, the eagerness to demonize the other, the closing of ranks around a narrow set of ideas, the very harshness of the voice and tone. It’s the flattening of every nuance into a slogan or holy truth. It’s the utter impossibility of dialogue with people who feel differently.
I used to be part of that first group. Some days, I still am. But… I keep running into that second group and it turns my stomach. Sometimes it’s the same person displaying one face or the other, depending the audience. It’s as if all the experiences I have growing up in Israel and ‘putting myself out there’ as a refusenik, participant in militant demonstrations, getting arrested, working inside of majority Palestinian political organizations – count for nothing. Because I’m insisting on the slogans of my youth (Arab/Jewish unity, two states for two peoples, down with the occupation, negotiations yes/war no) somehow I’m excluded from the cool kids lunch table at the Palestinian solidarity middle school. Back in Israel, that’s who I sat with. Now they sneer at me.
But I can’t sit with the Zionist kids anymore! Not after all that stuff I said about not being a Zionist…. sniff.
I guess I’ll go sit by myself. And I am NOT a Zionist! I’m just another Israeli yored in New York waiting for the occupation to be over. So I can go home.
This guest post is by occasional Jewschool guest-poster Treyfe. Treyfe works with the pro-Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions group Jewish Voice for Peace. Given the controversial nature of BDS, now is a good time to quote the editorial policy, as displayed on the Masthead:
“The ideas, thoughts, and words published on Jewschool.com by Jewschool contributors and/or commenters are the opinions of those individuals only and do not represent the views or positions of Jewschool….”
My blogging career began at J Street a year and a half ago, so I am forever indebted to the organization, even if my first post criticized their dis-invitation of a trio of spoken word poets. This time around, there were no spoken word poets on the program. There were however, numerous Israeli activists whose work I draw inspiration from, and, most controversially Jewish Voice for Peace Executive Director Rebecca Vilkomerson. She was present to tackle the hot-as-latke-oil topic of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions. When J Street got predictable flak over this–to their credit–they did not un-invite. Their skins have presumably grown thicker after episodes like their own shul-banning and Hillel-banning. (Full disclosure: I do consultation work with Jewish Voice for Peace, edit their blog The Only Democracy?, and am a former board member.)
Below, video of JVP Executive Director Rebecca Vilkomerson’s talk at J Street
J Street Executive Director Jeremy Ben-Ami did present a justification: he was bringing Vilkomerson there in order to discredit the BDS movement! And indeed the panel was stacked, with Ameinu’s Kenneth Bob, a Berkeley student named Simone Zimmerman, and champion of global capitalism Bernard Avishai–all opposed to BDS. Hopefully, Ben-Ami did not actually believe that the best way to discredit someone was to stack the deck against them. In any case, it did not succeed. More »
Independent filmmaker Eliyahu Ungar-Sargon has released Generation Gap, an interesting short film about the impact of the Holocaust on three generations of his family, including his grandfather Wilhelm and father Julian. Watch the entire Generation Gap film below. Ungar-Sargon previously released the controversial feature-length documentary, Cut: Slicing Through the Myths of Circumcision. His second feature-length documentary, A People Without a Land (more on it later), is post-production right now.
(The following is a condensed report of an Israeli and Palestinian delegation I was part of two weeks ago in Istanbul)
“The word ‘peace’ has become hollow.It has lost its meaning,” said one of the participants.“That may feel like the case,” said another, “but we cannot let the voice of despair and violence re-appropriate our language for the world we hope to build.”
This excerpt came from a recent gathering of Israelis and Palestinian peace builders meeting in Istanbul, Turkey.The gathering was billed as a “Consultation” of bi-communal field experts. Over the course of three days, twenty participants acted as a think-tank to envision the seemingly impossible – the reemergence of a cross-border peace movement in Israel / Palestine.
The host organization was a Massachusetts based NGO called the Karuna Center for Peacebuilding (KCP), which specialize in bi-communal trainings for grassroots peace-building practitioners all over the globe.Istanbul was chosen as a compromise for an off-site location close enough but far enough away from the conflict zone.Ten Israelis and ten Palestinians, from places that included Jerusalem, Hebron, Bethlehem, Jaffa, each with advanced level peace-building resumes, were invited.
The founder ofKaruna Center for Peacebuilding, Dr. Paula Green, organized this gathering with one goal in mind: to assess ‘what kind of bi-communal programming would be useful for this region.’In other words, what kinds of trainings or actions could bring Israelis and Palestinians together in joint cooperation under today’s reality? What could be helpful now, when the prospects for meaningful resolutions are not promising and the political will of the leaders are not inspiring.But this was not a gathering of politicians.The twenty men and women, ranging from their late twenties to their early sixties, were assembled in an effort to help make sure that grassroots collaboration projects between Israelis and Palestinians do not become extinct.
As irrelevant as co-existence work may often seem to a cynical person, this was a battle tested group of peace workers.More »
Avraham Burg, one-time Speaker of Knesset and renegade political royalty, has done what all successful (and/or out of power) politicians in Israel do: started his own party. He outlines a party platform for “Israel Equality” (Shivyon Yisrael) that is eyebrow-raising: a new joint Jewish-Arab party focused on social equality. In a stirring lambast against the aging and boring existing political leadership, he calls for “thorough shake-up”:
A party that will sail far beyond the paradigms of classic Zionism, which to this day ignores the place of Israel’s Arabs. A party that will demand full equality for all Israel’s citizens, the kind of equality we demand for the Jews in the Diaspora wherever they live.
…Those who vote for [Shivyon Yisrael] and its candidates will accept the definition of Israel as “a state whose regime is democratic and egalitarian, and which belongs to all its citizens and communities. The state in which the Jewish people have chosen to renew their sovereignty and where they realize their right to self-determination.”
Some people are really excited about this and I have no dearth of enthusiasm for Burg himself. He’s an accomplished politician raised in the core of Israeli politics who has the balls to say prophetic things that are deeply unpopular to say. (Such as: the Holocaust is over, get over it.) Having met and worked with him, he’s certainly charismatic, politically aggressive, and deeply cares for moving (or pushing) Israel into its next stage of existance.
However, I find myself none too skeptical. My skepticism is rooted in not just the usual frustration with micro-parties but knowledge that there already exists a Jewish-Arab political party focused on social justice: Hadash. More »
This is one of the most important points I will consistently make until the day I die: you should not support “Israel” in any generic way for the principle of the matter, but instead Israelis and a vision of Israel that matches your values. The establishment isn’t peddling a Jewish state of any values — just a hook on which to hang their paranoia of extinction. Take a look at this video and post by Moriel Rothman, student president of J Street U, taking Peter Beinart’s advice in finding Israelis that match his values:
If you had told me three years ago, when I first came to Israel, that I would be spending my Friday afternoons protesting in East Jerusalem, I never would have believed you. If you had told me that the behavior of this country and its residents was going to make it difficult for me to feel comfortable practicing Judaism, I would have believed you even less.
Since I started attending the weekly protests in Sheikh Jarrah, I’ve stopped going to shul on Friday night. In part, it’s logistics – I get home tired and sweaty at 6 or 6:30, and I want a break and a shower before dinner. Partially, though, it’s become uncomfortable for me. There’s something that Emily Schaeffer, an Israeli human rights lawyer who grew up in the Reform community outside of Boston, wrote once, which I increasingly feel in myself:
“Unless I’m with people who I am certain do not espouse Zionism or any form of oppression, I cannot comfortably honor the tradition, or even be sure I want to be part of it.”
Even in my struggle with Judaism itself, the past three years of studying gemara have oriented me toward the world through the lens of text and textual connections. So here’s the gezerah shavah I have to offer:
There is a liturgical similarity between Kabbalat Shabbat and the weekly protest. In L’cha Dodi, the line is “hitoreri, hitoreri, ki va orech kumi ori” – wake up, wake up, for your light has come, arise and shine. In the protest “liturgy,” one of the chants uses the same verb – “ezrachim lehitorer, hafascism kvar over” – residents, wake up, fascism has already passed (it works better in Hebrew).
I’ve been dwelling on those lines as representative of the tension that I’m feeling around typical religious practice (as opposed to, say, Heschel’s praying with his feet). More »
“We are extending our hand in peace,” said Ghawi. “We have lost hope that the Israeli establishment is able to make decisions, so we wish to talk directly to the Israeli public. Also, we are here to say that the prisoners are our sons and we favor their release. It is impossible to talk only about one side of the equation – the release of Shalit also means the release of Palestinian prisoners.”
Neither my wife nor I were able to make it to the rally last night. Before reading this story, it didn’t even occur to us to go. But we discussed standing in solidarity with Nasser – as Bassam Aramin, one of the founders of Combatants for Peace, said to me recently, “they’re all our children.”
I woke up this morning to discover that Nasser, his son, and one of the Jewish Israeli activists who was with him were stopped for questioning on their way to the protest last night. They were detained, searched, and humiliated by the police, for no reason other than being a Palestinian and a leftist walking together in Jerusalem.
“They told us it was their right to search, take our cell phones and interrogate us. I asked them ‘Why are you arresting me,’ and they replied ‘because we hate Arabs, but we hate people like you even more’.”
Yotam Wolf, the Israeli activist who was with Nasser last night, tells his version of the story here in Hebrew.
It seemed to me a profound act, for Nasser to stand in solidarity with the Shalit family – to say that their child, as well as the many Palestinian children currently (and in many cases illegally) held in prison, deserve to be able to go home to their parents. I thought back to the night of the flotilla, when two women who were sitting in the Shalit protest tent outside the prime minister’s house, came to shout at those of us protesting nearby – a protest organized, at least in part, by the Sheikh Jarrah activists. How wonderful would it have been to have been able to say to them that our Palestinian friends protested in favor of Shalit’s release as well – that we want freedom and security for everyone’s children.
But alas, the forces that be seem not to be interested in that kind of solidarity. Ynet reports that Nasser will try again to visit the protest tent in the coming days. I hope the next visit is less eventful.
This is my last post on Palestine activism at the US Social Forum. Thanks to everyone for being patient with me.
Palestine solidarity has woven itself into the fabric of the American left to a greater extent than ever before. Wandering the information and vending tables at the Forum, one could find tchochkes, books, articles within magazines and so on to a greater degree than any other left wing cause or movement. There were more workshops related to Palestine solidarity work, Zionism or BDS strategy than on any other comparable topic. In other words, more people were running and attending Palestine themed panels than on the wars currently being fought in Iraq and Afghanistan(!).
Naturally, left wing fashions are common at such an event. But the use of the keffiyah as a symbol representing a kind of left wing badge of honor is not matched by any other symbol. Just to recap: leftists have gone through stages, wearing Native American jewelry, African beads, Mao caps, berets with stars, Che T-shirts, etc. Want to broadcast your super-leftism? It’s the keffiyah or nothing, buddy.
All of the left wing sectarian groups emphasize Palestine. Every newspaper thrust into my hands had an article referencing Israel, Zionism, or the Palestinian solidarity movement.
The only controversy surrounding a panel – resulting in that panel’s being shut down – was around a pro-Israel workshop submitted by Stand With Us. (Israeli shills.) More »
The US Social Forum in Detroit concluded on Saturday, so I finally had time to figure out what was important for me to say.
Boy, were there a lot of workshops on Palestine, BDS, and anti-Zionism! I was only able to attend one of them, run by the International Jewish anti-Zionist Network (IJAN). It was a four hour session on ‘unlearning Zionism.’ This is the kind of education that surely keeps Dershowitz and Foxman up at night.
My impression: meh. A lot of the workshops here are structured so that after some initial conversations, the group has a relatively open ended conversation. In this case, IJAN has a specific orthodoxy on what anti-Zionism means, and their session used creative, interactive methods to impart it. Creative to a point of course. It reminded me of old fashioned training manuals for Shomer Hatzair peulot (meeting/lesson plans) that had the counselor ask a question, and right below was the answer you should be trying to elicit from the group. More »
The pro Israel organization Stand With Us is at the center of a controversy around the participation of Zionists at the US Social Forum. Briefly: A workshop was approved on LGBTQI struggles in the Middle East. Palestine solidarity activists and Arab queers pressed the Social Forum’s National Planning Committee to cancel the workshop.
Yesterday, the Social Forum released a statement confirming that they have cancelled the previously approved workshop:
“…we are grateful for the letters and e-mails from our fellow social justice activists regarding a workshop being put on by the organization Stand With Us. The goals and practices of this organization violate our principles. Far from its claim to represent LGBTQI communities in the Middle East, its purpose is to defend and justify Israeli aparheid. Jewish, Palestine solidarity and queer organizations have witnessed and experienced Stand With Us disrupting events and discussion on Palestinian rights and then claiming censorship when stopped. Their presenter has claimed to speak for the “queer Middle East” when in reality he speaks only for Israel. When asked to include other voices of queers from the region, he has refused.”
[Couldn't find this online - so no link.]
I’m fine with this outcome. I could see a progressive Zionist presentation on Israel finding it’s way to the program, especially if done together with other voices, so as to educate people and ‘problematize’ the often simplistic dismissal of any and all Zionists.
[Zionists! Zionism! Zionists! Zionism! That got the blood flowing, didn't it! It's like verbal aerobics for activists.]
It’s also nice to see that the Social Forum leaders took time to explore the situation carefully. They researched the group, talked to people, and even tried to work with the proposer of the event to include Arab queers. For this reasoned stance, they passed through a few days of shrill verbiage from folks who don’t understand why Forum leaders weren’t faster on the draw.
Just look at what Helem, Al-Qaws, ASWAT, and Palestinian Queers for BDShad to say:
SAY NO TO PINKWASHING AT THE USSF!
We, the undersigned queer Arab organizations, are appalled by the US Social Forum’s decision to allow Stand with Us to utilize the event as a platform to pinkwash Israel’s crimes in the region.
Whoa. Thanks USSF for being thoughtful about this.
And: The way that supporters of Israel use tolerance of gays and lesbians in some parts of Israel as a way to repulse criticism of how Arabs and Palestinians are treated is disgusting. Does San-Francisco excuse the war in Iraq? Pathetic.
IN OTHER NEWS
A commenter on my previous Social Forum post points out that one of Emily H.’s works is featured on the cover of the Palestine folks booklet. That’s great! A big cheery Detroit hello to any Social Forum folks reading these posts. The weather is fine, the lines are moving, and the downtown area at least looks fantastic. Big ups to everyone that helped put this together.
The 2nd US Social Forum will be taking place in Detroit June 22-26, bringing together an estimated 20,000 people eager to see a big shift leftwards. Claiming that ‘another world is possible’ they further insist that it can only happen if the United States undergoes a fair amount of change as well.
I attended the first US Social Forum, as well as the first ever World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil, a decade ago. I’ve attended as both an Israeli and as an American. What less committed observers need to know is that this is the largest US or international gathering of people’s movements, social justice organizations and left wing political organizations. And by ‘left’ we aren’t talking about MoveOn, we’re talking about organizations that have, or had, words like ‘communist’, ‘socialist’, and ‘revolutionary’ in their name. (See here for a list of the National Planning Committee member organizations.)
At the same time, organizations well within the respectable mainstream of American society are also present, including the AFL-CIO, Jobs with Justice, and the American Friends Service Committee. The end result is a unique event that is simultaneously mass based, politically relevant, and very far to the left of what passes for political culture in the United States. It’s an antidote to all the mechanisms in place that seek to embed political change within the Democrat-Republican spectrum. More »
”In attacking the Freedom Flotilla, Israel has once again demonstrated to the world a heinous brutality. But I know that there are very many Israelis who compassionately and bravely campaign for a just peace. With broadcasting journalists from mainstream television programmes accompanying our boat, Israel will have a great chance to show the world that there is another way, a way of courage rather than fear, a way of hope rather than hate’,’ says Edith Lutz, an organizer and passenger on what is being called the “Jewish boat.”
”Jüdische Stimme,” or Jewish Voice for Peace, along with European Jews for a Just Peace in the Near East, and Jews for Justice For Palestinians (UK) are “sending a call to the leaders of the world: Help Israel find her way back to reason, to a sense of humanity and a life without fear.”
I wonder what the IDF will do with a boat full of Jews.
This has started to make the rounds today. Peter Beinart at the New York Review of Books.
The central argument:
For several decades, the Jewish establishment has asked American Jews to check their liberalism at Zionism’s door, and now, to their horror, they are finding that many young Jews have checked their Zionism instead.
I don’t have much to add to what’s already been written at Tablet and Mondoweiss.
Just a few days after “incitement day,” today’s protest in Sheikh Jarrah was far more tense that have been the protests for the past month or so. Y-net reports:
Violent clashes broke out Friday afternoon between left-wing activists and police forces in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah.
About 30 protestors were arrested and one demonstrator was lightly injured. She was evacuated to the Hadassah Mount Scopus Hospital in the capital, suffering from bruises.
…
At one point, about 100 protestors settled on the road leading to the Simeon the Just compound, which was recently inhabited by four Jewish families armed with a court order following the evacuation of Arab residents.
The police declared the protest an illegal gathering and ordered the protestors sitting on the road to evacuate themselves within three minutes. The activists refused to leave and were forcibly evacuated from the area.
In the same place where earlier this week the police protected 2 days of nationalist, pro-settlement celebration, it was clear today that those of us who do not share that sentiment do not have equal rights to express our views in the neighborhood. What a country.
However, I find myself none too skeptical. My skepticism is rooted in not just the usual frustration with micro-parties but knowledge that there already exists a Jewish-Arab political party focused on social justice: 
follow us on Twitter
follow us on Facebook
subscribe to our email