This is another guest post by Oren Hirsch, an urban planner and avid cyclist currently living and working in Jerusalem and riding throughout the country wherever and whenever he can. He has ridden to Eilat on the Arava Institute/Hazon Israel Ride twice, in 2009 and 2011.
On your last trip to Israel, how did you get around primarily? If you came with a group, you were probably on a chartered bus. If you were on your own, you probably relied on Egged and Israel Railways, or if you were a bit more adventurous and willing to discover your inner Israeli driver, you took to the roads in a rental car (let’s admit it, we’ve all wanted to drive in a country where we can honk and flash our high beams at other cars as much as we want while never signaling or following the speed limit). And regardless of whether you were with a group or not, you probably walked extensively in cities such as Jerusalem, Tzfat, and Tel Aviv. But on your next trip (or first trip, if you have yet to come here), consider using a different form of transportation for some of the time, because it might allow you to see Israel from a totally different perspective.
Cycling in Israel is becoming more popular, among both locals and tourists. Tel Aviv has over 100 kilometers of “bike lanes” and a municipal bikesharing program. Certain roads are so popular with riders on the weekend that there are large signs along these roads warning drivers to be alert and mindful that bicyclists are likely to be present. El Al even allows passengers to bring along their bike for free. However, this isn’t to say that biking in Israel is as easy as it would be in, say, the Netherlands. Israeli drivers must be contended with, there isn’t much bike infrastructure in urban areas other than Tel Aviv, and even the Tel Aviv bike infrastructure would be considered to be unimpressive compared to what exists in many American and European cities. But don’t let these sorts of issues deter you from having a bicycle adventure on your next trip here. Here are some of the advantages and incentives to biking instead of taking buses or driving: More »
by chaneld1621 [➚] · Saturday, November 19th, 2011
The Promise is a 4 part BBC miniseries portraying, in the words of producer David Aukin, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict “as it is seen through British eyes.” Each episode is divided between the point of view of Erin, a young woman from Leeds spending the summer in modern day Israel/Palestine, and the flashbacks of her grandfather, Len, a soldier in 1945 British Mandate Palestine. The first episode was shown Wednesday, November 16th at the JCC in Manhattan as part of the Other Israel Film Festival.
I’m sure Claire Foy, who plays Erin, gets this all the time, but she looks like a cross between of Rory Gilmore and that Kirsten Stewart person from the Twilight movies. Moving on. The episode begins with Erin’s discovery of her grandfather’s diary, kept during the British Mandate, in his apartment. Her mother tells her to throw it away, but Erin keeps it, and after informing her mother that she’s going to Israel for the summer with her friend Eliza, who’s beginning her army service, she begins reading it on the plane, starting with his account of liberating Bergen Belsen. Then we see a lot of black and white footage from the camp. Or rather, the audience did. I kept my head down and scribbled. “I wish everyone could see what I’ve seen,” writes Len.
Eliza, Erin’s friend, has dual Israeli/UK citizenship, and her parents live in Caesaria, in a crazy house with glass everything and a giant pool. They take a walk on the beach wearing white and drinking wine and the whole thing makes me think of folks who own houses in the Hamptons or Martha’s Vineyard. “It’s like paradise,” Erin tells Eliza. “It’s not what I expected.” “You thought we lived in bomb shelters,” Eliza says. Cue a montage of Eliza and Erin cavorting in the streets of what looks like Tel Aviv-shopping, sitting in cafes, Erin gawking at the sight of a soldier’s gun, and then, in a night club, where Erin passes out and has a seizure.
Meanwhile, in British Mandate Palestine (BMP), Len is told by an army commander that “These Jews see returning to be this place as the fulfillment of the promise of Gd,” but that the Arabs see things differently. The goal of the army is to get both parties to live together peacefully, “like the meat in a sandwich.” (The creepiest simile ever used to refer to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict?)
A moving scene follows of Jews jumping from an arriving ship into the water, and being greeted and pulled to shore by British soldiers. There’s a woman with a skeletal face, her wet hair clinging to her head, slogging towards land. The camera lingers on her for a minute too long, or maybe I just imagine that. We learn that there is a quota on Jews entering the country, and when Len tries to smuggle a woman through, he’s reprimanded.
Erin and Eliza, clad in her IDF uniform, drive to her army base to begin training. The front entrance is blocked by Peace Now protestors. As they drive to the other entrance, Eliza tells Erin that her brother is one of them. “I know you think it’s idyllic, but it’s total bullshit,” she says, admitting that she’s terrified of being the army. Erin proposes that if she really can’t take it, she’ll bail her out and they’ll run for the border. (Things I would love to see happen in a future episode.)
BMP: Len is in some kind of swanky club, with other soldiers and ladies and lots of alcohol, and he meets Clara, prompting me to worry that we’re going to see some sex really soon. (Spoiler: we do not.) Clara tells him that this is all propaganda, that she and many other women are being paid to entertain soldiers, and that “100,000 soldiers equals 100,000 opportunities,” and that he’ll undoubtedly write letters home to his family telling them about how well he’s being treated by the Jews of Palestine.
Len has a look of perpetual torture, which only gets worse when he’s ordered to attend a rally against the Jewish quotas, a project that Clara and her father are involved in, in civilian clothes. “Be a Jew for a day,” his commander tells him, urging him to get information on any insurgency the Jews might be planning. Clara, in the meantime, confesses to him that her mother met another man while in the concentration camp. “Not every concentration camp story has an unhappy ending,” she says.
Bon Iver. Bikini. Swimming pool. Erin floats around on a raft until she’s surprised by Eliza’s “insane” brother, Paul, who’s visiting his parents. Erin tells him about her grandfather, Paul tells her that his grandfather fought in the Irgun. Over dinner, things get a little American-Jewish community when we learn that Paul is an anti Zionist who believes Israel is a military dictatorship. Fight with parents about the occupation ensues. Eliza shows up in her IDF uniform and gun. Everyone stares. Later, Eliza tells Erin that once, Paul was very hard core about the army, before he went to Hebron.
BMP: Len attends the anti quota rally, and a man is killed whom the British believe to be an instigator. Later, some of his friends are killed in a shooting. It’s unclear who’s responsible, but in a move that I can only regard as insanely ironic, the remaining solidiers break into an Arab home in pursuit of the actual shooters. Clara’s father tells Len that he’s no longer welcome in their home, even after Len assures him that he’s on their side. “We may be stateless,” says her father, “but we are not stupid.” In the stairwell, Clara and Len embrace secretly.
That’s the end of the flashbacks. Erin and Paul travel to Ramle so she can see the graves of Len’s friends, and she freaks out when she sees the graves of two who aren’t dead in the journal yet. And then we’re in Paul’s car driving into the Territories. “I thought it was dangerous,” Erin says. “You’d rather be back by the pool?” Paul says, and she doesn’t answer. In Nablus, Paul speaks at a Combatants for Peace meeting, along with Omar, a former member of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. Erin watches, enraptured. She’s surprised to learn later that Omar is an Israeli Arab, and watches, horrified and confused, as Omar is stripped searched and detained at a checkpoint after confronting a solidier about his treatment of a Palestinian woman. “Welcome to Israel,” Paul says, as they drive away from the checkpoint after Omar has asked them to leave him there. “Isn’t it to stop the terrorists?” Erin wonders. Paul responds by showing her the separation barrier and explains that the goal of the checkpoints and the barrier is to force Palestinians off their land and into such a state of despair that they leave all together. He yells a lot. Erin looks confused and scared.
At the entrance to a cafe, a bewildered Erin gets searched by a security guard. She and Paul drink beer. She says she loves it in Israel, he says it’s because she lives in the safe world of his parents, who, he admits, are lovely people. He tells Erin that when he was little, his father took him to a border and pointed out the difference between Jewish and Arab land. “Look what they’re done with the land in 2000 years and look what we’ve done in 50,” his father said. Paul: “He was telling me that they aren’t as deserving as we are.”
On the way out of the cafe, Erin’s glance lingers on a couple coming in. Paul realizes that he’s left his wallet inside when they get to the car and tells Erin to wait. And then there’s a explosion in the cafe. End of episode one.
Are you still reading? Good. After the episode, there was a q/a in the Speakeasy cafe with Liel Leibovitz and producer David Aukin. The idea of the series began with a letter from a solidier who served in Palestine during the British Mandate, which inspired Aukin to portray the conflict through a British perspective. The series was shot on location in Israel/Palestine and the crew represented a cross section of Israeli society, which, according to Aukin, resulted in very real tensions and arguments.
In response to an audience member’s question about the source and prevalence of Britain’s anti-Israel boycotts, Aukin said, “There is no memory in the current British narrative about the Mandate. It doesn’t exist anymore. If anything, this film is anti-British. What we’re dealing with now are the seeds of what the British left behind.”
In case you’re wondering what happened at the end of episode one of The Promise, you can see the second episode this coming Monday, November 21, at the JCC in Manhattan at 7 pm. Episodes three and four will be show on Wednesdays, November 23-December 7th. For more information, visit www.jccmanhattan.org/cat-content.aspx?catID=2928&progID=24759.
by Kung Fu Jew [➚] · Thursday, November 17th, 2011
Hebron changed my life. I may have been a run of the mill peacenik and an ordinary Jew before summer 2004. I have never been free of that place since. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is nuanced and complicated, where both sides are mutually at fault. But Hebron’s situation has become an abomination, a situation where we’re absolutely at fault for an unnecessary and unacceptable blight.
Annually on the occasion of reading the portion Heyei Sarah from the Torah (Genesis 23:1–25:18), a growing number of us tell what Hebron is really like. We’ve spoken in synagogues, every major rabbinical seminary, indie minyans, and community centers. And this year, we’ve posted 14 of our Torah sermons to YouTube in order to show the world that Hebron and Chayei Sarah does not belong only to the settlers. Indeed, a thousand will converge there this weekend.
It is precisely because Hebron is such an hopeless place to behold that creating inspirational meaning — as these 14 voices have — is so hopeful. There are no trite answers in their mouths, but oh so many aspirations. Hebron presently is so low and devoid of holiness, that it feels there is only up to go. And here in these testimonials you will hear both the shock and the rage, but also the hope and determination for a better future for Hebron, for Jews, and for Palestinians.
Organizations listed for identification purposes only. See them all on Facebook and YouTube.
Drew Cohen is a teacher of Jewish Studies and Music in a transdenominational high school in the US:
Alana Alpert is a community organizer and a third year rabbinical student at Hebrew College:
Moriel Rothman is a New Israel Fund/Shatil Social Justice Fellow, and is active with Rabbis for Human Rights:
Ben Murane is the director of New Generations, the New Israel Fund’s 20′s and 30′s activist community, and the co-publisher of the blog Jewschool.com:
“77 Steps,” a documentary by Palestinian-Israeli filmmaker Ibtisam Mara’ana, is a selection at this year’s Other Israel Film Festival. The subject of the film is Mara’ana herself, who moves from her Arab-Muslim village to Tel Aviv. She includes a conversation between herself and a landlord who agrees to show her an apartment until he realizes she’s Arab. “Sometimes,” she tells the audience, “I had to shorten my name.”
After securing an apartment, Ibtisam throws herself into living life in Tel Aviv. “I want to belong to this place,” she says. At a roof top party, she meets Jonathan, her Jewish-Canadian emigre neighbor who’s been in Israel for 6 years. The rest of the film documents their relationship amid MP Avigdor Lieberman’s calls for loyalty oaths from Israeli Arabs, conflict with families, and Ibitsam’s resignation from the Meretz party in the face of the Gaza war (which the party will not renounce).
It’s Jonathan’s grandfather’s visit from Canada to Kibbutz Ein Dor, which he left in 1948, that’s perhaps the turning point for the couple’s relationship. Jonathan’s grandfather regrets leaving the kibbutz, and feels that his grandson’s aliyah makes up for this. He says, “At the time, Israel represented the best of morality. “Not anymore?” Itbisam asks. “No,” he replies.
At the kibbutz, Itbisam questions a staff member if she ever tells people that the kibbutz was built on Arab land. The conversation deteriorates when the staff member says that she believes Arabs should go live in a Palestinian state, and that although it was an injustice that Arabs were displaced, the Holocaust was “a greater injustice.” Jonathan chastizes Itbisam for being “aggressive” in the exchange. “I’ve lived here my whole life,” she says. “I know how I feel.”
Following a series of conversations that illumine “the limits of our relationship,” Jonathan moves out of the apartment building that neighbors Itbisam’s. The end of the affair isn’t melodramatic or angry; instead, it seems like an evolution. For Itbisam, it’s part of what she came to Tel Aviv to do, to stretch beyond the limitations of her previous life in her family’s village and to become more of herself. She counted the steps of the house she grew up in every day she lived there, all 77 of them, until the day she left. Of Tel Aviv, she says, “I found a place where I can get some rest.”
After the film, a conversation and q/a with Itbisam herself and the executive director of the film festival, Isaac Zablocki, took place at the Speakeasy Cafe. Zablocki remarked that the importance of the film for a North American Jewish audience lies in the fact that in it, “Israel is not what the tourists see. It’s a different perspective.”
Ultimately, Itbisam believes that the end of her relationship with Jonathan was due to a difference in culture. “We loved each other for two years, “she said. “I don’t have shame about my story…I’m not asking people what they think about my work. I just work.” While one of her sisters has seen the film, but it has not been shown in Arab communities. “I”m dealing with taboos. It’s too early for Arabs and Palestinians to deal with this film.”
“The film is about finding identity,” said Itbisam. “I’m lucky that I have a lot of identities. I’m deep in all of them-female, Palestinian, Arab. It’s not hate or love, I have a lot of identities, I’m proud of all of them.”
Last night’s screening of “77 Steps” was co sponsored by the New Israel Fund. The Other Israel Film Festival is running in Manhattan through November 17th. Visit www.otherisrael.org/ for a list of films and to buy tickets.
Two weeks ago, the American-born Israeli journalist, author and commentator Gershom Gorenberg spoke at an event hosted by Mechon Hadar and moderated by Rabbi Shai Held entitled, “How It Broke, How to Fix It: The Crisis of Israeli Democracy.” Gorenberg said, “I’ve seen enough changes happen that weren’t supposed to happen. Politics is not geology. Change happens.” Beside me, a friend whispered, “He is so hopeful.” Gorenberg’s most recent book is The Unmaking of Israel. He is also the author of The Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the Settlements, 1967-1977, The End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount, the co-author of The Jerusalem Report’s 1996 biography of Yitzhak Rabin, Shalom Friend, and the editor of Seventy Facets: A Commentary on the Torah from the Pages from the Jerusalem Report. He is a senior correspondent for The American Prospect and has written for The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times Magazine, The New Republic, Mother Jones and in Hebrew for Ha’aretz. He blogs at southjerusalem.com/gershom-gorenberg/ and lives in Jerusalem.
“Israeli school children do not know where their country starts and ends on a map,” Gorenberg said. “You can interpret the facts however you want, but you still have to have the facts. I don’t want to see Israel unraveling…we can’t ignore the rising role of the Right in the army and the power of settlers.” According to Gorenberg, there are three things necessary to restablish Israeli democracy: The separation of synagogue and state, the graduation from being a national liberation movement to one that takes care of its citizens, and an end to the occupation.
“The social justice marches in September have shaken Israeli politics,” said Gorenberg. “I was a bad prophet, I thought it wasn’t possible.” It’s unclear, however, who’s going to come out of this as a leader. “The fact that I can’t name who the next prime minister will be is not a reason to give up hope…Giving up hope is a luxury, only the people who aren’t in the situation every day can afford to give up hope.”
There were some particularly striking moments during Gorenberg’s talk. The first is the story of a night he spent in the settlement of Yitzhar, located in the West Bank south of the city of Nablus, while interviewing folks living there. In the morning, he was faced with the decision of whether to daven in the settlement shul. “People are saying the same words, but it’s not my religion. They’re not going to mean the same thing.” said Gorenberg, who identifies as “a left-wing, skeptical Orthodox Zionist Jew.” Ultimately, he did decide to pray in the shul, because “I’m not going to give them the pleasure of ceasing to be religious because of their twisted interpretation of Judaism.”
The second moment came with an audience question-What can American Jews do for Israel? (The q/a, by the way, was handled extremely well-index cards were passed around the room and the questions were vetted by Held.) Gorenberg cited Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech in which he declared, “It’s 1938 and Iran is Germany,” which Gorenberg described as “anti Zionist,” in that it portrays Israel as perpetual victim, and dismisses the strength and power it has gained since its inception. “American Jews need to give up idea of a besieged Zionism, but then the question becomes, if we can’t relate to a beleaguered Israel, how do we relate to Israel?” Israel, offered Gorenberg, is suffering from a collective PTSD. “How do you put an entire nation on the couch?” American Jews remind Israelis what it means to actually be living as a minority and what the diaspora experience is. If American Jews want to support Israel, suggests Gorenberg, they should support institutions that work for equal rights for minorities in the country.
Gorenberg also talked about taking part in a recent social justice march in Jerusalem that traveled down Bezalel street through the neighborhood of Nachlaot. “Suddenly, it was 28 years earlier,” he said, recalling another march in 1983 with Peace Now that traveled the same route. During that march, people hurled objects at the marches from the balconies. On the recent march, there was no violence. “Circumstances will force people to change.”
“All the alternatives (to peace) are awful,” concluded Gorenberg, who earlier in the evening said that the words “one state solution” do not go together, “but Israelis don’t have to buy into the Palestinian narrative and vice versa to have a peace agreement.”
As many readers know, the U.S. State Department’s longstanding official policy is to refer to Jerusalem (both East and West) as just “Jerusalem”, and not “Jerusalem, Israel” or “Jerusalem, Palestine” or anything else. Thus, for example, there is the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem, in contrast to the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel, the U.S. Consulate in Toronto, Canada, etc. The idea here is to avoid taking a public stance on the status of Jerusalem before a final agreement is reached, and thereby to avoid inflaming either side.
But this situation may not last forever. Yesterday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Zivotofsky v. Clinton (aka M.B.Z. v. Clinton), a case that raises the Jerusalem issue as well as deeper constitutional issues about the separation of powers (and let’s face it, the Jerusalem issue isn’t important enough on its own to reach the Supreme Court). More »
Above, the Chilean Federation of Jewish Students protests discrimination.
Over at New Voices Magazine (my day job), we launched a new blog this week that Jewschoolers might be interested in. It’s called the Global Jewish Voiceand it’s a way to jump-start a wider conversation that we normally have at New Voices. While New Voices is normally American or Israeli (and occasionally Canadian) in scope, the Global Jewish Voice is a fully international conversation about the lives of Jewish students and young adults.
The blog is staffed by 10 writers reporting on their lives on campus, in the workplace and at home. They are writing in from every corner of the globe, including Israel, the US, Chile, Spain, China, Canada, the UK and–no joke–Serbia. The blog’s student editor is based in Portland, Ore. There’s also an open submission policy.
A few highlights so far:
Reporting from the West Bank, Liran Shamriz describes the constant dilemma of being an army soldier and same-time sociology student:
This could quickly turn to riots – we need to get the hell out of here. We don’t even have bulletproof vests – any jerk in the street can knife me and disappear. I started to walk toward the trucks and my phone blinks again, this time from a Facebook message: “Shlomo gave us grades! I got a 91! I think he is good after all, he probably didn’t even check that well… how much did you get?”
Meanwhile in Chile, sometimes the struggle is more symbolic of living Jewishly in a non-Jewish world. University student Maxamilliano Grass is on the vanguard of Jewish student activism and pro-Israel work in a country with 75,000 Jews—and over 400,000 Palestinians: More »
This is a guestpost from two national leaders of J Street U:
Simone Zimmerman, a Junior at the University of California Berekely, majoring in Middle Eastern Studies. She is from Los Angeles, has spent many months in Israel, and is in the process of founding the J Street U chapter at the UC Berkeley.
and Ben Elkind, a Senior at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, majoring in Philosophy. He is the President of J Street U at UNC, and is the South East Representative on the J Street U National Student Board.
On Friday, September 30, 2011, a violent mob attacked Assaf Sharon and Sara Beninga in the Anatot settlement outside of Jerusalem. Reportedly, during the attack, police stood idly by and watched. Though badly beaten, Assaf and Sara remained fervently committed to democracy and social justice. In response to the violence at Anatot, my friend Simone and I wrote this letter expressing our solidarity with Assaf and Sara. We have since been joined by more than 100 students across the country. You can stand with Assaf and Sara too. Add your name by clicking here.
Dear Assaf and Sara,
We are humbled writing to you with the knowledge that as we celebrated the new year and the Jewish holidays here in the United States, your Rosh Hashanah in Israel was neither good nor sweet. We are frustrated knowing that our words cannot repair broken bones or ease bruised faces, yet we are compelled to speak.
This is what we understand of what transpired in Israel on Rosh Hashanah:
On September 30, you traveled to the settlement of Anatot, just outside of Jerusalem. A Palestinian farmer owns land in Anatot, and asked members of Ta’ayush – an organization that has gained respect and acclaim for its non-violent activism – to accompany him in planting trees on his land. He and members of Ta’ayush were met with violence, both physical and verbal. More »
This is a guest post by Oren Hirsch, an urban planner currently living and working in Jerusalem. He is the creator of the unofficial Jerusalem Bus Map.
Anyone who visited Jerusalem in the past few years probably has a vivid memory of Jaffa Road, the historic main thoroughfare through the center of Jerusalem, entirely torn up by construction equipment for the “soon to open” light rail. In addition, for eight months after the last construction barricades were removed from Jaffa Road, the trains ran without passengers while they were tested. People here would often say, somewhat seriously, that they never expected to ever be able to ride the train, and perhaps if their grandkids were lucky, they would get to ride the first train. Now that the Jerusalem Light Rail is actually open, they complain that the trains are too crowded and that too many people are riding it. More »
This is a guest post by Sarah Beller, Director of Education and Programs at J Street, the political home for pro-Israel, pro-peace Americans. This piece was adapted from a presentation given at Initiative of Change’s Trust Factor series in Washington, DC on October 11.
In the weeks following the speeches at the UN, the peace process feels almost totally stuck. The old approaches for bringing the parties together have run their course, and many of us who long for peace and security for Israelis and Palestinians are unsure where to turn.
At the same time, the High Holy Day season is drawing to a close. What fresh insights and directions do these days of atonement offer us?
I’d like to suggest three kavanot, intentions or outlooks, for getting un-stuck in the new year. While these are by no means concrete policy plans for bringing the parties to an agreement, this season of introspection calls out for us to start closer to home. As Gandhi famously urged, perhaps it is time for us to “be the change we wish to see.” More »
In Gilad Shalit’s first interview after being released, he says, “I hope this deal will lead to peace between Palestinians and Israelis and that it will support cooperation between both sides.” For equally dramatic pictures of the Palestinian prisoner release, see 972 Mag.
Gilad Shalit, calling his parents after just arriving in Israel:
Gilad Shalit Salutes Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu:
Shalit, hugging his father for the first time in 5 years, in the most human and touching photo of them all:
A half million Israelis demonstrated for social justice. But all year-long, young Israeli activists in their 20s and 30s have been fighting for a better, fairer, and more equal Israel. Come join this benefit celebrating five of those young Israelis and their work on behalf of housing rights, marriage equality, women’s rights and more to come.
So far, Nobel week 2011 has been Good For The Jews, with Jewish scientists among the winners in 3 out of 3 prizes. Following Beutler and Steinman on Monday in Medicine, and Perlmutter and Riess yesterday in Physics, today’s winner in Chemistry is the Israeli materials scientist Dan Shechtman of the Technion. This is Israel’s second chemistry prize in 3 years; Shechtman follows Ada Yonath of the Weizmann Institute, who won in 2009 for her work on the structure of the ribosome.
What did Shechtman win for? He revolutionized the field of crystallography by discovering quasicrystals, crystals whose atoms form a pattern that never repeats. The story of the discovery is pretty amazing; I recommend reading the whole thing from the Nobel website.
An excerpt:
When Shechtman told scientists about his discovery, he was faced with complete opposition, and some colleagues even resorted to ridicule. … The head of the laboratory gave him a textbook of crystallography and suggested he should read it. Shechtman, of course, already knew what it said but trusted his experiments more than the textbook. All the commotion finally led his boss to ask him to leave the research group, as Schechtman himself recalled later. The situation had become too embarrassing.
In the coming days, we’ll see whether the sweep holds up for Literature, Peace, and Economics.
by Kung Fu Jew [➚] · Thursday, September 1st, 2011
For the fourth weekend in a row, independently-minded Israelis in New York City are gathering to support some of the largest demonstrations in Israel’s history, in every major Israeli city demanding a change to Israel’s economic policies. This Saturday, Israel’s protest organizers have called for one million demonstrators to hit the streets. Possible or not, it’s the biggest change in politics there since 2002.
RSVP on Facebook, join the English- or Hebrew-language Facebook groups, and show your solidarity for average Israelis improving their own country. Read their full explanation below the fold, organizers are encouraging us non-Hebrew speakers to join as well. (Be prepared: learn by video tutorial how to chant “The people demand social justice!” in Hebrew.)
Eli Ungar-Sargon of Cut fame, whose blogging here at Jewschool has generated some interesting conversations, is off and running on his next project—a documentary film about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As part of that project he surveyed both Israelis and Palestinians about their attitudes towards the other (i.e. Israelis about Arabs and Palestinians about Jews). The interviews with Palestinians have not been completely translated yet, and so the data is not ready, however, the data about Israelis is ready. Its not surprising, though its not pretty. At the same time, the data and interviews do not seem to support the screaming headline that the piece was given in Electronic Intifada where it was published. Here is the video:
Anat Hoffman, head of the 22-year-old Women of the Wall, tells the Chatauqua Institute about the legal and political battles for equality of women at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. Find the intro by Daisy Kahn here, along with the other 6 parts of her speech.
Among the contributions of Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu to the Israel-Palestinian peace process was introducing the demand, as a precondition for resuming peace talks, that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
The Palestinians rejected this pre-condition; explanations of the Palestinian position can be found in a May Foreign Policy article, and from a 2009 piece in Palestine Monitor by one Abu Yusef (no relation) which provides a pithy summary of the problem with Netanyahu’s proposal:
“recognizing Israel as a Jewish state means giving up the right of return
prior to sitting down at the negotiating table. Though this right may
some day be surrendered or altered in the final status agreements
establishing a Palestinian state, giving it up prior to negotiations
severely weakens the Palestinian negotiating team by limiting the amount of tools at their disposal.”
But fear not, lovers of the Jewish State of Israel, because while the Palestinians haven’t been willing to declare Israel as a Jewish state, Capitol Hill has been eager to.
Yesterday, one congressman released this statement:
My condolences go out to the families and friends of the Israelis who were murdered in Southern Israel today and to all of the people of the Jewish State of Israel. (emphasis added.)
That struck me as an odd locution. But it turns out that it is increasingly common on Capitol Hill. A Google search shows it used about 46 times at house.gov. All but two come after Netanyahu first raised the issue.
Martha, my friend from a well-loved past life, went on a Birthright trip this past June. We met up on her way through New York from Boston to JFK. She was anxious about her impending adventure, anticipating propaganda and a space closed to multiple and alternative narratives. “Ask your questions,” I said, as we waited for her airport shuttle near the Sbarro’s on 34th street, getting drizzled on from above by what we both hoped was an air conditioner. “Don’t pressure yourself to feel a certain way.’ Then she got in the van, and I got on the subway. In the time Martha and I had known each other, we’d talked about Israel a lot, I’d told her my experience with Birthright (at this point, I’d been once or twice and had yet to staff a trip, now I’ve been five times and staffed three trips), we’d evaluated what we perceived to be its merits and challenges, and I suggested a trip provider for her, the one she was about to travel with. For the sake of our relationship and the next 10 days of her life, I hoped she was going down a path that would be right for her. Since she came back, we’ve been talking a lot, mainly about how hard it is to return and process things like politics, identity, and Zionism when the experience is still so raw, and what it means to be in relationship with a place that makes you crazy.
Martha: Why does no one talk about how amazingly difficult the first week back is? Everyone I’ve talked to from my group is having a hard time. None of us are sleeping well and we’re all waking up in the middle of the night confused.
Me: I told someone once when I came back that it’s like losing your luggage, except your luggage is your brain and your heart. It’s interesting that you’re not explicitly prepped for how emotional the reentry can be. I never want to make people feel like they’re not feeling the “right” things in Israel, or about it, so maybe that’s why I’ve never talked about it when I staffed. I mean, I talk about how I feel, but I don’t want to create pressure for others to feel that way, but perhaps that’s not possible. Do you think your shock/adjustment stuff has to do with your politics being influenced? Or is it largely emotional?
Martha: The political is emotional. For other people it might be more just about emotions, but everyone goes on Birthright for different reasons and for me it was in large part because I wanted to understand the politics better. That has meant that for me a lot of what I am processing is political. I had a pretty good feeling that the trip would influence my spirituality and Jewish identity and I was able to think about it ahead of time — not that those haven’t also been an adjustment, but they didn’t surprise me. I went into the trip wanting to be open to letting my spiritual and cultural identity get shaped. I think the trip is designed to create emotional response and even though I had my guard up and was trying to keep a critical lens, it did affect me emotionally, though I didn’t start to realize that until we were in Jerusalem at the end of the trip. Still, I don’t think I cried as much as other people and I don’t think I cried as much as I would have if I wasn’t trying to be so analytical .
Me: Do you think this is a culture shock? How is it different from the way you’ve felt after returning from other places?
Martha: I don’t feel culture shock about Israel in the same way. I’ve traveled a lot and I know what culture shock feels like for me, but this is completely different. What I’m feeling now is more confusion, like how can I love somewhere that’s so messed up, but still so amazing and beautiful? I loved the places I saw and the people I met. How do I integrate Israel’s policies with my own very liberal politics? How can I support Israel while also condemning some of its government’s policies? What does it mean to support Israel and be a liberal American? How can I learn more about Israeli politics and history when everything I can find is contradictory? What does this experience mean for my spiritual identity and cultural identity? Should I just join go and join J date?
Me: Okay, I have to ask about your relationship to Zionism.
Martha: Has it changed? I’m not sure. When I was in college my very wise Hillel director {that well loved past life I mentioned above was when I was the Jewish Campus Life Lady at Oberlin, M’s alma mater} told me that Zionism doesn’t mean that Palestine shouldn’t exist, it just means Israel should. I still think that. I wanted to be able to go on Birthright and learn without changing who I am and what I care about. I don’t support everything the IDF is doing, but based on conversations I had with people, I understand more about why they feel it is necessary. But as a fairly (uber?) liberal, my Facebook friends are more likely to post statuses in support of the Flotilla than they are about the housing crisis in Israel. (Our interview took place before the housing protests had reached the pitch of the past few weeks and before they’d breached the ears and eyes of the American media.) It’s not like I’m uncritical of Israel’s government and policies now, but to a certain extent I feel like I can now discuss things better. I think that’s one of the biggest tangibles out of the experience; while I don’t necessarily support the politics and policies, I can better understand why they exist and I’m better prepared to admit that I don’t know everything and that there’s nothing black and white about the entire situation. This is the case with everything I’ve been processing, not just Zionism. I actually think that my relationship to Zionism has been one of the easiest piece of the trip to process because it hasn’t really changed.
Me: You and I have talked about our difference in experiences with the Israelis on the trip, I’ve said that I haven’t really felt that closeness with the soldiers on the trips I’ve staffed. I usually attribute that to being a staff member, and also, how freaked out I am about how bad my Hebrew is. Talk about why you think it was different for you.
Martha: I think there are two pieces to that. First off, I barely knew any Hebrew before the trip and didn’t set any expectations for myself about learning any. Given my past experiences with people whose dominant language isn’t one I speak, I’m also pretty comfortable figuring out ways to make things work linguistically. Our Israelis’ English was impeccable though, and they were really good about giving us recaps and then including us when they would occasionally would switch to Hebrew. The second part is that our Israelis were incredible and just like the Birthright information says, having them with us was a highlight of the trip. They became fully-integrated into the group and after they left the bus felt much emptier. I miss them and wish it was as easy to make plans to see them as it is with the American group members. My trip was also 25+, so most of the Israelis were students or graduates and no longer involved with the IDF. I don’t know if perhaps being in more similar places in life may have also made it easier to get to know each other.
It’s now been two months since her trip, and we continue to process. As a friend of ours said, “Welcome to the Israel-Fucks-You-Up-Club.” (We have very smart friends.) Martha had planned stay in Israel after the trip was over, to travel around the country and to the West Bank, but because of plane schedules, she couldn’t. “When I realized I wasn’t going to be able to stay, I practically broke down,” she told me. Every day there’s something in the news, it seems, and the intellectual, emotional and political work of being engaged with Israel is relentless. exhausting and complicated, to say the least. Martha said, “It’s easier for me to focus on the political situation, because it’s more external. The spiritual and the identity pieces are a lot harder to figure out because they take soul searching and an internalized focus. “
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