As many know, Mobius, activist and founder of this blog, is known for his outspoken views ending on the Occupation and more recently for his leadership in Jewish slice of the the #Occupy movement (among his prodigious other accomplishments).
In a somewhat surreal turn of events, earlier this week as police evicted Sieradski and the rest of #occupy wall street from Zucotti Park, the Electronic Intifada denounced him for being a tool of the Zionist PR machine. Got that? They associated him with his twitter and real-life debate partner, William Daroff, who proudly clams that title. Clearly, having posed together for a photo makes them philosophical bunk mates. Confused yet? It gets better.
Not only this, but he is, or was, and now is again- FOR the #Occupation. Of course- and apparently Electronic Intifada is as well. But not THAT occupation. And Mobius is not entitled to be thus as he hasn’t been nearly outspoken enough about his views. Which E.I. is against because, well, he’s so clearly in bed with the rightwing Zionists. And Muppets.
Which they’re for- no wait, against.. Okay, I’m confused. Blame the Jews!
And btw, since we’re off the topic, the Muppets also deserve a state of their own too. Who doesn’t anymore (except Kurds, Boriquenas and American Indians)? Personally, I believe the @Muppets should be free to live everywhere. As long as its not in my backyard because my 6th cousins are moving in as soon as UNESCO declares their right to return to my #basement. I also wish to denounce those who would deny them the right to both have the state of #Muppestine and the right to denounce such states on principle! Really, this totally made sense when explained by the Electric Meyhem.
Somewhere I hear Bill Murray turning to Harold Ramis and saying, “Wait, I thought you said the Occupation was baaaaad.” DOWN! with the evil #occupiers of the anti-zionist non-entity! No wait- FREE Palestine! End the #Occupation! Muppets! No, wait, we support the occupiers just not the #occupation! Reverse that. We are with the 6 million! Wherever we stand, it is in opposition to the opposition of the opposition of the occupation, except when we’re not. And then we are.
At least the Palestinian Solidarity movement got its support of #occupy straight on one point, and that was… failing to make a clear point. Nice work and way to muddy the waters for the enemies of progress. Thanks for the giggles! But not really.
There has been quite a bit of conversation both on this blog and in the Jewish press and blogosphere on both the tactics and content of the recent JVP action at the GA. I have to say I was really inspired to see the coverage and conversation generated by these protests. More than that, I am inspired by the statements behind them. Talking back to Bibi was a way of getting heard. The message, contained in their Young Jewish and Proud declaration, makes it clear why we should, in the words of Peter Beinart, “expect more of this.”
We are not apathetic. We know and name persecution when we see it. Occupation has constricted our throats and fattened our tongues. We are feeding each other new words. We have family, we build family, we are family. We re-negotiate. We atone. We re-draw the map every single day. We travel between worlds. This is not our birthright, it is our necessity.
Not only should we expect to hear this message getting louder and stronger, we should be prepared to listen. Jews, committed to their identities, histories, and traditions, are increasingly seeing how the ongoing occupation and human rights abuses, the loyalty oath, and the stunted discourse on Israel and Zionism within the OJC are making a perversion out of the lessons of Jewish history (which illustrate that oppression and othering can be a deadly mix), and of Jewish teachings (which, in Rabbi Sid Schwarz’s formulation, are “dedicated to expanding the boundaries of righteousness and justice in the world“).
I’ve recently been corresponding with one of the organizers about JVP’s choice of message and their tactics. In light of the all the debate around that action, I wanted to share some of that correspondence here. In talking with her it is clear that there were significant conversations within the group about both tactics and messaging. The first thing she emphasized was that the goal of this action was not the disruption itself. “Our original idea,” she told me, “was actually the opposite, that the disruption of Netanyahu’s speech would be silent and dignified.” More »
Most of the world is perfectly fine with Pamela Anderson taking off her clothes. I admit I am. So are most of the Israeli men oggling her figure while the blond bombshell visits Israel this week as a judge on the Israeli version of ‘Dancing with the Stars.’
One might assume correctly that Israeli Hardeidim would feel otherwise, and indeed when Anderson visited the Kotel she managed to cover herself appropriately enough not to rile its self-appointed guardians.
But Anderson’s agenda in Israel was not limited to television appearances. She is an advocate for PETA’s anti-fur efforts and as luck would have it Israel’s Animal Welfare Law bans the import of real fur products.
The catch? The bill has been stymied by United Torah Judaism’s MK Moses, a Shtreiml-wearing Belzer Hasid. Shtreimls are those funny looking fur hats worn by many men in several hasidic sects. And many a hasid is loathe to set aside their beloved head pelt. So what if its 90 degrees in the shade in Mea Shaarim? It would be sacrilege to shun the shtreiml.
And so it would seem that Anderson’s efforts to try and convince the Haredim holding up the bill to give up their shtreimls are for naught… Doubly so because if anyone is going to avert their eyes and ears from the charms of this shalicha, its Hareidim.
There are of course a multitude of other sorts of fur hats worn as well, notably the spodik, worn mostly by Gerers. The Gerer Rebbe, however, issued a chumra on the purchase of actual fur spodiks, as they are a sign of ostentation. Gerers wear phauz fur spodiks. Say that ten times fast…
So there is precedence of adopting altern-hat-ives among hasidim. If she really wants to get the Hasidim to take off their fur, Pamela should maybe offer up the possibility of dressing tznius all the time… Or better yet, threaten not to and to parade around the Kotel again. The Hareidim would of course have a predictable response, but it might also have an unintended consequence- thousands of Chilonim thronging to the Kotel…
I don’t begrudge all the earnest folks who do good work for the jooz. I even like when they are all named to important lists. Like Slingshootz. And the Forvertz 50. And the Joozish Week 36-24-36. Etc. Etc. Etc. But I begz your pardon, what’s with this Jewish Community Zeroes thingy? All the issues of teh femalez aside teh questionz iz, ‘Wasnt this whole thing just a clever tactic for JFNA* to collect several hundred thousand emailz of teh young Jooz? *(not their real name, which is much longer and is never to be abbreviated even to save space)
Honoring movers and shakers doing good work on behalf of (or for) the Jooz in the areas of:
Social and economic justice and do-gooding
Peace (in Israel and elsewhere, except Iceland)
Jewish culture (whatever that is)
Spirituality (‘specially the touchy feel-y sort)
Inclusivity (Pluralist, Racial, Gender and all that ‘faggy’ stuff)
Media (it is the message after all, liek this blog)
Other things we hate but have to include.
Step one: We announce the contest and make it sticky on the site. (check)
Circulate it via email, blogosphere and intertubes. (need your help here)
Develop snarky but slick logo that looks Obama-esque (uh, check?)
Step two: Nominations accepted via form submission on the website
Post facebook event/app/group/widget to redirect voters to jewschool.com
Be sure that heads of major Joowish organizations and entities iz nominated.
Also, anyone with a huge email/twitter/facebook following…
Note that femalez iz welcome to apply but will not be winnerz
(cuz they iz too stoopid… naw, cuz they all already iz heroz- hi mom!)
Step three: Inform all nominees they are finalists. Because they are all special.
To be named a 36, they must encourage their supporters to vote for them
(and be popular).
Votes are accepted via hosted form, which collects their name, locale,
email, etc.
Step four:
Announce winners of the cheerleading squad via press release, youtubz
and facespaces.
Compile voter list into email database and announce winners via email list
Solicit their financial support, just for shirtz and gigglz
step five:
Use the email list for our own purposez: to give all teh kittehz cheezburgerz er- Kosher tofu-parve cheezburgers..!
Muuuuhahahahahaha!!!! I eatz it up. I laffs at u. More »
After a week and a half, I’ve reached the end of my short time in Israel. My airport shuttle hurtles through Jerusalem neighborhoods, swooping up bleary-eyed 2 am passengers airport-bound. The hills are as black as the night sky, making the highway down from the Jerusalem hills look like a rollercoaster in outer space. House lights on opposite hills become arms of the Milky Way, orbiting past. By divine providence, the radio is playing “Streets of New York” by Alicia Keys and I can’t help but smile. Time to go home.
I am reinvigorated, recharged, galvanized anew. Unlike my first visit, I come away not with a feeling of embattled loneliness but crackling excitement. Being a great activist is greatly about being a great storyteller — and I come away with both inspirational yarns and disturbing anecdotes. Doing this work requires finding hope, however small, in the actions of tzadikim on the ground here. The prognosis is bad, the occupation’s steamroller crushes lives daily, and the politics are ugly. But aside from newfound urgency, I bring back with me new plans, projects and connections that will turn the tide.
Activists on the ground are so utterly bereft of hope. They see their country continue to appropriate Palestinian land day to day, settlements rise despite the freeze, and the Israeli public remain apathetic if not outright hostile. They know they are few in number. But what they can’t see from their individual trenches is the vast community doing this work together. The percolations of a “new left” bubble out and reach our ears in the Diaspora. They are coming out of dormancy, asserting themselves with vehemence despite their limited numbers. And they’re winning small but important victories.
Meanwhile, the increasing number of Diaspora Jews who’ve been to the territories and maybe even made a Palestinian friend slowly but surely reach important echelons of communal leadership at home. There is a sleeper effect, waiting. And the sudden advent of J Street has altered the status quo in Congress, still yet to actualize its full potential. And I know of similar J Street projects now budding across the furthest reaches of Diaspora Jewry.
And what the activists on the ground cannot see is themselves: fighting the most important battles, standing up for Jewish-Arab equality, flexing democratic muscle, refusing to lay down the cause even when it is unpopular. They do not see how inspiring they are. They do not know how crucial it is for us out here to see them fighting in there. When the country seems to be striving as hard as possible to scuttle our connection, what saves my belief this country is worth saving? Them. Their laughing in the face of adversity, their 14-hour work days fighting for someone else’s rights. Scrappy, sunburned, impulsive, single-minded.
Out here in Diaspora, we owe them every ounce of matched passion. If they can sacrifice so much, then so can we. The State of Israel is not core to my being nor to my Jewish identity, but its progressive leaders are exemplars of a vision I am chasing for all societies. Their example fuels me. Can we inspire them in turn? Can I? Do they need — as I do — reinforcement by example? It is only fair to give them back what they gave me in spades: a sense of fraternity for those of us who live and breathe this issue.
They are all saying these days that a change will not occur within Israeli society, but must come from another player. The status quo is rooted in all parties — America, Europe, Israel, Palestine — and if but one of them shifted, we could break free. American Jewish communal politics is key and symbolic communities abroad like JCall are important. Our role is crucial. After the crash of post-Oslo, we are rebuilding, reconvening, reviving. For what are you waiting for?
New purpose, new projects, new people. These are what I’m bringing home to New York City. I came here and rolled up my sleeves, and as I return home, those sleeves are still up. In more ways that one, it’s time to get back to work.
Truly disturbing news from the Mediterranean: 10 dead are reported after Israeli commandos boarded six ships assembled by the Free Gaza Movement to break the Gaza seige. (Read Noam Sheizaf for background and liveblogging.)
In addition to the international condemnation for boarding a boat in international waters, guarded statements from the US, and another dramatic recalling of Turkey’s ambassador to Israel, the consequences for the peace process are dire: Prime Minister Netanyahu has canceled his Tuesday meeting with President Obama.
The narratives diverge: Bloggers within Israel are reporting that Israeli news is portraying the IDF commandos as victims of a lynch mob-in-waiting. Yedioth called the flotilla’s response “a brutal ambush at sea.” The IDF released this video (below), showing soldiers outnumbered and beaten with pipes. The Free Gaza Movement official statement claims the IDF began shooting live fire “the instant their feet hit the deck.” The group’s livestream (now offline) claims to have proof.
All of this remains to be seen, and despite some bloggers’ rush to make judgments before the facts are sorted, I await more clarity. And I’m not rushing to absolve any side of total innocence.
While excellently-intentioned, the Freedom Flotilla lost its tenuous innocence for me when they rejected an amazing opportunity to unite two sides: Gilad Shalit’s father offered to advocate on their behalf if the flotilla would bear a message to his son. What a gesture to the Israeli public that would have been, that human rights are not the purview of Palestinian suffering alone, but Israelis too. That the conflict is not between Israelis and Palestinians but between purveyors of violence and innocent civilians. It would mean calling out Hamas as well as the IDF for blame. Despite the vastness between Palestinian losses and Israeli, there are yet Israeli losses the Jewish public deserves acknowledged. And a father misses his son. But the Freedom Flotilla rejected mutual culpability.
Israel’s policy of blockading Gaza makes my skin crawl and my stomach sick. Collective punishment is a fate the Jewish people suffered throughout history, for crimes only imagined. It is an added layer of difficulty that Israel’s collective punishment is for crimes real: the rocketing of Israeli civilians and the kidnapping of Israelis. But these acts by a few do not justify punishment of all. The bottom dropped from my stomach when I read this news this morning. Ten people died, for this?
I hope the Flotilla planners and Netanyhu are happy with their results. The Netanyahu government no doubt appreciates the pause in making concessions to peace. Again, Hamas sits on the sidelines and escapes paying for its part in this dark comedy. The deterioration of Israel’s standing was a goal of the Freedom Flotilla from the outset. And instead of mitigating it, Netanyahu, you have worsened it. A victory on all sides.
My heart goes out to the families of the dead and for the speedy recovery of all those injured, including the soldiers.
Cautious embrace of some social justice goals by the institutions of the Conservative and (to a much smaller extent) the Orthodox movements: Spurred on by the exposure of the unjust treatment of workers and the abuse of animals at the Agriprocessors meatpacking plant (see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here -this is not an exhaustive list- for various JS posts on this never ending source of nausea) in Postville, Iowa, the Conservative movement launched the so-called heksher tzedek. This is a kosher seal of approval which guaranteed that the product under supervision was manufactured ethically—that workers’ rights were being respected and that animals were not being abused. An Orthodox group called Uri L’tzedek (“Awaken to Justice”) organized shortly afterwards to the same end. Also during this time, the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of the Conservative movement’s Rabbinical Assembly approved a decision (a “responsa”) authored by Rabbi Jill Jacobs (by then having moved to the Jewish Funds for Justice as their Rabbi in Residence) requiring synagogues to pay their employees living wages. There is also a concurring responsa by Rabbi Elliot Dorff.
Finally, the latest Rabbinical seminary on the block, the Modern Orthodox Yeshivat Chovevei Torah (YCC) has a social justice track which culminates in doing a social project (Canfei Nesharim was started by students at YCC).
Add it all up: the old split between the Jews who are interested in ritual practice and Jews who are interested in ethical practice is finally being eroded. The practice of social justice as a Jewish textual and ritual and political practice got a solid footing in the past decade. Keep it up.
The official blog of domestic justice issues, jspot.org, brings you critiques and thoughts on last night’s State of the Union address by Jewish social justice leaders from around the country:
Josh Berer was raised in Victoria BC, but since 2001 hasn’t spent more than a year in one place. He is currently finishing a year in Israel spent working with the Bedouin community in the Unrecognized Villages. Edited and reposted with permission, all 29 before/after photos viewable at his blog.
In Jerusalem, and in fact all over Israel, racist scumbags spraypaint out the Arabic on street signs, or cover it over with political stickers. The message is clear: this is not your country, we don’t even want to see a trace of your heritage on our streets.
Friends of mine in Jerusalem, Ilana and Romy, started an amazing project: Re-Facing Jerusalem. They made a list of streets around Jerusalem that had been defaced, and set about putting the Arabic back. I was lucky enough to have a small role in this project over the past weekend.
I wrote 25 street signs out in Arabic calligraphy, and on Thursday and Saturday nights we drove around and stuck them back up. None of us are Arab or Muslim, but we all recognize the importance of shared existence, and are committed to the principle and reality of Jerusalem as a shared city.
General Pierre Koenig, Emek Refaim
Raban Yochanan Ben Zakai, same corner as above.
Marcus St, Rehavia.
The response of the general public was interesting. More »
On one side, there’s Facebook’s stance that unless groups directly advocate violence, asking Facebook to take down groups/individuals for Holocaust denial is a misunderstanding of its role. Their employees came out greatly on their company’s side, including Jewish ones. For example, employee Dave Willner very rightly explains that their company should not have “an official version of the world” against which to test hate statements. You can rightfully argue differently, although I agree such policing is the wrong road to go down.
On the other side is the nauseating activism of the JIDF and chief activist David Appletree, whose views are not separable from each other and were most easily summarized in an interview here. Regarding Obama: “We hope to continue to highlight the issues surrounding his terrorist connections…” On Islam: “99.9% of Muslims hate us…” On the conflict: “Palestinians should be transferred out of Israeli territories…”
Appletree’s ostensible goals for JIDF may be laudable (ending anti-Semitism online) but it’s used as a platform from which to spread reciprocal defamation. Islamophobes and Arab haters made poor representatives of the Jewish people for starters. But it’s particularly painful when it’s someone who’s advocating Arab transfer, selectively upholding self-determination, and makes insulting generalized claims about any people. My personal communiques with Appletree, presumably the admin behind JIDF’s Twitter profile, repeat those views.
Then there’s his misleading campaigns to Facebook advertisers that they’re “supporting” Holocaust denial. The JIDF web site manipulates the facts into an action alert targeted at 50 advertisers demanding they halt their Facebook ads. Several companies have since pulled their ads. The kind of defamtion we should be fighting becomes a tool in a campaign for retribution. More intelligent might be asking those companies to donate some proceeds to anti-prejudice groups who fight not just anti-Jewish hate but all kinds of hate.
Reinforcing anti-Arab stereotypes is also hatred. Spreading belief in a “global jihad” is the same as spreading belief in the Elders of Zion. Ignorance about Islam, Muslims and Arabs are unfortunately hatreds widely accepted as fact, especially in the Jewish community. Opinions such as “Arabs should be kicked out of Israel” and “Arabs already have 22 countries” are hatred. Those broadcasting such views should be denounced and then ignored.
Even if I could stomach the cause the JIDF is championing (in principle) or the methods it is choosing (not at all), then I still would never do so alongside Jewish haters like this. Personally, I’m against Jew haters as much as I am Jewish haters. Anyone interested in the Facebook-Holocaust denial debate best find a more credible organizer.
I admit it. The reason I haven’t posted up until now on the amazing new book by Rabbi Jill Jacobs is only partly because I’ve been reading it slowly. Really, a big part of it is that books this good just don’t come around all that often, and I’m feeling kind of 1st grade-ish about sharing. But we all have to grow up sometime. Or at least, if we don’t someone will come along and make us share our toys. Ahem.
So, Rabbi Jill Jacobs wrote, There Shall Be No Needy: Pursuing Social Justice through Jewish Law and Tradition (Jewish Lights 2009) for all of us. Framed by a foreword from the utterly menschlikh gadol Rabbi Elliot Dorff, and prefaced by Simon Greer, Jacobs wrote the book during her tenure at Jewish Funds for Justice as rabbi-in-residence.
Grounded deeply in Jewish text, Rabbi Jacobs begins with her own journey to understanding how Jewish canonical texts are actually far more deeply invested with the everyday experience of poverty and need than most of us will (God willing) ever be, and how allowing the midrash, the talmud and other of our classical works to really enter us, not as something which we read for fun or education just because they’re important texts, but to really become doors to a perception of God and our fellow human, can cause us to be transformed through those texts, in the way that the rabbis meant us to be.
While she does this, Rabbi Jacobs also takes on the imprecise… well, let’s be honest, the complete meltdown of “Jewish” terms such as “Tikkun Olam,” “Tzedek” (as in the ubiquitous, and so therefore now nearly empty, verse “Tzedek, tzedek tirdof,” the favored phrase of Jewish organizations that don’t know – or at least can’t be bothered to find – any other text, no matter what the topic under discussion) and “Prophetic Judaism” into the utterly meaningless and restores them to a Jewish and more faithful context. (And can I say, thank you thank you thank you.)
This isn’t to say the book is completely without flaw. Like the tradition of leaving in tiny flaws to prove that a human creation cannot be perfect, there are some minor quibbles I have here and there. Primarily, I think that Rabbi Jacobs occasionally slides between “we can say that…” and the assumption of the supposition. Or that there doesn’t seem to be much room for the individual and national relationship/communion with the divine in any context other than social justice. But these are minor quibbles in a book so terrific, that I will be buying it for all my friends. How can I make any complaints about someone who at least implicitly supports my observance that, while everybody loves Hillel, it is Shammai who in his grumpy stringency, is actually the one who is more concerned for the disempowered and helpless (p. 32).
Rabbi Jacobs’ book also includes an excellent, concise introduction to the canonical texts, meaning that even the beginner can make sense of what she writes, and, I hope, that in reading her work will come to see that Judaism and social justice cannot be untangled from Judaism and Jewish law – that the system is a holistic one, and that Judaism does indeed give us a mission.
As Jacobs herself states in the conclusion, wrapping up her fine book with a brief codicil about Judaism in the public sphere,
“What is missing… is a real public discussion about how Jewish law and tradition might address contemporary policy questions… when Jews engage in the public discourse as Jews, we should bring Jewish law and principles into the conversation in such a way as to enrich… discourse…The commitment to living our Judaism publicly should then push us to take public action on these principles, both as individuals and as a community… We will witness the emergence of a Judaism that views ritual observance, study and engagement in the world as an integrated whole, rather than as separate and distinct practices.”
You can watch the video below — caught by Israel’s Channel 1 — and realize nowhere in this does Erza deserve jail for “assaulting an officer.” As part of Ta’ayush, a Jewish-Arab coexistance activist group, Ezra and other activists were blocking the demolition of the homes of Bedouin in the South Hebron Hills. In and around Hebron are the sites of the most virulently violent settlers, and, in an effort to “keep the peace,” the Israeli military is called in to arrest not the settlers but the Palestinians who dared live there.
Ezra Nawi has been taken to court multiple times for his non-violent resistance, yet settlers who assault peace activists of course are ignored! The double standard is part of the nauseous dynamic of Israeli military protection of settlers who shouldn’t even be living in the West Bank — yet who wield political clout through threat of violence. The fact that Ezra is in jail and not an innumerable number of settlers is a glaring stain on Israel’s rule of law.
The most shameful aspect of this particular case is the video itself, where the soldiers are laughing at Ezra and the family’s misfortune. I’ve met amazing Israeli soldiers who take their job protecting Israel seriously and who have the conscience to know right from wrong, even while being forced to do wrong. The gloating giggles on the faces of the soldiers are revolting. My father was a Sergeant First Class in the U.S. Army — and if any of his soldiers had a grin as stupid as that in a situation like this, he’d punch them square in the jaw. What a generation Israel is raising through the occupation.
Write the Israeli embassy to release Ezra Nawi for this stupid charade and copy support.ezra@gmail.com:
Naomi Chazan is a firecracker. She’s a leading professor of political science in Israel — probably because she was Deputy Speaker of Knesset and a 10-year Meretz party veteran, board president of the largest funder of Israeli civil society, and founder of numerous civil and women’s rights organizations.
Tonight she spoke at Town & Village Synagogue in Manhattan and whipped the audience into considering their own moral blindspots:
On Gaza: “When you have no direction or vision, fear drives politics.”
On Durban II: “On one hand we have Ahmadinejad spouting vileness, on the other Jews who support Israel no matter what it does. I can’t stand either.”
On the occupation: “Israel’s existence is totally dependent on Israel’s soul. An end to the discomfort.”
On Bibi’s two-state reluctance: “The alternative to a two state solution is not a one state solution, it’s more of what we have now, wars on the backs of civilians.”
On progressive American Jews: “Maybe it is time there is are new Jewish voices that stand for the values of dignity, justice, and peace.”
On the next generation: “Too many young Jews don’t want to hear the word Israel. Israel is not doing good for American Jewry.”
On American Jewry: “It’s as if there’s a total disconnect between the liberal values of American Jews and their attitude to Israel.”
Wow. Tell it to ‘em straight, Madam Speaker. She’s speaking again to a young activist crowd at NYU’s Bronfman Center this Saturday, 7 pm (RSVP).
The New Israel Fund wishes you a happy Yom Haatzmaut via Eliezer Yaari, Israeli director, and celebrates also their 30th anniversary of the Diaspora-Israel partnership that has put $200 million into more than 800 grassroots nonprofits improving civil and human rights, social and economic justice, religious pluralism and tolerance, and the environment for Israeli Arabs, Ethiopian immigrants, Thai foreign workers, Orthodox women seeking divorces, Russian youth at risk, Palestinian civilians, and everyone else. May Jewish civil society protect all those whose rights and well-being are less than what Israel promised in its Declaration of Independence:
THE STATE OF ISRAEL … will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.
May the journey to a better Jewish state be quick, meaningful, and revolutionary — happy Yom Haatzmaut.
Gisha is one of my favorite Israeli NGOs — an agency founded by Israeli Jewish lawyers who go to court to uphold Israel’s obligations for freedom of movement under international and Israeli law. It’s the cutting edge of legal work and I was privileged to meet their director Sari Bashi recently. The accounts she gave of Israeli judges making rulings that acknowledged multiple legal grounds for changing policies related to the Gaza seige or irrelevant checkpoints, then wholly ignoring them, made us listening continue to worry that Israel was ruling by might without any care for rule of law.
Very seriously, I’ve heard from several concerned Israelis that Israeli youth score lower and lower on support for democratic principles (wish I could provide a link or statistic for that). Add to this Avigdor Lieberman’s support for loyalty oaths and Arab citizen “transfer,” I can’t help but see big, fat red flags myself. Adherance to law within a society under a seige mentality predictably deteriorates. (No, not the Gazans, the Israelis, although that’s a good point…) I agree that government there already operates as “bureaucratic feifdoms,” in the words of my former Israeli professor, if the Sasson Report has anything to say about Israeli government agencies doing whatever they want against orders of the administration. It shows up also in Israel’s careless breaking of property ownership laws in the construction of settlements — does no one in the government care in Israel?
But if these red flags are any canary in the mine, the youth reports indicate it will continue to worsen as that generation grows older. The rule of law shoots to the central assumption of Zionism (if you care about Zionism) that human rights and democracy are the proper methods for self-liberation. As Haaretz said about the publishing of ACRI’s 2008 civil and human rights in Israel report, “any infringement on human rights is for all intents and purposes an infringement on the rationale for the state’s existence.” But we’re not talking ignoring vague rights in tenuous international charters; we’re talking laws that Israel itself made.
American Jews who see Israeli government as a mirror of American government (remarkably capable, responsive to public concerns, and bound by active citizen politics — relatively speaking) have no idea how haphazard, uncoordinated and incestuous Israeli governance is. Even in insider comedy memoirs, it’s clear that Meditnat Yisrael (State of Israel) is not a paragon of democratic efficiency or purity. As soon as I understood that Israel was not America, that Israelis weren’t American Jews, that democracy here isn’t democracy there, and that civil rights are even less a concern over there than here, I finally understood society there so much more. The only response is getting a little more involved in supporting Israeli supporters of democracy and improved education in Israel.
Forward the Gisha video to your friends and read more about Gisha’s work.
I’m more than a little bummed that Waltz with Bashir did not win the Oscar. Not that I’ve seen the film that won, but it’s a break from the typical Jewish films up for Oscars which are always about the Holocaust. Seriously, it’s time to find another good-vs-evil setting in which we can inspire ourselves that We Westerners did a Good Job.
But Bradley Burston on Haaretz goes too far – and make a huge bumble along the way. Not only does he say that Hollywood prefers its Jews as perpetually victimized innocents (convenient as that is to most Jews’ self-narrative, barfitty barf barf) but he misquotes Kate Winslet as exploiting the preference for an Oscar. Check this clip via YouTube, which you can also hear used onNPR in a segement about Holocaust obsession in film:
Whoa! But hang on a minute. Bradley Burston has not done his homework. Apparently this clip of Winslet was on the HBO show Extra and she’s satirizing herself and her lack of Oscar trophies despite thrice-over nominations — and three years ago at that. More »
by Kung Fu Jew [➚] · Thursday, February 19th, 2009
Let me reiterate why I bother to post stuff like this. Or this.
It’s a selective reading of news, I know, to pick out the parts of our community most shameful for public review, as if there were nothing else redeemable about Jews, Judaism, Jewish culture or Israel. Even though here on Jewschool it should go without saying that, though we question the assumptions and priorities of Jewish life as we see it, we do this because we are engaged and care deeply about Jews, Judaism, Jewish culture, and Israel. But I’ll explain a little more.
There are compelling realpolitik and pragmatic reasons for discussing our dirty laundry in public. Not only do Israel’s true-to-life detractors feed off these events, making it important to distance ourselves from said events and to understand how we are perceived by others. But it’s also impossible to do otherwise these days. And it’s important to shake off their fence-sitting the Jews who politely demure from facing our own culpability regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Posting these things is pushing something clearly indefensible forward and saying, “Our shit too stinks.”
Those realpolitik and pragmatic reasons are not under discussion right now.
My love of Israel is not for its materialistic and militarized culture, its marvelous multicultural hype, and certainly not its fried chickpea patties. I am not wowed by its Nobel prizes trophies, its environmental inventions, the number of universities it hosts, its place as the only gay-friendly military in the Middle East. There is nothing impressive to me about those factoids used to lure young Jews into pride. Mine is real, thank you very much. More »
As the sun went down on Friday night, we gather in the venerated shrine of Ali Ibn Hamzeh (above and below). The inside of the mosque is inlaid with countless small mirrored tiles that reflect fragments of light, movement and the faces of everyone inside. As a young boy intones “Allah Hu Akhbar!” over the loudspeaker, worshippers file in, kneel and begin to pray. Even though it’s not my prayer tradition, even though I’m merely a guest, I’m palpably aware that I’m dwelling in sacred space and sacred time. I’m also also all too mindful that our journey through Iran is fast coming to a close. More »
But I begz your pardon, what’s with this 
So, Rabbi Jill Jacobs wrote, 
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