Rabbi Jon's Website and Blog

Toward September at the UN

Click through for a thoughtful, nuanced (short) take on the Israeli-Palestinian situation, by Professor Michael Walzer:

"What Does Netanyahu Think He Is Doing?"

Parashat B'chukotai: The Land of Israel, On Condition

Parashat B'chukotai comes at the end of the book of Vayikra (Leviticus).  After a book filled with specific laws, mostly about the sacrificial worship but also about living a holy life, this week's parasha exhorts the Israelites as a nation to keep God's covenant and commandments faithfully.  "If you walk by my laws and keep my statues, and do them, I will give your rain at its appropriate time, and the trees of the field will give their fruit..."  (26:3-4).  If the Israelites reject God's laws and walk away from them, a series of catastrophes will be visited on them.

The ultimate consequence, according to the Torah, of abandoning the commandments is exile.  God will no longer protect the people in Eretz Yisrael, and they will be forced to live elsewhere until they are ready to return to God.

The idea that the Jews' possession of the Land of Israel at any given time is conditional is woven throughout the Torah and the prophets.  While Eretz Yisrael is always the homeland, the Torah says that the right to live there at the moment always depends on the way the people live and act when they are on the land.  God gave the land not for its own sake, and not simply so that the Jews would have a place somewhere as all nations do.  The land and the Jews come together so that the Jews can bring God's teachings to their full flowering.

As Jews in and out of Israel today look at the conflict with the Palestinians, this perspective from the Torah must remain in mind.  This week, President Obama weighed in with his view on how the Land of Israel should be shared between Israel and the Palestinians.  Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of the Palestinians, outlined their argument for the United Nations to recognize Palestine as a state this September (a must read).

In biblical times, when faced with pressure from the outside, Israel's kings tried to view things only strategically, in terms of alliances and forces.  The prophets, with the words of the Torah such as this week's, reminded them that it is the character of Jewish society that will determine the outcome.  A callous insensitivity to the Palestinians' suffering, their sense of identity and statelessness, cannot be in line with the covenant.

No amount of military strength will prevail if there is not also a human response, a moral response.  I don't expect Prime Minister Netanyahu to let down his vigilance about Israel's safety when the Middle East is in turmoil.  As a Jewish leader, though, he needs at least to let on that he understands that the Palestinians are stateless and in exile.

The Torah well knew that biblical Israel was surrounded by enemies, and permeated by Canaanite tribes with a profoundly different religion and worldview.  But Parashat B'chukotai does not teach:  "If you reject my laws, I will send you into exile, unless your enemies are terrible and you had no choice."  This year is a precarious time for Israel.  Focusing only on how threatening the neighbors are will not, says the Torah, make Israel any safer.

Celebrating Israel at 63

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

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

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

Download or listen to Ben Gurion original rec 14.5.1948

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

The Palestinian Papers Leak

An excellent analysis of the implications of documents leaked to the press about the Israel-Palestine negotiations of the past few years.  By Mitchell Plitnick, who I do not know about at all.

http://zeek.forward.com/articles/117183/

The Palestinian Papers Leak

An excellent analysis of the implications of documents leaked to the press about the Israel-Palestine negotiations of the past few years.  By Mitchell Plitnick, who I do not know about at all.

http://zeek.forward.com/articles/117183/

Another Step Toward Israel-Palestinian Negotiations

Here's the update on that, from Haaretz.

Haaretz also recently posted an excellent overview of the current state of on-the-ground relations between Israeli and Palestinian authorities, especially in the area of security cooperation.  The story is broadly that things remain tense toward Gaza and Hamas, as we know from the news.  But in the West Bank, there is much progress as Israeli military officials recognize the skill and commitment of the Palestinian Authority's forces there to fight terrorist cells.

Or Not a Crisis...

This came today from the Jewish Telegraph Agency:

March 17, 2010

Oren, White House deny 'crisis quotes'

WASHINGTON (JTA) -- Israel's ambassador to Washington and the White House denied remarks that have fueled the current Israel-U.S. crisis.

Israel's Michael Oren was quoted this week by Ha'aretz as saying that relations were at a 35-year-low after Israel embarrassed Vice President Joe Biden during visit to the region by announcing a massive housing start in Jerusalem.

On Tuesday evening, Oren issued a statement flatly denying that account of a conference call he had Saturday night with Israeli diplomats.

"I was flagrantly misquoted about remarks I made in a confidential briefing this past Saturday," Oren said in a statement. "Recent events do not -- I repeat -- do not represent the lowest point in the relations between Israel and the United States. Though we differ on certain issues, our discussions are being conducted in an atmosphere of cooperation as befitting long-standing relations between allies. I am confident that we will overcome these differences shortly."

Separately, numerous media quoted senior White House officials as denying an account in Yediot Achronot last week that Biden had told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel was endangering the lives of American troops in the region.

"He never said that, and there's no basis to assert that he did," The Atlantic quoted one official as saying. "What he did say in a meeting with the prime minister and his senior advisers and his own team was that the U.S. is doing a number of things in our national security interest, and in Israel's national security interest, and they include a strong effort to build a coalition against Iran's nuclear program; deploying 200,000 troops in conflict areas in the region; standing against efforts to delegitimize Israel in various international bodies, sometimes virtually alone; acting decisively against terrorists in very significant ways; and building probably the strongest defense cooperation relationship with Israel that we've seen, including on missile defense."

Read more from JTA's Washington bureau chief, Ron Kampeas, on efforts to get the Obama and Netanyahu governments to turn down the temperature. Plus editor in chief Ami Eden reflects on the initial report about Oren and the ambassador's subsequent denial.

Visit JTA's politics blog or read the Daily Briefing later today for more information.

Two Items on Israel

Two announcements today from Israel.  One is the official announcement of "indirect" peace talks over the next four months between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.  It's hard to know what to make of this.  As President Obama said last week about health care reform, every idea there is about the issues between Israel and the Palestinians has been voiced, written, and negotiated about off an on.

Not having the sides together does not seem to be a recipe for success.  I continue to think that it's a good sign that Prime Minister Netanyahu, a cautious person and a sceptic, is in talks that he knows lead to an incredibly substantial withdrawal from the West Bank.  But then I continue to wonder why the Palestinian leadership can't find a way to say yes to those kinds of offers from Israel, why they insist on getting this and more without negotiating directly.  Maybe someone with experise can enlighten us?

The other matter relates to proposed changes in how conversions are (and are not) recognized by the State of Israel.  I'm forwarding a communication that came today from the Rabbinical Assembly, the organization of Conservative rabbis in North America and hope that you will consider copying the suggested letter and e-mailing it to the Prime Minister and to Michael Oren, Israel's ambassador to the United States:

Dear Colleagues,

We need your help on a matter of urgency concerning a bill that will come before the Knesset. We have received word from our colleagues in Israel that a bill may be put forward for passage as soon as tomorrow which affects conversion and we need as many of us and our congregants to forward the following letter to Prime Minister Netanyahu and to your Israeli Ambassador.

The bill sponsored by MK David Rotem of Yisrael Beitenu, deals with both the authority of the Chief Rabbinate and matters of Conversion. The Rotem Bill concerns three matters:

1.     It grants legal authority to the Chief Rabbinate for Conversions (while until now there was de facto recognition this gives legal recognition to the role of the Chief Rabbinate in this area) and would make it much more difficult for conversions to be performed by our Movement, by more “open-minded” Orthodox rabbis, and by Reform rabbis.

2.     It provides for the ability of local rabbis in Israel to establish conversion courts. This is a good part of the bill of which we are supportive because it will potentially permit the establishment of more forward looking conversion courts. However, the first part of the bill passes, the Chief Rabbinate may declare these courts null and void, which would obviate any cause for our support.

3.     Section 3 of this bill is highly problematic. Here is the summary of Section 3 by our colleague, Reuven Hammer:

 “Section 3 of the proposed conversion bill that we strongly oppose states that anyone that who entered Israel as a non-Jew and then converted to Judaism-either in Israel or the Diaspora would not be eligible for citizenship under the Law of Return. First of all this is exactly the case that we now have before the Supreme Court, asking that our conversions in Israel be recognized and citizenship rights granted to our converts. This is an attempt to go around the Supreme Court. Secondly, the wording is so vague that it could mean that if such a person had visited Israel at any time, no matter when, their conversion would not be recognized for citizenship in the future. Thirdly this would be the first time that Israel is officially making a distinction between one who is born a Jew and a righteous convert, something that we find deplorable and unsupportable in Jewish Law. Since our movement is the movement that is most involved in conversion in America and elsewhere, we and our congregants are the primary target of the bill. We urge everyone to make their protest known immediately to the Israeli government.”

WE STRONGLY URGE THAT YOU CALL UPON YOUR COMMUNITIES TONIGHT TO FORWARD THE FOLLOWING LETTER OR ITS EQUIVALENT TO THE PRIME MINISTER AND YOUR AMBASSADOR.

The Honorable Benjamin Netanyahu

Prime Minister of Israel
Office of the Prime Minister

Jerusalem, Israel

 

Dear Prime Minister Netanyahu,

 

We write to request your immediate intervention to prevent passage of the legislation being brought forward by MK David Rotem (‫הצעת חוק הרבנות הראשית תיקון- סמכות בעניני גיור)

Passage of this bill in its present form especially section 3, will have the effect of providing for a path to alter the Law of Return or, at the least, cause undue hardship to anyone in Israel who has come from Diaspora communities and seeks conversion in Israel .

Sadly, this is reminiscent of those attempts in 1997 to enact similar legislation which ultimately led to the establishment of the Ne'eman Commission.

While we are supportive of your efforts to create greater accessibility to conversion courts in  Israel  and have done all we can to aid in this effort, the overall impact of the Rotem Bill will set back these efforts. Moreover this legislation will adversely impact the work of our Masorti movement and its members in Israel . This we cannot abide.

Even more regrettably, should this bill be enacted, it will exacerbate a widening gap between Diaspora and Israel communities, which we are all working very hard to avoid. 

Therefore, we believe it is imperative that you,  Israel ’s leader, who cares so deeply about the well-being of our people, intervene and urge withdrawal of this bill. 

The email for Prime Minister Netanyahu is:

Prime.Minister'sOffice@it.pmo.gov.il

For Amb. Oren’s office:

info@washington.mfa.gov.il

For a list of other Ambassadors click here

If you should have any further questions please contact Stuart Weinblatt, our Israel Policy Chair.

The Goldstone Report

I have been reading the United Nation's "Goldstone Report", which is officially titled HUMAN RIGHTS IN PALESTINE AND OTHER OCCUPIED ARAB TERRITORIES:  Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict.  It is much in the news these days, along with the recent inaugural conference of J-Street, the new "pro-Israel, pro-peace" lobbying organization in Washington, DC.  I want as much as possible to respond to the actual report, and not simply to news reports about it.

You can read the full Goldstone Report here.

The Goldstone Report has become caught up in a tangle of accusations about bias.  So let me reveal my own biases:  Israel is a Jewish state committed to democracy and human rights, and entitled to defend itself.  The only just solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, and the only solution that will protect Israel in the long run, will be a two-state solution -- Israel and Palestine.

I like to think that these two "biases" to some degree balance each other, and enable me to process the Goldstone Report in a fair way.  I'm not going to say that Israel can never be wrong.  I'm also not going to say that all critics of Israel hate Israel.

It has taken me a long time to write this post; I've had to go over my words several times.  I wondered if I should delete this whole thing and not bother to publish it or to speak about it.  I am trying very hard as I write to be restrained -- I think people know that's my natural inclination!  But I'm finding it very difficult not to be terribly disappointed by the report.   I have read a good deal of it carefully and paged through all of it.

Here are some things that trouble me.  I'm going to mention them, and I guess my audience are people still getting oriented to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  I doubt there's anything new to be learned here if you've been thinking about it already.  (I have previously posted what I hope is a fair overview of the conflict in maps.)

• On the United Nations' own website, one story about the report is headlined "Endorsing Gaza war report, UN Human Rights Council condemns Israel."  The report investigated both Israeli and Hamas actions in Gaza during the winter conflict, but the UNHRC targets its condemnation against Israel.
  
  
• The report contains a section on the historical context of the Gaza operation, which begins with the occupation of Palestinian territories in the 1967 war.  It mentions the fact that before 1967, Gaza was administered by Egypt, without mentioning that the UN had twenty-years earlier passed a resolution that Arab areas such as Gaza  and the West Bank should constitute an independent Palestinian state.
  
  
• The story the report tells about the history of Gaza since 1967 attributes every derailing of the peace process after the 1993 Oslo agreement to Israeli actions, without reference to any acts by the Palestinians.  So for instance, Yitzchak Rabin's assassination by an Israeli and Israel's 2005 withdrawal from Gaza (!) are described as key blows to the peace process.
  
  
• Hamas is first mentioned in the historical summary not with reference to its charter, which calls for the destruction of Israel, but in connection with its decision to recognize the Palestinian Authority and participate in Palestinian politics.  Israel is generally characterized in detail for its disregard of Palestinian life and rights.  The Palestinian armed groups are characterized as resisting occupation, but their stated goal of eliminating Israel is not mentioned.
  

I'm trying to write this not as a kvetch, the same-old Jewish reaction, but with disappointment.  While there is much detail about specific incidents, and specific deaths, the report reads  primarily as an assessment of the Israel's entire relationship with the Palestinains and an indictment of Israel's occupation as a series of crimes.

The writers of the report hold Israel entirely to blame for the conflict, out of a desire to occupy land and deny the humanity of Palestinians.  They state their belief that since Israel has superior military technology with pinpoint control of firing, civilian casualties and suffering were part of "deliberate planning and policy decisions."  They state that any UN member state could investigate and prosecute Israeli (but not Palestinians) for war crimes committed during the Gaza war last winter.

If the goal is to promote accountability for immoral acts by Israeli soldiers, this is a horrible way to go about it.  If the Goldstone Report is the jumping-off point for anything, those who move ahead are signing on to a picture of Israel as a country intent on maximizing the suffering of other people and repressing its own citizens when they dissent.  What country would accept the findings of such a report as the basis for its own investigations?

If people like me react this way -- think of what the report evokes in those who think they could never trust the U.N. or Arabs under any circumstances.  For people who have no sympathy at all for Israel, the report is a detailed rationale for its elimination as a criminal state.

I can live with the fact that there are people who regard Israel this way, and I doubt there is anything I can do about it.  But when the United Nations takes this position, it becomes a party to the suffering of Palestinians by adding to the toxic diplomatic environment.

In the Goldstone Report are detailed allegations of deliberate acts of killing and violence by Israeli soldiers against innocent civilians.  By the 1990s, most Israelis had come to believe that holding the terrorities was requiring actions by young Israeli soldiers, by Jewish soldiers, that would undermine the ethical character of Israel.  That's why most Israelis seek an end to the occupation for "selfish" reasons, for reasons of Israel's own interest, as well as for reasons of human rights.

I'm aware as an American Jew that I am implicated too.  To reduce our own cognitive and emotional dissonance, we supporters of Israel end up defending things that we would criticize if other countries did them.  But contrary to the Goldstone Report, Israel has vibrant groups continuing to raise these questions and investigate.  Israel's government is in its own debate about whether and how to investigate and analyze the conduct of the war in Gaza.

All three major Israeli political parties are on record as supporting a Palestinian state.  There is a basic choice facing the Arab states and the Palestinian leadership, which is whether to negotiate the establishment of this state or to continue to impugn Israel's basic legitimacy because of its specific actions.  Which choice shows true solidarity with the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza?  I ask that not as a gotcha, but as a real question.  Hopefully, I'm showing both of my biases -- for Israel, and for a two-state resolution.

Now I too am verging into broader political statements.  So here again is the Goldstone Report and you can form your own impressions.

Parashat Vayera: Peace and Service, In Family and The World

This past Shabbat, many of the discussions in shul about Avraham centered on his contradictions.  We tell stories about how Avraham stood up to his father who sold idols, to the powerful king of Ur, to God God-self over the fate of Sodom and Gomorroah.  Yet he was willing to put his wife Sarah at risk and did not speak up when his sons were in danger for their lives.  Here is a Dvar Torah I wrote a few years ago and published on-line originally at socialaction.com.  It's one attempt to bring the disjointed strands of Avraham together.  (I should credit myjewishlearning.com, a great site, which apparently own the "rights" to what follows as well.)

"Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing?… For I have known him in order that he may command his children and his household after him, that they may keep the way of the Lord, to do righteousness and justice" (Genesis 18:17-19). So says God as God contemplates plans for the city of Sodom and its surroundings, whose reputation for evil and whose shrieks of corruption have become more than God can bear.

God knows that for Abraham and his descendents to become responsible for justice in the world, God must first apprentice Abraham, including him in a monumental decision about justice and human beings. (Abraham, of course, ends up challenging God to save the population of the cities if even ten righteous people can be found in the area.)

Parashat Vayera places this passage in the middle of a flow of events that somehow link the issue of justice in the wider world to Abraham's own family struggles. As the Torah reading begins, Abraham sprints from the door of his desert tent toward three travelers, who turn out to be divine messengers come to announce the birth of a son to elderly Sarah and Abraham. As the reading ends, Ishmael and his mother Hagar are driven out, because of Sarah's jealousy and her urge to secure the inheritance of her own son Isaac. God saves the cast-out boy and his mother. God then tests Abraham, asking him to give up his remaining son Isaac as a sacrifice on Mt. Moriah. Yet again God intercedes and saves the boy.

This interplay between the discussion about Sodom and the struggle for peace and justice in Abraham's household resists an easy lesson.

Toward the end of this week's reading is an episode most of us don't remember. Between the banishment of Ishmael and the binding of Isaac, Abraham is approached by Avimelech, king of the neighboring Philistines. Avimelech proposes a treaty, in recognition of past friendship. After the covenant is made official, the Torah relates that "Abraham planted an eshel-tree in Be'er Sheva, and there he called the name of Adonai, Eternal God. And Abraham lived in the land of the Philistines a long time" (21:33-34).

The peace treaty is jarring--it comes as Abraham's own family seems to be collapsing, and stands in counterpoint to the doom of Sodom and Gomorrah. The rabbis of the midrash (rabbinic exegetical narrative) try to make sense of the episode, and their point of entry is, of all things, the tree.

In one midrash, two rabbis offer their views on what exactly the eshel was. One says: an orchard. The other says: an inn, a waystation for desert travelers. Either way, Abraham marks his new bond with the Philistines by getting involved with them, providing and sharing food. For Abraham, the alliance isn't just with Avimelech, and it isn't just an agreement to insure against future conflicts. It has to create a new relationship of hesed, of covenantal kindness, between two peoples, starting now.

Maybe Abraham was reflecting on his experience with Sodom. He had argued on their behalf, but from a comfortable distance--looking down into the valley from his home up in the hills. For all his talk of justice, he had done nothing to engage with the evil and corruption right in those cities. Here, Abraham decides to take seriously his own talk about justice, creating community right there in the desert, looking out for vulnerable travelers among the Philistines as well as his own people.

The rabbi who teaches that an eshel is an inn has to justify his creative translation. The three letters of the Hebrew word eshel, he says, each stand for an element of Abraham's hospitality: aleph for "achilah," eating; shin for "shtiya," drinking, and lamed for "l'vaya," accompanying travelers on their way.

"Then Abraham lived in the land of Philistines a long time." Not in the cities he had settled in when God first brought him to Canaan, but in the land of the Philistines. Who knows how many strangers Abraham met, what he learned as he shared meals with them, what they taught him as he escorted them toward a safer journey. If they thanked him, say the rabbis, he would respond: Do you think you have me to thank? Let us thank God together, for it is God's food we are sharing.

And, we might add: It is God who brought me to this land, who separated me from people so that I would have to figure out from the beginning how to order my relationships, how to sustain justice in my own home, which I realize is a place of ayn-shalom, no peace.

What is Abraham's life, after all, but a twisting story about connection and disconnection? Leaving home, wandering the new land, leaving it in time of famine. Reaching out to travelers, speaking out for ten hypothetical innocents hidden in a culture of evil. In the middle of the desert, Abraham makes a tentative step, staking out a small parcel for peace and devotion to others with no expectations in return. None of them will be announcing miracles to Sarah or good fortune for their descendents. The eshel is a moment of pure service.

It is interesting that in one rabbinic legend, this is the time that Abraham sends messengers to check on Ishmael, and eventually to reunite the family--only for a time, of course, before the terrible challenge from God to offer his other son. But I like to think about that legend, and to imagine Abraham and Sarah with their children at the eshel in Be'er Sheva. Peace in the home, service to others. How to preserve that moment, they do not teach us--Torah forwards that challenge to us.