The President of Israel Reaches Out to Palestinian Arabs of Israeli Citizenship

The President of Israel Reaches Out to Palestinian Arabs of Israeli Citizenship

Posted: 11/10/2014 9:40 am EST 

On my recent speaking tour in the United States, I gave two lectures on the theme "Can Arabs and Jews learn to live together in Israel and the region?" On both occasions, I talked about President Ruby Rivlin's recent historic speech in a Palestinian Arab village in Israel, and the rabbis in the audience were the only ones who had heard about it! And just two days ago, I met with an American government official who was in Jerusalem on a fact-finding mission, and he too had not heard of it. I quickly realized that it had not been brought to the attention of people in the West sufficiently, if at all, by the mainstream media, which all too often focus on the negative news coming out of Israel.

This is why I decided to write this blog post, so that this speech would become known around the world.

The new president of Israel, Ruby Rivlin, who was installed as president only a few months ago, comes from the Likud party, a center-right party in Israel. On some issues, he is on the extreme right (such as his persistent resistance to the establishment of a Palestinian state), but on the interrelated issues of preserving liberal democracy and ensuring the rights of the Palestinian Arab minority in Israel, he is first rate!

On Sunday, October 26, 2014, President Rivlin visited the Israeli Arab town of Kafr Qasim in what is known as "the Triangle," an area of central Israel which hugs the "green line," the 1967 border between Israel and the West Bank.

Background

In this area of central Israel, all of the Palestinian Arabs are of Israeli citizenship and are Sunni Muslims (in fact, all Muslims in Israel are Sunni). This town suffered a well-known massacre on October 26th, 1956, which was carried out by Israeli Border Police, who killed 48 Arab civilians who had violated a curfew (that they had not heard about in time). The border policemen who were involved in the shooting were brought to trial and found guilty and sentenced to prison terms (but all received pardons and were released within a year).

Even though the former president of Israel, Shimon Peres, had officially apologized for this tragedy a few years ago, this visit of the current president of Israel went much further than any apology in the past, with a historic speech which was well received within Israel. Moreover, it is important to keep in mind that the president of Israel is a symbolic figurehead, who represents all the citizens of Israel, including the Palestinian Arab minority. This enables the president to speak with a clear moral voice, more so than ordinary politicians.

Gesture of Reconciliation

Why did President Rivlin go to the Israeli Arab village of Kafr Qasim at this time?

First of all, he was invited by the local Palestinian Arab mayor! This in itself is a positive sign. The fact that the mayor felt comfortable to reach out to the new president reveals that he probably felt that he would receive a positive response, which indeed he did.

Secondly, it appears that President Rivlin wants to make his mark in domestic Israeli history by focusing on Arab-Jewish Coexistence within Israel as one of the cornerstones of his presidency. This is a most welcome development, for it signals that this critical issue for the future of Israeli society will finally be addressed in a sensitive and systematic manner.

As someone who has been actively engaged with this issue in my educational and communal work for more than two decades, and as someone who has brought Jews to Kafr Qasim in the past, I applaud the president for this historic gesture of reconciliation.

What did the president of Israel say at this extraordinary visit to one of the most important Palestinian Arab villages in Israel?

First of all, he offered an apology to the Palestinian Israeli Arab citizens of this village and by extension to all Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel:

Dear friends, I have come here today, as a member of the Jewish people, and as President of the State of Israel, to stand before you, the families of the slain and injured, to mourn and remember together with you... an anomalous and sorrowful chapter in the history of the relations between Arabs and Jews living here.

The State of Israel has recognized the crime committed here. And rightly, and justly, has apologized for it. I too, am here today to say a terrible crime was done here. An illegal command, over which hangs a dark cloud, was given here...We must understand what occurred here. We must educate future generations about this difficult chapter and the lessons we learn from it.

Secondly, he expressed acute awareness of the maltreatment of Palestinian Arabs within Israel today, and pledged to address these grievances seriously and systematically:

The State of Israel is the national home of the Jewish people, who returned to their land after two millennia of exile. This was its very purpose.

However, the State of Israel will also always be the homeland of the Arab population, which numbers more than one and a half million, and make up more than 20 percent of the population of the country. The Arab population of the State of Israel is not a marginal group in Israeli society. We are talking about a population which is part and parcel of this land, a distinct population, with a shared national identity and culture, which will always be a fundamental component of Israel society. And so, even if none of us had sought it, we were destined to live side by side, together, with a shared fate. It is not only the land which we share. We share the same economy, the same welfare system, and a shared public space. We travel together on the same roads and highways, and play together in the same soccer stadiums.

And thirdly, he issued a loud and clear call for dialogue, education and action, for a shared future:

We must all be a part of the struggle against violence and extremism [earlier in the speech he called upon the Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel to raise their voices against extremist violence]. This obligation falls upon each of us.

Honored friends, I believe that young men and women, Jews and Arabs, have a crucial role to play in our ability to look to the future. I believe wholeheartedly that, if we truly understand that we have no other choice; if we take joint responsibility for our future, the relationship between us can be transformed from a cause of friction, into a source of strength. A symbol of the ability of Jews and Arabs, of all of us, the children of Abraham, Isaac and Ishmael, to learn to live together. Bless you all.

I commend President Rivlin for this historic speech. It was a very important first step. But, as one of my Muslim partners in dialogue told me years ago, "Dialogue or talk is not enough!"

This inspiring speech -- which is available online -- should be read, studied, discussed and applauded by leaders and citizens around the world. It is the most important call for equal rights and fair treatment of Israel's Palestinian Arab minority by an Israeli Jewish leader in recent decades, perhaps in our entire history. More importantly, it must be followed by a serious and systematic action plan in the years ahead.

What are they smoking in Jerusalem?

What are they smoking in Jerusalem?

An Israel that occupies, settles and discriminates is not an Israel that the United States or young Diaspora Jews can continue to back indefinitely.

By Ari Shavit  | Oct. 31, 2014 | Haaretz

Over the last five days I’ve visited five cities in the United States: Los Angeles, Columbus, Cincinnati, Baltimore and Miami. I didn’t meet any senior officials in the Obama administration nor was I a guest of any critic of Israel. On the contrary, I spoke to thousands of people who love Israel with all their souls. I listened to hundreds of people whose devotion to Israel is greater than that of many Israelis. But when I looked at my country through the eyes of my countrymen, without whom the country has no future, I wondered what its government was thinking. Where does it think it is leading the Jewish state and the Jewish people?

What are they smoking there in Jerusalem? What world do they live in? Don’t they have eyes to see the looming iceberg? Don’t they have ears to hear the roar of the disaster they are about to wreak on all of us?

The alliance between the United States and Israel is based on common values: democracy, liberty, human rights, the rule of law and entrepreneurship. These values are what sustains the alliance, not common interests. Americans like to believe that Israel is a Middle Eastern forward position for their worldview.

However, our common values don’t accord with the removal of Arabs from buses in Judea and Samaria, with the undermining and neutralization of the Supreme Court, or with the constant and perplexing settlement drive.

An Israel that occupies, settles and discriminates is not an Israel that the United States can continue to back indefinitely. An Israel that insists on behaving like an bull in a china shop will sooner or later lose the support of America’s younger generation. This won’t happen next week or next month, not even next year. But it will happen. If the head-trippers in Israel continue on their path, the collapse will inevitably come.

At the base of the alliance between Israel and the Jewish Diaspora stands a mutual responsibility. We guarantee their existence and they guarantee ours. We are the insurance policy for their future and they are the safety net for ours.

However, the Jewish Diaspora is currently in dire straits.  Increasing numbers of their sons and daughters find it difficult to identify with Jewish nationalism, Jewish religion or the Jewish establishment. Following meaningful, moving experiences during their Birthright trips, many feel some attraction towards Israel. They learned that Tel Aviv is exciting, Israelis are cool and Israeli high-tech is amazing. However, when they observe that the government in Jerusalem continues to settle the hilltops and the Knesset in Jerusalem advocates an outdated worldview, they are at a loss.

The head-on collision between their universal values and the tribal values espoused by the political establishment in Israel causes them to run for their lives. Instead of embracing younger Jewish people, we repel them. Instead of winning hearts, we are losing souls. In our deeds and misdeeds we are alienating the younger generation of Jews. With their own hands, the pseudo-Zionists of the right are undermining Zionism. With their own hands, the pseudo-patriots of the settlements are depleting the ranks of the Jewish people. Those stoners in Jerusalem who are jeopardizing our alliance with the United States are at the same time endangering our brothers and sisters and our communities in the Diaspora.

It’s time to stop this out-of-control party. The light drugs have long since been traded in for hard ones. The mild hallucination has become a bad trip. A Jerusalem ruled by the religious settler movement is a Jerusalem operating in a parallel universe that does not exist. The Jerusalem of the zealots is shrouded in aromatic smoke that cuts it off from reality, distances it from the Jewish people and is liable to lead it into a terrible conflagration. The time has come to shake it out of its fantasy, rehabilitate it and return this country to its senses.

The Messianic Brothers are Doing Israel In

The Messianic Brothers are Doing Israel In

The power freaks running the government are perpetuating poverty and the occupation while alienating Israel's greatest friends.

By Shaul Arieli | Oct. 7, 2014 | Haaretz

“Time is on our side” is the hollow mantra of Naftali Bennett and Uri Ariel of Habayit Hayehudi, along with their brothers in Likud, Yisrael Beiteinu and Yesh Atid. The leftists are tired Zionists, they claim, while appropriating the Zionist project for their messianic ideology. We’ll get the world used to our caprices, they tell anyone who wonders where they’re heading.

But the Jewish year 5775 is beginning and refusing to get used to anything. Some 1.5 million Israelis ushered in the new year at meals funded by donations from good people. The number of Israelis in the cycle of poverty grows each year; most of the poor work.

The gaps are increasing, but the messianic brothers have a solution: Join us in the welfare state in the West Bank. “We doubled the budgets for Judea and Samaria,” boasts the previous finance minister, the embodiment of the vision of socialist Zionism.

The frequent rounds of violence take their toll in blood and damage to the economy. They’re responsible for budget cuts in both primary and higher education, and undermine the welfare and health services. This mainly affects poorer people, of course. While the Jewish brothers are once again proposing that we occupy Gaza, the education minister is explaining that “there was a war” and it wouldn’t be right “to curtail the vision of Greater Israel.”

Nor is the international community getting used to anything. Israel’s standing continues to suffer, especially among those closest to us, the United States and Western Europe. The disgust at our continued domination of another nation is eroding cultural, economic and scientific ties with the rest of the world.

The United States is undergoing demographic changes, as well as a change in priorities. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the Americanologist doesn’t realize how U.S. support is slipping through his fingers. Others, drunk on imaginary power, promise us that the world won’t move without that Israeli app Waze. Particles won’t accelerate without Jewish genius.

The Jewish brothers who continue to put “Jewish” before “democratic” refuse to notice North American Jews’ reservations about Israel. They eschew the two-state idea, repudiate liberalism, sanctify power and practice discrimination.

Even “united” Jerusalem is not cooperating with the security hawks. In our eternal capital the nationalist and religious tensions are deepening, and violence is increasing. The city’s poverty on both sides of the Green Line puts most of its children, both Jewish and Arab, below the poverty line. Most of its residents are anti-Zionists.

Meanwhile, many young Israelis have stopped believing that time is on the side of messianic Zionism. The cost of living, reserve duty and mainly the absence of faith in government policy are pushing them to a future on the other side of the ocean. No, they aren’t tired. The residents of the western Negev near Gaza, a stronghold of genuine Zionism, aren’t spoiled, as some people accuse them of being.

They simply understand that an honest attempt at achieving peace doesn’t mean rejecting the two-state idea, ostracizing Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, torpedoing any attempt to include Hamas in the diplomatic process and continuing unbridled construction in the West Bank. They understand the real price, both economic and moral, in the refusal to separate ourselves from the Palestinians.

Time remains indifferent and does not sanctify the artificial status quo. Waiting around the corner isn’t a binational state, but one state – whose characteristics are far from any divine or other promise. It’s a state that even a messiah wouldn’t be able to cleanse.

Why are Reform Jews issuing Yom Kippur messages in Arabic this year?

Why are Reform Jews issuing Yom Kippur messages in Arabic this year?

A closer look at their High Holy Day messages reveals how the various streams of Judaism in Israel are trying to brand themselves, and whom they see as target audiences.

By Judy Maltz | Oct. 1, 2014 | 

Although still relatively small, the non-Orthodox – as well as more progressive Orthodox – Jewish movements have been gaining a foothold in Israel in recent years. In large part, the trend reflects a backlash against the stranglehold of the Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox establishments on many aspects of civil life in Israel.

A survey of online campaigns with a High Holy Day theme – the first of their kind – provides some insight into how the various Jewish movements are trying to brand themselves these days and whom they see as their target audiences.

Take, for example, the Reform movement, also known as the Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism. This most non-Orthodox of all the non-Orthodox movements has decided to take its usual message of egalitarianism and tolerance in a new direction this year, beyond the Jewish sphere: “Israelis helping Israelis celebrate the holidays with dignity” is the title of its holiday campaign, which urges Israeli Jews to embrace Israeli Muslims, and to take advantage of the rare coincidence of the fast of Yom Kippur falling this year on the very same day as the Islamic festival of Id al-Adha (the Feast of the Sacrifice).

Led by the Reform movement’s Keren BeKavod (fund for dignity), the campaign calls on Israeli Jews to donate food to other Jews and to Muslims who don’t have anything to put on their tables during this holiday season.

On its website, where it promotes the campaign on a video in both Hebrew and Arabic, the Reform movement explains that the purpose is to “underscore our commitment to promoting coexistence and religious tolerance in Israeli society.” It urges Israelis with means to donate either a package of food or coupons for clothing to “disadvantaged Israeli families in all communities and sectors in Israeli society to help nurture a Jewish-Israeli voice that is responsible, moderate and seeks peace and interfaith understanding."

Yuli Goren, the spokeswoman of the Reform movement, explains that the decision to expand on the usual messages this year stemmed from a feeling that “we just couldn’t ignore the rising tide of racism in the country in recent months.” The High Holy Days, she says, “provided an opportunity to use the Jewish calendar to fight against racism, and we are the only Jewish movement in Israel doing something like this.”

Friendly Orthodoxy

Tzohar, an organization of progressive-minded Orthodox rabbis, doesn’t exactly qualify as a religious movement per se. Still, it’s gained prominence in recent years as a group that is bent on making Orthodoxy friendlier to secular Israelis, particularly by means of a large cadre of volunteer rabbis who officiate at wedding ceremonies around the country.

Tzohar may identify as an Orthodox organization, but a visitor to its (Hebrew) website could easily be led to understand otherwise. “We pray together on Yom Kippur” is the title of its High Holy Days campaign, which invites “men and women, parents and children, youngsters and adults, secular and religious, to a hospitable, experiential, Israeli, joint Yom Kippur prayer that includes explanation, song, discussion and shofar-blowing at the conclusion of the holiday.”

Aside from a photo of a man blowing a shofar, the page also includes a picture of what appears to be a happy family – a mother and father (incidentally, neither have their heads covered, as is typical among the Orthodox) and a daughter and son.

Netanyahu's deceptive discourse forces Israelis to ask: What do we want?

Netanyahu's deceptive discourse forces Israelis to ask: What do we want?

The choice of a messianic, racist, Jewish society is not yet accepted by most Israelis - so Netanyahu has made the tactical decision to conceal present his actions as a prolonged reprisal action, By Sefi Rachlevsky | Haaretz Sep. 30, 2014 |

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s response to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ address at the United Nations is an important part of his movement toward an upheaval in Israel. It’s a continuation of the identity putsch in his “Jewish state” campaign.”

At its core, Zionism was an attempt to wrest Jewish identity from the hands of hostile non-Jews and take possession of it. Netanyahu’s move does just the opposite. His use of fear tactics is not “solely,” or even mainly, aimed at returning the Jews to the ghetto defined by non-Jewish racism. Through his all-consuming focus on “exposing” the intentions of others, Netanyahu is dismantling independent Israeli identity and Israeli choice. The question of “What do we want?” was disposed of, almost the same way that Yitzhak Rabin, one of the symbols of the world of this question, was disposed of, together with the decision to adopt his order of priorities.

Click here for a transcript and video of the full speech.

There is a symbolic aspect to Netanyahu’s focus on the UN and the fact that he does so in English. Gone is the talk of universal Jewish ideas about the family of nations, the Hebrew Ben-Gurionism of “oom shmoom” to dismiss the UN or “It doesn’t matter what the goyim say, but what the Jews do.” Instead, we have the exact opposite: an identity that is dictated by others and presented as an endless reprisal action to the primary move of exposing gentile racism.

Behind all of this is a great deceit. There is no greater success for Netanyahu than the repeated asking of the question, “What does he want?” and answering that all he wants is to remain in power. The truth is very different. After all, the settlement enterprise, that Kookian enterprise of Rabbi Dov Lior and Naftali Bennett, is entirely an Israeli choice — and from their perspective, a Jewish choice. It is an arrogant, messianic, racist choice by the “chosen people.” But since this choice of a messianic, racist, Jewish society, a society of extreme inequality, a society without borders, a society of settlements, is not yet accepted by most Israelis, Netanyahu has made the tactical decision to conceal this fact for now and to instead present his actions as a prolonged reprisal action, the response of the eternal Jewish victim to ongoing anti-Jewish hostility.

It is clear that all of Netanyahu’s activity is deliberate and planned, from the complete support of the settlement enterprise, through the Judaization of Israel, his more than nodding support for incitement against Arabs and the left, the crushing of the free media and the imposition of extreme capitalism that leads to record inequality. But because it is so extreme, he feels the need to disguise it and present it as ongoing retaliation. If as a result the basis for Hebrew identity — the independent, confident identity that was a central tenet to the creation of Labor Zionism — is undermined, all the better.

From this, we get to one of the changes that Israel’s non-right must make in order to keep the deceptive discourse of the right from dominating. Instead of pinning its hopes on “peace,” thereby helping Netanyahu to frame the anti-Zionist debate of “Who are the goyim?,” “What do they want to do to us?” and “Can we trust them?,” with all its racist responses, the non-right would do well as to ask the fundamental Zionist question: What do we want?

This, in many respects, is how the Bible was made: through choice. And it is definitely the way modern Jewish identity developed — by pouncing on the promises of the French Revolution in order to rescue itself from an identity held by others into an identity constructed from free choice.

The non-right has the power to return to the path that created Israel’s independence and its Declaration of Independence; the path that asks, What does Israel want? What does Israel need? The substantive answers are a free and egalitarian society, not one that is racist-religious; a society that is sure of itself. A society with borders. A society that doesn’t create a new, inverted Pale of Settlement beyond its borders, in which the Jews are citizens and their neighbors are not. A society that isn’t obsessed with exposing non-Jewish evil, but with developing Israeli power, freedom, spirit, self-confidence and justice.

Back to liberal Zionism

Israel's silent majority needs to rise up against the extremists from both right and left and free itself of their stranglehold.

By Ari Shavit | Sep. 11, 2014

You want the truth? We’ve had it. We’ve had it with the delusional nationalists who are leading Israel to destruction, and we’ve had it with the visionary leftists who are stoning Israel. We’ve had it with the skullcap-wearing post-Zionists who are burying Zionism in the hills, and we’ve had it with the bespectacled post-Zionists who are depicting Zionism as a series of crimes. We’ve had it with the messianic believers in the entire Land of Israel, who don’t understand that without dividing the land, there will be no state, and we’ve had it with the messianic believers in a perfect peace, who don’t understand Hamas and the Islamic State and don’t know where they are living.

We’ve had it with the racist right, which destroys the image of the democratic Jewish state, and we’ve had it with the lamentations of the foolish left, which has lost any feeling of blue-and-white pride. We’ve had it with those who live in an immoral world of being only for ourselves, and we’ve had it with those who live in a warped world of being only against ourselves. They’re all so childish, the extremists of both right and left; they’re so pathetic. They resemble each other and deserve each other, and together, they are bringing disaster upon us.

You want the truth? We’ve been broken. We’ve been broken by the crude discourse of power and pillars of smoke, and also by the empty discourse of the Arab peace initiative, the Mahmoud Abbas hope and peace in our time. We’ve been broken by the moldy slogans of “if we just stand firm,” and also by the hollow promises of “if we just extend our hand.” We’ve been broken by the stubborn refusal to understand that the occupation is killing us, diplomatically, morally and demographically, and also by the refusal to recognize that Palestine isn’t California and Hamas leader Khaled Meshal isn’t Martin Luther King. We’ve been broken by those who see bloodthirsty Arabs and anti-Semitic heirs of the Nazis everywhere, and also by those who refuse to admit that Arab fascism and Palestinian fundamentalism and anti-Semitic European Israel-haters exist.

We’ve been broken by those who think we are the only victims, and also by those who are convinced the Palestinians are nothing but victims. We’ve been broken by those who haven’t yet learned that if you grab too much, you’ll end up with nothing, and also by those who have forgotten that in the Middle East, anyone who doesn’t have power or who doesn’t exercise power won’t survive. They are so disconnected from reality, the extremists of both right and left. They resemble each other and deserve each other and, together, they are bringing disaster upon us.

You want the truth? It has to be stopped. The nationalist right has been acting for years in an anti-national fashion, weakening the Jewish nation-state and endangering the Zionist enterprise. The universalist left has been acting for years in a non-universal fashion, adopting a particularistic approach that blames Israel (for everything) and forgives the Palestinians (for everything.) The impassioned stupidity of both poles blinds us from seeing the fate of our generation, half of which was described by Moshe Dayan at Nahal Oz almost 60 years ago: to be prepared and armed and strong and hard, but also to be wise and moderate and just. The stupid spat between the blind zealots is preventing us from seeing a complicated but clear reality: There is no Zionist future in this place that isn’t liberal, and there is no liberal future in this place that isn’t Zionist.

The delusional right currently has the support of less than 30 percent of Israelis, and the delusional left has the support of less than three percent. The former control the political system and the latter control significant portions of the media, academia and reports submitted to The Hague, but neither of them understand Israeliness or reflect Israeliness. They haven’t internalized the miracle of our existence, the uniqueness of our existence or the challenge of our existence.

The time has come for the silent 70 percent of Israelis in the center to rise up against the extremists from both right and left and free themselves of their stranglehold. The time has come for a broad-based, angry Israeli rebellion that will return Israel to reality, morality and sanity. We mustn’t give up this one country of ours without a fight. Our duty now is to repossess it, redefine it and put it back on track.

For Israel engagement on campus: Coaches, not cheerleaders - YEHUDA KURTZER September 11, 2014

For Israel engagement on campus: Coaches, not cheerleaders - YEHUDA KURTZER September 11, 2014

School is back in session, and amidst all the excitement of new beginnings there is a mounting, murmuring anxiety for what awaits Jewish students on college campus this year in the wake of the summer’s war.

Some of this concern is well founded. Two isolated incidents – one in Athens at Ohio University, the second at Temple University – demonstrated the perversity and repugnancy of anti-Israel vitriol, whether in the form of a publicity stunt gone awry or resorting to violence to silence a provocative debate. A perfect storm seems to be assembling against the forces of pro-Israel.

On one side, the situation on campus combines an academic culture that leans far left on issues relating to Israel-Palestine, the high visibility over the summer of what was perceived by some as a disproportionate war, and Israel’s growing isolation in parts of the West. At the same time, the Jewish student body that cares about these issues seeks to maintain a combination of a deep relationship with Israel, to be Jewishly visible, and to be fully integrated as Jews in the life of the campus. Mapping this new reality against this aspiration creates dissonance and discomfort, and many of my own conversations with leaders in Jewish campus life have borne out these concerns about what may unfold this fall.

Nevertheless, there is a strategic error already starting to emerge in the Jewish community’s predictable response to these concerns, which places the entirety of emphasis on the facts and fictions of the war, and proffers only a militaristic and defensive response in what is ultimately a conflict of ideas. We can already see it coming, in talking points and flashy brochures (“Five Facts College Students Need to Know About the War in Gaza,” and the like) that seek to educate retrospectively about a conflict whose optics (we are Goliath, they are David) are not on Israel’s side. This instinct is born of defensive thinking: it suggests that when it comes to Israel education, our goals are to explain and defend practices that have already happened, or to reframe the historical realities that have befallen us that are outside our control.

This instinct is problematic in three ways. First, it ironically undermines the core goals of Zionism, which meant to engage the Jewish people in the exercise of being agents of change with respect to our own political, social, cultural, and economic realities. Zionism intended to bridge concrete activism toward Jewish national aspirations with the ongoing act of imagination about the ideal forms that those national aspirations should take. Substituting passive (and worse, retroactive) support in exchange for these activities of imagination replaces participation with a thin patriotism, and substitutes deep belonging for hollow particularism. Zionism and taking Israel seriously should demand of us a willingness to confront what Israel does well and what it does not do well, and should empower us to be change-agents in making possible the Israel we imagine.

Second, this defensive approach tends to reduce our morality to Manichaeism. In this worldview, which is sadly emerging as a louder voice in the Jewish community, the discourse is reduced to ‘we are right’ and ‘they are wrong,’ and ‘here are the facts to show to ourselves and others.’ Loyalty to Israel does not demand, nor does it depend on, the total moral clarity and coherence of all of its actions; if anything, true moral clarity requires a meaningful blending of loyalty to self, empathy to others, and the recognition that short of the battles waged on the Kingdom of Heaven, it is borderline idolatrous to consider any human conflict to be one between the forces of pure light and pure darkness. Conditioning ourselves to be discerning moral thinkers and actors in an atmosphere of moral complexity while remaining loyal to our people and the State of Israel is not a betrayal of Israel; but insisting on a framework of loyalty that requires us to suppress our ethical instincts to both self and other might just be a betrayal of humanity.

And third, these advocacy efforts based on a curated set of facts also undermine the best professionals and educators that we as a Jewish community have in place to do the critical work of student engagement on campus. Our colleagues working at Hillels around the country are talented, and they are driven to do their work by a passion for the big questions of identity, belonging and meaning. They did not go into Jewish education to win a Kafkaesque “color war” mapped onto complex geopolitical realities; they went into this line of work to shape lives and help inform life decisions. To describe them as deployed as ‘the front line in a battle’, to think of our responsibility as to supply them the weaponry of talking points to be used in a fundamentally unwinnable battle of ideas – this approach and these resources implicitly call into question their ability as professionals to manage nuance, shepherd conversation, steward sophistication, and model a form of leadership that will enable Jewish life to arise above the gutter to which it is being dragged.

I am saddened that we are making cheerleaders out of people who we need to be coaches. Out of a fear of the threats of delegitimization, demonization and double-standards, we are building a system through which we demoralize, destabilize, and diminish the very leaders we need our campus colleagues to be. While I understand the value of Israel advocacy in frameworks that demand advocacy (with elected officials, foreign governments and the like), and while I see the appeal of the advocacy approach to concerned parents in reassuring them that we have facts as ammunition to combat those who oppose us, the notion that college students crave concise clarity when it comes to complex issues – especially those students without strong enough roots to believe that ‘their side’ has a credibility advantage – misreads how young adult development works, and barters the credibility that comes with taking people seriously in exchange for the desire for lockstep loyalty. It makes Hillel a place of retreat for safety rather than a place to grow, and turns educators into gatekeepers.

Israel engagement, in responding to this micro-crisis and in the work more broadly, must instead do something radically different. It must enlarge our educators, our Hillel directors, and our student leaders: it has to give them the confidence to lead difficult conversations and to model thought-leadership on hard issues, such that engaging with Israel – with whatever partisan lens one chooses – is an intellectually, morally, and affectively compelling activity. Instead of name-calling – such as responding to calls for boycotts of Israel by demanding our own boycotts of news outlets or speakers we do not like – we must provide the space for the Jewish leaders to whom we entrust our children to actually lead, and the trust for them to do so in ways that will be developmentally appropriate and intellectually compelling for the campus environment in which they operate and live.

The sad truth is that there is little reason to believe that this is the last war Israel will face, and little hope that – whatever the majority of the Israeli populace felt about this war – Israel’s policy vis-à-vis the Palestinians will become instantly morally unambiguous. In these conditions, let’s invest in our educators and leaders to make them capable of leading with integrity and authenticity, rather than undermining them with the kinds of pseudo-education that merely represents the façade in front of our own anxieties.

Israel’s land appropriation: Foolish, ill-timed and self-destructive

Nothing unites the world against Israel like settlement building. Even Israel’s staunchest supporters abroad, trying to make Israel’s case to a skeptical public after the Gaza war, are asking: Why undermine us now?

By Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie | Sep. 3, 2014 | 

Perhaps there could be a more foolish, ill-timed, and self-destructive decision than the one made by Israel’s cabinet this week, but it is hard to imagine what it might be.
Israel’s enemies in the Middle East and throughout the world are rejoicing. If you really despise the Jewish state, nothing makes you happier than a move by Israeli leaders to expand settlements. The move, in this case, was a decision by the cabinet to appropriate 1000 acres of West Bank land for settlement building in the Etzion settlement bloc, near Bethlehem. The land has been designated as “state land,” even though ownership is claimed by local Palestinians.
What happened after the decision was, of course, completely predictable. European governments were infuriated, and the hands of those already pushing for a total economic boycott of the West Bank were strengthened. And Israel’s most important ally, the United States of America, rarely inclined toward public criticism of Israel, issued a condemnation of its own.
Nothing unites the world against Israel like settlement building. And while there is never a good time to build settlements in the territories, the timing in this case was astoundingly bad, even for tone-deaf Israeli politicians more concerned with immediate political advantage than with Israel’s standing in the world.
Israel’s staunchest supporters are among those who are wondering how such a decision could possibly be made at this time. With the war in Gaza just concluded, Israel’s friends in the West are now immersed in the task of making Israel’s case to a skeptical public. Israel’s struggle against Hamas was a just war, imposed on Israeli leadership by more than a decade of relentless rocket fire. This barrage of rockets ended any semblance of normal life for more than a million people. To be sure, the death of every Palestinian innocent is a tragedy that rends the heart, but that does not make Israel’s cause any less just or her case for responding to constant attacks any less compelling. Israel, in my view, did not act too quickly or too harshly; if anything, she acted too hesitantly and reluctantly, when a more prompt and targeted response might have been both more effective and more humane.
But, alas, while the responsibility of Hamas for this conflict should be abundantly clear, it has not proven to be so. Europeans, impacted by a struggling economy, an emerging political radicalism, and above all countless media images of dead Palestinian civilians, have allowed ugly anti-Israel sentiments to surface. And even in America, especially among the young, support for Israel has declined.
In short, there is no denying that Israel is vulnerable right now. Even though Hamas connived to promote rather than prevent the death of its own people, ours is a media age, and the pictures of destruction in Gaza are hard to overcome. And so Israel’s supporters set out to patiently build the case for her position. And in response, what does Israel’s cabinet do? It announces new settlements, thereby undercutting all the carefully marshalled arguments for a justice-seeking Israeli government motivated by principles and high ideals.
Israel, I am quick to say, has no responsibility to make my life as an Israel supporter easy. Israel needs to look after her own security and interests. But the problem I have is that building settlements in Gush Etzion does not add to Israel’s security in any conceivable way; it does not protect her citizens from rocket fire or guard them from terrorists. In fact, by undermining her political standing and weakening her regional alliances, it does just the opposite. Why then would the government make such a decision? The only possible reason is to appease the restive settler parties; and while local politics exist everywhere, this is, by any reasonable standard, simply too high a price to pay.
Of course, even absent support from a single significant ally or friend, the Jewish world does not lack for those who rush forward with excuses for settlement building. The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs argued in its statement that it “became clear” in recent negotiations that Israel would keep Gush Etzion and the other settlement blocs, a point confirmed by the 2004 letter from President Bush to Prime Minister Sharon and statements made in 2011 by President Obama. But while Israel can make a case for keeping the settlement blocs, she cannot do so if she refuses, as she has done, to define with precision what the settlement blocs are. To lay claim to settlement blocs without delineating their borders permits the government to settle practically anywhere. And to suggest that Presidents Bush and Obama saw their statements as offering approval for settlement expansion is truly absurd, as every American statement over the last decade indicates.
We in the Jewish community need to stop denying reality. Settlement building is a disaster. To be sure, Zionist principles and democratic values dictate an end to settlement expansion. But all that aside, practical reasons are enough. At a time when the war with Hamas is unfinished, Iran pursues nuclear weapons, and Syria and Iraq are engaged in a bloody civil war, Israel has enough challenges to meet without the endless complications that flow from building more settlements. A little common sense, please. Israel’s government needs to reverse its decision of last week and stop expanding settlements once and for all.
Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie served as president of the Union for Reform Judaism from 1996 to 2012. He is now a writer and lecturer living in Westfield, New Jersey. 

President Rivlin (the new Israeli President) working on anti-racism program Tells Reform leaders: 'This is a terrible evil and a disgrace to Israeli life.'

President Rivlin (the new Israeli President) working on anti-racism program

Tells Reform leaders: 'This is a terrible evil and a disgrace to Israeli life.'

By Or Kashti   | Aug. 27, 2014 | Haaretz

President Reuven Rivlin has been working in recent weeks on a multidisciplinary program to combat incitement and violence, as he replied in a letter to the head of the Reform Movement who had congratulated him when he took office. Several discussions about the program, which is in the preliminary stages, have already taken place in various government ministries, including the Education Ministry.

“Since I was chosen for my position, I have devoted most of my time to a cross-border, cross-sector Israeli campaign in the homes of all the soldiers who fell in Operation Protective Edge. I have met amazing families and wonderful young people who display great energy, good will, dedication and Zionism,” Rivlin wrote about two weeks ago to Reform Movement leaders in Israel. “Still, I have not refrained from expressing my fears of the rising voices of hatred, hotheadedness and racism in Israeli society, particularly between Arab and Jewish citizens of Israel.”

Rivlin added, “These voices find expression at sports matches, on social networks and in the media. This is a terrible evil and a disgrace to Israeli life, which must find ways to isolate and uproot it.”

Rivlin has spoken out several times in recent weeks against displays of hatred and racism. In his first Knesset speech after being sworn in as president, he said: “At this difficult time, too, we must not close our eyes to the extremism and violence that have raised their ugly heads among us.”

On July 30, he expressed support for the “situation room of sanity” established by Gili Roman, a teacher at Hakfar Hayarok High School, in which pupils respond “to violence and bullying with a voice of moderation and tolerance.”

On August 6, Rivlin condemned the racial slurs that had been shouted at Maharan Radi, a player on the Maccabi Tel Aviv soccer team, and on August 17 he wrote, “The displays of incitement against [married couple] Mahmoud [Mansour] and Morel [Malka] of Jaffa are infuriating and distressing. ... There are tough and harsh disagreements among us, but incitement, violence and racism have no place in Israeli society.”

In his letter to the heads of the Reform Movement, Rivlin wrote, “Even before I was elected, and with greater intensity since I was elected, I have been working together with my advisory team on preparing and presenting a multidisciplinary program to combat incitement and violence. I hope that this program will solidify the efforts to combat violence in society as a whole, and contribute to a positive and supportive atmosphere that will take the form of a long-term change in the public climate in the State of Israel.” Sources in the president’s official residence said that Rivlin’s work on the issue was “in the first stages of preparation.”

The executive director of the Reform Movement in Israel, Rabbi Gilad Kariv, sent a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Yair Lapid urging the establishment of an interministerial committee for the fight against racism, as stipulated in the coalition agreement between Yesh Atid and Likud-Yisrael Beiteinu. No such committee has been established yet.

Is this the generation that rejects circumcision?

Is this the generation that rejects circumcision?

There is no Jewish death penalty. There are no rabbinic executioners, or people who amputate limbs for violations of Jewish law. Ritual circumcision is the only act of physical harm that remains.

By Avraham Burg | Aug. 29, 2014 | Haaretz

A debate has come into being quietly here about the place of Brit Milah (the ritual circumcision of Jewish baby boys on the eighth day after birth). The debate is not taking place abroad, not in “anti-Semitic” Germany, but here in the State of Israel. When one mother refused to have her son circumcised, the rabbinical court tried to force her to do so, and theHigh Court of Justice countered the rabbis in the name of liberty.

This topic, which vanished when the fighting in Gaza broke out, could have toppled governments at other times. I think the issue runs much deeper than a legal battle.

On the day that my fourth grandson was circumcised, I wondered whether the institution of circumcision would be the next one to fall. Observance of the Sabbath, kashrut (Jewish dietary laws), mikveh (family purity laws), and the religious prohibitions against same-sex relations have not been obligatory social conventions for quite some time. They became the preserve, and means of preservation, of a diminishing minority. Will the same processes cause circumcision to follow suit?

Something about the institution of ritual circumcision is no longer all that convincing for young parents of this generation. In my family, all the males were always circumcised, without exception. My parents never thought about it. My own heart was pained at my sons’ circumcision, though it was no more than a young father’s heartache over the pain of his newborn baby. The discourse is different among my children. “Maybe we won’t do it. What for, anyway?” they have asked themselves four times already. The first time we talked about it, I realized that many of their friends had the same questions. Although they did it in the end, their questions are still real and require thought.

I approached the topic with a great deal of curiosity, and conducted a kind of man-in-the-street poll for several weeks. I asked my questions with care and got detailed responses. The many answers I received all pointed in a single direction: that the institution of circumcision is coming to an end. Or, to be more precise, the institution of circumcision has no real hold among the segment of the Israeli population that is not conservative and religiously observant.

On what basis do I make these statements? Let us begin with the explanations that people give themselves and that were given to me. “It’s healthy.” “It’s hygienic.” “It’s aesthetic.” “Half of American Christian men are circumcised.” “So the kid won’t stand out.” “So he won’t be embarrassed in the shower, at the pool, on the annual school trip, in the army.”

My innocent question, “Is any one of these answers sufficient reason to maim a child?” was met with silence. I asked, “Would you take out a child’s appendix soon after birth? Or implant a pacemaker in his body in order to play it safe?” The answer, with an embarrassed smile, was, “Oh, I never thought about it that way.” Nobody, but nobody, cited religious obligation as justification for the act.

But the only reason to harm a defenseless child in that way is the religious reason: the covenant between God and the Jewish people. Besides all the difficult restrictions I mentioned above (the Sabbath, dietary laws and the Jewish family that does not contain only Jews or only heterogeneous relationships) that are violated in public, we would do well to take note of the common thread that underlies many of these nullified commandments, whose examples include an eye for an eye, the Jewish death penalty, the sorcerous ordeal whose purpose was the public humiliation of a woman suspected of adultery. They are all concerned with the physical aspect of the religious conventions.

Generations of Jews have lived since those ancient commandments were almost completely abolished. Here are the facts: there is no Jewish death penalty. We do not put out eyes or cut off hands. There are no rabbinic executioners, or people who amputate limbs for violations of Jewish law. All that are left are the mohalim – those who are specially trained to perform circumcisions.

Ritual circumcision is the only act of physical harm that remains. For how much longer?

The acts of physical harm I enumerated above, and many others, fell into disuse as the social and cultural conditions in which the Jews lived changed. Is our generation the one that is ripe for the abolition of ritual circumcision?

A challenging opponent has arisen against the ancient rite of circumcision: the concept of rights. Recent generations have deepened and broadened the discourse of rights – the rights of a human being to his body and dignity.

Rights and liberties are the true strength of Western society. This is a society that fights with all its might against female genital mutilation, which is customary in other parts of the world and still widespread among immigrants who refuse to assimilate and internalize the values of the new world to which they moved.

The fight against female genital mutilation is highly complex; the woman’s right to do as she pleases with her own body, her right to enjoy sexual relations at least as much as her male partner does, the freeing of the woman from any form of ownership by men (such as her father, brother, husband or pimp).

The way the fight against female genital mutilation radiates to the struggle against male circumcision is well known and extremely significant. After all, what exactly is the difference between them?

The difference is that male circumcision has positive branding compared with female genital mutilation, even though the issues are no different. On the one hand is the parents’ right to raise their children according to their faith. On the other is children’s inborn rights over their own bodies. On the strength of that right, violence against children was prohibited, and corporal punishment at home and in school utterly condemned.

It is likely that many people will continue circumcising their sons for religious or behavioral reasons, and many will look for other ways to express their membership in the Jewish collective without compromising on universal principles, which include the child’s right to an intact body.

Let us conclude with a paradox. An important part of the religious argument against abortion is the fetus’ right to life. According to this argument, the fetus is a living creature in every way. And, they claim, every child – inside or outside the womb – has the right to be born and to live.

So if the fetus, which is connected to the placenta, already has rights within the womb and may not be harmed for religious reasons, how is it possible to harm him, for religious reasons, from the moment he is born?