I've decided to discontinue this blog for the moment, and not just because I have no time, and want to spend as little as possible of my time on the internet - though both of those things are true.
I've decided to discontinue this blog, because I made aliyah - and that means that I have committed myself, one hundred percent, to Israel. This does not mean that her flaws have gone away, or that I no longer see them, but it does mean that I am not willing to sit here, going over her flaws with a microscope, and broadcasting them to the world. To me, commitment implies intimacy, and - the Hebrew phrase is "a good eye"* - I will define it as: a conscious effort to see everything, even the flaws, in a positive light.
This does not mean ignoring the problems of Israeli society - if anything, part of the reason I made aliyah was to help solve those problems - but solving those problems does not, for me, at this current time, necessitate blogging about them. If anything, I think one of the most positive ways we can impact a society, is by moving there, and being the best people we can be, and raising our kids to have the values we would like to impart onto society. (A friend of mine wrote a great blog-post about macro vs micro changes in society, that I wanted to link to, but I can't find it!)
Anyhow, this is not to say that I've stopped being critical or cynical - for goodness sakes, I sometimes read advice columns just so I can secretly laugh at the people writing in, and I recently attended a comedy show about the Holocaust. (It was Jews doing the joking, so it was ok.) But I don't want to live a life that focuses on criticism, or on cynicism - because I believe that one of the best ways we can serve God, one of the best ways we can help society, is by being happy, for it is from joy that kindness flows. **
So I want to wish us all, more joy than any of us could ever imagine, and let us use this joy, to serve God and to help each other.
Thank you for reading, and I am always happy to be cynical in person, over a cup of coffee :)
* Ethics of the Fathers, Chapter 2, Mishnah 12. Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakay asks his students which is the good way for a person to follow. The responses are: Rabbi Eliezer - a good eye. Rabbi Joshua - a good friend. Rabbi Yosse - a good neighbor. Rabbi Shimon - one who weighs the outcomes of his actions. Rabbi Elazar - a good heart. Rabbi Yochanan rules that "a good heart" is the right answer, because it includes all of the answers given by the other students. For the text in Hebrew: http://www.mechon-mamre.org/b/h/h49.htm
** עבדו את ה בשמחה באו לפניו ברננה (תהילים ק: ב)
תהילים ב: יא - עבדו את ה בשמחה, גילו ברעדה
איך משלבים בין שני הפסוקים?
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Israel
There was an op-ed in today's NY Times, maintaining that Israeli leaders have a 1.5 percent doctrine, wherein they consciously desire to maintain control of the West Bank, and deny the Palestinians a state. I think this thesis is completely false, however, I do think that Israeli leaders have too long maintained the status quo, figuring that "if it ain't broke, don't fix it", not realizing just how "broke" it is. Of course, there are legitimate security concerns: Terrorist attacks have gone down, and the PA works with Israeli security forces to maintain that reality. At the same time, much of the PA-controlled media fuels anti-Israel or even anti-Semitic material, and because there still is an occasional attack - such as the brutal murder of a settler family last year - Israelis still live in fear of attack. Fear is inherently irrational, and many Israelis fear that compromise with the PA means compromising their own safety.
Israeli politicians take advantage of that fear: They use it to get elected, and once in office, use it to be lazy. Let's get one thing straight: Israel's main enemy is not Iran. Israel's main enemy is Israel. The social problems of the society, in which different segments are pitted against each other, along with corrupt politicians and an inept beaurocracy, are the true threats to Israel. But Iran makes a convenient scapegoat, allowing Netanyahu not to deal with any of Israel's real problems, like rising inequality, culture wars between Haredi and secular society, and growing racism against Arabs - of course, since Arabs, despite their legal equality, are in effect considered second-class citizens, it is doubtful Netanyahu would care about that anyway. That is not to say Iran is not dangerous - any totalitarian regime that preaches genocidal rhetoric should be prevented from getting a nuclear weapon, and Israel is right to worry. But Netanyahu takes advantage of this legitimate worry, to turn it into irrational fear, so he can avoid having to talk about other issues.
Let's take, for example, the recent lynching of an Arab youth in downtown Jerusalem: While the majority of Israelis, both politicians and civilians, were horrified and condemned the attack, the incident is indicative of a rising tide of racism within Israel. This is becoming a society increasingly obsessed with the fear of being contaminated by the Other. But that is not surprising: In Israel, different segments of society live in complete isolation from each other, and discrimination is considered normal. Even the rabbinic right's obsession with "proper" conversion is in part, motivated by fear of contamination and miscegenation. While most Israelis condemned the attack, had low-level social racism not been tolerated as an inevitable part of society, the high-level, violent racism would have had a harder time taking root. This tolerance of intolerance comes from a perception that racism is not "our" problem, it is the problem of the Other, who is being discriminated against. In reality, however this is "our problem" because a society characterized by racism and intolerance is an unhealthy society, where different factions cannot work together for the good of society. It is a society too torn apart by bickering to progress, and a society characterized by the opposite of human kindness, which is an essential ingredient of a healthy society. After all, how can there be social justice without it?
What does this have to do with the Occupation? Well, the Occupation leads to racism against Palestinians, which is the key racism from which all others flow. You see, the Occupation puts many Israelis in positions where they are seeing the Palestinians as the enemy, the military target, and the inferior, since these Israelis are in a position of power when they serve in the West Bank. Furthermore, the Occupation begets its own logic: Humans cannot live with cognitive dissonance, thus, racist actions necessitate racist ideologies, and not vice versa. That is why racism against Africans and African-Americans did not really take off until the Atlantic Slave Trade and the Colonial Era. The roots were there beforehand, but they did not blossom into a full-blown racist ideology until afterwards, when such an ideology was needed to justify acts in progress. Once there is racism against Palestinians, all other groups that are not mainstream Ashkenazi Jews can then be classified by their proximity to Palestinians: First Israeli Arabs, then Sudanese (non-Jews), then Sephardim from Middle Eastern Countries. Each degree of difference from Palestinians, is a degree less of racism that the offending group will have to experience.
The NY Times op-ed maintained that making Palestinians full Israeli citizens, while officially annexing the West Bank, is an option for peace. I agree with that in principle, but have two objections: 1. Is that what the Palestinians want? I suspect it would leave their desire for statehood unsatisfied. 2. Terrorism takes a while to die out. Is it a security risk to suddenly have no borders between Palestinians and Israelis? After all, imposing said borders or security checks would make the Palestinians second-class citizens, but not doing so would fail to take into account residual anger from Palestinian radicals that would not be appeased by making them Israeli citizens.
If these two objections can be satisfactorily answered, I could support such a measure. Meanwhile however, I think Israel should ask itself why it has become the society that it is today. Personally, I believe it comes down to the very definition of a Jewish State: Right now, in Israel, there is rudimentary Biblical education, official Jewish holidays, and official government sponsorship of a corrupt rabbinate that controls marriage and divorce proceeding for all Israelis, while controlling the lives of religious Israelis in such a way that you sometimes wonder if they don't wake up in the morning asking "How can I make people so disgusted with Judaism that they'll want to become not-religious today?". That is not my definition of a Jewish State, or of Zionism.
What is my definition?: An Israeli state that is not afraid to seriously engage in its own Jewish identity, by having an in-depth yet non-coercive Jewish education curriculum which all schools - secular and public - must follow. This curriculum should include some units on Islam and Christianity as well, taking into account those minorities and focusing on similarities between the three religions, as well as the way that knowledge of the Jewish tradition can helps us to be ethical, involved people in the modern world. Such a society does not have to obsess over the Other, because it is building a society built on shared common values, not on "who is less like you than I am". It is building a positive identity, defined by what we share, not a negative one, defined by what we do not share with others. Furthermore, perhaps such an Israel would not feel the need to patronize a radical rabbinate as a way of proving its Jewishness to itself, a way of passing the basic requirement of being a Jewish State, so that it can justify its own existence. Such an Israel would be too confident in its identity as a Jewish State to sell that identity to a bunch of rabbis. Maybe it would even be confident enough that it could start discussing Isaiah's musings on social justice, in the context of a debate on how to build a better society. Maybe it could discuss how there is space within the Jewish tradition to debate the demerits of extreme inequality, without destroying the capitalist system. This would certainly be a state I would be proud to be part of, because it would be a state in the process of growing, of finding itself - and what could be more Jewish than that? Isn't that what Abraham did from the moment God told him to leave his father's house? Isn't that why we have the concept of yearly repentance, because every year is a step towards becoming our better selves? If nothing else, this State would be a State where an Arab and a Jew could sit down on a bentch and kvetch together about the upcoming test on the life of Mohammed, and story of Genesis - because nothing cements social bonds like complaining about a class while munching on chocolate.
Israeli politicians take advantage of that fear: They use it to get elected, and once in office, use it to be lazy. Let's get one thing straight: Israel's main enemy is not Iran. Israel's main enemy is Israel. The social problems of the society, in which different segments are pitted against each other, along with corrupt politicians and an inept beaurocracy, are the true threats to Israel. But Iran makes a convenient scapegoat, allowing Netanyahu not to deal with any of Israel's real problems, like rising inequality, culture wars between Haredi and secular society, and growing racism against Arabs - of course, since Arabs, despite their legal equality, are in effect considered second-class citizens, it is doubtful Netanyahu would care about that anyway. That is not to say Iran is not dangerous - any totalitarian regime that preaches genocidal rhetoric should be prevented from getting a nuclear weapon, and Israel is right to worry. But Netanyahu takes advantage of this legitimate worry, to turn it into irrational fear, so he can avoid having to talk about other issues.
Let's take, for example, the recent lynching of an Arab youth in downtown Jerusalem: While the majority of Israelis, both politicians and civilians, were horrified and condemned the attack, the incident is indicative of a rising tide of racism within Israel. This is becoming a society increasingly obsessed with the fear of being contaminated by the Other. But that is not surprising: In Israel, different segments of society live in complete isolation from each other, and discrimination is considered normal. Even the rabbinic right's obsession with "proper" conversion is in part, motivated by fear of contamination and miscegenation. While most Israelis condemned the attack, had low-level social racism not been tolerated as an inevitable part of society, the high-level, violent racism would have had a harder time taking root. This tolerance of intolerance comes from a perception that racism is not "our" problem, it is the problem of the Other, who is being discriminated against. In reality, however this is "our problem" because a society characterized by racism and intolerance is an unhealthy society, where different factions cannot work together for the good of society. It is a society too torn apart by bickering to progress, and a society characterized by the opposite of human kindness, which is an essential ingredient of a healthy society. After all, how can there be social justice without it?
What does this have to do with the Occupation? Well, the Occupation leads to racism against Palestinians, which is the key racism from which all others flow. You see, the Occupation puts many Israelis in positions where they are seeing the Palestinians as the enemy, the military target, and the inferior, since these Israelis are in a position of power when they serve in the West Bank. Furthermore, the Occupation begets its own logic: Humans cannot live with cognitive dissonance, thus, racist actions necessitate racist ideologies, and not vice versa. That is why racism against Africans and African-Americans did not really take off until the Atlantic Slave Trade and the Colonial Era. The roots were there beforehand, but they did not blossom into a full-blown racist ideology until afterwards, when such an ideology was needed to justify acts in progress. Once there is racism against Palestinians, all other groups that are not mainstream Ashkenazi Jews can then be classified by their proximity to Palestinians: First Israeli Arabs, then Sudanese (non-Jews), then Sephardim from Middle Eastern Countries. Each degree of difference from Palestinians, is a degree less of racism that the offending group will have to experience.
The NY Times op-ed maintained that making Palestinians full Israeli citizens, while officially annexing the West Bank, is an option for peace. I agree with that in principle, but have two objections: 1. Is that what the Palestinians want? I suspect it would leave their desire for statehood unsatisfied. 2. Terrorism takes a while to die out. Is it a security risk to suddenly have no borders between Palestinians and Israelis? After all, imposing said borders or security checks would make the Palestinians second-class citizens, but not doing so would fail to take into account residual anger from Palestinian radicals that would not be appeased by making them Israeli citizens.
If these two objections can be satisfactorily answered, I could support such a measure. Meanwhile however, I think Israel should ask itself why it has become the society that it is today. Personally, I believe it comes down to the very definition of a Jewish State: Right now, in Israel, there is rudimentary Biblical education, official Jewish holidays, and official government sponsorship of a corrupt rabbinate that controls marriage and divorce proceeding for all Israelis, while controlling the lives of religious Israelis in such a way that you sometimes wonder if they don't wake up in the morning asking "How can I make people so disgusted with Judaism that they'll want to become not-religious today?". That is not my definition of a Jewish State, or of Zionism.
What is my definition?: An Israeli state that is not afraid to seriously engage in its own Jewish identity, by having an in-depth yet non-coercive Jewish education curriculum which all schools - secular and public - must follow. This curriculum should include some units on Islam and Christianity as well, taking into account those minorities and focusing on similarities between the three religions, as well as the way that knowledge of the Jewish tradition can helps us to be ethical, involved people in the modern world. Such a society does not have to obsess over the Other, because it is building a society built on shared common values, not on "who is less like you than I am". It is building a positive identity, defined by what we share, not a negative one, defined by what we do not share with others. Furthermore, perhaps such an Israel would not feel the need to patronize a radical rabbinate as a way of proving its Jewishness to itself, a way of passing the basic requirement of being a Jewish State, so that it can justify its own existence. Such an Israel would be too confident in its identity as a Jewish State to sell that identity to a bunch of rabbis. Maybe it would even be confident enough that it could start discussing Isaiah's musings on social justice, in the context of a debate on how to build a better society. Maybe it could discuss how there is space within the Jewish tradition to debate the demerits of extreme inequality, without destroying the capitalist system. This would certainly be a state I would be proud to be part of, because it would be a state in the process of growing, of finding itself - and what could be more Jewish than that? Isn't that what Abraham did from the moment God told him to leave his father's house? Isn't that why we have the concept of yearly repentance, because every year is a step towards becoming our better selves? If nothing else, this State would be a State where an Arab and a Jew could sit down on a bentch and kvetch together about the upcoming test on the life of Mohammed, and story of Genesis - because nothing cements social bonds like complaining about a class while munching on chocolate.
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Critiquing Israel?
Being part of an ethnic and cultural minority can be a very rewarding experience: I feel blessed to be able to balance my Brazilian, Jewish (Israeli?) and American heritages. Nothing is more delicious than a Thanksgiving meal of falafel and pumpkin pie, topped with some guarana and sonho de valsa - and don't even get me started on my love of mixing belly-dancing with samba and the latest hits from Lady Gaga.
But this rich complexity also comes with its own challenges: Recently, I find my desire to publicly criticize Israel competing with a feeling that to do so would transgress some unstated rules of group loyalty. I try to tell myself that I want to criticize Israel for the same reason we often don't tolerate in loved ones what we tolerate in casual acquantances (and hence wind up picking stupid fights with said loved ones.*): In a certain sense, critique is a sign of caring. Then, there is also the fear that maybe your loved one's misdeeds are caused by your own wrong action - parents, for example, often freak out at kids' misdeeds because they fear it reflects negatively on their own parenting abilities. Every time Israel does something "wrong", I consider myself partially responsible. Some might say I am taking the rabbinic statement "All of Israel are responsible for each other" a bit too seriously, but I actually think that phrase contains a larger truth: All micro-members of a society are partially responsible for the society's shape as a macro-unit. If I bear less responsibility for Israel's social woes, that is only because recently I've been less a part of Israeli society, having been abroad since November. At the same time, as someone who has been spending at least two months a year in Israel since I'm eighteen, I can't really say I'm completely divorced from that society, and thus, completely guilt-free. In fact, now that I am living in the US, I also feel responsible for the US's social flaws, however, I feel less guilty about critiquing it, simply because its the most powerful country in the world. My words are not going to harm the US, though they might (hopefully) inspire just a bit of social change.
Israel however, is a severely embattled nation. It faces terrorism threats from within, not to mention hostile neighbors with nuclear ambitions. Then, there is the sheer amount of anti-Semitism disguised as anti-Israelism. That is not to say that anti-Israelism equals anti-Semitism, simply that anti-Semitism often finds anti-Israelism as a useful disguise to wear in a politically correct world.** For all I know, some random neo-Nazi could stumble across my blog, take one anti-Israel sentence out of context, and then use it in an argument to convince some naive and ignorant internet-junkie to join the cause. That kind of terrifies me.
I keep on telling myself that criticism is the first step both to taking action, and to inspiring others to do so. I also look to the prophets, who were about as critical of Israel as they come***, but then again, they tended to prophecize in Hebrew (except for Ezekiel, whose Aramaic differs greatly from the Judeo-Aramaic of the Talmud.****) and not only did they prophecize within Israel, but they also often did so at the Temple Mount, which would kind of be the equivalent of me walking into a synagogue today and yelling about the Occupation. That is extremely different than criticizing Israel in English, via the internet, which makes it available to an international group of strangers.
Yet I do not wish to switch over to Hebrew - not just because at this point in my life, writing in English comes easier to me (that could change if I started writing in Hebrew again, as I used to do in highschool, when I spoke Hebrew nearly everyday of my life, as opposed to now, when I rarely use it), but also because I want my writing to be available to English-speaking people, and I want it specifically to resonate within the American Jewish community, which is very involved in Israel in a variety of ways.
I suppose my critique of Israel stems from my vision of Zionism: Theodor Herzl saw Israel basically as a modern nation state that happened to have Jewish citizens, because they needed their own state in order to be safe. Even though the Dreyfus affair, progroms, and Holocaust, are all events of the past, I do believe that given the long history of anti-Semitism, it is important for Jews to have a safe haven, just in case mass anti-Jewish violence flares up again (and ocassional instances of anti-Semitic violence do indeed exist - the recent events in France were a reminder).
But on a broader scale, I see Israel not just as a place where Jews live, but also as a state meant to reflect Jewish values -and anyone who has read the prophets or the work of the rabbis, will have a hard time disagreeing with me that peace and social justice are Jewish values. I believe in cultural Zionism, a la A.D. Gordon: I want Jews to speak Hebrew globally, the same way Spanish people who live in the US might speak Spanish at home. I want my children, no matter where I live, to know not only the poetry of Yehuda Halevi****** and Yehuda Amichai, and the songs of Naomi Shemer, but also whatever crappy Israeli soap operas and pop music happen to be reigning the airwaves. They can choose whether or not they want to be religious, but they'd better know Tanach and Talmud, because those are major literary-intellectual achievments of the Jewish people. I believe it is important to make informed choices about one's Judaism, and knowing one's cultural and intellectual heritage is a prerequisite to that.
If I had to list the worst contribution of religious-national Zionism to Israeli society, it would not be the settlements or any specific political policy per se, but rather its Messianism: If this is the beginning of the redemption, then the Jews are in Israel for good, no matter what they do or how badly they act. Victory is inevitable. Taking away the possibility of failure also takes away the impetus for social change. Much of the sprouting of social change in the US right now is because many in the US feel that it is standing at the edge of the abyss, and they want to make sure it doesn't fall - but if you believe that you can't fall, there is no need to prepare the parachute.
While, as a religious Jew, I do believe that Israel's founding, as well as its various victories, and the large number of qassams that fall into empty fields (and I've sat in a mamad and heard them fall), are all miracles, I do not believe that God gave us the land scot-free: The Hebrew Bible is full of warnings that if the Jews do not act properly, the land of Israel will literally vomit them out - and while much of the Biblical warnings might refer to idol-worship, the rabbinic tradition holds murder as tantamount to idol worship, and claims that the Second Temple was destroyed, and the Jews exiled, for social ills, not ritual malfeasance. That is leaving aside explicit warnings by the prophets that ritual worship is worth nothing if not accompanied by social justice.****** Furthermore, Jeremiah constantly exhorts the people not to think that just because God promised them the land, he won't kick them out of it. Because of this, I do not assume that the state of Israel - which is after all - and should be - a secular state - is eternal. I believe, on a political-historical level, that it can fail as other states have failed, and on a religious-spiritual level, that the more social injustice there is, the more likely it is to do so.
I also agree with Yeshayahu Liebowitz, a) that the rabbanut should be abolished b) that considering the secular state to be a holy entity, is in a certain sense idol worship, because it is taking something religiously neutral, and investing it with an inherent holiness - which is essentially what idol worship is. You take a piece of wood, and say it is a god.
For me, when the State of Israel has a rally in which politicians describe Sudanese refugees living in Israel in Nazi-istic terms - because yes, describing a certain group as a cancer that is ruining society, is indeed Nazi-istic - even though the prime minister officially condemns said rally, I still have a religious obligation to speak out, to ask what kind of society Israel becoming if such a rally can take place at all, if any Israeli politician can be present at such a rally and get away with it - and yet I must also acknowledge the Israelis who held a counter-protest the next day, to condemn racism, and those who called for a criminal investigation into the actions of the politicians who spoke at the racist rally. And this religious obligation for words counter-acts any secular notions of ethnic loyalty that stir within me, even as it does adhere to the rabbinic maxim of Jews taking mutual responsibility for each other's actions - because if I stay silent, I become a bystander, who is only one degree removed from the label "perpetrator", because one of the greatest perils of our time is not evil itself, but rather, indiffirence to evil, because, as Mordechai says to Esther (which is one of my middle names) in Esther 4:14, "For if you will remain silent in this time, salvation will come to the Jews from another place, and you and your father's house shall perish, and who knows if it is not for a time like this, that you reached the kingdom?"
So within one blog post, I've gone from being the frustrated belly-dancer to the five-year-old Disney princess, if Disneyland were Persia. I suppose I should end with links to a letter from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and a speech by Elie Weisel, in an effort to reclaim my dignity.
* Exhibit A: The eternal boyfriend-girlfriend battle over the raised toilet-seat.
** Furthermore, while it might not always be anti-Semitic, the extent of global anti-Israelism and how acceptable it has become, is ridiculous. The UN has issued more statements about Israel than about Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, or China - all of which are such terrible human rights violators that Israel looks like an angel in comparison. It is politically acceptable to call for the destruction of Israel, a nation founded by UN-charter and by a defensive war, when it's neighbors all invaded it in response to its declaring independence, but not for the destruction of the afformentioned nations, which were founded as a result of colonialism and not-necessarily-self-defensive wars. Nearly every country in the world was founded by some sort of war or revolution - even the US was founded with a war against the British -but somehow, the fact that Israel was founded on a purely defensive war, all of a sudden becomes a major international issue.
*** Isaiah called the people of Israel "captains of Sodom" and the "nation of Gommorah", in Isaiah chapter 1, verse 10. Also, Isiaah and Jeremiah are two of my favorite prophets. I had a huge crush on Jeremiah in highschool.
**** That makes sense, because he prophesied in Babylonia, not in Israel - which, by the way, the Talmud has issues with, because it tries saying prophecy only exists in the land of Israel, and winds up saying God makes an exception if you're standing near water, which is why Ezekiel could prophesize in Babylon. Anyhow, Ezekiel can not be used as a proof for anything because he is different than the other prophets in many ways. Also, if you want to read my Ezekiel and menstrual blood rant, click here.
***** I misplaced my copy of his poetry a week ago and it's driving me crazy!
******To quote Isaiah, 1:11-20: "To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto Me? saith the LORD; I am full of the burnt-offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he-goats. 12 When ye come to appear before Me, who hath required this at your hand, to trample My courts? 13 Bring no more vain oblations; it is an offering of abomination unto Me; new moon and sabbath, the holding of convocations--I cannot endure iniquity along with the solemn assembly. 14 Your new moons and your appointed seasons My soul hateth; they are a burden unto Me; I am weary to bear them. 15 And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide Mine eyes from you; yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear; your hands are full of blood. 16 Wash you, make you clean, put away the evil of your doings from before Mine eyes, cease to do evil; 17 Learn to do well; seek justice, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. {S} 18 Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD; though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. 19 If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land; 20 But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword; for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken."
But this rich complexity also comes with its own challenges: Recently, I find my desire to publicly criticize Israel competing with a feeling that to do so would transgress some unstated rules of group loyalty. I try to tell myself that I want to criticize Israel for the same reason we often don't tolerate in loved ones what we tolerate in casual acquantances (and hence wind up picking stupid fights with said loved ones.*): In a certain sense, critique is a sign of caring. Then, there is also the fear that maybe your loved one's misdeeds are caused by your own wrong action - parents, for example, often freak out at kids' misdeeds because they fear it reflects negatively on their own parenting abilities. Every time Israel does something "wrong", I consider myself partially responsible. Some might say I am taking the rabbinic statement "All of Israel are responsible for each other" a bit too seriously, but I actually think that phrase contains a larger truth: All micro-members of a society are partially responsible for the society's shape as a macro-unit. If I bear less responsibility for Israel's social woes, that is only because recently I've been less a part of Israeli society, having been abroad since November. At the same time, as someone who has been spending at least two months a year in Israel since I'm eighteen, I can't really say I'm completely divorced from that society, and thus, completely guilt-free. In fact, now that I am living in the US, I also feel responsible for the US's social flaws, however, I feel less guilty about critiquing it, simply because its the most powerful country in the world. My words are not going to harm the US, though they might (hopefully) inspire just a bit of social change.
Israel however, is a severely embattled nation. It faces terrorism threats from within, not to mention hostile neighbors with nuclear ambitions. Then, there is the sheer amount of anti-Semitism disguised as anti-Israelism. That is not to say that anti-Israelism equals anti-Semitism, simply that anti-Semitism often finds anti-Israelism as a useful disguise to wear in a politically correct world.** For all I know, some random neo-Nazi could stumble across my blog, take one anti-Israel sentence out of context, and then use it in an argument to convince some naive and ignorant internet-junkie to join the cause. That kind of terrifies me.
I keep on telling myself that criticism is the first step both to taking action, and to inspiring others to do so. I also look to the prophets, who were about as critical of Israel as they come***, but then again, they tended to prophecize in Hebrew (except for Ezekiel, whose Aramaic differs greatly from the Judeo-Aramaic of the Talmud.****) and not only did they prophecize within Israel, but they also often did so at the Temple Mount, which would kind of be the equivalent of me walking into a synagogue today and yelling about the Occupation. That is extremely different than criticizing Israel in English, via the internet, which makes it available to an international group of strangers.
Yet I do not wish to switch over to Hebrew - not just because at this point in my life, writing in English comes easier to me (that could change if I started writing in Hebrew again, as I used to do in highschool, when I spoke Hebrew nearly everyday of my life, as opposed to now, when I rarely use it), but also because I want my writing to be available to English-speaking people, and I want it specifically to resonate within the American Jewish community, which is very involved in Israel in a variety of ways.
I suppose my critique of Israel stems from my vision of Zionism: Theodor Herzl saw Israel basically as a modern nation state that happened to have Jewish citizens, because they needed their own state in order to be safe. Even though the Dreyfus affair, progroms, and Holocaust, are all events of the past, I do believe that given the long history of anti-Semitism, it is important for Jews to have a safe haven, just in case mass anti-Jewish violence flares up again (and ocassional instances of anti-Semitic violence do indeed exist - the recent events in France were a reminder).
But on a broader scale, I see Israel not just as a place where Jews live, but also as a state meant to reflect Jewish values -and anyone who has read the prophets or the work of the rabbis, will have a hard time disagreeing with me that peace and social justice are Jewish values. I believe in cultural Zionism, a la A.D. Gordon: I want Jews to speak Hebrew globally, the same way Spanish people who live in the US might speak Spanish at home. I want my children, no matter where I live, to know not only the poetry of Yehuda Halevi****** and Yehuda Amichai, and the songs of Naomi Shemer, but also whatever crappy Israeli soap operas and pop music happen to be reigning the airwaves. They can choose whether or not they want to be religious, but they'd better know Tanach and Talmud, because those are major literary-intellectual achievments of the Jewish people. I believe it is important to make informed choices about one's Judaism, and knowing one's cultural and intellectual heritage is a prerequisite to that.
If I had to list the worst contribution of religious-national Zionism to Israeli society, it would not be the settlements or any specific political policy per se, but rather its Messianism: If this is the beginning of the redemption, then the Jews are in Israel for good, no matter what they do or how badly they act. Victory is inevitable. Taking away the possibility of failure also takes away the impetus for social change. Much of the sprouting of social change in the US right now is because many in the US feel that it is standing at the edge of the abyss, and they want to make sure it doesn't fall - but if you believe that you can't fall, there is no need to prepare the parachute.
While, as a religious Jew, I do believe that Israel's founding, as well as its various victories, and the large number of qassams that fall into empty fields (and I've sat in a mamad and heard them fall), are all miracles, I do not believe that God gave us the land scot-free: The Hebrew Bible is full of warnings that if the Jews do not act properly, the land of Israel will literally vomit them out - and while much of the Biblical warnings might refer to idol-worship, the rabbinic tradition holds murder as tantamount to idol worship, and claims that the Second Temple was destroyed, and the Jews exiled, for social ills, not ritual malfeasance. That is leaving aside explicit warnings by the prophets that ritual worship is worth nothing if not accompanied by social justice.****** Furthermore, Jeremiah constantly exhorts the people not to think that just because God promised them the land, he won't kick them out of it. Because of this, I do not assume that the state of Israel - which is after all - and should be - a secular state - is eternal. I believe, on a political-historical level, that it can fail as other states have failed, and on a religious-spiritual level, that the more social injustice there is, the more likely it is to do so.
I also agree with Yeshayahu Liebowitz, a) that the rabbanut should be abolished b) that considering the secular state to be a holy entity, is in a certain sense idol worship, because it is taking something religiously neutral, and investing it with an inherent holiness - which is essentially what idol worship is. You take a piece of wood, and say it is a god.
For me, when the State of Israel has a rally in which politicians describe Sudanese refugees living in Israel in Nazi-istic terms - because yes, describing a certain group as a cancer that is ruining society, is indeed Nazi-istic - even though the prime minister officially condemns said rally, I still have a religious obligation to speak out, to ask what kind of society Israel becoming if such a rally can take place at all, if any Israeli politician can be present at such a rally and get away with it - and yet I must also acknowledge the Israelis who held a counter-protest the next day, to condemn racism, and those who called for a criminal investigation into the actions of the politicians who spoke at the racist rally. And this religious obligation for words counter-acts any secular notions of ethnic loyalty that stir within me, even as it does adhere to the rabbinic maxim of Jews taking mutual responsibility for each other's actions - because if I stay silent, I become a bystander, who is only one degree removed from the label "perpetrator", because one of the greatest perils of our time is not evil itself, but rather, indiffirence to evil, because, as Mordechai says to Esther (which is one of my middle names) in Esther 4:14, "For if you will remain silent in this time, salvation will come to the Jews from another place, and you and your father's house shall perish, and who knows if it is not for a time like this, that you reached the kingdom?"
So within one blog post, I've gone from being the frustrated belly-dancer to the five-year-old Disney princess, if Disneyland were Persia. I suppose I should end with links to a letter from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and a speech by Elie Weisel, in an effort to reclaim my dignity.
* Exhibit A: The eternal boyfriend-girlfriend battle over the raised toilet-seat.
** Furthermore, while it might not always be anti-Semitic, the extent of global anti-Israelism and how acceptable it has become, is ridiculous. The UN has issued more statements about Israel than about Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, or China - all of which are such terrible human rights violators that Israel looks like an angel in comparison. It is politically acceptable to call for the destruction of Israel, a nation founded by UN-charter and by a defensive war, when it's neighbors all invaded it in response to its declaring independence, but not for the destruction of the afformentioned nations, which were founded as a result of colonialism and not-necessarily-self-defensive wars. Nearly every country in the world was founded by some sort of war or revolution - even the US was founded with a war against the British -but somehow, the fact that Israel was founded on a purely defensive war, all of a sudden becomes a major international issue.
*** Isaiah called the people of Israel "captains of Sodom" and the "nation of Gommorah", in Isaiah chapter 1, verse 10. Also, Isiaah and Jeremiah are two of my favorite prophets. I had a huge crush on Jeremiah in highschool.
**** That makes sense, because he prophesied in Babylonia, not in Israel - which, by the way, the Talmud has issues with, because it tries saying prophecy only exists in the land of Israel, and winds up saying God makes an exception if you're standing near water, which is why Ezekiel could prophesize in Babylon. Anyhow, Ezekiel can not be used as a proof for anything because he is different than the other prophets in many ways. Also, if you want to read my Ezekiel and menstrual blood rant, click here.
***** I misplaced my copy of his poetry a week ago and it's driving me crazy!
******To quote Isaiah, 1:11-20: "To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto Me? saith the LORD; I am full of the burnt-offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he-goats. 12 When ye come to appear before Me, who hath required this at your hand, to trample My courts? 13 Bring no more vain oblations; it is an offering of abomination unto Me; new moon and sabbath, the holding of convocations--I cannot endure iniquity along with the solemn assembly. 14 Your new moons and your appointed seasons My soul hateth; they are a burden unto Me; I am weary to bear them. 15 And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide Mine eyes from you; yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear; your hands are full of blood. 16 Wash you, make you clean, put away the evil of your doings from before Mine eyes, cease to do evil; 17 Learn to do well; seek justice, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. {S} 18 Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD; though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. 19 If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land; 20 But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword; for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken."
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Friday, December 16, 2011
Was Marx right?
I am not ready to answer in the affirmative, but I do feel that this article poses the question:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gkc3uqGuPnGfO90dElARcCQvgTvA?docId=9576d6a6343c46b1abbd0184a9244305
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gkc3uqGuPnGfO90dElARcCQvgTvA?docId=9576d6a6343c46b1abbd0184a9244305
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Republicans
I just don't get it: The Republican party, a la Mitch Mconell, has openly said that their number one goal is not to better this country or protect the interests of its people, but rather, to unseat Mr. Obama as president. How do any Americans agree to take seriously a party that has openly admitted that politics, not policy, is its number one agenda?
A few ways that the party has proved its words through its actions:
1. The Debt Ceiling Crisis - It was the consensus of economists and Wall Street that passing the debt ceiling raise was essential to not causing Great Depression 2, yet the Republicans, instead of doing what the country needed, chose to use this as an opportunity to try to bully Obama: They made their agreement to not actively cause the US economy to tank conditional, in order to get political leverage. Their threats not to raise the Debt Ceiling caused the stock market to go down during the deliberations, causing monetary loss to Americans, and also caused the US to be downgraded by Moody's, which rightly concluded that the US political system was not up to the challenge of solving its debt issues thanks to the Republicans' actions.
2. The recent payroll tax fiasco: Instead of passing something that would continue to allow Middle Class Americans to have an extra 1500 a year, which could then be re-invested in the economy - and 1500 makes a difference to the Middle Class - the Republicans, these anti-tax people, choose to not extend the Middle Class tax-cut unless it is linked with cutting unemployment insurance - therefore harming a large swath of the American population. Of course, economists also agree that unemployment benefits are economically stimulative, because they are spent immediately and thus pour money back into the economy. Of course, these same Republicans want to extend the Bush tax-cuts and refuse to raise taxes on the top 5% of wage-earners, earning of 300,000 a year - so apparently, its ok to raise taxes on those earning less than 300,000 and to cut unemployment benefits that might be the difference between eating and not eating or homelessness and lack thereof for many Americans, but it's not ok to tax the rich - not even to tax them just enough to offset the extra 1500 the middle-class would get from the payroll tax extension - talk about class warfare!
The truth is, its in the Republicans' best interest for Middle Class Americans to have 1,500 less, and for the American economy to tank - that way, they are more likely to vote Republican come 2012. Since the Republicans have admitted their number one goal is to unseat President Obama in 2012, it makes sense that they are pursuing that goal in the most expedient way possible - by actively trying to derail the US economy - and one needs only look at their legislative record if one wants proof.
A few ways that the party has proved its words through its actions:
1. The Debt Ceiling Crisis - It was the consensus of economists and Wall Street that passing the debt ceiling raise was essential to not causing Great Depression 2, yet the Republicans, instead of doing what the country needed, chose to use this as an opportunity to try to bully Obama: They made their agreement to not actively cause the US economy to tank conditional, in order to get political leverage. Their threats not to raise the Debt Ceiling caused the stock market to go down during the deliberations, causing monetary loss to Americans, and also caused the US to be downgraded by Moody's, which rightly concluded that the US political system was not up to the challenge of solving its debt issues thanks to the Republicans' actions.
2. The recent payroll tax fiasco: Instead of passing something that would continue to allow Middle Class Americans to have an extra 1500 a year, which could then be re-invested in the economy - and 1500 makes a difference to the Middle Class - the Republicans, these anti-tax people, choose to not extend the Middle Class tax-cut unless it is linked with cutting unemployment insurance - therefore harming a large swath of the American population. Of course, economists also agree that unemployment benefits are economically stimulative, because they are spent immediately and thus pour money back into the economy. Of course, these same Republicans want to extend the Bush tax-cuts and refuse to raise taxes on the top 5% of wage-earners, earning of 300,000 a year - so apparently, its ok to raise taxes on those earning less than 300,000 and to cut unemployment benefits that might be the difference between eating and not eating or homelessness and lack thereof for many Americans, but it's not ok to tax the rich - not even to tax them just enough to offset the extra 1500 the middle-class would get from the payroll tax extension - talk about class warfare!
The truth is, its in the Republicans' best interest for Middle Class Americans to have 1,500 less, and for the American economy to tank - that way, they are more likely to vote Republican come 2012. Since the Republicans have admitted their number one goal is to unseat President Obama in 2012, it makes sense that they are pursuing that goal in the most expedient way possible - by actively trying to derail the US economy - and one needs only look at their legislative record if one wants proof.
Monday, December 12, 2011
Monday Morning Roundup
Listening in Africa:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/11/opinion/sunday/in-africa-the-art-of-listening.html?src=tp&smid=fb-share
Is the US becoming Latin America?
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/11/opinion/sunday/on-the-middle-class-lessons-from-latin-america.html?pagewanted=all%3Fsrc%3Dtp&smid=fb-share
medical marijuana:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/10/opinion/medical-marijuana-and-the-memory-of-one-high-day.html?src=tp&smid=fb-share
scary - how much power corporations have:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/10/opinion/for-29-dead-miners-no-justice.html?src=tp&smid=fb-share
On Syria:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/08/opinion/in-syria-expelling-the-peacemakers.html?src=tp&smid=fb-share
helping the poor:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/09/opinion/to-fix-health-care-help-the-poor.html?src=tp&smid=fb-share
on the 1 percent and trickle-down theory:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/11/opinion/sunday/the-1-percent-clubs-misguided-protectors.html?src=tp&smid=fb-share
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/11/opinion/sunday/in-africa-the-art-of-listening.html?src=tp&smid=fb-share
Is the US becoming Latin America?
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/11/opinion/sunday/on-the-middle-class-lessons-from-latin-america.html?pagewanted=all%3Fsrc%3Dtp&smid=fb-share
medical marijuana:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/10/opinion/medical-marijuana-and-the-memory-of-one-high-day.html?src=tp&smid=fb-share
scary - how much power corporations have:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/10/opinion/for-29-dead-miners-no-justice.html?src=tp&smid=fb-share
On Syria:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/08/opinion/in-syria-expelling-the-peacemakers.html?src=tp&smid=fb-share
helping the poor:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/09/opinion/to-fix-health-care-help-the-poor.html?src=tp&smid=fb-share
on the 1 percent and trickle-down theory:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/11/opinion/sunday/the-1-percent-clubs-misguided-protectors.html?src=tp&smid=fb-share
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