The post Israel’s Next Major Social Challenge – Haredi Internal “Aliyah” appeared first on Makom Israel.

Click here for downloadable pdf.

Israelis who define themselves as “chiloni” (non-religious) nevertheless choose to undergo traditional Jewish lifecycle events, circumcising their sons, celebrating bar/bar mitzvah ceremonies and weddings, and burying their dead according to traditional practice. Some of this participation is enforced by Israeli law (more on that in the lessons on marriage and death), but the rituals of childhood are entered into voluntarily (at least by the parents…). While the circumcision ceremony has remained largely identical to the traditional one, the bar/bat mitzvah ceremony has evolved and changed – perhaps because it is a relative newcomer on the scene. Other ceremonies contain different mixes of tradition and new invention.

In terms of the Israel connection in life cycle observances in the Diaspora, the liturgy of the brit, and of bar/bat mitzvah, does not contain explicit references to Israel or the hope of return. However, pidyon haben is wholly bound up with preserving the role of the kohanim and thus serves as a reminder of the Temple and its centrality.

The post Childhood – 35 appeared first on Makom Israel.

 Click here for downloadable pdf.

Many of the “founding fathers (and mothers)” of modern Israel came to the country as twenty-somethings (or younger), in the Second Aliyah (1904-1914) and the Third Aliyah (1919-1923). While they were small in number, their cultural influence was far-reaching and long-lasting, and it is perhaps largely due to their experience that Israel’s self-image is that of a “young” society, a society whose youth are its heroes and its leaders. There is an ironic reversal here of the traditional respect accorded to age and wisdom. And needless to say, this self-image affects many aspects of cultural life, from child-rearing to education to politics – not always in constructive ways. Another factor contributing to this youth-centeredness is the central place of defense in the collective consciousness – the near-universal conscription of both genders means that the army is a major rite of passage and a huge cultural influence.

This unit will examine the perception of – and the experience of – youth in Israeli society in several important contexts. The materials and background are presented straightforwardly – not as a comparative examination with the North American Jewish experience; however, exploring the comparison is recommended as a useful and effective educational method for using this material.

The post Youth and coming of age in Israel – 36 appeared first on Makom Israel.

 Click here for downloadable pdf. 

The formation of the modern State of Israel occurred in parallel to the evolution of women’s movements. While its roots are traced to the French and American Revolution, feminism emerged as a social and political force at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th . This is the period in which Zionism developed and Jews began to settle the land of Israel hoping to create a Jewish State. Since both Zionism and feminism “grew up” together, the early Zionist experience and the State of Israel provide an interesting case study of the changing roles and rights of women. Unique aspects of Israeli society, such as the central role of the defense forces and the mosaic of different populations highlight the complexity of the issues surrounding women’s rights. As a Jewish State, Israel has had to address the disparity between the traditional role of women in Judaism and Jewish law and contemporary concepts of equality. Conversely, the issue and development of women’s rights in Israel can illustrate the social, economic, cultural and military issues that characterize the Jewish State. In this lesson we try to give a survey of women’s roles and status from the early Zionists until today.

The post Women in Israel – 38 appeared first on Makom Israel.

Jonathan Boyd is the Executive Director of the Institute for Jewish Policy Research

Sometimes it is just too hard to hold back the tears. Like during the unetaneh tokef of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur when contemplating the simple words “who will live and who will die; who at their predestined time and who not at their predestined time” and trying to come to terms with our extraordinary vulnerability. Or while singing hayom harat olam after hearing the blasts of the shofar on Rosh Hashana – “today is the day of the world’s creation” – and trying to behold just how beautiful our world can sometimes be. Or when watching our young children’s sheer delight on entering the sukkah for the first time and seeing the world for an all too brief moment through their eyes.

And then there is Gilad Shalit’s release. It’s impossible to imagine what he has endured for the past five years and four months since his capture. It seems that he was treated well and has returned in good physical health, but the psychological scars inflicted by living in near solitary confinement and in the knowledge that his life hung in the balance every single moment are just too much to contemplate. What his parents must have been through too is simply unimaginable – to have your own child taken away from you in that way and to live with the constant possibility of tragic news is too horrendous for words. I could not hold back the tears this morning upon hearing the news that he had been safely released; I have never met him or any members of his family, but the relief and gratitude I feel upon his return overwhelms every other emotion. Gilad Shalit is free.

I am aware, of course, that there is another side to his release. 1,027 Palestinian prisoners are also being released, over one hundred of whom are hard core militants. Amongst them include the perpetrator of the Park Hotel bombing in Netanya, who was given 29 life sentences for his despicable crime, as well as many others who contributed to similar atrocities. The tears shed by the friends and families of the victims of these attacks are immeasurable. Not surprisingly, the details of those being released and the 1027:1 ratio has been the cause of much debate and considerable anger in Israel. There can be no doubt whatsoever that the risks involved in this deal are huge; it seems not only likely but probable that Israelis will lose their lives as a result of it. And this is not an isolated incident; Haaretz journalist Bradley Burston notes that the overall ratio in these prisoner exchange deals now stands at 13,509:16.

I have watched the debate from the sidelines for the past week, partly in the media and partly via friends’ postings on Facebook. And amidst all the relief, the anger, the joy, the vengefulness and the often sickening way in which people engage with one another online, I am struck most by the casual nature of discourse about “us” and “them” and “life” and “death”. Some have chosen to quote Hasan Nasrallah’s infamous line – “the Jews love life and we love death” as proof text of the inhumanity of “them”. A dialogue included the insight that whereas “life is cheap for them”, “life is dear to us”. One person almost gleefully noted that even Hamas agrees that 1000 terrorists = 1 Israeli life. Another called for a law to be made now: “for every Israeli kidnapped, we will execute 1,000 terrorists”.

Many have called for the death penalty to be instituted in Israel for terrorist acts. And arguably the quote of the week comes from former IDF Chief Rabbi Avihai Rontzki who stated the terrorists like those who killed members of the Fogel family “should just be shot, exterminated. They were terrorists that murdered people and should be killed in their beds”. If this is the voice of a Jewish moral authority deserving the title “Chief Rabbi” of anything, then I cry tears of despair for Israel’s future that vastly outweigh any emotions I feel for Gilad Shalit and his family.

There is a culture of death that exists in parts of Islam and the Arab world. It is not all pervasive, it is held only by a small minority, but it is there. There is no question about that. But there is an imperative that sits at the heart of Judaism that holds the opposite position that should be repeated and repeated and repeated again: “I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both you and your seed may live.” We cannot change others; only they can do that. But we can live up to the core principles of Judaism – that life trumps death. Every time, in every instance.

I don’t deny for one minute the difficulties that entails sometimes. “Choose life that both you and your seed may live” is not always a simple proposition. But we choose life. That is who we are. We don’t kill people in their beds. We don’t indiscriminately kill 1,000 people, irrespective of who they are and what they have done. And we don’t institute the death penalty. Why? Because we choose life. Every time, in every instance.

If we struggle to hold back the tears of joy we feel on seeing the sheer delight of our own children at play, if we struggle to hold back the tears of anguish we feel as we contemplate the enormity of the words of unetaneh tokef and the vulnerability of our lives, if we struggle to hold back the tears of relief we feel on seeing Gilad Shalit returned to his family, we have no right to deny others the opportunity to shed similar tears. Indeed, we have a responsibility to ensure that our belief in life compels us to guarantee those rights at all times, not just for us, but for all humanity.

In the first interview with Gilad Shalit after his release, he said he missed three things during his captivity – family, friends and freedom. When push comes to shove, they are all that matter. May his release cause us to renew our commitment to ensure that all people – Israelis, Palestinians, and all humanity – are entitled and able to live their lives with these three immeasurable gifts that were denied to him for so long.

The post Tears for Gilad Shalit and Israel appeared first on Makom Israel.

Michael Walzer is Professor Emeritus at the School of Social Science of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, the editor of Dissent magazine, author and editor of more than twenty books, including Just and Unjust Wars, The Company of Critics and the Jewish Political Tradition.

I have been asked to talk this morning about the assault on the legitimacy of the State of Israel and about the parameters of criticism and dissent within the Jewish community. One reason, perhaps, why I was invited and assigned this subject is that some of the most powerful efforts to delegitimize the Jewish state come from the left side of the political spectrum, which is where I live—so I know how dangerous these efforts are and how important it is to fight against them.

But delegitimation isn’t only the work of the left, it is also the work of the Islamic religious right, and the alliance of these two forces, Islamist and leftist, unholy from both sides, so that it’s hard to understand how either side can live with the other—this alliance is especially dangerous. It attracts support from the center also, from people who want to appear “advanced”—in one direction or the other—or just fashionable.

I think that I am also here today because I am a critic of many policies of this and other Israeli governments, and so I have had to worry a lot and often about the parameters of dissent. What I want to do today is to outline some of the key arguments used in the assault on Israel’s legitimacy, explain why they are themselves illegitimate, and then say something about the space that exists or should exist for criticism and dissent within the Jewish community—I say, should exist, since there has been a major effort in recent months (in the Knesset itself) to shut down this space. But I will begin by suggesting two principles with which we can test all the arguments and all the criticism.

The first principle comes from the biblical discussion of true and false prophets. Here is what the book of Deuteronomy says (18:20):

When the prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously.

True prophets speak the truth—or they speak what turns out to be the truth. But that’s a hard standard, since we may not know what the truth is at the moment when the prophet speaks. What we require from adversaries and critics has to be a modified version of this biblical rule: we require a manifest commitment to truth-telling, a conscientious rejection of all the lies that for centuries have floated around the Jewish people and that float today around the state of Israel.

And the second principle is that all the arguments and all the criticism have to be universalized, that is, applied in exactly the same way to Israel and to every other state in the society of states. The crucial test here is the rejection of a double standard. The Jewish people and the Jewish state have a right to be judged by the same standards that are used to judge everyone else. We can accept severe standards so long as the severity isn’t designed, as it often is, just for us.

Let me give you a quick illustration of how the double standard works—consider the leftist Americans or American Jews who refuse to visit Israel because, they say, of the occupation, but then eagerly seek out invitations to visit China, despite the fact that what the Chinese are doing in Tibet is far worse and far more successful than what Israel is doing on the West Bank.

Indeed, the phrase “double standard” is not always accurate; some of our critics have one standard for Israel and no standard for anyone else.

Let me now take up four different arguments used by the ideologues and the political militants who seek to delegitimize the state of Israel–leaving aside, until I come to the end of my talk, the question: Are these arguments really different?

So here are four characterizations of Israel, all negative, all ideologically developed in ways that seem to transcend mere prejudice, all of them rhetorically effective, at least in some places, among some political audiences.

1) I will start with the most obvious one, which we have seen in heightened form in the last couple of years, since the Gaza war: Israel is the bully of the Middle East—a regional great power, using “excessive and disproportionate” force against the oppressed Palestinians, sustaining an occupation that is designed to humiliate and degrade the occupied people.

Nationalist and religious zealotry among the Palestinians is then explained and, often, justified by this oppression and humiliation. It is worth noting that Israel’s delegitimizers are not friendly toward those pragmatic Palestinians who oppose their own zealots and aim at a state alongside Israel. The delegitimizers actually prefer the zealots. They justify or “explain” terrorism in much the same way: it is the last resort of people who are desperate after years of occupation. Some of this is familiar; I have been arguing against this defense of terrorism for almost 40 years—in truth, terrorism wasn’t the last resort, it was the first resort of the PLO.

But there is also a general problem here, which has taken shape only recently, and which the US and NATO face in roughly similar form in Afghanistan, though the similarities are rarely discussed: How do you fight against non-state organizations, whose militants, zealots, and terrorists hide among, or are sheltered by, the civilian population? How do you use modern, high tech armies against enemies like that, without imposing terrible costs on civilians? And without looking like murderers?

The 100-1 ratio of Palestinian to Israeli deaths in Gaza suggests the problem, but it doesn’t arise only there; the ratio is less dramatic but of the same sort in Afghanistan, where the US and NATO are fighting the same kind of war as Israel fought in Lebanon and Gaza.

But notice that no-one is providing daily tallies of civilian deaths in Afghanistan, as many newspapers did during the Gaza war. The British press in those weeks was red with Palestinian blood, a friend there told me, though the same papers never carried, over many months, a single picture of a wounded Afghan child, where British soldiers might be responsible for the wounds.

There is no comparative perspective on Israel’s wars—and that is something that we should always insist on.

There is also no adequate discussion of how Israel, or the NATO countries, should fight against non-state enemies. The great sin of the Goldstone report, worse than its specific allegations (some of which the IDF has acknowledged to be true), was its failure to recognize and seriously address the difficulties of asymmetric warfare. Those difficulties are the subject of intense debate in Israel, and in the US too–and almost nowhere else. In the debate here, there are sharp disagreements about how the Gaza war was fought and about how to fight in the future, disagreements particularly about the risks that soldiers must take to avoid killing civilians—and these are the sorts of controversies that we should recognize and value: they are controversies, as it is said, for the sake of heaven.

Israel’s position in the just/unjust war debates is unique: it sends signals like a canary in a coal mine: you only know something is wrong when the IDF does it. Consider the use of white phosphorous in Gaza (to light up battlefields)—it had been used “extensively” by American soldiers in Afghanistan, according to the New York Times, without anyone saying anything. But its use, Human Rights Watch claimed, was a war crime in Gaza (but if it was, it can’t have been a crime only there).

Similarly, proportionality took on a new meaning in Lebanon and Gaza. It was once a highly permissive formula, perhaps too permissive, holding that the death of some number of civilians, possibly a large number, was “not disproportionate” to the value of this or that military target. Now it is used to argue that any civilian deaths are disproportionate to—it’s not clear to what. Just disproportionate; the term, used without any reference, is itself pejorative. Hence the claim by the Secretary General of the UN in the early days of the Lebanon war in 2006 that the Israeli use of force was “disproportionate,” even before anyone knew how many civilians had been killed.

Proportionality implies a measure, but nothing was being measured in the Lebanon case. Or the measure was backward looking, as if this was a family feud in Kentucky between those famous families, the Hatfields and the McCoys: the Hatfields kill three McCoys, and so the McCoys are allowed to kill three Hatfields—anything more would be disproportionate. In fact, proportionality in war is always a forward-looking measure. Consider the example of a German tank factory in World War Two: bombing the factory is certain to kill or injure civilians living nearby, but some number of civilian deaths is “not disproportionate” to the value of keeping those tanks off the battlefield.

In the case of Gaza, the necessary question was: what is the value of stopping rocket attacks on Israeli towns and cities? How many civilian deaths are “not disproportionate” to that achievement?

These are very hard questions, and, once again, it is possible to disagree in good faith about the answers. But you have to get the questions right, and then they have to be honestly addressed, and however they are answered, however proportionality is defined, it has to be defined in the same way for the IDF and for every army and for every insurgent force in the world.

2) Israel is a colonial and an apartheid state, surviving almost alone in a post-colonial world.

There is now a large historical and anthropological literature on “post-colonialism” (it is a small academic industry). Some of the work is intellectually useful and politically honorable: careful examinations of the impact of colonial rule on the successor states–a lot of the books and articles are about India and Pakistan.

But some of the work is highly ideological and not careful at all–it is a way of defending or apologizing for the awfulness of many of the successor states, blaming all the awfulness on the years of colonial rule, excusing the current rulers. In the Israeli case, Fatah and Hamas appear as the successors, who haven’t quite succeeded in reaching statehood. And all their sins are blamed on the Israeli colonizers and their apartheid regime. Hence, the brutality and corruption of Fatah and the brutality and religious zeal of Hamas are somehow not the responsibility of the leaders of those organizations. One day, those leaders will manage to create a state, a post-colonial state, whose failings will be blamed on Israel–if Israel continues to exist, for many of the delegitimizers believe that the colonial settlers, the Israeli Jews, like the pied noirs in Algeria, will have to go somewhere else or accept their own subordination.

Now, it is possible to argue, as I would argue, and here is another necessary controversy, that the post-1967 settlers, or many of them, will have to come home to green line Israel. But we have watched, especially in Europe, a steady extension of this argument backwards—to 1948 and perhaps farther back.

Delegitimation lies in that extension, which denies that there is any justice in the Zionist project and any Jewish claim to any part of the land of Israel.

But Israel, we should insist, is itself a post-colonial state, one of the first and one of the best, and it would be nicely symmetrical if some of the academic post-colonialists blamed the failings of this state on its former British rulers and on the exilic overlords to which the Jewish people were subject for so long—and excused Israel’s current leaders (I wouldn’t do that, but I would enjoy the symmetry).

3) There are two further ideological critiques, reflecting the dual nature of Jewish identity, which is so confusing to many people and which is, perhaps, as A. B. Yehoshua has argued, a reason (not the only reason) for the hostility of some of them. The Jews are a religious group, a “community of faith,” as Americans say, and at the same time a nation or a people–and so Israel as a Jewish state has a dual identity, each aspect of which is subject to criticism. The Israeli post-Zionists make both of these critiques, but we hear them also in the wider world.

Israel is a religious state, a theocracy, where orthodoxy is dominant and rabbis rule, at least symbolically–and more than symbolically: there is religious control of family law (but not only Jewish control); there are Sabbath laws; kashrut in government buildings and in the army; a national anthem that is also a hymn of religious longing. And, most famously, there is the law of return, which privileges Jews (though not, I should note, only Jews who are recognized as such by the rabbis—in fact, a lot of non-Jews come in under the law of return, which some of us think is good for the gene pool). Non-Jews suffer extensive social and economic discrimination; “by definition”(so it is said) they can’t be full and equal citizens–though, strangely, that is exactly their formal legal position, which was never true for blacks in apartheid South Africa. In any case, the claim is that Israel, insofar as it is a Jewish state in this religious sense, isn’t and can’t be a democratic state.

I don’t have to tell you that there are many other states in the world today, including democratic states, where religious symbolism and identification and even clerical power are as much in evidence as in Israel.

Once again, we have to insist on comparisons, where Israel will generally do well, and reject criticism that is focused only and exclusively on this state, as if it is the only state in the world in need of criticism. Indeed, Israel needs its secular critics, but I have a list of states where the need is greater…

Very recently, I’ve noticed a tendency on the European left, with some echoes in the US, to abandon the secular critique of politicized religion because it leads, so it is said, to Islamophobia—and so disrupts the leftist- Islamist alliance. In most Muslim states, after all, Islam has a special status; it is, as we say, an “established” religion, and in some places not only established but dominant and dominating. Some leftists want to excuse this sort of thing, though without abandoning the critique of “theocratic” Israel.

4) Israel is a nation-state, in a world that is, or should be, or is becoming post-national. And Israel is a nation-state in a world where state sovereignty is a relic of the past, where interdependence is the rule, and where international law more and more often trumps local law. As a nation and as a state, Israel is an odd anachronism.

But these assertions are radically inaccurate: since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the breakup of countries like Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, there are more nation-states in the world than ever before, and they are very jealous of their sovereignty. Moreover, there are still nations aspiring to statehood, like the Palestinians and the Kurds, who apparently haven’t heard that the state they want is obsolete.

If you read the literature on failed states, in Africa, for example, you will realize (what we Jews have known for a long time) how important it is to have a state, a decent state, a state that serves the interests of its citizens and protects them against predators of different sorts. But none of this seems to affect the critique of Israel, as if it were the last nationalist and statist holdout, everyone else having moved into some world beyond. In truth, no-one has moved; there is no world beyond, not, at least, until the messiah comes.

Now, there is some truth in each of these ideological critiques—otherwise they would have no persuasive force at all and we wouldn’t have to worry about them. So there are arguments that we have to join, and do join. Here is my own list—some of you will have different lists.

A Catholic theologian once remarked that it takes a lot of work to reach disagreement. For us, it’s easier.

I have already referred to the debate going on about the use of force in Israel’s most recent wars—these were just wars, I would argue, but at the same time wars that were not always fought justly.

• The Zionist movement did colonize Ottoman and mandate Palestine, and the Palestinian Arabs certainly suffered as a result—even if their worst suffering, as I believe, was the result of decisions made by their own leaders. And Israel must find a way to end the occupation, which erodes Israeli democracy and threatens the Jewishness of the Jewish state, and to make room for a Palestinian state, not only or most importantly as a means of redress, but for the sake of justice right now.
•  The rabbis do, at least so it seems to me, have more power than they should have in the ostensibly secular Israeli state.
• And the effort to give Israeli Arabs equal standing as citizens in the Jewish nation-state, not only formally but practically too, hasn’t yet succeeded, as we all know.

Around each of these issues, there are ongoing arguments, and if we repress them, we would do great injury to ourselves. For centuries, in the galut (exile), we learned to be apologetic and defensive; we can, we should, unlearn those habits now. We can be honest among ourselves, and with the goyim (non-Jews) too—but it is especially important to be honest among ourselves. So long as truth is being told and there is no double standard, we can listen to each other’s claims and counter-claims and say, “These and these are the words of lovers of Israel.”

But the four characterizations of Israel that I have described today, in the versions that we hear again and again, are—let me use the language of the critics—not only in large part untrue but radically disproportionate to the actually existing wrongs. And the disproportion has a similar and familiar structure in all four (which is why I asked at the beginning whether they were really different): they are all designed to call into question the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state and as a member of the international society of states. That design is increasingly apparent, increasingly, openly, avowed, and that is why the ideological situation at this historical moment is very dangerous.

There is one last issue that I want to address before I finish. When we consider the hostile forces that Israel faces, there is a temptation that we need to resist—and that is to fall back into the old exilic refrain (I have heard it too often in Israel on this visit), that all the world is against us. Nothing we can do will make any difference. It’s hard to be a Jew. That isn’t true (it’s not so hard).

Israel has many friends in the society of states and in the world generally—and I mean friends well beyond the US Congress and Christian fundamentalists (neither of whom take any responsibility for the way things go in the Middle East).

A quick story: some years ago, after his retirement as foreign minister of Germany, Joschka Fischer taught a course in Princeton, and we had lunch a couple of times. And he told me that one of the things that he was most proud of, as foreign minister, was that he had organized the delivery of nuclear submarines to Israel. Now, friends like that have earned the right to criticize the policies of Israeli governments (as Fischer has done in the past) and to try to help Israel deal with the difficulties that it faces—as German, French, and American leaders are right now trying to do.Their criticism doesn’t turn them into enemies; they may well be Israel’s best friends.

Israel is not alone, not beleaguered, not isolated. In fact, the Jewish state doesn’t only have friends; it also has strategic allies who are not quite friends, and sometime supporters who are not quite allies—like many other states. This is the achievement of Zionism, which we should proclaim to the world—but first of all to ourselves.

The years of fear and trembling are over. The future of the state of Israel is in the hands of the state of Israel. May its leaders have good hands.

The post Delegitimation and Dissent appeared first on Makom Israel.

A few weeks ago we marked the 63rd anniversary of the sinking of the Altalena . A complicated event, which culminated in the newly formed IDF receiving a direct order from Ben-Gurion to open fire on a ship of armaments arriving from Europe and into the hands of the supposedly disbanded Etzel (the revisionist Irgun fighters)

In Israel at her most incestuous, Moshe Dayan opened fire on the ship carrying Menahem Begin at Kfar Vitkin… Dayan would, thirty years later, be the loyal Foreign Minister to Begin in the role of Prime Minister.

The Altalena provides for endless analysis and soul-searching, and this year provided even more rich pickings as the announcement came that there would be an effort to locate and maybe even surface the sunken wreck. A great piece of analysis came from Dr. David Dery in Haaretz: He asked the question if we were to raise the Altalena how would we ritualize its wreckage and what morals would we learn from its remembrance?

He gave the poetic example of the Quebec bridge, which collapsed at the cost of many lives, twice, once in 1907 and again 1916. Instead of shying away from a moment (or even two) of great failure, the organization of Professional Engineers ritualized this disaster by building around it a secret initiation ceremony and bestowing on each new Professional Engineer a ring made from the steel of the ill-fated bridge, so that they should never forget the responsibility of their profession.

Impressive stuff. This led me to thinking of answers to Dery’s question, what are the lessons we need to be carrying from the Altalena?

An answer began to crystallize while reading another, and equally impressive, analysis of the Altalena affair, by Shlomo Nakdimon – who has authored a book on the subject. Nakdimon revealed the role of Yisrael Galili, chief of staff of the Hagana and the official government representative in dealings with the Etzel, who twisted facts and exaggerated circumstances to make the Etzel seem worse and more of threat than they actually were.

It is possible that the Altalena affair might not have reached its tragic conclusion had Galili not sent it in that direction. The Etzel had long been hated by the Hagana and the Israeli establishment, and there was already a precedent of exaggerating the Etzel’s fanatical elements in order to disenfranchise them from power. But Galili wanted to paint them black as black.

There have been several incidents of similar exaggerations of intent in Israel in the last month. Politically minded entities who play to a certain agenda by tarring organizations and groups in society as threats or fanatics; and it’s happened on both sides of the spectrum.

Only a few days prior to the Boycott Law, there was a storm brewing over a complicated story surrounding a fanatical text known as Torat HaMelech (The Torah of the King) and Rabbis who have been summoned by the police to discuss their endorsement of it. So far, two prominent Rabbis – Dov Lior of Kiryat Arba’a (settler figurehead) and Yaakov Yitzchak (the most powerful Sefardi Rabbi: Rav Ovadia Yosef’s son) – have been summoned, refused to appear and arrested.

The Rabbis claim that in order to endorse a new religious book and add a letter of support, they do not read the book, merely accept what others have said. This line of defence for the Rabbis who have added a letter of support in Torat HaMelech is consensual with everyone up to the Chief Rabbi of Israel, agreeing that this is the accepted wisdom.

Since Torat HaMelech rationalizes Jewish civilians committing acts of violence against Arabs, the Rabbis may be best advised to rethink their peer review system. However the fact that there is a plague in the Israeli rabbinate of turning a blind eye to statements that incite violence and hatred, does not mean that they are all actively doing it. We can agree that something needs to be done about a population which is drifting, rather speeding, apart from the mainstream of Israeli society.

Torat HaMelech was hijacked in order to expose top Rabbis as the fanatical threats they are to the State of Israel, and when the Rabbis did not appear to the Police station (as we knew they wouldn’t) the Police (and media) seized the opportunity to arrest them and create a publicity circus. This lead to demonstrations by their followers, public outcry and debate about who is above the law.

This is a highly nuanced fault-line in Israeli society. There is no doubt that there are powerful tensions between these Rabbis and their communities’ support of the State and their lack of respect for the primacy of the state’s institutions. But there is someone, somewhere who is looking to aggravate this festering sore, to demonize the orthodox and gain political mileage. Someone is pulling a Galili.

The more we demonize threats to our society, the more we delegitimize the valid criticism they have to bring.

As Gidon Levi pointed out in a typically isolating piece, not everyone on the flotilla is a terrorist. There are serious people with impressive credentials onboard. However, we can’t deal with this analysis and will explain it away by delegitimizing Gidon Levi as a self-hating apologist.

Similarly, Gidon Levi and his colleagues will continue to paint the Orthodox Settler movement as a Jewish Jihad.

We need to acknowledge the complexity of our challenges and challengers.

At the very least we owe it to those who died on the Altalena.

Anton Goodman is the Israel Engager Shaliach to the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington

The post Complex lessons from the Altalena appeared first on Makom Israel.

His remarks called a furor in the UK Jewish community, with many prominent UK Jews in public positions defending his remarks, noting that it was high time “that honest and open discussions” about Israel took place in the public arena.

Others Jewish leaders were chagrined or irritated and issued mixed statements, while only a very few, most notably Jonathan Hoffman of Zionist Federation and Lord Stanley Kalms, professed outright indignation.

Mick Davis’s remarks are disturbing because of who he is. Browsing the internet and reading a number of his speeches, as well as listening to his address at the rally in London during Operation Cast Lead, I’ve come to the conclusion that his heart is in the right place. I’m sure he loves Israel and wants to do his best for her. I’m sure he has raised and will continue to raise significant sums for the UJIA, which will enrich the lives of many in my country. Yet he still used this language in the public forum.

This means that a growing desire to openly criticize Israel is moving from the fringes of the Jewish community into the mainstream. This is the new discussion, and arguments about whether it should or shouldn’t be suppressed, are moot. It’s out there and it’s gaining momentum.

I’m assuming that as a UK-born Israeli who has spent 25 years living, working, voting and paying taxes in Israel, I can be part of this discussion? After all, if we’re going to be honest and open, it’s best to get a lot of stuff which hasn’t quite been articulated, out on the table.

One: It’s important that you understand that there are areas of criticism where you cause grave offence, and others where your input is necessary and welcome.

In the welcome category are issues which impact directly on Jews everywhere, where I would be glad of – not criticism as such – but concerted joint effort and involvement in Israel’s affairs. For example, I don’t see the Western Wall as an Israeli issue only but as a Jewish historical and spiritual heritage that should embrace all of us. I’m increasingly alarmed at the ultra-orthodox takeover of this site, and I would love for Reform, Conservative and Orthodox women to mount a concerted campaign to claim equal and respectable space, freedom of worship, and visual access to the men’s section.

Similarly, the behavior of the Israeli rabbinical courts in matters of marriage, divorce and conversion affect all of us. I think it perfectly legitimate for there to be loud and furious debate on these issues across the globe, and I would like to see rabbis the world over mobilized to this effect.

I would also love to get more of your input and expertise for our school systems and our community centers. The achievements of Diaspora communities in Jewish education and engagement, communal cohesion and responsibility, and religious diversity and creativity in the synagogue could greatly benefit Israeli society and have indeed already begun to do so. I would like to see the skills and initiatives of gifted UK Jewish professionals harnessed and adapted for Israeli Jewish life.

But there are some of you in the UK Jewish community who seem increasingly inclined to level criticism in the grave offence category, on the subject of our conflict with the Palestinians, the finalization of our borders, and our responses to provocation from Hamas and Hizballah. On these issues I believe you have no right to speak at all, mainly because you have not risked your lives and futures, and the lives and futures of your children, for Israel’s security.

We may be equals in many things, but in this matter we are not equals, because we have not invested equally. We are separated by a vale of tears and an ocean of blood, mostly very young blood. In my particular case, I’m separated from you guys by two Lebanon Wars, two Gulf Wars, two Intifadas, two children who’ve completed army service and a third about to begin, seven general elections, four unsuccessful peace processes, and five terrorist organizations operating in my region.

So I don’t believe that your understanding of our region is as nuanced as er… mine. Or Bibi Netanyahu’s for that matter.The Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks touched upon this in his response to Mr. Davis’s remarks, when he said: “… it is the people of Israel who suffer the direct consequences of the forces ranged against them and it is their children who are in the front line of its defence.”

I do see that these security issues impact your comfort level in British society. But the Israeli government can hardly be expected to make tough war-and-peace, life-and-death decisions on the basis of that. Anyway, I think we’ve each chosen our level of discomfort, you and I.

You chose the UK, so you get to squirm and squiggle when the BBC reports, as a deliberate lie, that there’s been a massacre in Jenin. I and my neighbours on the other hand, chose Israel, so we get to send our sons into Jenin, hoping against hope that they’ll actually come out again. Which they sometimes don’t. (Or do, but as paraplegics.) What’s that I hear you say? That you would like to live your life as a Jew without any discomfort? You sure did choose the wrong religion, then.

There are other areas where the offence is not grave, just annoying. Take the issue of African refugees pouring across the open border with Egypt in their tens of thousands. The Israeli government has just allocated millions of shekels for the construction of a new transit center for these illegal immigrants. I pay 50% income tax, so with the greatest compassion in the world, I’m not sure I want to finance their long term support. But no doubt, when the numbers in these temporary dwellings have swelled beyond the originally intended figures, and this holding facility becomes nothing more than an overcrowded slum, many Jews living outside of Israel will be campaigning for the food and health and shelter of these immigrants, and they’’ll be campaigning for me to pay for it.

Last year, my son spent three months of his IDF service on the Egyptian border dragging the bodies of dead and wounded refugees to waiting ambulances because they’d been shot on the Egyptian side. One Eritrean, faint from hunger and exhaustion, sunk to his knees and wrapped his arms around Yonatan’s legs when he discovered he’d reached the Israeli side. This refugee presumably hadn’t listened to CNN or BBC, so he didn’t know that Israel was a denizen of racism and apartheid. He only knew that nobody on the Israeli side would try and kill him, and that he’d get a hospital bed for his wounds and food and shelter for his family, before being released into Eilat to look for a job.

Of course this issue is ethically complex. It’s just that I find the need of Jews living outside of Israel to enlighten me on those complexities incredibly patronizing. What is their investment level in this social and political dilemma? If it’s zero, then that’s what the opinions are worth.

Point Two: What is the motivation behind this need for public criticism?

This is a very important dimension of the debate. I can castigate a friend or a sibling if I believe their behavior to be selfish or unreasonable, but if I do so in public, I will only humiliate and wound her. I would be mad to think that making her look ridiculous to others, and permanently damaging their perception of her, is going to alter her behavior or produce good results. In fact, I would only do such a thing if my friend’s well-being were not the primary object. I might want to hurt her and put her down for complicated reasons of my own.

I speak for myself and many other Israelis when I say that for us, public criticism of Israel from UK Jews is suspect. We feel that it’s, well, not exactly coming from the healthiest and wholest of places in the Diaspora Jewish psyche, that minefield of conflicting prejudices and loyalties.

For one thing, your call for “openness” has escalated at exactly the same rate as the delegitimization and demonization of Israel by the British establishment. This vindictive ostrasization of Israel in the UK has resulted in an extreme lowering of comfort levels for the Jewish community, as we have agreed. But should it result in your shouting to the rooftops to join in with that vindictiveness? And if you join in, does it increase your status and respectability in British Society? My feeling is that it most certainly does.

So you’ll forgive me if I doubt the integrity of your backing the shrill accusations of the British government and media. It’s hard for me to take you seriously, when I know what you have to gain by supporting them, and what you have to lose by opposing them.

Actually, I think that the rising levels of discomfort are an encouraging sign that the heart and soul of British Jewry is in good working order. If British Jews were not viscerally connected to Israel, the feeling would be one of apathy or contempt, not discomfort. But they are connected. To so many of them, Israel is precious and important. And why shouldn’t it be? It’s a modern miracle of astounding proportions. Its achievements in medicine, agriculture, science, and hi-tech, have impacted the health and well-being of millions. Above all, it’s a Jewish country with a Jewish majority, a place where Jews don’t have to negotiate the terms of their acceptance into the mainstream, because they are the mainstream.

Where does that leave us, you and I? I personally recommend that you don’t criticize us in areas where you have made no sacrifice, effort or contribution. I also think that public criticism is by its very nature, destructive and alienating. If you feel validated and vindicated by blasting us on TV or in the press, then you need to ask yourself why this is so.

If however, you are determined to criticize Israel as much as you like, then I, by the same token, will feel free to criticize you as much as I like. We will call this new way of relating “Tough Love”. We will use the two-directional model, instead of the model of Diaspora Jews behaving as if their criticism is a life-saving nasty-tasting antibiotic, which Israel, the ever truculent child, refuses to swallow to heal its inflammation.

No doubt, words like “Apartheid” and “Betrayal” will be used. But who knows? Every relationship in the world, if committed, must move beyond stasis and staleness into unexplored territory.

In conclusion, I’d like to invite Jonathan Hoffman, Lord Kalms and the Chief Rabbi to dinner the next time they are in the Bet Shemesh area. In a crisis, it sure is nice to know who your friends are. Jonathan Wittenberg, who backs public debate about Israel but has at least linked it to responsibility and involvement, can join us for dessert. As for poor Mick Davis, he will not get even one bite of my fabulous lasagna.

The post The gloves are off appeared first on Makom Israel.

This week I was roundly derided for my choice of traffic routes. Apparently the beltway, a high speed road created to bypass traffic congestion, is in fact a low speed highly-congested traffic jam created to move you back onto local roads. If this is common knowledge, with hoards of people laughing smugly at my ignorance, who are all those drivers making up the traffic jams on the beltway, and why has no one told them? I am sure that there is a mind-numbingly obvious solution to my question, so please send your answers on the back of a 20 dollar bill…

Whilst sitting on the aforementioned beltway, I had the opportunity to consider my driving experiences in the Holy Land. I learnt to drive in Israel, subsequently the horn, the fog lights used for blinding and the finger, are a central part of my repertoire. Road rage is a cathartic, almost zen-like, interaction with my motoring peers. I love driving in Israel. And despite what you may think, it is safer than driving in America: in Israel 5 per 100,000 citizens are killed in car accidents, in the US that figure is almost triple at 14 per 100,000.

When we arrived in Australia on our first Shlichut I had trouble understanding the different road culture, the flashing of lights was especially bewildering. In Israel you flash your lights at oncoming traffic (if you are a good citizen) to warn them of an upcoming police speed trap. If you flash the vehicle in front of you it means speed up and move out of the way, if they do not comply, the flashing ends – you leave your high beams on. But whilst I could pontificate on the niceties of Israeli road etiquette, it was not this that I was considering on the beltway, but the subtexts of the roads we travel on in Israel.

I have friends who refuse to travel on Route 6, a mammoth toll road slicing the country from North to South. Kvish 6 is an impressive engineering feat enabling a journey time of one and a half hours from Jerusalem to Haifa (but only if you drive really fast). The toll on Kvish 6 is calculated by how many intersections you pass and gets sent to your home address. However, immense damage was done to natural habitats during the construction of the road and many Greens still hold a grudge. Ultra-Orthodox Haredim also opposed the project, but for different reasons, and Yiddish chants accompanied self-chaining to earthmoving equipment as they protested the excavation of ancient gravesites which impeded the road’s path.

I have friends who won’t travel on Route 443, a shortcut alternative to Route 1, which links Jerusalem to Modi’in. The 443 is a classic example of no one knowing who is the legislator: the IDF closed it to Palestinian vehicles, the Supreme Court demanded it be reopened to the Palestinians, and the IDF reopened it in such a way that no Palestinian can logically use the road, and the Knesset… well the politicians got some sound bites. The road consists of strips which are encased on both sides by the security wall/fence, checkpoints that are unmanned, hastily constructed tributaries for Palestinian traffic and other signs of gross misspending. It is a journey of around 30 minutes that can open an internal conversation which lasts much longer.

I especially enjoy not travelling on the new and beautiful 431, which links Rishon LeTzion to the trusty Route 1 (TA – Jerusalem). The road was built by Lev Leviev (Israeli billionaire) and his bombastically named company, Africa-Israel Investments. It is Israel’s first Private Financed Initiative (PFI) in which the government has funded a public infrastructure project with private money. Put simply, Leviev has built a road for the State of Israel and will be paid by the government for every car that travels on it for the next 25 years, when it will finally become public property. This means that every time I don’t travel on the 431 I am saving the government money, I’m not wasting my taxes and I’m freeing up money for better uses than making a billionaire tycoon richer.

And so, I’ve learnt my lesson and I will be avoiding the beltway. It will be novel to avoid taking a road for purely traffic related reasons, and when I visit Israel next week I will go back to travelling and not travelling on various arteries based on complex identity-defining reasoning.

Anton Goodman is the Israel Engager Shaliach to the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington

The post Stuck in traffic appeared first on Makom Israel.

So writes one individual in response to one of the many journalistic attempts to defend Israel’s position in the recent Gaza flotilla affair.

Let’s be clear: we are losing the PR battle. Badly. Read the international press, read the talkbacks all over the Internet, witness the worldwide demonstrations, listen to international government statements, watch the TV coverage. It all points in one clear direction: Israel is either becoming, or has already become, morally bankrupt.

Those of us who know Israel well know that such a perception is far from the truth. The country has its faults certainly, and many of the concerns that are being expressed by its close friends around the world are entirely legitimate. Israel needs to clean up its act in all sorts of ways. But, let’s not deny that the country is also in an impossible situation that no other nation state could better tolerate or manage. It is being goaded time and time again by those who wish to destroy it, and the tactics that are being employed against it are becoming increasingly clever, sophisticated and dangerous. Yet all of our attempts to re-write the headlines are failing. And miserably so.

Why? In short, because we are operating in defensive mode. Time and again, the headlines are written and the storyline is sealed before we have time to present our version of reality. And when the initial victims of the story are starving Palestinians or abused human rights activists, we do not stand a chance. There is right and wrong in this world, and those deserving the most support are people denied their human rights and attacked by military force. In the eyes of the world, those people are not us.

It is time to change strategy. It is time to move into attacking mode. Not with weaponry, tanks and the pursuit of terrorists, but with wisdom, courage and the pursuit of justice. It is time to write the story that we want to tell, generate the headlines that we want to generate, show the images that we want to show. It is time to respond to Haaretz journalist Anshel Pfeffer’s cry to Diaspora Jewry to tell Israel why it has erred and what to do about it. And, most importantly, it is time to reclaim and live the human rights agenda as a core part of our heritage, our values, and our fundamental way of being. Some of us may well have been trying to do that, but the world’s reaction to the Gaza flotilla affair demonstrates more clearly than ever that we have completely failed.

What does an attacking strategy based on the moral imperative entail? Here are my suggestions:

1) A National Moral Ombudsman

In response to all the criticism that has been levelled against the Israeli government and the IDF in recent years (think Gaza flotilla, think Operation Cast Lead, think Lebanon 2006) Israel should establish a new position of National Moral Ombudsman. It should be held by someone of great standing in the Jewish and wider worlds – perhaps a Nobel Prize winner. Or perhaps it is better structured as a committee of several such people. Either way, the job is (a) where possible, to ensure that all moral issues have been appropriately considered prior to any military action, and, without necessarily having a veto, to approve or disapprove such action accordingly; and (b) where not possible, to examine all of Israel’s military activity on moral grounds after the event and, as a matter of course, publish the findings.

Inevitably, some will argue that this happens anyway – it’s the role of the Supreme Court and/or the State Comptroller – and they may well be right. But we need to create a new position or bolster the existing ones for two main reasons: first, Israel needs to make a clear statement about just how seriously it takes its moral responsibilities; and second, it needs to put in place appropriate mechanisms that will limit the possibility of it succumbing to the all-too-real temptations and dangers of unnecessary force.

2) An international Jewish humanitarian aid initiative

It appears that whilst the aid provided by Israel meets the UN-set minimum guidelines of 1,800 calories per-person per-day, it lacks sufficient protein and, as a result, malnutrition is a serious issue. Let me just clarify that: under the terms of the Fourth Geneva Convention, the State of Israel is legally responsible for Gaza, and whilst the people of Gaza are not starving, they are becoming sick in part because the quality of aid we are providing is insufficient.

So let’s recruit world Jewry to help solve the problem. Let’s work with the Israeli government to create a new international Jewish humanitarian aid initiative or organization. There are several of these already, but we need them either to come together, or to build a new one. Let’s build an international Jewish effort – in close collaboration with the Israeli government and the UN – to ensure that the UN’s recommendations about both the amount of aid and the quality of aid are met. We cannot fully control how (or indeed whether) that aid is appropriately distributed (Hamas or others may choose to undermine our efforts), but let’s make sure that we – the State of Israel and the Jewish People – are doing all in our collective power to ensure that the people of Gaza are receiving enough food of sufficient quality, and let’s put a clear and unambiguous end to any suggestion that this is not the case.

3) Create “Habitat for Humanity” in Gaza

Habitat for Humanity is an American charity that enables volunteers to build homes for, and in partnership with, the impoverished. So let’s set up a similar initiative with and for the people of Gaza. Let’s recruit Jews from Israel and the Diaspora, together with Palestinians from Gaza, the West Bank and elsewhere, to rebuild Gaza. Let’s partner with the PA, the State of Israel and the UN and pull in architects, engineers, town planners, builders, plumbers, electricians, painters and decorators to do what needs to be done. There are all sorts of security concerns associated with such a venture of course, but any attempt to sabotage an effort like this is likely to be seen as utterly contemptible. And maybe, just maybe, by working on such a project together, a whole set of new relationships might emerge which would dramatically alter perceptions on both sides of the current divide.

4) Up the ante on the Gilad Shalit campaign

Let’s involve every synagogue, every JCC and matnas, every Jewish school, every Jewish organization throughout the Jewish world in this one. Let’s encourage them to send, or, if possible, personally deliver a small aid package every single day to either the United Nations, the International Red Cross or the Hamas government, with a simple request that it be delivered directly to Gilad Shalit. Let’s generate maximum press, let’s monitor exactly what happens, and let’s see if we can’t change attitudes and opinions throughout the world. But fundamentally, let’s free Gilad Shalit. We did it for Soviet Jewry; now let’s do it for him.

5) Create a “No Hate Speech” certificate

Similar to a kashrut certificate in kosher restaurants, and along the same lines as the Tav Chevrati certificate that is now being awarded to Israeli restaurants, cafes and wedding halls that abide by certain guidelines regarding workers’ rights. In this instance, the no hate speech certificate would be awarded to Israeli and Jewish public bodies – charities, NGOs, Israeli government institutions, educational institutions – that abide by a new set of guidelines concerning the manner in which other people (Jews and non-Jews) are spoken about or represented. To gain the certificate, organizations would have to commit to a no hate speech agenda; certified organizations would be listed as “kosher” on a specially-created website, and would be entitled to use the no hate speech kite mark on any of their publications or publicity.

6) Establish an online dialogue initiative

Every Israeli, every Jew, every Palestinian and every Muslim with a Facebook page should seek to build social links with one another on Facebook. Let’s use the Internet tools that exist to bridge divides, establish links and encourage dialogue. And let’s sing about that from the rooftops. Let’s put advertisements in the international press, sponsored by major Jewish organizations, the Israeli government and Israeli NGOs, saying and demonstrating as clearly as possible, “We Want To Talk.”

Those are my ideas. Some are more practicable than others, and no doubt many people will put up all sorts of barriers to prevent them from gathering steam. You may knock them down with pleasure, but in doing so, come up with better ones that similarly abide by both of the underlying principles in each case: first, the absolute centrality of the Jewish moral imperative within each initiative; and second, the public relations exercise designed to highlight the centrality of the Jewish moral imperative within each initiative.

If we want to see a secure Israel, a supported Israel and a successful Israel, we have to do three things: (1) publicly announce that we are on the side of justice; (2) demonstrate precisely how we are on the side of justice; and (3) genuinely be on the side of justice. We have to overcome our fears, our insecurities and our prejudices, and we have to take some courageous steps that are fundamentally grounded in Judaism’s moral imperatives – to be a goy kadosh, a mamlechet kohanim and an or l’goyim. Security will come by building relationships with others, support will come by creating opportunities to partner in shared moral endeavour, and success will come by having the courage to live up to our most fundamental values. We can do no more and no less.

The post The moral imperative appeared first on Makom Israel.