Israel as part of the Whole
I don’t normally like Israeli songs that are written and performed in English.
I’m a great fan of Tamar Eisenman’s artistry, and of Asaf Avidan’s surreality, but what can I tell you – I’m an old-school Zionist. I’m big on our developing and Israeli-Jewish culture in Hebrew. You don’t need to – even I call me old-fashioned. I kind of think that if we can’t even create our own renewal of Jewish culture here in the Holy Land, then really what are we doing here?
But just now a great song came out by an Israeli woman who writes and performs in English. This one made it past my usual barriers. It’s one of those rare Israeli songs that while escaping the particularity of Hebrew, doesn’t feel the need to escape Israel and her issues.
The chorus is a powerful mix of rocked-up folk with a Cranberries-crack, and evokes the powerful image of the Carmel Forest up in smoke:
My country’s burning
Smoke is rising
You can see it rise from miles away
Driving by the flames
I pray
For rain
I pray for sanctuary
The singer songwriter comes from my neck of the woods, and we could indeed see the smoke rising from miles away. It was an awful sight.
Along with the tears shed for the destruction and the deaths of so many brave people, there was a lingering frustration following the Carmel fire. An excruciating video went around, showing Labor Party leader Shelly Yachimovitch in the Knesset warning in 2009 that in pushing Israel’s firefighters towards privatization by drying up their public funding, the Finance Ministry was almost asking for a disaster to occur. It occurred.
It wasn’t until listening to the song by Ella Vs Mountain that I saw the connection between the Carmel Fire and the Israel’s summer protests for Social Justice. If ever we had required non-partisan confirmation that the State was not doing its job properly, the devastation of such a a beloved part of the country mostly due to poor preparation and chronic underfunding gave it to us. Maybe this was the fire that Ella recognizes burning under the protest movement.
But the video clip of the song does more than talk Israel. It cuts together images of popular protests throughout the world, so that the fire falls back into symbolism and the protests that gripped Israel become part of a global wave. Though the youtube cuts mostly show images from Israel (there are even a few rioting Haredim in there) they are also taken from the US, Europe, China, and throughout the Middle East. On the youtube page they even give links for all the clips they used.
The message of the video is clear: the local is global. Israelis in the streets were marching with the world, as part of the world, in order to address an issue for the world. It’s a bold – and mostly true – statement.
It’s a no-brainer to suggest that the general aims (and some methods) of the Occupy movement share a great deal with the Social Justice tent encampments of Israel, although I reckon Occupy could learn something from the Israelis about inclusivity. One can also see how the call for a more representative application of state power shares much with the protests in the Arab world. Though in Israel the protests were met with far less violence (and far less success?).
The video led me to think about what is going on in Tunisia, pretty much the only place in the Arab world where protesters were not beaten or shot at. The New York Times now points to a more complex issue that the Tunisians are dealing with: The tensions between religion and democracy.
Ring a bell?
A TV director chose to air a film that upset religious Muslims, and he’s since been beaten up and taken to court for libeling religion and possibly harming “public order or good morals”.
“Certain Islamist factions want to turn identity into their Trojan horse,” Mr. Messaoudi said. “They use the pretext of protecting their identity as a way to crush what we have achieved as a Tunisian society. They want to crush the pillars of civil society.”
In describing a Tunisian issue, he uses almost exactly the kind of words one hears in Israel today with regards the fundamental religious encroachment on public life.
The article refers to Turkey by way of comparison, but so much of what it describes could as easily be applied to Israel. Check this out:
secular elites long considered themselves a majority and were treated as such by the state. In both, those elites now recognize themselves as minorities and are often mobilized more by the threat than the reality of religious intolerance.
Hello?
Not only that, but it seems that in Tunisia at least, the founding democratic government is keen to avoid making any bold decisions. Compromises will be made, rulings will be postponed, just as they have been in Israel for decades.
The spokesperson from the ruling party’s political bureau admitted that
the line between freedom of expression and religious sensitivity would not be drawn soon. “The struggle is philosophical,” he said, “and it will go on and on and on.”
And in a strange way I’m left hopeful. In a bizarrely Zionist way I’m proud that here in Israel we’re no longer dealing with the esoteric.
The tensions between religion and state are now no longer just a Jewish meshuggas – they’re international (dare we say “universal”) issues that we’re trying to tackle.
Likewise the Social Justice protests were nothing if not local – after all, no one bailed out failing banks in Israel. But we shared a shout, we called a call in common with the rest of the world.
In that way I guess it makes sense for Ella to sing her song of protest in English and not in Hebrew. Sometimes Israel isn’t a separate case – it’s part of the whole.
You taught us well
Dear Los Angeles Jewish community who raised us,
First of all, I want to say thank you. Thank you for giving us opportunities, education and the chance to be whomever we want to be.
We grew up in a privileged environment, and we really do appreciate it. You taught us so much about the world, and for a long time whatever you said was all that mattered. You gave us a Jewish education through Jewish day school, camp, Hebrew school, temple and family Shabbat dinners that taught us how to braid challah, read Torah and love Israel.
Yes, we learned to love Israel. We went to Israel on exchange programs, youth-group trips, family vacations. We climbed Masada, floated in the Dead Sea and had unforgettable experiences at the Western Wall. We visited family, learned Hebrew and made friendships that will last a lifetime. We found our second home.
We went off to college and you told us to learn — learn to think critically, write a research paper, explore new interests, befriend people from other cultures. As much as you may think we don’t listen, you may be surprised to find that we aren’t sullen teenagers anymore. We listened. We are studying at 2 a.m., joining clubs, making new friends and, most of all, thinking critically. About everything. Including Israel.
Here is where we have reached a contradiction in our education. You see, you always told us to be the change we wish to see. To make a difference. To ask questions. To not stand idly by. Tzedek, tzedek, tirdof — seek justice, and pursue it. So we have. We were the leaders of the community service clubs, volunteered at SOVA, and lobbied our government to fight against discrimination and social injustice in the United States. To Full Post
Rabbi Daniel L. Lehmann, President of Hebrew College
From my perspective, the “Come Home” videos suggest a profound indictment of Jewish education and identity formation in Israeli secular culture. To Full Post
Reflections on media coverage and your truth
I didn’t really care all that much about Daphne Leef.
I knew that she’d been the person to plant the first tent on Rothschild Boulevard, and I knew that she was one of the people identified as a ‘leader’ of this amorphous yet ever-growing protest movement.
My understanding of the protests was that they had occurred spontaneously, and while its heart was consistent, its demands were constantly evolving. It was, and mostly continues to be, an open source kind of protest. As an open source protest, I was less concerned about the personal history of its leaders. I read various position papers from the various groups involved, and developed my own – positive – view of their general aims.
Burning bonfire issues
My most extraordinary religious experience took place on a mountain top in the north of Israel. The winding path to Mount Meron was lined with holy men, charlatans and peddlers pressing me to buy blessings, trinkets, food and drink. At the summit were hundreds of tents belonging to Sephardi families who camp out for a week before the festival; tied to each tent was a young lamb.
A modern day Pesach story – free checking!
For years, one terrible aspect of Israeli society has towered above the others as the most annoying, disgusting, frustrating and downright outrageous. I speak, dear reader, not of racial intolerance, not of environmental laziness, nor even of peace-process-disingenuity. No, the topic of this blog is much, much worse than any of these, which by comparison may be forgiven as mere… oversights. I speak here of bank charges.
“Free checking”. The phrase will be familiar and unremarkable to all American readers, and, appropriately translated, to British ones too. It works like this: I give the bank some of my money. As long as my account is in credit, I let the bank do whatever it likes with that money of mine: it can lend it to other people and charge them interest; it can invest it; it can stuff it under its mattress for all I care, but the key point is that it doesn’t charge me for that privilege. I give you my money, you don’t charge me for basic services.
Zionism and Democracy
In amongst the turbulence across the world this week, with a horrific suicide bombing attack in Russia, the ‘Palestine Papers’, Lebanese, Tunisian, and now Egyptian upheavals, I went parochial.
In Britain many of my friends are mobilizing to protest the non-decision of the Board of Deputies. The Board of Deputies of Jews is kind of the parliament of Jews in Britain, and it refused to adopt a motion supporting “the Two State solution”. Petitions are being signed to urge the Board of Deputies to reconsider.
I am a settler, the archetypical Other of Israeli evil.
I am a “settler.” Because I am a settler, artists and members of the academic community – some of whom are my close friends – have decided to boycott my home. I am a settler, the archetypical Other of Israeli evil.
Otherness is the darling of people who hate. It allows people of every stripe, left, right and center, to dissociate from certain people as a dehumanized class without thought or regret, and to hate without pangs of guilt. Throughout history, Jews have played the role of Other. In the world community today, Israel itself often plays the role of Other. Now I am the Other. I am the Other because I am a “settler,” and in the eyes of some, that is what defines me.
A Cartoon of the Jewish World
I popped in to the Cartoon Museum in Holon the other day. In the garden there was a ‘life-size’ cartoon from the 50s. It’s a cracking summary of how Israel and Jewish Peoplehood used to be imagined. To the left, staring out broigus-like away from the group, is the Haredi with the sign “I am a Jew” on his chest. To the right, cigar in mouth and eyes non-existent behind (sun?)glasses, is the ridiculously dressed camera-toting American with the sign “I am a Zionist”. And in the middle, kova tembel and all, is the young man apologetically trying to put his arms round them both, sporting the sign “I am an Israeli”.
It’s a wonderful picture of a time gone by.
Lessons Learned from Eight Years at Columbia Hillel
You can learn a lot about time spent in a place by looking in cabinets. Today I walked around my office peering into drawers and other spaces inhabited by papers and folders and tiny gadgets that I forgot I have and why I’ve kept them. I’ve been working for Hillel for eight years, and in a week, I won’t be anymore.
One particularly interesting pile looks like this: name tag from JStreet U conference, Stand with Us paraphernalia, Birthright staff manual, fliers for JNF program. It’s a nice summary of irony at work in the life of a progressive Zionist Jewish educator. Luckily, along with my incredible ability to amass stuff, has come a few lessons.
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