Reflections on Nakba Day

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by Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb

This week was the 65th commemoration of the Nakba, the forced removal of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their home and their entry into refugee status. Over 500 Palestinians villages were destroyed during the Nakba.

Today, millions of children and grandchildren of the first generation of Palestinian refugees from the period of the Nakba live in the world’s largest open air prison. They are not even allowed cement to rebuild houses destroyed by Cast Lead. Tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon are also refused national and civil rights. Their “encampments” are surrounded by barbed wire fences and they are imprisoned for a life time. Syrian Palestinians are also suffering from the civil war occurring there.

The story of Palestinians is often shunned. It is against the law, against the law! to teach the Nakba in the country that expelled Palestinians from their homes. What does it mean to make the Nakba an outlawed story in Israel? The nation of storytellers refusing to tell a story?

The only alternative to the present condition of strife and struggle is convivencia, living well together. Together on the same land. Together with mutual acceptance. Together as citizens of a common nation.

The first steps toward this vision is the acknowledgement of the Nakba and with that acknowledgment, grappling with The Right of Return. Remove the walls, open the gates, and let our two nations live out the days of their lives as free people in solidarity with one another with all the rights and privileges a human being deserves in this life.

This is the only path to peace. We can find a way. If we will it, it is not a dream.

Letter to President Obama from American Rabbis

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Dear President Obama,

We are writing this letter to you as American rabbis, cantors and rabbinical students, serving a wide range of Jewish communities.   We were dismayed to learn that, immediately following the recognition by the United Nations of observer status for Palestine, the government of Israel issued permits to begin development of two large tracts of settlement housing in highly contested areas in  East Jerusalem (E-1) and the West Bank (Maaleh Adumim.)

As you well know, these expansion permits are damaging not only to prospects for Palestinian self-determination but also for peace in the region.  We urge you in the strongest terms to use your full authority to oppose these expansions, which are illegal under international law and which also make impossible any hope of creating a viable Palestinian state in the West Bank.

We represent a growing voice within American Jewry which seeks an end to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and its stranglehold by blockade of the people of Gaza.  We believe that the aggressive expansion of settlements in the Occupied territories constitutes a deliberate strategy to obstruct a peaceful resolution to the conflict between Israel and Palestine.  We believe further that the United States, as the primary global source of financial and political support for the  Israeli government, has an obligation to hold the Netanyahu government accountable for these actions, which thwart the possibility of peaceful resolution of the conflict.

It is no longer the case — if it ever was — that the Jewish community in the United States  is unified in its support of the policies of successive Israeli governments, which have sought to create “facts on the ground” that obstruct the hopes of independence and sustainability for the Palestinian people.  Absent active intervention by the United States and other nations, Israel will surely continue to implement these destructive policies.

As leaders of the American Jewish community, we join you in hope for a just peace for all the peoples of the region.  Please know that you have our strong support for demanding that the government of Israel reverse for this latest action and for all that you can do to lead the way to a fair and sustainable resolution.

Yours sincerely,

Rabbi Margaret Holub

Rabbi Brant Rosen

Rabbi Brian Walt

Rabbi Lynn Gottleib

Rabbi Joseph Berman

Rabbi Laurie Zimmerman

Rabbi Elizabeth Bolton

Rabbi Julie Greenberg

Rabbi Borukh Goldberg

Rabbi Eyal Levinson

Rabbi David Mivasair

Rabbi Rebecca Lillian

Rabbi Rachel Barenblat

Alana Alpert

Cantor Michael Davis

Rabbi Michael E. Feinberg

Rain Zohav

Rabbi Zev-Hayyim Feyer

Jessica Rosenberg

Ken Rosenstein

Rabbi Shai Gluskin

Rabbi Rebecca Alpert

Ari Lev Fornari

Rabbi Art Donsky

Rabbi Jeremy Milgrom

Rabbi Linda Holtzman

Rabbi Leonard Beerman

Rabbi Alexis Pearce

Rabbi Sarra Lev

David Basior

Rabbi Liz Bolton on Values-Based Solidarity

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Statement delivered by Rabbi Elizabeth Bolton at the Kairos USA Press Conference in Support of the American Christian Leaders’ Call for an End to Unconditional US Military Aid to Israel, Washington, DC, November 29, 2012:

My name is Elizabeth Bolton. I am a rabbi from Baltimore and a member of the Rabbinical Council of Jewish Voice for Peace, and honored to be here.

Along with my Jewish clergy colleagues, I stand in support of the church leaders asking Congress for review of military aid to Israel so that it complies with its own laws and legislation.

A core value in my rabbinate is the passage in Genesis – that we are all created b’tzelem elohim/in God’s image.  The people of Israel are my people, yet I abhor the deliberate debasement of the divine image through systemic violations of human rights committed in the name of Israel the people in the land of Israel.

Some in our communities have been falsely stoking fears that decades of Jewish Christian dialogue would be destroyed as a result of the call by the fifteen church leaders. This is a false prophecy.  Jews and Christians and activists and humanists must all be able to speak truth to power, to call out as witnesses, and hold our civic leaders to account for their stewardship of our resources.

This is consonant with the principle found in the Talmud – dina d’malhuta dina – the law of the land is the law. Applied in this context, the principle is an extension of my citizenship here, and enhances my personal understanding if the complexities inherent in faith-based, particularly Christian-faith-based, calls for justice in Israel and Palestine.  I understand this interest in, and concern for, the holy land, and believe that the motivation for these actions is thoughtful, deeply considered, and values-based.

True interfaith cooperation and dialogue starts with a commonality of principles and ideals, and a willingness to engage with open eyes and open hearts, especially when looking at the painful and tragic intersections of faith and history.  Jews, humanists and activists who stand with these churches do so because we share respect for law, for dignity, and self-determination based on human rights.

In that spirit, JVP has created another opportunity to echo the church’s call. At obamaletter.org, you can find a petition asking President Obama to ensure that American aid to Israel is in compliance with current US laws. Our president has identified himself as a person of faith, and I call that to our attention at this moment precisely because some of us at this table do this work as people of faith. Jewish Voice for Peace is just that – a Jewish voice speaking and seeking peace, and taking this opportunity to raise the voices in chorus.

Ten thousand voices have already declared their support for the churches’ call, in this petition to Congress:

We are Jews, Christians, Muslims,  and other people of conscience who wish to thank you for your principled stand asking members of the United States Congress to hold Israel accountable in its use of U.S. military aid as required by U.S. law.

May our solidarity continue to be driven by values, not tribal allegiances, motivated by the prophetic vision that demands we stand with the powerless and call out the powerful.

May our shared work be for a blessing.

The Politics of Weeping

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by Rabbi Margaret Holub

I’ve been struck this past week, reading my various rabbis’ words as we process Operation Pillar, by all the talk of weeping.  “I weep for Israelis terrorized by sirens….”  “I weep for Gazans terrorized by Israelis….”  “I weep for everyone on both sides….”  There was a nice comment that someone made somewhere about how we shouldn’t forget to weep for the Bedouin in the southern Negev while we are weeping for both Israelis and Gazans.  And so on.

Then there were the comments telling the rest of us who we are allowed to weep for; I read one posting in another place from a rabbi admonishing the rest of us that we’re not entitled to weep for Gaza unless we have a first-degree relative in Israel, preferably directly in harm’s way.  That pissed me off.

And I also saw disgruntled comments that certain kinds of weeping — for the four Israeli dead, for example — just feed the evil delusion that this is a symmetrical conflict.  Or that if you only weep for the dead and destroyed of Gaza, you are self-hating, or at the very least, no one in the Jewish community will take your weeping seriously.

For a couple of days now I’ve been kind of anti-weeping.  But, like many of us, I’ve been feeling pretty damned impotent to do anything useful.  And today I got to thinking that maybe this is one role for rabbis: to weep.  And to share our sorrow and rage and all the rest, whatever piece of the whole scenario brings us to tears.  There’s plenty to cry about.  I haven’t personally shed any tears yet, but I’ve had knots in my stomach a lot and some sleepless nights.

But mostly I think it’s probably a good idea, at least for me, to try to stay centered and think.  What I am trying — not totally productively — to think about is what I have to offer that might be of help.  I don’t think that any of us can do absolutely the one perfect thing that will end the blockade, end the occupation and bring peace and justice.  It’s going to be partial from each of us.  So I’m also thinking that it’s probably not too productive to try to look tougher than I actually am, or smarter, or more radical.  though it’s hard for me not to try.  I was particularly moved by one person in our Rabbinic Council who said the other day that she’s not really in a position to be out front in public right now, but she can see doing some behind-the-scenes things, like making phone calls or writing press releases or even reaching out to other rabbis who are having a hard time right now dealing with this stuff.  When she said that I thought, wow, that’s something useful being said here.

But back to the weeping…  I think that all of us are moved to weep by different things, which is as it should be.  I don’t really think that one kind of weeping is better than another at this moment.  I kind of imagine us all at home, looking at our various computers and weeping, each in our own way, so that between us all we’re weeping over much of the tragedy/crisis/war/massacre and trying to find our voices and think how we can help.

And I find this comforting.

Reflections in the Key of Anguish

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by Rabbi Elizabeth Bolton

I am a singer and a rabbi, and I would rather sing to you right now, because you have probably read too many words, heard too much raw speech, about Israel and Gaza. It would be better to sooth and distract. But I feel compelled to find words. Just words.

Biblical verses and fragments of songs jostle for recognition and repetition, but I can’t hear then clearly enough. Instead, I’m trapped in the compulsion to read every report, go to every web site.

It feels disrespectful to say that I feel inundated or bombarded by all the words, when there are too many who are actually being bombarded.

To recite a litany of some things on this “side” and some things on that “side” feels like a desecration, a less-than-holy thing to write. I’m a rabbi; I have comforted at hospital beds, in houses of mourning; celebrated in times of joys, worshiped on the holy days, learned and taught with children and the young at heart, and know that trauma is trauma. No proportionality need qualify the permanence, and the destructiveness, of its impact.

My heart is heavy now, listening and reading way too much, way too many words, pulling me back to the days of Operation Cast Lead. A friend wondered, then, why I was so absorbed, so anguished, from so far away. How can I explain now, to anyone – to family, to clergy colleagues, to friends – how profoundly I want to find a way to wail the song: no more bombing in my name.

The diploma on the wall speaks: You! Find words, analyze, contextualize. I reply, resisting: I don’t have to come up with political solutions.  Let me just sing.

But I’m pulled to this keyboard, not to the other one, tapping at the letters to drown out the songs of anguish. Maybe, soon, a new melody in the key of tselem elohim will come to me.

I’ll keep listening for it.

Who is in Your Community? Israel and Hamas Must Learn to Live Together

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by Rabbi Art Donsky

With violence once again overflowing between Israel and Hamas, I ask, what does Judaism teach us about war, the value of human life, the right to defend oneself?

As Judaism is a tradition of this world, for this world, there is much that has been said and taught on this subject — some of it influenced by the gross lack of value given Jewish “blood” throughout the centuries and some of it placing human life of any kind above tribal and nationalistic devotions.

While I know deeply the pain and suffering of “our” people over the generations, and I feel deeply the horror that Israeli children experience with rockets flying and bombs bursting in air, I also know that it is an illusion to believe that I am separate from anyone else — that for the sake of my blood or lineage, I or someone else in my name has the right to take another’s life. And to believe that I or someone else can do so without retribution is foolishness.

In God’s eyes, human life is human life, whether it is Israeli or Palestinian or any other. As the Torah and our sages teach in the Talmud:

The sword comes into the world because of the suppression of justice and the perversion of justice, and those who misinterpret the Torah. (Pirke Avot 5:11)

Our rabbis did not justify or explain away violence. They saw bloodshed as a horrible curse. They expected human beings to resist the impulse to do evil. But as my friend and colleague, Rabbi Arik Ascherman, executive director of Rabbis for Human Rights in Israel, recently wrote:

In the real world the Bedouin who see their homes unfairly demolished and schoolchildren tear-gassed will lash out at their neighbors in their comfortable homes. Gazans who can import or smuggle in just about anything, but can’t afford many of the goods on their well-stocked shelves (of smuggled goods) because restrictions on exports leave them without income, will continue to support terror against their oppressors. Israelis under rocket fire while the world is silent will feel justified in doing whatever is necessary to stop those rockets, even when civilians are also killed…

Our message cannot be to ignore the rockets on our fellow Israelis. However, when we hear ‘there would be no attacks on Gaza if there were no rockets falling on the Western Negev,’ we must both join the demand that the rockets stop and remind our fellow Israelis that we can best help ourselves if we stop using our overwhelming power to make life miserable for most Gazans. With our greater power comes greater responsibility.

So I am very sad but not surprised at what’s transpired. Violence begets violence. No justice. No peace.

It is too easy to become cynical, to remember that the last time such an escalation took place between the Israeli leadership and the leadership of Hamas was also election time in Israel. History and the Bible tell stories of war used to enhance one’s political status. Recall also that the fighting in the first Gaza War took place immediately after the last U.S. election, in the winter of 2008 and 2009.

The body count will rise. Each side will blame the other. The final question when all is said and done will be, “Who is in your community?”

Last week, as I sat with a group of clergy – Jews, Christians and Muslims – from Pittsburgh and the North Hills, a colleague offered those five words as the basis of her spiritual reflection. While our gathering was not about the conflict in Gaza half a world away, it certainly fits. And so, when my colleague asked, “Who is in your community?” we sat in silence. She then explained how she came to realize that her community numbers – 7 billion!

May the leaders of Israel and Hamas as soon as possible call a truce and acknowledge this truth before the cycle of violence spirals out of control and more human lives are tragically lost.

Shabbat Shalom to Jerusalem and Gaza

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by Cantor Michael Davis

Shabbat Shalom

I just got off the phone with my brother in Jerusalem. Morning in Chicago, Friday afternoon in Israel. This is the time that the family starts preparing for Shabbat with the weekly “Sponja”, sweeping and washing the floors. “The air raid sirens just went off,” he said. Over the phone, an ambulance’s siren got louder, then another ambulance. “Let’s wait and see if there are any more ambulances.”

The conversation took me right back to my last couple of years in Israel, some 15 years ago. On any given morning, at the start of the workday – oddly enough, only during the workweek –  in the quiet air of Jerusalem, suddenly, a loud explosion. Some tense moments waiting. If we could hear multiple ambulance sirens, that meant there had been a suicide bomb attack. If, after a few minutes there were just the usual sounds of the city, we knew everything was fine; the blast was likely a controlled explosion at one of the working quarries in the area.

So, I tried to reassure my brother that this was unlikely to have been a missile attack. After all, Jerusalem was never targeted, not even during the first Gulf War when Saddam Hussein sent 39 missiles into Israel.

While he took another call, I opened my laptop and checked Haaretz. Top headlines on the homepage: * First Missile Attack on Jerusalem Since 1970 (this has not happened since before the Yom Kippur War) * Thousands of Reservists Called Up (…it’s going to be another ground war) * picture  of a tank base near Gaza mobilizing  (Cast Lead all over again) * Picture of Egyptian Prime Minister with Gaza PM Hanniye waving and smiling in Gaza! (the Egyptians are committed….what if an Israeli missile kills the Egyptian PM…

My first reaction to the news a couple of days ago was dread. For the people of Gaza. And for the inevitability of the cycle of violence. How did this start? Israel freely admits that its troops violated Gazan territory but claimed this was for “routine repairs to the border fence”. For Gazans, this was just one more infringement on their supposed sovereignty along with actual attacks. The Israeli siege of Gaza is enforced through these attacks and violations. And yet, what good will this escalation do for anybody on either side.

I had a sinking feeling for the ugliness that is beginning to surface in the Jewish community. The recently retired head of the Reform movement, Rabbi Eric Yoffie, defended the Israeli attacks on Gaza as “progressive values”. Israel invoked an image of divine presence, the Biblical “Pillar of Cloud” (that shielded the ancient Israelites in the wilderness from Egyptian attack) as the military name for the onslaught on Gaza. And, throughout the Jewish community, the response has been to line up behind the Israeli attacks, even in the more progressive parts of the community.

Yesterday, The Guardian reported that former US Middle East negotiator, Aaron David Miller predicted that the President had no choice but to support the Israeli attacks on Gaza. “ If Obama has any hope of promoting an Israeli Palestinian initiative down the road, he’s going to have to remain in lock step with the current Israeli government…and [take] a very, very tough line on Israeli security,” said Miller. “There’ll be latitude in giving the Israelis a lot of leeway in terms of the disproportionality of whatever response they undertake in Gaza.”

The poor people in Gaza. Under siege and now under attack. And what do my family in Israel get in return for these attacks on Gaza? Fear and the possibility of worse. Lockdown in the south and the ugly thrill of going to war “because we have no choice but to respond” spreading throughout Israeli society and into the American Jewish community.

Through all this, I am grateful to Jewish Voice for Peace for standing tall and calling out Israel for its attacks and killings in Gaza and for consistently insisting on an end to violence on both sides of the conflict.

My brother and I went on to chat about family and the breakthrough Israeli invention of a cardboard bicycle – cycling is a passion we share – which has the potential of revolutionizing mass bicycle production and usage in China and around the world. Israelis are famous of shrugging off bad news and just getting on with things. So we moved on.

We ended our call as we wished each other Shabbat shalom, a Sabbath of Peace. Halevai. If only.