ARZA

By Rabbi Dan Medwin (he/him) 

Co-Director, URJ 6 Points Sci-Tech Academy 

I am swimming in conflicting emotions and thoughts after my short, but intense, trip to Israel through the Foundation for Jewish Camp. The heartbreaking and gut-wrenching stories I heard while there are now imprinted on my soul and will forever remain with me. 

While I have spent a great deal of time in Israel previously, and I love the country and the land deeply, it is the personal relationships I have formed with Israelis that constitute my strongest connection. This is also the goal of hosting our annual delegation of Israeli staff members at URJ 6 Points Sci-Tech Academy: to build strong and resilient interpersonal relationships between Israelis and our other staff and campers. It was through my close relationships with Israelis and the conversations we shared during my recent visit—built on solid foundations of trust and support— that I gained a more complete understanding of how many Israelis are feeling right now. 

First and foremost, Israelis are in mourning and traumatized. They are in deep pain – not only because of the horrors of October 7th, but due to the continued absence of the hostages, seeing residents being displaced from the north and south, and worry for the soldiers and reservists who continue to be in harm’s way.  

Second, nearly every Israeli with whom I spoke felt pain for the innocent Palestinians in Gaza. Some felt that the way the war is being waged is a necessary evil; others disagreed vehemently. Yet all spoke out of a sense of patriotism and commitment to ensuring Israel’s safe and peaceful future.  As an American, I know that it’s possible to love one’s country while disagreeing with the current government’s actions. 

I saw this play out over and over again when I was in Israel. 

One good friend shared her misgivings about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s leadership – from the lapses that made it easier for Hamas to attack to the way the war in Gaza is being waged.  She also explained that it seems to her Netanyahu’s strategies for the war are driven by his own political needs instead of what is best for the country. She pointed out that many people were protesting his policies before October 7th; now, even more people want to vote him out of office. 

Her husband, on the other hand, believes that the war in Gaza is necessary to defeat Hamas. It’s necessary because Hamas has vowed to keep attacking Israel until it’s destroyed. It’s necessary to deter future attacks from Israel’s hostile neighbors. He emphasized that he regrets the civilian casualties but pointed out that Hamas uses human shields by setting up bases in schools and hospitals.  He added that the destruction of Hamas is actually in the best interest of the Palestinian people, because of the harm Hamas is doing to its own people. He emphasized that Israel is trying to do its best in a very difficult situation. 

These opinions were not unexpected, but a third conversation helped me see things more clearly. This conversation started with a friend looking around the room before leaning in to whisper, “I hate Bibi. I HATE him. But now is not the time for public criticism. We must be united.” 

 The diversity of the political perspectives in Israel is not often publicly discussed, and yet, regardless of political views, all the Israelis with whom I spoke were united in their eagerness to help in any way they could. For some, that meant serving in the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) reserves, for others, working as trauma or grief counselors, and for still others, creating an entirely new organization working for the hostages’ release and supporting the families of the hostages. The resilience of Israelis is unparalleled; they have come together to support one another in this incredibly challenging time. 

Everywhere we went, people thanked us for showing our support by being there in person. They shared how they feel the whole world is against them and isn’t willing to listen to their stories, even some of their closest allies: American Jews. They are feeling abandoned and alone in a hostile world. 

I made sure to tell every Israeli with whom I spoke that I love them, support the people of Israel, and their right to live in safety. Period. Without question.  

At the same time, the continually rising civilian death toll in Gaza pains me deeply. While Hamas remains responsible for much of the suffering of innocent Palestinians in Gaza it is incumbent on Israel to do what it can to facilitate the humanitarian aid. I worry about the current situation in Gaza, not only because of the tremendous toll it is taking on innocent civilians, but because of how Israel has been demonized internationally, leading to dramatically increased antisemitism around the world. 

So, I am now left with a personal dilemma. How do I support the people of Israel and the right of my Israeli friends and loved ones to feel safe in their country while feeling so devastated about what is happening in Gaza? How do I reconcile my questions about the way this war is being waged with my love for Israel and its people?  And how do I show up for my Israeli colleagues and friends in this time when a sense of unity is so important? I am swimming in conflicting emotions and thoughts. 

In the meantime, I will continue thinking about the best ways to create a supportive and safe environment this summer at URJ 6 Points Sci-Tech Academy for our Israeli delegation and all of our staff and campers. And I continue to pray for swift release of the hostages, more humanitarian aid to Gaza, and hope that somehow out of this tragedy, we will find a way to the only equitable resolution — two states for two peoples living in peace and security. 

Since the October 7^th massacre and the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, Jewish teens in North America have been experiencing many serious challenges. Jewish teens with diverse political identities have been criticized by their peers and communities for expressing their beliefs around Israel and the war. Many teens and their loved ones have been targeted by Israel-related antisemitism.

The Teen Israel Organizing Fellowship and Immersive are programs for teens to safely engage with Israel across their political, cultural, and ideological differences. We are here to help you nurture a complex and caring relationship with Israel and aim to build a vibrant, pluralistic community of teen Israel organizers.

Apply or refer a teen to the URJ Teen Israel Organizing Fellowship and they’ll earn a $15,000 scholarship to Heller High in Israel. Designed for high school students ages 15-18, The Teen Israel Organizing Fellowship and Immersive are programs for teens to safely engage with Israel across their political, cultural, and ideological differences. Fellows will learn about social issues and culture in Israel and learn how to organize around Israel within their communities.  Fellows will attend Heller High this coming Fall 2024 semester and will meet once a week for the semester to learn about social issues and culture in Israel and hone their leadership and community organizing skills. Upon returning home from Israel in the winter of 2024—and under the guidance of a supportive and experienced mentor—Teen Israel Organizing Fellows will spearhead an organizing project around Israel in their local communities.

If you or your teen can’t travel to Israel for an entire semester, apply or refer a teen to the US-Based URJ Teen Israel Organizing Immersive, a four month for North American teens to learn about social issues and culture in Israel and learn how to organize around Israel in their communities!  Participants will travel for free to an in-person opening seminar at URJ Camp Coleman from October 18-21, 2024 before returning home to work with a mentor on a project of their choosing.

For more information about the Teen Israel Organizing Fellowship, click here.

For more information about the Teen Israel Organizing Immersive, click here.

Also, please feel free to reach out to Director of Youth Organizing – Israel Bryan Oren at bhoren@urj.org.

Friday January 5, 2023 – כ״ד טֵבֵת תשפ”ד

“Joseph died, and all his brothers, and all that generation.  But the Israelites were fertile and prolific; they multiplied and increased very greatly, so that the land was filled with them. A new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph. And he said to his people, “Look, the Israelite people are much too numerous for us. Let us deal shrewdly with them, so that they may not increase; otherwise in the event of war they may join our enemies in fighting against us and rise from the ground.”  So they set taskmasters over them to oppress them with forced labor; and they built garrison cities for Pharaoh: Pithom and Raamses. But the more they were oppressed, the more they increased and spread out, so that the [Egyptians] came to dread the Israelites.  The Egyptians ruthlessly imposed upon the Israelites.” (Exodus 1:5-9)

This week we crossed the 90-day mark of this war and saw significant developments. On Monday, January 1, 2024, the Israeli Supreme Court handed down a landmark decision upholding the reasonableness doctrine, a key pillar of judicial review. In doing so, it struck down the only component of the current government’s attempted legal coup that passed in the Knesset. This is the first time in Israel’s history that the Supreme Court struck down a Basic Law, a type of legislation that is supposed to function as Israel’s constitution. This is a significant and controversial ruling that was critical in preserving Israel’s democracy even during a time of war. To read more about it see IRAC’s Executive Director Orly Erez Likhovsky’s analysis.

On Tuesday, an Israeli drone assassinated Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri. It gave Israelis and their supporters a sense that, even though the war in Gaza is still very much ongoing, and it will for many more months, Israeli officials remind us, even if Hamas, while batteredת is far from demolished, Israel remains powerful and able to deal a significant blow to the leadership of Hamas where ever they are located, inside or outside of Gaza. Arouri was not only viewed as one of the master planners of Hamas’s October 7 massacre but was also one of its main liaisons to Lebanon and Iran. He was credited with giving the order to organize a significant terror operation in 2014 that led to the kidnapping and murder of three teenagers – a terror attack which itself eventually led to the Gaza conflict that year.

This week we also begin to read the book of Exodus, which can be seen as the foundational and formative answer to who we are as a people and the story we tell ourselves about ourselves (much more than the book of Genesis). When taught who we are as a people, our master story teaches that we are the children of Abraham and Sarah who were slaves in Egypt, rose up and were liberated from the house of bondage, and sojourned towards the Promised Land where we were to live as a free people. It is a classic narrative and one we reinforce annually at our Pesach seders and daily in our prayers.

At the heart of our story is oppression.

To be a Jew, we are taught, was to have been a slave. To have been an oppressed people, and the more we were oppressed the more we increased and spread out causing the powerful Egyptians to fear us and double down on their oppression. Being an oppressed people is a central theme in our lachrymose Jewish history since we were enslaved in Egypt until contemporary times. According to Professor Shaul Magid, “Jewish oppression has been baked into the covenantal experience, into the self-fashioning of the Jews, and arguably has become a cornerstone of Judaism.”¹

Are we today to continue our biblical foundation as an oppressed people or can we do away with that beleaguered distinction and move on? And why does it matter?

Magid continues: “A subtext to the discussion of oppression and antisemitism is power: Oppression is not simply a state of hatred – it is an exercise in power.”

It is easy to fall into the false binary of oppressed vs. oppressor. Oppressor groups are today’s strong, wealthy ethno-racial groups, and oppressed groups are the weaker, poorer and powerless groups who have little or no power because they have been deprived of this by the Oppressors. Oppressed groups are fundamentally noble while Oppressor groups are fundamentally not so.

A poll conducted this July showed 62 percent of Gazans supported Hamas “maintaining a ceasefire with Israel.” We can safely infer from this that most Gazans would have preferred Hamas to not carry out its recent attack; which, of course, makes their current suffering under Israel’s reprisals all the more tragic and horribly unfair. Paulo Freire, in his landmark book Pedagogy of the Oppressed, argued that “with the establishment of a relationship of oppression, violence has already begun …Never in history has violence been initiated by the oppressed…Force is used not by those who have become weak under the preponderance of the strong, but by the strong who have emasculated them.”

Under this logic, Hamas could never be blamed for an attack on Israel because, and follow the logic here, it was the Israelis who initiated the violent relationship of oppression with the Palestinians. In this worldview, the moral evaluation of an act is dependent less on the characteristic of the act itself but on who perpetrated the act: Oppressed or Oppressor? The Oppressed hold the moral high ground by virtue of being oppressed. Their lives constitute a struggle to no longer be oppressed, as should be obvious to any fair-minded observer. The oppression of the Oppressed is strong evidence of their morality and that they are not as prone to violence as their Oppressors.

But this logic is flawed. Our moral outrage at injustice, not to mention violence, should not be conditional on the ethno-racial category of the perpetrators. We should feel as compelled to condemn violence against Jews as violence against Palestinians. The incredibly high death toll in Gaza and the horrific humanitarian conditions are not helping Israel’s strategic goal of providing security for its citizens. If we say one of these acts is somehow ok, then indeed “morality is simply an attitude we adopt towards people we dislike,” as Oscar Wilde suggested.

After 91 days of fighting, the situation in Gaza is dire. The starvation and disease are reaching levels that are unfathomable to many in the Western world (for more on this see this Haaretz report). It would be in Israel’s interest to come to their aid and enable an international coalition of support to alleviate the untenable emergency situation there. It doesn’t matter that Hamas is ultimately morally culpable for the situation, which it is, and that sympathy for the Palestinian people has, by and large, not been on the agenda for the average Israeli.

Centuries of oppression have led us, even 125 years after the beginning of our own national liberation movement, to often see ourselves as oppressed, as victims, and as a vulnerable people. October 7 perpetuated and reinforced this feeling for many Israelis, who hear the calls for ceasefire from abroad and hear them as calls for the end of the Jewish State. At the same time, those who call for ceasefire see themselves as upholding the moral line devised from our ancient Jewish sources.

Here’s the thing. We Jews can be both powerful and victims at the same time. Many Jews in the Diaspora feel a sense of belonging, affluence, and powerful in their own countries and societies, yet lament the feeling of being excluded from a status of oppressed people because our self-image as an oppressed people is so baked-in historically in the Jewish psyche.

As we experience our narrative unfold from oppressed people to those who are masters of our own destiny, let us embrace both truths and do what we can to help those who are in need.

Shabbat Shalom.

By Dr. Elan Ezrachi

The past week was marked with the pause of military operations and a partial return of the hostages. While the relative (though most likely short-lived) calm was felt all over, the horror stories of the returnees and the anguish over those who are still in captivity were the main motif of the public’s mood. Quickly, we settled into a new routine: watching every evening the small group of hostages that were thrown into the Red Cross vans circled by Gazan mobs gathering in a threatening position. The scenes of embracing the released hostages were mixed with their sad and tormented images.  

Not knowing how this situation is going to continue or deteriorate, I will resort to my happy place: History. This week marked 76 years since the 1947 United Nations resolution that led to the establishment of the State of Israel, known in Hebrew as: Kaf Tet B’November (the 29^th of November).

A quick reminder: In 1947, the (newly established) United Nations appointed an international body to explore ways to end the British Mandate. The United Nations Commission on Palestine (UNSCOP) visited British-controlled Palestine between June and August of 1947 and collected testimonies and data from the representatives of the Jewish and Arab communities, as well as from the British authorities. The Jewish Zionist leadership seized the opportunity and presented the Jewish case with a robust public relations and political campaign. The Arabs refused to cooperate with the Commission forcing them to use alternative modes of investigation. The Commission reached the conclusion that after the termination of the British Mandate, Palestine, west of the Jordan River (or from the River to the Sea, if you wish) will be divided into two states: Jewish and Arab (those were the terms used by UNSCOP). Another feature of UNSCOP’s recommendation was that the Jerusalem metropolitan area will remain under international control and not given to neither of the rival parties. The UNSCOP recommendation was brought to a vote in New York on the 29^th of November 1947.

This 76 year-old event is far and remote from our current reality. However, I would like to draw a few insights from that process:

1.       The Zionist leadership was savvy in its ability to use this international body to present the case and the moral argument that stands at the base of a Jewish State. Even then, the international community was not in favor of the Zionist project, but that did not derer the Zionists and the massive campaign worked.

2.      The Zionist leadership managed to convince UNSCOP that a Jewish State is not only needed for those Jews who were present in Palestine at that moment, but also for Jews outside of Israel, particularly Holocaust survivors. They even managed to bring several Commission members to visit DP camps in Europe who stated their desire to immigrate to the Jewish State. The notion of Israel as a State of the entire Jewish People received international recognition.

3.      Arab refusal was a motif that began there and continued for decades. This negative attitude was not employed by the Zionists. Their strategy was to move in incremental steps and take whatever was offered to them. The idea of ‘all or nothing’ was never the Israeli position.

4.      The idea of two states west of the Jordan River was born then. It never happened and doesn’t look realistic today. Still, it is probably the most optimal trajectory to end the Israeli – Palestinian conflict.

5.      And finally, UNSCOP presented an interesting model for Jerusalem: an international city that is not controlled by any of the conflicted parties. Viable? Not at the moment. Interesting? For Sure.

    Shabbat Shalom

UNSCOP deliberations at the Jerusalem YMCA, a place I visit 3-4 times a week to exercise in the fitness center where people of all religions and nationalities share the great facility.