by Karla Goldman
Jews may be renowned for their love of argument, but today’s American Jewish community seems almost incapable of productive discussion regarding disagreements over Israel.
Both impassioned supporters and virulent critics of Israel – moved by stark, if justifiable, fears – too often refuse to acknowledge the legitimacy of any position but their own. The resulting inability of American Jews to hear each other across ideological difference narrows discourse, stifles institutional independence, and weakens Jewish community and communal influence.
The Jewish calendar offers a useful summer reminder of the dangerous consequences of demonizing others in one’s own community. The Second Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed on the ninth of the Hebrew month of Av in 70 C.E. Observant Jews continue to mark this event and myriad other historical calamities which occurred on this same date with the fast day of Tisha B’av which falls this year on July 20.
Jewish tradition ascribes the second Temple’s destruction not to the Romans who actually torched Jerusalem, but to the “causeless hatred” (sinat chinam) which prevailed among the Jews within its walls. Spite, scorn, and cruelty among Jews opened the way for others to destroy the Temple, decimate and scatter Judea’s Jewish population, and end any meaningful national Jewish identity until the creation of the modern state of Israel in 1948.
As American Jews grapple with Israel’s current existential challenges, it seems an apt time to reflect upon the lessons of sinat chinam.
American Jews respond with a broad range of opinions and emotions to the policies of the Israeli government regarding a whole host of issues, including treatment of its Arab citizens and residents, and its military campaigns in Lebanon and Gaza. There is likewise a diverse spectrum of feeling among American Jews about the role that the U.S. government and its leaders should play in working for a more peaceful Middle East.
Despite this undeniable range of viewpoints, public (and often, private) discussions about Israel veer inexorably to polemical extremes and an insistence that there can be only one legitimate Jewish voice on these subjects. Many who support Israel reflexively dismiss critics of Israeli policies as appeasers who condone terrorism and seek the destruction of the Jewish state. No less disturbing is the readiness of many on the Left to condemn support for Israel as an embrace of racism, Nazism, and Apartheidism.
The resulting bifurcation leaves little room to come to terms with the complexities and nuances that in fact define the politics and realties of the contemporary Middle East. Moreover, it leaves many thousands of American Jews, who combine committed support for Israel with deep unease over numerous Israeli policies, feeling defensive, alienated, and silenced. Vulnerable to attack either as coddlers of terrorists or as defenders of a racist state, many who yearn for productive engagement end up distancing themselves from the whole subject. Most chillingly, this kind of vituperative “us” or “them” discourse inevitably estranges thoughtful younger Jews – the very group the established Jewish community so desperately wants to engage.
There is nothing wrong with the fierceness that animates American Jewish feelings about Israel. Some believe that the weight of Jewish history mandates an undeviating commitment to Israeli security whatever the cost. Others insist that historic victims of persecution can never justify complicity in the oppression of others. Convictions such as these, however, translate too easily into impenetrable moral absolutes.
It is telling that Tisha B’av, a day dedicated to remembering the destruction of Jewish communities across time, points us to the danger that comes in failing to see and respect the humanity of those with whom we disagree. If American Jews are to make any meaningful contribution to forwarding a peace process, that contribution is unlikely to be built upon assertions either of Israel’s unassailable virtue or its essential wickedness. More likely, it will come by attuning American and world leaders to the complexities of a situation that cannot be resolved without sacrifice, risk, and compromise on all sides.
As a start, this year’s Tisha B’Av offers an opportunity to fast, to reflect upon what is at stake, and to consider what could be learned from those with whom we disagree. If vilification and demonization are allowed to silence all but the most extreme voices in the American Jewish community, then sinat chinam, causeless hatred, will prevail once again, undermining Jewish community and possibility, and any hopes for peace.
Karla Goldman is Sol Drachler Professor of Social Work and Director of the Jewish Communal Leadership Program at the University of Michigan. She is the author of Beyond the Synagogue Gallery: Finding a Place for Women in American Judaism. She previously served as historian-in-residence at the Jewish Women’s Archive and taught American Jewish history on the faculty of Hebrew Union-College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati.
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You forgot to mention the five million people living under military occupation and 20% of the Israeli population living without full civil equality. Talking about Jewish unity under the circumstances is the height of arrogance and narcissism. There is no legitimate argument in defense of ethnic cleansing, or in defense of the oppression of another people, that needs to be patiently understood, no matter how nuanced or complex. That’s not a polemical extreme, its an inability of Jews and Israelis to face the reality of their situation: There can be no peace without justice.
If you want to fast for Tisha B’Av, then follow the exhortations of Isaiah: “Is this not the fast that I have chosen: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, and that you break every yoke?”
I addressed this theme in an article that appeared in a JTA op-ed and in my regular Huffington Post religion column in May. See below.
Israel Wrestling
Sid Schwarz
I have long straddled two worlds with regard to diaspora engagement with Zionism and the state of Israel. As the founder/president of PANIM, an organization that has trained tens of thousands of American Jewish teens to pursue social and political activism on behalf of the Jewish people and the world at large, I built a strong relationship with AIPAC so as to expose our students to the pre-eminent pro-Israel lobby in the United States.
However, as an educational organization, PANIM was always deeply committed to looking at every issue from a multiplicity of perspectives in the spirit of free inquiry and a rigorous pursuit of the Jewish value of emet, truth. As such, PANIM students were also exposed to a wide range of organizations that have challenged Israel on specific policy positions—be it in relationship to the peace process, treatment of its non-Jewish citizens or its lack of full recognition of non-Orthodox branches of Judaism.
Personally, in addition to being a strong advocate and donor to my local Jewish federation and a host of other mainstream Jewish organizations, I have been an enthusiastic supporter of groups like the New Israel Fund, the Israel Religious Action Center and Rabbis for Human Rights. The mainstream organizations support a range of programs and services domestically and across the globe that make the idea of a socially responsible “Jewish people” a reality. I love being part of a Jewish people whose relationships criss-cross the globe and have deep roots in Jewish history. My personal identity is deeply tied to Israel and to the concept of Jewish peoplehood. For me, it is not just a slogan. The organized Jewish community gives substance to that concept.
The latter group of organizations is committed to the kind of Israel that I understand to be the Zionist ideal—a state that is both Jewish and democratic. A Jewish state that embodies the noblest aspirations of prophetic Judaism, as articulated in Israel’s Declaration of Independence, is the fulfillment of the century-old aspirations of spiritual Zionism. The principles of spiritual Zionism are the same principles that are at the core of Torah: ahavat ger, loving the stranger in our midst because we were strangers in the land of Egypt (Exodus 22:20); tzelem elohim, treating every person as if he or she was a child of God (Genesis 1:27); and the belief that only though justice will Zion achieve any form of ultimate redemption (Tzion b’mishpat tipadeh, Isaiah 1:27)
It has not always been easy to straddle these two worlds, and it is getting harder. My friends on the progressive left cannot fathom why I have had a close working relationship with AIPAC. And I have taken my share of lumps from “defenders of Israel” who have accused me of traitorous behavior for my activism with organizations that have challenged one or another policy of the state of Israel when I feel that it violates core principles of Jewish ethics and morality. When the state of Israel feels besieged—be it from anti-Zionist propaganda, Islamic-inspired terrorism or from a possible unilateral peace initiative from the United States (not in any way equal threats but all precipitating frenetic defense efforts from pro-Israel quarters) the rhetoric heats up, accusations about “Jewish loyalty” are made and polarization between camps in the Jewish community deepens.
Reasonable people will disagree over whether diaspora Jewish activity can have an impact on the course that Israeli society takes. On every trip to Israel (about once a year) I become ever more humbled by how much I don’t know. Politics and society in Israel is complex and I do believe that, more times than not, Israel has taken the moral high ground in circumstances that make such approaches of no small risk. Nevertheless, I persist in my activism because I believe that my mandate as a rabbi is to speak the truth as I see it with as much courage as I can muster.
But the area about which I can speak with far more confidence has to do with the future of the American Jewish community. I spend a lot of time with high school, college and young adult Jews. A great number of them are highly idealistic and care about making a difference in the world. Some aspire to play leadership roles in the Jewish community, including as rabbis. Over the past decade, I note that fewer and fewer identify as Zionists, the state of Israel plays a much less significant role in their identity formation than was the case for me and my generation and an astounding number hold the organized Jewish community in contempt. I believe that the way our community has chosen to “defend Israel” has profoundly alienated the next generation of American Jews. There is substantial survey data that backs up my personal observations.
A recently launched Israel education initiative coming out of the Jewish Agency is called Makom and its tag line is: “hugging and wrestling with Israel”. It comes not a moment too soon. For we are a people whose patriarch—Jacob—earned the right to that mantle when he wrestled with a heavenly being. He was thus re-named Yisrael/Israel, the one who wrestled with God. We, his descendants, must also be allowed to engage in the kind of wrestling which is the meaning of our people’s name.
A generation of Jews who see themselves as global citizens, will not identify with a community that offers them anything less.
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Rabbi Sid Schwarz is the founder of the PANIM Institute for Jewish Leadership and Values and the author of Judaism and Justice: The Jewish Passion to Repair the World (Jewish Lights). He is currently a senior fellow at Clal: The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership and a consultant to Jewish organizations.
I believe that both Professor Goldman and Rabbi Schwarz are too embedded in the institutional structure of American Judaism to see why Israel-related issues are so difficult to discuss. I believe that there are two primary reasons for the heat generated around this issue set.
First, American Jewish institutions and most affiliated American Jews mediate relations to Israel through the state and state institutions (including the quasi-state “national” institutions of the Jewish Agency/Zionist Organization). Ties to Israel are ties of political solidarity to political institutions, not ties of peoplehood. These ties of political solidarity to the State are a post-1967 pseudo-Zionist phenomenon. When Zionism was a social movement, Zionists’ bonds of solidarity were to competing ideoloogically based social movement organizations and political parties — and Zionists were very much divided along these lines. But these bonds of political solidarity were values-based. The political solidarity to the State of Israel today that is demanded of American Jews is the same regardless of the values informing state policies. They are bonds of political solidarity that supersede our Jewish values.
Secondly, and related to the first point, the Jewish community has increasingly become a sectarian stalinist network of organizations to support the State of Israel and its actions and policies. There is increasingly little room for dissent on this issue. And this means that there is increasingly little space for progressives in the mainstream Jewish community or in mainstream Jewish communal life. The manifestation of this is a marked decrease in affiliation with Jewish organizations, especially among younger Jews. They still identify as Jews, but those that are politically progressive are given very few opportunities to actualize this identity within organized Jewish life. They either do so privately or forge new and as-yet-still transient new Jewish organizations or networks that rarely last for more than one stage in life.
I heartily agree with the observation that the inability of individuals within the American Jewish community to engage in intelligent and respectful discourse about Israel is a real threat to the strength and cohesion of our community. I am also in agreement with Ms. Goldman when she writes that part of the cause of this division is the vehemence ,and even violence, of the rhetoric employed by both the far right and left when it comes to discussing issues relating to Israel, but is still not clear to me how we can change the nature and tone of discussions about Israel in a way that will bring both the right and left to the same table for such a conversation to take place. I think the author is quite right in pointing out, implicitly at least, that there has likely always been some degree of discord and disagreement in the world-wide Jewish community on a variety of important issues. The idea that the destruction of the Second Temple came about as a result of Jewish internal strife is but one example of this –there are many places as well within the Tanakh and the Talmud where one can easily see the fractious nature of Jewish life from the time of the patriarchs and matriarchs up to the present day. Ms. Goldman is right in her assertion that the reality of the situation between Israel and the Palestinians is much more complex and nuanced than many people perceive it to be, but the question remains as to how those of us who are not extremists and care about Israel can help shape discussions about Israel in such a way that real issues can be discussed in a respectful manner. This is something I spend a lot of time thinking about as the editor of the New Vilna Review and in the work I do as a teacher. So far I have not found an solution to this peculiarly vexing challenge, but I am glad to see that others are thinking and writing about it as well.
Thanks to Daniel Levenson for raising what seems the most important question: how can we get to the real and complicated questions around Israel in a respectful and constructive manner. How can we create possibilities for meaningful dialogue and debate? Here’s where the “silencing” becomes so destructive — we can easily understand why existing agencies might feel that this vital issue is much too fraught with the potential for attack and condemnation to risk getting involved … where and how can we begin to model such discussions and show they’re possible? How can we bring more attention to those who are already struggling to do this work? Can we find a way to truly learn from others even while maintaining and refining our own passionate commitments?