Democratic Israel

In an effort to head off criticism of Israel's slide away from democracy, Prime Minister Netanyahu todayexpanded the scope of the "loyalty oath." Not just non-Jews, but new, Jewish citizens will be required to swear allegiance to "a Jewish and democratic state." First, the silver lining: this is a first step away from the racial basis for Israeli citizenship. This is a healthy move away from the discriminatory Israeli Law of Return
But that's as far as the good news goes.
This law betrays a perverted notion of democracy. Democracy is not granted in reward for adhering to a political dogma: democracies are tested in their ability to accept dissent.
This might be expected from Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman with his anti-democratic platform, but not from Netanyahu - who started his career by speaking like an American.

So, how are the Israeli government's anti-American shenanigans playing in America?

Last week, my temple hosted a political event. The Washington-based political action group, the American-Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC) sent a representative to lay out that group's agenda. I could not attend the session because of my teaching responsibilities that morning but, several people came to me with one 'take-away' concept from the presentation. They all learned from the presenter that "Israel is a democracy. We, as Americans must respect Israel's decisions and not interfere even when we disagree with the elected government's decisions."

I take issue with that statement on its assumption and conclusion:

Assumption: Israel is a democracy
Israel is a limited democracy. The Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, whose lives are governed by Israeli officials and subject to review by Israeli courts have no representation. Israeli democracy does not extend to them., and they have no one to speak up for them. This plays out in their ability to access healthcare, freedom of movement, land rights and ownership. Fundamentally, it places the Occupation officials that rule Palestinian life beyond the reach of democratic oversight.

Within the 1948 border, Palestinian-Israeli citizens as individuals are nominally co-equal with their Jewish neighbors. However, their participation in public life is curtailed. Overt racial discrimination on land use is practised against Arabs by state-affiliated agencies such as the JNF and the Israel Lands Administration. The Basic Laws - the building blocks of Israel's constitution - explicitly prefer Jews to Arabs.
All in all, the 50% of people who are subject to Israeli control do not have full access to democracy as we understand it in America. Therefore, any argument presented to American Jews on the grounds that Israel is a "democracy" is essentially flawed.

"Americans must respect Israel's government and not interfere in Israeli decisions"
I have two objections to this argument:
1) Since the Arabs in Israel are not able to speak for themselves, we cannot accept Israeli decisions.
Furthermore, this position by this American political group runs counter to what Israelis ask of us as non-Israeli Jews. A couple of years ago I helped chauffeur a contender for the Israeli premiership as he toured Jewish Chicago. Israeli parliamentarian Ophir Paz-Pines came to Chicago to build his case for leading Israel. We witness a steady stream of well-publicized Israeli missions from NGOs, political activists and statesmen. Since they seek to engage us in the Israeli political discourse, why is an American organization urging us not to?

2) American Jews - I have learned - enjoy a strong tradition of engaging in regular, political action. American Jews not only vote in very high numbers but also act by going to Washington, visiting their congressman, writing letters, attending rallies etc.. In fact, the American-Israel Political Action Committee encourages this very advocacy for the policies it supports. Why, then, when it comes to Israeli actions that we disagree with do they urge us to sit back? Which is it: are we called to act on Israeli actions, or not?

The Israeli government claims to act on behalf of Jews who are not Israeli. Furthermore, it colonized the west Bank with Jewish Israeli settlers, under the legal framework of non-Israeli Jews (WZO). That is invitation enough for us as non-Israeli Jews to engage in political action.

One caveat: there is one area that I agree - despite Israeli urgings to the contrary - that non-Israeli residents should not get involved: voting in Israeli elections. Even though I hold Israeli citizenship and Israeli political parties have urged me to vote (even to the point of offering free airfare so I can cast my ballot in Israel), I have not voted in an Israeli election since leaving the country.
That should be left to residents of Israel.

Community Garden

I live in a condo. By choice. I want to minimize my environmental footprint. And there's also the bit that I do not need more space right now. In my mind more space means more stuff to clean, manage and store. I have already long maxed out the time and energy I want to give to all that part of life.
But there's one really nice thing about having a house. The garden.
So, back in May, when when a flyer appeared in our condo entrance room about a new community garden in our neighborhood, we signed up right away. We were the seventh people to respond.
We just got back from the Peterson Garden's Fall Festival. Back in May, we built 150 raised beds. All were taken by people in the Chicago area. The gardeners ranged from master gardeners to novices, like us. During the summer, the founder of the project, the amazing Lamanda organized a variety of events.
During the 4th of July weekend we dedicated the garden. Lamanda invited me as clergy to deliver the benediction. I've done quite a bit of Interfaith work over the years, but that just meant Jewish-Christian. This was all faiths and the unaffiliated and it was about gardening. This is what I came up with:
"A key tenet of al religions is the value of community. Here, on this ground, we are creating new community. We are creating a unique place in the neighborhood. Perhaps the only place where we are all partners. A place where we meet as equals to work and enjoy the gifts of the earth and summer. This is a holy place"
Lamanda's mother had tended a Victory Garden during WWII. Lamanda did some research in the neighborhood and pinpointed the location of our neighborhood's 1942 Victory Garden . She discovered that the plot was currently vacant. From there it was a short path to re-creating a WWII Victory Garden in 2010
My wife and I planted our seeds in May at the beginning of the weekend which ended with the birth of our daughter. We took pictures with her next to her peers, the seedlings, at five weeks. We've compared their respective growth over the summer and Fall.

The community garden became almost immediately, a place we just loved to go to. We met interesting, kind people. We learned a bit about gardening, what works and what doesn't. (Important stuff like: you need a plastic bucket and loose straw to grow potatoes.) We are still harvesting our tomatoes.

People came from all over the city to garden at the Peterson Garden, the biggest of its kind in the Garden City. Great people - mainly young men and women - volunteered their time to put on several projects, including a 4th of July parade and party and today's fashion show and music festival.

Thank you Lamanda and all the leaders and our fellow gardeners for giving us a great summer of community gardening!

The Dome of The Rock and My Talit

The Dome of The Rock Mosque

At Friday night Shabbat services as I sat down to listen to the Rabbi's sermon, my eyes wandered. He spoke about his hopes for progress towards peace in Israel/Palestine. My eyes settled on the corner of my tallit prayer shawl (see image below). I noticed for the first time the subtle silver-on-white decoration of each of the four panels at the corners of the shawl. My mind was thinking about the so-called "peace talks" when the image suddenly leaped to the forefront of my consciousness. Could this Arabic structure festooned with Hebrew banners and crowned with a Jewish star be....the Haram el-Sharif mosque?
The two banners read "tiferet" and "zion". The Tiferet Zion synagogue in Jerusalem is in the Mahane Yehuda market. It is a landmark building because of its distinctive sundial on the side of the building. That synagogue looks nothing like this image. Another option is the famous, domed Hurva synagogue in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem's Old City. But the details beneath the dome are quite different in the Hurva synagogue. The Biblical verse that adorns the image is the traditional Jewish oath to Jerusalem: "I will lose my right hand before I forget thee O Jerusalem"
Was the similarity to the Dome of the Rock intentional, or was it an innocent mistake?
Regardless, in the context of that sermon and this week's events (see the previous post), I just removed my talit and concluded the service sans prayer shawl. For services today I used a different talit.
I've had this talit for seven years, wearing it on a weekly basis. I didn't notice this detail until last night.
A congregant who is an artist and peace activist once made some windsocks that had the Israeli flag on one side and the Palestinian flag on the other. He gave one to me. This was long before the days when the Palestinian flag became the conventional symbol that it is today (even Israeli leader, Netanyahu has one in his office). I had to take it down: the windsock moved too much under the pressure of the forced air, and was triggering the alarm's motion sensors.
So, perhaps I'll put an Israeli flag on the right front corner of the tallit, a Palestinian flag on the left front corner and leave the back ones as they are. Should make for a good show-and-tell lesson.

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P.S. I checked out the Zion Tallis website and the corners of this style Talit are now decorated with different image. Perhaps they figured that this image might be read as offensive.