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.

Jewish Heroes

We have just celebrated the holiday of Sukkot. It is traditional to invite Jewish heroes into the sukka. Each night of the weeklong festival, a different guest, or Ushpiza, is welcomed. The first night is Abraham's followed by Isaac, Jacob etc. My wife and I acquired our first sukka this year (on Freecycle!) and we considered who our Ushpizin guests would be.
We were dealing with a couple of challenges. One: It is customary to affix pictures of the guests to the walls of the sukka. Problem: we don't have pictures of the forfathers. We solved that problem by including two of my wife's forbears. They have same name as two Israelite ancestors in the Bible.
The other problem - which my wife picked up on right away - was the complete absence of women in the traditional list. So, we included the great German-Jewish philosopher, Hanna Arendt. Since we were in mid-20th century German Jewry, we included Martin Buber as well (he also happens to be distant family on my side). Google images provided their pictures for us. My grandfather, who was a Cantor in the East End of London was another. He looked pretty good in his full cantorial regalia: big hat, and an impressive tallit prayer shawl that could cover a king-size bed.
However, we were still a few guests short for our roster of Ushpizin.
Then, on the last day of Sukkot we got a windfall. A group of courageous Jews: Israelis and Europeans braved the might of the Israeli Navy to run the blockade of Gaza. Yesterday, they were intercepted, brutalized and humiliated. This small group of men and women - mostly senior citizens - were calm, determined and principled throughout.
One of the Israelis, Yonatan Shapira had already shown heroic courage. He had been set in a career as one of Israel's elite pilots. A select cohort of young Israeli men, of college-age are entrusted, individually, with multi-million dollar machines. Any mistake can have disastrous consequences to national security. Israel is a small country and airforce pilots are adulated as national heroes.
Mr. Shapira gave all that away, rather than continue to participate in the Israeli campaign of violence against West Bank civilians. Aboard the "Irene", he and his shipmates accepted physical violence, incarceration and verbal abuse in order to provide a Jewish alternative to Israel's violent blockade of Gaza's civilian population.
All the Jewish passengers aboard the Jewish Boat to Gaza are welcome in my sukka and my home!

On Double Standards

The great Israeli novelist Amos Oz gave an interview to Eleanor Wachtel on CBC's Writers and Company. Amos Oz spoke eloquently about his powerful 2004 memoir, "A Tale of Love and Darkness". He displays tender compassion toward his parents and explains why it took him so long to write this memoir of his childhood (Amos Oz is 71).
Towards the end of the interview, Oz turns to his other passion: Israeli politics. Amos Oz is a leading exponent of the Zionist Left. In his 1986 novel "Black Box", he lays out his political credo.
1. The Jews needed a sovereign state.
2. Harm was done to the Arabs in the process.
3. Now that we have the state, there is no justification for expanding it, and inflicting more suffering on the Palestinians of the Occupied Territories.
To his credit, Amos Oz has been attacking the Israeli Occupation of the West Bank since the 1960s. He publicly identified the problem as it was emerging, long before Israel committed to its three decade national infrastructure that de fact annexed the West Bank to Israel.
Today, Amos Oz is still a passionate believer in the 2-state solution. He is a leading proponent of isolating Hamas in Gaza and cultivating the West Bank Palestinians. He believes that Israelis will back a Palestinian state and dismantling the Israeli cities and villages on the West Bank in return for true peace. He cites popular Israeli support for the withdrawal from Gaza as proof but warns of the disillusionment that followed when Hamas launched missiles into Israel. Amos Oz doesn't explain who is going to pay for this and how these guarantees can be achieved.
What I found most interesting about this interview was his answer to the question why Israel is "turning into a pariah state"
He gave three answers:
1. the third world is always right, "right or wrong".
2. the world hates America and therefore hates Israel too.
3. Israel has failed its own initial promise to be an exemplary state.
Oz essentially dovetails with one of Israeli apologists' favorite accusations: the world is guilty of a double standard. This defense of Israeli policies acknowledges that Israel needs to change but points the finger at worse crimes being perpetrated elsewhere, and particularly, by Israel's Arab neighbors.
This argument has been answered by others before:
1. For the American public (the one that Israel cares most about): Israel is the recipient of the largest amount of US foreign aid worldwide - by far. Israel deserves special scrutiny.
2. Israel claims to be a Western democracy. It seeks to be associated with Europe and America. It is fair to ask how its ideology measures against Western standards.
3. For Jews: Israel claims to speak for all Jews. We therefore have a right to demand Israel's compliance with our values.
4. Finally, and what if others are just as guilty, or worse. That is no defense.