How to Really Support Israel — Yom Kippur 5771/2010

A Rabbi and his wife were cleaning up the house. The Rabbi came across a box he didn’t recognize. His wife told him to leave it alone, it was personal. One day she was out and his curiosity got the best of him. He opened the box, and inside he found three eggs and $2,000. When his wife came home, he admitted that he opened the box, and he asked her to explain the contents to him. She told him that every time he had a bad sermon, she would put an egg in the box. He interrupted, “In 20 years, only three bad sermons, that’s not bad.” His wife continued, “And every time I got a dozen eggs, I would sell them for $1.”

Today, giving a sermon about Israel, a rabbi may be treading on eggshells. It’s probable that no matter what is said, half the congregation will nod in agreement, and the other half will disapprove. Prior to the holiday, I received in the mail a poster from the Jewish Federation of San Francisco, which I have hung on our bulletin board, with an open letter signed by over 150 rabbis in the Bay Area urging “a year of civil discourse” around Israel. Why was that necessary and what was the catalyst that motivated 150 rabbis to actually agree on something?

Perhaps they were referring to a widely publicized incident that occurred during last year’s Jewish Film Festival in San Francisco, when a documentary was shown about Rachel Corrie, an American volunteer who sympathized with the Palestinians and was killed under disputed circumstances while protesting demolitions in Gaza. Her mother was invited to speak at the screening and the event was seen as highly critical of Israel. As a result, the chairperson of the festival resigned, some major funders threatened to withdraw their support, and the Jewish Federation came under tremendous heat for their partial funding of the event. They were moved to set up guidelines stating that future Federation grantees “may not endorse any kind of boycott, divestment, and sanctions campaign against Israel.” On the other hand, they will still be open to funding “presentations by organizations or individuals that are critical of particular Israeli government policies but are supportive of Israel’s right to exist as a secure independent Jewish democratic state.” This seemingly moderate Federation policy in turn sparked an open opposition letter from 70 Bay Area Jewish academics and intellectuals.

However, the Film Festival tumult was only the latest controversy. Going back to 2003, we find the strange case of a Jewish woman who volunteered to work for a San Francisco rape crisis center. But before she could accept this volunteer job, she was expected to sign a statement that she agreed with the organization’s anti-Israel, anti-Zionist policy! The volunteer asked the Jewish Community Relations Council for help. But the story doesn’t end there. Not only did it take a couple of years to solve the problem (after pointing out that the organization receives funds from the city of San Francisco and was acting in a discriminatory way), but JCRC associate director Abigail Porth found herself sharply and vocally criticized by some local liberal Jews who in turn had felt that their points of view had not been acknowledged or respected by the Jewish Federation. Porth’s response was to found Project Reconnections, a program of dialogue about Israel within the Bay Area Jewish community. Project Reconnections has brought together—not Arabs and Jews—but Jews speaking to other Jews about their feelings about Israel. Through this program Jews on all sides of the issues came to see that they actually share a vision of a thriving, peaceful Israel, but too often feel hurt and attacked by those with different political views.

Closer to home in Sacramento, Project Reconnections was called into action when the Sacramento Federation decided to co-sponsor an event with Christians United for Israel, a pro-Israel conservative evangelical group. The ensuing communal controversy was addressed in a special forum by Project Reconnections.

How did we get to a time when Israel, the one subject that could unite our diverse Jewish community, became the very source of some of our most intense divisions and disagreements? My mother, of blessed memory, told me how thrilling it was to gather around the family radio and hear the United Nations vote and the declaration of the state of Israel. Just as the name of Israel’s national anthem is Hatikvah, “the hope,” so the establishment of Israel in 1948 held out two great hopes for the Jewish people: first, that Jews would now have a safe haven in a sometimes hostile world. Second, she told me, and equally as important, was the belief that Israel, the first modern state to be built on Jewish ethics and values, would surely become an ideal society. Right from the start two hopes were centered on Israel: Israel the safe homeland and Israel the prophetic, utopian dream. It’s not surprising that the two visions sometimes conflict.

A few years ago my Bay Area colleague Rabbi David J. Copper gave a Yom Kippur Sermon on two kinds of supporters of Israel: prophets and guardians. I think that each of these types of support for Israel is based on one of those two hopes kindled in 1948: Israel as secure haven and Israel as ideal society. David said: I think that there are two general tendencies around Israel…There are those for whom issues of justice are a bit more paramount, who are concerned about the injustice and the violence suffered by people with less power, in this situation, the Palestinians. These folks largely identify these concerns with the ultimate values of our Jewish heritage.…I will call this tendency the “Prophets” for short. And then there the folks for whom the oppression suffered by the Jewish people in a hostile world is paramount, and Israel represents our haven to them. These folks identify these concerns with the survival of the Jewish people…I will call this tendency the “Guardians.” Too often, he said, these two worthy tendencies come into conflict.

He continued to say, “Guardians [sometimes] hear Prophets talking about justice and the Guardians think, “Where is their love of Israel? Where is their concern for the Jewish people?” And when Prophets listen to Guardians talking about security for Israel or questioning Palestinian goals, Prophets think, “Where is their concern for justice and for Jewish values?” David’s paradigm of the prophets and the guardians, although he was careful to state that it was only an exercise and not a set of absolute labels, became a foundation of Project Reconnections.

Even though I was very young, I can still remember the Six Day War of 1967 as a transformational time for the Jewish community. The fear that Israel might be destroyed by gathering Arab armies was replaced by exaltation and relief. The pain of Jewish victimization was replaced by pride in Israel’s dramatic victory. This spectacular military achievement and the territories it brought gave Israel breathing room and eventually paved the way for a peace treaty with Egypt. But the Six-Day War also laid the foundation for many of the problems and controversies that Israel has dealt with since then, as many Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza came under Israeli rule, leading to difficult ethical dilemmas. With the first Intifada, the Palestinian uprising in the West Bank in the late 1980’s, some Jews in Israel and the US began to shift their emphasis from being guardians of Israel’s safety to being prophetic critics of Israel’s policies in the terrorities. Peace movements in Israel flowered, and some Jews in the US supported them, although it was still an unpopular position to take in the organized Jewish community.

The Oslo agreements of the 1990’s made peacemaking mainstream. It seemed that the impossible dream of Mideast peace was just around the corner. But we all know that Prime Minister Rabin was assassinated, Oslo eventually failed and a decade ago Palestinians launched a second and much more violent Intifada with many suicide bombings. With Israeli civilians under attack, many who had heard the prophetic calling switched back to the role of guardians. The Israeli peace movements floundered. Furthermore, in recent decades, Israel’s dramatic vistories on the battlefield against standing armies have been replaced by confusing and morally murky non-conventional warfare, as Israel has had to fight terrorist forces embedded among civilians in places like Lebanon and Gaza. Even though Israel probably goes beyond any other nation in its attempts to avoid civilian casualties, as our own nation has learned the hard way there is no easy definition of “victory” in such scenarios. You may win the battle decisively, but still lose the ongoing war for public understanding.

A younger generation, both in Israel and the U.S. grew up without memories of 1948 and 1967. Their loyalties and values come from a more privileged time and a more univeralistic perspective, and they are bombarded on campus by increasingly strident and vocal opposition to Israel and to the very idea of Zionism. Some say we should we focus on transforming our youth into guardians of Israel while others insist that we need to welcome their progressive prophetic questioning, lest we alienate them altogether. We may need to encourage both.

Personally, I have felt the heat of representing an unpopular stance on Israel within my local Jewish community back in Texas. In San Antonio I started a Palestinian-Jewish Dialogue group with a Muslim partner, Nadir. A remarkable Palestinian man born on the West Bank, he served as Imam, spiritual leader of the Muslim congregation at the US army’s Ft. Sam Houston in San Antonio. He is one of the most open hearted, sincere human beings I’ve ever known and I came to regard him as a brother. He was not afraid to speak publically of the rights of both peoples to live in peace and safety. Together we started a Palestinian-Jewish dialogue group in San Antonio, right at the beginning of the Second Intifada and some of the worst tension and bloodshed in Israel and the Palestinian territories. As religious leaders, both of us were motivated by our shared spiritual values of human dignity and peace. Our dialogue group focused on a non-political approach of hearing one another’s personal life stories and perspectives. Still, to put it mildly, my efforts were not always warmly welcomed by many in the Jewish community. People sent me castigating emails, reproached me in private and in public, and one woman starting yelling at me in shul after a Holocaust memorial service. I also found myself listed as a so-called self-hating Jew on a far right-wing Jewish website (but I was in good company). Nadir was likewise criticized in his own community.

But why bring up the problems of the Bay Area or larger Jewish communities here in Chico? Even in a congregation the size of CBI, there are many points of view about Israel’s policies. I think it’s fair to say that all our members want to support Israel. But some take the role of guardians while others follow the model of prophets. Some urge us to do more active Israel advocacy; others ask why there isn’t more questioning of Israeli policies they view as counter to Jewish values. The good thing is that while some of us are more right leaning and some more left-leaning, most of us are close enough to center to see the other’s point of view. Luckily, we are also a close-knit small community, so even when we disagree on things we maintain our respect and even our sense of humor.

Most tellingly, I think that many of us feel conflicted within ourselves; we find in our own souls elements of the call of both the prophets and the guardians. Many of us who are baby-boomers came of age in the 1960’s to ‘80’s, embracing dovish, “Peace Now” approaches to the Arab-Israeli conflict. But we rapidly switch into our guardian mode today when increasingly confronted with what Prof. Alan Dershowitz calls the insidious “3 D’s” of unfairly criticizing Israel: delegitimization, demonization, and double standard. Or we may feel like prophets when addressing Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, but guardians in viewing the threat to Israel from Iran. Or we may come across as staunch guardians toward the outside world, but upon deeper questioning reveal our prophetic sympathies. What I’d like to suggest is that we can support Israel even more fully if we practice seeing things from other points of view, rather than assuming that those who disagree with us are misguided at best or destructive at worst.

As Rabbi Paula Marcus has written, Judaism is based on “disputes for the sake of heaven.” It goes back to Adam and Eve, the first couple, who were created as ezer keneged, usually translated as a helpmeet, but really meaning a helpful opposition! It continues in all of our arguments in the Talmud and the House of Study, where Jewish law is always studied with a chevruta, a study buddy, which really means…someone to argue with for your own good. Israel itself is a bustling democracy with many different and conflicting points of view among its own citizens; why should we have less? As long as our disagreements are for a higher cause, they are viewed as healthy and indeed essential to Jewish life.

So coming back to the title of this sermon: “How to Really Support Israel When we Disagree.” I think that there are three main ways, which I’ll call the three E’s: educate, engage, and become echad, (“one” in Hebrew) a unified people. First let’s continue to educate ourselves. I’m proud that our congregation has welcomed speakers on Israel from different viewpoints. I hope we will continue all year with an ongoing series on the many and varied approaches we take to supporting Israel. We might follow the lead of Project Reconnections by setting aside some time for dialogue among ourselves about our hopes and concerns.

Second: engage. Get involved. Whether your mode of supporting Israel is AIPAC or J-Street, find your niche and become engaged. And remember, support for Israel is not just about addressing the political conflict. When the political conflict is solved, there will still be many more issues to address, issues which often concern us personally. More American Jews need to become active in topics like religious diversity, culture, the environment, or the rights of foreign workers in Israel. There are many worthwhile organizations which I hope to profile in my next column in the CBI newsletter.

And in this time of renewed peace talks, don’t ever give up working for peace, no matter how you think it should be achieved.

Probably the best way to engage with and understand Israel is to spend time there. We also need to support funding for Birthright Israel and other programs that take our youth to Israel so that the next generation will have an appreciation of the Jewish homeland. By visiting, studying or volunteering in Israel, we will also be able to see the beautiful things about the country and not be focused solely on the problems and challenges.

Finally, remember we are Am Echad, one people. Even when we can’t agree, if we respect one another, build Klal Yisrael, Jewish unity, and agree to disagree “for the sake of heaven,” we are really helping Israel in the long run. As my daughter said on Rosh Hashanah, our attitudes towards people of other religions in the United States are a really a kind of foreign policy demonstration for the outside world. Likewise, our respect for other Jews who disagree with us builds a stronger Jewish people and in turn that helps Israel and Jews everywhere.

If American Jews can become more educated about Israel’s history and dilemmas, more engaged with her dynamic society, and more determined to foster Jewish unity in the diaspora, than ideally the dual hope of Israel can be realized in our day: both safe haven and exemplary society. The justice calls of the prophets and the security concerns of guardians should not be at odds, but we should join together in our work, not only for Israel, but for a more vibrant and involved American Jewish community. And that, I believe, is the best way to really support Israel. Amen.