A Time to Stand Down, Not Double Down

Of late, when I think of Israel’s Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, I think of the opening scene of La Bohème. Puccini’s famed opera begins in the home of Marcello and Rudolfo as they seek to stave off the bitter cold of winter. Desperate to stay warm but lacking the wood to maintain a fire, Rodolfo takes hold of a bulky manuscript, a drama he had written, and tosses it into the fire. Act by act, scene by scene, Rodolfo’s masterpiece burns to ashes. The two men sit comforted by the warmth of the fire, a fleeting warmth that the viewing audience knows comes at the expense of the very thing actually able to lift our bohemian friends out of their desperate straits.

Ever since Prime Minister Netanyahu accepted an invitation from Representative John Boehner to speak to Congress without the blessing of President Barack Obama, the American Jewish community has been thrust into a terribly unfortunate and terribly uncomfortable position. Whether Prime Minister Netanyahu is acting out of principle – to urgently state his case against a nuclear Iran – or out of political expediency – to score points at home in the month prior to the Israeli election – the effect on American Jewry is one and the same. For the first time in a very long time, American Jews are being asked to choose between a visibly upset White House and an unyielding leader of the Jewish state. In this winter run-up to the Israeli elections, is Netanyahu really tossing the sacred script of American-Israeli relations into the fire in order to score an electoral advantage? Israel does not have the luxury of picking and choosing her friends, so why in the world would she aggravate the leader of her biggest and bestest friend of all? How is it possible, we ask behind closed doors, that the Prime Minister does not understand the effect his actions have on American Jewry? After all, Mr. Prime Minister, to side with you means to side with the person who has caused offense to my president. With the stakes so high, is this really the moment you want Israel’s most vocal supporters to be rendered silent for fear of choosing between impossible options?

The truth of the matter, however, is that it is not just this most recent flare-up between the Prime Minister and the President that has rankled the ranks of American Jewry. Ever since the December call for new elections, American Jewry has watched the news in Israel with great trepidation. The political climate wrought by coalition politics has served to undercut the possibility of a two-state solution anytime in the foreseeable future. To be clear, and to reiterate what I have said from this bimah before, a two-state solution can and should happen only when it does not undermine Israel’s security. Israel need make no apologies for its refusal to allow a fundamentalist Gaza-like state to emerge in the West Bank. But when Israel’s settlement practices and public discourse preclude the possibility of a two-state outcome to emerge, when Israel’s own policies run counter to the policies of the American administration and, for that matter, Israel’s own stated positions, American Jewry is thrust into a difficult position. Imagine an electoral outcome next month in which an Israeli coalition is formed that either explicitly or implicitly disavows a two-state solution. What, I wonder, will American Jews like me do when a chasm opens up between the policies of the Israeli and American administrations? What exactly will it mean to support an Israeli government whose policies run counter to my conscience and my country?

The fault lines between Israel and diaspora Jewry, however, exist not just in the spheres of geopolitics, but at the very heart of Jewish identity. If you know a thing or two about Israel’s system of coalition politics, then you also know that whoever the next Prime Minister is, odds are he or she will partner with the Ultra-Orthodox parties in order to form a governing coalition. In a story that dates back to the founding of the state itself, while the religious parties readily defer to the Prime Minister on matters of political borders, they do so only insofar as the Prime Minister defers to them when it comes to defining the boundaries of Judaism and the Jewish people. The chief rabbinate’s intransigence on matters of conversion should be deeply troubling to anyone invested in global Jewish peoplehood. It would be reason enough for alarm, if it were only the case (which it is) that the conversions of Reform, Conservative, and some Orthodox American rabbis are not acknowledged by Israel. But what about the thousands of Ukrainian Jews who are contemplating imminent immigration due to political instability? Is it possible that we live in a world where a Jew flees to Israel only to discover his or her Jewishness is questioned by the Jewish state? What about the thousands of Russian immigrants already in Israel who may live in and die for the State, but cannot be married or buried by a rabbi because they are not Jewish according to the Haredi rabbinate?

It is because all matters of personal identity in Israel are in the hands of the chief rabbinate that all non-Orthodox expressions of Judaism are stymied. Not just conversion, not just marriage and burial, but governmental funding of educational institutions; who does and doesn’t get to pray at the Western Wall; and so much more. When our congregational trips go to Israel, we are told by the hotels that we cannot pray in the hotel chapels as we do here in America. Why? Because the hotels are under the supervision of the chief rabbinate. There is a bitter irony in the realization that one of the only countries in the world where a Jew faces discrimination for how she or he practices Judaism is the Jewish state. As the politics in Israel become more fractious, not less, the stranglehold of the ultra-Orthodox community on religious life will increase, not decrease. The politicization and Haredization of the Israeli chief rabbinate is not just the concern of a few liberally minded American rabbis; it is a concern for anyone concerned about the future of the global Jewish people.

Distressing as the situation may be to American Jewry, what Israeli leadership needs to understand is that it is a worsening state of affairs that will ultimately serve to undercut Israel’s security. Why? Because if in the next election, the right-wing community is further emboldened, then the vast majority of American Jewry – you and me, our children and children’s children – who live and breathe a Judaism that is anything but right wing – will wake up to find ourselves alienated from the Israel we are wired to love so much. And if American Jewry finds itself disillusioned, disenfranchised, and just plain old distant from Israel, then, my friends, it is not just we who have the problem, but Israel itself. In three weeks I will be at the AIPAC conference, and I hope many of you will be there, too. To what degree, I wonder, will our Congress – Republican or Democrat – care about Israel if American Jewry no longer believes itself a vested stakeholder in the destiny of the Jewish state? Make no mistake, American Jewry plays a critical role in securing Israel’s position on the world stage. To the image with which we began, in this winter run-up to the election, are Israeli politicians really prepared to throw away her long-term interests in order to score short-term political advantage?

Embedded in this week’s Torah reading is a legal concept called hatra’a – roughly translating as “forewarning.” Although the biblical text clearly states the concept of an eye for eye, tooth for tooth, life for life, the rabbis instituted all sorts of safeguards to minimize the possibility of capital punishment, including the obligation to give hatra’a – warning or caution to those about to commit a misdeed. It is a fascinating legal proviso of Jewish law that when the stakes are really high, in order for a wrongdoer to be deemed fully culpable, they must have been forewarned of the gravity of their intended deed. No different from other spheres of Jewish law, the notion of hatra’a suggests that guilt for wrongdoing falls not just on the wrongdoer, but also on the community at hand – who are obligated to caution a person regarding the deleterious consequences of his or her intended action. We are all, in other words, our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers, which is why, by extension, no Jew may ever remain silent in the face of a misdeed. One cannot ever stand idly by, especially if given the resources or the pulpit to stop a wrong in its tracks.

And neither shall I.

“For the sake of Zion I will not be silent, for the sake of Jerusalem I will not be still.” (Isaiah 62:1) The temperature and tone of the conversation needs to be dialed down immediately. If Prime Minister Netanyahu is as concerned about Iran as he purports to be, as all of us in this room are, then surely he and his advisors can find a way to state the case effectively without alienating the leader of the free world. This is the time to stand down, not double down. The urgent message regarding the Iranian threat will be less politicized – and thus delivered far more effectively – if spoken by the Israeli Prime Minister, whoever that may be, after the election, not before. As for President Obama, who coined the notion of “beer diplomacy,” maybe this is the moment to drink some of his own brew. Invite the Prime Minister over on his upcoming visit, not on a state visit, no fanfare needed, and show the world, to paraphrase the rabbis, that in the place where there are no men, you are the man! I have absolutely no idea what the right answer is when it comes to Iran, but I am pretty sure that the only beneficiary of the present political spectacle and debacle is the very country that we all agree sits at the heart of the problem. Support for Israel must be swiftly returned to its bipartisan status. Prime Minister Netanyahu’s intended speech before Congress is wrongheaded, and it is the responsibility of American Jewry to forewarn the Prime Minister of the consequences of his intended project.

As for the elections themselves, before any ballots are cast, Israel would do well to “look long,” given the stakes at hand. Are Israelis really prepared to elect a government whose policies stand at odds with world opinion, the American administration and the vast majority of American Jewry? Only Israel can decide what is and isn’t in her security interests, but for the sake of Israel’s international standing, she must make clear in word and deed that the lack of progress is the fault of the Palestinians, not Israel – an effort that will only happen by way of going the extra mile towards a two-state solution. As for global Jewish identity, are Israelis really prepared to elect a government whose stance on religious matters serves to alienate the very Jews whose support it needs in Congress and beyond? The Prime Minister of Israel cannot claim to speak on behalf of world Jewry and then alienate half of that Jewry. One and only one Jew could ever claim to speak for all Jews – and that was the first one, Abraham – a state of affairs that ended the moment his wife Sarah arrived on the scene. No differently than each of us, when an Israeli goes to the polls, I imagine there are countless factors that go into choosing a candidate. May I be so bold as to suggest that one of those factors be the status of the other half of world Jewry, six million Jews who are affected by, invested in, and – whether Israelis care to admit it or not – shapers of Israel’s status on the world stage.

Diaspora Jewry and Israel can make for strange bedfellows. We do not vote in each other’s elections, our culture and concerns are far from one and the same, but by a blessed and occasionally awkward twist of fate, our destinies are tied one to the other. Like two siblings who share a family of origin yet walk this world at a distance, Israel and Diaspora Jewry must be ever vigilant to care for each other and protect each other, to correct each other when we step out of line, and always to do so in a way that bespeaks our enduring loyalty. After all, if we can’t say these things to each other with love, then who can? Let us have the dialogue that only siblings can, filled with mutual concern, acknowledging our differences, all the while gently nudging each other towards a shared destiny.