Wrestling With Israel

As I woke up this past Tuesday to the news in Israel, I was reminded of the rabbinic legend explaining the origins of Rosh Hodesh, the Jewish observance of a new month. Tuesday was Rosh Hodesh, the first day of the Hebrew month of Sivan, and Lesley Sachs, the Executive Director of Women of the Wall, had been detained by police for “disturbing the public order.” The reason given for the police action was as simple as it is was upsetting: The crime of smuggling a Torah scroll into the women’s section of the Kotel, the Western Wall. Whether or not the women were able to read from the Torah, I do not know. What I do know is the bitter irony that in the holiest site of the Jewish people, at the very heart of Jewish state, it is a punishable offense for women to do the very thing that we wish for our own daughters, that which we have celebrated here today – a young woman taking her rightful place among her people by leading prayer and chanting from our most sacred text. The behavior of Israel’s civil and religious authorities in denying women the right to pray at the Kotel is nothing short of a Hillul Hashem, a desecration of God’s name. It is a modern form of idolatry in that they have abdicated their obligation to recognize the basic humanity of countless mothers, grandmothers, wives, sisters, and daughters – all seeking to stand in the presence of a God in whose image we are all equally created.

It is not happenstance that Women of the Wall have chosen Rosh Hodesh as their monthly day to press their cause forward. In Pirkei d’Rabi Eliezer, the rabbis explain the historic connection between the new month and women’s stand against idolatry. (PDRE, 45). As Moses tarried at the top of Mt Sinai and the children of Israel turned to build a golden calf, Aaron called on the community to give of their gold and silver, their rings and necklaces, all their jewelry, to be melted into an idol. The women refused. And though we know the sinful and shameful calf was constructed nonetheless, the women’s refusal to heed Aaron’s command, their just saying no to this ill-advised and idolatrous venture, merited God’s reward. The moral fortitude of the women in the face of formidable pressure – their demonstration that disobedience to an unjust law is not just right, but an obligation – resulted in the bestowal of a monthly holiday of their own, Rosh Hodesh. And from that biblical moment of civil disobedience to the decades-long struggle for equality at the Kotel to the events of this past week, every Rosh Hodesh we not only recall the courageous women of yesteryear, but seek to leverage that same resolve to fight against the injustices that threaten our people from within.

Undoubtedly the horrific terrorist shootings in Tel Aviv this past week weigh heavily on our hearts. We pray for the souls of those whose lives were lost and for the comfort of the bereaved families. But notwithstanding the ongoing external threats Israel faces from her enemies, of late my concern has been focused on the internal threats Israel faces and whether our generation possesses individuals, men and women, of the requisite courage and resolve to take a stand towards addressing these challenges. Last week’s incident at the Kotel has added significance in that it occurred against the backdrop of the Israeli government’s failure to implement the recently negotiated agreement to create an egalitarian prayer space at southern end of the Western Wall. An emergency meeting of North American Jewish leaders with the Prime Minister produced a strongly worded statement expressing their dismay at Israel’s continued inability to countenance non-Orthodox expressions of Judaism. Can Israel, these leaders ask, create a society reflecting the Jewish and democratic state as envisioned by Israel’s founders, reflecting the diversity of the global Jewish experience? Can the Jewish homeland be a place where all Jews feel at home?

It is a question and fear that are not limited just to the Kotel. On the same day as the Tel Aviv attack, a controversial bill was introduced into the Knesset that would prevent the progressive Jewish movements from using public mikvaot, ritual baths, for the purpose of conversion ceremonies. Given that public mikvaot are dependent on government funding, such a bill would effectively deny any legal option for non-Orthodox ritual immersion in Israel – a major step away from rather than towards securing religious equality. On matters of prayer, conversion, marriage laws, even the right of girls to ride bikes in certain neighborhoods, in this history-making week of the United States seeing its first female presidential nominee, women’s rights in Israel have taken several steps backwards.

The Kotel may or may not be your concern, and feminism may or may not be your cause. But as any student of history knows, women’s rights, minority rights, and religious pluralism are bellwethers for much larger questions regarding the health of any democratic society. I, for one, do care deeply about feminism and religious pluralism, but all of us must be concerned whether Israel will prove to be able to embrace the full diversity of its population: not just women, not just Conservative and Reform Jews, and not just the roughly 300,000 immigrants from the Former Soviet Union who are not considered technically Jewish in Israel. Israel faces fundamental questions regarding its basic character and the direction in which it will go from here into the future.

You may have followed the recent shake-up in coalition politics as Prime Minister Netanyahu removed his Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon, replacing him with the ultra-nationalist Avigdor Lieberman of the far-right Yisrael Beitenu party. This was the same Lieberman who recently joined protesters supporting the Israeli medic caught on video shooting a wounded Palestinian, the same Lieberman who recently shared that he doesn’t care what American Jewry thinks or doesn’t think about Israel. The rightward shift of the Israeli government, the diminished likelihood of a two-state solution, and measures introduced to stifle free speech, most recently legislation enabling members of the Knesset to remove other members of the Knesset – none of it bodes well for the democratic character of the Jewish state. The shaping factors are as much external as internal. The lukewarm relationship of the Israeli and American administrations, the fallout over last year’s Iran deal, the dawn of a post-American Middle East, the warming of Israel to Russia, China, and elsewhere, the scary and increasingly unstable neighborhood in which Israel exists, her ongoing inability to identify a Palestinian negotiating partner – all of these, among other variables, contribute to Israel’s “do-it-alone,” “my way or the high way,” “I’ll tell you when I’ve made up my mind” posture of late.

While some may lay the blame for all these developments – religious, political and otherwise – at the doorstep of Prime Minister Netanyahu, I, for one, believe that such a narrow reaction undersells the systemic transformations Israel is undergoing. In other words, to say that this is all Netanyahu’s fault is to forget the not insignificant fact that Netanyahu was elected Prime Minister by the Israeli electorate. No different than here in America, our leadership choices and the choices those leaders make are for better and often times for worse, as much a reflection of the will of the people as of the individual leaders themselves. Netanyahu’s decision to link up with Lieberman was supported by 71% of his party’s voters, a fact that I am sure Netanyahu knew before he made his decision. His choices reflect the will of the electorate. Religious or secular, 56% of the Israeli Jewish public defines itself as right wing, 44% of combat soldiers are Orthodox, a number that is only growing. No doubt every leader, Prime Minister Netanyahu included, must make tough choices – unpopular decisions that may not reflect the will of those who elected him. To do otherwise is an abdication of a leader’s responsibility. But what really concerns me is not Netanyahu or Lieberman. It is that the government’s decisions, be they to exclude progressive expressions of Judaism or to let the two-state solution die slowly on the vine, are not solely of their own doing. They are decisions that reflect the emergence of an Israeli electorate and value system altogether dissonant from that which we hold dear as American Jews.

We may understand intellectually all that I have described, but that understanding does not make it any easier on us as American Jews. We have not chosen to live in Israel; our opinions are just that: opinions. Votes are reserved for citizens of Israel. Whatever our politics may be, all of us understand, or at least should understand, that only Israelis can determine what is best for Israel. And yet we also know that Israel is a constitutive part of our Jewish identities, no different than belief in God or commitment to Torah. It is inconceivable to imagine Jewish identity without Israel. It pains us to see the Judaism we express here treated with such inhospitable disdain in the Jewish homeland we love so. In a week like this we find ourselves caught between the switches. When all we want to do is hug Israel as she bleeds, to stand at her side as she protects herself at home and in the public sphere, we find ourselves flinching. Why? Because we aren’t quite sure if Israel loves us as much as we love her.

Moreover, because Israel is core to who we are as Jews, while we respect that Israel’s decisions are hers to make as a sovereign state, as American Jews we are inevitably thrust into the role of defending her policies on campus, in the political sphere, in social media, and beyond. How are we to explain to Israel’s policies to her detractors, when we who love her most are ourselves often mystified by her actions? How exactly do we counter the mainstreaming of anti-Israel sentiment – from BDS to the drafters of the Democratic platform when we ourselves are seeking to understand Israeli policy? Like an old college friend that my wife just can’t quite figure out why I am still friends with, American Jews are increasingly on their heels when asked to explain their unbreakable bond with Israel. Don’t get me wrong, I am ready to move mountains to stand up for Israel. It should be hard, I like that it’s hard. Defending Israel in the public sphere – that’s a worthy accomplishment. But it should be a little easier, just a little easier, because in that difference is everything. Israel must always act in her best interests, interests which hopefully include not alienating the half of world Jewry who are her most ardent and effective defenders on the world stage.

In just a few short hours, the Jewish people will gather together for the holiday of Shavuot, the festival marking the receiving of the Torah at Mount Sinai, the formation of our nation, and the establishment of a covenant that has linked our people across the millennia. The Midrash explains that that covenant included everyone – the young and old, men and woman – each person receiving God’s word according to his or her capacity. So too, we are told that not just the generation of the Exodus, but the souls of every generation since, born Jew and convert, Israeli and diaspora, all of us stood at Sinai with equal dignity in the eyes of God. It is a vision of unity in the midst of diversity, common cause without conformity, individuality preserved within community. These are the Mt. Sinai values that we so desperately need today, at the Kotel, in Israel, in the diaspora and the all-important bond shared between the two. May we all merit to see these values realized, may we have the courage to fight for them when we fear them to be in breach, and may we treat each other, one and all, as equally deserving to stand in God’s presence and in the community of Israel.