Today and the Day After

For anyone looking to get married in the DC area, or as is the case with me, occasionally finding yourself officiating at weddings up and down the Eastern Seaboard, Dumbarton Oaks is as beautiful a place as any – a mansion, museum, and gardens in the leafy Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, DC.

For the rest of us, but really for all of us, Dumbarton Oaks is a place that holds incredible significance for twentieth-century history – playing host to a historic conference precisely eighty years ago this month. It was the height of the Second World War, the months following the D‑Day invasion when, between August 21 and October 7, 1944, delegates from the United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union and China convened to discuss plans for an as-yet-unrealized postwar Europe. Officially known as the “Washington Conversations on International Organizations,” delegates from the Big Four deliberated over proposals for the establishment of an organization to maintain peace and security in the world. When the conference concluded on October 7, the delegates left with the basic structure and framework for what we now know as the United Nations, officially founded in 1945. Institutions and words that we take for granted – like the General Assembly, Security Council, International Court of Justice, and more – all ideas first expressed in those waning days of the summer of 1944.

In raising the anniversary of Dumbarton Oaks, my intention is not to weigh in on the success of the conference – a subject about which much has been written. Nor, for that matter, is my point to opine on the enduring worth of the UN – a subject about which I imagine most everyone in this room has an opinion. My point, more modest, is to note that the conference happened at all. Even, and especially, as a horrific war was being waged in the European and Pacific theaters, active discussions were taking place on a postwar order. Who would prevent and remove future threats of peace and acts of aggression? How could friendly nations work collaboratively to strengthen universal peace? How could an international spirit of cooperation be achieved on social, economic, and humanitarian fronts? No different than other leaders at other times – the Civil War, World War I or the Iraq war – attention was given to a future vision even as blood flowed in the present. “Wage war, by sea, land, and air,” in Churchill’s words. Do all this – and plan for the day after.

We are fast approaching the one-year mark since October 7. The war between Israel and its enemies shows no sign of abating. In many respects, it is heating up and spinning out of control. Notable as the anniversary of Dumbarton Oaks may be, its application to our present moment is limited. This is not WWII. Israel’s war with Hamas, Hezbollah, and other Iranian proxies will be an open-ended grind on multiple fronts. The hate-filled ideology presently driving global anti-Zionism and antisemitism makes no allowance for any Jewish presence in the Middle East. I am reminded of Golda Meir’s comment: “You cannot negotiate peace with someone who seeks to kill you.” As long as the hostages remain captive, as long as Israel’s citizens are in harm’s way, as long as Jewish lives are at risk around the world, our attention and defense is on the here and now, the urgent needs of the nation of Israel and the global people of Israel.

And yet – and yet – we must consider the day after. Focused as our attention is, and must remain, on the real and present dangers facing Israel and the Jewish people, we need to plant seeds for a time beyond that which we are presently experiencing.

As Jews committed to a vision of a secure, Jewish, and democratic state of Israel, at a certain point we must acknowledge that it is a vision that comes with a commitment to Palestinian self-determination and shared society. The roots of our present ills are not hard to name: decades upon decades of Arab rejectionism, intransigence, and violence. There is nothing – nothing – that justifies the violence of October 7 or any kind of violence on any other day. But pointing out the failures of the other side does not permit us to ignore our own role. In rendering Palestinian aspirations stillborn, in propping up the most extreme elements of Palestinian and Israeli leadership, in stifling the moderate voices of both sides, the present Israeli government has abdicated its agency in bringing about a day after. Israel must articulate a vision of side-by-side coexistence even, and perhaps especially, when it is difficult to do so. Israel need not apologize for defending its citizens or waging war against its enemies, but the present government’s inability to articulate a next-day plan is a failure – morally, diplomatically, and spiritually. Morally, because without a vision for the day after, the daily sacrifices made by IDF soldiers and the loss of Palestinian lives, are happening without an expressed outcome – a quagmire that will eat away at Israel from within. Diplomatically, because without a vision for the day after, Israel does itself no favors on the world stage – a quagmire that will eat away at Israel from without. And spiritually, because without a vision for the day after, the citizens and people of Israel will lose that which has kept us going from the start – hope.

As long as Jews have been Jews, our sense of self has been secured in a time and circumstance that more often than not extends beyond the horizon of our lives. Abraham’s first call “to a land that I will show you,” was a promise to be realized not by him but by his descendants. Moses’s charge to the enslaved Israelites that they follow him out of Egypt and to the Promised Land, was a vision which we know none of them, not even Moses, would fulfill. Consider the very name of today’s Torah reading, Ki Tavo, “When you enter.” A list of rituals and declarations, of dos and don’ts, blessings and curses, all situated in an anticipated future which the reader knows, and the Israelites knew, applied to a reality beyond their length of years.

I am reminded of an old joke, apropos of UN week. A delegation of Korean, Indian, and Israeli leaders gains an audience with God and they each inquire when their people might live in peace. To the Korean, God replies, “Not in your lifetime.” So, too, to the Indian, God replies, “Not in your lifetime.” To the Israeli, God replies, “Not in my lifetime.” With war so hot, with peace so elusive, the joke rubs raw. But it is a joke that serves as a window into our essence, the agonies and aspirations of our being. We look and work towards the future, whether or not that future will be ours to realize.

It is a message that needs to be heard in the Middle East and, I would urge, here in the Upper East. I imagine many here feel the exhaustion that I do, faced as we are with a war seemingly without end, taking its toll on Israelis and on innocent Palestinians, a war being fought on so many fronts. We are emotionally connected, and yet we are a step and then some removed. We are not the ones receiving red alerts. We are not the ones sending our children into harm’s way. We do what we can – with acts of tzedakah, trauma relief, advocacy, and solidarity, but our hopelessness is undoubtedly rooted in our helplessness. What can we do? What should we be doing?

And while there is no one answer, no clear answer, permit me to offer a thought that I have had of late. A thought impelled by my firm belief that as much as Israel needs to win this war, Israel needs to have a plan for the day after.

Even, and especially, in this dark hour, with the threats to Israel what they are, with peace beyond our reach and perhaps beyond our lifetime, it is incumbent upon American Jewry to give voice to a vision of coexistence. We must adopt a prophetic stance reflecting the high-minded history of our people – supporting, seeking out, and seeding those conversations that one day might bear fruit even if we ourselves do not eat of it. We must announce to the Jewish people and to the world that we reject the false binary between defense of Jewish lives and empathy for Palestinian ones. Countless organizations – Parents Circle – Families Forum, Encounter, Galilee Dreamers, Hannaton, Combatants for Peace, Israeli Democracy Institute – so many organizations are devoted to this work. There is actually an organization called “Seeds of Peace” whose sole purpose is to bring young Jews and Arabs in dialogue to engage in each other’s humanity, in the hope that in some distant future they, or maybe their children or grandchildren, might break the cycle of violence. We can and must do both. We can support pro-Israel candidates and support peace. We can fight antisemitism and engage in bridge building. We can be vigilant against the present dangers and promote a vision for a better future. We can do both. We can, we must, and we must reject those who tell us otherwise.

“For lack of a vision the people will perish,” teaches the book of Proverbs (29:18). American Jewry has a distinct, urgent and prophetic role to play in this dark hour. As Israel fights a war of survival, we are the ones who must keep the sparks of peace alive, steadfast in our belief that, though not today, one day the time will be ripe – and on that day, we will be ready.