Twenty years ago, my family left South Africa for the U.S. Behind us we left a segregated, isolated nation, and a president, P.W. Botha, who refused to relent to global condemnation of apartheid. I remember arguing with my classmates during election time, upholding the minority opinion-that a black person could be president.

We arrived in a country that appeared little less than utopian, during those first rose-tinted weeks. I entered a public school in Los Angeles filled with a rainbow of races. There were black teachers, black lawyers, white people cleaning homes. I rushed home to tell my mother I'd made a black friend.

Twenty years ago, my family left apartheid South Africa, a nation four-fifths black, but long ruled only by whites. We believed nothing would change, at least not for the better. We were wrong. Six years after we left, Nelson Mandela became the first black president.

Twelve years after we arrived in Los Angeles, George W. Bush became president of my adopted homeland. During those twelve years, a lot had become apparent to me about this country. For one, racism existed here. I was shocked when I witnessed it; this racism was subtle, insidious; racism as we knew it in South Africa was overt, written into the constitution. Here, the constitution spoke of liberty and justice. Yet there was racism nonetheless, and nor was it the only form of injustice; in the wealthiest nation in the world, there existed the biggest gap between rich and poor. There were homeless on the city streets, millions without health insurance, children going hungry. At some point I decided to do something about my convictions, and began organizing civil disobedience with activist friends.

In November 2003, I was in Miami protesting the Free Trade Area of the Americas, a proposal to extend NAFTA to the entire western hemisphere, barring Cuba. The Bush Administration put $8.5 million of an $87 billion War on Terror package into "protecting" the city of Miami from protesters, who were overwhelmingly nonviolent. This translated into rubber bullets, tear gas, tasers, thousands of riot cops, hundreds of helicopters, tanks on the streets. The crackdown was so harsh that it subsequently became known as the "Miami Model." There was a point, facing a line of marshmallowed riot cops in a "dead zone" of downtown, where it occurred to me to wonder whether my family had left one police state only to land in another.

In August of 2004, I went to New York City to protest the Republican National Convention's re-nomination of George W. Bush. Again, those there to voice their constitutional right to dissent-and there were hundreds of thousands of us-were shut out, demonized, jailed. By the state, that is; New Yorkers themselves were generally happy to see us.

I've protested many things these past eight years: war in Iraq, free trade agreements, anti-immigrant policies, to name a few. But there was a point where it became too much. Where I picked up the paper, read of yet another heretofore unconscionable breach of governance or democracy, and just shook my head. Over the past eight years, this country has sunk abysmally. The Bush administration abandoned the beautiful ideals upon which this country was founded, those ideals which inspired me to recite the Pledge of Allegiance with such fervor as a starry-eyed twelve-year-old. Every direction in which I glance--foreign policy, the environment, the economy, social services, reproductive rights--we who are citizens of this nation have sustained profound, possibly irreversible, damage. And the repercussions, as we are seeing playing out daily on the market, are global.

When Barack Obama began his campaign, he spoke of hope. And an exhausted nation pricked up its ears and listened. The return of hope, said Obama, and perhaps it was power of suggestion, perhaps it was nothing more than the possibility of change, but something shifted, something clear and fierce streaked between we who were waiting. The return of outrage, I wrote. That's what this should be called; the return of outrage over all we've lost these past eight years.

Change is a mysterious creature. Would we ever have reached this point, the point where a candidate like Barack Obama is a possibility, where reality etches itself into a semblance of the unity he champions, without the mire of these past eight years?

Twenty years to the day after my family left apartheid South Africa--hurling ourselves across the Atlantic in the direction of hope--I voted for Barack Obama, son of a Kenyan and the first black President of these United States of America.

Marisa Handler is the author of Loyal to the Sky, the coming-of-age-story of a South African Jew whose emigration to the United States proved to be just the first step of her journey. She also has produced an album, Dark Spoke.

The Passover/Exodus Narrative: a universal tale of freedomPassover is a time of asking questions, and I have a few. This year, though, the furor that surrounded Barack Obama’s pastor, Jeremiah Wright, and his sermons that dared to suggest that this Christian nation may actually be earning God’s wrath and damnation for some of its behavior, reminded me of an issue I’d first encountered in South Africa: The idea that the Passover/Exodus narrative of the Hebrews’ flight from Pharaoh and slavery doesn’t belong exclusively to any tribe, but is a universal tale of freedom into which suffering people everywhere are able to insert themselves. And also that even if your forebears were victims of injustice, you’re quite capable of being a perpetrator of injustice.

I think the Rev. Wright furor offered many white Americans an introduction they found shocking to the reality that the black Church in America has always connected viscerally to the liberation narrative of the Biblical people of Israel, making that narrative their own as a source of succor for their own struggles and trials. Martin Luther King, remember, spoke of going to the top of the mountain and seeing the promised land, knowing that he might not make it there. In other words, casting himself as Moses. And it’s an ongoing, vibrant tradition that gives the African American church its special vitality.

The ability of oppressed people to find themselves in the Exodus narrative of liberation is, of course, precisely the point of that narrative. The problem in Egypt wasn’t simply that it was the Jews who lived in slavery; the problem was was slavery itself. And the antidote to slavery advocated in the Torah (the five Books of Moses) — human community constituted on the basis of law and justice rather than political authority claimed on divine grounds — is a universal one; it applies, absolutely equally, to everyone, and everyone is invited, as Moses did, to challenge authorities that offer anything less.

The God of Abraham, proclaimed as the one true god, is obviously everyone’s god; he’s not a tribal fetish; he’s been invoked precisely to challenge the sort of tribal fetish deities that the Egyptians had used to rationalize their system of oppression. So, the Passover/Exodus narrative has powerful resonance to all people of the Abrahamic faiths (and possibly others) who may find themselves confronting oppression.

But those who feel threatened by others' demands for justice -- oppressors who cloak their own abuses of others in pieties of Christian soldierhood or the Star of David as the brand icon of an occupation -- get very uncomfortable when they realize that others see them as inheritors, not of the righteousness of the Biblical Hebrews' flight to freedom, but of Pharaoh's attempts to suppress the Israelites.

But throughout the Old Testament, the Jewish prophets are warning the Israelites to take nothing for granted. The mantle of righteousness cannot be inherited genetically (surely, the God of Abraham is not a racist who judges people by their DNA) or claimed simply through vigorous prayer and observance of ritual; it must be earned in one’s conduct in relation to others. Thus Hillel’s famous definition of Judaism while standing on one foot: “That which is hateful unto yourself, do not do unto others; all the rest is commentary.” In other words, it is only via the decency of your behavior in the world that you can be a good Jew.

Jews who commit injustices against others would be unequivocally condemned by the Jewish prophets, just as those who drop bombs on others or sentence them to death are plainly deluded when they claim to be guided by the inspirational example of Jesus. That, I think, is the essence of what Reverend Wright was saying in those passages that caused so much controversy — that God would damn, not bless, an America that committed injustices. To which I’d add, in line with Rami Khouri’s profound challenge to Israeli journalists at the height of the last Lebanon war, an injustice committed under a flag bearing the Star of David would be fiercely condemned by the Biblical Jewish prophets.

It was easy to see how little our Jewish genetic lineage did to make us really Jewish in the South Africa of my youth, where every Passover, we sat around seder tables singing, in a barely understood Hebrew, of the days when we were slaves, while the black women who lived in our backyards under a domestic labor system not that far removed from slavery, carried in steaming tureens of matzoh ball soup and tzimmes. We may have convinced ourselves that our DNA entitled us to claim this story as our own, but it was abundantly clear that in the South African context, most Jews had thrown in their lot with Pharoah, while the Israelites were working in their kitchens.

The mantle of justice associated with the Torah prophets, it seemed to me later, was nobody’s birthright; it had to be earned.

As a young activist heading out into the townships every weekend to meetings where communities were planning to resist eviction or burying those who had fallen in the fight against the regime, I was intrigued to hear the preachers and ordinary people couch their own struggles firmly in the narratives of the Exodus.

But around my own seder tables, the descendants of Pharoah’s slaves paid scant attention to the plight of those in their kitchens. They were discussing real estate and accounting scams — and, of course, how long it might be before “the schwartzes” (yiddish for “blacks”) would rise up and spoil the party.

If Hillel was right (and I believe he was) that Judaism is less about rituals and the minutiae of halachic law than it is about the ethical treatment of others, I can safely say that I learned very little of Judaism in the more than 200 hours of family Seders I sat through in South Africa. In keeping with thousands of years of tradition, we always kept a chair empty and a glass full in case the Prophet Elijah showed up. Looking back, I shudder to think what he would have made of the spectacle had he actually accepted the invitation.

I suspect he’d have dragged us over the coals in language not unlike that used by Reverend Wright. A friend once told me that his father, an Anglican priest, believed that whereas Christians had to work their way into heaven, Jews were basically on the guest list; our entry to Paradise was assured, by virtue of the fact that we’d been born Jewish. I thought that was a remarkably silly idea. Not only that; it’s remarkably dangerous, too, because it rationalizes moral laziness and injustice and violence committed in the name of a false righteousness. Unfortunately, I suspect, my friend’s father’s belief that as Jews, we are genetic entitlement to God’s favor, is all too widespread. Passover, and the universal tale of oppression and freedom it celebrates, is a good opportunity to burst that bubble.

[Cross-posted from Rootless Cosmopolitan]

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard Israel referred to as an apartheid state. On college campuses in particular this kind of thing is all over the place. But it’s not just feisty undergrads trying to make a point—there’s also Jimmy Carter’s bestselling book, Peace Not Apartheid,which caused so much trouble when it came out in 2006.
Apartheid: a whole different ball of wax
You can be as "pro-Palestinian" as you want, but it’s hard to reasonably make the case that Israel is an apartheid state. The Internet teems with websites and articles that assert--with varying degrees of intensity--that Israel is nothing like the South Africa of a quarter century ago. The three best, as far as I’m concerned, are by Michael Kinsley from the Washington Post, a piece on the History News Network by Gil Troy, and a piece by South African Benjamin Pogrund, who is founding director of Yakar's Center for Social Concern in Judaism.

The main points that these articles make to counter the apartheid argument are:

• Even accepting the discrimination that Arabs and Palestinians face in Israel, it’s nothing near as bad as blacks faced in South Africa. In the words of Pogrund:

The difference between the current Israeli situation and apartheid South Africa is emphasised at a very human level: Jewish and Arab babies are born in the same delivery room, with the same facilities, attended by the same doctors and nurses, with the mothers recovering in adjoining beds in a ward. Two years ago I had major surgery in a Jerusalem hospital: the surgeon was Jewish, the anaesthetist was Arab, the doctors and nurses who looked after me were Jews and Arabs. Jews and Arabs share meals in restaurants and travel on the same trains, buses and taxis, and visit each other’s homes. Could any of this possibly have happened under apartheid? Of course not.

• Arab Israelis can vote. Pogrund again:

A crucial, indeed fundamental, indicator of the status of Israel’s minority — and another non-comparison between apartheid South Africa and Israel — is that Arabs have the vote. Blacks did not. The vote means citizenship and power to change. Arab citizens lack full power as a minority community but they have the right and the power to unite as a group and to ally with others.

• The official stance of the Israeli government is one of fairness and equal rights for the Palestinians and Arabs in Israel and the territories.

 

 

Whether or not these rights are held up is certainly questionable, but as Kinsley writes:
Apartheid had a philosophical component and a practical one, both quite bizarre. Philosophically, it was committed to the notion of racial superiority. No doubt many Israelis have racist attitudes toward Arabs, but the official philosophy of the government is quite the opposite, and sincere efforts are made to, for example, instill humanitarian and egalitarian attitudes in children.

• Zionism may be many things you don’t like, but it’s not racism.

All three articles spend some time on this, but here’s the jist:If the Jews aren’t a “race,” then it’s hard to make the case that anything a Jewish government tries to carry out is racism. Claiming Jews are a race is a traditionally anti-Semitic move, and discredits anything that comes after it.

There are a number of races on both sides, too. As Troy writes:

The Arab-Israeli conflict is a nationalist clash with religious overtones. The rainbow of colors among Israelis and Palestinians, with black Ethiopian Jews, and white Christian Palestinians, proves that both national communities are diverse.

• Finally, Israel has a right to define its citizenship according to the wishes of the majority. That’s not a racist action, it’s democractic. Pogrund says:

If the majority wish to restrict immigration and citizenship to Jews that may be incompatible with a strict definition of the universality of humankind. But it is the right of the majority. Just as it is the right of Saudi Arabia and other Arab states not to allow Christians as citizens, or the right of Ghana and other African states to reject or restrict whites as citizens, or the right of South Africa to have a non-racial citizenship policy. It’s the norm for countries to have citizenship laws and immigration practices which do not subscribe to universal ideals, but which are, on the contrary, based on their perceptions of colour or religion or economic class or whatever. Europe demonstrates that every day in dealing with would-be economic migrants.

Previously: Nobody Has Sex Through a Hole in the Sheet

I started with an Iyengar yoga class at the giant ashram down the road. The teacher was not a smiling bearded Indian yogi, but a tiny, angular, frowning American woman. Karin O’Bannon was all business. Rumor had it she was in her 70s but it was quite clear she could kick your ass. She was like the Debbie Allen of India. There was no fucking around in Karin’s class. On the waterfront: Many ashrams have shrines along the Ganges“Someone tell her to spread her legs wider,” she barked, pointing at me. One of her assistants mimed to me to spread my legs. I was too scared ...

Brought to you by a Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld of Ohev Shalom, after witnessing Carter's speech at George Washington University.

"I believe Jimmy Carter is an anti-Semite and his intention is to hurt Jewish people."

Jimmy Crack Corn & I Don't CareIn a show of contempt for Jimmy Carter's new book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, fourteen Jewish members of the Carter Center's Board of Councilors resigned. In an official statement released yesterday, the members said:

“We can no longer support your strident and uncompromising position,” the letter said. “This is not the Carter Center or the Jimmy Carter we came to respect and support.”

Within hours of the heavily anticipated resignations, the Central Conference of American Rabbis announced they were cancelling a trip to the center in March.

The Carter Center’s executive director, John Hardman, appeared to downplay the significance of the resignations. In a statement released Thursday, he thanked the board members for their service to the center while noting their limited role in the center’s operations and the relatively small size of the group resigning.

“The Carter Center’s board of councilors is an advisory body of community leaders and businesspeople who are briefed quarterly on the center’s work and serve as emissaries of the center to the greater community,” Hardman said. “They are not engaged in implementing the work of the center and are not a governing board. There are more than 200 members of the board of councilors. The center’s governing board is the board of trustees.”

Earlier today Michael shvitzed about Jewcy editorial advisor Jeffrey Goldberg’s critical review of Jimmy Carter’s Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. I haven’t yet read Carter’s book, so I’m not in a position to evaluate most of Goldberg’s review. However, two of the review’s shortcomings stand independent of the content of the book.

Goldberg opens his review with a story from the beginning of Carter’s book:

On his first visit to the Jewish state in the early 1970s, Carter, who was then still the governor of Georgia, met with Prime Minister Golda Meir, who asked Carter to share his observations about his visit. Such a mistake she never made.

"With some hesitation," Carter writes, "I said that I had long taught lessons from the Hebrew Scriptures and that a common historical pattern was that Israel was punished whenever the leaders turned away from devout worship of God. I asked if she was concerned about the secular nature of her Labor government."

Goldberg finds this story “strange and revealing”—Carter’s view of the conflict is “faith-based”. Goldberg thinks that’s bad, and I agree with him. Any patterns that Carter believes he has discerned in the Bible are worse than irrelevant to the modern Arab-Israeli conflict. I’m amazed that any head-of-state discussing a modern conflict between states would publicly acknowledge that his opinions are molded by scripture.

My problem, however, is that Bill Clinton—who Goldberg compares favorably to Carter and praises as a President with a wise and balanced approach to Israel/Palestine—made far more outlandish statements about how deeply his Christianity informed his view of the conflict. And he did so in far more public and inappropriate settings.

Here is Clinton speaking on the floor of the Knesset in October of 1994:

The truth is that the only time my wife and I ever came to Israel before today was 13 years ago with my pastor on a religious mission. I was then out of office. I was the youngest former governor in the history of the United States. No one thought I would ever be here - perhaps my mother, no one else. We visited the holy sites. I relived the history of the Bible, of your Scriptures and mine. And I formed a bond with my pastor. Later, when he became desperately ill, he said he thought I might one day become President, and he said, more bluntly than the Prime Minister did: 'If you abandon Israel, God will never forgive you.' He said it was God's will that Israel, the biblical home of the people of Israel, continue for ever and ever.

So I say to you tonight, my friends…here on earth, God's will must truly be our own.

Clinton’s speech, I’ve read, was met with rapturous applause by the assembled Knesset members.

So what to make of this?

If we Jews are comfortable with Clinton’s frank statements that scripture tells him to support Israel, then we cannot expect others to take seriously our alarm when someone such as Carter spouts scripture while criticizing Israel. At least, we must acknowledge that our objection is not to Carter's religious approach to the conflict, but to his criticisms of Israel.

My second objection to the review: I agree with Goldberg that it is ludicrous to claim that a vigorous, pluralistic democracy such as Israel exists under “apartheid”. This is obviously not the case, as is clear to anyone who has ever visited, and I’ve spent a great deal of time arguing this to left-wing critics of Israel. But it is vastly different—and, at the very least, far more credible—to argue that the regime imposed in the West Bank is comparable in significant respects to apartheid. I’ve seen the West Bank from both sides (as has Goldberg), both from Palestinian areas and from Jewish settlements, the latter including the settlement where my cousin lives in Gush Talmonim. Though I agree with Golderg (and Carter) that it is not racism that motivates the settlers but instead desire for land, the presence of different roads for members of different religions, as well as generally different administrative infrastucture, make a description of the West Bank as characterized by “apartheid” far less absurd than such a description Israel.

Carter has stated clearly in interviews that Israel is a democracy and not in a state of apartheid, and that his application of that term is to the West Bank alone. Yet Goldberg fudges this distinction and allows us to conclude that Carter’s use of the word apartheid applies to all of mandate Palestine. His review is weaker for it, as it is for the double-standard applied to Clinton and Carter’s “faith-based” approach to the conflict.