Home Alone: but less funnyLately there have been a number of high profile neglect cases in Israel. We’ve learned that many Holocaust survivors live in abject poverty. A woman revered as a spiritual authority was found to have abused and neglected many of her children. And in just the past few weeks, there have been three cases of children neglected in airports: A four-year-old girl was accidentally left in Ben Gurion Airport when her parents failed to keep track of all six of their children en route to Paris. An 8-year-old boy was accidentally flown to Brussels instead of Munich (this appears to be the fault of his El Al escort), and a 12-year-old was sent to the UK by her mother, with no one scheduled to meet her at the airport, and only the address—which turned out to be incorrect—of a family friend. When her mother was found and arrested, she explained that she couldn’t care for her kids and wanted them to find political asylum in the UK. Turns out she’d already sent her 9-year-old to Leeds.

There are plenty of cases of severe neglect reported in America every year (this story comes to mind), but in Israel it seems to be a symptom of the political situation. Israelis walk around all day trying to distract themselves from their own suffering and trauma. It seems to me that as a result of having to push their own personal grief below the surface, they also end up ignoring all kinds of suffering that they see around them, be it the suffering of Palestinians, Holocaust survivors, or even their own children. To a certain degree, we all push those thoughts aside in order to get through the day, but we try to maintain a sense of compassion. In Israel, because it’s nearly impossible to really ignore the suffering, society has developed a sort of flat affect. Neglect happens and everyone acts shocked but quickly moves on, not wanting to dwell on any more pain.

There’s something about the Israeli machismo that appealing, and that makes me proud to be Jewish. But there’s something ugly under that machismo -- a gaping hole where I’d expect to see compassion, and it’s horrifying.

Chicago’s Jewish museum, the Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies, is currently showing an exhibit called Imaginary Coordinates that focuses on maps of Israel and the Middle East. The Spertus website has this to say about Imaginary Coordinates:

Imaginary Coordinates is inspired by antique maps of the Holy Land in Spertus' collection. The exhibition juxtaposes these maps with modern and contemporary maps of this region, all of which assert boundaries. It brings these together with objects of material culture and artworks that question national borders, as a way of charting new spaces, fostering conversation, and imagining new communities.

Imaginary Coordinates: real controversy
Included in the exhibit are antique maps, a two-minute video-loop of a naked Israeli woman hula hooping with barbed wire, and video of a woman in Jerusalem asking people for directions to Ramallah.

Imaginary Coordinates opened on May 2nd, and closed after a week for “building maintenance.” Since the Spertus museum is a brand new facility opened in December after a $55 million renovation project, it seems unlikely that maintenance was really the issue. The exhibit reopened on May 15th, but now you can only be admitted to the exhibit as part of a guided tour every hour. The exhibit has also been rearranged, in order to “shift fragile items away from harsh light” according to the Chicago Tribune.

The exhibit presents both Israeli and Palestinian ideas about land ownership, cultural capital, and borders of all kinds. Predictably, there are elements of the Jewish community that are upset by the inclusion of Palestinian artifacts and art. These elements are pushing the Spertus to close the exhibit again, and are threatening to withhold funding if Imaginary Coordinates remains open.

I’ve been on one of the guided tours of the exhibit, and didn’t find the material to be particularly upsetting. Yes, there are pieces that imply that Palestinians feel a strong connection to Israeli land, and even a sense of ownership over land in Israel, but so what? In the immortal words of Marriage Encounter ‘Feelings aren’t right or wrong, they just are.’ What would be the point of denying that Palestinians feel strongly about land, that they miss the towns they used to live in, or that they don’t think Israelis have proper respect for their land? You can still think their political ideology is bad or wrong, you can hate their methods and call them stupid, but failing to acknowledge how they feel about the situation is just willful ignorance.

If you live in Chicago or are planning a visit soon, I encourage you to plan a trip to Imaginary Coordinates, and to leave your hopefully positive feedback for the Spertus curatorial staff. Admission is free on Tuesdays from 10 am-12 noon and Thursdays from 3-7 pm. At other times general admission is only $7, and $5 for students and seniors.

If you don’t live near Chicago, and don’t plan on seeing the exhibit, please email Rhoda Rosen, the museum’s curator, and give her your support. Here’s a sample email:

Dear Ms. Rosen,

Thank you so much for reopening Imaginary Coordinates. I’m glad to hear that Spertus is tackling issues of land ownership, mapping, and patriotism is such a balanced and thoughtful way. I know that you worked on this assembling this exhibit for three years, and I applaud your efforts.

I hope that you will keep the exhibit open to the public for its full run, through September 7th so that the community has plenty of opportunity to see these important pieces.

Sincerely,
Your name

Read reviews for Imaginary Coordinates here, here and here.

*** Update: Spertus seems to have closed the exhibit on the same day this post went up on the blog.  I encourage you to still email Rhoda Rosen, as it shouldn't be too late for it to be reopened. 

Last week saw the Palestine Investment Conference, a three-day affair in Bethlehem organized to highlight investment opportunities in the Palestinian economy. Jewcy contributor James Murray-White was there to cover the event from start to finish.

Crossing into Bethlehem from Jerusalem is an experience. Coming back is tougher—being amongst Palestinians who are searched, held up, and often refused is a difficult sight to witness. Returning to Jerusalem on a little bus through the hilltop suburb of Beit Jala shows the interconnectedness of the hills and the land here: the continual heat beating down on us, the rocky fields interspersed with olive trees, two peoples living together on one piece of land.

Once you’re through the gray concrete monolith that is the checkpoint and wall complex, it hits you: Bethlehem, Palestine—a different country. Yellow taxis vie for your attention immediately, the terrible driving is worse than Israel, and the ever-present security wall runs into a town composed of rundown houses, shops, and buildings. The road is smooth, with a recently added speed bump, and the welcoming flags and banners attempt to hide the fact that not much is going on here at all.

The Palestine Investment Conference hosted here last week was an attempt to change that. Held at two impressive venues—the Jacir Palace Hotel and the brand new Convention Center (so new that the road was being built as I drove up to it, and conference registration took place in a tent next to the front door)—the Conference, organized and pushed for in part by the Quartet Representative Tony Blair (the program refers to the Prime Minister as ‘His Eminence’), sought private and governmental investment in the area.

The Long and Winding Road: to the palestine investment conference Under the Conference slogan "You can do business in Palestine", this effort came as part of a US $7.7 billion commitment from the international donor community for a comprehensive 3-year development and rehabilitation plan for. The conference itself cost a total of $3 million, with half of that coming from various sponsors, and the remaining half paid for by the Palestinian Authority. This comes hand-in-hand with intensive and highly secret discussions between the Israeli and PNA negotiation team to achieve a peace plan, including a final status agreement on Jerusalem and the establishment of a formal Palestinian State.

Upon arrival, journalists were ordered to convene outside a side entrance to the Jacir Palace and watch the guards figure out how to assemble the type of security gate that beeps when you pass through with metal in your pocket. Then the media scrum had to surrender all of our possessions and cameras and tripods and watch as the Palestinian Police/Army/Security (it never was clear which was which) had their latest security gadget—a sniffer dog—sniff it all. Security was extremely heavy, including snipers on the surrounding buildings. It was intimidating, but they cannot risk losing a key player in the slow political machinations.

Securing the Convention Center Once we all got through the newly-assembled gate, the media congregated for the press conference. Oddly, it was in Arabic, and the few foreign media were told that this was because the translation services were set up “in another room.” This could have been a disaster, but thankfully the Governor of Bethlehem and Chairman of the Conference, Saleh Al-Ta’mari, spoke English and translated from the podium. He and a few other high-ranking officials told us that 1200 participants had registered for the conference, including 7% from America, 5% from Israel, and 300 Palestinians from abroad. For the 109 projects on the metaphorical conference table, $2 billion was being searched for. I clutched my pocketful of shekels tightly.

We were informed that we must all stay at the venue, probably for security reasons. It's generally a mistake to try to keep a pack of journalists—Palestinian or otherwise—in one venue for several hours with little happening. Watching the many delegates arrive and rating them on a scale of importance, or slowly befriending the security guys couldn’t entertain for that long.

Speaking of the young, lean security guys: I'll stick my neck out here and say that I believe a lot of the US/EU money has gone to dressing them in Armani suits and Italian loafers. Never mind earning a living and supporting a family: Protect the ‘Rais’ (Palestinian President Mahmood Abbas—and all the others at the top of the importance scale, for that matter) and you will be measured up for a very fine silk-lined suit indeed, yours to keep while upholding the nascent Nation’s honor. They were impeccably turned out, putting Mr. Blair’s pasty English minders in threadbare Government surplus hand-me-downs to shame.

Journalists were provided with a small ‘media center' that contained a few laptops and comfy chairs to lounge in, plus limited access to food and drink, although the venue was clearly stretched way over capacity.

Adam Neiman Inspects a No Sweat Tee Thankfully, I had a meeting set with Adam Nieman of No Sweat Apparel—the only Jewish-owned company participating in and looking for investors at the Conference—which turned out to be the highlight of the day. We retired to a nearby eatery, and Adam shared with me his formidable achievements in bringing business to Palestine from Boston, Massachusetts, and his no less extraordinary hopes and plans for the future. Adam brought his business, Bienestar International, to Bethlehem two years ago, and was delighted to be back in a place he regards as “the Gordian knot of global geo-politics.” Later, he introduced me to Khaled J. Al-Arja, the owner of Arja Textile Company in Bet Jala, Bethlehem, who is the manufacturer of Adam’s 100% organic cotton T-shirts.

• Urban Outfitters is in trouble with Jews again, this time for selling a t-shirt with a Palestinian boy on it holding an AK-47 over the word ‘victimized.’ The shirt also has a Palestinian flag on it, a map of the territories, and a dove. This Shirt: only slightly inflammatory, right?Designed by the Fresh Jive label and selling on the website for $25, the shirt was taken down quickly, and Stacey Strober, Urban Outfitter's Store Operations Manager, has said that it wasn’t intended to provoke controversy or intentionally offend.

• A new British census has found that the UK’s Jewish population is growing for the first time in ages. The UK is home to the world’s fifth largest Jewish population, but since 1950 the numbers have been shrinking fairly quickly. Since 2005, though, the numbers spiked, likely due to the big families in the growing ultra-Orthodox community.

• Also in the UK a boycott of Israeli universities and academics is gaining momentum, as University and College Union, with over 120,000 members voted to “consider the moral and political implications of education links with Israeli institutions” because of Israeli treatment of the Palestinians. Jewish institutions are in an uproar over the boycott (again), but the language of the motion is careful to state that criticism of Israel and Israeli policy are “not, as such, anti-Semitic.” Oh, well, in that case…
  

• In the central Israeli town of Or Yehuda Christian missionaries distributed hundreds of copies of the New Testament, which were promptly collected by local yeshiva students, and set fire in a lot close to the synagogue. It’s not clear if many students were present at the book burning—reports in Maariv said they were, and Deputy Mayor Uzi Aharon said they weren’t—but the community is having to do some back peddling now so as not to look like they think book burning is a good solution to religious disputes.

• In Germany, a Muslim man was sentenced to 3 ½ years in prison for stabbing an Orthodox rabbi in the stomach. The Muslim man, Sajed Aziz, had claimed self- defense, and said that the rabbi, Zalman Gurevitch, had grabbed him by the collar. Aziz then took out a 3 inch long knife used it on Gurevitch’s abdomen, and called the rabbi a “Jewish pig.” A German judge found that Aziz could not be guilty of manslaughter, because it’s not clear he intended to kill Gurevitch, but a conviction of serious bodily injury is enough to keep him locked up for a while.

• An Australian politician is in hot water after referring to her colleague as a “greedy fucking Jew” in emails that recently became public.

• Tensions are high in Crown Heights again as conflicts between the black and Jewish communities flare up. NYPD is making its presence more obvious in the area after a Jewish teenager was mugged and beaten up by a group of black teens, and black children threw rocks in the windows of a school bus carrying Hasidic toddlers. Meanwhile, a Jewish man is wanted for questions in regards to the assault of a black man who is the son of a police officer.

• In Nizhny Novgorod, Russia several teenagers were caught on tape desecrating a Jewish grave and a Holocaust monument, but have yet to be apprehended.

• A Jewish family has built a mosque for a small village in Cambodia. Alan Lightman, author of the best-selling novel Einstein’s Dreams, his wife Jean Greenblatt Lightman and their daughter Elyse have started a charity called the Harpswell Foundation to help children and young women in developing countries. The money from the mosque, though, came out of Lightman’s own pocket after the men of the town, Tramoung Chrum, requested it. The villagers follow Imam-San, a small Islamic sect that incorporates Buddhism, Hinduism and animism.

• In Bahrain, a Jewish woman has been named as the Ambassador to US. Bahrain and the US are close allies, but Bahrain, an Arab country, doesn’t have diplomatic relations with Israel. The woman, Houda Nonoo, is the head of Bahrain Human Rights watch, and is one of only about 50 Jews in all of Bahrain.

• The hoopoe has been chosen as Israel’s national bird after an election process that lasted for more than six months. The hoopoe is mentioned in the Torah and the Talmud, and is traditionally associated with King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Other national bird hopefuls were the night owl, red falcon, spur-winged plover, griffon vulture, finch, kingfisher, warbler, and the honey-sucker. (To see them all, check out Jewcy's gallery of contenders.)

• AgriProcessors is looking for a new CEO after being busted for hiring illegal immigrants, mistreating workers, sexual harassment, withholding overtime pay, and a slew of other bad deeds. The current CEO is Sholom Rubashkin, son of founder Aaron Rubashkin. Aaron announced last week that he was starting the search, “The company has begun the search for a new permanent chief executive officer. We have engaged a team of industry experts to help us identify and secure a new leader who can help us meet the needs of Agriprocessors today and in the future.” Meanwhile, former workers from the AgriProcessors plant speak out.

• Philanthropist Michael Steinhardt is throwing his clout behind an effort to get a publicly funded Hebrew-language charter school in New York. Steinhardt’s foundation intends to submit an application to the New York City Department of Education and the New York State Board of Regents to get the Hebrew Language Academy Charter School off the ground. A similar venture succeeded in Florida, where the Ben Gamla Hebrew Charter School opened in August.

Zeek Contributing Editor (and Velveteen Rabbi) Rachel Barenblat asked Rabbis Camille Angel (Reform), Lynn Gottlieb (Renewal), Fred Guttman (Reform), and Meyer Schiller (Orthodox/Hasidic) to discuss the impact of the Israeli state and its politics on their rabbinate.

Zeek: Thank you all for joining us. The central issue I want to look at is how we relate to Israel as American Jews, in American communities and congregations and schools. The first question I want to throw out is, do any of you have experiences working in a community where your own relationship with Israel isn't mirrored by those you're working with?

Schiller: I teach in a Modern Orthodox high school. The mood there is decidedly in line with the Israeli right, and has been since '67 war. My own perspective, favoring a two-state solution, is not that of the community in which I teach. The community in which I live, the Haredi community, is largely indifferent to these issues except to the degree that they share deep fear of Palestinians and of the gentile world in general.

The right of Orthodoxy and the Modern Orthodox share a certain fear and demonization of the Other. It's difficult to offer a different perspective than that of the comunities in which I live. I try, but by the time I come in contact with students, attitudes are already set. It's very difficult to move people from a sense of victimhood, from a sense that there's one side to the conflict and the failure of the world to recognize that is an indication of the world's persistent antisemitism.

Zeek: Do you think there's a sense in which your own background, coming originally from a secular family and choosing Orthodoxy as a pre-teen, has an impact on how you approach this?

Schiller: Absolutely. Because I went to public school; my parents shared a sense that the non-Jews amongst whom we lived were people like ourselves in many ways! It's always been difficult for me to make my peace with those who don't view the world that way.

There are inklings of an alternative perspective within Orthodoxy. I think the German Orthodox experience of the nineteenth century was different. There are individuals in Israel like Eliyahu MacLean who are active in reconciliation efforts. There are echoes within Orthodoxy, but it is lonely.

Gottlieb: Camille [Rabbi Angel] and I were both laughing, not because this is funny but because this is so difficult; we share with Rabbi Schiller across the spectrum how difficult it is to help people overcome their fear of Palestinians. Which of course is necessary for us to build the kind of peace we hope for.

Angel: My experience is in some ways similar to Rabbi Schiller's, although from the other side. I'm in the Bay Area in San Francisco; this is the first time in my life I've been surrounded by so many Jews who developed a Jewish identity post-'67. By and large they're from secular backgrounds; they've felt marginalized by the mainstream for all sorts of reasons, and are deeply suspicious of mainstream ideas--and being pro-Israel is largely a mainstream idea.

When I went to Israel as a high school student, I believed -- hook, line, and sinker! -- that Israel was defending itself appropriately in every way. I have a cousin by marriage who told me that Israel committed human rights atrocities, and I thought she was from Mars!

Over the years I've been here, I've worked to bring people to Israel in order to begin to get a clearer idea of what Israel is. In turn, our visits have involved me going on trips into the occupied territories, being with Israelis and Palestinians who can help me to see how deeply complicated and pained both sides are.

Guttman: I'm pretty much a centrist on Israel and Israeli politics, and my community for the most part shares my perspectives. I do try to help our congregation learn to love Israel; the land, the people and the country. Naturally there are those to the right and left of me.

I also try to help our congregation understand the existential difference between being here and being there. I may have feelings about what the government of Israel should do on a particular issue, but the ultimate responsibility for the implementation of those policies will fall upon the people of Israel and not their supporters in the United States. Having served extensively in the IDF and in the West Bank when I lived in Israel, I can fully appreciate the difference between living here and living there.

Zeek: Rabbi Guttman, you've used the phrase "administered territories." Say more about that?

Guttman: That's the nom de jure that the Israeli government uses, that these are "administered" territories. This has been the term used since shortly following the Six Day War. "Liberated" would have implied no intention to ever give these territories back. "Occupied" might imply the intention to give all of the territories back. However, the interpretation of Resolution 242 by the governments of the United States and Israel for the past forty years has been that in return for peace and security, Israel will return territories occupied in 1967.

The feeling then, and now, as reflected in the Geneva Accords, is that there will need to be some sort of territorial adjustments made to the 1967 borders. The word "administered" implies that Israel is controlling these territories until an agreement for peace (God willing!) can be reached. The recent events in Gaza sadly seem to make such an agreement more unlikely in the near future.

Angel: "Occupied Territories" is a term I use now that I wouldn't have used before. I also use "Disputed Territories." It depends on the audience. I want my congregation to try and understand multiple perspectives, just as they have helped me to broaden mine.

Gottlieb: I want to offer some strategies for coping with this. I've been involved in Palestinian-Jewish reconciliation since 1966, when I met Atallah Mansour, the first Palestinian journalist for Ha'aretz. He told me the story of the Naqba, their term for their experience of 1948, and I realized there were at least two competing narratives. And how tragic the situation was and is.

Guttman: But the conflict didn't commence in 1948 with what the Palestinians call the Naqba. Jews were already being murdered in Palestine half a century earlier. Most Israelis believe that the Palestinians have the right to an independent state of their own. Unfortunately, that view is not shared mutually by the Palestinians, who have yet to recognize our legitimate rights (remember, I hold dual citizenship!)

The Jewish belief that the land was given to us by God from the Nile to the Euphrates is not mainstream. But it is mainstream in the Arab world to believe that Jews have no right to their own state in the Middle East. The Palestinians have been offered a partition of the land so many times and have always turned it down. Understanding the Palestinian narrative requires us to recognize that there is, among many in the Arab and the Palestinian world, no room for Israel on the world map.

Gottlieb: My strategy has been to be in partnership with Palestinians, so we have a mutual opportunity to meet. And of course I've worked with those who, like me, are interested in peaceful resolutions. Lately I've tried to focus attention on those who, like Yehuda Stolov of Interfaith Encounter, are working with Palestinians in partnership and mutuality to build institutions in civil society. We need to figure out how to... nurture young men and women to form the connections that are needed to move toward the future.

Whether it's "administrative oversight" or "occupation," anyone who's... watched olive trees by the thousands be pulled up from the earth, sat for hours at a checkpoint, or seen tanks in the streets -- you realize that no matter what you call it, Palestinians are feeling very helpless as they witness the loss of land and livelihood. As of 2007, 50% of the West Bank was off limits to Palestinians. This is part of the reality of life on the ground that is necessary for people to understand.

Zeek: It's interesting to me that you mention nurturing young men and women to form the connections that are needed to move forward, especially given what Rabbi Schiller was saying about working with teenaged boys at YUHS. Do you have thoughts on how to bring this to American teens in a way that they'll be able to hear?

Schiller: My experience has been that if you focus on conflict elsewhere, Northern Ireland or the Balkans, and you present the histories of the rival peoples there, it's a good starting point. They don't have as much at stake; they can see that there are places in the world where territory is disputed, similar to Israel and Palestine.

I like to start from a perspective of: one's heart has to become a different kind of heart. It has to be a heart in which love and charity are essential ingredients of one's whole human and religious perspective. Going from there: okay, now we know this is how God wants us to be. Fair, compassionate and just. Now what do we do when we move that into the reality of the situation?

Gottlieb: I like to work with theatre games. When you bring people into a theatrical conflict, you can then apply that to different situations. You get a more firsthand experience, you see what works and what doesn't work in conflict transformation.

For me, building understanding in the American Jewish Community has set me on the road to the Muslim community. I've been involved in the Muslim-Jewish Peace Walk, which I co-created with Abdul Rauf Campos Marquetti. It's based on a model of bringing people together in pilgrimage to each others' holy sites. We nurture relationships around which people can build coalitions of shared concerns, which inevitably involve the safety of their youth and the health of their communities.

Zeek: I'm going to pull us in a different direction for a moment. How do you navigate the need to direct time and energy toward Israel, with the need to direct time and energy toward what's happening in our Diaspora communities? Is that a tension any of you want to speak to?

Guttman: It's not necessarily an "either/or" type of situation. I view Israel as an incredible educational resource for adults and teens. In our congregation, we make a concerted effort to raise the necessary funds to help our teens go to Israel. The percentage of our students who have visited Israel before high school graduation has been as high as 70%. This is very important to us because recent studies of college-age youth show a marked decrease in their feelings of connection to Israel.

But our Jewish communal leadership hasn't come to terms fully with two basic facts. The first is that Israel is no longer a third world country and therefore less of our philanthropic dollars need to go there. More of these dollars should go to the JDC and should stay here in the United States. Second, our Jewish communal leadership has yet to fully comprehend how underfunded Jewish education in the United States is and how devastating the consequences for such underfunding can be in the next twenty years for the American Jewish community and for the support of Israel from the United States.

Zeek: Has support for Israel always been a strong part of your congregation, or is that something you've stewarded during your time there?

Guttman: Support for Israel has always been there, but has increased during my time. This is especially true of teen trips to Israel, which were kind of non existent prior to my arrival thirteen years ago. But, these trips could not have been done without the support of lay leadership, generous donors and the Greensboro Jewish Federation.

Angel: When I first came to my congregation there was a veil of silence that the leadership and the congregation had consciously and unconsciously colluded in establishing, so that Israel was just not talked-about. The Israeli flag had been taken out of the sanctuary, Hatikva had been taken out of the siddur. There was no reference to Israel in the curriculum for our school; no one talked about Israel from the bimah in divrei Torah.

Part of my work has been to find organic ways to bring Israel back into the full life of everything we do. In the same way that we work to make sure God and Torah are part of the life of the congregation, we're trying to strengthen the pillar of Israel in various dimensions.

Zeek: Has your community been receptive to that?

Angel: Yes, mostly! Now it seems hard to believe there was a time when it was such a lightning rod. Now we're trying to make annual congregational pilgrimages to Israel. We have Israel in the curriculum. We have a whole continuum of dialogue in the life of the congregation. That's healthy.

Of course there was an Exodus of people who wrote in that they were quitting the synagogue because of our Israel politics--on one side or the other. We're too this, or we're too that. Even though now what we aim to be is dynamic.

Gottlieb: I can relate. On both sides. How painful it is to be the messenger of difficult news. I've led delegations to Israel and Palestine and when I've come back people wanted me to speak from the pulpit, and it's a very painful reality to convey.

People are looking for a ready-made solution. As Jews we're used to thinking in long periods of time, but nonetheless there's so much anxiety about the ambiguous and unresolved nature of the situation, especially on the heels of such terrible trauma and tragedy (the Shoah is still very much with us.)

Zeek: You mentioned working with Palestinians who are working toward peace. How has your community responded to that? Have you and your community always been aligned on the need to "live in the ambiguities," or has that posed a challenge? And on a related note, (how) do you think your geographic location shapes your community's response to these issues?

Gottlieb: My community is committed, but it's a burden to bear in relationship to the rest of the Jewish community. Since I've left my congregation, the desire to connect with the rest of the Jewish community has dampened their willingness to reach out to Palestinians who are critical of Israel's policies related to occupation. Geography can impact this situation; communities in more isolated areas feel vulnerable to lack of connection with the rest of the Jewish community.

Every year or so in my community we have what we call Council; we pass the proverbial talking stick or shofar around, and each person speaks about how they're feeling about Israel. We have different feelings, different experiences; we can cultivate this talmudic idea that "these and those are the words of the living God." If we can't do that in our own communities, how are we going to find common ground with the Palestinians?

Zeek: I'm delighted that you mention the talmudic idea that we're a multi-perspective people; that enshrined in our texts is a sense that disagreement can be productive. I'd love to look at how our relationship with our texts shapes this whole set of questions for us.

Schiller: The solution to part of the struggle, the political part, is ultimately in God's hands. As it says in Avos [Pirke Avot], "lo alecha hamlecha ligmor," the work is not upon us to conclude. We have to bear witness, we have to create acts of kindness on the ground. How the political struggle will play itself out, from this vantage point is difficult to see. But it's not just about the political solution; it's about the 101 day-to-day acts of conversation and kindness, which in a mystical sense are adding to the spiritual balance of existence.

In hockey when two players fight, the officials let them fight until they're exhausted and then separate them. It's possible that we are, tragically, not yet at the point in history when these two peoples are exhausted. But if other models are being created through acts of kindness, by moral spiritual warfare, then at the point when the combatants are exhausted there will be an alternative model on the ground. The things we do in relation to Israeli-Palestinian conflict and our own spiritual development can't be divided.

Gottlieb: How we respond to the Palestinians is core to our spiritual development as a people. What we're watching happen to the Palestinian people is partly in our hands because of the balance of power in that relationship. We're called to rise to the occasion. And in order to do that, we have to address healing from cultural trauma and then understand what that means for the Palestinians as well.

Angel: There's a certain willingness, in a large part of my community, to only be learning about the Palestinians' cultural experience. We need to start with an appreciation for Jewish history and the miracle that Israel is. I want us to form an attachment to our Jewish homeland, our Jewish family and origins before working on behalf of the family of humanity.

Gottlieb: I'm into that. In the non-Orthodox world we're often challenged to carve out a space for Jewish cultural identity. I teach in a program called Interfaith Inventions, which brings Jewish, Muslim, Christian, and Native American kids together. They explain their traditions to each other, and we've found that both their self-pride and their self-knowledge increased, as well as their respect for others.

Schiller: Amongst the Orthodox I find a tremendous need to teach that there is a version of Zionism that is not a rightist type of Zionism. I speak to them about the original Brit Shalom, the Ichud movement, Ernst Simon who was an Orthodox Jew in the 1930s and 40s. There is an opportunity to be a Zionist with a humanistic strain. I trace that history for my students, because I'm always afraid they think they're going to forfeit their Zionist credentials if they appear even-handed.

In the Haredi world, it's very important to show sources in Talmud and Shulchan Aruch that embrace a humanistic vision of Judaism. And to deal with sources that seem antithetical to that, which also certainly exist. One must dialogue with those sources, and cite alternate sources, amongst the Orthodox. There's a lot of work to be done within the Torah experience itself, to show people they need not embrace the endless dialectic of victimhood and hate.

Gottlieb: I remember sitting in Kiryat Arba in the home of a man who had settled there with his wife. And I asked, can you show me where it's a mitzvah to live in the Land? He pulled a text out and started quoting from Ramban instead of Rambam. At that moment he realized that, in fact, there were alternative perspectives -- it was like Coyote had entered the room and made him point to the wrong text! By the end of our conversation, talking about the idea that we as children of Abraham should be known for our compassion was a source of opening for him.

If you have an angry heart, you'll end up with an angry Torah. A fearful heart, you'll end up with a fearful Torah. A compassionate heart will lead you to a compassionate Torah.

RB: Maybe that's a good place for us to end. Thank you all.

Rabbi Camille Angel was ordained through the Reform movement in 1995. "One of the most primary influences in my life was my father, who was ordained Reform in 1934 and whose letters I found this year from his travels through Palestine. Unlike many classmates in '34, he was very much a Zionist.

Today I serve Sha'ar Zahav in San Francisco, primarily a congregation that serves GLBT Jews -- though we have an increasing population of straight folks, and a religious school of 160 kids."

Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb is a sixth generation American Jew of German Jewish descent. "My grandfather, Morritz Gottlieb, founded the National Jewish Welfare Board. He was active during the Second World War, and after, in supporting the birth of the state of Israel. My family has pictures of him with Ben Gurion and Aba Eben.

My first year with Temple Beth Or of the Deaf, also kind of an unusual pulpit to begin with, was 1973. I had the unfortunate task of announcing the beginning of the Yom Kippur war in sign language to my congregation. I have a long history with Israel; I was an exchange student there, went to college there, and have gone back numerous times, most lately leading delegations for the Fellowship of Reconciliation."

Rabbi Fred Guttman lived in Israel from 1979–1991. "I served in the Israeli Army as a reserve soldier in a combat artillery brigade and served extensively in the administered territories from 1984–1990. Since 1995 I've served as the senior Rabbi of Temple Emanuel in Greensboro, North Carolina.

I'm an AIPAC activist and I've lobbied extensively in Congress on issues affecting Israel. I've been a member of the UJA/UJC Rabbinic Cabinet since 1993, and I serve on the Commission of Social Action of Reform Judaism, where for two years I was chair of the Israel/Foreign Affairs Task Force. I've also been very involved with the March of the Living."

Rabbi Meyer Schiller teaches Talmud at Yeshiva University High School for boys in Manhattan. "I've been teaching Talmud to Modern Orthodox high school youth for thirty-one years. I've written several books and articles on political and religious matters. I was raised in a secular or perhaps one might say Reform-oriented home in the 1950s, and opted for Orthodoxy in seventh grade.

My ties are in the Hasidic community though I teach in the Modern Orthodox community. I'm very much taken by notions of seeking to create a broad-based humanistic vision for Orthodoxy which would embrace the sufferings of all of mankind and the narratives and experiences of all peoples."

Morrissey: A fan of Israel Morrissey, perennial lovelorn crooner and former Smiths frontman, recently announced his plans to play the Heatwave Festival in Tel Aviv July 29th. He broadcast the announcement from Los Angeles where he sported what looks like a Sharpie tattoo of the word Israel written in Hebrew on arm. “God bless Israel, stay nice,” he said and did some kind of half salute and blew a kiss to the camera.

While Israeli Moz fans are understandably excited, the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) threw a fit. They feel the famously outspoken activist is betraying his ethics by playing “despite [Israel’s] colonial and apartheid reality.”

You may be forgiven for thinking that the PACBI was just looking for something to complain about on a slow news day, but you’d be wrong. PACBI are such die-hard Moz fans that they scrapbooked some lyrics from “This is Not Your Country” to the press release. The PACBI also paraphrased the original lyrics, “One child shot, but so what?” into “One Palestinian child shot, but so what?”

We suspect PACBI is just annoyed that Morrissey is limiting his Middle East performances to Israel. Back in January, British music rag NME reported that Morrissey was in talks with the government of Iran to play a Tehran concert this year, and follow up with a region tour. The only announcement since, though, has been Moz’s tattooed Tel Aviv love-in. Even the most patient Smiths fanatic is bound to get hot under the collar at missing a chance to see the pompadoured rock star live. If he wants to keep his West Bank fan club, he better schedule a show for Nablus stat. Fair is fair.

Pandering, but pretty: Warhol's KafkaWhat the Jewish media has been getting up to this week:

• In a Dear Abby column last month, Abby answered a question from a man who thinks one of his brothers tricked his wife into sex. Rather than get outraged on the part of the wife—because, um, isn’t that rape?—Abby suggests maybe she was in on the deception. Feminist bloggers called this victim-blaming; Dan Savage called bullshit on the question. Given the opportunity to ask Abby about this controversy in their interview with her this week, Jewishsf.com instead wonders: If she had to eat one Jewish food every Saturday for the rest of her life, would she go with chopped liver, gefilte fish or matzo ball soup? [JewishSF.com]
• Clinton administration policy advisor Jeremy Ben-Ami is launching an “alternative AIPAC”—a liberal pro-Israel group. “About freakin’ time” says Jewschool. [The Jewish Week, Jewschool]
  
• Ugh, this is a terrible story: Remember the haredi women in Israel who wear burqas? The leader of the group was just arrested for child abuse and the failure to report incest. [Jewlicious]
• Heeb discovers it has a Christian twin in Geez Magazine. [Heeb]
• Andy Warhol’s portraits of Jews at the Jewish Museum: Was he exploiting the Jewish community, or vice versa? [The Forward]
• In his seminal book about life as a chef, Kitchen Confidential, Anthony Bourdain refers to veganism as a “Hezbollah-like splinter faction” of vegetarianism. So a bunch of vegans have started a blog called Hezbollah Tofu in which they veganize Bourdain recipes. Is the name offensive? Eric Schulmiller at the Jew and the Carrot thinks it might be. (By the way, best post title ever.) [The Jew and the Carrot]
  
• Uplifting story of the week: The IDF gives a residency permit to a gay Palestinian man so that he can live in Tel Aviv with his Israeli boyfriend. [YNet]

So punk rock, they publish their hate mail on their website: The ShondesThe Shondes are the newest product of Brooklyn’s cross-section of Jewish and hipster culture, merging punk sensibilities with queer identity, radical politics and—most importantly—flapper flamboyance. Their just-released debut album, The Red Sea, is noisy enough to be punk, but complex enough to rank with bands like Arcade Fire and Architecture in Helsinki. It’s a dazzling, velvety blend of half-shouted, half-harmonized three-part vocals, and a fierce and fragile balance between lead guitar and lead violin. The latter is played by Elijah Oberman, formerly of the Syndicate, and one of the foremost violinists in the punk scene today—admittedly not a huge pool to choose from, but still impressive.

Borrowing their name from the Yiddish word for disgrace, the Shondes—three of its four members are Jewish—have become known as much for their politics as their music, espousing groups like Jews Against the Occupation and Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism. In their short existence, they’ve played with Amy Ray of the Indigo Girls, Joe Lally of Fugazi, and Erase Errata, among others.

Their record, The Red Sea, is available at shows, or on Insound.

Okay, so why "The Red Sea"?

One of my favorite moments at Passover is the part of the Exodus story right before the parting of the Red Sea. Nachshon jumps into the water and only after he’s gone as far he could on his own does the Red Sea part.

That sums up where we're coming from as a band. It's very personal, it's very political, pushing ourselves and living intensely, and making music.

Is your violin background classical?

Yeah, I studied classical for years. I realized that path wasn't for me, though at this point I wish for more of those kinds of skills. I definitely think I'm a rock violinist, but that's a major tradition that I come from.

I spent a whole lot of my childhood obsessed with R.E.M., and classical music is definitely an obvious one (especially the Romantics). I also really love punk rock and feminist punk, but that came a little later for me.

Band on the run: How cute are they?How did you manage to star in a Poison video [their recent remake of “What I Like about You”]?

We were at a photo shoot for Curve, and they were shooting the Poison video in the studio down the hall. This guy came in and was like, we're shooting a Poison video next door, no I'm not joking, yes Poison still exists, and we need extras. We were all cracking up, of course, and it was too hilarious an opportunity to pass up.

Do you ever write songs about each other?

Only silly ones that we make up in the van. One favorite is "What's Goin’ on with Eli" to make fun of me and sound like an after-school special. A lot of our songs are about relationships—romantic, familial, relationship to the world.

What's the story of "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?" [video below] Clearly, it's not a Carole King cover…

No, though we all like that song, and it's an obvious inspiration to ours. It's about what's hard for people in relationships. The more you've been hurt, the harder it is to let someone see you and know you, even if you love them and really want to let them. There's always that fear that they might love you now, but if you let them know you, will they still love you? Louisa wrote the words, so obviously she says it in a way that's particular to her experience, but it's a feeling that's pretty easy to relate to.

It's hugely cute that you all thank your families first on the record. Is your queerness still an issue for them (or, has it ever been)? Is your being punk-rock stars an issue?

I think all of us have been lucky enough to get support by our families. Personally, my family has been really supportive of me, which isn't to say that we haven't processed or had difficulties in our relationships (like most people do), but that's not the main thing. My mom came up to New York for our record release show, which was really wonderful.

I know at least some of you have jobs in the organized Jewish community. Has anyone said to you at your desk job, "Hey, aren't you the chyck/dude/other who I saw onstage going crazy last night?"

Actually, a bunch of my co-workers came to our record release party here in New York a couple weeks ago, which was really sweet!

About the politics of the record: it seems a little strange for a band with members who are queer and trans-identified to espouse the Palestinian cause, when the Palestinian government's been so resolutely anti-queer and even sentenced gay couples to death. What's your take?

We are social justice activists who oppose oppression of all kinds. This means fighting for queer rights, an end to the occupation of Palestine and justice for all people. As Jews (3 of us are Jewish), it is particularly important to stand with other people of conscience around the world and represent our opposition to Israeli state terror and the demonization of Palestinian culture.

Is "Your Monster" a concealed reference to the Muppets?

No, but we do love the Muppets! Temim really does an excellent Animal.

In response to my post about picking olives with Palestinians, Ismail wrote: Can't We All Just Get Along?: Not really, no.

Judging from the context of her remark, Tamar was proactively insulating herself from the imagined ire of partisans of Israeli policy who may have thought she was going too easy on the Palestinians. Nothing ironic at all in pointing out the political myopia behind such a fear.

And please, don't confuse principled objection to a political delusion with hostility, and lay off the namby-pamby "everyone's a little right, everyone's a little wrong" banalities, would you? Please advise if there is any other significant political disagreement in which this spineless trope occurs with such frequency.

It may be true that all perspectives have some particle of reason supporting them, but so what? Should that require that we put the brakes on our deeply held beliefs? I'm sure there are lovely Israelis who desire peace, just as I'm sure there are reprehensible Palestinians. So what? Taken as a whole, the historical evidence suggests to me that Israel has, since its inception and under many different regimes, made the dispossession of the Palestinians a conscious element of its statecraft. You may disagree (or, like Benny Morris, you may agree but cheer these disgusting actions anyway), but please come up with (what you imagine are) substantive reasons for your misapprehensions, rather than this silly incantation about there being enough blame to go around.

Ismail

Ismail’s right that “particles of reason” shouldn’t put the brakes on deeply held beliefs, but that doesn’t mean someone else’s deeply held beliefs are wrong, babe. I haven't found the historical evidence quite as convincing as you have, apparently.

Also, yes, you should register.