Israel's Security: A Paradigm Shift Rosh Hashanah 5776

Israel's Security:  A Paradigm Shift
Rosh Hashanah 5776 - September 14, 2015

Let’s Make a Deal!  You know the game show…the one from the sixties and reinvented in the last decade.  Contestants dressed in crazy costumes bouncing on stage as they weigh the decision in front of them.  They’re often given the choice of a direct, clear win.  Take this check, plus this check and one more, who’s amount remains a mystery…  Or, choose what’s behind curtain number two!  Mystery exists on both sides.  You don’t know the total of the money you’ll receive if you take the checks.  Nor, do you know what is behind the curtain.  It is filled with the moments when a contestant gambles on the curtain, passing up on a couple hundred dollars, and wins a trip to Barbados!  And, the less exciting moments when one chooses the checks, only to reveal an exciting prize they will not receive.  Or the zonk, as they call it.  When the contestant passes up on the sure bet of some amount of money to win what is behind the curtain.  And as the curtain is drawn it reveals, one of my favorite prizes, a car pool!, which is an old truck decked out with no engine, a baby pool in the truck bed complete with lawn chairs. 

Let’s Make a Deal!  The opportunity to choose…the element of chance is the unknown.  This past summer, I felt more and more like the Jewish world has been attempting to play this game when it comes to the Land of Israel.  Yes, the talk of the Iran Deal, only reaching crescendo in recent days, is a big part of that.  But, I unequivocally, will not be talking about it from the Bema. 

I’m talking about a different deal - one that has been made over and over again in recent years.  The deal I believe that has been made is related to Israel’s security.  Let me be clear.  I am a staunch Zionist and one who works to practice ahavat yisrael - the Love for Israel on a consistent basis.  From traveling to Israel, participating in Zionist organizations and to educating about our connection and responsibility to the State of Israel, Israel remains on my mind each and every day.  I am ever aware of the imminent threats to Israel’s security.  Those that come from within her borders and those from the rhetoric of the geo-political stage as well. 

Summer 2015 saw a string of violence that has me deeply concerned about Israel’s security.  And these events, I have surmised are tied to and indirectly a result of the constant pressure to secure Israel.  We are in need of a new deal, a new kind of security; one that will require a paradigm shift in how we think about Israel’s existence, her security and Zionism as a whole. 

In early July, David Azoulay, Israel’s Minister of Religious Affairs, and a member of the ultra-orthodox Shas party, said, “The moment a Reform Jew stops following the religion of Israel, let’s say there’s a problem,…I cannot allow myself to call such a person a Jew.”  Yes, Prime Minister Netanyahu rejected these comments.  Yes, others condemned them and then, they seem to have faded from the stage.  But have they?  Azoulay remains.  He also went on to state that Reform Judaism is, “a disaster for the State of Israel.”  And, yes, Netanyahu admonished Azoulay publicly, while his government restored, “radical Orthodox control of conversion and kashrut in a series of decisions that undid decades of progress toward religious equality.” 

Rabbi Aaron Panken, the President of Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion, wrote in early August, “This highlights the frightening depths of the problem:  extremist ultra-Orthodox fundamentalists are now more emboldened than ever and Israel is increasingly held hostage by a hostile, intolerant approach to Jewish diversity.”  What has become a mainstay in Israeli leadership, of forming governments by partnering, and forming a coalition against one opponent, has fostered the forging of relationships with the religious right for the sake of safety…security.  But it begs the question I am asking:  If we are so hyper focused on securing Israel, what is it that is actually being secured? 

These partnerships create a status quo that is constantly perpetuated without asking this question.  Securing Israel includes nurturing the character of the State.  This is being forgotten and the proof is written in events, hateful and harmful acts against other human beings. 

On Thursday July thirtieth, the Jerusalem Gay Pride Parade saw its usual protests.  Yet, violence ruled the day as a repeat offender, a member of an ultra-orthodox community, feeling emboldened perhaps by the swing in the religious right’s increasing governmental power, stabbed six marchers, one of whom died four days later from her wounds, Shira Banki - may her memory forever be a blessing.  The repeat offender, Yishai Shlissel served ten years for stabbing marchers at the 2005 pride parade in Jerusalem, released only weeks before this year’s parade.  The security of Israel has been paramount in campaigns at home and abroad.  It has been heralded as the most important issue to the detriment of competing issues of social, religious, economic and democratic character.  Even Netanyahu expressed the connection to security when he spoke words of condolence to Banki’s family saying, “Shira was murdered because she bravely supported the principle that each one can live their life in honor and security.” 

However, the same security spoken about here was not the same as security for all of Israel, it is one spawned by partnerships with extremism, seeking to ensure the Land of Israel is only for Jews; but rather, it ought to be a security for all human beings living in the land.  One that accounts for housing security, economic security, the security of our religious freedom and so on.  This summer of events continued with the horrific attack by Jewish terrorists on the Dawabsheh home in Duma, in the West Bank.  The attack that left two young parents and their toddler lost forever from life and a four year old severely injured, may their memories be for a blessing.  These attacks and such violence within and without the Jewish community of Israel are stemming from the same seeds, seeds of extremism that while it certainly is not sanctioned by the government, it is given expression every time security is the only political issue and every time Judaism is restricted to only one community and ruled by one group in the Land.  As Adam Bronfman, the president of the Samuel Bronfman Foundation, recently wrote, “The road to a society where Palestinian children are not burned to death by Jewish religious terrorists and where LGBT Israelis need not fear for their lives by expressing their truth is the same road.”

The deal that has been made in the last decade plus in Israel has been about placing security at the forefront, even at the expense of other issues facing its democracy.  Yet, the reality, is when you only look at one part of the deal being offered, you fail to account for the whole.  It is a deal where not only both options remain a mystery, but in the course of opting for one issue time and again, the character of the State of Israel has been marred. 

As Fania Oz-Salzberger, and Israeli writer and history professor in the University of Haifa’s Faculty of Law, and the daughter of novelist Amos Oz, recently wrote, there are three futures for Israel.  While cautioning at the outset of her article that political imagining is mostly a reflection on the present and is wrought with so much serendipity, she proceeded nonetheless.  She cautions a future impacted from the outside - the imminent threats that must always, ALWAYS, be considered.  Yet her two other futures illustrate the point I am attempting to make - that in securing Israel from the outside and establishing a myopic view of what Israel is politically and religiously fails to truly secure the State, it undermines the founding principles of Israel’s Declaration of Independence which stated Israel, “will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex,” and, “will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture.” 

Oz-Salzberger writes that the current trend in Israeli leadership, coupled with the challenges in leadership of the Palestinian community and the international community, will lead to an Israel, “Democratically conquered by an irreversible majority for nationalists and populists, leaning on the demographic growth of zealotry, pitching Jewish violence against Palestinian violence in a permanent danse macabre, Jerusalem - a euphemism for the religious right - will eventually defeat Tel Aviv - a euphemism for the religiously progressive and secular.” 

It is the third of her futures that must represent the paradigm shift for Israel.  It is one that must encounter some things beyond the Jewish community’s control for sure, a willing and able partner in the Palestinian leadership and an international community willing to engage both sides…equally.  Yet, Israel must re-imagine its own place in this three part dance.  And, we, here in the United States, must recognize we play a crucial role as well.  We are not the lead nor the follow, but perhaps we can play the right music to enable this future to be realized. 

It requires Israel to know that its American Jewish partners, many if not most, are proud Reform Jews, and much to the dismay of Minister Azoulay, we ARE Jewish and not a disaster but a blessing for the State of Israel.  It must also go further in that we must pressure, through organized efforts and Jewish movements, the Israeli government to not only condemn Jewish terror within and without the Jewish community, but every member of government connected with such acts must be held accountable…unequivocally. 

There are ways that we, thousands of miles away, can be part of the band playing the right tune.  For some of us, it is taking the responsibility seriously to speak out about these issues, ensuring that while security remains important as it relates to Israel, it must not remain the only issue.  We must recognize that to be truly secure, we must nurture the character of the State of Israel to reflect the multi-layered reality of what it means to be Jewish.  As the former Member of Kenesset and the President of the Israel Democracy Institute Yohanan Plesner wrote, “Judaism is not a first name; it is a family name that includes diverse individuals and groups who define their connection to religion in a variety of ways.”

Even for others, traveling to Israel to support in person the Reform and Conservative Jewish institutions with presence, involvement and solidarity becomes a way to demonstrate that these voices not only matter, but are also crucial to the future of the State and its security.

ARZA, the Association of Reform Zionists of America maintains as one of its eight core action statements:  Advocating for and enhancing the State of Israel as a Jewish, pluralistic, just and democratic society.  When we do this, we work towards security that is not the bi-product of a one-legged deal, but rather a stool firmly upon multiple legs:  Security, yes, but also religious freedom, political freedoms, and all the principles outlined in Israel’s Declaration of Independence. 

Let’s Make a Deal!  Let’s make the deal that for us Israel’s security remains firm and our commitment is steadfast.  Let’s make the deal that as Jews, as Reform Jews, our commitment to Israel’s security is based on economic, social, religious and political security for all within Israel’s borders so that the dream of Zionism is not only willed, it is lived.  When I was in High School, my mother hung a poster in the entryway that celebrated Theodore Herzl, the founder of Modern Zionism’s, famous teaching, “Im Tirzu Ein Zo Agada - If you will it, it is no dream.”  It hung in the entry way I surmise, because it was not just about that dream within our home or on the outside, it was about ensuring both the exterior and the interior, the soul and the body lived in concert. 

Securing Israel includes nurturing the character of the State of Israel.  May each of us re-imagine our commitment to Israel in 5776 to ensure our voice is part of Israel’s secure future.