visiting East Jerusalem

29 July 2005, Friday:

Friday morning I went on a tour of East Jerusalem with a representative of the Israel Committee Against Home Demolitions. He led a group of about 10 of us into several neighborhoods in East Jerusalem to give us an idea of the lay of the land and to see how big issues of territorial rights play out on the local level.

For the first time, I saw this separation barrier that I’ve heard so much about (and argued a bit about). In some places, it’s a kind of chain link fence. In others, it’s a series of giant concrete slabs. I suggest looking at my photos to get a better idea.

We spoke to several peace activists, including a Palestinian Jerusalemite woman who’s neighborhood was cut in two by the barrier. The night before, her husband hadn’t come home because he couldn’t get through the checkpoint from the West Bank side. She explained that the barrier had cut off about 50,000+ Arab former Jerusalemites from the hospitals, schools, and shopping areas they had frequented before last year. In addition, the army had commandeered her cousin’s family’s hotel, which was right across the street from her house. So what had been a beautiful, quiet neighborhood became a kind of militarized border crossing. Interestingly, she pointed out that it isn’t accurate to refer to the barrier as an “Apartheid Wall” (as some activists do) because it separates Palestinians from Palestinians. Problematic for other reasons, of course.

Next we went to see a checkpoint in action (though from a safe distance): Israeli soldiers deciding who could come through from the West Bank side. At one point, an old Arab woman carrying a 1-yr-old approached us and started speaking very emotionally. Luckily, we had some Arabic speakers in our group, who gathered that she was the grandmother of the boy, whose mother was stuck on the other side of the checkpoint. She wanted us to help by talking to the soldiers. A few of the group members decided to give it a try; I must admit, it felt wrong to me. As sympathetic as I am to her plight, and as left-leaning as I am on the political situation in general, I don’t think it’s my place as an American tourist/student to interfere with Israeli defense/security operations. An argument could be made that, in the case of a gross violation of human rights, it’s every compassionate human being’s duty to get involved. I guess I feel like this situation is more complicated, and, again, it just felt wrong to go distract a group of Israeli soldiers who are manning their post. Joe, our group leader, called an Israeli feminist / legal action group who takes on these kinds of cases regularly; he told them about the case and asked them to get involved, since they have expertise and experience in this kind of thing.

After that we visited a few “suburbs” of Jerusalem, one of which (Maale Adumim) was established by a group of American religious Zionists in the '70s and then encouraged to expand (with the help of Sharon and others) in the '80s. It’s now a thriving planned community on the edge of the Judean desert, and you can see the mountains of Jordan in the distance. Settlements like these make the possibility of a contiguous Palestinian state in the West Bank much more complicated, if not impossible. They also expand the de facto border of greater Jerusalem well past the Green Line (1949).

Finally, we visited the house of a Palestinian family who had seen it demolished by the Israeli military 4 times. With the help of an international group of activist volunteers, they were rebuilding it as a peace center (which has a different permit status and is thereby likely to escape the fate of its predecessors). The father of the family spoke to us about his experience, and the strong show of support and help from a group of Palestinian and Israeli volunteers and activists. I realize his role wasn’t to provide a complex political commentary, but he stated, “Israel can end the occupation tomorrow, if it decides. Then everything will be ok.” Yes, I take this out of context; and yes, his actual view is probably more nuanced; but there was too much reductionism, not to mention one-sided attribution of responsibility for the painful situation.

I wish I had a sweeping, incisive conclusion for you. I was mostly struck by the complexity of the situation. And the fact that left-wing and right-wing activists fall into the same trap of living one narrative so intensely that they are blind to certain other realities. Of course I want the occupation to end; but it is naïve and destructive to think that Israel can simply decide to pull out and all will be well. On the other hand, there are still efforts being made to expand settlements and compromise Palestinian territorial contiguity. As if to necessitate a smaller and smaller Palestinian state, when that finally does become a reality. Both sides have radical elements who have made extremely messy beds, and they all have to sleep in it together.

Israel seminar: exploring the City of David

28 July 2005, Thursday:

We had our first Jerusalem orientation “field seminar”, in which we explored biblical references to the land (and particularly to Jerusalem). Starting at the Tayelet overlooking the old city, we then visited the City of David. This is the original settlement that David conquered around 1000 BCE, in a valley below what became the Temple Mount. There's now an Arab neighborhood in this valley. We ended by walking 600m underground through Hezekiah’s tunnel underneath the City of David – it was pitch black and the water came up to our knees. It's an aquifer that predates Rome's elaborate water system by about 500 years.
Fun was had by all. I took a few photos.

We looked at a number of problematic and/or contradictory texts from the Tanakh, regarding Jerusalem and the monarchy of David and Solomon.

For example: Genesis 14:1-24
After Abraham conquers the invaders of Sodom (and thus wins back his nephew Lot from captivity), he returns to receive the blessings of the King of Sodom, as well as King Melchitzedek of Salem (i.e. Jerusalem). Strangely, the text says that “Melchitzedek brought out bread and wine; he was a priest of God Most High.” Why is this strange? Because it doesn’t make sense that there was a priest of God Most High who somehow predated Abraham: a) the priesthood certainly hadn’t been established yet, and b) the Israelites descended from Abraham, so who was this other guy? The rabbis asked these questions, and some suggested that Melchitzedek was Noah’s son Shem (the good son). In the end, there are two main ways of reading this anachronistic mention of a priest of God Most High operating in Jerusalem:

1. It is the editor’s way of demonstrating the eternity of Jerusalem as a holy site. It is intentionally “achronological” because the holiness of Jerusalem exists outside of time.
2. It is a retrospective political insertion to establish Jerusalem as the center of Jewish religious and even political authority.

No answers, just suggestions…

Another example: Who killed Goliath?
David, of course…or so the popular assumption goes. That story comes from I Samuel 17:25-51. However, take a look at II Samuel 21:18-22 and I Chronicles 20:4-7. Another Philistine giant mentioned, but no mention of David (except in the general terms of the house of David). Here, Jonathan son of Shimei (David’s nephew), slays the giant. Hmm…

One last example for now: The conquest of Jerusalem
Who did it, and when? Consider:

1. Joshua 15:63 – the Judaites could not dispossess the Jebusites, the inhabitants of Jerusalem; so the Judaites dwell with the Jebusites in Jerusalem to this day.
2. Judges 1:8-11 – the Judaites attacked Jerusalem and captured it…
3. Judges 1:19-21 – The Benjaminites did not dispossess the Jebusite inhabitants of Jerusalem; so the Jebusites have dwelt with the Benjaminites in Jerusalem to this day.

So wait a second, who conquered/lived in Jerusalem?! It’s kind of unclear. There’s clearly evidence of some tribal insertions (i.e. Judah vs. Benjamin), but who knows what "really" happened. It's probably safe to say there was some kind of battle...

I’m constantly reminded: claiming to read the Bible literally is deeply problematic and inherently inconsistent…

"Religious liberal" is NOT an oxymoron!

A few days ago I set out to explore a bit of the Old City with a couple classmates. They advise that one dress modestly when visiting those areas so as not to "disturb the peace" or draw undue attention to oneself. This is, of course, especially important for women.

So, for various reasons, I was wearing a kipah (skullcap), which I otherwise would only wear during organized prayer. In addition, I had a blue and white ribbon tied to my backpack, representing a political position that can be described as something like "Pro-Disengagement and Pro-Israel." In Jerusalem, orange ribbons are more common; they represent opposition to the Disengagement from Gaza. As far as Israelis are concerned, there seems to be a general correlation between whether you're religious/secular and whether you sport an orange/blue&white ribbon.

Back to a few days ago: While I was on my way to meet my friends and walk to the Old City, a secular Israeli man in his early 40s said to me (in Hebrew, of course): "That's very nice -- the kipah with the blue and white." What he meant, of course, was that he was happy to see someone wearing the telltale sign of a religious Jew (a kipah) and simultaneously supporting the more "liberal" political position in favor of disengaging from Gaza.

That moment really captured what is going on here religiously and politically. The Reform Movement is a giant in North America, where we take it for granted that it represents the largest segment of American Jewry. In Israel, most view liberal religion as at best an oddity and at worst a joke. You're either secular or Orthodox. And even many secular Israelis have little respect for the Reform Movement; surely there's a note of irony when non-observant Jews criticize Reform Judaism for not being real Judaism. They don't want religion, but if you're going to be religious, the only legitimate option is orthodoxy.

So there's this very weird tension within which the middle gets squeezed. The Israeli Reform Movement (including HUC-Israel) is doing great work here, building the movement and ordaining more Israeli Reform rabbis than ever. But there's still much more to be done, even just in changing the Israeli mind about what it means to be a religious Jew.

I think there's a similar problem in America too, and it was probably obvious to anyone who wasn't living in a cave during the 2004 presidential campaign. There seems to be a tacit popular orthodoxy in both our countries that only fundamentalists (or conservatives) are serious religionists. This is yet another reason I'm pursuing this line of work -- to subvert that dangerous and mistaken notion. That's what the Israeli man on the street was reacting to -- the shattering of his stereotypes about what it means to be religious. That may be reason enough for me to start wearing a kipah regularly...

If I may sum up all too soon, and at the risk of oversimplifying... In truth, the truly religious individual should be not merely liberal, but radical. If your allegiance is to God above any earthly ruler, if your commitment is to your fellow human before any monied interest, if you value morality and truth over expediency and good press -- then you may not be the best politician, to be sure, but you will be eager to challenge your government radically and act to effect political change. Go read the Prophets (Jeremiah and Micah are two of my favorites) and you'll get an acute sense of what a committed religious liberal might look like.


"The church is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state." ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Yerushalayim shel zahav" ... v'zifzif

"Jerusalem of gold" ... and gravel

30 June 2005:
I arrived in Jerusalem early on a Thursday morning and headed to HUC to pick up my apartment key. Throughout the move-in process, things were pretty much as you'd expect from a move. Except that I was doing all of it IN JERUSALEM for pete's sake. It seemed strange to me, at first, that I was here in this holiest of cities occupied not so much by transcendental religious experiences as by being on hold with the cable internet company. And I had to buy towels and cleaning supplies. And do laundry. And set up vonage. In Jerusalem.

I was confused when I first saw a homeless person on the street here. It was jarring:
"A homeless person, in this city?!? Poverty, here? Impossible." Very possible indeed, and fairly prevalent.

This was my first lesson about Jerusalem: it is a real city, with real people, and replete with real problems. Interesting, then, that the Jewish tradition idealizes (and idolizes?) Jerusalem to such a degree, going so far as to describe it as an earthly Eden. But even while idealizing, it acknowledges.

I think Judaism has an ethos of embracing a vision of the ideal while being immersed in the everyday. Our tradition is very good at creating holiness in unexpected mundane places. "God was in this place and I did not know it...." (See also Leviticus and Numbers for some idea of what I mean....)

But how does this apply to Jerusalem, exactly? For the beginning of an answer, let us turn, as we often do, to the words of Heschel (both AJ and Susannah), from his book (and her introduction to) Israel: An Echo of Eternity (1969):

• The Land itself is not holy ... but is the site for holiness to be created.
• God is not dwelling any more in Israel than anywhere else....
• We do not worship the soil.
• The vision of Israel that emerges from this book is a challenge, not a panacea. Israel is a measure of moral fiber, a demand that "justice prevails over power, that awareness of God penetrates human understanding." The State of Israel is not a gift to the Jews, nor an achievement on their part, but a test of the integrity of the Jewish people and the competence of Judaism.

A little Heschel, and it all starts to make some sense.
Of course this isn't God's kingdom on earth. Of course there's poverty here. Of course there are mundane errands to run, and the vagaries of everyday life preoccupy our thoughts. The challenge here -- as everywhere, though perhaps it's more exaggerated in the City of David -- is to see (and, when possible, create) the sacred within the profane.

Now, when I figure out exactly how to do that, I'll be sure to blog about it. For now, I'll just leave you with the suggestion that it involves a combination of prayer, study, and action. I invite you to add your own $0.02 on this topic; please leave a comment below.



...the Holy Land is wholly land...

Welcome

I am a first-year rabbinical student at Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem, and this is my blog. I'll use it to post reflections on my experiences here. And maybe someone will read it.

For now, I commend you to the photographs I've taken here since my arrival on June 30th.