Mar. 26, 2009
Daniel Gordis , THE JERUSALEM POST

It’s not every day that your 15-year-old son decides that he wants to hang out with you, so when he makes the offer, you grab it. Amazingly, he suggested that we go to the Biblical Zoo. Not having been there since he was very young, I was happy to oblige.
Toward the end of our few hours there, we happened upon a relatively new exhibit, the collared peccary. With no offense intended, it’s neither especially attractive nor, to my untrained eye, a particularly interesting animal.

But this is Israel, and even the collared peccary was cause for pause. For on this sign, unlike any of the others in the zoo which display Hebrew, English and Arabic, this sign had Hebrew and Arabic in the center, English on the side, and under them all, a brief Yiddish exclamation – “Dos is nisht a chazir.” This is not a pig!! One can chuckle at a sign like that, and say “Only in Israel! Or you can ask yourself what that sign actually reveals about Israeli society.

It means, clearly, that there is a population of Israelis, sufficient in size to merit its own sign, that does not speak Hebrew, English or Arabic, but rather knows only Yiddish. And that population, were it to think that this was a pig, would be very upset. To ensure that no untoward reactions were elicited by this new non-pig, the zoo has assured the haredi population, which visits the zoo in large numbers, that in keeping with Jewish tradition, there are no pigs in this pen.

Am I over-interpreting this? Is the notion that the zoo might be worried what some (yes, only some) of these people would do if they thought a pig were in the zoo far-fetched? I don’t think so. Ask the residents of the Anglo community who live in and near Ramat Beit Shemesh Bet, many of them newly-arrived immigrants, about their aliya experience. Listen long enough, and you will hear of a small but extreme group of anti-Zionist, extremist haredim in that community who are literally terrorizing them.

YOU WILL HEAR the story of the person who received a note in his mailbox saying that a television was observed in his apartment, and that if it were not removed immediately, the writer “could not be responsible for what might happen to your wife and children.” Ask them about Yom Ha’atzmaut celebrations in their neighborhood, and they will tell you about the religious customs of this group on Independence Day. They wear sackcloth, they fast and they read Vayechal from the Torah, the portion most Jews read on days of mourning. They will tell you that if you slow down at a traffic circle, the chances are good that one of the small children from this group of extremists will be sent scurrying into traffic to break the Israeli flag off your car.

And the police? Yes, they’re there. They buffer between the two groups to make sure that there’s no trouble. (The police did, however, take down the Palestinian flags that these Jewish extremists had displayed.) Ask these immigrants, who chose to leave America and to raise their children in the Jewish state, about the Friday night not long ago shortly after a haredi mayor was elected there. They will tell you about three religious (but not haredi) teenage girls who were attacked on the street by this group. Two got away, but one was trapped, thrown to the ground, kicked and abused, and it was only when a teenage boy from her own community ran to help her that she was whisked away by a few of the haredi women, taken to their apartment, given clothes and a stroller to make her look haredi, and then accompanied as she was walked home and back to safety.

And the police? They literally said to a friend of mine there: “They all look the same to us. Do you have any idea what do to?” And when names were ultimately provided them, nothing happened. Why? Because at the end of the day, the police know that these Anglo immigrants will cower in fear and watch the values of their homes plummet as others, who are now hearing about this, choose Modi’in and Hashmonaim over their neighborhood. These immigrants will not resort to violence. Not so the extremists, who burn garbage bins and otherwise make it clear that it’s not worth tussling with them.

Someone I know in that community told me this week that they’ve now organized informal patrols to walk their teenage kids on Friday night, so that they can come and go without being molested. It sounds a bit like Europe, doesn’t it? Exactly the condition that Zionism was meant to change, only now it’s happening here, and now the perpetrators are “Jews” (I use the quotes advisedly).

THIS HAS BECOME the season of “loyalty-talk.” It started with the question of the loyalty of Israel’s Arabs to the state – a question that is legitimate, important and extremely complex. But ought we focus exclusively on that one population to the exclusion of others even more open about their objection to Zionism and Israel? What about those who make life miserable for Israeli Zionists? What about the obvious non-loyalty and hostility of some of Israel’s Jews?

Loyalty cuts both ways. Citizens, to be sure, can be expected to show a modicum of loyalty to the democratic state in which they live. The olim of Ramat Beit Shemesh gave up everything to come here, and now many live in fear. There are enemies of Israel who are terrorizing some of Zionism’s best. That’s what the Yiddish sign at the zoo hints at, and what the Ramat Beit Shemesh stories make abundantly clear. And the state is not protecting them.

Who’s failing the loyalty test now?

Set at the end of the 1960’s, this movie, which was a great success in Israel, portrays the travails of the Northern African immigrants who were sent to dilapidated towns “at the end of the world” as Israel struggled to settled the masses arriving at its borders.  Uprooted from their native lands, having lost their former social and familial structures, and struggling to raise children in a society they themselves do not understand, the characters in this gorgeous movie struggle to find love, meaning and the prospect of a better future.  An honest, charming and sad look at the story of Israel’s Northern African immigrants, now a defining portion of our political and social map.

No one, it was clear, had asked any of us that question in a long time. It took a few minutes for anyone to formulate an answer, though the answers eventually did flow. But we’ll return to that.

A few days earlier … This is a complicated country to return to. I landed last Tuesday from a trip to the States, and met my regular driver outside baggage claim. As we started to pull out of the airport, he asked me, “Do you want to hear the news?”

That’s a loaded question, and he knew it. On one hand, you’re home, and you want to know what’s going on. So you figure you should listen to the news. But on the other hand, the news is often not very good, and it can be a lot to absorb just after getting off a long flight. But we turned it on anyway, and got the full dose: the ongoing coalition negotiations, the possibility that Lieberman would be appointed Foreign Minister, the ongoing fruitless negotiations to free Gilad Shalit, the number of days he’s been held captive (990+ at that point), the ongoing serious water shortage despite the rain, estimations of how close Iran was to getting a bomb and what the (slowly) incoming government might or might not do about that, the continuing investigation of (former) President Moshe Katzav on rape (yes, rape) charges. And maybe some sports – I no longer recall.

No wonder he’d asked me if I wanted to hear the news. After a week away and a long flight, it was pretty stark reminder of what coming home means. Why, indeed, one could ask, would you choose to live here?

We meandered our way up the hill to Jerusalem, and in the neighborhood called Rechavia, slowed to a crawl in the ever-present traffic. We passed what used to be the Moment Café, where, as I’ve described elsewhere, my driver’s sister was killed in a bombing. Her picture used to be on his dashboard. Now, it’s not. But it always gets quiet in the car when we pass that building. This time, he spoke. Five quick Hebrew words. “Danny, yesterday was seven years.” I didn’t say anything. What can you possibly say?

Fifty meters further up the street, a small crowd had gathered. It was the now ongoing protest in favor of getting Gilad Shalit out of captivity, no matter what the price. His parents, I knew, were in the tent. And I thought that the right thing to do would be to stop, to get out of the car, and to go say something to them. It wasn’t like there were thousands of people there. I knew I could get to them. And just say something, anything. What, I wasn’t sure. But there just had to be something to say.

But there was a lot of traffic, I was hungry from having fasted most of the flight (it had been the Fast of Esther when the flight took off), tired from not sleeping and wanted to shower, and I was sure that my driver was in no mood to wait for me. So again, I said nothing, and he took me home.

But all day, it bothered me. I’d driven right by them, and hadn’t stopped. What made that OK, I kept asking myself. That I was a little bit hungry? They’re dealing with a lot more than being a little bit hungry. That I wanted to shower after a long flight? They’re living in a tent. That my driver might have been in a rush? Surely he, of all people, given what happened to his family only a few yards away, understands how important public support can be to a family.

The next day, Purim in Jerusalem, I kept thinking about the fact that I’d driven by and hadn’t stopped. And still, I did nothing. And then I went back to work. And then it was Shabbat. I thought of going then, but we had that above-mentioned lunch, it was raining lightly after lunch, and we’d promised to walk to my parents for a visit. So I didn’t go on Shabbat, either.

By Monday, though, I was out of excuses. I could still see myself in that taxi, just driving by, and with each passing hour, it felt increasingly wrong. So towards the end of the work day, I called my wife. The car, she said, was at home. I walked home, got in the car, and drove to the Prime Minister’s house. Surprisingly, and sadly, there was no trouble getting a parking space. Just a few yards away, the “protest,” such as it was, was in high gear. There were numerous posters, a relative of a terror victim holding a sign that said “free those who killed our loved ones to get Gilad Shalit back.” And a few dozen people. I didn’t see Shalit’s father, but his mother was there, speaking to someone. I waited a few minutes, and when she was free, went up to her.

What can you say that’s not totally banal? I said what I thought was the least absurd thing to say, and we chatted for a couple of minutes. She thanked me for coming, I wished her well, took some bumper stickers from a table, and gave a young woman my cell phone number – they wanted to be able to send text messages if they needed a massive rally at a moment’s notice. Then I went back to the car.

Driving downtown to pick up something we’d ordered for the house, I couldn’t get Shalit’s mother’s face out of my mind. Though I imagine that she’s approximately my age, she looks old enough to be my mother. As I tried to wrap my head around what it would be like to live the lives they’re living, the misgivings that I’ve long had (that my wife does not share) about the trade began to dissipate. When I got to the shop downtown, and the man from whom we’d purchased the items was wrapping them up, I told him where I’d been. We’ve known him casually for years, but I don’t know very much about him. He’s an immigrant (so he obviously believes in this place). He’s an exceedingly nice guy. He doesn’t wear a kippah. And he’s an exceptional artist. That’s about all I know.

He was wrapping the items, listening to me, and said, “Well, I’m probably a minority in this country, but I’m against the trade. We refuse to trade, they’ll stop kidnapping soldiers. We make this trade, and we’re just begging them to capture another one.” He finished his wrapping, took my VISA card, and looked at me, saying, “But thank God I don’t have to decide. It’s too horrible.” And then he basically made it clear that he didn’t want to talk about it anymore, that he couldn’t talk about it any more. Usually, we chat quite a bit in his shop. This time, almost nothing. After all, what was there to say?

He stamped my parking lot ticket, and I walked out of the shop with a brief thanks.

Micha got home shortly after I did, and saw the bumper stickers on my desk. “Where did you get these?” he wanted to know. I told him about my afternoon. “You talked to his mom?” I told him I had. “What did you say?” What was there to say?, I essentially asked him.

“Can I have this one?” he asked, holding up the bumper sticker that says “Hatzilu,” “Save Me!”, in handwriting that had been culled from the note that Shalit sent from captivity many months ago. “Sure,” I told him, a bit surprised that he would want it.

“What was his mother like?” he suddenly asked me again. I looked up from the computer. “I didn’t really get to know her,” I told him. “She’s really sad. But today it’s looking good. He might actually get out. The negotiations are continuing, Ashkenazi [the IDF’s Chief of Staff] is returning early from America, so who knows? Maybe he’ll get out. She’s hopeful, I think. Scared, but hopeful.”

He was quiet for a minute. “I don’t think we should make the trade,” he said. “It’s horrible that he’s there, but letting hundreds of murderers out, when we know they’re just going to kill more people? It’s dangerous for the country.”

I looked at him, and asked him the question that every Israeli family asks itself, usually unspoken. “What if it were Avi? [his older brother, now in the army]”

He stared at me. “That would suck.”

OK, so my son’s unlikely to make his living as a poet, but he can still think. “That’s all?” I asked.

He was quiet for a moment. “Yeah,” he said. “That would really suck.” And with that he climbed the stairs and went to his room, presumably to do some homework.

And then I thought about it. Maybe his power of expression isn’t as limited as I’d feared. Perhaps that’s just the situation. It would really suck. What more, after all, is there to say?

The evening progressed, and scanning the various news-sites while trying to get work done, I couldn’t help but notice a gradual crescendo of optimism on the web. Something was happening in Cairo. The numbers of reporters and photographers around the Shalits’ protest tent grew a bit. Elisheva, long in favor of the trade – any trade, went to sleep, hopeful. I stayed awake, working.

And then, somewhere around 11 or 11:30, it all changed. Nothing was going to happen. The negotiations were over. Hamas had hardened. Or Israel chickened out. (It depends on which web site you read.) But Gilad Shalit wasn’t coming home, at least not yet. I could scarcely believe it. I waited another half hour or so to see if the news would flip again, but it didn’t. I had an early morning and a long day coming up. I needed to get some sleep.

So I got into bed. But that brief conversation with his mother, and the look in her eye, simply wouldn’t go away. There’s a limit to how long you can stare at the ceiling before you know that sleep is simply not going to happen. So I went back downstairs, and back to the web. Nothing. The negotiations were dead. I tried to read, unsuccessfully. And I was too tired to work. So I took out a bottle of scotch, and poured myself more than I probably should have. Half an hour later, having scanned the web again only to see that nothing had changed, I went to sleep.

In the morning, when Elisheva came downstairs, she saw the scotch and now, the Tylenol. She’d obviously heard the news. “Shitty night, huh?” Hardly looking up from the keyboard, I told her I hadn’t been able to fall asleep, that I couldn’t stop thinking of that mother, and of that son. “I know it sounds nuts,” I said to her.

She came over and looked at me. “It’s not nuts,” she said. “In some strange kind of way, he’s sort of our son, too. And that’s why it’s so painful. But that’s what it means to live here. Living here means having an inner circle that’s incredibly wide. Life here, sometimes, is simply too raw, too powerful. And that’s why you’d never leave.”

She was right, of course, as she usually is. Finally, someone had said something that made some sense.

And suddenly, I wished that we’d had that snippet of a conversation prior to that Shabbat lunch. Because that, more than anything that any of us said to that mother’s thoughtful question, was the real answer. You live here, and you feel things that you don’t feel anywhere else. You just do. You’re part of things that you wouldn’t be part of anywhere else. You care about people you wouldn’t care about in the same way anywhere else. Other people’s stories are your stories in ways that they couldn’t be anywhere else. You cry, and you laugh, and you mourn and you celebrate, with people who elsewhere, might not matter to you at all.

You may not even be sure that we should make the trade to get their kid out, but you cry when we can’t. And given the choice of living life this way, or not, there’s really only one question that matters:

Why would I think of living anywhere else?

]]> http://danielgordis.org/2009/03/01/why-would-you-live-here/feed/ 2 http://danielgordis.org/2009/02/26/the-campaign-that-lieberman-should-have-run/ http://danielgordis.org/2009/02/26/the-campaign-that-lieberman-should-have-run/#comments Thu, 26 Feb 2009 13:42:40 +0000 Daniel Gordis http://localhost/woordpress2/?p=19 Dear Mr. Lieberman: Quite understandably, you didn’t ask me to run your campaign. But now, in this extended hiatus between the campaign and a new government, I’d like to offer you some unsolicited advice about the next stage of the message you convey to the Israeli people.

It’s no secret that you’ve aroused the ire of many, from religious parties on the Right to those on the Left concerned about civil liberties. Ironically, though, your message could easily have appealed to many religious people and to some of those committed to civil liberties. To do that, you would simply have had to craft your message slightly differently, which you still can do.

Let me explain. Ironically, of all the parties that received significant numbers of votes, yours is the only one that made a “splash” about increased civil liberties. How so? You did it by advocating the right to civil marriage. Many people saw this as an anti-religious move, but you could have spun it differently, stressing that despite your commitment to the Jewishness of the State of Israel (to which we’ll return), you endorse the right of citizens to make personal choices about the role that religion will play in their lives. Liberty, you could have said, is the issue.

The same with your promise to reform the conversion process. Even religious people here know that the conversion process has become abominably inhuman. The shameful treatment of Rabbi Haim Druckman last May, and the limbo into which the people he’d helped convert were placed, was inexcusable, but not atypical. You could have appealed to us religious voters, confident as we are in Judaism’s nobility and its capacity to shape lives of Jewish devotion and meaning.

Imagine that you’d advocated change in marriage and conversion not in order to undermine religion, but instead to protect it. What if you’d said “a magnificent religious tradition like ours will thrive most not when it is enforced by a small group of rabbis, but when it is permitted to compete in Israel’s marketplace of ideas.” If you’d said “let’s free religion from the chains of an antiquated rabbinate that allegedly protects it, and enable Judaism to compete for the loyalty and devotion of Israelis by making the best case it can for itself,” you would actually have attracted the interest of many religious voters.

THEN, THERE’S the issue of Arabs. Here, too, a positive campaign would have served you infinitely better. Instead of that “Only Lieberman Understands Arabic” slogan, which led many people to make comparisons between you and Rabbi Meir Kahane, and which drew too many teenagers shouting “Death to Arabs” to your rallies, what if you’d said that only Lieberman is looking at demography honestly?

There’s a basic truth about Israeli society that no one is addressing. For this country to remain both Jewish and democratic, it is imperative that it retain a significant Jewish demographic majority. That’s why all discussions of Palestinian refugees being returned are non-starters.

But as you well know, Palestinian refugees aren’t the only challenge to our democracy. So, too, are the country’s Arabs. If they were to become a larger percentage of the population – no matter how loyal they were to the state – they would by definition undermine Israel’s creation as a country, to paraphrase Lincoln, “of the Jews, by the Jews and for the Jews.” Yes, that is indeed why this country was created, and that does mean that our democracy can’t mimic America’s democracy. (More on this in my new book – I’d be happy to send you a copy.)

So say that the vast majority of people who live here want this to remain a Jewish country. By raising the question of how we’re going to maintain that Jewish majority – by means of moving borders, as you suggest, or by some other means – you could have initiated a conversation that we have put off for far too long.

WHICH LEADS me your “No Citizenship Without Loyalty” slogan. You’re right – the four manifestos by the country’s Arabs which call for ending the definition of Israel as a Jewish state are reason for worry. But what if, instead of oaths, you’d advocated universal national service? For Israel’s Arabs for haredim for the far too many secular Jews who now choose not to serve? What if, instead of being perceived as an alarmist, you’d positioned your party as the one restoring a commitment to patriotism, yes, even for Israel’s Arab citizens?

Oaths of loyalty won’t solve anything. They won’t actually get anyone to serve their state. And they will create a climate of suspicion and fear. Is there an oath that a haredi in Bnei Brak, a secular Jew in Ramat Aviv and a loyal Israeli Arab in Beit Safafa can all utter with complete conviction? I doubt it. That’s why I’d focus less on what people swore to, and much more on what they actually did and how they contributed to the country that you and I both love.

The last thing our country needs is a pervasive climate of suspicion, with commissions asking “who’s loyal and who’s not?” We dare not recreate the trauma that America suffered when Joe McCarthy, who was not wrong about the evil of communism, tore his country asunder by undermining its liberties in the name of saving it.

Israel still has no constitution because as a society, we don’t agree on the fundamental commitments that ought to lie at the heart of the Jewish state. Ironically, your campaign could have been one of the first to raise many of these pivotal issues. Now, with the government still forming, you have another opportunity to craft the message you want to share and the positions you want to advocate.

I, for one, am hoping that we might all still benefit from the campaign you could have run, and now can.