Big Question

Big Question

I remember spending a long time in a confirmation class discussion on the (paraphrased) question “Are Jews a race, a culture or a religion?”  I don’t remember thinking about or discussing that since then, but it is one of the most important (and unanswered questions) that I am left with after my trip to Israel.

Israel was founded largely by secular Jews.  Many of these Jews left the shtetls of Europe, and came to a kibbutz or a city like Tel Aviv to create a Jewish state.  In many cases they came expressly rejecting the classical image of a Jew, and placed themselves in direct opposition to what we now call the Orthodox Jews.

Theodore Herzl, in laying out his vision for a Jewish state said:

“I consider the Jewish question neither a social nor a religious one, even though it sometimes takes these and other forms. It is a national question…”

Herzl’s vision of a Jewish state is worthy of its own collection of blog posts, and I will touch on him again when I talk about Har Herzl, but here it is important simply to say that from the beginning what we meant by a Jew was central and controversial.

Even when we attempt to answer the question for Birthright eligibility the question is difficult. A Jew is someone who converted to the Jewish religion (because Judaism is a religion). But a Jew is someone who was born to a Jewish parent (because it is cultural/racial).

Early in the history of Zionism someone broke with Herzl because he believed that Shabbat was central to what it meant to be Jewish.  He was a secular Jew, expressly rejected the rules of Judaism, but believed Shabbat as a day of rest was still central to what it meant to be a Jew.  On the other hand, one story from the trip was of a kibbutz writing down that they ate pork for lunch on Yom Kippur, a complete rejection of Judaism as a religion by the most committed of Zionists.

This dichotomy was central in the early days of Israel, with Tel Aviv putting a school at its center instead of a synagogue, and many kibbutz had a water tower at their center, only adding synagogues later to attract tourists.

During the Holocaust being a Jew was purely a racial construction, and even conversion to Christianity by a person or conversion by their parents prior to their birth was often not enough to save people.

So when I say, “I am Jewish”, what does that mean? What should it mean?  Are you more or less Jewish because of your family, in other words, can one be “half Jewish”? Are you more or less Jewish because of the synagogue you go to and the rules you follow?

Taken to the next step, in a topic worthy of its own post, what does it mean to be Israeli and live within the Jewish state as a Jew? Much more importantly and much more difficult, what does it mean to be Israeli and live within the Jewish state as a Muslim or a Christian?

As I said at the start, I hadn’t thought about this question in probably 11 or 12 years, and there is probably no “correct answer”.  I do know, though, that it is way too large for me to answer now.

Politics

Of course I was going to write a blog post about Israeli politics.  What you weren’t expecting is the short length and the relative lack of in depth reporting.  As anyone who knows me should know, while I have strong opinions on foreign policy and social issues I am motivated by economic issues.  This makes Israeli politics even more foreign to me, since traditionally the focus has been almost exclusively on security and what the parties mean by peace.

That may be changing.

Over the summer Israel experienced widespread protests over a variety of domestic economic problems, many of which were related to food price protests across the region (the same food price issues that may have helped fuel the Arab Spring).

At the same time, tensions between secular Israelis and the Ultra Orthodox continue to rise on the question of equality for women, with the Ultra Orthodox believing that everyone should endorse their 18^th century Talibanesque view of the world.

There has not been an election since the food price protests, and as those and other issues continue to bubble Israeli politics may become very interesting and much more volatile in coming years.  Should be very interesting to watch.

PS – In a really cool practice, apparently in the lead up to elections every party is given a certain amount of time cut out a 30 or 60 minute show to give voters their message.  The time is dependent upon how much of the vote they are expected to get. Imagine if once a week for the last month the DNC and RNC each got 15 minutes on every broadcast station in the country? FIREWORKS!

Where Are We?

Nothing is more controversial, complicated, difficult or central to Israel than the question of “Where?”

The borders of Israel in ancient times were defined roughly by… well this is where it starts to get complicated. There is the area described in the Torah, the areas controlled before King David, the areas controlled by David and Solomon and the area controlled but defined by foreign rulers such as the Romans. Like all maps in ancient times the lines were fluid, and described in rough geographic terms, often using names and markers that have disappeared since.

The creation of the lines of the Modern State of Israel are just as fluid. With the creation of modern Zionism, an effort was made to define the lines of what would be Israel. This story is worth a book, but the truncated version is that from roughly 1909 with the founding of Tel Aviv and the formation of the first Kibbutz a year later, Jews attempted to create a foothold everywhere they could by buying land from Arabs and living there. By the 30s and 40s this sometimes meant terrorism (on both sides) and even pitched battles to protect homes and farms.

From 1945 to 1947 there were almost constant skirmishes between Arabs and Jews, only sometimes mediated by the British. Following the vote in 1947 by the UN to establish Israel there was a rush to expand/define the borders as much as possible. The end of fighting in 1948 seemed to establish a set border for Israel. That all changed in 1967.

Almost everywhere we went was defined or changed in some significant way by the 1967 war. What happens to the land Israel won in that war is at the core of the peace process. All the land won and given away (returned?) in wars and peace agreements almost seem trivial to these lines (of course nothing is trivial on this topic).

Below a map from PBS with its own views, biases and issues.

Before I went to Israel I had the fairly standard liberal view, which is to say “Establish two economically viable states and things will calm down”. What this trip reinforced for me is how difficult that really is. The lines as draw in 1947 and 1948 were established by the British with crude maps, ignorant of where people lived and then redrawn by where the front lines were prior to the ceasefire. Since 1967 some areas have seen significant changes.

Do you return to the original lines ignoring the Arab villages split for no reason by the “Green Line”? Do you force Israelis to abandon not crude settlements but actual suburban neighborhoods and go back to old lines? What do you do with Jerusalem?

Understanding the “hard line” Israeli answer (of course there is no such thing as one Israeli answer to anything, but ignoring that) was much easier after this trip. When you can stand in one place and see a thriving farm literally in the shadow of what used to be two foreign powers it is a little easier to understand not wanting to give up an inch of territory.

If my notes are right the above should be looking into Lebanon

The most striking area for some reason was the day we met with an Israeli Arab (more on this later) and stood on an overlook which sits on the “Green Line” (the Green Line is the 1948 border). From that outlook you could see straight into the port city of Hadera and see the Mediterranean. It is easy to understand what some call “paranoia” might not be so crazy after all when you see a distance that I could walk in a day is all that stands between an army splitting the country in two.

Standing on the Green Line on a very windy day. The Arab village behind and below me was split in 1948 because it sits on both sides of a river and the British maps weren't precise.

Picture taken looking into Syria from a former Israeli military post on the Golan Heights. Some maps have this spot as Israel, some as Syria, some as "UN monitored". With the proper equipment the Israeli military can see what movies are playing in Damascus from here.

In Israel everyone has an opinion on what those lines mean and what they should look like. There are those who think the borders should look like they did at the time of the bible, those who want safety through cooperation with their Arab neighbors, those who want safety though strength and military protection, and many other points of view.

In many ways this trip made me less certain of what Israel should (and maybe does?) look like. In a country where disputes about borders are now determined by lawsuits, it’s easy to forget that even the US has borders forged in wars. But I know what North Carolina looks like, and I can draw a picture of it without making anyone mad. You can’t say the same thing about Israel, and I am struggling to figure out what that means for the people who live there.

If I Had a Shekel…

If I had a Shekel for every time someone said the word “complicated” on this trip, I would probably be able to pay off my school loans.

The funny thing about it is that “complicated” is in itself a very real understatement when talking about modern Israel. Very few questions that we asked didn’t involve the word in one way or another, and it was always accurate.

From Masada looking back at the Dead Sea. Both have their own "complications"

In Israel just the very simple task of saying where you are is fraught with numerous political pitfalls. By using one word to say “we visited ___” instead of a different name I am making a political judgment, conscious or not. For someone like me who tries very hard to attempt to understand everyone (even when the “other side” is 100% wrong), it was both incredibly enjoyable and infinitely frustrating to know that I was making a political declaration by standing somewhere.

For this blog I will do my best to present the alternative sides as I understand them, but I will also try to avoid using “complicated” in every sentence. Any attempt to avoid controversy with place names is probably impossible, so I will call it what it was called by Jamie and let the chips fall where they may.

Brad(l) does his best impression of Israel as Jamie(r) explains the map.

Speaking of complicated, this is as good a time as any to introduce our amazing and incredibly knowledgeable tour guide Jamie. A native of London, he made Aliyah at the age of 25, about 13 years ago, as an expression of his increased awareness of what it meant for him to be Jewish. He is married to a Long Island native and has one son, and by time I write this is probably the father of another son or daughter. Jamie tried (and I believe succeeded) to present every issue as fairly and objectively as possible. He did his best to explain each side, and avoided making many large declarations.

As I said above, being objective in Israel is simply impossible, but Jamie certainly made a herculean effort to do so. Beyond the tour, I had a few opportunities to ask much more detailed and pointed questions about specific topics, where he displayed the same ability to present all sides. Having a tour guide who was able to discuss at length everything from Biblical stories to the state of domestic economic policies was invaluable to my tour. Something I will attempt to talk about later is Jamie’s own complicated relationship with some of the places we visited.

Map

I am working on uploading everywhere we went into a google map. Its time consuming so check back for updates.

View Birthright 2011 in a larger map

Introduction

I realized a few days into my trip to Israel that it was just too big, too overwhelming to talk about in short facebook or twitter posts. So over the next few weeks I will use this try and describe, explain, expand on all the things I saw and experienced.

Check back, once I manage to recover from the food poisoning, 12 hour plane ride, 9 hour layover and everything else I will start seriously putting things up.