HOW ISRAEL UNITES US
Rabbi Elliot M. Strom
KOL NIDRE 5772
It was July 1976, hot, humid and heavy. Susie and I were on staff at our Reform movement’s summer camp in Zionsville, IN and having a wonderful time. There, in that summer before my final year at rabbinical school, we were working with good friends and colleagues, creating wonderful programs, singing and praying and changing young Jewish lives together. We were looking forward to my senior year in Cincinnati and contemplating how different our lives would be when blessed with the arrival of a child, the news of which we had just received at camp.
But, with all this, there was a pall that hung over us, a big, black cloud that troubled and tainted everything. All was not right with the world. Because Idi Amin, the tyrannical ruler of Uganda, had carried out a hijacking of an Air France airplane, diverted it to the airfield in his capital city, Entebbe, was holding its passengers for ransom in unspeakable conditions and -- in chilling overtones of the Nazi era -- had separated the Jewish and Israeli passengers from all the others.
Then, on Sunday, July 4, 1976 -- the 200th anniversary of America’s founding -- under cover of darkness, an elite corps of Israeli commandos slipped into Uganda, arrived undetected at the airport, found the captives, killed their tormentors, put those captives on airplanes and flew them to freedom in Israel before Idi Amin even knew what hit him – and all this accomplished without the loss of a single captive, the sole fatality being the brave leader of the mission, Yonatan Netanyahu, older brother of Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu.
I remember sitting glued to our television sets all that day. We just couldn’t believe what we were seeing. How incredible were those Israelis! Only they could have pulled off such an incredible coup! And all I could think of was the verse we recited in the blessing after meals every day at camp --“hayinu k’cholmim – we were like dreamers.” And indeed, we WERE like dreamers who kept on pinching ourselves (at least metaphorically) because it was just too good to be true.
I remember, as the news spread from one bunk to the next, the whoops of joy that came echoing through the camp. I remember gathering in the dining hall to share the news with the campers who hadn’t yet heard all the details. I remember the spontaneous dancing and singing and the most powerful rendition of Hatikvah I have ever heard. I must tell you: it still gives me chills to think of it -- all these years later.
It was a wonderful moment to celebrate the brilliance, the courage, the genius of Israel. We all felt it. We were all united in our joy, in our love and admiration for the state of Israel. Not just those of us at camp but all American Jews. On that day, we were all one with Israel, one with each other.
I must tell you: I look back on that memory wistfully today. Wistfully – because I suspect that was the last time we, as an American Jewish community, felt a sense of unity around Israel.
And how ironic is that? Because Israel used to be about the only thing we American Jews could reliably agree on.
When I was growing up, the one thing we could count on was that we shared a common love and concern for Israel. No matter how different we were in so many ways – secular or religious, left wing or right wing, Orthodox or Reform – Israel really mattered to us. We were proud of what “little Israel” had done to fight off her enemies, to provide a safe haven for the refugees of the Holocaust and the Arab countries, to create opportunities for all its citizens, to meld together Jews of so many disparate backgrounds, nationalities and races.
But whereas once we could count on Israel to be that common bond joining Jews of every stripe, now, not only does Israel no longer unite us, I fear it has become the single most divisive issue among us. Today Israel divides us, inflames us, pits us one against the other and that is a real tragedy.
Does this sound like hyperbole? Do I overstate? I don’t think so.
I can tell you from our own experience here in this synagogue. My sermons on the flotilla Incident in May of 2010 and President Obama’s speech this last year had people – let us say – “impassioned” on both sides of the debate. And it is the same everywhere. Many rabbis say they won’t preach or teach on Israel anymore; it’s just too explosive. It’s just too dangerous.
You don’t have to look very far to see it’s true. Once the bogey-man of American Jewish life was Peace Now; now it’s J-Street. Their positions – reliably left-of-center, sometimes radical, often challenging – have American Jews lining up pro and con but mostly against each other. Do you know that last year a Reform congregation in Newton MA ended up in fisticuffs over their rabbi’s invitation to Jeremy Ben-Ami, the head of J Street? In the end, it almost tore the congregation in two.
That sordid spectacle was soon followed by ads in the Jewish press – ironically by a group calling itself “Jews Against Divisive Leadership ” -- attacking Rabbi Richard Jacobs – a wonderful choice for the Presidency of the Reform movement – all because he is a board member of J-Street.
This in turn was followed by the biggest uproar of all when President Obama spoke this last May suggesting that negotiations should resume between Israel and the Palestinians “based on the 1967 borders with mutually-agreed land swaps” -- a speech that fomented some of the most partisan Jew-against-Jew confrontations I have seen in a very long time.
Let me tell you – it has gotten pretty ugly when it comes to Israel, ugly especially between Jew and Jew and that is a clear and present danger to both Israel and American Jewry. Why?
Because Israel today is under attack as it has not been in a very long time -- under attack at the UN, on the internet, on college campuses, throughout Europe, and recently in some particularly ugly ways in Turkey and in Egypt. Pretty much around the whole world, Israel is under attack – not, it seems to me, for particular policies or positions it takes -- but rather for its very existence, for its right to determine its own destiny – as every other country in the world rightly expects to do.
With Israel under attack today from the right and from the left, from every continent, every nation, every religion, it is, I believe, more important than ever for us to stand together and be strong, to stop going after each other in some crazy witch hunt of Israel ‘correctness,’ stop questioning each other’s bona fides and love of Israel, focusing on what unites us as together we confront the very real threats Israel faces.
Perhaps we might be inspired in doing so by the words of this day’s torah reading, Nitzavim. As Moses stands before the people, in words we will hear chanted tomorrow morning, he says: Atem nitzavim ha-yom koolchem, you are standing this day all of you – your men and women, your old and young, your native born and the strangers in your midst. With these words, Moses is reminding the people, as they are about to enter the Promised Land, that they will succeed only if they are united, only if they are one. They don’t need to see eye-to-eye on every detail. They don’t have to be clones of each other, parroting the same party line. They are allowed to have their disagreements. But if they subvert each other, diminish each other, refuse to find common ground with their own people, he says, they are doomed. Surely he was right.
And so it is for us today. Like the Israelites of old, we have to focus on what unites us so we can be stronger and thus Israel can be stronger. I know: this is no easy task. We have been so locked in nasty, rancorous debate about what divides us, questioning each other’s commitment to Israel that today we are (God forbid!) in danger of becoming a people broken in two.
So how do we do it? Where do we find common ground so that Israel unites us just as she used to do so very well for so very long? I believe, when we really get down to it, the common ground we share together is, at its most basic, a passionate commitment to Israel’s survival, her safety, and her transcendence. And that is something that encompasses virtually every one of us -- men and women, left and right, young and old, like the words of today’s portion, koolchem – all of us!
Tonight I want to suggest eight points that I believe we can virtually all agree upon and that can join us together in support of our Jewish state. Let me share them with you now for your consideration on this sacred evening.
First, in a year in which we see Arab states tearing themselves apart trying to create rudimentary democracy (and failing, one by one) it is inspiring to remember that Israel has built the only real, functioning democracy in the Middle East. Jordan’s so-called Parliament is a sham. Egypt’s military leaders rule the country with an iron fist. Syria…need we say anything about Syrian “democracy?” But Israel, Israel is the only country in the region with full voting rights for every member of society, the only country with a free press (a shockingly free press!!), the only country that affords its people the right to gather peacefully in the streets of its cities – as we saw this last summer -- to make their voices heard without fear of being attacked by their own army.
We can – and should be -- proud that Israel is a true, full democracy, the only one of its kind throughout the Middle East. No wonder it is America’s best and truest ally in the region – and arguably in the entire world – and that is something we can ALL agree on -- Jewish Republicans and Democrats alike!
Second, we can all agree on the incredible record of Israeli accomplishment over the years. In its short history, with its tiny population and resources curtailed by a permanent wartime economy, Israel has been a world leader in technology, science, medical care, business, scholarship, research, the arts. Israel is an incubator for so many inventions. It is, for example, the world capital of in vitro fertilization for childless couples. Truly there is no place in the world so small as Israel that has achieved so much in every field of human endeavor.
But it is more than this. Because when we speak of Israel’s accomplishments, we can point with pride to her history of opening her doors to wave upon wave of Jewish immigrants, working hard to integrate disparate populations – including legions of black African Ethiopian Jews – in a way that is far from perfect but still remarkable. When it comes to Israel’s achievements through the years, this too is something we can all agree upon.
Third, something we can be absolute sure about is that Israel wants nothing from its neighbors except to live in peace, not have to send its sons to war as it has in generation after generation since 1948. Golda Meir famously said to the Arab people: We can forgive you killing our sons but the one thing we can never forgive is forcing us to kill yours. Do you hear this? Do you understand the incredible decency, the compassion, the love for peace contained in these words? Israelis, you see, have had to live with a constant state of conflict since the creation of their state. They never wanted it. They offered peace again and again and were refused again and again. They want security – and who wouldn’t? They want to go quietly about their own lives without fear of being blown up on a local bus. They want normal relations with their neighbors. They want peace. In a region where love of peace is rare, where people would rather slog through the infuriating bureaucracy of the UN than sit down with an adversary in face-to-face peace negotiations, we should be proud of Israel for being the peace-loving, peace-seeking nation it is. I believe this is something else we can all agree upon.
Fourth, I believe we share a sad recognition that, in most of the Arab world, there abides an unrelenting hatred for Israel and for Jews and that this remains the greatest obstacle to peace. I remember in the “warmest” years of the so-called “cold peace” between Egypt and Israel being in the nicest hotel in Cairo, a place filled with foreign tourists, not exactly a hotbed of anti-Israel radicalism. I remember going into the gift shop in the hotel lobby and seeing there the vilest anti-Israel books in English, even the execrable anti-Semitic screed, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. And this was in the good years!!
Since then, those of us who follow events in the Middle East have been dismayedby the Palestinian children’s TV shows that teach hatred of Israeli and all things Jewish, the media that never fail to vilify the Jewish state in the crudest possible terms, the speeches of the politicians that sound fine in English translation but full of hatred in the original Arabic. It is a tragic fact of life that Israel is dealing with an opponent who often detests her and wishes her dead. And while Israel may be faulted for particular policies or decisions (and I have certainly done so many times), there is no implacable hatred for Arabs or Palestinians on the Israel side. We can – and should -- be proud to know that in a conflict in which so many of her enemies hate her utterly -- with the exception of a tiny minority of religious extremists, Israel consistently rises above hatred. Here is something else again we can all agree upon.
Fifth, I believe we share a recognition that the UN seems to be reflexively biased against Israel, taking up with regularity one-sided, anti-Israel resolutions, while paying little if any attention to the worst dictatorships in the world. We can go all the way back to the infamous “Zionism is racism” resolution of the mid-70’s through the so-called Human Rights Council, whose leader, Richard Falk, has a personal blog filled with anti-Semitic, anti-Israel, anti-America cartoons. We could go on forever with examples. But we all know it’s true. Despite our fondest hopes for this world parliament, the United Nations is united by only one thing – and that is contempt for the Jewish state. This too, I think, we can all agree upon.
Sixth, I believe we share a common conviction that the world holds Israel to a higher standard than any other country. You know, a number of years ago, the French ambassador to England was overheard in what he thought was private dinner party conversation, speaking of Israel as that “crappy little country.” (actually it was a little bit stronger than ‘crappy.’) It is that kind of unreasoning contempt that leads to the Boycott/Divestment/ Sanctions campaign aimed at Israel and nowhere else. While Israel holds itself to a high moral standard – and while we American Jews ought to support that enlightened standard -- for the world to ask of Israel behavior it asks of no one else is nothing more than rank hypocrisy. And that too is something, I suspect, we can all agree upon.
Seventh, I know for certain we share a sense of revulsion at the policy of Israel’s enemies to intentionally target innocent civilians. It is true that Israel has, on occasion, also brought about the deaths of non-combatants but this has always been a terrible by-product of the “fog of war,” never an intentional tactic. On the other hand, the forces of Hamas have consistently aimed their rockets at the tiny Negev border communities, turning the lives of their inhabitants into a living hell. Palestinian terror squads have bombed movie theaters, buses and discotheques purposely aiming to build a body-count of innocent civilians. And, as a conscious tactic, they have taken hostages, like Gilad Shalit, keeping them in intolerable conditions, in total isolation from the world around them for years at a time. Surely we can all agree that this is detestable, inadmissible behavior by any civilized nation. Surely we all agree on this.
Eighth and perhaps most important, we must never forget that virtually every one of us, every American Jew wants nothing more than peace and quiet, security and stability for our Jewish state. Now, it’s true: the strategies we favor may differ one from the other. Some of us believe in taking calculated risks to achieve peace; others believe that is too dangerous. Some believe Israel’s concern for security should trump peace overtures; others believe THAT is too dangerous. But one thing we all share is a desire to see Israel living in peace and security, every man, woman and child under their “vine and fig tree…and none to make them afraid.” Is there anything more basic than this? And is there any one among us who does not fervently wish for it, dream of it, pray for it? Here then is something, above all else, we agree upon, something that unites us as one, something we must never lose sight of, a common passion for peace.