I am on the side of peace.

I work with Rabbi Danny Moss at Temple Beth Tikvah in Madison, CT. He posted this on October 14. I can only say Amen.

Elie Wiesel said that remaining neutral always helps the oppressor, never the oppressed. So, I’m picking sides:

• I am on the side of babies torn from their cribs.
• I am on the side of children made orphans by terror.
• I am on the side of all peace-loving people seeking safety for their families.
• I am on the side of Israelis and Palestinians who reject Hamas and its sub-animalian morality.
• I am on the side of self determination for two peoples.
• I am on the side of any genuine Palestinian leader for peace. How can you negotiate with someone committed to your violent annihilation?
• I am on the side of history, which proves that Israel has endeavored in good faith for peace over and again, across decades; yet this peace was always rejected.
• I am on the side of Palestinians who have been crushed by the injustices of occupation and blockade — injustices abetted and cynically exploited by their own leadership to curry international sympathy.
• I am on the side of Palestinians made human shields by their own “leaders.”
• I am on the side of Israel’s military restraint once it has achieved its security goals.
• I am on the side of people humble enough to read, learn, and understand this conflict and the people most affected by it before meme-ifying it. I am on the side of the righteous, not the self-righteous.
• I am on the side of peace.

Muggles and Wizards for Peace!

Yesterday, Britain's Guardian Newspaper published something that has been missing. Common sense. This letter was signed by dozens of artists, authors, musicians and other dignitaries in Great Britain to respond to their colleagues who chose to boycott Israel. 
Somewhere around the publication of the fourth or fifth volume of the Harry Potter series, I became convinced that J.K. Rowling deserved a Nobel Prize. And before you argue that fantasy fiction written for the pre-teen set cannot truly be deemed literature, let me make the case. What piece of "literature" has gotten so many people of any age to become avid readers? (Ok, perhaps Roth or Nabokov got those looking for racy images to turn off their TV's back in the day.)

I can still remember being at camp several summers in a row on the day when 300+ boxes from Amazon or Barnes and Noble showed up with the newest release. The whole camp got a little bit quiet for a few days as the kids devoured it as quickly as they could. And then I noticed that for many, the required summer reading books, which had been buried behind their socks or towels, made an appearance. With this letter, I am thinking the Peace Prize is looking even better. Of course, she one of many who signed. Thank God.

---

In February 2015 you published a letter from UK artists announcing their intention to culturally boycott Israel. We do not believe cultural boycotts are acceptable or that the letter you published accurately represents opinion in the cultural world in the UK.

Therefore we are writing to declare our support for the launch and aims of Culture for Coexistence – an independent UK network representing a cross-section from the cultural world.

We will be seeking to inform and encourage dialogue about Israel and the Palestinians in the wider cultural and creative community. While we may not all share the same views on the policies of the Israeli government, we all share a desire for peaceful coexistence.

JK Rowling is one of the signatories

to Culture for Coexistence’s

plea not to boycott Israel.
Photograph: David Cheskin/PA

Cultural boycotts singling out Israel are divisive and discriminatory, and will not further peace. Open dialogue and interaction promote greater understanding and mutual acceptance, and it is through such understanding and acceptance that movement can be made towards a resolution of the conflict.

Ultimately we all believe in a two-state solution so that the national self-determination of both peoples is realised, with the state of Israel and a Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security.

Cultural engagement builds bridges, nurtures freedom and positive movement for change. We wholly endorse encouraging such a powerful tool for change rather than boycotting its use.

Naomi Alderman          Shay Alkalay               Bennett Arron           Jonathan Aycliffe    
Daniel Battsek              John Battsek                Guto Bebb MP          Gina Bellman
Michael Berg                Josh Berger                  Bob Blackman MP   Neil Blair                  
Iwona Blazwick            Elli Bobrovizki            Gabi Bobrovizki        Melvyn Bragg          
David Burrowes MP    Teresa Cahill                Colin Callender         Simon Chinn
Danny Cohen                Frank Cohen                Prof Susan Collins    Wendy Cope
Loraine da Costa          Marcus Davey              Oliver Dowden MP   Daniel Easterman
Ruth Dudley Edwards Michael Dugher MP   Brian Elias                  Yigal Elstein
Allie Esiri                      Michael Etherton        Moris Farhi MBE      Niall Ferguson
Stanley Fink                  Larry Finlay               Amanda Foreman       Michael Foster
Andrew Franklin          Nick Fraser                 Mike Freer MP           Julian Friedman
Sonia Friedman            Jonny Geller                Adèle Geras                David Glick
Taryn Gold                   Amanda Goldman       Richard Goldstein      Michael Grade
Maurice Gran              Linda Grant                 Miriam Gross             Tom Gross
Stephen Grosz             Peter & Martine Halban                                   Jan Harlan
Ronald Harwood         Noreena Hertz              John Heyman             Lilian Hochhauser
Tom Holland                John Howell MP          Judy Ironside              David Japp
Andrea Jenkyns MP   Zygi Kamasa                Jack Kirkland             Evgeny Kissin
Michael Kuhn             David Kustow               Norman Lebrecht       Sam Leifer
Teddy Leifer                Camilla Lewis               David Levy                 John Levy
Maureen Lipman        Andrew Macdonald      Hilary Mantel            Stephen Margolis
Dan Marks                  Laurence Marks            Denis MacEoin          Charlotte Mendelson
Yael Mer                      Ivan Moscovich             Maajid Nawaz            Anthony Newman
Gavin Newman           Hayley Newstead           Paula Noble                Tracy-Ann Oberman
Matthew Offord MP  Cosh Omar                    Martin Paisner            Robin Pauley
Leo Pearlman              Daniel Peltz                   Andrew Percy MP      Eric Pickles MP
Stuart Polak                Monica Porter               Gail Rebuck                Charlie Redmayne
Andrew Roberts          JK Rowling                   Paul Ruddock             Prof Carol Rumens
Marc Samuelson          Charles Robert Saumarez Smith                    Prof Robert Saxton
Joanna Scanlan            Kenny Schachter          Simon Schama           Simon Sebag Montefiore
Francesca Segal            Anthony Seldon           Rick Senat                  Zaab Sethna
Jonathan Shalit            Bernard Shapero         David Shelley             Clive Sinclair
Daniel Silver                 Lucy Silver                   Dan Silverston           Chloe Smith MP
Karen Smith                 Mark Smith                  Prof Ashley Solomon
Claire Speller               Rob Suss                       George Szirtes            Paul Trijbits
Kevin Tsjiuhara           Gabe Turner                Moni Varma               Rebecca Wallersteiner
Minette Walters            Zoë Wanamaker         Angela Watkinson MP
George Weidenfeld       Fay Weldon                 Heather Wheeler MP
Robert Winston            Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg          

David Young                 Toby Young

We Are No Longer Accepting Comments For This Article

I spotted the new issue of Time magazine while I was in line at the grocery store with my cart loaded in preparation for my Erev Rosh Hashanah cooking marathon (actually not such an ordeal, with a great new fast and easy roast beef recipe from Arthur Schwartz). The cover was intriguing and troubling.Why Israel Doesn't Care About Peace winked out from a string of daisies in the form of a Magen David. I didn't pick it up, because I knew I didn't have time to read it and I was pretty sure I wanted to begin the New Year with other thoughts. The ideas suggested by the cover wouldn't go away if I waited for the weekend. Those kinds of ideas don't ever really go away.

By the time I got around to reading the story (and don't just read it online - the print version is fuller and presents a visual gestalt that the web version does not), there were many responses floating in the blogosphere. A partially annotated list of some of them is below. After reading the story and the blogs I am every bit as disturbed as I expected to be in the grocery store. I am glad I waited until after yontiff, since it seems like the monster under the bed of my childhood has crawled out again - and it is not cute and fluffy like Sully from Monsters, Inc.

The title of this posting comes directly from the Time Magazine web site which shows the article by Karl Vick. I assume they have shut down the comments due to either the volume or intensity of the responses they have received in the nine days since it was posted. Clearly, they would like to let their article be the last word on the subject.

When you read Daniel Gordis or Rick Teplitz - and you MUST read them, you will understand that there is trouble in River City. I could reiterate what they say. I could be alarmist, intellectual or angry. Welcome to the Next Level and Davar Acher are blogs that are primarily about Jewish Education. So I want to issue a challenge and an invitation to all of you who read them, since you are among some of the most creative educators I know.

How will we teach this to our students? Obviously there are different needs for learners of different ages. I don't think I will be pushing the issue in Kitah Bet (2nd) or Hey (5th). But Kitah Zayin (7th) and above students are going to have some questions that we are honor bound to address. I have created a document in Google Docs which can be accessed by clicking here. It is a blank document right now. Please go there and fill it with your ideas for addressing the issues raised - Anti-Semitism, Zionism, Media Bias, Anti-Israel, Civil Rights, Peace, Arab/Palestinian-Israel Conflict, or any other that occurs to you. They can be a sentence, a link or a fully articulated lesson plan. Whatever we all put there is available for all of us to use. And as you develop things, please add to the document. Invite others to share. Just having the link (http://bit.ly/diEM3D) gives you permission to edit, just like a wiki. All I ask is that you do not change other people's words. Comment freely, supplement and add your own ideas.

A Partial List of Blog Responses

• Daniel Gordis, of the Shalem Center is one of the most thoughtful people I have ever read. His response is the perfect starting point: Acceptable in Polite Society.
  
• An old  camp friend, Rick Teplitz, lives in Israel and has a really deep blog about the Arab-Israel conflict called Another Mud Pit. While he and I often find ourselves on opposite sides of the political center, he usually nails the issue without goign to extremes. He did so here! Time Magazine - the New Anti-Semitism Goes Front Page.
  
• Honest Reporting discusses Why Time Doesn't Care About Israel.
  
• Psychologist, professor and Israel advocate Phyllis Chesler writes about Time Magazine's Latest Blood Libel Against Israel.
  
• The Lebanese Forces Official Forum offers a very different perspective, although not as slanted against Israel as one might expect - at lease on this issue.
  
• Meryl Yourish takes you on a tour of some other highlights of the blogosphere on her site: Yourish.com

Cross posted to Davar Acher

What do we really think about a Jewish State?

This is a post from THE HOT TOPIC - a regular blog on the Haaretz web site and co-produced by Makom. (Find them at http://makom.haaretz.com/topic.asp?rId=135) Robbie Gringrass, an outstanding educator and performance artist living in Israel posted it to his Facebook page. It borders on heresy, yet it asks a question each generation must wrestle with.

What do we really think about a Jewish State?

The time has come. When even arch-enemies such as Gideon Levy see in Netanyahu’s speech reasons to be cheerful, we may presume that Netanyahu has hit on something approaching Israeli consensus.

Among many other statements, contradictory or vague as they may have been, one of Netanyahu’s messages came clear. Those who call for two States for two Peoples must declare
their acceptance of both halves of the statement: a Palestinian State for the Palestinian People, and a Jewish State for the Jewish People.

The Arab and Palestinian leadership could not have been sharper in their response: a Jewish State is out of the question. In so doing, they would seem to be only confirming Bibi’s essential narrative: That the Arab world has never wanted to make peace with a State for the Jews in the Middle East.

Before we go to town excoriating ‘Arab rejectionism’, or chastising Netanyahu for 'destroying the Peace Process', it is time to turn our gaze inwards. Do we Jews accept the idea of a Jewish State? Do we accept that like the French and Greeks, Norwegians and Turks, we Jews are allowed a nation state? Or do we feel that ethnic nation states are racist? (In which case we probably reject the idea of a Palestinian State, too.)

Or do we refute the key Zionist proposition, and insist that the Jews are a religion, a culture, and should not be defined as a nation at all?

Is a Jewish State an un-Jewish idea?

I don't think so. I think we a faith tradition. I also think we are much more. We are a people and a nation. This flies in the face of what we were taught as kids, as our parents generation tried to melt into the melting pot of America. Like every other ethnic group maintaining ties to their culture and homeland, we need to see ourselves as mart of the American mosaic - one variety in the tossed salad of American life.

Similarly, I think the Zionist endeavor (no longer an experiment, over 100 years after Herzl and 61 years after independance) is still a very Jewish idea, even if at times throughout its history political leaders may have made decisions at odds with Jewish values. It is a Jewish state, made up of flawed humans, not a Jewish utopia filled with tzadikim who who always make the right choices. And each of those humans brings his or her own interpretation to the table. I have a boyhood friend living in Ma'ale Adumim. We see the map differently. Time may tell us who is correct, but we both believe we are approaching the idea of the Jewish state from a place of integrity.

What is the difference between a Jewish state and a racist ethnic state? No matter how I might want to be a Greek or an Italian or a Somali, I cannot. Those are identifications that depend upon genetics. I could marry in, but I would not be able to become authentically a part of those groups. While for most of our history Jews have not actively sought converts, they have always been welcome once they completed the process. Their children are our children.

I hope the day comes in our time that Israel is able to be the best it always promised it could be without compromising security for all. I hope its leaders can find a path to peace with integrity. Smearing Israel with the label of racist is both facile and cynical, and at it its core a lie.

The deeper question is for my friends living here in the Diaspora with me. We need to get over our ambivalence and weigh in on the idea of Eretz/Medinat Yisrael. Our children need to hear our voices express how important Israel is the the continued health of the Jewish people, just as we heard it from our parents.

My sixteen year old son just returned from a semester outside of Jerusalem. He reminds me of when the fire of Israel came alive for me at his age. He gets his connection to the Jewish people and to Eretz Yisrael. As he told me his teacher Shira explained: "Guys, this is a learned Jew kind of thing."

The Jewishness of the Jewish state? Guys, this is a learned Jew kind of thing.