Pardes is pleased to present the second episode of our new podcast series by Rabbi Daniel Landes, Unexpected Encounters: The Jewish Holidays and the Other. This episode is on Yom Ha’atzmaut.
Episode title: Yom Ha’atzmaut and the Naqba–Is a Jewish Theology of a Palestinian State Possible?
Pardes thanks the Alexander Soros Foundation, the sponsor for the series.
Click here for the accompanying handout.
From my blog:
I’d like to use this post to respond to a sentiment that I have frequently heard in recent years among Israelis with regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The sentiment goes something like this: “I’m in favor of peace with the Palestinians, including a two-state solution in which the Palestinians would have a state in most of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. I supported it back in the ’90s when it seemed about to become a reality, and in theory I would support it today. However, Israel has tried and tried to create this sort of deal with the Palestinians, and it has failed because there is no serious partner on the Palestinian side. Therefore, I do not support efforts to reach a deal with the Palestinians at the present time.” Continue reading
Tu Bishvat. It’s a day to plant a tree, hug a tree, or nap under a tree. Tu Bishvat symbolizes grounded-ness and growth; rooted-ness and renewal. I celebrated this year’s Tu Bishvat by joining Rabbis for Human Rights (RHR) on a trip to Qusra, a Palestinian community in the West Bank. Beginning with blessings in Hebrew and Arabic for planting trees and for peace, we joined with the community to plant 200 olive trees to replace the trees that have been continuously damaged or uprooted by extremists from a nearby settlement. Planting olive trees was an act of sanctifying the day of Tu Bishvat, of solidarity with a Palestinian community, of celebrating the beauty of trees, of promoting wholeness and love in the universe, and of planting the seeds of justice and tikun olam. It was a meaningful opportunity to meet the youth from Qusra, and to meet 60 passionate Israeli and international activists. It was both a humanizing and spiritual experience, and I am so grateful for celebrating such a special Tu Bishvat!
200 trees to plant
From my blog:
This post has been edited based on final election results. I have crossed out incorrect statements rather than delete them, and put corrections in bold.
It seems like the most interesting part of American elections happens before the voting, while the most interesting part of Israeli elections happens afterwards. In American elections, it’s the polling and the speculation over possible electoral maps that arouses my inner nerd. But in Israel, polling is notoriously bad (case in point: this year) and there is no electoral map. Instead, post-election speculation over the coalition is where the fun is to be found.
So, without further ado, here is what I think is going to happen: Continue reading
Shabbat Shalom Pardes. I wanted to share a portion of my Dvar torah that I am giving to my Shul tonight…
Shabbat Shalom,
Last week as my facebook followers know I was standing on a mountain over the dead sea welcoming the Sabbath at a meditation retreat. If I close my eyes I can still feel that crisp dry air and see the warmth of the Negev. This Shabbat I am here with open eyes looking out into the warmth of my CBTBI Synagogue family. I flew in on the 25th because last week I received a call from the Gift of Life Bone Marrow Donation center saying that I was a match to donate peripheral stem cells to a 56 year old women with leukemia. As my dad beautiful pointed out, My last trip to the states was for a death and now with one is for a life. My brother is also a match for her or another patient. It is amazing to me to share in the mitzvah of saving a life with my brother. No matter who ends up doing the donation the fact that we are both dedicated and ready to do as they need is a huge life changing mitzvah. We both signed up to be in the Gift of Life registry while on Birthright together. I think I speak for both of us when I say that while having our cheek swabbed and signing our name we didn’t exactly think down the line to actually being matched to save someone’s life. Gift of life helps to match Jews who are in need of bone marrow or stem cells and don’t have a family member that matches them to donate. We are in the national registry as well but Gift of life facilitates the matching of the Jewish community because of the higher chances of matching a fellow Jew because of our shared origins. We are keeping the patient in our prayers and hoping that one of us will be able to help her and her family as we would hope someone would be there to helps our if needed. I would love to discuss the process and how you can also sign up for the registry with you if you would like more information.
While I am plugging life changing organizations I want to take a moment to tell you about where it is I am studying in Israel. I am receiving my masters in Jewish education at Pardes Institute of Jewish learning. I live in an apartment in Jereusalem and study in a yeshiva style everyday at pardes. My time there so far has taught me so much about myself and my abilities. I study Talmud and Torah with some of the most learned rabbi’s in Jerusalem. They each have a unique teaching style and all encourage personal interpretation to our ancient texts. I also would love to talk to you about my time there and about the varying programs that they offer for all ages and levels.
It's kinda funny for us to think of Megan Dyer (Spring '12) as an alum because she's coming back to Pardes in January... Nonetheless, here is another "alumni" guest post from Megan! We're looking forward to her continued blogging when she returns home to Jerusalem!
A couple of weeks ago, I posted in this very blog about Operation Pillar of Defense. I expressed my dismay at Hamas aiming rockets towards the holy city of Jerusalem, of the continued assault on Israeli civilians without a care in the world for civilian life, my concern for my friends taking refuge in bomb shelters, and my worry about the escalation of tensions, and what that means for peace on both sides of the conflict. I also expressed my desire to be in Israel and to stand with her and the people I care about, because I’m one of those wacky people who sees Israel as an actual functioning democracy in a sea of extremism and violence, imperfect as it may be, and love it so much, that I don’t want to see its destruction. After having lived there for a year and having many friends and loved ones there who call it home, and actually possessing a non-biased education on the conflict itself, I sort of feel, you know, entitled to my opinion.
Entitled or not, I am usually pretty quiet about my political beliefs these days, meaning, I don’t bother to preach them; I just live them instead. I’ve learned that some things cannot be Continue reading
(Cross-posted from Interfaith Youth Core)
I had just taken my first bite of lunch when I suddenly saw everyone around me stand up and head for the front door. I hadn’t even heard the siren. I put my sandwich down and joined my fellow classmates filing into the bomb shelter, where we gathered for ten minutes before deciding it was safe to return.
The first thought I had when I emerged from the basement was how lucky I felt to be an American studying in Jerusalem right now, and not a Palestinian living in the Gaza Strip. I feel deep sadness for the many Palestinians in Gaza, and Israelis, who have lost loved ones in the fighting between Israel and Hamas, and I can’t help but think that this kind of struggle is not the pathway to peace.
Ironically, the rabbi who was speaking to my class just before the siren sounded was giving a lecture on the importance of struggle in Jewish spirituality. He was encouraging us to make our lives about the pursuit of justice, meaning, and truth, rather than simply the pursuit of comfort.
His talk resonated with me deeply, and it is with that attitude of non-complacency that I approach today’s most recent bout of Islamophobia. This time it has taken the form of subway and bus ads in Chicago and NYC declaring, “In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat Jihad.” I speak out against these ads not only because they insult and distort the beliefs of my Muslim friends, but because they offend my Jewish beliefs as well.
In the spirit of pursuing truth and justice, I think it’s important to first give proper and fair context to religious beliefs. What I’ve learned about jihad from interfaith dialogue with Muslims is that there are two commonly accepted meanings of jihad: an inner spiritual struggle and an outer physical struggle, both in pursuit of the divine. The idea of “wrestling with G-d” is also an important Jewish value, straight from the biblical story of Jacob wrestling with the Angel. Therefore, a sign saying “Defeat Jihad” is not only offensive to Muslims, it’s offensive to me as a Jew.
I also take issue with the ad’s language of “defeat.” Jacob did not wrestle with the Angel with the intention of defeating or killing it, but with the intention of receiving a blessing. That is a very different kind of struggle. Holy struggle is something that is meant to bring about blessings and peace, not divisiveness and hate. Therefore, Islamophobic signs about “defeating” jihad are a tactic of exactly the kind of struggle that is not holy.
It is also this sense of the need to “defeat”—rather than constructively struggle with—“the enemy” that bothers me most about the conflict in Gaza. It bothers me so much that when I recite the prayer for the protection of my friends in the Israeli Defense Forces, I cross out the two lines in the prayer pertaining to the “defeat” of the enemy. I appreciate that terrorism cannot be negotiated with, but it is the issues of the occupation in Gaza and the desires of both Israelis and Palestinians to have their own functioning societies that are at the core of the present struggle.
My deepest hope at this time is that the shared Jewish and Muslim value of divine struggle can be used a principle for the Israeli-Palestinian struggle to bring about times of blessings and peace.
I doodled once on the cover of my notebook, but I didn’t take any notes. Every time we met with a speaker, I brought my notebook and pen with me, but I never once wrote down what they were saying. I’m not sure that I couldn’t have; I’m only sure that I didn’t want to.
The two days of our Perspectives Israel trip were completely packed with speaker after speaker. We ate lunch on the bus because otherwise we wouldn’t have made it back before Shabbat on Friday. And we really stuck to our schedule. They spoke, we asked, they answered, and we left for the bus. Speaker after speaker after speaker.
I think my concern was mostly about being present with them.
[Cross-Posted from my blog, Lost in Jerusalem]
Dear readers (all three of you), as you can see, it’s been almost four months since I’ve written for my blog. I could blame writer’s block or the typical day to day distractions as the reason behind my silence. For instance, I’ve been getting into Lost, because my parents have Netflix, and I’m a sucker for TV dramas. This is like Star Trek: Deep Space 9 all over again, when watching five episodes in one extremely late night became a common occurrence. That time, I believe my addiction nearly destroyed my Hebrew classes in college, because I lent the series to my professor; I managed to hook he and wife both, like a junkie looking for fellow junkies to connect with as we slip further in between the cracks of the productive parts of society, boldly spiraling to where no man has gone before (except for millions of other hopeless Trekkies). Talk about distractions. But the reason for my virtual silence is really quite simple; I’m exhausted. I’m exhausted, and thinking of my beloved Israel and Jerusalem is even more exhausting. I miss being there so much, that it drains me to think about it. I then get sad, and when I get sad, it looks very similar to anger, and my poor family has had to put up with my sad/angry shit for years. I’d rather not be sad and angry, if for nothing else, to save my family the headache of my bellyaching.
However, my exhaustion isn’t just from my perpetual state of longing for Israel; it also comes from what has been my job for the last couple of months. Continue reading
Originally posted on my blog:
“We need enormous pockets, pockets big enough for our families and our friends, and even the people who aren’t on our lists, people we’ve never met but still want to protect. We need pockets for boroughs and for cities, a pocket that could hold the universe.”
-Jonathan Safran Foer,
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
In one of my favorite books, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, the main character, a 9-year old boy, talks about how he becomes overwhelmed with the state of the world. He calls this having “heavy boots.”
“Seeing homeless people gives me heavy boots.”
“Hearing that my best friend’s grandma had died gave me heavy boots.”
This metaphor has always resonated with me, because I can easily feel overwhelmed with the pain and suffering in this world.
Today, I have particularly heavy boots.
The past week has brought a lot of destruction, in all senses of the word, to southern Israel and Gaza. There are constant air raid sirens and bombs falling in the south, thousands of soldiers being called in from the reserves, casualties on both sides of the border. Today, there was a bus explosion in Tel Aviv, wounding 21 people. Continue reading