On Israel
Like many of you, I have watched the events of the past week in Israel with a mixture of horror and sadness. As I have mentioned before, I have extended family - my aunt and uncles and cousins – living in Israel. Their lives have been uprooted this past week, with frequent visits to the bomb shelter, pending call-up orders from the military and a freeze on normal life that was just returning since Covid.
This is one of those times that having a belief in a higher power would be handy. But, we only have the Israelis and Palestinians to believe in. I do trust that the majority of Israelis and Palestinians want to live together peacefully, if not in friendship. But this is part of the tragedy. Israelis and Palestinians, who are open to the possibility of co-existence, sometimes don’t seem to stand a chance against missiles, rioting crowds and, frankly, a dysfunctional government.
Our tradition teaches that people is possible, even when it appears not so. In fact, making people inherently means bringing the discordant together. Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav taught, “The essence of shalom is to unite two opposites. Therefore, do not be alarmed when you meet someone whose opinions are diametrically opposed to yours, causing you to believe that it is absolutely impossible to live with him or her in peace. Similarly, when you see two people of extremely contrasting natures, do not say that it is impossible to make peace between them. On the contrary, the very essence of peace is to strive for harmony between opposites.”
Finding a path to peace in Israel is obviously not easy, but it is essential. We need to keep believing that the majority of Israelis and Palestinians have reconciliation and compromise within them. We need to believe that everyday people can do the extraordinary work of finding peace.
I have been reading many personal reflections and anecdotes from Israelis this week. I want to include two below that I found particularly meaningful. Evan Fallenberg owned a hotel in Acre. Will Cubbison was a past student of mine, who made Aliyah and works as a peace activist.
Statement from Evan Fallenberg:
I owned a hotel once. Like Monopoly, only better; real people came to stay. They told stories, we told stories, everyone listened to everyone.
It started with an Ottoman ruin in the Old City of Acre that I bought as a home and studio, but after three years of massive conservation and renovation efforts, my son Micha and I turned the building into a tiny boutique hotel and artists’ residency called Arabesque, which drew guests from around the world thanks to the beauty of its stone arches and the hospitality of our staff. Over the next five years, Micha grew Arabesque by working with local entrepreneurs, but we never purchased another building.
Micha and I are Jewish; all our neighbors are Arabs – mostly Muslim, with some Christian descendants from the city’s Crusader past. That mattered, certainly, in a country obsessed with tribal boundaries and religious identifications. But our experience was one of welcome and warmth. We became part of the fabric of the city.
On Wednesday, shortly after midnight, Arabesque fell to the hands of a violent mob, in spite of the best efforts of our neighbors, who deflected the attack time and again until the mob grew to fifty and there were threats to burn down the entire neighborhood.
It is no small feat to upturn a grand piano or split a sink in two or rip a television or air conditioner into its tiniest parts. The anger and hatred necessary are beyond my own imagination, the pull of muscles involved beyond my capacity. But I do not wish to envision the frenzy as it crescendoed. I prefer, instead, to remember what has been lost: laundry day, when the dining table and the piano stood full of linens to be sorted and we talked and laughed as we worked; the pleased astonishment of first-time visitors as they encountered our oasis after meandering through the narrow stone alleyways of our town; the scent of hibiscus flowers cooking on the stove for the next morning’s breakfast juice; the bells from St. George and the muezzin calls from the Al Jazzar mosque, occasionally at once; the daily encounter with Abu Saleh, the oldest man in the Old City, on his daily walks to feed bread to the pigeons on the seaside promenade.
Yesterday, I sat shiva. On a rough stone stair amongst the ruins, I sat, while neighbors came in to view the destruction, cry, apologize for the inexcusable acts of their brethren, tell stories. I cried, too, and laughed. When people offered help or asked what my plans were I told them I was in mourning, that my thoughts are solely on this moment and no other. I do not wonder yet whether Arabesque will ever house lovely guests again or whether I will feel so wholly at home as I did for eight wonderful, life-changing years.
It is not yet clear whether the people in this sad, beautiful, ravaged land can ever learn to respect the differences and distinctions between us and use them for an enhanced joint future, whether the wrongs committed by all parties can be righted. Only this, I know for certain: the friendships I have made in Acre are real and unassailable, even by hatred, anger and muscle. From this, I will build a future.
Statement from Will Cubbison
The past year has been hard for everyone, but in Israel, it felt like we were crossing an essential point. Our hospitals and pharmacies are filled with Arab doctors and nurses, and the pandemic highlighted the necessity of a shared society with equal rights and responsibilities.
Then Center-Left politicians stopped running away from Arab voters and Arab parties, and those parties were reaching out to Jewish voters and Jewish parties in new & exciting ways. After the 4th election, Netanyahu (!) tried to form a government with support from an Arab party, and we were moments away from a broad pro-change government with the parties from the Right, Center, and Left cooperating with one or all Arab parties in some way.
And then it all came crashing down. Violence by some kids took off thanks to social media, extremist vigilantes stoked the fire, and months of non-violent protests over housing disputes (sometimes interrupted by police violence) were hijacked by violence seeking terrorists. Hamas took advantage of the situation, and in retaliation for canceled elections (let's be clear this is what the rockets are about) they have tried to inflict terror and show they are really in charge.
In the crosshairs are stuck millions of regular Arabs and Jews, in Israel and in Gaza, who don't support hate, who want to live quiet lives in peace.
During the past two days, children have been murdered by falling Hamas rockets. Jewish children, Arab Israeli children, and Palestinian children (more than 20% of rockets never get out of Gaza) killed by rockets from Hamas. And there have been violent riots with Arab mobs burning synagogues and coexistence centers and almost lynching Jews, and mobs of racist Jews chasing down and attacking any Arab they see.
And in the midst of all this pain, while people I know and love are rushing to the stairwell at 2 am as bombs go off, or watching as apartments down the street are hit and burn, I've seen too many posts that are not shows of support and hopes for peace.
Instead, my feed is full of ahistorical blathering about "settler colonialism" and parroting of bullshit talking points which do nothing but inflame, isolate and denigrate. It is easy sitting thousands of miles away, reading posts from people who can't get the basic facts right, and declaring your moral superiority.
Meanwhile, in the real world, there is no easy solution, and our future is being held at literal gunpoint by the fringe of both Arab and Jewish society who want a full out war.
I pray for peace, and I really pray we can get back to a path of shared cooperation for a better and more just society and overcome the fire starters.
Rabbi Cohen