Image courtesy of http://mikranet.cet.ac.il

Tour guiding conveys not only factual knowledge but also the guide’s own assumptions, beliefs and perceptions of an historical event. When considering the enormous influence that the tour guide wields in shaping his students’ Israel experience and the lens through which it is viewed, we should be fearful of traditional ‘Zionist consensus’ educational approaches. A tour guide who strives to have his students adopt particular ideological agendas or to limit their criticism of Israel is educationally problematic.

Such guiding may unduly influence the participants’ learning opportunities, and may limit the sophistication of their understanding of the events in question. Moreover, it may also retard the development of a meaningful emotional bond between them and Israel, as the initial connection that is established may be a shallow one. Even what may appear to be a successful inculcation of normative Zionist values, attitudes and behaviors by the tour guide in the participant body may not be successful in the long term. We should not confuse the teaching of particular historical narratives with their reception by the students.

Guides should strive to be as objective as possible, presenting multiple narratives and voices to students, and facilitating the development of their independent, critical and analytical thinking skills. Otherwise, guides may produce students who are detached from the reality of Israel as an actual country, only being able to relate to it on an immature, emotional level. Not only is such a representation false, it holds within it the potential to alienate our students from Israel. Moreover, they may place their students in a difficult position when they encounter critical (or even anti-Israel) voices for the first time, outside the context of Jewish-Israel education.

A different model for Israel education is that of ‘kissing and biting.’ In Parashat Vayishlach, Esau embraces his estranged brother Jacob, and the text refers to Esau vayishakehu (kissing) him. The interpretative marks (two dots) above the word have led to some interpretations that speak about Esau biting him. It is this duality which should be embraced in Israel education – almost that of a love/hate relationship. Although this may sound odd, as Israel education surely seeks to inculcate a love of Israel in students, this allows for a much more realistic – and intimate – relationship between the students and the Jewish state. We can only ‘hate’ our relative, our lover or, indeed, our country, if we already intensely love them, and such hatred should simply be viewed as an element of our intense devotion to that entity. An intimate relationship that could be described only as a ‘love/love’ relationship is unreal; such a connection between a Jew and Israel is one of infatuation, not of love. Students must be exposed to a realistic Israel.

If Israel educators seek to involve visiting students in a meaningful manner in learning about, and establishing an emotional connection to, Israel, they must be more open in the manner in which they approach their guiding, and seek to educate without regard for accepted Zionist orthodoxies, in as much as this is possible. An Israel education that seeks to hide the realities of Zionist and Israeli history, and of contemporary Israeli life, will simply serve to alienate students, who can easily distinguish between myth and reality. An Israel that remains mythical is an Israel with which the average Diaspora student cannot form a serious connection.

In today’s age, students live in an individualistic society, when communitarian myths are ‘shatterable,’ and in an information age, in which they can check their smart-phones during a tiyul (field trip) to determine which facts and analyses the tour guide is omitting, and in which they have most likely already been exposed to non-‘Zionist consensus’ narratives. Such students live with a level of cognition in which multiple and competing narratives, ideas and beliefs can co-exist, even if they are ostensibly mutually exclusive. Teaching the reality of Israel will lead to a greater, and more intimate, engagement – both intellectual and affective – on the part of the student with Israel.

Ilan Bloch is the Director of Teaching Israel.

Photo courtesy of Peta Pellach

I grew up in the UK but have lived in Israel for the past twenty-two years. One reason I like  living in Israel is because that is where a lot of the interesting Jewish action takes place – or at least where it ought to take place – making Israel the center of Jewish religion and culture that the likes of Ahad Haam wished it to be. In reality though, the Diaspora, in the form of Limmud and many other original initiatives, is a close contender at times! Indeed, the following piece describes a new movement within Jewish education that has its roots in the Diaspora but is slowly establishing a presence in Israel.

For all of my adult life I have been involved in teaching Jewish texts – Torah, Talmud, commentaries, Hassidut, and so forth. For me, this constitutes a wonderful, profound activity that connects Jews to their sources and to one another. It is a tremendous feeling when the texts give up their mysteries to one’s probing eye, and it makes me delighted to be a Jew.

My involvement with the sources, however, took a fascinating and unexpected turn when, back in the year 2000, I encountered a technique called Bibliodrama, invented by Dr. Peter Pitzele of the US. Pitzele, who is trained in the methods of therapeutic theater and has a Ph.D. in literature, imported techniques from psychodrama and combined them with his refined literary sensitivities to create a new experiential method for studying Torah stories. The technique shifts us from left-brain (i.e. analytical) to right-brain (i.e. imaginative) territory, through asking questions to the group members directly as if they were characters in the text.

Rather than try to explain further, let me give you a snippet as an example:

The facilitator asks the group: So Cain, why did you decide to bring an offering to God? Your mother and father never brought any offerings, so where did this idea come from?

After a moment of thought, one participant might answer: I had heard my parents talking about God and I wanted to speak to God also.

Another participant says: I wanted to give a gift to someone to say thank you for all the abundance I’ve received.

A third person suggests: I want to see if I can get us back into the Garden of Eden –  it sounds like such an amazing place. Maybe I can change God’s mind with a bribe.

A fourth adds: Yes, they wrongfully took fruit, so I am giving back fruit!

And so on and so forth.

The character deepens as people hear one another and speak their interpretations; and thus a form of spontaneous midrash is created. It is always different with every new group of people. It is often playful, profound, surprising, and enlightening, and brings the ancient text to life right before our very eyes.

For me, my first experience of Bibliodrama was love at first sight. I subsequently read Pitzele’s book, Scripture Windows, containing instructions on how to run Bibliodrama, and began to do it whenever and wherever I could. I have been privileged to take it around the world (often alongside my solo show, ‘After Eden,’ a follow-on to Bibliodrama on the Cain and Abel story), and to train teachers to use it in schools. It has proven popular with religious and secular, Israeli and non-Israeli groups. Admittedly, it is not for everyone: strong intellectuals and people of a yeshivish background do not always take to it well.

The truth is that I would love to see this technique introduced into Tanach classes in Israeli high schools, in order to make the Tanach relevant, exciting and alive, instead of the rather boring class that I fear it often is. However, after a few useless fumbles in that direction I decided to wait for an opening and some heavenly help in that direction (I’m still open, if anyone reading this wants to pursue that direction with me).

Heaven, however, seemed to have other plans. In February 2011, a different project hurtled out of the blue straight into my lap, when I received a surprise invitation from a woman named Maria, who is connected to a theatre in Poland. She invited me to join an EU-funded initiative to advance “Bibliodrama as a Multi-Cultural way of Learning for Adults.” I joined forces with the Elijah Interfaith Institution, and together we became the Israeli partner in the project, which also includes partners from Iceland, Turkey, Hungary and Poland.

Thus, October 2011 marked my initiation into the world of interfaith Bibliodrama (I had only ever done such a thing once before), with the launch of our local interfaith group. In November 2011 we traveled to Poland to meet our partners and train in Bibliodrama (further details can be found on the blog by Peta Pellach, who works for Elijah). Our trainer was a Hungarian named Peter Varga, who hails from a different school of Bibliodrama a Christian-based school which derives its techniques strongly from psychodrama and spends less time looking at the text than we do. (Peta and I are getting the impression that Jews are more in tune with Pitzele-type Bibliodrama, as they are more used to text and interpretation and to midrashic ways of thinking.) Upcoming trips for the project include a Bibliodramatic intercultural encounter for twenty people in Iceland in June 2012 and, in 2013, meetings in Budapest and Istanbul and a Bibliodrama conference in Krakow.

For me, this was the first meaningful encounter with European non-Jews, and it proved a highly positive experience of sharing, laughter and acceptance. Though aware that I was thinking in a rather provincial Israeli-Jewish fashion, I confess that beforehand I had felt rather intimidated by the trip to a country where millions of Jews had died so horribly, in a continent where one sometimes gets the impression from the media that everyone hates Israel. I felt comfortable both as a Jew and as an Israeli, though it was truly shocking to discover that our trip from the airport to our hotel was going to take us past Auschwitz. Jews do not normally just casually drive by Auschwitz, as we did.

Our local interfaith group for Christians, Muslims and Jews takes place bi-monthly at the Yedidya synagogue. Setting dates is not always easy, as there are so many different holidays to account for. Running Bibliodramas on texts from other faiths is a step out of my comfort zone but the participants, hailing from the Congo, Uganda, Scotland, Slovakia and other countries, are amazing, and we are all learning new things together. I chose to ease them in with a neutral story, Hansel and Gretel, which turned out to work extremely well, and then moved on to some legends of great people such as St. Clare, Rumi and Shams, and Rabbi Akiva and his wife. We are now about to hit the “hard-core” texts, and see what that brings. As a person who believes in the value of encounter with the other but shies away from the political, I am happy to reach out and create ties with people of other faiths sharing our country and our beloved city of Jerusalem. Now we just have to find a few more Muslims – why are they so hard to find in Jerusalem?

There is much more to do with Bibliodrama in the Jewish world. This is such a different and powerful way to connect Jews with their texts, suitable to our generation’s Zeitgeist; that is, the search for personal meaning, relevance and growth. A few of us are doing a bit in the center of Israel and in the north, and I have just discovered someone in the south doing something similar. There is also a Facebook page in Hebrew. But it all feels like a drop in the ocean. I would like to see the day arrive where Bibliodrama is done regularly, alongside and complementary to traditional learning, in every Jewish school in the world, and in particular in every Israeli school where I think it is sorely needed.

Yael Unterman is one of Israel’s leading Bibliodrama experts and the author of Nehama Leibowitz: Teacher and Bible Scholar. See www.yaelunterman.com for more details.

Image courtesy of Nicola Simmonds

Two hundred and twenty-two years to the day after the Parisian masses stormed the Bastille, on July 14, 2011, a young woman called Daphni, who couldn’t find a reasonably priced apartment in all of Tel Aviv, pitched a tent on Rothschild Boulevard to protest the shortage and high prices of housing in Israel.  She woke up a whole country.

Within days, hundreds joined her with more tents, and the students and youth movements were quick to express their support.  This was when the summer of 2011 really began.  More and more discontent people pitched tents along Rothschild Boulevard.  An estimated further ninety encampments sprung up all over the country, from Kiryat Shemona to Eilat.

The demonstration that Saturday night, which paraded through the streets of Tel Aviv, was attended mainly by students and Ashkenazi twenty-somethings – who looked like they hadn’t been back long from India – carrying hand-written banners and banging pots with wooden spoons.  This was a middle class revolution.

Over the following weeks, it became apparent that it wasn’t just housing that needed fixing.  Corruption, a rich elite controlling the economy, the monopolies and cartels, and general governmental disregard for the people’s needs, were all publicly acknowledged.  Rothschild Boulevard, steaming from the August heat even late at night, soon became not only a carnival with jugglers and guitars, but also a public information service. As the number of tents grew and grew over the coming weeks Rothschild, as it is known in Tel Aviv, became a “university.”  You came here in order to hear what the politicians, the papers and the television hadn’t been telling you.

As we walked down the same demonstration route on the third Saturday night, there were parents carrying children on their shoulders, there were elderly people, there were Mizrachim from poor neighborhoods, there were Ethiopians and there were even signs in Arabic.

One sign read: “The Market’s Free for Ten Families.”  This was no longer about housing and it was no longer a middle class revolution.

The Knesset had decided to take its recess after all.  A placard on a tent on Ben-Gurion Boulevard in north Tel Aviv (next to a sign reading “The Invisible Hand Has Given me the Finger”) exclaimed, “The Ground’s on Fire and You’re on Recess.” As we – mothers with strollers, dairy farmers, taxi drivers: you name it! – marched every Saturday night through the summer (and often mid-week too!) we also sat out in the streets discussing what was wrong with the country and how to improve it. There was an enormous sense of empowerment, and the government and parliament weren’t even there.  The social justice protest had eighty-seven percent support in the polls.  Times, they were a-changin’.

We made friends and learnt about other people in the country.  A group from the encampment I joined decided to visit others.  In Lod, I met honest hard-working families who found themselves homeless following prolonged periods of unemployment resulting from injuries and illness.  I met members of an extended family with a number of children with disabilities in the encampment in Hatikva Park who had been living goodness-know-how-many at Grandma’s until pitching their tents in the park.  Late one night, by the encampment in Levinsky Park near the Old Bus Station in Tel Aviv, I saw African refugees sleeping under children’s swings and slides, curled up together like kittens, as the sounds of rats surrounded the park.  I saw an Eritrean refugee there bleeding profusely following a knifing incident, shouting “No ambulance!” at the policeman who came to assist.  He was soon up a tree shouting like a crazy person.  It was explained to me that he had seen his family murdered in Eritrea.

A week or so after attending the joint Jewish-Arab demonstration in Haifa, I found myself grumbling about the country with an Arab guy from whom I had bought a cup of coffee.

By the time we got to September 3, we were half a million strong.  A huge demonstration was held that night in Kikar Ha’Medina in Tel Aviv with busloads from all over the country, a brass band and tents held up high.

After the tents came down – some by choice, others not – “Stage Two” or “Shlav Bet” of the social justice protest was declared.  It is still taking time to take shape.

Co-operatives have been formed, and a “Knesset Guard” has been established to attend and report on every boring Knesset committee meeting, publicizing what really goes on in the democratic system.  Activists, who attempt to bring sketchy goings-on into the public eye, now attend local city hall meetings.  Activist groups now stage very regular demonstrations targeting big businesses who run themselves in dubious ways and tycoons who control the nation’s natural resources.  The social justice protest has committees looking for solutions to all aspects of life, including education, transport, and the banking system.  People of all ages and backgrounds attend mass brainstorming evenings.  Every infraction on decent values and the public good, from destroying beaches to ultra-Orthodox bullying of women in the public space, quickly evokes a Facebook event proclaiming a demonstration.

The cat’s out of the bag.  No, the problems haven’t been solved, but they can’t tell us everything is okay anymore.  Now everybody knows it isn’t.  And people care.

The writer is licensed tour guide and can be contacted at simmondsnicola@hotmail.com

Image courtesy of wikimedia.org

Millions of Egyptians went to the polls on Monday, most of them – for the first time in their lives. These parliamentary elections are crucial for the future of Egypt, which has been governed by a military council for the past nine months. The Muslim Brotherhood, outlawed during the days of Gamal Abdul Nasser in the fifties and ruthlessly repressed, is expected to win a landslide victory. If this happens, Egypt will be joining two other North African states, Tunisia and Morocco, where Islamic parties have garnered the majority of votes in recent elections.

The Middle East is changing before Israel’s astonished eyes, becoming more Islamic. Islam, which was trampled under the feet of secular, dictatorial republics, is raising its head both as an expression of the authentic aspirations of religious nations and as a mass protest against its long-lasting oppression. It began in Iraq following the toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003; continued with the victory of Hamas in the 2006 elections and its subsequent takeover of the Gaza Strip; and is currently playing out in Egypt and North Africa. A similar scenario is likely to transpire in Yemen and Syria.

Israel has enjoyed commercial and security cooperation with Egypt and prolonged calm on its border with Syria. But it has also been used as a lightning rod by autocratic regimes in the region to deflect the anger of the masses at their corrupt comportment. Bookstalls in Mubarak’s “friendly” Cairo offered Arabic translations of Mein Kampf and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. It is hard to imagine how the peace with Egypt could get any colder, but Israel is, justly, apprehensive about the future.

For Israel, the revolutions sweeping the Middle East bear opportunities alongside the well-known risks. A new generation has emerged in the Arab world unwilling to buy government-orchestrated conspiracy theories and lies. Following the arrest of Israeli-American student Ilan Grapel in Egypt, many young Egyptians mocked their government’s claim that he was dangerous spy.

Muslim Brotherhood officials announced soon after the fall of Mubarak that they would honor the peace agreement with Israel. It is hard to imagine them doing anything else: the financial and political support of the United States – attained only after the Camp David peace accords between Begin and Sadat – is vital for Egypt today more than ever before.

There is no point in reminiscing about the past. Prime Minister Netanyahu, who mentioned his close ties with Mubarak in a recent CNN interview, asked Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas atop the UN podium to engage the Israeli government dughri (a colloquial Arabic word meaning directly). For Israel, the political transformation of the Arab world bears the promise of direct and honest engagement not only with the Palestinians but with many Arab nations, through more representative regimes.

Honesty in political discourse could be a welcome outcome of the “Arab Spring.” Such honesty would, for example, require the Palestinians to admit that the 1948 refugee’s “right of return” to Israel is unfeasible within the framework of a two-state solution. Such honesty would require Israel to admit that continued building in the settlements contradicts the very notion of a two-state solution. The time for straight talk has arrived.

Elhanan Miller is an independent Israeli journalist covering the Arab World.

Image courtesy of ceeby.com

Considering that governments are systems composed of human beings it is possible to analyze government actions and behavior through the lens of psychology.

The same holds true for political movements like Zionism. There is no question that the origin of Zionism is not solely a political phenomenon: personal psychology and the psychology of the Jewish nation also played major roles in launching the movement.

Let us begin with Herzl’s horror over the outrage and affront to justice in the Dreyfus Affair. As a result of his own psychological trauma in response to the case, he made a political leap, coming to see the event through the lens of Jewish nationalism. And he acted upon this.

The other major psychological element in the origins of Zionism was the plague of pogroms in Russia. The Jewish people there felt threatened and persecuted, and the instinct for personal and Jewish survival caused them to aim their feet to Palestine – even before the First Zionist Congress took place.

Palestine also represented a psychological, as well as physical, refuge for the Jewish people. At least in theory. In some unfortunate respects we have exchanged Russian Christian persecution for Arab Islamic persecution. But at least in Eretz Yisrael we have taken effective measures to fight back. Eretz Yisrael is Jewish land after all, whereas Jews were never at home in Russia. The feeling that Eretz Yisrael is our ultimate home in the world is a psychological phenomenon. Since it is the Biblical Land of Israel many would say this feeling of being at home is also a religious phenomenon.

From a national political movement with ambitious aims, the Zionist movement developed and flourished into the State of Israel, which is controlled by a sophisticated modern government with numerous departments and ministries. But psychology still plays a role in its actions and behavior. This is especially true in regard to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, whose stock in trade is diplomacy and the government of Israel’s relations with other governments throughout the world.

Which offices does the Ministry of Foreign Affairs encompass?

Its most important component consists of the missions that represent the State of Israel in 162 countries around the world. These offices all have consular departments that help Israeli citizens with visas and passports, and so forth. The description on the Foreign Ministry website states:

The Foreign Ministry formulates, implements and presents the foreign policy of the Government of Israel. It represents the state vis-à-vis foreign governments and international organizations, explains its positions and problems throughout the world, and endeavors to promote its economic, cultural, and scientific relations…

(from http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/MFAArchive/2000_2009/2003/10/Ministry+of+Foreign+Affairs.htm)

One central office in the Foreign Ministry is the Office of Public Relations (Public Affairs) or Hasbara.

The Information and Media Division comprises six units:

•         Public Affairs Department (audiovisual aids, productions and publications, special projects)

•         Information & Internet Department (gathering information and disseminating it in real-time to missions and reporters in Israel)

•         Spokesman’s Office and Press Department (relations with the Israeli and foreign press, visiting journalists);

•         Arab Media Department

•         External Relations Department (requests from the public, friendship societies, local government, municipal organizations)

•         Management and Budget Department

It is clear from the above information that the Foreign Ministry’s Information and Media Division comprises an international information service mainly geared to foreign journalists. This is a task that every government in the world undertakes. A democratic country should disseminate information about itself to the rest of the world. This aids in attracting incoming tourism, foreign investment, and so on.

But “Hasbara” – Public Relations – is a horse of a different color. While every country operates an office of public information through its foreign ministry, only the State of Israel involves itself in public relations, as if through clever advertising a country can improve its stature and standing in the eyes of the rest of the world. But this undertaking is a disgrace and emanates from a totally erroneous inferiority complex.

Take a look at the description that follows from the Italian Foreign Ministry website:

The Office for Relations with the Public (URP) is part of the Press and Institutional Communication Service. Under Legislative Decree 29 of 3 February 1993, it handles relations between the Foreign Ministry and the public, its aim being to ensure that the ministry’s activities are as transparent as possible.

What does the URP do?

The URP supplies information on all sectors of the Foreign Ministry’s work. It publishes the website’s “Frequently Asked Questions” (FAQ) section, where you can find information on the activities and services of the Ministry and of Italy’s worldwide diplomatic and consular network.

More specifically, the Office can answer your questions on:

•           The Italian diplomatic–consular network abroad

•           Consular services and the protection of Italian citizens abroad

•           Visas for visitors to Italy

•           Safe travel abroad

•           The promotion of the Italian language and culture abroad

•           Schools and education abroad

•           The recognition of academic qualifications

•           Study grants for Italian citizens

•           Study grants for foreign nationals

•           Internships and competitive exams for employment at the Ministry

•           Support for businesses wishing to internationalize

The office is open to the public Monday to Friday from 9:00 to 13:00.

(from http://www.esteri.it/MAE/EN/Ministero/Servizi/Sportello_Info/)

Firstly, it is obvious that the Italian URP is aimed mainly towards Italian citizens. They obviously need a whole series of services and information from the Italian Foreign Ministry. But clearly, this office also provides services and information to needy foreigners. What it does not do though, is prostrate itself before the world and act as a lobbying arm of the government, in an attempt to persuade other governments that there is nothing inferior in the country of Italy. Nor does it obsequiously explain issues and matters to foreigners and foreign governments for the purpose of winning acceptance or approbation. That is, however, the superfluous and wasteful mission of the Israel office of Hasbara.

In Yiddish, which was the eastern European Diaspora Jewish language for a thousand years, the word “nebbish” refers to someone who has an inferiority complex:

nebbish: an insignificant, pitiful person; a nonentity (from Yiddish interjection נעבעך nebekh ‘poor thing!’ (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebbish)

One of the most famous entertainers who always plays the nebbish is Woody Allen. His humor is self-deprecating because he always presents himself as the image of the loser. He never wins the girl. He never gets promoted at work. If he runs in a race he comes in last. Woody Allen has made a career out of playing the nebbish.

The word nebbish is not generally employed to characterize countries, however, only individuals. Unfortunately, and inexplicably, the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs has adopted Woody Allen’s inferiority complex as a source for producing self-deprecating hasbara. It is almost as if the sovereign state of Israel is the image par excellence of the loser.

Yonatan Silverman is the author of For The World To See – The Life Of Margaret Bourke-White. He publishes opinion articles on local Israeli websites.

Image courtesy of he.wikipedia.org

It is clear that a sovereign government has the right to conscript its citizens in order to raise an army to defend the state. This is similar to the right of the sovereign to tax its citizenry in order to pay for services from which all citizens derive benefits, either direct, for example, pensions, or indirect, for example, defense.

Notwithstanding this, it is questionable whether universal conscription to the IDF is a cost-effective method of defending the country. Indeed, it is probable that it entails a considerable waste of valuable resources. The IDF should be transformed from a “people’s army” into a professional army. Members of the professional armed forces would need to receive appropriate remuneration since the army would be competing for manpower against civilian sectors of the economy, both private and public. The professional army would be in the public sector and, as a starting point, salaries of the armed forces would need to correspond to the salary scales applying in the civil service, with the salaries of ordinary soldiers (privates) corresponding to the salaries of the junior civil servants and the salaries of senior officers corresponding to the salaries of the higher rungs of the civil service. If these salary scales are not sufficient to attract the required numbers for a professional army, additional benefits would have to be provided, for example, higher salaries or free university education.

One might argue against this proposal, considering it would undermine the role of the IDF as an instrument for the socialization and integration of people from many different countries and backgrounds with the aim of creating a cohesive Israeli nation. But, this should be considered a positive step. The purpose of an army is to provide defense and security. The IDF should not have an educational role except in relation to military matters and military ethics. This circumscribed role in order to prevent the militarization of Israeli society.

The army should be responsible for all matters of defense, including all matters relating to the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The argument that the people’s army should not have been used to facilitate the evacuation of Jewish communities/settlements in the Gaza Strip obfuscates the reality that the effective governing power in Gush Katif was not the Council or the settlement leaders, but rather the Israeli Minister of Defense. In order to prevent the current situation of hafrada (separation) between Israeli citizens and other Judea and Samaria/West Bank residents, only the IDF (and not the IDF for Palestinians, and the Israel Police for Jews) should be used to preserve law and order for all residents of, and visitors to, Judea and Samaria/the West Bank. The notion of preserving the integrity of the people’s army should not be used as a pretext for discriminating between residents of Judea and Samaria/the West Bank based on their ethnicity and religion.

If, however, the IDF is to remain a people’s army, then the burden of serving must be shared more equitably. All citizens – including Israeli Palestinians and Haredim – should be drafted for national service for an identical period, whether this national service is military or civil in nature. Before such comprehensive changes can be made, programs that allow for special dispensations for particular population groups (e.g. Haredim) should be allowed, in order to ease the transition from the current draft situation to that of a desired universal draft. Moreover, increased Haredi participation in the job market is a more important and urgent goal than increased Haredi participation in the IDF, and therefore special IDF programs in the spirit of the Tal Law (2000) should be embraced for now, as they serve a more urgent and more immediate goal.

Ilan Bloch is the Director of Teaching Israel.

by Daniella Ashkenazy

Image courtesy of The Chelm Project

The Israel dialogue – among detractors and defenders of Israel – is too conflict-driven. And talk that goes beyond the Israeli-Arab conflict and friction points in Israeli society – focusing on Israeli ingenuity, featuring all sorts of “do-gooders” and individual blogs by Israelis – is not enough. We need a Laughter Brigade!

The lighter side of Israeli life needs to be taught alongside the historical facts and the challenges Israeli society faces. Training seminars for Israel activists need to teach the use of humor as a core skill in Israel advocacy: in a hostile environment rife with wild accusations, only skillful use of humor can defuse an ugly mood, undermine hecklers and engage the audience to hear you out. Bravely charging ahead armed solely with the facts simply doesn’t work.

We need to give people – first of all ourselves, then others – reasons to LAUGH about Israel, instead of feeling SAD, ANGUISHED, DISHEARTENED, WORRIED, DISENCHANTED, UNCOMFORTABLE, ASHAMED OR ANGRY. Any debating society or psychologist will tell you that seasoning a talk with humor is a key element in speaking effectively because it engages the audience at a completely different level of consciousness, opening minds to listen more attentively to what follows. This is not only because a joke, an off-the-cuff comment, or an anecdote grabs the attention of an audience and makes any point more interesting. It is also because laughter is a group activity, and when we laugh in social interactions, pleasure hormones are released that promote social bonding. Laughter is infectious, but it’s a hard act to follow.

Like what? The Hebrew press is full of quirky news stories that unfortunately never make the Jerusalem Post, not to mention the Washington Post.

☼  … an Israeli soldier whose ultimate Jewish mother snuck into boot camp every night to accompany her son on guard duty because he was afraid of the dark, another recruit who served as IDF magician and a third who was posted as an ORGANizer – after he donated a kidney to a sibling, going from post to post to urge personnel to sign national organ-donor cards.

☼  … city elders in Hadera who agreed to build a scaled-down replica of the Eiffel Tower for homesick Parisians who settled in the town, Herzliya’s mayor who painted the main drag bright purple, only to have it fade in the blazing Mediterranean sun, or a senior Israeli minister who chose to enchant the press by mesmerizing a chicken, leaving the bird on its back looking like an oversized zapped cockroach.

☼ … an Israeli Supreme Court case filed by a fellow who demanded the right to be consumed by wild beasts after he died – to return his debt to nature as a lifetime consumer in the food chain, and a rabbinical court ruling on a divorce settlement that required the divorcé to pay his former spouse one pregnant goat a year for the next 35 years – raising serious questions over who got whose goat.

You don’t need to read Hebrew to find them. These stories can be accessed on an open source news outlet in English called Chelm-on-the-Med© Online that I launched on Purim 2009, that collects the zaniest and oddest stories.  Anyone engaged in hasbara is free to use these stories without any writer’s fee. In the subtext, they paint an accurate picture of Israeli society and how we — its members — tick. These true stories –  some universal behavior and misbehavior, some Only-in-Israel affairs – are an antidote to attempts to demonize and isolate Israelis.

During a 2009 focus group at Harvard and MIT, when faced with baseless accusations by non-Jewish participants that Israel was committing war crimes during Operation Cast Lead, Jewish participants clammed up, due to identity politics. I wager that the same Jewish students who sat on the sidelines would have felt more comfortable had they been able to begin countering such accusations indirectly, ‘shielded’ by… a quip. Imagine one of them piping up and saying, “Ah yes, Israeli behavior in Gaza. Let me tell you a story about ‘beastly Israelis’:  There was this IDF unit that was hunkering down in Rafiah during Operation Cast Lead and found themselves saddled with two totally frightened and famished lions in an abandoned Palestinian zoo…” (Read the full story in the roundup of wild and wacky news published by JTA in late December 2009.) Following the lions story with serious points would be far less intimidating, both for the speaker and the listeners.

Even ridicule and satire has its place.  The video clip We Con the World received 2.5 million hits!  If Apartheid Week activists set up a mock roadblock with make-believe Israeli soldiers humiliating and harassing Palestinians – fight back in kind! Send your own Kaffiyeh-adorned actors wearing mock suicide belts into the street drama… and a middle school kid with textbooks, sandwiches and a pipe bomb in his backpack, as well.

Daniella Ashkenazy is a seasoned bilingual Israeli journalist.  Her commentary and other columns and features — serious and humorous — appeared in Davar, Haolam Hazeh, Israel Scene and a host of other Israeli print media that no longer exist due to no fault of her own.  She currently writes occasionally for The Jerusalem Post, JTA and other media, and is the founder and CEO of The Chelm Project and annual Chelm Awards. She can be contacted at chelmonthemed@gmail.com 

Image courtesy of www.booksshouldbefree.com

The Palestinians and the world are not stupid.  They know quite well that we are a Jewish and democratic State. Their deeds leave no doubt that they know the facts.  One day they will get their tongues around the words.

Why do we make such a song and dance about our Jewishness?  Is it Jewish because historically it was always our homeland, because most of its inhabitants are Jewish, its language is Hebrew, its national ways and days are Jewish… or is there a deeper spiritual-cultural reason?

I know how I define a Jewish State, why my children chose to live here, and my wife and I made Aliyah — because Israel has a Jewish mystique that enables a Jew to find him/herself as a Jew.

Theodor Herzl, born next to the Dohany Street Synagogue in Budapest, was no conventional pietist, but he said that Zionism meant a return to Judaism even before a return to Zion.  Let me delve deeper.  I believe that Jewish sources imply ten benchmarks for a Jewish state:

• Belief in God
• Commitment to Torah
• Devotion to Jewish learning
• Ethical conduct
• Spiritual and cultural creativity
• Influence on Jews
• Outreach to the world
• Jewish continuity
• Recognition of Biblical prophecy come true
• A concept of the state as a stage in messianism

Let’s examine the reality.  Better than the static approach (“what are the facts?”) is the dynamic one (“what are the trends?”)  Not “What is Israel today?” but “What is Israel becoming?”  These are the trends as I see them:

• Belief: Ideological atheism is receding.  Even those who say God is not part of their lives are searching for meaning.  Even those who don’t want to be orthodox think Shabbat is good for the planet.  Those who never don a kippah still attend a Seder and make a b’rakhah. What a pity that so many are put off by what Lord Immanuel Jakobovits called “the unacceptable face of orthodoxy.”
• Torah:  The strength of Torah does not depend on how many people vote for the religious parties but on how much Judaism the Israeli people would opt for if they weren’t afraid of the haredim getting control of the State. Most would like to see what Jewish ideas could contribute to civil law and government.
• Jewish learning: Torah learning is a growth industry; yeshivot are opening all the time, for women too, with an array of outlooks and ideologies — even secular yeshivot, a sign that many are thirsting for their heritage.  Not enough, however, is done to inject Jewish content into the state school system.
• Ethical conduct:  Chaim Weizmann wanted Israel to be “a high civilization based on the austere standards of Jewish ethics.”  Corruption, power-hunger and intolerance are blots on the State and must be eradicated.  In the broader sense, the health funds, government agencies, businesses and banks should be kosher.  The Chief Rabbinate should have the courage to be a prophetic voice for the broad ethical principles of the Jewish tradition.
• Spiritual/cultural creativity: Israeli science, technology and culture are great products of the Jewish mind.  But Rav Kook used to say, “May the time come when those that are great among the Jews will be great as Jews.”  How strange that we have so few spiritual geniuses in Israel!
• Influence on Jews: World Jewry is having a hard time.  But Dickens said the worst of times was also the best of times.  Israel’s chief export used to be oranges. Now it is teachers, books and religious appurtenances, even ideas and insights.  Our chief import is olim -– but we should also import and take note of the opinions of those who choose to remain the Diaspora.  Our opinions are not always right: theirs are not always wrong.
• Outreach to the world:  Israel’s resurgence and survival inspire millions of Gentiles, especially Christians brought up on the Bible.  The anti-Israel humbug does not necessarily reflect grass roots opinion. Israel’s work for other nations enriches the world… but to be fully Jewish we must play a larger role in the arena of ethics.  Otherwise we will be, in Heschel’s words, a messenger who has forgotten the message.
• Continuity with Jewish history: Everywhere in Israel the past comes alive. But some Israelis have only heard of Hillel and Shammai because of street names. Are they aware of the real Hillel and Shammai, the real Rabbi Akiva and Rambam?  Israel must not let itself come adrift from Jewish history.
• Biblical prophecy: So much of what was foretold has come true in the way the prophets described.  The best argument for Israel is the Jewish presence here throughout history, regardless of absurd allegations that the Temple never was and that the Western Wall was part of a mosque.  Christianity dare not be silent at such claims or it undermines its own history and credibility.
• Messianism:  Israel, for all its drawbacks, moves me so deeply that I feel it has a messianic dimension.  Shubert Spero said, “Jewish messianism is not identical with mere national restoration of Zion or a political ingathering, but it must certainly include these events, and the process may very well start with these events.”

Is Israel a Jewish State?  It has both credits and debits.  Ignore the credits – and you malign a solid record of faith and fulfilment.  Ignore the debits — and you forget that we still have work to do.  Tradition says the redemption will come like the dawn, little by little.  This is my take: Israel is a Jewish State… in the making.  Israel is a Jewish State… on the way to becoming worthy of the dream.     

Rabbi Dr Raymond Apple is emeritus rabbi of the Great Synagogue, Sydney. Visit his website at http://www.oztorah.com/

Photo courtesy of letstalkisrael.com

The categorization by the framers of Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty (1992) of Israel as a Jewish-democratic state tends to concentrate discussion on this issue, and may have deflected the attention of the Israeli public from the key issue of the promotion and protection of human rights – the initial focus of the legislation. If the purpose of a bill of rights (and the 1992 Basic Law, along with Basic Law: Freedom of Occupation (1994), is essentially an embryonic quasi bill of rights), in addition to affording legal protection of certain rights, is to transform public consciousness and inculcate certain values concerning human rights within Israeli society, because of the “Israel as a Jewish and democratic state” clause of the 1992 Basic Law, realization of this aim may have been regrettably frustrated.

Even though public opinion polls consistently show a high level of public trust in the institution of the Supreme Court, this confidence has declined in recent years following the passing of the 1992 Basic Law and this may well be linked to the role that the Court is required to play in defining in a legal sense the line between Israel’s identity as a Jewish state on the one hand, and a democratic state on the other. Even though law and ideology cannot be completely separated, if the Court’s role were limited to the interpretation of law as enacted by the Knesset, rather than actually being required to “create” laws, through adjudicating on petitions brought before it on the basis of the Basic Laws, its standing might be maintained, even amongst religious and right-wing sectors of Israeli society. This, of course, would also be facilitated if the justices of the Supreme Court were to refrain from excessive judicial activism and end, or limit,  Barak’s constitutional revolution. (Of course, there are other reasons for this drop in the appeal of the Court amongst the Israeli public – the very public spat between former Justice Minister Daniel Friedman and the Court being a key example.)

The major issues relating to Israel’s identity should not be determined by unelected and unrepresentative officials, but rather through ongoing discussion and debate within Israeli society. While part of the Court’s role is to protect the minority from tyrannical rule by the majority, it is in fact often doing the opposite – promoting an “enlightened” Ashkenazi, secular, liberal agenda, frequently representing a minority opinion which is at odds with the opinion of the elected legislature, and thereby ironically establishing a tyranny of the minority.

It is also worrying that Jewish texts are often used selectively to support liberal decisions by the Court; this opens the door for future judges who may be appointed for political reasons to use other Jewish texts to support ultra-conservative, or even fascist, judgments. Notwithstanding the Foundations of Law Act (1980), Jewish law should be kept out of the secular court system, except perhaps in matters of civil law, which have no real bearing on the essence or character of the State of Israel (for example, torts and contracts).

Ilan Bloch is the Director of Teaching Israel.

Image courtesy of en.wikipedia.org

So much is happening in the world so quickly that the events of the day are overtaken by new scoops even before we have digested the old.

Op-eds, analyses, predictions and journalistic prognoses follow one another so swiftly that we don’t even get to know whose learned comments were way off mark if not totally incorrect.

I have always tried to bring my readers’ attention to facts and points of view that somehow gain less attention in the media. There seems to be less of a need for that now because articles rejected by the more popular and well-known print media are available to those who are interested either on the internet or as attachments and letters sent by friends and acquaintances.

Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said: “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.” Somehow, in today’s world, facts are no longer important. The new concept is “narratives” and all narratives are given equal value irrespective of whether they are based on truth, fiction, wishful thinking or a particular political agenda.

Without some research or a wide field of knowledge, we, the average readers, are unable to know what is true, what is half-true and what it patently false. Lacking that information, many of us try to analyze the wealth of information we are being fed. We try to look for inconsistencies and contradictions and, often, we are influenced by people we respect and admire.

Other less discerning people might base their opinions on gut feeling, prejudice, bigotry, intolerance and even racism. These people cannot and will not be disturbed by incontrovertible facts. Anti-Semitism is the oldest known prejudice and the most widespread. It is totally irrational and contradictory. Communists and socialists hate Jews because they are capitalists. Capitalists hate Jews because they are communists and socialists.

In early times Jews were hated because, as a people, they were unique. They claimed to be, and were, all descended from the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and the matriarchs Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah – a fact borne out by modern DNA testing.

These descendants of the twelve sons of Jacob/Israel were known as Israelites and under kings Saul, David and Solomon the land where they lived was known as the kingdom of Israel. After a civil war, Israel became the northern kingdom and Judah the southern kingdom. Israelwas destroyed by the Assyrians and Judah by the Babylonians. The population was exiled but tried to maintain its religion.

Cyrus of Persia gave them an opportunity to return to their land and rebuild their Temple. Israel and Judah became Judaea.

Now Jews were hated not only because they were a unique people but because they followed a religion which totally rejected paganism. When paganism was rejected and replaced by Christianity they were hated because they remained faithful to the religion of their forefathers and would not accept Christianity.

As Islam replaced, forcibly, Christianity in the eastern parts of the Christian Byzantine Empire, Jews were hated for continuing to remain faithful to the religion of their forefathers, and the Jewish community of Medina was annihilated by Mohammed.

In every pogrom, in every attack on Jewish communities throughout the world, the call of the attackers was “Go toPalestine!” It didn’t matter if that community had lived in the same place for twenty-five hundred years as was true of the Jews of Iraq, or over one thousand years as in many places in Europe, including Poland. It was clear to all and sundry that Palestine, as the Land of Israel was then known, was the only place in the world where Jews should be found.

Even in Germany, with the rise of Nazi Party and the introduction of the Nuremberg Laws the call was “Jews out of Germany! Jews to Palestine!”

Then, miracle of miracles, in 1948 a Jewish State came into existence in British Mandate Palestine, populated by Jewish and Arab Palestinians. Instead of keeping the name imposed on the Land of Israel by the Romans after the second Jewish revolt against the mighty Roman Empire, Palaestina, the pesky Jews chose to name their country Israel.

The Jews were once again, after two thousand years, a nation. Now there was a new reason to hate the Jews, a unique people with a unique religion. They had re-established themselves where they had originated three thousand years earlier, speaking the same language and practicing the same religion. The unique is often inexplicable. The unique and the inexplicable are often feared. The unique, the inexplicable and the feared are often hated.

Anti-Zionism was born. Paradoxically it also infects those Jews who are unable to comprehend or acknowledge this uniqueness.

Image courtesy of un.org

Who knows what narrative the Palestinians of today would have had to invent if the Jewish State established in 1948 was named Palestine and not Israel!

Who knows what motion they would be bringing to the UN in September.

Beryl Ratzer is the author of A Historical Tour of the Holy Land. For more information visit ratzer.com To order your copy of the book visit http://ow.ly/68BQS

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