Israel at 75 is up to us

“When Israel has prostitutes and thieves, we’ll be a state just like any other," was David Ben-Gurion's famous line about achieving a true place among the nations. Decades later, a few of us joined Ben-Gurion's late protege -- and our own beloved mentor -- Ralph Goldman to visit the Tel Aviv home of Israel's first and greatest Prime Minister. Ralph showed us the small kitchen table where BG would read and drink his coffee, and the sink where he'd wash out his own cup when he was finished. Imagine, the founder of modern Israel washing out his own coffee cup...

Fast-forward to today, as Israel celebrates its 75th anniversary. It has fulfilled so much Biblical prophecy, including the ingathering of exiles and shining a light unto the nations in countless dimensions. Israel has a first-rate military and economy, it has top-ranked arts and sciences, and its legitimacy is now almost universally accepted. It's also been home to its share of prostitutes and thieves, and tonight its Prime Minister is known for the kind of extravagant high living that Ben-Gurion wouldn't even have recognized.

 
Benjamin Netanyahu has also assembled a governing coalition that seems hell-bent on erasing the values and political culture to which all the founders including the right-wingers had pledged themselves. His top priority is revoking the independence of the judiciary even as convicted criminals and terror suspects serve in his government and as he himself is on trial for public corruption.

Israel was far from perfect before, and now it certainly faces the greatest challenge to the rule of law in its history. But is it so different from the United States of Trump, Orban's Hungary, Bolsonaro's Brazil, or Berlusconi's Italy? All these leaders and their movements have collaborated together and been extolled by the same MAGA strategists and cheered on by Vladimir Putin. And all these countries remain vibrant societies vigorously debating their identities and futures.

In this century, no major Israeli party has run an election on the Palestinian issue, while Netanyahu has done his best to exacerbate, sideline and leverage it for his own political purposes. Now, belatedly, the Israeli left seems to be connecting some of the dots between occupation, mob vengeance, and rule of law. We'll have to see if it's too late.

So these are the stakes.

Around the world, democracy and decency are on the ballot, and even when they win the results are challenged and denied. Yes, Israel is part of this seamy dynamic. The murderous Saudi crown prince cuts business deals with Netanyahu and with Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, and Sudan's military junta is only too happy to be courted by the Jewish state amid the gun battles of Khartoum. But millions of Israelis have also taken to the streets, and this week even the loyalist American Jewish Federations are considered in play, with Netanyahu declining to show up for the ultimate Israel-Diaspora victory lap.

From that sunny day in 1970 when our ship first pulled into Haifa port, Israel has been part of me. Not as an American Zionist theme park, but as a true homeland with real people and real challenges, and one worth fighting for.

I have hope for Israel's future, and I believe deeply in its religious and prophetic significance. My critiques of Netanyahu et al these past 15 years have certainly cost me professionally and socially, but my intent was always to avert just such a crisis as we see now.

Tonight, after remembering the fallen, I will be celebrating the existence of Israel, the spirit of Israelis, and the aspiration to continue and perfect this sacred and historic undertaking, and never to take its existence or its democracy for granted. Even when it hurts.

Today, honoring the Meron victims

Last week's tragedy hits very close to home for me, as for so many Jews in Israel and the United States, where we're never more than two degrees removed from anyone. Greeting Shabbat Friday night was more difficult than I'd anticipated, as I realized just how many Jews would be missing this and all future Sabbaths — many of whom I could easily have sat across from at a Shabbat table.

Golda Meir was Prime Minister when I attended my first of overnight Lag b'Omer celebrations at Mount Meron, and I've been to a few more over the years. It is always a special, deeply spiritual, overcrowded and utterly crazy experience. I remember some Sephardic families arriving with the sheep they would be slaughtering and eating in large tents over their extended stay, music and hawkers on loudspeakers, bonfires, and hasidic fathers dancing with their three-year-old sons after their ceremonial first haircut. In the 21st century, it's become more high-tech and clearly no less chaotic.

One of those visits was the year after high school graduation, the same point in life as some of Thursday's victims. With various highs and lows over the decades since, it is hard and sobering to imagine if my life had ended decades ago on that night. 

According to Jewish tradition, however we spend eternity isn't nearly as important as what we do with our limited time here on this earth. This life is our only opportunity to accumulate merits, to exercise our free will and choose the path of God, including prayer and hundreds of commandments that guide our days, our annual calendar, and our lifecycle. We must not take this life for granted.

Fulfilling these commandments can be a source of great joy, especially on special occasions like Lag b'Omer, the 33rd day of the annual period of mourning for the thousands of scholars who died from plague two millennia ago. The dead cannot pray, the dead cannot freely serve God. We are supposed to keep our tzitzit (prayer fringes) tucked in when walking past a cemetery, lest we taunt those who can no longer perform such mitzvot (God's commandments).

As the State of Israel observes an official day of mourning for the 45 people who were lost last Thursday night at Meron, opposite the holy city of Tzfat, I urge my fellow Jews to be mindful, recite appropriate Tehillim (passages from Psalms), and make an extra effort to perform mitzvot in the merit of these souls who can no longer fulfill their obligations.

To honor these 45 men and boys who will never again wear tefillin (prayer straps mandated in Deuteronomy), I specifically encourage everyone with access to a set of tefillin to do so today. With special gratitude for the gift we enjoy of life and of service to our Creator. I have no doubt that every one of these holy Jews held the daily mitzvah of tefillin in high regard and never lost sight of its importance, and always considered a pleasure rather than a burden. (The one 12-year old among them must have been so excited about beginning this practice ahead of his 13th birthday.)

They came to Meron to express devotion to a higher calling, and to do so with joy. I ask anyone who can to aspire likewise, today of all days.

May their memories be a blessing.

A Personal Steinsaltz

I first got to know the late Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz (Even-Israel) in the early 1990s when he came to Washington as a scholar-in-residence, together with his adolescent son Meni. I already knew him as the greatest living Torah scholar, having studied Talmud using his Hebrew-language commentaries. There was so much more that he accomplished and impacted, which requires separately a long and thorough reckoning by accomplished scholars. My post is personal.

In 1992, I found myself working in Moscow and spending a couple of Shabbats a month at the relatively new Steinsaltz yeshiva in the wooded suburb of Kuntsevo. The campus had been the dacha of the Mayor of Moscow; it was charming and rustic, and for most of the Russian Jewish young men studying there it was luxurious. I didn’t see Rabbi Steinsaltz diring my time there, but his spirit of reigniting post-Soviet Jewish life through knowledge and fellowship pervaded.

A few years later, I arrived in Geneva to find Meni was getting his start as a Lubavitch emissary ("shaliach") at Beth Habad de Geneve, which led to many other adventures and a deep friendship all its own. Although personally he was affiliated with the Lubavitch movement, Rabbi Steinsaltz engaged and identified publicly with an 'all of Judaism' approach, which indeed may represent the most powerful expression of Lubavitch aspirations.

Not unlike some other spiritual giants, including the Dalai Lama, Rabbi Steinsaltz could also display an impish sense of humor. Always needing funds for his many initiatives, he visited Geneva once and gave a well attended speech. The front row was filled with some of the wealthiest Jews in Geneva — an international set, ready to be appeased as well as impressed. After being introduced and welcomed with great fanfare, the famous sage opened his remarks by noting that people in Geneva only ever want to talk about money. If not for the emanation of holiness through his presence in the room, I am sure that three or four of the organizers would have died from shock right on the spot.

Once in the mid-1990s, I drove from Geneva to pick up Rabbi Steinsaltz at Charles de Gaulle airport and bring him in to Paris for a one-on-one shmooze before his other meetings — is there any better way to spend an afternoon?? With cell phones still a luxury, I waited out front until he came out the automatic doors. After he settled into the passenger seat, I explained respectfully that I couldn't in good conscience risk the life of such a Torah sage. I offered him a choice: He could either keep his seat belt unbuckled or he could continue smoking his pipe. He graciously chose to buckle up and puff away.

The Steinsaltz home in Jerusalem had such an unassuming air of normalcy that I'd have to remind myself who I was with. But that was his way. He was the last person who would ever express any sense of his own importance. His concern for others was constant, and his wisdom just trickled out in the course of conversation.

Through Meni and the late Ralph Goldman, the visionary-in-chief of the Joint Distribution Committee — and sometimes through my official duties — I was blessed with numerous opportunities to experience Rabbi Steinsaltz up close. On occasion I may have been of some use to him, but mostly I was not there through my own merit or importance. Each time was a gift.

I never needed reminding of how precious these encounters were. Now that he's left the physical realm, I feel his presence and his impetus to do more and facilitate more to advance his ethos and vision. And to share some of what I and many others were able to see firsthand of the way he lived his life.

May we all be blessed and sanctified through his memory.

IN BRIEF: With or without annexation, permanent damage has already been done

There's plenty of good analysis on how annexation will be wrong and dangerous, along with much speculation on whether Netanyahu will or won't do it, when, and how much.

MY FOCUS: The permanent damage that's already been caused.

Why aren't there big protests here like in Hong Kong?

A friend asked me why Americans aren’t out protesting Trump in numbers closer to those in Hong Kong, where at one point one-quarter of its citizens were protesting China’s efforts to impose total control. The answer isn't so clearcut, and certainly won't fit into a text message...

In the early days of 2017, of course, millions did turn out across America, though nowhere near on the scale of Hong Kong.

Here are a few thoughts of my own, bearing in mind that I long ago abandoned my doctoral studies in political science:

Whereas Americans still have a chance to effect “regime change” at the ballot box, Hong Kong no longer has any fallback. Despite the 1984 Joint Declaration with the United Kingdom, which transferred Hong Kong back to China, London has little leverage to hold Beijing to its commitments — specifically, maintaining the enclave’s special status for 50 years, until 2047. Especially now, with the Western alliance in disarray and the UK going through its own rough departure from the European Union. So Hong Kong’s situation is both more desperate and more hopeless than many Americans would see for the United States. 

If we do someday reach a point where Americans no longer have procedural recourse and effective constitutional guarantees, then we may also launch a desperate mass mobilization — which would most probably be too late. 

Because Hong Kong’s economic magic depends so much on maintaining the confidence of major financial powers like Europe and the United States, these protesters may actually be able to compel Chinese concessions. Trump’s spiraling trade war and currency competition with the People’s Republic, and his abandonment of human rights as a pillar of U.S. policy, mean Hongkongers can and need to exact a financial toll in order to have an impact. 

If Americans launched strikes and blockades, there would be some impact, but there would be no greater foreign powers ready to weigh in or take over our global role. Even without widespread social action, this American decline is accelerating almost as fast as the depletion of Arctic summer ice.

Nevertheless, the “resistance” and related movements are pushing hard to replicate what’s going on in Hong Kong. Yet the percentage of people coming out to protest remains relatively minor. Most Americans oppose Trump, but they aren’t ready to turn out in force.

Unlike Americans, people in Hong Kong can see exactly what kind of dystopia their current rulers would impose upon them. It’s called mainland China: No due process, no cultural pluralism, no free markets or freedom of speech, blocking of the internet and social media, total surveillance, forced sterilization, concentration camps  for ethnic and religious minorities. For most Americans, the potential outcomes of Trump 2.0 remain at worst hypothetical.

Finally, Pearl Harbor and 9/11 notwithstanding, the United States hasn’t really been invaded for two centuries. So there’s definite complacency that “it” can’t happen here. And for all the fear and revulsion from Trump’s opponents, and Russia’s ongoing “active measures”, we still see his administration as homegrown, and something that will run its course — whether or not that’s accurate. 

This thinking may be wrong, but it’s hard to stir most people enough to march through downtown. And yes, there’s plenty of laziness as well. But there’s also a sense that we can survive this, that I’m still doing better than my neighbor, that they’re only rounding up “illegals”, that the government is so remote from my existence that there’s nothing I can do anyway, that — even if they do start rounding up people just like me — somehow I’ll be taken care of.

Perhaps this last consideration is analogous to the belief of plumbers and Walmart workers and unemployed miners, that somehow we too can be rich someday — and therefore we need to worry about estate taxes and capital gains tax more than who’s being shot by police or being separated from their parents.

Perhaps it’s the difference, not between the haves and the have-nots, but between the want-to-saves and the don’t-want-to-risks. Why risk my friends or my job or my freedom, if I think I can come out on top of the slowly sinking ship?

Ultimately, there is no good reason why more Americans aren’t out marching against racism and isolationism and a dozen other issues — none of which need include a call for impeaching the President. But somehow this is our reality.

History forgotten, Saudi Arabia trumps Pakistan and Iran

President Trump uses American jobs as the reason he’s setting aside the CIA’s report that—as has been inescapably obvious for weeks—Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the brutal murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi in their Istanbul Consulate. How about the thousands of American jobs already being lost as a result of the President’s new trade war with China—the one he said would be “easy”?

Another reason the President gives is Saudi Arabia’s support for his take-no-prisoners policies against Iran, despite the Islamic Republic’s continued compliance with the multilateral nuclear agreement. Coddling a brutal autocrat—the Shah—was how we lost Iran 40 years ago in the first place. What happens when the Saudi regime is overthrown because we encouraged their excesses? And who will take over then? Meanwhile, the homegrown Saudi animosity against Iran requires no incentivizing from Washington.

In almost the same breath, on Twitter, the President also slammed Pakistan for allowing Osama bin Laden to hide from justice. And what does Pakistan do for us anyway... Well, aside from the fact that our assistance helps stabilize a regime that owns nuclear weapons, and that—with a few well-placed Trump tweets—Pakistan could be far more anti-American than it is—let's stop and really think for a moment about OBL.

Let’s consider not where Osama was hiding, but where he got his start and his cash and nearly all the recruits for his 9/11 attack on our homeland. That’s right—Saudi Arabia!

So, if enabling Osama is the litmus test for cutting off relations, then why is Donald Trump doubling down on the Saudis?

Pittsburgh's uneasy spotlight

You don’t have to be Jewish to have deep feelings about last week’s terror attack in Pittsburgh. And there is no shortage of emotions and deeper meanings to take away from this horror. Here are a few of my own early thoughts.

Of course for many of us, the Pittsburgh attack is close to home. I’ve been in the Tree of Life for a wedding long ago, and Jews are all connected. And as a security volunteer in another synagogue hundreds of miles away, I was actively dealing with safeguarding and with liaison to our local police. But somehow it’s more, and I’m choosing here to leave out the very compelling political and security ramifications because I think there’s something innate that also merits exploration. 

Perhaps we (somewhat like Israelis) have tried to put the shame of victimhood behind us. We watch the massacres and violence around the United States and we sympathize, empathize, pledge solidarity, and step up to help. But now we Jews are in the spotlight, we are the ones receiving sympathy and assistance. Cable news is focused on US. Not Israel, not a multi-ethnic public school, not a military base. 

We have the spotlight right now, and we may not all agree on how to use it. But it feels very strange to be noticed for what was done to us, and not for what we have done -- whether good deeds or bad. Almost unavoidably, we are objectified. Our rabbis are elevated to the national stage, “Shabbat” is a term mentioned by CNN, and the Jewish experience and current trauma have been universalized to a national and international audience.
Maybe this just takes some getting used to. And maybe the pain and sorrow are still too overwhelming.