Report from Israel

Dear Friends,

I am writing to you from Moshavah Germanit, the German Colony neighborhood in Jerusalem. I am here for intensive study at the Shalom Hartman Institute for the month of July. I am a fellow in their Center for Rabbinic Enrichment program in which 25 North American rabbis from all over North America to study in Jerusalem and by remote video conference for a period of 3 years. During this time we study sources from the biblical, rabbinic, and later ages which shed light on the key issues facing the Jewish people in our times. I have been associated with the institute since the early 90s and learning here has sustained my rabbinic career and commitment. This summer our topic which guides our learning is Relgion, Ethics, and Violence. We are exploring a number of important questions including: the morality of war in Jewish tradition; Is God and Torah the only source of morality in Judaism; the theological foundation of Tzedaka and obligation to the other. The signature at Hartman is extraordinary teaching and dialogue which makes it the great center of Jewish learning and intellectual life widely respected around the world. My task during these sessions is to develop my thinking and to transmit the learning and insights I have here to my community in the Pacific Northwest. Over the next year I will integrate the learning here with much of the Panim Hadashot program.
Besides the great learning, I am an active observer in the present moment in Israel. Israel is full of visitors this summer as the security situation has vastly improved after four years of the 2nd Intifada. The streets are filled with tourists. It is hard to find a hotel room in town. The cafes, including the ones which were targets of attacks during bleaker times, are filled with people all hours of the night.

The first thing you notice here is the new color code which marks the political divide in Israel. Orange ribbons on cars and clothes mark one's opposition to the disengagement plan of the Sharon government. Blue ribbons are taken up by those who support the disengagement and the evacuation of the settlers in Gaza. The whole country nervously awaits the August deadline when the army will begin mass evacuations, probably in the face of fierce opposition from many of the settlers and their supporters. There have already been isolated violent incidents including a startlin lynching of a Palestinian teenager by radical settlers last week. There has some Kassam rocket attacks from extremists in Gaza, but overall the situation remains in a brittle calm. People are bracing form more difficulty as the August deadline approaches.
Jerusalem is calm, yet it is a mirror for these tensions with such a strong mix of different religious communities, Palestinian neighborhoods, and secular neighborhoods. Right now it seems sufficient for most to display their colors to let people know where they stand.

We heard the Israeli political philosopher-labor politician, Yuli Tamir, on the second night of the program. She gave a very excellent analysis of the 'matzav' situation. She argued that the disengagement is inevitable and that the real question now is whether the increasingly hysterical opposition of the settlers would lead to a serious delegitimization of the political process and democracy in Israel. The growing radicalization of the religious settlers has been accompanied by calls of their rabbis to settler soldiers to refuse to obey orders from Israeli officers. She cited the bumper sticker of choice of the opponents: Yehudi lo megaresh yehudi-" A Jew does not expell a Jew" as an example of their high stakes language. Her fear is that a large and serious divide is developing in Israel between the predominantly Orthodox settlement movement and the broader secular Israeli society. The continued appropriation of religious symbols by the settlers will lead to a more serious cultural divide in Israel in which the respect for Judaism and Jewish traditions will be deeply damaged within a public that equates it with narrow mindedness and political violence.

In Israel politics and religion are deeply mixed up in ways that make the American debate over religion in public life look mild. But that is why it is always interesting to be here. More later.

Shalom uvrachah,
Rabbi Dov Gartenberg