In the Torah portion of Behar we read, “tashuvu ish el ahutzato- each person shall return to one’s ancestral holding”. For us, this is seen through our deep link to Eretz Yisrael. It is especially important to remind ourselves of that spiritual connection for three reasons:
1. Yom Yerushalayim this week. It is important to stress our historical and spiritual connection to this Holy City, particularly in face of recent pressure by US government. There may be areas of compromise in future, but there must be a recognition that the city does function as one municipality and that this unification of city services has been of benefit to Jew and Arab.
2. Conflict at Brandeis University over honorary doctorate for Ambassador Michael Oren. He was invited to serve as speaker at commencement. It is a great honour for him AND for Brandeis. Yet the invitation has become source of controversy. The student newspaper, Justice describes him as “polarizing” and inappropriate for this type of event. Brandeis is a great university that has always been a bastion of liberal and radical views among faculty and students. The university has always welcomed dissent and disagreement. Still it is noteworthy that at this Jewish institution there is a conflict over whether to award honorary degree to an Ambassador from Israel. Disagreement with Israeli policy has become opposition which has morphed into delegitimization. Protests at UC Irvine by Muslims and left-wing allies have leached into one of the premier Jewish institutions of America.
Daniel Gordis: No longer is Israel the country that managed to forge a future for the Jewish people when it was left in tatters after the Holocaust. Israel is not, in their minds, the country that gave refuge to hundreds of thousands of Jews expelled from North Africa when they had nowhere else to go. Israel is not proof that one can create an impressively functioning democracy even when an enormous portion of its citizens hail from countries in which they had no experience with democratic institutions. Israel is not the country in which, despite all its imperfections, Bedouin women train to become physicians, and Arab citizens are routinely awarded PhDs from the country's top universities. Israel is not the country in which the classic and long-neglected language of the Jews has been revived, and which produces world class literature and authors routinely nominated for Nobel Prizes. Nor is Israel the place where Jewish cultural creativity is exploding with newfound energy, as the search for new conceptions of what Jewishness might mean in the 21st century are explored with unparalleled intensity, particularly among some of the country's most thoughtful young people. No longer is Israel understood to be the very country that created the sense of security and belonging that American Jews - and these very students - now take completely for granted. ..For many young American Jews, it is only the country of roadblocks, of a relentless war waged against the Palestinians for no apparent reason. For everyone knows that Palestinians are anxious to recognize Israel and to live side-by-side with a Jewish democracy. That, of course, is why Hamas still openly declares its commitment to Israel's annihilation, and that is why Hizbullah has, according to US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, accumulated "more missiles than most governments in the world."
3. Introduction of new legislation in Israel regarding conversion by Knesset member David Rotem. Good intentions: enact a new law to make it easier for non-Jewish Israelis to convert to Judaism, so that tens of thousands of Israelis of Russian extraction, will be able to marry other Israelis and enter Israeli Jewish society.
In the 1990s, hundreds of thousands of people from the former Soviet Union immigrated to Israel under the Law of Return, which grants the right to Israeli citizenship to anyone with a Jewish grandparent. While most of the Russian-speaking immigrants were Jewish according to halacha, many did not have a Jewish mother and so were classified in Israel as non-Jews. That has led to all sorts of problems for the estimated 350,000 in this category. Israeli law makes no accommodation for civil marriage, whether between a Jew and a non-Jew or between two people of no religion. So the only way these Russian-Israelis can wed is if they convert to Judaism.
The measure would empower any rabbi who is or was on a district rabbinate in Israel, or was or is the chief rabbi of a city or town, to perform a conversion for any Israeli regardless of place of residence. This would free would-be converts from the whims of the special conversion courts. It also would eliminate the current curricular requirements for converts, instead leaving conversion to the discretion of local rabbis. Some of these elements of the bill are very good.
But the bill expands the power of the Chief Rabbinate to include conversions,, delegitimizes non-Orthodox conversions, and does nothing to secure recognition in Israel for conversions performed in the Diaspora.
Non-Orthodox leaders stated: “The bill threatens to alter the Law of Return and consolidate conversion power into the hands of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel. Both of these results could have devastating effects on the relationship between Israeli and Diaspora Jewry and thus on the broader unity of the Jewish people. Such concentration of power in favour of Ultra-Orthodox Jewry effectively negates the roles of the non-Orthodox movements both within Israel and abroad, sending the message that only the Orthodox have a place within our Homeland.”
Story of Jessica in Yediot Achronot April 30, 2010.
Jessica Fishman no longer lives in Israel. Exactly a week ago she cleared out her rented apartment in central Tel Aviv, put the dog she called Jinji she picked up off the street in the cage, and together they flew to her parents in Colorado. She has no plans, either on the personal or professional plane, but she needed the warmth of her family to rebuild her identity. "Seven years ago, I arrived here as a Jewish and Zionist woman," she says teary eyed while packing her suitcases. "Now I am leaving Israel because in the eyes of the Chief Rabbinate I am not a Jewish woman.”
Her seven years in Israel were not a bowl of cherries. But Jessica, age 29, did not break. .... I volunteered, I studied, I worked, I served two years in the IDF, I met a boy, we were about to get married, I thought I finally was starting my own family. Look, the new immigrant's biggest fear is where will we be for the holidays? Who will invite us for meals? And indeed when everything looked like it was falling into place, that seven black years were behind me and I can look ahead ˆ the door slammed in my face."
Jessica's mother, who came to Israel to help her daughter with parting arrangements, shrugs in defeat. "I ran a kosher home, I sent my two daughters to Jewish schools and I never hid from them the fact that I am a convert," she explains in English. "I always told them: there are people who were born as Jews and never did anything to enrich the wonderful religion. I did: I chose, I converted, I immersed myself in a mikvah. Today for the first time in my life, I do not regret this, but I am certainly sorry. I never wanted my conversion to destroy their lives."
In their home in St. Paul, MN, [the mother] was in charge of giving their daughters a Jewish education: ..."We lived ten minutes walk from the conservative synagogue "Beth Jacob" led by Rabbi Morris Allen. "Every Shabbat we walked to the synagogue, even when it snowed. My father was on the synagogue's board of directors, and my mother volunteered for Hadassah. She lit candles every Friday night, she built the sukkah on Sukkot and she taught me why we fast on Yom Kippur and why we light candles on Chanukah.” Summer vacations were spent in "Herzl Camp", and at age 14 she went with her parents and sister for a first visit to Israel. Two years afterward she came to Israel for six weeks [with USY]. "We prayed three times a day, and every meal ended with birkat hamazon..."
While studying at [university]. she came to Israel again, studied at Hebrew U. and [after graduation] returned to Israel in the framework of a nine month volunteer project. "I worked in an absorption center in Ashkelon with Ethiopian children and I prepared young Israelis for their high school graduation exams in English. ... I worked in a village for children at risk in order to contribute as much as possible," I made Aliyah, and at age 23 I started to serve as IDF Spokesman."... As a lone soldier woman I rented an apartment, I found friends and every day, when I dressed in uniform, I felt my Israeli identity getting stronger.
When new immigrants want to get married, they are sent to Rabbinical court to verify their validity for marriage, and it demands that an orthodox rabbi from the place they live will verify that the party making the request is Jewish and single."
Suzie Fishman relates: "One day we received a phone call from an orthodox Rabbi who asked to know the names of my parents, and I understood that he does not realize I am a convert. So I told him that since the conversion I am called Shulamit daughter of Avraham. At that moment he stopped talking to me. My husband raised the telephone receiver in the next room, and the Rabbi continued talking but only to him. The orthodox Rabbi claimed that Reform conversion isn't valid and that Jessica is not a Jewish woman because the Jewish spirit was not in my womb when she was conceived. I broke out weeping."
"My father phoned me immediately," Jessica continues. "He reported to me about the conversation and wept like a child. My father said that he felt he was raped. He wept and said Jessica I am so sorry we have not managed to help you get out of this trap."
In November Jessica said goodbye to her mate and she decided to leave Israel. "I felt that the country betrayed me, humiliated me and spit in my face. Everyone thinks that the proposed new law relates to Russians and foreign workers, and they don't understand the extent to which it is likely to influence people like me, Americans who came to Israel out of Judaism, Zionism and idealism. ... I intend to build a new life in the United States, and I have no doubt that I will only marry a Jewish man. What will happen when my children want to immigrate to Israel and get married to Jews here? God bless. I can only hope that by then they will solve the problem."
One of the most important battles that we face is within our own Diaspora communities for support for Israel. Young people are not interested in all the politics and details of Israeli religious life. This type of legislation threatens to further alienate Jews from Israel at a time when we must look for ways to strengthen the ties.
How might we return to our ahuzah? How might we bring ge’ulah to the land?
Do everything you can to strengthen the deep connection our people has with the land of Israel. Send young people. Visit. Study. Volunteer. Make Israel your vacation home.
Stand up for Israel. Remind other Canadians – Jews and non-Jews- that Israel has done heroic things and will continue to enrich Jewish life, Palestinian life and world civilization.
Thursday night, at the annual Neighborhood Interfaith Dinner, I said this to the audience in attendance: “One of the best ways to understand the State of Israel is by comparison to Quebec. Just as Quebec seeks to safeguard human rights while affirming its French heritage, so Israel has a clear commitment to individual liberty, human rights, and personal dignity, as well as a deep determination to affirm the collective national dreams of Zionism, “to be a free people in our own land”. Israel is trying to maintain a democratic and Jewish polity even as 20 per cent of the country is Arab (mostly Muslim) and another 20% is ultra-Orthodox and not Zionist. This is not an easy path, but it is one worthy of admiration and respect, not criticism and calumny.” Stand up for a particular vision of Israel. One that is democratic, Zionist and religiously pluralistic. Don’t give up on that vision.
Our people have had a connection to Jerusalem for 3,000 years. We must remain strong to enable the dream that has become reality continue to flourish.
