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Israel/Corona (RH2 5781)

RH2 Sermons from Shomrei Torah on Vimeo.

I think it is important to talk about Israel each year during the High Holy Days. It is critical that we acknowledge the central role that Israel plays in the life of American Judaism and I hope in your Jewish identity as well. I would not be the person that I am today if not for the time I have spent in Israel. We are a diverse community, so I would expect there to be those out there today who are happy with everything Israel is doing right now, and others who are very unhappy with Israel. Either way, I hope that you love Israel for what she is and what she represents to the world Jewish community.  

Earlier this month Daniel Gordis had an article in The Times of Israel where he pointed out that the way we teach about Israel in the Diaspora is by talking about the various wars she has fought and the about the hostilities with the Palestinians.  Israel is so much more than just that and what a negative perception one gets when only talking about conflict. Israel has a Declaration of Independence that lays out some of the basic beliefs and aspirations of the founders. Have we taught you enough about Zionism to discuss the differences between Herzl’s Political Zionism, Ahad Ha’am’s Cultural Zionism and Jabotinsky’s Revisionist Zionism? Truth is that for all the time we give to Israel education, we have not been doing a very good job of it.

Israel is complicated, it is no accident that the Israeli narrative and the Palestinian narrative of what happened in 1948 are different. They cannot even agree on the facts of what happened. We need to be teaching both narratives. We need our students to understand why they will encounter hostility for being Zionists when they go to college and how to respond. And we want them to understand that in spite of everything, being a Zionist is a good thing!

Coming to the present, I think the accords signed last week between Israel and two Arab Gulf states, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain, are historic. I don’t think that it is a peace deal since neither country has ever been at war with Israel. And it did nothing to further peace in the Middle East.  However, in terms of normalization of ties with Arab neighbors, it is the first time in 25 years that any Arab state has been willing to recognize Israel’s right to exist and agreed to joint economic ties. So, yes, I think it is a big deal and something we should celebrate!

At the same time we have to acknowledge that it did nothing to help resolve the conflict with the Palestinians, but that was not a goal of the accords.  Rather I think it was a statement by Arab states signaling to the Palestinians that they are tired of their intransience and that joining with Israel to develop technology and to oppose Iran is more important to them than standing together with the Palestinians in their fight against Israel. Israel was once isolated in the Middle East, as they make more friends, perhaps the Palestinians will realize that the whole region does not hate Israel. Certainly, the firing of missiles from Gaza during the signing ceremony, indicates that that this step by other Arabs will not bring the Palestinians to the negotiating table, rather they are demonstrating their displeasure.

I believe that we must be thankful for this new development and at the same time, continue to hope and pray that Israel and the Palestinians find a way to end the ongoing conflict as the status que is not an acceptable solution.

In the midst of all this, Israel has been hard hit by the coronavirus.  The only flights that have been going into Israel have been with gap year students. Nativ, the Conservative Movement gap year program, as well as yeshivot throughout the country are at maximum capacity, but everyone is following the protocols, all students had to quarantine for two weeks upon arrival and now will be staying put over the holidays. As Israel is the first country to enact a second lockdown which started just before Rosh Hashanah and it will continue throughout the Chagim. The goal is to prevent Israelis from gathering with family and friends over the holidays thereby spreading the virus.

I’d like to share with you a wonderful coronavirus story that I learned about from an AIPAC publication that gives me hope that perhaps someday things in Israel can be different.  In the midst of the first wave of the coronavirus, Israeli society did not hesitate to quickly take action. Israel set up “corona hotels” for people who had tested positive for the disease and could not go back to their homes without potentially infecting other people. In Jerusalem it was at the Dan Hotel.  At the start, the manager of the hotel was asking people about their backgrounds to understand who to pair together as roommates: Orthodox Jews with other Orthodox Jews, secular Jews with other secular Jews, and Arabs with other Arabs.

The first day in the corona hotel looked as one might expect: people ate their meals and generally spent time with people from their own “group.” But one day, a young Muslim woman, Aysha Abu Shhab, noticed this and decided to break the trend: she sat with Amram and Gina Maman, visibly observant Israeli Jews. In an interview she later said, “they were laughing all the time, so I chose them.”

Over the next few days, the group at the corona hotel started bonding and crossing barriers. Aysha, a Muslim Bedouin woman, helped an Orthodox Jew while he was having an asthma attack (paramedics were not able to access him easily as they spent several minutes putting on protective gear). She wondered afterward whether she was allowed to touch him, causing her to ask her new friends about Jewish customs and laws in a way that she never had before. An Israeli couple provided a young Bedouin woman with some life advice and counseling as she was contemplating her next steps and wondering whether or not she wanted to study to become a nurse. Both admitted that they previously had limited interactions with a person of the other group until that moment, and it opened their eyes up respectively to Jewish and Bedouin culture.

Noam Shuster-Eliassi, an Israeli comedian who was there as well, performed a stand-up comedy show in both Arabic and Hebrew, surprising the audience and poking fun at both societies along the way. A few days into her time at the corona hotel, she said, “Where’s all the problems? Where’s all the prejudice? Everybody’s getting along here in this hotel. What is happening here?” Life in the Jerusalem corona hotel provided an escape, in which people were treating each other with compassion as if they were from the same group, going above and beyond in maintaining health and sanity during their time together.

The ultimate test for the corona hotel came on Passover, as the guests prepared for a seder. The hotel had divided the group into two seders: one for the Orthodox Jews and one for everyone else. The comedian Noam said, “It reminded me of the world that I’m used to before the coronavirus. It reminded me of our default—that we prefer separation rather than the compromise that comes with uniting.” Then, together, the Orthodox community removed the barrier and all 180 guests sat together for a seder evening together: Jews and Arabs, secular and religious, bonded by the shared experience of being in the corona hotel.

I don’t know about you, but I find that story inspiring. It reinforces for me that we tend to distrust and to dislike that is which is unfamiliar. When we get to know someone who is “other” in a real and personal way, we discover that we have more in common than that which divides us. It is a lesson that we here in America desperately need.  Civil discourse has disappeared in American life – people are pro-Trump or anti-Trump, supporters of Black Lives Matter or opponents, and there are people who want to defund and others who defend police departments. Even how we respond to the coronavirus is influenced by our politics. These issues are not going away anytime soon, but they don’t have to define our lives or divide us. We can engage one another about teshuvah, about this Rosh Hashanah physically separated from family and fellow congregants, we can learn Torah and live Judaism as members of one unified Kehilah Kedosha, Sacred Community, because that is what we are – we are a sacred community. We need to care for each other and support each other regardless of politics and beliefs. And we need to take our love and cooperation beyond just Shomrei Torah to show the world that people with differences can be united. We are one – Am Yisrael Chai!

Shanah Tovah

 

Fri, March 29 2024 19 Adar II 5784