Dear Mailing list……….(or whoever sees this blog.)
Most of you, my friends and
acquaintances, will probably not enjoy this Rosh Hashana letter. Nevertheless,
bear with me as I rant and rave out loud about some of those turbulences
gnawing at my insides.
Our Jewish New Year is a difficult time
for me (then again, Yom Kippur is even more difficult). All of Israel wishes
each other a happy new year full of prosperity, sweetness, fulfillment and, of
course, PEACE. We do this year after year, whether through greetings, whether
through prayers in whatever denominational synagogues we attend (once a year or
more), or at home with family, and even when only silently within the deepest
corridors of our hearts. We are participating in a communal desire for a
communal happier New Year in which none of us forget to mention the hope for
PEACE. This is true for all of us, those who are labeled "leftist" or
"rightist", secular free-thinkers or God-fearing orthodox, Ashkenazi
"voozvoozim" or Mizrachi "chach'-chach'im". None of
us forget greeting the New Year with our wish for PEACE.
And yet…… and yet…….. so much of what
we do year after year through our legitimate representatives, whether local or
national, are the very things that can only take us further and further away
from our communally hypocritical wish for peace. And we bear them by our
silence or by our sanctimonious parlor room head shaking. OK……….. OK……… not
everyone is hypocritical…… maybe that's a bit harsh. Some of us simply don't
believe peace is possible – so how can our actions spoil things? And some of us
are simply afraid of voicing an opinion about a situation that is "too
late"…….. like closing the stable doors after the horses are already
galloping in the meadow. And evidently there are around us who actually believe
that bringing peace is the hollowed job of our Lord…….. and he will do so in
his good time.
Yes, I'm frustrated, often confused,
always angry, sometimes in a state of paralysis at the absurd immoral political
actions taken by my own government, my own people.
My government has brought us a gold
medallion in the field of economics by greatly widening the gap between poor
and rich, by privatizing fields as far apart as unemployment and social
services in schools, and by creating veiled or open partnerships with the
handful of oligarch families who run our economy. And perhaps a cold frost has
also entered our economic hearts. (example?: last week a man took his own life
in Tel Aviv. Ten years ago the laying of a new highway caused his building to
collapse. Since then he has been trying to get fair restitution from the
highway department or the Tel Aviv municipality…..ten years!..... Last month,
out of desperation, while still homeless, he put up a small makeshift structure
on his own building's plot. Last week the municipality ordered the structure
torn down for lack of proper permits. This week he was buried. I know…. I've
written this telegraphically, and there are many more details, but none of the
details contain an expression of "heart".)
My government has brought us a
substantial pile of gold medallions in the field of anti-Peace, through our
relentless policies of military occupation in the West Bank. We consistently
pay official lip-service and homage to some "peace process" and to
our willingness to live side by side with a Palestinian State, while most of
our government ministers have stated openly they oppose such a State and will
always be against it. Our government, through our military occupation, has gone
a long way, and is continuing, to make life unbearable for Palestinians living
in 60% of the West bank (so called Area C), driving them away into the
fragmented Areas A and B, and leading us on our way to the formal annexation of
Area C to Israel proper, and the creation of a number of separate Ghettos in
Areas A and B with a population still under military rule and with very meager
civilian rights. True…….. compromises need to be made by both sides of
our Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and our Palestinian neighbors (prisoners,
actually) are also still far from a possible compromise. Nevertheless, we as
the occupying power are doing everything to show that we have no desire to
reach any kind of modus vivendi, and are seeing to it that soon no compromise
for a Palestinian State will be possible or viable. Why? Whhhyyyyyy?..................
we used to say that it is all in the name of "security". Today our
government no longer hides only behind the security issue. Most of our
ministers say openly that the West Bank is totally ours as an historical
inheritance which is most definitely punctuated by the ancient promise of our
God. Obviously, we cannot give up what God gave us. Please understand…….today
our government actually speaks also for GOD. We are no longer Zionists who have
come back home to shelter a people who had no place in the worldly scheme of
things. No longer simply a "Jewish Democracy" (with all the
problematics of that phrase). Today we are a Jewish Democra-Theocracy and an
instrument of GOD.
We are inwardly obsessed with our
Jewishness. No longer do we strive to be "a light unto the nations".
We have slowly adopted an ultra-nationalistic xenophobia. We are in the
clutches of fear, a fear of our island becoming a little less "Only
Jewish" by accepting a few others into our midst. We are doing our best
not to integrate refugees and asylum seekers who have already succeeded
entering our borders. We are only looking for ways to ship them off to other
countries, or back to where they came from, while burdening their stay here
with hardship upon hardship.
Our Jewish xenophobia is turned also
towards our Israeli citizens who are not of our tribe. The expropriation of
Arab village lands, unemployment issues and other minority discriminations
among our Arab citizens are already old hat. Today small Bedouin villages in
the south are being destroyed and their people dispossessed in the name of
"integration" that frees land for more Jewish villages. Since
September 1st 33,000 children of Arab Christen schools are on
strike to protest actions by our Ministry of Education, actions which have
gravely reduced the budgeting of their schools, while Jewish Religious schools
are blessed with budgets many times higher. They are not of our tribe.
I know, I know. I am told that nothing
is simple, there are more explanations. We are in a complicated world.
But Hey………the truth is, sometimes things are as simple as they sound.
I am told by journalistic surveys that
my kind of "leftist" approach to the metamorphosing of my country
from a democratic State which is a homeland for the Jewish People to an entity
I need to struggle against, is a dying approach which is becoming more and more
miniscule as time goes on, as the realities of the Middle East become more
aggravated and unstable, and as religious and xenophobic extremism overtakes
logic and humanism within our society and government. I am told that I am part
of a dying generation, my children and theirs will evidently be an even tinier
democratic and humanistic Jewish minority here (I already have grandchildren
joining protests I can be proud of).
I am told that history is leaving us
behind. I don't accept it. In my lifetime I've seen dramatic changes in our
world that were never thought possible moments before. It could happen here……..
maybe. It seems to me that it can happen only if we keep a flame burning……. or
at least a candle……… if we keep talking, whispering, YELLING about our desire
for a democratic and humanistic society in a State which is also the home of
the Jewish People, and a "light onto the nations" rather than a
darkness onto itself.
Meanwhile……………… I have difficulties
with our well wishes of PEACE from one to another. Rather I wish everyone who
also thinks we are going in a wrong direction would leave their parlor room,
find a podium of one sort of another, and begin talking, whispering and YELLING
all about it. That's how we'll keep the candle burning.
If any of you, my friends and
acquaintances, feel the need to keep the candle burning, feel free to pass this
letter on to others………….. perhaps it will help us get closer to a SHANA TOVA.
AARON
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