How to start that difficult conversation

I want to talk about difficult conversations. Conversations that could put decades of valuable Christian/Jewish interfaith dialogue in jeopardy. It's risky I know, but I think the stakes have become too high to shy away from it any longer.

Jewish communities receive lessons in Israel advocacy from our leadership, who seem to think the solution to Israel's growing isolation can be resolved with nothing more than better presentation skills. Meanwhile, Christian communities are morally paralysed by fear of causing offence to a people they spent so many centuries persecuting.

But it's time to stop the Jewish moral denial and the Christian moral paralysis. With so much ethical common ground, why not both stand on it for a change and see what happens.

And who knows, through challenging the current no-go-area consensus on Israel, it could take us all to somewhere more dynamic, truthful and powerful in interfaith relations.

But with all that Israel advocacy training taking place in our synagogues, I feel like my Christian friends need some insider guidance on how to get this conversation going.

So what follows is the Micah's Paradigm Shift Online Guide to Starting that Difficult Conversation on Israel with your Jewish neighbours, friends, colleagues, and local communities.

Feel free to adapt the following to your local circumstances and understanding.

Stage one: Bridge building

This is where you begin, setting out all that you can agree on. You should create some good will and calm nerves before getting to the more tricky part of the conversation.

The Jewish connection to The Holy Land through its scripture, history and religious traditions is strong and without question.

The foundation that Judaism has given to the development of Christianity and the sacredness of Jewish scripture in Christian teaching cannot and should not be denied.

Christian culpability in Jewish suffering over many centuries has had catastrophic consequences and in recent decades has led to a fundamental reassessment of Christian teaching and theology.

This turnaround in Christian understanding explains why we are so hesitant and reluctant to criticise the actions of Israel.

We can see how important the modern State of a Israel has become in Jewish self-understanding and communal identity.

We understand the very real Jewish fears around the resurgence of anti-Semitism in Europe. The vandalism of synagogues and Jewish cemeteries and the physical attacks are real and frightening.

We must work together to challenge racism and discrimination wherever it appears....that must be the lasting lesson of the Holocaust.

In Israel and Palestine both sides also deserve to live in peace and security.

Terrorism is not the answer although its causes must be understood without being condoned.

There is a long and complicated history to the conflict that stretches back more than 100 years. The narratives of both sides need to be learnt and understood and integrated into an agreed understanding of history.

After such a tragic relationship over thousands of years, Christians cannot allow new divisions to arise to push Christianity and Judaism apart.

But the situation in Israel/Palestine must be discussed openly and without inhibitions on either side. A mature dialogue is called for. We have a shared ethical tradition to uphold. This is a moment of truth for both sides.

At this point you should feel like things are going pretty swimmingly. Lots of nodding of heads and relief among the Jewish contingent that you are not out to convert them. Time to pour out the tea and break open the digestives.

But what comes next will be a lot more difficult.

Stage two: The objections

Now you need to be ready for some strong objections and challenges. And this is where some robustness and resilience will come in very handy.

Expect a version of the following to be thrown at you. This is where the bridge you have just constructed is in danger of getting demolished.

We thank you for all of the points you have made and agree entirely.

Thank you for recognising our 5,000 year unbroken connection to the land of Israel.

After so many decades of understanding and reconciliation we do not want to see that good work undermined. We want to share with you and explain our religious customs and practices. As people of faith we have much in common.

You must understand though that Israel's safety and security is central to our concerns. Many of us have relatives there, many of us visit often. Some in our community have relatives who found Israel their only safe haven after the Holocaust.

In our weekly Sabbath service we pray both for Her Majesty the Queen, and her government, and also for the well-being of the State of Israel. When we hear of atrocities in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv we mourn for the victims, they are our brothers and sisters.

Believe us, we want peace as much as you do. But if you don't live there it is hard for you to understand. We all see on the news what a difficult neighbourhood the Middle East can be.

And we must ask you, 'Why are you picking on Israel?' Why not criticise countries like Syria or North Korea where they treat their people with contempt and barbarity. Why aren't you criticising Hamas who want to wipe Israel off the map and murder all of its Jews - haven't you read their charter! Why aren't you condemning Islamic State and Boko Haram? Surely they deserve your wrath more than Israel does.

Israel treats women with respect and complete equality, and you can live an openly gay life without fear. How many Middle East countries can say that?

Why are you attempting to delegitimise the existence of the only Jewish state in the world? There are 20 Arab States by the way. We only have the one place that we can truly call home.

You are forgetting that it takes 'two to tango' and there is no partner for peace on their side. Until they renounce terrorism how can we trust them? You must have seen the stabbings and car driver murders of the last few weeks? This is what Israel is up against every day.

And we are utterly dismayed that you think to boycott Jews. Have you really forgotten the Holocaust so quickly? The Nazis started with boycotts too. And we all know where it ended.

You may mean well but you really don't understand and your naivety fills us with horror.

You may be not be anti-Semitic but your views have plenty of supporters who clearly are. By talking about Israel in the way that you do, you allow others the space to promote their anti-Semitism.

Your great teacher once said: 'Let he who is without sin cast the first stone' .That would seem like very wise words for the Church to heed, especially when it comes to Israel and the Jewish people.

 By all means, have another biscuit! You're looking slightly pale.

You may have to pick yourself up off the floor at this point. We have reached the low point in the difficult conversation. However, if you've made good use of these notes you will be more than ready with a response.

Stage three: The rebuttal

This is where you remember why you became enraged and passionate about the situation in Israel/Palestine in the first place. It's also the moment when you risk all of that interfaith work that's gone on in the recent past. But don't worry, just be determined to take things onto a whole new level of relationship.

Off you go with something like the following.

We hear what you are saying and we understand your concerns. We are grateful for your frankness in expressing your position. It's important for us to hear you say it, face to face.

And now we must ask that you listen to us too, so that we can begin an honest dialogue.

We have questions to put to you as well.

You are right, you need to go there to understand what is happening. You need to travel to the Occupied Palestinian Territories as some of us have done. You need to see what an occupation looks like close up, each day of the week, for men, women and children. What does it mean to have your land confiscated, building permits denied, water supplies restricted, access to your farm land taken away, your crops burnt, your olive trees destroyed.

These things have nothing to do with Israeli security and safety.

They are the reality of occupation and colonisation of somebody else's land. And this has been happening for more than 50 years in a place that both Christians and Jews consider Holy and where we too have brothers and sisters suffering and dying because of this conflict.

As Christians how could we possibly not be concerned? As British/American Christians, with our country's long political involvement in the region, we feel doubly responsible and have even greater reason to care about the land and all of its people.

Yes, there is an unbroken connection between the Jewish people and the land of Israel stretching back across millennia. But are you really using your scripture, history and festival celebrations to justify a Jewish domination of the land that places Jewish rights above all others that have lived peacefully there for many centuries? Isn't that the kind of religious fundamentalism that all of us want to guard against?

You know that Israel has complete jurisdiction over 60% of the West Bank and operates a different legal apparatus for Palestinians than it does for Jews. At the very least, there is a serious democratic deficit which many people have described as a form of Apartheid. You may not like that word, with all of its past associations. By all means, help us to find a more accurate description.

In Israel itself we see legislative and institutional discrimination against Palestinians on issues of marriage, land purchase, municipal development, educational and employment opportunities. This hardly lives up to the high ideals of Israel's Declaration of Independence and it is certainly in breach of the letter and spirit of Britain's Balfour Declaration.

But what is really surprising, to us, is why you are not shouting about these things too?

This is happening in your name. It is justified as for the good of the Jewish State and the Jewish people. What shocks us is your acquiescence, your lack of protest. Please help us to understand why you have not done more to stop this happening?

If you really support a two-state solution, explain to us why your leadership never speaks out on Settlement expansion? Tell us why your rabbis are not preparing the community outside of Israel for Jerusalem to be a shared capital city?

You are right too that there are other states and other regimes that behave in far worse ways. But they do not claim to be democracies. They do not wish to be perceived as aligned politically, economically and culturally with Europe and North America. The world imposes sanctions and boycotts against North Korea. Our airforce is currently bombing Islamic State. When Russia backs Ukrainian separatists attempting to take over the Crimea, there is an international crisis.

We are not comparing Israel with Islamic State or North Korea. Neither do we think Israel is to blame for all the problems that beset the Middle-East today. However, the Palestinians' long call for their rights to be recognised is clearly a powerful recruiting tool for Islamic State. And should we really make Boko Haram or President Assad the only benchmark for unacceptable behaviour?

We are not picking on Israel unfairly. What is unfair is how much Israel is allowed to get away with.We hear plenty of stern words of rebuke from America, Britain and the EU but never see any real political or economic pressure. We would love to see Israelis and Palestinians sitting down to negotiate. You are right 'it takes two to tango' but we would ask you to consider which side is refusing to dance.

This is a very unequal conflict. One side has a powerful economy, superpower support, and one of the strongest armies in the world. The other side has none of these things.
Any student of history knows that those with power and territory very rarely relinquish it without considerable pressure being brought to bear. And those that suffer oppression will always resist.

We can understand your concern about the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement. We see this very differently though.

The Palestinians have tried to draw world attention to their situation for nearly seventy years. They have tried hi-jackings, assassinations, kidnappings, suicide bombings and stone throwing. We do not condone any of this. But BDS is a peaceful and legal tactic to create international pressure for change. How can we deny them this protest? This has nothing to do with the Nazis or the Holocaust. BDS is a protest in support of human rights. It is a legitimate tactic that is appropriate for this situation. BDS is not a campaign in opposition to peaceful negotiation it is designed to make a just settlement more likely.

Tell us what signs you see of government led progress on this issue? We believe you can have a positive influence in shifting the impasse. We believe that we can as well.

Finally, can Israel afford to be so choosy about who it will talk to? Hamas, in disregard of its wretched charter, has long accepted the 1967 Israeli borders. And if it is so extreme and fundamentalist why is it happy to form a coalition with the secular Fatah party which long ago recognised the State of Israel. To us Israel looks like the partner refusing to dance.

None of this makes the Palestinians all angels. But for us the question must be who are the oppressed and who are the oppressors?   

We want to work with our Jewish neighbours and our Muslim neighbours to bring a just and peaceful solution to all the people of Israel and Palestine. They deserve nothing less. Together we should be emboldening the leadership of each of our communities to speak out against injustice in the name of the traditions that we each claim to honour.

Please tell us how you think we can work together. But if we cannot work together, we will work alone. We believe this is too important to allow local sensitivities to cloud our judgement of what needs to be done.

In the past, too many Christians have turned their heads and crossed over the road rather than confront injustice when it was in plain view. For our faith to remain true to its best traditions and at all relevant in the world, we cannot behave like that again today or in the future. We are not casting the first stones but we are trying to walk in the footsteps of ‘our teacher’.

Thank you allowing us to set out our position. Now let's begin to talk about the future. As you say, we are a people of faith and we have much in common.

And there you can pause for breath and gulp down some tea. I'm hoping your Jewish partners in the dialogue will also want to take a moment to re-group.

I'm probably making this sound easier than it will be in reality. In the short-term it may feel like you are damaging important local relationships for little gain. In the long-term though it could be that you are building the foundations of a future Jewish-Christian dialogue that is richer and stronger than anything that has gone before.

So, the moment of truth starts here.

Good luck with starting your difficult conversations!

Jonah and the Elephant

I hadn't seen my old friend Jonah for two years. The last time he had turned up he occupied my sitting room couch, seaweed still in his hair, and flicked through the TV news channels while throwing verbal darts into my bleeding Jewish heart. We had not seen eye to eye on much. Now, with his annual afternoon outing on Yom Kippur approaching, Jonah was back.

This time he was looking in my fridge and flipping a coin in one hand.

Hamas [Flip] ISIS [Flip] Hamas [Flip] ISIS [Flip] Hamas [Flip] ISIS.

Your back!

You've nothing in the fridge.

You're my favourite Prophetic book and my least favourite Prophet. Still, it's good to see you again.

I'm looking for Israeli celery, or Israeli dates, or Israeli anything. You don't have any.

You won't find any. I'm boycotting.

You're a crazy, self-hating Jew who deserves utter contempt and ostracising.

Now don't hold back, will you.

I say it how it is.

It's better than suicides, hijackings, kidnappings, rockets and stones. And without doubt more effective than John Kerry.

Your BDS friends are Nazis dressed in T-shirts and trainers. Jew hatred for the chattering classes. It's 1938 all over again.

I didn't expect to convince you.

Your fridge has nothing worth eating. It's as empty as your head.

So why the honour of another visit?

I'm a soft touch for a lost cause. I thought the Ninevites were bad but I was proved wrong. Perhaps you are salvageable too.

Of course, your prophetic calling draws you to people who don't know 'their right hand from their left'.

Well that would certainly describe you.

I think I know Hamas from ISIS though.

They're all the same. Child killers the lot of them. Networks of Death.

That's far too easy and it helpfully avoids the root problems.

At least we found the terrorists who murdered the three teenage boys. Some justice at last.

A trial would have been nice.

Not necessary now. And a huge saving to the Israeli tax payer.

All very convenient.

You're an apologist for terror.

I thought that was you.

I read your blog posts over the summer. The usual lefty claptrap. "We're not innocent, we can't play the eternal victims, the IDF are responsible for the killing". I grow bored of your self-righteous carping. I'm amazed anyone is reading your stuff.

If we are all so innocent, why did God give us Yom Kippur?

Don't be clever. It doesn't suit you.

I was in shul on Rosh Hashanah.

Me too. Shona Tovah!

So you've left behind that whole running away from God routine?

Don't try to be funny. That doesn't suit you either.

I can't help it. Your story is funny. The running away, the giant fish, the whole thing is comic.

I'm a serious man. The world is a serious place.

I thinking, may be this year you could switch the giant fish for an elephant. We had one in the shul for Rosh Hashonah. It would work even better at Yom Kippur.

Now you really have lost me.

Well, I was sitting there listening to the rabbi's sermon wrapped in my black and white tallis, and there, right beside her as she started to speak, was an elephant wrapped in a giant black and white kaffiyeh.

A women rabbi!

Don't get me wrong, I liked the sermon. She had ISIS on her mind and reminded us how religion can be radical and revolutionary in good ways and bad.

They let women give sermons?

And the elephant listened silently.

Rabbis should stay clear of politics.

She even mentioned that Judaism can display some negative traits. A bit edgy, I thought, but she brought it off and nobody walked out. But the elephant was there for all to see. If only they had eyes.

Who needs more ignorant pundits. It's an abuse of the bimah!

I suppose taking a stand on Gaza is too risky. Guaranteed to upset someone. If not everyone.

Exactly. Morality is too important to be left to the clerics.

We can agree there. They are fatally compromised. I can't believe they don't see the elephant.

So you really want to swap my fish for your elephant. Then what?

Who knows.

What are you expecting from Yom Kippur? You want to start a Jewish intifada or something? A Jewish Kairos moment for Palestine? And you thought I was funny!

I suppose I'm hoping that the sound of the shofar might just be enough to blow down that great big Separation Wall we have in our heads. The wall that stops us seeing the truth.

Do you think a man could be swallowed by an elephant?

If we can fit a huge wall in our heads, why can't an elephant swallow a man?

You really have lost the plot haven't you? And I'm looking in this fridge and I'm thinking you really do need to go shopping.

If the elephant could start talking that would be even better. Something about the real meaning of 'returning' could be fitting.

Hamas [Flip] ISIS [Flip] Hamas [Flip] ISIS

And then when he spews you out you could swap scarfs as a sign of mutual solidarity. The elephant gets the tallis and you get the kaffiyeh. It could be a lovely moment.

Hamas [Flip] ISIS [Flip] Hamas [Flip] ISIS


And then the coin dropped to the floor and Jonah was gone.

Lessons from Mandela's long walk to freedom

Nelson Mandela 1918-2013

As President Obama said yesterday (Thursday 5 December), echoing words said at the death of Abraham Lincoln, Nelson Mandela no longer belongs to us but "to the ages".

I remember first becoming aware of the struggle against Apartheid in 1980 after listening to Peter Gabriel's song about the death in police custody of the black civil rights activist Steve Biko. I was playing the same song in my car last night with my son just before we returned home and turned on the television to hear the breaking news coming out of Pretoria.

'Biko' was part of my awakening to the issue of human rights as a teenager. As a student in Manchester in the mid eighties the boycott strategy of the Anti-Apartheid movement and the campaign to Free Nelson Mandela were part of my emerging political understanding of the way the world ticks. More recently, the South African story has influenced my understanding of the situation in Israel/Palestine. They are not identical scenarios but there are enough similarities to draw conclusions.

So what are the lessons we must take from Mandela's long walk to freedom?

• Palestinian violence, however provoked, will always undermine the cause of human rights and allow all resistance to be branded as terrorism and be brutally suppressed. Meanwhile, genuine grievances will be dismissed as irrelevant compared to the needs of Israeli State security.

• The campaign for freedom in Israel/Palestine must be a global call for the restoration of human rights. All the complexities and history must not obscure the basic fact that one people has been dispossessed, and continues to be discriminated against, by another people.

• Change will not come from above until politicians around the world recognise a tipping point in the public understanding of the Palestinian people and their story. The boycott, divestment and sanctions movement will create that consciousness and eventually shift the political paradigm in Israel and globally just as the same tactics did in South Africa.

• The way ahead must acknowledge the human rights of all those who call the Holy Land their home. Solving one injustice must not create another (that's what happened in 1948). This fundamental understanding of the equal worth of all humanity and the need for compassion on all sides was the outstanding contribution of Nelson Mandela in the immediate post Apartheid years. Jews and Palestinians must acknowledge each other's narrative. The future cannot be built on past hatred. However, just as in South Africa, there can be no doubt as to who has been the oppressed and who the oppressor.

Some will see this as utopian nonsense. The same was said about South Africa. Some will say that the Palestinians lack a Nelson Mandela that can unify the people and show moral and political leadership.

I strongly believe that the Palestinian Mandelas do exist. They are men and women who are currently in exile, sitting in Israeli jails, or working right now to build a non-violent worldwide campaign to liberate their people. You may want to read the statement from Marwan Barghouthi in Hadarim prison who has been in Israeli jails since 2002.

While still President of South Africa, Mandela gave a speech in December 1997 to mark the United Nations Day of Palestinian Solidarity.

"It behoves all South Africans, themselves erstwhile beneficiaries of generous international support, to stand up and be counted among those contributing actively to the cause of freedom and justice. But we know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians; without the resolution of conflicts in East Timor, the Sudan and other parts of the world."

This is a statement that recognises how interconnected justice must be. It reminds us of Martin Luther King Jr's. statement that: “Justice denied anywhere diminishes justice everywhere.”

Sadly, when others, close to Mandela during the South African Apartheid struggle, speak about Israel (such as former Archbishop Desmond Tutu) they are often dismissed as over-stating their case in drawing any parallels to their own experience. That couldn't be more wrong. Tutu recognises injustice when he sees it.

As I have said many times on this blog, Jews have a right to a homeland through our historic, religious and cultural connection to the land. But it doesn't have to look like this. In fact, what Mandela's story tells us is that it can't look like this. The way in which Israel is currently constituted is ethically unsustainable and it is eating away at the soul of Judaism.

For me, and for a great many others, Mandela may belong to "the ages" but he also belongs to every struggle that has justice and human rights at its core. And that means he belongs to all those who want to see a just peace in Israel/Palestine.

In the end, as Obama said in his tribute, there is a moral arc to the universe that can be bent towards justice. Until that moment comes for Israel/Palestine we wait and we work and we take inspiration from the life of a great man.

‘On the Impossibility of Passover’

'On Passover we celebrate as if we ourselves have been set free'

On my journey
To the Promised Land
My feet have become entangled
In the roots of upturned trees

Across the Jordan
I see homes turned to rubble
By the strong hand and the outstretched arm
Blocking the path to righteousness

Deliverance is held up at the checkpoint
Freedom chooses hunger
To make its case

And what is there left to celebrate
With timbrels and dancing?

I ask my questions
Eat bitter herbs
And count the plagues that we have sent

Cleansed
Refugeed
Absenteed
Unrecognised
Occupied
Besieged
Walled
Segregated
Sewaged over
Passed over

We have melted our inheritance
To cast a new desert idol
And the words from Sinai
Are crushed beneath its hooves

There is no Moses to climb the mountain a third time
Elijah is detained indefinitely
The mission is lost
Freedom is drowned
And the angels gather to weep

It is the first night of the Feast of Freedom
I open the Haggadah
Place olives on the Seder plate
And confront the impossibility of Passover

This year in Mitzrayim
This year in the narrow place

Robert Cohen for Micah's Paradigm Shift March 2013

You may also like to read 'Occupy the Haggadah' from 2012

Israeli elections, Tu B'Shvat and the history of 'righteous trees'

The deck chairs are being shuffled about in the Knesset with no real prospect of change on the Palestinian front whether a fragile centre/right or fragile right/ultra-right coalition emerges. As usual, the seats won by Israeli Arab parties (12 in total) are not even in the reckoning for any complexion of governing bloc.

So in the circumstances, I thought I'd share a few thoughts about trees.

Why trees? Well today (Saturday January 26th) it's the festival of Tu B'Shvat which is the Jewish New Year for Trees. And trees have their own particular story to tell when it comes to Judaism and Israel/Palestine.

Trees have been on my mind for a while now, ever since I rediscovered the Israeli tree certificates I received for my Bar Mitzvah in 1979. I had one from my synagogue and 13 from my parents' B'nai Brit lodge. This was the traditional gift at the time, along with a copy of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew bible). I'll come back to my own personal piece of Israeli woodland later, but first a swift history of trees in Judaism and Zionism.

Let’s start at the very beginning. Genesis, the Garden of Eden, and the ‘Tree of Knowledge’. This is our very first call to lead a righteous life. Adam and Eve having eaten of the fruit, are given the ability to know good from evil, the knowledge to discern right from wrong. From now on we are expected to carry the burden of making ethical choices for how we live, our relations with others and with the planet itself.

Next up we have the story of the Noah and the Great Flood. Remember how the dove returns with leaves from an olive tree indicating that the waters are subsiding along with God's wrath at humankind's behaviour. We are given a second shot at righteousness and the olive tree makes its global debut as a symbol of restored peace and harmony.

By the way (and one day you may just find this useful to know) there are thirty varieties of tree mentioned in the Hebrew bible. Alphabetically, they go from Algum in Second Chronicles to Vine trees in Deuteronomy via Mulberries in Samuel and Myrtles in Isaiah.

While we are tree hunting in Deuteronomy, here's an interesting commandment (20:19) concerning behaviour to our enemies during wartime:

“When you lay siege to a city for a long time, fighting against it to capture it, do not destroy its trees by putting an axe to them, because you can eat their fruit. Do not cut them down. Are the trees of the field people, that you should besiege them?”

In modern terminology this is a prohibition against scorched earth tactics that destroy the enemy's capacity to care for itself and rebuild life after defeat. I'll come back to this later.

And if it is us that are defeated and we find ourselves living in exile, then the advice from Isaiah is to plant ourselves firmly in the host community to become "trees of righteousness" (61:3).

And now to Tu B'Shvat itself. It's a minor Jewish festival which originated in biblical times with the need to establish a 'tax year' for the income from fruit harvests so that a tithe (one tenth) could be made to the Temple in Jerusalem and for the poor. Since tithing must be in proportion to individual income that makes it a progressive tax going to a righteous cause!

Even after the Temple was destroyed, in 70 CE, the tradition of tithing continued in the Jewish diaspora with money being given to those studying Torah, and to the least well off.

The festival became associated we tree planting and the reciting of ‘nature’ psalms, in particular Psalm 104:

“The trees of the Lord are well watered,
the cedars of Lebanon that he planted.
There the birds make their nests;
the stork has its home in the junipers.”

The festival began to take on a new layer of symbolism and significance around the 16th century when the Jewish mystics of Safed, in northern Galilee, draw on Kabbalistic traditions and took the tree as an image to represent the dynamic aspects of God's creative power.

Leaping ahead to the 20th century, in the late 1960s Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel (one of the truly great Jewish theologians of the last century) reached back to that verse in Deuteronomy, harnessing Judaism's prophetic tradition in his campaigning against the U.S. war in Vietnam. The Jewish Campaign for Trees for Vietnam, with Heschel as its chairman, challenged the actions of the U.S. government in deliberately destroying the forests of Vietnam to deny tree cover to Vietnamese guerrillas.

The Jewish Renewal movement, predominantly in north America, has taken up the festival as a ready-made Jewish commitment to environmental sustainability. With typical Renewal creativity and drawing on mystic and Hasidic thinking, they have re-imagined the festival as an opportunity to emphasise Judaism's 'green' credentials and general concern for the well-being of the planet.

And so to Zionism's contribution to trees and righteousness.

The Jewish National Fund (where may Bar Mitzvah trees came from) was created in 1901 to purchase land for Jewish settlement in Ottoman-controlled Palestine. Here's how the JNF website sums up its own history:

“Over the past 109 years, JNF has evolved into a global environmental leader by planting 250 million trees, building over 210 reservoirs and dams, developing over 250,000 acres of land, creating more than 1,000 parks, providing the infrastructure for over 1,000 communities, bringing life to the Negev Desert and educating students around the world about Israel and the environment.”

In short, making the desert bloom.

Of course there is another way of looking at this and an alternative Palestinian narrative that challenges all the desert blooming activity in a land that was certainly not without a people and nor without an established agricultural economy.

To quote from the Stop the JNF website, the actual consequence of all this land buying and tree planting has led directly to:

"...the creation of an exclusive and discriminatory Jewish state [and] also the destruction of Palestinian land ownership, community, livelihood, and the land itself."

The land was often bought by the JNF at inflated prices from absentee Arab landlords for the benefit of the early Jewish immigrants to establish their own agricultural communities. But the left wing Zionist pioneers of the 1920s and 30s did not see the local Arab population as part of their socialist Jewish dream.

When I began to read the works of the Israeli Jewish revisionist historians who have challenged the myths of Jewish state building, I became to feel less comfortable with my own little patch of Israeli greenery. It also made me reflect on how the State of Israel and Jewish identity have become so interwoven by diaspora Jewry to the point where they have become indistinguishable.

There's nothing on my tree certificates to tell me exactly where they were planted so I have no idea if they added to the woodland and forests that have covered over many of the Palestinian villages that were abandoned, fled from or demolished during the civil war/Independence war of 1947-1948. The very existence of the villages and their history has also been grassed over by the tourism guides and the park websites.

Yes, Israel has certainly planted a great deal of trees but a great many have been destroyed too, usually in the name of 'security' including the construction of the Separation Wall.

Some of the more militant Jewish West Bank settlers (ultra-religious and ultra-nationalist) also take opportunities to destroy their neighbours' livelihood in ways that seem totally at odds with Jewish ethics. Last year the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported 7,500 olive trees were destroyed by settlers between January and October 2012.

I don't know what they teach in Torah school these days on the West Bank but they're clearly skipping that verse from Deuteronomy.

During the election campaign in Israel there was little talk of trees, planted or uprooted, righteous or unrighteous. Netanyahu's handling of the economy and his failure to address the concerns of the social protests of the last two summers, had more to do with his party's drop in support than his belligerence over the Israel/Palestine question.

At Tu B'Shvat we think about God's creation and the annual nature cycle as we begin to emerge from the gloom of winter and look forward to new life emerging from the cold ground.

I don't hold much hope that the new Knesset will have the vision required or the bravery and imagination that will be needed to take Israel forward on the question of Palestine. For Jews like me though, this remains the project that will determine the well-being of the Jewish People and the future of Judaism for this century and beyond.

At Tu B’Shvat we may marvel at the miracle of God’s creation, as we see the sap begin to rise once again, but it is God and not the soil that we should worship. 

As the politicians cut their deals in the back rooms of Jerusalem to decide who gets control of which government department, I offer the following observation from Abraham Joshua Heschel, which made after his first visit to the State of Israel in 1969.

“Judaism is not a religion of space and does not worship the soil. So too the State of Israel is not the climax of Jewish history, but a test of the integrity of the Jewish people and the competence of Judaism.”

Hanukkah...rekindled

Hanukkah contains so many ideas and is open to so many interpretations and modern re-imaginings that it's difficult to know where to start.

Is it about muscular Maccabean Judaism with heroic battles fought with God on our side? Or is about miracles in the Temple that prove that God never abandons His people? Has it become the Jewish answer to (secular) Christmas celebrations, a way to make sure the children don't feel left out of the present buying frenzy? Perhaps the real miracle (as the Rugrats Hanukkah special told us) is that we have spent more than two thousand years eating grated fried potatoes and donuts - and yet we have survived!

This year, I'm thinking about Hanukkah just in terms of light and darkness.

Each night, for eight days, we kindle one more tiny, fragile candle that burns gently for no more than twenty minutes.  And each night a little more darkness becomes illuminated. Slowly we light the way ahead and rededicate not an ancient temple but ourselves.

When it comes to Israel/Palestine we need all the light we can find and all of the rededication we can muster in our pursuit of peace with justice.   

For those readers not onboard for my first Hanukkah as a blogger, here's last year's reflections -

Maccabees, Miracles and Zionists...and how to get the balance right

A radical rabbi’s call for prophetic justice

Below is an edited version of my interview with Rabbi David J. Goldberg commissioned by the UK's Church Times. It was published on 10th August under the headline 'An insider on the outside' and the full version can be found here but you'll need to take out a subscription to access it.

Goldberg's new book 'This is Not the Way - Jews, Judaism and Israel' sums up a lifetime of theological and political thought reminding readers why he’s been such a radical voice in Jewish Britain for nearly forty years. However, in this extract, I'm focusing on his comments regarding Israel/Palestine and Christian-Jewish dialogue.

Readers of this blog will know that I don't share Goldberg's dislike for the Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) strategy nor his belief that a two state state solution is still the best answer to the conflict. He is though way ahead of most of his rabbinic peers in Britain and an important and fearless voice. In particular, I welcome his assessment that rabbinic criticism of Israel has been sorely missing and his concern that Christian-Jewish dialogue often avoids an honest debate about what goes on in the name of the 'Jewish and Democratic' state of Israel.

[Extract from Church Times feature]

'An Insider on the Outside'

It is his views on Israel that have attracted the most controversy throughout his career. It’s an indication of the centrality that Israel now has in modern Jewish identity that Goldberg has been accused of being a ‘self-hating Jew’ for his outspokenness on Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians and the occupation of Palestinian land. In fact he was tempted to call his book ‘Reflections of a self-hating Jew’ before his friend, the journalist and historian, Max Hastings pointed out: ‘David, the Public doesn’t do irony’.

His criticism of Israel stems from his understanding of justice as being at the heart of Jewish ethics. “I am a staunch advocate of the right of Israel to exist within secure, internationally recognised borders. But as a Jew I can’t be unaware of ethical responsibilities”. Goldberg believes the Jewish lay leadership has abdicated those responsibilities through their automatic defence of Israel’s actions. But it’s the religious Jewish leadership, in all branches of Judaism, but especially within his own progressive movement both in Britain and America, that he reserves his harshest criticism. “They have been timorous, willing to wax indignant about so many subjects, but maintaining a lamentable silence on Israel.”

On the day we met, the General Synod was about to debate its motion on Israel-Palestine with pressure from the Chief Rabbi, Lord Jonathan Sacks (a second cousin of Goldberg’s), and the Board of Deputies of British Jews to moderate the motion by removing reference to the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme which they described as ‘anti-Israel’. Reviewing the coverage of the debate at the end of the week in the Jewish Chronicle newspaper, Goldberg sent through to me the following assessment “Obviously, I was not there to hear the debate, but I thought that the JC’s front page headline charging the Church with endorsing an ‘Israel hate agenda’ was an irresponsible incitement of Jewish paranoia; and its editorial accusing the Archbishop of Canterbury of ‘an explicit comparison’ between the Holocaust and the deprivations of the Palestinians at checkpoints was a scurrilous distortion of his carefully chosen words.”

David Goldberg has always been a champion of interfaith dialogue but now sees how the Israel question has contaminated Jewish-Christian relationships that have been built up over decades. He recognises that centuries of anti-Semitism, with its origins in Christian teaching, have left Christians in an ethical bind. Who are they to lecture Jews on morality? On the other hand, how can Christians stand by when they see an injustice being committed against the Palestinians?

“Israel as a State has become politicised. When it comes to interfaith dialogue, it’s become the elephant in the room because those Christian organisations that have dared to voice criticism of what goes on in the occupied territories suffer the full force of the Jewish community bearing down on them and risk the ultimate sanction, and ultimate deterrent, of being accused of anti-Semitism.”

So can the situation be unlocked? “Well I’m not optimistic because it requires honesty on both sides and I have to say that organisations like the Council for Christians and Jews are too timid to grasp the nettle. They always look for the anodyne consensus that will please nobody. Ultimately, they can’t confront the situation because there is a lack of real openness.”

A two state solution is Goldberg’s preferred resolution to the conflict. He sees one state and bi-national options as inflicting just another injustice. “I believe the Palestinians deserve a state of their own. They have earned it through their struggle.” One problem has been that there has never been a coincidence of strong leadership on both sides willing to pursue peace and steer their people away from the abyss. Solving the conflict, he believes, should be through argument and dialogue and he would not support boycotts against Israeli products or individuals. “I’m a John Stuart Mill libertarian and I always believe in the ultimate power of free speech. I would prefer to persuade the Israeli government by reason, pragmatism and political argument that it’s in their own best interests to end the occupation and curtail the settlements. Boycotts will make the Israeli government more extreme in their reactions and make the Jewish community outside of Israel more strident. The tragedy is that the more hopeless the situation can appear the more extreme can become the actions and reactions. So a terrorist atrocity is followed by an excessive Israeli response with disproportionate civilian casualties. And then the more mired in gloom become the voices you would look for to find a way out.”

As our conversation draws to a close, he returns to ecumenical challenges. “Christianity says: ‘love’, Islam says: ‘Peace’ and Judaism says: ‘Justice’. But how often do you see these religions showing any of these things? If these religious teachings are to mean anything they must be truly applied and not just yearned for.”

So how hopeful is he about the Jewish future? “I believe the justification for remaining Jewish is to be a moral beacon. Every year at Passover we recall the Exodus story and its demand for freedom and justice. We are commanded to act on that cultural memory of the Exodus and that means we should be passionately involved in justice issues.”

Goldberg is not by nature a pessimist. Perhaps surprisingly, he chooses a quote from the diaries of the father of political Zionism, Theodor Herzl to back up his innate hopefulness. “Things never work out as well as we hope or as badly as we fear.”