This High Holidays I'm Challenging the 'Modern Jewish Sacred'

My new post is published at Patheos

Here's the opening:

We are entering the Jewish High Holidays. A period of reflection, of repentance, of returning to God. In Hebrew we call it 'teshuvah'.

Built in to the Jewish religious calendar is the assumption that every year we will lose our spiritual way and will need to find a way back to all that is Sacred. That period of 'returning' begins with the Jewish New Year and culminates with Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) ten days later. It is not only a time of individual repentance, it is a time of Jewish communal contrition.

But what happens when we enter the New Year of 5776 (September 13th) and realise that the Jewish Sacred is itself lost and wandering?

In past centuries and millennia it was easy to define the Jewish Sacred.

God was sacred. So much so, that even his name could not be spoken or written.

God's creation, and in particular human life, was sacred. We all held within us the spark of the Divine. 

The Holy of Holies, the inner sanctuary of the Tabernacle where God dwelt during the Children of Israel's forty years in the desert, was sacred.

The inner sanctuary of the First Temple where the tablets of stone containing the Ten Commandments were kept, was sacred.

The Torah, with its commandments for building and maintaining a God centred, just society in the Land of Israel, was sacred.

The rabbinic commentaries that helped us to interpret the Law and apply it in places far away from The Land of Israel, were sacred.

As Jews dispersed, the sacredness of Time replaced the sacredness of Land as we made holy the Sabbath and the annual cycle of festivals, liturgy and prayer.

Righteous acts were sacred as we fulfilled the commandments to protect the weakest and most vulnerable among us.

But what is Sacred for Jews today? And is it worthy of holiness?

Confronting the Modern Jewish Sacred

I've just returned from two weeks travelling around Israel and the West Bank with my family.  We met with Jewish Israelis as well as Palestinians, both Christian and Muslim.

As we travelled, listened and talked, the Modern Jewish Sacred revealed itself to us....

Read the full post here

After the murder of baby Ali, is Zionism beyond redemption?

My latest blog post is published at Patheos.

Here's an extract...

Soon I will be heading back to Israel and the West Bank for my fourth trip to the area.

Along with notebooks and pens, I'm packing questions too. The recent deadly arson attack by Jewish Settlers in the village of Duma, near Nablus, has again focused my mind on what Zionism is or isn't and what the Jewish project of nationalist renewal should mean to me as a British Jew.

Just as the kidnapping and burning of Mohammed Abu Khudeir did last summer, the death by fire of 18 month old Ali Dawabshe has provoked horror and soul-searching by Jewish Israelis. They are asking How has this happened? How could we have stopped it? What are they teaching their children in these Settlements?

But Duma was hardly an isolated incident, as this report from Al Monitor makes clear. And Israel's track record in finding and prosecuting those that carry out such attacks is far from impressive. The death of a child however put the attack on radar of the international media and so prompted this reaction from Prime Minister Netanyahu, who would normally stay silent on Settler violence:

“I am shocked over this reprehensible and horrific act. This is an act of terrorism in every respect. The State of Israel takes a strong line against terrorism regardless of who the perpetrators are."

The sentiment has been echoed by Jewish Communities around the world. In Britain, the Jewish Chronicle gave three pages of coverage to the issue of Jewish extremism this week and the Senior Vice President of the Board of Deputies, Richard Verber, had this to say:

“We share in the pain of the Dawabsha family and hope that the perpetrators of this act of terror will be brought to justice as soon as possible.”

On Saturday 8 August Ali's father Sa'ed died in hospital from his injuries and his mother Riham and older brother Ahmad are still in a critical condition. Meanwhile, there have been a number of arrests of suspects including Meir Ettinger, the grandson of the notorious ultra nationalist Rabbi Meir Kahane. They are being held under 'administrative detention' with the same lack of due process and transparency usually reserved for Palestinians.

But was it a random act of Jewish terror, a hate-filled aberration to disown, grieve over, and then move on from? Or was it a direct consequence of the near fifty year Israeli occupation of the West Bank? Has the Jewish State created a political culture that has nurtured the attitude of Ali and Sa'ed's killers? Indeed has it subsidised the fundamentalist rabbis and yeshivas that taught them their hateful chauvinism.

Or worse still, is Duma the inevitable consequence of the entire Zionist programme of Jewish renewal through 'return' and state building? After all, it never was a land without a people for a people without a land, as the old Zionist slogan liked to frame things.

As I pack my questions for Israel I'm asking: Is Zionism in 2015 beyond redemption?

Read the rest of this post at Patheos

Reclaiming the language of Jewish identity

The following post was commissioned by Jews for Justice for Palestinians and published on its site on Sunday 24 May 2015 as part of the JfJfP Signatories Blog series. 

As time goes on I'm attracting more and more hostility. This is not entirely unwelcome.

Nothing tells you better that you have arrived on the scene than someone taking the trouble to insult you.

It's taken me a few years of writing about Israel-Palestine to move beyond a welcoming and supportive readership of like-minded folk to something rather different.

But now it's happened.

Recently I have been described as a "traitor", a "Marxist", "narcissistic", and "shameful" because I have advocated for boycotts in support of Palestinian human rights.

One Twitter correspondent said my writing was attempting to "groom" a false conclusion, a verb we now use when describing the act of entrapping children with the intention of sexually abusing them. I'm quite sure this was the intended association.

But what is it my critics want me to be loyal to?

In their world view what should I be defending? Land grabs? Water appropriation? House demolitions? Child arrests? Judicial apartheid? Shoot to kill policing? A fifty year occupation the rest of the world says is illegal? Should I turn a blind eye when Israeli soldiers provide testimonies from the streets of Gaza that tell us how brutal their orders were towards Palestinian civilians last summer? Why have I become the 'shameful narcissist' rather than them?

I used to think that tribal loyalty as a starting point for reaching political or ethical opinions didn't really work for me. Shouldn't we draw on more objective and universal thinking? But as I started to write I changed my mind. I decided that it was more important than ever to reclaim the language of Jewish ethnic and religious identity.

Arthur Herztberg wrote in the introduction to his collection of Zionist writings in  the 1950s that Zionism was a battle for "the total meaning of Jewish history". He was right. But today you can take that thought even further.

The actions of the State of Israel have become a battleground for the meaning of Jewish history, Jewish identity, Jewish loyalty and indeed the values of Judaism itself.

How has this happened in such a short space of time?

It's long been noted that as Jews have become more secular and less religiously observant, the expression of Jewish identity has shifted from the realm of the spiritual to the territorial. The need for a Jewish Israel has become greater than the need for a Jewish God. This is particularly so when Israel is seen as the only rational response to the Holocaust and Jewish history is understood as little more than one pogrom after another.

Meanwhile, for those Jews still attending synagogue regularly, there also exists an almost unchallengeable belief that the State of Israel has become central to our understanding of Jewish identity. Belief in the inherent goodness of Israel has become a tenet of faith equal to our commitment to monotheism. We have successfully and seamlessly merged our ancient mythological understanding of the Promised Land with a 19th century blood and soil ethnic nationalism. And few appear to notice that there is the slightest thing odd about this.  

So if you have serious problems with Israel, you may as well give up on thinking of yourself as being Jewish. Both secular and religious Jews will find you difficult, if not impossible, to tolerate.

But I have been trying my best to turn all this on its head.

I want to criticise Israel not to do down the tribe but to stay loyal to it. I want to uphold the values and teaching that I think of as mine by birth and by upbringing.

Jewish nationalism, and a blind loyalty to all things Israeli, has stolen my identity and my religion.

Now I'm taking it back, one blog post at a time.

My support for Palestinian rights comes from a self-consciously Jewish starting point. When I speak out I want to put my Jewish Kippah on my head not a Palestinian kaffiyeh around my neck.

Ethnically and politically, my motivation comes from a reading of Jewish history that points towards the need for freedom, tolerance and respect for any minority group.

My outlook is informed by Judaism with its constant scriptural emphasis on compassion and care for the stranger, the widow, the orphan and the oppressed. In other words, the marginalised in every generation.

My writing has at its heart our Jewish millennial project to heal a fractured world and build a just society.

Our prophetic tradition tells me that I have an obligation to speak out when power is used to trick and steal from those who have least or when idols are proclaimed as the source of our salvation. And the fact that our Hebrew prophets were not roaring their rage at our foreign enemies but at our own religious and political leaders is another reminder of Judaism's built-in tradition of self-criticism.

As I write these words we are celebrating the festival of Shavuot when we recall the giving of the Ten Commandments to the ancient Israelites at Mount Sinai. Only fifty days previously we had been rescued from slavery in Egypt and this is the moment when a down-trodden rabble becomes a holy nation in the service of God and the ordering of a just society.

Rabbinic tradition tells us that every Jewish soul yet to be born was there at the foot of the mountain hearing the thunder, seeing the lightening and watching as Moses came down with the tablets of stone. A covenant is made which is full of expectations and responsibilities for both God and the people.

When I read through the verses in Exodus and the accompanying commentaries in my prayerbook, I see nothing that creates a requirement to defend Settlements, Checkpoints, Separation Walls, Jewish only buses or indeed the members of a new Israeli government who seem to have only a passing acquaintance with democracy and human rights.

So I'm not boycotting Jews or Judaism when I make the case for a radical change in our attitude to the Palestinian people. Rather I am upholding all I see as worthwhile, eternal and universal from my Jewish heritage and history. I do not want Jews to be powerless and insecure. There is no inherent virtue in that. But power and security cannot be ends in themselves. That is not what it means to be Jewish nor is it the teaching of Judaism.

The abuse thrown at me from my online critics may have put me 'on the scene' but it’s a scene that needs reforming.

My hope is that others will start to recognise the contradictions and inconsistencies that currently sit so centrally to their Jewish identity. A critique of Israel cannot be outlawed from our synagogues nor banned from our secular discourse.

There is a great deal of concern that lies in my desire to reclaim the language of Jewish identity. Our relationship to Israel and the Palestinians has become defining for us individually and collectively. Nothing less than the future of Judaism and the Jewish people is now at stake.

A Jewish Advent reflection

There's something utterly essential about Advent. And I say that as Jew who looks on in admiration at this season of the Christian calendar.

The journey towards Christmas, with all its expectant waiting, is heavily pregnant with hope for the future. It is an annual renewal of faith in the coming of a better time. It may be dark now but times can change. Tomorrow can be better, if we let it happen. 

For Christianity, the birth of the Messiah signifies that there is a different way of looking at the world. In that journey towards a lowly cattle shed in Bethlehem, we learn anew that the weak can be made strong, the down trodden can be pulled up high and that real power comes through the spirit and not the sword.

For me, there's a lot to be learnt from a tradition that forsakes despair and travels hopefully towards a better vision for the world. It's certainly a much needed spiritual resource for anyone involved in the issues of Israel/Palestine, especially in a year like 2014 when things just seem to go from bad to worse.

For some time now I've been on my own spiritual and political journey. It's a journey looking to rediscover a Judaism of prophetic hopefulness and justice. I'm looking for a Judaism able to critique the narrow nationalism of Zionism and reconnect itself to the best of our long learning and experience.

So for my Jewish take on Advent, I'd like to share with you one key moment on my journey. It's a moment from the summer of 2011 that's come back to me in recent days as Israeli Knesset members have been discussing the various permutations of the Jewish State bill that would clearly put non-Jewish citizens of Israel in an inferior constitutional position.

I am a religiously and politically liberal Jew, born and raised in the London suburbs and in the summer of 2011 I was just ending my last trip to Israel and the West Bank. I already had my fixed views on the Settlements. I knew they were the real obstacles to peace and the creation of a viable Palestinian State. I had seen first hand the daily oppression that the Occupation had created. 

But it turned out that there was a further stage in my thinking that had yet to take place. I still hadn't fully understood what had happened to the Palestinian people as a result of Zionism. And I was going to need help to get there. It was meeting Palestinian Christian Israelis that allowed this particular Jew to take the next step in his journey.

Our group tour had reached Nazareth, the largest majority Palestinian town in Israel, where we met Samuel and Susan Barhoum. Samuel was the Vicar of Christ Church Nazareth and Holy Family Church Reineh. Susan and Samuel are Palestinian Christians, Israeli citizens, whose families had lived in Israel/Palestine for generations.

The Barhoum’s, without the slightest rancour or anger in their voices, told us what it meant to them, and their young children, to be Palestinian citizens of Israel. Citizens who earn their living in Israel and pay their taxes to the Jewish State. And remember, Palestinians are 20% of Israel’s population within the country’s pre-1967 borders. They are the remnant of Palestinians who were mostly expelled or driven out by fear during 1947-8. Most ended up in refugee camps in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt. Those that remained were treated as ‘present absentees’ often having their land and their homes confiscated and were subject to military jurisdiction up until the 1960s.

I was familiar with the promises made in the Israeli Declaration of independence that said that the new Jewish Sate would:

"…ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex…"

Well, it was clear from Susan and Samuel that the Palestinians were still waiting.

Despite the stated intentions of 1948, every aspect of Israeli Palestinian life is disadvantaged compared to their Jewish neighbours. Susan and Samuel had plenty of first hand experience to prove it.

Education resources are consistently lower for Arab schools compared to Jewish schools. The school curriculum disadvantages Palestinian students who want to take exams to enter Israeli Universities. Their exemption from joining the Israeli army (IDF) as most Jewish students must do automatically, then leaves them disadvantaged in the jobs market, including public services, where not having an army number has become a legitimate way to discriminate against Arabs.

Meanwhile, central government funding to develop and improve Palestinian neighbourhoods is vastly disproportionate compared to Jewish towns and neighbourhoods. And then there are the marriage laws that stop an Israeli Palestinian living with their partner if they are from the West Bank. Of course as a Jew living all my life in Britain (just like my parents and grandparents) I have every right to settle in Israel tomorrow if I wanted to.

In spite of all this, indeed because of it, Susan and Samuel were working hard to build bridges between Christians, Muslims and Jews with interfaith projects particularly aimed at children and teenagers.

Getting Jews involved though was particularly challenging as Susan described to our group: "Arabs and Jews are not friends. They don’t want to connect with us."

From talking to Susan it was clear that from the Jewish Israeli perspective, making friends and socialising with Arabs is not a priority. Why bother? What’s the need? For the vast majority of Israeli Jews maintaining a separation is the preferred stand point.

And alongside the institutional and legislative discrimination, was the casual racism that pervades Israeli society and culture. Palestinian Arabs are the perennial ‘other’ in Israel. They are at best tolerated and at worst seen as a 5th column, the enemy within.

Standing outside of Susan and Samuel's church in Nazareth was the moment I took the next step in my journey. This was the moment when I knew I had finally had it with the whole Zionist project as it had played itself out over more than 120 years.

The problem was not 1967 and the Occupied Territories, it wasn't even 1947-8 and the circumstances of the creation of the Israeli State. Something in my head clicked into place and the last rags of my ultra liberal Zionism fell to the ground.

I felt a little like Charlton Heston at the end of the original Planet of the Apes film. Remember when he sees the battered and broken Statue of Liberty washed up on the beach and realises that he is not on some alien planet but his own planet Earth and it is humankind's stupidly has led to his current predicament. "You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!"

For me, in trying to find our Jewish salvation through a misguided return to an exclusive nationalism, we had blown up our own heritage and squandered what was important to us throughout our history.

My meeting with the Barhoums came back to me as I followed the coverage of the proposed Jewish State bill that will enshrine into the constitution the primacy of Israel being a Jewish state (rather than the state of all its citizens). There are many liberal Zionist in Israel and Jews worldwide who oppose this move. They have always wanted to champion the idea that Israel could be Jewish AND Democratic. But if Susan and Samuel's experience is to be taken seriously, Zionism has never succeeded in this balancing act. Perhaps a new Jewish State law would at least formalise what in reality has always been the case. Palestinians are, and always have been, second class citizens.

What is so troubling is that such a piece of legislation is being debated by the descendants of people who knew better than any other group what it meant to be a minority - distrusted, resented and unwanted by the majority.

At our tour's last night together in Nazareth I realised that I was ready to take my own small stand, and start shouting (at least in a quiet, introverted sort of way) about the perversion of Jewish values brought about by a narrow Jewish nationalist agenda. An agenda that had sent the usually reliable Jewish ethical compass into spasm.

So from my encounter with Susan and Samuel grew this blog - Micah's Paradigm Shift. It has a sub-title that attempts to capture the theme of my writing: rescuing the Hebrew Covenant one blog post at a time.

Writing the blog has brought me into contact with like-minded Jews all over the world and with Christians and Muslims who have also become my guides as I seek to find a way back out from the Jewish moral cul-de-sac that the State of Israel has become.

With Netanyahu's coalition collapsing and new elections next spring that threaten an even more intransigent Israeli government, I and many others are much in need of this season of promise. Advent may be a Christian time of expectant longing but it has plenty to say to me too as I travel a hopeful road towards a better future.

This blog post was originally commissioned as part of an Advent series of reflections being published by From Palestine with Love

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!

How the UK's Jewish leadership killed off the two-state solution

In the last month it's become clear that the UK's Jewish leadership, despite its constant mantra, has no interest in promoting a two-state solution to the Israel/Palestine conflict. At least not in a way that has the slightest practical significance.

We may hear the consistent rhetoric that claims to support compromise and bilateral negotiation but in reality our public representatives now look as thoroughly intransigent as Israel's right-wing coalition government.

And if that's the case we have a serious problem on our hands. It's a problem that leads directly to the increase in anti-Semitic attacks on our streets and it's undermining local community dialogue with our Christian and Muslim neighbours.

The lack of credible independence from the Israeli government and the abdication of the role of critical Jewish friend to Israel is not doing the Jewish community in UK, or the State of Israel, or its standing among the family of nations, any good whatsoever.

The latest evidence for the abandonment of honest support for two-states is the behaviour shown during the run-up and aftermath of the House of Commons vote to recognise the Palestinian state earlier this month (13 October).

Before looking at what happened at Westminster, it's worth revisiting the best research we have on the attitude of UK Jews to the conflict.

According to the most recent polling data (2010) carried out by the Institute for Jewish Policy Research, UK Jews hold the following views about Israel.

• Two-thirds (67%) favour giving up territory for peace with the Palestinians
• Almost three-quarters (74%) are opposed to the expansion of existing settlements in the West Bank
• A large majority (78%) favours a two-state solution to the conflict with the Palestinians
• A clear majority (55% against 36%) consider Israel to be ‘an occupying power in the West Bank

So UK Jews are thoroughly dovish on the key issues.

And remember, this survey was carried out just a year after Operation Cast Lead, which was the last time Israel carried out a major assault on Gaza comparable to what took place this summer. The 2010 poll found that 72% agreed or strongly agreed that the military action that Israel carried out in Gaza was a legitimate act of self-defence. However, despite that perception of the where blame lay, just over half (52%) thought that Israel should still negotiate with Hamas.

Now I don't expect Israel's official lobbyists in the UK, such as BICOM, the Zionist Federation, We Believe in Israel and the Friends of Israel party political bodies to do anything other than Jerusalem's bidding. They long ago chose to position themselves as Israel's defenders right or wrong, so why should they take account of UK Jewish public opinion. They are entitled to do their political work.

But what of The Board of Deputies, the Jewish Leadership Council and the religious denominations, in particular the United Synagogue (which employs Britain's Chief Rabbi) and Reform Judaism. If they really believe in achieving the two-state solution they are going about it in a way guaranteed to frustrate its already very slim prospect of ever happening.

Rather than use their influence as representatives of world Jewry, our religious and communal leaders have thrown their lot in with the Israel hard-liners and are disregarding the more conciliatory position of much of the Jewish community.

On current form, it would be easier to openly slip a prayer for Gaza's dead children into a crevice of the Wailing Wall than to find an Israel policy gap between the UK Zionist lobby and our religious and communal leadership.

So how did we see this Israeli take-over of UK Jewish communal affairs played out this month?

In the two weeks leading up to vote in the House of Commons my email inbox become full of requests from Israel lobby groups, as well as from the Board, JLC, United Synagogue and Reform Judaism, to write to my MP, urging them to oppose any motion that did not tie recognition to the successful completion of a peace process between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. In other words, Israel, and only Israel, gets to decide when the Palestinians deserve their right to self-determination and who should be their representatives in those negotiations.

Judging by the frantic efforts to mobilise Jewish constituents, you would have thought MPs were voting on a motion to de-recognise the State of Israel rather than supporting a purely symbolic act that would place the Palestinians on a (slightly) more level playing field in any future talks.

In the end, the amended motion favoured by our Jewish leadership did not get Commons support. However, an additional clause, put forward by the former Labour Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, was accepted by the motion's sponsors. So on the night here's what our MPs, who chose to turn up, overwhelmingly voted to support:

This House believes that the Government should recognise the state of Palestine alongside the state of Israel, as a contribution to securing a negotiated two state solution.

But even this non-binding statement of evenhandedness turned out to be totally unacceptable to our communal leadership.

The Board's President Vivian Wineman wrote the following day:

"This resolution and amendment, however well-intentioned it may be, is a most unfortunate and misguided development...This is bad news as it gives fuel to Palestinian rejectionism. This would only contribute to the delegitimisation campaign against Israel, with the Palestinians using international courts, pushing for boycotts and other activities which the vast majority of British politicians oppose."

Is it just me, or does that sound like a massive over reaction?

I suspect John Kerry will have a different view on where the rejectionist behaviour is coming from and would be delighted to find out from Mr. Wineman where exactly the "negotiations" are taking place.

And did you notice the sudden leap to "boycotts" and "international courts", the two Palestinian tactics that put such horror into the hearts of the Jewish establishment. So the warning to our legislators from our Jewish leadership is: give the Palestinians an inch and they will take a mile. The Board's position does not strike me as one predisposed to the kind of political compromise that will underpin a two-state solution.

And Mr. Wineman had more to say:

"The only way forward is negotiation, and not being derailed by those who seek to block a meaningful peace process...After all unilateral moves have not contributed to the peace process".

Was there anything in the Commons motion that called for anything other than negotiations?

And while the Board of Deputies is condemning "unilateral moves" did it have anything to say about the announcement in August of Israel's unilateral appropriation of 1,000 acres of land belonging to five Palestinian villages on the West Bank? Or did I miss that press release?

Meanwhile, the Jewish Leadership Council chose to issue a joint statement with the Zionist Federation and BICOM along almost identical lines to the Board of Deputies. It makes you wonder if we really need all of these organisations when there is so little to distinguish their positions on such a central issue of Jewish concern.

So what should a commitment to a two-state solution look like from our communal and religious leadership, especially if they were genuinely concerned about the ever-growing democratic deficit on both sides of the 1967 Green Line?

Well, if they were serious about promoting two states, I would expect to hear from Vivian Wineman regular calls for an end to the illegal occupation of the West Bank. I would look forward to Simon Johnson of the Jewish Leadership Council criticising the expansion of the Settlements as undermining political confidence in a peace process. I would welcome the Chief Rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, preparing the Jewish community for the idea of a shared Jerusalem. And Reform Judaism would be asking how Jewish ethics aligns with discrimination on house building and water access in the 60% of the West Bank which Israel controls completely.

If our leadership were truly committed to justice and reconciliation through two states, we would be seeing other activity too. There would be important community based educational work to co-ordinate and support. Decades of denial that Israel has the slightest culpability in the Israel/Palestine impasse would be confronted and discussed. A little less Israel advocacy training and a whole lot more unbiased history teaching would encourage a communal environment ready to press Israel to get serious about negotiations.

In truth though, I suspect it is all far too late in the day.

And if the chances of a two-state solution really have died, then our Jewish leadership can share some of the blame for killing it off. For years they could have spoken out and influenced governments of every shade in Jerusalem, raising the legitimate concerns of the Jewish diaspora. But they chose not to. Instead they opted to mimic the same belligerency that is taking us to a political and moral dead end.

In the meantime, land will continue to be stolen. Israeli soldiers will continue to arrest and shoot dead Palestinian children with impunity and Israelis will be outraged when all of this prompts a counter reaction.

And closer to home, interfaith relations with Christians and Muslims will falter and stumble and anti-Israel motivated attacks against Jews and Jewish property will rise because we have done nothing to counter the perception that 21st century Zionism, Judaism and the views of the UK Jewish community are all one and the same thing.

Next year we have a general election in the UK. The Board of Deputies has already published its 'manifesto' aimed at influencing candidates' attitudes on issues of Jewish concern. Once again it declares a UK Jewish commitment to a two-state solution. If I were a would-be MP for the next UK parliament, I would be asking the Jewish religious and communal leadership to spell out exactly what they have done to encourage the two-state outcome they claim to be so wedded to.

Remembering COHEN A. and COHEN H. (Or the short trip from Flanders Fields to the Gaza Strip)

How did I get from my holiday visiting the Flanders Fields of Belgium all the way to the Gaza Strip? From the Western Front to the bombed wreckage of homes in Al-Shejaea? 

It turned out to be a much shorter journey than you might think.

Private COHEN A. from one of the many London regiments, and rifleman COHEN H. from Ireland had disappeared somewhere on the Ypres salient between 1914 and 1918. The fact that I and my two sons had found their names carved on the limestone walls of the Menin Gate meant their bodies had never been recovered.

Perhaps they had sunk into the mud of No Man's Land or been blown to smithereens in an artillery barrage. Either way, there was nothing left of them but their names. 

They had 'fallen', according the the inscription on the Menin Gate, 'Ad Majorem Dei Glorium' 'To the greater glory of God'. For COHEN A. and COHEN H. and the 54,896 other disappeared men from Britain and its Empire, their 'sacrifice' had been made 'Pro Patra, Pro Rege'. 'For Country and for King'.

There was no way to find out if my two namesakes had joined up voluntarily in the earliest days of the fighting or, more likely, had been conscripted, making their ultimate sacrifice on the orders of the British government.

The war poet Siegfried Sassoon, who knew first-hand what conscripted sacrifice looked like, was far from impressed by Ypres' classical archway honouring the dead. As the world marked the 1914 centenary this week I doubt there were many quoting Sassoon's poem 'On passing the new Menin Gate' which ends with this accusatory couplet:

"Well might the dead who struggled in the slime
Rise and deride this sepulchre of crime"

Sassoon was right, we go to great lengths to honour our fallen of the Great War in order to cope better with their state sanctioned killing.

In all, 60,000 British Jews served in the armed forces during World War One and 3,500 were killed. In the German trenches there were 100,000 German Jews of whom 12,000 were killed. So Jews were shooting at each other, in the name of 'King and Country' and for 'The greater glory of God' on both sides of No Man's Land.

And in the immaculate Commonwealth war graves dotted across the Belgium countryside, the white headstones make no distinction between military rank or the nominal faith of the soldiers they name. Every headstone is identical with the occasional Star of David emblem sitting neatly between those marked with Crosses. In death all are equal in both rank and faith.

I wondered if the news had ever reached COHEN A. and COHEN H. that in November 1917 the British government had issued the Balfour Declaration. Would they have been pleased by the news that Prime Minister Lloyd George now supported the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine? Did the COHENS I had found see themselves as part of a 'homeless people' in need of their own nation state? Were they romantic Zionists, like the war poet Isaac Rosenberg, dreaming of an ancient glory. Or were these COHENS communists or bundists or socialists? Or perhaps A. and H. were content to make their way as best they could in the country that had given their parents refuge.

And then my mind began to wander and to play games with history.

What if everything had turned out differently?

What if the Manchester University chemist, Dr. Chaim Weizmann, had not been successful in bending the ears of the British wartime cabinet and persuading them that their diplomatic needs melded perfectly with his? What if the Balfour Declaration had never been signed?

What if the Jewish voices who opposed Zionism, such as Lucien Wolf, Claude Montefiore and Edwin Montagu, had won the argument?

After all they had made some good points. Hadn't the days of a Jewish Kingdom long gone? Surely for Jewish nationalism the camel train had left the station two millennia ago. There was no going back. And if you did, how would such a restoration change the status of the millions of Jews who had won citizenship in countries around the world? And anyway, the ethnic diversity of Jews made it obvious that they were a people of shared faith but with differing histories and no consistent culture or spoken language. The blood and soil nationalism of 18th and 19th century Europe did not quite fit the Jewish reality. Jewish self- determination had to look different.

What if Lloyd George, and his Foreign secretary Arthur Balfour, had instead decided to honour any of the other multiple and contradictory pledges about the future of Palestine that their ministers and officials had been cooking up with the French government, and with the Turkish and Arab nationalist leaders?

What if the words of Lord Curzon, another member of the War Cabinet and a future Foreign Secretary, had been heeded instead?

"What is to become of the people of the country?...[they] have occupied the country for the best part of 1,500 years, and they own the soil...They will not be content either to be expropriated for Jewish immigrants or to act merely as hewers of wood and drawers of water for the latter."

What if...?

And every now and then another BREAKING NEWS alert would drop into my Blackberry inbox to remind me that a hundred years after the Balfour Declaration, its fall out was still being felt.Currently in a loud and deadly way in the homes and in the streets of Gaza.

And then an even more treacherous thought entered my head.

What if COHEN A. and COHEN H. and their brothers in arms from all parts of the British Commonwealth, had failed to hold the line of the Ypres salient? What if the Germans had broken through and captured the channel ports and crossed to England? What if Kaiser Wilhelm had won the First World War?

No Treaty of Versailles.

No Weimar Republic.

No Adolf Hitler.

No Holocaust.

And, in all likelihood, no Jewish State as it is today constituted.

And while my 'what ifs...' were piling up, where might the descendants of the families of COHEN A. and COHEN H. be now? In my alternative universe, none I imagine would have be conscripted into something called the Israeli Defence Forces. None would have been asked to defend a Jewish nationalism that in the last month has had to justify to the world the killing of more than 400 children in the name of Jewish self-determination.

Perhaps these are silly mind games to play. 

No doubt history would have thrown up alternative scenarios just as dreadful as the ones we have had to live through in the last hundred years, including different challenges and threats to the Jewish communities of Europe.

But my point is this. History does not follow inexorable lines. There are always alternative routes to follow. Different voices to be listened to. Different names that even now could be rescued from historical oblivion to be hallowed and celebrated.

As I write, a ceasefire is holding in Gaza. There is hope that it could lead to talks on the long-term issues of the conflict. But I doubt such talks will get very far while the same power dynamics remain in place. After all, the Israelis have already rejected all of Kerry's and the Palestinian's compromises since last summer.

The last month has brought Israeli terror to the Palestinian people of Gaza. The loss of life and the destruction of an already impoverished economy bares no relation to the threats faced by Israel, especially with the Iron Dome at its disposal. This was a war of choice from the moment Netanyahu blamed Hamas for the murder of three Israeli teenagers on the West Bank. The Palestinians have paid dearly in order for Israel to wreck the Fatah/Hamas Unity deal and divert attention from the failed Kerry peace initiative.

The last month has put on display, like never before, an Israeli society willing to tolerate the most extreme expressions of racism, and even calls for Palestinian genocide, by its parliamentarians and leading rabbis. It is a society that has backed, with overwhelming support, a massively disproportionate attack on a vulnerable people whose land it effectively occupies.

As for Diaspora Jewry, when this Gaza war finally ends, it will be left with one fundamental question to be answered.

How many children will have to die before our communal Jewish leadership decide that they cannot 'Stand by Israel'?

Attempting to blame the victims for their own death has become a sickening argument as the days and weeks have passed. Israel has a right to defend itself! Well, yes, but 'defence' is hardly what we have witnessed in the last four weeks. Claiming that Hamas cares nothing for its women and children and is happy to use them as human shields is contemptible once you have watched toddlers screaming from the pain of shrapnel wounds on their backs and fathers carrying their children wrapped in tiny white shrouds. 

If our Jewish leadership and our synagogue councils cannot understand what most other British citizens do, it is because their moral compass has been thrown into spasm by the demands of defending Zionist principles.

After this summer, our Jewish leadership can watch the campaigns for Israeli economic, academic and cultural boycotts grow. And they can watch as as anti-Israel fury fails to distinguish between Diaspora Jews and the government of the State of Israel. I hope they will begin to understand their responsibility for all of this. They could have spoken out. They did not.

It was indeed a short journey from Flanders Fields to the Gaza Strip. And if I could take COHEN A. and COHEN H. to Al-Shejaea or Beit Hanoun, would they rise from the slime and recognise that a crime has been committed in their name...and mine.

A new song for Europe (or The Jewish antidote to the Board of Deputies EU manifesto)

It's European Parliament Election time here in the UK. The voting takes place on Thursday 22 May.

So what's all this got to do with a Jewish blog about Israel-Palestine?

Well it gives me a chance to talk about how the oldest and most well-known of our Jewish leadership bodies, The Board of Deputies of British Jews, is working hard to demonstrate to European politicians just how detached from the real world the Board has become. It also gives me a opportunity to give the would-be MEPs some advice myself.

Let me explain.

The Board (in conjunction with European partners) has produced its first European Manifesto to guide candidates standing in the election about "Jewish interests and concerns".

It's important to note at this point (and EU Parliament candidates please pay close attention) that Jews in the UK do not vote as an ethnic or religious bloc. You will find Jews supporting all parties and Jewish politicians representing the left, right and centre. As I like to remind people, Jews maybe monotheistic but they are not monolithic. There are even Jews standing for the anti-EU United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) despite its strong anti-immigration position and its tendency to attract the more unpleasant strains of British nationalism. So the Board is trying to be helpful by guiding candidates of all persuasions on some of the hot (but not politically partisan) Jewish topics.

The manifesto includes sections on Religious Freedom, Extremism, Racism & Antisemitism in Europe, Holocaust issues and, of course, EU-Israel relations.

As you might guess, it's the section on Israel that took my interest but I was also struck by the inclusion of an early paragraph in the document highlighting the contribution of the French Jew René Cassin (1887-1976) in drafting the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights.

This first passage from the Board’s EU manifesto could have come straight from a previous post on Micah's Paradigm Shift:

1.4 Human Rights

"Human Rights are a central tenet of the Jewish faith. From the Bible onwards numerous texts speak about the importance of caring for others and upholding their rights. Genesis 1:27 tells us that all people are created ‘in the image of God’. If all humans are created in the ‘image of God’, it follows that all human beings have an equal, innate dignity which must be respected."

Nothing to argue about there. And it gets better…

"Human Rights abuses continue to occur throughout Europe and around the world, and the Jewish community urges the EU to continue to address these issues. The role of Jewish thinkers, shaped by biblical ethics and the experiences of the Jewish people, has been crucial to the development of human rights. Indeed, René Cassin, one of the principal authors of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, was openly and profoundly influenced by the ethical framework of his Jewish background, as well as the recent experience of the Holocaust by Jews and others."

I was starting to like this document a lot and beginning to look forward to reading how the Board would call on the European Parliamentarians to also hold Israel to account on this score since the stack of documents detailing human rights abuses against Palestinians living on the West Bank is getting mighty high. A couple of examples can suffice for now. Here's a report from UNICEF published in March 2013 which examines the arrest and detention of children on the West Bank by the Israeli Defence Forces. Or try this one. Amnesty International's 'Trigger-happy: Israel's use of excessive force in the West Bank.

But of course the Board does not like to comment on human rights abuses where Israel is concerned. Jewish establishment institutions are typically liberal, religiously pluralistic and multi-cultural in all matters - until it comes to Israel. At which point a different set of rules seem to apply and René Cassin, even though he was a supporter of Zionism, is no longer a part of the reckoning.

So how does the Board see the Israel-Palestine situation and what calls does it make to MEPs?

Admittedly, the Board's manifesto went to print (or PDF) before the collapse of the John Kerry led attempt to switch back on the life-support system for the two state solution. So the Board did not have the benefit of hearing the hardly concealed blame that the Obama administration has put on the Israelis for scuppering even a framework for future talks. Nor would they have known that Kerry was going to use the dreaded word "apartheid" to describe the future of the West Bank without a peace settlement. An apartheid future, by the way, that most people think already arrived some years ago.

The Board will also have missed this helpful list of Israeli government activity regarding the West Bank which went on during the 9 months of Kerry's shuttle diplomacy. It was complied by the Institute for Middle East Understanding.

• Approved or advanced plans for 13,851 new settlement units to be built on occupied Palestinian land in violation of both international law and official US government policy.
• Destroyed approximately 500 Palestinian structures, including more than 300 homes, displacing almost 900 people.
• Killed approximately 50 Palestinians, including a number of minors, an 85-year-old man, and a mentally ill woman.

So having watched Obama and Kerry (Israel’s most important political allies in the world) stumble, fall and give up, what strategy does the Board put forward for how Europe should pick up the peace baton?

This is where the fantasy world of the Board of Deputies really comes into view.

In essence, the Board insists that Europe be nice to Israel as the best way to encourage it to make peace.

4.1 Peace

“The EU undoubtedly has a role in assisting the peace process. In addition to facilitating high level diplomatic meetings, the EU could offer a variety of incentives that encourage both sides to make strides towards peace, including financial investment packages in both Israel and the Palestinian Territories, and the promotion of trade between the two sides, building trust and links between them.”

The Board certainly does not want to see anything that could smack of pressure being applied. God forbid! And yet has anyone ever heard of a country giving up power, privilege or territory without some kind of external pressure being brought to bear? Please send me any examples that I've missed.

After all the money and political support that America has given to Israel (at least $3bn a year and endless political cover at the United Nations) you’d think they might have got something in return.

The idea of any kind of boycotts or sanctions or divestments aimed at changing Israeli policy is, of course, totally unacceptable to the Board. When it comes to Iran though, exactly the opposite applies. The Board calls on the EU not to drop the pressure on Tehran to stop its nuclear power programme. It seems only Israel has the right to have nuclear weapons. But the right of the Palestinians to call for non-violent economic protest is presented as unfair and illegitimate.

“…we urge MEPs and prospective MEPs to resist calls for boycotts of Israel. By their very nature, such measures attribute blame to only one side of the conflict, and through this stigmatisation they perpetuate a one-sided narrative. This in turn prompts intransigence from both sides. Moreover, Europe should be seen as a place to unite and not further divide.”

This line of argument always sounds so mature and reasonable but it hides the reality of a conflict that is staggeringly asymmetric. These are not two armies facing each other with equal strength and resources. The Palestinians are a people under occupation trying to protect what is left of their land, economy and culture by encouraging an international campaign to bring about a recognition of their neglected human rights following a near 50 year occupation.

I began to search in the manifesto to find any mention of the word “Settlements”. But no joy. This despite the international community (including the UK, EU and USA) all recognising that they are a central obstacle to any peace. Nor does the Board ever mention anything called “the occupied territories” or even “disputed territory”.

Why should any EU politician take this document seriously when it fails to mention the giant blue and white elephant sitting in the room?

I'm tempted to give up on the Board of Deputies ever waking up to the reality of Israel's actions on the West Bank. Or that the Board will ever acknowledge the crippling effects on the health and economic well-being of Palestinians in Gaza as a result of Israel’s blockade. It appears that the long night of Jewish leadership denial has a some way to go.

And while that long dark night of the Jewish soul continues, the Board will find itself losing the loyalty and respect of the next generation of British Jews. They are the ones who recognise that a fundamental conflict has arisen between Jewish values, as expressed by René Cassin, and the Jewish ethnic nationalism that the Board, chooses to defend, or at best remain silent on.

So my message to European parliamentary candidates is to learn the lesson of the Obama/Kerry failure. The softly, softly, carrot and carrot approach with the US trying its best to shift Israeli intransigence did not work. We have had more than 20 years of “process” with no peace to show for it. What we do now have, is half a million Israelis (and the number grows by the day) living on land that is meant to be a Palestinian State according to the EU.

It’s the end of the road for Obama on dealing with Israel. The US election cycle and the power of the American pro-Israel lobby mean further efforts will not be made.

So, it's time for Europe to step up and make a move.

European politicians have to overcome their post-Holocaust guilt complex and start to put some real pressure on Israel. If René Cassin visited the West Bank today I don't think it would take him long to spot that his Declaration was not being upheld. The Board of Deputies might like to think about that before co-opting him onto their political agenda. While they are at it, the Board may like to reflect on what Isaiah and Jeremiah would say about Jewish ethics on the West Bank too.

I'm bored of the Deputies and it's high time that this institution re-thought its relationship to the State of Israel. If it does not it will soon find itself increasingly irrelevant.

The debate has moved on. It's time for a new song for Europe.

"In Every Generation..." How Passover locks shut the Jewish imagination

For our Passover meal this year (Monday 14 April) I have a fifth question and answer to add to the traditional quartet of the Ma Nishtanah.

Why is this night different from all other nights?

Because on this night we make a meal, literally and metaphorically, of our unique story. Via mouthfuls of bitter herbs, salt water, nuts and raisins mixed with wine, and unleavened bread, we promote the damaging mindset that tells us that we are the world's eternal victims.

I expect an immediate challenge to my liturgical liberties.

"Enough already with your iconoclastic itch! How can you say such things? Surely, Passover is the quintessential expression of our physical and spiritual liberation. Hasn't the escape of the Hebrews from Egyptian slavery become the biblical paradigm of freedom from oppression that has brought hope to countless peoples across the centuries?"

I know, I know.

But my fifth question and answer is true none the less.

This is the night when we are most at risk from locking shut the Jewish capacity for empathy and blinding ourselves to the suffering of others - most notably, the Palestinians.

There will be some around the Seder table who will resent me wanting to recount the woes of another people ("the Palestinians for heaven's sake!") rather than those of my own kith and kin.

"Please can we celebrate the Exodus and our founding mythology of Jewish nationhood without dragging all that stuff into a nice family gathering! Let us enjoy the remembrance of our liberation by a God who intervenes in history with 'a strong hand and an outstretched arm'. Or are you going to insist on playing the part of the 'wicked son', the one in the Haggadah that cannot see the point of the celebration? Now have some more Motza and shut up!"

So, I will have to take a deep breath and try to explain how we have reached this immensely regrettable state of affairs. I may need a fifth cup of wine to get me through.

There are two powerful themes at work within the Seder night service. Two themes that have dominated Jewish self-understanding since at least the Middle Ages when the Seder night service, as we know it today, was first woven together.

The first theme can be characterised by this beautiful sentence that comes early on in our Passover meal:

"Let all who are hungry, come and eat; let all who are needy come and celebrate Passover."

This is the Jewish voice of welcome, of empathy. It marks the Exodus as the ancient anchor of Jewish ethics and reminds us of our timeless belief in a God that bends His universe towards justice and compassion.

The second theme arrives, with a chill air around it, towards the end of our evening of story telling, after the last terrible plague, the death of the Egypt firstborn, has persuaded Pharaoh to (temporarily) end his tyranny.

"In each and every generation they rise up against us to destroy us. And the Holy One, blessed be He, rescues us from their hands."

This is the collective cry of a people that has been oppressed and discriminated against throughout its history. A people left physically and psychologically scarred. A people that feels justice for them has been long delayed. This is our story told as one long pogrom.

It is a passage that reinforces the sense of the Jews under perennial siege all the way from biblical mythology to modern history. From the tribe of Amalek trying to thwart the slaves' escape from Egypt, to Haman's planned genocide of the Jews of Persia in the story of Esther, to Adolf Hitler's near success in making the European continent 'Judenrein'

In every generation there is always another Pharaoh who is out to get the Jews.

It's not difficult to understand how this idea repeated each year, at what is still the most widely observed Jewish festival, has profound emotional consequences for the Jewish imagination. And the resonance of the message does not end with the singing of the final verse of 'Hud Gadyah'.

We leave the Seder table convinced, once again, that we are the eternal victims, outsiders, never accepted, forever threatened. It is the worldview that helped to propel 19th century political Zionism into the 20th century Jewish mainstream. Zionism, brilliantly and dangerously, wrapped together a religious longing for spiritual and physical redemption with a nationalist colonial project dressed up as a rightful 'Return'. It was a compelling and heady mix. The world will never accept us, so the theory goes, so we must have our own state in our own land where we can live in safety and normalcy. And never mind who might be living there now, for our needs our greater than theirs, our story more important, and our ancient Promise more profound than any set of civil rights.

In our post-Holocaust, Israel-centred Jewish consciousness, the 'Every generation...' passage has continued to grow in significance, eating away at our moral sensibility. So much so, that we have difficulty understanding modern Jewish history and politics without constant reference to this paradigm of oppression and threat, or, as it is now more often described, 'Security'.

Benjamin Netanyahu happily taps into all of this with his new demand that the Palestinians accept Israel as a 'Jewish State' with all the implications that has for Israeli Christian and Muslim Palestinian citizens, the rights of Palestinian refugees and the chances of the State of the Jews ever being truly 'Jewish and Democratic'. John Kerry and the Obama administration have failed to challenge the same "In every generation..." mindset and so find themselves acting as Israel's legal team rather than as honest brokers of peace.

And meanwhile...whatever happened to: 'Let all who are hungry, come and eat...'?

In Hebrew, the word for ancient Egypt is 'Mitzrayim'. The same word can also be translated as 'the narrow place'. Today, we Jews are living our lives in a narrow nationalist echo chamber where the chanting of our past suffering bounces off the walls blocking out every other sound to our ears.

It is true, we celebrated many Seder nights in the ghettos and shtetls of European oppression. But we are now in a radically different place and we are yet to adjust to our new circumstances. We have failed to notice that in this generation it is we who have the power, we who have status in every country where we live, we who have a nation state with a great army and Super Power backing. And it is we who have constructed our own apparatus of prejudice and injustice in the very land we call 'Holy'. Today, we have become the Pharaoh we once despised.

At this point I'm hoping that my Seder night companions will turn to me and ask, with at least a hint of humility: "So what is to be done, Rav Micah?"

I have a remedy. But it will not be easy.

A new Exodus is needed to set the Jewish mind free and open our imagination to those that suffer at our hands. The theme embodied by "In every generation..." must be understood anew. It must be claimed for the same Jewish spirit that invites the hungry and oppressed to share at our table. We must see that in every generation, even among ourselves, the narrow vision of 'Pharaoh' can rise up. Our task is is to bring it down in the name of the same God that rescued our ancestors with 'a strong hand and an outstretched arm' and delivered us to uphold a moral universe.

This year - we remain trapped in the narrow place. Next year - may we find our new Exodus to liberation.

Hag Sameach!

P.S. If you found this blog post provocative, stimulating or just plain annoying, then you may like to read 'Occupy the Hagaddah' from 2012  and the poem "On the Impossibility of Passover" from 2013.

Anne Frank revisited for Holocaust Memorial Day 2014

This week sees Holocaust Memorial Day in the United Kingdom (Monday 27 January).

I thought I would re-send a link to a post written two years ago which remains the most read article on Micah's Paradigm Shift.

A Letter to Anne Frank

Talkin' Jewish Self-determination Blues - By God

After watching with growing impatience from the sidelines, God has finally decided to enter the Israel/Palestine fray. His intervention has taken the form of a Talkin' Blues lyric dictated exclusively to Micah's Paradigm Shift with additional commentary from Micah himself.

God would like to thank Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, the Psalmists and the Hebrew Prophets in recognition that inspiration cuts both ways.

Talkin' Jewish Self-determination Blues

God looked up
And God looked down
And God surveyed the scene

He rose majestic from His mighty throne
And told the angels to pass the golden phone
He punched the numbers: one, nine, four, eight
Because things had reached a sorry state

The Almighty had not slept well
And now he had something to tell

Is anybody going to take this call
Or have you all gone down to the shopping mall?
I'm slow to anger, I don't want to sound mean
So I'll leave this message on your answer machine

I will not break the covenant we share
But it sure looks tattered and needs repair
I know we've got this special thing going
But I've seen just what you folks are sowing

And then He laid it on the line
The very thing that was bothering Him

I woke up this morning and here's the news
I've got the Jewish self-determination blues
Did you really expect me to have to choose
When I saw somebody else would have to lose?

Are you telling me you're incomplete
Without a nation state beneath your feet?
Have you normalised the Jewish condition
Are you in a more secure position?

Of course He knows His history too
Compassion is His thing

I know your suffering, I've felt your pain
But if you stay the victim forever, you'll go insane
I wept when I saw your children burn
But we can choose the lessons we learn

Who wants borders and bad relations
When you can be a light unto the nations
Your Hebrew prophets made that pitch
Now which one of you has thrown the switch?

You know He's merciful and gracious too
I thought you'd be glad to hear that

You call it a dispute, a conflict, a battle
To make people feel it's too hard to tackle
But two armies are not what I see
This is a cruel mismatch that cannot be

You say two states could be just fine
"You have yours and I'll have mine"
But I've looked at what you say you'll share
That's one strange definition of fair

Do justice, love mercy, walk humbly
You can't say He doesn't keep it simple

I'm cosmopolitan but I'm not rootless
From up here your nationalism looks fruitless 
From the hills of Zion I had more in mind 
Your works have left what's best behind

This place could be a homeland of course
But what's gone on here requires remorse
My covenant became expanded
When the Christians and the Muslims landed

Remember this is God, the light of the world
He doesn't do self-hating

And in the corridors of power
There's no justice about to flower
A peace process without end
Will never help to heal or mend

You say BDS is an unholy mess
With echoes of the Shoah no less 
You say it will criminalise and demonise
I say it will open up some global eyes

He rescued us from slavery
I think he knows what justice looks like

I grow weary, I grow tired
Of a covenant so mired
You and I have disagreed before
And no doubt there'll be more in store

So Hear O Israel, it's not too late
To look at your doorpost and upon your gate 
I am the Lord Almighty, the King of Kings
Call me when you want to talk about these things

And so the Sovereign of the Universe
The God of Abraham and of Sarah
Abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness 
Clothed in immense power
Hung up the telephone

So that was it, the lecture's over
The aim was just to make you sober
You don't believe in God you say
For heaven's sake call Him anyway

Micah's Paradigm Shift, Copyright January 2014

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.