Oh Jerusalem!

This comes not only as valuable comment but also by way of introducing Rabbi Michael Lerner - to the blog, and into Australia as another Jewish voice to the One so often heard as commentator on and commentary about Israel.

(monday, february 19 2007 @ 11:22 am pst)
Tikkun Editor Rabbi Michael Lerner argues that by seeking to discredit critics of Israel as "anti-Semitic" or "self-hating Jews," Israel's blind supporters in the Jewish world only succeed in emptying the charge of anti-Semitism of any meaning.

There is no New Anti-Semitism
Rabbi Michael Lerner The San Jose Mercury 2/7/07

The N.Y. Times reported on January 31 about the most recent attempt by the American Jewish Community to conflate intense criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism. In a neat little example of slippery slope, the report on “Progressive Jewish Thought and the New Anti-Semitism” written by Alvin H. Rosenfeld moves from exposing the actual anti-Semitism of those who deny Israel’s right to exist—and hence deny to the Jewish people the same right to national self-determination that they grant to every other people on the planet (the anti-war group International Answer is a good example of that, though Rosenfeld doesn’t cite them)—to those who powerfully and consistently attack Israel’s policies toward Palestinians, see Israel as racist the way that it treats Israeli-Arabs (or even Sephardic Jews), or who analogise Israel’s policies to those of apartheid as instituted by South Africa.
The Anti-Defamation League sponsored a conference on this same topic in San Francisco on Jan.28, conspicuously failing to invite Tikkun, Jewish Voices for Peace and Brit Tzedeck ve Shalom, the three major Jewish voices critiquing Israeli policy yet also strong supporters of Israel’s security.
Meanwhile, the media has been abuzz with stories of Jews denouncing former President Jimmy Carter for his book Palestine: Peace or Apartheid. The same charges of anti-Semitism that have consistently been launched against anyone who criticises Israeli policy is now being launched against the one American leader who managed to create a lasting (albeit cold) peace between Israel and a major Arab state (Egypt).
Yet there is nothing “new” about this or about this alleged anti-Semitism that these mainstream Jewish voices seek to reveal. From the moment I started Tikkun Magazine twenty years ago as “the liberal alternative to Commentary and the voices of Jewish conservatism and spiritual deadness in the organised Jewish community” our magazine has been attacked in much of the organised Jewish community as “self-hating Jews” (though our editorial advisory board contains some of the most creative Jewish theologians, rabbis, Israeli peace activist and committed fighters for social justice). The reason? We believe that Israeli policy toward Palestinians, manifested most dramatically in the Occupation of the West Bank for what will soon be forty years and in the refusal of Israel to take any moral responsibility for its part in the creation of the Arab refugee problem, is immoral, irrational, self-destructive, a violation of the highest values of the Jewish people, and a serious impediment to world peace.
What the Jewish establishment organisations have done is to make invisible the strong roots in Judaism for a different kind of policy. The most frequently repeated injunction in Torah are variations of the following command: “Do not oppress the stranger (the ‘other’). Remember that you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” Instead, the Jewish establishment has turned Judaism into a cheer-leading religion for a particular national state that has a lot of Jews, but has seriously lost site of the Jewish values which early Zionists hoped would find realisation there.
The impact of the silencing of debate about Israeli policy on Jewish life has been devastating. We at Tikkun are constantly encountering young Jews who say that they can no longer identify with their Jewishness, because they have been told that their own intuitive revulsion at watching the Israeli settlers with IDF support violate the human rights of Palestinian civilians in the West Bank or their own questioning of Israel’s right to occupy the West Bank are proof that they are “self-hating Jews.” The Jewish world is driving away its own young.
But the most destructive impact of this new Jewish Political Correctness is on American foreign policy debates. We at Tikkun have been involved in trying to create a liberal alternative to AIPAC and the other Israel-can-do-no-wrong voices in American politics. When we talk to Congressional representatives who are liberal or even extremely progressive on every other issue, they tell us privately that they are afraid to speak out about the way Israeli policies are destructive to the best interests of the United States or the best interests of world peace—lest they too be labelled anti-Semitic and anti-Israel. If it can happen to Jimmy Carter, some of them told me recently, a man with impeccable moral credentials, then no one is really politically safe.
When this bubble of repression of dialogue explodes into open resentment at the way Jewish Political correctness has been imposed, it may really yield a “new” anti-Semitism. To prevent that, the voices of dissent on Israeli policy must be given the same national exposure in the media and American politics that the voices of the Jewish establishment have been given.

the humiliation of the Word

Mystery of SILENCE

Now we are coming to the last characteristic to keep in mind about the word : it is mystery. The most explicit and the best explained word still brings me inevitably back to mystery. This mystery has to do with the other person, whom I cannot fathom, and whose word provides me with an echo of his person, but only an echo. I perceive this echo, knowing that there is something more. This is the mystery I feel as I recognise spontaneously that I do not understand well or completely what the other person says. There is a mystery for me in my own lack of comprehension, as I become aware of it. How am I going to react ? How can I respond ? I sense a whole area of mystery in the fact that I am not very sure I understand correctly. I am not very sure about answering. I am not very sure of what I am answering.

There is always a margin around our conversation. More precisely, conversation is like this printed page, framed on all sides by white margins, without words, but which can be filled in with any word at all. The margins situate a conversation and give it the possibility of rebounding and beginning again. They allow the other person to participate with his marginal comments. I am aware of this possibility, but I do not know what marginal comments are going to appear beside what I say, changing it. Here again we are dealing with the unexpected. And we come up against the mystery of silence.

The mystery of silence as a break in discourse, not silence in the sense of something that discourse fills up! The enigmatic, disturbing, saddening silence of the other person is an inconvenience as I wait. I expect a response, an explanation, or a statement from him. He falls silent, and I no longer know where or how to take my place in relation to him. More precisely, I no longer know how to be as I face him. I find myself faced with a mystery which eludes me when there is a lull in the conversation. I expect words, but this silence constitutes a chasm in the word, which continues unspoken. It is unheard, but it cannot be eliminated. Thus in all sorts of ways the word is related to mystery. It expresses and engulfs us in mystery. There is a reason why mythos and logos go together.
- from “The Humiliation of the Word” Jacques Ellul pp 25 - 26 1985 ISBN 0-8028-0069-6

Aesthetics in context

My first posting introduced by way of a statement recaste as question the role of aesthetics came from Bishop N.T. Wright of Durham. The following sermon provides useful starting point. His reference to artists and aesthetes was affirmed at both his Sydney and Brisbane conferences at Easter 2006. Such folk were given voice at question time.

Read it here: Apocalyptic and the Beauty of God (Isaiah 65. 17–25; Revelation 21.9–27), a sermon at Harvard Memorial Chapel, October 22 2006 by the William Belden Noble Lecturer, Bishop N. T. Wright(Bishop of Durham.

About whom does he write?

THE RIVER

Once
there was in our house a river
magnanimous
delicate steps
My father made his rosary from its minnows
and the carpet we spread was made from the mist
Once
a thief came to our house
He came from beyond the villages
and axes were landed on his neck
and split him in halves
Since then
My father’s heart dried up and he died
My sisters ended up in poverty and widowhood
But my mother insisted
on digging the earth
scratching with her fingers
believing water will appear.

- Hashim Shafiq

Hashim Shafiq was born and grew up in Iraq. He now lives in London. This voice also comes from Naomi Shihad Nye's collection.

a voice of experience

From the Diary of an Almost-Four-Year-Old

Tomorrow, the bandages
will come off. I wonder
will I see half an orange,
half an apple, half my
mother’s face
with my one remaining eye?

I did not see the bullet
but felt its pain
exploding in my head.
His image did not
vanish, the soldier
with a big gun, unsteady
hands, and a look in
his eyes
I could not understand.

If I can see him so clearly
with my eyes closed,
it could be that inside our heads
we each have one spare set
of eyes
to make up for the ones we lose.

Next month, on my birthday,
I’ll have a brand new glass eye,
maybe things will look round
and fat in the middle -
I’ve gazed through all my marbles,
they made the world look strange

I hear a nine-month-old
has also lost an eye,
I wonder if my soldier
shot her too - a soldier
looking for little girls who
look him in the eye-
I'm old enough, almost four,
I’ve seen enough of life,
but she’s just a baby
who didn’t know any better
- Hanan Mikha-il ‘Ashrawi


As with the poem by Adonis this poem is published in a collection of poems now called "the flag of childhood - poems from the middle east" selected by Naomi Shihab Nye. ISBN 0-689-81233-7 (hc) It was previously published with the title "The Space Between Our Footsteps" which remains an excellent title AND an invitation to explore for oneself. Hence its inclusion under this particular label

Lest this point is ignored - as I suspect it might. The four year old, the infant AND the young soldier are all hurt, damaged and victims.

A justified complaint

COMPLAINT
The proprietor of a bar in the Russian Compound received complaints from patrons about sounds that filtered into his bar at night and tainted their drinking pleasure. He sent numerous letters to the police, pointing out that these unsettling voices, as he called them, came from the gaol across the street, travelling from the interrogation rooms deep under the police station - four, some said six floors underground - all the way up to his bar on the street level. He even visited the police headquarters in person to make his case heard, but the voices persisted. Finally, the bar owner had no choice but to increase the volume of the music playing in his bar during quieter hours. His hearing deteriorated.

from “Picnic Grounds - a novel in fragments” by Oz Shelach ISBN 0-87286-419-7

Terrorism exploited

15.00 hours on Saturday 23rd September, 2006 War was declared with a pre-emptive strike on the illegal outpost of the enemy. Terrorist attacks had occurred on new settlements established according to all international and national notions of proper governance adjacent to their illegal outpost. Consequently the decision, contemplated over recent times, was put into action. The outer cover was removed and bunkers were destroyed on the north and the west of their position.
As a democratic and peace loving power we humanely relocated their moveable possessions to a location of our choosing to the west of their present location. This better suited us but was closer to infrastructure required by the terrorists for rebuilding their settlement. It was also in a more clearly defined and bound area - which we, of course could monitor.
After sufficient damage to their location had been achieved our forces rested to deal with other ‘democratic issues’. However, such was the behaviour of the terrorists that the key player returned in amazingly quick time to recommence damage control of “his” area.
A counter attack by the democratic forces was immediately organised. The key player was forced to withdraw .... further significant damage was done to their infrastructure .... more was removed to the new area which we of the democratic and peace loving forces had generously arranged for them. ... some was consigned to the new settlements which we had established to repair the damage done by the terrorist forces.
It is recognised, reluctantly, that vigilance and forceful purpose must prevail over the next week to see that no further attacks are made on the new settlements nor any further attempts are made to rebuild on their old site.
Lest any of you feel an injustice has been done you are reminded that these terrorists had previously established their outpost in a well defined and established area known as “Arbor fructus Oliva”. Furthermore, the said arbor fructus oliva had been destroyed as a result of terrorist action. The democratic forces had reluctantly accepted this invasion but when new settlements set up to redress this loss were also attacked; justice cried out to be met. It is an undeniable truth, that all self respecting democratic countries should be able to grow potatoes and beans in peace and safety.
The terrorists are known in better times as scrub turkeys but that does not detract from the seriousness of the situation. Until they recognise the rights of the democratic and peace loving forces ( NAMELY US ) they remain terrorists.

An invitation to answer a question

Beginning Speech.
That child I was
Came to me once
An unfamiliar face

He said nothing - we walked
Each glancing in silence at the other
One step
an alien river
Flowing
 
Our common origins
Brought us together
And we separated
A forest written by the earth
And told by the seasons
 
Child that I once was, advance
What now brings us together?
And what have we to say to each other?
 
Adonis (from Syria)

An interesting quote

From Tom Wright, which I discovered:

Is aesthetics to be a border around reality or a window on reality?