It's Complicated

(Picture Note -- Sandra and I at the beach in Tel Aviv -- I am really going to miss this place.)

During our first weeks in rabbinical school, we were told that our program was a combination professional school, graduate school, and seminary. Although I believe that there is truth in this analysis (after all, our hours spent in class seem to reflect three programs rather than one) I think that there is also an indefinable fourth school at play—let’s call it the discard-all-preconceived-notions-school— perhaps we might even call it the “pay close attention and you might learn something really valuable” school. HUC chooses to call it the “Israel Seminar,” and for anyone who decided this year to allow for the possibility that someone in Israel might know something more than they about this region, the Israel Seminar provided an education that money simply cannot buy.

I had my own share of preconceptions about Israel. As a self-proclaimed moderate I believed that I possessed an objective and studied position of moral superiority that allowed me to act as critic and apologeticist—that my deep reading of both Dershowitz and Chomsky gave me balance, that my mistrust of main stream media to report on Israel accurately demonstrated my wisdom and that my passion for the subject of Israel gave me legitimacy.

But it is complicated.

This year in the Israel seminar we have been immersed in thoughts and perspectives, readings and voices that crossed every possible spectrum of the debates and challenged any possible preconceived notion. We have run the gauntlet of intellectual challenge through Orthodox, Reform and Secular religious voices, through Arab and Jewish voices, through government and civilian voices, and through voices for and opposed to any subject of the Israel-Palestine continuum of debate that could be dreamed up. We have walked through Haredi neighborhoods and sat in Mosques. We have crossed the green-line and walked through military bases. We have heard the voices of bereaved on both sides of the conflict. We have been challenged with prevarication and uncomfortable directness—with naïve wand-waving solutions and casual non-PC and unselfconscious racism. At the end of the day, we have all learned that it is complicated.

In the past I have debated friends and strangers regarding Israel. My openly-worn kippah in America makes me a target on the street for direct questions or proxy condemnations and my decision to become a rabbi makes me a target for acquaintances to vent in-vogue anti-Israel sentiment. After a year of immersion in the subject I have one answer to offer—it is complicated.

My most strongly held convictions, drawn from both right and left-leaning political, social and religious stances can no longer be offered to counteract the “assurances” of others. What about my own assurance, for example, that ultra-Orthodox Jews represent a monolithic “wrong” in the religious debate? Walk a day in Haredi clothing—long enough to be shoved into the street with non-Shalom based enthusiasm by a non-Heredi, then study in-depth their political motivations and support those beliefs in a political exercise and see how easy it is to continue to arbitrarily other them and deny their own place the larger narrative of Eretz Israel and Am Israel. I may disagree profoundly with the Haradiim regarding many and most subjects, but the blanket condemnation I once held? It is complicated.

How about settlers? When I came here I knew that the settler movement was the root of all evil. As I sit here today I am still against the settlements on principle and for the dismantling of the remaining settlements—at least to Clinton proposed levels from 2000—yet that is a principle that is in many ways nothing more than a counterpoint in a debate. I will argue against settlers and settlements, but my life has still been transformed by meeting settlers and visiting settlements. Demonizing a movement is easy—demonizing real people that are no more or less fully human than the rest of us is much harder. There is simply no monolithic reason that can be given to account for every soul and family that chooses or has chosen to live in these politically, religiously, ethically and sociologically problematic locations. The headline stories of human rights abuses may be real, but they are only a part of a larger story. Blaming one side in an arbitrary fury of self righteousness requires willful ignorance of the larger picture. So is it with the settlements—so is it with the security fence—so is it with any part of the conflict you choose to examine. It is complicated.

Even the one item that I knew could never be overturned—the fact that the majority of the world media is anti-Israel (and on occasion anti-Semitic) on principle cannot stand up to deeper learning. Yes, there is a general and pervasive anti-Israel bias to world reporting, but according to a journalist inside this region such as Matthew Kalman, this is as much due to the willful arrogance of an Israeli government that does nothing to balance the very activist five (to Israel’s zero) Palestinian news agencies. How can Israel’s message be heard—how can the world know anything at all about the “other side” of the most damning issues (and yes I assure you that there is a compelling other side) when the other side has chosen to not even show up at the party?

The final assessment of all these challenges and experiences, if indeed such an assessment is even remotely reasonable, is that I must profoundly distrust anyone that presents a simple answer or a sound-byte sized condemnation of Israel. Out of all the things that I feel I no longer can answer with confidence, I feel that I can stand with great confidence with the statement that anyone offering blanket adulation or condemnation has chosen a path of ignorance. There are no easy answers. This region and the national and religious narratives of all people that exist here and claim this place as their place all have legitimacy and all have a share of responsibility for the very real problems. The us-good/them-bad mentality on any side is much more a part of the problem then it is any useful step towards a solution. Learning about this region takes work, and it takes significant learning to get past any of the dominating us/them understandings of the life and the conflict here. As I prepare to wrap up my studies here, I am still a moderate-leaning progressive religious Zionist, if that statement means anything at all— but I also believe that that identity, thanks to a truly unique and profound educational experience, is tempered with perspective that is the beginning of wisdom—a wisdom that suggests that if I again find myself believing in simple descriptions or easy answers that I have lost that perspective and either need to shut up or come back here and relearn about the beautiful complexities of the land and people. It is complicated, but it is also amazing.