"Jerusalem, a city that is joined together" (Psalm 122)

"Jerusalem, a city that is joined together."  (Psalm 122)

Shalom, shalom!

Today is Yom Yerushalayim, Jerusalem Day, the anniversary (according to the Jewish calendar) of the day 46 years ago when Israeli troops fought fierce battles to unite the city under Israeli rule. I remember that day.

Between 1948 and 1967, Jews were unable to visit the Kotel or any of the other sites in the Old City.  The Jewish Quarter, destroyed during the War of Independence, remained in ruins.  Mount Scopus, to the north, though technically Israeli territory, was only accessible by means of a UN convey, and so Haddassah Hospital and the Hebrew University campus remained desolate and effectively off limits.  The view of the city from the south was also in Jordanian hands.  The closest Israelis could come to the Old City was to ascend a shrine on the Israeli-controlled salient of Mount Zion, and to peer in from there toward the Temple Mount. 

Although Israelis yearned for Jerusalem, they did not enter into the Six Day War with the intention of capturing the city.  They cautioned King Hussein (the ruler of Jordan, which then controlled all of the West Bank, including the old city of Jerusalem), to stay out of the war.  But he didn't.  Shells fell in the western part of the city.  In response, the Israelis attacked and, within a day or so, defeated the Jordanians and united the city. 

Since then, the city has been under Israeli control.  Once pockmarked with bullet holes, the "No Man's Land" areas along the old border through the city were demolished, and parks and expensive housing have taken their place.  New roads were built connecting the two halves of the city, and suburb after suburb were built to surround the city like a necklace, reinforcing the Israeli connection with the entire city.  At the same time, Israel has permitted each religious community to maintain its own shrines and has permitted people of all religious faiths to visit and pray in the city.  Each day, thousands of visitors--Jews, Christians, and Moslems--flock to the city.  

Notwithstanding the remarkable religious freedom that Israel has provided (rare in this part of the world), Israel's rule has not come without controversy.  This is not surprising.  The Jews living in the city hold Israeli citizenship; the Palestinians (38% of the population) do not.  Moreover, the city may be "joined together" but it is far from united.  There are secular Jewish neighborhoods and there are ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods.  There are Christian Arab enclaves and there are Moslem Arab neighborhoods.  Yes, there are areas where everyone seems to meet.  (One interesting example is the upscale Mamilla Mall, built along the old border.)  But for the most part, Palestinians and Israelis have little contact with one another.

Today, there will be concerts and other events throughout the city, and a parade.  This is indeed a time for a celebration.  We should never take for granted our ability to view, to visit and to live in the city of Jerusalem.  For most of Jewish history, these rights were denied to us.     

But as much as this is a time for celebration, it is also, inevitably, a time for reflection.  Are there ways to diminish the tension in the holy city?  Are there ways not currently being pursued that could better unite everyone who lives here and everyone who visits here?  Or will there always be an uneasy calm here, at best?

Let me close with a poem by the great Hebrew poet, Yehuda Amichai (1924-2000).   It appeared in this morning's Haaretz.  

Jerusalem is a Spinning Carousel

Yehuda Amichai

Jerusalem is a carousel spinning round and round

from the Old City through every neighborhood 

and back to the Old.

And you can’t get off. If you jump you’re risking your life

and if you step off when it stops you must pay again

to get back on for more turns that will never end.

Instead of painted elephants and horses to ride,

religions go up, down and around on their axes

to unctuous melodies from the houses of prayer.

Jerusalem is a seesaw: Sometimes I go down,

to past generations and sometimes up, into the sky,

then like a child dangling on high, legs swinging, I cry

"I want to get down, Daddy!" "Daddy, I want to get down!"

"Daddy, get me down!"

And like that, all the saints go up into the sky.

They’re like children screaming, "Daddy, I want to stay high!"

"Daddy don’t bring me down!" 

"Our Father Our King, leave me on high!" 

"Our Father Our King!"


Translated by Vivian Eden; published with permission of Hanna Amichai.

***

A Word I Hadn't Known

The other day, I heard a word I hadn't heard before:  "Hamshush."  

Hamshush is an acronym.  Israelis love acronyms.  This one is composed of the letters "khet," "mem," "shesh," "vav," and "shesh"  (חמשו"ש).  These refer to "hamishi," "shishi," "and shabbat" -- in other words, the fifth, sixth and seventh days of the week.  

Why has this term arisen? It's arisen because, as elsewhere in the industrial world, Israelis crave their weekends. Weekends aren't very long here -- though they're longer than they used to be.  

Once upon a time, Israeli workers didn't have to work from Friday afternoon through the end of Shabbat on Saturday night.  Whether you were religious or not, that was tough.  For religious Jews, that meant that Shabbat preparations had to be squeezed into Friday afternoon.  For non-religious Jews, their one weekend day was one on which there was limited public transportation and diminished commercial activity.

Over the past twenty years, I have noticed that things have changed.  More and more Israelis don't work on Fridays at all.  Colleges and universities rarely schedule classes on Fridays.  The government is contemplating eliminating Friday classes for most school children.  Friday and Saturday together have come to form what seems closer to an American-style weekend. 

But as a result of that, a new phenomenon has arisen:  adding Thursday evening to the mix.

It has the most impact on men and women doing army service.  Soldiers in the army who get off for Shabbat are usually discharged on Friday mornings.  They may barely get home in time for Shabbat.  Saturday night, they might stay up late, but they've got to be back at their base early Sunday morning.  It's tough. 

 Soldiers returning to their bases on a Sunday morning.  

(Photo taken at the main train station in Tel Aviv. That looks like an awfully heavy pack, doesn't it?)

However, sometimes soldiers get to leave their base on Thursday afternoon (Yom Hamishi), and they get to return to their base a little later on Sunday morning.  That makes it seem almost like an American weekend:  they get from Thursday evening through Sunday morning off.

THAT is a "Hamshush."  And it's worth it. 

Two steps forward ...

Just the other day, Israel's cabinet approved a new series of banknotes to be produced by the Bank of Israel.  As in the United States, Israel's government periodically issues new bills to thwart conterfeiters.  In addition, these new bills will be more colorful and therefore more distinct one from the other -- and thus easier for the visually impaired to use.  

Gracing the four new bills will be the portraits of four modern Hebrew poets.   The voices of these poets inspired Zionists for the better part of the twentieth century, up to and including the early decades of the State of Israel.  Even today, these poets remain beloved among many within Israel.  

Significantly, two of the four are women:  the poet known simply as "Rachel," or "Rachel the Poetess" (Rachel Bluwstein; 1890-1931), 


and Leah Goldberg (1911-1970).  





The other two are Shaul (Saul) Tchernichovsky (1875-1943)

and Natan Alterman (1910-1970). 

I have long admired the poetry of all four of these poets, and  I look forward to seeing -- and reading -- the new banknotes.  (In addition to their portraits, selections from their poetry will appear on the bills.)

Women's groups cheered the inclusion of the two women.  But the choices engendered controversy nonetheless, for these poets are all of European descent.  None is Sephardic or Mizrahi.  (The term "Mizrahi" generally refers to Jews from Near Eastern, Arabic-speaking, countries.)  

Predictably, Arye Deri, the leader of Shas (Israel's ultra-Orthodox Sephardic political party), saw the exclusion as deliberate and part of a pattern of abuse:  "This ... is a symptom of the government's behavior toward the Mizrahi public. ... Mizrahim are excluded from the Supreme Court, academia, the media, the Israel Prize, and the current government, and now it's reached our banknotes." 

Arye Deri has long been quick to decry discrimination against Mizrahim in Israeli society.  When he was indicted for corruption in the 1990s, he argued that he was being targetted because he was a Mizrahi political leader.  (He was later convicted.)  

But he has a point.  Mizrahi Jews faced terrible discrimination during their arrival in Israel in the 1950's and '60's, and beyond.  Even today, the vestiges of past discrimination are still present, and it's easy enough to consider this one of them.  If the faces on Israel's banknotes are intended to represent the nation, they should be representative, and not simply be drawn from one "edah" ("community") within the nation.  

Incidentally, it also did not go unnoticed that no Arab has yet appeared on an Israeli banknote.  "During the public debate on whether to put a Mizrahi portrait on the new banknotes, we didn't see even a hint of intent to put a non-Jew on the bills," complained Issawi Freij.  Freij is a 42-year old accountant who represents the Meretz party in the Knesset.  Freij is right; no groundswell of support has yet arisen to put an Arab face on Israeli money.

Regarding the absence of Mizrahi portraits, retired Supreme Court Justice Jacob Turkel, who was responsible for recommending the new designs, didn't seem to appreciate the hurt feelings.  

"I'm not belittling anyone -- some of our greatest spiritual masters came from Spain, but this obsession is silly," he said.  "I can't even define what I am, since my ancestors were exiled from Spain to Turkey and from there to Galicia 500 years ago.  It seems pretty insignificant to me, but maybe there are people for whom this is important."

Indeed there are.  Identity politics is alive and well in Israel.  There are other groups as well who also see themselves on the margins; for example, ultra-Orthodox Jews.  

Although it has probably never occurred to anyone to put the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, on Israeli currency (after all, he never came to Israel), for a while there was interest in creating a banknote with the portrait of Rav Abraham Isaac Kook, the first Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi (1865-1935).  

Rav Kook was known for his appreciation for, and his willingness to reach out to, the secular halutzim (pioneers), notwithstanding their resistance to traditional religious practice.  

Perhaps, as one editorial in today's paper put it, a little sensitivity is called for.  True, modern Zionism arose in Europe, so it isn't surprising that the greatest classical Zionist poets were of European background. But surely there are Mizrahi poets or scholars or community leaders whom it would be proper for the State to honor.    Prime Minister Netanyahu tried to "make shalom."  He recommended that the next person to be portrayed on Israeli currency should be Yehudah Ha-Levi, the great medieval Sephardic poet.  Yehudah Ha-Levi did come from Spain, and he did compose beautiful and heartfelt odes to Zion, but I would think that a more contemporary figure would be more suitable (and more responsive to the concerns that have been voiced).  

A recent op-ed in Haaretz recommended several 20th century Mizrahi writers, including Jacqueline Kahanoff (1917-1979), a Jewish-Egyptian writer who eventually emigrated to Israel. 

Although she wrote in English, Kahanoff has been influential among several generations of Israeli Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews.  

Thinking about this subject has given me a great idea:  to teach a course on modern Zionism in which the stories behind those portrayed on Israeli banknotes are presented.  What a great way to teach the history of Zionism!  After all, can you imagine understanding the history of Zionism without being introduced to writers like Chaim Nachman Bialik and S.Y. Agnon?  Or philanthropists like Moses Montefiore and Edmond de Rothschild?  Or community leaders like Henrietta Szold?  Or pre-state political leaders like Theodor Herzl, Zeev Jabotinsky and Chaim Weizman? Or Zionist supporters from abroad, like Albert Einstein (who almost became Israel's first president)?  Or early Israeli  leaders like David Ben Gurion, Yitzhak Ben Zvi, Zalman Shazar, Levi Eshkol and Golda Meir?  

In any event, I hope that the next time the Bank of Israel recommends new banknotes, they pay more attention to the range of communities that make up Israel's increasingly heterogeneous society.  





   

A Matter of Time

About ten days ago, I found it difficult to figure out what time it was.   That can be -- and was -- very disconcerting.  

The reason for this odd situation is that I went to the Kotel, the Western Wall of the Temple Mount.  

No, it had nothing to do with the timelessness of the prayers that are recited there.  It had to do with the fact that the Kotel is closer to the Palestinian Authority than my apartment.  Let me explain.

It was on Thursday a week ago, Rosh Hodesh Iyar, that I went to the Kotel.  (The reason, briefly, was to observe and to lend support to the efforts of Women of the Wall, "WOW".  I'll say more about WOW in another blogpost.)

As I was preparing to leave the Kotel, I looked at my iPhone and discovered that I had somehow gained an hour.  I had been at the Kotel for well over an hour.  I expected it to be around 8:30 am.  Yet, according to my iPhone, it was only 7:30 am!  The times for all of my appointments had also, somehow, shifted.  I was puzzled, but too busy to do anything about it.  When I got back to my apartment, I took another look at my iPhone.  Miraculously, everything had returned to normal.  

What was going on?  

The answer apparently has to do with Israel, the Palestinians, and Apple.

My iPhone, which is now serves as my watch and my calendar, automatically sets its internal clock according to the local governmental authority.  Most of the time, that means Israel.  After all, that's where I'm living right now.  

But sometimes, when I go close to the borders of the Palestinian Authority, something strange happens.  

(The dotted line on the map above indicates the pre-1967 "Green Line," which is not identical to the borders of the Palestinian Authority.)

My phone behaves as if the Palestinian Authority hasn't yet shifted onto daylight saving time--even though it has.  True, the Authority did not shift its clock at precisely the same time that the Israelis did, but its clock is now officially identical to that of Israel.  But Apple apparently doesn't know that!  Hence, it synchronizes my clock with what it thinks is the correct time in Ramallah or Hebron: namely, one hour earlier than in Israel.  The time on my iphone clock can shift back and forth several times during the day, depending on where in Jerusalem I happen to be.

Is this a metaphor?  Do any of us know what time it is, anyway, in this region?  

The Palestinians -- or, at least, some of them -- act sometimes as though time is on their side -- which, given the demography, may seem a reasonable perspective.  If present trends continue, the number of Arabs living west of the Jordan River will continue to increase.  Soon, it will exceed the number of Jews.  From the perspective of the Palestinians, why not wait until that demographic shift has occured?  Then, they could insist on becoming citizens of a single, unified state -- which would ultimately be Palestinian in character. How could that right be denied them? Why bother to return to the negotiating table until that happens?  (Other Palestinians, who seek to create an independent Palestinian state separate from Israel, are less sanguine, as they witness the expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank.) 

On the other side, many Israelis also believe that time is on their side.  They have lost hope in achieving peace with the Palestinians.  They don't believe that the Palestinians will ever be statisfied with anything less than the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state.  They would rather focus on improving Israel's position on the ground by building new settlements and strengthening existing ones, and put off making concessions.  To them, this path, even though it may mean enduring at least a low level of tension and even sporadic eruptions of violence, is preferable to seeking, vainly, to eliminate the tension altogether.  

(Other Israelis realize that it is likely that, eventually, Israel will be forced to choose (a) to exercise political, military and economic control over a hostile population in excess of its own; (b) to grant citizenship to all Palestinians and pursue the "one state solution"; or (c) to withdraw from much of the West Bank in order to remain a democratic, Jewish state.  Those who see such a choice as inevitable, as only a "matter of time," consider option (c) the only tenable and tolerable one, and therefore urge Israel to negotiate now, so as to carry out that transition as smoothly and peacefully as possible.  But that view is a minority one here.)

Hence, each side generally publicly acts as though time is on its side.  

But is it?

The Day After

“Boker tov, Boker tov!  Are these fresh?” asked the handsome, confident, breezy young man as he glided into the bakery and fingered the Danish.  The store had been closed the day before because of Yom HaAtzmaut.

“No,” the attractive young woman behind the counter flippantly responded, as she tapped her manicured fingernails against the glass. “What do you think?  They’re from two days ago.”  Was she bored? Peeved? Interested? Was she telling the truth?

This isn’t the first time these two have spoken.

That’s the kind of place where I sometimes go to get rolls in the morning: very down-to-earth.  This morning was a little different from usual.

“Can I help you?”  It was the older woman behind the counter who had turned to address me.  She obviously wanted to give the younger woman and the other customer a bit of “private time” to work on their relationship.

“Sure, I’ll take some rolls.”  As she wrapped them up for me, she said, “Isn’t it awful what happened in Boston?” 

“Yes,” I said.  She knew I was American.  But she didn’t know I was from the Boston area.  When I told her, she immediately became compassionate.

“You’ve been hit hard,” she said.  “9/11: it all started there, didn’t it? Those hijackers, they took off from Boston, right?”

It’s odd to be getting sympathy from Israelis following an attack like the one that took place the other day in Boston. It’s all over the morning papers, of course, so everyone knows about it.  “Terror on the Finish Line” went the headline in Yisrael Hayom, the free daily paper owned by Sheldon Adelson.  A Hebrew word that I couldn’t recognize at first but which is now familiar to me is “מרתון” – i.e., “marathon.”

I myself was going to call the twin bombings on Boylston Street a “terrorist attack,” but I’m hesitating.  In the dictionary, “terrorism” is defined as political violence.  It isn’t yet clear yet who carried out this attack and for what purpose, much less whether it was for political purposes.  So, as did President Obama the other day, I’m not (yet) calling it a terrorist attack. 

But Israelis are less restrained in this regard.  They have no inhibition about calling this a terrorist attack -- whoever may have perpetrated it.  And sadly, they have lots of experience with terrorist attacks.

“It was a pressure cooker, you know,” she said.  “Like ones used in bombs in other places, such as in Afghanistan and Pakistan.” 

The woman proceeded to offer me – and our government -- lots of unsolicited advice on how to address terrorism in our country:  what we could and should -- and shouldn’t -- be doing. 

But she also offered me compassion.  And it was from the heart.  I thanked her.

As I left the store, I noticed that the young man was gone.  But he’ll be back.