The black man sat on the edge of the easy chair in our hotel room. He had been the driver of the car the South African Zionist Federation had been assigned to drive us to the meetings scheduled in Johannesburg It was our last day in South Africa, in the early 1980s. My wife, Henrietta, and I had invited the driver to have tea with us in our hotel room.
The room service waitress, also black, entered with tea for three. The chauffeur and the maid exchanged glances. It was just a split second or so. A silent conversation:
She:“What the hell are you doing here?”
He: “They invited me!”
She: “Really?”
As we sipped the excellent English tea, the driver, still on the edge of the easy chair but a bit more at ease, spoke. In his South African black accent, he said: “You know. Mastah, this is the first time I am taking tea with white people.”
A dozen times, I had asked him not to call me “Mastah.” I could not succeed. Henrietta and I exchanged glances.
Apartheid! Of course we were angry.
Now, who just accused Israel of that ugly blemish on the face of the world? Almost 90 rabbinical and cantorial students. They published a letter recently that they had sent to leaders of major Jewish organizations in the US. In it, they accuse Israel of apartheid in the West Bank.
Here is in part what they wrote: “Our political advocacy too often puts forth a narrative of victimization, but supports violent suppression of human rights and enables apartheid in the Palestinian territories, and the threat of annexation. It’s far past time that we confront this head on. We can no longer shy away or claim ignorance. What will it take for us to see that our Israel has the military and controls the borders? How many Palestinians must lose their homes, their schools, their lives, for us to understand that today, in 2021, Israel’s choices come from a place of power and that Israel’s actions constitute an intentional removal of Palestinians?”
This was the operative paragraph in the statement. I am torn between anger at these young women and men, and compassion. When the first heavy bombardments hit Sderot, one of my grandsons took off for that rocket-riddled city and with tens of other 18- and 19-year olds helped the old, the house-confined, the ill. And every afternoon they marched down the main street, singing, to raise morale. Because of him, I became involved, visiting Sderot, and once was caught outdoors as an incoming rocket fell nearby.
They use the word ”victimization” after – at the time of writing – close to 4,000 rockets and mortar shells have been fired at our cities and towns and villages. My cousins in Ashdod and Ashkelon, and our adopted families in Sderot have had horrible sleepless nights and terrified days in their “safe rooms.” Those who don’t have these fortified rooms run to a stairwell or a nearby public shelter.
In most cases there is a 15-second warning between the siren’s heart-quickening alarm and the rockets fall. Many older people are injured running to their shelters. Apologize for the word victimization. Come to Sderot or Ashkelon or Ashdod or Ramat Gan or Tel Aviv or Bet Shemesh and go from shelter to shelter.
Then the students accuse us of apartheid in the West Bank. Students, try to buy a home in the Palestine Authority. Go tell Syrian, Iraqi or Kurdish Jews about apartheid. Check on whether in previous peace talks with the Palestinians, did they not say there must not remain one single Jew in their territory? Yes, we have crazies among us who want apartheid. In all, probably only six of 120 MKs would try to pressure or use or encourage the use of violence against Palestinians.
Worse yet are these pre-rabbinic words: “In 2021, Israel’s choices come from a place of power.” This simply indicates that you do not learn or do not understand Jewish history. Perhaps some of you have never studied it. So please read carefully. When we were powerless in Europe, we were led to the slaughter. When Rome or Babylon had more power than Israel and Judea, Jews were either killed or exiled.
Isn’t the latest American buzzword “empowerment?” Empower women, empower blacks, empower Asians. But that Israelis have power and Palestinians have none – to empower Jews is bad. Of course, power can be unfair to others and corrosive to its bearers. So, some necessary history. After the Six Day War in 1967, Israel succeeded in smashing the combined Arab armies which were in attack mode along all fronts. Israel won because it used its power to overpower the combined power of Egypt, Syria, Jordan and even forces from Sudan and Iraq.
After winning the war that made clear that Israel would survive because of its power, there were no barriers between Jewish areas and Palestinian areas. We came and went freely and Arabs came and went freely. Was it an idyll for the Palestinians to see themselves defeated and Jews empowered? No, of course not. But Israel in 1993 signed an accord in Oslo which created a basis for a Palestinian state.
Then a few years later, in 2000, the Palestinian Authority under Yasser Arafat, supposedly a reformed terrorist and murder-master, decided that there should be an Arab uprising against Israel. Children, women and men were blown up in many cities, often in buses, in cafes, in restaurants – mostly Jews, but sometimes Arabs, on the buses or near the suicide bombers.
It was then that Israel began building walls and crossing points. These crossing points are not borders, as the letter implies. The rabbinical students, though, should know that a nation does protect its borders, Every state has borders and it is the duty of the state to protect them. Even the United States does that.
Our borders in the north have Hezbollah and Iran in both Lebanon and Syria, both our enemies and killers of civilians. Like Hamas in the south, they place their rockets near or in homes, schools, mosques… anywhere in the midst of civilians who are made unwitting or unwilling hostages.
I could go on and on, but even though I have taught – and even more important, have lived – Israeli history, I cannot condense it into a few hundred words. If I were Hillel, I would say, standing on one foot, “Preserve the life of Jews and Judaism, be kind to all you friends; the rest – go learn.”
Go learn that this is not a matter of religious violence. The Muslim enemies of Israel would like to paint it thus. Therefore they used the mosque areas on the Haram al-Sharif (Temple Mount) as a base to throw stones and other weapons at Jewish civilians and Israeli police. This was a ploy to create an Israeli reaction or overreaction, so the Palestinians could rally their people with religious terminology. The issue, beyond religion, is also nationalist, ethnic, linguistic.
That grandson, who volunteered in Sderot, served as a commando officer facing Gaza. He never discusses his service, and spent a few years wandering in the US and Europe, like many of other young Israelis. He is perhaps a few years older than the rabbinical (and cantorial) students. He is now studying Arabic, political science and the Middle East. He knows how complicated it is. You obviously, and without condescension, do not. A bit of humility.
The true problem is that your group of reference are not your rabbis or the Jewish people. You relate to the bearers of the standard of tolerance and empowerment in the US context of defeating racism. That is as it should be, and my teacher, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, would agree with you.
But when in 1967 we worked together to fend off hatred of Jews spearheaded by the then-Egyptian dictator, Col. Abdel Nasser and to build support for Israel, his peers of reference were not just Martin Luther King Jr. but all of the makers of Jewish history. For him, the safety and existence of the Jewish people were a given, and self-explanatory.
And, dear students, you committed the cardinal sin. Yes, the West Bank issue is a serious, often painful, and frequently disappointing. But you attack Israel when Jews are in shelters. Your timing is awful, your sensitivity totally lacking.
You are a small minority in both the Reform and Conservative student bodies. I have no way of knowing what proportion you make up of the other schools. Reconstructionist and Hebrew College. I have not a shade of a shade of a doubt that both Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan and Rabbi Heschel would chastise you for your timing, and for your lack of solidarity at a time of Jewish peril.
Furthermore, the entire Conservative movement has issued a statement in full support of Israel at this time. I assume the Reform movement has done, or will do the same. Certainly, Rabbi Nelson Glueck and the many Reform rabbis I have met would.
Finally, if you still want to protest Israeli policy effectively and not cosmetically, come here. Join our struggle. Heschel marched in Selma. Come, march in Jerusalem. I write this with respect. Come. And meanwhile, study deeply and learn what Rabbi Shmuel David Luzatto taught in Padua a century and a half ago, being a Jew means being compassionate. Compassion and solidarity with Jews as well.
Avraham Avi-hai served as liaison with world Jewish communities in the Prime Minister’s Office under Teddy Kollek and David Ben-Gurion and with Levi Eshkol in the years 1960-1965. He organized the P. M.’s Conference of Jewish Leaders in 1969 and was a member of the Jewish Agency Executive as World Chairman of Keren Hayesod-United Jewish Appeal for over a decade. He was a founding dean of the Hebrew University’s Rothberg International School for Overseas Students 1969-1973.