2013-05-19T08:06:37-04:00 Mira Sucharov http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/author/index.php?author=mira-sucharov Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Mira Sucharov Good old fashioned elbow grease. tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1765474 2012-08-16T14:22:39-04:00 2012-10-16T05:12:28-04:00

Mira Sucharov http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mira-sucharov/
Neither was his music especially Jewish, though someone apparently once told him that his score to The Swimmer had a Jewish sound (I don't hear it) and he did help Barbra Streisand record Avinu Malkeinu. But at its core, Hamlisch's search for the perfect melody calls up the emotional and connective power of a good tune that the Hassidic tradition knows so much about.

At a family wedding recently, my husband and son had the honor of joining the groom's tisch, or informal reception before the ceremony. A tisch is often accompanied by wordless melodies, as the groom's male family and friends sing along and toast the groom's upcoming journey. As I understand it, it was at the tisch, accompanied by the simplicity of Hassidic-inspired nigun melodies (wordless tunes), that some of the most moving tributes to the groom were given over the course of the wedding weekend. The unbeatable rhythms of Michael Jackson, the Black Eyed Peas, and Cee Lo Green awaited the guests on the dance floor. But it was the simple nigunim at the groom's tisch that set the stage for the meeting of two beautiful souls later that evening.

In reflecting on his career, Hamlisch himself said, "I just hope people connect me somehow with music that had a kind of integrity, and that was melodic."

My generation was raised on the search for a good beat. But no one can deny how haunting Hamlisch's songs are, even for the 70s rock and 80s pop generation. It's hard not to be enveloped by the strains of "Nobody Does it Better," "What I Did For Love," or "The Way We Were."

Consider the opening bars of Barbra Streisand's delivery of that striking ballad. As listeners will no doubt recall, Streisand opens "The Way We Were" by doing something unusual: before singing the opening verse, she hums the first few phrases. It's as if to remind us of the power of a simple and beautiful melody, allowing us a few moments to meditate on aspirations and regret.

Not all of Hamlisch's songs were as searingly simple as that one, though. I recall one high-intensity day at summer camp as a 13-year-old trying to master the song "Nothing," with Hebrew words written hastily for a performance of an all-Hebrew A Chorus Line later that night. It wasn't a simple song, but it was still moving and memorable, the music itself managing to capture the anxiety of an aspiring stage actor.

Hamlisch taught us that beauty can be discovered if we shut our eyes and listen closely. In a fascinating minute towards the end of a half-hour interview on Shalom TV in October 2011, Hamlisch explains the genesis of the ballad "The Way We Were."

Hamlisch had been asked to visit a college campus for the opening scenes of the film. Hamlisch recalls hearing bells chiming each hour. Returning to his home, he found himself imitating the bell tones on the piano. From the bells came additional chords and harmonies, and then higher notes for the melody. From a single chime came the song that's formed the soundtrack to a generation or more. Through that, we are reminded of the power of listening to the everyday.

Maybe this is why Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi famously said that while words may be the pen of the heart, song is the pen of the soul.

It is of course true that words can be heartfelt and humane. But in the often polarized societies we live in, words too often fail us, as we chase each other to the edges of civil discourse.

What if we curbed the viciousness with which we verbally cut down our opponents? What if we separately and together searched for the melody more often? What if we sometimes sang together, putting aside the worry that we may not know the words?

Hamlisch chased that most precious atmospheric commodity: a gorgeously hummable song. And our souls are the richer for those he offered to us.

Follow Mira Sucharov on Twitter @sucharov

**A version of this article appeared on Haaretz.com.**]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1602548 2012-06-19T08:02:52-04:00 2012-08-19T05:12:08-04:00

Mira Sucharov http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mira-sucharov/
So it is with great fascination that I have been watching the latest round of the "Israel pinkwashing" debate -- a deliberate strategy to conceal the continuing violations of Palestinians' human rights behind an image of modernity signified by Israeli gay life," according to the New York Times -- unfold. And what I see is sadly more expressions of cynicism and distraction from the real issues on all sides.

The IDF (Israel Defense Forces) recently posted a photo on its Facebook page of two male soldiers holding hands. Word soon spread that the photo had been staged. Outrage predictably ensued. A few weeks earlier, Israeli officials had pulled a similar stunt: in honor of Pride, the city of Tel Aviv had painted the bars of a crosswalk rainbow colors for a photo-op before returning them to white a few hours later.



Truth be told, the fact that these efforts were staged was more intriguing to me than disturbing. If the IDF cares that much about promoting its image as a place where LGBTQ soldiers can serve openly that it would ask two servicemen (one of whom, apparently, was gay) to pose in a homoerotic way, I find that, well, kind of touching.

But as the pinkwashing accusers see it, the IDF draws attention to its relative openness to gays and lesbians in order to shore up its self-image as the "most moral army in the world," all the while the IDF conducts a humiliating occupation -- with no end in sight.

Similarly, Israel advocacy groups, especially on college campuses, often partner with student LGBTQ groups to polish Israel's image in the face of heavy criticism of Israel's ethno-national character and its occupation policies.

There is indeed much truth to this analysis.

But the current mudslinging over pinkwashing (visit the Twitter barbs being traded between Ali Abunimah, editor of Electronic Intifada, and Avi Mayer, the social media liaison at the Jewish Agency) obscures what should be the real solutions, solutions that should be based on what is sadly becoming a quaint value in the age of shock talk: the value of fair-mindedness.

Before Prime Minister Stephen Harper gave Canada's public stance in the Middle East its current tone, Canadian diplomats long articulated the principle of fair-mindedness: criticize each side on its own terms, and give credit where credit is due. It was an approach that allowed the country to "punch above its weight" diplomatically, and have a say on some of the thorniest issues. Before the Arab-Israeli multilateral talks dwindled in the mid-1990s, Canada had been a "gavel holder" for the refugee working group.

How would more fair-mindedness help unravel the pinkwashing conundrum?

Instead of obsessing over whether the IDF and Tel Aviv municipalities photos were staged, whether the IDF's openness toward LGBTQ soldiers (a feat that indeed long preceded the repeal of America's "Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell" policy) is undermined by the lack of same-sex marriage (or any civil marriage at all) in Israel, and whether Tel Aviv's globally famous Pride festival hides the realities of the brutal occupation, activists should be fighting for LGBTQ equality as if there was no Israeli occupation, and fighting the occupation whether or not officials use Israel's LGBTQ record as a public relations tactic.

So yes -- Israel's supporters should promote Israel's positive treatment of gays and lesbians, while at the same time decrying the societal homophobia that exists: witness MK Anastassia Michaeli's recent homophobic rant this week and the negative reaction she received from other lawmakers. And Israel's supporters also need to grapple publicly with Israel's serious moral failings, not least of which is the occupation coupled with the various inequalities still plaguing Israel's Arab citizens.

With groups like Breaking the Silence, bringing to light crucial issues surrounding the moral corruption of the occupation, Israel cannot afford to hew to the status quo -- whether or not the soldiers knocking on Palestinian doors in the middle of the night are gay, straight or closeted -- without some serious policy reckoning.

And of course, if activists really want to see an end to pinkwashing, the most obvious solution is to fight for LGBTQ rights everywhere. Then Israel's claims will be that much less remarkable. And humanity -- in all its beautiful sexual diversity -- will be that much better off.

*An earlier version appeared in Haaretz]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1563074 2012-06-02T00:00:00-04:00 2012-08-01T05:12:19-04:00

Mira Sucharov http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mira-sucharov/
I'm reminded of Bruce's routine in the ongoing debate, highlighted again by last week's heinous Tel Aviv riots, as to who and what constitutes the overworked term the "Jewish Establishment."

Since the May 23 looting and attacks on African foreigners in Tel Aviv, many Jewish organizations have spoken out, and others continue to. But in the immediate days following, Peter Beinart called out some organizations for not being quick enough to publicly condemn the riots.

The problem is, Beinart seems to be confining his criticism to the amorphous concept of the "Jewish Establishment." I'm increasingly coming to think that the term is a catch-all for everything a liberal Jew doesn't like when it comes to Jewish organizational attitudes, particularly around Israel.

I have a new formulation for my fellow North American Jews, and anyone else who associates with us in our shuls, schools, community centers, organizations, and federations: We are all the American Jewish establishment. (Well, almost all of us.) And I'll tell you why it matters.

Shortly after Beinart's piece came out, Jill Jacobs, executive director of Rabbis for Human Rights, tweeted him: "Hey, did you see the RHR-NA Statement?" Minutes later, Americans For Peace Now's Lara Friedman added, "Please correct your piece -- APN wasn't silent." Journalist Ron Kampeas chimed in, "As you would have known had you read the JTA piece thoroughly: APN wasn't silent." Beinart's response on Twitter? "I don't consider APN (a group I admire) part of the American Jewish establishment."

Would we agree that the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations is part of the American Jewish establishment? Well, Americans for Peace Now has a seat on that esteemed body. So does Ameinu, an organization billing itself as promoting "liberal values" and a "progressive Israel," and on whose board of directors I currently sit. (I guess I'm part of the Jewish establishment too.)

The JCCA, The Jewish Federations of North America, The Rabbinical Assembly, the Rabbinical Council of America, Union for Reform Judaism and Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America are all represented there too. Organizations need to be only five years old to apply for membership; we may very well soon see J Street join the Conference of Presidents.

Ameinu's response wasn't as immediate as statements issued by some others, but when it appeared in its newsletter this week, it was principled and to the point: "...an angry mob of Israelis, incited by right-wing demagogic politicians who called the Africans a 'cancer' on Israel, went on a rampage and attacked African-owned businesses and property. The attack was nothing short of a pogrom, albeit one perpetrated by Jews against a weaker minority group. Ameinu deplores this senseless violence and implores the State of Israel to seek a humane and just resolution to this humanitarian crisis."

If you aren't sure whether you are part of the "Jewish establishment," I submit to you: Do you belong to a synagogue? Do you send your kids to Jewish camp? Jewish school? Do you work out at the JCC? Do you donate to the Jewish Federation?

And if you still don't think you are part of the establishment, maybe it's time to take the establishment back. These are not smoky back rooms with secret membership lists.

In response to every rabbi's sermon there is a chance to engage that spiritual leader. Or write your own blog. Or post a Facebook status update. Or tweet back. There are countless boards in need of trustees, adult education committees in need of programming suggestions. Lectures require audiences, including listeners ready to ask tough questions. Jewish papers need readers, and editors need letters to print.

I sympathize with Beinart's frustration. His 2010 essay "The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment" took important aim at some sacred cows when it comes to how Jewish institutions engage with the subject of Israel.

But Beinart knows as well as anyone that even smaller, more nimble and more liberal organizations sometimes need to camp out under the very tent erected by those who promote a more myopic vision of Israel. Yes, through the Conference of Presidents, both Ameinu and Americans for Peace Now are granted seats on AIPAC's National Council. Beinart himself reported on Ameinu's brave efforts to bring attention to the issue of "illegal settlement outposts" during this year's AIPAC conference.

So if you do believe you're part of the Jewish establishment, let's keep the conversation healthy, fulsome and robust. If you still think you're not part of it, I urge you to comb through your drawers: I bet there's an old membership card waiting to be dusted off, an invitation to a panel awaiting reply, or some unspoken thoughts awaiting your voice.

A version of this blog appeared in Haaretz]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1475063 2012-05-03T14:17:06-04:00 2012-07-03T05:12:03-04:00

Mira Sucharov http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mira-sucharov/
On the far left, critics like Palestinian-American writer Yousef Munayyer continue to challenge the very idea of liberal Zionism, calling it a "contradiction in terms."http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/03/20/liberal-zionism-a-contradiction-in-terms.htmlMunayyer says, "Liberalism is by nature an inclusivist ideology; Zionism, by contrast is an exclusivist ideology....Zionism requires maintaining a Jewish majority over territory even at the expense of the non-Jewish native inhabitants of the land."

Perhaps because of the ongoing squeeze, a forum by liberal Zionism's active proponents recently appeared in the Huffington Post. Political philosopher Michael Walzer declared thatlink to: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-walzer/liberal-zionists-speak-out-state-of-righteousness_b_1447261.html} "My Zionism is...a universal statism. I think that everybody who needs a state should have one, not only the Jews but also the Armenians, the Kurds, the Tibetans, the South Sudanese -- and the Palestinians...."

Kenneth Bob, head of Ameinu, suggested that http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kenneth-bob/liberal-zionists-speak-out-progressive-nationalism-is-still-relevant_b_1441968.htmlthe existence of a Jewish state is not nearly enough."While the Israel Defense Forces provides the security necessary to defend its citizens from attacks by enemies, the government of Israel does not make the commensurate effort to reach an agreement on a two-state solution with the Palestinians."

And sociologist of American Jewry Steven M. Cohen describes how he is both a "hawk and a dove,"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steven-m-cohen/liberal-zionists-speak-out-being-both-hawk-and-dove_b_1454065.html one who "sees Palestinians as threatening and antagonistic...but also sees Israel's territorial withdrawal and partition as the most promising route to national security...."

Avrum Burg, former speaker of the Knesset and former chairman of the Jewish Agency, would have been a fine and spokesperson for Liberal Zionism had he not appeared to have given up on Zionism altogether. Recently Burg wrote,http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/04/18/human-jewish-israeli-zionist.html "It is time to remove the Zionist scaffolding and live normal life, like normal people." It's a vague call to action; Burg decries the Zionism of Avigdor Lieberman and Eli Yishai but doesn't address the kind of Zionism that liberals are desperate to save: a Zionism that elevates the internal democratic character of Israel while expunging one its greatest liabilities: the occupation.

While liberal Zionism seems imperiled, leading to significant Jewish American voices trying to continue to articulate the vision, there also remain Israelis themselves who are struggling to make liberal Zionism work.

This week I spoke with Yariv Oppenheimer, Director-General of Peace Now in Israel, who was on a speaking tour in Canada. Yariv -- whose name means "opponent" and "he will fight," is acutely attuned to how war-wearying the battle for Israeli-Palestinian peace can be. As a young soldier enjoying the first day of his vacation from service, Yariv attended 1995 peace rally where Rabin was assassinated. He was standing near the prime minister's entourage of vehicles before deciding to head home. Ten minutes later, he heard the news.

Dressed in a smart navy-blue blazer and sipping tea at my favourite neighbourhood cafe, Yariv reminded me of the peace visionaries who were helping run the government when Yariv and I both came of age. "The Blazers" was the nickname given to the Israeli architects of the Oslo agreement: Deputy Foreign Minister Yossi Beilin and Foreign Ministry Director-General Uri Savir (though Savir favored thick cigars over tea).

Yariv was buoyed by Peace Now's recent victory whereby the Supreme Court rejected the government's request to delay the evacuation of Migron, a West Bank "illegal outpost." And to protest last year's Israeli boycott law, a law Peace Now sees as infringing on freedom of speech, the group launched the "Sue Me, I Boycott Settlement Products" campaign. Still, Yariv continues to meet with Israeli teens who "no longer know where the Green Line is."

And while he is pleased that last summer's tent protests signals a political awakening by society's more progressive sectors, he is aware that in the minds of the public and of lawmakers, peace and democracy have taken a backseat to the more populist issues of rent, taxation, and the price of cottage cheese.

Given all this, Yariv is trying to carry the urgency of the peace message, the need for two-states and an end to the occupation, to Israelis and Diaspora communities alike. As he told our Ottawa audience, "I tell Israelis that the settlements are not Obama's issue; they are your issue."

If relative silence on morally indefensible Israeli policies like the settlements is indeed because liberal Zionism is becoming less popular, I hereby urge my fellow Diaspora Jews to come clean: If you believe in Israel, what kind of Israel do you believe in? And if you have stopped believing in Israel, what would it take to get your Israel back?

Jewish Israel has many supporters. So, sadly, does a post-Israel-scenario -- spearheaded by the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign which seeks to undo the modern experiment in Jewish sovereignty. But all the while, Jewish and democratic Israel is wounded. Though apparently on the defensive, liberal Zionism may be the only hope to staunch the bleeding.

**An earlier version of this appeared in Haaretz**]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1382199 2012-03-28T08:05:42-04:00 2012-05-28T05:12:02-04:00

Mira Sucharov http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mira-sucharov/ New York Times op-ed calling for a boycott of settlement products (or what he calls "Zionist BDS") is predictably generating much pushback.

The Jewish Daily Forward calls the boycott "dangerously misguided." Too little of Israel's total export comes from the West Bank, they argue, and it simply won't have an impact. On the Daily Beast's new "Zion Square" blog, Noah Efron argues that in addition to ignoring Palestinian misdeeds, it would divide both American Jews and Israelis. Because of the "encampment" he sees resulting, it might even draw "moderate Israelis, who are disgusted with the occupation yet are unwilling to view as enemies their relatives and friends living over the Green Line, into league with settlers."

But what these writers are missing is that while the personal is political, the reverse is also true.

Now squarely considered a tastemaker for liberal Zionists, Beinart has finally managed to bring into the mainstream a desire many of us have long had. It's no coincidence that Beinart has made well-known the fact that he attends an Orthodox synagogue, and that his young son has an Israeli flag tacked to his bedroom wall.

Like dipping parsley into saltwater on Passover, boycotting the settlements might allow those of us who oppose the occupation a new and more finely honed expression of our Jewish identity.

We will need to be diligent, though. The last time I was at a community function and was served a glass of cabernet from Efrat, I was markedly uncomfortable. It was only some months later that I learned that the label is not actually linked with the West Bank settlement of Efrat, but is named for a Biblical phrase containing the word. The winery is in fact based in Motza, in pre-1967 Israel.

It goes without saying that the Jewish community is one with diverse opinions. But however ineffective our small acts of conscience might be, and however awkward the effects may be for those on either side of the divide, we need some new tools for collective expression.

There is already a boycott settlement-products movement afoot among Israelis, with 8,500 likes on its Facebook page. But another Israeli anti-occupation initiative came to my attention last summer, when I bumped into an old friend at a Tel Aviv peace rally. He pointed me to Nir Gov, a scientist at the Weizmann Institute who has been behind efforts to block the granting of university status to what is currently Ariel College in the West Bank. While the petitioners don't call it a boycott, their petition now has over 1000 signatures. Next week they will submit it to the Minister of Education and new members of the Israeli Council of Higher Education.

With Ariel College sitting 25 kilometres into the West Bank, and with 85 per cent of its student base coming from within the Green Line, according to Gov, he doesn't believe that the change in status to a university is anything but an attempt by the Israeli government to entrench the occupation. Unlike the purpose of Israeli colleges, "Ariel College doesn't serve the surrounding geographic area. It's off-limits to 90 per cent of the population," meaning to the West Bank Palestinians.

"Establishing a de facto, apartheid-like regime in the territories under our jurisdiction, under our military rule, is completely unacceptable," Gov told me. "Our petition makes the point that it's not too late to draw a line in the sand."

And though they are clearly spelled out in the petition, Gov knows that the moral aspects are likely to fall on deaf ears. So he is aiming for a technical victory, stressing the need for an open and competitive process for granting any Israeli college university status.

And as a cancer researcher, the time and energy it takes him seems somehow ironic. "This whole mess is manmade. There are much, much bigger challenges, like those presented by nature, like cancer. We should be concentrating our efforts on those."

As an academic myself, I am acutely aware of the ethical problems of academic boycotts. The whole idea of knowledge crossing borders is the beauty of the academic enterprise. But there is something morally enticing about a country's citizens -- particularly those who devote their life to higher-order analysis -- challenging their own government to make a call about its own borders.

For Gov and his 1000-odd other signatories, taking a public stand as an academic on the proper role of institutions of higher learning in his country feels right. And for those of us in the diaspora who look to Israel as a touchstone of our identity, yet who are concerned about the self-destructive path its occupation policies present, a selective boycott might best be thought of as an expression of authenticity, a symbolic act that helps us connect to our Jewish and Zionist longings.

Like personal theology, maybe it does not need to be debated at all.

**A version of this appeared in Haaretz.com**
]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1347658 2012-03-18T21:17:58-04:00 2012-05-18T05:12:01-04:00

Mira Sucharov http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mira-sucharov/
On a recent evening, I came across a 1987 ruling by the Conservative movement's Committee on Jewish Law and Standards (CJLS), the body that issues teshuvot (responsa) from which rabbis can draw for guidance. Written by Rabbi David H. Lincoln, the committee voted unanimously that an "avowed atheist" should be barred from serving as a prayer leader. As someone who had been a finalist in Moment Magazine's "Elephant in the Room" essay contest on "Godless Judaism," I stopped short. I wondered if I would be turfed from the roster of lay leaders who serve as occasional prayer leaders at my synagogue, and for which I've spent months training over the past few years.

But what I puzzled over more generally, was whether Judaic standards are merely prescriptive, or whether they are meant to describe communities as they are. How many of my fellow worshippers might actually feel similarly to me but hadn't bothered putting their cosmology to pen and paper?

I soon learned that a rabbinical student at the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies had written a follow-up to Lincoln's teshuva for Rabbi Elliot Dorff's class on Conservative Judaism. A podcast reveals a provocative conversation between Matt Shapiro (who agreed with Lincoln's conclusions but issued a much broader explanatory discussion), his fellow students and Reb Mimi Feigelson. A Hasid in her spiritual approach, Reb Mimi, as she is known, disagreed with Shapiro's conclusions. An atheist who nevertheless wishes to be a prayer leader shows "honesty" and "courage," she argued.

I recently spoke to Shapiro directly. If belief in God "is at the heart of Judaism," as he put it to me, how can we negotiate between personal and communal values and convictions (including belief -- or not -- in God) on one hand, and collective norms and standards on the other? I asked him.

"At the seminary, our personal values are recognized as having tremendous importance, as is the tradition. The dance between the two is what makes up the heart of Conservative Judaism," Shapiro said.

He added, "I wouldn't be becoming a rabbi if I didn't think the text was important, but I also cannot deny my personal convictions in terms of equality, freedom and general openness in society. Those are foundational values."

Shapiro wrote his thesis on Hans-Georg Gadamer, a pioneer of the hermeneutic method, where the reader is meant to engage in a direct conversation with the text. It seems to me this approach will no doubt serve Shapiro well as he shifts into his professional rabbinic career, especially in light of contemporary values discussions, whether or not the question of faith per se is at the forefront of those debates.

One such issue that has lately come into sharp focus concerns GLBT inclusion. A 2006 CJLS ruling created a significant opening for public congregational gay and lesbian life. Almost six years later, the authors of the original paper are drafting a same-sex marriage ceremony which is expected to be voted on in late May.

I spoke with Rabbi Aaron Alexander, an associate dean at Ziegler who is also a member of the CJLS. Alexander has performed same-sex marriages using a ceremony he wrote with Rabbi Elianna Yolkut and is looking forward to seeing the final draft of the version when it comes before the committee.

"Halakha is so much more than a set of laws. It is the dynamic interaction between God, history, sacred text, authority, narrative and living people." Alexander explained. "I think that at its very core, what Jewish law wants to do is to uplift humanity and dignity, not to subvert it."

Alexander had been recently part of a landmark deliberation: allowing deaf Jews to sign the chanting of the Torah. "I was moved watching [the ruling] happen."

Many rabbi-scholars like Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson, who advocates Process Theology, or Rabbi Arthur Green, who advances what he calls "radical Judaism," are succeeding in broadening the contemporary debate around conceptions of God. But particularly in an age where debate around Godlessness is coming squarely into the mainstream of Western thought, I don't think the question of belief is going to be settled anytime soon. And it may not need to be.

As interesting as issues surrounding faith are intellectually, and as important as they may be to private experiences of spirituality, values surrounding human dignity -- and particularly the role of those who have long been excluded from Judaic life -- might be those we need to focus on in setting community standards, while bracketing private issues of faith commitments.

If we want to make sure our communities are healthy, robust and inclusive -- and are able to withstand the test of time as the world comes to shed many of the prejudices of the past while continuing to open itself to a range of beliefs and new vocabularies around them -- this may prove essential.

An earlier version appeared on Haaretz.com.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1296513 2012-02-26T00:05:29-05:00 2012-04-26T05:12:01-04:00

Mira Sucharov http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mira-sucharov/
But the conversation during these last few days, especially on Twitter, was made all the more tense by the fact that Adnan's death seemed imminent; this raises important questions about how we engage publicly with issues. It's time to stake out some crisscrossing lines in the sand for stakeholders to the Israeli-Palestinian relationship.

In its nearly unfettered access across space, status, borders and politics, Twitter is infectious, consuming, and fun. (Sadly, as incoming New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief Jodi Rudoren recently learned, Twitter can be a tad too much fun.)

But the brittle debate across Twitter in the hours, and days, leading up to the Adnan deal focused on variations of two statements that went back and forth like an endless game of ping-pong.

The first is that as an alleged leader of Islamic Jihad, Khader Adnan is a bloodthirsty terrorist. The second is that Israel should be upholding due process, and that administrative detention is an unacceptable practice.

Not surprisingly, the tweets of Ofir Gendelman, Israeli Prime Minister's spokesperson to the Arab media, focused on variations of the first statement. "Khader Adnan is a real threat. His admin [sic] detention of 6 months will end soon but it doesn't mean that he's a boy scout." And "those who call on Israel to release #khaderadnan, an Islamic Jihad terrorist, so he could kill our kids, wouldn't want him near their kids."

When I challenged Gendelman on Twitter around the issue of due process, he replied, "@sucharov there is due process, even for terrorists who would love to kill every Israeli they can get their hands on."

I'm still not sure where the due process resides in this case, but to bolster his second point, Gendelman posted a link to a video of Adnan with a megaphone trying to recruit suicide bombers. The video appeared to have been since removed from YouTube, with various tweets predictably snickering over the "inappropriate content" violations, before being restored.

Diametrically opposed to Gendelman's public defense of Israeli policies is Ali Abunimah's constant criticism of Israel, and its perceived supporters. As co-founder of the Electronic Intifada, Abunimah worked hard on getting the hashtag #KhadersVictory4Palestine to trend. Predictably, he focused on the problematic nature of administrative detention and what he sees as the hateful nature of Israel and Zionism.

Absent from the debate are the values-based questions that activists and leaders from all sides should be asking themselves. I am still waiting to see a tweet denouncing both terrorism and administrative detention. 140 characters isn't a lot, but it's surely enough to include two value statements that shouldn't have to be at odds.

Gendelman says that Adnan is no boy scout. He implies that if there were Jewish children within Adnan's reach they would be ripped to shreds by his murderous impulses. It's a terrible risk to contemplate, but what of the risk of raising one's children in a society sliding away from democracy, where evidence is kept secret? Similarly, can #KhadersVictory4Palestine tweets acknowledge the unacceptability of the occupation while they declare fealty to protecting civilians in times of war?

At least we should try to come clean as to what we care about from all angles. This would mean that around areas of agreement, we could begin to generate some useful dialogue. Around areas of disagreement we could begin to hone in on ethics and values, a conversation that is much more worthwhile -- and interesting.

All those who are seeking to engage social media for their own "side," without trying to score a social media point, just for once, think what are your red lines? What kind of norms do you wish to see upheld between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River? Which actions do you deem ethical and which are unacceptable?

When I challenged Abunimah on this point, he gave me the ultimate compliment on Twitter, short of actually answering the question: he asked me if I was a parody account.

In an op-ed in Wednesday's New York Times, Palestinian Member of Parliament Mustafa Barghouti issued an eloquent defense of non-violent protest. Surely some of us who engage in social media can manage to start staking out some values-based lines of our own. Yes or no to terrorism and violence? Yes or no to due process and rule of law? Yes or no to ethical honesty over point scoring? There you go: three questions clocking in at under 140 characters. I await your replies.

**A version of this piece appeared on Haaretz.com**]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1269094 2012-02-19T01:23:34-05:00 2012-04-19T05:12:02-04:00

Mira Sucharov http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mira-sucharov/
Former residents and their Israeli supporters had tried to block a 2004 real estate development deal in the name of preserving historical memory and refugee rights. But the court's decision to prevent the tender ended up resting on a technicality.

It was on a visit last June to Lifta, where I encountered a random mix of individuals, one that poignantly represented to me the fissures of conflict while revealing some possible points of compromise.

With me was Oded Lowenheim, an international relations scholar at the Hebrew University, who is writing a book about the hidden politics of his daily cycling commute around Jerusalem, and who served as my guide, filling in the gaps in my historical memory. As a Jew growing up in Canada, abandoned Palestinian villages were little mentioned.

Lifta consists of stone buildings set against a ridge nestled into the Jerusalem hills. Through the windows of the well-populated Jerusalem-Tel Aviv bus line, the houses of Lifta provide a bit of eye candy against the green foliage as passengers whiz downwards towards the coast.

As we descended on foot down the steep hill -- somewhat agitated by the graffiti praising Meir Kahane at the village entrance, we encountered two young men, clad in jeans and polo-style shirts. They were both Palestinian, and one of them had relatives who hailed from Lifta, he told us.

"Do you hope to move back?" we probed. His answer came in the form of something rarely heard in conversations about Israel/Palestine. "Mah sheh haya, haya (What's done is done)," he said.

Were they simply trying to appease us? Might they have crossed over illegally from the West Bank, and didn't want us asking too many questions? Or were they authentically reconciled to the Nakba - unlike the groups who had been contesting the real estate proposal, unlike organizations like Zochrot that seek to commemorate the erasing of the Palestinian past by erecting Arabic signage, and unlike the global BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanctions) movement that advocates full refugee return?

A moment later, an example presented itself of how conflicting rights sometimes need to be reconciled: We had come upon what was once the village spring, but was now being used as a mikveh, a Jewish ritual bath. Several Orthodox men began to undress, looking over at me, the only female present. In a brief contest of wills, I felt decidedly unsuited to the spot. And so we ascended the hill back to the roads of Jerusalem.

In anthropological terms, the mikveh represents the ultimate in liminal space -- that designated area between ritual purity and impurity.

Determining whose rights should be granted at that given moment was, in a sense, a liminal moment. Should the live-and-let-live norms of a nudist beach prevail? Or should Orthodox standards of modesty take precedence? It was a very subdued microcosm of the religious-secular conflict currently festering in Israel, which has been reaching a frenzied peak with the recent events in Beit Shemesh. And it was a stark reminder of the broader Israeli-Palestinian struggle.

The court's decision to block the real estate tender represents a victory for neither of the two principled positions. In the end, a technicality was all it took to keep a corner of the Nakba alive for Palestinians who wish to honor their past, many of whom harbor hopes of a possible return.

But just as those Orthodox men couldn't fulfill their religious duty with me present, Israel cannot maintain its sovereign Jewish ethno-national identity with a Palestinian refugee return. In the end, even though my progressive Jewish identity bristled at overly gendered representations of Judaism, I knew I had a home to retreat to, that a safe and dignified exit up the hill awaited me.

Until the current Israeli government demonstrates that it is prepared to offer the Palestinians a territorially contiguous Palestinian state, where settler access roads and checkpoints do not hamper freedom of movement, Israelis and their supporters cannot reasonably expect the Palestinians to give up the demand for full refugee return. But once Israel does, Palestinians need to seriously rethink their demand, as much as they may resent it.

With the contested site of Lifta as a backdrop for eliciting empathy for various needs and narratives, these choices suddenly seemed clearer.

As for the Palestinian man who said, "What's done is done:" To know what he really meant, there will need to be two states and two capitals, and a sense of security and dignity for all.

Only then will we be able to encounter each other on a level playing field -- rather than on a steeply sloped Jerusalem hill mired in asymmetrical power and memory.

Until then, keeping this physical site of memory alive may serve as an important marketplace of ideas and emotion, one that can enable a bit of empathy to flourish amidst the stones.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1205209 2012-01-22T00:07:02-05:00 2012-03-22T05:12:02-04:00

Mira Sucharov http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mira-sucharov/ treatment of the Arab minority and its flouting of humanitarian principles in the case of asylum seekers, one bit of happy news emerged. After a thirty-year hiatus, the Israel Broadcasting Authority announced that the Israel Song Festival is being revived.

According to a Haaretz report, the festival will be more along the lines of a public-broadcast show, rather than attempting "to compete with the style of high-budget music reality shows that are now common fare on television." Neither will the festival be merely a pre-Eurovision contest, as it had become in the years prior to its demise three decades ago.

To my mind, this is big news. When we think about artistic expressions that are not directly tethered to the demands of the commercial market, something amazing can occur. As we know, in politics, hearts and minds matter, suggesting important potential links between collective longings and policy directions. Thirty decades later, Israeli society is perhaps more fractured than it has ever been. A revived festival might just serve as a searing and necessary conversation about Israel's tomorrow.

I am a passionate fan of Israeli folk songs, having grown up in a Diaspora community deeply devoted to instilling Israeli and Jewish cultural traditions in its youth. Echoing the Israel song festival, my home town of Winnipeg, Manitoba held an annual festival where kids as young as 11 would write an original song, in English or Hebrew, about a Jewish or Israeli theme.

When my family and I moved to Vancouver when I was 12, I would send away for cassette recordings of the event, memorizing the words and tunes. The themes of Jerusalem, war, soldiers, Theodore Herzl, and Dizengoff Street romance all appeared, capturing the dreams of young Disapora Jews closely watching Israel.

Culture reflects popular longings. But the inverse is also true. Writing in Haaretz, I suggested that Hadag Nachash's song about Jerusalem suggests new possibilities for that Holy City. In these pages, I wrote about The Band's anthem "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down." Drawing some potential lessons for West Bank settlers, I argued that through song, the Confederates were able to engender some empathy for their narrative, helping along the process of national healing.

Thinking about the upcoming Israeli Song Festival, I am fantasizing about a penetrating exchange where politics is expressed through musical means.

Picture an Arab citizen of Israel singing about her experience as a member of an increasingly culturally and politically squeezed minority; settlers lamenting a possible relocation; a Tel Avivi celebrating his city's unabashed openness; a Conservative (Masorti) or Reform (Progressive) Jew singing about the possibilities for strengthening liberal Judaism in a state partly controlled by an Orthodox rabbinate; or even a Haredi Jew (sadly, a Haredi woman would not be allowed to sing by the conventions of ultra-Orthodoxy) sharing his experience of God. Maybe there would even be a slot allotted to a Diaspora Jew to express her connection -- sometimes straightforward, other times fraught -- to her imagined homeland.

Without the broader-market pressures of an American Idol-type of show, contestants will have the opportunity to sing honestly and openly. From the opening chords, a dialogue leading to empathy might just result.

One of the last Israel Song Festival winners was Yizhar Cohen's "A-Ba-Ni-Bi."



Five years after Israelis thought their country might be annihilated in the 1973 Yom Kippur war, "A-Ba-Ni-Bi" captured a longing for the innocence of child-like romance. The following year saw another unabashedly joyous song, as Milk and Honey's "Hallelujah" became a worldwide Jewish anthem.



Of course, the songs of the revived Israel Song Festival might not be laden with politics. They might simply be fun or sexy. But if there is indeed a wide cross-section of participants (Jewish, Christian, and Muslim; religious and secular; Mizrachi and Ashkenazi; Ethiopian, Russian, Anglo-Saxon, and Arab), hearing each other's everyday concerns can be powerful. A liberal democracy at some point has to try to strip away what makes us different to celebrate what makes us the same.

In a truly diverse Israel Song Festival, dominant narratives may come to be challenged. But in so doing, a fractured Israeli society might come to better understand itself. How will non-Jewish citizens fare in the Israel of tomorrow? Will settlers be able to find their feet on the other side of the Green Line? How will the religious and secular communities be better able to respectfully coexist? The answer certainly doesn't lie in a cup of water being thrown by one Member of Knesset at another. Instead, it just might lie in a song.

An earlier version of this article appeared on Haaretz.com

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Mira Sucharov http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mira-sucharov/ Pirkei Avot instructs us to "make for yourself a teacher, and acquire for yourself a friend," I am all the richer because of the people I have met.

In June, I interviewed Hagit Ofran, director of the Settlement Watch project of Peace Now, at her Jerusalem office. A few days after a Tel Aviv peace march we had both attended (and about which I reflected here), Ofran shared her frustration about getting the Israeli public on board.

A majority of Israelis support a two-state solution. But Peace Now is sometimes seen as being anti-Israel, Ofran lamented. "I can scream all I want that Palestinian rights are actually in the Israeli interest, but others see me as being on the Palestinians' side."

Not long after we spoke, Ofran became a target of frightening personal threats, including vandalism to her home and office.

I deeply relate to Ofran's conception of a necessary overlap between Israeli and Palestinian rights, a pair of philosophical commitments I hold and have written about.

A day before meeting with Ofran, I had spent the afternoon hiking around Jerusalem with a colleague and friend. Dr. Oded Löwenheim is a professor of international relations at the Hebrew University, and is writing a book about his daily bike ride from his home in Mevaseret Zion to Mt. Scopus. He calls it "de-commuting," partly to distinguish it from the car commute that typifies suburban life.

Hugging the Green Line for large swaths of it, the route provides Löwenheim a chance to stumble upon Palestinian workers or idlers, and remains of Arab villages, ever-cognizant of the deep contestation of land over a proto-border that is becoming increasingly invisible.

The afternoon we spent exploring the area was my 39th birthday. To make the occasion, I posed for a snapshot astride an old concrete marker left over from the British Mandate. But for the modest grey obelisk, no one would have known that this bit of grass and gravel hosts one of the most relevant boundaries defining the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Löwenheim's highly introspective writings -- as he examines the experience of everyday Israelis and Palestinians -- serve to remind his colleagues, and the wider public, of the micro-dimensions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict against a storied and hurting landscape.

Once home in Ottawa, fall brought the usual back-to-school routine, and for members of my spiritual community, a particularly unusual and high-impact Shabbat.

In early September, my synagogue (a Conservative egalitarian congregation) hosted Rabbi Steve Greenberg for a scholar-in-residence weekend. Greenberg -- an Orthodox gay rabbi who was featured in the 2001 documentary Trembling Before God, and who was named by Newsweek as one of the top 50 influential rabbis in America -- had already been on my radar as I had been striving to help my shul become more conscious and inclusive of the LGBTQ community.

Just before his visit, I had written in these pages about Greenberg's approach to recognizing and embracing gay difference.

But Greenberg's visit packed an emotional punch I did not expect, as he led us through his own searingly honest journey, forcing us to reflect on our own lives and experiences, if only silently.

His tireless efforts on behalf of Jewishly-committed gays and lesbians, and his grace under pressure -- particularly as he regularly faces push-back (and worse) from his own community -- is awe-inspiring.

Last month, +972 magazine broke the news that Greenberg had performed a same-sex wedding in Washington, DC. The reaction from many of his Orthodox peers has been unnerving. Greenberg has published an eloquent response here.

Finally, there was Seth Morrison, the Jewish National Fund (JNF) board member who resigned over the planned expulsion of the Sumarin family from Silwan. In a recent article, I shared my reflections on my conversation with Morrison, outlining how his decision to step down from the board would hopefully spur that organization to make change. Selecting change from without versus change from within can be a difficult path to navigate.

In political scientist Albert Hirschman's famous formulation, individuals within organizations regularly face a choice between exit, voice, and loyalty. While Morrison has been the only one of these four to choose to exit the particular organization, he continues to use his voice to try to better his overall community. (His recent bid for the J Street board, an organization that supports Israel, was unsuccessful, but I expect that Morrison will continue to be an active figure in Jewish institutional circles.)

All four of these individuals inspire me to rethink assumptions about the unspoken rules of communities, as they pull back the layers and seek to rewrite those rules for a better tomorrow. Happy 2012.

An earlier version of this appeared on Haaretz.com
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Mira Sucharov http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mira-sucharov/
In an article in The Forward, Morrison announced his decision to step down from the board of directors of the Washington metropolitan area's Jewish National Fund.

His action was meant to protest the JNF-KKL's widely-publicized move to expel the Sumarin family from their home in Silwan, East Jerusalem.

It wasn't the first time Morrison had publicly criticized JNF policy. In a January 2011 op-ed in the Jerusalem Post, Morrison was measured in his criticism of the organization around the issue of Bedouin land claims.

"The JNF's reputation and ability to effect positive change would be enhanced by a decision not to plant trees on lands that are in dispute with the Bedouin," he wrote.

But almost a year later, Morrison clearly felt that the organization had pursued actions that required a much harsher response than a gently-chiding op-ed.

In an interview over the weekend, I asked Morrison how he came to his decision to resign from the board.

"I felt three things," he told me. "I did not have the power to change it from within; this was just more egregious than I could tolerate, and as someone who works in media and marketing... I felt that by going public with the resignation I could do more to stop these evictions than I could by staying and advocating against them."

Whether to pull a seat up to the table and evoke change from within or protest and try to bring change from the outside is something we should all regularly be asking ourselves in whatever capacities we operate communally. It is also a question with which I personally and frequently grapple.

As a political scientist as well as a blogger, columnist, and public commentator, I have been trained to analyze and critique. Most public commentators and intellectuals hope our words about why, how and what shall be will eventually have an impact.

But I am not only an arms-length commentator; I am also active in Jewish communal leadership on various issues and in various organizations. Like Seth, I consider myself to be a progressive. And like Seth, I am drawn to getting involved in the mainstream as well. I like to see if I can invest these organizations with the change ethic that I hold dear.

Two years ago, my community sponsored Brigitte Gabriel, a noted Islamophobe, to speak. I wasn't on the committee that made the unfortunate selection of speaker, but I was invited to captain a table for the event. After unsuccessfully trying to get the committee to reconsider its choice of speaker, I grudgingly accepted the task. In the end, the event was even more disturbing, and Gabriel's remarks more hateful than I had feared.

A few days later, I ran into an acquaintance at my neighbourhood cafe and recounted the events to her. "What do you expect?" she said. "You hang out with those people, you're gonna get what you got." Her cynical response helped spur me to actually redouble my efforts to stay involved. Because once cynicism sets in, the game is over.

With the tireless help of others, I ultimately achieved what initially seemed an unlikely outcome: The issuing of a community-wide letter from the head of the organization distancing it from Gabriel's hateful views.

Fast-forward to these past few weeks: Like many others, I had been following the Sumarin family eviction issue with great concern. I had attempted to share the controversial JNF issues with another friend who is a highly committed JNF supporter. But it was only when Morrison's open letter was published in The Forward that I felt I finally had an appropriate instrument, one that struck the right note, one that was written by an insider.

Disheartening as it must be for those still committed to the organization, maybe Morrison's letter will serve as a flaming baton of change -- if others are ready to grasp it and run with it.

Morrison is now putting his efforts towards running for one of the vacant positions on the J Street board. And while he made clear to me that quitting one board and running for another were "totally parallel and unrelated," (in fact he had applied to the J Street board weeks before coverage appeared about the eviction) to me they tell a story of the inherent tension between being committed to big-tent politics and progressive values. How big can the tent actually be before it collapses?

It's never easy to stand apart from a group to which one has committed resources and through which one has no doubt developed relationships. But if our organizational energies are meant to be unconditional love -- like that between parents and children -- we forfeit the ultimate tools of democratic and civil change. No one said change is always easy and no one said it's never a little messy along the way.

A version of this article originally appeared in Haaretz.com]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.1105094 2011-11-23T00:25:35-05:00 2012-01-22T05:12:01-05:00

Mira Sucharov http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mira-sucharov/
Liberal Jews are increasingly finding themselves in this situation, and not only because of the well-known tension that can befall friends and family who part company on politics. Liberal Jews may identify with their leftist friends because of their friends' politics, while they love their ultra-Orthodox relatives in spite of their relatives' religious orientation.

But what I most continue to be struck by is the apparent automatic marrying of values to policy. Instead of a person's values coming to carefully inform one's opinions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, what I'm seeing is the reflexive taking of sides. What could be a very fruitful discussion about values, ethics and policy instead comes to resemble a boxing ring, with everyone in their corners primed to fight.

Let's take religion. As I tell my students, religion can be either a stubborn obstacle to peace, or a powerful force for contemplating change. The perception of religion as giving rise to inflexible stances is compounded when rocks and dirt are attributed sacred status. How do you divide land deemed holy?

Early on in his new book, The Unmaking of Israel, Israeli commentator Gershom Gorenberg tells us that he is a religious Jew. But the narrative he espouses about Israel's current crisis of direction is a very different one from that promoted by many ultra-Orthodox Israelis and their supporters abroad. One wishes one could ask him how he is able to sustain a personal Judaic theology that departs so radically from many in the right wing, religious camp.

I happen to find myself slated to have dinner with Gorenberg this week, as he embarks on a North American speaking tour. I shall ask him. But I think I already know the answer.

Holding a belief in God, taking the notion of covenant seriously, and being committed to the enhancement and furthering of the Jewish people need not imply any particular policy stance vis-à-vis Israel's hold on the territories, its occupation policies, or its view of religion and state.

Many Jews of faith have drawn a certain picture of what the role of Israel within Judaic thought and practice looks like. But it's not the only possible picture. One picture, as we know all too well, promotes a sense of Jewish superiority, the maintenance of enemy images, and a sense that God belongs to one people only.

The other set of images also draw their contours from a religious sensibility, but they push a sense of justice and compassion. For these Jews, the mission of tikkun olam (repairing of the world), and the values of justice, peace and compassion, reign supreme. These images depict a view of religion as operating respectfully within a democratic framework, rather than trying to trample the liberal ideals that make democracy great. These images see Jewish spiritual emancipation as incomplete without a proper reckoning with the fate of the Palestinians.

Gorenberg, for his part, paints this sort of tragic yet ultimately hopeful picture. In the many projects associated with Tikkun Magazine and its related Network of Spiritual Progressives, people like Rabbi Michael Lerner do, too. Ditto, Rabbis for Human Rights -- with branches in both North America and Israel. And places like the Hartman Institute help marry religious thought with sensitive and thoughtful Israeli policies and practices.

And what of the general, Western left (both in its Jewish and non-sectarian form) appearing to turn away from Israel? The story is by now well known. Progressives who once viewed Israel as facing down an Arab Goliath now see the roles as being reversed.

Progressives value human rights. They value universalism, the inherent dignity and worth of every individual, and the casting of a web of respect across different cultures and religions. It is no surprise that progressives bristle at Israel's four-decade-long occupation.

But a progressive agenda need not exclude Israel's hopes and dreams from the conversation. Progressives can certainly support Palestinian dignity and freedom while also acknowledging Israel's desire to remain a Jewish state and fulfil the centuries-long dream of returning to Jerusalem and of exercising Jewish sovereignty. Progressives can decry midnight house searches, administrative detention, and settler vigilantism while speaking out against Hamas rocket fire against Israeli towns and cities.

Values can signal collective affiliation, serving as a social shorthand. But we need not assume a particular party line from a given ideological or religious orientation. Let's sever the uncritical link between values and policy for a moment, carefully, and with everything on the table. Maybe then we can try to cut through the Gordian Knot of the Israeli-Palestinian dilemma.

An earlier version of this appeared on Haaretz.com]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.1078484 2011-11-08T09:19:53-05:00 2012-01-08T05:12:01-05:00

Mira Sucharov http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mira-sucharov/ Yedioth Ahronoth article spoke of Israel being "a villa in the jungle, an island of civility surrounded by mean-spirited, wicked barbarians."

Meanwhile, conversations on social media sites included statements about how Palestinian parents spur their children to violence and how Palestinian society is "sick." Cultural denigration was again alive and well.

More subtly, perhaps, my last blog had one HuffPost reader questioning my interpretation of the Palestinian "V" sign. I had argued that for Palestinians, it is a symbol of steadfastness in the face of decades of European colonialism and Israeli occupation. "No," the reader pressed me. "It stands for victory."

Well, of course the "V" symbol does stand for victory. But whose deeper interpretation is right? Is the "V" a collective cry for freedom, or is it a smug acknowledgment of walking free with Jewish blood on one's hands?

The same week Shalit was released, another set of cultural critiques -- far from the vortex of the Middle East -- appeared. Several days earlier, a Chinese toddler was tragically run over by a van and left helpless by the side of the road. Shockingly, 18 passersby left her grasping for life until one woman finally came to her aid. (The little girl died soon after, in hospital).

Writing in the Globe and Mail, Charles Burton explained this particularly egregious example of the bystander effect by describing what he understands to be a widespread culture of mistrust in China owing to years of authoritarian rule.

The same day I was busy batting away what I viewed as bigoted discussions of Arab culture on Facebook, I found myself posting Burton's article on China. This led me to wonder why, when I see other cultures being critiqued, I sometimes bristle, while at other times I welcome it as thoughtful analysis?

To my mind, two elements determine the difference between bigotry and fair cultural critique, both of which we would do well to keep in mind: what I call the platform factor and the listening factor.

First, the platform factor: Where these cultural criticisms take place is important. Is it one ethnic group hosting a speaker who focuses on the shortcomings of a second ethnic group? Or is the context more multicultural, where the marketplace of ideas is better positioned to weed the truth from the chaff?

Better yet, is it a critique from within, where the speaker is attempting to model transformation within her own community? Think Irshad Manji for Muslims, Tikkun Magazine for diaspora Jews, and +972 Magazine for Israelis. Tireless civil rights activists in 1960s America attempted to bring a measure of justice and humaneness to their country, and more recently Bill Cosby has tried to rehabilitate fatherhood within the African American community.

The second element distinguishing salience from slander has to do with listening.

Cultural analysis -- as expressed through fields such as anthropology, sociology, and political science -- enjoys great intellectual legacies, when done right. As any academic worth her salt knows, the key is that the analysis must ring true for members of the culture itself.

In the late 1930s, William Foote Whyte lived in the slums of Boston's North End to write a groundbreaking book detailing the social dynamics of gangs. His participant-observer style served as a model to others.

This is why contemporary area-studies experts make sure that they immerse themselves in languages and locales, creating a space where they can authentically feel and hear the messages around them.

We need to listen to the stories people tell about themselves. We need to understand their narratives. What are their folk songs, their national symbols, the meanings of their names, the tenets of their religion -- as they themselves understand them to be? Westerners should tune into Al Jazeera. Israelis should watch the excellent sitcom Avoda Aravit. Palestinians should read Amos Oz. And so on.

And that's why calling someone a barbarian fails the test. If it doesn't ring true to the holder of the label, it simply isn't.

At the same time, while it's important to really listen to others' messages, it's also incumbent upon us to hear the way our messages are being heard by others.

On Haaretz last week, Bradley Burston showed how everyday Israelis -- even those most devoted to ending the occupation and ameliorating the Palestinian plight -- interpret the "death to Israel" calls being rained so loosely down from various quarters as nothing less than a call for genocide. It's an important plea: whoever uses this kind of language and who doesn't mean to imply the insidious messages that others are hearing, speak up now, or forever hold your peace.

Getting our platforms right -- employing a measure of tastefulness and mindfulness -- and listening to others while also making sure we understand how our messages are being heard -- makes all the difference. Cultures, at their root, are vessels for memories, messages, and dreams for a shared tomorrow. The key is being able to speak to each other in a way that respects different cultural grammars while providing some scaffolding for bridging the gaps.

An earlier version of this article appeared on Haaretz.com]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.1023794 2011-10-26T09:08:20-04:00 2011-12-26T05:12:01-05:00

Mira Sucharov http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mira-sucharov/ mea culpa, I discovered I am a fairweather friend to the Gilad Shalit cause. Unlike many other Jews, I had not appended a Gilad badge to my Facebook profile for the duration of his captivity. Instead, I had gazed ambivalently at the billboard-sized Gilad posters that had hung in our local Jewish Community Centre. The blank look in his eyes, his forearm raised, and his unsmiling expression suggested, to me, a collective Jewish defiance. In my cynical moments, I felt that the diaspora focus on Gilad Shalit served to bolster a mindless tribalism at the expense of deep knowledge about Israel and Jewish identity, a knowledge that might have served to be transformative.

How many Gilad followers in the diaspora, if pressed, could even spell his name in Hebrew? How many of these diaspora Jews could discuss Israel's political spectrum with any fluency? How many had spent meaningful time visiting or living in Israel outside of the climate-controlled confines of Jewish Federation "missions?" How many knew even the basics about Israeli policies, including the nature of Israel's relationship with the Palestinians?

But on the day of his release, I shoved all that aside and became fully caught up in the human drama of it all. When I awoke on Tuesday, I hungered for images of him back on Israeli soil. I watched Gilad's painful and unplanned interview with Egyptian television until I could no longer bear to witness the reporter's vacuous questioning, delaying the poor boy from returning to his family. I watched as Gilad saluted gingerly and as the hardened Sabra top brass extended him tender hugs.

I eagerly listened to his father, Noam, speak openly and graciously to the supporters and reporters gathered outside the family home, as he acknowledged the moral complexities in such an inequitable prisoner trade, thereby including the many grieving families in his verbal embrace.

And then I reflected on the days of moral posturing from across the Jewish community that had emerged as soon as the deal was announced and which will no doubt continue for weeks to come. I watched with measured fascination as one tweeter posed a question ("Who do you think was treated better?") along a photo of a pale, thin Ashkenazi'ed-complexion Gilad with sunken eyes adjacent to photos of dark-skinned, smiling, Arab men: the released Palestinian prisoners. The lesson was clear: Israeli prisoners emerge from demonic Palestinian dungeons appearing sallow and weak, while Palestinian prisoners are released from benign Jewish incarceration looking ruddy and strong.

I read how much "we" value human life, compared to "their" murderous, "sociopathic" criminality. One thousand and twenty-seven prisoners for one boy soldier. Choose life, as the Torah famously says. Those are Jewish values.

Of course, "their" released prisoners were making "V" signs out their bus windows, the symbol that Israelis and Jews the world over can't help but associate with the terrifying image of a Palestinian man leaning out a window during the second Intifada, showing off his glistening, crimson palms after the unforgettable lynching of an IDF soldier in Ramallah. After all, writes one Israeli commentator in an article spewing one of the more shocking expressions of hatred against Palestinians that punctured the otherwise joyful and unifying day: Palestinians possess a "pure lust for Jewish blood."

But now I am thinking more deeply about those values that my fellow Jewish nationals are celebrating. When "we" stop congratulating ourselves for how much we honour and value human life, so much so that we are willing to risk future soldier abductions and terrorist attacks for bringing the captured Jewish boy home, can we try to think more deeply and honestly about how best to honour those values?

Strategically, everyone knows the prisoner exchange deal is risky. Some have described the deal as representing an internal clash of values. But the way to seriously advance Jewish values is to take the next step. Having brought Gilad home, Israel should now press seriously for peace. Only by seeking to recast the game can Israeli soldiers be safer patrolling their own borders. Only by redefining enemies into rivals (if not friends) can the value of choosing life be truly actualized.

The process of honouring Jewish values might also require delving further into the Jewish pantheon of teachings. There is a custom that visitors should refrain from speaking to a mourner before the mourner speaks first. Jews are taught to to value life, but we are also taught to hear. We are a people of talkers and questioners, but we also need to listen to others' truths, truths that aren't always easy to absorb.

We need to listen to the narrative of the Other, even if that narrative is difficult to hear. For Israelis, that two-fingered victory sign is inextricably tied up with the release of terrorists and thus images of the brutal killing of civilians juxtaposed against the pale, sunken eyes of one kidnapped boy-soldier who was conscripted to defend his country's borders. But for Palestinians, that same "V" signifies steadfastness in the face of the humiliation of occupation, the vagaries of European colonial history, and the sting of statelessness.

This week, let us be buoyed by the elation of seeing Gilad return home to the embrace of his family and of his entire nation. This week, let us shout and sing that our son is home. But next week, let us pause to listen. Let us listen closely for ways to eke out a new peace. Armed with Jewish values, that path will surely be Israel's best defense.

**A version of this article appeared on Haaretz.com**
]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.998812 2011-10-10T00:35:39-04:00 2011-12-09T05:12:01-05:00

Mira Sucharov http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mira-sucharov/
Almost 20 years ago, as part of the mutual exchange of letters in the Oslo agreement, the PLO recognized the State of Israel and declared in a missive from Yasser Arafat to Yitzhak Rabin: "Those articles of the Palestinian Covenant which deny Israel's right to exist...are now inoperative and no longer valid."

But along with settlements, final borders, refugees and Jerusalem, the recognition of Israel's Jewish identity is certain to be one of the stumbling blocks to a final peace agreement. In some previous rounds of negotiations, this demand has even precluded the parties sitting down at the table.

What seems like an intractable issue can perhaps gain some traction toward resolution by rethinking what we mean by "fairness."

In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, neither side is going to be totally happy with the outcome. And neither side will necessarily view the negotiated outcome as totally "fair." But at the very least the rules of the game can be made more equitable. Moving the fairness discussion away from outcomes and toward process may in fact help restart and accelerate peace talks. The Jewish-state-recognition issue serves as a good example of this dynamic.

All this has come to light again recently through a widely-circulated essay in al-Jazeera by Palestinian Professor Sari Nusseibeh. There, Nusseibeh contends that Israel's demand that the Palestinians recognize it as a Jewish state is unreasonable. Nusseibeh argues not only that it would prejudice the rights of the Palestinian refugees to return, but that it would negate the rights of Christians and Muslims to share control over Jerusalem; it would reduce Israel's Arab minority to second-class status; and it would undermine Israel's democratic character.

Nusseibeh concludes that "rather than demand that Palestinians recognize Israel as a 'Jewish State'...we [suggest] that Israeli leaders ask instead that Palestinians recognize Israel (proper) as a civil, democratic, and pluralistic state whose official religion is Judaism, and whose majority is Jewish."

Nusseibeh's semantic olive branch sounds reasonable enough, except that he couches his argument in terms of "fairness." Nusseibeh claims that it isn't "fair" for Israel to allow Jews to "return" to Israel and become citizens when Palestinians cannot.

But simple game theory shows that the drive for perceived "fairness" in outcomes can leave players much worse off than they would otherwise be if they could swallow some of their pride.

In my class, we play the "ultimatum game." I offer two students a five dollar bill. If one student can make a dividing offer that the other will accept, they can keep the proceeds. Frequently one student will offer the other just one or two dollars, keeping three or four dollars for herself. The other student naturally feels jilted, and walks away, and both end up with nothing.

While Nusseibeh discusses Israel's democratic character and Jerusalem and Israel's Arab minority, the key aspect of the Jewish-state-recognition demand is the refugee issue. Even if Israel is recognized as a "Jewish state," Jerusalem can still be shared, and the Israeli Arab minority can be better accommodated than it currently is. But to retain Israel's Jewish character, the refugees cannot be granted full return.

So it's no secret that by insisting that the PA recognize Israel as a Jewish state, the Netanyahu government is trying to foreclose discussion of refugees. If Palestinian refugees are granted wholesale return to Israel, Israel ceases to be a Jewish state. By preventing refugee return, Israel is able to hold onto its core identity.

It follows that the most predictable outcome (limited return to inside Israel but unlimited migration to a nascent Palestinian state) is also the most pragmatic: Palestinian refugees get repatriated within their own state of Palestine, even if not exactly to their original homes, and Israel maintains its core identity, along with having to no doubt share Jerusalem and uproot tens of thousands of settlers.

The Palestinians may not be ready to acknowledge this likely outcome yet. That will be for the negotiations themselves to reveal.

But where the light of fairness should be shone is on the issue of process. By demanding that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a "Jewish state" at this juncture, Netanyahu is decidedly advancing an unfair process. However impractical it is to expect refugee return, the PA can't be expected to give up on the issue even before reaching the table.

The upshot? Israel should stop demanding that the Palestinians recognize Israel's Jewishness before actually negotiating the refugee issue (even though everyone knows what the solution will be). The Palestinians should stop attacking Israel's Law of Return (which is really a domestic Israeli issue) in terms of fairness. And Israel should cease and desist from the most unfair action of all -- the building of settlements, as it changes the rules of the game -- creating "facts on the ground" in Likud parlance -- even as it is being played.

Ultimately, states decide the nature of their own identity and their own immigration policies. Identities will end up being declared and recognized, once the material issues are worked out -- including what will happen to the refugees, who will control Jerusalem, and what final borders will look like.

On various issues, both sides may end up worse off than they initially hoped for, but both sides will certainly be better off than they currently are in this seemingly endless cycle of conflict. Fixating on the fairness of solutions may preclude an agreement altogether. But trying to be fair about the process of negotiations is, well, only fair. And it is the only way to actually inch toward peace.

An earlier version of this appeared on Haaretz.com

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