Who Am I to Comment?

There's a lot that I'm going to try to use this post to express, so please do bear with me and forgive me if it's a bit stream of consciousness.

I'd been feeling upset because I've encountered a feeling that people here think of me as an outsider, passing judgement on a country without truly being a part of it. This got me thinking about the question of who has a right to comment. Can this notion that you have to be Israeli to comment on things that happen in/are done by the state of Israel be extended? Is it not my place to have a view about the 'Ground Zero Mosque' that isn't a mosque and isn't going to be built on Ground Zero, because I'm not American? And without implying that what's happening between Israel and Palestine bears comparison, was it right that the world stood by and allowed the Rwandan genocide to happen, because it was happening in Rwanda and only Rwandans were in a position to comment/act? Firstly, everything's interconnected, and neither Israel nor America nor Rwanda can exist in a bubble. Secondly, the purpose of measures like international law is to ensure that sovereign nationstates can be held to account for their actions. Your average Israeli wouldn't, I don't think, object to people scrutinising the actions of Iran's leadership, or Palestinian leaders, and obviously it is important that they get held to account, just as it's important for Israel to be accountable. My other objection, of course, is that I don't feel it's fair to see me as an outsider. A woman I met the other day who seemed a pretty bona fide Israeli expressed the same feeling as a dissenting Israeli, not as one who has grown up in England with an English mother and only been tied to Israel through visits and an Israeli father.

Having said that, I can understand the objections in question, to an extent. Having to deal with judgement because you're connected to Israel and even, sin of sins, would advocate for its continued existence, can really make you want to tell these people who aren't directly involved where they can stuff their advice from on high. It's that feeling, that it's not just something that's happening somewhere else in someone else's name but that I am personally implicated, personally involved, that makes me feel as if I should have a right to comment, but of course solidarity with Palestinians and objections to Israeli actions, by the logic expressed above, shouldn't be the exclusive property of Jews and Israelis, or indeed vice-versa. At the other end of the spectrum, support from wealthy (and frequently right wing) diaspora and even non-Jewish Zionists is essential to maintaining a lot of that to which and I others might object. It's true that Israel should not by any means be the only nation under scrutiny, but it was Primo Levi, a holocaust survivor, who said that the Palestinians are the 'Jews of the Israelis', not some ignorant outsider or indeed me.

So, I seem to have ascertained that whether I qualify as an 'insider' or not, I am in a position to scrutinise Israel and its interactions and comment on them, as I am to do the same with the UK, America, Iran, Palestine, Egypt, Cuba and so on. The notion of passing judgement is to me a pretty meaningless one, given that a) I'm a hard determinist so moral responsibility is merely a useful trope from my point of view, b) I believe that everyone contains within them the same light, or humanity, or that of God within them, so that whatever questions I might have about their actions, I am not in a position to pass judgement upon them and c), and perhaps most importantly, if I say that Israel as a state should be doing or not doing something, it would be absurd to read that as me passing judgement on Israeli-Jews as a collective group. If we're all personally responsible for the actions of whichever government gets elected into power in our country, then we're all in trouble, not just Jewish-Israelis. The problem, then, is not that I fear I might risk either commenting when it's not my place to, or becoming self-righteous and judgemental in relation to the people around me (who, after all, aren't just here for six months, and do have to live with the reality of the situation in a way that I don't, although I do know that some people suspect me of that, which is distressing). The problem, in fact, is that if I sat down and tried to think of a really complicated, intractable, multi-layered situation, I probably couldn't come up with anything that fulfilled the brief better than Israel-Palestine. I'll try to illustrate what I mean.

Some of you may know that in Cambridge I've been increasingly attending a Quaker Meeting. I've also been reading quite a lot of Quaker literature, and generally find it a very comfortable contribution to my headspace (and no, I am not a Christian, I am a Jewish Non-Theist Quaker, before you ask!) So one of the things I was innocently and naively quite excited about was visiting Ramallah Meeting and passing on greetings from Jesus Lane, my Meeting in Cambridge. It then emerged that many of the people closest to me here in Israel found this quite shocking, offensive and worrying. I have a friend who's here studying Hebrew and wanted to visit a friend in Ramallah, and another friend who's been wanting to visit the West Bank, so I arranged to go with them this weekend, despite said protest from my family. At the time, I didn't think too much of the advice of my friend that I would have to avoid taking anything with Hebrew writing on or that connected me to Israel or Judaism. I'd said I would take greetings, and I wanted to meet Friends in Ramallah, without being wary of them because I happened to be half-Israeli and they happened to be Palestinian. I wasn't unmoved by my family's worry, but I wanted to make my own decision, and assert my independence, because this was unlikely to be the only time we had different views of what I should be doing while I'm here. And I wanted to see both sides of the wall, to contribute to my understanding of the overall situation here. Not that it would have been the first time I'd crossed the border: last Summer I went to Bethlehem, and didn't encounter any problems being open about my background.

Now, last night, two things happened separately. Firstly, I went with a friend to a hostel in Jerusalem called 'Heritage House', which provides free lodging for Jews and seeks to connect them to their heritage. We were in the heart of the Old City, so I bought a dress that fell to the floor and a blouse to go under it that would cover my elbows, and prepared to do my best to respect the Shabbat, within the parameters of needing to discretely use my phone in order to keep in touch with various people. We went to the Wailing Wall, and were set up with a family for a traditional shabbat dinner. They were lovely, welcoming and generous and interesting, but it became clear fairly quickly that on theological and political issues, we were unlikely to agree. I preferred not to get into a debate, and tried to be reserved and polite. But I did mention my non-Jewish boyfriend. This news clearly caused them great distress, and both started earnestly making the case for Jews to marry other Jews. They did so from a position of love, and I received it as such, and was interested to hear the theological basis for this practice beyond a perceived prejudice against non-Jews. The notion that Jewish souls are designed to be close to God and need another Jewish soul to push them to be the best that they can be is quite beautiful, if you take Judaism and God out of it... But from my point of view, there was a glaringly obvious point that could have reassured them, which is that from their point of view, I myself am not Jewish, being patrilineally descended. I didn't raise that point, rightly or wrongly.

Secondly, Anna (my sister) and Dad's girlfriend's daughter Inbal, were watching a documentary about the Intifadah and a lynching of some IDF soldiers who had lost their way and ended up in Ramallah, both of which reach an anniversary today. They were becoming increasingly concerned about what might happen to me if I went there this weekend, and by making my way to the Arab quarter of the Old City, I was able to call Anna and hear her desperate efforts to dissuade me from going. I said I'd think about it and call her back and, in talking it through with my friend, learned that a friend of hers had gone there last year and had stones and glass bottles thrown at him because he looked Jewish. I'd just had a rather different experience of being received as Jewish over Friday Night dinner, but it suddenly clicked that if I was to go to Ramallah, it would have to be as someone unconnected to Israel and Judaism, not because of any perception on my part that everyone in Ramallah is prejudiced against Israelis and Jews, but because, understandably, overall we're not overly popular there. To compromise my integrity in order to attend a Quaker Meeting would have been quite ironic given that integrity is one of the key Quaker principles, added to which, I'm not good at lying and I don't like doing it. Shifting between different carefully constructed identities in order to be welcome in different areas in and around Jerusalem for three days, in combination with the distress it would cause my family, was an unappealing prospect, and I made arrangements to go back to Ramat Hasharon early this morning, without visiting Ramallah. This meant I didn't miss my Dad's birthday, which was nice. But, overall, the various experiences and realisations of that weekend really reinforced to me how difficult complex questions of identity and religion and inter-faith relations are to resolve, even on a personal level, let alone a national one.

I couldn't help feeling quite depressed.

A Nation Comes to a Halt

So, I know I said I'd go into the political side of things in my next post, but I feel like it would be a missed opportunity to not post about Yom Kippur and, given that everything's political, I'm vaguely keeping my word...

Yom Kippur is the holiest holiday in the Jewish calendar, a time for repentence and to try to make your peace with G-d as they're deciding how to judge you, although I've also been told that it's during Rosh Hashana that they decide that and the repentence is meant to be separate from the judgement, so I'm not sure. Either way, as someone who isn't observing any of the traditions like fasting or, erm, well, not using any manmade machinery like the internet, that's not really the point for me, although I can see the value of thinking through my actions of the past year and making peace, if not with G-d, with people.

A few years ago, Cambridge University Israel Society hosted a Tubishvat (New Year for Trees! N.B. My explanations of Jewish festivals might become more sophisticated as I learn more about them - blame my Kibbutznik father. Anyway, New Year for Trees is I think a basically good summary!) event with the Jewish Society, and I went to a talk about religion and the state. I remember a girl saying that many Israelis don't appreciate the value of being in a country where your religious observances or, if you're secular, traditions, are the norm. Coming here, the significance of this is really coming home for me. Having grown up in a Christian country, although I'm not Christian myself, it's very strange for me how much less a part of people's lives and thinking Jesus and Christianity have been for people here. I'm becoming even more aware of a desire to connect more with my Jewish heritage and be more secure in my knowledge of that: I'm surprised by how unconsciously secure in my knowledge and awareness of Christianity I am. So the point is that, whereas in England presumably people who observe the traditions of Yom Kippur have to seek out others who do in a country where they form a minority, here everything comes to a standstill, and even the more secular Israelis respect the traditions. Being unobservant, it took me a minute to notice when we went for a walk last night, but Ilana pointed out that there were no cars whatsoever, and the roads were full of children on bikes. Of course, technically bikes shouldn't be used, but they've recently been made legal, and I have to say, if the kids get to own the streets for one day a year, then I'm all for it.

So separation between religion and the state and multi-culturalism are obviously important both in principle and in practice, but it's surprising how much of an impact casual cultural norms can have: it's not until you're no longer in a historically Christian country that you realise the significance of that latent religious heritage. Now I understand much better what the aforementioned girl from the Tubishvat talk meant. At the time, as someone who's always felt on the margins of Jewish society within England, I was more interested in the point that these traditions can be exclusive and people who aren't part of them need to be respected. But then, if it's possible to have been part of a pretty strongly Christian tradition without realising it, then having the chance to experience saturation in Jewish culture and traditions can only be enriching, particularly for someone who's always felt uncomfortably cut off from them.

Post Script

Fear not, I'm not going to post every day, I'll probably limit it to once or twice a week. In terms of the aforementioned political difficulties/tensions, I'm accutely aware of a tendency I've had in the past to rush into making grand, charged political statements before I've finished thinking them through or got my head round them, so that side of things is very much a process I'm trying to keep open, but I'll update you on that process as it unfolds (and I have been known to make very well-considered, sensible and calm political statements as well :P). And I have occasionally been just going to the beach etc. and not thinking about anything too heavy, which is probably healthy once in a while, and should mean that there's something for everyone in this blog ;).

Introduction

So, by popular demand (i.e. a couple of people have suggested it to me) I've been moved to start a blog about my time in Israel.

The reason I'm here is because my Dad's Israeli, I'm a citizen, and him and my sister live here, so it seems a good idea to give learning to speak Hebrew a shot, and generally get to know what I tend to think of in my head as 'my other country' better. My return flight is booked for 2nd March 2011 (and yes I will be expecting a welcome home party to have been arranged :P), so I've got a total of six months here, with an ulpan (Hebrew course) lasting five. I'm living with my Dad and Ilana, his lovely girlfriend, in Ramat Hasharon, studying in Tel Aviv at Ulpan Gordon, looking for work and, as to my other adventures, you'll have to stay tuned ;)! (Anyone who's shocked that I took a flight, it really is difficult/impossible to make it here overland, and I literally do limit my flying to coming to Israel periodically, which seems like less of a problem than if I had a holiday home in France that I flew back and forth to every other weekend etc., even if still something to be aware of and thoughtful about).

I've been here over two weeks now, and have generally been working on that whole settling in thing. Learning Hebrew is tough, but coming on reasonably well, and I'm hopeful that I'll be able to string together half coherent sentences and follow what's going on around me by the end of my course. Having said that, I'm in class aleph, and apparently the future tense is saved for the bet syllabus, so I am currently stuck in the present and will only ever be able to look backwards unless I take the initiative and teach myself how to look to the future. This seems rather symbolic.

Spending time with Dad and Anna (my sister) is a real treat, much as I miss people in England (which is a lot!), and I've got lots of friends here, both new and old, as well as having the chance to get to know Ilana and her family better, although sadly one of her daughters is in New York.

Politically, things have already got interesting, and a little difficult (not that anyone anticipated that when I was hatching the plan of coming or anything), but I shall save going into that for my next post.

I hope you are all well and happy in your adventures too.