The prophetic project of return — and what it must yet become.
“The Israelis” “The Palestinians”
I looked for two sides
I found only one side
The side of humanity, life, and love
8 billion human beings and counting, created in the imago dei
I appreciate your support for some of us
But I invite you to leave your world behind
Support all of us
Because there is no them
שאלו את שלום ירושלים
“You can not own land.”
“Yes I can!” “Prove it.”
“Uhhhh…”
(Americans in particular will not like this politically incorrect post 😀)
An object can be made or bought from the person who made it. Whether it’s big or small, the claim to ownership is clear.
Land is not an object. It was not created by a man and can not be bought from its Creator. Land “ownership” is a murky claim that exploits confusion in language.
In legal terms, land is an area of jurisdiction, the place to which our agreement to live lawfully together extends. In economic terms, land is a collective resource for the entire community associated with it. In ecological terms, land is a foundational part of an intricate living system.
In religious terms, land is a sacred home, in which all are welcome so long as we live moral lives.
Capitalism is a good system for exchanging objects but over the years I’ve come to realize that on the core issue of land “ownership” – which has structural, cultural, and political ramifications across society – it is inadequate to reality and fails to provide an effective or ethical systematic approach to the issues prior to the exchange of goods and services.
True, alternatives like Bolshevism were a disaster and central economic planning has often proven ineffective in many ways, and often results in systemic injustice – but thankfully there is more than one flavor of Socialism.
So the question is:
How do we, as Zionists in the 58th century, restore our relationship with this land to its proper mode?
Jerusalem is not just my home of 15 years.
It is not just a sprawling city of hundreds of thousands nestled among the Judaean Hills.
It is not just a political hotspot or a contested capital.
It is a symbol of the most basic collective human dream – of society together in harmony and fellowship.
It transcends the pettiness of politicians, the exploitation of capitalists, the violence of racists.
It is an emblem of a new and holy world order, founded on the idea that the human being is a living ikon of the Creator and created by the choices we make on a daily basis, in the halls and in the streets of this great city, to give respect, love, and grace.
It is a home for all seekers and lovers, and if you’ve ever gazed across its amber, twinkling lights from a moonlit rooftop and contemplated its past and its future, you know I do not lie.
Jerusalem call us and transforms us, and ever grows to embrace new souls and their lives, their sins, and their dreams.
No one – not one person, not one million people – can ever lay exclusive claim to Jerusalem.
Jerusalem is beyond the ownership of any group of men – it is the inheritance and the destiny of all humankind.
The day will come when Jerusalem is united, when the Big House stands again atop the ancient hill, when the poor man is saved and the vulnerable are protected, in the name of God.
We build towards that day.
שיבנה בית המקדש במהרה בימינו
I’m the only person I’ve ever met who wants both equal citizenship with Palestinians and a halakhic state. 🤷
Right/left politics are banal. 😂
You can say I support genocide and apartheid all you want…
You can say I support terrorists and am a naive traitor all you like…
But you live in a movie and every day I devote my thoughts, words, and actions to doing my part to build a better world for my children’s future children, a home for Israelis, Palestinians, and anyone who wants to join the party as full and equal citizens of this amazing country in this beautiful land, with all the rights and responsibilities that come with being members of civil society in the 21st century.
Full stop.
The future is Pro-Israeli, Pro-Palestinian, Pro-Humanity.
Don’t pick a side.
This post is definitely politically incorrect but I’ll be honest…
I have a problem with the 🇵🇸 flag.
For me, it represents a history of exclusionary Pan-Arabism and organized violence against innocent people.
I have seen it used, again and again, as a symbol of the denial of legitimacy to my country. The denial of humanity to my people.
People waving the 🇵🇸 often mean harm to me and my family, and sometimes it’s hard for me to separate between the flag and the waver.
BUT.
I am painfully aware that many people could say much the same thing about the 🇮🇱 flag.
For them, the flag represents a history of exclusion and marginalization, dispossession and disenfranchisement; it is the flag of the organized violence of gangs, militias, and armies, directed towards them and their families, in their homes and communities.
For them, it is a symbol of conquest and invasion, of disruption and dislocation, of erasure.
It is a flag waved by too many people who deny their struggle, their history, their rights, their humanity, their very identity. People who at best are indifferent to violence committed against them, and who, disturbingly often, are the ones committing the violence.
While waving the flag.
What for me is a natural expression of the historic prayer to return home and build a country where we can be free to live as God intended – is for too many people a painful reminder of all that they, their parents, and their grandparents have endured and continue to endure to this day.
What for me is a symbol of fear and trauma, a pervasive and overwhelming denial of who I am and my right to be me – is actually for many people a symbol of connection, family, peoplehood; of defiance against injustice and of the ability to flourish in spite of it.
There are two sides to a flag, two sides to what it means and what it represents. Two sides to Alex Sinclair ‘s (in)famous kippa. Two sides to the story of this country.
It is natural to see one’s own side of things, at first. But it is crucial that we learn to see other sides – and to catch glimpses of ourselves through others’ eyes.
Especially through the eyes of the vulnerable and the violated in a society where we wield real power over the lives of others.
Honestly, I don’t think two states is the right solution to the problems we face… but a flag is not a solution; ultimately, it’s a symbol of the hope that solutions can be found, if we work together to build a better country.
A kippa – which itself symbolizes the life-affirming awe of the Creator of all things big and small, together – is certainly an appropriate garment with which to express that hope.
Putting a 🇵🇸 flag next to a 🇮🇱 flag on a kippa isn’t promoting one solution over another (although I’m aware Alex does have ideas on the subject) – it’s doubling down on that hope.
Doubling down on peace.
In the name and to the glory of the Creator of us all.
Can I get over my complicated feelings about a flag – and get on board with that ethos?
I should hope so.
I don’t know if I’ll wind up getting a kippa like Alex’s; I happen to like my current big black knit kippa… and I certainly am not interested in getting into unprovoked altercations with racist, fascist police officers.
But I gotta say…
I’m sorely tempted.
After years decades centuries of being hated as a Jew, there are few things more life-affirming than celebrating the founding of this country together with my fellow Israelis.
That we finally have a country again, where we can just be our Hebrew selves and live our lives freely the way the good lord intended, does not excuse any harm done to Palestinians in the last 78 years – nor in itself does it justify the existence of our state or our society.
As a nation, we’re about more than just building a home for Jews, in the land of our ancestors.
But good lord, what a gift that home is.
As a Maimonidean, as a #Zionist, as a Libertarian Socialist – communal self-determination has a high place in my hierarchy of values.
I think it’s all the more important here in #Israel, where the need to form new types of communities together, with new identities, new norms, new customs, new niggunim, is critical.
(long but LIFE AFFIRMING 👍)
This week we are supposed to celebrate Yom Haatsmaut.
A national day of independence.
A celebration of the achievement and the miracle that was the creation of this state, and what it means for the people of Israel who have marched down this road for millenia.
A recognition of what it means to go from being herded into the gas chambers to flying one of the world’s greatest air forces.
To be one step – one huge and meaningful step – closer to the ultimate freedom we’ve prayed and fought for throughout the longest exile.
A day to look forward to, every year.
And so we’re getting ready.
Meanwhile… the ceasefire with Lebanon didn’t include Hezbollah and the “ceasefire” with the IRGC wasn’t based on any points of agreement, didn’t translate into anything permanent, and expires on… Yom Haatsmaut.
Meanwhile POTUS said Hormuz will never be closed again hours before the IRGC closed it and fired on ships, and said Iran will transfer all its uranium to the USA only for the IRGC to flatly deny anything of the sort minutes later. Sounds like someone’s looking to sell renewed hostilities (“a civilization will die tonight”?) to his base as the necessary response to the IRGC breaking the aforementioned “ceasefire.”
Meanwhile the IRGC has been digging out launchers, manufacturing new launchers and missiles, and repositioning all the assets it conserved and recovered during the 40 days of missiles fired at just the right pace to keep us running to shelters and to deplete our interceptors, escalating at will in response to coalition strikes and political developments.
Meanwhile we are running lower than ever before on interceptors and we can’t cover all the missiles and launchers the IRGC currently has, let alone resupply the interceptors as quickly as the IRGC can make new missiles and launchers.
Meanwhile Hezbollah is repositioning, resupplying, and still under the complete control of the IRGC. Waiting for the signal to resume the rockets that keep half the country running for cover.
Meanwhile the Israeli government lifted all restrictions on Friday and so all of us are grabbing the opportunity to party and are busy planning barbecues with our friends on balconies and in parks and on the beaches and just want to feel fcking normal for a change after weeks/years of war, like we actually have something to celebrate and live for, just to be free of the shelters for just a little bit.
Just a little bit.
And the “ceasefire” expires on Yom Haatsmaut…
I have no idea what to expect this week.
A couple of weeks ago we were staring down the barrel of radically escalated hostilities with possibly devasting consequences for Israelis, and then like 45 minutes before it was bombs and missiles everywhere, the Pakistani government jumped in and we got some kind of pause in the bombs and missiles instead of a lot more of them.
I had stocked our shelter, stayed up reading the news, studying, and waiting for the sirens, and was never so happy to have my concerns prove fruitless if not unfounded.
This Yom Haatsmaut might be the day of normalcy and joy and fun we’ve been collectively craving for over a month.
It might be a day of missiles.
Landing.
Most of the signs I’m seeing as of today are pointing in a clear direction – but everything is in flux, perpetually and rapidly shifting, ever-changing détentes between multiple belligerent and corrupt parties.
Nothing is certain. Nothing is fixed. Nothing is guaranteed.
And always, throughout history and across the world but especially in this place at this time – Divine love, compassion, and grace have accompanied us, even in the darkest hour of night.
Anything can happen, especially the miraculous, especially here, in the land of providential love.
Whatever happens, though, we WILL celebrate our independence. Our freedom. Our autonomy. Our democracy.
The inalienable rights our ancestors fought to assert and defend and exercise in our ancestral land.
They are worth celebrating this year and every year, with thanks and gratitude to the Highest.
Maybe especially this year.
(Yes, the war and the history and everything was complicated and multifaceted – hard won independence for some came at a catastrophic price for others. I will share some thoughts on what independence means, and should mean, and can mean, in a few days. But for this moment I just want to say:)
Whether in the parks or in the shelters… we will celebrate.
We will find a way.
We will have our Yom Haatsmaut.
So, my friends…. I’m praying for normalcy.
I’m praying for barbecues and loud music and the joy of being alive together under the open sky.
I’m praying for another miracle.
But I’m keeping the shelter stocked.
With beer.
Went down the rabbit hole today researching alllllll the links in the chain from the expulsion from Spain in 1492 to the establishment of the state of #Israel in 1948.
I won’t go into all the details in this post – this needs to be a book – but here’s the upshot:
This is not a case of someone starting a project that failed and was picked up three centuries later and brought to fruition… This is someone starting something that continued and grew and eventually attained one of its concrete goals.
Doña Gracia Nasi, born into a culture wrestling with the political implications of being a disenfranchised minority and the national alternatives to perpetual exile and instability, literally started modern #Zionism (defined as the organized movement to reestablish Jewish autonomous society in Israel), developed the Galilean communities into a thriving independent society, and built the political, economic, and social networks that coalesced into what became later known as the Old Yishuv.
The communities that she built spread to Jerusalem and Hebron, absorbed waves of Sepharadi and Maghrebi immigrants, and eventually (re)established the northern coastal cities as Jewish centers. It was the Sepharadi and Maghrebi leaders of these communities who helped the incoming Europeans establish what became known as the New Yishuv.
Theodor Herzl definitely contributed to modern Zionism. He established many effective organizations that exist to this day and translated the Zionist project into the European political language of nation-statism in vogue in his day. But Herzl inherited an intellectual apparatus that originates with Sepharadi rabbis wrestling with the expulsion from Spain and he built on a foundation laid and lived by Sepharadi and Maghrebi immigrants and their descendants. Herzl’s efforts were just one phase in the long story of modern Zionism, and he ultimately did not succeed in creating a state.
It took two world wars, the fall of the Ottoman and British empires, and a genocide, before conditions emerged and international support could be garnered for the creation of a fully autonomous Jewish state in Israel.
Which leads us to an intriguing What If:
If Herzl had never been born, but all the international events of the first half of the twentieth century transpired, would we still have a state?
Maybe. The Old Yishuv was a robust, autonomous society, and in the 20th century it could have conceivably transitioned into a state.
But if Doña Gracia had never been born, could Herzl have done what he did? Could a state have later emerged?
I think the answer is, most likely not.
The truth is, modern Zionism starts with Doña Gracia Nasi:
The mother of the state of Israel.