by
Yehezkel Landau
April 5, 2003, marked the
25th anniversary of my arrival in Israel.
I came on an El Al plane from New York, courtesy of a rabbi who had
bought me a one-way ticket so that I could work and study at his academy
in Jerusalem. I never bought
the other half of the ticket. Instead,
I remained in Israel and became a (dual) citizen, married my wife Dalia,
who had grown up there, and together with her built a home in the
southwest corner of the Holy City that includes our 15-year-old son
Raphael and three endearingly neurotic dogs.
I
was the last member of my immediate family to visit Israel and the only
one who stayed. This is
because I did not go as a tourist, or as a pilgrim, but as a prospective
resident and citizen. The
Jewish yearnings in my soul had intensified to the point where I needed to
experience life in Israel first-hand.
While still in the U.S., it pained me deeply to watch the evening
news and vicariously suffer the indignities of Palestinians and the
existential dread of Israeli Jews. I
felt that, as a Jew who identified with the Zionist homecoming, as an
interfaith educator, and as someone committed to seeking inclusive justice
and the reconciliation of wounded, angry, embittered hearts, I might be
able to contribute something to the alleviation of people’s suffering.
I
also believed, and still believe, that the Holy Land of
Israel/Palestine is God’s primary laboratory on earth for the practice
of justice and loving kindness, in Hebrew mishpat and tzedakah.
In Jewish tradition, these are the two main attributes of God, and
they are also exemplified in the personality and the interactions of our
common forefather Abraham/Ibrahim (see Genesis 18:19). Tragically, in Israel/Palestine today these sacred principles
are being violated, with an immense toll in human lives and spirits, by a
chronic state of spiritual pathology that breeds injustice and violence.
Deeply ingrained “victim scripts” compete for validation.
Two opposing historical narratives reflect a shared attachment, not
just to a common homeland, but also to a scarcity principle selfishly
applied to territory, history, and identity.
I am
convinced that there will be no genuine peace between the two peoples
fighting over God’s Holy Land until there is a shared commitment to
consecrate life and land. Hebrew
Scripture, in Exodus 19:5-6, teaches us that the land belongs to God, and
that, by the grace of God, we Jews belong to the land.
In our time, the challenge is to share the land equitably with
another people that has its own sense of belonging. This theological
re-visioning, with a willingness to sacrifice territory in both directions
to safeguard human life, is essential for a political transformation.
At present, what is professed to be holy by Jews, Christians, or
Muslims is being desecrated by horrific violence and by the trampling of
basic human rights in the name of “security” or “freedom” or
“liberation.”
In
my view, no peace plan, or road map, or negotiated agreement will succeed
unless it includes, explicitly, a religious dimension grounded in sacred
symbols and in spiritually resonant actions.
One of the reasons for the collapse of the Oslo peace process was
the failure of its sponsors to take the spiritual needs of both peoples
into account. And by this I
do not mean only or primarily pre-empting the religious extremists on all
sides. What I have in mind is a strategy for realizing the
deepest yearnings of Israelis and Palestinians, which are essentially the
same: to feel at home,
secure and free (in political jargon, exercising the right to
“self-determination”); to be accepted by one’s neighbors in one’s
own terms, that is, to have one’s identity honored rather than
denigrated; to be forgiven for harm inflicted on others; to raise one’s
children without fear for their future; and to exercise the capacity for
love and creativity unimpeded by physical threats. If these spiritual needs were met, then the extremists would
be neutralized automatically.
Sadly,
for too long both peoples have been emotionally overwhelmed by fear,
anger, grief, bitter resentment, hatred in some quarters, and now
widespread despair. It is
this oppressive mix of negative feelings that provides religious and
ideological militants with the emotional “justification” for their
destructive agendas. Transforming
the emotional matrix of whole peoples is an enormous task, requiring
diligence, patience, and the efforts of many people, including political
leaders, religious authorities, grass-roots educators and activists, and
dedicated media professionals.
During
the 1980’s, the framework for my own peacebuilding efforts was the
religious Zionist peace movement, OZ veSHALOM-NETIVOT SHALOM
(“Strength and Peace-Paths of Peace,” from two verses in Psalms
and Proverbs, respectively). To
some, the notion of a “religious Zionist peace movement” may sound
like an oxymoron. For
decades, the chauvinistic spokespeople among the Jewish settlers in the
West Bank and Gaza, using the media very effectively, have offered their
own version of religious Zionism. Their
movement, Gush Emunim (Bloc of the Faithful) espouses a
pseudo-messianic ideology rooted in “territoriolatry” and historical
determinism. They see the
covenant linking God, the People of Israel, and the Land of Israel as a
“no-fault insurance plan” from Heaven, promising the Jews political
victory and spiritual blessing so long as they control the whole land from
the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River.
In this worldview, the human and political rights of the other
nation in the land are dismissed as irrelevant or nonexistent. Those of us who are the “minority within a minority,”
religious Zionists who advocate territorial and political compromise (now
represented in the Knesset by the dovish Meimad Party), have
received scant media coverage. As
a result, secular left-wing groups like Shalom Akhshav (Peace Now)
or Gush Shalom or Women in Black tend to see the cause of
peace as incompatible with Jewish religious tradition and practice.
This mutual alienation, between the secular left and the
religious right, has created a seismic fault line that threatens to tear
Israeli society apart. SHALOM,
one of God’s Holy Names, is ironically perceived as the monopoly of
secular leftists and is, therefore, deemed an anathema by religiously
committed Jews.
Let
me illustrate this bifurcation of Israeli Jewry by drawing on one of the
most well-known sources in our oral tradition.
Pirkei Avot (literally, Chapters of the Fathers) is a
homiletical tractate within the Mishnah, the compilation of the Oral Torah
which is the basis for what came to be called the Talmud.
In its first chapter are two teachings attributed to one of two
sages named Shimon. The
first, in the name of Shimon haTzaddik (Simon the Righteous), reads,
“The world stands on three things: on Torah (study), on Sacrificial
Worship or Service, and on Acts of Lovingkindness.”
In later rabbinic literature, these three virtues were attributed
to the three patriarchs in Genesis:
Abraham
is the embodiment of loving kindness; Isaac is ready to be sacrificed
himself; and Jacob is depicted as a Torah scholar studying all day in his
tent. These three virtues are
the essence of what I would call “particularistic Judaism,” the ideal
attributes of an educated and committed Jew.
At the end of the same chapter, Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel is quoted
as saying, “By three things is the world sustained: by justice, by truth, and by peace, as it is said [in
Zekhariah 8:16], ‘truth and justice-peace you shall administer in your
gates.’” This second
tripartite teaching can be said to encapsulate the “universalistic
Judaism” of the Hebrew prophets. In
my imagination, each of these thee-part teachings can be represented as a
triangle; and the two triangles together, as in a Star of David, comprise
holistic Judaism, integrating both the particularistic and universalistic
aspects. Note that peace, shalom,
is only one of six points on this star and is thus seen as one element of
a larger whole. (This is why I never joined the Peace Now movement, or any
movement that holds up peace as a value independent of other values within
an inclusive spiritual matrix.)
The
cultural, even existential, strife that afflicts Israeli Jewry can be
diagnosed as the severing of these two triangles which are meant to be
joined together. The secular
left has embraced the universal ethical values of truth, justice, and
peace; while the religiously observant Jewish community has identified
largely with the more particularistic agenda of the first triangle, both
educationally and politically. In
the particularistic worldview, lovingkindness is reserved for fellow Jews,
and justice and peace are defined in self-referencing terms.
In the universalistic mindset, holiness does not exist, any piece
of territory can be given up without any qualms, and the attachment to
Judea and Samaria felt strongly by Gush Emunim is dismissed as
fantastical and dangerous. The
result of this mutual negation and alienation is a Jewish population
suffering deep internal divisions, and these divisions are a formidable
obstacle to a just peace between Israel and Palestine.
(Palestinian society is similarly divided into contesting factions,
making any peace agreement between these two fragmented nations an almost
super-human challenge.)
OZ
veSHALOM-NETIVOT SHALOM has sought to be a bridge between the two
Israeli constituencies, each of which has its own vision of an authentic
“Jewish state.” Each is
loyal to only part of the Jewish heritage, and what is needed is a sacred
synthesis of the two positions. Consequently, the religious peace movement
in Israel has taken on a double mission:
to offer a Jewish religious foundation to the entire Israeli peace
camp, and to develop a “kosher peace politics” acceptable to the
religious community (i.e., rooted in Jewish religious law, halakhah).
Returning to Pirkei Avot for help in reconciling the two
adversarial worldviews, I would point to a teaching by the renowned sage
Hillel, which appears in the text between the two tripartite statements by
Shimon HaTzaddik and Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel. Hillel said: “Be
of the disciples of Aaron, loving peace and pursuing peace, loving
humankind, and drawing them closer to the Torah.”
To me, this is the healing approach for Jews in conflict:
engage the Torah tradition together, find a holy common denominator
rooted in its wisdom, and build community on this sacred foundation.
Since
its founding in 1975, the religious peace movement in Israel has had very
limited success. It has
sponsored seminars and learning retreats, dissemination of published
materials, public protests and demonstrations, media pronouncements, and
direct appeals to both political and rabbinic leaders.
I would say that its primary achievement has been to demonstrate
that there is an alternative interpretation of religious Zionism, grounded
in Torah Judaism, that challenges the ideology of the Gush Emunim
settlers.
I
have heard it said, facetiously, that it is harder to make peace among
Jews than it is to make peace between Israel and Palestine.
There is another, more sober, assessment: It is easier to take the Jews out of Exile than it is to take
the internal reality of Exile out of the Jews.
It will take a long time before Jews, so accustomed to being
vulnerable victims, are fully comfortable with majority status in Israel,
and with the responsibilities that come with sovereign power. Even if there were a viable peace agreement between Israel
and Palestine, the civil rights agenda within Israeli society would still
need to be addressed with much more seriousness and perseverance.
For it is true that peace begins at home.
The Jewish majority in Israel has difficulty dealing with the
Palestinian national minority within the state, which comprises some 20%
of the population. Especially
since the riots of October, 2000, which provoked a violent response by the
security services that left 13 Arab citizens dead, the rift between Jewish
and Palestinian Israelis has grown.
This
brings me to the story and peacebuilding work of OPEN HOUSE. After almost ten years of activism in OZ veSHALOM-NETIVOT
SHALOM, which involved teaching, writing, planning educational
programs, interviews with journalists, traveling, and raising funds, I
felt the need to engage in a concrete peacebuilding effort.
My wife and I were then trying to transform her childhood home into
a laboratory for reconciliation. Dalia
was born in Sofia, Bulgaria, and came to Israel with her family when she
was a year old, at the end of 1948. Like
many other immigrant families at that time, hers was placed in an “Arab
house” in Ramle, between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
The Israeli government considered the confiscated homes of
Palestinian refugees as “abandoned property.”
After the Six-Day War in 1967, the original Palestinian owners of
her family home came to visit. They
were then living in the West Bank city of El-Bireh, next to Ramallah. The Al-Khayri family paid several visits to the house in
Ramle, and Dalia also visited them. Over
time, a special bond developed between the two families, brought together
by a house and garden that each called “home.”
Dalia
came to learn that the Al-Khayris did not leave the Ramle house
voluntarily. They had been
forcibly evacuated by the Israeli army in July of 1948, along with most of
the residents of Ramle and nearby Lydda/Lod.
These expulsions were deemed necessary at the time, as Israel was
waging a war of survival following the Arab world’s rejection of the
1947 U.N. partition plan. After
her father died in 1985 and she inherited the house, Dalia and I (by then
married) sought out the Al-Khayri family to consult with them about what
to do with the property. The
resulting discussions led to the creation of OPEN HOUSE, a peace education
center based in that Ramle house. The
house remains the home of two families, symbolizing Israel/Palestine as
the homeland of two nations. OPEN
HOUSE sponsors “affirmative action” programs for Arab children and
their families, as well as joint programs for Jewish and Arab Israelis of
all ages. Recalling the two
Divine attributes that are the criteria for consecrated living in God’s
Holy Land, I would say that the first program area, which addresses the
discrimination experienced by the local Arab community, reflects our
commitment to mishpat, justice; while our mixed activities are
meant to keep hearts open and caring, as a practical model of tzedakah,
compassion.
Dalia
is rather shy, and she never dreamed of attracting media attention.
She harbored tremendous fears as she set out, with me and with our
Palestinian partners, to realize our vision for OPEN HOUSE.
“I decided to simply carry my fears along with me,” she has
said many times. The journey
of faith and courage that led Dalia to dedicate her childhood home to
educational projects fostering reconciliation is documented in reports
that have aired on CNN, CBS, Israeli television, Dutch, Spanish and
Italian TV networks, and National Public Radio in the U.S.
Her story has also appeared in print in many languages.
Dalia has been invited to share her testimony at interfaith
conferences throughout the world. Whenever
she speaks, she conveys her belief that, to achieve genuine
reconciliation, each side must undertake three steps:
(1) to acknowledge the harm done by one’s own side to the
other side; (2) to apologize for the hurt and injustice inflicted;
and (3) to make amends for past actions by acts of repentance and
rectification, now and into the future.
These three “A’s” are her practical guidelines for
peacebuilding, and OPEN HOUSE is a vessel for their application.
We believe that these guidelines are equally applicable to the
macro-level of negotiations and peacebuilding gestures between the two
peoples. Unfortunately, it is a rationalist, utilitarian, and
incrementalist mentality that characterizes most diplomatic efforts.
Such an approach focuses more on interests than on feelings or
spiritual yearnings, so it neglects opportunities to heal hearts and
transform spirits. Grass-roots
efforts need to make up for this deficiency at the official level.
Hopefully, if these localized efforts succeed, they can inspire
diplomats and political leaders to apply their methods to the
macro-process of building trust and cooperation between warring nations.
OPEN
HOUSE, since its founding in 1991, has touched the lives of thousands of
Jews and Arabs, mostly young people.
By investing in our youth, helping them to experience a social
environment based on equality and mutual appreciation, we are establishing
a firm foundation for a society at peace within itself.
And since the Holy Land is a focus for so many people’s hopes and
dreams, a just peace between Israelis and Palestinians promises to radiate
inspiration and blessing to the far corners of the earth.
For
further information, visit these Web sites:
www.friendsofopenhouse.org
and www.netivot-shalom.org.il
