August 1, 2010
Today's visits and conversations engaged us in extreme contrasts. We started the morning with a very engaging and personable lecture from Shlomo Balsam, a teacher at Yad Vashem, who made the experience of the 1940's Holocaust immediate and personal by describing his family's experience in France and in Palestine/Israel, complete with photos and documents from the time.
That sense of immediacy continued as we went to Yad Vashem and saw the newly built and expanded museum, where the focus is now on recalling Jewish life in Europe and real, individual human lives - people with names and occupations and families and life-stories, as well as recalling and documenting the horrors of gradually building anti-Semitism.
The long history of anti-Semitism and demonizing of the Jew gradually turned into the policies of discrimination and isolation, which the Nazis twisted into their theories of racial superiority and inferiority, till the Jewish people could be a declared parasites on the human race that must be eradicated (along with the weak, infirm, disabled, gypsies, gays, etc.)
The whole experience of Yad Vashem was powerfully moving, deeply sad, and horrifying, familiar as it is. And to be recounting all that history, with all those photos and names and stories, right here in the land of Israel, was even more moving. The prayer service that our group held at the end , with moments of reflective silence, was a balm for the soul.
The rest of the day also held some extreme contrasts. We visited the Foreign Ministry offices, where we first met with Shmuel Ben-Shmuel, head of World Jewish and Religious Affairs. He seemed very uncomfortable - never made eye contact with anyone, slouched in his chair and talked very haltingly and played with his pen the whole time. He talked about relations between major world religious groups and Israel, but when someone tried to discuss the concerns that some mainline Protestant American denominations have tried to raise about the civil rights and human rights of Palestinians in the current situation, he seemed to become quickly defensive.
While he said repeatedly that Israel is open to criticism, in the very next sentence he repeatedly seemed to equate criticism with de-legitimization and a denial of Israel's right to exist. It made any further discussion or clarification of the other concerns that other religious groups have had very difficult.
The next speaker, Baruch Binah, was much more open, engaging and articulate. He was head of the Division of Diaspora and North American affairs. He spoke quite knowledgeably and passionately about the importance of a close alliance between the United States and Israel (and the need for the world to understand that unshakable alliance) for any profitably negotiations to happen with the Palestinians and the Arab world.
Our next stop was out to Efrat, a Jewish settlement in the Gush Etzion bloc in the West Bank. There we met with a representative, an American Jew who has lived in this town for 25 years.
One of the most striking parts of the conversation was his firm conviction that in the Torah, God had commanded the Jewish people to inhabit the land and that this commandment was just as current today and applicable to him as it was in the time of Moses. He said that the Law and the Land are, in his understanding, essential to the identity of a Jew.
This led to much discussion on the way home between the Christian clergy and the Rabbis about how literally we understand the scriptures and the Will of God in our lives. Does God command specific acts in specific situations? Does God directly control our actions? This led to an ongoing discussion about our different understandings of forgiveness and how we treat our enemies – great theological dialogues on the road to Jerusalem!
The day ended with supper and dessert discussion with the former Executive editor of the Jerusalem Post, Amotz Asa-El. He spoke eloquently about the unparalleled success of the development of the State of Israel – creating a “new” modern language that is now universal, integrating many, many, cultures and ethnic groups, overcoming tremendous economic challenges etc. Yet these unheard of successes are never noted in the world press – a very engaging and thought provoking talk.
Indeed a very engaging and thought provoking day!
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