DOCSLIB.ORG

What Israel and Diaspora Owe Each Other

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
What Israel and Diaspora Owe Each Other Empathy and Dignity What Israel and Diaspora Owe Each Other David Ben-Gurion wrongly believed that American Jews, while an asset for Israel, were incapable of truly meaningful Jewish life. Today, Israelis should show more respect for the Diaspora – and vice versa n August 1950, the president of the American Jewish Committee, Jacob IBlaustein, traveled to Israel on what he regarded as an urgent mission of clarification. Israel’s UN ambassador, Abba Eban, had called for the mass aliyah of young American Jews, and Blaustein feared that American Jewry would be vulnerable to accusations of dual loyalty. Unless Israel changed its attitude toward American Jewry, Blaustein wrote to AJC members, it risked forfeiting “not only the continuance of American [Jewish] philanthropic and economic assistance, but also the general good will of American Jewry." {By YOSSI KLEIN HALEVI 32 | Summer 2011 Empathy and Dignity /// Yossi Klein Halevi For Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, limits of the Israel-Diaspora relationship, not maintaining good relations with the non- its creative potential. And it was motivated, on Zionist but pro-Israel AJC was crucial to Israel’s side, by pragmatic considerations – the Israel’s relationship with American Jewry. need to ensure continued American Jewish And so, uncharacteristically, he conceded a support for the struggling state – rather than key ideological principle. At a luncheon given by the need to meaningfully engage American in Blaustein’s honor, Ben-Gurion implicitly Jews as partners in the Jewish future. endorsed the AJC’s position that American In Ben-Gurion’s paradigm, which for decades Jewry was not living in exile. American Jews, defined Israeli attitudes, Diaspora communities he declared, “owe no political allegiance to were relegated to the role of appendage, whose Israel … the State of Israel represents and vibrancy was measured by the extent of their speaks only on behalf of its own citizens … support for Israel’s needs, rather than by their We, the people of Israel, have no desire and own intrinsic spiritual and cultural vitality, one no intention to interfere in any way with of whose natural expressions would be support the internal affairs of Jewish communities for Israel. This model, though never adequate, abroad.” As for aliyah, Ben-Gurion noted that was at least understandable for the generation Israel needed the expertise of American Jews of the Holocaust and Jewish national rebirth, and hoped that at least some would come – and it reflected Israeli self-confidence and “permanently or temporarily.” Hardly a ringing Diaspora demoralization. call for the ingathering of the exiles from New The long-term result is an increasingly York and Boston. dysfunctional relationship. Aside from The Ben-Gurion-Blaustein “exchange,” as periodically confronting crises in Israel, it came to be known, was a key moment in American Jews and Israelis have little in defining the relationship between Israel and common. They largely view each other’s Jewish American Jewry. However reluctantly, Israel lives through the stereotypes of another era – an accepted the distinction between exile and insecure American Jewry devoid of meaningful Diaspora: that a Jewish community enjoying Jewish life, and an Israeli society divided conditions of equality and acceptance could between Orthodoxy and secularism with little not be defined as exilic. Today, following the space for modern religious expressions. fall of the Iron Curtain, most Diaspora Jews no Dealing with crises is an essential facet of a longer live in exile – the condition of enforced shared Jewish identity, especially in a time when separation from the land of Israel. In the 21st Israel again faces existential threats. But that century, the Ben-Gurion-Blaustein exchange can only be an outgrowth of, not a substitute remains relevant not only to American Jewry, for, a healthy Israeli-Diaspora relationship. but to Jewish communities around the world, Instead of learning from and nurturing each as they seek to define their relationship with other’s cultural achievements, we rely on crisis Israel. to maintain an increasingly fragile connection. The result is a depletion of that connection and, ironically, a growing reluctance among Beyond Utilitarianism young Diaspora Jews to support Israel even in times of crisis. Israelis and Diaspora Jews Ben-Gurion’s concession to Blaustein reflected urgently require a contemporary version of the the anxieties and limitations of its time. It Ben-Gurion-Blaustein exchange, to address the failed to adequately address the need for Israel growing drift between them and to affirm the to respect not just the American identity of values that need to guide their relations. American Jews, but their distinctive Jewish In the past, Israel has seen its responsibility identity. The exchange deals with the formal to world Jews being fulfilled by its very HAVRUTA | 33 existence. Israel’s achievements empowered of Auschwitz. The Six-Day War inspired the Diaspora Jews with pride and invigorated rebirth of Jewish identity in the Soviet Union their communal life. The founding of Israel and the enhancement of Jewish political clout immediately after the Shoah offered a in the United States. To a large extent, the compelling response to apocalypse: military reinvigoration of the Diaspora is a direct result prowess against defenselessness, ingathering of Israel’s success. against deportation and, for some Jews, the Practically, Israel defined its responsibilities biblical God of battle against the hidden God to Jews abroad in terms of rescue and 34 | Summer 2011 Empathy and Dignity /// Yossi Klein Halevi protection. These remain Israel’s ongoing case of Soviet Jewry, to include a commitment commitment, whether expressed in the rescue to nurture Jewish identity. Beginning in and absorption of Ethiopian Jewry, or in the the 1950s, Israeli emissaries engaged in a way Israeli ambassadors perceive monitoring clandestine campaign, coordinated from the local anti-Semitism as a natural part of their prime minister’s office, to resist the Soviet diplomatic mission. Union’s policy of enforced Jewish assimilation “The Last Supper.” Israel’s commitment to rescuing endangered by disseminating Jewish books and ritual Photograph by Adi Nes, Jewish communities was expanded, in the items. The immediate goal was to restore a 1999. Courtesy of the artist. HAVRUTA | 35 basic Jewish identity to Soviet Jews; the long- at worst virtual traitors, a certain dismissal term goal was to stimulate aliyah. persists, exemplified by the term yored“ ,” a Israeli emissaries in the West have long “descender” from the land. A new relationship tried to nurture Zionist sentiment among between Israel and the Diaspora requires a young Jews. In recent years, those efforts change in the ideological language of contempt. have taken the form of a partnership with By contrast, the term “oleh,” an “ascender” to Diaspora groups, especially Birthright. Along the land, remains appropriate. “Yored” demeans; with strengthening attachment to Israel, “oleh” affirms. Birthright aims to strengthen Diaspora life Israelis have much to learn from – a goal that Israel endorses. Shlilat hagolah, Diaspora creativity. Jewish feminism, trans- the negation of Exile, has been replaced with denominational community schools, the an ethos of what can be called hizuk ha-tfutsot, synthesis of mysticism and ecology created strengthening the Diaspora. by the Jewish renewal movement – all offer models of the sort of expansiveness often To a large extent, the lacking in Israeli Judaism. American Jewry in particular is engaged in the most remarkable reinvigoration of the experiment in the history of the Diaspora. Diaspora is a direct result Jews are helping shape the public space of the most powerful country in the world, which of Israel’s success. welcomes their ideas and values and political input. American Jewry influences and is in That shift needs to become ideologically turn influenced by the general culture and explicit. Strengthening Jewish life abroad politics. No Jewish minority – and perhaps should not be seen solely in Zionist utilitarian no minority in any society – has ever enjoyed terms – as a means to enhance support for Israel a more influential stage. – but as an inherent necessity for the Jewish Still, celebrating the vitality of Diaspora life people. That means embracing the Diaspora as doesn’t mean accepting the notion, advocated a Jewish good. The Diaspora doesn’t only need by various Jewish thinkers in Israel and abroad, to be strengthened for Israel’s sake, but for its of the existence of two equal centers –Israel and own. Not only is the Diaspora responsible for Diaspora – in Jewish life. Indeed, some now helping maintain Israel’s well-being; Israel is reject the very term “Diaspora” and prefer the responsible for helping maintain the well-being phrase “world Jewry,” which implicitly reduces of the Diaspora. Israel to one Jewish community among many. Israel owes Diaspora Jews an affirmation of But even as we reject the term “exile” to define the worthiness of their Jewish lives. As the state the condition of Jews outside the land, the founded by Zionism, whose goal was to restore term “Diaspora” remains valid, upholding the the dignity of the Jewish people, Israel must be centrality of Israel in Jewish life. mindful of the dignity of Jews worldwide. That The Land of Israel is central to Jewish includes, for example, affirming the rebirth of thought, prayer, and aspirations. And the State Jewish life in Germany and Poland – despite of Israel – where Jewish life and public space the understandable ambivalence of many Jews are interchangeable and where a majority of after the Shoah toward resurrecting Jewish the world’s Jews may soon live – is the practical life there. expression of that centrality. In fulfilling the It also must include the Israelis who leave dream of return that helped sustain the Jews the Jewish state and settle abroad. While public in exile, the State of Israel has assumed the attitudes have evolved from the days when responsibility of validating Jewish longing.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Ian S. Lustick
    MIDDLE EAST POLICY, VOL. XV, NO. 3, FALL 2008 ABANDONING THE IRON WALL: ISRAEL AND “THE MIDDLE EASTERN MUCK” Ian S. Lustick Dr. Lustick is the Bess W. Heyman Chair of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of Trapped in the War on Terror. ionists arrived in Palestine in the the question of whether Israel and Israelis 1880s, and within several de- can remain in the Middle East without cades the movement’s leadership becoming part of it. Zrealized it faced a terrible pre- At first, Zionist settlers, land buyers, dicament. To create a permanent Jewish propagandists and emissaries negotiating political presence in the Middle East, with the Great Powers sought to avoid the Zionism needed peace. But day-to-day intractable and demoralizing subject of experience and their own nationalist Arab opposition to Zionism. Publicly, ideology gave Zionist leaders no reason to movement representatives promulgated expect Muslim Middle Easterners, and false images of Arab acceptance of especially the inhabitants of Palestine, to Zionism or of Palestinian Arab opportuni- greet the building of the Jewish National ties to secure a better life thanks to the Home with anything but intransigent and creation of the Jewish National Home. violent opposition. The solution to this Privately, they recognized the unbridgeable predicament was the Iron Wall — the gulf between their image of the country’s systematic but calibrated use of force to future and the images and interests of the teach Arabs that Israel, the Jewish “state- overwhelming majority of its inhabitants.1 on-the-way,” was ineradicable, regardless With no solution of their own to the “Arab of whether it was perceived by them to be problem,” they demanded that Britain and just.
    [Show full text]
  • Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor Ebook Free Download
    LETTERS TO MY PALESTINIAN NEIGHBOR PDF, EPUB, EBOOK Yossi Klein Halevi | 224 pages | 24 Sep 2019 | HarperCollins Publishers Inc | 9780062844927 | English | New York, United States Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor PDF Book And we were at stages that actually drafted solutions. In lyrical, evocative language, he unravels the complex strands of faith, pride, anger and anguish he feels as a Jew living in Israel, using history and personal experience as his guide. And that will hopefully trigger a different kind of conversation-- an internal Israeli conversation, which is badly needed on the Palestinian issue, because even today, on the left, there is an avoidance of a real conversation about the future of our relationship with the Palestinians. I know of no other occupation, certainly in memory, where the occupying power not only worried that in ceding territory it would be diminished, but actually worries that in ceding territory it may not be able to adequately defend itself, which is an acute worry among many Israeli Jews, a worry that I share. And we we're engaged in this for the last at least 1, years, since Islam came into the picture-- competing over identity and competing over the position of the victim. You know, in America, there used to be a saying. And so what I've tried to do is create a language for Israeli Jews like myself who don't come from the left-- I come from the center, from the political center-- and for whom the subject of peace leaves many of us tongue-tied. English and Hebrew options are available for purchase wherever you can buy books.
    [Show full text]
  • Halevi Thursday, November 2 3:00 – 5:00 Pm Cross-Cultural Center – Communidad Room Yossi Klein Halevi Is a Senior Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem
    University of California, San Diego STUDENTS are cordially invited to attend What Muslims and Jews Need From Each Other Coffee, cookies, and conversation with Yossi Klein Halevi Thursday, November 2 3:00 – 5:00 pm Cross-Cultural Center – Communidad Room Yossi Klein Halevi is a senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. Together with Imam Abdullah Antepli of Duke University, he Co- direCts the Institute’s Muslim Leadership Initiative. Yossi is the author of Like Dreamers: The Story of the Israeli Paratroopers Who Reunited Jerusalem and Divided a Nation, published by HarperCollins in 2013, whiCh won the Jewish Book CounCil's Everett Family Foundation Jewish Book of the Year Award. He is also author of the 2001 book, At the Entrance to the Garden of Eden: A Jew's Search for God with Christians and Muslims in the Holy Land. The novelist Cynthia OziCk Called At the Entrance "a permanent masterwork." The former ArChbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, called it “extraordinary and heartbreaking…a book full of wonders.” Yossi's first book, Memoirs of a Jewish Extremist, told the story of his teenage attraction to, and subsequent disillusionment with Jewish militanCy. The New York Times called it “a book of burning importance.” Yossi has been aCtive in Middle East reConciliation work, and serves as chairman of Open House, an Arab Israeli-Jewish Israeli Center in the town of Ramle, near Tel Aviv. Yossi was one of the founders of the now-defunct Israeli- Palestinian Media Forum, whiCh brought together Israeli and Palestinian journalists. He was a senior fellow at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem from 2003-2009.
    [Show full text]
  • Program Book 11-12 Webversion.Pub
    2011-2012 / 5772 Prog ram Book Professional & Administrative Teams Table of Contents Rabbi Neal Gold [email protected] • Temple Shir Tikva Mitzvah Day…………………...4 Rabbi Greg Litcofsky [email protected] • Yossi Klein Halevi…………………………………….5 Cantor Hollis Schachner [email protected] • Meah: Inspired Jewish Learning……………………6 Rabbi Herman Blumberg, Emeritus • Jewish Explorations Weekend– Storahtelling ……..7 [email protected] David Passer , ext. 214 • Congregational Learning: Executive Director Sunday Morning Education Options………….8-9 [email protected] Deena Bloomstone , ext. 201 Monday Education Options……………………..10 Director of Congregational Wednesday Evening Education Options…...10-11 Learning [email protected] • Families With Young Children………………...12-13 Rachel Kest , ext. 203 Director of Elementary • & Family Education Religious School…………………………………14-15 [email protected] • Youth Community……………………………….16-17 Samantha Nidenberg , ext. 202 Youth Educator • [email protected] Worship/Choirs…………………………………..18-19 Karen Edwards, ext. 210 • Assistant to the Rabbis and Cantor Brotherhood and Sisterhood…………………...20-21 [email protected] • Reyim…………………………………………………21 Linda Goldbaum, ext. 211 Office Administrator • [email protected] Tikkun Olam………….……………………………...22 Toni Spitzer, ext.200 • Committees of Temple Shir Tikva………………...23 Office Administrator [email protected] • Board of Trustees & Committee Chairs…………..24 Lucy Dube , ext. 215 Bookkeeper bookkeeper@shirtikva. org Mike Buianowski Custodian
    [Show full text]
  • American Jewish Masculinity and the Jewish Defense League
    “Is this Any Way for Nice Jewish Boys to Behave?” American Jewish Masculinity and the Jewish Defense League Avraham Refael Sholkoff A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of BACHELOR OF ARTS WITH HONORS DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN April 8, 2019 Advised by Professor Deborah Dash Moore For all those who say they can’t. You can. Just go for it. Push through. 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS Figures 4 Acknowledgements 5 Introduction 8 Chapter One: The Circumstances, City and Community that led to the JDL 18 Chapter Two: The JDL’s representation of American Jewish Masculinity 45 Chapter Three: How the JDL’s Actions Transformed American Jewish Masculinity 71 Conclusion 100 Bibliography 109 3 FIGURES Figure 1: The Jewish Defense League’s New York Times advertisement, June 24, 1969 7 Figure 2: Meir Kahane, JDL founder, pictured in his New York City office. 44 Figure 3: The central characters from Judd Apatow’s film “Knocked Up.” 98 Figure 4: Sergeant Donny Donowitz from “Inglorious Basterds.” 99 4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis was a year-and-a-half long effort that at times proved incredibly challenging yet ultimately was immensely rewarding and satisfying. A number of people contributed to the tremendous relief and accomplishment that I’m feeling right now and I will thank them here. Firstly, to my History of American South Professor Stephen Berrey, who in an email from June 1, 2017 recommended I apply to the History Honors Program. Without this email from Professor Berrey, there is likely no honors thesis. I must thank my advisor, Deborah Dash Moore who supported me from our initial meeting back in October of 2017, in which I had hoped to write a thesis about Jewish summer camps.
    [Show full text]
  • JEWISH FUNDAMENTALISM in the STATE of ISRAEL RESEARCH ARTICLE Jewish Fundamentalism in the State of Israel Saman Ayesha Kidwai1 New Delhi, India
    JEWISH FUNDAMENTALISM IN THE STATE OF ISRAEL RESEARCH ARTICLE Jewish Fundamentalism in the State of Israel Saman Ayesha Kidwai1 New Delhi, India Abstract Fundamentalism is “a type of militantly conservative religious movement characterized by advocacy of strict conformity to sacred texts.”2 Ordinarily, the entire blame for the violent acts that are associated with it is laid on the shoulders of Islam and its followers. Fingers are hardly pointed in the direction of Jewish fundamentalism, lest they are termed as anti-Semitic. Jewish Fundamentalism can also be referred to as Militant/Religious Zionism. Zionism in itself emerged as a political movement for the establishment of the national home for the Jews in what was earlier, the British controlled Palestine. While Judaism in itself is believed to be a peaceful religion by several of its followers, however, the Zionists in Israel, referring to certain texts within the scriptures, have indulged in deadly attacks within their country, in the settlement areas, as well as in Palestine. Keywords: Israel; Jewish; Militant; Religious; Fundamentalism Zionism For the Zionists, Palestine was to be their promised land, granted to them by God in his book Torah. Judaism for them was religion as well as a nationality. This became a point of contention with the more orthodox Jews. Religious Zionism has schooled its believers into submitting to the ideology of messianic Zionism according to which their Messiah would not reappear till the time both Israel and Palestine are cleansed of the non-Jewish population. Bloody and large-scale violence is deemed necessary to accelerate the return of their redeemer.3 1 Corresponding author [email protected] 201, Zakir Bagh, Maulana Mohd.
    [Show full text]
  • Demonizing Israel: Political and Religious Consequences Among Israelis
    Demonizing Israel: Political and Religious Consequences Among Israelis By Yossi Klein Halevi Introduction Like the people it vilifies, anti-Semitism is astonishingly adaptable. The growing international movement to demonize Israel and even equate it with Nazi Germany accomplishes the seemingly impossible: mobilizing the Holocaust, the final barrier against relegitimizing anti-Semitism, to empower its latest permutation. The anti-Semitism of mere prejudice is unremarkable, tending to resemble the dislike of any "other." The unique and lethal form of anti-Semitism is that which transforms the Jew into embodiment of whatever a given society defines as its worst quality or sin, enemy of its highest good. The anti-Semitism of symbols: Christ-killer under Christianity, murderer of prophets under Islam, capitalist under Communism, race polluter under Nazism. The Holocaust prompted widespread revulsion, at least in the West, toward the anti-Semitism of symbols. The most far-reaching result of that revulsion was the Vatican's Nostra Aetate, absolving the Jews of deicide. But the anti-Semitism of symbols has been revived by anti-Zionism, which turns the Jewish state into the symbol of colonialism and oppression and militarism -- violator of contemporary society's most lofty norms. There is an acute irony in the growing popularity of anti-Zionism. The founders of political Zionism, especially Theodore Herzl, envisioned a Jewish state as the solution to lethal anti-Semitism. The irony is not merely the inability of the Jewish state to achieve 2 that goal; it is that the Jewish state has become the pretext and the target for the re- empowerment of anti-Semitism.
    [Show full text]
  • Lifelong Learning
    All programs are open to members of Temple Beth Study With Rabbi Shalom and Congregation Emanu-El. Not a member? Please call our office. We would love for you to join us. Introduction to Talmud, Part 1 Thursday evenings December 3, 10, 17 @ 7-8:30pm For those who are ready for the real deal! You will encounter one of the most Lifelong Learning foundational but difficult texts of Judaism, 2020-2021 with an eye to building the skills necessary to decode it and understand its unique 5781 reasoning methods. Introduction to Talmud, Part 2 Thursday evenings March 11, 18, 25 @ 7-8:30 pm In this class you will focus on a primary encounter with the Talmud text itself, beginning with Masechet Brachot E. 30th Avenue E. 30th Temple Beth Shalom Beth Temple Midrasha 1322 99203 WA Spokane, Tel: 509-747-3304 Please register online: [email protected] Members free Non-members $54 for the series www.spokanetbs.org Great Jewish Thinkers, Special Programs Special Programs—cont. Our Guest Speaker Series will be on Sunday mornings Our Guest Speaker Series will be on Sunday mornings from 10:30 – noon. from 10:30 – noon. Great Jewish Ideas December 20, 2020 - February 27 2021, Purim (Saturday @ 6:30 pm) Monthly series on Sunday mornings from Rachelle Grossman Joel Chasnoff, Comedian and Writer The Unlikely Story of Yiddish in Mexico 11am-12:30pm. Jokes on Us Rachelle grew up in Spokane and was very active in the TBS Join us when stand-up comedian and writer Joel Chasnoff Taught by Rabbi Malino community.
    [Show full text]
  • A Tisha B'av Story
    Jerusalem Post A Tisha B’Av Story iEngage: An altercation on Jerusalem’s light rail teaches the difficult but essential price of Jewish sovereignty: the need to respect the primacy of democratic rules in public space, even if it may restrict notions of Jewish law. By YOSSI KLEIN HALEVI JULY 18, 2013 16:53 Arab woman haredi man on light rail 370 (photo credit: Shalom Hartman Institute) Advertisement NRA® - O(cial Site Defend the Second Amendment. Get A Free Gift With Your NRA® Membership I love the new Jerusalem train. When visitors to Israel ask me what to do here, I tell them: Ride the light rail. It's a model of coexistence, Jerusalem style, I explain. Jews and Arabs, ultra-Orthodox and Russians: Everyone crammed together in unhappy proximity, yet making the best of it and getting on with their lives. But not always. Late one night – it happened to be the eve before Tisha B'Av, the fast day commemorating the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem – I took one of the last trains from the city center to French Hill, my neighborhood in north Jerusalem. As the train pulled into my station, there were shouts from the back. I couldn't tell what was happening and got off. So did the group from the back of the train. A young man in a large knitted kippah lunged at a young Arab man, kicking and swinging. A young woman who was with the Arab young man shouted in Hebrew, “Leave us alone!” The Arab tried to back off.
    [Show full text]
  • Azrieli Institute of Israel Studies
    Newsletter for friends of the 208–209 AZRIELI INSTITUTE OF ISRAEL STUDIES SUMMER IN JERUSALEM ConcordiaConcordia University University | Azrieli | Azrieli Institute Institute of Israel of Israel Studies Studies | concordia.ca/ | concordia.ca/azrieliazrieli | 1 DIRECTOR’S MESSAGE he past year has been filled with a number of fascinating developments and projects that I’m T eager to share with you. In July, we hosted a group of scholars, post-doctoral fellows and doctoral students from our partner institution, the Ben-Gurion Research Institute (BGRI) for the History of Israel and Zionism, for a three-day conference dedicated to the interdisciplinary exploration of Israel 70 years after the creation of the State. The papers presented at the conference covered a diverse range of views and perspectives on political, social, cultural and religious issues. During the conference, we went on a field trip to Kahnawake in order to enrich our comparative discussions around questions of Aboriginality that a number of our BGRI colleagues investigate. The conference ended with the Canadian launch of Gil Troy’s new book, Zionist Ideas, which attracted far more people than we could possibly seat in the auditorium of the Samuel Bronfman Building. The book is a must-read and source of reference for anyone interested in the study of Zionism. I look forward to using it in my classes on Israeli politics! The conference also provided the opportunity to open a multi-media collage on the theme of “Israel at 70 Years”— We have a rich and exciting few months planned and we beautifully prepared and curated by one of our students in look forward to welcoming you and your friends to all our the minor program, Noa Isabel Ogilvy.
    [Show full text]
  • Like Dreamers
    STUDY GUIDE www.HarperAcademic.com Introduction In Like Dreamers, acclaimed author and journalist Yossi Klein Halevi interweaves the stories of a group of 1967 paratroopers who reunited Jerusalem, tracing the history of Israel and the divurgent ideologies that shaped it from the Six-Day War to the present. Following the lives of seven young members from the 55th Paratroopers Reserve Brigade, the unit responsible for restoring Jewish sovereignty to Jerusalem, Halevi reveals how this band of brothers played pivotal roles in shaping Israel’s destiny long after their historic victory. While they worked together to defend Israel in 1967, and continued to defend it through subsequent wars, these men harbored drastically different visions for Israel’s future. Some became leaders of the post-1967 settlement movement, while others became active in the peace movement that opposed settlements. Like Dreamers offers a nuanced, in-depth look at the conflicting beliefs that continue to confront Israeli society, raising compelling questions about Israel’s future. Some of those questions are offered below, as suggestions for thoughtful conversation about the emotionally charged issues confronting Israel’s friends around the world. Israeli Society: Between Competing Values 1. How do the cultural and ideological backgrounds of the protagonists affect their political perspectives? Based on the characters of this book, are we prisoners of our backgrounds or can we transcend them? 2. What traits and ideals unite these men? Who among the protagonists are the exceptions to that basic consensus? 3. How have the protagonists grappled with the moral dilemmas of the Palestinian problem? 4. Did you find yourself sympathizing with characters whose politics you disagree with? Did the book help you understand their positions? 5.
    [Show full text]
  • THE ETHOS of the ISRAELI PEOPLE an Intimate Discussion About How the Israeli Spirit Manifests Itself During Times of Crisis and Prosperity
    THE AMERICAN ISRAEL PUBLIC AFFAIRS COMMITTEE AND CONGREGATION BETH ISRAEL PRESENT THE ETHOS OF THE ISRAELI PEOPLE An intimate discussion about how the Israeli spirit manifests itself during times of crisis and prosperity. Monday, August 24, 2015 CONGREGATION BETH ISRAEL • 10460 N 56TH ST • SCOTTSDALE, AZ 85253 6:00 P.M. Registration • 6:30 P.M. Program • 7:45 P.M. VIP Dinner* $18 in advance • $25 at the door Please register by August 18 by visiting www.aipac.org/PHXCBI. For questions, please contact Jessica at AIPAC at [email protected] or (602) 277-3318. SPACE IS LIMITED • DIETARY LAWS OBSERVED * Current AIPAC members who have contributed at a Club level to AIPAC’s 2015 campaign are invited to a private dinner and conversation with our speaker immediately following the program. This invitation is not transferrable. For questions about Club membership, please contact Ari at AIPAC: [email protected] or (602) 277-3318. featuring Yossi Klein Halevi Senior Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem Yossi Klein Halevi is a senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem and contributing editor to The New Republic. He also frequently contributes to the op-ed pages of leading American newspapers, including The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times. Halevi is a regular commentator on Israeli and Middle East affairs and has appeared on CNN, BBC and NPR, among other media outlets. Halevi is active in reconciliation efforts between Muslims and Jews and serves as chairman of Open House, an Arab-Jewish coexistence center in the town of Ramle, near Tel Aviv.
    [Show full text]