It Is By Now No Secret Rejoinder

This conversation is critically important.  We invite all who are interested to join in either in the comments or in our Facebook group. 

Clearly, Dan Ross and I agree on the affirmatives: We love Israel, and we want to see it succeed as a “country of lofty ideals.” Even more than that, we probably share a sense of what those ideals look like, and I applaud him for his forward gaze. It appears, additionally, that we agree that our Western interlocutors, as defined by Ross, do not go out of their way to question Israel’s right to exist. But here’s where I think we disagree: the West’s acceptance of Israel as a Jewish state—not Netanyahu’s call for a diplomatic formulation as such but, more generally, the concept itself.

To be sure, the institutions of Israel’s statehood are firmly in place, and the West generally accepts that fact. And I am not an alarmist about the threats to Israel’s existence.

But I’m not at all sure that Europeans, just as an example, feel that the Jewish character of the state has any legitimacy, nor that that character is worthy of promotion or defense. Closer to home, the Presbyterian Church recently published the controversial “Zionism Unsettled,” a study-guide and DVD that questions both the current policies of Israel and its Jewish character.

More to the point, “Zionism Unsettled” conflates those policies and character as morally and inevitably twinned, and therein lies the difficulty. We progressive Zionists hold that Israel embodies a simultaneously (if imperfectly) Jewish and democratic character, and that destructive or short-sighted policies do not fundamentally belie or de-legitimate it. As such, we struggle against the policies, while we defend the state and its particular character.

I believe that, between these two positions, most people outside of the United States follow some variation on “Zionism Unsettled.” That is, they perceive the progressive Zionist position to be either paradoxical or quixotic and, in any case, impossible to uphold. They oppose the same policies that we progressive Zionists oppose. But insofar as they see those policies as a natural outgrowth of Zionism, they point to them as proof of the illegitimacy of Zionism itself.

And I believe that a subset of American Jewry is increasingly inclined to agree—passively, superficially or only incipiently—but to agree nonetheless.

So, when Ross specifically queries “to whom Dr. Holo believes we should be addressing ‘our Zionist assertions with sufficient confidence, information and conviction,’” I answer, as I had attempted to do in my initial posting: American Jewry. Secondarily, as per this posting, I might also address our Western interlocutors.

And here is my message: I am in unqualified agreement with Ross and his call to look to the future. And I want something additional, as well. I want progressive Zionists to re-articulate the Jewish claim to sovereignty, because it’s a compelling argument, and because American Jews may be losing sight of it. And yes, it is fundamentally an historical argument, but without it, Israel as such has no future to aim for.

Dr. Holo is the Dean of the Los Angeles Campus and Associate Professor of Jewish History at HUC-JIR/LA. He served as Director of the Louchheim School of Judaic Studies from 2006-2010. Dr. Holo’s publications focus on Medieval Jews of the Mediterranean, particularly in the Christian realm. His book, Byzantine Jewry in the Mediterranean Economy, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2009.

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Towards Experimental Zionism

About ten years ago, I fell out of love with Israel. I don’t remember exactly how, when, or why this process started. When I was in elementary school I wasn’t sure who I’d side with in a war between the US and Israel and when I was in 8th grade, at the beginning of the Second Intifada, my social studies teacher once told my mom that she was afraid that I was going to enlist in the IDF. But by the time that I was a sophomore in high school, I had already started questioning Israel’s actions and eventually I came to a situation in which merely expressing some doubt as to the wisdom of Israeli policy led a good friend of mine to stop speaking to me for three days.
Since then, Israel has been a topic I’d rather not discuss. I’ve been cowardly: I’ve been fearful of both the punishing silence of lost friends and the vicious volume of loud strangers. I retreated into a silent, irritated indifference. Poisonous politics spoiled any possibility that I might have had of appreciating this place for its own sake.
Until now. When I began rabbinical school at the Hebrew Union College, knowing that I would have to spend my first year in this country, living on this land, speaking its language, meeting its people, I wasn’t sure if I would be able to break down the concrete barriers in my mind and find a way rebuild my relationship with Israel out of Jerusalem stone. But fortunately, this has changed thanks to HUC’s exceptionally thoughtful approach to Israel studies—dedicating a weekly daylong seminar to soaking in the rich milk and golden honey of voices that constitute this society—and to a two-day colloquium on Israel engagement that I participated in with my fellow HUC students and students from other liberal seminaries. It has been a gradual process, punctuated by periods of powerful repulsion and profound appreciation. However, especially through my conversations with other Americans about their own ways of connecting with Israel, I believe that I have discovered the intellectual architecture with which I can reconstruct my collapsed connection with this place.
I call it experimental Zionism. Experimental Zionism understands Israel to be the grandest experiment in the history of the Jewish people, a messy exploration of what it looks like to create a society of Jews, by Jews, and for Jews. And the experimental Zionist’s first reaction to this society is fascination: it is something to study, to examine, to behold. But fascination alone—like unconditional, unquestioning love—is not enough to be Zionism. Zionism requires something more: vision.
Thus, experimental Zionists are not as concerned with Israel’s right to be as they are with what Israel could be. We quickly learn through our observations that this place is as imperfect as we are imperfect, but also that it is as perfectible as we are perfectible. Thus we concern ourselves with a more fundamental question: what do we want this Jewish society to look like, to sound like, to smell like, to taste like, to feel like, to act like? And just as important, how can we test these hypotheses in this world and see the resultant Jewish society that they create?
Admittedly, after all this time, I find myself surprised to be able to once again call myself a Zionist. But I can no longer say that I am indifferent to the state of affairs in this country; instead, though I still expect to spend my life in the diaspora, I also plan to support the ongoing, challenging, but essential evolution of Israel towards my hopes, a Jewish state that can truly be a light unto the nations. Among my hopes is that all of us who have found ourselves in a state of silent, irritated indifference when it comes to Israel can find our way to experimental Zionism: instead of talking about Israel’s impossible politics, we can imagine its possible wonders. We can start with the dream, and then will it to be.

Dan Ross is a first year student at Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem. 

Our Mission As Progressive Zionists

My rabbinical class was the first to spend our first year of studies in Israel.  When we arrived in the summer of 1970, Hebrew Union College was a small but impressive building at 13 King David Street which had served, up till that time, as headquarters for the archaeological school.  But the President, Rabbi Nelson Glueck, had grander plans.  During that year, we witnessed the opening of a Mo’adon (lounge) down the hill, where we had our coffee break and attended special lectures.

Since that time, HUC has grown into an extensive campus that houses, among other things:

• Classrooms and cafeteria for HUC students, along with a beautiful library and museum
• A pre-school programme housed in that same Mo’adon
• The offices of the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism, the nerve-centre of Reform Jewish life in Israel
• The offices of Arzenu and the World Union for Progressive Judaism, headquarters for Reform communities around the world
• The offices of the Israel Religious Action Centre, whose staff work tirelessly to promote civil rights and democratic values
• Bet Shmuel and Merkaz Shimshon, buildings that host Progressive Diaspora groups who come to meet and study.

All these facilities have a significant impact on our Progressive Jewish communities around the globe.  They remind us that our brand of Zionism works toward a State of Israel that remains both Jewish and democratic.  They promote a religious expression of Judaism that is steadily gaining support among erstwhile secular Israelis.   And they radiate Israeli culture – its music, literature and arts – to enrich our own Jewish life wherever we live.

If you ask the average Israeli (or Diaspora Jew, for that matter) whom they identify as “religious Zionists,” they will probably mention the settlers in the occupied territories, whose home base is located in Mercaz HaRav Kook in Jerusalem.  It is my hope to change that image.  I look forward to working with all of you, to make 13 King David Street the centre of a religious Zionism that is meaningful to Israeli and Diaspora Jews alike, to ensure that our progressive Jewish values become the norm in the Jewish State.

To accomplish these ideals will take some work.  We need to recruit more members to our Progressive Zionist organizations in our home countries and encourage them to vote for Progressive delegates to the next WZO congress.  Even more importantly, we need to teach our people what it means to be a Progressive Religious Zionist.  Together with other leaders of Arzenu, we are preparing educational materials that will highlight some of the issues facing us in the years ahead.  We hope you will take a look at them, adapt them to your own region and study them together in your community.

Just as the Israeli Reform movement helps to shape our own Jewish identity in the Diaspora, so does our support have a significant effect on Israeli life.  This mutual relationship is best expressed in Psalm 122, which is read each Shabbat at HUC:

Pray for the well-being of Jerusalem;

May those who love you be at peace.

We need each other.  Let’s work in concert toward our vision of an Israel that is truly a “light to the nations.”

Rabbi Lawrence A. Englander is Rabbi of Solel Congregation of Mississauga, Ontario Canada, and President-Elect of Arzenu.