The Jewish Battle for (internal) Coexistence 29/07/2009

I’ve been to Israel four times now, with visits ranging from 2 weeks to six months. 3 of these visits have been since my official conversion to Judaism, yet each visit has demanded I take stock of my Jewish Identity. The trip to Israel usually begins with an integration at the airport. As I don’t look “traditionally Jewish”, I’m usually bombarded with more questions than the average traveler. My first trip to Israel I was so nervous, that I simply could not recall the last holiday we celebrated, despite the fact that Hanukkah had concluded just a few nights before. The airport scene usually goes something like this…
“Shalom, MaNeshma?”
“Besder”
“Something very quick in undecipherable Hebrew”
“…..English?”
“Oh, so, you don’t speak Hebrew.”
“No, just a little.”
“Why didn’t your parents teach you?”
“They don’t speak Hebrew.”
“Your parents are not Jewish?”
“…My Father is.”
“Oh, so you are not Jewish?”
“No. I am.”

A few years back, I learned of an unfortunate circumstance. A Jewish group at a medium sized college campus passed on an otherwise well qualified candidate for a rabbinical position because her spouse was not Jewish. Legal issues aside, I was horrified to hear of this. College students are in a time of flux, trying to decide who they are and want type of person they’d like to date. Sending a negative message about intermarriage– a voice of “YOU are the threat to Judaism” probably won’t sway a questioning individual away from a non-Jewish love. It will, however, send someone running far and fast away from organized Judaism. Judaism is comprised of people from all over the world, with different cultures, languages and history. There is no such thing as a “typical” Jewish household, so who is to say that an interfaith family can’t raise Jewish children or live a Jewish lifestyle? A Rabbi who made the choice to live Jewishly EVEN when married to someone of another faith is not something to shun, it is something to be celebrated and emulated.

My Jewish identity is not set in stone, nor do I think it should be. I enjoy grappling with definitions of Judaism, and the struggle to understand how my religion relates to the rest of my life is something I value. Yet, it upsets me that an airline employee, albeit an intimidating one, can invalidate my Judaism in a manner of seconds. As a product of (an extremely successful) interfaith family, I take attacks against intermarriage very personally. Nothing gets my goat more than a causal observer’s questioning of how I could POSSIBLY be Jewish without a Jewish mother. How can I possibly be Jewish? It’s quite simple: I find great beauty in a Temple, solace in the culture, a moral and ethic system in the texts and answers to life’s biggest questions through the Jewish religion. My parents raised me to appreciate all religions- and it was my decision to seek out Judaism and to live a Jewish life. Doesn’t that make me Jewish?

There’s an old joke about a father who told his son that no matter what he could not marry a non-Jew. Eventually, of course, the son married a wonderful women, who decided to convert to Judaism. The son and his new wife kept a kosher home, observed Shabbat and went to Temple weekly. They celebrated Jewish holidays, read books of Jewish philosophy, and sprinkled their conversations with Yiddish. Well, one day the father told his son that the family business was swamped, and that they both needed to come in on a Saturday to finish up some work. The son responded, “oy! I can’t do that! My wife won’t let me work on Shabbat!” To which the father replied, “Son… I TOLD you never to marry someone who wasn’t Jewish!”

In Lodi, Mideast peace edges ever closer 23/07/2009



In Lodi, Mideast peace edges ever closer

LODI – When Lina Isma’il dreams of an ideal future, she sees nations without checkpoints, borders without walls and people without communications barriers.

“That’s enough,” she said.

If it sounds simple, it is not. The dream of the 28-year-old native of Palestine is the same as that of her parents and of her grandparents.

Isma’il, though, may be of the generation that brings such Middle East harmony.

She already has broken down some of the barriers that have existed for centuries, venturing to the Arava Institute on Kibbutz Ketura in southern Israel to study environmental issues with fellow Palestinians, Jordanians and Israelis.

Isma’il and Arava employee Shira Kronich, who was born on Kibbutz Ketura, spoke of the institute’s impact to a small gathering inside the Lodi home of Bobbie Landau.

Landau has been to Israel 11 times, supports the Arava Institute and asked the two women attending an environmental leadership workshop at University of California, Berkeley, to speak to her and some friends.

The workshop is a follow-up to their studies at the Arava Institute, which describes itself as “the premier environmental teaching and research institution in the Middle East, preparing future Muslim, Christian and Jewish leaders to cooperatively solve the region’s environmental challenges.”

Isma’il is employed in the West Bank, working to improve water supplies and quality for Palestinians. Kronich works with others trying to implement ideas and programs developed by students at Arava.

The two women, separated by a geographical border and cultural history, sat side by side, seemed friendly if not close friends, and shared a hope in the ideals of the Arava Institute.

“It feels like a privilege,” Kronich said. “This kind of mix, this incubation of all these regional cultures with this shared mission, shared direction, feels like it makes sense.”

Kronich left Israel at age 12 to study in her mother’s native Australia before returning to the kibbutz to work at Arava.

That she would someday return was never a question for Kronich.

“It felt more like home” than Australia, where she earned a degree in environmental engineering from the University of Melbourne.

Returning to the kibbutz of her birth felt right.

For Isma’il, who spent five years working for the Palestinian government as an environmental health inspector after earning a degree from Birzeit University in the West Bank, Arava’s academic opportunities outweighed any hesitation about living in Israel.

“Kibbutzing a very big word to us. It’s a Jewish community,” Isma’il said. “But I told my family how interested I was and would love to go there, that I would love to hear from the other side and present my country to them.”

Although she was ill at ease the first couple of days, Isma’il said staff and students already in the program made her feel comfortable. She lost any anxiety she had about living peacefully with Israelis, Jordanians and North Americans.

Getting along is part of the curriculum. Along with studying the environment of the region and working to solve its problems, students are required to attend a peace-building class.

“It forces people, even if they don’t want to get into the environment, to be able to communicate better in the future,” Isma’il said.

“It was the first time I heard from the other side, what they think, what their feelings are. I only knew about mine.”

She learned they share a common humanity. The history of their people drove them apart, but when they got to know one another, they became friends.

Arava Institute was started in 1996 and has seen more than 500 students come through its unique program. The school’s existence hasn’t solved the Middle East problems, and during the war in Gaza, the atmosphere on campus was tense, Kronich said.

What is has done, Kronich and Isma’il agree, is sent students forward with a better understanding of people they had been taught to distrust.

Collaborative projects have been and are being done by former students. One study, by an Israeli and Arab tandem, studied water supplies and quality in Palestinian and Jewish settlements. Another group is working in Bedouin communities to convert animal waste into methane gas to fuel their generators.

“I’d like to see more projects,” Kronich said, “more integration of people’s ideas. I’d like to see more Arabic spoken in Israel.”

Mostly, though, Kronich would like to see the barriers come down.

“I’d like to see people interacting with each other, not through checkpoints, but just coming together on a daily basis,” she said.

http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090722/A_NEWS/307229991

Inter-faith CSA 21/07/2009

I’m still feeling a bit under the weather and not nearly creative enough for a real blog posting. However, I thought I would pass along this bit of news that I just saw on the Jew and the Carrot- jcarrot.org. I like the idea of community supported agriculture (though, keeping in mind the current unrest of my stomach, i’m not sure if i’m a fan of the idea of food in any form).

Do you love local, sustainable veggies direct from your farmer? Do you love cross cultural encounters? Are you looking for a way to combine those two loves? Hazon is Now accepting applications for an inter-faith Hazon CSA <– click there to find out more.

(and, after checking out that above link, be sure to return to my blog tomorrow, as it is looking more and more likely that there will be a posting chronicling my adventures visiting the local clinic here in the desert. visiting the doctor in Israel is never fun- I think Israelis are far too tough a breed, and frown upon the weak immune systems of Americans)

Cottage Cheese and Mud Bricks 03/07/2009

shabbat shalom from ketura. Today was packed full of activities, naps and shabbat. This morning I woke up and met the summer school students in the dining hall (and, might i add, did NOT get lost this time). We headed over to Kibbutz Lotan, a kibbutz right down the road from us (a 2 minute drive or less) that boarders directly with Jordan. Lotan does a lot of really cool eco-projects including an eco-campus made entirely out of hand made mudhuts. these mudhuts are built completely according to building codes (fire proof, earthquake proof, even rain proof thanks to their secret coating of, no joke, used falafel cooking oil) and stay comfortably cool in the summer and warm in the winter. plus, they’re nifty looking.

MUDHUT

A question that our guide at Lotan answered, and one that i’ve heard before is, with all of the other places you could build a kibbutz in Israel… why go in the MIDDLE OF NOWHERE. Seeing as its nearing midnight (hey, happy fourth of july) and, oh, 92 degrees here, this seems like a good question. The answer he gave was a truly interesting one. He pointed out that on one hand, Kibbutz’s represented (and still do) the idea of Israeli’s making the land useful, making the dessert bloom. But, there was no one living in the Negev– building a kibbutz here did not have the political ramifications as it did to build in the Golan or the West Bank. There was no one here, no one was pushed off of their land; this is truly a creation in an unclaimed wilderness. And, the people who have lived here have worked hard to truly create vibrant, sustainable communities in a place where there are very little resources.

Our teacher also pointed out another fact– we did take this land from the Earth itself. Our responsibilities lie with the Earth and to use the space respectfully.

He used a simple metaphor to illuminate his view of sustainability– understanding that there is no way for sustainable living to be living off the grid with no effect on the environment (not unless our population numbers take a drastic and sudden plummet) we have to think of ways to live within the land, and to maintain the cycle. His metaphor was that of living more like a tree– using the resources of the land, giving back to the land, not wasting energy, and not leaving pollution.

This afternoon I took an awesome nap and then headed over to shabbat services. Ah, services led by shoeless individuals. New melodies and a good time. I didnt’ feel the connection I hoped I would, but it was a long day. There’s still time.

This evening I asked my caravan-mate, Vivian if we had any cottage cheese in the fridge. She informed me that there was none left, so her boyfriend, an Army graduate volunteer here on the kibbutz who is in charge of milking cows, took me on a wild goose-chase to find the key to break into the fridges for some cottage cheese. When we returned (cottage cheese less) Vivian discovered a significant amount of cheese in the fridge. (For those of you who think I’m just talking crazy… trust me. There is nothing as good as Israeli cottage cheese).

Israeli Cottage Cheese Success!