Teaching Israel

Shalom webfreinds,
I’ve recently returned from an invigorating educational sojourn in the Holy land, where I attended a conference with the a keen group of smiling academics and school teachers.

Below are three models we discussed for teaching Israel.

Option Aleph) The Classical Zionist Approach
The ‘evil goyim’ tried to kill us throughout our history, from Shushan to Chmielnitski and Kishinev (they were cities before they were pogroms). They killed us in the present generation, Shoah, because the diaspora is doomed (France, Argentina), therefore Aliyah for all is the only answer. Our role models should be those who die for the homeland like Trumpeldor, Eli Cohen, Yoni Netanyahu.
Proponents: Theodore Herzl, Tuvia Book, The Palmach Museum

Option Beit) The Religious Zionist Approach
The first Olim were not the Hovevi Tziyon in 1882, but Avraham Avinu who was on the first nefesh be nefesh trip from Ur Kasdim to Cannan in 1700BCE. Since then, all Jews have wanted to return, but didn’t ’cause they were waiting for mashiach. These folks decided its time to stop waiting. Israel is “reshit tzmichat geualteinu,” If only we can occupy the entire biblical moledet.

The religious Zionists (orange camp) were very upset with Gaza disengagement last year. We watched a video that made us cry. It showed the pain of the 0.5% of Jews who had to leave their villas and featured not a single one of the 99.5% of the Palestinians who suffered under this occupation for 39 years.
Proponents: No hard-core representatives of this group addressed us.

Option Gimmel) The Peoplehood (yes, it is a real word despite my spellchecker thinking otherwise) Approach
Jews live all over the world and we each have amazing stories to tell that we can learn from. Students should feel they are Jewish citizens of earth, rather than exiled spectators to the main event, which is Israel. The centre of the Jewish world has moved from Cannan, to Babylon, Cordoba, Mainz, Kairwan(Tunis) and now to Israel. It will keep moving as Jews keep moving. Our role as educators is to have students “connecting with community.”
Proponents: Steve Israel, Dena Thaller
Some say that the Centre for Teaching of Jewish Peoplehood at TA University, may be the Yad Vashem of the next generation.

My thoughts
Each model has it’s own strengths and weaknesses. But as was said many times, “the medium is the message,” which means HOW you teach Israel is just as important as WHAT you teach.

Finally, there are so many sweet tidbits of goodness going on in Israel that few people are aware of, like the Sapir Academic College in Sderot that provides an education and a better future to the olim from places like Chechniya. Like Rabbi Motti-Bar Or, whose amazing organization Kolot changes the perception of Limmud Torah being only for the datiyim, and returns, as God did at Mt Sinai, the ownership of our scared texts to the entire Jewish people (females and secular included). Like the thousands who watched the World Cup final on a warm Tel-Aviv Beach and cheered for Italy because they are LESS anti-Semitic.
Like the Ma'ale School of Television, Film and the Arts, which is providing an avenue for the young religious to raise questions that have been condemned by an earlier generation.
Like Dr Tova Hartman, who is challenging the models of negative identity by which we have so long perceived ourselves, like Rav Binyamin Lau, who has moved from Hitnatkut (Disengagement) to Hitchabrut (Connection) in reaching out to the Jews of greater Judea and Samaria. And finally, like Robbie Gringlas, who "shlectures” about us having a mature relationship with 58 year old Israel, warts and all, that can be filled with anger, tears, laughter and song. Shkoyach to you all!

Olmert needs some PR advice

Shmuel Rosners’s blog on Haaretz discusses Olmert’s use of language on his recent US trip.

Olmert chose the term "realignment" as the official translation to the name of his plan. "I think it means 'hitkansut' (the Hebrew word for the plan)," he told us during the visit when asked about the choice of words. "Sometimes," Olmert said, "the same word in Hebrew has several meanings in English, and I heard of a few, and of them the term that seemed to me most representative is 'realignment,' to the best of my knowledge of English."

After discussing the matter with many knowledgeable Americans, we concluded in our article it was a foolish choice. "Realignment," said a senior American reporter, "is something that you do to your car tires" rather than a catchy name of a daring political plan.

There was consensus among Olmert's American listeners with which we met: "Consolidation" is a much more appropriate word for those who are afraid to use the clear term: "withdrawal". But some other suggestions were made, and we figured time for action is now (as Olmert told Bush about Iran).

So, I ask you dear readers of “I wonder If,” put your marketing degrees to use, think like the spin makers and PR consultants, and share how you think Ehud Olmert should be labeling his plan to remove what may be up to 70 000 Jews from their homes in Judea and Samaria in order to create a Palestinian state more or less along the lines of what Barak offered at Camp David(See map, whereby no Jews would be living in grey shaded areas by 2008).

I have included a few suggestions from Rosner below:
* Realignment
* Withdrawal
* Consolidation
* Convergence
* Disengagement 2
* Reversion("act of turning something the opposite way; act of returning to a previous condition; return of property to its owner after the occurrence of a particular event")
* Olmert`s Folly
* Second Stage of Israel`s Suicide
* Honey I Shrunk Israel Plan
* We will not give in to Terror Plan
* Intifada,Outerfada?
* Hexodus
* Redeployment and fortification
* Project return
- Surrender-to-Arab-Terrorism Plan
- National Retreat Plan
- National Defeat Plan
* Detachment
* Contraction (although it makes me think of being in labour -not the Amir Peretz kind)
* Resettlement
* Strategic unilateral retreat
* Operation justice prevails
* Victory of Hamas
* Yasser’s Revenge
* Green light to the green line

A light unto the nations?

The Jewish State was built on the back of Yishayahu’s prophetic notion that we should be a "a light unto the nations"(Isaiah 42:6; 49:6).

So then what does our state do when people arrive in need? The government of Israel, the worlds only Jewish government, puts them in prison because they don’t have valid visas. Of all the wonderful examples Israel could learn from Australia, our successful migration intake, our welfare and education systems, why did Israel choose to copy our system of mandatory detention? This story from Haaretz today: Yad Vashem chairman urges PM to let Darfur refugees stay in Israel

The chairman of the Yad Vashem Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority, Avner Shalev, called Sunday on Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to allow refugees from the war-torn Darfur region of Sudan to remain Israel.
In a letter to Olmert, Shalev wrote that, "as members of the Jewish people, for whom the memory of the Holocaust burns, we cannot stand by as the refugees from the genocide in Darfur hammer on our doors. The memories of the past and Jewish values compel us to show solidarity with the persecuted."

Shalev pointed out that during the Holocaust, countries such as Australia, Canada and Britain cited security reasons when they sent Jews escaping the Nazis to detention camps.

In early May, Holocaust researcher Professor Yehuda Bauer, an academic advisor to Yad Vashem, added his name to a High Court petition brought by the Hotline for Migrant Workers against the Israel Defense Forces Head of Operations Directorate, Brigadier General Gadi Eisencott, who signed an order to expel 31 Sudanese refugees from the Darfur region without giving them the right to make their case. See here also.

This is an embarrassment. We can surely do better than this!

How humane is shechita of cows?

The Torah requires that meat and poultry be slaughtered in a prescribed manner known as shechita. The trachea and esophagus of the animal are severed with a special razor-sharp, perfectly smooth blade, causing instantaneous death with no pain to the animal.” (oukosher.org)

But is this always the case? In the course of the probe of AgriProcessors Inc. of Postville, Iowa, by the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Agriculture in late 2004 it was found that employees of one of the nation's major kosher slaughterhouses "had engaged in acts of inhumane slaughter," [and] that federal inspectors did nothing to stop it and instead accepted gifts of meat from plant employees. The plant is the America's largest producer of meat certified as glatt kosher.

To see a video of this slaughter click here

For those that don’t have the stomach to watch this video, it shows "electric prods used to shock the faces of cows in order to guide them into the slaughter pen. The pictures also showed an uncommon practice of speeding post-shehita blood flow by using large hooks to rip out the animals' trachea (windpipe) and esophagus (food pipe) while the animals are still conscious. Immediately after the procedure cows are seen standing and attempting to bellow and leave the killing-floor area.

It is important to note that the ideal kosher cut would sever the trachea, esophagus and carotid artery, thus immediately eliminating blood flow to the brain and rendering an animal unconscious in as quickly as 10 seconds. Contrary to widespread perceptions, however, a valid kosher slaughter requires only the cut of the trachea and esophagus. The post-cut scenes on the videos of staggering, mutilated animals seem to be cases in which the carotid arteries were not severed, thus leaving the animal conscious and able to suffer pain. Source:jpost

Reacting to these published findings, the head of the Israeli Chief Rabbinate's international ritual slaughter division, Rabbi Ezra Raful, said that he would permit the import of meat to Israel from the slaughterhouse in question, saying that "in the case of AgriProcessors, there is no halachic problem."

Thankfully, many poskim, including Maimonides, believe that the prohibition against cruelty to animals informs our interactions with animals far beyond sadism.

Rabbi Ezra Raful also said Jewish law permitted a non-Jew to use a hook to sever an animal's carotid arteries, as long as most of the trachea and esophagus were severed by the shochet [ritual slaughterer].

He said that if a Jew used the hook, the slaughter was not kosher because of the halachic principle of marit ayin - the mistaken impression that the ripping of the arteries with a hook was part of the Jewish slaughtering process. This issue would not arise if a non-Jew ripped out the artery, since a non-Jew is disqualified from performing shehita (ritual slaughter).

Raful said he had been informed by sources in AgriProcessors that only non-Jews performed the ripping. Raful said it was unfair to apply subjective criteria of cruelty to shehita.

"For me it is terribly cruel to boil a lobster live or to fry a live shrimp or freeze a fish live. It depends on what you are used to. It's all very subjective. "But the Torah is not subjective and the same Torah that prohibits cruelty to animals allows shehita," he said.… (Click here for full article)

So, what are our options now? As a meat eater, I believe one should do the following.

1. Watch the video of the shechita, If you are OK with what happens there, keeping eating meat with no worries.
2. If the video bothers you. Stop eating beef and write letters to the kashrut authorities demanding that the laws of the shechita be followed not just to the letter of the law, but also in the spirit of the law as Rambam prescribes.
3. Stop eating meat altogether

From a reliable source I have found out that in Australia animals are not slaughtered in the same manner as the Iowa plant and thus actually may suffer less than non-kosher animal slaughter. In Australia, the shackle and hoist method(used in Israel) where the cow is strung up by its legs before shechita is not used. Also, the animal is shot with a blot immediately post shechita.

Does any of this effect what you will be eating for dinner tonight?

Israeli youth show respect for elders

For those of you cruising blogland as we speak, you will find pages of analysis regarding the lower voter turnout, Labour and Israel Beitenu’s surprisingly good result, and Likud and Kadima’s lower than expected vote. In my humble opinion, the winning party of this election is Gil, the pensioners party, winning 8 seats according to exit polls. To the right is a photo of Gil pensioners' party leaders Yitzhak Ziv, Yaacov Ben-Izri, Rafi Eitan and Moshe Sharon, sitting on bench in Tel Aviv on Monday.

Jpost reports:

Tel Aviv buzzed with rumors on Tuesday that the Gil pensioners' party passed the vote threshold needed to enter the 17th Knesset. In the stage built by Channel 10 in the center of Rabin Square in the city's center, hundreds gathered to look at the parties' stalls. The general consensus seemed to be that "Tel Aviv was voting for the pensioners."
In front of one Tel Aviv polling booth, four well-dressed trendy-looking 20-somethings tried to convince passers-by to vote for the pensioners' party. Though the activists seemed uncertain of where the party stood on issues such as defense and the economy, they said that as young, well-off Tel Aviv residents, they wanted to do something to help the "poor old people." They also acknowledge that it was a trend among youth in Tel Aviv to vote for the Gil party.
One Gil supporter, Sonya Blikin, saying she was "voting for the pensioners because they're the only party with a platform I can support. Actually, I'm not sure what the platform is," she admitted, "but I know that old people and poor people are sitting in the streets, and I feel bad and I want to do something to help them."

And how about these kids at Rabin Square who instead of voting for the green leaf party, voted to help sabba and savta:

Back at Rabin Square, a crowd of teenage girls chanted "Save our grandfathers" on Tuesday afternoon. They said they had no official affiliation with any party, but had decided to come to the square at the last moment because "the old people need all the help they can get."

The election of Gil shows once again that Israeli youth are an or lagoyim. See also Haaretz for more on Gil’s very vauge security platform.

Too much of a good thing?

Is it possible that us diaspora fans of Zion are loving Israel too much. Daniel Levy writes in Haaretz about the new John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt study of "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy." He says:

It should serve as a wake-up call, on both sides of the ocean. The bottom line might read as follows: that defending the occupation has done to the American pro-Israel community what living as an occupier has done to Israel - muddied both its moral compass and its rational self-interest compass.

Interesting food for thought. Has our love of Israel blinded us to Isiah’s vision expressed in the Jerusalem program of building a nation based on the prophetic vision of righteousness and peace(justice).