Yom Kippur in Israel

Having just returned from a three-week visit to Israel, I have many thoughts about our amazing state, her people and their ideologies. On my journey I interviewed people from the left and right, religious and secular. On the spiritual journey, I went to Sephardi and Ashkenzi shuls in Ramat Gan, Shira Hadasha and Kedem in Jerusalem, and finally Moshav Meor Modiin that was by far the most enthusiastic and genuine davening I have ever experienced.

What struck me most on the visit was the way secular Israelis celebrate Yom Kippur. Not a Fish writes:

Imagine, if you will, the busiest, noisiest, most congested street you know; always jammed with cars, buses, trucks whizzing past, horns peeping, hundreds of people filling the sidewalks, rushing this way and that.

And now try to mentally visualize that same street, completely empty, eerily silent. No vehicles moving on it, not even one, sidewalks empty of passersby, besides maybe the occasional family, walking slowly and reverently towards their synagogue.

And then you hear it, a low clicking, whirling sound. Soon there is a sight to go with the sound, a solitary guy on a bike, riding boldly, right in the middle of the wrong side of the road. He’s soon followed by a group of kids in their early teens, about six of them, racing their bikes, shouting out to each other. Next to go passed - a couple on roller blades, holding hands; and then more bikers, mainly children of various ages, many in packs, but quite a few serious adult bikers too, with all the fancy gear.

This is Tel Aviv on Yom Kippur, the best place to be in the world if you are a secular kid and you possess a bicycle. There is nowhere you can’t go, complete and utter freedom, unheard of, unthinkable. The next day the gangs of kids tell stories of how they reached as far as Herzliya and Rishpon in the north. An all time favourite is the Ayalon Freeway, which cuts through the east of Tel Aviv all along. For secular Tel Aviv kids, used to the restrictions of living in the middle of a busy city with all its dangers, Yom Kippur is a day of breaking free, a day of personal independence.

Spending the Chag in Ramat Gan, I was amazed by the 100’s of kids on bikes I saw that day. Another thing that amazed me was that 1000’s of people also went to shule. However, shule in Ramat Gan is very different from Melbourne. The shuls I visited were filled with mostly once a year Jews(nothing unexpected here), but the interesting part of the story, is what went on outside the shule.

For every person in the shule, there was a person and a half in the street. They all bring chairs, gather round, talk, catch up on gossip, and enjoy the balmy autumn weather.

Is this a sign for hope or despair?

Despair: There is a baal shem tov story that retells how the Rabbi used to have a special place, where he lit a special fire, and say a special prayer when the Jewish people were in trouble. Later generations would forget the place, forget how to light the fire, and forget the prayer, and so, the story would suffice.

So too, the secular Israelis of Ramat Gan, have forgotten the prayers(no one had siddurim), forgotten the meaning of the chag(few could tell me any more about Yom kippur other than it being a day “when God forgiveness us”) and forgotten the rituals. What did they remember was that their grandparents went to shule on Yom Kippur, so they to must also go to shule, but only to sit outside, for the interior is a foreign land.

Hope: Perhaps the Israelis are reinventing the chag. No one does anything on the chag. Have you ever wondered what the world would like if everyone kept shabbes? This is what YK feels like in Israel. There are no cars, No TV shows(although the DVD shops do a roaring trade the day before the chag) no radio programs, no busses and trains, and even the intl airport shuts for the day. People talk to one another, the cell phones are off, and in the streets one feels a party atmosphere, similar to Chanuka in the Park or In One Voice.

I’m not sure what to make of the secular Yom Kippur. Experiencing the chag out of the beit knesset is an experience in itself. I wonder how the next generation will remember the chag?

Read also: Spending YK on a bicycle seems like a terrible waste

Is the secular Yom kippur a viable alternative? What does it say about the way we experience our religion in a Jewish homeland?

Shana Tova Chevre

Shalom Chaverim. I’m currently writing this entry from Moshav Me’or Modiin in Israel. I have just had a beautiful Shabbat full of song and many wonderful yidden from around the world. I wish all of you a sweet year with much health and happiness. Keep smiling.

An outsiders view of Melbourne

How does an outsider view our haimish community down under? Read on if you’d like to find out. The article appeared in last Fridays London Jewish News. It is written by Clive Lawton, executive director of Limmud, chair of development charity Tzedek and a former head teacher of King David high school in Liverpool. The 53-year-old is also a regular contributor to the Jewish News.

The Limits Of Charity
Thursday 15th of September 2005

If Sydney and its Jewish community is a bit Los Angeles, then Melbourne Jewry is the closest thing we have to pre-war Warsaw.
Some 40,000 Melbourne Jews manifest every passionate Jewish position between them. The Adass has a strong presence, but then so does Habonim. The Bundist school, Bialik, teaches Yiddish, and the Lubavitch have an iron grip on orthodox life. (Several shuls have been forced to adopt Lubavitch liturgy when they’ve appointed Lubavitch rabbis, for example, and a unit in the Jewish Studies A Level equivalent is “a study of Chabad”.)

Some renegade orthodox have established a Shira Hadasha shul imitating the radical feminist/egalitarian orthodox prototype Shira Hadasha in Jerusalem.
A huge proportion of young Jews attend Jewish day schools. The 2,000-strong Mount Scopus is a bit JFS-like, while Yeshiva High is more Hasmo. London doesn’t yet have an equivalent to King David, Melbourne’s Progressive Jewish school (about 850 pupils), nor anything quite like the 1,000 strong Bialik. Beis Rivka is the Lubavitch girls’ school which, together with its counterpart boys’ school, accommodates nearly 1,000 children from across the orthodox range. And so on.

They have only one kashrut authority, but every shul is independent and does its own thing. Melbourne’s LimmudOz last year attracted 850 people to its first ever two-day fest of learning Limmud-style and they figure it can only grow. One of the commercial cinemas is to run regular films of Jewish and Israeli interest all through the year because they reckon there’s a viable market. There’s even an eruv which everyone seems to use.

On my visit there last weekend, I was invited, amongst other speaking engagements, to deliver a d’var Torah to the Shabbat afternoon gathering of the Mizrachi shul, a right-of-centre-but-Zionist community whose members take their Judaism sufficiently seriously that the Shabbat afternoon congregation numbered at least 100. I addressed the Jewish principles underpinning Tzedek, the Third World development charity I chair.

When I’d finished, several people thanked me for this “breath of fresh air” or “challenge to our parochialism”. Some said it was helpful to be forced to think about our place in the wider world. And then an astonishing thing happened. When we went back into shul for ma’ariv, the rabbi went into the pulpit and proceeded to try to dismantle all I’d said – very politely but very firmly. He must have spoken for 15 minutes, stressing, for example, that the need to follow justice referred only to justice between Jews. He concluded by accepting that Jews should be an example, but that that was best done by looking after “our own” in an exemplary manner. Others then would be impressed and would look after “‘their own” too. If this were to happen, then there’d be no need for Jews to give to such charities as I had described.

Several people told me afterwards how strongly they disagreed with him, but clearly what he’d said was music to the ears of others.

But I have three questions. How can a learned Jew, especially just before Yom Kippur, when we read about Jonah being forced to prophesy to Nineveh, talk such claptrap about Jews only looking after their own? And, in the wake of, for example, the London bombings, how do we know who is “our own” and who is excluded? And, finally, when all of his congregation buy cheap clothes from the Far East, coffee from Latin America and chocolate from Africa, how does he decide that he’s not inextricably linked with the global community?

But don’t get me wrong. This could have been London as easily as Melbourne. You don’t have to live in a small community to have a small mind, nor live miles away to be far distant from thoughtful understanding.

The photo is not from his talk in Melbourne. I think what Clive has said about Melbourne is spot on. Living in such a tolerant and Jewish-friendly society as we do, I has always bothered me that support for non Jewish causes, particularly the terrible genocide occurring in Darfur, is not given enough attention.

Sharon makes his farewell speech to the Likud

The left was correct. We cannot rule the Palestinians forever. The right was correct, there is no partner on the Palestinians side. Sharon has realized this. In his “farewell to the Likud speech” he said at the yesterday,

"The right of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel does not mean disregarding the rights of others in the land. The Palestinians will always be our neighbors. We respect them, and have no aspirations to rule over them. They are also entitled to freedom and to a national, sovereign existence in a state of their own."

Haaretz described the PM like so. "Sharon was excited, here and there he breathed heavily, and it was clear that he had prepared for the address carefully. For a moment it seemed that it was Yitzhak Rabin, his former commander, standing on the stage, reading one of the peace speeches that Eitan Habber had written for him. The same references to Jerusalem, the Jewish nation's eternal capital. The same apology for choosing the army and war as a way of life, which was forced on him instead of the farmwork he loved. The same call to the Palestinians to work together for peace "for our children and grandchildren."

We read in Isaiah 11:6 that when mashiach comes "The wolf will live with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the young goat; The calf, the young lion, and the fattened calf together; and a little child will lead them." If Sharon is being described as Rabin, Mashiach must be just around the corner.

Final disengagement post

How do you know when a people are truly one? Try to tear them apart. For a beautiful photos essay on this theme go here.




This is my final blog on the disengagement. Thank you for all of your comments, and thank you for being so respectful to one another here in cyberspace. From here on, I will be looking at new items of global interest from a Jewish perspective. Any suggestions of topics that interest you can be left in the comments section.

Israel 2010

In Israel 2010, which scenario is most likely?

1) Israel gives Gaza and 95% of the West Bank to the Palestinians in exchange for their dropping the “right of return” for Palestinians who left in 1948 and their families. The Palestinians live prosperously in their secular democratic state with equal rights for all minorities.

2) Gaza becomes “Hamastan.” The terrorist group launches daily rockets attacks into Israel and the PA does nothing to prevent this. There is a thriving arms/drug trade between Egypt and Gaza. The Netanyahu government decides to reoccupy Gaza and rebuild Gush Katif.

3) Gaza is part of a Palestinian sate. The West Bank is annexed to Israel in its entirety where Israel continues to rule over 2.4 million Palestinians. America does not pressure Israel to make further territorial concessions until Palestinian terror attacks on Israel cease.