Thank you President Obama

In a June 2nd piece in the Israeli daily HaAretz, I read that “the outgoing commander of the Israel Police in the West Bank praised the settlers and took umbrage with their detractors, particularly residents of Tel Aviv ‘whose willingness to contribute to the state is one big zero.’"

Police Major General Shlomi Katbi, in a tirade against the Israeli left on Army Radio said, "those who sit in Tel Aviv, park their jeeps on the sidewalk on Sheinkin Street, drink espresso with one foot resting on the other, and allow themselves to level criticism and to tell stories."

I found the last part of Katbi’s tirade the most fascinating, we leftists, “allow [our]selves to level criticism and to tell stories." Whoa! When did these basic human behaviors become such transgressions? I can understand the discomfort with drinking espresso with one foot resting on the other, but leveling criticism and telling stories, isn’t that a bit much?

Occasionally, when I talk about critical literacy with my wife, she complains that the connotations of “critical” are negative and that I need to find a better word. She may be right, but when I think of criticality, I think of the effort to look deeply at something and try to make it better by finding the faults. Of course, you could say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, but this is exactly what I have when I employ critical literacy to my reading of the world. It is my charge as a Jew who does Tikkun Olam.

And what is so bad about telling stories? When the authors of the Bible put pen to paper, they made God the biggest story teller of them all. Are we to understand that God is as bad as the Sheinkin Street, espresso drinking critics?

Why don’t we just get down to plain facts and speak simple truths? When the right has a problem with the left, they find something wrong with us to shout about because they can’t argue with what we believe. If a Jew says he is opposed to the settlements, he becomes a self hater, an anti-Zionist, etc. A bunch of epithets are slung at him, usually, because it beats arguing the point, but this does not get us anywhere.

As Jews, we have been given a heritage rich in debate. When Reish Lakish died, Rebbe Yohannan was sad because the rabbis gave him a yes man and all he wanted was his chevruta, his study partner, Reish Lakish, because “[He] would challenge me with 24 questions.” Today, instead of having an internal debate among our people, we have a mudslinging fest because its easier to find disparaging epithets than it is to answer the hard questions. But now, in the shadow of President Obama’s speech in Cairo, we are going to have to answer the tough questions, or the world will dictate the answers for us, and they won’t wait for our evasive answers.

Thank you President Obama, your speech is the work of a true friend, and I, for one, can’t wait to see your actions follow suit.