Dear President Obama,
I am an American Jew living in Israel. In America, I proudly voted for you for the Senate and for president. I campaigned with my three children for your presidency in Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin, Indiana and Illinois. I came to Israel to train to be a rabbi and to live among my people in a sovereign Jewish state with my wife and children. When I finish my studies, I hope to return to America and to join you in the pursuit of a more perfect union.
My wife and I also have Israeli citizenship and as dual citizens, we want to express how much we appreciate your stewardship of the relationship between our two countries. Sometimes, as my Israeli father in law says, “You can’t see the forest because of the trees.” I think this is the case of my Jewish homeland.
We are a well-intentioned people. We treat our destiny as if we have a unique relationship with God. Not all of us believe this narrative, but we all live within it and it frames our worldview. Soon we will be celebrating Passover. We will engage in the ritual of a Passover Seder and recall our collective memory of slavery and redemption. Whether this narrative is history or not, we all treat ourselves as a nation of freed slaves who have an obligation to wrestle with our freedom and our nationhood. Sometimes we do this better, sometimes worse.
Added to this narrative is the narrative of anti-Semitism. Anyway you look at it, we are a people who have been oppressed for being who we are. It is an ascribed identity that is irrational but must be treated with the utmost seriousness because of the numerous human tragedies it has led to. If for no other reasons than the Holocaust and the continued hatred of my people for the simple fact of their Jewish birth, we need a country of our own.
Israel isn’t perfect. We are a country of immigrants, many of who were forcibly driven from their places of birth. We are still working on writing a constitution to regulate our collective rights and responsibilities. We still don’t give freedom of religion to all of our Jewish citizens, a reality which was specifically harmful to me and my wife when, living here sixteen years ago, we were forced to get a civil marriage abroad in order for our Jewish wedding with a Reform rabbi in Israel to be accepted.
But we are also a country that takes its role in the comity of nations very seriously. We recently participated on a grand scale in Haitian relief. We have even tried to do the same for some of our Arab neighbors in times of natural disaster. We contribute greatly to biotechnology and the computer industry, and we have a considerable flock of great artists and writers who make the world a more cultural and beautiful place to live.
Our problem now is not seeing the forest for the trees, and it is very similar to our ancestors, who we will soon recall on Passover. Granted freedom, they didn’t know how to behave as a free nation and built a golden calve. Despite their redemption, they continued to accept and participate in the institution of slavery, and blessed with a great leader, many chose to rebel and some yearned to return to the tyranny of Egypt.
Today we suffer from similar misgivings. Granted our sovereignty, we continue to deny it to our neighbors, people who, like us, are not tourists in this land. We have built golden calves, idols, out of land instead of creating holiness in time as a nation that shows mercy and compassion to the people living under our rule, qualities we ascribe to our God. And as free people in our own land, we now show little understanding or appreciation for our freedom as we import foreign workers to do that which is hated by us and turn away refugees when we are best suited to understand their pain.
President Obama, sometimes it takes a courageous leader, a Moses, to throw the tablets at the people as a wake up call. We need someone who responds to injustice, as the young prophet did with the Egyptian taskmaster, someone who seeks justice among brothers, as he did when he saw his own people fighting amongst themselves, and who seeks justice for the stranger, as he did when he defended Jethro’s daughters at the well. These are the qualities of great leaders, and they are the reasons why God chose Moses to demand of Pharaoh, “Let my people go.”
Unfortunately, we don’t have these types of leaders here. Instead of self- reflection, our leadership has created an environment of self-censorship. Instead of moral leadership, we have come to rely on loyalty over justice and vilify those fine citizens who question the integrity of our ways. And we have become a nation that speaks in the evil doublespeak of George Orwell’s 1984. We demand of our Palestinian neighbors, as a precondition for serious peace negotiations, that they acknowledge the Jewishness of our state, as if this were really something they could judge and in spite of the fact that our behavior is not very Jewish. We talk about the eternal, indivisible capitol of the Jewish people as if we ever ruled outside of the walled ancient city of Jerusalem, and then use this language for a land grab of conquered Arab real estate beyond the city walls. And we talk about living in a democratic state, when we have over two million people living under our control without basic civil rights, Palestinians and foreign workers alike.
So president Obama, I am urging you to continue your pursuit of justice in this region. Don’t feel obligated to seek the approval of public affairs committees who don’t represent the silent majority of my people. We need another Jethro, a non-Jewish leader who saw us from the outside and advised our leadership in ways that made us a better nation.
It will not be enough this year for Jews to say, at the end of our Seders, “Next year in Jerusalem.” Rather, we must make the name of our eternal capital fulfill its mission, Jerusalem, city of peace. Then, and only then, will we Jews be able to sanctify our redemption by living the values of our ancestors and acting responsibly among the rest of God’s creations.
It is with your leadership, President Obama, that we will finally leave the wilderness of war and bloodshed and enter the promised land of peace and sovereignty, two states for two peoples. This Passover, I wish you Godspeed in your mission.
Most sincerely,
David Steiner
Tel-Aviv, Israel
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