It's Rosh Hashana, the birthday of the world in our tradition, and I cannot think of a better birthday gift than the pursuit of justice. This is why I am writing to you about the letter you signed supporting the Israeli-Jewish actor boycott of the West Bank.
As some may know about me, I detest the occupation. I wrote my dissertation about peace education between Israelis and Palestinians, I moved back to Israel to be an active force in changing the politics of my homeland, and I am studying to be a rabbi to have the credentials and the learning to engage our people in a serious discourse about this terrible injustice done in the name of all Israelis and Jews. And yet, I am very concerned with the development of this boycott mentality within us as a people.
For certain, we have always had infighting. The Thugs (Biryonim) and Zealots (Kanaim) in Jerusalem were willing to burn the food supplies of their fellow Jews to encourage a rebellion against the Roman occupiers. Korach and others rebelled against the leadership of Moses. Jewish infighting is not a new phenomenon. But now we have a country of our own and we have to strengthen the institutions within which we conduct our discourse.
As I write, I am cognizant of Martin Luther King's letter from the Birmingham jail in which he left us the brilliant statement, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." In this letter, King tells us that, "The purpose of our direct-action program is to create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation." But the actors' boycott of West Bank is not intended to open any doors. It actually closes them.
Noah Efron, a Bar-Ilan University lecturer and member of the Tel Aviv-Jaffa City council, wrote that,
the only chance we have of making proper sense of the world around us is if we see what surrounds us in all its complexity, and if we are alive to voices different from our own… Arguably, artists and scholars ought to seek venues in Ariel, and other settlements, and to energetically hunt for opportunities to challenge those who live there and to be challenged in return. If we believe in the power of what we do, we ought doubly to wish to debate it with those who see matters differently.
I do not fully agree with Efron. We should seek to debate the collective policies of our country. The tyranny of the majority is exactly why Winston Churchill says of democracy that it is a terrible system, except for all the rest. But we can overcome that by creating as many venues for civil discourse as possible without asking our artists an scholars to compromise their values and perform in settlements that they believe are illegal and immoral.
On the other hand, in an opinion piece in Haaretz,, Theodore Bikel, unintentionally, gave me the reason to oppose the boycott as a collective effort of Israeli artists. He refers to "Pablo Casals, the world-famous cellist, who chose life-long exile from his native Spain because of the fascist dictator who ruled the beloved country of his birth, [and] said this: 'My cello is my weapon; I choose where I play, when I play, and before whom I play.'” My art and my scholarship are not weapons. They are my voice, and when they become weapons, I have changed my perspective relative to the discourse. I believe in civil discourse.
George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, in their book "Metaphors we live by" argue that the metaphors we use become the frames that shape our thinking and behavior. I cannot chose raising weapons on my people, even those who I detest politically. Like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the avowed pacifist Catholic theologian who was executed for his efforts to assassinate Hitler, I agree that there is a time to fight and even kill, but that is a last resort. At this time, our efforts should be directed at engagement and discourse. A boycott is an act of force. I prefer not to end the occupation through force. I want to end it through creative, democratic exchange. In the Arab market in Jerusalem they sell t-shirts with a slogan that explains my feelings. "Fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity." I think the idea of boycotts, other than possibly against corporations, is pregnant with negative ramifications. It brings us down to their playing field. It makes our means inconsistent with our ends.
The boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement and the Palestinian Call for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel are both intent on forcing Israel to end the occupation of the West Bank. While I concur with this limited goal, I disagree with the means. Likewise, Im Tirzu, the right wing, Israeli political organization funded in part by Rev. John Hagee, uses the same methods to force their way on internal Israeli opponents. Recently, they threatened to bring their protest to funders of Ben Gurion University in order to make donations for the academy conditioned on their political will. Both of these examples are uses of force for political gain, and neither is willing to attempt to achieve their aspirations through discourse. To my sensibility, this is McCarthyism for the 21st century.
Since I opened this door, let me say one small thing about McCarthyism. My absolute favorite response to Senator McCarthy and his ilk was the movie Salt of the Earth (1954) written by Michael Wilson, directed by Herbert J. Biberman, and produced by Paul Jarrico, all blacklisted by the Hollywood film industry. Instead of fighting censorship and fascism, they engaged it, creatively, in the public realm. This might be what the actors of Israeli theater troupes should be doing in Ariel. Noah Efron suggests, " At the end of each show, they could turn up the house lights and enter into discussion and debate with the audience. Such meetings would be heated, no doubt, but they might help thaw the frozen seas inside those of us who live in Tel Aviv and in Ariel alike." Again, I like the intentions, but I question the methods.
Performing in Ariel is legitimizing the occupation. I don't travel on Highway 443 because it cuts through the West Bank on its way to Jerusalem. I am not as diligent about East Jerusalem. I travel there to protest in Sheik Jarrah, which is fine, but I also visit friends in East Talpiot. I always bring guests from abroad to the Old City, and I travel to the West Bank to meet with Palestinian activists and scholars. These issues are very complicated. One of the most beautiful things about our Hebrew language is its complexity. Appropriately, for our conversation, the three letter root of the Hebrew word for "abstraction" (hafshata) is also the root for the word "simple" or "literal" (pshat). In English we say, it’s a thin line between love and hate.
I am not afraid of complexity. Another great movie that deals with this issue is The American President. For most of the film, the president, portrayed by Michael Douglas, does not want to engage his opponent, played by Richard Dreyfus, about attacks on his personal behavior because he is not willing to go down to his level. Eventually, he decides that the time has come and he fights fire with fire. "There is a time for every purpose under heaven." Maybe the time has come.
It is impossible to have this type of conversation, when Israel is involved, without referring to our sages. There are two brilliant references that should be considered in this situation. When faced with the infighting that ensued after the destruction of the Second Temple, Yochanan ben Zakai snuck out of Jerusalem in a coffin in order to sue for peace. It wasn't a democratic move. He acted on his own, but, in doing so, he saved the Jewish people from destroying themselves from within.
The other example is the chevruta, the study partnership, of Reish Lakish and Rebbe Yochanan. After converting Reish Lakish from a life of crime into a life of piety, Rebbe Yochanan verbally spars with his student in the classroom. This leads to Reish Lakish's death. Not having clear civil borders for the discourse ends in tragedy. In recalling their study partnership, Yochanan remembers how through a process of challenging each other with 24 questions they get to the fullest understanding of the subject. While I certainly agree that individual artists and scholars should not engage in behaviors that offend their moral and political sensibilities, I think you have an obligation, if you want to boycott collectively, to create alternative frameworks for engaging your political opponent. It is not only for their fair participation in the decisions of the larger collective, it is for everyone's benefit in achieving the fullest understanding of the issues.
This is the kind of pluralistic discourse I want for my country. I don't want pluralism because I like every idea out there. I want pluralism because I have the humility to know that I don't have all the answers in here. Furthermore, while I am not an advocate of nationalism, I am fully intent on working with my country men and women to make our homeland the best that it can be. A country, for better or worse, is not a marriage. We cannot simply end all our conflicts be divorcing ourselves of one another, and we ought not end them through force. This could very well be why the sages put the family and marriage at the center of our community life. They did create an escape. We have divorce in Judaism. By our hopes and dreams are for healthy homes and families in Israel. This includes finding ways to constructively, as equals, get beyond our problems and work for the fulfillment of our dreams.
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