Jewish, Palestinian activists try to build a cinema in Hebron

July 15, 2016, +972 Magazine http://972mag.com (Israel)

 

By Dahlia Scheindlin*

As soldiers and settlers look on, dozens of foreign Jews join Palestinians in the segregated city of Hebron try ‘to make the unbearable a little more bearable.’ Police detain six Israelis among the group, prevent others from even joining.

Foto: Activists with the Center for Jewish Non-Violence 

clear brush from the yard of the would-be cinema as 

Israeli soldiers and settlers look on, Hebron, July 15, 

2016. (Wisam Hashlamoun/FLASH90)

The streets in the Israel-controlled section of Hebron were sunny and silent at 9 a.m. on Friday. The Palestinian shops on the main streets were all shut, as most of them have been for over 20 years. Jews were home preparing for Shabbat.

On a sloping street rising through the Tel Rumeida neighborhood where, in April, a Palestinian stabber was wounded, then executed, there is a small commotion. A scattered group of Israeli soldiers, blue-uniformed police, and a few local Israeli settlers are hovering around a battered fence, peering inside as if

LIGHT A CANDLE FOR COEXISTENCE

21 December 2011, Rabbis for Human Rights רבנים למען זכויות האדם (Israel)

Parasha / E-Letter

Weekly commentary by Rabbis for Human Rights: Parshat “Miketz”

Rabbis for Human Rights condemns the wave of fascism that has been sweeping over Israel in the last week, including: the torching of mosques, the burning of a Jewish-Arab center in Be’er Sheva, blocking roads in the West Bank, and the publication of racist books similar to “Torat HaMelekh.” Rabbis for Human Rights will light a candle of hope in Israel and in the Occupied Territories, a candle of shared existence, and insist that the security forces prevent continued violence and potential religious war. May your festival of light bring blessings and hope, and Shabbat Shalom.

Rabbi Jeremy Milgrom | Parashat “Miketz”: “More than once during the last 35 years, ever since I started composing Torah homilies, thereby allowing the Torah to speak through my life, the Joseph story (Genesis 37-50) has jumped up and bit me. This week, it brought together resonances of one event that gripped the Israeli public recently, another that passed right by it, a Hebrew phrase that inspired a poem my mother wrote a few decades ago, and the echo of an insight from my father’s Commentary on Leviticus”

“Tag Meir” (Light a Candle for Coexistence) Events

• Lighting the second Hannukah candle: Wednesday, 12.21.11, at 4:00 PM in A-Sirah a-Qabliya, next to settlement of Yitzhar (transport will leave from Gan HaPaamon at 3:00 PM. To sign up, contact Barak Weiss or Moriel Rothman at 054-315-7781)

• Lighting the third Hannukah candle: Thursday, 12.22.11, at 4:00 PM by the mosque in the village of Burqa (trasnport will leave from Gan HaPaamon at 3:00 PM. To sign up, contact Barak Weiss or Moriel Rothman at 054-315-7781).

• Lighting the fourth and fifth Hannukah candle: There will not be an event on Friday or on Saturday.

• Lighting the sixth Hannukah candle: Sunday, 12.25.11, Khirbet Zakariya, near Gush Etzion (hours and details will be published soon).

• Lighting the seventh Hannukah candle: Monday, 12.26.11, near the mosque in the town of Tuba Zangariya, in the North, at 5:00 PM (arrive on your own, and the Conservative Movement is organizing transport from Kibbutz Hanaton).

• Lighting the eighth Hannukah candle: Tuesday, 12.27.11. Yaffa, on Yafat St. | Gan HaShnayim (five minutes from the Hummus restaurant that was damaged by a Tag Mechir (price tag) attack). Details to follow.

Almost everyone is condemning the torching of mosques, and certainly will condemn the attack on the mosque in the village of Burqa last week. But the real test is not only to condemn, but also do demand that the security forces be prepared in advance to prevent the violence that will be enacted against Palestinians following the evictions of illegal outposts. Rabbi Nava Hefetz creates a theological and political link between the roots of the ideas in the book “Torat HaMelekh” and the attacks carried out on the military base of Hativat Ephraim. Last Thursday Palestinian cars were blocked from travelling in the area of Nablus. We believe that the blockage of roads in the West Bank could lead to dangerous inflammation of dormant tensions, and certainly is a violation of basic human rights.

Rabbi Nava Hefetz took a delegation of Rabbis for Human Rights down south to protest the violation of human rights that took place there with the burning of the Jewish-Arab center, and to express solidarity with the activist and community leader Amal Ansa. Here is a slide show, with music and interviews, from the event that took place after the burning:

This week, one of our field activists was quoted in Ynet and in the Wall Street Journal about settler attacks on Palestinian cars in the Occupied Territories. In addition, he was also quote on Israeli News Channel Two about the burning of the mosque in Burqa after the eviction of outposts, and he emphasized the need to enact strong, active enforcement against the active members of the extreme right wing. ‘Bright tag’ candles at ‘price tag’ scenes By Melanie Lidman (Jpost).

Call for Volunteers:

• Rabbinical Visit to Silwan: To participate in a rabbinical visit to Silwan, please get in touch with Rav Arik Ascherman at ravarik@rhr.israel.net, and 050-5607034 or with Moriel Rothman at moriel18@gmail.com or 054-3157781 or with Rivka, at info@rhr.israel.net or 02-6482757.

• Demonstration Against the Disenfranchisement of the Bedouins in the Negev: 12.25 a weekly demonstration will take place at Tzomet Lehavim against the systematic discrimination against Bedouins in the Negev.

• Rebuilding the Arab-Jewish Center that was Burned in Be’er Sheva- last week, anonymous attacks burned the Ajik Volunteer Tent, an Arab-Jewish center for equality, empowerment and cooperation, in Be’er Sheva, twice. We invite you to donate to help rebuild the center.

Happy Hannukah and Shabbat Shalom.

ISRAELIS, GO PROTEST!

2 September 2011, Haaretz http://www.haaretz.com

Saturday the power of a society will be tested - a society that has finally come alive and grown up after decades of slumber.

By Gideon Levy

As the social protest enters its eighth week and the demonstration planned for Saturday is set to be the greatest in Israeli history, it's time to issue an emergency mobilization order. All people who care about their lives in this country must, simply must, report for duty.

All people who thought they could do nothing but grumble and discovered it can be completely different have a duty, not only a right, to go outside and come to the square.

Rightists and leftists, Jews and Arabs, women and men, young and old, religious and secular, northerners and southerners - everyone must be in Kikar Hamedina Saturday night.

Saturday the power of a society will be tested - a society that has finally come alive and grown up after decades of slumber. If the masses flood the square, their outcry will be heard. Nobody, not even Benjamin Netanyahu's government, could ignore hundreds of thousands of Israelis demanding change and social justice.

Size matters, but it's not the only thing. From the protest's first day, from the first large demonstration on July 23, it was marked by an enthusiasm we never witnessed at any other demonstration, perhaps since the birth of the state. Winds of change like that haven't blown since the night the state was declared, when we danced outside the old Tel Aviv Museum on Rothschild Boulevard.

The day after the first demonstration, I wrote here that a new spirit had emerged. At the second demonstration, I was proud to be an Israeli, more than I had been for years. At the third demonstration, the largest ever, I felt that Israel was celebrating its renewed independence.

A wind has blown through the country in recent weeks, changing the language, agenda and tone. Instead of a bunch of cynical, cliche-reciting and deceiving politicians, we have a group of plain-speaking youngsters who have set the agenda and tone. Instead of a group of greedy, ostentatious tycoons we have humble tent-dwellers. These winds of change must blow Saturday too, but more powerfully.

All eyes will be on Kikar Hamedina Saturday, not only those yearning for success, but also the worried, frightened eyes of people fearing change in the existing order, which was so good to them. The protest's enemies, few but powerful, will stay home hoping that the demonstration will bomb.

These are most of our politicians, tycoons and owners of big companies and their relatives. People who overprice and overcharge, who drive to their minimum-wage factories in their black Mercedes, like the chairman of the ailing Pri Hagalil plant in the north. Also staying home will be the army of high-paid conservative commentators. They're all lying in wait, hoping that the revolution will fail.

In the next two days, every Israeli should remember what the state and society looked like before the first tent was set up, what people talked about and dealt with. We should compare it to what we're dealing with today. We should think of the reduced prices, the rich who suddenly have adopted more modest ways, the government that appoints committees, reduces companies' profits and uses, at least outwardly, a new language. We should think especially about our politicians, who suddenly seem so pale and shabby beside the impressive appearance of Daphni, Stav and Itzik Shmuli.

Anyone who wants this music to end Saturday should stay at home. Anyone who thinks this music must not be stopped must show up. Nine o'clock at the square. That's the time, that's the place.

More on this topic
52 days later, Israel's social protest faces its biggest test

RAMADAN & AV: CONNECTIONS & COLLISIONS

1 August 2011, The Shalom Center http://www.theshalomcenter.org (USA)

Rabbi Arthur Waskow

Last night, with the coming of the New Moon’s sliver of light, Jews entered the month of Av; Muslims, the month of Ramadan. I want to take this moment to examine ways in which Jewish-Muslim relations have become entangled in the broader crisis of Europe and America that has led to attacks on Muslims and to the atrocious murders in Oslo last week.

Today, I want to share some sense of the spirit-lifting meanings and possibilities of this moment. Tomorrow, I want to examine the broader question of the wave of anti-Muslim feeling and action we are experiencing in America and Europe -- and what to do about it.

For Jews, the month of Av is one of foreboding, sorrow, and slow recovery – all built around memories of the Destruction of two Holy Temples in Jerusalem, one by the Babylonian Army in 586 BCE; the other by the Roman Army in 70 CE. The ninth day of Av – in Hebrew, Tisha B’Av -- has been set aside to mourn these disasters.

Jewish tradition blamed these disasters partly on Imperial arrogance, but partly on internal Jewish failings and corruptions.

And the tradition sought to transcend these traumas: In the Biblical era, on the seventh day after the commemoration of Destruction there was a rejoicing with erotic overtones: On the Full Moon of Av, young women danced in the fields and chose their husbands. In the Rabbinic era, seven Sabbaths of Consolation after the day of disaster were set aside to read Prophetic passages of hope, leading in seven steps to the renewal of Rosh Hashanah.

But efforts at transcending the trauma never fully worked. These two destructions helped set the tone of Jewish history as a series of traumas and victimizations – a tone that, after many later repetitions and especially the Holocaust, still deeply colors Jewish responses to history, even though a “Jewish state” now holds considerable political and military power.

For observant Muslims, Ramadan is a month of spiritual self-examination and redirection. Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset each day in order to turn their attention from physical satisfactions to spiritual growth; read the entire Quran during the month; increase their sharing with the poor; and late in the month celebrate the first revelation of the Quran to the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. They end the month with Eid ul-Fitr, the Feast of the Break-Fast.

What can we learn from each other, living this “moonth” alongside each other?

The effort to transcend trauma is not for Jewish hearts and minds alone. Islam as a whole has during the last several centuries been conquered, colonized, subjugated by various Western powers, from Morocco to Indonesia. Palestinians in particular have tried to elevate this experience into a kind of Tisha B’Av of their own, observing the Naqba – the “Disaster” that came upon their community as Israel was established.

For them and for many other Muslims, the Disaster still means military weakness, less-creative arts and sciences, stagnant economies. Can the Disaster itself be turned into fertile soil for a new Islam --as Rabbinic Judaism flowered from the ashes of the Second Temple and as the Rabbis taught that Tisha B’Av was the birthing day of the Messiah?

And in the other direction, what can Jews learn from Ramadan? In Jewish tradition, the forty days from the beginning of the month of Elul to Yom Kippur were intended to be days of religious study and spiritual self-examination. But for most Jews, the currents of Modernity and its pressure for swiftness have swept away this practice, and even the Ten Days from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur are rarely taken as a time for self-assessment, repair of wrongs, reconciliation, and forgiveness.

Perhaps the daily practice of fasting is what helps to hold the great majority of the world’s Muslims to observance of Ramadan. Perhaps Jews should be rethinking what daily practice for a full month would have such an impact on our lives. (There is a tradition of blowing the shofar every morning of the forty days that lead to Yom Kippur, but the Jews who do this are rare today. And perhaps the ritual is too “ritualistic,” too little a dent upon our earthy daily lives, to raise our consciousness as fasting does.)

Perhaps there is even a hint of what Jews could do, in the cultural history of Morocco. There the Jewish and Muslim communities feed each other – literally – at the end of Ramadan and the end of Passover. Muslims bring Jews the first post-Passover bread -- for a celebration that became known as “Maimouna,” “Prosperity-time.” And Jews bring Muslims the first food for the great Break-Fast at the end of Ramadan.

Here and there in America during the last few years, Mosques and synagogues have been connecting during Ramadan. Precisely in the face of the tensions between the two communities that have arisen in the last decade, what if they agreed that every evening – or even just every Sunday evening -- during Ramadan, Jews would eat with Muslims, in synagogues or mosques (and as individuals got to know each other, in private homes)?

What if synagogues agreed that during every Shabbat during Ramadan, they would read and study a passage from the Quran?

Or what if the lesson were transposed into Jewish time – so that despite the rush of business and the craving for mid-summer vacation, Jews ceremoniously set aside 18 minutes every morning in Av or from the First of Elul to Yom Kippur to dedicate some money to healing the world – pursuing peace, seeking justice, protecting the Earth?

May your Av, your Ramadan, help lift you into a fuller awareness of the loving care we owe each other!

ISRAEL’S MESSAGE: HATE THY PRO-PALESTINIAN ACTIVIST

Where Israel is concerned, a democracy that cannot bring itself to allow non-violent protest has already turned on itself.

7 july 2011, Haaretz הארץ (Israel)

By Bradley Burston

This weekend in synagogues the world over, Jews will be reading the story of Balak. In Israel, this will also be Shabbat Mashat, the Sabbath of the Pro-Palestinian Flightilla.

As luck would have it, both stories are about occupation. And about hatred.
The Biblical narrative (Numbers 22:2 – 25:9) begins just after the Children of Israel, en route to the Promised Land from Egypt, have won sweeping military victories and occupied the towns and territories of kingdom after kingdom.

Moab, east of the Jordan River, opposite the West Bank town of Jericho, is next in the path of Moses and his people. Moab's king, Balak, outnumbered and terrified, sends for Bilaam, a highly recommended hired-gun diviner from the East. Per Balak’s order, Bilaam rides in, and tries over and over to curse the Israelites and cause them to be defeated.

In a peculiarly cinematic series of scenes, however, Bilaam is repeatedly blocked from doing so, by an angel armed with a drawn sword, by his own (now-talking) donkey, and by the Lord Himself. In the end, Bilaam's attempts at damning Balak's enemies turn to blessings, among them the Ma Tovu prayer, prominent in Jewish liturgy to this day, giving voice to wonder and reverence for synagogues and other places of worship.

Time and Jewish tradition have not been kind to Bilaam, who became a prototype of the non-Jew responsible for all of our problems - including those which, as a consequence of occupation, are to a great extent self-inflicted.

In the best tradition of the worst Israeli hasbara, American-Israeli Orthodox Rabbi Berel Wein, spins the hapless but poetic Bilaam as a terrorist, Balak as an arch-terrorist – and, for good measure, throws in human rights activists as accomplices to terror homicide:

"It is not the suicide bomber – Bilaam – that is the only guilty party in terrorist attacks. It is the Balaks who send them and support them, that are certainly equally as guilty.”

"The pious human rights organizations that promote only hatred and violence under the guise of doing good deeds are also responsible for the loss of the precious lives of innocents caused by those whom they so nurture and support."

What Rabbi Wein fails to mention is that the real threat to the Israelites in the story of Balak comes from the actions of the Israelites themselves. After Bilaam gives up and goes home, God is enraged by the Israelites' immorality and idol worship, and lets loose a plague which kills 24,000 of the Israelites. (Later rabbis frame Bilaam for the killings).

In Israel, meanwhile, officials have been working overtime doing no little framing of their own. As pro-Palestinian activists, reportedly ranging in age from nine to 89, prepared to fly into Ben-Gurion Airport to demonstrate against the embargo on Gaza and the occupation, curses took wing from the diviners of hasbara.

The Prime Minister's Office issued a press release calling the the arrival of the activists an attempt "to undermine Israel's right to exist." It was, they said, part of a broader effort to breach Israel's "borders and its sovereignty, by sea, land and air."

Lest there be any doubt as to the severity of the threat, Public Security Minister Yitzhak Ahronowitz "These hooligans who seek to break the law and disturb the peace will not be allowed into Israel."

The activists' aim, Ahronowitz told reporters, was nothing less than "attacking our legitimacy in our own land." He ruled out demonstrations by the activists as illegal.

For months now, Israeli officials have described the participants of the flotilla campaign as terrorists, more recently (although with a subsequent Bilaam-like reversal) telling foreign media that the activists were planning to use "chemical weaponry," stockpiling sulfur to dump on Israeli security forces and set them alight.

The parallels to Bilaam don't end there. On Thursday, one of the organizers of the pro-Palestinian protest told Ynet that without Israel's exhaustive, high-profile efforts to condemn and curse the activists' fly-in, the campaign would never have gotten off the ground.

"We should be thanking Netanyahu, because without him, this wouldn’t have worked," the organizer said. "If we would have paid thousands of shekels in PR, it would not have worked out so well."

For those of us who live in Israel, perhaps the most useful section of the week's Torah portion is a part that barely makes it into the text. At the very close, occupation has led Moses' people to worship idols (which we, the contemporary Children of Israel, have repurposed as settlements), as well as to corruption, and immoral behavior.

The message from the government, meanwhile, remains, Hate Thy Pro-Palestinian Activist. It's certainly true that many if not most of the activists hate Israel at least as much as Israel hates them. But, as King Balak learned to his dismay, hatred and fear, as practiced by nations, have a tendency to boomerang.

Where Israel is concerned, a democracy that cannot bring itself to allow non-violent protest has already turned on itself.

Stay tuned. Within a few hours, we should learn who plays Bilaam in this version, who plays Balak, and, most tellingly perhaps, who plays the ass.