“God said to Abram, ‘Go away from your land, from your birthplace, and from your father’s house, to the land that I will show you.’” Genesis 12:1.
I’ll get back to the opening passage of parshat Lech Lecha and hopefully get to my ultimate point in a bit, but feel like I have to give a bit of personal context and scene-setting (as a result, this may be slightly longer than even my usual long-winded posts. Hope some of you bear with it til the end). My in-laws have been visiting for the past 10 days. Their first trip to Israel, and their first week in and around Jerusalem went so nicely that we thought we would pile the kids, parents, and grandparents in the cars and head north to see a whole different side of the country.
First stop: Caesarea. I’m not as crazy as some for ruins, but Caesarea is pretty impressive and always a nice stop, especially as you head north on the coast. They’ve gone a bit overboard, in my opinion, in the development, but such is life in the 21st century. We still had an enjoyable visit and decided to extend the stay a bit with a picnic at the beach near the aqueduct ruins, just down the road from the main city.
Picnic was also lovely, making us even more excited to get north. But when we got back to the cars, we soon realized that all was not well. Thieves had come and — in broad daylight in a parking lot at a relatively crowded beach on a Friday afternoon — managed to take everything out of my in-laws’ rental car. (They tried with ours, as well, but although they broke 2 of 3 locks, they failed to take anything more, mercifully). In addition to stealing a suitcase literally in the shape of Thomas the Tank Engine, filled with my older son’s toys and books, they managed to get my father-in-law’s passport. Which meant doing a 180 and heading off to Tel Aviv as quickly as possible to see if we could manage a replacement for him before the weekend (as they had planned to depart this morning).
(Quick aside on my older son. All in all, he has handled the news of his things’ disappearance and the whole situation quite well. Has hardly asked for them since, and when he does, he always seems to immediately remember what happened and mentions “the bad people.” When we realized that his suitcase was gone – he loved the suitcase probably more than anything, at least last week – we tried to explain and calling the perpetrators “the bad people” was all I could come up with on the spot. Was not ready yet to start explaining the cruelties of the world to this amazing and still mostly innocent boy. My heart cracked more than it has in a long time when, after I explained that people had taken his bag and his toys, he looked up at me with huge, teary eyes and simply asked, “Papa, are they gonna give it back?” Never have I felt as powerless as at that moment when I could not make my son’s world better. But, I am sure you parents of older or grown-up children out there are saying, sadly, “just wait.” I know, I know, but wow, is this hard.)
So off to Tel Aviv we sped. Reached the Embassy right at closing, but had no luck on the passport. My wife (fluent Hebrew speaker) and father-in-law went off to try to deal with that, and then with an Embassy employee who kindly offered to take them to the Tel Aviv police station to file the police report there. (The local Caesarea/Hadera police had actually rolled by on patrol about 5 minutes after our discovery. Two officers got out of the car, surveyed the cars, shook their heads, and said “Ain ma la’asot.” “Nothing to do.” I didn’t tell my son about that.)
This left me, my mother-in-law and son having to kill about 3 hours, but not really being able to go anywhere. Luckily the Embassy is next to the Tayelet and the beach, so we had somewhere to run around and play a bit.
Which brings me back to the main event of this post. While my son and I were running and jumping around on the Tayelet, who should roll up and head down to the beach but a group of 30 or so late teens/twentysomething Americans on a Birthright trip. (I know they were Birthright because I saw the nametags as they walked by; if you don’t know Birthright, there’ll be plenty more in a moment). Down they went to the beach, along with their twentysomething armed escort (he was Israeli), and proceeded to stand in a circle, put arms around shoulders, sing “Adon Olam” and another song or two, then conclude with “Hava Nagila” and dance the hora. Less than five minutes later, they were gone. Off to who-knows-where-else in their “tour” of Israel.
This performance may well have been enough for me to write. But what was more fascinating and provocative than the Birthrighters themselves was the reaction of the people walking by. Most just ignored them, but plenty of others took note. I heard at least 3 shout “Lech Habayitah,” or “Go home.” (Not proper Hebrew, I don’t think, but I’m quite sure this is what I heard each time). Others stood and gawked, some shook their heads. A number of families of foreign workers (mostly from southeast Asia) spent a fair amount of time watching; it seemed to me they were watching mostly to figure out what was going on.
Perhaps needless to say, no one joined the group on the beach. Nor did I even see anyone smile at them or clap or sing along.
And the people walking by were, themselves, a fascinating lot. The gay pride parade had been earlier in the day, so there were a fair amount of folks bearing rainbow banners strolling by. Tel Aviv youth decked out in their bathing suits and Friday night wear (which covers not much more of their bodies than bathing suits do.) Older folks also clearly out for the evening. Foreign workers, foreign travelers, and the occasional homeless person.
In the end, if you think about it, not that much different from the lot of folks you’d see walking by in any major city with a beach in most countries in the world.
Except, of course, for the Birthrighters doing the hora on the beach.
Three primary things struck me about what I witnessed at the beach. The first was the “Lech Habayitah/Go home” shouts I heard. So much packed in those 2 words.
– Those shouting knew, or at least assumed, that those dancing were not from Tel Aviv, and probably not from Israel; they did not mean head home to Netanya. They meant head home to America.
– Isn’t the whole point of Birthright that Israel is supposed to be the Jewish “home?” One thing that was most definitely obvious about the Birthrighters was that they were Jewish. So what does it mean when Israeli Jews (and not just academics or writers at a conference) tell them to go “home,” i.e., out of Israel?
– I mentioned the Hebrew issue before. Happy to be corrected here, but when yelling a command to a group of people, I believe they should have said “Lech-u habayitah.” Instead they chose the singular “lech.” Maybe they were just abbreviating, but another way to look at it is that the shouters looked at the group of 30 as all being one person. Each indistinguishable from the next, and that when one moved to do something, all would follow. So they just needed to shout “Lech” in the singular.
The second thing that struck me about what I saw was how oblivious the Birthrighters were, or at least seemed to be, to what was happening and who was around them. They did not seem to notice that they were being scoffed at and told to go home. They were dancing in their own vision of Israel there on Shabbat eve on the beach; why should the real one walking by them matter?
Finally, as they sang “Adon Olam,” I distinctly remembering wondering if this was a peculiarly Diaspora Jew/Israel phenomenon. That is, when Native American kids who have grown up in cities or elsewhere return to native homelands, do they break into similar traditional dances and songs? Do they even go back? And what do the kids who grow up on reservations think while they watch? What about African-Americans who can trace their ancestry back to a specific village? Or Arab-Americans? When kids of Lebanese origin who have grown up in the U.S. all their lives head back as a group to Beirut, do they break into the debka on the beach? I have no idea, but would love to know.
Anyway, I have thought a lot about this since last Friday and will share just a few more of my thoughts. The next thing I want to do, though, is explain that Birthright is a program that provides all-expenses-paid for young Diaspora (primarily American, but from Europe and elsewhere, too) Jews to go to Israel for around 10 days or so. Thousands take them up on the offer each year. The trips are then organized by specific groups or leaders, so they’re not all the same. But perhaps needless to say, they don’t spend a lot of time or pay a lot of attention to some of the issues we discuss on this blog, let alone the dozens of other social issues in Israel.
And for anti-Occupation activists, Birthright is one of the most difficult programs to remain calm or neutral about because, each year, thousands of young people who could be brought here to help make peace, to understand all of the sides and issues, are instead brought to Israel to be subjected to one level of propaganda after another, all designed to be their “first date” with Israel and to leave them with little to no understanding of the other side of just about any issue. Like my constant gripe about the Israel on Campus Coalition, Birthright adds to the chorus of those who seem to want our students and young people not to discover and learn for themselves, not to challenge what they have been taught, not to strive to better what is around them. We want them to listen, to memorize and regurgitate talking points, to mimic, to accept. To be a group of people who act as a single person, with a single mindset, so that those observing them do not really have to wonder if there are differences among them. And that is shameful.
When we got back to Jerusalem, I went to the Birthright website and found this in the “About us” section:
Taglit-birthright Israel’s founders created this program to send thousands of young Jewish adults from all over the world to Israel as a gift in order to diminish the growing division between Israel and Jewish communities around the world; to strengthen the sense of solidarity among world Jewry; and to strengthen participants’ personal Jewish identity and connection to the Jewish people.
As I read this over, I thought back to what I saw on the beach. As far as these goals are concerned, those young people might as well have been dancing the hora in Long Island as Tel Aviv, as at least 2 of the 3 main prongs of the Birthright mission fell flat. Perhaps the Birthrighters felt less divided from Israel while dancing, but Israel didn’t seem to be less divided from them. If anything, Israel was dividing further away from them during their dance, rather than coming closer. Perhaps that’s more of a commentary on Tel Aviv in 2007 than the Birthrighters, but it doesn’t make it any less true.
Again, perhaps their internal solidarity was stronger, but not with the Jews (let alone non-Jews) around them. Although their personal Jewish identities may have been strengthened, also not clear about their connection to the Jewish people, at least as embodied by those around them in Tel Aviv.
Normally I’d stop here and leave off with another (admittedly, essentially critical) word or 2 about Birthright as a means for understanding anything about Israel. But having had some more time to think, let me add just a few more thoughts that at least make the issue a bit more complex. And, as always, would love to hear those of others.
In the end, I have really been asking myself — aren’t the Birthright kids the ones I should have been drawn to? In the end, shouldn’t there be more people dancing the hora on Shabbat in Tel Aviv? Even if I am unsure about the nature of official Jewish-ness of the State of Israel, this strikes me as something I should be heartened to see, rather than something to inspire mocking, or worse. So, American accents notwithstanding, why did these American Jews seem even more foreign than usual here?
Ultimately, I think it’s this. When God told a 75 year-old Abraham to leave his home of Ur with his family and head to a new land, it took Abraham a long time to understand the Land to which he had come, and all of the people in it. In Genesis, God presents the Land to him as a Birthright, of sorts, if you consider his first journey a birth. God promises to make Abraham and his offspring into a great nation, and bless them in this land.
And, sure, he goes, but Abraham takes his time. He does not enter the land with his divine orders and rights, and simply stay and begin to declare everyone else unwelcome. He does not blind himself to what is around him. Through his nature, his wisdom, his integrity – and, I believe, as a result rather than as a cause, his divine connection – Abraham begins the process of creation of the connection of the Jewish people to the Land that would ultimately become Israel.
(I had intended to also talk about Birthright some in light of the controversial interview in Haaretz with former MK and Jewish Agency head Avraham Burg, who makes some thought-provoking, difficult, and incendiary comments about Israel and Zionism and Judaism. Worth a read in the meantime, and they plug in quite well to this discussion, and although I plan to comment on it soon, but for now I will leave with the following).
The time that Abraham takes, the curiosity about and respect for what is already here, these are what is lacking in the attempt to create a new Birthright, a new connection. Birthright and so much of the American Jewish community look for images, for moments, for ideals, for well-worn talking points and brochures, and expect that creating a package of them, whatever their relation to reality, then ignoring the rest, will equal the connection. But it can’t.
When you do that, those that are here already simply tell you to go home.
So, lech le-chem. Open your eyes and take your time, Birthrighters. Get out and see the country and everyone in it while you are here. Understand the people a bit more, listen to their stories. Follow in Abraham’s way and do not build walls like those you see around you (do you see them?). Keep your tent, your bus, open on all sides; let everyone come in. Foster peace in your hearts and your connection with the land and all of the people in it, not division, not domination. As Abraham did, and as Avraham Burg now suggests again, look to the Judaism of morality rather than the Judaism of sovereignty.
Maybe then someone will dance the hora with you. Who knows, maybe even me.
That is, when Native American kids who have grown up in cities or elsewhere return to native homelands, do they break into similar traditional dances and songs?
I’m not sure this is a legitimate comparison. If I were to return to my ancestral homeland, it would be Prague and Russia and Poland. My people have never been from Israel — not unless I read Torah literally to suggest that Abraham was my actual physical ancestor, and that’s not how I read that text.
I think going to Israel is more complicated than simply rediscovering our roots. There’s more going on — a lot of theology and a lot of history. I have more to say but haven’t yet had any coffee. *g*
Do you know Birthright Unplugged? Gives me a little bit of hope…
(Also: so sorry to hear about your things being stolen!)
I read this right after I’d heard the news on NPR about how the violence in Gaza is escalating, and the contrast between the image of happy Birthrighters doing the hora in Tel Aviv with the newscaster’s description of what life is like right now in Gaza for the many innocent Palestinian citizens who live there, was very striking. Granted, the situation in Gaza at the moment is (for a change!) not directly caused by any Israeli actions, but nonetheless, it is certainly in part a consequence of both the Occupation and the unilateral disengagement, as well as the US and Israel’s refusal to provide economic support to Abbas and the PA and/or to develop any diplomatic channels with Hamas.
Aside from that, however, it seems to me that the Birthright folks are being sold a Disneyland version of Israel, one which they seem only too happy to buy into. If this is the nature of their connection to their “homeland” (or, as Rachel suggests above, to their theological and historical roots), it is indeed a shallow and superficial connection.
Do you have any ideas as to why the onlookers reacted as they did? What do you think they found offensive about the group’s little “performance?” I’m curious about this…
Thanks, Rachel and Steffi.
Rachel — agree very much with your point, but guess I was writing from the Birthright perspective. That is, the whole notion of the program is that there is a “birthright” to Israel, to this land, to this home. As you say, it is likely that few if any participants can actually trace ancestors, other than biblical ones, here. Most would be joining you (and me) in Eastern Europe somewhere, or else in other parts of the Middle East.
But if we buy what Birthright (and so many others) sell, and consider this at least a type of homecoming for all those who come on the trip, then I still wonder how similar their program and their dancing is to other diaspora-type communities who visit other homes.
Although perhaps the fact that there is less of a specific “home” to visit than a “homeland” means that the visit itself changes from one that may seem more genuine to one that feels, as Steffi puts it, more Disney-like. As you say, going to Israel should be more complicated and considered less of a homecoming than an understanding. But I fear that that is not what happens.
Steffi — your points are, as always, excellent. Feel like every post I have written so far from here gets somehow at the theme of distance and disconnected-ness from the various realities here. Contrasting a hora in Tel Aviv with chaos in Gaza is about as stark as the examples get.
As to why the reaction, I have continued to think about it. I wish I had asked one of them (I’ll blame my torn attention between the dancing and trying to make sure Eli didn’t either bolt into the ocean or in front of a bicycle or dog on the Tayelet). A few thoughts:
– It’s likely this was not the first such Birthright group like this to do the hora on Shabbat eve. Maybe they are simply tired of the Disney-esque nature of all of it. That is, they know what Birthright is (more on this in a second), or at least what Americans tend to do when they visit. The Israelis understand that Americans often come here for a version of a visit to Disneyland. And as the people who actually live here, they may just be tired of it. I know this even from listening to tourists stroll around the White House and talk about what it means to be an American, what it means to see the seat of government, with little to no idea of what it really means to live in DC or how the government works.
– Perhaps the relatively strong anti-religious nature of many of the Israelis in Tel Aviv (and especially of the cross-section who happened to be walking by last Friday night) would have resulted in a similar reaction, even if it had not been so clear they were Americans. Maybe anyone singing “Adon Olam” and doing the hora would have elicited this reaction.
– There are billboards and signs from top to bottom here welcoming Birthright. They have them even in strongly Israeli Arab towns like Akko, where for sure, the residents probably are not so thrilled that so many Birthrighters are coming. There have been fireworks the past few nights over the Sultan’s pools in Jerusalem, where Birthrighters gather for performances. (I wonder if they look behind them when there — if you crane your neck from the top of the stands at the Pools to the southeast, you see an amazing and frightening section of the snaking Separation Wall). Again, maybe there is just a fatigue among Israelis of being the backdrop and extras in a Disney set.
Even if the Israelis themselves generally don’t appear to think much about Gaza or Hebron or Nablus, there are dozens of other social issues that they are thinking about (like poverty, gay rights, employment issues, etc.) that they also know that the Birthrighters are likely not seeing. Or, if they are, not to a level that will mean much change and concern from America about them when they go home.
Ultimately, it gets back to the issue of a “first date” with Israel that I wrote about earlier. No doubt there is much good that comes of forming a connection between these young people and this place. The question is what the framework is, what you do and where you go and what you talk about on that first date. I think the Israelis on the Tayelet were just telling them that, if this was the first date, they weren’t sure about a second.
One more note on the impact of Birthright this year, from today’s Ha’aretz (”birthright students bring joy, tourism revenue to capital” — http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/869252.html):
Some 4,000 Jewish students participating in the Taglit-birthright israel program celebrated the 40th anniversary of Jerusalem’s reunification in the capital’s Sultan’s Pool last night. The number of participants in the program will top 25,000 this year, which is expected to contribute about NIS 200 million to the tourist industry this summer.
Jerusalem alone is expected to receive NIS 30 million in revenue from the program and its students. A multi-million dollar donation by Miriam and Sheldon Adelson helped boost the number of participants.
This year, Jewish students from 35 nations will visit Israel through Taglit, which provides them with an educational tour of the country. The students will spend 10 days here, touring national heritage sites in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, the south, the Galilee and the Golan. About 5,000 Israel Defense Forces soldiers and officers will join the students to present their viewpoints.
During the program’s seven years of existence, over 130,000 students from 53 countries have visited Israel, almost all on their first organized tour. This has brought over NIS 1 billion to the country’s tourism industry.
5,000 soldiers and officers? As always, one has to hope that the participants have their eyes really open when they’re here, that their connection becomes a real one.
OK. So that is your take on Birthright. If you have read any of my other comments, you will know that the American Jewish traditional Hebrew school rejected my daughter from being educated as she was “other wise abled.” I have watched her this year prepare a group of students for their Birthright Trip. She is one of the Hillel advisors at a major university. The trip itself was almost incidental to the year long preparation. I will certainly pass this blog along to her so that she can read what others say about her work. The fact is, that without this program at the university age, many of these children would go on to a greater Diaspora. There are different ways of saying the same thing. I will certainly share with her that this is something she might want to consider she incorporate into her prep. for the trip.
Or-do not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
I have not commented on your other replies — so let me first thank you for sharing your experiences, your perspectives, your family’s work.
As for your daughter’s work this year for Hillel, I do not mean to undermine or belittle it. No doubt she is helping to foster those real connections to Israel that can hopefully bring her students to a greater understanding of the place, of all of the people here, so they will want to stay committed.
In the end, she can certainly take or leave my take on and advice to Birthright and other campus programs on Israel. But what I think she should read carefully is the description of the Israeli responses that I witnessed, understand the emotions that I saw from them. In those she can find the real challenge, the real goal, the real opportunity. I very much hope she and her students succeed.
Brad-
TY. Today is the anniversary of the Germans marching into Paris. It made me think of the Potsdam Convention. There are different kinds of war. War with weapons and war with words. In my mind, there is only one thing that brings about peace. All sides coming to the table. I am not sure that will ever happen and I think I need to return to my other Blog-Mensa where all sides come to the table nonjudgementally and without criticism. I wish you all well as I sign off this blog.
Next Generation-also known as Andrew’s patient who got here by accident when “googling” for the office address and forgot to enter MD.