The comfort factor

I’m sitting here on my patio, taking in the cool night air, listening to Kate Bush, thinking of my trip to India in a few days. There, across the valley, in Na’alin, a family is grieving the death of their child, killed yesterday by live ammunition. His family had tried to keep him home, away from the daily demonstrations. Had he lived, he could have been proud that, even as a child, he resisted the stealing of his village’s lands by the occupying power. But he didn’t live, and I cannot be proud that I sit idle, while foolish children, with all their lives ahead of them, face the bullets of slightly older kids, in a game mapped out by adults.

Meanwhile, my email brings me the following story: “This month Adalah submitted a petition to the Israeli Supreme Court (SCt.) on behalf of a Palestinian Arab family from Nazareth whose land was confiscated by the state in 1958 for a “public purpose”. After many years of not using the land for a public purpose, it was put up for sale on the free market and offered to the highest bidder by Miftavim, Ltd., which received the land from the state after the confiscation. The petition demanded that the SCt. cancel the confiscation and return the land to the original Arab landowners who are citizens of the state. The petition relied on past precedent of the SCt. according to which lands were returned to their Jewish owners if there was no longer any public purpose for the confiscation or if a lengthy time had passed and the lands were not used for this reason. Despite prior precedent, the SCt. denied the Arab family’s request to freeze the bid for the sale of the land. As a result, the land was sold for NIS 183 million (US $53 million) which was received by Miftavim, Ltd. This case starkly illustrates how the state deprives Palestinian citizens of Israel of their land. The Israeli legal community treats issues of land confiscation as belonging to the past, to the era of the state’s establishment, and one which no longer affects Arab citizens. The SCt.’s decision proves that the land confiscation issue still exists and that the legal system concerning land is divided into two systems: one for Arab citizens and one for Jewish citizens. Undoubtedly, the legal meaning of confiscation for “public purpose” is not to benefit all the public but to deprive Arab owners of their land.”

It’s a matter of perception. Most Jewish Israelis – whether new army recruits or supreme court judges – are incapable of seeing injustice to Palestinians. It isn’t their fault. It’s just the way their brains have been wired. I too have my wiring. There are many things I do not see or have become inured to. But I have been speaking of injustices that I see, but nevertheless do nothing. Why? It’s so easy to find reasons to do nothing, so hard to find reasons to struggle, for as long as it’s comfortable not to do so.

ID Blues (new documentary series by Chaim Yavin)

Last night, in the framework of the Jerusalem Int’l Film Festival, was the first public screening of the first two episodes of Chaim Yavin’s ID Blues (Teudah Kehula in Hebrew).

The series very effectively explores relations between Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel (i.e., those who carry the blue Israel ID card).

As with his previous series Land of the Settlers, Yavin puts to good use his credentials and qualities. Name recognition, face recognition, and his iconic status in Israeli news media, play no small part in this. His sometimes belligerent interviewing style, acquired through years of grilling politicians, manages to draw people out, and his understanding of what makes good television keeps viewers engaged.

The five-part series was two years in the making – and not all of the work was finished in time for the film festival. Taken together, the series should provide an uncommonly penetrating view of Arabs in Israel, and their relations with the Jewish State.

In 2008, a series like this can’t afford to fail, can’t afford not to spread before Israelis the soiled and ragged fabric of Jewish – Arab coexistence. It’s almost too late. “Don’t talk to me any more of coexistence,” says Adel Manaa in the first episode, to a well-meaning sympathizer. “I’m sick of hearing about it. Talk to me of equal rights… If you aren’t doing something to change the situation, you bear responsibility for the consequences.”

After the screening, Yavin answered a few questions from the audience. One viewer asked him whether he felt optimistic or pessimistic for the future. Yavin said that he was by nature an optimist, and in this case drew his optimism from the simple fact that Jews and Arabs are in a relationship that eventually has to improve. “Neither they nor we are going anywhere.” Yavin emphasizes throughout the series his Zionism, but said afterwards that Zionism has to make some adjustments.

When the adjustments grow large enough to allow both Jewish Israelis and Palestinians to feel equally at home in the state that governs their mutual homeland, perhaps we will all be Zionists.

Thanks to Anat Tsom (co-screenwriter and editor) – whose sharp editing makes every moment of the series count – for inviting us to the screening.

Jews from the Amazon

M., originally from Barcelona and now in Jerusalem, had been a volunteer in Wahat al-Salam during the 2nd Gulf War. All the other volunteers had fled, before the airlines cut their flights Since that time I hadn’t seen her. I only knew that she had initially gone to live in Efrat (the West Bank settlement), where she had converted to Judaism. I assumed that she was still there and happily married to a religious Jew.

On Saturday afternoon, she suddenly showed up on our doorstep, together with a friend originally from Milano, and we spent an hour or two chatting.

M’s conversion to Judaism and settlement in Israel had resulted from an inner conviction that her true identity was Jewish. She was convinced, without much factual evidence, that she was descended from Spanish Jews. It wasn’t so much a spiritual identity: “I am not at all a religious person.” When we asked her how the conversion process had been for her, she said at first that it had been all right, then confessed, with a chuckle, that it had been terrible. The conversion, learning a language, and all the other hassles of adapting to a new country had been, she said, “a parenthesis in life”. During the process she had learned facts about Israel that would have daunted someone with a weaker personality or lesser sense of purpose.

Among the stories she told was her meeting during Hebrew studies with the “Jews of the Amazon”. Dorit and I had not heard that there were a group of people from Iquitos, Peru, who underwent conversion to Judaism, were brought to Israel, and then settled in Kiryat Arba, the Jewish settlement in Hebron. Dorit was incredulous at this story, and I resolved to check it. But apparently it’s true. I found a web page with an account by a progressive rabbi of his journey to meet them in Iquitos, in order to establish their connection with Judaism. They, like our friend M, believe that they are descended from Jews. The rabbi describes his encounter with them:

“Standard questions received very strange answers. “I think a Chassid is one that is glued”, said one, awkwardly correct. (Dvekut, the state of total attachment to God, is central in Chassidism). Some confused Purim with Chanukah and a Mezuzah with a Menorah, and yet with a little help, strange old stories came out: “My mother lit the seventeen candles every first of December”… “… Since the leprosaria is open every day 9 to 6, I arrive always a little late for washing the hands and go to Friday Shabbat services here in Iquitos…

“Tapir[13] is not kosher, but I don’t really know what is Kosher,” said a lady from Santa María de Nieva, six days away by boat into the deepest Amazon. And so the line between ignorance and different codes was, despite all our efforts, an uncertain line, adding up to our puzzle…”

He also mentions the Kiryat Arba connection:

“To make it even harder, reports of an orthodox nationalist Jewish preacher urging these people to settle in Kiryat Arba, Hebron, made us aware of a possibility for them that made our role as progressive Jews even more compelling, urgent. Our abstention could lead to a sin of omission, to a vacuum to be filled by a nationalistic, arrogant and humiliating Judaism, which may corrupt all we stand for as liberal Jews. We made it very clear that we were not signing the certificates for them to end up in a trailer on a Judean hilltop, thus blocking a peaceful, secure and democratic Israel, hopefully alongside a future peaceful Palestinian state. Danger loomed there as well.”

Well they ended up in Kiryat Arba after all, mate. The wonderful thing about Zionism is that its long arm can reach to the Amazonian jungles, the deserts of Africa, or the borders of Burma, discover people with the most marginal connection to Judaism, then spirit them away to Israel. All in order to win demographic points against Palestinians, many of whom are themselves descended from Jews.

The Nine O Clock News

I found myself turning the evening news off fairly quickly again tonight. The programme opened with an item about a government decision to investigate police wiretapping used as evidence in the investigation of a sexual harassment scandal involving a politician, several years ago. The TV news brings us stuff like that every evening, and I’m tired of it. The real news goes unreported, while this crap is placed in the spotlight. As if it weren’t bad enough that the politicians are doing a poor job of running the country, they also distract everyone else from crucial and pressing issues by their follies and crimes.

When people rely on TV news, they surrender to the editorial decisions of the TV news staffs. This is not true of newspapers, since readers simply choose the stories that appeal to them. And it is even less true of web media, where it is easier still to hone in on the topics that interest us.

Web media is still developing. Right now the situation is one of utter chaos. Traditional newspapers are going under since web advertizing revenues are not as lucrative as from print media. People look elsewhere, to sites like Craig’s List, for personal advertising and this robs the newspapers of one of their main sources of income.

Readers of web media are also widely different in their sophistication and preferences. Some are regular readers of news feeds, whereas others have never heard of them. Some prefer to read stories, others listen to podcasts, and others watch video clips. Some get their news emailed to them, some use services like Digg, Twine, or Google News. And the technology is changing all the time.

I’m personally an avid reader of news feeds, but have to admit that it isn’t easy to give myself a “balanced diet”. In my case, I find it easier to read the tech feeds like ReadWriteWeb and Slashdot, than to follow stories that are more important and relevant to my world. The reason is partly technical: the tech sites generally include whole stories in their news feeds, whereas newspaper sites are more stingy. They usually provide only a headline and a teaser, and hope that will be enough to get you to click through to their site for the rest.

Probably, as the technology develops, my habits will change accordingly. I bet I will find myself watching more video, and using various aggregators to pull in the items that most interest me.

But I have to admit that till today there is nothing as easy as watching half an hour of TV news. It’s so easy that after about ten minutes I’m gone – one way or another. Either way, I miss the weather.

’Day of Mindfulness’

Every six weeks the Israeli Thich Nhat Hanh sangha holds a day of mindfulness in the Pluralistic Spiritual Ctr and I join partly to manage the screening of a recorded dharma talk.

The last couple of times, besides the work with the projector, there have been lots of early morning preparations; this time carrying and assembling tables, so that I have wondered whether the day was more relaxing or stressful.

It’s a pleasant group of people to be with and the practice is meaningful for me, though sometimes I find it better to tune out and replace the long-winded visualizations and instructions with my personal practice.

As in workshops and seminars everywhere, one of the first items is the round of names, or whatever this is called in workshopese. This time the suggestion was to mention, besides one’s name and sangha connection, also a person or persons with whom we feel we would like to improve communication or come to understand better.

Some people named family members, such as sons or brothers. Others said they felt like they needed to understand themselves better or everyone better.

I suddenly remembered our visit to the prehistoric sites in Dordogne, near Plum Village (Thich Nhat Hanh’s retreat centre in France), and my fascination with the mysterious culture that had created paintings and drawings on cave walls. I had felt such a powerful desire to understand these people, because it seemed to me that if we could understand the motivations of these, our ancestors, we could better understand ourselves.

Dorit spoke to the sangha about the visit that she and Samiyeh made to the retreat and conference held by Thich Nhat Hanh in Hanoi.

The subject of Thich Nhat Hanh’s talk, in the recorded session we heard today, was a proposed letter to one of the perpetrators of the September 11 attacks. The directions he took in the talk were interesting. I would need to hear it at least one more time to grasp it well. But he said that one of the purposes of such a letter would be to come to understand our wrong perceptions, and perhaps to help the attacker to understand his wrong perceptions too. Thich Nhat Hanh said that peace making itself was about coming to understand wrong perceptions which lead to war and conflict.

Of all the people who spoke in the hours and days after the September 11 attacks, I remember that those of Thich Nhat Hanh and the Dalai Lama were the most significant to me at the time. All the world’s religions are receptacles of wisdom, and religious teachers can often offer spiritual insights into current events. However it seems to me that Buddhist teachers in particular have a quick grasp of the changes that our world is going through. Thus Thich Nhat Hanh dedicates great attention to the environment, whereas for so many other teachers it is still a non-issue. It is not surprising that a tradition that is based on mindfulness, flexibility of thinking, a rejection of dogma, and other positive traits, can be counted upon to give fresh insights into the challenges we face.

The end of school

I attended / sat through seven end-of-the-year school events this year. Six of them were at the WAS-NS primary school and I was there to take pictures. I do the same every year. The children perform various plays, skits, dances. The teachers show slide shows and talk about the past year. Parents read out long speeches, words of thanks, sometimes in rhyming couplets, which enter one of my ears and go out the other. I usually can’t follow more than the most obvious themes of the plays – partly because of the Hebrew / Arabic mix, partly because I’m busy taking pictures, partly because children naturally mumble their lines, and partly because I’m just pretty thick when it comes to dramatic content.

But I do absorb general impressions, squinting upward at the sunlight filtering through my murky waters. You can tell when a teacher is full of light, speaks from the heart, is loving, and has given all she can give to her class. We have a few such teachers at the primary school. No amount of murky water could hide this, and I was touched.

The seventh end-of-the year happening was my youngest son’s graduation from Tsafit high school. Five other kids from Wahat al-Salam graduated with him. Four of these are Arabs. At the school, they were a tiny minority. And the graduation event probably left them feeling even more alienated.

The artistic part of the evening was given to a series of plays, skits and dances on the theme of life changes from babyhood to adulthood. The backdrop was a canvas with drawing of each of these transitions. The final drawing showed a helmeted soldier, making a wooden salute.

Yotam says the school hired at no small expense an external professional manager, who wrote the script and managed the entire production. The young people invested much time and effort and this paid off in a very professional production.

The main weakness was the blandness of the theme. Parents could enjoy the cuteness of youth, sigh nostalgically and listen to the medley of old songs. The captive audience heard nothing that would challenge their ideology, belief system, or acceptance of the status quo. There were no progressive themes, and nothing to upset the Israeli ideal of school followed by military service to the nation, The Zionist and militaristic themes were particularly obvious to the Arab parents (as the only outsiders). One of whom said that if this had been a TV program, she would have been able to switch channels.

Krishnamurti, speaking before his time, used to say that schools should teach children to question authority and all the received notions about their role in society. I’m sure among educators such ideas are no longer revolutionary. But they haven’t properly been absorbed here.

Tsafit, which probably has more potential than an average state high school to provide the kids with a good education and critical thinking skills, makes many compromises. The result is a crop of graduates whose unquestioning next step is either 3 years of military service, or a year of civil service, to be followed by military service afterwards.

There may even be a regression. At the graduation evening of my eldest son, Yonatan, the school kids put on a production of the 70s musical “Hair”, with its antiwar theme. When I described it to Yotam, he said there’s no way the present group at his school would have done something like that.

That these graduates accept the pattern and the role imposed on them by the establishment and so few offer any resistance shows that, on the one hand, the school has not sufficiently encouraged the development of critical thinking and, on the other hand, it has actively led these young people to believe they have no moral alternative to military service. They have absorbed this message, made it their own, and will pass it on to their own children.

After the graduation, we came home.