I spoke to Reb Shmuel, our rosh yeshiva, about some of the thoughts I had yesterday, about being troubled that the attack at the Yeshiva didn’t hit me more immediately, that I was as blinded by our differences as I was and that my own mind was revealed to me as being as bad at this klal yisrael thing as those by whom I feel excluded.

Reb Shmuel told me a few things.

First of all, the people in this Yeshiva, specifically this institution, were Jew loving people. What he meant is that, while we as (small l) liberal or (big C) Conservative Jews feel and often are excluded by the Orthodox in various ways, while we feel that we are not included in their vision of Judaism and often we aren’t, these people specifically did include people like us in their vision of klal yisrael. These are not the people who I think of when I think of “The Orthodox who hate us” as I inevitably do.

Second… Reb shmuel studied in that Yeshiva, for two years, when he was a teenager. The same age as the boys who were killed.

He asked me if it had been just 8 random Israelis standing at a bus stop of various backgrounds and ethnicities, would I feel differently? I thought a minute and said I probably would… because I stand at Israeli bus stops. And if it were in America? I thought and said “It would depend on where.”

Thinking about it… I thought back to katrina and to the tsunami… the disasters of the past several years, the things that have upset people, the big events that people have cried over, that have deeply touched even the unaffected. I have hardly felt touched by any of these events. The last time I viscerally felt a disaster was September 11th 2001. And I remember feeling guilty that I felt it so strongly, having personally lost no one I knew. And I remember that my initial reaction was not even to the people, it was to the building… I couldn’t see the people until I could see the building. I had to visualize the building and then visualize the people in the building… and I felt it specifically when the first building fell. Because the people left in the second building saw the first building fall. And there was no way they didn’t know what was going to happen next.

The first problem is the number. After 3000 people dying in one day in my hometown, about two blocks from my high school, 8 feels like nothing.

That needs to change.

I keep reading biographies. I’m reading everything I can about these boys, finding them, feeling them, feeling who they were and how they were like me. One of them, it is reported, was seen alone in the beit midrash studying until 1 am Wednesday night. I can relate to that. He was buried with the Masechet he was studying when he was murdered, which was soaked in his blood. Masechet Nedarim. I haven’t studied it. I am studying masechet Shabbat.

One of the boys, Avraham David Moses, is the son of a friend of Rabbi Diamond, one of the directors of our program, and of Shaiya, one of my favorite teachers. Avraham David’s mother came to study for a year in Israel in the early ’90s and decided to stay. She studied at Pardes, where I have many friends. This morning Rabbi Diamond said to us, “Imagine your vision of a crazy right wing settler and everything that goes along with that in your mind. Avraham David’s mother and family are just about the exact opposite of that.”

We dedicated a special learning session this morning to the memory of the boys who were murdered. Rabbi Diamond taught us a psalm that had been said at Avraham David’s funeral.

One of my initial thoughts was that, like I’ve had wakeup calls to start thinking again about theology, about philosophy, about halachic theory, this is my wakeup call to start reading the news again… to integrate some of real life back into my consciousness. I’ve been in my study bubble long enough. I have to become an integrated person again. I’m not diving back into analysis at this point, I just need to know what’s going on.

But right now, this is not about that. This is not about politics or analysis or about religious fanaticism or extremism. This is about me and my relation to my fellow Jews, and to my fellow human beings. This right now is an exploration of my emotional reactions, to gauge where my humanity needs adjustment.

***
I just remembered I was wrong… the last time I felt viscerally connected was not September 11th, but the Lebanon war.

Thursday evening I got home at maybe a quarter to ten. I put my stuff down in my room and proceeded to fold my dry laundry and hang up my wet laundry. I talked to my flatmate for a bit. I came back to my room and saw that I had a text message on my phone. I checked it and saw that it was from Harris, my chevruta from last semester who is now working in the dairy on a kibbutz. The text of the message read “Are you ok?”

Harris doesn’t usually check up on me like that unless there’s a reason. So I called him. He told me that 8 Yeshiva students had been gunned down in their beit midrash in Jerusalem, and that they thought that there was a gunman still loose. Now Harris knew that the Yeshiva hit was Mercaz HaRav and not our Yeshiva, and he knew that it was in a different part of the city. But still he worried.

I don’t have internet or television at home. I didn’t hear more about what happened until the next morning at Minyan, not at the Yeshiva but at the Conservative shul next door. The morning’s darshanit (they have a rotation of congregants who give divrei Torah every morning) was visibly shaken by the events. After services and the Rosh Chodesh breakfast, I went down to our beit midrash to set up for Yachad Minyan with my friend Benjamin. He used the Yeshiva Computer to check his email while I cleared off the tables for dinner. He turns to me and says “You’re going to want to check your email… people will be worried. Also Rabbi Diamond wants us to confirm that we received and read the security updates email.” So I checked my email and indeed I had a few asking if I was dead.

Grandma Bev heard from someone in her community that there was a shooting at “The Yeshiva” in Jerusalem. Since this person is active in the movement she assumed at first that she had meant my Yeshiva.

The news says things like Yeshiva in Jerusalem, Jerusalem Yeshiva, things that make people back home think of me and where I am, where I am studying. When I first heard the news, I didn’t make the connection as quickly. I am accustomed to the idea of the Yeshiva where I am studying is not generally accepted as the same kind of Yeshiva as where eight were killed and forty wounded Thursday night. I would not be allowed to study there, I would not be considered a serious Torah student there, I would likely not even be considered a Jew there. The first thing I thought about the kids who were killed (and they were just kids) in relation to me was not how we are similar but how we are different.

Where did this poison come from?

It was the email from one of the directors of our program, Rabbi Goldfarb, that started to bring it home.

These boys were learning Torah and celebrating Rosh Hodesh in the beit midrash, activity we know and appreciate.

I sit here in my own beit midrash, in my makom kavuah, my gemara still sitting on my shtender open to the sugya we were learning this morning. At Mercaz HaRav, they might not recognize me as one of them, they might not see the similarity between this Yeshiva and theirs. That doesn’t matter. Why is it that it takes so long for me to recognize them as like me, their Yeshiva as like ours? What is this wall that is between us?

The shooter was a resident of Jerusalem… an Israeli citizen. Someone from a neighborhood not far from where I live. I don’t know what to do with that.

I find myself noticing that my makom kavuah is next to the door of the beit midrash. I find myself looking to see who it is whenever I see movement outside. Mercaz HaRav was hit most likely because it is the flagship institution of the Religious Zionist movement and of the settlement movement. These factors don’t apply to my Yeshiva. There is not much reason why an institution like this one would be a target of Palestinian terrorism… honestly, around here we are more worried when we see Haredi types poking around. They have been known to try to steal (liberate, I guess) sifrei Torah from liberal Jewish institutions. My sense has always been that we here at The Conservative Yeshiva have more to fear from the right wing of our own people than from the sorts who perpetrated last week’s massacre.

Talking to my friend Alex over lunch yesterday, we were talking about egalitarianism and the movement. He told me that he cares a lot less about the Movement than I do, or our friend Adam does. Alex is going to be enrolled in JTS’s rabbinical school in the fall. He says that he hopes to be a Rabbi for all Jews, not just for Conservative Jews. I agreed that Klal Yisrael is more important to me than Conservative Judaism… but that since Conservative Judaism is the only place where I have a home, I am necessarily forced into a particularistic way of thinking about my Judaism.

But this is much deeper than that. Deeper and sicker.

I’m gonna throw out chronology for a moment to post this:

That is smoke. I noticed it walking home from an all-day babysitting gig yesterday and it occurred to me that it might be important, so I took a picture.

And indeed it was, as I suspected it might be, related to this:

Yes, this is the Jerusalem gay pride parade, which I only got a glimpse of from a distance. My friend Lisa and I took her daughter and Uri who I was watching and we walked up Emek Refaim which was closed to traffic. There were soldiers and police everywhere. Seeing as how I was pushing a stroller I decided not to take pictures, but boy… there is something about seeing all those soldiers on the street.

Anyway, the smoke was, I suspect, the result of this:

While Jerusalem police prepared to protect the pride parade in the center of town Thursday afternoon, anti-parade protestors seeming decided to relocate their demonstrations. Less than an hour before the parade began, a number of protestors are suspected of having set fire to various spots in forests around the city.

So apparently the protest was more extensive than what Lisa and I experienced from our edge of the security which included chants of “Boosha! Boosha!” (Shame, shame) and “Yerushalayim Ir HaKodesh!” (Jerusalem is the Holy City) and a couple of signs (I only got a partial pic of one, front and back

Apparently there was also this:

Israeli police have arrested an ultra-Orthodox Jewish man who they say was planning to bomb a gay pride march in Jerusalem overnight.

An Israeli police spokesman said police found an explosive device in the man’s bag.

A man from the Conservative shul told me this morning that one of the news channels is completely ignoring it. *sigh*

Ending on a happier note, Lisa’s son Caleb aced his Karate test.

I’m not a blogger. I wish I could be, but I’m not, I’m a journaler. I have a livejournal which I update frequently (no I will not tell you where, silly) with personal stuff, feelings, passions, anxieties… here I try to keep things relevant and within a certain standard of… cleanness. Cleanness in terms of the writing, and in terms of what I’m writing about. No kitty blogging, no talking about crushes on people or camping weekends or irrational anxieties about personal situations or family drama. That is not… pertinent to the world at large.

When things get heated, like with what’s happening in Israel, I know I should be writing here. What I write though tends to be very emotional. Often angry. I want things that I post here to be well thought out. I want things to be logical, to make sense. I need to be prepared for arguments that may ensue as a result. I’m terrified of saying something wrong because if Judaism teaches anything it is that words are something that you cannot take back.

I apologize to those of you who have commented in recent weeks. I have not been paying attention lately, and I’m so accustomed to the spam bot comments that flood my mailbox that I just tuned them out. Your comments are now visible and will be responded to shortly.

And I’ll try to do better here. Again.

I thought I was done. Guess what?

I saw this on my Google page.

“An investigation that refuses to look at contradictory evidence can hardly be considered credible,” said Marc Garlasco, senior military analyst at Human Rights Watch.

“The IDF’s partisan approach highlights the need for an independent, international investigation.”

Israel has ruled out an international probe.

The army has said shelling of the area, in response to rocket fire into the Jewish state, had ended before the beach blast. Retrieved shrapnel samples also ruled out the possibility of a direct Israeli artillery barrage, it said.

As I mentioned before, I’m inclined to believe at least the sincerity of the Israeli claims that it was not their rockets that day that hit the civilians on the beach. A false denial would serve no one, considering Israel’s history of owning up to and apologizing for her botches, and also considering the fact that no one believes Israelis anyway, except when they admit guilt. Israel is condemned regardless, so if the Israeli military believed that the civilian deaths were, in fact, a result of the shelling, what is the point in denying it?

But what really interested me was the assertion that “Israel has ruled out an international probe.” Because last I heard

An Israeli foreign ministry official said no request had been received from the UN to conduct an inquiry, but said Israel would co-operate if one were received. “We have nothing to hide,” he said.

So which is it? Who can we turn to to give us accurate news? Not that I look to Al-Jazeera for impartial reporting any day, but I’d like it if someone would just provide some factual information, at the very least about who said what and when. Is that really so hard to do?

Ultimately though, I mean, realistically, lets be honest about this:

Who gives a fuck?

Something terrible happened. Innocents died on a beach from an explosion. The explosion may have been caused by a number of things, including a shell from Israeli artillary. Israel shells Gaza. Israel shells Gaza because Gaza fires rockets at Israel. Is Gaza condemned for this? Yes, from many sides. But no one is “outraged” anymore by what the Palestinians do to and in Israel. No one is outraged because they’ve been doing it for so long and everyone is used to it. They come to expect it of the Palestinians. They’ve been so tenacious in their campaign of guerrilla warfare that the international community has grown so bored with the Palestinians that when they attack Israel is as though nothing has happened. Just another day, nothing special, nothing worth noting.

In such a climate, what ends up happening is that Israel’s retaliation looks out of the blue. Do the Palestinians concern themselves with whether or not they kill civilians? No, every Israeli death is a victory for them, and the world clucks their tongues and says “gee, that’s awful.” If Israel retaliates and kills militants, it’s looked at with ambivalence by the international community and outrage by Arabs. If Israel retaliates and unintentionally kills civilians, the world is outraged… and Hamas celebrates the outrage.

The persistence of Palestinian hostilities does not mean that they are right. The fact that they are willing to fight until Israel is detroyed does not mean that Israel should be destroyed so that the fighting will stop. Sometimes I really feel that this is what people think and, I can’t help it, it makes me very very angry.

I just finished watching the live webcast of the Taglit-birthright israel Mega Event at Latrun. I’d forgotten just how exciting and inspiring the Mega Event experience is. What happens is that during each cycle of trips, an event is held where all birthright israel participants in Israel at the time come together in a hall or stadium and there are speeches and performances and dancing and singing. It’s an amazing experience. The most amazing part for me of the Mega Event that I attended in January of 2002 when I went on my Taglit-birthright israel trip was the experience of seeing young Jews amassed together… thousands of people my own age… from all over the world. From Russia, Austrailia, Brazil, Argentina, Germany, Canada, all waving their respective countries’ flags, chanting their football cheers in their own languages and accents, showing their national pride… but at the same time waving the kachol v’lavan, the blue and white, singing together in Hebrew, showing another national pride, another national identity, a kinship that transcended our residential homes and linked us together. All of us are Jews. All of us are family. All of us are Israel.

I turned off the simulcast with tears in my eyes. I want to go back, I thought. I want to be there and feel that kinship, that sense of home. I understood once more the feeling that floods my heart everyday when I come to work and realize all over again that I’m here working with other Jews for the sake of other Jews to connect them to their birthright… which is not just about israel, it’s about national identity. It’s about unity. It’s about that kinship. It’s mishpocha, family. Every Jew has a right to that feeling of belonging. Even growing up in the alternate Jewish capital, Brooklyn NY, I never felt that before. Not in Hebrew school, not in shul, not at camp. It takes a trip to Israel. It takes seeing thousands of your kinsfolk of all different backgrounds, skin tones, languages, all sharing that common thread of peoplehood, knowing that we all came from the same place and finally, finally, here we are together again. It’s like standing again at Sinai.

Hitting the “home” icon on my browser I came to my customized Google front page. My eyes were assaulted by articles declaring Israel Missile Strike Kills 11 Palestinians, Injures 30 and Israel Denies Its Forces Killed Palestinian Family on Beach and similar reports variously mentioning and not mentioning Israel’s denial of responsibility.

And I am angry.

It’s hard to put this anger effectively into words. I’m angry at news agencies who willfully leave out details in order to make one side look good and one side look bad, though I know that this is an inevidability and that almost everyone (if not everyone) does it. I’m angry at the hypocrisy of the various Palestinian Authorities and “leaders” who dance and sing and praise God when they kill Jewish civilians and bewail the atrocity of every accidental civilian death brought down upon them by Israelis targeting the elements that target them. I’m angry that while the Palestinian groups all jump at the opportunity to claim responsibility for attacks in Israel, Israel investigates its own botches, and while her leaders may place the responsibility on the shoulders of the Palestinian leadership, they still express sorrow and do not celebrate innocent deaths.

Neither, though, does Israel routinely deny such botches. If Israel is responsible for the deaths of innocent civilians, the leadership generally owns up to it. This denial is atypical and as such, I’m more inclined to believe Israel than the Palestinians who can’t even keep their own house in order.

My support of Israel is not too popular these days among my peers and it’s easy for anyone opposing to say that I’ve been brainwashed and indoctrinated to be sympathetic to Israel. Frankly, I don’t care. I’ve seen enough to make up my own mind, I’ve had forces pulling me in both directions my whole life. I have no reason to trust the Palestinian leadership or terrorist organizations who claim to speak for the people. I have no reason to sympathize with people who keep such groups in power. I have no reason to sympathize, for that matter, with any of the many Arab countries (and Iran) who boldly state their desires to see Israel destroyed and reclaimed into the vast Muslim empire.

This conflict is not about people and their homes. The refugees are pawns of the Islamist imperialists and while I may sympathize with their individual situations, I will never conceed to a Palestinian “right of return” anymore that I would demand a Jewish “right of return” to Baghdad, Tehran, Ghazni, or any of the other places in the middle east from whence Jews have been forcibly expelled or forced to flee.

Phew. Okay, I’m done.

My father showed my this in the Dead Tree News:

At Stuyvesant, Stanley Teitel, the school’s principal, has given the group wider latitude, saying he trusts other students at the school to be able to make up their own minds about Jesus Day. The school also has Jewish and Muslim clubs. The members of Seekers were free to post fliers for Jesus Day around the school and hold their event in the cafeteria after school.

“It’s your decision as to whether or not you want to go,” Mr. Teitel said. “I’m not forcing you. It’s not part of your instructional day. They’re just advertising this event is occurring. We do many after-school events.”

Several years ago, after receiving a directive from the New York City Board of Education, the school reversed its policy of prohibiting students from holding Jesus Day on campus, he said. Before that, the students held the event on a street corner near the school, off school property.

“We were told we had to give everybody equal access,” he said.

Bullshit! Bullshit I say! Equal access my ass… when I was at Stuyvesant the Seekers, as I recall, had their club meetings in the school, but were disallowed from evangelizing on school property. What the hell is unequal about that? Evangelizing creates a hostile environment for those of us who are not Christian. I know it’s very hard for Christians to understand that… who wouldn’t be grateful to someone trying to save them?

Here’s the thing… other faiths are not something to be saved from. I don’t care if you’re Christian and you think that your faith is the only road to salvation. You can believe whatever you want. You’d be wrong, but I’m not going to tell you that every day.

Evangelism is not the same thing as free exchange of ideas. Not in an institution such as a public high school in any case. It’s not a matter of equal access. I was a member of the Jewish Culture Club at Stuyvesant and while we advertized our events and meetings, we did not go out and tell people “Whatever you believe is wrong! You have to be Jewish!”

It looks funny written out like that, and it would sound funny if I said it. Because it’s ridiculous, right? Imagine though, if you will, that the vast majority of the people in the world were Jewish, and you were not, and people were constantly telling you that you had to be Jewish. You just *had* to. It’s just wrong and ridiculous *not* to be Jewish. *You* are wrong and ridiculous because you’re not Jewish. That’s not about ideas. That’s not about discourse. That’s an attack on you.

I’m too annoyed to try to write anything more for right now. I’ll probably come back to this. Especially if anyone tries to argue with me. *hopeful*

I didn’t want to read the book. Why? Because I didn’t want to read a fiction story based on theories about early Christianity that I had been aware of for approximately seven years. I didn’t want to get swept up in the hype of an accessible page-turner that comes across to people of lesser intelligence as “brainy” in the way that people who can’t do crosswords like to do SuDoku because it makes them feel smart.

Not because it’s bullshit. Sure, it may well be bullshit, but no more so than that which it calls into question.

I’ve read a lot of negative reviews and opinion pieces on the film. The common strain in all of them is the tone of bitterness. Complaints about the technical quality of the film itself are practically an aside to the cries of offense and blasphemy and hooey. A common theme is the complaint that all the movie does is undermine Christianity, as though Christianity were universally accepted as a good thing, or even THE Good Thing ™. How dare this author, this director, these actors blaspheme against The Faith.

Well you know what? How Dare THE FAITH Blaspheme Against MY FAITH?

I’m going to come out and say what no one ever dares to: The very doctrine of Christianity itself is a blasphemy against Judaism. Jews, as a whole, don’t make any sort of big deal over this. It’s not our business if non-Jews believe in something that counters our system of belief. The Goyim can believe what they want. When the Christians start to encroach on our communities and try to turn our youth over to their side, sure we get upset. But we counter by turning inward and working to strengthen ourselves within our own communities, not lashing out against the Christians, but focusing on keeping our own engaged.

When we are challenged from the outside, we answer that challenge with our own challenge to ourselves.

The DaVinci Code and the theories upon which it is based call into question some of the doctrine upon which modern Christianity, primarily Catholicism, is based. Are the assertions that are made true? Did Mary Magdeline have a sexual relationship with Jesus of Nazareth? That’s not a question that can be answered anymore than can the question “did Jesus really walk on water?” Though easier to answer perhaps is the question “Which is more plausible?” I’ll let you answer that for yourself.

I liked the movie. There was nothing in it that was new to me, and nothing particularly shocking. Frankly, I like seeing accepted tenets of any faith (including my own) called into question. It gives people something to think about, something to chew on.

I admit (and I’m not particularly proud of it) that I am an intellectual snob. I tend to shun that which is too accessible, especially when it masquerades as something particularly lofty. But here is a case where accessibility may lead to a mass questioning of accepted doctrine… something that can only be for the good, if you ask me.

Here’s a nice educational site.

A few of my favorites of the “top ten facts you need to know”

1. In the summer of 2000, Israel offered the Palestinian Arabs 97% of the land they claim to be fighting for, making Israel the first and only country ever to offer the Palestinian Arabs a homeland. This offer was rejected with no counter-offer from the Palestinians.

6. Three major attempts to destroy Israel have been carried out by the Arab World: in 1947, 1967, and 1973. Although many neighboring Arab countries today still wish to destroy Israel, Israel still seeks peace. Israel has forged peace agreements with Egypt (1979) and Jordan (1994), and has lived in peace with these countries ever since.

7. The West Bank (Judea and Samaria) and Gaza were never controlled by any Palestinian government or organization until 1993, when Israel agreed to give the Palestinian Authority certain controls under the Oslo Peace accords.

9. There have been roughly as many Jews displaced from Arab Nations as Arabs displaced from Israeli territory. Israel has absorbed the Jewish refugees, yet the Arab world refuses to accept the Palestinian Arabs into their countries.

Oh, there’s more. There’s a lot more.

Also, I came across this the other day:

“I dream of hanging a huge map of the world on the wall at my Gaza home which does not show Israel on it,” [Palestinian Foreign Minister] Zahar said in the interview. “I hope that our dream to have our independent state on all historic Palestine (will materialize).”

This dream, he added, “will become real one day. I’m certain of this because there is no place for the state of Israel on this land.”

Meanwhile the new Hamas government is appealing for international financial aid cause they’re, well… bankrupt.

In more ways than one, I might add.

Allison takes a deep breath and talks about Gaza.

Here’s the deal: when Fatah is in charge, Hamas and Islamic Jihad hurl Kassam rockets at Israel. When Hamas is in charge, Fatah hurl the rockets. Unless Fatah and Hamas have it out militarily and a winner is declared — the rocket-firing isn’t going to stop. Someone’s going to be tossing them. But I’m not supposed to wish civil war on them, right? That would be terrible. So I don’t.

Because as Jews we are taught not to wish ill on others. That is our teaching.

And so the rockets continue to get fired. Of course we Israelis aren’t going to sit around twiddling our thumbs and let them hurl rockets at us, and we shouldn’t — that’s not our style and no country can sit back and let its citizens be attacked. We’re going to fire back, and do everything we can to go after the people who are hurling the rockets. And so we bomb and shell, which of course, instantly turns us into the evil bad guys in the eyes of the world.

I agree with Allison… it’s depressing. Terribly so. Makes you just want to duck under the covers and ignore it all.

But you don’t get stronger without getting out of bed and exercising. So I’m not going to be ignoring the world anymore. I’m going to go back to reading and learning everything I can… and I’m not going to keep quiet anymore.

Because Global is Local. This is my world.