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May 9, 2008 ~ Columnists
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Denver Post Editor Greg Moore visits Israel
By RABBI HILLEL GOLDBERG IJN Executive Editor

Denver Post Editor Greg Moore visited Israel, Feb. 7-17, on an ADL mission. It was his first visit to Israel. Upon his return he sat for an interview.

It was hard to put his thoughts into coherent focus because he was bubbling over with excitement.

“Our guide was just really really terrific. He told us so many stories, like about the battles and the ‘73 war and all this stuff. I felt like I learned a lot about the history.

“I was moved when I went to Golan Heights and heard stories about the battles up there in the Yom Kippur War, about the tanks and the truckers.

“I was moved by the biography of Jonathan Netanyahu, who played a role in the Yom Kippur war and was the hero at Entebbe.

“I was fascinated by stories of military strategies.

“I think it’s great that Israelis revere their heroes. It’s real time. These battles are fairly fresh.

“I’m anxious to learn as much as I can about that part of the world.”

And learn he did.

Q. What were your impressions of Israel?

The most striking thing is the people themselves. Israeli people in particular are just very strong and resolute folk. It really impressed me.

It didn’t matter whether I was talking to older or younger people. They really have confidence. An iron constitution. They’re not going to be pushed around, not going to be cowed.

Everyone serves in the military, so they all have a stake in the survival of the nation in a way that people here don’t. To serve in the military makes them tough, makes them understand what’s at stake.

I was impressed by the Israeli Arabs I met — one foot in two different worlds. The Israeli Jewish world and the Palestinian world — I’m sure it’s difficult to negotiate. But I didn’t detect any simmering anger. They wouldn’t leave Israel. It’s their home, too. I found that amazing.

The religious spots mean something to Jews, Arabs, Christians. I never really fully understood that, and it makes everything so complicated.

We went to Masada, one of the most incredible things I’ve ever seen. What they did to build this community on the top of the mountain, and got water to run up hill. Amazing. It was an incredible engineering feat.

We went to Nazareth and got a chance to go through the huge church with all the frescoes from all over the world.

Q. What did the trip teach you politically?

It taught me that if you really want to have any influence you have to be more engaged than we are. You really have to be a force to bring those two sides together. Israel is working very hard with Abbas to keep things together — but things happening in Gaza make it hard to keep this on track.

I realized just how complicated things are. There was the deal years ago [at Camp David, 2000] that seemed to give Palestinians everything they wanted, but it went nowhere.

We’ve got to get more involved. It doesn’t matter whether you’re Democrat or Republican — both political parties realize the importance of Israel as an ally. You’ve got to do something about the Palestinian issue.

Q. Will this trip affect the Denver Post’s coverage of Israel?

I think so. Yes. Now I read almost every story that comes out of Israel and have a much deeper understanding of it. Now I have a physical place in my head and have faces to go with it.

I’m going to be even more cognizant of the images we use, and more skeptical of things that come out of there in print and in photos. Now I understand how it works.

Q. Did you feel propaganzied on the trip?

A little bit.

We couldn’t go into the West Bank or go into Gaza, so we really couldn’t talk to Palestinians. We got a heavy dose of the Israeli government’s point of view. We spent a lot of time with the police, who took us to sites of bombings in Netanya — the ballroom where the [Passover, 2002] bombing occurred.

We spent a lot of time talking about suicide bombers and how they work. I realize I was only getting one part of the story, which makes me reluctant to make a whole lot of prouncements.

So I am doing a lot of reading.

Q. Is there a human moment that stands out in your mind?

When we went to the Negev we met with Bedouin women who go to Ben Gurion University, which has educated about 500 of them.

They talked about centuries-old traditions and male-dominated culture and how the educated women are now transforming the Bedouin community with more exposure to the world.

They were just really impressive. This could have been any college in the US. They were well spoken, articulate, thoughtful. I wanted to bring them back to the US!

That was the emotional moment for all of us. Someone said: Just hold on, change will come. One of the Bedouin women said: I’m impatient, I want a cell phone, I want to be part of the world.

Education and exposure were activating their minds. It was a really really good moment.

Q. Any regrets?

We were going to take a helicopter ride over the Wall and land two kilometers away from the Gaza Strip. This was the one day it rained. We couldn’t go up.

But we met a lot of people from the Jerusalem Post, the New York Times, and the guy who traveled the country and went to mosques — Yossi Klein Halevi.

He was very impressive, one of the guys who told us early on that the Israeli military was going to go into Gaza.

It was a really, really great trip. I really enjoyed Jerusalem and the Negev.

We were tired.

This was work!

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Sixty years young
By TEHILLA R. GOLDBERG IJN Columnist

The modern state of Israel is six decades — 60-years-old, yet she seems so young. When walking the land, living the Israeli life, or thinking of her recent accomplishments, it’s hard to believe Israel is only 60.

Sixty is half the years of the ideal Jewish birthday wish, “may you live to be 120.” Our wish, of course, is for Israel to live to 120 and beyond, far into the future.

It is at this time that we pause, since a birthday is a time to look at the past 60 years with gratitude and appreciation, as well as an opportunity to take stock of past mistakes and disappointments. It is also a time to look ahead and ask, or imagine —and dare to dream — what the next 60 years will hold?

Understanding the land of Israel has always been a bit of a complicated business. Beginning with our first interaction with the land, way beyond 60 years ago, when Moses sent 12 scouts to spy out the land, 10 returned caricaturing the land of Israel, misunderstanding her and feeling fearful. Only two, Caleb and Joshua, returned bravely, positive and hopeful about the land of Israel. And so it remains until this very day, a complicated business.

The 10 spies who returned from the land of Israel disillusioned and negative were punished. Thus, we understand they were wrong. Caleb and Joshua, however, were rewarded for standing their ground; for not getting dragged down by the popular, negative and bitter report of the other spies.

Caleb and Joshua are our teachers in trying to build a positive relationship with the land of Israel. As difficult as she may be to understand at certain times, instead of indicting her we must, as Caleb and Joshua did, try to understand the land of Israel’s complexity and recognize her astonishing potential for holiness, beauty and blessing.

In Judaism there is a concept of sanctifying a person, of sanctifying time, and of the sanctity of a place. This would be the land of Israel — a place where living as a Jew is qualitatively different from living Jewishly anywhere else in the world. The land of Israel reflects our kedushat ha-makom — our sanctified dwelling place.

More simply, as Israelis like to say, “ze ha-bayit.” This is home. It’s family. It’s nice to travel and be exposed to other ways of life, other peoples, other families. This is truly enriching. But at the end of the day, you just want to be home, with all the problems, and that’s what Israel is. A home for the Jewish people.

The story of modern Israel is an epic still unfolding. Israel is, on the one hand, a series of wars and survival and suffering; and, on the other, a series of attempts at strength, resilience and grace.

Israel began as a way to change the reality of the Jewish people being a repressed minority, discriminated against, to being a majority in our historic land. In our generation, we have been privileged to enter the promised land.

And yet, there is so much that is still incomplete there. There is so much repair, interpersonally, spiritually and politically, still to be done.

To live as an Israeli today is to live suffused with the holiness, blessing, sophistication, modernity and fruits of the land, but also with the pain and suffering of the conflict Israel is embroiled in.

My hope and prayer for the next 60 years of Israel would be to shrink the wide gulf between the religious and secular and all their various ethnic communities, to build bridges amongst the various religious communities, and somehow to find a way to learn to live with our neighbors, the Palestinians.

Unlike any other enemy of ours in history, they too, are our family — distant cousins perhaps, but family nonetheless.

My vision for the next 60 years? For Israel to continue on her incredible journey that has made her the tour de force she is, and to grow proudly as our G-d-given Jewish homeland.

In the meantime, to the next 60 years, ‘till 120”!

Happy Birthday, Israel!

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Israel at 60: Still searching for peace on Mt. Zion
By AMY LEDERMAN IJN Columnist

As we sat with our friends on the rooftop of their apartment building, a glorious display of fireworks exploded over our heads in the Jerusalem night sky.

In the streets below, thousands of men, woman and children cheered and sang in joyous celebration. Children on roller-skates passed mischievous teens spraying colorful, plastic string on passers-by while Israeli’s danced until dawn.

It was a night to be remembered and savored, one that only 50 years before seemed improbable. This was Yom Haatzma'aut, Israel’s Independence Day.

It is 10 years since my family and I lived in Israel and celebrated her 50th birthday. But Israel at 50 is very different from Israel at 60.

In 1998, we were optimistic that the progress made since the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993 would bring peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Tragically, that momentum was halted when the second Intifada erupted in 2000.

Today, peace seems less than remote: the wall being erected between Israel and the Palestinians stands as testimony to how far apart both sides are from the hopes of peace that existed a decade ago.

When I first lived in Israel in 1974 during my junior year of college, I read a poem that has held a special place in my heart ever since. Written by the late Yehuda Amichai, considered by many to be the greatest modern Israeli poet, it describes an Arab shepherd searching for his goat on Mount Zion, while and on the opposite mountain a Jewish man is searching for his little boy.

A few lines poignantly depict their angst:

An Arab shepherd and a Jewish father

Both in their temporary failure . . .

Our two voices met above
The Sultan’s Pool in the valley between us.

Neither of us wants the boy or the goat

To get caught in the wheels
Of the ‘Had Gadya’ machine.

The “temporary failure” that Amichai describes is what all of us fear most: the loss of what is most precious to us, be it our children or the animals we tend for our livelihood. Arab and Jew come together in their desperate search, fearful that what they love most will be lost in the death machine.

The poem concludes with an image of the two men laughing and crying as the goat and the son are found together in the bushes. We witness for a second time, the coming together of Jew and Arab, as love and life overcome fear and death.

Afterward we found them among the bushes

And our voices came back inside us, laughing and crying.

Searching for a goat or a son

Has always been the beginning

Of a new religion in these mountains.

I was reminded of this poem while reading a story in the New York Times about an Israeli family and an Arab family, each huddled on opposite sides of a curtain in the intensive care unit of an Israeli hospital: on one side, Osher Twito, 8, severely wounded by a rocket fired from Gaza City by Palestinian terrorists which landed outside his Sderot home, and on the other, Yakoub Natil, 7, seriously injured by shrapnel from an Israeli Air Force strike on Gaza City.

The valley between them was not created by the Sultan’s Pool, but by years of frustration, loss, hopelessness and terror that now defines the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Amichai was no romantic. He saw Israel for what it was — and portrayed it through all of its grit, humor, tragedy and complexities.

More than 40 years ago, he had the vision to imagine a moment in history when love for our children conquered the fear, anger and hatred that has led two people, historically linked as brothers, to destroy each other’s families.

Amichai refers to the sacrifices — the goat and the son — that are part of the narratives from which Judaism and Islam were born.

A ram, found in the bushes, was offered by Abraham in lieu of his beloved son, Isaac. And Ishmael, Abraham’s other son, was banished with Hagar, yet survives to become the family from which Islam is born. From the beginning of Biblical time, sacrifices have been required to survive and there is hardly an Israeli today who would debate that a lasting, meaningful peace will require them. The Oslo Accords were premised on that belief.

Osher Twito and Yakoub Natil were victims, caught in the chain of events, almost destroy-ed by the Had Gadya machine. It is untenable that they should become the sacrifices required for peace.

Sacrifices cannot be unilateral; they must be made on both sides.

Amichai’s poem inspires us to believe that peace is still possible. When Jew and Arab search together to save rather than to destroy what is most precious to them, be it their children or their land; when Jew and Arab mutually agree to educate their children about the necessity and benefits of peace, rather than to deploy them, as Palestinians have done, as suicide bombers; and when love for life trumps hatred and revenge, then we will see a new beginning in the land of Israel.

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