To be progressive in Israel...

Disclaimer: I will probably ramble a lot in this post.

For background knowledge, please refer to Wikipedia's entry on the Reform Movement, because lets face it, where else does background knowledge come from?

As many of you know, I work at a synagogue preschool that is part of the "Reform Movement for Progressive Judaism in Israel". Yeah, that's a mouthful. Wikipedia seems to have various theories on why in Israel the Reform Movement and Progressive Judaism go together. I wonder about this a lot.

First of all, lets think about how the Reform Movement started for a moment. It was a movement to make Judaism not tied down by halakhah and religious practice. As Wikipedia tells us:
Rabbi W. Gunther Plaut writes "there is no such thing as a Jewish theological principle, policy, or doctrine." This is because Reform Judaism affirms "the fundamental principle of Liberalism: that the individual will approach this body of mitzvot and minhagim in the spirit of freedom and choice. Traditionally Israel started with harut, the commandment engraved upon the Tablets, which then became freedom. The Reform Jew starts with herut, the freedom to decide what will be harut - engraved upon the personal Tablets of his life." [3]
The way I always understood it, the Reform Movement made being Jewish more cultural. Not that it claimed Judaism was not a religion, just that anything Jewish was done more out of a sense of tradition and not religious obligation.

In Israel, if you are Jewish you are one of two things- dati (דתי) or chiloni (חילוני). And then there are charedis (חרדים), but lets keep things simple for now. They really like labels here. As much as I tried in my years of college to avoid using labels, they are all over the place here. And it's not just the labels that get to me- it's the boxes. During my first year at Hebrew U I would often wind up davenning shacharit at school between my first two classes. There I was, an American, with a history degree but in a social work program (Israelis don't really get liberal arts degrees for the sake of having a liberal arts degree), wearing pants, and praying regularly. Huh? No box for me. Since I never really spoke with my classmates, I never had any explaining to do. I have friends who know I wear pants but pray every day and some who probably don't. For all I know they try to put me into a box too, but it's just never an issue.

Now I work with native Israelis every day. It is not only that I work with native Israelis, it is that I do so at a preschool affiliated with a synagogue. So it's a religious preschool, but not, because it's part of the Reform movement. What does that mean? I ask myself that question a lot. Not too many people in the school seem to really have a grasp on what the movement is all about, what role the school has, and what is expected of the teachers as teachers in a Reform preschool. While the school is affiliated with the synagogue, most of the families with children in the preschool rarely if ever attend services and other programming. It used to be a requirement for admission to the preschool and is no longer, though the director and board members are working on ways to integrate the two bodies more and make the preschool more a part of the synagogue.

After an excruciating three month wait after my interview, I was called in for a final interview to meet with the director and the lead teacher I would be working with (pending her approval). The teacher, a woman in her 40's who immigrated from Belarus about twenty years ago, asked me how as a religious person I would handle working in a Reform preschool where most people did not practice Judaism the way I did. I responded that being from Boston, which I've noticed in retrospect is very unique. In Boston the different Jewish communities all get along. They all do stuff together. There's just no other way to put it. People tell me it's all those liberal academics. Who knows? I'm just grateful I was raised the way I was. The lead teacher seemed a bit skeptical, but thankfully the director is familiar with the community and assured her that I would be fine.

After a hectic year of six day work weeks, constantly being sick, and three graduate school courses, I am in my second year at the gan and much more conscious of the actions and opinions of those around me. I am also much more prone to being irritated by said actions and opinions. After years of avoiding labeling myself, I often find myself forced to do so. So okay, I am a דתיה, a religious person. But what about my coworker who worries about getting all her cooking in time for shabbat but would drive to her friends if invited out for a meal on shabbat? Or my other coworker who almost always travels on shabbat but always does הפרשת חלה? But what most astounds me at my workplace is that my coworkers seem to simply forget that I'm דתיה. Apparently, it is not tattooed on my forehead. When they first met my father and saw that he was wearing a kippah, they were surprised that he is religious (and I don't think it was because they had previously thought that my being religious was a divergence from how I was raised). I try not to eat at breakfast at gan because seriously, I just don't care to stuff my face with bread every morning, and every day they ask me why I'm not eating. Whenever I'm not eating because it's a fast day, they get this look of shock on their faces. "Oh, right, you do that sort of thing, okay then." On a side note, I was recently saying ברכת המזון (blessing after eating) to myself while standing on the curb waiting for a ride with two classmates (one Israeli and one Arab- see previous post) and realized how uncomfortable I would feel doing that in front of my coworkers. They are also seemingly surprised each and every time I mention shabbat meals I'm going to, hosting, and worrying about having time to cook for. Does me wearing pants really throw them off that much!?!?

Another example- once the day's staff consisted of me, the first coworker I mentioned, and a teacher who usually works in another gan who spent just over ten years working in a Reform synagogue preschool in New York. We were discussing how once during the year there is a special service in the adjoining shul for each of the older classes. The teachers are expected to attend. For me this will be no problem, as I live around the corner, and will probably hop back and forth from the shul next door that I usually go to. But what about the teachers who live farther away, don't necessarily have cars? My coworker said to the other teacher that she wonders what this other teacher did when her class had the service last year. Then she said that she didn't even understand how this teacher, a דתיה (for lack of a better word) teaches in the gan I work at at all since it is not a gan for דתיים (I keep using the Hebrew word because saying "gan for religious people" messes up the point I am trying to make, as I hope I eventually make clear). The teacher who spent time in the US explained that it really doesn't matter and where she worked that was often the case. The teachers can practice Judaism one way and work in a community where things are done differently. If you have an open mind, it's not a big deal at all. I just sat there listening, and again thinking that she was forgetting about me. The conversation started out between the three of us, but she only raised this issue with the other Israeli and not with me. I don't think she would ever think to ask me how I feel about it.

Now finally on to what I really and truly do not understand about the place I work at and the movement in general. How are members of the Reform Movement for Progressive in Israel different from חילונים ("non-religious Israelis"). Are they simply חילונים who go to shul every week? Who attend lectures at centers like the one I work at? Does one have to consciously be a member of the movement in order to be considered one? In the US, despite being anti-labels, I still consider myself a part of the Orthodox community. That doesn't mean I consider myself a cookie cutter copy of everyone else in the community, but it is still the community I identify with and that others would associate me with regardless of how I felt about it. I feel like my coworker who religious observant-wise is probably a lot like the members of the synagogue where I work would be astounded and possibly insulted if I made that comparison.

One of my conclusions is that what places like where I work provide is a community for Israelis who are less observant than the typical "דתי" Israeli (I hate terms like "less observant"... lets say "people who do less Jewish practices on a regular basis). In America there is a synagogue for almost everyone- especially Jews with similar lifestyles to חילונים. The Reform movement is much more clear in America. It is much more cultural and less religious. In cultures, there aren't obligations. There are demands the community may place on you, but they aren't really obligatory. The Reform synagogues match that mentality. In Israel, Judaism IS the culture- for everyone. The Coca Cola bottles and public buses had Happy Chanukah written on them for the past week. From Thursday you wish everyone a shabbat shalom when you say goodbye, even if shabbat for them will be watching movies all night and going to the beach the next day. This reality is what influences thousands of people to make aliyah every year (though not me- while the buses on Chanukah make me smile I have other reasons for being here, but that is for another post). It also has some unfortunate repercussions, one of which being that if someone is searching for a community, a synagogue in Israel is not the place to find one. While you might get to see friends in shul every week they are simply places to pray and rarely have any community building programs in place (and those that do are recent developments).

Once I thought about it that way, the existence of the Reform Movement in Israel begins to make more sense, even though I'm still not convinced it should be associated by name with the Reform Movement in America. The cultures in the two places are just too dramatically different from each other. Okay, on to the second part of the name. In Israel, it is the Reform Movement for Progressive Judaism. Maybe the "Reform Movement for Progressive Israeliness" would make more sense. It is a movement that brings Israelis together who don't want to be shoved into the חילוני or דתי boxes- who take family trips to the zoo on shabbat but want to be part of a community that makes Jewish traditions a part of their active lives. It provides a framework and communal atmosphere for developing a Jewish identity as part of an Israeli one.

A couple staff meetings ago one of the educational directors of the movement came to speak to us about a pamphlet they just completed of a curriculum for the movement. I was so glad to find see this sort of thing in print form as I never really understood what the educational goals of the gan were, though I am sure the end of the year party my class had about how everyone keeps shabbat in their own way that had absolutely no mention of attending prayer services would not necessarily be in line with those goals. The stuff in the pamphlet wasn't so surprising to me. They chose things like lighting candles, blessings on food, and mitzvot about behavior among people (בין אדם לחברו) and wrote out ways to teach these things to different age groups. In addition to preschools like mine, there is a growing network of elementary, middle, and high schools aimed at filling the gap between religious and non-religious public schools in Israel (ממלכתי and ממלכתי דתי). This is again what I think is more an example of Progressive Israeliness than it is of Progressive Judaism. The schools are very much like the Schechter Day Schools in the US. They teach religious practice but leave things more open ended. I'm a fan. I just hope it doesn't just turn into another box to squish Jewish Israelis into (though I guess if a society is going to be dominated by boxes, I suppose the more the better.

I finally got inspired to write this blog post (a somewhat organized mumble jumble of various rants from the past year) after a conference I was forced to sit through on Monday of Chanukah. The conference was at a place like the one I work at in Tel Aviv. It was teachers at preschools that are part of the movement. Pretty much everyone there felt very strongly that we should be on vacation like any other teacher and not forced to sit through lectures, but sadly we had no say in the matter. The theme of the conference was תפילה (prayer). I am still unclear on what the goals of the conference were. From what I gathered, it was to provide an opportunity for us teachers to learn more about ourselves as people and not just talk about our work all day. I found the lectures themselves kind of boring, the sing-a-long at the beginning annoying, and the ride from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv with my coworkers excruciating (I left a bit early and traveled back on my own- worth the money I had to spend). I hoped the conference would help me understand the movement better, but then realized that while I might have been the most different person there, it was not apparent at all which teachers actually identify with the movement.

Between being bored, not being the type to talk about my feelings with strangers, and the language barrier, I pretty much spent the entire time sitting quietly watching the scenes unfold before me. This was a few days after the devastating fires up north and the day it finally rained, so much of what was said had to do with that. The feeling in the air that rainy day was absolutely phenomenal. Everyone was happy. Everyone was expressing their thanks to God that the rain had finally arrived, that the fires could finally end, and that the country could be healed and be nourished. It was the opposite of what had been felt the previous few days when the nation was devastated, the sadness palpable. Rain is like Chanukah. All the Jews in Israel celebrate Chanukah, and all the Jews in Israel (well everyone really) celebrates rain. If it wasn't Chanukah, I wouldn't have been surprised if the buses had said "Happy Rainy Day" on them. Rain is a cause for celebration. When talking about תפילה, everyone agrees that rain is something to be prayed for.

Experiencing this expression of unity was awesome- this is what it means to be an Israeli. Sadly on the flipside, there was a lot of putting into boxes. There was a lot of "they do that but we do this". One woman said how the דתיים had a whole prayer event at the Kotel to pray for rain (part of a day of fasting) as an example of our prayers finally being answered and another responded "well the fire came first, and then the rain, so how do we know whose prayers are being answered?". It sounded a bit cynical. Also the first woman phrased her comment as talking about the other- a totally separate group of people. Why does it matter who prayed where? Why can't she just say "a large group of people prayed at the Kotel"? I constantly got the sense that the people around me felt a need to specify what type of Jew/Israeli they were talking about. Is being general so taboo?

The Reform Movement in America promotes social justice over halakhah, being a light onto the nations as a nation of good deed and not as a nation performing religious commandments (at least the way I see it). I think this is a beautiful thing. While I feel strongly about how I practice Judaism, an adherence to religious obligation, and continuing ancient traditions, I believe that what it really comes down to is being a good person, respecting oneself, and caring for others. I feel that my religious practices help me be that person, but that there are many ways to get to that point and that open mindedness is crucial for maintaining the greater Jewish community. The Reform Movement in America has done an excellent job making תיקון עולם, social justice, a priority for all the different denominations. In Boston it brought all the different congregations together, and they were mentioned as exactly that- congregations. The emphasis was that different synagogue communities were working together, not that Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox Jews were finding something to agree on.

As I was getting at before, being progressive means different things in different societies. I still do not quite understand why the movement in Israel refers to itself both as Reform and as Progressive. The Reform Movement when founded was something very unique to Europe and America. It does not quite work the same way in Israel. I do understand why they would call themselves progressive, though how they are and will be progressive is very different from how the Reform Movement is progressive in America. Everyone has the right to choose how they want to be, but I think it is great that these "in between" Jews in Israel can be part of a community that serves their lifestyle and interests. I just hope that having an "in between", having something that isn't just דתי or just חילוני, will create a spectrum from one to the other, a spirit of open-mindedness, and not just another box to put people into. That would be progressive indeed.

הגיד לך אדם מה טוב ומה ה' דורש ממך כי אם עשות משפט ואהבת חסד והצנע ללכת עם אלוקיך. –מיכה ו:ח

(While looking for a place I could copy and paste this verse from I came across this. Like buses wishing me a Happy Chanukah, it's things like this that get me excited about living in Israel.)

The Roadblock

In the introduction to her book History On Trial, Deborah Lipstadt describes an experience she had while studying abroad at the Hebrew University on Mount Scopus in the mid-sixties. One day she decided that she was determined to visit the Western Wall. Pre-1967, the Kotel (Western Wall), despite also being in Jerusalem and less than an hour's walk away, was in Jordan. Lipstadt came up with this crazy plan for her winter break to travel through Lebanon, England, Syria, and into Jordan (I forget the exact order) and make her way to the Kotel. Part of this plan involved "losing" her passport so that there would be no evidence when entering Jordan that she had been in Israel. Winter break was a good time to do this because there were certain times of the year (such as Christmas) that Mandelbaum Gate was open for Jordanian pilgrims to pass through into Israel, thereby providing Lipstadt with a way back to her dorm (Mandelbaum Gate is on what is now Route 1, about halfway between the Old City and Mount Scopus). From the Jordanian side of the gate she could easily see Mount Scopus and the nearby neighborhoods she would always take walks in. The Western Wall, such an important part of history and her Jewish heritage, was so close yet so far. She felt it was unfair to be kept from it (she then writes about coming back, just a few years later).

I think I wrote about this introduction in another blog post. I read it around the time I was beginning my degree at Hebrew University. Every time I travel there and back I pass by what was once Mandelbaum Gate. This critical checkpoint from just over forty years ago is now represented by a pillar surrounded by tracks for the future lightrail (I actually did see trains today but the seats were still covered in plastic wrap). I always think wow, this is incredible, I'm just gliding through on a bus- no passport or anything. Then from the rooftops of Hebrew University I get a stunning panoramic view of the city- a humbling experience indeed.

One doesn't have to read the news that often to figure out that the future of a united Jerusalem is a point of contention in the "peace process" (not putting it in quotes to be political... okay, maybe I am). Same goes for keeping the current borders of Israel (one vs. two state "solution"... oh there I go being political again- doesn't happen much, does it?). Checkpoints are still very much an everyday part of life in Israel. A few weeks ago I went to friends in the Gush for shabbat. It took just over a half hour to get there from my apartment in southern Jerusalem- I went up the street, got on a bus, rode it for less than ten minutes, crossed the street to the hitchhiking point/ bus stop, found someone driving to Neve Daniel, got in, and before I knew it I was there. The driver was originally from the US- not that I ever found out his name. I'm sure we know some of the same people. There is a checkpoint before the Gush but we barely had to stop. The driver glanced out the window, made eye contact with a soldier, and was waved through. No problem whatsoever. When you travel on a bus, a soldier will come on board and do a quick walk through but even that never takes so long. When my co-workers (native Israelis) found out where I went they were shocked- wasn't I scared? Isn't it dangerous? I thought they were being very silly. It's really amazing though. The Gush to them is an entirely foreign area. A few weeks later I went to the Gush again for Thanksgiving dinner. My friend invited his friends from the army. They were also in awe at being over the green line. To them this was a huge deal. It was like crawling into the wilderness. There is a lot I can say about my co-workers and their views on certain things, but that isn't the point of this post...

This year at Hebrew University I am in a class where the goal is to construct a project that will help other people. A couple weeks ago I missed a class at which a woman came to talk about a center she works at in East Jerusalem for children at risk. From my understanding these centers (which are all over Israel) are kind of like Israel's version of Head Start in the US. This was not my group's original plan, but my partners were impressed with the presentation and one of them (who is Arab) was asked directly by this woman to do her project there. The other two of us agreed, began researching what we could do to help based on what we knew about these centers in general, and today we were supposed to go visit and see for ourselves what we'd be dealing with.

The head of the center (the one who came to speak to the class) said she would come pick us up at school and drive us back. Because the center is in East Jerusalem, the Egged buses don't go there and it is not somewhere we would just walk over to, despite it being just a few minutes from the University. She picked us up as planned, we drove maybe two minutes, and then... road block. Our driver had started driving right through as she's used to when a soldier stopped us. Apparently this roadblock was only just set up because of recent events I am unclear about. She was perturbed. She said she was just driving to work. We said we were studies from the university out doing a project. Obviously this didn't matter to the soldiers.

You hear a lot about roadblocks in Israel on the news, so I must point out that these soldiers were perfectly cordial. They looked at all our IDs and told us that the driver and my Arab classmate were free to go in, but me and the other Israeli were not going to be let by so easily. It is not that we were forbidden to enter the area. The soldier informed us that if we did enter and something happened (I won't get into the examples he gives- they just aren't pleasant) the army would not be responsible for our safety. It would be a risk that we, as citizens of a democratic country and therefore allowed to make our own decisions, would choose to make. Discouraged, we turned around and drove back towards the school.

After discussing it amongst ourselves and our professor, we have decided not to continue with this project. While many Israeli professionals travel into the area every day, it is not something we can be sure we can do throughout the year. It is unfortunate that we can't, and the woman from the center will certainly be disappointed. I think she was the most put off by what happened. At the roadblock my Arab classmate nodded in quiet understanding while the other Israeli and I looked at each other, sitting together in the back seat, looked at each other wondering what to do. It is unfortunate that we are being kept from this experience and that the children at the center are being kept from the help and services we can provide. We were the perfect group for this project, each of us coming from a slightly different professional background that put together would have worked wonderfully.

When we got back to school, we just laughed about it. I'm glad we could. Here we were, two Arabs and two Israelis, laughing about the harsh realities of the country we live in. I joked that I would add it to the list of things not to tell my parents, though they will probably be relieved to find out I will not be doing a project in East Jerusalem. They are so supportive of me living in Israel that I try not to do anything to worry them, but this was an experience I really wanted to have. While there are so many parts of Israel I would never think of going (or am simply prohibited as an Israeli from going) because of safety concerns, I guess I never thought it could happen in a place next door to where thousands of Arabs and Jews study together every day. I want to believe that we could have gone through with this project and everything would have been fine- and maybe it would have. It just takes one person with a rock in his or her hand to turn everything upside down. It is my democratic right to choose to go where I please, but it is also my democratic right to choose to be safe. My co-workers' fears of the Gush are not unfounded, but I do wish they could speak about it more optimistically.

Our plan B (which was our original Plan A) is to work on programming for teenagers who are hard of hearing. My Israeli and Arab partners both have connections in their respective communities. We are hoping that we can provide both a service for deaf teenagers, and an opportunity for Arab and Israeli teens to communicate with each other. I am in this class because of my failed plan to write a thesis. I knew that doing a project instead wouldn't be a bad alternative, but I felt that I wanted to do something on my own and not have to deal with class and dealing with others. Each week I realize what a great experience this will be. My group is the only mixed Arab/Jewish group and the only one that is doing something with both communities. When I was first looking into schools I posted on a listserv asking about David Yellin, a teacher's college I considered going to. Someone wrote back telling me that I should be aware that there are Arabs there. I held back from responding, but I was thinking "Arabs wanted to study to be educators too? That sounds wonderful." It is such a positive experience being in a program of both Arabs and Jews. Great things can happen here.