Op-Ed – Page 51

Poet chooses politics over love?

In times of protracted conflict, can matters of the heart exist apart from politics? An award-winning documentary from Israeli filmmaker Ibtisam Mara’ana Menuhin left me at once spellbound, uplifted, sad and restless, as I found myself wrestling with this question.

Write Down, I am an Arab depicts the life of Palestinian national poet Mahmoud Darwish. The politics is important – more on that below – but what makes the film especially gripping is the story of Darwish’s catapult to national and international fame against the backdrop of his private longings for a woman on the other side of the Palestinian-Jewish divide.

Darwish met Tamar Ben Ami in the early 1960s at a political rally – this one for the Communist party in Israel. Frequently separated geographically – he under military administration (as all Arab citizens were until 1966) in Haifa, she studying in Jerusalem – Darwish documented his feelings for her in a series of letters.

I spoke with Tamar – by phone, Facebook and email – over the course of a few days. A dancer and choreographer (the film chronicles her stint in the Israeli navy’s performing troupe), Tamar divides her time between Tel Aviv and Berlin. She describes her art – and really her entire personal life – as being shaped by her time with Darwish. Her love for him is palpable, still.

Caught up as I am as a political scientist and columnist in contemplating political arrangements – refugees, Jerusalem, borders, one-state, two-state, federation or separation – Tamar operates differently.

“It’s cliché, and maybe I sound naive, but I believe in unconditional love,” Tamar tells me when I ask her what kind of political future she envisions. She is disturbed by what she sees as the artificial divisions of nations, races, ethnicities and religions, including what she sees as a dangerous interpretation of Jewish chosenness. “On this, the occupation has been nurtured.”

And, while it’s hard to disagree, I find myself confounded. Is the Palestinian national struggle one over occupation? Is it about the West Bank settlements, the land appropriation, the checkpoints and night raids and administrative detention? Or is it about the stones and earth of Palestinian towns and villages within Israel itself to which many Palestinians long to return? And, if it is the latter, how can the two national dreams ever be squared?

In the film, we see video footage of Darwish meeting a resident of Kibbutz Yas’ur, which was founded on the ruins of Darwish’s childhood village, al-Birwa. “It’s a moment of sadness and hope,” Darwish says to the man. “The sadness is that I’m not allowed to go back to that place and you have the right to go back there. But if we have the ability to be friends and we are friends, then peace is still possible.”

On one hand, it’s a wholly human encounter. On the other hand, once we put the subject of Israeli towns, cities and kibbutzim within pre-1967 Israel on the table, we are talking about the core of Israel’s identity, one which Israelis – and most Jews worldwide – are loathe to give up. And, if I’m really honest with myself, as a (liberal) Zionist who shares the Jewish national dream of those kibbutzniks, then perhaps the pain is also mine.

Nowhere was the tension between resisting occupation and demanding more fundamental claims more evident than in Darwish’s highly controversial 1988 poem called “Passers Between the Passing Words.” There, Darwish wrote: “It is time for you to be gone. Live wherever you like, but do not live among us…. For we have work to do in our land. So leave our country, our land, our sea, our wheat, our salt, our wounds, everything; and leave.”

With the first intifada raging at the time, Tamar is certain that the poem is about the occupation, not about Israel itself. “What can the occupied do?” Tamar recalls Darwish saying. The irony is that Darwish didn’t even think it was a good poem, Tamar says. To be judged by that poem pained him, and more than anything he longed to be considered a universal poet, Tamar adds.

After the 1988 poem controversy, Tamar found herself in Paris, trying to reconnect with Darwish, who was now at the centre of Palestinian politics. While she was sitting with him, Darwish took a call from Yasser Arafat. They spoke in Arabic. She could not make out what they were saying. The next day, when she called him again, Darwish rebuffed her: “You are not my girlfriend.”

We can never know whether Darwish, who died in 2008, chose politics over matters of the heart, or whether this unkind ending was just like so many ruptures between once-lovers: prosaic and universal.

But Darwish and Tamar did have contact again. After Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination, Darwish reached out to her in compassion. And, in 2000, Education Minister Yossi Sarid attempted to introduce two Darwish poems to the Israeli (Jewish) national curriculum. Stormy Knesset debate ensued, and the government narrowly survived a no-confidence vote. Darwish called Tamar. “My poetry is so important that over it the government nearly fell?” he mused.

Though their romance had ended, they clearly shared a sense of absurdity in how the universal language of poetry can be thrust into the forefront of the ugly struggles over land, narratives, history and invisibility. It’s a story that continues to be told, even as Tamar will always think in terms of interpersonal love as much as in terms of borders and territory.

Mira Sucharov is an associate professor of political science at Carleton University. She blogs at Haaretz and the Jewish Daily Forward. A version of this article was originally published on haartez.com.

Journey is a crucial experience

The Coast-to-Coast March of the Living group, as well as a few Israeli youth, in Israel. (photo from Talya Katzen)

This past spring, I took part in the March of the Living 2015 program – a two-week trip to Poland and Israel, where people from 45 different countries are brought together to learn about the Holocaust and the current state of Judaism in Israel.

The trip was the most emotional and heartbreaking two weeks of my life. I never could have anticipated the kind of life-changing journey I was about to embark on.

photo - Participants in March of the Living stand together in front of the ashes of those murdered in the concentration camp, Majdanek — Participants in March of the Living stand together in front of the ashes of those murdered in the concentration camp, Majdanek. (photo from Talya Katzen)

The week in Poland was extremely draining, and I came to many realizations. I felt so strongly about things I simply cannot put into words. Our pre-trip informational sessions came nowhere near to preparing me for what I was going to witness. How can anything prepare you for walking through a gas chamber where, just 70 years ago, thousands of innocent lives were erased each day? Pictures may speak louder than words, but physically being there is like a blood-curdling scream right in your face.

Each day’s event was a new brick dropped on my shoulders and, as the bricks piled up, I came to appreciate more and more the wonderful life I have been blessed with. The weather in Poland was cold and windy, spitting rain into our eyes as we walked through extermination camps, cemeteries and ghettos in our warm down coats and hats. Our complaints about the cold were no match to the below-zero temperatures that those starving prisoners in the thousands of concentration camps across Europe had to face day in and day out.

The tour of Majdanek concentration camp was truly an experience that will be with me for the rest of my life. The defining moment of the journey was visiting the monument that holds the ashes of the victims of the camp. A recording of the prisoners, just liberated from Bergen-Belsen, singing “Hatikvah” began to play as we all stood hand-in-hand. My mind was blank and completely full at the same time. The mutual sorrow all we marchers felt was overpowering. A connection to one another that I doubt will ever be broken.

photo - Left to right, Talya Katzen, Hayley Kardash, Shauna Miller and Alyssa Diamond participate in Yom Ha’atzmaut celebrations in Israel — Left to right, Talya Katzen, Hayley Kardash, Shauna Miller and Alyssa Diamond participate in Yom Ha’atzmaut celebrations in Israel. *(photo from Talya Katzen)*

This feeling of grief was flipped on its back upon our arrival in the beautiful state of Israel, a country that is now home to Jews who have survived some of the worst events in history – and prospered. I was fortunate to be there during the festival that celebrates Israeli Independence Day. Israelis gather together to celebrate community and overcoming many hardships. Having just experienced the height of grief in Poland, I could not have been more grateful for Israel, and the promise it holds for the Jewish people. Of course, our celebrations of freedom were constantly overshadowed by the memory of those who perished in Europe, who never had the chance to visit our homeland. It made me realize how absolutely crucial it is for young Jewish people of the world to experience this journey so that we may never forget.

March of the Living taught me that I have family all over the world who are just as passionate about keeping Judaism alive as I am, and that it is completely up to us to carry the torch from generation to generation, to keep the flame of the Jewish people burning forever. I am a third-generation survivor and it is my duty to be a witness, to live out the lives of those who never had the chance to see their 10th or 18th or 85th birthday simply because of who they were. Hitler and the Nazis may have been successful in murdering millions of people who didn’t fit their blueprint of the ideal race, but they failed miserably in taking away our Jewish identity. I am a person, I am a witness, I am a Jew, and no one can take that away from me.

Talya Katzen originally wrote this article as a Lord Byng Secondary school assignment. Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver offsets the cost of March of the Living by $2,000 for each local participant. The funds for this are generated through the Federation annual campaign, and are distributed to participants through the Israel and Overseas Connections fund. Jewish Federation also provides support through staff resources, program leader training and participant education.

What’s next with Iran deal

Given the copious amount that has been written on the Iran deal, we publish this summary of key points by American Jewish Congress to help readers wade through the various articles and blogs, and form their own opinion about the deal:

The historic deal with Iran intended to curb its nuclear weapons program will receive a full airing in the U.S. Congress in the next several weeks. The following is a short summary of key points to keep in mind as the debate unfolds:

Several steps must be taken before the Iran deal goes into effect. Congress has 60 days to review the deal’s terms, hold hearings, conduct a debate and take a vote in both the House and Senate.
If Congress passes a resolution of disapproval and sends it to President Barack Obama for his signature, he has 12 days to veto the resolution. The president has said already that he would take such action, if necessary.
Many members of both parties in Congress have expressed deep skepticism. Israel is lobbying hard against it; Gulf states, led by Saudi Arabia, also oppose the deal, but are conducting their lobbying efforts more quietly.
The deal also must be brought to the United Nations Security Council. It is unclear at this time if that will happen before or after a congressional vote.
No sanctions will be lifted before the end of this year. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) first must provide, by Dec. 15, a baseline assessment of Iran’s possible military activities relative to its past nuclear program.
The IAEA will be given “when necessary, where necessary” access to monitor Iranian compliance, with a mechanism that gives Iran up to 24 days before permitting inspectors to visit designated sites.
This “managed access” falls well short of the president’s earlier assertion that the IAEA must be allowed to have intrusive access on an “anytime, anywhere” basis.
The current UN arms embargo will remain in place for five years and UN ballistic missile sanctions will stay in place for eight years, though both time periods can be reduced if Iran is judged to be acting in full compliance with the deal.
The lifting of the arms embargo is outside the parameters set by President Obama, who repeatedly said during negotiations that only issues related to the nuclear file were legitimate subjects for compromise.
Economic sanctions against Iran will be removed in stages, with some frozen assets scheduled to be released when the deal moves to implementation by the end of the year, in which case Iran is expected to benefit from $100 billion to $150 billion in cash.
Many observers are concerned that Iran, whose current annual defence budget is approximately $30 billion, will use the influx of cash to support proxies such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria, Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Houthi rebels in Yemen, and to foment instability throughout the region with greater funding to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and the al-Quds force’s efforts in Iraq and Syria. This is on top of billions in expected oil revenues and the significant economic bump Iran is expected to enjoy through increased commerce with the international community.
Sanctions can be restored should Iran violate the deal, though most observers are highly dubious that so-called “snapback” provisions will be effective.
The deal will be terminated 10 years from the date of its adoption as long as Iran does not violate UN sanctions, though there are elements of it that have a 15-year life expectancy.

Ethical will still holds true

Family, Israel remain at centre of Dvora Waysman’s ethical will. (photo by Ashernet, taken on Jerusalem Day 2015)

Very often wills – including ethical wills – are updated as circumstances change. I wrote my ethical will in the early 1970s, when I was still dewy-eyed about aliya and Israel was somehow more innocent, despite the wars she had endured and her ongoing fight for survival.

It was a less materialistic society back then. If you had one car per family, you were well-off; TVs, videos and microwave ovens were a rarity. In fact, not everyone had a telephone and, thank heavens, the ghastly, intrusive cellphone had not been invented.

Our four children (two sons and two daughters) were still kids. They now have all done their army service, graduated university, married and given us 18 wonderful Sabra grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren, all still living in Israel.

While Israeli society has changed over the past four decades, many of the things I loved have endured. I still find it a great privilege to live in the beautiful city of Jerusalem – it still inspires my poems and my dreams. I still feel part of a family – even though it’s often a squabbling, divisive one. I’ve never considered leaving – to do so would be for me an amputation.

So, with these modifications, I present again my ethical will as it was first published by the World Zionist Press Service, who distributed thousands of copies and reprinted it in two anthologies, Ethical Wills and So That Your Values Live On, both edited by Jack Riemer and Nathaniel Stampfer. I have not changed it, because I can still become misty-eyed at my love affair with Israel. Perhaps today, like a marriage, the passion has somewhat abated, familiarity may have reduced the miraculous to the humdrum but, nevertheless, I am still in love!

My ethical will

As I write this, I am sitting on my Jerusalem balcony, looking through a tracery of pine trees at the view along Rehov Ruppin. I can see the Knesset, the Israel Museum and the Shrine of the Book – that architectural marvel that houses the Dead Sea Scrolls.

I am at an age where I should write a will, but the disposition of my material possessions would take just a few lines. They do not amount to much. Had we stayed in Australia, where you – my four children – were born, they would be much more. I hope you won’t blame me for this.

For now, you are Israelis, and I have different things to leave you. I hope you will understand that they are more valuable than money in the bank, stocks and bonds, and plots of land, for no one can ever take them away from you.

I am leaving you the fragrance of a Jerusalem morning – unforgettable perfume of thyme, sage and rosemary that wafts down from the Judean hills. The heartbreaking sunsets that give way to Jerusalem at night – splashes of gold on black velvet darkness. The feel of Jerusalem stone, ancient and mellow, in the buildings that surround you. The piquant taste of hummus, tehina, falafel – foods we never knew about before we came here to live.

I am leaving you an extended family – the whole house of Israel. They are your people. They will celebrate with you in joy, grieve with you in sorrow. You will argue with them, criticize them and sometimes reject them (that’s the way it is with families). But, underneath, you will be proud of them and love them. More important, when you need them, they will be there!

I am leaving you the faith of your forefathers. Here, no one will ever laugh at your beliefs, call you “Jew” as an insult. You, my sons, can wear kippot and tzitzit if you so wish; you, my daughters, can modestly cover your hair after marriage if that is what you decide. No one will ridicule you. You can be as religious or as secular as you wish, knowing it is based on your own convictions, and not because of what [non-Jews] might say. You have your heritage – written with the blood of your people through countless generations. Guard it well and cherish it – it is priceless!

I am leaving you pride. Hold your head high. This is your country, your birthright. Try to do your share to enhance its image. It may call for sacrifice, but it will be worth it. Your children, their children, and all who come after, will thank you for it.

I am leaving you memories. Some are sad – the early struggles to adapt to a new culture, a new language. But, remember, too, the triumphs – the feeling of achievement when you were accepted, when “they” became “us.” That is worth more than silver trophies and gold medals. You did it alone – you “made” it.

And so, my children, I have only one last bequest. I leave you my love and my blessing. I hope you will never again need to say, “Next year in Jerusalem.” You are already here – how rich you are!

Dvora Waysman is the author of 13 books. She can be contacted at [email protected] or through her blog dvorawaysman.com.

Summer, sun … melanoma

A public service video produced a few years ago and making the rounds again this year hits me close to home. Produced by the David Cornfield Melanoma Fund and called Dear 16-Year-Old Me, the video warns of the dangers of melanoma and the importance of sun smarts and mole checks.

When I was 21, I had just recently returned from a year living in Israel, where I attended Hebrew University. One morning in Vancouver as summer was winding down, I was flipping through the Vancouver Sun at my parents’ kitchen table and paused on a full-page feature about melanoma.

I glanced over at my right forearm. I had long had a mole there, but now I noticed the mole contained one of the warning signs of melanoma: rather than being a uniform brown, it had a darker spot on a medium-brown background. Overcoming my fear of needles and scalpels, I insisted that my family doctor remove the mole.

A week later, back in Montreal for my final year of university at McGill, I received a call from my parents that I should make an appointment with a plastic surgeon as soon as possible. The biopsy results had come back and I indeed had malignant melanoma, thankfully only to a depth of 0.4 millimetres – so far. I was more scared than I’d ever been. One of my best friends scooped me up that evening for a distracting sojourn on St. Laurent Boulevard.

A few days later, I left my flat in the McGill Ghetto and went to the Jewish General Hospital. My surgeon, the late Dr. Jack Cohen, was a much-admired member of the medical profession in Montreal. He was also an excellent amateur whistler, and I asked him to whistle through the surgery to help calm my nerves. He warmly complied before leaving me with a formidable scar: a small price to pay for saving my life.

That night, swaddled and bandaged, I walked over to the McGill Arts Building to hear Canadian author Michael Ondaatje read from his latest novel. As the evening closed, the painkillers began to wear off.

My friends and family know that because of my melanoma history, I am much less fancy-free when it comes to summer fun than many of my fellow Canadians who are desperate for sunlight after our country’s seemingly endless winters.

I take care to wear hats and sunscreen (I seek out favorite brands and stick to them). I constantly seek out shade. I don’t sunbathe. I don’t turn my face to the sun and quip about needing vitamin D; instead, I take oral supplements.

As for sun-smart clothes, this season’s “maxi dress” fashion trend has helped a little. And, with the recent development of vitiligo on parts of my body, my vanity helps me want to avoid the sun for the cosmetic goal of keeping an even skin tone, as well.

When I’m feeling sarcastic, I joke that my Zionism – given the first of three years I spent in Israel – gave me melanoma. Sometimes, I look wistfully at the last photograph of my pre-surgery arm, my near-deadly mole visible as I sport a large backpack, smiling for the camera while waiting for the Egged bus from Jerusalem to take me to kibbutz Urim, one of my favorite weekend hangouts.

When I’m feeling ironic, I think about how the religious laws of modesty that I often privately disdain are actually very prudent for protecting the body from the dangers of the sun’s rays. It is for the reason of modest dress, researchers have inferred, that Palestinian citizens of Israel develop melanoma at lower rates than that of Jewish Israelis.

When I’m feeling especially cautious – which is always, when summer comes – I’m careful to apply sunscreen to my kids each morning. No one said that the sticky, daily ritual was fun. But it’s important.

I try not to saddle my kids with more fear than they deserve to have in their innocent years. Life is scary, and we need to protect ourselves where we can.

Mira Sucharov is an associate professor of political science at Carleton University. She blogs at Haaretz and the Jewish Daily Forward. This article was originally published in the Canadian Jewish News.

Choosing the side of hope

When focusing on Israeli-Palestinian relations, as I do for a living, it’s nice to have a good news story to relay once in awhile. On June 22, the annual Victor J. Goldberg Prize for Peace in the Middle East (run by the New York-based Institute of International Education) was awarded to Yehuda Stolov and Salah Aladdin, two leaders of the Interfaith Encounter Association (IEA). To many outsiders, inter-ethnic encounter experiences seem a no-brainer when it comes to grassroots, peace-building efforts. But not everyone is so convinced, particularly the “anti-normalization” faction of the Palestine solidarity movement.

The Goldberg Prize recognizes “outstanding work being conducted jointly by two individuals, one Arab and one Israeli, working together to advance the cause of peace in the Middle East … [by] bringing people together and breaking down the barriers of hatred toward ‘the other.’” It comes with $10,000 US.

IEA brings together Israelis and West Bank Palestinians to engage with one another in an “interactive, interfaith encounter” context. The organization has run 1,900 programs over 13 years, with 4,000 individuals participating in 2014 alone. Stolov is executive director of IEA, and Aladdin has taken on various leadership roles in the organization, most recently as assistant director.

The so-called “anti-normalization” movement is amplified by elements of the Palestine solidarity movement who associate with BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions). For example, the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel guidelines urge that Israeli-Palestinian encounter-type initiatives be boycotted under the rubric of “anti-normalization.” The guidelines go on to suggest that “events, projects, publications, films or exhibitions that are designed to bring together Palestinians/Arabs and Israelis so they can present their respective narratives or perspectives, or to work toward reconciliation, ‘overcoming barriers,’ etc., without addressing the root causes of injustice and the requirements of justice” be boycotted.

The anti-normalization tendency may be understandable as a philosophical commitment, particularly if one believes – as those BDS activists do – that justice points to the amelioration of only one side’s lot. But even if one believes that the only justice to be served is that of the Palestinians, the anti-normalization tendency is a misguided way to hope to achieve it.

Psychologists have long shown the importance of the “contact hypothesis” for reducing intergroup prejudice. Recent studies have even shown that even “imagining a positive interaction” with an outgroup member can be just as powerful in reducing prejudice as face-to-face encounters can be. And the first step in getting Israelis to realize the power their country wields over Palestinian life and dignity is to render the Palestinian experience visible.

Stolov agrees. The only way to end the occupation, Stolov explained when I reached him by phone in Israel, is to increase the sense of human connection between Israelis and Palestinians. Aware of the anti-normalization pressures some participants may feel, participation in IEA is kept “under the radar,” press access is restricted and meeting spots are chosen so the events can appear as inconspicuous as possible.

As the lead Palestinian drafter of the 2003 Geneva initiative, which sought to lay out a two-state plan for Israeli-Palestinian peace, Ghaith al-Omari has every reason to be jaded. And having advised the Palestinian negotiating team from 1999 to 2001, al-Omari knows firsthand how little has emerged from the halting peace process. Still, he has recently declared his opposition to the anti-normalization movement in a moving essay in Fikra Forum, reprinted on the Third Narrative website (thirdnarrative.org/israel-palestine-articles/ills-of-anti-normalization), where I serve as co-director of its scholars for Israel and Palestine affiliate group. People like al-Omari and the founders of IEA and even the Goldberg peace prize visionaries realize the possibilities inherent in hope rather than cynicism. And if you have to choose among them – as it seems you do these days – I’d rather be on the side of hope.

Teaching on the Holocaust

One of the most powerful books I read as a preteen was Fran Arrick’s Chernowitz. A young adult novel about bullying and antisemitism, I recently revisited it as I read it aloud to my own kids. Told mostly in flashback form, the novel leads up to an episode of revenge by the victim to the antisemitic bully, followed by a school assembly about the Holocaust led by the school principal as an attempted antidote. While the victim goes through tremendous personal growth as he realizes the limits of vengeance, his tormenter is portrayed as blinded by bigotry and beyond redemption.

I wondered how the themes would hold up a generation later and in the context of my own kids’ lives. Given that at the time I first read it I attended Jewish day school and was surrounded by almost all Jewish friends, I wondered how my kids – who are one of only a few Jewish kids at their large public elementary school – would react. I like to think that their Jewish identity is solid and their friendships nurturing enough to feel secure from the ignorance from which racism and prejudice stems. On this, time will tell.

The theme of revenge is also apt in today’s political climate, where cycles of violence are all too prevalent on a global scale. While it can taste sweet at the time, revenge – rather than justice-seeking – all too often leaves a bitter aftertaste. The book succeeds in mining this ethical complexity. I also appreciate the author’s unvarnished treatment of bigotry and the lesson around how important and sometimes challenging it is to keep parent-child communication open and flowing.

But the book’s final scene – that of the school assembly where graphic Holocaust footage is shown to the students – left me wondering. Assuming empathy and awareness are good antidotes to all kinds of prejudice including antisemitism, how much exposure is too much, particularly when it comes to images of Nazi atrocities?

My own kids know that their paternal grandfather was a survivor of Auschwitz. They have heard of Hitler – he is a common word in their vocabulary, for better or worse, and they know something of the Holocaust. But, as I read the final pages of Chernowitz to them aloud, I found myself omitting much of the excruciatingly graphic imagery, which included references to Mengele’s victims.

When it comes to Holocaust education, the consensus now seems to be that graphic imagery should be used “judiciously,” in the words of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum – and “only to the extent necessary to achieve the lesson objective. Try to select images and texts that do not exploit the students’ emotional vulnerability or that might be construed as disrespectful to the victims themselves,” the museum advises educators on its website.

Julie Dawn Freeman, a professor of history, has warned that exposing students to too much graphic imagery can backfire in multiple ways: it can desensitize students to the subject, it can provide students with a sense that classroom trust has been violated, it can unwittingly provide a voyeuristic experience and it can dehumanize as well as stereotype the victims.

On all of these counts, the fictional principal’s shocking assembly, while well-intentioned, probably failed.

For these and other reasons, many of us have tended to focus on individual perspectives. In this vein, Anne Frank’s diary has, of course, had great impact. And many educators have made wonderful use of direct survivor testimony. When my father-in-law Bill Gluck was younger, he made a point to visit Vancouver schools and community centres to share his tale of survival. I have been fortunate to host Ottawa’s David Shentow in my course at Carleton. But, as we know, and as my own family experienced firsthand this year with the loss of my father-in-law, our own loved ones in the form of Holocaust survivors won’t be around forever.

Prejudice, hatred, suffering and revenge are heady themes for kids and preteens. Whatever our methodology for getting students to think ethically, at the very first, we can work our hardest to get them to think about basic impulses like kindness.

Camp’s decision misguided

In March, Young Judaea’s Camp Solelim made headlines for turning away a prospective camper because he’s not Jewish. Before having made their final decision, I wish they would have spoken to Aaron Ingram. A Winnipeg-based real estate and corporate commercial lawyer, Aaron is by all accounts a leader in the Jewish community. He sits on the board of directors of Camp Massad of Manitoba as well as the Shalom Residences; he is a member of the Jewish Federation’s Community Relations Committee, he is a Jewish Federation donor and, as he describes it, is “a longtime supporter of the Jewish community and the state of Israel.”

Did I mention that Aaron is not Jewish?

Let’s back up to when Aaron was a chubby-cheeked, blond 5-year-old in 1989. That summer, he accompanied his mom who had taken a job as the head cook at Camp Massad in Winnipeg Beach, the Hebrew immersion camp that I also attended. Fast forward 18 years, and Aaron had logged 10 years as a camper and eight summers as a counselor, including two as assistant director. (His mom, Marilyn, is still head cook.)

A very agreeable kid with a big personality, as a youngster Aaron quickly landed leads in the camp plays. With no formal Hebrew background, his lines were transliterated for him. Soon enough, he acquired the services of a Hebrew tutor during the school year. By the time Grade 5 rolled around, he was enrolled in one of Winnipeg’s half-day Hebrew-immersion schools. In grades 7 and 8, he attended Joseph Wolinsky Collegiate, the Jewish high school, where he earned a spot in the highest Hebrew level. He recalls being able to finally read the camp play scripts in Hebrew letters as a “big moment” for him.

“As a child growing up in the disadvantaged North End of Winnipeg,” Aaron told me in an e-mail interview, “my experiences in the Winnipeg Jewish community, being immersed in the wonderful environment that is Camp Massad, a world of creativity and intelligence, and the lifelong friendships that I have developed … have heavily influenced me.”

I asked Aaron whether he feels Jewish. Not religiously, he tells me; he is an atheist. (That there are Jewish atheists is admittedly a bit of complexity we didn’t get into.) But he considers himself culturally Jewish, and certainly a part of the Jewish community. “I have cried tears of despair in the death camps in Poland,” he tells me, “and have cried tears of joy upon my arrival in Israel.”

And were he to meet and marry a Jewish woman who wanted him to convert, he says he would do so “without hesitation.”

Aaron recalls his early experiences with daily and Shabbat prayers at Massad. “When I was a young camper, participating in the daily prayers and Shabbat tefillah, it felt like being handed the keys to a secret world that was welcoming me. I loved singing the prayers. I still know most, if not all, by heart.”

For his part, Aaron thinks Solelim’s decision to bar access to Tyler Weir is seriously misguided. As a board member at Camp Massad, he personally extended Tyler an invitation to join the Camp Massad community and offered to personally fundraise to offset the cost of airfare from Toronto to Winnipeg.

It’s clear that there’s a value clash between the particularist and insular dimensions of Jewish programming, and especially Jewish camp – fueled, no doubt, by the fear of intermarriage. On one hand is the need to inculcate culturally rich and rigorous experiences in our youth. On the other is the desire to fit in with Canadian multicultural values of openness and pluralism. Even there, though, multiculturalism relies on robust transmission of cultural identity, something that can most easily be achieved in a culturally homogeneous context, some would argue.

Yet, people like Aaron – and I join him in this sentiment – would claim that opening the windows a crack to those who might have their own reasons for wanting to partake of our rich communal traditions may yield unexpected benefits not only for them, but also for the communities of which they may seek to be a part.

Committed to translating Israel

What someone writes clearly says a lot about a person. And so do the books one chooses to translate. For Israeli books that make it abroad to an English-speaking audience, an important and sometimes overlooked subset of Israeli literary society is the translators themselves.

Himself an accomplished author based in Chicago (his newest book is a young adult novel called Me Being Me is Exactly as Insane as You Being You), as a translator, Todd Hasak-Lowy sees it as his mission to bring excellent and innovative literature to English speakers. Motti by Asaf Schurr (which also includes an afterword by Hasak-Lowy) is a good example. “You could change 30 words of it and you wouldn’t know it’s an Israeli book. It challenges what people think of about Israeliness. That’s a book I want Americans to read because it’s great Hebrew literature, someone who’s a product of that society, but it’s not Amos Oz.”

As an American who never made Israel his permanent home, Hasak-Lowy spent a year in Israel after high school, took some Hebrew in college, and then pinned himself to a seat in the library in graduate school deepening his Hebrew knowledge, before spending some additional time in the country. “When I graduated high school, I knew around 300 Hebrew words from summer camp; when I got to grad school, I was able to crawl through an early [A.B.] Yehoshua novel over 30 months,” and now he’s a sought-after translator who thinks carefully about which projects he seeks to take on.

Haim Watzman is a translator’s name I had long known, staring at me from the inside front page of some of the most formative books I read about Israel when I was younger, including David Grossman’s first two non-fiction books, The Yellow Wind and Sleeping on a Wire. The first in-depth look at the Palestinian experience of being under Israeli military occupation, The Yellow Wind brought the Palestinian narrative to an Israeli – and then to a worldwide – audience; Grossman’s follow-on treatment of Palestinian citizens of Israel was similarly path-breaking.

Watzman and I spoke by Skype, as he and his wife, Ilana, prepared to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary with a trip to the Netherlands. In talking to Watzman about politics, style, culture and translation, there are some technical points I was reminded of. First, English translations of Hebrew books tend to run about 30% longer. The economics of this for publishers can be daunting, so sometimes translators suggest editorial cuts. Second, because of the gendered nature of the language, Hebrew can afford both more passive tense and longer, meandering sentences. As Hebrew writers have become accustomed to using the passive voice that English writers now eschew as being a bad habit, translators have to take on an editing role: fact-checking and at times asking the writer “who” did what, exactly? And as for long, drawn-out sentences, English readers prefer theirs short and breezy.

About The Yellow Wind, Watzman describes it as his “rookie” assignment, which he was fortunate to land. As an undergraduate at Duke University, Watzman had written a thesis on Palestinian citizens of Israel, and as a correspondent for the Chronicle of Higher Education covering Palestinian colleges in the West Bank, he felt it important to bring the Palestinian story abroad. And while he’s careful to insist that these are the author’s works, not his own, today he says he’d do some things differently in the translation. Though he thinks “the translation came out fine – the public loved it; the editors loved it,” he says he “was more deferential then. I’d probably be more demanding of the author today, in terms of needling him for clarifications and suggestions.” Stylistically, he pushed to change Grossman’s present tense to the past, and he chose to keep some Arabic terms in the English translation.

It wasn’t until years later and subsequent translation gigs – including Grossman’s (and other authors’) political petitions published in newspapers – that Grossman finally asked him whether he agrees with the thrust of his political messages. For the most part, Watzman does.

I couldn’t help but be intrigued by the fact that Watzman leans left-liberal while being Orthodox in his religious outlook. (His Twitter profile photo, for example, is a sketch of Grossman working with Watzman, the latter’s kippa dominating the foreground.) Watzman explains that he came to religious observance “gradually,” having been “very taken by Shabbat and the intellectual component, including the debate over texts.” Two things “didn’t work for him,” however: orthodoxy’s attitude towards women, and the tendency within the Orthodox community towards right-wing politics. “I wasn’t going to give up my political principles for religion.” In Jerusalem’s Baka neighborhood, Watzman eventually found a like-minded community called Kehilat Yedidya.

And, while Watzman is committed to liberal democracy and human rights, he is no pacifist. Having tragically lost his son Niot in a military accident four years ago, Watzman tells me how he understands the military to be a necessity. Yet, while “Israel has to be vigilant and defend itself,” the country should be searching for peace through “accommodation and understanding.” He believes that “you can be both a Jewish nationalist and a liberal humanist. Not only is it possible, it is essential.” One could say that reading Israeli books, including new literature as well as the kind of searing non-fiction works that Grossman, Tom Segev and others have produced, captures this dualism perfectly: a nation committed to writing in its own land in its own language, while keeping tough questions in the foreground.

Mira Sucharov is an associate professor of political science at Carleton University. She blogs at Haaretz and the Jewish Daily Forward. A version of this article was originally published on haartez.com.

Consider the maps we use

I always enjoy seeing my kids bring home assignments from Hebrew school, and last week was no exception. On a map of Israel were labeled five major cities whose names the students had to write in Hebrew. For my part, I delighted in reminding my son that we have relatives or friends in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa, and near Be’er Sheva. There was only one problem with the map, I noticed. There was no Green Line. So, to the untrained eye, it looked like Israel’s borders span from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River.

As I often do when I want to tease out a political conundrum, I took to social media. On my public Facebook page, I offered to donate $36 to charity for the first person who can show me a Green-Line-indicated map of Israel currently being used in any Jewish educational setting. Laurie MacDonald Brumberg wrote that a Washington, D.C., Jewish day school has a National Geographic map containing the Green Line hanging in the classroom. Karin Klein of Chicago showed me a Green Line map she said was used at a Schechter day school. And from Gabriel T. Erbs I learned that J Street U has launched an initiative to circulate Green Line maps to educational institutions. Apparently, URJ President Rabbi Rick Jacobs has agreed to champion this among URJ camps and Hebrew schools, according to a March 22 article published on JewSchool by David A.M. Wilensky. Gila Miriam Chait added that Yachad, a pro-Israel, pro-peace group in the United Kingdom, is following suit.

What is at stake in the mapping debate? We all know that Middle East maps are heavily invested with the symbolism of legitimacy and delegitimization. The Palestinians have long been accused of erasing Israel from their school maps of Palestine – both from the Palestinian Authority and from Hamas. An article in the current online Jewish virtual library makes precisely this point. It’s clearly ironic that we are doing the same thing we accuse our adversaries of doing.

Some might argue, however, that since the Green Line is an armistice line, not a border, that there is no need for Israel to include it. It is true that it is not a border, but neither does Israel’s international territory extend eastward from Jerusalem all the way to the Jordan River. The point is, the West Bank is under occupation – whether one sees the occupation as justified or not – and maps should reflect this geopolitical reality.

Now, beyond simply making more accurate and, therefore, educationally useful maps, what might a more politically informed Israel curriculum entail? From my kids, I have heard about the ingenious ways that Israel foiled the Egyptian invasion of 1948, including placing stones in irrigation pipes to create noise simulating artillery. My 8-year-old was impressed. I know that for Yom Ha’atzmaut, their Hebrew school served falafel, and I hoped and expected that my kids will learn some Israeli folk songs. Some folk dancing would be great, too. What I remain less certain about, however, is how much complexity about Israel’s future our kids’ schools are willing to impart. Will kids learn who the “Palestinians” are? I know that I am guilty of frequently muttering to them about “Israel and the Palestinians” without proper context. While narratives of inter-state war can be much simpler to impart, when it comes to the Palestinian civilian aspect of Israel’s founding, and the current military occupation over millions of Palestinians, it’s difficult to know where to begin.

When we learn about the past, it’s equally important to consider the future. In fact, no one knows more about the importance of historical memory in shaping today’s collective political outlook as the Jewish community. As Wilensky writes in the context of the maps, “it’s unpleasant for many to hear, but the final status of a two-state solution – if such a thing can ever be achieved – is going to rely heavily on the Green Line. Putting visual depictions of that reality before the eyes of American Jewry will go a long way toward showing them the somewhat unpleasant truths that will help build a more absolutely pleasant future.”

As for the J Street U’s map initiative, given that Jacobs has pledged to roll them out at Reform schools, I hope he will make Ottawa’s very own Reform Judaism supplementary school an early stop.