{"id":16676,"date":"2016-01-22T00:12:15","date_gmt":"2016-01-22T08:12:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=16676"},"modified":"2016-01-21T17:09:15","modified_gmt":"2016-01-22T01:09:15","slug":"limmud-starts-next-weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2016\/01\/22\/limmud-starts-next-weekend\/","title":{"rendered":"Limmud starts next weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/b>Limmud Vancouver 2016, which takes place Jan. 30 and 31, includes seminars, lectures, workshops and discussions on a wide range of topics. This second article in a two-part series features a few of the presenters.<\/p>\n

The love of two women<\/strong><\/h4>\n

People who have a familiarity with modern Jewish and Zionist history know the name Eliezer Ben-Yehuda as the man who nearly single-handedly revived Hebrew into a modern language. Ben-Yehuda\u2019s grandson, also named Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, contends the history of modern Hebrew, Judaism and Israel would be very different were it not for the two women in his grandfather\u2019s life.<\/p>\n

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Eliezer Ben-Yehuda (photo courtesy of Limmud Vancouver)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThe story of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda is really very, very interesting and there\u2019s an aspect of it which is really overlooked very often and it\u2019s the issue of the women,\u201d he said in a telephone interview from his home in Florida.<\/p>\n

Ben-Yehuda was married, consecutively, to two women \u2013 sisters \u2013 and the grandson contends that they are the reason the world still knows his name.<\/p>\n

\u201cEliezer Ben-Yehuda, at the beginning of his path, was doomed to an early grave and all his dreams and all his great ideas about reviving the Hebrew language and reviving the Hebrew people in their land could have come to naught,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

At age 21, while studying in Paris, Ben-Yehuda nearly died of tuberculosis. He wrote to his fianc\u00e9e, his childhood sweetheart Devora Jonas, breaking off their engagement. \u201cHe wrote a letter and said forget about me, find yourself another man who is going to give you a life,\u201d said the grandson. \u201cShe refused to be jilted. She said, you promised to marry and by God I\u2019m holding you to your promise.\u201d<\/p>\n

The couple had five children before Devora died of tuberculosis. Three of the children died of diphtheria in short succession after their mother\u2019s passing. Before she died, Devora insisted that Ben-Yehuda marry her sister, Paula Beila, who later took the Hebrew name Hemda.<\/p>\n

\u201cHemda got this letter from her sister and it said if you want to be a princess, come marry my prince, my husband,\u201d said the grandson. \u201cHemda decided that, yes, she wants that \u2026 and she says I\u2019m going to come to Jerusalem, I\u2019m going to marry you, I\u2019m going to take care of your children for my sister and we\u2019ll have our own children and I will help you in your job.\u201d<\/p>\n

They did have children \u2013 six, although only three survived, including the father of the Eliezer Ben-Yehuda who will be in Vancouver this month. He credits the two women for everything his grandfather accomplished.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first one [Devora] rebuilt his morale,\u201d he said. \u201cHe was really quite resigned to the fact that he was going to die.\u2026 He married her and she filled him with hope and with strength through love and through her enthusiasm and through her caring of him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hemda was the force that got a world-leading publisher to print Ben-Yehuda\u2019s magnum opus Hebrew dictionary and, after he died with six of the 17 volumes completed, pressed her son Ehud (father of Eliezer the grandson) to complete the series.<\/p>\n

Ben-Yehuda\u2019s work changed the course of Jewish history, but his grandson assigns credit elsewhere. \u201cThe thing that made it possible was the love of two women,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Progressive Zionism<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Kenneth Bob\u2019s Zionist credentials are pretty strong. He is national president of Ameinu, the progressive Zionist organization, he chairs the board of directors of the American Zionist Movement and serves on the Jewish Agency for Israel board of governors. He believes it is those like him, who identify as progressive Zionists, who can have the most impact confronting the boycott, divestment and sanction (BDS) movement against Israel.<\/p>\n

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Kenneth Bob (photo courtesy of Limmud Vancouver)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWe share some of the criticism of Israeli policy,\u201d he said of progressive Zionists and the BDS movement. \u201cWhere we differ is the BDS movement generally doesn\u2019t support Israel\u2019s right to exist and we are very strong supporters of Israel\u2019s right to exist, we just disagree with some of Israel\u2019s policies. Because the criticism of Israel is coming from the left, it is best for the left Zionists, the ones who can speak the language of the left, to combat their attacks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some commentators argue that BDS is having little real impact, while others see it as a genuine advancing threat. \u201cI take the middle ground on this,\u201d said Bob. Most of the BDS resolutions are emerging on large or elite campuses and gain much media attention, \u201cso the number of BDS resolutions is actually maybe smaller than people might think. It\u2019s in the dozens, not in the hundreds.\u201d However, BDS is making inroads in the trade union movement.<\/p>\n

In a world that sometimes seems awash in inhumanity and rights abuses, some people suggest singling out Israel for approbation is evidence of bigotry. As a strategic argument, he said, this approach is not very useful.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe did some focus group work and liberals \u2026 don\u2019t claim to be consistent. When you ask them in focus groups why you\u2019re picking on Israel, they say, well, Israel wants to be like the West, so we\u2019re going to treat Israel like we would the West. And I say, yes, I think we can hold Israel to a higher standard than we do Libya or Syria. I think that\u2019s valid.\u201d<\/p>\n

His approach is that single-mindedly attacking Israel isn\u2019t going to resolve the problem of Palestinian statelessness.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you really want to try to bring about a two-state solution, then let\u2019s work with those coexistence NGOs on the ground in Israel and Palestine,\u201d he said. \u201cLet\u2019s invest in Palestinian businesses and Israeli businesses that are trying to work across the border. Let\u2019s do all kinds of positive things to encourage our kind of people on the ground in Israel and Palestine, but just punishing Israel doesn\u2019t make sense.\u201d<\/p>\n

Life before 1492<\/strong><\/h4>\n

The topic of Jews in the Iberian Peninsula immediately raises the spectre of 1492, the year the Jewish people were expelled from Spain. In his Limmud presentation, Robert Daum will delve into the dramatic history that came before that fatal date.<\/p>\n

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Robert Daum (photo courtesy of Limmud Vancouver)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIt would be a distortion of the history of any European Jewish context to focus only on the catastrophes that punctuated many centuries of dynamic community life, intellectual creativity and fascinating politics,\u201d said Daum, a rabbi and academic with appointments at the University of British Columbia and a fellow at Simon Fraser University\u2019s Centre for Dialogue, among other positions. \u201cTo use an analogous case, the Shoah more or less destroyed European Jewish civilization, but it does not represent or describe European Jewish civilization. At the same time, one cannot ignore the elephant in the room, so to speak, and, of course, 1492 is a critical part of the story. We also need to understand what happened before 1492.\u201d<\/p>\n

The lasting impacts of Spanish and Portuguese life on the following half-millennium of Jewish history, Daum said, is panoramic.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust as one cannot begin to understand the history of Spain without knowing about the history of Romans, Christians, Jews and Muslims on the Iberian Peninsula,\u201d he said in an email interview, \u201cso, too, one cannot begin to understand many aspects of Jewish civilization, from politics to law to Talmud study to poetry to the development of the Hebrew language, without knowing more about developments in Jewish communities on the Iberian Peninsula before 1492.\u201d<\/p>\n

Daum said that most people know that the history of the Jews in Iberia is a rich and storied one, but, he added, \u201cthe history is even more interesting than this!\u201d Moreover, this history is still having an impact on Spain and Portugal today, something he will touch on during his presentation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn addition to exploring a few fascinating stories, one should expect to come away with a sense of some of the major debates about Jewish (and Muslim) history on the Iberian Peninsula, and an awareness of how these debates are deeply connected to heated debates within Spain today about that fascinating country\u2019s founding narratives and its place in the region,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Old meets new<\/strong><\/h4>\n

For a city that is so new \u2013 it celebrated the centenary of its founding in 2009 \u2013 Tel Aviv has become a global hotbed of artistic and literary ferment. That\u2019s no coincidence, says Naomi Sokoloff, a professor of modern Jewish literature and Hebrew at the University of Washington.<\/p>\n

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Naomi Sokoloff (photo courtesy of Limmud Vancouver)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIt was designed to be that way,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s been a magnet for writers and artists and publishers almost from the beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tel Aviv was created not only as the first Hebrew city, but also as a secular sibling to Jerusalem, the sacred city.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe city was founded by visionaries,\u201d she said. \u201cSome of them were more utopian and some of them were more pragmatic, but they really founded the city as an idea and as an ideal.\u201d<\/p>\n

The name itself is a figment of literature. Theodor Herzl\u2019s utopian novel of a Jewish state, Altneuland<\/em> (Old New Land), was almost immediately translated into Hebrew and the title of the book was Tel Aviv. Aviv<\/em> means spring, representing the rebirth of the Hebrew nation, while tel<\/em> reflects the ancient heritage, meaning accumulated layers of civilization.<\/p>\n

Sokoloff\u2019s presentation at Limmud will look at the literature and art of Tel Aviv through the writings of S. Yizhar, a song by Naomi Shemer, a story by Etgar Keret and some paintings of Tel Aviv, all of which may shed light, she said, on the tension between the founding ideas of Tel Aviv and how things turned out.<\/p>\n

For this year\u2019s Limmud schedule, visit limmudvancouver.ca<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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