terrorism

Summit covers tough issues

Author and former politician Michael Oren addresses the Jewish Media Summit, which took place in Jerusalem Dec. 19-22. (photo by Dave Gordon)

The Iranian threat, the new Israeli government, BDS, terrorism, and the challenges of aliyah, were just some of the discussion topics last December, at the fifth annual Jewish Media Summit, which took place in Jerusalem Dec. 19-22.

The nearly 100 attendees hailed from Israel and across Europe, as well as from South Africa, South America and North America, and included the Jewish Independent. Most panels and keynote addresses consisted of official spokespeople, politicians (incoming and outgoing) and organizational heads. The conference was organized by the Ministry of Diaspora Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Government Press Office.

Former U.S. ambassador to Israel Michael Oren spoke about one of his pet projects. Oren is a former member of the Knesset and the author of several books, including Ally: My Journey Across the Israel-American Divide.

Several years ago, when Oren was a deputy minister in the Prime Minister’s Office, he proposed to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu that Israel have a blueprint leading into the state’s 100th birthday – Oren’s book Israel 2048 will be published in April.

To write the publication, Oren investigated different areas of Israel’s future: social, education, health and foreign policies; Israel-Diaspora relations; Palestinians, Arabs. “We found experts in every field. It was a tremendous undertaking,” he said. “I would not shy away from any issue, controversial, even explosive.”

About Israel, he noted “we don’t have sovereignty over large areas of our territory,” referring to the 60% of the country that is the Negev Desert. As an example of what this means in terms of governance, he said there’s no application of Israeli law regarding housing there and so there are some 400,000 illegal Bedouin structures in the Negev.

“But if I built a two-millimetre addition to my balcony in Tel Aviv, I have a police car there, within seconds, giving me a big ticket,” he said. Additionally, he said there’s “an inability to enforce [other] Israeli laws” there, so there’s no control over guns, drug or human trafficking, and polygamy is rampant, despite it being illegal.

Of concern, he said, is that more Bedouin are being influenced by Islamic extremism and the Palestinian narrative.

“It’s critical that the 2048 initiative is not the initiative of religious people, of secular people, of right-wing, left-wing, Ashkenazim, Mizrahim. It’s everybody together,” he said. “If you want Israel to have a second great century … we have to work on it. And we have to work at it by talking to one another, about real solutions.”

Oren spoke with the Jewish Independent about how he thinks Israel will ease challenges to aliyah.

“What shocked me is that large segments of the population are no longer interested in large-scale aliyah,” he said. “I couldn’t get people in Israel and [in the] Israeli government to be very interested in encouraging aliyah from France.”

The predominant reason for this lack of interest in welcoming new immigrants from France or any other country in the Diaspora, he said, is that Israelis are becoming increasingly angry at how the many costs of new olim (immigrants) are offset by the state.

“This is going to play out now with Russia and Ukraine as well,” he noted. “So, while everyone’s focused on the grandfather clause [of the Right of Return], I asked a deeper question: to what degree is aliyah still a central tenet of our raison d’être of the Jewish people? Because, from my perspective, if we are not encouraging large-scale aliyah, we’ve lost a big sense of why we are here. And I see this as a danger.”

The largest section of Oren’s new book, however, deals with the Palestinians. Oren said he was involved in one way or another with “every peace initiative since 1993.”

On another topic, Oren noted that Benny Gantz, then-minister of defence, proposed a solution to the Iranian threat: “force our international partners” into offering “military intelligence and diplomatic cooperation.”

“Our actions must be preventative, before it is too late,” said Oren.

On a tour of the Tz’elim IDF base, a 10-minute drive from Gaza, Gen. Bentzi Gruber spoke about the ethics of combat, stressing that the army makes enormous effort to minimize innocent casualties. In contrast, he said, only two Hamas rockets hit the base, while thousands hit civilian areas.

Gruber added that he fights a psychological battle, too.

“I fight all my previous wars every night in my sleep. My wife wakes me up when I’m yelling,” said the deputy commander of the IDF armoured division. “Every soldier that fought in a war carries the scars with them. If you killed a terrorist or a civilian, that never leaves you.”

The tour included a mini-Gaza mockup city, a training area for the Israel Defence Forces.

Kibbutz Nirim, a few hundred metres from Gaza, has been hit by rocket fire from Gaza in recent years. The kibbutz’s spokesperson, Adele Raemer, who addressed the United Nations Security Council in 2018, said the village had to build safe rooms, as residents have just a few seconds to get out of harm’s way. One terror tunnel discovered nearby was 75 feet deep, 1.1 miles long, and made of 500 tons of cement.

Still, she said, she “has nothing against ordinary Gazans,” and locals participate in Project Road to Recovery, where Jews shuttle Arab patients to local hospitals “because we care about our neighbours.”

President Isaac Herzog encouraged Jews around the world to fight the BDS (boycott, divestment and sanction) movement, whether espoused by foreign governments or the media, on college campuses or elsewhere. He commented on those who disagree with Israel’s new government.

“Israeli democracy is vibrant and strong,” he said. “The many voices that compose us do not point to the weakness of our democracy, but our strength. The rule of law, freedom of speech, human and civil rights, these have been and always will be the wall of our democratic state.”

In a non-political talk, Neta Riskin, who plays Giti Weiss in Shtisel, spoke about the surprise hit, which has run three seasons. At first, the show’s publicist told them “there’s nothing to work with” and it wouldn’t last, but word of mouth and good reviews bolstered the show, she said.

For her, Shtisel “has nothing to do with religion. It has to do with people – longing, hope and people’s desires. The cultural restraints of the show made it more interesting. No dead bodies. No sex.” She said she was pleased that women’s stories were also being told in the show.

Shtisel is popular in the Haredi community, with people watching it on their phones, according to Riskin. “The show managed to bridge an un-crossable bridge,” she added, noting how popular it was among all stripes of Jews and non-Jews alike.

Dave Gordon is a Toronto-based freelance writer whose work has appeared in more than 100 publications around the world. His website is davegordonwrites.com.

Play tackles Israeli/Palestinian conflict

Congregation Emanu-El Synagogue (photo from Bema Productions)

Bema Productions, directed by Zelda Dean, is bringing the play Peace Talks to the Victoria Fringe Festival, Aug. 25-Sept. 4. Performances will take place at Congregation Emanu-El Synagogue’s Black Box Theatre, 1461 Blanshard St., pictured above.

Written and performed by Izzy Salant and Ryan Dunn, this run will be a world première of the work that saw a virtual staged reading in early 2021. Since that time, the playwrights continued to develop their play and raise the necessary funds to meet their goal of touring the show to university and college campuses in both Canada and the United States.

Peace Talks addresses the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Noam watches helplessly as his best friend Andrew dies in an explosion right in front of him in a hookah bar in Israel. Noam believes he was responsible. After the catastrophe, Andrew’s bereaved American brother James sets out on a revenge plot against Israel and against Noam, as he also believes Noam is responsible for Andrew’s death. He puts his plan into action, actively sabotaging Israeli advocacy and promoting anti-Zionism to anyone who will listen, ultimately attempting to attain his true goal: to kill Noam.

James and Noam find themselves in a bitter internal and external struggle with Israel, Zionism, death, human rights, and Andrew’s memory. As they clash, they both discover some harsh realities of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and that it is a world that isn’t as clear-cut as they thought.

For tickets to Peace Talks, visit victoriafringe.com.

– Courtesy Bema Productions

Fighting racism, terrorism

Tag Meir chair Dr. Gadi Gvaryahu speaks, as moderator Maytal Kowalski and the live and Zoom audience listen. (photo from New Israel Fund of Canada)

Dr. Gadi Gvaryahu, chair of the Israeli anti-racism organization Tag Meir, addressed live and Zoom audiences last month in a talk organized by the New Israel Fund of Canada and hosted by Or Shalom Synagogue.

At the event, titled An Israel at Peace with Itself: Solutions to Racism and Inequality, Gvaryahu described his early efforts in social activism, which began after Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated in 1995. “The fact that a religious person with a kippah on his head decided to get rid of our prime minister was a crucial point for me,” he said.

Gvaryahu established the nonprofit Yod Bet b’Heshvan (12 Heshvan, named for the date of the assassination on the Hebrew calendar) and the Yitzhak Rabin Memorial Synagogue in Rehovot, where he resides.

According to Gvaryahu, the creation of Tag Meir came about in 2009, following an escalation of racist rhetoric and acts on the part of far-right religious groups in Israel. Tag Meir is a play on words in Hebrew related to tag meicher, or “price tag.” Since the early 2010s, a small percentage of extremist settlers has carried out attacks against Arabs, meant to show the Israeli government “the price” of failing to support their cause.

“Tag Meir, on the other hand, means ‘light tag.’ We try to bring light into the world,” Gvaryahu said. “If there is a price tag attack, we want to be with the victims. We don’t distinguish if they are Jewish victims or Muslim victims. It is crucially important to be with them. We tell them they are not alone and support them.”

Gvaryahu gave several examples of Tag Meir’s work. One followed the July 2014 kidnapping and murder of Mohammed Abu Khdeir, a 16-year-old Palestinian. Immediately afterwards, Tag Meir chartered buses from Tel Aviv and Jerusalem to visit those grieving. The large Israeli contingent wished to pay its respects to the Abu Khdeir family, and they were eventually welcomed in the mourners’ tent.

“This family became our friends and every year since then we visit them – usually around Hanukkah. We bring sufganiyot [jelly doughnuts] and they bring oranges from Jericho,” Gvaryahu said, pointing out that this was a good illustration of how, even in the face of terrible tragedy, a victim’s family can be shown how the perpetrators are not representative of a whole people.

Gvaryahu stressed that Tag Meir gives no preferential treatment to Jewish or Muslim victims of terrorism or hate crimes. In instances of Muslim terrorism, Tag Meir delegations, comprised of Jews and Muslims, are also sent out to those grieving.

Tag Meir is a coalition of 48 organizations that works to build tolerance and fight racism in Israel. It is made up of groups from various religious backgrounds – Arab, secular, Reform, Masorti (Conservative), Orthodox – which Gvaryahu views as a key reason for its success. With volunteers located at several places in Israel, Tag Meir is able to dispatch help quickly, supporting victims with emotional, financial and legal assistance.

At its core, Tag Meir sees the battle against racism as a part of a campaign that supports both the democratic and traditional Jewish values of loving one’s neighbours and justice for all. Whatever their politics, the organization argues, the majority of Israelis oppose acts of violence against innocent people who “are being used as pawns in a political fight that has little or nothing to do with them.”

During the violence that erupted in Israel in May 2021, Tag Meir members worked to ease tensions between Jewish and Arab communities. They set up a human chain around the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City, visited areas that had been affected by riots, and handed out flowers in cities with large Arab populations in a gesture of peace.

Each year, Tag Meir orchestrates Flowers for Peace on Jerusalem Day, a time when activists hand out roses to residents of the Old City.

The umbrella group goes beyond responding to Jewish-Muslim attacks. In 2012, following riots against African refugees in South Tel Aviv, the home of some Eritrean refugees in Jerusalem was firebombed. Tag Meir organized a rally in the area and provided the family with material support.

Tag Meir also offers training in Israel, with programs for teachers in the national Orthodox school system and workshops in educational institutions across the country. Among the workshop topics are caring and empathy, open-mindedness and mutual understanding.

Responding to an audience question about the current political situation in Israel, Gvaryahu said, “I have no doubt in my mind that the next coalition will have Arab members and that the party of Mansour Abbas (the United Arab List) will be bigger and stronger,” citing the chance that more Arabs will vote in the next election. “This trend of governments working with Arab parties is good news and hopefully it will continue.”

Gvaryahu’s cross-country speaking tour included stops in Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto. His Vancouver talk on June 20 was moderated by Maytal Kowalski, a local board member of NIF Canada, and opening remarks were given by Ben Murane, executive director of NIFC.

For more information about Tag Meir and the New Israel Fund of Canada, visit tag-meir.org.il/en and nifcan.org.

Sam Margolis has written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC.

Diverse allies critical

Imam Mohammed Tawhidi once preached hatred, but now is known as “the Imam of Peace.” (photo from imamtawhidi.com)

Imam Mohammad Tawhidi once preached hate towards Jews from the pulpit, and believed the very worst stereotypes about the Jewish people. He was indoctrinated by the Ayatollah’s preachers in Iran. But, today, Tawhidi is known as “the Imam of Peace” for a reason. He’s preaching coexistence and common ground for Jews and Muslims.

In late May, Tawhidi spoke at a United Grassroots Movement event at Beth Emeth Bais Yehuda, a Toronto synagogue, on how people of all backgrounds can – and should – unite against antisemitism and extremism.

An Iranian Muslim of Iraqi origin, Tawhidi sees his former peers actively engaging in hate-filled rhetoric. For example, as in years past, the politics of division and derision were widespread at the Al Quds march in Toronto earlier this year – chants included slurs against Israel and Jews.

Government officials are either incapable of preventing hatred on city streets and property, or unwilling to do so, he said. To answer problems such as these, he encouraged talk attendees to find, and bring together, as many allies as possible, to speak out and even take legal action wherever warranted.

Tawhidi’s change from preaching hatred, to becoming a friend of Israel and the Jews, did not come overnight.

First, he spoke out against ISIS war crimes in the Middle East and Africa. When he was met with condemnation from his peers, he said it opened his eyes to the radical elements that existed within his circle.

“I was still a fundamentalist, an extremist and antisemite,” he said of his views until then. “I thought I was doing this on behalf of God.”

And yet, he began thinking of how he could reconcile the slaughter of innocents in the name of Islam.

The next significant moment for the imam was when he met a Jew. Needing roadside assistance one day in England, it was a visibly Jewish man who helped him.

Later, Tawhidi was invited to a synagogue for an interfaith dialogue. Although he was skeptical, initially, of the people he was communicating with, he left the event feeling a special connection.

His decision to criticize ISIS and radical Islam and preach for peace with Israel and Jewish people was met with a severe backlash.

“I knew I would lose my community, but I also knew I would be welcomed into a new one,” he said.

If he could turn a corner, so can others, Tawhidi maintained. But if they can’t do quite that, then it’s important, he said, to at least defend the truth in public, so that the people who are on the fence or ignorant of the issues can be exposed to all sides.

It’s hopeful for us to note, he said, that the kinds of beliefs he once held are no longer normative in many parts of the Arab world. He highlighted the signatories to the Abraham Accords with Israel, which is breathing new life into modern coexistence, he said.

Further proof of the power of allies, said Tawhidi, is that he received nearly three-quarters of the vote in favour of him winning the position of vice-president of the Global Imams Council, a transnational nongovernmental body of Muslim religious leaders.

Tawhidi stresses that Islam is not a religion that hates Jews, and anything to the contrary is a perversion of the Quran.

To defend against antisemitism, he insisted that Jews and non-Jews must call it out, take legal action when merited, and bring together many communities: “Do not underestimate the power of your allies!” he said.

A staunch supporter of Israel and what he sees as Israel’s right to Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), Tawhidi said, in response to a question from the Jewish Independent, “There can be no circumstances where the Israeli government should give away any land that belongs to the Jewish people. The holy Quran has made it very clear that God, the God of Abraham, wants Jews to live in that region and for Jerusalem to be their capital. That is the teaching of my Quran, and it is clearly stated in Chapter 5, verse 20 onwards.”

As for developing allies out of those who do not support Israel, yet will speak out against antisemitism, Tawhidi said, “You can’t hate a people and you can’t hate a whole country, but I guess they have issues with certain policies of that government, so they need to provide productive and constructive criticism, so that the problems can be solved, and that solutions can be placed forward.”

However, he continued, “a blanket hate on a nation or a people does not come from a person that is worth making a friend, I don’t believe.”

Jon Wasserlauf is a freelance writer, and a political science major and law student based in Montreal.

Yom Yerushalayim

Yom Yerushalayim took place Sunday, commemorating the reunification of the city during the 1967 Six Day War. The liberation of the Western Wall, a moment captured so powerfully through an iconic photo of three awe-struck young soldiers, is an unforgettable part of Jewish history.

The reunification of the city was by no means merely a symbolic or administrative event. Neither was it solely a national victory. In the millennia-long history of the Jewish people’s connection to the Second Temple, there have been just two decades when Jewish prayer at the Western Wall has been interrupted – the years between 1948 and 1967, when Jordan occupied East Jerusalem and refused freedom of religious observance at Judaism’s holiest site.

Put mildly, the reunification of the city and its spiritual implications, as well as its political ones, represent a massive historical event. So, it is hardly surprising that emotions run high on the subject. Now, at a time when political extremism is sadly on the rise in so many places in the world, including in Israel, it is likewise hardly surprising that Yom Yerushalayim would be a lightning rod for the worst elements in Israeli society.

On Monday, top Israeli leaders condemned some of the words and deeds of a minority of participants in Sunday’s Yom Yerushalayim parade. Some of the men who marched through the Old City’s Muslim Quarter wore T-shirts with phrases like “Rabbi Kahane was right” and images of a machine gun emerging from a Star of David. Some marchers chanted calls for death to Arabs and slapped racist stickers on the shutters of Muslim storefronts that had wisely closed for the afternoon. Young men shouted “Whores” at a group of Arab women watching the passing spectacle.

Yom Yerushalayim is a day for celebration. While imperfect, Israel ensures freedom of worship at holy sites under its jurisdiction, something occupying Arab forces (that is, Jordan) refused to do. Most of the celebrants Sunday did not exhibit xenophobia and hatred.

Still, the best are tainted by the worst. In this space several weeks ago, in relation to the appearance of Nazi flags and other atrocities at the “truckers” protest in Ottawa, we said: “It is no less abhorrent to march alongside people carrying a swastika flag than it is to carry a swastika flag.”

To march alongside evil is to condone it.

To their credit, top Israeli leaders responded strongly, albeit a day after the abhorrent actions took place. Benny Gantz, the defence minister, said it is time to declare several of the groups involved in the mayhem as terrorist groups. Among them are extremist groups like La Familia and Lehava.

Israelis – and Jews – are very often held to a higher standard than other nations. This is a phenomenon with deep, discriminatory roots. Put simply, it may be a natural, though cynical, human reaction to adherents of the original form of ethical monotheism, i.e. if Jews cannot exemplify superhuman virtue, the justification presumably goes, why should the rest of humanity feel compelled to behave any better?

Conversely, though, the fact that critics (or enemies) of the Jewish people are hypocrites should not affect Jews’ own striving for ethical conduct. The bad behaviour of others is not an excuse for bad behaviour by anyone. Israel as a state – and Jews as a people – must roundly condemn the perpetrators of xenophobia and violence last Sunday.

And Gantz is right. It’s time to call out these perpetrators for what they are.

Rabbi talks of healing

Clockwise from top left: Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker of Congregation Beth Israel in Texas speaks with the Anti-Defamation League’s Cheryl Drazin, Jonathan Greenblatt and Deb Leipzig. (screenshot)

Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker was bustling around Congregation Beth Israel, in the Dallas suburb of Colleyville, Tex., getting ready for Shabbat morning services. There was a knock on the synagogue’s door and the rabbi welcomed a stranger who was looking for shelter from the unusually cold morning. Cytron-Walker prepared the man a cup of tea and made conversation.

“There were no initial red flags,” the rabbi recalled Jan. 20, in an Anti-Defamation League web event that included the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The man exhibited no signs that he would be a danger, said Cytron-Walker.

“The sense of nervousness, the darting around, those kinds of things that you might expect,” were absent, said the rabbi. “He was calm, he was appreciative, he was able to talk with me all the way throughout, look me in the eye.… I didn’t have a lot of suspicions.”

The unexpected guest was, of course, Malik Faisal Akram, an armed British man who would take the rabbi and three congregants hostage in an 11-hour standoff on Jan. 15. In the end, for all the responders mobilized and crisis negotiators assembled, the incident ended when the rabbi threw a chair at the attacker and the four hostages escaped.

Cytron-Walker explained how he put together the man’s motivations by listening to his rantings and the conversations he was having by phone. Akram was seeking the release of Aafia Siddiqui, a convicted terrorist known as Lady Al Qaeda, who is incarcerated in an American prison not far from Beth Israel synagogue. The hostage-taker apparently subscribed to antisemitic ideas, including the belief that the United States would do whatever was necessary to save the lives of Jewish hostages and that pressure by Jews could lead to his demands being met. At some point, Akram became aware of Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, senior rabbi at Central Synagogue in New York City, and demanded to speak with her during the incident.

“I don’t know how or why he chose her exactly, other than the fact that he thought that she was the most influential rabbi,” said Cytron-Walker. “And I was thinking, this guy really believes that Jews control the world.… I tried to explain to him to the best of my ability that it doesn’t work that way.”

The rabbi credited law enforcement for their response, and spoke at length about the security preparations that synagogues and other Jewish institutions take, with the support of groups like UJA Federations, the Anti-Defamation League, the Secure Community Network and the FBI.

“We had a security plan in place,” said Cytron-Walker. “All of it was helpful, and yet, one of the things that we are aware of is that no matter how good the plan is, no matter how good the security is, these kinds of things can still happen.”

Christopher Wray, director of the FBI, expressed solidarity with not just those immediately affected by the incident but the entire Jewish community.

“We understand all too well that these kinds of attacks are terrifying and that they are not only terrifying to the individuals directly and physically involved, they are also terrifying for all the members of Congregation Beth Israel and, really, for the entire Jewish community, many of whom understandably worry about other threats still out there,” Wray said. “Our joint terrorism task forces across the country will continue to investigate why this individual specifically targeted Congregation Beth Israel on their day of worship.”

Neither Wray, nor any other individual on the livestream, addressed remarks by the FBI’s special agent in charge of the case. As the hostage-taking in the synagogue was unfolding, Matthew DeSarno told media that the assailant was “singularly focused on one issue, and it was not specifically related to the Jewish community, but we are continuing to work to find motive.” His remarks have been condemned as erasing the antisemitic motivations of the terrorist.

While none of the hostages was physically harmed, Cytron-Walker spoke of the emotional recovery that he, the other hostages and the broader community are undergoing.

“It’s going to be one step at a time for us,” he said. “We are doing the best we can to heal. We’re going to have services on Shabbat evening, we’re going to have services on Shabbat morning, we’re going to have religious school on Sunday and we already had a beautiful healing service on Monday night that was so meaningful – to actually see people, to be able to hug people.… But it’s one step at a time.… I’m getting the care that I need. I’m trying to make sure that I take care of my family and, at the same time, one of those pieces that we’re going to have to get past is that sense of fear.

“There was something traumatic that happened within the congregation,” he continued, “and we know that it’s not just our congregation that feels a sense of fear. It’s something that a lot of people and a lot of Jewish people in particular, our people, are living with.… We want to be able to go to services and pray and be together because one of the most important things is to be with one another within that sense of community. That’s needed right now more than anything else.”

Jonathan Greenblatt, chief executive officer of the Anti-Defamation League, moderated the online event.

A blind view of terror

Another violent attack on a North American synagogue, this one in Texas, has undermined the feelings of security among Jewish people everywhere.

It is important to see the incident in perspective. Thankfully, the rabbi and three other hostages survived the 11-hour ordeal and the only physical casualty was the perpetrator himself. Second, although such incidents happen too frequently, it must be remembered that, in the context of the many Jewish institutions in North America, this remains a highly unusual phenomenon. Third, the community – Jewish and non-Jewish – locally and internationally condemned the attack and celebrated the escape of the hostages. This differs from situations we have seen in other times and places in which those in power – police, political leaders, the general public – were either complicit or indifferent. A service of healing two days after the incident brought a thousand people of many religious and demographic backgrounds together in response. Police, interfaith leaders and elected officials were united in their expressions of condolence and solidarity.

As Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker noted in a presentation with the Anti-Defamation League (click here for story), Jewish community organizations benefit from the (sadly necessary but well-developed) security protocols created and implemented in partnership with Jewish organizations and law enforcement officials. These precautions are familiar to anyone who has set foot in a Jewish institution in recent decades. The visible presence of security can be a reassurance but also is a reminder of the potential for such an attack for people entering a synagogue for services or a Jewish community centre for a workout or sending their children to a Jewish day school. However, another byproduct of this increase in security and comfort for some Jews is the discomfort and lack of safety these protocols elicit in racialized Jews and others who experience more harm from policing. The answer to the problem of a lack of security cannot only be addressed by ever-increasing security, be it walls, cameras, guards, or bollards.

It is perhaps one of the most enduring cognitive disconnects that, while almost any Jew has, at least in the back of their mind, the potential for attack, whenever such an incident does take place, a seemingly opposite reaction occurs among some non-Jewish observers.

In the Texas case, it was exemplified by Matthew DeSarno, the FBI agent in charge of the case, who, in the midst of the crisis, told media that the perpetrator “was singularly focused on one issue, and it was not specifically related to the Jewish community, but we are continuing to work to find motive.”

Even without knowing the details of the individual perpetrator or his motivations, the idea that an official would insist that an attack on a synagogue is unrelated to the Jewish community is jaw-dropping. Unfortunately, it is a common response.

The most celebrated example was after terrorists in Paris targeted a kosher supermarket in 2015, when then-U.S. president Barack Obama condemned those who “randomly shoot a bunch of folks in a deli in Paris.” If the Islamist terrorists who perpetrated the attacks on multiple Jewish targets that day didn’t know that Hypercacher was a kosher supermarket with a primarily Jewish clientele, it was an incredibly lucky coincidence for them.

This refusal to see explicit attacks on Jews as explicit attacks on Jews may be a psychological phenomenon beyond our realm to unravel. Yet there seems to be some socio-psychological need to search for any alternative explanation than plain old antisemitism when a synagogue or other Jewish institution is attacked.

To be kind, perhaps it is wishful thinking. Decent people might search for a rationale that alleviates the fear that the oldest prejudice is as alive today as ever. More realistically, there is a web of conscious and, probably more commonly, unconscious biases that blind people to the blatantly obvious.

As we learned more about the perpetrator, we discovered that he subscribed to a form of conspiracy thinking that sees Jews as having unparalleled power – in this case, the ability to induce the American government to release an imprisoned terrorist. Nevertheless, because the perpetrator was using Jews as an avenue meet his objectives, rather than being motivated solely by a desire to attack Jewish people, the FBI agent eliminated antisemitism as a motive – a truly confounding perspective from a law enforcement official standing outside a synagogue where Jews were being held hostage.

This reaction happens too frequently to be dismissed as a coincidence. There is something baked into the Western imagination that makes denial and deflection the default response to an attack on Jewish people.

One explanation may be that the very ideas that the Texas assailant held – that Jews are inordinately powerful – although rarely expressed so crudely, is actually held by a large swath of the general public, perhaps leading people to conclude that, no matter what befalls an individual Jew or two, “the Jews,” as a people, still hold all the cards or will be just fine.

Other obfuscations dismiss clear and unequivocal attacks on Jews as mere “political statements” on Middle East affairs. Interestingly, those who sometimes explicitly blame Israel or Israeli policies for overseas antisemitic incidents are playing into another familiar and ancient trope about Jews: whatever befalls them, they have brought upon themselves.

It is never bad advice for Jews to be vigilant about our individual and collective security and each violent attack is a timely reminder. But what we need to see are more non-Jews, especially those in positions of authority, addressing the blindness they have as individuals and institutions to what is, to Jewish eyes, absolutely obvious.

Sadly, not a new experience

Some of us are likely struggling to recover from the hostage-taking event at Congregation Beth Israel in Texas, along with pandemic stress. Perhaps most stressful is that we know a synagogue invasion could happen anywhere, during any service. Most of us figure out where the exits are when we go to synagogue, a Jewish community centre or other Jewish institution. We know the history. We need to be on guard when we gather.

On Jan. 15, we streamed our local congregation’s services to our Winnipeg living room and watched a kid my children knew from elementary school lead services. He was becoming a bar mitzvah. Jewish life continues despite the pandemic.

Antisemitism and traumatic events continue, too. When I realized what was happening in Texas, thanks to Jewish social media, it was hard to look away, even though it was Shabbat. Initially, non-Jewish news reports said there was an “apparent hostage-taking event.” This language was used despite the event being livestreamed. Why wasn’t it “real” from the beginning? Even after the hostages were freed, alive, thank G-d, the FBI didn’t immediately use the word antisemitism or hate.

There was no immediate answer from the FBI on why this person chose a synagogue during Shabbat services. There was a rush in some quarters to discuss why Islamophobia is wrong. Even as the hostage-taker identified his cause as aligned with that of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, a convicted felon who was outspoken in her antisemitism at her trial, others (including the synagogue president and the FBI) suggested this was a random event. Some articles said the hostages were “detained” – somehow implying they were at fault by being at synagogue on a Saturday morning.

When Jewish leaders, as well as President Joe Biden, Vice-President Kamala Harris and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke about this as an antisemitic act of terrorism, it wasn’t a narrative immediately embraced elsewhere. I found this unsettling. The feeling – of pointing out an issue but not being believed or heard – felt all too familiar. Language and how we tell our stories can twist our understanding of events, and this experience already seemed to be depicted in a way that didn’t ring true.

Certainly, the hostages will be debriefed, the hostage-taker’s family and history will be examined. We’ll learn more about what his motivations might have been. However, my instincts follow that of many Jewish people, as Rabbi Rick Jacobs, Union for Reform Judaism president, told MSNBC, “There’s no doubt that the underlying whole premise … was antisemitism,” he said, “The hostage-taker didn’t go to McDonald’s, didn’t go to some random place, and that is part of the story of antisemitism, to single Jews out.”

Remembering similar recent experiences hasn’t helped. Since the May 2021 war in Israel and Gaza, I’ve spent time reminding myself that I’m not crazy, and that I studied a lot of Middle East history as part of my long-ago undergraduate degree and graduate work. I knew that some of the narratives being touted online about the Israel/Palestine conflict were incorrect and badly mangled interpretations of the relevant history. I was particularly upset by the idea circulating on social media that Israelis were simply “white colonizers” subduing a brown people. This narrative didn’t reflect our thousands of years of history in Israel, nor did it account for the detail that, in fact, more than 50% of Israeli citizens are people of colour.

I recently studied a text in the Babylonian Talmud, Megillah 29A, which brought these issues to mind. It explored where Jews could find the Divine Presence in Babylonia. Rabbis were discussing how to find a holy place in the Diaspora after the destruction of the Temple. Rabbi Abaye says the Divine Presence visits the ancient synagogue in Huzal and the synagogue that was destroyed and rebuilt in Neharde’a. From there, two different stories are told about when the Shechinah, the Divine Presence, made itself known in Neharde’a.

Abaye died in 337 CE. So, we know that nearly 1,700 years ago, synagogues existed where Jewish people went to pray and study, and some of them were ruins that were rebuilt. Our need for holy places of gathering in the Diaspora is not new. Further, according to the stories on this page of Talmud, these places didn’t always feel safe. Sometimes, even the Divine Presence herself, the Shechinah, dropped by and that was frightening – never mind modern-day hostage-takers with guns.

A bit farther down on the page, Rabbi Eleazar haKappar, a late tannaitic rabbi (who lived roughly around 220 CE) suggests that, one day, in the future, all the synagogues and study halls in Babylonia will be transported and reestablished in Israel. Even then, there was a longing for return to Israel. Archeology shows us that Rabbi Eleazar haKappar was a real person, a colleague of Judah HaNasi, who likely spent most of his life in Katzrin. There is a door lintel originally from his beit midrash, his house of study, in the Golan Museum. Found in a mosque in the Golan Heights, its inscription says, “This is the Beit Midrash of Rabbi Eleazar haKappar.”

I felt reassured by reading about the Babylonian synagogues and the longing for Israel that was felt so long ago. Our religious connection to Israel is old. It’s in every synagogue service, every Passover seder, and deep within the Talmud. Our stories are tied to Israel. Despite others’ “versions” of history, the Jewish connection to Israel cannot be made into just a 19th-century European political movement.

Also, like the rabbis, I believe that those who are inclined to do so can feel the Shechinah within ourselves and in our synagogues. Jews and allies prayed world over for the safety of the hostages at Congregation Beth Israel. It would also take the hostages’ training and bravery and the intervention of police and FBI. Many people, including Rabbi Angela Buchdahl in New York, called 911 in the effort to try to help things turn out OK.

The trauma of this experience will linger with the Jewish community of Colleyville, Tex., for a long time. A man with mental health issues was offered shelter in a synagogue and given a cup of tea by Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker. That man became an armed hostage-taker. He took Jews as hostages. That rabbi and his congregants bravely handled the situation. The rabbi threw a chair at the right moment – and then, this man died there.

We’ll surely learn more detail over time. Meanwhile, we continue to be on our guard. Our congregations are holy because we come to be inside them. Sometimes, the Shechinah is there, too. This is the powerful story of the synagogues in Huzal and Neharde’a.

The text reminds us that we must keep track of our Jewish identity and narrative. Journalists who call Jews “apparent” hostages or say that Jews were “detained” in their own place of worship and an FBI spokesperson who doesn’t mention antisemitism? This isn’t our narrative. We can’t let it become the history that matters.

We’re People of the Book. We’re a people with a long, well-documented history. This ages-old written and oral history, and even archeological evidence, gives us confidence to believe in who we are and our story. Our words and the way we use them matters, so we must choose carefully. No story is perfect, we are only human. Even so, we should be the ones to tell it and guard it for future generations.

Joanne Seiff has written regularly for CBC Manitoba and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. Check her out on Instagram @yrnspinner or at joanneseiff.blogspot.com.

Relationship with the earth

At the dinner table, I asked my family what I should write. One of my kids, age 10, immediately said, “Climate change. People think the problem’s all hot air, but the problem’s really hot water.” There was a smirk at his joke, but his twin nodded in agreement.

Hurricane Ida’s just made landfall and is churning its way up through swaths of the United States as I write this. Haiti is in shambles from its most recent earthquake, only compounded by the storm that followed. In Manitoba, we’ve lived through a hot, smoky summer, surrounded by wildfires and besieged by drought. When it finally rained, there was so much of it that some places flooded.

The weather has, at times, felt apocalyptic. While I’m not superstitious, the recent uptick in truly awful weather and world events made me think back to Yom Kippur, 20 years ago.

In 2001, my husband and I sat in Yom Kippur services in Durham, N.C., where we lived at the time. Just a little over two weeks after Sept. 11, the terrorist acts in New York, Pennsylvania and at the Pentagon were on most people’s minds in that congregation.

Like many, I have images burned in my brain from that time, as both my family near D.C. and my husband’s in New York City, were alive, thank goodness, but personally affected. At synagogue, when we reached the prayer Unetaneh Tokef, the room fell silent, electrified. This ancient prayer, perhaps written by Yannai in the sixth century, is familiar to most who’ve attended services on the High Holidays or listened to Leonard Cohen:

“On Rosh Hashanah will be inscribed and on Yom Kippur will be sealed – how many will pass from the earth and how many will be created; who will live and who will die; who will die after a long life and who before his time; who by water and who by fire, who by sword and who by beast, who by famine and who by thirst, who by upheaval and who by plague, who by strangling and who by stoning. Who will rest and who will wander, who will live in harmony and who will be harried, who will enjoy tranquility and who will suffer, who will be impoverished and who will be enriched, who will be degraded and who will be exalted. But Repentance, Prayer and Charity mitigate the severity of the Decree.”

In Temple Beth El in Durham, there was loud sobbing and then, the most elemental keening and grief that I’ve ever heard. Twenty years later, I can’t forget my brother-in-law running down Broadway as the second tower fell behind him, covered in its dust as he escaped Manhattan on the Staten Island ferry, or my father-in-law, who walked five miles through Manhattan in the middle of the street, only to stand in Central Park, afraid to go indoors. My father and brother, away from D.C. on business trips, waited days, unable to get home. My sister-in-law, stuck in D.C. overnight, was finally able to leave the city and walked home to her apartment in Virginia, only to suffer through continual sonic booms, as fighter pilots raced overhead, shaking her high-rise building.

I will never hear this prayer, which is primarily part of the Ashkenazi liturgy, without being shaken by that keening sound.

However, just as I remember it, it’s also helpful to keep reading. It says that, by doing repentance, prayer and charity, we can change the severity of the outcome. We’re taught clearly that repentance is not simply feeling badly about past behaviour, it’s about making amends. We must apologize to those we’ve wronged and try to fix our mistakes. Our prayers are not simply rote, but must come from our hearts, with the right kind of kavannah, or intention.

Finally, it mentions we must do tzedakah, which some translate as charity, but really also means righteousness. It is the obligation to do the upstanding, just thing, and to act with integrity.

Although I can’t help but think of this prayer in context of those who died, both on Sept. 11 and those who, each year, aren’t written in the Book of Life for the next year, it’s not just about that. This prayer says we must act now to make change and to stop bad things from happening to us.

Even for those who don’t believe in its literal power, the message is clear. If we want to be able to live with ourselves later, we’re taught that we must repair our relationships promptly, practise introspection through prayer, and make a big effort to step up and do the right thing.

Those who’ve lived through floods, wildfires, earthquakes and hurricanes this summer would argue that bad things are happening. The rest of us, living through the pandemic, would be hard-pressed to disagree. Yet, Jewish tradition teaches us that we aren’t passive observers. We aren’t meant to simply submit and accept this.

More than one rabbi has told the joke about the man on top of his roof in the middle of a flood. He ignores the orders to leave, turns down a neighbour’s offer of a ride, says no to the rescue boat and refuses to be saved by helicopter.

The floodwaters rise higher. He drowns. Then he gets to speak with G-d. He says, “Lord, I believed in you. Why didn’t you save me?” And G-d responds, “Well, I sent you an evacuation order, a carpool, a boat and a helicopter! What else do you want?”

While we battle a pandemic, forest fires, rising temperatures in ocean waters and on land, it’s helpful to remember that our tradition teaches us that “G-d helps those who help themselves.”

This is a strange year, where some of us, used to sitting in synagogue, will instead be streaming services at home again, or perhaps spending time praying outdoors. It could also be the year where we decide that, upon reflection, it’s important to repair our relationship with the earth and to start doing the right thing personally. Climate change is upon us. It’s going to take everyone’s efforts to make a difference.

Wishing you an easy fast. May you be written for good in the Book of Life.

Joanne Seiff has written regularly for CBC Manitoba and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. Check her out on Instagram @yrnspinner or at joanneseiff.blogspot.com.

Extremism will not win

The latest explosion of terrorism from Gaza, the reaction from Israel, the violence in and around Jerusalem and the international response to these events continues to reverberate. Things have calmed somewhat in Israel, although violence continues, but a second, related front continues to rage in the public dialogue.

Anti-Israel rallies worldwide have seen explicit antisemitic imagery and threats openly and prominently exhibited. Such expressions are now commonplace at protests, in online spaces and in public squares. Anyone who insists there is some sort of hermetically sealed wall between anti-Zionism and antisemitism needs to explain why bands of thugs in London drove through Jewish neighbourhoods screaming “F**k the Jews, rape their daughters.” Social media has logged millions of overtly Jew-hating statements and images, including thousands of instances of the phrase #Hitlerwasright.

These examples are obviously extreme. Far more common, even from ostensibly mainstream voices, including elected officials in Canada, the United States and Europe, is language employing the apartheid libel or that Israel is a “settler-colonial” regime.

The settler-colonial motif is particularly effective in the Americas because we, unlike Israel, are actual settler-colonial societies. The assertion that Jews are, basically, an invasive species in the Land of Israel meets fertile soil just as global attention again focuses on the situation of Palestinians.

While the antisemitic language and violence is deeply worrisome, it raises a secondary issue about the motivations of anti-Israel voices. Villainizing, isolating and denouncing Israel seems to fulfil some primal urge in a great number of people. What it does not do is hasten Palestinian self-determination.

Any resolution to the conflict and, therefore, Palestinian statelessness, will come from the rejection of this approach. Put plainly: one cannot be pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel at the same time. If you seek the destruction of Israel, you reject compromise, coexistence and peace – the only things that will ever bring about an independent Palestine.

The binary that defines the Israeli-Palestinian situation is a false one. Being pro-Israel demands being pro-Palestinian – seeking a compromise in which both peoples live in peaceful coexistence. Being pro-Palestinian requires being pro-Israeli because only when the Palestinians, the region and the world accept Israel’s right to exist will we have a scenario where coexistence and a Palestinian state will emerge.

People overseas, many with no personal stakes in the conflict, prolong the problem. Among self-defined “pro-Palestinians” are many who seem content to fight for Palestine to the last Palestinian. Evidence of this macabre attitude can be seen every time overseas “allies” revel in the supposed moral victory of Palestinian victims exceeding Jewish victims when conflict erupts.

Similarly, too common among our own folks are rantings on social media along the lines that “there is no such thing as a Palestinian people.” Call them what you will (decent people refer to others by the terms they prefer), there are people who call themselves Palestinians and semantic arguments will not change that. We win no awards or disagreements by proving that the people who call themselves Palestinian are something other than what they say – just as those who subscribe to the kooky Khazar conspiracy of Jewish origin to refute Jewish indigeneity to the Holy Land deflect from the issue at hand. In both cases, it does not negate the core issue: both peoples – and many more whose identity gets short shrift in the binary – exist and live there now. That will not change.

Israel is not going anywhere and Israelis are not going, as the late American political reporter Helen Thomas suggested, “back to Poland.” Neither are Palestinians. The first step – it seems ludicrous that it needs to be said – is acknowledging that both peoples (and others!) are there now and deserve to be.

There are countless complexities in the Israeli-Palestinian mess. But there is one certainty that is not the least bit complicated: Palestinian self-determination will come and Israel’s right to exist will be secured because of coexistence and compromise. Neither side’s extremists will ever win.