Welcome back. It’s been a while since I’ve written. And luckily that’s because my dad took over the job while he was here. Thanks Dad! If you haven’t yet, go check out his Facebook. You’ll get an even better play by play.
On Friday afternoon, post half-marathon, I said goodbye for now to my Dad and our wonderful week together and headed to Tantur for an HUC spirituality retreat. Our teachers opened the weekend by establishing the pain and trauma that Israelis and Palestinians are going through right now. They said it might seem wrong to go to a beautiful place for the weekend and work on our spiritual selves. They hoped that the weekend wouldn’t cause us to completely forget the war but that it would lower the volume of it for just a little bit. We can’t do the work of carrying our communities through crisis if we are not also taking care of ourselves and our spiritual needs. And the weekend retreat was a beautiful and much-needed respite from the intensity of Jerusalem. We prayed and we chanted and we did Yoga and we learned and we worked to remind ourselves why we are doing what we’re doing. I am always appreciative of moments to remember my goal of using Judaism to bring people together, support and strengthen those suffering, and bring more joy into people’s lives and the world.
On Monday morning, back in Jerusalem, it was an obvious choice that I would go to the Kotel and welcome the new month of Adar II with Women of the Wall. When I arrived to Kotel security, the line (or blob, it’s Israel they don’t know how to line up) was huge. As always happens when Women of the Wall comes to the Western Wall to pray, security goes through each bag very thoroughly to make sure no woman is trying to bring in a Torah. So, I waited in the blob with many women in long skirts, holding siddurim and books of psalms. I did my best to shove to the front. I’m learning how to get around in this country and shoving is often the answer. I heard an older woman turn to one of the American girls studying in seminary and say something along the lines of “I can’t believe the reformim are doing this to us every month. We can’t get into our holy place because they want to make a fool of themselves with their crazy, fake Judaism. They want women to read from the Torah!” I had heard statements like this other times I had been to Women of the Wall, and more generally from religious Jews in Israel. Let’s just say I tell cab drivers that I am studying education at Hebrew University. As a non-confrontational person, I usually would ignore comments like this older woman’s who I stood with in line for the Kotel. But I couldn’t stand these 18-year-old American girls learning about reform Jews in this way. So, I turned to them and told them women are allowed to read Torah. (That’s not even just a reform thing! Talmud says women can read Torah in the presence of other women). The older woman, clearly overhearing me, turned around and declared that it was illegal to bring in a Torah to the women’s side of the Kotel. To which I declared that it was completely legal. The supreme court had just passed a law that declared it illegal for security to even look in women’s bags for Torahs. (Sadly, it didn’t yet change anything on the ground). Well now this woman and I were getting into it. I ended up declaring to her that I was a rabbi (close enough) to which she said, “you don’t look like a rabbi where is your kippa and tallis?” To which I said, “in my bag because I am waiting until I have police protection to put them on.” To which she said “you can be a rabbi this month for Purim but it’s just a costume” to which I said “well I’m a rabbi all year long” to which she said “well then it’s Purim for you all year long” to which I said “how wonderful! Purim all year long.” And by that point I had made it through the blob and entered the Kotel plaza. I call that a win! Davening with the women was amazing as always. And bestie from line came over to our prayer circle at one point and yelled that the two women holding the “bring them home” sign are not allowed to have their backs to the Kotel. I was pretty proud of myself that all she had left to yell about was backs facing the Kotel. As we walked out, the leaders of Women of the Wall held signs that said, “some people are looking for Sinwar in Gaza, others are looking for Torahs in women’s bags.”
And in case it doesn’t seem like it, yes, I do go to class. This is just about midterm so when not bickering with religious women about reform Judaism, I am studying. Two quizzes and a presentation are out of the way, now onto a paper about medieval Jewry. Oh the joys of rabbinical school.
In Hebrew class I presented on a Talmudic story in which a woman named Yalta is told she cannot be blessed by wine because she is already blessed by man’s seed. In a fit of anger she smashes 400 vessels of wine into pieces. Relatable content. In the book we read which reocunts Talmudic stories, the title of the chapter on Yalta is לשבור כדי לתקן “to break in order to repair.” Me being my educator self, I decided that I would have my classmates smash vessels as part of the experience. So, Monday afternoon I went looking for small flower pots that could be smashed in service of education. I had often walked by a place called Reuven’s Nursery on my way to Kol Haneshama, one of Jerusalem’s reform congregations. So, I decided I would go there on my mission to find smash-worthy vessels. As I entered the gate of the open space I assumed would be filled with plants, I found an empty lot with chickens roaming around and an old man sitting on a plastic chair in the middle of a whole lot of nothing. With some pain, he stood up and made his way over to me. “How can I help you” he asked in Hebrew with a strong accent I couldn’t place. “I’m looking for flowerpots” I said and pointed to the few remaining plants in pots I saw on my left. At this point he could tell I was American, and he switched into English. “Everything in my nursery was destroyed” he said. And he pointed to a pile of broken pottery. “That’s exactly what I need!” I said excitedly “Take as much as you want” he said, “and then come sit next to me and I’ll tell you my story.” So, I dug through the pile of pottery and found a few pieces that were perfect for my presentation.
And then I sat next to him, in my own plastic chair, in a place that felt so far away from Jerusalem. I felt like I was sitting in a shtetl in Poland. And then Reuven told me his story. He is 87 years old. From Persia. In 1948 he lived in Jerusalem with his family. He was 11 years old, and his brother was sent to fight in the war for independence. When his brother died fighting, his family was told to move into a house abandoned by Arabs on the outskirts of what was Jerusalem at the time. His family set up their life on this land and began a nursery. In 1967 the Vatican showed up and claimed ownership of the land. They sold much of it, but he kept his home and his nursery. And then the Israel Land Administration showed up and said he had no right to be there. They brought in bulldozers and destroyed the nursery he had built in 1948. This was why his pottery sat in piles of shatters. He sits every day on his plastic chair, protecting the land he knows belongs to him. Sadly, he has been arrested on multiple occasions. He cried as he shared with me that his wife had passed away two weeks ago. At this point I had to leave. He told me to come visit whenever I wanted and that he would have me over for Shabbat.
There is so much in this story. It is awful and magical and gut-wrenching and guilt-producing and sad and scary. I cannot believe the Israeli Land Administration is telling him to leave this land given to him in ’48, that he has lived on for 76 years. But then again, he did move onto land that did not belong to him. But he was 11! And the residents had already fled. There is so much injustice in this story. And I don’t know what is right. But I’m grateful to have met such a special man, in this crazy, holy city of Jerusalem.
On Wednesday, for our Israel Seminar class we traveled to several Arab towns in the center of the country to hear from Palestinian Citizens of Israel. It was challenging and beautiful and hopeful to hear from Palestinians who are working to make positive change in their own communities and beyond. Every place we went to they said “normally we would welcome you with cookies and fruit and coffee. We are so sorry you came during Ramadan.” I couldn’t believe everyone we met with spent their day of fasting speaking with us. We toured a place called Moona that encourages young people to work in the high-tech industry. The young woman leading our tour introduced herself. “I was born in Gaza” she said “we moved to Jaffa when I was seven. A lot of my family is still there.” My eyes welled up with tears looking at this beautiful woman, who works every day to bring Jewish and Palestinian people together and spent her day touring Jewish Americans around her organization, who has to imagine the fate of her family in Gaza during this awful time. “We continue praying for peace” we said to her as we left Moona.
At lunch I learned that Itay Chen, a 19-year-old soldier presumed to be a hostage had actually been killed on October 7th and his body had been taken into Gaza. Just two weeks ago, I sat in a singing circle in the hostage tent with his parents. I had just heard them tell us about Itay, about the birthday party they held for him at the Kotel putting notes in the wall praying for his return. They held onto hope for so long. And now he is gone.
For our last meeting, we met with a civics teacher: an unbelievable Palestinian citizen who teaches the Israeli government’s civics curriculum to Arab high school students half the day and Jewish students the other half of the day. She told us about the racist statements her Jewish students say to her and how her Arab students complain every day that they don’t see themselves in the Israeli curriculum. How can we sing the Hatikvah, read the Declaration of Independence, or learn how to be good citizens of Israel when we are stopped on the street and in shopping malls because Israelis think we’re terrorists. How can we be loyal to a country that is not loyal to us? What stood out to me most about this teacher’s talk with us was when she said, “I don’t care about land, I care about people.” And with that simple sentence, she summed up everything I believe about the Israeli Palestinian conflict. And then I thought back to Reuven and his nursery. How can we choose people over land when the people are so tied to the land? When some people had to leave their land and some people stayed? How can we choose people over land when this land means so much to so many people? As always, I am left with more questions than answers.
Shabbat Shalom,
Shayna
