Tikkun readers naturally want to know what happened on Israel at the US Social Forum. The chief thing that I was aware of (apart from a minor issue of a canceled workshop about which I just posted) was the equation of Zionism with its rightwing manifestations and with current Israeli policies. As if there was no such thing as leftwing, anti-racist Zionism.

I didn’t mention Israel in my first piece about the Forum, because I wasn’t tracking the issue well myself and indeed am highly diffident about writing about Israel at all. That may sound odd for a Tikkun staffer, but as a nonJew, brought in to help with the interfaith outreach of the magazine, I have learned how little I know about Israel/Palestine compared to the experts. Still, I did go to one highly troubling workshop on Israel and do have a few things to say.

A reader who was also there wrote to me yesterday:

I am not sure how much of the final mass session–”National People’s Movement Assembly” you attended on Saturday afternoon. But I was in the room for one hour of it. I caught the part where they showed some clips of the forum on the wall and projected some of the words that they promised were only parts of the many resolutions that would eventually be published. [Another Tikkun reader] suggested that I share with you, what I wrote to him. Here is my response to [him] about your article and it not having any mention of Israel:

It could be that Dave Belden just didn’t become aware of what was on the wall in that big room with the terrible sound, if he didn’t walk in at the right time. Eventually, he ought to see the resolutions that will be coming out. It is clear that those resolutions will actually represent the small [I don't know how large or small] number of people who bothered to be in the rooms that crafted them. In the end, most people at the social forum, will not have crafted them, voted on them, etc. Yet they will be presented as representing the forum, it seems.

Specifically, what I was referring to .. was the words on the wall that I had read, to the effect that [I don't have the exact wording and I expect that we will eventually see it] we/the USSF need to/plan to “educate” the public that “Zionism is unequivocally equated with racism.” I know that there was a strong Pro-Palestine track and that there was also the three day gathering of Jewish anti-Zionists in Detroit, immediately prior to the forum. But I am guessing that whatever official resolutions come out of the USSF, officially, can not represent a majority of the USSF participants. I was not impressed by the “National People’s Movement Assembly” that I attended for as long as I did.

The workshop I attended was Synagogue Vigils: Six Years of Challenging Judaic Zionism. This was presented by a small number of people, Jewish, Palestinian and neither, who have been picketing Beth Israel Congregation in Ann Arbor, Michigan for six years to protest against the congregation members’ and rabbi’s support for Israeli policies. They initially asked and were refused permission to hold a discussion about the issue in the synagogue. They mounted a demo outside and thought it would be a quick protest that would lead to them being invited in, but they never were, and so have continued. Now on the street outside the synagogue they spend more time facing the other way, towards the general public, trying to educate them with placards and leaflets that detail all the many human rights abuses of the Israeli state.

I was happy to see this amount of dedication to human rights and the desire for dialogue, even when it is not welcomed. But I was not happy that the tenor of the workshop was to argue that Judaism itself was very likely the problem, not just Zionism, and still less just rightwing Zionism. I have since had some correspondence with one of the workshop presenters and have emailed my thoughts to Henry Herskovitz, the convener, who has not so far responded. It was as if he was testing out the idea that Judaism itself was irredeemable, but wasn’t fully committed to it yet.

The issue here was the same as with the Social Forum’s resolution on Israel/Palestine (which we don’t yet have the final text for). It’s a failure to appreciate or take account of the whole wide area that is occupied by Jewish human rights and peace activists who support the idea of an Israeli Jewish state while totally opposing the Occupation and many current Israeli policies.

These voices are well represented in the current issue of Tikkun in a debate on boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) between Jeremy Ben-Ami of J Street–who opposes them especially when they are selectively applied to Israel and not to every other misbehaving state and corporation–and three activists who support them when applied to corporations involved in the Occupation: Rebecca Vilkomerson of Jewish Voice for Peace, Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb, cofounder of the Shalom Network for Jewish Nonviolence, and Maya Wind, an Israeli Shministi (conscientious objector).

Ben Ami has a difficult time in this discussion trying to get the others to say that they are in fact in favor of a state of Israel and a two state solution: perhaps, given all their anti-Zionist allies in the BDS movement, it is hard for them to claim what is in fact their leftwing Zionism, but they do so in the course of the interview. They have a hard time persuading Ben-Ami that serious financial pressure is needed on corporations that profit from the Occupation. He thinks there is more room to persuade the American government and voters that American policy can be changed without these measures. It is a very vital and important debate and you can buy a copy online here.

It seems blindingly obvious to me, as an outsider to the Jewish world, that the best way to swing American Jews and their friends and allies towards creating a peaceful solution is to argue that ending the Occupation and cleaning up Israel’s act is the ethically Jewish thing to do! And not to argue that you may have to give up your Judaism if you want to help the Palestinians!

This is surely good Palestinian strategy as well. If you end up denying that there is a nonracist version of Zionism, then you have slipped into demonizing (exaggerating the faults of) all Zionists. Demonizing is dangerous. It metastasizes: soon you may be in danger of slipping into anti-Semitism. It works both ways: others will demonize you in return — Islamophobia. Strategically, demonizing loses you all the potential allies you could get among the demonized group. There are plenty of leftwing, nonracist Zionists, and their numbers are growing in the US as far as I can tell. It’s the obvious way to go for Jews who are appalled at Israeli policies.

In the first version of this post I added here a long email I sent to Henry Herskovitz, the convenor of the workshop on the synagogue vigil, but I thought better of it and have taken it out. It gave too much attention to what is an intellectually untenable idea, that Judaism itself is the problem. I have argued above that it should be possible to have a Jewish state that is nonracist, just as it should be possible to have an Islamic or Christian state that is nonracist. My teacher on Judaism is Rabbi Michael Lerner so I will quote him:

Judaism teaches us to “love the stranger,” (the Other). There is no more frequently quoted injunction in Torah than variations on the following theme: ‘When you come into your land, do not oppress the stranger: remember that you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” A Jewish state that has been unwilling or unable to live by that command has no religious foundation and can generate no lasting support from those committed to God and Torah. Such a state, failing that central commandment, is unlikely to provide safety and security for the Jewish people in any long-term way in the twenty-first century.” [from http://www.tikkun.org/article.php/Lerner-israel60yearslater].


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