by Rosemary H. Hayes

How influential an ancient story can be is demonstrated in the State of Israel’s insistence on its right to Palestinian territory as “promised” by their ancestral god and recorded in the Hebrew scriptures. However, in our time, Israel’s first president, Chaim Weizmann, said the opposing Palestinian claim to its own existential homeland meant that here was hot a case of “right and wrong,” but a case of “two rights.” This was substantiated by the British in 1917 with Lord Balfour’s famous declaration: “His Majesty’s Government views with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people … it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.”

The roots of this drama lie in archaic tales of the Arab and Jewish peoples, descendants of Ishmael and Isaac, sons of the patriarch Abraham. In the shadows behind them stands the archetypal rivalry of brothers, showing us through Cain and Abel the potential enmity hidden in the intimacy of sibling relationship. These stories reflect the pattern of human behavior where, as always, hubris confronts the truth of humility.

Although not an exact analogy to the first Semitic brothers, the twin sons of Isaac, Esau and Jacob, have a story asking to be held alongside the current bitter and bloody Middle Eastern conflict in which our own nation is seriously involved. Perhaps attention to this seminal story could somehow contribute to the desperately needed “roadmap” for resolution of such sensitive history.

Mike Godbe, a young American on a free Birthright tour of Israel, continues his diary and photos of the tour, reporting his experiences and the ways the tour staff present the history and politics of the country. Earlier posts from Masada, Mt. Herzl, Jerusalem, a kibbutz, and Caesaria can be accessed by clicking the corresponding links.

Wednesday, March 17th, 2010

The day began with a much welcome 2 hour bus ride to Tel Aviv, which most people slept through the entirety of due to only getting a few hours of sleep the night before.

Our first destination was the Save a Child’s Heart Foundation, based out of the Wolfson Medical Center in South Tel Aviv. Save a Child’s Heart is a program aimed at helping children from developing countries where pediatric cardiologists are not available or few and far between. They do their work in three ways, they completely cover the costs to bring children to Israel for treatment, they train doctors from developing countries in Israel, and they go to developing countries and do training and surgeries side by side.

The lady giving the info session tells us that 50% of the children who come to Israel to receive treatment come from the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan and Iraq. One of my peers comments that it seems like a political gesture to take such a disproportionate number of kids from the West Bank and Gaza. The SACH spokesperson, a late twenties girl originally from New York, says that it is not political, but that it is simply “a community in need, and we respond to that need.”

Mike Godbe, a young American on a free Birthright tour of Israel, continues his diary and photos of the tour, reporting his experiences and the ways the tour staff present the history and politics of the country. Earlier posts from Jerusalem, a kibbutz, and Caesaria can be accessed by clicking the corresponding links.

Sunday, March 14th, 2010
Today we met the six IDF soldiers that will be joining our group for the remaining five days of the program. All of them are between the ages of 19 and 21, half women, half men. When birthright was started around 2000, participants in the program were not allowed to walk through many parts of Jerusalem or go out at night, like we now are, because of the high level of danger during the second intifada. We are told that the IDF “encounters” program was incorporated into birthright to allow participants to meet and interact with Israeli citizens . . . The implication being that the soldiers were here to provide that connection between participants and Israelis, not participants and the Israeli military.

We played some name games and ice breakers in the morning, the soldiers still in full military garb (no guns). We then got ready for a somber day at Yad Vashem and Mt. Herzl Cemetery, the Holocaust museum / memorial and the burying place of nearly every prominent Israeli statesmen and soldier – among many others of lesser fame.

This is the second post from Mike Godbe, who is on a Birthright tour of Israel (the first is here). Mike is a 2009 graduate of Vassar College, who has been working with Peace Action West in Oakland, CA. He has a thoughtful take on the way that young Jews like himself are introduced to the history and issues of Israel / Palestine on these tours, that are provided free to any first time Jewish visitors to Israel who are aged between 18 and 26. [Originally posted under Dave Belden’s name, now under Mike’s so all his posts can be accessed together.]

Thursday March 11th, 2010.
We began the day with a wonderful hike down the cliffy mountainside of the Arbel. We explored a stunning centuries-old castle built into the hillside and avoided some cows as we made our way down to the bus with the Sea of Galilee barely visible in the distance through the haze.

Next we visited a Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu, a large and unique kibbutz that was founded in 1939. While many of Israel’s kibbutz’s have strayed from their hard-line socialist and agricultural ideals over the years, Sde Eliyahu remains completely cooperative with every member getting equal pay, and completely agricultural . . . and organic too. They have a whole host of organic solutions to common problems faced by large agricultural productions ranging from owls to donkeys to rotational planting. I almost ate too many of their delicious dates before a new friend reminded me of the undesirable effect that eating too many dates can have.

What is it like to go on a Birthright tour of Israel? These are free tours provided to first time Jewish visitors to Israel between the ages of 18 and 26. Tikkun reader Mike Godbe, who is on one of the tours right now, is sending us his impressions. We will be running them over the next few days, along with his photos. [Originally posted under Dave Belden's name, now under Mike's so all his posts can be accessed together, by clicking on his byline above. We are happy to welcome Mike as the latest blogger on our team].

Tuesday, March 9th 2010
After an eleven hour flight from Newark, we landed in Israel. We arrived at midnight east coast time / 7am Israel time, and we started the first of many full days.

With achy shoulders and sore necks, the forty of us poured out of the airport and onto decorative slabs of the huge yellow limestone that cover this county. “We are not trying to indoctrinate or convince you of anything,” was the very first thing we were told as a group. If we were secular–great, religious–great, feel like moving to Israel and joining the army–great, don’t feel moved to do anything Jewish ever again–that’s okay too. Among other things, we were told that we would be sent home if we got drunk but that consensual sex was fine; I believe our programmer’s smile-complemented words were, “no means no . . . but yes, we’re fine with yes.”

Bustling around as a huge group, a bunch of young people trying to feel each other out, I was floating in a cloud from jetlag / lack of sleep and that feeling of landing in a new place with thicker wetter air. I was brought back to earth when I got my first touch of guns in Israel, meeting our group’s private security guard. Having finished his tour in the IDF 8 months ago, Davir was still younger than me, 22. Young, thin, and always carrying a rifle.