Rain (I Don't Mind) - For Shemini Atzeret

שִׁבְעַ֣ת יָמִ֔ים תַּקְרִ֥יבוּ אִשֶּׁ֖ה לַה' בַּיּ֣וֹם הַשְּׁמִינִ֡י מִקְרָא־קֹדֶשׁ֩ יִהְיֶ֨ה לָכֶ֜ם
וְהִקְרַבְתֶּ֨ם אִשֶּׁ֤ה לַֽה' עֲצֶ֣רֶת הִ֔וא כָּל־מְלֶ֥אכֶת עֲבֹדָ֖ה לֹ֥א תַעֲשֽׂוּ׃

Seven days you shall bring offerings by fire to Adonai. On the eighth (ha-shemini) day you shall observe a sacred occasion and bring an offering by fire to Adonai; it is a solemn gathering (atzeret) you shall not work at your occupations. (Leviticus 23:36)

The holiday called Shemini Atzeret (literally, “the gathering on the eighth day”) is for many people the phantom, forgotten festival in Jewish life. Even Jews who determinedly spend their week in the Sukkah might be hard-pressed to say what, exactly, that eighth day is all about.

The 23rd day of the seventh month is the culmination of a three-and-half week period full of holidays: Rosh HaShana, Yom Kippur, and Sukkot have all preceded it. It arrives eight days after Sukkot begins, the final punctuation mark on this festival-rich season.

This prompts the Rabbis to ruminate about how Sukkot in the autumn complements Pesach in the spring: just as Pesach is the 7-day pilgrimage festival celebrating the spring planting, Sukkot is the 7-day pilgrimage which rejoices in the fall harvest. Passover is “capped” after 50 days by a holiday that is called Atzeret (we call that early-summer holiday Shavuot). So, for the sake of symmetry, Sukkot should also be “capped” by an Atzeret.  (But why isn’t it 50 days later? The midrash answers: because winter is coming, and a pilgrimage in the middle of winter’s rain and snow would be too arduous for the Jews.) (Midrash Tanchuma, Pinchas 15)

But the special identity of this day is far from clear, and the Torah doesn’t make it much clearer when it discusses ancient Israel’s festivals. In Leviticus, the Atzeret sounds like the capstone to the seven days of Sukkot, and is a holiday in its own right (“you shall not work at your occupations”). In Numbers, a large numbers of sacrifices are made on each day of Sukkot; on the eighth day, a more modest offering is prescribed, indicating that the eighth day was connected to Sukkot, and yet separate and distinct from it (Numbers 29: 35-38). And in Deuteronomy, there is no mention of an eighth-day assembly after the seven days of Sukkot (Deut. 16:13-15)!

Later in the Bible, we read of the enormous Sukkot celebrations that took place in Jerusalem. When King Solomon dedicated the Temple on the Sukkot holiday, Shemini Atzeret is the “one more day,” for the king (and the King of Kings) to spend together with the people of Israel; a little more time to linger together before everyone trudges home to face the approaching winter (I Kings 8:66).

Consider at what a sweet image that is. Long before rabbis griped and groaned about Jews who couldn’t be bothered to show up to synagogue more than twice a year, the Bible was imagining God, surveying the Sukkot masses in Jerusalem, saying, “This time we’ve had together during the holidays has been so special—for Me! Stay just a little longer, just one day, so we can savor it just a little more.” That was Shemini Atzeret.

By the generations of the Talmud, Shemini Atzeret (like many of the Torah’s holidays) had acquired some new features. It developed one overarching theme: water.

Shemini Atzeret became the time when the Rabbis would pray that life-giving rains would soak the land of Israel. They (as do we) begin to insert the words “you cause the wind to blow and the rains to fall” in the second blessing of the Amidah on Shemini Atzeret. And one of the key features of the liturgy on this day is an elaborate piyyut called Geshem (“Rain”).

Water is a historical worry for the dwellers of the Land of Israel. Diaspora-dwellers might find this hard to understand. In North America, rain can fall pretty much any time in the calendar year. Not so for Israel; almost all the annual rainfall comes down during a five-month rainy season from November to March. An ancient farmer, dependent on winter rains for a successful sowing season in the spring, would be very much aware if the rain was even just a few weeks late. Thus we can understand their fear and trepidation when rain had yet to arrive. An entire tractate of the Mishnah, Ta’anit, is devoted to the prayers and fasts that are prescribed for the community when the rain has failed to come.

The Torah testified that the Land of Israel was dependent on the rain. By contrast, the land of Egypt did not rely on rain; rather, the irrigation of Egyptian fields came from the overflowing waters of the Nile River. The 3rd-century apocalyptic prophet Zechariah knew this; as he called upon God to punish the oppressive nations of the world with drought, he acknowledged that drought will not be much of a punishment against Egypt. Don’t worry, the prophet says; Egypt will get its own special, appropriate form of discipline! (Zechariah 14:18).

But the Land of Israel is different. Israel depends on God’s mercies, expressed through rainfall:

כִּ֣י הָאָ֗רֶץ אֲשֶׁ֨ר אַתָּ֤ה בָא־שָׁ֙מָּה֙ לְרִשְׁתָּ֔הּ לֹ֣א כְאֶ֤רֶץ מִצְרַ֙יִם֙ הִ֔וא אֲשֶׁ֥ר יְצָאתֶ֖ם מִשָּׁ֑ם
אֲשֶׁ֤ר תִּזְרַע֙ אֶֽת־זַרְעֲךָ֔ וְהִשְׁקִ֥יתָ בְרַגְלְךָ֖ כְּגַ֥ן הַיָּרָֽק׃
הָאָ֗רֶץ אֲשֶׁ֨ר אַתֶּ֜ם עֹבְרִ֥ים שָׁ֙מָּה֙ לְרִשְׁתָּ֔הּ אֶ֥רֶץ הָרִ֖ים וּבְקָעֹ֑ת לִמְטַ֥ר הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם תִּשְׁתֶּה־מָּֽיִם׃

For the land that you are about to enter and possess is not like the land of Egypt from which you have come. There the grain you sowed had to be watered by your own labors, like a vegetable garden but the land you are about to cross into and possess, a land of hills and valleys, soaks up its water from the rains of heavens. (Deut. 11:10-11)

Worrying about water is still the case today. A visitor to the Dead Sea cannot help but notice that this marvel is rapidly dissipating; it recedes a few dozen meters each year. The water level of the Kinneret precipitously rises and falls. And the battle over control of aquifers and water-sources is part of the realpolitik between Israel and her neighbors.

Today, Israel is the world’s greatest water innovator. It has successfully deployed technology, conservation, and good management to meet the water needs of its citizens and its crops—with enough left over that it even exports water to its neighbors! (In the Boston suburbs, by contrast, it seems like every summer there is a drought and the towns rush into panic-mode, limiting the amount of water that people can use.)  The themes of water scarcity and how Israel has addressed it are discussed in the recent book Let There Be Water by Seth M. Siegel.

The Sages of the Talmud, as was their wont, took these themes and spiritualized them. In Babylonia, drought was less of a worry than it was in the Land of Israel. So for the Rabbis, rain became a symbol of God’s benevolence and spiritual openness. (The Beatles knew this too.)  אין מים אלא תורה says the Talmud (Bava Kamma 17a); “Wherever the Torah mentions ‘water,’ read ‘Torah’ instead.”  They make a comparison: Just as rain delivers physical sustenance, Torah brings spiritual sustenance.

Shemini Atzeret, then, has a symbolic and deeply powerful meaning to those who are open to it. On Sukkot, we expressed our gratitude for the harvest of blessings with which we are surrounded. As the holiday concludes, we pray for life-giving waters that will sustain us and create a fertile environment for blessings yet to come. If this can happen, then we know that we can find the resources and strength to face the long cold winter ahead.     

Pluralism in Israel – Our Facts on the Ground

It’s almost Shabbat in Netanya, a coastal town in central Israel, and I’m with Rabbi Edgar Nof, the Energizer-bunny of Mitzvahs and inclusion.

The synagogue where Edgar works—we joke that the founders didn’t try very hard when they named it “Natan-Ya”—is a small boxy building that was once Haganah headquarters in the days before the Independence. Next door is a school that, in those pre-state days, was occupied by the radical Zionist organization Lehi.  Edgar points out the tower from where, in those revolutionary times, they sent signals to the illegal aliyah boats that were shut out from the ports of Haifa and Akko by the British. 

The mainstream Haganah and the extremist Lehi were bitter rivals. Edgar smiles: “Even then, left and right were fighting each other.” 

________________

Netanya doesn’t seem like the cutting-edge of progressive Judaism. It doesn’t feel like the cutting-edge of anything; it’s more like an Israeli version of a beach town from a Bruce Springsteen song whose glory days are past. Historically it has drawn large numbers of immigrants from Russia and, more recently, France. Natan-Ya—the only liberal shul in the city—feels far from the pulse of Jerusalem or Tel Aviv. 

But spend a Shabbat with Edgar and his community and you’ll see precisely what Reform Judaism’s “facts on the ground” look like, and why their growth is such an imperative in Israel.

Friday afternoon commences with two classes that Edgar teaches to various constituencies in his shul—one is a class of conversion students, a richly multiethnic gathering. Plus there’s time for a Tefillin-wrapping ceremony for a boy who will become a Bar Mitzvah in the day ahead. He’s one of two bar mitzvah boys over the next 24 hours.

At Kabbalat Shabbat services, a woman who has been part of the community for years is celebrated: She has finally finished the process of conversion to Judaism, and Edgar immersed her in the Mediterranean earlier in the week. On Shabbat morning, she is called to the Torah for the first time after three decades of life in Israel. The congregation sings to her and embraces her.

On Saturday, there are two bar mitzvah celebrations; one in the morning and one in the afternoon. The first—the tefillin-wrapping boy’s—is a family where the father is Sefardi-Moroccan and the mother is Filipino. They exude such genuine joy. They may have thought that they never would have had a moment like this, as a secular family for whom the doors of the Orthodox establishment must have seemed quite shut. But Edgar and the shul make it happen; as parents and grandfather are called to the Torah, the emotion of generations of Jewish history swells in the room.  I ask the bar mitzvah boy’s two younger sisters if they’ll each become bat mitzvah with Rabbi Edgar when they’re old enough; they answer, “Of course!”

The second bar mitzvah boy, in the afternoon, is also a sweet soul. The family is decidedly secular and the boy himself has his sharing of learning issues. Edgar described to me the work it took to get him to this moment. Nonetheless, for Israelis who perhaps have never set foot inside of a shul, there is a sublime moment of joy and connection, as they pass the Torah from generation to generation and then process around the room with it, kissing it as it comes near. Without a doubt, the extended family members in the room had never been in a Reform synagogue before. What did they see? Tradition, inclusion, warmth, song, Shabbat delight, and embracing smiles. 

Edgar Nof, like other Reform rabbis in Israel, does hundreds of these ceremonies per year, often with constituencies that otherwise would be left behind: new immigrants; disabled kids; families with a parent whose status is disputed.

Here’s the scorecard for one 24-hour period in Netanya:  2 Torah classes; spirited Shabbat services; one conversion; one tefillin ceremony; two bar mitzvah families; guests welcomed. 

This is liberal Judaism on the edge: Flinging doors open wide to those who would otherwise be left behind. Providing authentic Jewish experiences for people who otherwise would have opted out; a genuine alternative to closed orthodoxy and sheer secularism. And it’s not Tel Aviv, Haifa, or Jerusalem, but here, away from the throngs of Anglo tourists, where Edgar Nof does his work of kiruv. The community is a great voice of Judaism that is open to all who seek it. 

Look: religious pluralism, like all of Israel’s civic battles, will be fought with “facts on the ground.” The Kotel is important, as are all of our legislative fights for recognition. But it is also our responsibility to invest in the Israel that we want to see emerge—and that means investing in communities like Natan-Ya, to make the case for a thriving non-Orthodox alternative for Israelis. It can't just be about legislative battles: we have to build the Jewish alternative that we want to see.

___________

It’s all pretty intense, so on Shabbat afternoon I take a break and head down to the beach. Netanya’s sands are enveloped by tall cliffs that remind me of Jurassic Coast of southern England. Surfers are riding the modest Mediterranean waves and you can see all of secular Israel here, in all its ethnic variety and fun. (Also some of the world’s smallest bikinis.)

It all seems so damn normal.

When I’ve had enough Middle Eastern sun, I walk back up King David Street. Suddenly I’m standing in front of the Park Hotel. The hotel has seen better days and its prominent rooftop sign is dilapidated. This was the site of the Passover massacre in 2002, where on the night of the seder a Hamas suicide bomber, disguised as a woman, murdered 28 people and injured 140 others.

It’s not normal, it’s Israel. Where exaltation and horror too often reside next door to each other. And Israel’s enemies don’t discriminate among their victims; they are utterly pluralistic.

Jerusalem, A Fractured Unity

Yom Yerushalayim 5777

As Jerusalem recovers from President Trump’s whirlwind visit, the city moves on to its next milestone. As evening falls, we celebrate the fiftieth Yom Yerushalayim / Jerusalem Day.

In fact, the Trump team’s quick departure is timely, because its visit inadvertently raised doubts about the very meaning of Yom Yerushalayim. 

In the days leading up to the President’s arrival, controversy was stirred as one of his advisors reportedly told the Israelis, “The Western Wall is not your territory. It’s part of the West Bank.” Subsequently, members of the administration both refuted and tacitly affirmed the remark. And while the President indeed made history by visiting the Kotel, his rebuff of Prime Minister Netanyahu who wanted to join him at the Wall only made his actual position more inscrutable.

Apparently, even though the state is 69 years old and Jerusalem has been united under Israeli sovereignty for 50 years, there remain those who doubt the city’s status as the legitimate capital of Israel.

Under the U.N. partition plan of 1947, Jerusalem was supposed to be an internationalized city. After the War of Independence, the city was bifurcated; Jordan ruled its eastern half and all of the Old City, and the western part of the city was controlled by Israel. The national institutions of Israel—including the Knesset, Supreme Court, and residences of the Prime Minister and President—all became rooted in western Jerusalem. And it has flourished: Jerusalem is Israel’s largest city.

Yom Yerushalayim marks the anniversary of the unexpected and dramatic unification of Jerusalem under Israeli rule in the Six Day War. On the 28th day of Iyar—corresponding to June 7, 1967 and May 24, 2017—Israel pushed back the attacking Jordanian forces and conquered the Old City and East Jerusalem. On that day, Defense Minister Moshe Dayan proclaimed:

This morning, the Israel Defense Forces liberated Jerusalem. We have united Jerusalem, the divided capital of Israel. We have returned to the holiest of our holy places, never to part from it again. To our Arab neighbors we extend, also at this hour—and with added emphasis at this hour—our hand in peace. And to our Christian and Muslim fellow citizens, we solemnly promise full religious freedom and rights. We did not come to Jerusalem for the sake of other peoples' holy places, and not to interfere with the adherents of other faiths, but in order to safeguard its entirety, and to live there together with others, in unity.

But there have always been two Jerusalems. Literally: Hebrew speakers know that the –ayim suffix means “a pair,” so its very name Yerushalayim implies not one but two.

The first appearance of Jerusalem in the Bible is in the Book of Joshua, where Joshua battles an alliance led by King Adoni-zedek of Jerusalem (Joshua 10).  By the end of the saga, most of the land has surrendered—except for Jerusalem, of which it says: “The men of Judah could not dispossess the Jebusites, the inhabitants of Jerusalem; so the people of Judah dwell with the Jebusites in Jerusalem to this day” (Josh. 15:63).  Already in Joshua’s time, the city was multicultural.

David was the first to “unite” Jerusalem; he made the city his kingdom’s capital. His son Solomon built the Temple there, making Jerusalem the dual religious and political capital of the people of Israel. With palace and temple, Jerusalem came to represent both the body and soul of the Jewish people.

Fractiousness amidst unity has remained part of the city’s identity ever since. In the Talmud (Ta’anit 5a), Rabbi Yitzhak imagines two Jerusalems, a heavenly city above that matches its earthly counterpart below:

Rabbi Yitzhak said in the name of Rabbi Yochanan:  “The Holy One says, ‘I will not come into the Jerusalem that is above until I come into the city of Jerusalem that is below.’”
Is there really a “Jerusalem that is above”?
Yes, for the verse says, “Jerusalem built up, a city with its companion” (Psalm 122:3).

In other words, Rabbi Yitzhak knows Jerusalem as both a spiritual ideal and as an earthly reality. Unifying the ideal with reality remains a messianic aspiration.

Today, we know that Jerusalem still bears these contradictions. On one hand, we have no doubts about Jerusalem’s centrality to modern Israel. We rejoice that for 50 years it has been united under Israeli rule. The streets of the Jewish Quarter—which had been demolished under the Jordanians—are flourishing. An American President just caressed the stones of the Western Wall. And the religious sites of all the city’s religious faiths are protected. Jerusalem is a thriving city of culture, spirit, and politics.

And yet: how unified is Jerusalem really? The Arab and Jewish neighborhoods certainly feel like two different cities. Do Israelis frequent Silwan or Beit Safafa or Shuafat? Even Jewish Jerusalem feels divided. Do secular residents visit haredi outposts like Sanhedriya or Kiryat Tzanz?

The Western Wall itself is a symbol of the schisms among Jews. The dispossession of non-Orthodox Jews at the Kotel is a pungent reminder that Jerusalem undivided is still a heavenly ideal that is far from reality. The Chief Rabbinate and its supporters distribute ugly posters around the city that slander non-Orthodox Jews and spew hatred at the Women of the Wall. President Trump is welcome at the Kotel, but Jewish women in tallit and tefillin, or men and women together in egalitarian prayer, are derided and scorned.

The ideal is that every Jew in the world has a stake in Jerusalem. But the reality is that its internal divisions reflect the discord that exists among our people.

Still, there remains a vision of heavenly Jerusalem floats above it all, reminding us that this is not the way it is meant to be.  Jerusalem also carries a whiff of peace—as ‘ir shalom, the city of wholeness.  The reality may be painful and fractured, but the ideal is that we should learn how to pray and live side by side with one another.

This Yom Yerushalayim and its celebrations should be a reminder of a future unification, when ideals and reality can be brought together. Celebrate it in joy and hope!

Hitler Didn't Create Israel. (Modernity Did.)

Two 20th Century events irrevocably shaped Jewish destiny: the massacre of six million Jews in the Shoah and the establishment of the State of Israel. They are certainly linked; after all, a visitor cannot understand Israel without visiting Yad VaShem. And yet, it is crucial to understand that Israel was well on its way to becoming real long before Hitler’s rise.

As we commemorate Yom HaShoah, friends and foes alike repeat the falsehood that Israel was established because of the Holocaust. Many Jews, lacking the knowledge of Israel’s history and purpose, believe that Israel came into being in 1948 as some sort of reparation the world’s failure to stop the Nazis in time. Occasionally Palestinian propagandists suggest that Jews were awarded Palestine as compensation for their victimhood—and that Palestinians have suffered for Europe’s crimes.

Even President Barack Obama, in his famous 2009 Cairo speech to the Muslim world, demonstrated this misreading of history, invoking the Shoah as the only rationale upon which Israel exists.

But the origins of Zionism are far earlier than World War II. Certainly, there were always Jewish enclaves in the Land of Israel throughout the ages. But when we speak of “Zionism,” we mean the modernist movement that emerged in the 19th century salons and journals of Enlightenment-era Europe.

Various streams of Zionism appeared at that time. They fit four general categories: religious awakening, the question of how to be a Jew in modern times, the renewal of Jewish culture, and a response to anti-Semitism.

Most Jewish religious movements in the 19th century—Orthodox and Reform alike—avoided calling upon Jews to move en masse to the Land of Israel. Nevertheless, as early as the 1830s nonconformists like Rabbi Yehuda Alkalai in Serbia (1798-1878) and Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Kalischer in Prussia (1795-1874) were making the religious case for self-emancipation and the establishment of new schools and communities in Palestine.

However, most 19th century Zionist leaders were secular Jews who had been influenced by the zeitgeist of the day: nationalism. It dawned on them—and, unfortunately, on their neighbors—that Jews would always be guests (at best) amidst the nationalist aspirations that were flourishing across the continent. Jews—who had always identified as am yisrael, “the nation of Israel”— began to explore what membership in the Jewish nation meant.

Many of the Zionist leaders had abandoned traditional religion which, in their view, failed to offer meaning in the modern world. So they asked: What, beyond religion, does Jewish peoplehood mean today? For thinkers like Yosef Hayyim Brenner (1881-1921) or Aharon David Gordon (1856-1922), Jewish spirit in the Diaspora would always be stunted; only by working the Land of Israel itself would a new, healthy Jew emerge. And for Ahad Ha’am (1856-1927), Jewish autonomy entailed a renaissance of Jewish culture and in all the expressions of its spirit. This renaissance could not happen as guests in another’s home.

Others were convinced that Zinoism was the only refuge from pogroms and state- and church-sanctioned anti-Semitism. This political Zionism culminated with Theodor Herzl (1860-1904). Herzl concluded that a cataclysm was approaching and he sought a political refuge to save Jewish lives—decades before Hitler’s appearance.

In 1897, Herzl convened the First Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland, where leaders of different streams gathered to shape the movement. Afterwards, Herzl wrote in his diary:

In Basel I founded the Jewish state. If I were to say this aloud I would meet with general laughter; but in another five years, and certainly in another fifty years, everyone will be convinced of this. 

After World War I, as the Ottoman Empire collapsed and Great Britain came to dominate the Middle East, maps and futures were being redrawn. The floodgates opened with the Balfour Declaration. On November 2, 1917, the British foreign secretary officially endorsed “with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.”

The Balfour Declaration coincided with waves of Jewish immigrants coming to Palestine. The Second Aliyah (1904-1914) brought 40,000 people, largely Russian socialists and labor Zionists, fleeing the pogroms. The Third Aliyah (1919-1923) brought another 40,000 Jews and the Fourth Aliyah (1924-1928) brought 80,000, as a result of postwar economic crises—and immigration quotas in the United States.

Simultaneously, the Yishuv (the nascent Jewish government in Palestine) was building the infrastructure of the state-to-be. The city of Tel Aviv was founded in 1909 on the seashore north of Jaffa. The Haganah, the antecedent of the Israel Defense Forces, was established in 1920. And Hebrew University in Jerusalem was dedicated in 1925.

These currents made the coming reality of a Jewish state clear by the 1930s. In 1937, the British Peel Commission recommended the partition of Palestine into a Jewish State and an Arab State. Setting a sad precedent, the Zionist leadership accepted the plan while the Arabs rejected it. But by now the words “Jewish state” were no longer a political unicorn; its realization was in sight.

This momentum was contagious overseas. American Reform rabbis reversed their longstanding rejection of Zionism. In the Columbus Platform of 1937, they wrote:

In the rehabilitation of Palestine, the land hallowed by memories and hopes, we behold the promise of renewed life for many of our brethren. We affirm the obligation of all Jewry to aid in its upbuilding as a Jewish homeland.

Even then, few anticipated the Final Solution. If the Nazis never had come to power, or if they had been stopped by the allies before the Holocaust came to be, there is no reason to think that the Zionists’ momentum would have ceased.

Of course, the death camps did happen, and in 1948 the State of Israel was declared. Hundreds of thousands of refugees arrived on Israel’s shores. The attempts by the British to limit Jewish migration to Israel—as dramatized by the Exodus 1947 episode—only served to illustrate why a Jewish State was necessary.

Why is all this important? Because to understand Israel today, one must realize that the Shoah is part of the collective story of the Jewish people. But our connections to the land—and to one another, to am yisrael—were in place long before the Nazis’ vile rise to power. The Shoah may justify the vigor with which Israelis fight for their right to exist, but it does not explain why Israel became a historical reality.

Hitler did not create the State of Israel. But because of the Shoah, Israel’s importance, its legitimacy, and its centrality in Jewish life are laid bare.

Oslo on Broadway: The Long Shorter Road

“There is a short road that is actually long, and a long road that is actually short.”
—a young boy to Rabbi Yehoshua, Talmud, Eruvin 53b

The play Oslo opened this week on Broadway: a timely, talky drama set in 1993 during the secret talks between Israelis and the Palestinian Liberation Organization, at a time when it was illegal to speak to the PLO, which was rightly considered a terrorist organization. 

Like many shows and movies—Titanic comes to mind—the playwright has a challenge from the start. Everyone knows how the story ends: on the White House lawn, with a famous handshake between Yasir Arafat and a visibly ambivalent Yitzhak Rabin, and a sense of euphoria in the air that perhaps the Israeli-Palestinian conflict truly is over. And after that: waves of Palestinian terrorism; Rabin’s murder by a Jewish extremist; the ascent of Hamas in Gaza; failed follow-up deals; the Second Intifada; 9/11; the dismantling of Israeli settlements in Gaza; several wars with Hezbollah and Hamas; and the election of Israel’s most right-wing government in history. Spoiler alert: peace doesn’t break out.

The playwright J.T. Rogers has discovered real drama not in headlines, but among second-tier politicians who struggle, negotiate, and yell (a lot) behind closed doors. It begins almost on a whim, by a married couple who want to see if peace can be negotiated away from the media, with the parties sequestered in a distant land. Mona Juul was a Norwegian foreign ministry official (later she became Ambassador to Israel) and her husband Terje Rød-Larsen a renowned sociologist. They launched the secret negotiations in Oslo, shuttling back and forth as intermediaries, and on occasion all but locking the adversaries in a room to deal with each other. Rød-Larsen constructed strict rules of organizational psychology—in the common spaces, over food and drink, everything was off-the-record, and the participants’ real humanity was allowed to materialize.

The playwright makes clear that the people are real, but the dialogue is invented and chronologies condensed. Onstage, it works: the soliloquies are big and passionate, the arguments are turbulent. As an audience member with a perspective on these things, I wanted to jump on stage and argue and point out distortions.

Best of all, real human beings are allowed to emerge. Ahmed Qurie, a Palestinian banker and key figure in the Fatah Central Committee, is drawn as funny, impassioned, and articulate; the Israeli Chief Negotiator Uri Savir steals many scenes with his outrageous exuberance. The characters drink lots of Scotch, which may be a suggestion for future negotiators.

Oslo artfully sidesteps hoary clichés—that the first step to peace is knowing your neighbor; that you don’t make peace with dinner-party guests, you make peace with enemies. One of the most insidious things about clichés is that occasionally they turn out to be true. In this case, we observe… if not warmth, at least a sense of recognition between the parties across the table. That alone should be a source of both aspiration and inspiration.

Today Oslo is bandied about in Israel as political shorthand: by the left as the seedling of an inevitable process, and by the right for futile dreams when there is no willing peace partner.

As for me, I remember the morning of September 13, 1993, watching the White House ceremony on C-Span in my Jersey City apartment. I remember how Arafat showed up in military fatigues, violating one of the understandings. I recall Rabin’s extraordinary speech, where he uttered the prayer Oseh Shalom Bim’romav, and invited everyone to seal it with an “Amen.” And, my God, I remember sobbing when that handshake happened.

It was as close as we’ve ever come. Subsequently it all fell apart. So was Oslo worth anything, or was it a pipe dream?

I stubbornly believe that Oslo was about possibility; that is the play’s perspective as well. As an anonymous child taught Rabbi Yehoshua in the Talmud, there are apparent shortcuts that ultimately turn out to be endless. And there are roads that seem long and arduous, but ultimately are the most direct path to a destination.

So it is with peacemaking. There are those on the left and the right who claim to have magical, simplistic formulae, which often involve the demonization of one side or the other. But the truth is: the situation is complex. There are no simple solutions. Yet Oslo showed that breakthroughs can happen, that honest people can talk to each other, and that the long road of negotiation ultimately is the only road there is.

Dreams Deferred: The Resource We've Been Waiting for to Combat BDS

For all the talk about Israel being the “third rail” of Jewish life—and there is no denying that its politics can be divisive—in truth there is a lot of common ground communities can find. Most American Jews occupy the spacious center located between the poles of the extreme right, with its ideology of “Greater Israel,” and the extreme left, which rejects the very foundations of Israel’s right to exist.

Despite the well-publicized divisions among us, I suspect a large swath of American Zionists would be located in the “sweet spot” of the pro-Israel center that embraces these principles:

·      Israel has a right to exist and a moral responsibility to defend itself against aggressive enemies.

·      Being a Jewish state and a democracy are not inherently contradictory.

·      The double standard with which Israel is treated in the United Nations and the media is repulsive.

·      Supporting Israel does not mean having to justify every action of a particular Israeli administration.

·      The status quo with the Palestinians is untenable.

·      On occasion Israel has committed excesses, and worse, in the name of security.

·      A two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains the only feasible path forward.

·      Most American Jews support a two-state solution, but we have qualms: What about Palestinian terrorism? What about Hamas and Hezbollah? Are we positioning a militant enemy army on the precipice of Israel’s population centers? Why have the Palestinians historically rejected every peace proposal going back to 1947?

·      We have profound reservations about Israeli settlements, largely because they make a two-state solution less feasible every day. Yet we recognize that when it comes to “settlements,” there are nuances between, say, large suburban communities that are attached to the sprawl of Jerusalem and lone outposts deep in the heart of the West Bank.

·      We reject the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS), which is especially prominent in Europe, on American campuses, and in a handful of liberal Protestant churches, because of its failure to recognize the complexity of the situation and for its singling out of Israel for its venom. We sense that at its core the movement is anti-Semitic.

I suspect a great number of us, with political positions from the left to right, in Israel and America, can locate their Zionism amidst these principles. Perhaps you do, too?

If you find yourself nodding with these bullet points, especially the final one, then the new book Dreams Deferred is for you. It is an articulate, nuanced guide to debunking the myths of the BDS movement, and it does so with the reasoned voice of the political center. It is not extremist; rather, it reminds us that it is the BDS supporters who are the extremists.

In 60 short essays, most of which are 3-4 pages long, Cary Nelson, Professor of English at the University of Illinois and a respected reformer in academia, has assembled an array of writers who meet the BDS challenge head-on. The contributors come from different realms of academic life, but all share a crucial postulate:  “[They] are unequivocally opposed to the effort to boycott and eliminate the state of Israel, and [support] a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” 

BDS is no benign peace faction, despite the illusions of many an impressionable college freshman. It is not a nonviolent civil rights movement designed to bring about “two states for two peoples.” Its ambition, to quote BDS founder Omar Barghouti, is “euthanasia” for the State of Israel. 

The roots of BDS spring from the 2001 United Nations World Conference on Racism in Durban, which memorably devolved an orgy of anti-Israel rhetoric. The movement gained momentum by launching boycotts against Israeli scholars in Great Britain and urging American universities to divest from companies that did business with Israel.  Concomitantly, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) was established at the University of California, Berkeley, to organize anti-Israel rallies and to disrupt pro-Israel events on college campuses. Since then BDS activism has spread, often with violent confrontations at cynical events such as “Israeli Apartheid Weeks.” Even though hundreds of universities have issued statements opposing divestment campaigns, the movement often gets a tacit nod of encouragement from faculty.

BDS leaves no room for complex analysis to complex problems, where both sides have valid narratives and both have contributed to the stalemate. In its view, Israel is the criminal; the Palestinians are the exclusive victims; and the solution is the eradication of the Jewish State.

Nelson, et al, debunk the myths of all the different manifestations of BDS. A sampling of chapter headings: “Academic Boycotts,” “Divestment Campaigns,” “‘From Ferguson to Palestine’,” “Holocaust Inversion,” “Pinkwashing (LGBTQ),” “The Iron Dome,” “Cultural Boycotts,” “The Intifadas,” “BDS and Christian Churches,” “The Nakba,” “Jewish History Before Zionism.” Each essay describes the manipulative distortions that are employed by the anti-Israel movement, and offers a sober, centrist guide about how to respond. 

It is too simplistic to say: just purchase Dreams Deferred for all incoming college freshmen. In truth, high school students need a serious curriculum about the hows and whys of Zionist history and the complexity of modern Israel. Still, a friend might want to contribute a number of copies to the local Hillel—or to the library of a neighboring minister. 

Dreams Deferred will be a tremendous resource for anyone who is upset by slanders against Israel, who shudders for the present reality of Israelis and Palestinians, and who yearns for a better future. That is to say: for all of us who make up the sensible center.

Neil Young, Dylan, Stones, McCartney: Divest from Roger Waters!

Over the past few weeks, several of the world’s most venerable rock and roll acts—Neil Young, The Who, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan—posted vaguely enigmatic videos on their social media pages, culminating with the single word:  “OCTOBER.”

I couldn’t help but be reminded of the enigmatic teasers that came after the credits of many Marvel superhero movies—Captain America, Thor, Iron Man—in recent years; quirky epilogues that announced The Avengers, the blockbuster that would gather all these good guys together.

Well, the rock enigma wasn’t hidden for long. Quicker than you can say, “Old white guys, assemble!” it was revealed that in October rock’s Avengers will appear at a three day festival in Indio, California, on the same site where the annual Coachella Festival takes place. The organizers are calling the festival “Desert Trip,” although wags in the media have dubbed it “Oldchella.”  Unlike Coachella, which generally promotes artists who haven’t been featured on the cover of AARP Magazine, this festival will star six artists (all male, all white) who have been around since rock’s early days: The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, The Who (well, two of ‘em), Neil Young, and Roger Waters.

Which of these is not like the others? Clearly, it’s Waters, the former member of Pink Floyd who for the past 20 years has made headlines for two things: endlessly recycling his morose 1979 album The Wall and his visceral hatred for the State of Israel.

The five other acts all have Israel connections. Dylan, most notably, has sung of Israel’s challenges (“Neighborhood Bully”) and performed there on several occasions (I saw him on a soccer field in Beersheva in 1993!). McCartney defied BDS threats and played Israel in 2008. Neil Young performed in Israel in 1993, and was scheduled to play in the summer of 2014, before Operation Protective Edge made unfeasible the idea of a large outdoor rock concert in the shadow of Hamas missiles. He regretfully cancelled and promised he’d be back.

The Stones played a triumphant show in 2014, with Mick Jagger spouting Hebrew phrases to the crowd, including, “Chag Shavuot Samayach!” (The festival of Shavuot had ended at sundown the night of the concert.) According to their guitarist Ronnie Wood, the inspiration to perform in Israel came from Dylan himself, who gushed about how much he enjoyed playing there.

The Who never performed in Israel, but Pete Townshend visited the country in 1966, and apparently it made a deep impact on him. The experience inspired him to compose a dense allegory called “Rael” for The Who’s third album, and in the recent past Townshend has made clear his support for the Jewish State. 

Then there’s Roger Waters. While the others vie for the throne of King of Rock and Roll, he seems to want to be its Grand Wizard. For years, Waters has been at the forefront of the BDS movement, the pernicious anti-Israel crusade that urges cultural, academic, and business boycotts of Israel exclusively. Waters does not make the case for a just reconciliation of Israelis and Palestinians nor does he argue for a two-state solution. He has not articulated what the endgame of divestment from Israel should be.  (In fairness, Waters did perform a concert at Neve Shalom in 2006. Since then, however, he has exclusively attacked Israel for the conflict.)

Waters—and BDS in general—is notorious for failing to see any nuance in the incredibly complex Israeli-Palestinian situation. Especially in the wake of terrorist attacks in Paris, Brussels, and an ever-growing list of Western cities, one might think that people could empathize with Israel’s challenges on her own borders. But if anything, Waters’s obsession with Israel as the world’s ultimate human rights abuser has ossified.

Nuance is the key. Is it impossible—especially for an artist—to recognize that there are two conflicting narratives? Is it incomprehensible for Roger Waters, whose English childhood was devastated by World War II, to sympathize with the Jewish need for a safe haven in their historical home? I, for one, believe in the just cause of a two-state solution and I can hear the authentic narrative of the Palestinian people… but, Roger, what about Hamas and Hezbollah?

Although Waters, like other BDS activists, protests that he’s not an anti-Semite, the evidence seems to indicate otherwise. For instance, when he toured The Wall in Europe and North America in 2010-2011, an animated film accompanying the song “Goodbye Blue Sky” showed Jewish stars morphing into dollar signs—one of the most constant and established stereotypes against Jews. And on his otherwise forgotten 1992 album Amused to Death, Waters compared Jews (Jews, not Israelis—not that it matters) to Nazis.

This is not a voice of peace. It’s a voice that guarantees future cycles of hatred, violence, and war.

Messrs. Young, McCartney, Dylan, Jagger, Richards, Townshend, and Daltrey: Divest from Roger Waters! He doesn’t belong on your stage! And I’m sure there are plenty of dad-rock performers who would be thrilled to fill in for him:

How about Bruce? He’ll fit in perfectly with your demographic—and he’s rumored to be playing in Israel this summer. (You can compare your favorite falafel joints!)

Or maybe Bobby Weir and whichever incarnation of the Dead he’s got touring this fall? You know that they’ll bring their own audience with them. (I’ve got a vinyl copy of Blues for Allah with lyrics in Hebrew, English, Arabic, and Farsi, a nice gesture towards peace.)

Or how about Eric Clapton—surely his number is in your contacts? (He played Sultan’s Pool in Jerusalem in 1989.)

Any of these alter rockers play the sort of music that will bring out the dads and their Platinum Cards in throngs—and without the anti-Semitism! Please: you can perform this gig without Roger Waters, who clearly stands for very different values than you do.

And if you can’t ditch him… how about adding a second series of shows in Park HaYarkon?

Why I Walked Out on Donald Trump at AIPAC

March 22, 2016

Just as Donald Trump has dominated the recent news cycle, so too did he overshadow all the nuanced presentations that took place at the annual AIPAC Policy Conference in Washington, DC, this week.

I was one of many who walked out on Monday evening when Mr. Trump, the Republican frontrunner, addressed the crowd of over 18,000 Israel supporters. I’d like to explain why.

AIPAC, the premier pro-Israel lobbying organization in America, has remained remarkably on-message over the years. The organization has a singular mission: to advance the security and well being of the State of Israel with the U.S. government. AIPAC does this in a disciplined bipartisan manner; it consistently balances its programs with Republicans and Democrats. During an election year like this one, its policy is to invite every candidate for President to address its annual forum. This year Hillary Clinton, Ted Cruz, and John Kasich spoke in addition to Mr. Trump. (Only Bernie Sanders did not accept the invitation to speak.)  AIPAC—quite correctly, in my opinion—believes that a secure, democratic State of Israel is consistent with American national security and foreign policy goals, and that those goals transcend partisan politics of left and right. Overwhelmingly, the U.S. Congress and the majority of the American people agree.

So Mr. Trump’s invitation was consistent with AIPAC’s agenda and past behavior. Still, I was compelled to leave when he came to the stage. Many others did likewise. We objectors gathered in the hallways of the Verizon Center to voice our spiritual protest by studying Jewish sacred texts on the themes of human dignity and derech eretz (kind and decent behavior towards others). 

“To walk out or not?” was the question Conference participants asked one another. I felt compelled to do so, for a variety of reasons. 

I walked out because this protest was about the tone and attitude of the campaign, not the content of Trump’s policies.  Again, AIPAC is a single-mission organization, and a remarkably consistent and effective one. Understanding their nonpartisan policy, I would not walk out on other candidates, even when I aggressively disagreed with their policy positions.

But Trump is different. He’s an outlier; a once-in-a-generation (God willing) phenomenon. He has injected overt racism, vile sexism, and the insinuation of violence into the Presidential campaign. (Other candidates, left and right, have played the race card in the past, but none with the overt bigotry that Trump and his supporters have displayed towards Mexicans, immigrants of many backgrounds, and Muslims. For that matter, his comments last fall at the Republican Jewish Coalition were also overtly anti-Semitic.)

I have Muslim friends.  How could I look them in the eye by attending an event where Trump was celebrated and applauded—this man who grotesquely has called for banning Muslims from our shores and monitoring those who are our neighbors?

Likewise, there is the tone of violence that he has injected into the campaign. Fierce words unsurprisingly spilled over into physical violence at Trump rallies in recent weeks, and the candidate not only refuses to condemn it, but winks and encourages it, saying, “I’ll pay the legal fees” of his supporters who assault protesters.

I walked out because Donald Trump is bad for Israel. Unquestioned, uncontested association with Mr. Trump is bad news for Israel, no matter how vociferously he proclaims that he will be “the best friend Israel ever had.”  So-called friends (earlier in the campaign declared his “neutrality” on Israel’s conflicts) who are thugs and bigots do not promote Israel’s cause. Mr. Trump’s slow disavowal of the Ku Klux Klan, for instance, only benefits those who cling to slander that “Zionism is racism.” Israel’s democracy is vigorous, but her political enemies would love nothing more than to link Trump-style demagoguery with the Jewish State.

Ultimately, I walked out because I needed to walk out—for me. Watching our politics ossify into hyperbolic displays of idiocracy should be distressing to Americans of every ideological persuasion. There’s a coarsening of the national soul taking place—and I don’t want my soul succumb to it.  Moreover, I don’t want my community or my country to succumb to it, either.

The electoral process should be an impassioned, vigorous, and freewheeling debate about differing visions of our mutual future. American democracy is built upon that principle and so is Jewish tradition. “Both these and these are the words of the Living G-d,” says the Talmud (Eruvin 13b) about the virulent debates that took place 2,000 years ago between the schools of Hillel and Shammai. Judaism holds a healthy reverence for argument, as well as recognition that the other person is entitled to their point of view. But yesh g’vul: there is a limit. Mr. Trump and his followers, with their coarse rhetoric and propensity towards violence, must be held accountable.

The politics of vitriol, of scapegoating and shaming, of bigotry and violence, should have no place in our discourse. It’s the responsibility of all of us to get up and turn our backs on it.

The Art - and Challenge - of Compromise

In the wake of the historic decision of the Israeli cabinet to create an expansive egalitarian section at the Western Wall, a lot of soul-searching has ensued. Count me among those who celebrate this as a momentous event for Jewish pluralism in the State of Israel—even as I acknowledge the dismay of those who say too much has been compromised with the haredi authorities who rule the plaza.

Most Reform and Conservative leaders—and other advocates of equal rights for all the streams of Judaism in the Jewish State—consider this agreement to be a milestone after a quarter-century of advocacy by Women of the Wall and their supporters. Anat Hoffman, a tireless champion of human freedom who has so often been the face of this movement, considers it a “win.” 

And yet, there are some voices—especially advocates for Orthodox feminists who want the right to pray with Tallit, Tefillin, and Torah scrolls but not in mixed settings with men—who feel that they have lost too much in the deal. Some of their words are gut-wrenching, such as this critique from Vanessa Ochs.

So did we give away too much? In the Talmud (Sanhedrin 6b), Rabbi Shimon ben Menasya said, “There are times for compromise, and times for not compromising,” and every person who cares about Jewish pluralism in Israel will have to decide for herself or himself which sort of moment this was.

Compromise, by definition, always feels less-than-perfect. In a funny way, “compromise” is the exact opposite of “justice”—and we know the enormously high value that is given to justice in Jewish tradition. When you compromise, by definition you are sacrificing an important element of what is fair or what is deserved from your point of view. Whether or not the sacrifice is worth it is the question at the heart of the compromise’s value. 

Well known is the Jewish virtue of pursuing justice. But is compromise also a Jewish value?

The Talmud recognizes the tension. One Sage, Rabbi Eliezer the son of Rabbi Yose Ha-G’lili, says that compromise (in matters of law) is forbidden; he cites Moses the lawgiver as his model for the administration of blind justice, in all its noble purity. Another Sage, Rabbi Yehoshua ben Korcha, calls compromise a Mitzvah; his model is Moses’s brother Aaron, the consummate peacemaker.

Rabbi Yehoshua ben Korcha gets to the crux of the matter about why compromise lies at the heart of a civilized society—and why it’s sometimes so difficult:

It is a Mitzvah to compromise, as it is written:  Execute the judgment of truth and peace in your gates (Zechariah 8:16). Anyplace where there is straight justice—there will be no peace; and anyplace where there is peace, there is no straight justice. So what is the justice that abides with peace?  We must say:  Compromise. (Sanhedrin 6b)

I, for one, can’t wait to see the implementation of the new egalitarian plaza at the Western Wall as it unfolds—and I can’t wait to stand side-by-side with any Jew who comes to pour out their heart in prayer. From my point of view, the prospect of egalitarian prayer-space at the Kotel—a space that is beautiful, spiritually exhilarating, and free from molestation or antagonism—is a win. And the compromise itself, although an element of it stings, is part of the grand challenge of Jews living side-by-side with one another in the world’s only Jewish State. 

Killing a King: The Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin by Dan Ephron

Twenty years after the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, a horrible question arises: Was the murder a complete and unmitigated success?

I remember exactly where I was on November 4, 1995:  dozing with family on a lazy Shabbat afternoon. The TV was on, and it grabbed our attention when the program cut to breaking news. Rabin had just been shot, and was later confirmed killed, on his way toward the parking garage after a big peace rally in Tel Aviv.

It pains me even now, two decades later, to write the next sentence. But I knew in my kishkes right away that it was not a Palestinian terrorist who had murdered Rabin. I knew this was the work of a Jew. I doubted an Arab attacker would infiltrate a Tel Aviv rally of hundreds of thousands of Jews and be able to get to the Prime Minister. A Jewish terrorist, on the other hand, would slide through the crowd with ease. 

And I had seen firsthand the underbelly of violence fomenting in the Jewish community. The opposition (Mr. Netanyahu) had no problem, in the months prior to the murder, rallying beneath images portraying Rabin in an Arab kaffiyeh or with a Hitler mustache. Rabin, who had dared propose peace, was vilified among the Jewish right.

But worse than that: there were code words. Rabin, they insisted, was a boged (traitor), a rodef (one who is in active pursuit of a potential victim), and a moser (one who informs against Jews to non-Jewish authorities). Those are loaded terms, because in the Halachic world they could be interpreted to mean: Such a person could legally and morally be killed in order to halt his treachery. This was gasoline being poured on smoldering embers, waiting for the right fanatic to spark the flames of violence.

The publication of Dan Ephron’s Killing a King: The Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the Remaking of Israel is timely, coinciding not only with the ugly anniversary, but also with waves of violence in Israel from the hands of Jewish extremists. 

Ephron begins the saga with the events leading up to the historic peace signing on the White House lawn in September 13, 1993. On that day Rabin, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, and PLO President Yasser Arafat signed the historic peace accords that set in motion a dizzying new direction for the Middle East. Suddenly, nations around the world were making diplomatic overtures to Israel. It sparked a peace treaty with Jordan in 1994 (the first Arab state to do so since the treaty with Egypt in 1979). Rabin, Peres, and Arafat were all awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

But the peace process also triggered more insidious responses. A wave of terrorism was launched against Israel. Hamas rose to power in Gaza, positioning itself as a more radical voice of the Palestinian street. And right-wing Jewish radicals seethed. On Purim 1995, Baruch Goldstein (yimach sh’mo—may his name be blotted out), a 38 year-old doctor and captain in the army reserve, walked into the Cave of Machpelah in Hebron and massacred 29 Muslims at prayer and wounded 100 others. In some religious quarters, rabbis and students debated—in an ostensibly theoretical way—whether or not Jewish law mandated that Rabin should be put to death.

Ephron tells two distinct narratives (distinct, that is, until they come together at the denouement). One is Rabin, the unsentimental, battle-hardened leader, who had doubts but still concluded that peace with the Palestinians was pragmatic, strategic, and sensible.

The other narrative is of a young Yemeni Jew, Yigal Amir. Amir did not grow up in what was considered Israel’s incubators for radicals, the remote settlements in Judea and Samaria; he was from Herzliya, a small Mediterranean city north of Tel Aviv. He was a student at Bar Ilan University, than (and now) a mainstream Orthodox college for Jewish and secular studies.

The story of Amir’s radicalization is sobering. Amir spoke openly about killing Rabin to a circle of peers and family. He and his brother gradually accumulated an arsenal of weapons hidden in their family home. Yet somehow on that tragic night he was able to enter the garage where Rabin’s car was parked and loiter there for the better part of an hour. 

One astonishing detail is Amir’s utter remorselessness. Tel Aviv was his third attempt to murder the Prime Minister. In early 1995, he attempted to get close to Rabin at Yad Vashem, at a commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz (can you imagine if the Prime Minister of Israel was assassinated by a Jew at such an event at such a place?). In April, he tried again to get close to Rabin at a Mimouna celebration in Jerusalem. He had been a known quantity to Shabak, Israel’s security services. And after Amir was in police custody, he acknowledged what he had done and why. He even returned to the square in Tel Aviv and walked police through the series of events, explaining exactly how he shot Rabin.

In the weeks after the assassination, there was some genuine hand wringing from the right wing religious Zionist camp. There seemed to be an acknowledgment that a virus was replicating itself in certain yeshivot and in the settlements: a virus that was radical, violent, and placed its loyalty in extremist rabbis rather than in the laws and institutions of the State of Israel. There seemed to be a spirit of honest Teshuvah.

But that self-reflection faded. Amir became a hero to many. (I recently argued with an Israeli friend about whether or not Amir would be paroled in his lifetime. He is convinced that one day it will be politically prudent for a Prime Minister to pardon Amir. I disagree, but the prospect chills me to the bone.) And conspiracy theories began to flourish among those who would exonerate Amir. Was the murder an inside job with Amir as the fall guy? Who yelled “They’re blanks!” when Amir fired his gun, causing confusion among the bodyguards and secret service agents? And what was the role of an embarrassing rogue Shabak informant, Avishai Raviv?

Ephron strikes a proper balance: He dismantles the conspiracy theories in a few pages without granting them too much legitimacy.

Today, the lessons of 20 years ago seem forgotten. Israel is currently governed by its most right-wing coalition in history. Recent months have seen a proliferation of “price-tag” attacks on Palestinians. So-called “hilltop youth” have become folk heroes of a sort among elements of Israeli society. Reclaiming the Temple Mount for Jewish prayer—once considered to be an extremely radical and inflammatory position—has gained traction this season as political wedge issue.

And certain settler rabbis continue to preach hatred and armed conflict in the name of G-d.  I have no doubt that behind closed doors, there are many Israelis who say, “You know, Rabin was a boged. He deserved to be killed.” 

Ephron’s gut-wrenching book deserves to be widely discussed in the pro-Israel community. Frankly, it’s haunted me since I read it. Somewhere tonight Yigal Amir sits in prison, aware that the modern Middle East is different because of him. Somewhere there are people who still drink L’chayim! to Amir as a hero. Somewhere, radical rabbis are giving drashot inciting their followers to embrace their hate—and their guns.

Killing a King reminds us that hateful words erupt into hateful deeds. If it inspires us to be counterpoints to Amir and his ilk—to elucidate a Judaism and a Zionism based on mutual respect and peace—then it will be more than just a timely reminder. It will be a Mitzvah.