Shushan

Sundays it is good to be a Jew. It was our turn to sleep in as our fellow Christians went off to church. I had intended to join them, but when the guys decided to go out to Jerusalem’s one gay bar it was destined to be a late night. Shushan, the famed city of the Purim story was the name of the bar, and there were a handful of Esthers and Vashtis there. Including one stunning drag queen whose best number was Tina Turner’s “You’re simply the best.

It was good for us to hang out with each other away from the intense conversations of land and possession, power and corruption, gay and liberation/oppression. I had been suggesting that we needed to do some karaoke or some other playful kind of activity to bond in a different way. However, I often have difficulty in making that switch and I found myself in an intense conversation with Steve Greenberg about the nature of gay and lesbian synagogues. It was good.

It is easy to understand why people would follow Steve. He is a charismatic, sharp man who deeply cares about important matters. And while I don’t see eye to eye with everything, I appreciate and admire his ability to articulate and present challenging concepts in a clear and relatively concise manner. His counterbalance is my former teacher Dawn Rose, who offers an important worldview and brings a feminist critique to our conversations. Her partner, Marla, a friend from a long time ago, pulled me aside earlier in the evening to say she has heard I am surprisingly silent.

Silent—I wouldn’t go that far, but I am drinking in and am being a committed listener. I also realize that I don’t want to be defensive about positions and beliefs. After my run yesterday, we went to a park that overlooked the Old City. The light of Shabbat was leaking from the sky, the breeze danced around us and it was a stunning way to begin the evening.

The Christians shared about their trip to Bethlehem. The highlight for them was not the Church of the Nativity, but rather a meeting with a Palestinian Christian activist, who helped bring them a balanced (odd word to use—because very few people are balanced) perspective. Balance here, I suppose means both sides. The question remains which way the balance tips after integrating the information.

We listened to their accounts and all along the way; there were breaks to clarify things from the Israeli perspective as I remained silent. I knew that this looked like or simply was defensiveness. In a gentle way, the professional pastoral counselor asked the question, “What was behind the defensiveness?” After that conversation moved, the other question was raised “What is the Jewish theological claim to Israel?”

Dawn and Steve presented different poles of theological claims to the land. Summed up Steve talked about the ability for a state to be run by Jewish values and law mediated by democracy—a scary proposition for some—whose Torah and interpretation must be addressed. Dawn’s perspective was less clear and didn’t proffer up a theological perspective in a classical sense, but in a feminist sense, she spoke about living in the current moment and doing what is right. She also spoke of the necessity of a state for survival.

This was largely questioned by the Christians. Couldn’t you exist without a state? What is essential to a state? Aren’t Jews safer around the world more than they are in Israel?

These questions were asked not in hostility, but in a genuine desire to learn and to figure out ways to be supportive when the comparison to them between Israel and the West bank was shocking.

I asked to present a theological argument later—which for me is a Reconstructionist view. Judaism as a civilization should be able to have a container other than landlessness and Diaspora to develop. Jewish art, music, language, ritual, prayer, calendar, cuisine flourishes uniquely in a land of which its origins are inextricably linked. The relationship to land has been expressed in so many ways and in Israel it is able to be given a reunited form. For me the evolution of a civilization is theological. Inherent in this is that the religious civilizational values of justice, fairness to the stranger, working for the needs of the other must be part of the picture.

Let’s not forget that Christianity, Islam, and many other faiths have been given the opportunity in an unbroken form to live and inform and even legislate in countries where their cultural expressions have been allowed to thrive. Just because good Christians feel guilty about their abuses of power does not mean that they should project this on to the Jews and feel that this is there way to undo the harm that Christianity has caused. I admire speaking out for injustice, but it always so much easier to point to another community’s foibles than one’s own.

On the other hand, we as Jews MUST speak out about our corruption of power and commit ourselves to a full honoring and knowing of the other. The argument “you did it—so we can” will never hold water. A noncontiguous state that doesn’t have port access will never be a real state (Gaza and West Bank) and a community that vows to demolish Israel will never be given the trust to allow that to happen. The Arab countries that exploit the Palestinians and this situation undermine the Palestinian’s people autonomy and the right wing American Jews who act in purely nationalistic ways betray Jewish values only heighten Israel’s precarious existence in the world.

My head hurts again. My heart hurts. This situation is layers upon layers that like an intricate chess game depends on complex moves from the other side to go forward. I have been wrestling with this question. We as Jews and as Americans are willing to die for war, but to what degree are we willing to die for peace? What would that look like?

After this conversation in the park, we made our way back to the hotel briefly for Havdallah and then headed to Timol Shilshom café owned by queer author David Erlich who used to be a part of Bet Haverim. He is doing well and sends his regards. We met with WorldPride folks who were very hospitable –Worldpride activities begin tonight. And then we met with young women from a new organization called Bat Kol (a heavenly voice…literally the voice of the daughter) for orthodox lesbians. These young women were brave and extraordinary. Very refreshing, but still another heavy evening. So you can see why I went to Shushan and had a vodka tonic!

I am on my way now to Yad VaShem, the Israeli Holocaust memorial.