Author Archives: Rabbi

Glenn Beck in Israel

Posted on August 24, 2011 | 5 comments

    Hours ago, I attended the Glenn Beck-sponsored “Restoring Courage” rally in Yerushalayim, and shamefully the Jerusalem Post described the event by focusing its attention – and its headline – on the several dozen “Peace Now” demonstrators rather than the thousands of joyous people in attendance. That is not weird; that is just modern journalism.

        The rally itself drew more than a thousand people near the Kotel, several thousand at Safra Square in downtown Jerusalem (my perch) and thousands more in various venues across the globe. It was electric to experience it, and even more exhilarating to be in the presence of unabashed, unequivocal supporters and lovers of Israel and the Jewish people – Jews and Christians alike. No wonder “Peace Now” is discombobulated by the entire event; they – like many Jews – are uneasy with true believers, with people of faith and eternal values, with people for whom the Bible is alive and real.

   So the Jerusalem Post missed the real story by highlighting a miniscule opposition. To be sure, Beck opponents were not only on the political left; opposition to the rally came from the religious right as well, most still bearing the scars of the historic hatred and persecution of Jews by Christians, and so are unable to see the changed reality – a world in which many Christians (certainly most American Christians) are friends of the Jewish people, and our allies in the struggle against radical Islam – our only ally. Since it is so hard for Jews (except for Shlomo Carlebach) to love Jews, Jews are naturally suspicious of anyone – especially a non-Jew – who professes a love for Jews. Since Jewish support for Israel is quite tepid in many places, many Jews – especially on the left – are unnerved by an unembarrassed pro-Israel affirmation. And since, sad to say, relatively few Jews actually believe that the Bible is G-d’s word, pronouncements by a Christian (Mormon, in this case) that “the Jewish people have returned to the land of Israel because the G-d of Abraham keeps His promises” (Glenn Beck) will invariably embarrass unfaithful Jews. And they should be embarrassed.

      Beck, who is passionate, emotional and inspirational (and has the faintest hint of  a goatee), touched all the right notes for our audience that included many Orthodox Jews, Americans and Israelis. He asserted that there is nothing to teach Israel about courage, but that he is concerned about the voices of the fickle and the feeble who encourage more and more concessions, and who do not recognize the global war that is before us and that is the challenge of our generation. Beck: “There is more courage in one square mile of Israel than in all of Europe, and more courage in one Israeli soldier than in all the cold-hearted and faceless bureaucrats at the United Nations.” “As Israel goes, so goes the West,” and that sentiment underlies both the theme and the purpose of the rally: Every person can make a difference, every human being has an obligation to love and support Israel and the Jewish people, and Israel has the obligation to maintain its courage, face its enemies, and lead the world in this modern struggle. And only Israel can – because it represents G-d in the world, bears His word and His name, and was chosen for this purpose. Our touchstone must be “lo eera” – “I will not fear.”

           Obviously, none of this resonates at all with the “Peace Now” crowd, which, one might have thought would have slipped away to oblivion after their misguided ventures of the last 25 years. Apparently, they have been resurrected, with many of these Israeli anti-Israel groups wholly funded and underwritten by the European Union, major NGO’s across the world, and other entities looking to weaken and destroy Israel.

      Rabbi Shlomo Riskin of Efrat, pressured not to attend, came anyway and spoke about our need to accept the apologies of the greater Christian world, and remember that “My house shall be called a House of Prayer for all nations.” Too often, Jews forget the Universalist elements of the Torah, and our mission to the world – bludgeoned into nothingness under the ferocious hatred that lasted for almost two millennia. But we have to be able to look forward, and not just backward, to live in the present and the future and not only the past. The persistent fear of many rabbis that Christian support for Israel is rooted in a missionary zeal and the necessary prerequisites for the Second Coming ring hollow and sound antiquated. All the Christian denials notwithstanding, a confident Jewish people with a divine mission and Torah should have nothing to fear, and, needless to say, not one Jew who attended this afternoon, to my knowledge, renounced his faith and became a Christian or a Mormon.

            If anything, it is hard to imagine that any Jew who attended the rally did not walk away a better Jew (!), imbued with a sense of our destiny, thankful for the gifts of our generation, cognizant of the fulfillment before our eyes of the promises of the Prophets of Israel, and blessed to live in a generation in which millions of Christians are urging Jews (!) to heed the Bible and the word of G-d, and lead the world to salvation. Beck’s speech was devoid of politics (US or Israeli), and he delivered a better sermon than most rabbis of my acquaintance. And his public recognition of courageous Israelis – the Fogel family and the people of Itamar, Rami Levi of the eponymous supermarket chain that recently opened a branch (a first) in Gush Etzion that serves and is staffed by Arabs and Jews, and the Maxim restaurant in Haifa, co-owned by an Arab and a Jew and destroyed (then rebuilt) after a suicide bomb attack, and all honored at the rally – can only hearten all good people of faith across the world as to the potential for human good, and the depths and depravity of the Arab-Muslim evil that has claimed thousands of innocent lives on every continent of the earth in the last two decades.

        It is nothing short of disgraceful that some media focused more on the sparse demonstrations than on the event itself. It is disheartening that many Jews – good Jews – see the Biblical prophecies fulfilled in our day but can not countenance that one such prophecy, that might be realized in our day, was Yeshayahu’s vision of the nations of the world ascending the mountain and coming to the “House of the G-d of Yaakov” and pronouncing fealty to the G-d of Abraham. That is where the rally was centered, and that is a sign of the end of days, but too many of us are still living in medieval times and wary of the next Crusades.

        But it is rewarding (one attendee termed it “awe-inspiring”) to witness unambiguous love of Jews and Israel, courageous support for Israel at a time when such support is dangerous, or just reflexively absent, and to be part of an event that might embolden Jews to assume our natural leadership role in matters of the spirit, morality, and transmission of the divine value system. To have a proud non-Jew come to Israel, and make Jews feel proud to be Jews and Israelis proud to be Israelis is no small feat.

        It is, in fact, a challenge to our generation of Jews to move history forward, and hasten the redemption of all mankind.

5 Comments

Posted in Contemporary Life, Current Events, Israel, Jewish History

The Protests

Posted on August 19, 2011 | 2 comments

     “I want school books for free!”

     Here in Israel, public attention has been focused in the last month on “social justice” protests in cities across the country, at least until yesterday’s brutal Arab terror attack murdered eight Jews and reminded people of the more existential problems they face. Beginning in Tel Aviv but encompassing protests in every major city and town, university students between semesters have erected tent encampments and made a number of demands of the politicians. So much as I can deduce their demands runs something like this: they want free education, free health care, free housing – and low taxes. I exaggerate only slightly, and the quotation above appeared in a picture in the local newspaper that featured a child protester carrying a sign with those words.

      Apparently these college students’ education did not include economics, for which I happily recommend “Basic Economics” by Professor Thomas Sowell, recently reprinted and too short at 640 pages.

      The protests and protesters are actually multi-faceted, and the establishment does not yet have a handle on the identities of the leaders and their real issues. Obviously, they originate on the far-left of the political spectrum and the protests have successfully, and dramatically, lowered PM Netanyahu’s approval rating down to almost Obama-like numbers. Credible reports have circulated that much of the funding for the protests – tents, food, air-conditioning, rallies, etc. all cost money in the real world – has been provided by the usual European suspects, with their primary goal the weakening of the Israeli government so a new, weaker, more concession-oriented government will take power and restore the good, old days of “land for peace.”

      Undoubtedly, the protests are timed conveniently during school vacation. That, too, is a staple of Israeli life, as every summer also inspires Charedi protests always related either to the discovery of graves on a building site or some violation of Shabbat in official Israel (this year the latter, but the summer is not yet over. Somehow, graves are never discovered when the students are actually learning in Yeshiva. This keeps them busy.) Nor are all the protesters on the same page. Some want unspecified “change” and others want revolution. The Tel Aviv protesters are mainly middle-class, while in other cities the real poor have emerged.       

       But aside from the political dimensions of the protests, and the timing that is contrived, what can we make of their complaints? The media have certainly exaggerated the protest figures – estimates are wildly disparate – but some of the grievances are legitimately grounded if not easily resolved. More troublesome is the persistent demand for “social justice,” one of the staples of the left across the globe.

     “Social justice” sounds meaningful without quite meaning anything. It is indefinable, and has no discernible yardstick by which either problems or solutions can be measured. It does provide full employment for activists and the disgruntled with unassuageable grievances. What is the difference, therefore, between “justice” and “social justice”? David Mamet explains (in his excellent “The Secret Knowledge”) that “justice” is rooted in law and can only be achieved through adherence to law (even though “law” and “justice” are not identical – as any lawyer could report).       Justice means inflicting pain on one party” – “to one of two litigants; to the assaulted who sees the assailant go free or to the family of the convicted, etc.” Someone wins and someone loses – because if the choice did not require adjudication in a court, the parties could have resolved it through good-will and compromise.

      “Justice” recognizes there are disparities between people that will never be reconciled, but that law, properly legislated and fairly enforced, can allow equality of opportunity for similarly-situated individuals. It was the hallmark of the Judeo-Christian ethic that was the foundation of Western society. “Social justice” is its illegitimate offspring, conceived disproportionately (and ironically) by Jews who abandoned Torah and mitzvot –i.e., abandoned the Torah as the basis for their actions and beliefs and embraced something wholly amorphous but nice-sounding.

     “Social justice” is not rooted in law or even justice but in the fantasy that society can achieve absolute equality and fairness through manipulation of government, restrictions on property rights, and redistribution of wealth. It is, in a nutshell, the justice yearned for by socialists. It demands not equality of opportunity but equality of result. (Oddly but not surprisingly, Israel’s Communist party has been resurrected by the recent protests.) Mamet, again: “Social justice…is not merely an oxymoron. It is inherently, the notion that there is a supergovernmental, superlegal responsibility upon the right-thinking to implement their visions.” Unfortunately, it inevitably leads to more government power, less freedom for their citizenry, and most often to dictatorship. (The reason is simple: implementation of “social justice” mandates requires government to confiscate wealth from the productive in order to transfer it to the unproductive. That can only be accomplished through force – through heavy-handed legislation or heavy-handed police action. The only variables are: will the population acquiesce, and if some object, will they be allowed to emigrate with their wealth?)

      Hence, the claims here for “social justice.” Israel has a hybrid economy, but has been liberated from the shackles of its socialist past by embracing – in stages – a free market economy. The transformation has not always been smooth, and some people will always prefer the cradle-to-grave support of government, modest as it is, of the socialist state. (They may prefer it, but it is presently bankrupting Europe.) One obvious change in Israel has been the increase in food prices, with government subsidies either eliminated or reduced on many items. But price supports have always been an element of even free-enterprise systems like in the United States, and adjustments are certainly possible to moderate the cost of food staples (including lowering the VAT that adds 15% to most consumer goods) and gasoline, which is not tied to the market, and hovers around $9 per gallon. That is outrageous.

    Another issue has been the dominance in the Israel economy of slightly more than a dozen families, who control almost all manufacturing and production and curry favor with the government. But the high-tech field especially has been very democratic, and has boosted incomes and job opportunities for many.

      Somehow, the demands for “social justice” have been more preached than practiced. Many Israeli residents of the areas in which protests have occurred have complained to the police about the noise, filth, drugs, and vandalism of some of the “protesters” – all to no avail. The police have said they cannot act – certainly strange in light of their haste and violence against illegal outposts…elsewhere in Israel. These tents, after all, are just as illegal. But that element of “social justice” – to real people with real claims – has not yet filtered down.

      One focal point of the protests here has been the high cost of housing – true per se but somewhat specious in tone. Housing is expensive – in the heart of Tel Aviv and Yerushalayim – but where is it engraved that every college student or graduate must live in the heart of Tel Aviv ? Think Manhattan – or Teaneck, for that matter – and the reality becomes clear. Does government have an obligation to ensure that every person who wants to live on the Upper East Side of Manhattan can get an apartment there? That would be insane. Apartment prices are high there – and in Tel Aviv – because there is great demand and limited availability. So, move to the periphery, work hard, earn money, and then purchase the dream home in North Tel Aviv. (This was suggested to me by an Israeli, who is less than sympathetic to these protesters.)

     Another possibility, and what has made at least part of the political response fascinating to watch, has been the proposal that the housing crunch in Israel be alleviated by lifting the building freeze in Judea and Samaria. Thus, the leftist leaders of the current protests have been nonplussed by the participation of the Council of Judea and Samaria (!) in their Tel Aviv demonstrations. The proposition is so simple, and has left the left flummoxed: land is plentiful in Judea and Samaria, and there are many settlements that are literally 15-20 minutes away from Tel Aviv and Yerushalayim – a short commute. Build in YOSH, and – voila!- the housing shortage is history, and Israeli control over the heartland of Israel strengthened. It is a win-win situation, almost a divine gift in its potential – and a nightmare for the left.

      Thus, most of the student-leaders have ruled out such an arrangement, calling their sincerity into question. Worse, many have insisted that the housing shortage not be resolved by private contractors but rather by government intervention – they don’t want anyone to get “rich” by building housing. They should spend a little more time in school.

     Every city in Europe – and I have visited almost two dozen major cities – is filled with government housing (in America, they became known as the “projects;” need I say more?). All the buildings look alike and are alike. One size fits all. The rooms are small, and so families are small. No one person is accountable for them, so maintenance is sporadic and such housing quickly becomes dilapidated. Modernization is nearly impossible because funding becomes hostage to other government needs. See the Stalinist-era housing (not just in Moscow) in Tel Aviv where this deterioration has set in and it should be clear that no healthy, self-respecting person would choose government housing. The free market has the incentive to build it, sell it – and the private homeowner to maintain it.

      With that, the real housing problem in Israel has been a result of the free market: builders have become focused on building luxury homes for foreigners at prices that maximize their profits and that the average Israel cannot afford. This has also adversely impacted neighborhoods – there are residential neighborhoods in Yerushalayim, for example, where local businesses have closed because the neighborhoods are mainly populated by their foreign residents on the holidays – and the resident population is too small to sustain those stores the rest of the year.

      That particular problem is harder to fix, but the general problem should be easier to resolve by an appropriate use of government resources: incentivize the building of middle-class housing by a partial VAT refund to the consumer, by lowering the tax rate on construction companies, by eliminating or drastically transforming the draconian bureaucracy of the Israel Lands Administration that artificially inflates the cost of housing, and, yes, by opening the vast swaths of Judea and Samaria to settlement. All of the above would drive down the cost of housing and greatly improve the quality of life for the average Israeli.

       Of course, it would not be surprising if the rigid ideology of the leftist protesters trumped the rational solutions of the free market. Those who want everything for free – i.e., at someone else’s expense – would, in an American context, be derided as parasites or bums. Here, where almost all of the protesters served honorably in the IDF, such characterizations would be inappropriate and wrong.

      Nonetheless, something has to give: a society in which too many people have an expectation that government will care for their every need cannot long endure with a happy public. Nothing is free; someone always pays for it. When it comes from government, which, after all, has no money of its own, you and me are paying for it, in the form of confiscatory taxes. Those who want free education, health care, housing, etc. cannot long complain when their tax rate hits 45% at the equivalent of $120,000 per year – and they find that they cannot make ends meet. Nor should they contemplate raising taxes on the rich – too many wealthy Israelis have already taken their money (and themselves) elsewhere.

     What they can do is embrace freedom and liberty, personal responsibility, self-help and less government – and they will find a better quality of life and an even better Israel. Not every problem can be solved (conservatives live in the real world) and even a great country can have intractable problems. But major problems can at least be alleviated by the appropriate and limited use of government and the freedom of entrepreneurs to earn money in creative and productive ways. It must also be done through teaching values, especially self-reliance, that sends young people out of their tents and back to the drawing board to plan their futures and develop their society.

      And, from that perspective, society will be better equipped to care for the truly needy (as opposed to the willful poor who do not work and eschew education that will prepare them for gainful employment), the handicapped, the elderly and the otherwise unfortunate in a way that is consonant with Jewish law and tradition.

2 Comments

Posted in Contemporary Life, Current Events, Israel

“According to His Will”

Posted on August 17, 2011 | 6 comments

     “This is the state of the contemporary Liberal world – the fear of giving offense has been self-inculcated in a group which must, now, consider literally every word and action for potential violation of the New Norms” (David Mamet, in The Secret Knowledge).

     That, as well as anything, explains the recent self-immolation of a colleague on the “Orthodox left” (perhaps, better, “left Orthodoxy”) who demeaned and denounced the daily blessing recited by men thanking G-d for “not having made me a woman” and opined that he has stopped saying it, in breach of a Jewish tradition that is several millennia old. Stealing from the non-Orthodox playbook, he castigated Orthodoxy for its “maltreatment” of women, and our “inherited prejudice that…women possess less innate dignity than men.” He even brazenly declared the blessing a “Desecration of G-d’s Name,” trampling any sense of propriety and humility and demonstrating the ability to leap over the spiritual giants of Jewish life in a single bound – quite a stupendous feat.

    To be sure, the condemnation of his remarks elicited from him a standard (and partial) retraction, apologizing for the stridency of the remarks but not their substance. This is the flip side of a fairly typical liberal criticism, the clichéd “it’s not what you said, it’s how you said it,” when, actually it is the substance, often irrefutable, that bothers them. Here, not only was the tone repugnant, but the sentiments were equally abhorrent – and were not only not withdrawn but educed defenders from the “left Orthodoxy” who are adept at finding the one source that seems to support their views (even if it doesn’t) and are blithely contemptuous of Jewish tradition, history, custom and the wisdom of our Sages. It is impossible to read his remarks without sensing that he perceives the Talmudic sages and their spiritual successors down to our day as, G-d forbid, small, bigoted, and immoral people who are his moral inferiors. One wonders why he can respect anything that they say, being so flawed, and why any of his students or congregants should care to study the opinions of those hopeless misogynists. A rabbi must have enormous self-confidence, to say the least, to set himself up as judge and jury over the guardians and transmitters of the divine word, and he must also be inordinately sensitive to feel pain when none is intended.

     Some of my learned colleagues have written eloquent articles about the provenance of this particular blessing, starting with the Yerushalmi (Brachot, Chapter 9) that explains it as referring to man’s obligation in Mitzvot that are numerically greater than those of a woman, a servant and a heathen. (See, e.g., Rav Dov Fischer at http://www.cross-currents.com/archives/2011/08/08/who-hast-not-made-me-a-liberal-rabbi/). Another distinguished colleague wrote beautifully of an encounter with a woman who said that she loved the female version of the blessing – a woman correspondingly recites a blessing thanking G-d “for creating me according to his will.” She understood it as follows: women were the last entity created during the six days of creation, and therefore represented G-d’s special creation – the only entity created perfectly, “according to His will.” It is the man who recites wistfully that G-d did not make him a woman. Not only is that interpretation clever, creative, respectful of Chazal, and reflective of a joy and contentment with life, it also echoes Rav Hirsch’s commentary that women are spiritually superior to males and naturally closer to G-d than men are. I don’t have to agree – I think men and women are spiritually equal before G-d but just given different roles – to respect her satisfaction with her station in life. That is true love of G-d and love of Torah – the exact opposite of the embittered assault on Torah and Orthodoxy (among other sins – batei din, agunot, the lack of female rabbis, etc.) that emanated from the quarters mentioned above. The task of the Rabbi is to teach Torah to the unlearned, not reinforce their basest stereotypes, and one who chooses an interpretation of Chazal’s words that put them in a bad light, as opposed to teaching the many traditional interpretations that are holy and positive, is defining himself and his biases rather than the Torah. Indeed, it is peculiar that a rabbi who claims to be concerned with women’s spiritual dignity would find that dignity not in a uniquely feminine role but in rank mimicry of man’s role.

     We are living through a period of history in which “sensitivity” has become so acute that every word and deed is scrutinized by self-appointed moralists for even the possibility of offense, and in a world in which we try to co-exist with numerous individuals who are always taking offense about something or other. Some people are just thin-skinned, but today there are many who have no skin at all; they are just a bundle of raw nerves, claiming either victimhood or an unrestricted license to protect potential victims as they see it, and using that status as a club with which to beat the less-enlightened who do not share their views. There is little that, read a certain way, does not give offense, so here’s a brief list of blessings that the fastidious might also consider omitting:

     Blessed is Hashem…Hamelamed Torah l’amo Yisrael (who teaches Torah to His peopleIsrael) – might offend the world by singling out the Jewish people for our special relationship with G-d;

 …hamachzir neshamot lifgarim meitim (who restores souls to dead bodies) – might offend those who r”l die in their sleep;

…She’lo asani goy (who did not make me a heathen) – might offend non-Jews;

…She’lo asani aved (who did not make a slave) – might offend the working man;

 …pokeach ivrim – (who opens the eyes of the blind) – might offend the blind;

 …matir assurim – (who unties the bound) – might offend the incarcerated;
 … zokef kfufim – (who straightens the bent) – might offend the hunchback;

 …she’asa li kol tzarki – (who provides all our needs, i.e., shoes) – will offend Shoeless Joe Jackson;

… hameichin mitzadei gaver (who prepares the steps of man) – might offend the lame;
 …Ozer yisrael bigvura and oter yisrael b’tifara (who girdsIsrael with might, who adornsIsrael with splendor) – really offends non-Jews who apparently were not so blessed with might or splendor;

…hanoten laya’ef koach (who gives strength to the weary) – will offend the exhausted who nonetheless wake up every morning;

… Yotzer ha’meorot (who formed the luminaries) – offends evolutionists, and sounds too much like the claims of those right-wing creationists.

…Habocher b’amo yisrael b’ahava (who chose His people Israel with love) – offends…well, it is obvious. There are many others. It is not that everyone will be offended by everything; it is rather that someone might be offended by some of them, and the sensitivity police will be on the case, poseurs all.

     And, of course, noten Hatorah (who gave us the Torah) – will offend those who do not believe that G-d actually gave us the Torah but assume it is a man-made ball of wax that can be shaped as they wish in order to conform to the prevailing political correctness of every generation.

   But I suppose that is the whole point of this exercise. My colleague prefers to abstain from this blessing citing the Rabbinic dictum “Shev v’al taaseh, adif” (“it is preferable to sit and not do…”) Of course, that dictum is our general recourse when we confront a conflict of laws – when an action will simultaneously fulfill and violate different commandments; it is does not at all relate to a case in which one chooses not to fulfill  mitzva because he has shamefully construed it as a “sin.” And what really is the source of the alleged sin, to add to Mamet’s quotation at the top ?

     One of my distinguished colleagues recently called attention to the introduction of the Steipler Gaon to his work “Chayei Olam.” The Steipler writes that too many Jews are spiritually perplexed – either a consequence of intellectual confusion or uncontrollable desires whetted by what they see in the world around them – and usually because they have gazed in the works of free-thinkers whose words are impure and transmit impurity, and this nonsense is retained in and shapes their minds. And then he writes (translation mine): “It is appropriate to respond to these confused individuals that do they really think that they are the first people ever to have these questions and doubts ? Does it take some genius to be thus confused ? Rather do you not understand that thousands of the giants of Israel in every generation wrestled with every possible question, doubt and angle – and yet their faith remained perfect and complete, in force, and they all served the will of their Creator with fear and reverence because their souls were pure and in the light of their understanding they saw the truth clearly – what is true and what is false and counterfeit… From the simple faith of all our Rabbis, you will be able to understand that for every question and doubt there are clear answers….”

     Part of humility is deference to those whose wisdom, deeds and moral attainments were greater than ours, and teachers of Torah should attempt to inculcate that deference – rather than affect an air of moral superiority. This most recent effort to impose the fleeting morality of modern times on the eternal values of Chazal does more than disparage generations of Jews – men and women – who properly understood the intellectual depth and moral goodness of our Sages; worse, it ordains every individual to pass ultimate judgment on every aspect of the Torah, filtering every detail through a subjective moral code that will differ from person to person. Such lacks more than just humility; it undermines the unity of the Jewish people, our faith in Torah, and our acceptance of the “yoke of the divine kingship.”

      Many have traveled down that road; few have returned. The substance is as shallow as the articulation was disgraceful. Both should be withdrawn, and the honor of our Sages and their formulation of our daily prayers, and the spiritual dignity of men and women, affirmed.

6 Comments

Posted in Contemporary Life, Current Events, Halacha, Minhagim, Philosophy, Tefillah

Six Years Later

Posted on August 11, 2011 | 8 comments

    The fast of Tish’a B’Av commemorates the litany of suffering that has
befallen the Jewish people since the sin of the biblical spies, who renounced
Jewish destiny on the eve of our entry to the land of Israel. That night – the ninth of Av – became the day set aside for punishment, and for reckoning with the tribulations of Jewish history – the arrows, swords, gas chambers and bombs of our enemies, as well as the self-inflicted wounds that have scarred our service of G-d and the execution of our divine mission.

     Events as varied as the destruction of the two Holy Temples, the fall of
Betar, the Expulsion from Spain in 1492, and the start of World War I 97 years
ago all occurred on Tish’a B’Av. The most recent tragedy added to this
lamentable cycle occurred just six years ago – the Ninth of Av, in the year
2005, was the last day of legal Jewish residence in Gush Katif (in Gaza) and
the northern Shomron. That Expulsion, another example of a self-inflicted
wound, began on the following day, and the repercussions are still real and tangible.

       One way to relive this tragedy – which drove almost 9000 Jews out of their
homes and jobs, and saw the destruction of synagogues, Yeshivot and a thriving
Jewish life – is to visit the Gush Katif Museum in Yerushalayim (5 Shaarei Tzedek Street, about a five minute walk from Machaneh Yehudah). It is a haunting experience that easily evokes sadness, anger, frustration and compassion, sequentially and simultaneously. The museum depicts the history of Jewish settlement in that region – dating from the time of our patriarch Yitzchak – and throughout Jewish history. In its most recent incarnation, one settlement in Gush Katif – Kfar Darom – shares a history with Gush Etzion just south of Yerushalayim. Both blocs were settled by Jews on purchased land before 1948, both were evacuated after the residents were massacred during the War of Independence, and both were resettled after the Six Day War. (To a Foreign Ministry official who recently stated, while  with a group looking at the Etzion Bloc, that Gush Etzion would never be abandoned “because it was settled before 1948,” I asked: “what about Kfar Darom?” My question was met with a grim smile and then a stony silence.

    But the history of Gush Katif, through a timeline, does not begin to
convey the essence of the visiting experience, nor do the pictures of recent life
in Gush Katif – the flourishing of farms, businesses, and hothouses, the pious
life of those pioneers – lovers of Israel who deserved better – and the years
of struggle, against an Arab enemy bent on mayhem and finally a “right-wing” Israeli government that brutally bulldozed their homes and dreams. It was the distressing sound track; the background noise throughout the museum are the actual sounds of the Expulsion – filmed and recorded – soldiers breaking down doors, anguished cries of men and women, the bewilderment of children who do not understand why they are being forced from their homes by soldiers of their own army. It is chilling. There are screens throughout the several rooms that incessantly run the scenes of the expulsion, and a video screened separately that shows the destruction of the aftermath – the burning of the shuls by the Arabs, the devastation of the hothouses that could have provided an income to the “poor” of Gaza had they not demolished them in a demonic frenzy, and the fierce resolve and determination of these settlers that was only broken by a Jewish government, including black-shirted forces of the Israeli government who were trained to employ about a dozen stock phrases (all on display as well) repeated, and repeated, robotically, mechanically. The few soldiers who are shown crying were quickly spirited away, so as not to demoralize the expulsion forces.
There was no resistance that could actually be called resistance. One
family hung a sign on its door (now displayed in the museum, translation mine): “Dear soldier/police officer, Stop!! Here for 12 years dwells the Konki
family in happiness. If you knock on the door, you will be a direct partner in
the worst crime perpetrated in the annals of the nation of Israel. Don’t do
this! You are not obligated to execute this cruel order. We will not be
expelled from our home! We will never leave here!” They too were driven
out, with no place to go.

    If the expulsion were not horrific enough (it did bring great joy to the
Arabs, and electoral success to Hamas in the elections of 2006), the aftermath
was just as pitiless. The government essentially abandoned the settlers, left
them unemployed and unable to find permanent homes, with reparations that fell far short of the value of their homes and businesses, and in a spiteful twist, the obligation to continue to pay the mortgages on their ruined homes. Private
individuals stepped into the breach, in the grand tradition of a compassionate
people, and one in particular, Rav Yosef Rimon of Alon Shvut, stands out for
his self-sacrifice and tireless commitment to help every resident, with the
founding of JobKatif (see their ongoing work at www.Jobkatif.org)  that endeavored to build new lives in new communities. It has not been easy.

     The most recent figures show that after six years, 17% remain unemployed, only 28% of the farmers have even partially restored their farms, only 24% have found permanent housing, and 76% still live in temporary housing (often, caravans dubbed caravillas). About half the businesses have restarted, many in Yad Binyamin and Nitzan – and all these figures are a dramatic improvement from even two years ago. And a friendlier government just passed a new compensation package that is fairer without yet providing full compensation. Sad to say, there were suicides and divorces for those who could not bear the strain.

     Some will argue the great benefit of the Expulsion – the disengagement of Israeli forces from Gaza and the concomitant end to the need to defend the relatively few Jews who lived there. But territory lost is not easily regained, and the brief Gaza war that followed the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit is directly attributable to Israel’s more vulnerable position after the expulsion. Undoubtedly, the military infrastructure that existed in Gaza would have precluded the long-term captivity of Gilad Shalit, whose tragic plight is a direct consequence of the loss of Gush Katif. Of course, if Israel would withdraw from every place in which lives are jeopardized, it would even smaller than it is today, and Sderot and dozens of other communities whose residents’ lives became even more miserable in the aftermath of the expulsion – to the tune of more than 10,000 rockets – would no longer exist.

     Not that it matters, but polls in Israel showed almost immediate regret, and more recent polls indicate that 2/3 of the respondents who supported the expulsion now regret their decision. Yet, more than half do not favor current resettlement of Gush Katif, but even that figure is low considering that resettlement now would obviously require a victory in war.

    The other consequences are more personal but equally telling. All the major government figures involved in the expulsion have had their lives visibly destroyed. Ariel Sharon remains in his own personal exile, suspended between the living and the dead, between heaven and earth, for more than five years. Ehud Olmert left office in shame, compounded by the ignominy of the several criminal trials that he is currently litigating. Moshe Katzav, who as president was not an active supporter but did nothing to stop the expulsion, left office in disgrace, convicted of rape and sentenced to prison (appeal pending). Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz is on the outside of politics looking in, and the IDF Chief Rabbi, who later regretted and apologized for his participation, suffered public rebuke and career turmoil. Dan Halutz, appointed as Chief of Staff when Boogie Yaalon was dismissed because Yaalon could not be trusted by Sharon to carry out his plans, soon presided over the 2006 Lebanon War fiasco and resigned in shame. Only Shimon Peres landed on his feet, elected President after Katzav was forced to resign – but even Peres was repudiated by his own party and lost the election to be Labor Party leader just three months after the expulsion. In a real sense, Binyamin Netanyahu salvaged his career by belatedly opposing the expulsion and resigning from the Sharon cabinet, and Ehud Barak was out of government altogether. All others have paid a steep price, as it turns out.

    Israel democracy also underwent a terrible crisis from which it has yet to recover. Sharon’s deceit, and manipulation of votes (firing members of the cabinet to provide himself an artificial majority, ignoring the results of the Likud referendum, etc.), has undermined many people’s faith – especially the young – in democracy, the authority of the Israeli government, police and military, and the wisdom and morality of its leaders.

    The Expulsion from Gush Katif was therefore a debacle in every respect, and the full price has yet to be paid. I own a book called “Encyclopedia Idiotica,” which depicts history’s worst decisions – Napoleon’s march on Russia, Custer’s last stand, Churchill at Gallipolli, Chernobyl and the like – which, unfortunately, was published before the Gush Katif disaster. Perhaps a future addition will include it – how a nation willfully wronged its own citizens in a misguided effort to promote its national security and better its international image.     We can only pray that its true benefit lies in the reluctance future governments will have to similar abuse its own people.
In the interim, it behooves all – especially those with short memories – to visit the Gush Katif Museum (admission discounted for the next week) in Yerushalayim and live through one of the saddest, self-destructive events in the history of the Jewish people, and pray for a better future.

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