Religious Dialogue as a Method for Peace in the Middle East

cross-posted here from a live-blogging session at the J Street Conference on jewcy.com

Along with plenty of student bloggers at the J Street conference, I've been blown away by the excitement and the empowerment that has come out of it.

I stopped by the Jewcy booth on my way out of a breakout session on religious dialogue and was roped into sitting down and posting (although it didn't take much effort to convince me).

The panel had a prominent representative from each Abrahamic faith, all talking about how although the Israel-Palestine conflict is not inherently a religious conflict (its based in territorial and ethnic differences), religion plays a huge part in furthering differences, but it can be used to work towards peace.

One of the things that stuck with me is some of the comments that Salam Al-Marayati, the executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, said. Earlier in the day, a friend of mine had said that she was concerned that while many people had been talking about Israel's faults and mistakes, no one had been rebuking the Palestinians for the rocket-fire into Sderot and for extremist rhetoric coming from Hamas. This can easily lead to a criticism of the conference for being blindly left-leaning and ignoring some of the important issues that Israelis deal with.

But what resonated with me about this panel was that Al-Murayati, the only Muslim speaker at the conference that I know of, was the most vocal in criticizing members of his own faith for their immoral actions.

This creates a critical message that I believe this conference is bringing to the Israel-Palestine debate. I fear imperialism and I fear people who impose their views on other cultures and ethnicities. One of my main criticisms of the established right-leaning pro-Israel lobby is that they rebuke Palestinians for everything they do, but see Israel as flawless and with a clean slate. But to hear Jews criticizing Jews and Muslims criticizing Muslims is to me an essential part of our individual faiths. Just as in Isaiah we have the quote, "Justice, justice you shall pursue," Al-Murayati also quoted the Koran saying (and I apologize if I vehemently misquote and paraphrase) "Oh you believers, you must promote justice even if it is against your own people and communities" and "One human life is more important than the entire Kabbah."

This is a voice that needs to be heard and publicized, especially throughout the political right, who seem to ignore it. We have an ethical responsibility to criticize ourselves and to allow space for other groups to make their own personal criticisms.

This conference is the beginning of a new movement in leftwing pro israel, pro peace, politics and to see a religious element that supports it is really awesome to see, considering my own religious background.

Rabbi Gabe's New Book

I just picked this book up off the "To Be Reviewed" shelf at Tikkun and it made me really happy. This is the book that Gabe Greenberg, my old counselor and close friend, co-wrote when he was a senior at Wesleyan. Not only is this an amazing achievement for Gabe, but it's also a really important topic at the moment, and it's getting a good amount of press. It was reviewed in the most recent issue of New Voices with an awesome interview with Gabe, and the Amazon site is getting a lot of hits (although, one of the "suggested reading" on that page is The Israel Lobby).
I started reading it so that I can write the review for the next issue of Tikkun, and I'm really enjoying it so far. It's partly a historical analysis of the Western world's relation to Islam, and it's partly a book about how Arabs are conceived in the media, (similar to my last post) focusing on political cartoons and how they represent American society and its anxiety towards Islam.

I can't wait to talk to Gabe about this book, he's a really great guy. He worked at Adamah (which I hope to do someday), then he went to Israel and studied at Hamivtar for a little while, now he's at camp doing an organic farming elective for the kids, and soon he'll be going to rabbinical school.
Kol hakavod, Gabe! Hope that your book becomes standard reading material for classes in Arabs in the Media and Middle East Studies.

Bittersweetness - Is That Even A Word?

Happy Birthday Israel!

In the words of UPZ's official educational campaign, this day is bittersweet for me. For many reasons.
First of all, I'm sitting in College Library, procrastinating on my research paper on how Shabtai Tzvi's main theologians like Nathan of Gaza reinterpreted Lurianic Kabbalah in order to justify his conversion to Islam. It's a really fascinating topic and I thoroughly enjoyed doing the research for it, but writing it is getting fairly tedious and I plan on pulling an all-nighter which is not so money.
I'm also a little nervous for Hillel's Israel@60 celebration at Library Mall tomorrow. Originally, Kavanah: A Progressive Jewish Voice, my rockin' political student group, was planning on setting up a table to promote the "bittersweetness" of the day by handing out pamphlets on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, the problem with settlements, information on peace organizations and the peace process in Israel, and bittersweet chocolates. That's all still happening, but now there's an added complication. Madison-Rafah, my favorite anti-Israel buddies, who I've blogged about before, are going to be protesting the event and it's really pissing me off. They just have such chutzpah, they're so inconsistent in their views, and they're just trying to be confrontational. Although they say on their site that it's going to be "educational rather than confrontational," I don't see how it could be anything other. They're going to a student event (by the way they are all adults) so that they can picket, chant, and disrupt the celebration. What are they trying to accomplish? If they were protesting Israel's policies or its right to exist, then they could go somewhere where they would actually be productive, like the Israeli consulate. If they didn't want any pro-Israel celebrations, then they would have protested the Jewish community's Israel@60 celebration the other day. Maybe they're just lazy.
Either way, they're coming and they are handing out flyers that are just ridiculous. One of them asks if a normal person would celebrate racial segregation in the U.S., South African apartheid, or the decimation and conquest of Native Americans, and the other is a list of all the Palestinian villages that were destroyed in Al-Nakba. Whatever. They can back any statistics they want even if they are skewed and deceptive, in fact, I think the plight of the Palestinians should absolutely be recognized on Yom Ha'atzmaut, I just don't see why they have to be such bullies about it. Have your own event. At least get students to protest this event. I think they just need their mommies.
This constituency in Madison really upsets me. They have a voice but they have no feet. They'll protest anything and march anywhere but when it comes to education and political advocacy, they do nothing. And knowing Hillel and the "I love Israel" crowd, it's going to be ugly. Only Kavanah can save this celebration and I hate this burden. Without Kavanah there would just be yelling. But the fact that we have a table and we're passing out critical information totally undermines Madison-Rafah's stance. They're coming in thinking that Hillel is blind to Israel's problems, but our presence proves them wrong. Therefore, since they can't argue that Hillel is painting a biased picture of Israel, their only argument that would differ from us is that Israel has no right to exist or that all Palestinians should have the right to return to Israel, and I think that most normal people see that as outrageous and uncompromisingly extremist.

On a different note, earlier tonight I went to an amazing lecture by Rabbi Brad Hirschfield, an Orthodox rabbi, president of CLAL, the National Jewish Center For Learning and Leadership, and a leading figure in interfaith dialogue who is promoting his book, You Don't Have To Be Wrong For Me To Be Right, about avoiding fanaticism. He's a great speaker with a ton of charisma, and he also has a really interesting story. When he became religious he did it through a yeshiva that promoted right wing politics as part of its theology. He didn't specify which one but I can assume it was Aish or Ohr Sameach. So he decided to move to Hebron to help support the fanatic settlers there - the worst of the worst. But after people from his community murdered two Palestinian students at the Islamic University of Hebron (in retaliation to people who had been killed in his own community) he began to question his choices and it eventually led him to move back to America and work in religious dialogue. It was a very powerful lecture and part of the LISAR conference. Unfortunately I was one of three students there. It's a shame that they scheduled this conference for the worst week of the semester. I shouldn't have even been there. I shouldn't even be writing this post right now, I still have nine pages left on this paper. Damn you, procrastination/distraction.