A Message from the
Rabbi
Letter from Israel - June, 2010
Yesterday was the bat mitzvah day for Hannah Most and Rose Rayner. While this was a special occasion just because these are two very special young ladies, it was made even more special by the fact that it took place in Jerusalem. We recited the Amidah not facing in the general direction of east but actually facing the walls of the old city, the Temple a few hundred yards away. Theodore Herzl’s book about his hoped-for revived Jewish state was called Altneuland – “the old-new land.” As I recited the three-fold priestly blessing over Rosie and Hannah, I could only think how we were using blessing originally recited thousands of years ago, a few hundred yards away, in the same language, by the priests who were the religious leaders in their time for our ancestors. But this is the altneuland, so I write this while listening to an ad for a local supermarket chain in the language which for two thousand years, was reserved for prayer. By the way, most of the ads here are actually very entertaining. This is the miracle of modern Israel, a country where every rock and blade of grass you step on today is connected to the history of our people, a history that goes back to the dawn of civilization. By the way, for any other HCS parents who might be interested, I am always happy to do bnei mitzvah in Israel. We have a wonderful relationship with Bet Shmuel, a building with rooms with views of the old city and that can provide everything needed for the ceremony and luncheon/party to follow.
Israel’s politics are just as messy as ever, both domestically and in the international arena. But, as is usually the case in the Middle East, there is more going on than meets the public eye. Without going into details, it appears that Israel is preparing for a possible attack on the nuclear facilities in Iran if it proves necessary, and doing it with the cooperation of the United States and a number of Arab countries. Although there were a number of questions raised about Israel’s handling of the so-called “Peace Flotilla” to Gaza and how Israel has handled the blockade (the questioners including myself) the fact of the matter is that the only material getting into Gaza is what Israel and its ally Egypt allow to go in. As of this writing not a single additional ship has delivered anything to Gaza. With the exception of Iran and its allies, Israel is in reality at peace (whether officially or otherwise) with its Arab neighbors.
While its politics give a bad name to the word “democracy,” Israeli civil society continues to flourish. The economy is strong and there is little problem finding a job here. Wherever one goes, building goes on. Today, I drove through a section in the north known as the “Arab Triangle” because most of the cities and villages in the area are populated by that community. Throughout the area I saw new homes either completed or under construction, many of them large enough to be what Israelis describe as villas. Recently, Israel joined the OECD, the “club” of the world’s richest nations. Somehow, with all its problems, the Israeli government seems to get things accomplished here a lot faster than our government does. Last night, the BBC had a program about British competitiveness in international business in which the commentator’s analysis is that Britain needs to be more like Israel.
This is not to whitewash Israel’s problems. The divisions between the ultra-orthodox and the rest of Israeli society represent a significant and troubling threat to the country’s future. The Israeli public is generally prosperous with the standard of living is similar to that in Europe. And, like most of Europe, national health insurance is at a reasonable cost and guaranteed to all and you don’t have to pay a small (or large) fortune here to send your children to a very good university. But the other side of the coin is that wealth here is increasingly concentrated in a small number of well-connected families. Most important, while our children spend their junior year in high school figuring out where they’re going to apply to college, their Israeli cousins spend that year figuring out which army unit they want to join. One thing that every generation here can count on is that almost all of Israel’s children will spend at least two or three years in the military and, at some point in their young lives, they will have to risk life and limb in a war.
All in all, Israel remains a wonderful place but never far from anyone’s mind is the price we must pay (and more importantly, that our children must pay) to keep Israel alive.
Best Regards,
Rabbi Fred