Do Palestinians and liberal Diaspora Jews each have the one thing the other needs the most?
By: Rebecca Sealfon
Tags: Israel, Palestine And Israel, Liberalism, Palestine, Judaism

There’s just something about Judaism. We’re fully Abrahamic, but don’t ideologically enforce doctrines as specific as Jesus’ divinity or even Muhammad’s prophethood. We’ve survived for thousands of years carrying traditions from each place we’ve been. We’re in so many other countries, but not quite of those countries. We’re an introspective culture with an ancient, powerful tradition of thoughtful dissent. Perhaps this is what gave us the mindset to beat at the heart of the Islamic Golden Age, the European Enlightenment, and now the American technological revolution.

I often feel as though I speak two cultural languages — Jewish and Liberal American — which gives me multiple perspectives on both. I care enough about the Jewish to have learned more of it than I was taught. Unfortunately, much of my community doesn’t understand what tools Jewish tradition provides and why it is valuable. The demographic effects on the liberal Jewish community are catastrophic.

Judaism must be preserved as a religion of the larger world rather than of a small cloister. Orthodox Judaism, which is quite restrictive, should not become the only form of Judaism. I’m terrified that the increasing rift between the Orthodox and the on-the-way-to-no-longer-identifying-as-Jews will leave Jewish culture with less flexibility to adapt to different environments. This could adversely impact world civilization.

In nature, there are many species that do what we consider breaking type to claim their own niches in the ecosystem. For example, otters look like weasels and are members of the weasel family, but are water and sea creatures. Spotted hyenas are relatives of cats that look and act like dogs, with females that look like males, and are among the most unfussy of scavengers and the mightiest of hunters. I just love all that breaking of type. I have a similar fascination with Reform and other liberal movements of Judaism, for similar reasons. These movements are effectively Judaism’s innovation lab, committed to breaking type and expanding Judaism’s niche in the human social environment. Can our experimentalism make them strong?

What Palestinians have, that we need the most

Israel-Palestine is currently at an impasse, with the brunt of the suffering falling on the Palestinians at the moment. Israel and Palestine are like two strong forces pointing in opposite directions, canceling one another out. Do these forces actually need to be pointing in opposite directions, though? I think not. The Oslo negotiations, their aftermath, and much of what is really going on reveal a number of areas where they don’t actually cancel. The forces are Zionists and, despite their name, Anti-Zionists.

Right now, liberal Jews are like scattered forces pointing in many directions, especially out of the picture. We are forgetting thee, O Jerusalem. Even Anti-Zionism remembers.

Photo by Daniel Jensen on Unsplash

We most need a mission of our own and something similar to Palestinian sumoud, that steadfast perseverance which can make us a mighty and growing force. It would not and should not be the same aspect of the same mission as traditional Judaism’s. Our approach puts us in a different place with different powers. As William Blake wrote, “The apple tree never asks the beech how he shall grow, nor the lion, the horse, how he shall take his prey.” In the liberal West, Judaism’s box-cutting movements now have an opportunity to do what we do best — cut boxes.