My new column is up at The American Prospect.

The neighborhood covers the hilltops. Beyond the last row of apartment buildings, the slope descends steeply, carpeted in loose rocks, olive trees, and brutally thorny shrubs. A long bridge, part of the highway linking Jerusalem to West Bank settlements to the south, sweeps across the valley below. On the other side, the hills rise again toward the Palestinian town of Beit Jala.

Technically, some red tape remains before bulldozers begin carving lots in the hillside. Practically, the planning board’s OK opens the way to building up to 1,380 new homes, attracting thousands more Israelis to move across the pre-1967 borders. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could have blocked the Gilo Slopes plan, and chose not to. …

Read the rest here.

My new column is up at The American Prospect:

Ismail Haniyeh, prime minister of the Hamas regime in Gaza, may be Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s favorite Palestinian leader — a true ally, a blood brother. What they share is an all-or-nothing approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: either complete Palestinian rule over the land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan or complete Jewish hegemony. Neither man is a totally immovable object — roped and dragged by an irresistible political force, either might agree to less than the whole land, but only in violation of his life’s central conviction.

Haniyeh reiterated his views on Sunday at a Gaza rally, expressing “great hope of bringing an end to the Zionist project in Palestine.” Netanyahu seized that comment as a gift from an ally and quoted it the next day in his own speech to the Knesset, using it as proof that “this is not a conflict over 1967; this is a conflict over 1948, over the very existence of the state of Israel.”

Let me add several bits of context: First, in Israeli political debate, “1948″ and “1967″ are misused as shorthand. If the key to the conflict is the 1967 Six-Day War and Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip ever since, then agreement on a two-state solution is possible. It will be based on an Israeli pullback more or less to the pre-1967 borders and creation of an independent Palestine alongside Israel.

If, however, the intractable core of the conflict is Israel’s establishment and the flight and expulsion of the Palestinians in 1948 — what Palestinians call the Nakba, the Catastrophe — a two-state compromise won’t work. Rolling back the consequences of 1948 means eliminating the Jewish state, creating a single political entity between the river and the sea, and allowing all of the refugees of ’48 or their descendants to return to Israel. Outside of a fraction of the Israeli radical left, which insists on a single, shared state, Israelis are understandably unwilling to accept such a “solution.” But the claim that the conflict is essentially about 1948 is exploited by the Israeli right: If the Palestinians, every last one of them, will never settle for less than a reversal of 1948, then there’s no point in giving up the West Bank. The conflict will just continue.

Second, Haniyeh’s and Netanyahu’s comments came at the start of a week and a half overtangled with political developments, even by the standards of the Israeli-Palestinian imbroglio. Haniyeh spoke on May 15, when Palestinians commemorated the Nakba. The same day the Arab Spring literally spilled into Israeli-controlled territory, when Palestinian demonstrators from Syria — mobilized via Facebook, with some wearing business suits to emphasize that they came unarmed — managed to march into the Golan Heights.

Netanyahu cited that event along with Haniyeh’s speech in Parliament, warming up for a Washington trip that will include a meeting with President Barack Obama, a speech before Congress, and another at the convention of AIPAC, the hawkish pro-Israel lobby. Obama has his own speech on Middle East policy today, and another before AIPAC’s thousands. Count on Netanyahu to repeat the 1948 arguments, bolstered with some cherry-picked quotes from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s New York Times op-ed this week and with a “peace offer” designed to be rejected. The question facing Obama is whether he is finally willing to be the winch dragging Israelis and Palestinians toward peace or whether he’d rather be cheered by the AIPAC crowd, which does not want to hear any criticism of Netanyahu or of the status quo.

Third, the either-or argument about 1948 versus 1967 is deeply misleading. …

Read the rest here.

Niot, who was on furlough from the Israel Defense Forces, passed away two days after a diving accident in the Red Sea waters near Eilat during Pesah. He was laid to rest last Sunday at the military cemetery on Mt. Herzl in Jerusalem.

I look for words to give to Haim and Ilana on the incomprehensible loss of their son, to Asor, Mizmor and Misgav on the loss of their brother, and my words seem impossibly small next to the consolation that friends wish we could give you.

At Haim’s request, however, I can post here selections from what he, Ilana, Asor and Misgav said at the graveside at the military cemetery on Mount Herzl.  Deep thanks to Jeffrey Green for his translations.

Haim’s Words

Niot, you were already a hero on the day of you were born with the umbilical cord wrapped around your neck.  From that day on, the Holy One never stopped testing you.  And you withstood every test not only like a hero but also with joy.  Never in my life have I seen such a calm hero, so happy with his lot.

You had to cope with attention deficit and learning disorders.  For a while you were angry and frustrated, sure that the world was against you.  But very gradually, with a lot of help and support from us and from teachers and from wonderful professionals, you learned to cope and to succeed.  You struggled hard, and you prevailed, and with success came self-confidence and joy in life.  You never blamed anyone, and you never complained – not to other people and not to God.  Today we are following in your footsteps and accepting and coping with your terrible fate…

In times of frustration, when you were little, I would remind you that Moses was also the third child in his family, whose older brother and sister were different from him in their talents and personalities.  You drew a lot of strength from that.  In the Portion of the Week for the Sabbath of Pesah, which I read yesterday next to you bed in the hospital, that very Moses, the younger brother with a speech impediment and with quite a difficult childhood, stands before the Holy One on the peak of the mountain and asks to see the Glory of God.  God answers him: “I will make all my goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before you; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy” (Ex. 33:19).

During those morning prayers, in the Psalms that we read before the service, I searched for verses that would speak to me on that terrible day, when you left us.  And I couldn’t find the Niot either in the words of victory and warfare nor in the praises of the Creator of the mountains and seas.  You were a proud soldier, but a solder of brotherhood and companionship, not of victories.  I found you in Psalm 150, a short chapter at the end of the words of praise and exaltation, and with those words we take our leave of our hero, who was full of joy:

[1] Praise ye the LORD. Praise God in his sanctuary: praise him in the firmament of his power.
[2] Praise him for his mighty acts: praise him according to his excellent greatness.
[3] Praise him with the sound of the trumpet: praise him with the psaltery and harp.
[4] Praise him with the timbrel and dance: praise him with stringed instruments and organs.
[5] Praise him upon the loud cymbals: praise him upon the high sounding cymbals.
[6] Let every thing that hath breath praise the LORD. Praise ye the LORD.

Ilana’s Words

A Song of David: The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.

Niot, we miss you a lot. I have four chambers in my heart, and no you left one of them empty, but at your command, I will fill it.

He makes me to lie down in green pastures: he leads me beside the still waters.

You brought life to every dry place, and at every hard time you were tranquil.

He makes my soul lively: he leads me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

You were lively, with a heart of gold.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for You are with me;.

You have left us, but you will always remain with us….

Asor’s words

Niot, my little brother.

We are still trying to digest the disaster that has come to our door.  It is simply inconceivable that you’re gone, and that you will never be there again.

Master of the Universe, Merciful and Gracious God, how could You have given us this test?

How is a big brother supposed to cope with the loss of his little brother?

How are sisters supposed to cope with the death of their brother?

How is a father supposed to cope with burying his son?

How is a mother supposed to cope with the death of the fruit of her womb while he is still a young man?

These are my questions to which there are no answer, and apparently no one else can answer them, because what has happened here is something that it’s not possible to think about in an ordinary and clear way.

Lord of the Universe, you made things hard for Niot all his life.

When he was a child, he floundered in his studies, but he finished his matriculation examination.  As a child he was very angry, but he grew up to be a person who radiated joy and love.  As a child, he had no self-confidence, but he grew up to be a courageous soldier.

Niot, you withstood all these trials with heroism.  You were a success story.…

You always loved people.  The way you made people feel comfortable in your company, the way you made people happy everywhere you went, and the way you know how to love – to love unconditionally – real love…

Blessed be the Judge of Truth, beyond the fact that You have given my family many trials, You created a strong and united family, that will withstand this crisis with strength.

“But now that he is dead, why should I fast?  Can I bring him back again?  I shall go to him, but he will never come back to me.” [II Samuel 12:23]

“The Lord has given, and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the Name of the Lord.” [Job 1:20]

Misgav’s words

…On the way back from the Seder  night it was just you and I, and I asked you millions of questions about diving and what you do and whether it’s fun and what you do in a dangerous situation, and you answered me with a spark in your eye, “Don’t worry, just nonsense.  You just have to be careful.  It’s the most fun I ever had in my life.  One day you’ll dive, and then you’ll understand how much fun it is, little girl.”  It didn’t matter what we were talking about.  He would always end it with, “little girl,” and we laughed a little, and then I said to him, “Why, how old are you?’  “I’m twenty.”  We both looked at each other, and he said, and I’m already old,” and you patted your chest…

Niot, I hope it’s good for you up there.  Don’t forget us.  And we won’t forget you.  That’s for sure.  Watch over us, and over me.  I have a tendency to do silly things, just like you.  So make an effort and watch over me.  Be there when I need you in the good times and the bad ones.

I just want to say one last sentence.  I ask and I beg: Go to your parents and to your brothers and sisters and your children, even if it’s something that goes without saying, and tell them how important they are to you, and how much you love them, even if they know it.  Do that.  I’m so sorry that no one told me to tell him that I loved him so much.  Nioti, I love you.

The Obama administration’s wild generosity to Bibi may not be quite what it appears, as I explain in The American Prospect:

“There must be more here than meets the eye,” friends and colleagues have been saying about the deal that Hillary Clinton and Benjamin Netanyahu reached for a new three-month freeze on West Bank settlement building. How could Clinton and her boss be willing to pay so much — 20 new F-35s, a guaranteed American veto in the Security Council on recognizing unilateral Palestinian independence — for so little? Surely Obama and Clinton must be up to something.

Actually, I’m beginning to suspect that they are up to something. But before I explain, two provisos. The first is that there’s a common psychological error among smart people: When they see other smart people doing what look like folly, they assume that a hidden, complex plan has got to be at work. Yet as historian Barbara Tuchman taught us, intelligent leaders do sometimes march, eyes wide- open, into folly, rendering moot all the complex rationalizations of how this dumb-looking act will lead to wonderful results.

The second proviso is that in diplomacy, there’s always more going on than reaches the headlines. The point of diplomatic leaks is to bend public opinion, not to let us in on the facts. That seven-hour meeting between Clinton and Netanyahu? In five or 10 years, when they write their memoirs, we’ll get selective, self-serving versions of what was said. In 30 years or so, the transcripts may be declassified. For a journalist, this is one more motivation to live a long time: One day, you’ll get to find out how completely you misread things.

With that nod to humility, let me return to the deal. Based on the latest unreliable reports, two parts of it are not quite what they seem: what the Obama administration has offered Israel and what the administration is asking in return. The combined significance of these two parts is that Netanyahu’s compulsive settlement building has him in a very tight spot.

The American incentives, we’ve heard, include those 20 advanced war planes, a pledge to veto anti-Israel measures in the Security Council for the next year and to prevent international supervision of Israel’s nuclear installations, and more pressure on Iran to stop nuclear-arms development. Look at that list carefully. The offer of the planes is not exactly unusual in U.S.-Israeli relations. It fits the consistent policy since 1967 of giving Israel the means to defend itself, so that the United States will not have to. Providing arms is also a way of creating jobs stateside. It’s likely that the F-35 deal was already in the works and has now been made contingent on Israeli actions. …

Read the rest here, and return to South Jerusalem to comment.

The International Relations and Security Network, a Zurich-based information service for international relations and security professionals, interviewed me for its current special report on Israel. Hear me talk about Israeli democracy and Judaism, and please come back here to comment, object, question–and perhaps even concur–with my views.

Just don’t be confused–the picture on the podcast page is not me. Didn’t I just write about editors’ penchant for choosing a photo of a bearded guy with sidelocks and a black hat when an illustration is required for the term “Jew?” Rest assured that I remain clean-shaven and colorful.

My new column on the failure of the IDF rabbinate is up at Ha’aretz in Hebrew and in English translation:

The news in brief: A woman soldier asked to say kaddish, the mourner’s prayer, in an army synagogue. The rabbi of the base refused to let her. Again the army rabbinate showed narrow-mindedness that offended its legitimate target audience – soldiers with religious needs.

And for the news in full: In mid-May, a woman soldier serving at a Nahal base learned that her grandmother had died and received the standard one-week furlough to be with her family. The next day, her parents flew to America, where the funeral and shiva were to be held. The soldier – a member of a Nahal group from Noam, the youth movement of the Masorti (Conservative) Movement – returned to her base. There she got a call from her father, who said that he was unable to say kaddish where he was, for lack of a minyan. He asked her to say kaddish in his place.

The soldier spoke with the rabbi of her base and suggested that she organize a minyan of women in the synagogue at the base. At first, the rabbi agreed. But another religious woman soldier objected to such openness. Her own rabbi, she told the rabbi of the base, forbade such a practice. The army rabbi consulted his commanders in the Israel Defense Forces rabbinate. Then he informed the soldier from Noam that if she liked, she could organize a minyan in a classroom on the base. But she could not say kaddish in the IDF synagogue. The soldier was deeply offended. A representative of the Masorti Movement contacted the office of IDF Chief Rabbi Avihai Ronski – who supported the base rabbi’s “solution.”

Please note: The army rabbinate transgressed twice. Its first sin was discrimination against Conservative Judaism. An army base has a synagogue to meet the religious needs of soldiers. Soldiers from the Masorti Movement have every right to use the facility.
But the rabbi could have suggested another solution. In Orthodox Judaism, there are also synagogues where women say kaddish, from the women’s section. Some halakhic authorities oppose the practice; others permit it. The IDF Rabbinate doesn’t need to take the more stringent stance. Its job is to serve soldiers. In this case, a soldier needed to mourn in a religious framework. Instead of providing spiritual support, the rabbinate worried about what religious hard-liners would say – a common form of cowardice in the religious world – and failed to perform its mission. That’s the second sin.

Read the rest in Hebrew or English.

More suggestions for Seder discussion:

We are, of course, the most free people in history. We can live where we want (even if the cars, streets, and shop signs make a thousand neighborhoods look the same); we can do what we want (though some days the choice seems to be between which brand of peanut butter to buy); we can believe what we want (even if few people believe anything with a passion that grips their lives, and those few, we know, are eccentrics).

“In every generation, a person is obligated to see himself as if he went out from Egypt,” says the Haggadah, “as is written, ‘for the sake of this, the Lord acted for me when I went out from Egypt.’” It’s easy to read on quickly, thinking of the historical Egypt and even of a metaphorical one, a country or a time in which our parents or grandparents did not have our freedoms.

Read more slowly:

In every generation, a person is obligated to see himself… To find yourself in the retold story, to relive it, you have first to see yourself. In the grand metaphors Egypt as the Pale of Settlement, Egypt as the days of Jew-badge and ghetto we see history, but can forget ourselves. “Where are you?” God asked Adam (Genesis 3:9), knowing well the answer, knowing well that Adam did not; the Haggadah repeats the question.

As if he went out from Egypt… Understood as a word, not a name, the Hebrew for Egypt means “the twice-narrow place.” It is a place of constraints and claustrophobia, a passage so constricted that a man or woman can only walk forward, from the given past to an unavoidable future, without being able to turn. “From the narrow place I cried out, Lord,” says Psalm 118, using another form of the word, “in the wide place the Lord answered me.” Egypt is a condition of the spirit; see yourself, and you may see your Egypt. And then comes the act of imagination that the Haggadah demands: to see yourself leaving, coming out from the river-cut walls of the canyon into the open plain.

The difficulty in imagining this may be what our age shares with the real Egypt. Dying, Joseph told the Israelites: “God will surely remember you” (Genesis 50:24). Not only did a king arise who knew not Joseph, but a generation of Israelites arose who knew not his promise of redemption. Or perhaps they knew it, but took it no more seriously than the rantings of an anarchist great-aunt as out of place as any message of a better world in our post-modern cynicism because Egypt was the pinnacle of civilization, and its society was the given order, if not the perfected order.

As if he went out… Imagine going, acting, and not just being taken. The Exodus began when, after decades of silent acceptance, “the children of Israel groaned from the servitude and cried out” (Exodus 2:23). The cry could come only when those in the narrow place imagined that there could be something, somewhere else; only then did Moses arrive, bearing a vision that could now be heard. “He who wakens to purify himself,” says the Zohar in another context, “is helped.”

But the cry was not enough. Still in Egypt, the Israelites had to slaughter lambs and spread the blood on their doorposts. Sheep were worshiped as gods in that country, says the midrash in Shmot Rabbah. Only he who had decided to go free could commit the heresy of that sacrifice and smear the evidence where all could see. To go out, he had to take the first step inside Egypt.

…As is written (Exodus 13:8), “for the sake of this the Lord acted for me when I went out from Egypt.” In the Biblical context, “this” refers to matzah. Countless mistranslations have made the verse say that we eat matzah “because of what the Lord did” in the Exodus. Ibn Ezra’s commentary gets it right: God took us out for the sake of eating matzah that is, for the sake of fulfilling his commandments. Those who leave the “twice-narrow place” are not only freed from adding bricks to Pharoah’s massive, meaningless cities, but freed to accept a system of meaning for life.

On this night, we leave Egypt. What place are you leaving; where will you go?

Reprinted from Seventy Facets: A Commentary on the Torah from the Pages of the Jerusalem Report
© Gershom Gorenberg
(Feel free to link. Please do not reproduce in full without permission of the author)