The Velveteen Rabbi's Birthday Card to Israel (by Rachel Barenblat)
Dear Israel,
Wow, you're turning 60. Incredible. Happy birthday to you!
I feel a little bit like I'm showing up at your birthday party without a gift. The truth is, you and I don't really know each other. I know we're related, but we don't have much of a relationship. That's been my choice, I realize. I wasn't sure how to feel about you, so I turned my attention elsewhere for a while.
I get frustrated sometimes by how much attention we lavish on you. I worry that an overfocus on you means we don't pay enough attention to Jewish education in the diaspora, or to the many other human dramas unfolding around the globe. Often it has seemed to me that American Jews perceive you're the only place that can be truly holy -- which does a disservice both to you and to us.
But this is a big birthday. And I've been feeling increasingly like it's time for me to reach out. As a rabbinic student and as a Jew, I need to know you better than I do. So here I am, saying hello. I'm even coming to spend the summer with you. I'm excited about that -- and nervous, too.
Many people I love tell me the moment they touched your soil they knew they'd come home. They tell me that one Shabbat in Jerusalem, one desert sunrise, one rousing round of "Hatikva" will be enough to bind me to you for life -- indeed, that we're already bound together, whether I know it or not.
Others look at me askance when I mention that I'd like to get to know you in a more nuanced way. They remind me about your insular religious establishment; they point to the security barrier, to the painful realities of Palestinian life, to your decisions that make me angry or sad.
I often feel caught between people I know and love who adore you, who support you without reservation -- and people I know and love who find your choices problematic at best. And, of course, everyone in between. I experience cognitive dissonance where you're concerned. To your detractors, I want to defend you fiercely; to your defenders, I want to point out every way in which you fail to live up to my hopes and dreams.
And maybe that complicated welter of mixed emotions is precisely how I know we do have a relationship after all. I wouldn't be so emotionally invested if we weren't family.
I suspect that the better I get to know you, the more I will love you -- and also the more I will question you and disagree with you. It's going to take work to make our relationship whole and holy. Maybe that's the gift I can offer: my desire to know you well enough to know what about you I want to celebrate, and what about you I want to work to change.
So hey, Israel, happy 60th birthday. I don't know what the years to come hold, but I look forward to finding out -- together.
Love, Cousin Rachel
Rachel Barenblat is a student in the ALEPH rabbinic program who blogs at Velveteen Rabbi. She's a contributing editor at Zeek, a Jewish journal of thought and culture, and author of three poetry chapbooks, most recently chaplainbook, a collection of poems arising out of hospital chaplaincy work (Laupe House Press, 2006.) She co-founded the Progressive Faith Blog Con, a gathering of bloggers of progressive faith that took place for the first time in the summer of 2006. She lives in western Massachusetts.
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Check out J Street
J Street was founded to promote meaningful American leadership to end the Arab-Israeli and Palestinian-Israel conflicts peacefully and diplomatically. We support a new direction for American policy in the Middle East and a broad public and policy debate about the U.S. role in the region.
J Street represents Americans, primarily but not exclusively Jewish, who support Israel and its desire for security as the Jewish homeland, as well as the right of the Palestinians to a sovereign state of their own - two states living side-by-side in peace and security. We believe ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is in the best interests of Israel, the United States, the Palestinians, and the region as a whole.
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It's about time someone challenged neo-conservative Middle East policy, embraced by the Bush administration, which has been driving Israel into extinction.
Posted by: justintime | May 12, 2008 11:51 AM
Thank you. I hope Sojo will include more Jewish voices on this blog.
Posted by: I and I | May 12, 2008 12:19 PM
Lovely, Rachel. I hope you two find blessings in each other! They're there to be found, I know.
Posted by: dale | May 12, 2008 2:21 PM
Rachel, you sound just as REAL as the Velveteen Rabbit himself. Nice item!
Posted by: d.e.sharp | May 12, 2008 3:52 PM
Well said, Rachel.
Too often, any criticism of Israel is shouted down by those trying desperately to justify the failed policy of militarism practiced by our nation in the Middle East (and elsewhere).
Pray for Peace!
Posted by: Doug & Jan in CO | May 12, 2008 6:19 PM
Thanks for the comments, all.
Posted by: Rachel | May 12, 2008 8:31 PM
"I suspect that the better I get to know you, the more I will love you -- and also the more I will question you and disagree with you."
In Kiswahili there is a saying: 'asiyekujua hakuthamini.' It means 'he/she who doesn't knw you doesn't value you.'
We all need more getting to know one another, that is for sure ...
God bless you Rachel.
- Alu
Dar es Salaam
Posted by: Robert Alu | May 13, 2008 3:45 AM
To Rachel
When we celebrate birthdays of loved ones, do think of the good and the bad in there life? Do take out the photo album and their personal journal to examine their life? I mostly agree with your letter; Israel is such a complicated situation within our history and our current events. As a Jew, Israel means so much more. I ask why can't we let Israel celebrate 60 for one day, without the politics and just the joy and let the commentary, the analysis and the rest follow as we all know it will. Finally let us remember Israel is man made government with flaws and with joys; just as Lebanon and Palestine one day perfection is not possible but moving towards peace is. This story does not have two sides it has a thousand. Let us pray for all those that walk the land of the Levant.
Posted by: matt | May 13, 2008 8:58 AM
We definitely need a Jewish voice as well as a Muslim voice to enrich our dialog.
Posted by: Anthony | May 15, 2008 8:31 PM
I pray for peace for Israel it is long over due and "Happy Birthday"
Posted by: Shirley Rothman | May 18, 2008 10:38 AM
60 YEARS SINCE WHAT?
Posted by: CHARLIE | May 18, 2008 10:40 AM
I'm not sure I want to keep this website on my e-mail address. I see it it not completely Jewish. I see things about Jesus, Catholocism, etc. My family is orthodox, definite Zionists and we hate any PLO,HAMAS and Palestenians. I read the birthday card to Israel. I didn't like everything she said because I am a Zionist. But here is a secret I keep from my "yeshiva raised" adult children. I do believe in Jesus' healing powers and I call Unity prayer line when I get angina(chest pains). I went to Charismatic Catholic prayer meetings to get healed from my heart condition and my asthma. I believe that Mother Mary gives me the inner peace I need in a medical crisis while Jesus does his healing work on my body and I go into the spirit when the prayer line prays with me. So I guess I will keep this progressive Jewish website for awhile because I do belive in Jesus. I refuse to go to synagogue or church anymore. I just want to pray in my Jewish daily prayer book and the Psalms of David. I do have a pocket edition of the Gideon New Testament and the Psalms given to me by the Gideons at the gate of my Brooklyn College. I am not a "Jew for Jesus". I am Jewish who uses whomever works best for me to get healings so I can stay alive to at least 90. I am 62 now. So I'll read your website every now and then. You all must do good work. Good luck, Sincerely, Chaya Malka Ohanna
Posted by: Chaya Malka Ohanna | May 18, 2008 6:16 PM
Have a dialoge with Iran. Then dialogue with Hitler, Ms. Chamberlain. What brilliant discouse and arguments would you make when you engadge Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah in discussion to have them say say,'"gee whiz, I guess we had it all wrong"
Wake up. You've been in a war for 60 years, from the day Israel was born.It's a war we didn't ask for and one we don't certainly didn't deserve. I for one am ready to give my life for my people-- to avoid the coming Holocaust.
When a tragedy occurs in our life we turn to God asking why? Maybe there's a hidden meaning that onlt He knows.
Maybe"The Holocaust" as it's known occurred to prevent a bigger holocaust- the granting of Iran's vow to drive us into the sea.
Oh and Rachel- don't forget to vote for Obama- he just received an official endorsement Hamas---I'm serious.
Posted by: sander bergman | May 18, 2008 9:02 PM
Dear Israel,
I loved you with tremendous and unalloyed intensity during my years of Jewish Day Schoola and Yeshivah training.
I then learned that you had, in 1948, displaced 700,000 Palestinians from their homes and have never let them return. My dear Israel, this is a violation of international law, not to say basic human decency.
I learned, too, to my dismay, that you have helped arm dictators such as Suharto, the Shah of Iran and others, thus facilitating the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.
You currently hold about three million Palestinians under your control, in the longest military occupation extant in the world. And yet, you show no remorse.
Dear Israel, you introduced weapons of mass destruction into the middle east and continue to terrorize the Lebanese, Palestinians, and other neighboring peoples and states.
I'm sorry Israel, but I can't love you anymore, and I can't support the hypocrisy that pretends you are in mortal danger and somehow exempt from the moral and legal standards that apply to every other nation on earth.
Posted by: Jeffrey Levy | May 19, 2008 3:55 PM
Levy- I see no mention of the 600,000 Jews displaced from their Arb national homes.Jews still can't vote in the Arab countries they live in. You must really hate The USA after we supported the Shah, Suharto,Batista, Tito, Papa Doc Duvellier and Trujillo.
Don't worry- there's still room down at the mosque for you.
Posted by: sander bergman | May 19, 2008 7:07 PM
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