Parshat Re’eh Dvar Torah – The Important of August the 2nd, 2009

Parshat Re’eh Dvar Torah – The Important of August the 2nd, 2009
Rabbi Yoni Jaffe, Congregation Emanu-El
8.14.2009


Saturday, August the 2nd was just another day in the life of Israel. Being Shabbat, the streets in Jerusalem were quiet. In synagogues far and wide, people prayed and read from the Torah. In other parts of the country, people tended to their business. And yet in three seemingly isolated moments of the day, the country was rocked to its core. I would like to take the opportunity this evening to walk you through these important moments, all within a single day.
It was just after midnight when a protest against the expulsion of migrant workers in Tel Aviv came to an end. Thousands of Israeli and migrant workers, including children, had formed a human chain in protest of Israel's decision to deport families of illegal aliens, most of them from Africa and Asia. Many of those slated for deportation had been born in Israel but did not receive citizenship due to their non-Jewish immigrant status. In all, more than 20,000 people expect to be deported by the end of the year as part of a government policy to have all migrant workers out of the country by 2013. In 2005 the government expelled 145,000 migrant workers in a similar campaign. Many workers lose their status because of the Immigration Authority's policies. Legal status can be revoked when a person quits their job, is fired, gets pregnant or is even married. And while the government claims to deport illegal migrants to free up jobs for Israelis, it nevertheless issues thousands of visas for new workers each year. The inherent message is that foreign workers are encouraged to come, just so long as they don’t become settled and think about staying.
Israel’s employment of immigrant workers has soared following the 2nd intifada. At a time when the average Israeli is leery of Palestinian day laborers, many workers have come from the Phillipines, Thailand and Africa to fill the void. They are awarded temporary visas for their employment, but most often denied the opportunity to pursue citizenship. After all, too many immigrants threatens the majority status of Israel’s Jews. And so Israel’s Supreme Court has ruled their deportation as legal, based upon the protection of the Jewish nature of the state.

Fast forward six hours to the early moments of dawn. It was at that moment that 100 Israeli police officials arrived at the homes of the the al-Ghawe and the Hannoun families in East Jerusalem. They broke through the doors and windows, arresting twenty-one international and Israeli volunteers who were sleeping inside. In all, 53 family members were evicted including children and infants, their belongings thrown onto the street. They had been living in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem since 1956, when the Jordanian government and the UN had settled refugees of the 1948 war of independence.
However, the Israeli government has recently pursued an agenda of “Judification” of this East Jerusalem neighborhood. After all, as former Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski explains, the presence of Arab Israelis in this neighborhood just beyond the walls of the Old City threatens the continuity of Jerusalem as a singularly Jewish city, exposing the division of Jerusalem as a potential bargaining chip in two state solution talks.
We should only expect such wisdom from a man who despite Jerusalem’s soaring unemployment rate, the highest in the nation, rebuffed offers from IBM to open offices in the city center as it would distract people from focusing on Torah. As of this week, members of both the al-Ghawi and al-Hanoun families were sleeping on the sidewalk in front of their old homes. Skirmishes have broken out between local Arab-Israelis and ultra-orthodox settlers in the neighborhood. The conflict is yet to be resolved.

We fast forward again, to the early evening. It was at this time that with trepidation and excitement, 19 year old Raziel Mishkin made his first visit to a local Tel Aviv club, catering to its large LGBT community. It had been a momentous few days for Raz, who had come out of the closet to his parents just earlier that week. He decided to visit this club for the first time, to meet other kids like him. Raz was seated at a table, playing chess with a friend, when a masked gunman entered the room and started spraying bullets. As people screamed and fell to the floor, a bullet flew across the room and entered Raz’s back, piercing his lung. He was rushed to the hospital for damage to his spinal cord. As of today, he is paralyzed from the chest down. And yet he and 9 other injured kids were the lucky ones as at least they did not lose their lives. Over the past week, our dear friend Avi Blecherman from Congregation Beit Tefilah, who visited us back in June, has been visiting with Raz daily and has asked that his name be included in our healing prayers tonight.
So here is a snapshot of Israel in a single day. A protest against the deportation of foreign laborers. The eviction of two large Arab-Israeli families from their East Jerusalem neighborhood. A hate crime against Tel Aviv’s LGBT community. All in a day.

Leviticus 19 instructs us:

When a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not wrong him.
The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens; you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt:

Or to put it more succinctly:

Love your neighbor as one of your own

I take this to mean, the treatment of the other is ultimately indicative of the way you treat members of your own community. On August the 2nd, the Israeli government engaged in abusive treatment of two “others” within its borders: Arab Israelis and foreign laborers. Many in Israeli society have grown accustomed to approaching these populations as “other”, to dehumanizing them through xenophobic attitudes and policies. And that evening, the proverbial chickens came home to roost: An Israeli terrorist attacked yet another “other” within the community. Because once we learn to dehumanize externally, it is only a matter of time until we do so internally.

Love your neighbor as one of your own. Hatred for the other leads to hatred of your own. Fear breeds fear and contempt breeds contempt. It just comes in different brands.
This week’s Torah portion, Re’eh, begins with words we will recite again in one month during the high holy days:

26 See, this day I set before you blessing and curse: 27 blessing, if you obey the commandments of the LORD your God that I enjoin upon you this day; 28 and curse, if you do not obey the commandments.

Ultimately, it is up to us to decide how we consider the other. Our reaction will ultimately decide our blessing or curse. At the height of the cold war, our fear of communism drove us to rabid McCarthyism at home. More recently, our post 9/11 paranoia led to mistreatment of Arab Americans. Factions within Israeli society seem to be trapped in just such a pattern, as illustrated so clearly on August the 1st.
Turn the page to the next day, August 2nd. Back in Israel, people were waking to a new morning. The al-Ghawi and al-Hanoun families awoke from their makeshift accommodations in front of the homes they had lived in for half a century. As Shabbat ended, thousands of foreign laborers went back to work, in fear of losing their jobs and along with them their visas. Throngs of people flooded Rabin square in Tel Aviv to support the LGBT community. Meanwhile, funeral preparations were made for the two people who had been murdered. The injured were cared for, the psychological toll still to come.
At the very same time, hundreds of representatives of the Jewish community of San Francisco were packed inside of the Cow Palace, welcoming hundreds of “others” from around the country and the rest of the world for the Maccabbi games. A legion of volunteers, some of them with us tonight, proudly hosted student athletes, volunteered, donated money and put on a happy face to receive our guests here in San Francisco. The response to this year’s games was simply amazing and something that our community should be proud of. Personally, I took great pride in seeing so many families from our Emanu-El community present at these games. The welcome mat was laid out for the “others” among us. And in the end, San Francisco ultimately benefited. We were brought closer together through our outward efforts.

See, this day I set before you blessing and curse.

Ultimately, the blessing or the curse is within each of us. That which we project outward, we will surely receive inward. I believe that these days represented an important moment for both the San Francisco and Israeli Jewish communities. I hope and pray that we may pursue attitudes and policies of blessing rather than curse throughout the world. Ken yihiyeh ratzon – may it be God’s will. Amen.