Peace be upon you, Jews, you are free!

via Yad Vashem

These words were spoken by Rabbi Herschel Schacter shortly after he rode through the gates of the Buchenwald concentration camp in 1945, together with the liberating American forces. Rabbi Schacter died in the Bronx on March 21, after a long career as one of the most prominent Modern Orthodox rabbis in the United States. And, as further reported by the NY Times on March 26, he cried “Shalom Aleichem, Yidden, as he ran from barracks to barracks, repeating those words: Peace be upon you, Jews, you are free! He was joined by those Jews who could walk, until a stream of people swelled behind him.”

His words still resonate in my head, and apparently won’t leave me in peace until I write this post and get it out of my system. Because, fellow Jews, it took me awhile to understand that they hold true today – though probably from a somewhat different angle – as they did 68 years ago. Not because Jews are not free. They are, in Israel and America (and most everywhere else), allowed to follow their dreams and live their lives as they please. And yet, and this is what bothers me the most, in Israel – and surly in some segments of American Jewry as well – some people, or better still some leaders, behave as if we are not yet free.

This is an oxymoron of sorts, which demands a careful examination. Let me have a crack at it then, here and now. What I keep hearing from Israeli leaders, and from some American Jews as well, is in what a dangerous neighborhood Israel exists. True enough. They keep stressing, also, that today, 65 years to the establishment of the Jewish state, Israel is still in a state of siege; still fighting for its survival, and still facing an “existential” threat to its existence. Oh, how much Mr. Netanyahu likes to use that old metaphor of comparing Israel’s struggle for survival with what we had suffered in the Holocaust. It is high time to put a stop to the constant, denigrating use of the Holocaust to justify false, cowardly policies.

Israel, after all, is the only unquestionable, unchallengeable superpower in the Middle East today. Furthermore, militarily and economically – with the support of America and American Jews squarely pushing and covering our back – one of the strongest nations on earth, possessing an amazingly strong army, with a large arsenal of nuclear weapons. (Which now we learn, thanks to WikiLeaks, Israel had vehemently refused to admit existed even to the American president and other leaders in 1975, refusing all attempts of inspection – remind you of something?…) So stop pretending as if Israel is not free. Stop pretending as if it faces a constant existential threat. Stop being such a militaristic, confrontational oriented society and realize – leaders and people alike – that only by making peace with your neighbors, far and foremost among them the Palestinians, the gaining of total freedom will be completed.

If there is an existential, external threat to Israel’s existence, it stems not from its neighboring countries, but from its refusal to compromise and make peace. The other existential threat is internally, and threatens the fabric of its society; i.e. the “The wars of the Jews.” It seems as if the gap between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem keeps widening, as is the gap between the liberal, largely secular Israel and the more fervent religious segments of its society. A gap like that, if not kept in check, can grow into an abyss. Tackling these issues at the core, and head on – like, for instance, allowing women to pray as they wish at the Western Wall, and not be pushed to sit at the back of the bus – is a step in the right direction. Hopefully, the rise of Yair Lapid and his Yesh Atid party signal, at least on that front, a promising move forward.

It is therefore important – especially on this unique April 2013, in which Passover ended and Lag B’Omer begins, in which we honored the memory of all the victims of the Holocaust, and then stood silence in memory of our fallen soldiers, who fought and died for our freedom, to be followed by a celebration of their (and our) achievement of being a free, independent sate – to remember the words Rabbi Schacter cried upon the liberation of Buchenwald: “Peace be upon you, Jews, you are free!” This is a reminder that we are indeed free. And that we better behave like free people – free to choose war or peace – if we don’t want to lose that precious freedom.

* Appeared first on “The Times of Israel.”

The Silence of the Friends

“Friends don’t let friends drive drunk,” a woman friend had told me at a Super Bowl party last month. (Both of us, if I remember correctly, were holding open beer bottles in our hands.) We were discussing a recent event here in the Sacramento Jewish community, centered on “Civil Discourse” in regard to talking about Israel, which both of us helped organize. While generally the event was considered a success, and was well-attended, I was voicing the opinion that it was not so. That it was more like preaching to the choir; that it was mostly attended by liberal-minded, left-leaning people, who were not afraid of openly discussing – and yes, criticizing too, if necessary – Israel’s political situation and policies. She made her remark, therefore, in response to my claim that there is still a “Code-of-Silence,” sort of, among a large section of the Jewish community.

This attitude was not new to me, of course, even though I kind of deluded myself that it was a thing of the past (what with “J Street,” for instance, coming to relative prominence in the last few years). Very early on in my life in America, first in Los Angeles and then in Sacramento, it was made clear to me by my Jewish American friends – and Israelis, too, to a degree – that one is forbidden from speaking ill of Israel. Keep your opinion to yourself, in other words. It was also made clear to me that only because I was an Israeli, an ex-officer in an elite paratroops unit who was wounded in battle (words get around, you see), that I was “allowed” to speak my unorthodox, “lefty” opinions, in private and in public. So generally, at least out of politeness (one hopes out of some respect, too), people had listened to my views without excommunicating me.

Not that it helped much, you see. I always compered it, within myself, to what I call the “(Jewish) Mother Syndrome.” In other words, whether your son is a drug dealer, a cheat and a thief and, worst of all, a murderer; you defend him to your last drop of blood. It reminds me of an interview on the radio I heard some time ago with the actress Halle Berry, who just had a baby daughter not so long prior. And in response to the interviewer question, demonstrating how much she loved her daughter and would do anything to defend and protect her, she plainly remarked that if her daughter were to kill/murder somebody, she would “help” her bury the victim. So there you have it, my friends, in a nutshell: the whole theory of the “Mother Syndrome.”

And yet to my mind it’s not only wrong but, let’s face it, almost criminal. After all, a murderer is a murderer, whether he is your daughter or your son (think of Oscar Pistorius and his parents, why don’t you?). The same goes for Israel as well, and its policies in the occupied territories, which includes the steady march towards a state of apartheid – if not by design than by de facto – in the West Bank. The result of which might be a “drunk drive” (power can corrupt and intoxicate, no doubt) towards the cliff of destruction; both of the Zionist dream, and of what had been achieved until 1967 by way of establishing a democratic, pluralistic Jewish State. Just imagine how better things night/could have been by now, in these regards, had the Jewish people of America, with their political clout and financial strength, had spoken firmly against the occupation and settlements – when there was still time to reverse course – and had forced the various American administrations to act more responsibly and firmly against Israel’s bad tendencies, and its wrongheaded use of the many millions of dollars given to it yearly by America. Just imagine.

There was not much to imagine this past weekend while watching “The Gatekeepers,” the Oscar-nominated documentary by Dror Moreh. It was all there in the open, up on the screen, for all to see and hear, being said by – no, not by Jewish and Israeli-haters from the left – but by the last six heads of the Shin Bate, the Israeli Security Service. They spoke so frankly and decidedly in the film – including comparing Israel’s tactics and actions against the Arab population in the occupied territories to those of Nazi Germany in Europe – that, even though they hadn’t said anything I didn’t already know, it was still so very hard, painful even, to hear; since it was coming from the mouths of the people who enabled all these policies. Where were they, one achingly wants to ask, when they had the power to change things? Why did they choose to keep so quiet and mum about it all? I know, I know, it was not their job to do so. Yet their obligation as citizens, colleagues and friends, was to warn their leaders of the approaching, terrible consequences. Because that what friends do, whether in Israel or in America: they don’t let their friends drive drunk!

P.S. – In Jerusalem yesterday, President Obama said this: “Israel has no greater friend than the United States…” And: “The only path to security – the only way for Israel to endure and thrive as a Jewish democratic state is through the creation of an independent and viable Palestinian state.”

* Appeared first on “The Times of Israel.”