The Routes Less Traveled By

The following was written on Friday, December 5^th, 2008.

Movement and migration have been important parts of human life since the first communities made their way out of Africa hundreds of thousands of years ago.  Though today there are still several nomadic cultures around the world, nomadic movement as a human institution became all but entirely obsolete thousands of years ago as the agricultural revolution made way for settled civilizations and the establishment of nations and states.  Still, especially in developing countries, every year millions of people in search of opportunity migrate from rural areas to the closest cities.  Of course immigration policy is a constant issue for governments trying to balance economic stability, social order, and population growth sensitivity.  The entire growth model of humanity’s movement, physically from place to place and developmentally from nomadic wandering to settled civilizations—not to mention the movement of culture and ideas—is evident today across the world.  It continues to progress and increase in complexity with new dimensions emerging every day as technology allows for increased communication and cultural diffusion.

Still, the truth is that while mass movement has been a common thread in human history, international travel experiences have always been rare.  I have never felt so lucky in my life.  This is saying a lot, considering that I’ve already been on this program for almost two months.  As if it wasn’t already clear to us that Kivunim is a unique program that provides unique opportunities, as we traveled from Athens up to Sophia we met people who have never left their country of origin, and visited places that have never seen a tour bus.  Just the sheer beauty of the natural world was enough to make us feel closer than ever to who we are and where we live.  Yet, that was just the beginning.  We experienced some of the oldest and most well known pieces of history in the world as well as some of the most obscure ones.  We read street signs and learned some rudimentary vocabulary in new languages.  We met with Jews who remember Jewish life before the Holocaust and those who are trying to resurrect Judaism after half a century of communist rule.  We prayed in synagogues that haven’t held 51 Jews in decades and have probably never housed a service of 51 Jewish youth alone.  We tried new food and new currency, and were able to explore and navigate new cities.  In so many ways, I have never been further from home in my life, and yet I have never felt closer to my roots, nor to how far they extend.

When we landed in Athens, the first thing that occurred to me was that it was more foreign than anywhere I had ever been.  Before this trip my international travels had amounted to Israel, England and Canada.  Greece was the first place I had ever been where I couldn’t speak or read the language.  Even Hebrew, with its own alphabet, is familiar enough to me, though I will admit that I didn’t read the French on the signs in Canada.  One of the ulterior goals behind Kivunim’s international travels is not just to open us up to some of the lesser known threads of Jewish history but also to take us to places where we would not necessarily go if we are fortunate enough to travel later in life.  Case in point: although we did go to Greece, the islands were not a stop on our tour.  To have distinct mental images, smells, sounds and feelings tied to Bulgaria, a country that would be very easy to simply lump into the “Eastern Bloc,” is very powerful.  The feeling of replacing a generalization or a fixed image in one’s mind with a fluid and enticing taste of reality is something that simply cannot be replaced, but must be built upon. 

If as one of the cradles of civilization Greece was an appropriate first trip in our series of international travels this year, then it was all the more fitting that the first thing we did in Athens was climb up to the Acropolis.  Being in the presence of such old and significant structures, I found myself shocked by how real they were.  Besides being reminiscent of meeting a movie star, it reminded me of visiting the Western Wall in Jerusalem.  There are parallels simply in how the “Old City” of Athens has been preserved at the center of a modern city.  Of course I didn’t connect to the Parthenon on a Jewish level directly, but a large part of Kivunim’s goals, especially on the international trips, is trying to balance our Jewish and broader human identities in order to learn more about where they intersect. 

After visiting the Acropolis we went to the Jewish museum and main synagogues of Athens, and had an audience with the chief rabbi of Greece.  One particularly incredible part of a visit we made to one of the synagogues was hearing Torah be chanted there; the reader chanted the Torah with different voices, speeds and intonations—as if to portray a dramatization of some kind.  This was shocking on the one hand, because most American Jews, besides being unable to understand the biblical Hebrew of the Torah, are used to hearing it chanted with one particular set of tonal inflections that masks the dramatic quality of its verses.  How appropriate, we all thought, for Greek Jews to chant the Torah like an ancient Greek epic poem...

We spent Shabbat with the local Jewish youth, and were given ample time to roam the city.  Moving on to Chalkida, we had the sobering experience of visiting a Jewish community that will in all likelihood cease to exist within the next hundred years.  Our director Peter Geffen led us in a prayer for the leaders of the community that felt truly appropriate.  I really appreciated Peter’s use of prayer in these circumstances, to bless the leaders of the Jewish community in Chalkida, and then to show appreciation for the wonders of the natural world when we got to Delphi and Meteora.  Although I’ve never been particularly religious, being able to pray out of feeling a connection to the spontaneous meaning of what a prayer stands for in the first place—beyond the age of the tradition itself—is a very moving experience.

At Delphi we visited the old site of the Oracle, which is where many Greek rulers went to seek advice from the god Apollo through his Medium.  Part of what made Delphi so meaningful was that, unlike Athens, which is a modern European capital, Delphi is all but unadulterated.  You can easily look out on the mountains and imagine that you are living in any time period.  Even the town itself has a sort of quaint antique vibe.  In Meteora we took our bus to the heights of the mountains that rise out of the plains of central Greece, to visit a different time period.  The monasteries there were built into the mountains during the early years of Orthodox Christianity. 

Delphi and Meteora were two of the most beautiful places I have ever been.  Needless to say, our hotel in Delphi won the award for best room with a view.  Even (or, dare I say, especially) the bus rides were absolutely breathtaking.  The earth in these places is so vibrant and far from mundane.  There is something about the natural world in Greece, whether it’s the Acropolis in Athens, the Oracle at Delphi, or the monasteries of the Meteora mountains, that makes it easy to connect to the organic energy that inspired the societies in these places to develop.  My roommate Jason said it best when we got off the bus at a lookout point just outside of Delphi during sunset.  As the sun was bursting through from behind the clouds, while other clouds rolled down the mountains behind us, Jason exclaimed, “If someone told you that Apollo was behind that cloud, you’d have to believe them!”  Truly, it didn’t require very much imagination to understand why the monks chose to live and pray in those mountains.

Accordingly, I found myself connecting to these places on an almost religious level.  I found myself inspired to write and invent.  I find it very interesting that these places, which inspired creativity and innovation two weeks ago, are also the places where people felt closest to their creators thousands of years ago.  My peers and I could have read a lot more and studied for years about Greece to enhance our experience before visiting, but ultimately the natural energy and meaning of these places required very little preparation to perceive.  In short, I would posit that if someone didn’t tell you that Apollo lived behind those clouds, you would say it yourself.  At a time when I feel my childhood slipping away each day, these places made me appreciate that the heart of human imagination truly is our oldest tradition and it can never die.  I don’t just mean Ancient Greek mythology; I’m talking about something as basic as the ability to plan a hunt before one is too hungry to think straight.  The frontal lobe is most literally what sets us apart as human beings, and as far as memory is also included in that biological phenomenon, it is only appropriate that these places of such profound historical significance made me feel closer than ever to that fact.

On our way to Salonika—really the curricular highlight of the trip as far as Jewish history is concerned—we stopped in the town of Veria to celebrate Thanksgiving.  I’ll just say that it was very heartwarming, but somehow the decorations alone couldn’t disguise the fact that we were still eating spanicoppota (spinach pie) and pasta.  Veria was one of the most powerful places that we visited, as much because of what is there as what is missing.  The town of Veria used to be home to hundreds of Jewish families.  Today there are only about ten individuals.  I found myself really wrestling with what it must be like to identify as a Jew in a place where the community is so limited and the access to the major centers of modern Jewry are so distant.  As far as the northeast United States is concerned, I come from a pretty small Jewish community, but even compared to some Jewish communities in the Deep South, Veria is a whole different ball game.  However, combined with the eerie silence of the Jews of Veria is a really hopeful and positive story of a municipality that is doing wonderful things to preserve the old synagogue in town and not let it fade away like the people who used to use it.  As Kivunim held a short mincha (afternoon) prayer service in the synagogue, Peter emphasized the historical significance not only of the synagogue itself but of our presence inside it.  Never in its history, he proclaimed, had this synagogue housed a prayer service exclusively made up of so many young Jews—let alone Americans.  We had received a similar reception from the people of Chalkida, but again Veria was all the more powerful because no one was there; we literally brought the synagogue back to life as we chanted the prayers.  As solemn as they are, it is places like Veria that empower us, reminding us that the processes of history and society that transcend us all as individuals really would not happen if we weren’t here.

The next and final stop on our tour of Greece was Salonika, or Thessaloniki, the capital of the north.  Before World War II Salonika was home to 90% of Greek Jews.  The city was actually 60% Jewish, making it one of the most vibrant communities of the Jewish Diaspora.  Unfortunately it is exactly this vibrance that made it a prime target for Nazi destruction during WWII, when 90% of its Jews (approximately 70,000 people) were killed in Auschwitz.  Most of the survivors moved to Athens after the War because it was too expensive to rebuild their homes in Salonika.  Being in this city and realizing how little Jewish influence is left in everyday life was really heavy.  Again, almost as powerful as what we did see was what we didn’t see, according to the history that we learned about what had once existed there.  We spent Shabbat at the local Jewish Community Center and prayed in their synagogue.  Although it is small, Salonika’s Jewish community is certainly not in as dire straits as those of Chalkida or Veria, but it was striking how underdeveloped it seemed.  Salonika was the perfect transition from Greece to Bulgaria, because we began to connect to the spirit of revitalization that exists in some of the more promising Jewish communities. 

As we boarded the train for a six-hour ride to Bulgaria, we came to terms with how little we actually knew about this place.  We had learned the basic story, which happens to be very inspiring, but our brains were fraught with post-communist Eastern European imagery and little else.  Bulgaria didn’t have anything very distinct associated with it for most of us.  But as with Salonika, we were soon asking out of equal parts wonder and outrage why we had never learned about it before Kivunim.  One can imagine how those students with twelve years of formal Jewish education felt when they found out that there was a city called Salonika, which they had never heard of despite the fact that it had been one of the major centers of the Jewish world at one point.  This sentiment became all the more potent in Bulgaria. 

When we got off the train, I immediately felt I had reached an even higher threshold of feeling foreign.  Aside from the cold and the faint smell of smoke, I remember looking at my first Bulgarian sign and wondering where some of the non-Greek characters had come from.  Such is the sliding scale of familiarity!  The capital city of Sophia was beautiful.  It had all the trappings of a European city, with its squares, churches and Roman architecture.  Perhaps the most striking piece of the skyline was the synagogue, which, resembling a castle, is the second largest Sephardic synagogue in Europe.  We also visited the second largest Bulgarian city of Plovdiv, which showed the vestiges of communism a little bit more.  In Plovdiv we were able to meet with some elderly Bulgarian Jews, who told us their stories.  This was a great opportunity for those of us who know a little Spanish, because the first language of Jewish communities in Greece and Bulgaria before the War was Ladino (a hybrid of Hebrew and Spanish), dating back to the culture of the Jews who were expelled from Spain and moved into these Mediterranean countries in the 16^th century, ultimately taking dominance over the culture of the native Romaniote Jews.

The story of the Bulgarian Jewish community is as uplifting as it is intriguing.  Essentially, before WWII the Jews were much more assimilated into society in Bulgaria, and were less conspicuous and centralized than the majority of Jewish communities across Europe.  Aside from the public good will concerning the Jews, because Bulgaria was allied with Germany, its government had more leeway than that of France for example, especially in dealing with Jews.  In the end the Jews of Bulgaria were saved from the death camps, though many were sent to work.  Although they were not killed, the anxiety of being Jewish in Europe at that time, sure that it was always only a matter of time before they too were taken to Auschwitz, incited about 90% of Bulgarian Jews to move to Israel after World War II, so the community’s numbers still decreased just as much as other more tragic ones across Europe.  Then communism pushed an already inconspicuous Jewish community further into dilution as religion was forbidden. 

Today Bulgaria has one of the most progressive and vibrant Jewish communities in the world, yet it is almost entirely unknown to the majority of the Jewish world.  Since anyone younger than sixty was raised without any concept of what it means to be Jewish, Bulgaria has a Jewish community run by the youngest generation of professionals, a group of twenty-somethings who came of age during the fall of communism and are intrigued by this lost piece of their identities.  They are determined to resurrect and reconstruct what it means to be Jewish in Bulgaria, and they are doing a really fantastic job.   They have a well-attended summer camp and even a school.  Leagues beyond Salonika’s Jewish community in terms of cultivating leadership among the youth, Bulgarian Jews are a community that is struggling but thriving.  Indeed, in terms of numbers they are millions behind the United States, but in terms of percentages they are disproportionately more successful in developing Jewish identity and increasing numbers.  When this point was made in a presentation made by the thirty-year-old president of their community, Kivunim reached its peak of shock that this place is left out of the mainstream Jewish narrative—and frankly, I think some of us were ashamed that America takes so much of the spotlight!  Granted, their small size probably doesn’t hurt their ability to organize each other, and my first reaction was that they didn’t have the freedom and comfort (et cetera) of the American Jewish community that can lead people to drop out and interpret out.  Yet, being at the crossroads of Mediterranean, European and Asian culture, Bulgaria prides itself on being very diverse (which is all the more impressive in the Balkan region where diversity is so often the root of violence), so even with such a small Jewish community, nurturing pluralism is a high priority.

This was a fitting note to end the trip on.  Broadening our conception of the world and what it means to be Jewish is at the core of Kivunim’s mission—especially when it comes to the international program.  Like many American Jews, I am all too aware of how my sense of Jewish life has been constructed around an image of a people with just two foci, in America and Israel.  This brings us to the rhetorical question of our time: why settle for simplification?  After two weeks in Greece and Bulgaria, I feel I have taken another small yet nonetheless significant step towards uncovering truly how much more is behind that question than merely rhetoric.  Being on Kivunim, it becomes increasingly clear to my peers and I that as the world is globalizing and calling on a new generation of people who can realize their connections to others on an international level, the Jewish people have the seeds in the geography of our history and our present day to take on this global identity that we talk so much about.  The story of the Jewish people can be a model for the story of humanity, of a group with an endless of amount of diversity and fragmentation combined with an ultimately common story and core identity.  For the first time since we arrived in Israel, I feel that I am actually seeing the reconciliation of my Jewish identity and my concern for the world.  I always knew that these two pieces of me could coexist and even play off of one another, but truly wrapping my mind around how inextricably intersected they are is a process that has only begun to unfold. 

Sooooo Far, Sooooo Good

The one-month anniversary of Kivunim’s arrival in Israel came and went.  A week-and-a-half in the desert followed by three-and-a-half weeks in Jerusalem has come to pass.  Every day we continue to solidify our relationship with Jerusalem—seeing new places, frequenting some familiar ones, and traveling beyond the city limits only to return “home.”  Since arriving here from the south, I have made my way around the country on the weekends.  There is still much to see, but I feel I have made good use of the accessibility of the country and the opportunities that I have had to get out of the Beit Shmuel bubble where I sleep, eat and work.  Here are some recent thoughts and events:

The scents and sights of Jerusalem have begun to feel increasingly familiar, so it is appropriate that at this point in the year (less than a week before our first international trip to Greece and Bulgaria) we have taken strides to see the city in new light.  Right now Kivunim is hosting Tobi Kahn, a photographer from New York City, who has been connected with the program for each of Kivunim’s past two years as a facilitator of artistic literacy and expression.  One day this week we awoke at 4:30am to journey across the street to Jerusalem’s Old City in time to see the sunrise shine the day’s first light on the Western Wall and the majestic Dome of the Rock.

Toting our cameras, we made our way through the Old City’s maze-like streets, watching and documenting as the world changed before our eyes.  New and natural light was a powerful tool as we all tried to get at least one good photograph of this time of shifting perspective.  From a curricular standpoint, Tobi’s presence makes a lot of sense—and not just for the photographers in the group.  He ran a really special workshop on “visual lying,” which basically amounted to a lesson on bias and the ability to shape narrative through art.  His words mirrored the teachings of our Civilizations lecturers, emphasizing the power that we have over shaping perception and selecting from reality to fabricate a coherent and meaningful work of art or history.  Tobi’s early-morning lesson allowed us to look on symbols of Jerusalem, trying to appreciate what the images mean to us, what they look like when we try to check our associations at the door, and how those two dimensions play into photography or reporting of any kind (personal, journalistic, historical, etc.).  This will become an increasingly important theme to keep in mind as we travel around the world and try our best to take in as much as possible about the raw reality and the mythic stories of the people and places we visit.

Daily life has been a treat lately.  I do feel a level of routine, but there are always opportunities to wander and explore.  A few nights ago there were fireworks set off in the parking lot below the Kivunim rooms.  New restaurants are constantly revealed—from schnitzel to waffles, there is always a new hole in the wall to try out (or a McDonalds with four ice creams for ten shekels to exploit).  Many of the major cities in Israel are also holding their mayoral elections around this time.  The victor of Jerusalem’s highest office was Nir Barkat, a secular Likudnik who represents a major shift (or mahapach) from a series of recent religious mayors.  Socially I can feel that the religious/secular dynamic in the city represents a lot of tension, but I will admit that I have yet to connect personally to the concrete politics of the city—though I recognize all the major candidates’ faces, due to ubiquitous campaign signs on buses and buildings. 

On my way back to Jerusalem from Haifa last weekend, I stopped in Tel Aviv to attend the annual peace rally held in Rabin Square.  The rally, and the square itself, doubles as a memorial for the late Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin.  Rabin was assassinated by a right-wing Jew on November 4, 1995 (a conflicting anniversary for Americans these days) immediately following a speech he made at a peace rally there.  The rally this year was moving, and included speeches by all the country’s major left and center politicians.  Rabin’s legacy as a war-hero-turned-visionary-of-peace is inspiring, and one could even argue that it is fortunate that the popular movement for peace in Israel is tied to such a figure, who also led the state during its major self-affirming wars.  He represents the choice that Israeli society will have to make as a whole if peace is ever to be achieved; he was someone whom everyone could trust to appreciate the pain that Israelis have suffered (indeed, better than most), while also committing to hearing the stories of the other side and working for the idea that peace is ultimately in Israel’s best interest.  Since Rabin’s death, Israel has seen some of the darkest days of the conflict, and today stands on an equally promising and precarious state in the peace process.

I expect that I’ll dedicate an entire blog entry to the theme of peace in the future.  For me one of the most enriching elements of personal experience in Israel is being able to supplement my intellectual understanding of the conflict and the people here with living and breathing perspectives.  This is a piece of my experience here that is blossoming, through possibly doing some interviewing for Seeds of Peace, playing with the Arab delegation from East Jerusalem that comes to the Variety Center (my social responsibility project site) on Thursdays, and speaking more Hebrew and Arabic everyday.

A couple of days after the rally, I had the good fortune to wander out of the hostel with my friend Elie, and stumble upon a free David Broza concert at the YMCA a block away.  David Broza is one of the most famous songwriters in Israel, and has become something of an icon since his heyday in the ‘70s, here and in America—especially at Jewish summer camps where his lulling tunes are the soundtrack of summer nights.  He was playing the show with an Arab band, as part of an event sponsored by the organization Searching For Common Ground, which facilitates media ventures for peace.  We had the luck to arrive in time for the last few songs, which happened to include a couple of the only ones of his that we actually knew from camp.  It was a very random and powerful experience to see those songs sung live in such an intimate setting; I am constantly impressed by how accessible this country is, and constantly reminded of how remarkably close I am to the center of the action here in Jerusalem.  Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had a press conference at Beit Shmuel (the building where I live), Condoleeza Rice stayed at the hotel across the street when she visited Israel last week, and, as I mentioned before, the Rabin peace rally included appearances by Israeli President Shimon Peres, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, and Defense Secretary Ehud Barak—the latter two of which are currently vying for the office of Prime Minister. 

The academics of Kivunim have been very interesting lately—a feeling that is accentuated every day as our trip to Greece and Bulgaria grows closer.  Hebrew and Arabic are really exciting, as the line between the classroom and the street blur in my learning.  We have been focusing heavily on learning the Arabic alphabet lately, which gives street signs here a whole new significance—not to mention the artful precision that the written language requires.  As we learn about Islam in the Middle East Studies course, the historical value of Arabic becomes more and more intriguing.  Arabic is a language that sounds entirely different in almost every Arab country, but the written Arabic is the same everywhere—a classic version that is rooted in the style of the Koran’s verses.

I’ve had several units on Islam in my schooling.  The Kivunim introductory curriculum of Islam has centered on the life of Muhammad.  For the first time I have been able to connect to Islam as a social movement.  In 7^th century Mecca, where pagan religion, politics and economics were all part of the same corrupt system, Islam was the religion of the common man that taught equality of all people.  It was a social reform agenda that represented a level of identity that transcended the tribal affiliations of Arabia, and grew from the grassroots.  It’s really sad that American culture has lost (or never fully pursued) an appreciation for the meaning of Islam at its foundation. 

In learning about the Age of Jahiliyya (Ignorance), a term used in the Koran to describe the time period before Islam was founded, I am reminded of the first readings we did for the Middle East Studies class.  Francis Fukyama talked about “the End of History” as the traction of liberalism in societies.  When he wrote in the final years before the fall of the Soviet Union, his argument centered around the idea that the major conflicts in the world would be between those post-history people who lived in liberal societies and those who were still in the process of coming to the end of history (i.e. adopting liberalism as the basis for policy in social, political, and economic sectors).  Jahiliyya seems like a similar concept, a state of being that specifically refers to pre-Islam Arabia, but could potentially be attributed to the entire non-Muslim world, and so could extend into today in many parts of the world.  Just as Fukuyama posited that history, a concept that seems to develop at all times in all places, ends upon the adoption of liberalism, it occurred to me that an interpretation of Islam could argue that the Age of Ignorance ends when a society adopts Islam.  (Of course, I feel the need to emphasize that this interpretation of Jahiliyya is as individual an interpretation of the Koran as Fukyama is of modern international relations.)  Just as history comes to a grinding halt in Fukuyama’s western world, as it plods along in the rest of the world, the Koran says that Jahiliyya has become part of Arabian history, as it is still happening around the world today.  This comparison brings me to the next point, which is the civilization-centric view of the world proposed by Samuel Huntington in “The Clash of Civilizations.”

Whether one calls the age of pre-perfection “history” or “ignorance,” whether one refers to liberalism or Islam as the end of necessary progress, both civilizations seem to have theorists who prescribe their major ideological institution as the be-all and end-all philosophy that marks the end of human development; it is only a matter of time, in their eyes, before the entire world wakes up to the value of their system as the ultimate version of human functionality.  It is well known that one of the major differences between Islam and the two older monotheistic religions is the fact that, while it acknowledges Moses and Jesus as prophets, the Koran asserts that Mohammad is the final prophet—God’s final attempt to reveal His word after Judaism and Christianity corrupted it.  With the advent of Adam Smith’s 18^th century theories of liberalism, and the ascendance of the West as the unchallenged “First World”—especially coming out of the Cold War, when Fukyama wrote—it would seem that liberalism is the paramount modus operandi of global society.  These are very clear and modern examples of the parallelism between civilizations that Huntington identified as the fault line along which the largest and deepest modern conflicts will be focused. 

However, I don’t have to elaborate too much on the impurities of Islam and the failings of traditional anti-interference liberalism that exist in the world today.  This is not to say that Islam and liberalism are definitely not the greatest ideas that we’ve come up with yet, but we have seen that it is still an unachieved ideal that we are all able to interpret liberalism and Islam in their most constructive and healthy forms—and, indeed, who knows what new frameworks and new interpretations of the existing ones will emerge as history continues to unfold.  In any case it appears that we still have some growing up to do, and that no one institution or idea has yet captured the hearts and minds of the entire world.  History is definitely not over, and even Fukyama admits that “the end of history will be a very sad time.”  As Huntington notes at the end of his paper, “for the relevant future, there will be no universal civilization, but instead a world of different civilizations, each of which will have to learn to coexist with the others.”  We must be able to appreciate our differences as the means for debate and progress (How interesting that these two major international relations theorists focus their entire articles on centers of conflict instead of opportunities for cooperation…), without compromising a commitment to revel in what unites us—and vice versa.  Indeed, even if not everyone can agree that liberalism and Islam are the “right” systems, neither of them were designed as instruments of conflict that one society could use against the others; they were conceived of as systems that could potentially unite us all in each other’s best interests.  If we can connect to that as the most fundamental of intentions, and continue to develop and refine our ideas and institutions, then we can truly make some progress.

*          *          *

When we started our Civilizations class Bulgaria was a complete mystery and Greece was a little bit less of a mystery.  It has been so exciting to learn over the past weeks about Greek and Bulgarian history both in breadth and in depth, how the Jews in those areas affected the history, and how the modern countries are affected by their histories. We leave in just two days to supplement our academic understanding of these places, and our personal connections to the stories, with some first-hand experiences of some pieces of the reality—an opportunity that only exists in our highest educational ideals.  The only thing missing is a time machine, but as we’ve learned repeatedly—and as I am sure I will emphasize when we return—when one is a student of history, there’s no time machine like the present.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The Next Precedent of the United States

Election night was an exercise in appreciating the passage of time—that ability that most distinguishes us from other living things.  As Kivunimers gathered in front of the big screen set up in one of our classrooms in Jerusalem, our anticipation melted away.  We ceased to project and speculate; we lived in the present.  This was a very significant change, after months (if not years) of accrued imagination about the election.  We watched the electoral tally shift slowly, then more rapidly, and then dramatically in Barack’s favor.  At a certain point, even before he was declared the winner, the idea of an Obama presidency reached new heights of all-but-inevitability.  Counting on California, and recognizing that he only needed another 20-or-so electoral votes in addition transformed anxiety into a will to savor the passage of time.  As far as we were concerned, one could basically go to sleep at this point (4:30am), but if the outcome was so certain, would one really want to miss it?

At 5:59 we counted down as we had at the top of every hour all night long, as the news channels prepared to release the last wave of tallies.  Expecting to have the west coast called for Obama and then the eventual election itself, we instead witnessed the big picture fall into place immediately.  Even as prediction had become a thing of the past, the election ended with a projection to end all projections—a future so certain as to dictate the present (certain enough to put MSNBC’s journalistic reputation on the line).

At 6am in Jerusalem, Barack Obama was the projected winner of the 2008 presidential election.  For the first time since the beginning of the campaign, Obama supporters didn’t need to reserve a piece of their largely confident and optimistic belief in the man’s candidacy for cautious sensibility.  Like scarred lovers, we had protected ourselves for months with rational reasons not to put ourselves in the position to be hurt again if he lost.  Granted, we hadn’t been so taken by a candidate like this in a long time.  But now fear of emotional vulnerability was completely overshadowed by sheer emotion.  We were past infatuation.  In fact, America was done dating the man—on to the honeymoon!  (I hope we can regain our composure soon enough so as not to make decisions we regret down the road, but as New York Times columnist Frank Rich articulated with a similar metaphor in mind on November 9, “It still felt good the morning after.”  And if Barack’s relationship with Michelle is any indication, this should be a very healthy and successful time for the relationship between Americans and their president.)

The room was electric.  Some exploded into tears.  Others imploded into silence, absorbing the moment.  We held each other and felt the energy.  We felt each other realizing individually and collectively what had just happened.  The present had just become history.  Fantasy had just become fact.  Hope had just become certainty.  The impossible now seemed that it had always been inevitable—without detracting from how hard we had worked for it.  Any shadow of a doubt was crushed as Obama’s electoral count climbed to 338 and beyond.  John McCain conceded graciously, with dignity.  As dawn poured over the Holy Land, heralding the birth of a new reality, allowing us to look on the world with fresh eyes, we waited for our new president to emerge. 

When he took the podium at Grant Park in Chicago, he was more than the leader of a dream, of a group of political junkies out canvassing on a Sunday morning, even of an entire political party and its convention.  The American people, as John McCain stated, had spoken clearly.  Of course we must not generalize as we move forward, for the fact that many still do not subscribe to Obama’s leadership is the nature of democracy.  But he stood before us in that moment as more than just a figure of possible change, unity and hope.  He was a historical phenomenon whose vision and promise would finally be allowed to flourish.  He was the president-elect.

For many of us who supported Obama during the campaign, his election represented something very powerful in how he suddenly belonged not just to our group, but to the entire nation.  His commitment to change was no longer an insurgent movement; that night we saw change embraced as the status quo.  I felt safe.  I felt people all over the country and the world leaning on one another and sighing in relief. I felt the American spirit healing.  I felt the world watching.  I felt students doing their homework because Obama would want them to.  I felt men and women doing right by each other because Obama would urge them to.  When Michelle, Malia and Sasha came out to join him, I felt the American family take a deep breath. I felt myself laughing convulsively, and then I felt tears running down my face.

Now almost a week later, I have caught up on sleep, I’ve read the news and talked to all kinds of people.  I’ve watched Obama’s first briefing as president-elect.  I find myself repeatedly re-experiencing what happened on Tuesday night.  I find myself taken aback in a new way each time, but what’s always most shocking is how current and real the Obama presidency is.  I will be the first to admit that we do our share of idealizing about Barack, but what he represents is more real than its ever been.  It’s so powerful to be able to think about all that he stands for (as he has this whole time), not in light of the inspiring possibilities for the future, but in terms of the vibrant state of progress in the present.  In other words, the core nature of Barack’s mission has not changed (ironic?), but the focal point of Barack’s energy is no longer a date in the future; we are still working towards a better tomorrow, but now we live in today.

What has always been inspiring is how Barack’s soaring rhetoric has been balanced with a pragmatic and down-to-business approach to leadership.  Watching the president-elect give his first briefing on Friday night, listening to his policy plans, I found myself admiring how the very concrete and calculated process of transition of power is playing out in tandem with a renewed idealism here and in the rest of the world.  American editorials and international perspectives pour in each day, and I see them with my own eyes here in Israel, as I chat with Germans in Jerusalem and Christian Arabs at the Bahai Gardens in Haifa.  People everywhere feel that he is in some way their president too—not just the leader of the United States or even the West.  Whether it’s his African father, his Indonesian upbringing, his Middle Eastern middle name, his impoverished childhood, etc., there seems to be a sense that this man has something to share with everyone, that America is connecting the world and is using its influence to push us all in the right direction. 

People talk about the burden that has been put on Obama by people around the world, to solve all the problems of their respective countries and bring war, disease and poverty to an end.  Certainly these are the kinds of expectations that Barack thrives off of, but, at the same time, his greatest strength and contribution has always been getting people to (re)discover their ability to solve their own problems and work with others in the common interest.  I hope that what Barack stands for in America truly will carry into the rest of the world.  One of the central impediments to the peace process in Israel has been a cynicism and lack of hope on both sides.  Now, more than ever, we have an opportunity to get people to recommit to working towards establishing the world as it should be.  Certainly, whatever he ends up doing, Barack’s election is profoundly historic because of the color of his skin and the magnitude of the problems he will inherit upon taking office, but what’s equally exciting is the fact that the historic nature of his candidacy was a product of the perfect combination of his talents as an individual and the environment that was so ripe for him.  Indeed, he would not have been elected without the qualities he possesses that will allow him to act and to do justice to the importance of his election.

On August 27, 2008, in his address to the Democratic National Convention, former president Bill Clinton delivered quite a zinger about United States precedents when he said, “People the world over have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power.”  This idea echoes the teaching of dugma ishit (literally, “personal example”) that we teach in Young Judaea to emphasize the importance of a leader’s responsibilities as a role model.  Perhaps the best example of the “American example” that Clinton referred to is George Washington.  As our first president, Washington is often lauded for his ability to set good precedents.  Between saying the oath of office, forming a Cabinet, and, among other things, consciously relinquishing power after two terms, Washington had innate foresight, an instinct that allowed him to set some very healthy extra-constitutional precedents that proved to be strongly maintained and beneficial traditions.  (Indeed, no president ran for more than two terms of office until FDR, even though the Constitution wasn’t amended to limit the number of presidential terms until 1947.  We may think our post-monarchical system of government was what ensured the healthy transition of power that we’re seeing between Bush and Obama today, but really—until the passage of the 22^nd Amendment at least—we owe it to George Washington.)

Barack Obama will also be a “first” president in a number of ways, and will have the opportunity to set many new precedents.  It is clear to anyone who feels connected to the issues facing our individual and collective experiences that this is a defining moment in the history of a world as rich in problems as it is in potential to solve them.  The next president, very much regardless of the color of his skin, will have to be different.  Something that the people and president of the United States must keep in mind is the fact that our wellbeing as a unified and pluralist nation, our standing in the world, and our positive influence on it are not Constitutional guarantees.  As obvious as it sounds, this is exactly what the opportunity for change during Obama’s presidency represents.  As much as George Washington was a student of the United States Constitution (indeed, he oversaw its production!), who knew how to work appropriately and constructively with its inherent elasticity, we now have a president-elect who has been a professor of Constitutional Law for over a decade (not to be ignored is how sharp a contrast this is to Mr. Bush’s reputation for abusing Constitutional flexibility to expand the Executive Branch during the last years in a way that is unprecedented).  It is Obama’s knowledge of the rules, cognizance of the traditions, vision of the possibilities to discard the bad habits, and instinct to improve upon them that likens him to our greatest presidents.

Of course only time will tell if we are about to live through one of the most successful presidencies in our history.  Even George Bush’s legacy is not entirely set in stone. Much is yet to be seen about how Obama’s presidency will play out in reality.  At the very least, Barack’s election is a statement of the importance of having the humility to see room for improvement, the confidence to greet the challenges, and the courage not to give up on oneself and one’s peers.  His election is a tribute to patriotism, and to the constant capacity for progress and redemption if people are committed to it.  We must not forget that; our ability to reevaluate, renegotiate and recover may be the most important American tradition.  Dating back to the Revolution, the Civil War, and the Great Depression—challenging times that gave our greatest presidents opportunities to realize their potential, times when Barack Obama might have reminded us, “Yes we can”—we have always been victorious in rallying around what New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman might call “nation-building at home.”  Closing in on Obama’s inauguration on January 20^th, we can be sure that we are setting a new precedent.  Of course Obama’s inspiring persona and character will have to be integrated with some very concrete and revolutionary policies.  However, the place where Obama’s policy and persona intersect transcends this distinction.  Before long we’ll have a role model in the White House, and that in itself is a universal victory.  

Where Impossible Becomes Inevitable

I have written a lot in the past few weeks about the importance of not taking the experiences (e.g. being American right now) and traditions (e.g. elections) that we have for granted.  Although this is a general philosophy that I try to keep in mind everyday, there are moments when our ability to reflect on and appreciate where we are and what we are doing is especially important.  We are in such a moment right now.  There are times when the short-term and long-term goals of our society converge and (HOPEfully) advance in tandem.  This is one of those times.  No matter what, the United States Presidential Election of November 4, 2008 is bound to live in our history as long as history exists (and I’m not just talking about “firsts” in the White House).  Perhaps I am getting ahead of myself… 

When it comes to politics (among other things), I am all too aware of the bubble in which I live—perhaps now more than ever.  I grew up in a largely Democratic suburb of Boston, and now I live in a small community that is overwhelmingly in support of Barack Obama.  There are always exceptions, and of course as a student in Acton I didn’t quite appreciate the level of political diversity in the town until my first Town Meeting. 

In my early childhood George Bush was a name I associated with my pre-memory life, a vague association between a high-level politician and a shrubbery.  From age two to ten, Bill Clinton was the President, and while he had his shameful moments, my family generally agreed with his policies, and would often speak of his charisma.  I remember watching former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich on TV, and recognizing that there was another face to American politics.  Of course I didn’t understand the depth or consequence of the issues discussed on the news, but the world was slowly becoming a more complex place. 

The first Presidential election that I followed (electoral map in lap, ready to be filled in) was in 2000.  Former Vice President Al Gore would face off against then-Governor of Texas George W. Bush.  I remember going to vote with my mom at one of the elementary schools in town that served as our precinct.  As we walked through the raucous sea of students entreating us to vote for their candidate while they waited to be picked up by their respective buses home, we noticed just one girl in the crowd urging us to vote for Bush.  This was the world of the afternoon on election day in 2000 to a fifth-grader in Acton, Massachusetts.

That night the polls started to report the results.  States started being apportioned to each candidate.  One moment Gore would be in the lead, and then a slew of southern states would go to Bush.  I earnestly filled in my map until California gave Gore a bump.  The night was a rollercoaster.  My parents would urge me not to get too excited, or too sad, one moment to the next, but it was hard not to get carried away by the history unfolding before our eyes.  As many of us have tried to forget, the next month or so was a complete mess.  The election was not a sports event.  One could not simply keep a scorecard and know the winner.  Parts of my map turned purple as states like Ohio and Florida swung between the two candidates.  The words “Too Close to Call” were seared into my mind. 

When Bush was finally declared the winner, I didn’t know anyone who moved to Canada—though I heard of one family that left for New Zealand.  My parents would tough it out like they had during the Nixon and Reagan administrations.  Slowly, over the next five years or so, I would grow into my own political affiliation, trying not to take my identity as a Democrat for granted as just some inheritance from my parents.  As I learned more about the world, I would continue to try to figure out where I really stood (not just which party, but where within one…) and wait patiently for 2004.

The newspapers and magazines started calling Americans my age, who had come into political consciousness just before and after the 2000 election, the “9/11 Generation.”  Our beliefs were said to sprout from this tragedy alone.  As I came to realize, our beliefs and the tragedy were both steeped in a context of generations of history.  But no one could deny that the word “terrorism” would become a pivotally personal and political concept as the years went by—no less for a young Jew, who started going to an Israel-focused Jewish summer camp in 2000.

As part of a social studies project in seventh grade, I wrote a letter to Senator Ted Kennedy, appealing him to lower the voting age to 14, so that Americans my age would have some say in electing the person who would have the power to send us off to war in the 2005-2008 presidential term.  When the 2004 election did roll around, it soon faded into the history of the 9/11 Generation.  The Democrats produced candidates who were either too hot or lukewarm.  The Republicans would strive to continue down the road they had been on.  My beliefs were becoming sharper and sharper, and it was obvious who I would have voted for if Senator Kennedy had promoted my idea (perhaps, I am sorry to say, if the letter had not indeed been written by a 14-year-old), but I can’t say that anybody struck me as the right person for the job—though I did feel myself lifting off the ground during the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention.  Many people felt similarly, so voting would reflect a rigidity around party lines, and the polarization of the country came into even finer focus. 

In 2006, as I began to develop an appreciation for the common experience of young people to search for definition, I began to throw out some old definitions and try on new ones.  For example, I began to look at the electoral map in a new way.  I found a map of the 2004 election from a Princeton study that colored the map red and blue by district instead of state.  There were shades of purple; the country’s polarization, while admittedly more dramatic than most times in American history, was also a generalization of a much more complex reality.  This discovery, combined with an increasing general commitment to finding “other perspectives”—whether in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or in post-WWI Germany—, led me to a new vision of politics.

Of course I was interested in ending the war, ending poverty, confronting global warming, reforming education and fixing the economy.  But, perhaps as a product of my ideologically blossoming adolescent mind and my freedom from real economic responsibilities, I thought more in terms of basic values that I wanted to see in all levels of society. I wanted someone who would bring people together—not divide them further.  I wanted someone who would increase communication among Americans and between them and the rest of the world.  I wanted someone with a commitment to fostering the development of civic leadership among people my age.  I wanted someone who would fix our image abroad.  Most of all, I wanted my pride in the United States of America to come not from my right to think differently from the President, but from the President’s ability to appreciate people who think differently.

Barack Obama was a name I had heard before.  I heard him speak at the 2004 DNC.  I remember the crowd around me buzzing about the would-be first Black President when he spoke at a Washington D.C. rally against the genocide in Darfur in 2005.  The man was an enigma, but it was clear that he had some special ideas about the United States.  Sometimes I still close my eyes and relive the delivery of his classic spiel that “there is not a liberal America and a conservative America -- there is the United States of America.”

I remember at camp in the summer of 2006, someone made an “Obama Oh-Eight” comment.  I could feel the excitement brewing inside, but it felt like all but a fantasy that this relative-unknown could actually run for president, let alone win an election.  I learned the man’s biography.  I read his books.  I would revel in his speeches and interviews, relishing each sentence that seemed to fit so well into my personal beliefs.  I remember feeling a transcendent enthusiasm, as I realized his wide appeal.  Earlier in my life, I would have been territorial about such an interest, like an underground band that I had followed from the start, but Obama was different.  I needed him front-and-center.  I wanted to convince everyone I met to drop their cynicism at the door and join the next generation of American politics. 

Images of Lincoln, JFK and MLK flashed.  As he campaigned for different Democrats in the 2006 election cycle, the murmurs of his possible presidential candidacy grew and grew.  He assured us that he just wanted to be as useful as possible, and that meant campaigning to win some Democratic seats in November of 2006.  His levelheaded integrity made his recruitment all the more lively.  The context seemed ripe for him and his ideas.  (This trend would only be reinforced as the economy fell apart in the closing weeks of the election, and history seemed to be sliding inevitably towards an Obama presidency, or at the very least a really important decision in American politics.)  As Dick Durbin, Barack’s Senior Senator from Illinois, would say, “sometimes you pick the moment, and sometimes the moment picks you.”

Soon the announcement that he was opening an exploratory committee would arrive.  Then his candidacy would be official.  Then the primary season would begin with his victory in Iowa.  Then things would get hairy with Hillary, another historic and inspiring candidate.  Then he would pick a running mate, hold the convention, and accept the Democratic nomination for President.  All big moments.

With each day that has closed in on today, the feeling that history is unfolding has been more and more definitive.  As with my ideas about not taking any day for granted, I like to think that every day is a contribution to the story we tell ourselves and entitle “history.”  However, just as there are moments when we appreciate our lives more than at other times, there are certain moments that feel more historic, more momentous, than others.  Just as I am aware that I live in a bubble, and that there are people as passionately angry about Obama’s success as I am passionately invested in it, I am also aware that this is the first election in which I can vote (a tradition that no one may take for granted), and that on some level there must have been 18-year-olds who felt just as desperate about electing John Kerry in 2004.  But I maintain, as a student of history and a member of my generation and my country, that this election is the most important one yet (though I don’t disregard the important role earlier ones played in setting it up)—perhaps even in the lives of people much older than I am.

For the first time we have someone who doesn’t just make us aware of our complexity, but also embodies it in his ideas—not to mention his DNA.  Barack Obama connects us to our moment in history—where we stand in the context of our country’s development and that of our world.  He has connected us to our deepest common values, and new ways to implement them.  He has connected us to the short-term victories of social change, without allowing us to lose sight of the inter-generational big picture.  He has connected us.  He has involved more people than ever before, and demonstrated that every successful movement and organization is made up of individuals working together.  He has emphasized a commitment to transparency, honesty, and accessibility in his leadership style, and in his treatment of others.  He has engaged the world, and shown that there are many faces of patriotism and American character.  Perhaps most importantly, he urges us at every point to embrace the complexities within and among us, without compromising an appreciation for our commonalities (and vice versa).

Throughout the proceedings Obama’s supporters have been huddled around a constant inner conflict of wondering whether we are hopelessly naïve, or confident for good reason.  And at every point we have been gratified by our commitment to making the dreams that seem impossible into the history that seems inevitable.

Today is not the final test, but it is a big one.  It is no longer a matter of the choice between Barack Obama and John McCain; it is about the decision to commit to the larger process in which this election is just a (significant) step along the way.  My hope is that no matter who is elected in ten hours, the hope and involvement that Barack has encouraged us to champion will transcend his candidacy.  I hope the change and the values of participating in this undertaking that we call America will stay with us long after November 4^th, 2008, and that we will not forget that we are always contributing, whether we are active or detrimental in inaction.  I hope we have internalized that this doesn’t happen without us, and that we can make it happen no matter who the president is.  I hope that if Barack is not elected, we will not swing from one extreme of hope to the other extreme of cynicism.  I hope whether or not he is elected, we will not give up our vigorous pursuit of the ideals and reforms that we have worked so hard to promote, and that we will not forget that, beyond getting him elected, Barack’s campaign has stood for accomplishing goals that will take years to materialize.  Essentially, it is true that writing this entry was largely motivated by a desire to preserve my unknowing pre-election perspective.  However, at the end of this day, what will be most meaningful—indeed, the ultimate success of Obama For America, regardless of whether he wins or loses the election—is the extent to which the feelings, beliefs and energy in this entry are still alive and relevant among Americans tomorrow.

I have faith that just as this campaign has been sufficient proof of Barack’s managerial excellence, it has also given the American people a successful trial in participation.  It has helped many of us in our formative years to internalize and develop the ideas and skills that we hope to contribute to our society—not to mention how much it has taught us about the issues that affect our lives.  We have already accomplished and learned so much in the process that we need not doubt the power of possibility.  Our real challenge will be, as it often is, to keep from taking such possibility for granted.  For many young people (and the young at heart too, as it has been pointed out), this election represents an opportunity for redemption, and in some ways is the closest we’ve felt to our American roots, the values that Americans have embodied and promoted for centuries.  What we sometimes forget is how hard people have worked to uphold these values and improve upon them. 

Bobby Kennedy once articulated the importance of the crossroads that historic moments like this one present.  He expressed the need to balance recognition of challenges with an appreciation for the opportunities therein.  As we stand at this intersection of impossibility and inevitability, we must keep in mind the optimism and positive attitude that Obama’s campaign has been about from the beginning.  A commitment to the need for change and new direction has always been balanced with an integral sense of hope and dedication to confront our problems constructively.  There are certainly things wrong with America and the world, but Obama’s campaign has been about greeting those challenges with pragmatic and idealistic resolve.  The recognition of such challenges does not make us unpatriotic; indeed, the realization that America is not perfect is much more deeply rooted in a will to make it better than simply an impulse to criticize it.  We are more empowered than ever.  We just have to make sure that we don’t let success go to our heads if Obama wins, and that we don’t feel alienated from everything that has brought us to this point if he loses.  No matter what the result of today’s election is, we must embrace the process of progress that has advanced remarkably in recent months, and greet the inevitable challenges of the future not as impossible struggles, but as rich opportunities to continue to improve.  If we are really serious about having a positive impact on our world, then today can be nothing other than a springboard.