The following was written on April 29th, 2009
We are all part of many communities, bound by common religion, language, history, home, ideas, and many other elements of association that contribute to identity development. My time volunteering as a peer leader in Young Judaea during high school introduced me to the idea that a group’s process and the development of each of its constituent individuals inform and even depend on each other. This idea, that mutualism exists between any whole and its individual pieces, that individuals are shaped and defined by being a part of groups as much as they define and shape those groups, is not always an explicit part of how we describe the links and bonds that make up much of the foundation of our identities. Indeed, it sounds more like the way we might describe an interpersonal relationship.
Yet when it comes to shaping an identity, it seems that there are many parallels between the most personal and individual relationships and those of broad and collective caliber. Just like any interpersonal relationship, an individual’s dynamic with the group can be a process of mutual sharing and growth, or of neglect and destruction. All too often, when we don’t actively participate, or when the community does not provide ample enough opportunities for such initiative, we may feel isolated or cut off. Sometimes, especially in the 21st century, we belong to such large and diverse groups that it can be difficult to truly see and appreciate our connection to them. Yet these sentiments of disempowerment and alienation are most evident when the system itself has lost consistency—when there is a lack of communication, education or leadership for instance. Usually it isn’t entirely the fault of the group or the individual, but a combination of the two. When people are engaged, their involvement can be as personally rewarding to them as it is beneficial to the group. The bottom line is that the health of our identities and that of the communities with which we identify are often deeply dependent on the level of interaction between the two. Whether the net impact on everyone involved is positive or negative is complicated and subject to change, but the relationship is there whether we feel and accept our stake in it or not.
I have come to put my connection to Israel—no doubt one of the central ingredients in my Jewish identity—in these terms. I admit that I don’t feel the same kind of citizenship-based responsibility that I feel for the United States, or that I felt for Young Judaea for example, but my peers and I often think and talk about our “relationship with Israel.” This relationship is always in flux and feels like a big question mark most of the time, but that’s what this year is all about. Being on a Jewish peoplehood-oriented program that is based in Israel puts questions about where we fit as American Jews in Israeli society at the core of our experience.
When I think about my own relationship with Israel, I remember when I had barely heard of it. As a child I knew that my dad worked for different organizations that had the word “Israel” in their titles. I grew up listening to political discussions about the possibilities of peace, and I even had some consciousness of the controversy around Israel in the news. Of course my consciousness of group identity is really very new, so when I started going to Young Judaea summer camp at age ten, Israel was a piece of the world that I largely took for granted. At that time the depth of my reflections on identity largely concerned how I felt more like a Red Sox fan at camp when I was surrounded by New Yorkers, and a Yankees fan at home, when I was the only one in town whose dad’s most prized piece of baseball memorabilia was a ball signed by the legendary 1963 Yankees roster. We all know what it’s like to feel a piece of ourselves come into finer focus when it makes us stand out in a given situation. The image of a person having to wear different hats at different times, as a metaphor for the complexity of identity, was quite literally how I was introduced to the sliding scale and relativity inherent in a rich sense of self.
When I was sixteen I remember being introduced to the idea of “loving” Israel, again through Young Judaea. Of course the term had been thrown around a lot before, but I had grown up with Israel and now things were getting complicated. Love was a strong word. Was it a romance? Just infatuation? Was it unconditional? I would slowly untangle the idea that it meant knowing Israel well enough to know that it wasn’t perfect, yet nonetheless sticking around to advocate for its strengths and give support and constructive criticism in the interest of constant pursuit of improvement. Loving Israel brought a lot of pride and a lot of pain at the same time. Learning how to balance appreciation for both would be just one of the major challenges in the process—which continues today—of developing a place and role in the relationship. I would visit a couple of times, and spend a lot of time learning about it and analyzing it from afar. I would confront—not merely acknowledge—the fact that Israel was a real place with real people, and not simply an intellectual challenge for carving out a cultural identity. Then would come the issue of whether or not I, as a non-Israeli Jew, actually had the right to use the word “love” in relation to Israel; could I truly appreciate it, let alone have any integrity in critiquing it? I would find that being genuine, especially in acknowledging the limits of my perspective, goes a long way when it comes to having integrity in talking about Israel. Yet ultimately how I related to Israel depended largely on where I was and with whom. In other words, it was a classic Red Sox/Yankees situation.
All of this, of course, continues today. All of these questions and challenges are magnified like never before. That search for integrity was a primary motivation for me when I decided to spend this year in Israel; I saw it as an opportunity to supplement my intellectual knowledge about Israel’s politics and culture with some first-hand experience. After the first couple of months of Kivunim, which already represented the longest period of time I had spent in Israel, the Gaza War epitomized such a manifestation of that first-hand confrontation with real, complicated life in Israel—especially because the conflict was the subject about which my academic knowledge ran the deepest.
I remember leaving Israel for Morocco in January with a bitter taste in my mouth as the conflict ravaged on. I was glad to leave on some level (in a way that perhaps only someone who planned on returning shortly could be), taking stock of the luxury I had to go to Morocco, Spain and home, and also to get a breather from Jerusalem’s tense atmosphere in the wake of death relatively so close and yet so far away. Mostly, I was tired of feeling completely lost in the process of figuring out where I fit into the mix, and how I could contribute to its progress.
After I returned from the United States, the next weeks until our trip to Turkey was the longest period of consecutive days in Israel that Kivunim would have all year. Distance had cooled me off and helped me refocus my frustration into something more constructive. I couldn’t help feeling the warmth and familiarity of returning to Jerusalem. Now, the intellectual process of past years, of feeling my relationship with Israel strengthen when refusing to walk away in frustration, was being rehashed in a much deeper and even more physical way.
Since then I have had countless endearing and straining experiences here. I joined my Israeli counselor Gabi when he went to vote in the national election, reminding me of all the times I went to the precinct with my mom as a child. I have attended political protests. I have been to soccer games, concerts, and even an amusement park. I have performed music in an open-mic café. I have had a number of incredible Shabbat dinners, being invited into people’s homes in a way that is really only possible in Israel—and I’ll even narrow that down to Jerusalem! I have been to an army base and Arab villages. I made my way to Sderot to see the ubiquitous bomb shelters and accumulated rockets for myself. I have eaten at Obama Pizza on Hebron Road, and followed it all the way to Hebron, to visit the cave where the Jewish Patriarchs are allegedly buried—perhaps the ultimate route to roots! I have heard radically different visions for a better Israel from the right and the left. I have ventured across divides into East Jerusalem and even Jordan. From drafting public policy proposals in my Middle East class and visiting African refugees and controversial (to euphemize a bit…) Jewish settlers, to volunteering in the Mayor of Jerusalem’s office and meeting him in a bar, I find my relationship with Israel becoming more multidimensional every day.
The longer I am here, the more I find myself in between the inside and outside of Israeli society. I am no longer a tourist, but I plan to go back to America. I’ve been here during a war, but I haven’t served in the army. The issues are largely the same, but the relativity slides on a bigger scale now than ever before. Today I know more about Israel and feel more emotional connection to every detail, so while my fundamental values have remained more or less the same, the foundation of my beliefs has become much more complicated. I have become less certain and more curious. At the end of the day, perhaps my most emboldened belief is that, when confronted with the countless issues of Israeli life, one must try as hard as possible to maintain respect for just how complex this place is. At every turn there is incredible pressure to choose a side and simplify one’s self and others.
Perhaps no experience yet has so thoroughly embodied this complexity as the past two days. Just a week after Holocaust Commemoration Day in Israel, the country observes Memorial Day and Independence Day back to back. To many American ears this might not sound so dramatic, but in Israel these two days represent much of the most fundamental meaning behind national identity. The mood of Memorial Day is set by the sound of a cacophony of sirens blaring throughout the entire country. For two minutes at sundown the night before and then again on the morning of Memorial Day, Israelis simultaneously stop what they are doing, close their eyes, conjure up faces of lost loved ones, and are enveloped together in collective reflection amid the din. The day is full of heavy ceremonies about fallen soldiers and victims of terror. Kivunim spent the morning at Mount Hertzl, Israel’s military cemetery, where the reality that this is a country of soldiers really sinks in. The place was literally packed with people crying, draped over the graves of their lost friends and family. Then, at sundown the mood shifts to a seemingly completely opposite extreme as Independence Day begins. The cities begin to pulse with uncontrollable energy. Streets are closed for Israeli dancing and all the trappings of the wildest party of the year appear on a dime.
Needless to say, the transition is a bit jarring. Yet that, I think, is exactly the intention. Israeli Memorial Day and Independence Day go together for a reason; in Israel neither day means as much without the other. In mainstream national consciousness, without sacrifice there would be no state, and without appreciating the state’s existence Israelis would have little context for giving meaning to loss.
Israel is certainly a country of extremes on many levels, but the fact that life and death are both so commonly experienced and appreciated evokes the heart of Israel’s extreme nature. It is fitting that the transition between Memorial Day and Independence Day is abrupt, because Israeli culture has been forged in a reality of uncomfortable transitions between triumph and tragedy. Yet, usually the “ready or not” situations mean suddenly being called up to fight in a war or losing a loved one. These two days reverse that trajectory, staying true to the complex emotional roller coaster on which Israel is based, while switching instead from solemn memorial to unbridled celebration.
There is no reason to simplify, or pretend that Memorial Day and Independence Day are entirely separate, but the connection between the two is incredibly challenging. Like so many pieces of Israeli life, the connection and transition between Memorial Day and Independence Day is easy enough to grasp intellectually, but once one confronts it in a personal way (another relative term) it becomes very emotionally difficult. In the end, true love of Israel means taking memorial and celebration together. Again, neither is as meaningful without the other, so while simplicity may be comfortable, it puts the most meaningful and enriching elements at risk.
Still, of course part of embracing the complexity represented by Memorial Day and Independence Day means, beyond appreciating the relationship between the two days themselves, recognizing that the collective mood is not always as uniform as we might think. National divisions and various experiences on these days do not melt away altogether. There are those who see Israel’s security and existence as contingent on much more than the military. Indeed, it must be noted that for many the connection between the death of their loved ones and pride in their country is less direct. Many Jews are disconnected by much more than politics; the ultra-orthodox, for instance, largely don’t serve in the army, and many don’t even recognize the state of Israel for religious reasons. Additionally, let us not forget that for many of Israel’s Arab citizens, who do not serve in the army, and whose national identities are complicated immensely by living in the Jewish state, their experiences of Memorial Day and Independence Day are often at odds with much of the rest of the country—to say the least.
If learning to resist the temptation to simplify seems always to be central to learning itself, then in many ways Israel epitomizes that struggle, especially for those of us who are still trying to figure out where we fit in. This year has been an intensive around-the-clock exercise in constantly being stretched and challenged by Israel as everything from a home base for international travel and a halfway house between high school and college to a site of the peaks and valleys of life and a historic homeland. Even the word Israel, the name that was given to Jacob in the bible after he wrestled with an angel, shows how struggle has on some level always been central to Jewish identity. Anyone would agree that love isn’t easy, but many would also say that it’s one of the few things we really need. I remember learning in high school that the origin of the word “engagement,” as a term for agreement to marry, comes from the term for being challenged to a duel. With so much talk about the need for “civic engagement” in society these days, the connection between forging relationships and finding ways to participate seems to apply on the most local and broadest levels. Indeed, let us not forget that trying to figure out where one “fits in” is (or should be…) as much about personal identity development as it is about a desire to make a meaningful contribution to the community. I feel that spending this year in Israel has been an appropriate step in my choice to enter the ring, and wrestle with the questions that true love of Israel presents. I’m far from sure about what my relationship with Israel will be down the road, and I suspect and hope that it will always be dynamic and changing, but for now I’ll stick with complex, challenging, rich and rewarding.
