Rachel Barenblat's Blog, page 222

VR Podcast Episode 3: A Shabbat Morning Service

VR Podcast Episode 3: Shabbat Morning Service.

This is an experimental edition of the Velveteen Rabbi podcast. Instead of featuring me talking about some aspect of Jewish life and spiritual practice, this is a prayer service podcast -- a recording of a Shabbat morning service at my shul. I co-led this service with ALEPH rabbinic students Rhonda Shapiro-Rieser and David Curiel.

The siddur we are using is Mishkan T'filah, the current Reform prayerbook, though hopefully this recording is enjoyable (and is something you could pray along with if you were so inclined) no matter what siddur you have on hand -- or indeed whether you have one on hand at all.

The only part of this recording which is bound to a certain moment in time is the Torah reading, which comes from last week's portion, Behar-Bechukkotai. If you find it disconcerting to hear a Torah reading after the assigned date for that portion is past, you can always fast-forward that part.

Several of y'all have asked if I might consider offering prayer podcasts in this way; I'll be curious to see if this works for you! I've edited out the weekly announcements (which come at the end of our service); the recording is otherwise unaltered. It was made in a rather unsophisticated way, so sound levels may vary.

My deepest thanks are due to David and Rhonda for leading the service with me, for sharing their voices and their ruach (spirit), for playing their instruments (ukulele and sruti box) alongside mine (guitar), and for giving me permission to share this service as a podcast here.

 

To listen online or download:

1 hour, 50 minutes, 30 seconds / 106.2 MB MP3 file

ShabbatMorning

If you're so inclined, you can subscribe via iTunes.

All feedback is welcome and appreciated, always.

 

New toddler house poem for Shavuot

Shavuot in the toddler house


You don't remember, but
    you gathered at Sinai
        with the ganze mishpacha

the broadcast came
    in every language at once
        our spirits electrified

Torah in our mouths
    like mother's milk
        sweet as wildflower honey

You don't remember, but
    you learned the deepest Torah
        floating in my salt sea

an angel kept you company
    and taught you holiness
        you somersaulted with joy

you didn't know
    only traces would remain
        on the hard drive of your heart

You don't remember, but
    you spent night after night
        drawing down my Torah

I'll spend my remaining years
    learning the Torah of you
        every day revelation anew

This is the latest addition to my growing collection of "toddler house" poems, which I wrote -- and share -- in anticipation of the festival of Shavuot, which will begin this coming Saturday night.

"The ganze mishpacha" is Yiddish for "the whole family" -- an allusion to the midrash which says that the souls of all Jews who have ever lived or will ever live were mystically present for the theophany at Sinai. The idea that the divine broadcast was heard in whatever language each person understood / needed also comes from midrash (and is echoed in the Christian scriptures, as well.) The Torah-as-mother's-milk metaphor comes in part from the tradition of eating dairy at Shavuot. The image of an unborn child learning Torah in the womb and forgetting it upon birth comes from Talmud (Niddah 20b.)

All comments / responses welcome.

Havdalah

 

It's after Drew's bedtime. He's asleep in his crib. We've finished dinner. The sky is turning a glorious deep fading evening blue. I step outside to see if there are stars; I can only spot one, but I hear the first veery thrushes of the season. Their spiraling song amazes me again, and I call to David and Amberly and Rhonda to come outside and hear them with me. I say the shehecheyanu; I haven't heard this song since last year.

We return to the indoors, sit and natter a little longer. A short while later, when we go back outside, there are three stars. It's time.

We stand in a circle. I light the braided havdalah candle and hold it high, its many wicks making a bright flame which dances and casts shadows across the deck. I feel like Lady Liberty, holding my torch aloft.

We sing " לַיְּהוּדִים, הָיְתָה אוֹרָה וְשִׂמְחָה, וְשָׂשֹׂן, וִיקָר / layehudim haita ora v'simcha v'sason v'ikar" -- "'For the Jews there was radiance, and happiness, and joy, and honor' / so may it be for us!" (The quote is from Esther 8:16.) Let us be a light, I think, in the week to come.

We take turns offering the havdalah blessings -- over wine, over fire, over sweet spices, over separation -- interspersed with the melody we were already singing. This is a melody we learned from Rabbi Marcia Prager and Hazzan Jack Kessler. Some say the melody is by Shlomo; others say it's by Moshe Schur, written for Reb Aryeh. I grew up on Debbie Friedman's melody; it takes me back to summer camp and to childhood and to havdalah with my family of origin. But this other one stirs something deep in me.

Hearing it, I am mystically hyperlinked to the havdalah ceremony at the end of every Jewish Renewal Shabbat I've ever experienced. The end of smicha students' week at the old Elat Chayyim, in Albuquerque, in Ohio, at Pearlstone. The end of every DLTI shabbat and Elat Chayyim retreat Shabbat. It's so beautiful, and yet so bittersweet. It means Shabbat is over. The retreat is ending. It's time to return to ordinary life. I remember weeping through havdalah, time and again, not ready to say goodbye to the Shabbat bride or to my friends.

And yet here I am now, standing on my own deck at my own house, and I have brought those friends -- and the Shabbat bride! -- home with me. We are singing the same melody, with the same intentions, with the same heart. In our faces I see the radiance of Shekhinah.

After the candle is doused in the wine, as we sing Eliahu HaNavi and Miriam HaNeviah, David dips a finger into the kiddush cup and paints a drop of the sanctified wine above each of our eyes, an embodied blessing that we might see the world through the eyes of Torah and blessing in the week to come.

Shabbat comes, Shabbat delights, and then Shabbat leaves. But the connections we make with her, and with one another, remain.

 

Havdalah candle image by Kim Romain.

The Rabbi And

Ready for a Shabbat picnic.

Sometimes it's a little bit challenging to be the rabbi and. The rabbi and mommy. The rabbi and sometimes solo-parent. The rabbi and hostess. And and and.

I'm hosting two of my dear ALEPH friends here as houseguests this weekend. They'll be co-leading services with me tomorrow morning. Leading davenen with friends is truly a joy. Our ruach (spirit) is reflected and refracted and magnified somehow between us; it becomes more than the sum of its parts. And there's something about hearing these longtime friends' voices in my ears as I pray which always lifts me up.

Ethan's out of town, on a truly nutty whirlwind of a trip from here to New York to Boston to Toronto to Texas to Virginia to here again. (At least I think that's how the itinerary goes. It's easy to get confused.) And -- unrelated, but also relevant to my weekend -- we have plasterers in our house right now, on their second week of repairing extensive water damage from a formerly-leaking roof.

We're blessed to have guys who can make our ceilings whole again. And Ethan is blessed to have interesting work which takes him to interesting places! But I'm realizing, in retrospect, that this is why I've been running around like the proverbial headless chicken these last few days: because I'm trying to be the rabbi and.

Yesterday I stocked up on diapers and Drew-compliant foods for the weekend. (Mommy task.) This morning I led meditation, set the Torah scroll for tomorrow, spent a few hours working toward weekend's Shavuot and bar mitzvah plans (rabbi tasks) -- and then dashed to the store, bought groceries for houseguests, came home and popped a chicken in the oven to roast, made up the guest beds. (Hostess tasks.) Meanwhile checking synagogue email. (Rabbi task.) And making sure I had a check for our daycare provider and for the plasterers. (Household task.) And tidying Drew's toys. (Mommy task.) And putting up the umbrella on our deck table so that we can eat a quick and early Shabbat dinner outside (hostess task), since our kitchen and dining room tables are piled with drygoods and home-canned pickles thanks to the plasterers moving things around. Now I'm preparing for tonight's speaker at shul (rabbi task) and periodically checking the roasting potatoes (hostess task.)

It reminds me a little bit of the way we used to have to scurry in Jerusalem to complete our Shabbat preparations before everybody closed for Shabbat. Most stores and restaurants in West Jerusalem aren't open on Shabbat, so Friday morning and early afternoon is a flurry of crazed shopping and cooking and dashing about. But then the evening light on the Jerusalem stone turns pink and gold, and you light the candles and bless the bread and wine, and peace settles in.

I'm looking forward to peace settling in tonight...even though the "peace" of a working Shabbat isn't exactly the peace of total relaxation. I'll be back at shul tonight (babysitter for Drew), and back at shul tomorrow morning (dropping him off at a friend's house for a few hours.) In some ways, the real Shabbat menucha (rest) comes tomorrow afternoon when my work obligations are over and my houseguests and I can relax into chasing an active toddler around the backyard. Okay, "relax" might not be the right word even then, but I know it will be sweet.

Wishing a sweet and joyful Shabbat to all who celebrate.

This week's portion: a Shabbat for the earth

Here's the d'var Torah I'll offer tomorrow morning at my shul; if you're joining us for Shabbat morning services (which I'll be co-leading with two dear rabbinic school friends, Rhonda Shapiro-Rieser and David Curiel) you might want to skip this post so you can hear the d'var fresh!

When I teach this Torah portion, the exhortation to let the land lie fallow every seventh year (the shmittah year) and then to let it lie fallow again in the 50th year, the yovel (usually translated as Jubilee), someone always asks: was this ever really done?

Short answer: I don't know. Some say yes. Some say no. Some point to the rabbinic argument that these laws are meant to be followed only under very specific circumstances, e.g. when the majority of the world's Jews once again live in the land of Israel.

But I think the question misses the point. When it comes to Torah, I'm just not that interested in whether or not these stories "ever happened." Instead, I want to ask: what can this text teach us about our people's core values, about our ongoing struggle to lead righteous and meaningful lives?

The Torah tells us, quite clearly, that the earth deserves a Shabbat just as we do. Just as we do all our work for six days, and take the seventh day as a Shabbat to Adonai, a "sanctuary in time," a space of holiness in which we assert that there is something more meaningful than the bottom line -- the earth, too, lives by these same cycles.

We sanctify time by marking it out and measuring it. Right now we're counting the seven weeks of the Omer, the 49-day journey from Pesach to Shavuot, freedom to revelation, which culminates in the 50th day, Shavuot itself. Torah teaches us that the earth, too, lives by these same cycles. We think in terms of days and weeks; for the earth, which lives in geologic time, the counting is in sevens of years.

We may not be able to imagine letting the entire earth lie fallow for one year out of seven -- for two years in a row when the cycle of seven sevens is complete! -- but we can learn from this week's Torah portion that the earth is made holy through rest, just as we are. Maybe this is Torah's version of the Gaia Hypothesis, the theory that all life on earth is closely interconnected into one inconceivably complicated organic system -- that the whole earth is a living being, and we are its cells.

Letting our fields lie fallow is good farming practice. But the Hasidic rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev argues, in a text we'll read today during our Torah study, that we're commanded to let the earth rest not only because it's good for production -- just as we rest on Shabbat not only because it feels nice -- but because it's a mitzvah. A commandment. We do these things because God told us to.

The paradigm of "commandedness" may not be the most comfortable one for us. In modernity, and maybe especially at the liberal end of the Jewish world, we may bristle at the notion of doing something "because I told you so."

But my teachers in Jewish Renewal have given me another understanding of the word mitzvah. In Aramaic, sister language to Hebrew, mitzvah means connection. Perhaps, then, we can understand a mitzvah as a connective act: something which connects us to one another, to our tradition, to our understanding of holiness, to our aspirations for a better and healthier and holier world.

We give ourselves, and our planet, the gift of regular rest not just because it seems like a nice idea, but because it's a mitzvah: a connection. It connects us up to the source of all blessing, and when that connection is real and sturdy and alive, abundance can flow into us and into our world.

Crossposted to my From the Rabbi blog.

Dear me

If you could talk to your 16-year-old self, what would you say? What advice, warnings, or encouragement would you give your younger self?

Dear me.

Let's see, you're sixteen. Still grateful to have escaped the dire fate of "sweet sixteen and never been kissed," though it's hard for you to shake the sense that something must be wrong with you because the ones you have a crush on never want to date you. Oh, honey, that's going to get so much better -- take it from someone who knows.

You're -- what, taking AP bio, right? Thrilling at the strangely grown-up feeling of drinking hot tea made over a bunsen burner in the bio lab with Mr. Kaestner at 7:30 in the morning, before any of the other classes have begun. Taking Latin, too, if memory serves -- translating the Aeneid with Lindsay, line by gloriously ancient line. Many of the memories you're making now will last.

People talk about how these are the best years of your life. And yes: there's a lot that's wonderful about where you are now. But there's a lot that's awkward about this moment, too -- I get that. You're not sure who you want to be. You don't always feel at-home in your own skin. You're desperate to be loved and wanted, and secretly afraid that you're too weird to find the kind of connection you yearn for. (You're not. I promise.)

College is going to be so good for you. You're going to meet some extraordinary people, many of whom will still be among your nearest and dearest in twenty years. You're going to find your tribe. Indeed: you're going to find several, in college and beyond, and they will be among your chosen-family for the rest of your life.

There are so many books and ideas and discoveries ahead of you, and they are going to make your universe impossibly vast and your heart impossibly full. Oh, there's so much good stuff coming! Thandeka, The Jew in the Lotus, Jane Kenyon, Reb Zalman...

Keep writing poetry. There's a reason it feels so central to who you are: it is. Writing will always be one of your best ways to explore your own inner landscape and to find kindred spirits.

Enjoy everything there is to love about where you live now. Walk on the Riverwalk, eat Tex-Mex as often as you can possibly stand it, notice the birdsong and the scent of giant magnolia blossoms, swim in the Guadalupe.  I don't think you're ever going to live in Texas again, but you will always love the big sky.

Tell Lali and Eppie you love them, just because you can.

I know that you often feel like a square peg in a round pegboard. You're offbeat and intellectual and geeky, and that's not always comfortable.  You're not sure yet whether you want to be the girl in Birkenstocks and flowy skirts or the girl in bluejeans and a preppy buttondown. Guess what: you can be both. You can be other things you haven't even imagined yet. And you will.

I could tell you all about the quirky, beautiful, steady life you're going to build for yourself: the marriage, the vocation, the son. But you'll have more fun discovering them for yourself.

Really I just want to say: be kind to yourself. You are loveable. (You are loved.)

Love,
Thirty-Seven

I'm not sure where this meme originates, but it might be Maps by special guest Elizabeth Eslami; I first saw it at Dale's post Glimmer. Both are beautiful and worth reading.

Morning prayers in the car

"How about a cd, mommy?" says Drew in the car. "How about the orange one! How about Shawn!"

"The orange one" and "Shawn" mean the same thing: Morning I Will Seek You, by my friend and teacher Shawn Zevit. I like to listen to it in the mornings on the way to daycare and then to work, and apparently so does Drew. (The physical cd itself has an orange face, if that weren't clear.)

I like beginning my day with prayer. Modah ani l'fanecha -- I am grateful before You, living and enduring God; You have restored my soul to me, great is Your faithfulness. (I've written about that prayer before.) Halleli nafshi et Adonai -- my soul sings out to God, I will sing to God with my very life... (That's the first two verses of psalm 146.)

That verse from psalms came up in spiritual direction recently. I was bemoaning the reality that I still don't manage daily liturgical prayer as reliably or wholly as I wish I did, as I feel I ought to. My mashpi'ah gently reminded me of this verse, and it was a revelation. Of course! I will sing to God b'chayyai, with my life. My life is the song I sing to God; that's what I should be aspiring to. It's okay if that song doesn't always take the classical full-text liturgical forms.

Drew is at a moment in his life where he doesn't often want me to sing to him, unless I'm singing the alphabet song or "twinkle twinkle little star" or "Old McDonald had a farm." The one exception is at bedtime; he lets me sing our bedtime songs every night, curled for one delicious moment into my arms. But otherwise, when I sing -- whether it's the morning prayer for gratitude, or the Shabbat blessings -- he shushes me and tells me firmly to stop.

But apparently he doesn't mind listening to Shawn sing. I'm grateful for that! And I trust that in time, I'll be able to teach Drew some of the melodies I love best for the prayers I try to weave into my every day.

"Complicating Israel" reading list

If I were to assemble a reading list, or book discussion group curriculum, on the Middle East, what would I choose? That's the question which prompted this post. This is a list of 20 nonfiction titles: some by Israelis, some by Palestinians, some by outsiders; some more historical, some more personal. I think it's valuable (both spiritually and intellectually) to juxtapose disparate voices and to open ourselves to stories we might not otherwise hear.

I welcome thoughts / responses/ suggestions. I've pondered using this as the curriculum for an in-person discussion group at my shul -- or for an online discussion group (different bloggers claiming different titles and hosting conversations about them?) -- but for now, it's just a curated reading list.

City of Oranges: An Intimate History of Arabs and Jews in Jaffa, by Adam LeBor

I read this book while living in Jerusalem; my review is here at Velveteen Rabbi. Here's an excerpt from my review:

The book tells the history of Jaffa (and to some extent also Tel Aviv, its neighbor) through the histories of six families: three Arab (Christian and Muslim), and three Jewish. Through letters and diaries and interviews with the current generation of these families, LeBor paints a picture of what life was like in Jaffa ninety years ago...and how it has changed, repeatedly, between then and now.

LeBor has chosen a fabulous way to make history clear. It's one thing to say "Muslims and Jews and Christians used to interact in a mode of genuine respect and friendship," but it's another thing entirely to tell the story of an Arab family attending a Jewish wedding, or how Jews and Arabs both used to gather at a Jewish-owned spice shop or an Arab-owned bakery. The stories of real families make the history engaging and meaningful...

LeBor doesn't take sides, and he doesn't editorialize -- though I come away with the sense that he loves Jaffa a great deal, and that he respects and admires all of the families he interviewed over the course of writing the book. In the end, it seems to me that Jaffa serves as a microcosm... The narratives of these interwoven families stand in for all of the narratives of every family who's inhabited this land in reality or in memory, through arrival and departure and return.

The Hour of Sunlight: One Palestinian's Journey from Prisoner to Peacemaker by Sami al Jundi and Jen Marlowe

I reviewed this recently; I think it's excellent. Here's a taste of my review:

This book wasn't always easy for me to read, but it is powerful and it is worth reading, especially for anyone who (like me) may have more access to Israeli narratives about the Middle East than to Palestinian ones... Ultimately he joins two of his teenaged friends in making a pipe bomb which they intend to plant at a fruit and vegetable market -- a story which is not easy for me to face by any stretch of the imagination. But even as he's treading this ground, he's also working at an Israeli sandwich shop and developing a crush on a young Argentine Jewish woman who's in the process of making aliyah. His relationship with Israel and Israelis is always already complicated.

Once he enters Israeli prison -- colloquially known as "university," because of the system of self-improvement and education developed there by Palestinians -- the book becomes doubly fascinating to me... Probably the most moving part of the book, for me, begins once Sami is out of prison and slowly beginning to form relationships with Israelis despite the tremendous difficulty involved in finding common ground. ami becomes involved with the Seeds of Peace Center for Coexistence, where he meets co-author Jen Marlowe. They write beautifully about that journey. That part of the book brings me both joy (watching Sami's trust and hope grow) and also inevitably sorrow (because I know, reading this now, that the changes for which he hopes have not yet come to pass.)

There's a brief excerpt from the book at Spirituality & Practice, and the co-authors are interviewed on GRITtv.

A Tale of Love and Darkness by Amos Oz

Amazon says: "Tragic, comic, and utterly honest, this extraordinary memoir is at once a great family saga and a magical self-portrait of a writer who witnessed the birth of a nation and lived through its turbulent history.

It is the story of a boy growing up in the war-torn Jerusalem of the forties and fifties, in a small apartment crowded with books in twelve languages and relatives speaking nearly as many. His mother and father, both wonderful people, were ill-suited to each other. When Oz was twelve and a half years old, his mother committed suicide, a tragedy that was to change his life. He leaves the constraints of the family and the community of dreamers, scholars, and failed businessmen and joins a kibbutz, changes his name, marries, has children, and finally becomes a writer as well as an active participant in the political life of Israel.

A story of clashing cultures and lives, of suffering and perseverance, of love and darkness."

You can read an excerpt at the NPR website.

The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East by Sandy Tolan

Amazon says: "In 1967, Bashir Al-Khayri, a Palestinian twenty-five-year-old, journeyed to Israel, with the goal of seeing the beloved old stone house, with the lemon tree behind it, that he and his family had fled nineteen years earlier. To his surprise, when he found the house he was greeted by Dalia Ashkenazi Landau, a nineteen-year-old Israeli college student, whose family fled Europe for Israel following the Holocaust. On the stoop of their shared home, Dalia and Bashir began a rare friendship, forged in the aftermath of war and tested over the next thirty-five years in ways that neither could imagine on that summer day in 1967. Based on extensive research, and springing from his enormously resonant documentary that aired on NPR's Fresh Air in 1998, Sandy Tolan brings the Israeli-Palestinian conflict down to its most human level, suggesting that even amid the bleakest political realities there exist stories of hope and reconciliation."

The author offers excerpts -- two chapters -- on the book's website.

The General's Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine by Miko Peled (also available from Amazon)

Amazon says: "In 1997, a tragedy struck the family of Israeli-American Miko Peled: His beloved niece Smadar was killed by a suicide bomber in Jerusalem. That tragedy propelled Peled onto a journey of discovery. It pushed him to re-examine many of the beliefs he had grown up with, as the son and grandson of leading figures in Israel's political-military elite, and transformed him into a courageous and visionary activist in the struggle for human rights and a hopeful, lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians...

The journey that Peled traces in this groundbreaking memoir echoed the trajectory taken 40 years earlier by his father, renowned Israeli general Matti Peled. In The General's Son, Miko Peled tells us about growing up in Jerusalem in the heart of the group that ruled the then-young country, Israel. He takes us with him through his service in the country's military and his subsequent global travels... and then, after his niece's killing, back into the heart of Israel's conflict with the Palestinians. The book provides a compelling and intimate window into the fears that haunt both peoples-- but also into the real courage of all those who, like Miko Peled, have been pursuing a steadfast grassroots struggle for equality for all the residents of the Holy Land."

You can read an excerpt -- the introduction, and chapter seven -- here at Mondoweiss.

A Land of Two Peoples: Martin Buber on Jews and Arabs, edited by Paul Mendes-Flohr

This book collects the annotated letters of Martin Buber's, spanning 60 years of his thinking about Zionism. One of my rabbinic colleagues notes, "Many of us know and admire Buber's I and Thou but generally do not know the history of his whole and complicated relationship with Zionism. His is a Zionist perspective, but one which is fundamentally different from the path which history ultimately followed."

The book description on Amazon reads, in part: "Theologian, philosopher, and political radical, Martin Buber (1878–1965) was actively committed to a fundamental economic and political reconstruction of society as well as the pursuit of international peace. In his voluminous writings on Arab-Jewish relations in Palestine, Buber united his religious and philosophical teachings with his politics, which he felt were essential to a life of public dialogue and service to God.

Collected in A Land of Two Peoples are the private and open letters, addresses, and essays in which Buber advocated binationalism as a solution to the conflict in the Middle East. A committed Zionist, Buber steadfastly articulated the moral necessity for reconciliation and accommodation between the Arabs and Jews."

The Jewish State, by Theodore Herzl

This little pamphlet, written by the father of political Zionism, articulated his vision of a homeland for the Jews. (It's also available as a free downloadable e-book at MidEastWeb.) Amazon says: "Theodor Herzl was born in 1860 in Budapest, Hungary, and raised by an Orthodox Jewish father and an unobservant Jewish mother. It was quite a journey from there to becoming the founder of the World Zionist Organization and an influential figure in the establishment of the state of Israel. Fueled by anti-Semitic attitudes of late-nineteenth-century Europe, Herzl promoted the concept of an entirely Jewish state, a homeland for Jewish people, in Palestine. He published "The Jewish State" in 1896, in which he outlined a theory to employ diplomacy to get other powerful nations to support the foundation of such a nation, and thereby liberate the Jews from a constant state of poverty and repression."

The Question of Palestine by Edward Said

Amazon says: "Still a basic and indespensible account of the Palestinian question, updated to include the most recent developments in the Middle East- from the intifada to the Gulf war to the historic peace conference in Madrid."

I think these two would make fascinating reading together.

I Shall Not Hate by Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish

I've mentioned Dr. Abuelaish on this blog before -- see The Gaza war: so many worlds destroyed. Here's how Amazon describes his book:

"A Palestinian doctor who was born and raised in the Jabalia refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, Izzeldin Abuelaish is an infertility specialist who lives in Gaza but works in Israel. The Gaza doctor has been crossing the lines in the sand that divide Israelis and Palestinians for most of his life--as a physician who treats patients on both sides of the line, as a humanitarian who sees the need for improved health and education for women as the way forward in the Middle East. And, most recently, as the father whose daughters were killed by Israeli soldiers on January 16, 2009, during Israel's incursion into the Gaza Strip.

It was Izzeldin's response to this tragedy that made news and won him humanitarian awards around the world. Instead of seeking revenge or sinking into hatred, he called for the people in the region to start talking to each other. His deepest hope is that his daughters will be 'the last sacrifice on the road to peace between Palestinians and Israelis.'"

There's an eight-page excerpt from this book available online.

Jobnik! by Miriam Libicki

This is an autobiographical graphic novel, which I thought might give an interesting perspective on the experience of a Diaspora Jew joining the IDF, as well as an interesting viewpoint on the second intifada.

Amazon says: "Miriam Libicki, an American Jewish girl from a religious home, enlists in the Israeli Army one summer against everyone's better judgment. Many qualities seem to make her unsuited for IDF life: her Hebrew isn't great, she is shy and passive, and she has a tendency to fall in love with anything that moves. If that weren't enough, the Al Aqsa uprising, a.k.a the second Palestinian Intifada, erupts a few weeks after she is stationed as a secretary in a remote Negev base. Will Miriam survive threats of terrorism, the rough IDF culture, and not least, her horrible taste in men?"

Also, this book looks like it might lighten things up a bit, which could be a good thing.

Side by Side: Parallel Histories of Israel and Palestine by Sami Adwan, Dan Bar-On, and Eyal Naveh

I bought this book as soon as I read the excellent review at Jewschool, which explains:

This book's simple yet ingenious innovation is a layout common to every English-Hebrew siddur: the right facing page is the Israeli narrative and the left facing page is the Palestinian side, each describing the same events. As Sari Nusseibeh's back cover blurb says, it's a "pioneering effort not only in the context of Israeli-Palestinian politics, but in the writing of history."

I don't recommend trying to read both narratives at once, since parallel chapters are real, full histories with footnotes, photos and stories. Trying to do so will give you a headache. But for the first time, opening a chapter to, say, the Balfour Declaration immediately makes both sides' claims and reactions easy to find. No skipping around, flipping to the next chapter, or trying to keep it all in your head...

Those of us versed in both narratives may be quite familiar with the different traumas important to both sides. But to see them so vividly and loyally portrayed side by side reminds me of how important efforts like this remain. For avid consumers of Middle East histories, this is an innovative quick reference guide. And for those entirely new to this issue, I highly recommend any book that is simple, clear and fair to both sides — for which this approach is uniquely, brilliantly qualified.

Occupied with Nonviolence: A Palestinian Woman Speaks by Jean Zaru

One of my rabbinic colleagues describes this as "A beautiful, short and very personal book."

Amazon says, "Jean Zaru, the longtime activist and Quaker leader from Ramallah, here brings home the pain and central convictions that animate Christian nonviolence and activity today. Zaru vividly paints the complex realities faced by all parties in Palestine - Jews and Muslims and Christians, Israelis and Palestinians, women and men. Yet even as Zaru eloquently names the common misunderstandings of the history, present situation, and current policies of the parties there, she vividly articulates an alternative: a religiously motivated nonviolent path to peace and justice in the world's most troubled region."

Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-2001 by Benny Morris

Amazon says: "At a time when the Middle East has come closer to achieving peace than ever before, eminent Israeli historian Benny Morris explodes the myths cherished by both sides to present an epic history of Zionist-Arab relations over the past 120 years. Tracing the roots of political Zionism back to the pogroms of Russia and the Dreyfus Affair, Morris describes the gradual influx of Jewish settlers into Palestine and the impact they had on the Arab population. Following the Holocaust, the first Arab-Israeli war of 1948 resulted in the establishment of the State of Israel, but it also shattered Palestinian Arab society and gave rise to a massive refugee problem.

Morris offers distinctive accounts of each of the subsequent Israeli-Arab wars and details the sporadic peace efforts in between, culminating in the peace process initiated by the Rabin Government. In a new afterword to the Vintage edition, he examines Ehud Barak’s leadership, the death of President Assad of Syria, and Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon, and the recent renewed conflict with the Palestinians. Studded with illuminating portraits of the major protagonists, Righteous Victims provides an authoritative record of the middle east and its continuing struggle toward peace."

One of my Israeli rabbinic colleagues says, "If you are going to read one book about the Israel-Palestine conflict, read this one."

Once Upon a Country: A Palestinian Life by Sari Nusseibeh

One of my rabbinic colleagues calls this book "very informative and formative for me."

Amazon says, "A teacher, a scholar, a philosopher, and an eyewitness to history, Sari Nusseibeh is one of our most urgent and articulate authorities on the conflict in the Middle East. From his time teaching side by side with Israelis at the Hebrew University through his appointment by Yasir Arafat to administer the Arab Jerusalem, he has held fast to the principles of freedom and equality for all, and his story dramatizes the consequences of war, partition, and terrorism as few other books have done. This autobiography brings rare depth and compassion to the story of his country."

An excerpt from the book is available at the NPR website.

Shared Histories: A Palestinian-Israeli Dialogue, ed. Paul Scham, Walid Salem

Amazon says: "There is no single history of the development of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Israeli historical narrative speaks of Zionism as the Jewish national movement, of building a refuge from persecution, and of national regeneration. The Palestinian narrative speaks of invasion, expulsion, and oppression. It's no wonder peace remains elusive. This volume attempts to present both histories with parallel narratives of key points in the 19th and 20th centuries to 1948. The histories are presented by fourteen Israeli and Palestinian experts, joined by other historians, journalists, and activists, who then discuss the differences and similarities between their accounts. By creating an appreciation, understanding, and respect for the 'other,' the first steps can be made to foster a shared history of a shared land. The reader has the opportunity to witness first hand a respectful confrontation between the competing versions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."

My Israeli rabbinic colleague says, "The leaders and participants of this project have managed to produce a serious and constructive dialogue between working historians that really does present major facets of the history of Palestinian Arabs and the Zionist movement. Regardless of whether or not you agree with every word, this book is a joy to read and offers interest and information on every page for both beginners and professional historians."

My Father Was a Freedom Fighter by Ramzy Baroud

Amazon says: "The frontline in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, Gaza is constantly reported as a place of violence and terror. Ramzy Baroud's memoir explores the daily lives of the people in that turbulent region: the complex human beings -- revolutionaries, mothers and fathers, lovers, and comedians -- who make Gaza so much more than just a disputed territory. At the heart of Baroud's tale is the story of his father who, driven out of his village to a refugee camp, took up arms to fight the occupation while trying to raise a family."

One of my rabbinic colleagues says "Devastating book about the history of Gazans through the eyes of one mans' son."

Heres an excerpt.

Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East by Michael B. Oren

Amazon says, "Though it lasted for only six tense days in June, the 1967 Arab-Israeli war never really ended. Every crisis that has ripped through this region in the ensuing decades, from the Yom Kippur War of 1973 to the ongoing intifada, is a direct consequence of those six days of fighting. Michael B. Oren’s magnificent Six Days of War, an internationally acclaimed bestseller, is the first comprehensive account of this epoch-making event.

Writing with a novelist’s command of narrative and a historian’s grasp of fact and motive, Oren reconstructs both the lightning-fast action on the battlefields and the political shocks that electrified the world. Extraordinary personalities—Moshe Dayan and Gamal Abdul Nasser, Lyndon Johnson and Alexei Kosygin—rose and toppled from power as a result of this war; borders were redrawn; daring strategies brilliantly succeeded or disastrously failed in a matter of hours. And the balance of power changed—in the Middle East and in the world. A towering work of history and an enthralling human narrative, Six Days of War is the most important book on the Middle East conflict to appear in a generation."

One of my Israeli rabbinic colleagues says, "This book has won praise from both friends and foes of Israel, and is probably the best history of the war to date."

In Search of Fatima: A Palestinian Story by Ghada Karmi

Publisher's Weekly says: "Karmi, a doctor and founding member of the British political group Palestine Action, relates her quest for cultural identity after her 'fragile... and misfit Arab family' leaves Jerusalem for England during the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. Ironically, they resettle in a Jewish neighborhood in London; Karmi, aged nine, quickly begins to assimilate--becoming an avid reader of English literature and befriending Jewish neighbors--despite her mother's insistence on traditional Palestinian culinary customs, dating mores and family codes. Over the next two decades, events in the Middle East make their non-Arab neighbors increasingly hostile and her Jewish friends' pro-Israel fervor grows; after the Palestinian terrorist hijackings of the 1970s, some acquaintances refuse to speak to her. Karmi becomes an impassioned pro-Palestinian activist, and in 1977 she begins practicing medicine in a Palestinian refugee camp in South Lebanon--and finds that her Western upbringing and habits make her even less welcome there than she was in England. Karmi writes engagingly, weaving Palestinian political and social history through her personal recollections and giving the age-old emigré dilemmas a timely twist."

One of my rabbinic colleagues says: "The first half of the book, that describes her experiences in Jerusalem as a child during the Nakba, is riveting."

Home to Stay: One American Family's Chronicle of Miracles and Struggles in Contemporary Israel by R' Daniel Gordis

Daniel Gordis is well to the right of Gershom Gorenberg (whose book appears below), so the two might make interesting juxtapositions -- two Americans who made aliyah (lit. "ascent" -- which is to say, they immigrated to Israel), but whose viewpoints and politics differ substantially.

Amazon says: "In the summer of 1998, Daniel Gordis and his family moved to Israel from Los Angeles. They planned to be there for a year, but a few months into their stay, Gordis and his wife decided to remain in Jerusalem permanently, confident that their children would be among the first generation of Israelis to grow up in peace.

Immediately after arriving in Israel, Daniel had started sending out e-mails about his life to friends and family abroad. These missives—passionate, thoughtful, beautifully written, and informative—began reaching a much broader readership than he’d ever envisioned, eventually being excerpted in The New York Times Magazine to much acclaim. An edited and finely crafted collection of his original e-mails, Home to Stay is a first-person, immediate account of Israel’s post-Oslo meltdown that cuts through the rhetoric and stridency of most dispatches from that country or from the international media. This is must reading for anyone who wants to get a firsthand, personal view of what it’s like for a family on the front lines of war."

The Unmaking of Israel by Gershom Gorenberg

I'm a longtime fan of Gershom's writings at his blog South Jerusalem. Here's Amazon's description:

"In this penetrating and provocative look at the state of contemporary Israel, acclaimed Israeli historian and journalist Gershom Gorenberg reveals how the nation’s policies are undermining its democracy and existence as a Jewish state, and explains what must be done to bring it back from the brink. Refuting shrill defenses of Israel and equally strident attacks, Gorenberg shows that the Jewish state is, in fact, unique among countries born in the postcolonial era: It began as a parliamentary democracy and has remained one. An activist judiciary has established civil rights. Despite discrimination against its Arab minority, Israel has given a political voice to everyone within its borders.

Yet shortsighted policies, unintended consequences, and the refusal to heed warnings now threaten those accomplishments. By keeping the territories it occupied in the Six-Day War, Israel has crippled its democracy and the rule of law. The unholy ties between state, settlement, and synagogue have promoted a new brand of extremism, transforming Judaism from a humanistic to a militant faith. And the religious right is rapidly gaining power within the Israeli army, with possibly catastrophic consequences.

In order to save itself, Gorenberg argues, Israel must end the occupation, separate state from religion, and create a new civil Israeli identity that can be shared by Jews and Arabs. Based on groundbreaking historical research—including documents released through the author’s Israeli Supreme Court challenge to military secrecy—and on a quarter century of experience reporting in the region, The Unmaking of Israel is a brilliant, deeply personal critique by a progressive Israeli, and a plea for realizing the nation’s potential."

You can read excerpts from Gorenberg's book at Slate: The Mystery of 1948, Israel's Old-Time Religion.

I should also mention Emily L. Hauser's excellent reading list Reading the Conflict: An Israel/Palestine reading list, and the Middle East Books Bibliography, from which some of these recommendations were drawn.

A mother poem for Mother's Day

To all who celebrate, I wish a happy Mother's Day! Here's to mothers of all kinds: our mothers and grandmothers, the "other mothers" (caregivers and teachers and nannies) in our lives, to we ourselves who are mothers -- may we all feel rightly celebrated today. And to all who struggle with infertility and miscarriage, for whom today may bring more sorrow than celebration, may that sadness be soothed and healed.

As mother's day has approached, I've been thinking again about how best to get Waiting to Unfold, my collection of mother poems, out there into the world. I remain hopeful that someday it will see print! Meanwhile, in honor of the day, I'll reprint the final poem from that manuscript here. Enjoy!

 

ONE YEAR (MOTHER PSALM 9)

A psalm of ascent

 

When the doctor brought you
through my narrow places
I was as in a dream: tucked behind
my closed eyes, chanting silently
we are opening up in sweet surrender.
The night before we left the hospital
I wept: didn’t they know
I had no idea what to do with you?
Even newborn-sized clothes
loomed around you, vast and ill-fitting.
I couldn’t convince you to latch
without a nurse there to reposition.
But we got into the car, the old world
made terrifying and new, and
in time I learned your language.
I had my own narrow places ahead,
the valley of the postpartum shadow.
Nights when I would hand you over,
mutely grateful to anyone willing
to rock you down, to suffer your cries...
But those who sow in tears
will reap in joy, and you
are the joy I never knew I didn’t have.
I have paced these long hours
bearing a baby on my shoulder
and now I am home in rejoicing,
bearing you, my own harvest.

 

(If you're so inclined, you can read the commentary I offered when I first posted the poem back in November of 2010.)

Awesome community media piece: Mind the Gap in Crown Heights

Via this post at Jewschool I found a pretty wonderful piece of community media called Mind the Gap in Crown Heights:

(If you can't see the embedded video, above, you can go directly to it at YouTube.)

 

This is a radio and film piece made as part of Radio Rookies, "a New York Public Radio initiative that provides teenagers with the tools and training to create radio stories about themselves, their communities and their world." Here's how the video is described on YouTube:

Four teenage girls, all new immigrants from the Caribbean, arrive at a high school in the heart of what was the epicenter of the Crown Heights riots 20 years ago. As newcomers they know nothing of the long history of tension between the Black and Lubavitch Jewish communities in the neighborhood. They set out to try to educate themselves about a culture so different from their own, in the midst of stereotypes and misinformation about Jewish people.

Editor's Note on video: The Crown Heights Community Mediation Center works to improve inter-group relations in Crown Heights by creating a safe space where people of different backgrounds are encouraged to discuss hard conversations, through activities and workshops. For example, the scene in the video where Amy Ellenbogen, the Center's Director, poses a statement about co-existence in the neighborhood is a part of a game, "The Human Barometer", where participants move to different parts of the room to show if they agree, disagree or feel neutral about the issue.

It's wonderful to be able to watch and listen as these four girls from the Caribbean begin to learn about their Chabad Lubavitch neighbors -- and vice versa. Of course, the encounter isn't always comfortable or easy; but I give these kids props for their curiosity and their genuine desire for encounter.

As I think on it, there are a lot of stereotypes which could stand to be shattered not just in the Jewish communities' relationships with the broader world, but within our own communities, too. For instance, the liberal Jewish kids I teach and the young people who attend yeshiva in a Chabad setting -- those are groups of youngsters who never have a chance to connect and who almost certainly have all kinds of unconscious prejudices and misconceptions about one another. I guess that's always true.

I wish it were more possible to create more of these kinds of encounters, both within the Jewish communities and between our communities and others! But meanwhile, kol hakavod -- mad props -- to Selena Brown, Chantell Clarke, Sabrina Smith, and Tangeneka Taylor for going outside their comfort zome and making something really wonderful.

For more on this:

In Crown Heights, Getting Past Stereotypes Through Learning, in the New York Times