By Nachman Ben Yehuda, January 6th, 2011
When I first found out about the Rabbinical letter banning the sale or rental of property to Arabs, I noticed that my old friend and colleague, Nachman Ben – Yehuda, was quoted condemning it in the Toronto Globe and Mail. I then wrote to him asking for more extended reflections for DC. I received this post from him over the holiday weekend. He took his time, he explains, hoping for consequential official response. He offers his sober deliberate considerations. -Jeff
There are times and places where people like to stick together with their own flock, in defined, sometimes confined, geographical locations. In these locations, they live their own life style, with their own dress codes and eat their own foods. The Amish in Pennsylvania and the Jewish ultra-orthodox in Mea Shearim in Jerusalem are two examples. People outside of these communities and non-members may find it difficult to move and live in such social habitats. Moreover, in the case of ultra-orthodox communities, strangers who live in their neighborhoods and practice a non-religious life style may find themselves facing aggression and violence. I am writing about this to contrast it with the call of some rabbis in Israel not to rent apartments to Arabs in Israeli cities.
Israeli Arabs are just that – citizens with full and equal legal rights, and Israeli cities are not confined communities with a uniform worldview and way of life. Israeli cities, like most other cities of the world, are centers of diversity, including the religious and the secular, Jews, Christians and Muslims, old and young, Sephardi and Ashkenazi, etc. These cities are open. Renting an apartment is basically an economic issue. Making and publicizing a general call not to rent apartments to Arabs (or to any other culturally defined group) is quite simply racism.
The rabbinical pamphlet received very critical comments from some Israeli politicians and others, but this did not prevent activists from the Israeli right and religious right to stage a large demonstration on Thursday, December 23, 2010 . . .
Read more: Problematic Rabbinical Ruling Continued
By Iddo Tavory, December 19th, 2010
Today we post the controversial Rabbinical open letter in Israel prohibiting as a matter of religious obligation the renting or selling of property to non-Jews, translated and with reflections on its meaning by Iddo Tavory. It has caused great controversy in Israel and beyond (link and link), including at DC as it challenges the meaning of Israel as a democratic and Jewish state. -Jeff
The Translation:
In response to the query of many, we respond that is forbidden, by Torah-law, to sell a house or a field in the land of Israel to a non-Jew. As Maimonedes wrote: “as it is written (Deuteronomy 7:2) ‘thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them’ which means you shall give them no title to land. For if you do not give them title, their staying shall be temporary.” (laws: 77; 10, 4). And on that topic, the Torah warned in numerous places, that it causes evil and make the many sin in intermarriage, as it is said “For they will turn your sons away from following Me” (Deuteronomy 7:4), which is blasphemy (Maimonedes, 12:6). And it also causes the many to otherwise transgress, as the Torah has warned: “They shall not live in your land, because they will make you sin against Me” (Exodus 23: 33). And the sin of he who sells, and he who profits from it, is upon the heads of those who sell, God shall have mercy.
And evil upon evil, that he who sells or lets them rent an apartment in an area in which Jews are living, causes great damage to his neighbors, and for them it is said “and they shall trouble you in the land where you dwell.” (Numbers 33: 55). For their way of life is different from that of Jews, and some of them harass us and make our life hard, to the point of danger to our very lives, as has become well known on several occasions. And even outside of Israel they have forbidden to sell them in Jewish neighborhoods for this very reason, and all the more so in the land of Israel, as it is elucidated in the [Jewish book of law] Shulhan . . .
Read more: The Israeli Rabbis’ Letter: a Translation
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, December 17th, 2010 
 Democracy, social justice, freedom, cultural refinement and pleasure, all, along with their opposites, are to be found in the detailed meetings and avoidances, engagements and disengagements, comings and goings of everyday life. The politics of small things has been our theme of the week.
Adam Michnik and I decided to try to organize our friends in a common discussion. Despite the workings of the security police and his jailers, and despite the hard realities of the cold war, we created alternatives in our own lives, and this affected many others. Although I am not informed about the specifics, I am sure that such things are now happening in China.
But I should be clear. I am not saying that therefore, the People’s Republic’s days are numbered, or that liberal democracy is just around the corner. Escalation in repression is quite a likely prospect. Michnik’s life after receiving our honorary doctorate did at first lead to a prison cell. Shirin Ebadi is in exile today, as was Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn after his prize. But people continue to interact around the shared human rights principles to which these people dedicated their lives, and this has persistent effects, at least for those people, but beyond their social circles as well. As Michnik put it “the value of our struggle lies not in its chances for victory but rather in the values of its cause.” My point is that if people keep acting according to those values, they are very much alive and consequential.
And it is in this way that I applaud the Afghan Womens Soccer team and  understand its significance. That these young women manage to play their game despite all the horrors of war and occupation, despite the persistence of harmful traditional practices and inadequate implementation of the law on elimination of violence against women in Afghanistan (this was the subject matter of the UN report that Denis Fitzgerald referred to in his reply to my post) is their great achievement. We have to pay attention to such achievements, and . . .
Read more: DC Week in Review: the significance of the politics of small things
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, December 16th, 2010
As has been discussed in DC already, the notion of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state presents serious problems. (Roadblocks to Peace and Two-Sided Response) While recognition of the Jewish State has been used as a condition for peace talks, the enactment of the Jewish character of the state (something that implies much more than Israel as a Jewish homeland) has challenged the democratic rights of the twenty per cent of Israel’s population that is of Palestinian origin.
 A religious edict forbidding Jews from renting or selling property to Arabs and other non-Jews is a most recent example that has caused great controversy. My Israeli friend and DC contributor, Nachman Ben Yehuda, was quoted about the Rabbis edict in The Globe and Mail of Toronto: “Their ultimate goal is a theocratic state….In the meantime, they want to enforce division between the ultra-Orthodox and everyone else.”
But things look even more critical from the Palestinian point of view which became apparent to me when I came across an email note from Amal Eqeiq, a Palestinian with Israeli citizenship who is studying in Seattle. We worked together planning a research project on the politics of small things in Israel-Palestine. In her note, she makes clear that the democratic legitimacy of Israel is at stake. I present her message today, unedited, hoping it provokes serious deliberations.
So, 50 Rabbis signed up a religious call- Psak Halacha – asking Jews to NOT rent for Arabs. Yes, I understand that they don’t represent everybody, and that they are taking advantage of religion for political gains, and that there are different opinions, and that it is not legally binding, and that some lefties will protest in the name of human rights and for keeping face, and, and, and…”Amal, don’t take it personally,” BUT, WHAT THE FUCK?
Here is my observation about the (always guilty) Israeli media.
Haaretz says the letter is addressed for non-Jews (link) …they don’t say Arabs only…and I ask “really Haaretz?! 3anjad!! Thank you for watering down apartheid rhetoric. As a non-Jew, I feel much better now.
And of course, there is Yediot Ahronot with . . .
Read more: Israel: Jewish and Democratic?
By Nahed Habiballah, October 25th, 2010 
A note from Jeff:
Nahed Habiballah, a Ph.D. student at the New School, works on the sociology of religion in the public sphere. We first met in Jerusalem at a conference on the politics of small things in Israel and Palestine. After the conference, she took me, and also Elzbieta Matynia, to visit the city of Ramallah and her family home (on the other side of the Wall); the wall built by Israel under the pretext of security that appropriates more Palestinian land. She is a Palestinian holding Israeli citizenship. Her father came from a small town near Nazareth, but she was born and raised in Jerusalem. She later spent her undergraduate years at the University of Haifa, working as an archeologist after graduation with the “Israeli Authorities of Antiquities.” The paranoid politics of Israel-Palestine insists upon clarity, where complexity such as hers is the general rule. I asked her what she thinks about recent events, particularly about a recent op.ed. piece in The New York Times.
Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Michael B. Oren, recently published an op-ed piece in The New York Times arguing that the failure of the peace negotiations is a result of the Palestinians and/or the Palestinians Authorities’ refusal to recognize the State of Israel as a Jewish state. Oren backs his argument by saying that the United Nation created a Jewish state in Palestine in 1947. He failed to mention, though, that the resolution to which he refers, Resolution 181, the Partition of Palestine, created at the same time an Arab state in Palestine, more over that Palestine was divided almost equally between the two states, and Jerusalem was to be under International jurisdiction. Now Israel occupies 78% of Palestine, and Oren is only interested in one half of the resolution, ignoring the other.
To be sure, the Palestinians have already made significant concessions in the pursuit of a peaceful settlement. The Palestinians have recognized the existence of the state of Israel as mandated by the Oslo agreement signed in 1993 within 1967 . . .
Read more: In Israel: A Two-sided Problem Needs a Two-sided Response
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, October 18th, 2010 
As politics have been increasingly paranoid around the world, the newest proposal in Israel amp up tensions.
I have been thinking about the ubiquity of paranoid politics, as I wonder whether the Israeli – Palestinian peace process has any chance for success, and as I read the news from Israel concerning a bill that would require non -Jewish immigrants to take an oath of allegiance to “Israel as a Jewish and democratic state.”
If we aren’t paying close attention, this amendment may seem to be no big deal. After all, hasn’t Israel all along been the Jewish homeland and a democratic state? But a loyalty oath that commits to the official formulation of Israel as a Jewish state is clearly directed at the rights and citizenship status of Israeli citizens of Palestinian origins. Although they are twenty per cent of the population, they are being asked to demonstrate their loyalty, publicly confirming their second class status facing this symbolic act and a variety of other oaths of allegiance.
There is a sense that they are being assumed to be guilty until proven innocent, and they have to demonstrate their innocence repeatedly. Many Israelis and friends of Israel, elected officials, including those inside the ruling coalition, are deeply worried.
The same politicians who came up with this oath have additional proposals, as Gideon Levy, a columnist for the Israeli liberal newspaper Haaretz, puts it “a loyalty law for Knesset members; a loyalty law for film production; a loyalty law for non-profits; putting the Palestinian catastrophe, the Nakba, beyond the scope of the law; a ban on calls for a boycott; and a bill for the revocation of citizenship.”
Some might suggest that Levy is a left wing critic who exaggerates. But Eli Yishai, the Interior Minister, has apparently been working to show that Levy’s worst fears are a reality, bringing paranoid politics to its logical extension, proposing to strip Israelis of citizenship for disloyalty. “’Declarations are not enough in fact against incidents such as [MKs] Azmi Bishara and Hanin Zoabi,’ Yishai said in reference to . . .
Read more: In Israel: Road Blocks to Peace
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, August 23rd, 2010 The recent violent conflict over the blockade of Gaza enforced by Israel and the attempt of humanitarian organizations and political movements aligned against Israel to break the blockade reminds me of the fundamental nature of conflict. Amos Oz once summed up the situation as he understands it:
“[I]t is high time that honest people outside the region .. conceive of [the Palestinian Israeli conflict] as a tragedy and not as some ‘Wild – West Show,’ containing good guys and bad guys. Tragedies can be resolved in one of two ways: there is the Shakespearean resolution and there is the Chekhovian one. At the end of the Shakespeare tragedy, the stage is strewn with dead bodies, and maybe there’s some justice hovering high above. A Chekhov tragedy, on the other hand, ends with everybody disillusioned, embittered, heartbroken, disappointed, absolutely shattered, but still alive. And I want a Chekhovian resolution, not a Shakespearean one, for the Israeli – Palestinian tragedy.”
I completely agree. A persecuted people, after centuries of oppression and exclusion in Europe, culminating in genocide, find a place for themselves in what they perceive to be their ancient homeland. A peaceful people are forced off their land, displaced, homeless, subjected to second class citizenship. As Israelis and Palestinians fight against each other in their pursuit of justice, justice is denied. The majority on both sides, at least at times, have even agreed on what they perceive as a just solution, a two state solution, with Jerusalem as the capital of two nations, but getting there from here has made the solution elusive, if not impossible. Repeated failure has led to despair and aggression. On both sides, majorities are convinced that the other side is not serious about a just resolution, not serious about peace. Against these majorities, some try to keep alternatives alive. Their activities remind me of small things I had observed in the U.S. and in East and Central Europe.
A most compelling example of people who work against the common sense about the other is The Parents Circle, a Palestinian Israeli organization of “bereaved families for peace.” I first met them at their Israeli headquarters outside of Tel Aviv when a student . . .
Read more: Looking at Gaza, Remembering Tragedy, Looking for Hope in Small Things.
|
Blogroll
On the Left
On the Right
|
