LETTERS

An Open Letter Concerning JTS & Israel

March 21, 2003

Friends,

By now, many of you have read Rabbi Danny Gordis' e-mail to my rabbinical school colleague Jill Jacobs. And many of you have asked me to explain precisely what is going on at the Seminary regarding Zionist feelings and criticism of Israel. Since Jill's d'var Torah was rejected from being published in our weekly bulletin (and a ban on student-written divrei Torah was implemented), articles have appeared in the New York Times, the Forward and the NY Jewish Week. In response to the Seminary's decision to refuse its printing, my colleagues have created a booklet (choveret) of essays purporting viewpoints on all sides of all issues relating to Israel. Rabbi Gordis and Jill have had several very public back-and-forths about what it means to support Israel and what is within the bounds of kosher discourse [my term] on the subject. In the meantime, the Seminary has done a 180-degree turn and will once again be printing divrei Torah in the newsletter Divrei Hayamim (a four-page weekly for announcing programs, not a newspaper for political op-ed pieces).

Like any Jewish institution of higher learning, being pro-Israel is no longer an assumption one can make about our colleagues. Just yesterday (3/20/03), at a school-wide prayer service on the first day of this new war, I noticed that the Israeli flag was obviously absent from the auditorium stage. I walked down the stairs to the Chancellor's seat and asked if there was a reason for its absence. He said there wasn't and gave me permission to request that a maintenance worker place it on stage next to the American flag. When I found the maintenance worker and requested that he quickly do this, he explained that "the Israelian flag" had originally been there, but someone had asked that it be removed (would this have happened at the Seminary during the Six-Day War?). Nevertheless, the two of us ran to find the flag and put it in its proper place. As we ran through the bowels of the Seminary, I couldn't help but wonder what type of feelings this African American maintenance worker possessed toward Israel. Did he have more in common regarding Mid-East politics with some of my contemporaries at the Seminary than I did? Unsure of precisely where to put it, he let it rest off to the side of the stage as the American flag stood prominently at center stage. This, to me, was symbolic of the current sentiment towards our Jewish homeland at JTS. Our love for Israel still maintains a presence on the stage, albeit off to the side in a very parve position.

This has never been the case for me, nor is it now.

My love for the State of Israel, the people of Israel, and the land of Israel will never diminish or become blurred because of the policies of the government. Yet I am not naïve. I might not always agree with the decisions of the Israeli government, but the worst choice I could make would be to publicly criticize our shared homeland. This would only motivate those wishing to demonize Israel and liken her actions to that of the evil Apartheid government of South Africa to think that they are sharing a bed with an outspoken Jewish activist. Their camp is not a place I want to be, nor a place I want to appear to be. If Jill Jacobs can live with the fact that her words have a place of prominence on the Free Palestine website, then so be it. I could not.

As part of the requirement for participating in the JTS Solidarity Mission to Israel in January each of us agreed to speak five times promoting tourism to Israel. In her d'var Torah, Jill writes that "despite my love for Israel, I could not, in good conscience, agree to preach unconditional support of a government that has long oppressed another people." My only concerns about these five "talks," were where and when they would be. If a rabbi or a soon-to-be-rabbi has reservations about being a proponent for Israeli tourism, that is a problem. In a few of my speaking engagements, I mentioned my encounter with an eighty-something-year-old disabled veteran of the Israeli army who spoke to me about his son, whom he referred to as his "korban" (his sacrifice). While this man expressed his appreciation for having lived through so many of Israel's wars, his son was not as fortunate. As a rabbi, to not be able to get up in front of an audience and preach love for Israel and that we have a responsibility to support and visit our Jewish state is to show dishonor to this man, to his son, and to the thousands of martyrs who committed themselves to Israel's survival.

I told Rabbi Gordis that I appreciated his response to Jill's d'var Torah (he has since apologized in part as some of his language embarrassed her), as it more or less conveyed what many of us have wanted to say to her. I sincerely hope that my non-Seminary friends, the congregants at the synagogue in which I serve an internship, my parents' friends, and others do not think that Jill's strong opinions are the norm at the Seminary. While a loud Left has clearly emerged at the Seminary, the majority of the student body is very Zionist-minded and very pro-Israel. When most of my Seminary professors were students, Zionism meant a love for the Jewish homeland. Today, when "Zionism" either appears as part of the term after the hyphen (as in Post-Zionism or Anti-Zionism), or as an evil epithet, it has become all too easy to criticize our Jewish State and get away with it in the Jewish community.

Jill will be very successful in her rabbinate. She has a very good heart and is passionately committed to Social Action and Tikkun Olam. Unlike Rabbi Gordis, I have little doubt that she loves Israel. In fact, walking up the hills of West Jerusalem back to our hotel with her in January, I could sense that she loves Israel as much as I do. And I have no problem that she cannot get past the discomforting ways that the Israeli government often treats its Arab population. What I do take issue with is her public criticism of Israel. To me, this remains a taboo. She is the only Jewish homeland we have. We should all work tirelessly (Israelis and Diaspora Jews) to make it the idyllic place we dream of and pray for, but let us not mar her image in a public way. God knows there are enough people fighting for that job already.

Shabbat Shalom,
Jason Miller