October 1st: End of Sukkot, Simchat Torah, and Beraysheet
THIS WEEK IN THE TORAH
Rabbi David E. Ostrich
Much of our legal and moral thinking revolves around classifying situations or phenomena. We see something to eat and want to say a blessing, but Vas ist dos? What exactly is this piece of food? Is it a vegetable, פְּרִי הָאֲדָמָה, “fruit of the earth?” Or, is it פְּרִי הָעֵץ, “fruit of the tree?” When we open up our prayer books, do we pray the morning service, the afternoon service, or the evening service? We need to determine the time of day. When we are counting a minyan, who are these people in attendance? Are they Jews or Gentiles, and are they over the age of thirteen? All are welcome, but only the adult Jews comprise the minyan. We need to know what we are beholding.
When we think about the continuing conflict between Israel and its Arab neighbors, our opinions generally depend on what we think we see. Vas ist dos? Is the Modern State of Israel as Zionism understands it, an ancient people returning to its ancestral land? Or, is it as the Arabs understand it, Jews stealing Arab land?
As the thinking on race has developed over the last few decades, there has been a great emphasis on determining the whiteness or non-whiteness of groups—whiteness being equivalent to evil and non-whiteness being equivalent to innocent victimhood. This has been particularly delicate when conflicting parties are both non-white. In such cases, determining which non-white is to be deemed white and therefore evil, and which non-white is to be deemed non-white and therefore innocent is very important. This distinction was at play a number of years ago in the narrative of the tragic death of Trayvon Martin in Florida. Among the many issues in the public telling of the story, the ethnicity of the shooter, George Zimmerman, seemed to be important. Though Peruvian—and therefore Hispanic, i.e., non-white, many observers felt the need to classify him as “white Hispanic,” that is, more white than Hispanic.
This focus on color as well as ethnicity was also part of the public discussion of the recently released film In the Heights. Though the film (and the very popular stage musical) focused on Hispanics (Dominicans in the Washington Heights neighborhood of New York City), criticism descended because of the absence of Black Dominicans. Even though one of the main characters is Black, apparently he was not a Black Dominican and therefore not representative of the true multi-racial nature of the community.
A similar distinction within the Hispanic/Latin community can be seen in the news coverage when Justice Sonia Sotomayor ascended to the Supreme Court and was declared the first Hispanic Supreme Court Justice. Those familiar with Jewish history were surprised because we always thought that Justice Benjamin Cardozo (who served on the High Court from 1932-1938) was Hispanic. He was not a poor Hispanic nor the child of immigrants, and the discrimination his family suffered was at the hands of other Hispanics—the Christian authorities in 15th Century in Portugal and Spain, but his family certainly identified as Sephardic Jews and were part of a historic New York Hispanic/Latino/Jewish community. (For details, see The Grandees by Stephen Birmingham, 1971). So, in the parsing of racial/ethnic identities, did his Jewishness somehow negate his Latinness? Did his family’s longtime American residence (from the 1600’s) make him white and therefore non-Latin? His story is clearly different from Justice Sotomayor’s, but it is curious to me how the words Hispanic and Latin are defined and used.
In any event, recent decades have seen a re-rhetorization of the Arab position on Israel. Instead of characterizing the conflict as between Jews and Arabs, the Jews are cast as white European colonizers, and the Arabs are cast as non-white/indigenous victims. This rhetoric is very powerful, and it has convinced many people—including many in the Progressive Caucus of the Democratic Party. They feel the need to call out white oppression wherever it rears its ugly head, and, since Israel is white, they see it as evil—something to be stopped.
The irony of this characterization is that Jews have traditionally been considered non-white (not part of the majority and privileged culture): Jews have experienced racial, religious, and cultural oppression under Roman, Christian, and Muslim regimes for some 2000 years! (That was certainly the experience of Justice Cardozo’s family!) As one astonished observer quipped: The Jews are the only people who were brown when they left Israel, and white when they came back. Did we Jews change, or did the rhetoric change?
In Canada, this Jews are white categorization has been challenged by a Canadian Indian activist, Ryan Bellerose, a member of the Metis nation in Alberta. The Metis nation is recognized by the Canadian government as one of the country’s official aboriginal peoples, and Mr. Bellerose sees the Jewish situation as parallel to that of aboriginal peoples everywhere. He observes that Indigenous Identity is based on five pillars: land, language, culture, blood, and spirituality. Though the ravages of time may have removed some of these pillars, they remain as part of the tribal identity and are held up as aspirations for tribal renewal.
For example, Cherokee removed from their native lands in the Southeast nonetheless maintain their tribal identity in exile in Oklahoma. Similarly, though the gene pool of “pure” Sioux blood has been mixed with other groups’ genetic material, tribes can nonetheless maintain enough of their ethnicity to have a real tribal identity. Though some native languages have been lost, many remain, and many can be reclaimed. And, though aboriginal spirituality may have changed or been influenced by other spiritual approaches, clear connections and a sense of continuity with ancient forms can nonetheless be maintained.
Mr. Bellerose sees these kinds of dynamics of aboriginal identity as exceedingly similar to the processes of Jewish Identity.
He makes the point that Jews are the indigenous people of Eretz Yisrael, and our links to the land run deep. He even brings in a Sukkot connection. Indigenous Canadians have as one of their rites a sacred Medicine Wheel in which four plants—Tobacco, Sage, Sweet Grass, and Cedar—are put together and waved in the four directions to symbolize the Creator’s Presence throughout the land. We, the indigenous people of Eretz Yisrael, have our Arba Minim, the four native Israeli species which we celebrate on Sukkot: the Lulav/Palm, the Arava/Willow, the Hadas/Myrtle, and the Etrog/Citron. We hold them together and wave them proudly in six directions, connecting the Creator to earth.
The five pillars of our tribal Eretz Yisrael indigeneity were greatly challenged when we were exiled by Babylon in 586 BCE and later by Rome in 70 CE, but we kept them close. Though we learned to speak other languages, we always kept Hebrew in our spiritual and legal settings. Though we encountered many other ethnicities and races, we kept our sense of kinship—actively congregating and expressing our group identity as Am Yisrael, the Jewish People. Non-Jews might have married in or converted in, but this non-Jewish genetic input did not dissipate our sense of peoplehood. Indeed, these newcomers were welcomed in and made part of us—becoming, in the parlance of Native American culture, blood brothers/sisters. We were and remain a people, Am Yisrael.
Many indigenous people see the Jewish story—the Zionist story—as a miracle of indigenous and tribal rebirth. We, the true Indigenous of Eretz Yisrael, revived our language, retook our lands, continued our culture, expanded our tribal family, and express our spirituality daily. We are examples—both in the Diaspora and in Eretz Yisrael—for other oppressed and exiled peoples: Native American Indians, Tibetan Buddhists, even Africans.
As Rabbi Leigh Lerner of Montreal, Quebec, writes, “Let’s change the conversation about Israel. The question is not whether Israel is a blessing to humanity – high tech, green, medically and agriculturally miraculous. No, today’s battle is to show that we are above all Indigenous.” While we may choose to live in North America—away from our native lands, we nonetheless relate on deep and tribal levels to Eretz Yisrael and its people. “To say we are colonists is an attempt to destroy Am Yisrael once again.”
There is much to discuss and perhaps criticize about the Modern State of Israel and its policies. Our hopes for peace for our Israeli brothers and sisters should be combined with hope for peace and justice for the Arab peoples who, since the mid-1960s, have taken the name Palestinians. Even though their claim of indigeneity is refuted by the massive Arab population movement into Israel in the early 1900s, they are nonetheless human beings and deserve to be treated fairly. The complexities of a modern state in a difficult neighborhood are challenging indeed. However, the bulk of the anti-Israel and anti-Jewish rhetoric these days is much more existential, declaring that Israelis are outsiders, colonizers and settlers, who are displacing aboriginal peoples. The problem with analogies is that they are not always accurate. Casting the dynamics of Zionism as identical to White oppression in South Africa or North America is much more a rhetorical position than a real, historically accurate description. Vas ist dos? It is a mischaracterization.
The Jews are the indigenous inhabitants of Eretz Yisrael, with bona fides going back 2500 or 3000 or 4000 years. Let’s not allow unscrupulous and unlearned haters to twist this discussion and manipulate good hearted people. If one believes in indigenous rights and the autonomy of traditional tribal groups—in the returning of aboriginal peoples to their native lands with their original and ancient national autonomy, then supporting Israel is the right thing to do.