GREEN ACRES: Separate But Equal Doesn't Work

By HAVIVA NER-DAVID

I was in Jerusalem twice last month — both times to pray at the Western Wall. The first was for the monthly Rosh Hodesh service of Women of the Wall, and the second was for a family bar mitzvah. Unfortunately, neither prayer service went smoothly.

I have been active in Women of the Wall for more than 15 years. I am on the board and had been praying at 7 a.m. each month, rain or shine, at the Kotel with this group of women. That is, until I moved with my family of eight this past summer to Kibbutz Hannaton in the Lower Galilee.

Kibbutz Hannaton is a religious Kibbutz in the same unacceptable-to-the-Israeli-religious-powers-that-be way as Women of the Wall and all non-Orthodox streams of Judaism. It was founded by Masorti (Israeli Conservative) Jews in the 1980s and is still connected to the movement in various ways, although most of its members prefer not to affiliate personally with any one stream of Judaism.

What we all do agree upon is full egalitarianism. We have a synagogue that is the center of our communal life, but it has no mechitza and women participate fully in the services that are held there. We have a mikveh that is in frequent use, but we have an open-door policy that allows anyone who wants to use the mikveh for whatever Jewish ritual purpose, to do so—unlike the reality at the Kotel today. Because of our egalitarian religious approach, the regional religious governmental office frequently does not treat us like a religious kibbutz. For instance, we do not receive equal funding or recognition.

Although I had not made it back to the Kotel for the previous Rosh Hodesh services since our move two hours away from Jerusalem, I decided to make a special effort to be there on Rosh Hodesh Tevet to support my ideological sister Nofrat Frenkelafter her arrest the month before for wearing a tallit at the Kotel, as well as to show my continuing support of the group's cause, which is to fight for our right to pray at the Kotel in the manner we are accustomed (as a group, in full voice, and in tallitot). The truth is that we have made many compromises over the years and do not actually pray at the Kotel as per our custom, which is for us to read from a Torah scroll and for some of us to wear tefillin. For this, we go to Robinson's Arch—the space we were exiled to by the Supreme Court.

So I drove into Jerusalem in an electrical storm to join the Women of the Wall service. As soon as I arrived at the Kotel, I spotted my group. In fact, aside from a few female worshipers under umbrellas up at the Wall, we were the only women who showed up that stormy morning. Yet, I heard loud protests coming from the men's section. It seems a group of ultra-Orthodox men had shown up that morning not to pray, but to protest our service. They were yelling “Gevalt! Gevalt!” (A Yiddish expression of dismay) and “Notzrim!” (Christians) over and over again. And when we left the Kotel plaza to head to Robinson's Arch for the Torah service, they followed alongside us on a raised platform and spat on us and threw plastic bags filled with water on us from above.

The bar mitzvah service I attended two weeks later did not even begin in the Kotel plaza—the entire service was held at the Arch—because it was a mixed group of men and women and was fully egalitarian. When the Women of the Wall were sent to the Arch by the Supreme Court, the Masorti Movement was sent there as well to conduct their egalitarian prayer services.

We arrived late and were told by the guard at the door that we would have to pay to join the bar mitzvah service, since after 9:15 a.m. this archaeological site opens as a tourist site. We did not pay on principle, refusing to comply with this attempt to treat the Arch like anything other than a prayer site. If it was assigned to the Women of the Wall and the Conservative Movement as a separate but equal prayer site at the Western Wall, that is how it should be treated.

My ideological stance was based also upon an experience I had at Robinson's Arch the year before when we had my son's bar mitzvah at the site. When we showed up with a guitar and shofar for the Rosh Hodesh Elul service, both instruments were confiscated at the door and declared forbidden at an archaeological site. Luckily, one of our guests had a shofar tucked away in his bag, so my son was able to blow shofar as per the traditional custom after months of practicing for this occasion—much to the dismay of the guard who was hired to prevent such occurrences. So being told 15 months later that we had to pay to pray at what was supposed to be a prayer site for liberal Jews while anyone coming to pray at the “Orthodox Kotel” is welcome any time of day or night without having to pay a shekel, opened old wounds.

To make matters worse, I received news last week that Anat Hoffman, a long-time Women of the Wall activist and director of the Israel Religious Action Center, was detained for interrogation by Israeli police, accusing her of not obeying a legal order (meaning a legal order that forbids women to pray with prayer shawls or read from a Torah scroll in the Kotel plaza) and of disturbing the peace at the Western Wall.

It is already absurd that praying at a prayer site can be considered illegal and a disturbance of the peace simply because it is women who are doing it. But it is beyond absurd that police are receiving instructions from above to enforce this law. Certainly the Robinson's Arch “solution” is not a serious one as long as it is run like an archaeological site and not a prayer site. In both cases—all-women's prayer groups and egalitarian prayer groups—the problem runs much deeper than a technical issue of location.

As long as women's prayer and egalitarian prayer is not taken seriously enough in Israel to warrant use of holy ritual objects like tallit, tefillin, shofar, and a Torah scroll—these two public prayer sites will never be separate but equal, and any Israeli Jew with progressive religious notions will be treated like a tourist who must pay his or her way to earn basic rights.

When I heard ultra-Orthodox men calling me “Christian” that morning at the Kotel, I understood that this is where the problem lies. Especially because it is not only the ultra-Orthodox who believe that they are the only authentic religious Jews, but the majority of the Israeli population—even those who are secular themselves—seem to agree.

So while it is also frustrating to return home to Kibbutz Hannaton, knowing that because of our non-Orthodox approach we are treated by the Israeli government as something less than religious, at least I know that I can pray here without fear of arrest or police intimidation, without having to make any compromises (I can even wear my tefillin when I pray on weekdays!), without being physically harassed (I can even let my fervor carry me away enough to raise my singing voice above a whisper!), and without having to check my ritual prayer objects and pay at the door.

Haviva Ner-David is the founding Director of Reut: The Center for Modern Jewish Marriage and Sh'maya: A Ritual and Educational Mikveh at Kibbutz Hannaton. She is the author of Life on the Fringes: A Feminist Journey Towards Traditional Rabbinic Ordination, as well as the forthcoming Giving Chanah Voice: A Feminist Rabbi Reclaims the Women's Mitzvoth of Baking, Bathing, and Brightening.

ON MY SOAPBOX: There's Nothing Like the Telephone

By SHERRY WOLKOFF

The recent siege of snowstorms has renewed my appreciation of the telephone. (Remember that archaic instrument we used to use before the advent of email, texting, and social media like Facebook? The one with the cord that attaches from the handset to a jack in the wall?)

While snowbound, I actually found myself making and answering phone calls, and discovered what I’ve been missing these last few years by trading a few terse sentences on a glaring screen for the luxury of an extended phone conversation with a good friend.

The sound of the phone ringing in my house is all too rare these days. In fact, it hardly ever rings. But I can still remember the slight thrill when the phone did ring, and you knew there was someone on the other end who actually wanted to spend time talking to you.

Before caller ID and cell phones, there was the added mystery of not knowing who was calling. Occasionally you were sorry you answered, but more often you were genuinely delighted by the call.

Now, most of my communications with my children and friends take place online. (My computer-illiterate 96-year old father-in-law is the one exception). Our emails are brief and to the point. Usually we email to schedule a date or, for some other specified purpose, and our business is handled in a few brief sentences. If I’m lucky, there’s a personal sentence thrown in at the end, but usually not. And questions that I ask often go unanswered because the other person has already signed off or just never responded because of that annoying time lag that often occurs with emails.

Sometimes I'll get an email that isn’t even for me. I am the unintended recipient of a “reply all” group message, which was actually meant for someone else in the group. So I may be thanked for a party I didn’t give, or congratulated for a grandchild I didn’t have.

Almost as annoying is when I get an email from someone I’m happy to hear from; only to open it and find out that it’s just a forwarded joke or online hoax that I’ve already received via email a hundred times. And we won’t even talk about spam! Viagra—oy vey!

During one of our recent snowstorms, my office was closed, and I had the whole day ahead of me. A very dear friend, who is not a big email fan, called me in the morning, and we talked, uninterrupted, for over an hour. My every question was answered, and we laughed at each other’s jests and amusing situations. Somehow reading “LOL” online doesn’t compare with the sound of an actual laugh.

There was a nuance to our conversation; a give and take quality that I’d almost forgotten existed. If that phone call had been an email, it would have been four pages long and I don’t know anyone who would have read it, including myself.

So we got all caught up on our children and grandchildren and trips and illnesses, and it felt so satisfying when I hung up. That same day, I had occasion to speak on the phone with a frequent email buddy. The conversation began with a specific topic, but as phone conversations tend to do, we began to talk about many things and before I knew it two hours had gone by. And later when my daughter called, I could hear my grandchildren laughing and singing in the background...another phone bonus that never occurs online.

Empathy, sympathy, humor, and conversational nuances all seem to be casualties of online communication. Isn’t it pathetic that you need an emoticon to let the other person know whether you are laughing or sad? My husband tells me he misses hearing my ends of conversations on the phone, reminding me how much he used to enjoy hearing me laugh out loud. The only sounds he hears from me now are the clicking of my keyboard.

At least I still communicate by email. What passes for conversation these days is texting, or a 144 word message on Twitter. I read somewhere that some couples even break up via text messaging. Heavens! It seems we have traded our humanity for a tiny machine that fits into the palm of our hand.

So on that snowy day I was reminded of how different it is to communicate online than on a phone line. And I made up my mind that this year I’m going to reach out and connect with friends and family by phone much more frequently than the few times a year I do now. I may even (gasp) write a letter and actually mail it to a friend! LOL!

Sherry Wolkoff,in her own

words, blogs to add her perspective as a “somewhat curmudgeonly and occasionally cantankerous observer of the wrongs she thinks need to be righted in this world”. She is the Director of Communications for Samost Jewish Family and Children’s Service, a Federation agency; and has written for many local publications, including the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Courier Post, Attitudes Magazine, Inside Magazine, The Jewish Voice, and The Jewish Exponent. She believes she was born to blog because she is so opinionated and loves to write. But, she warns, us, it may not always be pretty!

IMPACTING MY WORLD: Scions of Amelek

By STEVEN WENICK

With all the bravado and bluster of the Cowardly Lion in the movie classic, “The Wizard of Oz,” Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has once again threatened Israel. The difference between the two roaring bluffers is that the cowardly lion lacked only courage, while Ahmadinejad is bereft of moral fiber and human decency.

The approach of Purim reminds me of another archenemy of the Jewish People—Haman. Unfortunately, every generation spawns its own versions of spineless thugs who are paradoxically emboldened by their own cowardice. Today’s Islamic terrorists are the Book of Esther’s Haman. Our holy books are not reticent about identifying villains and their villainous acts. According to Exodus, none attained the level of cowardice of Amalek—that is until today.

It is written that the Tribe of Amalek culled its victims from the most vulnerable of the Israelites on their trek to freedom in the Promised Land. The old, the lame, and the weak were their chosen targets. Today’s Amalekites, defiantly raise their clenched fists, while concealing their identities behind masks. They terrorize the innocent and exult in perpetrating acts of violence against those least able to defend themselves. They delight in blowing up buses, planes, cafes, schools, synagogues and even mosques. Everyone is fair game to those cruel homicidal jihadists, who delight in committing the most outrages crimes.

Terrorists like Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, and Nidal Hasan are reincarnations of Haman-Amalek. Although it takes a certain breed of miscreant to be able to justify, even to himself, his heinous intentions and acts, history records that there are ample volunteers to serve as paradigms of evil. Haman, Hitler, and Achmadinejad are cut from the same cloth, a fabric whose threads are woven by hatred and embroidered with evil intentions.

If we remain silent and fail to condemn and confront their cruel acts, we will be complicit in sowing like-minded scions of Haman-Amalek. Well meaning but naive individuals who believe that their wickedness is a reaction to our supposed mistreatment and disrespect of them nurture their breed. To those convinced that terrorists will forego their fiendish plans if only we treat them with kindness and respect, I say that, unfortunately, they only respect strength, and only the fear of defeat will thwart their inhuman intentions.

Reason and logic, coupled with concession and compromise will not convince terrorists to abandon their horrendous agenda. It will only embolden them. Our own failure to stand up to them is their staunchest ally. is. Attempts to placate the bully will not bring peace, but only a fleeting reprieve.

Unfortunately there are well meaning individuals who cannot bring themselves to believe that evil exists in the world. They attribute differences we have with malevolent regimes as misunderstandings. Regrettably, their naiveté ignores reality and that endangers our security. The repressive government of Iran is more than willing to talk—to chatter our time away—while buying time to develop its weapons of mass destruction for use against Israel.

History teaches us that those who seek peace at any cost may find the price too high to pay. Good intentions do not necessarily make for good policy.

Steven Wenick, a retired systems analyst, says that blogging enables him to “satisfy my need for self expression and dialogue with my audience.” A past president of Cong. Beth El, he and his wife, Bobbie, frequently travel to Israel to visit one of their three daughters and their two sabra grandchildren. Wenick has written for Attitudes Magazine, the Jewish Exponent, The Friday Forum and New Business Opportunities Magazine.

THE OPINIONATED ISRAELI: Israeli Émigrés & the Vote

By NACHUM KATZ

The last few weeks have seen a new debate over relations between Israelis in Israel and the ever-growing Israeli community choosing to live abroad—mostly in the USA.

The Knesset and PM Netanyahu, together with Avigdor Lieberman, have proposed to give voting rights for the Knesset to the “Yordim” (“leavers”, or “going-downers”—those Israeli citizens who have made the opposite of aliyah, which literally means “going up” to Eretz Yisrael) to Israelis who are living abroad.

We’re talking about almost one million Israelis who live in American and a few other countries outside of Israel. Therefore, the proposal launched a significant debate. The main arguments of those who favor non-resident Israelis having the vote are that the voting will help bridge the gap between the two communities, giving the Yordim a stronger sense of Israeli identity. Those in opposition say that émigrés living abroad have no right to decide how Israelis live in their native land. To those who say that a Yordim vote will counter a growing Israeli Arab vote, the response is that not enough Yordim to make a real difference will actually cast a ballot.

The naysayers dispute the right of Yordim to decide who will lead Israel and what concessions will be made on this or that critical issue. Remember, they number about 15% of the total Israeli population and the issues at stake—territories and peace for example—could mean survival (if a number sufficient to make a difference cast a ballot). .

The matter of Yordim was never a simple one for we Israelis. For many years, while Israelis and Israel wrestled with this phenomenon, the Yordim were treated like traitors, like nefolet nemushot (“trash of the trash”). They were despised because most Israelis believed that everyone was needed to build the country, sacrifice their lives if needed, and be living examples to the children. Constant debates were waged by the youth movements, in the media and in living rooms, and for the most part, the Yordim were despised.

But times have changed. Somewhere after 1973, kids born into a relatively peaceful reality were told that “ Israel is not under a strategic threat any more,” and that the building of Israel was, essentially, a fait accompli. This was the viewpoint permeating the army, the political sphere, and the groves of academe. It was the lesson that our nation taught us thoroughly via every official avenue. Even the education ministry never understood the danger of this message or recognized it as a source of a profound national problem. And so, too, our level of commitment to the state has apparently changed.

Our sense of responsibility concerning the kind of state and nation we will have, and the sacrifices we need to make have changed too. And not for the better.

I am convinced, you see, that the building our nation is far from being complete, and I regret that we stopped being what we proudly called a “recruited” or “conscripted” society, meaning that we no longer know in our bones that the sacrifice each of us must make is clear and beyond discussion.

Until recently it was clear to every Israeli that all would do military service followed by reserve service (of course in a combat unit), and that personal comfort came far behind the nation's needs. What a loss.

Golda Meir, Israel’s fourth prime minister, often asked: “Do we want to become a normal country, like the others, or do we have to be a nation that is ‘a light to the world’”?

A nation like all the others we became.

We Israelis want cars, comfort, hi-tech, wide roads. We want to live in NYC, Las Vegas, New Zealand, and we are sick and tired of the reserve duty, the “miluim”. We want the good life, preferably American-style, preferably in America.

We now have comfort, ski vacations in Austria (mostly with the kids, in the middle of the school year, never asking permission of the teachers, as they will never grant it). We have nice cars, a high level of professional crime, and great examples of elite corruption.

We also have one million “Yordim” in America alone, a circumstance that we accepted long ago as a natural part of our life—kind of as an “if you can’t beat them, join them” philosophy. We also have pregnant children and drug abuse as part of a daily reality that “we can do nothing about.”

So today’s debate on should Yordim have the vote is less harsh than it would have been 20 or 30 years ago, but it still lights some sparks. Yes, it still is a debate. So what will we choose?

The newspaper polls tell us that in most democratic countries, émigrés are allowed to vote. In Israel, however, only diplomats and sailors are entitled to vote while abroad.

Some say that one should be allowed to vote up to 3-5-10 years after leaving Israel, others say less or not at all. Some researchers say that only about 10-20% of the expats of any given democracy choose to vote anyway, as the rest have lost interest in the politics and are focused on the local life and issues surrounding them. And, that out of those 10-20% only about 30% actually do vote, when time comes. So is the matter of giving the Yordim the vote a pragmatic or strictly emotional issue? And why, do our leaders raise it now?

In standard Israeli fashion, not much thought and professional debate preceded placement of this issue in the public eye for scrutiny. Why not think first, and act after? It is not our way of doing business. First we shoot, and only then do we ask, “Who’s there?” So on the voting issue, first we make the proposal, and then we debate.

So what do I bring to the debate? Here’s my opinion: If people are interested in our politics, and are Israeli citizens, yet chose to live abroad, I think that after three or five years they should not be allowed to vote. Voting is still one of the major duties and rights we have, and it should be given to those who live here, work here, pay taxes here, go to the reserve duty here and sometimes die here.

I respect the right of people to live anywhere they like, and have some dear friends who have chosen to live abroad. I even understand their reasons for leaving—for wanting to live outside our promised land. And I know that they will not like my opinion. Yes, many Israeli émigrés live in closed communities; speak Hebrew (even after 30 years in San Francisco), meet for the holidays, sing Hebrew songs and truly miss home. But few of them will ever return here.

As a kid who made aliyah from Ceausescu's Romania, after 14 years of being refused permission to leave; as a child who has never known his grandfather, thanks to the Nazi intervention; as a former Colonel in the IDF, an educator and a citizen of this state, I say, let us vote for ourselves. I invite all my family and friends, and colleagues, to join us in Eretz, to live with us in good and bad, and to vote as much as they want. Until then, we will decide, for the better or the worse, who will travel first class.

Perhaps, when the Messiah comes, when there are no more existential issues, when the most important order of business in the Holy Land is which college we attend or which car we drive, maybe then we can let those who live more than 30 years in Los Angeles decide who will be our prime minister and which piece of land we give to whom, what type of travel arrangements we allow our MK’s to make when they fly. Unless, of course, more than 50% of us choose to live in L.A.

Many readers will remember Nachum Katz from his 1997-1999 stint as Israel shaliach, or emissary, at the Jewish Federation of Southern New Jersey. Back home in Hadera, Israel, he is currently COO of SDM Sales & Direct Marketing. His varied career includes service in the IDF from 1975-97. He was Colonel of the Artillery and Education Corps upon retirement.

Why The Voice Blog Has a New Name

By HARRIET KESSLER

For the Voice

Illanah Respes, chief blogger for Illanah’s World made aliyah last month. Busy establishing her new life, she will not be posting regularly for an unspecified period.

Several new bloggers have been recruited for this transitional period and beyond, and the blog has been renamed “Varied Voices."

Rabbi Haviva Ner-David is posting a regular column from Kibbutz Hannaton in Israel, and Sherry Wolkoff and Steven Wenick are posting columns from Cherry Hill. Former Jewish Federation Shaliach Nachum Katz will soon begin posting from Hadera, Israel.

The mother of six, Dr. Ner-David is founding director of Reut: The Center for Modern Jewish Marriage, as well as Sh'maya: A Spiritual and Educational Mikveh in the Galilee/. Her first memoir, Life on the Fringes, A Feminist Journey Towards Traditional Rabbinic Ordination was a runner up for the National Jewish Book Awards in 2000. Her second book will be published later this year. On the board of Women

of the Wall and Rabbis for Human Right, she and her family moved this summer from Jerusalem to Kibbutz Hannaton in the Galilee.

Steven Wenick, a retired systems analyst, says that blogging enables him to “satisfy my need for self expression and dialogue with my audience.” A past president of Cong. Beth El, he and his wife, Bobbie, frequently travel to Israel to visit one of their three daughters and their two sabra grandchildren. Wenick has written for Attitudes Magazine, The Friday Forum and New Business Opportunities Magazine.

Sherry Wolkoff, in her own words, blogs to add her perspective as a “somewhat curmudgeonly and occasionally cantankerous observer of the wrongs she thinks need to be righted in this world.” Director of communications for Samost Jewish Family and Children’s Service, a Federation agency, she has written for many local publications, including the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Courier Post, Attitudes Magazine, Inside Magazine, The Jewish Voice, and The Jewish Exponent.

To read our new bloggers, go to www.jewishvoicesnj.org and click on Varied Voices.