Welcome home! Welcome home!” I have never had such a homecoming greeting as I received when I arrived in Israel one week after graduating from Duke last May. For my first 10 days in Israel, I was welcomed as a long-lost yet dear family member, a daughter finally reuniting with her relatives. I was greeted with singing and dancing, with chants of “Achim Achim Achim, Simcha Simcha Simcha” (Brothers Brothers Brothers, Happy Happy Happy). I was even invited by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon himself to move in and make my home in Israel.
The homecoming ended after 10 days of touring Israel on the Jewish youth trip called Birthright Israel. I was in Jerusalem no more than an hour after the birthright program finished before the once-open arms and welcome wishes morphed into insults and looks of disgust. “You think this is your home? It’s not.” “You don’t belong here.”
I am standing on a street corner in the center of Jerusalem where every Friday for the past 15 years Women in Black—Israeli, Palestinian and other women—have gathered silently to protest war in solidarity. As I hold a sign in the form of the traditional hamsa, or five-fingered hand—a symbol of peace and protection from evil in both Jewish and Arab cultures—several Israeli passersby tell me explicitly, “You are not a Jew.”
Well, which is it? Am I a Jew or not? Am I home or not?
Perhaps it depends how we define home. Is it a physical space, like a structure or a piece of land, or is it a spiritual place, warm, welcoming and fulfilling?
Last month, I celebrated the Jewish New Year at synagogue. For many Jews, a synagogue is indeed a home, especially fulfilling during Rosh Hashanah (the New Year) and Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement).
Altogether, I heard four sermons from three rabbis in two different synagogues in two states. Central to each sermon was the constant pursuit of peace, justice and righteousness in Judaism and Jewish identity. We hold much pride in these virtues. We like to reference the tradition of Jewish social activism and community involvement, the contributions American Jews made to the Labor Movement and the Civil Rights Movement, the bravery of the Warsaw Ghetto Jews who fought back. We know our own history of oppression, and that has guided us to stand against oppression on every front.
We pride ourselves in this rich history of action and solidarity, as we should, yet in recent years we have been moving starkly to the right of American politics. I just read that my hometown, Los Angeles, now hosts the fastest-growing Jewish Republican Coalition in the country. Bush’s campaign expects 30 percent of the Jewish vote on Nov. 2. The Freeman Center for Jewish Life at Duke partnered with the Duke Conservative Union to bring arch-conservative Daniel Pipes to campus Thursday night. “Strange bedfellows,” as the Jewish feminist group Jewish Women Watching puts such alliances.
Furthermore, we do not seem to see the implications our progressive history has for the present situation in the Middle East. This Yom Kippur, while Jews around the world prayed in spiritual court for our actions over the last year, Rabbi Arik Ascherman and two other Israeli Jews were on trial in Tel Aviv. Ascherman, the director of the international group Rabbis for Human Rights, faced charges for attempting to stop the demolition of a Palestinian home. Sept. 21, Rabbi Ascherman testified, “I am aware of the fact that I am being judged during these 10 days of Teshuva (Repentance) both in the Yeshiva Shel Mala (the heavenly court) and the Yeshiva Shel Mata (the earthly court), and that at the heart of our disagreement in this trial is who should be considered transgressors: Shai, Omer and myself, who are on trial, or those Israeli decision makers responsible for the policy of home demolitions.” This is solidarity.
If rabbis are the guardians of the spiritual house of Israel, soldiers are the guardians of the physical structure. While in Israel this summer, I visited a photography show in Tel Aviv put together by Israeli soldiers. Everyone was talking about it—it even made the papers in the United States. In their exhibit “Shovrim Shtika” (Breaking the Silence), the soldiers displayed snapshots they had taken during their active duty in Hebron. Hebron is a West Bank city of 150,000 Palestinians and 6,500 Jewish settlers. At 21 or 22 years old, finished with their military service, these young guys were unable to shake the experience of what they had seen and done. Yehuda Shaul, sensing there were more who felt the way he did, put out a call for other soldiers who felt they had to expose what they went through during those formative years.
In the video component of the exhibition, one soldier recounts: “Another thing I remember from Hebron, something particularly strange, was this so-called ‘grass widow’ procedure, a house the army had taken over and turned into an observation post, the home of a Palestinian family. Not a family of terrorists or anything like that, just a family whose home made a good observation post, so the army evicted them from the house and took it over. Also the people living downstairs were evicted, to keep the area sterile for the army. So conceptually this was a really crazy thing, you’re in somebody’s house. You simply find yourself in a Palestinian neighborhood, in some family’s home. There was also food left behind, there was a TV; we weren’t allowed to turn it on, this would be considered ‘bad occupation,’ using their electricity.” He could not return to his home in Israel without speaking out.
Another soldier said, “I thought I was immune, that is, how can someone like me, a thinking, articulate, ethical, moral man—things I can attest to about myself without needing anyone else to validate for me. I thought of myself as such. Suddenly, I notice I’m getting addicted to controlling people.”
Understanding that one’s own humanity is lost when you take away someone else’s, and working to restore them both—this is solidarity. Solidarity recognizes a shared destiny. Yehuda Shaul, Rabbi Ascherman and Women in Black see that to have peace in their home they must work for peace in their neighbors’.
Like these Israelis, I have trouble fathoming Israel as my home unless I can ensure that those who physically live there also can call it home. Right now, 3 million Palestinians are without a national home, more than 2,000 have had their homes destroyed by the Israeli military since the first intifada (7,000 since 1967, with another 4,000 demolition orders currently awaiting execution), and 750,000 refugees and 3.5 million of their children and grandchildren have not been able to return to their homes despite U.N. resolutions.This weekend, two weeks after the official Duke Homecoming, I am returning to one of my homes, Duke. I ask my fellow Jewish Dukies not to fear the word “solidarity.” Rabbi Ascherman, Yehuda Shaul, Women in Black, and our own Jewish-American history have shown us that creating safe homes for ourselves means ensuring safe homes for everyone. It’s not just a question of supporting a true home for Palestinians, but supporting a true home for Jews as well, one both in structure and in spirit.
Victoria Kaplan is a Trinity ’04 graduate.
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