Hello! We've returned from Jerusalem where we spent two very intense weeks studying at the Hartman Institute. The Hartman Institute is an orthodox educational institution in the heart of Jerusalem which holds a 2-week seminar for rabbis from outside Israel, most of whom are either Reform or Conservative, and most from the US. Frank and I have been attending this seminar for 12 years now. This year was the richest program by far. The subject was Ethics, Religion, and Violence, and there was a lot of information on the disengagement from serveral perspectives. They also arranged for us to attend a concert of the Jerusalem symphony orchestra (with an hour beforehand with the conductor, Mr. Bottstein, who is also the president of Bard College and who gave a marvelous talk on the composers of the evening [Joachim, Shuman and Brahms]). We saw a great Israeli film, Walk on Water. But the highlight was the study. We met every morning in small groups and went over the papers for the lesson of the day, mostly from the Talmud and from various commentaries. Then a two hour lesson by some of the best teachers on the planet. In the afternoon we took one of four electives. I studied with a marvelous teacher named Melila Hellner-Eshed. She was fantastic; she's written a book on the Zohar, a primary text in Jewish mysticism. I'm hoping that we can get her to come to Beth El as a scholar-in-residence sometime, maybe this year. Frank studied with Israel Knohl, a Bible scholar, about the prophets. He's teaching prophets at DILR next fall.
We also took a couple of field trips, one to see the wall/the fence and another with Rabbis for Human Rights to Sylwan, a neighborhood in East Jerusalem; more about that in a later post.
We went from 8:30 in the morning until usually after 10:00 at night -- it was great, but you can understand that we are very happy to be back home in Haifa!!
As you are probably reading the the papers, things are heating up here around the disengagement. As I write tens of thousands of settlers from the West Bank have converged on a town in the Negev with the intention of marching (yes marching!) to Gaza. The army has closed off Gush Katif to all non-residents. One of the scarier developments is the fact that some of the rabbis in the West Bank have commanded their flock of settlers to urge soldiers to disobey orders and not to help evacuate Gaza. Such a move--to encourage those empowered to carry out the law to refuse to do so-- is a direct challenge to the democratic ideals of the state. It is a move to deligitimize the government.
From reading the papers and talking to people I can see two attitudes about the settlers who are being evacuated. On the one hand, there is some sympathy for them because after all, they were encouraged by the government through monetary incentives (subsidies, housing assistance) to settle Gush Katif, and many families have been there now into the third generation. They are agricultural people -- they have farms and hothouses in which they raise flowers to sell in Europe. Leaving the land is indeed difficult and sad. On the other hand, because these settlers have been protected and in a real sense pampered, they have never had to face the rough-and-tumble of Israeli life where jobs are not readily available, housing is expensive, they will have to pay school fees for their children like everyone else, etc...and there are many people who think they "have it coming to them" for having been protected at the taxpayers' expense for so long.
We heard a great lecture by Yulie Tamir, an MK from the Labor party, who points out that this is the first time since l967 that they have evacuated settlements established since the occuption in 1967. She says that it has always been assumed that the occupation is reversable, and this disengagement is proof that it can be done. This is why the settlers are so opposed -- they can see that the West Bank is next. She says we should give Sharon credit for it -- that although he is doing it in a brutal way, this is setting a precedent. She points out that the downside is that it is a unilateral move. She forsees little international support for going slow from now on. But for the left, the next move cannot be unilateral -- if you give away piece after piece you don't get anything in return and it does not lead to peace. (I'm sure there are many on the right who fervently believe this too!)
More to follow!
Love,
Pat
We also took a couple of field trips, one to see the wall/the fence and another with Rabbis for Human Rights to Sylwan, a neighborhood in East Jerusalem; more about that in a later post.
We went from 8:30 in the morning until usually after 10:00 at night -- it was great, but you can understand that we are very happy to be back home in Haifa!!
As you are probably reading the the papers, things are heating up here around the disengagement. As I write tens of thousands of settlers from the West Bank have converged on a town in the Negev with the intention of marching (yes marching!) to Gaza. The army has closed off Gush Katif to all non-residents. One of the scarier developments is the fact that some of the rabbis in the West Bank have commanded their flock of settlers to urge soldiers to disobey orders and not to help evacuate Gaza. Such a move--to encourage those empowered to carry out the law to refuse to do so-- is a direct challenge to the democratic ideals of the state. It is a move to deligitimize the government.
From reading the papers and talking to people I can see two attitudes about the settlers who are being evacuated. On the one hand, there is some sympathy for them because after all, they were encouraged by the government through monetary incentives (subsidies, housing assistance) to settle Gush Katif, and many families have been there now into the third generation. They are agricultural people -- they have farms and hothouses in which they raise flowers to sell in Europe. Leaving the land is indeed difficult and sad. On the other hand, because these settlers have been protected and in a real sense pampered, they have never had to face the rough-and-tumble of Israeli life where jobs are not readily available, housing is expensive, they will have to pay school fees for their children like everyone else, etc...and there are many people who think they "have it coming to them" for having been protected at the taxpayers' expense for so long.
We heard a great lecture by Yulie Tamir, an MK from the Labor party, who points out that this is the first time since l967 that they have evacuated settlements established since the occuption in 1967. She says that it has always been assumed that the occupation is reversable, and this disengagement is proof that it can be done. This is why the settlers are so opposed -- they can see that the West Bank is next. She says we should give Sharon credit for it -- that although he is doing it in a brutal way, this is setting a precedent. She points out that the downside is that it is a unilateral move. She forsees little international support for going slow from now on. But for the left, the next move cannot be unilateral -- if you give away piece after piece you don't get anything in return and it does not lead to peace. (I'm sure there are many on the right who fervently believe this too!)
More to follow!
Love,
Pat
posted by Frank and Pat Fischer at 3:00 PM
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