Published: 13 August 2018
Last updated: 4 March 2024
Indeed, Jewish communities all over the world are facing strong internal differences on Israel and dissenting voices now include liberal/left Zionists and people involved in broader communal issues such as welfare, Jewish education or synagogue life. The way in which communal leaders face this will be critical to shaping our communities.
Much has been said and written about the recent ‘Kaddish for Gaza’ episode in England and about young American Jews staging Birthright walk-outs. Both episodes tended to the theatrical but were also deeply confronting to their communities; some of the participants in the ‘Kaddish for Gaza’ are actively involved in synagogue life and Zionist youth movements, and the challenge to Birthright from young adults who had initially chosen to participate in a mainstream, communally-funded offering ruffled establishment feathers.
A less publicised conflict, but one more likely to have enduring impact, concerns campus life in the US. Ironically it involves two organisations named for Hillel, the Talmudic figure revered in Jewish tradition for his ability to navigate conflict.
Hillel provides practical, spiritual and educational resources for Jewish students across US campuses and plays a key role in coordinating Israel programming. In recent years. as Israel politics on campus has heated up, Hillel has published Guidelines on Israel programming, setting limits on what can be discussed and who can speak in Hillel settings.
While the guidelines seem pretty reasonable, many students and academics believe that a privately-funded Jewish communal body should not be setting boundaries for discussion on university campuses. Hillel’s partisan Israel advocacy has also alienated students and academics whose views diverge from Hillel’s platforms.
In December 2013, Open Hillel was established with the stated mission of creating an environment in which “people of all views on Israel/Palestine can express themselves freely in Hillel and other Jewish communal spaces”, and its activism is focused on countering parameters drawn by Hillel and drawing attention to Hillel’s increasing role in Israel advocacy.
In recent weeks the conflict between the organisations escalated (or descended) to a whole new level. The clash concerns legal proceedings brought by Jewish students against San Francisco State University, alleging that the university has excluded and marginalised Hillel because of its views on Israel, thereby denying students access to Hillel services.
The Open Hillel conflict represents a low water mark in how communities address disagreement about Israel. Having failed to mediate issues between themselves, Jews are now turning to the courts for a ruling on who speaks for Jews on campus.
Open Hillel joined the proceedings as an interested third party to argue that Hillel doesn’t represent all Jewish students, and that denying access to its services for political reasons is not discriminatory.
This conflict represents a low water mark in how communities address disagreement about Israel. Having failed to mediate issues between themselves, Jews are now turning to the courts for a ruling on who speaks for Jews on campus.
Wearing my hat as a veteran Limmud organiser, many of these issues are painfully familiar. Over the years in the lead up to Limmud events all over the world, people not directly involved in Limmud have attempted - sometimes with success - to force Limmud to draw red lines around its Israel programming that organisers might otherwise have preferred not to define.
Frequently, the outcomes have left Limmud organisers feeling disaffected, while the people excluded are hurt and angry – and see their exclusion as proof of the censoriousness and power of invisible machinators.
I have some suggested approaches to addressing these issues, my thinking influenced by the work of Keith Kahn-Harris, particularly his book Uncivil War: The Israel conflict in the Jewish community. Here are eight rules for communal engagement on Israel.
1. Where parameters have to be set, draw them as widely as you can and push your constituency as far as you can. A role of leaders is to push people, including funders, beyond their comfort zones - so set boundaries as widely as possible on Israel dialogue because exclusion hurts and denies people the opportunity to hear different perspectives.
2. Don’t be a gatekeeper. If it’s not your event you shouldn’t be telling people not to attend. Write or speak about the substantive issues, but don’t tell people not to attend. It’s insulting to people’s intelligence and is likely to backfire because people don’t like being told what to do.
3. Be as transparent as you can. Where you make a decision likely to be controversial because it either excludes or includes certain voices – be as transparent as you can about the reason and process.
4. Promote dialogue to manage conflict around Israel conversations. Following the fallout from the ‘Kaddish for Gaza’ episode, the United Jewish Israel Appeal acted fast to arrange an event to promote dialogue, hosting a discussion jointly with London’s edgy Jewish cultural centre JW3 entitled Ceasefire – How do we de-escalate the hostility in our discussions about Israel? Frankly, it’s hard to imagine Australian Jewish leadership arranging an open event about how we talk about Israel. But maybe it’s time.
5. Use firewalls to manage conflict around Israel conversations. Organisations focused on local community issues should stay out of Israel politics as much as possible and leave that to Zionist and Israel advocacy bodies. It’s a little sad but there is more upside than downside, for example, for synagogues to leave Israel political discussion out of services if there are a broad range of views within the community and people feel offended or uncomfortable by things said during services.
6. Promote and model civility. This is about more than just not insulting people, it’s about not going on the attack, about using diplomacy and private conversations where appropriate and also sometimes about picking your battles. Conflict in Israel conversations can be very hurtful to people and damaging to local communities, and rather than persuading people, adds to the sense many people have that it’s better to steer clear of communal Israel discussions.
7. Israel and Palestine are real places. It’s easy to get caught up in local arguments on the issues and politics around how people speak about Israel/Palestine but the conflict is about people living the impact of real and serious issues: violence, human and civil rights abuse, self-defence, trauma, dislocation, imprisonment, terrorism. It behoves us all to step back from the point-scoring and remember that this is much more than identity and ideas for the people living it.
8. Step carefully into social media. There is much to learn from participating in social media discussions. But social media is also a sewer. People use false profiles to insult without consequence and even where they don’t use false profiles, people behave in ways they would never do in real life. The experience can be pretty bruising. So caveat emptor with social media, both on how it feels and makes you look to others.
Talking about Israel has to be part of Jewish life but the time is ripe to foster broad and thoughtful conversation over abuse, argument and exclusion.
Image: Israel/Arab Debate at AIPAC, March 2016 (Youtube screenshot)
