On July 4, despite the protests of the grandparents and latent fears of our own, Brian and I landed in Israel with our two children. After ten days of revisiting the neighborhood in Jerusalem we called home for two years, of visiting tourist sites empty of tourists, taking nieces and nephews to the zoo, and sharing coffee with friends, I returned home to Boston with few answers, but with a renewed sense of commitment.

I have so much to say to you, to this remarkable community that has exerted great efforts to be open to Jews of differing points of view. I speak in the presence of our education director who has charged her teachers, many of whom have parents and grandparents in Israel, to creatively develop a curriculum that blends love of Israel with compassion for all its inhabitants. You have contributed to planting trees in Israel’s forests and replanting olive trees on the West Bank. You have lifted up the dialogue about Israel to a holy task, teaching us to listen compassionately to all of our stories, even in our most empassioned moments. It is out of a great respect for this diversity that I speak to you about Israel tonight.

How can I convey to you the desperate situation our people in Israel are in, without sounding shrill?

How can I convince you to support Israel without sounding hostile and callous toward the Palestinians?

At the same time, how can I portray the need to continue to work toward peace, without sounding naïve?

As I anguished for weeks over what message to bring to you about Israel, I believed that I was facing a moving target. Every time I thought I knew what to say, events changed. In early August, I was so deeply affected by the tragic loss of Janis Coulter in the bombing at Hebrew U, that I have not even been able to articulate my own grief. Coming on the heels of our successful and enjoyable family trip, Janis’ death charged me with a sense of mission. Both of these events, like powerful beacons illuminating the summer, shook me from a feeling of paralysis that has dominated my mood about Israel for almost two years.

Suddenly, I stood face to face with the message. Israel is not a moving target. Events change, hopes for peace fade and recede, then a spark is rekindled. Terror attacks persist for weeks, then there is a lull. Emotions may rise and fall, but Israel is not a moving target.

Up until this point, I have always emphasized four principles in our community:

My message tonight is that Israel is part of us. We can shy away from discussion groups, avoid talking about it with our friends. But there is no doubt, Israel—our people, our homeland, the only place on earth where Yom Kippur is a national holiday, where the Hebrew language combines the poetry of the Bible and the jargon of the street, and where Jewish culture grows organically like the spring wildflowers on the hillsides—Israel is part of us. I am proud to say that I love Israel.

I know that for some, it is difficult to relate to Israel today. For many, simply joining a congregation is an act of courage. We take comfort in the spirituality offered here, in the open approach to learning for all ages. But we do not join a temple because we are persecuted or discriminated against. We don’t need this. As Jews in America, most of us have other communities that beckon, other commitments that call. Judaism appeals most when it is easy, neat and comforting.

We have been accepted by our Catholic neighbors. We work in professions, study in universities, live in neighborhoods that were once restricted, but now welcome us blindly. There is no "Jewish problem" to be solved. But current events in Israel, as portrayed in the papers, upset our apple cart. For the activists of the last hundred years, the State of Israel was meant to solve "the Jewish problem:" the intolerance and anti-semitism of Eastern Europe and Yemen, of Ethiopia and the former Soviet Union. But in our century, instead of solving the Jewish problem, Israel is the Jewish problem.

As author and peace activist Amos Oz relates, when his "father was a teenager in Europe, all the walls were covered with graffiti that said, 'Jews, Go to Palestine.' And when he went back to Europe as an adult, all the walls were covered with graffiti that said, 'Jews, Get Out of Palestine.' And my father understood this message perfectly, the emotional meaning of this message, which was: Get out of here and get out of there. Just don't come to us. Don't be here and don't be there. In other words, don't be."

We try to distance ourselves from the pain over what is happening there. "Not in my name" we shout to Israel’s leaders. We earnestly share our critiques of Israel with the world, believing that they will welcome Jews who are sensitive enough to recognize Israel’s faults. But I am no longer comfortable believing that our neighbors understand our critique in a loving way. As much as I want to encourage lively debate and respectful disagreement among ourselves, I fear the ignorance of those whose only acquaintance with Israel is yesterday’s news.

Let me share a chilling vignette from this past summer:

After the terrorist incident at Hebrew University that claimed the lives of five young American, an Episcopal priest and I were discussing the value of collecting evidence for the FBI from the bodies of the victims. In this case, I explained, Jewish law would permit the autopsy if justice were served.

The priest thought about that notion of justice and innocently remarked to me, "if it prevents the Israeli government from bombing the wrong Palestinian village, then it’s worth it."

I recoiled immediately from these words, but had no response. I could not sleep that night, shaken by the ignorance that led her to speak so insensitively. I spoke with the priest to explain my shock, comparing her assumptions about Israel to someone suggesting that evidence was needed if only to prevent a vengeful brother from killing the wrong suspect. She was not surprised by my response, but immediately recognized her lack of perspective. She made it clear that her words did indeed arise from her ignorance. The priest confessed to me that, though she knows little about the conflict, the news reports give her the impression that Israel is strong and brutal and the Palestinians are the weak underdog.

Unfortunately, that is what is missing from our own attitudes toward Israel, a sense of perspective. Visiting the land of Israel this summer and my friends and family there, I regained a perspective that reports of the conflict had robbed from me.

We in America have been handed a Middle East that exists in polar opposites. Whether we believe that Israelis are right and Palestinians are wrong, or vice versa, whether the emails we receive tell only the trauma of life among the Palestinians, or the anguish of Israeli families, we seek to reinforce our own point of view. But what being in Israel reminded me was that Israel has a vital center. The camps that we see lining up in the American Jewish community are more distant and less civil here than among the citizens and residents of Israel.

Let me share with you what my friends in Israel told me they wanted you to hear as American Jews.

1. Going to Israel is an act of love.

One can come and enjoy Israel. It’s different from the free-wheeling devil-may-care days of a few years ago, but it’s still possible to see the country, particularly if you travel on a tour, with guides. Israel is still the beautiful homeland, full of archaeological treasures and natural wonders.

What a skewed image of Israel we have concocted in this country! All people know about Israel is the conflict. As I said on Rosh Hashanah, we have a tendency to focus on the brokenness in our world, forgetting how much more there is to appreciate. What do you think the Irish feel when foreigners only see violence there? Or what do we, as Americans feel, when others see us all as greedy and imperialistic, ignoring the values of liberty and tolerance that are embedded in our American culture and self-image?

We went to Israel because Israel is our second home. We went because our children sincerely wanted to return there, and because we cannot stay away for longer than a couple of years at a time. We traveled by rental car from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, to the Galilee and the Golan Heights. We rediscovered ancient synagogues and Crusader fortresses; we placed notes in the Kotel and prayed at the Israeli Reform synagogues on Shabbat. We spoke to Jewish shopkeepers in Acco and Arab shopkeepers in Jerusalem, all of whom are desperate for tourists to buy their wares and eat in their restaurants. We strolled up and down the streets of Nahariya, without a sign of a security guard or metal detector. We remembered once again what we love about the land and people of Israel, and why we keep coming back, no matter what. As I said when asked why Janis Coulter was in Israel on July 31, going to Israel is not an act of courage, it is an act of love.

2. Looking the Angel of Death in the face.

This is, in fact, our mandate on Yom Kippur, to see our life in stark relief with our own mortality. Israelis stare in the eyes of the Angel of Death every day. Life in Israel does go on, but the matzav, Hebrew for "the situation" is always in the background. It affects where you go, where your children go, when you go out, what you look out for. Even in quiet times, as our ten days in Israel were, the matzav is never far from consciousness.

This has been a horrendous year for Israelis. The closest we can come to understanding the underlying fear and anxiety is our own experience of the attacks of September 11. Some of us felt the terror hit home this summer, with the horrifying news that Janis Coulter, one of our own, was killed at age 36 in an explosion in a Hebrew University cafeteria. Before we begin to discuss our opinions, we need to each stop and mourn our dead. Before we even try to identify justice or peace or truth, we must look the Angel of Death in the face. We must acknowledge that we now belong to that exclusive club of those who know a victim of terror.

A vignette from our trip: A friend stood in line to get into a shopping mall in Jerusalem. She was waiting her turn to go through the search and inspection before entering the mall. In front of her was a man dressed in the black garb of the ultra-orthodox. But he seemed suspicious to her. He was fidgeting, moving from side to side. He was a big man. Perhaps he was hiding something under his coat? What if a bomber exploded himself before even getting to the check point?

When the man reached the front of the line, he railed at the inspectors. What good is this inspection if we all have to stand in line? Why do you make us wait like this, where we could all be killed? A bit ashamed and relieved, my friend realized that he had been just as nervous as she was

3. Israelis are trying their best.

The concern about the matzav is not simply a reaction out of fear or anger or entrenched sense of victimization. People in Israel care passionately about their future and debate in earnest how to get there. Israelis are highly engaged politically. Whether left or right in political orientation, everyone desires peace and is struggling with the issues. In fact, many individuals reflected that there is more respect today between the political right and left, that there is a sense that no one has all the answers. Because this is a democratic and pluralistic state, the issues are not clear, the solutions are not simple, and the spokespeople in the media are not unilaterally representative of all Israelis.

The Israelis public views itself as historically and demonstrably in favor of peace with its Arab neighbors and with the Palestinian people. Even after two years and deaths of over six hundred innocent civilians, polls conducted just before Rosh Hashanah indicate that over half of Israelis (54%) agree to the establishment of a Palestinian state in the context of negotiations. Seventy-eight percent of Israelis say that the Palestinians, in fact, have a legitimate right to pursue a state, if they use non-violent means. And if Palestinians were to change tactics to a non-violent approach, over 60% of Israelis would support making greater concessions.

While we were there, one faction in the Knesset presented a bill to bar Israeli Arabs from living in Jewish areas. We were, of course, horrified at this attack on the civil rights of citizens of Israel. But that was where the debate began, and not where it ended. Many Israelis remain critical of aspects of Israeli society, and are working on economic, political and social solutions. In other words, there is much that is right in Israeli society today, even within the government. It is up to us to open our eyes to the context of the issues and not only see the problems in a vacuum.

4. Don’t believe everything Katie Couric says.

(I have nothing against Katie Couric; she’s a lovely person.) News is never presented in a nuanced or contextual fashion. Usually it is over-simplified to fit into the four minutes or less allotted, or information presented as opinion or couched in analysis. I would not say that the media is biased, but it is rarely fair to anyone.

I found myself through the looking-glass when I arrived in Israel, and again, here in America in the spotlight of the media after Janis’ death. While in Israel, we listened to the Hebrew radio and read the Israeli press. Some information that every Israeli knows rarely makes the headlines here. For example, during our stay, Israel uncovered 13 separate tunnels from Egypt to Gaza, each of which was used to smuggle in great hordes of weapons for the Palestinians to use against Israelis. At the same time, the headline on the foreign cable networks focused on the temporary closing of Al-Kuds University, a Palestinian institution, while the Israeli headlines placed that story much deeper. To hear one story without the other is to misconstrue history even as it is occurring. I could not help but feel assaulted when, upon returning home to Boston, we found lead stories about the conflict in Israel, well out of proportion to how they are perceived there.

In August, I felt like I had fallen down a rabbit-hole again when I offered myself as the spokesperson for the Coulter family in a whirlwind of radio, television and press interviews. For two full days, I took phone calls, answered questions on camera and off, flew to New York to appear on the Today show and back home to speak to Wolf Blitzer live on CNN. Hard as I tried to tell Janis’ story, my words were edited and squeezed into news stories whose focus had often been determined by editors long before they heard what I had to say. Although this was hardly my first encounter with the brusque business of creating news, I was reminded how much is lost on the cutting room floor. With deep respect for journalists and the challenges of that work, I urge you to consider how little we all really know about the conflict from this vantage point 5000 miles away.

5. It is not up to us to make a solution.

The solution is challenging to the experts—how can we be so much smarter that the solution is so clear to us? Complexity arises out many factors, not the least of which is the clash of a democratic culture (Israel) with a culture that is striving to become a democracy in a region with no democratic models (the Arab world). Whatever our personal political tendency, we can and must find those organizations that are providing moral leadership and vision where it is lacking in political circles. It is important to support those groups that aim to remind the Israeli and Palestinian populations that to be human is to rise above our emotional responses. We all need to be reminded to think, to make value-based decisions and to at least be conscious when our responses arise from fear and despair and hatred. We need to be reminded of our humanity.

This particular piece of advice came to me from a journalist friend with a leftist point of view, who has become more open to listening to voices on the right. As we sat around her Shabbat table, our children played soccer outside in the neighborhood of Abu Tor, a mixed Arab-Jewish neighborhood in West Jerusalem. There is a level of tolerance and coexistence that is still being fostered in Israel, not only by activist organizations like Neve Shalom, or Seeds of Peace, but by Israelis in everyday life

Ultimately, lasting solutions must come from the people who will live with them. They can be encouraged, but not coerced, from outside. This also requires our patience. Solutions will take time. They make take a generation, or more. But in the words of the great Israel poet, Yehuda Amichai, "My hopes are not like big stones, but little stones ground up and made of cement that will support a whole house. I walked every little corner of Jerusalem. I walked every little corner of hope. And somewhere in there, that’s where peace will come from."

6. Israelis want us to care.

Every Jewish person I know, as well as many who are not Jewish, feels pain today for what is happening in Israel and the West Bank today. The violence of Palestinian terrorists against innocent Jewish civilians or against soldiers on duty, and the violent response of the Israeli government against Palestinians, causes us all pain. What pains Israelis more, though, is the sense that we Jews have given up on them—don’t care, don’t believe, don’t trust them.

I can’t tell you what is the best response to Israel today, but I do believe I can recognize what’s wrong. Boycotting Israel and Israelis is wrong. Calling each other names—traitors, moral cowards, is wrong. Believing the worst about Israel and its leaders is wrong. Inciting others to condemn Israel is wrong. Inciting violence against random Palestinians is wrong.

As Jews, we have a special place in helping to create a State of Israel that makes us proud, stone by stone, dollar by dollar. We are building on the vision of Herzl and Ahad Ha’am, the dreams of starry-eyed refugees from the pogroms of Russia, and later, the survivors of the concentration camps. We also need to trust and accept that our brothers and sisters in Israel are INDEED our brothers and sisters, people with whom we feel connected, who are doing their best in an impossible situation, and to whom we are responsible.

Israelis want us to care. As Jews, we need to support Israel, visit Israel, purchase Israeli products, fund organizations that build up Israel as a democratic and peaceful nation. In this way, we refuse to allow the extremists to set the agenda. We need to set about rebuilding the center.

One year ago, after the attacks on September 11, we heard many stories of foreigners who expressed deep sympathy for the losses, and solidarity with Americans, a kind of "Ich bin ein American." Even the protesters in Muslim and Arab countries often speak of America with a mixture of awe and resentment. Across the globe, people want to distinguish between their respect and sympathy for the American people and their distaste for particular American policies.

I recently heard a Russian writer describe with poignant pride the image of the American Embassy in Moscow circled with bouquets of flowers from sympathetic Russians, following the attacks last year. Yet this same reporter could articulate a clear message criticizing the policies of the Bush administration, noting that the same people who brought flowers to the embassy also feel some resentment of American policies.

If the Russian people, so long the enemies of the American people, have the humanity to feel anguish and show solidarity with the citizens of our country while stating their critiques, then certainly American Jews can find a way to connect to our Israeli brothers and sisters, even as we critique government policies.

As Jews, we have an eternal covenant with one another, to rescue our captives, to bring comfort to those who mourn, to visit the ill and to pray for peace. This is not a political or nationalistic movement, this is the essence of Peoplehood, the centrality of the Jewish people to the civilization we call Judaism.

After Janis’ death, one of her teachers sent an email extolling her great commitment to Jewish learning. But he added a teaching that sums up what was truly inspiring about Janis’ life, and the way she died, serving the Jewish people by bringing students to the Hebrew University. He quoted Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, who explained that Jews by choice, gerim in Hebrew, enter two covenants. First the ger enters the covenant of fate -- "brit goral" -- and after this enters the covenant of destiny -- "brit ye'ud." When someone asks about becoming Jewish, a rabbi’s responsibility is first to remind her of the persecution that Jews have suffered, the brit goral. Only after accepting that does she learn Torah and the challenges of living a life of Jewish observance, the brit ye’ud.. What this teaches, continued Rabbi Soloveitchik, is that the first thing we demand of the ger is not a leap of faith, but a leap of empathy for the Jewish people. This is what is so inspiring about Janis, or any other man or woman who chooses to join the Jewish people. It is a stunning reminder to all of us of our covenant with one another, and with all of the Jewish people.

Rabbi Soloveitchik has also taught this: When the Israelites had violated the Covenant by fashioning the Golden Calf, Moses prayer on their behalf for forty days, and in response God granted atonement.

But when God decreed that Moses would not enter the Promised Land, and Moses began to pray on his own behalf, God stopped him in the middle of his prayer: "Enough! Never speak to me of this matter again!" (Dt. 3:26) [Soloveitchik essay "The Community"]

When Moses’ prayer was in the plural, all the gates of prayer were opened. When he changed his prayers to the first-person, the gates of prayer were closed. The Midrash teaches that had the community joined Moses in his prayer, God would have granted the request. Unfortunately, the community did not understand its obligation, and as a consequence, Moses died in the desert.

Now is the time to grasp the opportunity, to understand the depth of our obligation to the Jewish people, the Children of Israel, no matter where we live, what our religious lifestyle or our political orientation. It is time to join Moses and Miriam, Abraham and Sarah, Golda Meir and David Ben Gurion in prayer, and to rebuild the dream.

Chicago Daily Herald columnist, Ray Hanania, a Palestinian-American stand-up comedian, tells the following:

How many Palestinians and Jews does it take to screw in a light bulb and shed a little light?

We don't know. But wouldn't it be great to find out someday?

Ken yehi ratzon. May it come speedily and in our day. Amen.

Rabbi Barbara Penzner

Kol Nidre 5763

September 2003