A conference in New York today putatively aimed at reviving Jewish opposition to the Iraq war–six years after the barn door opened, and all the horses went down the hill with fiery nostrils–was actually devoted to soulsearching over the Jewish role in that war, something I have always called for, and began, amazingly, with a poem by Melanie Kay/Kantrowitz that she introduced in this manner.
She recalled that at David Dellinger’s funeral, Tom Hayden said that Dellinger had said that you should "use your body to stand up to evil." Kaye/Kantrowitz then said:
You could hear a pin drop. The hundreds of conference-goers were stunned; I imagine many disapproved. And yet: This was said by a poet today at a synagogue conference in New York. May the healing begin?
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There's another lesbian poet (Andrea Dworkin) who had some interesting things to say about Israel if you can find them:
One day in Hebrew School I argued in front of the whole class with the principal; a teacher, a scholar, a survivor, he spoke seven languages and I don't know which camps he was in. In private, he would talk to me, answer my questions, unlike the others. I would see him shaking, alone; I'd ask why; he would say sometimes he couldn't speak, there were no words, he couldn't say words, even though he spoke seven languages; he would say he had seen things; he would say he couldn't sleep, he hadn't slept for nights or weeks. I knew he knew important things. I respected him. Usually I didn't respect my teachers. In front of the whole class, he told us that in life we had the obligation to be first a Jew, second an American, third a human being, a citizen of the world. I was outraged. I said it was the opposite. I said everyone was first a human being, a citizen of the world–otherwise there would never be peace, never an end to nationalist conflicts and racial persecutions.. Maybe I was 11. He said that Jews had been killed throughout history precisely because they thought the way I did, because they put being Jews last; because they didn't understand that one was always first a Jew–in history, in the eyes of the world, in the eyes of God. I said it was the opposite: only when everyone was human first would Jews be safe. He said Jews like me had had the blood of other Jews on their hands throughout history; that had there been an Israel, Jews would not have been slaughtered throughout Europe; that the Jewish homeland was the only hope for Jewish freedom. I said that was why one had an obligation to be an American second, after being a human being, a citizen of the world: because only in a democracy without a state religion could religious minorities have rights or be safe or not be persecuted or discriminated against. I said that if there was a Jewish state, anyone who wasn't Jewish would be second-class by definition. I said we didn't have a right to do to other people what had been done to us. More than anyone, we knew the bitterness of religious persecution, the stigma that went with being a minority. We should be able to see in advance the inevitable consequences of having a state that put us first; because then others were second and third and fourth. A theocratic state, I said, could never be a fair state–and didn't Jews need a fair state? If Jews had had a fair state wouldn't Jews have been safe from slaughter? Israel could be a beginning: a fair state. But then it couldn't be a Jewish state. The blood of Jews, he said, would be on my hands. He walked out. I don't think he ever spoke to me again.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_Dworkin
more from Andrea:
"2. The condition of Jewish women in Israel is abject.
Where I live things aren't too good for women. It's not unlike Crystal Night all year long given the rape and battery statistics–which are a pale shadow of the truth–the incest, the pornography, the serial murders, the sheer savagery of the violence against women. But Israel is shattering. Sisters: we have been building a country in which women are dog shit, something you scrape off the bottom of your shoe. We, the "Jewish feminists." We who only push as far as the Jewish men here will allow. If feminism is serious, it fights sex hierarchy and male power and men don't get to stand on top of you, singly or in clusters, for forever and a day. And you don't help them build a country in which women's status gets lower and lower as the men get bigger and bigger–the men there and the men here. From what I saw and heard and learned, we have helped to build a living hell for women, a nice Jewish hell. Isn't it the same everywhere? Well, "everywhere" isn't younger than I am; "everywhere" didn't start out with the equality of the sexes as a premise. The low status of women in Israel is not unique but we are uniquely responsible for it. I felt disgraced by the way women are treated in Israel, disgraced and dishonored. I remembered my Hebrew School principal, the Holocaust survivor, who said I had to be a Jew first, an American second, and a citizen of the world, a human being last, or I would have the blood of Jews on my hands. I've kept quiet a long time about Israel so as not to have the blood of Jews on my hands. It turns out that I am a woman first, second, and last–they are the same; and I find I do have the blood of Jews on my hands–the blood of Jewish women in Israel."
Didn't I read somewhere recently that Dworkin wasn't actually Lesbian at all, but quietly kept a live-in boyfriend?
"May the healing begin?" It has….. but why "healing"? That's internal, a Jewish thing, no? I say "May the "American Jewish Community" calls for the liberation of Palestine from Israel's oppression, which is Jewish oppression, reach a crescendo heard deep into the Halls of Congress. American Jews (by and large) remain those silently complicit women watchers of hell on earth that Amira Haas remembers so well lined the street as she and her mother were paraded by, wearing yellow stars. Amira Haas has devoted her career to not being complicit as a "silent bystander" to atrocity. She has paid a dear price at the hands of very evil people. And for those of you who don't know who she is..well, that itself speaks for you!
cogit8, thank you for sharing. Even Buber never solved the chicken and egg reality you've artfully and clearly delineated. Hillel addressed it (If I am only for myself, etc)…
I've lived in a lot of fly-over country, and I've been around over six decades. Most Americans I've met along the way judge people first
as individuals, second as Americans, third with some other identity, such as members of an ethnic group and/or religion, etc. These are
the sort of people who generally ban politics and religion at their
homes when they are hosting any get-together. The reason they
give is they don't want people fighting with each other around them, on their property (or rental unit).
They are generally unconcerned about activity that does not touch
them very directly in practical terms.
They try to be good neighbors or at least keep to themselves with their own version of live and let live.
They don't know much about history or geography, economics
or foreign policy. But, again, they view themselves as individuals
first, and that's also how they first approach and react to others.
From time to time, when I've been able to have a discussion with
any of them, more or less one-on-one, and usually after a bunch
drinks, on a complex cultural, political, social matter, I've found
that they always make solid points, usually directly related to
something they or their family or friends have personally experienced–it's just that they rarely follow what they've told
me to its logical, sequential overview; this is largely due to
their ignorance of vicarious information.
On the other foot, the relatively well-educated I've met, rather than not being able to see the forest for the trees they've personally bumped into or climbed, do not see the forest for that, plus because of
the ideological sub-forest they've actively pursued with their
intellectual curiosity, imagination, and empathy.
I'm not at all sure which is worse, a half-baked idea or an over-baked idea. Ignorance or Ideology.
Dworkin's companion, John Stoltenberg, is a gay man who lived with her and provided support and care during her period of failing health.
ah
Your insights into Americans seems happily familiar, observer. That is, more than anything else, why I generally like Americans whenever I am there. I've been a guest in many an American home and you've hit the nail on the head, for me anyway…
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