Being Friday afternoon, it only seems appropriate to pass along this important rabbinical reflection. Rabbi Brant Rosen has done it again. Below is from a post on his blog entitled "Why I Didn’t Celebrate Yom Ha’atzmaut." Yom Ha’atzmaut is Independence Day in Israel and it marks the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. It was observed this past Wednesday. Rabbi Rosen:
I didn’t celebrate Yom Ha’atzmaut today. I don’t think I can celebrate this holiday any more.
That doesn’t mean I’m not acknowledging the anniversary of Israel’s independence – only that I can no longer view this milestone as a day for celebration. I’ve come to believe that for Jews, Yom Ha’atzmaut is more appropriately observed as an occasion for reckoning and honest soul searching.
As a Jew, as someone who has identified with Israel for his entire life, it is profoundly painful to me to admit the honest truth of this day: that Israel’s founding is inextricably bound up with its dispossession of the indigenous inhabitants of the land. In the end, Yom Ha’atzmaut and what the Palestinian people refer to as the Nakhba are two inseparable sides of the same coin. And I simply cannot separate these two realities any more.
I wonder: if we Jews are ready to honestly face down this “dual reality” how can we possibly view this day as a day of unmitigated celebration? But we do – and not only in Israel. Indeed, there is no greater civil Jewish holiday in the American Jewish community than Yom Ha’atzmaut. It has become the day we pull out all the stops – the go-to day upon which Jewish Federations throughout the country hold their major communal Jewish parades, celebrations and gatherings. I wonder: how must it feel to be a Palestinian watching the Jewish community celebrate this day year after year on the anniversary that is the living embodiment of their collective tragedy?
I can’t yet say what specific form my new observance of Yom Ha’atzmaut will take. I only know that it can’t be divorced from the Palestinian reality – or from the Palestinian people themselves. Many of us in the co-existence community speak of “dual narratives” – and how critical it is for each side to be open to hearing the other’s “story.” I think this pedagogy is important as far as it goes, but I now believe that it’s not nearly enough. It’s not enough for us to be open to the narrative of the Nakhba and all it represents for Palestinians. In the end, we must also be willing to own our role in this narrative. Until we do this, it seems to me, the very concept of coexistence will be nothing but a hollow cliche.
Related posts:
- Rabbi Brant Rosen: Jews’ dismissal of BDS represents a refusal to recognize who the ‘weaker, dispossessed, disempowered’ party is
- Celebrate Hanukah by Denouncing Israeli Land Grab
- another prayer about Jewish censoriousness, from Rabbi Rosen
- Rabbi Rosen refuses to use his Jewishness to criticize persecution everywhere except in Palestine
- Horowitz: How can I celebrate a Jewish liberation story while Gaza is starving?
{ 19 comments }
I think you should add him to the blogroll, Adam.
Just checked Reconstructionist Judaism. Sounds interesting.
the rabbi sounds like a thoughtful person… the world needs more of these types of people, and less arrogant types, which are mostly on display on national holidays, regardless who is celebrating them…. it isn't about whether one is jewish or palestinian but about whether one cares for humanity, as opposed to more narrow self interests…
Beautiful and True.
Everyone's independance is at the expense of another's. Let us end all expressions of nationalism, starting with Pan-Arabism.
I've always considered it opportunistic that modern organized Jewry only includes self-accolades and instances of its own victimization as part of the "Jewish narrative," so I'm glad that some Jews are now listing their own more controversial and less flattering history as part of that narrative. The Nakba is a good start; Jewish Bolshevism and its partnership with Stalanists in the Soviet holocaust State-organized mass murder of millions would be another such step. As with diaspora Zionists, plenty of Jews well outside of the killing fields participated in that long-running atrocity, too, ie bankers Max Warburg in Germany and American Jacob Schiff (of Kuhn, Loeb, now Chase Manhattan.) I suppose the fact that their type has thus far been able to escape historical accountability has only served to embolden the Zionists.
The best case scenario is for Jews of the diaspora to sever ourselves totally from anything having to do with Israel, to disown israel and the Israelis and proclaim them a heathen sect we refuse to recognize as Jews. They should be barred from all participation in jewish community life everywhere outside of their vomit state. They must be isolated. Many many other ethnic groups and faiths have declared subsets of their group persona non grata. It's high time for Jews to reclaim our dignity. Death to the Israelis. Death to these monsters and Jewish impostors!
RE: "Why I Didn’t Celebrate Yom Ha’atzmaut" MY COMMENT: Very impressive!
Re rykart's entry: Please do not call for death to the Israelis. What we need is an end to the sense of entitlement and privilege that allows people to displace others and basically engage in predatory practices. There is room for everyone at the table. But they have to live as equals under one set of laws.
Uh, Pan-Arabism as an ideal expression of Arab nationalism died along time ago as a significant force in Arab politics and society, so what is really behind what you say here? Although I agree with your first sentence and sentiment that all expressions of nationalism be abolished, both here and in Israel, and the religious and strong man military-corporate nationalisms that have largely supplanted secular Pan-Arabism, which the latter grew out of, in any case.
Ugh. Both Rykart and Ed make me want to bang my head on my keyboard. With "friends" like these…
Ed, you have a good point. While everybody knows about Nazi atrocities, very few know about the Nakba or the Bolshevistic revolution, that is, the most disproportionate part as predators played by Jews (versus the part Jews played as disproportionate victims under HItler) both before and after Hitler's rise to power. The dots connected is a more full narrative of history. Where does one go with such full information, considering in Europe it can legally go nowhere, and in the USA it its hardly better as a practical matter?
KatiinPhilly, while I agree with Ida Audeh, I just don't see equality under the law in Israel in whatever configuration, especially since there won't be a single state solution (unless forced after WW3) due to Jewish concern over demographics in any true democracy. I imagine Rykart & Ed see this too, but they rather not have WW3 to bring a stop to the Israeli samson option. With "friends" like Israel, what is the USA to do? G-D knows Uncle Sam has put his blood, treasure, and reputation on the line for Israel. You comment as if this is not so? Please explain.
Of course I upset you, because you are a left-liberal with a big government left-liberal political agenda, and possibly Jewish, so you don't want to examine the fact that you may well be an heir to the murderous Jewish Bolsheviks just as current ethnic German neo-Nazis are heirs to the those of Nazi Germany. As a libertarian, I personally find both ethnic German neo-Nazis and ethnic Jewish neo-Socialists just as offensive as Jews find ethnic German neo-Nazis. But of the two, only ethnic Jewish neo-socialists have any power and are in a position to re-initiate their murderous big government, totalitarian agenda, so I concentrate in criticizing them, both in the diaspora and in their Jewish Zionist Israeli incarnation. Jewish Zionists are upset by their critics, too, and demand they be censored by a totalitarian Big Brother.
Hi Katiin You'd sooner see the elevated words and hand wringing continue as the israelis tie Arab children to the hoods of their jeeps and burn them alive with white phosphorus. i don't want a situation where "both peoples can thrive." It's a blueprint for continued israeli nazism. I'm for the Palestinians. Im for the victims. I care not one whit what happens to the Israelis. If they are driven to extinction, i couldn't care less. It is WRONG to try to preserve any semblance of Israeli culture. It's every bit as wrong as arguing on behalf of Nazi rights. Noam Chomsky put it as succinctly as it may be stated: "aggressors have no rights. They have only responsibilities." Support the Palestinians people. Help them defeat the Jewish bacteria of israel. The rest is lies.
"As a Jew, as someone who has identified with Israel for his entire life, it is profoundly painful to me to admit the honest truth of this day: that Israel’s founding is inextricably bound up with its dispossession of the indigenous inhabitants of the land. In the end, Yom Ha’atzmaut and what the Palestinian people refer to as the Nakhba are two inseparable sides of the same coin. And I simply cannot separate these two realities any more." To figure that out he went to Rabbi College? The man's a genius! I bet he even knows why his checking account is empty after he spends all his money! "And I simply cannot separate these two realities any more." Excuse me, I'm gonna go lie down still I stop shaking.
"Of course I upset you, because you are a left-liberal with a big government left-liberal political agenda, and possibly Jewish, so you don't want to examine the fact that you may well be an heir to the murderous Jewish Bolsheviks just as current ethnic German neo-Nazis are heirs to the those of Nazi Germany." There, see how simple that is? And sense, does it make sense? Why was I not able to perceive I was the heir to the murderous Jewish Bolsheviks? Could it be due to the brain-warshing I received from the Secular Humanists? And I thought all my relatives voted Republican!
Mooser, don't worry, you are not the heir talked about. You clearly got the right point. As you said, how hard is it?
"Jewish Bolshevism and its partnership with Stalanists in the Soviet holocaust State-organized mass murder of millions… Not to mention the Jewish alliance with Secular Humanism, Swinger's Clubs, and NAMBLA. Jews! Where ever you go, there they are!
"As you said, how hard is it?" That must have been what the Hungarian guy Kafka saw at the asylum was checking, huh? And yes, I am most certainly their heir. I'm piratically a red-diaper baby.
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