This post is part of Marc H. Ellis’s “Exile and the Prophetic” feature for Mondoweiss. To read the entire series visit the archive page.
Yesterday I read of the Israeli court ruling regarding five women from Women of the Wall detained by the police for wearing prayer shawls and singing aloud at the Western Wall. Wanting to know more about the group, I surfed the net and found the Women of the Wall website. It’s an amazing site.
When a movement’s website is worse, much worse, than the cause itself, you know there’s trouble.
The court ruled that the women shouldn’t have been detained. The reason the court gave is telling: the women weren’t disturbing public order. After looking at their website, what the court should have ruled is that the Women of the Wall uphold Israel’s – occupation – public order.
The Women of the Wall are empire-enablers. The court should welcome them as symbols of Israel’s ‘liberal’ empire.
Pinkwashing – the attempt to promote Israel’s liberal image with its acceptance of Gay and lesbian life.
Wallwashing – the attempt to promote Israel’s liberal image with its acceptance of women’s equality and religious pluralism.
Wallwashing conquest, occupation and ethnic cleansing. If you check out Women of the Wall you’ll see how far we haven’t come.
The website begins with a cascade of images under the rubric, ‘Liberating the Wall.’ Iconic photos of Israeli soldiers in 1967 in front of the Wall, looking up in astonishment, are placed side by side with photos of women in full religious regalia assuming the same pose. Taken together they are (unstated) mirror images of conquest and occupation.
Not present are the people or the homes of the Moroccan Quarter cleansed and bulldozed from the area immediately after the war. Another (unstated) mirror image of ethnic cleansing.
Watching the images flash by I wonder what ethical universe they inhabit. Equal rights for women without regard to the injustices done to others – including women – on the other side of ‘our liberation.’
Liberating the Wall. Liberating the Walls (of diminishment, separation, exclusion and ethnic cleansing). They have to go together. No Israeli court victory or pressure from American Jews for women to pray at the Wall can change that truth.
Women of the Wall should follow the new Golden Rule(s) of Conscience – translated for our present age.
I start with Christians: ‘If your salvation is dependent on the oppression of Others, it cannot be your salvation.’
For Jews: ‘If our liberation is dependent on the oppression of Others, it cannot be our liberation.’
The Golden Rule for Prayer? This is less obvious, or is it more obvious? God is a tricky one, after the Holocaust. Perhaps it’s even trickier after Israel – meaning after what Jews have done and are doing to the Palestinian people.
Praying to God in the ethnic-cleansing zones of world history seems to be a Christian vocation. Travelling around the world among Christians – and Muslims – I’ve found Ethnic Cleansing Prayer to be the norm. Inheriting ethnic cleansing is easier than participating in the ethnic cleansing yourself. Add prayer and it is easier still.
Close your eyes – concentrate! Pretend that no one was there before your arrival. Or that those absent today were inferior and needed your religion. You can even repent for those who no longer exist as they were or, having been conquered by your religion, are now praying with you.
Open your eyes – wide! Embrace the conquered and smile. They’ve lost their religion. You’ve gained the whole world.
‘It’s easy. All you need is love’ – as the Beatles classic goes.
No wonder Jews of Conscience are almost all secular and that the Progressive religious establishment is collapsing under its own self-righteous weight. It’s amazing how colonial the Jewish Right and the Jewish Left can be.
We’re all there in this colonial mess – no one escapes. But at this point in history to add more colonial images – ‘Liberating Jerusalem and the Wall, 1967 and 2013’ – is too much.
If I might add prayerfully, for God’s sake, it’s colonial overload!
So the Golden Rule of Prayer after the Holocaust and after Israel?
Well, we would also have to add one for Christians and Muslims for their various conquerings, ethnic cleansings, religious dominations and other infractions against justice and conscience way too numerous to list here.
Maybe they’re separate. One for every religion. Maybe one size fits all.
So my first attempts. Bear with me.
1. ‘When our prayers are dependent on a position of ascendancy in history or the present, stop. Don’t pray.’
2. ‘When our prayers reinforce ascendancy in history or the present, don’t pray out loud or in public. Keep it to yourself. ’
3. ‘When our ability to prayer at certain locations is dependent on the oppression of Others, be decent. Refuse to pray there.’
4. ‘Since all religions that claim God and have been around for any length of time have been/are Empire enablers, refuse religion and the prayers that go with it. You cannot be saved/liberated within religion’s sacred confines.’
Yes, I know corruption is everywhere. No religion or movement is without it. I know that battles can and must be fought on all fronts, including inside the Empire Religion of Choice.
Yes, I know secularity is a disguised religiosity so that secular slogans are liable to the same criticism. I know that when all is said and done we need somewhere to stand.
Still.
Wallwashing. Progress? How far we haven’t come.
The Golden Rule of (Jewish) Prayer -disturbing Israel’s – occupation – public order?
On prayer and disturbing unjust public order, it isn’t just for Jews. Does one size – subversive prayer – fit all?
You forgot “Redwashing.” Hasbara has been working on getting native American Indian tribes to be pro-Israel.
Excellent. One thing: “having been conquered by your religion, are now praying with you.” Maybe I’m wrong, but my sense is that no-one was conquered by any religion, tho maybe someone was persuaded by lessons in a religion hitherto unknown to him.
People are conquered by the SWORD, not by a RELIGION. As a rule. Even if the sword is weilded by someone wearing a big CROSS on his chest (Crusades) or a big 6-point star on his chest (Palestine, 1948). The Palestinians were conquered, and the British were expelled, by Jews (or people claiming to be Jews), but not by Judaism.
Curiously, in some funny way, Judaism itself seems to have been a bit transformed by 1948 and 1967 until Judaism has been conquered by those same Jews, the ones who conquered the Palestinians.
“I start with Christians: ‘If your salvation is dependent on the oppression of Others, it cannot be your salvation.’”
This is really redundant. Why bring Christians into this anyway? Can we focus on Zionist oppression IN THE PRESENT and quit with historical situations no longer relevant that come off as merely, bias?
“Praying to God in the ethnic-cleansing zones of world history seems to be a Christian vocation.”
So what are you saying exactly: Don’t behave like Christians or be as bad as they are? That sounds like a very prejudicial way to make a point. You really think Zionists need more reason to despise Christians? By the way, can you gimme some examples of Christians praying in ethnically-cleansed zones? Just to get the facts straight, but really, if you’re trying to make a case against Zionists and their own hypocrisy, why drag Christians into it in such a prejudicial, generalized way? As if Zionists need more reasons to spit on Christians! I really find this strategy questionable.
“Well, we would also have to add one for Christians and Muslims for their various conquerings, ethnic cleansings, religious dominations and other infractions against justice and conscience way too numerous to list here.”
Way to numerous??? Aye…I give up. So in other words Christians and Muslims may have been worse [centuries ago], and this undoubtedly places Zionists in a more favorable light today and ultimately it helps Zionists to change their ways…howww exactly?
Zionists have always married the sacred with the profane. This praying where ethnic cleansing took place is typical Zionist behavior. Zionism is nothing but the height of hypocrisy and you don’t expose a hypocrite by pointing out that (according to you) there’s an even bigger hypocrite…so not to worry, you’re not the worst!
I also don’t like it when people dwell on the “colonialist” aspect of Zionism. Why? Because it assumes that Palestinians are unwashed savages and that there’s a redeeming aspect to Zionism, that of bringing “civilization” to them, when in fact Palestinians were already civilized, and in general, are very civilized, and there is NO REDEEMING ASPECT to Zionist occupation at all, NONE, zilch, nil.
So let’s leave colonialism out of this as much as possible as well and focus on the war crimes, crimes against humanity AND the denial of rights aspect.
Just remember that colonialism and nation building is considered a positive endeavor by many in the West, but in the case of Palestinians, these were already a civilized people and its insulting to diminish them to the category of “savages” which colonialism implies, so I would stay away from this kind of arrogant analogy as much as possible in regards to the occupation of Palestine by Zionists.
Thank you for crystallising for me my sense of unease when I was reading the breathless reporting of dreadful, dreadful! discrimination against women in Israel and its speedy happy ending, and felt myself manipulated without being able to put my finger on it.
If you read in the local gazette about local police conscientiously giving mandates for littering to even most prominent local politicians, you don’t immediately suspect that the whole suburb, police included, is a one large pedophile ring, do you? You have just been litter-washed.
And, as Prof. Ellis explained we have all been Wall-washed. And in Area C it is still an offence to own water-carrying containers, while Palestinian.
“And, as Prof. Ellis explained we have all been Wall-washed. And in Area C it is still an offence to own water-carrying containers, while Palestinian.”
I guess whether a female can daven while female in an area under Israeli control is more of a priority for some than carrying a water container while being Palestinian?
http://www.cjvoices.org/article/davening-while-female/