Jews Obligated to Stand Against Discrimination
Jews Obligated to Stand Against Discrimination By Rabbi Ari Ballaban
While out to dinner a few weeks ago, I had an unusual conversation with a stranger. During it, I glimpsed something discomfiting about the Jewish duty to stand in solidarity with those of other minority faiths.
When I meet people outside of my normal circles (who don’t know me from either Temple Beth Or or my doctoral program), it is fairly common for them to be curious and to ask me questions related to my being Jewish; this is especially true of those who have not interacted much with Jews before. That is how this encounter began. The stranger with whom I was speaking informed me that he was Christian, I told him that I was Jewish, and he happily peppered me with questions about Judaism.
Our conversation was completely pleasant…until it wasn’t. It went awry when he (proudly!) informed me, in what I experienced as an attempt to show his own solidarity with Jews, that: “I’ve seen a few synagogues before; I’m always happy to see them. What I don’t like seeing are mosques.” This comment was, obviously, a showstopper. After rebuffing his sentiment, I reluctantly continued in a polite-but-terse discussion with him, and I was only too eager to finish talking and say goodbye. I do really mean it when I say that this conversation had been quite pleasant. However, my perception of him—and the situation I was in—had greatly changed.
For days after this conversation, I wondered about this man’s motivation in sharing such a repulsive, bigoted sentiment with me—me myself being someone of a minority faith, someone whom he had just met, no less! All I could imagine was that he had internalized from the general American ether that Jews dislike Muslims, and that, as such, I would be encouraged to hear that he too harbored such intolerance.
The more I thought about this encounter, the more I reawakened to one of the realities of discrimination that makes it such an insidious issue: In the real world, very few of those who harm others, those whom we would like to call “villains,” stand around twirling a mustache.
So, let us be fair to this man. It is not as though it is unfathomable how a person in the United States would think such a thing. We live in a post-1948 world, 70 years after the creation of the modern State of Israel, where the conflict between Israel and her neighbors—most of whom are majority-Muslim—has been acrimonious and public. The bitter fruit of this decades-long, bloody conflict has been the deterioration of a once-healthy relationship between Muslims and Jews.
Leaving aside the political realities of Israeli peace plan politics (the minutiae of which I can’t meaningfully discuss here), we ought to recognize how sad and problematic it is that Jewish-Muslim relations (interfaith matters) have been a casualty of this longstanding political dispute. Even though we may have political disagreements (and exceptionally heated ones at that) with regard to Israel, we should work to ensure that a long history of Jewish-Muslim fellowship not be abrogated without a second thought.
In that vein, after further reflection, it might be true that my non-mustachioed interlocutor may have been less heinously villainous than my initial gut-instinct indicated. Nevertheless, we can’t, as Jews, become inured to the denigration of the “other.” It remains our ethical obligation to stand up and to control the discourse on Jewish-Muslim relationships in our time. So long as there are those who imagine that Jews would be sympathetic to any notion of discrimination, we still have work to do.
Rabbi Ari Ballaban
Photo by Juan Camilo Guarin P on Unsplash
Music Brings Israeli Society Together
June 1, 2018 by tbo5275 • Rabbi Chessin's Column • Tags: Israel, Jewish music, Muslims, Politics, Rabbi Judy Chessin •
Music Brings Israeli Society Together By Rabbi Judy Chessin
Israeli society is complicated. There are crushing geo-political concerns on its borders and cultural differences among Israel’s own citizens. Within Israel’s Jewish population there are tensions between secular and observant Jews, and Ashkenazic, Sephardic and Mizrachi Jews, not to mention the differences among Israeli Arab Muslims, Christians, Druze, and Bahai.
In 2017, a secular Israeli producer, Or Teicher, noticed observant Jews passionately invoking piyutim (songs of repentance) at the Kotel, the Western Wall, on Yom Kippur. He began to wonder if he could bring ordinary Israeli strangers together to sing with the same fervor. With his two partners, Michal Shahaf Shneiderman (who runs an Israeli ad agency) and charismatic Ben Yefet (a director and composer) he dreamed up Koolulam. He created a social initiative dedicated to bringing Israelis together from across the divides of age, race, class, religion and demography to sing. The name Koolulam is a combination of the Hebrew words Koolam (everyone), Kol (voice), and Olam (world).
On December 17, 2017 the three directors gathered 600 secular Israelis, many of them with special needs, in Tel Aviv. After 45 minutes of practice, the group learned three parts of a song – in English. The result was filmed and posted on Facebook. The next day, the American rock band Imagine Dragons’ lead singer marveled at his band’s song “Believer” as produced by Koolulam. He posted the video on his webpage stating: “This 600 person choir singing ‘Believer’ blew my mind this morning as I watched. So much passion.”
Next, it was on to Haifa, in February, when Koolulam asked 3,000 Muslims and Jews (none of whom had met before) to learn the song “One Day” by Matisyahu. In one hour, they learned how to harmonize the lyrics in English, Hebrew and Arabic! The resulting concert was a breathtaking display of unity as the participants sang: “All my life I’ve been waiting for, I’ve been praying for, the people to say that we don’t wanna fight no more. There will be no more wars and our children will play…one day.”
When Yom Hashoah, Israel’s Memorial Day for the victims and resisters of the Holocaust arrived, Koolulam gathered 600 Holocaust survivors and three generations of their descendants. Together they belted out Ofra Haza’s song “I’m Alive:” Ani od chai, chai, chai; I’m still alive, alive, alive. Am Yisrael chai: The nation of Israel is alive. Zeh hashir sheSaba shar etmol le’Abba; This is the song that Grandpa sang yesterday to Dad. Vehayom ani; And today it is me!)
Next, Koolulam unveiled its largest event to date. For Yom Ha’atzma’ut, Israeli’s 70th Independence Day, 12,000 people joined Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin, famous musician Shlomi Shabat, Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai, and MK Gila Gamliel to sing Naomi Shemer’s immortal ode to the beauty and the pain of life in Israel, Al Kol Alei, For all these things: (For the honey and the sting, for the bitter and the sweet/ Don’t uproot a sapling. Don’t forget the hope.)
Koolulam has no fancy website or complicated marketing operation. They merely have their Facebook page on which they announce their next venue and sell out tickets within an hour. The production is filmed and then shared via Facebook, YouTube, and WhatsApp. They are propelled by the excitement of bringing the people of Israel together in a social choir full of hope and optimism. Koolulam’s slogan is “Singing Is Believing” and whether they deem themselves religious or not, I feel sure their voices reach the Divine!
In a discordant and divisive world, here is a brilliant project inspiring hope, idealism and peace. Do yourself a favor and search “Koolulam Project” on YouTube, Facebook or Instagram. It will make your heart soar!
B’shalom,
Rabbi Judy Chessin