Blogging the Torah — Shabbat Zachor: Remembering, Zippori and Beyond

by Gail F. Nalven

I marvel at the resilience of the Jewish people. Their best characteristic is their desire to remember. No other people has such an obsession with memory.  — Elie Wiesel

Elie Wiesel was right.  We Jews are big on remembering.

We remember those who have come before us at their yarzeits, and with the breaking of a glass under the chuppah.  We remember our redemption from Pharaoh’s hands each year at our seders.  We remember the military victory of the Maccabees every Hanukah. And we remember the murder of 6 million each year on Yom HaShoah and utter the words “Never forget,” as if we need an extra reminder to remember.

This Shabbat is the Shabbat of memory: Shabbat Zachor, which always falls on the Shabbat before Purim.  Just before we celebrate one of our most joyous holidays, we remember the evil.  The Torah tells us, in our special maftir section from the end of Chapter 25 in Deuteronomy, “You shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Lo tishcach: Don’t forget.”  Essentially we are told to remember to forget Amalek, and his descendants, who are thought to include Haman, whose name we blot out with boos during the reading of Megillat Esther.

Remember to forget?  If we forget entirely, we will not remember.  If we remember entirely, can we go about our lives?

Memory is a funny thing.  When I was younger, and I would complain about something, my Aunt Minnie used to say that there was my version, the other person’s version (the other person was usually my mother,) and somewhere in the middle was the truth.  There is personal memory and collective memory and it can be somewhat disarming when we hear a story that is so far from the story that we have always learned.

This idea was never as evident as during our day in Zippori with the Leadership Institute, a group 40 Jewish educators from the NY area who have been traveling thoroughout Israel and discussing change.  Zippori is about halfway between Haifa and Tiberias in northern Israel. There we met Amin Muhammad Ali who told us the story of his childhood in the town he calls Saffuriyya.  He now lives in Nazareth “temporarily” as he says, but keeps the memory alive of the night of July 16, 1948, when, as he says, the Zionists forced his family and his neighbors from their homes and their land. Amin told us this story, with great drama and emotion, through an interpreter, in a Arab cemetery in Zippori.  I suspect that he remembers this story quite a lot. I suspect that he has made a life of remembering.  He told us his tale of war and relocation.  He told us his history.  He told us that he wants to “come back to Saffuriyya and live with the Jews who live here now…We are waiting for peace, real peace.”  He sees no differences between the Arab and the Jew but has a problem with the Zionists.  (Shlomit, an Israeli educator who was part of our guide team, explained that by Zionist he means “everyone who came to Zippori after 1948.” So that would essentially mean all of the Israelis.  Was she correct?)  I was waiting to hear why Amin wanted to meet in this cemetery.  Was there a massacre? A desecration? No, not that we heard.  Clearly, this was a place where the impact of his memory could be felt most strongly.
We then heard an entirely different narrative.  This was our story.  We visited the ruins that have been uncovered in Zippori.  The ruins where Yehudah HaNasi, the redactor of the Mishnah, lived and worked.  We sat in the remains of the synagogue where he prayed and we remembered the beginnings of the Talmud.  We saw the amazing mosaics and imagined his life and the society there. Why did Yehudah HaNasi go to Zippori? The Talmud answers that question (Ketubot 103b): “Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi was in Bet She’arim, but when he became ill, they brought him to Zippori, for it is high and has good air.”  That it does. So this place has become part of our collective memory, our history as Jews.

And after being steeped in Jewish memory, memory that goes back almost 2,000 years, we were brought to the present.  We visited the home of our leader, Roberta Bell-Kligler, the Head of the Department for Jewish Peoplehood at the Shdemot Center for Community Leadership at Oranim College.  The previous day, Roberta and her colleagues had organized a ground-breaking conference bringing Israeli educators and American educators together.  Roberta and her family lived on Moshav Zippori, a collective founded by 200 holocaust survivors in 1950. She explained that she moved to Israel years ago with a group of friends from Berkeley. In her lovely home, a stone’s throw away from the digs we had just visited, we were shown pottery handles, stones, and ancient money that she had found nearby.  We heard of the children that she and her husband raised there. We also heard the view of Israelis who live their lives in the modern Zippori.  This is their home. The Zippori where they live, and work, and created families, and created new memories.

As with most stories, the story of Zippori is complicated.  And it is filled with many sides of remembering, all of which we should not forget.  Albert Einstein said: “Memory is deceptive because it is colored by today’s events.”  That certainly is true in Zippori.  Today’s events and yesterday’s events.  And as my Aunt Minnie might have said, somewhere in the middle of all of these stories lies the truth.

For more information, check out these links:
Article on Amin Muhammad Ali: http://electronicintifada.net/content/israel-begins-sell-refugees-land/8394

Zippori National Park: http://www.parks.org.il/BuildaGate5/general2/data_card.php?Cat=~25~~685252593

Oranim College: http://friends.oranim.ac.il/node/86

The reflecting continues....

Twelve days, 39 educators and 575 miles later, I am still unpacking and reflecting upon my time in Israel as a Fellow in the Leadership Institute. We learned, studied, pushed the boundaries and one another’s comfort zones. We brought tough, difficult and sometimes painful dialogue to the table. We laughed until we cried, and at times, only cried.

We visited schools and participated in an international conference with Israeli teachers. We met a man named Amin who shared his family’s story of losing his home in 1949 and his dreams of one day seeing his grandchildren play on that land. We spoke with Jews who were trying to build community in a land where they felt they had no community. We met with innovators and leaders in grassroots movements from inspiring at-risk youth to emboldening a liberal, pluralistic voice in an increasingly conservative, intolerant atmosphere. We walked in the footsteps of the Talmud and watched the newest in modern performance art and audience participation. We celebrated Shabbat with progressive Jews who are pioneers in Israel by taking their inspiration for practice from Jews in the United States. We forged the beginnings of relationships for our schools and classrooms that are built on ancient connections in a modern context. We met people who are as concerned as we are about our future; and together we embraced a challenge to find a new language in which to converse about what lies ahead. In the words of Amin, we are “one land, many peoples.”

For me, being in Israel is at once complex and a home-coming. I am overwhelmed by emotions and questions. I feel a part of the very land, something I don’t feel in New York. I have traveled all over the world, photographing and working; I feel different in Israel, and the complexities and emotions are not numbed, but heightened with each visit.

Our physical journey began in the desert and we traveled north to the bustling metropolis of Tel Aviv, then north to the Galil and south again to end in Jerusalem. Every day was a coalescence of the historical and the modern, our collective memories and the individual experience. And every day I was forced to face the troubling questions and conflicting emotions. Visiting a public school in Haifa and seeing all the wonderful accomplishments this community has made in the face of adversity filled me with pride; and yet, the school remains segregated and Arab children attend a different school. Local leaders in Yerucham have seen real success in turning inward for strength, notable in the number of young adults who have now returned as teachers to a place they once ran from in droves; and yet, those on the outside still scornfully refer to this isolated place in the desert as a “settlement town,” even after 60 years.

And then there is Jerusalem. So much complexity wrapped up in the framework of religion, identity, history, past and present. Avraham Infeld, a leader and trailblazer in Jewish education tells us that “…Jews do not have history; Jews have memory.” In Jerusalem, this electrifies the air.

Our story is tied to every story in Israel, whether it is thousands of years old or unfolding today in front of us. Our story is connected to every story of every Jew around the world, whether it is thousands of years old or unfolding in front of us. This pulls me in and reminds me of why I am a Jewish educator. This is more than an idea and tugs at my heart; it reminds me of why I am an artist. My story is part of this incredible tapestry. My children and my students are a continuation of the threads.

I am still here and as confused as ever

Our Israel Seminar highlighted the complexities of the life here in Israel. Visiting my friends who have made aliyah has emphasized the challenges our people face here.  All my friends’ political views span the entire spectrum from right to left.  Last night one friend told me she won't ride the new light railroad train because it passes through Arab villages and their is no security on board.  She took me and showed me a new Jewish neighborhood built in the middle of Arab villages.  Because of the way I framed a question, she finally said that the Jews did encroach upon Arab land but saw nothing wrong with that. 

Afterwards I joined another group of friends who are left wingers.  We talked about the Jewish settlers disregard for Arab Lands.  How there really is a land grab and the government either can't or won't stop them.  In yesterday's Ha'aretz Newspaper, an article reported that the legislature is allowing settlers to build unpaved roads around their settlements on Arab Lands.  Another article talks about settlers violating the Oslo accords by incorporating Arab lands from territory that is under PA control and Israel security.  I highly recommend following Allen Katzoff's blog "Seven Months in Tel Aviv" for me hard hitting investigative fact filled blogging.

Today I attended my first commanders' ceremony.  Still another family's son graduated as a sargent in the Tank Corp.  They invited me to attend.  How could I refuse?  There were 140 young standing tall, proud, and enthusiastic getting their stripes.  Before the ceremonies, the families gather around picnic baskets for a festive meal.  We watched them march in and fall in formation.  With the razzle dazzle of presenting arms, standing at attention, and at ease, these young men wowed their families.

At the end of the ceremonies after they received their promotion and threw their berets in the air, the official part of the ceremonies were over.  My friend's son unit danced and sang arm in arm.  The sheer happiness on their faces was infectious.  Their whole future lay in front of them.  Along with the mazal tovs, I also thought to myself these young men will have to deal with all of Israel's complexities and challenges of settler vs those who want a 2 state solution, of the ultra-orthodox vs those who want no religious coercion, of Jews vs Palestinians, and of Jews vs Arabs.  What a heavy and hard burden for these 19-20 years old.

Yerucham -- Digging Deeper

 By Gail F. Nalven

Yeruham (Hebrew: יְרוּחָם‎‎, יְרוֹחַם, Yeroham) is a town (local council) in the Southern District of Israel, in the Negev desert. It covers 38,584 dunams (~38.6 km²) and had a population of 9,400 in 2006. It is named after the Biblical Jeroham. Modern Yeruham was founded on January 9, 1951 as Kfar Yeruham (Hebrew: כְּפַר יְרֻחָם‎‎). It was one of Israel's first development towns, created to settle frontier areas in the early days of the state. It was located near the Large Makhtesh, an area thought at the time to be rich with natural resources.

For many years, Yeruham was economically depressed and suffered from image problems, but major efforts to improve the quality of life are under way.

--- Wikipedia

Yerucham is a story that goes much deeper than its Wikipedia description.
It was our second day in Israel with the Leadership Institute.  We arrived after sundown and spent the first night at Kibbutz Mashabei Sadeh. http://www.m-sadeh.org.il/ewelcome.htm  under and almost full moon.

Reuven Sthal

Still tired from our journey, we entered Yerucham, a town deep in the Negev.  There we met Debbie Goldman HaGolan who introduced us to this growing town and  Atid Bamidbar -- the Future is the Desert, an organization that organizes Jewish study programs and community projects.  Yerucham is a town where religious and non-religious live and they all come to the Youth Center where we met Reuven Sthal.  Reuven is helping to expose kids to math, engineering, and science through robotics.  This is about "giving kids a way to dream, widen their horizons...the sky's the limit."   There are robotics teams for all ages and one team is currently involved in a national

Debbie HaGolan

The Robot

competition. frc3211.com

We then met Rachel, from a religious school for girls.  This school is providing high level education for 130 students from different communities.  The curriculum includes religious studies and modern studies.  Students go from Talmud to the sciences, physics, and biology.  They use the shared laboratories for the high schools in town and engage in art, drama and the study of Israel.  There is even family

Rachel at school, with her daught

education in this school.  Funded by the Ministry of Education, almost all of the students pass the Bagrut, the standardized test for all students in Israel.

What we didn't know was that the highlight of our day was still to come.  We were invited into homes in the community for lunch. Atid Bamidbar established this program as a way for these women to earn some extra cash and to share their stories.  One group went to the home of Mazel and Jojo. http://leadershipinstitutetheblog.blogspot.com/2012/02/culinary-queens-of-yerucham-put-sallah.html.  My group went to the home of Leah who insisted that we eat before we talk.  After a wonderful meal of many courses, she told us of herTunisian father and her Libyan mother.  They met in a camp for new olim -- immigrants to Israel and helped to establish a moshav and lived on Kibbutz Tirat Ziv, a religiously kibbutz. Leah spoke lovingly of her parents who were nurturing and encouraged her and her siblings to grow. She was one of a family of 9 sisters and 4 brothers, all of whom became "academics." Leah said that she was a teacher.

She told us of her husband was mental illness.  And knowing that she had to leave the marriage, she called her husband's brother, a doctor in America.  Afterwards, we discussed how we were all speculating on what she would ask for. I thought she would asked her brother-in-law to take him to America.  Others thought she would ask for money for a divorce. What Leah did ask for was money to go to therapy, because she knew that with therapy, she could gain the strength to leave her husband and move on with her life.  Her son and then daughter were there to hear the story and even a grandchild appeared. She has 4 children.

At the conclusion, Leah asked for questions.  I asked for recipes.  And she was thrilled to share.



Red Cabbage Salad
Sauce   
Balsamic Vinegar, Soy Sauce, Olive Oil, Sugar  
Make the sauce two days in advance
Cut cabbage and cover with sugar in fridge for two hours.
Rinse off the sugar, and mix with the sauce.  Add sesame seeds and nuts.
"Whatever you have in the house."

Tirsme  (I think this is what it was called.)                                                                                    
This was a tasty orange dip.
Cook and mash (I think you could process)
1 pumpkin -- I think she meant butternut squash                                                                    
white potatoes, 1 kilo
Mix with 2 sweet peppers (red, orange, yellow), a little hot pepper, kimmel, garlic, and oil.
Add lemon to taste

Orange Peel
Rachel added the most wonderful orange peel to her cookies.  She put the orange peel in the over to dry.  When it was completely dry, she ground it into a powder.  She sent me off with a wonderful sample of the powder.

Mifgash Means Encounter, Part 1

By Ira Wise

Six months ago, some of us thought holding a day long conference with the Fellows and Mentors of the Leadership Institute and a group of Israel public school principals was not a good idea. We are bringing people thousands of miles for a mere 9 days of traveling and learning in the land. How could we devote more than 10% of that time in classrooms? We were certain there would be a revolt.

Still, the plans progressed. Evie Rotstein - our fearless leader - along with Roberta Bell-Kligler and David Mittelberg and the rest of their staff at Oranim framed the conference around the idea of Jewish Peoplehood.  Mittelberg described the idea of Jewish Peoplehood as emerging from a dialogic discourse. It describes both process and content. He invited the combined American/Israeli group of educators to explore and model what Jewish People can emerge to be. 

Doctor David Mittelberg

He cited two studies (NJPS 2000 and Avi Chai/Guttman 2012) that indicate that both American and Israeli Jews have between an 80 - 93% sense of connection to the Jewish people. So what is the problem with that? Why a conference and a whole department of Jewish Peoplehood at Oranim? Mittelberg says that both Israeli and Diaspora Jewries are partial and incomplete. Neither can do it on their own. Both communities see imparting a sense of connectedness to our children as real challenge.

In Israel, he said, being Jewish is a matter of fact. In the United States, it is a matter of choice. The problem is both in variety of degree and in type. In Israel being Jewish is taken for granted. In the U.S. being Jewish cannot be taken for granted. And being born Jewish in either place is no guarantee anymore that you will stay Jewish. He suggested that only in our mifgash (encounter) with each other can we make up for each of our deficiencies.

He said quite a bit more, and I refer you to the resources at the bottom of this posting for more detail. It was an amazing mifgash. So much so that this is coming in three posts, as I sit at Ben Gurion waiting to go home a week later. I was skeptical about having this conference. It was the highlight of an amazing trip with a wonderful group of educators. Evie, I was wrong. You, Roberta and David were right. Now we need to have more of these mifgashim between American and Israeli educators or it will just have been a great day. It needs to be the beginning of a long and truly essential conversation.


Resources on Peoplehood:
Convergent and Divergent Dimensions of Jewish Peoplehood - David Mittelberg (pdf)
Jewish Peoplehood Education: Framing the Field - Shlomi Ravid & Varda Rafaeli
Towards Jewish Peoplehood - David Mittelberg (pdf)
Jewish Educational Leadership - A Guide to Jewish Peoplehood

Crossposted to Welcome to the Next Level

My Dvar Torah for Shabbat Shekalim our last Shabbat together

By Rabbi Gary Greene

I have to admit that I am a bit nervous speaking to you. You are my friends who have high expectations from me and I’ve seen what wonderful educators you are.  I don’t want to let you down.  The committee didn’t give me any instructions about the length of this D'var Torah. I don’t know how long or short it should be. When I am nervous, I tend to ramble.  I remember when I was a “green” rabbi interviewing for my first pulpit, I was nervous and spoke a little too long.  In the receiving line, I began to apologize for speaking too long.  One woman tried to make me feel better by saying: “Oh Rabbi, you didn’t speak too long. It only felt long.”  I figure it would be good to do both again today.

As you well know there are 4 special Shabbatot surrounding Purim and Passover to help us prepare physically and spiritually for those holidays.  This Shabbat marks the first special Shabbat, Shabbat Shekalim.  In the second Torah portion, the Torah imposes a flat tax of a half Shekel upon Israel.  “This is what everyone who is entered in the records shall pay; a half-shekel and from the age of 20 years up, shall give the Lord’s offering: the rich shall not pay more and the poor shall not pay less than a half a shekel.”  (Exodus 30:13-15)  Everybody had an equal share in maintaining the Holy Temple, the Bet HaMikdosh. 

This tax was due by the 1st of Nisan.  The rabbis ordained that this parasha reminder should be read the Shabbat before Rosh Hodash Adar as to give the Jewish people time to save their prutot in order to pay their tax bill. 

Ever since we landed in Israel, we‘ve been spending shekalim instead of dollars.  What a way to make the Torah reading more tangible!  Since shekalim look and spend more like monopoly money I’ve been thinking a lot about money.

I’ve learned more Torah from Mary Douglas, a British Catholic anthropologist, than almost all my JTS professors. She wrote in her book The World of Good that our money has no intrinsic value.  Unlike the silver dollars of old, our paper bills are literally worth only the value of the raw materials plus the manufacturing costs.  We assign value to the bills and make them one dollar, five dollar, ten dollar, 50 dollar, and 100 dollar bills.

Looking at money that way, we can understand money as value markers.  Where we spend our money shows us where our true values lie.  One person will value a car more than another and is willing to spend top dollar for the newest car with all the bells and whistles while another is just as happy with an old jalopy to get him back and forth from work.  Both cars do the same thing, travel from point a to point b, but one person values a car more than the other.  When I was a rabbinical school student and needed to buy a set of Talmud, off course I had to purchase the top of the line and not a cheap off-set copy.  They both contain the same words, but I valued the Talmud and my money flowed to the most expensive set as an expression of my values.

My father z”l taught me that if you really want to learn about a person’s deepest held values, don’t read his autobiography.  You’ll just get his politically correct spin. Which book do you have to read? Read his check book! Our ancestors valued the Temple and its central role in the life of the people and demonstrated it by donating a half shekel to the Bet HaMikdosh. 

Although I haven’t seen any the check books of the following people I know where their values lie.  I want to appreciate and thank all the people who truly value  the Leadership Institute.  First I appreciate and acknowledge the contribution of the Federation who by their grant makes this whole institute possible along with this trip.  I’ve already learned so much.  It has changed my life.  I know all of you share my sentiment that this institute and this trip to Israel is a real gift.

I want to appreciate thank all the mentors, those here and those who could not come.  Although they are actually working hard while we are enjoying the fruits of their labor here, they had to contribute out of their own pocket towards their trip like all of us did.  They have truly put their money where there mouths are.

Of course, I want to thank Roberta and Ronit on this side of the pond and Evie and Beth on our side of the pond for all they have done for us.  Words are inadequate to describe their contribution to our success as educators.

I know that I speak on behalf of all of us as I conclude “Todah Rabah min halev!”

Shabbat Shalom!

Once Again, A Moment in Time

 by Gail F. Nalven

Pre-Shabbat and the shuk, Jerusalem’s Machane Yehudah marketplace is bustling with shoppers.  All are walking fast through the rows and rows of luscious fruits and vegetables.  The colors are amazing.  The smells of the home baked challah and cakes are in the air.  I quickly bypass the meat and fish stalls which are not so appetizing.  I notice that there are new stores, “real” stores, and not just open stalls.  There are now sit down restaurants and not just quick falafel stands.

Rehov Sukkat Shalom, just outside the shuk

I find myself standing in almost the exact spot I stood on Yom HaZikaron, 1997 when the 10am siren blew.  Yom HaZikaron is Israel’s memorial day.  A day to remember those who died on the battlefield, and in terrorist attacks.  It is not marked with sales and bar-b-ques as in the US.  It is a solemn day.  When the sirens blast, everyone stops in their tracks.  People get out of cars, off buses.  And they remember. For just a moment. For everyone knows at least one person who has died, before their time.


As I stood in that same spot before this Shabbat, I remembered the woman who had stood in front of me 14 years before, holding her packages and weeping.  I remembered the newly painted stalls that terrorists had blown up just a short time before, killing innocent shopkeepers.  I remembered people stopping to mourn. There was a silence not often heard in the marketplace. And then the siren stopped.  Everyone picked up their bags. Everyone move on, getting on with their lives and the business of keeping Israel going, keeping Israel alive.

Mourning is not a business here.  It is not a full time occupation that makes Israeli’s building monuments taller and taller into the sky.  It is appropriate and life goes on.  And Israel continues to stand.

Note:  This post is also published @tefillah.wordpress.com.