Seder discussions

[wil]

The time of year, the haggadah, the readings, contemplations are tough this year with the American Jews. (That I know). There is less faith in the state than I have seen in my lifetime, and while it is younger generations that are more vocal, the effect is seen across the community.

A post...

Every year on Passover I lead my own Seder with a Haggadah compiled from various sources over the years, and with a different focus at the intro to tie it into something that is feeling alive for us collectively at the moment. Last year was freedom, as the concept of what it means to be free coming out of the pandemic had been a focus. But Passover this year was much harder to grapple with than usual. I was honestly at a loss for words on how to reflect on the recent escalation of the ongoing war in Gaza appropriately. But I did so, thanks to the help of a post by Doug Foote. This is how we started our Seder this year…

Like many Americans Jews, we sit around this table saying things like “let all who are hungry come and eat.” We’ll say this while our tax dollars are funding the bombing and starving fellow humans. Gaza has the highest proportion of people living with food deprivation in the world, as an article in The Guardian recently wrote: “There is no precedent for what is happening.” This is not caused by drought or crop failure, but by a military bearing the Star of David from a country I was raised to respect, defend, and honor as a homeland. Passover is a holiday explicitly about the liberation from slavery, from mitzraim – the Hebrew word for Egypt, translating to “a narrow place.” Can we think of a narrow place where people are not free to come and go as they please? October 7th was truly terrible and we deserve to defend ourselves from a terrorist regime who wants to eliminate the Jewish people, but how can Jews say we are ambassadors for peace while so many civilians, including children, are dying at the hands of a Jewish State? How can one humanely calculate “reasonableness of response” when both sides violate international law? How can we make Passover this year something other than darkly ironic or deeply hypocritical? This year let’s focus on our collective hope for Peace…

 

[RJM]

October 7th was truly terrible and we deserve to defend ourselves from a terrorist regime who wants to eliminate the Jewish people, but how can Jews say we are ambassadors for peace while so many civilians, including children, are dying at the hands of a Jewish State? How can one humanely calculate “reasonableness of response” when both sides violate international law? How can we make Passover this year something other than darkly ironic or deeply hypocritical? This year let’s focus on our collective hope for Peace…

It takes two to tango

 

[wil]

It takes two to tango

Yup...but when my Jewish 60 year old friends who have been supporting that states actions for their entire lives suddenly give up supporting the apartheid and genocide... I find it interesting.

Another....

POLITICAL FRUSTRATION ALERT. IF YOU DON'T WANT TO HEAR MY POLITICAL BLATHER, READ SOMETHING ELSE.

This Passover, I'm thinking about what it must've been like to celebrate Eid in the US in 2002.
Because there is similarity:

Some people who associate themselves with my religion did something truly monstrous. They did it as a retaliation in an endless chain of retaliations. And now some people tell me that I must do something to stop the monstrosity of my people. As if we are all one people, and I, as one of the good ones, have some special sway over the bad ones that will convince them to amend their ways.

And there is difference:
After 9/11, there was worldwide condemnation of the horrible act. The act was seen as a smear on the religion. But this time, although the horrible act again has been smeared into religion, it isn’t fully condemned. Not here in the U.S., anyway. There’s recognition that it isn’t good, but somehow not bad enough for our leaders to really discourage it. And although a religion was wrongfully smeared in both instances, I’m honestly not sure which scenario is worse. I can only really understand the scenario I’m hip-deep in, and that scenario is a mess.

Despite celebrating Passover with friends, it didn’t feel like a celebration this year. For me, anyway. It felt more like seeking affirmation that we were still OK. And I don’t feel we are. I was raised to believe our religion is opposed to oppression. But currently… people have taken sides on which oppression to oppose. When I drive to work, I pass under bridges with people supporting Israel and others with people supporting Palestine. The graffiti in the streets of Washington DC and in the stairwells of Artomatic are arguments of strike throughs and blotted out slogans calling to stop the genocide and to free the hostages. Last year, these people were all in the same oppression-hating group.

We’ve followed a drawn line and chosen sides. But the line cuts the wrong way. It’s not Netanyahu and Israel /Hamas and Gaza. It’s Netanyahu and Hamas/ Israel and Gaza. The monsters continue to be monsters and use the rest of the people as pawns.

This isn’t any great revelation. I think we all know this logically. But I don’t know if we can all know this emotionally – myself included. We are so good at dividing and disagreeing with each other, I worry that even though we understand that the split is toxic, the monsters that created the split will make it stick.

 

[RJM]

apartheid and genocide...

Emotive buzzwords for a complicated condition.

War is terrible. But peace cannot be achieved while one party continues to attack from tunnels under hospitals and civilian areas and call for the annihilation of the other -- man, woman and child -- from the river to the sea, imo

Peace takes two sides

 

[RJM]

The Orthodox rabbi at Columbia University and Barnard College sent a message recommending Jewish students leave campus and go home as anti-Israel agitators have continued an "encampment" on campus and participants were caught on camera espousing full-on support for terrorism and supporting violence toward Jewish students

Columbia rabbi tells Jewish students to leave campus, warns that school, NYPD 'cannot guarantee your safety'

A Columbia rabbi told Jewish students to go home before Passover and not come back until the campus environment is safer in light of anti-Israel protests.

www.foxnews.com

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[muhammad_isa]

Peace takes two sides..

Yes, it does .. so how will Israel achieve peace .. how can Israel change International condemnation?
How can Israel appease Palestinians? How can Israel appease Iran etc. ?

 

[wil]

Orthodox rabbi at Columbia University and Barnard College sent a message recommending Jewish students leave campus and go home as anti-Israel agitators have continued an "encampment"

Fox"news" is often not. While FOX would not struggle to find an orthodox or ultra orthodox voice to support their stand, it would be tougher today to find a conservative, reformed, renewal or reconstruction rabbi to donthe same. Anti isreal protests today in US have a noticeably higher percentage of Jews in the US AND are stated as anti Isreal, anti aggressive zionist protests NOT antisemitic or anti Jewish as they have been portrayed in the past...that propaganda ship has sailed.

wil said:
apartheid and genocide...
Emotive buzzwords for a complicated condition

Not buzzeords....accurate statements of the past decades of actions in the area. Idk what is going on your side of the pond, but the tide is turning over here and the American Jew is tired of carrying water for the state of Israel and getting beat up for it.

In the past I have gone to Seders with proud Jews, proud of their heritage, proud of the state of Israel, proud to invite this guy to their tradition and show its worth to their families.

This year there was consternation among them, they choked on the words of the prayers and the apologies the hagadahs took them thru... it was not the same holiday....and my friends were not blaming the Palestinians this year...but the govt and military for misuse of the power and trust given to them.

 

[RJM]

Fox"news" is often not

I just pulled the first paragraph from an extended article. I doubt the facts of the article are in dispute

anti aggressive zionist protests NOT antisemitic or anti Jewish as they have been portrayed in the past...that propaganda ship has sailed.

That's not what the article says

 

[RabbiO]

I just pulled the first paragraph from an extended article. I doubt the facts of the article are in dispute
That's not what the article says

I share the same distrust/distain with @wil of Fox News. At the same time I would also submit, however, that I suspect that I know a great many more Jews than he does - Jews across the denominational spectrum, across the political spectrum. I know Jews who are young and old, parents and children, boys and girls, men and women and those struggling with defining their gender identity. I have personally listened to the voices of college students and their parents as they have shared their experiences on college campuses. I have not been personally immune to unpleasantness during the last 6 months. wil’s remarks show no understanding of what is going on a college campuses and elsewhere.

I find wil’s remarks disheartening - not because of his criticism, right or wrong, of Israel, but because of his utter and complete blindness to the wave of anti-Jewish sentiment that has been unleashed.

 

[RJM]

Huge rise in antisemitic abuse in UK since Hamas attack, says charity

589% increase in number of incidents described as ‘watershed moment for antisemitism in the UK’

www.theguardian.com

The scale of the surge in antisemitism in the UK since Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October has been revealed, in data showing a 589% increase in the number of incidents compared with the same period in 2022.

The Community Security Trust (CST), which monitors anti-Jewish abuse and attacks and provides security for UK Jewish communities, said the unprecedented increase was a “watershed moment for antisemitism in the UK”.

James Cleverly, the home secretary, said the rise in anti-Jewish hatred and abuse was “utterly deplorable”

The CST said Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October was a “trigger event [that] had a seismic effect on antisemitic incident levels in the UK … and the impact was instant”

Mark Gardner, the chief executive of the CST, said: “British Jews are strong and resilient, but the explosion in hatred against our community is an absolute disgrace. It occurs in schools, universities, workplaces, on the streets and all over social media."

Read full article

 

[RJM]

so how will Israel achieve peace?

How would you say?

How can Israel appease Iran etc. ?

By ceasing to exist?

 

[muhammad_isa]

By ceasing to exist?

..but it has existed for decades .. its policies need to change .. but if anything,
they are getting worse.

In 2023, former Human Rights Watch director Kenneth Roth said that his organization had long refrained from interpreting the reality on the ground in terms of apartheid as long as there was a chance the peace process would succeed. Since, in his view, the process is going nowhere and the Israeli government is undermining a two-state solution, Roth concluded that Israel's policies in the West Bank have "all the elements of the oppressive discrimination that constitute apartheid"
Israel_and_apartheid - Wikipedia

..so no .. not by "ceasing to exist" .. the population in the region need to mature politically, IMHO.

 

[RJM]

It's complicated and the onus of peace does not lie with Israel alone.

 

[talib-al-kalim]

I share the same distrust/distain with @wil of Fox News. At the same time I would also submit, however, that I suspect that I know a great many more Jews than he does - Jews across the denominational spectrum, across the political spectrum. I know Jews who are young and old, parents and children, boys and girls, men and women and those struggling with defining their gender identity. I have personally listened to the voices of college students and their parents as they have shared their experiences on college campuses. I have not been personally immune to unpleasantness during the last 6 months. wil’s remarks show no understanding of what is going on a college campuses and elsewhere.

I find wil’s remarks disheartening - not because of his criticism, right or wrong, of Israel, but because of his utter and complete blindness to the wave of anti-Jewish sentiment that has been unleashed.

I don't have any Jewish friends or colleagues anymore since the only one I had emigrated to Canada five years ago, and the Rabbin was the first to leave the local interreligious discussion group (that finally dissolved two years ago). We are here in the Judaism thread, and there is one Jew. (I'm happy you are still here).

There's recently (even during Ramadan!!) been a 15 year old boy who, incited by Islamist indoctrination, tried to kill an Orthodox Jew (easily to be recognised by his outfit) he didn't know. Fortunately, he survived without major physical injuries, also because other people defended him.

In my view, there's no justification for such deed, but additionally, it's even highly illogical: If you condemn all Zionism and the fact that Jews have been forcefully taking land from the inhabitants of Palestine, the logical consequence would be to have them live in safety anywhere else!

I also said this in my small Muslim community, and all agreed. We are not an Islamist community anyway; there are others.

The only Palestinian (of course, he's only one out of many) said,

"They have been suppressed and killed everywhere, now they suppress and kill our people. And they (i.e. the Palestinians) come and kill. And those (i.e. the Israeli) come and kill even more. All those injuries don't make people better but worse."

There's a lot of injuries in the past and in present. Blessed are those who break the cross (the symbol of the schism between Jews and Christians) and abolish jizya (as a symbol of the schism between those two and Islam) now. A little peace of heaven, now!

 

[talib-al-kalim]

Have a nice Pessach, anyway. In those times, I would read Isaiah.

 

[wil]

I would also submit, however, that I suspect that I know a great many more Jews than he does - Jews across the denominational spectrum, across the political spectrum.

I surely would not bet against that! Lol.

I think most every Jew I know knows more Jews than I do.

My point...if it isn't clear enough...is that more Jews (that I know) are openly speaking against the actions of the state of Israel than I have ever seen speak out in my life.

Do you two think it is a lessor percentage than a year ago or a decade ago?

Hell, I ain't saying my understanding is wrong... I am stating my observation and posted a couple of my Jewish friends public remarks on social media for this place to discuss.

 

[RJM]

It's the way it quickly morphs into anti-semitism -- fuelled some believe by Iran, imo