Opinion – Page 83

Make sure you vote

Voting always matters. But this election is among the least predictable in living memory. British Columbians’ choices could tip the balance to one party or another, or determine whether the next government is a majority or a minority.

In a world where journalists are advised to write to a Grade 8 reading level, the Jewish Independent is proud to treat our readers like adults. We will certainly not suggest for whom you should vote nor deliver a civics lesson on the importance of voting. We merely remind you that polls are open this Monday, Oct. 19, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. If you have not received your voting card in the mail, visit elections.ca for details on how to vote.

We also invite you to review the four articles we have run in recent weeks, featuring representatives of the four parliamentary parties. At jewishindependent.ca, you can find interviews with the leaders of the Liberal party, the NDP and the Green party, as well as a senior Conservative cabinet minister. Each makes their case directly to Independent readers and we urge you, if you have not already, to take the time to review these pieces, since Canada’s top political leaders took the time to speak with us in order to get their messages directly to you.

OK to disagree

Last week, at the annual parade of speeches by world leaders at the United Nations, Binyamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas were among those using the General Assembly podium as a pulpit for their respective cases. To say there is disagreement between these two individuals is an understatement. Netanyahu rightly condemned the hypocrisy of the world, and its ostensible parliament in which he was speaking, for its ludicrous obsession with the Jewish state while parts of the Middle East literally burn. Abbas offered the “laugh line” that the Palestinians no longer need to be bound by the terms of the Oslo process. The humor, such as it is, comes from the fact that the Palestinians never bound themselves to Oslo. While Israel had a long list of obligations under the peace process, the Palestinians effectively had only one, which they have ignored: stop inciting your people to genocide and prepare them to live in peace with their Jewish neighbors. To come to the UN and make the case that they have been forced by circumstances to abandon principles they never accepted in the first place is typical of the made-for-TV claptrap this annual performance has become.

In Canada, though, we have a different problem. While others in the world find it impossible to agree on much of anything, our political leaders are finding it tough to find much of substance upon which to disagree. Oh yes, when you watch the debates and the bombardment of partisan ads, it seems like there are chasms between the parties. There really are not. Some of the differences – the number of refugees we should take in, the recipe for economic advancement, approaches to social issues – mostly come down to nuance and decimal points.

There is such a thing as too much agreement. Is it a distinctively Canadian characteristic that our politicians should careen so insipidly to the middle of the road? An election campaign is the time when parties should be ferociously demonstrating their differences. Yet when we delve into the actual policies and plans, one potential government looks much like another. This may be, thankfully, due to the fact that we are among the most fortunate people in the world, blessed with natural resources, human wealth, economic and political stability and relative peace. That’s great.

But when we do see genuine differences of policy and approach, we also see a disparaging of exactly the phenomenon we should be encouraging. It emerges in the use of the term “wedge issue.”

We have heard this a lot in recent weeks. The Conservatives are accused of using issues like the niqab and Canada’s support for Israel as wedge issues. The implication is that the very discussion of these topics divides Canada in an unwholesome manner, that the issues are being raised solely for political gain.

Well, any issue raised in an election is raised for political gain. If opposition parties think the Conservative approach to Israel or the niqab or anything else is off base, they should advance their own case and let voters decide. That’s how election campaigns are supposed to work. It is a cop-out to deflect an issue outright by dismissing it as a wedge. If anything, an election campaign is precisely the time to accentuate differences. In a little more than a week, voters can decide who is right and who is wrong.

More or less immigration?

For political nerds, last week offered a cornucopia. A week ago Wednesday, 11 Republican candidates for president of the United States lined up in front of Ronald Reagan’s Air Force One and squabbled, insulted, demeaned and debated one another. The next night, the three leading candidates for prime minister of Canada lined up and, in a more Canadian manner than their American counterparts (albeit, perhaps, in a more American manner than most previous Canadian debates) did much the same thing.

There was plenty to differentiate the two events. The production values of the American version were Hollywoodesque. The Canadian debate looked high schoolish. With 11 candidates in the American debate, content took a back seat to quips and barbs. The Canadian debate was somewhat more substantive.

What was common between the two was an emphasis on immigration and refugees. With the refugee crisis in the Middle East and Europe making front-page news worldwide, and immigration a perennial hot button issue in the United States, candidates came at the topic through particular prisms.

The Republican candidates mostly clamored over one another to burnish their anti-immigrant cred. Who could build the highest, most impenetrable wall along the southern border, it seemed, was the worthiest candidate. The day after the debate, a pro-immigrant organization released a video that contrasted the current crop of candidates’ comments on immigration with those of Ronald Reagan, in whose presidential library the debate took place and who is generally venerated among Republicans.

Reagan, at least in his rhetoric, viewed America as a “shining city on a hill” to which people around the world aspired to come and where, presumably, they would be welcomed. Typifying the prevalent approach of current Republican candidates, Donald Trump said before the debate: “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best.… They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”

Emma Lazarus Trump is not. The American approach to immigration once – before the 1920s and at intervals since the Second World War – was idealized in Lazarus’ poem, affixed to the Statue of Liberty, and it clearly does not demand “the best” from other countries: “Give me your tired, your poor / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free / The wretched refuse of your teeming shore / Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me / I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

It can still evoke chills. Chills that are different from those evoked by the language and views of some of today’s Republicans.

What was encouraging in the Canadian debate the next day was seeing our leaders similarly clamoring over one another, but in this case to burnish their pro-immigration cred.

We recognize that some of the people we welcome have endured great challenges, and need resources and programs to learn the languages of our country, develop or adapt their skills, perhaps recover from deep trauma. Piles of evidence prove that immigrants and refugees who come here succeed brilliantly.

Of course, Jewish Canadians especially may be torn between heart and head on this matter. Our families came here, more often than not escaping repression and violence, and we understand the life-and-death implications of immigration policies.

We also understand that many immigrants and refugees today are coming from places that deliberately inculcate antisemitism in their citizens, who have been known to then act out on these impulses once they move to places where Jews exist. However, the current crisis involves refugees who are fleeing violent jihad and are likely to be among those Canadians who are most vigilant against that form of hatred.

Above all, we need to understand that we are one world. We need to address security challenges at home and confront, with our allies, the sources of those challenges. This security imperative impacts on our immigration policy, but we should not delude ourselves or punish those who need refuge by pretending we can immunize ourselves from world realities by closing our doors.

Gender equality lacks

Political parties are sometimes accused of pandering to blocs of voters, especially at election time. The Conservative government’s vocal support for Israel, for example, is seen by some as a slick means of grabbing Jewish votes. (Jason Kenney, the minister of defence and multiculturalism, responds to this claim in this week’s story, “Kenney discusses priorities.”)

But it would be nice if, every now and again, a government was accused of pandering to the biggest bloc of votes of all – women – because it might mean someone is actually paying attention to their issues.

This is slippery terrain, because all issues are “women’s issues.” Women care about the economy and foreign affairs, as well as domestic affairs and social issues. Yet government actions (or inaction) and societal norms still play negative, detrimental and sometimes fatal roles in the lives of women and girls.

We are now more than halfway through the longest federal election campaign in living memory. This Sunday – a month less a day before the Oct. 19 election – has been dubbed a National Day of Action on Gender Equality. The day, initiated by women in Canadian film and television, is intended to “stimulate more public dialogue on gender equality,” especially on social media.

Women and men all across Canada who support gender equality are being asked to get active on social media on Sunday, especially between the hours of 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. Pacific, using the hashtags #WomenVote, #elxn42 and #cdnpoli.

The day of action has been in the planning for some time, but the timing is particularly providential, not just because the election is approaching – that was obviously planned – but because of a shocking and damning report just made public about the place of women in Canadian society.

An internal federal government report marked “secret” was obtained by the CBC under the Access to Information Act. Obviously not intended to be made public, particularly at the peak of election season, the report by Status of Women Canada paints a largely dismal picture.

Canada has one of the developed world’s biggest pay gaps between men and women, below average support for child care and parental leave, and our Parliament ranks 57th in the world in terms of female representation. Poverty among single elderly women and female-headed households is increasing.

Perhaps most damningly, Canada does not have a national strategy on violence against women. Rural and immigrant women are at particular risk of being victims of violence – and aboriginal women are 450% more likely than other Canadian women to be murdered.

With the refugee crisis making front-page news daily, foreign affairs has taken an outsized role so far in this election campaign. Moreover, for many in our community, the foreign policy positions of the various parties already figure prominently in our calculations as we ponder our democratic options.

It is worth reminding ourselves that, as rough as things may be elsewhere in the world, we still have an imperfect country here and these are also things we should be addressing with those who seek our votes.

Be present as possible

On Rosh Hashana we will be inscribed and on Yom Kippur we will be sealed, who will live and who will die, who by fire and who by water. It’s a jarring incantation. Religious or not, however, this time of year – with fall approaching, a new school year starting – is a time for introspection and account-taking that extends to the very essence of our mortality.

Unless we are consciously faced with it, it is rare for people in our society to think deeply about our own deaths. (For an interesting reflection on the topic, see page 46.) But we would do well to keep the transience of life closer to front of mind throughout the year – not to be needlessly grim or to dwell on the negative, but because it is life’s finite nature that affords its value. Like anything that is limitless, life would lose some of its value if it were unending.

Time is central to Judaism. We mark the coming and the going of the day, the arrival of Shabbat and the return to the week, the numerous times in the calendar that call our attention to the seasons, our history, biblical events, the new year.

Time is likewise central to our existence. Our lives have a beginning and an end; what happens in the middle is what we make it, given the resources we are born into or develop. We do not know when we will die nor what happens to us afterward. We know, though, what happens when others die. We grieve our loss.

We lament and experience stages of pain and eventual relative acceptance.

At this time of year, as we gather with families and in our congregations and communities, there are countless obligations placed upon us. Our tradition tells us that we accept these obligations willingly and with openness. Our tshuva may be painful or involve humbling ourselves to make amends with those we have harmed, but we do this to improve ourselves, our relationships and our world.

In some interpretations, this is when our personal fate will be determined. But our attention naturally turns also to those around us. Who will be at the table this Rosh Hashana and not next? Whose presence do we miss even more keenly at this time of year than on an average day?

We are reminded now not to take for granted any of those we love. This is something we should certainly commit to carrying with us throughout the year. The presence of loving family and friends is a joy that we can easily forget to appreciate and we must remember to value these moments.

We should also be reminded of the presence of loved ones in a different, more ordinary sense. Perhaps there has never been a society more distracted than our own. The most obvious distraction is our digital devices, which can remove us from the presence of those we love even as we sit across from them at a table. Other distractions have been around longer – worries about work or some other aspect of our lives; obsessions and addictions; the myriad things that can take us away from what is truly most important in our lives.

As we mark the High Holidays and the start of a new year, let us be thankful for the presence of those around us, and let us try to be as present as possible in return.

Changing Israel education

In the longstanding debate over whether collective narratives should be transmitted as capital-T truth, or whether they should be challenged and problematized, there is a flurry of activity around rethinking Israel education for the next generation. As if they were speaking to each other (they weren’t – neither creative team knew of the other), a short documentary film and a new curriculum have emerged to address an apparent gap in critical thinking around Israel.

The director of the short film Between the Lines, Ali Kriegsman, was frustrated with the kind of Israel-right-or-wrong messaging she received growing up in Jewish day school. In the film, she interviews students, rabbis, Jewish educators and professors who each suggest that it’s time to allow the light of critical thought into our community’s classrooms when it comes to Israel.

As a professor who teaches Israeli-Palestinian relations, I am well aware that the kind of one-dimensional Israel education that some students receive does not make them well placed to take in the more intellectual, critical-thinking approach that is the hallmark of higher education. But where the film makes its most counter-intuitive suggestion is in the area of Israel advocacy on campus.

The film suggests that even for those who want to create effective Israel advocates, the current tone of Israel education falls short. Kriegsman, who says she “wants to see improvement and justice in Israel,” believes that “antisemitism still exists in the world” and is troubled by the fact that the Palestinians “are marginalized and mistreated and settlements continue to expand,” puts it this way. She believes that a student who has been force-fed a simplistic view of Israel and arrives on campus where the discourse is almost inevitably contentious and polarized will do one of three things.

In one scenario, the student will become embarrassed by the actions of the country they were taught to idealize and thus choose to detach entirely. In another scenario, the student will draw on the “AIPAC”-style advocacy “bubble” they lived inside during Jewish day school and will become completely closed to any alternative narratives. In this scenario, the hypothetical student might become an “exaggerated version of a day school student” – discriminatory and racist. In a third scenario, the hypothetical student may feel “duped or betrayed” by her Jewish day school education and burn her emotional connection to Israel entirely.

Having premièred at a SoHo loft in New York City, the documentary – which received seed money from the Bronfman fellows alumni fund – is slated for a West Coast première in October sponsored by a Los Angeles synagogue.

Unbeknown to Kriegsman, as the film was being made, a rabbi in Madison, Wis., was creating a new curriculum that appears to address the conceptual gaps that Between the Lines identifies. Called Reframing Israel, the curriculum is meant to address what Rabbi Laurie Zimmerman saw as a major deficiency in Israel education at the elementary and high school level: “There was virtually no published material that asks students to think critically about the conflict.”

The rabbi wants kids to think in more complex terms, to be inspired to look at Jewish texts.

How do you cultivate compassion for both Israelis and Palestinians? How do you understand Palestinian stories?

Rather than emphasize a “love” for Israel, Zimmerman uses the term “connection.” As she puts it, “We pick one of the following: Eretz Yisrael (the Land of Israel), Medinat Israel (the State of Israel) and Am Yisrael (the Nation of Israel). We ask, What does it mean to be connected to each of these?”

She has been piloting parts of the program over the last couple of years. Last year, two 13-year-olds created a debate with each other on the question of the one-state versus two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “It didn’t matter what they believed,” she said. Rather, the act of articulating the critiques was really valuable.

Some critics of this open-minded approach will claim that, to be agnostic about whether Israel remains a Jewish state (given that a one-state solution, in its democratic form, would basically spell the end of Israel as we know it) is itself a betrayal. Zimmerman, however, “trust[s] kids enough to draw conclusions that are sound and solid.”

As for what kind of Jewish student she hopes to send to campus once they have graduated from religious school, Zimmerman wants to send kids who are “inquisitive; have open minds, can evaluate an argument, apply their knowledge; research a position and make an informed choice. I guess that makes me radical since I’m not trying to send kids to campus to defend Israel. I care mostly that they go to campus and think deeply about being Jewish, about their connection to Israel, about Palestinian perspectives. The role of education is to create people who are actively engaged in their communities.”

Mira Sucharov is an associate professor of political science at Carleton University. She blogs at Haaretz and the Jewish Daily Forward. A version of this article was originally published on haartez.com.

Breathe in and breathe out

Life in its individual expression is finite. Nearly all of us accept that. Living things reproduce themselves, so life goes on in that way. But, for the individual, life begins and, after a time, it comes to an end. An important thing is that, for most of us, we do not know when this ending will come. It is indeterminate.

Because the end time is unknown, we have the illusion, in the immediate, that life will just go on, is just going on. We are alive, we are full of plans, we are the centrepiece of the circle we have built around ourselves; it seems like it will go on forever. Certainly, in our younger years, the question of an ending hardly ever arises in our minds. Our lifetime stretches out before us into the dimly perceived future.

Am I discussing a question of universal import, or am I obsessed with my personal condition? Yoohoo! Do I still have you with me?

Even for those of us who are older, particularly those of us who are active, seemingly in good health, our lifetime also appears to be elastic. The events inhabiting our lifetime fill our consciousness. But we are aware of statistics. We see that our ranks are thinning. Some, even many, of those contemporary companions with whom we began our journey are missing at roll call. These realities do give us pause. How many more beautiful sunrises, how many more flaming sunsets will we witness? The languorous minutes of an afternoon with friends in inviting surroundings, imbibing all the consumables that yield to us their potential for pleasure, absent the pain to which all flesh is heir, how many more times will those unique experiences be ours?

I am exhilarated by being a part of the essential life event, the experience of being a living, breathing, feeling being. I know not if we are the sole sentient creatures in this universe, but I am grateful that it has fallen into my fortunate lifetime to experience this place and this time. How many of you out there must feel the same? None of us is guaranteed a life solely made up of music and roses. The inverse is true for great masses of humanity. But each of us, in some small measure, finds those moments of existence, those instants when we bless the stars that we are present, that we are here. It is inherent in being alive, in the human life experience. We really know only the present. Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow is speculation. I tell myself to ignore the extraneous. Breathe in and out; find those elements in our current experience that give us enjoyment in this instant of being alive.

Today, here in Vancouver, harvest time continues for tender fruits of all kinds. Sumptuous fruit, which for most of the year command a king’s ransom for purchase, is still being offered in the grocery outlets for a mere bagatelle. Earlier in the summer, mounds of red, ripe strawberries were being displayed in our markets in the form of architectural wonders, tempting us to reach out and bring those fruity edifices crashing down as we indulge the urge to taste. They were there, stressing the most disciplined. Blueberries, which, for most of the year, are retailed by the ounce, have been urged on us by the pound. Peaches, nectarines and melons of all kind compete for our attention on the groaning boards. We are overwhelmed with nature’s bounty, what is here and what is yet to be on offer, as the season progresses. These are just the ordinary things of the seasonal round, but they are a soft whisper of the simpler pleasures lavished on those of us who are alive.

Consumables are just an asterisk, a footnote, compared with the joys of human companionship. Were we blessed with tasks in life that stretched our potential, labor that was worthwhile? Did we find a person in our lives with whom we dared to show our essential vulnerability? A parent, a sibling, a friend, a teacher, a lover, a creature, with whom we found a basis for growth that might lead to healthy adulthood, with whom we distilled a shared experience we will remember unto death? Did we find a place and people where we felt that sense of peace, identification and commitment that determined the paths we would follow during the rest of our lives? Do the beauties of the natural world we inhabit bring home to us how tiny an element we are in the cycle of life of which we are a part? Have you looked up at the stars lately, preferably in a place where they are not blotted out by our man-made illumination, and understood just where man stands in the greater scheme of things?

We may be infinitesimal in our universe, less than the insects beneath our feet in the world man is astride like a colossus, but our tiny lives are full of meaning for us in the sheltered universe we seek to construct around ourselves. How central to us are our individual lifetimes. For most of us, our consciousness is concerned primarily with little else. How could it be otherwise? We mirror the behaviors of all the living species on our planet, seeking to ensure our survival and enhance our lifestyles. It is written in our DNA.

For some, the vision is a little broader, but even for them, the object is the enhancement of our lives in the broadest sense.

Let us toast the now of our lifetimes! To life!

Max Roytenberg is a poet, writer and blogger. An octegenarian, originally from Winnipeg, he is newly returned to Canada from Ireland and enjoying Vancouver with his bride.

Aliya changes a personality

Salomon Centre for American Jewish Thought fellow Eliana Rudee, left, and senior editor Joanie Berger enjoy lunch in Chicago. (photo by Paul Miller)

As I sit on a bench at the First Station in Jerusalem, just about to leave Israel for a weeklong conference in the United States, I watch the people around me on the most perfect Thursday. A bodybuilder-looking man feeds his young daughter and smiles at her as he leads the spoon of food into her mouth. Friends laugh and chat over ice cream, and couples walk hand in hand alongside the train tracks.

Suddenly, a sadness cascades over me as I get a too-familiar feeling of intense sadness that I experience every time I leave this amazing country. Some people call it the “Israel bug” and others call it “post-Israel depression.” Whatever it is, it feels like you’re about to leave something fulfilling and head towards a more robotic, mundane life. It means leaving behind the “Shabbat shaloms” heard from storekeepers on Thursdays and Fridays, and heading towards the “Merry Christmases” from storekeepers throughout December. It’s leaving behind the transcendent resonance of the shofar and heading towards elevator music while you’re on hold with the credit card company for the umpteenth time. It’s leaving the buzz of the people crowded into the shuk and heading towards the metronomic beeping as items are scanned at the grocery store. It feels like I am headed in the wrong direction.

But then I remember – I live here. I live in Israel. I am coming back in less than a week, and even though I am still sitting at the First Station in Jerusalem, I already cannot wait to come back. This is the epitome of my feelings for Israel, the land with which I am completely obsessed and the land that I am so very thankful to call home.

It was at this moment that I realized yet again that I have made the right decision by making aliya. This place truly fulfils me and fills my life with a sense of meaning that I have found only in my happiest moments elsewhere – an intimate gathering with my extended family, the moment I realized I had fallen in love, a birthday party that brought together all of my friends from the many parts of my life, and the feeling of learning something in college that changed my perspective on life.

As I write, I realize that these feelings are quite mushy-gushy, which (honestly!) is not usually how I am. So, in true rational form, I have concluded many times that I may be idealizing Israel, as my previous trips to Israel had been spent vacationing with family or new friends. But then, I think, how could I not idealize as I sit in the Jerusalem sun as the weekend hits, feeling so happy and sad at the same time? I honestly feel like a changed person in Israel.

My mom tells me that even before I was born, my personality was the same as it is today: I know what I want, I work hard to get it, I am rooted in facts and reality and I am a perpetual list-maker. I do things a little differently than most, and I like to lead others and pass along my passions. I am impatient and, because I feel so strongly about what I believe, my passion and confidence can often come off as inflexibility and stubbornness.

In Israel, much of my personality is unchanged. But I have found new parts of my personality finding expression and I think it is more a reflection of Israel than of myself. In Israel, I am quite able to express my emotions about this place, something that I would have found difficult and somewhat silly before. A new friend actually called me “artistic” the other day, something that I have not been called since I was very little.

After talking about Myers-Briggs with friends over the weekend, we decided to retake the test. After years and years of getting the same results, my personality profile shifted from “sensing” to “intuition.” This means that before I came to Israel, I paid more attention to the information absorbed through my five senses, but now I pay more attention to the information I receive through intuition. It also means that perhaps I am now a little more interested in the bigger picture than the details, the meaning behind the events, and new possibilities.

But I digress. Why I think this is worth mentioning is because I believe that something about being in Israel has changed this in me and has the power to change everyone who visits. When people have asked me why I chose to make aliya, I resort to talking about my feelings rather than rationality. (After all, I am not sure that someone who is purely rational would make this decision to move here!) I usually find myself saying something like this: “Well, there are a number of reasons why I moved here. One is because when I first came I fell in love with this place. I came back a number of times in the next several years, but it was never enough! I feel a fulfilment here that I missed when I lived in the U.S.” And then, when people look as if they want a more practical reason, I explain that my boyfriend and I were both thinking about living here before, so we chose to come together. It’s also a great place professionally, as a writer, because I write about Israel all the time. Rationally, it makes sense to be living in Israel if I am writing about Israel.

Previously, in explaining my decision to others, I would begin with the rational and move on to the emotional only if pressed to do so. But something about this place makes me tap into my emotions and intuitions. My theory about why this occurs is this: being in Israel inspires self-reflection in a way no other place does for me.

Israel’s history, culture, language and religion all relate to my past, present and future because of my identity as a Jew and my values of self-determination and freedom. My ancestors longed for the actualization of these values, died for the actualization of these values and survived for the actualization of these values. And now, I am helping to actualize these values by being in the Jewish state. This automatically triggers a cheshbon hanefesh – introspective monitoring about how well I am continuing to actualize the values that I find to be more important than my own being. I am, therefore, prompted every day here to integrate the values into my life, my actions, my choices.

As I am headed to the United States for the first time since making aliya, I reflect on the fact that even my choice to come for this week was based on these values. I believe to my core that creating the conditions for every person to find meaning in their lives should be a goal of humanity. For many Jews, finding their identity within the context of their culture, family and traditions means finding their identity within the context of Judaism. Israel is the place to find that identity, as nowhere else in the world do Jews come together like this to honor our past, present and future, actualize our values and traditions, and return to the only land that is inextricably tied to our identity as a people.

I came to the United States this week in order to be trained as a Birthright leader, someone who leads a group trip of young Jews to Israel, often for their first time, and guides them in learning about their own identity as a Jew. Birthright Israel and I share the same mission of creating the conditions for Jews to find their identity and meaning. I hope that, in this next week, I will learn to most effectively carry out this mission. And I think there is no better reason than this to leave my precious Israel, even for a week.

Eliana Rudee is a fellow with the Salomon Centre for American Jewish Thought and the author of the new “Aliya Annotated” column for jns.org. She is a graduate of Scripps College, where she studied international relations and Jewish studies. She was published in USA Today and Forbes after writing about her experiences in Israel last summer. Follow her aliya column on jns.org, facebook.com/aliyaannotated and instagram.com/israelgirl48.

Migrants fleeing for their lives

Interior ministers from the 28 member-states of the European Union will meet next week to address the crisis of migrants flowing into the continent from across the Mediterranean. But just what constitutes a crisis – and whose crisis is it?

Some politicians and commentators allege that the migrants are primarily “economic refugees,” people just seeking economic advancement. But Britain’s Guardian newspaper reports that 62% of the refugees who made it to Europe by boat in the first seven months of the year were from Syria, Eritrea and Afghanistan, with more coming from Darfur, Iraq, Somalia and Nigeria, all places where mere survival in war-ravaged zones supersedes economic advancement on the hierarchy of needs.

Fears stoked by the stream of migrants have led some, such as the British foreign secretary, to warn that the entire European social order is endangered. In fact, the 200,000 migrants who have made it to Europe so far this year represent 0.027% of the total EU population. Compare these numbers with the situation in Lebanon, a country of 4.5 million people currently hosting 1.2 million refugees from the Syrian civil war.

There is no question that much of the social unrest in Europe these days and a vast proportion of its antisemitism derive from immigrants from the same parts of the world from which today’s migrants originate. That is not a problem to be easily dismissed. But neither is it a justification for ignoring a humanitarian crisis.

Addressing the small proportion of radicalized or Jew-hating individuals within groups is an issue that Europe must confront and address – and it has so far not done an exemplary job. But the problem facing the migrants in their places of origin makes the “crisis” faced by the places in which they hope to settle pale in comparison.

Europe just happens to be the nearest beacon of freedom and peace these people can reach and, therefore, they are clamoring to make their way to the continent. But it is the responsibility of all of us, Canada included, to accommodate a share of people seeking escape from violence and war.

Israel has also been a destination for African migrants and the treatment of some has rightly raised concerns of refugee watchdog groups and, last month, the Israeli Supreme Court. The court ruled that the migrants who had been held in a sort of low-security detention facility, about 1,200 people from Eritrea, Sudan and Darfur, could not be held longer than a year. They were not confined to the encampment, but were required to be present twice daily for a roll call.

In all, Israel has about 45,000 asylum-seekers, the vast majority from Eritrea and 9,000 from Sudan. Most made their way by foot through the Sinai into Israel’s southern frontier. Most have been given visas that allow them to stay but not to work, which puts them in a predictably difficult position.

Meanwhile, countries like Hungary are rolling out razor wire along the southern border, an entry point to the European Union, beyond which migrants are comparatively free to travel throughout the 28 countries of the EU.

Recent days have brought particularly horrendous news, with 71 refugees, including a baby, found dead in a truck in Austria, victims of profiteers exploiting the desperation of migrants trying to reach Europe. In Libya, more than 100 bodies washed ashore after a boat sank filled with people trying to cross the Mediterranean. At least 2,600 people are known to have drowned this year in similar incidents.

It is a sign of the desperation that drives this mass migration. Most of these people leave behind everything they have to make their way to what they hope will be a peaceful and prosperous future. They are met with suspicion, incarceration, violence and worse.

It is a striking reversal of the Jewish people’s own history of the 20th century, when those trying to flee Europe were denied entry at every turn, including to what was to become the Jewish homeland in the Middle East. Now, thousands of people from the Middle East are fleeing to Europe and facing every obstacle.

It should not be ignored that many of the refugees are coming from places whose education systems and popular culture instil suspicion and hatred of Jews (and Western culture), and this will be no consolation to the remaining, beleaguered Jews of countries like France. But that underlying problem – and it is a significant one – must be addressed over the long term both in Europe and in the countries where cultural norms breed intolerance and antisemitism. In the meantime, thousands of people are fleeing for their lives and the world cannot turn our backs.

Enriching or superficial?

With the High Holidays around the corner, I have noticed my usual light bout of pre-holiday anxiety. So much always seems to ride on this part of the Jewish calendar. For strong believers, there’s the spiritual reckoning. For the less religious who still care about affiliation, there’s the loaded nature of synagogue attendance, compounded by the challenge of pricey tickets. And, for the simply social, there’s the pressure of ensuring some communal marking of the calendar.

Amid all of this, Reboot – an organization that bills itself as “affirm[ing] the value of Jewish traditions and creat[ing] new ways for people to make them their own” – is taking a lighter touch: its annual 10 questions project. Sign up at doyou10q.com and, starting on Sept. 13 and lasting 10 days, the website will email you one question per day encouraging you to engage in the kind of personal reflection that is customary during the intervening days between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur.

Once completed, the answers are sent to Reboot’s “vault” for safekeeping, and users can decide whether to share them or not. Either way, one year later, Reboot will send the answers back to the participant, and the questions will be posed again, so one can see what changes in life perspectives occur over time.

It’s a truism that Jewish life is fundamentally communal. A quorum of 10 is required for prayer; weekly Shabbat dinners are often an extended-family-and-friends affair; Jews are encouraged to educate their children Jewishly in a group setting; Jewish summer camp focuses on intense communal experiences; and bar and bat mitzvahs are marked by a public aliya la-Torah.

So, are individual, web-based initiatives like Reboot’s enough to scratch the itch of Jewish communal practice? Or are they, in their push-a-button way, a frivolous addition to what should be undivided attention to the technicalities of Jewish literacy and to the bricks and mortar of conventional Jewish life, where Judaism is experienced publicly and communally?

This question isn’t a surprising one, but it may be misplaced.

In the age of “destination” bar and bat mitzvah ceremonies, where almost no one from one’s community may be in attendance, and in the age of concierge Judaism – a term the Jewish Outreach Institute now uses to suggest that Jews may be looking for an array of products and services tailored to their own individual needs – and in the generation of the Millennial who seeks to refashion Judaism to suit her own sensibilities, Reboot knows that one has to reach Jews where they are.

But there’s more to it than simply realizing that initiatives like Reboot may be what’s needed to save do-it-yourself-style Jews from disconnection. Despite the absence of Hebrew or Jewish texts or a group of Jews sitting in a study session with a rabbi, initiatives like the 10 questions project is not a challenge to Jewish literacy at all. In discussing the initiative with colleagues, I realized that, without Reboot’s initiative, I might never have given those intervening days another thought.

In my typical hectic pace, I would likely be rearranging my work schedule, securing a break-fast invitation for my family or deciding whether to host one, and practising the Haftorah my shul has asked me to prepare for Yom Kippur morning. No doubt the personal reflection bit would fall by the wayside and, even if I did try to engage in it, it likely would not be as fulsome as that encouraged by the kinds of daily questions Reboot sends. That kind of thinking and writing – including being faced with one’s past challenges – takes immersive effort, both intellectual and emotional.

So, tailored-and-trendy versus tried-and-true may be a false dichotomy, after all. We would be better placed to think of Jewish life as being enriched by as many touch points as our current crop of Jewish innovators can create.

Mira Sucharov is an associate professor of political science at Carleton University. She blogs at Haaretz and the Jewish Daily Forward. This article was originally published in the Canadian Jewish News.