Chanukah, Gaza, and Adolescence

As we go about a cheerful Seattle Sunday making preparations for our Ravenna Kibbutz Last Night of Chanukah potluck and party, I can't help this sinking feeling over the news from Gaza. The death toll is sickening -- and what the Times doesn't mention is that most of the "Hamas personnel" killed were probably low-ranking policemen who signed up for jobs in an embargo-strangled Gaza economy, not Islamist idealogues (like many of their brothers and sons will now become) -- but besides that travesty, one less-noticed headline really depresses me: In protest of Gaza attacks, Syria halts indirect talks with Israel.

Say what you will about the negotiations with Syria. At least they had a long-term strategic purpose. They represented hope, however tenuous, for a transformed future. What is the long-term strategic purpose of bombing the hell out of Gaza? What are we to hope for? Regime change? Has regime change by force ever not backfired in the Middle East?

Of course unending rocket fire in Sderot and Netivot is unacceptable. I spent much of this month on the phone with my girlfriend at her parents' house in Ashqelon, where sirens call them into bomb shelters in the dead of night and the hospital is now moving its operations underground. I am not sanguine about the rockets.

But there are adult and there are adolescent ways of responding to assault -- which is another way of saying maturity means knowing when and how to Be Patient.

When I was fourteen, I awoke to find an extra-juicy zit on my nose. Instant hate, of course. Being in middle school is hard enough without a red bullseye on your face. So I took the bastard between my thumbnails and squished and scraped it into a pussy, bloody little ruin. It looked worse, but I felt avenged and figured at least the infection was gone -- until the wound developed a new infection, Staphylococcus. No amount of repeat popping could kill that zit once it had staph in it, so I had to go to the doctor and take pills. Still I took aggressive revenge against it every morning, making the antibiotics' job more difficult and ultimately leaving a scar that I carry on my nose to this day.

Two morals, for two different situations: The first situation is one where natural forces, given time, stand a good chance of working things out. The average zit is no match for a healthy immune system, so leave it alone! The second situation is more serious, where it's so bad you can't just do nothing. The moral here is to choose your remedy carefully, and then let it run its course fully before throwing others after it. If I had just taken the antibiotics and turned my mind to some other embarrassing part of my teenage appearance, I probably wouldn't have this scar. But giving a remedy time requires patience, and I was not patient. I was fourteen.

The chosen remedy in Gaza was, rightly or wrongly, isolation. It was having some effect. The Gazan economy was frozen, people were desperate, and Egypt was motivated to be somewhat helpful, fearing a flood of refugees. The rockets hadn't stopped, but they had slowed. Would they eventually have stopped? Would mounting domestic frustration and bankruptcy eventually have toppled the Hamas government? We'll never know. Now Israeli bombers drop blood and chaos on the streets so every Gazan can see unambiguously who is to blame, and will rally behind Hamas without a second thought. All the volatile peace talks will evaporate completely and a new generation of anti-Israel ideologues and militants will be fortified by the 300 dead. Scars will be long-lasting.

I am not a rabbi any more than I am a foreign policy expert. I can only grasp military strategy in broad strokes, and likewise I think I'll leave analysis of the conflict through manifold Scriptural references to activist rabbis like Arthur Waskow and his counterparts on the right. My Chanukah-Gaza drash is very simple: being Jewish is all about playing the long game.

After a rousing Chanukah singalong at one of the kibbutz's Shabbat tables, a friend told me I was wrong, "Maoz Tzur" is not the Jewish holiday carol, it's the Jewish "Star-Spangled Banner": all about military might, plus it has that high middle section nobody can sing. But I still think if you just start low enough that high part is fine, and in context the Chanukah story is not about fighting power, it's about staying power. Why else are we still singing about escaping Pharaoh, or Assyria or Rome for that matter? Is the "Maoz Tzur" takeaway that G-d made us really badass before so he'll make us really badass now? Or is it that history is kinder to those who genuinely believe in what they're doing, than to those who opt for political, or military, expedience?

I asked an Israeli friend who supports the Gaza bombardment, how will this stop attacks against Israeli civilians? She replied that bombing Gaza must stop the rockets, because diplomacy didn't. It's illogical, but the frustration could not have been better stated. Pursuing diplomacy in the Middle East is like watching paint dry -- with a legion of fire ants in your underwear. Who wouldn't want to drop bombs if he had them?

But the Jewish trump card never was, and never will be brute strength. It's persistence. So let's get back to playing the long game. I think we're better at it.

Come Out, Come Out

The lovers and the haters of the Jews have one thing in common: we believe passionately in conspiracy theories. Last night I went on a field trip to watch Milk with a lovely crowd from the Ravenna Kibbutz. Before going, I happened to learn two things through the Internet. The first is that Sean Penn is an agent of the Jewish Marxist-homosexulist conspiracy. The second is that the photojournalism world is in a froth over a woman named, Jewily enough, Jill Greenberg. By night's end, I had a conspiracy theory of my own.

First, Jill Greenberg. She was hired by The Atlantic to photograph John McCain for the magazine's October cover. She delivered and it went to press. The flap is over unflattering photos from the shoot that Greenberg posted independently to her web site, and an interview in which she described using lighting to make the Republican's eyes and skin look bad because -- well, because Jill Greenberg thinks John McCain is bad.

Right-wing pundits were predictably angry, but so was The Atlantic -- accusing Greenberg of no less than betrayal and derangement -- backed by a chorus of photojournalists all in fits over the shame this brings upon their profession.

This sounded nutty to me. I can see calling Greenberg's stunt sophomoric, or deceptive. (I would call it both.) But deranged?

It seems her "betrayal" -- as with Jewish photographers Arnold Newman and Annie Leibovitz before her -- is that Greenberg injected her personal life into her photography. She has been loudly anti-Republican for long enough that The Atlantic could have found out in five seconds on Google (or just by asking), before hiring her to photograph the Republican candidate for President. But evidently the expectation is that personal politics shouldn't matter to a photographer. Why, that would make photography subjective!

I think it's goofy that this is a big, shocking deal. So, it seems, does Jill Greenberg. We don't get it, I realized at the theater, because we are part of the same conspiracy. A conspiracy of identity politics, and of pride. The Jewish Coming-Out Conspiracy.

Which brings me to the movie. What impressed me most about Milk was how Gus Van Sant, no Jew, could direct a Mormon-written screenplay with a Catholic star and still hit all of the Jewish themes pretty much on the head. As the film tells it, Harvey Milk's story begins the moment he comes out -- of the closet, to California -- to embrace rather than conceal his difference (read: chosenness). It is campaign manager Anne Kronenberg who gives Milk's inner circle the model of coming out to loved ones. And it is with investment banker-publisher David B. Goodstein that Milk pursues a visibility-versus-assimilation debate as old as the Hellenists and the Maccabees.

Harvey Milk's message is that politics must be made personal. His killer, Irish-Catholic Dan White, is enraged that politics cannot be kept pure. White probably wouldn't have cared for Jill Greenberg's photography either.

One skeptical of conspiracy theories might ask, what does LGBT identity politics (Milk) or Leftist identity politics (Greenberg) really have to do with the Jews? I would ask why, from Moses to Marx to Milk, do the Jews pop out so many of the rabble-rousing iconoclasts who keep shoving identity into politics to start with?

Vancouver-based artist Miriam Libicki, who is speaking at UW Hillel this Thursday, explores a related question in her comix-essay "Jewish Memoir Goes Pow! Zap! Oy!" published this month in The Jewish Graphic Novel from Rutgers University Press (with cover design featuring a Libicki watercolor). The essay seeks to explain why the genre of autobiographical comix is so dominated by Jewish stories and language, not to mention authors. Why, Libicki asks, have Jewish writers and artists been quicker than most to air publicly all the disturbing, titillating, inspiring stuff in their closets? (Think Philip Roth, Art Spiegelman.)

She posits an explanation, that Jewish culture is highly tolerant of imperfect heroes. Moses was aloof, Jacob was scheming, Abraham was deceptive, and Noah was a drunk. We (and G-d) love them anyway, so maybe a Harvey Pekar, or Milk, can put himself into public view, warts and all, and gain acceptance too.

We could take it even one step further: In Jewish culture, as in Jewish mythology, the only heroes we believe in are warty, imperfect ones. Christian culture idealizes a world with no more rough edges, and seeks transcendent heroes to match. Jewish culture idealizes a world where the rough edges just don't kill anyone, and maybe even are kind of awesome if you're in on the joke.

Any leader, then, who makes it safe to come out, strange rough edges and all, is the prototypical Jewish hero, and you can bet that his (or her) movement will be full of Jews in on the conspiracy. Why? Because it is the lot of every Jew to feel acutely strange. And it is the dream of everyone strange to one day come out, be strange, and thrive.

Christmasukkah, or The Miraculous Week-Long Burning of Hot Air

Reagan was right after all. Trees truly are responsible for the massive release of gas into the atmosphere. Witness the great SeaTac Christmas tree debacle, which has exploded into a national pissing match over the so-called "War on Christmas." (Oy, such a terrible burden to wield cultural dominance!)

Well, it's my town, so I couldn't resist weighing in (I held out for days, I swear) on the question of Christmas trees and religious vs. secular vs. "cultural" symbolism in the Postmodern Age -- a familiar theme in Jewish community, as we struggle to survive the rise of consumer culture. Local columnist Robert Jamieson wrote an editorial that I didn't like. Here is the letter I wrote in response:

Mr. Jamieson,

I am Jewish, and I happen to enjoy Christmas/Solstice/Festivus/Chanukah/etc. decorations. I agree with you that the Port's move to take down the trees was an unfortunate overreaction, though I think the general litigiousness of our culture is as much to blame as any decision-maker at the Port.

That said, I think it's way too easy -- and a mark of Christian privilege -- for you to say that Christmas trees are an innocuous universal symbol of "peace, hope and cheer" that everyone should just shut up and get behind. I can hear some good old boy in Georgia saying practically the same thing about the Confederate flag: its origins predate Southern slavery and it is meant to symbolize regional history and pride, so detractors are just party-poopers vying for attention.

Christmas Day was still a traditional day of pogroms in Jewish villages long after Emancipation. Unfortunately, the most generous holiday spirit of Christians today cannot erase the baggage of their cultural symbols for minorities who have legitimate reason to feel very differently about them.

We all value living in a diverse and tolerant community. The Jewish community is not protesting the celebration of Christian cultural heritage in public places. Why would you protest members of our community seeking to celebrate our heritage in kind? How would that ruin Christmas?

Respectfully,
Joel Rothschild
Seattle

I wrote the same thing into a local radio program on which a caller had expressed a view matching Jamieson's, and I attached a semantic footnote that, looking at it again, I find interesting and potentially useful:

I think it's way too easy (and a little bigoted) for secular Christians to say that the Christmas tree is a "secular" symbol while the holiday symbols of minority cultures are "religious." Both the Christmas tree and the Menorah are religious symbols. They are also both more than religious symbols: They are cultural symbols as well, and in that capacity the Supreme Court has permitted both to be celebrated in the public sphere.

I have often in years past found myself frustrated by the combative attitude of fellow Jews toward public expressions of the "Christmas spirit." I never said anything before, because I couldn't articulate my objection, other than to say it seems a petty fight to pick relative to the gravity of other concerns. (Perhaps that is just easy for me to say, not being a parent faced with the assimilationist vacuum-suck of glittery lights and heaps of new toys.)

Now I see that my uneasiness is with making a complex issue so black-and-white. How can we say that religious expression is oppressive, therefore it must remain private (tell me if this sounds familiar: "I have nothing against Christian people, but why do they have to do that in public? why are they promoting their sick agenda in my children's schools?"), whereas secular expression is somehow inherently neutral? Does it make sense to protest wreaths and lights in schools, and to not protest the equally Christian (and more powerful) English language?

It seems to me that there is a fine yet crucial line between fighting oppression, which is necessary, and fighting history, which is absurd. To return to SeaTac airport as a case in point, it is worth noting that there are religious articles on display there year-round -- local Native American art and artifacts -- to which no one (as far as I know) has ever objected. They bear annotations, museum-style, which neutralizes any implication that SeaTac airport is affiliated with or endorses the culture they represent.

I am firmly of the "Knowledge Is Power" camp, so I think that ignorance (likewise denial) is the surest mechanism of oppression. What would we accomplish by stripping Christianity's visible signs from our public sphere? Would it be easier or harder then for our children to identify Christian culture and its influence in their world?

The most pernicious sin of Christendom is the belief that its language is as universal as its desires. Therefore, the most subversive answer to Christianity's historical hegemony is to put its language in quotes.

SeaTac without Christmas trees is still the gateway to a community that is, no matter how secular, in largest part culturally Christian. Removing the trees from public spaces won't make them any less visible in all of the private stores and living room windows around the city, nor will it teach our children anything about our history and circumstances. Adding a Menorah (a Chabad Menorah, no less) to a Christmas tree display would at least signal the inclusion of other cultures in the community, but it would also risk further confusing Chanukah with Christmas.

Now imagine SeaTac with Christmas trees in a conspicuously annotated display. People who like Christmas trees would still see their beloved seasonal decor. Others would see an objectified statement of fact: that Christianity is a significant influence within this community, not the One True Faith, but one group's expression of faith, with its debatable aesthetics and historical baggage just like any other's.

If we would invest our zealous iconoclasm in forcing Christian culture to contextualize itself, rather than trying in vain to shame it into silence, we could ultimately do much more to neutralize the means of dominance. Perhaps we could also avoid offering Judaism up as the pawn between secular and religious factions of Christendom.

l'Dor v'Dor

(to Generation and Generation)

I spent last Shabbat in Olympia, in order to attend the downtown Saturday-afternoon tribute to an old teacher of mine who passed away. My hosts, Sherri and Neal, are actively involved with the traditional shul there, which emerged from the original Olympia synagogue as it became less of a big tent for the community and more an institutional party-line expression of Reconstructionist orthodoxy. Over lunch, Sherri and Neal described to me an all-too-familiar story: As the community grows, factions emerge to demand more denominationally narrow synagogue offerings. A traditional faction emerges and eventually splits off to form its own synagogue. Within this newly-liberated traditional faction there immediately appear two sub-factions -- one wanting to reach out to families, and one wanting to establish and protect a nostalgic setting. The synagogue as dynamic (and messy) playpen vs. the synagogue as lovely (and staid) museum piece. Now these factions are duking it out and meanwhile membership has plateaued.

I was visited by two insights from this tragedy. One is that synagogue life is dominated by generational politics. Every generation has certain distinguishing experiences, and consumer culture encourages us to seek, and demand, an environment that validates our own experiences. Consequently, the factions that fight over differing visions of what a synagogue should offer very often represent generational divides.

The second is that most of "Generation X" and nearly all of "Generation Y/Why" are absent from the clash. It is between the Boomers and those who came before them. I suspect that what has happened is that the pre-Boomer generations built an institutional infrastructure, within which the Boomers were raised as children later to reject it as young adults and build their own counter-culture. In the '80s and '90s, the demands of family life convinced the Boomers largely to return home, as it were. Then those old institutions, where the pre-Boomers had been entertaining themselves in relative peace and quiet, were flooded by waves of outsiders with a strong sense of birthright to be part of the inside, but also a couple decades' experience of doing things their own way. Voila! Generational struggle.

Meanwhile, Generation X, whose defining experience arguably is that the Boomers spoiled everything, has no desire to get involved in what looks like a fight between the Boomers and their parents. And Generation Y, having been raised by the Boomers amidst their ambivalence over returning to the old institutional life, doesn't feel half as entitled to -- nor half as interested in -- making that return. Which all begs the question: Where will Generations X and Y go to pursue an organized Jewish community life that suits them, while the synagogues scene is internally dominated by a power struggle between Boomers and pre-Boomers? The most obvious quick answer is, Israel and the Internet, but I think the question deserves deeper consideration.

The story of Sherri's and Neal's synagogue also reminded me of an old insight, from the last time I watched my own synagogue go through these travails. It is that matters of generational politics are actually much more resolvable than we are accustomed to presume. Creative multi-generational solutions are quite attainable. We tend not to attain them because we tend not to look for them in the first place. With the young-adult generations being relatively undetermined at present, with regard to organized Jewish community and what it's good for, yet eager to be challenged to leadership, I see a golden opportunity to propose the challenge of imagining functional multi-generational models.

For instance, if families with chidren would be involved in community functions, whether it be synagogue services or JCC classes or whatever, if only there were childcare or youth programming available at the same venue (this is a common issue of generational contention in synagogues, largely because the Boomers did not demand many accommodations when they first started their families, preferring to try to roll their own on the outside, so the synagogues grew accustomed to not having to deal with the problem so much), then why not challenge the younger Gen Xers and Gen Yers who don't have children yet to find creative and rewarding approaches to generating such accommodations, with the long-term payoff being that these will be in place for them when they do have children? Likewise, why not challenge the younger generations to build educational forums for us to learn from the elders in our communities while they're still with us?

Generational concerns provide potential content for the relatively blank slate of younger generations itching to take ownership of Jewish community. There are plenty of other, more selfish, possibilities; but it seems to me that the decision has not yet been made. There are options still potentially on the table that could spell great promise for our future.