Brit Tzedek v'Shalom

Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace

Israeli policy, local backlash alienate some in Austin Jewish community

The Jewish Outlook
By Tonyia Cone
September 2007

When American Jews question Israeli policy toward Palestinians, they frequently are criticized, pegged as leftists and called anti-Semitic or self-hating by other Jews in their communities.  In Austin, this has left some feeling that they can no longer be part of the public Jewish life.

After spending three months in Israel in 1990 and more time in the country in 1994, David Albert, a cofounder and chair of the Austin chapter and national board member of Brit Tzedek v’Shalom, the Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace, grew interested in politics in the region and came to believe that what he sees as Israel’s control and occupation of the lives of others is not good for Jews as a people.

“It undermines a lot of our Jewish ethical beliefs.  We’ve been oppressed.  For us to become oppressors is a destructive thing,” Albert said. “The current situation is bad for Israel’s soul.  It’s like a cancer that’s allowed to grow without treatment.”

Since then, Albert – who is writing a dissertation on U.S. foreign policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at the University of Texas at Austin – has been verbally insulted and asked why he hates Israel by other Jews in public forums.

Albert does not believe that controlling land makes Israel more secure and sees a two-state solution is in Israel’s best interest.  Stressing that these are his individual beliefs as a political scientist rather than as a activist or spokesperson on the part of Brit Tzedek v’Shalom, he said that, while his beliefs are often labeled as on the fringes of the spectrum in the United States, his stance is considered more mainstream toward the center of the political spectrum in Israel.

“The leadership in the American Jewish community comes to the right of where most American Jews are,” he said.  “They say they’re for a two-state solution, but the way they act is to slow down or undermine the diplomatic process.”

Ellen Blair, who said the conflict was humanized for her when she lived in the region in the 1980s, said that the responses she has heard when discussing the conflict surprise her.

“I am shocked at the sarcasm I’ve heard,” Blair said. “A person who is ordinarily calm will get out of control about it.”

Batya Hecker, who has found herself on an Internet list of Jews labeled as self-hating and anti-Semitic and says she feels disconnected from Jewish practices because of the Jewish community’s reaction to the conflict, said that some members of the community claim to speak for everyone.

“They claim to speak for all Jews but they don’t,” Hecker said.  “When someone publishes things against what Israel’s doing, instead of arguing, they call them anti-Semitic, self-hating Jews and friends of terrorists.  If they don’t have a rational argument, they make them into villains.”

Pam McDonald, who belonged to Austin Jews for Peace in the Middle East and was cochair of the Congregation Beth Israel Social Action Committee for several years, said such name-calling is similar to the political environment in the United States when those who criticized the Iraq War were labeled unpatriotic.

“It’s basically McCarthyism,” McDonald said.  “It’s kind of sad.”

Chuck Vorspan, a cofounder of Austin Jews for Peace in the Middle East, explained that this has resulted in knee-jerk reactions to any criticism of Israel.  He has witnessed negative responses from a small but vocal group of individuals to programming about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and work done by his now largely inactive organization.

Vorspan believes that Austin’s response reflects the Jewish community’s response to the conflict nationwide.  As he sees it, the Jewish community is largely ignorant and indifferent to the occupation by Israel of the Palestinian people on the West Bank and Gaza.

“They mostly don’t understand or care that the Palestinians people have been crushed psychologically and economically by a brutal occupation,” he said.  “That indifference and silence has allowed a minority of powerful voices to create a situation where dissent is equivalent to treason.”

As a result of the community’s silence regarding the conflict, Vorspan said, he has stepped back to the edges of affiliated Judaism.

“The fact is that the voices that have spoken out in Austin against the occupation are silent now,” he said.  “I have become alienated much more by the silence of the many that by the attacks of the few.”

This silence conflicts with Vorspan’s vision of Judaism, he said explaining that he cannot reconcile the Jewish community’s silence and the dichotomy between the existing condition and the words used to praise the Jewish religion and people.

“Judaism believes in helping to redeem the world though acts of kindness, believes in justice, believe in equality,” he said.  “But here in my own community Judaism remain silent as the spirit of another people is crushed in its name.  It remains silent as generations of children see Judaism as a tank or bulldozer and while a people is starved as a weapon for political gain.

“That contradiction screams at me when I attend services and it makes a mockery of my being there.  More than anything, it is that contradiction which has caused my alienation.”

McDonald, who has stopped attending services and pulled her children out of religious school, believes that until the Jewish community permits open discussion about the conflict, it will continue to alienate people.

“The growth of intolerance and inability to listen to each other in American politics has spilled over in the last year or two and made the while thing even harder,” she said.  “The community needs to deal with it or lose people and lost something themselves.”

Albert believes Jews in the post-Holocaust era have been taught to view Israel as a holy symbol and to be afraid, which is partly why questioning the nation’s policies leads to criticism and name-calling.

“We are safe, secure as a people today.  We are not threatened with imminent destruction.  These are not existential threats Israel faces.  Terrorism is a danger to individuals, not to Israeli survival,” he said.  “We have to stop living in a way that we’re terrified.  Being terrified lets terrorists win.”

Albert added that the best thing for Israel could be for people to question its policies and the status quo.  One of the reasons he thought it was important to start Brit Tzedek v’Shalom, which claims 36,000 supporters nationally, was to create a safe place for people who felt the way he did to talk about the nation’s issues and encourage others not to become frustrated by what he perceived as an enforced consensus within the wider Jewish community.

“The situation as it exists is bad for Israel and bad for the Jews,” he said.  “Sometimes it means speaking out in public and questioning policies to make Israel safer and more secure.”