By Rabbi Dow Marmur
JERUSALEM — The New Year of Trees (Tu Bish’vat) has been part of the Jewish calendar since Rabbinic times and has been celebrated in different countries ever since. But it has gained special significance in modern Israel where forestation has been part of the challenge of reclaiming the land and making the desert bloom. The planting of trees is more than ever on the minds of Israelis this year because of the recent devastating fire in the North. Even though some experts believe that it’s best to let the forests regenerate themselves without human interference, the subject of tree planting is nevertheless a very hot topic.
The Shalom Hartman Institute has given it an added twist by organizing, together with other institutions, a conference with the title, “Planting Tolerance; Uprooting Racism” with special reference to the recent anti-Arab statements by local rabbis, their wives and many other signs of anti-Arab discrimination.
Because inexplicably the conference provided a platform for several Kadima politicians, including its leader Tzipi Livni, a fair amount of standard political platitudes were uttered. But there were also some substantive statements.
The first to speak was Donniel Hartman, the president of the Institute. He made the important point that Jewish tradition never says, “You have sinned,” but always, “We have sinned.” Instead of accusing others, our tradition urges us, first and foremost, to look at ourselves. The implication was, of course, that what Israel needs at present is introspection and self-scrutiny, not accusations and self-justification.
How important that is has been shown by the surveys conducted by the Israel Democracy Institute, one of the co-sponsors of the conference. These suggest that more than a third of secular Jews in Israel and two thirds of Orthodox Jews basically agree with discriminating against Arabs, even though they live in Israel as Israeli citizens! It seems that many Jews understand sovereignty to mean that they can now treat others in ways in which they were once treated by the indigenous population in the countries in which they lived. Some see this as a bitter irony and a profound distortion of Zionism.
The issue is, of course, if we should judge ourselves by the lofty standards of our sages, who lived and taught at the time when Jews were dispersed as minorities and thus had the reason and the psychological need to espouse high standards; or whether Israelis should compare themselves, not to oppressive regimes in the Middle East, but in fact to European Western democracies. Even then it’ll be found that Israelis are, in fact, more tolerant toward minorities than say the French, the Belgians, the Swedes, etc. etc.
This argument suggests that, after all, Zionism promised Jews to be like all other nations, which they’ve become. Liberals with roots in Jewish tradition, on the other hand – unrealistically and unjustly, according to their opponents – expect Jews to behave differently and better whatever the cost to the majority and the risks to the security.
I came away from the conference realizing that it’s not enough to listen to arguments. One must take sides. Not unexpectedly, my side is the liberal cause that goes in for self-scrutiny rather than comparison to others in the belief that for the Zionism to be vindicated, not only by providing shelter to Jews but by renewing Judaism, the values that have shaped our tradition must be made operative in the sovereign State of Israel.
There’s much to be done before we’re anywhere close to being there.
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Marmur is spiritual leader emeritus of Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto. He now divides his year between Canada and Israel.