Alef: The NEXT Conversation
Supporting Jewish Causes
by Tracie Karasik
There are too many evil people in the world looking to destroy, defame, or humiliate the Jewish people. And this sad truth is unfortunately not a novel one. For thousands of years, Jews have been easily targeted as the scapegoats, being blamed for all the problems in the world, persecuted for their beliefs or religious traditions, or had their reputation marred by those who lack tolerance and foster hate.
I feel that it is my responsibility as a Jew to be a champion of Jewish causes. I believe that it is an imperative responsibility as a Jew to preserve, to advocate for, and to give to Jewish causes primarily over those that are not.
That does not mean that I do not advocate for global, secular, or non-Jewish causes, because in its essence, the values of Judaism reflect that of tzadakah, righteousness and doing the right thing, and tikkun olam, repairing the world. Judaism, after all, teaches that performing both ethical mitzvot as well as ritual mitzvot are of paramount importance to the process of tikkun olam. Additionally in Jewish thought, carrying out acts of mitzvot includes giving to all of humanity, not just ourselves. In fact, most Jewish non-profit organizations provide aide to both Jews and non-Jews alike. However, I believe that there are causes worth fighting for, and that helping to ensure the Jewish future, caring for Jews in need, and supporting the land of Israel are foremost on my list.
If we, as Jews, do not support each other than who will? What will be left of the Jewish community and of Jewish traditions if we, ourselves, do not stand behind and provide for each other? We must take a proactive and thoughtful approach towards supporting Jewish organizations and causes around the world. If not, future generations are at risk of losing the indispensable traditions, moral code, and incredible strength of community that have enabled the Jewish people to thrive and exist for over 5,000 years.
One critically important program that exists today, which has sent nearly 300,000 young Jewish adults from all around the world on a free 10-day educational trip to Israel is Taglit Birthright. This program has fostered the growth, solidarity, and reconnection of young Jewish adults to the land of Israel. If not for programs like Taglit-Birthright, supported by organizations such as the North American Jewish Federations, the Jewish Agency for Israel, The Birthright Israel Foundation, the Government of Israel, private philanthropists, and Jewish communities around the world, there would be a dramatic decline in Jewish relevance among contemporary youth, an increase in the division between Israel and Jewish communities around the world, and an even more dramatic rise in assimilation. In June of 2010, I was fortunate enough to participate in a Taglit-Birthright trip to Israel. I would like to share with you a little about my story and how it has affected me in a positive way, however, my story is just one of the thousands of young, Jewish adults who just like me were awarded the opportunity to go to Israel.
From beginning to end, it was evident that the entire trip was extremely safe, well planned, and structured with great care and thoughtfulness. During the trip, I especially felt especially connected to my Jewish identity while visiting Independence Hall in Tel Aviv. It was there that I listened to an actual recording from May 14, 1948, of the voice of David Ben-Gurion, who had declared the creation of the State of Israel from the exact location where I was sitting. Following that, the Hatikvah was played, and I not only felt like I was a part of one of the most significant events in Israel’s history, but that I was proud and grateful to be a Jew in Israel. Furthermore, one of the most significant moments in my life was experienced while in Israel, when I visited the Western Wall. The instant I laid my hand on the wall, feelings of pride and excitement mixed with empathy and awe filled within me, and I began to burst into tears. I felt my Jewish heritage stemming from thousands of years come alive. I felt a deep sense of gratitude to be able to be there as a living descendant of the strong lineage of the Jewish people. To be able to stand there in that moment, and touch a lasting remnant of The Old Temple, in a Jewish country, in which millions of Jews in history had only dreamt of being able to do, was truly remarkable. I felt a deep sense of accomplishment and humility.
Going to Israel not only strengthened my connection to Judaism, but has led me to feeling a much stronger commitment to living a Jewish life, raising a Jewish family, and supporting the Jewish community here and around the world. The continued support of programs such as Taglit-Birthright help to allow each new generation of young Jewish adults to understand their Jewish identity and motivate them to give back to the Jewish community and Israel.
Jewish causes need a place now more than ever. I believe that charity is a fundamental part of the Jewish way of life and that we need to invest in the future of the Jewish people or risk losing it all because of the lack of it. We are such a small percentage of the world’s population, and the survival and prosperity of the Jewish people rests on the amount of support that others can provide for it. I am committed to supporting Jewish causes primarily over those that are not because the future of the Jewish religion, its people, and its posterity depends on the present.
Photo by zeevveez, licensed under Creative Commons.
Real
By Lisa Kaneff
A hurricane was brewing that fall as I walked my Birthright Israel application from my dorm room at the University of Miami to the Hillel House. The wind whipped through the palm trees, the air was devoid of the humidity I’d come to expect after most of my first semester at “The U.” Barely 18, I was fighting all of the identity demons one would expect to fight when you move at such a young age so far away from home, family, and the life you know. It was 1999, and this would be the first official Birthright Israel trip.
Greeted with fanfare suited more for celebrities than bleary-eyed university students, our welcome to Israel was delayed by three hours thanks to a package allegedly left on our ElAl plane by someone attempting to slip his way back through security. The 747 packed with the young and excited participants was escorted off the plane, and quarantined in the airport lounge until both sets of bomb-sniffing dogs cleared us for take off. It was a dubious start to a trip we were assured would be safe, fun, and above all, meaningful.
The details I remember: I was on bus #1. As I understand it, Birthright has consecutively numbered all buses since that first trip and I was on #1. I remember Leif, a student from FIU, was #15 during our “did we lose anyone” count-offs. Why do I remember that particular detail? Because we were always losing Leif. The silence after #14 was deafening and memorable as we missed things like sunrise at Masada because of #15 and his predilection for tardiness. I remember that I wore a Superman T-shirt that day we climbed Masada. I remember I was lapped climbing that mountain by a blind student smoking a pipe. And I remember that was the first time I realized my safe, fun, and meaningful trip to Israel would be more of a mental, physical, and spiritual challenge than I had signed up for.
A dreidel tells the story best: “A great miracle happened there,” becomes, “A great miracle happened here.” Here. All of the stories you read, the tales you’re told… No longer are they tall tales told by Hebrew School teachers to purvey a life lesson — a fable told during those painful hours between the long-endured school day and long-awaited television show you knew was around the corner — a piece of the sermon you may have heard during High Holy Day services when you weren’t scribbling notes to your best friend you were lucky enough to sit next to on the longest day of the year. But.
But in Israel, you are forced to confront the reality of religion. You meet faith head on for a jetlagged, spiritual Battle Royale. Could it be that what I had, as an impetuous youth, blown off as a tall tale be true? Could the stories be real? What does that mean for me and my faith? At that moment on the mountain looking down over where tragedy struck thousands and thousands of years prior, I knew things had changed. That Judaism, my Judaism, had just become… real.
Photo by Ani Carrington, licensed under Creative Commons.
A Piece of Land
by Arden Joy
“I don’t get it. If someone repeatedly threatened my life if I didn’t move, I’d move. A piece of land is not worth dying over.”
I’m tempted to say that I overheard this statement, but the truth is…it was me, talking about Israel with a friend earlier this year.
Let’s be realistic. My experience of what a country is, well, it’s a little unique. My homeland was built by people deserting their old one, where it’s not uncommon to ask someone’s nationality (and get a laundry list back). I’ve lived through two wars, both viewed safely through the glass window of my television and never once in my own backyard. I am a Millenial, a citizen of the borderless world wide web.
I mean, I love my country but home is where the heart is…right?
This attitude lingered with me during my trip to Israel in March. As I listened to my Israeli friends talk about the passion they felt for their country, as I walked through the military cemetery, as we looked over the borders to Syria and Jordan – it lingered.
I couldn’t help it — I kept thinking. “I don’t get it. How is all this fighting and death worth an invisible border? If they want you out that badly, why won’t you leave?”
And then…
One afternoon, our trip leader was talking to us. He said, “what would you do if America became politically extreme and started kicking out Jews.”
Hmm, I’d never asked myself that before. What would I do? Even though I have ancestors from all over the world, would any of those countries take me in? My mind sifted through the long history of persecution that the Jews have suffered and I began to wonder…was it so unreasonable to imagine that it could happen again today?
And if it did, where would I go?
“Right now,” my leader continued “if you had to leave America, you would have a home in Israel.”
I sometimes like to think of “understanding” as a glow stick. You can have all the chemicals and compounds (aka book smarts) needed to make it work, but it’s not until that final snap that everything begins to light up. And when he said it – SNAP – my brain lit up.
I imagined the millions of Jews facing racism and persecution at the beginning of the century. And I imagined what would have happened if they had had a place to go. I imagined what would have transpired if they had been able to go to their homeland, to their brothers and sisters, if they had been able to – as one people – rise up and defend themselves.
I got it.
And suddenly I felt honored and blessed to be standing on a piece of land, surrounded by invisible borders that my brothers and sisters were giving their lives to protect so that all of us could be safe and free.
Photo by gnuckx, licensed under Creative Commons.
The Magnet That Pulls At My Soul
by Daniel M.
“Welcome home.” These were the first words spoken to me by the leader of my Birthright trip as I exited Ben Gurion airport. Home? This doesn’t look like home. I just flew 13 hours to the other side of the world and entered a place I have never been before; a place where I have no family, and everyone is a stranger. But I never feel like a visitor in Israel. I may be in a foreign country, but I am not a foreigner.
When I step onto Israeli soil, I do what my grandfather did in 1982 when he first visited Israel. The man grew up as an orthodox Jew, he dreamt of coming to the land of Zion his entire life and even had to change his name from Eisenberg to a less “Jewish” sounding name in order to get a job. He got down on his knees and kissed the ground. I did the same, although I didn’t know why at the time—ten days later I understood.
Growing up, I was always aware of what was going on in Israel, but there was never a connection. I felt a part of the global Jewish community, but Israel was not a central piece of that relationship. Being connected to Israel meant connecting to something bigger than myself. Western society is based on the individual, on personal gain, but I had been yearning for a connection to a people and I didn’t even know it. Before visiting Israel I did not understand the concept of “peoplehood”—that I am one of only several million Jews alive. Israel connects me to those millions.
Unlike anywhere I have ever been, Israel does weird things to me. I see things in Israel that I have never seen before—hotel custodians wearing yarmulkes, Jews working at McDonalds. Has a man wearing a yarmulke ever pumped your gas before? Jews building roads, bridges, hospitals—an entire country built on the backs of Jews. Remarkable.
Upon leaving Israel I felt I had to do more to serve the Jewish community. I have become actively involved in various Israeli and Jewish organizations within my community. I used to think observance lines segmented Jews, but the trip allowed me to see the Jewish people in a secular way, and taught me the difference between Judaism and Zionism. Birthright is creating a generation of young Jews who experience Israel first-hand, instilling the notion of a homeland and connecting young Jews to the land and the people of Israel. Israel has made me reevaluate my goals and priorities, not only to contribute to the Jewish community but to help educate people about and work towards the prevention of genocide. Visiting Israel sensitizes you to struggle, to hardship, but it also inspires you with the resilience shown by a tiny country that almost didn’t happen.
I am at ease when I am in Israel. I am amazed at the revival of Hebrew and the Jewish culture renaissance that is Zion. I love the falafel and shwarma stands, haggling with the shopkeepers over five lousy shekels. I love the Dead Sea, even hiking in the Negev in August. I love how everything shuts down on Shabbat, as if the entire country goes into hibernation for just one day. The multitude of opinions is at times exhausting but refreshing, and Jerusalem, oh Jerusalem, your mysticism, your stone, your walls, and your closeness to Hashem—my soul cries out to you. Jerusalem makes my heart howl and beam at the same time. Standing at the Kotel, I felt connected to my family, to my ancestors, and to the Jewish people. While walking through the old city on Shabbat, on the way to the Kotel, I felt as if there was someone walking with me, a strange presence, as if I had done this before, 3,000 years ago perhaps, and that person was leading me back, back to our holiest site.
I may live in the Diaspora, but Israel is in my heart and soul. She is constantly on my mind—the sounds, the sights, the smells. I think of Israel when I wake up in the morning, when I check the daily news, when I touch the Star of David around my neck, which I now never remove. It lies on a long chain, dangling in front of my heart, letting me know that she is always there.
“Welcome home.”
It’s true, it is a homecoming for me and for every Jew. I feel at peace when I am in Israel. Life has purpose in Israel. I have purpose in Israel. I am a Jew, and Israel is my home.
Photo by E[...], licensed under Creative Commons.
Right of Passage
by Ari Averbach
First, some vocab. Bar Mitzvah for a boy. Bat Mitzvah for a girl. Bnai Mitzvah is plural. Translation is child (or children) of the commandment. And you become one, you don’t have one. Both are accepted, the former is more correct.
My Bar Mitzvah was traditional. When I say traditional, I mean it in the mid-90s, Los Angeles, big-budget sort of way. The date was picked when I was ten. Invitations went out six weeks in advance, once the room, photographer, videographer, caterer, colors, theme, centerpieces, and party favors were all decided. Three hundred people came. Thursday morning service. Friday night service and dinner. Big service on Saturday morning with Rabbi Schulweis officiating a 200-minute Torah and prayer extravaganza. Change of costumes, set up of venue, and the party started that night with dancing, eating, and drinking. It was beautiful and warm. More importantly, it was an event with an identity crisis: was this a party for a 13-year-old boy who had just read Torah or a gala fundraiser for a politician?
I thought that was how bnai mitzvah were. Tens of thousands of dollars spent on inflatable shoes, glow in the dark necklaces, and video montages of the past 13 years with everyone you ever knew eating rubbery chicken and salty potatoes, sipping on Shirley Temples and doing the “Time Warp” until midnight. Sometimes we would hear a story of two people making out (or worse!) under a table, trying to look past the pre-teen acne, untamable hair, and peach-fuzz-transitional mustaches.
When I led a Taglit trip this past December, it leaked out that Leah never became a Bat Mitzvah. Nor had Kyla. Nor Evan (Bar Mitzvah for him; remember the lesson I gave at the beginning). During the trip, seven people approached us asking for this honor. I talked with my co-leader, Allison, and our amazing tour guide, Erez, to try to figure out how to approach this. We had all heard that other trips officiated the bnai mitzvah of participants, but we did not have guidelines for how to do it. So, we made a decision.
I spent the night transliterating and translating that week’s Torah portion. Allison went to each of the soon-to-be bnai and wrote down their Hebrew names, or helped them think of one. Leah was still Leah. Rose became Shoshana (Hebrew for Rose). We gave them each a part to learn.
The next morning, atop Masada right after sunrise, we gathered in the ancient temple and performed the ceremony. Each came up when called by her or his Hebrew name, put on my tallit, read their part in Hebrew and English, and told us about how they got their name. One of our soldiers and one of the American participants sang the priestly blessings while each of the other soldiers placed their hands atop the new bnai mitzvah’s heads, as a parent or rabbi would do to a bnai mitzvah. Everyone else threw candy and we had a spontaneous hora right there on top of the old ruins, like they would have done two thousand years ago. Singing, dancing circles, lifting the honored. In some official way, these amazing people took a great leap in their faith to become children of the covenant with God. It was their choice, not an expected right of passage used as an excuse to throw a party.
As we were climbing down the Snake Path, everyone beaming with pride and sweating with fury, it dawned on me. This was a real traditional Bnai Mitzvah. With or without the Village People singing ‘YMCA‘.
Photo provided by Ari Averbach.
Read more posts from Issue #13: Bar Mitzvah Season.
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