24 Hours on the Streets of Jerusalem

Dear friends,

A couple of hours after arriving in Jerusalem I went out for an evening stroll with my mother and my son. We’d walked half a block when we found a group of men waiting on the street for two more people to show up to complete a minyan. Certain street corners of west Jerusalem become synagogues these days for half an hour twice a day. We stopped to pray the evening prayer, enjoying the quiet ancient murmurings with them, and continued on our way. We expected a quiet evening.

We walked over to to Aza Street and sat down in a sidewalk cafe for a drink. As we’re chatting, a crowd began to gather across the street. More and more people with Israeli flags coming in from all directions. “He fired the Defense Secretary,” we hear, “It’s a spontaneous protest.” The young crowd gets the protest started with chants they have been leading for weeks. “Democracy or rebellion!” Within minutes the crowd has grown to hundreds and the intersection has been shut down. Jews of all types and ages are singing together: “If there will be no equality we will overthrow the government – you’re messing with the wrong generation!”

The energy is infectious. People are focused, determined, and most surprising to me, happy. As am I, swept out of my despair and cynicism into this sudden demand for sanity.

My skepticism is real. I chant “De-moc-rat-ya” with the full knowledge that this country has never in its history been a true democracy for all its citizens. Until 1970 all its Arab citizens lived under military rule. Three years before that ended, the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza began, a brutal military occupation lording over millions of stateless, rights-deprived Palestinians, most of them refugees, many of whom have been forced out a second time even from their places of refuge. It is in large part for the Palestiniansp, now in their 58th year of occupation that I join these protests. They are the ones who will suffer most if the separation of powers in Israel is demolished, as these laws the ultra-right is working to pass are designed to do.

Another endangered population here, which would certainly suffer as well are those known as “smolanim,” or “leftists.” Right wing assailants have brutally attacked protesters, a continuation of many years of vilification (despite the fact that many of the protesters are right wing.) Driving back from the airport a few hours before this protest my father told me he doesn’t want to end his life in prison. “And that’s not a remote possibility.”

At the protest, I’m happy to see several protesters holding signs saying “There is no democracy with occupation.” This tells me two things: on a personal level, I can bring my full self to this protest. I can use the word “equality” as a prayer for full human equality - as I understand the Torah to demand - and not just the compromised equality that has accompanied the state up til now, as I think many of the protesters understand it. On a public level this tells me that the anti-occupation bloc has been accepted as a legitimate part of this protest; that the understanding that the protests and the occupation are inextricably linked is sinking in.

It’s 10:45pm and the protest has grown tremendously. My son, Matan and my mother have returned home but I couldn’t leave. Now I am marching through the streets of my childhood with thousands of people. I’m walking next to two young poets, who chant a rhyming couplet they make up on the spot, and we all repeat it:

צאו מהמרפסת – המדינה קורסת!   

Get off that balcony – the country’s falling apart!

צאו מהסלון – מנעו את האסון!  
Get out of your living room – prevent the disaster!

   צאו מהמטבח – המדינה בפח!
Get out of your kitchen – the country’s in the garbage!

   צאו מהאמבטיה – הצילו ת-דמוקרטיה
!Get out of the bathtub – save democracy!

There are Israeli flags everywhere, torches, chanting, and now we’re in front of the Prime Minister’s house shouting “Shame! Shame! Shame!” More and more people join this nighttime rebellion. We hear that the Ayalon highway in Tel Aviv is also closed down, as well as the main thoroughfare in Haifa. Eventually, I give in to my jetlag and make my way home. My parents breathe a sigh of relief as I walk in the door, since they heard that protesters broke down the barriers to the PM’s home, and there were arrests and injuries.

The following morning the papers are reporting that Netanyahu is about to capitulate. The entire country will be on strike. The main workers union, the airport, universities, high school students council, the banks, reserve soldiers, everyone is on strike until this plan is called off. But Netanyahu is held hostage by his openly racist coalition partner. We walk over toward the Knesset, where protesters from around the country are heading. All roads lead there today, as is obvious from the blue and white flags bobbling in that direction wherever we go.

Not everyone agrees with us though.

“Take that kipa off your head,” a cab driver yells at me, “you leftist sons of ——-!” Someone offers us a flag. I demure, but Matan takes it and we walk by the national library and are soon engulfed in an incredible multitude in front of the supreme court. The energy is that same infectious celebration from the previous night. There is an enormous amount of people, probably in the hundreds of thousands, each with their own signage or t shirt. Somehow, we find my brother, two of his kids and my father. I’m standing next to my nephew’s wheelchair taking in the sounds, when his care taker, Yaron says: “Radical aliveness.”

Among this huge multitude are smaller groups with their own agenda within the agenda. I pass by the socialist gathering with their red flags, the LGBTQ group with their pink and rainbow flags, the military group with their black and blue flags, and stop in front of the largest of these mini-groups, the anti-occupation gathering. Here there are Palestinian flags, and big white banners in Hebrew and Arabic. Some people are holding signs that read: “From the river to the sea all the people must be free!” These are the best organized of all the protest groups, since many of them have been gathering in Sheikh Jerrah every Friday for the last decade to try to protect the Palestinian residents there from the takeover of Jewish supremacists. They are organized in a big circle with twenty to thirty drummers. In the sea of blue and white flags I finally feel truly at home in the embrace of a richer, less compromised form of justice. “From Sheikh Jerrah to Bil’in Hura Hura Falestin!” (Arabic for: Freedom Freedom for Palestine!)

There is one Israeli group sadly absent from this protest, and that is the Palestinian citizens of Israel. The sea of Jewish stars, the stomping down in the early protests against the Palestinian flags, the requests from the protest organizers that Arab leaders not come so as not to alienate the center and right wing protesters, have all done their work.

As I see it, the only chance for lasting democracy here is a meaningful partnership between Jews and Arabs. If Israel truly is what its Declaration of Independence says it is, a place of equality for all that retains a Jewish character, then, amazingly, it is the Palestinian citizens of Israel who hold the key. Without their support the demographics of the country are such that a Jewish theocracy is more likely, or an even more unequal ethnocracy. They are another reason I join these protests. The suggested laws could easily lead to outlawing non-Jewish political parties, and it’s not unlikely that the next step would be revoking their right to vote.

It’s hard to move in this mass of happy protesters, but we somehow make our way down toward the Knesset, where we hear some speeches. On the way I bump into old friends, and into one of my commanding officers from the army, Yair Golan. When he was deputy chief of the IDF he warned that processes taking place in Israel are reminiscent of 1930’s Germany. Now he is a leader on the left. He shakes my hand warmly, his smile full, this strange complex happiness we are engulfed in shining out of him.

I’m wearing on my shirt the word שויון, “Equality” in Hebrew. Shivyon is a modern word that hearkens back to a word from a verse in the Psalms: שויתי יהוה לנגדי תמיד  “I place YHVH before me always.” The idea is that no matter what you’re doing, it’s as if you are constantly cognizant of God as your guiding purpose, seeing God in front of your eyes. The word Shiviti, “I place,” or “I imagine” is where the Hebrew word shivyon comes from. Shiviti is like placing all those created in God’s image in my sight, as a constant reminder of our humanity, and our responsibility. A country of people who do that would be my kind of Jewish State.

The speaker is talking about this governments war on women: “In the three months since the government formed, nine women have been murdered: More than the number of women in the Knesset,” she says. The government has shut down laws meant to protect battered women, and this proposed legal revolution is certain to further reinforce the patriarchy. “The only time the government cares about women who get murdered,” she says, “is when it is an Arab killing a Jewish woman.”

Eventually we make our way out of the protest. In the streets of nearby Bet Hakerem most of the people walking by are protesters. The falafel stand is packed with them. Even the trains and buses from around the country are filled with people singing chants of revolt.

That evening at my brother’s place outside of Jerusalem, as we gather in front of the television to watch Netanyahu’s speech, my sister in law tells her kids: “This is a liar.” Like much of the country, this time has brought her to the streets, even though she normally isn’t especially active politically. My seven year old nephew says: “He’s like Pharaoh.” As soon the PM utters his opening words, “Three thousand years ago,” my sister in law asks whether we could turn it off. This is the level of tolerance in much of the country for the man who’s been Prime Minister for most of the last decade.

He starts by comparing “both sides” of the country to the mothers who came in front of King Solomon, each claiming the baby is their own. He denigrates the protesters against him and smiles when he speaks of his pride in those who came out in his favor, holding such signs as “Leftist traitors,” and “Stop the dictatorship of the Supreme Court.” The PM’s clear implication tonight is that his side is making the sacrifice of postponing the laws, because they are the true mothers of this baby called Israel, so they won’t let this country fall apart. The wise King Benjamin sees the truth.

Despite this temporary victory, the happiness of the protest, and the hope it brought are dissipating. Nobody trusts the PM, not even the members of his cabinet. The future looks dire. He kept his coalition from collapsing by promising to start an extra governmental militia led by the most violent and extreme cabinet member. One of the chants at the protest was “We are not afraid.” That may be true while we’re there, but the truth is that most of the protesters came precisely because they are seriously fearful for their future. This is another reason why I protest. Israel, built with huge sacrifices of blood, sweat and tears to offer a necessary safe-haven for Jews is on the verge of unravelling. It is not the idealistic vision I was sold as a kid, nor is it a beacon of Jewish ingenuity. It is a nation state, as vicious as any other, which is the beautiful place where my family and many close friends live. Right now the only hope for preventing it from devouring itself are these protests.

I come out of these historic 24 hours, and the few strangely quiet days that followed them with a distinct faith in the capacity of people in this country to activate. The government still plans to pass these laws. The demonstrations continue. But the majority has, for now prevailed, and that is no small achievement for any protest movement.

One of my favorite biblical words is Kumah, rise up. Moments such as these are Kumah moments. They carry the breathtaking ecstasy of freedom. This Shabbat Hagadol, the great Shabbat before Passover, we will raise the Torah and sing:

קוּמָה יְהוָה וְיָפֻצוּ אֹיְבֶיךָ וְיָנֻסוּ מְשַׂנְאֶיךָ מִפָּנֶיךָ

כִּ֤י מִצִּיּוֹן֙ תֵּצֵ֣א תוֹרָ֔ה וּדְבַר־יְהֹוָ֖ה מִירוּשָׁלָֽ͏ִם׃

Rise up YHVH and scatter your enemies,

Let the haters flee from before you

For Torah comes out of Zion,

and the word of YHVH from Jerusalem

Let the word of radical aliveness rise up from Jerusalem and bring safety and joy to all who share and love this land.

 
Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Misha