From elementary to middle school, half of my academic day consisted of reading, translating, and interpreting the Tanakh (the collection of holy Jewish texts, including the Torah), learning Hebrew, and studying Jewish oral law. I attended an hour of prayers every morning.
Every January, we observed Yom HaShoah (International Holocaust Remembrance Day) by devoting much of class time to watching utterly horrifying documentaries on the disaster. I remember watching countless films on the subsequent creation of the Israeli state, and the epic, bloody Six Day War that followed two decades later, expanding Israeli claim to Palestinian territory.
The concept of Jews needing to fight and kill for land in the Levant wasn’t new to me. During the creation of ancient Israel, the Israelites had driven out seven ethnic divisions from the area: the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. The Jews established kingdoms under Saul, David, and Solomon, but their kingdom and its temples were destroyed by the Assyrians. Then, under the Babylonians, they were repeatedly mistreated and expelled from holy lands. Under the Romans, it was a similar situation.
As a kid trying to grasp what right and wrong mean on a larger scale, Jewish conquest seemed justified, regardless of ethnic division. In Jewish day school, you learn that when Jews tried to settle in other countries, they often became the scapegoats of societal problems. In European Christian nations, we're sometimes deemed responsible for the death of Jesus, which translated to discrimination, to slavery, to mass exile and killings to the point of normalization. So, you think to yourself: “Yeah, the Jewish people deserve a space to be safe. We deserve a space to practice our religion and build a society in peace. And clearly, nobody is going to hand that to us. That is fair and right. Everyone that disagrees with that is wrong.”
One of the most spiritual experiences I have ever had – which I truly feel I have been graced with – derives from growing up around an orthodox Jewish community and going to that religious day school for nine years. Singing about Jewish liberation and togetherness brings about a thickness in the air when so many bright voices rise to strengthen, energize, and support each other. There is a
In a sense, the city of Jerusalem is a synecdoche for Jewish freedom and actualization. After the Passover Seder and Yom Kippur service, we say: “Next year in Jerusalem!”. When we pray, we face East to turn our hearts and mind toward the Promised Land, the land of our forefathers. The idea is that Jews’ desire to return to Jerusalem never ceases, but intensifies over time. The idea is that you will find yourself there, in this city where:
“The mountain air is clear as water
The scent of pines around
Is carried on the breeze of twilight
And tinkling bells resound
The trees and stones there softly slumber,
A dream enfolds them all
So solitary lies the city
And at its heart – a wall.
Oh, Jerusalem of Gold
And of light and bronze
I am the lute for all your songs”
— “Yerushalayim Shel Zahav” (Jerusalem of Gold)
It wasn’t until college that I began to feel an internal tension between Ofra Haza’s chest-rising ode to the Holy City and how I felt about Israel’s international behavior. Before, it felt validating that the United States supported Israel relentlessly, both politically and financially. It made sense that they should be allies; at the time, I perceived the United States as making a moral decision to support a historically marginalized group.
Then, it felt fishy. I knew the Israelis were air-striking Palestinian territories heavily and that the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was not supporting a two-state solution in action as he was in words. I started taking international relations and comparative politics classes, and I found that not everyone thought that Israel should be recognized. I began hanging out with progressive social circles that seemed to define the term “Zionist” as radically negative.
As I read more about the significant Israeli settlements and military posts in the West Bank and Gaza Strips, areas not under Jewish sovereignty and slated as Palestinian territory, part of me seethes. Yet my heart still flutters to “Yerushalyim Shel Zahav." Now, I actively look for more and more articles on the actions and transgressions of a people and a government I once thought could do no wrong. Yet I still hope to find some essential part of myself at the Temple Mount in East Jerusalem one day. I feel betrayed by my Jewish day school teachers for telling me that international law and human rights can be justifiably violated, and offended at a lack of understanding from those who don’t believe Israel should exist.
I have not been religious since middle school, but I find communal strength and comfort in Judaism – it was an inseparable part of my adolescence. Writing this has only begun my concerted, outward reflection on the tension between my American Judaism and the high awareness of spatial and social justice I have come into during college.
As I sort out how to interpret this, the only thing I can promise myself and other readers is a commitment to nuance.
