Two Roads

http://www.statesman.com/opinion/content/editorial/stories/04/08/0408vorspan_edit.html?cxtype=rss&cxsvc=7&cxcat=45

WE LET THE CHAMETZ IN
Israel turned 60 last year and so did I. I wish I could remember that first Seder in 1949. Imagine the joy of a state of our own! A state where Jews could finally be safe! My earliest memories of the Seder are enchanted. The smells of the food, the old people speaking Yiddish and my young cousins searching for the aficomen. The days prior to the Seder were spent feverishly searching for every crumb of chametz and joyously anticipating the great family celebration. Chametz is any grain or crumb that can become leavened. Chametz stands in contradiction to the matzah which is the unleavened bread that our forefathers hastily prepared before they were redeemed from Egyptian bondage. The unleavened Matzah stands proudly for the freedom from oppression. Chametz is it’s antithesis. I remember as a child, after every last speck was out of the house we were chametz-free, physically and spiritually — and free to fully enjoy the liberating experience of the Seder rituals and celebrate our liberation from the oppression of the Pharaoh.
That was in the 1950’s and 1960’s. We were young and idealistic. For Reform Jews Passover became intertwined with the Civil Rights movement. Israel was young, strong and idealistic. At the end of each Seder we repeated the words “ha shana ha ba be Yerushalem” …next year in Jerusalem. I’ve been able to fulfill that ancient longing often. I’ve visited Jerusalem five times.
I’ve had only one seder in Jerusalem. That was in 1968 and I was taking my college junior year in Jerusalem. I didn’t realize then that only a few miles away, that very night, we let the chametz in and it would stay and would ultimately turn my joy and anticipation of the seder into despair and foreboding. In Hebron, that Seder night 41 years ago, the fanatic settlement of the West Bank began when Rabbi Levinger and a small group of radical fundamentalists, entered the Palestinian City for Seder and refused to leave. Levinger was the founder of the right-wing ultra nationalist, Gush Enumin (block of the faithfull). He was Rabbi and teacher of Yitzak Rabin’s assassin. Gush Emunim’s mission was to occupy the recently captured (In the 6 Day War of 1967) West Bank, Gaza and Sinai so that they could never be returned to the Palestinians.
The Government of Israel asked the settlers to leave and when they refused the Government of Israel gave Rav Levinger and 120 of his followers lodging in a military compound.That was the beginning of Kiryat Arba. Today Kiryat Arba is the settlement of 5000 of the most virulent and vile of the Settlers. It is the home of the settlers who Prime Minister Ehud Olmert accussed of creating a “Pogrom” in Hebron. Today the commercial area of Hebron is a ghost town, controlled by the most hatefull settlers. The streets in the center of that once prosperous Palestinian city are now considerd by the Israeli Government as “Sterile’ . Sterile means no Palestinians are allowed on these raods. Those unfortunate Palestinians who had shops on these roads had them shuttered by the military authorities. And those shutters are now covered with graffitti ; the star of david and the rascist slogans of the fanatic, fundamental settlers. Those Palestinians whose houses front on this road now crawl out holes in the roofs and go out the back. I’ve been there. I’ve seen it.
In 1968 we let the chametz in and left it there to quietly leven and become a cancer destroying Judaism,and the souls of two people; the Israelis and the Palestinians.
Today there are 500,000 illegal settlers (in 1968 there were none) on the occupied West Bank and annexed East jerusalem. With the settlement enterprise came confiscated land, separate roads for Israelis and Palestinians, demolished homes, checkpoints, targeted assasinations, a 30’ concrete wall and electrified fences which imprison a people, and probably has doomed the hope of a two state solution- two States living side by side in peace and prosperity.
Without a two state option what are Israel’s options? Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said; “Without a two state compromise we are finished.” Soon there will be more non Jews than Jews in ‘the Jewish state’. If the non Jews do not have the same freedom and civil rights and are separated behind walls and fences, who can deny ‘Apartheid’? In AfriKaan ‘apartheid’ means ‘separation.’ Israel’s official policy is called separation and has resulted in the ‘sterile’ roads of Hebron. Apartheid is not an option for a state which calls itself The Jewish State.
So on this Seder when we remember our freedom from oppression I remember the Palestinian people whose spirit we have destroyed. I remember our children who we have turned into the oppresors. I remember the Seders before we let the Chametz in and hardened our hearts to the suffering of the other.
Next year in a shared Jerusalem? Not likely.