Chaim and I spent almost a month in Haifa back in 2018 specifically because of its reputation as a mixed city, a model of relative co-existence in Israel. There was even an Arab-Jewish pre-school downstairs in our very apartment building in a country in which schools are generally segregated. 

So I was thrilled that our CCAR trip itinerary included a full day discussing these issues of a shared society here in Haifa. We began at the Beit haGefen Arab Jewish Culture Center which was opened by the municipality in 1963. They try to keep hope alive through art and culture, creating spaces for open dialogue and encounter. The art gallery featured an interesting installation representing the floor of a house, whose ornamental tiles were  created from local spices (turmeric, ginger, za’atar, sumac, and white pepper!) This is meant to remind us of just how fragile a home can be. The questions for the exhibit include: “Is home more of a place or a feeling?” “What is the smell of home for you?” “Can there be a house without borders?”

 

Naveen, the Arab Druze educator at Beit haGeffen, shared with us the work done in “The Lab,” an installation of subjective research by information designer Roni Levit. One of the exhibits was a whimsical comparison of the different falafel balls to be found in Haifa, but one encouraged us to choose the most significant characteristics that apply to us from the following list: hobby, work, family role, gender, belief, language, place of residence, food, music and dress.

Naveen honestly shared with us her experiences following October 7, the heated conversations, the holding pain of both her Arab and her Jewish friends, and the real threat to the vision of  a shared society. As a group of 37 rabbis (and a few spouses) who don’t all know each other, she then divided us up in smaller groups to talk about our own experiences since October 7. I was in a group with a colleague who self-identifies as a hawk on Israel. I, as you likely already gather, am a leftie. But our rules of engagement for this entire trip were: 1. to stay curious; 2. to get comfortable with discomfort. And this colleague and I really bonded over the deep sharing and listening. Perhaps we can cross that great divide with respect.

Naveen also encouraged us to think about our status as a minority in the U.S. and her status as a minority in Israel, and how we could help influence Jewish Israelis to not only think differently about the minority voices in their own midst, but also how we might try to understand the majority voices in the U.S.

Assaf (the CEO of the center) and Naveen then presented 7 images that symbolize different ways one might respond to the “encounter” with the other: a deep sea camera (there is more under the surface of an iceberg, for instance, then what you can see above the surface, e.g. don’t judge a book by its cover); a crystal (representing our multi-facets and how the light gets reflected off of us); a blindfold (how and when we might not want to see or hear);  glasses (seeing things differently), a satellite camera (perspective), a magnifying glass, and a kaleidoscope (ability to see lots of perspectives at once).

We concluded our meeting there with conversation with three of our MARAM/Reform colleagues in Israel, a teaching on hope, and a song “Shir haTikvah/Song of Hope.”

When we got back on the bus, our tour guide Uri said he had been living in a one-meter world not seeing much beyond that for the last four months, and that he hadn’t heard the word “hope” uttered in four months as often as he had this morning. And then he read a quote from Rabbi Jonathan Sacks that I’ve been teaching myself in the courses I’ve been offering on Hope  (primarily using the book Choosing Hope: The Heritage of Judaism by David Arnow):

“Optimism is a passive virtue, hope an active one. It takes no courage to be an optimist, but it takes a great deal of courage to have hope. Knowing what we do of our past, no Jew can be an optimist. But Jews have never–despite a history of sometimes awesome suffering–given up hope.”

We also visited the Leo Baeck school in Haifa, learning about the shared society work that they do, including their community garden that brings Arabs and Jews together. (It has been torrentially raining all week so we didn’t actually get to see the garden, however.)

And then, back at the hotel, we met with two other rabbinic colleagues, both from the Ukraine, one who serves a Russian/Ukrainian community in Haifa, one who serves a multilingual congregation in Jaffa. Both spoke of the trauma of their Ukrainian congregants, many who came to escape the war in the Ukraine only to be facing the trauma of the war here (while still having relatives facing the war in the Ukraine)–and some who therefore left Israel for Europe. I hope to post more about their amazing work –and the sensitivities that they both have to face vis-a-vis navigating the discord between Ukraine and Russia –at another time.

Tonight after dinner, my friend Tamar Messer and her husband Omri came to visit. Tamar is a Haifa-based artist (www.tamarmesser.com) whom Chaim and I met in 2018, thanks to our mutual friend Nancy. It turns out that she also knows Rabbi Lenny Thal and Dr. Linda Thal, who are also on this trip, so we had a lovely reunion. Tamar spoke about the volunteer work she did in the first three months of the war. Apparently the night goggles/flashlights that the soldiers had didn’t fit their helmets and they were not using them, a real safety concern. So someone, chik-chok, designed a way to attach them, and she was among the group of seamstresses who connected these two pieces of equipment. She said that volunteer work was what helped her survive.

I’m not sure if I mentioned previously that each of the hotels we’ve stayed at are mostly populated by displaced Israelis from either the north or the south of the country. The lobby areas are filled with people gathering for knitting groups, chess games, or conversation. Children are playing games, doing art projects, riding their scooters, or kicking their soccer balls in the hallways. 

I am aware of my privilege.