Identity & Israel: An Unbroken Chain of Religion, Culture and Politics

As I sit and listen to Professors of International Studies speak about the current State of Israel, I can’t help but think what makes a person qualified to address an audience as an expert. To me, an expert is a person who has obtains enough skill or knowledge in a particular field that it supersedes his or her own personal affiliations and desires. But, how can you maintain an attitude of intellectual objectivity when you are only human, with thoughts and feelings that are not uniquely ours? This man standing before me who claims to be an expert is a Jew. And he is an Israeli. And he is a father. And he is probably someone’s friend, and oh yes, last but not least, he is a Professor. The way in which this person views himself, his affiliations, responsibilities, livelihood and identity are more accurate depictions of his political and ideological beliefs then his professional qualifications. It is often hard to maintain your objectivity, especially in a situation where the issue at hand is fundamentally attached to your identity.

Marvin Harris, to quote off his book “one of America’s leading anthropologists,” offers solutions to the perplexing question of why people behave the way they do. Although much of his writing focused on little hidden mysteries of societies far and near, at the essence of his work lays an unsettling paradigm. We, human beings, are mere products of our given environment. The clothes we wear and the language we speak, all serves the higher purpose of keeping us alive. The same goes for our political beliefs, our actions, and the lessons we teach our children. Our identity is at the heart of what keeps us alive. Without it, we are lost, just like the tiny speck of a planet we live on. I recognize that it this same concept of identity that connects me to the state of Israel. The never-ending search for self, acceptance and purpose is the reason why I decided to pursue this Hillel mission trip to Israel.

During my winter break, I was selected to participate in the Israel: Leading Up North mission trip sponsored by Hillel International, a large Jewish organization that operates on numerous college campuses in countries around the world. The trip offered three different tracks. Tzedek or justice, which was a community service based trip, an environmental track where students met with local leaders and environmental activists, and pluralism, which paired international Jewish students from around the world together to establish active dialogue with Jews of different backgrounds, nationalities and religious identities. I was selected for the Tzedek track along with about 80 other graduate and undergraduate to work in a community in the north that had been affected by the recent war with Hezbollah.

Until fairly recently, I have often struggled with questions regarding my Jewish identity and personal connection to Israel. Growing up in a suburban and mostly homogenous town on Long Island, NY where most of my friends were Jewish, I didn’t see Judaism or Israel as anything particularly special. To me, Judaism was commonplace and Israel was just a place Israelis lived. Since I wasn’t Israeli, Israel was of little concern to me. This attitude persisted through college until I was inspired by a local Rabbi to try something different. Rabbi Goldstein from Chabad, who was aware of my passion for history, convinced me to study the story of the Jewish people and the land of Israel. He said, “Through the study of Israel, I would learn to love Judaism and the Jewish people.” That semester I enrolled in a class in college that studied the history of Israel from King David to the modern era. The class was a spiritual and emotional awakening. Israel became a land of significance, purpose and most importantly a Jewish homeland.

Although I grew up in a fairly typical non-observant Jewish family where Judaism came second to little league and soccer practice, I still cannot deny that I am Jewish. I started to recognize this only fairly recently when a Rabbi at my local Chabad house at Hofstra University handed me a book called Why Marry Jewish. Through what seemed like insignificant little games and exercises, I learned a great deal about myself that I would have otherwise dismissed. Jewish customs and images often conger loving feelings deep inside me, while I regard similar Christian icons with indifference. I will unconsciously greet a group of Jews walking to synagogue on Shabbat, cannot help but smile when I see a little Jewish boy with long hair and side curls and associate long Chasidic beards with reverence and wisdom. These images have become part of my personal identity.

Last year was marked by Birthright, my first visit to Israel since my bar mitzvah when peace negotiations looked significantly promising. The Birthright experience touched me in many ways. I felt strong connections to the places we visited and the people we met, especially the Israeli soldiers whom we traveled with. As we laughed and cried together, I couldn’t help but think that had we been traveling with a group of American soldiers, or anyone else for that matter, these emotions would not have been the same. There was a bond from being Jewish. There was a bond of being in Israel.

The Holocaust is probably the most powerful example of inherent Jewish identity. The Holocaust was the first time in history that a Jew could not escape persecution through conversion, Judaism although a religion and an ethnic group could not be shed. Judaism was in the blood. The Nazis maintained that anyone with Jewish ancestry was a Jew, regardless of religious affiliation. Although this belief stemmed from desperation, misapplied Social Darwinism and deep seeded hatred of the Jewish people, it did hit at the heart of a major understanding; we don’t always get to choose our identity. Often it is instilled in us, by our parents, by others or by birth.

After the Holocaust, many Jews had to reevaluate their own personal identities. Human beings that up until this point had considered themselves French, Dutch and German, could no longer maintain such an identity. Zionism, the movement to establish an independent homeland for the Jewish people, was ironically, largely run and organized by people that neither practiced nor associated with the religion. If the Jews were not a people before the Holocaust, they surely became one after it.

Just as iconic images of shabbas candles and warm challah will stir feeling of joy, yellow stars and swastikas have the ability to evoke unbearable pain, anger and sadness. I will never forget the flood of emotions that surged through my body when one of my classmates adorned a Hilter’s Grand Tour t-shirt, which listed the names of the Nazi concentration camps on the back.

As human beings, we have been blessed and cursed with a large brain. This extraordinary brain of ours gives as much as it takes. Its gives us the ability to manipulate the world around us, create beautiful works of art and heal the sick, but it also takes as it requires answers to fundamental questions regarding our existence for which we do not have the answers. In addition to desiring the answer to questions such as where babies come from, how to get the clouds to rain and why we are here on this insignificant speck of planet floating aimlessly in a darkness, we have more personal needs to internal questions like who am I and what is my family history?

It is often hard to manipulate your family history to fit your identity. I believe the manner in which you perceive your family is often established at an early age while your relatives are still living and breathing souls. For me, I am the grandson of a Polish Jew who fled the poverty of Eastern Europe before the start of the Second World War. My mother’s father was lucky, because the Nazis murdered most of his family after they invaded Poland. Although I know that my grandfather viewed himself as foremost a Jew that happened to live in Poland, I don’t know if this switched after he arrived in the United States. I would be surprised if it did. My grandfather loved this country and disapproved of anyone that was overly critical of the government. Although I still have major problems with the creation of the state Israel, it will always hold a special place in my heart.

When I was developing my application to the Israel program, I often stopped to consider what the most appropriate way to refer to the recent conflict. I browsed the headlines of various Jewish publications in hopes of finding the most JPC, Jewishly politically correct way of referring to the conflict, which was also consistent with my personal feelings towards the war. The first decision I made was that it was okay to call the war a war. I wasn’t sure if that would be misinterpreted as too harsh a statement, since Israel didn’t technically declare war against anyone and many people maintain that Israel was taking a defensive position in defending itself. The second problem came when I had to decide who Israel in fact waged war against. At the time, I thought it was more appropriate to describe the war as one that was waged against Hezbollah although most of the ground fighting took place in Lebanon. Thinking back on this decision, I cannot help but think that US action in Afghanistan after 9/11 was often referred to as the war in Afghanistan, not war against Al Qaeda. Similarly, I don’t remember US journalists referring to the war in Iraq as the war against WMDS, the war against Saddam, or the war of Iraqi Freedom. It seems as Israel had waged their own War on Terror.

I was expecting, like most people to see major damage in the north similar to images of the gulf coast after hurricane Rita and Katrina. Understandably that wasn’t the case. First, although there was a significant amount of destruction in the northern settlements, most of the damage was confined to small structural damage that was reparable after the war. Although we did not help to rebuild houses, the work we did was more significant. We were granted access to a religious elementary school, where we taught English and performed painting and minor repairs around the building. Although at first the work we were performing seemed trivial, I believed it served a higher purpose. The children at the school were overjoyed to see us and our acts of kindness brought hope.

Visiting the Lebanese border was a powerful experience. For many participants on the trip, the state of Lebanon was an intangible enemy. But looking above a small fence that separates the two nations, one suddenly realizes that this land, which is so easily demonized, looks very similar to the land where you are standing. Still, it was easy for many of my fellow trip participants to show their distain. The closer we got; the more necessary it became to crack jokes, make disparaging remarks and throw up middle fingers with a sense of jubilation.

In the real world, an ID is often evidence that some of piece of information about a person is true. A driver’s license grants you permission to drive and validates your day of birth. Identity, from a physiological perspective isn’t all that different. Your personal identity often grants you the right to think, feel or act a certain way. Unfortunately some people believe their religions or nationalities grant them access to hate speech and oppression. Certain aspects of your identity you choose, some you are given and others you are just born with. When my group labeled me as a leftist, I was granted permission to ask hard questions regarding the legitimacy of the state and the success of the war with Lebanon. Thankfully, no one could take away my Judaism card.