Palestine, A Conversation (Part III)

We continue our conversation with Rev. Sari Ateek and Rabbi Abbi Sharofsky as we delve into the issues of Israel-Palestine. The conversation is drawn from our Interwoven Congregations Quarterly issue first published on March 4th. We are posting this conversation in our blog in 5 parts, one each day this week. If you wish, you can read the whole issue here. Thank you for  reading with an open heart.

Peace, salaam, shalom,      -  Rev. Pat Jackson

Part III: What is your HOPE?

Pat:  What’s your vision for the future in Israel-Palestine?  What’s your hope?

Sari:  I had this momentary, very fleeting image of Palestinians and Israelis living side by side, looking out for each other, keeping one another's children when someone was going to work.  Trauma is perpetuated in generations.   Something truly radical would need to happen for people to trust one another like that again.  And so maybe this is like Moses -- all of us are standing on the outside of the Promised Land saying, “It's not going to happen in my generation. But maybe it will someday.”  I don't think it's going to happen in my generation.  I don't think it's going to happen in my children's generation.  I think the first step is going to be that people have to abide by some form of international law that forces them to treat one another with justice and equity.  And then eventually the generations themselves will clear it.  The hate will just have to work its way out.  But it has to start with some clear boundaries that       ensure justice and equity.

Abbi:  My hope.  I mentioned to my kids that I would travel over to Israel right now in a heartbeat. They said, “No, we don't want you to go.     It's not safe.” I said, “I'll be fine.”  I want them to get back to the place where they want to travel there with me.  And they do, but  they also say, “But what about the things on the news?”  Even with everything going on, if I knew that my older family members would be okay and I could secure a job over there, we'd be there.  There's something about it that's still home for me.  Really home.  Even though I’ve only lived there for a few months at a time, there's still this home feeling.

Sari:  Yes. 

Abbi:  So my hope is that more people can experience that sense of home and be there in a way that is not at the expense of another people. My hope is that there is a government that respects Palestinians and sees them as people who have rights.  I hope that they are able to exist and live in a safe and healthy way.  And I hope that there are Palestinians who recognize that    Israelis can be there and not want to take them out.  And that Palestinians realize Jews don't hate      people who are not Jewish. 

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Tomorrow, Part IV: What is the ROLE for faith leaders and faith communities regarding Israel - Palestine?

Israel - Palestine, A Conversation (Part II)

We continue our conversation with Rev. Sari Ateek and Rabbi Abbi Sharofsky as we delve into the issues of Israel-Palestine. The conversation is drawn from our Interwoven Congregations Quarterly issue first published on March 4th. We are posting this conversation in our blog in 5 parts, one each day this week. If you wish, you can read the whole issue here. Note: Part II is the longest section of the conversation which will challenge us and perhaps open up new lines of consideration. So get a cup of coffee or tea, pull up a chair, and join us. Thank you for  reading with an open heart.

Peace, salaam, shalom,      -  Rev. Pat Jackson

Part II: What did you THINK?

Pat:    Stepping back from our feelings, how do you think we got here? How do you understand the  reality that is Israel-Palestine today?  I'm mindful that we could spend a week on this question.

Sari:  Years.

Abbi: There are college courses on it.

Pat:  Yes.  But in this finite space, how are you thinking about this?

Abbi:   I really appreciate how you put the compartmentalization out there Sari.  Going through the world as a Jewish person, there's always a certain amount of intergenerational trauma that's  carried.  Any people that's been part of something, persecuted or exiled, experiences trauma.  We're all carrying it.  You carry it,  I carry it. There's definitely been this, “Well, how vulnerable can I be? How vulnerable should I be?  Who is safe to talk to?”  I found that going to synagogue was even more work than usual because my job is to be in these conversations. 

Sari: Yes. To show up.

Abbi:  My job is to be with all the interfaith people, to do all the inter-group work, and be the Jew in the room.  It was hard.  And that first month, I was very guarded. I remember the first event I went to where I realized that the room was not predominantly Jewish. I remember sitting there thinking, “How many Jews are here right now?  Am I okay?  What's going to be said?  How on guard do I need to be?” And it was terrifying.  In the following weeks, when I was around  big groups of Jewish people, there was this deep feeling of we're all standing together with  Israel. It was beautiful to feel that connection, which had been so strained over the last year or so

because of everything that was going on with the Israeli government.  A real distrust and fracturing in Israeli society and in Jewish communities had set in.  To be pulled together again was nice — and yet  so sad that this is what it took.  November was the hard month for me.  Those first weeks it was all vigils, rallies, vigils, rallies.  It was just going nonstop, 12-hour days.  But when a prayer service for peace that I was planning with a Presbyterian pastor and a Muslim Imam fell apart, shortly before Thanksgiving,  I sat in my office and thought, “Why am I doing this? Why am I here?   How is this ever going to work?  What is the point of my job?”  The only slightly hopeful thing, as we talk about  the future, is that in all of it, none of us hung up on each other.  We didn't yell at each other.  It was more of “Can you see why this hurt me?  Can you see why I spoke my truth?  I need you to see my pain in this” -- and actually hearing what the other      person was saying.  It was still terrible.  I felt like this work that we were trying to do – how is this ever going to   happen?

Pat:  Sari, how do you think about the situation    today that is Israel-Palestine?

Sari:  My daughter’s school is doing a field trip to the Holocaust Museum. And the question came up this morning, “Should she participate in that?”  First of all, it's up to her.  But my feeling is, “Absolutely!”  We have to understand human suffering.  The suffering of the Jewish people has seemed to conflict with the suffering of my own people.  This kind of zero sum way of thinking is awful.  So my view is that it is so important for my daughter to go and learn about the Holocaust.  Because, as Abbi said, we're dealing with trauma.  Israel's disproportionate response to what happened on October 7th is a trauma response.  If security for one group of people

depends on killing innocent men, women, and children - if that's what security means, then you’ve lost your soul.  As faith leaders, we have to be radically committed to nonviolence.  We must be.  There can't be a time where we say, “Okay, we're going to suspend our beliefs because we think that the only way to achieve what we need is to go in and kill people.”  The cycle of violence is perpetuated by the lie that the only way to stop others from hurting you is to hurt them more.  And so for me, I see major injustice from the very beginning with what's happened in Israel - Palestine.  I do see very clearly that there's one plot of land and two groups of people that claim a right to that land.  There's no scenario where that's going to be a simple solution.  I don't think that Palestinians are better than Jews.  I don't think that we're more evolved.  I think that if Palestinians and Israelis  were to switch places, it would be just as much of a catastrophe in my point of view. And so, again, this is not about one group being a victim and the other group being an oppressor.  This is about all of us. We're stuck in this terrible cycle where we think that our people group deserves something that the other people group doesn't. 

I'll say this, Abbi:  My personal belief is that the world doesn't seem to take it seriously when people speak on their own behalf, when it comes to their own oppression.  But when others speak on their behalf, for some reason, it's taken more seriously. I don't know why.  So my hope is not in America.  I know America could change the realities on the ground in Israel-Palestine very quickly if it changed its policies.  But my hope is not in America.  My hope is actually in Israelis themselves who decide that there has to be a better way, and who decide to humanize Palestinians.  And I hope that Israelis can learn to trust that there are so many Palestinians who are done with this cycle of violence, and who want peace and coexistence.  They want to live in a way where there's reconciliation.  I think this is why this setback is so awful.  Situations like this only serve to radicalize people even further.  Jews have really suffered. I understand the desperate need to have a homeland where there’s security and peace.  I desperately understand that.  And, I hope that one day, it will be understood that Palestinians also are humans and they deserve a homeland as well in which they can live with peace and security.

Abbi:  Around  30 days after October 7, there was a program at Congregation Beth El (Montgomery County, MD) to mark Shloshim, the end of the first month of mourning.  I stood on the bima and I said, “I pray  for the hostages. I pray for the families that are still finding out about their loved ones who were lost because they will be identifying people for a long time.” I said, “And I pray for Palestinians. I pray for people who are being killed in Gaza.  I pray for civilians and children. We can grieve their death as well.  They are human.  We can hold both and there’s room in who we are as humans to grieve both of those losses.”  People came up to me afterwards and said “Thank you for saying that.”  A board member emailed me and said, “I feel like you gave me permission to actually feel something that I didn't know I was allowed to feel.”

Sari:  That’s so powerful, so prophetic.

Abbi:  I grew up in a generation in the 80s and 90s where we didn't learn about Palestinians in Hebrew school.  We learned about Israel and how great    Israel was, and that was it.  I had to, over time, learn the bigger picture  of history;  to shape my own thinking and what it means for me as a progressive Zionist.  I had to learn what it means to love this land and to feel this connection to Israel; to believe in the self-determination of Jews there; and to realize that

there's a place for the self-determination of Palestinians also in this land.  What does that mean to hold those two?   I try to bring that view of my Zionism in many places to reclaim a word that's been used so negatively for a long time, and for people to know that I don't, as a Zionist, hate Palestinians. 

Pat:  Abbi, could you say a bit more about what it means to be a “progressive Zionist”?  

Abbi:  Progressive Zionism/Zionist is a broad term used to describe a person or group who believes that Jewish people have a right to self-determination in the land of Israel, that Israel is an important part of Jewish faith, history, and current identity AND that Jews can have that self-determination alongside other faith and ethnic groups, including Palestinians.  It’s also a person who may feel a strong connection to Israel and have strong critiques of the Israeli government, and want the country to do a better job of being religiously pluralistic, improve conditions for     Palestinians, address issues of racism and classism – ideas that are often considered more politically progressive.

Now I don't know what a solution looks like and thank God I'm not a politician in those spaces. Like you said Sari, there's one piece of land and continuing to fight over it doesn't make sense.  None of that's healthy;  none of that's good.  Just as you think about the Israelis, I think about this generation of Palestinians.  The people in Gaza who    survive are going to hate us and that's not going to help anything.  It just keeps the cycle going.  I am also hearing from some Israeli colleagues and friends right now that the trauma is just so great that they can't re-engage right now, which I also respect.  Sitting here from my very safe American spot, I feel very helpless.  I also don't want to push my American perspective onto a place where I'm not living.  So I just sit here not knowing where to go next.

Sari:  I love that humility, Abbi. We’re sitting here, not there.  And so there is a limitation there for us.  You and I have a luxury of being able to sit and speak in a safe place here. The deception would be that we're more evolved because we're able to have this conversation, but we're not.  We're just not in Gaza right now.  I would feel less safe if I knew there was someone out there who hated me.  I would feel much more safe if I knew that my neighbors loved me and looked out for me.  I hope that Israel and Palestine wake up someday and realize that the only way for safety and peace is actually connection and love.

Pat:  The public discourse around Israel-Palestine raises challenging questions as to whether  it is appropriate to speak about Israel as an apartheid state or going even further to raise the question of genocide concerning the treatment of the Palestinians.  How do you think about those?

Abbi:   Last night, we had a JCRC program on allyship,  “Antisemitism for Allies.”  The presenter talked about was how these words are very      loaded and suggested that the courts should     determine what the different parameters are.  The point she made was, “What happens when those of us who don't fully understand those words use them and demonize people with them?”  So saying Israel is committing genocide then becomes “Jews are a genocidal people,” because that leap is what happens, that’s how antisemitism flows.  That's what scares me. To say “Jews  operate an apartheid state,” that’s what scares me. 

Sari:  As a Palestinian, there's no question for me. There's apartheid going on in Israel-Palestine.  That term was coined in South Africa, and South African leaders like (Archbishop) Desmond Tutu, who      personally experienced South African apartheid, was naming it in Israel-Palestine way before the most recent identifications  were made by Amnesty International and others.  I just look at the facts.  Israel is a democratic state, right?  But if you're in the West Bank, there's actually a different set of rules for you.  Palestinians in the West Bank are not under the same law that Israelis in Israel are under.  They're under a military law and so they get tried in military courts. The whole legal   system is different.  You can say you have democracy, but the only way to do that is by creating another set of rules for the people you're occupying.  If Palestinians in the West Bank whose homes are being demolished, and whose children are being taken in night raids by the Israeli military —if their cases were brought before an Israeli court instead of a military court, like every other Israeli— those actions would never be tolerated. They would be seen as a violation of human rights.  And so that, for me, demonstrates the unjust double standard that has been labeled apartheid.  The facts on the grounds are the same.

The reason language is powerful is because it might wake the world up to what’s happening over there.  So I think that labeling things like this,  if done in a healthy way - and not in a way that demonizes a group of people - is important.  These labels play an important role.  Genocide?  Are there innocents being killed by the thousands in Gaza?  Yes.  I can tell you that.  You want to call that genocide?  Okay.  You don’t want to call that genocide?  Okay.  It doesn't change the fact that people are dying by the thousands, and the world is just letting it happen.  It's being done in the name of security.  There have been so many atrocities done in the name of   security.  So if you ask me as a Palestinian, the answer is “yes” to both the question of apartheid and genocide.  But I do understand the nuance.  At some point in time, forget the labels.  We just need to work together to end the violence, the oppression, and the occupation.  We need to secure peace and  security for Israel, and we need to secure peace and security for Palestinians. 

Abbi:  Persecution of Jews has happened.  How did Jews get to so many  places around the world?     We were forced out of many  countries.

Sari:  Exactly. No one here is virtuous.

Abbi:  I appreciate what you’re saying about labels. I know that when I go talk about antisemitism or any kind of hate or bias, if I start with the words that are going to trigger (and I don't like that term), but if I start there, no one is going to hear it, right?

Sari: Exactly.

Abbi:  Our culture loves to give labels and create slogans that fit on a poster. And none of those  actually get the job done.  I note that because there are a bunch of ways Pat that you're trying to get these terms to be discussed [in this interview]. And I think that in a lot of ways, that is part of the problem.  We want to delve into these terms so much and give things labels and boxes, that we forget about the humanity on the different sides that are truly impacted. Thousands of people have died over the last — I don't  know how many hours — in Gaza. There are Israeli      soldiers who are coming home in body bags, and their parents are burying their 19 and 20 year olds. All of those things are happening. They're all true.  I don't want to be that mother on either side.  That’s what I come down to.

Pat:  I appreciate that. I guess I think of these terms as a way to identify, describe and              understand a reality with which we’re confronted.  Language is a tool, imperfect and sometimes blunt, and it can clearly be abused.  But the reason I want to surface these issues is that our readers hear commentary about these ideas, and I want to give them an opportunity to hear from you about how else perhaps they ought to consider them.  So one other term or concept I want to engage with you is whether in discussing the issue of justice in Israel-Palestine, is it appropriate to frame that as a matter of just justice, or racial justice? 

Abbi:  I won't use a racial justice lens [on Israel-Palestine]  because I think that has become a very American construct to use on a place that is dealing with   issues that are way bigger than anti-racism.  Sari, I imagine you've encountered Israelis who have the exact same skin tone as you, or darker or lighter.  As an Ashkenazi, Eastern European Jew, who would visit Israel, yes, there would be a sense in some ways, of some dominance. But there are those in Israel who would respond to me with, “Well, you're an American, and you’re a woman, and you’re a rabbi.  You have zero standing here.”  It's an issue of peoplehood justice.  Who are the people that are here, and their stories and their legacies  going back?  It’s far more complex than which race was there.  I do think there are justice issues, definitely, both within Israel itself -- how refugees are treated, how the Mizrahi community (Jews from Middle Eastern and North African countries) is treated versus the Ashkenazim versus the Ethiopians.  There are many issues of social strata and socioeconomic factors.  I've been to the bus station in South Tel Aviv and you can't tell me that there aren't issues within Israel.  100%.  And what's happening between Israelis and Palestinians is even more complex than that.

Sari:  I wouldn't say it's only one thing, as Abbi said.  Even within Israeli society, within Israeli Jews, people do see color in a way that's not necessarily healthy.   There are people who feel left out and marginalized because of the color of their skin.  But I would say, yes, you do have two races that are pitted against each other and they're fighting.   Arabs and Jews tend to consider themselves racially different.  I'm with you Abbi, it’s a construct, this whole racial thing.  99.9% of our DNA is exactly the same.

Abbi: I wouldn't see you as a different race than me -- but a different ethnicity or religion?  Yes.

Sari:   I think the racial piece factors in from outside.  I think about how the news talks about the 1,200 Israelis who were killed on October 7th and the alarm around that versus how many thousands of Palestinians have had to die in order for there to be a similar amount of concern.  I think about how if you use the word “Palestinian” in America, many people first think of turbans and terrorists.  It used to be the communists and now it's this war on   Islam.  And so I feel that it would be immature for any of us to say that race is not playing some role in all of this.  I have

racism in my own heart, I know I do.  For me to say “I am not racist,” is not to be truthful.  I am a part of the problem. All of us are.  The sooner we all admit that, “Yes, there are vestiges of racism still lingering within me,” the sooner we can become a part of the solution, and humbly work toward becoming anti-racist.   Is racism the only factor in Israel-Palestine?  Absolutely not.  There are so many levels to this thing.  And if you remember, Pat, for the majority of history in Israel-Palestine, Jews and Arabs were living side by side.  We are now losing the generation that remembers those days.  And the generations that are here now don't think it is  possible, which is so sad because it was totally  possible.  And it will be again.

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Tomorrow, Part III: What is your HOPE for Israel - Palestine?

Israel-Palestine, A Conversation (Part I)

A note from the Editor

The Hamas attack on October 7th and the Israeli response have been sources of  outrage and   despair.  We at Interwoven Congregations considered issuing a statement, but then decided instead to use our Quarterly publication  to probe the issues more deeply.  To do so, we reached out to two people, Rev. Sari Ateek of St. John’s Norwood Episcopal Church, a Palestinian native, and Rabbi Abbi Sharofsky of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington. We had interviewed Rabbi Abbi for an earlier Quarterly issue on Anti-Bigotry.  And I knew Rev. Sari from my time in Bethesda, MD and had a deep appreciation for his ministry. What I didn’t realize is that Sari and Abbi also knew each other.  So we sat down (over Zoom) on Feb. 6th for a very personal, challenging, painful but also inspiring conversation about what they felt, what they thought, what they hope, and what role they think people of faith should play today   regarding Israel-Palestine.

We are going to post the Quarterly issue in 5 parts, one each day this week. If you wish, you can read the whole issue all at once here. Thank you for  reading with an open heart.

Peace, salaam, shalom,      -  Rev. Pat Jackson

PART 1: How did you FEEL?

Rev. Pat Jackson, Interwoven Congregations:  Rev. Sari Ateek and Rabbi Abbi Sharofsky, thank you for joining us for this conversation today (February 6th) about the recent events in Israel - Palestine.  Sari, if I could start with you, how did you feel on October 7th and in the aftermath?

Rev. Sari Ateek, St. John’s Norwood Episcopal Church:  Thank you, this is a beautiful [conversation] space. I was really sad when I heard the news of October 7th.   I was shocked, actually, at the magnitude of it.  There's never been in my lifetime any situation where Israelis were killed in those numbers. It is not uncommon for Palestinians to be killed in those numbers, but for Israelis to be killed in those numbers was truly a shocking thing.  I was sad and I was also disturbed by my own lack of surprise that there would be such a reaction from Hamas to the state of oppression in  Gaza.  My theory about humans is that the human spirit has to thrive. It has to live.  And so there's never a situation where people are going to be okay living in confinement like that. So there's a lack of      surprise that there would be some spillover from Gaza.  Part of the sadness for me is that the cycle of violence continues.  So the reaction to the events that came afterwards is also not a surprise.  We see this everywhere: “You attack us, we will make you pay.” I just wish humans weren't so  predictable.   So no surprise with Israel’s response.

Pat: Abbi, how about for you? How did you feel?

Rabbi Abbi Sharofsky, Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington:  It  happened on the end of the holiday of Sukkot, on these two holy days, Sh'mini Atzeret and Simchat Torah, when we celebrate the end of the   Torah reading cycle for the whole year.  There's a lot of joy and celebration.  You wouldn't typically use electronics so I try to stay off my phones.  I        remember waking up that Saturday morning [of October 7th] and my phone was just buzzing.  I saw that it was a group chat that I'm in with Jews and Catholics.  We had spent a week together in an emerging leadership program.  A Catholic priest in a Hebrew-speaking church in Jerusalem was messaging, “We’re okay, I can't believe this is happening.”  And I thought, “What happened to Father Benny?”   And then I start looking through the feed and I'm like, “Oh my God.”  I just couldn't believe it. I'm sitting in bed and I tap my husband,  “David, something's happened.” And I just start scrolling through -- 600 Israelis, 700 Israelis. And the number just kept going up.  We didn't want to say anything to our two kids;  they’re 12 and 8.  We went to synagogue that morning, and people were finding out.  And everyone was saying, “Are you okay?  Is this person okay? Is that person okay?”  And then finally, we get to the part in the Torah service where you say a prayer for the State of Israel and a prayer for this country.  Our rabbi broke the news from the bima.  I remember saying the prayer for Israel.  The rabbi recited the prayer for the soldiers, and our cantor sang a song for those who were captives.  We had heard that the nephew of someone in our congregation had been taken hostage.  I remember the cantor singing a beautiful song that I learned years ago.  I was singing it and just crying; and I'm not a crier in synagogue.  Afterwards, we were all saying “How are you?” “Well, you know.”  That became the greeting line for the next few weeks.

I remember this gut feeling upon seeing what happened -- Hamas had attacked these kibbutzim, there were rockets everywhere -- and my instinct was that the antisemitism is going to go sky high.  Islamophobia is going to go sky high.  This is going to be  really bad for our kids.

Then in the days to come, I remember just holding my breath.  Is there going to be a ground invasion? When is it going to happen?  This is going to be bad.  Two of my colleagues in the JCRC office have sons who are currently in the  IDF (Israel Defense Forces).  They were among the first to go into Gaza.  I remember this terrible feeling of “I can't believe we're doing this, and I hope their sons come home.  There's no way this is going to be good for anyone at all.”  I hate that this is where we are.

Pat:  Sari, I wonder if you might say a word about your own background and how you connect with this situation.  How did you interact with your   congregation following these events initially?

Sari:  It was a weird space for me.  Abbi, you're in a community full of Jewish people, right?  So everyone is feeling that impact in a very personal way. For me, I'm the only Palestinian around Americans in my church.  So all of the focus of the situation in Gaza is put on me, like “What's happening over there?”  So I actually retreated emotionally. I did not want to be around anyone. I didn't want to be the poster child for what's happening there.   I couldn’t take care of people's

feelings while I   myself was grieving.  I just couldn't be there for people in that way.  I think October was probably the hardest month for me.  I cried like I've never cried before.  I wasn’t just crying for the tremendous loss of life in Gaza;  I was crying because now I can’t even imagine there ever being peace in my lifetime.  I wasn't planning on saying anything about it from the pulpit [on    Oct. 15th].  I kept putting off writing the sermon, and then I realized that I couldn't preach on anything that was going to feel even remotely        authentic  unless I spoke about what was actually going on for me.  And so I decided to just let the congregation in on how I was  processing where God is in the midst of this. That was it.  I don't have   answers, just  “Here's how I'm processing it.”

I centered my sermon around a prayer that I've had in my Bible for a really long time. It's an anonymous prayer that is simply attributed with “based on the prayer of a Palestinian Christian.”  I've had it in my Bible since I was a kid, and it reads: “Pray not for Palestinian or Jew, for Arab or Israeli, but rather pray for ourselves that we might not divide them in our prayers, but keep them together in our hearts.”  The congregation found the sermon meaningful - particularly the ending  where I said that when    people say to me, “I'm pro-Palestinian,” I always respond by saying, “Please don't be.”  I know you’re trying to tell me that you are in solidarity with my people, but the last thing we need is for people to be pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli.  That's where the problem is -- saying I am for one group of people.  We have to be pro-justice. We have to be pro-humanity.  Abbi, you have eyes and ears and you're looking at me, and your soul is so beautiful.  There's nothing that's different between you and me. We're human beings with a desire for our people to thrive.  We all have the right to nationhood and to self-determination.  It doesn't have to be zero sum. And so I don't believe in saying, “I am blindly supportive of this group or that.” I think if we could elevate ourselves and speak out about injustice when injustice happens, then we're going to be much better contributors to the human family.

I eventually emerged out of that depression.  As a Palestinian who was born and raised in Israel-Palestine, I developed amazing skills for compartmentalization.  So it wasn't even a conscious thing.  My nervous system just made a switch in the beginning of November.  Maybe it's not healthy, but I just compartmentalized it.  But it is still emotionally very difficult for me.

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 Part II resumes tomorrow: What did you THINK? How did we get here with Israel-Palestine?