The Movement for Reform Judaism

North Western Reform Synagogue, Saturday 15th July 2006
Bat Mitzvah: Lisa Graham Sidrah Pinchas  

I lost my temper this week.  It doesn't happen very often - probably because life has taught me that there are more effective ways of getting my own way!  I've been reflecting on why it happened.

Rabbi Tony Bayfield

I think it all began last Sunday at the Reform Movement's Biennial in Leicester (which was a brilliant weekend, by the way).  I was taken to task by a small group of highly intelligent and committed people (called Leslie/ey) for publishing a long article in our quarterly journal Manna, by the novelist Lynne Reid Banks.  Lynne, who's a former kibbutznik and an Israeli citizen, described a fortnight's teaching trip to the West Bank and the hardships and deprivations of ordinary Palestinians.  The objectors pointed out that there are enough people having a go at Israel without the Reform Movement further undermining the morale and support of the British Jewish community. 

A couple of days ago I was talking to a Christian friend of long standing who continues to have a go at me about the considerable Jewish support for the neo-Conservatives in the United States.  The neo-cons have had a big influence on President Bush's foreign policy.  When I tried yet again to get him to see that Israel is very largely the victim of the ebb and flow of the clashes between the Christian West and the Muslim world, crusade and counter-crusade, he simply brushed my comments aside muttering something to the effect that the crusades were a very long time ago and over and done with.  We Jews, he implied, are in part responsible for our own problems by contributing to the ‘American-Zionist foreign policy disaster'.

Frustrated and confused by all the complexities, I lost my rag and took it out on the readers of the Guardian. 

Earlier this year the Guardian launched commentisfree, a website on which its columnists and contributors have blogsites and can blog on whatever they like to their heart's content.  I dashed off a piece and showed it to Andie Newman, our PR Manager, and Andie emailed me back saying: "Do you really want to post that.  What will your Christian friends say?"  "And my Jewish ones!" I muttered, adding, with stunning originality, "publish and be damned". 

This is what I wrote:

"This is not a balanced, judicious blog - but if I can't use my blogsite for sharing honest feelings, then what's the point?  I've finally had enough of sanctimonious self-righteousness over the Palestinians.  So there!

Harry Blacker, who died some years ago, achieved fame as the cartoonist Nero.  For years he produced audible laughter from readers of the Jewish Chronicle with his regular debunking of Jewish pretensions. 

But there is one cartoon of his that the Jewish Chronicle refused to publish.  It had a group of ultra-orthodox Jews standing round their ‘victim' and was captioned: ‘Let him who is without sin cast the first stone'.  I don't think that the Editor's objection was to the use of a quotation from John's Gospel!

As I listen to the news with its details of Israel's return to Gaza, I cringe.  I cringe at the continuing involvement of Israeli Jews in the suffering of Palestinians.  I cringe because I can't believe that it will advance the cause of peace.  I cringe at the seeming hopelessness of it all.

But I also become incandescent at the sanctimonious advice and the hypocritical disavowal of any responsibility that is so prevalent in this country and even in certain quarters of the Church.

First, as readers of my contributions to the Guardian will know, I am a committed Zionist.  Jews have a right to a land of their own, a right founded upon constancy of presence and constancy of hopes and prayers.  Not to mention under international law.  But I will freely admit that I think it's unlikely that the right would have been exercised had it not been for the inability of Europe over more than a thousand years to come to terms with the presence of a Jewish minority in the midst of a Christian majority.  Yes, I'm referring to the Holocaust but I'm also referring - in this year of the 350^th anniversary of the re-admission of the Jews to England - to the persecution and expulsion that preceded it.  The Palestinians are absolutely right in saying that they are suffering because of a European problem.  But it isn't a Jewish problem - it's a British problem, a German problem, a Polish problem and a Christian problem.

Second, I can't say that we Brits have a brilliant record in dealing with conflicting claims ourselves.  The British record over Ireland over the last 100 years is not exactly the finest chapter in our history.

Thirdly, so many of the problems in the world today are in part due to our colonial legacy and our propensity for drawing lines on maps which bear little or no resemblance to the needs of the indigenous population.  Iraq, Jordan, the Indian Sub-Continent - and Israel/Palestine - have all suffered from British map drawing.  The ambiguity of the Balfour Declaration ("a national homeland for the Jews in Palestine"), the various unsuccessful partition plans and the supine, irresponsible retreat from the Mandate prior to the confirmation of the right of the State of Israel to exist by the United Nations - all these imperial botches provoke the justified comment, "A fine mess you've got us into".

Clearly, it's as plain as a pike staff that so much of what is going on today in the world has its roots in the perceived humiliation of Islam by the Christian west.  Muslims still remember the fanaticism and brutality of the Crusades.  "Islam is a violent religion by nature; the Jews, who have always been victims (victims of whom, I wonder?) have become the oppressor; but we Christians are peace loving and only concerned about the poor and the needy".  Come off it. 

I went on:  And since the rant is gaining in strength, let me make a fourth and final point.  The only hope for peace in the Middle East lies in raising the living standards of the Palestinians and making Gaza and the West Bank viable and prosperous.  Where, over the last year, where since the withdrawal from Gaza has been the investment in the Palestinians?  Where has the equivalent of the rebuilding of post-war Europe been?  What contribution has been made by Britain and the Churches - not to mention their fellow Arabs - to the basic services and economy of what will become the State of Palestine?  We are a nation of hypocritical stone chuckers".

Well, I certainly got that off my chest!  Actually I'm glad I did post it though I rather hope that it isn't brought to the attention of the chap at Lambeth at whom it isn't directed.

Being a Jew has always been a complicated and difficult thing.  Last week we were assembled in the desert on our way to the Promised Land.  Balaam, the non-Jew, was full of admiration and certain that we would conquer the Promised Land without the need of any help or alliances.  This week, the highly embarrassing story of Pinchas.  The moment we encounter non-Jews, we fall apart and are completely diverted from the task in hand by familiar local distractions. 

Being a British Jew is also highly complicated and yours, Lisa, is a family that is more aware of the complexities than most. 

The British record in the 1930s, here we go again, is decidedly patchy.  It's encapsulated for me in British press comment on the Evian Conference of 1938.  At Evian Britain confirmed its strict quota on Jewish immigration and categorically stated that throughout the British Empire, "We have no territory suitable to the large scale settlement of Jewish refugees".  The Sunday Express commented, "In Britain half a million Jews find their home.  They are never persecuted and, indeed, in many respects the Jews are given favoured treatment here.  But just now there is a big influx of foreign Jews into Britain.  They are over-running the country.  They are trying to enter the medical profession in great numbers.  They wish to practise as dentists.  Worst of all, many of them are holding themselves out to the public as psycho-analysts.  A psycho-analyst needs no medical training, but arrogates to himself the functions of a doctor.  And he often obtains an ascendancy over the patient of which he makes base use if he is a bad man......  There is no intolerance in Britain today".

Yet Britain did take in Jews - perhaps 80,000.  Had it not been for the admission of "hidden children" in 1946, you would not be here, Lisa, and the world and Alyth Gardens (which is much the same thing) would have been deprived of the warmth, energy and hugs of Eva Graham, your grandmother.

It's a difficult and complicated thing being a Jew.  Wonderful but complicated.  Holding together your Jewishness and your Britishness; love of Israel - land and people - with the values of love of neighbour and love of enemy, which Judaism taught the world, can challenge even the most thoughtful and thought-through person. 

I think that's probably why bat mitzvah, in its essence, is neither optional nor a ceremony but a legal coming of age whether you like it or not.  Which may even offer an excuse for losing one's temper occasionally.  After all, if you couldn't take your frustration out on Guardian readers then what would the world have come to!

That was where I ended this sermon when I wrote it on Tuesday.  I now need to add a footnote.

On Thursday, I got an email from my friend and colleague Julian Resnick.  Julian whom many of you will know, is the Reform Movement's Director of Living Judaism and commutes between the Sternberg Centre and his home on Kibbutz Tsora: 

"I am writing this to you all from my home in Israel after a very difficult 24 hours. Yesterday morning, as you are all aware, Israel was attacked from within Lebanon across the internationally recognised border to which Israel had withdrawn 6 years ago in accordance with the UN Resolution 1559. Israel does not occupy one millimetre of Lebanese soil and the only part of the UN Resolution which has not been carried out was that part which demanded of Lebanon to replace the Hezbolloh terrorist positions with regular army positions.

I am aware that you are all good, caring people who cannot countenance the thought of war and must all be struggling with the clear statements by the Israeli government that it sees the incursion into our sovereign territory, the killing of eight soldiers and the kidnapping of an additional two soldiers as causus belli (just cause for war). I want you all to know that in Israel from left to right across the political spectrum there is agreement that we will not tolerate our people being killed, kidnapped and held to ransom.

I trust that none of you will fall into the trap which has been cynically laid by both Hamas and the Hezbollah to lure good people across the western world. When the military leadership of Hamas met two nights ago in Gaza, they met in an apartment building filled with families, men, women and children. They met to plan the death of Israelis no less. My death, the death of my family and the death of my friends. The death of many people you know in Israel.

Among them was Mohammed Def, a master terrorist who has masterminded a string of terrorist attacks over the past years.  When you read about the death of innocent women and children in this attack and in others which unfortunately will be part of the outcome of their behaviour, please remember who the cynics are among Hamas and Hezbollah and that they are counting on your horror and outrage in their battle against us....

....Clearly the pain and suffering on both sides knows no religious or ethnic boundaries. I am not suggesting that only we know pain. What I am saying I hope in the clearest manner possible, that there comes a moment when we have to take care of ourselves and my hope is that you will all stand with us at this time".

Of course we do and will, with all our hearts and with all our souls and with all our might.  The agonising question which you and I, Lisa, and all of us here have to wrestle with is how best to do it, how best to stand by Israel and advance the cause of peace.

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