September 15 2015
We don’t get much Bible study in the Guardian or the New York Times. But in this as in so many other ways, Israel is different.
Haaretz – the liberal daily that most resembles these two newspapers – is just one of many sources to offer reflections on the portion of the week – the parashat from the Torah assigned for reading in the synagogues on Shabbat.
Parashat Vayera (Genesis 18.1-22.24) does double duty. It is read not only on the assigned Sabbath but also on the two days of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year holiday we have just celebrated.
In Haaretz this week, Nicolas Pelham offered a quirky commentary on this portion. Governments can shift to inclusive migration policies, he said. It’s all in the Bible.
Not at first sight, of course. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has good authority for maltreating and banishing destitute migrants to the desert.
Abraham banished Hagar and his first-born son Ishmael, after Sarah bullied him enough. (Netanyahu’s wife is also called Sarah. Obviously, that’s a coincidence.)
For Netanyahu, Pelham writes, “Africans fleeing persecution are not asylum seekers but unruly infiltrators posing an existential threat. While Israel’s smaller and poorer neighbours give sanctuary to Syrians fleeing war in their millions, he builds walls to deny them entry. And don’t dare think about Palestinian refugees or those kept on drip feed behind Gaza’s walls.”
At first sight, God seems to condone such inhumanity. But look again, Pelham says. God rescues Hagar and Ishmael.
“Twice he sends his angels – for the first time in the Bible – to comfort Hagar. A generation before Jacob, he blesses Ishmael with 12 tribes, or rather ummas, tribal confederations. Instead of the zero-sum game and the ‘her-son-grabs-all’ outcome that Sarah wanted, both Ishmael and Isaac inherit their father’s spiritual legacy and the land of his wanderings – eretz mguircha (Gen 17:8).”
And when Abraham dies, both come together to bury him at the Machpelah – the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron.
Here, of course, is where Pelham’s starry-eyed inclusivism runs smack into today’s reality. The Tomb of the Patriarchs is where in 1974 Baruch Goldstein, an American-born supporter of the right-wing Kach movement, opened fire on Palestinian pilgrims inside the Ibrahimi mosque, killing 29 and wounding 125. Goldstein’s massacre was stopped only when he was overpowered by survivors and beaten to death.
Goldstein has his contemporary admirers and imitators. But Pelham is not discouraged.
“The time was Jewish tradition honoured Ishmael too. Anyone who sees Ishmael in a dream, says the Midrash, will have his prayers answered by God. Many great rabbis took his name. It says Sarah died early, 48 years before Abraham, as punishment for banishing his first born. Even the Ramban (Nachmanides) condemns Sarah for abusing Hagar, and Abraham for letting her do it.”
And he reminds us that shanah is the Hebrew word for change.
“Rosh Hashanah — the New Year — might as accurately be translated as the ‘Change Ahead’… The welcome Germany has given migrants and the passports Spain plans to issue to the Jews it banished five centuries ago prove that governments and people can change policies, give sanctuary to others and increase their stature because of it. May this year mark a change for the good in Israel, too.”
An immediate test for Netanyahu’s government is the Christian schools’ protest against discrimination in education, now in its third week.[1]
On Sunday September 13 – Sunday is a working day here – the Abraham Fund called upon Netanyahu to resolve the Christian schools crisis.
The Abraham Fund is a not-for-profit organization, based in Lod/Lydda, named after the common ancestor of Jews and Arabs, and working since 1989 to promote coexistence and equality among Israel’s Jewish and Arab-Palestinian citizens.
From its earliest days,it has held fast to the vision of “an Israel that is at once both the homeland of the Jewish people and a full, welcoming and equal home for its Arab citizens”.
In 2003, three years into the second intifada, the Fund recognized that coexistence was not enough, that working for equality and equal treatment was now an essential mission. Now in its third decade, it focuses on those public policy and institutional changes needed to create a just and inclusive Israeli society.
Here is what it said to Prime Minister Netanyahu:[2]
“Today opens the third week of the 2015 school year. However, 33,000 schoolkids who are enrolled in 47 different Christian schools remain in their homes without receiving any formal education.
“This is a severe crisis that seriously impedes the Arab community since Christian schools are the pillars of their education.
“The Christian community schools, which have the legal status of ‘recognized but unofficial’, educate some of the best students in Arab society, both Christian and Muslim. Their graduates become scientists, business leaders, and public leaders. It’s truly an unparalleled educational source, which has achieved high accomplishments nationwide, including extremely high percentages in Israeli matriculation exams. In a reality in which the Arab state educational system is weakened in part as a result of decades of discrimination and under-budgeting, Christian schools are valuable assets that must be preserved and nourished.
“We turn to you with an urgent request to intervene as soon as possible to end the crisis quickly and prevent cumulative damage.”
There are rumours that the government may settle soon. Letters like this can only help.
Shanah tovah!
Notes
[1] See further: “God shows no partiality” ; “A striking thought” ; “Kirk in plea to PM as Israeli funding cuts threaten 150-year-old Christian school founded by Scottish missionary” ; “Moderator’s fears for future of Israel’s Christian schools” ; “Wisdom and folly, life and death”;
[2] The original letter was written in Hebrew, for obvious reasons. This is an unofficial translation.