I returned from Israel ten days ago on the 23rd December having co-led our EHRS and Ark Synagogue trip which brought ten of us to Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa and the Gaza envelope.
On arrival in Israel as the plane settled down at Ben Gurion airport the voice of the captain came on: ‘Please remain seated with your seat belt fastened until this plane is at a complete standstill and the seat belt signs have been turned off.’
‘To those who are seated’ he continued, ‘we wish you a Merry Christmas and hope that you enjoy your stay in Israel …. And to those of you standing in the aisles and pushing towards the doors, we wish you a Happy Chanukkah, and welcome home to Israel.’
That announcement didn’t really happen but it remains for me pretty emotional to come into Ben Gurion airport.
It is a bit unsettling, as just as Judah is scared in our portion to approach Joseph, the last few minutes of the flight are over territory which is regularly subject to rocket attack. Then as you leave the plane and come into Israel you know that you are in a country in the depth of a continuing trauma – the ramp down to passport control is a series of the 100 photos of the hostages still is Gaza, now festooned with messages from friends, supporter and family, and toys around the photos of the children still in captivity.
I was last in Israel in February. A major change is that all of the park benches and the columns in the station are now covered in stickers commemorating the dead soldiers and hostages, men and women looking shockingly young – with messages from their words, ideas and things that they wrote when they were alive.
The devastation of Gaza and Hezbollah held regions of Lebanon is of course absolutely real and so is the tough reality of living in Israel. While I was there in Israel we were woken twice in the early hours of the morning by siren alerts for rockets fired on Tel Aviv by Houthis in Yemen. Both landed in the city – one on a school in Ramat Gan and one on a children’s playground in Jaffa, the scale of their destruction lessened by having both been hit by Iron Dome defence interceptors. They are among the 30,000 rockets that have been fired on Israel over the past twenty years. That is about three times as many as the number of missiles that attacked Britain from Germany during the Second World War.
When we were at the Nova Festival Site for an act of memorial for Jake Marlowe z’’l, the brother, child and grandchild of EHRS members the signs around told us that in the case of a siren sounding we had ten seconds to lie on the ground and cover our heads with our hands, as a vain act of protection.
In these circumstances you might have thought that Israel is lost. But far, far from it. What was much more noticeable than all of these signs of danger, so alien to us Londoners since the IRA attacks came to an end nearly 30 years ago and the last Islamicist terror of 10 years ago, was the thriving continuation of life in Israel.
The restaurants and shops are busy and the streets are full. Tens of thousands of Israelis gather in the Hostage square to protest the failure of the government to bring the captured home every end of Shabbat. Israeli Reform Judaism kicks off the rally every week with Havdallah, supporting the families who come week after week to be heard.
The busses, the trains, the trams are all running. Israeli Jews and Israeli Palestinians walk freely in the streets, shop together, go out to restaurants together, study together. The only major change that we felt as a group again and again was how polite and welcoming Israelis were to us! Casting no aspersions but this isn’t always the case.
Again and again and again we were embarrassed by people thanking us for being there in Israel. It was remarkable how much this mattered to Israelis. We were constantly told that they feel alone and the presence of Jews from all around the world is hugely significant.
We felt this as we spoke to fellow hotel guests, shopkeepers, people at the many Synagogues we visited, university students and high school children and teachers – Jewish and Arab.
Perhaps the strongest experience of why it mattered that we were there was as we sang Oseh Shalom, just a mile from the Gaza border in clear view of gate of Kibbutz Kfar Azza through which the Hamas raiders stormed and a clear view of the awful reality of Gaza itself. We sang it with members of the Pardes Hanna Reform Jewish Community who had come from their homes near Caesarea a hundred miles away for the first time since Oct 7th to witness the reality of the Gaza envelope Kibbutzim – they felt they could now come because we, their fellow Jews from London were there.
When we visited the Southern Wall of the original Temple in Jerusalem, which Ezekiel in our Haftarah portion said would be restored to our ancestors, we read and sang the fourteen Shirei Ha’Ma’a lot – the songs for pilgrims to sing on their way to the Temple. They include many songs known well to us all, Essa Enai (Psalam 121), Hine Mah Tov (Psalm 133) , the Shir Ha’malot of Bircat Ha Mazon (Psalm 126), Samachti (Psalm 122) as we sing on the evening of every festival and they also include these words (Psalm 130):
‘Out of the depths I cry to you, Eternal One;
Eternal God, hear my voice.
Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy.’
The people of Israel, Jewish and Palestinian Israelis are not going anywhere. However much Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and their sponsors would wish to make refugees of the 10 million citizens of Israel, including 7 million Jews, it is not going to happen and we must support the right of the nation to exist in safety. We must listen to the cries of Israel for support.
While I was there in Israel, both on our Synagogue trip and in visits I made afterwards I saw with my own eyes that there are many groups of Israelis and Palestinians still working hard for a better future. The national network of Yad B Yad schools where Jewish and Palestinian children learn together in Hebrew and Arabic, the Knesset members who representing Palestinian parties, the allotment holders of the Haifa community garden, Arabs and Jews who have developed their garden for 15 years and who say that they have one common enemy – slugs and snails, Tech 2 Peace – a remarkable group of young Israel and West Bank Palestinian and Jewish adults who train together in technology and entrepreneurship and conduct dialogue to understand each other in Israel and Cyprus. There are so many such groups and they need us to hear them and to visit them to encourage them.
Then there are activitsts who know that the future of Israel cannot be in the hands of the far right members of the Netanyahu government. Member of the Knesset Rabbi Gilad Kariv and many others who oppose racism, oppose demonization of Palestinians, stand up for democracy, the protection of the Supreme Court for all citizens and the values of the Declaration of Independence and the Basic Laws which protect Israelis’ rights. They represent probably half of all Israelis and they need us to hear them and encourage the work they do so that they can tip the balance into an Israel we can be proud of.
Soon after the Psalm of Ascent, the Shirei Ha Ma’a lot, in the book of Psalms, comes this Psalm sung by those living in Babylonia outside of the land, just as we are, by the rivers of Babylon. It is sung at almost every Jewish wedding, emotionally, with passion. It words ring true for us (Psalm 137):
אִם־אֶשְׁכָּחֵךְ יְרוּשָׁלָם תִּשְׁכַּח יְמִינִי תִּדְבַּק־לְשׁוֹנִי
‘If I forget you O Jerusalem, may my right hand wither and my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth.’
Israel needs us to be there. Israel needs our care and participation. Israel can be a place of meeting and co-existence for Jews and Arabs, for right and left – and we can go and help by visiting, supporting and strengthening the millions who share our vision.
