Sarah Bernstein:
Hello everyone, and welcome to the conversation about the delegitimization of Israel and the defense of Jewish identity, a struggle for the soul of the Jewish people. I am Sarah Bernstein, and I am a current sophomore at Brandeis, and I am the Israel programs coordinator for the Hillel Student Board. I'm very excited to introduce you tonight to Barry Shrage, I'm sure you all know Barry, but in case you don't, Barry Shrage served as president of CJP, Greater Boston's Jewish Federation from 1987 to 2017. He is now professor of the practice in the Hornstein Program and the Center for Modern Jewish Studies at Brandeis University.
Sarah Bernstein:
Throughout his 50 year career, Barry focused on strengthening Jewish identity and engaging future generations through Jewish education, deepening connections between American Jews and Israel and her people and developing strong communities that care for the most vulnerable in society. So, how tonight will work is, Barry will speak for about 10 minutes, and you can put your questions in the chat, and the Q&A will be moderated by Hillel's Executive Director, Rabbi Seth Winberg. Barry, the floor is yours.
Barry Shrage:
Thank you. This is actually wonderful, even though I can't see anybody, they tell me that there are close to 400 people out there. I feel like I'm surrounded by love here. I'm a person who's lived within community, loves going to synagogue, loves being with people, and I've been badly deprived of that for, I guess it's getting close to five months now. So, it's great to be with all of you, I really do appreciate the opportunity, I love being part of the Hillel system and the Hillel education process, I'm just very glad to be here. I'll say a couple of things first of all, thank you to Brandeis University. I've always been working for the Jewish people and when I left CJP it was my dream to be able to continue to do that, Brandeis University gives me that opportunity.
Barry Shrage:
Brandeis University needs to be understood by the Jewish community worldwide, needs to be understood as the place that really has the greatest potential to serve the Jewish community in essential ways. For one thing, we have more data through the Cohen Center than any other ... Many universities have great Jewish studies. No one has the ability to turn data into social policy, into actual program to provide guidance for the future of the American Jewish community, that's Brandeis University. The more we understand that, the more we strengthen its ability to do that, the better off the American Jewish community is going to be. And of course, it's great to be part of Hillel at Brandeis, very powerful, very strong, and essentially it will be facing all of the issues that we're going to be talking about this evening.
Barry Shrage:
It's the Hillels around the country that are going to have to stand with the Jewish students in dealing with whatever they find on campus or on Zoom when they come back. So let me say a little bit about the central focus of my research at Brandeis and what I've been ... it's more than that, it's been my obsession all my life. What is Jewish identity? Those of you who know me know that my highest priority has been Jewish education throughout my career, working for the Jewish community. But I've learned something important, which is that, what is Jewish identity? Well, it's faith. I mean, I'm a traditional Jew. I believe in God. I believe that religion has a place, and I believe that Jewish learning, Torah and Talmud and the vast history and library of what Judaism represents, my goodness, this is a 3,500 year-old unbelievable heritage that we have.
Barry Shrage:
I believe that part of what we give to the world is a sense of social justice, and that's what makes us Jewish as well. All of those things, but what I learned is, is that a sense of being part of the Jewish people, love of the Jewish people is also essential, maybe it's a precursor to all the rest of those things, because if we don't feel a connection to the Jewish people, what exactly do we have? What makes all of these different components actually matter to any individual Jew? All of that is, I think, crucial.
Barry Shrage:
So what does this have to do with the delegitimization of Israel? So, here's my basic thesis. It's pretty clear to me that you can't learn love of the Jewish people. Love of the Jewish people is a question of empathy. Whether it's David Hartman and something that he once wrote, or what Rabbi Soloveichik has written or a wonderful book that I like called John Lennon and the Jews. There's an underlying thesis here, which is that this love, the sense of being connected, what we used to call ethnicity. All of those things are an essential part of what it means to be a Jew. In other words, it makes sense out of all the rest, if we're a people and we can act in history, then being able to champion social justice matters. If we're a people and it matters, then in addition to everything else, as Rabbi Sacks likes to say, "We will participate in the conversation among civilizations."
Barry Shrage:
If you want to know why it's important for the Jewish people to continue, think about what our role has been in the conversation among civilizations. So what does that have to do with Israel? Turns out that the most powerful way of feeling part of the Jewish people, we learn this by watching birthright. Each of us knows this because we know what a trip to Israel does for us. It makes us feel part of something bigger. It makes us feel in a very real way that those people were meeting with an Israel, a part of our family. Can I explain this intellectually? I'm not so sure I can, but I know what it feels like. I know what it feels like to be there and to feel whether you're talking to people you agree with or disagree with, they are part of your family.
Barry Shrage:
It's the sense of being part of this very large family that ultimately gives meaning to our lives and purpose to our lives, gives us a sense of belonging without getting too much into fiddler on the roof. The sense of tradition and belonging is what gives us meaning otherwise we're lost in a sea of alienation. Now, the key is, if our trip to Israel is so important and if our connection to Israel is so important, indeed, can you really say that you love the Jewish people or you're part of the Jewish people if you don't care about the fate of seven and a half million Jews? It's just not possible. This does not mean agreeing with everything that the Israeli government does, not at all, but it means being able to strongly push back against people who want to see that state disappear.
Barry Shrage:
The one place on earth that really is our own disappear. I don't want to talk about whether it's antisemitism, I don't think it matters. If somebody wants to see the death and destruction of the nation that serves seven and a half million of my people, that's an extreme that makes it an unimportant differentiation between antisemitism and being able to push back on people who see the destruction of the Jewish people as being important. Also, this does not mean not caring about the rest of the world. My goal when I was at CJP was to do two things at the same time, to be the most particularistic federation in the country, caring about Jewish education, caring about Israel, loving the Jewish people, and at the same time, the most universalistic.
Barry Shrage:
So when it came to caring about the poor, when it came time to do something about immigrants, undocumented immigrants being thrown out of the country, we raised $700,000 overnight in order to hire lawyers through Catholic Charities of all things in order to defend the lives of those undocumented immigrants. That's what it means to be a Jew, to be deeply committed to your own people, and at the same time to be able to be in service to the world. The delegitimization of Israel also turns out to be an attack on Jewish identity itself, to be able to quote from something that I really liked, Deborah Lipstadt's book Antisemitism here, and I think she puts it very clearly. It is sadly true that one of the most pernicious results of prejudice is when members of a persecuted group except the ugly stereotypes use to characterize them.
Barry Shrage:
As Anthony Julius has observed contempt for Jews when sufficiently widespread can foster self contempt among Jews. It can convince Jews that unfounded, inaccurate accusations leveled against them or by extension against the Jewish state are true. If we're surrounded by a culture that says to us, if we want to participate in saving the world in being progressive, that we have to reject the State of Israel, we have to reject that philosophy, we have to say, "We will stand with the State of Israel, we will stand with the poor and oppressed, we can do both those things at the same time, but if you demand that I give up what I am in order to be part of you, then it's the same thing that's happened to us throughout history.
Barry Shrage:
They'll tell us that Jews are evil, that Jews killed Christ, that Jews ... and the only way that we can save ourselves is to become assimilated and part of the larger culture, we must refuse to assimilate, and at the same time, be willing to join forces with others for the sake of justice. That's my basic context. Is anyone out there? Hello.
Seth Winberg:
Barry can you hear me?
Barry Shrage:
Yeah. Oh, good, good. I was a little worried there, the screen was...
Seth Winberg:
No, no don't worry. Barry, first of all, thank you so much for being with us this evening.
Barry Shrage:
Is that moderately clear? That's what I want to know.
Seth Winberg:
Yes. In a minute, I'm going to ask you some questions on behalf of Brandeis students who submitted questions. First, I just want to thank you again for being with us this evening. I told my kids that I was going to be talking to you on Zoom. I don't know ... People don't realize that I have the distinct privilege of sitting next to Barry in schul when our synagogue has services. I haven't had a chance.
Barry Shrage:
I miss you.
Seth Winberg:
I miss you too, my kids miss you. I haven't had a chance to sit and schmooze with you about these issues. Well, we're not supposed to be talking during services but I want to pose questions to you on behalf of students. They're Brandeis students, so we're going to get right down to the business real fast. Let me pose two questions at the time because they've submitted a lot. The first question is, "How do you think the upcoming presidential election will affect the environment of Israel conversations on American college campuses?" Let me give you two at a time, "Given the pandemic and the need to be physically distance right now, what should we be doing to prevent a distancing of the relationship between the American Jewish community and our family in Israel?"
Barry Shrage:
Those are great questions. Well, let me completely ignore the one that I don't want to answer and just go to ... No, I'll answer them. Can you get back on the screen rabbi? Because, I'm not looking at any. Oh, there you are. Can you stay that way? Yeah.
Barry Shrage:
It helps me to focus. The problem with the presidential election and its impact ... what they say it's ... that old story about the guy who's got two birds in his hand and they say is it dead ... a bird in his hand and they say is it dead or alive? And the answer is, it depends on you, you'll decide what the outcome is with that bird. This depends on us. Right now is a time of civic unrest and deep polarization. You hear about it all the time, family members who stop talking to each other, better to stop talking about politics and talk to each other. Because if we stop talking to each other, if we forget that we underneath it all love each other, despite the politics.
Barry Shrage:
The other thing is, to listen to each other. This is so critical. Rabbi Sacks was publishing his new book, Morality, stresses this idea that we need to listen and talk to each other. And if you do that, I find that at the end of the day, there's really not that much that might separate us, despite the fact that the culture is telling us to be polarized, to hate the other, to not be willing to understand. There are definitely parts of the Trump agenda that are abhorrent and there are parts that need to be listened to. There are things that we pray President Biden someday will do, and there are things that we're concerned about that President Biden might someday do. There's room for discussion here. We can't allow it.
Barry Shrage:
We also need to be concerned about the social unrest in the country, and the idea that we can proudly say, we can clearly say that black lives do matter along with all other lives, but we can also say, but when intersectionality tries to tell us that we need to understand the situation of Palestinians in the same way and we need to reject our people, we need to say, "I'm sorry, no." We can care deeply about the fate of African Americans and poor people and oppressed people on the one hand, and we can also at the same time say, "We will defend our own people without necessarily agreeing with everything that they do." Then your second question was ... Second question rabbi?
Seth Winberg:
Let me read it to you again. One second. Right now, travel ... I think the question was that travel was...
Barry Shrage:
Oh, yeah. Okay, okay. All right.
Barry Shrage:
Okay. So, there are two things that we can do. First of all, I would say the revolution in Jewish identity was birthright and other immersive trips to Israel. You can't do without that. I mean, this is going to be essential, because our political disagreements with Israel, which I touched on before, those are political disagreements. Danny Gordis wrote a wonderful book called Divided We Stand, and I disagree with parts of it because I don't think that the situation is that bad. Not at all that bad. There's a lot of empathy for Israel.
Barry Shrage:
What he essentially says is, "Look, we ... you will never understand we Israelis, never understand us. Why? Because when you guys were riding off to school, in your school buses comfortable with your nice peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and whatever, our kids were getting on a bus with a cell phone so that they could tell their parents that they weren't dead before they got to school because buses were blowing up like firecrackers on the 4th of July. Now, those experiences are incommensurable with each other.
Barry Shrage:
On the other hand, does that mean as Danny sometimes seem to say, that we cannot understand each other, you can't feel empathy for a brother or a sister, you can't imagine yourself going to school as an Israeli and fearing fear of life and having to tell your parents that you were alive. You can't understand what it feels like to be an Israeli going into the IDF. You can feel all those things. On the other hand, Israelis need to understand us. When an Israeli says to us, "You better vote for Trump because he's pro-Israel." You've got to be able to say back, "You got to understand us and our fate and our system and our fears as American Jews." Understanding each other empathy is the key.
Barry Shrage:
So, we need to get that trip to Israel started again fast. We need birthright fast. Our survey again, the great thing about Brandeis is we've got the Cohen Center, we just completed groundbreaking new studies of the kids who are waiting for the birthright experience. They are going to be ready to go when it's ready to go. We also learned a lot through that about the state of American Jewish communities during the COVID crisis, what the opportunities are after and all the rest of that. But the bottom line is we've got to be ready to go.
Barry Shrage:
The second thing is, we better use the Zoom thing as much as we can to communicate with our brothers and sisters in Israel. If you are on a birthright trip, invite some of your friends to come along and talk to some of your Israeli soldier friends, that's the heart of what we ought to be doing through IACT, our post-birthright connection program.
Seth Winberg:
I want to come back to soldiers and birthright in just a minute. I want to remind people that they can start to submit questions in the Q & A, and we'll get to those questions in a minute. We're still asking questions from students. So, there are two questions here that I want to pose to you. One is, "What advice do you have, how can liberal-minded American Jews be comfortable with their support for Israel when they are being excluded from progressive circles because of their Zionism." That's the question from our students. The other question doesn't really connect to that, but you just raised it. So I'll pose the question. "Can you explain why you feel it is so important that birthright participants meet with Israeli soldiers as part of the trip?" That was also a question submitted by student.
Barry Shrage:
Okay. Again, you're asking two questions?
Seth Winberg:
The first question is, what advice do you have for American Jewish college students who feels excluded from progressive circles and causes because of their Zionism? What advice do you have for that student?
Barry Shrage:
It's what I said before, you need to be able to define your own progressivism, it strikes me that you have a role in this, and I'm sure you know you do. In other words, you have to be able to express the feelings of your students and engage them in volunteer services or fundraising or whatever it is you need to do in order to be supportive. But if so-called progressive circles demand that you give up your Zionism at the door, you just say no, you don't say I'm rejecting you, I'm rejecting my role in history, in making the world a better place. Not at all. I'm doubling down on that, but I'm not going to be working with you on this if that's what you demand.
Barry Shrage:
If they say, "Well, you're just speaking from your privilege?" I think you have to reject that, our privilege is not that old you know. We weren't very privileged 70 years ago. We know what it's like, always have known what it's like to suffer and be oppressed. We'll never forget it, we'll never abandon people who are in need. Our Torah demands it of us, our history demands it of us, our God demands it of us. On the other hand to give up our sense of belonging to our people in order to do that. What they're asking us to do is what we would be vilified if we did to them.
Barry Shrage:
In other words, why is it that every culture has the right to feel attached to its own people, every ethnicity, every group on campus? And we're excluded from that, everyone gets safe spaces, we don't, it's not allowed, not permissible. We need to reject it, but we need to continue to be engaged in making the world a better place.
Seth Winberg:
Thank you. Do you want to address the question now about why Israeli soldiers are part of the birthright experience that American young adults are having?
Barry Shrage:
All right. Because that's the way it was created at the beginning and it's continued, and it seems to work real well. I'm sort of reluctant, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. This seems to work well, but I'll tell you something interesting, very interesting, because you'd expect, with anti-militarism and questions about the military and all that, that the American Jewish students would reject, would ask a lot of questions of the soldiers. The truth is that those soldiers are not all right. Wait, not at all. I mean, I don't think a lot of them want to be defending settlements on the West Bank.
Barry Shrage:
They're just like every other Israeli, they represent a wide variety, but I will say that for American Jewish kids who had important decisions to make and made those decisions, and I respect that, but when you're talking to somebody who made a decision to be part of a unit where their life is going to be more at jeopardy and are doing it because they care about their people and they care about their country, this is an existential encounter for an American Jewish student. It's an important encounter, and it's important to see how they do very politically in so many ways.
Barry Shrage:
So I think actually it was an excellent choice. There are other ways to encounter Israelis, in Boston, we created the Boston-Haifa Connection. Every community should do that by the way, we end up sending 700 high school kids to Israel every year, paid for by their own parents to visit their partner institutions in Israel and 700 Israelis come to Boston. It's another way of creating context and contact. It's not with soldiers, it's with ordinary citizens, by the way, the reason it costs almost nothing is because they stay with their families, which is another part of the mifgash encounter.
Seth Winberg:
Great. Thank you. Okay. Let me just catch up a little for a second here on the questions. One of the questions from students is, "What would you want to say to a young adult American Jew who is extremely proud to be Jewish, but does not believe Israel's right to exist?"
Barry Shrage:
Say the beginning of that question again, they are what?
Seth Winberg:
What would you want to say to a very proud young adult American Jew, who tells you that they're very proud of their Judaism and to be Jewish, they do not feel or believe that Israel has a right to exist.
Barry Shrage:
As I said before, connection to the Jewish people worldwide, connection to every Jewish person in the world, in some way, at least being able to have empathy for what their situation is. So the other side, our opponents, they've always believed that Israel has no right to exist. This is the problem with the Palestinian Israeli conflict right now, and it's why this latest opening to the United Arab Emirates is so important. That means that some on the other side are saying, "Indeed, Israel has a right to exist." We have an ancient connection to that land in that place. But what does it actually mean to say Israel has no right to exist when there are seven and a half million Jews living there?
Barry Shrage:
It means that there's going to be a lot of breakage if Israel ceases to exist. It ain't going to go away peacefully. There's going to be ... the rejection of the State of Israel is the cause of a lot of suffering on the Palestinian side. The idea that Israel is an imperialist implant is something that we need to reject. Now, I can't tell that particular student to reject that idea. I mean, everybody has a right to do what they do, but I would say that cutting your connection to the Jewish people, eliminates such an important part of what it means to be Jewish, the joy of being Jewish, the sense of connection, the sense of being part of something bigger.
Barry Shrage:
I just think that it's an emptier Judaism that they would be connecting to. The reality is that the State of Israel does exist and wishing it away is not going to make it so, but having empathy for the feelings of those people who are there, what they go through, how they live, what they care about, just as they need to have that kind of empathy for us is well.
Seth Winberg:
Thank you. I want to turn it now to questions from our people watching, the people at home. So these are no longer questions from students, at least I don't think so based on the name, some of these are anonymous, so they might be students, they might be others off campus. Barry, how do you feel about the recognition of the United Arab Emirates of Israel without recognition of the Palestinians to have their own state and do you think Israel will be safe in this situation?
Barry Shrage:
Yeah. Israel is not entirely safe, has never been entirely safe. That's almost given. It's really a question, very important question about which way this process actually needs to run. In a way, saying that the Arab states can't make peace with Israel until Israel makes peace with the Palestinians, and the Palestinians put up barriers to that, that are impossible for the Israelis. In other words, the right of return, if that ends up being be all and end all which really translates into an end to the State of Israel, in other words, unrestricted immigration back to Israel, you know that's a nonstarter for Israelis. But if the Palestinians feel that they will be able to deny Israel any recognition in the Arab world until the Israelis give in to every one of their demands, that's not getting us anywhere.
Barry Shrage:
Israelis have a right to feel that they've actually over the years offered a whole lot. In other words, back in 1948, all the Arab states had to do was say, "Yes." And there would have been an Arab state, as Palestinian state right there. That was the partition idea. People forget this, and there were many other such offers. So, will this work? Will in the end this actually helped Palestinians to feel that would be a good idea to engage in serious negotiations, to create a two-state solution? I don't know. I believe deeply in the two-state solution, I'd love to see us get there, but which direction this is going to run, is going to be a question.
Seth Winberg:
There's another question here that I thought was worth asking you, Barry. "How do you overcome the damage that Netanyahu and his disdain for President Obama and other Democrats has done to relations with Jewish Democrats and other Progressive Jews?"
Barry Shrage:
Wow, that's a good question. At the time I have to say that I felt that it was a mistake. I felt that the prime minister should have been more sensitive, we can't lose bipartisan support for Israel. We need the democratic party to be open and caring, and the more we can do to make that happen, the better off we're going to be. I am hoping that in whatever the new environment is, that the Israeli is, that the prime minister does work hard to create a strong relationship. I happen to have agreed with the prime minister, that the Iran deal was an extremely bad idea and I personally think it has proven to be not particularly terrific because it gave the Iranians the strength to play a role in Syria, for example, that caused maybe a 100,000 deaths on the ground in Syria, including probably 10,000 Palestinians.
Barry Shrage:
We definitely had disagreements, and it was appropriate with the Obama administration, but on the other hand, this needs to be worked out in a diplomatic fashion. I think that there could have been better having lobby Congress against the Iran deal. I didn't think it helped us a whole lot that when he did that intervention with the Congress at the Republicans behest, but again, you have to think about how Israelis feel about these things, and for them this Iran deal was an existential issue. I mean, obviously a nuclear armed Iran is bad. Personally, I think that they should have been more insistent on other parts other than the nuclear thing, because Hezbollah with 200,000 accurate rockets can be ... nuclear is existential, but so is 200,000 accurate rockets aimed at the heartland of Israel.
Barry Shrage:
So, that's what Iran is up to and has been up to with Russian support ever since the deal was made, with a lot of cash to do it, and a lot of ability to do it. So, we still need to worry about that, but we need to be able to convince Democrats of the fact that we need to work together, that there are other ways of doing business, that will listen to each other. We can't simply ... we need to have bipartisan support and we need to work harder on that.
Seth Winberg:
One of the questions that a student posed was from your perspective, "What is the greatest threat that Israel is facing?" Since you are framing this in terms of relationships between Jewish communities on two sides of an ocean, what's the greatest challenge facing Israel? What's the greatest challenge facing the American Jewish community, and what's the greatest success in each of those communities? I am sensitive to ... the sky is falling narratives that Jewish communities often focus on the negative. So I'd love to hear from you what's the most outstanding accomplishment of the American Jewish community in Israel, and what are the real most significant challenges?
Barry Shrage:
So let me say this in relation to my optimism and my fears. One of the biggest challenges for the American Jewish community is that we begin to lose faith in our institutions. There's a great new book by Yuval Levin, who sounds like an Israeli but isn't, it's called the Time to Build. It makes the case that it's in a way, the problem with America right now, even the problem with the Trump administration is, his disdain for the institution that he's supposed to be leading, the government of the United States of America. We need our institutions, you know this. I mean, in other words, our sense of identity as Jews or being as Jews depends in part on our institutions, and for years, everybody's been saying, "Oh, we don't need institutions, they're old fashioned, synagogues are dying, young people don't care."
Barry Shrage:
Well, guess what? Out of the COVID thing, we've learned that we need those institutions and they've responded amazingly, so is Hillel, so are the federations. I mean, they've actually become more important than they ever have before because we need those things to survive. We can't just depend on government. We need our institutions to keep us together, to form communities. All of those things are important, and the COVID thing has helped to show us just how important those institutions are and that they can survive. Guess what? We thought that day schools were in trouble before, and that they were going to completely fall apart as a result of the economic collapse and COVID and all the rest. You know what? Our day schools are heroic, they jumped out of the box immediately. I mean, some of them are going to be shaky, there are going to be problems, but a lot of them have more students than they ever thought they ever had before.
Barry Shrage:
In other words, this is a tricky thing, the fate of the Jewish people. So I think that, the two greatest crises that we face is, number one being alienated from our people in Israel because our identity depends on our ability to have empathy for them. That's one of our biggest challenges. Our biggest opportunity is to be able to reassert our connection to our people in Israel through empathy, through being together, through communicating. That's our opportunity. Challenge is the idea that our institutions are collapsing. We need to double down on our institutions. I love it when people say, "We don't need synagogues, we need alternatives." I'm waiting for somebody to tell me exactly what those alternatives are.
Barry Shrage:
Now you can say minyanim alternative, minyanim or a kind of a synagogue in a way, I guess they are. You can say anything you want, but we're not going to easily replace those institutions. And guess what? The ones that are great are getting greater. You can see it all through the COVID thing. They're incredibly important to their Congress, more so than ever before. So I think that we need to lose some of our pessimism and instead of looking for all kinds of alternatives, by the way, we want to fund alternatives, of course, I mean, anything can happen, but we better not lose the core of what we actually have and watch those places that are doing amazing work. For every Michigan to fill out that falls off the map, there are six Temple Emmanuels and Beth Elohims and Beth Shalom and lots of other places that are doing amazing things.
Barry Shrage:
On the Israeli side, I think, again, we can talk all we want about ... they don't need us, we don't need them. They need us, they need us for all kinds of reasons. So, doubling down on strengthening our relationship ends up being incredibly important. Of course, the military threat is important. You should never, never believe that Israel needs to be able to ... they need to be able to operate and to build their strength as if they never get support from the United States, but they need to build support from the United States as if they had no strength in order to be able to do those things. We can't really afford to lose strategic allies. That means carefully tending to both sides of the political aisle, losing that would also be a great danger to Israel, but not as bigger danger as losing its military edge.
Barry Shrage:
I mean, on the Israeli side you also have the fractures in Israeli society. You know what? If a president divides us, it's destroying the heart of America, if we lose sight of those things that are important, it kills us. If an Israeli prime minister ends up doing things that divide the people of Israel instead of uniting them, whether it's dividing them from us or dividing them from each other, it ends up having catastrophic results as we've known since the destruction of the temple.
Seth Winberg:
We have time for a couple more questions. One of the questions is, "Can you please discuss your experiences meeting with Palestinians in the occupied territories in West bank? Who have you met there? How did that experience impact your views on the conflict?"
Barry Shrage:
Well, it worked, I've done it several times. We had a mission to Israel with the Hornstein students about, I guess it's a year ago now, maybe more, I've lost track of time, and you learn two things. One ... by the way, there are very interesting things that you can learn about the difference between Israeli Arabs and Palestinians, very significant differences in the way they see the world. But Palestinians you learn ... you see two things simultaneously, you see that they're human beings and that you really do have to have empathy and of course I do. Nobody wants terrorists from the Jewish side destroying crops on the Palestinian side. That's a disgrace to what it means to be Jewish.
Barry Shrage:
On the other hand, you also so clearly see the depth of the hatred, and how difficult it's going to be to actually bring this thing together, and you begin to feel indeed on the part of some people that the answer to this question is the destruction of the State of Israel. That's not good for the Palestinians because it ain't going to happen. The idea that we're the crusaders and that we're just going to disappear is not going to happen. What I've learned is that there's a need for them to figure out how to live with us just as there's a need for us to figure out how to learn to live with them. But we won't accept the idea that we have no presence in the area we don't deserve to be there and that we need to give it all up, that's asking too much, and for many underneath it all, that is what they're asking.
Barry Shrage:
I should also say there are many people who would be willing to accept a two-state solution and they're looking for a way to make it happen, but that means you got to be willing to negotiate seriously.
Seth Winberg:
Right. You've mentioned Rabbi Sacks a few times. One of the comments he made in an interview recently was that, he has not always felt that Israel does a great job telling its own story. One of the questions here, I think connects to that a little bit, here's the way the question was worded. "Do you believe that prime minister Netanyahu's government favoring the Orthodox stream of Judaism hurts Israel's relationships with Reform and Conservative Jews?
Barry Shrage:
I would take exception to that. I would say that it creates problems and alienation with all the streams of Judaism, including the Orthodox. I like to think that my friend, mentor and rabbi, Avi Weiss is an Orthodox leader worthy of enormous respect, and when he gets rejected it ... Look, basically, the lack of separation between church and state is not just an offense to Reform and Conservative Jews, it's an offense to God almighty. It's what we call chillul hashem, it's desecration of God's name. In other words if the sins of ... America is one of the most religious countries in the world, because we have separation of church and state, and Israel is one ... if you look at the data is one of the least religious because they don't have separation of church and state.
Barry Shrage:
One of the things that we've tried to do at our Boston-Haifa Connection and lots of other ways is to reintroduce Israelis to the power of religious, spiritual life to the power of Torah. When the Orthodox tried to dominate, it doesn't create love, it doesn't create ahavat yisrael or ahavat hashem. It creates exactly the opposite. So yeah, it's not a good idea. Politics will be politics, but I think that everyone needs to look beyond this. Again, not just for the sake of American Jews, I can't understand how the religious establishment in Israel sleeps at night. I mean, if you understand that what you've done is managed to alienate Israelis from their faith, from their God, from their sense of people, and all that, that's not a bell ringer strategy. You know what I mean?
Seth Winberg:
Great. I see we're almost out of time, but there've been a couple of questions about this. So I'm going to squeeze it in and then we're going to say good night to everybody. Couple of questions here about Black Lives Matter, one question was, "Could you comment on the recent New York Times advertisement signed by 600 plus American Jewish organizations?" The other question was, "Could you comment on concerns about antisemitism among the leadership of Black Lives Matter?"
Barry Shrage:
The key question that we're always asking is, what does it mean to be the leadership of Black Lives Matter? These are two ... there are a variety of groups that are part of Black Lives Matter. As many people will tell you, there is no consistent leadership for Black Lives Matter. There was a Black Lives Matter organization that issued a platform which included a deeply anti-Israel bordering on antisemitic stuff. I think obviously that's the problem, but I won't work with that part of the movement, but for a Jew to say, "I'm against Black Lives Matter." I mean, that would be ... you have to understand there are many different things going on there. You need to fight antisemitism when you see it, when it exists among the people that are doing it.
Barry Shrage:
Like I said, I won't distinguish between antisemitism that sees the destruction of the State of Israel as a goal and antisemitism. I mean, you could go into ... for all I care, a person who wants Israel destroyed, his mother and father could be Jewish. His best friend could be Jewish, but as far as I'm concerned, he and I, or she and I are enemies. I won't stand idly by the blood of my brothers and sisters. So, I don't think it's fair to condemn Black Lives Matter, I'm not exactly sure what that statement was purporting to support. I don't think we can support all aspects of the various groups that call themselves Black Lives Matter no matter what it is that they want.
Barry Shrage:
On the other hand, we need to be for what we are for, what is rationally right and in the name of justice in the world, that's what we need to be to stand for. If there are parts of what some parts of Black Lives Matter stand for that seem abhorrent, that tell us that because we are privileged, we can't even answer, we can't speak for what our own history means, if that's what they're telling us, well, I'm sorry, I can't be part of that. But on the other hand, will I fight for intelligent policies on policing, and by the way, a lot of this is ... we get so far, so deep into what racism means in this, that we forget about the economic parts of this.
Barry Shrage:
In my view, we should be working as hard as we can to improve the quality of life for African Americans in every way that we can do it. This COVID thing has had the worst possible impact on the African American community. Getting out of it, figuring out what our role might be as Jews in strengthening the African American community, strengthening the economics, all of that, that would be part of what I would want to focus on.
Seth Winberg:
Barry, we're up against the clock here. I really want to thank you. It's always so inspiring to spend time talking with you and to hear your reflections. You're such a role model for so many of us of what it means to be a principled and passionate leader of the Jewish community, and to really refuse the false dichotomy that we either have to be concerned about ourselves or concerned about others and the rest of the world. You're an amazing role model of teaching all of us that we have a complex set of obligations both for self preservation and for strengthening our own identity and our own community and our people, and that we also have a complex set of obligations and responsibilities to others and to the whole world. It's always really wonderful to-
Barry Shrage:
Final word.
Seth Winberg:
Please!
Barry Shrage:
If anybody wants to be in touch, you have everybody's emails, you'll send them, my email, and for undergraduates who might want to actually take the class that I'm teaching, which is going to be all about these issues of Jewish identity and community, you can be in touch and we'll see if we can set it up.
Seth Winberg:
Great. So, on behalf of Brandeis Hillel and Brandeis University, thank you, Barry, and thank you everyone for joining us, and you can stay tuned for other virtual conversations.
Barry Shrage:
Thank you so much for this opportunity. I really love this, I appreciate it.
Seth Winberg:
Our pleasure.
Barry Shrage:
Thank you.
Seth Winberg:
Goodnight everybody.
Barry Shrage:
Goodnight.