I just found out last week that "comments" weren't working.
A friend told me she'd commented on my last post but they never showed up. I asked if anybody else had had trouble, and another friend told she had also tried to comment, but her comment, an entire paragraph, disappeared!
There hadn't been any comments but I hadn't been surprised by that. I have gotten a few but most people who had something to say seemed to prefer to say it on Facebook. That is, when I posted my blog entries on Facebook. I had been writing about politics and religion; some of the posts I hadn't even been putting on Facebook. My followers being few (but select), I had gotten used to there not being comments.
On my recent series, though, I had thought there could be comments. The series was what some would consider controversial, so I turned on the "moderate" function. I thought that would give me a chance to think through replies. And if there were replies that got nasty (not from my friends, of course), I'd have a choice about whether to publish them. I think that's how it works.
Now it turns out there have been comments. People bothered to write them up and then they were lost in cyberspace. Oh, no!
The comments, not the people, but that's bad enough.
On investigating it turned out I had "word verification" turned on. That's where the commenter has to copy a strange series of case-sensitive letters or numbers of varying degrees of legibility. It's supposed to keep out spam, but the "help" response tells me there are better "spam filters" these days so it's not really necessary. That may have been the culprit. Turned it off!
I also turned off the "moderator" function. That means that comments will show up right away. I haven't had a problem so far. Maybe I was borrowing trouble. Anyway, right now, losing the comments is the larger problem. We'll see. I don't care for those situations where respondents get into polemical free-for-alls with each other. There's enough nastiness in the world. But as I said, so far that's not the problem. I should be so lucky as to have great numbers of respondents!
There is one thing I do worry about, though, and that's the fact I'm concerned my responses to comments won't be as good as the original posts. The posts themselves are the result of turning things over and over. They take me a while. I'm learning as I write. I try to tell "just the truth, ma'am." I try to get the defensiveness out, and I try to get the gratuitous pokes at other people or groups out. In responding to comments I might not do so well.
So here's my plan. I may not respond instantly. It may even take a day or two. Also, I am going to remember to look at the responding as part and parcel of my learning process. That means the commenter may be my teacher. But more likely it'll be the dialogue itself that will be the source of learning.
After all, it is anyway. Dialogue has provided my stimulus and raw material.
Okay, then! Comments, ready or not!
Saturday, December 15, 2012
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Corrie Verdict, Part III Rachel Corrie, Israel, and Liberal Christian Theology
This is the third part of my discussion of the Rachel Corrie verdict. I looked first at the facts, second
at the fraught narrative about the Middle East, and have now arrived at
a level that entails a look at some theology, specifically at the
evolving theological discourse within liberal mainline Christianity.
(Follow the link to Part 1 for the introduction and a disclaimer.)
I started to refer to liberal Christian theological impositions on Rachel Corrie and Israel, but decided that would be biased terminology whereby I refer to my own theological thought as "midrash" or "homiletic," and the thinking of the liberal Christian "other" as an "imposition." So, I'll stick with "theology" all around. I will say that if the reader thinks Israel is a social justice issue plain and simple, and not a theological one, than that reader needs to emerge from the cave he or she has been in for the last 20 years or more.
In the beginning, it seemed it would be enough to talk about Rachel Corrie in this regard. I do want to arrive at the issue of whether the issue is justice, or revenge, because that will be the subject of Part IV, but it was first necessary to include the overall issue of Israel, that being the context for the Rachel Corrie narrative.
Understanding the liberal Christian anti-Israel narrative means taking a look at anti-Judaism in Christianity, which, traditionally, culminates in the Christ-killing charge against "the Jews." Anti-Judaism is in no way the main or only dynamic in Christian tradition, which also includes an opposing pole of pro-Judaism, Jews being the first Christians and the people closest to Jesus, himself a Jew. But anti-Judaism is the dynamic that ties in with the anti-Israel narrative and with the perceived martyrdom of Rachel Corrie.
To see anti-Judaism as stemming directly from the deicide charge against the Jews may be too neat. We can't just say that reactions prevalent today stem directly from the Christian foundational story. That would be too simplistic. More precisely, the New Testament often portrays Jews as bad (related to the foundational story in which they are cast in the bad-guy role) so, in the emerging Christian-based culture, "Jew" acquired a negative valence. Thereafter, whatever (or whoever) was considered bad tended to attract characteristics thought to be Jew-like, while that which became associated with Jews could exude an aura of "not-good." One example of the negative valence attached to things Jewish in Christian-dominant culture is the word "Jew" itself; still, today, many people of Christian origin will go out of their way to avoid saying the word "Jew," as though it were a pejorative term.
I am speaking generally; the degree to which those stereotypes prevailed depended on specific historical circumstances. Down through the unfolding centuries, though, whatever was associated with Jews could take on some degree of unsavoriness--an aspect of impurity--in the dominant Christian culture. In Christian Europe, Jews eventually became the "other,"--the perennial outsider over against whom peasants, craftsmen, and gentry eventually unified themselves into nations (Jerry Muller, Capitalism and the Jews). But despite all the complexity, when it comes to the death of a young Christian American woman, it makes some sense to talk about the deicide charge in particular. Rachel Corrie defined herself as standing up to Israel; her advocates frame her as a martyr--one who was saving suffering Palestinians from Jews through her own death.
Some people will ask why I have to write about all that--the deicide accusation and the low esteem in which Christian society tended to hold Jews. The answer is that if it is implicated in the narrative, I have to deal with it. In an ideal world those things would not be an issue, but in the world we have, it is better to shine the light of day on difficult issues than to let them fester. See Part II for a related discussion.
It was a Christian tradition of nearly two millenia that all Jews were collectively responsible for the death of Jesus. Since WWII and the Holocaust, all major Christian denominations have officially repudiated that belief, as far as I know. Most denominations still teach that some Jews or "the Jewish leaders" turned him over to the Romans or resorted to mob violence against him. Even in churches that value pluralism and "pro-Semitism," the preaching and teaching may still retain too much belief for my tastes in the Jews having conducted a personal vendetta against Jesus, in the collusion of all the Jewish leaders, in a picture of Judaism as corrupt and in need of reform by Jesus, and in blasphemy as the cause of Jesus' death--all of which speak to Christian tradition and theology, but not to eye-witness history about the Jews or otherwise. (There is no eye-witness history; traditions developed gradually, only later becoming the officially sanctioned traditions; and the first Gospel wasn't finalized in writing until two generations later and even then in a different culture and language. The Gospels, like other scripture, contain remembrances of history, but are theologies, not histories.) Still, the official belief in Jewish deicide is no more--thank God for that.
I said the official belief is done for. But old beliefs die hard, especially deeply engrained and useful old beliefs. It's my impression, formed over the last five years, that for many Christians, official pronouncements are just so much political correctness--in other words, as though the Jews did kill Jesus but it's not nice to say so.
And so, all of that is part of what I hear when I hear individual Christians (or post-Christians), a church community, or representatives purporting to speak for a denomination, who are obsessed with the unique evil of Israel--for example, such that they consider a belief in the corrupt nature of the Rachel Corrie trial to be a priori justified. They do not officially play the deicide card, especially in public, but it gets touched on indirectly, coming out in posts, in hymns, or in light of the groups with which individuals or the church community affiliates. Those are the emotions that I hear, the emotional chords and depth vibrations of the "We are just criticizing Israel" mantra. It is a preoccupation that, under the guise of declaring the right to "criticize" or "confront" Israel, can and often does extend to the criticism of Judaism as well, and which can continue in Fellowship Hall a theme introduced upstairs in church. In fact, the "upstairs" and "downstairs" themes--the theology and the politics--are mutually reinforcing. The preoccupation with Jews/Israel being so extensive, it runs the risk of crossing over (under the rubric of "criticism") into active incitement of hate toward another religious community. The fact of the matter is that criticism is one thing, but a narrative that defines Israel as the opposite of all that is good is another. For then what we have is a projection of the dark side upon "the other." In other words, under the guise of "criticizing Israel," we begin to see the demonizing of Israel.
In what follows, I'm going to be breaking down those issues for further discussion.
One could hope there would be teaching against anti-Jewish stereotypes as they occur in both scripture and politics. That was the lesson of the Holocaust, and such teaching does occur. I have read that kind of teaching in Christian bibles and have heard it in sermons. But such occurrences can be rare, and in some liberal settings don't happen at all. When there are stereotypes and religious slurs that jibe with the political sentiments of the day as well as with engrained traditional beliefs, it seems people who should know better are at best silent. As with the political Right and racism, teaching that counters anti-Judaism does not appear to be a priority, because anti-Judaism is not typically being recognized as a problem by the political and Christian Left.
What is more shocking is when those same people whom one would think should know better not only do not speak out, but also participate in anti-Jewish teaching themselves. That is what shocked me awake--that and the political ends to which Christian anti-Judaism lends itself. Having been taught that prejudices of the past had ended and we are all just Americans now, I did not know that teaching of traditional anti-Jewish beliefs as part and parcel of the Christian religion is alive and well--or maybe, having lessened after WWII, has picked up steam in today's economically stressed and polarized political climate. To be exact, I did know it went on, but I thought it was relegated to fundamentalist churches where (I thought) they believe Jews are going to hell for not accepting the Christian religion, etcetera. What I'm talking about is a general portrayal of Judaism in Jesus' time, and now, too, as essentially the inverse of Christianity, for the purpose of highlighting Christianity in contrast. I did not know such beliefs were so common as to be unremarkable in churches whose members are educated people I consider to be peers, and whom I thought were the very people who were not prejudiced.
Although I know there exist Christian scholars who have a deep understanding of Judaism, I think the typical Christian layperson or post-Christian knows next to nothing about Judaism. In part, that is because what Christians think they know about Judaism is, for the most part, Christianity, and not Judaism at all. That is, I know most Christians know about a smattering of Jewish holidays and observances, but on a deep level, what they think they know about Judaism--what they learn in church, through Christian education, and via allusions in many popular books for Christians--often reflects Christian polemical thinking about Judaism, not Judaism. One aspect of such thinking is the assumption that Judaism boils down to simple ideas--usually those that best encapsulate the particular Christian's (or Christian group's) less-than-positive opinion of it.
Based on my experiences of the last five years, it has occurred to me that it would be just about as hard for a Christian--at least, a liberal Christian--to learn about Judaism through what he hears preached and taught through church as it would be for a dyed-in-the-wool Tea Party conservative to learn about liberalism from what Rush Limbaugh and Fox News say.
I remember some years ago waking up from a dream in which my husband had been mean to me--and I got angry at him for misbehaving in the dream! Part of the plot of the Christian foundational story involves Jews behaving badly. (See my remarks concerning historicity of scripture, underlined above.) As in the case of my dream, Christians sometimes respond to Jews with suspicion, dislike, or feelings of superiority, to start with, because of those texts, and because of subsequent stereotypes. No matter what official pronouncements have been made (e.g, rescinding the charge of deicide, repudiating supersessionist theology, or attesting to the continuance of the "old" covenant), the potential for hateful and vengeful attitudes remains with us.
There was an AP news story in my paper the other day (November 16, 2012, by Gregory Katz) about the recent BBC news scandal in which, after his death, a celebrity had been uncovered as a child molester. In the meantime, an older politician, Alistair McAlpine, was wrongly linked to the scandal and subsequently cleared. Lord McAlpine was described as "shaken." Here is what he said about the experience of being unjustly accused: "To find yourself a figure of public hatred, unjustifiably, is terrifying."
Lord McAlpine's statement can give a little taste of what it feels like to Jews to have one's reputation slandered within the dominant culture over the centuries. For some people, Israel presents another justification for doing so.
Some Christians today, particularly liberals, have difficulty with talk of miracles, divinity, and the supernatural. Educated liberals also are likely to know that scholars argue about whether all the words attributed to Jesus are genuine. Various bible scholars who write for the popular market (e.g., Bart Ehrman) deconstruct both the miracles and the intrinsic meaning of scripture. What remains as an object of as-yet un-deconstructed literalistic belief is "the Jews"--the Jews plus Jesus' purported relationship to them. So, if somebody is unsure about miracles and divinity, what he or she has left is Jesus and the Jews. It's often downhill from there, as far as the Jews in the Christian story. Jesus is the social justice hero--Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi rolled into one and retrojected back into the 1st century, where he overcomes the morally stunted, hypocritical Jewish leaders (generally understood as one unified yet amorphous group, all working together to thwart Jesus). Or, in a slight variation, Jesus is recast for today as that enlightened liberal thinker who has been inserted back into history where he can get his Jewish society (understood to be morally backward and masquerading in the guise of today's American conservatism) sufficiently told off.
Even though it is not logical, modern-day Israel in effect has become a stand-in for Jesus' Jewish society. Jews who condemn it are liberal (good). Jews who do not totally abandon their affection for Israel are to be seen as Tea Party conservatives. Even if those Jews consider themselves liberal, they are deemed de facto conservative, given that repudiation of Israel, the state, is the litmus test for acceptance into the Christian Left. Although that is simplistic, I consider it not far off today's political orthodoxy of the Left.
It is as though for some liberal Christians, confession of Jesus Christ has become insufficient. What the new orthodoxy demands is that the would-be liberal profess loss of faith in Israel. Israel has become a wedge issue with a knife-sharp edge, by which liberal Christian-based society is to divide "good" liberals from "bad" conservatives. Just as in traditional Christian theology all the ways of Judaism soon became unacceptable for Christians, today all vestiges of positive feeling toward Israel are becoming, for liberals, the mark of the wrong way. So, we will have profession of no-faith in Israel as both loyalty oath and glue of the movement.
Accordingly, the "two-state" solution has become too pro-Israel for the Left's leading edge. For example, consider "Kairos 2009," a Palestinian Christian document that was taught in some churches circa 2010. "Kairos 2009" calls for boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) against Israel, in a context devoid of any mention of a two-state solution. Despite somewhat flowery language with reference to love and concern for all, it amounts to a theologically-based argument complete with scriptural references that tacitly calls for the end of Israel as a Jewish state. In the summer of 2010, I was in two of a four-session "Kairos 2009" class.
Churches are typically hearing speakers telling them that it is too late for a two-state solution, now considered insufficiently radical. Now there is flat-out to be no more Jewish state. Not only are they preaching a one-state Palestinian solution, but also, one of those speakers specifically relates his position to alleged defects in the religion of Judaism. In a book called Fatal Embrace, Christians, Jews, and the Search for Peace in the Holy Land (2011), author Mark Braverman says that not only should Christians give up guilt for the Holocaust so as to criticize Israel, Christians also must criticize the religion of Judaism. I have read parts of his book and heard two of his talks (one from last year via a video made at a local church, and one given in Amsterdam in September, 2011, that I found on the Internet). I've also talked with my husband about another church presentation that he attended, and I watched part of Mark Braverman's presentation on Book TV via C-SPAN. I understand him to be saying that our present time, consisting of this 67 years since the Holocaust and during which a Jewish state was established, constitutes a "fatal embrace" by Christianity--a fatal embrace of misguided love and regard for Judaism that was caused by guilt over the Holocaust, and during which Christianity has, in effect, let Judaism get out of control.
Historically, Mark Braverman focuses exclusively on the Holocaust, and on Jesus' time on earth. The latter he bases on what I think of as New Testament fundamentalism--as though it were literal history. He gives short shrift to intervening centuries and events, jumping back and forth from the first century to the Holocaust, which he says was caused by the New Testament and Christianity. It's worth noting Mark Braverman has a very foreshortened view of history, nor does he say how the New Testament and Christianity could have possibly led to the Holocaust given his accolades (see below).
At any rate, after saying the Holocaust was horrific, he proceeds to claim that Christianity has healed itself, it has cured itself and made itself right--its only problem being, he says, that the guilt Christians have suffered since then has kept them from criticizing Israel and from confronting the religion of Judaism.
The real problem, according to him, is Judaism.
The essence of the problem of Judaism, according to Mark Braverman, derives from the theology of their being "the chosen" people. He says he himself is following Jesus, who pointed the way toward universalism, while Judaism is tribal. He says that since the Jews have rejected him (Mark Braverman, not Jesus, although that can be confusing), he's now proclaiming his message to Christians. He invites Christians to "help us tear down this wall," in both the sense of the protection barrier in Israel and in the sense of the wall that he claims Jewish "exceptionalism" has built around Jews. He further insists he remains a Jew and that his own view of what Judaism is versus what it should be is the whole story.
It should also be noted that Mark Braverman claims to be speaking and writing for the sake of Jews, asking--begging--for Christians to treat both the state of Israel and Judaism as he deems appropriate. He foresees his program of harsh criticism will mean dropping formal interfaith activities between Christians and Jews, and he recommends--encourages--that those interfaith activities be ended.
Although in the foreword, Walter Brueggmann describes Mark Braverman as "a passionate Jew with a long and deep love for Israel," in his talks at churches, he describes himself as a follower of Jesus. When asked if he has synagogue involvement, he says no, because of his rejection of Judaism--according to his own understanding of Judaism. He says his Christian listeners are his synagogue.
If this sounds familiar, and if some of his liberal Christian listeners find his words right up their alley, that is not surprising, since what Mark Braverman is teaching is a version of Christianity, not Judaism. His criticism of Judaism consists of several traditional Christian theological criticisms of Judaism. It is in essence a polemic that I doubt would pass close theological inspection today. He sets up a "straw man," names it "Judaism," and, having set it up for the purpose of demolishing it, he does. I know of one Atlanta church with exceptional clergy leadership that found his condemnation of another world religion wrong, and conducted subsequent corrective teaching for church members. I hope I'm mistaken, but, hearing of Mark Braverman's glowing reception in many quarters, I fear that is a rare occurrence.
James Carroll, writing in Constantine's Sword, has said that, extrapolating from their numbers as seven to ten percent of the Roman Empire, there should be 100 to 200 million Jews in the world today (instead of perhaps 13 million), if not for Christian persecution over the centuries, culminating in the Holocaust. The Nazis were not Christian, but they wielded anti-Judaism to weaken the consciences of Christians and gain their acquiescence in mass murder. The Holocaust was the ultimate coming to fruition of the anti-Judaism that is within Christianity, eventually recognized as such by the church as a whole. That was the lesson of the Holocaust for the church, which, subsequently, for the first time, wanted to excise it, so that the sins of the past in that regard would end. The Holocaust made the enormous and lethal power of anti-Judaism in Christianity visible. But Mark Braverman is advising Christians that the period of time since the Holocaust--which is the brief span of time during which Christian persecution of Judaism has ceased--is the aberration. He is saying Christians should resume chastisement of Jews and their religion, over its ostensible evil and that of Israel. Oh, and that Judaism is exactly as he describes per his alleged experiences, and that its theology is exactly as captured by him in a nutshell. And that there can never be a good Jew who hews to his or her Judaism because of the nature of Judaism (according to Mark Braverman). (And, thus, we can understand why, following that line of reasoning, there can never be a good person who loves Israel, no matter how Left-leaning, no matter if standing in front of bulldozers.)
Mark Braverman, although claiming to speak as a Jew, for Jews, is himself wielding anti-Judaism so as to weaken the consciences of susceptible Christians toward Jews, so as to tell those Christians their own prejudices--and behaviors based on them--are justified. This is the vicious cycle of worsening attitudes toward Jews that I mentioned in Part II: He assigns Jews the role of "the other" for Christians, and the more they call the other evil, the worse treatment is required, and the worse the treatment, the greater the evil that must be assigned to justify it.
Of course, part of the confusion happens because Mark Braverman claims to be speaking as a Jew. It may be for that very reason that activists are welcoming or recruiting Jews with views that are useful for such a movement. If a Jew says these things, that's supposed to make it somehow okay. Except that it is not okay. Misinformation is misleading, and the advice is wrong--no matter who is talking.
With friends like that, one doesn't need enemies, but he is an example that can be instructive. That's why I've spent so much time on him. Speakers like Mark Braverman are aiming right into the blind spot of Christianity. It is as though there were no further Christian exceptionalism and triumphalism, and as though Christianity were a perfected religion here on earth, whole and unified, with all its adherents themselves perfect and free of human motivation (e.g., conflict, fear, and desire for vindication). Mark Braverman is telling Christians that they have been chosen to start taking over other religious groups. He justifies that because, according to him, Christianity is a universal religion and Judaism is a tribal religion--a Christian rationalization possibly still accepted in some settings as valid theology--or because, despite his demurrals, he himself is now an adherent of Christianity who is subscribing directly to its anti-Judaism for reasons of his own. Whatever, all is justified (according to him) because of the evil that is Israel.
Another useful aspect of Mark Braverman's message is that it elucidates the kind of theology underlying the anti-Israel movement in liberal mainline Christianity. Although I've read other theologies and although theology underlies "Kairos 2009," for example, Mark Braverman has brought it front and center.
In saying "they"--Jews--were once abused but have now become abusers, we are not in liberal territory any longer. That formulation is recognizable as a Ron Paul brand of libertarianism. During the build-up to the presidential campaign, some liberal Christians of my acquaintance flirted with supporting a Ron Paul candidacy. Trouble is, Ron Paul's approach is the same toward all the minorities, not just Jews. Those acquaintances wanted to stand behind African-Americans, gays, immigrants, and so on. They wanted to use the "you-were-abused-but-are-now-bullies" approach only toward Jews. (As an aside, some liberals have wanted to go after the financial sector using anti-Jewish tropes, but were urged by others to keep the focus on Israel.)
Based on Mark Braverman's recommendations, I found myself wondering whether he has moved beyond libertarianism.
During Barack Obama's first presidential campaign, he got into hot water over the message of his church's pastor, Jeremiah Wright. The possibility of negative attention to their own churches doesn't seem to trouble even the more antagonistically anti-Israel congregations. They blithely invite speakers with messages like Braverman's into their churches or recommend attendance at similar lectures. If there is any risk to the reputations of these churches or those individuals who make up the audiences, it is under the radar. Pastors give their approval, and upstanding citizens of the community attend such talks without any sense of pressure--no concern, no sense that anyone could question or disapprove of what is going on. Their consciences are quiescent on the matter of attendance at lectures proclaiming that Israel shouldn't exist, that they should work toward that end, and, in Braverman's case, even proclaiming Judaism as an immoral religion with which they should interfere. It does not occur that they themselves could be making immoral decisions, and are not merely questioning those of others. It's as though they don't know what they are doing and where they are headed. The law of "good intentions" could apply. Jonathan Haidt, writing in The Happiness Hypothesis, says that, contrary to popular opinion, most evil in the world stems neither from greed nor sadism. No; according to him, it takes an idealist--a "true believer"--to get a real humanitarian disaster going. Switch the figure and the ground, and organized mainline Christianity comes into focus with its large bully pulpit--its large potential for bullying and raising up hate.
When liberals hear about anti-Islam preaching and posturing, particularly in conservative churches, they tend to go ballistic in their condemnation. Are those churches and groups agitating against Judaism and against the existence of Israel really any different? If those involved--activists, speakers, and listeners--even give it a thought, it fails to activate the conscience, because they tell themselves in this case the people they are censuring deserve what they will get. But everyone believes their own prejudices.
The problem is not "criticizing Israel." Criticizing Israel is one thing. Working to sink the country or to spread prejudice through Christian theological slanders of Judaism is something else.
At any rate, in this section I have pointed to theological underpinnings of the anti-Israel movement and to anti-Judaism growing within the mainline liberal religious community--examples that demonstrate the admixture of theology and politics. Criticism can be understood as pointing to problems that need to be fixed. Calling for the take-over of Judaism and/or the end of Israel as a Jewish state on the basis of newly tailored Christian theological beliefs are matters altogether different.
In the present case, it's as though the goal for some has become casting Rachel Corrie's death as a Christ-like sacrifice for the humiliation of Judaism. The International Solidarity Movement decided the world was not giving the proper attention to the suffering of Palestinians but would give that attention to a Westerner. From that angle, whatever the facts, the story line demanded that she receive an unjust trial. The next question is whether the story line demands justice, as is claimed, or revenge.
The anti-Israel vendetta, along with the portrayal of Rachel Corrie as a martyr to the cause, raise issues of justice and revenge that I will be exploring in the next section. One of the most disturbing aspects of the Rachel Corrie campaign is that its proponents bill it as a peace and justice movement. My claim is that, instead of peace, it has the form of a movement whose aim is to assign blame and exact revenge.
If I've painted with too broad a brushstroke and characterized all of liberal mainline Christianity as teaching anti-Judaism, I don't mean to do so. Not everybody is supporting such teaching. On the other hand, it is rare down here in the trenches to hear a voice raised to contradict what's going on in the liberal community. It certainly seems that, like racism on the Right, anti-Judaism is animating the liberal base, and no one, it seems, wants to mess with what works. There are voices raised to deny "antisemitism," but few voices raised to confront the anti-Israel movement as it threatens to transform into active anti-Judaism.
Let me just mention in passing that the people whom I hear leading the anti-Israel charge for justice for Rachel Corrie heavily overlap those people who, when it came to Troy Davis, excoriated the McPhail family's desire for justice as bloodthirsty and misguided. Troy Davis, too, had had a trial and a verdict that was rehashed in the public sphere. When the people who are crying for justice for Rachel Corrie were looking at somebody other than their icon, they apparently saw issues of justice versus revenge differently.
In this third section I have looked at Rachel Corrie in the role of martyr and Christ-like figure viewed by one American contingent as having died for the sake of the Palestinians while standing up against a country that represents an evil outside of everyday evil and, as such, beyond comparison to the actions of other countries and nations that are committing much greater violence. That formulation focuses attention on the question of whether her death demands a payment of blood in return, and, in fact, on the whole scandalous question of blood in scripture--even on blood spilled in redemption, and whether that blood demands a payment of further blood in return. Those questions will be the subject of my long and winding midrash (Part IV).
I started to refer to liberal Christian theological impositions on Rachel Corrie and Israel, but decided that would be biased terminology whereby I refer to my own theological thought as "midrash" or "homiletic," and the thinking of the liberal Christian "other" as an "imposition." So, I'll stick with "theology" all around. I will say that if the reader thinks Israel is a social justice issue plain and simple, and not a theological one, than that reader needs to emerge from the cave he or she has been in for the last 20 years or more.
In the beginning, it seemed it would be enough to talk about Rachel Corrie in this regard. I do want to arrive at the issue of whether the issue is justice, or revenge, because that will be the subject of Part IV, but it was first necessary to include the overall issue of Israel, that being the context for the Rachel Corrie narrative.
Understanding the liberal Christian anti-Israel narrative means taking a look at anti-Judaism in Christianity, which, traditionally, culminates in the Christ-killing charge against "the Jews." Anti-Judaism is in no way the main or only dynamic in Christian tradition, which also includes an opposing pole of pro-Judaism, Jews being the first Christians and the people closest to Jesus, himself a Jew. But anti-Judaism is the dynamic that ties in with the anti-Israel narrative and with the perceived martyrdom of Rachel Corrie.
To see anti-Judaism as stemming directly from the deicide charge against the Jews may be too neat. We can't just say that reactions prevalent today stem directly from the Christian foundational story. That would be too simplistic. More precisely, the New Testament often portrays Jews as bad (related to the foundational story in which they are cast in the bad-guy role) so, in the emerging Christian-based culture, "Jew" acquired a negative valence. Thereafter, whatever (or whoever) was considered bad tended to attract characteristics thought to be Jew-like, while that which became associated with Jews could exude an aura of "not-good." One example of the negative valence attached to things Jewish in Christian-dominant culture is the word "Jew" itself; still, today, many people of Christian origin will go out of their way to avoid saying the word "Jew," as though it were a pejorative term.
I am speaking generally; the degree to which those stereotypes prevailed depended on specific historical circumstances. Down through the unfolding centuries, though, whatever was associated with Jews could take on some degree of unsavoriness--an aspect of impurity--in the dominant Christian culture. In Christian Europe, Jews eventually became the "other,"--the perennial outsider over against whom peasants, craftsmen, and gentry eventually unified themselves into nations (Jerry Muller, Capitalism and the Jews). But despite all the complexity, when it comes to the death of a young Christian American woman, it makes some sense to talk about the deicide charge in particular. Rachel Corrie defined herself as standing up to Israel; her advocates frame her as a martyr--one who was saving suffering Palestinians from Jews through her own death.
Some people will ask why I have to write about all that--the deicide accusation and the low esteem in which Christian society tended to hold Jews. The answer is that if it is implicated in the narrative, I have to deal with it. In an ideal world those things would not be an issue, but in the world we have, it is better to shine the light of day on difficult issues than to let them fester. See Part II for a related discussion.
It was a Christian tradition of nearly two millenia that all Jews were collectively responsible for the death of Jesus. Since WWII and the Holocaust, all major Christian denominations have officially repudiated that belief, as far as I know. Most denominations still teach that some Jews or "the Jewish leaders" turned him over to the Romans or resorted to mob violence against him. Even in churches that value pluralism and "pro-Semitism," the preaching and teaching may still retain too much belief for my tastes in the Jews having conducted a personal vendetta against Jesus, in the collusion of all the Jewish leaders, in a picture of Judaism as corrupt and in need of reform by Jesus, and in blasphemy as the cause of Jesus' death--all of which speak to Christian tradition and theology, but not to eye-witness history about the Jews or otherwise. (There is no eye-witness history; traditions developed gradually, only later becoming the officially sanctioned traditions; and the first Gospel wasn't finalized in writing until two generations later and even then in a different culture and language. The Gospels, like other scripture, contain remembrances of history, but are theologies, not histories.) Still, the official belief in Jewish deicide is no more--thank God for that.
I said the official belief is done for. But old beliefs die hard, especially deeply engrained and useful old beliefs. It's my impression, formed over the last five years, that for many Christians, official pronouncements are just so much political correctness--in other words, as though the Jews did kill Jesus but it's not nice to say so.
And so, all of that is part of what I hear when I hear individual Christians (or post-Christians), a church community, or representatives purporting to speak for a denomination, who are obsessed with the unique evil of Israel--for example, such that they consider a belief in the corrupt nature of the Rachel Corrie trial to be a priori justified. They do not officially play the deicide card, especially in public, but it gets touched on indirectly, coming out in posts, in hymns, or in light of the groups with which individuals or the church community affiliates. Those are the emotions that I hear, the emotional chords and depth vibrations of the "We are just criticizing Israel" mantra. It is a preoccupation that, under the guise of declaring the right to "criticize" or "confront" Israel, can and often does extend to the criticism of Judaism as well, and which can continue in Fellowship Hall a theme introduced upstairs in church. In fact, the "upstairs" and "downstairs" themes--the theology and the politics--are mutually reinforcing. The preoccupation with Jews/Israel being so extensive, it runs the risk of crossing over (under the rubric of "criticism") into active incitement of hate toward another religious community. The fact of the matter is that criticism is one thing, but a narrative that defines Israel as the opposite of all that is good is another. For then what we have is a projection of the dark side upon "the other." In other words, under the guise of "criticizing Israel," we begin to see the demonizing of Israel.
In what follows, I'm going to be breaking down those issues for further discussion.
One could hope there would be teaching against anti-Jewish stereotypes as they occur in both scripture and politics. That was the lesson of the Holocaust, and such teaching does occur. I have read that kind of teaching in Christian bibles and have heard it in sermons. But such occurrences can be rare, and in some liberal settings don't happen at all. When there are stereotypes and religious slurs that jibe with the political sentiments of the day as well as with engrained traditional beliefs, it seems people who should know better are at best silent. As with the political Right and racism, teaching that counters anti-Judaism does not appear to be a priority, because anti-Judaism is not typically being recognized as a problem by the political and Christian Left.
What is more shocking is when those same people whom one would think should know better not only do not speak out, but also participate in anti-Jewish teaching themselves. That is what shocked me awake--that and the political ends to which Christian anti-Judaism lends itself. Having been taught that prejudices of the past had ended and we are all just Americans now, I did not know that teaching of traditional anti-Jewish beliefs as part and parcel of the Christian religion is alive and well--or maybe, having lessened after WWII, has picked up steam in today's economically stressed and polarized political climate. To be exact, I did know it went on, but I thought it was relegated to fundamentalist churches where (I thought) they believe Jews are going to hell for not accepting the Christian religion, etcetera. What I'm talking about is a general portrayal of Judaism in Jesus' time, and now, too, as essentially the inverse of Christianity, for the purpose of highlighting Christianity in contrast. I did not know such beliefs were so common as to be unremarkable in churches whose members are educated people I consider to be peers, and whom I thought were the very people who were not prejudiced.
Although I know there exist Christian scholars who have a deep understanding of Judaism, I think the typical Christian layperson or post-Christian knows next to nothing about Judaism. In part, that is because what Christians think they know about Judaism is, for the most part, Christianity, and not Judaism at all. That is, I know most Christians know about a smattering of Jewish holidays and observances, but on a deep level, what they think they know about Judaism--what they learn in church, through Christian education, and via allusions in many popular books for Christians--often reflects Christian polemical thinking about Judaism, not Judaism. One aspect of such thinking is the assumption that Judaism boils down to simple ideas--usually those that best encapsulate the particular Christian's (or Christian group's) less-than-positive opinion of it.
Based on my experiences of the last five years, it has occurred to me that it would be just about as hard for a Christian--at least, a liberal Christian--to learn about Judaism through what he hears preached and taught through church as it would be for a dyed-in-the-wool Tea Party conservative to learn about liberalism from what Rush Limbaugh and Fox News say.
I remember some years ago waking up from a dream in which my husband had been mean to me--and I got angry at him for misbehaving in the dream! Part of the plot of the Christian foundational story involves Jews behaving badly. (See my remarks concerning historicity of scripture, underlined above.) As in the case of my dream, Christians sometimes respond to Jews with suspicion, dislike, or feelings of superiority, to start with, because of those texts, and because of subsequent stereotypes. No matter what official pronouncements have been made (e.g, rescinding the charge of deicide, repudiating supersessionist theology, or attesting to the continuance of the "old" covenant), the potential for hateful and vengeful attitudes remains with us.
There was an AP news story in my paper the other day (November 16, 2012, by Gregory Katz) about the recent BBC news scandal in which, after his death, a celebrity had been uncovered as a child molester. In the meantime, an older politician, Alistair McAlpine, was wrongly linked to the scandal and subsequently cleared. Lord McAlpine was described as "shaken." Here is what he said about the experience of being unjustly accused: "To find yourself a figure of public hatred, unjustifiably, is terrifying."
Lord McAlpine's statement can give a little taste of what it feels like to Jews to have one's reputation slandered within the dominant culture over the centuries. For some people, Israel presents another justification for doing so.
Some Christians today, particularly liberals, have difficulty with talk of miracles, divinity, and the supernatural. Educated liberals also are likely to know that scholars argue about whether all the words attributed to Jesus are genuine. Various bible scholars who write for the popular market (e.g., Bart Ehrman) deconstruct both the miracles and the intrinsic meaning of scripture. What remains as an object of as-yet un-deconstructed literalistic belief is "the Jews"--the Jews plus Jesus' purported relationship to them. So, if somebody is unsure about miracles and divinity, what he or she has left is Jesus and the Jews. It's often downhill from there, as far as the Jews in the Christian story. Jesus is the social justice hero--Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi rolled into one and retrojected back into the 1st century, where he overcomes the morally stunted, hypocritical Jewish leaders (generally understood as one unified yet amorphous group, all working together to thwart Jesus). Or, in a slight variation, Jesus is recast for today as that enlightened liberal thinker who has been inserted back into history where he can get his Jewish society (understood to be morally backward and masquerading in the guise of today's American conservatism) sufficiently told off.
Even though it is not logical, modern-day Israel in effect has become a stand-in for Jesus' Jewish society. Jews who condemn it are liberal (good). Jews who do not totally abandon their affection for Israel are to be seen as Tea Party conservatives. Even if those Jews consider themselves liberal, they are deemed de facto conservative, given that repudiation of Israel, the state, is the litmus test for acceptance into the Christian Left. Although that is simplistic, I consider it not far off today's political orthodoxy of the Left.
It is as though for some liberal Christians, confession of Jesus Christ has become insufficient. What the new orthodoxy demands is that the would-be liberal profess loss of faith in Israel. Israel has become a wedge issue with a knife-sharp edge, by which liberal Christian-based society is to divide "good" liberals from "bad" conservatives. Just as in traditional Christian theology all the ways of Judaism soon became unacceptable for Christians, today all vestiges of positive feeling toward Israel are becoming, for liberals, the mark of the wrong way. So, we will have profession of no-faith in Israel as both loyalty oath and glue of the movement.
Accordingly, the "two-state" solution has become too pro-Israel for the Left's leading edge. For example, consider "Kairos 2009," a Palestinian Christian document that was taught in some churches circa 2010. "Kairos 2009" calls for boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) against Israel, in a context devoid of any mention of a two-state solution. Despite somewhat flowery language with reference to love and concern for all, it amounts to a theologically-based argument complete with scriptural references that tacitly calls for the end of Israel as a Jewish state. In the summer of 2010, I was in two of a four-session "Kairos 2009" class.
Churches are typically hearing speakers telling them that it is too late for a two-state solution, now considered insufficiently radical. Now there is flat-out to be no more Jewish state. Not only are they preaching a one-state Palestinian solution, but also, one of those speakers specifically relates his position to alleged defects in the religion of Judaism. In a book called Fatal Embrace, Christians, Jews, and the Search for Peace in the Holy Land (2011), author Mark Braverman says that not only should Christians give up guilt for the Holocaust so as to criticize Israel, Christians also must criticize the religion of Judaism. I have read parts of his book and heard two of his talks (one from last year via a video made at a local church, and one given in Amsterdam in September, 2011, that I found on the Internet). I've also talked with my husband about another church presentation that he attended, and I watched part of Mark Braverman's presentation on Book TV via C-SPAN. I understand him to be saying that our present time, consisting of this 67 years since the Holocaust and during which a Jewish state was established, constitutes a "fatal embrace" by Christianity--a fatal embrace of misguided love and regard for Judaism that was caused by guilt over the Holocaust, and during which Christianity has, in effect, let Judaism get out of control.
Historically, Mark Braverman focuses exclusively on the Holocaust, and on Jesus' time on earth. The latter he bases on what I think of as New Testament fundamentalism--as though it were literal history. He gives short shrift to intervening centuries and events, jumping back and forth from the first century to the Holocaust, which he says was caused by the New Testament and Christianity. It's worth noting Mark Braverman has a very foreshortened view of history, nor does he say how the New Testament and Christianity could have possibly led to the Holocaust given his accolades (see below).
At any rate, after saying the Holocaust was horrific, he proceeds to claim that Christianity has healed itself, it has cured itself and made itself right--its only problem being, he says, that the guilt Christians have suffered since then has kept them from criticizing Israel and from confronting the religion of Judaism.
The real problem, according to him, is Judaism.
The essence of the problem of Judaism, according to Mark Braverman, derives from the theology of their being "the chosen" people. He says he himself is following Jesus, who pointed the way toward universalism, while Judaism is tribal. He says that since the Jews have rejected him (Mark Braverman, not Jesus, although that can be confusing), he's now proclaiming his message to Christians. He invites Christians to "help us tear down this wall," in both the sense of the protection barrier in Israel and in the sense of the wall that he claims Jewish "exceptionalism" has built around Jews. He further insists he remains a Jew and that his own view of what Judaism is versus what it should be is the whole story.
It should also be noted that Mark Braverman claims to be speaking and writing for the sake of Jews, asking--begging--for Christians to treat both the state of Israel and Judaism as he deems appropriate. He foresees his program of harsh criticism will mean dropping formal interfaith activities between Christians and Jews, and he recommends--encourages--that those interfaith activities be ended.
Although in the foreword, Walter Brueggmann describes Mark Braverman as "a passionate Jew with a long and deep love for Israel," in his talks at churches, he describes himself as a follower of Jesus. When asked if he has synagogue involvement, he says no, because of his rejection of Judaism--according to his own understanding of Judaism. He says his Christian listeners are his synagogue.
If this sounds familiar, and if some of his liberal Christian listeners find his words right up their alley, that is not surprising, since what Mark Braverman is teaching is a version of Christianity, not Judaism. His criticism of Judaism consists of several traditional Christian theological criticisms of Judaism. It is in essence a polemic that I doubt would pass close theological inspection today. He sets up a "straw man," names it "Judaism," and, having set it up for the purpose of demolishing it, he does. I know of one Atlanta church with exceptional clergy leadership that found his condemnation of another world religion wrong, and conducted subsequent corrective teaching for church members. I hope I'm mistaken, but, hearing of Mark Braverman's glowing reception in many quarters, I fear that is a rare occurrence.
James Carroll, writing in Constantine's Sword, has said that, extrapolating from their numbers as seven to ten percent of the Roman Empire, there should be 100 to 200 million Jews in the world today (instead of perhaps 13 million), if not for Christian persecution over the centuries, culminating in the Holocaust. The Nazis were not Christian, but they wielded anti-Judaism to weaken the consciences of Christians and gain their acquiescence in mass murder. The Holocaust was the ultimate coming to fruition of the anti-Judaism that is within Christianity, eventually recognized as such by the church as a whole. That was the lesson of the Holocaust for the church, which, subsequently, for the first time, wanted to excise it, so that the sins of the past in that regard would end. The Holocaust made the enormous and lethal power of anti-Judaism in Christianity visible. But Mark Braverman is advising Christians that the period of time since the Holocaust--which is the brief span of time during which Christian persecution of Judaism has ceased--is the aberration. He is saying Christians should resume chastisement of Jews and their religion, over its ostensible evil and that of Israel. Oh, and that Judaism is exactly as he describes per his alleged experiences, and that its theology is exactly as captured by him in a nutshell. And that there can never be a good Jew who hews to his or her Judaism because of the nature of Judaism (according to Mark Braverman). (And, thus, we can understand why, following that line of reasoning, there can never be a good person who loves Israel, no matter how Left-leaning, no matter if standing in front of bulldozers.)
Mark Braverman, although claiming to speak as a Jew, for Jews, is himself wielding anti-Judaism so as to weaken the consciences of susceptible Christians toward Jews, so as to tell those Christians their own prejudices--and behaviors based on them--are justified. This is the vicious cycle of worsening attitudes toward Jews that I mentioned in Part II: He assigns Jews the role of "the other" for Christians, and the more they call the other evil, the worse treatment is required, and the worse the treatment, the greater the evil that must be assigned to justify it.
Of course, part of the confusion happens because Mark Braverman claims to be speaking as a Jew. It may be for that very reason that activists are welcoming or recruiting Jews with views that are useful for such a movement. If a Jew says these things, that's supposed to make it somehow okay. Except that it is not okay. Misinformation is misleading, and the advice is wrong--no matter who is talking.
With friends like that, one doesn't need enemies, but he is an example that can be instructive. That's why I've spent so much time on him. Speakers like Mark Braverman are aiming right into the blind spot of Christianity. It is as though there were no further Christian exceptionalism and triumphalism, and as though Christianity were a perfected religion here on earth, whole and unified, with all its adherents themselves perfect and free of human motivation (e.g., conflict, fear, and desire for vindication). Mark Braverman is telling Christians that they have been chosen to start taking over other religious groups. He justifies that because, according to him, Christianity is a universal religion and Judaism is a tribal religion--a Christian rationalization possibly still accepted in some settings as valid theology--or because, despite his demurrals, he himself is now an adherent of Christianity who is subscribing directly to its anti-Judaism for reasons of his own. Whatever, all is justified (according to him) because of the evil that is Israel.
Another useful aspect of Mark Braverman's message is that it elucidates the kind of theology underlying the anti-Israel movement in liberal mainline Christianity. Although I've read other theologies and although theology underlies "Kairos 2009," for example, Mark Braverman has brought it front and center.
In saying "they"--Jews--were once abused but have now become abusers, we are not in liberal territory any longer. That formulation is recognizable as a Ron Paul brand of libertarianism. During the build-up to the presidential campaign, some liberal Christians of my acquaintance flirted with supporting a Ron Paul candidacy. Trouble is, Ron Paul's approach is the same toward all the minorities, not just Jews. Those acquaintances wanted to stand behind African-Americans, gays, immigrants, and so on. They wanted to use the "you-were-abused-but-are-now-bullies" approach only toward Jews. (As an aside, some liberals have wanted to go after the financial sector using anti-Jewish tropes, but were urged by others to keep the focus on Israel.)
Based on Mark Braverman's recommendations, I found myself wondering whether he has moved beyond libertarianism.
During Barack Obama's first presidential campaign, he got into hot water over the message of his church's pastor, Jeremiah Wright. The possibility of negative attention to their own churches doesn't seem to trouble even the more antagonistically anti-Israel congregations. They blithely invite speakers with messages like Braverman's into their churches or recommend attendance at similar lectures. If there is any risk to the reputations of these churches or those individuals who make up the audiences, it is under the radar. Pastors give their approval, and upstanding citizens of the community attend such talks without any sense of pressure--no concern, no sense that anyone could question or disapprove of what is going on. Their consciences are quiescent on the matter of attendance at lectures proclaiming that Israel shouldn't exist, that they should work toward that end, and, in Braverman's case, even proclaiming Judaism as an immoral religion with which they should interfere. It does not occur that they themselves could be making immoral decisions, and are not merely questioning those of others. It's as though they don't know what they are doing and where they are headed. The law of "good intentions" could apply. Jonathan Haidt, writing in The Happiness Hypothesis, says that, contrary to popular opinion, most evil in the world stems neither from greed nor sadism. No; according to him, it takes an idealist--a "true believer"--to get a real humanitarian disaster going. Switch the figure and the ground, and organized mainline Christianity comes into focus with its large bully pulpit--its large potential for bullying and raising up hate.
When liberals hear about anti-Islam preaching and posturing, particularly in conservative churches, they tend to go ballistic in their condemnation. Are those churches and groups agitating against Judaism and against the existence of Israel really any different? If those involved--activists, speakers, and listeners--even give it a thought, it fails to activate the conscience, because they tell themselves in this case the people they are censuring deserve what they will get. But everyone believes their own prejudices.
The problem is not "criticizing Israel." Criticizing Israel is one thing. Working to sink the country or to spread prejudice through Christian theological slanders of Judaism is something else.
At any rate, in this section I have pointed to theological underpinnings of the anti-Israel movement and to anti-Judaism growing within the mainline liberal religious community--examples that demonstrate the admixture of theology and politics. Criticism can be understood as pointing to problems that need to be fixed. Calling for the take-over of Judaism and/or the end of Israel as a Jewish state on the basis of newly tailored Christian theological beliefs are matters altogether different.
In the present case, it's as though the goal for some has become casting Rachel Corrie's death as a Christ-like sacrifice for the humiliation of Judaism. The International Solidarity Movement decided the world was not giving the proper attention to the suffering of Palestinians but would give that attention to a Westerner. From that angle, whatever the facts, the story line demanded that she receive an unjust trial. The next question is whether the story line demands justice, as is claimed, or revenge.
The anti-Israel vendetta, along with the portrayal of Rachel Corrie as a martyr to the cause, raise issues of justice and revenge that I will be exploring in the next section. One of the most disturbing aspects of the Rachel Corrie campaign is that its proponents bill it as a peace and justice movement. My claim is that, instead of peace, it has the form of a movement whose aim is to assign blame and exact revenge.
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If I've painted with too broad a brushstroke and characterized all of liberal mainline Christianity as teaching anti-Judaism, I don't mean to do so. Not everybody is supporting such teaching. On the other hand, it is rare down here in the trenches to hear a voice raised to contradict what's going on in the liberal community. It certainly seems that, like racism on the Right, anti-Judaism is animating the liberal base, and no one, it seems, wants to mess with what works. There are voices raised to deny "antisemitism," but few voices raised to confront the anti-Israel movement as it threatens to transform into active anti-Judaism.
Let me just mention in passing that the people whom I hear leading the anti-Israel charge for justice for Rachel Corrie heavily overlap those people who, when it came to Troy Davis, excoriated the McPhail family's desire for justice as bloodthirsty and misguided. Troy Davis, too, had had a trial and a verdict that was rehashed in the public sphere. When the people who are crying for justice for Rachel Corrie were looking at somebody other than their icon, they apparently saw issues of justice versus revenge differently.
In this third section I have looked at Rachel Corrie in the role of martyr and Christ-like figure viewed by one American contingent as having died for the sake of the Palestinians while standing up against a country that represents an evil outside of everyday evil and, as such, beyond comparison to the actions of other countries and nations that are committing much greater violence. That formulation focuses attention on the question of whether her death demands a payment of blood in return, and, in fact, on the whole scandalous question of blood in scripture--even on blood spilled in redemption, and whether that blood demands a payment of further blood in return. Those questions will be the subject of my long and winding midrash (Part IV).
Sunday, November 4, 2012
Corrie Verdict, Part II Israel and Palestine, the Narrative
Part II--Israel and Palestine, the Narrative
It's not so easy, though, to keep quite that same focus on Israel and Palestine since the Arab Spring of 2011 and the subsequent unfolding of history, whereby it became clear that Middle East strongmen had kept control of their populaces in part by keeping their attention focused on Israel- and Jew-hatred. The revolutionaries, in contrast, were secular reformers who saw through that strategy and, turning their gaze away from Israel, trained it on the despots themselves. Nevertheless, it seems that forcibly returning the focus to Israel is of great importance to some groups. For example, right now, while we are in the throes of the 2012 US presidential election, and after violence occurred on the pretext of an amateurish anti-Muslim film, President Morsi of Egypt is accusing the US of being one-sided against the Palestinians in their cause of gaining a state and of trying to dictate what's right for Egypt. By keeping the attention on claims of how the US has wronged Arabs in general and Egypt in particular, he stays on the offensive, distracts attention from intolerance being perpetrated in Egypt itself (and from other societal problems), and in fact can sound like he is demanding that intolerance be tolerated as "right for Egypt." In the broader context, then, what are we to make of advocacy groups' using Rachel Corrie's death to keep the focus on Israel?
The reader should notice that Israel-hatred is not a liberal value. The Mideast dictators who have been overthrown as a consequence of Arab Spring revolts were not liberals; the strongmen and other rulers were (or are) despots. That seems consistent with the usage of Jew- and (lately) Israel-hatred historically, at least up to modern times. I think Jew-hatred has been the prerogative of reactionary vested interests or grass-roots populist movements who used it to establish, consolidate or maintain power. And that is one of the first brain-teasers I have wrestled with since 2007, when I first got up-close and personal with liberal--not conservative--Christians who are one-sided in their condemnation of Israel.
It may not strike some readers that there is anything very complicated about being anti-Israel. They may say they are against what Israel is doing to the Palestinians because it is just wrong, and those who disagree with their position are wrong, too. That begs the question of how they have come to their conclusion, since people with other opinions also think they are right and their opponents are wrong. The people who condemn Israel out of hand don't usually consider why they think Israel is the pariah state of our times, the very epitome of evil, when, for example, right next door and even as I write, Syria is slaughtering its own people, and, to the south, Coptic Christians remain endangered and second-class citizens in Egypt. The problem is not that there is injustice in Israel that cries out for correction. On that, we can agree. On that score, Israel is not unique. The problem is a narrative that proclaims Israel as the prototypical injustice.
Parenthetically, I do know that the latest rationalization for the American left-wing condemnation of Israel is that it represents "European neo-colonialism." That is a fallacious projection of American racial preoccupation with black and white onto the Jews in Europe. Although the Jews of Europe in the late 1800s wanted to be considered European, European society in the areas from which Jews first began to emigrate by and large considered them "other;" an alien race outside the community of faith, which entitled Europeans ("Caucasians," "Aryans") to malign or persecute them. To today's Americans, "white" equals "European," and "black" equals "African," but that dichotomy did not apply in 19th and early 20th century Europe. Suffice it to say at this point that it is a rationalization.
After WWII, the Holocaust forced on mainline Christianity a prolonged and unaccustomed look at itself. It was a period characterized by humility. It may also have been a period of relative quietism. If so, Israel provided both the occasion to remove the gag and an opportunity to use the restored voice. It so happened that, over in Israel, the protection barrier ("the wall") was built; Jimmy Carter wrote his Peace, Not Apartheid; and all of a sudden, here was something regarding Israel post-Holocaust that some liberal Christians could feel okay about condemning--something they could preach deserved condemnation, all the while distracting from the fact that the target was the same old target--Jews. Striking two with one blow, liberal mainline Christianity could in some measure simultaneously be reprimanding their cultural competitors--conservative Christians and the evangelical movement--for their pro-Israel stance and (according to the liberal view) their bad theology. What a relief it must have been for many in the liberal church to break out of a seemingly meek and contrite silence and engage in righteous condemnation (which modern cognitive science tells us is indeed something people enjoy). What a boon it may have been, also, for certain leaders and theologians, as a cause that might strengthen what some see as a branch of the church that is dying back.
Further, it should be noted that once segments of mainline Christianity embarked on that course, not only did it become necessary to distract from who the target is (Jews), but, also, imputing ever more evil to that target became essential to justify attitudes that are not loving and at some level feel wrong. Thus does a vicious circle develop.
As the reader can see, I am talking about strong stuff. I'm talking about this material because that's what I've heard and these are my perceptions of what is going on--in fact that there is a movement in some mainline churches to promote the very attitudes I'm describing. People may wish I would not talk about these things--various groups of people. It may make people uncomfortable. To some Jews it may seem I'm stirring up trouble, seeing an antisemite behind every tree, or picking on Christians. I have had a couple of those reactions before. Some Christians (or those originally hailing from that tradition), being in the majority and unused to a view from outside the faith, may not want to acknowledge that such observations are even allowable. But, as the children's story goes, I can't go over it, I can't go under it, I can only go through it.
The question will arise as to whether I am calling some Christians antisemites for their views on Israel.
If I hear people talking about some Jews--the ones they don't like--deserving to be in concentration camps or the like, I'll call that antisemitism, because that is "classical antisemitism." It is already the consensus that that's what it is. Otherwise, for the most part, I'm not using the term. For one thing, it is an over-used term. For another, it is controversial. For yet another, some will muster arguments that Jews were persecuted in the past but now are privileged. Finally, I have met some individuals in the liberal camp who seem to take accusations of antisemitism positively, as an indication they are on the right track. Therefore, I don't think using that terminology will help me with the present discussion. Instead, I'll just be explaining what I've perceived.
Considering my subject matter, though, it may appear to some readers that I am "playing the antisemitism card" even if I'm calling it something else. Aren't we all just Americans? They may also question the need today to focus on historical ethnic issues. People can tout their pluralism. They can quote George Washington's 1790 letter as a testament that Jews have been accepted in America. Just as conservatives sometimes accuse African Americans who are raising questions of playing the "race card," the Christian Left can also try to deflect attention from difficult issues. Facing up to such issues is hard; trying to avoid them is almost automatic. Amy-Jill Levine talks about a "false multiculturalism" among the Christian left, such that they celebrate just about every other ethnic and cultural group and champion their rights--except Israelis and Jews. For some people, Jews, wherever they are in the world, are just a proxy for Israel. Given the testimony of history, Jews have legitimate concerns regarding anti-Israel attitudes and the associated anti-Judaism--and regarding those who are spreading them.
I will say that I understand how well-intentioned Christians (and post-Christians) could feel insulted by being criticized for their efforts, which they themselves deem to be on the side of justice. Yet they appear to be quite blind to the reality that they are making human judgments that fall on human beings with feelings as tender as their own.
As an aside, I've come up against certain Christian reactions that seem dynamically equivalent to accusations of antisemitism. One is, "Are you calling the Church a liar?" Another is, "You are undermining the foundations of Christianity!" A third is, "You are trying to take my faith!" A final one that I've heard is that the speaker is an "enemy of Christ," an "enemy of the Church," or, in a final variation, an "Israeli agent." All of these, like the charge of antisemitism, function as a warning or accusation that the speaker has crossed a line, is trespassing, is out of order, and should retreat, and also that he or she is being bad or is bad. There are also many secular charges that serve similar functions, for example, the charge that one is a cynic. The immediate intent of all of the above seems to be to silence the speaker.
But despite all, my goal is to find the words and a way to speak.
Next, in Part III, having rehashed the events of Rachel Corrie's death and having touched on the Mideast brouhaha and the over-simplification of reducing "the Mideast" to Israel and Palestine, I will have to go even deeper, exploring some underlying theological ramifications.
In the previous section I recounted the events of Rachel Corrie's death and the recent (August) verdict in her wrongful death trial. Next, I'm going to be talking about Israel and Palestine, and the Mideast in general, because that's the context in which those events took place.
Before the Arab Spring of 2011, Israel/Palestine was
the Mideast for many people. The rest of the region was seen through
that lens, so, for example, Israel/Palestine was often characterized as
"the key to peace in the Middle East." It's not that there wasn't
disagreement; there was, and some voices said, for example, that the
road to peace went through Iran and not Israel. But the absolute
centrality of the Israel/Palestine narrative is hard to shake, and for
many people, seemingly impossible. Moreover, some players may perceive
it to be in their interests to keep the focus locked on it.It's not so easy, though, to keep quite that same focus on Israel and Palestine since the Arab Spring of 2011 and the subsequent unfolding of history, whereby it became clear that Middle East strongmen had kept control of their populaces in part by keeping their attention focused on Israel- and Jew-hatred. The revolutionaries, in contrast, were secular reformers who saw through that strategy and, turning their gaze away from Israel, trained it on the despots themselves. Nevertheless, it seems that forcibly returning the focus to Israel is of great importance to some groups. For example, right now, while we are in the throes of the 2012 US presidential election, and after violence occurred on the pretext of an amateurish anti-Muslim film, President Morsi of Egypt is accusing the US of being one-sided against the Palestinians in their cause of gaining a state and of trying to dictate what's right for Egypt. By keeping the attention on claims of how the US has wronged Arabs in general and Egypt in particular, he stays on the offensive, distracts attention from intolerance being perpetrated in Egypt itself (and from other societal problems), and in fact can sound like he is demanding that intolerance be tolerated as "right for Egypt." In the broader context, then, what are we to make of advocacy groups' using Rachel Corrie's death to keep the focus on Israel?
The reader should notice that Israel-hatred is not a liberal value. The Mideast dictators who have been overthrown as a consequence of Arab Spring revolts were not liberals; the strongmen and other rulers were (or are) despots. That seems consistent with the usage of Jew- and (lately) Israel-hatred historically, at least up to modern times. I think Jew-hatred has been the prerogative of reactionary vested interests or grass-roots populist movements who used it to establish, consolidate or maintain power. And that is one of the first brain-teasers I have wrestled with since 2007, when I first got up-close and personal with liberal--not conservative--Christians who are one-sided in their condemnation of Israel.
It may not strike some readers that there is anything very complicated about being anti-Israel. They may say they are against what Israel is doing to the Palestinians because it is just wrong, and those who disagree with their position are wrong, too. That begs the question of how they have come to their conclusion, since people with other opinions also think they are right and their opponents are wrong. The people who condemn Israel out of hand don't usually consider why they think Israel is the pariah state of our times, the very epitome of evil, when, for example, right next door and even as I write, Syria is slaughtering its own people, and, to the south, Coptic Christians remain endangered and second-class citizens in Egypt. The problem is not that there is injustice in Israel that cries out for correction. On that, we can agree. On that score, Israel is not unique. The problem is a narrative that proclaims Israel as the prototypical injustice.
Parenthetically, I do know that the latest rationalization for the American left-wing condemnation of Israel is that it represents "European neo-colonialism." That is a fallacious projection of American racial preoccupation with black and white onto the Jews in Europe. Although the Jews of Europe in the late 1800s wanted to be considered European, European society in the areas from which Jews first began to emigrate by and large considered them "other;" an alien race outside the community of faith, which entitled Europeans ("Caucasians," "Aryans") to malign or persecute them. To today's Americans, "white" equals "European," and "black" equals "African," but that dichotomy did not apply in 19th and early 20th century Europe. Suffice it to say at this point that it is a rationalization.
After WWII, the Holocaust forced on mainline Christianity a prolonged and unaccustomed look at itself. It was a period characterized by humility. It may also have been a period of relative quietism. If so, Israel provided both the occasion to remove the gag and an opportunity to use the restored voice. It so happened that, over in Israel, the protection barrier ("the wall") was built; Jimmy Carter wrote his Peace, Not Apartheid; and all of a sudden, here was something regarding Israel post-Holocaust that some liberal Christians could feel okay about condemning--something they could preach deserved condemnation, all the while distracting from the fact that the target was the same old target--Jews. Striking two with one blow, liberal mainline Christianity could in some measure simultaneously be reprimanding their cultural competitors--conservative Christians and the evangelical movement--for their pro-Israel stance and (according to the liberal view) their bad theology. What a relief it must have been for many in the liberal church to break out of a seemingly meek and contrite silence and engage in righteous condemnation (which modern cognitive science tells us is indeed something people enjoy). What a boon it may have been, also, for certain leaders and theologians, as a cause that might strengthen what some see as a branch of the church that is dying back.
Further, it should be noted that once segments of mainline Christianity embarked on that course, not only did it become necessary to distract from who the target is (Jews), but, also, imputing ever more evil to that target became essential to justify attitudes that are not loving and at some level feel wrong. Thus does a vicious circle develop.
As the reader can see, I am talking about strong stuff. I'm talking about this material because that's what I've heard and these are my perceptions of what is going on--in fact that there is a movement in some mainline churches to promote the very attitudes I'm describing. People may wish I would not talk about these things--various groups of people. It may make people uncomfortable. To some Jews it may seem I'm stirring up trouble, seeing an antisemite behind every tree, or picking on Christians. I have had a couple of those reactions before. Some Christians (or those originally hailing from that tradition), being in the majority and unused to a view from outside the faith, may not want to acknowledge that such observations are even allowable. But, as the children's story goes, I can't go over it, I can't go under it, I can only go through it.
The question will arise as to whether I am calling some Christians antisemites for their views on Israel.
If I hear people talking about some Jews--the ones they don't like--deserving to be in concentration camps or the like, I'll call that antisemitism, because that is "classical antisemitism." It is already the consensus that that's what it is. Otherwise, for the most part, I'm not using the term. For one thing, it is an over-used term. For another, it is controversial. For yet another, some will muster arguments that Jews were persecuted in the past but now are privileged. Finally, I have met some individuals in the liberal camp who seem to take accusations of antisemitism positively, as an indication they are on the right track. Therefore, I don't think using that terminology will help me with the present discussion. Instead, I'll just be explaining what I've perceived.
Considering my subject matter, though, it may appear to some readers that I am "playing the antisemitism card" even if I'm calling it something else. Aren't we all just Americans? They may also question the need today to focus on historical ethnic issues. People can tout their pluralism. They can quote George Washington's 1790 letter as a testament that Jews have been accepted in America. Just as conservatives sometimes accuse African Americans who are raising questions of playing the "race card," the Christian Left can also try to deflect attention from difficult issues. Facing up to such issues is hard; trying to avoid them is almost automatic. Amy-Jill Levine talks about a "false multiculturalism" among the Christian left, such that they celebrate just about every other ethnic and cultural group and champion their rights--except Israelis and Jews. For some people, Jews, wherever they are in the world, are just a proxy for Israel. Given the testimony of history, Jews have legitimate concerns regarding anti-Israel attitudes and the associated anti-Judaism--and regarding those who are spreading them.
I will say that I understand how well-intentioned Christians (and post-Christians) could feel insulted by being criticized for their efforts, which they themselves deem to be on the side of justice. Yet they appear to be quite blind to the reality that they are making human judgments that fall on human beings with feelings as tender as their own.
As an aside, I've come up against certain Christian reactions that seem dynamically equivalent to accusations of antisemitism. One is, "Are you calling the Church a liar?" Another is, "You are undermining the foundations of Christianity!" A third is, "You are trying to take my faith!" A final one that I've heard is that the speaker is an "enemy of Christ," an "enemy of the Church," or, in a final variation, an "Israeli agent." All of these, like the charge of antisemitism, function as a warning or accusation that the speaker has crossed a line, is trespassing, is out of order, and should retreat, and also that he or she is being bad or is bad. There are also many secular charges that serve similar functions, for example, the charge that one is a cynic. The immediate intent of all of the above seems to be to silence the speaker.
But despite all, my goal is to find the words and a way to speak.
Next, in Part III, having rehashed the events of Rachel Corrie's death and having touched on the Mideast brouhaha and the over-simplification of reducing "the Mideast" to Israel and Palestine, I will have to go even deeper, exploring some underlying theological ramifications.
A Political Interlude: The Corrie Verdict, Part I--What Happened?
Part I--What Happened?
I have been working on a report on the Rachel Corrie verdict since that verdict was reached in Israel back in August. My discussion has grown to encompass various approaches, so first I'll start with a journalistic-like overview based on already available information.
In subsequent posts I'll follow with Part II, a discussion of how her death, and now the verdict, fit into the larger narrative of Israel, Palestine, and the Middle East. In the 3rd part I'm going to try to look at the theology of how her death gets used--what it is for her advocates--holding to the understanding that theology and politics are intertwined. In Part IV, I will venture into the scriptural underpinnings of that theology and politics--an approach I think can help point us in a good direction.
It is in a sober mood that I get ready to publish my explorations of this topic in my blog. There has been a lot said already. What I've seen is very polemical, blaming Israel for an unjust decision, and it gets repeated over and over. Church members and friends are helping spread it. Former President Jimmy Carter has supported such opinions, as have The Guardian and even Amnesty International.
In the face of the oncoming barrage I can sometimes feel overwhelmed before I even start to write. Yet the truth is I'm not overwhelmed unless I can't speak.
Avoiding being overwhelmed is a good thing when there is so much news on one side of an issue and virtually none on the other, because in that situation the human mind is predisposed to jump to erroneous conclusions. Flooding the media too easily translates to biasing our minds.
Another problem is that, in our polarized society, it can look like I am a right-wing political conservative if I'm not ratifying the widespread left-wing belief in the all-encompassing evil of Israel and everything that comes out of it. Yet I'm not writing from a right-wing position.
From still another angle, some people may be disturbed at seeing tragedy discussed in connection with controversy. I've touched on the death of Rachel Corrie previously, and there I said that, whatever else, her death is a tragedy. That still holds. But it's also the case that her advocates and apologists do discuss it to make their points, and so will I.
The views I'm going to be expressing, or at least the way I've put those views together, are not those of any denomination or group, but are my own. In fact, I have taken the trouble to write because I can't find anybody else making the points I think should be made. It's possible they have been made, but I just haven't found them.
Also, I've decided that even though I am not an expert in political or theological matters, it is important for me to articulate what I've been thinking. If others, experts or not, have feedback, that can help the process along.
With that preface, I'll begin.
In the fall of 2007 I began going to a liberal mainline church with my husband. I was there because we were exploring each others' faith traditions. That in itself was not at all a prosaic proposition; in fact, on the personal level, it was cataclysmic. On top of that, I was soon to learn the extent to which the 1st century of the common era is still with us, not far below the trappings of 21st century America, sometimes as if there were little history and no space since then, sometimes as if modern day Israel were the scene and cause of Jesus' dying all over again, and nearly always as though the Gospels were a literal, historical record of what Jesus did and--especially--what the Jews did. Finally, a relative of Rachel Corrie went to this church. All together, it was enough to drive me, a Jew who had avoided organized religion since I was 16 years old, to a new depth of understanding of religion and community. As to the subject at hand, Rachel Corrie's death, I took a weekend afternoon in 2008 to read up on whatever I could learn, because of what I was hearing at church.
As most readers may know, Rachel Corrie was the young International Solidarity Movement (ISM) activist who in 2003 was run over by an Israeli bulldozer in Gaza, under disputed circumstances. Her name had recently been in the news again as I began to write, since a lawsuit brought in Israel by her family had just resulted in a decision vindicating the Israeli Ministry of Defense. The court having just handed down a decision that her death was accidental, not intentional, the usual suspects have lined up to condemn Israel for what they say is an unjust decision.
In 2008, the primary source I found was a lengthy 2003 Mother Jones article by a journalist named Joshua Hammer (http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2003/09/death-rachel-corrie). It was from that article I first learned that ISM is a controversial organization that does not limit itself to nonviolent resistance but, at the very least, pursues what it claims is nonviolent direct action. It reserves the right to advocate for the appropriateness of Palestinian violence against Israeli citizens or Jews in circumstances it deems justified. While its leaders say that ISM activists themselves do not commit violence, even that is murky; the organization does support violence by those it considers to be freedom fighters.
This concludes my description of the events surrounding Rachel Corrie's death and the recent verdict. In the next section, I'll move on to the context in which those events occurred--Israel and Palestine, and the Mideast in general.
Addendum, November 8: Since my original post of Part 1 on November 4, 2012, I have found that the English translation of the verdict is available online. It was difficult to find because the Internet is cluttered with articles criticizing the outcome of the trial. Such articles dedicate the bulk of their text to the criticism and relatively little if any space to the verdict itself, which they say is over 160 pages long (although the report of the exact page count varies). The English summary is only a few pages long, which is consistent with all the original news stories stating the judge read it out loud. I will include here the title of the verdict as well, so that if there is difficulty with the link, the reader will be able to search online as I did.
Here is the title I searched for:
[TRANSLATION]
Summary of the Verdict (T.A. 371/05) Estate of the Late Rachel Corrie, etc. v. The State of Israel - Ministry of Defense
I have been working on a report on the Rachel Corrie verdict since that verdict was reached in Israel back in August. My discussion has grown to encompass various approaches, so first I'll start with a journalistic-like overview based on already available information.
In subsequent posts I'll follow with Part II, a discussion of how her death, and now the verdict, fit into the larger narrative of Israel, Palestine, and the Middle East. In the 3rd part I'm going to try to look at the theology of how her death gets used--what it is for her advocates--holding to the understanding that theology and politics are intertwined. In Part IV, I will venture into the scriptural underpinnings of that theology and politics--an approach I think can help point us in a good direction.
It is in a sober mood that I get ready to publish my explorations of this topic in my blog. There has been a lot said already. What I've seen is very polemical, blaming Israel for an unjust decision, and it gets repeated over and over. Church members and friends are helping spread it. Former President Jimmy Carter has supported such opinions, as have The Guardian and even Amnesty International.
In the face of the oncoming barrage I can sometimes feel overwhelmed before I even start to write. Yet the truth is I'm not overwhelmed unless I can't speak.
Avoiding being overwhelmed is a good thing when there is so much news on one side of an issue and virtually none on the other, because in that situation the human mind is predisposed to jump to erroneous conclusions. Flooding the media too easily translates to biasing our minds.
Another problem is that, in our polarized society, it can look like I am a right-wing political conservative if I'm not ratifying the widespread left-wing belief in the all-encompassing evil of Israel and everything that comes out of it. Yet I'm not writing from a right-wing position.
From still another angle, some people may be disturbed at seeing tragedy discussed in connection with controversy. I've touched on the death of Rachel Corrie previously, and there I said that, whatever else, her death is a tragedy. That still holds. But it's also the case that her advocates and apologists do discuss it to make their points, and so will I.
The views I'm going to be expressing, or at least the way I've put those views together, are not those of any denomination or group, but are my own. In fact, I have taken the trouble to write because I can't find anybody else making the points I think should be made. It's possible they have been made, but I just haven't found them.
Also, I've decided that even though I am not an expert in political or theological matters, it is important for me to articulate what I've been thinking. If others, experts or not, have feedback, that can help the process along.
With that preface, I'll begin.
In the fall of 2007 I began going to a liberal mainline church with my husband. I was there because we were exploring each others' faith traditions. That in itself was not at all a prosaic proposition; in fact, on the personal level, it was cataclysmic. On top of that, I was soon to learn the extent to which the 1st century of the common era is still with us, not far below the trappings of 21st century America, sometimes as if there were little history and no space since then, sometimes as if modern day Israel were the scene and cause of Jesus' dying all over again, and nearly always as though the Gospels were a literal, historical record of what Jesus did and--especially--what the Jews did. Finally, a relative of Rachel Corrie went to this church. All together, it was enough to drive me, a Jew who had avoided organized religion since I was 16 years old, to a new depth of understanding of religion and community. As to the subject at hand, Rachel Corrie's death, I took a weekend afternoon in 2008 to read up on whatever I could learn, because of what I was hearing at church.
As most readers may know, Rachel Corrie was the young International Solidarity Movement (ISM) activist who in 2003 was run over by an Israeli bulldozer in Gaza, under disputed circumstances. Her name had recently been in the news again as I began to write, since a lawsuit brought in Israel by her family had just resulted in a decision vindicating the Israeli Ministry of Defense. The court having just handed down a decision that her death was accidental, not intentional, the usual suspects have lined up to condemn Israel for what they say is an unjust decision.
In 2008, the primary source I found was a lengthy 2003 Mother Jones article by a journalist named Joshua Hammer (http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2003/09/death-rachel-corrie). It was from that article I first learned that ISM is a controversial organization that does not limit itself to nonviolent resistance but, at the very least, pursues what it claims is nonviolent direct action. It reserves the right to advocate for the appropriateness of Palestinian violence against Israeli citizens or Jews in circumstances it deems justified. While its leaders say that ISM activists themselves do not commit violence, even that is murky; the organization does support violence by those it considers to be freedom fighters.
Despite
giving the above picture of ISM, the 2003 Mother
Jones article is not pro-Israel by any stretch.
In fact, it tends to portray Israeli military
activity in the region as oppressive and as taking place for no good
reason. The time period we are focusing on, and when Rachel
Corrie died, is the time of the Second Intifada, an extended period of
intense
Palestinian violence against the Israeli citizenry that followed the
disappointing conclusion of former President Bill Clinton’s 2000 Camp
David summit. Some see the Second Intifada as in part the result of
Arafat’s being publicly made
to take the fall for the failure of the summit—that he revenged himself
for the
finger pointing and stoked his credibility with Palestinians by riding
the
crest of the violence and even encouraging it (The Much Too Promised Land, Aaron David Miller). At any rate, it was a violent period before
the wall—the protection barrier—had been built. There were dozens of suicide bombings at public places such as cafes or synagogues. At the time, the Israeli
military had the aim of controlling weapons smuggling and terrorist activity in
that area of Gaza. In general, the
picture painted by the Mother Jones
article seems to be as would be expected from a left-leaning magazine.
Despite that slant, when I searched for current updates, I found advocacy groups have made a concerted effort to discredit the article, not by challenging the facts themselves, but by alleging the author plagiarized parts of the text. I didn’t see accusations of plagiarism from anyone else, and I did see later articles by that author, who apparently remains a working journalist. Advocacy groups also accused him of smearing Rachel Corrie’s memory. This looks to me like one of those situations in which a partisan group accuses an author of dastardly bias for not telling the story precisely according to the party line.
Despite that slant, when I searched for current updates, I found advocacy groups have made a concerted effort to discredit the article, not by challenging the facts themselves, but by alleging the author plagiarized parts of the text. I didn’t see accusations of plagiarism from anyone else, and I did see later articles by that author, who apparently remains a working journalist. Advocacy groups also accused him of smearing Rachel Corrie’s memory. This looks to me like one of those situations in which a partisan group accuses an author of dastardly bias for not telling the story precisely according to the party line.
ISM
is reminiscent of the
by-any-means-necessary activist groups of the American Left during the
late 1960s and
early ‘70s—antiwar groups and post-MLK Jr. black activist groups—or
possibly of
more recent radical environmental groups we occasionally hear about in
the
news—groups who do not forswear violence and that, in today’s political
climate here in America, any politician, clergyperson, or
pillar-of-the-community layperson would be quick to
publicly disavow.
Getting back to one central aspect of what I
learned: ISM gave the media what turned out to be an erroneous series of pictures
after Rachel Corrie’s death. One picture
in particular made it appear she was standing up on level ground using a bullhorn and was run down by a bulldozer. As one might guess, purported eyewitness
accounts vary, but all agree she went toward and into or onto the huge mound of
dirt or rubble being pushed by the bulldozer. I want to specifically mention that mound of rubble because that is simply not the picture a lot
of people have in their minds. People
think she was standing there in plain sight. It turned out those questionable pictures had
been taken earlier, in different places, with the sun at different points in
the sky, and with different shadows, different backgrounds, and different
bulldozers. The Mother Jones article said the media
lost trust in ISM because of their apparent attempt at manipulation, while ISM spokespeople claimed the news service had miscaptioned
the pictures.
Rachel Corrie's advocates don’t tell her story as I have described. In fact, it appears there has been an
active program to promote the story as advocates insist it must have
occurred. A play has been written and
promoted, and an ongoing media campaign conducted. In certain quarters, Rachel Corrie is held up as
the face of the Palestinian movement and the anti-Israel movement. With enough time and repetition, some
mainstream news sources are reporting the story now as though it had
happened as advocates claim--complete with misleading pictures.
In the time
since 2008, I came to the conclusion that if the eventual trial failed to
result in the desired outcome, advocates would claim the decision was a
whitewash—and that is indeed what has happened.This concludes my description of the events surrounding Rachel Corrie's death and the recent verdict. In the next section, I'll move on to the context in which those events occurred--Israel and Palestine, and the Mideast in general.
Addendum, November 8: Since my original post of Part 1 on November 4, 2012, I have found that the English translation of the verdict is available online. It was difficult to find because the Internet is cluttered with articles criticizing the outcome of the trial. Such articles dedicate the bulk of their text to the criticism and relatively little if any space to the verdict itself, which they say is over 160 pages long (although the report of the exact page count varies). The English summary is only a few pages long, which is consistent with all the original news stories stating the judge read it out loud. I will include here the title of the verdict as well, so that if there is difficulty with the link, the reader will be able to search online as I did.
Here is the title I searched for:
[TRANSLATION]
Summary of the Verdict (T.A. 371/05) Estate of the Late Rachel Corrie, etc. v. The State of Israel - Ministry of Defense
Saturday, June 9, 2012
A Double-Edged Sword PART II d (ii) Religion and Politics
How I Became a Witness
In 2008, Amy-Jill Levine, the Orthodox Jewish author and scholar of New Testament at Vanderbilt, became the first non-Christian headliner for the William L. Self Preaching Lectures at Mercer's McAfee Theological Center. Her first lecture was entitled "Christians Say the Darndest Things." It was on anti-Judaism in Christian preaching and teaching. The lecture was replete with cautionary tales to support her thesis that Christians need to be careful what they preach. They don't know when their words may be traumatizing Jewish children visiting a church, giving inadvertent aid and succor to some rising young neo-Nazi, or providing fodder for an unstable mind. A-J Levine is a great speaker, and Dennis and I were lucky to have found out about that lecture series and to have been able to attend. It was the first of several times that we’ve been able to hear her.
After the lecture, when we were standing in line for the luncheon, two men behind us, presumably preachers, were talking between themselves, saying that, no, you really didn't have to be concerned, if you just knew your audience. In other words, they didn’t seem to get what they had just heard. They thought they could still carry on preaching as usual, with confidence in having their familiar audience. They thought they could just know their audience, and presumably talk one way to them, and another way when others were listening, with the expectation that would alleviate any problems. The immediate situation itself illustrated the fallacy of being able to control one's hearers as the two preachers thought they could, since I was hearing them. I was their witness.
I grew up in Decatur, Georgia, a suburb to the east of Atlanta, after the war—World War II, that is. Decatur was unique for having instituted “Saturday school,” beginning in 1902, and by that method having largely kept Jews from settling there, since the school week ran Tuesday through Saturday—Saturday being the Jewish Sabbath. Although Saturday school had ended in 1932 and by the 1950s and '60s had been forgotten, there were still very few Jewish families there during my childhood. So my primary social group was the children of my neighborhood and school—white Southern Protestants.
It was before integration. Nobody talked about religion, at least to me. I wasn’t what passed for “popular” but I had friends, and I wasn’t ostracized. In fact, I wasn’t clear there was anything from which to be ostracized--nothing that I could get my hands on, anyway. I didn’t know there was any problem in society, or I didn't admit it. Maybe I didn't want to know. I didn't realize that my peers may have had bonds between each other that I couldn't share. Whenever I felt uncomfortable, I attributed it to something being wrong with myself, not with the social system. It would have been terrible to clearly face the possibility that I was excluded and could not belong. It was better to think I was at fault.
When I was young, discomfort, for me, typically meant anxiety. I may have been a witness to my times but I didn't know it yet. This was my society, the only one I knew, and I couldn't have faced that there was a tension between whether or not I belonged here, whether it really was my society or not. So I participated in the fiction that whatever was wrong--whatever it was that I felt--was entirely something wrong with me, and I kept my head down.
I do remember an incident. It was in the fifth grade, I think. Miss Bennett wanted to teach the class what religious denominations are. So she made us stand up, and she called out the denominations one by one--Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, and so on, one by one, and when the student's denomination was called, he or she got to sit down. So at the end, there were just a few children left standing, and she called out, Catholic, and the one or two of them in our class sat down (most Catholics being students at the local parochial school), and then she called out, Jewish--so that I, the last one standing, could sit down, after having been publicly identified. I really don't think Miss Bennett thought ahead when she began that exercise. I wasn't made to feel ashamed--didn't know enough to feel that. I just felt chagrined--and exposed, which to me was something to be avoided at all costs. So I must have known something was wrong, but I didn't or couldn't recognize it. My classmates knew, though. When, in the 7th grade (still in elementary school in those days), two of the "cute" boys invited me to the after-school "spin the bottle" gathering, I was ecstatic, but before it could happen, several of the girls spoke to them, and I was told I'd been uninvited. I was back to thinking it was something wrong with me.
School, changing times, marriage, work, family, children—whatever problems there were, I never recognized that my Judaism was even involved, much less that it could be crucial. I didn’t really know any Jews other than my family of origin. I had had a limited religious education in another part of town. I had my beliefs, and I was never an atheist, but no religious practice, no community, no “cultural Judaism.” During the '60s and '70s, I had developed something of a Zen or Eastern view, as was so common in those days. The Jewish community? —I didn’t know it existed or had anything to do with me. Being a child of the “youth movement” of the 1970s—and of the civil rights era and feminism--I also thought sensible people everywhere—society—had outgrown the ancient prejudices.
I continued to see myself as anxious and as someone who would not have a community, or close friends, although others did. I could succeed and excel in areas of my life, but I didn't--or wasn't able to--question why I was different in the realm of community and friendship. I did believe this was America, we were all equal, no one was inferior because of "race, religion or creed." It was as though there were a conspiracy not to recognize what the issue was, a conspiracy of silence.
What happened next was this. Through some personal events in our lives, I found out that Dennis' beliefs about God and religion weren't the same as mine. Now if any of you readers are liberal Christians, you know how that is; you know about keeping Jesus under wraps, and you didn't talk about him in public or to others, and Dennis had been no different in that respect. Dennis and I had been going through some personal experiences regarding religion that culminated in his telling me he was going to join a particular church, which, of course (though I didn't even know it then), I couldn't do. And he planned, as I saw it, to become closer to his Christian brothers and sisters, and our marriage was to be "an arrangement." And that's what gave me the kick in the rear that made me, at long last, take a big risk. Because I wasn't going to settle for that. No. I would not be excluded from his life. There had to be something overarching that was stronger than the forces pulling us apart. So that's why I took the step of going to church with him, the Sunday before Labor Day, 2007.
With that step, going to church with him on that Sunday, I put myself in the position to learn that in churches--in the liberal churches with the educated, professional congregations, there could still be teaching and preaching of wrong and untrue things about Jews and Judaism--Jews in Jesus' time and Jews now--Israel/Palestine being the excuse for the latter. That's what galvanized me--finding out that this is what was going on in America behind (some) church doors! I was spurred into action in a major way, because, while I knew what was being taught was nothing like anything I felt or had ever heard about Judaism, I knew so little that I couldn't do anything but inarticulately protest or seethe. That's why I began to study. That's why I found rabbis to learn from and other Jews to study with. In fact, I didn't study only with Jews; I found other people to study with, as well. And by the way, Dennis came along for the ride. To his everlasting credit, he studied and learned, too. And eventually after several years of percolation and further perceived provocation, I began to write.
This is really what I've been writing about since December 2010. It's not that all churches are portraying Jews and Judaism in a bad light (but I dare say many are doing so some of the time, some more than others--and more toward the liberal end of the spectrum, because, as Amy-Jill Levine says, if someone can't make Jesus profound by way of miracles and divinity, then he or she is more likely to turn to making him special via odious comparisons to Jews).
At any rate, my ears and eyes became sensitized. I saw how many mainstream newspaper columnists would matter-of-factually write in terms of casual anti-Judaism, e.g., "the Old Testament God" when they meant to convey the idea of punishment without mercy. For another example, this past Christmas day 2011, Kyle Wingfield, the politically conservative columnist for the Atlanta Journal Constitution, wrote, not in church, but in his column, that Christianity is "news" while other religions are "advice!" He claimed that this was just a distinction, and that he wasn't saying Christianity is better. In other words, Christianity equals belief, faith, and true religion, while other religions are just advice--and that's supposed to be simply a distinction and not a claim of superiority! How easy to mistake one's own feelings from within one's religion as proof of its difference and superiority, then trumpet one's conclusions in the public square to rally political support. This is supposed to be America! Should a columnist for a mainstream big-city American newspaper be making such claims? The fact is, he can make them in public only because he's a member of the majority religion. That creates a power differential.
But I'm not talking just about the casual hum of low level anti-Judaism or Christian triumphalism in society. I'm talking here about polemics, and about how it is that I have become a witness.
I want to make it abundantly clear that this--all my struggle to articulate and write what I have witnessed--is not about being "offended." Being offended conveys the notion of oversensitivity--being thin-skinned. Being offended is not so important. Being dehumanized is. One doesn't dehumanize somebody else because they deserve it, one dehumanizes somebody else because one already doesn't like them.
Just as the Two Commentaries section indicates, the purpose of a polemic is to dehumanize a perceived opponent, and to do so with the goal--maybe conscious, maybe implicit--of saying how to treat that perceived opponent and why it is justified. Once dehumanized, it becomes okay to treat them as less than human. First comes hate, anger, blame or fear, then come words, then behavior.
I decided that this is my society, as well as anybody else's. This is my century, as well as anybody else's. This is my time--too. It's still a free country, and I'm still alive, and in my life I've been quiet long enough.
Some people may believe I arrived at my present vantage point as a sort of spy or troublemaker. This is important because in some circles, anybody who doesn't pass a litmus test for the requisite anti-Israel sentiment might be considered a neocon, or even an "Israeli agent." I came across that latter terminology in the context of the 2010 Presbyterian position paper on Israel/Palestine. In that context, even Presbyterian clergy who conscientiously dissented from the hardline position preferred by others got called "Israeli agents"--so how much more likely would it be for some people to consider me, an outsider, in a similar light. In slightly less dramatic language, these days anyone who doesn't completely repudiate all positive valuation of Israel is likely to be considered a conservative, while antagonism toward Israel is often considered the sine qua non for being a liberal. Nevertheless, I am a liberal and not a political conservative, and I did not come as a spy. In fact, I arrived in a state of such unawareness and unclarity that I didn't know there might be anything wrong, or even that I was going to be anything more than any other anonymous attendee.
Did I possibly expect an experience similar to one I had had in my youth? When Dennis and I were young, he had an experience with Christianity that convinced him of the meaningfulness and living relevance of the tradition for himself. If he hadn't had that experience, who knows, he may never have taken the leap of faith needed to have a marriage and family. But he did have it, and, that time, I was along with him for part of the ride, which most notably consisted of participating in a "coffeehouse ministry" to the hippies and street people of midtown Atlanta circa 1968. With the Twelfth Gate Coffeehouse group, we had study (of the likes of Sartre, Camus and Kierkegaard), and we had communion consisting of a loaf of bread, a gallon of Gallo Rhine wine, and "passing the peace." No scripture was read, which was possibly one reason I didn't pick up on any anti-Judaism in the procedures. You could say it was all a "hippie-dippy" experience, but, whatever it was, it did not seem particularly negative.
Because of that coffeehouse ministry experience many years before, I probably arrived expecting something similar, in kind if not in size. At first I didn’t even know I couldn’t join a church unless I converted. I had no thoughts of converting, but I did think I would participate. I even did some planning with the clergy toward getting gluten-free bread. And then I heard what was being taught about Jews, past and present. The last thing I expected was to hear the degree to which in 21st century America, Judaism is held up as a foil for Christianity. Hearing what was being taught and preached was my wake-up call.
The Introduction to Matthew's Gospel which I discussed in Two Commentaries suggests that, at some not-to-distant point in the past, Christian leaders contemplated teaching Christians about the polemical times in which that gospel and the others were written, so that, through education, Christian people might learn to take the anti-Judaism in the text with a grain (or handful!) of salt--so that the hate and violent tendencies of the past would no longer be routinely instilled as in the past. But from what I have seen and heard, I gather that in many settings, the polemic, far from being taught with an eye toward correcting past tendencies, is still being utilized today. In fact, some Christians want to build on it, under the guise of not holding back on criticizing Israel just because the Holocaust happened, as this logic goes. In settings where that is the dynamic, New Testament literalism about the role of Jews in Jesus' time is the order of the day, a literalism that is only intensified when it is paired with the political scapegoating of modern-day Israel.
It may sound like I stumbled into a particularly problematical church, but I doubt it's terribly unusual. It has a particular political message and a theological perspective that supports the politics. The theology and politics tend to be mutually reinforcing. It's not the only church with a similar message. At the same time there will be other churches with messages all along a continuum from one extreme to the other on this matter of Jews in Jesus' time, as well as on Israel/Palestine.
As in other types of organizations, one can see in religions and religious organizations a tension that exists between self-preservation, on one hand, and carrying out the intended purpose of the religion, on the other. By their intended purpose, I mean spreading their message. Although I know that one purpose of Christianity is proselytizing and making converts, for my particular vision here, I would see that activity as being more in line with self-preservation--in other words, with sheer numbers. By the intended purpose of the religion, what I mean is something more like spreading love, or giving its gifts to the world. Now, I don't mean that one side, self-preservation, is bad, and the other side is good. Obviously if a religion is to carry out its intended purpose--here let's just say sharing its gifts--then it has to have some people. It has to maintain itself to a certain degree. But I do think that the tension between self-preservation and carrying out the intended purpose can get out of balance, which is more likely if the religion or the particular church feels itself to be under stress and duress.
It should be obvious that Jews are not a threat to the continuation of Christianity or of a particular church, nor have they been for two thousand years (if indeed they ever were to the extent perceived or believed by some) so why do I bring up self-preservation in the context of anti-Judaism and anti-Israel incitement? I bring it up because the cultural competitor to the liberal Christian church today is the conservative church--and maybe proselytizing atheism, as well, but here I'll stick with conservative Christianity as the major cultural competitor of the liberal church. And the conservative church, if I paint with a very broad brushstroke here, has an opposite view on Jews and Israel these days. So, although many liberal Christians may feel in their hearts as though they are standing up for Christ against Jews, both in a religious sense and regarding Israel/Palestine, nevertheless, on another level, their brand of Christianity is involved in a stand-off with the conservative church. Which will win, which will achieve cultural dominance? For the liberal church, their anti-Israel stance both distinguishes them from their cultural opponent--conservative Christianity--and gives them a voice against that opponent. Plus, the liberal church has Israel (and Jews) as a common enemy against which to rally the troops, so to speak. In other words, on the subject of Israel and Judaism, the liberal church is polemicizing against the conservatives. Israel is a political bonanza for the liberal church.
Sure enough, the Christians at the church I became involved with seem preoccupied with a sense of standing up for justice against evil, with a sense of themselves as being on the right side. There seems to be little complexity to this stance. The dominant members of the congregation are very political. They are very externally-oriented. In this sense, one doesn't hear much about "Love your enemy."
I spotted the term "Christianists" in a newspaper column. Maybe I'm dealing, not with Christians, but with "Christianists." Muslims whom we Westerners judge to be overly-concerned with the lesser Jihad--external struggle for political dominance over infidels--we call them Islamists. No, I don't think I could use a Christianist/Christian dichotomy. I think calling people Christianists would be simplistic and antagonistic. It involves self-deceptive thinking and code-words. It would be name calling with "plausible deniability." I would be avoiding the tough questions and difficult issues. Also, it would be treating others in a manner I myself find abhorrent.
The bottom line is simply this: If some Christians are going to teach and preach in their churches the way I have described, then it doesn't need to be a secret. It needs to be known.
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Sunday, May 6, 2012
A Homiletic Interlude
I’ve heard it said that every person’s life is worth a
novel. (Actually, there’s a book by
that name!) So maybe everyone also has at least one sermon in him or her.
A Homiletic Interlude
May 5, 2012
D’var Torah—A
Word of Torah
(as slightly revised
for the blog)
This week’s Parashah (Torah portion) is Kedoshim,
part of the Holiness Code and in the middle of the Torah. You could say, though, that we are in the
middle of Kedoshim, because all around us in this chapel (bordering the
top of the wall) are the commandments from Leviticus Chapter 19:
Love your
neighbor as yourself.
You shall not steal.
Do not
profit by the blood of your neighbor.
You shall
not render an unfair decision.
Do not go
about as a talebearer.
You shall not reap all the way to the
edges of your field.
You shall
not take vengeance or bear a grudge.
Do not turn to idols.
You shall
be holy, for I, the Eternal your God, am holy.
You shall
each revere your mother and your father.
You shall
not place a stumbling block before the blind.
And then we come to, “You shall fear your God: I am the
Lord.”
What is that doing here?
In English, here in America, in the 21st century, it may not
sound so good to us. It takes us
aback. It conjures up an authoritarian,
even violent image, as in: “I’ll put the fear of God into you!”
A year ago, I got into a Facebook discussion (which won’t
surprise anybody who knows me) with a friend of a friend. He said he’d never heard anyone but
conservative Protestants use the term “fear of God” in an approving sense. He said that, in his view, “although love is
not incompatible with discipline, (he) would not support a deity that needed to
be feared more than loved, or that encouraged such thinking in her
worshippers.” This person identified
himself as Unitarian, but he had a Jewish-sounding name; you never know. I had mixed feelings—frustration—to think
that maybe he had left Judaism because he thought of God in negative terms.
That was last year, and, as it happened, the very next week
in Torah study, there it was—Leviticus 25:17, “Do not wrong one another, but
fear your God; for I the Lord am your God.”
Because I had already been bothered by my earlier Facebook
discussion, I went on a little treasure hunt through the footnotes of the
Jewish Study Bible. Now, the footnotes
of the Jewish Study Bible are like having a rabbi right with you whenever you
need one, and it cuts down a little bit, at least, on excessive emailing of
theological questions to our rabbis. In
this case, the footnote took me right to the “fear your God” verse in our
chapter today (Leviticus 19:14). And
what it said was that this phrase, “fear your God,” was used when no one is
watching and when there is really no policeman around—no enforceable legal
sanction.
The fear of God, then, means conscience. It is the spark of God that gets inside us
and lights our way.
Many times footnotes in the Jewish Study Bible will say,
“Meaning of Hebrew uncertain,” or they will offer multiple translations of a
term. About “fear of God,” though,
there is no such ambiguity. These
scholars say flat out that “fear of God” means “conscience.”
We see this phrase, “fear of God,” all through the
Torah. Rabbi Berg told me last Fall I’d
have no trouble finding examples of it, and he was right. For example, in the first chapter of Exodus,
the midwives didn’t kill the first-born of the Hebrews when Pharaoh said
to—because they feared God. Because of
that they were able to stand up to “fear of Pharaoh.” Later in Chapter 17, as the Hebrews journeyed through the
wilderness, Amalek attacked the stragglers, picking on the weak—because he had
no fear of God.
In Chapter 20, at Sinai, when the people witnessed the
thunder and lightning, the blare of the horn, and the mountain smoking, they
were afraid of God, but Moses told them, “Be not afraid, for God has come only
in order to give you an experience of Him, and in order that the fear of Him
may ever be with you, so that you do not go astray.” Listen to that! Don’t be afraid, because God wants the fear of
God to stay with you! How paradoxical,
when heard in English! You can see that
“fear of God” has come to be something other than “being afraid”—an idiomatic
expression meaning “conscience.” As
in—inner compass.
And here I thought, too, of miners’ hats with lights, or the
headbands runners wear to light their way at night.
In Rabbi Baylinson’s lunch-and-learn last fall on biblical
women (“Harlots or Heroines?”), Abraham let Abimelech think Sarah was his
sister, because he thought, “There is no fear of God at all in this place, and
they will kill me because of my wife!”
In Rabbi Reeves’ evening class (“A Jewish Look Into the Christian New
Testament”), we encountered Psalm 22—and the instruction, “You who fear the
Lord, praise Him! All you offspring of Jacob, honor him! Be in dread of Him, all you offspring of
Israel!"
Speaking of the New Testament, the same expression, “fear of
God,” can be found there, as well (e.g., Acts 10:35), and the meaning is the
same.
That meaning is: have something stronger than our earthly
fears; have a conscience and do what’s right.
“Fear of God,” yirat
Adonai, is not limited to what not to do, but also includes what to
do. Do what is right. Stand up.
Speak out. When God asks, “Where
are you,” answer saying, Hineni, “Here I am.”
Translation is interpretation, and when yirat Adonai,
“fear of God,” was translated, it became easy to forget what it meant; fear and reverence are both part of the original package, and, furthermore, in the
Torah, yirat Adonai is not clearly distinguished from “love of God”
(Rabbi Louis Jacobs, according to Rabbi Mark B. Greenspan, Torah Table
Talk—Sacred Words; Yirah—Does God Make Us Tremble? 2009).
So, how does this yirat Adonai—“fear of God”—conscience—get
into us? When we are out in the
work-a-day world all week our minds are programmed by commerce and finance and
fashion and competition. Evolution has
made our minds programmable—interactive with our environment—not only by
intentional elements like advertising; but also by incidental and random
elements. Without our minds being
interactive, we could not survive. But
as a result of that programming, we become more individualistic, hard-working,
persistent, independent—and also less caring, more focused on
ourselves—selfish. And we are always
being programmed, one way or another—nothing we can do about that. What we do have is a say in how we get
programmed—how we get our yirat Adonai.
So we come in here, on Shabbat, to experience our tradition, which is so
very mindful of how we are programmed.
Instead of the business of everyday, here we talk about God and surround
ourselves with—the Holiness Code. We
read Torah and study it, and we pray.
And we surround ourselves with other people doing the same thing, which
magnifies and intensifies the impact.
And we permeate ourselves in it and talk it until we have multiple
vectors of God coming from each of us to the other. So much so that God doesn’t stay here only in this building or
when we are together. We help keep the spark shining.
Like finally learning to think in another language, I knew I
was reprogrammed--when I started to hear the spring birds singing, Kadosh,
Kadosh, Kadosh, (“Holy, Holy, Holy”).
The whole world is full of God’s presence.
Thursday, April 26, 2012
A Double-Edged Sword, Part II d (i): Religion and Politics
In these sections on religion and politics, I propose to talk about "polemics," the art or practice of disputation or controversy, and about "polemic," which is an argument that hostilely refutes a particular belief or opinion. But the section has gotten bigger and bigger, so I've subdivided yet again. Here's the first part:
Two Commentaries
In The Jewish Study Bible (Jewish Publication Society, TANAKH Translation), there is a particular footnote to Leviticus 18:3 that is central to the issue of religion and politics--at least to my thinking about it.
Leviticus Chapter 18 is the chapter that lists all the gross sexual behaviors that Canaanites and Egyptians are said to have practiced--incest with their various close relatives, fornication with their neighbors' wives, bestiality, and so on. The biblical writers also included human sacrifice of babies and the profaning of God's name along with their list of Canaanite and Egyptian sexual transgressions.
The footnote of interest to me explains that the Egyptians and Canaanites are characterized in biblical tradition by rampant sexual licentiousness and perversion--particularly by the Priestly voice. (The reference here is to the documentary hypothesis about who wrote the Hebrew bible. There are four voices in all, of which the Priestly voice is one.) Further, the text goes on to imply that the Egyptians and Canaanites were so depraved that they even had laws requiring these sexual practices. The note goes on: "This, however, does not emerge from Canaanite and Egyptian literature, and it is now thought that the biblical writers used this accusation as a means of stigmatizing Israel's cultural rivals (in the guise of long-extinct enemies) by attributing to them the most heinous crimes (my italics). Thus they provided moral justification for the displacement of the Canaanites, while at the same time polemicizing against such practices in Israelite society itself...."
A subsequent footnote points out that as Chapter 18 proceeds, all reference to "the Egyptians" has entirely dropped out; the text therefore having become an exhortation against the present day cultural rivals of the writers themselves, as well as against the proscribed sexual practices in Israelite society itself.
Even though cultural study and archeology have revealed new information like that described in the preceding paragraph, that doesn't change the narrative as it is enshrined in the bible. We Jews do have a tradition of studying our entire scripture and not turning away even from difficult parts like this. I remember one of our rabbis helping us in Torah study one Saturday morning to look at some verses on the subject of God's command to kill all the Canaanites or Edomites--the idea being that those Israelites described in that biblical passage were really struggling. They were involved in warfare. They were trying to win. They were trying to survive. They were locked in enmity with another cultural group and were not at peace, which is the ideal. That constituted cognitive dissonance writ large! Is it any wonder that the cognitive dissonance got resolved by concluding that God commanded it? We who are studying nowadays can read and learn, and it will shed light on our own struggles. "Turn it and turn it, for everything is in it," as an old rabbinic saying goes.
Going back to Leviticus 18, footnotes and depth interpretations notwithstanding, the chapter is often interpreted and believed literally--as though the Canaanites literally were sinners; therefore the land spat them out in favor of the Israelites. That is the plain text reading. There are no more Canaanites or Edomites. So, since they are no more, is it okay to believe the story literally? Many people do, and the text can be taught that way. It is worth reflecting on what doing so may mean for us (especially since we abhor similar polemics being leveled against ourselves).
To hear many people talk in our Christian-based culture, the above dilemmas are characteristic of the Old Testament and its "Old Testament God," while the New Testament focuses on love. Perhaps it would not be going too far to say that to think so is to criticize the speck in one's fellow's eye while having a big old piece of lumber in one's own.
As far as I have been able to discern, Christianity, at least to the extent it's defined as the Christians in the pews, usually does not undertake the study of all its texts, and it's the difficult ones that are likely to be skipped. Groups and individuals alike tend to focus on preferred texts and turn away from the so-called toxic texts. Perhaps it's easy to forget they are there. But if the exploration of difficult texts is skipped in favor of the obviously positive ones, then who will know how to speak up and what to say when zealots exploit their negative utility? (And who knows what undiscovered treasure may be buried in those texts, hidden under the more obvious difficulties?)
Speaking of difficult texts, here is part of the introductory comment preceding The Gospel According to Matthew in The New Oxford Annotated Bible, New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) that addresses this point:
"Matthew's utility for the Christian church is no coincidence. The issues of his own church and community were of pressing importance to the evangelist.... (He) has telescoped the experience of Christians in his day with the story of Jesus so that Jesus' words and actions apply to both the time of Jesus and that of Matthew a half century later."
The commentary then says that that procedure explains some of the anomalies of the text, for example, the conflicted portrayal of Jewish piety and religious leaders--the evangelist's high regard for the Torah (first five books of the Bible) and disdain for non-Jews, vs. "a strident and unrelenting condemnation of the Jewish leadership--the chief priests, elders, Sadducees, Pharisees, and scribes. These groups are indiscriminately paired with each other in a manner inconsistent with the historical distinctions between these groups in Jesus' day. The Gospel's treatment of the Pharisees, routinely condemned as hypocrites, in particular, has led many scholars to suggest that their portrayal reflects later tensions between Matthew's church and emergent Rabbinic Judaism. In other words, the conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees reflects tensions that emerged fifty years after Jesus' death" (italics mine).
"The crucifixion narrative also displays this telescoping of perspective. Responsibility for Jesus' passion is shifted from Pontius Pilate and the Romans to the Jewish people and their leadership. The horrific pronouncement 'His blood be on us and on our children!' (27:25) is Matthew's way of attributing the (Roman) destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 CE to Israel's rejection of Jesus. The vehemence with which the evangelist expresses such sentiments was likely intended to shock both Jewish Christians and their Jewish neighbors into...discounting rival claims being advanced by the leadership of emergent Rabbinic Judaism...."
"While such deliberately shocking rhetoric was characteristic of debates between groups in the first century CE, its long-term consequences have been disastrous. Subsequent non-Jewish Christians interpreted the Gospel as a warrant to exact retribution from Jews for the death of Jesus.... A proper reading of the Gospel, therefore, requires being attuned to the polemical context in which it was written, and recognizing that the conflict between emerging Rabbinic Judaism and the smaller Jewish Christian minority ceased being relevant nearly two millennia ago."
In other words, just as the scholarly consensus is that Leviticus 18 and other writings were used to justify suppression of the Canaanites (according to the Jewish Study Bible), the consensus is that Matthew and many other New Testament writings were used to justify suppression of Jews (according to the New Oxford Annotated NRSV).
I wish it were true that the polemics really had ceased being relevant 2000 years ago. Of course, it has not. It is still with us, including stereotypes about "the Jews," Pharisees, and the nature of Judaism in general. The polemics distorts the self perception of individuals within the dominant religious tradition of Christianity as well as that of those within the minority tradition of Judaism. The polemics has affected the development of both religions.
Christianity did not invent polemics, which was endemic in the Hellenistic society of the Roman Empire at the dawn of the Christian era, but Christianity has brought polemics along with it. The polemical way of thinking about about Judaism at the foundation of Christianity has influenced characterizations of outsiders and opponents in general and now goes far beyond the relationship between Christianity and Judaism and is interwoven into our national political discourse.
This section originated several months ago at the first of the year. I am posting it on April 27, 2012.
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