KUMMUNIQUE

Shalom! We are proud to present another issue of Kummunique.
This issue is filled with Aliyah and Eretz Yisrael inspiration - so enjoy!

In this issue you will find:

1. "Nice Try, But Not Torah" Malkah's comment to an AISH article
2. "That's So Israeli" By Jonathan Udren
3. "Yom Yerushalayim" by Rabbi Yehudah Prero
4. "First And Foremost A Jew" by Yossi Beilin

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1. "Nice Try, But Not Torah" Malkah's comment to an AISH article
From AISH

Your article in defense of the Diaspora is a nice try, with a lot of good points, but ultimately you've missed the cruxt of what A.B . Yehoshua was saying.

Your article took a long time to say basically one thing: the Jews can't survive without the Torah. Absolutely, 100% true.

However, I believe that underlying Yehoshua's premise is a deep personal and national understanding that Israel is ALSO fundamental to Jewish existence.

Aside from the "easy out" you get from the ability to disregard Yehoshua as a secular Zionist, you completely ignore the fundamental truth of what he's saying.

Let's look at some texts:

"In all times, a Jew should live in the Land of Israel, even in a city where most of the residents are idol worshippers, rather then outside the land, even in a city where most of the residents are Jews." Talmud, Ketubot 110b (also Mishneh Torah, Laws of Kings 5:12)

Here's another one:

"Jews who dwell outside the Land of Israel are idol worshippers in purity." Talmud, Avoda Zara 8

And for good measure, let's add even another:

"In the Diaspora, whoever increases its settlement (by establishing a home, business, etc) adds to the destruction of the worship of G-d. But in the Land of Israel this same work is considered a mitzvah since it settles the land." The Chatam Sofer, on the Talmud Sukka 36a and Yoreh Deah p. 136

A.B. Yehoshua may not be a rabbi, but with all of the religious association to Israel, with the constant mention of the Land of Israel throughout the Torah, throughout Morning, Afternoon, and Evening prayers, in the blessings on food, in the obvious obsession with Israel that religious Jews carry with them, he is right to question religious Jews as to how they can fail to apply this aspect of Torah to their lives.

Religious society is deserving of secular condemnation on this point. It takes quite a bit of rationalization, and I dare say, purposeful misunderstanding and misusing of the Torah, to ignore G-d's continual recommendation and even commandment to settle and protect the Land of Israel.

Don't excuse yourselves from the mitzvah of settling the Land of Israel just because other people do. Don't reject the Land of Israel just because secular Jews have accepted it.

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2. "That's So Israeli" By Jonathan Udren
From JTA

EFRAT, West Bank, May 22 (JTA) — When I think back on my pre-aliyah Israeli experiences, there were several that influenced my decision to immigrate. One of those palpable memories was marching around the Old City walls during the Jerusalem Day parade.

Instead of Jordanian snipers perched on the tops of the Old City walls, as was the case before 1967, Israeli soldiers smiling with pride waved down to the thousands below. Israeli flags flooded my vision as the crowd circled the east gates of the Old City dancing and singing together, celebrating a modern-day miracle.

The passion at the parade was contagious; after so long Jerusalem was again in Jewish hands, and I was determined to become a part of that miracle, to be another brick in the wall of the rebuilt city.

Now, after living as an Israeli resident for more than two years, I see that the beauty of the wall is also its greatest challenge. Immigrants from France, the former Soviet Union, the United States, Ethiopia and South America all come together here, each representing a brick in the new walls of Jerusalem. And we all come with our own vision of Jerusalem and the greater State of Israel. But we also come with our own cultures and habits. We come with our favorite foods and our idea of good manners. And many times, those visions stand in stark contrast to one another.

And beyond that, we are standing on the backs of those who have already set the agenda and the social customs. I'm not talking about the philosophical differences between right and left, or the seemingly escalating rift between religious and non-religious Jews. I'm talking about the simple day-to-day happenings that can wear down an immigrant's idealism and positive attitude.

In order to keep from getting overwhelmed, my wife, Dena, and I make a joke called "That's so Israeli." After enduring an hourlong bureaucratic battle between two Ministry of Education clerks over who is going to print up a one-page document for me, instead of getting angry, I just say, "That's so Israeli."

When Dena and I were recently rear-ended in a rental car outside Tel Aviv, the driver got out, and after checking to see if we were OK and seeing that there was no damage, started yelling at me when I asked for his name and insurance information.

"What, is this the first time this has happened to you? This happens all the time. Don't make such a big deal about it," he yelled. "Just get in your car and go."

"That was so Israeli of him," my wife said after we left the scene.

"I know," I answered.

Compared to my American cultural norms, the Israeli personality often seems so unrefined, harsh, inflexible and well, just plain chutzpadik. And the differences only become increasingly pronounced the more I interact with Israeli society.

But there is another aspect of the daily life here. For every obnoxious Israeli experience, I can tell a warm, touching story. The way that the older Iraqi man at the kebab restaurant with the scratchy voice calls me "motek," or sweetheart, warms my heart like I'm seeing family. And once when Dena and I walked into a Tel Aviv hardware store for a quick errand, we ended up staying for an hour while the owner, an older Yemeni woman and her daughter, gave us blessing after blessing for health, a happy marriage and a long life in Israel. Yes there is chutzpah here, but there are so many random acts of warmth and love as well. And feeling like family with so many strangers is one reason that I would make aliyah all over again.

When Jerusalem Day comes, it reminds me of all the good, both the small acts of kindness that I see, and the big feelings of inspiration. It reminds me that I'm living inside a miracle, and that being here connects me to the destiny of the Jewish people in such a tangible way. I am a brick in the wall and I can have my say in the direction that it's going to be built.

When I'm caught up in the minutiae of rude clerks and merging traffic it's hard to see what we are all building. From up close, the wall looks so flawed and grotesque. But when I step back, I see that everyone's piece is coming together toward part of a miraculous greater whole. Yes, the building is a slow and tiring process, and sometimes we lose direction. But there is nothing greater for me than being actively involved in that process.

As I march around the Old City walls this year on Jerusalem Day, and Dena and I march through the Lions Gate in the footsteps of the paratroopers that redeemed the ancient capital, I'm going to try to see the greater wall. I'm going to push aside the daily frustrations and cultural differences for a glance at the great wall that is the modern Jewish state and the city of Jerusalem, and feel blessed that I have the privilege of being annoyed, yet comforted, by its construction.

Jonathan Udren is a freelance journalist and editor from Fort Lauderdale, Fla. He made aliyah in 2003.

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3. "Yom Yerushalayim" by Rabbi Yehudah Prero
From Torah.org

Friday is Yom Yerushalayim, Jerusalem Day, the 39th anniversary of the liberation of Eastern Jerusalem by the Israel Defense Forces.

In the Mussaf prayer recited on the Shalosh Regalim, the Three Pilgrimage Festivals of Pesach, Shavu'os and Sukkos, we find the following expression: "Because of our sins, we were exiled from our land and distanced from our soil...." Why is there a repetition here - "exiled" and "distanced?" One explanation is that the term "exiled" refers to the actual physical expulsion from the land of Israel. However, the term "distanced" refers to something else entirely. One we were exiled and forced to live amongst the nations of the world, we eventually became accustomed to that way of life and in fact became quite comfortable with living in foreign lands. This had the effect of causing ourselves to become distanced from our homeland. This is very true nowadays, and it is therefore important that we do not forget the significance of the land of Israel and Jerusalem.

In Psalms, King David wrote "Halelu Avdei Hashem," "Rejoice servants of G-d." Who was King David referring to? The servants of G-d who King David was addressing his comments to were only those people who lived in the land of Israel. Only in the land of Israel can one reach true perfection in his or her service to the Almighty, rejoicing as a true servant of G-d. Conversely, our Sages tell us by the story of Purim, after the Jews were victorious over their enemies, the Jews were so respected and feared by their enemies that many Gentiles tried to convert to Judaism. Even at this pinnacle of triumph, the Jews were still considered to be "servants of King Achashverosh." Why? It was because the Jews at that time were still in exile and living amongst the nations of the world that they were called servants of Achashversoh. When the Jew lives in the Diaspora, the influence of his non-Jewish neighbors is strongly felt and has great effect on the Jew. In fact, Rabbi Yisroel Salanter said that if the nations of the world knew the effect that hearing the peal of church bells had on a Jew, they would ring them all day long.

In the tractate of Kesubos (100b), our Sages tell us that it is preferable to live in the land of Israel in a city populated mostly by gentiles than to live in the Diaspora and live in a city populated mostly by Jews. Why is this so? Surely one would think that living among his brethren would strengthen a Jew's commitment to the Torah and to performing Mitzvos! However, only in the land of Israel are we truly at home. In the Diaspora, even in a community of Jews, there is always others looking over our shoulders. In the Diaspora, we are always foreigners, strangers in the gentile's land, subject to the strong influences of his immoral ways. However, the land of Israel and the city of Jerusalem are ours. It is our home, and it is where we belong. Even if we are surrounded by Gentiles, they are the ones out of place, not we.

The land of Israel is the holiest of all lands, and the city of Jerusalem the holiest of all places in the land of Israel. Only when we are in that environment of holiness, our homeland given to us by G-d, can we truly and fully keep the Torah and fulfill the desire of G-d. In the merit of the Torah we learn, the Mitzvos we keep, and the love and care we express towards our home land and Jerusalem, may we merit to have them returned to us soon, so we may all return home to celebrate the construction of the Third Temple, at the time of the arrival of Moshiach.

May we merit to see the teaching of the Talmud, that "all who mourn the loss of Jerusalem will merit and see it in its happiness," be fulfilled speedily, in our days!

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4. "First And Foremost A Jew" by Yossi Beilin
From Haaretz

The storm in the Jewish world that has been whipped up by A.B. Yehoshua's remarks reminds me very much of the storm generated by comments I made a dozen years ago, to the effect that it is better for the Jewish world to invest money in Jewish continuity and funding visits to Israel than to give aid to the state of Israel, which is one of the world's wealthier countries.

Then, too, the remarks were interpreted as an Israeli desire to disengage, heaven forbid, from Diaspora Jewry, instead of being understood as an almost desperate call to work together to ensure the continued existence of the Jewish people, rather than making do with sending checks to people who can exist perfectly well without them.

This time, too, in response to Yehoshua's comments that only in Israel is it possible to live a full Jewish life, there were those who argued that without the Diaspora, Israel would not be able to exist, as it is Diaspora Jews who guarantee it financial and diplomatic aid. There is no greater nonsense than this.

A state with 13 million Jews is of far more significance to the future of the Jewish people than all the efforts of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) - some of which have indeed helped Israel, but some of which have done it very serious damage - and of more significance than all the aid from the United Jewish Appeal and loans from Israel Bonds combined.

Like Yehoshua, I am a secular person, and like him I believe that the true fulfillment of Zionism is normality - a normal life in the state of Israel, in the framework of which Jews can live like human beings able to fulfill themselves. Unlike Yehoshua, I see myself as first and foremost a Jew, and only afterward as an Israeli, though I must admit that this distinction is only intellectual: It does not have any practical significance in my private life because I have never been required, and I assume by now that I will never be required, to choose between the two.

My Judaism is my extended family, which I love and of which I am proud because I was born into it. I am always glad to meet a distant cousin, happy to listen to Hebrew, Ladino or Yiddish in unexpected places and am moved to tears to hear someone recite "Hear, O Israel" in the furthest corner of the globe, because this is the slogan of my extended family. Religion, tradition, the many Jewish texts - all these are part of our self-definition, and even if they are not the be-all and end-all, dealing with them is important, and deepens Jewish identity.

Israel's great advantage is that the majority of its inhabitants are Jewish, and therefore the danger of assimilation does not exist here. Anyone for whom Jewish continuity is important, as it is for me, must make great efforts to achieve this end in the Diaspora. Among other things, he will find himself in a synagogue belonging to one Jewish movement or another, even if he is not religiously observant at all.

In Israel, you can stay away from religious ritual and still know that your children will remain Jewish, because their environment is a Jewish environment, they speak Hebrew and from kindergarten through university they study subjects connected to Jewish heritage (even if we have criticisms of the quantity and quality of these studies).

But our role, the role of Jewish intellectuals and Jewish leaders worldwide for whom the issue of Jewish continuity is important, cannot be confined to making statements like "come to Israel or you will disappear."

We must reinvent ourselves both with respect to ideas and with respect to organization in order to ensure Jewish continuity in a world that, for all its anti-Semitic phenomena, is prepared to smile at Jews in a way it has never before smiled, and where a Jewish spouse is not a disaster but often even a great blessing.

Immigration to Israel is the most effective solution, but it is practical only for very few in the wealthy countries. When I initiated the birthright project, I did this in the conviction that Israel must be a meeting point for the Jewish people as part of the effort to ensure Jewish continuity. The project's success should convince the Israeli government and Jewish communities worldwide to expand it, so that no Jewish young person who wants to visit Israel will be unable to do so.

Secular Jewry must formulate for itself its own definition of who is a Jew, and it must not grant religious Jewry a monopoly on this definition. It is untenable that a person whose father is Jewish and who wants to be defined as a Jew should be rejected by us and required to undergo religious conversion. It is untenable that spouses who marry Jews and who see themselves as Jews are required to undergo religious conversion, even if they themselves are agnostic, for example.

We must make significant changes in the Jewish world. It is inconceivable that the global Jewish organization should continue to be the Jewish Agency for Israel, that the World Zionist Organization should continue to act as though the Jewish state had not yet been established and that the representative of American Jewry should be the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, many of whose member organizations are nothing more than an empty mailbox.

It is necessary to establish a global Jewish organization in which a real discussion about Jewish continuity will be conducted, and which will advance innovative projects suited to the technological developments of the 21st century and afford an answer to the question of our extended family's existence even in a situation in which it is not persecuted, does not live in a ghetto and is not facing numerus clausus laws.

The initiative that was proposed on this subject by President Moshe Katsav could well be an opening toward the establishment of such an important global framework. Yehoshua's contribution - whether or not we agree with it - has raised the subject of Jewish continuity from its slumber, and for this he deserves thanks.