Riding Two Horses At Once

On Friday night I went to my synagogue’s “Blue Jean Shabbat”, during which we all ate hotdogs, drank Sam Adams beer and welcomed the Sabbath Bride, who was accompanied by Uncle Sam, in commemoration of Erev July 4. A happily serendipitous confluence of celebrations: both spiritual and political.

When I was growing up, my mom would recite a Hungarian saying: “You can’t ride 2 horses with one bottom (in Magyar the word for the bodily part is “segg”, which is slightly more graphic, but you get the point). How do we American Jews/Jewish Americans manage this feat? How do we reconcile our affinity to both promised lands, the one in the east and the one in the west?

This concerns me in light of recent political events in the Middle East; the ramifications of which I fear will come to roost here. There has always been more or less a condominium of interests between the governments of Israel and the United States. When things weren’t so lovey-dovey, like during the period of Bush the First and the loan guarantees issue, these divisions were swept under the rug as much as possible. With Obama’s call for a true just peace agreement between Israel and Palestine on the table, and with Israel’s political leadership minimizing the centrality of the Jewish settlement issue in reaching said peace agreement, are we fast approaching some type of conflict that will be harder to hide?

How to we teach loyalty to a country and an idea (Israel and Zionism) when the practical policies of that land have the potential of running counterpoint to the stated policies and values of the U.S. of A? I’m referring not just to the issues of Jewish settlement in the West Bank but also pending legislation that would limit freedom of speech in Israel for non-Jews and their Jewish sympathizers. Which horse do we ride? More to the point, which Israel do we teach? What vision of Israel do we want the next generation to embrace – that of Shas or Avigdor Lieberman or Tzippi Livni or Gershon Baskin?

More practically, who decides which vision to teach? In the constellation of the American Jewish organizational alphabet soup, who is the arbiter of truth?

I offer no answers – just a lot of questions that we will all need to confront in the weeks and months to come as we move towards peace or war in Israel/Palestine.

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Peter Eckstein

Peter Eckstein began his career a Jewish educator in 1982 on Kibbutz Ketura, working with children of all ages and serving as the kibbutz Education Coordinator. In 1993 upon returning to the U.S. he became the Director of Education and Programming at Temple Israel in West Palm Beach. Currently he is the Director of Congregational Learning at Temple Beth David in Palm Beach Gardens. In addition, serves as the Technology Integration Educator for the Friedman Commission for Jewish Education.He was very active with the Coalition for the Advancement of Jewish Education as programming co-chair, Shabbat chair and conference chair for several conferences. He has taught professional development for educators, Judaic adult education classes, and the Palm Beach County’s “Introduction to Judaism” course for those seeking to become part of the community. He is specializing in teaching educators how to integrate Education Technology into the Jewish classroom. He has also served on the faculty at URJ Camp Coleman as an informal Jewish educator.Peter is fascinated by how technology and experiential education will aid in the transmission of Jewish awareness to the next generations

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