Dear Friends of the Elie Wiesel Center:

The 2019 Yitzhak Rabin Memorial Lecture at Boston University, which will be held Thursday, April 11, is dedicated to an issue that is on the mind of many, namely, the culture of discourse, here in the US, on the issue of Israel and Palestine.

This culture of discourse, not the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as such, will be the focus of our event. Peter Beinart, our main speaker, believes–rightly, I think–that the current rise in the temperature of the debate here in the US, a debate that is perhaps not so much about Left and Right than it is about a difference between the generations, has more to do with developments in the American political and cultural landscape than with what is going on in Israel and across the Middle East. Today, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a foreign policy issue, provides a kind of lithmus test on who we are as Jews and Americans. This is the reason why we thought it might be time to have a conversation on Jewish Americans and the increasing polarization in how we think about Israel. For better or worse, Israel has become a touchstone in the American culture wars of the moment, or, as Mr. Beinart formulates, a proxy for American Jews to define themselves as Jews and as Americans.

I don’t believe that this is a very healthy situation, but it may be inevitable for Jews to think that way. It is inevitable because Jews cannot but be emotionally touched by Israel, a sovereign Jewish nation state founded by and for Jews, the first such state since biblical times.

Yet, how healthy can it be when American Jews feel compelled, or are expected, to define themselves, or be judged, by what goes on in a country of which they are not citizens, even if it is a Jewish nation state? And how healthy can it be for Israel when, what goes on in Israel for reasons grounded in the Israeli situation, becomes an echo chamber for a significant Jewish community in America, Israel’s most powerful ally, especially if that community is increasingly divided over Israeli politics and possibly frustrated with the entire Zionist project? Israeli attempts to influence American public opinion are legitimate, but charges of disloyalty, ethno-national betrayal, and Jewish self-hatred are not. Many young American Jews resent the lack of choice implied in these kinds of charges. Like other Americans they want to be able to decide for themselves what causes to support and what alliances to seek with others at home and abroad. They want to be able to decide whether or not they support Israel and for what reasons, precisely because they care and because their American Jewish identity is at stake.

This is a deeply emotional and divisive subject. A difficult conversation. But what better place than a university to try to model a difficult conversation across the political spectrum and give room to a variety of perspectives. Our goal is to move us out of the comfort zones of our respective “bubbles,” hear what moves others with whom we may disagree, and assume that people can disagree with one another without doubting one another’s good faith or humanity. This is called “dialogue.” It is also good political practice, a practice modeled for us by the ancient Athenians, as described by Hannah Arendt.

Impartiality (…) came into the world when Homer decided to sing the deeds of the Trojans no less than those of the Achaeans, and to praise the glory of Hector no less than the greatness of Achilles. This Homeric impartiality, as it is echoed by Herodotus, who set out to prevent “the great and wonderful actions of the Greeks and the barbarians from losing their due meed of glory,” is still the highest type of objectivity we know. Not only does it leave behind the common interest in one’s own side and one’s own people which, up to our own days, characterizes almost all national historiography, but it also discards the alternative of victory or defeat, which moderns have felt expresses the “objective” judgment of history itself, and does not permit it to interfere with what is judged to be worthy of immortalizing praise.

Somewhat later, and most magnificently expressed in Thucydides, there appears in Greek historiography still another powerful element that contributes to historical objectivity. It could come to fore ground only after long experience in polis-life, which to an incredibly large extent consisted of citizens talking with one another. In this incessant talk the Greeks discovered that the world we have in common is usually regarded from an infinite number of different standpoints, to which correspond the most diverse points of view. In a sheer inexhaustible flow of arguments, as the Sophists presented them to the citizenry of Athens, the Greek learned to exchange his own viewpoint, his own “opinion” – the way the world appeared and opened up to him (dokei moi, “it appears to me,” from which comes doxa, or “opinion”) – with those of his fellow citizens. Greeks learned to understand – not to understand one another as individual persons, but to look upon the same world from one another’s standpoint, to see the same in very different and frequently opposing aspects. The speeches in which Thucydides makes articulate the standpoints and interests of the warring parties are still a living testimony to the extraordinary degree of this objectivity.

(Hannah Arendt, Between Past and Future (1961), pp. 51-2.)

 The academy is founded on the ideals of objectivity and impartiality, and it behooves us recall these ideals as we think about how we can move beyond the impasse of polarization. Let the other side be heard! Or, as the rabbis taught, the School of Hillel prevailed because it was in the habit of reporting not just the opinions of their own school but also the opinions of the opposing school.

I hope you will join us for “US Jews and Israel: Are we headed for divorce.”

Sincerely,

Michael Zank

Director, EWCJS