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Sukkot is a holiday of homecoming and homelessness
This story was originally published on My Jewish Learning.
(JTA) — What is home? The question sounds like it would best be answered by a children’s book on which each page proclaims a sweet tautology like, “Home is where you feel at home.” There would be a picture of the family nest, parents, grandparents, kids and a dog, a fire in the hearth and soup on the table. Home as Norman Rockwell painted it. Home as so many have sung it: “O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave / Oe’r the land of the free and the home of the brave.”
But pondering what home really is opens us to what is arguably the most troubling political and theological puzzle of our times. For we have entered an age of homelessness and Homeland Security, of mass migrations and refugees fleeing scarcity, tyranny, drought and famine, of rising oceans, poisoned air and water, ongoing wars that destroy homes while killing and displacing whole populations. We have entered the age of the loss of home.
It is especially important for Jews to reflect on the meaning of home today. Not only because that is precisely the philosophical task of this week’s Sukkot holiday, but because we live in the aftermath of a war in which we were almost erased from the earth. And because we live in the presence of a 75-year-old reborn Jewish state, where many Jews feel they have come home to a security unavailable elsewhere.
So what does it mean, for a person or a people or a species, to lose home or to come home? What exactly is lost when you lose home and what is gained when you recover it?
Historically, Jews know much more about exile than home, more about wandering the wilderness than inhabiting the land. On Sukkot, we are instructed to consider that home may not be fixed, stable and enduring but rather fragile, temporary and portable. How dissonant it can sound then to ears inured to exile when they hear Jerusalem, the object of millennial yearning, described as the “eternal undivided capital” of a state, a national possession, a city like any other.
Consider the reflections of a man born in rural Austria in 1912, the son of an assimilated Jewish father and a Catholic mother who, forced to recognize his Jewish ancestry in 1935 when the Nazis passed the Nuremberg Laws, finally fled to Belgium with his Jewish wife in 1938 after Hitler annexed his homeland. An adamant atheist, he was arrested by the Gestapo in Brussels, tortured and then bounced among various camps for two years until the war’s end. When he returned to Brussels anxious to reunite with his wife, he discovered she had died. Alone, unknown and penniless, he changed his German name to Jean Amery and became a journalist and essayist.
In one of his essays, he writes: “For there is, after all, something like a transportable home, or at least an ersatz for home. That can be religion, like the Jewish one. ‘Next year in Jerusalem,’ the Jews have promised themselves for generations during their Passover ritual, but it wasn’t at all a matter of really getting to the Holy Land; rather it sufficed to pronounce the formula together and to know that one was united in the magic domain of the tribal God Yahweh.” Amery could still think of home, but he could no longer taste it. In losing home, he had lost himself. And in 1978, he finally took his own life.
Now consider the thinking of a man who left his home in Warsaw voluntarily at the age of 17 to study and teach in Vilna and Berlin before eventually finding himself a refugee in the United States in 1940. In his short classic, “The Sabbath” (1951), Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel writes of finding spiritual home not in space, but in time: “The Bible is more concerned with time than with space. It sees the world in the dimension of time. It pays more attention to generations, to events, than to countries, to things; it is more concerned with history than with geography.”
Yet just weeks after the Six-Day War of 1967 and the Israeli army’s lightning conquest of Jerusalem, the West Bank, the Sinai peninsula and the Golan Heights, Heschel visited Israel. Smitten by what he experienced there, he wrote a book, “Israel: An Echo of Eternity,” which seemed to many readers a repudiation of his earlier thinking. He writes: “There are moments in history which are unique, moments which have tied the heart of our people to Jerusalem forever. These moments and the city of Jerusalem radiate the light of the spirit throughout the world. The light of the spirit is not a thing of space, imprisoned in a particular place. Yet for the spirit of Jerusalem to be everywhere, Jerusalem must first be somewhere.”
Was Heschel overcome by a moment that felt like homecoming? Or shall we say he lived and thought like a pilgrim who understood that while life is always about the quest, there are nevertheless times when a pilgrim needs, sometimes desperately, glimpses of home both in space and in time?
Amery could not abide homelessness. Heschel was able to take up the task of working for and with African Americans in their own struggle for home. When you feel at home you feel commanded to extend that feeling to others. Sukkot teaches that home is the place and the moment to offer shelter to strangers.
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The post Sukkot is a holiday of homecoming and homelessness appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Vancouver artist who subverts Barbie and Ken claims antisemitism is behind her removal from a group exhibition
Dina Goldstein received conflicting accounts of the last-minute decision by the gallery.
The post Vancouver artist who subverts Barbie and Ken claims antisemitism is behind her removal from a group exhibition appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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‘I’ll F—k You Up’: A List of Attacks, Threats, Explicit Calls for Violence at Pro-Hamas University Encampments
A statue of George Washington tied with a Palestinian flag and a keffiyeh inside a pro-Hamas encampment is pictured at George Washington University in Washington, DC, US, May 2, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Craig Hudson
Videos from recent pro-Hamas protests and encampments on university campuses show demonstrators attacking and threatening Jewish and pro-Israel individuals, as well as making explicit calls for violence.
On some campuses, administrators have decided to call in police forces to remove the encampments. Others have been more hesitant to do so or have been refused help by the city.
The encampments have reportedly made some Jewish students feel unsafe on campus. The Algemeiner documented an extensive list of pro-Hamas and antisemitic statements made at the Columbia University encampment shortly after it was set up. However, some observers have argued those statements are not representative of the movement as a whole.
Meanwhile, many voices have argued for the removal of the encampments on the grounds that members of them have attacked and threatened pro-Israel or Jewish students. But others don’t believe any physical threats or attacks have taken place. Journalist Glenn Greenwald, for example, called the idea of such attacks “a massive hoax that they’ve been perpetrating for months.”
Here is a non-exhaustive list of some of the recent physical attacks and explicit calls for violence on campuses that suggest such fears are not simply a “hoax,” although debate will likely continue over how representative these incidents are of the larger anti-Israel movement.
At the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), a girl from a nearby school was kicked in the head and knocked unconscious. She had to go to the emergency room.
A video shows anti-Israel protesters detaining a pro-Israel student at UCLA. When he tried to escape, they chased him down, with at least one person exclaiming “get him,” and surrounded him again — making it impossible for him to leave.
In this video you can see he’s trying to escape a protestor blockade preventing access. He is running from them and they chase him down and surround him. Like they’re on a hunt. https://t.co/cDG7PVe9p4 pic.twitter.com/mKaIiaUpYz
— Parmis (@ParmisLJavan) May 1, 2024
Footage shows a woman following around a man — who was not engaging with her — and attempting to tase him.
A student journalist at Yale University was poked in the eye with a Palestinian flag by a protester. She had to be brought to the hospital.
At The George Washington University (GW), students acted out a “people’s tribunal,” where they charged the president of the university, Ellen Granberg, along with other members of the administration with various crimes. “Guillotine, Guillotine, Guillotine, Guillotine,” members of the encampment chanted.
A leader of the “people’s tribunal” said, “Bracey, Bracey [referring to school provost Christopher Bracey], we see you. You assault students too. Off to the motherf—king gallows with you.” She also said, “As you already know where I am sending her [to the guillotine], her and her f—kass bob.”
At the George Washington University Gaza Solidarity Encampment today, the protesters held a “People’s Tribunal” where they put President Ellen Granberg, Provost Christopher Bracey, the Board of Trustees, @GWPolice, and many others on trial.
Is it normal for students to want to… pic.twitter.com/M8F543q0MV
— Stu (@thestustustudio) May 3, 2024
Also at GW, when pro-Israel activist and Israel Defense Forces reservist Rudy Rochman came to campus, he was surrounded and people chanted, in Arabic, “God winning, Allah will take your life,” according to his video of the incident.
At DePaul University, an anti-Israel demonstrator displayed “10 fingers, followed by seven fingers [referencing Hamas’ massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7], and then the throat-slitting gesture in front of Jewish students.”
A visibly Jewish person filming an encampment at City University of New York was surrounded by a group and assaulted. When his kippah fell off, a member of the mob threatened, “Pick up the f—king hat, I’ll f—k you up.”
A group of anti-Israel protesters stole a man’s Star of David headscarf and beat him near the Met Gala in New York on Monday.
At Emory University, a protester threw a sign at the head of a police officer while a group was trying to push the officers back against a door.
Protesters were roaming around UCLA looking for Jews to harass and confront. “Where the Jews at, my n—a,” one exclaimed.
Demonstrators at Columbia University took over a building violently and held janitors there against their will.
Send information about additional incidents to jelbaum@algemeiner.com.
The post ‘I’ll F—k You Up’: A List of Attacks, Threats, Explicit Calls for Violence at Pro-Hamas University Encampments first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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ADL Blasts Emerson College for Bailing Out Pro-Hamas Protesters
Illustrative: Pro-Hamas demonstrators at Columbia University in New York City, US, April 29, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Caitlin Ochs
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has implored Emerson College in Boston to enforce its “own policies” and discipline pro-Hamas agitators there who have staged unauthorized demonstrations protesting the Israel-Hamas war and calling for the destruction of the Jewish state.
For nearly three weeks, college students have been amassing in the hundreds at a growing number of schools, taking over sections of campuses by setting up “Gaza Solidarity Encampments” and refusing to leave unless administrators condemn and boycott Israel. Footage of the protests has shown demonstrators chanting in support of Hamas, calling for the destruction of Israel, and even threatening to harm members of the Jewish community on campus. In many cases, activists have also lambasted the US and Western civilization more broadly.
At Emerson College, the administration has accommodated protesters, going as far as dispatching staff “to all precincts” to bail out those whom police have arrested for trespassing — according to a statement issued by President Jay Bernhardt. Emerson has also asked the local district attorney not to try their cases and will give free housing to protesters “required to stay in town for court appearances,” where they will live following the conclusion of the academic year.
“The president of Emerson is going out of his way to make sure students who broke the law and violated Emerson’s own policies face no consequences,” ADL chief executive officer Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement. “This capitulates to the most extreme voices and rewards their disruptive conduct. The Emerson community deserves better. ADL calls upon the president of Emerson to reverse this decision and urges the Suffolk District Attorney to enforce the law.”
Pressure for granting protesters “amnesty” is building at the University Massachusetts Amherst, where the student government recently passed a resolution condemning the school for requesting police assistance in demonstrations there, an action which resulted in over 50 arrests. The student government is also demanding the university adopt the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, a measure which could purge Jews and Zionists from the American academy, experts have told The Algemeiner.
Emerson College is not the first school to excuse the behavior of pro-Hamas protesters.
The University of California, Riverside (UC Riverside) has made major concessions to anti-Israel protesters in exchange for the termination of their anti-Zionist demonstrations on campus, continuing a gradual normalization of the BDS movement against Israel.
Details of the settlement were disclosed by the university on Friday. It includes shuttering UC Riverside School of Business “global programs” in Israel — as well as the US, Brazil, Jordan, Egypt, Vietnam, China, and Cuba — appointing potentially anti-Zionist students to a task force on the university’s endowment, and exploring the possibility of banning Sabra Hummus, which is co-owned by the Israeli food manufacturer Strauss Group, from campus.
UC Riverside’s apparent capitulation followed a precedent set by Northwestern University last week, when the school announced the establishment of a new scholarship for Palestinian students and an investment committee in which anti-Zionists students and faculty may wield an outsized voice.
Brown University has also yielded to anti-Israel protesters, promising to hold a vote on divesting from companies linked to Israel.
Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington agreed to divest from companies linked to Israel, according to a “Memorandum of Understanding Between the Evergreen State College and the Evergreen Gaza Solidarity Encampment,” which the school posted on its website. Per the agreement, the school will issue a statement dictated by the protesters. The statement, a portion of which includes pro-Hamas propaganda, will “be reviewed by negotiators and a faculty representative before it is released.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post ADL Blasts Emerson College for Bailing Out Pro-Hamas Protesters first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
