Have Some "Nying Je" for South Africa

So classes have ended along with volunteering and for the next week I will be studying, writing papers and hopefully reacquainting myself with Cape Town, a city that is unfortunately quite different from the last time I immersed myself in it just a few months ago. The past few weeks in the whole country of South Africa have been pretty scary. Due to a huge influx of migrants who have recently fled from Zimbabwe as a result of escalating dangers that the ongoing election catastrophe has generated, violence and hate has broken out in various parts of the country.

First some background….For those of you who do not know, Zimbabwe’s March presidential election between one of the longest ruling dictator (28 years) in the modern world, Robert Mugabe, who has been primarily responsible for a rising 165,000% inflation rate in a once up-and-coming economy and whose actions have caused 80% of the population to be unemployed, and the head of the brave Movement for Democratic Change, Morgan Tsvangirai, has yet to be resolved. Tsvangirai originally won 48% of the votes while Mugabe won 41%. While this outcome necessitates a runoff due to the absence of a winner of a majority vote, the MDC refused to participate in one for a while because they believe that they did in fact win a majority as a result of certain votes not being counted after Mugabe’s party ZANU-PF waited many days and weeks in some cases to report the results. The Zimbabwe constitution states that a runoff must take place within 30 days of the election and 3 months later, both parties have hesitantly set a date, however, under conditions not very conducive to a free and fair election since ZANU-PF has been employing physical means to pressure MDC supporters to shift their loyalties. Violence has spread throughout the country and has spawned a huge amount of displacement, leaving tens of thousands of people with no home and very little hope.

In search of safety, many of those who were displaced migrated to South Africa. Yet upon their arrival, South Africans began to attack them for coming into a land in which resources such as food, water, shelter and employment are already quite scarce. The violence began in the Johannesburg township of Alexandria two weeks ago and has spread to Durban and Cape Town. The continuing aggression has not only dispersed geographically but the criteria of the victims have broadened. Now all refugees from various African countries who have come both recently and not-so-recently (some of the victims have been living in South Africa for decades) have become extremely vulnerable to what is being characterized as a plague of “xenophobia.” Since the start of this outbreak less then two weeks ago, an estimated 17,000 people have been forcibly removed from their homes and at least 50 have been killed. It is an extremely scary time for so many people who migrated to the Mecca of a struggling continent in search of a better life. Instead of opportunity, they have been confronted with hate and torture at the hands of other Africans, and have been confronted with violence that was called by one article the worst outbreak in the democratic era (since 1994).

I think (and I acknowledge that my opinion has many limitations due to a small scope of understanding in regard to the complexities of the specific situation and relationships between different Africans in general) that while there is clearly a great deal of hate towards and fear of difference attached to the attacks, using xenophobia as the keyword in this situation takes away from the economic implications that need to be appropriately addressed in this conversation. Countless South Africans already do not have access to the resources they need and to have newcomers invade their territory and threaten this already extremely-restricted accessibility is terrifying. Xenophobia is a glaring problem that has existed for centuries in Africa and needs to be dealt with but not at the expense of the recognition of the millions who remain impoverished after 14 years of waiting to relish in the perks of democracy and the thousands more from other countries who share the same dream, not only for their sake but for that of their future generations. This is a glaring example of the remnants of the Apartheid system still festering in the ravaged, dangerous townships and the boiling hatred between different African cultures.

The ANC government has been criticized for reacting too slowly and passively to the outbreak. The president of the ANC, Thabo Mbeki, has also been extremely criticized for his passivity and vagueness regarding the actions of Mugabe and ZANU-PF, not only in relationship to the election but also throughout all of their corrupt, violent and immoral actions that have been happening in Zimbabwe throughout Mbeki’s presidency of the supposed superpower of Africa, whose placement of potential pressures on Zimbabwe to be better might actually serve a constructive purpose. This may hint one of the many other problems emerging in this country; the unchanged disparity between the rich and the poor. While many black people have become affluent as a result of the 14 year old democratic system, many who fit into this category (government officials often included) have simply joined the rich whites who live in their own word and approach township/rural Africa as a completely different dimension that is disconnected from the world in which they live.

AAAH!! The world is drowning. “Xenophobia.” Earthquakes. Cyclones. Skyrocketing gas prices pocketed by nuclear Iran. America’s increasing trillion dollar debt and two-front war. I have started to legitimately become scared. Thankfully constructing a fear generated by all the world’s problems is not very feasible (where do you start?), so it has not been able to consume me. But is it fair that because I am lucky enough (at the moment) to not be directly impacted by any of these things (not to mention poverty, war, hunger, abuse, loneliness and all the other wide-spread tragic circumstances that are rampant wherever you are)? Is it fair that I can discuss the AIDS epidemic that is estimated to kill 6 million Africans by 2010 with the protection of education and money (though these two things do not make you immune obviously)? I feel so patronizing writing these things down being almost certain that I will not be the victim of this xenophobia, and that I am not actually a member of a vulnerable population to so many other problems in the world. I feel so patronizing because as much as I don’t think I am and don’t want to be, I am the oppressor, I am taking resources away from millions and millions of people who need them, even though I do not mean to.

Yet at the same time, these issues are pressing in every circle for different reasons. This past Friday night, the sermon I heard exposed me to exactly why acknowledgment is so necessary. The rabbi began by speaking about the escalating violence that is happening so close to us and I expected an exciting “social justice with sprinkles of Torah” speech. Instead, without ever referring back to this situation, the rabbi discussed how we can react to these situations by appreciating the privileges that we have access to as Jews. The three examples he gave were Shabbat, family and affluence. Besides for the fact that these things are not criteria for being Jewish and thus not all have them, the main problem was that he was basically saying that the circumstances that those people experience are pretty crappy, but look at what we have. What happened to loving your neighbor as yourself? I mean out of all the quintessential Jewish ideals we have, that’s got to be pretty high up there right? I do not know if this is the message that he meant to get across but to me this clearly demonstrated the same type of gap between the rich and the poor of this country; white Jews have the luxury to look at massive crime, poverty and displacement and see it as a sign of how lucky we are to be members of the chosen people. Personally, I think that being Jewish should make us realize that everyone deserves to have the blessings that we have, not just as Jews, but (for a lot of us) as members of a privileged population. We are all God’s creatures and if we do nothing else, I think we should acknowledge these horizontal relationships and internalize the suffering of others and the awareness of how terrible it could be to be forced to leave your home and be consumed by the uncertainty of where you will be sleeping the same night or if you will have food to eat or any job to ensure subsistence for the coming week.

This reminds me of a really beautiful concept I have recently read about in a book written by the Dalai Lama. He discusses the difference between the popular understanding of the virtue of compassion and Buddhism’s interpretation of their equivalent, nying je. Compassion is about internalizing the plight of a sufferer. Because compassion is often used as a synonym for sympathy, it connotes a feeling of pity for that sufferer. Yet the Dalai Lama says that this pity creates a sense of condescension, of hierarchal distance between the sympathizer, the subject and the object that is suffering. But he describes nying je as a feeling of gentility, generosity, affection that is rather a form of empathy that links the person who is suffering to the person who has it. Nying Je is not felt for someone, but rather with someone. Because Buddhism teaches that all is vanity until we are stripped to our naked existence and thus we are all the same for all beings possess no more or less than anyone else, no physical items, no status symbols. We are all essentially the same and as result we are connected to every person, we are the same. So nying je is the acknowledgment that we are responsible for each other not by choice but by our very essence as living beings. The Dalai Lama also says that this term strattles the line between empathy and reason which are often seen as mutually exclusive but in Buddhism, they are dependent upon each other. True empathy allows a person to be honest, and experience a process so that righteous emotions are not spontaneous, but rather a product of reason and honorable exploration.

I thought this was such a beautiful idea that really allowed me to understand what my primary problem with the rabbi’s speech was. Humans so often sympathize and create a distance between themselves and the person whom they direct their compassion to. But that seems to be a pretty self-absorbed way of thinking when in actuality we are all responsible for one another and cannot be separated.

Hmm…so I can’t come up with any forced connection between all of this and the next paragraph that provides necessary sensitivity and practical linkage between the two and for that I apologize and hope you might still read on….So I found myself randomly reading a book a few days ago written by contemporary Jewish philosopher Emil Fackenheim. Specifically I was intrigued by an essay he wrote about self-actualization and human understandings of God. He said that most people view themselves as a subject in the world. As a result everything has to be incorporated into their life, modified and judged by the subject to serve a purpose as an object. Often people treat God in this fashion and decided that they need to incorporate God, as a malleable idea, into their lives. This leads people to think of self-actualization as a process reliant upon one’s own ability to be inspired by different aspects of God and Judaism in their own terms. Yet God is not an object, an idea that we can rework to feel closer to realizing our true selves. By definition God is everything and defines everything. So how can we define God? God is the subject and we are the objects. If we believe in a being that created the world, how can we decide how God functions within that world? If we view God as an idea that we can adjust to our own inspiration we contradict what God is. Thus, self actualization happens by acknowledging our status as objects that are not the actors but that which is acted upon. Now I do not think that this understanding is correct for everyone, but I do feel like it spoke strongly to me because for a while I have taken it upon myself to create my own understanding of God while still believing in a God that is responsible for the world and all that resides within it. But that does seem strange and self-important to me since God cannot be all-powerful yet subject to my judgment. I think the subject-object difference connotes a certain level of accountability. If one is only accountable to him or herself then it is easier to justify one’s actions, even if they are questionable. But if God is your ultimate Judge and thus the Torah is a blueprint of how to be judged favorably and live a good life, then it is easier to understand the difference between right and wrong (though this is not the only way to know the difference but I think it can be a successful tool in my opinion, but its totally ok if you disagree because I respect your entitlement to your own opinion). I do not know how this new way of thinking will present itself in my own life and thoughts but I think it is quite an interesting paradigm shift.

So instead of Ulpan, I have a question that I would like you to ponder….

How are Nying Je and Ubuntu (the shared humanity I discussed months ago that Desmond Tutu referred to in his book about the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission) similar or different?

See y’all in 3 weeks..and by you all I guess I mean Amercia…Cheers!

p.s. so the new pictures are stolen...but I promise I did so legally and only because I wanted you to see Robben Island and Khayelitsha (I have stopped taking my own pictures because I am too cheap to buy batteries, so this is quite a good method)

uch...tourists and neo-liberalsim

Hi friends!!! So I finally physically went somewhere that might be of interest to all of you. Today I traveled via ferry to Robben Island, which is where Southern African political prisoners of different countries and different liberation organizations such as Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Robert Sobukwe, Armhad Kathrada and thousands more were imprisoned as a result of their involvement in the struggle for freedom. Because the population that the tour is aimed at consists of a lot of tourists, which was quite apparent when looking at the camera-carrying, safari-hat-wearing, German-speaking tourists and embarrassingly observing their inquiries to take pictures of even the guy selling the tickets behind the counter, the information that is provided by the guides seems to qualify as common knowledge if you have read or learned about the struggle. Yet, even though I knew most of what was said such as the favorable food rations given to the coloured and Indian prisoners in comparison to the black prisoners to cause internal tension, the restrictive size of the cells, the dehumanizing nature of the purposeless, busy work that was required of the prisoners everyday for thirteen years, being there and feeling consumed by the eeriness, the rawness, the isolation of the island allowed me to see the experience of imprisonment and belittlement through a physical and experiential (since our guide actually served a sentence on the island) lens rather than just draw images in my head based on literature.

The island is only 12 km away from Cape Town (which is the equivalent to a little over seven miles I think for all of those Ameri-centric readers unfamiliar with the metric system used by most worldly inhabitants), so it the beautiful panoramic view of the city and its stunning, mountainous backdrop is quite visible from a lot of places on the island that the prisoners had access to. I would think that most people who spend time in prison are completely cut off from the outside world, but on Robben Island, the normal life they were accustomed to, was being waved in the faces of those who did not have the capacity to touch it, to be a part of it. The prison administration made sure that there was no way for the prisoners to communicate with the outside world and to even know what was going on within it, yet they were constantly reminded that what once was still is, which our guide, who experienced this, described as being emotionally torturous.

The island itself is extremely strange and gray. The few colors that ever existed on different structures on the island have all faded. There are random cemeteries located all around where the bodies of the lepers who were quarantined on the island in the early 1800’s are buried. There is a small village where the prison staff lived with their families that is currently occupied by past prisoners who now work for the prison as a museum. It must be quite difficult to live free in isolation in the same place where all of your freedoms and dignity were denied to you. The complexities of race relations, emotional and physical torture, Apartheid manifest, prisoners rising above their circumstances to forge bonds and knowledge and so many other layers that developed in this place are not reflected in the bareness of the walls and the simplicity of the landscape. What Robben Island once was condenses all of the horror and simultaneous beauty of the relationship between the oppressor and the oppressed, along with all the oppressed that the oppressor tried to turn against one another. As terrible as this restrictive, repressive environment was, it housed thousands of incredible people who sacrificed and fully gave themselves to their cause and to their people. Standing amidst such ugliness, I felt overcome by the greatness that overwhelmed it.

Visiting Robben Island, along with so many other physical and academic experiences, has revealed a remarkable truth about South Africa and its history; what this country is today, in all its fall-backs and triumphs, is built on the backs of a significant amount of individuals who grew up in circumstances that deprived them of so many skills and resources that seem so completely necessary to people who mature into national heroes and revolutionaries. It is inconceivable in Western countries that illiterate adults, people who grew up with limited education and without running water and electricity, who were denied access to crucial ideas and tools of self-empowerment, would ever be revered and beloved leaders. Yet in South Africa, that is what has happened. The government ministers are not Harvard graduates with 46 PhD’s, many of them are guerilla freedom fighters who were once deemed criminals and served decade long prison sentences. They are accessible, they are the hope that any person, from any upbringing can become something…and I do not mean in the way that John Edwards’ father was a mill worker. No disrespect to the Senator, but he lived in a time and place that offered him sufficient education, nutrients and treatment as a human being, Nelson Mandela, Thabo Mbeki (South Africa’s president) and so many others that have built up the new South Africa and will continue to do so did not have access to these luxuries. South Africans today who create organizations in townships that feed, educate and empower their fellow citizens who still live without so many necessary resources are doing so while also lacking access to these things. Though it is a lot harder to get to a place where one can start to think about the well-being of other’s because their’s is not ensured, individuals with nothing have provided so much for those in need.

The necessity for individual and communal engagement in South Africa has also become extremely evident to me through my Poverty, Development and Globalization class at UCT. The state of the South African economy is extremely poor. In 1994, when the African National Congress took office, they inherited an isolated economy that was drowning with no international allies. Having been shunned from the global village that had become so strong and interdependent over the decades in which the Apartheid regime was spending all of their mind-space, time and money on subjugating and oppressing the majority of the country’s population, the new government with limited diplomatic experience had to join the new world order to have any chance of surviving. In order to do so, they had to become involved in international trade. In order to accomplish this, they had to adopt a Western, neo-liberal mentality founded upon an open economy that relied on foreign investment and no direct state intervention (I think that this is a result of the communism-equals-evil phenomenon that has swept the globalized world). Yet at the same time, the new government was redistributing land that was taken away from the black majority that left 4/5 of the South African population with 13% of the country’s property during Apartheid. This new plan of land return led to tribal ownership of a significant amount of the South African landscape. This meant that foreign investment would have to generate without the promise of any actual ownership over the land which became communally owned in the new order. As a result, the private, external investment the world promised to South Africa in adopting a market-led, neo-liberal economy never materialized at the intended scope. Because, as I have learned with my new toolkit of practical ideas that are actually relevant to the reality around me unlike most classes I am used to taking, no self-interested private investor is going to invest in a venture in which they are denied ownership. So to sum up South Africa is in quite a pickle.

Various initiatives have been developed to deal with this problem, a few of which I just wrote a paper on, but for the most part the economy of South Africa is in need of a great deal of help (largely because of elitist, capitalist countries..uch). Two different initiatives relying upon two different ways of thinking that have specifically been implemented in a virgin, untouched, gorgeous region of the country called the Wild Coast reflect why every member of South African society that has the potential to bring about positive change. The first is a mineral mining project that has been implemented by an Australian company that has the potential to bring in 200 million U.S. dollars over a 22 year period. However at the same time the project is extremely detrimental to the natural resources and landscape as well as the native inhabitants of the specific area. This has caused severe unrest among the population since this neo-liberalist project dependent upon outside investors with no concern for the local communities. How can the lives of the poorer sectors of society that these new policies are supposed to benefit improve when the actions taken to do so are against their will? How can this project give these impoverished people the money and empowerment they need when they have no say and involvement in the economic ventures that supposedly help them?

On the other hand, there has been a rise in the development of community-based, eco-tourism that relies upon the community members to develop the programs and activities while partnering with a local NGO to organize the venture. By using local workers and residences to house the tourists, along with horses and hiking trails already within the possession of the community, the inhabitants are able to be involved in the development of their own communities while being provided with jobs and not needing to spend money on external equipment detrimental to the landscape and the community atmosphere. This initiative was extremely successful before the chairmen became corrupt and started investing in the mineral mining project. This has led to the virtual death of this project while also reflecting the choice of neo-liberalism over community-based, sustainable development that not only brought money into the community but provided members with jobs and a sense of internal ownership over their project. These people made a difference for a while, before stupid capitalism destroyed their efforts to continue (he success that hows now faltered reminded me of how the top layer of Rambam's 8 different levels of tzedakah is not related to giving money but to provide a sustainable livelihood and skill set to people who did not once possess these necessities. This allows people to be self-reliant, to be responsible for creating solutions that will imporve their circumstances and those of the people around them).

While it is clear that knowledge, education and experience is needed in leadership, it seems to me that each person can contribute to their abilities and resources to lift South Africa out of the economic hole it is falling deeper and deeper into. Neo-liberalism is not working. What has worked for many other countries (or at least for those who were already well off and became a little richer), cannot be perceived as the saving grace of South Africa, a country in a completely different position than other developing countries, who are also in completely different positions than others that are grouped together. Each country needs to rely on its own resources and needs to be given the freedom to develop in a way conducive to their own realities. One of the resources South Africa, I think (not that my opinion means much), must now rely upon is its citizens.

Another reason why this is relevant to the “every individual matters here” discussion is because my professor in this course is constantly telling the class that we need to pay attention to these realities, because not only do they have a great impact on “us” (I don’t really include myself considering my five months here will sadly not make a significant different in South African society) but also because this generation of UCT students (which by the way is an extremely diverse population consisting of so many people of different ethnicities, classes and races) is the first post-Apartheid population who is now receiving one of the best educations this country has to offer. Students in these classes, learning about these subjects, are the some of the ones who are going to be relied upon to affect change and confront the issues that are plaguing the country. South Africa is in trouble, and it is the responsibility of each person to find a cure to the ailments that are related to internal struggles but also to the arrogance of external forces.

Building a stronger country is not dependent upon credentials, it is dependent upon people committed to their cause who can think of creative solutions to problems. These skills can be developed in so many places and can be augmented and cultivated in many others, but making a difference is not limited to a specific population or experience. While volunteering in Khayelitcha this week I had a really cool experience that somehow, at least in my head, confirms this. Two boys in my class named Akona and Sibogheleni were fighting over a notebook. They each said that it belonged to them and I had no idea who was the true owner. When I asked them whose it was, Akona said that I should just cut it in half so they could split it. I then took the book and gave it to Sibogheleni. This reminded me of the story in the Tanach when two women come to King Shlomo both claiming to be the mother of a child they have brought with them. When trying to determine who the real mother is, one says to the king “why don’t you cut the baby in half and give each of us part of it?” Shlomo then realizes that the other woman must be the mother because she would prefer for the child to be given to the other woman than severed in two. After class, I went over to Akona and said the reason that I knew that the book was not his was because of this story in the bible where king Solomon….and he then smiled and intercepted the story and recited the entire thing. I was amazed at this 10 year old kid’s ability to relate a story he heard in church that most kids probably would forget right after listening to it to real life. I know that this does not confirm that he is going to become the president of the country, but I think it shows genuine intelligence and ability to merge different circumstances together to in a sense solve a problem and rely upon internal resources. While that may be a long shot I also just really wanted to tell you that story because it was the highlight of my week.

South African Ulpan:

Netball - volleyball

I don’t think any sentence is necessary for this one but I feel like it would be so strange to leave those two words in a section all by their lonesome when usually another sentence accompanies them. But I guess this unnecessary tangent accomplishes, at least aesthetically, so I deem this sufficient…

Cheers!

Israel..it was bound to come up sooner or later

So now that Israel is officially on her way to becoming a senior citizen and getting movie ticket discounts and all of that fun stuff as of last week, I guess its time I start actually putting into words how being in South Africa has impacted my beliefs and feelings regarding the Holy Land. It is something I have subconsciously avoided because it is just one more thing that will most likely leave me frustrated, confused and torn. But I realize that it is a conversation of great importance because it ties so many things together and is one of the challenges that can reveal how much I have learned since being here.

Israel is a physical and spiritual location with a variety of dimensions of value that allows it to mean something different to all who care for her. For many, Israel is religiously important, for others its significance lies in its culture, history, spirituality or something else. Reflecting on the miracles that have occurred in order for Israel to have been established and sustained, I truly believe it exists in a dimension closer to heaven.

I have always viewed Israel as a central nucleus that links us to all those who live as Jews in the world, to all those who once lived as Jews, and to the Jews that have yet to be born. Its language is known in some capacity by people from all corners of the world, its flag is adorned with a symbol that penetrates not just the eye, but the soul, its anthem is a song that refers to millennia of history not just a few hundred years. For many it is a home one can feel welcomed by and safe within without even being physically present. I do not think there is any other place in the world that fits these criteria.

This is the lens that I think many observant Jews develop, through education, through communities, through discourse, through text. We are told to love Israel, we are told to live in Israel, we are told that Israel is our responsibility and our right, because of the value it holds to the Jewish nation and the divine textual evidence of our claim. We don’t grow up being exposed to the Palestinian population who lives in Israel with limited resources and opportunities. When we are, it seems that often these people are clumped together as a hindrance to the safety and maintenance of our homeland. Sometimes when we sympathize with the “other,” the “enemy,” we can be perceived as disloyal and unpatriotic (I realize that this is not the mentality of a significant percentage of people, but my experience has led me to believe that a large number of people seem to align with this way of thinking). So instead, when talking about Israel, we simply ignore the issue in many cases, because we are Jews, and the Torah grants us the land of Israel, and thus it is ours, no one else’s.

So many experiences in my life, especially my time in South Africa, have proven to me that the experiences of each person, each nation is their own, and that in order to understand how we function in the world, we need to recognize others’ entitlement to their own experiences. In Letty Cottin Pogrebin’s book Deborah, Golda and Me: Being Female and Jewish in America, she discusses her experiences as part of various dialogue groups involving Arab, Palestinian, Jewish and Israeli women. I remember one part of this book that resonated strongly in my mind was when she expresses the difficulty and stagnancy of these conversations. She conveys a great deal of frustration because no one will ever be able to convince the other side of their story, of their narrative, of their claim. There is no one truth. The truth of the Jewish people is at odds with the truth of the Palestinian people. Each group feels entitled to the land. Often, Jews understandably prioritize their claim above that of other people deeming it false. I have heard time and time again, well in the Torah it says…., and God promised us… How can we expect this vocabulary, this mentality to be understood by people who do not believe in the divinity of the Torah and the God portrayed within it? This is not just in reference to Palestinians, but anyone who does not align with this way of thinking. I do not believe that any one group has a monopoly on the truth, what I believe is not and does not have to be what someone else believes. We cannot expect people to give up their truth, in fact it is no one’s place to do so. Palestinians live in Israel, I personally do not think that we can ignore this reality; we cannot blindly discuss the wonders of Israel, the value we place on it as individuals and as a collective people without acknowledging that a population exists in the land of Israel with little access to necessary resources and positive national identity. While it seems as though being pro-Palestinian is often equated with anti-Israel and vice versa, I think that it is completely possible to love Israel and open our eyes to the circumstances of the Palestinians at the same time.

Much of this thought process has been impacted by South African perception of Israel as a moral pariah, as an oppressor, as the Apartheid regime that subjugated and dehumanized the majority of the population for so long. In the historical records of many of the southern African countries, the relationship between Israel and the Palestinians is often held up as the historical reference to explain the racist imperialists and the indigenous, downtrodden natives. In my mind, they have legitimate reason to. In the era when the international community put countless sanctions and pressure to disband Apartheid on the nationalist government, Israel financially supported SA. Perhaps there are reasons for doing so related to the desperate state of the Israeli economy, but in the eyes of black and coloured South Africans, they were indirectly contributing to their oppression. This may be why the word Apartheid has been used in describing the Israeli governmental actions regarding Palestinians. While I believe it is clear that this comparison is completely inappropriate, while I believe that the Israeli government has not institutionalized racism like the Nationalist government, but has taken certain necessary steps to defend itself, when it is possible to see the plight of a people through the eyes of personal horrible experience, the link is, not justifiable, but understandable.

It is a very difficult situation. But it is ok in my mind to acknowledge the suffering of others without betraying that which you feel loyal to. While I feel as though I have recognized the second-class conditions of Palestinians in the past, I think being here has added new dimensions to that recognition. Its easy to say that people are living in awful conditions and I feel bad for them, but when you see it, when you feel it around you, when 9 year old girls in townships meet you and their first question is if you have any kids, when one student gets picked on because his skin is a pigment darker than the others, when you are in a little vacation town where the only black people present are cleaning your dishes and serving your food, when you meet white teenagers applying to university and are bitter because they think all the black kids are going to steal their spots because of affirmative action (black economic empowerment is what its called here), when you see the townships on the side of the road that are a few square miles and house 500,000 people who live in shacks made out of cardboard and tin, all of your sense are awakened to the suffering of others, you become overcome by a helplessness that seems unfathomable, unfixable. To me, it is not possible to look at Israel as the home of the Jews without recognizing her responsibility to treat all those who live within the country well and respectfully. Being Jewish demands that of us. Yes, protective measures are incredibly necessary and there is a huge percentage of Palestinians, Arabs and others who do not recognize Israel’s right to exist and pose a huge threat to her future, but in my mind these obstacles only strengthen the need for Israel to extend its hand, its resources, its recognition of humanity to all to establish its identity as a moral light unto other nations.

Similarly, in a book I am currently reading by Alister Sparks called Beyond the Miracle: Inside the New South Africa (having put my interest in fiction aside for the sake of taking advantage of the non-fiction literature available to me here that will never be at my disposal again), the author discusses the unique position that South Africa has found itself in the world, and the potential it has to be a model for other nations and grand-scale interactions. It is a meeting point of the first and the third world, the rich and the poor, the light and the dark. Yet its uniqueness lies in the reality that, unlike most countries that possess this same dynamic, members of the third world are the ones who currently sit in power since the democratic transition 14 years ago. As a result, a new form of communication is taking place, a process of creating a new social order that accommodates both the capitalist and the traditionalist, the Afrikaner and the Zulu.

The hierarchy of the world has naturally placed development and capitalism at the top and tradition and rural living at the bottom. Every battle seems to be observed through the polarized lens of West and East, democracy and communism, good and evil. Drawing on other regions of unrest, Sparks discusses the dynamic of America’s war on terrorism and the hate that produced it. The vocabulary of evil, enemy and fundamentalism became so easy to rely upon. The civilized nations believed it their moral duty to destroy the medieval, religious terrorists without ever understanding the point of tension, the source of hatred. Without condoning any acts of terror or destruction, it seems that the Westernized way of thinking never swallows its pride to acknowledge the value of any other way of living and instead waves wealth and “democracy” in its face and demands its opponents to change their way of life. If they don’t that is in fact the very reason why the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. We never take the time to look inwardly, to see that perhaps our own tactics are at fault, or have made contributions to the problem. We never try to create forums of understanding between different worlds, we simply use higher status as rationale for invading, for missionizing, for murdering and for destroying.

In South Africa, Israel is the illegitimate result of an imperialist, British mandate, a result of the same process and way of thinking that granted sovereignty to the Afrikaner Nationalist party of South Africa, coincidentally in the same year, 1948. Thus it becomes clear which side of good and evil upon which Israel falls in the eyes of the oppressed. It also becomes easy to understand why people must always deem support of the Israelis and Palestinians as mutually exclusive. I do acknowledge that recognizing both plights is extremely difficult, especially when the survival of such an important place and nation is at stake, but I personally see so much potential in embracing the spectrum in between the evil and the good, the first and the third world (vocabulary which I am not sure is politically correct, but know that my intentions are politically correct). I don’t think that this mentality is a form of politics, but rather a responsibility as a human, as a Jew, to entitle each person to their own experience. It seems to me, that while they possess very different circumstances and realities, South Africa and Israel, both have an unprecedented opportunity to introduce a new form of communication, a new form of social order.

South African (Cultural) Ulpan:

Pudding – dessert course, such as cakes, mousses, fruit salads and even puddings. MMMM.

“Hey kids, its time for pudding,” said mom as they all jumped for joy and screamed “yippee.”

Cheers!

HELP!

Wow! So the past four days have given me a lot to think about. From Thursday to Sunday night I traveled with a group of around 15 Jewish high school students from Cape Town along the southern coast of the country to different, small, Jewish communities. A friend of mine who works for an informal Jewish education organization connected to the Jewish school system invited me and another friend along for the road trip, and it seemed like a perfect opportunity to continue my sociological analysis of the Cape Town Jewish community. What I was left with after four days was a sociological study of religious communities in general and how an individual functions within it.

The first day we spent driving to the site that is occupied by the B’nei Akiva camp of South Africa during the summer month of December. While in America, observant Jewish teens have the luxury of deciding from a variety of different camps in different locations, this is the only option for observant Jewish South African teens. For the three weeks in December, it is occupied by around 1000 people in total who collectively make up the only observant, summer youth community in the country. A lot of the kids on the road trip spent there time reminiscing about their camp experiences which very much reflected the value placed on the environment the camp offers. It has become clear to me that in Cape Town, it is often necessary to sacrifice certain things that seem so standard and set within one’s life, to be observant. For example, because the amount of kids who are is so small, it seems that social opportunities are limited in many cases. But this camp creates a community that seems to make kids content with their observance, because it is the common denominator that brings them all together and allows them to feel connected to each other and their surroundings.

I have been fortunate enough to never feel like I have had to give anything up to be the type of Jew I wanted to be. My family, my friends, my school, my camp, everything, always seemed to not only accommodate the choices I made religiously but encouraged me to keep struggling with my identity. I have never had to be something at the expense of something else and for that I am so thankful. But it seems to me, that to be observant in Cape Town, forces young people to make sacrifices. I suppose that this is just one of the many realities of being a committed member of a small community.

This became glaringly clear as we traveled for the next few days to other various communities. On Friday, we found ourselves in a beautiful vacation area called Plettenberg Bay. I had actually been here once before a few months ago when traveling along the Garden Route, but found myself there this time in much different circumstances. We davened shacharit and ate breakfast with the small community of Plet in their new shul that is still in the process of being built. While we ate, a representative told us about the character of the community. While a few families live there all year round, it has become a popular vacation spot for religious families because a running shul has been in operation for over thirty years. The location had moved around to accommodate the size variation, but now that it is growing in membership, albeit temporary, the members, local, national and international, have collectively funded the building of a beautiful shul. While they may not always get a minyan in the off-season, the presence of the community has kick started the creation of a beautiful and vibrant collective at different times throughout the year. Every part of the shul itself has been funded by different families who align themselves with the congregation. Each pillar that holds up the shul, each not-yet-painted, stained-glass window, each plaque allocating the different aliyot and service honors, each book, is physical proof of the commitment of the community. The entirety of the shul is tangibly built upon the foundation of its individual members, subsequently creating something much larger and more significant. I realize that many shuls are built in this fashion, perhaps it is because it is in South Africa, perhaps it is because we observed this as a work in progress, or perhaps it is because I have chosen to analyze every possible thing laid out in front of me over the past three months, but something about this construction process, both figurative and physical, seemed unique.

After hearing about the Plet community, a high-school student from another small community nearby in Outdsoorn, came to speak about her community which has undergone a very different transformation. While it was once around 200 families strong (if I recall correctly), it is now a community of just a few families including just five kids. While it is a community that seems to be dwindling rather quickly, they still import kosher meat and bring in a Rabbi from Cape Town to conduct high holiday services. Yet it is clear, that a community once called “the Jerusalem of South Africa” has lost a great deal of its strength and sparkle.

After learning about these small, but beautiful communities, we continued to move further away from Cape Town and traveled to the city of Port Elizabeth. Warmly welcomed by the P.E. community, we stayed in the shul for the whole of Shabbat. Once a two building campus that could, and did, fit around 2000 people in its main sanctuary, the shul has recently sold the sanctuary which has been converted into an apartment complex, leaving only a large building which includes offices and meeting rooms, one of which has been turned into the sanctuary and probably sits less than 100 people, living quarters for the Rabbi and his family, and a large hall for simchas and communal events. The community has been shrinking gradually over the past decades due to members migrating outside of the city, Jews losing their connection and no new faces emerging to fill the vacancy. What is left of the shul is still quite disproportionately grand and seems to be a living monument to what the community once was. This is reflected in the reality that while many of the members are older and have probably been P.E. lifers, every two or three years, a new Rabbi is imported from Israel through the shlichut system, demonstrating a severe lack of local resources and the statistic that less than 20% of the students of the local Jewish Theodore Herzl school is actually Jewish. P.E., once a strong hub of Jewish life is fading fast.

It was so interesting to be exposed to all of this as a member of the Cape Town Jewish community as well as of the various communities of which I am a part in my normal life. While Jewish observance in Cape Town is visibly decreasing along with the passing of each generation, it is the five towns of New York in comparison to these others. Yet, simultaneously, the exposure presents a clear danger of what Cape Town could become if the loss of involved Jews continues at the rapid pace of today. On a grander scale, I kept thinking about how little I have ever been forced to think about the welfare and survival of an entire community in the different ones I occupy at home.

Over the past three years, I have experienced and continue to experience a process of religious transformation. This process has been extremely individual, almost selfish even. When I was angry at Orthodoxy for reasons such as unequal gender roles, stances on homosexuality, the limited vocabulary pertaining to God and the Torah, what I interpreted as narrow-mindedness regarding politics relating to Israel, I was able to step outside the framework of Orthodoxy because I had a family that supported and encouraged this process and because I attend a university that offers different religious outlets that allow the luxury of not needing to fully define yourself and commit to one, set group. I had all the resources available to undergo a personal makeover within a greater community that presented no danger that would have inspired me to understand my importance as an individual within the larger collective. My process has never included the realization that my choices and what I decided to become and dedicate myself to impacts a single community. But what if it did? If I knew that my allegiance mattered in ensuring the subsistence of the Jewish people in a specific location, what would I do, what sect of Judaism would I align with?

After having conversations both with myself and others about this topic, I arrived at the conclusion that beyond all of my personal issues with Orthodoxy, traditional Judaism in my mind, seems to be the foundation that has allowed this way of life to endure. History has proven that allowing wiggle room within practice and belief leads to a decrease in practicing Jews, while a traditional way of life is more likely to contribute to the maintenance of a system that has improbably lasted for mellenia. This is not to personally take importance and legitimacy away from any other sect because I truly believe that everyone needs to find their own spiritual home on their own terms, but I think that changes to tradition set a precedent for change that produces a dangerous slippery slope. It seems that all these emergent forms of Jewish practice and belief are in some form dependent on traditional Judaism to hold as a reference point. Without it, there is no basis for beliefs, for changes, for criticisms. While I can acknowledge the necessity of traditional Judaism, I am still very much at odds with certain aspects and tenets of Orthodoxy (often this may just be Orthodox people though). I cannot accept making individuals feel less than they are, I cannot accept any form of hierarchy and subsequent oppression. But is it my place to refuse to accept these things, do I even have the choice? If I believe that Judaism’s best chance to continue is within a traditional framework then the choices I have made to exist somewhat on the periphery of it can be interpreted as flat and hypocritical. Essentially, what I interpret as my beliefs and my responsibilities are at odds with each other.

Next year, I will be writing my senior thesis using the following question as my starting point in forming an educated understanding of the relationship between individual development and communal structure: How is individual difference reconciled within the context of a community? This question popped into my head several times throughout the trip and is something I cannot get off my mind. Who am I ultimately responsible for, myself or my community? I am sure that it is possible for their not be a tension between the two, but right now that tension seems immovable (I know I have time to figure this out, sorry if I seem dramatic). Can I fit my beliefs, my issues, into a completely traditional framework? Or can I justify my decision to not be a part of a community that I think must exist, but of which I do not want to be a complete member?

Over the past year I have described myself as not fully respecting the halachic system. As a result, I have not felt the need to hold to such seemingly insignificant laws such as keeping the eruv or not tearing toilet paper on Shabbat, I have started eating dairy out, I daven when I feel like it, I have learned to read Torah and participate in egalitarian services (I am not putting all these things on the same plane because I do feel as though the last has increased my level observance, but I just want to communicate the different ways I have exited the halachic framework). I have done things my own way based on what personally inspires me because I do not think that the whole “because God said so” or “our purpose in life is to do mitsvos (normally I say mitsvot, but I wanted to add an element of authenticity to this context)” mentality is sufficient. But maybe there is a way to bring all of these things together. Maybe I can operate within a traditional framework by thinking that each law serves the purpose of reminding us as Jews of our commitment to God, to the Torah and ultimately to being better versions of ourselves and sharing that goodness with the world. But even with that said, I still do not fully know if I believe in the complete divinity of the Torah or in the understanding of God that is preached in our prayers. If this is the case then, if I return to the halachic framework, would my motivation be completely communal? And if it is and my issues do not disappear, than is this a community and a belief system whose subsistence I feel the need to contribute to? I am quite confused...(you might be too..sorry).

Last Thursday was Mayday, International Workers Day (an international holiday everywhere except the U.S. because we are elitists with an ignorant fear of anything remotely related to communism) as well as Yom Hashoah. While these are rather different commemorations, I think they both demonstrate the importance of community and unity in very different ways. Mayday is proof of the power of togetherness and what can happen when the downtrodden fight for the rights; Yom Hashoah reflects the necessity to always feel connected to your history and those who share it to prevent the repetition of past atrocities. My classes dealing with poverty and ways of confronting it as well as the complex and beautiful archaeological past of strong Iron Age African communities, reading One Hundred Years of Solitude, which recounts the beautiful, mythical history of the creation and destruction of a town called Macondo, also demonstrate the need for community and personal responsibility within it. I have had so many outlets recently that have taught me that ultimately we are responsible for each other and we must do what we feel necessary to ensure our collective welfare. But what is welfare? Is it communal survival, or is it what is specifically being sustained? I don’t know. What do you think?

South African (cultural) Ulpan:

Crunchies – some sort of wonderful, magical concoction of granola-ey stuff, coconut-ey flavor, something unknown that creates a wonderful soft texture of a snack that would seem to be hard, that tastes so amazing, like rainbows and daisies.

Cheers!