2009/07/01 Sixth Introduction to Judaism Class Notes

Rabbi Micah was the teacher and the class title is Holocaust/Israel.

The Holocaust and Israel have shaped Judaism as we know it.

There are two distinct Judaisms. One is European based and tends to be the way older Jews practice their faith and ethnicity. The other is Israel based and tends to be the way younger Jews practice their faith and ethnicity.

Today's Judaism is different from the way it was 200 years ago. Handout in class shows a brief outline of events in the last 200 years of Judaism.

There are two important terms we need to know while looking at this history. One is Zion which is another word for Israel. It is named for a mountain in Israel, Mt. Zion. Jews have yearned for the land of Zion over the years. Zionism arose out of this historic yearning.

Genesis 12:1-3. "The Lord said to Abram, 'Go forth from your native land and from your father's house to the land I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and curse him that curses you; and all the families of the earth shall bless themselves by you.'"

So from the beginning (even as far back as the book of Genesis), Jewish identity has been linked to Israel - the land I will show you turns out to be Israel. It is indelibly linked to being Jewish.

Brit means covenant. This is the same as bris where Jewish boys are circumcised. it is the act of bringing someone into covenant.

There are two promises in this Genesis 12 passage, (1) Great nation: "I will make of you a great nation" and (2) Covenant: "I will bless you and make your name great and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and curse him that curses you; and all the families of the earth shall bless themselves by you."

From the tenth through the fifth century BCE, Israel was a Jewish Kingdom. Psalm 126 is a psalm of the people in exile showing their desire to return to Israel. It is written in the past tense but is understood in the future tense. This psalm was under consideration for the national anthem of Israel but was not chosen.

Psalm 126: A Song of Ascents "When the Eternal restores us to Zion, we will be like dreamers. Our mouths will be filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy. Then shall they say among the nations, 'The Eternal has done great things for them.' The Eternal will do great things for us, and we will rejoice! Restore our fortunes, O Eternal, like streams in the Negev. They who sow in tears shall reap in joy. Though he goes along weeping, carring the seed-bag, he shall come back with songs of joy, carrying his sheaves."

Yehuda Halevy was a poet in Muslim Spain. Edom is a metaphor for the Western and modern world.

Prayers- Jews face the East when they pray as that is the general direction of Israel. Prayer praises God for creation of light and for creating the natural world.

Love of Israel by Jews is ancient. It is the best place to be Jewish and they should want to return to it.

In the modern period, Zionism arose. It is a Messianic yearning for the land. This yearning has become political in the modern era. Birthright is an organization that sends young people to Israel because Jews have found that visits to Israel instill a love of Judaism into its young people and their families. It makes Jews more committed. It has a positive effect on Jewish identity. Aliyah is a going up. When Jews are called up to Torah, it is Aliyah and when a person moves (permanently) to Israel, it is Aliyah.

Kotel: Wailing wall, now called the Western Wall. The area outside this wall is treated as an orthodox synagogue with women on one side and men on the other. This is the outer retaining wall of the ancient Temple. The Temple Mount was on Mt. Moriah and was smaller due to limited space at the top of the mountain. Mt. Moriah is in the middle of Jerusalem. As we said, at one time the Temple was only on top of the natural mountain. Herod (who was a forcibly converted Jew) wanted to glorify the Temple and he fills in more dirt to make a larger mountaintop and builds a larger Temple on it. The tallest part of the Temple was the Holy of Holies. So the Western Wall is actually part of the retaining wall from the Herod enlargement of the Temple. The Temple Mount still exists and the Dome of the Rock is on the spot where the Holy of Holies once was. The Western Wall has become an outdoor synagogue. Currently, some of the Southern wall has been excavated. The area outside this wall is used for less sacred functions.

The whole city of Jerusalem is sacred to Jews, Christians, and Muslims. When asked who had been to Israel, only a couple of people in the class raised their hand. One guy, who is Jewish, said he was bar mitzvahed there and had gone again "on aleya"? The teacher discussed this for a while saying trips to Israel really meant so much to Jewish people that they became more committed to Judaism after. Don raised his hand and said his trip meant a great deal to him as a Christian also. Rabbi Micah said yes, the city is very important to Jews, Christians, and Muslims.

On the handout, the first page timeline is a history of how Zionism developed.
In the 1840's Europe was in the throes of nationalism. There was a rise of the states and countries separated. Earlier there were principalities such as Tuscany and Rome in Italy, but now these principalities combined into countries with their own identity. Zionism arose out of this sense of nationalism.

Jews in Germany had 2 choices: (1) Could say I am a German or a German Mosaist. Mosaist refers to Moses and is a way to stay away from saying Jewish. This is where Reform Judaism has its roots - as German Mosaists. (2) Could say I am Jewish and my land is Israel.

In the 1860s, modern settlement called Mishkenot Sha'ananim was built outside the walls of Jerusalem. This was the first modern Jewish settlement.

In 1878, the first Zionist settlement is built. It is called Petah Tikvah. and means Gates of Hope.

Jews were normalized in Europe. Jews could not own land and Christians could not charge interest so Jews became the bankers in Europe. Jews saw that real Germans worked the land in Germany so they went to Israel and worked the land. This happened in Petah Tikvah.

In 1894 the Dreyfus Affair occurred. This is where a French military officer (Jewish) is accused of treason (passing secrets to the Germans). His trial was not fair and showed latent anti-Jewish sentiment in France. Theodore Herzl was a journalist, an Austrian Jew and he was sent in the 1890s to cover the trial of the Dreyfus affair. Theodore Herzl writes about the unfair trial and this trial began the early Zionist political movement. Herzl concluded that Jews would always be outsiders in other countries so they needed their own land. The United States is a little different in that it is a land of immigrants so all are outsiders. Israel is somewhat the same except that most of its immigrants are Jewish. But Jews come in all shapes, sizes, colors so there is diversity among them.

Herzl ultimately failed to establish a Jewish homeland. He was buried in Austria but his body was later moved to Israel after parading it through the streets of Jerusalem and around the country. He is reburied on Mt. Herzl which is next to the Holocause memorial.

There is a lot of interplay between Israel being a homeland and the Holocaust but it is not exact to say that one resulted from the other. There were other factors also as the Dreyfus affair is one example of the other factors.

WWI and WWII - Israel was under British mandate. Cutoff of Jewish settlement in Israel. So illegal immigration occurred. Jews were trying to escape the Nazis.

On 5/14/48, the State of Israel was established. From 1948 through the 1950s, 650,000 Jewish refugees from Arab countries resettled in Israel.

1949-1950 - 49,000 Yemenite Jews were airlifted to Israel. It was called Ooperation Magic Carpet or Operation on the Wings of Eagles because the people being airlifted thought the airplanes were the eagles written about in the Bible that would come and take people away to a better place. (They had never seen an airplane before.)

In 1990, El Al (Israeli airline) took out seats from their planes in order to fly 14,500 Ethiopien Jews to Israel in 36 hours.

So Israel has become a mosaic of all kinds of Jews coming together.

Hatikvah has become the anthem of the Zionist movement - it is the National Anthem of Israel. It says Jews have always yearned to return. Since 1/4 of the citizens of Israel are not Jewish, this song as a national anthem is problematic in some ways. Other people do come to live and work in Israel.

Hatikvah:

"As long as the heart, within,
A Jewish soul is yearning,
And to the edges of the East, eastward,
An eye watches towards Zion,

Our hope is not yet lost,
The hope of two thousand years,
To be a free nation in our own land
The land of Zion and Jerusalem."

Our handout gives the song in Hebrew as well and emphasizes the words, "to be a free nation in our own land."

Israel proclaims itself to be a Jewish democratic state. Non-Jews can be citizens and can vote. The ruling body has non-Jews in it as well. However, can a state be democratic but have an ethnic/religious identity also?

From Israel's Declaration of Indepence (14 May 1948): "The Land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and political identity was shaped. Here they first attained to statehood, created cultural values of national and universal significance and gave the world the eternal Book of Books. After being forcibly exiled from their land, the people kept faith with it throughout their dispersion and never ceased to pray and hope for their return to it and for the restoration in it of their political freedom."

Reform Jews said they did not need a land of their own in Israel. They were German or Italian or whatever nationality of the land they were in. Some even refused to face East for prayer and put their Temples facing West. Orthodox Jews have always faced East for prayer and their Temples face East. Now Reformed Jews are returning to more traditions but Israelis consider Reform Jews to be anti-Zionist. Israel was a country of the Orthodox religious or the secular, non-religious Jews. So Israel did not grow up with Reform Jews. Now Rabbi Mary Gold has a case in the Supreme Court of Israel to get recognized as a Reformed Jewish Rabbi. Now most Israelis don't grow up and join a synagogue so they identify more now with Reformed Judaism than they once did. Reformed Jews get people in Israel more through schools and other organizations rather than through synagogue since people there don't usually join a Temple or synagogue. Reformed Jews believe you can be modern and Jewish at the same time. Thus, they have some orthodox traditions which they are willing to change or compromise.

Eliezer Ben Yehuda: He is street-named Ben Yehuda. He was the person most responsible for reviving the Hebrew language. Herzl wrote "The Jewish State" in German and said Jews could speak all the languages and have all the best things Europe had to offer. Ben Yehuda said if we have a state, then we must speak a certain language and that language is Hebrew. For words which had no Hebrew translation such as electricity, automobile, he invented words. Sometimes he opted for the English word where there was no Hebrew equivalent.