July 22, 2011 | 7:56 am

Putting Israel on Trial

Posted by Bob Goldfarb

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The philosopher Bertrand Russell made a public appeal in 1966 for an International War Crimes Tribunal to conduct a trial of the United States for its actions in Vietnam.  Russell, an antiwar protester since World War I, accused the U.S. and its allies of imperialism and violations of international law in his book War Crimes in Vietnam.  Over the course of two sessions in 1967, one in Stockholm and the other in Roskilde, Denmark, the tribunal heard “testimony” from dozens of speakers and then found unanimously that the United States was guilty of genocide and aggression.

Now the Bertrand Russell Foundation is convening a new tribunal “to examine the violations of international law, of which the Palestinians are victims, and that prevent the Palestinian People from exercising its rights to a sovereign State.”  This November its jury will gather in Cape Town, symbolically meeting in a district of the city where the homes of blacks were demolished en masse in the 1970s.  Alice Walker, a vocal supporter of the flotilla to Gaza, will be one of the jurors.  The tribunal’s self-appointed task is to judge “whether the policies and practises of the State of Israel fit the international legal descriptions of the crime of apartheid.”  The trial will conclude in New York in 2012.

The members of the tribunal’s Support Committee include prominent journalists, political figures, artists, and of course activists.  The names include the Guardian‘s Tariq Ali, former UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, American novelist Russell Banks, South African novelist Breyten Breytenbach, gender theorist Judith Butler, Noam Chomsky (a veteran of the 1967 proceedings), filmmaker Costa Gavras, writer Naomi Klein, British film directors Mike Leigh and Ken Loach, and Israeli academic Ilan Pappe.  These celebrities should help attract attention to what is little more than a staged media event.

It’s doubtful that anything said at the tribunal will change anyone’s mind.  In fact, very little of what’s said is likely to be new or surprising in any way.  It is purely a symbolic event, like the flotilla.  And like the flotilla it presents a dilemma to the media (though the flotilla actually has greater visual interest).  Will they treat it as a bona fide news story that deserves coverage?  Even if it’s not news, will they feel they can’t ignore it for fear of accusations of bias?

Friends of Israel may well wonder, is there any way to respond without legitimizing the proceedings?  In the Forward today, Gal Beckerman writes about a related issue:

Stooping to meet the activists of the BDS movement at their level is the very definition of counterproductive.  Rather than defuse this enemy, they elevate and inflate the threat by engaging it.  What might a better strategy be for dealing with the BDS movement?  How about just ignoring it.

Whether that’s a realistic choice for dealing with the tribunal is the big question for November.

 

July 4, 2011 | 1:56 am

A Drama about Father and Son and Academe: “Footnote”

Posted by Bob Goldfarb

There’s a scene in Joseph Cedar’s new film, Footnote, that may bring a smile to Americans of a certain bent.  At a ceremonial event for Israeli academics there’s an emotional discussion in the lobby about Daniel Boyarin, the Berkeley-based scholar, and his ideas about gender in Jewish history.  The reference may be a bit dated, since the film is set in 2010 and the book they’re discussing, Unheroic Conduct, was published in 1997.  But the scene captures both the passion and insularity of academic disagreements, which is one of the subjects of the film.

In this new work by the director of Beaufort, a father and son are professors of Talmud at the Hebrew University with different methods and very different careers.  The father is a master of the details of philology while the son is a widely known lecturer who writes books with popular themes, and these differences are reflected in their personalities.  The younger man, played by the now-veteran Israeli actor Lior Ashkenazi, is a sought-after public speaker and internationally recognized for his work.  The elder professor has no talent for social interaction, is most at home in his subterranean office, and has become embittered because his son receives the kind of recognition he believes he deserves himself. Here’s one trailer:

A clerical error with enormous consequences sets in motion a series of events that bring old resentments to the surface, not only between father and son but between each of them and the academic establishment.  That premise might have devolved into a melodrama with simple heroes and villains. (The potted summaries of Cedar’s movie describe it as if it were.)  The film makes no such facile judgments, and instead shows what can happen when flawed people each hold to their firm beliefs in what is right.  This story’s power comes from its ambiguities and its recognition that good intentions do not guarantee good consequences.

This trailer looks at the film from the father’s point of view:

 

Shlomo Bar-Aba, playing a man of few words, forcefully shows the father’s inner disappointments and frustration through his posture and facial expressions.  Ashkenazi convincingly depicts his character’s unexpected complexity.  The Shostakovich-like score by Amit Poznansky captures the sometimes sardonic, sometimes comic, and mostly sober character of the story.  Cedar’s script won this year’s Screenplay Award at Cannes.

Footnote has not yet been released in the United States.  Be on the lookout for it.

Bob Goldfarb, the president of the Center for Jewish Culture and Creativity in Los Angeles and Jerusalem, also blogs regularly for eJewishPhilanthropy.com.

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July 1, 2011 | 1:36 am

Seeking Meaningful Prayer in Tel Aviv

Posted by Bob Goldfarb

Last month a group of young professionals in Tel Aviv organized a watershed event at a historic synagogue that they have adopted as their own.  With the donation of a Torah scroll from a celebrity member they began a new era in what they describe as not only a synagogue, but also a community center.

Ynet, the English-language website of Israel’s best-selling Hebrew newspaper, has a video report on the community, which is made up of local and international Jews alike.  Natan Bashevkin, a star of the Israeli version of the “Survivor” reality series and a member of the shul, vowed that if he was the show’s winner he would give a sefer Torah to the synagogue.  That scroll was dedicated in a gala celebration a month ago.

In the U.S., the independent minyanim movement has provided an outlet for well-educated Jews who care about Judaism and have empowered themselves to create new communities for meaningful prayer.  They avoid sectarianism in favor of flexibility and openness.  The Ynet video suggests similar impulses among these olim and native Israelis, with the difference that their outlet is in a traditional synagogue on Ben Yehuda Street near Ben Gurion Avenue.  (Of course there are independent minyanim in Tel Aviv too.)

Given the aging of the membership at so many synagogues in America, maybe this model could work there too.  Jay M. Shultz of the Tel Aviv group explains that “the older generation really handed us the keys; without them we wouldn’t be here.”  Some American shuls might consider following their example.

Bob Goldfarb, the president of the Center for Jewish Culture and Creativity in Los Angeles and Jerusalem, also blogs regularly for eJewishPhilanthropy.com.

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