So few safe places

I was just sitting down to write this column  — about the new political landscape in Israel and how this latest shift even further to the right challenges the pro-democracy camp in Israel — when my phone started buzzing. Even before the breaking news update came, texts from friends started flashing on my screen: Did you hear the news? There’s been a shooting at UCLA.

Like almost all of you reading this now, I take the news out of Israel very personally. Each awful new step in the seemingly endless cycle of violence blocks out everything else for a while. We scan the news for the names of people and places: Where did it happen? Are my friends and family safe? What happens now? It’s a disconcertingly familiar feeling, one I know many of us share.

And here in the U.S., the horrible and horribly predictable nightmare of gun violence provokes a similar set of responses. Last week’s shooting at UCLA hit particularly close to home: My kids were born on that campus, and for many years, we lived right down the street.

But far more upsetting was the fact that a group of New Israel Fund (NIF) leaders and supporters was meeting that morning at the UCLA Hillel, including NIF board member David N. Myers and International Council member Rabbi Sharon Brous. They and our other community members spent hours under lockdown, unsure of what was happening outside. I was texting them as the police searched for the shooter, and of course they were calm, cool and collected, and assured me that all was well.

But even as they presented a brave face to the world, our friends talked about the scourge of gun violence that plagues our country. And in the midst of what had to have been an upsetting ordeal, Brous posted this on her Facebook page: “I’m under lockdown @UCLA. Apparently 2 dead, active shooter at large. Would now be a good time to talk about #gunviolence? #UCLA.”

While it is an imperfect analogy, in many ways, gun violence in America — and the inability to discuss the issue productively, let alone take steps to solve the issue — feels like our intractable problem, our version of the debate in Israel about peace, terror, occupation and the settlement enterprise. In both countries, these are issues that bitterly polarize the population and inflame the debate.

In the U.S. and Israel, politicians who fear powerful lobbies avoid making the hard choices that would help both societies strive for a better, more peaceful future. No one doubts that the extreme settler lobby and the NRA represent minorities of the population, but everyone knows that both groups will stoop to anything to punish politicians who don’t toe the ideological line.

Worse, perhaps, is that both those who insist on the absolute right of anyone to own any gun, and those who propound the sacred need to hold onto every square inch of Israeli territory, base their arguments on what are, to almost all of us, “sacred” texts. We Americans value our Constitution, which includes the Second Amendment, with reverence and with the understanding that it is the one document that holds our heterogeneous, polyglot society together; it is our common political foundation.

As Jews, even if we are secular or liberal in our religious observance, the Torah and Jewish law and tradition occupy that sacred and unifying spot. And of course, the Torah tells us over and over that God has given us the land of Israel, that no other people have rights there and that we may use any means necessary, including violence, to grasp and hold onto that land.

But we are also progressives, and that means we believe societies can and should progress beyond the literal meaning of texts written in other times. We reject the idea that the Founding Fathers meant for every American to have the right to own a semi-automatic rifle with a magazine that holds 30 rounds in our dense urban surroundings. We reject the idea that the particularism of the Torah should be the guiding principle behind how we coexist in Israel with Palestinians, whose roots there are also broad and deep. To embrace the literal meaning of these important texts is to rely on reactionary anachronisms that endanger us all.

It seems to me that we must take a page out of my friend Sharon Brous’ playbook and engage in these discussions now, even when we are emotional and frightened and threatened by the dangers we see around us. In the wake of every public shooting, politicians who are afraid of the gun lobby speak in lockstep about “not exploiting this tragedy as an excuse for gun control.” In the wake of terrorist activity in Israel, or increased anti-Semitism, or new diplomatic maneuvers about multinational conferences, we are cautioned that the unity of the Jewish people and our backing for the policies of the Israeli government must be of paramount importance.

No. It is precisely now, when there is so much at stake and so few safe places — literally and politically — in which we can find refuge, that we must take a stand for our values. We Americans, Jews, Israelis, Palestinians — everyone — deserve safety and equality as citizens. Now is when we must speak out for the vision we share and for the progressive understanding that we as people and societies can and must evolve beyond fear and literalism, into a place that is safer and more peaceful for us and our children. 

Daniel Sokatch is the CEO of New Israel Fund.