Guest Column

The Guest Column is an opportunity for Temple members to write about their Jewish life experiences.
It is wonderful to share your personal stories and reflections with all of us.

January 2009

Our guest this month is Jeffrey Harris

A Better Way for Israel?

I am a Jew, and a former United States Air Force officer.  I have watched with increasing concern the escalation of hostilities between Israel and the Palestinians, particularly those in the Gaza Strip, and I have to believe there is a better way.

I believe in the right of self-defense, but I think that the course of action Israel has undertaken is counterproductive.  Israel’s problem with the Palestinians is not that the Palestinians are evil or bad, but they have no hope.  For over 60 years, they have been pawns:

·        In 1948, the Arab Nations refused to accept the partition of Palestine into Israeli and Arab States under the UN Resolution which established the State of Israel, and thereby denied the Palestinians living in Israel the opportunity to have their own homeland.

·        Then after the Arab attack on the newly founded State of Israel that same year, many Palestinians fled to Arab countries as refugees, and have been living as refugees ever since because the Arab nations refused to grant them citizenship.

·        Those Palestinians that remained in Israel (and in the territories that Israel occupied after the Six Day War in 1967) became part of the Palestinian Question that Israel has wrestled with ever since.

As time has gone on, and the children and the grandchildren of the original Palestinians have continued to languish under the corrupt Palestinian regime of Fatah, and the oppressive regime of Hamas, it is no wonder that they look at Israelis, who live in a modern world with nice homes, secure jobs and no worries about the food on their tables and the world at large, with contempt and bitterness.  Many of these people live in what are effectively concentration camps, and some, egged on by Iran, respond by bombarding Israel with rockets and suicide bombing attacks.  I do not believe their actions are right, and I do not agree with them, but they are understandable.  What I do believe is most of the Palestinian people, despite the bitterness and squalor that pervades their lives, are good and decent people, and only want better lives for themselves and their families.  I also believe is that if we (the world) and Israel, in particular, reached out to the Palestinian people, and gave them something more than the squalor and hopelessness they have now, we would see the Palestinians repudiate their corrupt government, and move forward in the world.

I am reminded of something a Yugoslavian professor at Oregon State University once told me, while I was stationed there as an ROTC instructor training students to become US Air Force officers.  He was a refugee from Yugoslavia forced to leave when he refused to join the army against his fellow Yugoslavians after the breakup of that country.  He told me, after a seminar that was open to the whole campus to publicize the violence and atrocities committed in the civil war there, that six billion dollars in aid to Yugoslavia (which they desperately sought from the United States) would have avoided the breakup of that country and its ensuing chaos.  I think back and wonder, if the United States had given Yugoslavia that six billion dollars at the time they asked for it, how many people would still be alive and happy today, and how much more money that we later spent for military operations in the Balkans to try and protect some of those people would have been available for other (and better) uses.

I am not a pacifist, and I may still be somewhat idealistic, but I think that six billion dollars now would be a good down payment in Gaza and the West Bank.  If we used that money for food, and decent housing and to build a real economy, and gave those people hope and a sense of security and self-worth, that would be a much more effective strategy than bombing them into the ground.

History has shown us that a military campaign is not generally an effective solution to what is really a political problem.  Terrorism (like tyranny) only flourishes with the support of the populous, and withers without it.  It is something of a cliché, but winning hearts and minds, and transforming peoples' lives into something better, is really what we need to do here.

As a Jew, I subscribe to the philosophy of Tikkun Olam.  The Hebrew phrase Tikkun Olam can be loosely translated as “repairing the world”, and expresses a belief that the Jewish people exist as part of a mandate from God to help make the world a better place for everyone through acts of Loving Kindness and respect for social justice.  Although not all Jews subscribe to this philosophy, I believe that a good place to start applying Tikkum Olam would be the Gaza Strip, and it would be particularly appropriate for Israel to be the country to start the process.

Jeffrey Harris

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September 2008

Our guest this month is Amy Hornburg Heilveil

The visit to the Fennimore Museum's exhibit "Gilded Lions and Jeweled Horses" was a wonderful experience for everyone who attended. The main goal of the exhibit is to follow the use of animals symbols used in Jewish life (specifically those in the Pirke Avot quote, "Be as strong as a leopard, as light as an eagle, as swift as a gazelle, as brave as a lion to do the will of your Father in Heaven") through to their manifestation in the works of the carvers of carousel animals and in this, it excelled.

The exhibit began with two wonderful reconstructed models of early Polish wooden synagogues, the interiors of which were elaborately painted. Beside the models were photographs of tombstones carved with a variety of Jewish symbols. We then continued to a side room completely filled with beautiful paper pieces, most of which were paper cuts. The majority of these were Mizrach and Shiviti, though the piece for the counting of the Omer was deemed the most majestic. The exhibit then began looking into the use of these symbols in carvings. An ark contained several symbols and drew some comparisons with our own Temple's ark. We then moved on to carvings of multiple Decalogue. It was interesting to note the 'modern' touches that many of these carvings acquired – most notably electric lights.

From this point we could clearly see the movement into the carousel animals as the museum is fortunate enough to have a Decalogue, as well as a carousel lion carved by Marcus Charles Illions, the foremost carousel carver of his age. There was also a photograph of him in his workshop with the Decalogue over the top of his doorway. Our final stop was a display of carousel animals. We found many of the symbols and elements that we had viewed in the other sections of the exhibit on the animals or even as the animals.

Special thanks to Bernadette for organizing the delicious lunch on the terrace and the highly educational special tour of this exhibit.

Our Temple group was blessed to be joined by Amy on our summertime outing to the Fenimore Art Museum. She is very skilled with a quill and is now our Tree of Life calligrapher. She and her husband, Jeffrey, are accomplished bakers and their Challah bread is yummy. They live in Oneonta and have a two year old daughter Victoria.
 

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