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I still remember a June evening in 1967 when my
neighborhood in Brooklyn suddenly erupted into celebration.
It was the night when Israel had been victorious
in what has come to be known as the Six Day War.
I was about to turn nine, and was more interested
in other pursuits. At the time we were playing in
the lawn and hedges surrounding my friend's corner
house. That spring and summer one of our favorite
games was to play that one of us was God and that
the others were his agents. (Of course, since it
was his house the friend whose garden we were playing
in always got to be God.) On that night, I can imagine
that if we were to innocently tell any of our celebrating
neighbors that God was among them at that moment
they would probably have agreed.
Everyone we knew seemed to be swept up in the excitement.
Even though the victory was that of a country thousands
of miles away, one most of them had never been to,
all of these celebrating people were acting as if
it was their victory as well. For Israel was the
Jewish state, and as Jews, how could they not be
proud? It was the David and Goliath story all over
again - and it being just over twenty years since
the end of the Second World War and the revelations
of the Holocaust, it must have seemed to some like
it was an answer to a long and unfulfilled prayer.
My family was among those celebrating. It was one
of those moments when being Jewish seemed to mean
something. In our day-to-day lives there was no
connection - there was no impact on what we ate,
we never went to synagogue, our religion was a peripheral
part of our identity. But like the celebration that
June evening that seemed to come out of nowhere,
our sense of being Jewish would spring up on certain
occasions or in response to certain events, only
to drop away until something would call it forth
again.
Less than an adherence to any set of religious
beliefs, my family's "Jewishness" took
more of a tribal form, a kind of ethnic pride or
identity. Elections also seemed to bring it out.
When a Jewish candidate was running, it seemed like
treason not to vote for him or her (no matter what
political party they were running under). The first
election I ever worked on, when I was seven years
old, was for a Jewish man running for mayor. And
my family supported him even though our views were
more in line with those of the other candidate.
On one level this is to be expected. Most people
define their interests in terms of one group or
another. And if something is in the best interest
of the group you belong to, it is natural to believe
that it may be in your best interest as well. This
takes on an added significance when one is looking
at a group that has experienced severe discrimination
over a long period of time. When something occurs
to enhance the image of your group (like a victory
in battle) or increases the base of power (getting
someone elected to office), how can you not support
it?
But as most of us would probably agree, there is
another side to this as well. That other side is
where one simply takes a stand on an issue without
making an attempt to explore it more fully, because
that is what they come to believe is in line with
that group identity. As a result, you can end up
shutting out alternate points of view or ways at
looking at an event or an issue. Censoring out anything
that might disagree or come into conflict with what
you may believe.
I first fully hit against this about ten years
after that celebratory evening in June. I was in
college and very active with a number of left-wing
groups. I was approached by a friend about an Israeli
woman she knew who was going across the United States
to talk about the Palestinian issue as an advocate
for the rights of the Palestinian people. My friend
was wondering if I could help to provide a forum
in which this woman could speak. Knowing fully well
that this was a controversial and explosive issue,
I had no doubt that I could find an organization
or organizations that would be willing to take part
in a symposium or debate. I had been involved with
setting up similar events on other divisive issues,
so why should this one be any different?
To my amazement, no one would touch it. The Jewish
student groups, and a significant majority of the
people in student government, wouldn't even consider
giving her a platform to present her argument. Without
even hearing what she had to say, they characterized
her views as being full of misinformation and lies.
Other groups refused to sponsor this discussion
as well. Some because of her views, others because
it was too hot an issue and they didn't want to
risk alienating anyone. I also approached some of
the hard line left-wing groups, but in these cases
her ideological purity was in question. So to no
one's surprise but mine, the event never happened.
More to my surprise was the reaction that I received
personally for having even suggested that she be
allowed to speak on campus. My intentions, especially
my loyalty to the "Jewish people", were
called in to question. There were even some, though
few in number, that called me a traitor to my roots,
a traitor to my people. This reaction was especially
hard for me to grasp in that (as I mentioned) though
I was raised to think of myself as Jewish, it was
an ancillary aspect of my upbringing. And it seemed
to recede in importance the older I became. A large
percentage of our family friends were Catholic or
had no religious affiliation at all, my girl friend
at the time was Catholic, and my way of seeing the
world was growing even further from the inconsistent
and confused religious beliefs of my childhood.
My assumption was that my parents would share my
sense of amazement of the reaction I was receiving.
They didn't. They were more surprised that I didn't
expect such a reaction. While they didn’t
condemn the position I was taking, they couldn't
quite understand it. And I started to do what I
usually did. I dug my heels in and became indignant
how so many people can be so narrow-minded. After
getting over myself, I began to consider to what
extent some of my own views came from the same kind
of "group think" that I was so strongly
condemning in others. It was to a greater extent
than I had realized, and it was not often conscious.
It seemed that once I thought of myself in a certain
way, as belonging to a certain group, it became
"natural" to advocate certain positions
or believe in certain ideas. These ideas and positions,
when sometimes looked at closely, really didn't
seem to be something I could stand behind.
The hard part about trying to discover what it
is we believe, we not only have to go up against
the opinions and expectations of others, but the
opinions and expectations we have of ourselves.
To question our ideas and beliefs often involves
our having to question who we think we are. This
is especially true for any of us consciously journeying
along a spiritual path. If the goal of that journey
is to discover the true self, to become authentically
ourselves, then everything about ourselves must
be examined. And if we are able to pursue this path
with an open mind and heart, we just might find
that God is indeed with us.
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