Voices

The Jewish Press

(Founded in 1920)

Abby Kutler

President

Annette van de Kamp-Wright

Editor

Richard Busse

Creative Director

Susan Bernard

Advertising Executive

Lori Kooper-Schwarz

Assistant Editor

Gabby Blair

Staff Writer

Mary Bachteler

Accounting

Jewish Press Board

Abby Kutler, President; Eric Dunning, Ex-Officio; Danni Christensen, David Finkelstein, Candice Friedman, Bracha Goldsweig, Margie Gutnik, Natasha Kraft, Chuck Lucoff, Eric Shapiro, Andy Shefsky, Shoshy Susman and Amy Tipp. The mission of the Jewish Federation of Omaha is to build and sustain a strong and vibrant Omaha Jewish Community and to support Jews in Israel and around the world. Agencies of the Federation are: Community Relations Committee, Jewish Community Center, Center for Jewish Life, Jewish Social Services, and the Jewish Press. Guidelines and highlights of the Jewish Press, including front page stories and announcements, can be found online at: wwwjewishomaha.org; click on ‘Jewish Press.’ Editorials express the view of the writer and are not necessarily representative of the views of the Jewish Press Board of Directors, the Jewish Federation of Omaha Board of Directors, or the Omaha Jewish community as a whole. The Jewish Press reserves the right to edit signed letters and articles for space and content. The Jewish Press is not responsible for the Kashrut of any product or establishment.

Editorial

The Jewish Press is an agency of the Jewish Federation of Omaha. Deadline for copy, ads and photos is: Thursday, 9 a.m., eight days prior to publication. E-mail editorial material and photos to: avandekamp@jewishomaha.org; send ads (in TIF or PDF format) to: rbusse@jewishomaha.org.

Letters to the Editor Guidelines

The Jewish Press welcomes Letters to the Editor. They may be sent via regular mail to: The Jewish Press, 333 So. 132 St., Omaha, NE 68154; via fax: 1.402.334.5422 or via e-mail to the Editor at: avandekamp@jewishomaha. org. Letters should be no longer than 250 words and must be single-spaced typed, not hand-written. Published letters should be confined to opinions and comments on articles or events. News items should not be submitted and printed as a “Letter to the Editor.” The Editor may edit letters for content and space restrictions. Letters may be published without giving an opposing view. Information shall be verified before printing. All letters must be signed by the writer. The Jewish Press will not publish letters that appear to be part of an organized campaign, nor letters copied from the Internet. No letters should be published from candidates running for office, but others may write on their behalf. Letters of thanks should be confined to commending an institution for a program, project or event, rather than personally thanking paid staff, unless the writer chooses to turn the “Letter to the Editor” into a paid personal ad or a news article about the event, project or program which the professional staff supervised. For information, contact Annette van de KampWright, Jewish Press Editor, 402.334.6450.

Postal

The Jewish Press (USPS 275620) is published weekly (except for the first week of January and July) on Friday for $40 per calendar year U.S.; $80 foreign, by the Jewish Federation of Omaha. Phone: 402.334.6448; FAX: 402.334.5422. Periodical postage paid at Omaha, NE. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: The Jewish Press, 333 So. 132 St., Omaha, NE 68154-2198 or email to: jpress@jewishomaha.org.

Please join our Centennial Endowment

ANNETTE VAN DE KAMP-WRIGHT

Jewish Press Editor

On page 7 of this paper, you might have noticed the announcement for our Centennial Endowment drive. We were all set to do it more than a year ago, but we all know how that ended up. So here we are, in 2021, trying again. We’re asking for your help.

One of the ways the Jewish Press stays afloat is through support from our community, especially through the JFO Annual Campaign. In addition, we sell advertising, although to say that the pandemic has made that more of a struggle would be an understatement.

By growing our endowment, we do two important things. One: we set money aside for the future, — funds that will generate interest years down the road. When the current staff is no longer here (and someday we will all retire) the Press will live on. The second reason is even more important: planning for the future means assuming and trusting there is a future. And that is something we all desperately need to do. Enough of the nay-saying, no more doom and gloom. Yes, papers have been disappearing left and right for years. Yes, people read more online, advertising isn’t going well, we have heard (and said) it all. But after a year that hasn’t exactly been a party, we need to force a positive attitude. There is a great community here, the world is starting to open up again, we still have many stories to tell. Vesides, this community is vibrant; think of all the stpries that haven’t happened yet. For those stories, we need this paper. So we are not going anywhere.

“Maybe I am old school,” Jewish Press board member Natasha Kraft told us, “but if I want to know what is going on in the world, the state, my city, or my community I read a newspaper. The ones you snap open - it has that special sound

when you flip the pages and has that distinct smell of newsprint - that’s my first choice. If it’s not available, I’ll go to the online version. So naturally, if I want to know what is going on in my Jewish community I turn to the Jewish Press. Why? Because it gives me the information I need about the happenings in the Jewish community.”

You can help us by sending a check, or by going to www.omahajewishpress.com and making a donation online. You can help us by continuing to read the paper, in print or online. You can help us by going to our Facebook page and checking the announcements and story links, the random photos we share there. Go visit our website and see what’s new. You. can send us your own family photos so we can include them on the Spotlight page. All these are things you can do to stay engaged with the paper, and if you’re already doing them, please consider supporting us financially as well.

Natasha also said, “I’m very appreciative that the Press is available to everyone in our community. It is inclusive regardless of synagogue affiliation. Inclusive regardless of whether you have a membership at the JCC or not. Inclusive regardless of your socio-economic status. Inclusive regardless of race, gender, gender identity. Inclusive, period.”

It’s true: the Press is available to everyone within the Omaha Metro region; we do not charge a subscription fee locally. If we charged every single household $36 for an annual subscription, it would add tens of thousands of dollars to our bottom line. Why don’t we?

We don’t, because the Press should be accessible regardless of whether you can afford a subscription. And if you don’t live here, you can still read it for free online—you only pay if you want us to mail the print version. We like it that way. The Jewish Press has been here for everyone, for many years. Let’s band together and make sure it stays that way, no matter what the future brings.

Conditioned to Fear

My sister and I were driving around Omaha, wasting time, when we got to the intersection of 72nd and Dodge, trying to see how much of Crossroads Mall was demolished. Instead, we saw a “Pro-Palestine” demonstration occupying all four corners of the inter- SAM KRICSFELD section. At red lights, they Intern, Jewish Press would walk across the streets waving their flags and touting their handmade signs “Israel is Apartheid”, “Free Palestine”, and “Stop Funding Hatred”. Nothing is inherently wrong with a peaceful demonstration. But when Rachel and I stopped at the red light, we got scared. We have both been conditioned to fear those who criticize Israel because of our experiences online. Since the latest flare-up of violence in Israel and Gaza, neither of us have had a single day when we didn’t encounter a post containing misinformation, oversimplification, or outright antisemitism. I don’t need to explain how Hamas is a terror organization that uses children as pawns, or how Israel has attempted to make peace with the Palestinians countless times. I don’t have to explain that just because Israel has the Iron Dome doesn’t mean that it’s not at risk from the rockets, terror attacks and bombings. These talking points and arguments apparently do nothing on the internet. “Israel is occupying Palestinian land, murdering innocent Palestinians indiscriminately, and committing ethnic cleansing” has turned into an impenetrable argument for unswaying “pro-Palestine’ supporters. Hearing Israel called “apartheid” and “genocidal” and claims that it is committing “ethnic cleansing” gives me pain in my chest. Seemingly every other comment under a social media post about the Israel/Gaza conflict says it. Celebrities and organizations with more followers than there are Jews on Earth are posting anti-Israel infographics, leading their fans - most of which are uneducated on the situation - to believe that Israel is an “occupier” that wants the Palestinians dead. And when there are people who believe Israel is evil, there will be people who believe that Jews are evil, unable to separate the Jewish people from the Jewish state. Rachel and I have always known there are groups days by people sending her direct messages quoting Hitler and containing other antisemitic messages. I contacted my friend Aviv in Israel. She lives in the north and is safe from the rocket fire. She posted that anyone who feels the need to leave their homes during the rocket fire can stay with

A crowd protests anti-Semitism in New York City, Oct. 15, 2020. Credit: Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images who want Jews dead, but the anti-Semites had mostly been abstract, thousands of miles away, on the news, or in the past. We have both experienced very little in-person antisemitism in our lives outside of the occasional Holocaust joke, swastika in yearbook or errant slur. But now, thanks to the internet, we are starting to see the full extent of antisemitism. Rachel has a “friend” who claims that Hamas isn’t terroristic. Advocating for an organization that mentions the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” and encourages violence against Jews kind of makes you a bad person, in our opinion. Rachel, quite level-headedly, tried to address the “friend’s” arguments to no avail. I interviewed the owner of an Instagram page called “Jewish Pride Always” and learned that after she’d uploaded a post titled “Antisemitism is not going to ‘Free Palestine,’”,she was bombarded for her. When I told her about the media coverage and antisemitism in the United States, she told me that she was very much aware of the misinformation and disinformation. “But we’re used to it,” she said. All these thoughts came into my mind at the stoplight on 72nd and Dodge. Passing cars honked in support of the protest. Rachel and I should’ve had no reason to fear demonstrators at a peaceful protest, but we did. Here were people not hiding behind screens. Rachel and I had seen so much antisemitism connected to anti-Israel/anti-Zionism. As hurtful as the posts online are, much more hurt could be done in person. I was relieved when the light turned green. A protestor threw up a peace sign, and I wondered how likely it is that peace will ever happen.

MIRA SUCHAROV

JTA I was riding my bike last week when I passed a convoy of honking cars sporting Israeli flags and balloons in various shades of blue and white — and immediately felt a wave of clashing emotions. I felt the pang of recognition I feel whenever I see the flag that dotted the walls of my Jewish day school. And I felt a hit of nostalgia for the songs I sang at school concerts as we dressed in those same Israeli colors — songs like “Shalom al Yisrael.” But I also felt ashamed. I understood the convoy as I believe it was intended: as a statement of political support for the Israeli government, which at the moment was battering Palestinians in Gaza with an unrelenting assault as Hamas lobbed rockets at Israel. Nowhere was there any awareness of the systemic oppression under which Palestinians live. As the balloons flew in the wind, children were dying. This solidarity march on wheels felt wrong. I wanted to signal my despair and outrage. But I also wanted to be heard. So I shouted in Hebrew: “La’atzor et hamilchama!” — Stop the war! as I cycled into the intersection. I was alone in that moment, and I felt it. So I went home and posted to my Facebook network, among whom I count many North American Jews. “I think I need to start a new group,” I wrote. “A group for Jews who are committed to Palestine solidarity, and who love Hebrew and Israeli culture. A group that feels connected to the place.” I added, “In the Venn diagram I observe, there are precious few inhabiting the overlap.” Of course there are American Jews who love Israel and Israeli culture but despise the occupation. But they are all too often silent on the deepest, most entrenched parts of Israeli oppression of Palestinians: refugees, the siege on Gaza, systemic inequality within Israel. But the kinds of Palestine solidarity groups who advance the aims I would normally sympathize with have never felt like home. The Palestinian-based groups are naturally not focused on Hebrew and Israeli culture. But neither are the few radical Jewish groups, it seems to me, that are human-rights focused. You won’t hear Israeli music playing at their conventions — from what I’ve heard from those who attend, anyway. And some groups, while signaling that Israel should be a “state of all its citizens,” are not equally committed to Jewish collective equality in that land. Those groups don’t do anything to suggest that the language, culture and traditions of both groups should be nurtured equally. In the activism for which I yearn, the kind that places human rights front and center, I need to know that there are others, like me, who feel an ache in their heart when they’ve been away from Israel for too long. Who have a favorite Tel Aviv watering hole or two. Who find ways to stream the He-

brew versions of television shows before they come to Netflix. Who dream about the scent of the “refet,” cowshed, puncturing the air of a kibbutz evening. Who, despite decrying the racial profiling at the airport that public figures like Mira Awad have spoken out about, might drag out a conversation with an El Al agent in order to fit in another two minutes of Hebrew conversation before departing. I need to know that there are others who feel culturally invested and demand that any reimagined polity extends the idea of political community to both Israeli Jews and Palestinians. I wasn’t planning on starting a group. But as soon as I hit “send” on my short post, the responses came in fast and furious. “Count me in.” “I’m in.” “That’s me.” “I’d like to join.” So I delivered on my promise. Last Friday, I created a group, for now on Facebook. (Soon, I hope, we will export it out of the digital realm.) The group now numbers over 200, mostly Jews, who have pledged to support a society that nurtures and elevates the cultural and linguistic traditions of Israeli Jews and of Palestinian Arabs. Neither side, according to our vision, will exert political hegemony over the other, and the safety and security of both peoples will be closely guarded. We’ll demand an end to the occupation and to Israel’s siege on Gaza, and we will call for legal reform in Israel to bring about equity and equality for all its citizens. The Law of Return, which was designed to provide Jews a refuge after centuries of persecution culminating in the Holocaust, will exist alongside the right of Palestinian refugees to return. I know this last point has been a Jewish communal third rail, but we’ll point to projects like those of the Israeli NGO Zochrot that will help envision what the return of Palestinian refugees might look like, including restitution for property expropriated by Israel. We will condemn violence against all civilians while not standing in the way of nonviolent modes of resistance against occupation. We do not demand one state or two, though we note that calls for a “two-state solution” have served, if inadvertently, to entrench the status quo. As the two-state solution has become less of an apparent possibility, the demand for it by Jewish groups and others ends up implying that Palestinians should be patient. We cannot demand patience from Palestinians clamoring to exercise their basic human rights. And returning to where I began, we’ll look forward to a reimagined polity that elevates the cultural and linguistic traditions of Israeli Jews and of Palestinian Arabs. We’ll call for the funding of new projects that continue to produce fine Hebrew-Israeli and Arabic-Palestinian cultural offerings — including film, literature, television, theater and music. And we will welcome new synergies across these traditions, without one being assimilated into the other. Both communities and cultures must be encouraged to flourish. As for a name for this group, I’ve decided to call it Drachim (ways), after my favorite Israeli-rock album from the 1970s. But in this context, the word “drachim” will be much more expansive than perhaps singer-songwriter Shlomo Artzi envisioned when he sang about love and kites and childhood: It will represent a new path forward for Israelis and Palestinians.

Mira Sucharov is Professor of Political Science & University Chair of Teaching Innovation at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. She is co-editor (with Aaron J. Hahn Tapper) of "Social Justice and Israel/Palestine: Foundational & Contemporary Debates" (University of Toronto Press, 2019).

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of JTA or its parent company, 70 Faces Media.

A peace mural in Jerusalem’s Nahalat Shiv’a neighborhood.

Credit: zeevveez/Flickr Commons

SENIOR LIVING