www.reformjudaism.org.uk

Consecrated Ground

Written by Julian Resnick Wednesday, 14 January 2009

I work a lot with groups from around the Jewish world. Groups who readily buy into the central narratives of the Jewish People. Groups who are clearly moved by their journey to Israel as the embodiment of the dream of centuries of Jews to create a place where the Jews would be able to exercise power and leave behind their centuries old curse of powerlessness. Many of them are unable to articulate what it is that they feel so strongly about, but it has become clear to me over the years that I have done this work that it is mostly about the pain of living without power; the strain of not being totally sure that things might not go pear-shaped after an incident which places the Jews in the limelight, like for example when Madoff was revealed as a corrupt thief.

I have recently had the extraordinary privilege of guiding two very different groups in Israel, one based around folks from Birmingham, Alabama and the other from Philadelphia.  I have just come from a wonderful 24 hours in Philadelphia where I spoke twice about what is happening right now in the South of Israel and Gaza. Wonderful because of the extraordinary warmth I felt in Philadelphia from the people who were with me in Israel as well as people I met when speaking in their Synagogue.

But it is about the second group I wish to talk for a few moments before getting to an issue which the title alludes to. This was a 'friendship group' of Jews and Christians based around a Reform synagogue in Birmingham led by Rabbi Jonathan Miller and their Presbyterian neighbours lead by their minister Dr Ed Hurley. I was reluctant to move out of my comfort zone, the zone inhabited by people for whom the Jewish narrative is the reason they visit. Happily I was persuaded by the rabbi to do just this.

We have to share our story. We have to share the pride we feel for the achievements of our society, many of them achieved in spite of a hostile environment. We need to be able to turn to our friends who share our values when things are really difficult as they are at this moment and remind them of the people they met, the questions we raised, the songs we sang together, the bread we broke together (did I mention the wine we drank together?).

What does all of this have to do with what is happening right now you ask? Just this: with this extraordinary group of people, one of the questions which we raise in a number of situations was the question of what it is that makes space holy. Is there something intrinsic in David's Tomb or for that matter in the Mount of the Beatitudes? What makes pilgrims return year after year to the Via Dolorosa and what is there in the Western Wall? We discussed and considered and came to a number of conclusions; one of them being that holiness was in our hands to invest in a site by our behaviour, and conversely, we suggested that certain behaviour possibly strips a site of its sanctity.

In this discussion we mentioned fro example the very problematic and at times violent behaviour foo the different Christian groups which control parts of the Holy Sepulchre. During the past two weeks we have learned from CNN and Al Jazeera, as well as from other media of Israel's aerial attacks on a number of mosques in Gaza. Some of the commentators have raised eyebrows about either the wisdom of Israel attacking mosques or of the ethical questions being raised by Israel's attacks. I would like to respond in the way we looked at this question, myself and my new friends from Birmingham. When it became clear that in each case these mosques were not only the place of sermons of hatred, but also the site of the launching of and storage of missiles, these places were by definition deconsecrated places. They has lost their claim to sanctity by virtue of having been turned into places of war by the Hamas. Hamas cynicism had already turned them into something other than a mosque. They had become a theatre of war.

Please do your bit to ensure that your friends and neighbours do not trade in cliches; to ensure that the facts get out.  It is not Israeli propaganda. It is clear from the video footage released when you see the secondary explosions. Do not fall prey to those who use unscrupulous means against people of faith by turning the notion of holiness on its head.