From Jerusalem Post - Metro Supplement.  January 6, 2006

 

ISSUES

By David E. Kaplan

UNSETTLING

 ‘Them’ versus ‘us’ - Is the divide bridgeable?

 

hat’s the point in talking to them? They don’t understand and never will?”

 

This attitude did not cut with two former South Africans, retired acting Judge Henry Shakenovsky of Ramat HaSharon and Maurice Ostroff of Herzlia who some six months preceding the evacuation of Gaza, formed a group of English-speakers from opposite sides of the political spectrum to thrash out the number one divisive issue on the national agenda.

Last week at the Shiftei Yisrael synagogue in Raanana, the group met for the fourth time, the first since the evacuation. What was different?

“A dramatic change in focus,” says Shakonovsky who has acted as a moderator throughout all the previous meetings.

Early on the year with the disengagement edging inexorably closer, the group of mainly former Southern Africans, Americans and immigrants from the UK, joined fellow Israelis from both sides of the Green Line to exchange views on issues that were dividing the nation. “We also aimed to explore whether there were shared values that despite our differences, could unite us,” said Shakenovsky. The group has been newly named -  “Unity in Diversity”.

By all accounts they were tough meetings. Some who came to the first meeting said, “That’s enough, I’m not wasting my time again.” Participants were at loggerheads over fundamental issues. Even the choice of words by a participant could cause a furor. Was the Disengagement an ‘evacuation’ or an ‘expulsion’?

 “We wanted to move away from the ugly trend that had taken root in our society of demonizing each other,” explained Ostroff. “Whatever our political views, we set out to prove that ideological opponents could engage each other in rational debate and in a civil manner.” If the members of the Knesset were hardly setting an example, then this emerging group felt it was up to them to buck the trend and create a fresh dynamic of intellectual discourse. “Our aim was never to try and change the views of the other side. We realized that was an exercise in futility”, continues Shakenovsky. “We wanted to establish a forum for dialogue, where people would be free to express their views to an audience that would listen,” an unusual exercise for Israelis. What was most disquieting to Shakenovsky, was what he termed, “the dislike of the unlike.”

Former Johannesburger, Rabbi Bernard Paz from the settlement of Mitzpe Jerico, expressed at the inaugural meeting his distress “at what the disengagement is doing to us as a people. There is such an ugly divisiveness, a stereotyping of settlers and too little dialogue.” It was this sentiment of Rabbi Paz’s, a relation of the Shakenofsky’s that inspired Ostroff, Shakenovsky and his wife Ruth to call that first meeting.

However, so entrenched were some of the participants in their perceptions that they failed to recognize their own prejudices. Rabbi Paz was no exception. He refused to budge on his assertion “that the people on the Left hate the settlers.”

For Paz, “The bottom line is the different way people see Eretz Yisrael. I cannot understand how fellow Jews can be so casual in forsaking Hebron, Shechem, Jerusalem or Gaza. For me it would be like an amputation.”  Paz expressed surprise that so many Israelis are “cold” to this concept.

Former American Phyllis Bloch of Kfar Saba took exception to Paz’s implication that “I am any less a Zionist for not sharing the same passion for the territories...I always thought we’re more a people of the soul than the soil.”

Shakenovsky categorized the discourse during the run up to the evacuation as a “ Tower of Babel situation: Speaking different languages, we don’t listen to each other.” In agreement was former Englishman Rabbi Daniel Beller of the Shiftei Yisrael synagogue, who lamented “this lack of a shared lexicon. There is a humanitarian language in Judaism but what has happened is that the Left has taken the humanitarian aspects while the Right the more nationalist. The result is that we assume we are speaking a different language, whereas in fact it is more like different dialects. Sadly these dialects have become almost unintelligible to each other.”

And so this dedicated group continued to meet, sometimes in the Sharon region, other times at a settlement over the Green Line. “As a sign of mutual respect, we felt it important to meet in each other’s neighborhoods,” explained Ostroff. Socializing over a meal before each session, the participants in time began to warm to one another. They also began listening to each other.

At the first post-disengagement meeting last week, it was evident that much had changed. As Rabbi Beller expressed, “So much energy had been expended prior and during the disengagement, there was nothing left in reserve for the tragic fallout,” namely the current plight of the evacuated settlers, many of whom are housed in caravans, tents and hotels as they muddle their way into an uncertain future. “People today are not interested,” lamented Ruti Greenglick of Raanana, who works as a therapist dealing with the psychological problems of the evacuees. “When I approached a reporter for the Maariv why there was hardly any coverage of the conditions under which the evacuees are living, he was perfectly honest -  “It’s no longer a story. Whose interested?””

And so what had changed at last weeks meeting was not the nature of the dialogue but the scope. As Shakenovsky said, “We are not interested in the blame game. If we are seriously interested in dialogue, then irrespective of whether one supported or opposed the unilateral evacuation of Gaza, we should at least try and empathize with the plight, not of ‘these’, but ‘our’ people.” The judge chose his pronouns carefully.

So where as before, previous meetings took the form of discussions on the impending unilateral withdrawal, the Shiftei Yisrael gathering focused on hearing reports on the conditions of the settlers and what could be done to alleviate their plight.

For a first hand account of what life is currently like for an evacuated family, former South African Michael Goldschmidt and his wife Rivka spoke of their experiences. They had been residents in Gush Katif for 28 years. They are currently living in a trailer park at Yad Binyamin, a far cry from their 65 family strong settlement of Ganei Tal. Their story resonated with the audience as Rivka passionately related “how we never in our wildest dreams ever thought we would ever have to leave. We feel hurt and betrayed. We moved to Gush Katif at the time of Rabin’s Labor government in the 1970’s for purely ideological reasons.” They had opted to exchange their 127-sq/meter apartment in Rechovot, for a modest 40-sq/m home in Gaza. “We felt we were fulfilling the Zionist vision of settling the land,” added husband, Michael, who over the decades built up a successful business cultivating and exporting flowers.

While admitting he was touched by the tragic accounts of the lives of the settlers, Telfed Vice Chair Dave Bloom from Kochav Yair believed he was not hearing the full story. “I heard an awful lot of anger – anger against the government, the media and the IDF, yet not a single word of shared responsibility. I find it hard to believe that it didn’t occur at some point to these people that their lifestyle was not without risk. After all, they had been living there for nearly 30 years in one of the most densely populated areas in the world.” He recalled as a youngster at a Habonim camp in 1967 in South Africa, discussing the Six Day War and its aftermath. “We were a bunch of sixteen year olds and we felt that the captured territories would be used as bargaining chips in peace negotiations, not to settle.”

Also irksome to Bloom was the incessant argument that the settlers were encouraged by repeated governments to settle in these areas and therefore deserving of special attention. “What of the thousands of people, many of them new immigrants, that were encouraged by successive Israeli governments to settle in development towns like Dimona, Kiryat Shemona and Sederot and today are enduring unparalleled economic hardships. How concerned are we for the struggling residents of these towns? When I hear that some 300,000 children in Israel are living below the poverty line, should I be more concerned with the evacuees who at least will at some future time be handsomely compensated?”

Despite the divergent viewpoints, most of the participants felt that whether they agreed or disagreed with the disengagement, the government owed a responsibility to the evacuees. They were disturbed to learn of the “horrendous bureaucratic hurdles” placed in the path for relief and felt that the media, which had a field day at the time of the disengagement, have shamefully ignored its tragic aftermath. “We need to ensure this matter is not left on the backburner,” said Shakenovsky. “This is not a political issue but a humanitarian one.”

“It’s about Jewish values,” added Rabbi Paz. “Jews should not let their fellow Jews down in times of need.”

And yet, at the back of everyone’s mind was “The West Bank?” Whereas at previous meetings, there were many who believed that the evacuation of Gaza would not take place - even alluding to divine intervention - no allusions remain as to the future.

“Whose next?” bellowed Rivka Goldschmidt to an audience that knew that there would be many more such meetings in the future.

 

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