July 21, 2008: Nothing good came of the Second Lebanon War

By Michael Regenstreif

By the time you read this, there is a good chance that Israel will have repatriated the two soldiers, Ehud (Udi) Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, whose kidnappings from within Israel on July 12, 2006, precipitated the Second Lebanon War with Hezbollah.

For almost two years, the Goldwasser and Regev families, indeed all Israelis and supporters around the world, held out hope the two soldiers would come home alive. Sadly, that does not seem to be the case.

“As far as we know, the two soldiers – Udi Goldwasser and Eldad Regev – are no longer alive. As far as we know, they were killed during the kidnapping or died from their wounds soon after the incident,” said Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert late last month when it was announced that a deal had been reached, through German intermediaries, for the return of the pair.

In return, Israel will release a number of Hezbollah terrorists, including Samir Kuntar, who brutally murdered four Israelis in 1979. That Israel has agreed to release Kuntar is seen as a concession that Israel has given up on recovering airman Ron Arad, who has been unaccounted for since being captured in Lebanon in 1986. Kuntar had long been considered a bargaining chip that Israel would use to bring back Arad.

The heads of Mossad and Shin Bet both opposed giving up Kuntar as it would indicate that Israel has given up on Arad. However, the Israeli cabinet overwhelmingly voted, 22-3, to release Kuntar in return for the remains of Goldwasser and Regev.

Two years of not knowing whether their loved ones were alive or dead; or, if alive, under what circumstances, has been a terrible ordeal. Last November, I spoke with Omri Avni, Goldwasser’s father-in-law, about the families’ very difficult dilemma.

“You don’t know if your son, or husband, or son-in-law is alive, or not; if he’s being fed, or not. You can’t return to the routine of a regular life,” he told me.

Hopefully, a funeral and period of mourning will bring some sense of closure for the Goldwasser and Regev families.

The apparent loss of Goldwasser and Regev is yet another tragic reminder that there were no good outcomes from the war in Lebanon two summers ago.

And what about Gilad Schalit, the other missing soldier? Schalit was kidnapped by Palestinian terrorists who had crossed over into Israel on June 25, 2006. They took him to Gaza where he has remained a Hamas prisoner ever since. Unlike Goldwasser and Regev, there has been evidence that Schalit is still alive.

There have been numerous rumours – all of which have turned out to be false – that Schalit’s release was imminent.

Many, including Schalit’s family, felt that the current ceasefire with Hamas should have been linked to Schalit’s release. Barring a breakthrough in the week between when this column was written and when it appeared in your mailbox, the ordeal of Gilad Schalit in Gaza and of his family at home in Israel, continues.

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Under the pressure of a continuing corruption investigation, it appears that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s time in office might run out in the next couple of months. He has been forced to agree to the holding of a leadership election in the Kadima Party he inherited from the stricken Ariel Sharon.

Labour Party leader, Ehud Barak, the minister of defence, had threatened to pull his support from the governing coalition unless Olmert agreed to a leadership election. Although Olmert, who professes innocence of wrongdoing, has yet to indicate whether he will contest the Kadima leadership, most observers think Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni is most likely to win. Israel could have its second female prime minister.

Livni’s possible ascension to the Israeli prime ministership, like Senator Barak Obama’s possible election to the American presidency, signals a generational shift with tremendous potential for the future. Will such a leader emerge from Palestinian society, a leader with a vision for peace and prosperity with the ability to inspire Palestinian society to embrace such a vision?

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On a lighter note, a much lighter note, I saw Adam Sandler’s latest movie, You Don’t Mess with the Zohan, a couple of weeks ago. I’ve never been much of an Adam Sadler fan and have never bothered to see many of his movies. But, there I was on a hot Saturday night in July, laughing hysterically at the antics of an Israeli superagent, the greatest counterterrorist agent of all time, a man who can catch bullets in his teeth and twist his opponents into human pretzels.

“How long can the fighting go on?” Zohan asks his parents over dinner. His father’s war, after all, only lasted six days while he’s been fighting for years and years.

“It’s been going on for 2,000 years,” answers his mother, “so it should be over soon.”

Zohan fakes his death and heads to New York to pursue his dream of being a hairdresser. The film overflows with nonstop crude jokes, sight gags and all manner of Israeli and Palestinian stereotyping. But it’s funny; much funnier and much more entertaining than I expected it to be.

I don’t want to give away too much of the plot except to say that, ultimately, the film does have a message that embraces peace and love.

June 16, 2008: How would Ruth have fared at Bet Din Elyon?

By Michael Regenstreif

Last week was the Festival of Shavuot, which commemorates the receiving of the Torah at Mount Sinai. During Shavuot, the Book of Ruth, one of the books of Ketuvim – Writings – from the Jewish Bible is read at synagogue services.

Ruth was a Moabite woman – the biblical Land of Moab was located in what is now Jordan – who converted to Judaism. One of Ruth’s great-grandsons was King David, one of the most revered figures in Jewish history.

A lesson we learn from the Book of Ruth is about the imperative to fully accept those who, while not born to Judaism, have embraced it. Conversion is not a modern phenomenon. It has been part of our religion since ancient times. And were it not for conversion, David would not have been Jewish as the tradition dictates matrilineal descent. If he weren’t Jewish, he certainly wouldn’t have been king, Jerusalem would not have become his capital, there would have been no King Solomon and the Temple would not have been built. We could speculate endlessly on the what-if consequences of Ruth not having converted to Judaism.

It’s not only because we’ve just celebrated Shavuot that I’m thinking about the story of Ruth. I’m thinking about Ruth because a recent high rabbinical court ruling in Israel has called non-haredi conversion into question. The ruling grew out of a messy divorce case in Ashdod. The wife had been converted, 15 years before, by Rabbi Chaim Druckman. The Orthodox rabbi is the head of an Israeli yeshiva and has been the director of the Israeli government’s Conversion Authority for years.

The husband in the case argued that because his wife was not living a strictly Orthodox lifestyle, her conversion was illegitimate and, therefore, the marriage never really took place. The haredi – or ultra-Orthodox – rabbinic court agreed and so ruled. The couple’s three children, having been born of a woman now considered a gentile, were also stripped of their Jewishness.

The case was appealed to the Bet Din Elyon in Jerusalem, Israel’s highest rabbinic court, where the ruling was upheld. The ruling went further and declared that all conversions performed by Rabbi Druckman, or under the authority of his office, were nullified.

In Israel, there are no provisions for civil marriage. All marriages there are under the aegis of the religious authorities. Thus, all marriages involving couples where one of the partners was converted by Rabbi Druckman, or under his authority, were similarly nullified. The ruling, written by haredi Rabbi Avraham Sherman, further said that when converts from other countries come to Israel to be married, the marriage must not be allowed to take place if they did not “look” religious. Conversion papers from a religious court in, say, Canada or the United States would not be enough if they didn’t “look” religious enough.

The Rabbinical Council of America (RCA), a body that represents more than 1,000 Orthodox rabbis in North America, issued a statement that said, “The ruling itself, as well as the language and tone thereof, are entirely beyond the pale of acceptable halachic practice, violate numerous Torah laws regarding converts and their families, create a massive desecration of God’s name, insult outstanding rabbinic leaders and halachic scholars in Israel, and are a reprehensible cause of widespread conflict and animosity within the Jewish people in Israel and beyond. The RCA is appalled that such a ruling has been issued by that court.”

One article I read recently, written by Rabbi Martin Lockshin, a modern Orthodox rabbi who teaches Jewish studies at York University and who is currently on sabbatical in Jerusalem, spoke about modern Orthodoxy having to fight back against the religious fundamentalism being imposed by haredi rabbis on religious life in Israel and beyond.

The contemporary Jewish world is pluralistic. Some of us are very religious, others of us not at all. In communities like ours, we respect all Jewish denominations – ultra-Orthodox, modern Orthodox, Conservative, Reconstructionist and Reform – as equally legitimate. As the homeland of all Jewish people, I believe Israel needs to do the same.

In most arenas, Israel is among the most modern countries of the world. As a democracy, I think its democratic principles should be extended to the religious affairs of the state and that Israel should recognize the legitimacy and equality of all of our Jewish denominations.

I wonder how Ruth would have fared at the Bet Din Elyon.

May 19, 2008: Fugitive Pieces – a moving film adaptation of the acclaimed novel

By Michael Regenstreif

The film version of Fugitive Pieces, which opened across Canada earlier this month, is director and screenwriter Jeremy Podeswa’s adaptation of the acclaimed novel by Anne Michaels about the life of Jakob Beer, a Polish Jew who survived the Holocaust as a young boy only to be haunted by it through the rest of his life.

As the film opens, we witness seven-year-old Jakob at home in Poland with his parents and 15-year-old sister, Bella, a talented pianist adored by Jakob. From a hiding place in the house, the young boy witnesses Nazi soldiers murder his parents and abduct his sister. Bella’s uncertain fate at the hands of the Nazis is one of the things that will continue to affect Jakob.

Jakob flees the house and hides in the forest where he’s rescued by Athos Roussos, a Greek archeologist. Athos smuggles Jakob back to his home on Zakynthos, the Greek island that managed, against all odds, to protect the Jews living there during the Nazi occupation of Greece.

Athos raises Jakob as a son and, after the war, moves with him to Canada.

As an adult, Jakob channels his childhood memories into his writing and becomes an acclaimed poet.

His first marriage, to Alex, a woman who doesn’t really understand him, fails. But Jakob eventually finds love and the promise of happiness with Michaela.

As the film ends, Michaela is pregnant; she and Jakob have found happiness and are looking forward to the arrival of their child. It is an ending that leaves audiences happy for Jakob and his wife.

Fugitive Pieces convincingly shows how the psychological devastation of living through the darkness of the Holocaust affected Jakob and those around him, at the time, and throughout his life.

It also captures the trauma of other Holocaust survivors, like the couple who are neighbours of Athos and Jakob in Toronto, and whose son, Ben, finds with Jakob, the kind of relationship his father was unable to give to him.

Another aspect of the film that is particularly moving is the portrayal of the righteousness of Athos and the other Greeks of Zakynthos.

In the book, Jakob and Michaela are killed in a tragic accident and do not live happily ever after. After Fugitive Pieces was shown last year at the Toronto International Film Festival, director Podeswa and producer Robert Lantos – both the sons of Holocaust survivors – decided the deaths of Jakob and Michaela left film audiences too devastated and exchanged the tragedy for a happy ending; reportedly to the chagrin of author Michaels.

Despite the changed ending, and that the character of Ben, central to the book, is of lesser importance in the film, Fugitive Pieces, set in Poland, Greece and Canada, is a sensitive and moving adaptation of Michaels’ novel.

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The May 5 edition of the Bulletin was a special issue that focused on Israel @ 60.

The issue of Maclean’s magazine dated the same day had a front cover that screamed, “60th ANNIVERSARY: WHY ISRAEL CAN’T SURVIVE.”

Turning to page 28 of the magazine, the sensationalistic line from the cover is repeated as the headline of the article. But underneath the title is a qualifying statement: “Sixty years on, the country is facing a choice of two futures: it can be Jewish or democratic – but not both.”

Oh, so Maclean’s is really saying that Israel can survive by choosing to give up either its Jewishness or its democratic principles. That’s rather different than what it says on the cover and the headline.

But then, the five-page article by Michael Petrou actually concludes that the choice, of being Jewish, or being democratic, will eventually have to be made if Israel and the Palestinians cannot forge a two-state solution. Again, that’s a very different conclusion from what was said in the intro. And the intro, as we’ve already seen, was very different from the headline and cover.

That Israel and the Palestinians need to find peace via a two-state solution has long been obvious. It has also long been Israel’s policy and it’s what I’ve heard, for years, from most Israelis I’ve talked with. As U.S. Senator Barack Obama has stated, what is needed is for “the Palestinian leadership to recognize Israel, to renounce violence and to get serious about negotiating peace and security for the region.”

Shame on Maclean’s for a grossly misleading cover, headline and intro statement that did not reflect the article and fell far short of its usually higher journalistic standards.