History is a reservoir of teachings. For example, fusing together xenophobia, social unrest, racial stereotyping and sexual hysteria is especially explosive, endangering the marginalized others, the social fabric, and the political system as a whole. Looking at the rise of the xenophobic right in Europe,  it sometimes seems that many Europeans have forgotten the lessons they so painfully learned. I fear that Israel, on the other hand, has not learned those fundamental teachings at all.

In the last couple of years Israel faced a steady inflow of Africans, smuggled in through its borders. Their numbers are hard to know accurately, but the estimation is in the tens of thousands. Most of them are from Eritrea and Sudan; countries torn by wars and hunger. Many of them are asylum-seekers, who apply for refugee status. But the state authorities mostly refuse to examine their requests, as is required by the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (1951), of which Israel is party. On the other hand, they are not deported, and thus remain in a purgatory state in which they are legally banned from work, do not enjoy any social rights, and are pushed into lives of misery and poverty at the margins of society.

Hardly any asylum-seeker is granted the status of a refugee because Israel fails to fulfill its legal responsibility to examine their requests. Hence, they remain as asylum-seekers and are perceived as illegal immigrants. Many of them are crowded in the streets of southern Tel Aviv alongside poor sectors of Israeli society, sectors that themselves suffer from marginalization, alienation, and a host of economic and social problems. Seeing their streets crowded by foreigners, who allegedly steal their jobs and affect their standards of living, alienates those sectors further and flairs their anger at the government. Nothing new in the stratification of racial hate, unfortunately.

Recent weeks have witnessed a worsening of this explosive situation. Some asylum-seekers are reported to be involved in property crimes. Driven to hunger, they seize whatever survival method they possess, including theft. Worse, during May, two gang rapes of Israeli young women by asylum-seekers took place, very cruel and violent ones. And these rapes broke whatever restraints Israel society had. Racial and hate discourse erupted, and with it, violence against the asylum-seekers and those individuals and civil society organizations that help them. Molotov cocktails were thrown at apartments of asylum-seekers, violent attacks were directed at them, and a violent demonstration took place in southern Tel Aviv on May 22^nd.

The racial dynamic took an even uglier turn. Politicians rode on the racial wave and participated in the hate discourse. Some of them participated in the demonstration, leading the hate speech that resulted in more violence, lynch-like. Members of Parliament Miri Regev (Likud), Danny Danon (Likud), and Michael Ben-Ari (Eretz Yisrael Shelanu), participated. Regev called the asylum-seekers a “cancer,” and the others blamed them, and those who stand by their rights, as a threat to the national identity of the state of Israel. Ben-Ari accused asylum – seekers of spreading diseases and terrorism. And it is not only back-benchers who participate in this hate carnival. Minister of Interior, Eli Yishai (Shas) has been leading this campaign for a long time, demanding the deportation of all asylum-seekers. Yishai is the minister who is responsible for forming the non-existent policy towards them. Politicians, so it seems, identified the populist wave and decided to ride it to divert the blame for their failure to form a policy, hoping further to gain popularity by being responsive to the plight of society. Rather than restraining public discourse, these politicians decided to ride the dragon spewing hatred.

Well, there is nothing unique to Israel in populist politicians either. But Israel’s history is weaved with that of the Jewish people (and hence also Israel’s special role in the making of the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees). That should have made the Israeli authorities more sensitive and responsive to the call of refugees and to the dangers of racial hate speech. Yet, these sensitivities were silenced by the xenophobic hysteria that came to dominate public discourse, a public discourse which has been filled with adjectives echoing a long tragic past, resembling other racial hate discourses. If one would only change the nouns from Africans to Jews, one could easily be reminded of racial propaganda directed toward Jews, resulting in the worst atrocity in human history. From words to deeds: no wonder violence against asylum-seekers has erupted so forcefully.

Following the violent events of May 22^nd, the political leadership at long last woke up and started to speak up against racism, violence and those politicians who participated in the carnival. President Shimon Peres condemned them, and he was soon to be followed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Speaker of Parliament Rubi Rivlin, and many others (mute until then). May 22^nd might well be a positive turning point to a more responsible Israeli leadership and more sober and sane Israeli public discussion about the question of asylum – seekers. Yet, it might prove as another stepping stone in unearthing a history that ought to remain a warning signal, not a road map. History is a reservoir of teachings. But the lessons must be learned and re-learned.

Remember Preston Brown? He is the senior lifeguard at the Theodore Young Community Center, where I go for my daily swim. For a long time, Preston and I have been joking around about current events, joking with a serious punch. I play the role of the privileged white liberal, he, the skeptical black man. We first developed our parts in a year-long confrontation over the Obama candidacy. The skeptical Preston laughed at my conviction that Obama would be the Democratic nominee, and he thought it was absolutely hysterical that I thought that Americans would likely elect either a black man or a white woman to be President. As I have reported here, we made a couple of bets, which became the source of general community interest, and which Preston, to the surprise of many, paid up. We had a nice lunch at Applebee’s. It ironically, but presciently, ended with a small racist gesture coming from our waiter. We celebrated together, and we sadly noted that while things had changed, the change had its limits.

As a participant observer of Solidarność in Poland, the great social movement that significantly contributed to the end of Communism around the old Soviet bloc, I appreciate limited revolutions. Solidarność called for a self-limiting revolution. Perhaps this is even the time that I should approve of Lenin: “two steps forward, one step back.” Yet, I must admit, I have been disappointed with the stubborn and sometimes very ugly persistence of open racism after the momentous election of President Obama. While I think there is more to the Tea Party than racism, the calls to “take our country back” and the refusal of many to recognize Obama’s legitimacy have been extremely unsettling. Preston’s skeptical view was wrong about the majority of Americans, but he was right about a significant minority. And his concerns have a lot to do with the recent doings in Sanford, Florida.

Yesterday, Preston and I had a brief discussion about Trayvon Martin, which revealed to me, once again, how it is that race is a very real and persistent fact of American life, and why it is that we have so many problems with it.

When I entered the pool area, Preston called out to me, “they got your guy in Florida,” kidding that Zimmerman somehow was my guy. He was trying to get me to engage in conversation, distracting me from my primary task at hand (getting in an hour’s swim, a bit less than two miles) providing for himself some distraction from looking at the pool for hours. I had a little extra time, so I went over since we hadn’t yet talked about the Trayvon Martin controversy.

I told him how terrible I thought the killing was, how horrible it is that we live in a country where such a thing is not only possible, but likely. I confessed to him how I particularly felt badly for Trayvon’s parents, and the parents of young black men more generally, revealing my age and despair, and my recognition that this is something that I did not have to go through as a parent.

He responded by pointing out to me that most young black men who are killed are killed by other young black men. And he continued, the problem is something that we can’t ignore and must address.

I then agreed but pointed out that recognizing that problem doesn’t diminish the troubling racism that was probably at the root of Zimmerman’s identification of Martin as a threat and Zimmerman killing Martin, and the police acceptance of Zimmerman’s account. He agreed.

On that note, I reminded Preston that I wanted to swim for an hour and that the lap session ended in exactly sixty minutes. I suggested that he could allow me to swim into his break, but he would have nothing to do with that.

Our exchange was short and to the point. It was based on mutual good will and respect, which comes from our shared experience. I think it is important to note that if he made my argument and I made his, the meaning of the exchange would have been exactly the opposite of what it was. Instead of being two people talking against racism, it would have been a conversation of two people constituting racism’s persistence. There is a complex relationship between text and context in the exchange, and our mutual understanding is built upon an awareness of this, and our willingness to say things that are hard to say, especially Preston’s recognition of the problem of violent young black men. It is a question of the interaction between who can say what, what they must say and how the must say it, as Irit Dekel explored in her post about Guenter Grass’s controversial poem “What Must Be Said,” and as is implied in my reflections on Poles and Jews.

This is how I interpret the importance of the national protests calling for justice in this case, including “The Million Hoodies March” just outside my New School office, which I observed first hand. That the mobilized included people from different walks of life, young and old, black and white, was crucial. Their co-presence publicly represented at least the beginning of the kind of conversations that Preston and I and many others are having.

These are the two sides of race and racism in America. There are the hateful racists to be sure, those who make racist comments about our President and fight to get their country back, but much more common and difficult is the racism that informs George Zimmerman and the Sanford police’s decision to take his unlikely story completely seriously to the point of not seeing probable cause. And then there are the people who try to work the complexities out, difficult as this is, with no silver bullet, including the election of an African American President.

BBC America recently broadcast Jamie’s American Road Trip. Jamie Oliver is not an academic, nor is he an ethnographer. Yet, he is an educator. His stature as a British celebrity chef, television personality, and food activist has given him a platform to explore important issues. Through his active engagement and his charitable foundation, he has helped find ways to give needed skills and jobs to unemployed young people, improve food services in schools in England, and help turn attention to the problems of obesity. He has tried to do similar things in the United States with less success. But his American road trip, nonetheless, presents a vivid portrait of American society through the special perspective of what and how we eat and prepare to eat.

Jamie’s American Road Trip began production in America shortly after Barack Obama became President in 2009. Through food and culture related to it, Oliver traveled as a stranger, and an outsider. He observed and asked this question in a companion cookbook, “We’ve all heard about the American dream … but what is the American dream?” Oliver locates this question within what he describes as a “kick-ass” recession and the election of America’s first black president. Oliver’s road trip to the United States is a backstage look at cultural issues in transition: the tough areas of East Los Angeles; a working cattle ranch and rodeo in Wyoming/Montana; the underground and immigrant areas of New York City; hard hit areas of New Orleans and rural Louisiana; a diagonal slice of the deep South in Georgia ranging from trailer park life to a lady’s tea social; and a small community on a Navajo reservation where a local chapter president is trying to preserve and revive tribal food and culture. Oliver helps us use small things to help us reflect on larger issues.

During six episodes, viewers encounter issues relating to: immigrant communities, gang violence, drugs, the hardships of rural life, homelessness, racism, economic hardships, the underground economy, problems with the health care system in America, failed and misdirected governmental programs, and the tensions between keeping traditions and the dynamics of change. As important, he also identifies efforts to address many of these issues through individual, family, community and organizational initiatives. All of this is served up through the way Oliver experiences culture, through meeting people, eating local foods, and cooking them. All six episodes of series are posted on YouTube. Taken together they present a portrait of America.

East Los Angeles:

In the Mexican-American community of East Los Angeles, Oliver experienced three family social events. Juxtaposed are the strong family support provide by the extended Mexican-American family; the tragedy caused by gang membership and violence, and the struggle of a recovering crystal meth addict trying to give a fresh start to himself and his child.

While on this segment of his trip, Oliver visited Homeboy Industries, an independent, non-profit organization started in 2001 (roots go back to a Jobs for the Future Program in 1988) by Father Greg Boyle who was pastor at the Dolores Mission. The mission statement is, “Nothing stops a bullet like a job.” It is a model community based program to help youths escape gang culture and became productive members of society. Homeboy Industries seeks out at-risk youth and gang members, and tries to help by giving them a new start in their job-training businesses. It is extremely difficult to escape gang culture, and this is one of the better models. Many of the youths are found during Father Greg’s visits to prisons and youth holding facilities. The free programs include: “counseling, education, tattoo removal, substance abuse and addiction assistance, job training and job placement.” Of all the youth gang homicides committed in California, 75% of them occur in Los Angeles County.

Wyoming and Montana:

Here we encounter a cattle rancher family and community struggling to survive as changes in America’s eating habits and the economics of ranching have threatened their way of life. Residuals of rugged individualism, camaraderie, the traditional family and supporting community are explored. A living vestige of one aspect of cowboy culture is witnessed through a young rodeo rider who aspires to be a champion. His avocation risks his life and limb with the prospect of little rewards beyond a sense of achievement, the acknowledgment of fans, and the possibility of relatively small prize money. Animal rights groups have organized to try to end rodeos. (To read an interview of Jamie Oliver about his trip to Wyoming, click here).

New York (Queens):

Oliver explored areas of New York City which are off the beaten track, but are extremely rich in diverse ethnic heritages, and offer experiences that may be difficult to find in Manhattan or elsewhere in the United States. An Islamic halal slaughterhouse where live animals are personally selected, killed, butchered and sold is minutes away from Manhattan. Authentic foods from all around the world may be found in restaurants legally permitted to operate, and in unlicensed restaurants located in unmarked homes that are helping to sustain immigrant families aspiring to achieve their dreams. A Colombian American school bus driver (Jorge Munoz), who became a legal resident through the 1987 amnesty program, with the help of his family uses his own resources to provide food to large numbers of immigrant day laborers, many of whom are homeless. Informal supper clubs such as Sunday Night Dinner in Astoria are appearing in people’s homes as part of a growing anti-restaurant movement that seeks affordable and more personal alternatives.

New Orleans and Cajun Country:

The destruction of recent hurricanes is captured by Oliver, as is the individual and community spirit that is helping the communities recover. These inspiring stories are contrasted with what may continue to be unsatisfactory governmental efforts to mitigate flooding. By focusing on the plights of engaging people and their struggles, the situation in Louisiana is humanized. For instance eighty-nine year old acclaimed Creole chef Leah Chase is a co-owner of Dooky Chase, a famed locale established in the tough Fifth Ward of New Orleans. The restaurant was an important meeting place during the Civil Rights Movement, and in addition to serving the local community, it has attracted luminaries from business, entertainment industry, and politicians, including President Obama. Relying upon herself and with the help of community support, it took her over two years to get back in business while much of her neighborhood remains in ruin. New Orleans is still threatened by Hurricane flooding. The levies were built to a height of twelve feet, instead of a safer height of fifteen feet.

Another vignette tells the story of David Allemond’s Cajun Café and Bar in rural Louisiana. It has been destroyed by hurricanes three times. Allemond credits people willing to support one another, lots of hard work and the help of God for making the re-opening possible. It is a rural community pulling together, rather than governmental programs, that helped him recover. Living for the day under the shadows of danger in Louisiana contributes to the local culture. That’s exactly what everyone did at Allemond’s reopening; and also seems to be the folk wisdom of New Orleans.

Georgia (Deep South):

Oliver’s visit to Georgia was a study in contrasts. Back to back, Oliver experienced the niceties of a tea and cake social hosted by an accomplished baker and her friends. They deemed it impolite to talk about religion, politics and the great recession. Then Oliver stayed for the night in a trailer park where the primary concern was unemployment and the great recession. Most of the men and women were unemployed construction workers. One disgruntled resident used the “N” word in a racist joke when talking about President Obama. This shocked Oliver. This is sharply contrasted with his visit to a pit barbeque restaurant where a family struggled to keep the business alive, and workers employed, including a black barbeque pit master who used skills and techniques which are traceable back to the pre-Civil War south. Oliver was shocked that health care insurance in the United States was in most cases linked with employment. There is also a sharp contrast between a rural family who was largely self-sufficient on foods they hunted, grew and prepared according to family recipes; and a soul food restaurant involving three generations of black women who despite the restaurant’s popularity among virtually all racial and ethnic groups were well aware of vestiges of racism that remained.

Arizona (Navajo):

Roy Kady, a master Navajo weaver who is also President (mayor) of Teec Pos Chapter of the Navajo Nation, helped open doors for Oliver. Kady has a passion to rekindle interests in traditional Navajo food among young Navajos who have been attracted to junk and fast foods with all of the attendant problems of obesity, diabetes and heart disease. The poor quality of the Navajo lands provided by the United States government sharply contrasts with the better lands that the Navajo were forced to leave. Kady is also trying to revive Churro sheep. For the Navajo the sheep are an important part of their traditions and way of life. The Churro sheep connect the Navajo culturally with their heritage through songs, prayers and ceremonies. Every part of the sheep is used by the Navajo. The U. S. government virtually exterminated the Churro sheep. This dealt a significant blow to the survival of the traditional Navajo way of life. Kady and Oliver used a donated geodesic dome greenhouse as a focal point to engage young Navajos in the growing and preparation of healthful Navajo foods. Navajo culture is struggling to survive. Tradition and modernity confront one another on a daily basis.

———

Clifford Geertz wrote in “Thick Description: Toward an Interpretative Theory Culture” in The Interpretation of Cultures, “… social actions are comments on more than themselves; and where an interpretation comes from does not determine where it can be impelled to go. Small facts speak to large issues, winks to epistemology, or sheep raids to revolutions, because they are made to.” Throughout Oliver’s documentary, small things help us perceive a larger portrait of America today, its perils and promise, its strengths and weaknesses.

When I first found out about the Rabbinical letter banning the sale or rental of property to Arabs, I noticed that my old friend and colleague, Nachman Ben – Yehuda, was quoted condemning it in the Toronto Globe and Mail. I then wrote to him asking for more extended reflections for DC. I received this post from him over the holiday weekend. He took his time, he explains, hoping for consequential official response. He offers his sober deliberate considerations. -Jeff

There are times and places where people like to stick together with their own flock, in defined, sometimes confined, geographical locations. In these locations, they live their own life style, with their own dress codes and eat their own foods. The Amish in Pennsylvania and the Jewish ultra-orthodox in Mea Shearim in Jerusalem are two examples. People outside of these communities and non-members may find it difficult to move and live in such social habitats. Moreover, in the case of ultra-orthodox communities, strangers who live in their neighborhoods and practice a non-religious life style may find themselves facing aggression and violence. I am writing about this to contrast it with the call of some rabbis in Israel not to rent apartments to Arabs in Israeli cities.

Israeli Arabs are just that – citizens with full and equal legal rights, and Israeli cities are not confined communities with a uniform worldview and way of life. Israeli cities, like most other cities of the world, are centers of diversity, including the religious and the secular, Jews, Christians and Muslims, old and young, Sephardi and Ashkenazi, etc. These cities are open. Renting an apartment is basically an economic issue. Making and publicizing a general call not to rent apartments to Arabs (or to any other culturally defined group) is quite simply racism.

The rabbinical pamphlet received very critical comments from some Israeli politicians and others, but this did not prevent activists from the Israeli right and religious right to stage a large demonstration on Thursday, December 23, 2010 in Jerusalem where public support was openly given to this pamphlet.

What can, or should, be done? I think two roads are open. First, the police could reasonably open investigations aiming to bring the pamphlet writers and their supporters up on charges of instigation or other relevant violations of the law. This is a route that will probably last for a very long time (investigation, charge, court, appeal). Those sticking to the idea of not renting to Arabs would probably invoke issues of freedom of speech and of Jewish identity (right wing religious “identity” to be sure). And, because tens, maybe hundreds would be investigated and charged, this is probably not an effective way. On the other hand, the public arena can and should be used. Many of these rabbis are paid with the taxpayers’ money and as such represent the state of Israel in at least some religious and moral issues. The state should demand that they retract their statement within a very short period of time, or else risk their employment. Moreover, the state should make it very clear, officially and unofficially, that such statements are unacceptable.

I have waited, deliberately, to respond to this issue, waiting to find out what would happen. Unfortunately, nothing has. In other words, those Israelis spreading hatred, intolerance and racist views against about 20% of the citizens of Israel may have learned that that they can do it and get away with it.

It is inconceivable that such a pamphlet or public demonstration would have taken place in, say, the 1960s. To my mind, this pamphlet and demonstration is a reflection of the increasing influence of the politics of hatred that is pervading this region. For many years, the common ideal here, if not the practice, was of peace, co-existence and togetherness between Jews and Arabs, we now hear more and more about separation and living side by side, with each side barricaded. The movement within Israel to the political right, and to the religious right, is the ground upon which such pamphlets of hatred, fear and racism have developed.

And it is difficult to change these people’s behavior. It is induced by two very powerful motivators: fear and hatred. The level of fear and hatred has not been counterbalanced by politicians who have real peace and mutual co-existence in their hearts and do their best to create or sustain the conditions, ambiance and situations where Jews and Arabs can live here peacefully together. The social and cultural change reflected in a pamphlet like this is a direct result of years of mistrust, hostility, terror, propaganda, and first and foremost a continued failure (some of it probably intentional) of regional politicians to exercise their primary responsibility to their people, to negotiate a peace or some political settlement to the conflict, to the benefit and well being of both Jews and Arabs.

Worse yet, as the top to bottom approach is not working, attempts to better the situation in daily life, a politics of small things as Jeff puts it, suffers a serious blow with such hostile steps as calling for, and actually not renting apartments to Arabs, and “explaining” why such a call is “justified.” Fear and hatred wins at the local level as it is winning at the summit.

The Translation:

In response to the query of many, we respond that is forbidden, by Torah-law, to sell a house or a field in the land of Israel to a non-Jew. As Maimonedes wrote: “as it is written (Deuteronomy 7:2) ‘thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them’ which means you shall give them no title to land. For if you do not give them title, their staying shall be temporary.” (laws: 77; 10, 4). And on that topic, the Torah warned in numerous places, that it causes evil and make the many sin in intermarriage, as it is said “For they will turn your sons away from following Me” (Deuteronomy 7:4), which is blasphemy (Maimonedes, 12:6). And it also causes the many to otherwise transgress, as the Torah has warned: “They shall not live in your land, because they will make you sin against Me” (Exodus 23: 33). And the sin of he who sells, and he who profits from it, is upon the heads of those who sell, God shall have mercy.

And evil upon evil, that he who sells or lets them rent an apartment in an area in which Jews are living, causes great damage to his neighbors, and for them it is said “and they shall trouble you in the land where you dwell.” (Numbers 33: 55). For their way of life is different from that of Jews, and some of them harass us and make our life hard, to the point of danger to our very lives, as has become well known on several occasions. And even outside of Israel they have forbidden to sell them in Jewish neighborhoods for this very reason, and all the more so in the land of Israel, as it is elucidated in the [Jewish book of law] Shulhan Aruch (Yoreh Deah, 151) that it is a prohibition that pertains both to the realm of actions between man and God and that between man and his fellow man.

And it is well known that renting or selling even one apartment causes all of the neighbors’ apartments’ prices to go down, even when initially the renters or buyers seem nice. And he who rents or sells first thus causes his neighbors great loss, and his sin is too great to bear. And who let him do such a thing? And he causes others to sell their property after him, to take flight from the place. And those who follow him in selling to non-Jews, they compound the grave sin that is the responsibility of all.

And if this foreigner is violent and harasses his neighbors, then it was already elucidated in the Shulhan Aruch that all who sell to him should be excommunicated!! And that until the seller undoes this evil, even if that costs him much money. (Yoreh Deah 344: 43). And in our days, as it is well known, we do not excommunicate, as excommunication is of grave consequence.  However, his neighbors must talk to him and warn him, first in private, and if that doesn’t work, they are then allowed to make his name public. And to stay away from him socially, and to avoid having any business relations with him, and not to give him any honors in reading the Torah in synagogue, and other such measures. And that until he changes his decision on this issue that causes great harm to the many. And those who listen to us shall dwell in peace. Amen, may it be God’s will.

Reflections

You may ask why it is important to know exactly what the rabbis wrote. We know the gist of it already. However, there are a couple of things that I think could be noted if you actually do pay attention to it:

The letter begins in ordinary rabbinic fashion, with quotes from the Bible and from Maimonedes (and later from the “Shulhan Aruch,” which is a compilation of laws based on major interpretations of the Talmud). As many have opined based on this, the fact that these rabbis decreed that it is “prohibited” to sell to a non-Jew is not that surprising. There are plenty of sources they could use. Indeed, there was actually a short letter written a few years ago, that somehow did not make it to the news, that said basically the same, signed by 5-6 major rabbis. This does not make it less racist of course.

But now note the third paragraph. Here, suddenly, the rhetoric slightly changes to talk about real-estate prices, and the dangers of Jewish-flight (seems like this could be written by any white supremacist, just change “non-Jew” to Black, and “Jew” to White). Interesting that the rabbis’ letter so seamlessly articulate the presumably religious with the patently racist.

Last, and perhaps most troubling, the rabbis note that though official excommunication does not exist anymore in the Orthodox world, they recommend that people basically cut all social ties with those who sell or rent to Arabs. This, from people who receive their salary from the state (though not hired directly by the state, but through the rabbinate).

There are other things in the letter that deserve attention, but I leave the readers with the following: a week after the publication of this letter the following text appeared on posters all over Bat-Yam, a city adjacent to Tel-Aviv:

They will not hit on my sister!!!

What would you do if an Arab would hit on your sister?

We Make an End to it!

We became aware that of late there is a rise in a saddening phenomenon:hundreds of girls from Bat-Yam and the center are seeing Arabs. They assimilate into us, and their confidence is rising.

Let’s make an end to it!

Let’s shatter their confidence!

Jews, let us win!