In This Moment: A Rabbi's Notebook
Israelis opposing Prime Minister Netanyahu on the streets of Tel Aviv Saturday night, calling for accountability, democracy and victory.
It’s been a good weekend for liberal democracy.
In Serbia and in Brazil, right-wing strongmen and Trump / Putin allies were defeated, following in the footsteps of Viktor Orban in Hungary. And now, tomorrow is Israel’s turn to turn back the tides of fascism and authoritarianism, and next week America could follow suit.
“This shows that Trumpismo is waning, and it is our responsibility now to make sure that we kill the beast,” Pennsylvania Democratic House nominee Chris Rabb said after hearing the news of Bolsinaro’s defeat.
It is not hyperbolic to state that if the opposition does not emerge victorious tomorrow in Israel and on November 3 the U.S., democracy as we know it will not survive the next few years. Those who deny that as chicken-littleism have not been paying attention.
Those who are voting for any candidate that will perpetuate this fascist fever dream - who doesn’t understand in the US, for instance, that Trump is indeed on every single ballot from US Senator to dog catcher, in every state from Michigan to Mississippi, they deserve to be es into the gulags already being built, with no due process and no right to speak out.
Next Tuesday, I’ll serve as a Poll Chaplain at a polling location in Pennsylvania, to do my small part to preserve our precious democracy (I’ve already voted early). My job will be to provide a calm and welcoming presence for voters and where necessary, promote peaceful de-escalation and respect in and around polling locations. I’ll serve as “eyes and ears” to guard against any unexpected intimidation tactics that might pop up and to report any violations of the peaceful exercise of the right to vote. Here’s some more about it from a Minnesota newspaper.
Israel’s democracy is more fragile than America’s because there are few checks on the power of the government. The parliament by definition has a majority aligned with the Prime Minister, and the institutions that counterbalance it are shaky, though resilient. It was Netanyahu’s attempt to subvert the Supreme Court and judicial system that led to mass protests in 2023, which in turn emboldened Hamas to attack on October 7. The protests were necessary and helped to forestall, temporarily, the dissolution of Israeli democracy. If Netanyahu’s bloc wins tomorrow, they’ve made it clear that they will absolutely dismantle the judiciary and finish the job that they began before the whole region blew up.
And then they’ll finish the job of blowing up the whole region.
So it’s not an exaggeration to say that Israel as we know it will not survive another Netanyahu victory. I’m not sure Israel could survive a MAGA victory next week either - the last thing Israel needs now is an unchecked megalomaniac in the White House.
Fortunately, the polls reflect that sense of urgency among the Israeli opposition parties. And that urgency is also reflected of the return of around 75,000 Israelis living abroad to vote. If the vast majority were to support the opposition parties, as seems likely, that would add up to one or two more Knesset seats for the Change Coalition, which could be decisive in a close race.
Netanyahu also feels the heat, and he is pulling out all the stops, including attempts to drum up an attack on Iran - which the IDF chief heroically blocked this week - increased settler violence in the West Bank, and using social media to feed apocalyptic images (like Tel Aviv being destroyed by an Iranian nuke) to his edgy voters. He’ll no doubt also pull shenanigans at the polls and try to suppress Arab turnout, which could be decisive.
The opposition consists primarily of four large parties led by experienced military and political figures known for their integrity - especially relative to the conniving, shifty Bibi. They are also focusing in on two issues that unite most secular and traditional (but not Ultra-Orthodox): the need for accountability and in independent commission for what happened on October 7, as well as the need for the Ultra-Orthodox to do some form of military or national service. This has become a major issue in light of Israel’s exhausted and depleted forces during the wars that are still going on.
If current polls hold, the opposition might have just enough support to cobble together a government, even a minority government supported tacitly by the Arab parties, who are just as anxious to see Bibi go. Gadi Eisenkot, the leader of the party most likely to win the most seats and therefore the man most likely to have the first shot at forming a government, is seen as a man of stability and integrity. He’s a military man who reminds people of Yitzhak Rabin, not known for his charisma but able to make the tough choices on security while also seeking peace and better relations with Israel’s neighbors, unity within the country, and a rapprochament with Europeans and Americans.
What’s also interesting is that if this opposition government coalesces, because it will not be reliant on the Ultra-Orthodox, it may be able to accomplish a number of other goals that have been pushed to the side for so long, including creating a formal constitution, strengthening the judiciary and limiting the prime minister to two terms. It also might address heretofore forbidden topics like civil marriage and religious pluralism.
This is not just my own dreaming. Avigdor Liberman, the most right wing of the opposition leaders with regard to security, also represents over a million Jews who immigrated from the former Soviet Union, most of whom are secular. Many have questionable Jewish ancestry, which has created tensions with the Orthodox-dominated interior ministry on questions of personal status. Liberman would love nothing more than to change that status quo. He supports civil marriage, public transport on Shabbat in non-religious communities and greater flexibility in conversion. These would be a blessing for non-Orthodox (did you know that weddings I perform in Israel are not recognized by the state?) and LGBTQ Jews, along with the Russians - along with more recent Ukrainian refugees.
Israel could be instantly transformed. A constitution, which the entire opposition pledges to enact as soon as they can, would enshrine human rights, democratic values, equality and peaceful intentions, all envisioned in Israel’s Declaration of Independence, which would serve as its preamble. Here’s the key paragraph:
The state of Israel will promote the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; will be based on precepts of liberty, justice and peace taught by the Hebrew prophets; will uphold the full social and political equality of all its citizens without distinction of race, creed or sex; will guarantee full freedom of conscience, worship, education and culture; will safeguard the sanctity and inviolability of shrines and holy places of all religions; and will dedicate itself to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.
A great reawakening could begin literally the day after tomorrow. It could be a whole new beginning for the region, the Jewish people, the Palestinians, and the world. Two states won’t happen for a while, but lots of other goals are achievable.
Or it could be the swan song for a bold experiment 2,000 years in the making and 80 years in the unraveling.
That will not happen on my watch,
Theodore Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism, whose portrait stood behind David Ben Gurion as he first read that declaration in 1948, is not resting peacefully tonight.
Neither am I.
I know that I could wake up Wednesday morning to the apocalyptic hellscape Netanyahu seems to crave. I can’t even imagine how it would feel for me to bear witness to the self-inflicted shame that would have become of Herzl’s dream.
And next week, I’ll feel the same way if the fascist fever dream is allowed to continue here.
It is not hyperbolic to state that if the opposition does not emerge victorious tomorrow in Israel and on November 3 the U.S., democracy as we know it will not survive the next few years. Those who deny that as chicken-littleism have not been paying attention.
“There is no other country”
One of Israel’s great poets and songwriters, Ehud Manor, was furious about the first Lebanon War in 1982; what it did to innocent Palestinians in Sabra and Shatila, but also what it did to the Israeli soldiers themselves. Those soldiers had to bear the brunt of decisions made by people whom they trusted, whom they were sworn to obey. Those decisions placed those soldiers in the midst of a moral quagmire.
So, he wrote a song.
Manor actually wrote that song as a belated response to the killing of his younger brother a few years earlier, during another futile battle, the War of Attrition along the Suez Canal between Israel and Egypt just after the Six-Day War.
Manor later told an interviewer, “For many years I have been walking with a very strong sense of protest, that there was such a callous disregard for human life. They put our soldiers on the line of the canal in front of incessant shelling by the Egyptians, and they helplessly absorbed the blows.”
Manor was very mad at his leaders; but he loved his country. And so, he wrote his most beloved song, En Li Eretz Acheret.
When he died in 2005, the Israeli public voted this Ehud Manor’s most popular song The guy wrote literally over a thousand songs, so many of them immortal standards and much more optimistic.
He wrote Chai (Life!), for God’s sake, which was a winner at Eurovision, and, Ba-Shanah ha-Ba’ah (Next Year) the most optimistic, hopeful song ever written! Od Tireh, Od Tireh, Kama Tov Yihye – you’ll see, you’ll see, how good it will be – next year, next year, next year. While “Ba’Shana Ha’Ba’a” has a hopeful and nostalgic note to it, “Ein Li Eretz Acheret” is all fire and flame.
And that is the one he is most loved for. And this song, with its bone rattling pain and even shame – combined with an unbreakable, almost mystical love for the culture, the language and the soul of his people and his country – that’s the one that Israelis call a patriotic standard. There is no issue about self-criticism. No problem with grappling with Lebanon War and its stained history – this song would be probably banned if it were sung today at a Trump rally. Natalie would redact it.
But that song gained power over time, and like so many of our prayers and great poems, gained meaning and resonance through shared national experience. In November of 1995, after the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin that same song was chanted on streetcorners where the Israeli youth lit candles. They called them the candle generation.
While American millennials of the ‘90s were busy asking their parents for Beanie Babies and Tickle-Me-Elmo, Israeli youth were lighting candles on street corners and singing Ehud Manor’s song. They agonized over how things could go so wrong, how their beloved country could generate such hate – and zealots like Yigal Amir, dark souls who killed with such impunity.
And all we could do, as Israel buried its beloved leader and then endured a horrific string of bus bombings and other attacks, was say, from afar, “Shalom, chaver,” (Goodbye, friend”) echoing Bill Clinton’s eulogy to Rabin.
And THAT is the song brought out twice by Nancy Pelosi, after January 6 and then again after the Dobbs decision. Her favorite Israeli song turned out to be about America too. And now, that song unites November 1995, January 2021 and this week; it brings together the War of Attrition, the War on Abortion and the War on Democracy. These are the words that could capture the tears of Peres and Pelosi.
“We have no other country,” is something I can say this week about both Israel and America. I will not stay silent when either country has gone astray. And I will never give up screaming and shouting to preserve what is so precious - and to wake everyone up from their slumber.
We have only hours to fix what must be fixed. Get up everyone! We have no choice but to do that. Both Israelis and Americans can say today, “We have no other country.”
And democracy shall prevail.
