Gilad Shalit-A Teachable Moment

For close followers of Israel, such people, concepts and events as Yonatan Netanyahu, the Law of Return, the Balfour Declaration—even Sbarro and Dolphinarium—are quite well known. For the majority of non Jews and even Jews, however, they are quite foreign.

Today marks the one week anniversary of the release of Gilad Shalit. His release provides Jewish educators with an opportunity to initiate important discussions with our students, their parents, friends and neighbors. Nearly everybody has an opinion about the “fairness” of swapping Shalit for more than 1,000 Palestinians in Israeli jails. And this complex is worth discussing.

Shalit’s release seems to have left many wondering who are the “good guys” and “bad guys.” Who are these people who returned home to a hero’s welcome? How was an Israeli soldier “kidnapped?” Why do Israelis go in to the army in the first place, and for how long? Such questions point to one important fact--many people don’t know basic history—of Judaism, Zionism, of the Arab/Israeli conflict

Helping teach these “basics” is a fitting tribute to Gilad Shalit. And let’s commit to educating a few of our friends—before November 2nd. This date is the 94th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration of 1917--the famous letter from Arthur James Balfour, the British Foreign Secretary, to Baron Rothschild, a leader of the Jewish community. It contains a famous line which is useful in our work with our students:

“His Majesty's government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”

In Praise of Rabbis and Cantors Who Are Willing To Think Out of the Box In Working With Children With Special Needs

When I started teaching Max, it was unclear if he’d even set foot in the synagogue on his bar mitzvah day. As his parents explain in this beautiful, moving video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIZU_AsOh5I, Max loves “Blues Clues” and is motivated by French fries. Aliyah l’torah and d’var torah were not likely to be part of Max’s bar mitzvah--we did not know at first what a Max bar mitzvah might look like. Max is a young man with autism and limited expressive language.

After several sessions working with Max in his home—singing songs, clapping, reading stories and putting “Blues Clues” on such objects as challah, candle sticks and a kipah, we began taking Max to his synagogue, Town and Village Synagogue in Manhattan, to meet with Cantor Shayna Postman. The synagogue had never celebrated the bar mitzvah of a boy with autism, but they were open to working with Max and his family.

Shayna knew of Max’s love of music and began playing guitar for and with Max. Max enjoyed looking at Shayna’s mouth as she sang—and he had a special pick for strumming on her guitar. Together, they sang the Shema. And played drums for Halelu. Little by little, it seemed Max just might celebrate his bar mitzvah in the shul.

On the Sunday of Chol Ha Moed Sukkot, Max entered the synagogue—with his IPad and headphone. He didn’t agree to wear a tie or jacket, but he did wear nice khaki pants, a white shirt and a kipah. The cantor welcomed the guests, and his parents told Max it was time to put away the Ipad. His family presented Max with a tallis, which he wore proudly. He carried a small torah, shook a lulav and etrog (for his Sunday of Sukkot bar mitzvah), and stood at the torah offering one word answers to the cantor’s question about things he loved (“mommy, daddy, music, French fries, baby sitter Stacy…”).

While Max did not say the Torah blessings, read from the Torah or deliver a d’var torah, Max truly became bar mitzvah that day. The cantor’s love for Max was obvious to the fifty guests in attendance. She bothered to get to know Max and appreciated Max’s abilities while also understanding his limitations.

Cantor Postman delivered a beautiful mi sheberach prayer for Max. My hope and prayer is that more rabbis and cantors will continue to create caring communities where the Max’s of this world will have a Jewish home.

This is a crazy inexplicable country

Photo of Gilad Shalit's helicopter
(he's in the one on the left)
taken by Lori Abramson
from her porch in Yokne'am

I thought about writing about Gilad Shalit's return yesterday, making this holiday a true Sukkat Shalom - if only for a moment. We had an amazing conversation in Confirmation class last night with our tenth graders. They were truly split on the issue of exchanging dangerous (potentially lethal) prisoners to bring one man home. They got how important it is for every parent to know that no price is too high to bring their children out of captivity. They also got how giving in to hostage takers may lead to more hostage taking and how releasing terrorists may lead to more deaths. They took sides. And they understood and were conflicted about the side they didn't take. They also understood that no matter their position, it was good that Gilad was finally home and alive.

Then I read this piece by Robbie Gringras on the Makom site. As usual, he is more eloquent than I could ever be. 

19/10/2011 | 12:21
Robbie Gringras 

We were driving home from Amirim when we saw them. Silhouetted against a dusky sky, two helicopters were climbing their way over the hills with the Mediterranean behind them. Who would have thought the sight of two ugly military helicopters flying north could make us whoop with delight and almost swerve off the road?

Gilad was on his way home.

We stopped in the local supermarket to do some pre-holiday shopping, but found ourselves drawn to the electronics section. There was a wall of plasma screens, all tuned to Channel 2, volume on full. As the live coverage showed the Shalit family clamber out of the now-parked helicopter and make their way home in convoy past the cheering people, we found we weren’t alone. Over forty people were crowded round the TV screens, their trolleys half-full, staring at the images as a grandparent might stare at the video of a grandchild’s first steps. 

We all shared snippets as we watched: how none of us had been able to get dressed in the morning, so fixated were we to the news; how frail yet indomitable Gilad had seemed in the Egyptian TV interview; how Iscar had continued paying Gilad’s father’s salary throughout his full-time campaign to free his son. 

 

Then we saw the family reach their house, shuffle through the singing crowds and the flying white flowers, and close the door behind them. Everyone breathed a sigh of satisfaction, wiped away the tears that had gathered or overflowed, and wheeled off back to the shopping.

And as I wandered in a daze round the vegetables and preserves, I jumped from thought to thought: 

1. This is a crazy inexplicable country. Strange wonderful things can happen here, though rarely because of strategy or logic. This place and this people is ruled by the heart, the spirit, and the soul. For good and for bad. It’s a ridiculous way to run a country, but we must work with what we have. Whenever we begin to talk about ‘logical solutions’ to conflicts in this region, or ‘mutual interests’, we must learn a lesson from this prisoner exchange. For sure politics and interests were involved, but the engine was more emotional and spiritual than rational.
   
   
2. How often in the past few decades has this country shed tears of happiness? I guess it is a rare thing for any country to elicit what is, generally speaking, a family kind of emotion. But tears of sadness, despair, and even rage flow in abundance here. Yesterday the tears were happy, and they were shed both by Israelis and by Palestinians.
   
   
3. We didn’t see much of the Palestinians’ celebrations. To see that you needed to switch to CNN or BBC, because Israeli TV wasn’t interested. I normally rail against this insularity, but not yesterday. The many families whose loved ones were blown to pieces by the same people hailed as released heroes in Gaza, did not need to have those images pushed in their faces. None of us did.
   
   
4. Which led me to wondering about this unique occurrence, a day when both Israelis and Palestinians are celebrating the same event. It doesn’t necessarily mean anything. If past experience is anything to go by, it probably will change little, but it’s worth noting nevertheless. Sometimes a light in the darkness is just a flash of a gun, but sometimes it can be a lighthouse, and sometimes it can signal the distant end of a tunnel.