Israel headlines I’d like to see

Israel headlines I’d like to see

By Gil Troy
Canadian Jewish News
November 17, 2005

An extended stay in Israel through the Jewish holidays gave me ideas for many headlines that we will probably never see in our crisis-oriented, sensationalist media. Wouldn’t it be great to read about the following, in order to balance out journalists’ caricature of Israel as a violent, tense, divided society:

• 1 million tourists visit Jerusalem in summer, discovering modern museums teaching powerful lessons

Jerusalem’s museums keep getting better and better. The new Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Museum – which averaged 6,000 to 8,000 daily visitors this past summer – is awe-inspiring. The new exhibits personalize stories of many victims while conveying the enormity of the Europeans’ crime. Yad Vashem challenges visitors with profound questions about good and evil rather than seeking quick intellectual, emotional or philosophical fixes. Across town, the new, interactive, Menachem Begin Heritage Center, which recently welcomed its 100,000th visitor, uses the story of Israel’s first Likud prime minister to teach about his lifelong commitment to nationalism, democracy, Judaism, and personal integrity.

• Children run freely – and safely-- on Jerusalem’s streets

Young Jerusalemites roam further and more independently than children in Montreal, one of North America’s safest cities. Israel remains sufficiently intimate, child-friendly and busy-bodyish that parents trust people on the street to protect their kids, if necessary.

• Conservative and Reform schools encourage religious centrism and pluralism

Bridging Israel’s religious gap, the remarkable TALI program helps 50 schools throughout Israel offer a positive and substantive Judaic education to more than 22,000 Israeli students, and the Troy family can vouch personally for the warmth, educational effectiveness and beautiful Jewish soul of Jerusalem’s TALI Bayit VaGan. TALI, the Hebrew acronym for “enriched Jewish studies,” is a project of the Masorti (Israeli Conservative) movement and the Schechter Institute. Israel’s Reform movement also offers a wonderful Jewish education to preschoolers at its “gan” in its Bet Shmuel Jerusalem headquarters.

• Youth movements remain vibrant and relevant in Israel

While Israelis have been “malled,” North American style, and become increasingly individualistic, consumerist and selfish, a significant minority of Israeli kids remain involved in youth movements. Israeli culture remains more hospitable to such communal activism, making the members feel less marginalized – and proud of their important social and educational functions.

• Tzedakah projects abound in middle class Israel

Israeli philanthropy is far less formalized than the North American Jewish fundraising machine, yet Israelis fund hundreds of tzedakah initiatives that fight poverty, aid terror victims and improve schools, among other things. Even the many Israelis drowning in perpetual overdraft somehow figure out how to help their neighbours.

• Religious and non-religious pray together at Kol Nidre

My family attended an Erev Yom Kippur service organized by Tzohar, one of Israel’s many bridge-building groups. Rabbis shrouded in white prayed next to young Israelis with flimsy kippot perched awkwardly on their heads. (My children were thrilled because we sat next to the great Jewish hero, Natan Sharansky, who symbolizes a constructive religious centrism in Israel. Sharansky spent years sporting an army cap after his liberation from Soviet prisons, triggering debates about whether this balding icon covered his head because he feared God – or sunburn).

• Silence descends as pedestrians and cyclists replace cars on Yom Kippur

On Yom Kippur, a hush came over the entire country. Even the overwhelming majority of chiloni – or supposedly secular – Israelis avoided driving. Everyone delighted as highways and major thoroughfares became pedestrian walkways filled with promenading pray-ers and beaming bicyclists.

• Israel awash in holiday spirit – for Sukkot

Christmastime is not the only time when the holiday spirit overtakes a whole society, as people drag lumber, greenery and decorations all over town. The rabbis say the amount of joy a Jew experiences during Sukkot determines the entire year’s quotient of happiness. In Jerusalem, our cups overflowed. From wild post-midnight dancing in Mea Shearim to the many concerts entertaining thousands throughout Israel during the school vacation, the exhilaration was palpable – and infectious.

Finally, I challenge anyone who might doubt this column’s accuracy to try visiting Israel – and judge for yourselves!

Gil Troy is Professor of History at McGill University and the author of Why I Am A Zionist: Israel, Jewish Identity and the Challenges of Today.