Hear, o israel--

Earlier this week I had the privilege of taking a group of Kol Tzedek teenagers on a field trip to the encampment at UPenn, where students gathered as part of a nation-wide university divestment effort. I had originally imagined it would be a quiet night on campus, marked by an interfaith prayer service and hopefully a chance to talk to some students. As it turns out, there was a last minute student march which led to increased police presence and a more confrontational tone. I kept the young people close as we took in the sea of flags, posters, and t-shirts, surrounded by many familiar Kol Tzedek faces. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, a young Jewish student put on tefillin and began shouting the Shema over the din of the protest. At which point the protest began chanting over the sound of the Shema. Our heads scanned back and forth as we found ourselves suspended in the political theater. 

When a quiet moment emerged, I gathered the students and we walked to a grassy knoll to debrief our experience. We were joined by another KT member, who is now a student organizer at Penn. The teens asked thoughtful questions about the goals of the encampment and the organizing process. As I began to recount the experience of the Shema, one of the teens asked if they were just praying or if it was meant to be disruptive. In the moment it was hard to tell. We learned that this had become a regular tactic for counter-protestors on campus, to interrupt the activities at the encampment by loudly chanting the Shema. Apparently the student organizers have spent long hours trying to decide how best to respond. Sometimes the crowd quiets. Sometimes they chant over it. 

I am still processing the cognitive dissonance of hearing the Shema and not instinctively joining in. Those six powerful words are meant to unify not just Jews, but humanity. And yet in that moment, they were divisive. 

Sitting with these students I felt the pain of not knowing who my people are. In a week when there are congressional hearings about antisemitism in schools and Israel begins to invade Rafah, it is a complicated time to be Jewish. The intentional fusing of Jewishness with the Israeli state has proliferated very real antisemitism. And it has also criminalized very urgent righteous protest. 

My week has been full of conversations with members who are ashamed and horrified by the actions of the Israeli government. They do not want to be implicated in this catastrophic attack on Palestinian life in Gaza. I have been called in to consult at my kids’ school in response to concerns that students of different backgrounds are struggling to talk about what’s happening in Israel and Palestine. 

Reading the news I find it can be hard to discern what is and isn’t antisemitism. Just this week I read an article in the Times about Republicans who are propagating antisemitic tropes while simultaneously supporting the State of Israel in the name of Jewish safety. 
It is a confusing time to be Jewish. I am a rabbi, and I barely know how to thread this needle. It is not new that we as Jews disagree about questions that are core to our self-understanding. It is also not new that we as Jews disagree so aggressively about Zionism and the question of a Jewish nation state. This disagreement long precedes the founding of the state itself in 1948. 

How on the one hand can I feel a bone-deep love for Jewish traditions and prayer, and on the other hand feel threatened by the sound of the Shema?

There is so much at stake in this political moment that it feels hard to know how best to live our Judaism. Whether at home or in the streets, I invite you to return to the basics. To the Shema. To the Holiness code in this week’s parsha. To the most foundational teachings in Torah. To treat others with dignity so that we can remain connected to our own inherent dignity. 

In the words of Marcia Falk, 
Hear, O Israel--
The divine abounds everywhere
and swells in everything;
the many are One.

May it be so.