In much the same way as donating to one charity often leads to appeals from many related charities, especially in the Jewish world, I recently received an email from a new Jewish pro-Israel multidisciplinary journal called Kaleidoscope (linked to Habonim Dror internationally) inviting me to share their link with friends and perhaps consider submitting an article or letter to the editor.

I shared their link as a professional courtesy, although I am not affiliated with their movement Habonim Dror nor with Israel’s related (defunct) leftist Zionist Socialist political party Meretz.  I took a cursory look at this new publication and wish them well in their endeavors, but I do not share their political orientation.  I cannot imagine submitting articles there in future, and do not need the approval of their editorial board, but thank them for their invitation nonetheless.

I am not sure why I was contacted.  Although Meretz is linked to LGBTQ Pride celebrations in Israel, especially in Tel Aviv, I have largely disengaged from the LGBTQ community in Canada and internationally.  Although I am a human rights advocate and legal scholar I am not affiliated with leftist political movements.

I suspect a potential form of ‘tokenism’ – perhaps this journal is seeking more female, feminist, LGBTQ and Jewishly educated pro-Israel human rights oriented scholarly contributors, and my name came to mind.  Some of its Canadian contributors are people I have known in my advocacy work in Toronto.

I do support the stated intentions of this new Kaleidoscope journal of the Habonim and Meretz movements to confront ‘populist’ movements contributing to anti-semitism and related hate crimes and harassment, on both the radical left and on the far right.

However, in our current circumstances, I do not believe mass cultural movements of any stripe, however fervent, would be sufficient to turn this anti-semitic tide ideologically and politically.  Innovation usually arises from below, from the lived experiences and creative actions of ordinary people.

The same innovation is encouraged in the Habonim movement, but it must be translated into meaningful political and practical action and the formation of credible communities of sufficient critical mass and popular electoral appeal. Not all populism is bad, although the Torah teaches us to avoid ‘following after a majority to do evil’ (Exodus 23:2).

Many have a misguided understanding of power and political mandates.  Electoral majorities and mass populist movements are not representative of democracy or political legitimacy, as any student of constitutional law, history and politics and the Holocaust should understand by now.

The same holds true in Israel, as anywhere.  Read Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy In America on the perils of the ‘tyranny of the majority’.  Some of these ‘democratic’ populists are dangerous, anti-semitic, sexist, homophobic, racist, totalitarian, corrupt and criminal, on both the far left and far right, according to Hannah Arendt’s political theory, The Origins of Totalitarianism.

I believe we must change the culture before we can change our political systems and legal systems, but the left has historically been negligent in its scrutiny of potential cross cultural interlocutors, potentially putting Jewish community members at risk.  There are often well intentioned but naive expressions of the hope for peace, in my view.  My political views are that peace is best negotiated through strength.  I identify more or less as a Centrist Zionist Hawk and rugged individualist and free thinker.

In the Canadian political scene, I am a strategic ‘swing’ voter, unaffiliated with any political party.  I have voted for different parties and candidates throughout my adult life, based on my choices of what I believed to be the best candidates or best policies of their time.  My parents never displayed a political party sign on our lawn or at our business.  We served everyone.  As my mother said to me, “I believe in a private ballot.”  So do I.  As the child of a Holocaust survivor I am notoriously suspicious of group think of any kind.

I have argued previously on the benefits of keeping a low profile and on the security and strength of pursuing one’s Jewish and pro-Israel affiliations, learning and philanthropy relatively privately off campus and in private homes in ways that cannot be threatened or interfered with by our adversaries.   This is also a proud Jewish resistance strategy.  But our well-heeled uptown Jewish organizations and self-appointed ‘leaders’ fail to see it, because it threatens their institutional status and interests, and nonstop publicity seeking, and perhaps because it stresses thoughtful individual autonomy rather than a superficial sense of community.

I am not confident in the current leadership of Gaza or Lebanon or the Palestinian Authority and am certainly not interested in being put at further risk by our uptown Jewish organizations who have often embraced these cross-cultural dialogues and put members of our communities at risk repeatedly, or have sought to utilize us as fodder on campus and in the community for losing PR wars on Israel whose actions we cannot determine or control and for which we are not responsible.  I am not interested in being exploited or having my community exploited or put at risk.

It is strange that we as ‘volunteer’ contributors to scholarly journals or Jewish communal organizations are expected to contribute our expertise without due compensation.  Last I checked, unpaid labor is a form of slavery.  I must still have Passover in mind!

I am not seeking notoriety and am fairly allergic to communitarian endeavors and committees of any kind at this point.  I never made a dime from my scholarly and community publications or human rights advocacy, and am becoming more security minded and happier in private life.

I did a little background research on the Habonim movement and should say that I like their orientation toward equality and human rights and efforts to encourage proud Jewish pro-Israel identities through cultural means including Israeli songs and music and studies of Hebrew language and history.  I also support their efforts to empower young people through summer camps and Israel experience trips, etc.  I have visited the Habonim synagogue in Toronto and liked it very much, especially the vintage Zionist Socialist Realist posters on the walls.

I grew up in a Labour Zionist family and JCC milieu, including our spartan summer day camps, which created warm and inclusive communities and forced us to become creative innovators.  I was the popular ‘singing’ counsellor and did two live shows for the kids playing Hebrew songs on guitar on my return to Hamilton.  However, I remain deeply skeptical of any and all ‘top down’ Jewish mass youth movements and programs attempting to engage today’s Jewish youth and to indoctrinate them into Zionist or any political or cultural or religious identities.  I believe in individual freedom of choice.  That’s a human right!

Perhaps we should try ‘reverse psychology’ with our younger generation, who are increasingly disaffiliating from Jewish life.  Let them see us engaging in life long learning, celebrating Jewish values and philanthropy, supporting Israel, and enjoying and developing proud strong Jewish identities, cultures, and communities, and let them take their time in deciding on their way to be Jewish.

I am centrist and moderate in my politics, and unaffiliated with any political party in Canada or in Israel.  I regard the right to self-determination to include intellectual freedom and freedoms of conscience.  Religious freedom includes the right to affiliate or not as one likes and includes the right to be secular.  Sadly, non-Jewish Israelis have greater religious freedom than Jewish Israelis.  The Haredi community controls issues of Jewish status and religious law in Israel.

Should Israel wish to attract support and donations from a largely liberal Jewish base in the Diaspora, it would be well advised to rein in Haredi excesses including assaults on liberal Jews reading Torah at the Kotel / Western Wall and on LGBTQ Jews marching at Jerusalem Pride and on female Israeli police officers.   They are a blight on Israeli society, and an embarrassment to Israel internationally, as are militant Jewish settlers attacking Palestinian civilians, along with Israel’s documented military excesses and human rights violations.

I would support a mandatory ‘national service’ non combat role in Israel’s military for all Haredi youth to relieve Israeli taxpayers and IDF reservists of the burden of supporting them.  If Israel is a Jewish state, and Judaism is pluralistic, then Israel must become pluralistic and more democratic as well.

Why not draft a constitution and stop weakening legal checks and balances on the government and army at long last?  Some of the behavior and comments of Israel’s political leaders would be grounds for calls to resign in our Canadian political system.  Why support them?  What value are Diaspora Zionists getting today in supporting Israel?  These are reasonable questions for any pro-Israel donor today.

Canada has had difficulties with attempted foreign influence in its electoral and political processes, and it is regarded as improper if not unlawful to attempt to influence the political or electoral processes of any foreign country.  So I won’t and cannot make political recommendations to the Israeli electorate for the upcoming elections in October.  But Tzipi Livni is my hero and corrupt macho militarism has got to go, in my view.  Draw your own conclusions.

I told my friends at the Times of Israel that my heart belongs to them, although they claim no monopoly on my publications here or anywhere.  I hope this argument is helpful to some extent and wish our friends in Israel safety and wellbeing and our friends across the Jewish political, cultural and ideological spectrum every success in their endeavors.

Stay well and strong.  Am Yisrael Chai.  We send our love from Canada.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)