Israel

Allan and I used to listen to Dennis Prager frequently when we were first married. He had several radio shows in the Los Angeles area including Religion on the Line. I have heard Prager speak on Israel and about his Jewish faith, so for this blog I looked for something he has done recently and found his remarkable talk called “Happiness is Not a Feeling: It's a Moral Obligation” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRjKnLIJXKw

Dennis Prager’s message of behavior over feelings reminds me of a Jewish friend who was going through a divorce. She processed her emotions with a counselor to clarify her thoughts before she talked with her husband. She didn’t want to say anything she regretted later. I see her action as highly ethical. As a spiritual descendant of the Judeo-Christian tradition, I value these ethics and I resonate with the stories both from the country of Israel and Jews in diaspora.

I am aware that not all Jews are Israelis and not all Israelis are Jews. Israel is home to people who practice diverse faiths and people who don’t practice any faith. This is well illustrated in a book my hiking partner Ron recommends: Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths by Karen Armstrong. However, as Israel is a Jewish and democratic state, I’m going to spend time on Israel as a country in antiquity and a country in the present, as well as on the Jewish diaspora in between these time periods and in California today. We’ll visit Palestine when we get to P in our alphabetical list.

Israel in Antiquity

For those who didn’t grow up with as many Bible stories as I did, this overview of early Judaism in Israel by the Khan Academy is a useful starting point: https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/world-history/ancient-medieval/judaism/v/overview-of-early-judaism-part-1. To learn more detail about Israel in antiquity, one can read the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings. The full text is found here and anyone who has spent time in reading the Christian Bible will recognize that much is shared between the two religions: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-tanakh-full-text

There are also many movies and lectures about these works. I linked to a movie about Abraham in my blog on Iraq. Here are more movies with stories originating in the ancient land of Israel:

· Joseph, King of Dreams is an animated movie my children often watched while growing up. It can be found on Netflix.

· My favorite Moses movies are the Ben Kingsley version and Prince of Egypt. They are available online for a fee. If you want to go back to 1923 and see the silent Cecil B. DeMille movie The Ten Commandments, it’s here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uU9qeFFQ90

· If you search YouTube for Bible Collection, you’ll find more movies including those covering David, Solomon, Esther, and Jeremiah.

· Kanopy has 36 lectures from The Great Courses on The Holy Land Revealed that span several thousand years of history.

Jews in Diaspora

A short blog like this can’t even start to tell the stories of Jews in diaspora previous to the formation of the current state of Israel, but there are several well-known and well-loved stories here:

· Fiddler on the Roof is a beautiful but very long musical that can be found Netflix, Amazon Prime, and with commercials at https://pluto.tv/on-demand/movies/fiddler-on-the-roof-1971-1-1

· Yentl is the story of a Jewish girl in a time where she must dress and act like a boy to get a religious education. It can be found on Tubi: https://tubitv.com/movies/305858/yentl

· Many years ago, I read the book and watched the movie The Chosen. Both are excellent as they present the story of two Jewish boys whose fathers differ not only in their interpretation of Judaism but also on how they value the possible formation of a Jewish nation. The movie is online here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvlUk0kwDoE

I had intended to visit the Museum of Tolerance and the Holocaust Museum in Los Angeles before I wrote this blog, but neither were open due to the pandemic. The Museum of Tolerance has an online video about the Anne Frank exhibit https://www.museumoftolerance.com/visit/exhibits/visit-anne-frank-exhibit/ and the Holocaust Museum has several upcoming virtual events https://www.holocaustmuseumla.org/upcoming

There are hundreds of holocaust films. Wikipedia has a list (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Holocaust_films). They are painful to watch, but if you are ready for it, Schindler’s List is among the best.

Israel in the Present

After Israel as a nation was formed, there was a need to defend the young state and the people who had flocked there for safety after the holocaust. To represent this time period, I read and was fascinated by Hunting Eichmann: How a Band of Survivors and a Young Spy Agency Chased Down the World's Most Notorious Nazi by Neal Bascomb. The movie Operation Finale on Netflix also tells the story of Eichmann’s capture. Another book with similar stories is Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel's Targeted Assassinations by Ronen Bergman. I haven’t read the second book, but I found the interview with the author interesting: https://www.c-span.org/video/?456776-2/rise-kill-first.

As we move into the present, there are many more online resources to travel to Israel while staying at home:

· Hello World on Hulu has an episode on Israel focusing on the booming technology industry.

· National Geographic put together a documentary on Wild Israel: The Negev Desert: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNMXtlUrpAY

· Shtisel is an Israeli television drama series on Netflix about a fictional ultra-Orthodox family living in Jerusalem.

· More recent Jewish shows on Netflix, Amazon and Apple are listed here along with how to find them: https://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/11-of-the-best-jewish-shows-on-netflix-amazon-and-apple-to-watch-in-2021/

· Israeli movies from this year and last are summarized and linked from this page: https://thevore.com/israeli-movies/

· For further works by Israeli authors, see Words without Borders with links to articles translated from Hebrew here: https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/find/languages/hebrew

The Diaspora In California Today

The Jewish diaspora in California today is active. I helped my friend and her sister serve at 42nd Annual Sacramento Jewish Food Faire in September, 2019 at the Congregation Beth Shalom in Carmichael. I served the corned beef and pastrami sandwiches. My friend brought the chopped liver and her sister baked the rugeleh. When I wasn’t serving, I had the bagels and lox, babka, and rugeleh. Other options included stuffed cabbage, matzo ball soup, and brisket.

It’s only fair to recognize that although the food above was taken to Israel and can be found there, there is an entirely different type of food that is native to Israel – middle eastern food. To try that, just this week Gladys, Joanie, and I went to Habayit in Los Angeles. Besides middle eastern food we might have experienced previously, like hummus, falafel, baba ghanoush, and some delicious soft pita bread, we also had an Israeli chopped salad and matzo ball soup. The other patrons at the restaurant all spoke Hebrew, which helped us feel that the food was authentic to what the community wanted.

Vonnett and I have also stopped by the Israel House at the Balboa Park International Cottages when they were serving honey and apples for Rosh Hashanah. Recipes for the items above and many more are given here along with additional resources on Jewish holidays, life passages, and study: https://www.myjewishlearning.com/category/eat/jewish-recipes/

In California each December, one can look for menorah lightings and other celebrations of Chanukah in cities across the state. Additional events include San Francisco’s Kung Pao Kosher Christmas, La Jolla’s Community Purim Carnival in March, San Francisco’s Jewish Film Festival in July, and Los Angeles’ Israel Film Festival in November.

Once we can travel again, the best places to visit in Israel according to The Crazy Tourist are here: https://www.thecrazytourist.com/15-best-places-visit-israel/. Israel hopes to open to tourism on July 1, but there are some restrictions so check in with your local travel advisor. Shout out to my favorite travel advisor, Kaitlin Darnell at Laura's Travel in Redlands. May the travel industry survive and thrive - may we all survive, thrive, recognize our mutual humanity, learn to deal with our conflicts, and allow peace and health to flourish in Israel and throughout the world.

Photo Credit: Sander Crombach https://unsplash.com/photos/uTjrKwK6N-s