Can we dialogue and still respect each other?

I’m sure most, if not all of you are punch drunk trying to keep up to date,  day by day, with the news either here or in Israel or hearing  the latest words of wisdom from the president of the USA. We are probably all in ‘news overload’ and depending where you are on the political or religious spectrum you want to nod your head in surprised agreement or vomit when the next tainted news broadcast occurs.

So many of us feel can it get any worse?? Anyone on any social media, find themselves glued to their phone. We carry our problems wherever we go!

For many many years I have been involved in interfaith and intra-faith dialogue, meeting many people along the way who I have much admired and others who I hope to never meet again. Interfaith ( and intra-faith come to that) can be incredibly challenging. But for me it all started as a kid back in London, when my mother, at the end of Pesach, would prepare packets of 6 mazot that I had to deliver to each of our immediate neighbours, and explain that “these are our unleavened bread that we eat each Passover and my mum said is very nice with butter and jam”. What went through our neighbours mind I would never know but I was hooked on “reaching out”

It was many years later, over 35 years ago, when my dear father in law, Wolfe Flack, joined the Council of Christians and Jews, after he and his wife’s recent arrival in Melbourne and I started going with him to CCJ meetings. In the early years of the Council, which celebrates its 40th anniversary this year, any discussion on Israel was banned, and we had a Jewish chairman!! I really needed to change that when I joined the CCJ Board a few years later, as every  CCJ board meeting, Israel was the elephant in the room. And we did and after a very successful  Interfaith trip to Israel with 35 participants (actually arriving the same day as the Turkish Flotilla the Marmara was invaded!!) Israel was very much back  on the agenda. We have had and still have a regular number of Israeli speakers at CCJ functions: but then October 7 happened.

Straight after the massacre of October 7 the Jewish Christian Moslem Association  JCMA, that had been going for just over 20 years, collapsed, never to re-form, all over the inability of the leading Moslem members in particular, refusing to condemn the  horrific mass murders and rapes, whilst making the most obscene anti Jewish and anti Israel postings on their Facebook pages.

The CCJ held an emergency board meeting  soon after Oct 7 that was much more supportive for the Jewish members than we had hoped. Certainly, in the early months there was much more understanding of the situation in Gaza.

But as I reached out, outside of the CCJ, some responses were quite shocking, in the early months someone who had been heavily involved in inter-faith and inter cultural work queried with me  over lunch, just how many kids were really murdered??  implying that that a certain number was acceptable. Even worse more recently, after a short presentation to a group in country Victoria, one of the Jewish women, after asking my opinion of the Australian Jewish Council ( which I was not shy in giving) said “so where are the babies??” I looked bewildered and she said “you know, you have told us all about the rapes, so where are the babies??” When horrified, eventually I replied, , that the women were all brutally murdered, the look on her face is one I will not forget for a very very long time.

Maybe along the way we have made life difficult for ourselves and in my opinion the Israeli Government has not done us ( or Israel come to that) any favours  by providing a smidgin of truth to the vile hate vendetta to which the Jewish world has been exposed, by simply having antisemites quoting Ministers Smotrich or Ben G’vir or even Netanyahu himself. The condemnation by the ECAJ and even the Zionist Federation of Australia, of remarks from the Israel Prime Minister, would have been considered treachery 10, 20 years ago. Which actually did occur when, as JCCV president I criticised  the Israeli Government for its outrageous treatment of victims of the Maccabiah Bridge Disaster. All hell let loose.

At the recent Zionist Federation of Australia AGM in Sydney, almost every speaker including the  ZFA president, Israelis and from the USA, blamed the Israeli government for the failure of October 7 and sadly the IDF as well. Two sacred cows that at some point will face an independent enquiry of the truth.

Which brings me to Abraham and Sarah, the founders, apparently, of  the three faiths: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. We do know Abraham was a great host, terrific host actually, but we also know that he was prepared to sacrifice his son Isaac as we heard yesterday and passing  his wife off as his sister when danger was near.

What concerns me and I know many others, is his treatment of  Haggar, his wife Sarai’s woman-slave. Both Avram and Sarai are complicit in the expulsion of Haggar after she had conceived a baby son, Ishmail, fathered by Avram and making her the surrogate  mother. She is eventually cast out into the wilderness (Twice) many say to eventually create the beginning of the Arab nation. Isaac, Avram and Sarai’s eventual offspring, doesn’t come out smelling of roses either as he later steals Ishmail’s birthright for himself. Issac is portrayed as  being much weaker than his half brother Ishmail who we are told is a true hairy manly hunter preferring a hearty meat stew, they don’t tell us what  was Isaac’s favourite dish.

Hagar is not happy. Sarai is not happy. And you know whose fault it is, right? Avram’s! (And God’s for closing Sarai’s womb in the first place!) Listen in on this little conversation.

Then Sarai said to Avram, “This is all your fault! I put my servant into your arms, but now that she’s pregnant she treats me with contempt. The Lord will show who’s wrong—you or me!”
Abram replied, “Look, she is your servant, so deal with her as you see fit.” Then Sarai did! she treated Hagar so harshly that she finally ran away. Pregnant.

In later part of Genesis  Avram now Abraham takes back Haggar as his wife after the death of Sarah, interesting!

We don’t think about Hagar too much in our nice neat little bible story world. First, she is incredibly alone. There was probably only one person, a woman, in her life – just one relationship in her life – Sarai. Now the woman that she was closest to has hurt her – probably physically, certainly emotionally and verbally. She must have been desperate. She runs away into a harsh, deadly place – the wilderness. She has nothing. She has no one. She has no hope.

But for God.

So here we have: the worse acts of slavery, we have treachery, lying, weakness, sexual exploitation, deviousness, obsequiousness, almost everything that Jews will  later be accused of for the next few thousand  years, upto today! Actually written into the text of the Torah. I really don’t understand! The rabbis of old never realised that they were providing fodder for those who wish to hate and do evil on us?

I know the texts have provided a great source for rabbinic debate over the Millenium, but we are not the only ones who listen to or read them!.

When Smotrich talks about taking over the whole West Bank or Ben G’Vir boasts about wiping out the whole Palestinian people (as many on the far and not so far Israeli right would wish) the people they actually endanger is also, us, Diaspora Jews. It is these Israeli cabinet ministers, who get quoted back to us when we reach out to others, not the wonderful groups in Israel who despite all the bitterness between Jews and Palestinians still work feverishly to create bonds and lines of friendship, so that their children can grow up in peace.

Thankfully, there are people, many people, here in Australia who do not buy what is now plainly Iranian/ Hamas sponsored propaganda.

In early February  this year, the Australian Council of Christians and Jews together with the International Council held a three day conference beginning at Trinity College Divinity School at Melbourne University and ending here at TBI. The organising committee was very apprehensive as to how the conference would pan out and even whether the conference would hasten the closure of the CCJ altogether. The opening sessions certainly confirmed our worse fears as one of the  three keynote speakers, included much about Genocide, Apartheid, not sure whether starvation was included but it was all pretty grim. I prepared a long email in response that evening, but somehow ( maybe divine intervention?) it disappeared  off of  my computer but  by the next day a  whole line of people were cueing up to talk  and put  forward a good Jewish pro Zionist viewpoint to him.

During that second day and I give full marks to the two non- Jewish convenors, an atmosphere developed where delegates were able to express their true feelings and respectfully listen to the other people’s views. The passion was palpable! Delegates were really opening up. By the third day we all understood each other much better and to be honest understood how the barrage of TV news and social media had distorted ( to some degree or other) how Israel and the IDF were conducting the war back then in February. Delegates were able to separate their feelings for Jews here generally and the activity of the Israel Government.

Most importantly they were able to discuss issues in a safe and respectful way that can only bode well for the future. We might disagree on various matters but we now feel safe to raise concerning, even controversial topics without the fear of walk outs!! And it works both ways, unpleasant and frankly racist commentaries by Christian leaders can be addressed and the truth ( as we know it!) exposed and discussed.

Like many of you, to me many commentators on the centre right, and even very right! are now beginning to sound, at times, quite logical, certainly extremely supportive. Watching newscasts such as Sky News, again at times, can be good for the soul, as long as we can change channels before some of the more Trumpian presenters appear. But it  does make watching the ABC or SBS or heaven forbid the BBC news, far less painful.

But where does all this ( hopefully false) propaganda leave the Jewish Community? Will the anti-Jewish tide turn? What do we need to do as a community to get on top of all this.

Since October 7 two years ago, I and many others have floated ideas that could be useful in changing the dynamics. As I begin to write this drash huge anti-immigration protests are flooding our capital cities, most of them have been invaded with far right Nazi thugs. I noted with horror that some in the Jewish community were joyful that Nazi supporters were clashing with Pro Palestinian protesters. The enemy of our enemy is our friend! Really?? I doubt it!!

If we are to maintain ourselves as a strong Jewish community we must remain true to our Jewish values, values that have kept us going over the millenium.

Many of you will have seen or heard of the two grieving fathers in Israel, Bassam Aramin and Rami Elhanan one Jewish from Jerusalem, the other Palestinian  from Jerico who both lost daughters due to terrorist activity in Israel. I heard them talk a few years ago at King David School. In a very moving  film, made later by Esther Takac the Long Narrow Bridge  based on  the book Apeirogon, provides a picture in Israel of peace groups not letting violence and death lead to vengeance and further killings. Their two man campaign  has led to a whole peace movement.

Two weeks ago we went to hear two Israeli women speak at St Kilda Town Hall, Riman Barakat  who is a Palestinian Moslem living in East Jerusalem and the other, Peta Jones Pellach an Orthodox Jewish woman, originally from Sydney but both heavily committed to the Peace process through respectful dialogue within the Women Wage Peace movement  in Israel, but involving a number of other peace groups as there are  different Peace movements within Israel. Whilst I sat behind two people with keffiyehs around their shoulders, thinking this was going to be a really  unpleasant evening, it actually turned out to be quite uplifting.  Their real message was that if Palestinian Moslems can dialogue with Israeli Jews in Israel and get to know and understand each other then surely we could do the same here in Australia. They weren’t under any illusion that Peace would happen tomorrow and realistically not until the present leaders were replaced, ideally, in their view, by women!

What was reassuring, that rang bells for me, was the other message from both speakers, keep true to yourself. During dialogue don’t compromise your beliefs just to appear “the good Jew” but also don’t compromise Judaism or Islam for the same reason. Both agreed that the extremists on both sides in the Gaza war had bastardised their faith to suit their politics. But we need  to talk to our neighbours, even one on one can slowly change opinions and relationships.

But the biggest point they raised was to listen to the other. Listen.

When God persuaded Avram to follow in the way of the Lord and by doing so, God would create a whole new Nation for thousands of years to come at the very first hurdle Avram’s wife, Sarai, could not conceive, and thereby screwing up the whole  plan for the future! A plan for the world or at least the Jewish world, a new moral and ethical world! A world governed by decency with laws to match. A world that takes care of the weak and vulnerable.

So now derailed, serious action had to be considered. So what to do?

I really can’t believe that everything from here on, depended on the suggestion to Avram via Sarai,  “Go Avram, go forth and sleep with the maid”. And Avram, nobly obeyed. He performed for the sake of the Jews and mankind.

And thank goodness he did, as otherwise our story and Rabbi Allisons sermon yesterday, the Jewish story, could have began and finished in his hospitality tent.

Shannah Tova!!  G’mar Chatima Tova

Dr Philip Bliss OAM is the Chair of the Anti Defamation Commission and a prominent communal advocate.