Shabbat in Tel Aviv, Migrant Workers, Education, and Gays

On Shabbat morning Adam, the Fischers (board member) and I went to Yakar, a liberal Orthodox shul in Tel Aviv. I was familiar with Yakar from Jerusalem and didn't know they had a Tel Aviv "branch." The nicest piece for me was being invited to daven Shacharit. When the fellows arrived the rabbi met with them to answer questions about the shul and Judaism, and then they joined the service for Musaf and kiddush. On the plus side, lots of questions about what a Tallit is, they liked the musicality, they liked the food. On the down side, the (wonderful) fellow in our group, Sajida, who wears a head scarf (interesting story) felt that she was shunned by several by virtue of her dress. (She felt this much more intensely on the streets of Tel Aviv where she felt that some pedestrians would not answer her requests for directions and the like by virtue of her head scarf.)

We heard a lecture from a visiting staff person, Nira Yuval Davis, about an approach to dialogue that seeks to avoid the rigid assumptions of identity politics from an earlier period. Her approach is called Transversal Dialogues.

Later on Shabbat we heard a presentation from a former UN commander who has served in the Balkan conflicts. Among his points was the impossibility of assuring peace among conflicting sides when there is no commitment to cease hostilities between them.

We then heard a dispiriting presentation from an Israeli Jewish woman whose cause is protecting the rights of migrant workers in Israel. The story of migrant workers (Phillipinos, Thai, Ghanaians) in Israel is well-documented: after the Intifadas, when Israel no longer felt safe employing Palestinian workers, it began to issue visas for foreign workers. Short-sighted legislation and lax enforcement of laws to protect laborers have created a situation in which many such workers in construction or farming are at best indentured servants. The Israeli government and society needs their labor but fears their implications for the Jewish demographics of Israel. Thus, many are legal for a few years but stay on permanently (though at risk of deportation) without status. The situation is pretty awful and the Knesset has not stepped up to the plate to normalize workers' immigrant status.

After this cheery episode the group went to mass at a Catholic cathedral in Jaffa which caters to migrant workers in the area. I missed the mass because it was too far to walk on Shabbat afternoon, but joined the group in the cathedral afterwards and for dinner next.

Sunday morning we were off but I spent it viewing the film Eyes Wide Open - עיניים פקוחות because I was to present it to the group that night. It's an Israeli film (fiction) from 2009 about a gay relationship between two men in Me'ah She'arim. (Here's the NY Times review http://movies.nytimes.com/2010/02/05/movies/05eyes.html and here it is on Netflix - not yet available but you can save it for rental later http://www.netflix.com/WiSearch?oq=eyes+wi&v1=Eyes+Wide+Open&search_submit=.)

Each year the Summer School looks for an opportunity to present on gay issues as increasing gay visibility tends to be a challenge to patterns of coexistence in traditional societies. Four members of the group took the opportunity of an open morning to hop in a taxi driven by a relative of one of our presenters and go see Ram'allah. Their visit became important later.