Below are the materials for your salon group’s spring topic. Your salon group’s facilitator will be scheduling your meeting to discuss these materials in April or May. If you are not in a salon group and would like to join one, please email ManyVoices@bethemet.org
Before your salon group meets, each person should have a conversation with someone they believe has a different view on the conflict (perhaps the same person they talked with about generational differences). Discuss and reflect on:
How has your view of Israel and Zionism evolved over your lifetime, and why?
How do you label yourself related to being Jewish, and why? [eg, secular, religious, reform, something else]
How do you label yourself related to Israel, and why? [e.g., Zionist, anti-Zionist, Non-Zionist, something else … is there a way to describe this that goes beyond binaries thinking?]
What are you most concerned about related to what is going on in the region today?
What is difficult or challenging for you when you hear about views that are different from yours?
Read/view/listen to the materials selected by your salon facilitators in preparation for your salon group meeting. We hope you find some content that makes you feel uncomfortable!
“Israelism” (February 2023)
When two young American Jews witness the way Israel treats Palestinians, their thoughts become conflicted. They are raised to unconditionally love Israel, but a deepening generational divide grows over modern Jewish identity.
(Also available for rent on Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, and other platforms)
“Young Jews are fleeing Jewish institutions: Here’s how to keep them” (May 2024)
Rabbi Jill Jacobs argues that Jewish communal groups should welcome Jews regardless of their relationship to Israel.
“The Generational Divide: On Bridging the Politics of Zionism” (September 2024)
(chapter excerpt from For Such a Time as This)
Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove of Park Avenue Synagogue offers his response to a young person who is disaffected with Israel and challenges the presence of the Israeli flag on the bimah of Cosgrove’s synagogue and the inclusion of the prayer for the State of Israel in worship.
Prologue to Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza (January 2025)
Journalist Peter Beinart discusses the moral imperative of challenging mainstream Jewish-Zionist narratives while remaining loyal to the Jewish people.
What It Means to Be Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza (February 2025)
(Interview with Peter Beinart, author of Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza)
Should the Reform Movement Abandon the Two-State Solution? This Outspoken Rabbi Thinks So(March 2025)
Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, spiritual leader of Manhattan’s Stephen Wise Free Synagogue, says he has lost faith in the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Colleagues say he doesn’t represent the consensus.
A Love Story: Israel and the American Jewish Community (2021)
In this chapter of his book Can We Talk About Israel, Daniel Shokatch reviews the history of the complex and evolving nature of American Jewish identity and its relationship with Israel.
“The Diameter of the Bomb” (1975)
Yehuda Amichai’s poem contemplates the enduring effects of war on victims near and far.
Had Gadya (1989)
Singer Chava Alberstein turns the traditional Passover song into a meditation on the cycle of violence and its impact on our sense of identity.
Coming Soon: Refresher video from Sefi Kraut (ETA April 6)
“The Jews that We Are” poem by Richard Michaelson
Click here for an overview article of Haidt’s Moral Foundations Theory Understanding Political Differences Through Moral Foundations Theory
Watch this 18-minute Ted Talk by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: The danger of a single story
Read this Short poem https://onbeing.org/poetry/the-place-where-we-are-right/
Read this: Rabbi Andrea London’s D’var Torah and Rabbi Sara Blumenthal’s D’var Torah
At our opening event, Judaic scholar Sefi Kraut, Director of Mahloket Matters at the Pardes Institute in Jerusalem, will facilitate a congregation-wide workshop tailored for our community on how to have productive and thoughtful difficult conversations with those with whom we are in the community. Drawing on Jewish texts, learnings from social psychology, and practical application, we will explore the skills, mindset, and heartscape necessary to engage with each other on challenging topics for the sake of personal growth and deepened interpersonal connections. The Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies is an open, inclusive, diverse, and intellectually challenging Jewish learning community based in Jerusalem with programs worldwide.
Last year’s book groups are morphing into salon-like groups that will meet several times in the winter and spring to use these skills to discuss difficult topics, supplemented by short readings, podcast episodes, film clips, and other multimedia. The first topic we’ll grapple with in our salon groups will be Intergenerational Differences. How can the different generations that make up a family – or a synagogue – learn from each other on topics over which they disagree? Stay tuned for more information.
