In the long run, we're going to live here together, or we're going to die here together.
--Rabbi Arik Ascherman, Rabbis for Human Rights
In thursday's column Nicholas Kristof writes about the noble and the ugly in Israel. Among the noble is Rabbi Arik Ascherman. Ascherman presides over 20 employees and hundreds of volunteers who work with Rabbis for Human Rights, people who sometimes serve as human shields to protect Palestinians. That action, of course, may result in getting arrested or being beaten.
A traitor? Naive?
Kristof compares the organization's activities to the American civil rights history. Although some Israelis see Ascherman as a traitor and naive, others see him as redeeming in his struggle to build bridges between Jews and Palestinians.
I found Kristof's analysis of Israel's democracy fascinating. In an aside, he points out that Israel tolerates a far greater range of public opinion than America. Although many in our country are intimidated by diversity of opinion, my experience has been that such diversity harbors highly creative, innovative ideas that lend themselves to productive change.
Boulder in the 'sixties.
We lived in Boulder, Colorado, in the 'sixties when the world was exploding. The front pages of every newspaper were filled with articles about Vietnam, civil rights, drug use and the hippies. Boulder had a reputation as a hotbed of seething unrest. Just thinking about the experience, I can almost smell the pot (marijuana) while walking through campus. Gassing, an explosion that tore out the roof of one of the buildings, and a murder on campus were just a few of the unbelievable events that took place.
But we found Boulder in the 'sixties to be a marvelous experience. Along with those events, it was also the place where police first learned to manage crowds and difficult settings, where city leadership learned to listen beyond the established wisdom and where community services changed for the better. We learned to talk to and with to every kind of ideology. At that time the community had every political position under the sun: from Maoist to Fascist (as we used to say).
A learning laboratory.
We were so enmeshed in the community that we would not have realized how unique it was were it not for the fact that occasionally I was invited to speak at meetings around the state and beyond. Many people were aghast at the goings-on in Boulder. I was more curious than aghast. I took advantage of the situation, and now realize that Boulder in the 'sixties was a learning laboratory. Obviously, my perspective on student unrest was unique for many of my listeners. But it provided us with the opportunity to build and enrich our knowledge of the world and human kind. That's part of the reason that I find the global economy and marketplace so very intriguing. Rabbi Ascherman's statement is prescient: In the long run, we're going to live here together, or we're going to die here together. Today it's China and the US. North and South Korea. And spies from Russia and the US. Thankfully, never a dull moment.