New Program Helps Rabbinical Students Find Their Voice on Israel

A new program for reform, conservative, and orthodox  rabbinical students is teaching the importance of discussing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and defending Zionism and Israel.

Sinai Temple Israel Center, one of the largest synagogues in Los Angeles, launched the initiative — the Zionist Education Fellowship — this month, sending 16 students to Jerusalem for an on the ground look at the world’s only Jewish state.

On Thursday, Sinai Temple Rabbi Erez Sherman told The Algemeiner that the idea was born out of an incident that took place in 2021. During Israel’s war with Hamas that May, he explained, more than 100 rabbinical students issued an open letter accusing Israel of apartheid and “violent suppression of human rights.” The letter, Rabbi Sherman said, was unsettling and revealed a need for training rabbis in discussing the nuances of and complexities of the conflict and the Israel’s place in Jewish history and life.

“Once you’re a rabbinical student, the world already sees you as a rabbi, so they’re going to ask you questions like ‘what do you think about Israel?'” Sherman said. “It’s really important to be open to explaining what Israel means. When someone asks ‘what do you think about Israel?’ are they speaking about the Arab-Israeli conflict in the West Bank and Gaza? The technology Israel exports to the rest of the world? Are you asking about the challenges and achievements of religious pluralism in the country?”

“What we decided to do is step back and highlight what were the founding ideals of Zionism when this movement began with Theodor Herzl and how are those ideals lived out today,” he added. “I’m trying to teach these students how, when the situation flares up again, how to share with the world what Israel means.”

One of the first buildings the students visited was the Knesset, Israel’s parliamentary building. Only one or two in the group, Sherman said, had visited it before, including those who had visited the country many times. There, they read the Israeli Declaration of Independence. The group has also visited Palestinian Bethlehem, the Jewish West Bank, and will soon meet and talk with the Negev Bedouins about their transition from nomadic to sedentary lifestyles.

Two students participating in the fellowship program, Miriam Rubin and Wade Melnick, told The Algemeiner that the trip has been an invaluable learning experience that is helping them reconcile what they described as tension between their support for Israel and their worries about the fate of the Palestinian people.

“I’m hearing the narratives of settlers, Heradi Jews, left-wing Knesset members and right-wing Knesset members — I’m seeing the narratives of some Palestinians,” Melnick said. “I think I’m trying to hold all these narratives at the same time, not look for truth in any of them but just simply hold them, you know, ‘open up your heart, have a heart of many chambers.’ I’m trying to put each of them in a chamber.”

Rubin explained why history and politics make discussions about Israel and the Palestinians so difficult.

“It’s just a weird situation in that the people who formed the state are perceived by some to be ‘the colonist’ when they weren’t,” she said. “And there is not one easy answer because each side has a story that they believe is literally true. They both can’t be entirely true, but neither is it reasonable to say that either is entirely false or that one side alone is a bad actor and intentionally misleading. I think both sides truly believe the things that reinforce their viewpoints, which are things they have heard from year to year and for them have become the story of the conflict.”

Rubin said that while she is worried about Palestinians, she wants Israel and Israelis to be safe.

“If what is needed to ensure Israel’s safety, and not just that, that it can continue to exist, then we have a situation in which a people who by all accounts are not themselves at fault either and are victims of the circumstances of the socio-political nature of the region are going to be living in restricted areas,” she added. “If the people whose job it is to protect this country say this is the policy that is necessary then I don’t have the knowledge to tell them they’re wrong. And the sad thing is that there are countries that could help in taking some of the refugees in. Part of the reason they stay where they are is because it creates the facts on the ground.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

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