Recent discussions at Dartmouth Hillel over what role Israel should play in its mission statement have prompted debates across campus about the place of political statements in campus religious organizations.
In response to this debate, Amit Anand '03 organized a community hour yesterday to discuss issues of Jewish identity as they relate to the modern state of Israel.
"This is an issue that people have been talking about and debating in their private spaces, and I thought it would be helpful for us as a community to have this discussion in a shared, common space," Anand said.
About 30 students joined student panelists Anna Bonnheim '03, Elise Berman '03 and Jewish Studies Professors Ehud Benor, Elliott Wolfson and Susannah Heschel to discuss the relationship of Israel to Jewish identity yesterday in Collis Commonground.
Despite mixed feelings of several members of Dartmouth's Jewish community about holding a public forum to discuss what they felt was a very personal matter, the panel discussion concluded without any major clashes of opinion.
The talk focused mainly on the question of the very existence of Jewish identity, and to what extent is it tied in with the Holocaust and Israel.
Most of the panelists and audience members agreed that they could support Israel without agreeing with every individual decision made by the Israeli government, and that the idea of an all-encompassing Jewish identity was not easily defined.
"The land of Israel is not necessarily the state of Israel. To be Jewish there is an intimate connection to the land of Israel, but not necessarily the state of Israel," Wolfson said.
Bonnheim felt that there was an important connection to the state of Israel as part of the Jewish identity.
"Israel is almost like a member of the family," she said, and added that even if she did not always agree with everything Israel did, she would still feel that she should support it.
All of the professors on the panel expressed the need for dialogue and discussion of Israel and the Middle East, even though such discussion it may be painful or emotional.
"I found something in Israel that I would call my soul," said Heschel of the time she had spent in Israel. "As a scholar it is extraordinary to look at this situation, but on a personal level is it is very painful."
Benor, himself an Israeli, expressed his disappointment with the complete lack of open debate over Israeli governmental policies in the United States relative to the level of discussions happening in Israel.
"I don't think there is a debate at all. What I think is that there are several ideological perspectives that fight it out in a war of propaganda and misinformation," said Benor.
Benor also said that the mainstream United States press completely ignores what is reported by the Israeli press, in what Heschel termed a "lie of silence and secrecy."
Rabbi Boraz agreed with the difficult emotions and religious heritage entangled with the issue of the state of Israel.
"It is very difficult to disengage the religion from the state of Israel," he said.
Anand said he was happy with the way the discussion had gone. "The discussion was definitely thought-provoking -- I came out of it realizing that any identity, not just the Jewish, has to be considered in a more complex context than just a pro or con on an issue," he said.
"I think all of it in my view was in the spirit of pluralism that is one of the hallmarks of the Jewish tradition," Boraz said. "Through discourse and dialogue we come to a better understanding of ourselves through a seminal issue that confronts the modern Jew today."
Other members of the Jewish community, many of whom felt they had been purposely circumvented in the creation of the panel -- Hillel played no role in its organization -- felt that it was somewhat redundant, as Hillel had already come to consensus on a Mission Statement that was acceptable to its pluralistic nature, and that the panel was trying to make a larger issue out of something that was no longer contentious.
