Last night Ben and I went
to the OU Center in Jerusalem and cast our votes for President of the United
States along with Senators, Congressmen (and women), and 4 referendums on the
MA State ballot. It was a very interesting experience; we walked into the building,
everyone spoke English, and we entered a large event hall where booths,
information posters, computers, pens, paper, and volunteers were all made
available for those Americans studying abroad or those of us with dual
citizenship, all who had come to make our voices heard and our votes count in a
country across the world where some of left for good, and others might return
in the future.
We all gathered to do something quite peculiar if you think about it. I will set aside for a moment the Americans studying abroad who were voting absentee, or the Americans who live in Israel half the year, or for a few months only. For those most part- the room was filled with people like Ben and I- Olim who had picked up our lives, left our friends, family, jobs, and communities in America to start over and build new lives in our homeland, the State of Israel. The room was filled with Americans who didn't want to live in America, but who thought they should still have a say in the politics of that country. People who seemingly didn't want to stay or raise families in America, and who thought, for various reasons, it was better to live here.
It's hard to not call a spade a spade but that's exactly what we were there doing. Talking out of both sides of our mouth. Ben and I both feel strongly that the future of the Jewish people does not lie in Diaspora. Our close friends and family have heard us say on numerous occasions that the time has come for young Jews to come home. I'll go into our beliefs about Aliyah and the future of world Jewry in another post but suffice it to say that our being in that OU Center voting as Americans in the American Presidential elections felt, well, it felt weird.
We got off our Aliyah flight so happy and proud to be Israeli. We received out Teudat Zahut (Israeli Identity Cards) and we were beaming. But it's funny how some things work. We find ourselves talking about "Israelis" here and how "Israelis" do this and that and yet in America, we distinctly separated ourselves and would sometimes say "Americans do this and that". It's as if in both places, America and in Israel, we sort of feel like outsiders. Not completely belonging in either, yet . . .G-d willing one day we will be comfortable enough to casually say "We" when we speak about Israel but after only 9 months here we're still a little schizophrenic in our identity affiliation. And last night's exercise in civic duty didn't help much.
I have heard arguments from many sides relating to this. Indeed it is a multi-faceted discussion and implying there are only two sides and that things are black and white would be incredibly misleading. Some say that as Olim we should cut the umbilical cord and that we shouldn't vote in American elections because the day to day goings on in that country no longer affects us directly. We gave up the right to have a vote when we decided to make Aliayh. Others argue vehemently saying that American foreign policy directly affects us in Israel and it is our duty to continue to cast our vote. Still more people argue that the dual citizenship agreements between Israel and America are proof that the nature of the relationship between the two countries is such that American Jews who make Aliyah should remain connected politically to both places.
I
see merit across the spectrum of these arguments however something about last
night still doesn't sit well with me. Indeed I cast my vote. What's done is done.
I went in there and gave my American Social Security number, something it seems
like I will never fully escape having to remember, and I voted with a bunch of
other Jews who now reside in Israel. But over the course of the evening, and we
spent about an hour there, interestingly putting more effort into understand
the referendums for the State in which we were registered and less
time deciding who we wanted to be the next President of the United States.
(Spoiler Alert- Ben and I did not vote for the same candidates!) But in that
time I spoke with a few people and while no one was crass enough to ask
directly who we were voting for, people seemed very enthralled with the idea
that they were doing something unusual and I heard many jokes and comments about
it.
I wonder if some of the people who cast votes last night felt as I did? I'll try to sum it up like this: In America, I had some very pointed political opinions; some very strong, sometimes contradictory, and always passionate ideals which guided my vote and my political activity. But it seems like now that I live here in Israel, now that I have made Aliyah, become a citizen in a different country, and cast my lot as it were, with the fate of Am Yisrael, some of my opinions held previously have been called into question. Some of my ideas have been challenged, and some of the ideals I valued in the American system are simply no longer applicable here in Israel.
I grew up learning about economic principals in a capitalist society. No government ever stepped in when cottage prices rose in the market. I grew up in a society where property rights, the right to bear arms (the two, I believe are intrinsically intertwined), and States's rights were ideas that lent themselves to many political conversations in school and otherwise. In Israel, it's just not so. For so long I thought of civic duty in terms of being an American that I forgot how different it could be when you vote as a Jew in a Jewish Nation State. The only time in American that I ever considered voting as a Jew was when it came to Israel, and even then, it was an entirely different conversation. Now, with elections coming up in Israel, I will be able to vote as a Jew, in a Jewish homeland, where for better or worse the game is different here, my priorities are different here, and the expression of my civic duty now incorporates my Jewish beliefs whereas before, when voting in America, it often times did not. Maybe it should have. Maybe I have changed. Maybe my relationship with Hashem and Torah has changed so much over the years that the person who voted in 2008 is not at all the same person voting now in 2012. And is that a bad thing? I'll be totally honest here and say that I'm just not sure.
So what am I getting at? Last night, I think that I felt for the first time I was voting as a different person, with a different beacon guiding my values, in a political context that I no longer related to in the same way I used to. Yes, I went in as a dual citizen exercising my right to vote in another country but what in fact occurred was that I had a clash of priorities and I was not simply an American voting from abroad, rather, I was a Jew, voting from Israel. Last night, it was less about property and State's right's, constitutional liberties, free market principals. Last night I also tried to think hard about Tzedek (Justice), Halacha (Jewish Law), and Derech Eretz (I hate this translation, but loosely, 'The Way of the Land).
I also considered the Hebrew Date- Zayin Cheshvan- the 7th Day of the Hebrew Month of Cheshvan (also happened to be my Hebrew Birthday). During the Second Temple Era, Cheshvan 7 was the date on which the Jew most distant from the Holy Temple -- who resided on the banks of the Euphrates River, a 15-day journey's distance from Jerusalem -- arrived at his homestead upon returning from the Sukkot pilgrimage. All Jews would wait for this before beginning to pray for the season of rain. On a deeper level, the “last Jew” can be understood as the most distant Jew in the spiritual sense—the one whose occupation is the most material of all. Yet all Jews, including those whose missions in life have placed them but a stone’s throw from Jerusalem, cannot pray for rain until the farthest of pilgrims has reached home. For without this last Jew, our work is incomplete; it is he, more than any other, who represents the dual investments which we in Israel must have. It is this Jew, living far from the Holy Temple, his mind in other places most times of the year, and his body very much outside borders of the Jewish homeland, it is he who we all wait to return home, his wealth-fare and safe passage which we here in Israel concern ourselves with .(Thank you Chabad.org)
I thought about how appropriate it was to be returning, so to speak, to activity in my life less associated with Holy Activity, a little farther from my Israel based life than normal. After all, these were secular elections in a non Jewish country, where neither candidate was Jewish, and the majority of policies put forth by both candidates had little or nothing to do with elevating the Jewish neshama (soul). But no. We have to wait to pray for our rain. My family, my friends, and many, in my humble opinion far too many, of our brothers and sisters still reside in America and are still very much effected by the policies of the leaders there.
And so last night, as with many moments of my Aliyah here in Israel, I examined, wrestled with, and considered carefully the many hats I wear now, the many concerns I have, the many identities I affiliate with, and the many repercussions my actions have. Last night I thought about the Jews on the "banks of the Euphrates" and I voted for a President who would sit on the shores of the Atlantic. And I am positive that my family and friends across the sea will have something to say about how Ben and I cast our votes here in the upcoming Israeli elections as there can be no denying that the policies in this country affect the Jews living outside of it. And I am pretty sure that's a good thing.
