By Gil Troy, Jerusalem Post, 2-7-10

We historians don’t predict the future – the past is foggy enough. But allow me one prediction. Within weeks, the Jewish world is going to be in high dudgeon, outraged at the Anti-Israel Week activities on campuses across North America. And, judging by the past, and the current situation as far as I know, we will shift into temporary crisis

mode, reacting and overreacting, flailing about with little discipline, little coordination, little strategy, little tactical gain, but much frustration.

Our enemies – and yes, they are our enemies – have been planning this Israel hate-fest for a year, if not longer. One Israel-bashing Web site declares: “Mark your calendars – the 6th International Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) will take place across the globe from the 1st to the 14th of March 2010!” True, a “week” usually lasts only seven days; our adversaries count days as sloppily as they recount the past. These Israel-libelers claim 40 cities will participate – 12 in Canada alone – mostly on campuses. Rather than dithering then scrambling, we must plan – in fact, planning should have started months ago.

David Olesker, the director of JCCAT, the Jerusalem Center for Communication and Advocacy Training, warns that before planning tactical responses, we must clarify our strategy. “Where do we want to be in five years, where are we going with our arguments and advocacy?” he asks, noting how rarely pro-Israel advocates think about the big picture, although our adversaries do.

Thinking strategically, the pro-Israel community should remember “Three P’s.” First, Push back, but push back intelligently, remembering our target audiences. We will rarely sway with mere facts someone who has swallowed the apartheid libel and drunk the anti-Israel Kool-Aid. Our target is wavering Jewish students and the vast uninformed and uninterested middle. We should play off the radical demonizers, making them look extreme and foolish as we demonstrate our informed commitment, our enlightened passion, the rightness and righteousness of our cause.

Second, Position Israel better as a modern democracy fighting terror, sometimes forced to make unhappy decisions like other countries. The truth is our friend. Israel has compromised – and seen withdrawals from territory and other concessions “rewarded” with violence. Until critics deal with that, they are simply Israel-bashing with no real commitment to peace. And speaking of peace, let’s call the libelers’ bluff. Those who falsely accuse Israel of practicing racist, South African-style apartheid, are essentially saying Israel is so odious that, like that regime, it should not exist. How can such a libelous, historically misinformed attack advance the peace process?

Third, be Proud of Israel as an extraordinary old-new land, one of the great successes of the twentieth century, now leading the way technologically in the twenty-first century. Just as the US is not only defined by its racial troubles, and Canada not only defined by its linguistic tensions, Israel is not just about the Palestinians. It was the central conceit of Yasser Arafat and his terrorist henchmen to make every conversation about Israel revolve around them – and it worked. In taking back the narrative, we should jump to a different track, not always talking about Israel in the context of defending Israel or justifying its existence but celebrating Israel, delighting in Israel’s achievements, pluralism, values, democracy and historically redemptive role.

Tactically, as we wait for the latest initiatives rumored to be in the works in North America and Israel to help galvanize and centralize pro-Israel sentiment, we should mobilize the Jewish Netroots. Let us put out a call to the pro-Israel blogosphere for an approach defined by the “Three H’s.”

For starters, we must be Horizontal, understanding that today’s informational, ideological and political playing field is vast, chaotic and democratic. Students, bloggers and activists should speak their minds, display their passions, forge their own relationships with Israel and express their pride as effectively, as creatively, as widely, as they can.

This more horizontal approach must be Hip, singing, rapping or tweeting a new song of Zion, one that is relevant, resonant, inspirational, conversational, internalized among millions of pro-Israel and pro-democracy activists, rather than dictated from above or simply inherited from our ancestors.

And finally, we should not be afraid to be Hysterical¸ to laugh among ourselves while mocking the heavy-handed propagandists who build their entire ideology on negation – investing time, money, energy in denigrating Israel rather than building anything constructive for Palestinians, or anyone else, for that matter. Israeli culture is improvisational – demonstrated particularly by the ingenuity of the IDF and the creativity of high tech entrepreneurs. Those same skills should be deployed in the fight for Israel’s legitimacy, but with humor, not a heavy hand. We should mock our enemies – because their positions are laughable and because ridicule is such an effective tool on the net.

We must go global and virtual in Israel advocacy, not because of anti-Israel week but because we have a great story to tell. And in the virtual world millions can take the lead in celebrating Israel. For too long, Israelis have sat on the sidelines, watching their brothers and sisters flounder in the Diaspora, or, even worse, allowing a small minority of Israelis to fuel the fires of anti-Zionism abroad, giving Israel and particularly Israeli universities a bad name. But today, Israelis and non-Israelis can work together – or at least in parallel – broadcasting a pro-Zionist message while ridiculing and undermining our enemies.

In a country that must engage its youth in more nationalistic, values-oriented projects, and at a time when parents lament how much time their kids spend on the computer, here is a great challenge for the country’s high schools and universities. The anti-Israel forces wish to wipe Israel off the map and demonize Zionists as the “New Nazis.” If we fail to fight back, they will continue poisoning the discourse around Israel, especially on campuses and in Europe. Let young Israelis learn enough history to defend themselves and their country effectively on the Internet. Let this be a great virtual contact point, building relations between Israeli and Diaspora youth.

Wouldn’t it be great if next year, the anti-Israel forces canceled their annual festival of nihilism because the push-back they triggered simply wasn’t worth it? Now that’s a strategic goal worth pursuing.

Gil Troy is Professor of History at McGill University on leave in Jerusalem. He is the author of Why I Am a Zionist: Israel, Jewish Identity and the Challenges of Today. His latest book The Reagan Revolution:  A Very Short Introduction, was recently published by Oxford University Press.

By Gil Troy, Jerusalem Post, 1-28-10

Tu B’Shvat, the Jewish Arbor Day, is this Shabbat, January 30. When I was young I preferred Israel’s Independence Day because we received blue-and-white cookies rather than yucky figs and carobs, known by the aggressive Yiddish name “bokser.” But educators should distribute blue-and-white cookies along with Israeli fruit because Tu B’Shvat celebrates Israel – and Zionism. The world only recently discovered environmentalism, yet Jews have a deep relationship with nature, while Zionism resonates with the environmental ethic. Tu B’Shvat is our annual opportunity to show just how “green” the “blue and white” sensibility is.

It never ceases to amaze me how frequently we miss opportunities to deepen our connection to Israel and Zionism, naturally, organically. As we brainstorm about re-branding Israel, re-framing Zionism, trying to justify our existence, we often forget the rightness of our case and the richness of our tradition. The Jewish calendar is our friend. It provides us with many moments that tell our story beautifully, express our values vividly, allowing us to celebrate Israel, to renew our Zionism, without fighting anyone, without being defensive.

Tu B’Shvat is particularly welcome because of the growing “green” movement and because it coincides with the anti-Israeli activity in late January and early February that falsely compares democratic Israel with the racist Apartheid regime that once dominated South Africa. While we should refute the Apartheid libel aggressively, we should also use Tu B’Shvat to celebrate Israel, Jewish values, and Zionism. In the ideological wars surrounding Israel, it is always better to celebrate on our terms than try defending against our enemies’ assaults. Our failure to build a proactive strategy around Tu B’Shvat and other moments reflects the epidemic of ignorance in the Jewish world today, and our ceding of the agenda to the Palestinians and their fellow travelers, especially on campus.

Tu B’Shvat is a great Zionist holiday. It starts with the Jewish love of the land of Israel, by celebrating the agricultural cycle of our one Jewish homeland. When we sing “the almond trees are growing, the beautiful sun is shining,” it might be snowing in Montreal or raining in New York, but buds are sprouting in Israel. At Akiva School in Montreal, our kids used to build little Tu B’Shvat dioramas that told the story effectively: half would be filled with white cotton balls evoking the Canadian snow; the other half would be covered in brown and green construction paper symbolizing the trees of Eretz Yisrael. Tu B’Shvat orients us toward Israel as the center of the Jewish world, highlighting Judaism’s uniqueness as a world religion bound to one homeland, a people whose Holy Days are defined by the Israeli agricultural calendar, rooted in theological concepts, and linked with historic events.

Tu B’Shvat reminds us of Zionism’s central values and great achievements, in redeeming the Jewish people by redeeming their homeland. The way early Zionists made the desert bloom – even if they made some ecological mistakes – remains one of the great stories of the 20th century. In Israel, to this day, every tree, every blade of grass, every patch of green, testifies to the love, skill and sweat Zionists poured into the rocky patch of the world that has been ours since the days of Abraham and David. During the 2008 campaign, a story circulated that when Senator Barack Obama took the obligatory AIPAC helicopter tour of Israel, he did not remark – as the script demands – “my, how narrow” as he crossed Israel at its narrowest. Instead, he said, “my, how green,” noting he could trace the band of Israeli settlement by following the contours of the Zionist agricultural revolution. (The punchline to the story, which I could never verify but certainly reflects the great faith Jews had in Obama in 2008, had him landing, being asked by reporters for his impression, and following the script, saying, “my, how narrow.”)

In turning the land green Zionists turned Israel into a constructive force in the modern world. From the drip irrigation of Kibbutz Hatzerim which has made deserts bloom all over the world, to the cutting-edge attempts of Arava Power based in Kibbutz Ketura to harness solar energy in the Arava desert, the return to the land meant a return to history, responsibility, vitality and world leadership in many realms. Early Zionists like A.D. Gordon did not realize that the heroic era of the kibbutzim would be a way station on the road to today’s high tech society. And yes, sometimes Israel has developed rapidly, crudely, thoughtlessly. But there remains in modern Israel a love of the land, a commitment to what we now call “green” values, that keeps alive the pioneering spirit.

My friends in the Israeli environmental movement have taught me that a greater green sensibility can help Israel tackle its most intractable problems. Dr. Eilon Schwartz and Dr. Jeremy Benstein of the Heschel Center for Environmental Learning and Leadership have tried creating a common language between right-wing settlers and left-wing environmentalists, united by their common love of the land, while also using environmentalism to sensitize Israelis to the broader values crisis Israel will face if it becomes addicted to capitalism and materialism without an environmentalist and Zionist counterbalance. Dr. Alon Tal of the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev at Sde Boker founded the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies to help Israelis, Jordanians and Palestinians find common ground rooted in their common commitment to preserving the environment, considering that pollution respects no political borders. It is no coincidence that Drs. Schwartz, Benstein, and Tal graduated from Young Judaea, America’s largest Zionist movement, and thus can synthesize modern American, Jewish and Zionist values in ways that inspire people on both sides of the Atlantic.

So this Tu B’Shvat let’s break away from the pediatric Judaism of too many synagogues that makes the Jewish Arbor Day just about dried fruits and tired ditties. And let’s break away from the defensive Zionism on too many campuses that only deals with Israel when it is under attack. Instead, following the Jewish calendar, let’s sing a new song of Zion, rooted in the past, relevant to the present, envisioning a better future – and let’s sing it particularly vigorously because this Tu B’Shvat falls on Shabbat Shira, the Shabbat of Song, wherein we sing Moses’s song of liberation too.

Gil Troy is Professor of History at McGill University on leave in Jerusalem. He is the author of Why I Am a Zionist: Israel, Jewish Identity and the Challenges of Today. His latest book The Reagan Revolution: A Very Short Introduction, was recently published by Oxford University Press.

By Gil Troy, Jerusalem Post, 1-17-10

My December 27 post “Galilee Rape Crisis Tests Us All” told about a teenager from Karmiel brutalized in Kishon jail. I hoped that Israel’s leaders and citizens would inspire me to write a “happy ending” follow-up story – or as happy an ending as can be to a story of police brutality and incompetence, violent prisons, repeated gang rape and a 17-year-old having his ear pierced with a copper wire to mark him as his tormenters’ sexual slave.

Over the last two weeks, I have been moved by the love and generosity that has woven a web of caring, linking fellow Jews in Montreal, New York, Ra’anana and Jerusalem with this family in Karmiel. But I am disgusted by the Israeli bureaucracy’s indifference. And I am saddened that too many of the Israeli offers of help have come in English, not Hebrew.

Many in the Anglo-Israeli community are furious about this incident, which risks becoming a defining “anti-aliya” story, one that makes it harder to encourage people to move to Israel. For this family that moved from Miami full of idealism, with an older son serving in the IDF, the dreams of “Exodus” have soured into “Midnight Express,” Israel-style. Their teenage son was not only physically and psychologically brutalized, they themselves feel brutalized by the system, wherein, among other insults, the police are insisting their 17-year son is actually 18.

Many Anglo-Israelis identify with the family, understanding that the teen’s newness to the country complicated the story. This is every Anglo immigrant’s worst nightmare, with whatever traumas of dislocation being magnified exponentially by this ultimately preventable – yet increasingly familiar – mix of inexcusable police incompetence and vile, violent criminal behavior. Also, this scandal is being exposed because, with American-style standards for the criminal justice system, we – and the family – won’t accept the police striking a boy on the head (especially having been warned he had suffered a previous head injury), or incompetently sending him to prison with hardened criminals.

Still, the pain runs deeper than this one family’s anguish. The Western aliya is an idealistic, voluntary immigration of people who often risk standard of living to improve quality of life. Israeli society’s growing violence – and the growing indifference to the violence – threatens the quality of Israeli life which attracted these modern-day pioneers to the historic Jewish homeland.

Israel and the Jewish world have a huge aliya and Zionist bureaucracy. I called the father of the traumatized teenager and asked him: “Has anyone from Nefesh b’Nefesh contacted you?” He said “no.”

“Has anyone from the Jewish Agency contacted you?” He said “no.”

“Has anyone from AACI (Association of Americans and Canadians) contacted you?” He said “no.”

“Has anyone from the Ministry of Absorption contacted you?” He said “no.”

Billions of shekels are spent on encouraging people to come to Israel, and not one person responsible for aliya took responsibility for reaching out to these olim in distress – because they were already here. This is not my Zionism.

More broadly, as of this writing, no one from the President’s Office, the Prime Minister’s Office, the Knesset, or the municipality has contacted this anguished family, although in fairness, apparently the Minister for Welfare and Social Services contacted the teen’s lawyer, Amir Melzer, after reading about the story in The Jerusalem Post. Still, given how outrageous a systemic failure there was, given how many Israeli leaders have been informed about the case, the silence stings. A nation’s leaders are responsible for more than security and budgets. These kinds of incidents, which sear the nation’s conscience, demand effective, sensitive responses.

“This is a national issue because our internal security is at risk if we accept deviations from proper police procedure that harm our citizens,” says Mark Cohen, the vice chair of Hadar, the Israeli Council for Civic Action, a new grassroots organization. “You just start becoming numb to each individual horror story you hear about. And it’s dangerous.

“The failure in this case is part of a broader failure that, ultimately, is a security issue. We should expect the highest quality police force since on a local level it is the police our daily lives depend on for the feeling of safety and security. On a local and national level we must acknowledge when mistakes happen, as occurred in this case.”

When I hear about the 6-year-old killed by his pedophile neighbors, the mother raped by her son’s killer – who was also the son’s friend – along with this story, I fear Israel’s predicament is approaching that of New York in the 1970s. Back then, a growing crime wave threatened the city – and for too long, too many innocents suffered. Finally, in the 1990s, the end of the Baby Boom, more effective policing, tougher sentencing and a growing outcry reversed the trend. Until then, New York languished. People abandoned the city, its character frequently turned ugly, and many citizens withdrew from civic life, numbed by the daily cascade of crime stories.

In Israel, we cannot wait 20 years to solve the growing crime problem. We need to do something about it today. We need zero tolerance for violence in schools. We need to demand effective policing and community responses. And we need leaders to confront this growing crisis.

Effective policing – like effective national security – requires perfect pitch. There is little margin for error. If police come on too strong and brutalize innocents, civil society suffers. If police are too passive, allowing criminals to brutalize innocents, civil society also suffers. Tragically, as with the education system, one of the state’s most crucial arms is mired in bureaucracy, famously ineffectual, and relies on underpaid, poorly-trained staff. The result has been a crime epidemic, and increasing public resignation, rather than indignation.

I hate to use this word, but maybe, given Israeli leaders’ obsession with the Palestinian problem, we must warn of a criminal “intifada” – and call on this nationalist government to fight crime as aggressively as Ariel Sharon combated Palestinian terrorism. National security begins at home – with an effective police force, an efficient justice system, a lowered crime rate – along with citizens and leaders ready to respond if something goes wrong.

I recently solicited names for this past “decade of death and disengagement.” The contest winner proposed: “Israel’s Decade of Resilience” – amid terrorism and delegitimization. May this next decade be one of renewal, not just resilience, as in this case the kind of love and empathy the Anglo community has showered on this family once again becomes standard operating procedure in Israel, our one and only Jewish state.

Gil Troy is Professor of History at McGill University on leave in Jerusalem. He is the author of Why I Am a Zionist: Israel, Jewish Identity and the Challenges of Today. His latest book The Reagan Revolution: A Very Short Introduction, was recently published by Oxford University Press.

Jewish Soul Renewal – Renew Our Days as of Old (Jewish Partnership Online), 12-30-09

http://www.jewishagency.org
Jewish Partnership Online, the Partnership 2000 eZine hosted by Professor Gil Troy, highlights Jewish values in the Partnership setting. This week’s edition focuses on the value of “Jewish Soul Renewal” through the activity of the Tzahar – Palm Beach Partnership, with a special focus on the Kaballah project in the Mystical City of Safed, combining spiritual growth with tourism development.

By Gil Troy, Jerusalem Post, 1-3-10

History is dynamic, not predetermined. There are crossroads in the life of nations, and 2010 could be such a moment for Iran. With the international community looking weakened and the rule of international law being mocked, this could be the year the Iranian nuclear project passes its point of no return, and this ugly repressive regime is strengthened. Alternatively, in 2010 the Green Movement of Iranian students and dissidents could save the world – and the Iranian people – from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s grip. People of conscience throughout the world cannot stand by. We can make a difference, we must make a difference.

That was the theme of an extraordinary press breakfast held at the King David Hotel in the final days of 2009, just short of US President Barack Obama’s deadline for the Iranian mullahocracy. Professor Irwin Cotler, the human rights champion, Canadian Parliamentarian and former justice minister and attorney general, presented his “Responsibility to Prevent” petition demanding the international community fulfill its legally mandated responsibility and punish Ahmadinejad’s Iran for inciting to genocide, sponsoring state terrorism, illegally pursuing atomic weapons, and oppressing its own people. Cotler denounced the “culture of impunity,” whereby Iran has defied international law. He said Iran presents “a clear and present danger to international peace and security, to Middle East stability, as well as to its own people” – and must be sanctioned.

An impressive array of human rights activists and jurists reinforced Professor Cotler’s detailed, tightly-reasoned legal plea. Professor Suzanne Last Stone of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law noted this was “not a policy matter, but a legal obligation.” The countries of the world have signed treaties obligating them to act against these crimes with “specific remedies.” Calling in from Boston at 2 a.m., Professor Alan Dershowitz of the Harvard Law School emphasized that “The crime has already been committed,” saying “This it the time, this is the moment, this is the true test” for the international community. “History will judge us all,” Professor Dershowitz warned, if we are silent, and thus “complicit in this evil.”

Bassem Eid, the executive director of the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group, offered another dimension, warning that Iran pumps hundreds of millions of dollars into Hamas, trying to fuel the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and undermining the PA. Keeping the Middle East “unstable” plays into the mullahs’ hands, Eid noted. He said he had not heard “any clear statement from the international community in terms of supporting the opposition and putting pressure on Ahmadinejad’s Iran.”

While Professor Cotler and his colleagues focused on international law and leaders, students and grassroots activists have a crucial role to play now. The silence of campus activists and the broader human rights community in the face of Iranian crimes has been deafening. The student heroes of Iran must know that students throughout the world are protesting for them, supporting them. Yes, appeasers will caution that too much support from the West will enable the Iranian regime to claim the dissidents are Western dupes. The Iranian autocrats are making that charge anyway, shouldn’t we at least show the Iranian heroes they are not alone, that the rape, torture, murder and beating they endure are not being ignored and will not be forgotten?

As students return from their holidays, the fight to support the Green Movement in Iran should be the top item on the student activist agenda. Rallies should spread from the universities to the capital cities, attracting more media coverage, stoking more popular outrage, demanding more international action, especially sanctions. Politicians will run for cover if they can – they will act when they cannot.

The pro-Iranian movement – and that’s what it is when it opposes Ahmadinejad’s Iran – should focus on effective pressure points. Germany should be a particular target, given the billions of dollars in business Germany conducts with Iran annually. The country responsible for the 20th century’s most horrific genocide should do what it can to derail the country so far most brazenly promising to enact a genocide in the 21st century – especially given that Jews were the target then, and now. Iranian diplomats throughout the world should be shouted down, shamed in public, targeted – in nonviolent, creative ways, of course – for representing this despicable regime. And every government in the world today must be held accountable for its inaction in fighting this evil. President Barack Obama in particular must hear from the young Americans who idolize him that his “Yes We Can” message must resonate more loudly, clearly, pointedly, and yes, aggressively in Teheran.

While the pro-Israel student community should forge broad alliances against Ahmadinejad, campus Zionists should focus their activities on Iran in the next few weeks, building up to the annual anti-Israel week during which the democratic state of Israel is falsely compared to South Africa’s abhorrent Apartheid regime. Maybe this is the year to ignore the anti-Israel activities that week by simply beefing up the push against Ahmadinejad.

Let us draw a clear line in the sand for the hypocrites of today who purport to love human rights. Invite them to join up against Ahmadinejad’s Iran. Either they do, and we have common cause in a pressing concern – or they don’t and we see where they stand on human rights, and, if we follow Bassem Eid’s analysis, on seeking real attempts to bring peace to the Middle East. Being pro-Ahmainejad is essentially being anti-peace.

And let us not be ashamed to stand as pro-Israel Jews against Ahmadinejad’s Iran. When asked at the breakfast if all the petition-signers were Jews – they are not and include distinguished Arab and Muslim leaders – Denis MacShane, the British parliamentarian calling in from the UK, bristled. MacShane said that increasingly, the so-called human rights community seeks to silence the Jewish voice on human rights issues. MacShane, who identified himself as a proud Catholic, encouraged Jews to stand as proud Jews on this defining human rights issue of our time.

A poignant plea came from Vancouver, from Nazanin Afshin-Jam, “Miss World Canada 2003,” and the President of Stop Child Executions. “I thank you for hearing the cries of the Iranian people who are suffering under this oppressive reigme…,” she said. “The Iranian people need your help. They need the support of the international community.” How dare we ignore her – and their – pleas.

Gil Troy is Professor of History at McGill University on leave in Jerusalem. He is the author of Why I Am a Zionist: Israel, Jewish Identity and the Challenges of Today. His latest book The Reagan Revolution: A Very Short Introduction, was recently published by Oxford University Press.

By Gil Troy, Jerusalem Post, 12-27-09

The Jerusalem Post recently featured a sickening story about a 17-year-old from Karmiel arrested for public urination who was beaten by the police, then brutalized in prison, enduring repeated rapes and having his ear pierced with a copper wire to denote his enslavement to his tormentors. The youth’s family, who made aliya from Miami three years ago full of idealism, is devastated. “We came with a dream,” the victim’s stepfather said. “We were prepared to work in a tomato field if we had to. But now we are absolutely going to leave.” The heartbroken mother asked, “How could this happen in Israel?”

Yes, sadly, horrible things can happen in Israel. It is a normal state; a modern, increasingly anonymous society with police who can overstep the bounds, with overcrowded and undersupervised prisons, and hardened criminals who can be unspeakably brutal. Such a tragic chain of circumstances could have happened in Miami or Madrid, let alone Moscow or Mumbai.

But acknowledging the sad realities of modern life that occasionally conspire to ruin individual lives is not enough. This horrific incident poses a challenge to every Israeli citizen and every Israeli leader. So far, the Post reported, the only official comment came from the Justice Ministry’s Police Investigations Department whose spokeswoman declared, ever so blandly: “We have received the complaint. An investigation has been launched.”

The rules of modern society require such passive, non-judgmental, bureaucratic-speak from the “responsible authorities.” Police officers also deserve due process, the presumption of innocence, and an opportunity to defend themselves properly without being convicted hysterically in the court of public opinion. Still, just as the punishment this youth suffered did not fit the crime, the official sentiment expressed does not suit the sin.

Every person who hears this story and cares about Israel should compensate for the bland bureaucratese of this representative of the state, and try to help this family heal. The onus is on us to improvise an uniquely Israeli response to try healing this family’s broken hearts, making them feel they are absolutely going to stay. And this has to be done while respecting the family’s anonymity, allowing their suffering son the space he needs to recover physically and psychologically.

For starters, we should hear some outrage, not simply artful dodges, from state representatives. From the president and the prime minister through the justice minister, police officials and local leaders, we should hear promises that if the story is true, true reforms will follow, trying to ensure no one ever endures such nightmares again. We must be reassured that while mobilizing the appropriate state resources to investigate this incident, all the appropriate state resources to help these people heal are being deployed too.  Meanwhile, citizens should rise as one, filling the airwaves, the blogosphere, the inboxes and mailboxes of Israeli officialdom, denouncing this outrage.

And while state employees clamor to help and Israeli citizens lobby for true bureaucratic repentance and reform, Zionists in Israel and the world over should shower this family with love and support, both sentimental and material. The story reports that the family is represented by an attorney Amir Melzer. He can be the conduit for the affirmation, assistance, and encouragement this youth and his family so desperately need, immediately, on a grand scale.

What happened to this kid is an affront to civilized society. It would be a lamentable tragedy anywhere, anytime. It is every parent’s nightmare, the stuff of terrifying late-night movies. It violates the fundamental social contract underlying democratic society - we give up some freedom, our autonomy, deputizing peacekeepers, police officers, to enforce authority, empowering them on the condition they act justly. Without that basic agreement, without that trust, we are not citizens but slaves.

Yet the grieving, bewildered mother is right. This incident is a particular blot on modern Israel, insulting the Zionist idealism that forged this state - and lured this family along with thousands of others to try building a better life here. The crime mocks the Jewish values that both secular and religious Zionists wanted to embed in the state and the society. It corrodes the community sensibilities, the caring, the engagement and the intimacy, that long distinguished Israel from many other countries. And it does violence to the Zionist dream of bettering individuals, the Jewish people and the world by establishing a Jewish state in the Jewish people’s homeland.

Anu banu artzah, livnot ulahibanot bah, “we have come to the Land of Israel to build and be rebuilt,” the early pioneers sang. Knowing the magic in the words makes the report all the more tragic. The boy was so broken by his experience that Attorney Melzer reported: “I trembled when I heard it … The judge almost cried when she saw his condition” - I tremble myself while typing these words.

President Shimon Peres was quick to offer condolences when the captain of the ship Exodus died this week - where is he, where is Prime Minister Netanyahu, to offer comforting words for this youth and his family? For a country justifiably obsessed with defending itself, doesn’t self-defense begin at home, isn’t this issue truly about the strength of the homefront, the quality of the community? Shouldn’t a country that has been agonizing for 1278 days and counting over Gilad Schalit, reserve a little agonizing for this son of ours, or is it too uncomfortable when the enemy is us and not others?

In “The Israel Test,” George Gilder draws a line in the sand between countries that innovate, dare, dream, create, and are free - and those that don’t. Israel is passing that Israel test with its high-tech revolution while functioning as a free country, economically and politically, unlike most countries which are unfree, oppressive, insular. This horrible trauma poses a more basic Israel test - is this country still a place embodying the Jewish value that all members of the community are intertwined, that all are brothers and sisters? The violent police officers, incompetent magistrates, sloppy prison guards and sadistic prisoners who all conspired to torture this kid have together thrown down a gauntlet, posing a challenge to us all. Are we - as Israelis, Zionists, Jews, democrats, humanists, up to the test? I desperately hope so.

Gil Troy is Professor of History at McGill University on leave in Jerusalem. He is the author of Why I Am a Zionist: Israel, Jewish Identity and the Challenges of Today. His latest book The Reagan Revolution:  A Very Short Introduction, was recently published by Oxford University Press.

By Gil Troy, The New York Jewish Week, 12-29-09

It is tragic yet emblematic that Bernie Madoff, the billion-dollar Ponzi schemer, is this last decade’s most influential American Jew. In fairness, if this great economic recession recedes, thanks to Time’s 2009 Person of the Year, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, historians will remember Bernanke more than Madoff. But it is premature to assess Bernanke’s success, while the damage Madoff caused was clear.

Madoff epitomizes American Jewry’s decade of decadence, a time of excess spending, perverted priorities, lapsed morals and staggering selfishness. True, Madoff was extreme — and unique. But Madoff succeeded so spectacularly, ruining so many lives, because too many of us internalized the greed-is-good ethos, believing that he who makes the most and spends the most must know the most and be the best — especially if, like Madoff, he tempered his materialism with a patina of piety and charity.

While too many Jewish communities historically had to struggle amid the curse of anti-Semitism, American Jewry is flummoxed by its blessings. American Jews, the writer Leon Wieseltier has warned, are “the spoiled brats of Jewish history,” among the luckiest, wealthiest, freest, strongest, most literate Jews ever. Yet for the most part we are communally adrift, Jewishly ignorant, apathetic and self-absorbed. Too many of us have turned away from our ancestors’ generosity, self-restraint, modesty, godliness, and neighborliness. We are more defined today by Seth Rogen’s vulgarity, Rahm Emanuel’s ferocity, Calvin Klein’s libertinism, Jon Stewart’s cynicism, Barbara Walters’ celebrity worship and Alan Greenspan’s irrational exuberance, than by Rashi’s subtlety, Maimonides’ morality, the Baal Shem Tov’s spirituality, David Ben-Gurion’s asceticism, Abraham Joshua Heschel’s humanism and Betty Friedan’s visionary idealism.

In response, and lured by the siren song of modernity, American Jews are voting with their feet. Scott Shay notes in his book, “Getting Our Groove Back,” that businesses that lose as many customers as say, Conservative synagogues have over the last decade, close.

Our collective self-absorption was apparent during the first half of the decade, when we felt the menace of terrorism more intensely, and the second half, when the shop-till-you-drop mentality took over — until the market dropped so much many could not afford to shop. In September 2000, when Yasir Arafat (mis)led the Palestinians away from negotiations and back toward terror, many American Jews responded slowly. It was hard to get people to focus on the Israeli lives being destroyed and the world’s cruel betrayal, blaming Israel for Palestinian violence while chiding Israel for defending itself.

Only after the trauma of Sept. 11, 2001 brought terror to America did most American Jews start taking the threat of terrorism seriously. And even with so many dramatic reminders these last 10 years of America’s and Israel’s shared fates, we end the decade with many American Jews drifting away from Israel, internalizing the world critique that Israeli settlements — not Palestinian rejectionism — remain the greatest obstacle to Middle East peace. Bad enough that the new big lies tagging Zionism as racism and Israel as being like South Africa outlasted their Soviet and Nazi originators. Even worse is how many American Jews embrace those lies, and how many more are too ignorant, cowardly, or distracted to refute them.

Yet despite these communal failures, we are also experiencing a Golden Age of American Jewry. During this decade we have seen observant Jews working in the White House, competing for Nobel Prizes, improving lives through miraculous innovations. We have also seen pockets of American Jewish resurgence, from the proliferation of egalitarian, non-hierarchical, peer-led and vibrant minyanim with intense, soulful praying to the mainstreaming of Chabad as a powerful, effective source of Jewish renewal. Educationally, the Jewish day school movement has flourished, becoming a more popular alternative to public or prep school for non-Orthodox Jews by creating exciting Jewish environments breeding great students and good values. Organizationally, an entrepreneurial spirit has energized many Jewish institutions, with guerilla philanthropists, passionate volunteers and creative professionals often compensating for the shrinking rank and file. Ideologically, the commitment to tikkun olam, fixing the world, and to more openness has inspired many. We should be proud of American Jewry’s efforts in sensitizing all Americans to the Darfur tragedy.

The brightest spot in this often dark decade has emanated from the dazzling smiles of the more than 220,000 young Jews, aged 18 to 26, who have spent 10 days in Israel thanks to Birthright Israel. I don’t write these words because I am involved on a volunteer basis with Birthright, chairing its international education committee; I became involved — after initial skepticism — because I believe these words. Birthright offers the formula American Jewry needs for its revival — passion, purpose, peers, pep and pride — celebrating Israel and Judaism, engaging our past, embracing our present, building a future — and, hopefully, leading the way to a decade of enlightenment and engagement after 10 years of too much decadence, drift and despair.

Gil Troy is professor of history at McGill University on leave in Jerusalem. He is the author of “Why I Am a Zionist: Israel, Jewish Identity and the Challenges of Today.” His latest book “The Reagan Revolution: A Very Short Introduction,” was recently published by Oxford University Press.

By Gil Troy, Jerusalem Post, 12-22-09

As we approach 2010, we should say good riddance to this past decade. For Israel, this decade began with great hopes of peace that Palestinian suicide bombers blew to bits. What quickly became a Decade of Death ends on an upturn, as a Decade of Disengagement.

On January 1, 2000, thrilled that their TVs and computers worked despite Y2K Millennium Bug warnings, millions welcomed the new decade watching a seemingly inspiring scene in Bethlehem. The Palestinian Authority celebrated what reporters called “a new dawn,” by releasing 2000 doves into the air.

The doves were probably pigeons. And the fireworks shot off immediately thereafter terrified the birds. Many plunged to their deaths in Manger Square to the sounds of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.” Ma’ad Abu-Ghazalah, a Palestinian-American witnessing the scene, noted the irony that the birds’ value as symbols of peace caused their deaths. Bethlehem residents responded: “The PA doesn’t respect its own people! Why do you expect them to respect a few pigeons?” Nine months later, Yasser Arafat’s PA showed even more contempt for its own people - and its neighbors - by launching what Palestinians called “the Intifada,” and what we should call Arafat’s War of Terror against the Peace Process.

With Arafat’s War in September 2000, terrorism became one of the decade’s defining forces. In a cruel betrayal that still haunts Israel, the world blamed Israel for the Palestinian turn from negotiations to terror - and condemned every Israeli response to the violence. Even worse, for months Israel failed to protect its citizens on the streets and in cafes, on buses and at bat mitzvahs. The violence peaked in March 2002, when terrorists slaughtered 134 innocents, including 30 celebrating a Passover Seder. Israelis remember the sick feeling from those days, desperately calling in loved ones after each massacre, guiltily relieved that it was someone else’s life that had been shattered - this time.

Following that March of mayhem, then-prime minister Ariel Sharon changed the dynamics. Rather than simply reacting to Palestinian terror, he launched Operation Defensive Shield, taking the fight to the terrorists on the West Bank. We forget that Sharon had already been flailing about as prime minister for a year, as civilians were murdered. We also forget that it took September 11 to mobilize American Jewry and sensitize then-president George W. Bush to the problems. And only after Arafat lied to Bush in January 2002, denying knowledge of the Karine A arms shipment, did Bush give up on Arafat as a “peace partner” and give Israel the green light to attack.

Israel eventually won this war against the Palestinians. The death toll of over 1000 was so great and Israel’s position in the world so compromised, that the country never celebrated this hard-fought victory. The Palestinians’ worldwide anti-Zionist campaign triggered an ugly resurgence of anti-Semitism, embraced by too many intellectuals. And Palestinian suicide bombers forced Israel into building a separation barrier. The barrier is the burial ground of the delusions of the Right that Israel could ignore Palestinian aspirations and of the Left that the Palestinians were ready to compromise.

Arafat died in November, 2004. In August 2005, Sharon tried locking-in the cold peace that had settled in by withdrawing 7000 Israelis from Gaza. The half-decade of Death ended; the Decade of Disengagement began.

Tragically, the Disengagement misfired. Although the number of Israeli soldiers killed in Gaza plummeted, the unilateral disengagement emboldened Hamas to take over Gaza as a barrage of rockets pounded the Negev - for years before Israel responded effectively. Moreover, in what will be remembered as an act of tremendous shortsightedness by the Israeli Left, rather than ensuring the settlers’ smoothest possible reintegration to ease future withdrawals, the resettlement was sloppy and traumatic. Four years later, many of the disengaged Gaza settlers remain unsettled.

With Sharon’s incapacitating stroke in January, 2006 and Ehud Olmert’s emergence as prime minister, Israelis experienced a different kind of disengagement in these aptly-named “oh-ohs.” Israelis wallowed in a defensive, post-traumatic mental state wherein individuals disconnect from memories, emotions, actions. According to Dr. Patti Levin, a Boston-based psychologist, even when people do not experience traumas directly, mass disasters such as the terror wave become “vicarious traumas,” puncturing individuals’ myth of the “just world,” as they discover that “no longer do bad things only happen to bad people - or to others - but they can happen to anyone, including themselves.” Some then succumb to a “detached, hopeless (not even daring to hope) state of passive victimhood,” what Dr. Martin Seligman termed “Learned Helplessness.

The Olmert era was an era of collective PTS - post traumatic stress - with too many Israelis resigned to a stalled peace process, corrupt leaders, and the world’s growing hostility. Many Israelis no longer dropped everything to listen intently when the “beep, beep, beep” announced the hourly news on “Kol Yisrael MiYerushalayim.” Increasingly, the West’s individualistic, shop till you drop mentality trumped the traditional collective Zionist ethos. The outbreak of two wars under Olmert - in Lebanon in 2006, and in Gaza in 2008 - engaged Israelis temporarily, and unevenly, as one region in each of those conflicts suffered directly, while others thrived.

Israelis’ passive, amusement imperative amid such great disasters and threats reflects both political weakness and social resilience. Amid such trauma, despite a depressing level of political dysfunction, Israel is proving to the Palestinians and the world that living well truly is the best revenge. The Israeli economy proved more buoyant than most during the global economic crisis. Israel continues to rock the high tech world, as Dan Senor and Saul Singer recently illustrated in their inspiring book Start-Up Nation. Moreover, Harvard Professor Ruth Wisse accurately calls Israelis “reverse hypocrites.” Hypocrites’ actions fail to live up to their noble rhetoric; Israelis act more nobly than their rhetoric, as many denigrate their country yet fight valiantly when necessary.

The United States, too, suffers from collective Post-Traumatic Stress, and experienced a far more disconnected “Whatever Decade.” As Israelis leave this Decade of Death and Disengagement, the challenge is to follow the Biblical imperative - Choose Life! - while following the democratic dicate - engage! Israelis have emerged from the cauldrons of terrorist hell. Hopefully, this coming decade will be an opportunity to apply the genius Israeli have demonstrated in developing software to nurturing a society that is just, strong, caring, and engaged.

Please email your own suggestions of what to call this decade in Israel’s history to namethatdecade.israel@gmail.com. The person sending in the best suggestion will receive a free book.

Gil Troy is Professor of History at McGill University on leave in Jerusalem. He is the author of Why I Am a Zionist: Israel, Jewish Identity and the Challenges of Today. His latest book The Reagan Revolution:  A Very Short Introduction, was recently published by Oxford University Press.

By Gil Troy, Jerusalem Post, 12-17-09

On Wednesday, 490 parliamentarians, diplomats, government officials, activists, academics, community leaders and clerics from 50 countries gathered at the Knesset for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ two-day Global Forum against Anti-Semitism.

While unhappy about missing two days of Hanukkah vacation with my kids, having attended two previous Forums I know I am going to enjoy myself. I will meet interesting, insightful idealists, both Jewish and non-Jewish, who care about fighting injustice. I will reunite with friends from the earlier conferences. We will eat lavish dinners, listen to compelling presentations, and hopefully make useful suggestions. Still, I will feel guilty. Fighting anti-Semitism should neither be so much fun nor so routine.

I understand that an event hosting dignitaries must be elegant, and the Foreign Ministry under the leadership of Aviva Raz-Shechter and her under-funded Department for Combating Anti-Semitism do a great job hosting. But as we politely follow academic and diplomatic protocols at our sessions and cocktails, I will occasionally think of a beheaded Daniel Pearl, a tortured Ilan Halimi, rotting in their graves.

Daniel Pearl, a 39-year-old, Stanford educated Wall Street Journal reporter, was kidnapped and slaughtered, his head cut off and his body hacked into ten pieces by Islamists in Pakistan in February 2002. Ilan Halimi, a 23-year-old French salesman, was kidnapped in January 2006 by an anti-Semitic gang, tortured for three weeks, then dumped with burns on 80 percent of his body, which he did not survive. I will also remember the hundreds of Israelis murdered by Palestinian suicide bombers perverted by the torrent of harsh anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli images emanating from Palestinian mosques, Palestinian leaders and the Arab media. And I will recall Elie Wiesel’s teaching during the Palestinian terror wave that sometimes, the most rational response to evil is anger.

Anger is the active ingredient in the success of movements, be it Civil Rights, feminism, gay liberation, anti-Communism, Soviet Jewry or Zionism itself. When successfully channeled, anger can put oppressors and moral slobs on the defensive, adjust common language patterns, heighten people’s sensitivities and change history.

For starters, we should shake up and wake up the Jewish community, teaching that fighting the New Anti-Semitism requires going beyond business as usual. The Jewish world has been stymied because too many feel guilty about the false charge that Jews squelch criticism of Israel by crying “anti-Semitism.” This charge is particularly ludicrous considering the intense criticism leveled against Israel in Israel, the Jewish world and the world over, along with the stunning lack of self-criticism within the Arab world. One rarely hears criticism of the lack of Arab or Muslim self-criticism while Jews and Israelis are constantly criticizing themselves, while also criticizing themselves and being criticized for not being critical enough.

The New Anti-Semites go far beyond reasonable criticism of Israel. The BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) movement is guilty of Exclusivity - meaning singling Israel out – and Essentialism – meaning attacking Israel’s existence, not Israeli policy. Both are marks of bigotry. Nevertheless, recently the Board of the San Francisco Jewish Federation could not bring itself to approve this resolution:

The S.F. Jewish Federation will not support events or organizations that defame Israel. Nor will it support organizations that partner in their events with individuals or groups that call for boycotts, divestment or sanctions (BDS) against Israel.”

In fairness, the Board condemned the BDS movement (what the Toronto Federation has rechristened the blacklist, demonize and slander movement), but this clearer resolution failed.

Nevertheless, this resolution should be tabled at every major Jewish organization as part of a broad campaign repudiating BDS. And we should be clear. This is not a “Free speech” question or an attempt to muzzle debate over Israel. The resolution opposes subsidized speech, using Jewish community dollars, which like all charitable funds are sacred, to finance harsh blacklist proponents attending Jewish film festivals or mounting borderline-anti-Semitic plays.

Second, the fight against anti-Semitism, against blacklisting and for Israel begins at home, in the homeland. Israelis can be the most effective ambassadors in the fight against BDS - this fight for survival should transcend most political divisions and harness the kind of ingenuity Israelis bring to more conventional battlefields. Israelis must understand that, despite their “Start-up Nation” Hi Tech inventiveness, if the European Union boycotts Israel, the economic impact would be devastating. The threat is real - but is dismissed and usually seen, unfortunately, through a left-right prism.

Moreover, Israeli critics of Israeli policy must understand that in an age of instant communication, what they say “within the family,” echoes throughout the world. Israel’s harshest critics quote Israelis incessantly. No Israelis should be forced to change their politics, no matter what opponents would choose to do. But ALL Israelis should watch their language, understanding that false Nazi/Apartheid/Racism analogies feed Israel’s enemies, who wish to exterminate the state. There is a rich bank of historical analogies and words Israeli critics can use to criticize Israel. They must learn how harmful the Nazi and Apartheid analogies are and how they are used against Israel’s right to exist.

Third, we need a “Let Israel Live” anti-BDS campaign, built on the style of the Soviet Jewry movement, mounting a legal but in-your-face grassroots attempt to delegitimize Israel’s delegitimizers. We should shout down Iranian diplomats for representing a country with genocidal designs on Israel. We must confront Saudi, Egyptian and Palestinian diplomats when their official news organs spread harsh anti-Semitic caricatures. We should put left-wing BDSers on the defensive, showing how Essentialism and Exclusivity perpetuate prejudice, particularly traditional anti-Semitic patterns.

Last week, in Ottawa, during a break in testimony at the hearings of the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism, I confronted some pro-boycott union officials. I asked why they attacked what one of their resolutions called (ungrammatically) “the apartheid nature of the Israel state” rather than making specific criticisms of Israeli labor policy in the territories, as the union president had done during testimony. One of the activists admitted they were distancing themselves from the apartheid formulation because “it wasn’t effective.” Not “effective” means generating too much pushback.

Pushing back isn’t polite and it isn’t always nice. For all our justifiable anger, it should be channeled strategically, constructively. And, yes, when necessary, we should put on suits, eat nice meals, and build coalitions with dignitaries. But while networking, let’s remember the ugly realities that demand fixing not because “the Jews” demand it but because justice does.

Gil Troy is Professor of History at McGill University on leave in Jerusalem. He is the author of Why I Am a Zionist: Israel, Jewish Identity and the Challenges of Today. His latest book The Reagan Revolution:  A Very Short Introduction, was recently published by Oxford University Press.

By Gil Troy, 2009

For the last few years I have lamented that Jews were preparing to celebrate Hanukkah, our festival of lights, during a particularly dark period. I am happy to say that this year was actually pretty good. Yes, the Iranian nuclear threat – to the United States not just to Israel – still looms. Yes, the crash, recession, and Madoff scheme crushed many individuals – and charitable foundations that do holy work. Yes, the high unemployment rate in the United States is a reminder of the misery many individuals are experiencing even during this holiday season. Yes, Islamic extremists declare war on the West, yet many Westerners, deny and dither, afraid to respond too assertively. And yes, Palestinian rejectionists get a free pass in the world court of public opinion while Israel is condemned for engaging in self-defense.

Still, today, the markets have recovered and what was supposed to be the “worst economic crisis since the Great Depression” may turn out to be simply part of the historical, boom and bust cycle of capitalism. More important, Israel ’s counter-offensive in Gaza worked. The good people of Sderot and the Western Negev seem set to celebrate their quietest Hanukkah in years. Even Mahmoud Abbas admitted this year that the West Bank is thriving, deviating from the Western narrative claiming the Palestinians are suffering under the world’s worst conditions. And while the shadow of terror still darkens the planet, with the families mourning the slaughtered soldiers of Fort Hood joining a long worldwide list of families stricken by this blight, the West and Israel endured far fewer attacks than the dark days of 2001, 2002, and 2003.

So we should celebrate this year, mindful of the troubles and appreciative of all our blessings.  Rejoicing in past victories helps put our current challenges in perspective, reminding us that we have suffered before, and not just survived but thrived. Moreover, with terrorists still trying to rob innocents of any joy, and any semblance of a normal life, observing holidays becomes yet another act of defiance, a leap of faith asserting our commitment to stick to the everyday.

Nevertheless, even as we celebrate, it behooves us to reassess the meaning of the holidays, thinking about how we observe them. Now is the time to rededicate ourselves to Jewish renewal, finding the joy in Judaism, not just the “oy.” Such a reevaluation is particularly necessary in the case of Hanukkah, a holiday whose meaning has changed over the years.

While Hanukkah’s basic plot line has remained unchanged for almost two millennia, the Hanukkah we know and love is a twentieth-century invention. The central themes we associate with Hanukkah, of heroism and power, both physical and spiritual, were Zionist ideas; for centuries the Rabbis dwelled on the miracle of the oil. When the Zionist revolution a century ago reevaluated Judaism, the Maccabees’ story proved that Jewish history was not just about the anti-Semites who hated us and the Rabbis who taught us. The Maccabees were home-grown heroes, rooted in Israel ’s ancient soil, and willing to fight, if necessary, for their homeland, their beliefs, and their freedom. In that spirit, before World War I, many Jews used Hanukkah as an opportunity for giving not receiving, donating the modern equivalent of the “shekel,” the Biblical coin, to the Zionist cause.

At the same time, the other great twentieth-century Jewish revolution, the rise of North American Jewry, also transformed Hanukkah. As with Passover, the theme of “freedom” resonated in the land of liberty, giving the ancient Jewish holiday a contemporary American flavor. But, even more important, the quirk of scheduling, as well as the anthropological linkage to another winter-solstice festival of lights, made for the gift-giving frenzy we see today.

As a delightful holiday of dedication, Hanukkah has long been child-centered. Traditionally, Jewish communities used Hanukkah to rededicate themselves to their children’s Jewish education. In that spirit, parents gave children “gelt” or coins to sweeten the experience of Torah study.

In the modern world, this festival of gelt-giving and of lights became the popular Jewish response to Christmas envy, the malady that seized many a Jewish household each December. In fact, with eight nights, and thus eight opportunities for gift-giving, Hanukkah became a way for Jews to trump their Christian neighbors.

Tragically, both Hanukkah and Christmas have become “Festivals of Consumption,” in the late historian Daniel Boorstin’s apt phrase. A minor sweetener to facilitate Torah study has become the major focus of the holiday, even as this traditionally minor holiday has become a major highlight on the North American Jewish calendar.

Once again, then, we have a chance this year to rededicate Hanukkah, and ourselves, to reorient the holiday. It is time to rejuvenate the holiday by making it a highpoint on our tzedakah calendar, our schedule of giving, while teaching our children about generosity not just materialism. It is not realistic, nor necessary, to declare a gift-giving ban. Most of us, thankfully, do not have to choose between self-indulgence and good works. Moreover, to set up false choices by being too austere, defeats the educational purpose behind the gelt-giving. But is it too much to ask for this year, that every family, every school, every Jewish institution, every Hanukkah get-together carve out some time to think about others who are less fortunate, others with whom we should share our good fortune? Is it too much to ask that as we teach our children the joy of receiving gifts from loved ones we also teach them the joy of giving gifts to strangers?

The smallest of gestures can teach this most important of lessons. During the traditional Hanukkah grab bag, one additional toy can be thrown into the hopper, and that toy can be designated for a child in need. Similarly, children awash in presents could be asked to give one old toy and one new toy to tzedakah. Relatives from far away who are going to send Hanukkah checks can be encouraged to allocate part of their gift to a charity of the children’s choice, or parents and children can agree on a certain percentage of all gifts to be donated. Even more important, acts of loving kindness, good deeds, should be encouraged so we go beyond many Jews’ tendency to assume that the only way to help others is materially.

This Hanukkah, of all Hanukkahs, why not take advantage of the eight nights, the eight candles, to designate our thoughts, our prayers, and our gifts of time, talent, and money in the following directions:

On the First Night of Hanukkah, let us dedicate ourselves to the Victims of Palestinian Terror, the casualties of the recent Second Lebanon War and Gaza operation, and most especially the still-traumatized citizens of Sderot and the Western Negev, hoping to bring a little light into their lives: Just because a story fades from the headlines does not mean trouble has disappeared. Families of the murdered still miss their loved ones, year after year. Terrorists have slaughtered more than 1000 people in Israel since 2000, and maimed thousands more. Hezbollah killed nearly 150 others, soldiers and civilians, Jews and Arabs, during the summer of 2006. Thousands of Kassam rockets have rained down on the good people of Sderot and the Western Negev .  We must adopt families of the victims, embracing them, supporting them, befriending them, sending both love and money. We should still focus on helping out the people of Sderot, who endured so much for so long. The Hesder Yeshiva there has proven to be an essential force for community building there, doing good and holy work. Another way to make a strong stand of solidarity with the citizens of Sderot is through http://sderotmedia.com/?cat=5

Also, support Camp Koby, a magical summer camp that works with survivors of terror, healing sons and daughters, brothers and sisters of victims.

On the Second Night of Hanukkah, let us dedicate ourselves to Gilad Shalit, honoring his heroism and that of his family. On June 25, 2006, Gilad Shalit, a 19-year-old with a shy smile, was kidnapped by Hamas near Gaza . His pain – and his families’ suffering – is our pain. Our worlds will not be complete, our holidays not fully joyous, until he comes home – and we have not done enough for him. His family shares a unique bond of anguish with the families of Ron Arad, Zachary Baumel, Zvi Feldman, and Yehuda Katz, who have been missing since the 1980s. Buy Gilad’s book “When The Fish and the Shark first Met.” Write your representatives demanding information and action. For more information, including a petition to sign, visit  http://www.habanim.org/en/index_en.html or add your wishes to http://giladshalit.blogspot.com/

On the Third Night of Hanukkah, let us dedicate ourselves to the Children of Israel , who deserve to live in freedom, free of fear: Israeli society has proved itself remarkably resilient, but even before the global financial crisis began there was far too much poverty in Israel . The gap between the rich and the poor is growing greater than ever.  We must be proactive not just reactive, thinking about how to help improve the quality of Israeli life. One lovely initiative is the Jade Bar Shalom Books for Israel Project, an attempt to get new and slightly used English books sent to Israeli schoolchildren to help compensate for budget cutbacks. Since July 2005, over 41 tons of donated English literature and reference books have been delivered to over 200 of Israel ’s Jewish, Druze, Bedouin, Christian, Bahai, and Muslim public schools.

On the Fourth Night of Hanukkah, let us dedicate ourselves to the Institutions of Israel, the well-oiled infrastructure which keeps the society functioning: Even as we champion new initiatives, we need to continue supporting agencies that have laid the foundation for the Jewish state, and help make it thrive. To name only a few, Hadassah continues to modernize Israeli medical facilities, the Magen David Adom (Israeli “Red Cross”) serves all people in Israel under trying circumstances, the Jewish National Fund continues renewing the land, the United Jewish Communities launched a special Israel Emergency Fund to rebuild in the north and in Sderot. To honor their heroic services to the citizens and soldiers up north during the 2006 war, make sure to support Rambam Hospital in Haifa as well, as part of the rebuilding effort, which continues.

On the Fifth Night of Hanukkah, let us dedicate ourselves to taking back the night, to undoing some of the evil that was done this year. We can through our good deeds exorcise some of the bad deeds that have been done.  In that spirit, donate to UN Watch which has been a powerful force calling attention to the hypocrisy of the human rights community when it demonizes Israel .  Alternatively, to remember the good people the Islamic terrorists in Mumbai killed just over a year ago, support your local Chabad house showing that we, too, will target them, but with love.

On the Sixth Night of Hanukkah, let us dedicate ourselves to our Local Jewish Community, renewing our collective ability to help us renew ourselves and our own Jewish identities: Even while fighting fires abroad, we need to keep our home fires burning, as it were, by supporting our local synagogues, schools, Federations, agencies. In the Diaspora and in Israel , if we do not create welcoming, exciting models for Jewish identity, we will raise a new generation of Hellenists not Maccabees.  This Hanukkah is a perfect time to rededicate ourselves to Jewish education, on all levels, for young and old alike. We all need to be engaged in lifelong learning, the more formal, the better, the more time-intensive the better.  More broadly, let us challenge ourselves by asking not only how much money am I willing to donate, but how much time am I willing to volunteer this coming year?

On the Seventh Night of Hanukkah, let us dedicate ourselves to neighbors in need, bestowing gifts on neighbors who are suffering and to non-Jewish friends and causes, understanding the power of affirming our common humanity, and helping one another:: Most of us live in cities marked by huge disparities between haves and have-nots. Those of us who have should take the time to help those who have less, both Jews and non-Jews, seeing what we can do to make sure that none of our neighbors go to bed hungry, cold, or lonely, that none of our neighbors are deprived of the joy of celebrating this season.  Wherever we stand on the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan , we should all stand united in support of the American troops, those idealistic, vulnerable, heroic knights in Kevlar willing to risk so much. Creative ways of supporting the troops include buying pre-paid calling cards so soldiers can call their loved ones for free or sending messages of support.  Given the seasonal coincidence between Hanukkah and Christmas, we have a lovely chance to make Christmas and Hanukkah wishes harmonize, as we celebrate Hanukkah by helping neighbors celebrate Christmas. The crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan demands our action and our outrage. Let us not stand by idly, complaining of others’ inactions, yet not doing anything ourselves. The American Jewish World Service has been a particular leader in this, combining education, advocacy and intelligent giving.

On the Eight Night of Hanukkah, let us dedicate ourselves to the Power of Teaching, of Leading Our Children by Example: If every night, we channel our children’s charitable impulses, giving a guided tour of the possibilities of giving, on this, the last night of Hanukkah, let us ask our children to take the first baby steps in this world of responsibility and great satisfaction, by asking them to pick a charitable deed, a mitzvah for someone else they plan on doing.

The time and resources are limited; the work is great – and overwhelming. Yet our sages teach that it is not upon us to complete all the work, nor are we free to evade it. No one should feel guilty for failing to carve out a charitable moment every one of the eight nights – yet no one should feel free to ignore this challenge completely.

For decades now, kids have greeted each other every morning of Hanukkah with the question: “What did you get last night?” This year, perhaps, we can also teach our children to ask: “What did you give?”

Gil Troy is Professor of History at McGill University and the author of Why I Am A Zionist: Israel, Jewish Identity and the Challenges of Today, as well as The Reagan Revolution: A Very Short Introduction.