This resource engages with our relationship with Israel through the value of Hospitality.
At-a-Glance:
This resource uses the value of hospitality to invite learners to consider
the range of viewpoints about Israel that fit comfortably within one’s community, and where one might need to stretch to include more. Through an interactive prompt, it utilizes a metaphor of the bands of a rainbow to consider how we can build community with divergent views on Israel, and prompts learners to take action in stretching their individual bounds of hospitality.
Facilitator reads for framing:
There are many viewpoints about Israel in the Jewish community. Some are more mainstream–a range of views that are very supportive of Israel and its right to defend itself, perhaps also some sympathy for Palestinians, but a real hesitancy to criticize the Israeli government, especially in a moment of crisis. There are also viewpoints that are further outside the norm. The range of views – both within and outside the Jewish community – is playing out with particularly great force on university campuses across the country.
| Scan the QR code or click here to listen to a segment from PBS news hour which gives a glimpse into the divergent views on campuses. Listen from the beginning to minute 4:30. |  |
Facilitator prompts the group:
Facilitator continues:
If we want our own views about Israel to be accepted in our local Jewish community (e.g., Hillel, synagogue, Jewish students club), we have to assume that there will be people who disagree with us. To make space for our own views, we have to also make space for others, and ask that in exchange they make space for us.
We can’t expect all views to fit into all communities, so the challenge becomes how we negotiate our boundaries. At a certain point we need to define our community with certain boundaries — how far can we stretch and where is the red line?
Facilitator prompts the group:
• What is your most natural response when someone disagrees with you about Israel?
Facilitator reads for framing:
The value of Hospitality, as in a hospitable environment, can offer a useful framework for how we think about cultivating a community. This is not hospitality as “hachnasat orchim,” inviting in guests, where the person doing the inviting is “at home” and plays host to a “guest”; in a community, we want every member to feel at home.
Rather, think about the world of biology and ecosystems. An environment is hospitable to certain creatures within a particular range – it might be temperature, water depth, salinity, etc. For a community to be hospitable to people with divergent views, it must decide for itself the range of inclusivity to which it can stretch. Sometimes this comes from formal, written policies; sometimes it is a more informal sense or set of cultural norms. In either case, each individual member of the community shares responsibility for maintaining the range, and also can have the power to stretch it to include marginal cases.
Facilitator prompts the group:
Facilitator has participants read the following:
Rabbi Lev Meirowitz Nelson teaches:
God gave Noah the rainbow as a sign of God’s first covenant with all of humankind. We often use the rainbow as a symbol of diversity when it comes to gender or sexuality, but what if we expand that idea further to the political? After all, the rainbow starts with red and ends with blue.
Rainbows have boundaries, as do communities. Each of us sees the world through our own “rainbow” lens, with some range of people we see as inside our community and others we see as outside.
The thing is, it’s not that the rainbow stops at its edges. It continues on, into the infrared and ultraviolet. The limitation is in ourselves, in our eyes. Even the people whom we don’t see as in our community remain people, in all their humanity. We are all just electromagnetic emanations of the Holy Blessed One.
Facilitator prompts the group:
| Facilitator distributes the template of the rainbow. Click here to access or scan the QR code to the right. |  |
Facilitator prompts the group:
Take a moment to look at the bands of your rainbow from the activity above.
Facilitator prompts the group:
Close your eyes and imagine, not a rainbow, but a color wheel where all colors are given equal space in the circle.
Facilitator prompts the group:
Close your eyes and imagine, not a rainbow, but a color wheel where all colors are given equal space in the circle.
