My Story 23

During my three years in New Haven, one person who particularly made a huge impression upon me was Rabbi James Ponet. He arrived in town at the same time as I did, in 1981. Growing up in the Reform movement, he was ordained as a Reform rabbi, but then went to Israel to study in an Orthodox Yeshiva. When I met him, he wore a kippah, kept Shabbat and Kashrut. His wife regularly attended the New Haven mikveh, where she and Sima became friends. He did not call himself Orthodox, but rather just Jewish. We liked each other right away. He had just been appointed the campus rabbi at Yale. As I indicated in an earlier post in this series, campus work was my first love. I offered my services at Yale Hillel in any capacity that he might deem fitting. He invited me to give a class in the teachings of Rabbi Nachman. Besides that, he ran a Shabbat Egalitarian Service (the first time I had heard of such a thing), that was meant to bridge the needs of all students, from the Orthodox to Reform, and even agnostic. The service included an in-depth Torah discussion, which he invited me to attend and to give my own take on things. The two of us had many long discussions on all sorts of Jewish topics. He was very opposed to Interfaith marriages, and seemed to truly agonize over the rampant assimilation of American Jewry. How did he go from this, to his moment of international notoriety as the co-officiant in the 2010 Interfaith marriage of Chelsea Clinton, held on a Shabbat afternoon, no less? I have searched news items, and only came up with vague references to his "personal journey". I believe that I know where this "personal journey", which was actually a personal struggle, began. It would divide us, and set each of us on a radically different path. In June, 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon. Night after night, the news programs showed pictures of death and destruction, ostensibly caused by Israel. In areas under Israeli control, Christian Lebanese militias wrought wholesale slaughter on Muslim villages. (Whether or not the Israeli leadership was aware of these events before they happened is still a subject of dispute). The world was appalled. Even President Ronald Reagan, by far the most pro-Israel president in history, turned lukewarm and publicly denounced Israel's actions. Perhaps the most troubling question, for me and millions of others, was why the invasion had taken place at all? Was it imperialism? Was it that Menachem Begin and Ariel Sharon were just plain crazy? Unsubstantiated rumors circulated in the U.S., but no real answers. The war lasted for two years and was never really resolved. Only when I moved to Israel in 1984, did I learn that an all-day attack of shelling on Northern Israel on a Shabbat in June had forced Israel's hand. I was angry that I had never seen this in the American media, or even in Jewish publications, for that matter. Although I thought that a "final battle" with the PLO would ultimately be a good thing, I, too, was troubled by the apparent savagery I was seeing on television. It was at this point that many Americans soured on Israel. My non-Jewish neighbors would ask me if there was any justification for these "atrocities". Not knowing about the attack on Israel's North, I had no satisfactory answer to give them, other than "terrorism must be fought". During the first week of operation "Peace for Galilee", as it was called, I saw Jim Ponet. He was ashen. "Walking through the campus, people are shouting at me GET OUT OF LEBANON!" He, like I, was a man of peace. He asked me if I didn't think that Israel was using excessive force, in a battle that seemed unprovoked. I had no choice but to agree (based on my lack of knowledge), but again expressed the view that terror must be fought. He asked me if I thought American Jews have an obligation to protest these actions. I responded in the affirmative. Nevertheless, I continued to identify with the Israeli Right. I didn't understand what was happening but believed that it was for the ultimate good of eliminating terrorism. Jim took the opposite view. He became active in Jewish groups that were supporting Palestinian rights, and attempting to bolster Israel's radical Left, while holding the Israeli establishment, as well as its American supporters, up for criticism, and even censure. Jim, like numerous others, was faced with the conflict between a universal morality, and an ethnic/nationalist narrative that appeared to oppose it. We continued to work together, but it was never the same. I longed to work on campus. I was good at it. Students related to me and the answers I offered.  I begged Jim for an official position in his Hillel. He declined, saying that he thought that what I was already doing was sufficient. How much of this was real, or a sign of his displeasure with my politics, is something I can only speculate about. Sima and I discussed this at length. I felt that my most productive years had been on campus, where I could look back at the end of a week, and see how many people I had positively impacted. Sure, we both loved New Haven, but were our talents and abilities being utilized? Yes, there were small accomplishments here and there, but, essentially, I had been defeated by an apathetic Jewish establishment. Even those Yale students whom I had brought to observance, were eventually convinced by Chabad that only they had the true Judaism. Yes, the Yeshivish community had employed me as a teacher; but only for Hebrew language and Jewish history. My real loves, Jewish spirituality and awareness of G-d were areas I was not permitted to touch, not sharing the Lithuanian Yeshivish outlook. I was thirty-four years old, with no direction. Jim's journey away from identification with traditional values and institutions had begun. I could see no realistic alternative for myself. Like most Orthodox Jews, "aliyah" had always seemed like a dream. Perhaps our time to realize that dream, had come. Perhaps. For better or for worse, we took the plunge.