Rosner's Domain: Mira Regev and Dan Herman on Tikkun Olam in Tel Aviv

Tikun Olam in Tel Aviv is a Masa project sponsored jointly by the Bina Center for Jewish identity and Hebrew culture, the Daniel Centers for Progressive Judaism and the Union for Reform Judaism (more details here). It offers College graduated the opportunity to spend 5-10 months in Tel Aviv volunteering and studying. "Our participants do not commute from higher-end areas of Tel Aviv, but live in the areas that they serve, meet the people who live there and experience their culture.  During the program, participants get to see Israel up close and personal -- not as seen through the window of a tour bus".

Rabbi Mira Regev and Dan Herman of Bina explain why this program is necessary and answer other questions:

I'll start by giving you a chance to make a pitch: why your program is the best program for someone wanting to spend time in Israel?

Our program brings what we would call a more "real" Israel experience than the other programs out there. The first reason for this is simply by virtue of the time frame: most of our participants come for a full 10-months, which they spend living in one neighborhood, one community.  Most other programs are less time, or they move you around a lot -- both of which mean you develop less of a connection to the people with whom you live and volunteer. The second reason that our program is more "real" is the fact that our participants live in the neighborhoods and amongst the populations with which they volunteer. Instead of living in an "ivory tower" apartment in central Tel Aviv, volunteering for a couple of hours each day and going home, our participants live, breathe and experience the cultures of the people with whom they volunteer. And they do all of this alongside our organizations' other groups of young Israelis who live, study and volunteer in south Tel Aviv and Jaffa as part of their army service. Finally, I think our program strikes the perfect balance between social action, language study and Judaic study. The language study component is crucial in order for our participants to feel immersed in Israeli society. The Judaic study is intended to reinforce the volunteer work: our participants chose to come specifically to Israel, and the study component seeks to illuminate what it means to be a Diaspora Jew who is making a serious contribution to Israeli society. In sum, this all creates the most "real" and meaningful volunteering experience possible in a relatively short period of time, and now going in to our 5th year, we -- and our alumni -- couldn't be happier with the results.

Your program is a joint project of one organization that's affiliated with Reform Judaism and one that's about "secular Judaism". So - is this a religious program, or is it not? Or are you trying to imply that "Reform" isn't really "religious" which I think might not be acceptable to Reform rabbis.

No, that's certainly not the implication we're trying to bring across, and it seems that the miscommunication comes about because of the different connotations of the word "Secular" in Hebrew and in English. The idea of "secular" for our purposes is not intended to be the opposite of religious, but of capital-r Religious -- that is, the perceived rigid orthodoxy that exists in the so-called Religious community in Israel. In Hebrew, the word "secular" is used to describe a pretty broad range of people with a broad range of religious beliefs and levels of observance, yet fall short of what qualifies as "religious."  Our goal was to make a place for those "secular" Jews to study Judaism and get in touch with their Jewish identity without being forced to conform to the rigid confines of "Religiousness" in Israel today -- in short, a place for secular Jews to find religion, or a "secular yeshiva." In English, it might be better to call it a "Pluralistic Yeshiva," in which students study Torah, Halacha, Aggada, and Jewish philosophers from Rambam to Buber, and do so in an open format in which different opinions are welcomed and open discussion is encouraged.  Far from cutting ourselves off from religion, we are merely trying to break the monopoly that currently exists on it here in Israel, and bring it to those who may be skeptical about its relevance or even cynical about its impact on society.  For both Israelis and non-Israeli participants, our goal is to highlight the humanitarian aspects of the Jewish tradition that is so relevant to the work we are doing in south Tel Aviv and in Jaffa.

Your program emphasizes Tikkun Olam, making the world better. Is it also about making American Jewish participants more Zionists - because I can't find any reference for such goal on your website?

Although one would have a hard time defining our organization, or our partner organizations, as anything other than Zionist, we don't make an active effort to make our participants more Zionist. We are not in the business of indoctrination, but are instead trying to show our participants the most complete picture of Israel possible, and encourage them to explore the country on their own and draw their own conclusions.  There are other programs and organizations that are more inclined to gloss over any problems in Israel -- or exaggerate them -- in order to make the reality conform to their ideology, but that is not our goal. We do not show our participants the "Beautiful Israel," or the "Ugly Israel," we show them Israel. And when we do show our participants the problematic sides of Israel -- in volunteering when they encounter poverty, substandard public education, etc. -- we do so out of our love for Israel. Every country has its issues, Israel included, and those who ignore or sugar-coat those issues do Israel no great service. It is precisely out of our love for Israel as Jews, as Israelis and as Israeli-Jews, that we work to try to make it a better place, and try to recruit our fellow Jews from the Diaspora to join us in doing so.

Being a "progressive" program, how do you deal with political questions related to Israel's conflict with the Arab neighbors, and to Israel's refusal to treat progressive branches of Judaism equally?

For the Arab-Jewish conflict, we try to present our participants with a broad variety of viewpoints and opinions on the subject and allow them to draw their own conclusions.  At the same time, we try not to dwell on the conflict too much, since Israel has a tremendous amount more to offer, and a tremendous amount more going on, than just the conflict. For next year our program will be opening up a track located in Jaffa that will be focused on working with the diverse population that lives there, which includes Israeli Arabs. We think we're fairly realistic about the potential impact of work with the Arab-Israeli population in that, because of the great lack of trust, any progress comes very slow and must contend with events in the larger political realm. For now, we have learned to take pride in the small steps that we are able to make, and to not get discouraged when larger events and movements seem to be working against us. Progress can be made, but it demands a great deal of patience and perseverance.

As far as the relative lack of pluralism in Israeli Judaism, it comes as somewhat of a culture shock to our participants, most of whom are American, at the apparent lack of options for religious observance in Israel. Most of them come from Reform or Conservative Jewish backgrounds, and are surprised that oftentimes they have few options for a Rosh Hashannah prayer service outside of those that are more "Orthodox" than they would like. On the one hand, we try to expose them to alternatives, such as Reform synagogues in Tel Aviv, while on the other hand, we give them the opportunity to work together with groups of young Israelis who are also interested in finding solutions that do not fall within the orthodox realm, yet are more substantive than, well, nothing. In addition, it is extremely important to us to engage our participants in formal and informal encounters with Israelis in order to dig into the ideas of Jewish identity, and figure out why it is that the religious reality in Israel is so seemingly polarized, and what the implications of that are for issues of Israeli-Jewish identity, and Diaspora-Jewish identity.

All data on Jewish Americans points to the fact that Reform Jews' connection to Israel is weaker and less meaningful than the connection of Jews belonging to other branches of Judaism. Can you explain why - and how you're going to change that? Do you even intend to help change that?

While it is not our specific goal to strengthen the ties of American Jews to Israel, I think it is an inevitable result of participation in our program, and one that we certainly welcome. I can't imagine that someone would come to this country for almost a year, making a serious and substantive personal commitment and contribution to it, and not come out the other side feeling a very strong connection. For many participants, simply having that first experience of being in a Jewish society -- hearing a news anchor open the newscast with "Shabbat Shalom," or seeing "Shanah Tovah," printed on a Coca Cola bottle -- fosters a deep sense of connection to the society and culture. During discussions on Jewish identity, conducted with Israelis, ideas of a larger Jewish "peoplehood," inevitably arise. This larger sense of peoplehood is not immediately apparent to many young Diaspora Jews, and I think this feeling of disconnection from a global Jewish community may explain some of the lack of connection that many Reform Jews feel toward Israel.

By and large, though, most people who would come to spend almost a year in Israel in volunteer and study probably already feel some sort of connection to Israel, or at the very least, are searching for a connection. In truth, we are not building a connection to Israel from scratch, but rather are cultivating the seeds of connection planted either by a lifelong, more abstract connection, or those planted by other organizations like Birthright. It does not take a tremendous amount of connection or commitment to accept a free 10-day trip to Israel, but it also isn't necessarily enough to forge a lasting connection with Israel.  Programs like ours often take former Birthright participants, who usually finish the 10 days on a temporary "Israel High," and bring them back for a longer and more immersive experience, that stands a much better chance of creating lasting bonds.