David - or Goliath?

Devorah Brous

David — or Goliath?

Copper nails, two inches in length, two inches in width, dangling from an intricate brass chain. An indelible stamp, a spiritual shield, worn daily since my arrival to the Holy Land, Oslo's kickoff off 8 years ago. It has been 'protecting' me in Israel ever since, enabling me, serving as a permit for receiving the blue and white package of benefits upon my immigration, my Return.

Israel is now my home. Thus far, I can find work; enter a hospital upon need, receive quality care and purchase subsidized remedies. I can study for a Master's degree with government aid. I can hop on any bus, ride on any road, pray in nearly any Shul, purchase vegetables at any shuk, pass through any checkpoint and visit any village or settlement without being harassed or humiliated. I can organize and demonstrate against the policies of the Occupation.

Essentially, my copper Magen David serves as a kosher trump card, a testament of my Jewish authenticity to the community at large, and the authorities, "she is one of us," inextricably linking me with the ethnocratic apparatus of the state and the abundance of privileges it provides for people of the covenant.

I work from a place of deep love for Israel, virtually binding it as a sign upon my heart with this copper Magen David. However, I simply don't subscribe to the rules of this zero sum game. Ending the occupation is for the betterment of the Jews, and the betterment of the Palestinians. Torah obligates us to love the stranger in our midst. Sensitivity to the pain of the Other does not delegitimize our own pain, rather it affirms our humanity.

Israeli Jewish human rights activists have never been highly revered by the consensus in Israel. It's hard being demonized as a disloyal, Jew-bashing, anti-semite whenever a critique is lodged against the government—as though the Jewish people must stand unquestionably united against 'the enemy.' There is an enemy, there are atrocities, and desperation. There is fear in the streets, hate in the hearts. But how to move beyond blaming the enemy, with a sharp reflex to unconditionally defend Israel by slinging invective at terrorists and authorities alike?

I wear this ancient shield of David, to connect with the King's poetry, protect me from Goliath, and announce my affiliation with a biblical tribe of warriors constantly struggling with God, themselves, their neighbors. For years, people have warned me to conceal the Magen David while engaged in human rights work in the Occupied Territories. With stubborn pride, (and perhaps strong karma) I resist hiding my identity. I wear it, I co-opt it from the ultranationalists; and state mechanisms which represent discrimination, subjugation, and state terror for the majority of Palestinians today.

While I was protesting the rampage of housing demolitions in Shu'afat refugee camp in July, an elder Palestinian cautioned me to tuck in the Magen David, "Be careful. The youth can not and will not differentiate between you and the hundreds of police and soldiers sealing off our village." Seeing the Occupation, seeing the bulldozers literally pulverize 14 homes for not having building permits, watching the authorities watch this spectacle while illegal construction continues apace in the Jewish settlement across the valley, I did not fear the youth, or their stones. I feared myself. Over the past year, much has changed. For the first time in my life, I was ashamed to wear the symbol.

A Magen David covers the stone walls of Dura's ancient well (a remote Palestinian village near Hevron), graffitied as an omen from encroaching settlers. It is sprayed on the shop walls in the Muslim quarter of the Old City, looming as a sign of domination. In other quarters black images of Magen David with Kach scribbled in red next to hate slogans such as 'Death to the Arabs,' virtually conceal the white-gold walls of the Old City. Rooftops on caged and heavily guarded Jewish fortresses throughout Arab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem boast the Israeli flag. The same flag covers caskets of soldiers and civilians faced with untimely death from political violence.

Opposite the Kotel and Al-Aqsa in the Old City, some of us each Friday hang the Magen David, the Cross, and the Crescent while reading from the Torah, Koran, and Bible with Israelis and Palestinians, we are gaining an immense amount of strength from one another. Though a distinct minority—slipping through the loopholes of consensus, we continue to pray for peace and justice.

The past year has deepened the cleavages, threatening to split the land along a fault line of guilt and blame—neither side willing to validate or even empathize with the other. While unabashedly critical of Arafat and his entourage, the Magen David, the shield of David, is shielding us from seeing ourselves as Goliath.

By demonizing objectors as disloyal, self hating Jews, we perpetuate the collective self-delusion that our Zion can do no wrong. How long will Israel's ostensible security needs vindicate continual expansion of territory at the expense of examining what is beneath our shield and why we always need a shield to protect us from our neighbors? How long, in good conscience, can we continue to be unflagging in our loyalty and blind in our support for Israel, before we begin to examine what Israel is not doing for peace and stability in the region?

The Magen David symbol says to me the privileges are too great to just sit back idly and not ask questions. True loyalty and concern for Israel's tomorrow should make us stop needing a metaphoric shield which literally covers our eyes and hearts to the plight of the strangers in our midst, today.

*Devorah Brous is the founder of Bustan L'Shalom, an environmental peace group in Israel and Palestine, and co-organizer of the interfaith Peace Vigil in the Old City.

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