Safeguarding Our Shared Home, the protest group opposing the government’s judicial reforms, and 929, the Jewish learning project, have launched a week-long project to facilitate dialogue between Israelis through visits to each other’s sukkot.
Participants can register using a small form on the project’s website, to host or be hosted on any day throughout the remainder of the holiday, for “in-depth, meaningful conversations, that will strengthen the sense of connection, of Israeli unity,…in the midst of these very challenging and complicated times.”Among the leaders of the project is Rabbi Dr. Benny Lau, the head of 929: “The shared home of us all – the State of Israel – is in danger,” Lau said. “We have to stop, talk, get to know one another beyond clichés and extreme statements.” Lau connected the need for dialogue to the Sukkot holiday, “the holiday of guess, in which we all leave the comforts of home for the public space where we all must live together.”
A singer, an MK, and a Supreme Court Justice walk into a sukkah
To guide the conversation, each sukkah will host a facilitator, including some major figures in Israeli culture and politics: musicians Barry Sakharof and Shai Tzabari will be facilitators, as will former MK Yehuda Glick, and Justice Elyakim Rubinstein, former Vice President of the Supreme Court. The organizers hope to cast a broad net, bringing together leaders from across the Israeli political spectrum, and drawing participants from different corners of Israeli society.
To aid discussions, Shared Home prepared a ‘source sheet,’ which a member of the organization shared with the Jerusalem Post. The first page places Leviticus and Maimonides next to Israel’s Declaration of Independence, and the subsequent pages similarly put contemporary Israeli sources in conversation with Jewish tradition. The project is being supported by several institutions of Jewish learning, including the Hadar Institute and Ein Prat.
The first day of the project, Sunday, October 1, 2023, included nineteen conversations hosted in sukkot across the country. Four of these were held in Jerusalem, and each of the others was in its own locale. Sites included the kibbutz Ramat Rachel, the moshav Shorashim, and the Tekoa, Piduel, and Alon Shvut settlements in the West Bank.
Partisans detract, but organizers insist on consensus
The endeavor has not been without controversy, however. Rav Shimeon ben Shaiyah, columnist for the religious-Zionist outlet Srugim, called the project a sort of Christianization: “precisely now, we must be careful not to fall into manipulative formulations that exploit the ‘sukkah of peace,’” Shaiya wrote. “We must beware of the destructive influence of Christian ethics…which calls for peace and love for all out of moral irresponsibility.”
Meanwhile, from the other side, a similarly cynical sentiment was shared in a Facebook post that received almost a hundred likes: “Religious Zionism is the principally guilty party in the division. And so it isn’t possible for people from that sector to lead the protest. They can’t present themselves as a bridge.”
The organizers, however, insist on the necessity of reaching out to the other side— regardless of which side you happen to be on. “As one of those who have been organizing demonstrations for nine months now, my ears are always open to hearing additional voices,” said Eyal Gur, one of the leaders of Shared Home. “The rupture made by politicians can be healed only by broad agreements.” Gur appealed to the “fundamental consensus” that he said was “self-evident until not very long ago. The vision of the Prophets, the nation-state of the Jewish people, with equality, one law, and justice for all.”