Labels: What is a Moderate to do?

About twenty years ago or so, when I was working in a Community Jewish Day School in the Greater Philadelphia area, two of my students approached me in my office and asked almost sheepishly if I really meant it when I had stated that if students wanted to begin a club and could not find an advisor, I would be their advisor. They wanted to start a Young Republican Club in this school community of about 400, including educational team members and students, which was predominantly Democrat in affiliation. I told them that if they did not mind that I was a life-long moderate Democrat, I would be honored. I became their advisor.

Whoever was doing scheduling of the club meetings which all convened during lunch must have had a sense of humor and placed our new entity on the same day of the week and across the hall from none other than the Young Democrat Club.  Meetings were called weekly and discussions were lively and significantly content laden. Students would run back and forth across the hall to check out “the other side.” After about two months of listening carefully to their deliberations, I indicated that I had a question. I asked, “We have discussed women’s rights, inclusion of LGBTQ members of community, abortion issues, governmental responsibilities towards all citizens, loyalty to Israel, and so much else. I agree with everything that was said here. Could someone please explain what the difference is between us? No answer, but laughter and shrugged shoulders. I recently shared this memory with the parent of one of those students and she replied that yes, this was the situation but sadly, today this is no longer the case.

As here we sit twenty years later and I watch with great pain and sadness the apparent loss of that collegiality in too many instances. In both Israel and the United States as well as in so many other parts of our fractured world, the extremes of the “left” and the “right” are screaming so loud and even viciously, that the moderate middle cannot be heard or acknowledged. Too many in our communities feel that they have been rendered as persona non grata. The teaching of Hillel and Shammai dialoguing and even arguing and Hillel reporting Shammai’s position before his own as found in the Talmud that is modeled in so many traditionally celebrated learning communities seems to have been obliterated way too often in our present reality. This is particularly true in our Western world, where people become so entrenched in what they personally hold to be true for them that they can no longer even converse with those who believe differently than they do. The left and the right, as we are taught agree on two things: their hatred of each other and of the middle. It is more and more difficult to recognize and acknowledge the middle of the road, the derech emtza’i.

Sally Abed, one of the founders of Omdim BeYachad/Standing Together in Israel and recently elected to the City Council in Haifa explains that there is a profound difference between “the left” in her world and in the United States. She explains that the politically and religiously extreme RIGHT in both the United States and Israel is about Israel only without concern for those not seen as part of their Israeli Jewish reality. However, in the Western world the politically charged extreme LEFT is against Israel and instead screams only about Palestine and Palestinians’ rights.  Contrary to this, in Israel, the “extreme left” is about living together and figuring out how to end this ongoing conflict. In other words, LEFT is not the same for these two groups of people.

In the meantime, the label of Progressive (i.e. Left) has its own ramifications. It has taken on extreme tones to be sure as has the extremely conservative exclusionary right in the United States. I am still that moderate Democrat. I love and believe that the United States is founded on equality for all, though clearly, we are still struggling to achieve this. Similarly, my love for Israel is about all that it can and should be, though here too there are still complications to be resolved. This is the nature of our humanity. While we fall short of our goals, we do not stop striving for the fulfillment of the foundational elements of the belief system on which we are based – the fact that all people are created in the image of G-d, that we need to use our agency to show a different model of being, using our power for good and for the benefit of all, not just those who hold it. Leadership is about responsibility towards others, not privilege for self.

These are my beliefs that I hold dear. Protecting the rights and sanctity of life of all people – Israelis of all religious leanings, innocent Palestinian citizens who just want to live their lives, individuals of all ethnicities, racial groupings, genders, sexuality, and those who are able or not as able in every way – this is what I hold to be true as an observant Jew and as a moderate Democrat. If that makes me a Progressive (and not a moderate), so be it, but if it does, I think we have a much bigger problem than this label or any other conveys. This makes me all the more nostalgic for my lovely little Young Republican Club from decades ago.