A Jewish Family: Conflicting Sympathies

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

The Columbus Dispatch
December 1, 2002 Sunday, Home Final Edition
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 09A
LENGTH: 719 words
SERIES: WAR TORN IN COLUMBUS
HEADLINE: A JEWISH FAMILY | CONFLICTING SYMPATHIES;
DAUGHTER'S SUPPORT FOR PALESTINIANS TESTS THE FABRIC OF RABBI'S FAMILY
BYLINE: Mary Mogan Edwards, THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Bush/Sharon, whaddya say,
How many kids did you kill today?
You can kill, you can lie,
Palestine will never die!

Those who know Ora Wise only from the militant chant she led at a 
pro-Palestinian demonstration at Ohio State University in May might 
assume that the petite, intense, eyebrow-pierced daughter of a rabbi 
has utterly rejected her Jewish faith as well as her parents' love.

They would be wrong on both counts. Wise fervently denounces Israel's 
occupation of the Palestinian lands and questions the legitimacy of a 
Jewish state, but, to her, it's a way of freeing Judaism from what 
she sees as a grave moral fault.

"As I've been fighting for Palestinian liberation, it's also the work 
that I do for Jewish emancipation," she said. "Zionism and the state 
of Israel have been a boot on our (Jews') neck."

Reconciling her beliefs about Israel with her feelings for her family 
has been more complicated.

Wise's social activism comes as no surprise to her parents. Spending 
the first 13 years of her life on college campuses "surrounded her 
with engaging, thoughtful people," said her father, Rabbi Irvin Wise, 
who heads Adath Israel Congregation, a Conservative synagogue in 
Cincinnati.

"All three of our daughters are activists, on issues ranging from the 
death penalty to racism," he said.

Ora, 21, who left Ohio State last spring to go to New York, is the 
oldest. She attended her first march honoring Martin Luther King Jr. 
at age 4 and became a vegetarian at 13, all with her parents' 
enthusiastic support.

The passion she developed for the Palestinian cause while at OSU is a 
different matter.

"My parents have always supported my activism, but when it comes to 
this -- they can't come with me on this one," she said.

Her father agrees. "This happens to be one issue on which we have 
very different perspectives," he said.

It's not so different, he believes, from other sharp disagreements 
between parents and socially aware children.

"I had terrible arguments with my father over Vietnam," he recalled. 
"I was outrageous in some of the things I said to him."

He doesn't want to go into detail about the tumultuous months two 
years ago, when Ora's pro-Palestinian sympathies began to emerge.

"It was very hard, but we've managed to set it aside," he said. "We 
paid our dues over a couple of years to get where we are, to be able 
to work around it.

"We've said what we had to say, so why don't we talk about something else?"

Avoiding that elephant in the room takes effort.

On a recent vacation, family members relaxed together and shared 
favorite foods, but conversational paths had to be carefully plotted, 
Rabbi Wise said.

"We had to experiment and make changes in how we relate to each 
other. For me, it isn't easy to live with that dissonance. We live 
with knowing she feels this way about this issue."

The strain on his daughter may be even greater.

"I love them so much, and it tears me apart that there's this dark, 
heavy sadness between us," Ora said. "We have such a rich, rich 
Jewish life together, but I can't share about 90 percent of what I'm 
doing in my own life.

"And yet, I want them to be proud of me. I do."

She doesn't understand why her parents, who have so encouraged her 
social consciousness, don't see the issue as she sees it.

"I thought they taught me to change the world, to fight for social 
change, for social justice," she said. "They taught me to be 
vegetarian and to fight the death penalty. How can they support an 
occupation state?"

Rabbi Wise searches for commonality in their positions.

"The real issue is not advocating for Palestinian rights -- my wife 
and I would advocate that, and we work on behalf of those people as 
well. The real issue of division in the Jewish community is whether 
Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish state."

He believes it does but adds, "I don't think Ora and her friends are 
prepared to accept that."

Nonetheless, even as Palestinian bombers continue to rain death on 
Israeli citizens and Israeli troops continue an equally deadly show 
of force against Palestinians, Rabbi Wise was planning a visit to see 
Ora in New York, where she works with the New York Unemployment 
Project.

After all, he said, "I have intense difficulty with some of her 
positions, but the family is bigger than that."
-- 
Yoshie

* Calendar of Events in Columbus: 
<http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html>
* Anti-War Activist Resources: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/activist.html>
* Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/>
* Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osu.edu/students/CJP/>