Gilad, Tent Cities, and Sukkot

Then Jonah went out of the city and sat down east of the city, and made a sukkah for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, waiting to see what would become of the city. Jonah 4:5

Last year I co-led a tour of Israel, and on our last night, on the way to the airport, our bus driver took us on a detour. He brought us to a tent the Shalit family had set up right in the heart of Jerusalem across the street from the Prime Minister’s residence.  The family was planning to occupy this tent for as long as their son, Gilad, had to occupy a cell as a captive of Hamas. The tent spoke of solidarity with their son and protest against his captivity, against the government’s handling of his case, against the injustice of it all. A couple of our tour members jumped off the bus to tell the Shalits that we were praying for them and for Gilad’s release before we drove off.

Since then lots of other tents have been set up all over Israel, with a different message. People are living in tents to protest soaring housing costs and what they consider inequities of social policy in Israel. Protest tents like this have a long pedigree: Jonah sets up a booth, literally a sukkah, to protest God’s plan to let the repentant Ninevites off the hook. And the festival of Sukkot or booths is a kind of protest too. It’s the most joyous of the festivals, and when we sit in the sukkah for eight days, we’re mostly celebrating, not protesting. But perhaps we’re doing both.