Monthly Archives: December 2011

“The International Delegitimization Campaign against Israel and the Urgent Need of a Comprehensive Two-State, End-of-Conflict Peace Agreement”

07 Wednesday Dec 2011

Posted by in American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History

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“I decided to write this paper because I have of late been asked questions from both Jews and non-Jews that until recently I had never heard before, questions that call into question the very legitimacy of the State of Israel. I have seen nothing in print that can serve as a comprehensive primer, fact sheet, briefing and background paper that can assist rabbis, Jewish leaders, college and university students and faculty, and our friends in the interfaith community, in dealing effectively with the complexities and nuances that underlie the growing international movement to delegitimize Israel.”

So begins my article (CCAR Journal: The Reform Jewish Quarterly, Fall 2011, pages 90-109) that can be accessed on Temple Israel of Hollywood’s Web-site – See About Us – Then Clergy – Then Clergy Writings – Then Rabbi Rosove’s Writings (www.tioh.org – http://www.tioh.org/about-us/clergy/aboutus-clergy-clergystudy.)

In this piece I address the following questions and themes:

  • What Is the Delegitimization Movement and What Does It Seek to Do?
  • Why Israel Is Not an Apartheid State Despite Claims by the Delegitimization Network
  • The United Nations General Assembly: The Central International Arena of Delegitimization Efforts
  • Other Delegitimizing Actions (The UN Resolution on “Zionism as Racism”; The Protocols of the Elders of Zion; Palestinian school textbooks; Official Palestinian maps; The Israel Lobby by John Meersheimer and Stephen Walt; Israel’s security barrier; International boycott of Israel; Israel as the “greatest threat to world peace”; The UN’s Goldstone Report)
  • We Cannot Deny That Israel Is an Imperfect Democracy
  • The Settlements
  • Legitimate Criticism vs Delegitimization: Embrace Loving Critics and Distance Delegitimizers
  • Jewish Organizational Perspectives: Who Is Really In and Out of the Pro-Israel Camp (a review of 14 major American Jewish organizations and their respective positions Israel)
  • Why Settling the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Is Strategically and Morally Necessary Now Before It Is Too Late
  • What Do We do Now?

Conclusion of the article:

“An old UJA advertisement once read “We never promised you a rose garden.” Anyone with eyes wide open understands the truth of this statement. Indeed, the situation between Israelis and Palestinians and within their respective societies is complex and difficult. Nevertheless, unless this conflict is settled, I fear for the Zionist enterprise altogether. In the 1970s there was an American Zionist movement called B’reira (“There is an  alternative”) and that alternative is a two-state solution. That message is even more to the point today.”

Russian Jews Today Singing Their Hearts Out!!!

06 Tuesday Dec 2011

Posted by in American Politics and Life, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History

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I was a 19 year-old UC Berkeley sophomore when I first became involved with the Bay Area Council on Soviet Jewry. It was 1969 and in the middle of a very harsh era for the Jews of the Soviet Union. For the crime of identifying publicly as Jews, learning Hebrew in small groups in private homes and for applying to immigrate to the State of Israel, Jews were fired from their jobs, expelled from universities, arrested, charged with treason, tried, convicted, and imprisoned.

Many of us had become activists after reading Elie Wiesel’s The Jews of Silence. For me, the arrest of 11 Leningrad Jews at the airport as they attempted to hijack a plane out of the country drew me in. The leader was given the death penalty (later commuted because of world-wide reaction) and the others long prison sentences of hard labor in Siberia. The courage of these and many more people was extraordinary and an inspiration.

We in the west protested, marched, disrupted Soviet cultural events, painted “Let My People Go” on the side of docked Soviet vessels, agitated the established Jewish community to take this issue on publicly, and lobbied our Senators and Congressional Representatives urging them to pass the Jackson-Vanik Amendment tying favorite nation status with the USSR to open immigration policies for Jews wishing to leave.

I offer this remembrance as a preamble for your viewing the YouTube below. It shows thousands of Russian Jews singing openly in a concert led by a male Jewish choral group of 10 voices with an energetic back-up band somewhere in Russia.

As I watched it, I pinched myself realizing how much has changed in the 42 years since I was first active in the movement. Jews are now free to leave, and those who remain are able to live openly as Jews. Our own Reform movement is active in the FSU training leaders, establishing congregations and creating connections with Israel and American Jewish communities. Chabad is also very active there. Thousands have immigrated to America, and more than one million formerly Soviet Jews are living as citizens in the State of Israel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5h1cPdbdZfw&feature=related

2011 Israel Religion and State Index – What Israelis Believe

05 Monday Dec 2011

Posted by in Israel/Zionism, Jewish History

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Following the Israeli “Social Justice” movement protests this past summer that drew 450,000 into tent cities throughout the country, Hiddush, Freedom of Religion for Israel, an organization led by Rabbi Uri Regev, published findings about what Israelis really believe about the secular-religious divide in the Jewish state.

Highlights:

64% view the tension between secular and ultra-Orthodox as the most or second-most acute domestic conflict in the country;

30% view the tension between rich and poor as such;

87% believe ultra-Orthodox young people should be obligated to do either military or national service;

79% favor reducing subsidies for students in yeshivot so as to encourage ultra-Orthodox men to join the workforce;

80% maintain that core curriculum studies should be mandatory in ultra-Orthodox schools as they are in other schools;

65% believes that yeshiva subsidies and the absence of ultra-Orthodox men from the workforce are some of the essential reasons for the heavy burden on the middle class;

83% support Israel’s Declaration of Independence’s promise of “freedom of religion and conscience;”

80% are dissatisfied with the government’s handling of religion/state matters;

62% support freedom of marriage and legal recognition of both civil and religious marriages of all streams in Judaism;

62% support equal recognition of all conversions to Judaism, whether Orthodox, Conservative or Reform;

60%-65% support allowing civil marriages, relaxing Shabbat restrictions, and more.

Two scholars reflect on the meaning and consequences of current trends in Israeli society:

Prof. Eugene Kandel, head of the National Economic Council, holds that Israel could be one of the 15 richest countries in the world, if only haredi men (i.e. ultra-Orthodox) and Arab women participated in the workforce relative to their size in the population.

Prof. Dan Ben- David, who heads the Taub Center, repeatedly reminds us that if we don’t address these issues, Israel faces the threat of slipping into the economic state of a developing country.

The full report – http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=242755

“What kind of society, exactly, do modern Republicans want?” – Robert Reich’s Blog

04 Sunday Dec 2011

Posted by in American Politics and Life, Ethics

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“I’ve been listening to Republican candidates in an effort to discern an overall philosophy, a broadly-shared vision, an ideal picture of America. They say they want a smaller government but that can’t be it.”

This is how Robert Reich begins his clearly written blog of last week, and then he tells us what today’s “regressive” Republican Party (as opposed to “conservative” Republican Party) is really all about. If you agree with me that this is a brilliant and accurate expose on what has happened to one of America’s great political parities, then send it to your friends be they Republicans, Independents or Democrats. For those unfamiliar with Robert Reich (see bio below), he is a strong liberal-left thinker. Regardless of his own political philosophy, I believe he is spot on in this analysis.

http://www.readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/7423-focus-the-rebirth-of-social-darwinism

Robert Reich is an American political economist, professor, author, and political commentator. He served in the administrations of Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, was Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton from 1993 to 1997, and is currently Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley. He was formerly a professor at Harvard University‘s John F. Kennedy School of Government. (Taken from Wikipedia)

Jacob’s Dream and His Emergence into a Man of Faith – D’var Torah Vayetzei

02 Friday Dec 2011

Posted by in Divrei Torah, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life

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Jacob’s destiny was set from birth, but it would come at a price. As his mother Rebekah’s troubled twin pregnancy came to an end and the babies were born, Jacob emerged holding Esau’s heel suggesting a strong pre-natal desire to be born first and become, one day, the future leader of the tribe. In a clever commentary, Rashi (11th century, France) says that the scene reflects a primogeniture truth, that Jacob was actually conceived first, though he came out second, much as a pebble dropped into a tube first will come out second when the tube is inverted.

Despite being second-born, tradition asserts that Jacob’s spiritual potential merited his assuming first-born rights, and it also suggests that Rebecca knew that Esau, a hunter, lacked the requisite sensitivity, gentility, vision, and prophetic capacity to lead the tribe whereas Jacob possessed all those virtues.

Jacob’s dream event that opens this week’s portion (Genesis 28:10-22) signals the beginning of an important new stage in Jacob’s life. He had just fled in fear from an enraged Esau, was alone in the mountains, unsure of himself, and exhausted. He fell asleep and dreamed of ladders and angels.

This dream sequence is filled with powerful religious imagery, suggestion and mythic archetypes. The stones Jacob placed under his head are symbolic representing what Carl Jung called the Ego, the limited “I” of Jacob, a man still unaware (until this week’s portion) of the deeper implicate order linking the material and metaphysical worlds. The top of the ladder represents what Jung called the integrated Self which unifies the conscious and unconscious into a non-dualistic cosmos.

When Jacob went to sleep using those stones as a kind of pillow, we suspect that something unusual is about to happen, that he is on the cusp of new self-consciousness. Lo and behold, he sees angels ascending (representing our human yearnings and outreach for something greater than ourselves) and angels descending (representing God’s outreach towards us).

When Jacob awoke from the dream and opened his eyes, he was astonished: “Surely God is in this place, va’anochi lo yadati, and I did not know it! … How awesome is this place! This is none other than the abode of God, and this is the gateway to heaven.” (28:16-17)

The beginning of any religious experience requires that we understand that we really know nothing at all. In Hebrew “I” is ani (anochi is a variant form), and when we rearrange the letters – aleph, nun, yod – we spell ain, which means “nothing”). In other words, the religious person must transform the “I” of our limited egos into a great Self in which we become part of the Oneness of God. Jacob’s sudden awareness reflects his newfound humility and is a prerequisite to the development of his faith.

Despite the spiritual potency of this experience, Jacob is still unaware (i.e. he lacks access to his full unconscious) and his faith is consequently conditional. He says, “If God remains with me, if God protects me…, and gives me bread to eat and clothing to wear, and if I return safe … – the Eternal shall be my God.” (28:20-21)

One of the consistent themes throughout the Genesis narratives is that in order for the Biblical figures to grow in faith they had to suffer trials. As a protected child of his mother, Jacob had been always pampered. However, in being forced to flee for his life from the brother he wronged, Jacob first became aware of the shadow (Jung’s term denoting that part of the unconscious mind consisting of repressed weaknesses, shortcomings, and instincts) in which he lived and which would envelop him for the next twenty years when at last he will meet a being divine and human at the river Jabbok and emerge with a new name, Yisrael – the one who struggles with God but prevails.

From Jacob’s birth to next week’s struggle we see his evolution from the unconsciousness of childhood to greater awareness, from being a self-centered trickster to the bearer of the covenant. As he progressed he learned that he must choose whether or not he will view the world through the eyes of faith.

For each of us, too, how we choose to see the world is consequential, and one of the most important consequences is whether or not we permit ourselves to stand at heaven’s gate.

Shabbat Shalom!

Mr. President: Commute Jonathan Pollard’s Sentence

01 Thursday Dec 2011

Posted by in American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History

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It is time for President Obama to commute Jonathan Pollard’s life sentence to time served for his guilty conviction of spying for Israel. Not only has Pollard now spent 26 years in prison, but he is in failing health. The latter would not be reason enough to commute the sentence if the punishment really did fit the crime, but the sentence from the beginning was grossly unfair.

Long ago it was revealed that Casper Weinberger, the then American Secretary of Defense, bore such animus against Pollard for his leaking American security documents to Israel that the Defense Secretary wanted to make a severe example of Pollard for his treachery. Weinberger had submitted a letter to the judge in Pollard’s case incorrectly alleging that information from Pollard had reached the former Soviet Union, and it was on this basis that the judge made the sentence so severe.

All this information was recently repeated to Vice President Joe Biden when he met with seven American Jewish leaders about the Pollard case. Included in this meeting was Malcolm Hoenlein of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Rabbi Eric Yoffie, President of the Union for Reform Judaism, Dr. Simcha Katz of the Union of Orthodox Congregations, Rabbi Julie Schonfield of the Conservative Rabbinical Assembly, Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League, Rabbi Steve Gutow of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, and Michael Adler, a Miami community leader.

The meeting was called because two months ago the Vice President publicly condemned Pollard in the harshest terms provoking a strong response from many in the American Jewish community. The good news is that VP Biden welcomed a meeting at all. To date he is the highest-ranking American official ever to hold a meeting about Pollard, as was reported by Rebecca Anna Stoil, the Washington Representative of The Jerusalem Post. However, the Jewish leaders agreed to strict confidentiality as to what Biden’s response was or what he would advise the President to do in this case.

Pollard’s sentence is extreme relative to the sentences of other guilty foreign spies and agents. The average sentence in an American court given to others convicted of the same crime of spying for an ally as Pollard received has been two to four years. People convicted of treason also served far less time than Pollard. The Jewish leadership delegation cited to Biden the case of Hasan Abu-Jihad, who received only a 10-year sentence for spying for al-Qaida. American spies Aldrich Ames and Robert Hansen, convicted of spying for the former USSR, also were given less time. Other than Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, who were executed for passing top nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union in the early 50s (only Julius was likely guilty), no one has received a more harsh sentence than Jonathan Pollard – and again, his crime was passing secrets to an ally, Israel.

Reason and precedent dictate that Jonathan Pollard be released with a commutation of his sentence soon, perhaps before Hanukah. Humanitarian concerns also recommend his early release. Pollard has been hospitalized 4 times in the last year and suffers from a number of maladies including diabetes, nausea, dizziness, black-outs, problems with his gall bladder, kidneys, sinuses, eyes, and feet.

Finally, the Jewish leadership delegation told the Vice President that there is virtual consensus in the American Jewish community that President Obama should commute Pollard’s sentence to time served. The Union for Reform Judaism and the Central Conference of American Rabbis both passed resolutions years ago calling for justice and commutation. I agree wholeheartedly.

There is a political consideration here for the President as well. Though his record is solidly pro-Israel (only the Republican Jewish coalition refutes this based on anti-Obama political enmity), his releasing Pollard would be well-received in Israel and would undercut the same Republican Jewish Coalition that loves to distort and lie about Obama’s pro-Israel credentials.

Mr. President – commute Pollard’s sentence now!