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Rabbi John Rosove's Blog

Monthly Archives: January 2015

We Are Waiting Still – D’var Torah B’shalach

30 Friday Jan 2015

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in Divrei Torah, Ethics, Jewish Identity, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life

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Upon liberation, even after all the signs and wonders that devastated Egypt and its gods, the people were so accustomed to small-minded thinking (moach katnut) that they complained to Moses: “Why did you bring us up from Egypt, to kill us … with thirst?”

God instructed Moses: “Pass before the people; … and take the rod with which you struck the Nile, [and] strike the rock and water will issue from it, and the people will drink?” (Exodus 17:5-6)

Nearly forty years later a similar rebellion rose up against Moses and Aaron, and the people complained bitterly yet again: “Why did you make us leave Egypt to bring us to this wretched place, a place with no grain or figs or vines or pomegranates? There is not even water to drink!” (Numbers 20:1-13)

Moses was old and tired, frustrated and disgusted by his own people, and he did not know what to do. God instructed him again, but with a slight difference: “…take the rod…and before their very eyes order the rock to yield its water.”

“Moses raised his hand and struck the rock twice with his rod. Out came copious water, and the community and their beasts drank.”

God was unforgiving and charged Moses with defying Him, of hitting the rock instead of speaking to it, and the Almighty punished the leader decreeing that Moses would never enter the Land of Promise.

What changed in those forty years and why did Moses defy God?

From God’s perspective the meeting at Mount Sinai was supposed to have transformed the people, to have washed Egypt from their veins, hearts, minds and souls.

Sinai was meant to change Israel’s understanding of itself as a victimized people without transcendent purpose into a holy people wherein they and the world would live in such a way that force would yield to reason, strength to law, violence to dialogue, and hardheartedness to compassion.

Moses’ hitting the rock before the eyes of the people after Sinai in defiance of God showed that little had actually changed, that brute force justifies ends and that might still makes for right.

God intended that a new age would begin at Sinai, but by striking the rock Moses stopped history in its tracks and publicized before the people that Sinai was not a mountain high enough to be seen throughout the world.

Rabbi Marc Gellman has written a moving midrash explaining this idea:

“Moses understood that God wanted him to speak to the rock and usher in the Messianic age of peace and tranquility. However, Moses knew that though the desert land was behind, the land of Canaan was ahead…and that it… would still have to be taken [by force] by the people….that the strong hand that smote the Egyptians would still be needed to smite the Canaanites.  Moses knew that it was too soon for the power of the fist to yield to the power of the word.

…God asked Moses, ‘When do you think it will be time?’

Moses said, ‘I do not know. All I do know is that…You were the One Who sanctified the power of the fist in this world. Because of You people will learn forever that the land and the fist go together. And if You wanted the power of the fist You should never have given me the signs and wonders …. Now it is too late.’

God was silent… [Moses] said, ‘Why did You let me do the miracles and the signs and wonders?  Why did You command me to strike the rock even the first time? …If the power of the fist is to disappear from this world it must begin with You, El Shaddai. Together we have made Your people free of the power of Pharaoh only to enslave them again to the power of the fist. O God, help us to become free for Your words.’

After a long silence God said: ‘When my people enters the land you shall not enter with them, but neither shall I. I shall only allow a part of My presence to enter the land … The abundance of My presence I shall keep outside the land. The exiled part … shall be called My Shekhinah and it shall remind the people that I too am in exile. I too am a divided presence in the world, and that I shall only be whole again on that day when the power of the fist vanishes forever from the world. Only on that day will I be One. Only on that day will My name be One. Only on that day Moses, shall we enter the land together. Only on that day Moses, shall the waters of Meribah become the flowing waters of justice and the everlasting stream of righteousness … and all people shall come to be free at last.’

Then God lifted Moses to Heaven …and the shepherd’s staff slipped from Moses’ hand and fell to earth into the waters of Meribah and was gone forever. And God kissed Moses on the lips and took his breath away.”

We wait still for the word to vanquish the fist, for the world to yield to reason and dialogue, compassion and justice, righteousness and understanding. We are waiting still!

Shabbat Shalom!

Dr. Martin Luther King & the Jewish Community – Then and Now

28 Wednesday Jan 2015

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Book Recommendations, Ethics, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Jewish-Christian Relations, Social Justice

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This week I was interviewed by German Public Radio for a story on the Jewish community’s relationship with the civil rights movement as a consequence of my synagogue’s celebration last week of the 50th anniversary of Dr. King’s appearance in our congregation.

The role of Jews in the movement has been raised recently as well after the release of the film “Selma” and the omission of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel’s image in the front row of leaders near Dr. King in the Selma to Montgomery march of 1965.

The film, of course, was not about Jews nor should it have been. However, Rabbi Heschel’s absence was a significant omission and could have easily been otherwise. I suspect that the film-maker was unaware of the significance of the Jewish role in the movement generally and Dr. King’s relationship with Rabbi Heschel specifically.

German Public Radio had no idea of the prominent role Jews played in the movement either, and so when their reporter, Kirsten Zilm Dunn, joined us at our celebration, she recognized that an important story needed to be told in Germany, as did her superiors in Berlin.

For the record, the Jewish role in Dr. King’s life and the movement as a whole was substantial. Dr. King counted Jews among his closest allies and he identified strongly with the historic experience of the Jewish people against oppression since the Biblical Exodus. He was openly supportive of the Soviet Jewry movement, of Zionism and the state of Israel, and he opposed anti-Semitism as it gained momentum in the African American community.

The relationship between Dr. King and Jews was reciprocal. However, the Jewish community’s engagement with the civil rights movement was complex.

The majority of the Jews who went south to help blacks, who demonstrated in their own communities on behalf of civil rights, and who gave money to the civil rights movement were neither rabbis nor Orthodox Jews. Most activist Jews were not religious. They were unaffiliated students, lawyers and others whose activism was based in the Jewish ethos of pursuing justice.

One half to two-thirds of all whites in the civil rights movement were Jews. Leaders of mainstream Jewish organizations (i.e. American Jewish Committee, B’nai B’rith, the Reform movement’s Union of American Hebrew Congregations, the Conservative movement’s Synagogue Council of America) railed against segregation and Jim Crow laws.

Here are a few of the most important Jewish leaders to back Dr. King:

• Jack Greenberg was head of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund;
• Rabbi Maurice Eisendrath, as President of the UAHC, supported the Montgomery bus boycott;
• Morris Berthold Abram, President of the AJC, helped passed laws against racism in the UN;
• Rabbi Jacob M. Rothschild, of Atlanta’s “The Temple,” preached against racism early on;
• Rabbi Israel Dresner was a Freedom Rider  and one of the Tallahassee Ten;
• Stanley Levison, a lawyer, was among Dr. King’s closest friends who spoke with him every day;
• Rabbi Richard Hirsch, the founder of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism in Washington, D.C., was a Freedom Rider and offered RAC offices to Dr. King whenever he was in Washington;
• Rabbi Arthur Lelyveld of Cleveland was clubbed in the south;
• Rabbi Joachim Prinz, President of the American Jewish Congress and a refugee from Nazi Germany, spoke at the 1963 march on Washington;
• Many young Reform rabbis were arrested at St. Augustine.

Most significantly, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel and Dr. King were kindred spirits since the moment they met in 1963. Rabbi Heschel was considered the civil rights movement’s Jewish conscience, and Rabbi Heschel regarded Dr. King as a modern-day prophet whose voice equaled that of the Prophets of Israel, a sign that God had not forsaken the United States.

Not all Jews, however, were in favor of the movement. Many southern Jews were frightened to put themselves on the line and preferred neutrality. Dr. King criticized those who supported the movement in principle, but refused to become activists from fear.

As time passed, Dr. King lost influence with many in the black community as Malcolm X and the black power movement preached violence and anti-Semitism.

In 1967, polls showed that 47% of American blacks subscribed to anti-Semitic beliefs as opposed to 35% of whites. When Dr. King spoke against the Vietnam War in 1967, despite his close collaboration with LBJ leading to the Voting Rights Act of 1965, not only did the Johnson Administration and the FBI’s J Edgar Hoover’s turn openly against him, but many Jews distanced themselves as well.

Still, American Jews supported the civil rights movement and the non-violence of Dr. King’s religious and political agenda. Rabbi Heschel remained close to Dr. King and was the only rabbi to deliver a eulogy at his funeral.

Unfortunately, over time the close relationship between Jews and blacks deteriorated. Yet, the American Jewish community remained liberal on civil rights and has voted Democratic by wide margins in all presidential elections since World War II. Jews remain the most liberal voting bloc in the nation behind the African American community. The Black Congressional Caucus and Jewish members of Congress still work closely together on matters of justice, civil rights, civil liberties, poverty, anti-Semitism, and racism.

In 1958, Dr. King told the American Jewish Congress, “My people were brought to America in chains. Your people were driven here to escape the chains fashioned for them in Europe. Our unity is born of our common struggle for centuries, not only to rid ourselves of bondage, but to make oppression of any people by others an impossibility.”

Our shared story is hardly finished, as the celebration at my synagogue so clearly demonstrated.

Source: “Shared Dreams – Martin Luther King, Jr. & The Jewish Community”, by Rabbi Marc Schneier. Publ. Jewish Lights. 1999.

Zionist Hope Personified

26 Monday Jan 2015

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Social Justice

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Subscribing to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz would be worth it just to hear the young and eloquent Labor Member of the Knesset Stav Shaffir speak for less than three minutes in the Knesset when she argued eloquently, passionately and directly what Zionism is and has always been about.

To Israeli right wing MKs (e.g. Naftali Bennett who she mentions by name) who claim to speak for Zionism, she says “Don’t preach to us about Zionism because real Zionism means dividing the budget equally among all the citizens of the country. Real Zionism is taking care of the weak. Real Zionism is solidarity, not only in battle but every day.”

Stav was one of the key leaders in the 2012 social justice movement in which more than 250,000 Israelis, middle class, young and old, camped out on Rehov Rothschild in Tel Aviv demanding changes in the economy to protect the vast middle class that was being squeezed. She is now one of the top five on the Labor party Knesset list standing for election to the Knesset on March 17. She is smart, passionate and not even thirty years old. I hope and believe that Stav is the future of the leadership of the State of Israel, and I could see her one day becoming Prime Minister.

Keep the name Stav Shaffir in mind. She exudes not only the gifts of an orator (watch her in Hebrew), but the will of young Israel to carry on the dream of the founders of the nation.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/1.638670

Anyone but Bibi!

22 Thursday Jan 2015

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

≈ 2 Comments

In the last few days PM Netanyahu’s scheduled speech before the US Congress as orchestrated by Israeli Ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer, a former chief Netanyahu aid and arguably the most political foreign diplomat from Israel we may ever have seen, has inspired a huge negative reaction both in Israel and the United States.

Only British Prime Minister Winston Churchill has spoken three times before the US Congress, and with this planned Netanyahu speech in February, Bibi will tie that record.

This is also the first time any foreign leader has been invited to speak to the US Congress by anyone other than the President of the United States, thus violating established protocol.

That this speech and invitation of the Israeli Prime Minister comes when it does only one month before arguably the most important election in Israeli history that could determine Israel’s Jewish character, democracy and international standing, smacks of inappropriate intrusion of the US Congress into Israeli elections.

President Obama and Secretary Kerry have avoided even the appearance of support for one Israeli political party over another. Speaker Boehner, on the other hand, seems to have no hesitation in doing just that.

This bald-face effort by Speaker Boehner and Republican leaders to disrupt the foreign policy efforts of the Obama Administration at this particularly sensitive time in Iran-US nuclear negotiations suggests as well that despite the new Republican majority in both houses of Congress, that the Republicans and some Democrats have failed to build a veto proof majority to pass a sanctions resolution that President Obama and many others in the foreign policy establishment of the United States oppose at this time, and so the Republican majority has invited a foreign leader to come and do its bidding for them.

PM Netanyahu has always enjoyed a special relationship with Republican leaders, almost as though he is acting as a kind of Republican Senator from Jerusalem, and has used that relationship before to intrude in the last US Presidential election by favoring Republican nominee Mitt Romney. This February speech before Congress will constitute one more slap in the face of the President of the United States by the Israeli leader thus giving support to the argument that Israel can no longer afford to have another government led by this man.

The Herzog-Livni Zionist Party campaign is pointing in this election campaign to the economic weaknesses of the Israeli middle class and the growing poverty in Israel that was caused by Netanyahu’s economic policies when he served as the Economic Minster under PM Ariel Sharon, the need for new leadership in making this time a good-faith effort to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the need to stop the escalating spiral of international hostility towards Israel. The Herzog-Livni campaign has stated that in matters of the Israeli economy, Israel’s security and Israel’s international standing, the Netanyahu government has failed in every area.

Is it any wonder in Israel that so many Israelis now are saying “Anyone but Bibi!?”

50th Anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King at Temple Israel of Hollywood

21 Wednesday Jan 2015

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Ethics, Holidays, Jewish History, Jewish-Christian Relations, Jewish-Islamic Relations, Social Justice, Tributes, Women's Rights

≈ 2 Comments

On February 25, 1965, only seventy-five days after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. received the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, only four days after Malcolm X was assassinated in New York, and two months before his march from Selma to Montgomery, Dr. King spoke in the Sanctuary of my synagogue, Temple Israel of Hollywood under very tight security before fifteen hundred congregants about the state of race relations in America, the struggle for freedom, for equal rights and voting rights, and the need for partnership among all peoples of faith and good will to attain the goals promised to all Americans as declared the Declaration of Independence and the Preamble to the United States Constitution.

Dr. King was introduced by my esteemed predecessor, Rabbi Max Nussbaum, a refugee from Berlin who had fled in the middle of the night in 1940 to Amsterdam and then to the US with his wife Ruth to avoid arrest the following morning by the Nazi SS.

Rabbi Nussbaum was one of our g’dolei dor (the great rabbinic leaders of his generation), a brilliant scholar, activist and orator as was Dr. King, and they had much in common reflecting the common struggle of African Americans and the Jewish people in history.

This past Sunday evening, January 18, our synagogue joined with the diverse interfaith and inter-ethnic community of Los Angeles including Christians, Muslims, African Americans, Koreans, Latinos, and peoples from the Middle East to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of Dr. King’s appearance at Temple Israel as well as his work, spirit and legacy.

I shared with the assembled 1400 people that just as Dr. King and Rabbi Nussbaum met at a difficult time in American history, we too were meeting at a difficult time filled still with so much injustice and poverty, alienation and insecurity, war and violence here and around the world, and that despite the passage of a half-century since Dr. King spoke to our community, and despite the many achievements made in promoting greater justice and human rights for Americans and peoples around the world, that we are in dire need still of the courageous and loving spirit of Dr. King, that it may penetrate our hearts, minds, and souls and stir us and all people to action that we may bend the arc of justice even further on behalf of others.

Dr. King understood that a people that fought for its rights was only as honorable as was its concern for the rights of all people, which is why we joined together earlier this week – to act on behalf of the rights of all people in America and around the world.

We were graced on Sunday evening with the presence of many distinguished clergy, community leaders and public officials including Father Ian Davies, Canon, of St Thomas Episcopal Church in Hollywood, Imam Sheikh Asim Buyuksoy of the Islamic Center of Los Angeles, the Reverend Dr. Ignacio Castuera of the United Methodist Church, Dr. John B. Cobb Jr., Professor Emeritus at the Claremont School of Theology and at Claremont Graduate University, Pastor Alan Wright of the Word Center Church in South LA, Pastor Sam Koh of Hillside Ministry of the Los Angeles Christian Presbyterian Church, Pastor Greg Bellamy of One Church International in mid-Los Angeles, Hyepin Im, President and CEO of Korean Churches for Community Development, West Hollywood Mayor John D’Amica, Cameron Onumah representing Senator Dianne Feinstein, and the Mayor of the City of Los Angeles, Eric Garcetti, who greeted us with special eloquence. NPR talk show host and author Tavis Smiley delivered the keynote address.

The evening was filled with music led by 86 voices of the Temple Israel of Hollywood Choir, the Leimert Park Choir and the Life Choir. We listened to the ethnic music of the Persian Lian Ensemble, a Mozart Mass performed by the Luminai String quartet and two sopranos, and the music of the Mexican ensemble Cambalache. We were treated to traditional Korean dance by beautifully costumed women and young girls from the Jung Im Lee Dance Academy.

All conceived, directed and produced by our synagogue’s Vice President of the Arts, Michael Skloff, a composer of Broadway and television music (e.g. the theme song for NBCs long-running hit “Friends”) and a video montage of the participating clergy overlaid with photographs and film footage from the civil rights movement and other American and worldwide human rights struggles as filmed and edited by documentary film-makers and Temple Israel members Roberta Grossman and Sophie Sartain.

The highlight of the evening was a tape-recording of Dr. King’s speech delivered fifty years ago in our Sanctuary (made possible then by Leo Wainschul who also captured the iconic image of Rabbi Nussbaum and Dr. King shaking hands together). I have transcribed Dr. King’s entire speech and it can be heard at this link – http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlktempleisraelhollywood.htm.

For those wishing to watch the program itself, click https://new.livestream.com/tioh.

The event was covered in The Los Angeles Times – see http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-temple-israel-martin-luther-king-jr-20150118-story.html

and The Los Angeles Jewish Journal – http://www.jewishjournal.com/los_angeles/article/50_years_after_his_visit_a_multicultural_homage_to_mlk

We partnered on this King Holiday with “Big Sunday,” conceived and born at Temple Israel. Each Martin Luther King Holiday Big Sunday, led by founder David Levinson, hosts a breakfast and clothing drive at its offices on Melrose Avenue attended on Monday by 400  volunteers who provided clothing to nearly 6000 individuals.

It was a memorable day, punctuated by love and calling us all to renewed action on behalf of others.

 

Confronting Radical Jihadist Islam

16 Friday Jan 2015

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Ethics, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Jewish-Christian Relations, Jewish-Islamic Relations, Social Justice

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The more things change the more they remain the same.

As Jews read the story of the Exodus in synagogue during these weeks, our people living in France, Britain, Turkey, Belgium, and elsewhere find themselves confronting rising anti-Semitic passions stoked by radical Islamists and classic under the radar Jew-haters.

How ought we Jews to respond?

I am not one who believes that there is an anti-Semite lurking under every bed, nor do I believe that the world wants all us Jews dead. We have lots of friends and I believe that we are ill-advised to over-react. France’s Prime Minister Manuel Valls said last Saturday: “France without Jews is no longer France.”

Yes, there has been an increase in aliyah to Israel in the French Jewish community in the last two years, and it is likely that more will do so this next year, but most French Jews are staying put and have no intention of leaving.

European anti-Semitism, of course, is nothing new, though this year’s spike since the Gaza War and Israel’s growing isolation internationally is of increasing concern. At the same time, we can’t delude ourselves into thinking that anti-Semitism in Europe today is anything like it was in the 1930s when anti-Jewish riots were government sponsored and backed. They aren’t today.

What is new is the spread of Islamic fanaticism around the world. Here too we have to be careful not to over-react. The truth is this – the vast majority of the 1.6 billion Muslims in the world are peaceful, non-violent and want what all people want: employment, a decent living, education for their young, healthcare, and safety.

I have heard it said that since Judaism, Christianity and Islam all have sacred texts justifying killing, we can’t judge Islam differently than we would judge Judaism and Christianity. Though there are indeed such texts in all three religions, to ignore each religion’s separate and distinct historical and religious development is not only willful ignorance but dishonest.

Judaism’s most violent era occurred between two and three thousand years ago (1200 BCE to 70 CE) during the conquest of Canaan, the period of the Judges and Israelite kings, and foreign rule over the land of Israel culminating in the destruction of the Temple by Rome. From then on, Jews were victims until the establishment of the state of Israel which has been forced to defend itself against those who have sought its destruction. Though many harshly criticize Israel, wars of self-defense are morally justifiable in Jewish tradition and everywhere in the world.

Christianity too has a long and violent history beginning in the time of Constantine (3rd-4th century CE) and stretching through the period of the Church Fathers, the Crusades, Spanish Inquisition, medieval Europe, and into the twentieth century.

Islam after Mohammed (7th century CE) conquered with dizzying speed at the edge of the sword most of the peoples of the Middle East, North Africa and Spain killing anyone who didn’t convert. In the last half of the 20th century, some estimate that 10 million Muslims have been killed at the hands of other Muslims throughout the world.

Indeed, facts cannot be ignored. Since 9/11 more than 24,000 terrorist acts have been committed around the world in the name of Islam. In the past twenty years, there has arisen a fanatic, extremist, fundamentalist interpretation of Islam that has inspired thousands of cult-like loyalists to kill anyone they regard as infidels and strive to undermine and crush western democracies that they consider morally corrupt.

Though the vast majority of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims are themselves not violent, Tom Friedman of The New York Times wrote this week that there seems to be ambivalence among too many “moderate” Muslims who may be partially sympathetic with the jihadists thus accounting for their silence in the face of so much terrorism.

What is needed now, Friedman wrote, is not a million person march of French citizens in support of tolerance, free speech and basic freedoms, but a one billion Muslim person march in protest against Muslim jihadist murderers.

I don’t know much about Islam, but a world religion that spawns so much violence has to be questioned.

Whereas both Judaism and Christianity have undergone religious reformations, Islam has not, and that fact combined with despotic rule over Muslims by oppressive regimes, a preponderance of poverty, illiteracy, and unemployment in many Islamic nations, make for a dangerous cocktail.

Ahmed Vanya, a courageous American Muslim and a fellow with the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, has written:

“Classical Islamic law…is definitely not peaceful or benign, and …not suited for this age; neither are its violent and grotesque progeny … Islamism and jihadism … it is the duty of us Muslims, using reason and common sense, to reinterpret the scriptures to bring about an Islam that affirms and promotes universally accepted human rights and values. It is our duty to cleanse the traditional, literalist, classical Islam and purify it to make it an Islam that is worthy to be called a beautiful religion.”

This weekend we celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King’s legacy and we read our story of the Exodus in synagogue. I welcome Ahmed Vanya’s voice and those like him in the Muslim world who speak in the true spirit of the prophetic tradition that is basic to all three great religions, for Vanya is clear as a true moderate and unafraid to stand up to the jihadists while affirming that the future need not be like either the present or the past.

 

Register to Vote in the World Zionist Congress Elections and Vote ARZA Slate

14 Wednesday Jan 2015

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in American Jewish Life, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Social Justice, Uncategorized, Women's Rights

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One of the most important steps that Diaspora Jews can take to support Israel’s democracy, pluralism and bond with world Jewry and the state of Israel is to vote in this year’s World Zionist Congress election that is now open for registration and voting through April 15, 2015.

The only requirements for voting are that you must be Jewish and at least 18 years of age.

I ask you to click now onto the link below, register and vote for the ARZA Slate (i.e. the Association of Reform Zionists of America). Please do not delay.

I ask for your vote as a delegate on the ARZA Slate (I am #25) that includes many distinguished America rabbis and leaders of the Union for Reform Judaism representing 1.3 million American Jews.

All the information you need to know about ARZA’s platform can be found on this website. You can also register to vote and actually vote at the same time here: https://www.reformjews4israel.org.

The Slate of ARZA Delegates can be found at this site: https://www.reformjews4israel.org/slate/.

Important note: There is a one-time only administrative charge of $5 for young Jews between the ages of 18 and 30, and $10 for Jews over 30. This is required by the World Zionist Organization to administer this election.

Questions:

1. What is the World Zionist Congress?

The Parliament of the Jewish People representing all of world Jewry.

2. What is the ARZA Platform?

• Support for gender equality in the State of Israel

• Support for religious equality in the State of Israel

• Support for peace through commitment to a two-state solution of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

3. Why does it matter that you vote for ARZA?

ARZA currently holds 39% of the US representation in the World Zionist Congress based on the results of the last election for the WZC. Consequently, over the past five years $20 million has been given to the Israeli Movement for Progressive Judaism (IMPJ) to support its programs, congregations, rabbis, outreach, and social justice work. The Israeli government has also provided 4 new buildings for Reform communities around Israel because of our large American Reform Zionist representation.

The government of the state of Israel does not give any money directly to the Reform movement except through special programs. However, the government does fund generously orthodox schools and synagogues. This is not only unfair, it is a violation of the spirit of Israel’s own Declaration of Independence. We American Reform Zionists support our movement and others in Israel who are struggling through the courts to be treated equally under the law.

In the meantime, we must raise money to support our Israeli Reform movement, and our success in this WZC election is one sure way to do that.

Note that the Israeli Reform movement is a significant leader in support of the Israel Religious Action Center in Jerusalem and our 45 congregations, 2 kibbutzim, strong youth programs, nursery schools, Tali schools, and pre-military programs all over the country.

Our movement supports civil marriage unions in Israel without having to involve the Chief Rabbinate, egalitarianism at the Western Wall, anti-Racism laws, anti-Poverty activism, and many other social justice causes.

ARZA needs your vote and I am asking that you and every Jewish individual in your household register today at the above site, pay the $5 or $10 administrative fee depending on your age, and then vote for the ARZA Slate. Thank you in advance!

Rabbi John Rosove, delegate – ARZA Slate in WZC Election

PS – If you have trouble voting, please call 844-413-2929 or email AZM@election-america.com

Why Shas’ Success in the March 17 Election Would Be Good for Israel

11 Sunday Jan 2015

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in Ethics, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Social Justice

≈ 1 Comment

I am an American Reform Zionist and in this year’s World Zionist Congress elections (the polls open on January 14), I am a delegate of the Association for Reform Zionists of America (ARZA) Slate #6 about which I will write more in my next blog.

I mention my allegiance to ARZA (which among other things strongly supports a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict) because, oddly enough, this blog is an expression of my hopes that Shas, the ultra-Orthodox Israeli party that represents hundreds of thousands of Mizrachi Jews, does well in the next Israeli election on March 17.

This endorsement coming from me is admittedly strange and seemingly contradictory to my Reform Zionist self-interest given Shas’ past hostile attitudes towards non-Orthodox Judaism in Israel, women’s rights and other liberal causes. I support Shas for the sake of Israel’s democracy, long-term security, and hopes for an eventual two-state solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

It is unclear at this time, however, how well Shas will do in the coming election following the death of Shas’ spiritual leader, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, a year ago and the subsequent hostile split of Shas into two opposing factions, one led by Aryeh Deri and the other by Eli Yishai, who hate each other. I am rooting for Deri’s Shas faction because he could be a key coalition partner to Labor’s Yizhak Herzog and Tenua’s Tzipi Livni and their new “Zionist” Party.

Why am I so supportive of Deri’s Shas faction?

Two reasons:

First – 50% of Israelis are Mizrachi Jews (i.e. the word “mizrach” means east – or easterners/orientals – these refer to Jews from North African and other Middle Eastern countries). These Jews culturally have much in common with the Middle East as a whole. They understand the Arab world, speak Arabic, and if there is to be a bridge in a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians, Mizrachi Jewish Israelis may be that bridge. Though Mizrachi Jews are current members of the Knesset, the judiciary and occupy other leadership roles in the Israeli government, still Israelis from European backgrounds are in control. Ari Shavit explained in his book “The Promised Land” concerning the traumas and disabilities suffered by the Mizrachi community at the hands of European Zionists when they first came to Israel in the 1950s and 1960s and, just as there is still racism in American society, so too is their prejudice against Mizrachim in Israeli society.

Second – Under the leadership of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef and Aryeh Deri, Shas was willing to cede land for peace in an end-of-conflict peace agreement with the Palestinians. Should Shas get enough seats in the March 17 election and be invited into a coalition led by the center-left partnership of Herzog and Livni, Shas could end up being an important partner in galvanizing the Mizrachi community of Israel in support of an eventual two-state solution.

Of course, nothing is so simple in Israeli politics, and it is uncertain whether either the Deri faction or the Yishai faction will earn enough mandates in the next Knesset to make a difference.

The 91 year-old veteran Israeli journalist Ury Avnery, who fought in the 1948 War of Independence, is a former member of the Knesset and  a prolific journalist, published this past week a piece he called “Half of Shas” in which he argued persuasively, in my view, why a strong Shas showing in the March 17 election would be good for Israel and an eventual peace deal with the Palestinians.

I receive Avnery’s articles directly from him even though they are published in a variety of journals and newspapers. I expected this article to have appeared in 972+ Magazine or in Haaretz.

But no! It appeared in the English News in the Arabic Media Internet Network (AMIN), an independent non-governmental organization serving the Palestinian community. I was intrigued and uplifted that the Palestinian community is reading Israelis like Avnery.

For your information, AMIN has offices in Ramallah, Jerusalem and Gaza, operates an annual $300,000 budget the bulk of which comes from grants. Its mission is to promote a free Palestinian media, free speech, human rights, the development of civil society, democracy and accountability. Its supporters include (in alphabetical order) the British Consulate, Canada Fund, Catholic Relief Services, the European Union, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF), Open Society Institute (OSI), United Nations Democracy Fund (UNDEF), United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and the US Consulate.

Go to the following link to read Uri Avnery’s “Half of Shas” – http://www.amin.org/articles.php?t=ENews&id=4627

“The Ineffable Flame of God” – D’var Torah Sh’mot

08 Thursday Jan 2015

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in Divrei Torah, Ethics, Inuyim - Prayer reflections and ruminations, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Poetry

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“The prophet is a man who feels fiercely. God has thrust a burden upon his soul, and he is bowed and stunned at man’s fierce greed. Frightful is the agony of man; no human voice can convey its full terror. Prophecy is the voice that God has lent to the silent agony, a voice to the plundered poor, to the profaned rules of the world. It is a form of living, a crossing point of God and man. God is raging in the prophet’s words.” (Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel)

This week’s and next week’s Torah portions (Shmot and Va-era – Exodus 1-9:35) describe Moses’ first and second revelations of God, the first out of the burning bush (Exodus 3:2+) and the second God’s call for Moses to liberate the Israelites from Egyptian bondage (Exodus 6:1+).

Tradition regards Moses as the greatest of all the Biblical prophets, the only prophet to meet God “panim el panim – face to face” whereas the others encountered God in visions and dreams.

The prophets were solitary, lonely figures, often unpopular, hated and denounced by those whose lives they sought to change. They were all cast into a role they did not seek, often during times of great social and political crisis, and their mission was religious and ethical, this-worldly, bound in covenant and committed to the fulfillment of God’s will that human society be governed by high standards of justice, compassion and peace.

The “I” of the prophet, per Heschel, was God – never the prophet himself. The prophet was merely God’s mouthpiece, and when he spoke it was God who was speaking.

The prophet alternately, depending on circumstances, admonished the people for their ethical lapses and comforted the people in their suffering. He did not predict the future. Rather, he articulated the consequences of unrighteousness and evil practice.

The prophet placed the experience of the people in an historical and salvationary context thereby giving ultimate meaning to his/God’s words and hope to those who suffered despair.

Not every human being was destined for prophecy. God chose only those lonely figures who had primed themselves to be able to “hear” the divine voice. Moses, for example, had first to leave the opulent life of the Egyptian palace and witness first-hand the suffering of his people beneath Pharaoh’s yoke. Acting out of righteous anger and indignation at the injustices he saw, Moses killed an Egyptian taskmaster, fled Egypt and became a wandering refugee in the wilderness. Eventually, he settled into the humble life of a shepherd tending his flocks, a quiet life of solitude beneath open skies and star-lit nights.

The burning bush was, according to Rabbi Heschel, the paradigmatic scene of “God in search of man.”

The 13th century Spanish sage, Rabbi Bachya ben Asher, noted that God revealed the divine Self gradually to Moses:

“Since this was Moses’ first experience of prophecy the Almighty wished gradually to initiate him and raise him by stages until his spiritual perceptions were strengthened.” Thus, the narrative “underlines that Moses achieved the perception of three things: the fire, the angel and the Shechinah [the feminine presence of God].”

Moses first noticed the physical fire, then the angel appeared to him in a flame, and finally God called out to him from the bush. Moses “saw” God with his ears and he “heard” God’s voice with his eyes.

This singular experience characterizes a prophetic moment, all-encompassing, beyond the rational and imaginative faculties, a psychic intuition.

The following poem by Rabbi Heschel describes the life and experience of the prophet. When asked if he (Heschel) was a prophet, Rabbi Heschel rejected the idea entirely.

“God follows me everywhere / Spins a net of glances around me, / Shines upon my sightless back like a sun.

God follows me like a forest everywhere. / My lips, always amazed, are truly numb, dumb, / Like a child who blunders upon an ancient holy place.

God follows me like a shiver everywhere. / My desire is for rest; the demand within me is: Rise up, / See how prophetic visions are scattered in the streets.

I go with my reveries as with a secret / In a long corridor through the world – / And sometimes I glimpse high above me, the faceless face of God

…

God follows me in tramways, in cafes. / Oh, it is only with the backs of the pupils of one’s eyes that one can see / How secrets ripen, how visions come to be.

The Ineffable Flame of God – Man. Poems of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel (in Yiddish and English). Translated from the Yiddish by Morton M. Leifman. Introduction by Edward K. Kaplan. Continuum. New York, London. 2005. pages 56-57. Originally published in 1933 in Warsaw.

Confused About Israeli Politics Leading to the March 17 Election?

05 Monday Jan 2015

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Jewish Identity

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If you are confused about the state of Israeli politics, the relative strength of Israel’s political parties and center-right and center-left blocs, what the Palestinians are doing and their opportunities for success, and what is at stake for Israel, you are in good company.

This is Israeli pre-election season, and while one can argue from the perspective of the Biblical Ecclesiastes “Ein chadash tachat hashamash – There is nothing new under the sun,” in truth – there may be – and then again, maybe there isn’t!

The big issues facing the Israeli electorate include its stagnated economy, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Israel’s deteriorating international position, Iran nuclear negotiations, the synagogue-state relationship, and the efforts by right-wing parties to pass a new “Basic Law” that would define Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people (note: the Declaration of Independence already did that), meaning that the interests of Jews will take preeminent position over the rights of minorities in Israel and thereby threaten democracy itself.

When you take all those issues together and then consider that Israel is a very stratified society composed of a number of distinct “tribes” (e.g. ultra-orthodox Jewish Israelis, modern orthodox Israelis, traditional Mizrachi Israelis, liberal (i.e. Reform/Conservative) Jewish Israelis, Russian Jewish Israelis, Russian non-Jewish Israelis, secular anti-religious Israelis, secular Jewish Israelis, Arab Israelis, non-Jewish Israelis, non-Jewish Jewish Israelis, any predictions about the ultimate vote are difficult to make.

The Israeli political party system is based in a parliamentary government with 120 mandates (i.e. seats) in every Knesset (a coalition needs 61 mandates/seats in order to form a government), and now the minimum percentage that a party needs in the vote to be part of the next Knesset is 3.5%, up from 2% the last time around. Consequently, some parties won’t make the cut. Others are combining in order to garner greater strength and the minimum necessary to be part of the Knesset (e.g. all 3 Arab parties have voted to join into one list; Yizhak Herzog of Labor Tzipi Livni of Tenua joined together into one party, etc.).

Thanks to J Street’s Round-up of many articles published over the past two weeks that was published today (January 5), I have included below five of them that I believe articulate clearly what choices Israelis are facing, as well as the current jockeying for position by the Palestinians in the UN. Everything you will read here will help you understand what is happening, but keep in mind that these articles reflect just the challenges generally that Israel faces and is only a snapshot of current events. Things seem to change daily. Once the Israeli election arrives and the vote is taken, and then within a few weeks after the next government will be formed, we might be able to assess whether Ecclesiastes was right or not.

1. Israelis have to choose, Jewish Journal
It should be obvious to anyone with his/her eyes open that time is not working in Israel’s favor,” wrote J Street Rabbinic Cabinet Co-Chair Rabbi John Rosove. “This is the time for the Israeli electorate to choose, and we ought to support those Israeli politicians who we believe are best capable of delivering a secure, Jewish and democratic future for the state of Israel.” http://www.jewishjournal.com/rabbijohnrosovesblog/item/israelis_have_to_choose

2. Kerry’s miscalculation on the UN Palestine resolutions, New Yorker
Bernard Avishai argues that “by taking initiative at the UN, the EU has given [Secretary of State] Kerry the chance to provide all sides with a political horizon, and Israel’s centrist voters with a measure of dread, one to counter Netanyahu’s claims about the necessities of dealing with a “tough neighborhood.” Kerry is right to reaffirm the US commitment to Israeli security. But there is no need for him to tell Israeli voters that, as always, American support is in the bag.” http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/kerrys-miscalculation-u-n-palestine-resolutions

3. Reported text of draft UN resolution on Palestinian statehood, Times of Israel
The Palestinian resolution reportedly affirmed the need for a “just, lasting and peaceful settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict” based on the two-state solution and the Arab Peace Initiative, with Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and a Palestinian state.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/reported-text-of-draft-un-resolution-on-palestinian-statehood/

4. What the polls say about Netanyahu’s election chances, +972
Noting that “a slight shift in the map to the right or to the left might change everything,” Noam Sheizaf contends that “the ability of the next prime minister to engage in major reforms will be very limited to begin with, regardless of his agenda.”
http://972mag.com/what-the-polls-say-about-netanyahus-election-chances/100943/

5. Study: 22 percent of Israeli Jews identify with religious Zionist camp, Haaretz (You must subscribe to Haaretz to read on-line)
A new survey found that twenty-two percent of Israeli Jews consider themselves part of the religious Zionist camp, although one-third of them do not identify as religious at all.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/.premium-.634036?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

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