Our daughter in-law Marina gave birth this past week to hers and Daniel’s second child, a boy this time, who they named “Leon BenAmi” after my father, the baby’s great-grandfather – and his two grandmothers, each with the name Barbara (using the “B” in BenAmi) affirming that little Leon is the “son of my people.”

When Leon was born last Friday morning (March 25), we were beyond thrilled with the news that we have a second grandchild. If that were all there is to say, “Dayenu – it is enough.” However, Marina and Daniel chose the name “Leon,” a name that is meaningfully large in the Rosove family-line. Daniel’s middle name is “Leon,” named in memory of my father, Leon Rosove (1905-1959). I too carry the middle name of “Leon,” but named not for my father, but for my maternal grandfather, Leon Bay (1881-1932).

When Jews name their children, they make their choices for many reasons. They like the sound of the name. They look for English names that have direct Hebrew equivalents, as Barbara and I did with our sons Daniel and David. And they name their children after members of their family who carry positive associations and values.

Sephardic Jewish families often name babies for living relatives. Ashkenazic families name their children in memory of deceased loved ones.

I always encouraged b’nei mitzvah young people in my congregation that if they were named for someone in their families, they owed it to themselves to learn as much as they could about their namesake – when and where they were born – who were their parents and grandparents – what they did with their lives – what were their values and accomplishments – what and who did they love. Knowing these things can serve as a guide in their own lives and, in a way, as a mentor of sorts, to fashion their values based upon the values of the one for whom they are named.

In that spirit – here are a few things about Leon BenAmi’s namesake, my father and his great-grandfather, Leon Rosove (z’l).

My Dad attended UC Berkeley as an undergraduate and entered the University of California San Francisco Medical School and earned his MD degree in 1932. He specialized in internal medicine with a sub-specialty in cardiology. Upon finishing his residency, he returned to Los Angeles to practice medicine.

On December 7, 1941, already a Lieutenant Colonel in the US Naval Reserves, he enlisted that day and left a month later for service on the medical staff at the Honolulu Naval base. As his ship sailed into Pearl Harbor he saw the burning oil and debris still in the waters from the attack a month before. He treated troops there from 1942-1943. Then he was assigned to be the chief medical officer on Midway Atoll in the South Pacific theater from 1943 to 1944 (a year after the consequential battle there). He was honorably discharged in 1944 and returned to Los Angeles to resume his medical practice.

He met my mother in early 1947 and they married later that year. Both my parents were somewhat older (my mother was 31 and father was 42) and so, like many after WWII, they wasted no time in having children. My brother, Michael, was born in 1948. I came along a year later in 1949.

We were a happy family in the 1950s. My Dad, as the Assistant Chief of Medicine at the Wadsworth Westwood Veterans Administration Hospital, had normal working hours, coming home by 5:30 every evening, doing rounds on weekends, but being available to us the rest of the time. He also taught medical students at the UCLA Medical School.

His patients and students loved him as did everyone who knew him. He was kind, attentive, smart, humble, generous, and wise. I never saw him lose his temper or say an unkind word about anyone. He loved people, and as an only child he was devoted to his extended family of cousins and my mother’s large family of siblings and their children.

When he died in 1959, he left a hole in my heart that never was filled. Though I was only nine years-old, I learned much from him. The impress of a parent’s influence upon a child begins very early and lasts a lifetime. He taught me by example the virtues of compassion and empathy. He was a gentle man and a gentleman. His liberal politics reflected his concerns for justice and the rights of the underdog.

My father was part of what Tom Brokaw called “the greatest generation of Americans” who gave selflessly to country, bore with courage and perseverance the deprivations of the Great Depression and the burdens of fighting in World War II, worked hard, and helped rebuild America after the allied victory over Nazism and autocracy.

My father was devoted as well to his Israeli cousins, orthodox rabbis from Ukraine, who he helped financially in the 1930s to pay their passage to Palestine. He also assisted in 1949 a young cousin who had been raised by German Christians during the Shoah to come and live in Petach Tikvah with his uncle and aunt, my father’s first-cousins.

Holding little Leon BenAmi this week as I held my sons decades ago, felt so familiar, so natural, so wonderful. Barbara and I are immensely happy for Marina, Daniel, and Violet (now 3 years old) who happily has a little brother, and our son David who is a loving uncle for the second time.

I mentioned yesterday to Daniel as I held Leon that it’s with awe and wonder that I realize that in these first days of Leon’s life there are so many years ahead in which he will grow and carry forward his family name to help create new worlds and make a contribution to the well-being of others as did and are doing the generations in his family before him.

As Pesach arrives in two weeks, it’s enough for us to say especially this year, Dayenu.

This blog is also posted at the Times of Israel – https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/a-new-grandchild-carrying-forward-the-life-of-our-family-and-people/

My friend, Ken Bob, is in Israel as I write this, and he just published a blog at The Times of Israel on a pressing court case to be decided at the end of March concerning the fate of Palestinian homes in the Jerusalem area village of Al-Walaja that are threatened with demolition by the Israeli government.

You can find Ken’s blog here – an important read – https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/al-walaja-deserves-a-zoning-plan-not-home-demolitions/

Earlier this week, Ken asked me to write a second letter to Yair Lapid, Israel’s Alternate Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, on behalf of the 237 American Rabbis who wrote in December to Lapid urging him to save these homes. Here is my letter followed by our initial letter from December and the names of all the signatories.

Dear Alternate Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Lapid,

I am one of 237 American Rabbis who signed a letter to you in December, 2021 expressing our hope that you will side with the villagers of Al-Walaja to preserve their homes and prevent their demolition.

50 members of the United States Congress sent a letter to Secretary of State Blinken last week asking him to speak with you about this unfair, Catch-22 situation.

In our minds, this is a matter of fairness, tzedek, and rachmanut to the people living in this village who simply want to stay in their homes and live out their lives in peace.

Please do everything you can to end the anxiety they feel and resolve this case in their favor.

With respect and admiration,

Rabbi John L. Rosove – Senior Rabbi Emeritus, *Temple Israel of Hollywood, Los Angeles

*Former National Chair of the Association of Reform Zionists of America

*for identification purposes only

December 20, 2021

His Excellency Yair Lapid
Alternate Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
9 Yitzhak Rabin Boulevard
Jerusalem 9195022

Dear Alternate Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Lapid:

As American rabbis and Jewish community leaders who hope for security, peace, and justice in the state of Israel, we are writing to express our deep concern and distress over the ongoing home demolitions in the Palestinian village of al-Walaja in East Jerusalem and the lack of intervention thus far from the Israeli government to stop them. Time is running out: on Dec. 26, the Supreme Court may allow the demolition of 38 homes and set a precedent for the potential mass dispossession of the entire section of al-Walaja that Israel annexed in 1967. We call on you to intervene and prevent this humanitarian disaster.

It aggrieves us to know that for the Palestinian residents of the part of al-Walaja that was annexed in 1967 to the Jerusalem municipality, building on their lands is forbidden– and that as a result, they have been punished with the demolition of their homes. In addition to the 38 homes under question on Dec. 26, during the past five years some 30 residential homes have been demolished, and four in only the past few months. To date, the approximately 1,000 people residing in the annexed part of the village live under constant threat of demolition at the hands of the Israeli authorities. Meanwhile, the Israeli neighborhoods and settlements right next to al-Walaja– a number of which are built on al-Walaja’s lands– continue expanding.

Since 1967, the Israeli government has failed to fulfill its responsibility to draw a zoning plan for the annexed part of al-Walaja. The residents of al-Walaja have done everything they can, even taking it upon themselves to draw up and submit a zoning plan of their own, a process that requires tremendous investment of effort and money. After putting it on hold for over fifteen years, in January 2021, the District Committee rejected the plan. By preventing al-Walaja the basic right to fair planning, the Israeli authorities essentially have left the residents of al-Walaja with one of two choices: building “illegally” on the land they own, or exile from the village and lands that they have cultivated for generations.

We feel it worth mentioning that the al-Walaja community is preserving an ancient agricultural heritage. To this day its beautiful terraces are all traditionally hand-cultivated by the villagers with no modern implements. Thus, it has been called by the Israeli Society for the Protection of Nature “a unique example of a living biblical landscape.”

We believe that home demolitions do not reflect the values on which the state of Israel was founded, and certainly not those to which it must aspire.

Currently, legal appeals have delayed the execution of the demolition orders for 38 families’ homes. Dozens of other families in the Jerusalem part of al-Walaja are under threat of home demolition. Understanding that the demolitions may be carried out following the hearing on Dec. 26, we ask that you intervene and call on Israel to:

–Immediately freeze ALL demolitions in al-Walaja.
–In tandem, work with the planning authorities to advance an equitable planning solution that will formally authorize existing homes and provide for proper further residential development of al-Walaja in fulfillment of the Israeli government’s obligation to uphold the community’s rights to housing and shelter.
Signed:

Rabbi Rachel Adelman, Hebrew College & WA Square Minyan MA
Rabbi Esther Adler, Mount Zion Temple MN
Rabbi Alana Alpert, Congregation T’chiyah MI
Rabbi Doug Alpert, Congregation Kol Ami-KC MO
Rabbi Renni Altman, Vassar Temple NY
Rabbi Melanie Aron, Congregation Shir Hadash RI
Rabbi Toba August, TSSB CA
Rabbi Susan Averbach, Society for Humanistic Judaism CA
Rabbi Benjamin Barnett, Havurah Shalom OR
Rabbi Phyllis Berman, ALEPH Ordination Program PA
Rabbi Linda Bertenthal, Temple Emanuel IA
Rabbi Binyamin Biber, President, Assn of Humanistic Rabbis – N. America MI
Rabbi Debra Sue Cantor, B’nai Tikvoh-Sholom CT
Rabbi Adam Chalom, Kol Hadash Humanistic Congregation IL
Rabbi Aryeh Cohen, American Jewish University CA
Rabbi Howard Cohen, Congregation Shirat Hayam MA
Rabbi Norman Cohen, Bet Shalom Congregation MN
Rabbi Michael Davis, Hebrew Seminary IL,
Rabbi Malka Drucker, Temple Har Shalom CA
Rabbi Shoshana Dworsky, Carleton and St. Olaf Colleges MN
Rabbi Doris Dyen, Makom HaLev PA
Rabbi David Eber, Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation IL
Rabbi Laurence Edwards, Congregation Or Chadash, Emeritus IL
Rabbi Charles Feiny, Interfaith Action for Human Rights Wash. DC
Rabbi Jeff Foust, Spiritual Life Center Bentley University MA
Rabbi Bob Gluck, University at Albany NY
Rabbi Shefa Gold, CDEEP NM
Rabbi Susan Goldberg, Nefesh CA
Rabbi Monica Gomery, Kol Tsedek Synagogue PA
Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb, BackYard Mishkan CA
Rabbi Arthur Green, Hebrew College MA
Rabbi Nadya Gross, Pardes Levavot: a Jewish Renewal Congregation CO
Rabbi Jill Hammer, Kohenet Hebrew Priestess Institute NY
Rabbi Maurice Harris, Reconstructing Judaism PARabbi Shai Held, Hadar NY
Rabbi Kimberly Herzog Cohen, Temple Emanu-El TX
Rabbi Linda Holtzman, Tikkun Olam Chavurah PA
Rabbi Daniel Isaak, Congregation Neveh Shalom OR
Rabbi Jill Jacobs, T’ruah NY
Rabbi Rick Jacobs, Union for Reform Judaism NY
Rabbi Marisa Elana James, Congregation Beit Simchat Torah NY
Rabbi Juliana Karol, Congregation Rodeph Sholom NY
Rabbi Peter Kasdan, Temple Emanu-El of West Essex NJ
Rabbi Nancy Kasten, Faith Commons TX
Rabbi Karen Landy, Havurat Shalom in Andover, MA MA
Rabbi David Lazar, Or Hamidbar CA
Rabbi Arielle Lekach-Rosenberg, Congregation Shir Tikvah MN
Rabbi Mark Levin, Congregation Beth Torah KS
Rabbi Seth Limmer, Chicago Sinai Congregation IL
Rabbi Ellen Lippmann, Rabbi Emerita, Kolot Chayeinu NY
Rabbi Janet Liss, North Country Reform Temple NY
Rabbi Sanford Marcus, Tree of Life congregation, Columbia SC
Rabbi Jessica Kate Meyer, The Kitchen CA
Rabbi Rachel Mikva, Chicago Theological Seminary IL
Rabbi Carol Mitchell, Temple Beth Elohim MA
Rabbi David Mivasair, Ahavat Olam Synagogue PA
Rabbi Nina Mizrahi, Ames Jewish Congregation IA
Rabbi Dev Noily, Kehilla Community Synagogue CA
Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum, Kavana WA
Rabbi Jonah Pesner, Director, Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism Wash. DC
Rabbi Michael Rothbaum, Congregation Beth Elohim MA
Rabbi David Saperstein, Dir. Emeritus, Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism Wash. DC
Rabbi Sunny Schnitzer, Bethesda Jewish Congregation MD
Rabbi David Shneyer, Am Kolel Jewish Community MD
Rabbi Misha Shulman, The New Shul NY
Rabbi Suzanne Singer, Temple Beth El CA
Rabbi Toba Spitzer, Congregation Dorshei Tzedek MA
Rabbi Sharon Stiefel, Mayim Rabim MN
Rabbi Adam Stock Spilker, Mount Zion Temple MN
Rabbi Robert Tabak, Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association PA
Rabbi David Teutsch, Reconstructing Judaism PA
Rabbi Lennard Thal, SrVP Emeritus, Union for Reform Judaism NY
Rabbi Gordon Tucker, Sr Rabbi Emeritus. Temple Israel Center NY
Rabbi Arthur Ocean Waskow, The Shalom Center PA
Rabbi Josh Weinberg, Union for Reform Judaism NY
Rabbi Max Weiss, Oak Park Temple B’nai Abraham Zion, Rabbi IL
Rabbi Rachel Weiss, Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation IL
Rabbi Alex Weissman, Congregation Agudas Achim MA
Rabbi David Dine Wirtschafter, Temple Adath Israel KY
Rabbi Lina Zerbarini, Kehillath Shalom Synagogue NY
Rabbi Brian Zimmerman, Beth El Fort Worth TX

Rabbi Morris Allen MN
Rabbi Rebecca Alpert PA
Rabbi Emily Aronson NY
Rabbi Allen Bennett CA
Rabbi Yosef Berman Wash. DC
Rabbi Aryeh Bernstein IL
Rabbi Edward Bernstein FL
Rabbi Jonathan Biatch WI
Rabbi Rena Blumenthal NY
Rabbi Rachael Bregman GA
Rabbi Caryn Broitman MA
Rabbi Harold Caminker NC
Rabbi Michael Tevya Cohen TX
Rabbi Meryl Crean PA
Rabbi Jill Crimmings MN
Rabbi Faith Joy Dantowitz CA
Rabbi Michelle Dardashti RI
Rabbi Alexander Davis MN
Rabbi Ellen Dreyfus IL
Rabbi George Driesen MD
Rabbi Judith Edelstein NY
Rabbi Amy Eilberg CA
Rabbi Lewis Eron NJ
Rabbi Rachel Esserman NY
Rabbi Fern Feldman WA
Rabbi Ruth Gais NJ
Rabbi Laura Gelker CA
Rabbi Stuart Gershon NC
Rabbi Rosalind Gold VA
Rabbi Megan GoldMarche IL
Rabbi Debra Goldstein MA
Rabbi Maralee Gordon IL
Rabbi David Greenstein NJ
Rabbi Suzanne Griffel IN
Rabbi Rayna Grossman PA
Rabbi B. Charles Herring AZ
Rabbi Justin Kerber IN
Rabbi Paul Kipnes CA
Rabbi Emma Kippley-Ogman MN
Rabbi Michael Kramer DE
Rabbi Ronald Kronish NY
Rabbi Adam Lautman MD
Rabbi Joshua Lesser GA
Rabbi David Levin PA
Rabbi Tamar Magill-Grimm MN
Rabbi Paula Marcus CA
Rabbi Susan Marks FL

Rabbi Jonathan Miller MD
Rabbi Catherine Nemiroff MN
Rabbi Salem Pearce NC
Rabbi William Plevan NY
Rabbi Robin Podolsky CA
Rabbi James Ponet CT
Rabbi Aaron Portman NY
Rabbi Shani Rosenbaum MA
Rabbi Jessica Rosenberg MN
Rabbi John Rosove CA
Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg IL
Rabbi Elisheva Salamo CA
Rabbi Julie Saxe-Taller CA
Rabbi Aliza Schwartz PA
Rabbi Stephen Segar OH
Rabbi Judith Seid, CA
Rabbi Gerald Serotta MD
Rabbi David Steinberg MN
Rabbi Danielle Stillman VT
Rabbi Joshua Samuel Taub TX
Rabbi Shifrah Tobacman NY
Rabbi Burt Visotzky NY
Rabbi Miriam-Simma Walfish NY
Rabbi Brian Walt MA
Rabbi Abi Weber PA
Rabbi Elyse Wechterman PA
Rabbi Sheila Weinberg PA
Rabbi Ora Weiss MA
Rabbi Bridget Wynne CA
David Abraham, Educator FL
Hannah Bender, Rabbinical Student CA
Nancy Bernstein, J Street National Board member PA
Emma Sofia Born, Jewish Chaplain, AJRCA CA
Sarah Brammer-Shlay, Rabbinical Student PA
Caleb Bromberg, Rabbinical Student, Jewish Theological Seminary NY
Max Buchdahl, Rabbinical Student, Jewish Theological Seminary NY
Pini Herman, Board Member CA
Willemina Davidson, Rabbinical Student, Jewish Educator MA
Carly Dreme Calbreath, Educator MA
Ren Finkel, SVARA PA
Howard Friedland, Cantor, Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation IL
Talya Gillman, Board member, U of WA Hillel WA
Floyd Glen-Lambert, President, Jewish Labor Committee Western Region CA
Wendy Goldberg, Educator and Cantorial Soloist MN
Adam Graubart, Rabbinical Student, Hebrew Union College NY
Neil Hirsch, Rabbinical Student MA
Andrea Hodos, Director, Moving Torah CA

Rebecca Kanner, Board President, Ann Arbor Reconstructionist Congregation MI
Carol Kantar, Holocaust Educator MN
Ned Kantar, Former President and Board Member, Kenesseth Israel MN
Jonathan Kaufman, J Street Bay Area Advocacy Co-chair CA
Jayce Koester, Rabbinical Student MA
Victor Kovner, Board Member, J Street NY
Joy Ladin, Yeshiva University MA
Elaine Landes, Israel-Palestine Steering Committee for Congregation Dorshei Tzedek MA
Rhona Leibel, Former Board Member, Shir Tikvah Congregation MN
Craig Levine, Past President, Bnai Keshet; Co-Chair, J Street NJ
Jan Mahler, Cantor IL
David Mandel, Chapter leader, Jewish Voice for Peace CA
Eliana Mastrangelo, Rabbinical Student CA
Alice Mishkin, Interim Director, Jewish Communal Leadership Program, U of MI
Josh Nelson, Reconstructionist Rabbinical College TN
Julie Newman, Cantor PA
Steven Orkand, Hillel Board Member CA
Elisheva Pripas, Rabbinical Student, Hebrew College MA
Alicia Rabins, Educator OR
Edward Rapoport, Congregation Darchei Noam, Former Board Member JCRC MN
Penny Rosenwasser, Educator and Committee Leader CA
Aaron Rotenberg, Rabbinical Student, Spiritual Leader PA
Jessi Roemer, Cantor PA
Lia Lynn Rosen, Yotzeret-Artist/Educator NY
Lynna Schaefer, Spiritual Director NY
Yaakov Ginsberg-Schreck, Rabbinical Student MA
Frankie Sandmel, Rabbinical Student MA
Eva Seligmankennard, Ex Co SF Bay Area J Street; JCRC CA
Ori Shaham, Mazkir T’nuah, Hashomer Hatzair NY
Roni Shaham, Rosh Ken of Hashomer Hatzair NY
Linda Shivers, Retired Cantor, Cong. Neveh Shalom OR
Barbara Slader, Cantor OR
David Snyder, Board Member & Founder, Shir Tikvah Synagogue MN
Louisa Solomon, Rabbinical student, RRC PA
Dale Strok, Board Member, Temple Israel and NCJW CA
Robert Nathan, Suberi Center For Jewish NonViolence MO
Howard Sumka, J Street DC Metro Chapter Steering Committee MD
Ilana Sumka, Student Rabbi, NY
Mark Zivin, Board Member, Alliance for Middle East Peace IL
Nancy Becker OR
Sheerya Berg VT
Michaela Brown MA
Gloria Cowan CA
Jessica Curhan MI
Wendy Ferguson CA
Linda Fox CA
Bernard Friedman CA

Gili Getz NY
Shula Gilad MA
Tal Klausner NY
Jonathan Kopp NY
Jonathan Lopatin NY
Nora Paul IA
William Singer IL
Evan Traylor NY
Louise Wiener Wash. DC
Chloe Zelkha OH
Charlie Zimmerman CA

Laura E. Atkins, the Forward’s Opinion Editor, has written a thoughtful critique of the state of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s (AIPAC) mission, identity, and activity in the nation’s capital in the wake of its decision to endorse candidates for office for the first time including 37 Republicans that voted against certification of Joe Biden’s election thereby playing into Trump’s antidemocratic insurrection of our American democracy.

She wrote:

I respected — аnd felt respected in — AIPAC’s “broad tent.” But I cannot support AIPAC’s decision to endorse candidates that undermine the strength of the only country I’ve ever called home.

I’m not alone. I’ve spoken at length with current and former AIPAC employees, as well as former donors who supported AIPAC for decades, who are tremendously disappointed by the group’s recent decisions. Tom Dine, who served as AIPAC’s executive director from 1980 to 1993, told Haaretz that if the group’s money “goes to antidemocratic people who believe the last election was a fraud and they support the January 6 insurrection – no sir, I would not give them a dime.”

During Tom Dine’s stewardship of AIPAC (1980-1993), I was a loyal supporter of this pro-Israel advocacy organization, but over the years, as AIPAC turned more and more to the right and only gave lip-service to a two-state solution of the Israel-Palestine conflict, despite supporting Israel’s security needs before Congress, I became disaffected and became a supporter of the pro-Israel, pro-peace J Street where I now serve as a co-chair of the Rabbinic and Cantorial Cabinet. That said, though I disagreed with many of the policy positions advocated by AIPAC, including its opposition to the JCPOA, I still respected AIPAC’s position of support for Israel.

I no longer do as I believe, as Laura Atkins articulates so well, that AIPAC has gone off the rails and no longer deserves American Jewish support. It is a sad day in the history of AIPAC but its leadership has no one to blame but themselves.

Do read Atkins’ piece as she offers a fair critique. Those wishing to know more about J Street’s policy positions, go to its website at www.jstreet.org.

Atkin’s opinion piece is here: https://forward.com/opinion/484430/aipac-endorsements-hurt-us-israel-relationship/?utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=campaign_3935004

“Rage Militaire is a French term that described an inspirational affinity for combat by volunteers driven by a passionate commitment instead of the mercenary motive of mere money.” (Joseph Ellis in his book The Cause, page 100 – a superb history of the American Revolutionary War and the reason the American Continental army under George Washington’s command eventually defeated a much greater and more heavily financed British army)

That is what we are now seeing amongst Ukrainians as opposed to Russians and its mercenaries in this tragic war.

 [Note: Yesterday – March 9, 2022 – I posted an article about the Leitz family saving hundreds of Jews before World War II and noted that Israel and America have the moral obligation to welcome refugees from Ukraine. Judy Maltz of Haaretz posted this article yesterday detailing what Israel is doing vis a vis Ukrainian Jews and even Russian Jews who want to make aliyah. There is no mention, as yet, about Ukrainian non-Jews coming to Israel, though reports yesterday suggested that most are going to European countries and Great Britain. Clearly, this is a tragedy of massive proportions. I’m happy to hear about what Israel is doing. I print this from Haaretz because one can only read it with a subscription. I recommend that anyone interested in Israel take out a subscription. Haaretz is the NYT of Israel.]

By Judy Maltz – Haaretz, March 9, 2022

‘We will fill up the planes, come back to Israel, and then fly back again and pick up more refugees,’ Jewish Agency deputy director general Yehuda Setton explained

Israel is gearing for a major airlift of Ukrainian Jews who have fled to bordering countries, leaders of the Jewish Agency announced on Wednesday.

“If all goes well, we will bring tens of thousands to Israel in the coming year,” said Yaakov Hagoel, acting chairman of the Jewish Agency, in a press briefing conducted via Zoom. Hagoel arrived in Poland on Tuesday to oversee preparations for bringing growing numbers of Jewish refugees from Ukraine to Israel. Many of these refugees are being housed in shelters in Warsaw, after having crossed the Ukrainian-Polish border near Lviv.

“Instead of hundreds a week, there will be thousands of immigrants from Ukraine each week,” said Hagoel. “And instead of people waiting for planes, we will have planes waiting for people.”

The acting chairman said he would be returning to Israel on Wednesday night on a plane with 150 refugees from Ukraine. Another 100 Jewish refugees from Ukraine were scheduled to arrive on a separate flight from Romania.

On instructions from Israel’s Foreign Ministry, the Jewish Agency removed its envoys from Ukraine several days after the Russian invasion. Hagoel said that the government had agreed for them to return to Ukraine starting Thursday. Having envoys back on the ground, he said, would help the aliyah operation run more smoothly.

Yehuda Setton, deputy director general of the Jewish Agency, said Israel would charter flights to Poland, Romania and Hungary to pick up the Jewish refugees stranded at Ukraine’s borders. Because Moldova’s airspace is still closed, refugees who have crossed into that Eastern European country will, he said, have to make their way to Romania to board the flights.

“We will fill up the planes, come back to Israel, and then fly back again and pick up more refugees,” he explained.

Setton, who is in charge of the situation room set up to handle this new wave of aliyah from Ukraine, said the Jewish Agency also planned to station envoys at other points along Ukraine’s borders where large numbers of refugees could be found so as to begin assisting them as soon as possible.

Last year, about 3,000 immigrants from Ukraine arrived in Israel, and in the past decade, a total of 51,000 have immigrated. An estimated 200,000 Ukrainians are eligible to immigrate to Israel and receive automatic citizenship under the Law of Return.

Hagoel said that the Jewish Agency was also seeing rising interest in aliyah among Russian Jews. On Tuesday night, close to 400 immigrants from Russia landed in Israel on two separate flights.

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, roughly 2,000 immigrants have arrived in Israel from these two countries. In most cases, they had already been approved for aliyah before the war erupted. Their flights, however, were moved up because of the new situation on the ground.

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-israel-plans-airlift-of-ukrainian-jews-in-major-aliyah-operation-1.10663960

I recently became aware of “The Leica Freedom Train” that saved hundreds of Jewish lives before WWII. It was a rescue effort in which Jews were smuggled out of Nazi Germany before the Holocaust by Ernst Leitz II of the Leica Camera company, and his daughter Elsie Kuehn-Leitz. It is a story that deserves to be told and retold not only for the sake of history and what we Jews owe to the Leitz family that once acted in our people’s defense, but as an argument for what we Jews owe to others who are similarly under attack and fleeing for their lives such as Ukrainians living and suffering under this cruel attack by Putin’s Russia.

There is a current disturbing debate in Israel about who in this crisis ought to be welcomed into Israel – Ukrainian Jews only or all Ukrainians seeking refuge. Since many Ukrainians have relatives in Israel who are not Jewish, one has to wonder why some Israeli Members of Knesset are refusing to permit these refugees to come into Israel as well as other refugees with no direct connection to Israelis.

I would hope that this distinction between Ukrainian Jewish refugees and Ukrainian non-Jewish refugees would be put aside during this conflict and that ALL Ukrainian refugees who wish to enter Israel will be allowed to do so, just as I would hope the United States will welcome Ukrainians to our country as a refuge. Currently, according to the following article in The New Republic, Ukrainians are being welcomed into European countries and not yet the United States. See the status of this effort here – https://newrepublic.com/article/165670/ukraine-refugee-resettlement-us-immigration

We Jews understand only too well what it means to be denied entry into pre-statehood Palestine by the British during and after World War II and during the Shoah into the United States. That anyone, Israeli or American, would deny a pursued people refuge is counter to Jewish and American values. Should the United States be asked to admit Ukrainians we ought to do so with no questions asked.

The following was written by Leica News – see link at end.

“The Leica is the pioneer 35mm camera. It is a German product – precise, minimalist, and utterly efficient.

Behind its worldwide acceptance as a creative tool was a family-owned, socially oriented firm that, during the Nazi era, acted with uncommon grace, generosity and modesty. E. Leitz Inc., designer and manufacturer of Germany’s most famous photographic product, saved its Jews.

And Ernst Leitz II, the steely-eyed Protestant patriarch who headed the closely held firm as the Holocaust loomed across Europe , acted in such a way as to earn the title, “the photography industry’s Schindler.”

As soon as Adolf Hitler was named chancellor of Germany in 1933, Ernst Leitz II began receiving frantic calls from Jewish associates, asking for his help in getting them and their families out of the country. As Christians, Leitz and his family were immune to Nazi Germany’s Nuremberg laws, which restricted the movement of Jews and limited their professional activities.

To help his Jewish workers and colleagues, Leitz quietly established what has become known among historians of the Holocaust as “the Leica Freedom Train,” a covert means of allowing Jews to leave Germany in the guise of Leitz employees being assigned overseas. Employees, retailers, family members, even friends of family members were “assigned” to Leitz sales offices in France, Britain, Hong Kong and the United States, Leitz’s activities intensified after the Kristallnacht of November 1938, during which synagogues and Jewish shops were burned across Germany.

Before long, German “employees” were disembarking from the ocean liner Bremen at a New York pier and making their way to the Manhattan office of Leitz Inc., where executives quickly found them jobs in the photographic industry.

Each new arrival had around his or her neck the symbol of freedom – a new Leica camera. The refugees were paid a stipend until they could find work. Out of this migration came designers, repair technicians, salespeople, marketers and writers for the photographic press.

Keeping the story quiet The “Leica Freedom Train” was at its height in 1938 and early 1939, delivering groups of refugees to New York every few weeks. Then, with the invasion of Poland on Sept. 1, 1939, Germany closed its borders.

By that time, hundreds of endangered Jews had escaped to America, thanks to the Leitzes’ efforts. How did Ernst Leitz II and his staff get away with it?

Leitz, Inc. was an internationally recognized brand that reflected credit on the newly resurgent Reich. The company produced cameras, range-finders and other optical systems for the German military. Also, the Nazi government desperately needed hard currency from abroad, and Leitz’s single biggest market for optical goods was the United States.

Even so, members of the Leitz family and firm suffered for their good works. A top executive, Alfred Turk, was jailed for working to help Jews and freed only after the payment of a large bribe.

Leitz’s daughter, Elsie Kuhn-Leitz, was imprisoned by the Gestapo after she was caught at the border, helping Jewish women cross into Switzerland . She eventually was freed but endured rough treatment in the course of questioning. She also fell under suspicion when she attempted to improve the living conditions of 700 to 800 Ukrainian slave laborers, all of them women, who had been assigned to work in the plant during the 1940s.

(After the war, Kuhn-Leitz received numerous honors for her humanitarian efforts, among them the Officier d’honneur des Palms Academic from France in 1965 and the Aristide Briand Medal from the European Academy in the 1970s.)

Why has no one told this story until now? According to the late Norman Lipton, a freelance writer and editor, the Leitz family wanted no publicity for its heroic efforts. Only after the last member of the Leitz family was dead did the “Leica Freedom Train” finally come to light.

It is now the subject of a book, “The Greatest Invention of the Leitz Family: The Leica Freedom Train,” by Frank Dabba Smith, a California-born Rabbi currently living in England.

Thank you for reading the above, and if you feel inclined as I did to pass it along to others, please do so. It only takes a few minutes.

Memories of the righteous should live on.” 

See Wikipedia entry on the Leitz family and the Freedom Train as well as the record of this humanitarian effort – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leica_Freedom_Train

Leica and the Jews (Leica Freedom Train)

Marty and me – Circa 1995

My wife Barbara and I returned late last night from San Francisco to attend a memorial service for our dear friend and my mentor, Rabbi Martin S. Weiner, who died this past week.

It was a sad return to a congregation I served so happily during my first years as a rabbi from 1979 to 1986. Marty was then a 41 year-old gentle giant standing six feet two inches, and that image of him never left me even as Barbara and I saw him last week in a farewell zoom call somewhat diminished and weakened from the cancer that had, after twenty years of living with it, suddenly spread throughout his body. Yet, Marty’s beautiful and sweet face, his characteristic humility, interest in us, and his remaining mental acuity, was all there for us to see as he whispered his final appreciation for us as his friends, and we were able to tell him how we felt about him. We had done this many times over the more than four decades of loving him, but we wanted him to know it all yet again this one last time.

Marty’s son Danny, who followed him into the rabbinate and serves with distinction as the Senior Rabbi of Temple De Hirsch Sinai in Seattle, spoke magnificently about his father as did his youngest daughter Liz and one of his six grandchildren Julie. Marty’s successor Rabbi Jessica Zimmerman Graf also spoke of the kindness and gracious nature of this extraordinary leader and mensch of a man. Jessica grew up as one of his kids in the congregation and became a rabbi as did eight other young people including Danny, perhaps a record for any rabbi in the country inspiring young people to serve the Jewish people as he did for so long as a rabbi in Israel.

The love and admiration of hundreds filled Congregation Sherith Israel’s historic and magnificent Sanctuary (built two years before the 1906 earthquake) because Marty was able to touch the hearts and minds of so many for so long. He was a rabbis’ rabbi – hundreds of rabbis called Marty their mentor (people might say I exaggerate – but they be wrong) as did so many adults and children who grew into adults who will always regard Marty as their rabbi.

Marty’s gentle but strong and clear voice, his life-long commitment to social justice and peace in Israel, his love of movies and ability to tie in Jewish themes through his favorites from Casa Blanca to Raiders of the Lost Ark, his leadership in the interfaith community of San Francisco, in the American Jewish Committee nationally, in J Street on our Executive Committee of the Rabbinic and Cantorial Cabinet, and as a past President of the Central Conference of American Rabbis were remembered fondly.

For me, I lost my first rabbinic boss, my mentor, my dearest of friends. For Barbara and me, Marty and Karen were our most important rabbinic couple role models. I cannot count the number of times when I faced difficult congregational, pastoral, and life challenges that I asked myself ‘What would Marty say and do?’ If I figured it out, I’d say and do that. If I couldn’t, I’d call him and he would respond wisely and lovingly.

I had no idea in 1979 when I first went to work as Marty’s assistant rabbi that he would come to mean so much to me as a rabbi, a man, a husband, father, and grandfather. As Danny noted in his tribute to his father, Marty mentored rabbis from their first years and, in my case, into retirement. Because my own father died when I was nine years-old, without realizing it at the time, Marty became for me a father-surrogate. No one could have a better second father figure, and my own was a wondrous man. To have two men like this in my life has been a blessing beyond any I could have hoped for.

In listening to Danny, Liz, Julie, and Jessica speak, they all touched on the essence of the man who was their father, grandfather, and rabbi. It was so familiar sitting again in that glorious sacred space recognizing that the hundreds in the room and so many more watching on YouTube across America and beyond that we were all there to honor Marty’s life and memory, but it was also so difficult to recognize that he would never grace that space with us again.

Marty loved Shakespeare ever since studying it at UC Berkeley as an undergraduate, and these words express so well how so many feel about him:

“Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die, / Take him and cut him out in little stars, / And he will make the face of heaven so fine / That all the world will be in love with night / And pay no worship to the garish sun.” (Romeo and Juliet, Act III, Scene 2)

Marty was one of our g’dolei dor (great ones of our generation). And so I say of him: “Eich naflu ha-giborim – How the mighty has fallen” (2 Samuel 1:25)

Zecher tzaddik livracha – May Marty’s memory abide among us always as a blessing.

The entire Memorial Service was recorded on YouTube and can be watched here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZ_Xuv-pQ7Y

This blog also appears on the Times of Israel – https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/rabbi-martin-s-weiner-a-loving-tribute/

AIPAC’S DECISION TO ENDORSE AND FUND OVER 35 CANDIDATES WHO VOTED TO OVERTURN ELECTION RESULTS ON JANUARY 6TH IS A SLAP IN THE FACE FOR AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

When Tom Dine, the former outstanding Executive Director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (1980-1993) says that AIPAC is no longer deserving of a dime of his money, every supporter of AIPAC and every congressional candidate that was endorsed by AIPAC ought to take note, follow his lead, refuse AIPAC’s endorsement, and stop supporting it.

I was once (30+ years ago) a supporter of AIPAC because of its solid record of advocacy in the United States on behalf of Israel’s security. Thirteen years ago I switched my engagement to J Street because I believe that its pro-Israel, pro-peace, pro-2 states for two peoples resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the only way for Israel to remain a democracy and Jewish. I now serve as a national co-chair of J Street’s Rabbinic and Cantorial Cabinet including more than 1000 clergy.

I know that strongly identified Americans and Jews have supported AIPAC over many years because of that organization’s advocacy for Israel and its security. I have disagreed with them politically on many counts, but I have always respected my colleagues and friends who are AIPAC supporters.

However, AIPAC has stepped over the line of acceptability as an organization that allegedly supports both Israeli and American democracy. As the title of this news release from J Street indicates, AIPAC has decided to endorse and fund more than 35 candidates for Congress who voted to not certify the Biden-Harris election in the House of Representatives and thereby overturn the election – part of the Trump campaign’s insurrection against American democracy and the US Constitution.

Is it not now time for AIPAC’s long-time supporters to withdraw their support of that once venerable organization? And is it not time for those Democrats and Republicans who were also endorsed by AIPAC and who refused to follow Trump’s insurrection of American democracy to refuse AIPAC’s endorsement (see the list of endorses in the link below)?  

March 3, 2022

WASHINGTON, DC – J Street, the political home for pro-Israel, pro-peace Americans, today expressed alarm and concern that AIPAC’s new PAC has endorsed over 35 congressional candidates who egregiously undermined American democracy by voting against the certification of presidential results after insurrectionists stormed the US Capitol on January 6th.

J Street has repeatedly urged all pro-Israel PACs to take a “Democracy Pledge” to never support such anti-democratic candidates. Yet AIPAC has now announced their intention to funnel millions of dollars to these dangerous politicians.

“AIPAC’s support for these candidates endangers American democracy and undermines the true interests and values of millions of American Jews and pro-Israel Americans who they often claim to represent,” said Laura Birnbaum, J Street’s National Political Director. “Whatever their views on Israel, elected officials who threaten the very future of our country should be completely beyond the pale. We call on AIPAC to immediately end their support for these candidates – or explain what could possibly justify supporting those who effectively sided with the insurrectionists on January 6th.”

Astoundingly, more than half of the Republican candidates newly endorsed by AIPAC voted against the certification of the 2020 presidential election results. Among these endorsees are elected officials who have repeatedly sought to obstruct and deter serious scrutiny, investigation and justice for the events of January 6th and the overall attempt to overturn and subvert the results of the election.

Claims of “bipartisanship” cannot excuse support for candidates who only respect election results when their party wins. Former AIPAC executive director Tom Dine has publicly said that if AIPAC contributes “to antidemocratic people who believe the last election was a fraud and they support the January 6 insurrection – no sir, I would not give them a dime.”

J Street is pleased that the Jewish Democratic Council of America and Democratic Majority For Israel have already publicly taken the Democracy Pledge. AIPAC’s eager support for candidates who subvert our democracy runs completely counter to the views and values held by the vast majority of American Jews and pro-Israel, pro-peace Americans.

A full list of the AIPAC PAC endorsees who voted against the certification of the 2020 election results on January 6th can be found here.

You can find Rabbi Dukhovny’s message at this link – https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=642975313480836

My friend, the Senior Rabbi of the Reform movement’s Congregation HaTikvah of Kyiv, Ukraine posted this YouTube message to his colleagues and friends in the World Union for Progressive Judaism. He recorded this the basement of a Stalin era building.

If you wish to make a donation to the Reform Jewish community of Ukraine, you can do so at this link through the World Union for Progressive Judaism – https://wupj.org/give/ukraine/

Alex’s message – https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?shva=1#inbox/FMfcgzGmvLPXfXNwFcZnCJrHRfRVZJGd?projector=1