The linkage between Zionism and Liberalism in America today is one of the most important themes I write about in my recently published Memoir – From the West to the East – A Memoir of an American Liberal Rabbi (West of West Centers Books, 2024).

In this volume I discuss many important themes that directly confront Jewish and non-Jewish liberal Americans including the challenge of faith for the non-orthodox, my cancer diagnosis and the trauma and confrontation with death that it unleashed in me at the young age of 59 in 2009, the growing intermarriage rate between Jews and non-Jews, my decision in 2012 to officiate at interfaith marriages after 32 years not doing so and the strong unexpected positive reaction of my community when I spoke about it on the High Holidays that year, my engagement with the Soviet Jewry movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s, the challenge I made to my large Washington, D.C. congregation (Washington Hebrew Congregation) to become a Sanctuary Synagogue for El Salvadoran asylum seekers fleeing the Death Squads, the immediate negative reaction I received from leaders of the Reagan Administration when I spoke about the issue on Rosh Hashanah morning in 1987, my Los Angeles synagogue’s covenant relationship with an African American Church in South Los Angeles before, during and after the Rodney King beating and Los Angles riots, the homophobic stance of the Boy Scouts of America in the early 2000s and my synagogue’s decision that sparked controversy when we decided to end our sponsorship with a long-time Cub Scout troop, my 50-year activist commitment to a two-state solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the vicious hostility I have received continually from right-wing extremist pro-Israel activists in my city, the tragedy of the Hamas-Israel war, the antisemitic character of BDS, anti-Zionism and antisemitism, my leadership of the Association of Reform Zionism of America (the Reform movement’s Zionist organization representing 1.5 million American Reform Jews) that brought me to the center of the national institutions of the Jewish people and the world and Israeli Reform Zionist leadership, the J Street Rabbinic and Cantorial Cabinet centered in our nation’s capital representing more than a thousand rabbis and cantors, and my reflections about American intersectional progressive left-wing activism and conservative-right wing extremism in relationship to the American Jewish community and American liberal Zionism.

I share many dramatic stories about my engagement with all the above as well as my relationship with the most important mentors in my life including my father who died when I was 9 years-old, my Israeli great-grand-uncle, Avraham Shapira, the first Jewish commander and guard of the first agricultural settlement in Petach Tikvah from 1890-1948 who I met as a boy in 1956 when he visited our family in Los Angeles, my childhood Rabbi Leonard Beerman, the pacifist founder of Leo Baeck Temple in Los Angeles with whom I developed a close relationship in the final years of his life, and my dearest friend, mentor and father figure, Rabbi Martin S. Weiner of Congregation Sherith Israel in San Francisco whose compassion, wisdom, social justice activism, and commitment to the Jewish people guided me in my first seven years as his Associate Rabbi and who set the standard for me of what a congregational rabbi must be as a leader and a mensch. I credit whatever success I have had to many colleagues, my synagogue leadership, and especially my wife Barbara, who has been my life-partner and dearest friend of more than 40 years, and my sons Daniel (his wife Marina) and David whose love, support and pride in me have sustained me through many challenges I have encountered as a rabbinic and community leader.

In the Epilogue that I wrote after October 7, 2023, I share my outrage against Hamas, my grief at the loss of so many Israeli and innocent Palestinian lives, my desire for revenge against Hamas, and my eventual affirmation of the dire need for a complete ceasefire and end of the war, the immediate return of all hostages, a clear plan forward for Gaza and the West Bank that includes new Israeli and Palestinian leadership, the United States, and western aligned Arab states, the conduct of the war, and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

See a few of the many endorsements on the book jacket above, the publishers description of my story and the cameo appearances of some of the 20th and 21st centuries greatest heroes.

I invite you to purchase the book directly from my publisher at https://westofwestcenter.com/product/from-the-west-to-the-east/ and especially share copies with young adult Jews who may be experiencing a crisis of identity as Jewish Americans in these years of challenge.  The book is not yet available on Amazon.