Author Archives: rabbijohnrosove

In The Black Night – A Poem for Parashat Vayishlach

09 Friday Dec 2011

Posted by in Divrei Torah, Ethics, Israel and Palestine, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Poetry

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In the black night / the river runs cold / slowly passing me by / over formerly sharp edged stones / worn smooth by centuries of churning, / as if through earthy veins – / and I Jacob, alone, / shiver and wait / to meet my brother / and daylight.

Will there be war? / And will the angels carry my soul / up the rungs of the ladder / leaving my blood / to soak the earthly crust?

A presence!? / And I struggle yet again / as if in my mother’s womb / and in my dreams.

We played together as children once, / my brother Esau and me / as innocents, / and I confess tonight / how I wronged him / and wrenched from him his birthright / as this Being has done to me / between my thighs.

I was so young / driven by ego and need, / blinded by ambition, / my mother’s dreams / and my father’s silence.

I so craved to be first born / adored by my father, / to assume his place when he died / that my name be remembered / and define a people.

How Esau suffered and wailed / and I didn’t care. / Whatever his dreams / they were nothing to me – / my heart was hard – / his life be damned!

But, after all these years / I’ve learned that Esau and I / each alone is a palga gufa – a half soul / without the other – / torn away / as two souls separated at creation / seeking reunification / in a sea of souls – / the yin missing the yang – / the dark and light never to touch – / the mind divorced from body – / the soul in exile – / without a beating bleating heart / to witness – / and no access to the thirty-two paths / to carry us together / up the ladder / and through the spheres.

It’s come to this! / To struggle again – / To live or die.

Tonight / I’m ready for death / or submission.

Compassionate One: / protect Esau and your servant – / my brother and me / as one – / and return us to each other.

El na r’fa na lanu! / Grant us peace and rest! / I’m very tired!

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

07 Wednesday Dec 2011

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

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

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

In this piece I address the following questions and themes:

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

Conclusion of the article:

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

Russian Jews Today Singing Their Hearts Out!!!

06 Tuesday Dec 2011

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2011 Israel Religion and State Index – What Israelis Believe

05 Monday Dec 2011

Posted by in Israel/Zionism, Jewish History

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

Highlights:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

04 Sunday Dec 2011

Posted by in American Politics and Life, Ethics

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

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

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

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

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

02 Friday Dec 2011

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Shabbat Shalom!

Mr. President: Commute Jonathan Pollard’s Sentence

01 Thursday Dec 2011

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. President – commute Pollard’s sentence now!

64 Years Ago Today – Now What?

29 Tuesday Nov 2011

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

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On November 29, 1947, 64 years ago today, the United Nations General Assembly adopted by 33 votes against 13 (with 10 abstentions) the “Palestine Partition Plan” advocating a two-state solution to the Arab-Jewish conflict, one Jewish and one Arab. The Jews were exuberant. The Arabs rejected the plan. Nearly six months later Ben-Gurion declared the establishment of the State of Israel: “…AND ON THE STRENGTH OF THE RESOLUTION OF THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY, (WE) HEREBY DECLARE THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A JEWISH STATE IN ERETZ-ISRAEL, TO BE KNOWN AS THE STATE OF ISRAEL.” The next day 7 Arab armies attacked Israel killing 6000 Jews, 1% of the entire Jewish population.

The borders proposed by the UN Partition Plan gave the Jewish minority 55% of the country, though half was the Negev desert, and in that portion 50% were Arabs.

Once the War of Independence began, Ben-Gurion promoted “Plan Dalet” as a strategic necessity and as a solution to two problems: it added 22% more land to the Jewish State and drove out much of the Arab population.

The myth that Arabs fled because their leaders told them that the Jews would rape and kill them is only partly true. The Haganah also drove out many thousands of Arabs. In the end only a small part of the Arab population remained in the new State of Israel and they became citizens. That number has now grown to 1.5 million inside the Green Line.

The question debated in Israel today concerns the meaning of a “Jewish State.” Israeli right wingers reject a two-state solution and claim that the “Jewish State” belongs exclusively to Jews regardless of the fact that thousands of Arabs have lived there for centuries. Most Israelis support a two-states for two-peoples solution, affirm the democratic character of the Jewish State and believe that all its citizens (Arabs included) have equal rights under the law according to the Declaration of Independence.

In a recent piece on this 64th anniversary since the UN Partition plan, the Israeli journalist and peace activist, Uri Avnery wrote:

“THE 1947 partition plan was an exceptionally intelligent document. Its details are obsolete now, but its basic idea is as relevant today as it was 64 years ago: two nations are living in this country [and] they cannot live together in one state without a continuous civil war. They can live together in two states. The two states must establish close ties between each other. Ben-Gurion was determined to prevent the founding of the Arab Palestinian state, and with the help of King Abdullah of Transjordan he succeeded. All his successors, with the possible exception of Yitzhak Rabin, have followed this line. We have paid – and are still paying – a heavy price for this folly. On the 64th anniversary of this historic event, we ought to go back to its basic principle: Israel and Palestine; Two States for Two Peoples.”

Such, of course, is more easily said than done. To shine a light on the essence of the problem I recommend three important articles:

[1] An opinion piece in Al Jazeera (September 30, 2011) by Sari Nusseibeh, Professor of Philosophy and President of Al-Quds University in Jerusalem entitled “Why Israel can’t be a ‘Jewish State’” – www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion (once on the site, type in the title of the article in “Search” and it will come up). Nusseibeh is considered a leading Palestinian “moderate” (after reading this peace one has to ask what “moderate” means!”

[2] A to Nusseibeh’s piece by his friend, Uri Avnery (noted above), an Israeli journalist, peace activist, former member of the Knesset, and leader of Gush Shalom, called “We are a People – A Response to Sari Nusseibeh” http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/week-s-end/we-are-a-people-a-response-to-sari-nusseibeh-1.389543. As a member of Israel’s left wing peace camp, Avnery is not hopeful for a settlement anytime soon not because of Israel’s right wing extremist government, but rather because the Palestinian identity and narrative has led them to regard Jews as nothing more than a religion and not a people.

[3] A blog by Bernard Avishai, an American-Israeli journalist and contributing Editor to the Harvard Business Review, taken from a much longer Atlantic article (November 23, 2011) (subscription only) called “The Return of ‘The Right.’” Avishai recasts the conflict based on the necessity for mutual understanding of the Israeli and Palestinian narratives – http://bernardavishai.blogspot.com/2011/11/return-of-right.html

As I ponder the complexity, intractability and politicization of this conflict I am reminded of what President John F. Kennedy said relative to the Soviet and American nuclear arms race – “This is not rocket science. These problems were made by human beings and they can be solved by human beings.”

Amen!

One more Reason the Israeli Reform Movement is so Important to Israel and World Jewry

28 Monday Nov 2011

Posted by in Israel/Zionism, Life Cycle, Stories

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The following letter was sent by Anat Hoffman, the Executive Director of the Israel Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism (IRAC), the social justice arm of the Israeli Reform movement.

Anat is one of my personal heroines. She is not only brilliant but indefatigable in striving to fulfill the mitzvah – Tzedek tzedek tirdof (Justice justice shall you pursue – Deuteronomy 16:20). The injustice and indecency of this Orthodox Rabbi and this regressive and inhumane practice that is growing in Israel should outrage any one with a conscience.

Dear Friends of IRAC,

Rosie, a teacher who lives in a small town in the Negev desert, is a single mother who lost her father at the beginning of the year. The family decided to bury him in the nearby town of Ofakim. Rosie spent the night writing a eulogy for her father that she was going to read at the funeral

When they arrived at the cemetery there was a mechitza, a barrier, separating her from her brother and all the other men attending the funeral. When her turn came to speak, the officiating rabbi asked her brother to read the eulogy instead because he said “In our tradition women are not allowed to speak at funerals.” Rosie’s brother refused, saying that she should be the one to read it, since this is what their father wanted but the rabbi refused and suggested to read the eulogy himself. Rosie protested and cried from behind the partition “Are you going to say ‘My beloved father’?”

Rosie did not keep quiet and told her story at a Knesset conference on segregation this month. She wept sharing her pain and frustration at not being able to say goodbye to her father and at having her own words, written during one of the hardest moments of her life, taken away from her. Though missing a day of work was a financial burden for her, she came to testify because she never wants women to be humiliated like this again. With the help if IRAC’s lawyers she is suing the chevre kadisha, burial society, of Ofakim to show that this practice must stop immediately. This past Thursday Rosie went on the most popular radio show in Israel to talk about her upcoming court case. The broadcaster asked her to read her eulogy on air. Millions of Israelis got to hear her words and her voice.

Segregation and exclusion of women has spread like wildfire to many aspects of public life; post offices, buses, and supermarkets and now it has even reached the arena of public death. We at IRAC have been like firefighters, vigilantly putting out fires wherever they pop up. Unfortunately, Rosie’s story is not an isolated one. We have received complaints about segregation in cemeteries from Netanya, Petach Tikva, Tiberias, Yavne, and Jerusalem. Some of these women are not even allowed next to the gravesites of their loved ones because some rabbis see it as inappropriate. IRAC is collecting stories from other women so we can deal with this issue on a national scale. Segregation at funerals affects all Israelis and they are not willing to stand it anymore.

These new fires will not stop us. My helmet is on and my water hose is ready.

L’shalom,

Anat Hoffman

 

 

 

“In the Garden of Beasts” by Erik Larson – A Book Recommendation

27 Sunday Nov 2011

Posted by in Book Recommendations, Jewish History

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This book was a great read as it has all the elements necessary for an exciting suspense novel. The story covers the first year of service (1933-1934) of the newly arrived American Ambassador to Germany, William E. Dodd, and is told from his and his family’s perspective. We witness Hitler’s solidification of power, the Nazi subjugation of Germany, the obsessive anti-Semitism of the 3rd Reich, the strained relationship between Ambassador Dodd and the German government, the suspicion, hatred and jealousies among Nazi’s top officials, and the class-based dislike and distrust of Dodd by key American Foreign Service officials.

We are privy also to the numerous romantic affairs of Dodd’s beautiful, flirtatious and naive 24-year old daughter, Martha, as she cavorts with top Nazi and Gestapo officials, French diplomats, Soviet agents, and famous literary figures. A close Hitler intimate, Ernst “Putzi” Hanfstaengl, tried to make a romantic match between Martha and Hitler himself. Reflecting on Martha’s unorthodox behavior, one American Embassy staffer snapped that Dodd’s residence wasn’t just the Ambassador’s house; it was a “house of ill repute.”

Unless one understood that this book was actual history painstakingly researched by Erik Larson (based in part on Dodd’s and Martha’s diaries) one would have to assume that this was a work of fiction. However, the book is history.

William E. Dodd was a late choice by FDR to represent the United States in Germany after many others refused the position. At the age of 64 Dodd needed a change from the hum-drum of academic affairs and wanted some position that would enable him to finish his 3 volume history of the American South before he died (he did not complete it). He thought that going to Belgium or the Netherlands as the US Ambassador would give him time to do so. Since no one FDR wanted for Berlin was willing to serve there, the job fell to Dodd.

Dodd was a mild-mannered professor of history at the University of Chicago and a close friend of former President Woodrow Wilson. He prided himself on being a Jeffersonian democrat. He was principled, rational, modest, and decent. Unlike his Foreign Service colleagues, he was not wealthy, and he eschewed luxurious living to their chagrin.

Dodd had spent his student years studying in Leipzig, was a German speaker, and loved pre-Nazi Germany. It did not take long for him to see the Nazi menace for what it really was. We see his growing revulsion to the Nazi regime, to Hitler and everyone around him. In contrast, the politically naïve and bon vivant Martha was easily seduced by the new Germany, its charm and the people she met, and she refused to accept first-hand testimony of Nazi tyranny and brutality by her literary friends until personal experience disillusioned her too.

Though Dodd himself held anti-Semitic views like many of his era, he was deeply distressed by the Nazi persecution of Jews and advocated that FDR publicly condemn it. His State Department bosses, however, who were bonafide anti-Semites, advised FDR against speaking out arguing that offending Germany would cause it to renege on its payment of debt to the United States.

Though the book does not deal at all with the moral questions of how an entire nation could become passive in the face of tyranny and how otherwise decent Germans could become partners in the Nazi evil, it offers a unique window into the heart of the “beast.” The book’s title is taken from the name of a park in an exclusive neighborhood of Berlin called Tiergarten (lit. “animal garden” or “garden of the beasts,” which recalled a time when the area was a hunting preserve for royalty).

The book would make a great feature film, and I would not be surprised if it is already optioned.

For more, see this review in The Seattle Times (May 7, 2011) http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/books/2014957681_br08beasts.html.