05 Sunday Feb 2017
Posted in American Politics and Life, Ethics, Social Justice, Women's Rights
SENATOR DIANNE FEINSTEIN WANTS TO HEAR FROM YOU IF YOU MARCHED ON JANUARY 21
This is a direct request from her Chief of Staff:
FEINSTEIN WANTS 2-4 SENTENCES FROM MARCHERS EXPLAINING WHY YOU MARCHED AND WHAT IT MEANT TO YOU.
She will incorporate messages AND note the NUMBER of emails she receives in her opening statement at the Sessions hearing for the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Please send emails with the subject line WHY I MARCHED to:
03 Friday Feb 2017
Posted in American Politics and Life, Jewish History
Until today (February 3, 2017), I believed that the number commonly cited of murdered victims by the Nazis was 11 million (6 million Jews and 5 million others – Catholics, Romas, homosexuals, communists, trade unionists, etc.). It turns out that Simon Wiesenthal, the famed “Nazi hunter,” made up the 5 –million number of non-Jewish victims in order to catch the attention of the non-Jewish world in the 1970s that were ignoring the crime of genocide by the Nazis against Judaism and the Jewish people.
The real figure, according to Holocaust historians Yehuda Bauer and Deborah Lipstadt, is more on the order of 500,000 non-Jews murdered, certainly not a small number by any measurement, but not 5 million. The total number of people who died as a consequence of the Nazi aggression is about 35 million.
Read this article in “The Times of Israel” by Ron Kampeas (February 1) for details and the unintended impact of Wiesenthal’s made-up fiction on politics today.
“An oft-cited statistic of 4 million non-Jewish Holocaust deaths has no basis in fact, experts say and may be contributing to [Holocaust] denial efforts…All of the world had to be annihilated,” [Holocaust historian Yehuda] Bauer said. “That was the intent. There was never an idea in Nazi minds to murder all the Russians…
The number 5 million also adheres to no known understanding of the number of non-Jews killed by the Nazis: While as many as 35 million people were killed overall because of Nazi aggression, the number of non-Jews who died in the concentration camps is no more than half a million, Bauer said.”
02 Thursday Feb 2017
Posted in Quote of the Day, Social Justice
“We have come to a point where it is loyalty to resist and treason to submit.”
– Carl Schurz, revolutionary, statesman, and reformer (1829-1906)
01 Wednesday Feb 2017
Posted in Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Women's Rights
It has been a year since the Israeli government agreed to establish an egalitarian prayer space in Jerusalem’s Southern Kotel Plaza that would be independent of the strict ultra-Orthodox rabbinate and the Ultra-Orthodox Administrator of the Western Wall. The government agreement called for the construction of an attractive prayer space equivalent in size to the traditional prayer space and visible from the entrance of the plaza. The prayer space would be overseen by the Reform and Conservative movements, the Jewish Federations of North America, and Women of the Wall.
It is a year later and nothing has happened.
When I was in Jerusalem in October for meetings of the Board of Governors of the Jewish Agency, the 120 of us representing world Jewry met in the Knesset with Prime Minister Netanyahu. He asked us to be patient and explained that he needed more time to work with his coalition partners to implement the agreement.
Jewish Agency Director Natan Sharansky, who the Prime Minister had asked three years earlier to meet with all the interested parties to find a consensus agreement, told us minutes before the Prime Minister came into the Chagall Lobby that the Prime Minister was indeed committed to doing everything he could to implement this agreement, except one thing – Netanyahu would not sacrifice his government or his position as Prime Minister – and that of course, is the rub!
Once the agreement was signed in January 2016 that included the Ultra-Orthodox Administrator of the Wall, the ultra-Orthodox political parties in the government rose up in defiance and threatened to bring down the government should the agreement move forward and be implemented. Rather than take that risk and form a new government without the Ultra-Orthodox, Mr. Netanyahu seems to have taken the position that the preservation of his government and his position as Prime Minister are more important than the facilitation of an agreement that would preserve the unity of the Jewish people and welcome to the holiest site in Judaism every Jew who wishes to pray according to his or her Jewish custom.
In the Jewish Forward (“The Wall That’s Growing Between Us,” January 27, 2017), Editor-in-Chief Jane Eisner reviews the history of this effort. She says: “So now, a year after nothing, a time for pleading an exhortation may be over.”
Eisner quotes Elazar Stern, a member of the Knesset from the centrist Yesh Atid party and a former major general in the Israeli Defense Forces, that whenever he meets leaders from the Diaspora “I tell them they must insist that these issues be dealt with immediately. And until that happens, I say to them, ‘You need to stop inviting them [i.e.Israeli government leaders including, I presume, Prime Minister Netanyahu] as guests of honor to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and Jewish Federation conferences. Even if you really need them — and I know you need them — hold back for just two years. It won’t take longer than that for them to see that they need you even more than you need them.”
Stern throws down a gauntlet to world Jewry, and I wonder whether we’ll pick it up. Stay tuned!
31 Tuesday Jan 2017
Posted in Uncategorized
I invite my blog subscribers to visit me on Facebook as well as here on my blog. I often post items there that I do not post here.
To become followers – go to www.facebook.com/RabbiJohnLRosove
30 Monday Jan 2017
Compassionate One, fill our hearts with love and compassion for each other, that in truth we might be one nation indivisible. Bless our country, its government, its leaders, and its people. Bless the vision that is America and help us all to make it real. Help us to be for each other a mirror in which to see the best we are, and when we stray give to each one the courage to remind, speaking truth to power when need be.
Of qualities that built this land, help us to distinguish between their light and shadow sides, and to know the upright way, that good not be twisted into evil. Take the violence from us, so much part of what has been; and lead us on a new path to the Prophet’s vision fulfilled, of swords turned into plowshares that we shall, at last, learn war no more. Let not our confidence become arrogance, nor might the measure of right; mature enough in our independence, may we celebrate with all nations the interdependence from which a greater good will come.
Thirsting for peace, help us to sing an anthem now, not of bombs bursting, but of amber waves of grain and purple mountain majesties; the beauty of this land we love, your blessing manifest, not of destiny, but of goodness spreading out from sea to shining sea; and not upon us alone Your blessing bestow, but upon every nation and people in the world of Your creation.
Help us to see that we the people are America the beautiful, in all the grandeur of our colors, and in the symphony of faiths and tongues by which we sing to You and call each other’s names; in the pilgrims’ pride of roots diverse, each one of us from other lands have come, not only of a Mayflower on the sea but of steerage passage and in chains and through sweltering desert sands, wretched and poor yearning to breathe free; let us be the strength of heart and mind to sustain the hand of she who lifts her lamp beside the golden door.
In our caring for the earth, the sky, and water, may we honor those who first dwelled upon this land, and in a small measure so atone for all the wrong done to them.
With liberty and justice for all, that freedom not ring hollow, help us to insure that health and knowledge, bread and roses, be the birthright of every child born, each one free to be and become, dreams deferred no more.
Bring near the day, soon to rise, when in rainbow chorus we shall sing, we have overcome.
Rabbi Victor Reinstein is the Founding Rabbi of Nehar Shalom Community Synagogue, Jamaica Plain, MA
29 Sunday Jan 2017
“Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, / The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. / Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, / I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” (from the Great Colossus inscribed on the Statue of Liberty in the New York Harbor)
We are fast becoming a nation I don’t recognize. President Trump’s Friday Executive Order on immigration is an attack on the founding principles of our country while not doing what Trump says it is meant to do – keep us safer.
Since 9/11, no refugees from the targeted countries in this order have been involved in fatal terrorist attacks in the United States.
Trump’s Order bars entry into the United States of all Syrian refugees, targets Muslim-majority countries (except those countries where it seems that Trump has business interests – e.g. Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and The United Arab Emirates) and threatens the integrity of families who want nothing more than to be together in America, work, pay taxes, and become citizens.
Thankfully, US District Judge Ann Donnelly yesterday blocked a part of Trump’s executive order brought by the ACLU on behalf of two detained Iraqi immigrants at New York’s JFK airport as unconstitutional saying: “The petitioners have a strong likelihood of success in establishing that the removal of the petitioner and other similarly situated violates their due process and equal protection guaranteed by the United States Constitution.”
I want to know this – Where is the Republican party leadership in Congress on this issue? Why have they overwhelmingly lined up behind Trump — or a stayed quiet?
Other than (to date) Representative Charlie Dent (R-PA), Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ), Senator Ben Sasse (R-NE), Representative Justin Amash (R-MI), and Senator Susan Collins (R-ME), no Republican has broken ranks and called Trump out to condemn this executive order. The five Republicans above will go down in history as having done the right thing – and I commend them all!
I am also waiting for Democrats in the House and Senate to speak out.
Attacking foreigners is easy. Bullies do it because foreigners are weak and vulnerable. They have no one representing their interests. They are alone and often traumatized. The may not speak the language or understand the laws and culture of the country in which they find themselves.
Of all the commandments in the Hebrew Bible, the mitzvah of welcoming the stranger is among the most important. The word ger (stranger or alien) appears 92 times in the Tanakh.
Why? Because we Jews understand what it means to be strangers from Egypt to Spain to medieval Europe to Germany to the USSR and to many Middle Eastern countries.
We Jews know the heart of the stranger.
We Jews know what it’s like to be hunted and persecuted.
We Jews know what it’s like to be targeted because of our religion and background.
We Jews know what fear means and what it feels like to be hated.
Jewish tradition is as clear about our obligations to strangers as it is about any other ethical demand:
“You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt…” (Exodus 22:21-22)
“You shall love the stranger, for you were once strangers in the land of Egypt.” (Deuteronomy 10: 19)
“You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him/her as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am Adonai your God.” (Leviticus 19:33-34)
“Thus says God: Do justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor the one who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the stranger, …” (Jeremiah 22:3)
“Adonai enacts justice for the orphan and widow, and loves the stranger, giving them food and clothing. That means you must also love the stranger because you were a stranger in the land of Egypt.” (Deuteronomy 10:17-19)
“Don’t oppress the widow, the orphan, the stranger, and the poor; don’t plan evil against each other!” (Zechariah 7:10)
“God watches over strangers…” (Psalm 146:9)
“You have brought your judgment days near and have come to your years of punishment [because] father and mother are treated with contempt, and the stranger is exploited within you.” (Ezekiel 22:4, 7)
“’I will come to you in judgment, and I will be ready to witness against … those who oppress the widow and the fatherless, and cheat the wage earner; and against those who deny justice to the stranger. They do not fear Me,’ says Adonai.” (Malachi 3:5)
The American Reform movement is now organizing on the local, state and national level in support of vulnerable communities targeted by the Trump Administration and the Republican majority Congress.
Below is a letter sent this past week explaining what we as individuals and as members of synagogues can do to get engaged and become activists :
“The Reform Jewish movement of America is organizing to fight the mistreatment of vulnerable parts of the population. Reform congregations and communities across California are coming together as part of Reform CA, a project of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, to mobilize vocal support for positive state and local policies that advance our Jewish values—and vocal opposition to policies that target the vulnerable populations in our communities.
This rapid response system begins today.
We are asking you to get your Reform congregation or community to contact your U.S. Representatives, urging them to publicly oppose any executive order that threatens the rights of refugees and immigrants, including cutting off federal funding from sanctuary cities.
If you have not already done so, we urge your congregation or community to sign a Brit Olam (google “Brit Olam”), a covenant to act together to defend vulnerable communities against attack: people of color, the LGBTQ community, those with tenuous access to healthcare and reproductive choice, immigrants and refugees, Muslims and other religious minorities, and other victims of bigotry.”
See “Reform Movement Denounces President Trump’s Executive Order Barring Entry from Several Muslim-Majority Countries” http://www.rac.org/reform-movement-denounces-president-trumps-executive-order-barring-entry-several-muslim-majority
27 Friday Jan 2017
Posted in Uncategorized
26 Thursday Jan 2017
I have signed this letter sponsored Ameinu and J Street opposing the nomination of David Friedman to be US Ambassador to Israel and posted this two or three weeks ago. I am repeating the post because of the urgency of this matter.
Please forward the following letter to your rabbis and cantors and ask them to sign on as well (see below for link).
We are writing today as rabbis and cantors asking President Trump to withdraw the nomination of David Friedman to be the United States Ambassador to the state of Israel. Failing that, we implore the US Senate not to confirm him.
In this letter, we will address concerns around his denigration of American Jews who believe differently from him and his policy positions that we believe run contrary to the interests of the United States and Israel.
The Rabbis of the Talmud are adamant that we are to speak to and about other people — particularly those with whom we disagree — with love and respect. We are taught that shaming a person is tantamount to shedding their blood (Baba Metzia 58b).
Yet Mr. Friedman seems to have no qualms about insulting people with whom he disagrees.
Mr. Friedman has repeatedly compared members of the Jewish community whose views on Israel differ from his own to “kapos,” who were Jews who collaborated with the Nazis during the Holocaust. He called members of J Street, a pro-Israel organization that wants to see peace between Israelis and Palestinians, “worse than kapos.” He has even questioned whether its more than 180,000 supporters are really Jews — as if he has the right to decide such a weighty matter.
This is the very antithesis of the diplomatic behavior Americans expect from their ambassadors.
An ambassador is charged with representing our entire nation. It is historically perverse and wildly insulting to characterize Jewish advocates for peace, including many of the signers of this letter, as no better than Nazi collaborators plotting to destroy the Jewish people.
If Mr. Friedman cannot responsibly understand history, he cannot responsibly shape the future.
The situation in and around Israel is volatile. Mr. Friedman’s inflammatory comments about Jews, Palestinians and Muslims and the peace process itself are precisely the type of comments that can ignite further conflict and drive deeper wedges between parties.
While we believe the above should be enough to disqualify Mr. Friedman, we have grave policy concerns as well. Mr. Friedman vocally supports the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which American presidents since Johnson have seen as an obstacle to peace.
Moreover, Mr. Friedman opposes the two-state solution, which has been a policy cornerstone for Republican and Democratic administrations for the past quarter century. We are very concerned that rather than try to represent the US as an advocate for peace, Mr. Friedman will seek to mold American policy in line with his extreme ideology.
We yearn for an Israel that is secure, democratic and the national homeland of the Jewish people. Mr. Friedman’s pro-settler positions and opposition to the two-state solution are in conflict with our views and the majority of American Jews who see settlement expansion as an obstacle to peace and who strongly support a two-state solution. Mr. Friedman’s favored policies would weaken Israel’s security, democracy, and status as the national homeland of the Jewish people.
Mr. Friedman’s apparent inability to speak respectfully about and to people with whom he disagrees and his advocacy of extreme policies which threaten the future of Israel and run contrary to American interests are both sufficient reasons to disqualify Mr. Friedman’s nomination. He is the wrong choice to serve as our nation’s Ambassador to Israel.
Note: I am speaking only for myself and not on behalf of my synagogue or any Jewish organization.
25 Wednesday Jan 2017
Posted in American Politics and Life, Ethics, Quote of the Day
“Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time — when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.”
-Carl Sagan, astronomer and author (1934-1996)
Source – wordsmith.org
Rabbi John Rosove's Blog 