Helping Families Have the Most Difficult Conversation

31 Tuesday Dec 2013

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Ethics, Health and Well-Being, Life Cycle, Uncategorized

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American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Health and Well-Being, Life cycle

Over the weekend I listened to a moving interview on NPR by Linda Wertheimer of former Boston Globe columnist Ellen Goodman concerning a project that Ms. Goodman helped to establish to encourage adult children and their parents to talk openly about the most difficult and challenging of life’s transitions at the end of life. It is called “The Conversation Project.” Its home page says that

“It’s time to transform our culture so we shift from not talking about dying to talking about it. It’s time to share the way we want to live at the end of our lives. And it’s time to communicate about the kind of care we want and don’t want for ourselves.” [See: http://theconversationproject.org/about/]

Most people, Ellen Goodman says, have not had that conversation and therefore are unprepared for the inevitable, though most elderly parents have clear ideas about what they want at the end of their lives. They don’t share their wishes with their children, however, because they fear burdening and worrying them, and adult children don’t raise the matter with their parents because they fear upsetting them.

Goodman notes that as unsettling an experience as a parent’s death is, surveys indicate that when conversations about it take place there results less depression, less sorrow, less guilt, and less regret felt by everyone. The conversation can be among the richest and most intimate that we ever have together.

When there is no conversation, however, children often feel lonely and uncertain about what to do when their parents die because they do not know what their parents would have wanted. If adult children, in trepidation, fear and/or denial avoid the inevitable and suppress conversation when their parents want to talk, their parents feel cut off and likely never will have the opportunity to make known what they really want to their children.

The Conversation Project has conducted surveys showing a substantial gap between what people want and what they have shared with those closest to them:

90% know it is important to have these conversations, but only 30% are having them;
60% say that it is “extremely important” that families not be burdened by tough decisions, but 56% have not communicated their end-of-life wishes;
70% say they prefer to die at home, but 70% actually die in a hospital, nursing home or long-term care facility;
82% believe it is important to put their wishes in writing, but only 23% have done so.

The Conversation Project’s “Starter-Kit” offers a workbook of questions that needs to be clarified and shared, and acknowledges how difficult it is for many people to know how to begin the conversation. The Project organizers suggest starting by completing this sentence: “What matters to me at the end of life is…..”

They offer other questions for parents to ask themselves and then share with their children for discussion:

What is most important to me?
What can I not imagine living without?
What are my greatest worries at the end of my life?
Who do I trust to talk to about my desires and wishes?
What milestones do I want to meet before I die?
What do I want to know about my health?
What do I want my loved ones to know about my health?
How aggressive should the treatment be in the last stages of my life?
Who do I want involved in my end-of-life care?
What do I want my loved ones, doctors/nurses and clergy to understand about my wishes?
Do I wish to be alone or surrounded by my loved ones when I die?
What do I want my loved ones to do when I die?
What affairs do I need to get in order now?
Do I have a will/trust set up and an Advanced Directive (AD), Health Care Proxy (HCP) and Living Will in place?

The Conversation Project is a gentle, thoughtful and loving prod to help open the hearts, minds and souls of parents and children to each other as the end of life approaches.

See Wertheimer’s and Goodman’s NPR conversation here: http://www.npr.org/2013/12/28/257822206/helping-families-have-the-most-difficult-conversation

To assist Jews in thinking about Judaism’s traditions concerning terminal illness, death, funerals, burial, and mourning, I have written a 45-page life-cycle guide called “Preparing for Jewish Burial and Mourning” in an easy-to-use format that addresses most of the questions Jews concerning end-of-life matters, as well as a practical step-by-step guide to prepare for it. See: http://www.tioh.org/images/Worship/ClergyStudy/preparing%20for%20jewish%20burial%20and%20mourning.pdf or http://hillsidememorial.org/images/Jewish-Lifecycle-Guide.pdf.

Don’t put off thinking about these matters, putting your wishes in writing, and discussing them forthrightly with the people you love the most. The time is now.

Year End Reflections of a More Personal and Rabbinic Kind

29 Sunday Dec 2013

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in American Jewish Life, Ethics, Health and Well-Being, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Life Cycle, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Social Justice

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American Jewish Life, Ethics, Health and Well-Being, Jewish History, Life cycle, Musings about God/Faith/Religious Life

On June 10, 1979, I ascended the steps to the bimah at Temple Emanuel in New York City and stood before the open ark with Rabbi Alfred Gottschalk (z’l), President of the Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion (the Reform rabbinic seminary). He placed his hands upon my shoulders in the traditional gesture of S’michah (lit. “Laying on of hands”), looked intensely into my eyes and asked, “Are you prepared to serve as a Rav b’Yisrael (a Rabbi in Israel)?”

“Yes!” I said, and he ordained me “Rabbi.”

Truth be told, I wasn’t at all prepared. Yes, I had learned a great deal and thought deeply about many things, but I had no clue about what would be demanded of me in serving a synagogue community, the Jewish people and God.

Among the most difficult and persistent challenges I have had as a congregational rabbi is to constantly shift my mood and thinking at the drop of a hat (often multiple times daily) according to the demands of the occasion (e.g. birth, b’nai mitzvah, conversion, marriage, divorce and other life traumas, illness, death, and mourning).

Add to that challenge my need to grow spiritually, deepen my Jewish understanding and Hebrew knowledge, and help my congregants understand what it means to be American Jews, ohavei am Yisrael (lovers of the Peoplehood of Israel) and ohavei M’dinat Yisrael (lovers of the State of Israel).

Being a Reform rabbi these days means being a kol bo (i.e. all things to all people) and an emotional chameleon.

The American Reform rabbi’s multiple roles as master of the tradition, teacher, ethical and spiritual leader, friend and pastor, trouble-shooter and problem solver, communal and personal healer, progressive visionary and social activist, and representative of Judaism and the Jewish people are daunting, overwhelming and impossible for any one person to fulfill. I think back to the moment as an undergraduate at the University when I decided to enter the rabbinate, and I realize how very naïve I was.

Having said this, I know that many in other professions and life-roles confront equivalent demands and pressures. What we all share is the need to compartmentalize our lives to such an extent that we can jump effectively from one situation to the next without losing ourselves, damaging our integrity or becoming hard-hearted. We have to be able to hold multiple thoughts and conflicting feelings at the same time, to feel both the joys and sorrows of living without being overwhelmed by one or the other, to appreciate ourselves and others as reflections of Divinity despite our numerous flaws, and to set high moral and ethical standards even as we expect failure, without our resorting to unpleasant, cruel and unnecessary rancor and personal attack.

None of us can do this by ourselves. We need good people in this work – loving spouses/partners, trusted friends, kind and capable colleagues, smart and big-hearted lay leaders, and a community that shares common values, ethics and vision.

Despite the challenges I face continually as a congregational rabbi, this sacred work has been and continues to be rewarding beyond measure. I am grateful for that and for all the people alongside whom I work and love.

As 2014 commences, I wish for you and all those dear to you a year of good health, joy amidst sorrow, spiritual and emotional growth, and expanded meaning.

May Israel reach, at last, a secure and lasting peace with the Palestinian people in a two states for two peoples final resolution of their conflict.

And may all humankind live peacefully under their vines and fig trees with none to make them afraid.

Happy New Year!

Express Your Gratitude to 25 American Universities for Protesting ASA Boycott of Israeli Universities

24 Tuesday Dec 2013

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

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American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Ethics, Israel/Zionism, Social Justice

My friend and colleague, Rabbi Jeffrey Salkin, has written an appeal for us to perform an important mitzvah: hakarat ha-tov – “recognizing the good” by thanking the Presidents and Chancellors of 25 American colleges and universities that have refused to join the boycott of Israeli universities called by the American Studies Association (ASA).

Not only have these academic leaders refused to join the ASA boycott, but many have made strongly worded public statements condemning the Association’s bigoted assault not only on the integrity of Israel’s institutions of higher learning, but on the State of Israel itself.

Israel is a great democracy, and as all great democracies it has its share of imperfections. However, for the ASA to single out Israel when truly grievous human rights abuses are occurring in countries all over the world that make Israel’s imperfections pale by comparison raises serious questions not only about the fairness of the supporters of the ASA anti-Israel boycott, but also about their deeper motives, their anti-Jewish and anti-Israel animus, and their personal integrity.

Rabbi Salkin has provided us the names, email addresses, and mailing addresses of the leadership of these 25 institutions. He says

“… it is not enough to scream gevalt when we have been wounded. We also have to scream ‘thank you’ to those who are our friends, to those who stood up for truth, to those who have refused to have their educational institutions seduced by all too common siren song of anti-Israelism. We need to thank those institutions, especially if we are alumni of them, and/or our children or grandchildren attend them.”

Here is the letter that I wrote and sent this morning, in answer to Jeff’s call, to each of the twenty-five university and college presidents and chancellors. I urge you to follow suit and fill their mailboxes with our individual and collective love and gratitude. Feel free to use my letter as is, or change it, or write your own; but write to let them know that their courage and commitment to truth and decency has not gone unnoticed nor unappreciated.

Dear President/Chancellor:

I want to add my voice to the voices of countless fair-minded people in expressing my deepest gratitude to you and your university for your commitment to truth, intellectual honesty and independent inquiry, to common decency and fairness, and to your courage and generosity of spirit in standing up to and protesting the American Studies Association (ASA) boycott of the State of Israel’s academic institutions.

What you have done preserves the dignity and integrity not only of Israel’s institutions of higher learning, but of your own.

I am grateful beyond words.

Sincerely,

Rabbi John L. Rosove

Senior Rabbi – Temple Israel of Hollywood, Los Angeles, CA

Boston University. Dr. Robert A. Brown, President. John and Kathryn Silber
Administrative Center, 1 Silber Way (8th Floor), Boston, MA. 02215.
president@bu.edu

Brandeis University. Fred Laurence, President. Office of the President,
Irving Enclave 113, MS 100, 415 South Street, Waltham, MA 02453

Brown University. Christina Paxson, President. Office of the President,
Brown University, Box 1860, 1 Prospect Street, Providence, RI 02912

Cornell University. David J. Skorton, President. Office of the President,
300 Day Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853. president@cornell.edu

Dickinson College. Nancy A. Roseman, President. Dickinson College, Post
Office Box 1773 , Carlisle, PA 17013. presofc@dickinson.edu

Duke University. Richard A. Brodhead, President. Office of the President,
Duke University, 207 Allen Building, Box 90001, Durham, NC 27708-0001.
president@duke.edu

George Washington University. Steven Knapp, President. Rice Hall, 2121 I
Street, NW, Suite 801, Washington, DC 20052

Harvard University. Dr. Drew Faust, President. Office of the President,
Harvard University, Massachusetts Hall, Cambridge, MA 02138
president@harvard.edu

Indiana University. Michael A. McRobbie, President. Office of the
President, Indiana University, Bryan Hall 200, 107 S. Indiana Ave.,
Bloomington, IN 47405

Michigan State University. Lou Anna K. Simon, President. Office of the
President, Michigan State University, 426 Auditorium Road, Hannah
Administration Building, Room 450, East Lansing, MI 48824-1046.
presmail@msu.edu

New York University. John Sexton, President. Office of the President, New
York University, 70 Washington Square South, New York, NY 10012
john.sexton@nyu.edu

Northwestern University. Morton Shapiro, President. 2-130 Rebecca Crown
Center, 633 Clark Street, Evanston, Illinois 60208.
nu-president@northwestern.edu

Princeton University. Christopher L. Eisgruber, President. Office of the
President, 1 Nassau Hall, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544

Tulane University. Scott S. Cowen, President. Tulane University, 218 Gibson
Hall, 6823 St. Charles Avenue, New Orleans, LA 70118-5684

University of California-Irvine. Michael V. Drake, MD, Chancellor.
University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697 chancellor@uci.edu

University of California-San Diego. Praddep K. Khosia, chancellor-elect.
Office of the Chancellor, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman
Drive # 0005, La Jolla, California 92093-0005. chancellor@ucsd.edu

University of Kansas. Bernadette Gray-Little, Chancellor. Chancellor’s
Office, University of Kansas, 230 Strong Hall, Lawrence, KS 66045-7518.
chancellor@ku.edu

University of Maryland. Wallace D. Loh, President. University of Maryland,
1101 Main Administration Building, College Park, MD 20742-6105
president@umd.edu

University of Pennsylvania. Amy Gutmann, President. Office of the President,
University of Pennsylvania, 1 College Hall, Room 100, Philadelphia, PA
19104-6380. presweb@pobox.upenn.edu

University of Pittsburgh. Mark Nordenberg, Chancellor. University of
Pittsburgh , 107 Cathedral of Learning, Pittsburgh, PA 15260

University of Texas-Austin. William Powers, Jr., President. Office of the
President, 110 Inner Campus Drive, Stop G3400, Austin, TX. 78712-3400

Washington University in St. Louis. Mark Stephen Wrighton, Chancellor.
Campus Box 1192, One Brookings Drive , St. Louis, MO 63130
wrighton@wustl.edu

Wesleyan University. Michael S. Roth, President. 229 High Street,
Middletown, CT. 06459. presoffice@wesleyan.edu

Willamette University. Stephen E. Thorsett, President. 900 State Street,
Salem, Oregon 97301 president@willamette.edu

Yale University. Peter Salovey, President. President’s Office , Yale
University PO Box 208229 , New Haven, CT 06520-8229
presidents.office@yale.edu

When Our Parents Reach Extreme Old Age

22 Sunday Dec 2013

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in American Jewish Life, Health and Well-Being, Life Cycle, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Stories, Uncategorized

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Health and Well-Being, Life cycle, Musings about God/Faith/Religious Life, Stories

My mother was once a beautiful, vital, vivacious, smart, intellectually engaged, and generous woman. She was strong-willed, independent, high-powered, and passionate. Her family meant everything to her and she had many devoted friends.

Today, at 96 she is nearly blind, nearly deaf, and has dementia. She can no longer read, hear music, listen to books on tape/CD, or watch television. She falls frequently and has many aches and pains. Most of her friends have died and all her nine brothers and sisters are gone.

Two years ago it was clear to my brother, me and everyone who knew her that she needed to move from part-time to full-time care, but she could not afford to have someone live in her home 24-7. We decided to move her from independent to assisted living, but she resisted mightily. At last we refused to take “no” for an answer.

Over these two years her situation has worsened. At times my mother knows who I am, but she forgets seconds later and wonders what strange man is sitting with her, and why. I remind her that I am her son, but she is now more often than not bewildered, frustrated and angry because she is aware enough to know how much mental capacity she has lost and of the dramatically shrunken world in which she exists.

Only two things sustain her these days. She has some of her long-term memory remaining, and so she recalls vividly her parents and siblings thus bringing them alive; and her knowledge that my brother and I we are well and happy offers her a measure of comfort.

I share my mother’s situation with you because I know that my brother and I are not alone. Many others also experience the disabilities that afflict their parents, grandparents and loved ones as they reach extreme old age.

In a lucid moment yesterday, my mother asked me, “What could I have possibly done that God hates me so much to make me so miserable!”

I took her hand and said, “Mom – How could God possibly hate you? You have always been loving and generous. You were always the first to respond to those in trouble and who needed help – to family, friends and strangers. You contributed to every good cause. You served the Jewish community devotedly. I cannot believe that God is angry at you. Rather, I am sure that God loves you. I love you. Michael [my brother] loves you. You are just very very old, and this is what happens when people get old like you!”

She listened but didn’t respond. I don’t know if she understood me.

What else could I say? She is miserable, and for good reason.

She spoke about another woman, Anna, who is a resident on her floor and a devout Catholic, and said that Anna has more reason than most to end her life because she is “even more miserable than me!” She added, “There are ways to end your life, you know. But she won’t do it, because she’s religious.”

“What about you, Mom? Do you ever want to end your life?”

“Yes, I want to die,” she said, “but I would never take my life for the same reason that she doesn’t take hers!”

I marveled at how strong, still, is my mother’s faith. From the time she was a child in Winnipeg, Manitoba she was a deeply spiritual and religiously inclined person. On Friday nights she secretly went to synagogue alone without her parents and siblings knowing because they thought religion was nonsense. She told them she was attending school events.

Every Shabbat for months I have been offering a mi shebeirach healing blessing for my mother over an open Torah; but of late, I have begun to wonder whether I should stop based on a famous story from the Talmud.

When the great Rabbi Judah HaNasi was near death his disciples came to pray on his behalf in the courtyard below his window. His maidservant, hearing the desires of those “above” for Rabbi Judah’s soul and the desires of the students “below” decided to drop an earthen vessel to the courtyard stones hoping that the crash would at least momentarily distract Rabbi Judah’s students from their prayers. The noise indeed diverted their attention and they stopped praying. It was then that Rabbi Judah gave up his breath to God. (Talmud Bavli, Ketubot 104a). Rabbi Judah’s maidservant is regarded positively and with respect by tradition.

The Biblical Kohelet wrote that there is

“A season set for everything, / A time for every experience under heaven; / A time for being born and a time for dying…” (3:1-2)

When is my mother’s time for dying? Are my prayers on her behalf in any way sustaining her when she so deeply wishes and is ready to pass on?

Excruciating questions, and I have no answers.

Jewish Survival is NOT a Given – Miketz Meets Hanukah

29 Friday Nov 2013

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in American Jewish Life, Divrei Torah, Holidays, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Stories, Uncategorized

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This week Joseph finds himself imprisoned on the false charge of trying to seduce Potifar’s wife. Already known as a dream interpreter, Joseph is called from the dungeons to interpret Pharaoh’s seemingly inscrutable dreams, and convinces Pharaoh that God has blessed him with far-sighted wisdom and the grace of success. Consequently, Pharaoh elevates Joseph to the position of the kingdom’s chief overseer, second in power only to Pharaoh himself.

In his position Joseph deftly manages the realm, and when the years of famine arrive as predicted, word spreads that Egypt has stockpiled an overabundance of grain, and that surrounding peoples can seek sustenance from the throne.

Suffering the effects of the famine along with everyone else, Jacob instructs his surviving older sons to procure food for the family, lest they all die, and they appear before Joseph.

In the dramatic conclusion in next week’s parasha, Joseph will reveal his true identity to his brothers and explain that their sale of him served his life’s purpose, that God had sent him ahead into Egypt as a slave to save his family.

Joseph is a key transitional figure between the patriarchal era in Genesis and the birth of the spiritual nation of Israel in Exodus. As such, he was the first court Jew in history. He understood Egyptian culture and society. He spoke the language, dressed as a native, took an Egyptian name, married an Egyptian woman, and sired children, the very first Hebrew children to be born in Diaspora.

Despite his acculturation, Joseph did not become an Egyptian, nor did he forsake his ancestral faith. Indeed, he is the prototype of a politically powerful leader who assures Jewish survival.

Fast forward to the second century B.C.E. For 200 years Greek culture had been spreading throughout the lands of the Mediterranean. Jews were attracted to Greek population centers, to the abstract sciences, humanism, philosophy, and commerce.

By the time of the Maccabees (165 B.C.E.), Jews living in the land of Israel had divided into three distinct groups; traditionalists living in villages who followed the priests and observed Jewish law; radical Hellenists living in the cities who saw no advantage in remaining Jewish, who named their children using Greek names, spoke Greek, stopped circumcising their sons, ceased celebrating Shabbat and the Hagim, and rejected kashrut; and the moderately Hellenized Jews who lived as Greeks but maintained their Jewish cultural identity.

When finally the radical Hellenizers conspired with the Greek King Antiochus IV to introduce a pantheon of gods into the Jerusalem Temple, including the sacrifice of the detested pig, moderate Jews were shocked and rose up to fight alongside the traditionalists and save Judaism and the Jewish people from destruction.

For Joseph, Jewish survival meant remembering who he was as an Israelite living in exile. For the Maccabees and their moderate Jewish allies, it meant war in the ancestral homeland.

In these opening years of the 21^st century, we liberal American Jews are confronted with a serious challenge. Of the 5.5 million American Jews, 2 million identify with the liberal non-orthodox religious streams, 600,000 with the orthodox and the rest as “just Jewish” and marginal at best.

The recently published Pew Study of the American Jewish community makes it clear that if current trends continue, 30 years from now liberal Jews will diminish by 30% to 1.4 million total, assuming that our current 1.7 children per family birthrate continues and we do not reverse the loss of 75% of the children born to intermarriages who do not identify as Jews. The current intermarriage rate is upwards of 60%. The orthodox community’s birthrate is a shy less than 5 children per family, meaning that in 30 years orthodox Jews will double their numbers.

The declining birthrate in liberal American Jewry is a real threat to our survival. We will need to increase our birthrate, create a more compelling liberal faith that attracts more converts, more intermarried families, more LGBT Jews, and retains all who struggle with faith and claim to be atheists but who feel culturally, ethically and ancestrally Jewish. And we will have to educate everyone better than we do in Jewish history, literature, tradition, and thought.

The core of the challenge is as old as Joseph, and is as Ari Shavit writes in “My Promised Land – The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel”:

“…how to maintain Jewish identity in an open world not shielded by the walls of a ghetto,…[with] secularization and emancipation eroding the old formula of Jewish survival…”

and, I would add for those who have faith, that places God in the center of our people’s daily life and identity.

Hanukah and Miketz remind us that Jewish survival is not a given, that the State of Israel and American Jewry, especially now, need each other to thrive and depend upon each other to survive.

Shabbat shalom and Hag Hanukah sameach!

On Life’s Beauty, Meaning and Joy – In Memorial to Michael Weiner

24 Sunday Nov 2013

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in American Jewish Life, Ethics, Health and Well-Being, Life Cycle, Stories, Uncategorized

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I did not know Michael Weiner personally, but I wish I had. Since his death on Thursday of brain cancer at the age of 51, the eulogies have poured in from around the country, and by all accounts Weiner was the embodiment of what it means to be mensch.

A happily married man and a loving father of three daughters, Michael Weiner served as the Executive Director of the Major League Baseball Players’ Association (MLBPA) since 2009, and had been involved in the business of baseball for many years. He was most widely known, respected, admired, and loved as a professional of uncommon ability, skill, integrity, decency, compassion, empathy, and humility.

Michael Weiner loved baseball. He loved the players and recognized that without them there would be no game. The business of the game, though important, in his mind and heart was secondary to the integrity of the game and the well-being of its players. He was so effective at building consensus in labor issues and so deft at simplifying and making understandable to lay people (he was a Harvard Law grad) complex legal and contractual language, that of the four major sports in the United States only Major League Baseball has been successful in negotiating a collective bargaining agreement ensuring 21 consecutive years of labor peace, largely because of Michael Weiner.

As if all this weren’t enough, Weiner also taught Sunday School at the Jewish Center of Northwest Jersey, and, as one might assume, the children adored him.

As Weiner’s cancer progressed (he was first diagnosed in August, 2012) he reflected about his life. It is this statement that led me to write this blog of memorial to a man I did not know personally. Its message is what all of us ought to emulate:

“As corny as this sounds I get up in the morning and I feel I’m going to live each day as it comes. I don’t take any day for granted. I don’t take the next morning for granted. What I look for each day is beauty, meaning and joy, and if I can find beauty, meaning and joy, that’s a good day.”

Zichrono livracha – May Michael Weiner’s memory be a blessing, and may his family and loved ones find comfort among all mourners in Zion and Jerusalem. Amen!

Israel Journal – Part I

20 Sunday Oct 2013

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

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American Jewish Life, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Social Justice, Women's Rights

I have just returned from two weeks of meetings in Washington, D.C., Israel and the West Bank.

Immediately before embarking for Israel, I attended the national conference of J Street in Washington, D.C. J Street is a pro-Israel pro-peace political and educational organization that has for the last five years been a consistent and strong advocate for a two-states for two people’s resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is the fasting growing political action committee in Washington and though many Jews are supporters, it is has garnered the support of Americans of many religious, ethnic and racial communities who understand the critical importance of a peace resolution of the conflict.

Leading Israeli and American government officials spoke to the nearly 3000 delegates (which included 900 college and university students), along with Palestinian leadership about the challenges and opportunities for a two-state solution. Included among the speakers were Vice President Joe Biden, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Rep. John Lewis, US Chief Negotiator Martin Indyk, Israeli Chief Negotiator Tzipi Livni, Likud MK Tzachbi Hanegbi, Israeli Labor opposition leader Shelly Yachimovich, members of the Knesset from the Avodah, Meretz, Likud, Yesh Atid, Shas, and Tenua parties, Israeli human rights activists, and journalists.

Then my wife and I took off for Israel to lead a mission of members of my synagogue community to meet with Israelis on the left and right, settlers, human rights activists, journalists, and members of the Knesset, as well as with Palestinian Authority officials in Ramallah and Palestinian business and community leaders in Rawabi. We did not nor would we meet with anyone from Hamas.

Our purpose was to gain deeper understanding of the current attitudes of Israelis and Palestinians towards each other, and to express our American Jewish support for a two-states for two peoples resolution of the conflict.

In the next two or three weeks I will post blog entries on many of the themes that J Street and our mission addressed including:

· Israeli and Palestinian hopes and fears

· West Bank Settlements, militant and not-so-militant settlers, and the consequences of Israeli west-bank development

· The BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanction) Movement and American Jews

· Palestinian business development in the West Bank and its role in securing a future peace agreement

· Political asylum seekers in Israel from Sudan and Eretria

· “Solidarity Sheik Jarrah” and Sara Beninga’s activism in East Jerusalem

· The struggle for Judaism in the Jewish State

· The problem in defining a “Jewish State”

· “Women of the Wall,” the ultra-orthodox and the Sharansky Compromise

All of these issues are complex. The challenge is to make sense of the numerous ideologies, truths and strong emotions on all sides.

One overriding truth is that Israel, the Palestinians and the peoples and nations of the Middle East are inextricably intertwined with each other and that Israel’s destiny as a Jewish democratic state depends on how it resolves the conflict with the Palestinians.

I do not claim to have answers. What I will attempt to do is shine a light on some of these issues we confronted.

More to come!

Ian Lustick’s NY Times Review Rant on the “Illusion of a Two-State Solution”

16 Monday Sep 2013

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

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American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Ethics, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History

I was stunned by Ian Lustick’s front page above-the-fold NY Times Sunday Review (September 15) article of 2339 words (long by most standards) with huge graphics not only because of the immense space The NY Times gave to a very small minority position within any community, but also because of its timing – the day after Yom Kippur and in the middle of serious negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians to find a two-state solution. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/15/opinion/sunday/two-state-illusion.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

I knew Ian Lustick when we were students together at UC Berkeley in 1970-71. We were both part of a left-wing Zionist group on campus that published a newspaper called “The Jewish Radical.” Ian was a brilliant and charismatic graduate student in Political Science, as I recall, and he was a strong Zionist at that time.

What happened? I honestly do not know as we were only acquaintances and I have had no contact with him since. But, in reading his article, he has clearly changed and given up on the most extraordinary phenomenon in modern Jewish history, the restoration of the Jewish people in the historic homeland, the establishment of a Jewish state for the first time in 2000 years, and the dreams of Israel’s founders as expressed in Israel’s Declaration of Independence.

Ian’s analysis of the growth and number of Jewish settlements in the West Bank is not wrong. As he says, the United States should have put pressure on Israel to stop this long ago when a two-state solution would have come more easily.

It did not happen, but that does not mean that all is lost, and Ian’s conclusion that a two-state solution is an illusion is defeatism in the extreme especially at a time when the United States is engaged actively in negotiations that represent the only chance there is to preserve Israel as a democracy and the national homeland of the Jewish people.

I am including, by permission, a “Letter to the Editor” penned by my friend and teacher, Rabbi Richard Levy, past president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, who has been involved in the peace movement reaching back to the days of “Breira,” (the first American Jewish organization calling for a two-state solution in the early 1970s) and who is now an important voice amongst J Street Rabbis. Richard shines a strong light on the absurdity of Ian’s prescription for a one-state solution. I hope the NY Times Letters page publishes Richard’s piece. They should!

TO THE EDITOR:

Seldom have I read a crueler, more heartless prescription for the Israeli-Palestinian struggle than Ian Lustick’s condemnation of Israelis and Palestinians to enduring the horrible trials of the Irish under Great Britain and South African blacks under apartheid. If the two-state solution is illusory, what are we to make of Mr. Lustick’s fantasy that if Israelis and Palestinians are forced to endure mutual violence long enough in a single state that “anti-nationalist Orthodox Jews might find common cause with Muslim traditionalists,” bridging a huge abyss not only of political but religious animosity, and “Israelis whose families came from Arab countries might find new reasons to think of themselves not as ‘Eastern’, but as Arab”–when the way Jews were treated in those countries led them to be among the Israelis most hostile toward Arabs? Furthermore, secular Palestinians in Israel and the West Bank are already finding allies among secular (and liberal religious)

Israelis–allies for a two-state solution. And if diplomacy has to give way to decades more of “blood and magic”–what are we to make of the successful diplomacy ending the strife in Northern Ireland? Why should the Israelis and Palestinians be denied the opportunity to attempt diplomacy once more in the quest for two states?

Perhaps the answer to these questions lies in Mr. Lustick’s comments about “post-Zionist” and “statist Zionism.” For him, Zionism would appear to be the main culprit, for which a two-state solution is but a scapegoat. For a two-state solution would preserve a Zionist state, run democratically by a Jewish majority–and Mr. Lustick wants to eliminate that possibility. Not only to eliminate it, but to crucify it on a one-state platform of “ruthless oppression, mass mobilization, riots, brutality, terror, Jewish and Arab emigration and rising tides of international condemnation of Israel,” all of which would result in the withdrawal of American support.

It is easy to condemn a policy of supporting two states if the only state that currently exists is the one a person wishes to be destroyed. Mr. Lustick’s piece was well titled. It is an illusion to think he opposes a two state solution–it is the Zionist state that he opposes, and sets out a blueprint to destroy.

Rabbi Richard N. Levy

Hebrew Union College, Los Angeles

Syria, Russia, Israel, and American Moral Responsibility

15 Sunday Sep 2013

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

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American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Ethics, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History

I chose not to comment on the Syrian atrocity during the Ten Days of Repentance because my attentions were primarily elsewhere, on the greater themes of the High Holidays and with my congregation. However, I have been thinking about it, and the following are some of those thoughts:

For me the greater issue, beyond the tragedy in Syria itself, is on what moral responsibility the United States bears as the only world superpower. Though the UN does some important work in international relief (i.e. in Jordan today), the Security Council is a dysfunctional body because it demands 100% agreement to do anything, a demagogic principle if ever there was one. That being the case, moral responsibility for such tragedies passes to the US.

It is distressing that this Syrian crisis is the only world tragedy that seems to garner American interest, given other catastrophes in Darfur, the Congo and Burma.

Of course, this is nothing new. American bombers could have destroyed the train tracks leading to Bergen Belsen in WWII, but did not. The US was absent during the genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, after chemical weapons use on civilians by Sadaam Hussein in the first Gulf War, and after Hafez Al Assad’s murder of 20,000 civilians in Hama in the 1980s.

I understand the quagmire into which the United States would step if it becomes the world’s policeman, and that gives me pause, but it is painful as a Jew to stand by idly while others bleed (Leviticus 19:16) especially in the wake of our people’s experience in the Shoah when no one came to our people’s aid. Given these two opposing impulses, I stand on the side of active engagement whenever and where ever a humanitarian crisis, such as those I listed above, occurs.

I understand American hesitancy to get involved in Syria, because there is no good-guy in the Syrian opposition, and the next dictator is likely to be just as bad as the current one. However, President Obama’s “red-line” is a critical one to enforce every time it is crossed, and it needs enforcing now.

Another worry I have is concerning the perceived loss of American credibility relative to the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. There are a number of causes behind the weaker perception of America today including the serious damage done by the Bush Administration’s wrong-headed and tragic Iraqi War adventure, current congressional timidity and partisanship, and misjudgments by President Obama. For the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations to succeed with a two-state solution resulting, the United States must be engaged actively and, I believe, with muscle. The weaker America appears, the worse that is for the future of a secure democratic and Jewish State of Israel.

Finally, though I understand the international power play in which President Putin is engaged, I do not accept the view that President Obama has somehow sunk the American ship. If the Russian-American agreement on Syrian chemical weapons succeeds in keeping Assad from ever using them again, it is a win-win-win for the United States, Russia, and any future population that could be similarly attacked.

Before Yom Kippur, the Central Conference of American Rabbis (representing 2500 Reform Rabbis world-wide) made the following statement on Syria, with which I agree:

The Central Conference of American Rabbis condemns the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons to kill more than 1400 persons, including some 400 children, as a violation of international law and a crime against humanity. As Jews, we are well acquainted with a tyrannical regime’s use of lethal gas to commit mass murder and of the failure of democratic governments to intervene.

The CCAR applauds the President’s decision to respond to the Syrian authorities’ illegal and morally reprehensible conduct and to seek the complete, prompt, and verifiable removal of chemical weapons from Syria by means of diplomacy, if possible, before resorting to the use of military force.

We reaffirm the principle that the use of force should be undertaken with utmost reluctance, only when reasonable alternatives have been exhausted or prove unavailable.

We call on other governments throughout the world to join the effort to ensure that Syria does not commit another such atrocity.

We believe that effective action regarding the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons is essential to deter the use of weapons of mass destruction by others and reinforce the credibility of U.S. policy concerning such weapons.

We support the firm and unequivocal determination of the President and Congress to prevent Iran from developing or obtaining nuclear weapons.

We express our deep concern for the State of Israel and its citizens, who have been threatened with retaliation in the event of American military action, and reaffirm the CCAR’s steadfast support for Israel’s right to defend its citizens from all who seek to harm them.

We yearn for the arrival of “the days to come” that Isaiah foresaw, when nations “will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks: Nation shall not take up sword against nation; they shall never again know war.”

We pray that the Jewish New Year, recently begun, will see the dawning of peace for the entire human family.

Rabbi John Rosove's Blog

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Syria, Russia, Israel, and American Moral Responsibility