Feinstein, Sanders urge Senate not to include anti-BDS law in a spending bill

20 Thursday Dec 2018

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

It may seem counterintuitive to supporters of Israel to do as Senators Feinstein and Sanders have done, to oppose including in a spending bill an anti-BDS law, but it ought not to be so difficult to understand their concerns and reasoning.

As this Times of Israel article states (link below), at a time when the Israeli Prime Minister and his government are doing everything they can to foreclose a two-state solution by legalizing illegal outposts in the West Bank and allowing the settlement enterprise to continue to grow and develop beyond the security fence, this bill would stifle criticism in America of those policies that are against Israel’s own self-interest – namely, sustaining Israel as a democracy and a Jewish State.

The only path forward to assure a democratic and Jewish State of Israel is in a negotiated two-states for two peoples resolution of the conflict between the Palestinians and Israel with the help and support of the United States, the EU, and Arab League.

While I know that Senators Feinstein and Sanders are opposed to BDS, as am I, I agree with them that this anti-BDS law would do more harm than good.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/feinstein-sanders-urge-senat…/

timesofisrael.com

Feinstein, Sanders urge Senate not to include anti-BDS law in spending bill

The Ardors of Youth over the Wisdom of the Aged? – Parashat Vayechi

19 Wednesday Dec 2018

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in American Politics and Life, Divrei Torah, Israel/Zionism

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Hearing that his father Jacob was on the edge of death, Joseph brought his two sons Ephraim and Manasseh to see their old grandfather. Knowing that they stood before him, his eyesight failing, Jacob said that his grandsons will be no less “his” than his actual sons. Joseph then positioned the boys opposite their grandfather Jacob for a blessing expecting that Jacob would bless the first-born Manasseh. But Jacob reversed his hands and blessed Ephraim instead. (Parashat Vayechi, Genesis 48)

For my complete piece, please click onto my Times of Israel Blog at https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-ardors-of-youth-over-the-wisdom-of-the-aged-parashat-vayechi/

Anticipating Retirement – Click to my Times of Israel Blog

18 Tuesday Dec 2018

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Life Cycle

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I have posted before intermittently in a couple of pieces on the Times of Israel Blog, but today’s blog is the first under my own “banner.” It seems fitting that I’m beginning this new chapter of my writing because in six months I’ll be closing a long chapter when I retire from the congregational rabbinate after serving three congregations in three cities (San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles) over the last forty years – the last thirty in my current congregation at Temple Israel of Hollywood.

For full article click – https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/anticipating-retirement/

Increasing Number of Americans Prefer One-state Solution to Israel-Palestinian Conflict, U.S. Study Finds- Haaretz

12 Wednesday Dec 2018

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

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Note: The following report in the Israeli daily Haaretz (by Amir Tibon – December 12, 2018) that American public opinion is increasingly hospitable to a democratic one-state resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a red flag to anyone who cares deeply about the future of a Jewish and democratic State of Israel.

The sorrowful lack of moral and political leadership in the governments of Israel, the Palestinian Authority and the United States to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a two states for two people’s solution augurs disaster for the viability of a Jewish and democratic State of Israel. Time is NOT on Israel’s side. The extreme right-wing Israeli government policy that promotes settlement expansion beyond the security fence thereby making a contiguous Palestinian state impossible and a two-state solution improbable is self-destructive to Israel as a Jewish majority state and democracy.

With a new Congress coming into office in January, I would hope that every Member advocates as a top priority, despite a plethora of other issues on each Member’s plate, for a negotiated two-state solution before it is too late.

Here is the article:

A new poll surveying over 2,300 Americans shows growing support for giving Palestinians full and equal rights, even if that curtails Israel’s Jewish character

WASHINGTON – There is a growing level of support among Americans for a “one-state solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as long as such a solution ensures equal rights and full citizenship to Palestinians, a new poll released on Tuesday suggests.

In the context of what a one-state solution would look like, a vast majority of the poll’s respondents said if they had to choose between Israel remaining a Jewish state or a democratic one, they would rather see it remain democratic.

The poll, conducted by the University of Maryland, included interviews with over 2,300 Americans, who were asked about different issues related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Besides showing increased support for giving Palestinians full and equal rights, even if that means the end of Israel’s Jewish character, it also showed a similar trend to many previous polls when it comes to how young Americans view Israel. Younger respondents were overwhelmingly less supportive of Israel than those over 35.

One of the key questions in the poll read: “As you may know, the United States has been acting as a mediator between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority, with the aim of reaching an agreement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Whether or not these efforts succeed, there is a question about what kind of future for Israel and the Palestinians the U.S. should be supporting over the long term, and many analysts feel that time is running out for some options. Here are four possible approaches that are frequently discussed. Please select the one you think the U.S. should support.”

The respondents were then presented with four options in a randomized order. Some 36 percent chose a two-state solution with “Israel and Palestine living side by side” based on the pre-1967 borders.

Meanwhile, 35 percent of Americans chose the one-state solution, described as “a single democratic state in which both Jews and Arabs are full and equal citizens, covering all of what is now Israel and the Palestinian Territories.”

It should be noted that the one-state solution option was supported by 33 percent of Republicans and 33 percent of Democrats. At the same time, 48 percent of Democrats and 24 percent of Republicans said they preferred the two-state solution.

In recent years, the Israeli right has been calling for annexation of the West Bank, without giving full and equal citizenship to the Palestinians living in that area. According to the poll, only 8 percent of Americans support such an idea. Even among Republican respondents to the poll, only 14 percent expressed support for this idea.

An additional 11 percent of the respondents said they support the current situation, in which Israel hasn’t annexed the West Bank but also hasn’t given citizenship and equal rights to the Palestinians living in those territories.

Next, the respondents were asked: “Which of the following statements is closer to your view if a two-state solution is not an option?” Some 64 percent of respondents supported the option that read: “I favor Israel’s democracy more than its Jewishness. I support a single democratic state in which Arabs and Jews are equal even if that means Israel would no longer be a politically Jewish state.”

Only 26 percent supported the other statement, which expressed support for Israeli annexation without giving Palestinians full and equal rights. In other words, almost two-thirds of Americans prefer a solution that would end Israel’s Jewish majority in the event that a two-state solution is impossible to achieve, and only a quarter would prefer a solution that turns Israel into an undemocratic country where millions of people are not allowed civil and voting rights.

Prof. Shibley Telhami, who oversees the polling project on American attitudes toward the Middle East at Maryland University, wrote in Foreign Policy magazine on Tuesday that the poll’s results show that many Americans agree with the positions expressed two weeks ago by the writer Marc Lamont Hill, who called to create one state with equal citizenship in place of the current situation. Hill was fired by CNN for his use of the phrase “a free Palestine from the river to the sea,” which is historically affiliated with Palestinian armed and terror groups.

Telhami wrote that the new poll “indicates that many aspects of Hill’s views are widely shared among the American public – and that these views are not reflective of anti-Semitic attitudes, or even of hostility toward Israel as such. On these issues, there is a gap between the mainstream media and U.S. politicians on the one hand, and the American public on the other.”

Telhami added: “When one considers that many Israelis and Palestinians, as well as many Middle East experts, already believe that a two-state solution is no longer possible, especially given the large expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, it’s not hard to see why more people would be drawn to a one-state solution.”

Link to Article – https://bit.ly/2UD6dDx

#Freedomfromhunger: The Struggle to Defeat Food Insecurity in the US and Why Your Voice Matters – Daniel Rosove

10 Monday Dec 2018

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in American Politics and Life, Ethics, Social Justice, Women's Rights

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Daniel Rosove, Program Director at MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger spoke at Temple Israel of Hollywood this past Kabalat Shabbat as part of “Human Rights Shabbat.” The following is edited from his presentation:

My Dad says that “loving the stranger for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Deuteronomy 10:18-19) may be the most difficult mitzvah in the Torah. I agree.

Universal humanity, dignity, equality; the right to justice, love, compassion and respect. The golden rule. These are but some of the meanings you can draw from “welcoming the stranger.” Though difficult, it is essential.

It is this moral world view that led me to MAZON, a non-partisan voice on food insecurity working to end hunger and its causes among all Americans and Israelis of all faiths and backgrounds. We do this through government affairs, education and strategic investment and partnerships in the anti-hunger and economic justice sectors.

Food insecurity is defined as not having reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable and nutritious food. Basically, it is being unsure where one’s next meal will come from.

The US Census and Department of Agriculture’s 2017 annual report on food security of America’s 127 million households found the following: 12% or 15 million households experienced food insecurity in 2017 – 40 million people – some 27.5 million adults and 12.5 million children – 12.5% of the population. Think about it. That’s larger than the population of Canada.

58% of eligible families and individuals participate in the US nutrition safety net. These programs range from Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (known as SNAP, formerly as Food Stamps), a special program for women, infants and children (known as WIC), school meals, after school and summer feeding programs, senior feeding programs and more.

Food insecurity affects some populations more than the national average. Households headed by single women with children experience 30% food insecurity. African American-headed households – more than 20%, and Hispanic-headed households 18%. Large regional differences also exist with the majority of the country’s food insecure living in the South, followed by Midwest, Northeast, and West.

With nutrition programs administered on the state level, debates on these issues are guided by a state’s executive and legislative branches, economic prosperity and the strength and vitality of its advocacy and direct service sectors. Unfortunately, these debates have become partisan and ideological. If you are to the right of the political spectrum, you are more hostile to government aid programs and spending. If you are to the left of the political spectrum you are more in favor of government solutions.

On the federal level, the current Congress and the Trump Administration have represented a once in a generation existential threat to the federal safety net. We have seen the public discourse coarsen.

Today – Monday, December 10, the Department of Homeland Security is closing its public comment period on a new rule that would change how non-cash assistance to legal immigrants is calculated, making Medicaid, SNAP, school meals and housing assistance count as “cash assistance.” This would make someone classified as a “Public Charge” or someone deemed too reliant on federal aid, which for legal immigrants could negatively affect their status.

The proposed rule, in effect, uses the feeding of one’s children as a cudgel against the parents. It means whole families won’t have access to SNAP and it may affect 382,000 people a year.

One study shows 1 in 4 children in the US have an immigrant parent. It has been widely reported that a chilling effect has settled within the legal immigrant community in the US with many declining enrollment in critical and available programs.

We should ask ourselves: should access to nutrition be a civil right? Should it be a human right?

Erwin Chemerinsky, the distinguished Dean of the Berkeley Law School, Jesse H. Choper Distinguished Professor of Law and Chair of MAZON’s Legal Advisory Council, asserts that the US Constitution’s “Due process clause…prevents government from depriving a person of life, liberty or property without due process of law.”

He argues that “government inaction in the face of hunger and starvation which results in harm or death can be viewed as a constitutional violation.”

The human right to food was first declared in Article 25 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948: “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services.”

In the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination Against Women, a woman’s right to health includes “adequate nutrition during pregnancy and lactation.”

The 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child declares a government’s obligation to provide healthcare and adequate nutritious food to children. Access to nutrition should be a civil right in the US and access to nutrition a universal human right. Lack of nutrition is one of the largest impediments to personal and national progress. It disproportionately affects women and children. It holds people back from realizing their full potential.

How can we tackle such an immense issue?

First, we must make clear to our elected officials and candidates for office on all levels that this is an issue of great importance to our community and our country. And we must help our elected officials understand that charity cannot do it alone. Food banks and pantries, soup kitchens and canned food drives are essential but not sufficient. It is only a wide ranging, coordinated and well-resourced government response that can help the tens of millions of Americans access the nutrition they need.

We must fight divisive rhetoric blaming the food insecure by writing them off as takers, undeserving or drags on society. In many cases they are blameless – children.

We can direct our philanthropic dollars and time towards organizations that aim to fight the root causes and systemic issues affecting food insecurity that work to strengthen the safety net and engage in the public policy, like MAZON, rather than solely engage with direct service organizations.

You can go online to the “Protecting Immigrant Families Coalition” to submit a comment to the Department of Homeland Security opposing their proposed change to the public charge rule, which would hurt hundreds of thousands of legal immigrant families.

Please do so today, before the close of Monday, December 10.

We must not give up. Each of us cannot close ourselves off to this critical human and civil rights issue. We cannot forget the Ger, the “other,” those in the shadows. We cannot deny them their human dignity.

Happy 183rd Birthday Mark Twain – A Tribute in Quotations

30 Friday Nov 2018

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in American Politics and Life, Ethics, Quote of the Day, Tributes

≈ 2 Comments

Mark Twain is among my most favorite writers. His wisdom and wit shine a constant light on truth and reveal the absurdities in which we so often find ourselves.

Ken Burns (his documentary on Mark Twain, by the way, is superb and can be found on Netflix) said of him:

“He was the Lincoln of our Literature. He imprinted us with our own identity. He was the original stand-up comic in America. After he lost everything and everyone he held dear [his immediate family all died in his lifetime] he had to be funny. He inspired laughter from a font of sorrow. His work alters our consciousness of the world.”

Mark Twain (i.e. Samuel Clemens) was born on November 30, 1835 and died on April 21, 1910. We are all the richer because of him. Everything he wrote is worth reading over and again.

Here are a few of his words:

“It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world, and moral courage so rare.”

“A man’s character may be learned from the adjectives which he habitually uses in conversation.”

“A person who won’t read has no advantage over one who can’t read.”

“A person with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds.”

“All generalizations are false, including this one.”

“Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.”

“Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.”

“Apparently there is nothing that cannot happen today.”

“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.”

“Clothes make the man [woman]. Naked people have little or no influence on society.”

“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.”

“Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt.”

“Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain.”

“Don’t part with your illusions. When they are gone, you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.”

“Education consists mainly of what we have unlearned.”

“Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.”

“Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn’t.”

“Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.”

“Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.”

“Go to Heaven for the climate; Hell for the company.”

“Golf is a good walk spoiled.”

“Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.”

“Humor is humankind’s greatest blessing.”

“I have been complimented many times and they always embarrass me; I always feel that they have not said enough.”

“I have made it a rule never to smoke more than one cigar at a time.”

“I make it a rule never to smoke while I’m sleeping.”

“I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week sometimes to make it up.”

“If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.”

“When I was younger I could remember anything whether it had happened or not. My faculties are decaying now, and soon I shall be so that I cannot remember things that never happened. It’s sad to go to pieces like this, but we all have to do it.”

“Before 70 we are respected at best and have to behave all the time; after 70 we are respected, esteemed, admired, revered and don’t have to behave unless we want to.”

“I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.”

“I was born modest, but it didn’t last.”

“I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.”

“Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.”

“It’s like a cow’s tail going down.” (On getting older)

“The report of my death has been greatly exaggerated.”

For your Thanksgiving tables this year

20 Tuesday Nov 2018

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Ethics, Quote of the Day

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Ever since Governor Bradford of Plymouth Colony initiated the festival of Thanksgiving in 1621, it has been part of the American experience, belonging to this nation and to all “The inhabitants thereof.” It is envied by cultures around the globe, many who do not have as much to be thankful for as do we. While President Washington declared a national holiday on Thursday, November 26, 1789, the holiday was observed intermittently. Finally, President Lincoln made it an annual event on the last Thursday of November, and then President Roosevelt put it on the fourth Thursday, as an American holiday for people of all faiths or of no faith, and the property of none of them.

“Only the sensitive, the civilized give thanks. The brutish, the barbarous, take for granted. They take. They take from God. They take from nature. They take from humankind. They give nothing. There are people slightly less sensitive who give token thanks, verbal begrudging. There are people half-sensitive who give formal thanks, lest others doubt their breeding. And there are people, the sensitive, the civilized, who give whole thanks: with tongue, with mind, with heart, and with hand.” (Rabbi Ely Pilchik)

When Mark Twain was at the height of his career, he was paid five dollars a word for his essays. An admirer wrote a letter explaining his career plans and requested that Twain share with him his choicest word, and of course included five dollars with the note. Twain responded, “Thanks.”

Tradition teaches that we are obligated to say the word: “Thank you!” (Talmud, Berachot 54b)

An old Jewish proverb teaches “K’she-yehudi shover regel, hu modeh L’Adonai…When a Jew breaks a leg, he should thank God that he did not break both; and when he breaks both legs, he should thank, God that he didn’t break his neck.”

In the time to come all prayers of petition will be annulled, but the prayer of gratitude will not be annulled. (Midrash Rabbah Vayikra 9:7)

A chasid once was asked: “What is stealing?” He thought for a moment and then replied, “A person steals when s/he enjoys the benefits of the earth without giving thanks to God.” (Bechol Levavcha by Rabbi Harvey Fields, p. 94)

“How strange we are in the world, and how presumptuous our doings! Only one response can maintain us: gratefulness for witnessing the wonder, for the gift of unearned right to serve, to adore, and to fulfill. It is gratefulness which makes the soul great.” (Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel)

“Ingratitude to a human being is ingratitude to God.” (Rabbi Samuel Hanagid, Ben Mishle)

When you arise in the morning give thanks for the morning light, for your life and strength. Give thanks for your food and the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies in yourself. (Native American Prayer – Techumseh Tribe)

“I offer thanks to You, Sovereign Source and Sustainer of life, Who returns to me my soul each morning faithfully and with gracious love.” (The daily morning service)

Living amidst evil and resisting the stain – Jacob’s dream and post-election reflections

16 Friday Nov 2018

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in American Politics and Life, Divrei Torah, Ethics, Social Justice

≈ 2 Comments

“Jacob’s Dream” by James Coker

When our kids were little, my wife and I paid close attention to the character of their friends and their friends’ families. If we thought that a child was inherently mean-spirited we discouraged the friendship.

In this week’s Torah portion, Vayetze, we read:

“Jacob had Rachel and Leah called to the field where his flock was and said to them – I see that your father’s manner toward me is not as it has been in the past.” (Genesis 31:5)

Jacob explained that Laban had repeatedly cheated him, that their father was a trickster, duplicitous, and a conniver.

Most commentators note that Laban had always been manipulative and cunning. Though Jacob and Rachel wanted to marry each other, on their wedding night Laban switched daughters and Jacob ended up marrying Rachel’s sister Leah and then had to work an additional seven years to marry Rachel.

Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, the first chief rabbi in early Palestine, put these words into Jacob’s mouth as he spoke to his two wives:

“We have to leave this place because when I first came here, I looked at this man Laban and saw how he lived, how devious he was and I was appalled; I was repelled. I couldn’t stand the sight of him and I hated the way he did business. But now that I have been here for twenty years, I’ve gotten used to him. I’ve reached the point where I think that what he does is what one is supposed to do, that it’s normal and proper to be devious. I look at him and I am no longer shocked or offended. Therefore, we better leave this place quickly, because if we stay much longer, I’ll get so accustomed to him and to his ways of doing business that I’ll eventually become like him.”

A story is told about Rabbi Stephen S. Wise when he first visited China. Wise found that the only means of transportation was by rickshaw that was pulled by weak, old and feeble men who coughed as they dragged the wagon through the streets. At first, Rabbi Wise couldn’t stand the sound of their coughing and groaning. It gave him a guilty conscience every time he hired one to take him around. After a while he had become so accustomed to the coughing that he no longer heard it. Shocked by his own callousness, Rabbi Wise realized that it was time for him to leave China.

The moral lesson is clear – we dare not allow ourselves to become so hardened, callous, and accustomed to evil that we take it for granted, become resigned and say “That’s just the way it is. That’s the way it always was. That’s the way it’s going to be.”

We may take the position that we can’t change world! But, we can prevent the world from changing us.

There’s a slippery slope that permits us to accept evil much like a frog that sits passively in slowly heated water until it boils and dies.

“Sin dulls the heart” teaches the Talmud (Yoma 39a-b). We may lie or cheat on a small scale and know as we do it that it’s wrong, but when we do a second time we think it isn’t so bad. Soon we do wrong so frequently that we may not even be aware that our moral paradigm has shifted.

The Zohar sums it up this way: “A sin leaves its mark; repeated it deepens; when committed a third time, the mark becomes a stain.”

The mid-term election is over. Our nation is preparing for a new Congress and very soon we’ll begin to focus not only on the next two years in government but on the 2020 election.

As Jews, as Americans, as moral human beings, the most immediate challenge we face is to avoid becoming indifferent to the corruption, cruelty and lies that have assaulted us these past two years and that likely will continue to assault us every day. It is our moral duty to prevent the stain of immorality from spreading more than it already has.

That was the challenge that Jacob realized in his relationship with his father in-law Laban that Rabbis Cook and Wise understood as well.

Whenever we conclude the reading of one of the five books of Moses or a Talmudic tractate, we say aloud as a community:

“Chazak chazak v’nit’chazek – be strong and together we will strengthen each other.”

That is our charge now after this important mid-term election. May we have the fortitude to resist the corruption and maintain our purity of heart and conscience.

Shabbat Shalom.

Rabbi John Rosove's Blog

Category Archives: American Politics and Life

Feinstein, Sanders urge Senate not to include anti-BDS law in a spending bill

The Ardors of Youth over the Wisdom of the Aged? – Parashat Vayechi

Anticipating Retirement – Click to my Times of Israel Blog

Happy 183rd Birthday Mark Twain – A Tribute in Quotations

For your Thanksgiving tables this year