Category Archives: American Politics and Life

“Easing Gaza Restrictions is the New Two-State Solution” – by Ron Ben-Yishai, YNET

12 Sunday Oct 2014

Posted by in American Politics and Life, Israel and Palestine

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In an important 2400-word article published Sunday by YNET, journalist Ron Ben-Yishai analyzes the following themes:

  • Current differences between the US and Israel
  • The Israeli government’s new “conflict management” policy vis a vis Gaza and the West Bank
  • Israel’s close security relationship with Egypt
  • Israel’s intent to ease restrictions on the lives of Gaza Palestinians and at the same time gain greater guarantees vis a vis Hamas so that conditions that would ignite a new war can be avoided

Ben-Yishai makes the following points:

  1. Israel has acknowledged that the almost-airtight blockade of Gaza has done more harm than good;
  2. Israel is shifting its focus to ease the lives of Palestinians in Gaza in exchange for greater oversight over Hamas;
  3. There are wide disagreements between PM Netanyahu and President Obama;
  4. Though Israel claims still to be interested in a two-state solution (per US and EU), the US and EU believe that a renewal of peace talks between Israel and the PA will enable the US, EU and moderate Arab nations to fight the ISIL more effectively;
  5. The Israeli government believes that it is in everyone’s interests to join forces against ISIL regardless of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and does not believe that a renewal of negotiations will be productive at this time;
  6. The current Israeli government has no intention during these volatile times of removing large numbers of Jews from West Bank settlements in a two-state solution given the ascendency of Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza after Israeli withdrawal;
  7. In place of a two-state solution, Israel is shifting in the short term (until the Middle East stabilizes and the threats of radical forces subside) to a “conflict management” approach of Gaza and the West Bank;
  8. Israel has waived its objections to Palestinian reconciliation in its unity government (PA and Hamas) and is mostly interested now in preventing an uprising on the West Bank;
  9. Israel supports President Abbas’ Palestinian Authority in its efforts to build institutions and regain control over the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, which means allowing economic benefits to accrue to those areas. Israel will allow more freedom of movement for residents of West Bank and eventually Gaza;
  10. Israel will assist in Gaza reconstruction in order to create the incentive to avoid another war in the near future;
  11. Israel supports all policies to prevent rearmament of Hamas and Islamic Jihad;
  12. Israel and Egypt are experiencing an unprecedented security collaboration as part of Israel’s “conflict management approach” resulting in “full trust” between Egypt’s and Israel’s defense systems;
  13. Hamas has not attempted to renew excavation on its tunnels due to its desperation for money to pay workers and its need for massive financial assistance to rebuild Gaza;
  14. Hamas’ red line is disarmament – it will not do so;
  15. Ben-Yishai spells out in detail what Israel will allow for Gaza reconstruction;
  16. The current Cairo conference is attempting to detail how funding will assist Gaza.

Read the entire 2400 word article here – Ynet

 

Beware Pundits Who Make Sweeping Ignorant Statements About Islam

07 Tuesday Oct 2014

Posted by in American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Ethics, Jewish History, Jewish-Christian Relations, Jewish-Islamic Relations

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People with microphones and computers who think they are experts as they cherry-pick scriptural verse from the Hebrew Bible, New Testament or Quran, observe evil behavior of those who claim their respective religious text as authority, and then make outrageous claims about the nature of the other’s religion ought to pause before saying or writing anything. We who listen should change the channel immediately or delete such drivel from our computer screens.

The rise of ISIS, Al Qaida, the threats of a nuclear Iran, Hamas’ brutality, and the brutality and extremism in many African and Middle Eastern countries have given rise to pontifications and pronouncements by people who don’t know what they are talking about when it comes to the interplay of history, religion, politics, power, and human avarice. Their generalizations and cherry-picking of facts feed fear of the “other”, do harm to the good name of vast numbers of Muslims, Jews and Christians, destroy civil discourse, polarize people who otherwise would have much in common, and represent an assault on the truth.

“Fox News” is perhaps the most serious offender, but so are other media outlets whose “commentators” obsessively focus on religion as a principle culprit in world violence instead of more complex historical forces and simple greed and avarice.

I am attaching two articles by my friend and colleague, Rabbi Reuven Firestone, Professor of Medieval Judaism and Islam at HUC-JIR in Los Angeles (from the “Forward” and “Jewish Journal”), who I trust as a bona fide scholar of Islam and Judaism. I know enough about Judaism and Christianity (I am not a scholar of the latter) to know that the general points he makes in these two articles are true and important for all of us when thinking about the rise of radical Islamic groups around the world.

http://blogs.forward.com/forward-thinking/206518/no-pamela-geller-the-quran-is-not-anti-semitic/

http://www.jewishjournal.com/opinion/article/bennett_and_weston_the_politics_of_scapegoating

High Holiday Sermon Themes 5775 — The Meaning of Love – The State of the Jewish World – Soul Hunger – Never Forgetting

06 Monday Oct 2014

Posted by in American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Divrei Torah, Ethics, Holidays, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Stories

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I have posted the four sermons I delivered on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur this season at Temple Israel of Hollywood. For those interested, they may be accessed by clicking the titles below:

Their titles and themes are:

“Love is the Only Road” – Erev Rosh Hashanah – I consider the many kinds of love and the yearning to belong that animates all. I focus on two powerful true stories that evoke what is core to the human condition.

“For Jews Despair is Not An Option” – Shacharit Rosh Hashanah – I consider four themes – Post-Gaza War – The Rise in anti-Semitism in Europe and Scandinavia – The Rise in Extremism, Racism and Hate within Israel and the American Jewish Community – And our Relationship as American Jews to the State of Israel.

“For What Do Our Souls Really Hunger?” – Kol Nidre – Reflections on Judaism’s understanding of what constitutes wisdom, strength, wealth, and honor in contemporary American western culture and thoughts about what the human soul really craves.

“Why I Don’t Want to Die” – Yizkor – Based on a conversation with my 97 year-old mother who is legally blind, nearly deaf and suffering from dementia but at times lucid enough to express her deepest fear in dying.

 

 

 

“For Jews Despair Is Not An Option” – Rosh Hashanah Sermon 5775

29 Monday Sep 2014

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

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On Rosh Hashanah morning I spoke to my congregation about the current state of the Jewish people in the aftermath of the Israel-Hamas War, in light of the rise in anti-Semitism in Europe and Scandinavia, the rise in extremism and intolerance in Israel and in the American Jewish community, and how we American Jews are relating to the State of Israel today.

For those interested, the direct link to the sermon

“For Jews Despair is Not An Option” – Shacharit Rosh Hashanah

G’mar chatimah tovah!

4 Articles About Hamas, Netanyahu, Settlements , and Fear among American Rabbis to speak about Israel

07 Sunday Sep 2014

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

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Now that the fighting has stopped, sober analysis of the most recent war has begun. Here are four articles I believe worth reading, among many.

1. Failure in Gaza, By Assaf Sharon – New York Review of Books

Assaf Sharon is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Tel Aviv University. He is the academic director of Molad: The Center for the Renewal of Israeli Democracy.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/sep/25/failure-gaza/

“Understanding how we got to this point—and, more importantly, how we can move beyond it—calls for an examination of the political events that led up to the operation and the political context in which it took place.”

“False assumptions, miscalculations, and obsolete conceptions robbed Israel of initiative. Lacking clear aims, Israel was dragged, by its own actions, into a confrontation it did not seek and did not control. Israel was merely stumbling along, with no strategy, chasing events instead of dictating them. What emerged as the operative aim was simply “to hit Hamas,” which for the troops translates as a license for extensive and unchecked use of force.”

2. Israel’s Lessons From the Gaza Wars, by Ali Jarbawi – NY Times, September 4, 2014

Ali Jarbawi is a political scientist and a former minister of the Palestinian Authority. This article was translated by Ghenwa Hayek from the Arabic.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/05/opinion/ali-jarbawi-israels-lessons-from-the-gaza-wars.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=0

“The road to peace is both clearly delineated and short: It is the public acceptance of the legitimate right of the Palestinians to end the occupation and establish a state.”

3. Israel’s land appropriation: Foolish, ill-timed and self-destructive – By Rabbi Eric Yoffie – Haaretz – Sep. 3, 2014

Rabbi Eric Yoffie is the immediate past president of the Union for Reform Judaism, and is now writes frequently in Haaretz and the Jerusalem Post –

http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.613782

“Perhaps there could be a more foolish, ill-timed, and self-destructive decision than the one made by Israel’s cabinet this week, but it is hard to imagine what it might be.
Israel’s enemies in the Middle East and throughout the world are rejoicing. If you really despise the Jewish state, nothing makes you happier than a move by Israeli leaders to expand settlements. The move, in this case, was a decision by the cabinet to appropriate 1000 acres of West Bank land for settlement building in the Etzion settlement bloc, near Bethlehem. The land has been designated as “state land,” even though ownership is claimed by local Palestinians.”

“Nothing unites the world against Israel like settlement building. Even Israel’s staunchest supporters abroad, trying to make Israel’s case to a skeptical public after the Gaza war, are asking: Why undermine us now?

4. Muzzled by the Minority, By Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie, Reform Judaism Magazine, Fall 2013

http://ericyoffie.com/

“Many rabbis don’t express their true views about Israel publicly for fear of clashing with a handful of congregants who might lash out against them. But there are ways to navigate this minefield of divided opinion.”

Rabbi Yoffie worries aloud about the lack of civility in the American Jewish community vis a vis Israel, and offers a five-fold approach to resolving this issue. He confronts, as well, a number of challenges facing American rabbis and American Jews generally in our relationship to the state of Israel, and sites a number of opinion surveys of American Jewish attitudes towards Israel, the occupation, settlements, and the rightful role that American Zionists have in expressing views publicly that may counter the policy positions of the government of Israel. He notes that according to the 2013 Pew Research Center poll, the majority of American Jews remain strongly devoted to Israel without necessarily agreeing with everything Israel’s leaders do, and that the majority opinion in the American Jewish community is dovish, not hawkish, contrary to what many organized American Jewish organizations say and would like us to believe.

My Tribute to Leibel Fein

17 Sunday Aug 2014

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

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Leonard Leibel Fein’s death is a particularly painful loss to the liberal social activist progressive Zionist world. He spoke and wrote always the truth as he understood it, inspired by a deeply Jewish vision, with an eloquence and a precision of language that inspired, opened the heart and renewed a sense of purpose and hope in anyone who was open and receptive enough to resonate with his message.

I first met Leibel 44 years ago when I was a college student at the summer Aliyah of then Brandeis Camp Institute (now Brandeis-Bardin) in Simi Valley, California, where he had come to spend a month with us 70+ young people from all over the country and world. He spoke to us and with us, lecturing about American Jewish life and religion, God, Israel, Zionism, Soviet Jewry, and social justice.

Those were the heady euphoric years after Israel’s lightning victory in the 1967 Six-Days War, yet Leibel (an early scholar of the Israeli enterprise at Brandeis University) understood intuitively that the great victory of three years earlier on the battlefield that resulted in the reunification of Jerusalem and the acquisition of the West Bank, Golan Heights, and Sinai desert, did not address the deeper far more complex moral challenges that confronted the state of Israel and the Jewish people.

He emphasized that there were at least four significant challenges confronting Israel and world Jewry at that time; (1) the 1967 war would not be the last war Israel would be forced to fight; (2) Israel’s Jewish culture, moral and democratic character would be defined in part by how it settled the Arab-Israeli conflict, how it conducted itself as an occupier of more than a two and a half million hostile Palestinian Arabs then living in the West Bank and Gaza, and whether it treated Israeli-Palestinian citizens of the state as equal citizens with Israeli Jews; (3) what would be the fate of the three million Soviet Jews then trapped behind the iron curtain, and (4) looking us in the eye, what we young American and Canadian Jews (and a couple of Israelis), then in our late teens and early twenties, would become as American Jewish leaders.

For some reason, Leibel singled me out all those years ago (he was only 36 at the time), gently but assuredly, and privately challenged me to become engaged seriously with the American Jewish community as a Zionist and a leader. In that way, Leibl became one of my earliest Zionist mentors.

I read nearly everything he would subsequently write, and so often over the decades he focused my thinking and redirected how I considered the great issues facing America and the Jewish people. He never lost his intellectual, moral and compassionate verve. As this last column (link below) that Leibel wrote for The Forward so eloquently and movingly expresses, with its introductory note by the Forward’s editors, what made Leibel Fein’s thought so deeply Jewish was that the prophetic tradition was always his proof text and he led as much from the heart as from the mind.

As Leibel battled his own demons over the years, suffered the tragic loss of his daughter, and finally illness that seemed to plague him for far too long, he never lost what made him that unique and compelling thought leader.

I will miss him, though we only saw each other at J Street conferences in recent years, but he is embedded in my heart as he is in the hearts of so many of us.

Zichrono livracha. May his memory abide as a blessing.

http://forward.com/articles/204190/from-gaza-to-sderot-trauma-marks-the-past-and-t/#ixzz3AcSJiiW2

Negotiating with the “Devil” – 4 Book Recommendations

03 Sunday Aug 2014

Posted by in American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Book Recommendations, Ethics, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Jewish-Christian Relations

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I recommend four books that are helpful in probing, analyzing and addressing the stresses and tensions that develop in all kinds of relationships, within marriages and families, between siblings and friends, in the work place and community, between ethnic, racial, and religious groups, amongst nations and peoples, and in relationship to terrorist organizations.

At a time when crises increasingly define what transpires between nations, when polarization escalates in American partisan politics, when many media sources report biased and non fact-based reports in the service of partisan agendas, when so many interpersonal relationships remain dysfunctional and destructive, we individuals and our society need thoughtful guidance about how to effectively restore sanity, stability and integrity to our relationships and effectively reduce stress, tension, harm, and suffering to all concerned.

Difficult Conversations – How to Discuss What Matters Most, by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton and Sheila Heen, Penguin, 2010 – A NY Times business bestseller that reflects fifteen years of research. The authors offer a step-by-step approach to reduce stress when tough conversations are inevitable, and to reach successfully new understanding and compromise in all kinds of relationships. This is a practical guide that analyzes the impact of what happens when conflict occurs and how to move through it productively and in one piece.

The Righteous Mind – Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, by Jonathan Haidt, Vintage, 2012 – A superb work that analyzes the moral presumptions (based on people’s genetic and psychological makeup, religious, national and cultural backgrounds) upon which we respond to events and form our relationships. The author explores how and why we do not understand others, judge and demonize them. Dr. Haidt is a Professor of Ethical Leadership at NYU’s Stern School of Business and earned his doctorate in social psychology from the University of Pennsylvania. He employs the metaphor of a rider (representing reason and logic) and an elephant (representing intuition and non-rational responses) and why the choice of the elephant is almost always determinative while the rider acts as a kind of adviser and “press agent” for the elephant and rationalizes whatever the elephant chooses to do. Haidt is persuasive in showing that in order to understand who we and others really are (friends and foes), we need to be able recognize what the elephant intuitively wants and how the rider rationalizes the elephant’s choices.

From Enemy to Friend – Jewish Wisdom and the Pursuit of Peace, by Rabbi Amy Eilberg, Orbis, 2014 – Rabbi Eilberg is the first woman ordained as a Conservative rabbi by the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. She spent many years working in pastoral care, hospice and spiritual direction, and is a seasoned peace activist. (A personal note – Amy is a friend and a significant voice in the J Street Rabbinic Cabinet that I co-chair nationally. I would recommend highly this book even if I did not know her personally). Amy brings to her work high emotional intelligence and psychological sophistication. She non self righteously advocates for kindness, compassion, generosity, curiosity, and the softening and opening of the heart in all tough and contentious interactions with individuals and groups even as she advocates for courage, clarity, determination, and boldness in speaking and acting upon one’s own truth. Amy’s voice is deeply Jewish, and she utilizes a wide array of classic Jewish texts with sensitivity and skill as she lays out the necessary ground-work of peace-making, to which she has devoted her life. Taken together, these four books represent a mini-course on conflict resolution.This work ought to be translated into both Hebrew and Arabic so that it can be available for Israelis and Palestinians seeking ways to make peace with each other with mutual respect and a spirit of necessary compromise.

Bargaining with the Devil – When to Negotiate, When to Fight, by Robert Mnookin, Simon and Schuster, 2010 – Dr. Mnookin is chair of the program on negotiation at the Harvard Law School and has practiced and analyzed the art and science of negotiation in a wide variety of settings. He considers in depth seven polarized situations and the choices that were made. The seven include the Hungarian Jew Rudolf Kasztner’s choice to bargain for Jewish lives with the high Nazi official Adolph Eichmann, Winston Churchill’s decision not to negotiate with Adolph Hitler and instead to go to war, Nelson Mandela’s negotiations from prison with the Apartheid regime, a 1980s software war that challenged the budding industry’s understanding of intellectual property rights as it played out between an American and Japanese firm, contract negotiations between the San Francisco Symphony’s management and the musician’s union, a contentious divorce proceeding, and a sibling struggle over a father’s estate. Dr. Mnookin takes us through all the ethical, moral and practical choices involved in each case including the interpersonal dynamics involved and a cost-benefit analysis, and he explains how each incident resolved.

None of these four works argues that every hostile, tense and polarized conflict is able to be resolved in compromise. Yet, there are times when even bargaining with the “devil” (as Robert Mnookin described Rudolf Kasztner’s choice) is better than not doing so. Mnookin also demonstrates why refusing to bargain with the devil, as Winston Churchill did relative to Hitler, was the right choice.

Taken together, these four books represent a mini-course on conflict resolution.

Kol Hakavod to Rabbi Menachem Creditor – “I’m Done Apologizing for Israel”

22 Tuesday Jul 2014

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

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This is a piece from The Huffington Post (link below) I wish I had written myself, for it articulates almost everything I have been feeling this week, except one thing – but that one thing does not take away from Rabbi Creditor’s larger message, though that one thing is huge in my mind and I know must be so in his mind as well and in the minds of Israelis and Jews everywhere.

At times of crisis, Jews come together and find common cause. It is part of our necessary tribal instinct, and we are like every other people and nation in the world in our concern for our own people first and foremost.

The Pesach seder reminds us every year that the evil child is the one that separates him/herself from the community and does not see his/her destiny as part of the destiny of the Jewish people. Tradition reminds us – “Al tifros min ha-tzibur – You shall not separate yourself from your community,” especially during times of crisis such as these.

The one thing I would have added to Rabbi Creditor’s superbly written, true, honest, candid, justifiably enraged and passionate defense of the Jewish state and the Jewish people is this – mistakes have been made by the IDF. The bombing of those four Palestinian children on the beach had to have been a terrible and tragic mistake. I do not know what those firing the missiles thought they saw. I refuse to believe they realized those four children were kids. They had to have seen something else, and perhaps there was something else there – but it escapes me what it possibly could have been.

I give every benefit of the doubt to our Israeli soldiers who are risking their lives in defense of the Jewish people and state and whose bravery and sacrifice should inspire the gratitude of Jews everywhere. I am not criticizing them. I am saying only that in war, mistakes are always made. That fact is yet another tragedy of war. That mistakes will be made is never a reason not to go to war when your people are being bombed indiscriminately. It is just a tragedy pure and simple, and we Jews must always acknowledge it out loud and publicly not only for the sake of truth, but for our own sake as moral human beings.

Prime Minister Netanyahu has said as much, and for that I am grateful to him – that far too many innocent people are getting killed and injured. Rabbi Creditor says he is finished apologizing. In the larger sense I agree with him, and though I do not know him personally, I believe he must be as tortured by the loss of innocent life as I am, as Israelis are, as Jews are everywhere.

So first, I thank Rabbi Creditor for speaking so eloquently from the heart reflecting what is in the hearts of so many of us.

Hamas must be defeated and de-fanged. It is an evil lot that cares not a whit for what its says it cares about, the lives of Palestinians.

I want to make one political comment for the sake of a future settlement of this crisis in an eventual two-states for two peoples agreement. I hope and pray that President Machmud Abbas gets the credit for arranging a ceasefire so as to further delegitimize Hamas amongst Palestinians as a whole.

Hamas had a mere 10-15 percent approval rating in Gaza and the West Bank before this crisis began. How they could have any approval now, except for their die-hard fanatic and inhumane terrorist fighters, is beyond me. They must be silenced, and savvy politics requires that the ceasefire that will come be worked out by the Palestinian Authority, supported by the Arab League, the US, Quartet, Israel, and everyone else with Abu Mazen being regarded as the one who cares most about his own people, and not Hamas.

If there is any good that will come from this horrible war, then it must be that Israel and the PA return to negotiations, that the US present its position on a reasonable settlement, and that both sides compromise. Peace will require p’sharah (compromise). Those who want all of their truth respected will just get more war. It is clear to me that the Palestinian people want peace most of all in a state of their own just as do a majority of Israelis. The time to make peace is when the fighting ends, hopefully very soon.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-menachem-creditor/im-done-apologizing-for-i_b_5606650.html

Martin Indyk on Failed Peace Negotiations, Egyptian Cease-Fire Agreement, & J Street’s Statement on Current Crisis

15 Tuesday Jul 2014

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

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Two days after Martin Indyk resigned as the Obama Administration’s chief negotiator in the American Israeli-Palestinian peace effort, and one day after 16 year-old Palestinian Mohammed Abu Kder was found murdered in a Jerusalem forest, Ambassador Martin Indyk spoke with the Atlantic Magazine’s Jeffrey Goldberg at the Aspen Ideas Festival – http://www.aspenideas.org/session/conversation-us-special-envoy-israeli%E2%80%93palestinian-negotiations-0

The Indyk conversation was reported widely after it took place, but listening to Ambassador Indyk reveals far more about the internal dynamics between the American, Israeli and Palestinian leaders than any third-person account, and so it is worth our listening to the hour-long conversation in its entirety.

Jeffrey Goldberg was an able, direct and aggressive questioner. The following were among the issues that Ambassador Indyk addressed:

• Why the Kerry Initiative really broke down
• What were Kerry’s broader foreign policy priorities
• What were the foundational demands of both Israel and the Palestinians
• How the relationship between Bibi and Abu Mazen undermined the talks
• What the PA and Israeli security forces cooperation suggests
• What Bibi’s statement means for peace when he said that Israel will not give up control of territory west of the Jordan River for 30 to 40 years
• What Abu Mazen really believes about Israel’s right to exist, non-violence, refugees, Jerusalem, a demilitarized West Bank, and an end-of-conflict agreement
• How the education of Palestinian children to hate Jews and Israelis is a problem, but not an insurmountable one
• What we might expect of the Palestinians’ attitude towards Israel when the occupation ends
• What the young generation of Palestinians really wants
• Why ideological settlements are a serious obstacle in negotiations
• Whether these negotiations were the last chance for peace

On the Egyptian Cease-Fire Proposal and J Street’s Statement on the Current Crisis

Following the Egyptian cease-fire proposal, accepted by the Israeli Cabinet, the United States and the Palestinian Authority, and rejected by Hamas, Isaac Herzog, the head of Israel’s Labor Party and leader of the opposition in Parliament, said:

“If the cease-fire doesn’t lead to forward movement in the peace process it is useless.”

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum said:

“This initiative means kneeling and submissiveness and so we completely refuse it and to us, it’s not worth the ink used in writing it.”

American Jewish Organizations and J Street

Given the black and white reaction of many American Jewish organizations to the current Israeli-Hamas crisis (i.e. ‘you are either with us or against us’), J Street issued a statement condemning unconditionally Hamas’ terrorism and targeting of Israeli civilian population centers adding a series of “ands” in order to reflect a more nuanced and complete response to this crisis and the events leading up to it.

Note: I serve as a national co-chair of the J Street Rabbinic Cabinet representing 800 rabbis and cantors from across the American Jewish religious streams. I was consulted on the statement before it was released, and I supported it without hesitation.

J Street Statement on the Current Crisis
http://jstreet.org/blog/post/j-street-statement-on-the-current-crisis_1

True Friends Do Not Stab Each Other in the Back – Presbyterian Church (USA)

26 Thursday Jun 2014

Posted by in American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Jewish-Christian Relations, Social Justice

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A battle for the soul of the Presbyterian Church (USA) is raging, and the good guys are losing. The Church’s recent vote to divest from three companies doing business with Israel who they say support the Israeli occupation of the West Bank has sent a hurtful message to the Jewish people and state of Israel.

While the resolution to divest passed only by a very small margin of 310 yay to 303 nay, it included disclaimers that Church members hoped would soften the blow. Moderates in the Church were careful not to signal an ultimate split with the state of Israel, nor did the Church align with the international BDS movement (Boycott, Divestiture and Sanctions) which does not grant Israel the right to exist as a sovereign nation (the resolution did affirm that right).

After the vote one Church leader reaffirmed Presbyterian love for Jews. However, most Jews weren’t buying it, even if we didn’t say so out loud. Many of us believe that anti-Semites in the Church won the day. I would not go so far as to say that all the 310 yay votes are necessarily anti-Semitic or anti-Israel, but I believe many are whether they think of themselves that way or not.

This resolution was unfair, biased, shameful, ignorant, and a misguided slander of the Jewish people and state of Israel, pure and simple.

Bel Air Presbyterian Church Reverend Drew Sams agreed and expressed his embarrassment:

“It doesn’t represent who we are. To develop policy that would convey the message that we are turning our backs on our brothers and sisters in Israel is just very, very disappointing.” (LA Jewish Journal)

What makes this resolution so toxic to Jews is that it comes on the heels of the publication of a screed called “Zionism Unsettled,” a pseudo-historical propaganda piece that so distorts the state of Israel and Zionism that it is unrecognizable to those who have visited and know anything about modern Jewish history.

There is nothing positive in “Zionism Unsettled” about Israel. There is no affirmation of the Jewish people’s right to a national home in the land of Israel. It accuses Zionism of ethnic cleansing, racial and religious superiority. It obsessively critiques Israel and gives no historical context to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It says nothing about Arab terrorism and violence, or why Israel spent a fortune building a security fence to prevent suicide bombers from blowing up school buses, pizza parlors and shopping centers. It only critiques Israel as if there are not two parties to the conflict and as if the Palestinians are wholly innocent victims. It reflects no appreciation or understanding of the context in which Israel finds itself, as if the violence and turmoil of the region doesn’t exist and has no spill-over relevance to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It doesn’t note that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, the only nation with an independent judiciary and free press, the only country that protects gay and lesbian citizens and safeguards Christians and their holy places. It is as if there is one nation alone on earth that requires rebuke, Israel.

Jane Eisner, the editor of the Jewish Daily Forward summed it all up this way:

“When Jewish treatment of Palestinians is judged worse than the way any other dominant group treats a minority, when it is deemed worthy of unique sanction, when other horrors around the world are ignored – how can I believe that this isn’t about the Jews? And that, my Presbyterian friends, is anti-Semitism.”

I am often critical of specific policies of the Israeli government when those policies are undemocratic, violate human rights or work against the creation of a two-state resolution of the Israel-Palestinian conflict because I love Israel, believe in her, am inspired by her remarkable contributions to the world in so many areas of human endeavor, and want to see her thrive in safety as a democracy and the homeland of the Jewish people alongside a peaceful and secure Palestine.

This Church resolution does not forward those goals in any way. Not only does the vast majority of the Jewish people oppose BDS as a tactic because it is inherently unfair, but divestiture will not be effective in helping to bring about a two-state resolution of the conflict.

True friends of the Jewish people would not have passed such a resolution. True friends would have come to Israel to learn first-hand about the reality in which Israelis live. True friends would have toured other countries in the region to understand context. True friends would not have permitted the publication of that propagandist anti-Israel and anti-Semitic screed and would remove it immediately from its website. True friends would have joined with the American Jewish community to support efforts to help Israel and the Palestinians resolve their conflict. True friends do not stab each other in the back.

That is what the Presbyterian Church (USA) did, all disclaimers aside – and it hurts!