Category Archives: American Politics and Life

J Street Calls on Secretary Kerry to Make Public US Positions on Core Issues for Israeli-Palestinian Peace

24 Thursday Apr 2014

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

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As a co-chair of the National Rabbinic Cabinet of J Street that includes close to 800 American Rabbis from across the religious streams, I fully support the call by J Street (see below) to support Secretary Kerry’s peace mission and for the United States to take the next step by putting forth specific principles on which Israel and the Palestinians will negotiate.

The only way forward to insure the health, security and sustainability of the state of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people and a vital democracy is in a two-state solution.

The time is now to continue what Secretary Kerry began with Israel’s leaders and the leaders of the Palestinian Authority.

Achieving an agreement will take substantial courage, will, vision, leadership, and statesmanship for both Israeli and Palestinian leaders, and they will need to resist those extreme elements in their respective societies who oppose peace and compromise.

Here is J Street’s statement:

J Street, the pro-Israel, pro-peace advocacy organization, commends Secretary of State John Kerry for his tireless efforts to achieve a comprehensive peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.

With those efforts at a critical juncture, J Street urges the Administration to remain steadfast in its active leadership of the effort to reach a two-state resolution to the conflict.

As the Administration weighs its next steps, J Street calls on the Secretary to put forward publicly an American framework for a two-state solution, which we believe should reflect the principles outlined below, and to ask both parties to continue talks on that basis.

We believe that fairly and impartially stating the US view on resolving the core issues of the conflict could be an important step to keep the prospects of reaching an agreement alive.

We know from polling that the majority of both Israelis and Palestinians would support an agreement based on the principles outlined below. International support could be rallied behind such a statement of principles, and it would have the support of a majority of Americans and American Jews in particular.

Taking such a step might also encourage the politicians on both sides not to allow yet another historic opportunity to slip away.

President Obama himself declared in his speech in Jerusalem in 2013 that political leaders only take risks when pushed by their people to do so. And Secretary Kerry has called on Israelis, Palestinians and Americans to join a “great constituency for peace.”

Now is the time to inspire public support for this effort by putting forth a set of actual principles and specific requirements.

J Street recommends that an American statement of principles be based on the following elements:

  1. Borders based on pre-1967 lines with limited, agreed-upon land swaps of equivalent size and quality.
  2. Robust security provisions and guarantees from the parties, as well as international partners including the United States.
  3. Compensation to Israeli settlers who relocate to within the future border of Israel to make peace possible.
  4. Options for Palestinian refugees including settlement in the future state of Palestine or third countries, compensation and a symbolic level of family reunification in Israel itself.
  5. Jewish neighborhoods of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and Palestinian neighborhoods as the capital of the future state of Palestine. Holy sites would be protected under international law and accessible to all.
  6. Recognition of the right of the Jewish people to statehood and the recognition of the right of the Palestinian people to statehood, without prejudice to the equal rights of the parties’ respective citizens.

http://jstreet.org/blog/post/j-street-calls-on-secretary-kerry-to-make-public-us-positions-on-core-issues-for-israelipalestinian-peace_1

 

“Is It Possible to be a Jewish Intellectual?” – Eva Illouz in Haaretz

16 Wednesday Apr 2014

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

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“Is It Possible to be a Jewish Intellectual?” is an expansive six-thousand-one-hundred-word essay written by Sociology Professor Eva Illouz of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem that was published this week in Haaretz, Israel’s equivalent of The New York Times. It is a must-read piece for both Israelis and American Jews. I am grateful to my friend Mike Rogoff in Jerusalem for sending me the link to it. [Note: You must be a subscriber to Haaretz to access the article. In my view, this article makes a subscription worthwhile in and of itself].  http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-features/.premium-1.585401 

Dr. Illouz considers in-depth the concepts of “Ahavat Yisrael – Love for Israel” and “Solidarity for the Jewish people” as well as the ethical and tribal challenges that confront intellectuals in remaining detached from their national or religious group in order to retain their moral integrity.

Dr. Illouz begins her discussion by citing the famous exchange between Gershom Scholem, the great 20th century scholar of Jewish mysticism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Hannah Arendt, the German Jewish political theorist who covered the Adolph Eichmann trial in Jerusalem in 1961 and who wrote a number of essays about it in The New Yorker and a book entitled Eichmann in Jerusalem.

After their publication Scholem accused Arendt, as a Jew, of

“…not having enough ‘ahavat Yisrael – love for the Jewish nation and people’ …. Instead of displaying what we would have expected from a Jew on such an occasion – undiluted horror at Eichmann’s deeds; unreserved compassion for the moral dilemmas of the Jewish leaders who dealt with the Nazis; solidarity with the State of Israel – Arendt analyzed each one with a cold sense of truth and justice, and blurred the moral terms in which these had been hitherto judged by the public.”

Dr. Illouz goes on to discuss the forces that have influenced contemporary American Jewish identity in light of the Holocaust, the establishment of the State of Israel, American Jewish political advocacy for Israel, and American Jewish organizational politics, all of which have served to embrace a priori the Jewish principle of “Ahavat Yisrael – Love of the people of Israel” as identical with “hyper-solidarity” with the political State of Israel and its policies regardless of their moral imperfections.

This essay lays the ground for us to consider both the nature of Israeli and American Jewish identity since the establishment of the state of Israel and the consequences of Israel having assumed political and governmental power as a nation-state for the first time in two thousand years. It also considers the impact of American Jewish organizational support for Israel and what it means to be pro-Israel.

 

 

A Rabbi at 93 and a Poem Called “The Promised Land” by Carl Dennis

09 Wednesday Apr 2014

Posted by in American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Ethics, Health and Well-Being, Holidays, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Jewish-Christian Relations, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Poetry, Social Justice, Tributes

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Rabbi Leonard Beerman has been in my life since I was 12 years old. He inspired so many in my generation and me to engage as young teens in the civil rights movement, to protest American military involvement in Vietnam, to apply for Conscientious Objector status during that war, to fight nuclear weapons proliferation, to engage in interfaith dialogue and create coalitions of decency on behalf of just causes, and to support the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people for a state of their own alongside a secure Israel despite (as Leonard put it many years ago) Palestinian “cruelty and stupidity.”

Leonard was a rabbinic student in 1948 learning Hebrew in Jerusalem when the War of Independence broke out, and he aided in the effort to help establish the Jewish state.

For the last 65 years Leonard has been a uniquely courageous and consistent voice in the American Rabbinate advocating for human rights here, in Israel and around the world despite personal ostracism and political blow-back at the hands of many fellow Jews. Leonard spoke as he did because he believes that the principles of justice, compassion and peace as articulated by the Biblical Prophets are primary Jewish ethical concerns.

Leonard is as eloquent and provocative a speaker as there is in American Judaism today. I grew up hearing the gentle resonance of his voice and the prophetic power of his words. His message at once inspires me, comforts me and forces me to think critically even if I do not agree with him. Even so, Leonard is always worth hearing because like the Biblical Prophet he understands that speaking truth is more important than feeding his community what he knows they want to hear.

Today, April 9, is Leonard’s 93rd birthday, and I send him birthday wishes with hopes that he will enjoy many more years of productive activism and good health with his dear wife Joan, his adoring children and grandchildren, and his many cherished colleagues, friends and admirers.

Leonard and I meet for lunch every few months to talk, share stories and thoughts about issues great and small, personal, Jewish and worldly. Last week when we met he brought me a poem that evokes the Jerusalem I love of Jewish messianic dreams and the real Jerusalem that I also love that inspires so much passion by so many and is one of the core issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The poem, called “My Promised Land” by Carl Dennis, is at once wistful, melancholic and hopeful. It is worth reading at our Passover Seders because it reminds us of our messianic dreams and of the work that is yet to be done for the sake of peace:

“The land of Israel my mother loves / Gets by without the luxury of existence / And still wins followers, / Though it can’t be found on the map / West of Jordan or south of Lebanon, / Though what can be found / bears the same name, / Making for confusion.

Not the land I fought her about for years / But the one untarnished by the smoke of history, / Where no one informs the people of Hebron or Jericho / They’re squatting on property that isn’t theirs, / Where every settler can remember wandering.

The dinners I spoiled with shouting / Could have been saved, / Both of us lingering quietly in our chairs, / If I’d guessed the truth that now is obvious, / That she wasn’t lavishing all her love / On the country that doesn’t deserve so rich a gift / But on the one that does, the one not there, / That she hoped good news would reach its borders.

And cross into the land of the righteous and merciful / That the Prophets spoke of in their hopeful moods, / That was loved by the red-eyed rabbis of Galicia / Who studied every word of the book and prayed / To get one thread of the meaning right; / The promised Land where the great and small / Hurry to school and the wise are waiting.”

 

 

 

Israeli and American Jews – The Struggle for Consensus and Current Tensions

04 Friday Apr 2014

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

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In recent weeks Israeli and American Jewish activists, writers and thinkers have been discussing political and ideological trends within both the American Jewish community and Israeli society vis a vis the nature of pro-Israel activism and what Israel would need to compromise should the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, now seriously threatened, ever advance.

There are, at the very least, two truths that seem to permeate much of our two societies these days. The first is the most consequential for the future security, Jewish and democratic character of the state of Israel; the distrust of Israelis towards Palestinians and Palestinians towards Israelis resulting in political/ideological recalcitrance of each side’s negotiating positions. The second is the growing ideological and emotional divide in the American Jewish community between left and right especially concerning the meaning of pro-Israel activism.

In the Middle East, it is unclear in the short-term whether American supported peace negotiations will continue. In the American Jewish community, conservative pro-Israel activists have undertaken a new campaign to discredit the pro-Israel legitimacy of J Street most recently reflected in a film called “The J Street Challenge” that is producing a great deal of ink.

J Street is the largest pro-Israel Political Action Committee in Washington, D.C. and over the nearly six years of its existence has attracted growing support among an increasingly large segment of the American Jewish community’s liberal pro-Israel community. The film “The J Street Challenge” reflects the American Jewish community’s right-wing disagreement with J Street’s policy positions (www.jstreet.org) and is fueled by strong animus towards the organization’s leadership.

[Note: I serve as a co-chair of the national Rabbinic Cabinet of J Street representing nearly 800 rabbis from all the American Jewish religious streams, and my son has served as a member of the J Street national staff almost since the founding of J Street six years ago. However, I appreciate and respect the long history of support in the nation’s capital for the state of Israel by AIPAC, though I am sad and continually disheartened to say that so many in AIPAC do not hold similar appreciation and respect for J Street].

I offer the following two articles that address American Jewish internal tensions and the concerns of the broad majority of Israeli citizens that make up the Israeli political center.

As events unfold it is important to understand the short-term and long-term implications of what is occurring within the American Jewish community and Israel alike especially relative to the following themes: The future of Israeli democracy and the Jewish character of the State of Israel; The lack of agreement that will bring about a two-states for two peoples resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; The meaning of pro-Israel activism in the United States; and the state of civility within the American Jewish community today.

The first article was written by Yossi Klein Halevi, a research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem and a contributing editor to The New Republic. His piece “The Quiet Rise of the Israeli Center” (Times of Israel, March 23) is an insightful look at the dreams, concerns and worries of the largest bloc of Israeli citizens, the political moderate center – http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-quiet-rise-of-the-israeli-center/

The second is written by Larry Gellman, one of America’s top money managers and financial advisers, who has been active as a lay American Jewish leader for thirty years with Jewish Federations, State of Israel Bonds, AIPAC, J Street, CLAL, and Hillel. He has helped to create and fund Jewish Day Schools in two American cities. Gellman lectures widely in the United States and Israel on Judaism and business ethics. His op-ed that follows is therefore significant because of his standing as a mainstream leader in the American Jewish community – “Donor Slams Federation for Divisive ‘Political Attack Ad’ Aimed at J Street” (The Jewish Daily Forward, April 3) http://forward.com/articles/195784/donor-slams-federation-for-divisive-political-atta/?p=all

Female vs Male Power – Towards a More Peaceful, Healthy and Sane World

30 Sunday Mar 2014

Posted by in American Politics and Life, Ethics, Health and Well-Being, Social Justice

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“Appeasement” – “Weakness and doubt” – “Effeminacy” – “Soft sentimentalism” – “Naiveté” – “A lack of realism” – “A failure to adhere to demanding moral principles” – “A crisis in values” – “An aversion to martial, manly virtues that make nations strong and give life meaning!”

These are the ways many conservative politicians and pundits are characterizing President Obama and his foreign policy.

John McCain charged that Obama’s foreign policy allowed Putin to invade, take over and annex Crimea because the world now has the “perception that the United States is weak.” (The New York Times, March 14, 2014)

Sarah Palin said that “People are looking at Putin as one who wrestles bears and drills for oil. They look at our President as one who wears mom jeans.” (Fox News)

Donald Rumsfeld bashed Obama on his handling of the Afghanistan disengagement saying that “a trained ape could do better” and that “United States diplomacy has been …embarrassingly bad.” (Fox News)

Dick Cheney critiqued the Obama Administration as “incompetent and lack[ing] principles and values.” (Fox News)

Bill Kristol opined in 2002 that the “era of American weakness and doubt in response to terrorism is over.”

None of this is new. For years conservatives have characterized themselves as the heroic defenders of American strength, virility and competence regardless of the complexity of the issues, their own hidden agendas and the dire consequences of their actions.

Peter Beinart analyzed their rhetoric this way:

“Today, hawks still link appeasement and effeminacy. Last month, for instance, after comparing the ‘bare-chested Putin’ to ‘Barack Obama, in his increasingly metro-sexual golf get-ups,’ National Review’s Victor Davis Hanson suggested that Putin’s aggression might finally rouse Americans to peer ‘into ourselves—we the hollow men, the stuffed men of dry voices and whispers’ and get tough.” (“Vladimir Putin – Russian Neo-Con”, Atlantic, March 24, 2014): http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/03/vladimir-putin-russian-neocon/284602/

It is chutzpah that the very people most critical of Obama and his foreign policy used innuendo, distortion and lies to take the United States into war against Iraq on the false claims that Sadaam Hussein was in league with Al Qaida and had WMD.

Less we forget, the Iraqi war that the United States initiated resulted in 200,000 dead Iraqi civilians and 6,781 dead American soldiers along with hundreds of thousands of Americans and Iraqis maimed, injured and traumatized.

Nor should we forget that America ran up a bill for that war of $1.7 trillion, an additional $490 billion in benefits owed to war veterans, and expenses that could grow to more than $6 trillion over the next four decades including interest – an equivalent sum of $75,000 for every American household, and that we sent Iraq back into the dark ages while removing the only counter-balance to Iran’s ascendency in the Middle East.

Those who want America yet again to brandish our swords and strike after all we and the victims of violence have suffered at their hands and all the negative international consequences ought to be doing t’shuvah for their sins and then think about whether they ought to speak at all given all the mistakes they made!

If we have learned anything in the past decade, it should be that our response to international conflict should not leave behind the impression that the United States is the nastiest, toughest and biggest bully on the planet. Rather, the world should see America as affirming diplomacy over violence, finesse over force, and negotiated compromise over militancy lest we make a mockery further of our democratic values and our faith in life as a sacred gift. As I see it, that is part of what Obama has been trying to do in several very tough international theaters.

Yes, there are times when an American military response is justifiable and necessary. Yet, it is easy to rush into war and almost always devastating when we do.

The words of the American Civil War Union General, William Tucumseh Sherman (1820-1891), are instructive: “It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. War is hell.”

When Peter Beinart shined a light on conservative gender rhetoric last week, I recalled what the spiritual teacher David Steindl-Rast wrote years ago concerning the difference between feminine and masculine power:

“The very concept of women’s power is different from that of men. Women’s power is the power to foster new life and growth…If more people would understand how this life-giving power differs from power over others, the world would be a more peaceful, healthy and sane place.” (Essential Writings, p. 11)

The world would be well-served if American leaders from both major political parties were a bit more “feminine” and a lot more concerned about the well-being of every human being who will be affected by what our foreign policy does, more like mothers who instinctively cherish their children and act lovingly and responsibly on their behalf.

 

 

“Special Address by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – By Invitation Only”

06 Thursday Mar 2014

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

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This was how Prime Minister Netanyahu’s appearance was billed for a meeting this morning, Thursday March 6, at the Simon Wiesenthal Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles. Invited were leading community rabbis, politicians, American Zionist leaders, journalists, Hollywood executives, and business leaders. We were told to arrive at 7:30 AM, and that breakfast would be served.

Given PM Netanyahu’s visit earlier this week to Washington, D.C. to meet President Obama and address the annual convention of AIPAC activists, everyone with whom I spoke this morning expected that the PM would, at the very least, report on progress towards peace, as that was the main focus of his talks with the President.

I arrived dutifully at 7:15 am and entered a crowd of formally dressed men and women waiting to be checked in and pass through security. We entered the building at 7:45 am.

At 9:15 am we were asked to move from the lobby to the 400 seat theater of the Museum.

At 9:45 am, Rabbi Marvin Hier introduced the Prime Minister claiming that Bibi is the only Middle Eastern leader to have stated publicly that he is willing to go anywhere and anytime to talk peace. Palestinian President Machmud Abbas has said the same thing.

Rabbi Hier then said that Bibi “knows the difference between peace and appeasement,” after which the Prime Minister, at last, ascended the podium and began to speak at 9:37 am (2 hours and 25 minutes after I arrived).

He told us that he had just read a letter written in 1919 that promised the liquidation of the Jewish people in Germany. He compared the Nazis to the “true face” of the current Iranian regime, that we Jews have learned to take seriously the rhetoric of those who promise to destroy us and not ignore such threats, that the Nazi method was at once to be explicit and to deceive, and that yesterday’s Israeli seizure of an Iranian ship stocked with dozens of long-range missiles bound for Gaza and Hamas shows that history repeats itself and that we cannot stand idly by. The Prime Minister concluded by saying that that though we were at the Museum of Tolerance we “cannot be tolerant to the intolerant.”

He had spoken for ten minutes. No questions. No conversation. No dialogue with some of the most committed supporters of Israel in Los Angeles.

This “special address” took up most of the morning. Those around me were dumbfounded by the brevity of his remarks and the lack of any statement that would have lived up to the invitation that this would be a “special address” by the Prime Minister of Israel. One colleague quipped that the speech reminded him of Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing!”

Pragmatic Optimism vs Cynical Realism – Support The Kerry Peace Initiative

03 Monday Mar 2014

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

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In watching on-line a recent debate in Atlanta between J Street Founder and President, Jeremy Ben Ami, and Koret Distinguished Fellow at Shalem College in Jerusalem, Rabbi Daniel Gordis, I was struck both by their agreements and disagreements. (Their conversation begins at approximately 28 minutes into the video – http://www.livestream.com/templesinai/video?clipId=pla_89e743f2-cef2-47ab-8b6b-5b22b0eea84f)

Both recognize the need for a two-state resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to preserve Israel’s Jewish character and democracy.

Both believe that the treatment of Palestinians under Israeli military occupation in the West Bank is contrary to Jewish values and ethics.

Both respect and admire Israel’s accomplishments in a myriad of arenas following the darkest period in Jewish history.

They fundamentally disagree, however, about whether the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is solvable, whether there is a true negotiating partner on the Palestinian side, and about the greatest existential threat to the state of Israel.

Jeremy believes that not only is this conflict solvable, but the alternative is a nightmare leading to the end of the Jewish democratic state of Israel. The conflict is, in his view, Israel’s greatest existential threat.

Danny is convinced that this conflict is unsolvable  because whereas Israel’s attitudes towards the Palestinians have evolved from Golda Meir’s statement that “There is no such thing as a Palestinian people” to PM Netanyahu’s acceptance of the existence of the Palestinian people and their right to a state of their own, the Palestinians, he says, have not evolved since 1948, and PA President Machmud Abbas’ most recent refusal to accept a “Jewish State of Israel” is proof positive that Israel is still fighting the 1948 war and that the Palestinian President is not a real peace-partner. He believes that Israel’s greatest existential threats are an uncertain Middle East and Iran’s nuclear threat.

Danny made three specific points: [1] Some problems cannot be solved, citing cancer and other international conflicts; [2] The trajectory of the Palestinian thinking about Israel (see above) makes it impossible for there to be real peace; and [3] Israel should strive just to make the life of Palestinians in the West Bank less difficult under occupation.

Regarding point #1 – many cancers are, in fact, treatable. However, that is a comparison between apples and oranges. When it comes to human-made problems, of which the Israel-Palestinian is one, JFK once said that problems human beings create can be solved also by human beings.

Regarding point #2 – The PLO, in truth, recognized the right of the state of Israel to exist in the early 1990s which enabled Prime Minister Yizhak Rabin and now-President Shimon Peres to enter into the Oslo Peace process. Last year Abu Mazen said he would like to visit his home town of Safed, but not live there because that is the state of Israel. He has consistently spoken of a two-state solution that settles all claims.

Regarding point #3 – Though much can probably be done to alleviate inconvenience on the West Bank, the fact of the occupation itself is a serious threat to Israel’s democratic traditions and an ongoing point of tension between Israeli settlers and Palestinians among whom they live that only a two-state solution can address completely.

Once all the primary issues are settled (e.g. borders, security, Jerusalem, refugees, water) I believe that the Palestinians will also acknowledge Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people just as Israel has acknowledged that Palestine will be the nation state of the Palestinian people. Let us remember that Bibi too has made categorical statements that Jerusalem will never be divided again and from the Palestinian side, that would doom negotiations.

What we have represented by Jeremy Ben Ami and Rabbi Daniel Gordis are two distinct approaches to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, to world problems and even to life itself. One is pragmatic optimism (Jeremy Ben Ami), and the other is cynical realism (Rabbi Gordis). Yet, we have so many examples showing that what was once thought impossible became possible (e.g. Northern Ireland, South Africa, post-WWII Germany and Japan).

Robert F. Kennedy expressed the pragmatic optimistic approach when he said, “Some people see things as they are and ask why. I dream things that never were and say why not.”

And so did Israeli President Shimon Peres when he said: “There are always skeptics in life…To be an optimist you have to work very hard to maintain optimism with the people you lead and have a lot of patience. It’s more natural to be a skeptic, be on the safe side…But in my experience in life I feel that being optimistic is wiser and more realistic…”

Judaism is, I believe, based on pragmatic optimism, as the Mishnah reminds us in the name of Rabbi Tarfon: “You are not required to complete the task, but neither are you free to withdraw from it.” (Pirkei Avot 2:21)

I would hope that those now at the AIPAC Conference in Washington, D.C. will support Secretary Kerry’s peace efforts and refrain from second guessing him, the President and the negotiations until they conclude, and that they avoid destructive rhetoric that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Israeli MKs Need a Course in Anger Management – D’var Torah Ki Tisa

12 Wednesday Feb 2014

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

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Last week I was stuck in a traffic jam and one driver’s road rage was so intense that I feared a physical attack. It didn’t happen, but I got to thinking about how anger plagues so many of us and how badly it disturbs our relationships, our character and civil discourse.

This week’s Torah portion, Ki Tisa, pulls the veil off Moses’ rage. It is a famous scene. Moses is carrying the tablets of the law down from Mount Sinai when Joshua tells him of the people’s celebration around the golden calf. As Moses approaches the camp he hears for himself the revelry, his anger is kindled, and with righteous indignation he confronts the people, smashes the tablets, burns the golden calf, grinds it to powder, mixes the pulverized idol with water, and force-feeds the substance into the gullets of the guilty Israelites. (Exodus 32:15-20).

His rage still boiling over, in the next chapter we read, “Now Moses took the tent and pitched outside the camp.” (Exodus 33:7).

The Jerusalem Talmud (B’chorim 3:3) explains why he pitched the Tent of Meeting so far away from the camp:

“…because he was tired of the people’s constant complaining and criticism. As he would walk around the camp some would say ‘look at his thick neck, his fat legs, he must eat up all our money.’”

Moses moved the tent of meeting out of sight so that those who desired truly to come close to God would have to make the effort to do so.

God, however, appealed to Moses (Midrash Rabbah 45:2):

“I want you to change your mind, go back to the camp, and deal with the people face to face, as it says ‘The Eternal would speak to Moses face to face as one person speaks to another.’” (Exodus 33:11)

We can’t blame Moses for his impatience with the people. He had lived with their obstinacy, distrust and faithlessness since leaving Egypt. However, tradition reminds us that magnanimity of mind, heart and soul, compassion and patience are critical virtues in a leader and that once the leader loses control due to anger or despair, so too do the leader’s moral credibility and authority evaporate.

As a congregational rabbi and leader of a large religious institution, I have learned over more than 35 years of service that the very worst thing I could do is to respond to anyone impatiently and in anger, because when I would do so my credibility is compromised and my moral authority diminished. I believe this is true about leadership in religious institutions, in all kinds of business, in non-profit organizations, in the arts, education, government, politics, and diplomacy.

With this in mind, I have been shocked by the angry, intemperate and hostile accusations leveled against Secretary of State John Kerry by Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz, Likud MK and Deputy Minister Ofir Akunis, and especially by Economics Minister and Jewish Home party chairman Naftali Bennett who recently called Secretary Kerry an anti-Semite. US National Security Advisor Susan Rice was quick to respond, and properly so, by defending Secretary Kerry’s integrity, friendship to the state of Israel, and sincere motivations in his peace efforts, as did Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli President Shimon Peres.

As if these extremist and intemperate remarks weren’t enough, at the same time an orthodox Israeli Knesset member David Rotem, who serves as the chairman of the Knesset Law, Constitution and Justice Committee, said that the Reform movement “is not Jewish. It is another religion.” In response Rabbi Rick Jacobs, the President of the North American Union for Reform Judaism, and Rabbi Gilad Kariv, Executive Director of the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism, called on the Israeli government to censure MK Rotem and remove him from his leadership roles.

At the very least, full and sincere apologies from these leaders are in order.

It is my position that a leader of the state of Israel who continuously insults United States officials and dismisses the legitimacy of a major religious movement of the Jewish people should be dismissed from his/her leadership duties.

Tradition says that Moses ultimately lost his dream to enter the Promised Land because in anger at the people he struck a rock with a stick instead of speaking to it as God had commanded him.

The Talmud reminds us that “When a person loses his temper – If he is originally wise, he loses his wisdom, and if he is a prophet, he loses his prophecy.” (Babylonian Talmud, Pesachim 66b).

If Moses could be so diminished by his anger that God would deny him his most cherished dream then so too should leaders of the Israeli government lose their positions when their words are insulting and intemperate.

Why I Joined as a Plaintiff in a Law Suit Against Los Angeles County

07 Friday Feb 2014

Posted by in American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Ethics, Jewish-Christian Relations, Social Justice

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When the Board of Supervisors took a vote at its January meeting to restore a religious cross to the Los Angeles County Seal I was shocked, stunned and alarmed.

There are ten million citizens of Los Angeles County of whom 3.8 million are Christian, 564,000 are Jewish, 93,000 are Muslim, 70,000 are Buddhist, 73,000 are Hindu, and 4 million do not identify with any religious faith. However, by a vote of 3 (Antonovich, Knabe and Ridley-Thomas) to 2 (Molina and Yaroslavsky) the cross was ordered returned to the LA County seal, a blatant violation of the first amendment of the US Constitution that prohibits government endorsement of religion.

Ten years ago (2004) the correct decision was taken by the Board of Supervisors in a vote of 3 to 2 to remove the cross because it is a universally recognized religious symbol that is unique and special for people of Christian faith.

In response to the January Board of Supervisors vote, the ACLU invited me along with eight other religious leaders including Rabbi Harold Schulweis of Valley Beth Shalom Synagogue in Encino, UCLA Professor of Jewish History David Myers, the Reverend Peter Laarman of Progressive Christians Uniting,  Father Ian Davies of St. Thomas the Apostle Episcopal Church in Hollywood, the Reverend Ed Bacon of All Saints Church in Pasadena, Shakeel Syed, Executive Director of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California, Rabbi Amy Bernstein of Kehillat Israel Reconstructionist Congregation in Pacific Palisades, and the Reverend Tera Little, Consulting Minister of the First Universalist Parish of Pasadena, to join as plaintiffs in this case. We all willingly agreed as religious leaders and as citizens living in LA County.

For us, our position (as opposed to that taken by Supervisors Antonovich, Knabe and Ridley-Thomas) is the true pro-religion position because we believe that by preserving the separation of church and state, we in fact preserve a safe, neutral space for followers of all religions to practice their faiths unhindered, without the implied endorsement and intimidation from an action signifying that government prefers, even symbolically, one religious denomination over others.

No child, no woman and no man should ever feel in the United States that he or she is marginal in matters of faith. America is NOT a Christian nation according to the US Constitution, nor is it a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, or any other kind of nation based on a specific faith tradition.

Since the case was filed yesterday, Supervisor Mike Antonovich has equated the ACLU with “Storm Troopers” and thereby slandered an organization the sole purpose of which is to defend the United States Bill of Rights, a cornerstone of American democracy. The Supervisor’s language is especially offensive to me as a Jew because I associate “Storm Troopers” with Nazism. By choosing both to put the cross back on the seal and using such inflammatory language, Mr. Antonovich has made this issue particularly divisive. Rather than help to unite this county Mr. Antonovich has chosen to insult and injure decent people and thereby divide us.

I join with my co-plaintiffs and co-counsel at the ACLU and at the law firm of Caldwell, Leslie and Proctor in demanding that the Board of Supervisors reverse its January decision and save the County from spending any time and sources on this matter when so many other urgent needs are confronting it, including 50,000 homeless individuals, rising hunger and poverty, a dysfunctional foster care system, inadequate health care, and a corrupt Sheriff’s Department.

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Cynicism and Middle East Peace

03 Monday Feb 2014

Posted by in American Politics and Life, Book Recommendations, Ethics, Health and Well-Being, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History

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I have discovered a small little book written by William George Jordan in 1898 that I recommend. It is called “The Majesty of Calmness” (published anew by Empowered Wealth, 2004). It is an elegantly written 62-page essay in which Jordan (a late 19th century early 20th century essayist and editor) opines on the meaning of failure and success, happiness and doing one’s best at all times regardless of age and circumstance.

I came across this little volume because it was favored by Coach John Wooden early on in his career and was a significant influence on him as he developed his educational philosophy and “Pyramid of Success.” Coach Wooden of the famed UCLA Bruins basketball team, has been called the greatest coach in any sport (college and professional) of the 20th century, but mostly he considered himself a teacher and a man of deep faith.

The following passage from “The Majesty of Calmness” is not only true for the individual, but is true in the world of international relations and diplomacy.

William George Jordan’s comments about the “cynic” and “cynicism” are particularly cogent and applicable to those within Israel and the Palestinian community who have been so hardened by fear, suffering and ideology that they cannot fathom an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement and the normalization of relations between our two nations and peoples, despite the fact that contemporary history is filled with examples of reconciliation between former enemies (Germany, Japan and the West following WWII, etc.).

William George Jordan writes:

“A cynic is a man who is morally near-sighted, and brags about it. He sees evil in his own heart, and thinks he sees the world. He lets a mote in his eye eclipse the sun. An incurable cynic is an individual who should long for death, for life cannot bring him happiness, and death might. The keynote of Bismarck’s lack of happiness was his profound distrust of human nature [Note: Bismarck famously said – “During my whole life I have not had twenty-four hours of happiness.”]

-William George Jordan, The Majesty of Calmness, (1898) published by Empowered Wealth, p. 57