Category Archives: Ethics

“Two States of the Jewish People”

26 Friday Feb 2016

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

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Our 330 Israeli, American, Canadian, and European Reform colleagues of the Central Conference of American Rabbis after Shabbat will conclude a week of meetings in Israel. We’ve spent time in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and have traveled far and wide around the country.

It’s increasingly my feeling that there are at least two “states of Israel” here: the “state of Jerusalem,” an inspiring, ancient and modern mess dominated by right-wing ultra-Orthodox and settlers movement Jews who want to establish a new Jewish kingdom to replace the democratic Jewish state of Israel to be  controlled by them, the most reactionary elements in Israeli society today.

The other “state of Israel” is the “State of Tel Aviv” composed of politically middle-left Israelis, propelled and sustained by the liberal spirit of democracy, openness, and inclusivity where differences between people and cultures are celebrated, where Palestinian citizens of Israel have equal rights, where LGBT Jews are accepted, where women are treated with respect and dignity, where Reform and secular Jews live and thrive as envisioned by Israel’s Declaration of Independence, and where the spirit of the nations also is embraced.

The common concerns of most Israeli Jews and Israeli Palestinians in both “states of Israel” are security on the one hand and social justice on the other.

The income gap has widened and the numbers in poverty are growing. Though there have been some gains since the 2011 social justice movement that brought hundreds of thousands of young and middle class Israelis to camp out in tents on Rhov Rothschild in Tel Aviv, the cost of living has risen and most Israelis are working harder and longer for less.

Israelis in the middle-left respect Zionist Union opposition leader Isaac Herzog as a decent and honest man, but believe that he will be successfully challenged for leadership in the next Zionist Union election. His proposal to separate Palestinians from Israelis while retaining the hope of a two-state solution reflects the Zionist Union’s recognition that security is the number one issue on Israeli minds. However, even those who like Herzog wonder where his moral voice is. Why, they ask, is he not talking about Palestinian suffering and only about Jewish suffering? Where is the universal thrust in his liberal Zionism? Why is he not calling for immediate negotiations for a two-state end of all claims resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as a matter of Israeli enlightened self-interest and as a moral necessity?

I spent a day and a half with colleagues visiting a High School in Lod that is dramatically improving educational achievement and bringing hope to more than 1000 Palestinian Muslim high school students. We visited the Arab Jewish Community Center in Jaffa that brings together Israeli Palestinians and Israeli Jews to learn about each other. It has numerous programs to assist unemployed Palestinian Arab women, and fights against the humiliation that comes with Arab security profiling. There are language courses in Hebrew and Arabic, choirs of Arab and Jewish children singing their hearts out, and classes teaching the Jewish and Arab narratives of the conflict. We visited the only Arab-Jewish preschool in the country located in Jaffa and created and led by a married Palestinian Sufi-Jewish couple in which 200 two-five year old children and their families learn together and develop community and friendship. We visited in Modin with leaders of the Reform movement who have formed bridges all over the country between Arabs and Jews.

Every time I visit Israel my hope in this grand experiment and miracle of the Jewish people is restored and strengthened. We hear so much bad news about what’s happening here in the media, and we who passionately support the peace movement and the two-state solution can become frustrated by the deterioration of conditions. In despair, many think to throw up their hands and turn away. But, there’s an expression – “B’Yisrael y’ush lo optsia – In Israel, despair is not an option.”

Not only that, but there’s still so much good here being done by so many people, causes, NGOs, Reform synagogues, foundations, and the Israel Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism that we need only to stay focused and strong for Israel’s sake.

To those who believe that Israel is a “failed experiment,” as I heard by one prominent and respected Jew in the pages of Tikkun this past week, I have this to say – you are tragically wrong. Israel is and will be our people’s greatest HOPE.

Confronting Anti-Semitism on American College Campuses Today

07 Sunday Feb 2016

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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I remember as an undergraduate at UC Berkeley (1968 – 1972) that when I became active in anti-Vietnam and pro-civil rights protests I encountered a measure of anti-Semitism among fellow protesters that pushed me away from ever feeling at home with them despite our shared values about equal rights and justice.

Sadly, not very much has changed these past 45 years. Anti-Semitism in the student left has become worse.

In addition to my worries about the rise of anti-Semitism in campus left-wing groups, I’m worried also about what many young Jewish idealists are thinking who, on the one hand base their activism and involvement in these groups upon traditional Jewish values of justice and equality, but on the other are unsuspecting or ill-informed or naive or in denial about the anti-Semitism they are confronting as it manifests in anti-Israel activism, pro-BDS support and pure Jew-hatred.

A particularly disturbing article appeared this month that addresses the challenge that progressive proudly identifying Jewish activists are confronting on college campuses (“In the Safe Spaces on Campus, No Jews Allowed,” The Tower Magazine, February 2016).

We learn there of the experience of two progressive pro-Israel Jewish UCLA students who attended the Students of Color Conference (SOCC) at UC Berkeley in November. The SOCC is the UC Student Association’s oldest and largest conference that has a reputation as “being a safe space where students of color, as well as white progressive allies, can address and discuss issues of structural and cultural inequality on college campuses.”

Arielle Mokhtarzadeh and Ben Rosenberg discovered to their shock and dismay that though many of their fellow college students had risen up to fight racism on campuses across the country as they did, so often those very same students subject Jewish students to anti-Semitism.

I offer below three important articles that survey anti-Semitism and anti-Israel sentiment on American college campuses today:

1. In the Safe Spaces on Campus, No Jews Allowed, By Anthony Berteaux, The Tower Magazine, February 2018 – http://www.thetower.org/article/in-the-safe-spaces-on-campus-no-jews-allowed/

Arielle Mokhtarzadeh and Ben Rosenberg shared the following:

[the conference participants] said that Israel was poisoning the water that they sell into the West Bank, and raising the price by ten times. Any sane person knows that this is not true. They also said that when Jewish-American students go on Birthright trips, the Israeli government offers you money to live on a settlement. A number of things like that…. There was also no mention of the Holocaust when talking about the history of Israel. They said that in the late 19th century, Jews decided to move into this land and take over it. They completely white-washed our history as a people… Over the course of what was probably no longer than an hour, my history was denied, the murder of my people was justified, and a movement whose sole purpose is the destruction of the Jewish homeland was glorified. Statements were made justifying the ruthless murder of innocent Israeli civilians, blatantly denying Jewish indigeneity in the land, and denying the Holocaust in which six million Jews were murdered. Why anyone in their right mind would accept these slanders as truths baffles me. But they did. These statements, and others, were met with endless snaps and cheers. I was taken aback.

2. Anti-Semitism On Campus: Most Jewish Students Feel Discriminated Against, New Study Finds By Jackie Salo, July 7, 2015, International Business Times – http://www.ibtimes.com/anti-semitism-campus-most-jewish-students-feel-discriminated-against-new-study-finds-2027557

Nearly three-quarters of Jewish college students have described experiencing anti-Semitism in the last year, and about one-third have been verbally harassed at one point because of their religion, according to a survey…. More than one-quarter of the Jewish students reported seeing hostility against Israel on campus from peers as a “very big” or “fairly big” problem, and nearly 15 percent felt the same level of animosity towards Jews. Nearly one-quarter of respondents said they have been blamed in the past year for the actions of Israel because they were Jewish….The study also found that Canadian universities and Midwest and California state schools had the highest rates of students reporting hostility on campus towards Jews and Israel. 

3. National Demographic Survey of American Jewish College Students 2014 – ANTI-SEMITISM REPORT, By Barry A. Kosmin & Ariela Keysar – https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/trinityantisemreport.pdf

The following appears in the report’s Forward:

…we have learned much more about the problem [of anti-Semitism on college campuses], which has worsened at many institutions …. Significantly, we did not know, until the completion of Barry Kosmin and Ariela Keysar’s important work on this report, the startling fact that more than half of Jewish American college students personally experienced or witnessed anti-Semitism during the 2013-2014 academic year…. It should be obvious that campus anti-Semitism deserves a strong response… governmental officials, university administrators, civil rights groups, and communal institutions, activists, and funders, all of whom need to decide what resources to dedicate to addressing campus anti-Semitism and how to deploy these resources. …

This report offers what responses ought to be made to anti-Semitism as it manifests on campuses. The most important defense, in addition to governmental, administration, faculty, and student responses, is a well-educated Jewish student body about Judaism itself, the history and nature of anti-Semitism, and the history and nature of the state of Israel as the national homeland of the Jewish people. Young people need to know their own Jewish history. They need to understand the significance and nature of the state of Israel in all its complexity, and they need to be prepared to identify anti-Semitism when they encounter it and how to effectively confront it for what it is really is. And finally, they need to be able to stand proudly as Jews.

The Knesset NGO Transparency Bill is not what its backers say it is!

31 Sunday Jan 2016

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

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Israel’s Justice Minister, 39 year-old Ayelet Shaked of the right-wing Jewish Home Party that represents the powerful settler movement, is the primary advocate behind the Knesset bill that would require NGOs (non-governmental organizations) that receive 50% or more of their funding from foreign governments to publicly detail those sources as a means, Shaked says, to protect the state of Israel from the undermining and delegitimizing efforts of the Jewish state by foreign governments.

This bill, however, has nothing to do with what its backers claim because the bill is superfluous. Israel already has many regulations in place for NGOs that receive money from foreign governments, and their budgets are published and sources of income are known.

What is the real intent behind passage of this NGO Transparency bill?

To target Israeli human rights and left-wing organizations such as “B’tzelem,” which monitors human rights violations against Palestinians by settlers and the Israeli military administration in the West Bank, “Breaking the Silence,” a group of former IDF soldiers who are speaking out about army violations of  human rights in the West Bank, and the American based “New Israel Fund,” a pro-Israel human rights organization that funds projects not funded by the Israeli government or American Federation dollars.

It is noteworthy that many right-wing NGOs that are not transparent are left untouched by this Knesset Bill.

According to a Peace Now survey issued in September, 2015 that examined the reports for 2006-2013 of nine NGOs identified with the Israeli right-wing, it was found that there is no way of knowing where the funding of hundreds of millions of shekels to these organizations that deeply affect policy and Israeli public opinion comes from (see http://peacenow.org.il/eng/RightWingNGOs).

For example, 2% (160,000 NIS) of the extremist right-wing organization “Im Tirtsu’s” funding is secret. Last week Im Tirtsu launched a slanderous campaign targeting some of Israel’s most respected left-wing literary icons including Amos Oz, A.B Yehoshua and David Grossman calling them “moles in culture” and insinuating that they are treasonous.

The anti-left “NGO Monitor” does not reveal 23% of its funding. The settlement movement’s powerful “Yesha Council” does not reveal 99% of its funding. The right-wing organization “Ir David Foundation” (Elad) that has led the way in building and developing East Jerusalem Palestinian neighborhoods for Jewish settlement, does not reveal 100% of its funding.

The reason these groups are not required to reveal their funding sources is that their money either comes from Israeli individuals and Foundations or from wealthy American Jews and American Foundations. There is no requirement in Israeli law to name the names of individuals or non-government foundations. The Shaked NGO Transparency Bill only addresses funding from foreign governments.

Shaked’s bill is similar to policies in Egypt after the revolution that banned all NGOs and to Putin’s Russia that bans free speech. MK Shaked dismissed criticism by comparing the Israeli bill with the American Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), but US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro publicly refuted her comparison last month saying:

“As a general matter, US law imposes no limits, restrictions or transparency requirements on the  receipt of foreign funding by NGOs operating in the United States, other than those generally applicable to all Americans…the draft Israeli law would target NGOs simply because they are funded principally by foreign government entities….FARA requires individuals or organizations to register as foreign agents only if they engage in certain specified activities at the order, request or under the direction or control, of a foreign principal – not simply by receiving contributions from such an entity. As a result, it does not create the chilling effect on NGO activities that we are concerned about in reviewing the draft Israeli NGO law.”

Shaked’s NGO Transparency bill does not expose anything new. Organizations in Israel that receive funds from private donors, as such as Sheldon Adelson, are far less regulated as opposed to those organizations receiving money from foreign governments, even governments such as the EU, Germany and the Netherlands that have excellent relations with Israel.

What it comes down to is that MK Shaked’s law focuses upon organizations she and the right-wing government of Israel do not like.

There seems to be a misconception by the bill’s advocates about the important check and balance role that NGOs play in democracies. In a proper democracy, the government does not get to decide what are the good NGOs and what are the bad NGOs. Rather, people decide what they wish to fund or not fund.

Shaked acknowledges that this NGO law does not shut down any NGO nor does it require changes in operating left-wing NGOs. The purpose of the bill is symbolic. Its intent is to sow suspicion about Israeli human rights NGOs, to insult their integrity, to challenge their pro-Israel credentials, and to prime the Israeli public to accept further limitations on what NGOs can do and not do down the road.

This bill ought to be defeated but it is expected to pass, which does not augur well for Israeli democracy.

Hillary’s and Bill’s marriage is none of America’s business

17 Sunday Jan 2016

Posted by in American Politics and Life, Ethics, Life Cycle

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It is no one’s business how Hillary and Bill Clinton have worked through their marriage challenges.

As a congregational rabbi of 36 years, I have counseled many couples as infidelity tears marriages apart. In those rare instances when the partners’ love for one another is strong enough and they are forgiving enough and repentant enough, some couples can stay married successfully and happily.

Marriage and long-term relationship commitments are often difficult. Most married individuals, at one time or another, are seduced or almost seduced to violate their marriage bond and commitment. That there were violations in the Clinton marriage is, frankly, none of America’s business. Whatever indiscretions Bill committed, Hillary staying with him does not make Hillary an enabler, as Donald Trump self-righteously and cruelly barked last week, but rather, it suggests that Hillary is a strong, forgiving and loving wife.

In reading Carl Bernstein’s excellent un-authorized biography of Hillary Clinton A Woman in Charge (publ. 2007), I came away with the sense that the Clintons are honest with each other, that they know each other exceptionally well, have made peace with each other’s frailties, and that they have enough together that they want to stay married. If that reflects a deficiency of character, then perhaps I have learned nothing in my life as a Jew and a rabbi. To the contrary, I believe that their suffering, reconciliation and ability to move forward together is a sign of strong character and abiding love.

When Hillary Clinton was a Senator, my wife Barbara and I spent 10 minutes speaking with her privately at an LA fundraiser. She had just delivered a sermon on Yom Kippur at a congregation in Los Angeles on the theme of forgiveness. I asked her what she said as I had just spoken on the same theme in my synagogue, and she looked me in the eye and explained that she loves her husband and despite the humiliation she suffered following the Monica Lewinsky affair, as a Christian she found it in her heart to forgive him, that Bill never wanted to lose her as his wife, that he loved her and she loved him, and that they had built a life together far beyond politics that they cherished and did not want to lose.

Bernstein discussed this dynamic at some length in his book, and it became clear to me, as I have learned counseling couples over the years, that everyone, including Hillary and Bill, is different. Every couple is different and every marriage is different. Those that survive threats to their marriage  become stronger and more committed to each other as a consequence and are to be respected, not vilified.

So – let’s stick to the issues of this important presidential campaign and judge the capacity of the respective candidates on the basis of their philosophy of governing, their judgement, temperament, perspective, experience, and understanding of the nation and the world, and decide based on those metrics what this nation needs going forward and not allow ourselves to speculate on what happens inside anyone’s marriage. Frankly, we don’t have a clue and it’s none of our business.

North American Reform Rabbinate Passes Strong and Visionary Resolution on Israel

04 Monday Jan 2016

Posted by in American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Ethics, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Jewish-Christian Relations, Jewish-Islamic Relations, Social Justice, Women's Rights

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In advance of the annual meeting of the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR) in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv at the end of February 2016, the CCAR Board passed a superbly balanced, nuanced and comprehensive statement representing the broad consensus of the American and Canadian Reform Rabbinate.

The CCAR represents 2300 Reform Rabbis serving communities mostly in North America, but also around the world. Reform Judaism is the largest North American religious stream of Jews numbering close to 1.4 million individuals.

This resolution affirms the Reform Rabbinate’s strong support for and bond with the people and state of Israel as a Jewish and Democratic state. It strongly supports equal rights for all Israeli citizens (Jew, Arab and other) according to the principles of the Israeli Declaration of Independence, religious diversity and equal rights for all individuals and religious streams in the state, and a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The resolution demands that Palestinians recognize that Israel is the nation state of the Jewish people and that Israelis recognize that the to-be established state of Palestine is the nation state of the Palestinian people. The resolution opposes the occupation of the West Bank and expansion of Israeli settlements there and calls upon the Palestinian leadership to cease all provocation and incitement against Israelis.

I am proud of the rabbinic leadership of my rabbinic association for its strong, just, compassionate, wise, fair, visionary, and comprehensive resolution.

https://ccarnet.org/rabbis-speak/resolutions/2015/ccar-expression-love-and-support-state-israel-and-/

Over the course of decades the CCAR has issued 322 resolutions on the state of Israel. They can be accessed here:

http://ccarnet.org/search/?q=Resolutions+on+Israel

My Mother’s Death and Why Writing an Ethical Will is Important

31 Thursday Dec 2015

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Ethics, Life Cycle, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life

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Having just lost my mother less than two weeks ago, I have been pondering, among the flood of memories that have swept over me, how very short is a human life, even one like hers who lived for 98+ years.

When we are young we assume that we will live indefinitely. We don’t think about the end of life. But when we lose the people we love we realize, as if for the first time that a life, however long, is in truth very brief.

Writing a eulogy for my mother was not easy for me. I have officiated at close to 500 funerals over the past 40 years. I have written eulogies for more than 35 members of my family and my wife’s family. I know what is required in writing such an address – to evoke the essence of a person and reflect on those enduring qualities that left an impression on others. It is always difficult to do this. Nothing, however, came even close to the challenge I felt in writing my own mother’s eulogy.

I avoided sitting down to write. I waited and waited and waited some more until I could wait no longer. Then I struggled to find exactly the right words to express who my mother was, what was in her heart, what animated her spirit and personality, how she developed her core values, who she loved, and what was most important to her.

I thought I would be prepared for her death. After all, these last years were not easy for her as her sight, hearing and mental acuity were seriously compromised. As it turned out, I was not prepared. After she died when I realized that I would never see her again, never see the smile on her face when I came to visit, never again hear her voice, nor feel the warmth of her skin against my lips as I kissed her goodbye and said “Mom, I love you and I’ll see you next time,” and hear her say back to me “I love you too,” I found no words for a eulogy as I contemplated the fact that she was now gone forever.

As we lowered her casket into the double grave with my father who we buried 56 years ago, and covered her with soil, I was struck in a completely new way by the permanence of her death, and I felt what I felt when my father died so long ago – empty, alone and deeply sad.

Now both my parents are gone, and I wish that I had something written from each of them telling me what they loved most, valued and wanted for my brother, me, our wives, and the next generation in our family.

Sharing this with you is by way of an introduction to an invitation I offer those who live in Los Angeles. This coming Tuesday evening, January 5th, at 7 PM at Temple Israel of Hollywood, I will lead a discussion about why I believe it is so important that each one of us, regardless of our age, whether we be old or young, write our “Ethical Will.”

Ethical Wills are documents that Jews have written over many centuries that express a person’s core beliefs, values, desires, and hopes for their children, grandchildren and heirs. Ethical Wills constitute a genre of Jewish literature begun when Jews suffered impoverishment and had little material possessions to leave behind. They contain no lists of assets and property, but they reveal the inner life, heart, mind, and soul of individual Jews who describe with simple eloquence their ultimate values, what they cherish and feel about their families, what lessons they learned distilled over a life time, and the acquired wisdom and truths they want to impart.

In American culture we leave trusts and wills to allocate our worldly possessions. However, is material wealth what is really most valuable in our lives to leave to others?

On one occasion only years ago I read a woman’s Ethical Will at her funeral. It was a powerful experience for all because it was as if she was speaking to us from the other side about what was most important to her and what she wished for her family and dear ones. Ever since I have encouraged people to write these themselves.

I wish I had had such a document from my own mother to have read last week at her grave as we bid her farewell.

I welcome you to join us on Tuesday evening. I will distribute examples of Ethical Wills written over the centuries and ask participants to consider writing their own.

If you wish to join us, please email our worship coordinator, Rachel Lurie, by Monday, January 4 at Temple Israel so we can know who you are and so we can appropriately plan – RA@TIOH.org.

L’shanah chilonit tovah u-briyah. A good and healthy New Year to you all.

Six Articles You Need to Read Right Now

30 Wednesday Dec 2015

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

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I have compiled these important six articles addressing trends in Israel and the American Jewish community as a passionate ohavei am u-medinat Yisrael (a lover of the people and state of Israel). Even in light of all the good, creative, decent, and progressive things that continue to pour out of Israel in every field of endeavor, there are nevertheless anti-democratic trends in the Knesset and among segments of the population in Israel and West Bank that are ominous and threatening to the democratic Jewish state that I and so many of us love.

I highlight these six articles with you in this spirit and wish all of you and the people you love a healthy, happy, productive, and peaceful secular New Year.

1. The Unraveling of Israeli Democracy, Times of Israel
Naomi Chazan, former Israeli Deputy PM and Head of New Israel Fund argues, “… the continuous assault on the pluralism of the public domain reflects the insecurity of those in office and directly serves their interests by allowing the present leadership to shirk responsibility for Israel’s precarious situation and, by shifting the burden to those who disapprove of its course….”
http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/speak-truth-to-power/

2. We’ve Entered the Final Decade to Save Israel, Haaretz
Ari Shavit argues, “Israeli democracy in recent years has become seriously ill. The Supreme Court is under attack, the media have been weakened, and the system of checks and balances has been neutered. An evil wind is blowing that silences criticism and condemns differing opinions. If this aggressive populist and ultranationalist attack on Israel’s democratic institutions and values continues until 2025, we are liable to find ourselves with a benighted political system that is no longer committed to freedom, equality, fairness and progress.”
http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.693502

3. Why Liberals Gave Samantha Power the Cold Shoulder — and the Point They Missed, Forward
On December 13, the liberal Israeli daily Haaretz and the New Israel Fund sponsored a “new Israeli American discussion” in NYC addressing Palestinian rights, religion and state, U.S.-Israel relations and grass-roots organizing power. More than 70 speakers appeared — Israeli, Palestinian and American lawmakers, journalists, academics and activists… In session after session when the topics of Palestinian statehood and Israel’s occupation of the West Bank came up, they were framed in terms of Palestinian rights and interests. Israel’s needs — even the basic argument that separating from the Palestinians would make Israel safer — came as an afterthought if at all.
http://forward.com/opinion/israel/327162/how-liberal-zionists-ignored-samantha-power/#ixzz3uP6VmlXO

4. Why Adelson’s Campus anti-BDS Group Will Be a Bust, Haaretz
Rabbi Eric Yoffie writes, “Coalitions of Israel supporters are the key to pro-Israel advocacy… I don’t agree with J Street on everything, but they are an essential part of the Zionist family. And they are exceedingly effective pro-Israel advocates and anti-BDS organizers on campus, especially with students on the left. …the Maccabee Task Force regards as allies only those who refrain from criticism of Israeli government policies. … It is madness to think that a no-criticism litmus test can be applied in building pro-Israel and anti-BDS coalitions.”
http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.693300

5. Israel now has its very own Jewish Hamas, Rabbi Eric Yoffie
… Israel now has its very own Jewish Hamas, fanatics motivated by extremist religious ideology who kill, maim and justify the mayhem they have committed by blaming their enemies. They have religious leaders who encourage them in their extremist actions. Rather than take responsibility for the death of children and other innocents, Hamas chieftains change the subject: Their victims are the oppressors, indifferent to justice and God’s will.  Jewish terrorists do and say exactly the same thing, with the same fervor, cruelty, and conspiratorial cunning.
http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.694245

5. Ruvi Rivlin is my man of the year, Times of Israel
Who would have guessed, a decade ago, that Reuven “Ruvi” Rivlin, would be the source of optimism in Israel of 2015 and a clear voice of sanity amidst the rhetoric of polarization and extremism?
http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/ruvy-rivlin-is-my-man-of-the-year/

6. Netanyahu agrees with haredim not to allow Women of the Wall to read Torah at Western Wall – Jerusalem Post
Prime Minister Netanyahu has come to an agreement with the haredi political parties not to allow the Women of the Wall prayer rights to read from a Torah in the women’s section of the Western Wall. The PM promised the General Assembly of Jewish Federations of North America in November that a pluralist third section at the Western Wall was soon to be created. The Reform, Conservative movements and WOW are holding him to his promise.
http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Politics-And-Diplomacy/Netanyahu-agrees-with-haredim-not-to-allow-Women-of-the-Wall-to-read-Torah-at-Western-Wall-438728

Note #1: My gratitude extends to J Street’s Daily Round-up of Israeli Press and Opinion for items 1,2,3, and 4 above.

Note #2: Three of the above articles are from Israel’s daily newspaper Haaretz. Haaretz is the NY Times of Israel and you must subscribe to read its English version. I urge you to do so.

“Blessed is the generation…” The Launch of the American Jewish Peace Archive

21 Monday Dec 2015

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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It is daunting when I reflect that I have been involved as a Zionist peace activist for 45 years. In that time the Jewish world has changed dramatically. One thing, however, has not changed. Today, like then, there are many thousands of young American Jewish pro-Israel peace activists who are as passionate and engaged in this movement as I was. I see the thousands at J Street Conferences as part of J Street U, and they are not only committed as Jews and ohavei m’dinat Yisrael (lovers of the state of Israel), but intelligent, sophisticated, politically savvy, and driven by the best of liberal Jewish values.

Rachel Sandalow-Ash is one of them. She is the Co-Founder and Director of Open Hillel, a student-led campaign to change Hillel’s policies to better reflect the American Jewish community’s values of pluralism and inclusivity.

She wrote:

“As a young activist, it is so easy for my generation to imagine that we are fighting a battle against elders who have betrayed us. The American Jewish Peace Archive lets us know otherwise by connecting young activists to those who for decades have worked for peace and justice in Israel/Palestine and for open and honest conversations in the United States. It enables us to learn from the experiences of older activists and to build an intergenerational movement that provides for support and mentorship across generations.”

This past year I was interviewed by one of my fellow older peace activists, Aliza Becker, who has founded the American Jewish Peace Archive (AJPA). I first met Aliza when she served on the national staff of J Street. She is now Associate Fellow at the Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities at Bard College, and she has just launched the AJPA and its new website –  http://ajpeacearchive.org/. The website, she says, “initiates the sharing of stories from a rapidly growing archive of over 100 pioneers for Israeli-Palestinian peace.”

As I scrolled through the photographs of these hundred people in which I am proud to be included, I saw the faces and names of people I have known or heard about for decades.

This website is an important addition to the peace movement because so often young Jews today do not realize how long this struggle for a two-state solution has been going on. They feel very much alone in their struggle and so often find themselves on the defensive from the far right and the far left on college campuses. Now there is an address where they can learn more about what has gone on before them, and gain strength from the example, courage and inspiration in the 50-year story of American Jewish peace activism.

It is written in the Talmud (Rosh Hashanah 25b): “Blessed is the generation in which teachers listen to their students [i.e. the old listen to the young]; and doubly blessed is the generation in which students listen to their teachers [i.e. the young listen to the old].”

I encourage you to take a look at the website – http://ajpeacearchive.org/. – and support its important work.

To Aliza – Yasher kochachech!

Ameinu and ARZA Condemn Im Tirtzu Incitement Video as an Anti-Zionist Threat to Israel’s Democracy

17 Thursday Dec 2015

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

≈ 1 Comment

As a Member of the Board of the Association of Reform Zionists of America and a Supporter of Ameinu, I am posting this news item and joint statement issued this week by Ameinu and ARZA.

New York, NY; December 16, 2015 — Responding to a video released yesterday from the extremist Israeli movement Im Tirtzu that incites viewers against four Israeli human rights and democracy organizations — declaring them traitors, “foreign plants” of European governments, and supporters of terrorism — Ameinu, the largest grassroots progressive Zionist movement in North America, and ARZA, the Zionist wing of the Reform Movement, the largest Jewish religious stream in North America, today issued the following joint statement:

Im Tirztu cloaks itself in the language of Zionism but takes actions that strike like a knife at the heart of Zionism and its vision of a Jewish and democratic state of Israel. As leading progressive and liberal voices in the Zionist movement and American Jewish community, Ameinu and ARZA unequivocally condemn Im Tirtzu’s incitement against courageous NGOs and their staffs who work tirelessly to protect the rights of all Israelis and promote a peaceful, just and secure Israel.  Im Tirtzu’s actions are a direct threat to Israel and a desecration of the Zionist Dream of Israel’s founders.

We note that in Israel’s Declaration of Independence, the Jewish state was founded to “foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants… be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel… ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex…guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture…”

The NGOs attacked in the Im Tirtzu video — B’Tselem, Breaking the Silence, the Public Committee against Torture in Israel and HaMoked — work to defend these core principles of Israeli democracy.  And in these turbulent and dangerous times, words of incitement from Im Tirtzu and its supporters in the government can have tragic consequences for both the safety of the NGO workers and their supporters in the broader public.  Moreover, this video adds to a growing culture of incitement within Israel and the Palestinian territories — one that is strengthened by divisive and irresponsible statements by government ministers and Members of the Knesset — which has already lead to violence.

Ameinu and ARZA call for a united stand by the Jewish community to reject these false Zionist activists and to see them for what they are: a grave threat to Israel’s future. Im Tirtzu, the racist Lehava movement, the Tag Mechir (Price Tag) vigilantes and other foes of Israeli democracy must be denounced without reservation.   The Jewish community must also act to:

• Ensure that no Jewish communal funds are provided to support violent and racist incitement against Israeli NGOs, Palestinian Citizens of Israel and Palestinians living under occupation;
• Advocate that donations from groups receiving the benefit of tax exemption from the IRS not be permitted to support these dangerous anti-Zionist organizations; and
• Call on the Israeli government to the withdraw the proposed law on the registration of NGOs and other anti-democratic legislation and administrative actions that threaten the Supreme Court, civil liberties and artistic and cultural freedom for all Israeli citizens.

Ameinu and ARZA are committed to working with partners in Israel and North America to defend Israeli democracy and fight to fulfill the Zionist dream of a Jewish and democratic Israel.  Ameinu and ARZA work together in the largest faction in the World Zionist Organization.

The Pro-Zionist Position is To Oppose West Bank Settlements

13 Sunday Dec 2015

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

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For the past 49 years there has been an Israeli legal and policy distinction between the State of Israel and territory that Israel conquered in the 1967 Six-Day War. The “Green Line” (i.e. the armistice line after fighting ended between the new Jewish state and the combined Arab armies in the 1948 War of Independence) has constituted the unofficial border between Israel and the West Bank.

Since 1967 Israeli democracy governs Israel itself inside the “Green Line.” Israel’s military administration governs the West Bank beyond the “Green Line.”

The only people who do not recognize this distinction in territory are those on the Israeli and American far right who believe that the State of Israel includes all the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, and those on the far left who believe that the state of Israel is illegitimate and should not exist.

Those on the far right have been conducting for many years a secret and not-so-secret campaign to erase the “Green Line” so as to include in Israel all West Bank territory.

These far right groups are operating in a number of ways, most especially in building settlements everywhere in the West Bank, in the large settlement blocks that likely will remain as part of Israel should a two-state end-of-conflict resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict be achieved, and also throughout the West Bank.

The young MK Stav Shaffrir of the Zionist Union, in her role as a member of the Knesset Finance Committee, is conducting an investigation and audit of funding by the World Zionist Organization’s Settlement Division which covertly is believed to have passed great sums of money over many years to settlement construction and expansion.

Support of settlements, however, continues in a number of different ways as well. One is through private American Jewish tax exempt contributions totaling $220 million between 2009 and 2013.

An Haaretz investigation has analyzed thousands of documents from tax filings and official papers of dozens of American and Israeli nonprofit organizations and has uncovered at least 50 American organizations involved in raising tax exempt funds for settlements and settlement activities across the Green Line. Some of these funds have provided legal aid to Jews accused or convicted of terrorism. (see http://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/haaretz-investigation-us-donors-gave-settlements-more-220-million-tax-exempt-funds-over)

It is also believed that money sent to Israel proper by American Jewish Federations makes its way across the Green Line to support West Bank settlements. The American pro-Israel lobby J Street’s University division, J Street U, has been investigating what happens to American Federation dollars given to Israel and will be reporting on its findings soon.

Support of settlements is also perpetuated when products that are produced by West Bank settlements are designated as “Made in Israel,” which for purposes of export to the United States is illegal according to American law.

During the Oslo peace negotiations, the US Department of the Treasury issued the following statement that took effect after June 19, 1995: “…for country of origin marking purposes, goods which are produced in the West Bank and Gaza Strip shall be properly marked as ‘West Bank,’ ‘Gaza’, or ‘Gaza Strip’ and shall not contain the words ‘Israel,’ ‘Made in Israel,’ ‘Occupied Territories-Israel’, or words of similar meaning.”

Why is proper labeling of West Bank settlement products so important? Because labeling products from the West Bank territories as “Made in Israel” blurs the distinction between what is Israel and what is not, and gives fodder to BDS forces in its world-wide effort to delegitimize Israel. Contrary to Prime Minister Netanyahu’s charge that the EU vote on labeling in November was anti-Semitic at its core (most EU countries are pro-Israel and have denied the anti-Semitism charge), one can argue that proper labeling is in truth a pro-Zionist position because those who purchase Israeli products can do so with a clear conscience that they are supporting the Israel they love when they buy Israeli made goods and not the military occupation of another people in the West Bank.

Support of settlements is also being pursued by groups such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) as it strives to legislate changes in U.S. policy that since 1967 has been opposed to settlements by both Republican and Democratic presidents. Lara Friedman, the director of policy and government relations at Americans for Peace Now (APN), has written that “They [i.e. AIPAC] pass off their efforts as an entirely non-controversial matter of countering boycott-divestment-sanctions (BDS) against Israel in general, [and] countering BDS policies adopted by the EU and some European countries, in particular.” (See details – “The Stealth Campaign in Congress to Support Israeli Settlements” – https://lobelog.com/the-stealth-campaign-in-congress-to-support-israeli-settlements/).

These efforts in support of settlements in time will effectively erase the Green Line and define Israel as including all settlements.

For those who believe that a two-state solution is the only way for Israel to remain both democratic and Jewish, then every effort to legitimate and promote settlement building must be challenged in Israel, in the US Congress, in American Jewish Federations, and in covert Jewish philanthropic support of settlement building.

Stopping the settlement enterprise is, of course, only one of the key challenges in achieving a two-state solution. The greater goal must come with Palestinian recognition of the legitimate rights of the Jewish people to a nation state of its own and Israeli recognition of the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people to a nation state of its own. There needs to be as well a pledge by the PA to end incitement and terror and a pledge by Israel to end the occupation of the West Bank. Anything that stands in the way of achieving a two-state resolution of this conflict must be challenged at every opportunity.