Category Archives: Ethics

What it Means to Be the Seed of Abraham

15 Friday Aug 2014

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Divrei Torah, Ethics, Health and Well-Being, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Jewish Identity

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In last week’s and this week’s Torah readings the Israelites are told what they are to do when they enter the land promised to Abraham; namely, to dislodge every people and nation living there, to defeat and destroy them, to grant them no terms, give them no quarter, and feel no pity – to obliterate their sacred places, to consign their idols to fire, and wipe them out utterly and completely.

As Ekev begins this week we read of the blessings that will come from these multiple acts of violence against the indigenous and idolatrous peoples that the Israelites encountered.

Thankfully, this excessive militancy is balanced by the attribute of compassion elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible and throughout rabbinic tradition. Our sages teach, in fact, that if there is too much harsh judgment and too little compassion the world will be destroyed, just as too much empathy and too few just standards will sink the world into chaos. A proper balance between din and rachamim is therefore essential to the survival and well-being of the community itself.

The Sefer Hachinukh says that “kindness and mercy are among the most worthy qualities in the world…[and if someone would…] teach himself to be cruel he would attest about himself that he is not a Jew, for we are rachmanim b’nai rachmanim – compassionate children of compassionate parents.” (Mishpatim 42, based on the Bavli, Kiddushin 4a)

The Zohar emphasizes this virtue when it says that Jacob became Yisrael after his struggle at the river Jabbok only in order to attach himself to the quality of compassion. (1:174a) The Talmud is categorical – “One who shows no compassion, it is known that he is not of the seed of Abraham.” (Bavli, Beitzah 32b)

In a recent essay, Rabbi David Seidenberg wrote:

“Hamas members, being Muslim, are also of the seed of Abraham. That Hamas has been hiding rockets in schools, daring Israel to fire on places that should be safe. That Hamas used concrete to build miles of tunnels and no public bomb shelters. And that Hamas’ lack of compassion, to their own people and to Israeli civilians, shows that they are neither true Muslims, nor of the spiritual seed of Abraham.”

We Jews, of course, have our own hard-hearted fanatics who care little about others and certainly little about the innocent Palestinians who have been caught tragically in the cross-fire and suffered.

Three weeks ago, Rabbi Dov Lior, a leading West Bank rabbi in the settlement of Kiryat Arba who had written a book justifying the killing of non-Jews, issued a religious ruling saying that Jewish law permits the destruction of Gaza to keep southern Israel safe, and that the army may “take crushing deterring steps to exterminate the enemy.” (Jewish Telegraphic Agency – July 24, 2014).

This Jewish version of a fatwa is shocking in and of itself, and when he added the word “exterminate,” given our own Jewish experience in the Holocaust, it is doubly disturbing and reprehensible.

In response, Meretz party leader Zahava Gal-On asked Israel’s Attorney General to launch an investigation against Lior for incitement.

Another hareidi rabbi, Yisroel Yitzchok Kalmanovitz, of the fanatical Lithuanian Jerusalemite sect, turned his hard-heartedness not on Hamas fighters, as one might expect, but on non-religious Israeli soldiers saying that it is better for them to die in Gaza as “martyrs” than it is for them to lie and continue to sin.

At the same time, I was relieved to see many hareidi Jews prayed for the welfare of all our soldiers in this war.

For us, the question must always be – ‘how does the tension between judgment and compassion play out in our hearts, in our relationships with those near and dear to us, with friends, co-workers and colleagues, with our community, with the stranger, and even with our legitimate enemies?’

The famous midrash from the Passover Seder is a reminder of what tradition requires of us – to mourn even when our enemies perish, and to open the heart to all human suffering whether it be in southern Israel, Gaza, the West Bank, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, the Congo, Sudan, or on the streets of Hollywood.

The way we answer that question and the way we open our hearts to others will determine not just the nature of our Jewishness but of our humanity.

Shabbat shalom!

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

Suffering is Suffering

16 Wednesday Jul 2014

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

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Suffering is suffering, regardless of the cause. That said, the differences in intent and tactics between Hamas and Israel in Gaza cannot be equated morally as has been suggested by many news outlets including, at the least, NBC and CNN (I have not made a study of them all).

Rabbi Eric Yoffie’s most recent blog, which I recommend, explains why (Time Magazine, July 14 – Bizarre Criticism of Israel: “Disproportionate” Casualties – http://ericyoffie.com/).

The following article is also a must-read as it is a reminder of the toll of war on the innocent, if we needed reminding after a decade of war after 9/11 in the US, and then in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, the Congo, and God knows where else.

Report From Gaza: When My Son Screams – We don’t even seem to have a right to exist or defend ourselves. That right, according to the United States, belongs to Israel alone. By Mohammed Omer – July 15, 2014 – http://www.thenation.com/article/180656/report-gaza-when-my-son-screams#

Israeli War Ethics and Two Recommended Articles

13 Sunday Jul 2014

Posted by in Ethics, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History

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No other army in the world takes as many precautions before striking a target as does the Israeli Defense Forces. The IDF telephones the target, drops leaflets in the immediate vicinity of the target, or drops a non-destructive charge on a targeted building sixty seconds before actually destroying it all in order to give the occupants time to escape.

A friend who was a former IDF commander said to me before Shabbat this week, “Who else tells the target before the fact that it will be a target for destruction?” He said this with pride, and I concur with the sentiment.

Of course, Israel gets little credit for this because innocent people in Gaza are indeed getting killed and injured, though at a far lower rate relative to the number of targeted Hamas strikes than one would expect, precisely because of the precautions.

Here is but one example of how IDF soldiers backed away from destroying a legitimate Hamas target when they determined that children were present – the video is from The Times of Israel – http://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-footage-reveals-efforts-to-spare-civilians-in-gaza/?utm_source=The+Times+of+Israel+Daily+Edition&utm_campaign=237a28bbfd-2014_07_12&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_adb46cec92-237a28bbfd-54740573

However you spin it, war is hell. It needs to be repeated, nevertheless, that Israel and Hamas treat the killing of the other very differently. As revealed by the recording of the cell phone call made by one of the Israeli teens just before he was murdered several weeks ago after he whispered, “Chatfu oti – They kidnapped me”(per JJ Goldberg’s piece below), the Hamas killers celebrated with Arabic singing.

The late Yitzhak Rabin once said, “We do not celebrate the death of our enemies,” a sentiment reflected in the midrash in which God rebuked the angels who sang praises as the Egyptians were drowning, “You shall not celebrate while my creatures perish!”

Much is being written about this conflict between Israel and Hamas. However, I recommend two very different but important articles that appeared this week:

A Damaging Distance For Israelis and Palestinians, Separation Is Dehumanizing
By ETHAN BRONNER – JULY 11, 2014 – New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/13/sunday-review/for-israelis-and-palestinians-separation-is-dehumanizing.html?contentCollection=world&action=click&module=NextInCollection&region=Footer&pgtype=article

Ethan Bronner of the NY Times reflects on the increasing polarization between Israelis and Palestinians since the Oslo period. He says that the separation fence built by Israel as a successful security measure to prevent suicide bombers from coming into Israeli cities and murdering Israelis, has also effectively divorced the two peoples who no longer have any human points of contact and no basis on which to build empathic relationships with one another.

How Politics and Lies Triggered an Unintended War in Gaza –
Kidnap, Crackdown, Mutual Missteps and a Hail of Rockets
By J.J. Goldberg – Jewish Daily Forward
Published July 10, 2014, issue of July 18, 2014.
http://forward.com/articles/201764/how-politics-and-lies-triggered-an-unintended-war/?p=all

J.J. Goldberg reveals that Israeli authorities knew almost immediately after the kidnapping of the three Israeli teens that they had been murdered, but chose to keep this revelation quiet in order to justify cleaning out Hamas cells in the West Bank. That military action, he says, provoked Hamas bombing and rocket fire from Gaza into Israel after a nearly 2-year effective cease-fire between Israel and Hamas. Goldberg also states that the kidnap-murder of the three Israeli teens was not ordered by Hamas officials either in Lebanon or Gaza, and was carried out by a Hebron terrorist cell. The kidnap-murderers were recorded from one of the teen’s phone calls indicating “I’ve been kidnapped” immediately shooting the teens followed by singing in celebration. Neither Israel nor Hamas intended for the current war to result from either the kidnapping/murders or the Israeli sweep of Hamas throughout the West Bank. That being said, war always brings unintended consequences, and we are all witness to that now.

“Bulldoze the Jewish Terrorists’ Homes” – Haaretz

07 Monday Jul 2014

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

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I agree wholeheartedly with Rabbi Danny Landes. I sent this to several Israeli friends for their opinion and all of them, each a significant figure in Israel’s Progressive Reform movement, in the Israeli military command structure and at the top level of Keren Kayemet L’Yisrael (JNF), confided to me that they agree as well with Rabbi Landes’ views below published in Haaretz (July 4).

Right-wing Jewish extremists, called “Jewish Price Gang”, have become terrorists and may represent the greatest threat to the state of Israel, even more so than Palestinian terrorists. They began with spraying “Price Tag” graffiti on Arab homes, Jewish human rights organizations and Israeli Christian churches to intimidate, and they have now kidnapped a 16 year-old innocent Palestinian Arab boy, Muhammed Abu Khdeir, from outside his family home and taken him to a Jerusalem forest where they set him on fire to burn alive until dead.

These Jewish terrorists must be punished in the same way that Palestinian terrorists are punished with arrest, imprisonment for life and the bulldozing of their family homes. Rabbi Gordis justifies this not only on the basis of simple justice and fairness, but on Jewish principles. His Haaretz piece is printed here in full. http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.603044

Bulldoze the Jewish Terrorists’ Homes
The tragedy of the innocent boys murdered by terrorists will haunt us for a long time, but it will not destroy us. Jewish revenge killings will.
By Rabbi Daniel Landes | Jul. 4, 2014

There is only one sane and truly halakhic way to tackle our current situation: Take the well-known members of the Orthodox Price Tag gang and lock ‘em up, for a long time and in an inaccessible prison. Don’t let them go home for chagim and deny them visitors. Do the best to break and separate them. Freeze monies that go to their families. And when and if we have proven guilty perpetrators, bulldoze their parents’ homes. The last will stop them.

Am I overreaching? Might not Mohammed Abu Khdeir, the Arab teen murdered and his body desecrated, have been the victim of a different Jewish group or of some criminal group, perhaps Arab? Maybe, although I doubt it. [Note: This was written before the arrest of the alleged Jewish perpetrators of this crime] But what is not doubtful is that the PTG – the Price Tag Gang – is headed in the direction of creating real havoc with us and with our Arab citizens and with neighboring populations. Since the PTG could care less about Western values, let us refer them to Jewish Law and values and utilize some rules from that body of wisdom.

The PTG is an imminent sakanat nefashot, a danger to life. They are a fire burning on the Sabbath that will destroy not only property, but the lives of soldiers, police and civilians. Indeed, the PTG seemingly wants to cause tension and havoc, leading possibly to war. In their apocalyptic vision, they are confident that Israel will finally “do what it has always needed to do” and act with outstanding force to destroy not only Hamas but the PA and probably all other Muslims.

This is a fiery threat that needs a cold water cannon to extinguish it. When we don’t counter the PTG we destroy a fundamental principle of Torah equality – “One Torah and one Justice should be for you and for the stranger that resides in your midst,” (Numbers 15:16.)

We incarcerate suspected Hamas members and we deal harshly with their infrastructure, because they are a danger to us. The PTG are an equal danger. If you don’t think so ask the twenty soldiers and police outside my house guarding our Abu Tor neighborhood, who have spent the day dodging ricks delivered by slingshot and worrying about worse, courtesy of our cowardly ‘boys’.

There is a great danger that copycat revenge activities, including murder, can spew forth from such an event. The Halakhic principle to be invoked is lifnei evar lo teetain michshol, “before the blind do not put a stumbling block,” (Leviticus 19:14.) Rabbinically, the verse is interpreted to refer to someone who is blind to the consequences of his or her act – a perfect definition of the members of the PTG. Harsh prison time, punishment to parents who have not exerted responsibility in reigning in their children and isolation from their peers should convince Jewish terrorists and wannabes from their disastrous road.

Finally, rabbis who have been inculcating and preaching the virus of racist revenge need to spend their Daf Yomi [daily Talmud study] time in jail. Ah, but do we not actually owe them our cherished respect? My teacher, the great moral leader Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, often quoted the Talmudic phrase, bimkom hillul HaShem ein mechalkin kavod lerav, “in the place of profanation of God’s name, we do not give honor to a Rav.”

There is no greater Hillul HaShem [desecration of God’s Name] than a charred corpse of an innocent, murdered by Torah inspiration. The tragedy of the innocent boys murdered by terrorists will haunt us for a long time. But it will not destroy us. Jewish revenge killings will.

Rabbi Landes is Director of the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem, where he teaches the Senior Kollel Talmud class and Theology. The views expressed here are his own.

Response to a Reform Rabbi Charging that I am “Valiantly Politically Correct”

06 Sunday Jul 2014

Posted by in Ethics, Health and Well-Being, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Jewish Identity

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After posting my last blog “Enough of blood and tears. Enough!” in which I cited the two stories about Moses hitting the rock and the differences between them, applying this to Israel’s situation and citing Yitzhak Rabin’s speech on the White House lawn in 1993, a Reform Rabbi wrote to me saying, in part, the following:

“How do we deal with a group like the one we confront? Reason has not worked for over 60 years. Limited responses have not worked for over 60 years. Attacks continue, our population is terrorized, and our children are at risk. It is easy to blame our own when they express their frustration, but it is pointless. They did not do the kidnappings and, did not fire the missiles. Whether any one of “our” group is responsible for the killing Mohammed Abu Khdeir is still under investigation, and I believe in the Israeli system of Justice.

If they don’t solve this crime, let us remember that it took weeks to find the bodies, and the Arabs still claim Hamas was uninvolved in spite of being on tape. The Israelis deserve the benefit of the doubt as well.

So [you are] being valiantly politically correct, and I agree logically with most of [your] conclusions, but it is not Jewish and human decency that are on trial, it is Arab barbarism and my feelings are more attuned to the protestors than to you.”

In response I wrote:

Let me be clear. I am not a pacifist. I never have been. Though the idea as suggested by the difference between the two incidents in which Moses hit the rock is that there is a better way to resolve conflict than violence, violent self-defense against the rodef [“the pursuer”] who strives to kill you is morally justified. I accept this, know it to be true and fully understand those who are so worn-thin by the rejectionists and terrorists on the Palestinian side that they have concluded that the only rational response is the use of force.

All that being said, what distinguishes Judaism is that tradition demands of us to strive higher for our own sake, for the sake of our moral character and the health of our souls.

Elie Wiesel once wrote that when any human being kills for whatever reason, he/she is simply a killer. A killer cannot escape him/herself after the fact.

I have never killed personally. And I pray that I never will be in a position where I have to kill. Israelis are placed in that horrible situation constantly, and those who do it for the most part do it only because they find themselves with no alternative. I understand it. I empathize with why they feel forced to do it, and I defend them for doing it. But it is they who must live with themselves for having done so.

After posting this last blog another colleague sent me a video clip of a brutal execution by Syrian Muslims of Syrian Christians in the middle of a Syrian town to emphasize the difference between them and us. The clip lasted about 40 seconds, and the hate, cruelty and complete lack of respect for the sacred quality of human life spilled out through hundreds of automatic rounds that poured into the bodies of those forced to their knees.

Of course, I agree. We Jews are not like them. We have to protect ourselves from them. Israel has no choice except to fight fire with fire if there is no alternative, and then Israel will have to arm itself always in such a way as to maintain military and strategic superiority as both a deterrent in peace and a necessity in war.

I cited Yitzhak Rabin’s speech on the White House lawn because he himself understood all this, and he knew there was no future for the state of Israel as a Jewish homeland and a democratic state if the killing did not stop. That does not suggest “valiant political correctness” as you have charged. It is rather a valiant defense of the Jewish heart, mind, soul, and body.

“Enough of blood and tears. Enough!”

02 Wednesday Jul 2014

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

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The murders of three Israeli teens, Eyal Yifrach, Gil’ad Sha’ar and Naftali Fraenkel have plunged the Jewish world into despair, sadness and mourning. It is as if for Jews these boys were members of our extended family and we are diminished by their deaths.

Remarkably, the family of Naftali Fraenkl said after the death of their son and in response to the murder of a 16 year-old Palestinian teen, Muhammad Hussein Abu Khdeir:

“There is no difference between blood and blood. Murder is murder, whatever the nationality and age. There is no justification, no forgiveness and no atonement for any kind of murder.”

Their response, tragically, is not shared universally by Jews.

Yesterday morning the body of Muhammad was found in a Jerusalem forest, and police have now arrested six Jewish extremists who have conducted a revenge-killing.

Hundreds of Jewish rioters also took to the streets of the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Shuafat screaming “revenge” and “death to Arabs.”

Israel, of course, must seek justice for all these four murders, but for Israel indiscriminately to punish the Palestinians as a people, as some right-wing Knesset members and settlers are calling upon Israel to do, is not only contrary to Jewish values and morally wrong, but beneath the dignity of the Jewish people.

Prime Minister Rabin had it right in 1993 on the White House lawn, and I believe that this is a critical time to recall his words. He said:

“Let me say to you, the Palestinians: We are destined to live together, on the same soil in the same land. We, the soldiers who have returned from battle stained with blood, we who have seen our relatives and friends killed before our eyes, we who have attended their funerals and cannot look into the eyes of their parents, we who have come from a land where parents bury their children, we who have fought against you, the Palestinians – we say to you today in a loud and clear voice: Enough of blood and tears. Enough!

We have no desire for revenge. We harbor no hatred towards you. We, like you, are people who want to build a home, to plant a tree, to love, live side by side with you – in dignity, in empathy, as human beings, as free men. We are today giving peace a chance and again saying to you: Let us pray that a day will come when we will say, enough, farewell to arms.”

The only way Israelis and Palestinians will successfully transform their shared history of blood and tears is to recognize the humanity of and the pain of the “other,” to condemn together the killing of innocents regardless of circumstances, as both PM Netanyahu and President Abbas did this week, to resist escalating this conflict, and to return to negotiations where they strive heroically and boldly as statesmen do to make painful compromises, and settle this conflict once and for all in a two states for two peoples agreement.

As they do so, they ought to deliberately and categorically isolate those who resist a peaceful negotiated solution and say to them as one voice that it is they, those who deny the inherent rights of the other, who are the real enemies of peace and the real enemies of the nation-state of the Jewish people and the nation-state of the Palestinian people.

In last week’s Torah portion, Chukat, God commanded Moses to speak to a rock when the Israelites complained of thirst, and God promised that water would pour forth and sate them. Moses, was weary, frustrated, angry, and worn-thin by years of their bickering. Instead of speaking to the rock, he struck it with his stick, and though water came forth, God punished him by refusing him entry into the Land of Promise. (Numbers 20:8-13)

The story reminds us of another very similar tale in the book of Exodus when Moses appealed to God for the first time when the people were thirsty. God told Moses to hit the rock with his stick. He did and water came forth and sated the people. (Exodus 17:2-6)

The difference in the two similar narratives is that one occurred before Mt. Sinai and the other after Sinai, as if to teach that God intended human history to change as a result of the covenant God forged with the people of Israel, that we would henceforth sanctify words and not weapons of violence, convert our swords into plowshares and our spears into pruning hooks, and to cease making war. Compassion and reason would replace hatred and force. Enlightened words would resolve conflict, and we would live then side by side in peace, justice and security.

Rabin’s call is still the call of the moment – “Enough of blood and tears. Enough!”

What To Think About This Iraqi Mess

22 Sunday Jun 2014

Posted by in American Politics and Life, Ethics

≈ 1 Comment

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After the First Gulf War, Saddam Hussein said that if he were ever to be overthrown Iraqis would end up murdering each other.

Indeed, that psychopathic killer was right.

The mess that is Iraq today is beyond tragic for Iraqis most of all, but also for the United States. Five thousand American soldiers are dead and more than 250,000 Americans have been injured (including those who suffer PTSD) in that decade-plus-long war. God knows how many hundreds of thousands of Iraqis are dead and injured. This past week with ISIS taking over much of Iraq, one news item projected that now more than a million Iraqis have become refugees in that ongoing humanitarian catastrophe.

If loss of life, limb and home were not enough, the war cost the United States $1.7 trillion with an additional $490 billion in benefits owed to war veterans, expenses that could grow to more than $6 trillion over the next four decades counting interest (per Reuters). Lest we forget the financial impact of two wars after 9/11 and Bush’s massive tax cut that squandered the Clinton budget surplus, neither of the two wars was paid for by the Bush Administration, setting the stage, at least in part, for the “Great Recession.”

What is maddening on top of all this is that in recent days Americans have been subject to a ridiculous and outrageous blame-game initiated against the Obama Administration policies and President Obama himself mostly by Republicans, the very people who led the way in getting America into that unjustified and immoral Iraqi war in the first place and who were the greatest cheer-leaders when Bush got his massive tax cut bill passed in Congress.

This week, I have heard generals urge the US not to do anything we live to regret in Iraq. They said that even an air war against ISIS insurgents now threatening Baghdad will be ineffective unless accompanied by massive ground troops. President Obama, reflecting the views of the majority of Americans, does not intend to send ground troops back into Iraq – thank heavens!

The Republican blamers are counting on Americans to have no memory at all. Lest we forget, it was Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Libby, Wolfowitz, Powell, Rice, and others (Republicans and Democrats) who, in justifying going to war against Saddam, either cooked, twisted, spun, fabricated, or went along with the fiction that Saddam had WMD that could be used against the United States and our allies.

When no WMD were found, Bush/Cheney and company changed the story. Now the war was about ridding Iraq of a brutal dictator and bringing freedom and democracy to the Iraqi people.

Lest we forget, Saddam Hussein’s fall created a vacuum for Iran which suddenly was regionally unchecked to be able to pursue its hegemonic designs to develop nuclear weapons.

Lest we forget as well, it was Bush in 2008 who signed an order to withdraw ALL American troops from Iraq no later than by 2011. President Obama fulfilled this order, but it is as if Bush’s order never existed in the minds of these Republican blamers. They say it is all Obama’s fault!

Lest we forget as well that it was Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki who said he did not want any American residual forces to remain in Iraq, but one Republican Senator this past week said this was a “lie!” These people default to fiction when history, truth and facts don’t suit their political opportunism and deep-seated animus.

What boggles the mind is that these people seem not to have learned anything from our unjustified, ill-advised, short-sighted, deadly, maiming, destructive, and costly Iraq war. They were wrong about virtually everything, but they are still talking!

Those who think they have answers about what America should do next in Iraq and Syria are fooling themselves. As I listen to experts talk about the complexities inherent in this mess, the only thing that is absolutely clear to me is that there is no good choice for the US at all. Every choice is bad; and there are no good guys to support either, which is why the President has been hesitant to act in Syria and now Iraq.

My heart breaks for all the innocent Iraqis and Syrians who are the real victims of sectarian strife and hate.

My heart also goes out to all American veterans of this war who gave up so much in Iraq and now must witness it all revert to what Saddam Hussein predicted would happen after his fall.

My compassion extends to those families of our veterans killed in action and those who survived but have suffered greatly the effects of their injuries.

Finally, my prayers go to the President and those charged with the responsibility of figuring out how not to make a very bad situation even worse.

 

 

 

The Presbyterian Church (USA) Is At It Again In Its Unfair Criticism of Israel

17 Tuesday Jun 2014

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

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Rachel Lerner is the Senior Vice President for Community Relations at J Street and a friend. She attended this week the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) in Detroit in which she spoke on a panel where she urged Presbyterian commissioners to vote against an anti-Israel resolution supporting divestment of church funds from companies doing business in the West Bank (BDS) and called upon the Church to reconsider its support of a two-states for two-peoples resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Her letter appears here with links to all relevant documents. http://jstreet.org/blog/post/my-speech-to-the-presbyterians_1

I wrote about the Presbyterian Church (USA) in July 2012 after a terrorist attack against Jews in Bulgaria. My primary thrust then was to harshly criticize the Church’s insensitivity to Jews and to characterize the Church’s support of BDS as “anti-Israel.”

The following is part of what I wrote then:

“Israel is not a perfect society. No democracy is. Thus, being a critic of Israeli policies does not mean one is automatically anti-Israel. Indeed, Israelis themselves are among the most self-critical citizens of any nation in the world.

However, when individuals and groups consistently criticize one nation and one nation alone, one has to question such people’s deeper motivations and agenda.

After watching for several years the Presbyterian Church USA’s efforts on behalf of the BDS movement, those advocating for it I believe are unfair criticizers and part of the “anti-Israel camp.”

By “anti-Israel camp” I refer to those individuals and organizations whose criticism of Israel goes far beyond what is factual, reasonable and fair. These people rarely if ever voice criticism against Hamas’ or Fatah’s documented human rights violations against their own populations. They rarely if ever criticize human rights violations in other countries against which Israeli policies vis a vis Palestinians in the West Bank (as bad as they can be) pale by comparison. And they ignore the history of this conflict which gives context for current events.”

You can read the entire piece here https://rabbijohnrosove.wordpress.com/2012/07/22/jaccuse-the-presbyterian-church-statement-following-the-massacre-of-israelis-jews-in-bulgaria/

I would hope that good people who are members of that Church and who are not anti-Israel will vote against the aggressive group of anti-Israel Church members who have consistently shown their animus towards the state of Israel and the Jewish people by unfairly attacking her and her alone among all nations in the world.

I conclude by saying in my role as a national co-chair of the Rabbinic Cabinet of J Street that includes 800 rabbis and cantors from all America’s religious streams that I am grateful to Rachel for walking into this den of lions and standing up for the dignity of the Jewish people and best interests of the state of Israel. She deserves the thanks of the American Jewish community and Israel for doing so.