Category Archives: Israel/Zionism

A Land of Prophets – Ancient and Modern

09 Thursday Feb 2012

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

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Yesterday I visited Rav Avraham Isaac Kook’s home, an extraordinary “Museum of Psalms” adjacent to it with 150 paintings representing the 150 Psalms based on the Zohar by the Holocaust survivor Moshe Tzvi Halevi Berger (who I met and spent some time with – a sweet lovely 90 year old sage), the home of the famed Hebrew poetess Rachel, the home of her physician Dr. Elana Kagan who treated Jewish and Arab children in the 1910-40s, the home of the wacko “Father of Modern Hebrew” Eliezer Ben Yehuda, and the home of Dr. Avraham and Anna Ticho. Dr. Ticho’s opthamological practice saved hundreds of Jews and Arabs from blindness in the 1920s-50s. His wife Anna was a gifted artist and their home was a cultural meeting center that attracked the likes of Martin Buber and Marc Chagall.

All these sites are situated all along Rechov Hanevi-im (“Prophets Street”) in the heart of Jerusalem. 

This 3-hour tour was part of my ulpan program, and I was privileged to spend it one on one (in Hebrew, of course) with one of my ulpan teachers, a lovely, bright and cultured 27 year-old daughter of Yemenite Jews who were part of the airlift from Yemen to Israel in 1949  called “Operation Magic Carpet.” Those Yemenite Jews thought the plane on which they flew was the eagle referenced in Prophets that would carry the people to the land of Israel in the time of the Messiah.

As I walked back to my hotel on Keren Hayesod in 40 degree weather I was thinking of these modern-day prophets whose homes I had just visited. I then heard chanting that grew louder and louder as I approached the Labor Department courthouse. About 200 energized Israeli workers were protesting the government on this first day of a national strike for higher wages and benefits.  

As usual, Rabbi Dow Marmur offers a consise overview of what this strike is all about, and I offer here with his permission.

Once again I am reminded that this is a land of prophets, ancient and modern.

A CASE FOR SOLIDARITY

I think of Ofer Eini, the Head ofIsrael’s Histadrut Labour Federation, as one of the most seasoned and balanced public figures in Israel. I was, therefore, at first surprised by his recent display of seeming uncompromising militancy on behalf of employees of contractors to whom government and other work is often outsourced.

Though he has good reason to be indignant about the low wages and inadequate working conditions to which these women and men are subjected, it’s such a common practice all over the capitalist world that even the enlightened and socially progressive Scandinavians are said to tolerate it. It may make sense to negotiate with the private employers for better conditions for their unskilled workers, but to try to punish the government for trying to keep costs down by outsourcing services seems excessive and perhaps uncharacteristic of the pragmatic and conciliatory Eini.

So why did he do it? Cynical and seemingly persuasive speculations suggest that because there’re going to be elections in the Histadrut and Eini has been accused by his opponents of being too soft on employers and government, this is his way of showing that he can be tough and therefore deserves to be re-elected.

It has already resulted in a general strike that affects many ordinary citizens. As is often the case in such situation, Eini may end up alienating the general public, perhaps even Histadrut members: an illustration of the vagaries of political life and the possibility of one ambitious person to distort the situation and cause havoc.

That’s the cynical view. But I’ve also heard another opinion forcefully expressed by Shelly Yachimovich, the leader of the Labour Party in the Knesset. Speaking at the Hartman Institute on the first day of the strike – that was also Tu Bishvat, the New Year of Trees which has become in Israel not only a day of tree planting and a reminder of our global ecological responsibilities, but also a day of rededication to social action – she insisted that the strike is a wholesome expression of solidarity with the have-nots.

This may mean that the cynics got it wrong and that the pessimists who fear that the public will turn against Eini are in error. Because the plight of the million or so workers who are employed by contract companies at minimum wage and under appalling conditions, social justice demands firm action. While the government chooses to turn a blind eye in the misguided effort to save money by robbing citizens of basic rights, the Labour Federation is championing the cause of the poor and the disadvantaged.

The two seemingly mutually exclusive scenarios reflect the tensions in Israeli society. The government is prone to sweep social problems under the carpet by claiming security as its priority and even using the Iranian threat as an alibi. Trade unions and the many organizations dedicated to social justice assert repeatedly that unless the ever growing economic and social gap in Israeli society is bridged, its security will be greatly compromised because the citizens are being demoralized.

So it largely depends on where you are on the Right-Left political spectrum. It will determine whether you believe the cynics who seek to discredit Eini or those who affirm solidarity with the downtrodden as a national priority. No reader of the above need to be surprised that I’m on the side of the latter. My faith in Ofer Eini hasn’t been shaken. He addresses one of the urgent issues in Israeli society for which he deserves praise.

Jerusalem 8.2.12  –  Rabbi Dow Marmur

Jessica Fishman’s Sad Story and the Threat to Israel’s Civil Society

07 Tuesday Feb 2012

Posted by in Ethics, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Life Cycle

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Jessica Fishman’s story will break your heart. She is a young Jewish woman from Minnesota whose father was President of their Conservative synagogue and mother was President of Hadassah. Jessica was a Jewish day school student and attended services every Shabbat. As a teen she traveled to Israel, fell in love with the country and made aliyah at the age of 22. Though beyond the age of military service, she volunteered in the Israeli army for two years. She met a young man, fell in love and was engaged to be married. Then her troubles began.

Jessica’s fiancé and his family wanted her to convert to Judaism with an Orthodox rabbi because her mother had converted to Judaism with a Conservative rabbi. They worried that  Jessica’s future children would not be considered Jewish by the Israeli Orthodox rabbinate and could never marry here.

Jessica refused to undergo conversion, saying; “This so upset me that these rabbis would define my identity for me.”

The tension was too much, and she and her boyfriend ended their engagement.

Jessica felt abandoned and disillusioned despite all she had given of herself to the state of Israel. After living here for seven years, she returned to Minnesota and explained, “I no longer feel that this is my home. I feel unwanted, not accepted,…it’s as if they spit in my face.”

Jessica’s story is only one recent example of the destructive impact the ultra-Orthodox rabbinate is having on Israeli society. The unholy alliance between religion and state has emboldened the ultra-Orthodox to impose themselves in more and more areas of Israeli life including the demand that certain bus lines running through Orthodox neighborhoods have separate seating for men and women with women seated in rear of the bus, nearly complete control of the Western Wall plaza by the Chief Rabbi of the Kotel, and incidents such as that which occurred last December in Beit Shemesh when Chareidi Orthodox thugs spit on an Orthodox 8 year-old little girl who was not dressed modestly enough for their taste.

Not unrelated were the massive protests last summer when hundreds of thousands of Israelis protested the squeezing of the middle class in cities all around the state. The protesters complained about not being able to make ends meet, all the while Orthodox religious institutions serving only 25% of the population who don’t work, don’t pay taxes and don’t serve in the military are being massively subsidized by the government.

In response to the Israeli protests, Prime Minister Netanyahu appointed a commission led by Professor Manuel Trajtenberg, the chair of the Higher Education Planning and Budget Committee in the Knesset, to examine and propose solutions to Israel’s economic problems. Among other things, the commission made recommendations to integrate ultra-Orthodox men into the work force, enforce core curriculum in Orthodox religious schools and to limit funding for yeshivas. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trajtenberg_Committee  for details.)

It came as no surprise that the commission’s recommendations met with fierce opposition by the ultra-Orthodox religious parties. However, in a national survey only 22% of the country opposed the recommendations. 90% of secular Jews supported it as did even 67% of the religious population, as well as 75% of Likud and virtually 100% of Labor and Kadima supporters.

Why are these recommendations so important? First, they aim to ease the financial burden of Israel’s constricted middle class while also leveling the playing field for all members of Israeli society, including the ultra-Orthodox; and second, they would break the stranglehold of the ultra-Orthodox religious parties over many parts of Israeli life. However, because of the threat of the ultra-Orthodox religious parties to leave the government coalition, these recommendations have been frozen.

For more information on this danger to Israel’s civil society no less significant than the threat from without by Israel’s enemies, I recommend spending spend time looking at the web-site of Hiddush, an organization led by Rabbi Uri Regev that is committed to the separation of church and state (http://hiddush.org/).

L’shalom mi’y’rushalayim.

Impressions From Jerusalem

05 Sunday Feb 2012

Posted by in Israel/Zionism, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life

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This is my 15th sojourn in Israel since my first trip 38 years ago, and as much as Israel has changed in that time it is still the most fascinating and inspiring place I know.

Today I met an old friend for lunch who made aliyah from South Africa in 1970, and he shared with me how difficult life has become for Israelis noting that the mood of the country is very similar to that immediately following the Yom Kippur War in 1973. That war shattered the illusions and optimism that Israel’s victory in the 1967 Six-Days War had inspired. In those heady six short years between the wars Israelis felt impenetrable, like modern-day Maccabees, capable of overcoming every challenge and believing that at last they were fulfilling Jewish destiny.

Today, in light of last summer’s massive social justice rallies, the current government’s extremist nationalistic policies and the existential threat posed by Iran, it should not come as a surprise that Israelis are disheartened and distressed.

I am here for two weeks to study Hebrew on Ulpan (an accelerated language immersion program), and though my speaking approaches fluency at times it isn’t good enough for me. I am finding it increasingly difficult to understand many Israelis under the age of 45 who speak a mile a minute, far quicker than I remember 20 and 30 years ago. I figure that if I ever hope to engage with them in our common language, I have to do better, enhance my speaking and listening, and meet them where they live.

I asked my Ulpan teacher about why she thinks so many speak so fast all the time. She is a smart and sophisticated young woman younger than my eldest son, and she confessed that she didn’t know, but acknowledged that Israelis today live with exceptional tension, and perhaps that pressured life-style has affected their communication patterns.

That being said, there is no place like this place!

The day after I arrived, last Friday morning, I walked from my hotel in the chilly 45 degree sunshine to Machaneh Yehudah, Jerusalem’s famed open-air market, to buy food for my room and a fine bottle of Israeli Cabernet for my Erev Shabbat hosts. En route I wandered through old neighborhoods and narrow alleyways. Two elderly religious women hauling food carts were talking excitedly about their children and grandchildren who were coming from a Jerusalem suburb to their homes for Shabbat. Children ran by laughing and yelling. Hip looking 20-somethings passed me as well. Other than these human voices the streets were quiet as few cars were about.  I entered the market and barkers were shouting the price of dried fruit for Tu Bishvat, the New Year for Trees and one of Israel’s favorite holidays, that comes Tuesday night and Wednesday.

So much happens here. On Shabbat evening I prayed with my friends at the Reform synagogue, Kehillat Mevasseret Zion. In the morning , I attended  services at Congregation Shira Chadasha, an egalitarian Orthodox synagogue where women co-lead services with men. The singing of P’sukei D’zimra (a section of the service filled with Psalms and praises of God) especially was moving, melodic and beautiful. Kol isha ( “the voice of the woman”) was clear, feminine and strong despite the Talmudic prohibition against men having to listen to a woman’s voice out of fear that they (the men) will become sexually aroused and distracted from their prayers. I was happy to hear these feminine voices and especially here, in the holiest of cities, for they along with the men were filled with love and Godliness, the essence of holiness.

And then, on Motzei Shabbat kol isha again! It is now an annual tradition on the Saturday night after Shabbat Shira celebrating the “Song at the Sea” (Exodus 15) that HUC’s cantorial students celebrate the life, music and spirit of Debbie Friedman (z’l) who is responsible for initiating the transformation of liturgical music for Reform Jews and many Conservative Jews around the world. Hundreds sang Debbie’s songs, laughed, cried, and expressed gratitude to her for what she gave to us and the Jewish people, again in this holiest of cities.

I have two homes – one in Los Angeles and one here. I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Shalom mi-Y’rushalayim.

 

Kol Isha – The Most Recent Battleground Between Orthodoxy and Israeli Secular Society

25 Wednesday Jan 2012

Posted by in Ethics, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History

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As the gender wars heat up between Israeli ultra-Orthodox Jews and the rest of Israeli society, the Israeli Defense Forces has become the newest and most dangerous battle ground.

Traditional rabbinic law has a prohibition known as Kol Ishah (lit. “the woman’s voice”) based on a verse from the Song of Songs 2:14 (“For your voice is sweet – arev – and your appearance pleasant – naveh”). Turning that verse inside out in order to protect the male gender from the allure of a female voice and, Heaven forefend, the transgression of the laws of ervah (“nakedness”), a man was prohibited from praying or studying Torah in the presence of a singing woman.

I remember leading a funeral years back of a long time friend and synagogue member with my colleague, Cantor Aviva Rosenbloom (who was known in our congregation as our own “nightingale”). Sitting in the back of the chapel was a black-hat Orthodox Jew, and every time Aviva began to sing from the Psalms and finally the Eil Maleh Rachamim (the memorial prayer) he walked out of the chapel. In and out, in and out he went. We both shrugged. No big deal. In America, he can do as he pleased, as silly as both Aviva and I considered his adherence to this particular ancient prohibition.

However, for those living in the state of Israel today, the battle of the sexes does not abate. Indeed, it is getting worse and kol isha is the new point of contention.

Last September nine religious soldiers, in obedience to the kol isha prohibition, walked out of a mandatory Israel Defense Forces training course because it included women’s singing. An IDF committee was formed to study the issue and bring back a recommendation about how to handle this military insubordination in light of religious law. The decision? The army required all soldiers to remain at these mandatory training sessions regardless of the kol isha prohibition.

The official hareidi Orthodox reaction was swift. Rabbi Elyakim Levanon, a leader of Elon Moreh Hesder Yeshivah, which sends students to the IDF (more and more orthodox Jews are, at last, entering the Israeli military) advised soldiers to “choose death” because requiring them to listen to a woman’s voice is a “coercive order against Judaism.” Death! There are three mitzvot that tradition prohibits a person to transgress even if it means death: Idolatry, Adultery, and Murder. These extremist rabbis have extended listening to a woman sing to the category of adultery.

Clearly, the lack of an Israeli constitution with a separation clause is increasingly problematic for Israeli democracy and society as a whole (see http://hiddush.org/ – an Israeli organization fighting for religious freedom and equality – led by Reform Rabbi Uri Regev). The tension between the most conservative and reactionary interpretation of halachah (traditional Jewish law, which is an historically liberal and dynamic process of decision-making) versus the laws of the state of Israel, is now threatening the rule of law and Israeli democracy itself.

The following article posted this week on “Jewish Ideas Daily” is worth reading. I recommend subscribing to this site as well (http://www.jewishideasdaily.com/content/module/2012/1/24/main-feature/1/siren-songs/e).

Israel and Iran – an Israeli perspective

15 Sunday Jan 2012

Posted by in Israel/Zionism, Jewish History

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Rabbi Dow Marmur is one of the most insightful and incisive thinkers about the current Israeli situation I know. He is the retired Senior Rabbi of Holy Blossom Synagogue in Toronto and is a former President of the World Union for Progressive Judaism (WUPJ) in Jerusalem. He spends most of his time living in Jerusalem where his son, Rabbi Michael Marmur (Provost of HUC-JIR, and a brilliant scholar in his own right) and his family, live.

Dow gave me permission to post the following piece both here and on my blog at the Los Angeles Jewish Journal. It concerns Israel and Iran and the politics and dangers of engagement. Rabbi Marmur gives no solutions. He only describes what is obviously an impossible situation with real-life consequences for the State of Israel, the Jewish people and the entire Middle East.

IGNORANCE, CONFUSION AND HOPE

            If you’re an optimist you may decide to interpret the comings and goings of the US and Israeli generals as yet another way to intimidate Iran and prevent it from manufacturing nuclear arms. If, on the other hand, you’re a pessimist, you may conclude that the frequent contacts between Israeli and American top brass, reported daily in the media, are preparations for a US supported Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

If such an attack takes place, it won’t be a short and sharp operation like Entebbe, but a prolonged military struggle between Israel and Iran that may also involve other states. The missiles are bound to cause incalculable damage in both countries. Israelis may have to face bad times. Those of us who have family members in combat units – our grandson is in one of them – have additional reasons to fret.

And then there’s the political fallout. The present US-Israel brinkmanship probably enjoys the support of opposition forces in Iran. A direct attack on Iran, even if it’s “only” its nuclear facilities (some of which are reported to be immune from air strikes), will unite that country and force the Iranian internal opposition at best to lie very low, but more likely to abandon its struggle and join the calls for national solidarity.

Though the above are only empty speculations in the absence of solid evidence – the media spread more dread than shed light on the situation – the Israeli military is bound to be aware of the grim consequences, although we know from history that many fateful decisions are made despite sober factual evidence to the contrary. Yet it’s reasonable to assume that even trigger happy generals and politicians who yearn to go down in history as heroes won’t risk the future of the country a la the biblical Samson.

That assumption prompts the question: So why are they scaring us so much?

In the belief that all politics is really domestic, it’s not unreasonable to answer the question by pointing to the need of Netanyahu and at least the majority of his cabinet ministers to divert attention from the many internal problems the country is facing by pointing to the real danger, namely Iran, in comparison to which the other issues pale into insignificance and can be put off for better times.

As I once heard Ehud Barak (when he was still in opposition) say about discrimination of Reform Judaism in Israel: “The issue is indeed important, but it’s not urgent.” Politicians have ways of acknowledging problems as important without trying to deal with them by deeming them not to be urgent in comparison to more immediate threats. Thus the stalled peace process, gross economic inequality, discrimination of minorities, the growing militancy of settlers and haredim, the attempt to clip the wings of the Supreme Court, the emergence of new political forces etc. etc. can all be acknowledged as very important and yet left to their own devices with Iran as the excuse.

Not unexpectedly, this page doesn’t even attempt to come to a conclusion. It only seeks to report on the confusion that most of us in Israel have to deal with and the frustration at not being helped by those who should be in the know.

When neither pessimism nor optimism can be vindicated, all that’s left is to go about one’s daily life in as normal a fashion as possible – and to hope. Because it’s inconceivable that anybody in Israel or the United States would wish to gamble with the future of the Jewish state, continuing to hope for its peace and security makes good sense.

 

Jerusalem 15.1.12                                                                                           Dow Marmur

Love the Stranger as Yourself – Racism in Halacha’s Name

09 Monday Jan 2012

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

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We Jews are like all people, only more so. Our talents are immense. Our hearts are huge. Our generosity as a people is probably the most pronounced of any people on earth. Our accomplishments are second to none. Our motivation to heal the world is not only a profound religious principle, but it becomes an obsessive fixation on the need for justice and compassion in the world. This is all to the good.

But, our stupidity is also legion; our fear, though justified by experience, leads us to say and do things that are self-defeating; our hatred and rage at the world as deep as any on earth; and of late our racism in Israel is a growing source of national shame.

The Reform movement’s Israel Religious Action Center (IRAC), based in Jerusalem, has taken the lead in calling out racist attacks on Arabs, misogynist policies against women, and irresponsible hate speech from ultra-Orthodox Rabbis against their perceived enemies.

Anat Hoffman (the Director of the IRAC) recently announced the publication “Love the Stranger as Yourself – Racism in Halacha’s Name” (http://www.irac.org/userfiles/racism-report.pdf) . The following is from the report’s preface:

“Love the Stranger as Yourself – Racism in Halacha’s Name is the first report of its kind collecting racist statements made by rabbis in general and by rabbis holding civil servants positions in particular. Rabbis making such statements are the minority in Israel. But their growing numbers and the legitimacy they enjoy must be a cause for concern and must be a spur to action. These rabbis undermine the foundations of Israeli democracy, incite hatred and fear, and besmirch Judaism as a whole with their message of Xenophobia.

It might be assumed that a person who devotes his life to sacred matters would be obligated to meet high standards of ethics and morality. In reality these rabbis are not called to account for actions that would be considered criminal offenses were they made by any other civil servant.

The Israel Religious Action Center is dedicated to fight against the government’s non-accountability with respect to racial incitement in the name of Halacha (Jewish religious law). Our commitment to this struggle stems from our profound commitment to Judaism and Israeli democracy.”

I applaud this work and the IRAC’s commitment to action, and I urge you to read the report in its entirety.

Rabbi Shlomo Riskin Condemns Violent West Bank Settlers

03 Tuesday Jan 2012

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

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In an opinion column entitled “A Hanukkah Letter to the Hilltop Youth” that appeared in the Israeli daily Ha-aretz, Chief Rabbi Shlomo Riskin of Efrat criticizes violent settlers as acting contrary to Jewish tradition and values. Violent settler attacks on innocent Palestinians, their torching mosques, anti-Arab racism, and complete disrespect for the authority of the Israeli government and Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have challenged Israelis at last to begin to address settler hostility towards the State of Israel going back to the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

Rabbi Riskin is himself a “settler,” albeit a relatively moderate one, and his column reflects the growing revulsion among Israelis and many settlers towards this radical and extremist element in their midst. He writes:

“It’s impossible…to preach to people who believe that they are the holy defenders of the Land of Israel; that they wave the banner of the pure and genuine Torah [word of God]; that they are eliminating… the obsequiousness of thousands of years of exile. ‘Price tag’ rioters who attack [innocent] Palestinians, desecrate mosques and set fire to copies of the Koran see themselves [in the mold of] the ancient heroes of Judea, who fought against the Greek-Syrians [that] desecrated the Temple and forced them to bow down to idols. And so I say to you: You consider yourselves the new… Maccabees who do not bow their heads before the [Hellenizers], who today, you believe, wear the uniform of the Israel Defense Forces.

“Because you are convinced that all your deeds are [in the name of God], you will never admit that you have sinned… I am telling you that you are making a fundamental mistake. If a country can be sacred, if there is sanctity in earth and stones, then [how much more] sanctity [there is in a human being] – whether Arab or Jew – who was created in God’s image? Don’t you understand that [to use Job’s phrase] there is no ‘portion of God’ in furrows of earth, but that there certainly is in peaceful Palestinians? Do you have any idea how great that ‘portion of God’ is in… the brigade commander, …and in each and every one of his soldiers who daily risk their lives to defend yours and those of your families from terrorists? …How do you dare desecrate these holy people? How did it enter your minds to take on the role of… the terrorists [yourselves]? How did your love of the land become so distorted that it turned into love of bricks and cement and caused you to forget all the rest?

“You did not throw stones at me, and still you have mortally wounded me. You have stolen from me one of the assets most sacred to me. I love the Land of Israel with all my heart and all my might. I left the United States, my birthplace, to help to build my beloved city of Efrat and to be built up in it. Wherever and whenever I speak, I present myself as a ‘proud settler’. And you have robbed this pride from me. You have turned the term ‘settler’ into a dirty word. You have caused me to be ashamed of being a settler, to be ashamed to be called by the same name as those whose love for the land has turned into hatred of human beings. The Torah is filled with the praises of the Land of Israel, but it never commands us to ‘love’ the land. It commands us to ‘love thy neighbor as thyself’ (Leviticus 19:18). And since… the words that end that verse, are ‘I am the Lord’, the medieval commentator Abraham Ibn Ezra explains that ‘thy neighbor’ in that context is every human being created in the image of God… Don’t sell your souls, your portion of God from above, even in exchange for our holy land.”

Sustaining Israel’s Honor and Good Name

20 Tuesday Dec 2011

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

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On Sunday, December 11 Alan Dershowitz appeared on Israeli television and called upon those critical of Israeli government policy and violations of human rights to “cool it.” Dershowitz was probably worried that even legitimate criticism of Israel feeds the global delegitimization campaign against her. I have written about that campaign in a substantial article in The CCAR Journal: The Reform Jewish Quarterly (Fall, 2011) and posted a link to the article both on this blog and on my synagogue’s web-site www.tioh.org.

Is Dershowitz right? I don’t believe he is. Since Jew-haters don’t need a reason for their anti-Semitism, our behavior should not be based on what they or anyone else thinks.  Ben-Gurion emphasized this point when he remarked that “It’s not what the Gentiles say that matters but what the Jews do that counts.”

As a progressive Reform Zionist it is my belief that in order for Israel to be a secure and great Jewish society reflecting authentic Jewish values there can be no dichotomy between Judaism’s prophetic and rabbinic strains of universalism and particularism. Jewish nationalism must emphasize the importance of each strain and envision our people’s national independence as a means of serving humanity as a whole; that is, to be “a light to the nations.” (Isaiah 42:6) Progressive Reform Zionism requires that social justice, egalitarianism, and equality be applied to all the major issues confronting Israeli society including Palestinian rights, minority rights, immigrant worker rights, women’s rights, poverty, education, and justice. The fundamental Jewish affirmation that every human being is created b’tzelem Elohim, in the image of God, means that each person, regardless of background, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, and national identity is of infinite worth and value.

Like every great western democratic society, Israel is imperfect. Based on the above principles we Jews we can never settle for what is. Rather, it is our obligation to insist that our great Jewish society in Israel and Diaspora must live up to the highest standards of ethics and justice as articulated by the Biblical prophets and our rabbinic sages.

One of the leading advocacy organizations fighting on behalf of women, Bedouin, Palestinians, Muslims, foreign workers, and religious pluralism is the Reform movement’s Israel Religious Action Center (IRAC). It was created based on the above principles twenty years ago and has been a champion of human rights and civil rights ever since. The IRAC is joined by other critically important NGOs including The New Israel Fund, Rabbis for Human Rights, B’tzelem, and Hiddush.

Anat Hoffman is the IRAC’s Executive Director and one of my personal heroines. She spoke this past week at the Biennial Convention of the Reform Movement’s Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) in Washington, D.C. attended by more than 6000 Reform Jews from around North America, England, Europe, Latin America, South Africa, Australia, the former Soviet Union, and Israel. I am proud of the work Anat, the IRAC and Israel’s Reform movement are doing. Here is but a small sampling of their activity:

  1. In response to gender-segregation generally, but specifically imposed on certain Israeli bus routes by ultra-Orthodox Hareidi rabbis (in violation of Israel’s 1992 “Basic Law of Human Dignity and Liberty”), the IRAC has taken groups of Israelis and American Jews to those bus routes, loaded the busses, women entering the front door of the bus and sitting where ever they pleased thus defying the Hareidi ban much as Rosa Parks did in the American south when she sparked the civil rights movement. While actively integrating those bus routes IRAC won a case in 2011 in which the Supreme Court ruled gender segregation on public buses illegal, a huge victory in IRAC’s goal to identify and end all forms of gender segregation in the public sphere in Israel, at the Western Wall and Western Wall tunnels, in funeral halls and cemeteries, in banquet hall elevators, grocery stores, and even pizza parlors;
  2. In response to the presence of large numbers of Sudanese refugees who escaped Sudan and entered Israel across the Sinai desert and therefore have no rights in Israel, while the Israeli government wrestles with the issue of immigration generally, the IRAC and the Reform movement’s Rabbinic seminary, the Hebrew Union College, set up a child-care center for the children of these immigrants in the HUC building next to the King David Hotel in Jerusalem;
  3. Jerusalem’s Reform Congregation Kol Haneshamah created an anti-tag corps to spray paint over the vicious anti-Arab graffiti painted by extremist Jewish groups throughout the holy city. Such graffiti includes “Death to all Arabs!”
  4. Reform Israeli Jews, organized by IRAC, held solidarity candle light vigils at fire-bombed mosques (now 9) and contributed new copies of the Koran to replace those burned by right-wing vigilante Jews;
  5. The IRAC is now pressing the government to charge 49 Hareidi Rabbis for extreme hate speech and racism. Of the 49 so identified by human rights groups, only 18 have been officially investigated by Israeli authorities. Of those 18 only 5 were charged with racist incitement. 4 of the 5 “apologized” and were released. One refused to apologize and was sentenced to 140 hours of community service in his own yeshivah;
  6. IRAC initiated a case to file charges against Shmuel Eliyahu, Chief Rabbi of Sfat, for racist incitement, effectively ending his bid for Chief Rabbi of Israel and bringing awareness to and legal action against religious-motivated racism from rabbis receiving state salaries;
  7. During Pesach every year, Reform Jews go searching for homeless Israelis in parks and invite them to community Seders and assist them to survive poverty.

These seven examples are the tip of the iceberg of what is happening daily in the State of Israel and in the West Bank. Alan Dershowitz’s advice to “cool it” to those who would criticize bad behavior cannot guide us in our fear of anti-Israel delegitimization and anti-Semitism. Rather, we need to heed Ben Gurion’s reminder that “it’s not what the Gentiles say that matters but what the Jews do that counts.” Israel’s human rights groups sustain not only Judaism’s values but also Israel’s good name.

Netanyahu (at last!) Vows to Get Tough on Vigilante Settlers

14 Wednesday Dec 2011

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

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For some time some West Bank Israeli settlers have been assaulting Palestinians and Israeli settlements have been incorporating Palestinian deeded land without resistance from the Israeli army. This official passivity contrasts sharply with the Israeli army’s vigilance in protecting these same Jewish settlers and their settlements from assault by Palestinians.

The Israeli human rights organization B’tzelem has published many reports on Israeli settler activities including the estimate that fully one-fifth of all settlements are built on deeded Palestinian land and that Israeli settlements control 42% of all West Bank land (http://www.btselem.org/publications/summaries/201007_by_hook_and_by_crook).

I am heartened by this morning’s report (December 14, 2011) below from Media Line News Agency (https://mail.google.com/mail/?shva=1#inbox/1343bce8895fcae7) that the Israeli government has, at last, decided to get tough with violent settlers now that these settlers are actually attacking the State of Israel!

A few nagging questions – What about the illegalities perpetrated by Jewish settlers that have not been addressed? What about the rights of Palestinians who have been subjected to settler hubris, hard-heartedness and criminal behavior for years without response from the Israeli army and Israeli justice system (arguably the only independent justice system in the Middle East)? And what about the moral values of Judaism and the Jewish people that have not been upheld?

Deuteronomy 16:20 (7th century BCE) commands Tzedek tzedek tirdof! – “Justice, justice shalt thou pursue!”

The Mishnah (3rd century CE) reminds us He-vei mi-tal’mi-dav shel Aharon, ohev shalom v’rodef shalom, ohev et ha-bri-yot u’m’karvan la-Torah – “Be a disciple of Aaron, loving peace and pursuing it, loving people and bringing them near to Torah.” (Pirkei Avot 1:12) 

[See my Sunday, December 7 blog – Reinvention of Hanukkah in the 20th Century: A Jewish Cultural Civil War to more fully appreciate that the forces at play battling for the heart and soul of the Jewish people, Judaism and the State of Israel are powerful, deep and ancient.]

“Netanyahu Vows to Get Tough on Vigilante Settlers”

“Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu vowed to get tough with violent settlers in the West Bank, a day after groups of them attacked an army base and broke through a border fence. “I will fight this phenomenon with all my force until it is eliminated,” he said on Tuesday and instructed Defense Minister Ehud Barak to devise a “heavy-handed” plan to combat the “calamity.” The incidents were the latest in a growing number of assaults on the army, which extremists regard as an enemy for dismantling unauthorized settlements, and on Palestinian mosques and olive groves. But the extremists didn’t appear intimidated by Netanyahu. Hours after Netanyahu spoke, unknown attackers tried to torch to an unused mosque in Jerusalem and scrawled anti-Arab slogans on the walls. Meanwhile, a settler activist posted a message on a website calling on soldiers to sabotage equipment and block evacuations of settlements. (Media Line – December 14, 2011)”

Reinvention of Hanukkah in the 20th Century: A Jewish Cultural Civil War

11 Sunday Dec 2011

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Holidays, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life

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Last week I was privileged to hear a presentation on Hanukkah by Noam Zion, a fellow of and the senior educator at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, who led 40 Rabbis of the Southern California Board of Rabbis in a superb 2-hour conversation entitled:

   “Reinvention of Hanukkah in the 20th Century: A Jewish Cultural Civil War                 between Zionists, Liberal American Judaism and Habad –                   Who Are the Children of Light and Who of Darkness?”

Noam offered us a comprehensive view of Hanukkah from its beginnings (© 165 B.C.E.) through history and how it is understood and celebrated today by Israelis, American liberal non-Hareidim Jews and Habad. Based on Hanukkah’s tendentious history and the vast corpus of sermons written by rabbis through the centuries, Noam noted three questions that are consistently asked: ‘Who are the children of light and darkness?’ ‘Who are our people’s earliest heroes and what made them heroic?’ ‘What relevance can we find in Hanukkah today?’

Though religiously a “minor holyday” (Hanukkah is not biblically based, nor do the restrictions apply that are associated with Shabbat, Pesach, Shavuot, Succot, Rosh Hashanah, and Yom Kippur), Hanukkah occupies a place in each of the ideologies of the State of Israel, American liberal Judaism and Habad.

For example, before and after the establishment of the State of Israel the Maccabees served as a potent symbol for “Political Zionism” for those laboring to create a modern Jewish state. The early Zionists rejected God’s role in bringing about the miracle of Jewish victory during Hasmonean times. Rather, such leaders as Max Nordau, Theodor Herzl, David Ben Gurion, Chaim Weizmann, Jacob Klatzkin, and A.D. Gordon emphasized that Jews themselves are the central actors in our people’s restoration of Jewish sovereignty on the ancient land, not God.

For 20th century liberal American Jews Hanukkah came to represent Judaism’s aspirations for religious freedom consistent with the American value of religious freedom as affirmed by the first Amendment of the US Constitution. Even as the holiday of Hanukkah reflects universal aspirations, the Hanukkiah remains a particular symbol of Jewish pride and identity for American Jews and their children living in a dominant Christian culture.

For Habad, Hanukkah embodies the essence of religious identity on the one hand, and symbolizes the mission of Jews on the other. Each Hassid is to be “a streetlamp lighter” who goes out into the public square and kindles the nearly extinguished flame of individual Jewish souls, one soul at a time (per Rebbe Sholom Dov-Ber). This is why Habad strives to place a Hanukkiah in public places and why Hassidim offer to help Jews don t’filin. Every fulfilled mitzvah kindles the flame of a soul and restores it to God.

Noam concluded his shiur (lesson) by noting that the cultural war being played out in contemporary Jewish life is based in the different responses to the central and historic question that has always given context to Hanukkah – ‘Which Jews are destroying Jewish life and threatening Judaism itself?’

The Maccabean war was not a war between the Jews and the Greeks, but rather was a violent civil war sparked by intense enmity between the established radically Hellenized Jews and the besieged village priests living outside major urban centers (the High Priest in Jerusalem had already been co-opted by Hellenization). The Maccabees won the war because moderately Hellenized Jews recognized that they would lose their own Jewish identity if the radical Hellenizers were victorious. They joined in coalition with the village priests and together they took the Temple and rededicated it. That historic struggle has a parallel today in a raging cultural civil war for the heart and soul of the Jewish people and for the nature of Judaism itself.

The take-away? There is something of the zealot in every one of us, regardless of our respective Jewish camp. If we hope to avoid our past sins of sinat chinam (baseless hatred between one Jew and another that the Talmud teaches was the cause of the destruction of the 2nd Temple in 70 C.E.) we need to prepare our own constituencies to be candles without knives, to bring the love of God and the Jewish people back into our homes and communities. To be successful will take much courage, compassion, knowledge, understanding, and faith. The stakes, however, are very high – the very future of Israel and the Jewish people.

Is it any wonder that Hanukkah, though defined by Judaism as a “minor holiday,” is, in truth, a major battle-ground for the heart and soul of Judaism and the Jewish people?

During Hanukkah, which begins on Tuesday evening, December 20 (25 Kislev) I will reflect more on these themes in this blog.