Category Archives: Jewish Identity

Why Trump is so dangerous and what we Americans and Jews ought to do about it

05 Sunday Feb 2017

Posted by in American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Ethics, Jewish Identity, Social Justice, Women's Rights

≈ 4 Comments

Why is President Donald Trump so dangerous to our democracy and the world? Because he lies, insists upon the truth of his lies, doubles down on them, and then mercilessly demeans and attacks his critics.

There is a method to what Trump does. Here are some of the specifics that are necessary for the achievement of his ends:

  1. He personally attacks his opponents by labeling them with demeaning name-calling, thereby belittling them and discrediting them;
  2. He mocks anyone who shows a disability or publicly displays emotion that he regards as a sign of weakness in order to prop himself up and establish himself as the big winner and therefore the embodiment of power and truth;
  3. He dismisses provable facts when they do not conform to his end-game agenda;
  4. He attacks the press, threatens journalists and networks, and denies them access to the White House;
  5. He fires staff that disagree with him and prohibits dissent by government officials;
  6. He threatens cities and universities by withdrawing financial aid when they challenge him;
  7. He challenges the last election as fraudulent so he can claim to have won the popular vote as well as the electoral college;
  8. He shuts down the White House switchboard to protect itself against negative public opinion.

Taken together these things (which are not exhaustive) are reminiscent of the methods described in Mein Kampf to subjugate a population to the power and will of the leader. As was the case in the 1930s in Nazi Germany, everything for Trump depends upon establishing the Big Lie as truth.

Robert Reich posted on his Facebook page ten specific steps Trump has used from the beginning of his campaign to promote the Big Lie as a means of establishing himself as the Savior of the nation:

Step 1: Trump lies.

Step 2: Experts contradict him, saying his claim is baseless and false. The media report that the claim is false.

Step 3: Trump blasts the experts and condemns the media for being “dishonest.”

Step 4: Trump repeats the lie in tweets and speeches. He asserts that “many people” say he’s right.

Step 5: The mainstream media start to describe the lie as a “disputed fact.”

Step 6: Trump repeats the lie in tweets, interviews, and speeches. His surrogates repeat it on Fox News and in the right-wing blogosphere.

Step 7: The mainstream media begin to describe Trump’s lie as a “controversy.”

Step 8: Polls show a growing number of Americans (including most Republicans) believe Trump’s lie to be true.

Step 9: The media start describing Trump’s lie as “a claim that reflects a partisan divide in America,” and is “found to be true by many.”

Step 10: The public is confused and disoriented about what the facts are. Trump wins.

What ought we to do in response?

  1. Call/email your congressional representatives protesting Trump’s appointments and actions when they are based on the Big Lie or when they run counter to his campaign promises;
  2. Organize for the mid-term elections to take back the House and the Senate;
  3. Run for political office yourself and/or encourage able people you know to do so especially against current office-holders and candidates who support Trump’s demagoguery and/or who have failed to speak out against his lies and policies;
  4. Actively support progressive causes (e.g. climate change, public education, affordable college education, civil rights, women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, criminal justice reform, universal health care, scientific research, economic justice, immigration reform, diplomacy in international affairs, etc. etc);
  5. Organize demonstrations against Trump wherever and whenever he appears, at the White House and at his retreats to get under his skin;
  6. Educate your children and grandchildren about American democracy, our democratic institutions, the US Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the built-in checks and balances of the three branches of our government;
  7. Remember that critical thinking is our nation’s greatest protection against Trump’s and his surrogates’ demagoguery and distortions of the truth;
  8. Challenge all outrageous and demeaning statements Trump makes;
  9. Support the media that call his lies what they are – lies – and who the Trump administration criticizes for reporting and/or speaking the truth;
  10. Defend everyone Trump attacks regardless of whether you agree with the speaker’s views.

Finally – because so much is being thrown up by the Trump administration every day, it is only human to want to stop listening to the news and, out of a sense of disgust and powerlessness, to turn away and disengage. That, however, is the opposite of what we ought to be doing. Deferring to Trump is exactly what dictators want from their subjects. Denial of what is happening in the body politic and moral character of our nation is not an option; neither is despair.

We Jews and we Americans are people of hope, and hope comes from engagement and the belief that we can effect change and heal the world of its pain and imperfections.

Chazak v’ematz – Be strong and courageous!

Note: I speak only for myself and do not claim to represent the views of my congregation or any other Jewish organization.

 

 

A year has passed and nothing has happened

01 Wednesday Feb 2017

Posted by in Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Women's Rights

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It has been a year since the Israeli government agreed to establish an egalitarian prayer space in Jerusalem’s Southern Kotel Plaza that would be independent of the strict ultra-Orthodox rabbinate and the Ultra-Orthodox Administrator of the Western Wall. The government agreement called for the construction of an attractive prayer space equivalent in size to the traditional prayer space and visible from the entrance of the plaza. The prayer space would be overseen by the Reform and Conservative movements, the Jewish Federations of North America, and Women of the Wall.

It is a year later and nothing has happened.

When I was in Jerusalem in October for meetings of the Board of Governors of the Jewish Agency, the 120 of us representing world Jewry met in the Knesset with Prime Minister Netanyahu. He asked us to be patient and explained that he needed more time to work with his coalition partners to implement the agreement.

Jewish Agency Director Natan Sharansky, who the Prime Minister had asked three years earlier to meet with all the interested parties to find a consensus agreement, told us minutes before the Prime Minister came into the Chagall Lobby that the Prime Minister was indeed committed to doing everything he could to implement this agreement, except one thing – Netanyahu would not sacrifice his government or his position as Prime Minister – and that of course, is the rub!

Once the agreement was signed in January 2016 that included the Ultra-Orthodox Administrator of the Wall, the ultra-Orthodox political parties in the government rose up in defiance and threatened to bring down the government should the agreement move forward and be implemented. Rather than take that risk and form a new government without the Ultra-Orthodox, Mr. Netanyahu seems to have taken the position that the preservation of his government and his position as Prime Minister are more important than the facilitation of an agreement that would preserve the unity of the Jewish people and welcome to the holiest site in Judaism every Jew who wishes to pray according to his or her Jewish custom.

In the Jewish Forward (“The Wall That’s Growing Between Us,” January 27, 2017), Editor-in-Chief Jane Eisner reviews the history of this effort. She says: “So now, a year after nothing, a time for pleading an exhortation may be over.”

Eisner quotes Elazar Stern, a member of the Knesset from the centrist Yesh Atid party and a former major general in the Israeli Defense Forces, that whenever he meets leaders from the Diaspora “I tell them they must insist that these issues be dealt with immediately. And until that happens, I say to them, ‘You need to stop inviting them [i.e.Israeli government leaders including, I presume, Prime Minister Netanyahu] as guests of honor to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and Jewish Federation conferences. Even if you really need them — and I know you need them — hold back for just two years. It won’t take longer than that for them to see that they need you even more than you need them.”

Stern throws down a gauntlet to world Jewry, and I wonder whether we’ll pick it up. Stay tuned!

Emma Lazarus has to be turning in her grave

29 Sunday Jan 2017

Posted by in American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Ethics, Jewish Identity, Quote of the Day, Social Justice, Women's Rights

≈ 2 Comments

“Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, / The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. / Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, / I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” (from the Great Colossus inscribed on the Statue of Liberty in the New York Harbor)

We are fast becoming a nation I don’t recognize. President Trump’s Friday Executive Order on immigration is an attack on the founding principles of our country while not doing what Trump says it is meant to do – keep us safer.

Since 9/11, no refugees from the targeted countries in this order have been involved in fatal terrorist attacks in the United States.

Trump’s Order bars entry into the United States of all Syrian refugees, targets Muslim-majority countries (except those countries where it seems that Trump has business interests – e.g. Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and The United Arab Emirates) and threatens the integrity of families who want nothing more than to be together in America, work, pay taxes, and become citizens.

Thankfully, US District Judge Ann Donnelly yesterday blocked a part of Trump’s executive order brought by the ACLU on behalf of two detained Iraqi immigrants at New York’s JFK airport as unconstitutional saying: “The petitioners have a strong likelihood of success in establishing that the removal of the petitioner and other similarly situated violates their due process and equal protection guaranteed by the United States Constitution.”

I want to know this – Where is the Republican party leadership in Congress on this issue? Why have they overwhelmingly lined up behind Trump — or a stayed  quiet?

Other than (to date) Representative Charlie Dent (R-PA), Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ), Senator Ben Sasse (R-NE), Representative Justin Amash (R-MI), and Senator Susan Collins (R-ME), no Republican has broken ranks and called Trump out to condemn this executive order. The five Republicans above will go down in history as having done the right thing – and I commend them all!

I am also waiting for Democrats in the House and Senate to speak out.

Attacking foreigners is easy. Bullies do it because foreigners are weak and vulnerable. They have no one representing their interests. They are alone and often traumatized. The may not speak the language or understand the laws and culture of the country in which they find themselves.

Of all the commandments in the Hebrew Bible, the mitzvah of welcoming the stranger is among the most important. The word ger (stranger or alien) appears 92 times in the Tanakh.

Why? Because we Jews understand what it means to be strangers from Egypt to Spain to medieval Europe to Germany to the USSR and to many Middle Eastern countries.

We Jews know the heart of the stranger.

We Jews know what it’s like to be hunted and persecuted.

We Jews know what it’s like to be targeted because of our religion and background.

We Jews know what fear means and what it feels like to be hated.

Jewish tradition is as clear about our obligations to strangers as it is about any other ethical demand:

“You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt…”  (Exodus 22:21-22)

“You shall love the stranger, for you were once strangers in the land of Egypt.” (Deuteronomy 10: 19)

“You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him/her as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am Adonai your God.” (Leviticus 19:33-34)

“Thus says God: Do justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor the one who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the stranger, …” (Jeremiah 22:3)

“Adonai enacts justice for the orphan and widow, and loves the stranger, giving them food and clothing. That means you must also love the stranger because you were a stranger in the land of Egypt.” (Deuteronomy 10:17-19)

“Don’t oppress the widow, the orphan, the stranger, and the poor; don’t plan evil against each other!” (Zechariah 7:10)

“God watches over strangers…” (Psalm 146:9)

“You have brought your judgment days near and have come to your years of punishment [because] father and mother are treated with contempt, and the stranger is exploited within you.” (Ezekiel 22:4, 7)

“’I will come to you in judgment, and I will be ready to witness against … those who oppress the widow and the fatherless, and cheat the wage earner; and against those who deny justice to the stranger. They do not fear Me,’ says Adonai.” (Malachi 3:5)

The American Reform movement is now organizing on the local, state and national level in support of vulnerable communities targeted by the Trump Administration and the Republican majority Congress.

Below is a letter sent this past week explaining what we as individuals and as members of synagogues can do to get engaged and become activists :

“The Reform Jewish movement of America is organizing to fight the mistreatment of vulnerable parts of the population. Reform congregations and communities across California are coming together as part of Reform CA, a project of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, to mobilize vocal support for positive state and local policies that advance our Jewish values—and vocal opposition to policies that target the vulnerable populations in our communities.

This rapid response system begins today.

We are asking you to get your Reform congregation or community to contact your U.S. Representatives, urging them to publicly oppose any executive order that threatens the rights of refugees and immigrants, including cutting off federal funding from sanctuary cities.

If you have not already done so, we urge your congregation or community to sign a Brit Olam (google “Brit Olam”), a covenant to act together to defend vulnerable communities against attack:  people of color, the LGBTQ community, those with tenuous access to healthcare and reproductive choice, immigrants and refugees, Muslims and other religious minorities, and other victims of bigotry.”

 See “Reform Movement Denounces President Trump’s Executive Order Barring Entry from Several Muslim-Majority Countries” http://www.rac.org/reform-movement-denounces-president-trumps-executive-order-barring-entry-several-muslim-majority

Ask your rabbis and cantors to sign this letter opposing David Friedman as the US Ambassador to Israel

26 Thursday Jan 2017

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

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I have signed this letter sponsored Ameinu and J Street opposing the nomination of David Friedman to be US Ambassador to Israel and posted this two or three weeks ago. I am repeating the post because of the urgency of this matter.

Please forward the following letter to your rabbis and cantors and ask them to sign on as well (see below for link).

We are writing today as rabbis and cantors asking President Trump to withdraw the nomination of David Friedman to be the United States Ambassador to the state of Israel. Failing that, we implore the US Senate not to confirm him.

In this letter, we will address concerns around his denigration of American Jews who believe differently from him and his policy positions that we believe run contrary to the interests of the United States and Israel.

The Rabbis of the Talmud are adamant that we are to speak to and about other people — particularly those with whom we disagree — with love and respect. We are taught that shaming a person is tantamount to shedding their blood (Baba Metzia 58b).

Yet Mr. Friedman seems to have no qualms about insulting people with whom he disagrees.

Mr. Friedman has repeatedly compared members of the Jewish community whose views on Israel differ from his own to “kapos,” who were Jews who collaborated with the Nazis during the Holocaust. He called members of J Street, a pro-Israel organization that wants to see peace between Israelis and Palestinians, “worse than kapos.” He has even questioned whether its more than 180,000 supporters are really Jews — as if he has the right to decide such a weighty matter.

This is the very antithesis of the diplomatic behavior Americans expect from their ambassadors.

An ambassador is charged with representing our entire nation. It is historically perverse and wildly insulting to characterize Jewish advocates for peace, including many of the signers of this letter, as no better than Nazi collaborators plotting to destroy the Jewish people.

If Mr. Friedman cannot responsibly understand history, he cannot responsibly shape the future.

The situation in and around Israel is volatile. Mr. Friedman’s inflammatory comments about Jews, Palestinians and Muslims and the peace process itself are precisely the type of comments that can ignite further conflict and drive deeper wedges between parties.

While we believe the above should be enough to disqualify Mr. Friedman, we have grave policy concerns as well. Mr. Friedman vocally supports the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which American presidents since Johnson have seen as an obstacle to peace.

Moreover, Mr. Friedman opposes the two-state solution, which has been a policy cornerstone for Republican and Democratic administrations for the past quarter century. We are very concerned that rather than try to represent the US as an advocate for peace, Mr. Friedman will seek to mold American policy in line with his extreme ideology.

We yearn for an Israel that is secure, democratic and the national homeland of the Jewish people. Mr. Friedman’s pro-settler positions and opposition to the two-state solution are in conflict with our views and the majority of American Jews who see settlement expansion as an obstacle to peace and who strongly support a two-state solution. Mr. Friedman’s favored policies would weaken Israel’s security, democracy, and status as the national homeland of the Jewish people.

Mr. Friedman’s apparent inability to speak respectfully about and to people with whom he disagrees and his advocacy of extreme policies which threaten the future of Israel and run contrary to American interests are both sufficient reasons to disqualify Mr. Friedman’s nomination. He is the wrong choice to serve as our nation’s Ambassador to Israel.

http://act.jstreet.org/sign/american-jewish-clergy-reject-david-friedman/?akid=5470.277601.aAUIoK&dm_i=1QES%2C3MVII%2C9Z4S37%2CHQR8K%2C1&rd=1&t=2&utm_campaign=6106122_Rabbi%27s+Friedman+Letter+1%2F25%2F17&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Ameinu

Note: I am speaking only for myself and not on behalf of my synagogue or any Jewish organization.

The Torah is Political – Rabbis, Jews and Synagogues ought to be too

19 Thursday Jan 2017

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

≈ 4 Comments

Given the contentious nature of public debate in this election year and in light of the inauguration of Donald Trump as the nation’s 45th President, my own synagogue and the American Reform Jewish movement have been challenged about the nature of our speech and activism.

What ought we to be saying and when should we be saying it? Should we as a synagogue community speak collectively about the great challenges confronting our nation in the area of health care, economic justice, criminal justice reform, the poor, women’s and LGBTQ rights, racism, immigration, religious minorities, civil rights, climate change, war, and peace?

Or should we refrain, as some have argued in my own community, and concentrate purely upon “spiritual,” religious and ritual matters? What, if any, limitations should rabbis and synagogue communities impose upon themselves?

Before I offer the principles that have guided me over many years, it is important to understand what we mean by “politics.” Here is a good operative definition from Wikipedia:

“Politics (from Greek πολιτικός, “of, for, or relating to citizens”), is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs. It also refers to behavior within civil governments. … It consists of “social relations involving authority or power” and refers to the regulation of public affairs within a political unit, and to the methods and tactics used to formulate and apply policy.”

The fundamental question before us is this: Should rabbis and synagogue communities be “political” in the sense of this definition?

I believe we should, and that we have an obligation to speak and act according to the above meaning.

There ought to be, of course, limitations.

First: When we speak our words ought to be based upon Jewish religious, ethical and moral principles, and our goals ought to promote justice, equality, compassion, humility, decency, freedom, and peace not only for Jews but for all people.

Second: We need to remember that we Jews hold multiple visions and positions on the myriad issues that face our community and society. Rav Shmuel (3rd century C.E. Babylonia) said “Eilu v’eilu divrei Elohim chayim – These and those are the words of the living God” meaning that there are many authentic Jewish values even when they conflict with each other.

The American Jewish community holds no unanimous political point of view, though since WWII between 60% and 90% of the American Jewish community has supported moderate and liberal policies and candidates for political office locally, at the state and national levels. We are by and large a liberal community, but there is a substantial conservative minority among us as well.

The Reform movement (represented by the Religious Action Center in Washington, D.C., the social justice arm of the Union for Reform Judaism) has for decades consistently taken moral, ethical, and religious positions on public policy issues that come before our government and in our society as a whole, though the RAC does not endorse candidates nor take positions on nominees for high government positions unless specifically determined conditions are met. The RAC’s positions on policies are taken based on the Reform movement’s understanding of the Jewish mission “L’aken ha-olam b’malchut Shaddai – To restore the world in the image of the dominion of God,” which means that we are called upon to adhere to high ethical standards of justice, compassion, and peace.

The following guide me whenever I speak and write:

1. I do not publicly endorse candidates for high political office and have never done so in my 38 years as a congregational rabbi, except once – this year when it was clear to me that statements, tweets, and policy positions of the Republican candidate for President have proven to be contrary to fundamental liberal Jewish ethical principles;

2. When I offer divrei Torah, sermons, blog and Facebook posts, I do so always from the perspective of what I believe are Jewish moral, ethical and religious principles. Necessarily, there are times when my statements are indeed “political” but they are not “partisan,” and that is a big difference;

3. We as individuals or as a community ought never claim to possess the absolute Truth about anything. There are many truths that often conflict with one another. Respect for opposing views is a fundamental Jewish value and the synagogue ought to be a place where honest civil and respectful debate can always occur;

4. When I speak and write in the media, I have an obligation to clearly state that I am speaking as an individual and not on behalf of our synagogue community or any other Jewish organization.

The Mishnah (2nd century CE) teaches that  “Talmud Torah k’neged kulam – the study of Torah leads to all the other mitzvot.” (Talmud, Shabbat 127a) The Talmud emphasizes as well that action must proceed from learning.

Plato warned that passivity and withdrawal from the political realm carry terrible risks: “The penalty that good [people] pay for not being interested in politics is to be governed by [people] worse than themselves.”

Rabbi Joachim Prinz, the President of the American Jewish Congress, who spoke in Washington, D.C. on August 28, 963 immediately before Dr. Martin Luther King delivered this “I have a dream speech, said:

“When I was the rabbi of the Jewish community in Berlin under the Hitler regime, I learned many things. The most important thing that I learned under those tragic circumstances was that bigotry and hatred are not ‘the most urgent problem. The most urgent, the most disgraceful, the most shameful and the most tragic problem is silence.

A great people which had created a great civilization had become a nation of silent onlookers. They remained silent in the face of hate, in the face of brutality and in the face of mass murder.

America must not become a nation of onlookers. America must not remain silent. … It must speak up and act, from the President down to the humblest of us, … for the sake of the … idea and the aspiration of America itself.”

Last week at Temple Israel, Dr. Susannah Heschel, the daughter of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, told my community that her father believed that the civil rights movement of the 1960s (of which he was an active and intimate partner with Dr. King), enabled the American Jewish community to affirm and reclaim its moral voice.

Perhaps this new administration and government offers the liberal American Jewish community yet again an opportunity to make our voices heard

Rabbi Prinz ended his speech at the Lincoln memorial that day by saying:

“The time, I believe, has come to work together – for it is not enough to hope together, and it is not enough to pray together, to work together that [pledge of allegiance said every morning by children in their schools] from Maine to California, from North to South, may become a glorious, unshakeable reality in a morally renewed and united America.”

Mr. Trump – Withdraw your nomination of David Friedman as US Ambassador to Israel

18 Wednesday Jan 2017

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

≈ 1 Comment

Note: The following is a letter being signed by rabbis and cantors across the United States. It is co-sponsored by J Street and T’ruah – Rabbis for Human Rights. I am a signatory. I do so as an individual and do not represent my synagogue or any other organization. In addition to J Street and T’ruah, the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism has expressed concerns about this nomination.

We are writing today as rabbis and cantors asking President Trump to withdraw the nomination of David Friedman to be the United States Ambassador to the state of Israel. Failing that, we implore the US Senate not to confirm him.”

In this letter, we will address concerns around his denigration of American Jews who believe differently from him and his policy positions that we believe run contrary to the interests of the United States and Israel.

The Rabbis of the Talmud are adamant that we are to speak to and about other people — particularly those with whom we disagree — with love and respect. We are taught that shaming a person is tantamount to shedding their blood (Baba Metzia 58b).

Yet Mr. Friedman seems to have no qualms about insulting people with whom he disagrees.

Mr. Friedman has repeatedly compared members of the Jewish community whose views on Israel differ from his own to “kapos,” who were Jews who collaborated with the Nazis during the Holocaust. He called members of J Street, a pro-Israel organization that wants to see peace between Israelis and Palestinians, “worse than kapos.” He has even questioned whether its more than 180,000 supporters are really Jews — as if he has the right to decide such a weighty matter.

This is the very antithesis of the diplomatic behavior Americans expect from their ambassadors.

An ambassador is charged with representing our entire nation. It is historically perverse and wildly insulting to characterize Jewish advocates for peace, including many of the signers of this letter, as no better than Nazi collaborators plotting to destroy the Jewish people.

If Mr. Friedman cannot responsibly understand history, he cannot responsibly shape the future.

The situation in and around Israel is volatile. Mr. Friedman’s inflammatory comments about Jews, Palestinians and Muslims and the peace process itself are precisely the type of comments that can ignite further conflict and drive deeper wedges between parties.

While we believe the above should be enough to disqualify Mr. Friedman, we have grave policy concerns as well. Mr. Friedman vocally supports the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which American presidents since Johnson have seen as an obstacle to peace.

Moreover, Mr. Friedman opposes the two-state solution, which has been a policy cornerstone for Republican and Democratic administrations for the past quarter century. We are very concerned that rather than try to represent the US as an advocate for peace, Mr. Friedman will seek to mold American policy in line with his extreme ideology.

We yearn for an Israel that is secure, democratic and the national homeland of the Jewish people. Mr. Friedman’s pro-settler positions and opposition to the two-state solution are in conflict with our views and the majority of American Jews who see settlement expansion as an obstacle to peace and who strongly support a two-state solution. Mr. Friedman’s favored policies would weaken Israel’s security, democracy, and status as the national homeland of the Jewish people.

Mr. Friedman’s apparent inability to speak respectfully about and to people with whom he disagrees, and his advocacy of extreme policies which threaten the future of Israel and run contrary to American interests are both sufficient reasons to disqualify Mr. Friedman’s nomination. He is the wrong choice to serve as our nation’s Ambassador to Israel.

No matter where we think we are, we are still in Egypt

13 Friday Jan 2017

Posted by in American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Divrei Torah, Ethics, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Social Justice

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With Jacob’s death, the Israelites found themselves in Egypt living in relative safety under the protection of Joseph and the Pharaoh. However, history can change in an instant, as we ourselves have witnessed since the November election.

This truth is confirmed in next week’s Torah portion where it says that “There arose a king in Egypt who did not know Joseph” (Exodus 1:8) and it is signaled at the beginning of this week’s portion.

The children of Israel had been protected by the benevolence of the Pharaoh through the agency of Joseph. But, after Joseph’s death, our people’s life in Egypt suddenly became a nightmare.

In Jewish memory, Egypt is synonymous with enslavement, injustice, and cruelty, which is, I believe, the principal reason that the mitzvah to welcome the stranger became so prominent in the Torah (it occurs thirty-six times).

We Jews learned early on that the way a nation treats the stranger, the foreigner, and the “other” who is unlike the majority of the population characterizes that nation’s morality, and our sages taught that a more welcoming, just, and compassionate community ought to be a core aspiration not only for Jews but for humankind as a whole.

True to that tradition, the Jewish people remains optimistic in spite of the history of antiSemitism. It’s significant that the Passover Seder attracts more Jews to the table in American than any other home-based ritual, and that it is celebrated at night, the only such night-time ritual in our tradition. When the ninth plague of blackness engulfed the Egyptians, Torah says that it was a darkness so thick that the Egyptians couldn’t see their own hands or the face of a person standing right in front of them. The fear that filled the hearts of the Egyptians and the disconnection between even members of their own families represent exile in its most stark nature.

To emphasize the timing of the ritual, we are reminded in the ninth plague that engulfed the Egyptians. Torah describes this darkness as so thick that the Egyptians couldn’t see their own hands or the faces of others standing in front of them. The plague of darkness inspired a fear of terrifying proportions. That state of disconnect with others is the precondition of exile (galut) which is precisely what Egypt-Mitzrayim connotes in Jewish tradition.

The beginning of this week’s Torah portion Vayechi alludes in a unique way to that exile in Egypt. The opening verse (Genesis 47:28) is closed – meaning that there’s no space of nine Hebrew letters separating this week’s Parashat Vayechi from last week’s Parashat Vayigash, an idiosyncrasy that occurs nowhere else in Torah except here.

Why?

Rashi (11th century France) explained that “…when Jacob our father died, the eyes and hearts of Israel were closed because of the affliction of the bondage with which the Egyptians began to enslave them.” (Rashi 47:28, based on B’reishit Rabbah 96:1)

Jacob wanted to reveal to his children the end of days, but nistam mimenu – “It was closed to him…” because, as the Talmud explains, “… the Shechinah (God’s presence) had left him….”. (Babylonian Talmud, Pesachim 56a)

Despite the many blessings that we in America enjoy and that our people enjoys in the land and State of Israel, the vision of an end of days will always remain closed to us and we will remain in exile until we succeed in ending the sufferings and correcting the injustices in our society and throughout the world.

In this sense, we are all still in exile even if we live in the State of Israel.

On this Martin Luther King national holiday weekend, his words and vision remain an inspiration to humanity as a whole. Two thousand years ago Rabbi Tarfon taught that “It is not your responsibility to finish the work of perfecting the world, but you are not free to desist from it either.” (Pirkei Avot 2:21)

Two thousand years ago Rabbi Tarfon taught that  Jews have an obligation to the world as a whole: “It is not your responsibility to finish the work of perfecting the world, but you are not free to desist from it either.” (Pirkei Avot 2:21)

Shabbat Shalom!

Israel’s High Court requires a “good cause” argument why a woman cannot read Torah at the holiest site in Judaism

11 Wednesday Jan 2017

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Ethics, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Social Justice, Women's Rights

≈ 1 Comment

In a landmark High Court decision Wednesday, the State of Israel was given 30 days to find “good cause” why a woman may not read aloud from a Torah scroll as part of prayer services at the Western Wall.

A year ago the Israeli government coalition made an agreement with a wide range of Jews from around the world that included the Reform and Conservative movements, the North American Jewish Federations, and the Women of the Wall to create an egalitarian prayer space in the Southern Kotel Plaza under Robinson’s Arch that is equal in size and in access to the Northern Kotel Plaza that would be overseen by non-Orthodox Jewry and not the ultra-Orthodox.

This was a landmark decision that affirmed Israel as the great democracy that it is and that Jews around the world ought to have the right and freedom to pray according to their custom at the holiest site in Judaism.

The agreement was led by Prime Minister Netanyahu who had appointed Natan Sharansky, the Director of the Jewish Agency for Israel, to forge a consensus agreement that included the ultra-Orthodox administrator of the Wall and the non-Orthodox liberal streams of Judaism.

It took 3 years to reach a compromise agreement, and once that was done, the ultra-Orthodox members of the Israeli government dug in their heels and aggressively sought to undermine it that would essentially disenfranchise 80% of world Jewry that is non-Orthodox. These Orthodox politicians backed by their Haredi rabbis threatened to bring down Netanyahu’s government if the agreement was implemented.

At last – the Israeli High Court has ruled that egalitarian prayer and the rights of women to read Torah at the Kotel ought to be their democratic right. These reactionary forces have been given 30 days to make their case.

This is a limited victory and not the end of the struggle – stay tuned.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/in-sweeping-decision-high-cou…/

In landmark decision, High Court rules for women’s Western Wall prayer
Government given 30 days to show ‘good cause’ why women can’t read from Torah scrolls at the holy site
timesofisrael.com

2 States for 2 Peoples – Secretary Kerry, American Jews, Israelis, and why it hasn’t happened?

01 Sunday Jan 2017

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

≈ 3 Comments

There is no more intractable conflict in the world as that between Israel and the Palestinians. When one attempts to understand the conflict historically, ideologically, nationally, tribally, religiously, morally, and contextually, the result is necessarily confusion, anger, exhaustion, frustration, and cynicism.

Why does this conflict continue unresolved? What options are there going forward that will preserve what Israel most needs – security, democracy and the Jewish nature of the state; and what the Palestinian people most need – security, sovereignty, and a state of their own?

When I stand in the Old City Southern Kotel Plaza, look down to the ancient Roman street and see the boulders that were knocked down by the Romans two thousand years ago, I recall the Talmudic explanation for the catastrophe: “Why was the Second Temple destroyed? Because of sinat chinam, senseless hatred of one Jew for another.” (Bavli, Yoma 9b)

There is one antidote to senseless hatred – ahavat chinam, senseless love of one Jew for another, which, of course, will not come easily in today’s polarized environment.

What we Jews so desperately need today is to be able to communicate directly with one another. We need to listen more intently and not presume nefarious motives lurking in the other’s heart. We need to understand what the other says and believes and the merits inherent in his/her position. Even when we disagree we have to resist being disagreeable.

Though we Jews have always had our share of conflicts, this past month President-Elect Trump’s designated US Ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, exacerbated the polarization by slandering a very large segment of the pro-Israel American Jewish community by calling them “worse than kapos!”

This comment should disqualify Friedman as US Ambassador and earn a solid rejection by Republicans and Democrats alike in the US Senate. If you agree with me, I urge you to contact your Senators and let them know your view.

Mr. Friedman’s sinister disrespect for fellow American Jews has given license to others to do as he has done. This past week, I myself received an email calling me a “kapo.”

Such myopic demagogic pronouncements are destructive to the fabric of the American Jewish community and to the Jewish people as a whole.

In the spirit of educating ourselves and being current with current thinking by American Jews and Israelis, I recommend the following:

1. Secretary of State John Kerry’s speech at the State Department – https://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2016/12/266119.htm

2. American Jews Divided Over Strain in U.S.-Israel Relations – By ADAM NAGOURNEY and SHARON OTTERMAN – NYT, December 29, 2016

While some Jewish groups have applauded the administration’s efforts in regard to Israel, others have seen the steps taken by a departing president as a mistake. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/29/us/american-jews-john-kerry-israel.html?_r=0

3. In ‘Red’ and ‘Blue’ Israel, Separate Lives and Divergent Narratives, by PETER BAKER – NYT, December 29, 2016

The reactions to international criticism of Israeli settlements made clear that Israelis are just as polarized as Americans.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/29/world/middleeast/israel-benjamin-netanyahu-john-kerry-speech.html?ref=world

4. The Two-State Solution: What It Is and Why It Hasn’t Happened, by MAX FISHER, NY Times, December 29, 2016

The two-state solution has for decades been the primary focus of efforts to achieve peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Here’s a basic guide.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/29/world/middleeast/israel-palestinians-two-state-solution.html?ref=world&_r=0

 

Note: I represent only my views and not that of my synagogue or any Jewish organization.

I invite you to follow me on Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/RabbiJohnLRosove

The Venue is all wrong – but it isn’t anti-Israel

28 Wednesday Dec 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

≈ 1 Comment

I offer five important documents and statement that I believe every member of the Jewish community ought to read relative to the recent UN Security Council Resolution 2334, as well as statements from the State of Israel and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the American Jewish Committee, the ADL, etc. relative to UN Security Council Resolution 2334.

Three of the following come from liberal and progressive pro-Israel American Zionist Organizations. The other two include the full text of UNSC Resolution 2334 and a review of the history of US abstentions and vetoes in the UN on resolutions critical of Israeli policies and of the State of Israel.

[1] Full Text of UN Security Council Condemnation of Israel, Resolution … http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/full-text-of-un-security-council-condemnation-of-israel-resolution-2334/2016/12/24/

[2] ARZA’s statement on UNSC Resolution 2334
http://www.arza.org/blog/post/arza-response-to-un-security-council-resolution-2334

The Association of Reform Zionists of America is the Zionist organization of America’s 1.5 million Reform Jews. (Note: I serve as ARZA national chair)

[3] T’ruah Statement on UN Security Council Resolution – truah.org/…/805-t-ruah-statement-on-un-security-council-resolution.html

T’ruah – The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights includes American rabbis from across the religious streams.

[4] J Street Welcomes US Abstention on UNSC Resolution – J Street: The … jstreet.org/press-releases/j-street-welcomes-us-abstention-unsc-resolution/

J Street is a pro-Israel pro-peace political and educational organization in Washington, D.C. and is the largest pro-Israel PAC in America. It has a large and growing university contingent called J Street U which is recognized by the Jewish Federations of America and the State of Israel as one of the most effective voices on college campuses against the Boycott, Divestiture, and Sanctions Movement (BDS).

[5] “Abstaining from history – Here’s all the UN Resolutions on Israel the United States Abstained on” – by Seth J. Frantzman

Abstaining from history: Here’s all the UN RESOLUTIONS on Israel the US abstained on