14 Friday Oct 2016
For those interested, Temple Israel has posted my sermons (below) on our Temple website (written texts and UTube) as well as those of my colleagues, Rabbi Michelle Missaghieh and Rabbi Jocee Hudson.
Hag Sukkot Sameach!
see http://www.tioh.org/worship/rabbis/clergystudy
Rabbi John Rosove’s High Holyday Sermons:
07 Friday Oct 2016
Shalom,
Allow us at the Association of Reform Zionists of America (ARZA) to wish you a Shanah Tovah and a Chatima Tovah.
As many of you may be aware yesterday, Thursday, October 6, 2016, the Israel Movement for Progressive Reform Judaism, the Conservative Movement, Women of the Wall and other organizations filed a petition to the Israeli Supreme Court, following orders by Supreme Court justices from September 2016, as part of the petition against the Kotel Heritage Foundation. This petition was an amended version of the original petition appealing to the court to enforce the decision that already passed the Government to create an egalitarian prayer space in the South Kotel Plaza in Jerusalem this past January. Keep in mind, this agreement already passed and we’re just insisting that it be implemented.
“This petition is the most painful note we have had to place between the ancient stones of the Kotel until now,” explained Anat Hoffman, Executive Director of the Israel Religious Action Center and the Chair of Women of the Wall.
While the petition is making its impact in the courts, we want the powers that be in the Israeli government to hear from as many members of the Diaspora Jewish community as possible. That is why we are asking everyone for a simple and low-effort action: to send an email through this site: http://www.urj.org/join-campaign.
We have reason to believe that the more voices are heard, the greater the impact it will make upon the Prime Minister to fulfill the agreement that has already been made.
We appreciate your help and effort in doing all that we can to bring about progressive democratic and pluralist change to the State of Israel on a matter that affects all of world Jewry.
גמר חתימה טובה ושבת שלום,
Rabbi Joshua Weinberg – President of the Association of Reform Zionists of America (ARZA)
Rabbi John Rosove – National Chair of of the Association of Reform Zionists of America (ARZA)
29 Thursday Sep 2016
For the past several years I have participated in a project of “Reboot” in which on each of the days from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur I received a question in my email. I answered the questions each day, and the following year was sent my answers. I could see where I was, where I wished to go, and where I am now as the New Year begins.
I recommend this to everyone who wants to utilize the High Holidays for introspection and reflection.
Here is Reboot’s description of 10Q:
Answer one question per day in your own secret online 10Q space. Make your answers serious. Silly. Salacious. However you like. It’s your 10Q. When you’re finished, hit the magic button and your answers get sent to the secure online 10Q vault for safekeeping. One year later, the vault will open and your answers will land back in your email inbox for private reflection. Want to keep them secret? Perfect. Want to share them, either anonymously or with attribution, with the wider 10Q community? You can do that too.
Next year the whole process begins again. And the year after that, and the year after that. Do you 10Q? You should.
10Q begins October 2nd, 2016
10Q: Reflect. React. Renew.
Life’s Biggest Questions. Answered By You.
Get started by clicking onto this site – http://www.doyou10q.com/
18 Thursday Aug 2016
As my friend Maurice and I strolled towards the Jaffa Gate to enter the Old City of Jerusalem several years ago, he told me the story of his family. He was a young teen in Egypt when the 1956 Suez War broke out between Egypt against the United States, France and Israel. After fighting ceased the remaining Jews who had not left for Israel after the 1948 War of Independence were forced out.
In 1948, 800,000 Jews fled their homes in Arab countries when their governments persecuted them as retaliation for Israel’s victory. Their property and wealth were either stolen or nationalized. They arrived in Israel penniless and to this day have not retrieved their lost property nor been compensated.
The same fate happened to Maurice and his family in 1956. Because they spoke French and Arabic they fled to Montreal leaving everything behind.
Last week an article appeared in 972+ Magazine called “No more lip service: How to retrieve lost Jewish property in Arab countries” (by Uri Zaki) (http://972mag.com/no-more-lip-service-how-to-retrieve-lost-jewish-property-in-arab-countries/121310/). Knowing Maurice’s story, I sent him the article’s link and asked for his reaction. He granted me permission to reproduce his letter:
Hi John: Thanks for thinking of me. It is so nice to have a friend that knows and understands my history. You probably also know that this topic touches a sensitive nerve so please take what follows with those feelings in mind.
It is a very important topic for the Jewish people as a whole and one to me and my family….
Egypt was home to a vibrant and rich Jewish community for centuries. Jewish and general scholarship … was tremendous and to this day sits as one of the Jewish people’s most important assets … Egypt was more than a comfortable home for us….
In the years leading up to the mid-1950’s, we endured increasing racism and harassment. Eventually, the substantial assets that we had earned over the years were seized and stolen from us. We were mercilessly (and pennilessly) expelled from our home, country, and community. We left behind not just our property but our way of life…
Although I was just in my teens, I remember well the struggle that my family and parents faced without country and any financial strength.
…We left, rebuilt and regained the position of strength (financially, Judaicly, culturally, and intellectually) that we always occupied. We didn’t do it with the help of the UN or foreign governments….we did it on our own.
The truth is that after the Egyptian King was deposed, the country went through a period of violent nationalism and home-grown radicalism. Years before we were expelled, I remember that my father was nearly stoned to death in the street for the simple crime of being a Jew.
Our plight … had to do with anti-Semitism and the use of xenophobia by the Egyptian leaders to stir the public.
Jews [in 1956] were …not persecuted because we represented any credible threat….[it was] Xenophobia and racism plain and simple….
I believe that we Jews have always been the canary in the mine!
It is a stark contrast to the Palestinian approach. … my story isn’t any better than the Palestinian….arguably much worse. Yet no Jew has sat in a refugee camp for nearly 70 years. Israel quickly absorbed its people (sometimes with bumps, but ultimately successfully) and the displaced and abused Jewish communities of the Middle East quickly reestablished themselves and are thriving.
With much love
Maurice
Maurice rightly notes the distinctions between the plight of Jewish and Palestinian refugees (note: 700,000 Palestinians fled or were forced to leave their homes in 1948, a number equivalent with Jewish refugees leaving Arab lands that same year). Both stories are deeply troubling, to say the least, and both peoples deserve and require restitution. The 972+ article offers insight into the Jewish struggle. The Palestinian struggle is of a different order altogether.
Two points:
[1] All neighboring Arab nations (except Jordan) refused to absorb Palestinians into their populations;
[2] The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) was created in 1949 to assist Palestinian refugees. It is the only organization in the world devoted to only one refugee community and has sustained Palestinians as refugees for more than six decades thus enabling so many of them to continue living in poverty and statelessness.
Sadly, despite the Palestinian people’s legitimate rights to a state of their own beside Israel in what must eventually (sooner rather than later) become a two states for two peoples resolution of the conflict, the Palestinians have been used cynically as pawns by both the UN and Arab nations for their own political purposes, and by their own leaders who have time and again refused to accept a two-state solution and the rights of the Jewish people to a nation state of our own.
In conclusion, Zaki wrote:
Recent trends in international law place the emphasis on “satisfaction,” which derives from publicly addressing the past, issuing apologies and taking responsibility for creating injustices. These, alongside reparations and restitution of lost property, are essential in conflict resolution. … Only thus could mutual recognition of the injustice inflicted upon millions of people and their descendants, on both sides of the divide, emerge. In addition, it could create a buzz in the relevant countries as well as internationally, paving the way for actual reparation and restitution as well as satisfaction.
Maurice’s story is one among millions. In his case, his family has done well though they were exiled from their home. Not so for so many others.
04 Thursday Aug 2016
It matters that we progressive Zionists respond whenever American Jews give up on Zionism and the state of Israel. Not only can we not abandon Israel ever, especially in difficult times such as these, but we cannot cede exclusive influence in the United States on matters of vital importance and interest to American Jews and Israel itself to supporters of the most right-wing government in the history of the state of Israel. Rather, we believe it is our duty to articulate as clearly as we can to as many Jews as we can what are our liberal Jewish and Zionist values and why we continue to love and support Israel as the democratic nation-state of the Jewish people.
Earlier this week, Professors Hasia Diner and Marjorie Feld published what can only be characterized (from the perspective of American Zionism) as an alarming op-ed in Israel’s daily Haaretz entitled “We’re American Jewish Historians. This is why we’ve left Zionism behind” (http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.734602?v=0EEB085E26B05596787A40B19C818497).
The Haaretz op-ed states, among other things: “the exponential growth of far right political parties and the increasing Haredization of Israel, makes it a place that I abhor visiting, and to which I will contribute no money, whose products I will not buy, nor will I expend my limited but still to me, meaningful, political clout to support it.”
Rabbi Joshua Weinberg, President of the Association of Reform Zionists of America (ARZA) and I, the national ARZA Chair, joined together with Gideon Aronoff and Ken Bob, CEO and National President of Ameinu, the American progressive Zionist movement that is aligned with Israel’s Zionist Union political party, in a shared response to the above op-ed that was posted today on the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) site (August 3).
Our piece – “Why progressive Jews mustn’t give up on Zionism” – can be read here – http://www.jta.org/2016/08/03/news-opinion/opinion/why-progressive-jews-mustnt-give-up-on-zionism
Please forward this blog to those whom you believe might benefit from reading our progressive Zionist statement and especially to millennial American Jews (ages 16-35) that surveys suggest are drifting from their engagement with and support of Israel.
24 Sunday Jul 2016
“No End of Conflict – Rethinking Israel-Palestine” by Yossi Alpher (2016) is an important read for anyone seeking clarity about the past and future of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Alpher was an officer for 12 years in the Mossad, a former Director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, and a special advisor to Prime Minister Ehud Barak during the 2000 Camp David talks. From 2001-2012 he coedited an Internet dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians called “Bitterlemons.” Though he still believes that the only solution to the conflict is a negotiated two states for two peoples agreement that settles all issues, he has come to the conclusion that getting to this end goal cannot happen all at once and will require new thinking on both sides and a new paradigm that diverges markedly from the Oslo process that set the course for all negotiations since including the 2000 Camp David effort, the 2007 Olmert-Abbas secret negotiations and the 2013-14 Kerry Initiative.
Alpher critiques those efforts and all options that are now being considered among which are one democratic but no longer Jewish state, one Jewish but no longer a democratic state, two governments in a larger one state confederation, and two states for two peoples.
One would think that after more than 20 years since PM Rabin and PLO Chairman Arafat shook hands on the White House lawn that by now all issues would have been resolved. Alpher explains why this has not happened and quotes the clear-sighted David Ben Gurion from a speech he gave in 1919 to explain the fundamental source of the conflict:
“Everybody sees a difficulty in the question of relations between Arabs and Jews. But not everybody sees that there is no solution to this question … I do not know what Arab will agree that Palestine should belong to the Jews …We, as a nation, want this country to be ours; the Arabs, as a nation, want this country to be theirs.”
For the core conflict to be addressed successfully will require that the two conflicting narratives change in the spirit of compromise and peaceful co-existence.
The Palestinian narrative understands Israel as a foreign entity created “in sin” by colonial forces. Palestine is Islamic Waqf land and is sovereign only to Muslims. Jews are not a people nor do they have national or historic roots in the Holy Land.
The Zionist narrative dates Jewish origins in the land to the time of Abraham (3600 years ago – confirmed by archeological and literary evidence) and that Jews have an ancient and legitimate claim to the land of Israel as its historic national home. Jews understand Judaism as far more than a religion, that it is a civilization with an ancestral land, history, language, legal and literary tradition, ethics, faith, and culture.
As time has passed the two narratives have become more deeply entrenched leading the two peoples to regard the conflict as a zero-sum game. One has to lose for the other to win, and there is an ever-closing window that can accommodate a win-win compromise.
As Jewish settlements spread throughout the West Bank making a future contiguous Palestinian state more difficult to achieve, right-wing nationalist and messianic Israelis have taken over the Israeli government. In this Alpher worries that Israel is firmly on track to become a one-state bi-national reality. He warns that should this occur, the Jewish democratic state of Israel will come to an end.
Alpher carefully reviews seven suggested “solutions” and recalls Albert Einstein’s observation that insanity is defined as repeating actions over and over and expecting a different result. To change the result Alpher calls upon Israel and the Palestinians to initiate a new paradigm for negotiations that leaves for a later time the evolution of each people’s narratives to accommodate the other.
He identifies two very different sets of issues, one that emerged after 1948 and the other after 1967. All negotiations to date have failed, he says, because both sets of issues have been considered together and the parties have agreed that “nothing is agreed until everything is agreed upon,” effectively dooming a resolution of the conflict. He argues that instead of completing the negotiations now, Israel and the Palestinians ought to work towards a partial two-state solution the conclusion of which will likely have to be negotiated by future generations of Israelis and Palestinians after a period in which peaceful co-existence will be achieved.
Post-1948 issues for the Palestinians include addressing their humiliating loss of their land and their flight and expulsion from the land with regard to the right of refugees to return to the homes they left.
Post-1948 issues for Israel include achieving recognition by the Palestinians of the legitimate right of the Jewish people to a national home of their own and to their security from terror and war.
Post-1967 issues for Palestinians include establishing a Palestinian state that includes sovereignty, borders, a capital city in Jerusalem, security and the final disposition of Jewish settlements and Jews in the state of Palestine.
Post-1967 issues for Israel include establishing final international borders between the two states that are roughly drawn along the Green Line with land swaps so as to include large settlement blocs in the state of Israel, thus assuring Israel’s democracy and Jewish majority.
In all past negotiations there has been much progress on post-1967 issues, but no progress on post-1948 issues. The Palestinians have refused to compromise on the right of every refugee to return to his/her home because compromising means having to accept the fundamental premise of the Zionist narrative that Jews have a legitimate claim to Israel as its national home. The Israelis insist that the Palestinians recognize the state of Israel as a “Jewish state” and that Israel will not allow an unlimited number of refugees to return to Israel. Alpher says those issues must be left to a later time.
He makes the case that negotiations henceforth ought to separate post-1967 issues from post-1948 issues and deal only with the former. Should negotiations be successful on those post-1967 issues, the Palestinians would achieve their state, sovereignty, national dignity, and security, and Israel would achieve internationally recognized borders, maintain its Jewish and democratic character, and dramatically reduce the risks of violence and war. Israel would also likely be received more openly by moderate Arab and Muslim states in the region, and its western allies’ relationships would be strengthened, the BDS movement’s appeal would diminish and the world Jewish community now fractured would rally as one to her support.
PA President Abbas has already agreed to demilitarize the future Palestinian state and to allow Israeli and international combined forces to be stationed along the Jordan River for a period of time, to be determined. PMs Barak and Olmert both already agreed that Jerusalem could become the capital city of both states.
Alpher insists that no more than this can be achieved at this time and that we continue with the status quo at our peril.
Is he correct? Or is it still possible for Israel and the Palestinians to compromise on their respective narratives to achieve an end-of-conflict two-state solution?
Alpher says “No!”
This book will challenge readers to think differently about this seemingly intractable conflict and what might be necessary to address the many concrete pragmatic issues (post-1967) between Israel and the Palestinians before it is too late and a one-state bi-national entity destroys Jewish and Zionist dreams.
21 Thursday Jul 2016
I have been stunned by the intensity of vitriol coming from the mouths of many speakers and delegates at the Republican National Convention this week, far more than I expected.
“Guilty!” “Guilty!” “Guilty!” “Murderer!” “Lucifer!” “Lock her up!” Put her “in stripes!” She’s “a piece of garbage!” She deserves “the firing line and [to be] shot for treason.”
No one from the podium challenged any of this disgusting rhetoric. To the contrary, though not all speakers are guilty of uttering the slander, none protested and so, citing Heschel, all are responsible.
I say “J’accuse!”
Thank goodness Shabbat is coming and we Jews have a chance to withdraw from the hatred and r‘chilut to reflect on matters of soul, ethics, civility, and common decency.
This week’s Torah portion “Balak” inspired the rabbis of old to consider the impact that different leadership proclivities and visions have had in the personages of the prophets Abraham and Balaam.
Balaam was a non-Jewish prophet who blessed the Israelites instead of cursing them after Balak, the King of Moab, paid Balaam to do this on his behalf:
“Mah tovu o-ha-lecha Yaakov mish’ke-no-techa Yisrael –
How good are your tents of Jacob, your dwelling places O Israel.” (Numbers 24:5)
The Pirkei Avot 5:22 notes:
“Whoever has the following three traits is among the disciples of our ancestor, Abraham, and whoever has three different traits is among the disciples of the wicked Balaam. Those with a good eye (ayin tovah), a generous soul (ruach n’mu-chah) and a humble spirit (nefesh sh’la–lah) are disciples of our ancestor Abraham. Those with an evil eye (ayin ra-ah), an arrogant spirit (ruach g’vo-hah) and a greedy soul (nefesh r’chavah) are disciples of the wicked Balaam.”
On the surface, it seems that Balaam hasn’t done anything really wrong. Yet, Balaam was blinded by greed and impatient to reap his reward in cursing the Israelites.
The Midrash compares Abraham and Balaam. Though both are prophets, they differ in the way they perceive God. Abraham finds God even when hidden. Balaam can’t see God or God’s angel even when they’re standing in front of him. Abraham turns his perception into a blessing. Balaam turns his perception into a curse. Balaam’s prophetic potential is as great as Abraham’s even though Balaam sought to sell his soul to the highest bidder. Abraham never considered cursing anyone.
At Sodom and Gemorrah on behalf of the people Abraham bargained, cajoled and persuaded God to spare the community if he could find but one righteous person in it saying, “Shall not the Judge of the whole world not act justly?” (Genesis 18:25) For this, the Mishnah describes Abraham as being possessed of a “good eye” (ayin tovah). Although the Sodomites were filled with evil doing, Abraham looked for a way to ameliorate their fate and save them.
Balaam’s “bad eye” (ayin ra-ah) drew him to his own material enrichment. This prophet was corruptible and tempted by power, wealth and station. Rashi wrote that though Balaam seemed to reject silver and gold, he actually craved it.
Thus, the rabbis contrasted Balaam’s arrogant and grasping nature (ruach g’vohah) with Abraham’s generosity (ruach n’mucha). That generosity took the form of hospitality. Abraham’s tent opened to the world. He welcomed every stranger and embraced all people.
The ideal of prophetic leadership is exemplified by Abraham whose example reminds us of the leaders we need and the kind of people we ourselves ought to strive to be, especially in times such as these when blinding hatred has filled the hearts of so many millions of Americans.
We all ought to strive to be more like Abraham who resisted demonizing and dehumanizing others, whose good eye can glimpse the blessing that peace can bring, whose generous spirit can open the heart to nurture community, whose humility can enable the recognition that every human being is created “b’tzelem Elohim – in the divine image” (Genesis 3:4).
Shabbat shalom.
16 Saturday Jul 2016
No one should be surprised that so many Americans feel anxious these days. Consider all that’s happened in the last 16 years, the cumulative effect of which has led to the state of our national psyche today:
The contested 2000 Presidential election – the rise of Al Qaeda, international terrorism and 9/11 – the Afghan War and the US invasion of Iraq – the mortgage and banking crisis, the 2008 economic melt-down and the loss of jobs – the changing US multi-cultural demography that helped bring about the election of the first African American President and the corresponding nativist resentment and racism – the rise of the Tea Party and its right-wing Congressional obstructionism – the Arab Spring and the Arab Winter along with intensifying Middle East violence – ISIS – Syria’s civil war and the massive refugee crisis pouring into neighboring Arab countries and Europe – America’s daily gun violence and terrorism at Sandy Hook, San Bernardino, Baton Rouge, Milwaukee and Dallas – not to mention attacks in Istanbul, Paris, Brussels, and Nice – and today the military coup (?) in Turkey – and the demoralizing 2016 Presidential campaign.
As these events occurred, social media and the 24-hour news cycle covered everything in great detail inundating us with its cacophony.
A great deal has changed in our world in recent years to be sure, for better and worse. Even good change is difficult for many of us to absorb, but when the changes are negative and destructive our lives feel more difficult.
Our fellow citizens are divided and polarized from each other at a depth that we haven’t experienced since the 1960s. We’re more distrusting, cynical and fearful of each other, and, according to a study reported on this week in the New York Times, there is a definitive link between racism with political party affiliation. Our politics have become the battleground of so much that ails us – between fear and reason, negativity and hope, nativism and internationalism, multi-culturalism and cosmopolitanism, red and blue, right and left.
Dr. Martin Luther King put it right when he said long ago; “People don’t get along because they fear each other. People fear each other because they don’t know each other. They don’t know each other because they haven’t properly communicated with each other.”
Can there be any doubt that we Americans need more contact with one another across racial, ethnic, religious, and political lines so we can come to know and understand one another better as human beings? That was the impetus of an essay by George Sanders that appeared in last week’s New Yorker on who Donald Trump supporters are beyond the stereotype of an angry white uneducated mostly male voter.
This said, our anxieties cloud the mind and make it difficult for reasoned discussion and a meeting of minds and hearts. Most Americans across the political and ethnic landscape wonder how we can best assure our own safety, the safety of our children, our civil society, and our sanity as a nation.
Health care professions identify a number of coping strategies that can help calm the nerves and center us:
1. When we feel anxious, take a time-out and remember to breathe;
2. Eat well-balanced meals and drink plenty of water;
3. Limit consumption of alcohol and caffeine, both of which aggravate anxiety and trigger panic attacks;
4. Disconnect regularly from the news, the Internet and social media thereby diminishing the fragmentation that results when we encounter disturbing news;
5. Sleep 7 to 8 hours nightly;
6. Exercise daily;
7. Meditate, do Yoga, pray;
8. Read fine literature and poetry; listen to inspiring music; visit museums and art galleries; drink in the life-affirming creativity of others;
9. Get out into nature;
10. Be with family and friends;
11. Celebrate Shabbat;
12. Learn Torah;
13. Correct societal wrongs;
14. Change what we can and accept what we can’t change.
These strategies can help alleviate some of the anxiety we feel. But, it’s important to understand that not all anxiety is necessarily bad. There are, indeed, real threats out there, and the adrenaline rush that comes when we feel threatened can serve us well at times.
We need to be able, however, to distinguish real risks and dangers from imaginary ones, and to be able to stand in the shoes of the “other,” understand who they are as individuals, and why they may think and react as they do when their thinking and responses seem so foreign to us.
These past weeks have been particularly disheartening for Americans as a whole. President Obama reminded us in Dallas last week that, regardless of our differences, we share far more in common than what distinguishes us.
All Americans want to feel safe in their homes and on the streets, to raise their children, enjoy their families, friends and communities, earn a living wage, and make a positive difference in the world.
We Jews, I suggest, need Shabbat more now than ever as an anti-anxiety strategy, for Shabbat is our time to step away from the negative and destructive, to reconnect with community and faith, to emphasize the good and creative, to breathe in Shabbat peace and exhale anxiety, fear, fragmentation, and cynicism, and to celebrate the many blessings that are ours every day.
Shabbat shalom.
12 Tuesday Jul 2016
Eight months ago, following two years of intense negotiations between representatives of the Reform and Conservative movements, the North American Jewish Federations, Women of the Wall, and the Ultra-Orthodox Chief Rabbi of the Wall, an agreement was reached to create an independent egalitarian prayer space in the Southern Kotel Plaza.
The agreement stipulated that this plaza would be designed by a leading world architect and would be equivalent in size to the traditional Northern Kotel Plaza. The liberal streams and Women of the Wall would control and oversee how prayer services would be conducted without interference from the Ultra-Orthodox or Chief Rabbi of the Wall. A common entrance to the plaza would be shared by all worshipers with equal sight lines to the Northern and Southern Plazas.
Right-wing ultra-Orthodox extremist rabbis and their communities have risen up in protest using incendiary rhetoric and threats.
Prime Minister Netanyahu, though stating that the entirety of the Jewish people must feel “at home” in Israel and at our holy sites, has back-pedaled and sought to reopen negotiations that would effectively kill the original agreement. Our leadership has told him that a deal is a deal and that any change now is unacceptable.
The Prime Minister is fearful of losing the ultra-Orthodox parties in his government and being forced either to form a new government or to call new elections. There are times, and this is one of those times, that the best interests of the Jewish people are more important than cow-towing to an extremist minority.
Our movement leadership, frustrated by the Prime Minister’s and government’s inaction, has decided to take this matter to the Israeli High Court.
In the meantime and until the egalitarian plaza can be built, the liberal coalition will conduct prayer services in the large Kotel Plaza. Our leadership this week warned the Prime Minister that we fear violence against us by the ultra-Orthodox. In a letter to the Prime Minister, the liberal coalition stated:
“We expect that the police will protect us as we exercise our legal rights, and we are stating plainly that absent a clear and a strong response, the current wave of incitement and violence might lead to bloodshed, as seen in the streets of Jerusalem during last year’s Pride parade…” At the Gay Pride parade in Jerusalem last year, 16-year-old Shira Banki was stabbed to death by an ultra-Orthodox Jew.” (“Reform, Conservative Leaders to Netanyahu: Incitement Against Us Could Lead to Bloodshed” – by Judy Maltz, Haaretz, July 11, 2016 – http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.730200):
It is time for Prime Minister Netanyahu to fulfill his pledge to world Jewry and allow the design and construction of the Southern Kotel Plaza to begin.
Note: I serve as National Chair of the Association of Reform Zionists of America (ARZA), the Zionist arm of the American Reform movement representing 1.5 million American Jews.
04 Monday Jul 2016
Elie Wiesel belonged to humanity. Though he was a Jew first, he transcended tribal and national boundaries and spoke on behalf of everyone who knows the despair that comes from cruelty and indifference.
I met Elie Wiesel twice. The first time was in 1972 at the Brandeis Camp Institute (now the Brandeis-Bardin Institute of the American Jewish University) while a senior at UC Berkeley. He and I spoke briefly then, but he wrote me a little hand-written note the following month that I cherish and that has motivated so much of what I do and believe as a rabbi. It reads simply “Remember to be a witness.”
I met him a second time in 1987 when I served as the Associate Rabbi at the Washington Hebrew Congregation in Washington, DC. My wife Barbara was serving then on the National Board of the Central American Refugee Center (CARECEN). Along with her on that board was Mary-Anne White, the wife of the former American Ambassador to El Salvador, Robert White (z’l – he died last year from complications of prostate cancer).
Ambassador White was the one who identified the four murdered American nuns. He was serving as well in El Salvador when Archbishop Romero was assassinated in his church.
Ambassador White, appointed by President Carter to stop a revolution in that tortured land, described Roberto D’Aubuisson, the leader of the death squads, as a “pathological killer.” When President Reagan took office, one of his first acts was to fire Ambassador White because of his public accusations against the Salvadoran regime that had tolerated and supported D’Aubuisson’s death squads. Unfortunately, this ended White’s diplomatic career, but he grew in the hearts and minds of the Salvadoran people because he spoke “truth to power” as Elie Wiesel did in the White House publicly to his friend President Reagan because the President was preparing to visit the graves of Nazis at Bitburg, Germany as a favor to the German leadership. He told President Reagan that his place was at the graves of the victims, not the murderers.
Together, Barbara and Mary-Anne White (who was then the President of the Girl Scouts of America) teamed up and brought Elie Wiesel to CARECEN’s cause. He became a significant supporter of their efforts.
As Elie Wiesel received the Nobel Peace Price he said – “No human being is illegal!” That quote became the tag-line of CARECEN in its efforts on behalf of El Salvadoran refugees seeking political asylum in the United States.
In light of the millions of refugees seeking safe shelter in the world today, Elie Wiesel was then, as always, prescient. His words, conscience and compassion as a witness has been lost tragically on millions of Americans spurred on by the hateful, hard-hearted and exclusionary rhetoric of one presidential candidate who would bar these tempest tossed human beings from ever coming into America and finding safe haven here.
May this Fourth of July celebrating American freedom remind us of the blessings of liberty and democracy that we enjoy, and of the conscience of this blessed man that graced and served humankind that is at the core of the American spirit.
Zecher tzadik livracha! May the memory of this righteous human being be a blessing for us all and for the generations to come. Amen!
Rabbi John Rosove's Blog 