An Open Letter to Young American Jewish Liberals About Israel

28 Friday Nov 2014

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

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This past month I exchanged emails with a bright, Jewish American rabbinical student living in Jerusalem who grew up in my congregation, whose family are life-long Zionists, and who has become disheartened by recent events and trends in the state.

She rightly perceives a growing corruption of classic liberal Zionist principles, is shocked by growing racism in Israeli society, dismayed by the Israeli government’s conceptualization of the situation with the Palestinians, befuddled by ongoing settlement building and home demolition in East Jerusalem, and horrified that a liberal democracy can tell Israeli Arab citizens that they can no longer work in Israeli Jewish communities because they pose a “security threat.”

She is fearful that demagogic and oppressive forces are gaining popular currency in Israel and that the Israeli government is increasingly intransigent in dealing effectively with its many challenges.

She is disheartened, as well, that the chief rabbinate maintains coercive hegemonic control over religious life in the state, and she wonders whether it would be preferable to give up Israel’s Jewish character for the sake of preserving Israel’s progressive democracy.

All these trends have caused her to emotionally disengage from Israel, and she confides that she feels like a heretic and does not know what to do or how to think about Israel going forward.

In response I am writing this open letter not only to her, but to all American Jewish liberal young people who are feeling this disconnect with the state of Israel.

First, I want you to know that I am proud of you, of your critical thinking, of your commitment to live an enriched Jewish religious and ethical life, to be a learned Jew, and that you yearn to make sense of what Israel means to you.

Second, you are not alone. Shabtai Shavit, a former director general of Mossad, recently wrote about his similar concerns about the “future of the Zionist project” and the threats against it in the region and international community. Shavit harshly criticized Israel’s political leadership’s “…haughtiness and arrogance, together with more than a bit of the messianic thinking that rushes to turn the conflict [Israel-Palestinian] into a holy war.”

Shavit worries that “…large segments of the nation…have forgotten…the original vision of Zionism: to establish a Jewish and democratic state for the Jewish people in the Land of Israel…” and that “the current defiant policy [of settlement building] is working against [this vision].”

He called upon Israel to enter into conversation with moderate Arab nations (i.e. Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia) and negotiate, based on the Saudi Peace Plan of 2002, a two-states for two peoples resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that will augur, as promised in the plan, the complete normalization of relations between Israel and the moderate Arab and Muslim world.

Shavit concluded soberly: “I wrote the above statements because I feel that I owe them to my parents, who devoted their lives to the fulfillment of Zionism; to my children, my grandchildren and to the nation of Israel, which I served for decades.” (Former Mossad Chief: For the first time, I fear for the future of Zionism – Haaretz, November 24, 2014 – http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.628038)

As a rabbi who has served American congregants for 35 years and been an active Reform Zionist all that time, I wish to offer ten additional thoughts to our young liberal American Jewish community, as well as others, if this applies:

1. You are not alone in your worry about the dangers to the Zionist dream;

2. You are not alone in your concerns about the unequal treatment of Arab citizens of Israel;

3. You are not alone in your anger about the hegemony of the chief rabbinate over the lives of all Israelis;

4. Israel is far more than Jerusalem which is becoming increasingly more ultra-Orthodox and right-wing. It is also Tel Aviv, a society that represents modern Israel that can inspire you anew about Israel’s past, present and future;

5. Israel is not a “racist society” though there are Israeli racists, a distinction with a significant difference;

6. Remember to appreciate that Israel remains a vital democracy despite its flaws and its current (but resolvable) status as an occupying force in the West Bank;

7. Don’t be cavalier about Israel’s real security threats, but do not accept at face value that those threats necessarily legitimate every policy executed by this government as smart, right, democratic, and moral;

8. Don’t forget that many Israeli liberal organizations monitor and fight injustice in Israel and the West Bank;

9. You must be able to hold at once your conflicting thoughts and feelings about Israel while maintaining your active engagement with her;

10. Despite your disappointment, anger and frustration, we cannot afford for you to disengage from Israel. Though we are not Israelis and only Israelis can make the decisions vital to their lives and security, we liberal lovers of Israel need you to become our next generation’s leaders in American Zionist organizations that advocate for the democratic, pluralistic, nation state of the entire Jewish people.

Theodor Herzl’s famous statement is still true and instructive – “If you will it, it is no dream.”

We need you to keep the faith, and become the advocates that Israel deserves and we and the Jewish people need.

Note: There is something that you can do from the States to help make the change that we want to see in Israel. We are approaching elections for the World Zionist Congress which is Diaspora Jewry’s only democratic mouthpiece to directly affect what happens in Israel. These elections help fund our movement in Israel, and have significant political and institutional repercussions. This is one easy way to have our voices heard. Go to www.reformjews4israel.org

Congressman Henry Waxman – An American Hero

09 Sunday Nov 2014

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Ethics, Health and Well-Being, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Social Justice

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Few in the history of the United States Congress have so positively impacted the lives of millions of Americans and changed the way the US does business as has Congressman Henry Waxman, who leaves office January 2nd after serving in the House of Representatives for forty years.

Henry has served the district of my congregation for most of that time, and this past Shabbat evening hundreds in our community came to honor him and express our collective gratitude for his life-time of service not just to us here in Los Angeles, but to the nation as a whole.

Henry is a strong and principled man. His Jewish values have guided him from his earliest years growing up in Boyle Heights, and he believes that good government can overcome any entrenched power that eclipses the public’s interest and bring important benefits to people all over the country.

One must wonder, however, in light of the current dysfunction of our federal government, how he has been able to be so remarkably prolific as a legislator. I believe he has succeeded for many reasons. Henry is legally and politically skillful, keenly intelligent, moral, savvy, patient, persistent, perseverent, and blessed with a quick wit and disarming sense of humor.

When Henry entered the California legislature as a young man, and then Congress in the post-Watergate years (1974), he also took seriously the challenge of mastering the legislative process. He became an expert in the health care system and the science of the environment, as well as a thoughtful advocate of the American-Israel strategic relationship. Henry also mastered the budgetary process and devoted himself as both a majority leader and then minority leader to government oversight. He reached out across the aisle and successfully included Republican co-sponsors in all legislation he authored (one of the secrets to his legislative success), except one, the Affordable Care Act, which frustrated him because so many of the ideas incorporated in the bill had been suggested by Republicans.

Five years ago Henry gave me a copy of his memoir The Waxman Report, (still available from his local office) a title drawn from his family’s early east Los Angeles newspaper called “The Waxman Reporter.” His book is a chronicle of the challenges, successes and failures that he faced in his 40-year congressional career and in the California legislature, and is a veritable guide in how to be effective as elected public servants.

Most members of Congress would be thrilled to claim success in shepherding one or two bills into law. Henry’s record of accomplishment is one of the most expansive and distinguished in the history of the House of Representatives. Here is a partial list of what he has succeeded in bringing into law:

• He challenged Big Tobacco, forced a showdown with the CEOs of all the major tobacco companies, shined a light on the threats to the health and well-being of millions of Americans by emphasizing the addictive character of nicotine and its many health risks, the tobacco companies’ deliberate marketing of cigarettes to children, their manipulation of the nicotine level in their products, the number of consequent deaths, and the drain on the America’s health care system;
• He passed bills to ban smoking in restaurants and on domestic airplanes;
• He passed the Clean Air Act limiting toxic air emissions thereby protecting the ozone layer of the atmosphere, limiting the release of cancer-causing toxic emissions and other hazardous air pollutants thus saving tens of thousands of lives;
• He expanded Medicaid coverage for the poor and elderly;
• He funded the first government-sponsored HIV/AIDS research;
• He passed bills lowering drug prices through generic alternatives thus saving the American taxpayer trillions of dollars;
• He fostered the development of hundreds of new drugs to treat rare diseases (Orphan Drug Act);
• He got nutritional labels placed on food packaging (Nutrition Labeling and Education Act; Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act);
• He passed laws to keep food free of pesticides (Food Quality Protection Act);
• He cleaned up the nation’s water supplies (Safe Drinking Water Act);
• He held hearings on steroid use in Major League Baseball resulting in the Clean Sports Act;
• He established federal standards for nursing homes to protect the elderly from abuse and neglect;
• He sought to stop taxpayer waste, fraud and abuse in areas from Wall Street to Hurricane Katrina clean-up, and to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Henry Waxman has been as effective as any legislator in the last century of the American Congress. He succeeded because he and his staff were always prepared, always smarter and more skillful than his opposition and the most powerful special interests. No one ever intimidated him.

All the while, Henry attended to his district. Recently, a woman told me that she had approached Henry after her husband got sick as a consequence of his army service in the first Gulf War. He had lost his health insurance, the family had gone bankrupt and was on the verge of losing their home. He eventually died, but Henry saved this woman’s home from dispossession.

His support for the security of the state of Israel and for the liberation of Soviet and Syrian Jewry, distinguishes Henry as well in late 20th century Jewish history.

Henry is blessed with an extraordinary wife and life-partner, Janet, who is as smart, sophisticated, insightful, astute, refined, and decent as he. Her support, counsel and partnership with Henry have not only served him well, but also our nation. Together, they have a wonderful family and are deeply committed and educated Jews.

My wife Barbara and I consider Henry and Janet Waxman as dear friends. As they begin a new stage of their lives together, I wish them good health, joy with their children and grandchildren (note: Henry is the only sitting member of Congress who has three sabra grandchildren), and their many friends.

Despite Henry’s retirement from Congress, something tells me that America has not heard the last of Henry Waxman. He has still much to contribute to the nation, and I suspect he will do so with his characteristic intelligence, passion and skill.

May Henry Waxman’s legacy of service to our nation be the standard against which all current and future members of Congress be evaluated.

The Jewish Vote in Mid-Terms – No Significant Change Polling Reveals

06 Thursday Nov 2014

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

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Despite the successes of the Republican party in these mid-term elections resulting in Republican majorities in both the House and Senate, polls suggest that American Jews (representing 2-3% of the voting public) have not shifted in our attitudes and policy preferences over the last three congressional elections.

I participated today in a national J Street conference call featuring the Founder and President of J Street, Jeremy Ben-Ami, J Street’s Political Director, Dan Kalik, and Jim Gersten, a well-known and veteran pollster who conducted surveys on election night with 800 representative American Jews.

The following points were made:

1. The American Jewish vote is still a rock-solid Democratic constituency. 70% of American Jews voted for Democrats suggesting that efforts by those on the political right to score points by continually attacking President Obama in his relationship with the State of Israel did not resonate with Jewish voters.

2. 84% of American Jews support a reasonable deal with Iran in current discussions that would permit Iran to have use of nuclear power for civilian purposes as well as continual in-depth international inspection of Iranian nuclear sites.

3. 80% of the American Jewish community supports a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict in theory. 77% support a two-state solution when details of an agreement are spelled out.

4. 57% of the American Jewish community gives President Obama a positive approval rating, 16% greater than the American community as a whole. American Jews give the Republican Congress 18% approval and Republicans a 71% unfavorable rating.

5. 85% of American Jews support active United States involvement in seeking an Israeli-Palestinian two state solution. 72% of American Jews support the US publicly disagreeing with Israeli and Palestinian positions. However, if the US would publicly disagree only with Israel, 48% would approve as opposed to 52% who would disapprove, suggesting that American Jews do not like Israel being singled out unfairly for criticism.

6. 80% of American Jews still support a 2 state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict despite this summer’s Gaza War.

The three panelists were asked what they thought President Obama would now do relative to foreign affairs having lost both houses of Congress. They reasoned that little will be done on the domestic front, but as other past presidents have focused much of their time on foreign affairs in their final two years in office, they expect the Administration to do the same.

Despite the current tensions between Israel and the Palestinians, a chief concern of the Obama Administration has always been that solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict serves American interests in the Middle East. It is very possible, therefore, that the President will re-launch a new peace effort, despite well-known personal antipathy between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu.

7. 53% of the American Jewish voting public favors Prime Minister Netanyahu, about the same as we favor President Obama.

8. When asked if Bibi’s policies have helped or hurt the US-American strategic relationship, 21% of American Jews say that it has not hurt the relationship; 40% say it has harmed the relationship; and 40% say it has had no effect. [Note: The figure that 40% believe that Bibi’s policies and treatment of President Obama have hurt the US-Israeli relationship is stunning in the history of American Israeli history. These statistics suggest that whereas American Jews respect the office of the Israeli Prime Minister, we do not necessarily respect his views, policies and behavior towards the American Administration.

In this election, J Street endorsed 95 candidates for the House and Senate and raised $2.4 million for races representing by far the largest single source of pro-Israel funds in the nation’s capital. Of the 95 races, 77 J Street endorsed candidates won their contests including both Democrats and Republicans. Candidates endorsed by J Street agree to advocate for a strong US-Israeli relationship and American engagement in advocating for a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

A concluding thought: For Democrats, a certain amount of despair has accompanied this mid-term election. That being said, the results may be the very impetus the President needs to achieve foreign policy goals that include Iran, ISIS, Ukraine, and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. If that is the case, then this mid-term will not have had a negative effect on achieving important American foreign policy goals.

For all the polling data, see J Street’s website home page http://www.jstreet.org and follow links.

My Tribute to Leibel Fein

17 Sunday Aug 2014

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

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Leonard Leibel Fein’s death is a particularly painful loss to the liberal social activist progressive Zionist world. He spoke and wrote always the truth as he understood it, inspired by a deeply Jewish vision, with an eloquence and a precision of language that inspired, opened the heart and renewed a sense of purpose and hope in anyone who was open and receptive enough to resonate with his message.

I first met Leibel 44 years ago when I was a college student at the summer Aliyah of then Brandeis Camp Institute (now Brandeis-Bardin) in Simi Valley, California, where he had come to spend a month with us 70+ young people from all over the country and world. He spoke to us and with us, lecturing about American Jewish life and religion, God, Israel, Zionism, Soviet Jewry, and social justice.

Those were the heady euphoric years after Israel’s lightning victory in the 1967 Six-Days War, yet Leibel (an early scholar of the Israeli enterprise at Brandeis University) understood intuitively that the great victory of three years earlier on the battlefield that resulted in the reunification of Jerusalem and the acquisition of the West Bank, Golan Heights, and Sinai desert, did not address the deeper far more complex moral challenges that confronted the state of Israel and the Jewish people.

He emphasized that there were at least four significant challenges confronting Israel and world Jewry at that time; (1) the 1967 war would not be the last war Israel would be forced to fight; (2) Israel’s Jewish culture, moral and democratic character would be defined in part by how it settled the Arab-Israeli conflict, how it conducted itself as an occupier of more than a two and a half million hostile Palestinian Arabs then living in the West Bank and Gaza, and whether it treated Israeli-Palestinian citizens of the state as equal citizens with Israeli Jews; (3) what would be the fate of the three million Soviet Jews then trapped behind the iron curtain, and (4) looking us in the eye, what we young American and Canadian Jews (and a couple of Israelis), then in our late teens and early twenties, would become as American Jewish leaders.

For some reason, Leibel singled me out all those years ago (he was only 36 at the time), gently but assuredly, and privately challenged me to become engaged seriously with the American Jewish community as a Zionist and a leader. In that way, Leibl became one of my earliest Zionist mentors.

I read nearly everything he would subsequently write, and so often over the decades he focused my thinking and redirected how I considered the great issues facing America and the Jewish people. He never lost his intellectual, moral and compassionate verve. As this last column (link below) that Leibel wrote for The Forward so eloquently and movingly expresses, with its introductory note by the Forward’s editors, what made Leibel Fein’s thought so deeply Jewish was that the prophetic tradition was always his proof text and he led as much from the heart as from the mind.

As Leibel battled his own demons over the years, suffered the tragic loss of his daughter, and finally illness that seemed to plague him for far too long, he never lost what made him that unique and compelling thought leader.

I will miss him, though we only saw each other at J Street conferences in recent years, but he is embedded in my heart as he is in the hearts of so many of us.

Zichrono livracha. May his memory abide as a blessing.

http://forward.com/articles/204190/from-gaza-to-sderot-trauma-marks-the-past-and-t/#ixzz3AcSJiiW2

“Enough of blood and tears. Enough!”

02 Wednesday Jul 2014

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

True Friends Do Not Stab Each Other in the Back – Presbyterian Church (USA)

26 Thursday Jun 2014

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

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A battle for the soul of the Presbyterian Church (USA) is raging, and the good guys are losing. The Church’s recent vote to divest from three companies doing business with Israel who they say support the Israeli occupation of the West Bank has sent a hurtful message to the Jewish people and state of Israel.

While the resolution to divest passed only by a very small margin of 310 yay to 303 nay, it included disclaimers that Church members hoped would soften the blow. Moderates in the Church were careful not to signal an ultimate split with the state of Israel, nor did the Church align with the international BDS movement (Boycott, Divestiture and Sanctions) which does not grant Israel the right to exist as a sovereign nation (the resolution did affirm that right).

After the vote one Church leader reaffirmed Presbyterian love for Jews. However, most Jews weren’t buying it, even if we didn’t say so out loud. Many of us believe that anti-Semites in the Church won the day. I would not go so far as to say that all the 310 yay votes are necessarily anti-Semitic or anti-Israel, but I believe many are whether they think of themselves that way or not.

This resolution was unfair, biased, shameful, ignorant, and a misguided slander of the Jewish people and state of Israel, pure and simple.

Bel Air Presbyterian Church Reverend Drew Sams agreed and expressed his embarrassment:

“It doesn’t represent who we are. To develop policy that would convey the message that we are turning our backs on our brothers and sisters in Israel is just very, very disappointing.” (LA Jewish Journal)

What makes this resolution so toxic to Jews is that it comes on the heels of the publication of a screed called “Zionism Unsettled,” a pseudo-historical propaganda piece that so distorts the state of Israel and Zionism that it is unrecognizable to those who have visited and know anything about modern Jewish history.

There is nothing positive in “Zionism Unsettled” about Israel. There is no affirmation of the Jewish people’s right to a national home in the land of Israel. It accuses Zionism of ethnic cleansing, racial and religious superiority. It obsessively critiques Israel and gives no historical context to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It says nothing about Arab terrorism and violence, or why Israel spent a fortune building a security fence to prevent suicide bombers from blowing up school buses, pizza parlors and shopping centers. It only critiques Israel as if there are not two parties to the conflict and as if the Palestinians are wholly innocent victims. It reflects no appreciation or understanding of the context in which Israel finds itself, as if the violence and turmoil of the region doesn’t exist and has no spill-over relevance to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It doesn’t note that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, the only nation with an independent judiciary and free press, the only country that protects gay and lesbian citizens and safeguards Christians and their holy places. It is as if there is one nation alone on earth that requires rebuke, Israel.

Jane Eisner, the editor of the Jewish Daily Forward summed it all up this way:

“When Jewish treatment of Palestinians is judged worse than the way any other dominant group treats a minority, when it is deemed worthy of unique sanction, when other horrors around the world are ignored – how can I believe that this isn’t about the Jews? And that, my Presbyterian friends, is anti-Semitism.”

I am often critical of specific policies of the Israeli government when those policies are undemocratic, violate human rights or work against the creation of a two-state resolution of the Israel-Palestinian conflict because I love Israel, believe in her, am inspired by her remarkable contributions to the world in so many areas of human endeavor, and want to see her thrive in safety as a democracy and the homeland of the Jewish people alongside a peaceful and secure Palestine.

This Church resolution does not forward those goals in any way. Not only does the vast majority of the Jewish people oppose BDS as a tactic because it is inherently unfair, but divestiture will not be effective in helping to bring about a two-state resolution of the conflict.

True friends of the Jewish people would not have passed such a resolution. True friends would have come to Israel to learn first-hand about the reality in which Israelis live. True friends would have toured other countries in the region to understand context. True friends would not have permitted the publication of that propagandist anti-Israel and anti-Semitic screed and would remove it immediately from its website. True friends would have joined with the American Jewish community to support efforts to help Israel and the Palestinians resolve their conflict. True friends do not stab each other in the back.

That is what the Presbyterian Church (USA) did, all disclaimers aside – and it hurts!

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

17 Tuesday Jun 2014

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

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American Jewish Life, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Jewish-Christian Relations, Social Justice

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

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

The following is part of what I wrote then:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why Money Given to Charity by Donald Sterling Can Be Accepted with Conditions

30 Wednesday Apr 2014

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

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American Life, Ethics, Social Justice

The sullied moral character of Donald Sterling is clear to anyone with eyes and a conscience.

In the days since his now infamous tapes were leaked we have learned that Sterling has been charitable to Jewish organizations and other groups, such as the NAACP. Why he has given money away, who knows? (PR? Tax deductions? Moments of generosity that remind him of what his mother may have once wished for him?)

In recent days leaders of the Los Angeles Jewish community have sought to distance themselves and their organizations from Sterling’s past gifts and have pledged not to accept anything more from him going forward.

Not so fast!

What does Jewish tradition say about receiving financial gifts from someone of Sterling’s character?

There is much discussion in Halachic literature (Jewish legal literature) concerning the bringing of donations to the synagogue. The Hebrew Bible rules that a sacred object cannot be brought to the Temple in Jerusalem that has immoral origins (Deuteronomy 23:19). Later commentaries come to a consensus that a donation from an individual who acquired the object through immoral or criminal means can be given to the Jewish community.

The 17th century Polish Commentator Rabbi Abraham Abele Gombiner (known as Magen Avraham) refers to a comment of Rabbi Moses Isserles (Shulchan Aruch, Orah Hayyim 153:12) and notes that if the object is first converted into money, and then that money is exchanged for other money, the second set of cash can be given to the synagogue.

Rabbi Solomon Freehoff in his Responsum “Synagogue Contribution from a Criminal” (Contemporary Reform Responsa, CCAR Press, 1969, pp. 52-55) concludes:

“In my judgment you should accept the gift, because it is his [the sinner’s] obligation (a mitzvah) to support the synagogue and we have no right to prevent a sinner from performing a righteous act.”

Tradition, however, conditions the giving of such a gift to its anonymity. No plaque or public mention may be noted about the origin of the gift in order to prevent the donor from enjoying the honor (kavod) of giving the gift. Rabbi Freehoff, however, says that if the sinner/criminal wishes to honor his/her parents, then acknowledgment of his parents may be publicized.

A related matter concerning the public role of a sinner is raised in a Responsum cited in The Holocaust and Halakhah (by Irving J Rosenbaum, Ktav, 1976, p. 154). In this case a particularly brutal and despised Kapo (Jewish policeman) in the Kovno ghetto claimed after the Shoah to have suffered great remorse for the evil he perpetrated on the Jews in the ghetto, and to have sincerely repented from his crimes. He approached the leadership of the Jewish community and requested to act as shaliach tzibur (prayer leader) in the synagogue.

Though acknowledging the great power of repentance, Rabbi Efraim Oshry (a survivor himself) ruled that

“A She’liah tzibur must be fitting; ‘fitting’ means that he must be free from sin and not have had an evil reputation even in his youth.”

This Kapo’s evil reputation, regardless of the t’shuvah he may have undergone that wiped clean his sin, permanently kept him from assuming any public leadership role in the Jewish community.

From these two Responsa, we can draw the following conclusions:

First, Donald Sterling ought to be excluded from any public leadership role in the community (as the NBA has properly done) regardless of whether he ever does t’shuvah in the way, for example, that the former racist Alabama Governor and presidential candidate George Wallace did before his death (Wallace publicly repented of his racism and apologized personally to Reverend Jesse Jackson, representing the African American community), Sterling’s current bad reputation would continue to exclude him.

Second, should Sterling wish to donate money to Jewish causes or other non-profit charitable organizations anonymously, his money need not be rejected. Not only could his donation serve greater community interests, but one day they may be part of the means by which he does sincere t’shuvah.

In this regard, I hope he gives generously and anonymously to all kinds of good causes. While doing so, he ought also to sincerely apologize to and makes amends with all the apartment dwellers he has victimized, to the African American community, to Latinos and peoples of color he has insulted, to women he has exploited, to the Jewish community who by association he has demeaned, and, of course, to the Los Angeles Clippers organization and the NBA.

I wish him courage, the strength and decency to do so.

Gratitude to Reform Movement Institutions That Support J Street’s Inclusion in The President’s Conference

29 Tuesday Apr 2014

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

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American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Israel and Palestine

As a co-chair of the J Street Rabbinic Cabinet (representing 800 rabbis from across the religious streams and hundreds of American Reform rabbis), as member of the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR – the Reform Rabbinical association) for the past 34 years, as congregational Rabbi serving a Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) synagogue (part of a total of 1.4 million American Reform Jews), I am proud of the CCAR, the URJ, the Association of Reform Zionists of America (ARZA), and the Women of Reform Judaism (WRJ) for their support of including J Street as a member of the Presidents Conference of Major American Jewish Organizations to take place this week.

The vote by any of these Reform organizations in favor does NOT mean that each of these groups endorses the viewpoint of J Street. It does signify, however, that our Reform movement organizations understand the importance of being as inclusive as possible of diverse points of view in the American Jewish community vis a vis Israel and American Jewish life.

J Street has earned clear bona fides as a pro-Israel American Zionist organization supporting two-states for two peoples in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and is committed to the two-state solution despite the discontinued negotiations.

I want to thank most especially my friend and colleague, Rabbi Rick Jacobs, the President of the Union for Reform Judaism, who led the way early on in advocating for inclusion of J Street in the Presidents Conference.

The immediate past-President of the URJ, Rabbi Eric Yoffie, has written a compelling rationale for J Street being included in his Haaretz op-ed “J Street is Part of the American Jewish Family.” (http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.587822)

I can only hope that other Presidents of Major Organizations will read Rabbi Yoffie’s piece and vote for inclusion whether or not they agree with J Street’s positions.