Category Archives: Uncategorized

Coin of Fire – Parashat Ki Tisa

01 Friday Mar 2013

Posted by in Divrei Torah, Health and Well-Being, Inuyim - Prayer reflections and ruminations, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , ,

“This is what everyone who is entered in the records shall pay: a half-shekel by the sanctuary weight to “atone for your souls.” (Exodus 30:13)

The Tosafot surmises that

“Moses was perplexed, thinking to himself, ‘What can a person possibly give that will serve as atonement for his soul?’ Thereupon, God showed him a ‘coin of fire.'”

Question – How can a “coin of fire” grant atonement for one’s soul?

Rabbi Menachem Schneerson answered with a parable:

A person once served as an apprentice to a silver and goldsmith. The artisan taught his apprentice all the necessary details except for one, which he omitted because of its utter simplicity: in order to melt gold and silver and change its shape, a fire must be lit under the metals.

Setting out on his own, the apprentice faithfully followed all the particulars his master taught him, leaving out that one “minor” detail that his teacher had omitted, the need for a fire. Because of this omission, of course, nothing happened. The silver and gold remained as they were, and the apprentice could fashion nothing at all.

God similarly responded to Moses by showing him a ‘coin of fire,’ (the half-shekel). (Likkuti Sichos, Vol. III, pages 923-28; from Parashat Shekalim “An Undivided Half-Shekel“)

The parable explains that merely offering a half-shekel coin doesn’t bring about atonement. But, when the coin is offered with  fire, referring to soul-fire, then the half-shekel atones even for a sin as grievous as the sin of the Golden Calf.

Another question – Why does Torah ask for only a half-shekel and not a whole shekel?

Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev explains in a complex Kabbalistic discussion (Kedushat Levi, vol. 2, p 494, Lambda Press) that what we’re dealing with here are purely spiritual matters, that when an Israelite gives a half-shekel of twenty gerah weight, it isn’t about the monetary value we earthly beings require to physically sustain a community. Rather, it’s about how we may enter into God’s presence.

The first letter in the word Keter (Crown – the highest emanation of God on the Kabbalist chart of emanations) is chaf, and chaf equals twenty according to Hebrew letter-number equivalents, the same as the weight of the half-shekel, thereby indicating that the 20 gerah (chaf-Keter) weight half-shekel is a spiritual metaphor of ascent towards yihud (unity) with God at the highest level.

Rabbi Levi Yitzhak explains that without the spiritual fire no offering, no gift, no presentation from the heart will succeed in linking heaven and earth. Soul-fire is the critical element that enables yihud, union, between us and God.

It is part of the human condition that we are broken, flawed, distracted, seduced, unfocused, fragmented, disloyal, weak, and imperfect. The golden calf incident is the most spectacular example in the Biblical period of betrayal perpetrated by the people against God. Only 39 days before the making of the golden calf (recalled in this week’s Torah reading) they heard the commandment against worshiping false gods, and they made the object and celebrated it as a god in spite of what they had only recently experienced at the foot of Mount Sinai.

Those who had turned away from God badly needed a means to return to holiness. Restoration, thankfully, is always possible. Rabbi Simon Jacobson writes that Moses “offers us a rare – once in history – glimpse into the intimate secret of communicating with the Divine, as he beseeches God to forgive and reconcile with the people…. Moses implores God, ‘Show me Your face.’ [And in response] God forgives.”

Mending our relationship with God (and with those we love and community) is a fundamentally restorative and healing process, and it begins with the offering of the half-shekel.

Judaism teaches that we are most whole when we enter into authentic, trusting, loyal, loving, and passionately committed relationships with family and friends, with a sacred community and with God. That is the lesson of the half-shekel “coin of fire.”

For those of us who do not believe there is a God or, at the very least are skeptical about ever experiencing a relationship with the Divine, then I suggest that you let authentic relationships with loved ones and with community suffice. Perhaps the Divine-human experience will follow.

Our Torah portion and the Midrashic literature teach that the ‘coin of fire,’ the half-shekel, facilitates atonement (read instead “at-one-ment“). When that occurs, when we offer a coin of fire we become, in effect, God’s light, as it says in Proverbs (20:27) – Nishmat adam ner Adonai – “The human soul is the lamp of God.”

Shabbat shalom.

History Professor Yehuda Bauer: ‘Netanyahu doesn’t know history’ – Haaretz

25 Monday Feb 2013

Posted by in Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Quote of the Day, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , ,

Professor Yehuda Bauer (age 87) of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem is considered among the world’s leading historians of the Holocaust.

The following are excerpts from a long interview just published in the weekend magazine of Haaretz. He reflects on matters personal and historic, including the love of his life, the Holocaust and genocide, Zionism, extremism, the historical significance of the State of Israel, the ongoing conflict with the Palestinians, the settlements, and why a two-state solution is the only alternative to preserve a Jewish democratic state.

He says matter-of-factly this of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu:

“Netanyahu doesn’t know history, even though he is the son of a historian, reads a great deal and is extraordinarily intelligent. Netanyahu is an ideologue and a tactician, but not a gifted strategist. As an ideologue, he believes wholeheartedly that we should rule the whole of the Land of Israel.”

Professor Bauer articulated what many believe to be true, that despite Netanyahu’s public acceptance of a two-state solution, in truth he may really be a “one-state” advocate.

In advance of the upcoming visit of President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry to the Middle East, it would be well to reflect upon Professor’s Bauer’s historical perspective.

The following are excerpts from a long and compelling interview, which I recommend you read in its entirety – http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/magazine/history-professor-yehuda-bauer-netanyahu-doesn-t-know-history.premium-1.504937

“The Jews were always in opposition to the whole world. The Jewish people would be endangered by unity. The quarrels and disputes are the engine that drives its culture forward, backward or sideways. That is its elixir of life.

…If we are deprived of the constant ability to quarrel, we will be finished.

The endless debates, from the Middle Ages to our own time, constitute the vitality of this people…

We live in a country that is divided into four states, all of them within the boundaries of the Land of Israel. In a small country that lies between the Jordan and the sea is a state called Israel. Next to it, in Gaza, is the State of Hamastan. In the West Bank there is the State of the Palestinian Authority, which is under Israeli occupation, and within all of these is the State of Judea of the settlers…

The dream of a Jewish democratic state will come to an end only if the right wing is in power.

A democratic state within the 1967 boundaries, with certain territorial exchanges, will be a Zionist Jewish state that is obliged not only to make peace with its Palestinian and Arab neighbors, but offers the possibility for national-cultural development and full equal rights to the Arab minority living in the State of Israel. The settlement policy is working against us and endangering us. We have to remove the majority of the settlers from the territories, which are actually areas of the State of Palestine…

The dream of a binational state and a state of all its citizens has no chance. That dream would mean a permanent civil war and mutual killing. Those who want to foment potential genocide here can do so by advocating a binational state for all its citizens. That, of course, would mean the end of Zionism in the sense of a state possessing a solid Jewish majority in which an Arab minority possessing equal rights lives.

Extreme religion is utopian by its very essence, anticipating ‘redemption’ and the Last Days, and the coming of the messiah to fulfill the utopia − which… is a murdering utopia. Every utopia murders. Beware of those who believe in the coming of the messiah.

I don’t think it is right to say that no Zionist party treats the Palestinian population in Israel as equals. Meretz not only does this, it also has an Arab MK, as is proper for a fifth of Israel’s population. The Zionist left always advocated this. … Well, in my aging eyes, Zionism is not Zionism when it does not treat the non-Jewish minority equally. after all, am a dinosaur, so the question becomes superfluous from this point of view.”

Cuban and American Judaism – The Growth of Secularism

21 Thursday Feb 2013

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

,

In October I joined with 28 members of my congregation in a “humanitarian mission” to the Cuban Jewish community (meaning, we took goods and cash as gifts to support the Jewish community there). There are about 1000+ Cuban Jews living today in Havana, Santiago and Guantanamo, and we visited 3 of the 4 synagogue communities on the island. We were deeply moved by these people. They hosted us for Shabbat in Santiago (41 Jews) and welcomed us in Guantanamo (75 Jews) for lunch with an Israeli folk dance performance by 7 of its young people.

There is no Rabbi or Jewish school on the island to teach adults about Judaism and Jewish practice. Cubans generally have no access to the Internet, and so one would think that assimilation would be the greatest threat to the continued existence of their Jewish community. Yet, despite much intermarriage (by some estimates only 25 individuals have two Jewish parents) their Jewish identity is strong and their longing for all things Jewish compelling.

In Santiago I was asked to name a 10 day-old baby girl. In Guantanamo, we were shown the pride and joy of that community, a brand new Torah scroll contributed a few years ago by the Canadian Jewish Congress. It had never been read, which brings me to the purpose in this blog.

A study was recently published called “American Jewish Secularism: Jewish Life Beyond the Synagogue” by Barry A. Kosmin and Ariela Keysar http://www.jidaily.com/b2a49?utm_source=Jewish+Ideas+Daily+Insider&utm_campaign=9f3d224759-Insider&utm_medium=email in which the authors discuss our changing American Jewish identity. Though 40% of the American Jewish community (by some estimates) is affiliated with synagogues, and among them a portion do believe in God, study Torah regularly and do Jewish good works in the interest of tikun olam (repair of the world), most American Jews are not synagogue-affiliated, and an even greater number consider themselves atheist or agnostic, are unlearned in Judaism, and do not lead lives that are particularly Jewish, though they may very well self-identify as Jewish.

Many so-called “secular” Jews, instead of being involved in religious communities, are instead drawn as Jews to Jewish culture and politics such as Church-State issues, Israel, Yiddish and modern Hebrew study, Klezmer and Jewish music, Jewish photography and art exhibits, Israeli film, and Jewish book festivals. All this is well and good. Indeed, what the study indicates is that there is developing a rich secular Jewish culture in America that engages many.

My question is this: Just as the Cuban Jewish community relishes in the celebration of Jewish holidays, Israeli music, and Jewish communal life (with an obvious lack of exposure to American Jewish cultural opportunities), their knowledge base in Judaism is paper-thin.

Let me not be misunderstood. What the Cuban Jews have managed to create with no rabbis and no serious Jewish educational institutions is nothing less than heroic. But, I and my traveling companions worried about the survival of the Cuban Jewish community.

I also worry about the nature of the American Jewish community going forward. Will it survive, or will it morph into something unrecognizable by today’s standards.

I take the position that every door needs to be kept open, and new doors need to be opened, to welcome Jews and their families into Jewish communal life. I am well aware that not all these doors will necessarily lead people to an enriched Jewish faith, experience of God and the holy, or to greater Jewish learning. Yet those doors (be they children’s education, Purim Shpiels and carnivals, social justice work, trips to Israel and Jewish communities around the world, and Jewish cultural events), I would hope, will be stepping stones leading our people to deeper Jewish knowledge and engagement in the covenant of the Jewish people with God.

Many American secular Jews confess that that they do not need synagogues in order to be Jewish. That may be true, but for our community to maintain our Jewish identity and secure some measure of Jewish continuity, no other institution in Jewish life has ever been able to bring Jews together in all the dimensions of life as has the synagogue, except perhaps the State of Israel.

The synagogue has been the Diaspora’s laboratory of Jewish living for two millennia. It is where Jews experience the holy and engage in tikun olam.

What will the next generation of American Jews be like? Will our American Judaism look more like that of our Cuban Jewish brothers and sisters, or will we discover a more enriched Jewish identity and life?

The Talmud (Shabbat 127a) reminds us of the truth that Talmud Torah k’neged kulam (“The study of Torah is equal to all the commandments”).

To secure Jewish life, Jews have had to be learned and committed to the building of community. It is from this base that we have survived, and this alone.

A Defense of J Street to Criticism from Fellow Reform Rabbis

13 Wednesday Feb 2013

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , ,

What follows is my response to a flurry of letters posted by Reform Rabbis on our List Serve (RAVKAV) critical of J Street. Many of my colleagues charge that J Street ignores hostility to Israel throughout the Middle East, the growing influence and threat of Hamas in the Palestinian community, that Israel has no real partner to peace in Mahmud Abbas, and that J Street is constantly critiquing Israeli policies and not the Palestinians.

Note: I serve as the National co-chair of the J Street Rabbinic Cabinet with close to 700 rabbis of all religious streams – see J Street’s website for all policy positions – http://www.jstreet.org.

Dear Colleagues:

In response to [the above] challenges to J Street, I want to offer J Street’s stated position on a number of issues as well as its reasoning for a number of its positions.

Re: the issue of “calling for concessions by the Palestinians” – I would make two points:

(1) J Street has always made clear such views as
(a) the Palestinians have to give up the right of return;
(b) the Palestinian state has to be demilitarized;
(c) the Palestinians must cease the rhetoric and actions that incite violence and hatred of Jews; and
(d) that any Palestinian entity/party that hopes to be part of the political process has to renounce violence/terror, recognize Israel and agree to abide by past agreements.

Those views are all in J Street’s policy papers and on the J Street website – but not too much discussion or debate is ever generated by them because they are consensus points. There would be no need to set up a J Street in the first place if those were the thrust of our points – every Jewish organization agrees with and makes those points. That’s why 2% of the ink spilled about J Street addresses or acknowledges these points;

(2) The reason why it seems to those who follow us/read about us that we are 98% of the time talking about what we are calling on Israel to do is that that’s what there’s an argument. Those who choose to argue/debate don’t raise the issues on which we agree, they raise the issues on which we disagree. So that’s why one hears a lot more about our belief that Israel should stop expanding settlements, or that the US should play a more active role in leading the peace effort, and that such parameters as the borders need to be based on the ’67 lines with swaps or that both countries should have a capital in Jerusalem should be put forward by the US.

On the issue of primarily focusing on Israel – it’s hard not to disagree with the theory that, even though we’re Jews and we engage in this issue (as opposed to peace in Mali) because we care so deeply about Israel and the Jewish people, we somehow shouldn’t be more focused on the Jewish side of the equation. The entirety of this debate actually is about what it means to be pro-Israel – not what it means to be pro-Palestinian. We believe it is pro-Israel to advocate for Israelis to stop building settlements. We believe it is pro-Israel to advocate for US leadership in getting a deal. Of course it’s pro-Israel to advocate that the Palestinians should stop incitement and fight terror – but we’re going to have little impact on the internal Palestinian debate on how best to gain their freedom (even though we have made statements precisely on those points). We are going to have an impact on the Jewish debate over what it means to be pro-Israel.

On the Palestinian partner question, J Street obviously just disagrees. Abbas, Fayyad and this PLO/PA leadership ARE a partner for peace despite Abbas’ rhetoric at the UN, about which I was sickened. However, their being considered partners in peace is not just in J Street’s opinion but in the opinion of such Israeli leaders as former Prime Ministers, the President of Israel, former heads of the Israeli security services. No, Mahmoud Abbas is not a Zionist. That’s no surprise. When, as the leader of the Palestinian people, he addresses the international community directly he will be – as we would expect our leaders to be – a fierce advocate for the rights of his people, which we have to acknowledge are in conflict with the rights of our people. If he were to do less, he would be completely abdicating his role and he would sacrifice the last shred of legitimacy and credibility that he has. For anyone to simply state that “it is a reality” that Abbas and the PLO are “not yet committed to offering themselves as serious partners in the peace process” is simply an opinion that is out of step with the moderate mainstream of Israeli policy makers and analysts. It’s such a person’s right to hold that opinion and it’s J Street’s right to believe that s/he is wrong. If one is waiting for Abbas to come to Israel and announce up front that the Palestinian people renounce their right to the land as “theirs,” s/he will sadly watch a bloody, violent struggle continue for the rest of his/her life, and the state of Israel gradually will become more and more internationally isolated and shunned. If one is willing to recognize that peace will be made between two leaders/people who fiercely believe they are “in the right” but are willing to compromise at the end of the day to achieve peace and end bloodshed, then maybe there’s hope.

Let me say one more thing. I deeply appreciate the civility with which those who have posted are writing. That is a win for everyone. I would hope that those who hold views that presume J Street is one-sided will take a second look at J Street’s positions and approach to a two-state solution. It is, in my view, the only way forward. I am well-aware of the risks. I understand that Israelis are the ones on the front lines and that we in Galut have only a secondary right to speak. But, I also know that so many hundreds of thousands of Israelis agree with J Street’s position, or should I say, that J Street agrees with their position.

Israel’s Secular vs Religious Divide – The Most Acute Tension in Israeli Society Surveys Find

11 Monday Feb 2013

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Recent surveys conducted by Hiddush, an organization committed to freedom of religion for Israel, show clearly that the vast majority of Israelis want “freedom of religion and equality in shouldering civic burdens, equal military service for all, the implementation of core curricular studies, civil marriage, public transportation on Shabbat, a decrease in subsidies for yeshiva students, and action against public discrimination of women. Instead the public suffers from the government’s repeated surrender to the ultra-Orthodox parties Shas and United Torah Judaism.” (Rabbi Uri Regev, President of Hiddush).

This conclusion is drawn from surveys conducted before and after the recent Israeli elections by the Rafi Smith Research Institute. Here are some of its findings:

  • 71% of Israeli society believe that the most acute conflict within Israel is that between the secular and ultra-Orthodox populations, as opposed to 41% who see the left-right tension as most acute, 33% who see the rich-poor conflict as the most serious, and 16% who regard the Ashkenazi-Sephardi conflict as the most dire;
  • 64% of the public (including 56% of religious Jews – i.e. non ultra-Orthodox) support making segregation of women in public a criminal offense;
  • 78% support reducing public funding for yeshivot and large families so as to encourage Haredi (i.e. Ultra-Orthodox) males to work;
  • 63% support public transportation operating on Shabbat;
  • 61% (surveyed before the election) say that they would be more likely to vote for a political party that actively supported freedom of religion;
  • 83% believe that yeshiva students should be obligated to serve either in the military or in civil service;
  • 72% reject the claim of the Haredi parties that study in yeshivot, not service in the military, ensures Israel’s safety;
  • 80% want an Israeli government that will promote religious freedom and equality in the burden of service to the state;
  • 54% want a government without the two ultra-Religious parties Shas and United Torah Judaism in the ruling coalition;
  • 67% are against the idea that the Chair of the Knesset’s Finance Committee (formerly held by one of United Torah Judaism’s members) not be entrusted to an ultra-Orthodox MK in the next government;
  • 83% believe that housing subsidies should follow the recommendations of the Trajtenberg Committee in 2011, which recommended that such subsidies should be conditional on the willingness to work, as opposed to current policies that overwhelmingly favor the ultra-Orthodox population (Note: 114,000 Hareidi men are publicly funded to study in ultra-Orthodox yeshivot – only 40% of ultra-Orthodox men are employed and many are half-time workers or less);
  • Only 20% of ultra-Orthodox students study subjects such as math, science and English, yet the Education Ministry certifies virtually all ultra-Orthodox schools as fulfilling the country’s mandatory core curriculum requirements.

There are a number of conclusions to be drawn from these surveys:

  1. The Israeli public wants a social and religious transformation in Israeli society.
  2. The Israeli public wants a civil government that will promote an agenda based on religious freedom and equality in sharing the economic and national defense burden.
  3. The Israeli public is angry about the long history of political bullying and strong-arming by the ultra-Orthodox parties as the price the ruling government coalition must pay to maintain a majority of Members of the Knesset (i.e. 61).
  4. The ultra-Orthodox claim that it represents Judaism and Jewish interests is unsubstantiated by the vast majority of Israelis.
  5. The greatest tensions in Israeli society are between secular and ultra-Orthodox Jews and that government policies over the last few decades have exacerbated these tensions and created a dependent class of Israeli citizens who have received far more federal funds than is their fair share to the detriment of the Israeli economy, civil society and democracy.

The ultra-Orthodox community of Israel, represents only 9% of Israeli society. Modern Orthodox Jews are far more in number but work and serve in the Israeli military as do all Israeli citizens. The Israeli public clearly has voiced its opposition to the unfair influence of the ultra-Orthodox parties over Israel’s civil community. It is hoped that the next government will reflect the true desires of the Israeli public.

 

The particulars of Hiddush surveys can be found on the Hiddush web-site http://www.hiddush.org/

3 Year Israeli and Palestinian Textbook Study Provokes Controversy

04 Monday Feb 2013

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

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, ,

This morning I spoke by phone to Jerusalem with Felice Friedson (The Media Line’s – TML – co-founder and its current President and CEO) about a new U.S. State Department-funded study on Israeli and Palestinian textbooks that soon will be released.

The article “Text-Book Study Sparks Controversy,” co-written by Felice Friedson and Linda Gradstein of NPR News, covers a study conducted over the last three years of how Israeli and Palestinian school textbooks treat the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the images these textbooks create of the other population. Felice, who has read the entire study, reports that:

A U.S. State Department-funded study on Israeli and Palestinian textbooks released in Jerusalem has set-off a wave of insults, charges and counter-charges. Israel’s Ministry of Education called the detailed report “biased and unprofessional” while the International Society for Political Psychology called the Israeli government’s description “highly distressing.”

Education is a key element in a future two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is clear that there is a long way to go before the two enemy populations know and understand each other. Organizations such as Seeds for Peace have sought to defuse conflict through face to face encounters, camps and projects in which Israeli and Palestinian youth come to actually know one another, but not nearly enough people on each side have had such opportunities. This is why this text-book study is so revealing as a gauge for the state of understanding of each population towards the other. This story will have legs for some time. It is worth following:

See the Media Line Story at

http://www.themedialine.org/news/news_detail.asp?NewsID=37069

Note: The Media Line is a “non-profit news organization established to enhance and balance media coverage in the Middle East.” It delivers its in-house news and programming via multiple media – radio, television content, Internet news and features, and written stories for the print media. Media outlets using The Media Line as a source include the BBC World Service; National Public Radio; ABC, CBS affiliates; Al-Quds (Palestinian) newspaper; Y-Net (Israel); Ma’an (Palestinian) Television Network; Atlanta Journal-Constitution; India Today; IRN (UK Radio). Media Line may also soon be picked up by The Huffington Post .

“Open Heart” by Elie Wiesel – Book Review

03 Sunday Feb 2013

Posted by in Book Recommendations, Health and Well-Being, Jewish History, Life Cycle, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , ,

This little volume reminds me of a conversation once between Picasso and an art critique who asked the Master how long it took him to draw a piece that had only a few lines evoking the image of a man. Picasso said, “A life-time.”

So too is Elie Wiesel’s new book in which he reflects on the meaning of his life following emergency open heart surgery on June 16, 2011.

The volume is vintage Elie Wiesel. The writing is simple, the scope sweeping.

Upon awakening from the anesthetic he remembers thinking “…I am not dead yet. What does being resuscitated mean if not rediscovering one’s future?”

The book is a positive, optimistic expression of a grateful man. Eighty two years have not nearly been enough. He admits to having more words to write and teach, more to learn, and more love to share.

For me, Elie’s most moving passage is his description of what happened when his five year old grandson, Elijah, came to pay him a visit during his recovery: “I hug him and tell him, ‘Every time I see you, my life becomes a gift.’”

“If you can’t win by playing fair, cheat!”

27 Sunday Jan 2013

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , ,

So writes Charles Blow of the Republican Party on the Op-Ed pages of the New York Times (January 25, 2013).

In key toss-up states controlled by Republican legislatures in the most recent presidential contest, the Republican Party had attempted to skew the vote towards Governor Romney by rigging the system so as to reduce the number of Democrats who would be able to vote. The GOP used a number of strategies including reducing the number of voting places and voting machines in Democratic districts, eliminating the weekend for voting before the election, and shortening the number of hours the polling places would be open that would adversely affect areas populated by minorities, seniors and the poor who tend to vote Democratic. The Republicans had also attempted to require photo identification in order to vote which puts the poor and elderly at a disadvantage, most of whom, of course, tend to vote for Democrats.

Despite this blatant assault on the most basic of democratic freedoms (i.e. the right to vote in free elections), voters in those targeted districts defiantly either voted early by mail or stood for hours in rain and cold to vote. Such long lines, of course, did not exist in districts where Republicans were in the majority.

After trying to unsuccessfully suppress the Democratic vote in 2012, the Republicans have devised a new strategy to win future presidential elections. Though both the Democratic and Republican parties have gerrymandered their state districts to give their respective party advantages, the 2010 gerrymander effort by Republicans has effectively enabled them to retain their majority in the House of Representatives despite the fact that Democrats nationally won more than one million more votes than their Republican colleagues.

Now the Republicans (as described by Charles Blow – click on link below) are trying something new, to rig the election by changing the way states allocate electoral votes in presidential elections.

Currently, states are winner-take-all for the Electoral College, meaning that the candidate who wins a state’s popular vote receives all that state’s electoral votes. The Republicans want to change the system and award electoral votes proportionally by congressional district regardless of who wins the most votes state-wide. On its face, this does not seem unreasonable until one looks at the numbers and connects the dots. This system would favor less populated rural areas that vote Republican over more populated urban areas that vote Democratic by giving them equal weight. Had this system been in effect in 2012, Governor Mitt Romney would have won the presidency despite losing by millions of votes nationally to President Barack Obama.

The only comfort I take from these underhanded undemocratic shenanigans is that they are a reflection of desperation within the GOP that is struggling to stay competitive in a country in which demographics have changed against Republicans and that Republican ideas and approaches to government are no longer held in the majority.

If the Republicans are defeated in these vote-rigging efforts I suspect that the GOP as currently constituted will die from its own self-inflicted wounds. In its place I would hope that there would emerge a new kind of Republican Party that is more moderate, more pragmatic, more inclusive, more compromising, and more democratic.

The United States works best with a viable two-party system that can meet often on common ground and arrive at a workable national consensus on policy while checking the excesses of the other. We certainly do not need one party like the current Republican Party that thinks nothing of cheating the public and undermining our democratic system.

See Charles Blow’s column:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/26/opinion/blow-rig-the-vote.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130126

The Israeli Election – A View From America

25 Friday Jan 2013

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, ,

Israelis have spoken – that is, 67.52% of Israel has spoken equaling 3,777,977 votes with a smaller percentage of Israeli Arabs voting than ever before. In the next six weeks we will learn what the ruling coalition will look like.

There were some big surprises in the final vote tally representing a kind of tikun (correction) within Israeli politics. Rather than continuing the trend towards a more extremist right-wing government, Israelis wanted their next Knesset to turn back towards the middle of the political spectrum.

The two most significant winners are Yair Lapid of “Yesh Atid” (i.e. There is a Future) representing the middle with 19 seats, and Naftali Bennett of “Bayit Yehudi” (i.e. The Jewish Home) from the right with 11 seats. Netanyahu was the big loser though he will likely remain Prime Minister. Kadima dropped to 2 seats and the ultra-Orthodox parties lost strength as well with a total of 19.

What does it all mean?

For the past two months I have been studying modern Hebrew by Skype with two wonderful teachers in Israel. Tomer lives in Tel Aviv, is 25 years old, secular, a graduate student in history and literature at Tel Aviv University, a jazz musician, and interested professionally in the media. He was among the 20% of “undecided voters” until he walked into the voting booth and cast his vote for Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party.

My other teacher, Avital, lives in Efrat (on the West Bank), is 28 years old, religious, a graduate student in Hebrew grammar at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and wishes to be an editor and translator. She was viscerally excited whenever speaking about Naftali Bennett.

Both teachers are smart, sophisticated, educated young Israelis. They are concerned about quality of life, the Israeli economy, the growing deficit, and the future of the middle class. Each was drawn to a candidate who is straight-talking and unencumbered by political corruption.

Tomer worries that Lapid yitkapel (slang: “he will fold/cave” to the pressures of Netanyahu and politics). Avital had wished that Bennett would have fared better. She liked his campaign’s emphasis on family and Jewish study. Both Tomer and Avital liked that their respective candidates each emphasized the importance of shivyon b’nitel (“sharing the burden of military/civilian service including the ultra-Orthodox).

Bennet and Lapid are alike and dissimilar, mirror images of each other. Lapid has called for a renewal of negotiations with the Palestinians leading to a two-state solution, is against the division of Jerusalem and wants the large settlement blocs to remain in Israel with appropriate land swaps in a final settlement.

Bennett wants to annex 60% of the West Bank and is opposed to the establishment of a Palestinian State anywhere on the land west of the Jordan River.

Lapid is a secular Jew and attends our starship Reform synagogue Beit Daniel in Tel Aviv occasionally. He believes in a pluralistic democratic Israel.

Bennett is a modern orthodox Jew who is married to a secular woman and wants the government to support all the orthodox parties and not just Shas. He and Bayit Yehudi have provoked the scorn of Shas’ 90 year old spiritual father, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, who branded them as a party of “goyim.” Bennett does not speak about religious pluralism nor about equal rights for Reform and Conservative religious streams. He wants to change the way judges are appointed so as to prevent them ruling on the constitutionality of legislation passed by the Knesset. He charges that the media is controlled by the left, though neglects to note that the most widely read Israeli newspaper is Israel Hayom, financed entirely by the wealthy American right-wing Jew, Sheldon Adelson.

A defining decision will be whether Netanyahu includes Bennett in his coalition or excludes him. If Bibi excludes him the government will essentially re-affirm the goal of a two-state solution. If he includes Bennett, he will signal his disinterest in negotiations leading to a two-state solution.

Secretary of State designate John Kerry is planning to visit Israel and the Palestinian communities in February to get a lay of the land. I would hope that President Obama will come as well, or very soon thereafter, in order to speak heart to heart with the Israelis and demonstrate his personal concern for their security and welfare as a Jewish and democratic nation, and then do the same with the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah, thereby opening up the process leading to a final two-state solution.

Granted, the President has much on his plate, not the least of which is the Iranian nuclear threat. But only the President can act as the divorce mediator between the Palestinians and Israelis, and I hope he will take on that role.

Tomer and Avital, their generation and the people of Israel deserve nothing less.

“And Hope and History Rhyme” – Seemus Heaney

22 Tuesday Jan 2013

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

,

As I watched today and saw one million citizens standing on the Washington Mall waving small American flags in a flutter of red, white and blue as the first African American President was inaugurated for the second time, I felt such deep pride in being an American.

On NPR’s “Talk of the Nation” today, I heard Nikkey Finney, Professor of English Literature at the University of Kentucky, read part of a poem called “The Cure of Troy” by Seemus Heaney (b. 1939), the 1995 Nobel Prize winner in Literature, and thought – Yes!  That is what this moment in time is all about and that is what we are here to feel, think and believe.

The Cure of Troy

…History says, Don’t hope
on this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
the longed for tidal wave
of justice can rise up,
and hope and history rhyme.

So hope for a great sea-change
on the far side of revenge.
Believe that a further shore
is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
and cures and healing wells…