Category Archives: Women’s Rights

These are fighting words -Reform Jews Are in for More Humiliation at the Israeli Government’s Hands – Haaretz

04 Friday Mar 2016

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

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I usually don’t print entire articles from other news sources in this blog, but this piece from Haaretz today is important for the Reform and Conservative movements in America and Israel to read. Unless you subscribe to Haaretz, you won’t see it. I encourage everyone to subscribe. Haaretz is Israel’s equivalent of the New York Times.

Secondly, please see my blog from Israel last week in which I review the experience of being part of a collective of nearly 300 Reform Rabbis from around the world who gathered at 7:00 am on Thursday morning for Shacharit and Torah reading at the new egalitarian prayer space at the Southern Kotel Plaza that the Israeli government approved several weeks ago.

Our leaders, Anat Hoffman (Chair of Women of the Wall and Executive Director of the Reform movement’s Israel Religious Action Center), Rabbi Gilad Kariv (Executive Director of the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism) and Rabbi Rick Jacobs (President of the Union for Reform Judaism) were right when each urged us immediately after our service to keep the pressure on the Israeli government to fulfill its commitment to build this new space lest the reactionary religious and political forces in Israel, the right-wing and ultra-Orthodox political parties have their way and scuttle this historic agreement.

This piece in Haaretz today is demonstrable proof that they have already begun to battle the government’s agreement. We American Zionists who care deeply about Israel as a Jewish and democratic state must stand against them and insist on the rights of all Jews to pray as they wish at the holiest site in Judaism, and to abide by the principles of democracy that govern the Jewish state.

Reform Jews Are in for More Humiliation at the Israeli Government’s Hands

Unless the movement gains some influence in the Knesset, liberal Jews will never dislodge the ultra-Orthodox hegemony in Jerusalem.

By Anshel Pfeffer Mar 04, 2016 – Haaretz Correspondent

Last Shabbat was a rare moment of Israeli bliss for the Reform movement’s Central Conference of American Rabbis. In Israel for their annual convention, they spent the weekend in Tel Aviv, being feted in synagogues, meeting local dignitaries and attending a special morning service at the city’s museum. Pumped by the feeling of suddenly being part of the Israeli consensus, some of them even ran the Tel Aviv marathon.

The oldest mistake in Israeli politics – one made so often by non-Israelis and Israelis alike – is to think that the right-on progressive vibe of Tel Aviv reflects in any way the rest of Israel. But the U.S. Reform leadership has been here enough times not to make that mistake. Its weekend on the coast was welcome respite and looks great in a gushing press release, but the real question remains what happens in Jerusalem.

This time around, some of the leaders at least were lulled into thinking there may actually be a change afoot up in the Judean Hills. For the first time, their visit to the capital also included a festive prayer at the foot of the Western Wall – and there were no ultra-Orthodox protesters on hand to jostle female rabbis wearing tallitot and rainbow-colored kippot. For this visit came weeks after the eagerly anticipated agreement to establish a new progressive, egalitarian and mixed-gender prayer space at the southern end of the Kotel, separated from the Western Wall plaza and its ultra-Orthodox (or Haredi) hegemony.

But even if that morning made them feel like the paratroopers liberating the Western Wall in the Six-Day War, there was still a battle awaiting them in West Jerusalem. Their leaders had greeted the agreement as “historic” and, at last, a formal Israeli recognition of non-Orthodox Judaism. But the forces arrayed against them were formidable. They should have realized what they were up against when, three weeks earlier, Prime Minister and Likud chairman Benjamin Netanyahu hadn’t reprimanded his own party’s tourism minister, Yariv Levin, for describing Reform Jewry as “a waning world” and accusing them of responsibility for assimilation and the disappearance of American Jewry.

Netanyahu made do with an anodyne statement that Reform Jews “are part and parcel of the Jewish people.” Netanyahu, of course, received the rabbis cordially in his office but, tellingly, his press officers failed to release any photographs or press releases regarding the meeting.

Meanwhile, the rabbis and ultra-Orthodox politicians that Netanyahu relies upon to maintain his narrow, 61-member coalition afloat were ramping up the rhetoric on a daily basis. The Reform movement was accused of ruining Judaism, of selling out its values and of ultimately not being Jewish but “idolators” – as Rabbi David Yosef, a member of the Shas Council of Torah Sages, said this week.

When the prayer space deal was signed at the end of January, the assumption was that the ultra-Orthodox parties would strenuously object but not turn this into a coalition-busting issue. After all, the deal had left their domination of the main Kotel area – which had been contested for years by the Women of the Wall group – intact.

But on Thursday, Religious Services Minister David Azoulay (Shas) told a gathering of rabbis that as far as he is concerned, the matter is yehareg ve’al ya’avor – to be killed rather than transgress, the halakhic definition of a commandment that a Jew must be prepared to die for (usually reserved only for the sins of murder, idolatry and adultery/incest). Azoulay may have gone farther rhetorically than his political and religious masters wanted, but the signal was clear: Netanyahu will have to mollify them.

Some time in the next few days or weeks, rabbis and politicians will gather in the Prime Minister’s Office. The Reform movement will not be represented there. The Western Wall agreement will be amended so that the new prayer area will be defined as some general heritage enclosure for public use, with no formal religious or spiritual connotations. Gone will be any recognition of non-Orthodox streams of Judaism. The Haredim will be able to tell their public that they have seen off the Reform menace. In phone calls to the United States, ministers will try to explain to the Reform leaders that nothing has really changed and assure them that the new section of the Wall will still be at their disposal. It is still a “historic” achievement, they will say.

If they try to object, they will find very few allies. At most, a handful of Meretz and Zionist Union MKs will put out a weak chorus of protest, probably no more than a few posts on Facebook. The leaders of the center-left parties – Isaac Herzog, Yair Lapid and Moshe Kahlon – will remain silent. All of them know that to have any hope of replacing Netanyahu in the foreseeable future, they will need at least one of the ultra-Orthodox parties in their coalition, and there are simply no votes in supporting the Reform struggle to make such a gesture worthwhile.

The Reform leaders will be facing a difficult dilemma. Either accept the downgrading of “their” Western Wall, hand the ultra-Orthodox yet another victory and continue convincing themselves and their members that they can still turn the new site into a bastion of Jewish enlightenment in the heart of Jerusalem. Or reject the new formulation, thus opening up a formal breach between them and the Israeli government, and admit that for all their declarations of a “historic” achievement recently, they are as powerless as ever in Israel.

It doesn’t matter how many times the Reform movement has been humiliated by Israeli politicians: The frustration of the leaders of the largest Jewish movement in the United States remains as bitter as ever. “How do you ask Jews around the world to support Israel politically, economically, socially … and at the same time you have these ministers who say to our people, ‘You’re not really Jewish’ or ‘You don’t have a place here in Israel’? That incongruity is a real problem for us,” the exasperated Rabbi Steven Fox, the chief executive of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, told The Associated Press.

He knows the answer though. You continue doing so because the only alternative is to sever ties with Israel, its government and most of its society – who, despite decades of effort, have yet to warm to non-Orthodox Judaism. Outside of Tel Aviv, that is.

There are those whispering in Netanyahu’s ear that, actually, the Reform movement isn’t such a great lobbyist in Washington, either. Just look whose children are joining anti-Israeli groups like J Street, they say. They won’t stay loyal Jews anyway, much better to invest in those you can trust, like evangelical Christians. Netanyahu is a much more cautious politician than he’s given credit for; he won’t burn bridges, but he certainly won’t go out on a limb either. Ultimately, he will always give the ultra-Orthodox what they ask for.

So, after their all-too-brief “historic” moment, the political reality for the Reform movement is about to reassert itself in Israel. When Winston Churchill said in 1944 that the Vatican would object to the Soviet Union’s plans to dominate Roman Catholic Poland, Joseph Stalin retorted, “The Pope! How many divisions has he got?” The Reform movement, whatever influence it may have in the United States, has no fingers in the Knesset. Unless that changes, it will have no choice but to come back again and again for more humiliation in Jerusalem.

 

The Best of Israeli Reform

27 Saturday Feb 2016

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

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The Israeli Reform movement has come a long way these last 25 years. Thirty percent of all Israelis now have a positive impression of the Reform movement, whereas a generation ago no one knew it even existed. We’ve risen in the Israeli public’s esteem because our rabbis and congregations are liberal, Jewish, open-minded, loving, socially progressive, responsive to people’s personal, spiritual and social needs, and they offer a way for Israelis to be Jewish in a movement that is not orthodox that’s positive, appealing, relevant, and meaningful.

Last Shabbat I joined with 20 American Reform rabbis in a short twenty-minute bus ride to Kehilat Kodesh v’Hol in Holon for Kabbalat Shabbat services and a pot-luck community dinner. Holon is just south of Tel Aviv. Other rabbis traveled to Reform synagogue communities in Haifa, Zichron Ya’acov, Kiryat Tivon, Caesaria, Netanya, Even Yehuda, Ramat Hasharon, Tel Aviv, Gezer, Gadera, and Nahal Oz. There are now 45 congregations spread strategically throughout Israel from Haifa in the north to Sderot in the south.

The name “Kodesh v’Hol” has a double meaning. Hol means “sand” (Holon is near the beach) and it means “secular.” Holon is a middle-class secular city of 190,000 Israelis. The congregation’s young rabbi is smart, warmhearted, talented, and charismatic. Rabbi Galit Cohen-Kedem, the mother three (her third child was born three weeks ago) who was ordained by the Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem a year and a half ago, began the community as a student in 2009. She explained that she and her congregants want to bring holiness to a highly secular community; hence, Kodesh v’Hol.

I ought to mention, lest I be accused of un-ascribed bias, that my synagogue, Temple Israel of Hollywood, enjoys a sister-synagogue relationship with Kodesh v’Hol. However, even if I didn’t already feel a warm spot in my heart for Galit and this community, after last evening I would be immensely excited about what is happening there. They celebrate Shabbat every other week. There are educational programs for families and children. They are sponsoring several families on the welfare rolls who are not part of the congregation, and provide food and support for those in financial distress. And, they have created a public elementary school that emphasizes all subjects from a liberal Jewish perspective that is Israeli and Jewish.

Kodesh v’Hol rents space for services in a community center for seniors during the week. Simply furnished with two large rooms and a back yard where the kids played, the service was in one room that accommodated 75 people and the pot-luck dinner was in the other. We lit candles and parents and their small children gathered beneath a large talit as the community sang the Priestly Benediction. HUC Rabbinic student Benny Minich, originally from Crimea and now an Israeli, led the music. Before we sang Kiddush, Galit invited forward a new oleh from St. Petersberg, Russia, to sing. Constantine is a trained opera singer. Who would have thought that there in Holon we’d be treated to kiddush led by a Russian trained tenor!?

I spoke with one of two co-chairs of the community, Heidi Preis, a young mother of four in her early to mid-30s, and a Sociology PhD candidate at Tel Aviv University who is writing her doctoral dissertation on women and the birth experience as well as the experience of prostitutes working in Tel Aviv. Where Heidi had the time to do all this and be a co-chair of this community I haven’t a clue. But she is the caliber of the people who are building this community; socially conscious, sophisticated, thoughtful, openhearted, smart, and community centered.

We asked some of the members what they had found in this new congregation that was so appealing. Heidi’s mother said that though she had been a member of a modern orthodox synagogue near Jerusalem for most of her adult life, she fell in love with Galit and moved over to this community. The positive and joyful energy there was palpable.

As we walked back to the bus to return to Tel Aviv, we rabbis were abuzz with excitement about this community and its future. No one doubted that Kodesh v’Hol would, within only a few short years, have its own building (it receives no money from the government as do Israeli Orthodox communities for their synagogues and schools) and would grow dramatically as more and more Israelis discover it and make it their home away from home.

This morning the entire conference celebrated Shabbat at the Tel Aviv Art Museum. Rabbi Judy Schindler (the daughter of the late Rabbi Alexander Schindler, the former President of America’s Reform movement) was our prayer leader along with HUC-Jerusalem Cantorial Student and composer Shani Ben Or, and composer, keyboardist and guitarist Boaz Dorot, as well as a violist and a percussionist. The music was beautiful and engaging, from the very best of Israeli and American composers and song writers as well as Yemenite, Libyan, Bulgarian, and classical Israeli music, plus a new nigun composed by Shani and Boaz especially for this occasion. Did I say that Shani sings like an angel and that she intends to become the first cantor-rabbi ordained in Israel by the Hebrew Union College (there are 100 Israeli born rabbis serving the Reform movement here now with 10 being ordained annually. All have positions serving the Israeli community!).

There’s so much that can break and deaden the heart here, but there’s also so much to warm the heart and expand the soul. It was the latter that transported me on this Shabbat and I’m grateful to our sister Reform movement in Israel, the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism, and its inspired rabbis and lay Israeli leadership. It is now an Israeli movement, and it is catching fire.

The Israeli government’s agreement to create an egalitarian and pluralistic prayer space under Robinson’s Arch in the Southern Kotel Plaza that is equal in size to the Northern Kotel Plaza (the traditional Western Wall site) but controlled by Women of the Wall and the Reform and Conservative movements (see my earlier blog) all, taken together, suggest that a tipping point has been reached for liberal Judaism in Israel.

The harsh incitement coming out of the ultra-Orthodox community and aimed directly at Reform Judaism suggests that, indeed, we now represent an important alternative that is meaningful, enriching and affirmative for Jewish identity and observance in the state of Israel threatens Orthodox hegemony over the life of all Israelis. We American Jews and all Jews in the Diaspora ought to take pride in what is taking place, and be as supportive as we can be.

“Two States of the Jewish People”

26 Friday Feb 2016

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

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Our 330 Israeli, American, Canadian, and European Reform colleagues of the Central Conference of American Rabbis after Shabbat will conclude a week of meetings in Israel. We’ve spent time in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and have traveled far and wide around the country.

It’s increasingly my feeling that there are at least two “states of Israel” here: the “state of Jerusalem,” an inspiring, ancient and modern mess dominated by right-wing ultra-Orthodox and settlers movement Jews who want to establish a new Jewish kingdom to replace the democratic Jewish state of Israel to be  controlled by them, the most reactionary elements in Israeli society today.

The other “state of Israel” is the “State of Tel Aviv” composed of politically middle-left Israelis, propelled and sustained by the liberal spirit of democracy, openness, and inclusivity where differences between people and cultures are celebrated, where Palestinian citizens of Israel have equal rights, where LGBT Jews are accepted, where women are treated with respect and dignity, where Reform and secular Jews live and thrive as envisioned by Israel’s Declaration of Independence, and where the spirit of the nations also is embraced.

The common concerns of most Israeli Jews and Israeli Palestinians in both “states of Israel” are security on the one hand and social justice on the other.

The income gap has widened and the numbers in poverty are growing. Though there have been some gains since the 2011 social justice movement that brought hundreds of thousands of young and middle class Israelis to camp out in tents on Rhov Rothschild in Tel Aviv, the cost of living has risen and most Israelis are working harder and longer for less.

Israelis in the middle-left respect Zionist Union opposition leader Isaac Herzog as a decent and honest man, but believe that he will be successfully challenged for leadership in the next Zionist Union election. His proposal to separate Palestinians from Israelis while retaining the hope of a two-state solution reflects the Zionist Union’s recognition that security is the number one issue on Israeli minds. However, even those who like Herzog wonder where his moral voice is. Why, they ask, is he not talking about Palestinian suffering and only about Jewish suffering? Where is the universal thrust in his liberal Zionism? Why is he not calling for immediate negotiations for a two-state end of all claims resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as a matter of Israeli enlightened self-interest and as a moral necessity?

I spent a day and a half with colleagues visiting a High School in Lod that is dramatically improving educational achievement and bringing hope to more than 1000 Palestinian Muslim high school students. We visited the Arab Jewish Community Center in Jaffa that brings together Israeli Palestinians and Israeli Jews to learn about each other. It has numerous programs to assist unemployed Palestinian Arab women, and fights against the humiliation that comes with Arab security profiling. There are language courses in Hebrew and Arabic, choirs of Arab and Jewish children singing their hearts out, and classes teaching the Jewish and Arab narratives of the conflict. We visited the only Arab-Jewish preschool in the country located in Jaffa and created and led by a married Palestinian Sufi-Jewish couple in which 200 two-five year old children and their families learn together and develop community and friendship. We visited in Modin with leaders of the Reform movement who have formed bridges all over the country between Arabs and Jews.

Every time I visit Israel my hope in this grand experiment and miracle of the Jewish people is restored and strengthened. We hear so much bad news about what’s happening here in the media, and we who passionately support the peace movement and the two-state solution can become frustrated by the deterioration of conditions. In despair, many think to throw up their hands and turn away. But, there’s an expression – “B’Yisrael y’ush lo optsia – In Israel, despair is not an option.”

Not only that, but there’s still so much good here being done by so many people, causes, NGOs, Reform synagogues, foundations, and the Israel Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism that we need only to stay focused and strong for Israel’s sake.

To those who believe that Israel is a “failed experiment,” as I heard by one prominent and respected Jew in the pages of Tikkun this past week, I have this to say – you are tragically wrong. Israel is and will be our people’s greatest HOPE.

“We sought to change the State of Israel, not to change Orthodox Judaism!” Rabbi Rick Jacobs after the Kotel Decision

04 Thursday Feb 2016

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Jewish-Christian Relations, Jewish-Islamic Relations, Social Justice, Women's Rights

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This past Sunday, the government of the state of Israel, led by PM Netanyahu, took an historic decision to fund and create a new egalitarian prayer space at the holiest site in Judaism, the Western Wall, that will be characterized by gender equality, pluralism and a lack of segregation between men and women.

This new space will be overseen by non-Orthodox Jewish religious streams (Reform, Conservative) and Women of the Wall.

The following are highlights that I noted in an international conference call for the leadership of the Reform movement this morning, February 4.

Rabbi Rick Jacobs, President of the Union for Reform Judaism, Rabbi Gilad Kariv, Chair of the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism, and Anat Hoffman, Director of the Reform movement’s Israeli Religious Action Center and Chair of Women of the Wall, discussed in detail the significance of Sunday’s cabinet decision.

Rabbi Jacobs thanked PM Netanyahu who made the establishment of an egalitarian section of the Western Wall an important part of his leadership, and he expressed gratitude to Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit, Jewish Agency Director Natan Sharansky, the Conservative movement, the Federations of North America, and Women of the Wall. He singled out Rabbi Gilad Kariv and Anat Hoffman, whose leadership has brought about this historic decision. Rabbi Jacobs, it needs to be noted, was also a central figure in effecting this historic compromise between the liberal religious streams and the Israeli government.

Though the final agreement is imperfect, it will allow the construction of a grand and fitting entrance to a new prayer space beneath Robinson’s Arch at the southern end of the Western Wall that will be visible to all. The decision establishes as a matter of law for the first time that the Kotel belongs to the entirety of the Jewish people and not just to the Orthodox.

Rabbi Jacobs emphasized: “We sought to change the state of Israel with this decision – we could not nor did we wish to change Orthodox Judaism. That’s for them to do!”

In reaction to the decision, hateful and inflammatory words have flown from the mouths of several government Ministers who disparaged the Reform movement. We have not taken their slanderous remarks lightly, and PM Netanyahu also condemned what they said as unrepresentative of the government of Israel.

Now, this agreement must be implemented and we Jews in the Diaspora, along with our movement in Israel, will need to maintain public pressure on the government to bring it about. The best way to do this is for groups of all kinds – Synagogues, Federations, Jewish organizations, NFTY, Birthright Israel trips, family b’nai mitzvah ceremonies, weddings, and individuals need to visit and use this new prayer space.

This government decision is but one step in a longer process of bringing greater religious freedom for all Jews in the state of Israel. Other challenges include our continuing to advocate for civil marriage, for non-Orthodox burial, for the elimination of the hegemonic Chief Rabbinate over the personal choices and lives of Israelis, and for a 2-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Anat Hoffman reviewed the history of this effort that commenced on December 5, 1988 when a small group of Diaspora orthodox women on Rosh Hodesh brought a Torah to the Kotel and then continued to do so on every Rosh Hodesh for the next 27 years. Anat characterized this as a precious gift that Diaspora Jewish women have given not only to Israel but to the entire Jewish people.

Rabbi Kariv shared three insights:

1. This is the first time in the history of the Israeli Reform movement that an agreement has been achieved by negotiations in the Knesset and not through the Supreme Court;

2. Israeli law recognizes that there is more than one way to worship God in Judaism;

3. The upper Kotel plaza has been removed from the purview of the Chief Rabbi of the Wall and has been reclaimed according to national democratic parameters that will allow women and men of the IDF to gather together there for ceremonies.

Other points:

• The Orthodox Rabbinate will maintain complete control over the traditional northern section of the Kotel;

• Notes can be placed in the new prayer section’s Wall as in the northern traditional prayer area;

• We are sensitive that this is an historic religious area for other faith traditions. We will be thoughtful neighbors and we will not ask Christians to remove their crucifixes when entering our prayer area, as they are asked to do in the traditional area (the Pope was asked to do so when he visited the Kotel);

• The National Antiquities Department Director promises that modifications to the Robinson’s Arch area for this new prayer space will not disrupt the archaeological integrity of the site or the Al Aqsa Mosque compound;

• There will be no modesty police overseeing people in this section as is the case in the traditional northern section;

• This area will be known as “The southern section of the Western Wall.”

This decision not only enhances the democratic character of the state of Israel, but it enhances the Jewish character of the state. It is an extraordinary example of partnership between the state of Israel and the Jewish people around the world working together on behalf of klal Yisrael.

To PM Netanyahu, the Jewish people owe you a debt of gratitude.

The Knesset NGO Transparency Bill is not what its backers say it is!

31 Sunday Jan 2016

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

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Israel’s Justice Minister, 39 year-old Ayelet Shaked of the right-wing Jewish Home Party that represents the powerful settler movement, is the primary advocate behind the Knesset bill that would require NGOs (non-governmental organizations) that receive 50% or more of their funding from foreign governments to publicly detail those sources as a means, Shaked says, to protect the state of Israel from the undermining and delegitimizing efforts of the Jewish state by foreign governments.

This bill, however, has nothing to do with what its backers claim because the bill is superfluous. Israel already has many regulations in place for NGOs that receive money from foreign governments, and their budgets are published and sources of income are known.

What is the real intent behind passage of this NGO Transparency bill?

To target Israeli human rights and left-wing organizations such as “B’tzelem,” which monitors human rights violations against Palestinians by settlers and the Israeli military administration in the West Bank, “Breaking the Silence,” a group of former IDF soldiers who are speaking out about army violations of  human rights in the West Bank, and the American based “New Israel Fund,” a pro-Israel human rights organization that funds projects not funded by the Israeli government or American Federation dollars.

It is noteworthy that many right-wing NGOs that are not transparent are left untouched by this Knesset Bill.

According to a Peace Now survey issued in September, 2015 that examined the reports for 2006-2013 of nine NGOs identified with the Israeli right-wing, it was found that there is no way of knowing where the funding of hundreds of millions of shekels to these organizations that deeply affect policy and Israeli public opinion comes from (see http://peacenow.org.il/eng/RightWingNGOs).

For example, 2% (160,000 NIS) of the extremist right-wing organization “Im Tirtsu’s” funding is secret. Last week Im Tirtsu launched a slanderous campaign targeting some of Israel’s most respected left-wing literary icons including Amos Oz, A.B Yehoshua and David Grossman calling them “moles in culture” and insinuating that they are treasonous.

The anti-left “NGO Monitor” does not reveal 23% of its funding. The settlement movement’s powerful “Yesha Council” does not reveal 99% of its funding. The right-wing organization “Ir David Foundation” (Elad) that has led the way in building and developing East Jerusalem Palestinian neighborhoods for Jewish settlement, does not reveal 100% of its funding.

The reason these groups are not required to reveal their funding sources is that their money either comes from Israeli individuals and Foundations or from wealthy American Jews and American Foundations. There is no requirement in Israeli law to name the names of individuals or non-government foundations. The Shaked NGO Transparency Bill only addresses funding from foreign governments.

Shaked’s bill is similar to policies in Egypt after the revolution that banned all NGOs and to Putin’s Russia that bans free speech. MK Shaked dismissed criticism by comparing the Israeli bill with the American Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), but US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro publicly refuted her comparison last month saying:

“As a general matter, US law imposes no limits, restrictions or transparency requirements on the  receipt of foreign funding by NGOs operating in the United States, other than those generally applicable to all Americans…the draft Israeli law would target NGOs simply because they are funded principally by foreign government entities….FARA requires individuals or organizations to register as foreign agents only if they engage in certain specified activities at the order, request or under the direction or control, of a foreign principal – not simply by receiving contributions from such an entity. As a result, it does not create the chilling effect on NGO activities that we are concerned about in reviewing the draft Israeli NGO law.”

Shaked’s NGO Transparency bill does not expose anything new. Organizations in Israel that receive funds from private donors, as such as Sheldon Adelson, are far less regulated as opposed to those organizations receiving money from foreign governments, even governments such as the EU, Germany and the Netherlands that have excellent relations with Israel.

What it comes down to is that MK Shaked’s law focuses upon organizations she and the right-wing government of Israel do not like.

There seems to be a misconception by the bill’s advocates about the important check and balance role that NGOs play in democracies. In a proper democracy, the government does not get to decide what are the good NGOs and what are the bad NGOs. Rather, people decide what they wish to fund or not fund.

Shaked acknowledges that this NGO law does not shut down any NGO nor does it require changes in operating left-wing NGOs. The purpose of the bill is symbolic. Its intent is to sow suspicion about Israeli human rights NGOs, to insult their integrity, to challenge their pro-Israel credentials, and to prime the Israeli public to accept further limitations on what NGOs can do and not do down the road.

This bill ought to be defeated but it is expected to pass, which does not augur well for Israeli democracy.

North American Reform Rabbinate Passes Strong and Visionary Resolution on Israel

04 Monday Jan 2016

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

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In advance of the annual meeting of the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR) in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv at the end of February 2016, the CCAR Board passed a superbly balanced, nuanced and comprehensive statement representing the broad consensus of the American and Canadian Reform Rabbinate.

The CCAR represents 2300 Reform Rabbis serving communities mostly in North America, but also around the world. Reform Judaism is the largest North American religious stream of Jews numbering close to 1.4 million individuals.

This resolution affirms the Reform Rabbinate’s strong support for and bond with the people and state of Israel as a Jewish and Democratic state. It strongly supports equal rights for all Israeli citizens (Jew, Arab and other) according to the principles of the Israeli Declaration of Independence, religious diversity and equal rights for all individuals and religious streams in the state, and a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The resolution demands that Palestinians recognize that Israel is the nation state of the Jewish people and that Israelis recognize that the to-be established state of Palestine is the nation state of the Palestinian people. The resolution opposes the occupation of the West Bank and expansion of Israeli settlements there and calls upon the Palestinian leadership to cease all provocation and incitement against Israelis.

I am proud of the rabbinic leadership of my rabbinic association for its strong, just, compassionate, wise, fair, visionary, and comprehensive resolution.

https://ccarnet.org/rabbis-speak/resolutions/2015/ccar-expression-love-and-support-state-israel-and-/

Over the course of decades the CCAR has issued 322 resolutions on the state of Israel. They can be accessed here:

http://ccarnet.org/search/?q=Resolutions+on+Israel

New Israeli Feminist Ultra-Orthodox Party Runs in Election – Biz’chutan

10 Tuesday Mar 2015

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

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If ever there was a time that ultra-Orthodox women need political, economic, and social power of their own in the state of Israel, now is the time.

For those who have seen the Israeli entry to the Academy Awards this year “Gett” (the third in a trilogy of films) by the brother-sister team of Ronit and Shlomi Elkabetz, you have witnessed how horribly insensitive and misogynist is the Hareidi rabbinic community in Israel.

Gila Yashar is a Hareidi wife and mother of 7 children who tells her heart-breaking story on the TLV1 broadcast aired on March 8. (see link below). Both the film “Gett” and this story about the women running for the Knesset on the Biz’chutan (“In Their Merit”) list, will shock you. If you are not a part of the Hareidi community or knowledgeable about the place of women in it, it is likely that you have no idea of the depth and breadth of the discrimination against women who stand up for their rights, nor of the dismissive attitude towards injustices they have sustained and which have been ignored by the all-male batei din (rabbinical courts).

I hope that this new political party Biz’chutan wins a necessary minimum (3.25%) of the Israeli electorate so that all four of the Hareidi women running for office – Ruth Culian, Noa Erez, Tami Bilui, and Gila Yashar – will be able to take seats in the next Knesset.

Their courage to defy the ultra-Orthodox Israeli Hareidi community has already given heart to many Hareidi women in similar circumstances who feel utterly alone and abandoned and as though no one cares about them.

Click here to hear this heart-wrenching and inspirational story: http://tlv1.fm/so-much-to-say/2015/03/08/going-against-the-grain-the-bizchutan-party/

B’hatz’lachen!

Zionism and Crisis – A Conversation

08 Sunday Mar 2015

Posted by 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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In late February I was invited to participate in a dialogue on the meaning of Progressive Zionism, Israel’s character as a Jewish homeland and democratic state, why Israel is important for American Jews, our role in US-Israeli politics, and our relationship with each other vis a vis the state of Israel.

I was questioned by Dr. Joshua Holo, Associate Professor of Jewish History and Dean of the Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles, in a 45-minute conversation. Dr. Holo and I covered many of the most critical issues facing American Jewry in relationship to the state of Israel today. Our conversation can be watched at http://huc.edu/academics/learn/zionism-and-crisis.

This program, called “Zionism and Crisis – A Conversation,” is part of an on-going series of discussions led by Dean Holo on a wide variety of themes in a series called “THE COLLEGE COMMONS.” Currently, 20 Reform synagogues throughout the western United States from Seattle to San Diego and throughout the southwest are participating in a live-stream and real-time conversation followed by discussion in each synagogue led by their respective rabbis. Dr. Holo prepares study materials for those synagogue conversations.

There is no charge for synagogue participation. This is not what Josh calls “Pajama Torah,” meaning that you cannot access this conversation in real-time on-line from home. It must be done in community with others, and so synagogues are signing up and gathering congregants to watch, question the speakers and then discuss together these themes.

If you are interested in participating, ask your rabbis and adult learning chairs to contact HUC and schedule these events. They occur on Tuesday evenings and Sunday mornings four times annually. If you live in other communities around the country, you are welcome as well but note the time changes.

For more information see collegecommons@huc.edu. Also see http://huc.edu/campus-life/los-angeles/college-commons and http://huc.edu/academics/learn/theme/458

Upcoming Conversations include (all moderated by Dean Holo):

• DEATH BY SUCCESS? WALKING THE TIGHTROPE OF IDENTITY: with Dr. Kristine Garroway and Rabbi Tali Zelkowicz
• OUR JEWISH FUTURE: THE B’NAI MITZVAH REVOLUTION: with Dr. Isa Aron
• REBIRTH IN GERMANY?: with Dr. Leah Hochman and Dr. Sharon Gillerman
• THE MYSTERY OF THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS: with Rabbi Joshua Garroway, Ph.D
• ARMED WITH SCRIPTURE: QUR’AN AND TORAH AS WEAPONS IN THE WAR OF IDEAS: with Rabbi Tamara Eskenazi, Ph.D

Past Conversations are now available on-line (above) for viewing from home:

• BULLY PULPIT: TORAH WITH A POINT OF VIEW: with Rabbi Richard Levy
• ANTI-SEMITISM: ROOTS AND REALITY: with David Lehrer
• POLITICS AND THE PULPIT: with Rabbi Stephanie Kolin
• HOW JUDAISM IS CHRISTIANITY?: with Rabbi Joshua Garroway
• FROM ARAB SPRING TO ARAB SUMMER – OR WINTER? FAULT LINES IN THE ARAB AND MUSLIM WORLDS: with Rabbi Reuven Firestone, Ph.D
• A FORUM ON THE 2013 PEW STUDY OF JEWISH AMERICANS: with Sr. Sarah Bunin Benor, Dr. Bruce A. Phillips and Dr. Steven Windmueller

This is an exciting new forum for synagogue learning with leading scholars and teachers. My own synagogue will be part of next year’s series.

I wish to express my gratitude to my friend Dr. Josh Holo for conceiving and initiating this forum and thereby bringing scholars and HUC faculty to our communities on a regular basis.

Register to Vote in the World Zionist Congress Elections and Vote ARZA Slate

10 Tuesday Feb 2015

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

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One of the most important steps that Diaspora Jews can take to support Israel’s democracy, pluralism and bond with world Jewry and the state of Israel is to vote in this year’s World Zionist Congress election that is open for registration and voting through April 15, 2015.

The only requirements for voting are that you must be Jewish and at least 18 years of age.

I ask you to click now onto the link below, register and vote for the ARZA Slate (i.e. the Association of Reform Zionists of America). Please do not delay.

I ask for your vote as a delegate on the ARZA Slate (I am #25) that includes many distinguished America rabbis and leaders of the Union for Reform Judaism representing 1.3 million American Jews.

All the information you need to know about ARZA’s platform can be found on this website. You can also register to vote and actually vote at the same time here: https://www.reformjews4israel.org.

The Slate of ARZA Delegates can be found at this site: https://www.reformjews4israel.org/slate/.

Important note: There is a one-time only administrative charge of $5 for young Jews between the ages of 18 and 30, and $10 for Jews over 30. This is required by the World Zionist Organization to administer this election.

Questions:

1. What is the World Zionist Congress?

The Parliament of the Jewish People representing all of world Jewry.

  1. What is the ARZA Platform?
  • Support for gender equality in the State of Israel
  • Support for religious equality in the State of Israel
  • Support for peace through commitment to a two-state solution of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
  1. Why does it matter that you vote for ARZA?

ARZA currently holds 39% of the US representation in the World Zionist Congress based on the results of the last election for the WZC. Consequently, over the past five years $20 million has been given to the Israeli Movement for Progressive Judaism (IMPJ) to support its programs, congregations, rabbis, outreach, and social justice work. The Israeli government has also provided 4 new buildings for Reform communities around Israel because of our large American Reform Zionist representation.

The government of the state of Israel does not give any money directly to the Reform movement except through special programs. However, the government does fund generously orthodox schools and synagogues. This is not only unfair, it is a violation of the spirit of Israel’s own Declaration of Independence. We American Reform Zionists support our movement and others in Israel who are struggling through the courts to be treated equally under the law.

In the meantime, we must raise money to support our Israeli Reform movement, and our success in this WZC election is one sure way to do that.

Note that the Israeli Reform movement is a significant leader in support of the Israel Religious Action Center in Jerusalem and our 45 congregations, 2 kibbutzim, strong youth programs, nursery schools, Tali schools, and pre-military programs all over the country.

Our movement supports civil marriage unions in Israel without having to involve the Chief Rabbinate, egalitarianism at the Western Wall, anti-Racism laws, anti-Poverty activism, and many other social justice causes.

A vote for the ARZA slate will also deny funds for settlement building in the West Bank.

ARZA needs your vote and I am asking that you and every Jewish individual in your household register today at the above site, pay the $5 or $10 administrative fee depending on your age, and then vote for the ARZA Slate. Thank you in advance!

Rabbi John Rosove, delegate – ARZA Slate in WZC Election

PS – If you have trouble voting, please call 844-413-2929 or email AZM@election-america.com

 

If This Enrages You – Do Something About It

10 Tuesday Feb 2015

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

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I have printed Anat Hoffman’s most recent letter in the Israeli Religious Action Center’s weekly email “The Pluralist” because, if you are like me, this will enrage you and inspire you to do something. If so, then please sign the IRAC’s Petition and send this blog to your friends asking them to do the same.

Sign Our Petition to the Interior Ministry

Dear Friends,

Israel is planning to deport two of its own citizens. Two children, David (14) and Michal (8).  Their crime?  Their Israeli father died before their non-Jewish mother was naturalized as an Israeli citizen.

Their father, Gershon, spent several years working as an Israeli emissary in Uzbekistan, where he met and fell in love with Valentina. Their first-born son was named David, after Gershon’s father, a Holocaust survivor.

They moved back to Israel and lived near Gershon’s large extended family. Gershon filed the necessary paperwork for Valentina and David to obtain Israeli citizenship. As the bureaucratic wheels turned slowly, and while the couple was expecting their second child, Gershon was diagnosed with a brain tumor.

Gershon’s illness claimed his life the following year, while Valentina, David, and the couple’s newborn daughter Michal were visiting in Uzbekistan. Gershon’s last wish was for Valentina to return to Israel and raise their children as Israelis.

However, soon after Gershon’s death, the Interior Ministry closed Valentina’s file (“non-Jewish widows are not entitled to citizenship”). In 2013, IRAC filed a petition to request temporary residency for  Valentina. The response finally came last week. Even though David and Michal are recognized as Israeli citizens, Valentina was ordered to leave the country. Separating David and Michal from their mother would be unimaginable. So all three will have to leave Israel.

We have filed an urgent appeal with the Ministry of Justice, based on a precedent IRAC won in 2009, when we made history by proving in court that marriage continues after death. Our victory created the “widow procedure” which states that a non-Jewish spouse can continue his/her naturalization process (taking 5 years) after the death of the Israeli partner.

The appeal includes a letter from David and Michal’s 81-year old grandmother, asking to be allowed to live out the rest of her life surrounded by all of her grandchildren, and a letter from the children’s 16-year old half-sister who wrote: “My father served his country proudly, and his father barely survived the Holocaust. Why am I allowed to live in Israel but my brother and sister are not?”

David and Michal deserve to live in this country together with their mother and their entire extended family.

Help us fight for them at this critical point. Sign our petition to the Minister of the Interior to demand that this family be allowed to stay in Israel.

An avalanche of signatures can make the difference.

Yours,

Anat

Sign Our Petition to the Interior Ministry

Click here to sign IRAC’s petition to the Minister of the Interior to demand that David, Michal and Valentina be allowed to stay in Israel together with their entire extended family.