Terezin – a poem by Hanus Hachenburg z’l

15 Wednesday Apr 2015

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in Holidays, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Poetry, Stories

Tonight and tomorrow is Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Memorial Day.

This past October, I was with a group from my synagogue that visited Terezin. We were led by a survivor of Terezin, Auschwitz and a death march back to Terezin, Pavel Stansky – now 93 years old. Pavel was a teacher then, and devoted his time with the children to try and bring them some happiness in those dark days, weeks and months.

A total of 15,000 children under the age of 15 passed through Terezin. Of these, about 100 came back.

This poem was written in 1943 by Hanus Hachenburg, z’l.

“That bit of filth in dirty walls,
And all around barbed wire,
And 30,000 souls who sleep
Who once will wake
And once will see
Their own blood spilled.

I was once a little child,
Three years ago.
That child who longed for other worlds.
But now I am no more a child
For I have learned to hate.
I am a grown-up person now,
I have known fear.

Bloody words and a dead day then,
That’s something different than bogie men!

But anyway, I still believe I only sleep today,
That I’ll wake up, a child again, and start to laugh and play.
I’ll go back to childhood sweet like a briar rose,
Like a bell which wakes us from a dream,
Like a mother with an ailing child
Loves him with woman’s love.
How tragic, then, is youth which lives
With enemies, with gallows ropes,
How tragic, then, for children on your lap
To say: this for the good, that for the bad.

Somewhere, far away out there, childhood sweetly sleeps,
Along that path among the trees,
There o’er that house
Which was once my pride and joy.
There my mother gave me birth into this world
So I could weep . . .

In the flame of candles by my bed, I sleep
And once perhaps I’ll understand
That I was such a little thing,
As little as this song.

These 30,000 souls who sleep
Among the trees will wake,
Open an eye
And because they see
A lot

They’ll fall asleep again. . .”

Notes: This poem is preserved in a typewritten copy. In the right corner, “IX. 1944” is written in and on the right side, the following is written in pencil: “Written by children from the ages of 10 to 16, living in homes L 318 and L 4176.” The poem is unsigned, but the author was identified by O. Klein, a former teacher at Terezin, as Hanus Hachenberg. He was born in Prague on July 12, 1929, and deported to Terezin on October 24, 1942. He died on December 18, 1943 at the age of 14 in Oswiecim (i.e. Auschwitz). The copy is likely from a later date.

The above notes and the poem are taken from “I never saw another butterfly… Children’s Drawings and Poems from Terezin Concentration Camp 1942-1944.” McGraw-Hill. New York. Printed in Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic). 1971. Pages 22-23 and 78.

A decision that should have been resolved before marriage

14 Tuesday Apr 2015

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in American Jewish Life, Life Cycle

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Nathan’s father died soon after he was born, and before his death he asked his wife to be certain that their son would become bar mitzvah at age 13. His wife Joanne created a warm Jewish home, joined our synagogue, entered Nathan into Religious School, celebrated Shabbat every week bringing an assortment of friends into hers and Nathan’s home, and Nathan became Bar Mitzvah.

I met Nathan when he was six years old. He was, even as a child, smart and thoughtful, kind, talented, and graced with a gentle charisma that drew people to him.

I stayed close to him and his mother, but tragically, Joanne was diagnosed with cancer and died when Nathan was 17. Before her death, she arranged for him to live with dear friends who took Nathan into their home as their own, and I made Nathan pledge to stay in touch with me as I would do with him.

I’ve always believed in Nathan, and once suggested to him during his college years to consider the rabbinate, as he had everything it took to be an effective rabbinic leader. He appreciated the thought and my confidence in him, but explained that since he didn’t believe in God this was a path he could not take honestly.

Nathan went on to become a teacher and worked in the inner city public schools for five years with 4th grade children and their parents trying to help these kids to love learning, to develop strong study habits and to work their way up and out of poverty.

Like many teachers in these circumstances, Nathan burned out. The work was tough and he found himself fighting against a strong current of family illiteracy, gangs and drugs. He wanted to help others, but he had to find a new way. So he applied to law school and now is working as a public defender.

Nathan and I talk infrequently, but we’ve maintained a special bond. He’s now 34 years old and married to a wonderful non-Jewish woman who is generally supportive of his raising their children as Jews, to a point. Three months before the baby would be born he called me to talk about brit milah. He wanted it. His wife didn’t. What to do? I spoke at length with him about this and offered to speak with his wife, but she didn’t want to then. Nothing was resolved.

Four days after Nathan’s son was born, he called me desperately needing to talk. He explained that he was on cloud nine and in the dumps. On the third day of his son’s life, he raised the issue of a brit milah again with his wife, and they had the most alienating fight of their relationship.

He explained that his wife couldn’t imagine taking a knife to her new-born baby. She charged that the circumcision was a form of mutilation, and her maternal instinct wouldn’t permit it.

Once again he explained to her all his reasons why he wanted his son to enter the Covenant of Abraham, saying to her, “I feel deeply Jewish in my guts and I want my son to be Jewish too, that not doing this meant distancing himself even further from the father he’d never known who wanted him to be a Jew, from the mother who raised him as a Jew, and from his Jewish heritage altogether. “

He asked me for wisdom about what to do.

I suggested that he also say the following to her:

“Yes – the bris can be momentarily painful to our child, but mohalim (ritual circumcisers) use wine as a way to calm the baby while the brit occurs. The wound may be sore for a couple of days, but that’s it. Compared to the birth experience, a brit milah is far less traumatic, and it heals quickly. It isn’t mutilation at all. It’s the most fundamental and ancient of Jewish rites going back 3600 years. This is something very deep for me and I am asking you to allow it.”

“Nathan,“ I then said. “Your instincts are right. Those Jewish parents who choose not to bring their sons into the Covenant of Abraham separate themselves and their children from this 3600-year rite of passage and ineffable relationship with God. This is about Jewish identity and continuity. Since you and your wife have agreed to raise your son as a Jew, you must do this.”

We left it there, but I checked back with him a couple of days later. He said: “We had another argument last night with a friend trying to mediate, but she has decided that she can’t abide with the circumcision. I’m very angry, but she’s not changing her mind… I can’t maintain my anger and tarnish what is the happiest moment of my life. I have no choice but to move forward. All of this has reinvigorated my desire to give my son a Jewish education, for him to become Bar Mitzvah. My wife has said that she is supportive of that. She recognizes the huge sacrifice I’m making…I hope my son will some day make a choice to have a brit. Will you perform a naming even without a brit?”

I told Nathan I would. He understands, however, that the naming without the brit milah is half-done.

Nathan’s situation confirms my conviction that this kind of a decision has to be made before marriage even takes place.

I have confidence in Nathan and trust him to do everything he can to raise his son as a Jew. I hope his wife comes around one day on the brit milah, and sooner rather than later. Time will tell.

When an Unsure Jew Falls in Love with a Religious Christian

09 Thursday Apr 2015

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in Uncategorized

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Tags

Divrei Torah - Holidays - HEalth and Well-Being - Musings about God/Faith/Religious Life

This week I spoke with a young man who was raised in my synagogue but who I haven’t seen since he became Bar Mitzvah. He is now 24 years old, kind, openhearted, intellectually superior, and well-educated. He is a grandchild of survivors of the Holocaust, feels Jewish in his heart, but has arrived at an important crossroad, which is why he called me.

He is engaged to be married to a young woman who seems to be his equal in heart, mind and soul. She is a religious Christian whose father is a pastor of a small evangelical church. For two years they have been in love. In that time they have talked deeply about God, faith, the soul, love, and marriage.

He acknowledged that he is not knowledgeable about Judaism. He said that he believes in God and that Jesus is “the son of God.” I asked, “Does this mean that you believe that Jesus’ ‘essence’ is fundamentally different from the essence of any other human being?”

Classic Christianity affirms that Jesus was both wholly divine and wholly human, whereas all other people are wholly human but not divine. My young friend acknowledged that though he believed that Jesus was a deeply unusual and inspired man (according to Paul and the Gospel writers), he did not believe that Jesus was “divine” any more than he or I are divine.

I breathed a sigh of relief. I had feared that he had become already a religious Christian.

I have studied Christianity seriously and respect it as a substantial faith tradition. However, I explained to my former student that I love my mother just as he loves his mother, but I am not required to love his mother, nor is he required to love mine. In this way, Christianity is not mine for all kinds of good reasons, just as Judaism does not belong to Christians for an equal number of good reasons.

I told my young friend that based on his understanding of Jesus, he was not a Christian, and that he owed it to himself and to his fiancé to understand not only Christianity as deeply as he can, but Judaism as deeply and as fully as he can as well. I intimated that he simply didn’t know enough to honestly turn away from his own 3500-year religious, ethical and cultural tradition and history and take on another religious faith without serious thought and study.

I told him that there are some people who were born Jewish who now claim to be “Messianic Jews,” that is, they identify with Jewish culture and ethics but have accepted Jesus as the “Christ Messiah.” Those people, I explained, are, truth to tell, no longer “Jewish” by any Jewish definition despite their claimed origins. They are Christians, pure and simple.

Jews believe that the messianic coming will occur only when peace, justice and compassion characterize all aspects of human affairs, and not before.

I also explained that the reason we Jews do not accept the idea of God incarnate is because such a notion is, according to all streams of Judaism, idolatrous. For Jews, God is always beyond comprehension, beyond form, beyond concept, beyond ideas. God is infinitely and eternally greater than anything that even the greatest minds and spirits can imagine or intuit. Though the idea of God incarnate was a brilliant theological innovation initiated by Paul of Tarsus and developed by the Gospel writers and early Church Fathers in order to help people understand that which is beyond comprehension, it is not, for us Jews a true Truth.

I told my young friend that, with respect, he needed to learn Judaism, and that both he and his fiancé needed to more fully understand each of their religious traditions and how they fundamentally differ from one another. I urged them to learn Judaism together, talk about everything honestly, openly and directly, and find a Jewish community in which to experience, as adults, the richness that Jewish religious life offers.

I recommended that they read a sermon I delivered on Rosh Hashanah in 2012 on intermarriage, its risks and dynamics, so that they could understand more fully the context in which my former student himself was living as an American Jew – See http://www.tioh.org/about-us/clergy/aboutus-clergy-clergystudy

I recommended, as well, two books that hopefully would stimulate their thinking and address the yearnings of their hearts and souls:

Christianity in Jewish Terms – Essays by Tikva Frymer-Kensky, David Novak, Peter Ochs, David Fox Sandmel, and Michael A. Signer. 2000. Westview Press. An exploration into the meaning of a set of Christian beliefs as understood by some of our most thoughtful Jewish scholars and thinkers.

God in Search of Man – by Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. Among the most important rabbinic figures of the 20th century. Rabbi Heschel was a profound theologian, philosopher, rabbinic and mystic scholar, poet, social activist, interfaith and Zionist leader.

I invited my friend to call me any time, that I cared about him and his family, and wished him only happiness and fulfillment.

Hunger in America– For Your Passover Seders

02 Thursday Apr 2015

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in Uncategorized

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Americahn Politics and Life, American Jewish Life, American Politics, Ethics, Social Justice

In the United States, there are 48.8 million Americans (32.6 million adults of whom 6 million are seniors, and 16.2 million children – equaling 16.7% of all American men, women, and children – nearly 1 in 6 – 14.5% of all American households) who are “food insecure,” defined by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) as a “lack of access at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life.”

There are many government programs and charitable organizations that seek to address the “temporary emergency” that these 48.8 million Americans face every day. MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger reports that in FY2011, the Federal government spent $94.8 billion in food and nutrition assistance programs, and America’s largest hunger-relief organizations spent $1.2 billion, and still nearly 49 million Americans today are food insecure. Clearly, neither the government nor charitable organizations have been able to feed all those in need.

During the Passover Seder we say “Let all who are hungry come and eat!”

How are we to respond to this mitzvah?

The answer isn’t just to give of our charitable dollars to the poor and hungry in our neighborhoods and communities, but to support local, state and national hunger policies that seek to to make it easier for poor working families and individuals to get the food and nutrition that they need.

MAZON offers a reading for our Seder meals with specifics on what we can actually do in the fulfillment of the mitzvah to feed the hungry.

Ha Lachma Anya

This is the bread of poverty and persecution that our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt. As it says in the Torah, “Seven days shall you eat matzot, the bread of poverty and persecution so that you may remember that you were a slave in Egypt.”

Let all who are hungry, come and eat.

Let all who are in need, come and share the Pesach meal.

At its most fundamental level, the Passover Seder is meant to remind us that we know firsthand the suffering and degradation faced by those who are poor. We know the sharp pain of hunger, the slavery that is poverty and persecution; and we also know that this memory, this shared experience, compels us to act.

Ha Lachma Anya. This is the bread of poverty.

17 million children face a constant struggle against hunger, and hungry kids can’t learn or grow to their full potential.

Let every hungry child come and eat, with a Reauthorized Child Nutrition Act that improves and expands school meals and summer, afterschool and childcare nutrition programs.

Ha Lachma anya. This is the bread of poverty.

Six million seniors face food insecurity and 35% of seniors must make the impossible choice between paying for food and paying for heat/utilities.

Let every hungry senior come and eat, with a Reauthorized Older Americans Act that increases funding for Meals on Wheels and senior congregant feeding programs.

Ha Lachma Anya. This is the bread of poverty.

49 million Americans struggle to put food on the table and feed their families.

Let every hungry family come and eat, with adequate funding for SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition assistance Program).

Ha Lachma Anya. This is the bread of poverty.

This is Passover, we say Dayeinu.

We have had enough.

This year, we will work together so that all who are hungry can finally come and eat.”

Write your congressional representatives and ask them to support the tReauthorized Child Nutrition Act, Reauthorized Older Americans Act, and SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition assistance Program).

For more information, see Mazon’s website: http://www.mazon.org – Mazon: A Jewish Response to Hunger is the only organization in American Jewish life devoted solely to the issue of hunger.

Chag Pesach Sameah!

Pesach is Coming – Time to Ask Ourselves the Big Questions

31 Tuesday Mar 2015

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in American Jewish Life, Ethics, Health and Well-Being, Holidays, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Jewish Identity

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To be curious is the first quality of the wise. Wise people know that they do not know and are open to learn something from everyone.

The Passover Seder will soon be upon us, and there is much about the Seder that is mysterious. Nothing is as it seems. Everything stands for something else. Deeper truths are there for the seeker. Everything in the Seder evokes questions.

I have compiled a list of questions that might be sent in advance to your Seder participants or asked around the table during the Seder itself. You may have questions of your own that you would wish to add.

Afikoman – Breaking the Matzah

Questions: What part of us is broken? What work do we need to do to effect tikun hanefesh – i.e. restoration of our lives? What t’shuvah – i.e. return, realignment of our lives, re-establishment of important relationships – do we need to perform to bring about inner wholeness and reconciliation with others? What is broken in the world – i.e. what remains unfair, unjust, unresolved, in need of our loving care and attention – and what am I/are we going to do about it?

Mah Nishtanah – How is this night different from all other nights?

Questions: How am I different this year from previous years? What has changed in my life this year for better and/or for worse? What ‘silver lining’ can I find even in my disappointments, frustrations, loss, illness, pain, and suffering? What conditions in our communities, nation and world have worsened since last we sat down for the Pesach meal?

Ha-Chacham – The Wise Child

Questions: Who inspired you this past year to learn? Who has been your greatest teacher and why? What are the lessons you have gleaned from others that have affected you most in the year gone by?

Ha-Rasha – The Evil Child

Questions: Since Judaism teaches that the first step leading to evil is taken when we separate ourselves from the Jewish community and refuse to participate in acts that help to redeem the world, have we individually stepped away from activism? Have we become overcome by cynicism and despair? Do we believe that people and society succumb inevitably to the worst qualities in the human condition, or do we retain hope that there can be a more just and compassionate world? Are we optimistic or pessimistic? Do we believe that people and society can change for the better? Are we doing something to further good works, or have we turned away into ourselves alone and given up?

Cheirut – Thoughts of Freedom

Questions: If fear is an impediment to freedom, what frightens me? What frightens the people I love? What frightens the Jewish people? Are our fears justified, or are they remnants of experiences in our individual and/or people’s past? Do they still apply? Are we tied to the horrors of our individual and communal traumas, or have we broken free from them? What are legitimate fears and how must we confront them?

Tzafun – The Hidden Matzah

Questions: What have we kept hidden in our lives from others? Are our deepest secrets left well-enough alone, or should we share them with the people closest to us? To what degree are we willing to be vulnerable? Have we discovered the hidden presence of God? Have we allowed ourselves to be surprised and open to wonder and awe? If so, how have we changed as a result?

Sh’fach et chamat’cha – Pouring Out Our Wrath

Questions: Is there a place for hatred, anger and resentment in our Seder this year? How have these negative emotions affected our relationships to each other, to the Jewish community, the Jewish people, the Palestinians, the State of Israel, to any “other”? Have we become our own worst enemy because we harbor hatred, anger and resentment? Do the Seder themes and symbolism address our deeply seated anger, hatred and resentment?

Ba-shanah Ha-ba-ah Bi-y’ru-shalayim – Next Year in Jerusalem

Questions: What are your hopes and dreams for yourself, our community, country, the Jewish people, the State of Israel, and the world? What are you prepared to do in the next year to make real your hopes and dreams? Have you visited Israel and when do you plan to visit again? Despite disagreements with the policies of the government of Israel, if you have them, how can you demonstrate love for the state and Jewish people in spite of legitimate criticisms you may have?

Rabbi Eric Yoffie, past president of the Union for Reform Judaism, and now a writer, lecturer and teacher, has written an important piece in Haaretz called “Three points to make when fighting over Israel at the Passover Seder – It will be impossible to bridge the gaps between the leftists and rightists, because both will be correct. So, I offer three things worth noting.”

See Haaretz at http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.649565?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter —

or go directly to his blog at https://ericyoffie.com/passover-seder/

Note: Rabbi Yoffie is always worth reading, especially in these times, as he presents a wise, moral, balanced, and pragmatic voice of contemporary Judaism.

West Bank Settlement Policy Today – Questions and Answers

29 Sunday Mar 2015

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in Uncategorized

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Americahn Politics and Life, American Jewish Life, American Jewish Politics, American-Israel politics, Israel and The Palestinians, Israel/Zionism

“Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s settlement policy resembles his predecessors’ in many ways, but it is a march toward permanence in a time when prospects for peace are few.”

So wrote Jodi Pudoren and Jeremy Ashkenas in a NY Times piece called “Netanyahu and The Settlements” (March 12, 2015). (See link below for full article).

In the spirit of Pesach, I pose a series of questions and answers:

• What is the current status of settlement construction beyond the Green Line? Lior Amichai, Deputy Director at Jerusalem’s Shalom Achshav Settlement Watch Project, reported to the J Street National Conference in Washington, D.C. last week that between 2009 and 2014 Israel began construction beyond the Green Line a total of 10,858 housing units. In that time Israel also proposed 5711 tenders for future building, promised to submit 13,077 plans for future projects and changed the status of 20 illegal “outposts” to “legal settlements.”

• Since the Oslo process began in 1993, what is the Jewish population growth in the west bank? In 1993, 110,300 settlers lived on land over the Green Line. Today, the Jewish population totals 356,500 settlers. 12% of Israeli settlers control 60% of west bank land and the Palestinian Authority controls the other 40%.

• How are Palestinian Arabs and Israelis who live beyond the Green Line treated by Israel? Palestinian Arabs who live beyond the Green Line enjoy none of the rights of Israeli citizenship because those territories, taken by Israel in the 1967 Six Day War, have never been formally annexed or incorporated into the State of Israel. The legal status of west bank Palestinian Arabs is therefore different than Israeli Arab citizens who enjoy all the rights and privileges that Israeli Jewish citizens enjoy. West bank Palestinian Arabs are subject to the Israeli Military Authority without the same democratic rights and protections enjoyed by Israeli Arab citizens living within Israel itself. Israeli confiscation of privately owned Palestinian land in the west bank is the most serious inequity. It is estimated by Israeli human rights organizations B’tzelem and Shalom Achshav that one third of all land held by Jewish settlements in the west bank is built on Palestinian deeded land. Israeli settlers in the west bank, however, enjoy all the same rights of citizenship as do those Israeli citizens (Jewish and Arab) who live within the Green Line.

• What is Israel’s budget for settlement construction beyond the Green Line? Labor MK Stav Shafrir is now conducting an investigation as a member of the Knesset Budget Committee to determine exactly how much money has been allocated for settlement construction in the past and on an annual basis. She reported to the J Street National Conference last week that, in truth, there are two Israeli budgets – one public and one she called “secret.” MK Shafrir estimates that at least 1 billion NIS has been allocated in the last couple of years to build settlements and infrastructure (e.g. roads, electricity, water) with money that shows up nowhere in Israel’s official budget and has not been approved by the Knesset.

• What are the policies of the different American Jewish Federations regarding funding projects beyond the Green Line? J Street U (J Street’s college division) is investigating the policies of America’s largest Jewish Federations about funding projects in Israel beyond the Green Line, if it is done at all. That report will be published once information has been collected and analyzed.

• What is the future of the large settlement blocs in a two-state agreement? Israeli and Palestinian negotiators last year reached a consensus that the large Israeli settlement blocs and neighborhoods surrounding Jerusalem will be part of the state of Israel in any two-state agreement, with corresponding land swaps given by Israel to the future state of Palestine. This means that 75% of all Jewish settlers living now in the west bank beyond the Green Line will be absorbed inside the borders of the state of Israel. The remaining small Jewish “outposts” and settlements not inside the settlement blocs in the west bank where approximately 90,000 Israeli settlers now live will either be vacated or will come under the authority of the state of Palestine. Despite this consensus amongst the negotiators, PM Netanyahu recently declared (see NYT below): “I do not intend to evacuate any settlements.”

• Will the Palestinians file charges against Israel in the UN International Criminal Court? Martin Indyk, the chief American negotiator in last year’s failed talks and once a leader of AIPAC, has charged that PM Netanyahu’s “rampant settlement activity” has a “dramatically damaging impact,” so much so that next month the Palestinians may file a case in the UN International Criminal Court charging that Israeli settlements are an ongoing war crime.

• What ought to be the role that liberal American Zionists play? Our role ought to be to support our Israeli brothers and sisters who protest against continuing settlement construction except, perhaps, in the large settlement blocs that likely will remain in Israel once a two-state agreement is attained, and to continue to support all efforts to bring about an end-of-conflict agreement of two states for two peoples.

This NY Times piece “Netanyahu and the Settlements” includes maps showing exactly where the settlements and outposts are located beyond the Green Line as well as the history of settlement activity since the Oslo period began in 1993.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/03/12/world/middleeast/netanyahu-west-bank-settlements-israel-election.html?_r=0

“We Don’t Want You Here!” – Bereaved Palestinian and Israeli Parents Speak to J Street

26 Thursday Mar 2015

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

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“Anachnu lo rotzim etchem po — Ma bidnaash an takuunu hone! — We don’t want you here!”

30 Israeli and Palestinian men, women, and children spoke these words alternately in Hebrew and Arabic in a short film shown to 3000 delegates of the J Street National Convention in Washington, D.C. this past week. Each person had lost a close family member to Palestinian or Israeli violence, and they wanted no more to join them in grief.

At the film’s conclusion, Robi Damelin and Bassam Aramin walked arm-in-arm onto the stage.

Robi is an Israeli mother whose 28 year-old son David, a student who was working on his masters in the Philosophy of Education at Tel Aviv University, was murdered by a Palestinian sniper a few years ago. The murderer had witnessed the killing of his uncle when he was a child, and when he was grown stepped onto a path of revenge and took David’s and 9 other Israeli lives.

Bassam is a Palestinian father whose 10 year-old daughter, Abir, was shot dead by an Israeli border policemen in 2007 as she walked down the street with her sister and two friends after buying sweets in a shop across the road from her school in the West Bank village of Anata at the end of a math exam.

When David was murdered, the first words his devastated mother spoke were: “Do not take revenge in the name of my son…get out of the occupied territories.”

Robi and Bassam are the Israeli and Palestinian Spokespersons for The Parents Circle, a group of bereaved Israeli and Palestinian parents who have lost children to violence (see http://www.theparentscircle.com/). They say, “There is no military solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict… More war creates more victims on both sides … The power of Israel and the resistance of the Palestinians doesn’t work. We need to sit down and negotiate.”

J Street is a pro-Israel pro-peace American organization based in Washington, D.C. that advocates before Congress and the President the necessity of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. J Street has 180,000 members, a college division of thousands of students on 125 American campuses, 60 chapters in cities around the country, and a rabbinic cabinet, that I co-chair, of 850 rabbis from across the religious streams of American Jewish life.

J Street represents, however, the opinions of far more American Jews (and many thousands of Israelis) than its membership numbers reflect. J Street’s positions are held by roughly 70% of the American Jewish community who believe that a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict is in Israel’s best long-term interests. J Street has endorsed more than 90 members of Congress (its endorsees are growing by roughly 15-20% in each Congressional cycle) who agree with J Street’s principles and who have welcomed J Street as a pro-Israel organization that does not necessarily agree with every policy position taken by any particular Israeli government or Prime Minister.

Like Robi and Bassam, J Street recognizes that there is no military solution to this conflict, that the only way Israel will remain secure, Jewish and democratic is in a negotiated two-state end-of-conflict agreement.

Specifically, J Street agrees with the broad consensus of the international community of what a two-state solution will look like. The border will be drawn roughly along the 1967 Green Line with land swaps that would include within Israel 75% of all Israelis living in the large settlements blocks in the West Bank and around Jerusalem. Jerusalem will be the shared capital of Israel and Palestine. Palestine will be demilitarized except for necessary police forces. There will be firm security arrangements in place for the benefit of both Israel and Palestine. Palestinian refugees will have the right of return to the new state of Palestine and not to Israel. Appropriate compensation for refugees will be given.

My purpose here is not to get into the weeds of this conflict which are long, deep and complicated, but rather to communicate the human costs of this conflict as embodied by the pain and suffering of only two families, that of Robi Damelin and Bassam Aramin, and to articulate what I believe is ultimately at stake for the Jewish people and state of Israel if a two-state resolution to this conflict is not reached soon.

Without a negotiated settlement, in a short amount of time Israel will cease either to be a democracy or a Jewish state. Settlement building by Israelis and population growth among Arabs in the West Bank, Gaza and within the Green Line of Israel, all taken together, ultimately will doom the Zionist enterprise, arguably the most important historical event in the life of the Jewish people in the last two thousand years.

Yes – there is still time for a two-state solution, but time is running out.

For the sake of the future of Israel and the Palestinians, the status quo is unsustainable. “Managing the conflict,” as many in Israel believe is their only option, is unsustainable. Only a two-state solution can, as J Street’s communication Vice President and journalist Alan Elsner recently wrote, “complete the Zionist dream” of Israel being Jewish, democratic and an “or lagoyim – a light to the nations.”

There are risks no matter what Israel chooses to do, but the risks are far greater in doing nothing.

Perhaps the insights of one of Israel’s greatest poets, Yehuda Amichai, will inspire clarity and hope:

“From the place where we are right
flowers will never grow
in the spring.

The place where we are right
is hard and trampled
like a yard.

But doubts and loves
dig up the world
like a mole, a plough.

And a whisper will be heard in the place
where the ruined
house once stood.”

The World-Wide Media’s Mis-characterization of Israel’s Election Results

19 Thursday Mar 2015

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in Uncategorized

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American-Israel politics, Ethics, Israel and The Palestinians, Israel/Zionism, Jewish Identity

[The following is a letter I received from a friend, Glenn L. Krinsky, a long-time progressive Zionist, who I believe accurately, corrects the media’s mis-characterization of the 2015 Israeli election. I am posting Glenn’s letter by permission. Glenn L. Krinsky is a law partner in Jones Day – One Firm Worldwide in the Los Angeles office. I add some reflections following Glenn’s email.]

“It’s just amazing how the worldwide media, including the Israeli media, have so vastly mis-characterized the election results.

In 2013, Bibi prostituted himself to Lieberman, and their combined Likud/Yisrael Beitenu slate won 31 seats. Naftali Bennett’s then-new party, Habayit HaYehudi, won 12 seats. So Bibi/Lieberman/Bennett won 43 seats.

This year, Bibi purposely shifted to the extreme right to cannibalize votes from Lieberman and Bennett to ensure that Likud was the largest single vote-getter and would be asked to form the coalition. The strategy succeeded in the sense that Bennett went from 12 to 8 and Lieberman was marginalized down to 6. But note, this year the Bibi/Lieberman/Bennett trio got 44 seats, only one more than 2 years ago.

What happened to the center/left? In 2013,Yesh Atid won 19 seats (but sold out and went into Bibi’s coalition). This year Yesh Atid got 11 (a decrease of 8). Labor went from 21 (15 for Labor plus 6 for Livni’s Hatnuah party) to 24, and Meretz went from 6 to 5. So, these parties won 46 seats in 2013 and only 40 in 2015.

Where did the other six seats go? Not to the right, since we saw that they went only from 43 to 44. Instead, they went to Kahlon (the former Likud-nik who moved from the right to the center) who got 10 seats, whereas in 2013, the former Likud-nik who moved from the right to the center–Shaul Mofaz–got only 2 seats. In other words, the ‘we want change but don’t want Labor or Livni’ vote stayed right at 21 seats (in 2013, 19 for Yesh Atid + 2 for Mofaz; in 2015, 11 for Yesh Atid + 10 for Kahlon).

The Arab parties went from 11 to 13 (because of the drawing power in 2015 of the 3 Arab parties consolidating into one joint list), and the ultra-Orthodox went from 18 to 13 (due to the split in Shas, which went from 11 to 7 seats since Yishai’s half of Shas barely missed the threshold which would have given it 4 seats, which would have matched exactly Shas’ 2013 results when added to Deri’s half of Shas in 2015).

So, it’s clear that, with minor variations (the largest being Kahlon’s showing), the 2015 results are strikingly similar to the 2013 results.

The real story in 2015 was one of ‘expectations versus results.’ The opinion polls showed Herzog pulling away from Bibi in the last week, and everyone was conditioned for a Zionist Union victory. Instead, Bibi went so far to the right that far right-wingers didn’t feel the need to vote for Bennett or Lieberman. As set forth above, the right-wing trio merely went from 43 to 44. But Bibi took enough votes away from Bennett and Lieberman that Likud far outstripped Herzog/Livni as the largest party, which the media are characterizing as a ‘resounding’ or ‘striking’ win when it’s merely a reflection of Likud moving so far to the right that it cannibalized votes from Bennett and Lieberman.”

As I indicated, I believe Glenn has interpreted the election correctly. He alludes to the final weekend of the campaign in which PM Netanyahu appealed to the worst in the Israeli character. His racist and demagogic disenfranchisement of 20% of Israeli citizenry represented by the Arab population inside the Green Line has done serious damage not only to his credibility as the Prime Minister of all Israeli citizens, but his appeal to fear and hate is unbecoming to the nation state of the Jewish people.

Further, Bibi’s rejection this last weekend of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict sadly conforms to what many of us knew to be the truth even after the Prime Minister’s speech in 2009 at Bar Ilan University in which he said that he supported a two-state solution.

Reports emerged following the break-down in the American sponsored Israeli-Palestinian negotiations that Tzipi Livni, who served as Israel’s chief negotiator, was constantly undermined and second-guessed by Bibi’s lawyer who sat in (on orders of the PM) on every negotiation session and made Livni’s work next to impossible. In truth, as Bibi revealed to settlers after his Bar Ilan speech, he never intended to make a deal with the Palestinians for a state of their own in west bank territories.

Now, the challenge will be for all of us who love Israel, to continue to love her and support her, even as we insist that Israel’s future as a democratic and Jewish state depends on a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In truth, there is no other solution to this conflict, and we American ohavei m’dinat Yisrael have to join with half of Israel’s population in supporting them in advocating for an end to the conflict which will not only be in Israel’s best interest internally, but internationally as well.

The Morning After – Exchange with Jeremy Ben-Ami

18 Wednesday Mar 2015

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in Uncategorized

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American Jewish Politics, Israel/Zionism

As I went to sleep last evening, news was already reporting the six point spread between Likud and the Zionist Union, and that given the math, PM Netanyahu will be able to form a new government with all right-wing parties without needing to create a national unity government.

Yes – I am deeply disappointed, but I’m not down.

I am printing a letter below in its entirety from Jeremy Ben-Ami, the President of J Street, because my perspective matches his – though he and I debate personally whether or not there is a higher power. I believe there is, and he has his doubts.

After Jeremy’s letter, I will share an email I sent to him this morning appropriate for this moment, our J Street national convention beginning this motzei Shabbat in Washington, D.C., and our Pesach season that is fast approaching.

Here is Jeremy’s letter sent this morning to 200,000 supporters of J Street in the United States and Israel:

Benjamin Netanyahu’s victory is a deep disappointment to all who hoped that Israel might choose a new direction for the country in yesterday’s election.

The Prime Minister’s renunciation of the two-state solution and resort to a campaign grounded in fear and tinged with racism successfully moved 150,000 votes from other right-wing parties into the Likud column in the campaign’s final days. But we fear that the cost to Israel in the long-run will be steep in terms of support here in the United States and internationally.

The Prime Minister’s outrageous statements in the campaign’s final days may have pushed him from 19 percent in the polls before the election to 23 percent on election night and cemented his position as the leader of Israel’s right wing, but this was not a broad mandate in support of the direction in which the Prime Minister is leading. Seventy-two percent of Israelis on the eve of the election felt the country is headed in the wrong direction, and only one-third of Israel’s voters supported the hard-right represented by Likud, Naftali Bennett and Avigdor Lieberman, a number roughly comparable to last election. Even in the next Knesset, the blocs of the center-left and of the right wing will continue to be evenly balanced.

Without question, we respect Israel’s democracy and the outcome of the election. We celebrate the vibrancy of debate and dissent in Israel over essential matters that was on full display during the campaign. And – contrary to the Prime Minister’s panicked attack on the participation of Arab citizens in the election – we view their increased participation in this year’s election as a positive sign about the strength of Israeli democracy.

None of that can change our core belief, however, that the policies that the Prime Minister articulated in order to win – outright rejection of the two-state solution and territorial compromise – should and will be rejected by the international community, including the United States. Sadly, the results of this election will only deepen Israel’s growing isolation.

The manner in which the Prime Minister secured his victory – shredding the broad bipartisanship that underpins American political support for Israel and preying on fear and racism at home – also demonstrated that he willingly put his own political interests before his concern for Israel’s relationship with the United States and his commitment to Israel’s democratic character.

Moving forward, J Street will be unwavering in making the case that Israel’s security and survival as the democratic homeland of the Jewish people require a change in course, recognizing that the need for change is ultimately a matter for the citizens of Israel to debate in the years ahead.

Here, in the United States, J Street, however, has a clear role to play. We will stand up strongly and proudly in American political and Jewish communal debates for an end to occupation, for a two-state solution and for an Israel that is committed to its core democratic principles and Jewish values.

We will speak out on behalf of the majority of American supporters of Israel – Jewish and not – who support a two-state solution and oppose moves to limit the rights of any Israeli citizens or to deny the collective right of the Palestinian people to self-determination in a state of their own.

Faced with a return to power of a Prime Minister who has publicly demonstrated that he does not share those beliefs, we will advocate strongly that the American Jewish community must maintain and even more actively promote its commitment to the core principles and policies which have been bedrocks of the US-Israel relationship for decades.

We’re counting on your support as we continue that work.

– Jeremy Ben-Ami

My email to Jeremy:

Dear Jeremy:

Many express doubts about there being a higher power in light of this election – understandable, and I know many American Jews have altogether given up on there being a higher power.

Martin Buber would have said not that God doesn’t exist, but that God is “in eclipse” and has permitted the darker forces to run amok. Good people doing good work is evidence of God’s presence, I believe, and there is plenty of that around.

Remember the Midrash of Moses and the Israelites at the sea. While Moses prayed, Nachshon ben Aminidav jumped in the water and began to swim, essentially taking history into his own hands. The rabbis said that God was watching, and the combination of Moses’ prayer and Nachshon’s activism persuaded God to split the sea.

All metaphor, of course, but don’t give up on the existence of a higher force, just that too many people are disconnected from it and we need more to transcend fear, which is a dark force that keeps us from higher vision, and carry on the good fight.

Ometz Lev (strength of heart),
John

In conclusion, Meirav Michaeli (Member of the K’nesset from the Zionist Union) said it well as quoted in the NY Times today taken from her tweeter feed:

“As difficult as it is, it’s just another round. We have to raise our heads, recover and start preparing for the next round. This is our country. This is our society. We are here to work for both.”

We in America that love Israel need to support those Israelis (Jewish and Arab citizens alike) with whom we share a common vision.

Kadimah!