18-Chai Attributes for Elevated Leadership in a Synagogue Community

15 Sunday Jun 2014

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Before I formally installed my synagogue’s Officers and Trustees to our Board of Trustees this past week ushering in the next term of service to our community, I shared with my congregation a list that I call the “18-Chai Attributes For Leadership in a Synagogue Community.”  The list includes what I believe are essential moral character traits (middot) and behaviors for good, worthy and effective  leadership.

I believe that these same attributes (with certain adjustments) are applicable in any organization and professional group, whether it be in business, politics, government, education, science, the arts, entertainment, or athletics.

No one person, of course, possesses them all in every matter and at all times, but the 18 represent a moral standard against which each of us ought to measure ourselves as servant-leaders.

A good leader ought to…

1. Be able to articulate the mission of the community and excite others’ imagination to manifest the mission in every aspect of the synagogue’s life;

2. Be an intent listener;

3. Show empathy, compassion and kindness towards everyone;

4. Behave ethically as a matter of personal practice, and hold the synagogue’s business and human resources practices to the highest ethical standards;

5. Show patience, control anger and frustration, and never humiliate another human being;

6. Systematically neglect unimportant issues for more important ones;

7. Accept imperfection in oneself, in others and in the community even while striving to address and correct inefficiencies and problems in the synagogue’s functioning in the most transparent way as appropriate;

8. Use intuitive-wisdom to bridge the gap between the actual and the ideal;

9. Use persuasion and good humor rather than coercion and bullying to move the community forward always with the principles in mind of derech eretz (“common decency”), shalom bayit (“peace in the home”), and respect for the opinions of others (or civility) based on Rav Shmuel’s saying: “Eilu v’Eilu divrei Elohim chayim – This and that are the words of the living God”;

10. Sublimate personal needs for the sake of the greater communal good;

11. Appreciate the good works of others and give credit generously;

12. Welcome, include and embrace all Jews and their families, Jews by-birth, Jews by-choice, non-Jews married to Jews, the young and old, healthy and disabled, intermarried, straight and LGBT, American-born and immigrants from other lands, thus reflecting the diversity that is the Jewish people itself;

13. Respect the synagogue’s unique history and traditions, policies and processes of governance;

14. Understand that change according to best-practices is good when necessary, and that for change to be realized successfully everyone (leadership, community members and staff) must be brought along even as the change occurs;

15. Be a serious student of Torah and Jewish tradition and apply tradition’s wisdom and its commitment to tzedek (justice), rachamim (compassion), emet (truth), and shalom (wholeness) to all aspects of one’s personal life and the synagogue’s life;

16. Understand the synagogue’s historic role in our people’s survival as a religion, tradition and faith, and seek to develop one’s own inner life through prayer and learning;

17. Believe in the power of the community to restore individuals to wholeness (tikun hanefesh), to restore the community to wholeness (tikun k’hilah) and to restore the world to wholeness (tikun olam) and to promote the synagogue’s program and activities towards these three purposes;

18. Stand with dignity and integrity before one’s fellows and humbly before God.

 

 

 

 

 

 

On The J Street Summit in San Francisco

13 Friday Jun 2014

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

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Last week, my wife Barbara and I attended the West Coast Summit meeting of J Street in San Francisco. I was honored to be asked, as the co-chair of the national Rabbinic Cabinet of J Street that includes 800 rabbis and cantors from across the religious streams, to be part of the opening night program in which former Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, former United Nations Ambassador from Israel Gabriella Shalev, and former United States Ambassador to Egypt and Israel Daniel Kurtzer were featured.

I was asked to question PM Fayyad after each of the speakers presented opening statements. The conversation was hard-hitting and candid from each of three former major players in American, Israeli and Palestinian leadership about what is necessary for the sake of peace in light of the recent failure of the Kerry Middle East peace talks.

You can access all of the sessions here – https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4CViXUNRkO6zMLr6JrSKT8nQXGbXEEJW –

The opening night’s program can be found here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaXLYv9Hxt0&index=2&list=PL4CViXUNRkO6zMLr6JrSKT8nQXGbXEEJW

On a related matter, a friend asked me this week if I have seen “The J Street Challenge,” a pseudo-documentary that attacks J Street as an anti-Israel political organization.

I have not seen it, as I know it to be a propaganda piece that systematically distorts J Street’s message and accuses the 185,000 supporters of J Street and the 800 rabbis and cantors of being anti-Israel and even anti-Semitic. By extension, it must cast aspersion on the 84 pro-Israel members of Congress who support Israel and have accepted J Street’s support. This hateful propaganda piece is being shown in cities around the country.

If people wish to know the truth about J Street, all you need to do is to go to the J Street website (http://www.jstreet.org) and read our position papers, or watch sessions of this most recent conference.

We are pro-Israel and pro-two state solution advocates. We love Israel and are proud of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people and her manifold accomplishments over the course of the last century of Jewish history. Many Israeli members of Knesset have attended our conferences. The great Israeli writer Amos Oz told us a couple of years ago in Washington, D.C. “I have been waiting for J Street my entire adult life.”

At a time when the Jewish people needs to come together, regardless of our differing opinions, in common cause for the sake of the peace, security and the democratic character of the state of Israel, why some American Jews are spending a fortune to cast unfair and inaccurate aspersions against J Street is, frankly, baffling to me and, I believe, a source of shame that should be checked.

As Rav Shmuel once said – Eilu v’Eilu divrei Elohim chayim – “This and that are words of the living God.” Intolerance, hatred and falsehood do not belong between Jews who love the people and state of Israel.

My Cousin – Israel’s New President

10 Tuesday Jun 2014

Posted by in Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Tributes

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I do not know my 3rd cousin, Ruby Rivlin, very well. We corresponded 14 years ago when the “Who is a Jew” issue came before the Knesset. He was an advocate for a change in the law that, had it passed, would have defined for purposes of aliyah under the Law of Return that a Jew is someone born of a Jewish mother or who converts “k’fi ha-halacha” (according to traditional Jewish law as interpreted by Israel’s Chief Rabbinate) which would exclude many conversions conducted by many American Orthodox rabbis, and all Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist, and Renewal Rabbis.

Ruby’s response to me was warm and familial, but direct. As an elected member of the Knesset he was obligated to preserve the integrity of the Jewish people. He believed that this law would accomplish that goal.

The bill did not pass due to the international outrage expressed by Diaspora Jewish leadership.

I knew Ruby’s beloved mother, Rae Rivlin, better than I knew Ruby. I spent a number of Shabbatot in her Rehavia Jerusalem home when I was a first-year rabbinic student at the Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion in Jerusalem in 1973 to 1974. She was an extraordinary woman, deemed the grand hostess of Jerusalem in “O Jerusalem.” Family and guests were there every Shabbat for dinner, and I was included. Ruby was a regular. I learned that between 5 PM and 6 PM daily never to visit or call because Rae was watching Peyton Place, a huge American TV soap opera.

I never met Ruby’s father, the late and beloved Professor of Islamic Literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Dr. Yosef Rivlin, who died in 1968 just after the Six- Days War. Yosef translated the Koran and the Arabic classic A Thousand and One Nights into Hebrew. The latter is a series of volumes of which I am a proud owner of a signed first edition printing.

Ruby’s family came to Israel in the early 19th century. His father’s namesake – also Yosef Rivlin (a street in downtown Jerusalem near Hillel Street is named for him) was the first Jew to move out of the Old City of Jerusalem and establish the neighborhood of Mea Shearim, now a hareidi stronghold, only steps from the Old City walls. The elder Yosef was a brave man, as Mark Twain described the land in those years being plagued by bandits and marauders. He moved out of the Old City because there was a dearth of habitable apartment space available for increasing numbers of Jews making aliyah before the modern Zionist movement really took hold.

At the time that I knew Ruby, he was a young politician close to the leader of Herut, Menachem Begin, before Likud came to power in 1977. Ruby was (and still is) broad shouldered, bullish, but kind. Indeed, people love him personally. He is part of Likud’s old guard, a hard-liner when it comes to the unity of Jerusalem and the two-state solution. He was among those who supported Gush Emunim after the 1967 War that came to be known as Yisrael Shleima (i.e. the Greater Israel movement).

Ruby does not believe in a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict. He also believes that Reform Judaism is tantamount to idolatry. I expect that he will modify his public denunciation of the American and Israeli Reform movements now that he is President of the State, but I doubt that he will modify his beliefs that there can be a Palestinian state alongside Israel and west of the Jordan River and in Gaza.

When Ari Shavit spoke in Los Angeles last week, in a small conversation with a few of my colleagues and me, he worried (and he repeated this in a subsequent Haaretz column) that a President Rivlin will go far beyond the traditional non-political role that Presidents of the State traditionally have taken, and that specifically he will be an adversary to an eventual two-state solution to the conflict.

That being said, within the context of Israel, Ruby believes in equal civil rights for Israeli Arabs. For that reason, so many in the Arab-Israeli community also love him personally.

Ruby has a big heart and he has served the state of Israel with love, integrity and honesty his entire life.

Yet, his views on both the 2-state solution and religious pluralism run counter to the vast majority of Israelis and Diaspora Jewry. As President, he must expand his thinking and represent all the Jewish people in the state, not the segmented extremist fringe, and by extension be inclusive of the Jewish people around the world who regard with love and loyalty the state of Israel as the homeland of all the Jewish people.

Though politically, I hold very different views from Ruby, I wish him mazal tov and prayers for long-life and distinguished service to the State of Israel and the Jewish people.

The Unification of Fatah with Hamas Shows Hamas as the Big Loser

06 Friday Jun 2014

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The Israeli journalist Bernard Avishai explains what the “unification” deal between Fatah and Hamas means in the current political reality of Palestinian and Middle East politics, why the deal itself is a reflection of the weakness and unpopularity of Hamas among Palestinians (Hamas has a 25% approval rating in the West Bank and Gaza), why this deal is not only a victory for Mahmoud Abbas over Hamas, but why it offers the Palestinians and Israelis an opportunity to move forward in negotiations for a two states for two peoples resolution of the conflict.

Of course, this presumes that both sides are really interested in a two-state solution and willing to make the hard choices and sacrifices necessary to get a deal.

Despite PM Netanyahu’s speech at Bar Ilan University in 2009 calling for two-states, 40 members of his ruling government coalition are adamantly opposed to that very principle though the majority of Israeli citizens are in favor as is the majority of the American Jewish community.

Israel’s strong negative reaction to the PA unification agreement contrasts sharply not only with the United States and the Quartet, but with India, China, and Russia thereby isolating Israel internationally even further than it already was.

It may be that we will have to wait until the next Israeli election in two years when a new Israeli government coalition is formed and led by someone other than PM Netanyahu and his current extremist coalition partners. Such an Israeli government that is supportive of a two-state solution will then be in a position to work in conjunction with a unified Palestinian Authority in negotiating an end-of-conflict agreement.

It remains to be seen, as well, that given unification and assuming that negotiations would begin again in two years, whether the Palestinians are capable of accepting less than their current maximum demands which include an agreement on a limited number of refugees returning to Israel, and whether Israel would not only remove settlements but accept a division of Jerusalem using some formula that assures security and that the holy city can be both the capital of Israel and the Palestinian state.

In the meantime while we wait, I would hope that Israel stops building any settlements beyond the Green Line, the US Congress continues to provide funding to the Palestinian Authority so that it can survive, business and development opportunities in the Palestinian areas grow, and the security arrangement between Israel and the PA remains strong. It is in everyone’s interests that this happens except, of course, Israel’s right-wing settler movement and Hamas.

Bernard Avishai’s New Yorker article, “Mahmoud Abbas Winning on Points,” is a must-read piece of journalism – http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2014/06/mahmoud-abbas-winning-on-points.html

After reading it, despite the distrust and animus that Israel, the west and so many of us have towards Hamas, its cruelty and its vicious terrorist past, I hope you will come to the same conclusion that I have, that the decision taken by the United States, the Quartet and other countries to support the unified Palestinian Authority (which still professes acceptance of the state of Israel, rejection of violence and support for all past signed treaties) while watching and evaluating what Hamas does, makes rational sense and is worthy of our support.

 

The Debilitation of Chronic Pain

05 Thursday Jun 2014

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The most intense physical pain I have ever known came following my cancer surgery five years ago. The operation was huge and it was followed by an endless series of infections that debilitated me for six weeks. Since then I have developed a new sensitivity for, appreciation of, and empathy with those who suffer pain chronically.

Before my surgery, the hospital conducted a complete bone scan and I learned that I had the beginnings of arthritis in my right foot. It did not bother me so I forgot about it until four years later when suddenly, my foot began to ache intensely. I walk four miles at a time four or five times weekly at a fairly strong pace, and I first assumed that the pain was the consequence of getting older and over-use of my foot.

My foot hurt, however, not only while I was walking. I could be sitting still, driving my car, or sleeping soundly when suddenly, without warning, I would feel a sharp pain in my foot as if someone was sticking needles in it.

The pain came and went at first, and soon it was there all the time. My wife kept telling me to call a doctor.

I didn’t, and tried treating it with Tylenol; didn’t help. Advil; didn’t help either. Aleve; it helped a little. I used three kinds of creams that promised to reduce inflammation; one or two helped temporarily. I soaked my foot nightly in warm Epson salt baths; it sort of helped reduce the swelling.

I took my shoe off whenever I could, in my office, at meetings, in movie theaters, in restaurants, in the car, and at home to relieve the pressure.

At last, I called a doctor. She took X-rays of both my right and left feet because the left also was sore now and again. The X-ray showed that I had no cartilage left between my big toe and the connecting bone and that I had two bone spurs as well in my right foot and the beginnings of arthritis in my left, similar to what the X-ray showed in the other foot five years ago. The only treatment possibilities were shots of cortisone to give me with each treatment three to six months of relief, or surgery to fuse the bone and remove the spurs.

I took the shot, and within hours I felt dramatically better. I know that surgery is in my future.

Chronic pain is a debilitating experience, and my heart goes out to everyone who so suffers. What I learned from this experience is how negative the impact of chronic pain is upon us physically, emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually. It impacts our mood, memory, and overall quality of life. The negative emotions can make the pain feel worse and stimulate an onset of depression. It can diminish our job performance, lower our motivation to exercise, cause us to eat more and gain wait. It can affect how we manage our household and finances, whether we are able to run errands, and take care properly of our children and pets.

Chronic pain affects our relationships. It can impact our sexuality and the frequency of emotional intimacy with family and friends. It makes us feel more vulnerable to anger, resentment, irritation, impatience, and hard-heartedness. It exhausts us and leaves us without  pleasure.

If you are chronically in pain or someone dear to you is suffering, I advise that you get professional help. First, see a doctor and learn what you can do medically and/or behaviorally to help yourself.

Meditation, therapeutic massage, and positive thinking are proven to lower stress, reduce anxiety and depression, and help us to feel less victimized, less demoralized and more hopeful.

Do not try and bear up under the pain alone. There are people who can help you.

I wish I had acted earlier as I now realize how much wasted time and energy I expended unsuccessfully trying to help myself.

Paul Wurtzel, Son of Hollywood Legendary Producer Sol Wurtzel, Dies at 92

03 Tuesday Jun 2014

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When I received a phone call last week from the great-grand-daughter of the first President of Temple Israel of Hollywood, Sol Wurtzel, who asked me to officiate at the funeral of Sol’s only son, Paul Wurtzel, her great-uncle, I could not say no.

I never met Paul nor his father, who died in 1958. But the “Wurtzel” family name is not only significant in the history of my synagogue, but in the history of Hollywood’s golden era of film-making.

Paul Wurtzel’s death marks the end of an era. Though he himself did not reach the pinnacle of power and influence that his father enjoyed, nevertheless, Paul was well-respected as a long-time assistant director of television series. His credits include hundreds of episodes in series such as The F.B.I., The Fugitive, Barnaby Jones, and The Thin Man, and he was the production manager on the 1980 television movie The Twilight Zone.

More than any of his television credits, Paul was beloved as a humble, unassuming, generous, funny, and gracious man. He married briefly, but had no children. Paul adored his sister’s four grandchildren and doted on them who considered him like a grandfather. His funeral this past Sunday was a veritable love-fest that attracted close to one hundred people – not a small thing for a 92-year old who had no children of his own.

At one point I stopped the service to share with those assembled that I have conducted many funerals in my 35 years as a congregational rabbi, and that the spirit at each is unique because the deceased and the mourners are unique. This one for Paul was memorable because of the palatable love, camaraderie and joyful banter amongst the mourners. I told them that their spirit was testimony to the positive and enduring impact of Paul’s life on each of them.

Paul’s youth and career could not have been easy for him. His father was a powerful man and his family shared with me that he was especially hard on his only son. Paul grew up in the lap of wealth in his parents’ Bel Aire home, but he had to rely upon his own resources. His family said Paul essentially raised himself. When he had knee surgery that kept him in bed for a month as a child, they took a six-week European summer vacation and left him with a care-taker.

Perhaps sensing that the young 8-year old Paul was unseen by his father, George Gershwin, a guest at the family home one night, told Paul to sit down at the piano after Sol had left the room for a few moments. Gershwin then played Rhapsody in Blue and quickly darted out of sight when his father returned only to see Paul sitting with his hands over the piano keys.

All that aside, Sol Wurtzel was one of the principle creators of the golden age of Hollywood of the 1930s and 1940s and had a significant impact upon the careers of some of its most illustrious stars.

Sol was hired in 1917 by William Fox, the founder of Fox Film Corporation, to be his personal secretary in New York. Fox, however, hated coming west to California, so he sent Sol to run production in Los Angeles.

Sol headed up Fox’s “B” rated movie division that included the popular Charlie Chan series and “Bright Eyes” (1934) starring Shirley Temple who sang “The Good Ship Lollypop.” He helped discover and make popular Will Rogers, Spencer Tracy, Rita Hayworth, Humphrey Bogart, Ray Milland, Glenn Ford, Ginger Rogers, Robert Taylor, and the young Norma Jean Baker before she became Marilyn Monroe. Sol also promoted the young director John Ford who became a multiple academy award winning director and delivered the eulogy at his funeral in 1958.

Sol was among a handful of founding members of Temple Israel of Hollywood in 1927. When the congregation moved in the early thirties to a building vacated by the Hollywood United Methodist Church (now at Highland and Franklin Avenues), Sol commissioned Fox Studios to create and build an Ark. When we moved from that building in 1948 to our current Hollywood Blvd facility, those Ark doors were stored and eventually installed in our synagogue’s small chapel in 1955.

Those Chapel Ark doors constitute the only Aron Hakodesh ever created by a Hollywood film studio props department. It graced our Ark continually from 1955 until October, 2013 when our Chapel was demolished as part of a rebuilding project to be completed before this coming High Holidays.

Though we will not be using these Ark doors in our new Chapel, we will display them as they are iconic to our congregation and they bear historic significance in the history of Los Angeles Jewry and early Hollywood.

In Paul Wurtzel’s memory, Zichrono livracha – His memory is a blessing.

Hearing God’s Voice and the Importance of a Dot! – D’var Torah Naso

29 Thursday May 2014

Posted by in Divrei Torah, Ethics, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life

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“Va-y’hi b’yom kalot Moshe l’hakim et ha-mish’kan – On the day that Moses finished setting up the Tabernacle, he anointed and consecrated it and all its furnishings ….” (Numbers 7:1)

This final chapter of Parashat Naso then lists in detail the names of the tribes and their offerings, concluding in verse 89:

“When Moses went into the Tent of Meeting to speak with Him, he [Moses] would hear the Voice addressing him from above the cover that was on top of the Ark of the Pact between the two cherubim; thus He (God) spoke to him (Moses).”

All seems straightforward enough, but there’s an odd grammatical irregularity involving a single “dot” (called a dagesh) in one of the letters in one of the words in this final verse that doesn’t seem to belong.

The verb l’dabeir (Hebrew root – daled-bet-resh – “to speak”) appears three times in this verse:

“When Moses went into the Tent of Meeting to speak (L’da-beir) with Him [God], he [Moses] would hear the Voice addressing him (m’da-beir) from above the cover that was on top of the Ark of the Pact between the two cherubim [winged angels]; thus He (God) spoke (va-y’da-beir) to him (Moses).”

Grammarians teach that the verb “l’da-beir – to speak” is a piel construction. Every piel verb includes a dagesh (a dot) in the middle letter of the three-letter Hebrew root sometimes changing the sound of the letter and sometimes not – in this case the dagesh changes the vet to a bet. However, the verb m’da-beir as it appears here has two dageshim, one where we expect it (in the middle letter bet) and the other in the first letter of the three-letter root, daled, where we do NOT expect to see it.

A little thing; an insignificant thing not worth worrying about! Right!?

Not so fast. There are twenty such occurrences in the Hebrew Bible of a dagesh appearing in the first letter where it doesn’t normally belong, and in six of those times the dagesh is in this particular verb – daled-bet-resh. (Genesis 32:29, Exodus 34:33, 1 Samuel 25:17, 2 Samuel 14:13, and Psalms 34:14; 52:5. I am grateful to Rabbi Michael Curasick who pointed this out.)

What does this dagesh-dot indicate in our verse – m’da-beir? That’s the question, and as you will soon see, that little dot changes the meaning of the verse itself and shines a theological light on what might have really taken place between God and Moses in the Tent of Meeting.

Abraham ibn Ezra (11th century Spain) and Rashi (11th century France) both conclude that this verb m’da-beir is not in the piel verbal construction at all, but rather is a hit’pa-el verb, and so the dagesh in the first letter daled isn’t an emphasis mark but rather stands in for a missing letter – tav – making the original word not m’da-beir, but mit’da-beir.

Piel verbs tend to be active and intensive verbs – hit’pa-el verbs tend to be reflexive. If Ibn Ezra and Rashi are right, and it makes sense that they are given the twenty other occasions where this occurs and the special relationship between God and Moses, our verse doesn’t mean that “[God’s] voice spoke (m’da-beir) to Moses …” but rather “God was speaking to Himself and Moses overheard.” (Rashi)

Rabbi Bachya ben Asher (13th century Spain) explains further that God intended that the words He spoke in the tent of meeting were meant only for Moses to overhear, and that no one else, not Aaron, not any of the tribal chieftains could do so, thus demonstrating “the enormous spiritual stature of Moses compared to all other subsequent prophets…that Moses had attained the ultimate level of spirituality that is possible for a human being to attain while alive on earth.” (Rabbeinu Bachya, translated by Eliahu Munk, vol. 6, p. 1955)

Everett Fox (The Five Books of Moses – The Schocken Bible, Volume 1, p. 695) translates m’da-beir as a “voice continually-speaking,” as though Moses walked into the Tent and the radio was on all day long.

There are several lessons here for us?

First, none of us is a Moses, and whether or not we can hear God’s voice or not is irrelevant to the truth that God is “continually-speaking” not only in the Tent of Meeting, but everywhere.

Second, it is consequently upon us to strive always to evolve spiritually, to attune ourselves intently to every sound around us, however slight, to listen carefully for God’s voice in the multiplicity of ways that are possible, as well as to our own inner voice and to the voices of others.

And finally, hearing ourselves and hearing each other more acutely may be the path for us to be able to hear God’s voice too. After all, does not God’s voice speak through each one of us?

Shabbat shalom!

 

 

 

 

“People’s Park” – An Enduring Memory After 45 Years

25 Sunday May 2014

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May 22 and 23, 1969 are days that I will always remember. I was a sophomore at UC Berkeley. The Vietnam War was raging. A third world college strike against the university had shut down classes earlier that year. Tension could be cut with a knife on the Berkeley campus and on campuses across the nation at the end of a tumultuous decade.

Several blocks south of the Berkeley campus and one block east of Telegraph Avenue an empty block of land owned by the University had been taken over by community folks who had created what is still known as “People’s Park.” It was a peaceful place. There was a vegetable garden, and play equipment and swings had been donated. Communal meals were cooked and shared. Some slept on the grounds.

A week earlier, on May 15 just before sunrise, however, University of California police had been ordered to evacuate the park and erect a fence. Word spread quickly and the community erupted. The Berkeley police department called for assistance from the Alameda Sheriff’s department, and Governor Ronald Reagan called up the National Guard. Overnight Berkeley became an occupied city.

Amidst the tumult that day, UC Student Body President Dan Siegel exhorted the crowd in Sproul Plaza to go “take back the park.”

The combined police forces responded by dropping tear-gas from a helicopter over the campus in violation of international law and by firing bird-shot and buckshot into the crowd killing one man, James Rector, who was innocently observing the march from a rooftop, and injuring dozens.

The over-reaction and death enraged the Berkeley community. A week later, on Thursday, May 22, a peaceful march was called and I decided to join it. Our purpose was to politely ask shop-owners in downtown Berkeley to close their stores for the afternoon in memory of the killed man and in protest of the police over-reaction.

As hundreds of UC students and faculty walked quietly and legally on sidewalks, we were directed by police from one street to another and finally into an open parking lot adjacent to the Bank of America. There, 482 students, faculty and (as it happened) one member of the media were surrounded. The police informed us that we were under arrest.

We were loaded into police buses to carry us one hour southeast to the Santa Rita Rehabilitation Center, a minimum security prison, in Pleasanton, California. Once we arrived inside the prison gates, the bus stopped and the door opened. A guard entered and screamed orders at us. He threatened physical harm to anyone who did not do exactly as he commanded. I descended dutifully into a fenced compound where I saw 150 others lying belly-down next to one another, much like a Vietnam War body count, in neat rows. Everyone’s faces were turned to the left and guards were slapping their Billy clubs into their hands while cursing us and screaming threats that should anyone move or lift his head he would be beaten. Some were.

I assumed my place in the body formation and, terrified, dutifully did not move for eight hours, the gravel digging into my face, my bladder bursting, the inmates surrounding the compound taunting us for hours (I would learn much later that the prisoners were promised time off for good behavior if they harassed us), and the guards always screaming threats. No guard ever spoke to us in a normal speaking voice. They screamed incessantly like drill sergeants.

I was booked and finger-printed at one in the morning and was led into a barracks as part of a group that included a reporter from the San Francisco Chronicle who had discarded his press identification when we were herded into the Bank of America parking lot. He was the first to be bailed out, and Saturday morning the Chronicle’s bold-lettered headline read – “I WAS A PRISONER AT SANTA RITA.” He described in detail everything that had happened in my particular barracks.

I was bailed out at two PM on Friday. Charges were eventually dropped for lack of evidence.

The intended impact of the experience, however, had registered. I had never before or since felt as frightened as I did on that day. One guard came within inches of my face and screamed that he was going to kill me. I learned that fear can lead us to feel and behave irrationally and against our own best interests.

Some regard fear as the most effective organizing principle in the building of community. This is a false belief. Rather, kindness, empathy and compassion are the virtues that not only distinguish us as human beings but are the essential building blocks for a community that values each individual as endowed with infinite value and worth by virtue of being created b’tzelem Elohim, in the Divine image.

David Suissa Wrong on the Facts About J Street

20 Tuesday May 2014

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

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In last week’s edition of the Los Angeles Jewish Journal, David Suissa wrote a scathing attack against J Street that was not only filled with factual errors, but was an unwarranted attack on the values that J Street represents that are held by the majority of American Jews according to all polls, but also accusing 800 rabbis and cantors, 185,000 supporters and thousands of University and College students of a lack of humility when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

I write today sadly as a friend. At my invitation David publicly debated J Street’s President and Founder Jeremy Ben Ami at my synagogue, Temple Israel of Hollywood. After they met, Jeremy invited David to speak at the J Street National Convention in Washington, D.C. It is curious, therefore, how David could be so wrong factually about J Street and so ill-informed about J Street’s actual positions on a broad base of policy decisions J Street has made and published for all to see. That he would not check the facts before writing this attack column was disappointing, to say the least.

It is not a secret that David disagrees with J Street’s approach to pro-Israel activism among American Jews in the United States. He has that right. We are not the sole possessors of the truth. No one is. Truth to tell, in the past, David has often raised important challenges for American Jews when thinking about Israel. However, his own passion and support for Israel should not be license to misrepresent J Street’s positions and pass his misrepresentations off as the truth, as he does in his column – http://www.jewishjournal.com/david_suissa/article/j_streets_real_failure

The following is a letter to the Editor of The Jewish Journal that I co-signed with four other rabbis in the Southern California who believe in the mission of J Street as a legitimate and authentic Jewish voice in support of Israel and in the the need for a two-states for two peoples resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Dear Editor:

David Suissa’s article “J Street’s Real Failure” was full of factual errors and falsehoods, and he was also wrong in his overall argument.

As Mr. Suissa should know because he spoke at the J Street National Conference, J Street opposes BDS and has helped defeat BDS resolutions on college campuses and within church groups. We believe, however, that the way to defeat BDS is not to ban its supporters from conversation, rather to debate them.

In addition, J Street did not endorse the Goldstone Report and has consistently criticized one-sided and biased activity at the UN against Israel. If the UN Security Council had considered action based on the Goldstone Report, J Street stated clearly and publicly that it would have urged the US to veto such action.

Furthermore, following the Fatah-Hamas reconciliation announcement, J Street stated that any Palestinian government must abide by its international commitments, including recognition of Israel and a renunciation of violence, in order to play a constructive role in working toward a two-state solution.

As members of J Street’s Rabbinic Cabinet, we believe there is nothing “boring” (per Mr. Suissa) about advocating for peace and a just end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The fact remains that Israel’s future as a secure, Jewish and democratic homeland depends on a two-state solution. We recognize, as well, that the Palestinians and Israelis together must find the means to a just and end-of-conflict solution.

J Street does not, and indeed cannot put pressure on Israel to do anything. However, as American Jews who love Israel we can urge our government to exercise leadership to advance a peace agreement.

We do not apologize for devoting ourselves to these ideals on which the future of our people and the State of Israel depend.

Rabbi Lisa Edwards, J Street LA Rabbinic Cabinet Co-Chair
Rabbi Joshua Levine Grater, J Street LA Rabbinic Cabinet Co-Chair
Rabbi Susan Laemmle, J Street LA Rabbinic Cabinet Co-Chair
Rabbi John Rosove, J Street National Rabbinic Co-Chair

 

Setting the Record Straight about J Street – Jeremy Ben Ami

14 Wednesday May 2014

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

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As a follow-up to my blog yesterday entitled “The Truth About J Street,” I include a longer letter written by J Street’s President Jeremy Ben Ami in “Times of Israel” yesterday called “Setting the Record Straight about J Street” in which he responds to many of the false charges against J Street’s positions.

Setting the record straight, Times of Israel – J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami hit back at smears against J Street. http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/setting-the-record-straight-2/

I refer you as well to the J Street website and particularly to its section “Myths and Facts” – http://jstreet.org/page/mythsandfacts/home

Between these two pieces, one should have all the information necessary to make a reasonable and fair judgment about both the truth of the negative campaign against J Street by right-wing Jewish and Israeli groups, as well as the true positions of J Street on all the issues that we in J Street understand to be important for the security, Jewish character and well-being of the democratic state of Israel.