Post-Election Reflections on the JStreetPAC Agenda

08 Thursday Nov 2012

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

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Already, many of us are hoping that after President Obama’s inauguration and Israeli Elections this January, President Obama will make a visit to the Middle East, meet with Israelis and Palestinians, and bring a strong proposal for a new round of negotiations leading to a two-states for two-peoples resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Given the strong support that J Street’s 2012 election night poll (http://jstreet.org/) of Jewish Americans found among American Jews for President Obama’s policies overall and for his approach to the Middle East, Iran and Israeli-Palestinian peace, the President should feel confident that American Jews support him as an honest broker.

J Street commissioned three polls to assess the American Jewish vote in 2012, examining voting preference and priorities, as well as opinions on Israel. One poll focused on the national picture. Another focused on the Ohio Senate race, where Senator Sherrod Brown faced numerous attacks on his pro-Israel credentials and affiliation with J Street. The third poll focused on the state of Florida, where right-wing groups poured an unprecedented amount of money into dishonest ads and attack campaigns to try to turn support for Israel into a partisan wedge issue.

The American Jewish community remains a solidly Democratic voting bloc despite tens of millions of dollars spent to move their votes. In 2012, American Jews remained overwhelmingly supportive of President Obama, of Democratic candidates, and of US leadership to achieve a two-state resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The J Street Poll found the following:

“Jews hold progressive views on resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict.

• Strong support for U.S. playing an active role to help resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict, even if it means publicly stating disagreements with the Israelis and the Arabs (69 percent support)

•76% support the U.S. putting forth a peace plan that proposes borders and security

• 72% percent support comprehensive agreement along the lines of the Clinton parameters

It has been suggested that President Obama appoint former President Bill Clinton as a special envoy to the Middle East to help resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. No one has the authority and knowledge that the former American President has, and I, for one, hope that Obama will invite President Clinton’s active involvement and leadership. For a persuasive argument on this point see Bernard Avishai’s recent blog – http://bernardavishai.blogspot.com/ .

As some of my readers know, I am a strong supporter of J Street, the national home for pro-Israel, pro-peace Americans who believe that a two-state solution is the only solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I serve as a national co-chair of the J Street Rabbinic Cabinet because I believe in J Street’s vision and strategic approach to the Middle East conflict. J Street understands (reflecting the views of a majority of Israelis themselves) that unless Israel and the Palestinians find a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the Jewish state will lose its Jewish majority and democracy.

This 2012 election showed exceptional success for the J Street vision in the polls. Here are the main results:

All 49 JStreetPAC-endorsed incumbents in the House were elected.

All 7 JStreetPAC-endorsed Senate candidates were elected.

JStreetPAC’s challengers and candidates for open seats – elected in 13 out of 15 races (Ami Bera hanging on to a razor thin lead in his race for a Congressional seat in Sacramento would make it 14 of 15.)

Contributors gave over $1.8 million to these 71 pro-Israel, pro-peace candidates for Congress, and, consequently the 113th Congress will have 50 percent more JStreetPAC-endorsed members than are in Congress today. JStreetPAC efforts helped elect Tammy Baldwin (WI), Martin Heinrich (NM), Sherrod Brown (OH), and Time Kaine (VA) to the Senate, and for the first time in its four years of existence, JStreetPAC moved aggressively AGAINST candidates who are “One-Staters” (i.e. against a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and supporters of full annexation of the West Bank by Israel). Come January the House of Representatives will no longer have One-State Caucus members Joe Walsh, Allen West, Bobby Schilling, Frank Guinta, or Ann Marie Buerkle.

Conclusions:

  1. Given the success of the above endorsed candidates, it is clear that J Street chose well and that those candidates enjoy broad support for their positions generally.
  2. It is also clear that the J Street vision is increasingly being embraced at the highest levels of Congress and that both House and Senate candidates and office-holders happily accepted endorsements from J Street.
  3. No longer is the right-of-center policies vis-à-vis Israel and within Israel itself the only legitimate pro-Israel position embraced within the American Jewish community. In this regard, it is time that the 8-10% of the American Jewish community for whom Israel is their number one voting issue – the outspoken, emotional, passionate, right-wing, and deliberately intimidating – be understood as the small minority that it is.
  4. It is clear that it is time that we in the moderate-left of the American Jewish community become equally passionate advocates of our positions.
  5. The polls have clearly said in this election cycle that the majority of the American Jewish community supports the J Street position vis-a-vis the Middle East.

 

J Street Poll of American Jewish Electorate – Must Reading

08 Thursday Nov 2012

Posted by in American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Israel and Palestine

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The attached poll (J Street poll) is necessary reading for anyone interested in the American Jewish community’s voting behavior in the 2012 election, its concerns about Israel and peace with the Palestinians. The poll puts to bed the canard that the American Jewish community is behaving substantially differently than it has since World War II.

The Gerstein poll discovered that 70% of the American Jewish community supported President Obama and Democrats and 30% supported Governor Romney and Republicans. That is essentially unchanged.

Jim Gerstein is a founding partner of GBA Strategies. For 10 years, he served as the Executive Director of Democracy Corps, a non-profit organization founded by Democratic strategists James Carville, Stan Greenberg, and Bob Shrum, that conducts public opinion research and provides strategic advice to the progressive community. Prior to his work with Democracy Corps, Gerstein was the Executive Director of the Center for Middle East Peace and Economic Cooperation, where he led public education campaigns, congressional visits to the Middle East, and convened Middle East diplomats in the U.S. for meetings with business and political leaders. The Institute provides financial, organizational, and strategic support for various Arab-Israeli peace projects, including meetings between retired generals from Israel and Arab countries, initiatives with regional business leaders, and dialogues between Jewish and Arab officials.

During the 1999 Israeli Prime Ministerial campaign, Gerstein took a leave of absence and joined Ehud Barak’s U.S. based consulting team. He served as the team’s man on the ground, overseeing polling, paid media, and message development for the campaign. Gerstein has worked on several U.S. political campaigns and has held several key positions within the Democratic Party. In 1992, he worked on the field campaign for Carol Moseley Braun’s successful run for the U.S. Senate in Illinois. He later moved to Washington, DC, where he became the Deputy Director for Jewish Affairs at the Democratic National Committee. In 1996, Gerstein worked in the press office for the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, and then directed the Clinton/Gore campaign for the north side of Chicago and northern Illinois.

 

 

 

“The Good Girls Revolt” – by Lynn Povich – Recommended Reading

04 Sunday Nov 2012

Posted by in American Politics and Life, Book Recommendations, Ethics, Social Justice

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“The Good Girls Revolt – How The Women of Newsweek Sued Their Bosses and Changed the Work Place,” by Lynn Povich, is a painstakingly researched story of one of the seminal events affecting the rights of women in the American work place in the early years of the women’s movement.

In March, 1970, 46 Newsweek women sued Newsweek Magazine for sexual discrimination in hiring and promotion. Charging that “there seems to be a gentlemen’s agreement at Newsweek that men are writers and women are researchers, and the exceptions are few and far between,” carefully and with resolve these women set out to do something that had never been done before – bring a class action civil rights suit against one of the publishing world’s juggernauts.

Katherine Graham, then the publisher of The Washington Post and President of the Washington Post Company (the parent company of Newsweek), when told of the lawsuit asked, “Which side am I supposed to be on?”

The 46 Newsweek women enlisted the legal counsel of the young firebrand attorney Eleanor Norton Holmes who successfully guided the suit to victory and opened not just the publishing business, but the workplace generally, to greater fairness and opportunities for women.

Lynn Povich was one of the ringleaders.

A disclaimer, Lynn is a friend. However, even if she were not, I would recommend this volume especially to young women who were born long after the struggles fought by their mothers and grandmothers. It is too easy to take for granted the opportunities available to women today even with the inequities without pausing to consider the scope of the suppression, humiliation and injustice suffered in the past (AMC’s “Mad Men” well describes the world in which Lynn and her colleagues struggled). For anyone 60 years and older, we remember those years pre-Feminine Mystique, pre-Newsweek women, pre-Roe v Wade. Much, thanks to Lynn, her colleagues and many others, has changed in the last 40 years, and this book enables us to take stock and be grateful to those women who stuck their necks out.

Lynn began as a secretary at Newsweek and within 5 years (after the lawsuit itself, revealing the good will of its top management) became the magazine’s first woman senior editor. In 1991 she left Newsweek to become editor-in-chief of Working Woman Magazine and managing editor/senior executive producer for MSNBC.com.

Lynn explains how these 46 women came to sue Newsweek and how they “conspired” in the Ladies Room out of fear of being fired.

Neither Lynn nor her colleagues were the stereotypical hard-edged, bra-burning, hard, man-hating women so often dismissed by Rush Limbaugh and company. To the contrary, Lynn and her colleagues were humble and self-effacing, often smarter and more talented than their male counterparts, who wanted Newsweek to be the progressive magazine it prided itself even then on being so they, based on hard work and talent, could progress.

Lynn told this story not only because the case the Newsweek women brought was historic (i.e. the first class action suit filed and won on behalf of women in the American workplace), but because still today there are inequities that need to be addressed, including equal pay for equal work and discrimination against women who choose to become mothers and work.

Lynn writes about the women’s lives (with their permission) who were at the center of this story and what happened to them since. She is candid about herself as well.

Lynn’s is a success story, but not all the 46 were successful despite their intelligence and talent. Plagued by prejudice and personal pressures, some became casualties after the struggle.

Lynn shows how changes in the law did not change everything, and she reflects on what needs still to be addressed if justice and fairness are to prevail.

 

 

Book Review – Deadlines and Disruption: My Turbulent Path from Print to Digital

14 Sunday Oct 2012

Posted by in American Politics and Life, Book Recommendations

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I will not review Stephen B. Shepard’s fascinating memoir Deadlines and Disruption: My Turbulent Path from Print to Digital mainly because I do not know enough about journalism or the revolution that has transformed how we receive information since the advent of the digital age to be able to do so. Nevertheless, I recommend Steve’s book not only because he is a friend (I receive no kick-backs for this recommendation – just the pleasure in knowing that some of you might buy this book and gain in wisdom, as did I in having read it), but also because Steve is positioned as few people are in America to reflect  authoritatively on what has happened in the past 40 years in print and digital media.

The Editor in-Chief of Business Week Magazine from 1984 to 2004 and the founding Dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at City College of New York (CUNY) since 2005, Steve has done and seen it all. He reviews not only some of the top stories during his tenure at Business Week, but reflects intelligently on what is now happening in news and media.

The following are reviews of his book by people who do, in fact, understand Steve’s world, and they speak for themselves:

A Top Editor’s Take on the State of Journalism Today and His Prescient Forecast of Its Future

‘This is a personal and insightful book about one of the most important questions of our time: how will journalism make the transition to the digital age? Steve Shepard made that leap bravely when he went from being a great magazine editor to the first dean of the City University of New York journalism school. His tale is filled with great lessons for us all.’
‘Walter Isaacson, bestselling author of “Steve Jobs”

“This is two compelling books in one: Shepard’s story of his life in print journalism, and a clearheaded look at the way journalism is evolving due to electronic media, social networking, and the ability of anyone with a computer and an opinion to make him- or herself heard.”
‘Booklist

More About The Book – A composite of comments by others

‘My personal passage is, in many ways, a microcosm of the larger struggle within the journalism profession to come to terms with the digital reckoning. Will the new technologies enhance journalism . . . or water it down for audiences with diminished attention spans? What new business models will emerge to sustain quality journalism?’

Stephen B. Shepard … helped transform [Business Week Magazine] into one of the most respected voices of its time. But after his departure, he saw it collapse – another victim of the digital age.

In Deadlines and Disruption, Shepard recounts his five decades in journalism – a time of radical transformations in the way news is developed, delivered, and consumed. Raised in the Bronx, Shepard graduated from City College and Columbia, joined Business Week as a reporter, and rose to the top editorial post. He has closed the circle by returning to the university that spawned him, founding the Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York.

In the digital age, anyone can be a journalist. Opinion pieces are replacing original reporting as the coin of the realm. And an entire generation is relying on Facebook friends and Twitter feeds to tell them what to read.

Is this the beginning of an irreversible slide into third-rate journalism? Or the start of a better world of interactive, multimedia journalism? Will the news industry live up to its responsibility to forge a well-informed public?

Shepard tackles all the tough questions facing journalists, the news industry, and, indeed, anyone who understands the importance of a well-informed public in a healthy democracy.

The story of Shepard’s career is the story of the news industry – and in Deadlines and Disruption, he provides peerless insight into one of the most critical issues of our time.

The following are pages 299-304 of Steve’s book:

http://www.cjr.org/cover_story/daily_bugle.php?page=all

Just Imagine – Parashat B’reishit

12 Friday Oct 2012

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

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One of the most important verses in all of Torah appears in this week’s Torah portion B’reishit: “And God said: Let us make the human being in our image, after our likeness” (Vayomer Elohim, naaseh Adam b’tzalmeinu kidmuteinu…” (Genesis 1:26).

Notice that God seems to be speaking to others, but who? The Midrash imagines this conversation between God and the only other beings with whom the Divine could possibly be talking – the heavenly host, or angels:

“Rabbi Simon said: When the Holy One, blessed be God, came to create Adam, the ministering angels formed themselves into groups and parties, some of them saying, ‘Let the human be created,’ while others urged, Let the human not be created.’ Thus it is written, ‘Love (Chesed) and Truth (Emet) fought each other, ‘Righteousness’ (Tzedek) and ‘Peace’ (Shalom) combated each other’ (Ps. 85:11). Love said, ‘Let [Adam] be created, because he will dispense acts of love (g’milut chassadim)’; Truth said, ‘Let [Adam] not be created, because he is filled through and through with lies’ (sh’karim); ‘Righteousness’ said, ‘ Let [Adam] be created, because he will perform righteous deeds’ (tz’dakot); ‘Peace’ said, ‘Let [Adam] not be created, because he is full of strife (k’tatah)”’ … Rabbi Huna the Elder of Sepphoris, said: While the ministering angels were arguing … the Holy One, blessed be God, created [Adam]. Said God: ‘What can you do? The human has already been made!’” (B’reishit Rabbah 8:5)

To review – the angels of “Truth” and “Peace” were against the creation of the human being because they knew that we mortals would lie and fight each other in battles large and small.

The angels of “Love” and “Righteousness” favored our creation because they knew that we would perform deeds of loving-kindness (g’milut chassadim) and acts of righteousness (tzedek).

In the end, God sided with “Love” and “Righteousness” and Adam Harishon (i.e. the First Human) was created.

“Truth” and “Peace” were right, however, because we are prone to lying and fighting, to intolerance of the “other,” hard-heartedness, self-centeredness and small-mindedness.

And “Love” and “Righteousness” were also right because we can be compassionate, empathic, generous, humble, and kind.

The story is told that once the Baal Shem Tov summoned Sammael, the Lord of demons, because of some important matter that he wished to command Sammael to do, but Sammael resisted. So the BESHT told his disciples to bare their foreheads to Sammael, and on every forehead, the Lord of demons saw inscribed the sign of the image in which God creates the human being – B’tzelem Elohim.

Sammael was disarmed, and then agreed to do the BESHT’s bidding, but asked humbly and beseechingly before departing, “Oh children of the living God, permit me to stay here just a little longer and gaze upon your foreheads.” (Tales of the Hasidim, Martin Buber, Book 1, p. 77).

I encounter people every day, some with open and kind hearts, and some self-centered and mean-spirited. This story and the verse upon which it is based (Genesis 1:26) remind us who we are and before Whom we stand.

When those before me are kind, generous, inclusive, and loving, I see the words B’tzelem Elohim flowing from their every pore. When they are not, still I search for the sign of God on their foreheads, strive to treat them as if those sacred words are apparent, and I imagine what kind of world we would have if we looked for that sign in everyone we meet.

Shabbat shalom!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What Mitt Romney and Lance Armstrong Have In Common!

11 Thursday Oct 2012

Posted by in American Politics and Life, Ethics, Quote of the Day

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Mitt Romney’s constant rewriting of his history and the story about Lance Armstrong’s massive cheating scandal (see link below  – New York Times, “Details of Doping Scheme Paint Armstrong as Leader”) both demonstrate the truth of Mark Twain’s quip: “Of all the animals, man is the only one that lies.”

Of Armstrong, the Times says “…the evidence put forth by the antidoping agency drew a picture of Armstrong as an infamous cheat, a defiant liar and a bully who pushed others to cheat with him so he could succeed…”

Given Romney’s history (recall his bullying of his college classmate and his behavior as the head of Bain Capital in firing thousands of people from their jobs after deceiving them that he had come to save their companies), the statement about Armstrong could just as easily be made about Romney.

Despite some good that both men have done (Armstrong’s cancer research advocacy and Romney’s Massachusetts health care legislation) they both lack character.

A few apt thoughts to ponder:

“If you want to see what a person is made of, see how he behaves in a position of authority.” (Yugoslavian folk saying)

“The measure of a person’s character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.” (Thomas Macauley)

“Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident, riches take wing, and only character endures.” (Horace Greeley)

For us who yearn for heroes to emulate good leadership and good character, a warning:

“Show me the person you honor, and I will know what kind of person you are.” (Thomas Carlyle)

The NY Times Armstrong link:  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/11/sports/cycling/agency-details-doping-case-against-lance-armstrong.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20121011

 

Torah Can Come to Us From Anywhere – Even a Barber’s Chair

07 Sunday Oct 2012

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Divrei Torah, Ethics, Health and Well-Being, Holidays, Jewish History, Jewish-Christian Relations, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Social Justice, Stories

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It isn’t often that the Torah portion of the week and my getting a haircut coincide, but it did last week.

For years Susie Polin has cut my hair. She has a huge heart, is a artist who cuts hair for a living and a Sephardic Jew whose family origins are from Greece.

Last week’s Shabbat Torah portion included Exodus 34:6-7 (for Chol Hamoed Sukkot):

“Adonai, Adonai, El rachum v’chanun, erech apayim, v’rav chesed v’emet: notzeir chesed la-alaphim nose avon vafesha, v’chataah v’nakeh”

“Adonai! Adonai! A God compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in kindness and faithfulness, extending kindness to the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin…”

Susie has lived in the Pico-Fairfax neighborhood of Los Angeles for many years. Once a Jewish neighborhood, by the time she moved there it was African-American and she was “the only white Jewish girl” in the neighborhood. Nevertheless, she became close to her neighbors, especially the people next door. Five months ago the elderly woman who lived there died leaving her husband Johnny alone. Johnny had worked for many years for the LA Unified School District and had come into contact with asbestos, which sealed his fate.

After his wife died, Susie asked if she could do anything for him as he too was infirm. “Thanks Susie – I’m alright!”

“Do you have enough food in the house,” she asked.

“I’m good every day except Tuesday.”

“You can count on me, Johnny, to bring you dinner each Tuesday,” she generously offered.

So every Tuesday for the past four months Susie brought Johnny dinner that she bought at the local Gelsons take-out stand. When she explained to the Gelsons’ workers that she’d be back every week to buy dinner for Johnny, they gave her double the food at the same price, food that lasted Johnny for days.

One day, Johnny asked, “Susie – is ‘Jew’ and ‘Jewish’ the same?”

“Yes!” she said.

“What’s Jewish?”

Susie explained that to be Jewish means to follow the Bible’s commandments and to do deeds of loving-kindness for others. It’s all about love,” she explained, “because God wants us to love each other.”

“I love you, Susie.”

“I love you too, Johnny!”

Johnny died two weeks ago. When the day of his funeral arrived, Susie drove to the black church in South LA and was the first to arrive. She entered the church and sat down. As his family, many friends and care-takers arrived, those who knew her greeted her like a she was a member of their family. Soon everyone heard what Susie had done for Johnny, and that she was a Jew.

When she told me about her experience I was reminded of the famous story in the Midrash (D’varim Rabba 3:3):

“Rabbi Shimon ben Shetach one day commissioned his disciples to buy him a camel from an Arab. When they brought him the animal, they gleefully announced that they had found a precious stone in its collar. ‘Did the seller know of this gem?’ asked the Master. On being answered in the negative, he called out angrily, ‘Do you think me a barbarian that I should take advantage of the letter of the law by which the gem is mine together with the camel?  Return the gem to the Arab immediately.’ When the Arab received it back, he exclaimed: ‘Blessed be the God of Shimon ben Shetach! Blessed be the God of Israel.”

I told this story about Susie and Johnny on Friday night to my congregation. There were many children present including our 6th grade Day School students and their Israeli exchange student friends from the Tzahalah Elementary School in north Tel Aviv.

I explained to them that we are all more than just individuals. We are part of a family, a people and a religious tradition, and what we say and do outside our homes and immediate communities not only reflect back on us, but also on our families and the Jewish people.

The way we treat others, whoever they are, Jews, Christians, Muslims, blacks, Latinos, Asians, Palestinians, immigrants, the poor, the powerless, strangers, the people with whom we work, the people who work for us, tells more about who we are and what we value than anything we say we believe.

Susie Polin is a special woman who gives of her heart and soul continually to others. Through her loving deeds the good name of the Jewish people and the God of Israel was enhanced in Johnny’s community, for Susie may have been the only Jew that Johnny and many in his community ever knew up close.

Torah can come to us at any time and in any place, even the barber’s chair.

Chag Sameach!

 

America’s and Israel’s “Red-Lines” on Iran’s March to Building a Bomb

04 Thursday Oct 2012

Posted by in American Politics and Life, Ethics, Israel/Zionism

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In the past year President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have conferred continuously about when Iran’s nuclear bomb program should be “disrupted” by military action should economic and political sanctions not succeed in halting Iran’s march to build a bomb.

They agree that Iran cannot be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons. They disagree when action should be taken.

PM Netanyahu has urged that the “red line” for attack be when Iran has the capacity to make a nuclear bomb. The United States’ “red line” will be crossed when Iran actually decides to make a bomb.

J Street (a pro-Israel pro-peace political and educational organization in Washington, D.C.) has made a video in which Director of Government Affairs Dylan Williams explains what it takes to make a bomb and the details of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “red line.”

I urge you to take 3 minutes to watch it.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/10/03/explainng-enrichment.html

 

 

Jealousy of the Superior Man

01 Monday Oct 2012

Posted by in American Politics and Life, Quote of the Day, Social Justice

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As we enter the last weeks of the presidential election campaign I confess to being confounded by the intensity of hatred felt and expressed by many Republicans towards President Obama.

Yes, there are policy differences between Democrats and Republicans.

Yes, people blame (wrongly!) this President for the nation’s economic woes.

Yes, millions actually believe the “Birther” claims that Obama is “foreign,” Muslim and “other.”

And yes, there is racism.

Here is yet another possibility originally noted by H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) more than fifty years ago: “Jealousy of the superior man is a constant corrosive element in society.”

What else except jealousy joined with ignorance, stupidity, fear, anger, bigotry, selfishness, myopic thinking, and God knows what else could account for the depth of animus directed at this President?

Obama, truth to tell, is far more centrist than left. He is not an ideologue. Rather, he is pragmatic and conciliatory as an analysis clearly shows in Sunday’s New York Times of the ways in which The Affordable Care Act (i.e. “Obamacare”) is based on conservative values (see “The Conservative Case for Obamacare” by J.D. Kelinke, September 30, 2012, “Sunday Review,” p.4).  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/30/opinion/sunday/why-obamacare-is-a-conservatives-dream.html?pagewanted=all

After reading the article, no reasonable person can come to any conclusion except that Republican haters of Obama and Obamacare (fed by Republican Senate and Congressional leadership) have gone off the deep end, cannot analyze policy options without a serious overlay of emotional/political bias, could actually care less about policy and are consumed with the need for self-aggrandizement and moral self-justification. Many of these same folks hated Bill Clinton with equal intensity when he was President and, I assume, will spare nothing against Hilary should she toss her hat in the ring for the 2016 presidential race.

What do Obama and Clinton have in common (other than being male and Democratic Presidents) that inspires such hatred?

Mencken put it deftly; “Jealousy of the superior man.”

Though not without their flaws few politicians are as smart, clear-thinking, knowledgeable, thick-skinned, eloquent, skilled, and talented as are Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

Their charisma and excellence must drive the Republicans to distraction as they have no one of equal talent in this race or on the horizon!

I pray that the haters don’t succeed in corroding the inner moral character of this country further and are turned back handsomely on November 6 in the presidential race and Congress.

My High Holiday Sermons – 5753/2012

30 Sunday Sep 2012

Posted by in Ethics, Health and Well-Being, Holidays, Jewish-Christian Relations, Life Cycle

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You can read each of my High Holiday sermons on the Temple Israel of Hollywood Website – www.tioh.org (Go to “About Us” and click “Clergy” then “From the Clergy Study”). Or click http://www.tioh.org/about-us/clergy/aboutus-clergy-clergystudy

“For a Good and Happy New Year” (Erev Rosh Hashanah) –- I contrast the primary life goals of happiness and goodness and discuss why I believe that happiness is a by-product of the pursuit of goodness. It’s my view that our attitude about our life circumstances and the choices we make are the prerequisites to attaining both a good and happy life.

“Intermarriage and the Survival of Judaism and the Jewish People” (Shacharit Rosh Hashanah) –   After more than three decades serving congregations in San Francisco, Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles I announced, to the shock and surprise of my congregation, my decision to officiate at some intermarriage ceremonies going forward. I described my struggle that led me to this change, and include at the end a post-delivery reflection on the response this sermon inspired. The Jewish Journal of Los Angeles wrote about my decision in the September 28-October 4, 2012 print edition “Rabbi Reverses Interfaith Marriage Policy” (by Julie Gruenbaum Fax, pages 27, 42) http://www.jewishjournal.com/los_angeles/article/rabbi_reverses_interfaith_marriage_policy

“The Blessing of Being Wrong” (Kol Nidre) – We are wrong far more often than most people admit thus preventing us from making necessary changes and doing t’shuvah (repentance). I discuss why I believe acknowledging wrongness is a sign of inner strength, courage and good character.

“I wish You Enough” (Yizkor) – This is a touching and insightful story about a father saying goodbye to his daughter for the last time, as first told by the motivational speaker Bob Perk.