07 Sunday Jun 2020
Posted in Uncategorized
My friend and colleague, Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, the Senior Rabbi of the Stephen S. Wise Free Synagogue in Manhattan, spoke with eloquence and power on Friday evening from his congregation’s bimah by zoom about George Floyd’s death and justice.
The link to Ammi’s 25-minute sermon is below, or you can read a pdf of it by clicking at the lower right on the screen.
https://www.swfs.org/resources/senior-rabbis-messages/george-floyd/
04 Thursday Jun 2020
Posted in Uncategorized
It’s often difficult for American Jews to focus our attention on anything other than the multiple crises facing the United States today. However, there’s another crisis that has been growing over the past few years within the liberal American Jewish community that needs our attention, our relationship with the State of Israel.
I have posted a blog at the Times of Israel that addresses this here:
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/a-growing-crisis-in-the-american-jewish-community/ .
Here is a link to the Webinar in which Rabbi Stanley Davids and I spoke on Leil Shavuot before Temple Sinai of Oakland, California. The Webinar itself – https://oaklandsinai.box.com/s/cg17caiw971ino5ls9xhxofy5qkau6ly
01 Monday Jun 2020
Posted in Uncategorized
I reached out this morning to my friend Marra Gad, who lives in Los Angeles and is the author of a moving memoir The Color of Love: A Story of a Mixed-Race Jewish Girl. She shared with me what she sent out to her friends yesterday.I asked her permission to post and she graciously gave it. She wrote:
“I send my heartfelt thanks to those of you who have reached out to me over the last day or so to say that you are supporting me…and that you see me.
Sprinkled among the messages, however, have been notes saying that people support me, but that there is surprise that I am so affected by the murder of George Floyd, the racism and the violence because….
“…you’re not really black.”
“…I don’t think of you as black.”
“…I don’t see your color.”
My brother and I were discussing this last night, and he rightly pointed out that the brutal murder of George Floyd should affect every single person on the planet. Simply because we are human, and the act was so sub-human on every level. And if it isn’t affecting you, I would encourage you to ask yourself why.
But for those of us who are black, bi or multi racial, the impact is intensified. And I am absolutely on that list.
I am black…white…and Jewish. That is my wholeness. I am here to be seen for all that I am…and I will not allow anyone to deny any part of me.
Look at me. See my color. How beautiful and powerful I am. See that my strength and lifeforce comes from being black. Just as it comes from being Jewish.
The world has tried for far too long to keep black and brown people invisible. And a part of what is happening right now in the streets of America is the voice of the people demanding to be heard saying NO MORE. It is a demand to be seen. And my voice is with them.
If you cannot or will not see and honor me for all that I am, you do not see me at all. And if you do not choose to see all of me, you are not being my ally or my supporter.
Marra B. Gad”
24 Sunday May 2020
Posted in Uncategorized
24 Sunday May 2020
Posted in Uncategorized
American World War II Master Sargent Roddie Edmonds was captured and became a Prisoner of War held by the Nazis along with 200 Jewish soldiers in 1944-1945. As their leader (among 1275 others), Roddie saved all of their lives by refusing to follow Nazi orders to separate Jews from non-Jews which would have meant certain death for his Jewish soldiers. He never spoke to his son about what he did.
After Roddie’s death, his son researched his father’s story resulting in this 14-minute documentary that includes the testimony of many of the men (now very elderly) under Roddie’s command who survived due to his courage and heroism.
Roddie Edmonds has been honored as one of the “Righteous Among the Nations” by Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.
22 Friday May 2020
Posted in Uncategorized
I’ve known Chris Bubser for 20 years as a friend, and when she told me that she was running for Congress I thought – ‘Now THAT is a great idea!’
Chris is smart, engaged, honest, kind, and an effective leader. She cares deeply about people, the environment, healthcare for all, and human rights, and she has a vision for what our democracy ought to be, inclusive, compassionate, and just.
Though Chris decided to run for Congress before this awful virus emerged, the devastation that it has wrought strengthened her resolve to flip a district to Democratic that’s been Republican for decades. See the second link below for an analysis of the district’s demography and why Chris has a good chance of success in her campaign.
Chris has been endorsed by Planned Parenthood, the Sierra Club, the California League of Conservation Voters, the Inland Empire Central Labor Council, the Coalition for Humane Immigration Rights, and the National Women’s Political Caucus.
Please take a few minutes time to read these two pieces. If you agree with me that Chris would be value-added in the House of Representatives please consider contributing to Chris’ candidacy in any way you can. Go to ChrisBubser.com.
Meet Chris Bubser, Democratic Candidate for Congress, CA 08
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nNuUv40YsgfQQj4w-MuRH29s6CLQq3pF/view?usp=sharing
Chris Bubser is well-position to flip CA 08 from Red to Blue
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jBWGyleVv0H2fXJyiD5e6xLcKxTP7Cye/view?usp=sharing
18 Monday May 2020
Posted in Health and Well-Being, Stories
Photo – Me at Camp Alonim, Brandeis Camp Institute – 1972
In my early 20s I worked as a horseback riding instructor at a Jewish summer camp outside Los Angeles located on an undeveloped 3000-acre property of farmland and rustic terrain resembling Israel. One day, a two year-old unbroken stallion was donated to the camp. The director of the barn staff, a crusty old cowboy named Charlie who spoke with a strong hair-lip, asked me if I’d like “to break” the horse. Eager for a new challenge, I said yes.
Charlie told me to walk the horse slowly around a large open field for an hour or two daily to get the horse used to carrying a rider, and he showed me how to use a hackamore, a headgear with a hard rope noseband that puts pressure on the horse’s face, nose, and chin to assist in controlling the animal.
One day, after I thought I had a measure of control, I decided to trot the horse. I gave him a gentle kick, but the horse took off at full speed galloping towards the middle of the camp filled with children. With all my strength I sought to slow him down and redirect him away from the kids, but it was clear to me that I had lost control. I was successful only in steering him away from the kids. Then I bailed onto a lawn and the horse, free of me, returned quickly to the barn.
As I picked myself up, I saw Charlie laughing his head off a hundred yards away. He later explained that the horse was “barn sour,” meaning that the steed only felt safe and secure in the barn. The term “barn sour,” of course, is from the rider’s perspective not that of the horse. For him, the barn was a sweet place.
I’ve thought of that day a number of times during the last two months. As our stay-at-home order enters the third month, I feel as that horse must have felt so long ago. The only time I venture away from my home is early in the morning for a long walk in my neighborhood. I live in a wooded and rural-like area of Los Angeles yet, even as I experience its beauty and quiet calm, I’m happy to return home, a sweet, comfortable, and secure place.
As a 70-year old, like many of my peers, I’m especially frightened of the virus that’s killing and sickening so many hundreds and thousands of people in America and around the world and crashing the economy. I try not to give into the fear, to the dread of how many more people will get sick and die, or to despair about how long we’ll be shuttered before a vaccine enables everyone to venture out again and resume a more normal way of living. I’m striving to take each day as it comes. I’ve established a routine that offers me a sense of order, control, and calm. And I find that I’m identifying with that strong-willed horse that I attempted to “break” unsuccessfully 50 years ago. He wasn’t really “barn-sour” at all. He was “barn-sweet” just as I am home-sweet today.
13 Wednesday May 2020
This piece was posted today on the Reform Judaism Blog (See link below). It is an edited letter from my most recent book Why Israel [and its Future] Matters – Letters of a Liberal Rabbi to his Children and the Millennial Generation with an Afterword by Daniel and David Rosove [my sons] (New Jersey: Ben Yehuda Press, 2019).
My book has been endorsed by a number of Israeli and North American Jewish leaders, including:
“Morally unflinching, intellectually courageous, Rabbi John Rosove has provided us with a desperately needed map for how to navigate the growing tensions between progressives and the state of Israel. By calling out Israel when it has done wrong and calling out its critics when they exaggerate Israel’s flaws, Rabbi Rosove echoes the ancient prophets, who criticized their people but always loved and defended them. This thoughtful and passionate book reminds us that commitment to Israel and to social justice are essential components of a healthy Jewish identity.” –Yossi Klein Halevi, Senior Fellow, Shalom Hartman Institute, Jerusalem
“Rabbi John Rosove’s letters to his sons, published in this volume, are tender and loving, but also gripping and challenging, as he grapples with modern Israel, Jewish identity, relations between Israelis and Diaspora Jews, and perhaps most significantly whether ‘you can maintain your ethical and moral values while at the same time being supporters of the Jewish state despite its flaws and imperfections.’ Rosove pulls no punches, laying out both the imperfections and the ethical choices surrounding Israel and American Jews. But he also manifests a passionate love for Israel and what one scholar has called ‘values-based aspirational Zionism.’ This book will raise as many questions for Rosove’s sons as it answers; it is a book that many of us wish we had written for our own children.” – Daniel Kurtzer, S. Daniel Abraham Professor in Middle Eastern Policy Studies, Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Former US Ambassador to Israel (2001-2005) and US Ambassador to Egypt (1997-2001)
“What a marvelous and refreshing book! A liberal social activist and committed Reform Jew, Rosove makes the case to Jewish millennials that they need Israel as a source of pride, connection, and Jewish renewal, and Israel needs them for the liberal values that they can bring to the Zionist enterprise. In its call for “aspirational Zionism,” the book is honest and tough about Israel’s flaws, but optimistic about the country’s direction and filled with practical strategies for promoting change. This is a no-nonsense, straight-talking work, intellectually rigorous but deeply personal. And most important, it demonstrates in compelling prose to young Jews—and Jews of all ages—that Jewish life cannot be sustained without Israel at its core.” –Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie, President Emeritus, Union for Reform Judaism
“A moving love letter to Israel from a rabbinic leader who refuses to give into despair, but instead recommits to building a democratic Israel that lives up to the vision of its founders.” –Rabbi Jill Jacobs, Executive Director, Terua: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights
“Rabbi Rosove’s truths reach minds and open hearts. I urge each and every individual who feels anyway connected to the Jewish people, to ponder this powerful assemblage of candid, insightful messages which address Israel as a nation, and as a notion. A must read.” -Isaac Herzog, Former Chairman of the Executive of the Jewish Agency for Israel, President of the State of Israel
The book is available on Amazon.
12 Tuesday May 2020
By Mik Moore – May 11, 2020
Though the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations (COP) wields limited power, it’s leadership has a voice allegedly representing the organized American Jewish community, but that voice over the years has increasingly not represented the mainstream of the American Jewish community with respect to Israel, the occupation, and the settlement enterprise in the West Bank.
This year, the long-time right-wing, male, and hawkish Chair of the Board, Malcolm Hoenlein, retired and the Chair of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid society, Dianne Lob, a finance executive at the investment management firm AllianceBernstein, was elected COP’s new Board Chair. That election did not sit well with Morton Klein, the one-man extremist right-wing Islamophobic leader of the Zionist Organization of America, who challenged Lob’s election.
This article in 972+ presents a fair overview of the politics inside the COP that reflects the schisms within the organized American Jewish community.
https://www.972mag.com/conference-presidents-american-jews-islamophobia/
07 Thursday May 2020
Much has been said about President Trump’s weak leadership before and during this pandemic; his denial of reality and science, constant lies and disinformation, happy magical talk, lack of empathy and humility, self-aggrandizement, managerial incompetence, firing of able government officials and scientific experts, attacks on the media and intelligence community, undermining of the justice system, schoolyard bullying of political opponents, pandering to our nation’s worst instincts, and blaming others while taking no responsibility himself as President of the United States.
In contrast, I’ve been thinking much about what great leadership really is.
This May 10th marks the 80th anniversary of two pivotal events in world history. In his just-published and highly acclaimed history of Winston Churchill’s first year in office as Great Britain’s wartime Prime Minister, The Splendid and the Vile – A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance during the Blitz, Erik Larson writes of that day:
“The beauty of the day [in Britain] made a shocking contrast to all that had happened since dawn, when German forces stormed into Holland, Belgium, and Luxembourg, using armor, dive-bombers, and parachute troops with overwhelming effect…. Churchill had been summoned by the King [George VI]…” that evening to become the next Prime Minister, a choice that saved England from being overwhelmed by the Nazi war machine and offered the world an historic example of great leadership in a time of existential national crisis.
Every subsequent Churchill address to Parliament and his nation began with a dire assessment of what Great Britain faced. He neither gilded the lily nor denied the truth and reality. He stated plainly the threat Britain faced before the Nazi onslaught. Churchill then explained what must be done, that sacrifice would be necessary, that much pain and suffering would be inevitable, and that the only result must be complete victory. He ended each speech with soaring eloquence and galvanized his people with a unified sense of purpose, mission, and hope.
In striking contrast with our inconsistent, self-serving, prevaricating, divisive, and hardhearted President Trump, Prime Minister Churchill carried his nation on his shoulders. His will was Britain’s will. His heart was England’s heart. His faith was the people’s faith. His strength was their strength.
For now until November, we Americans must rely upon our scientists, health care professionals, governors, mayors, Democratic Representatives and Senators in Congress and state legislators (and a few Republicans) for sane and responsible leadership. And we need to remember that the American people are inherently decent as demonstrated every day by so many caring for the sick and vulnerable.
Churchill said, “the future is unknowable but the past gives us hope.”
I hope that you and your dear ones stay well and that those who are sick heal quickly to fullness of health again.
