Tag Archives: American Jewish Life

A Rabbi’s Ethical Will – A Challenge for Liberal American Jews

29 Friday May 2015

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The following is my Congregational “Ethical Will” that my synagogue will include in a new time-capsule to be opened at some time in the future. My synagogue is today nearly 90 years old and we have just finished a 13-year process in which we have completely rebuilt our schools and buildings into a modern state of-the-art facility. We are a healthy synagogue community of 950 family units, but our current health is no guarantee for the future. What follows, to be opened in 30, 40, 50, or even 75 years, is a statement of my hopes for my future congregants, read perhaps following my death.

May 28, 2015 – Sivan 10, 5775

Dear TIOH of the Future:

As the Senior Rabbi of Temple Israel of Hollywood, I am gratified by what so many have accomplished together in nurturing our synagogue community and distinguishing it as the vital, enriched, loving, and progressive Jewish community that it is today in 2015.

We have grown three schools with an enrollment of nearly 700 students from pre-school to high school, and developed a strong Jewish learning community of adults, an inspired worship experience for individuals and families of all ages, engaged social justice activity, a Jewish arts and emerging arts education program, and strong relationships with our Israeli Reform sister synagogues, Congregation Mevasseret Zion and Congregation Kodesh v’Chol in Holon, as well as an invigorating family exchange program between our 6th grade Day School students and the 6th grade Israeli students at the Tzahalah Elementary school in North Tel Aviv via the Tel Aviv-Los Angeles Partnership. We have also introduced more than 250 adults and children to the land and state of Israel on congregational trips.

We are a strongly identifying liberal Jewish community in the heart of Los Angeles, but we know that there is still much to accomplish, much to learn, many unaffiliated Jews to draw in, and much healing of people, our community, city, county, country, and world for us to effect.

Despite what we have learned to do well, and despite the current challenges left unaddressed, I worry mightily about our collective Jewish future not only at Temple Israel of Hollywood, but amongst American liberal Jews as a whole. Demographic studies of the American Jewish community suggest a serious cause for concern.

The 2013 Pew Research Poll indicates that the American Jewish community numbers today between 4.5 million and 9 million, depending on how one defines ‘who is a Jew.’  Seven in ten Jews nationally in non-Orthodox communities are intermarrying; one-fifth of all Jews say they do not believe in God; and two out of three are not affiliated with a synagogue community. Though 90% of all American Jews say they are proud to be Jewish, 30% say they are not religious in any way. Two-thirds of non-religious Jews do not raise their children as Jews. Many of us worry whether our grandchildren and great-grandchildren will be Jewish at all.

We cannot know what the state of your community will be as you read this, 30, 50 or 75 years from now. Will your generation be literate Jews? Will you know Hebrew, Torah, Jewish texts, Jewish history, ethics, and culture? Will you have faith in God? Will you increase the numbers who identify as liberal Jewish Americans? Will you have a strong sense of Jewish connection with Jews living in Israel and throughout the world? Will you be engaged as Jews in the messianic work of tikun olam, healing an unjust, hard-hearted and broken world?

I speak on behalf of our congregation, staff and lay leadership today in 2015/5775 and wish you Temple Israel congregants of the future well, and I hope for you the following:

1. That your knowledge and love of Torah and Judaism’s sacred literature, history, language, culture, ethics, and the state of Israel will be strong;

2. That you will be practicing Jews in your homes and here in the synagogue;

3. That mitzvot will be the primary business of this congregation and your lives;

4. That your prayer will be meaningful and enriching, filled with moments of personal and communal transcendence and joy, rooted in Jewish tradition’s great spiritual legacy;

5. That Torah and Jewish ethics will continue to be at the core of this congregation’s mission, that kindness will characterize all relationships in the community between staff, leadership and congregants, from the very young to the very old, that TIOH will be a model of ethical living and human decency in Los Angeles, and a place where ideas are freely debated with civility and mutual respect;

6. That every human being will be honored and valued here and outside these synagogue walls by virtue of being created b’tzelem Elohim, in the image of God;

7. That TIOH will be, as it is today, an inclusive community of Jews and their families (Jewish and non-Jewish) from around the country and the world, embracing the straight and LGBT communities, and Jews of color;

8. That you will visit the people, land and state of Israel with regularity, study there, support its democracy and Jewish character, and consider it your national home as it is the national home of the entire Jewish people.

May your Jewish lives be enriched and rewarding, and may you be worthy always to stand humbly before God.

With every good wish from my house and family across time to yours,

Bivracha, u-v’ahavah, u-l’shalom,

John L. Rosove
Senior Rabbi – Temple Israel of Hollywood

Why Mail-Order “Ordination” is a Troubling Solution to a Real Problem

25 Monday May 2015

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I come across compelling articles frequently that I wish I had written myself. This is one such article that I recommend to those who are contemplating marriages or who have children, grandchildren and friends who are doing so:

“Why a Real Clergy Person Should Perform Your Wedding” – By Rabbi Jeffrey Salkin
http://jeffreysalkin.religionnews.com/2015/05/21/why-a-real-clergy-person-should-perform-your-wedding/

My colleague, Rabbi Jeffrey Salkin, reflects about a growing trend in the United States generally and among Jews in particular in which large numbers of non-clergy are acquiring instant mail-order “ordination” in order to be able to legally perform wedding ceremonies for their family and friends.

Wedding ceremonies conducted by these individuals, Rabbi Salkin rightly observes, are very different in kind and in intent from ceremonies in which authentically ordained clergy officiate.

He notes that whereas authentically ordained religious leaders have spent, in most cases, their lives building and nurturing religious community, counseling individuals, couples and families, adults and children through life-cycle events from birth to death, and studying their respective religious traditions, histories, rituals, customs, symbols, liturgies, ethics, and values, weddings conducted by those who receive instant mail-order “ordination,” though usually motivated by the desire that the officiant have an intimate personal relationship with the wedding couple, likely will reflect almost none, if anything at all, of what traditional religion and authentic clergy provide.

Ordained rabbis and cantors bring substantial knowledge, wisdom, insight, and authentic religious and spiritual experiences to the chuppah and can help couples about to marry establish the appropriate groundwork for their lives enriched by religious tradition, understanding and community.

Many authentically ordained rabbis and cantors also are trained in pre-marital counseling and can help couples navigate through potential problems before those problems become irreconcilable conflicts and the marriage fails.

Yes, there are undoubtedly wise and experienced people who may be qualified in some respects to officiate at non-religious wedding ceremonies, such as some judges and some older members of families and friends, but such ceremonies will necessarily be qualitatively different from that which authentically ordained clergy conduct.

This trend is a disturbing reflection of the increasing fragmentation of our community, a diminution of Jewish peoplehood into familial units, an over-emphasis on individual needs, a lack of real engagement with religious community, and an alienation from Jewish tradition and Jewish values.

Rabbi Salkin’s blog is an important read, and I am grateful that he wrote it.

Who Are You in this Fourth Stage of Life? D’var Torah Bemidbar

22 Friday May 2015

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Mi at – “Who are you?” (Ruth 3:9) – So asked Boaz. It’s a question that every human being asks from time to time. Especially on this weekend of Shavuot, of the great meeting between Israel and God on the mountain, we ask ourselves individually and as a community – “Who am I/Who are we?” in this time and place, at this stage of our lives, as individuals, as a people, and as a nation.

This Shabbat we begin the fourth book of the five books of Moses, Bemidbar (Numbers; lit. “In the wilderness”). If the Book of Genesis is about human and tribal origins and beginnings (mirroring infancy and childhood), and Exodus is about human freedom (representing the driving force amongst adolescents), and Leviticus is about the need to adjust to the rules and regulations imposed on society in order to live productively (characteristic of young adulthood), then Bemidbar is about the mid-life journey.

In this fourth book we see that the bloom is off the marriage between God and Israel. Doubt, disillusionment and struggle define our people’s lives. We rebel. Our faith is broken. We want to be somewhere else, anywhere else if it brings relief and renewal. We confront our limitations and mortality. We wonder if this is all there is. We’re caught in the unfettered and cruel desert, a vast wilderness of silence. Our hearts pound. The quiet thunders in our ears. We’re alone and afraid. We yearn for safety and solace.

The wilderness of Sinai is far more than a physical location. Bemidbar is a human wasteland, where everything falls apart. We wander, without a shared vision, without shared values, or shared words. Leaders of every kind attempt to lead; but no one is listening and each is marching to the sound of his/her own drummer. Driven by fear and jealousy, ego and greed, the people are moved by basic things; hunger, thirst and lust. God’s transcendence is elusive. The book is noisy, frustrating and painful.

Rabbi Eddie Feinstein has written (“The Wilderness Speaks”, The Modern Men’s Torah Commentary, pages 202-203):

“Bemidbar may be the world’s strongest counterrevolutionary tract. It is a rebuke to all those who believe in the one cataclysmic event that will forever free humans from their chains. It is a response to those who foresee that out of the apocalypse of political or economic revolution will emerge the New Man, or the New American, or the New Jew. Here is the very people who stood in the very presence of God at Sinai…who heard Truth from the mouth of God…and still, they are unchanged, unrepentant, chained to their fears. The dream is beyond them. God offers them freedom, and they clamor for meat…”

L’havdil – I am not Moses, nor has my experience been his remotely, yet as a congregational rabbi I understand our greatest leader’s burden of leadership. In the course of Bemidbar “everyone in [Moses’] life will betray him. Miriam and Aaron –  his family members – betray him, murmuring against him. His tribe rebels against him… his people betray him in the incident of the ten spies… and finally, even God betrays him [when he hit the rock and lost his dream of ever entering the Promised Land].” (Ibid)

Numbers is a book about burdens, not blessings. Again, Rabbi Feinstein:

“Everyone has found himself in that excruciating moment when words don’t work – when we try and say the right thing, to heal and to help, but each word brings more hurt. Everyone has tasted the bitterness of betrayal – when no one stands with us, when those who should know better stand against us. Everyone has felt the deep disappointment of the dream turned sour. It could have been so good! I should have turned out so differently! Where did I go wrong? Everyone has tortured himself with the torment Moses feels in Bemidbar. And that’s the ultimate lesson. Listen to the Torah’s wisdom: the agony, the self-doubt, the frustration are part of the journey through the wilderness. Anyone who has ever worn Moses’ shoes or carried his staff – knows the anguish of Bemidbar. But know this, too: You’re not alone. You’re not the first. You’re not singled out. And most of all, you’re not finished. The torturous route through the wilderness does not come to an end. There was hope for Moses. There is hope for us.” (Ibid)

Where does hope come? In the turning of the heart, the turning of a page, the discovery of shared values and shared purpose, of shared life, shared listening, and shared doing.

In Deuteronomy, the fifth and last of the five books of Moses (representing our senior years when we begin to integrate who we are and rediscover our greater purpose), we’ll hear “Sh’ma Yisrael – Listen O Israel.”

In Devarim (Deuteronomy), “words” return and we’re able to share as a people in listening to God’s voice and to each other. In this, there is hope yet to come.

Shabbat shalom and Hag Sameach.

12 New Rabbis – A Bit of Counsel and a Prayer

20 Wednesday May 2015

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I was privileged to attend the ordination of 12 new Rabbis this past Sunday in Los Angeles from the Reform movement’s Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR). Because the ordination ceremony was held in the Sanctuary of my synagogue, Temple Israel of Hollywood, HUC invited me to offer the invocation.

I was ordained myself 36 years ago from HUC-JIR in New York and remember well the excitement, exhilaration, pride, optimism, hope, and, not a small amount of trepidation that must have filled the hearts of these young men and women (see names below).

As the 500 family, friends and members of the HUC community (faculty, staff and rabbis) gathered in our Sanctuary, the 12 “almost Rabbis” processed and took their seats. I approached the podium and offered these words just moments before Rabbi Aaron Penken, the President of HUC-JIR, placed his hands upon each of their heads in the traditional gesture of s’michah (“the laying on of hands”) and pronounced them “Rabbi in Israel.”

I said:

“Zeh hayom asah Adonai, nagilah v’nism’cha bo!
This is the day that God has made, let us sing and be joyful!” (Psalm 118:24)

B’ru-chim ha-ba-im – Welcome esteemed teachers and faculty, colleagues, parents, grandparents, friends, and kim’at (almost) “Rabbis in Israel”…

As rabbis, in whatever ways you will serve our people and faith, I can assure you this after my own 36 years tilling the soil in this unique vineyard of matter and spirit, that you will be challenged and tested as you’ve never been before, to think broadly, to learn from our traditional sources every day, to respond with uncommon passion and compassion to the needs of others, to be endlessly patient with people and ferociously impatient for truth and justice, to dig into your soul’s wellsprings seeking God’s life-affirming power, and then, working and reworking what it means for you and us to be progressive Jewish religious leaders amongst our people.

The only thing I can say with any certainty at all is that if you wish to rise to your best selves, and you allow yourselves to be pushed to your limits, you will feel exhilarated in ways few others will understand, for being a rabbi in Israel is unlike anything else I know.

In these brief moments, I wish to leave you with a few truths I’ve learned over the years serving our people:

First – Always follow your heart, but be smart about it.

Second – Never compromise your values and principles, but choose your moments carefully and go “to the wall” rarely, for there’s much truth possessed by others that will expand and enrich your own sense of the truth.

Third – Find the very best and brightest, the most creative, kind and special among our colleagues, your congregants and friends to join you as partners in your sacred work, for only then will you soar as if on “the wings of eagles.” (Isaiah 40:31)

Fourth – Never stop even for a moment studying our sacred literature. Learn as much Hebrew as you can. Memorize as much text as you are able. And push yourself to break through convention while at the same time respecting your community’s rhythms and needs.

Fifth – Put your emphasis always on the half-full glass, and regard the half-empty, but don’t dwell there nor allow yourself overexposure to toxic people who will steal your heart, soul, mind, and strength if you let them.

And finally, place your family’s and friends’ needs over work even as you give your all to your congregants and community.

I know I speak for all HUC alumni scattered around the world in wishing you well, joy, happiness, and fulfillment in this sacred work.

On this Yom Y’ru-sha-la-yim, despite its history of violence and strife, may the Holy City that lives at the center of our people’s heart and soul inspire you in your sacred work as ohavei am Yisrael u-m’di-nat Yis’rael, lovers of the people and the State of Israel.

The Jewish world needs you, and remember that you are never alone.

Ma-zal tov, chol ha-ka-vod, ti-hi-yu ba-ri, ta-a-ko-vu a-cha-rei lib’chem, teil’chu b’dar’chei sha-lom!

Congratulations and much respect; may you be healthy; follow your hearts; go the ways of peace, and “May the works of your hands and the meditations of your hearts” (Psalm 19:14) make you worthy to stand before God and before the people of Israel.  Amen!

The Los Angeles HUC-JIR Ordination Class of 2015 (5775):
Rabbis Courtney Leigh Miller Berman, Allison Dorie Fischman, Amanda Beth Greene, Rachel Kaplan Marks, Molly Beth Plotnik, Lara Leigh Pullan Regev, Jason Samuel Rosner, Gavi S. Ruit, Todd Harris Silverman, Samuel Louis Spector, Beni Wajnberg, and Bess Bridget Wohlner.

Why “The Third Narrative: Progressive Answers to the Far Left’s Critiques of Israel” is a Must-Read

17 Sunday May 2015

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This pamphlet is intended for any American Jewish college student who is confused about the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestiture and Sanctions (BDS) movement and conflicted about what it means to be loyal to human rights values while also remaining loyal to Judaism and the Jewish people.

It is also an important resource for their parents and grandparents who are worried about their young adult children’s Jewish identity and bond with the state of Israel as they are confronted with anti-Israel demonstrations on college and university campuses across the United States.

This booklet offers a way for American liberal Jews who love and support the state of Israel to continue to do so despite their discomfort with specific Israeli policies, the Israeli political right’s control of the Israeli government, and American Jewish alienation from segments of the organized American Jewish community that considers progressive Zionist values and positions to be anathema to the pro-Israel camp.

Finally, this pamphlet is for American conservative and right-wing Zionists who believe that American liberal Jews have been duped by the left about Israel and consequently have become, in the view of the conservative right, part of the anti-Israel camp.

“The Third Narrative: Progressive Answers to the Far Left’s Critiques of Israel,” will, regardless of your positions, values, worries, and fears, offer you an opportunity to consider a different pro-Zionist position.

This 25-page pamphlet was produced by Ameinu (Heb. “Our People”), a national, multi-generation community of progressive Zionist North American Jews that believes that “a secure peace between Israel and its neighbors is essential to the survival of the democratic Jewish state.” Ameinu is committed to a “negotiated two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

The pamphlet addresses most of the accusations leveled against Israel by the international BDS movement, by the international media and on the web, on college and university campuses, and in other settings.

Its introduction notes:

“Some of these attacks come from the far left, from activists trying to appeal to Jews and non-Jews who are committed to human rights and social justice. Often, these critics are not just attacking specific, objectionable Israeli policies and behavior. They treat Israel as the epitome of evil. They portray the entire Zionist enterprise…as nothing more than a racist, colonialist and immoral land theft.”

The pamphlet addresses the following key questions:

• Is Israel an “Apartheid State?”

• Is one, bi-national state a solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict?

• Is pro-Israel and progressive an oxymoron?

• Should Palestinian refugees and their descendants be granted the “right of return?”

• Should boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel be encouraged?

• Does Zionism = racism?

• Is “ethnic cleansing” inherent to Zionism?

• Does the pro-Israel lobby have a stranglehold on the U.S. government?

It is important that all of us be able to respond to these questions not just from the perspective of the Israeli and American Jewish political right, but of the Jewish progressive left as well.

I highly recommend this important contribution to the discussion about Israel and that you share it with your high school and college-age children, grandchildren, and friends (Jewish and non-Jewish) alike.

You can learn more about the Third Narrative at http://thirdnarrative.org/ and acquire a copy by calling Ameinu at (212) 366 1194 or visiting its website at http://www.ameinu.net.

What We Jews Can Do In Their Name

19 Sunday Apr 2015

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We Jews are living this week between two significant holidays of commemoration. Last Wednesday evening and Thursday the Jewish world mourned those who perished in the Holocaust on Yom HaShoah. This Wednesday evening and Thursday we will mourn those who died defending the people and state of Israel on Yom HaZikaron.

The breadth and depth of the losses of the Jewish people in the Shoah (The 6 million plus 5 million others) and the land of Israel since 1860 (25,000 Jews killed with many more thousands injured and maimed) to our people confounds the mind and breaks the heart. It doesn’t matter whether we were alive or personally affected in our own families by the events that these holydays commemorate. Just knowing about them creates familial memory.

We are a people defined, in part, by memory. The good and noble deeds our families and forebears performed during their lives, upon their deaths, pass to us as zechut (merit), and we live in the after-glow of their accomplishments, decency and nobility, and we dwell in the shadow of their suffering and unjust deaths.

How ought we to remember our people’s history of suffering?

In the wake of so much tragic history, how ought we to understand our lives today?

What ought we do to emulate that which was most noble in their lives?

The Talmud teaches that miracles ceased with the Temple’s destruction, but since, miracles of another sort have occurred.

When we’re seen and heard for what we really are as Jews, is this not a miracle?

When we love our people and tradition fully, is this not a miracle too?

Now that the Jewish people has lost so many innocent and righteous men, women and children to violence and hate over time, what ought we to do in their memory?

We can speak in their place, and pray in their name.

We can do what they are no longer capable of doing and let our lives be an extension of theirs.

We can learn and live our people’s tradition, language and history since they can no longer learn, speak and carry forward the life of our people.

We can love and support the state and people of Israel because their hands and hearts have been stilled.

We can comfort others who grieve loss because they can no longer offer solace.

We can be happy since they can no longer laugh, love our children and all children because they can no longer love, and carry their memory and good deeds forward so they will be remembered and the world will become kinder, more just, and more peaceful in their name.

Zecher tzaddikim livracha! May the memory of the righteous among the Jewish people be a perpetual benediction.

Hunger in America– For Your Passover Seders

02 Thursday Apr 2015

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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!

West Bank Settlement Policy Today – Questions and Answers

29 Sunday Mar 2015

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“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

While Waiting for Israeli Election Results – Thoughts on ‘Optimism’ and Important Articles to Ponder

17 Tuesday Mar 2015

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The only poll that matters is the one taken today, on election day. Then what matters is who President Rivlin will ask to form a coalition government and how the parties will line up, which could take weeks.

In the meantime, here are some thoughts about optimism and pessimism and a few articles I recommend.

“The alternative to Hamas is Abbas. He is a serious man who has declared himself in favor of peace and compromise, of a demilitarized Palestinian state and against terror…There are always skeptics in life…To be an optimist you have to work very hard and have a lot of patience. It’s more natural to be a skeptic, be on the safe side…But in my experience in life I feel that being optimistic is wiser and more realistic…Optimists and pessimists die the same way. It’s how they live that’s different.” -Former President Shimon Peres addressing Israeli High School Students

“Some people see things as they are and ask why. I dream things that never were and say why not.” -Robert F. Kennedy

“A pessimist sees only the dark side of the clouds, and mopes; a philosopher sees both sides, and shrugs; an optimist doesn’t see the clouds at all – he’s walking on them.” -Leonard Louis Levinson, writer

“An optimist is the human personification of spring.” -Susan J. Bissonette, writer

“A pessimist finds difficulties in every opportunity; an optimist finds opportunities in every difficulty.” -President Harry S. Truman

“Part of being optimistic is keeping one’s head pointed toward the sun, one’s feet moving forward. There were many dark moments when my faith in humanity was sorely tested, but I would not give myself up to despair. That way lays defeat and death.” -Nelson Mandela

“B’Yisrael ye-ush lo optsia – In Israel despair is not an option.” -Yaron Shavit – past President of the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism and military commander of Milluim in North Israel

5 Recommended articles:

1. The American Jewish Community Is Fracturing. What’s Causing It? Steven M. Cohen, The New Republic. Professor Cohen is among the most respected demographers of the American Jewish community. http://www.newrepublic.com/article/121304/generational-divide-american-jews-israel

2. Amos Oz – Last Chance for a Jewish State,  The Los Angeles Jewish Journal. A landmark speech delivered before the eighth international conference of the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv. http://www.jewishjournal.com/opinion/article/transcript_of_amos_oz_remarks_to_inss

3. LIVE UPDATES: Some 26% vote before noon; Likud ‘worried by high Arab turnout’, Times of Israel. http://www.timesofisrael.com/ballot-stations-open-as-israelis-choose-new-leadership/

4. Israel’s New Political Center, New Yorker, Bernard Avishai. http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/israels-new-political-center

5. Bibi’s Opponent: ‘I Trust the Obama Administration to Get a Good Deal’, Atlantic. Jeffrey Goldberg notes in an extensive interview with Herzog that unlike Netanyahu, the Zionist Union head “is clever enough to talk about the US-Israel relationship with discretion and nuance.” http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/03/goldberg-isaac-herzog-interview-on-iran-and-obama/387628/?utm_source=btn-twitter-pin

The Final Week Before the Israeli Election – 3 Articles

13 Friday Mar 2015

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Those interested in the Israeli election are no doubt following the news carefully in Haaretz, The Jerusalem Post, The Times of Israel , the LA Jewish Journal, The Jewish Daily Forward, and other news sources. The following three items encapsulate the dynamism of this election in Israel among Jews, Israeli Arabs and the American Jewish community.

Though anything can happen, as past Israeli elections have shown, I believe that this election may truly represent a sea-change. Polls indicate that in the closing week, Israeli opinion is solidifying. Here are two edited articles and a link to a third that reflects that dynamism and what this election means to Israelis, Arabs and American Jews.

[1] From a Letter of Rabbi Dow Marmur from Jerusalem. March 15, 2015. (edited)
Ari Shavit, whom the world reads nowadays more than ever thanks to the deserved success of his book, “My Promised Land,” suggested in his Ha’aretz column earlier in the week that the very possibility of a Herzog government has restored hope to many Israelis. They’re hoping, it seems, that:

*he’ll restore normal relations with the United States instead of siding with Republican extremists in Congress;

*he’ll see Israel’s security problems in the larger context than just Iran, something many experts in the field believe to be necessary;

*he’ll tackle the economic issues of the day, particularly the cost of housing which has soared because, according to one report, a third of all new homes have been bought by investors, not owner-tenants;

*he’ll stem the massive flow of funds and subsidies to the settlements;

*he’ll restart negotiations with the Palestinians and release the tax revenues which rightfully belong to the Palestinian Authority but that Israel is currently holding as retaliations for the Authority turning to the International Criminal Court.

[2] “Why I’m voting Meretz and not for the Arab ticket.” Salman Masalha. Haaretz. March 12, 2015. (edited)

The actions of the Joint List of Arab parties for the Knesset over the question of a surplus votes agreement with Meretz was the straw that broke the camel’s back for me. Meretz was willing to cancel its surplus votes agreement with the Zionist Union to sign such an agreement with the Joint List, just to prevent tens of thousands of votes from going to waste – but the Joint List refused….

I admit that I boycotted recent elections, and that I recently used this platform to call for boycotting the present election too. I had many reasons in favor of a boycott. The reasons have not changed. The circumstances have.

When Islamist imams declare in the Arab media that a vote for the Joint List will bring down the rule of the right, yet the Joint List includes an Islamic Movement whose candidates live a polygamous life, I wonder which right they are talking about. Do they themselves not represent the very same thing just in a different costume, the sheitel or the hijab?

We must say clearly that the Joint List includes not only the equivalent of Yisrael Beiteinu of the Arab street, in the form of the Arab nationalism of Balad; but also the racist parallel of Habayit Hayehudi in the shape of the Islamic Movement.

…Here it turns out that the nationalists of Balad, who are fighting with all they have to enter the Knesset and swear loyalty to the “Jewish and democratic” State of Israel, are not willing to sign an agreement with Meretz based on the claim that it is a Zionist party, but when the time comes they embrace the racists from the “Habayit Haislami” (“Islamic Home”) of the Arab street.

Therefore, this is the time to disperse the fog and put everything on the table. I confess that I have never voted for Meretz. I always gave my vote to Hadash. But the time has come to voice a clear and pronounced civil Arab call: If the choice is between a vote that will give Meretz a Knesset seat or a vote that will give another seat to the Arabs from the Joint List who are the counterparts of Habayit Hayehudi or Yisrael Beiteinu, then the proper choice of every responsible citizen is clearly Meretz.

Every vote for Meretz is a sure vote for separating religion and state, for civil equality and equality between the sexes. Every vote for Meretz is a sure vote for social justice, cultural and national justice, freedom of expression and freedom of thought. And above all, every vote for Meretz is a certain vote for the peace we all aspire to. It is impossible to say all these things with certainty about any other party.

That is why, for a sane country and equal citizenship for everyone, I have decided to vote for Meretz.

[3] “Israel’s Debates Creep (Back) Into Our Bloodstream – American Jews Realize They Are Part of Election Drama.” JJ Goldberg. Jewish Daily Forward. March 13, 2015.

http://forward.com/articles/216514/israels-debates-creep-back-into-our-bloodstream/#ixzz3UHJ19DA4

Shabbat shalom!