Tag Archives: Ethics

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!

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

19 Thursday Mar 2015

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

J Street’s Response to Presbyterian Church (USA) Divestment, Kidnapping of 3 Israeli Teens and Middle East Tensions

23 Monday Jun 2014

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Those who understand the Middle East know that to approach events there aggressively and in a black-white, good-evil context alone will likely result in an escalation of conflict. Though good people differ about what recent events mean (i.e. the unification of Fatah with Hamas, the collapse of the Israeli-Palestinian Peace talks, the Presbyterian Church (USA) Divestment vote, the Kidnapping of 3 Israeli Teens, and the escalation of violence in Iraq and Syria), those who care deeply about maintaining Israeli security, its democracy and Jewish character, must consider all elements of these conflicts before reacting defensively and aggressively.

The two following articles express J Street’s position on much of what is transpiring. As a co-chair of J Street’s national Rabbinic Cabinet including 800 rabbis and cantors, I agree with the sentiments expressed in both.

J Street is a pro-Israel, pro-peace political organization in Washington, D.C. and is the largest pro-Israel PAC in the United States. It continues to affirm that a two-states for two peoples resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through negotiations is the only alternative that can preserve both Israel’s identity as a democratic society and as the homeland of the Jewish people. A one-state solution will destroy Israel as we know it.

  1. J Street repudiates Presbyterian divestment decision, sees no victory for BDS Movement – J Street said that it does not believe that boycotts or divestment will bring Israelis and Palestinians closer to a two-state solution to their conflict, nor are they appropriate tools in pushing toward resolution of the conflict. We do not support the decision of the Presbyterian Church (USA) to divest from three North American companies doing business in the Palestinian territory. http://jstreet.org/blog/post/j-street-repudiates-presbyterian-divestment-decision-sees-no-victory-for-bds-movement_1
  1. Kidnapping of 3 Israeli teens could trigger more violence, Houston Chronicle –  Warning that “the Kerry effort’s failure has left a dangerous vacuum,” J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami argued that “the Obama administration must not step away and leave the parties to their own devices, which will only allow the situation to deteriorate. On the contrary, the time has come for some plain speaking and more forceful leadership.”  http://www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/outlook/article/Ben-Ami-Kidnapping-of-3-Israeli-teens-could-5568239.php

 

 

What To Think About This Iraqi Mess

22 Sunday Jun 2014

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After the First Gulf War, Saddam Hussein said that if he were ever to be overthrown Iraqis would end up murdering each other.

Indeed, that psychopathic killer was right.

The mess that is Iraq today is beyond tragic for Iraqis most of all, but also for the United States. Five thousand American soldiers are dead and more than 250,000 Americans have been injured (including those who suffer PTSD) in that decade-plus-long war. God knows how many hundreds of thousands of Iraqis are dead and injured. This past week with ISIS taking over much of Iraq, one news item projected that now more than a million Iraqis have become refugees in that ongoing humanitarian catastrophe.

If loss of life, limb and home were not enough, the war cost the United States $1.7 trillion with an additional $490 billion in benefits owed to war veterans, expenses that could grow to more than $6 trillion over the next four decades counting interest (per Reuters). Lest we forget the financial impact of two wars after 9/11 and Bush’s massive tax cut that squandered the Clinton budget surplus, neither of the two wars was paid for by the Bush Administration, setting the stage, at least in part, for the “Great Recession.”

What is maddening on top of all this is that in recent days Americans have been subject to a ridiculous and outrageous blame-game initiated against the Obama Administration policies and President Obama himself mostly by Republicans, the very people who led the way in getting America into that unjustified and immoral Iraqi war in the first place and who were the greatest cheer-leaders when Bush got his massive tax cut bill passed in Congress.

This week, I have heard generals urge the US not to do anything we live to regret in Iraq. They said that even an air war against ISIS insurgents now threatening Baghdad will be ineffective unless accompanied by massive ground troops. President Obama, reflecting the views of the majority of Americans, does not intend to send ground troops back into Iraq – thank heavens!

The Republican blamers are counting on Americans to have no memory at all. Lest we forget, it was Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Libby, Wolfowitz, Powell, Rice, and others (Republicans and Democrats) who, in justifying going to war against Saddam, either cooked, twisted, spun, fabricated, or went along with the fiction that Saddam had WMD that could be used against the United States and our allies.

When no WMD were found, Bush/Cheney and company changed the story. Now the war was about ridding Iraq of a brutal dictator and bringing freedom and democracy to the Iraqi people.

Lest we forget, Saddam Hussein’s fall created a vacuum for Iran which suddenly was regionally unchecked to be able to pursue its hegemonic designs to develop nuclear weapons.

Lest we forget as well, it was Bush in 2008 who signed an order to withdraw ALL American troops from Iraq no later than by 2011. President Obama fulfilled this order, but it is as if Bush’s order never existed in the minds of these Republican blamers. They say it is all Obama’s fault!

Lest we forget as well that it was Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki who said he did not want any American residual forces to remain in Iraq, but one Republican Senator this past week said this was a “lie!” These people default to fiction when history, truth and facts don’t suit their political opportunism and deep-seated animus.

What boggles the mind is that these people seem not to have learned anything from our unjustified, ill-advised, short-sighted, deadly, maiming, destructive, and costly Iraq war. They were wrong about virtually everything, but they are still talking!

Those who think they have answers about what America should do next in Iraq and Syria are fooling themselves. As I listen to experts talk about the complexities inherent in this mess, the only thing that is absolutely clear to me is that there is no good choice for the US at all. Every choice is bad; and there are no good guys to support either, which is why the President has been hesitant to act in Syria and now Iraq.

My heart breaks for all the innocent Iraqis and Syrians who are the real victims of sectarian strife and hate.

My heart also goes out to all American veterans of this war who gave up so much in Iraq and now must witness it all revert to what Saddam Hussein predicted would happen after his fall.

My compassion extends to those families of our veterans killed in action and those who survived but have suffered greatly the effects of their injuries.

Finally, my prayers go to the President and those charged with the responsibility of figuring out how not to make a very bad situation even worse.

 

 

 

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

Posted by in American Politics and Life, Ethics, Stories

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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.

The Truth About J Street

12 Monday 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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At a recently convened Los Angeles J Street meeting with one of the leading candidates running for Congressman Henry Waxman’s 33rd Congressional District seat, the candidate asked us “Why does J Street support BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) against Israel?” He was repeating a charge he had heard from leadership in the Jewish community.

We explained that this charge was wholly untrue and was being spread in order to discredit J Street’s pro-Israel bona fides and to limit debate within the American Jewish community about Israel’s settlement policies and the need for a two-states for two peoples resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The candidate was interested to know, as well, what the difference in approach is between J Street and AIPAC, the two leading pro-Israel lobbying organizations in the nation’s capital. He said he heard that J Street saw itself as the “anti-AIPAC lobby.”

We explained that J Street has never characterized itself as “anti-AIPAC.” That characterization comes from the media that seeks a simplified message in an essentially complex and nuanced Middle East policy debate. To the contrary, we at J Street respect AIPAC’s historically critical role in advocating for Israel’s security interests and have said so publicly.

We told him that J Street was created six years ago to address a significant void in Israel advocacy in Washington, D.C. Whereas AIPAC historically has advocated for whatever the current Israeli government’s policy positions have been, J Street advocates that the American administration do everything possible to bring the Israelis and Palestinians to the negotiating table and reach an agreement on a two-states for two peoples resolution of their conflict. J Street recognizes that the status quo is unsustainable, and that only by means of a two-state solution will Israel maintain its security, democracy and Jewish character. Consequently, J Street is at times openly critical of specific policy decisions taken by Israel’s government, arguably among the most right-wing governments in the history of the state of Israel.

We told the candidate as well that J Street’s positions and policy statements resonate with 70% of the American Jewish community and have inspired hundreds of thousands of pro-Israel American Jews and Jewish college students to get involved for the first time in Israel advocacy work. Hardly outside the mainstream of both American and Israeli opinion, J Street’s positions reflect those of Israeli middle-left political parties including Yesh Atid, Kadima, Avodah, and Meretz.

For the truth about J Street, we recommended that the candidate visit the J Street website and read its policy positions (www.jstreet.org) and in particular, to visit the “Myths and Facts” page where all the charges and criticisms of J Street are addressed fully. http://jstreet.org/page/mythsandfacts/home#policies .

The following includes organizational statements in support of J Street and in opposition to the Conference of Presidents’ vote issued after the vote. https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?shva=1#inbox/145f15de01a4bfb1?projector=1

Here are eleven excellent and thoughtful news reports and opinion pieces published in the United States and Israel on the role of J Street in the American Jewish community and the vote of the Conference on Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations:

Who Speaks for Pro-Israel Americans? – NY Times, by Carol Giacomo, April 28, 2014 – http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/28/who-speaks-for-pro-israel-americans/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=1&

Jewish Organization Acts in an Un-Jewish Fashion, Time Magazine, by Joe Klein, May 2, 2014 –  http://time.com/85684/jewish-organization-acts-in-an-un-jewish-fashion/

American Jewry Is Doomed If It Can’t Embrace J Street, New Republic, by Yochai Benkler, May 2, 2014 – http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117628/j-streets-rejection-reveals-israels-dangerous-path

J Street’s Rejection Is a Scandal, New Republic, by Leon Weiseltier, May 7, 2014 – http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117680/presidents-conference-j-street-rejection-disgrace

Jewish Americans ask: What does it mean to be ‘pro-Israel’? – Religion News, by Lauren Markoe, May 7, 2013 – http://www.religionnews.com/2014/05/07/jewish-americans-ask-mean-pro-israel/

Pull Back the Curtain – and Let J Street In – Editorial, The Forward, April 29, 2014 – http://forward.com/articles/197284/pull-back-the-curtain-and-let-j-street-in/

Those Who Reject J Street Are Blind – ‘They Still Don’t Hear Us,’ Says the Next Generation, The Forward, by Leonard Fein, May 3, 2014 – http://forward.com/articles/197545/those-who-reject-j-street-are-blind/

Blackballing J Street: Who Voted How, The Forward, by J.J. Goldberg, May 4, 2014 – http://blogs.forward.com/jj-goldberg/197563/blackballing-j-street-who-voted-how/

J Street is part of the American Jewish family, Haaretz, by Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie, April 28, 2014 – http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.587822

J Street’s rejection is a milestone in the growing polarization of American Jews, Haaretz, by Chemi Shalev, May 1, 2014 – http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/west-of-eden/.premium-1.588326

When Jews hate leftists for loving Israel – Haaretz, by Bradley Burston, May 7, 2014 – http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/a-special-place-in-hell/.premium-1.589381

A Sad Day for the American Jewish Community

01 Thursday May 2014

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As a co-chair of the 800-member Rabbinic Cabinet of J Street, I am disappointed by the Conference of President’s decision yesterday to reject J Street as a member organization of this umbrella group of American Jewish organizations. This rejection, clearly made on political/ideological grounds (not membership requirement rules that J Street met), is a sad day for the organized American Jewish community that should serve as a big tent for Jewish organizations that care deeply about the American Jewish community and the viability and security of the state of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people and a democracy.

Clearly, organized American Jewish intolerance for divergent opinion won the day, but this short-sighted decision, regardless of whether one agrees with any particular position that J Street has taken over the six years since it was formed to fill an important gap of opinion in the American Jewish community vis a vis Israel, will be to the detriment of the American Jewish community going forward.

I was happy, however, that all the major organizations of the Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist religious movements in America, as well as all the Progressive Zionist organizations, and the Anti-Defamation League of Bnai Brith voted in favor of J Street sitting at the Conference of Presidents table.

My own sense is that this vote will not so much hurt J Street as it will hurt the American Jewish community. I expect that more and more young Jews (who have been flocking in large numbers to J Street) and those older American Jews above the age of 35 who resent the anti-democratic dictates and tendencies in the organized American Jewish community will become engaged in J Street advocacy and continue to work for that which J Street stands, a peaceful negotiated two-states for two peoples solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict despite current breakdown in negotiations.

The following are a few of the articles that appeared this morning in the national and international Jewish press about this decision.

J Street disappointed by Conference of Presidents’ exclusion, J Street

J Street said it was disappointed that its bid for membership to the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations has been rejected. This is a sad day for us, but also for the American Jewish community and for a venerable institution that has chosen to bar the door to the communal tent to an organization that represents a substantial segment of Jewish opinion on Israel. http://jstreet.org/blog/post/j-street-disappointed-by-conference-of-presidents-exclusion_1

Jewish Coalition Rejects Lobbying Group’s Bid to Join, The New York Times

“Ben-Ami said the vote sent a ‘terrible message’ to those who have concerns about aspects of Israeli policy. ‘This is what has been wrong with the conversation in the Jewish community,’ he said. ‘People whose views don’t fit with those running longtime organizations are not welcome, and this is sad proof of that,’ he added. ‘It sends the worst possible signal to young Jews who want to be connected to the Jewish community, but also want to have freedom of thought and expression.’” http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/05/01/us/jewish-coalition-rejects-lobbying-groups-bid-to-join.html?_r=0&referrer=

J Street’s rejection is a milestone in the growing polarization of American Jews, Haaretz

According to Chemi Shalev, “The emphatic repudiation of J Street will be widely perceived… as a milestone in the growing polarization and fragmentation of the organized American Jewish community, as a vivid manifestation of its escalating right-wing intolerance and possibly as a harbinger of a fateful schism to come.” http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/west-of-eden/.premium-1.588326

J Street Fails Badly in Bid for Admission to Presidents Conference, Forward

“J Street lined up support from several big mainstream Jewish organizations, including the Anti-Defamation League and the Jewish Committee on Public Affairs.” http://forward.com/articles/197424/j-street-fails-badly-in-bid-for-admission-to-presi/?

Jewish umbrella group rejects J Street’s admission, Haaretz

“Another major organization that backed J Street is the Union for Reform Judaism, which represents the largest Jewish denomination in America, and Americans for Peace Now, already a member, supports its admission as well and shares its mission of promoting US involvement to push both Israel and the Palestinians towards a two-state solution.” http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-news/1.588276

J Street denied entry to US Jewish umbrella group, Ynet

“The group, which has spawned many college chapters, chose to focus on the gains it has made: ‘After only six years, we have the third largest annual gathering of any American Jewish organization, over 800 rabbis have joined our Rabbinic Cabinet, and we have chapters in 40 cities and states.’” http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4515287,00.html

 

 

Why Money Given to Charity by Donald Sterling Can Be Accepted with Conditions

30 Wednesday Apr 2014

Posted by in American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Ethics, Social Justice, Women's Rights

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The sullied moral character of Donald Sterling is clear to anyone with eyes and a conscience.

In the days since his now infamous tapes were leaked we have learned that Sterling has been charitable to Jewish organizations and other groups, such as the NAACP. Why he has given money away, who knows? (PR? Tax deductions? Moments of generosity that remind him of what his mother may have once wished for him?)

In recent days leaders of the Los Angeles Jewish community have sought to distance themselves and their organizations from Sterling’s past gifts and have pledged not to accept anything more from him going forward.

Not so fast!

What does Jewish tradition say about receiving financial gifts from someone of Sterling’s character?

There is much discussion in Halachic literature (Jewish legal literature) concerning the bringing of donations to the synagogue. The Hebrew Bible rules that a sacred object cannot be brought to the Temple in Jerusalem that has immoral origins (Deuteronomy 23:19). Later commentaries come to a consensus that a donation from an individual who acquired the object through immoral or criminal means can be given to the Jewish community.

The 17th century Polish Commentator Rabbi Abraham Abele Gombiner (known as Magen Avraham) refers to a comment of Rabbi Moses Isserles (Shulchan Aruch, Orah Hayyim 153:12) and notes that if the object is first converted into money, and then that money is exchanged for other money, the second set of cash can be given to the synagogue.

Rabbi Solomon Freehoff in his Responsum “Synagogue Contribution from a Criminal” (Contemporary Reform Responsa, CCAR Press, 1969, pp. 52-55) concludes:

“In my judgment you should accept the gift, because it is his [the sinner’s] obligation (a mitzvah) to support the synagogue and we have no right to prevent a sinner from performing a righteous act.”

Tradition, however, conditions the giving of such a gift to its anonymity. No plaque or public mention may be noted about the origin of the gift in order to prevent the donor from enjoying the honor (kavod) of giving the gift. Rabbi Freehoff, however, says that if the sinner/criminal wishes to honor his/her parents, then acknowledgment of his parents may be publicized.

A related matter concerning the public role of a sinner is raised in a Responsum cited in The Holocaust and Halakhah (by Irving J Rosenbaum, Ktav, 1976, p. 154). In this case a particularly brutal and despised Kapo (Jewish policeman) in the Kovno ghetto claimed after the Shoah to have suffered great remorse for the evil he perpetrated on the Jews in the ghetto, and to have sincerely repented from his crimes. He approached the leadership of the Jewish community and requested to act as shaliach tzibur (prayer leader) in the synagogue.

Though acknowledging the great power of repentance, Rabbi Efraim Oshry (a survivor himself) ruled that

“A She’liah tzibur must be fitting; ‘fitting’ means that he must be free from sin and not have had an evil reputation even in his youth.”

This Kapo’s evil reputation, regardless of the t’shuvah he may have undergone that wiped clean his sin, permanently kept him from assuming any public leadership role in the Jewish community.

From these two Responsa, we can draw the following conclusions:

First, Donald Sterling ought to be excluded from any public leadership role in the community (as the NBA has properly done) regardless of whether he ever does t’shuvah in the way, for example, that the former racist Alabama Governor and presidential candidate George Wallace did before his death (Wallace publicly repented of his racism and apologized personally to Reverend Jesse Jackson, representing the African American community), Sterling’s current bad reputation would continue to exclude him.

Second, should Sterling wish to donate money to Jewish causes or other non-profit charitable organizations anonymously, his money need not be rejected. Not only could his donation serve greater community interests, but one day they may be part of the means by which he does sincere t’shuvah.

In this regard, I hope he gives generously and anonymously to all kinds of good causes. While doing so, he ought also to sincerely apologize to and makes amends with all the apartment dwellers he has victimized, to the African American community, to Latinos and peoples of color he has insulted, to women he has exploited, to the Jewish community who by association he has demeaned, and, of course, to the Los Angeles Clippers organization and the NBA.

I wish him courage, the strength and decency to do so.

Rwanda, Bibi, Abbas, and What Comes Next? – Four Articles Worth Reading

27 Sunday Apr 2014

Posted by in American Politics and Life, Ethics, Health and Well-Being, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Social Justice

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The following New York Times photo essay on reconciliation in Rwanda between Hutus and Tutsis will disturb, challenge and amaze anyone who sees it, who looks into the eyes of the murderers and the relatives of the victims as they pose together, and tries to imagine oneself in either of their places.

Jewish ethics posit that no one other than the actual victim of murder is in a position to forgive the murderer for his evil. This isn’t to say, of course, that the relatives of those murdered have not suffered and been victimized as well. This is what the photo essay is about.

If forgiveness means to “let go” of injury, pain, suffering, hatred, and the thirst for revenge in order to live any kind of normal life (especially in Rwanda where Hutus and Tutsis live amongst each other), I can understand why the relatives of those murdered victims have chosen to forgive and reconcile, as difficult as this is to imagine.

I cite the NYT’s “Portraits of Reconciliation” now, in the wake of the discontinued negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians in order that we might glimpse a model of what is possible despite Israeli and the Palestinian distrust and hatred towards each other.

“Portraits of Reconciliation – 20 years after the genocide in Rwanda, reconciliation still happens one encounter at a time.” Photographs By Pieter Hugo & Text by Susan Dominus – http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/04/06/magazine/06-pieter-hugo-rwanda-portraits.html?src=me&ref=general&_r=0

The second piece was written by Haaretz journalist and author Ari Shavit who recently published “My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel.” Shavit argues that Palestinian President Machmud Abbas has consistently refused to compromise with Israeli negotiators on anything of substance since the late 1990s, and it should no longer surprise anyone that he has refused to compromise again in these just-halted negotiations. Shavit lays the blame of the failure of the negotiations solely at Abu Mazen’s feet.

“Waiting for the Palestinian Godot – Why are we repeatedly surprised every time Mahmoud Abbas fails to sign a peace agreement with Israel?” – By Ari Shavit, Haaretz Blog, April 24, 2014 – http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/1.586945

The third piece, written by Lisa Goldman of The Weekly Wonk, takes a different view. Reporting from America and reflecting the views of Secretary of State John Kerry, she writes that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is primarily responsible for the breakdown in the negotiations with the Palestinians, though she opens her piece by saying that it is not in either Abbas’ or Bibi’s interest to change the status-quo.

“Why the U.S. should step away from Israel-Palestine Negotiations – for good! It’s time to admit we’ve seen enough” –The Weekly Wonk – By Lisa Goldman, April 16, 2014 – http://theweek.com/article/index/259957/why-the-us-should-step-away-from-israel-palestine-negotiations-mdash-for-good

The fourth and last piece is written by Rabbi Donniel Hartman of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem (Times of Israel blog), who looks to the future and discusses what is likely to come in light of these recently failed negotiations. He writes:

“The making of peace requires two sides. Whether we did everything in our power, and whether the Palestinians did everything in theirs is a factual question, and as such, paradoxically, unresolvable, for we rarely shape our opinions on the basis of facts, and instead shape our perception of the facts on the basis of our opinions.”

The Day After The Negotiations Fail – by Rabbi Donniel Hartman, The Times of Israel, April 21, 2014 – http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-day-after-the-negotiations-fail/

Less we fall into despair, we American Jews, Zionists and Ohavei M’dinat Yisrael (Lovers of the State of Israel) would do well to reflect upon what has taken place in Rwanda over the last twenty years, and remember that once Germany was the Jewish people’s greatest enemy. Today, Germany is the least anti-Semitic country in Europe. Seventy years ago Germany and Japan were bitter foes of the United States, and Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland were killing each other. Today, all these former enemies have laid down their guns and established peace.

In other words, the story of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is far from over!