Tag Archives: Jewish History

The Challenge of Defining Who is a Jew and What is an Israeli Today – A Book Review

30 Sunday Jun 2013

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The 188th Crybaby Brigade – A Skinny Jewish Kid from Chicago Fights Hezbollah, by Joel Chasnoff (publ. 2010) is a well-written, insightful, at times hysterically funny memoir of a young American Yeshiva bucher who sought to live the complete modern Jewish experience while shedding the diaspora coat of victimhood. He made aliyah, enlisted in the Israeli army, did basic training, was chosen “Outstanding Soldier of the Platoon,” fought the Hezbollah as a tank commander in Lebanon, and got engaged to a beautiful Israeli woman.

One would think that he had arrived. But not so fast!

Joel’s army experience was not what he expected. He was, in fact, disheartened by the capricious, nasty, sadistic, and dehumanizing treatment of recruits by some of the commanders. Yet, after three weeks of training he reflected that

“…mandatory army service is the reason why Israelis are the way they are: aggressive, hotheaded, and stubborn on the one hand, and, on the other, unbelievably generous and community minded. It’s because these are army values. And since just about every Israeli comes of age in the army, these values become national values.”

When he finished his service, Joel and his fiancé Dorit sought out an Israeli Orthodox rabbi to officiate at their wedding, but upon inquiring into Joel’s family past, the rabbi said, “You are not a Jew!”

As Joel and Dorit sat there bewildered, the rabbi explained that though Joel’s mother had converted before he was born with an American Orthodox rabbi, she was instructed by a Conservative rabbi who “practiced an invalid brand of Judaism.”

Dorit was furious, and, pounding her fist on the desk, shouted, “A young man risks his life for the Jewish state, and you have the chutzpah to say [he’s not a Jew]… Rabbi, did your sons serve in the army?… You don’t mind if he dies for your country, so long as he doesn’t get married here.”

Joel was devastated: “It’s as if my entire identity just got kicked in the nuts, and then it hits me: As far as this country is concerned, I’m a Gentile….I was enraged at how Israel had stabbed me in the back.”

He then reflected about his identity and Israel’s dilemma:

“I was a Jew, through and through. I couldn’t reinvent myself if I tried…. I’m not the one [however] with the identity crisis. Israel is. I know exactly who I am, but after two generations in which Israel defined itself as a post-Holocaust haven from antiSemitism – in other words, the past – Israel now faces a much greater challenge: defining its future. In the meantime, the country has no idea who it is. It’s a democracy with no separation between church and state. It’s a sovereign nation with only one rigidly defined border: the Mediterranean Sea. It’s a Jewish state where observant Jewish soldiers have to choose between breakfast and prayers, where the most religious Jews don’t even have to serve in the army, and where the criteria for getting drafted aren’t enough to get you buried in the military graveyard. The country is confused. Meanwhile, at the top of the pyramid is this tiny group of rabbis who think they’re Kings of the Jews and therefore get to decide who’s in and whose out. But the Kings of the Jews are out of touch, because they fail to realize that Israel’s future, if it has one, depends on all the reject-Jews they’ve been pushing away from the table: the half-Jews and intermarried Jews, the queer and bi Jews, the women rabbis and young, freethinking Israelis who crave spirituality, not just restrictions, and the children of supposedly illegitimate converts, like me.” (p. 255-256)

The author articulates the central challenge of the Jewish people and State of Israel today. Who are we and what are we becoming? Are we stuck in the past governed by narrow religious definitions and extremist politics, or are we inclusive of all religious streams, expansive in our thinking and moving forward?

Despite his feelings, Joel decided to convert, but admitted:

“The stage in my life where I could innocently take for granted that I belonged to the Jewish people simply by virtue of being me-when I dunked in the water, that part of my life ended and a piece of me died. Even though I chose to convert, I’m furious at Israel for forcing me to choose, for humiliating me, for making me stand naked before three rabbis. I’m also furious at myself for going through with it, because by dunking in that pool, I accepted their claim that it is they, not I, who get to determine who I am.”

Joel and Dorit married and now live in Chicago. Their decision to leave Israel is a great loss for the State.

Sinai and American Efforts for Peace – D’var Torah Hukat

14 Friday Jun 2013

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

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In this week’s Torah portion Hukat, Miriam dies and the people complain bitterly that there’s no water (Numbers 20:3-5). God tells him to take his rod and order the rock to produce water. But Moses, old and weary, instead of ordering the rock strikes it with his rod. Though the people drink God punishes Moses from ever entering the Promised Land.

Talmudic sages said that Moses’ faith wasn’t strong enough, that because he failed to sanctify God in the sight of the people God deemed him unworthy to lead them into Canaan.

RAMBAM explained that Moses lacked compassion, that because the people were on the verge of death from thirst he should have spoken kindly to them instead of with words of rebuke.

Others say that in losing his temper Moses lost his moral authority to be leader.

And some say that because Moses claimed credit for the miracle of the water without acknowledging God, the Almighty denied him what he dreamed for most.

And there’s yet another explanation.

Earlier at Massah and Meribah (Exodus 17) the people also had complained of their dire thirst. Similar to our portion God told Moses to take his rod, but this time to hit the rock instead of speaking to it.

Why? What was different then vs now?

The answer is that Sinai intervened between the two events. There, at that lowly mountain God sought a new way for the people, to erase the experience of slavery, to create a new people in which force would yield to reason, physical strength to law, violence to dialogue and compassion.

God intended that a new age was to begin, the messianic age, and Moses was to be the Messiah. However, when Moses hit the rock instead of speaking to it, he showed the people that Sinai had actually changed nothing, that God was just a more powerful Pharaoh with bigger magic and greater violence.

In a modern midrash on the “Waters of Meribah,” Rabbi Marc Gelman writes movingly of what God intended for the people, then and now (Learn Torah with…Vol. 5, Number 16, January 30, 1999, edited by Joel Lurie Grishaver and Rabbi Stuart Kelman):

“When my people enters the land you shall not enter with them, but neither shall I. I shall only allow a part of my presence to enter the land with them. The abundance of my presence I shall keep outside the land. The exiled part shall be called my Shekhinah and it shall remind the people that I too am in exile. I too am a divided presence in the world, and that I shall only be whole again on that day when the power of the fist vanishes forever from the world. Only on that day will I be one. Only on that day will my name be one. Only on that day Moses, shall we enter the land together. Only on that day Moses, shall the waters of Meribah become the flowing waters of justice and the everlasting stream of righteousness gushing forth from my holy mountain where all people shall come and be free at last.”

Turning to the present, we ask how we can apply the message of Sinai to the most challenging problem facing the Jewish people – the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

Sinai teaches that the power of the fist must give way to a vision of Oneness, and that vision requires us as American Jews to publicly support our own American effort led by President Obama and Secretary Kerry to help the Israelis and Palestinians resolve their conflict diplomatically in two states for two peoples living side by side in peace and security.

The status quo in which Israel occupies another people is morally, religiously and practically unsustainable. Israel will lose its soul, its democracy and/or its Jewish majority if it continues to occupy millions of Palestinians.

Israel must be helped to choose and the Palestinians must be helped to choose a new way that leads our two peoples and two nations towards acceptance of the other and a peaceful resolution of this conflict. The extremists on both sides need to be contained and controlled. Each side will need to make significant compromises for the sake of peace.

It will not be easy, but that, I believe, is the greater meaning of Sinai and we ignore it at our own peril.

Theodor Herzl said more than a century ago when envisioning a State for the Jewish people –  Im tirtzu, ein zo agadah – If you will it, it is not a dream!

If Israel and the Palestinians will it, peace is also not a dream.

 

Secretary Kerry’s Speech and J Street’s Open Letter to the American Jewish Community

06 Thursday Jun 2013

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

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Earlier this week, Secretary of State John Kerry gave a powerful and important speech [watch] at the American Jewish Committee conference, calling on American Jews to make their voices heard in support for negotiation efforts and a two-state solution. The speech was not given much attention from Jewish groups, but I, as a co-chair of the J Street Rabbinic Cabinet, believe that it is important to elevate Kerry’s call and to make sure that our community is vocally supporting Kerry’s efforts in the Middle East.

In that vein, J Street has released an open letter to the American Jewish community, which I hope will be circulated and read by many in an effort to galvanize support for a reinvigorated peace effort. The text of the letter can be found here. [ http://jstreet.org/blog/post/an-open-letter-to-the-american-jewish-community_1 ]

The next few weeks provide a critical window of opportunity to do all that can be done to ensure that negotiations move ahead. I urge you to use this open letter as a jumping off point to encourage to your friends and communities to vocally and actively support Secretary Kerry’s efforts.

The Kotel in 1911 Had No Mechitza

29 Wednesday May 2013

Posted by in Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Uncategorized, Women's Rights

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A member of my congregation, Peter Marcus, has shared with me film footage taken by his uncle, Murray Rosenberg, a newsreel photographer, in 1911 when he visited Palestine. The entire film is worth watching, but the relevant footage at the Kotel begins at about the 19 minute mark (the film is courtesy of the Spielberg archive). The film shows clearly that men and women prayed side by side at the Kotel a hundred years ago, without controversy.

The Western Wall was never considered an “orthodox synagogue” until the late 1960s when the plaza was cleared and a mechitzah (divider between men and women) was erected.

The most recent behavior of the Hareidim against “Women of the Wall” (WOW) who wish nothing except to pray and read Torah on Rosh Hodesh (the orthodox spit on the women, throw chairs, scream slanderous epithets, and behave like spoiled toddlers) is a source of shame to the Jewish people at this holiest site in Judaism.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0zpbDGjHAE.

Why I Recommend Peter Beinart as a Synagogue and Jewish Community Speaker

26 Sunday May 2013

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A column appeared in the May 20, 2013 Jerusalem Post by Rabbi Eric Yoffie entitled “Synagogues, Red Lines and Free Speech” that he wrote in response to the recent decisions of two synagogues in New York and outside Toronto to cancel appearances by Pamela Geller, an inflammatory anti-Islam activist, who Rabbi Yoffie characterized as a “a bigot and purveyor of hate.” http://blogs.jpost.com/content/synagogues-red-lines-and-free-speech

He used the incidents to revisit the theme of free speech in synagogue settings, and drew helpful “red lines” for rabbis and synagogue leadership when considering who to invite to speak.

Rabbi Yoffie writes first of the consequences of shutting down legitimate debate:

“A synagogue that shuts down discussion whenever a wealthy donor is offended may appease the donor but will ultimately drive away its own members and lose its standing in the community…”

He says, however, that some speech is inappropriate in synagogues:

“Synagogues must have red lines. A synagogue bima is not an open forum; it is a platform used by a Jewish religious institution to promote Jewish values and strengthen the Jewish people and the Jewish state. There are people who should never be invited to speak there and things that should not be said there.”

And he drew clear “red lines”:

“Invite those with a firm commitment to Israel as a Jewish and democratic  state; who, when criticisms are offered, will offer them with love and respect; and who are sensitive to Israel’s security needs and oppose terrorism against Israelis and Jews—indeed, who oppose terrorism in all forms and at all times.”  

Rabbi Yoffie noted that Peter Beinart has that “firm commitment” to Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. Truth to tell, Peter is among the most important speakers on Israel and the state of the American Jewish community that I have invited to my congregation in recent years.

Peter is the author of “Crisis of Zionism,” the senior political writer for The Daily Beast, editor of its blog “Open Zion,” and Associate Professor of Journalism and Political Science at the City University of New York.

Yes, his views are controversial. Nevertheless, as a modern orthodox Jew, his writings on Jewish values, the American Jewish community,  Zionism, the State of Israel, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict comport with surveys that show that most American Jews agree with most of the positions he articulates.

I invited Peter a year ago to debate David Suissa, the President of the Los Angeles Jewish Journal, because despite the wide gap in their positions I wanted my community to hear two intelligent people argue respectfully the great issues facing Israel and the Jewish people, and they did not disappoint. (See http://www.jewishjournal.com/los_angeles/article/peter_beinart_and_david_suissa_debate_zionisms_crisis_20120517)

Given that Rabbi Yoffie mentioned Peter prominently this past week, I was curious to know what impact Peter’s writings have had and whether he had been invited to speak before congregations and communities despite the controversy his writings have stimulated.

I called Peter and learned that, indeed, he has spoken on a number of occasions to Reform, Conservative and Orthodox synagogue communities including my own at Temple Israel of Hollywood in Los Angeles (Reform), as well as at Temple Israel of Boston (Reform), the Washington Hebrew Congregation in D.C. (Reform), Park Avenue Synagogue in Manhattan (Conservative), the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale (Orthodox), Lincoln Square Synagogue in Manhattan (Orthodox), Manhattan Jewish Center (Orthodox), and to other Jewish organizations including the 92nd Street Y, the American Jewish Committee, the Union for Reform Judaism’s Board of Trustees, the Manhattan, Boston and San Francisco JCCs, the Jewish Funders Network, and the Israeli Presidents’ Conference.

I know that there are those who remain uneasy about Peter’s views while many others who are unfamiliar with them. Both groups would find interest not only in his book, but in three articles he penned in The Daily Beast.

The first explains why he does not support BDS against Israel proper; http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/02/12/why-liberal-zionists-won-t-join-bds.html

The second explains why he believes Israel is not an apartheid state: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/03/22/why-israel-is-not-an-apartheid-state.html

And the third is harshly critical of the American political left for ignoring Hamas’ abuse and brutality against Palestinians living in Gaza: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/03/08/the-pro-palestinian-left-s-hamas-blindspot.html

In short, I encourage my colleagues, congregations and Jewish organizations to invite Peter Beinart to their communities to address the great issues confronting American Jews and Israel. His thinking is often different from what we hear from others. His approach, however, is a welcome alternative especially given that so many American Jews feel alienated from Israeli politics and policies, and uncomfortable with positions taken by much of the organized American Jewish community.

On Demolishing and Rebuilding our Chapel

23 Thursday May 2013

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Art, Divrei Torah, Ethics, Jewish History

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Among the most compelling of Biblical verses is Exodus 25:8 – Asu li mikdash v’shachanti b’tocham (“Make for me a Sanctuary that I might dwell in them.”) because it is the basis over three millennia upon which the Tabernacle, the Jerusalem Temple and synagogues have been built.

In mid-June we at Temple Israel will commence the final stage of a ten-year rebuilding project to be completed before the High Holidays of 2014. The first act is to demolish this Chapel. In late September after the High Holidays 2013 we will gut the lobby, social hall, library, and administrative offices.

In place of the old will arise a newly designed state-of-the-art enlarged light-filled multi-use space that can accommodate a congregation four times the size from what we had twenty five years ago.

Tonight we pray together in this Chapel for the very last time, and I want to reflect on its unique history, architecture and sacred character, and to respond to the question – What Jewish tradition says about demolishing a synagogue, as we are about to do?  

Generations have used this sacred space for worship, Torah reading, learning and life cycle events thus making it a place of holiness and memory.

The Chapel was built 60 years ago as part of the Briskin Building construction, and was named in memory of Isaac Chadwick, a founding member of Temple Israel of Hollywood and owner of Chadwick Studios.

It was built in the Bauhaus design (lit. “House of Construction”), the modernist  German arts, crafts and architectural movement that thrived between the First and Second World Wars. Bauhaus architects turned away from “fanciful experimentation,” and based their designs on what was considered rational, functional and standardized principles. Bauhaus elements include non-symmetrical forms, indoor-outdoor continuous space, and simplified design elements such as those on the right front wall evoking menorot, the glass on the eastern wall over the Ark, and our Ner Tamid (Eternal Light).

Our Aron Hakodesh, however, is not Bauhaus. It was commissioned in the mid-1930s by one of our early Temple leaders, the film producer Hal Wallis (e.g. Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon, True Grit, and Anne of the Thousand Days), who hired stage designers at Paramount Studios to create an Ark for the first Temple Israel building on Ivar and Sunset (now demolished). This Ark has a carved relief of Moses leading the people to the Promised Land.

There was a minor controversy at the time that Hal Wallis used Paramount Studio funds to build our Ark. He denied it and claimed that he paid for the Ark out of his own pocket and the studio workers built it on their own time.

We are likely the only synagogue in the world with an Aron Hakodesh designed and constructed by a Hollywood film studio. We will keep and display the Ark doors, though it will not be part of our new Chapel.

Emotionally it may be difficult for some among us to witness the demolition of this prayer space. Change is, after all, at times difficult. The larger question, however, is does Jewish tradition permit a community to demolish its synagogue at all?

There is nothing stated directly about this in the Hebrew Bible. However, based on verses in Deuteronomy (12:4-6) the rabbis legislated against destroying synagogues (Babylonian Talmud, Megilah 26b).

Rav Chisda (d. 320 CE) taught that a synagogue, however, could be demolished if a replacement synagogue were built first. We, of course, have not done so because the new Chapel will be built on the site of the old. Rav Chisda’s primary concern was based on his fear that even if the money were raised, the community might decide to use the funds for another purpose, such as the ransoming of captives (pidyon sh’vuyim) (Babylonian Talmud, Baba Batra 3b) thereby not building a synagogue at all.

If, however, there were already another synagogue available for worship adjacent to the demolished synagogue, other sages rule that the demolition of the older synagogue is permissible. Since our Nussbaum Sanctuary will be our “replacement” synagogue for the next 15 months and, of course, beyond, we see no violation of the tradition in what we are about to do.  

To the contrary, the plans for this new Chapel are inspiring (Koning Eizenberg Architects). It will be built upon the faith and traditions of the old.

Most of all, we will be able to fulfill the mitzvah – Asu li mikdash v’shachanti b’tocham (“Make for me a Sanctuary that I might dwell in them.”)

Chazak v’eimatz v’Shabbat shalom!

“A German Life – Against All Odds, Change is Possible” by Bernd Wollschlaeger – Book Recommendation

14 Tuesday May 2013

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Book Recommendations, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Stories

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Bernd Wollschlaeger, born in 1958 in the small German town of Bamberg, is the son of a former Nazi tank commander and member of one of the elite units of the Wehrmacht, the Germany army, for which he was awarded the Knight’s Cross personally by Hitler.

Bernd loved his parents and admired his father, but growing up he needed to know all about what his father refused to discuss with him, what the Nazis did to Europe, Germany and the Jews, and what was his role.

When Palestinian terrorists murdered Israel’s Olympic athletes in 1972, the German press noted that again Jews had been killed in Germany. The fourteen year-old Bernd wanted to know what that meant. However, he could not get a straight answer from his parents. What he learned about the Third Reich at school horrified him. When he asked his father about German crimes his father told him that Bernd’s “teachers were all communists and liars and that a Holocaust never actually existed.”

Curious too about Judaism and Jewish faith, Bernd sought out a small orthodox Jewish community in his home town where he met and befriended a Holocaust survivor who began to teach him Judaism. Increasingly rejected by his own family, these mostly elderly Jews became Bernd’s new family.

One day he read about a peace conference being held in a nearby German town for Israeli Jewish and Arab youth organized by Neve Shalom. He decided to attend and from that point on his life would never be the same again. He now wanted to visit Israel.

In 1978 Bernd sailed to the Holy Land. He was reunited with his Israeli and Palestinian friends, fell in love with Vered, one of the young Israeli women, visited his Palestinian friend Chalil, and prayed at the Kotel. There, before the ancient stone wall he felt a spiritual stirring he had never known before. A kindly Orthodox man, watching him in his reverie, approached and encouraged him to seek out and reclaim his n’shamah, his Godly soul.

Bernd returned to Germany, completed his medical degree, converted to Judaism, and made aliyah. These acts severed whatever bond was left with his father and family.

In Israel, Bernd joined the Israeli Defense Forces as a medical officer, served for two years in the West Bank during the first Intifada, married and had a son.

The First Gulf War frightened his American-born wife, and so with a heavy heart he agreed for her sake to move to Florida. They divorced three years later. Bernd remarried and had two more Jewish children. Today he is a practicing family physician and an addiction specialist.

Bernd wrote of his remarkable journey, love of Judaism and Israel, and self-search:

“Initially, I came to seek answers about the Shoah, the crimes committed by Germans against [the Jewish] people, and of course the role my father played during that part of German history. Now I feel that there are other issues I need to explore. Why am I so attracted to this country? Why do I feel at home here? Why does Jewish faith and prayer seem to touch something deep inside me? Now I am searching for who I am. Since we’ve been here in Jerusalem, I’ve felt so close to finding it, but I still don’t know….

Many stories have been told by survivors, but this memoir (publ. by Emor Publishing, 2007) is the first I have read written by a child of a perpetrator.

When his own children asked about his family past, Bernd vowed not to do as his parents had done:

“I decided to break the wall of silence and tell them the truth about me. I needed to express what compelled me to dramatically change my life. I finally had to explore the relationship with my father and how it was overshadowed by the Holocaust. Our unresolved conflict and his denial motivated me to search for answers, and I found them within me and my acquired faith: Against all odds, change is possible…”

Dr. Wollschlaeger spoke to my synagogue community during this year’s Yom Hashoah Commemoration. We came to know of him from our member, Claudia Ehrlich Sobral, a child of survivors and a documentary film maker who produced “Ghosts of the Third Reich” which highlights Bernd and several other descendents of high ranking Nazis confronting the legacy that each carries.

Bernd’s courage to confront the truth and the transformation he underwent in order  to create a new life despite his family’s past amazes and inspires. His memoir will move you and I recommend it.

Hag Shavuot Sameach!

Historic Day at the Kotel – Take Action by Signing a Petition

13 Monday May 2013

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The following was sent by Anat Hoffman, President of Women of the Wall (WOW) and Executive Director of the Israel Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism (IRAC).

I ask you to read her report of the scene at the Kotel (Western Wall in Jerusalem) this past week and then register your opinion with Minister Naftali Bennet of Bayit Yehudi, who is trying to reverse the gains that has resulted in an historic agreement between WOW and the Chief Rabbi of the Wall through the agency of Natan Sharansky to designate an area at the Wall where women and men may pray freely without harrassment from either the Hareidi community or the police. Instead of women now being arrested for praying, wearing a Tallit or carrying a Torah, those who show violence towards them and verbally harrass them will be arrested. The new designated prayer area will be under the “Robinson’s Arch” just south of the Wall as we know it and will be available to mixed gender prayer or women’s prayer 24/7 with the same rights enjoyed by those at the traditional Kotel site. This is a major victory that was confirmed by Israeli courts. It must be allowed to stand without any political leaders (e.g. MK Naftali Bennett or Hareidi Knesset Members) thwarting it.

After reading Anat’s message below, please send this blog to anyone who cherishes freedom of religion, equal rights for women and gender inclusivity in prayer in Israel.

Be certain to include your own email address in the petition you sign. Many thanks.

Click here to email Minister Bennett – http://salsa3.salsalabs.com/o/50494/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=10791

Dear John ,

Last Friday was a historic day at the Western Wall. It was the first test of Judge Sobel’s ruling allowing women to pray at the Western Wall in a manner they see fit without police harassment. Despite strong opposition the ruling held and hundreds of women prayed with their tallitot, tefillin, and in a strong full voice. The women who came out that day should be commended for their courage.

We entered the plaza to the sounds of thousands of ultra-Orthodox men screaming insults and throwing garbage. The difference this week was that instead of the police dragging women off in handcuffs they made a barrier of blue uniforms holding back a sea of men trying to fall upon us.  The angry crowd could not drown out our songs or joy at this victory.

Friday was an important step forwards in the process of making the Western Wall an inclusive home for all Jews. The court ruling, along with the Sharansky plan to create a third and equal section of the Western Wall for egalitarian prayer, is the correct formula for respecting the rights and feelings of all Jews. As I wrote last week, this process needs the support of us all.

A few thousand screaming Haredi Jews do not represent the majority view on this issue anymore. A week before this Friday’s Rosh Chodesh service, a poll conducted by the Israel Democracy Institute showed that, for the first time, a majority of Israelis support women’s right to pray at the Kotel as they see fit. We are on the side of the law and of Israeli, and world opinion. A recent Yediot Ahronot survey (Israel’s largest daily newspaper) showed Women of the Wall enjoy over 67% support from the Israeli public.

The new Diaspora and Religious Services Minister, Naftali Bennett from the Bayit haYehudi party, began his tenure with a promise of new politics. In spite of this promise he is now planning to impose more regulations against women praying at the Wall. He is threatening unilateral actions that would all but stop the Sharanksy process and reverse the Sobel ruling.

I need your help: we need to make it clear that stopping or even slowing down the process of respecting women’s right to pray at the Wall will be met with a tidal wave of opposition from Jews all over the world.  Click here to write Minister Bennett directly, and when you have finished please forward the link to as many of your friends and family as possible.

Minster Bennett thinks he can just turn the clock backwards, but we need to show him that it will not work. The majority of world Jewry will not accept the old status quo. Together we can ensure equality at the Kotel

L’shalom,
Anat Hoffman
Executive Director, IRAC

Rav Kook – The Shmitta – and Personal Release – Parashat Behar-Behalotecha

02 Thursday May 2013

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“Any life, no matter how long and complex it may be, is made up of a single moment – the moment in which a person finds out once and for all who s/he is.” (Jorge Luis Borges)

So often it is the inner voices (from tradition, society, family, friends, and mentors) and not our own that influence how we think, feel and behave in the world. These voices either lead us to or take us away from realizing our best selves. When the voices do indeed lead us astray, we need to be able to release them, a thought that came to mind as I read a verse in this week’s parashah describing the institutions of the Shmitta (Sabbatical) and Yovel (Jubilee) years: “You shall proclaim a dror (“freedom” or “release”) throughout the land for all its inhabitants…” (Leviticus 25:10)

This dror specifically refers to land, people and debts in the seventh year. The Shmitta year requires that land lie fallow (i.e. no planting, pruning or harvesting) and that slaves, employees and animals are free to eat what is left in the fields. Deuteronomy 15:1-6 adds that creditors must remit debts owed to them by their neighbors and kinsmen.

The deeper purpose of the Shmitta year is to enable the land to rest, to wipe our slates clean from debt and to return the world to its original pristine order.

The rabbis, however, raised two serious questions about the Shmitta year: [1] What happens to the livelihood of the community during Shmitta? and [2] What happens to our willingness to make loans to the needy according to the spirit of a mitzvah in Deuteronomy 15:9: “Beware that there be not a base thought in your heart.”

Noticing that the people were not loaning money to the poor because of the Shmitta’s remission of debt, Hillel the Elder (1st century BCE) instituted a legal formula called the Prozbul, whereby a creditor could still claim his debts after the Shmitta year despite the biblical injunction against doing so. The Prozbul was a document that turned over supervision of the loan to the beit din (Jewish court) which would collect and repay the debt thus encouraging generosity, enabling the poor to borrow and the rich to secure their loans (Babylonian Talmud, Gittin 37a).

Since the laws of both Shmitta and Yovel only apply in the land of Israel, and Yovel applies only when all the Jewish people are living in Israel, until the Zionist movement Shmitta and Yovel mattered little to Diaspora Jewish communities.

However, Zionists complained that if farmers did not work the land the nascent settlement movement’s existence would be threatened. In response, lenient rabbinic authorities justified setting the laws of the Shmitta year aside based on the principle of sha’at hadechak (“undue hardship”).

In 1888-89, a Hetter Mechira (“A Bill of Sale”) was developed to permit Jewish farmers to sell their land to non-Jews (i.e. Arabs), similar to the selling of hametz (leven) to non-Jews during Passover, so that the Jews could continue to work the land and survive even during the Shmitta. After the Shmitta, the land would revert back to the former Jewish owners.

Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, the first Chief Rabbi of Palestine, wrote of another problem in not showing leniency towards the Biblical law:

“Even worse is the potential condemnation of Judaism and widespread rejection of Torah observance that could result from a strict ruling…”

Rav Kook reasoned that a strict ruling would demonstrate that Judaism is incompatible with the modern world and the building of a Jewish state.

The principle of taking into account the impact of Biblical law on individuals and community and the necessity of reinterpreting tradition in the modern era is a core reason that Judaism and the Jewish people have survived 3500 years, longer than any other people anywhere in the world.

On a personal level too, this portion challenges us about the importance of becoming who we really are. In this spirit, I suggest that we consider this question: From what and how will I release myself (dror) this year and thereby find out who I really am?

May this year become a dror (release) for each of us.

The next Shmitta year is 2014-2015 (5775)

 

Be Not Afraid

28 Sunday Apr 2013

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

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When I was 9 years old my father died, and my world suddenly changed. Overwhelmed by loss and grief, only the support of family and friends helped me move through that dark period.

What was clear was that I had no control over the ultimate questions of life and death. In the years that followed I compensated by studying and working hard. I thought about God, studied Jewish history, theology, and tradition, became a progressive Zionist, and learned to speak Hebrew, all in the interests of finding safety in something greater than myself.

Indeed, the fear of death and the loss of control are powerful human motivators for both good and bad. Many of us, from fear, turn inward in self-protection against the “other.” We narrow our vision, constrict our hearts, minds and politics, and we focus on our self-interests assuming we have no choice because the “other” guy is a threat.

However, building our lives on fear has consequences. Yoda famously said, “Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, [and] hate leads to suffering.” (Star Wars: Episode 1 – The Phantom Menace)

John Steinbeck opined along the same lines saying, “Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts…perhaps the fear of a loss of power.”

Both are right. Though fear is a natural response alerting us to imminent danger, many of us are so plagued by historically embedded fears that we imagine hostile phantoms when none exist.

The challenge is for us to be able to distinguish real and present danger from phantoms, and then be able to evaluate the true measure of the threat and respond appropriately.

Two emails came to me this past week that have drawn me to this consideration of fear. The first was a report circulating on the Internet that all the Jews of Norway had decided en masse (some 1300 souls, according to 2012 population surveys) to leave that country, saying:

“It seems what Hitler failed to achieve the Muslims have accomplished. In a few weeks Norway will be ‘Judenfrei.’ The last 819 Jews are leaving the country due to its rise in anti-Semitism…”

The implication, of course, is that the world wants the Jews dead, or to vanish. The problem with this Internet “report” is that it is a complete fabrication, according to the Norwegian Jewish Community and the ADL.

The second email came from a Israel advocacy organization that began:

“In a hostile and uncertain world, it is reassuring to know that two great democracies—the United States and Israel—continue to find security in their support of one another.”

Yes, of course, the United States and Israel are great democratic societies and strategic partners, but why is it necessary to start from a place of fear to motivate Jews to support Israel financially and otherwise in its legitimate needs?

For years many Jewish organizations have fed on Jewish fear, the Holocaust, Israel’s wars and defense against terrorism, to appeal for money rather than on the blessings of Zionism, our people’s historic and successful building of a modern state based on the prophetic principles of justice and peace as written in Israel’s Declaration of Independence.

It is not surprising, of course, how successful these organizations are because there is in the Jewish heart a deep reservoir of fear. Our history is long and hard, even as it is remarkable and enriched. I believe it is time to stop the fear-mongering. (See my blog from April 15, 2013 – “Israel on Her 65th Birthday – Taking Pride in Her Accomplishments”)

Fear-mongering is not only unnecessary, it is counter-productive because it blinds our people’s vision, focuses us on the short-term tactics rather than long-term strategy, divides Jewish community, alienates many of us and our young people, separates us from our allies and true friends, provokes inappropriate speech and action, and satisfies only the most extreme self-fulfilling prophecies of doom.

I take seriously the teaching of Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav: “The whole world is a very narrow bridge; the important thing is not to be afraid.”

In the coming weeks and months due to the important efforts of the Obama Administration to bring Israelis and Palestinians back into negotiations to settle their conflict once and for all, Israelis, the Jewish people and the Palestinians, along with moderate Arab states, will be tested perhaps as never before. Will we continue to build fortresses against each other, or will we build palaces of peace side by side?

I know that either choice carries risk. The greater risk, however, is to do nothing because the status quo is unsustainable, and the longer it continues Israel’s democracy and Jewish character will be compromised. As long as both Israel’s and Palestine’s security needs are assured, the risks of making peace, I believe, will be worth it.