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The Threat Assessment Against Israeli Democracy

31 Tuesday Dec 2024

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Orly Erez-Likhovski, the Director of the Israeli Religious Action Center (IRAC – the social justice arm of Israel’s Reform Jewish Movement), several weeks ago offered a power-point threat assessment on Israeli democracy by the most extreme right-wing Israeli government in the history of the state. Orly spoke to those of us on the International Advisory Council for the Israel Movement for Reform Judaism and gave me permission to post what she said. I added language only for the purpose of clarification.

Orly is a brilliant Israeli and American lawyer who has brought about significant legal achievements in Israel including making illegal gender segregation on public transportation, ending the Orthodox monopoly on state-funded salaries to rabbis, filing (and winning) the first ever class action suit regarding exclusion of and humiliating practices against women in Israeli society, and disqualifying racist candidates from running for seats in Israel’s Knesset (Parliament).

Orly cited the important work of Kim Lane Scheppele, an American scholar of law and politics at Princeton University, who describes 8 means to dismantle liberal democracies from within and cement authoritarian rule. Scheppele has studied Turkey, Hungary, and the United States (see her essay – “Autocratic Legalism” in The University of Chicago Law Review – https://lawreview.uchicago.edu/print-archive/autocratic-legalism). Orly suggests that Scheppele’s analysis is applicable to what is taking place in Israel today:

  1. Winning democratic elections followed by an attack against democratic institutions (e.g. the judiciary, the media, the prosecutor’s office, the tax authority, and the election commission);
  2. Dismantling the mechanisms that restrict the ruling government;
  3. Controlling the Parliament through intimidation of its members thereby turning it to irrelevance as an independent government branch;
  4. Subordinating the courts to the government through so-called “reforms”;
  5. Gaining control over media outlets and spreading “fake news”;
  6. Placing loyalists in key positions throughout the government and in the media; 
  7. Delegitimizing opponents of the government by calling them traitors;
  8. Changing election laws to ensure future victory.

Introductory notes:

Understanding Israeli politics, political parties, and Israel’s “parliamentary democratic government” is challenging because there is no rigid constitution in Israel, though there have been continuous efforts to write one since the earliest years of the state. Many laws still on the books are founded upon Ottoman and British Mandate law that were in use before the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. To take the place of a written constitution, Israel passed since 1950 fourteen “Basic Laws” (i.e.  laws which are supposed to be of a higher status than regular laws but in fact can be enacted and changed like any other law). Most of these laws deal with the various branches of government. Two basic laws constitute Israel’s “Bill of Rights” but again – they can be changed by a simple majority in the Knesset. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Laws_of_Israel).

Here is Orly’s power-point presentation:

Israeli democracy is already weak and vulnerable:

  • There are no checks on the power of the Israeli government, except by the courts.
  • Israel’s separation of powers is thin since the government controls the Knesset through its coalition majority (i.e. the current extreme right-wing government has 68 Members out of a total of 120 MKs (57 percent).

There are no democratic mechanisms of checks and balances in Israel that exist in other democratic countries:

  • No 2 houses of parliament;
  • No regional elections;
  • No federal system;
  • No presidential veto power;
  • No international courts that the government must adhere to.

The right-wing Israeli government’s narrative and the assault on the courts:

  • The current right-wing government advocates against the independence of the Supreme Court claiming the Supreme Court is too active in striking down laws and government decisions, thereby preventing the elected government from implementing the will of the people.
  • The reality is that only 24 laws have been struck down by Israel’s Supreme Court in the past 30 years. The Supreme court is exceptionally cautious and will intervene only in exceptional circumstances.
  • The claim that the courts do not allow the government to implement the will of the majority disregards 2 critical characteristics of a democracy: the separation of powers and the protection of human rights, especially minority rights.

2023 – The “Judicial Coup”:

  • In December 2022, the government, led by PM Benjamin Netanyahu, took power.
  • In January 2023, the government’s Justice Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Yariv Levin announced the intention of passing a series of laws dramatically weakening Israel’s democracy, especially in limiting the government’s Judicial Review in the following ways:
  1. Taking away the Supreme Court’s ability to strike down Basic Laws that conflict with Israel’s democratic principles (meaning, any law could be shielded from judicial review simply by giving it the title “Basic Law”).
  2. Severely limiting the Supreme Court’s ability to strike down “regular” laws.
  3. Giving the Knesset the power to override a court decision and reenact a law that previously had been struck down by the Supreme Court.

Changing the process of nominating judges:

  • Today, to assure non-partisan balance, new judges are nominated by a committee comprised of 3 Supreme Court Justices, 2 Government Ministers, 2 Members of Knesset, and 2 lawyers. 7 of the 9 members of the committee are required to nominate a Supreme Court Justice. The Chief Justice of the Supreme court is nominated by a majority of the above and traditionally the most senior justice has been chosen to be Chief Justice.
  • However, the “Judicial Coup” aims to give the ruling coalition complete control over the judicial selection committee that would include 3 politically appointed ministers, 3 government coalition MKs, 3 justices, 2 opposition MKs, and for any nomination, 6 out of 11 majority would suffice.

The Attorney General (AG) and Legal Advisors of Government Ministries:

  • Currently, the AG is nominated by a professional selection committee. The AG is the ultimate authority regarding the legality of governmental actions. The AG’s opinion about the legality of the government’s actions binds the government. The AG represents the government in the courts. The same is true about legal advisors to the government ministries who are all subordinated to the AG and not to government ministers.
  • The “Judicial Coup” would allow the government to disregard the legal opinions of the AG and of legal advisors altogether and to choose a private lawyer to represent the government in court.

The “Reasonableness Doctrine”:

  • The Supreme Court can intervene in administrative decisions judged “unreasonable” (i.e. arbitrary, capricious, having bias, and showing conflict of interest). The Supreme Court rarely rules that a government decision is “unreasonable” (averaging only 1.6 times/year since 1995).
  • The “Judicial Coup” intended to prevent the Supreme Court from declaring any governmental or ministerial decision “unreasonable”.

What happened to the “Judicial Coup” legislation?

  • Before October 7, 2023, due to the unprecedented nearly year-long public protests of hundreds of thousands of Israelis across political parties and religious streams, all but one of the components of the “Judicial Coup” legislation failed to become law. The only component of the “Judicial Coup” legislation that the Knesset approved (in July 2023) is abolishing the “Reasonableness Doctrine”.
  • However, in January 2024, the Supreme Court struck down this law that abolished the “Reasonableness Doctrine” (sitting for the first time in Israel’s history in a full panel of 15 judges – suggesting how important the Supreme Court Justices understood this government action to be). This was also the first time the Supreme Court ever struck down a Basic Law. It did so on the grounds that the government’s action contradicts fundamental values in Israeli democracy (i.e. separation of powers and the rule of law).

The current government continues to promote a “Judicial/Regime Coup” post-October 7 – Why change the law if we can ignore it?

  • Court packing – Since October 2023, 3 liberal justices (of the total of 15 Supreme Court Justices) retired at the mandatory retirement age of 70. The right-wing Justice Minister Yariv Levin refuses to convene the judicial selection committee to nominate 3 new justices because he does not have the votes to appoint the right-wing judges that he wants.
  • Chief Justice of the Supreme Court – Justice Minister Levin refuses to follow the seniority rule and to obey court orders that have called for the appointment of a new Chief Justice, for the same reason above. The most senior judge who would become Chief Justice is a liberal, and Levin, consequently, has refused to act. For the first time in Israeli history, Israel has an interim Chief Justice.
  • Ethics of Judges – There is an attempt to have the Knesset nominate a Commissioner in charge of judges’ ethics, thus providing for the political removal of judges.

The Attorney General (AG):

  • The government wants to disregard the AG’s opinions. For example, ignoring the Supreme Court ruling regarding the draft requirement of Ultra-Orthodox Jews to serve in the army or the illegality of providing State subsidies to Ultra-Orthodox men who avoid army service.
  • The government employs a private attorney to represent it in the courts thereby side-lining the AG altogether.
  • There has been intensive incitement and threats against the AG (Gali Baharav-Miara), who was appointed in 2022 by former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Justice Minister Gideon Saar. She has been summoned by extremists in the current government to a government “hearing” and there are numerous right-wing calls for her to be fired simply for doing her job and upholding the law (although the government lacks the authority to do so).
  • The current government passed a law to force senior legal advisors to government ministries to retire, thus enabling it to appoint legal advisors who will act as “yes-men”.

Politicization of the Police:

  • National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir is a racist follower of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane. In a democracy, there should be a high wall between government ministers and the professional operation of the police. Ben Gvir has crashed that wall, and he intervenes regularly in police work (e.g. investigations, arrests, and nominations that include promoting violent officers).
  • There is selective enforcement of laws – harsh treatment of anti-government protesters as opposed to lenient treatment of extreme right-wing violence against Palestinians.
  • There is a petition pending before the Supreme Court challenging the law that allows the minister to intervene in police investigations.

Attack on Academia:

  • A bill is being presented to the Knesset that would force universities to fire professors based on expressions of “supporting terror,” but without due process, thus enabling political persecution without having to bring evidence or secure a conviction.
  • Universities that fail to fire such professors will be denied state funding.
  • A similar law regarding teachers in schools was already approved.
  • The person in charge of enforcing this law would be the government’s right-wing Education Minister Yoav Kisch, thereby dramatically restricting free speech.

Attack on the Media:

  • The right-wing government is presenting favorable regulation of pro-government TV stations such as Channel 14 (Israel’s equivalent of America’s “Fox News”).
  • The government strives to weaken media outlets critical of the government (e.g. the Public Broadcast Authority, Haaretz, and Galei Tzahal – the official radio station of Israel’s army).
  • The government is striving to turn regional radio stations (most privately owned by moguls connected to the government) into state-wide stations as a favor to owners.
  • The government is striving to change the rating system of media stations (as implemented by an independent, not-for-profit organization that measures viewership data to determine ratings for television channels and programs) to be controlled by the government.
  • After October 7, 2023, the government passed a law allowing the government’s Communications Minister to shut down media outlets – Al Jazeera was shut down in April 2024.
  • A new bill will grant the government more sweeping powers – allowing the government to shut down internet sites.

Bills against Palestinian Citizens of Israel:

  • A law is being proposed that will make it easier to disqualify Arab Political Parties and Arab candidates from running in elections for the Knesset thus ensuring a majority for the current right-wing government in future elections. Twenty percent of Israel’s total population is Palestinian-Israeli citizens. Only once was an Arab Political Party (Ra’am) part of a ruling Israeli government coalition (in 2021-2022). Eliminating Arab Parties from the Knesset would tip the balance of the total 120 Knesset members to right-wing control of the government. Israeli law requires that much evidence must be presented to support disqualifying a political party or a candidate on the basis of terrorism. This new law would only require bringing “one case” or “one statement” to disqualify said party or candidate, while in order to disqualify racist right-wing parties one would need to present a heavy case of evidence.
  • The government is striving to abolish the need for the state attorney’s approval of police investigations on incitement offenses. It is certainly legitimate to investigate support for Hamas’s attack against Israel on October 7, but it is another matter to investigate someone who publicly expresses concern for Palestinian well-being in Gaza as a consequence of the war. This law would have a chilling effect on Palestinian free speech in Israel. There is already selective enforcement for incitement offenses against Palestinians since October 7, 2023 and this would make the situation worse.
  • Efforts are being made to prevent the General Security Service from using administrative custody towards Jews accused of terrorism and allowing it only to be used against Palestinians accused of terrorism.

Additional Dangers:

  • Civil Service – changing the way the non-partisan Commissioner of Civil Service is nominated to gain governmental control over the nomination.
  • Bar Association – weakening the Israeli Bar Association in order to influence its representatives on the committee nominating judges.
  • Rabbis’ Law – adding hundreds of state paid rabbis, all of whom are Orthodox men chosen by the government, thereby deepening the Orthodox monopoly and discrimination against other non-Orthodox religious streams (e.g. Conservative, Reform, etc.).
  • Rabbinical Courts – promoting a bill that will give rabbinical courts jurisdiction over civil matters (currently they have jurisdiction only over matters of marriage and divorce), thereby promoting a theocracy over Israel’s democracy.
  • Military Draft – promoting a bill that will grant exemption from the military draft to Ultra-Orthodox Jews, contrary to Supreme Court decisions.
  • Settler Violence against Palestinians – extreme Jewish settlers’ violence against Palestinians under occupation in the West Bank which is not treated in an equivalent manner to Palestinian violence against Jewish settlers.
  • West Bank Status – the civil responsibility for the West Bank is being transferred from military officers to people affiliated with the extreme right-wing Finance Minster Betzalel Smotrich thus paving the way for de jure annexation of the West Bank into Israel.

What is IRAC (the Reform Movement’s Israel Religious Action Center) doing in the face of such dangers?

  • In the Knesset, our lawyers are attending committee meetings, filing position papers, and opposing dangerous bills that would harm Israeli democracy.
  • Our Israeli Reform movement is participating in public campaigns to raise awareness to all the above dangers.
  • We are working in cooperation with other Israeli NGOs and human rights organizations to create a stronger impact and effective messaging against all threats to Israel’s democracy.
  • We are protesting alongside hundreds of thousands of Israelis from across the religious streams and political parties who regard seriously the dangers posed against Israeli democracy by the current extremist government and refuse to be silent.
  • In appropriate cases we are challenging all the dangerous policies and laws in court.

We must remember the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. – “The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people, but the silence over that by the good people.”

We will not be silent but act to preserve Israel as a Jewish and democratic State.

Want to learn more? Sign up for IRAC’s weekly newsletter – the Pluralist!

 

UPHOLDING US LAW TO HOLD NETANYAHU ACCOUNTABLE IS PRO-ISRAEL

08 Sunday Dec 2024

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This blog was posted by J Street on Friday, December 6

By Rabbi John Rosove and Sam Berkman

We wish we weren’t here. We wish October 7 had never happened. We wish all the hostages were home and that all had survived. We wish thousands of Palestinians had not fallen victim in this terrible war. We wish the fighting would stop and Israelis and Palestinians could know freedom and security–peace. But that’s not where we are today.

As this devastating war rages on, it’s time to confront a hard truth: Supporting Israel doesn’t always mean unquestioning endorsement of its government’s actions or the automatic provision of foreign aid. True support sometimes requires breaking from convention. Simply supplying military assistance – without tackling the root causes of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – may temporarily mask the symptoms for Israelis, but it won’t deliver lasting peace and security. 

Ignoring those deeper issues undermines the US-Israel relationship and risks the lives of Israelis and Palestinians alike—a reality we’ve seen tragically play out over the past year.

This was the context for the US Senate’s vote last month on a series of resolutions to disapprove certain arms sales to Israel—measures that were largely symbolic, as the deadline to block the sales had already passed. While the resolutions failed, as expected, the vote sent a clear message of dissent of how the Netanyahu government has conducted the war in Gaza, its disregard for US laws, and the Biden administration’s handling of the conflict.

Nearly 14 months into this war, over 100 hostages remain in Gaza. Israeli security experts – including Israel’s recently ousted Defense Minister – have said that continuing the war in Gaza serves no strategic purpose. Meanwhile, President Biden’s repeated appeals for Netanyahu to take stronger action on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza have largely gone unanswered. 

Israel has had no greater friend over the last year than President Joe Biden, a self-proclaimed Zionist. From visiting Israel during wartime to providing critical military aid and even moving US military personnel and equipment into the region, Biden has consistently demonstrated America’s unwavering support for Israel.

And what has this loyalty yielded? Reports suggest that Netanyahu’s government is closer to advancing plans for rebuilding Israeli settlements in Gaza than securing the return of the hostages. Even most Israelis believe it is more important to secure a hostage deal now than continue the war.

So what more can be done? How do we help those Israelis who desperately want to break the stalemate and end the war, bring home the hostages, stop the suffering in Gaza, and set forth on a path toward regional peace and stability?

The answers do not lie in the empty rhetoric offered by those who opposed the Senate resolutions. Paying lip service to platitudes of peace while giving Netanyahu and his extreme right-wing government carte blanche hardly seems like the course of action a good friend to Israel should take.

Last month’s vote revealed something important: Leveraging US law to promote a shift toward policies that benefit Israel’s long-term security is not anti-Israel—it is profoundly pro-Israel.

Nineteen senators, all pro-Israel, stood up for US law and for their principles in the face of the ongoing war and humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Among those who voted a symbolic ‘yes’ to disapprove the sales were the second-highest ranking Democrat–the Senate Majority Whip, four Democratic leaders, the incoming ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 vice presidential running mate. Notably, three of these senators are Jewish. 

All 19 senators have long condemned Hamas and the horrific October 7 attack and reaffirmed Israel’s right to defend itself. They have called for the release of all hostages. They have voted for tens of billions of dollars of security aid to Israel throughout their careers. None of them are calling for anything approaching an arms embargo, and all of them endorse continued support for Iron Dome and other defensive systems.

Such resumes do not reflect an anti-Israel fringe. These are serious lawmakers who represent mainstream positions, including those within the American Jewish community– a recent poll of Jewish American voters found that 62 percent support withholding certain offensive arms to press for a ceasefire and hostage deal.

The positions taken by these courageous senators, which were couched in the spirit of supporting Israel, challenge traditional thinking in American politics and within the American Jewish community. But it is precisely this strategy we must embrace if we are committed to a future where Israel remains secure, vibrant, democratic, and Jewish, living in peace with its neighbors. 

We applaud these legislators, and we will continue to push for an Israel that reflects our highest Jewish and democratic values—and for US policies that champion this vision.

Doing this is many things: It’s American. It’s democratic. It’s Jewish. It’s pro-Palestinian. It’s pro-peace. It’s pro-Israel.

Upholding US Law to Hold Netanyahu Accountable is Pro-Israel

Thoughts in the Pews

06 Sunday Oct 2024

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This Rosh Hashanah I spent much of my time in synagogue thinking about this past awful year in the life of the Jewish people and the State of Israel – the October 7 Hamas massacre, the hostage-taking, the ensuing war, the destruction in Gaza, the 18,000 missiles launched by Hezbollah against Israel, Iran’s April attack, the extremist Iran-based Houthi attacks, Israel’s military response against all these Islamic extremist terrorist groups seeking the destruction of Israel, and the dramatic rise in anti-Israel, anti-Zionism and antisemitism in America and around the world. I’ve been weighing and evaluating what this traumatic year will mean for our liberal Jewish and Zionist identity and values and what we might commit to doing in the New Year.

It’s not an exaggeration to say that this has been the most horrific, frightening and sad year in the life of the Jewish people since the end of the Holocaust. The most inspiration I have drawn from the events of this year has been the response of Israel’s civil society in support of the hostage families and the young soldiers and reservists who left their homes, families and businesses and did whatever was asked of them in defense of the Jewish people and State. I’ve been inspired as well by the loving and positive response of world Jewry to our Israeli brothers and sisters, and by President Biden’s and America’s support of Israel’s right to defend itself, and also by his and his administration’s concern for Palestinian civilians who have suffered so severely in Gaza as a consequence of this war.

Haviv Rettig Gur, an Israeli commentator on The Times of Israel Daily Podcast, suggested this past week that Rosh Hashanah this year may well be the inflection point for Israel that we’ve been waiting for, when Israel and its enemies take a turn, find a way to end this current conflict, to the return of the hostages, and to determining the next steps that will lead to greater regional stability and peaceful coexistence with the Palestinian people on a path to a two-state resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and to an expansion of the Arab nations in the Abraham Accords.

He noted that Rosh Hashanah is a holiday unique among all the major holy days in the Jewish calendar year. The other major Jewish festivals of Sukkot, Pesach, and Shavuot begin with a new moon. Rosh Hashanah begins in darkness, without a full moon, beneath a firmament of stars the lights of which come to us from a far earlier era in the history of the Milky Way Galaxy. These High Holidays, beginning in darkness and moving towards an expansion of light as the crescent moon reaches its fullness on Sukkot, call upon the Jewish people to begin again, to seek moral and spiritual enlightenment, to emphasize the sacred character of life, to reaffirm our faith in the best of the human condition and in our innate ability to solve our many personal and societal problems, and in the hope that change and goodness can come in this New Year.

To those amongst our people who have thrown up their hands in disgust by the killing and destruction in Gaza and by the corrupt leadership of the most extreme right wing government in the history of the Jewish State, I understand the rage and despair. I have felt it too. But I ask for caution before you step away from the State of Israel and the Jewish people as some are now doing. The founding and development of Israel is arguably the greatest accomplishment of the Jewish people in the past two thousand years. Yet, this year has been a test for many Jews, and some have turned their backs on Israel and Jewish life. This is not the time to turn away. Since the anti-judicial reform movement that took place during the year before October 7 (and still threatens Israeli democracy as long as this current government rules), Israelis have turned to us Diaspora Jews for our moral and emotional support. After October 7, our solidarity with Israelis has meant much to them. They tell us so in ways I’ve never heard before. Israelis are concerned for us too and our well-being as antisemitism has grown in America and in many European capitals. We Jews there and here are one family, and though there are Israeli Jewish extremists with whom I don’t identify in any way, there are hundreds of thousands of Israelis with whom I do identify very strongly, with love for and pride in who they are and who we are as Jews who share common liberal Jewish and Zionist values.

This is the time for us Diaspora Jews to reinvest in ourselves as Jews, as supporters of Israel, and in who we are as a people. It isn’t enough any longer to be merely so-called “cultural Jews” or “culinary Jews.” Many American Jews have turned away because they don’t believe in the God of Jewish history and tradition. But, Jewish faith in God is only a portion of what characterizes the Jewish people in the modern era. If you don’t believe in God or in the religion of the Jewish people, there is still so much more to what constitutes Judaism and Jewish peoplehood that is appealing and self-affirming – our common history, a shared historic Homeland, an ethical tradition, the Hebrew language and other Jewish languages of Yiddish, Ladino and Aramaic, the Jewish arts of painting, sculpture, film, dance, song, and literature, and the long list of Israeli and Jewish accomplishments and inventions that have enhanced Israeli and modern Jewish life and the world as a whole. In all of that, we have a right to feel a deep sense of pride as Jews – but only if we know what our people has accomplished and what liberal Jewish values characterize us.

I encourage everyone to set as one goal in this New Year to read Jewish history, to learn about Zionism and Zionist thought as the national liberation movement of the Jewish people and as our people’s social justice movement. Contemporary Jewry, by and large, does not know nearly enough Jewish history or about the content of our classic religious, theological, and philosophical texts from the Hebrew Bible through the writings of our rabbis, sages, philosophers, mystics, Enlightenment, and Zionist thinkers. Encourage the young people in your families, from post-bar and -bat mitzvah age to university age to take courses on Judaism, Zionism, the history of the State of Israel, and Jewish ethics, history, and tradition. A Jew cannot know his/her path in life without knowing from whence they’ve come as a people and why we are who we are and what we value.

This ten-day period between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur has the capacity to restore and reinvigorate our sense of our Jewish identity, to realign our Jewish moral compass, to refocus and renew our support for our Israeli brothers and sisters, and to gird ourselves for more uncertainty in the Middle East and in America.

As we come together on Yom Kippur this coming week, I hope for the end of this war, the immediate return of the hostages to their families, the safety of Israel’s soldiers and innocent Palestinians too, for the victory of the IDF against Israel’s enemies, for our strength in standing against antisemites on the left and the right in America, and for peace with security for all peoples at war not only in the Middle East but in Ukraine and everywhere around the world.

Gmar tov u-l’shanah tovah u-m’tukah.

May we be sealed in the Book of Life and be graced with a good and sweet New Year.

44 Years Ago

29 Sunday Sep 2024

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On the morning of Rosh Hashanah in 1980 (5741), I delivered a sermon about the central theme in the national conflict between Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs to a packed sanctuary of 1,400 congregants. As a fledgling 30 year-old rabbi at Congregation Sherith Israel in San Francisco, I had no idea what my congregants were thinking. I was a rookie rabbi then speaking about what was – and still is – one of the most hotly debated issues in the world. As I spoke, I watched their faces and eyes, and I paid attention to their body language as I moved through my text. I knew that what I was saying was controversial, but I didn’t know if they were with me or against me. I would find out immediately after the service ended.

My first instinct was to push things further than I did – to call for the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. But that was 1980 and no one was doing that except a few of my friends who were left-wing Labor Zionists (and not congressional rabbis) and a small minority of Israelis. I was told that I’d lose my job if I gave the sermon I really wanted to give.

44 years later, as this awful war between Israel and the terrorist organization Hamas continues and the hostages languish in tunnels beneath Gaza, and recent polls show overwhelming distrust and fear felt by Israelis towards Palestinians and Palestinians towards Israelis, and as Israel fights the Iran-created and -controlled terrorist organization Hezbollah in Lebanon that has fired 8000 precision rockets at Israel since October 8 last year, and a wider war threatens all the peoples of the Middle East, I could lift much of what I wrote then and give a similar sermon this year, with adjustments given the passage of time and events.

In my newly published book “From the West to the East – A Memoir of a Liberal American Rabbi” I tell the whole near-violent story of what happened that day 44 years ago, and I explore and go deeper into what I’ve learned throughout my 45-year career as a liberal rabbi in San Francisco, Washington D.C., and Los Angeles. I talk about family, faith, human rights that I’ve championed (and the blow-back I’ve so often received), travel, Israel-Palestine (of course), and everything in-between.

If you have already purchased my book – thank you. If not, I invite you to do so now. It is filled with many dramatic stories that I’ve experienced; and I share my encounters with many remarkably wise and consequential people who have helped to shape my ideas and attitudes.

My Memoir is available on Amazon or through the publisher – see links below. If you are moved by the book, please consider posting a review on Amazon.

If you would like to reach out, I’d love the chance to speak with your community in person or virtually about my story and the moral, religious and political challenges confronting us all in these difficult and challenging times.

I hope that this New Year 5785 will be for you and all those you love one of good health and well-being,  and that the Jewish people and all peoples of the Land will know peace and security in the New Year and the hostages will be returned home.

L’shanah tovah u-m’tukah.

Publisher – https://westofwestcenter.com/product/from-the-west-to-the-east/

Amazon – https://tinyurl.com/2s43mj4p

Central Conference of American Rabbis Statement Condemning Donald Trump’s Dangerous Antisemitic Campaign Rhetoric

24 Tuesday Sep 2024

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Introductory Note:

The Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR) is the Reform Movement’s Rabbinic association of more than 2000 ordained Reform Rabbis who serve the Jewish people in a variety of positions worldwide. I have been a member of the CCAR since I was ordained by the Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion (the Reform movement’s rabbinic seminary) in New York in 1979. I am gratified by the following statement of condemnation of Donald Trump’s antisemitic rhetoric and I urge that this statement be disseminated widely not only to the Jewish people, but to all those who may be taken in by Trump’s outrageous statements about the role of Jews in American society today in our relationship to this American election and to the people and State of Israel.

This CCAR statement is limited to what Trump said most recently in relationship to the election and Jews and does not note past statements, such as his calling “very fine people on both sides” in Charlottesville, Virginia when referring to Neo-Nazi demonstrators who carried torches and shouted outside a Reform synagogue “Jews will not replace us”. It also does not refer to Trump’s ongoing misogyny, racism and hostility to black and brown immigrants. Senator Rafael Warnock (d. Georgia) put it well when he noted in response to Trump’s antisemitic rhetoric on Sunday morning that there is so much hate in Trump’s heart that it constantly flows outward.

Note below that the CCAR does not take partisan political positions (as this statement says clearly), and when I served as the Senior Rabbi of Temple Israel of Hollywood in Los Angeles and before that in congregations I served in Washington D.C. and San Francisco, I did not do so either because both Democrats and Republicans were/are members of my congregations and I respect those who think differently from me regardless of political affiliation. However, I made an exception one time in 40 years – in the 2016 presidential election in which I endorsed Hillary Clinton for president against Donald Trump because it was clear to me then that Trump’s hatred of large numbers of Americans based on race, gender, ethnicity, and religion and his threat to American democratic traditions and norms disqualified him from serving as President of the United States.

Here is the CCAR’s Statement.

September 23, 2024

The Central Conference of American Rabbis is grateful that both major candidates in the 2024 United States Presidential Election, Vice President Kamala Harris and Former President Donald Trump—together with their running mates—have taken strong stances in response to antisemitism. Antisemitism is a significant and growing problem in the United States, finding a welcome home at both the extreme right and left of the political spectrum.

At the same time, the Central Conference of American Rabbis strongly condemn Former President Trump’s repeated claims that Jewish Americans who vote for Vice President Harris would do so only because they suffer from mental illness and that American Jews would be to blame if Former President Trump did not prevail.[i]

The former claim fails to recognize that Jewish Americans, like all voters, have a variety of issues, both domestic and internal, which inform whom they will support this election. We also denounce the claim that Second Gentlemen Doug Emhoff is not a good Jew.[ii] Jews practice Judaism in a variety of ways and it is not the role of our leaders to judge and disparage how people practice their religion.

We are most troubled by the inflammatory claim that American Jews will be at fault if Former President Trump does not win the election. Falsely claiming that Jews, who represent less than 3% of Americans, will single handedly determine the winner of the election plays into age-old antisemitic lies about Jewish power. Former President Trump’s rhetoric relies on what Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt has called the “antisemitic conspiracy myth” that Jews enjoy disproportionate power and exercise outsized control in and beyond America.[iii] This dangerous rhetoric seeks to target the Jewish community at a time of heightened antisemitism. It is part of a disturbing pattern of Former President Trump attacking those who disagree with him.

It should go without saying that American Jews, no matter which party they support, are loyal Americans. While we condemn these baseless attacks, we also encourage all Jews to vote in the upcoming election and to support non-partisan get out the vote efforts. Our democracy depends on the participation of all citizens of our country. 

Rabbi Erica Asch, President
Rabbi Hara E. Person, Chief Executive
Central Conference of American Rabbis

A Proud Israeli-Arab Citizen Speaks Out

18 Wednesday Sep 2024

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Yoseph Haddad, a 39-year old Arab-Israeli citizen and journalist, well-known throughout Israel, spoke recently before the Austrian Parliament about the Israel that I know as a liberal Zionist, and about the distortions by the European media and many on the American far left about Hamas’s ideology, nature and intentions vis a vis Israel. His 15-minute speech (see You-Tube link below) is a must-listen address by an Israeli-Arab who understands what this awful war is really all about and about the standing of Israeli Arabs today in Israeli society, however imperfect for Israeli-Arab citizens. The situation in the West Bank for Palestinians, however, is very different as they live under a military administration and near violent Israeli settlers and growing Palestinian terrorism.

When the dust of this war settles, when Israel and the Palestinian Authority elect new political leadership with vision and a willingness to create a path to peace and some kind of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with the help of a wise and strong American President, perhaps there will emerge the will between Israelis and Palestinians actually to make peace.

Listen here and share this blog and YouTube with those you believe will be moved by Yoseph Haddad and his clear moral compass in these difficult and painful times.
https://youtu.be/S1aOao4BNXE?si=sGcP03GEdPyZu63d

Kamala Harris’ Superb Nuanced Statement About the Necessity of Ending the Israel-Hamas War Now

26 Friday Jul 2024

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Introduction: I could not have hoped for a better, more nuanced, comprehensive, and urgent statement from Presidential Candidate Kamala Harris about this awful Israel-Hamas War. If you did not hear her give it in her masterful verbal presentation, here it is (click onto the blue below to see her actually deliver her statement):

I just had a frank and constructive meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu. I told him that I will always ensure that Israel is able to defend itself, including from Iran and Iran backed-militias such as Hamas and Hezbollah. From when I was a young girl collecting funds to plant trees for Israel to my time in the United States Senate, and now at the White House, I have had an unwavering commitment to the existence of the State of Israel, to its security and to the people of Israel. I’ve said it many times, but it bears repeating. Israel has a right to defend itself and how it does so matters. Hamas is a brutal terrorist organization. On October 7th Hamas triggered this war when it massacred 1200 innocent people including 44 Americans. Hamas has committed horrific acts of sexual violence and it took 250 hostages. There are American citizens who remain captive in Gaza – Sagi Deo Hen Hirsch Goldberg, Poland Idan, Alexander Keith Siegal Omer Neutra and the remains of American citizens, Judy Weinstein, God Haggai and Itai Hen are still being held in Gaza. I have met with the families of these American hostages multiple times now, and I’ve told them each time they are not alone and I stand with them, and President Biden and I are working every day to bring them home. I also expressed with the Prime Minister my serious concern about the scale of human suffering in Gaza, including the death of far too many innocent civilians. And I made clear my serious concern about the dire humanitarian situation there with over 2 million people facing high levels of food insecurity and half a million people facing catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity. What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating. The images of dead children and desperate hungry people fleeing for safety sometimes displaced for the 2nd, 3rd, or fourth time. We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering, and I will not be silent. Thanks to the leadership of our President Joe Biden, there is a deal on the table for a ceasefire and a hostage deal and it is important that we recall what the deal involves. The first phase of the deal would bring about a full ceasefire including a withdrawal of the Israeli military from population centers in Gaza. In the second phase, the Israeli military would withdraw from Gaza entirely, and it would lead to a permanent end to the hostilities. It is time for this war to end and end in a way where Israel is secure, all the hostages are released, the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can exercise their right to freedom, dignity and self-determination. There has been hopeful movement in the talks to secure an agreement on this deal; and as I just told Prime Minister Netanyahu it is time to get this deal done. So to everyone who has been calling for a ceasefire and to everyone who yearns for peace, I see you and I hear you. Let’s get the deal done so we can get a ceasefire to end the war. Let’s bring the hostages home and let’s provide much needed relief to the Palestinian people. Ultimately, I remain committed to a path forward that can lead to a two-state solution. I know right now it is hard to conceive of that prospect; but a two-state solution is the only path that ensures Israel remains a secure Jewish and democratic state, and one that ensures Palestinians can finally realize the freedom, security and prosperity that they rightly deserve.  I will close with this. It is important for the American people to remember the war in Gaza is not a binary issue. However, too often the conversation is binary when the reality is anything but; so I ask my fellow Americans to help encourage efforts to acknowledge the complexity, the nuance and the history of the region. Let us all condemn terrorism and violence. Let us all do what we can to prevent the suffering of innocent civilians, and let us condemn antisemitism, Islamophobia and hate of any kind, and let us work to unite our country. I thank you.

“Israel Must Stop Its ‘Dimona Talk’” – by Ehud Barak

14 Sunday Jul 2024

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Introductory Note: This op-ed, published today in Israel’s Haaretz newspaper, was written by Israel’s former Prime Minister and Minister of Defense and once the most decorated soldier in Israel’s history. It is both a pragmatic and visionary response to the extremist, self-destructive and dangerous rhetoric of right-wing messianic members in the current Israeli government. I urge you to read his analysis carefully. Haaretz is a subscription newspaper. I have urged my readers to subscribe for years as it is among the most important publications produced for thinking people in Israel itself and in the English speaking world.

Op-ed – Ehud Barak – Former Israeli Prime Minister – July 14, 2024 – Haaretz

“We have reached nine months of war. Despite the sacrifice and courage our soldiers and commanders display every day, and despite the harsh blows felt by Hamas and Hezbollah, still none of the war’s goals have been met. What’s more, the strategic paralysis exhibited by Israel’s leadership risks a comprehensive and prolonged regional conflict, while the deepening rift with the United States expands, and the country is being plunged into international isolation. This must not be allowed to happen.

This complex situation has generated a growing discourse in recent weeks, including in this newspaper and on television channels, centering on expectations or demands that Israel threaten to use its alleged nuclear capabilities as a means of emerging victorious from this crisis. There are those who even propose to consider actually making use of this ability.

This discourse, to the best of my understanding, is unnecessary, unhelpful and may even be harmful. It reflects feelings of frustration and helplessness, which are not desirable counsels to strategy and statesmanship. What is required here is common sense, not fantasies.

The failure to achieve the war’s goals does not stem from Israel’s use of conventional weapons alone, rather, it was the reluctance to determine on October 8 what we want the “day after” the war to look like. This reluctance derives from the prime minister’s considerations regarding his political survival and the extortion by extremists in his coalition against him. It has led to treading water and wasting military achievements that were reached at the cost of blood.

The solution to the impasse is to first remove the obstruction that caused it, that is, to replace the head and remove reckless figures from the government – and by not resorting to measures that many of those promoting them don’t even understand their implications.

Second, say “yes, but!” to the U.S. initiative to create an “axis of moderation” under its leadership, centering around Israel, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and perhaps Saudi Arabia as well, that will ready itself against the “axis of resistance”: Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas and others, led by Russia. We saw the axis of moderation’s potential on the “night of the missiles” launched from Iran in April. That’s the appropriate strategic horizon for Israel.

In the words of Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel is simultaneously an all-powerful nation saving the world from a new Islamo-Nazi threat, and a whining victim abandoned to its fate of being threatened with annihilation by “Amalekites” from without and “traitors” from within. This bipolar perspective is disrupting his judgment of reality and dragging many confused Israelis into it.

Readers of newspapers in Israel can get the impression that, on the one hand, we can destroy and annihilate all our enemies one after the other at the slightest provocation, swiftly and at a tolerable price. On the other hand, the whole world is against us, and we can only rely on the Almighty and on Dimona, the site of an Israeli nuclear reactor.

That is not the case. Even today, in July 2024, Israel is the strongest state – militarily and strategically – in the region. The “axis of moderation” the United States is proposing is the most effective deterrent against an overall regional war at any foreseeable future. This axis is also the correct framework to ensure victory, if such war were to break out.

The threat of the “Dimona option” and the discourse around it doesn’t convey determination or power. They radiate insecurity, weakness and confusion, imbalance and a pinch of panic. The reason is that Iran knows our strategic capabilities far better than the Israeli public. The ayatollahs in Tehran are extreme fanatics, but they are also calculated chess players and certainly not stupid.

Similar to North Korea’s leadership – who has no intention of dropping a bomb on South Korea or Japan, understanding such actions would lead North Korea back to the Stone Age – Iran’s nuclear program has two goals. The first and foremost one is to ensure the regime’s survival. The second is to build – under the umbrella of the “strategic balance” that would be created by a military nuclear capability – a reliable conventional threat. The late and cursed Qassem Soleimani, called it a “ring of fire” which would exhaust Israel in a prolonged war of attrition until it weakens and collapses.

This “ring of fire” is based on proxies like Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis and others. They are equipped with drones, rockets and missiles, some of them highly accurate, and have terror units trained with precise weapons, like the Kornet anti-tank missile, operating within the population and prepared to conduct years of guerrilla warfare, even under occupation.

The U.S.-led “axis of moderation” is the right answer to the current situation, where, despite the rapid progress, Iran is still hesitating to develop military nuclear capabilities. If it decides to do so, it will still take it another year or so to get to a crude nuclear weapon and a decade to build an initial arsenal. But Iran is already a nuclear threshold state, meaning Israel and the United States have no surgical way to stop it from obtaining nuclear weapons.

This requires an alignment between Israel, the U.S. and regional allies. Ali Khamenei and the ayatollahs know that Israel hasn’t hesitated to attack states in the region to thwart their production of nuclear weapons. But they also know that for the past 50 years, Israel has been making efforts and huge investments to ensure an adequate response to a situation in which a state in the region obtains nuclear weapons. Despite the attempts to stop it, Israel is not without means.

Strategic capabilities are at their best when they remain a threat. During the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, this approach even kept at bay wide conventional confrontations. For reasons familiar to anyone who dealt with the matter, such abilities are not suitable means for preventive attacks. There’s no logic in considering them in a situation that is not a real, immediate, irrevocable existential threat, which cannot be thwarted in any other way.

This is definitely not our situation. Certainly not in view of the existing alternatives – joining the “axis of moderation” and replacing the failed Israeli leadership. These two steps will provide a quick, simple and much cheaper solution than resorting to the “Dimona option.”

The primary global danger posed by Iran’s nuclearization is that it will set off a chain reaction of nuclearization in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey, thereby bringing down the entire regime of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, commonly known as the Non-Proliferation Treaty or NPT. By its very creation, the U.S.-led axis can answer this challenge as well, in that it provides a “nuclear umbrella” to Saudi Arabia and Egypt. (Turkey already has such an umbrella through its membership in NATO.)

It is no coincidence that nuclear weapons have not been used in 80 years. Israel’s famous declaration that it will not be the first country to introduce nuclear weapons into the region remains the correct policy.

There is also no reason to remove Israel’s nuclear ambiguity since, as noted, there is nothing the Iranians do not know. Lifting the ambiguity would only be seen as a gimmick meant to assuage the general despondency in Israel. Such a move, and also insinuations a la “Remember Dimona,” are liable to give Iran the incentive and the legitimacy to accelerate the race toward nuclear weapons, on the grounds that it is threatened by Israel’s “nuclear capability,” which, unlike Iran, has not even signed the NPT.

Israel is indeed in a complex situation requiring courage, discipline, sober, reality-based strategic thinking, making difficult decisions and determination in carrying them out. The current leadership is equipped with almost none of these. Alien considerations are leading it – and us with it – toward the abyss.

“Dimona talk” in the current context is unnecessary and harmful, and only distracts us from what is truly needed: to immediately replace the sinkers of the Titanic and join the axis of moderation with the United States. Such talk contributes no understanding, common sense or a relevant course of action for the challenge we face. We must end it immediately.”

“I am an Israeli American Jew. Bulldozing Palestinian homes is personal for me” by Ben Linder

11 Thursday Jul 2024

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Ben is a friend who I met when I served for a year representing the J Street Rabbinic and Cantorial Cabinet on the Board of J Street, a national pro-Israel, pro-peace, pro-democracy organization based in Washington, D.C.

I urge you to read Ben’s heart-breaking account (published in the Jewish Journal of Northern California) of his Palestinian friends living in the West Bank who have become victims of the extreme right-wing Israeli government’s de facto (leading to de jure) illegal annexation of an increasing amount of West Bank territory. As the tumult in American politics, the horror of October 7 and the Israel-Hamas War continue, news about the West Bank has not broken through nearly enough in the west.

I am grateful to Ben for bringing this one single tragedy that just took place in the South Hebron Hills to our attention. Read his heart-breaking account here: https://jweekly.com/2024/07/10/i-am-an-israeli-american-jew-bulldozing-palestinian-homes-is-personal-for-me/

Zionism and Liberalism in America – Up Close and Personal

27 Thursday Jun 2024

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The linkage between Zionism and Liberalism in America today is one of the most important themes I write about in my recently published Memoir – From the West to the East – A Memoir of an American Liberal Rabbi (West of West Centers Books, 2024).

In this volume I discuss many important themes that directly confront Jewish and non-Jewish liberal Americans including the challenge of faith for the non-orthodox, my cancer diagnosis and the trauma and confrontation with death that it unleashed in me at the young age of 59 in 2009, the growing intermarriage rate between Jews and non-Jews, my decision in 2012 to officiate at interfaith marriages after 32 years not doing so and the strong unexpected positive reaction of my community when I spoke about it on the High Holidays that year, my engagement with the Soviet Jewry movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s, the challenge I made to my large Washington, D.C. congregation (Washington Hebrew Congregation) to become a Sanctuary Synagogue for El Salvadoran asylum seekers fleeing the Death Squads, the immediate negative reaction I received from leaders of the Reagan Administration when I spoke about the issue on Rosh Hashanah morning in 1987, my Los Angeles synagogue’s covenant relationship with an African American Church in South Los Angeles before, during and after the Rodney King beating and Los Angles riots, the homophobic stance of the Boy Scouts of America in the early 2000s and my synagogue’s decision that sparked controversy when we decided to end our sponsorship with a long-time Cub Scout troop, my 50-year activist commitment to a two-state solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the vicious hostility I have received continually from right-wing extremist pro-Israel activists in my city, the tragedy of the Hamas-Israel war, the antisemitic character of BDS, anti-Zionism and antisemitism, my leadership of the Association of Reform Zionism of America (the Reform movement’s Zionist organization representing 1.5 million American Reform Jews) that brought me to the center of the national institutions of the Jewish people and the world and Israeli Reform Zionist leadership, the J Street Rabbinic and Cantorial Cabinet centered in our nation’s capital representing more than a thousand rabbis and cantors, and my reflections about American intersectional progressive left-wing activism and conservative-right wing extremism in relationship to the American Jewish community and American liberal Zionism.

I share many dramatic stories about my engagement with all the above as well as my relationship with the most important mentors in my life including my father who died when I was 9 years-old, my Israeli great-grand-uncle, Avraham Shapira, the first Jewish commander and guard of the first agricultural settlement in Petach Tikvah from 1890-1948 who I met as a boy in 1956 when he visited our family in Los Angeles, my childhood Rabbi Leonard Beerman, the pacifist founder of Leo Baeck Temple in Los Angeles with whom I developed a close relationship in the final years of his life, and my dearest friend, mentor and father figure, Rabbi Martin S. Weiner of Congregation Sherith Israel in San Francisco whose compassion, wisdom, social justice activism, and commitment to the Jewish people guided me in my first seven years as his Associate Rabbi and who set the standard for me of what a congregational rabbi must be as a leader and a mensch. I credit whatever success I have had to many colleagues, my synagogue leadership, and especially my wife Barbara, who has been my life-partner and dearest friend of more than 40 years, and my sons Daniel (his wife Marina) and David whose love, support and pride in me have sustained me through many challenges I have encountered as a rabbinic and community leader.

In the Epilogue that I wrote after October 7, 2023, I share my outrage against Hamas, my grief at the loss of so many Israeli and innocent Palestinian lives, my desire for revenge against Hamas, and my eventual affirmation of the dire need for a complete ceasefire and end of the war, the immediate return of all hostages, a clear plan forward for Gaza and the West Bank that includes new Israeli and Palestinian leadership, the United States, and western aligned Arab states, the conduct of the war, and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

See a few of the many endorsements on the book jacket above, the publishers description of my story and the cameo appearances of some of the 20th and 21st centuries greatest heroes.

I invite you to purchase the book directly from my publisher at https://westofwestcenter.com/product/from-the-west-to-the-east/ and especially share copies with young adult Jews who may be experiencing a crisis of identity as Jewish Americans in these years of challenge.  The book is not yet available on Amazon.