Threats Against the Jewish people in Europe and America

31 Sunday May 2015

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American Jewish Life, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Social Justice

I refer you to three important articles that raise questions and challenges concerning Jewish well-being in Europe and America.

The first is a provocative piece that appeared in The Huffington Post that recalls the classic Jewish fear that we are an “ever-dying people,” yet it shines a light on the specific challenges facing liberal American Jews today on the one hand as well as the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community of America on the other.

The second is an investigative report in The Atlantic on the rise in anti-Semitism in Europe and what might be the future of Europe’s remaining Jews.

The third is a short op-ed that appeared in New York’s The Jewish Week, concerning the attack on American Progressive Zionists by the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA). My predecessor at Temple Israel of Hollywood, Rabbi Max Nussbaum (z’l), served in the 1950s as the President of the ZOA. He was a German refugee, a prominent Zionist and social activist, and, as his widow Ruth told me several years ago before she died at the age of 98, her husband Max would have been appalled had he lived to witness the behavior of the current leadership of the ZOA in its brazen slander against progressive American Zionists leaders.

Historically, we Jews often have been contentious with each other, but when threatened, we have usually pulled together as one. Not so today, it seems.

The threats today against the Jewish people, Judaism and the state of Israel are coming from a number of different places, including the international BDS movement, Islamic anti-Semites, classic European anti-Semites, terrorism, and Iran.

Internally we’re threatened by assimilation, Jewish ignorance and passivity, the Israeli settler movement and its supporters in the new Israeli government, and a lack of resolve to find a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

These articles are likely to disturb, as well they should!

1. Bad for the Jews, Bad for America – Huffington Post – Sandy Goodman (retired producer for the NBC Nightly News), May 26, 2015
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sandy-goodman/bad-for-the-jews-bad-for-america_b_7425212.html

“The American Jewish community is coming apart at the seams. Its vital center is collapsing, and the entire group is increasingly polarized by runaway growth at both extremes: religious fundamentalism on one end, secular non-belief on the other. The result is not only bad for the Jews, but bad for the rest of America.”

2. Is It Time for the Jews to Leave Europe? – The Atlantic – Jeffrey Goldberg, April 2015
http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2015/03/is-it-time-for-the-jews-to-leave-europe/386279/

“For half a century, memories of the Holocaust limited anti-Semitism on the Continent. That period has ended—the recent fatal attacks in Paris and Copenhagen are merely the latest examples of rising violence against Jews. Renewed vitriol among right-wing fascists and new threats from radicalized Islamists have created a crisis, confronting Jews with an agonizing choice.”

3. ZOA Has Gone Too Far in Criticizing Progressive Zionists – The Jewish Week – Kenneth Bob and Gideon Aronoff – May 22, 2015
http://www.thejewishweek.com/editorial-opinion/opinion/zoa-has-gone-too-far-criticizing-progressive-zionists

“The Hatikvah Slate [the Progressive Zionist slate in the World Zionist Congress Elections] – Ameinu, Partners for Progressive Israel (PPI), and the Zionist youth movements Habonim Dror and Hashomer Hatzair – have and will continue to actively oppose the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. But we were forced to waste over four months and significant financial and human resources defending ourselves from distortions by ZOA and others aimed to expel progressive Zionists from the Zionist movement and to limit use of the eternal symbols of Zionism, like the name Hatikvah, solely to the Zionist right.

Instead of fair competition for the hearts, minds and votes of Zionists, ZOA acts to defame committed supporters of Israel, and progressive Israelis who are working to defend their country’s future. Ultimately, the ZOA’s hostile and distorted rhetoric and attacks on progressive Zionists, threaten the unity of the Jewish community and its collective effort to support for the State of Israel. During dangerous and challenging times like today, this is a cost that the Jewish community and Israel simply cannot afford.”

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

17 Sunday May 2015

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American Jewish Life, Ethics, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Social Justice

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Its introduction notes:

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

The pamphlet addresses the following key questions:

• Is Israel an “Apartheid State?”

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

• Is pro-Israel and progressive an oxymoron?

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

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

• Does Zionism = racism?

• Is “ethnic cleansing” inherent to Zionism?

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

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

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

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

Jerusalem – A City of the In-between and Not-Yet Peace

15 Friday May 2015

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Holidays, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Jewish-Christian Relations, Judaism and Islam, Muisings about God/Faith/Religious Life, Social Justice

Jerusalem, itself on a mountain, is made up of a series of mountains. On top of each mountain is an important symbol sacred to a religion or people. Taken together, these multiple symbols represent perhaps the most significant city in world history.

Har Habayit – The Mountain of God’s House, also known as Har Moriah – The Mountain of ‘Sight’ is, of course, the most sacred place in Judaism. Legend teaches that the dust that formed the first human being, Adam, was gathered here, and this mountain top is the place on which Abraham bound his son Isaac. It is here that King Solomon built the First Temple and King Harod built the Second Temple.

Har Habayit- Har Moriah is the gateway between heaven and earth, the umbilicus through which the milk of Torah flows from the Divine breast to the children of Israel, where there is Divine sight and insight.

This most ancient of Jewish mountains is claimed by Islam as its third most sacred site after Mecca and Medina. Muslims call it Haram al Sharif – The Noble Sanctuary where Quran says Mohammed ascended to heaven.

On another small mountain is the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, now shared in a delicate and sensitive balance among Armenian, Greek Orthodox, Coptic, Roman Catholic, Syrian, and Ethiopian Christians because Jesus was crucified there.

To the east is Har Hazeitim – the Mountain of Olives at the foot of which is the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus prayed and his disciples slept the night before their Lord’s crucifixion.

Har Hazeitim contains the most holy Jewish cemetery in the world, the closest burial ground to the “The Golden Gate” of Jerusalem that was sealed by the 16th century Ottoman Qalif, Suleiman the Magnificent, because he feared that the Jewish Messiah would pass into the holy city through this gate in the end of days. Jews have been burying our dead on the Mountain of Olives for centuries so their souls would be close and ready to follow the Mashiach.

Just south of the Old City walls is Har Tziyon – Mount Zion from where the prophets Isaiah (2:3) and Micah (4:2) said that Torah and God’s word came into the world. For Christians, Jesus and his disciples celebrated the Last Supper here.

A few miles west is yet another mountain made sacred by Zionism and the state of Israel, Har Herzl, on which is built the military cemetery for those who died in the defense of the state and the nation’s leaders. Har Herzl is walking distance from Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust Memorial and museum.

Thirty-four times since the age of David Jerusalem has been conquered. It is arguably the most famous and fought over real estate in the world. It is a city of the in-between. It embraces old and new, past and present, east and west, reason and faith, earth and heaven, this world and the world to come, imperfection and messianic dreams, temporal and divine power. It has been and remains the symbol of a history of intensely competing interests.

Israel celebrates “Jerusalem Day” this Sunday, May 17 (28 Iyar), marking 48 years since Israel reunified the city after the 1967 Six-Day War. Though Jerusalem has rarely known peace, it is an enduring symbol of our people’s yearning for peace nevertheless.

What is to become of this sacred city for so many going forward? Most Israelis do not want it ever divided again. For the past 48 years Israel has maintained the peace and security of Jerusalem and free access for peoples of all faiths to the city’s holy sites. Yet, distrust and hatred fills still too many hearts and pollutes too many minds. Spitting and shoving, vandalizing and threats, provocation and incitement, violence and murder continue despite efforts by Israeli security to prevent it.

The problems that continue are compounded by the absence of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. East Jerusalem’s Palestinian Arabs, non-citizens of Israel who live under Israeli military rule, do not share equal rights with Israeli citizens, nor is their property necessarily respected by Israeli military law and ultra-Orthodox Jewish squatters who use every opportunity to occupy Arab homes.

Two different sets of law are enforced and non-Israeli citizens almost always come up short.

For Israel’s sake as a Jewish and democratic state and for the sake of the Palestinians the status quo is unsustainable, and if Jerusalem is to be the beacon of and symbol for peace throughout the world, it will take our two peoples, Israeli and Palestinian, every ounce of courage, patience, creativity, understanding, and mutual respect to make it happen.

I believe, despite the deep distrust and hostility, that there is a solution, but that will take the willingness to compromise and accommodate the needs of the “other” not as some kumbaya liberal dream, but for the sake of peace, security, the survival of and the dignity of all peoples.

“Racism and Gender in Israel” – Guilt and Accountability

10 Sunday May 2015

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Book Recommendations, Ethics, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Quote of the Day, Social Justice, Women's Rights

Now that the new Israeli government will be sworn into the Knesset this week, an issue that has festered unchecked for too long needs to be addressed more extensively – racist and gender-inspired incitement against Arab citizens of Israel. Though President Reuven Rivlin began his presidency by shining a light on this scourge in Israeli society and initiated a nationwide conversation and campaign to emphasize that anti-Arab racism has no place in the democratic state of Israel, bigotry continues against Arabs, and in a different way against Ethiopian Jews. The large presence of Eritrean and Sudanese asylum seekers has, at the very least, exacerbated the problem.

The Israel Religious Action Center (IRAC) and the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism (IMPJ) have published a report called “Racism and Gender in Israel.” It includes introductory remarks by Rabbi David Saperstein, formerly the Director of the RAC in Washington, D.C. and now a Presidential appointee as United States Ambassador for Religious Freedom, and by Rabbi Rick Jacobs, President of the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ). Anat Hoffman, Executive Director of the IRAC, wrote the Preface (see below to obtain a copy).

This 66-page pamphlet was written by Israeli attorney Ruth Carmi who notes that though the assassinated MK Meir Kahana was condemned for his racist and extremist remarks in the 1980s when he charged that Arab men were threatening to steal “our” wives and daughters, such comments today by the most extreme Hareidi rabbis are “no longer confined to the margins but are becoming increasingly common in Israeli discourse, and have even found their way into official debates in the Knesset…. [these comments pray upon] emotions exploited with the goal of imposing complete segregation between Jews and Arabs in Israel, isolating and humiliating the Arab community in Israel, and depicting it as a dangerous enemy against which defense is essential… The goal is to marginalize Arab citizens in Israel, to prevent coexistence between Jews and Arabs, and to impose a misogynist perception of women as passive pawns in the conflict who lack any will of their own.”

Racial incitement is prohibited under Israeli law as a criminal and a disciplinary offense.

The “Gender and Racism” pamphlet describes how extremist orthodox religious organizations, associations and some ultra-Orthodox rabbis in Israel have devoted themselves to a campaign to “defend the honor of Jewish women.” The primary offending organizations are Yad L’Achim, Lev L’Achim, Lehava, Hemla, Derekh Chaim, and the website Hakol Hayehudi, and the chief rabbi of Safed, Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, is most identified with this racist campaign to mark Arabs as schemers, seducers and abusers.

Carmi notes that “throughout history national humiliation has been closely associated with the sexual humiliation of women…and that a Jewish woman who submits to wooing by a non-Jewish man brings dishonor on herself and shame on the entire nation.” (p. 52)

“The woman’s body is the nation, and accordingly the war over this body is the war of the entire nation and becomes the focus of the conflict. Jewish women who have relationships with the enemy – Arab men – are perceived as contributing to the defeat of the Jewish people and the State of Israel and as humiliating Jewish men. The bodies of Jewish women become the focus of the Arab-Jewish conflict and ownership over these bodies determines the balance of power in the conflict.” (pp. 53-54)

This growing movement in Israel is promoted by flyers in Safed warning about “Arab Seducers,” posters in Jewish neighborhoods of Jerusalem and Beitar Illit opposing employment of Arabs, flyers in the Pisgat Ze’ev neighborhood of Jerusalem calling for the expulsion of Arab residents, and letters given to IDF soldiers declaring “The War is at Home.” Statements by ultra-Orthodox rabbis warn against encounters and fraternization between Jewish women and Arab men and against Arab students and letters by some Rabbis’ wives are posted and distributed beseeching Jewish women not to date Arab men. In Ashkelon, there are efforts to exclude Arabs citizens from local places of entertainment, and kashrut certification is granted to businesses that follow this racist agenda. On the Lehava website there is a “Page of Shame” that lists names of Jewish women involved in intimate relationships with non-Jewish men. An Informers’ Hotline enables people to report incidents of Arab-Jewish fraternization.

Violent attacks against innocent Arabs whose sole “offense” was to be present in areas where there is a Jewish majority, have all created “an atmosphere of terror and intimidation that serves the agenda of those organizations and individuals that advocate for the total segregation of the two populations in the State of Israel.” (p. 13)

It remains to be seen whether this new government including two ultra-Orthodox parties, United Torah Judaism and Shas, will prosecute this moral scourge in segments of Israeli society.

The Talmud is clear when it says “One who is able to protest against a wrong that is done in his family, his city, his nation, or the world and doesn’t do so is held accountable for that wrong being done.” (Bavli, Shabbat 54b).

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel echoes that reminder when he said, “We must continue to remind ourselves that in a free society all are involved in what some are doing. Some are guilty, all are responsible.”

Note: Contact the Reform Movement’s Religious Action Center for a free copy of “Racism and Gender in Israel” – 2027 Massachusetts Ave NW, Washington, DC 20036 – Phone: (202) 387-2800 – http://www.rac.org/.

Hunger in America– For Your Passover Seders

02 Thursday Apr 2015

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Americahn Politics and Life, American Jewish Life, American Politics, Ethics, Social Justice

In the United States, there are 48.8 million Americans (32.6 million adults of whom 6 million are seniors, and 16.2 million children – equaling 16.7% of all American men, women, and children – nearly 1 in 6 – 14.5% of all American households) who are “food insecure,” defined by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) as a “lack of access at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life.”

There are many government programs and charitable organizations that seek to address the “temporary emergency” that these 48.8 million Americans face every day. MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger reports that in FY2011, the Federal government spent $94.8 billion in food and nutrition assistance programs, and America’s largest hunger-relief organizations spent $1.2 billion, and still nearly 49 million Americans today are food insecure. Clearly, neither the government nor charitable organizations have been able to feed all those in need.

During the Passover Seder we say “Let all who are hungry come and eat!”

How are we to respond to this mitzvah?

The answer isn’t just to give of our charitable dollars to the poor and hungry in our neighborhoods and communities, but to support local, state and national hunger policies that seek to to make it easier for poor working families and individuals to get the food and nutrition that they need.

MAZON offers a reading for our Seder meals with specifics on what we can actually do in the fulfillment of the mitzvah to feed the hungry.

Ha Lachma Anya

This is the bread of poverty and persecution that our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt. As it says in the Torah, “Seven days shall you eat matzot, the bread of poverty and persecution so that you may remember that you were a slave in Egypt.”

Let all who are hungry, come and eat.

Let all who are in need, come and share the Pesach meal.

At its most fundamental level, the Passover Seder is meant to remind us that we know firsthand the suffering and degradation faced by those who are poor. We know the sharp pain of hunger, the slavery that is poverty and persecution; and we also know that this memory, this shared experience, compels us to act.

Ha Lachma Anya. This is the bread of poverty.

17 million children face a constant struggle against hunger, and hungry kids can’t learn or grow to their full potential.

Let every hungry child come and eat, with a Reauthorized Child Nutrition Act that improves and expands school meals and summer, afterschool and childcare nutrition programs.

Ha Lachma anya. This is the bread of poverty.

Six million seniors face food insecurity and 35% of seniors must make the impossible choice between paying for food and paying for heat/utilities.

Let every hungry senior come and eat, with a Reauthorized Older Americans Act that increases funding for Meals on Wheels and senior congregant feeding programs.

Ha Lachma Anya. This is the bread of poverty.

49 million Americans struggle to put food on the table and feed their families.

Let every hungry family come and eat, with adequate funding for SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition assistance Program).

Ha Lachma Anya. This is the bread of poverty.

This is Passover, we say Dayeinu.

We have had enough.

This year, we will work together so that all who are hungry can finally come and eat.”

Write your congressional representatives and ask them to support the tReauthorized Child Nutrition Act, Reauthorized Older Americans Act, and SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition assistance Program).

For more information, see Mazon’s website: http://www.mazon.org – Mazon: A Jewish Response to Hunger is the only organization in American Jewish life devoted solely to the issue of hunger.

Chag Pesach Sameah!

The Presbyterian Church (USA) Is At It Again In Its Unfair Criticism of Israel

17 Tuesday Jun 2014

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Rachel Lerner is the Senior Vice President for Community Relations at J Street and a friend. She attended this week the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) in Detroit in which she spoke on a panel where she urged Presbyterian commissioners to vote against an anti-Israel resolution supporting divestment of church funds from companies doing business in the West Bank (BDS) and called upon the Church to reconsider its support of a two-states for two-peoples resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Her letter appears here with links to all relevant documents. http://jstreet.org/blog/post/my-speech-to-the-presbyterians_1

I wrote about the Presbyterian Church (USA) in July 2012 after a terrorist attack against Jews in Bulgaria. My primary thrust then was to harshly criticize the Church’s insensitivity to Jews and to characterize the Church’s support of BDS as “anti-Israel.”

The following is part of what I wrote then:

“Israel is not a perfect society. No democracy is. Thus, being a critic of Israeli policies does not mean one is automatically anti-Israel. Indeed, Israelis themselves are among the most self-critical citizens of any nation in the world.

However, when individuals and groups consistently criticize one nation and one nation alone, one has to question such people’s deeper motivations and agenda.

After watching for several years the Presbyterian Church USA’s efforts on behalf of the BDS movement, those advocating for it I believe are unfair criticizers and part of the “anti-Israel camp.”

By “anti-Israel camp” I refer to those individuals and organizations whose criticism of Israel goes far beyond what is factual, reasonable and fair. These people rarely if ever voice criticism against Hamas’ or Fatah’s documented human rights violations against their own populations. They rarely if ever criticize human rights violations in other countries against which Israeli policies vis a vis Palestinians in the West Bank (as bad as they can be) pale by comparison. And they ignore the history of this conflict which gives context for current events.”

You can read the entire piece here https://rabbijohnrosove.wordpress.com/2012/07/22/jaccuse-the-presbyterian-church-statement-following-the-massacre-of-israelis-jews-in-bulgaria/

I would hope that good people who are members of that Church and who are not anti-Israel will vote against the aggressive group of anti-Israel Church members who have consistently shown their animus towards the state of Israel and the Jewish people by unfairly attacking her and her alone among all nations in the world.

I conclude by saying in my role as a national co-chair of the Rabbinic Cabinet of J Street that includes 800 rabbis and cantors from all America’s religious streams that I am grateful to Rachel for walking into this den of lions and standing up for the dignity of the Jewish people and best interests of the state of Israel. She deserves the thanks of the American Jewish community and Israel for doing so.

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

30 Wednesday Apr 2014

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

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American Life, Ethics, Social Justice

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

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

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

Not so fast!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Is It Possible to be a Jewish Intellectual?” – Eva Illouz in Haaretz

16 Wednesday Apr 2014

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“Is It Possible to be a Jewish Intellectual?” is an expansive six-thousand-one-hundred-word essay written by Sociology Professor Eva Illouz of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem that was published this week in Haaretz, Israel’s equivalent of The New York Times. It is a must-read piece for both Israelis and American Jews. I am grateful to my friend Mike Rogoff in Jerusalem for sending me the link to it. [Note: You must be a subscriber to Haaretz to access the article. In my view, this article makes a subscription worthwhile in and of itself]. http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-features/.premium-1.585401

Dr. Illouz considers in-depth the concepts of “Ahavat Yisrael – Love for Israel” and “Solidarity for the Jewish people” as well as the ethical and tribal challenges that confront intellectuals in remaining detached from their national or religious group in order to retain their moral integrity.

Dr. Illouz begins her discussion by citing the famous exchange between Gershom Scholem, the great 20^th century scholar of Jewish mysticism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Hannah Arendt, the German Jewish political theorist who covered the Adolph Eichmann trial in Jerusalem in 1961 and who wrote a number of essays about it in The New Yorker and a book entitled Eichmann in Jerusalem.

After their publication Scholem accused Arendt, as a Jew, of

“…not having enough ‘ahavat Yisrael – love for the Jewish nation and people’ …. Instead of displaying what we would have expected from a Jew on such an occasion – undiluted horror at Eichmann’s deeds; unreserved compassion for the moral dilemmas of the Jewish leaders who dealt with the Nazis; solidarity with the State of Israel – Arendt analyzed each one with a cold sense of truth and justice, and blurred the moral terms in which these had been hitherto judged by the public.”

Dr. Illouz goes on to discuss the forces that have influenced contemporary American Jewish identity in light of the Holocaust, the establishment of the State of Israel, American Jewish political advocacy for Israel, and American Jewish organizational politics, all of which have served to embrace a priori the Jewish principle of “Ahavat Yisrael – Love of the people of Israel” as identical with “hyper-solidarity” with the political State of Israel and its policies regardless of their moral imperfections.

This essay lays the ground for us to consider both the nature of Israeli and American Jewish identity since the establishment of the state of Israel and the consequences of Israel having assumed political and governmental power as a nation-state for the first time in two thousand years. It also considers the impact of American Jewish organizational support for Israel and what it means to be pro-Israel.

Good Wishes and Hopes for Pesach – 5774

11 Friday Apr 2014

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American Jewish Life, Ethics, Health and Well-Being, Holidays, Israel and Palestine, Jewish Identity, Social Justice

This will be my final blog before Pesach begins, and I want to take the opportunity to wish all of you a season of renewal and joy.

May your Seders be punctuated with hope, enveloped by family and good friends, open to strangers and people in need of material and spiritual uplift, filled with prayers for justice and peace for our people, for the Palestinians, Syrians, Ukrainians, Venezuelans, Sudanese, Congolese, Egyptians, Iraqis, Afghanis, and all peoples suffering under the reality of and threat of violence and living with injustice.

I pray as well that all who are suffering from addictions and abuse of every kind find wholeness and relief from their wounds, and those suffering from illness and chronic pain find a way to overcome.

As Jews, we are a people of hope, not false hope, but a deeper kind of hope based in the unity of our people am Yisrael, the unity of humankind and the recognition that each human being belongs to each other. Our faith calls upon us to seek holistic and holy ways of being with each other and with the “other” with whom we live.

As a Jew and an ohev am u-M’dinat Yisrael, I have not given up on the current Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. I believe they will continue not only because there is too much to lose for Israel, the Palestinians and the United States if they end, but because in the Middle East maximum demands and extremist posturing usually precede breakthroughs. We will, of course, have to wait and see.

I wish for President Obama, Secretary Kerry, Prime Minister Netanyahu, and President Abbas not just the fortitude to carry on, but the wisdom and courage to find a way through the morass of issues that need resolution and compromise.

Jeffrey Goldberg has written a fine piece in the Bloomberg View on the dynamics of the current negotiations that is worth reading – “When Will Netanyahu Hail Himself to the Cross” (don’t let the title deter you from reaching his words) http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-04-10/when-will-netanyahu-nail-himself-to-the-cross.

Shabbat shalom v’Chag Pesach Sameach, biv’racha u-b’ahavah,

Rabbi John Rosove