“Aspirational Zionism”: A Look at the Future of Zionism – By Rabbi John Rosove, 5/12/2020

This piece was posted today on the Reform Judaism Blog (See link below). It is an edited letter from my most recent book Why Israel [and its Future] Matters – Letters of a Liberal Rabbi to his Children and the Millennial Generation with an Afterword by Daniel and David Rosove [my sons] (New Jersey: Ben Yehuda Press, 2019).

My book has been endorsed by a number of Israeli and North American Jewish leaders, including:

“Morally unflinching, intellectually courageous, Rabbi John Rosove has provided us with a desperately needed map for how to navigate the growing tensions between progressives and the state of Israel. By calling out Israel when it has done wrong and calling out its critics when they exaggerate Israel’s flaws, Rabbi Rosove echoes the ancient prophets, who criticized their people but always loved and defended them. This thoughtful and passionate book reminds us that commitment to Israel and to social justice are essential components of a healthy Jewish identity.” –Yossi Klein Halevi, Senior Fellow, Shalom Hartman Institute, Jerusalem

“Rabbi John Rosove’s letters to his sons, published in this volume, are tender and loving, but also gripping and challenging, as he grapples with modern Israel, Jewish identity, relations between Israelis and Diaspora Jews, and perhaps most significantly whether ‘you can maintain your ethical and moral values while at the same time being supporters of the Jewish state despite its flaws and imperfections.’ Rosove pulls no punches, laying out both the imperfections and the ethical choices surrounding Israel and American Jews. But he also manifests a passionate love for Israel and what one scholar has called ‘values-based aspirational Zionism.’ This book will raise as many questions for Rosove’s sons as it answers; it is a book that many of us wish we had written for our own children.” – Daniel Kurtzer, S. Daniel Abraham Professor in Middle Eastern Policy Studies, Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Former US Ambassador to Israel (2001-2005) and US Ambassador to Egypt (1997-2001)

“What a marvelous and refreshing book! A liberal social activist and committed Reform Jew, Rosove makes the case to Jewish millennials that they need Israel as a source of pride, connection, and Jewish renewal, and Israel needs them for the liberal values that they can bring to the Zionist enterprise. In its call for “aspirational Zionism,” the book is honest and tough about Israel’s flaws, but optimistic about the country’s direction and filled with practical strategies for promoting change. This is a no-nonsense, straight-talking work, intellectually rigorous but deeply personal. And most important, it demonstrates in compelling prose to young Jews—and Jews of all ages—that Jewish life cannot be sustained without Israel at its core.” –Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie, President Emeritus, Union for Reform Judaism

“A moving love letter to Israel from a rabbinic leader who refuses to give into despair, but instead recommits to building a democratic Israel that lives up to the vision of its founders.” –Rabbi Jill Jacobs, Executive Director, Terua: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights

“Rabbi Rosove’s truths reach minds and open hearts. I urge each and every individual who feels anyway connected to the Jewish people, to ponder this powerful assemblage of candid, insightful messages which address Israel as a nation, and as a notion. A must read.” -Isaac Herzog, Chairman of the Executive of the Jewish Agency for Israel

The book is available on Amazon.

https://reformjudaism.org/blog/2020/05/12/aspirational-zionism-look-future-zionism?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20200513&utm_campaign=Feature&utm_content=2020_5_13

 

 

“How a U.S. Jewish group’s leadership race became mired in Islamophobia” – 972+ Magazine

An umbrella organization’s heated election shows how right-wing, bigoted assessments of ‘Jewishness’ are becoming normalized in our community.

By Mik Moore – May 11, 2020

Though the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations (COP) wields limited power, it’s leadership has a voice allegedly representing the organized American Jewish community, but that voice over the years has increasingly not represented the mainstream of the American Jewish community with respect to Israel, the occupation, and the settlement enterprise in the West Bank.

This year, the long-time right-wing, male, and hawkish Chair of the Board, Malcolm Hoenlein, retired and  the Chair of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid society, Dianne Lob, a finance executive at the investment management firm AllianceBernstein, was elected COP’s new Board Chair. That election did not sit well with Morton Klein, the one-man extremist right-wing Islamophobic leader of the Zionist Organization of America, who challenged Lob’s election.

This article in 972+ presents a fair overview of the politics inside the COP that reflects the schisms within the organized American Jewish community.

https://www.972mag.com/conference-presidents-american-jews-islamophobia/

Netanyahu’s Annexation Plan Is a Threat to Israel’s National Security, Foreign Policy

Anyone interested in Israel’s long-term security and viability as a Jewish democratic state should be against Israel’s unilateral annexation of any part of the West Bank that has been given a green light starting on July 1 per the new Israeli coalition agreement.

In this important article in Foreign Policy, former Israeli security leaders Gadi Shamni, Tamir Pardo and Ami Ayalon write,

“Just as the coronavirus pandemic and collapsing oil prices have contributed to concerns about internal stability in the Gulf monarchies, these regimes will also be forced to preempt public anger by reacting publicly to Israeli annexation lest their adversaries—primarily Iran and Turkey—use their inaction to undermine those regimes’ popular legitimacy. Risking all that for the annexation of territory over which Israel already has full security control makes no sense. Both Israel and the United States need to reconsider before the damage is done. This reckless move won’t just have adverse consequences for Israel’s security; it also has implications for Israel’s future as a Jewish democracy. The U.S. Jewish leaders and the members of Congress emphasized the danger to the bipartisan U.S. support it has long enjoyed—another important pillar in Israel’s national security equation.”

Ami Ayalon, a retired admiral, is a former director of the Shin Bet, former commander in chief of the Israeli Navy, and the author of the forthcoming book Friendly Fire. He is a member of Commanders for Israel’s Security.

Tamir Pardo is a former director of the Mossad. He is a member of Commanders for Israel’s Security.

Gadi Shamni, a retired major general, is a former commander of the Israel Defense Forces Central Command, military secretary to former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, and a former defense attache in the United States. He is a member of Commanders for Israel’s Security.

Do read the entire article. These three Israeli security officials do not wear rosy-colored glasses. They are hard-nosed analysts with years of high-level security experience.

Forward this article to anyone who cares about Israel, especially those who think Trump’s so-called “Plan of the Century” is a good thing for the Jewish State. It most assuredly is not. PM Netanyahu and his right-wing coalition partners are moving as quickly as possible to begin annexation of parts of the West Bank before the American presidential election and an expected Biden Presidency that would begin in January, 2021.

Joe Biden, as opposed to Donald Trump, understands and has stated publicly and clearly that the only solution that preserves Israeli security, democracy, and Jewish character is a negotiated two-states for two peoples resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Biden would likely stop Israeli annexation dreams and thereby preserve the possibility, however difficult, for a negotiated two-state resolution of the conflict.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/04/23/netanyahus-annexation-plan-is-a-threat-to-israels-national-security/

 

Heritage – by Hayim Gouri – Yom Hashoah 2020

Five years ago, I led a Jewish tour of a number of Central European cities with members of my congregation. As historic and meaningful as those cities are in Jewish and European history, the ghosts of millions of murdered Jews haunted me everywhere. The memorials for the Jewish victims overwhelmed me with sadness at our people’s enormous loss in that darkest era in Jewish history.

The Akedat Yitzhak (The Binding of Isaac – Genesis 22) came to hold new meaning for me since that tour, powerfully captured here by Hayim Gouri in his poem “Heritage.”

“The ram came last of all. And Abraham / did not know that it came to answer the / boy’s question* – first of his strength when his day was on the wane.

The old man raised his head. Seeing / that it was no dream and that the angel / stood there – the knife slipped from his hand.

The boy, released from his bonds, / saw his father’s back.

Isaac, as the story goes, was not / sacrificed. He lived for many years, / saw what pleasure had to offer, / until his eyesight dimmed.

But he bequeathed that hour to his offspring. / They are born with a knife in their hearts.”

זכרונם לברכה

*In Genesis 22:7 Isaac says, “Here are the fire and the wood, but where is the young beast for the sacrifice?”

Hayim Gouri, a renowned Hebrew poet (1923-2018), served in the Palmach, the Haganah and the Israeli Defense Forces. After the war he was sent to Europe where he visited Displaced Persons’ Camps. He wrote of the ordeal for survivors in seeking to reconstruct their lives in the so-called normal world, in the Hebrew novel, The Chocolate Deal, New York, 1958.

From Holocaust Poetry, Compiled and Introduced by Hilda Schiff, (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 1995), p. 5.

 

 

Israel Philharmonic Orchestra Wishing the Jewish World – Hag Sameach

Listen and distribute. If this doesn’t lift your spirit – well… I don’t know what will.

Hag Pesach Sameach! https://www.facebook.com/israel.philharmonic/videos/2709305146052088/?v=2709305146052088

 

 

 

Reflections on this Passover – 2020

Dear All:

This is as difficult a year to celebrate Pesach as any of us born after WWII has ever known; but this year is not an anomaly in Jewish history. We’ve known as a people years of suffering before that the Haggadah itself documents in Midrash, rite, ritual, and song. As we do every year, we ask especially now what is the meaning of Passover.

The traditional Haggadah has a statement inserted during times of great oppression that calls upon God to “pour out Your wrath” upon the enemies of our people who caused us such suffering. Many modern Haggadot, however, deleted this reference and replaced it with “pour out Your love” upon Your people and all peoples, especially upon those suffering from oppression, illness, and want.

That being said, it’s entirely appropriate for us to be angry at those federal, state, and local government officials who have been derelict in their duty to follow the advice of medical experts and scientists who early on advocated taking aggressive steps to stem the tide of this pandemic and thereby protect, as much as possible, the well-being of our citizenry. Though many of our nation’s governors, mayors, health-care professionals, first-responders, and community leaders have stepped up to protect us, history will judge harshly those who failed to be the leaders we so desperately need.

Our Seders should include prayers for the healing of every person across the globe who is ill with this virus. Here is the shortest prayer in the Hebrew Bible (Numbers 12:13) that Moses offered on behalf of Miriam who had been struck with leprosy – “El na r’fa na la – Please God heal her.” We can put it into the plural for all those afflicted – “El na r’fa na lahem – Please God heal them.”

This year our Seders likely will be the smallest gatherings we’ve ever experienced. But we can still  celebrate our festival of freedom and renewal, be grateful for our families, friends, and tradition of hope, and say dayeinu – that may be enough.

Hag Pesach Sameach.

Tainted Wheat, Shabbat Hagadol, and Rachmanim b’nai Rachmanim

Rebbe Nachman of Breslov (1772-1810, Ukraine) tells the story of a wise king who told his prime minister, “I see in the stars that everyone who eats from this year’s grain harvest is going to go mad. What do you think we should do?”

The prime minister suggested they put aside a stock of good grain so they wouldn’t have to eat from the tainted grain.

“But it’ll be impossible to set aside enough good grain for everyone,” the king objected. “And if we put away a stock for just the two of us, we’ll be the only ones who will be sane. Everyone else will be mad, and they’ll look at us and think that we’re the mad ones. No. We too will have to eat from this year’s grain. But we’ll both put a sign on our heads. I’ll look at your forehead, and you’ll look at mine. And when we see the sign, at least we’ll remember that we are mad.” (Source – Sipurim Niflaim)

This story describes well what can happen to normal people who are assaulted constantly by the tainted grain of stupidity, ignorance, incompetence, and cruelty. They either assume these qualities themselves, or to protect themselves, they disengage and become indifferent to truth, competence, and human kindness.

I’ve thought often of Rebbe Nachman’s story these last 3 plus years of Trump’s presidency. The story suggests the only way that we can understand why Trump’s political base continues to support him and perpetuates his ignorance, denial of truth, and immorality.

Thankfully, the mainstream media, many of our nation’s governors and mayors, scientists, and health care professionals are telling the truth about Covid19, and we are able to witness the goodness, kindness, courage, and decency of so many everyday Americans, most especially those on the front lines helping the sick and dying. That’s the good news, that most Americans did not eat the tainted grain, that as a nation we remain compassionate not only to those we know among our family and friends, but of others.

This Saturday is considered one of the two most important Sabbaths in the Jewish calendar cycle – the other is the Sabbath that falls between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur known as Shabbat Teshuvah (“Sabbath of Repentance”).

This Shabbat is called Shabbat Hagadol – the “Great Sabbath” – as it comes just before we celebrate Passover, a holiday that focuses our people’s attention on the importance of human freedom and the virtue of nurturing compassion in our ourselves and in the hearts of our children.

The Jewish people are traditionally called rachmanim b’nai rachmanim – compassionate children of compassionate parents – and so we are taught to care not only about each other, our families, and our people, but all people. That is who we are. And that is who Americans are. Thus, no tainted grain ought to corrupt us.

Shabbat Shalom and Chag Pesach Sameach.

 

 

 

Today – March 11 – is the final day to vote “Reform” in the World Zionist Congress election

Dear Friends:

If you have voted Reform in the World Zionist Congress elections already. Thank you. If members of your extended household have also voted – GREAT! If you or they have not voted (every Jew over the age of 18 is eligible to vote), I ask you to vote now for “Reform” in the World Zionist Congress election.

Here is the link to register and vote – www.ZionistElection.org – Simply follow all prompts (The Reform and Reconstructionist slate is #2). It will take you 90 seconds to register and vote. The $7.50 charge (over 30 years – $5 under 30 years) is an administrative charge only. Please forward this to your children and grandchildren over the age of 18.

I am a candidate for the Congress and I hope to be a delegate in the next World Zionist Congress in October in Jerusalem.

Your vote for the Reform ticket is an important way to influence policies in line with our liberal Jewish values in the WZC (religious pluralism, democracy, LGBTQ rights, women’s rights, a shared society with Arab Israeli citizens) and to assure funding for the Reform movement’s rabbis, congregations, and social justice causes in the State of Israel.

Please click on the link now and vote. I thank you in advance.

John

 

March 11 is the Final Day to Vote Reform in the World Zionist Congress Elections

If you have voted Reform in the World Zionist Congress elections already. Thank you.

If members of your extended household have also voted – GREAT!

If you or they have not voted (every Jew over the age of 18 is eligible to vote), I ask you to vote now for “Reform” in the World Zionist Congress. Here is the link to register and vote – www.ZionistElection.org – Simply follow all prompts. It will take you 90 seconds. The $7.50 charge is an administrative charge only. Please forward this to your children and grandchildren over the age of 18.

Here is vital information about the World Zionist Congress and why it is so important that we as Reform and Reconstructionist American Jews vote en masse for our Reform slate in this election.

What is the World Zionist Congress?

The World Zionist Congress (WZC) is the World Zionist Organization’s (WZO) legislative body (the parliament of the Jewish people) that meets every five years in Jerusalem. The Congress is the only body in which all of World Jewry is represented democratically, and, therefore, is our only American Jewish democratic opportunity to influence Israeli society. The larger our Reform vote in this election in the American Zionist movement the more influence we will have as American Reform Jews in Israeli society and the more funds our Israeli Reform movement will receive from the WZO.

What do the World Zionist Congress (WZC) and World Zionist Organization (WZO) do?

• The WZC determines policy on a wide range of important issues in Israel, designates its course of action, and chooses the leadership of the World Zionist Organization.
• The WZC makes decisions that affect the status of Reform and progressive Jews in Israel and across the world.
• The WZO allocates considerable funding available to Progressive Reform Jews in Israel!!!
• Our Israeli Reform movement (called “The Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism – IMPJ”) currently receives $4 million annually from the WZO based on our success in the last WZC election five years ago. The Israeli Reform movement receives no funds from the government of Israel. The government, however, gives hundreds of millions of Israeli shekels to Israeli Orthodox and Ultra-Orthodox synagogues and yeshivot. If we increase our Reform presence in the WZC with a larger vote total this year in the American Zionist Movement delegation we can increase funding substantially to our Israel Reform movement, our Israeli Reform congregations, our Israeli Reform rabbis, and social justice programs that our movement in Israel fights on behalf of religious pluralism, civil marriage, conversion rights, women’s and LGBTQ rights, justice for asylum seekers, poverty, and a shared society with Israeli-Arab citizens.

I’m proud of the strength and diversity of the Reform and Reconstructionist Slate, and I’m asking you to help me get out the vote and support egalitarianism, pluralism, and peace in Israel.

I am a candidate on the Reform slate and I will have the opportunity to travel to Israel and be a delegate in the World Zionist Congress in October 2020.

You can read the Reform and Reconstructionist Judaism platform here. 

Polls are open NOW through March 11, 2020. Please vote and ask every Jew in your household over the age of 18 to vote along with you. Please pass this blog along to anyone, family and friends, who you believe will be moved to vote.

Thank you in advance.

Rabbi John Rosove

#VoteReformWZC – www.ZionistElection.org

 

AIPAC AND ALL PRO-ISRAEL LEADERS MUST OPPOSE NETANYAHU’S DISASTROUS SETTLEMENT PLANS IN AND AROUND EAST JERUSALEM

February 25, 2020

J Street calls on the leadership of AIPAC and of the entire American pro-Israel movement to join us in opposing Prime Minister Netanyahu’s plans to build thousands upon thousands of units of new housing in and around East Jerusalem. Announcing these projects — specifically in this most significant and consequential of areas — signals a clear intent to demolish the chances of diplomatically resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and of creating a viable Palestinian state alongside a secure Israel.

For decades, AIPAC, American Jewish leaders and elected officials have been briefed in depth on what it would one day take to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They have been shown the significance of areas like E-1 and Givat Hamatos. They’ve been told by retired military commanders, urban planners and peace negotiators that these projects constitute red lines that Israel must not cross if it hopes to keep the possibility of a viable state of Palestine alive.

And for two plus decades, Israeli governments have listened not only to the experts, but to the US and the other governments of the world. While some have proceeded with other very harmful settlement expansions, they have — until now — refrained from crossing these ultimate red lines.

This week, one week before the latest election and three weeks before the start of the prime minister’s corruption trial, the Israeli government has decided to cross every remaining red line all at once.

With the sequential announcements of intent to build in the areas of E-1, Givat Hamatos/Har Homa and Atarot, Prime Minister Netanyahu has painted a clear picture of what it looks like when a government of Israel no longer even feigns interest in resolving its conflict with the Palestinians, is unbound by the rule of law and is given an unquestioning green light for its plans by the United States. With the full blessing of the Trump White House, the government of Israel has outlined its plan to forever be the only sovereign state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea and to confine Palestinians to small, unconnected enclaves of limited, stateless “autonomy.”

Our question is what those gathering under the AIPAC banner next week will do — after claiming for years to support a two-state solution. As importantly, what will American political leaders who have suggested that going to AIPAC simply expresses bipartisan support for the state of Israel say? Will they object to the prime minister’s plans, knowing full well that the course he has set is itself destroying bipartisan support for Israel?

What a sad moment this is for the state of Israel, for the Palestinian people and for Americans who have poured their heart and soul into helping Israel be a democratic state and a Jewish home of which their children and grandchildren would be proud. What a dangerous moment this is for Israelis as their desperate prime minister cynically places his own political survival ahead of the interests and security of his country.

If the pro-Israel establishment fails to respond — if instead they stand and cheer for the US and Israeli governments that are facilitating these moves — they will bear considerable responsibility for the future of perpetual occupation, deteriorating democracy and unending conflict that Israel faces in the years ahead. If we want to achieve a different, better future, now is the time to speak out and take action. Announcing these projects signals a clear intention to demolish the chances of diplomatically resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and of creating a viable Palestinian state alongside a secure Israel.

AIPAC and All Pro-Israel Leaders Must Oppose Netanyahu’s Disastrous Settlement Plans In And Around East Jerusalem. Announcing these projects signals a clear intention to demolish the chances of diplomatically resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and of creating a viable Palestinian state alongside a secure Israel.