The Paris Tragedy – Religious Liberty in Israel – The Troubled Obama-Netanyahu Marriage

Tags

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

I recommend the following three important articles published this past week, all of which add insight in these troubled times.

1. Five Lessons From the Paris Tragedy – Times of Israel and the Algemeiner – David Harris of the AJC important lessons from the terrorist attack on France this past week.https://www.algemeiner.com/2015/11/15/five-lessons-from-the-paris-tragedy/

2. Netanyahu, Don’t Surrender to ultra-Orthodox Ultimatums – Haaretz‎ – Rabbi Eric Yoffie challenges PM Netanyahu to stand his ground before Israel’s ultra-Orthodox Rabbis regarding religious equality and diversity in the state of Israel. http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.685825

3. Scenes From a Marriage, Huffington Post –Amir Tibon and Tal Shalev offer an in-depth dissection of the difficult relationship between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu. http://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/bibi-obama/

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Sarah Zoabi – A Brave Israeli-Arab and Proud Zionist Speaks Out in Support of Israel

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Israel and Palestine, Israel Zionism, Social Justice, Women's Rights

These two videos of Sarah Zoabi, an Israeli-Arab citizen from Nazareth, are eloquent expressions of her Arab-Israeli-Zionist identity, by which she means that the Jewish people have a right to a state of their own. They are extraordinary examples of courage in speaking out as an Arab-Israeli in an environment in which she, like her son Mohammed who has done as she has done, will likely receive death threats. Sarah believes that for an Arab to live as a citizen in the state of Israel is “paradise.”

She explains that Israeli Arab citizens enjoy freedoms in the democratic state of Israel that do not exist in any other Arab country ruled by dictators. She acknowledges, as well, that Israeli society is not perfect explaining that “perfect countries exist in theory and not reality.”

Sarah calls upon all Israeli minorities to join together and publicly express their support for their democratic state of Israel.

Kol hakavod to you, Sarah. The Jewish people needs more people like you to speak out.

https://www.facebook.com/theisraelproject/videos/10154262718827316/

https://www.facebook.com/mirilavi/videos/10154436057032715/

Kotel and LGBT Resolutions Pass WZC Committee – Report From Jerusalem #4

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American Jewish Life, Ethics, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Social Justice, Women's Rights

It’s bad enough that Israel is being attacked by terrorists, now mostly in the West Bank and less in Jerusalem after Israel’s government imposed strong security measures separating East Jerusalem Arab neighborhoods from West Jerusalem Israeli neighborhoods. What is perhaps even more searing to the Jewish soul is the way some Jewish delegates at the World Zionist Congress behave towards their fellow delegates.

We of ARZENU (the world Reform Zionist movement) were warned that yelling and delaying tactics would be likely in committee meetings and in the plenary sessions, especially when discussing contentious resolutions. The warnings were prescient. Almost from the beginning of our committee meetings one Mizrahi (the nationalist right-wing religious delegation) delegate starting screaming from the moment the Chair, Rabbi Lea Muehlstein of the United Kingdom (an ARZENU delegate) opened the session.

The rules of debate in committees according to the WZC are determined exclusively by the chair. Roberts Rules of Order do not apply. Some chairs are more fair than others. The chair of this session gave all voices equal time, and when she thought the issue had been completely discussed she called for a vote.

The two most contentious resolutions were those concerning the “Establishment of an Egalitarian Prayer Space at the Western Wall,” introduced by ARZENU, and “Recognition of Support for the LGBT Community,” also introduced by ARZENU.

Jewish Agency Head Natan Sharansky, the Women of the Wall (WOW), the Conservative and Reform movements, and the Chief Rabbi of the Wall have already agreed that a third section in the Western Wall site would be established equal in size, funding and visibility for a dignified space of worship for the Conservative and Reform streams and for Women of the Wall. This WZC resolution was meant only to confirm what the Israeli government and interested parties have already determined, and to push forward towards the realization of this new prayer space.

After debate the resolution passed with a substantial majority. When I saw my friend and Chair of WOW, Anat Hoffman and asked how she felt about the good news, she said:

“John – nothing has happened to move this matter forward in the government over the past year and more, this resolution notwithstanding, and given the controversy over the Waqf charge that the status quo on the Temple Mount is being questioned, and given that the area we want for the egalitarian prayer site is only 50 yards from Al Aqsa, Israel isn’t going to touch this issue now.”

So much for that.

The LGBT resolution was the next especially contentious fight. The resolution commended the Education Minister, Naftali Bennett (the head of Mizrahi faction) for announcing an increase of support for the Israeli LGBT community. The resolution called on him to ensure adequate funding for “Israel Gay Youth” and other LGBT organizations so as to secure the role of members of the LGBT community within Israeli society. It also called on Minister Bennett to ensure that all Israeli students (and in particular in the Orthodox school systems) take part in programming that promotes diversity, inclusion and equality for the LGBT community, to support equal rights for the LBGT community in all Zionist entities and to encourage their activities within the national Institutions.

The right wing parties in our committee were strongly against this resolution and began immediately to challenge key elements of it. Some began a campaign of yelling and screaming to prevent us from having a reasoned debate ending in a vote. Orthodox delegates introduced several amendments, only one of which was accepted by ARZENU.

The most important amendment, however, we refused to accept because it gave license to Orthodox schools to choose to accept or to pass on tolerance education.

All the while, the disruption did not stop for a moment, and Rabbi Muehlstein finally ruled that anyone screaming would not have his/her votes be counted.

At last, a vote was taken and the resolution passed with about 35 votes, and 35 abstentions. Those in Mizrahi and Likud factions who negotiated with ARZENU on an amendment on which we found compromise language, in the end refused to vote “nay.” Indeed, they never intended to vote for a resolution no matter what it said. They only wanted to delay and water down the original resolution.

At one point, five of the most badly behaving delegates actually charged our table. I happened to be sitting two people away from Rabbi Muehlstein. I am not a violent person, but I was prepared to jump between them and Lea to protect her from their physical assault. It should be noted that she was a paragon of patience and brought dignity to the proceedings and to the ARZENU delegation.

I left the meeting feeling as though I needed a shower. Though justice was done in the resolution, we also witnessed the dark side of Zionist politics.
I heard that other committee meetings went far more smoothly and with good behavior by all. For me who attended the WZC for the first time, the bullying behavior of the right-wing did not have the intended effect of intimidating us. It had the opposite effect of my bearing down and committing to fight the good fight respectfully on behalf of compassion, justice and human rights within the World Zionist Congress.

See my earlier post titled “Non-Stop Zionism.”

The Parliament of the Jewish People to Convene in Jerusalem – October 20-23

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American Jewish Life, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Social Justice, Women's Rights

This month I will be attending the World Zionist Congress (WZC) meeting in Jerusalem (October 20-23) as a delegate of the Association of Reform Zionists of America (ARZA), representing 1.4 million American Reform Jews from 900 Reform synagogues and communities nationwide.

Known as “The Parliament of the Jewish people” this will be the 37th meeting of the WZC since Theodor Herzl convened it for the first time in Basel, Switzerland in 1897. Though mandated by its constitution to meet every five years, for a number of reasons the WZC has not held elections since 2005, so this will be a meeting of some significance.

Given the challenges and changes taking place in the Jewish world today, the WZC will meet in the wake of Secretary of State Kerry’s failed Middle East peace efforts and following successful negotiations between the P5+1 nations and Iran to stop Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

In this upcoming WZC conference, 500 delegates representing the Jewish people world-wide will debate cutting-edge issues confronting the state of Israel and the Jewish people. The 500 delegates are chosen based on the following demographic formula: 38% are from Israel and are divided along Israeli political party lines as determined by the results of the last Israeli election earlier this year; 29% come from American Zionist organizations according to the last American Zionist Congress elections, also earlier this year, and the remaining 33% come from other countries of the Jewish Diaspora.

The American delegation is composed of 145 delegates out of the total of 500: ARZA (Reform movement = 56), Mercaz (Conservative Movement = 25), Religious Zionists (Orthodox AMIT, B’nei Akiva and RZA = 24), American Forum for Israel (Russian speaking Jews = 10), HATIKVAH (Progressive Zionists = 8), Zionist Organization of America (far right-wing Zionists 7), Zionist Spring (7), World Sephardic Organization (4), Alliance for New Zionist Vision (2), Green Israel (1), and Herut North America (1).

There is a natural alliance (though not yet formal) within the American delegation on many issues between ARZA (the largest vote-getter in the American Zionist election), Mercaz, HATIKVAH, and Green Israel for a majority of 87 of the 145 (60%). The Israeli delegation includes natural partners with ARZA and ARZENU (the international progressive/Reform Zionist movement) of representatives from the Labor-Zionist Union, Meretz, and Yesh Atid. Because ARZA was the largest vote-getter of the American delegation, we are in a position to chair a number of important committees and assure funding for projects benefiting Israel’s Reform movement (the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism – IMPJ).

As goes the Jewish world, so too will those views be reflected in the WZC as a whole, and strong debate on virtually every issue is expected.

Resolutions will be presented, debated and voted upon on many cutting-edge issues including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, settlement growth, Israel’s relationship with world Jewry and vice versa, the status of democracy and religious pluralism in Israel, egalitarian prayer at the Kotel (Western Wall), the religious rights of Israel’s non-Orthodox Jews, the rights of Israel’s LGBT community, and current Israeli policy concerning asylum seekers from Africa and Syria. Many of the resolutions to be presented originated with ARZENU, the International Federation of Reform and Progressive Religious Zionists.

Our ARZA delegation, in conjunction with ARZENU (as well as our natural allies in the Israeli and international delegations), is in a strong position to make a significant impact on the future of the World Zionist Organization, which means that we will be working hard to assure the continued growth of democracy, religious pluralism and diversity in the state of Israel for all its citizens, religious streams and those under its control (i.e. Palestinians living in East Jerusalem and the West Bank who are not Israeli citizens).

I will file reports from Jerusalem on this blog as the pre-conference deliberations with ARZENU begin on October 18, and upon the commencement of the WZC itself on October 20. Upon my return I will also file a longer report for The Los Angeles Jewish Journal.

For those who live in Los Angeles, I invite you to an early morning briefing at Temple Israel of Hollywood upon my return. We will meet on Wednesday morning (8-9 AM), October 28.

Note: To understand the mission and action statement of the Association of Reform Zionists of America, see the ARZA Website at http://www.ARZA.org and http://www.arza.org/about-us-our-mission. ARZA, as well as its parent body, the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ), supports a negotiated two-state final resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as being in Israel’s best interests as a Jewish and secure democratic state.

The Challenge of Contemporary Israel – What to do about Asylum Seekers?

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Ethics, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Quote of the Day, Social Justice

The establishment of the state of Israel fundamentally changed the situation of the Jew in the world, who we had been and who we would become. For most of the past 3000 years Jews lived in exile, subject to the rule of others, without national sovereignty and power of our own, without the enormous challenges that come with ruling a nation.

Today, Syrian refugees are desperate to find safe harbor outside of their tortured land, and many want to come to Israel for asylum.

Israel has been tested already over the last number of years about how to accommodate 50,000 Eritrean and Sudanese Refugees who had crossed the border into Israel from Africa seeking asylum from some of the worst dictators in the world.

Every nation has the right and duty to protect its borders. No nation as small as Israel can be expected to be the home for every suffering human being.  However, as we Jews know only too well what it means to flee persecution and violence, we might expect that the government of the state of Israel, of all nations given our most recent history of being a hunted people, would have in place a compassionate and reasonable policy to welcome refugees and asylum seekers that could enable these stateless people to live with dignity until conditions in their nations of origin change and they can go home without fear.

Rabbi Dow Marmur put the challenge succinctly this week as he reflected upon a new wave of asylum seekers from Syria seeking refuge in Israel:

“We Jews found it easy to preach morality when we had no power to put it into practice. Now with a state of our own and the paramount need to protect it, national interests seem to take precedence. The challenge of contemporary Israel is how to live up to the lofty teachings of Judaism while responding to the challenges of a modern democratic sovereign state surrounded by hostile forces.”

Calling Donald Trump Out for the Bigot and Demagogue That He Is

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American Politics and Life, Ethics, Quote of the Day, Social Justice, Women's Rights

Finally, someone is taking Donald Trump seriously and not as “entertainment” in this pre-primary season.

Tom Friedman (“Bonfire of the Assets, With Trump Lighting Matches” – August 26, NY Times) called Donald Trump out as the intolerant bigot that he is.

More than any other political figure since Joe McCarthy, Trump is second to none in his insensitivity and lack of empathy for other human beings.

“You’ve Been Trumped,” is a 2011 documentary by the British filmmaker Anthony Baxter that documents Trump’s construction of a luxury golf course on a beach in Balmedie, Aberdeenshire, Scotland and the ensuing battles Trump provoked between the local residents, legal and governmental authorities. Trump effectively destroyed that community for the people who lived there.

Tom Friedman wrote of Trump’s campaign this week:

“And now we have Trump shamelessly exploiting this issue [illegal immigration]… He’s calling for an end to the 14th Amendment’s birthright principle, which guarantees citizenship to anyone born here, and also for a government program to round up all 11 million illegal immigrants and send them home — an utterly lunatic idea that Trump dismisses as a mere “management” problem. Like lemmings, many of the other G.O.P. presidential hopefuls just followed Trump over that cliff.

This is not funny anymore. This is not entertaining. Donald Trump is not cute. His ugly nativism shamefully plays on people’s fears and ignorance. It ignores bipartisan solutions already on the table, undermines the civic ideals that make our melting pot work in ways no European or Asian country can match (try to become a Japanese) and tampers with the very secret of our sauce — pluralism, that out of many we make one.

Every era spews up a Joe McCarthy type who tries to thrive by dividing and frightening us, and today his name is Donald Trump.”

I have been asking politically savvy people whether they think Trump could become the Republican nominee for President, and everyone believes this to be impossible, that he is so ignorant and ill-informed about policy and substance that it is only a matter of time before the public realizes that there is nothing there there.

I pray they are right, but I confess to being very worried that they are wrong as we watch Trump’s ratings grow (24% now of the Republican primary voters), and his savvy management of his image as a truth-telling take-no-prisoners business guy whose “politically incorrect” statements of “fact” attract more and more angry, bigoted and frustrated people to his campaign. Yes, the boil that is Donald Trump could be lanced and he could exit the political scene at some point in the near future, but I’m not counting on it.

Tom Friedman was right to reference the Joseph McCarthy era in relation to Trump. It can happen again. As a reminder, here is an account from the US Senate History of the McCarthy hearings of June 9, 1954 when the pivotal turning point of the McCarthy hysteria was finally reached after several years of McCarthy’s attack on thousands of Americans:

“…The army hired Boston lawyer Joseph Welch to make its case. At a session on June 9, 1954, McCarthy charged that one of Welch’s attorneys had ties to a Communist organization. As an amazed television audience looked on, Welch responded with the immortal lines that ultimately ended McCarthy’s career: “Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness.” When McCarthy tried to continue his attack, Welch angrily interrupted, “Let us not assassinate this lad further, senator. You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency?”

Overnight, McCarthy’s immense national popularity evaporated. Censured by his Senate colleagues, ostracized by his party, and ignored by the press, McCarthy died three years later, 48 years old and a broken man.”

Why is this not happening in the Republican Party at the very least?

I’m reminded of what William Butler Yeats said as a possible explanation:

“Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, the blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned; the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”

And so, what ought we to do about this?

Every journalist, every editorial page of every newspaper in the country, every political leader, every decent American ought to be calling Trump out for the bigot and demagogue that he is before he can do any more damage to the American body politic and American democracy itself.

“Israel and the ‘A’ Word”

Tags

Ethics, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Social Justice

Bradley Burston is a senior editor of the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz in which he writes a regular column he calls “A Special Place in Hell.”

I have known Brad for 45 years. We were part of a Zionist student group at UC Berkeley, and we recently reconnected at a J Street national conference in Washington, D.C. that he was covering for Haaretz. He was a mensch when I knew him, and he still is.

Last week Brad wrote a column he titled “It’s Time to Admit It. Israeli Policy Is What It Is: Apartheid,” and he began this way:

“What I’m about to write will not come easily for me.

I used to be one of those people who took issue with the label of apartheid as applied to Israel. I was one of those people who could be counted on to argue that, while the country’s settlement and occupation policies were anti-democratic and brutal and slow-dose suicidal, the word apartheid did not apply.

I’m not one of those people any more.  Not after the last few weeks….”
http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/a-special-place-in-hell/.premium-1.671538

Brad then detailed the un-democratic and harsh Israeli Military Authority policies in the West Bank, the violent turn the settler movement has taken against Palestinians, and the current Israeli government response. He wrote his article in the wake of the recent bombing by Jewish terrorist settlers (allegedly) of a Palestinian home resulting in the murder of an 18-month old toddler, her father and serious burns suffered by other family members.

I believe the point of Brad’s article is that Israelis are ignoring the inhumane West Bank policies of its government. He wanted to shock people into paying attention.

I cringed. I don’t believe Israel’s West Bank military policy is Apartheid (see below). I’m concerned that the “A” word could serve as a pretext for right-wing Israelis and American Jews to discredit criticism of Israeli policies. I’m worried further still that Brad’s article could become fodder for the guns of the pro-BDS anti-Israel activists in America and around the world who would then claim: “You see – even Israeli journalists believe that Israel is an Apartheid State!”

I emailed the host of TLV1’s “The Promised” podcast, Noah Efron. This weekly hour-long program is among the most thoughtful conversations by Israelis in the English language on Israeli politics, culture and the Jewish world.

Noah Efron is a smart, funny and passionate Israeli, originally from the states, whose day job is being a scientist and Professor at Israel’s Bar Ilan University. His two fellow commentators  originally hail from the US as well and include Don Futterman, the Director of the Moriah Foundation and a writer for Haaretz, and Allison Kaplan Sommer, a journalist who is published in all the world’s leading English language newspapers and periodicals. Listening to these three think out-loud is a weekly pleasure that I eagerly anticipate.

I asked Noah to consider doing a segment on the theme of Brad’s article – Is Israel an Apartheid State? He wrote back within hours to tell me he would. The program was aired this week and was titled “Israel and the ‘A’ Word.” It is a must-listen – 15 minutes only. You can find it  here – http://tlv1.fm/the-promised-podcast/2015/08/20/israel-and-the-a-word/

This segment was exactly what I was looking for – a thoughtful critique of both Israel’s West Bank occupation and whether it is or isn’t Apartheid. All three commentators said it is NOT, but that Israel is on the road to Apartheid.

In my initial email to Noah, I shared with him part of an article I wrote several years ago on the delegitimzation of Israel that appeared in the Journal for Reform Judaism. Here is what I sent him:

In “An open letter to Archbishop Desmond Tutu” by Warren Goldstein, chief rabbi of South Africa, published in the International Jerusalem Post (November 12-18, 2010), Rabbi Goldstein writes, “…Israel has no Population Registration Act, no Group Areas Act, no Mixed Marriages and Immorality act, no Separate Representation of Voters Act, no Separate Amenities Act, no pass laws or any of the myriad apartheid laws. To the contrary, Israel is a vibrant liberal democracy and accords full political, religious and other human rights to all its peoples, including its more than one million Arab citizens, many of whom hold positions of authority including that of cabinet minister, Member of Parliament, and judge at every level, including that of the Supreme Court. All citizens vote on the same roll in regular, multiparty elections. There are Arab parties and Arab members of other parties in Israel’s parliament. Arabs and Jews share all public facilities, including hospitals and malls, buses, cinemas and parks, universities and cultural [venues].”

Palestinian Arabs living in the West Bank, however, are not Israeli citizens as are those living on Israel’s side of the Green Line (i.e. the 1949 armistice lines established after the War of Independence), and they do not enjoy the same protections as do those living in Israel. For them, their fight is and has always been one against occupation. … While the case can be made that Israel’s strong and often harsh security measures imposed on Palestinian Arabs living in the West Bank are a necessary evil in light of terrorism, we cannot ignore the fact that holding this territory for more than 40 years and keeping the residents there under occupation has had a corrupting moral influence on Israeli troops who have served in the West Bank and upon Israel as a whole.”

“Single Jewish Male Seeking Soul Mate” – A Book Review

Tags

American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Ethics, Health and Well-Being, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Jewish-Christian Relations, Social Justice, Stories, Women's Rights

This second moving novel by Letty Cottin Pogrebin is a love story that catches the two protagonists in a clash of cultures and religious identities that reveals how powerfully the past plays upon the present and future.

Cleo is a beautiful African American left-wing feminist talk-show host in New York City and the daughter of a mid-20th century black Baptist preacher who had been mentored and supported by a Jew in the racist south. Upon her father’s untimely death, another kindhearted Jewish family gives Cleo’s mother a desperately needed job and her family a place to live. Cleo consequently has a warm spot in her heart for Jews despite the experiences of many of her African American radio listeners who bear anti-Semitic animus against the Jews they have known as slum-lords.

Zach is a politically liberal Bronx yeshiva-educated atheist child of Holocaust survivors, becomes an ACLU lawyer and does pro-Bono legal work for a nonprofit called “Families of Holocaust Survivors.” Zach’s only sibling was an older brother he never met who, as a toddler, was shot in the head by a Nazi as his parents watched in horror. He feels empathy with the African American situation and is a solid liberal thinker, but he feels duty-bound to honor the promise he made to his dying mother that he would marry a Jew and bring Jewish children into the world not only to assure Jewish continuity but to help replace the 6 million and avenge his brother’s murder.

Cleo and Zach encounter one another in the early 1980s when a Black Preacher and a Rabbi invite them with other New York black and Jewish leaders to restore the Black-Jewish alliance that once existed during the civil rights movement. This occurs as Black-Jewish relations fray in the aftermath of the anti-Semitic rants of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan and Jessie Jackson’s “Hymietown” remark.

Letty Cottin Pogrebin is a veteran writer of eleven books. She is a founding editor of Ms. Magazine, a journalist, political activist, wife, mother, grandmother, and a serious Jew who has spent years participating in dialogue groups with African American, Jewish, Israeli, and Palestinian women. Feminism, liberalism and positive Jewish identification permeate the novel.

Pogrebin’s prose can be deeply moving, such as the novel’s opening paragraph:

“ZACHARIAH ISAAC LEVY grew up in a family of secrets, of conversations cut short by his entrance into a room, of thick-tongued speech and guttural names and the whisper of weeping. His parents spoke in short, stubby sentences, as if words could be used up, and often in a language they refused to translate. From the grammar of their sighs, he came to understand that Yiddish was reserved for matters unspeakable in English and memories too grim for a child’s ear.”

As I neared the end of the novel, I visited a congregant struggling with metastasized cancer who herself is the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, a serious Jew, a fluent Hebrew speaker with strong family ties in Israel, who has devoted her life to furthering justice and enriching Jewish community. Her son is in love with a non-Jewish woman and, though the young woman is wonderful, my friend is tortured by the very issues that are at the core of Pogrebin’s novel. I recommended that she read it because Pogrebin’s perspective could well offer my friend a measure of insight and comfort.

This book raises many questions: ‘What is Judaism?’ ‘Who is a Jew?’ ‘What ought a Jew know and do to enrich one’s own Jewish life and to assure that Judaism, Jewish practice, culture, ethics, and faith carry forward into the next generation?’ ‘What are the challenges that intermarriage brings to Jewish families?’

The book addresses as well the situation of children of survivors and, in light of the present, challenges their obligations to deceased parents who suffered the indignities of the Shoah.

Though Pogrebin does not deal with the question of how one justifies faith in the God of Jewish tradition in light of evil and the suffering of the innocent, nor does she offer a way to affirm Jewish faith in a liberal non-Orthodox context after the Holocaust, she does effectively present the tension between prophetic humanism and tribal particularism as it plays out in Zach’s inner conflict.

At the novel’s conclusion, Pogrebin brings everything together in a n’chemta (i.e. a hopeful and comforting series of teachings presented by Zach’s Orthodox childhood rabbi).

Rabbi Eleazar Goldfarb is a wise, loving and visionary mentor who lives comfortably between the two worlds of Jewish tradition and modernity primarily because he knows exactly who he is and what he believes. He deftly brings essential Jewish teachings to a tortured Zach.

This book is a wonderful read and provocatively challenges past Jewish assumptions in light of contemporary circumstances.

Community note: Letty Cottin Pogrebin will be the guest speaker at Temple Israel of Hollywood in Los Angeles on Friday evening, October 30 during a community Shabbat dinner following Kabbalat Shabbat services. She will discuss the many issues she raises in this novel. The community is invited.

 

I’m Waiting! It’s Time for Bibi and Ruvi to say to Religious Bigotry – Enough! You’re Fired!

Tags

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

It’s enough already. Prime Minister Netanyahu ought to do more than simply condemn the words of the Israeli Minister of the Interior, David Azoulay, who said recently that “there’s a problem” with Reform Jews: “As soon as a Reform Jew stops following the religion of Israel […] I can’t allow myself to say that such a person is a Jew.”

Mr. Azoulay (MK – Shas) is a minister in the government of the state of Israel. The state of Israel, as PM Netanyahu has said clearly is “home to all Jews.” Not only is Bibi right, but 59% of Israel’s Jews agree. They did not intend to elect a religious bigot into the government, and therefore any minister that deliberately does harm to the people of Israel ought not to serve and be dismissed from such service.

I appreciate both PM Netanyahu’s  and President Rivlin’s efforts to affirm the best that is the democratic state of Israel, but neither (in my view) has done enough.

As I indicated in a former blog, Ruvi Rivlin is my 2nd cousin once-removed through his father’s side of the family, the late Yosef Rivlin. He has another cousin who is a Reform Rabbi as well, Rabbi Laura Novak Winer also on his father’s side of the family. But having two Reform Rabbis in the President’s family does not limit this issue to simply being a family affair.

This is a national peoplehood affair, and I would hope that what my cousin President Rivlin has done so wonderfully on behalf of democracy and equal rights for all Arab citizens of Israel, that he will do for the Jewish people as well. We deserve nothing less, and I know that he has the heart and mind to understand and do what is right.

I believe that PM Netanyahu does as well – and so, it is time for him to put the people of Israel first and ahead of the interests of Israel’s right wing ultra-Orthodox movements.

I’m waiting!!!!

See the following two articles in Haaretz and the New York Times on this issue:

1. “Netanyahu rejects minister’s ‘hurtful’ claim Reform Jews can’t be called Jews: Prime Minister summons ultra-Orthodox religious affairs minister following remarks, says they do not reflect position of government and that ‘Israel is home to all Jews.’” By Haaretz | Jul. 7, 2015 | 6:33 PM – http://www.haaretz.com/news/israel/1.664876

2. Israeli Minister Says Reform Jews Are Not Really Jewish – By ISABEL KERSHNER JULY 7, 2015 – http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/08/world/middleeast/israeli-minister-says-reform-jews-are-not-really-jewish.html?_r=0

Note to Justices Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, and Alito – from Thomas Jefferson

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American Jewish Life - Ethics - Poetry - Quote of the Day, American Politics and Life, Ethics, LGBT Rights, Social Justice, Women's Rights

Since Thomas Jefferson is considered by most Americans as an authority on the original intent of the framers of the US Constitution, the conservative wing of the current US Supreme Court and all those fine Republican candidates for President who have claimed in the last week that the majority opinion in the equal marriage decision got it really wrong, I recommend for their consideration this statement of our 3rd President and author of the Declaration of Independence signed exactly 239 years ago today. Perhaps the four justices and Republican candidates will change their minds!?

“Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment. I knew that age well; I belonged to it, and labored with it. It deserved well of its country. It was very like the present, but without the experience of the present; and forty years of experience in government is worth a century of book-reading; and this they would say themselves, were they to rise from the dead. I am certainly not an advocate for frequent and untried changes in laws and constitutions. I think moderate imperfections had better be borne with; because, when once known, we accommodate ourselves to them, and find practical means of correcting their ill effects. But I know also, that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.”
-Thomas Jefferson

Source: Wordsmith.org – A thought for the day

The complete letter in which the above passage is found can be accessed here:

http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/letter-to-samuel-kercheval/