Israel Needs Your Perspective - Ki Tissa 5772

Earlier this week, I was at the annual Policy Conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and I heard United States Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, tell the following story:

Adlai Stevenson II, who was the American ambassador to the UN in 1961, defended the Bay of Pigs operation before the UN General Assembly, but during his speech delivered the following malapropism: “Castro has circumcised the freedoms of the Catholics of Cuba.” This, the story went, prompted an Israeli diplomat to whisper to his Irish colleague, “I always knew that somehow we would be blamed for this.”

Ambassador Rice was one of a handful of high-level speakers that I heard in Washington.  Others included House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Sen. Joe Lieberman, and of course Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu.  I missed President Obama and Israeli President Shimon Peres, because I was teaching tefillah in the Religious School here at Temple Israel on Sunday morning, certainly an acceptable excuse, since the mitzvah of veshinantam levanekha, teaching your children the words of Torah, surely takes precedence over listening to politicians.

Unfortunately, I can’t say that any of the headline presentations that I heard were particularly enlightening, of for that matter, at all interesting.  And here’s why: they all delivered slight variations on the same theme:

1.  Iran must be prevented from building a nuclear weapon.
2.  All options are “on the table” to prevent Iran from doing so, including the use of force by the US.

It is true that Iran has nuclear capability and is most likely working on building nuclear missiles.  It is true that such weapons pose the gravest existential threat to the Jewish state.  It is true that Iran supports anti-Israel terrorism on multiple fronts, and of course it is true that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has made it a stated goal to “wipe Israel off the map,” and this should not be taken lightly.  As British neoconservative author Douglas Murray put it in a YouTube video that I saw yesterday morning, Iran is controlled by “leaders who deny one Holocaust while saying they want the next.”

Nobody believes that Prime Minister Netanyahu is crying wolf over the dangers that Iran poses. However, after hearing it for the second or third time, I began to wonder if  we are doing Israel any favors by presenting such a monolithic image of the threats facing Israel.

***

There are at least two instances in the Torah where God stands corrected.  That is, God is about to do something rash, and a human being challenges God to see things a different way.  One of them is in Parashat Ki Tissa, which we read this morning.  God is so angry about the molten calf that He tells Moshe that he is going to destroy all the Israelites and make a new nation from Moshe alone.  

But Moshe counters with the broader picture.  “Are You telling me, O Lord,” says Moshe (I’m paraphrasing a bit), “that You brought all these people out of Egypt just to schmeist them in the desert?  What will the Egyptians say?  What about Your promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and, for that matter, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah?”  And God backs down, thanks to Moshe’s wider perspective.

If I had one single wish for the American Jewish community, it would be to have a wider perspective on the Jewish State.

***

Every now and then, I hear from a student or a parent that he or she is afraid of going to Israel, because of terrorism.  I always respond by pointing out that I have lived in Israel, and I go there regularly, and I have never had any reason to fear for my safety.  Israel is not a war zone; it is, in fact, much safer to be in Israel than it is in, let’s say, New York City, because in Israel, everybody is watching for suspicious activity or packages.  Statistically speaking, you are, in fact, safer in Israel than when you get into your car and drive on American streets.  Our perception of Israel as a dangerous place is clearly fed by the media, which zealously follow the maxim, “If it bleeds, it leads.”  And that is exactly what terrorists want; that’s why they are called “terrorists.”

But to some extent, we, the Jewish community, reinforce that perception.

If you ask Israelis if the State of Israel is in imminent, mortal danger, they will say no.  If you ask if they are worried about terrorism, they will laugh at you, and then make insulting remarks about Americans to their friends.  My son is in Kitah Heh, fifth grade, in Nes Tziyyona, a half-hour south of Tel Aviv.  The State mandates that fifth graders receive training about what to do in case of various types of attacks, and some government folks came to his class last fall to do this training; most parents kept their kids home rather than subject their 10-year-olds to this.

Israelis are not living in bomb shelters, clutching rifles to their chests in trenches and eating their rations in the dark to avoid drawing enemy fire.  On the contrary, Israel is flourishing.  The economy is healthy; democracy is thriving; last summer’s tent protests notwithstanding, Israelis are living fairly well, especially when compared to most others in their geographic neighborhood.

There is no question that it is essential to prevent a nuclear Iran.  But the palette of Israel’s contemporary issues is far more complex.  Dr. Arnold Eisen, Chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary, put it in his most recent blog post:

The matsav [the current political situation] is… not permitted to interfere with the joys, cares and satisfactions of daily life. Existential danger to the country, for everyone but soldiers on active duty, constitutes one more hassle one learns to handle. This is perhaps as it should be, or needs to be.

Israelis live with this matzav night and day, but they do not live according to it.  We in the Diaspora, by reinforcing the perception that Israel is besieged, be-bunkered and beleaugered, only strengthen the hands of those who seek to destroy it.

***

The AIPAC Policy Conference, held annually around this time in Washington, has grown tremendously in the past few years.  This was my fourth conference, and in the past few years the number of attendees has more than doubled.  There were over 13,000 people at this conference: older people and college students, religious and secular Jews, black and white Christians, clergy of all stripes, conservatives, liberals, and all of them proud Zionists.  In addition to the big-name political speeches, there are also many, many panel discussions and smaller presentations by journalists, academics, think-tank guys, and activists of all sorts.  It’s really an overwhelmingly impressive show of support for the Jewish state.

(Perhaps the most enjoyable part of the conference for me was a musical performance by the Israeli world-beat ensemble, the Idan Raichel Project.  If you are not familiar Mr. Raichel’s work, you should be; if you are interested, I will be glad to point out for you which albums to get.)

I truly feel that the work that AIPAC does is essential.  Israel needs the United States - for aid, for political and military support, for trade, and so forth.

Zealously protecting the alliance between the US and Israel is paramount to Israel’s future as the Jewish state.  AIPAC volunteer lobbyists work with every single member of the House of Representatives and Senate, and particularly with newly-elected members, to help them understand Israel’s history and matzav.  

But AIPAC’s mission by definition prevents it from addressing many other issues facing Israel.  In working hard to protect the US-Israel alliance, AIPAC follows the current Israeli government’s line, and Mr. Netanyahu seems to be only interested in Iran.  When the Prime Minister delivers a keynote address to 13,000 people and a fully-loaded press box and does not say the word “Palestinian” once, that is a lost opportunity.  What about the new realities on the ground in Syria and Egypt?  Yes, the breakout sessions addressed some of these things.  But there was no room in the major plenary sessions for anything other than Iran.

As such, we who are committed to the State of Israel have to look for other ways to discuss the issues facing Israel and the Israeli government, the ones that were absent in Washington.  The stalled negotiations with the Palestinians, for example.  And the following issues addressed by Chancellor Eisen further along in his blog post:

Will the State be ruled by the laws passed in the Knesset or by halakhah as interpreted by ultra-Orthodox “Torah sages”? Will soldiers wearing kippot obey orders from their commanders or their rabbis? Will Israeli public space be made to conform with Haredi convictions, a move that infringes particularly on the rights of women? (Buses segregated by gender with women forced to the back, streets divided down the middle like an Orthodox synagogue, women’s voices silenced within range of Haredi men’s hearing.)

These are all items with which we must be engaged.

A few weeks ago we hosted a program here at Temple Israel called Faces of Israel.  This was, in my opinion, one of the best Israel-related programs that we have had here.  The program featured a group of young Israeli adults from a variety of backgrounds speaking about their personal experiences, their struggles and successes, their challenges in the context of a vibrant, open society.  This was not meant to be a political program, although members of our community continuously tried to bring the guests back to political issues with leading questions.

Particularly moving was the story that one of the participants told, about the day that he had to choose between attending the wedding of a good friend and the funeral of another, who was killed in an operation on the border with Lebanon.  Such are the choices that Israelis face every day, between school, work, family, and service to the State.

This program was so human, so personal; it tapped into the nuances of daily existence, the same spectrum of human emotions that we all face.  When urged by the audience to speak about the matzav, one of the participants said, “You can’t achieve peace without talking to the other side.  At some point, they will have to trust us, and we will have to trust them.”

I support AIPAC, because it serves an essential role, one which no other pro-Israel organization can fulfill.  But our discussion of Israel must be much wider.

The State of Israel and the people of Israel (that is, us) must continue to be Or LaGoyim, a light unto the nations.  If we allow any single threat to eclipse all other issues pertinent to the world stage, then we are committing a grave error of omission.  We are not merely Hitler’s victims or Haman’s would-be victims; we have a mandate from God to lead, to cast light where there is none, and to, in the words of the Psalmist, “baqesh shalom verodfehu,” seek peace and pursue it (Psalm 34:15).

Perhaps the most poignant moment at the conference came at the end of Ambassador Rice’s address, when a roomful of rabbis and cantors from across American Jewry sang together the words of Psalm 133: Hineh mah tov umah na’im, shevet ahim gam yahad.  How good and pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together.

Next year, I hope that many of you will join me in Washington for the AIPAC Policy Conference.  But in the coming year, I hope that we will also seek out other ways to widen our perspectives on Israel, and engage with the complexity of Israeli life.


~
Rabbi Seth Adelson

(Originally delivered at Temple Israel of Great Neck, Shabbat morning, 3/10/2012.)

Tent City TLV - The revolution will not be on Facebook

Much of what you might read on this blog about Israel is perhaps overly complacent - fawning over the concept and culture of the Jewish state, with only occasional light criticism of the current Israeli government's seeming reluctance to engage with the Palestinians or the two-state solution. Having lived here for more than a year, now nearly a decade ago, I have some sense of the complexity of Israeli society and politics, and long ago lost the uncritical, honeymoon-ish devotion that often afflicts tourists and new immigrants (briefly, until they have to spend a day at Misrad Ha-Penim / Ministry of the Interior office). Perhaps that has not been so obvious in this forum.

Today as I walked through Tel Aviv, I made it a point to stroll through the "tent city" demonstration on Rothschild Street. This is a protest that began just last week, beginning with a Facebook call to action, largely in opposition to high housing prices, but also an assault on what the protesters see as the government's devotion to special interests (corporate buddies, new immigrants, right-wing religious groups, even foreign visitors like me). What precipitated this protest is a real estate bill before the Kenesset that many believe to favor wealthy developers with strong government ties over average Israelis. There are now similar tent cities all over Israel.

Israeli politics is quite complex, so much so that I cannot possibly describe it adequately here. But this particular protest is notable for two reasons. First, it follows a recent nationwide protest, also initiated on Facebook, over the increase in the price of cottage cheese. Second, it has captured the attention of the nation. News outlets have heavily featured the protests, and a large rally in Tel Aviv on Saturday night attracted tens of thousands of people, and Prime Minister Netanyahu canceled a trip to Poland to address the issue at home.

As I walked through the tent city, reading the signs of protest, the political slogans, the quotes from biblical and rabbinic sources about fair treatment for all, I was struck by the tremendous resentment that these "average Israelis" feel, and the strong sentiment of neglect felt by the central demographic pillar of Israeli society. Housing, education, health care, and more - their message is that these items are being passed over in favor of helping everybody else.

(Faux ad: "A find! Tent divided into four wonderful residential units, not renovated, 5 minutes from the beach. 2800 sheqel per month [equals about US$820])

I took a detour and headed off to the shuk, but the following slogan from one of the signs in the tent city echoed in my head:

המהפכה לא יפוסבק
Ha-mahapekhah lo tefusbak
The revolution will not be on Facebook

This is striking not only because of the clever hebraization of the name of a popular Internet site, nor the cultural reference to the 1970 song by Gil Scott-Heron (ז"ל), but because of the presence of mind of the anonymous wag who penned it. Real people in the streets, full of venom for their government - this is the way that revolutions happen. Not in digital form, or on paper, or even by telephone.

Leaving aside the imminent debacle that will erupt when the Palestinians ask the UN for statehood in September, I am not concerned about the stability of Israel or its government. Nonetheless, this is a movement with legs.


(The above photos are mine; you can see more pictures via this virtual tour.)

Shabbat Shuvah 5771 - Returning to the Table

(Originally delivered on September 11, 2001.)

Today is Shabbat Shuvah, the Shabbat of Return, a name that captures the spirit of the Ten Days of Repentance, in Hebrew, Aseret Yemei Teshuvah, which can also be translated more literally as the Ten Days of Return. The name Shabbat Shuvah refers more directly to the first word of today’s haftarah, from the prophet Hoshea:

Shuvah yisrael ad adonai elohekha ki khashalta ba-avonekha.

Return O Israel, to the Lord your God; for you have stumbled in your iniquity.

This is, of course, consistent with the overarching theme of the Yamim Nora-im, the High Holidays - that we have missed the mark, and we should return to God and right living.

Now, we could parse that latter phrase, “for you have stumbled in your iniquity,” because it is something of a challenge. Is it possible to be iniquitous and not stumble? Is it the iniquity or the stumbling that we must return for?

It is, in fact, a problem. But leaving that aside, the more interesting problem of the language occurs a few verses later, in verse 5 (which includes two more uses of the same root for return, shin-vav-bet, the leitwort or thematic word of this passage):

Erpah meshuvatam ohavem nedava; ki shav api mimenu.

I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely; for My anger is turned away from him.

The first part of the verse refers to a plural group of backsliders (their backsliding; love them freely), but the latter half of the verse refers to the return of one person (My anger is turned away from him). If the backsliders that Hoshea is referring to are all of us, who is the “him” that gets credit for turning away God’s anger?

In the Talmud, Masekhet Yoma, which is the tractate dedicated to Yom Kippur, we read the following:

Rabbi Meir used to say: Great is teshuvah, repentance, since the whole world is pardoned on account of the individual who has repented, as it is stated: “I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely, for My anger is turned away from him.” It is not stated, “from them,” but “from him.”

Rabbi Meir’s point is that we all get credit for the honest teshuvah of even one of us. That is how powerful teshuvah is. It is not so easy, of course. But it is powerful.

What we should be asking ourselves over the course of this week is this: how can I change my behavior so that I do not make the mistakes that I have made in the past? How can I make right what I have broken?

Now, of course I am preaching to the choir. Anybody who is here today, after two days of High Holiday introspection, is clearly up to speed on all of this. (It never hurts to flatter your audience!)

But I am going to take this discussion out of the realm of the personal and into the international. Let us consider the fresh round of Middle East peace talks. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and PA President Mahmoud Abbas have pledged to meet every two weeks, including the coming week.

I have stated this clearly before in this space, and I will say it again: the status quo in Israel and the territories is not sustainable, and everybody around the table knows it. The only real solution is the two-state solution, and we all know how painful this is going to be.

What will make or break these peace talks is, of course, teshuvah. That Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Mahmoud Abbas have agreed to return to the negotiating table is only the first stage of their return, their teshuvah. The next stage will be much more difficult.

Optimism is not available in abundance these days. Most of the pundits who have weighed in on this round have stated that it is unlikely that these talks will achieve anything new. Israel will not give up on building settlements, let alone consider withdrawing from them; the PA will not give up on the right of return of refugees to Israel. It’s dead in the water. As they say in Texas, that dog don’t hunt.

This is a hot topic on Ravnet. As you might expect, my colleagues in the Conservative rabbinate run the gamut of opinions about Israel. Some are bullish on the prospects of and peace, some think that the other side will never honor their agreements, so why should we bother negotiating?

And the professional pundits have gone the same way, although perhaps in a more subtle and reflective way.

There was one particularly optimistic column that I read in the Times, by Martin Indyk, the former American ambassador to Israel, who wrote about how now is the most optimistic time in recent history, and the basis for peace is stronger than it has ever been.

Indyk makes the following four points:

1. Violence is down considerably, with the PA police force newly trained with American help and demonstrating its capability of preventing terrorist activity in the West Bank, and Hamas preventing the rockets from Gaza, perhaps out of fear. While 452 Israelis were killed at the height of the intifada in 2002, there have been only 6 this year. (Of course, that’s 6 too many, but the difference is dramatic and undeniable.)

Israeli ambassador to the US Michael Oren has been saying for some time now that the situation on the West Bank is better than it has ever been. Law and order has brought peace and quiet: there was a 9% growth rate in the territories last year, with skyscrapers going up in Ramallah and new subdivisions in Jenin and Nablus. A properly-trained police force produces economic growth, and jobs and security will, we all hope, help the Palestinians to understand that peace, even with what they used to call “the Zionist entity,” is a good thing.

2. Settlement building has been minimal for 10 months. This is key in having returned the Palestinians to the negotiating table, according to Ambassador Oren. It seems unlikely that Netanyahu will extend the moratorium, but there are other compromise options that Indyk suggests.

3. A majority of people on both sides now support the two-state solution. The public is tired of war, says Indyk. This is not necessarily true of those who vote Likud, Netanyahu’s party. In fact, there is a cover story in the current issue of Time magazine that suggests that Israelis have become complacent in their flourishing success, in spite of the untenable status quo. I am not going to attempt to debunk the article. Yes, a majority of people want peace, but there is, understandably, a generous helping of skepticism about peace talks in the Israeli public. I hope that such thinking does not obscure the long-term visionary goal, which is that everybody would benefit even more from peace.

On this point, it is nonetheless important for us in the Diaspora to respect Israel’s democratic process. We should remember that it is not just the leaders at the table and the hopes of American Jewry and the Obama administration that are in play here. The more formidable problem is this: Netanyahu’s own party and some of his coalition partners are not on board with him. If he makes what Likud sees as a rash decision (like, for example, extending the settlement moratorium), he’ll be out of a job.

And the same applies to Abbas and Palestinian PM Salam Fayyad as well. Perhaps you saw the news blurb online (curiously, the New York Times missed this) that on Monday, a few days after leaving Washington, Mr. Abbas stated clearly, for the record, that the PA will never recognize Israel as a “Jewish state.” He knows that doing so is political suicide (or perhaps even actual suicide); for some of his constituents, even meeting Netanyahu raises the spectre of treason.

But let us hope that the majority opinion and cooler heads on both sides will prevail.

4. There are not many outstanding issues that require negotiation. Many of the details required by the Oslo accords of 17 years ago (can it really be that long?!) have already been worked out. All we are facing now is the set of tricky issues that I have already identified.

The moment is now, says Indyk; all that remains is the willpower and courage of Abbas and Netanyahu to make the politically complicated decisions.

I was listening to the NPR News Quiz Wait Wait... Don’t Tell Me last Sunday afternoon, and the host remarked sarcastically that the stakes for the first meeting in Washington were so low, that it was considered successful merely because the two sides agreed to meet again. This may be funny, or perhaps pathetic, but it is also true. They agreed to meet every two weeks until this thing is resolved.

Furthermore, in the wake of the first meeting, both Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Netanyahu expressed optimism that the entire negotiation can be resolved within a year. It makes me wonder, if all they can do is agree to further meetings, what will be accomplished within that year?

Still, the next meeting is this coming week, during, as luck would have it, Aseret Yemei Teshuvah, the aforementioned Ten Days of Return. And so, in what we hope is good faith, Abbas and particularly Netanyahu will return once again to the table. And let us hope that this time, they are willing to approach the task at hand with the same demeanor with which we approach God and each other during Aseret Yemei Teshuvah.

Let us hope that they hear the sound of the metaphorical shofar, calling them to return. Let us hope that they draw on the theme of purity that permeates these days, entering these negotiations with pure souls and honest intentions. Let us hope that they gesture to each other in the cantorial mode of selihah, the hopeful, prayerful, and yet slightly mournful chant that is omnipresent during this season, humble in spirit and forthright about the past, with the intention of doing better in 5771.

Rabbi Jonah ben Abraham Gerondi, from 13th century Spain, said the following about teshuvah. “The repentant sinner should strive to do good with the same faculties with which he sinned. If, for instance, his tongue gave offence to others, he should study the Torah aloud. With whatever part of the body he sinned he should now engage in good deeds. If the feet had run to sin, let them now run to the performance of good. The mouth that had spoken falsehood should now be opened in wisdom. Violent hands should now open in charity. The haughty eye should now gaze downwards. The plotting heart should now meditate on the teachings of Torah. The trouble-maker should now become a peace-maker.”

And finally, as we commemorate on this day the horrible tragedy of nine years ago, we should remember that there are people in this world who will want to prevent through violence any form of forward movement. It is up to us to make sure that we do not negotiate with terrorists or embolden them in any way. And the only way to do this is to engage with the moderates. Then we can hope that if Israel reaches a peace deal with the leaders of Fatah, the West Bank PA authorities, the people of Gaza will see and understand the peace dividend and throw off the yoke of Hamas.

Call me naive, if you will. Call me a peacenik, if you want. I prefer to think that I am something of an optimist. But this is the week of return; now is the time to return to the table in good faith. Let us hope that the players who have returned do what is right.

Devarim 5770 - Delegitimization of Diaspora Jewry by the State of Israel

,
(Originally delivered on Saturday morning, July 17, 2010.)

The following is from an open letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, by Rabbi Julie Schonfeld, Exec. VP of the Rabbinical Assembly, the international organization of Conservative rabbis. It concerns the bill that was introduced in the Knesset this week by David Rotem, a member of the Yisrael Beiteinu party. This bill will effectively turn over the question of “Who is a Jew” to the increasingly Haredi/ultra-Orthodox chief rabbinate of Israel, and threatens to draw a deep division between Israeli Jewry and all the rest of us.

"Dear Mr. Prime Minister,

"I have good news and I have bad news.

"The bad news is that rabbis all over the world are thanking you for giving them a Rosh Hashanah sermon.

"The good news is that you get to write every one of them.

"The sermon we all want to give is one in which you, as a visionary leader, make an unambiguous statement in opposition to this bill which divides Israel from the Diaspora. We hope that we can invoke your name, Mr. Prime Minister, with the same spirit of reverence we reserve for the great leaders of the Jewish people.

"Regrettably, David Rotem has already brought us a tragically cynical Rosh Hodesh Av homily, when he unexpectedly reintroduced his bill, undermining discussions you set in motion with Natan Sharansky [the former Russian Refusenik who is now the head of the Jewish Agency]. Our tradition teaches that the exile of our people was brought about by senseless fighting among ourselves. Please, Mr. Prime Minister, bring us a message for Tishrei that is redemptive."

Rabbi Schonfeld goes on to say that it would be a true betrayal of Jewish history and heritage if our communities are torn apart by one extremist group’s judgment about who is “religious” enough. (You can read her entire letter here.)

The last time I spoke about Israel, the subject was the delegitimization of the Jewish State by others. Today, it is the delegitimization of non-Orthodox Jews BY the Jewish State.

Yisrael hi lo Iran. Israel is not Iran. This is a bumper sticker that I recall having seen when I lived in Israel a decade ago. It is a defiant statement made by secular Jewish Israelis that no matter how much certain sectors of Israeli society want to live in a theocracy, or believe that they do, the State of Israel stands for all of its citizens (Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Druze, Circassian, Hindu, Buddhist, religious, secular, Zionist, anti-Zionist, gay, straight, female, male, etc.). Unlike all of the Arab governments in her neighborhood, Israel is a healthy democracy. Everybody in Israel is free to practice his or her own religion, except, apparently, for Jews who do not subscribe to Orthodox Judaism.

Now, it is true that Israel is not a theocracy, like Iran, where the religious leaders control the government. However, there are times when Israel’s lack of official separation between Synagogue and State causes this complicated nexus of politics and Judaism to boil over in conflict, and particularly regarding personal status issues.

And that happened again this week. Actually, two truly horrible things happened: the introduction of the Rotem bill, and the arrest of Anat Hoffman at the Kotel plaza for carrying a Sefer Torah. These two things amount to, if not an organized campaign, then at least a haphazardly deliberate delegitimization of progressive Judaism by the Jewish State.

1. The Rotem bill you may have already heard of, particularly if you read the emails sent from Temple Israel. The bill was introduced unexpectedly into the Knesset, despite assurances that it would not be, with even harsher language than what had initially been proposed.

This bill, if passed, would do the following:

It would allow conversion candidates in Israel to go to different state-enfranchised rabbis in municipalities other than their own. This is helpful especially to immigrants from the former Soviet Union, who have often had trouble marrying because one of the members of the couple is not halakhically Jewish, and the local rabbi is more right-wing and makes the process more difficult, or refuses to do it, or invalidates the conversion after the fact (this has happened! More than 15,000 Israeli converts were recently invalidated by the Chief Rabbinate.)

Of course, the rabbi that they go to cannot be Conservative or Reform (and there are, of course, many non-Orthodox rabbis in Israel).

The bill would also place total control over conversion in the hands of the Chief Rabbinate. It has not been this way in the past. Until now, the State of Israel recognized conversions performed by non-Orthodox rabbis, even if the Chief Rabbinate or local rabbis did not. This would be a major affront to the Conservative and Reform movements in Israel, because our converts and their families would no longer be recognized as Jews by the State, and therefore would not be able to become Israeli citizens under the Law of Return. This would implicitly create a legal second-class status for non-Orthodox Jews, who account for something like 80% of Diaspora Jewry.

The bill states that conversions will only be considered valid if the candidate has "accepted the Torah and the commandments in accordance with halakha." Now, we in the Conservative movement, of course, expect this of both our adherents and converts, but we do not follow them around to see if they are fulfilling every miniscule custom. Once language like that is enshrined in law, those who are in a position to judge others based on their behavior will surely do so, according to their standard.

Is anybody upset yet? You should be outraged by this. I am.

2. The second item of concern is the arrest of Anat Hoffman.

Somebody sent me a YouTube video this week that brought me to tears. It shows Anat Hoffman, a former Jerusalem city councilwoman who is the head of the Israeli Religious Action Center, the Reform Movement’s political adjunct in Israel, carrying a Torah on the women’s side of the Kotel, and subsequently arrested for doing so. Ms. Hoffman, who is well-known to police who work the Kotel beat, such that they call her Anat, is a long-time crusader against the creeping Haredization of Jerusalem and the Kotel in particular. She has been participating in the monthly Women of the Wall services, which take place every Rosh Hodesh.

As it turns out, this past Rosh Hodesh was Monday, the same day that the political storm let loose in the Knesset regarding the Rotem bill. Just a few miles across town from the Knesset, in the most ancient part of the city, the Women of the Wall met for their monthly service, many of them sporting their tallitot wrapped around their necks like scarves (because it would be “illegal” for them to wear them properly as tallitot). It is also, apparently, illegal for them to chant from the Torah, as is done at the morning service on Rosh Hodesh, and as our own Linda Abrams does on every RH in the chapel here at Temple Israel, but it is apparently not illegal for the women to carry the Torah. If so, why was Anat arrested? I am not sure, and I daresay, neither is she.

BTW, you can see the video elsewhere on this blog. Watch women and men cursing and screaming at the Women of the Wall, and watch the police esCORT Anat from the plaza, take the Torah away from her by force, and put her in a police vehicle. Hear the defiant Women and their supporters sing both joyful and mournful tunes as all of this takes place.

So it seems that the State of Israel has officially, legally declared the Kotel to be an Orthodox synagogue, and the rule of law prevents violations of religious law, as interpreted by the Haredi rabbi of the Kotel, one Shmuel Rabinowitz.

Why is the State of Israel enacting laws about religion? Why is the Kotel no longer a place where any Jew can worship in his/her own style? Why was a woman arrested for holding a Torah? Yisrael hi lo Iran. Israel is not Iran.

You should be outraged by this as well.

And not only because it is an affront to everything that this community, this congregation stands for, but also because of what we read today in Parashat Devarim, p. 983, Deut. 1:8:

Bo-u urshu et ha-aretz asher nishba Adonai la-avoteikhem,
Le-avraham leyitzhaq ulya’aqov latet lahem ulzar’am ahareihem

Go, take possession of the land that the Lord swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to assign to them and to their heirs after them.

The Hebrew does not literally say “heirs,” but “seed.” We are all the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and, for that matter, the seed of Sarah, Rebecca, Leah, and Rahel. It is not the land of some Jews, nor the holy places of a subset of very fervent Jews, but of ALL Jews. No qualifications. No insistence that we all hew to a particular standard. No litmus test. All of us.

Israel is ours, and the Kotel is ours. We cannot allow ourselves to be made second-class citizens in the land that was promised to us by God. Let us channel that outrage to defeat the status quo of Israeli politics and religion. If you have not sent an email to Prime Minister Netanyahu regarding the Rotem bill, do so. As of yesterday, more than 15,000 people had done so through the Masorti website, and just as many from a similar Reform site.

But do not stop there. Don’t just email Netanyahu - call his office in Jerusalem (they’re open on Sunday! 011-972-2-640-8457) and the consulate in NY (212-499-5000). Call Gary Ackerman (718-423-2154). Call Senator Schumer (212-486-4430). (A group of Jewish senators are writing a letter to Israel. That’s right, the US Senate is involved!) Email all your friends.

There are more of us than there are of them, and we matter. Israel needs us, and we need Israel.

We are approaching the saddest day of the Jewish year, the ninth day of the month of Av, usually referred to by its Hebrew name, Tish’a be’Av. In my Mishnah Class this past spring, we studied an oft-quoted passage from tractate Ta’anit, which tells us that the First Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed because of Israelites who committed the three biggest sins: idolatry, murder, and sexual impropriety, and that the Second Temple was destroyed because of sin’at hinam, baseless hatred. We are fortunate to live in times in which Jerusalem, if not the Temple itself, is rebuilt and thriving. The shame would truly be on us if we were to allow sin’at hinam tear apart the earthly Jerusalem (Yerushalayim shel mata) once again.

The sermon that I want to give, as Rabbi Schonfeld put it, is the one in which PM Netanyahu prevents this from happening. He is the only one who can make that sermon possible. Let us hope that he does so.

Second Day of Pesah, 5770 - Clinton, AIPAC, and "Digital Thinking"

(Originally delivered on March 31, 2010.)

Most of you know that I was not always a rabbi. I received BS and MS degrees in chemical engineering, and worked as an engineer for more than 5 years before deciding to go in a different direction. However, the idea of joining the rabbinate had been sitting in the back of my mind for many years, and it took a certain amount of "activation energy," the heat input required to initiate a chemical reaction, to make the leap, first to the cantorate and finally to the rabbinate.

I first applied to rabbinical school in 1994, to the Reform movement's Hebrew Union College. They did not accept me - I was 24, finishing my MS in Chemical Engineering, and not a Reform Jew in any real sense. The reason, they told me, was that the admissions committee concluded that I had difficulty seeing two sides to an issue.

That was 16 years ago, and my perspective has changed quite a bit, not necessarily because I am now a Conservative Rabbi, but more likely because at the time I was an engineer, thinking in a problem-solving mode rather than in the mode that I try to pursue today, that of understanding. Of course, being a rabbi, I find that I am often cursed with the problem of seeing THREE OR MORE sides to every issue. And that is certainly how I felt last week when I attended the Policy Conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, in Washington. I'll come back to that later.

I am concerned about the fact that I am seeing less and less "understanding" in our world. That is, fewer of us try to place ourselves in each other's positions; fewer of us take the time to listen to anybody else; fewer of us, in our professional lives, are able to extend ourselves beyond the four walls of our cubicles in order to gather enough information to make informed decisions. Hence the rash of plagiarism incidents involving journalists and authors; the horse-race style approach to political campaigns; the epidemic of greed and irresponsible lending that led to the collapse of the real estate market and the rest of the American economy. Indeed, we are all stretched to the breaking point - what with families to feed, children to ferry from lesson to practice to Religious School, insurance companies to argue with, and so forth, who can devote more than the minimum amount of time to anything?

I think that we have entered a kind of digital age. Not the one that you are thinking of, where we are all enslaved to our devices and captivated by the infinite interconnectedness of the Internet. But no, we are now in an age of zeros and ones. On a fundamental level, all digital devices can be broken down into a series of tiny switches that can only be on or off. There is no grey area; there is no glass half full. And the same goes for all of us, on some level: we are all either black or white, hot or cold, or content or infuriated.

Jewish tradition does not work like that. You can read the Torah or the Talmud multiple ways, and the raft of commentators medieval and modern disagree with each other, and in fact regularly tear each other down in print, across centuries and continents. But even when one rejects the opinion of another, they do it not by insulting them or dismissing them in anger. An opinion is an opinion, and can only be negated through logical argument.

Example: the mezuzah. Rashi and Rabbeinu Tam, two great medieval rabbinic authorities, disagree about the placement - Rashi dictates that a mezuzah should be mounted vertically on your doorpost; his grandson, known as Rabbeinu Tam, mandated that it should be mounted horizontally; each had their reasons. So what do we do? A vertical mezuzah cannot be horizontal, and vice versa. We therefore mount a mezuzah diagonally, thus satisfying (in some way) each of them.

Our tradition of rabbinic argument teaches us to see the complexity of divergent views that co-exist, even when they conflict. To be sure, that is the rabbinic way - there are always multiple opinions, multiple ideas, and complex arguments. There is rarely one, simple answer to any issue.

More relevant to Pesah is the story of the Exodus, as we read last night in the haggadah. On the one hand, the Egyptians are portrayed as the oppressors and the Jews as the oppressed. On the other, those of us who are first-born children know that we fast because the Egyptians suffered too (to be sure, there were more than 100 of us first-borns, women and men, here on Monday morning as Rabbi Stecker concluded study of Seder Mo'ed, siyyum, etc.). We acknowledge the suffering of the Egyptians, also God's creatures.

I do not see the same respect for those we disagree with today. Soundbites and 140-character tweets leave little time or space for nuance. All that remains are the ones and zeros.

Those people that we call leaders today, too, are not interested in understanding the other side's point of view.

Here is a more relevant example: the latest kerfuffle over Israel's intent to build 1600 new housing units in East Jerusalem. On the one hand, this is not a new policy - Israel has been building in East Jerusalem for over 40 years, since they annexed the eastern parts in the reunification of the Holy City following the Six Day War in 1967. Not only that, but this new building is in a pre-existing Jewish neighborhood, and one that is not nearly as controversial as many of the other areas of the West Bank where Jewish Israelis have put down roots.

On the other hand, the timing of the announcement was certainly awkward, and seemed almost to designed to provoke. The Obama administration has been making noise about "settlements" for some time, with the general goal of, I think, showing that they are responsive to the wishes of the other side.

Last week, I and a few other members of Temple Israel joined another 7500 delegates to the annual AIPAC Policy Conference. While many tend to see AIPAC as a politically right-wing organization, the reality is that it is merely supportive of the existing Israeli government, and its lobbying efforts are focused on maintaining the close alliance between Israel and the US, regardless of which way the political wind is blowing. The people that attend the AIPAC conference, and the speakers featured, tend to run the gamut, from peaceniks supporting a two-state solution to hard-liners advocating for Israel to pre-emptively take out Iran's nuclear capability tomorrow.

I was there in the convention Hall when Sec. of State Hillary Clinton spoke on Monday during the morning plenary session. During her speech, which was widely covered in the media, she reaffirmed the administration's positions on Israel, which are, of course, generally supportive and in line with the Netanyahu government. She stated that the United States is committed to the following:
1. Preventing a nuclear Iran
2. Maintaining Israel as a safe, secure, democratic state
3. Preserving Jerusalem as a place for everybody
4. That safety and security in the region depend on the establishment of 2 states for 2 peoples
5. That we will not negotiate with Hamas until they renounce violence, recognize Israel, and honor prior agreements

She of course also addressed the recent dustup over new homes in Ramat Shlomo, saying that the status quo is not sustainable for three reasons: demography, ideology, and technology.
Demography - because the Arab population between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean will soon exceed the Jewish population.
Ideology - because continued conflict supports extremist groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
Technology - because the quality, accuracy, and power of the missiles that are now in the hands of Hamas and Hizbullah (largely financed and/or directly supplied by Iran) are changing strategic considerations on the ground.

The status quo, she said, actually undermines the quest for peace by supporting those who reject it. Meanwhile, the American administration's goal is to bring the PA and Israel back to the negotiating table, and, said the Secretary of State, the administration's critical statement about new building in J'lem is about getting to that table; accepting new building without comment undermines US credibility in the region. "We objected to this announcement because we are committed to peace," she said.

Judging from the reaction to these statements by many supporters of Israel, Secretary of State Clinton's message was hostile to Israel. The news media all played clips on the final point, leaving out all of the other supportive things that she said. Of course, the media tends to seek out the conflicts, rather than the points of harmony.

But the larger picture that I see emerging, in this context and elsewhere in American Jewry, is that some supporters of Israel see even the most tame criticism as indication that you are "anti-Israel," or even worse, "anti-Semitic." Anything less than unconditional support means that you are an enemy.

Well, my friends, I've lived in Israel, and the reality there is far more nuanced than it might seem to us on the other side of the world. It may be the Holy Land, but it certainly is not perfect. And its leaders. just like our leaders, are only human, perhaps overwhelmingly so. Few Israelis shy away from criticizing their own leaders, even those they support.

I must admit that the incident regarding new units in East Jerusalem seems to me a trumped-up excuse to criticize Israel in advance of the largest pro-Israel conference of the American political scene. (Aside: Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu spoke at what was certainly the largest kosher dinner ever served in Washington, if not the world. There were nearly 8000 people there for the Monday night banquet.)

Perhaps this widely-publicized difference of opinion is an unfortunate example of manipulation by the Obama administration. And, once again, given the timing of the announcement, perhaps BOTH the Israeli and American governments are guilty of manipulation.

And even though I certainly agree with Mr. Netanyahu, who stated unequivocally at that dinner that Jerusalem is not a "settlement," but rather the capital of Israel, I also believe that digital thinking, black or white, could hurt everybody's chances of peace. Mrs. Clinton was right on when she said that the status quo is, indeed, not sustainable, and all parties gathered around the table, even Mr. Netanyahu, know this.

If we can get past the attitude of, "If you ain't with us, you're against us," we might be able to satisfy both sides, just like we satisfy Rashi AND Rabbeinu Tam on our doorposts. And, my friends, that is precisely where we should be headed.

Hag sameah.