Tag: Israel

Gaza Flotilla and Israel #2: Choose Life

Our Torah teaches that placed before each of us at every moment is a choice. Life or death, blessing or curse. At every moment, with every step we take, we must choose. And those choices determine, literally, whether we, our children, our people and our values will live on.
U’vacharta bachaim – choose life (Deuteronomy 30:19). Each of us, listening to our intellect and our conscience, determines what we do when we face each choice. Whether we go left or go right; whether we seek blessing or face curses. So it is with people. So it is with nations.

But what if you are a nation that whenever you think you are choosing life, all you seem to ever receive back are curses?  Such is the situation of Israel today.

Israel has a right, guaranteed by international law, to blockade an enemy sworn to its destruction. Routine checks may legally be made of boats coming toward the land of it’s enemy.  They are checking for missiles and weapons and goods that could be used to build bunkers and fortifications. Remember, Israel withdrew from Gaza only to face eight years of constant missile attacks on civilian populations. Now Israel expects only what every other nation at war demands: that it gets to choose life. 

Thus Israel boarded five “peace activist” ships in a supposed humanitarian flotilla, brought them to Israel’s port, checked out the goods and people, and delivered the goods to non-Hamas-controlled Gazans. Remember that Israel daily sends into Gaza huge amounts of goods, food
and water into Gaza. 

But on the sixth ship, Israel faced organized mob of people who were filmed on Al Jezeera, a day earlier, calling for martyrdom. This mob was committed to beating and harming, anything but life. This ship’s humanitarian mission – a guise really for an attempt to undermine the blockade – was taken over by individuals committed to cursing and harming Israelis at every turn. And the result was mayhem. Soldiers were injured and people were killed. We mourn every death.
U’vacharta bachaim – choose life.

There is a concerted effort to shackle Israel’s ability to make choices, to defend itself.  It’s hypocritical.

  • When North Korea sinks a South Korean ship, bringing a very tense region close to war footing, there is narry a blip in the world’s attention.
  • When Egypt imposes the same blockade on Gaza, fearful of an Iranian style theocracy on it’s borders, few raise concern.
  • But when Israel expects the right to ensure life for it’s people in the face of enemy enmity, Israel faces only curses from every direction.
It is so exhausting to listen to these curses again and again.  How does one respond?

When Spanish politician/journalist of the far left Pilar Rahola heard
the curses of Israel, she responded with incredulity. Read this.

When US Vice President Joe Biden was asked about the critique of Israel, he responded with forthrightness. “So what’s the big deal here? What’s the big deal of insisting it not go straight to Gaza? Well, it’s legitimate for Israel to say, ‘I don’t know what’s on that ship. These guys are dropping… 3,000 rockets on my people…. You can argue whether Israel should have dropped people onto that ship or not — but the truth of the matter is, Israel has a right to know — they’re at war with Hamas — has a right to know whether or not arms are being smuggled in.” Watch this from 33:09 forward (Or read this).

When you are asked about your reaction to the flotilla, what will you say?

  • Perhaps you will explain Israel’s right to defend itself by boarding ships. Read this
  • Perhaps you will remember the video that shows a crowd violently attacking those seeking to inspect the ship, proving that this was anything but a ship of peace. Watch this.
  • Perhaps you will think about the message of American-born Israeli Rabbi Daniel Gordis who said “Israel’s geographic vulnerability means that we do not have the luxury of caving in to the world’s condemnation. We will have to gird ourselves for the long, dangerous and lonely road ahead, buoyed by hope that what ultimately prevails will be not what is momentarily popular, but rather what is just.” Read more
  • Perhaps you will attend a rally this Sunday at 2:00 pm outside the Israeli Consulate in Los Angeles. Info here.

There is much to criticize about Israel. Criticize the way that the army should have better prepared its troops for a more violent response. Criticize the way that Israel should have more quickly released videos and information in the post-operation diplomacy to more quickly to counter the easily anticipated onslaught of curses and criticism. Surely these bear critique. Israelis on the streets of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and Ramat Eshkol will argue privately and publicly about this more than you and I will ever imagine.

But don’t accept the world’s cry for an international tribunal to review it. Because those only curse Israel no matter what she does.

And don’t accept the critique of the UN Human Rights Council which never fails to ignore its member states’ actions (Iran, Syria, Libya) yet equally never fails to find the opportunity to single out Israel for condemnation.  

And don’t accept the discomfort, embarrassment, or self-loathing  that overtakes some of us – Jews, Americans, Israelis – whenever Israel’s decisions are met with world disdain, complaint and critique.

Israel is far from perfect. You may love its current government or disdain it. (This government is far from my favorite.) You may find much to criticize about its settlements, the coercive power of ultra-orthodox groups, the way this government drags its feet sometimes at solving the conflict with the Palestinians. (I criticize Israel regularly on all these issues!)

Yet existing in one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the world, Israel makes choices few of us can imagine. Often those choices lead to results that make us squeamish.

But choices had to be made. Those ships had to be turned aside. Israel felt it had to act. Why?
U’vacharta bachaim. For life. For security. For safety. To uphold the blockade against hidden missiles and weapons.

But for now choose quickly to educate yourself. So that when you are asked what you think, you won’t fall into the trap of self-loathing.  Instead, head held high, demand that like every other nation, Israel gets the right u’vacharta bachaim, to choose life.

Gaza Flotilla and Israel: Finding Balance Amidst the Mayhem

The Baal Shem Tov (founder of Chasidism) urged his followers toward hishtavut, equanimity or levelheadedness.  He recognized that powerful emotions of others will sway us in directions that lead us away from emet or truth.  As we are assaulted by media messages about the Gaza Flotilla, let us strive for hishtavut (levelheadedness) in our response to the onslaught.

Here’s what is known:  A flotilla of 6 ships moved toward Gaza with the stated purpose either of delivering humanitarian supplies or of breaking Israel’s military blockade of Gaza. After repeatedly rejecting Israel’s request that the ships turn back or land at the Ashdod port for offloading supplies (which would be transferred by Israel to Gaza with the other humanitarian supplies Israel sends in almost daily), and after previous entreaties of the same by the European Union, the ships sailed forth toward Gaza.  We know Israeli troops peaceably boarded 5 ships and turned them back.  We know that on the 6th ship, soldiers were attacked and beaten. We know people died and many soldiers were injured.

  • It is too easy to throw hands up and blame Israel for making this happen. 
  • It is too easy to fall into the trap of accepting the news coverage accounts of a supposedly peaceful non-violent action by the flotilla to help the Gazans.
  • It is too easy to dismiss this as another way Israel embarrasses itself and our people. 

Hishtavut, levelheadedness, demands that we learn more so that we do  not jump to conclusions.  Why?

There is ample evidence:

Five steps to begin to judge for yourself:

  1. Watch this video of how the soldiers were beaten as they boarded the boat.
  2. Examine this history of the flotilla and peaceful attempts to turn it back.
  3. Read this Jewish Journal article addressing concerns on the flotilla but also on the blockade.
  4. Explore the legality of a blockade in times of war.
  5. Consider this Haaretz Israeli newspaper critique, appropriate but balanced.

Finally, remember, both knee-jerk condemnation of Israel and blind rejection of any critique of Israel fail the test of realism. One may critique Israel from a place of love (see the Haaretz article above). Too often, however, Israel has been on the receiving end of condemnation of supposed massacres which later turn out to be overblown propaganda.  So read Israeli newspapers leaning right (Jerusalem Post) and leaning left (Haaretz).  And with patience, come to determine the facts. 

Pay attention as the story unfolds over the coming weeks. Being a friend or lover of Israel is like being a friend or lover of anyone. It is a lifelong complex relationship. If you care enough (and we Jews should), then we will continue to engage in learning and understanding with openness to both supporting and when necessary sharing disappointment. We do both from love as we are guided by a hishtavut, levelheadedness.

Do Women Count in a Minyan? Of Course!

Just prior to a shiva minyan (after a funeral) service at the mourner’s home, I was approached by a congregant who asked me “Rabbi, are women included in the minyan?” This veteran Or Ami congregant, an active Jewish woman, surely knew that our congregation, and this rabbi, recognize the uncompromising egalitarianism intrinsic to Judaism.  Unlike our orthodox brethren (of Jewish, Catholic, Muslim and other faiths too) who graft a foreign patriarchal stream into a once egalitarian tradition and thus do not count or fully include women, we count women as full partners in the minyan (the 10 adult Jews needed for a communal prayer service).

Knowing that she must have been teasing me, I said with a straight face, “sure, as long as you don’t sing the prayers out loud…”  She, a few other longtime congregants and I all chuckled at that, and I turned back to my preparations for the service.

My wife contends that sometimes my sarcastic humor is not evident to people who do not know me.  Case in point: a few moments later, another congregant approached, saying that some of the other non-Or Ami guests were shocked to learn that the mourners were part of a synagogue which, apparently orthodox, did not include women in the minyan!  Unfortunately, their shock turned initially to embarrassment as I explained to them the underlying joke. After the service, we finally laughed about the whole situation.

It did give me pause. I would have hoped that most of the Jewish world, by now, would have embraced our God-given egalitarianism so that anachronisms  – like not counting women as part of a minyan – would be a thing of the past. Alas, this is not so.

In many places around the world, women are still considered secondary or second class citizens.  Sure, there is an attempt at apologetics to explain away the differentiation.  But in truth, they remain of secondary status. And in Israel, these attitudes lead to other, more drastic situations:

The Reform Movement has worked for full equality of women – ordaining them as rabbis and cantors, having them serve as Temple presidents, inviting them back into the center of Judaism as was intended.  May the attitude, that there is anything okay with the segregation of women – on buses, in prayer, in a minyan – soon be an artifact of the past. 

13 Things I Love about Israel

Happy Birthday Israel! I wish I were there celebrating with you. I will eat some humus to celebrate today.

Inspired by Ima on the Bima’s list of 13 things she loves about Israel and in honor of Israel’s 62nd birthday today, I offer my own list of 13 things I love about Israel:

  1. Jerusalem is golden, Nachalot neighborhoods are richly diverse, and the city makes my soul sing.
  2. My two nieces made aliyah and are doing their part to strengthen the Jewish state.
  3. My children love Israel almost as much as I do, and cannot wait to get back again and again.
  4. I have made Aliyat HaNefesh (spiritual ascent – been to Israel) 9 times and still cannot get enough of her.
  5. Her language, Hebrew, flows somewhat fluently from my mouth.
  6. The Galilee is green, gorgeous, spacious and spectacular.
  7. You can walk on stone pathways that our Biblical ancestors actually walked on and up stairs that our ancestors actually climbed. History comes alive.
  8. Ain Avdat a Negev wadi, makes for a fun-filled, rock-climbing, water-discovering hike.
  9. Machane Yehuda on Friday afternoon is a a colorful, boisterous, deliciously smelly, pluralistic intersection of Israelis of all flavors and fruits and vegetables of all kinds. I love standing in the middle of it right then.
  10. Newness abounds: Tel Aviv, once lowest on my list of places to visit, now tops my list as a cultural pilgrimage site.
  11. Kehillat Mevasseret Zion, a Progressive synagogue in Mevasseret Zion, a Jerusalem suburb, is a virbrant beautiful community with an energetic, inspiring Rabbi Maya Leibovitch.
  12. The artists colony in Tzefat, filled with spiritual seekers and creative wonders, offers voice and visual to religious murmurings after a day spent touring the mystical sites.
  13. And the fact that this list can go on and on and on…

What are your 13 favorite things that you love about Israel? Do share!

Touching the Moment of Israel’s Creation

Anat Hoffman, the energetic, inspirational, forward-thinking Executive Director of the IRAC (Israel Religious Action Center) in Jerusalem, reflects upon Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israel’s Independence Day. In The Pluralist, the IRAC’s insightful eNewsletter, Hoffman captures the multi-sensory joy Jews feel at the creation/rebirth and existence of the State of Israel:

I am drawn again and again to A Tale of Love and Darkness, Amos Oz’s memoir of his early life in a young and bewildered Israel, a country which does not even formerly exist as such until a couple hundred pages into the book.

Every Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israel’s independence day, I think back to the passage in which Oz describes crawling into bed at three or four in the morning, still fully dressed, after celebrating the U.N.’s vote to create the state of Israel.

As a child, Oz understands the solemnity of the event, its historical dimensions, from observing the actions of his father, who lies down next to him and does something so out of character: he cries – tears of joy. And, in amazement, Oz takes note of his father’s reaction:

“I reached out sleepily to touch his face, just below his high forehead, and all of a sudden instead of his glasses my fingers met tears. Never in my life, before or after that night, not even when my mother died, did I see my father cry. And in fact I didn’t see him cry that night either: it was too dark. Only my left hand saw.”

Only his left hand saw. We remain in this moment with him – still our hand searches in the dark, tries to reach back in time to touch the moment of Israel’s creation, to grasp even a bit of what it must have been like to live through that time.

Oz does not choose the more reliable senses of sight or sound to translate the emotional incredibleness of one night years ago. He uses touch; and while we might imagine the sensation of hot tears on skin, something remains always out of our reach.

Oz, one of our greatest writers, comes close to but cannot pin down the ineffableness of that moment. Emotionally we get it, but putting it into words is like assembling a puzzle in a dream. But Oz invites us to try – with all our senses.

So I challenge you to do the same. Celebrate the event that made even Amos Oz’s father cry with joy. Tonight, as we move from Yom HaZikaron, Israel’s memorial day, to Yom Ha’atzmaut, let’s celebrate with all our senses.

Loving Israel is in the Details

Ah-yup… Loving Israel is in the details. I love this piece by Joel Chasnoff

NEW YORK (JTA) — In honor of Israel’s 62nd birthday, I’ll forgo the expected Op-Ed about Israeli government corruption, the Bibi-Obama drama, or the Israeli Rabbinate’s stranglehold on marriage and divorce.

Instead, I offer this love letter to Israel: “Top 10 tiny details about Israel that make it the most wonderful country on earth.”

10. Egged Bus #394: The midnight ride from Tel Aviv to Eilat. The trip begins in the gray-stucco slums of south Tel Aviv. Two hours later, you’re rolling through the desert beneath a blanket of stars. You crack open the window. The desert smells dry and ancient, like an attic. At dawn, you pull into Eilat as the city comes to life.

9. The way Israelis refuse to cross the street on a red light. Drivers blare their horns the instant the light turns green. Yet pedestrians refuse to cross the street until the sign turns green. I’ve witnessed this phenomenon at 3:00 a.m., the streets bare and not a car in sight.

8. The Jewish soul of even the most secular Israelis. I served in the Israeli Army with kibbutz kids who were so anti-religious that they never even had a bar-mitzvah. But on Friday nights, as the brigade sung the Sabbath Kiddush en masse, I could see my secular comrades mouthing the words.

7. Flush handles on Israeli toilets. Almost all Israeli toilets, both public and in homes, have two flush handles — one for “light” loads, and one for heavy ones. This saves Israel’s most precious natural resource: water. And it’s genius.

6. Drop-dead gorgeous Israeli soldiers. The men are hunky, the women beautiful. Try not to drool as you watch them strut down Ben Yehudah Street in their olive-green uniforms, M-16s slung across their backs. It’s not so much their physical beauty that charms us as what they embody: Jewish power.

5. Shuk Ha-Carmel on Friday afternoons. So many things about Israel drive me mad. The bureaucracy is crippling. Government offices operate when they want, for as long (or short) as they want, usually something like 8 a.m. until noon Mondays, Wednesdays and every other Thursday. Each week, another group goes on strike — schoolteachers, garbage men, postal workers, phone operators, cable guys, bus drivers, doctors, nurses, paramedics, airport baggage guys, and the old men in blue jumpsuits who walk the streets of Tel Aviv stabbing pieces of trash with meter-long spears have all struck in the past year — so the country never runs at full power.

The Knesset, Israel’s 15-party parliament, is trapped in a state of perpetual gridlock. And yet, when I step into the Carmel Market and hear the shopkeepers barking their wares, smell the mixture of frying lamb, goat cheese, and human sweat, and watch the people line up to buy flowers for Shabbat, I remember why I love Israel so much. It’s the excitement of the place, but also the Middle Easterness of it — the barking, the bargaining, the haggling that’s at once friendly and brutal. At pushcarts and stalls, middle-aged men with gold chains and raspy cigarette voices sell mangoes, lemons, whole and quarter chickens, cow lungs, cow tongues, cow testicles, sheep brains, 50-plus varieties of fish, calculators, knockoff Nikes, carnations, sponges, girdles, batteries, and men’s and ladies’ underwear.

Friday afternoons, with only a couple of hours until sundown, the peddlers shout their last-minute pre-Sabbath bargains: “Tangerines, 1 shekel, 1 shekel!” “Pita, hummus, chickpeas– yallah! Shabbat, Shabbat!” Whenever I walk through the souk, I think about all those American diplomats who call Israel the America of the Middle East. If those diplomats really want to understand Israel, they should leave their fancy Jerusalem hotels and take a stroll through the Carmel Market.

4. Chocolate milk in a sack. Half a liter of Kibbutz Yotvateh chocolate milk sealed in a palm-sized plastic bag that you rip open with your teeth and then squeeze, causing the milk to shoot into your mouth in a way that makes you feel like you’re drinking straight from the udder of a chocolate cow. Need I say more?

3. The incredible bond between Israelis. Maybe it’s a remnant of shtetl life in Europe, or perhaps it has something to do with living so close to your enemy. Whatever the reason, Israelis act as if everyone is everyone else’s next-door neighbor. The first time I experienced this unique bond was the week I arrived in Israel to begin my army service. I was driving to Tel Aviv in a rental car when a guy pulled up next to me at a stoplight and beeped his horn. “Hey, achi!” he called. “My girlfriend’s thirsty. You got water?” Beside me, on the passenger seat, was a bottle of water. But it was half empty.

I held up the bottle. “It’s already open,” I said.

“No problem,” he replied, and stuck out his hand.

A week later, I was at my girlfriend, Dorit’s, family’s apartment with her parents. It was dinnertime and we had ordered pizza. Finally, after two hours, the pizza guy showed up on his motor scooter. He was disheveled and sopped with sweat. “I got lost,” he whimpered.

“So come inside! Sit!” said Dorit’s mother, Tzionah. “Coffee or tea?”

“Coffee,” said the pizza guy. “Milk and two sugars.”

While Tzionah made the coffee, Dorit’s father, Menashe, opened the pizza box. “Please take.” He offered a slice. The pizza guy waved him off. “Nu! You’re offending me!” said Menashe. “What’s your name?”

“Oren,” said the delivery guy.

“Oren. I insist. Eat.”

And I’ll be damned if Oren the pizza guy didn’t sit down at the kitchen table and eat the pizza he’d just delivered. As we ate, I thought about all those porno movies where the lonely housewife invites the pizza boy inside and seduces him on the kitchen table. In the Israeli version of the story, the pizza boy doesn’t make love to the housewife. Instead, he sits down with the family and eats pizza.

2. Dropping off a passenger at Ben-Gurion Airport. You pull up to the Departure door, hug your loved ones goodbye, and watch them walk into the terminal. Then you inhale a breath of sweet Israeli air, look up at the cloudless Tel Aviv sky, and think, “They have to leave…but I get to stay in Israel.”

1. ____________________________________________ . I leave this one up to you. What do you love most about Israel? E-mail me joel@joelchasnoff.com and I’ll post your responses on the blog page of my Web site.

(Joel Chasnoff is a stand-up comedian and the author of “The 188th Crybaby Brigade: A Skinny Kid From Chicago Fights Hezbollah,” about his year as a combat soldier in the Israeli army. View photographs from his army service and meet the characters from Joel’s book at www.joelchasnoff.com.)

Building for the Future in Israel

With so much back and forth about what’s happening in and with Israel – often no more than the same old name calling and Israel-right/Israel-wrong mantra, it was fascinating to read this commentary from the Israeli orthodox rabbi, and liberal thinker, Donniel Hartman of Jerusalem’s Shalom Hartman Institute.  It is fascinating to read such a forward thinking, pro-active suggestion. 

Donniel Hartman’s latest commentary, “A Time to Build, a Time to Lead: The Difference Between Engaging and Advocacy,” continues his thorough, creative, and groundbreaking recasting of the way Israel thinks of itself and presents itself on the world stage. In describing the standard ways that Israel and its advocates have been explaining the current controversy over building in East Jerusalem, Donniel notes that:

because we are locked into limited advocacy arguments, we have limited our thoughts and even our policies to merely ensuring that we are doing nothing wrong, and not changing the status quo, rather than asking ourselves whether we are doing something right, and maybe even trying to improve on the status quo.

Donniel suggests engaging Israel rather than advocating for Israel:

When one goes beyond advocacy to engaging Israel, we search not for the relative legitimacy of Israel’s policies, in relation to the past or in relation to other nations in similar situations, or in relation to our neighbors. Rather one engages in a search for how Israel can be a vehicle for leading and expressing the best and most noble of our ideas, ideals, and values. Engaging Israel does not stop at justifying the present. It looks for opportunities for shaping the future of Israel in order to fulfill its identity as a Jewish state.

Donniel also makes a bold proposal: that Israel build thousands of apartments, and even new towns, for the Israelis who may be relocated in the event of a peace deal with the Palestinians, even before a peace deal is negotiated:

Let us begin to build cities and towns in the Negev and Galil, and to expand the settlement blocs in Gush Etzion, Maale Adumim and Ariel, so that almost every settler will be able to relocate no more than 30 minutes from their current homes. Let us build a monument to the peace that has so far eluded us – cities and towns and apartments which will lie empty – waiting to embrace their inhabitants who will pay the price of relocation so that all of us can begin building a new and better future.

Read all of “A Time to Build, a Time to Lead: The Difference Between Engaging and Advocacy” by clicking here. Please note: A Time to Build is the second column on the subject of engaging Israel (read “Engaging Israel: Beyond Advocacy,” the first article).

At the Wall, Which Side is the Right One? The Kotel Belongs to the Entire Jewish People

Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, wrote:

I am saddened and dismayed by recent events at the Western Wall. These events are a tragedy — a blow to the State of Israel and to the unity of the Jewish people.

Love of Israel unites Jews everywhere. Love of Jerusalem unites Jews everywhere. For many of these Jews, the single most important symbol of both Israel and Jerusalem is the Western Wall.

Why turn that symbol into a source of division? Why should the Wall be an ultra-Orthodox synagogue rather than a place that belongs to us all — a place where all Jews can find space to pray, to gather, and to celebrate the Jewish homeland and the Jewish people?

Twenty years ago I proposed a solution to the problem of access to the Wall, and it remains the best answer. There is ample room to divide the Wall into three areas: one for men to pray according to Orthodox custom; one for women to pray according to Orthodox custom; and one for non-Orthodox prayer and secular and civil ceremonies of various kinds.

However, instead of moving in the direction of equal access for all to one of Judaism’s most important religious and national sites, exactly the opposite has happened.

When a small group of women — traditional in observance and modestly dressed — has tried to organize occasional prayer services, which involve only those practices clearly permitted by halachah (traditional Jewish law), the women are spat upon, cursed and hustled away by the police, who generally do little or nothing to protect them from the harassers.

Ceremonies of national significance — tributes to fallen soldiers, the welcoming of new immigrants — were long held in the public areas behind the prayer section of the Wall, but they have now been curtailed or stopped altogether. The reason? Religious authorities who control the Wall have demanded that ultra-Orthodox standards be applied to such gatherings — meaning, for example, that the sexes must be segregated and that singing by women is prohibited.

Non-Orthodox religious youth groups that used to gather regularly in the same plaza area away from the Wall to enthusiastically pray and sing during their visits know that such services are no longer permitted.

When challenged, the religious authorities at the Wall talk of the “Robinson Arch” solution, which is an insult and no solution at all. Non-Orthodox Jews are permitted to pray at Robinson’s Arch, an archaeological site at a distance from the Wall that is not seen by most Jews as being part of the Wall at all.

The argument that permitting Reform and Conservative Jews to pray in the area of the Wall will lead to chanting by Catholics or Buddhists is absurd. Reasonable accommodations regarding non-Jewish religious ritual have been made at every other religious site in Israel. If anyone has been unreasonable, it has been the Jewish authorities at the Wall, who attempted to prevent Pope Benedict XVI from wearing his crucifix during his visit to the Kotel. The Pope rightly ignored them.

It may be that for now the law is on the side of those who impose these restrictions, and that others who wish to challenge them may have to accept the penalty for doing so. But it seems to me that recent events were more an attempt to intimidate and harass religious women than to enforce the law.

What is most important here, however, is that our goal in these troubled times is make Jews everywhere feel closer to Jerusalem and to the Jewish State. Driving Jews away from the Wall is self-defeating and foolish. To put it simply, the more Jews who visit the Wall — for religious, civic or national purposes — the better off we are.

And since there is not a single, universally accepted religious standard that governs Jewish religious life, we should make no attempt to impose one at the Kotel. What we need, rather, is to be respectful of each other’s choices and customs.

Throughout the generations, the Kotel has been a source of inspiration to Jews everywhere. It is a concrete symbol of our love for Jerusalem and our common Jewish destiny. The Wall belongs to the entire Jewish people; it must be a place that unifies our people, where all Jews are welcomed and all are respected.

Learn more. Take Action.

So All Jews Can Worship Together at the Kotel

As we prepare for Shabbat, for relaxation, spirituality and community, we take a moment to recognize that there are some who would like to dictate how all Jews should celebrate this holy day. In Israel, some ultra-orthodox are pressuring the Israeli government to transform Israel’s holiest religious sites into orthodox synagogues, excluding progressive Jewish women. Before, or after you celebrate Shabbat, take some time to read and speak out:

FROM: Rabbi Robert Orkand, ARZA President, Response to Interrogation of Anat Hoffman, Executive Director of IRAC
RE: Interrogation of Anat Hoffman, leader of Israel’s Women of the Wall

On behalf of almost a million and a half American Reform Jews, I react with dismay and alarm to the recent report that Anat Hoffman, leader of Israel ’s Women of the Wall, was interrogated and fingerprinted on January 6 by Jerusalem police. She was told that she may be charged with a felony for violating the rules of conduct at what many consider to be Judaism’s most sacred site. The action against Ms. Hoffman who is the Executive Director of the Israel Religious Action Center, follows on the arrest in November of Nofrat Frenkel a member of the Conservative movement and a medical student. The crime: wearing a tallit (prayer shawl) not at the Wall itself, but at an area that had been previously designated a place where Women of the Wall can gather for a once-a-month worship, as they have done for the past 21 years.

These recent actions at the Wall insult all Jewish women for they are being reminded, as they have so many times in the past, that they are second-class Jews at a place that is not a synagogue but rather, an historic site of great importance to all Jews, not just those who are Orthodox. The insults to which Women of the Wall have been subjected cannot be repeated in polite company. The fact that the police have seen fit to arrest women who went to the Wall for peaceful prayer and not those who have screamed that the Nazis should have murdered these women is a stark reminder of the lengths to which the ultra-Orthodox in Israel will go to force their religious practice on an entire nation.

One must wonder why the people of Israel tolerate a religious fanaticism that is no different than what we have witnessed in Iran and elsewhere. There have been riots on Shabbat by ultra-Orthodox Jews protesting the opening of a parking lot near the entrance to the Old City of Jerusalem. There have been riots in Jerusalem protesting the fact that an Intel plant operates on Shabbat. There are now segregated busses in Israel on more than 90 routes, with demands that the number of routes be increased. There is a growing crisis in Israeli education due to the fact that there is not a core curriculum required of every Israeli student, which means that increasingly students are being exposed to a narrow religion-based curriculum and are not learning the subjects that will allow them to function in a modern society. In short, Israel is the rare democracy today that tolerates and even worse endorses religious discrimination against Jews. The promise of Israel’s “Declaration of Independence that Israel will be a homeland for all Jews appears to be nothing more than a dream.

Make no mistake: What appears to be a growing religious crisis in Israel is as much a threat to Israel’s survival as are the external threats, perhaps more so. Israel has shown that she can protect herself from armies and terrorists. Protecting herself from religious extremism may be Israel’s biggest challenge—a challenge that cannot and must not be ignored by those who care about Israel’s soul.

____________________________________

FROM: Anat Hoffman, IRAC Executive Director—Personal Call to Action A Call to Action—Make the Wall for all Jews

On January 5th, 2010, I, Anat Hoffman, Executive Director of the Israel Religious Action Center, and leader of Women of the Wall was called in for questioning and fingerprinted by the Israeli police. They warned me that I was being investigated for the felony offense of wearing a tallit, and holding a Torah at the Western Wall.

My interrogation comes less than two months after the November 18th, 2009 arrest of the Women of the Wall member Nofrat Frankel for wearing a tallit and holding a Sefer Torah at the Wall.

We are asking you today to contact your local Israel Ambassadors and Consulates and tell them that you will not tolerate religious discrimination or be forced to practice the religious ideologies of the Ultra-Orthodox community. You can write your own letter or sign the letter we have attached. (see below)

Israel must understand that the will of a small fundamentalist minority cannot take the Wall away from Klal Yisrael.

  • Please send your letter to your Ambassador Michael Oren
  • Send a letter to your local Israeli consulate
  • Please also send this communication to your friends and family so that the message will come from as many people as possible
  • Other ways that you can show your support are to purchase a Women of the Wall tallit (Karen@irac.org) or by making a donation to IRAC’s work advancing Jewish pluralism and tolerance in Israel and fighting to end religious coercion and discrimination. http://www.irac.org/Donate.aspx
  • Lastly, organize a solidarity rally or prayer service for the Women of the Wall on the next Rosh Hodesh, Erev Shabbat January 15th 2010

____________________________________

Local and International Advocacy Action within the Jewish community

Dear________________________

On behalf of the Jewish people fighting for religious pluralism in Israel , I am outraged that one of our leaders, Anat Hoffman, was interrogated and fingerprinted by Jerusalem police on January 5th, 2010. Police told Hoffman, Executive Director of the Israel Religious Action Center and leader of Women of the Wall, that she may be charged with a felony for violating the rules of conduct at what many consider to be Judaism’s most sacred site.

Hoffman’s interrogation came less than two months after the November 18th, 2009 arrest of the Women of the Wall member Nofrat Frankel for wearing a tallit and holding a sefer Torah.

We will not tolerate this discrimination and abuse to continue among our own people. Women are treated as second-class citizens at a holy and historic place that has great symbolic importance for all Jews.

We are shocked by the brutal and callous insults to which Women of the Wall have been subjected. Many of these curses cannot be repeated in polite company. Israeli police have seen fit to arrest women who go to the wall for peaceful prayer, and make no attempt to reprimand those who spit and curse at them, a stark reminder of the power enjoyed by the Israeli ultra-Orthodox, and their success in forcing their religious practices on an entire nation.

If this were to happen in any other country in the world, the Jewish community would be up in arms. Israel is the rare democracy today that tolerates and even endorses religious discrimination against Jews.

Make no mistake: What appears to be a growing religious crisis in Israel is as much a threat to Israel’s survival as are the external threats, and perhaps more so. Israel has shown that she can protect herself from armies and terrorists. Protecting herself from religious extremism may be Israel’s biggest challenge—a challenge that cannot and must not be ignored by those who care about Israel ‘s soul.

We cannot allow this discrimination to continue any further. We must protect our religious rights in Israel.

Pass on our message to the Israeli government, that the Kotel is the beating heart center for the whole of the Jewish people, and not an Ultra-Orthodox synagogue. The arrest and intimidation of women praying at the Wall must stop and it must become a place in which all Jews can pray and connect spiritually to Israel.

Rosa Parks Redux? Why Can’t Women Wear a Tallit at the Western Wall: Israeli Reform Jewish Activist Questioned by Police

According to JTA,

Israeli police questioned a prominent Reform movement activist in connection with the wearing of prayer shawls by women at the Western Wall.

Anat Hoffman, the director of the Israel Religious Action Center, said she was fingerprinted Tuesday and that her case was being referred to the attorney general for prosecution.

Hoffman was brought in for her involvement in Women of the Wall, an activist group that presses for rights for women at Judaism’s holiest site.

“I think it was a meeting of intimidation,” Hoffman told JTA.

The interrogation follows the November arrest of Nofrat Frenkel, an Israeli medical student and Women of the Wall member who was detained after donning a tallit at the site.

What Happened Historically Back in Israel During the Time of the Maccabees?

8 Blogs for 8 Nights of Chanukah
Blog #3: The True Story of Chanukah: Complex, Bloody, Challenging

Question: Chanukah Is About More than Lights and Menorah. What Happened Historically Back in Israel During the Time of the Maccabees?

David Brooks (NYTimes columnist) writes in his article titled The Hanukkah Story:

Tonight Jewish kids will light the menorah, spin their dreidels and get their presents, but Hanukkah is the most adult of holidays. It commemorates an event in which the good guys did horrible things, the bad guys did good things and in which everybody is flummoxed by insoluble conflicts that remain with us today. It’s a holiday that accurately reflects how politics is, how history is, how life is.

It begins with the spread of Greek culture. Alexander’s Empire, and the smaller empires that succeeded it, brought modernizing ideas and institutions to the Middle East. At its best, Hellenistic culture emphasized the power of reason and the importance of individual conscience. It brought theaters, gymnasiums and debating societies to the cities. It raised living standards, especially in places like Jerusalem.

Many Jewish reformers embraced these improvements. The Greeks had one central idea: their aspirations to create an advanced universal culture. And the Jews had their own central idea: the idea of one true God. The reformers wanted to merge these two ideas.

Urbane Jews assimilated parts of Greek culture into their own, taking Greek names like Jason, exercising in the gymnasium and prospering within Greek institutions. Not all Jews assimilated. Some resisted quietly. Others fled to the hills. But Jerusalem did well. The Seleucid dynasty, which had political control over the area, was not merely tolerant; it used imperial money to help promote the diverse religions within its sphere.

In 167 B.C., however, the Seleucid king, Antiochus IV, issued a series of decrees defiling the temple, confiscating wealth and banning Jewish practice, under penalty of death. It’s unclear why he did this. Some historians believe that extremist Jewish reformers were in control and were hoping to wipe out what they saw as the primitive remnants of their faith. Others believe Antiochus thought the Jews were disloyal fifth columnists in his struggle against the Egyptians and, hence, was hoping to assimilate them into his nation.

Regardless, those who refused to eat pork were killed in an early case of pure religious martyrdom.

As Jeffrey Goldberg, who is writing a book on this period, points out, the Jews were slow to revolt. The cultural pressure on Jewish practice had been mounting; it was only when it hit an insane political level that Jewish traditionalists took up arms. When they did, the first person they killed was a fellow Jew.

In the town of Modin, a Jew who was attempting to perform a sacrifice on a new Greek altar was slaughtered by Mattathias, the old head of a priestly family. Mattathias’s five sons, led by Judah Maccabee, then led an insurgent revolt against the regime.

The Jewish civil war raised questions: Who is a Jew? Who gets to define the right level of observance? It also created a spiritual crisis. This was not a battle between tribes. It was a battle between theologies and threw up all sorts of issues about why bad things happen to faithful believers and what happens in the afterlife — issues that would reverberate in the region for centuries, to epic effect.

The Maccabees are best understood as moderate fanatics. They were not in total revolt against Greek culture. They used Greek constitutional language to explain themselves. They created a festival to commemorate their triumph (which is part of Greek, not Jewish, culture). Before long, they were electing their priests.

On the other hand, they were fighting heroically for their traditions and the survival of their faith. If they found uncircumcised Jews, they performed forced circumcisions. They had no interest in religious liberty within the Jewish community and believed religion was a collective regimen, not an individual choice.

They were not the last bunch of angry, bearded religious guys to win an insurgency campaign against a great power in the Middle East, but they may have been among the first. They retook Jerusalem in 164 B.C. and rededicated the temple. Their regime quickly became corrupt, brutal and reactionary. The concept of reform had been discredited by the Hellenizing extremists. Practice stagnated. Scholarship withered. The Maccabees became religious oppressors themselves, fatefully inviting the Romans into Jerusalem.

Generations of Sunday school teachers have turned Hanukkah into the story of unified Jewish bravery against an anti-Semitic Hellenic empire. Settlers in the West Bank tell it as a story of how the Jewish hard-core defeated the corrupt, assimilated Jewish masses. Rabbis later added the lamp miracle to give God at least a bit part in the proceedings.

But there is no erasing the complex ironies of the events, the way progress, heroism and brutality weave through all sides. The Maccabees heroically preserved the Jewish faith. But there is no honest way to tell their story as a self-congratulatory morality tale. The lesson of Hanukkah is that even the struggles that saved a people are dappled with tragic irony, complexity and unattractive choices.

Now read Rabbi Paul Kipnes’ Chanukah as the Second Sukkot: True Story of Chanukah

[Reprinted from David Brooks (New York Times), The Hanukkah Story, December 2009]

  • For Chanukah Resources to enhance your celebration – songsheets, blessing sheets, 8 Nights of Chanukah Tzedakah, 8 stories, and more – go to www.orami.org/chanukah
  • Come back each night to the blog (http://rabbipaul.blogspot.com) for more 8 Blogs for 8 Nights: Answers to Questions You Never Thought About, which enhance your understanding of Chanukah.
  • If you would answer today’s question differently, or have other Chanukah ideas/questions, please share your insights in a comment. I will make a donation to tzedakah for every comment written.

America vs. The Narrative: The Omnipresent Story Taking Hold in the Arab-Muslim World

America vs. The Narrative

America vs. The Narrative By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
 (New York Times, 11/30/09)

What should we make of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who apparently killed 13 innocent people at Fort Hood?Here’s my take: Major Hasan may have been mentally unbalanced — I assume anyone who shoots up innocent people is. But the more you read about his support for Muslim suicide bombers, about how he showed up at a public-health seminar with a PowerPoint presentation titled “Why the War on Terror Is a War on Islam,” and about his contacts with Anwar al-Awlaki, a Yemeni cleric famous for using the Web to support jihadist violence against America — the more it seems that Major Hasan was just another angry jihadist spurred to action by “The Narrative.” What is scary is that even though he was born, raised and educated in America, The Narrative still got to him.The Narrative is the cocktail of half-truths, propaganda and outright lies about America that have taken hold in the Arab-Muslim world since 9/11. Propagated by jihadist Web sites, mosque preachers, Arab intellectuals, satellite news stations and books — and tacitly endorsed by some Arab regimes — this narrative posits that America has declared war on Islam, as part of a grand “American-Crusader-Zionist conspiracy” to keep Muslims down.Yes, after two decades in which U.S. foreign policy has been largely dedicated to rescuing Muslims or trying to help free them from tyranny — in Bosnia, Darfur, Kuwait, Somalia, Lebanon, Kurdistan, post-earthquake Pakistan, post-tsunami Indonesia, Iraq and Afghanistan — a narrative that says America is dedicated to keeping Muslims down is thriving. Although most of the Muslims being killed today are being killed by jihadist suicide bombers in Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan and Indonesia, you’d never know it from listening to their world. The dominant narrative there is that 9/11 was a kind of fraud: America’s unprovoked onslaught on Islam is the real story, and the Muslims are the real victims — of U.S. perfidy.Have no doubt: we punched a fist into the Arab/Muslim world after 9/11, partly to send a message of deterrence, but primarily to destroy two tyrannical regimes — the Taliban and the Baathists — and to work with Afghans and Iraqis to build a different kind of politics. In the process, we did some stupid and bad things. But for every Abu Ghraib, our soldiers and diplomats perpetrated a million acts of kindness aimed at giving Arabs and Muslims a better chance to succeed with modernity and to elect their own leaders. The Narrative was concocted by jihadists to obscure that.It’s working. As a Jordanian-born counterterrorism expert, who asked to remain anonymous, said to me: “This narrative is now omnipresent in Arab and Muslim communities in the region and in migrant communities around the world. These communities are bombarded with this narrative in huge doses and on a daily basis. [It says] the West, and right now mostly the U.S. and Israel, is single-handedly and completely responsible for all the grievances of the Arab and the Muslim worlds. Ironically, the vast majority of the media outlets targeting these communities are Arab-government owned — mostly from the Gulf.”This narrative suits Arab governments. It allows them to deflect onto America all of their people’s grievances over why their countries are falling behind. And it suits Al Qaeda, which doesn’t need much organization anymore — just push out The Narrative over the Web and satellite TV, let it heat up humiliated, frustrated or socially alienated Muslim males, and one or two will open fire on their own. See: Major Hasan.“Liberal Arabs like me are as angry as a terrorist and as determined to change the status quo,” said my Jordanian friend. The only difference “is that while we choose education, knowledge and success to bring about change, a terrorist, having bought into the narrative, has a sense of powerlessness and helplessness, which are inculcated in us from childhood, that lead him to believe that there is only one way, and that is violence.”What to do? Many Arab Muslims know that what ails their societies is more than the West, and that The Narrative is just an escape from looking honestly at themselves. But none of their leaders dare or care to open that discussion. In his Cairo speech last June, President Obama effectively built a connection with the Muslim mainstream. Maybe he could spark the debate by asking that same audience this question: “Whenever something like Fort Hood happens you say, ‘This is not Islam.’ I believe that. But you keep telling us what Islam isn’t. You need to tell us what it is and show us how its positive interpretations are being promoted in your schools and mosques. If this is not Islam, then why is it that a million Muslims will pour into the streets to protest Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, but not one will take to the streets to protest Muslim suicide bombers who blow up other Muslims, real people, created in the image of God? You need to explain that to us — and to yourselves.”

So What are We Jews? A Religious Group or a People?

So what are we Jews?  A religion or faith group (like Protestants or Catholics)? An ethnic group with our bagels and lox?  A people?Ask many non-involved Jews and they will most likely answer: a religion.  But we have only consider ourselves a religious group since Napoleon offered Jews emancipation from the ghetto if we became Frenchmen of the Mosaic persuasion (a religious group).  Before that, and since, we have been primarily a people. 
Thus Daniel Gordis writes in A Requiem for Peoplehood (in a Jerusalem Post article):

Judaism as a faith system, of course, is nothing new. But from time immemorial, we have also seen ourselves as a people. From the moment that Pharaoh refers to the Jews as “the people, the Children of Israel” (Exodus 1:9), it is clear even to our enemies that Abraham’s clan has morphed into a nation.FOR MILLENNIA, rank-and-file Jews understood this. We cultivated bonds of mutual obligation, even when we profoundly disagreed, even when our faith wore thin. Kol Yisrael areivim zeh la-zeh, all Jews are responsible one for another, the tradition has long insisted.And it actually worked. It was peoplehood that got American college students to wage a relentless battle to free Soviet Jews, with whom they had virtually nothing obvious in common.It was due to peoplehood that IAF pilots flew converted cargo planes into an Ethiopian civil war in order to save people of a different race, a radically different faith system and virtually no shared history, bringing them to Israel in Operation Solomon.And it is peoplehood that has continually led American Jews – despite their absolute disinterest in making aliya and their profound differences with Israel about conversion policy and the peace process – to support Israel both financially and politically.

Perhaps the answer is D, all of the above.  Still, the notion that Jews are a people transcends time and space.  It helps explain what connects Jews of different backgrounds, different racial heritages, or different nationalities.  Which leaves me wondering: How do we reinforce the peoplehood part of being a Jew in a country that prefers to compare us to other religions?

Arrested for what??

My colleague, Rabbi Rick Winer, over at Divrei Derech, brings to our attention one of the sadder moments in the clash between orthodoxy and modernity: the arresting of a woman for wearing a tallit.  As I wrote in a comment on his blog, Anat-lesley

Among the most important contributions of the Reform Movement to Judaism, was/is its rebalancing the gender roles within our religion/people. We brought women out from behind the mechitza and onto the bimah. Judaism thrives because of this.  Innovation? No, reclamation of what was and should be.

Divrei Derech writes:  Yes, a woman was arrested for wearing a tallit, the traditional Jewish prayer shawl.  What theocracy might perpetrate such a travesty… Israel.
First of all, I do believe Israel is a relatively good democracy, like others (including our own here in the U.S.), certainly not perfect, and it’s partnered with a relatively good system of justice.But we know that politics get complex and especially so as they intersect with religion.I remember seeing the group Women of the Wall Women of the Wall when I lived in Israel.  Their purpose was to gain the right to pray at this holy site.  Unfortunately, some traditional authorities do not accept women constituting a prayer group and do not accept women praying aloud.  Read on.