The cost of being Jewish

A temple member recently pointed me to Lisa Miller's latest Newsweek column, "The Cost of Being Jewish."  My first response was: "She must have just received her annual dues bill and temple membership renewal forms (it is that time on the Jewish calendar)." After reading the column, I empathized with Miller's plight (and anyone's who belongs to a synagogue) and pulled together some of the the sources she cited in her article. Bottom line is that money and dues are necessary for synagogue operations (disclosure note: I think you already know that my salary comes from synagogue dues and contributions) but they create an obstacle for many people and we need to change the system.

That being said, my second response was to connect Miller's column with a story that had grabbed my attention in The Wall Street Journal from July 15th.  The Harry and Jeannette Weinberg Foundation has pledged $10 million to support impoverished Holocaust survivors.

As a young entrepreneur, Harry Weinberg vowed to care for Holocaust survivors who fled to North America. Now the foundation that bears his name is giving $10 million to the New York-based Claims Conference to help aging Holocaust survivors meet basic needs for shelter, food and medical care. "In the U.S., one in four survivor's lives alone and are five times more likely to live at or below the poverty level than other senior citizens," says Donn Weinberg, board chairman of the Harry and Jeannette Weinberg Foundation and Harry Weinberg's nephew.

The foundation estimates that there are more than 500,000 Holocaust survivors world-wide, with 144,000 living in North America. More than a third of survivors living in America live in Brooklyn, the foundation says.

It wasn't the largesse of the foundation that grabbed me - though I honor them for the mitzvah and wish I could match it.  It was the figures cited by Donn Weinberg (in bold above).  Did you have any idea that Holocaust survivors are living so close to and below the poverty level?  Had you not really thought about it ever?  For all my concern about how to fix the dues system of American Jewish life, I think Harry Weinberg and his foundation understand the real cost of being Jewish and put their money where their mouth is.

Save Israel's Democracy: Stop the Rotem Conversion Bill Now

This past Sunday, an Israeli Knesset committee voted to move forward a bill that gives the Orthodox Chief Rabbinate authority over conversions to Judaism and the authority to accept or reject conversions - even if performed in the United States or elsewhere outside Israel (the bill is sponsored by MK David Rotem).  This is a threat to Israeli democracy and pluralism and a threat to the rights and legal standing of non-Orthodox Jews in Israel.  Read this article from Haaretz newspaper about the bill "The Conversion Bill Demystified."  The final paragraph is especially relevant:

What are Reform and Conservative Rabbis afraid of?  They are concerned that for the first time, Israeli law is giving the Chief Rabbinate authority over conversion.  The rabbinate does not have that power today.  They are also concerned by the bill's statements that conversion will be recognized only if the convert, 'accepted Torah and the commandments in accordance with halakha.' This unprecedented stipulation excludes Conservative and Reform communities.

The Union for Reform Judaism's website has a statement on the bill, news and resources from other websites and links for action.  It is especially important that we voice our opposition and encourage Prime Minister Netanyahu to stop the bill (he has already frozen it from further advancement, it's time to kill it.)  Sign the online petition here and see the text of a letter you can send to PM Netanyahu here.

We are not alone on this. The Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist movements have all declared their opposition.  So has the American Jewish Committee, the Jewish Federation, the Jewish Agency and many other Jewish organizations.

The Second Go 'Round

Of all the experiences that made this Fourth of July in the DC area so memorable, the Lincoln Memorial stands out.  We went for the fireworks display over the National Mall and sat at the base of the memorial.  Reading over the two speeches engraved onto the stone temple walls - the Gettysburg Address and the Second Innaugural Address (shown in the photo at left), I was struck by how relevant they are for our nation and our world in this time of war.  Lincoln's remarks about caring for the soldiers, orphans and widows struck a chord that I preached on Friday night.  I also couldn't help but connect one verse from the Second Innaugural Address to Israel's situation vis-a-vis Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah.  Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu comes to visit Washington tomorrow with those "parties" on his mind and surely his agenda.  It is the second go around for him and I certainly hope it goes better than the last one (it's actually his fifth meeting with Obama but widely seen as a "do-over" for the last one).  I don't think I am a fatalist or war hawk though I am sure some do.  Lincoln's Second Innaugural is appealing because it so strongly deplores war and yet so clearly recognizes that loving peace and hating war do not mean you jettison your core values and do anything and everything to placate a hostile enemy.  Speaking of the South and the North in the Civil War, Lincoln said: "Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive and the other would accept war rather than let it perish."  I am not sure how much the parties in the Middle East deprecate war.  I do believe, however, that Lincoln's quote could describe their postions, only the nation in question is Israel.  I can only hope that the next line in Lincoln's speech - "and the war came" - is not our next line too.

The Sky is Not Falling on Liberal Zionsim: A response to Peter Beinart

Peter Beinart's article, "The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment" in the New York Review of Books has caused quite a stir.  That's good.  We're talking about Israel and American Jews and what we're doing right and wrong in regards to both.  Here's my few cents on Beinart's piece:

*I agree with Beinart that we should be concerned about Israel and the gap between pluralists and seculars on one side and anti-Arab Jewish nationalists on the other.


* I think he conflates events that are unrelated and may actually disprove his point. For example, the apathy of Jewish college students regarding Israel in 2003 does not find continued manifestation in the Brandeis Student Senate's actions in 2008 (or their protests against Ambassador Oren in 2010). Further, neither '03 apathy nor Brandeis '08 necessarily proves the failure of Liberal American Jewish organizations. It is, I would argue, the opposite. The Brandeis action represents one example of serious liberal Zionism among young people. They didn't condemn Israel or simply forget about the 60th anniversary of Israel's Independence. They made exactly the kind of constructive protest that Beinart seems to be calling for.

* His implication that high school student straw poll preferences for Avigdor Lieberman signal a larger cultural shift toward Kahanist attitudes is just not convincing. It only reminds us why we don't let children vote in real elections. His citation of Netanyahu's 1993 book is equally empty. '93 was the big lead up to Netanyahu's first PM candidacy and the book is as much electioneering as anything. Second, the best peace makers in Israeli history were once die-hard pro-settlement, violently anti-Arab (he cites the best example, Begin's connection to the Deir Yassin massacre, but never mentions the '79 Peace with Egypt?!). Changed positions is more common than career long consistency.

* I found his assessment of the "obsession with victimhood" and especially the threat from Iranian nuclear weapons disturbing. This sentence strikes me as outrageous: "the dilemmas you face when you possess dozens or hundreds of nuclear weapons and your adversary, however despicable, may acquire one, are not the dilemmas of the Warsaw ghetto." It is not a simple factor of who has more. All it takes is one and the will to use it, which is why we are more afraid of Al Qaida getting a single nuclear weapon than we fear the entire Russian arsenal (and our fear of the Russian arsenal is about securing it against rogues and terrorists). Israel, like America, has many nuclear weapons whose purpose is defensive deterrence that will likely never be (please God) used. Even in its worst positions (1973?), Israel opted not to use nuclear. So it doesn't really matter that they have dozens or hundreds more than Iran. Iran, on the other hand, talks of destroying Israel and (though I know I'm changing countries here) we've seen for example with Iraq in the first Gulf War that Arab enemies of Israel who talk of attacking Tel Aviv with missiles will do it even if Israel has not attacked them first. There's no guarantee that Iran will strike Israel with it's one nuclear missile, but it's much more likely a threat than we can see from Israel's possesion of even a hundred-ish nuclear weapons. I think maybe we do have the dilemmas of the Warsaw ghetto - do you sit there and wait for the mass death or join the ZOB? An Iranian nuclear weapon IS an existential threat - or as somebody else once said "a flying instant death camp." I'm not obsessed with victimhood just because I believe that, I'm a student of history. One of the things we learned on the CCAR conference call with HaLevi and Miller is the sense that Israelis feel an existential threat on all sides: Hezbollah in the north, Hamas in the south and Iran from the East. The only place to go is into the sea they speak so freely of pushing us into.

* Last point, why no mention of J Street? New Israel Fund? the Reform Movement? The Four Mothers (within Israel)? This decade has seen the largest burst of new and increasingly strong American Liberal Zionist organizations maybe since '48 and they are making an impact. The right wing of the Knesset would not have held up NIF as traitorous if they weren't making headway and, despite the right's horrible proposition, that right wing assault did not pass. J Street not only survived the AIPAC/right wing onslaught at its birth, it came through it even stronger.

So, where's that leave us? Gravely concerned for the future of a Jewish homeland in Israel that can be pluralistic, democratic and strong. Outraged at the continued failure to protect human rights, foster true democratic values, and settle the #&@! occupation already. But not lost and disheartened with regards to American Liberal Zionist outlets. The opposite: we have more ways than ever to be (if J-street will allow me the usage) Pro-Israel AND Pro-Peace. So keep it up.

The Flotilla: How to make sense of it all?

I am sitting on a CCAR sponsored conference call with Aaron David Miller, Anat Hoffman, and Yossi Klein Halevi.  Miller's article, "The False Religion of Mideast Peace: And why I'm no longer a believer" in the May/June issue of Foreign Policy got much cudos on the call.  Miller himself was a very informative and coherent analyst on the call.  I'm reading the article as soon as the call ends, check it out yourself.

I will offer a sermon about the Gaza Flotilla and its larger issues tomorrow night at services drawing on the insights of these analysts and the text study shared by Rabbi Micah Greenstein about the existence of evil and how we respond to it.

Some points from the call:

Miller's points:
* Israel still has no strategy regarding Gaza
* Dysfunction is THE defining characteristic of Israeli - Palestinian negotiations and relations.
* Other crises are inevitable, especially with Hezbollah.  They have amassed a stockpile of high trajectory missiles AND Israel has no better plans to respond than it had in its unsuccessful war in Lebanon in 2006.
* There will be no fix to the Gaza problem because there's no lasting fix to the Palestinian issue.
* Iran moves dangerously closer to nuclear weapons by the day and there's no fix on the horizon, only "drift" - which encourages the last ditch open: military action.
* This flotilla crisis may bring some clarity and improvement to the US-Israel relationship.

Hoffman pointed out:
*Israel is not the only country imposing the embargo.  Egypt, in its desire to keep the Muslim Brotherhood from linking up with Hamas also has a blockade and embargo on Gaza.

*The list of products on the Gaza embargo is random and not productive, i.e. pasta is allowed because John Kerry demanded it but sesame seeds are not.  Shampoo is allowed in but conditioner is not.  This caused a problem recently over conditioning shampoo.  "It is hard defend the lists, but I can't say that Israel is causing a humanitarian crisis."

*Israel needs us now more than ever.  Do not boycott and do not hold back your investment and engagement with Israel.  We are moving towards greater pluralism in Israel and boycotts only encourage more "Masada mentality" in which Israelis see themselves as hopelessly trapped, surrounded.  Such thinking produces terrible outcomes.  (See Yediot Achranot article)

Yossi Klein Halevi:
* We must have a two state solution and most Israelis agree with this.  It is an existential necessity, however most Israelis also feel that a two state solution under current circumstances would be an existential threat.  Especially since the Goldstone Report, Israelis are now convinced that withdrawal from the West Bank would be suicidal because they believe the world would not allow Israel any clout to respond to terrorism launched from those areas.

* So long as Hamas is a significant player in Palestinian politics, there will be no two-state solution.  Israelis are simply too afraid of a Hamas takeover of the West Bank and East Jerusalem and could never accept it.

* For most Israelis the question of the Gaza siege is tactical and not moral.  i.e. liberal columnist Ben Caspit in Maariv's article, "It's not enough to be right one also has to be smart."  Israelis overwhelmingly accept the siege as morally legitimate.

* The growing crisis between liberal diaspora Jews and Israel is highlighted by reactions to the flotilla.  90% of Israelis want the IDF to stop the next ship coming to Gaza.  What would American Jews say? (probably much less he guesses).

* The lack of balance in coverage and condemnation is inexplicable.  For example, IAEA experts announced yesterday that Iran has enough fuel in the works for two nuclear weapons.  That story was on page 4 of the IHT; the front page was flooded with condemnation of Israel.  No country, no UN body has met or condemned that development.  See Daniel Henninger's very clear op-ed piece on this same issue in today's Wall Street Journal.