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Jewish Journal

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January 25, 2007

Scandals and war fallout cast doubt on Olmert’s leadership

Leave a Comment / Israel, Politics, Power, Worldwide /

Following the sudden but not unexpected resignation of the Israeli army’s chief of staff, pundits are asking how much longer Ehud Olmert, the country’s beleaguered prime minister, can survive in office.

Under investigation for corruption and with his approval ratings at an all-time low, Olmert is facing increasing public pressure to quit.

Things could get even worse for him if the Winograd Commission, which is investigating last summer’s war with Hezbollah in Lebanon, is critical of his role when it presents preliminary findings at the end of the month.

But Olmert is a tough customer unlikely to resign of his own accord. And the way the Israeli system works, it could be difficult to force him out.

The fact that Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz chose to resign clearly marks last summer’s war in Lebanon as a failure. And the fact that he has already gone puts the Winograd spotlight on those up the line — Defense Minister Amir Peretz and Olmert himself.

The Winograd mandate includes asking the big questions: Why did the prime minister decide to go to war so hastily, just hours after the ostensible casus belli, the abduction of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah along the border with Lebanon? Why didn’t Olmert pressure the army to launch a major ground strike much earlier in the campaign to stop rocket fire on Israeli civilians? And why didn’t the government do more to move civilians out of the line of fire?

According to Yoel Marcus, the doyen of Israeli political analysts, the perceived failure in the war, the corruption clouds and the absence of clear leadership on peacemaking with the Palestinians or the Syrians has spawned a dark public mood that the Olmert administration will not survive.

“In this grim atmosphere, the public is not going to sit back and allow the chief of staff to take all the blame for the second Lebanon War while the political leaders who initiated and planned it are let off the hook,” Marcus wrote in Ha’aretz. “Maybe there won’t be a Yom Kippur War-style earthquake. But Labor MK Avishai Braverman is right in predicting that the pair of duds known as Olmert and Peretz are living on borrowed time. Sooner or later they will be toppled from government by the Domino effect.”

Although nothing has been proven against Olmert, the accumulation of corruption scandals involving him or close members of his administration has eroded public confidence in the prime minister. Olmert is being investigated on suspicion of rigging a tender for the sale of Bank Leumi, Israel’s second largest bank, when he was finance minister in 2005-06.

Olmert says the changes he made were to maximize state profits from the sale. The prosecution has ordered the police to investigate whether the changes were meant to help his billionaire friends, American S. Daniel Abraham and Australian Frank Lowy — although in the end they did not make a bid.

Olmert also is suspected of giving preference at the Investment Center to clients of a former law partner and of making dozens of political appointments in the Small Business Center when he was minister of industry and trade in 2003-05.

He also has been tainted by suspicions of corruption by association: His close friend, Finance Minister Avraham Hirschson, is suspected of involvement in a sick-fund scam, and his longtime secretary, Shula Zaken, is suspected of helping to appoint cronies to the National Tax Authority in return for tax reductions for pals.

Even if Olmert is innocent, critics say he won’t be able to govern because he’ll be too busy trying to clear his name.

Olmert also is under fire for a perceived lack of political leadership. He says he doesn’t have the political power to make major diplomatic moves, but critics say he doesn’t seem to have an agenda for peacemaking with the Palestinians or the Syrians, or any unilateral alternative either.

The resulting loss of public confidence in the prime minister is reflected in recent public opinion polls. A mid-January survey in Ha’aretz gave Olmert an approval rating nationwide of just 14 percent. A few days later the news for the prime minister was even worse: A poll aired on Israel’s Channel 10 TV claimed that 69 percent of Israelis actually wanted Olmert to resign.

Ironically, although Olmert is probably the most unpopular prime minister in Israeli history, he has one of the strongest coalitions based on the support of 78 of the 120 Knesset members.

So how could he be forced out of office? One way would be for a majority of 61 Knesset members to vote for early elections. But since many of them are unlikely to be re-elected, pundits reckon the chances of that happening any time soon are remote.

A more likely move is a vote of “constructive no-confidence” in which 61 Knesset members coalesce around an alternative candidate for prime minister, thereby installing a new national leader without holding new national elections.

Here pundits see two possibilities — a split in Olmert’s Kadima Party in which half the Kadima legislators return to their Likud origins or at least make a pact with Likud, bringing its leader Benjamin Netanyahu to power.

The second constructive no-confidence scenario involves Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and a coup in Kadima in which she replaces Olmert as leader. Polls show Livni with a 51 percent approval rating to Olmert’s 14 percent, and see her as three times more likely than Olmert to win a new election.

Another scenario that could bring down Olmert would be Labor leaving the coalition, but that’s unlikely to happen before Labor elects a new leader in May. If Labor does pull out then, it would leave the Likud in a position to decide whether to join Olmert in Labor’s place or to force new elections.

Most pundits agree that the countdown on Olmert’s government has begun, but they differ on how long it will take before it falls. And despite his obvious weakness, most pundits think Olmert will be able to stumble on for some time yet.

But where Olmert’s predecessor, Ariel Sharon, was able to ride out a rebellion in the Likud and a string of corruption scandals, most pundits believe that even if he gets by the Winograd Commission, Olmert does not have the political clout in the longer term to emulate his illustrious predecessor.

Scandals and war fallout cast doubt on Olmert’s leadership Read More »

Bay Area takes on ‘progressive’ anti-Semitism

Leave a Comment / Judaism, Worldwide /

Three years ago, Jonathan Bernstein received an e-mail from a distraught political activist in the San Francisco Bay Area concerned about rising anti-Semitism among fellow political progressives.

“The growing acceptance of anti-Semitic rhetoric is so commonplace it is not even recognized as anti-Semitism,” wrote the activist, who went on to list a number of anti-Semitic incidents in her community that had left her rattled.

Despite her opposition to the U.S.-led war in Iraq, the woman had not attended a recent anti-war rally due to her reluctance to support the group organizing the protest.

“We’ve gotten calls for help like that almost weekly here for the last three years,” said Bernstein, director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) office in San Francisco. “With each case we’ve helped put out fires by trying to get the right person to speak out about whatever the issue is.”

On Jan. 28 the ADL will try to do more than just douse fires when it convenes Finding Our Voice, a daylong conference in San Francisco aimed at empowering Jewish progressives to respond to anti-Semitism on the left.

Co-sponsored by more than 50 Jewish organizations from across the political spectrum — including the ADL, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Americans for Peace Now and the Jewish Labor Committee — the conference aims to empower participants to respond to what organizers describe as an alarming trend.

Workshops will feature presentations by university professors, community activists, elected officials and religious leaders. Among the titles are “That’s Not Funny: Cartoons and Editorials — What’s Legitimate and What Isn’t”; Opposing the War While Opposing Anti-Semitism”; “Breaking Through the Myth of Jewish Whiteness”; and “Using Positive Messages to Challenge Hate: Advocacy on the Campus.”

The keynote address will be presented by Anthony Julius, a British Jewish attorney who successfully defended Emory University professor Deborah Lipstadt in the libel suit brought by Holocaust denier David Irving.

While much attention has been paid to the so-called “new anti-Semitism,” in which antipathy toward Jews is masked as rabid criticism of Israel, the Finding Our Voice conference represents the first organized effort by liberal Jews to fight back.

A similar effort organized by non-Jews, Facing the Challenge Within, was launched in the Bay Area in 2004.

“Right now it seems that the best way to further progressive causes, and particularly a broader sense of how Jews can be active in peace causes, is to give progressive Jews the tools to constructively address anti-Semitism when it comes up in progressive circles,” said Rabbi Jane Litman, a Reform rabbi in Berkeley.

A lifelong progressive, Litman received death threats during Israel’s war last summer against Hezbollah in Lebanon. An exhibition dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at a public arts center across the street from her synagogue included images Litman considered hateful, leading her to organize a counter-exhibition to show alternate, peace-oriented images.

“The progressive movement is about tolerance and justice and peace,” Litman said. “It seems so strange that hatefulness can have a home there.”

The left’s tolerance for anti-Jewish bigotry is considered strange by many progressive Jews in the Bay Area, who noticed a marked increase in anti-Semitic rhetoric following the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Several anti-war protests in San Francisco organized by the ANSWER Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) featured imagery and slogans some considered anti-Semitic, including the burning of the Israeli flag, chants of support for terrorist groups like Hezbollah and Nazi-like arm salutes.

Conference participants say that while some of this activity reflects a sinister political agenda, much of it stems from ignorance of the complexity of the Middle East conflict.

Some say a tendency to project familiar tropes of imperialist aggression or American racial politics onto the conflict produces a simplistic narrative in which Jews are the “white” oppressors and Palestinians the “black” victims.

Julius calls the ignorance thesis “a touch naive,” believing instead that the problem stems from the failure of the socialist revolution and the search by disaffected leftists for a new cause.

“The 1967 war coincided with the collapse of the socialist project in Europe, and particularly in Eastern Europe,” Julius said. “And anti-Zionism in a way comes out of that collapse, out of a kind of sense of hopelessness of the project of human liberation. Anti-Zionism was the consolation prize to the defeated, disappointed socialists.”

Similarly, just as the anti-war movement has brought together anti-Israel groups with dejected socialists, the conference on anti-Semitism is uniting groups of varying political persuasions — a sign of broad community support for the project, but also a challenge for the organizers.

Some Jews on the left view groups like the ADL and AIPAC with skepticism, believing they deliberately blur the line between anti-Semitism and legitimate criticism of Israeli policy. Others are staying away from the conference out of fear that association with it could cost them credibility in the progressive community.
“We’ve all had to break out of our comfort zones to put this together, including myself,” Bernstein said.

But for some, the ADL hasn’t broken out enough.

Two prominent Bay Area Jewish organizations active in the progressive movement — Tikkun and Jewish Voice for Peace — were not invited to co-sponsor the conference. Two others were invited to participate but declined, citing concerns about the agenda.

Rabbi Michael Lerner, the founder of Tikkun and perhaps the most well-known Jewish progressive in the country, will be in Washington on the day of the conference protesting the Iraq war.

A spokesperson for Jewish Voice for Peace, a liberal advocacy group working on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, said: “From our perspective, you cannot get to the roots of anti-Semitism in the progressive movement without honestly addressing the severe human-rights violations that Israel engages in every day. Judging by the lineup, that kind of honest examination is not likely to happen at this conference.”

A source involved in planning the conference said that it was precisely that type of discussion that organizers wanted to avoid out of concern that it would distract from the primary focus on Jewish oppression.
Certain groups were eliminated because their personalities might overshadow the conference, the source said.

“We were really trying to get a cross-section of the Jewish community there, and to do that we needed to be a little bit smart about who we invited,” Bernstein said. “I’m hopeful that once we get talking with each other and open up some channels of communication, then that umbrella can broaden and we’ll be able to pull every group in.”

Bay Area takes on ‘progressive’ anti-Semitism Read More »

Renewal seeks consistency in its rabbinical training

Leave a Comment / Judaism, Worldwide /

Karyn Berger, a slight, dark-haired woman wearing a royal blue tallit, steps up to the microphone to introduce herself and her four colleagues. All are about to be ordained as Jewish Renewal spiritual leaders — two rabbis, two rabbinic pastors and one cantor.

“We were born in Austria, Budapest, the Bronx, Toronto and Oklahoma,” she begins. “We grew up atheist, Reform kosher, socialist-Zionist. Two of us went to Orthodox yeshivas. Our average age is 49, and collectively we’ve been married for 75 years.”

When the laughter dies down, Berger continues more seriously.
“All five of us got our call to serve, and here we are,” she said. “Our calling is to heal souls — the souls of the Jewish people.”

The candidates’ teachers and mentors are then called up to stand behind their former students, who literally lean back into the arms of those who taught them, receiving ordination via hands-on transmission.

This very personal, emotion-filled ceremony on Jan. 7 — the highlight of the annual Ohalah Convention, the professional association of Renewal rabbis — is in keeping with the mission of Jewish Renewal.

It’s an egalitarian, neo-Chasidic Jewish practice that is reaching for greater internal consistency and standardization of its rabbinic training.

Often derided or acclaimed as “New Age Judaism,” Renewal focuses on environmentalism and direct spiritual connection to the Divine. It’s part of the burgeoning world of transdenominational Judaism — the growing number of synagogues, rabbis and prayer groups that eschew affiliation with a Jewish stream.

Renewal is “not a denomination” but an attempt to revitalize Jewish practice by emphasizing its spiritual depths, said Rabbi Marcia Prager, dean of the rabbinic program for Aleph: Alliance for Jewish Renewal. The approach was developed four decades ago by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, a former Chabad-Lubavitch rabbi who is still the movement’s spiritual head.

Renewal today claims 40 affiliated congregations. Since 1974, 112 Renewal spiritual leaders have been ordained — 98 rabbis, three cantors and 11 rabbinic pastors. Sixty are graduates of the Aleph rabbinic program, created in the late 1990s to bring greater consistency to the course of study and relieve the pressure on Schachter-Shalomi, who had been personally overseeing each student’s progress.

The Aleph program differs from other seminaries in that it is completely off site. Each student has an individualized program developed and overseen by a mentoring committee. That can include classes at other seminaries, synagogues and universities, independent reading and traditional hevruta, or Torah study in pairs, as well as teleconference courses led by Aleph teachers.

In addition to Hebrew, Jewish text, history and philosophy and professional development courses, Renewal students study Chasidic literature and philosophy, meditation and prayer. They are each assigned a mashpia, or mentor, who guides their personal religious journey. The mashpia system is a staple in the Chasidic world.

Whereas other seminaries have carefully structured five-year rabbinic programs — six if a preparatory year is required — an Aleph course can take from two to 10 years or more. Few students are full time. Most are older and cannot leave family and career behind to attend a traditional seminary.

Daniel Siegel, the first Renewal rabbi ordained by Schachter-Shalomi in 1974 and now an Aleph teacher, said each seminary has its strengths. Aleph’s focus is pastoral care.

“We’re trying to train people who are drawn to the service of other people,” he said.

Leaders of other seminaries raise concerns about Aleph, not for the quality or sincerity of its students or faculty, but for its lack of standardization.

Rabbi Dan Ehrenkrantz, president of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, noted that Aleph has not sought accreditation, and he questioned its reliance on distance learning.

“Our program is five or six years for a reason,” Ehrenkrantz said. “We want people to have certain socialization experiences that are crucial in the development of a rabbinic identity.”

In fact, when prospective students approach Aleph, if their goal is to become a pulpit rabbi, they are encouraged to enter another seminary to increase their job opportunities. Many have done so, ending up with double ordination.

Rabbi Alicia Magal was already well along in her Aleph studies when she decided to seek concurrent ordination from the Academy of Jewish Religion, a nondenominational seminary founded in New York in 1956. A Los Angeles branch was established in 2000, but two years later, the Academy for Jewish Religion, California, now located at the Yitzhak Rabin Hillel Center for Jewish Life at UCLA, separated from New York, although the academies maintain common philosophies on pluralism and spirituality.

Magal said she missed “rubbing elbows with other students.”

Part of the lack of standardization is intentional.

“The key to Renewal is autonomy,” Schachter-Shalomi told the Ohalah gathering. “We bring heart to the situation. We bring compassion.”

But it’s also something Aleph’s leadership is working hard to change. The establishment of the school in 1995 was itself an attempt to bring greater consistency to the preparation of Renewal rabbis, a process that continues. There’s an extensive application process, course work is continually evaluated and two years ago a stable curriculum was created with courses that rotate.

The creation of Ohalah was a second step in the same direction, said Aleph board member Rabbi Pam Frydman Baugh, immediate past president of Ohalah.

“In the early days, a person who was ordained was out on their own,” she said. “Now we have Ohalah to provide things rabbis need as they move forward in their profession.”

But she acknowledged that Renewal is still fighting for acceptance. That’s nothing new. When Reconstructionism emerged in the early 20th century, the other denominations looked askance.

“Then Renewal came around, and Reconstructionism became part of the establishment,” Baugh said.

One day, Renewal, too, could be supplanted. But for now, she admitted, “we have that chip on our shoulder that comes from being the new kid on the block.”

Renewal seeks consistency in its rabbinical training Read More »

Briefs: Holocaust denial resolution goes to U.N.; Swiss admit Israel-Syria mediation; Survivors owed

Leave a Comment / Community, Worldwide /

Holocaust Denial Resolution Goes to U.N.

The United States presented a resolution condemning Holocaust denial to the United Nations General Assembly. The text, introduced Tuesday in advance of the U.N.-designated International Day of Commemoration for victims of the Holocaust on Jan. 27, urges member states “to reject any denial of the Holocaust as a historical event” and “condemns without reservation any denial of the Holocaust.” Although it does not mention Iran, the measure is seen as a reaction to last month’s Holocaust denial conference hosted by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran.

“I wouldn’t say it’s a reaction to, but certainly the conference in question only reminds us that there are those among us who actually minimize or deny the Holocaust, and we find that frightening,” said Richard Grenell, the U.S. mission’s spokesman. “And this resolution makes clear it’s unacceptable to even minimize it.”

The resolution, which has some 25 sponsors, is expected to go to a vote Friday.

Pole Wins Jerusalem Prize

This year’s Jerusalem Prize will go to Leszek Kolakowski in recognition of his critiques of the repressive aspects of Soviet communism and his championing of human liberty. The prestigious literary prize will be presented at next month’s Jerusalem International Book Fair.

Born in 1927, Kolakowski earned a doctorate from Warsaw University and went on to serve on the faculties of Harvard, Oxford and the University of Chicago before retiring in 1995. Past recipients of the prize include Bertrand Russell, Arthur Miller, Susan Sontag, Mario Vargas Llosa, Milan Kundera and Simone de Beauvoir. Some of the recipients went on to receive the Nobel Prize for literature, including V.S. Naipaul and J.M. Coetzee.

Swiss Admit Israel-Syria Mediation

Switzerland confirmed that it had been mediating secret efforts to launch Israeli-Syrian peace talks. Swiss President and Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey said Monday that top emissaries from her government were currently in Damascus. She refused to elaborate, but the disclosure appeared to confirm a Ha’aretz report earlier this month that a European country had mediated two years of unofficial talks between a retired Israeli diplomat and a Syrian American businessman about how the two countries could resume peace talks that were cut off in 2000. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert dismissed the contacts as unauthorized, while the Syrian government called the Ha’aretz report baseless.

Survivors Owed Billions, Study Says

Holocaust survivors are still owed as much as $175 billion in reparations, according to a new study. The Jewish Political Studies Review in Jerusalem said European nations had promised $3.4 billion in reparations, but only half of that had been paid by 2005. Only about 20 percent of Jewish assets have been returned overall, according to the study, which was made public last Friday by Reuters. The study said payments slowed after the United States stopped pressuring Europe on restitution. Holocaust survivors, many of them poor, are frustrated with the lack of payments. “Things are moving much too slowly,” said Menachem Rosensaft, founder of the International Network of Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors. The Claims Conference said it would not comment on the report.

Katsav to Face Rape Charges

Israel’s attorney general decided that President Moshe Katzav should be charged with rape. Menachem Mazuz’s office issued a statement Tuesday saying it had collected enough evidence to support charging Katsav with rape and sexual harassment of former employees, obstruction of justice and fraud. A final decision on whether to indict Katsav will be made after a hearing in which the president may present his case. The president has immunity while in office, but said last month that he would resign if indicted. Katsav has denied any wrongdoing.

JDub, Matisyahu End Legal Troubles

In a release issued Tuesday, nonprofit Jewish record label and management team JDub announced it has resolved all legal disputes with Matisyahu, although its business relationship with the artist remains severed. In a surprise move last March, the Chasidic reggae star abruptly ended his management agreement with JDub’s Aaron Bisman and Jacob Harrison on the eve of the release of his first major studio album, “Youth.” JDub claimed their agreement with the artist had three years remaining on a four-year contract when Matisyahu moved to representation by former Capitol Records president Gary Gersh.

— Staff Report

Rap Mogul Addresses Jewish Congress

Rap mogul Russell Simmons called on Jewish entertainers to fight racism. In a speech Monday to the World Jewish Congress titled “Unity: Fighting Our Fights Together,” Simmons spoke about his public service announcements against racism and anti-Semitism that will be aired in Europe later this month. The ads, produced by Simmons, co-leader of The Foundation for Ethnic Understanding, feature Simmons and rapper Jay-Z encouraging young people to fight racism and anti-Semitism in their communities. Simmons called on the Beastie Boys and other Jewish entertainers to create another public service announcement with him, this one focusing on Islamophobia.

Saddam Chroniclers Look to Yad Vashem

Iraqis documenting Saddam Hussein’s crimes have been consulting with Yad Vashem. Yediot Achronot reported Tuesday that a group of Iraqi exiles that want to honor the late dictator’s victims visited the Jerusalem-based Holocaust memorial last year and also met with Hollywood director Steven Spielberg, who has documented the stories of Holocaust survivors. “It is difficult for me to make a comparison between the story of the Iraqi victims and the Holocaust of the Jews in Europe,” Kanan Makiya, one of the researchers, told Yediot. “Yet there are many basic similarities. Saddam behaved toward some parts of his people as Hitler did toward the Jews. Both cases are tragedies and there were innocent victims in both cases.”

Shipwreck Found Off Israel’s Coast

An eighth-century shipwreck was discovered off Israel’s northern coast. Though the 50-foot-long boat was discovered almost a decade ago, Haifa University’s Institute for Maritime Studies announced the find Tuesday after completing its research into the vessel.

“We do not have any other historical or archaeological evidence of the economic activity and commerce of this period,” said the university’s Ya’acov Kahanov. “The shipwreck will serve as a source of information about the social and economic activities in this area.”

In addition to the wooden hull, many of the boat’s contents were preserved. Among them are 30 vessels of pottery of different sizes and designs containing fish bones, ropes, mats, a bone needle, a wooden spoon, wood carvings and food remains, mainly carobs and olives.

Briefs courtesy Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Briefs: Holocaust denial resolution goes to U.N.; Swiss admit Israel-Syria mediation; Survivors owed Read More »

Analysis: Jewish silence on Iraq continues

Leave a Comment / Judaism, Politics, Power, United States, Worldwide /

Congressional Democrats and President Bush are on a collision course over plans to increase the number of U.S. troops in the conflict, an issue that will dominate the 110th Congress and the early days of the 2008 presidential race.

But don’t look for much of a response from the organized Jewish community.

The reasons normally talkative Jewish groups have been struck dumb are varied. But one potential consequence is becoming clearer by the day: Israel, smack in the middle of a destabilized Middle East, could pay a big price for U.S. failures in the war — and for the failure of Jewish leaders here to speak out against those policies.

There’s never been doubt about where the Jewish grass-roots has stood on the war. Even before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, polls showed majority opposition to military action in Iraq, and that opposition has only grown since Saddam Hussein was toppled and Iraq began its sickening descent into civil war and sectarian mayhem.

But no major Jewish group spoke out against Bush administration policy until November 2005, when the Union for Reform Judaism passed a cautiously worded resolution calling for troop pullouts to begin a month later and for a clear exit strategy by an administration that didn’t seem to think it needed one.

Even in the Reform movement, though, activism lagged, reflecting the nation as a whole; despite widespread doubts about administration policy, the antiwar movement failed to gain traction in Middle America.

In part, that was a function of the inability of war opponents to offer plausible policy alternatives. And the antiwar movement seemed dominated by radical forces with other agendas, including the neo-Stalinist, anti-Israel International ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism).
Among Jewish leaders, there was also uncertainty about where Israel’s leaders stood on the war.

In 2003, some Israeli officials privately expressed qualms that a U.S. invasion could create new fault lines in the region. But others insisted the removal of Saddam would only help Israel, and last November Prime Minister Ehud Olmert came to Washington and said that U.S. policy is bringing “stability” to the region — despite U.S. intelligence estimates saying just the opposite.

The administration boxed Jewish leaders in by repeatedly saying the war was being fought, in part, to protect Israel. Jewish leaders here never bought that argument — but it made it harder for them to publicly challenge the policies of an administration that said it wanted to help Israel.

Some Jewish leaders also feared that criticizing an embattled Bush could cool his pro-Israel ardor and lead to retaliation against the Jewish state.

For all those reasons and more, Jewish groups, with the exception of the Reform movement, have remained mute. But with the debate over the war moving into a new phase as the new Democratic Congress looks for ways to force a change in administration Iraq policy, that silence has created problems on two levels.

At home, it has strained relations between Jewish groups and their traditional liberal coalition partners, which see Iraq as the seminal issue of our era.

The fact that a large majority of Jews opposes the war but their communal representatives refuse to speak out may accelerate the estrangement of so many from organized Jewish life, especially among younger Jews.

And that reticence can only reinforce the false charge that Israel and the Jewish community actively lobbied for the war, a conspiratorial perspective that is gaining traction in the political mainstream as the Iraq death toll mounts.

The refusal of even liberal groups to speak out may also be setting the Jewish community up for a worse backlash if President Bush decides to pursue military action against Iran.

On the broader world stage, the eerie silence, viewed by some as a way to protect Israel, may actually have the opposite effect by encouraging policies that threaten the Jewish state.

As last year’s National Intelligence Estimate revealed, U.S. policy in the war is increasing Mideast stability, breeding new terrorism and strengthening Iran, Israel’s most dangerous adversary.

“We’ve already gravely damaged Israel’s security; the war has done that,” said Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), one of the strongest House opponents of administration policy and a leading pro-Israel voice in Congress. “We took away the balance of power in the region, liberated Iran to be an even greater menace.”

Privately, some top Jewish leaders concede that even if going to war with Iraq was a good idea, the way it has been conducted has resulted in a more dangerous Middle East. But these leaders refuse to speak out, even though their silence is, in effect, a de facto endorsement of administration policies that may be hurting the Jewish state.

That silence may also be read by a besieged administration as support for U.S. military action against Iran — action that could be even more damaging to Israel if it turns out as badly as the war in Iraq.

Analysis: Jewish silence on Iraq continues Read More »

Divine Presence

Leave a Comment / Judaism, Torah /

As I tucked my kids into bed recently, one of them asked me, “How do we know where God is? How do we find God?”

It was both an amazing moment
(that day school and synagogue are paying off) and a terrifying moment. I needed to provide an answer that was honest, but one they could grasp. A theological treatise from Rabbi Heschel was not going to suffice.

I told them that God was all around us, in our hearts, in the kindness they showed and experience, in the beautiful mountains surrounding our home.

And while my explanation seemed to allay my children, I knew there would be more moments like this. It inspired me to consider where I find God in the world.

As we journey through Exodus we see the God of great power and might, the God who sends plagues, attacks Egypt and toys with Pharaoh’s heart, all while trying to impress both the Israelites and Egyptians.

Many of us crave this God — not necessarily for the exact actions God takes, but for the mere fact that God acts in this real, visible way.

Many of us would like to see the God of Exodus operating in our lives, sending visible and obvious miracles, saving lives, swooping down and liberating us on the wings of eagles, taking us to a better and more prosperous life in a promised land. Certainly my kids would love the action-packed God of Parshat Bo. Plagues, drama, confrontation, good vs. evil — they can understand this. It’s like the Buzz Lightyear moment of the Torah.

But our world doesn’t operate like this anymore. The God of Exodus was a one-time moment in history, one that we recount and recollect each year at Pesach. Belief in God and the ability to find the Divine’s presence in our lives would be easier if we lived in a world where God operated with overt miracles.

With all the talk of plagues and miracles in Exodus, we rarely talk about the amazing connection the matriarchs and patriarchs had to God in Genesis. In Bereshit Rabbah, the great midrashic compilation on Genesis, we find God fondly recollecting the days of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah, when they believed in God and didn’t question the Holy One’s ways, even without outward or miraculous proof.

In the midrash, God tells Moses about these times in a very nostalgic way, as a contrast to the way Moses immediately questions God at the burning bush, asks God for God’s name and doubts whether anyone will believe him when he announces the presence of this great Deity.

I ultimately believe that we could not function in the world as humans with free will if God continued to intercede like God did in Egypt.

This is not to say that God doesn’t act in the world; God does.

However, the Creator’s actions are visible through the works of our hands, the deeds of our hearts and the commitments of our lives to the values and dreams spelled out for us in the Torah and subsequent religious teachings of yesterday and today. This is how I understand tzimtzum, the kabbalistic notion of God needing to recede in the background of reality in order to allow for all the rest of creation to operate fully and freely.

We can have emunah, or faith, precisely because God provided space for that to emerge.

The very last verse of this week’s parsha reminds us how we are to recapture a sense of awe and wonder for God in our world: “And it shall be a sign on your hand and a symbol between your eyes that with a mighty hand God brought us forth from Egypt” (Exodus 13:16).

While we cannot go back to Egypt or a time when God worked miracles in such visible ways, the Torah is teaching us that through the ritual acts, in this case wearing tefillin each morning, we can remind ourselves of the miracles that God once did, and inspire ourselves to look for the miracles that God continues to do for us each and every day.

On this verse, the great sage Nachmanides said, “And the purpose of all the commandments is that we believe in our God and be thankful to God for having created us….”

Each day is a miracle, each breath is a miracle, each moment is a miracle.

When we love the stranger, that is a miracle; when we stand up for justice, that is a miracle; when we are grateful for this life, that is a miracle.

This is what I need to remind my children; this is my answer to their queries about God.

And when we say the “Shema” each night, this is what I now ask them to think about.

It is interesting that the God of Exodus, the very God our people did not believe in or wish to follow, is the one many of us long for in our lives. I would argue that we are, perhaps, longing for the wrong aspect of God. Why are we not longing more for the relationship of our first family, a relationship that was based on subtle insights to God, dreams, visions, feelings and faith, not supernatural miracles?

To me, that is a more profound and interesting relationship with the Divine. This approach to God might yield more fruit in our lives.

Shabbat shalom.

Rabbi Joshua Levine Grater is the spiritual leader of the Pasadena Jewish Temple & Center and serves as the social action chair for the Board of Rabbis of Southern California. He can be reached at rabbijoshua@pjtc.net.

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Steve Reich’s non-requiem for Daniel Pearl

Leave a Comment / Entertainment, Music /

When Judea Pearl asked composer Steve Reich to create a piece of music that would commemorate the life of his son, Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, he knew what he did not want the music to be.

“We did not want it to be a eulogy or a requiem,” said Pearl, whose son was murdered while on assignment in Pakistan in 2002. “Daniel was a highly principled person. He became an icon, and this work by Reich is a tribute to a life that personified our culture, our principles and our dreams.”

The result was the “Daniel Variations,” which will have its West Coast premier on Jan. 28 at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. The piece will be performed by the Los Angeles Master Chorale (LAMC) and conducted by Grant Gershon as part of a 70th birthday tribute to Reich.

To inspire the composer, Pearl gave him a book of Daniel’s writings, as well as a transcript of the murder. But Reich also thought about the original Daniel, the biblical prophet who interpreted the terror-filled dreams of Babylon’s King Nebuchadnezzar. Reich found an extraordinary resonance between Nebuchadnezzar’s description of one dream (“Images upon my bed and visions in my head frightened me”) and terrorist attacks around the world.

Reich built the “Daniel Variations” composition in four alternating movements — the first and the third are about the biblical Daniel, the second and the fourth are about Daniel Pearl. The piece alternates between horror and hope, with the gentle Daniel Pearl movements contrasting with the heavier, fearsome prophet Daniel movements.

“The opening is some of the most dissonant music I have ever written, and the third movement is some of the tensest music I have ever written,” Reich said. “It’s a music of great contrasts.”

The Daniel Variations marks the second Daniel Pearl tribute piece that Gershon will be conducting. The first was “Mother’s Lament” by Sharon Farber, which the LAMC performed on Sept. 29, 2002.

“I find a lot of resonance in the idea of being able to take a life like Daniel Pearl’s, that was so full of optimism and commitment to bringing people together, and to be able to translate that and to transcend the horrible circumstances of his death. I think that is what music and the arts should do — and that is enormously inspiring to me,” Gershom said.

As for Judea Pearl, he sees these tributes as a way to assist his mission.

“I am not dealing with pain here,” he said. “I am a soldier, and we have to fight the hatred that took Daniel’s life. These tributes do give me the assurance that the community resonates with the ideas Daniel stood for.”


The “Daniel Variations” will be performed on Jan. 28, 7 p.m. at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. For more information, call (800) 787-5262 or visit alederman@cox.net.

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Webb’s progressive center gift inspired by family’s future

Leave a Comment / Philanthropy /

There are some stories Max Webb will never recount.

“With my own eyes, I saw the most barbaric and unbelievable things,” said Webb, who survived 18 concentration camps during the Shoah.

The walls of this nearly 90-year-old homebuilder’s Beverly Hills office are lined with scores of citations and certificates of honor, as well as pictures of presidents, mayors and celebrities. Every surface seems to be covered with framed photos of children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Webb surrounds himself with reminders of a life dedicated to family and tzedakah, or charity. And while both inspire him, it’s a promise he made in another time and another place that drives his philanthropic visions.
Since finding success in the Southland real estate market more than 50 years ago, Webb continues to honor a deal he made with God. While witnessing the Holocaust, he swore if he lived he would devote his life to the survival and recovery of the Jewish people.

“As soon as I began making money, I began giving it away,” he said with a shrug.

In December, the Webb Family Foundation announced it had purchased a $3 million plot of land to establish a center that will house two socially conscious Jewish organizations: IKAR and the Progressive Jewish Alliance (PJA). The project is one of the latest in a series of philanthropic ventures for Webb, whose foundation funds projects in the United States and Israel.

“My entire family is involved in this. My life is a gift and a miracle. As long as I’m alive, I’ll do whatever is possible to help humanity…. And I’m not finished yet,” Webb said as he leafs through a pile of preliminary drawings for the three-story building, tentatively named The Max and Sala Webb Center for Progressive Judaism.

For IKAR’s Rabbi Sharon Brous, the donation is an expression of Webb’s interest in ensuring the flourishing of Jewish life.

“His primary concern is not whether a group is conventional or innovative or progressive or traditional. What Max is really committed to is vibrant Jewish life in whatever form it takes, be it a yeshiva in Borough Park or a cutting-edge spiritual community in Los Angeles. He came out of the Holocaust not with despair, but with a real commitment to building the future with incredible openness and devotion,” she said.

But behind this Polish immigrant’s effusive joy are memories that still evoke almost unspeakable horrors.

Webb’s earliest experience with Nazi barbarities came when the Germans first occupied his native city of Lodz.

“I saw military trucks lined up outside a hospital,” he said. “The soldiers went into the hospital. They went into every room. They took the newborn children by their little legs and threw them out the windows. I could hear the screams of the mothers. I couldn’t cry; my tears were frozen.”

During his years in the camps, Webb met and befriended Nathan Shapell. After liberation, Shapell introduced Webb to his sister, Sala, whom he married. In 1951, after arriving in Los Angeles, Webb and Nathan Shapell and Shapell’s brother, David, began a construction business, which would provide the start-up funds for the Max Webb Family Foundation in 1962.
Webb’s wife, Sala, died in 1990. In 1993, Webb married Anna Hitter, who like all members of the Webb family is an active participant in the foundation.

The citations on Webb’s office walls are just part of the philanthropic tale. A thick binder, bursting with letters, photographs and newspaper clippings, provides still more information on a long life dedicated to resurrecting the Jewish community. Leafing through the record of his giving — schools, hospitals, synagogues, universities — his delight is palpable.

Given that the Max and Sala Webb Center for Progressive Judaism was inspired by his granddaughter, Justine, and her husband,Greg Podell, who serves as director of the Webb Family Foundation, the project has particular resonance for Webb, a man committed to the future of Jewish generations.

“When Greg and Justine moved to Los Angeles, I was hoping to get them involved with my synagogue, Congregation Beth Israel on Beverly Boulevard,” he said. “Everyone there is old. I thought they might bring in young people, but that didn’t work out.”

Instead, Greg and Justine came across IKAR, where Brous was developing a new spiritual community rooted in social justice and action. Then the couple met Daniel Sokatch, PJA’s executive director. (Both groups have offices at the Westside Jewish Community Center.)

“These organizations were attracting lots of people, and I thought that as generous and significant as Max’s giving has been, he could really address the concerns of my generation by donating to them,” Podell said.
“One day Justine and Greg came to my office,” Webb explained. “‘Poppa,’ Justine said, ‘we’d like the foundation to help build a place for our children and for all children.'”

The couple introduced Webb to Brous and Sokatch.

“I think that seeing his grandchildren so excited about active Jewish life, fired his commitment to us,” Sokatch said.

Plans were soon under way to purchase land on Pico Boulevard for a building that will house both IKAR and the PJA, and serve as a center for a wide range of religious and social activities.

“It’s not just that Max is giving money. He’s created an ethos of giving in his family. Greg and Justine have internalized Max’s core commitments. Ultimately that’s his greatest gift,” Brous said.

Podell marvels that Webb is “so easily able to adapt to changing times and situations.”

He added that Webb saw how the couple was inspired by Brous and Sokatch and understood that by supporting them, he could guarantee that his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren would continue to be involved in a vibrant and compelling Jewish community.

“We’re doing this not because we want a beautiful building, but because we want to provide a home for these leaders who are inspiring our family,” Podell said.

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Putting a question mark on Jewish earmarks

Leave a Comment / Philanthropy, Politics /

This year’s loss of earmarks, the spending amendments lawmakers attach to larger bills, has cost Jewish federations millions of dollars, officials say. And earmark-reform proposals could present even more headaches in coming years.

The new Democratic majority in Congress, backed by some conservative Republicans, is considering reforms that would curtail lawmakers’ ability to anonymously insert funding for local projects into spending bills.

The aim is to stop the proliferation of non-essential programs and pet projects, but the earmark reforms also could inhibit funding favored by Jewish nonprofit organizations, including programs that benefit seniors, the disabled and the poor.

The decision by Democrats to remove all earmarks from the 2007 budget is already having an effect. Gone from the appropriations bill that covers the departments of Labor, Education and Health and Human Services is more than $9 million in earmarks for Jewish groups and programs, according to an analysis of reports that accompanied the draft bills.

“There are real people in the Jewish community that will not receive critical services due to the lack of earmarks this year,” said William Daroff, United Jewish Communities’ (UJC) vice president for public policy.

Democrats blame Republicans in the last Congress for the earmarks’ removal, saying that after the midterm elections ended their 12 years in the majority, Republicans all but abandoned the lame-duck session and left behind a vindictive mess by failing to pass nine of 11 appropriations bills.

“The Republicans have taken their ball and gone home and are pouting,” Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), the new majority leader in the U.S. House of Representatives, said last month.

Debate on the 2008 budget starts next week, which Democrats say leaves them little choice but to abandon much of the process that would otherwise attend the 2007 budget, including earmarks and new spending. Instead, the 2007 budget is now likely to be funded by “continuing resolutions” that hew to the broad outlines of the 2006 budget.

Some social services would be affected, Hoyer acknowledged, but “we want to make that suffering as short-term as we can.”

The earmarks affecting Jewish groups were mostly for less than $500,000 each and served a variety of programs, from equipment upgrades to Jewish hospitals to Jewish community service programs for the mentally ill and educational programs.

Earmarks are preferred by local Jewish groups, which maintain strong constituent relations with lawmakers. The earmarks allow federations to garner millions of dollars for social service programs without having to compete for grants from federal agencies.

They have been used to support Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities, or NORCs, fostering programming in areas with large numbers of retirees, allowing them to live semi-independently and close to family.

Local NORC programs so far have received $25 million from the federal government, all through earmarks, UJC officials said. About $7 million in NORC funding was stripped from the 2007 spending bills.

In 2004, the omnibus spending bill included 37 earmarks for programs with “Jewish” in the name, amounting to more than $9 million.

Including the terms “Hebrew” and “Sephardic,” the number climbed to 41 earmarks and more than $10 million.

Many other projects of importance to local Jewish communities may not have identifiably Jewish names and could be buried in the vast spending documents.

Despite such salutary effects, earmarks are more notorious as pork, or federal funds funneled to lawmakers’ campaign contributors and for local initiatives. A slate of recent scandals has led to the reform proposals.

Those have drawn mixed reviews from the Jewish community. Jewish groups long have sought political oversight and reform, but at the same time have benefited greatly from spending measures inserted by lawmakers.

“We wholeheartedly endorse measures that are intended to increase the transparency of the spending process,” Daroff said. “We think deals that are cut in the middle of the night is not good government, so we encourage reforms.”

But cutting all earmarks would not be wise, Daroff said. The earmarks Jewish groups receive are not designed to help big companies but are for essential community programs.

Hoyer said worthy earmarks would stay in place.

“I am a proponent of not eliminating earmarks,” he said, noting that the president has considerable spending discretion and giving up earmarks would “badly skew the balance” between the two branches.

“Congress ought not to give up that authority,” Hoyer said. “Some earmarks are good, some bad, but we’re going to make sure the public knows about them. Is this a good investment of American taxpayer dollars?”

UJC and the federations back such transparency, supporting reforms that would require lawmakers to attach their names to each spending provision rather than inserting it anonymously.

“The House passed earmark reform earlier this month as part of its rules package.

The Senate is now considering measures that include attaching naming to spending provisions, as well as allowing senators to strike earmarks from spending bills and prevent earmarks from being added to the final drafts of legislation that emerge from House-Senate conferences.

Jewish leaders acknowledge that as earmarks fall out of vogue, they will need to garner funding through federal agencies. UJC was able to secure language in the Older Americans Act to authorize a national NORC program, which will distribute funding for the senior-citizen initiatives across the country through the Department of Health and Human Services. UJC will seek funding for the program in the next budget.

Most of the federal funding Jewish groups receive comes from agencies, largely through the Medicare and Medicaid programs. But Daroff worried that removing earmarks would hurt the ability to fund pilot programs such as NORCs and other innovative solutions to social-service issues.

“The Jewish federation system will adapt to the changing environment and will do what it needs to do to bring necessary services to the community,” he said. “Our initiatives are innovative public policy approaches that are welcomed by members of Congress because they see it as not funding the same old program the same old way.”

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