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Jewish Journal

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March 14, 2011

Turning the world upside-down on Purim

Leave a Comment / Holidays, Special Sections /

When was the last time you stood on your head?

If you don’t practice yoga, and you’re not a 2-year-old, it’s probably been quite a while.

Noting that my toddler couldn’t get enough of being upside down on his little sister’s infant seat, I understood the allure. Seeing the world in a completely unexpected way is titillating. Subverting the natural order of things is energizing.

When your world is turned upside down, it’s time to reconsider your place in it.

Being upside down is nothing new for Jews on Purim. It’s a holiday known for the expression “nahafochu,” which is Hebrew for “to be turned on its head.”

Purim, which this year starts on March 19, is a subversive story about how Jews reversed the destructive decree against them by the wicked prime minister, Haman. The intended victims became the victors, and their oppressors, Haman and his family, were punished with a death sentence.

We read about nahafochu in the central passage of the Megillah, or Scroll of Esther, which describes how the holiday should be celebrated. It reads, “… [The Jews] should keep the fourteenth day of the month Adar, and the fifteenth day … year by year, as the days on which the Jews rested from their enemies, and the month which was turned (nahafokh) for them from sorrow to joy, and from mourning to holiday: that they should make the days of feasting and joy, and of sending choice portions to one another and gifts to the poor.” (Esther 9:21-23)

“Feasting and joy” is celebrated by Purim parties and meals, or seudot, and by drinking alcohol until you don’t know the difference between “blessed be Mordechai” and “cursed be Haman.” Through this obligatory merrymaking, Purim creates an escape valve, especially for religious Jews who spend much of the year in study and prayer. On Purim we can let loose, drink, be joyous and even mock our most venerable institutions and scholars.

But there are two other ways of celebrating Purim: mishloach manot, sending gift packages to friends, and matanot l’evyonim, or gifts to the poor.

What’s so subversive about that? What could it mean for us to apply the lens nahafochu to these two activities as well?

When we take the lesson of Purim to heart, living in a world turned upside down can mean taking on roles as foreign to us as if we were garbed in masks and costumes, acting in a way that on any other day would seem absurd.

Let’s start with mishloach manot. One explanation of this mitzvah is that we are meant to celebrate the victory of the Purim story with our entire community. It’s a way of proving Haman wrong when he claimed that the Jews were a “divided and scattered people.” And because we can’t literally invite everyone over for the meal, we share some part of it with others—traditionally the gift package should contain at least two kinds of food.

Consider applying nahafochu to this mitzvah. Don’t just give to the friends you see all the time. Think about a friend who used to be part of your community but no longer is, or someone from whom you have distanced yourself over the past year. Send them your mishloach manot this Purim as an invitation to repair a distant or broken relationship.

And what about matanot l’evyonim? To ensure that both rich and poor could partake in a festive meal on Purim, Jews were obligated to provide a meal for a minimum of two poor people. Nowadays, many people write checks to charities that work for food relief. But with nahafochu in mind, consider sharing that meal with them.

For those who live in cities and pass by poor people every day, instead of simply giving them a handout, consider buying them a meal. In the time that you are standing in line getting the meal, use that time to ask them about themselves. Relate to them as a human being. If you live in the suburbs or a small town, consider volunteering at a soup kitchen around the time of Purim.

This Purim, turn your world upside down. Maybe the experience will linger beyond the day itself and alter your perspective for days and weeks to come.

(Dasee Berkowitz is a Jewish life-cycle consultant in New York.)

Turning the world upside-down on Purim Read More »

Don’t believe gloomy forecasts on Conservative Judaism

Leave a Comment / Judaism, Opinion /

Conservative Judaism is dying, I hear—or at least according to the media. Not so.

Please don’t tell me that because North America’s United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism has had its problems, that means Conservative/Masorti Judaism is declining around the Jewish world.

Yes, the number of USCJ affiliates has diminished from its peak of 800 a half-century ago to its current 650. Why? Dozens of congregations have remained self-identified as Conservative, yet have disaffiliated from the USCJ for internal organizational reasons.

Rabbi Steven Wernick, the recently appointed USCJ executive vice president, is addressing the decline in membership, as well as looking to seed new congregations in areas with rising Jewish populations.

In assessing the USCJ’s temporary institutional challenges, let us recall that in the 1960s, a declining Orthodox Union was re-envisioned successfully, while the diminishing Union of American Hebrew Congregations effected a similar about-face in the Reform movement in the 1970s.

In the words of American Jewish historian Jonathan Sarna, “As our 355 years on American soil testify, we [Jews] have repeatedly confounded those who predicted gloom and doom, and after periods of adversity, have often emerged stronger than ever before.”

But to get the full picture of Conservative/Masorti Judaism, a wider lens is needed beyond the limited confines of the USCJ, especially to look at the denomination globally. A glimpse into the internationalization of the movement will be evident during the Rabbinical Assembly convention March 27-31 in Las Vegas.

Forty years ago, the USCJ serving North America was the only organization worldwide with which Conservative Jews could affiliate. In contrast, in 2011, Conservative/Masorti Judaism has become a growing and ever younger global movement. There are nearly 60 Masorti kehillot in Israel, plus another 140 throughout Latin America, Europe, the former Soviet Union, Australia, Africa and Asia. In the past eight months alone, eight new European communities have affiliated, as have six additional Israeli kehillot.

The active involvement of large numbers of young people augurs well for Conservative/Masorti Judaism’s future. More than 25,000 youth are members of USY (North America) or NOAM (Noar Masorti in Israel, Latin America and Europe). Tens of thousands of students are enrolled in Conservative/Masorti full-day Jewish schools in the United States and Latin America. Nearly 18,000 campers are part of Ramah summer camps in North America or in Ramah NOAM camps. Hundreds of synagogue supplemental schools educate vast numbers of youngsters, as do full- and half-day synagogue-based preschools.

In terms of the rabbinate, in 1960, the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City was the only institution training Conservative rabbis for pulpits in the United States and Canada. Over the past half-century, the Rabbinical Assembly has grown by the admission of multilingual rabbis educated not only at JTS but also at the Ziegler Rabbinical School in Los Angeles, the Seminario Rabbinico Latinamericano in Buenos Aires, the Schechter Institute in Jerusalem and a rabbinical seminary in Budapest.

The RA has grown from fewer than 800 male rabbis to more than 1,600 men and women. Its regions now extend to Israel, Latin America, Canada and Europe.

Fifty years ago, only an infinitesimal percentage of Conservative Jewish baby boomers had visited Israel, either as children or as young adults. By 2004, a JTS Ratner Center survey of 1,000 Conservative young adults found that more than 60 percent had been to Israel at least once by age 22.

Such lofty numbers have been increased by the subsequent impact of Birthright Israel. Ratner data also indicate that in contrast to many of their non-affiliated peers, more than 90 percent of Conservative young adults see Israel as “important” or “very important.”

In the early 1960s, few Conservative young men or women enrolled in Jewish studies courses during their college years. Today, substantial numbers of Conservative-affiliated collegians study Hebrew language, the Holocaust, modern Israel, modern Jewish history, Israeli literature and other Judaica subjects.

The quality of current-day Conservative student life on campus far surpasses all previous levels of campus engagement.

In 2011, on Shabbat mornings, America’s campus Conservative minyanim provide a previously unavailable option that is both egalitarian and traditional. Similar thriving has blossomed among MAROM (Mercaz Ruhani Masorti) networks involving thousands of Masorti collegians in Israel, Europe and Latin America.

Supporters of Jewish life should be reassured as to the future vitality of the Conservative/Masorti movement in the United States, Canada, Israel and all parts of the Jewish Diaspora. There are nearly 1 million affiliated adherents globally, with hundreds of thousands of others on the verge of joining more than 900 Conservative/Masorti communities.

With hundreds of congregations and schools, and thousands of rabbis, cantors and educators, Conservative/Masorti Judaism’s glass is more than half full.

(Rabbi Alan Silverstein is the board chair of the Masorti Israel Foundation and spiritual leader of Congregation Agudath Israel in West Caldwell, N.J. He also is a past president of the Rabbinical Assembly and of the World Council of Conservative/Masorti Synagogues.)

Don’t believe gloomy forecasts on Conservative Judaism Read More »

Senators press Obama on China-Iran

Leave a Comment / United States /

A bipartisan slate of U.S. senators pressed the Obama administration on its policy on China’s dealings with Iran.

The letter, signed by 10 senators and first reported last week in Foreign Policy, lists foreign entities—most of them Chinese—dealing with Iran’s energy sector.

The senators called on the Obama administration to implement a law passed last summer that expands sanctions to third parties dealing with Iran’s energy sector.

“We cannot afford to create the impression that China will be given free rein to conduct economic activity in Iran when more responsible nations have chosen to follow the course we have asked of them,” said the letter, which was initiated by Sens. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) and Robert Menendez (D-N.J.).

The Obama administration had unsuccessfully sought exemptions for China and Russia in last year’s legislation; instead the law includes a national security waiver.

The White House wanted the exemptions because support from China and Russia was key to expanded U.N. Security Council sanctions passed earlier in the year. The U.N. sanctions resolution provided the legal basis for targeting third parties that deal with Iran’s energy sector.

The senators’ letter, the latest in a number of letters from Congress urging the White House to press China on its Iran dealings, asks for clarifications on the criteria the White House would use to trigger a national security waiver.

Senators press Obama on China-Iran Read More »

Response to Itamar attack prompts Israelis to ask whether Palestinians are serious about peace

Leave a Comment / Judaism, Opinion /

The Palestinian reaction to the grisly killings of five Israeli family members in the Jewish settlement of Itamar, on the West Bank, has prompted many Israelis to ask the same question of the Palestinians that the world often asks of the Israeli government: Are they really serious about peace?

On the one hand, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas went on Israel Radio on Monday to condemn the March 11 killings of the Fogel family members, including a 4-year-old boy and a 3-month-old girl, as “despicable, inhuman and immoral.”

On the other hand, a day after the attack, members of Abbas’ Fatah faction participated in an official dedication ceremony in the West Bank town of Al-Bireh for a town square dedicated to the memory of Dalal Mughrabi, a terrorist involved in killing 37 Israelis in a 1978 bus hijacking on Israel’s coastal road. No PA government officials attended the ceremony, Reuters reported.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu derided the Palestinian Authority’s reaction on Sunday to the Itamar killings as full of “weak and mumbled” statements, accusing the Palestinians of continuing to incite against Israel in their mosques and schools. Meanwhile, in Gaza, Hamas members reportedly handed out candy in celebration of the attack.

The Palestinian leadership must “stop the incitement that is conducted on a daily basis in their schools, mosques and the media under their control,” Netanyahu said. “The time has come to stop this double-talk in which the Palestinian Authority outwardly talks peace and allows—and sometimes leads—incitement at home.”

The brutal murders of the Fogel parents, Udi, 36, and Ruth, 35, and three of their six children—Yoav, 11, along with Elad, 4, and Hadas, 3 months—shocked and angered a nation that had seen terrorist attacks dwindle in recent years. The circulation of photos of some of the stabbed children—apparently distributed to news media by relatives of the victims—offered gruesome pictures of the blood-soaked scene.

A group called the Al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades of Imad Mughniyeh claimed responsibility for the attack. Israeli forces combed the area after the attack, and the Palestinian Authority agreed to participate in a joint investigation to find the killer or killers.

The attack sparked angry demonstrations throughout Israel and the West Bank in support of the settlers, with demonstrators holding signs reading “We are all settlers” and “Peace isn’t signed with blood.” One of the largest rallies took place in Tel Aviv near the army’s national headquarters.

After a funeral in Jerusalem for the Fogels drew an estimated 20,000 people, some settlers went to Palestinian villages to carry out revenge attacks, throwing stones and destroying property.

For its part, the Israeli government on Sunday announced the approval of some 500 new housing units in the West Bank, in the settlements of Gush Etzion, Ma’ale Adumim, Ariel and Kiryat Sefer.

In the attack, which took place late Friday night, two sons, aged 8 and 2, were spared, apparently because they were sleeping in a side room that escaped attention. A daughter, Tamar, 12, returned home late at night from a Bnei Akiva youth program to discover the door to the house was locked. Alarmed, she contacted a neighbor, and they entered the home together and encountered the gory scene.

Volunteers for ZAKA, the Orthodox-run search-and-rescue organization, described the scene shortly after the terror attack as “absolutely horrific.”

“We saw toys lying next to pools of blood, Shabbat clothes covered in blood and everywhere the smell of death mixing with the aroma of the Shabbat meal,” one volunteer said.

The Fogel family had relocated to Itamar following their removal from the Gush Katif settlement in Gaza, which was part of Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. They had lived for a while in the Jewish West Bank city of Ariel before moving to Itamar, which is near the Palestinian city of Nablus.

Danny Dayan, chairman of the Yesha Council settler umbrella group, called the approval of new housing in response to the attack “a small step in the right direction.” He said it was “deeply troubling that it requires the murder of children in the arms of their parents to achieve such an objective.”

At the emotional funerals, Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin said the Fogel parents personified devotion to the Zionist vision and were pioneers.

“Your hands held both scythe and book—teachers and settlers whose entire lives were the love of their country and the love they had for their neighbors,” Rivlin said. “Build more, live more, more footholds—that is our response to the murderers so that they know: They can’t defeat us.”

Udi Fogel’s brother, Motti, appeared to reject the politicization of the deaths, saying that “All the slogans about Torah and settlement, the Land of Israel, and the Jewish people try to make us forget the simple and painful truth: You are gone. You are gone and no slogan will bring you back. Above all, this funeral must be a private event.

“Udi, you are not a symbol or a national event. Your life had a purpose of its own and your horrible death must not make your life into a pawn.”

Response to Itamar attack prompts Israelis to ask whether Palestinians are serious about peace Read More »

Chabad ships food to quake-ravaged Japanese city

Leave a Comment / Worldwide /

Chabad-Lubavitch centers in Tokyo and Hong Kong have shipped tons of food into one of the Japanese cities hardest hit by last week’s earthquake and tsunami.

The Tokyo-based Chabad-Lubavitch of Japan and the Hong Kong-based Chabad-Lubavitch of Asia have shipped bread, rice, noodles, soups, canned foods, flour and oil to the city of Sendai, Chabad.org reported.

The organization also has commissioned a bakery in Sendai to give out free bread. The bakery also will serve as the Jewish response’s command center, Chabad-Lubavitch of Japan director Rabbi Mendy Sudakevich told the website.

Sudakevich said he also has organized 50,000 ready-to-eat food rations to be flown in from the United States.

Meanwhile, several Israeli diplomats and their families stationed at the embassy in Tokyo returned home Monday for a temporary rest from the aftershocks, Israel’s Foreign Ministry said. The diplomats’ return is not connected to the possibility of more radiation leaks from nuclear power plants affected by the natural disasters, the ministry stressed.

Chabad ships food to quake-ravaged Japanese city Read More »

Abbas condemns the Itamar murders

Leave a Comment / Uncategorized /

” title=”had to say” target=”_blank”>called the attack of the Fogel family “despicable,” “inhuman and immoral”:

“A human being is not capable of something like that,” Abbas said in Arabic during an interview Monday morning on Israel Radio. His words were translated into Hebrew by the interviewer.

“Had we had advance information, we would have prevented this,” Abbas said of the March 11 attack that left five members of the Fogel family of Itamar dead, including a 3-month-old baby.

Abbas also said that the Palestinian Authority would work to find the killer or killers responsible, and that he has agreed to a request by Israel to launch a joint investigation.

Abbas, who called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday to offer his condolences—Netanyahu called them “weak and mumbled statements”—took issue during the interview with Netanyahu’s accusation that the Palestinian Authority incites against Israel in its mosques and schools. The PA leader offered to set up an Israeli-Palestinian-American committee to look into the allegations.

Abbas condemns the Itamar murders Read More »

Giffords may attend husband’s shuttle launch

Leave a Comment / Arizona Shooting /

There is “a good possibility” that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot in the head in January, will attend the space shuttle launch in April captained by her husband.

“We think there’s a good possibility that she will be there,” one of Giffords’ neurologists, Dong Kim, told The Washington Post over the weekend, echoing similar statements to other media outlets by other Giffords’ physicians and aides.

Her husband, Mark Kelly, will command the final flight of the space shuttle Endeavor, which is scheduled to lift off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on April 19.

Giffords, the first Jewish congresswoman elected from Arizona, is in a recovery facility in Houston. The third-term Democrat was shot in the head on Jan. 8 as she met with constituents in Tucson, Ariz.; six people were killed.

Therapists are helping Giffords relearn basic skills like walking and talking. Her memory does not appear to have been affected, though she does not have any memory of the shooting, according to reports.

A political fundraiser is scheduled for Giffords in Washington on Tuesday. It is not clear if she will remain in politics.

Giffords may attend husband’s shuttle launch Read More »

With pressure mounting, will Bibi go left or right?

Leave a Comment / Israel /

Israel is staring at a fork in the road, with potential disaster along either path.

On the path to the left lies a major Israeli peace initiative that deals with all the core issues under dispute with the Palestinians. On the path to the right lies more waiting, possibly with some kind of offer of an interim peace agreement with the Palestinians, until conditions are right for something more.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the man behind the wheel at this critical juncture, is expected to announce a new peace initiative within the next two months, and the battle over which path it will hew to is causing serious divisions within his Cabinet.

His defense minister, Ehud Barak, says the only way to head off a “diplomatic tsunami” that will engulf the Jewish state is by pressing for a major initiative on the Palestinian track that deals with all the core issues. Likud moderates such as Dan Meridor and Michael Eitan support Barak’s stance.

Hard-liners from the ruling Likud Party warn that if Israel makes premature territorial concessions, disaster will follow. Benny Begin, Silvan Shalom and Moshe Ya’alon are leading this very strong and vocal campaign against Barak’s proposal.

The debate has brought to the fore the fundamental differences within the Cabinet on the Palestinian issue.

Barak argues that unless Israel has a peace plan on the table within the next few months, it could suffer its worst-ever diplomatic defeat. With Israel failing to offer any alternative, he envisions a situation in which the Palestinians take their case to the United Nations in September and get wall-to-wall international recognition of their state along the 1967 lines without having to make concessions on borders, refugees or Jerusalem—or even declare an end to the conflict.

In Barak’s view, if Israel wants its case to be heard, it must offer an alternative plan. Otherwise, it will find itself under increasing international pressure to withdraw to the pre-1967 lines without even its most basic security demands taken into account. Israel also will face growing delegitimization as an occupying power in defiance of the will of the international community.

“It would be a mistake to ignore this tsunami,” he said Sunday at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv. “Israel’s delegitimization is just over the horizon, even if the public doesn’t see it. It’s very dangerous and we need to act.”

For the hard-liners, the danger lies in what they call Barak’s “delusional” approach. Ya’alon, who like Barak is a former Israeli army chief of staff, argues that it is dangerously naive to think the conflict can be solved by territorial concessions when the real problem is a fundamental Palestinian refusal to come to terms with Israel’s existence.

Ya’alon says that even moderate Palestinian leaders such as Palestinian Authority President Mahmud Abbas would like to see Israel disappear, and that peace will be possible only when the Palestinian mind-set changes and all forms of anti-Israel education and incitement stop.

It’s a view that has gained some more traction among the Israeli public following the brutal killings last Friday night of five family members in the West Bank Jewish settlement of Itamar.

For now, Ya’alon says, the focus should be on Palestinian institution-building and economic improvement; in other words, slow bottom-up building of a Palestinian capacity for peace. Big ambitious peace moves like Barak’s inevitably will fail and likely spawn new violence, he says. Ya’alon insists that any proposed new peace plan should have no territorial dimension.

Which way is Netanyahu likely to go?

On the one hand, he and his closest advisers have a great deal of respect for Barak and are well aware of the widespread international perception that it is Netanyahu’s foot-dragging on peacemaking that is responsible for the current impasse. Indeed, the leaks on Netanyahu’s purported new peace plan followed a heated telephone exchange in which German Chancellor Angela Merkel reportedly accused Netanyahu of having “done nothing to advance peace.”

Similarly, on March 1, President Obama told a roomful of American Jewish organizational leaders that they and their friends and colleagues in Israel should “search your souls” over Israel’s seriousness about making peace.

On the other hand, Netanyahu’s circle is comprised of hard-liners who are widely believed to wield much influence over the prime minister. The prime minister also has made some recent hard-line moves—for example, appointing the hawkish Yaakov Amidror as his new national security adviser and holding talks with the far right National Union Party on joining the governing coalition.

The question is not whether Netanyahu will present a peace plan but how far he will go.

Despite Ya’alon’s reservations, the plan is expected to focus on territorial and security issues, and the linkage between them. The way the plan is shaping up, Israel probably will offer to hand over more territory to full Palestinian jurisdiction ahead of negotiations on final borders and allay Palestinian fears that the interim stage will become permanent.

Under the plan, the United States will assure the Palestinians that final borders will be based on the pre-1967 lines with relatively minor land swaps, and Israel will seek U.S. assurances for an Israeli military presence in the Jordan Valley and for retention of large settlement blocs as part of Israel proper.

On the basis of the plan, reflecting Israeli good will and seriousness about peacemaking with a strong international underpinning, the Palestinians will be invited to talks on all the core issues.

Due to the differences between Cabinet moderates and hard-liners, Netanyahu has not discussed the plan in the Forum of Seven senior ministers, which includes Barak, Meridor, Begin and Ya’alon. Instead he is holding a series of one-on-one consultations.

There will also have to be detailed talks with the Americans to finalize a package in which they have a major role.

Despite the hype surrounding the new peace package, it remains too early to gauge whether Netanyahu is serious about peacemaking, as he insists, or simply playing for time, as his critics contend.

But with perception growing overseas that Netanyahu is the problem, not the Palestinians, the onus is on the prime minister to prove that this time he means business.

With pressure mounting, will Bibi go left or right? Read More »

Israeli peewee ice hockey team takes gold

Leave a Comment / Sports /

An Israeli ice hockey team of 10- to 13-year-olds, who mostly practice on roller skates, won the gold medal at a tournament in Canada.

The Bat Yam Club peewee ice skating team, made up of boys from Bat Yam, Rishon Lezion, Nes Ziona, Maalot and Kfar Saba in central Israel, went undefeated in five games to take the Division B title last month at the the Bernieres-Saint-Redempteur International Peewee Tournament in suburban Quebec City, the Canadian Jewish News reported.

The tournament included 96 teams from Canada, the United States, Finland, France, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Switzerland.

The 17 young Israelis, who were hosted by the local Jewish community, finished 5-0 in the tournament, including a 7-3 victory in the final over the Seigneurs Lotbiniere club of Quebec.

The closest ice skating rink to Bat Yam is the Canada Center in Metulla, a two-hour drive north; it is Israel’s only ice skating rink. The team practices mostly on roller skates and asphalt.

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