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May 23, 2012

OPINION: Not in my name

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Yesterday, someone shared a picture of an Israeli woman wearing a shirt that read “Death to the Sudanese” on my Facebook wall. The woman was a Tel Aviv resident taking part in a protest on Tuesday night to encourage the Israeli government to deport African asylum seekers from Sudan and Eritrea. Asylum seekers were violently attacked and their car and grocery store windows were shattered. According to Haaretz newspaper, the protest was organized by Knesset member Michael Ben Ari, and Miri Regev, another Knesset member, called the Sudanese “a cancer in our body.”The Jerusalem Post recently reported on the Molotov cocktails thrown into a Nigerian woman’s open day care and an Eritrean family’s private apartment in Tel Aviv’s Shapira neighborhood. Violence against the African asylum seekers in Israel has been exponentially rising. These incidents reminded me of all the violence and hatred ensuing in Israeli society toward African asylum seekers. This is not the first case of violence against African asylum seekers. There have been many hate crimes perpetrated against Eritrean, Sudanese and other asylum seekers of African descent for the past few years. Whether it’s the government, the media or Israeli society influencing or perpetrating these abominable acts, this racial violence and prejudice must be stopped.

Israel, let us recall, was one of the founding signatories of the 1951 Refugee Convention, implemented by the United Nations in response to the abundance of refugees in Europe after the Holocaust. Israel, however, never ratified the convention, and Netanyahu’s government has made the daily life of asylum seekers today as challenging as possible in an effort to get people to leave without actually kicking them out.

Since 2005, asylum seekers from Africa have entered Israel’s borders through the Sinai desert in Egypt. Eritrea’s brutal dictatorship, the genocide in Darfur and the longest-running African civil war (South Sudan) have led to the flight of these people from their homelands. I am often asked why Israel is the destination country for most of these migrants. The answer is: It isn’t. There are millions of Sudanese and Eritrean refugees in other countries, most of them in other African countries or in Egypt, Europe, the United States, Canada and Australia. The 50,000 people who have made their way to Israel are a tiny minority of this entire population of refugees. Without anywhere to go, many asylum seekers started making their way to Israel, seeking out Bedouin-organized smugglers who know the vast Sinai terrain to help them.

While I do fault Egypt for allowing Bedouin criminal organizations to conduct systematic rape, torture and organ trafficking within its borders, I feel that it is also our responsibility, as Jews in Israel and abroad, to assist those who have suffered such abominations and now reside in our country — one that prides itself on existing in the Jewish name and on implementing Jewish values. We pride ourselves on being advocates against another Holocaust taking place, and we have been instrumental in the fight to end the genocide in Darfur, but when it has come to Israel’s treatment of African asylum seekers, we look the other way. It is true that Israel is a tiny country trying to maintain its Jewish majority, but no moral person could accept this rationale as an acceptable excuse for the ongoing strain of misbehavior toward Africans, especially not when the racial undertones to these policies are so obvious.

There have been numerous claims that the asylum seekers are raping and burglarizing the Israelis, but the statistics of the police department prove otherwise. The crime rates among the African asylum seekers are much lower than that of the general Israeli population. While I do not excuse or condone any crime whatsoever, I do believe that it is unacceptable to exaggerate and make erroneous claims about an entire population of people. 

Israel’s lack of policy on refugees is going to explode in our faces sooner than we think. The government provides no services whatsoever to the African asylum seekers and goes so far as to print visas denying permission to work. Netanyahu’s solution to the “problem” is to build a gigantic detention facility isolated in the Negev Desert, where 10,000 “infiltrators,” as the government calls the asylum seekers, will be housed. The facility is designed after the notorious Australian detention facilities, which have proven to lead to high rates of post-traumatic stress disorder, severe depression, and suicide attempts in both adult and child occupants. Israel’s facility is currently under construction, and the Israel Prison Service will run it. Those detained will be kept in the facility for indefinite periods of time, as they are incapable of applying for refugee status in Israel. Even though it is illegal under international law to treat asylum seekers as criminals, the government’s recent passing of the Anti-Infiltration Law makes it apparent that this is exactly what is happening: “Infiltrators” may now be kept in detention (prison) for up to three years without trial and without due process.

I believe that we, the Jewish people, all of us refugees at some point in our histories, know better. I urge Israel to implement a transparent and just procedure for asylum seekers to gain refugee status and rights, as we requested in the Refugee Convention and as every other Western democratic country in this world has implemented, so that those who are suffering from today’s genocides, dictatorships and atrocities can live in dignity. As Rabbi Hillel stated so pointedly, “In a place where there is no person to make a difference, strive to be that person.”

As a New Israel Fund Social Justice Fellow working for ASSAF, Maya Paley published two reports on the livelihoods and communities of the Sudanese and Eritrean populations in Israel, pointing out the effects of Israel’s policies on their psychological and physical wellbeing.

OPINION: Not in my name Read More »

Mr. Romance

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I’m not romantic in the traditional sense. My ex girlfriend said, “How come you never buy me flowers?”

“Because flowers die.” I said.

I would love to be the kind of guy that arrives at his girlfriend’s door step with chocolates. While flowers and chocolates are nice gifts, waiting in line at Rite-Aid is not romantic at all. Plus she lives in a secured apartment building. By the time she comes to the door to buzz me in the chocolates would melt.

I don’t buy into this idealized romantic standard popularized by the films of Freddie Prinze Jr. I’m not going to ever wait in the rain to win love back. She’d be long gone by the time it rained next in LA.

Nor can I imagine spending thousands of dollars on an engagement ring. If I do, my future fiancee better be okay that I’m purchasing our honeymoon on Groupon Getaways. I hope she’ll be excited about our two night stay in Catalina.

As a practical romantic, I’m attentive to her own needs while also looking after my own. I always offer my lady water when I am thirsty. I tell her she looks pretty and rub the back of her neck when she makes me.

Most of all, I like to try new things. I’m not afraid to switch it up. I invited her to take a bath with me which was like trying to fit two uncooperative Tetris pieces into a tiny box. It is that kind of spontaneity that I enjoy most. Any guy and gal can shower together, but there is greater risk involved as it is easy to slip and fall, and hit one’s head. Also one person must wait to get under the water and might get cold. A bath is the better option especially when you ask her to make waves.

I enjoy taking her places that will impress her like taking her out to see Lindsay Buckingham at the Wiltern.We drank John Jamesons, our favorite whiskey, and waited for Lindsay to play his hits like “Not That Funny” and “Tusk.” Instead he played his new song “Poor Little Raven.” The crowd was enchanted while we whispered in each other’s ears about how poor we felt for listening to “The Raven.”

We left our seats and snuck down to the floor level where we were an arm grab away from the Raven himself. After the show we stumbled into a Korean Karaoke bar where we rented a room and sang for as long as Lindsay played singing drunken duets of Death Cab for Cutie’s “I’ll Follow you into the Dark” and “Can’t Stop” by the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

I’m excited by the little moments that we share together. Going splitsville on lottery scratchers and then taking turns scratching each row is romantic to me. Helping adjust her golf swing at the driving range was a romantic moment. Her treating me to lunch at the Roosevelt Cafe overlooking the golf course because she lost our driving contest by 165 yards was also romantic in the most endearing way possible.

I asked her if it was okay to mention her in my blog again. “I love when you write about me,” she said.

I told her my idea was to write about how I don’t consider myself romantic because I don’t buy flowers and chocolates. “Romance isn’t about that kind of stuff. Romance is about wanting to see each other a lot and I feel that’s how you are with me.”

She’s right. And by that definition I’m a lot more romantic than I thought. I’m at least more romantic than some. Imagine how David Blaine’s girlfriend feels.

“Honey, can we order in tonight? Maybe watch a movie?”

“You know I would if I didn’t have to bury myself alive for the next seven days.”

Like David Blaine, I have a few tricks up my sleeve. Perhaps a weekend getaway, or another couple of blog mentions. Maybe I’ll even buy her a cactus. Cacti don’t die…

Mr. Romance Read More »

Opinion: Beinart’s 1% crisis

Leave a Comment / David Suissa, Is Featured?, Mobile, News, Opinion /

A response by Lara Friedman, Americans for Peace Now Director of Policy and Government Relations, can be found here.

One of the more brazen initiatives in the Jewish world today is Peter Beinart’s call, in his book “The Crisis of Zionism,” to boycott anything produced in the Jewish settlements of Judea and Samaria (commonly known as the West Bank). In his view, the settlements must be stopped because they are encroaching on a future Palestinian state that is necessary for the survival of a Jewish and democratic Israel.

I knew that Beinart was very focused on the settlements when I debated him last week at Temple Israel of Hollywood, so I wanted to know beforehand: How bad a “crisis” is it?

Here’s what I found out. After 45 years of settlement growth, according to the Israeli monitoring group B’Tselem, “built up” areas where Jewish settlers live represent less than 1 percent of the West Bank. That’s right, less than 1 percent (0.99 percent, in fact). You can look it up.

Of course, as critics often point out, Israel still controls 42 percent of the West Bank through municipal infrastructure, roads, security bases, sewers, etc. But what critics rarely tell us is that, under a peace agreement, this kind of “non-settler occupation” can be ended with the stroke of a pen. As Israel knows all too well, it’s a lot easier to evacuate sewers than it is to evacuate families.

And Jewish families occupy less than 1 percent of the West Bank.

You can rail against the Israeli government’s “support” for settlements, but it’s worth remembering that over the last 14 years (according to the Foundation for Middle East Peace), not one new settlement was started.

But even if we grant the worst about Israeli actions in the West Bank — illegal outposts, road blocks, unauthorized construction, heavy-handed actions, etc. — it’s extraordinary to think that after 45 years of settlements, 99 percent of the West Bank — or even 95 percent — is still available for a peaceful Palestinian state.

If you crave a Palestinian state, that’s not a crisis, that’s an opportunity.

When many of us hear the word “crisis,” what comes to mind is not Jews building kindergartens but a madman in Iran threatening a nuclear Holocaust; or 100,000 terrorist rockets ready to launch at Tel Aviv from Hamas and Hezbollah; or our “peace partners” in Ramallah continuing to sponsor Jew-hatred and refusing to recognize a Jewish connection to the Holy Land and to Jerusalem; or a terror state next door calling for Israel’s destruction as a religious commandment.

In that context, calling Jewish settlements in 1 percent of the West Bank the “major obstacle to peace” borders on the absurd.

It is also utterly boring and unoriginal.

Seriously, how often have we seen a hypocritical world treat the “Israeli occupation” as if it were the world’s greatest evil? Google “international pressure on Israel to end the occupation” and you’ll get 21,400,000 mentions.

You’ll have to excuse me, then, if I don’t get overly impressed when I see critics like Beinart jump on the international bandwagon to demonize Jewish settlers.

What would impress me, on the other hand, would be some original reporting of the conflict from the ground.

I got a glimpse of such reporting last week from Felice and Michael Friedson, who run The Media Line, an American news agency that specializes in in-depth coverage of the Middle East.

“With all the bad news, there is still a lot of cooperation going on between Jews and Palestinians in the West Bank that the media rarely covers,” Felice told me when she and her husband visited the Jewish Journal offices.

“The media generally love to report from the top, from the Quartet and the White House and Ramallah and Jerusalem. But while that high-profile peace process is indeed dying, there are many little ‘peace processes’ on the ground that are living,” she added.

You won’t hear much about these little “peace processes” from Beinart, because they distract from his big idea: calling on American Jews to join the global campaign to criticize and penalize Jewish settlers.

Yes, I know, self-criticism is a great Jewish value. But it’s not the only Jewish value. Defending a nation under siege that is unfairly maligned is also a Jewish value. And so is making the case for Israel when so few others are making it.

If Beinart feels that calling for the collective punishment of Jewish families is a deep expression of his Jewish values, maybe he ought to expand his view of Judaism.

Or at least try to say something new.

Because these days, the safe, dull choice is to follow the global herd and blame Israel first. The true rebels are those who aren’t afraid to push back and put things in perspective.

To sell us on his version of “crisis” that puts most of the blame on Israel, Beinart has focused on the 1 percent and blocked out the 99 percent where the real crises, complications — and even opportunities for peace — exist.

David Suissa is president of TRIBE Media Corp./Jewish Journal and can be reached at davids@jewishjournal.com.

Opinion: Beinart’s 1% crisis Read More »

Maarat Ayin: Eduardo Saverin’s decision to renounce his U.S. citizenship

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By now everyone has heard that Eduardo Saverin, one of the co-founders of Facebook, filed legal papers in September 2011 to formally renounce his American citizenship. Brazilian by birth, Saverin became an American citizen in 1998. Born in Sao Paulo, Saverin’s father was, according to press accounts, a wealthy Jewish industrialist with varied interests in clothing, shipping, real estate and commercial exports.

Many of the press reports are focused on the financial implications of this move. Jim Cramer, appearing on “Meet the Press” last weekend, called the Facebook IPO a total fiasco, “one of the worst-handled things I’ve ever seen” because the stock only climbed just over 0.6 percent in its opening. Others disagreed, arguing that the successful launch of a stock that is now just starting to be publicly traded is not determined by how much the stock rises in the first few days but by how it does over the long term. As a rabbi, I am not equipped to discuss the pros and cons of what constitutes a successful IPO.

What I am qualified to comment on is how we should act in various given situations. Religion is not just something that we should do in synagogue. It is not even something that we should do primarily in our homes. Rather, Judaism should guide us in our actions every moment of every day. This is a difficult concept to implement, especially for Reform Jews such as myself who do not see the halachah as binding. Without rules that we need to follow, how are we to put this concept into practice?

Much of our ethical teachings may seem visionary and inspiring, but frequently are theoretical and not easy to apply in many of the situations that we are most likely to face. The historical precedents that we can draw upon are also not always helpful because the historical circumstances that our ancestors faced — even as recently as 50 years ago — were in such a different context that they seem antiquarian.

That is why Saverin’s decision to renounce his U.S. citizenship is an opportunity to look at how we might — and perhaps should — behave under a given set of circumstances. Granted, we are unlikely to face this particular set of circumstances. Saverin was one of the four co-founders of Facebook along with Mark Zuckerberg, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes. Although he owns slightly less than 5 percent of Facebook, his net worth is still about $2 billion. But while we are not likely to be in his exact financial situation, the principle involved is universally applicable.

What loyalty do we, as Jews, owe to our country? Saverin — full name Eduardo Luiz Saverin — was not born in the United States. In the 1990s, again according to press accounts, Saverin’s family discovered that their son Eduardo was on a list of potential kidnapping victims. During this period, gangs throughout Central and South America were kidnapping the children of rich families for ransom. The Saverins, not wishing to risk their son’s life, moved to Miami. Shortly thereafter, Saverin became an American citizen.

It may be necessary to remind ourselves that the concept of giving citizenship to Jews is a relatively new idea. In the Renaissance period, Jews were forced to live in a particular area, which was called a ghetto. The term was originally used in Venice to describe where the Jews were forced to live in that city. Jews in various parts of Europe were not granted citizenship and were only allowed to reside in a given city or region on the agreement of the local nobility. This agreement could, however be rescinded at any moment, and it was, with Jews being expelled from England in 1290, France in 1306 and again in 1394, and various other localities with depressing regularity.

In 1781, Christian Wilhelm von Dohm, a German political writer who was influenced by Moses Mendelsson, wrote a three-volume work titled, “On the Civil Improvement of the Jews,” which argued for Jewish political and civil rights on humanitarian grounds. This began a debate, which sometimes became quite bitter, over whether the Jews deserved to be emancipated. In 1791, France became the first Western nation to emancipate its Jews. When Napoleon conquered other European countries, he brought emancipation with him, literally breaking down ghetto walls.

Unfortunately, when France withdrew, this new legal status was withdrawn as well. Central European Jews had to struggle for many decades to try to achieve the civil and political status that we take for granted today. Which brings us back to the admittedly unusual case of Eduardo Luiz Saverin. A Jewish boy from a foreign country, he arrives in our country to escape physical threats and the possibility of being murdered. He attends a top, private school in South Florida and is accepted into Harvard University, one of the finest institutions of higher learning in the United States.

After studying and working in our country for a number of years as a citizen, he makes a fortune and, according to press reports, moves to Singapore in 2009. Two years later, he files the papers to renounce his U.S. citizenship. Possibly his accountant advised him to do so. Maybe he felt that since he was not living in the United States anyway, holding American citizenship was a financial liability that would not serve his interests. Is he not free to act in his own best interests, financial or otherwise?

I would argue that while he is capable of doing so, renouncing his U.S. citizenship is contrary to his obligations as an American Jew. We need to be loyal to our country and we also need to give the appearance of being loyal to our country. While it is wonderful that anti-Semitism has declined to such low levels that identifiable Jews can do terrible things without generating any discernible hostility toward us a group, that does not excuse us from our obligation to be loyal citizens to the country that we are either born in or that we embrace. Saverin voluntarily accepted our citizenship, and he should not abandon it just because it is convenient to do so.

While we Jews tend to be rather cosmopolitan, meaning that we feel at home in many different parts of the world, we need to balance that characteristic with a rooted loyalty to our host country. Taking and returning citizenships like greeting cards is, at the very least, a form of maarat ayim — the appearance of impropriety. This concept, infrequently mentioned outside of Orthodox circles, is the concept that we should avoid doing things that may look like we are doing something wrong, whether or not we are actually doing something wrong.

When Mark Cuban Tweets that “This pisses me off: Just in Time For A Facebook IPO Tax Break, Eduardo Saverin Renounces U.S. Citizenship,” Ilyse Hogue titles her commentary on this issue “Lessons in Disloyalty,” and Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) calls it “outrageous,” Saverin should have realized this is a step that is not good for his personal reputation and not good for the potential influence that it may have on others, particularly young people. As Jews, we have an obligation to try to set a good example. This means not only trying not to do bad things but also trying to avoid doing things that might be perceived that way.

Maarat Ayin: Eduardo Saverin’s decision to renounce his U.S. citizenship Read More »

For Shavuot, Bay Area Jews head to the wilderness

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Most Jews around the world observe Shavuot in the relative comfort of their synagogues and homes. Not so for Wilderness Torah, a Berkeley-based nonprofit.

On May 25, for the fifth consecutive year, the group will celebrate the commemoration of God’s giving the Torah to the Israelites at Mount Sinai by creating a temporary village on a literal mountain just outside of Oakland.

Since 2007, Wilderness Torah has been organizing backcountry celebrations of Jewish festivals: For Passover, which remembers the Israelites’ leaving Egypt for the Sinai desert, they travel to a desert near Death Valley; for Sukkot, the final harvest festival of the agricultural year, they camp on a farm; and for four days over Memorial Day weekend, about 150 Jews and non-Jews will join Wilderness Torah’s staff to create what the group’s leader calls a “dynamic pluralistic village” for the annual “Shavuot on the Mountain” celebration.

Zelig Golden, a former environmental lawyer and founding co-director of Wilderness Torah, recently spoke about his organization at an event in Culver City and his hope to rekindle an appreciation for Judaism’s roots in the wilderness.

“Judaism is based in an ancient land-based culture, and our traditions, our stories, our ritual objects, they all come from a relationship with land,” Golden said. And though, as a religion, Judaism can seem to be more about books than about earth, Golden sees a need for Jews, like everyone else, to be rooted in the land.

“If we don’t follow the mitzvot,” he said, citing verses from Leviticus, “and we don’t have a relationship with the land in certain ways, like the laws of shmita, resting the land … the environment’s going to turn on us.”

Celebrating in the wilderness isn’t always easy. Participants are required to bring their own tents, their own sleeping bags, even their own dishes.

“People come because it’s challenging,” Golden said. “Because it’s out of their comfort zone.”

For Shavuot, Bay Area Jews head to the wilderness Read More »

Why I love Jews by Choice

Leave a Comment / Cover Story, Holidays, Is Featured?, Judaism, Mobile, News /

The first conversion I ever performed as a rabbi was for a 45-year-old father of two who was in the final stages of liver cancer. John, who was born to a Jewish father but raised Protestant by his Christian mother, was so stricken with his disease at this point in our yearlong studies that his eyes could not focus to read, and it was difficult for him to speak more than two or three words at a time. To complete our studies, I would make cassette tapes for him (yes, it was that long ago), which he would listen to between our biweekly visits, and he would slowly write questions and responses for our in-person meetings.

I was a student rabbi, traveling twice a month to a far-off pulpit in rural Central California to lead services, teach religious school and to meet with John. The community had maybe 100 Jewish families and, early on, I asked John, a mathematics professor at the local community college, why he wanted to affirm his Jewish identity, and why now, as he was in the midst of chemotherapy with a bleak prognosis. John pointed to a phrase in the Ve’ahavta, which his daughter Blair had been studying for her bat mitzvah. “V’shinantam l’vanecha” — “and you shall impress these words upon your children,” the passage proclaims. John, who knew he was dying, turned to me and explained, “So they [his children] will never forget how important being Jewish is to me.” John died before he could hear his daughter chant those words at her bat mitzvah, but their memory echoes through his family, community and my rabbinate to this very day.

Every rabbi who has been privileged to study with Jews by Choice has a story like this and many more. At Shavuot, as we remember the story of Ruth, the first convert, we also remember that every student who comes to us for conversion is different and has a unique and very personal story, but three paths to Judaism seem to be the most frequently traveled.

One is that of the spiritual seekers looking to fill a void in their spiritual identity that either their religion of birth or life experience has not satisfied. I witnessed a powerful example of this in Chuck, a hard-nosed Korean War veteran and former POW who came to me determined to become a Jew. 

Chuck was that rare blend of scholar-soldier, an avid reader of philosophy and theology by night, as he trained with his Green Beret unit by day. After being captured behind enemy lines and tortured in a Korean POW camp, from which he later escaped, Chuck found himself pondering why people can be so filled with hatred and violence toward one another. Though not a pacifist, Chuck, like many veterans, saw a pointlessness to war and conflict that was hard to dispute, given all he had been through on the battlefield. It was during his period of attempting to reconcile his experiences that he started to reread the Bible with fresh eyes. He told me the only part that made sense to him was the Old Testament. And so, when he came to me, we started by studying the commentaries and Talmud (Jewish law). One day he turned to me, fixed me with a gaze I am sure he reserved for troops under his command, and said, “This is it, this is the only system that makes sense; this is the path toward peace.”

I didn’t know if I should convert him or salute; I guess in the end I did both.

A second path to becoming Jewish is often blazed by the bar/bat mitzvah-aged child of a non-Jewish parent. As a Reform rabbi, about 30 percent of my congregation at Temple Judea in Tarzana is made up of interfaith families. Many times over the years, the non-Jewish parent of a bar/bat mitzvah student has approached me or my colleagues about conversion as their child prepares to be called to the Torah. 

They are sparked by the warmth of Jewish tradition, the idea of wanting spiritual continuity in their family or, quite powerfully, because they are learning alongside their child about the beauty and relevance of Judaism. Their process reinforces my belief in the progressive Jewish approach to interfaith couples: By holding the door open to chuppah, and participation in synagogue life, we create the possibility that they — through their children’s studies, no less — will find a path to Jewish identity. I cannot begin to describe the feeling of standing on the bimah as the now-Jewish parent chants the Torah blessing for the first time before the child reads his or her bar/bat mitzvah portion.

A third path, which may be viewed by some as prototypical, is when the non-Jewish partner of an engaged couple comes to me for their wedding. While for me, conversion is not a precondition for doing their wedding, I do encourage and promote it. Miraculously, those who choose to enter the Jewish people around the time they enter into marriage often create two Jews, not one, in the process. The Jew by Choice is filled with a passion and need to express his or her new Jewish identity in very religious/symbolic ways, and the spouse who was born Jewish experiences Judaism with a fresh set of eyes. Through the eyes of their beloved, they see things they’ve missed, or never encountered as a child growing up in the religion. Suddenly, it is the Jew by Choice who is insisting they light Shabbat candles, attend services regularly and become involved in the synagogue. Presently, some of the most active couples in our congregation have followed this path.

One of my favorite examples is the story of Joshua and Christina (not their real names). Joshua was born in Israel and raised in the United States; prior to meeting Christina, his bar mitzvah was pretty much the first and last time he stepped foot in a synagogue. When he called looking for a rabbi for his wedding, Joshua proudly identified himself as a cultural Jew and explained that having Jewish wedding was important to him only as a way to honor the memory of his mother.

He gave me clear instructions over the phone before we met not to make the ceremony too Jewish. His fiancee, Christina, was raised Mennonite in the Midwest, and Joshua was one of the few Jewish people she had ever spoken with. She grew up with parents who were devout members of their church, but, from the time she was a teenager, she had always felt something missing in her faith and did not practice their beliefs. 

In our monthly meetings about the wedding, Christina asked more and more questions about Judaism, which, to Joshua’s credit, he did not dismiss. One day, she asked if she could start meeting with me one on one. Those meetings led to her enrolling in an introduction to Judaism class, which Joshua decided to attend with her so they could spend more time together (they were newlyweds, after all). At the end of the course she converted, and now they come together to synagogue nearly every Shabbat. Joshua is part of our weekly Torah study and sits on a number of temple committees, and Christina helps facilitate our young couples group and mentors others in the conversion process. A few months ago, I was privileged to name their daughter in our sanctuary. In her young life, their child has already been to synagogue more than Joshua had been in the 20 years before he met Christina.

It is because of stories like these that rabbis often say that one of the most inspiring and fulfilling aspects of our calling is to work with Jews by Choice. Every student we study with amazes and astounds us because, through their eyes, we see Judaism as something new, full of hope, promise, wonder, fascination and awe.

I did not have to wait to become a rabbi to observe the profound impact that choosing to be Jewish can have on another person. I guess you could say that making Jews is our family business. My maternal grandmother, Vera Kipnis, became the first private conversion tutor in the San Francisco Bay Area, more than 70 years ago. She tutored students for their studies with rabbis from across the movements, and for as long as I can remember, my mom, Patti Moskovitz, continued the work that my grandmother began. My mother tutored students in our home, believing that Judaism was dished out with cookies, soups and sandwiches as much as through Torah, Talmud and tradition. Her students were frequent guests at our Shabbat table and held a place of honor every year at our family seder — where, if our family singing didn’t scare them away, we knew our people had them hooked for good. In any given week, I would come home from school to witness a student crying tears of joy as he or she uncovered a part of the soul that previous religion, faith or lack thereof could not touch.

With every student my family has worked with through the years, the question lay before me: If I were born into another religion, would I have chosen to study and become Jewish? Could I leave behind family heritage and traditions I have known since birth? Could I say to parents and grandparents, as the biblical Ruth does in this week’s reading for Shavuot, “Your people shall be my people, your God shall be my God, where you go I will go”?

Modern life is already so packed with competing priorities and demands, why add to those the problems and challenges of leaving one’s family of faith and tradition to cling to another? And not just any faith, but Judaism — a small, minority community fraught at times with internal tsuris and an external experience of contempt in the eyes of so many. Would I be Jewish if I didn’t have to be?

Yes, even rabbis ponder this existential question — maybe we ponder it even more than others, as daily we see the joys and oys of Jewish life. We wonder about the families that come in and out of synagogue after b’nai mitzvah like it is a revolving door — one day, one generation will they not come back? We look at the survivors and children of survivors who sit uncomfortably in synagogue, who endured horrors we cannot even begin to understand — what is the source of their faith? We counsel the families who use Judaism and Jewish practice as a wedge between them, not eating in one another’s homes or davening in one another’s shuls, or attending one another’s funerals. Then there are the synagogue politics, the high cost of being Jewish and the reality that at any given time in history, someone is out to wipe us off the face of the earth. 

And yet, in the face of all that, in spite of all of that, in walks a successful, accomplished, intelligent and thoughtful adult who says simply but profoundly, “Rabbi, I want to become Jewish.” We should all be so fortunate to see Judaism through the eyes of someone who could chose to be anything else, anything other, but instead chooses this path, this people, this faith.

V’shinantam l’vanecha, indeed! The Jew by Choice impresses in so many ways, on their children for sure, but hopefully on each and every one of us, old and young alike.

Rabbi Dan Moskovitz is a rabbi at Temple Judea ( Why I love Jews by Choice Read More »

One-minute video calls for moment of silence at Olympics [VIDEO]

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Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon has created a one-minute video in the campaign to have the Munich 11 remembered at this summer’s Olympic Games in London.

The video, part of the appeal that Israel is calling Just One Minute, asks the International Olympic Committee to have a minute of silence in memory for the Israeli athletes and coaches slain at the 1972 Munich Games by the the Palestinian terrorist group Black September.

“This video is one minute long, the same amount of time we are asking the International Olympic Committee to stop and remember, contemplate and to send a message that the international sporting community will stand against hatred and violence,” Ayalon says in the video.

The IOC rejected an official letter sent from Ayalon asking that the London Games open with the moment of silence honoring the 11 Israelis. In turning down the request, IOC President Jacques Rogge wrote in a letter dated May 15 that “The IOC has officially paid tribute to the memory of the athletes on several occasions. Within the Olympic family, the memory of the victims of the terrible massacre in Munich in 1972 will never fade away.”

The Israel National Olympic Committee will hold its own memorial ceremony during the Games, as it has at every Olympics. Rogge pledged that IOC representatives would attend the ceremony.

Israel has regularly requested a moment of silence at the Olympics; the IOC has consistently turned down that proposal.

“These terrorists did not just target Israelis; they tried to pierce the very spirit and fraternity upon which the Olympic Games were built,” Ayalon said in the video.

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The IRF Has It Right On The Issue Of The Halachik Pre-Nup

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Dr. Rachel Levmore should be commended for writing in ” title=”International Rabbinic Fellowship” target=”_blank”> International Rabbinic Fellowship that took place this week the following policy was enacted. “ IRF Rabbis may not officiate at a wedding unless the couple has signed a halachic prenuptial agreement.  IRF Rabbis are further encouraged to participate ritually only in weddings in which the couple has signed a halachic prenuptial agreement.  Ritual participation includes but is not limited to reading the ketubah, serving as a witness, and making one of sheva berachot.”

Rabbis should educate their congregations as to why signing the Pre Nup is required and make it part of the culture of the shul.

Some Rabbis claim they cannot sign it as there are poskim who are opposed to it. This is approach,  the need for unanimity before a halachik position can be accepted leads to what what Rabbi Daniel Sperber calls “Paralysis In Halacha.”

The tragedy in the case of Halachik agunot is that there are real human casualties whose lives are literally paralyzed by Rabbinic malpractice.

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Haredi politician’s failure to shake hands riles female Belgian minister

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Belgium’s health minister said she was “profoundly troubled” by the behavior of her Israeli counterpart, Yaakov Litzman, after the haredi Orthodox minister refused to shake her hand at a conference.

Litzman, Israel’s deputy minister for health, belongs to the haredi Torah Judaism party and considers it forbidden to touch members of the opposite sex.

“My hands are clean!” read a text that appeared on the official Facebook site of the Belgian health minister Laurette Onkelinx. “This is the second time a minister refuses to shake my hand because I am a woman. The first was Iranian. The second one was the Israeli health minister here in Geneva. This kind of fundamentalist attitude, connected to a certain perception of religion and women, profoundly troubles me.”

Litzman and Onkelinx met Wednesday at the annual World Health Assembly. Onkelinx belongs to the Francophone Belgian Socialist Party, the party of Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo.

“The minister’s childish reaction demonstrates her ignorance,” said Michael Freilich, editor in chief of Joods Actueel, Belgium’s largest Jewish publication, which reported on the story. “Mr. Litzman’s refusal to shake Ms. Onkelinx’s hand had nothing to do with any view on women or impurity. Ultra-Orthodox women are also forbidden from touching members of the opposite sex. It’s the custom. A more seasoned politician would have been aware of this sensibility in advance.”

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Opinion: Same-sex marriage campaigns should heed local sentiments

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The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote, “Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.” Since the May 8 vote to approve North Carolina’s Amendment One referendum, which constitutionally bars the state from recognizing as legal any marriage other than that of a man to a woman, his words still ring true. Our march toward justice for all citizens of North Carolina, for all God’s children, is incomplete.

In Judaism, a “heshbon hanefesh” is an “accounting of the soul.” The concept helps us clarify how we go forward.

Our campaign against Amendment One made significant inroads in mobilizing the support and energy of the state’s African-American community, thanks in large part to the incredible leadership of the North Carolina NAACP’s president, the Rev. William Barber. He framed the issue as one of basic civil rights, upholding the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment, rather than just as an issue of marriage, and that resonated with many African-American community leaders.

In doing so, he strengthened opposition to Amendment One while acknowledging that many will, and are entitled to, have major problems with same-sex marriages. I found the shift from support of the amendment to opposition heartening.

The fight joined many committed people who worked to create a “coalition for goodness and justice.” Our dynamic group, whose members barely knew each other when we started, will continue to fight for social justice issues for all North Carolinians.

Nonetheless, the defeat was far worse than expected. The amendment passed by a whopping 21 percentage points even though polls had predicted a 10-point victory.

So what exactly went wrong?

Professor Maxine Eichner of the University of North Carolina School of Law and other experts, including family-law professors from most of the state’s law schools, detailed the possible harmful and unintended consequences of the amendment. One poll indicated that people would vote against the amendment if it were shown to harm families and children. Reliance on this information became the campaign’s strategy.

But basing a campaign on such information was a major tactical error, and several in the anti-amendment coalition tried to point this out. For two weeks prior to the referendum, amendment supporters ran an effective campaign countering Eichner’s arguments. It included call-in phone briefings with lawyers dismissing the fears raised by the professor.

The “don’t harm families” approach also was reflected in the name of the major organization against the amendment—“Protect NC Families.” The name does not say what the organization stands for and is close in name to “Focus on the Family,” a national organization that opposes recognition of gay marriage. This similarity led to confusion.

I’m also not sure that those who came from out of state to help defeat Amendment One understood the people of North Carolina. They were well meaning, but now move on to another battleground. Their record on defeating these amendments is 33 losses and one victory. Is not a strategy change warranted?

Amendment One passed overwhelmingly because of the opposition’s inability to reframe the debate from marriage and on to civil rights. Months ago some of us warned that many North Carolinians who opposed same-sex marriages would vote against the amendment if they thought it was discriminatory and denied equal protection as guaranteed under the 14th Amendment.

The response was that the argument might gain traction in Greensboro, with its unique civil-rights history (the original sit-ins occurred at the downtown Woolworth department store), but would not resonate elsewhere in the state. Opponents also worried that it would shift focus from the “don’t harm families” strategy in a way that would be harmful at the polls.

The unexpectedly high margin of defeat tells us that basing the campaign on potential harms to families was a tactical error.

A related step that Amendment One opponents should have taken was to emphasize and publicize the pronouncements of prominent conservatives and libertarians who opposed the measure. They generally based their opposition on the same civil rights argument regarding violating the 14th Amendment’s guarantees of equal protection.

Finally, the Public Religion Research Institute showed that 52 percent of Americans favor allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry. Yet a significant number are afraid that legalizing same-sex marriage would force their clergy to officiate at such marriages. Consequently, they oppose same-sex marriage laws. Once people learned that no law could ever be passed that would require a faith community or clergy member to perform such a ceremony – that would be unconstitutional—support for the legalization of same-sex marriages increased to 58 percent.

Would this amendment have passed if the campaign been managed differently? No one can be sure. Many against the amendment feel that had local people been listened to, the vote could have at least been closer.

Our next step, aside from various legal challenges, should be to convene focus groups of those who opposed Amendment One. We have to ask the serious questions and plan a new strategy.

As King wrote, “Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.” Indeed, but the arc will bend only if those of us who care act wisely in our efforts to bend it.

Rabbi Fred Guttman is the spiritual leader of Temple Emanuel in Greensboro, N.C.

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