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Jewish Journal

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November 19, 2014

Adolescent angst gets a do-over with ReBar program

Leave a Comment / Culture /

If you could change one thing about your bar or bat mitzvah, what would it be, and why? 

Reboot, the think tank that aims to imagine ways of modernizing and revitalizing Jewish tradition, sought to answer that question Nov. 15 with its newest program, reBar. It partnered with the nonprofit Pico Union Project, which hosted the event, as well as The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles.

The locale — the oldest synagogue building in Los Angeles — seemed fitting for the nostalgic event, which consisted of storytellers reflecting on their own awkward transitions into adulthood. Following a Havdalah service led by Pico Union Project’s founder, singer/songwriter Craig Taubman, the storytelling show began.

“So, just to bring the energy up a little bit, we’re going to start with a silent 20-minute meditation,” joked co-host Ethan Kuperberg, writer for Amazon Prime’s hit TV show “Transparent.” 

Fellow co-host Ethan Sandler got straight to business by explaining the premise of the evening. “We’ve come here tonight to talk about rites of passage,” he said.

Sandler went on to play a vinyl recording of his bar mitzvah haftarah. “See if you can hear me become a man,” he challenged the audience. The recording of a young boy going through the tropes ensued. Ten seconds in, Kuperberg said: “I heard it happening.”

ReBar is Reboot’s newest project, which, after more than a year of planning, was finally unveiled in Los Angeles. In January, reBar will celebrate its debut in San Francisco with a live show, after which it will travel east, according to Reboot’s executive director Robin Kramer.

Lisa Grissom, Reboot’s L.A. program manager, said that since working on this project, “I’m inspired to go back and relearn my Torah portion.”

In this particular event, she told the Journal, “We wanted to blend the Jewish lens with the lens of other cultures.” Because the Pico Union Project serves diverse communities, as reflected in the evening’s catered spread of bite-sized tamales and a punch bowl filled with sangria, the partnership was a natural next step for Reboot. And so event organizers broadened their central question to incorporate all cultural rites of passage.

“I’m not 15 years old anymore — and thank God,” said Karla T. Vasquez after reflecting on her fiesta rosa, an El Salvador tradition.

Invited storytellers included Vasquez, Esther Chung, Andy Corren, Mark Anthony Thomas and Sara Wilson. Singer/songwriter Madison Greer — who is also the executive personal assistant at the Pico Union Project — accompanied by her own piano playing, sang a sultry, sad rendition of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” 

The last story was recited by host Kuperberg, who reviewed his bar mitzvah as if it were an episode of groundbreaking television. (His grade in retrospect: a slightly above-average C plus.)

“OK, last thing tonight,” said Sandler, as both hosts took the stage at the end of the evening. “We thought we could create a rite of passage tonight.” 

They asked the audience to close their eyes and picture themselves at age 13. “Who were you? What did you love then? Who did you love then?” 

And as the audience was transported back to a time long gone, the hosts snapped them back to the present with one more resounding question: “Who are you now?” 

Adolescent angst gets a do-over with ReBar program Read More »

Is Mahmoud Abbas to blame for Jerusalem synagogue attack?

Leave a Comment / Israel /

After a gruesome attack by two Palestinian cousins left four dead at a Jerusalem synagogue, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu singled out one person for blame: Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas.

In a statement issued by his office, Abbas denounced the Nov. 18 morning attack (a police office also was wounded and later died), saying he “condemns the killing of civilians no matter who is doing it.” But over the past few weeks, as a string of violent attacks have unsettled Jerusalemites, Abbas has issued statements some see as encouraging violence against Israelis.

In late October, he called for a “day of rage” over the temporary closure of the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, saying the move amounted to a “declaration of war.” Days later, he called the shooter of Jewish Temple Mount activist Yehuda Glick a “martyr” in a letter to the attacker’s family.

“This is the direct result of the incitement being led by Hamas and Abu Mazen, incitement which the international community is irresponsibly ignoring,” Netanyahu said following the synagogue attack, using Abbas’ nom de guerre. “We will respond with a heavy hand to the brutal murder of Jews who came to pray and were met by reprehensible murderers.”

In the attack, the two Palestinians entered a synagogue in a Charedi Orthodox neighborhood of Jerusalem and attacked worshipers with a gun and butcher knives.

Four Israeli rabbis were killed in the attack: Moshe Twersky, 59, head of the Yeshiva Toras Moshe Yeshiva in Jerusalem and a grandson of Rabbi Joseph Soleveitchik, the founder of Modern Orthodoxy; Kalman Levine, 55; Aryeh Kupinsky, 43; and Avraham Goldberg, 68.

Twersky, Levine and Kupinsky were dual Israeli and American citizens; Goldberg was an Israeli and a British citizen. Eight others were wounded, including one Israeli police officer.

An Israeli Druze police officer — Zidan Saif, 30, of the Druze village of Kfar Yanouch in the Galilee — died Tuesday night of wounds suffered during the shootout with the assailants.

The assailants, members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, were killed by Israeli police at the scene.

Despite Abbas’ condemnation, Israeli politicians and American Jewish groups admonished him for inciting the violence.

“There’s hypocrisy at work here,” Finance Minister Yair Lapid said in an interview with i24 News. “You cannot incite in the evening and condemn in the morning.”

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who called the attack “an act of pure terror” while traveling in London, also called for an end to Palestinian incitement, though he didn’t mention Abbas by name.

“To have this kind of act, which is a pure result of incitement, of calls for days of rage, of just an irresponsibility, is unacceptable,” Kerry said at a news conference Tuesday. “So the Palestinian leadership must condemn this, and they must begin to take serious steps to restrain any kind of incitement that comes from their language.”

In the West Bank, a senior official from Hamas’ political echelon told a visiting journalist that he found Tuesday’s attack encouraging. The attack appeared to be a spontaneous response to Israeli actions, the Hamas official said, not a coordinated assault organized by the military wing of Hamas.

“Hamas has been trying for a long time, but particularly since the summer, to foment and incite unrest in Jerusalem and the West Bank,” the journalist, Neri Zilber, now a visiting scholar at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said of his meeting with the Hamas official, whom he declined to identify by name. “It’s obviously a high Hamas interest to foment this type of instability to keep the Palestinians in the West Bank rising up against both Israeli authorities and Palestinian authorities, which they see as going hand in hand.”

Some analysts say placing the blame on Abbas is a mistake. They point to the Palestinian president’s longtime opposition to violence as well as the PA’s ongoing security cooperation with Israel, which some credit with preventing the recent unrest from spiraling into a full-blown uprising.

“From the perspective of the Palestinians, every Palestinian who is killed in the conflict with Israel, no matter the circumstances, is thought of as a martyr,” said Itamar Radai, a research fellow at Tel Aviv University’s Moshe Dayan Center. “Abu Mazen lives in his society. There are codes he can’t completely break.”

Radai said that recent statements by Abbas should be understood as a reflection of his frustration with Israel and his efforts to curry favor with his constituents.

On Tuesday, Yoram Cohen, the head of Israel’s Shin Bet internal security service, told the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that “Abu Mazen isn’t interested in terror and isn’t causing terror,” according to Israeli reports.

“Mr. Abbas is a true partner of Israel who wants peace,” said Munib al-Masri, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Legislative Council. “We are fed up with occupation. We don’t want harassment in our holy sites. We want to sit down and talk about this.”

But Mordechai Kedar, an analyst at Bar-Ilan University’s Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, said Abbas only opposes violence when speaking to an international audience and that his inflammatory Arabic pronouncements show his true position.

“Within the Palestinian Authority, he calls for violence,” Kedar said. “In English, they speak with one mouth and in Arabic they speak with a different mouth. He can’t clearly say, ‘Go kill Jews,’ but he says it in an unclear way.” 

Is Mahmoud Abbas to blame for Jerusalem synagogue attack? Read More »

Thanksgiving by mom, updated

Leave a Comment / Culture, Food, Recipes /

The Thanksgiving holiday is the perfect time to invite family and friends to celebrate an American tradition with a home-cooked feast. The essential elements are turkey, stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce and yams. And, of course, everyone looks forward to several delicious desserts.

My mother was very proud of her very special veggie stuffing and used it for chicken as well as turkey. She mixed everything together and placed it in the bird uncooked, but I have found that cooking the stuffing first blends the flavors together better. I’ve also added my own flourish — plumped raisins that give it a nice, sweet taste that is especially festive. 

This year, I am adding some new dishes to the meal, and you can, too, combining tradition with creative new recipes. 

My family loves rhubarb, so this year we’ll include the tangy, sweet and vibrantly colored fruit, serving it alongside the traditional cranberry sauce. Don’t forget to include some Honey Glazed Yams to round out your menu.

Pumpkin Chiffon Pie is the traditional pie for our family Thanksgiving dinner. I always served it when the children were small, because although pumpkin was never their favorite, this dish is especially light in flavor and texture — and absolutely delicious after a big dinner.

TURKEY IN A BAG WITH VEGETABLE STUFFING

(From “The Gourmet Jewish Cook,” by Judy Zeidler)

  • Mom’s Vegetable Stuffing (recipe follows)
  • 1 turkey (15 to 20 pounds)
  • 1/4 cup safflower or vegetable oil
  • 1 cup apricot preserves
  • Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Prepare Mom’s Vegetable Stuffing; set aside.

Preheat oven to 325 F.

Clean the turkey and pat dry with paper towels. Spoon cooled stuffing into both cavities and close with a needle and thread or skewers. Rub outside of turkey with oil and preserves; sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Grease the inside (seamless unprinted side) of a large paper bag, or use a large plastic baking bag. Place turkey, neck first and breast down, inside the bag. For a paper bag, fold down the top and seal it with paper clips or staples. If using a plastic baking bag, tie with plastic ties supplied in the package. Place turkey on large rack over a roasting pan lined with heavy-duty foil. Bake according to the following guide, about 20 minutes per pound:

10 to 12 pounds = 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 hours

14 to 16 pounds = 5 to 6 hours

18 to 20 pounds = 6 to 7 1/2 hours

About 30 minutes before the turkey is done, make a slit in the bag under the turkey and let the liquid drain into a saucepan. When all the juices are poured off, remove bag. Return turkey to oven to brown for remaining cooking time. Skim fat that forms from juices, discard fat, and heat juices. Remove stuffing and transfer to a heated bowl. Carve turkey and arrange slices, legs and wings on a large platter. Serve heated juices in a gravy boat.

Makes 15 to 20 servings.

MOM’S VEGETABLE STUFFING

  • 1/4 cup safflower or vegetable oil
  • 3 medium onions, finely chopped
  • 3 garlic cloves, minced
  • 4 celery stalks, finely chopped
  • 1 bunch carrots, peeled and grated
  • 1 parsnip, peeled and grated
  • 2 large zucchini, grated
  • 1/2 cup minced fresh parsley
  • 1/2 cup golden raisins, plumped and drained
  • 8 mushrooms, chopped
  • 2 to 3 tablespoons oatmeal
  • 2 to 3 tablespoons flour
  • 2 to 3 tablespoons dry breadcrumbs
  • 1/4 cup dry red wine
  • Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

In a large, heavy skillet, heat oil; sauté onions and garlic until transparent. Add celery, carrots, parsnip and zucchini; toss well. Sauté for 5 minutes, until vegetables begin to soften. Add parsley, raisins and mushrooms; mix thoroughly. Simmer for 5 minutes. Blend in 1 tablespoon each of the oatmeal, flour and breadcrumbs. Add wine; mix well. Add remaining oatmeal, flour and breadcrumbs, a little at a time, until stuffing is moist and soft, yet firm in texture. Season with salt and pepper. 

Makes about 4 to 5 cups.

HONEY-GLAZED YAMS

  • 2 1/2 pounds yams or sweet potatoes, peeled, cut into 1 1/2-inch pieces (about 7 cups)
  • 6 tablespoons unsalted margarine or olive oil
  • 3 tablespoons honey
  • 1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
  • Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350 F. 

Arrange yams in a 13-by-9-by-2-inch baking dish. In a small saucepan, combine margarine, honey and lemon juice; cook over medium heat, stirring, until margarine has melted. Pour mixture over sweet potatoes; toss to coat. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake until tender when pierced with fork, stirring and turning occasionally, about 45 minutes. 

Makes 6 to 8 servings.

RHUBARB PRESERVES

  • 3 to 4 rhubarb stalks, ends trimmed, cut in 1-inch pieces (about 3 cups)
  • 1 1/2 cups sugar
  • 1/2 cup cranberry juice
  • 2 tablespoons grated orange peel

Place rhubarb in a medium pot; pour sugar over. Let rhubarb absorb the sugar for 30 minutes. Add cranberry juice and orange peel. Cook over low heat for 20 minutes or until rhubarb is soft. Cool and transfer to a bowl. 

Makes about 3 cups.

PUMPKIN CHIFFON PIE

  • 1 1/4 cups pumpkin (canned or fresh; if canned, use 100% pure pumpkin, not pumpkin pie mix)
  • 3 eggs, separated
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground mace
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 envelope unflavored gelatin (kosher)
  • 1/4 cup cold water 
  • 1 (9-inch) baked deep-dish pie crust
  • Nondairy whipped topping

In the top of a double boiler, over simmering water, combine pumpkin, egg yolks, 1/2 cup sugar, mace, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt; beat well. Bring to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes.

Dissolve gelatin in cold water and let stand for 5 minutes. Blend into pumpkin mixture, remove from double boiler; let cool.

Beat egg whites until soft peaks form. Add remaining 1/2 cup sugar; beat until stiff. Fold pumpkin mixture into beaten egg whites until combined. Pour into prepared crust; chill in refrigerator until set, 3 to 4 hours. Garnish with non-dairy whipped topping.

NOTE: For those preferring not to consume raw egg whites, Eggbeaters 100% Egg Whites may be substituted.

Makes 6 to 8 servings.

Judy Zeidler is a food consultant, cooking teacher and author of “Italy Cooks” (Mostarda Press, 2011). Her website is judyzeidler.com.

Thanksgiving by mom, updated Read More »

Jerusalem streets quiet after terror attack

Leave a Comment / Israel /

This story originally appeared on The Media Line

At least five confirmed terror attacks have ravaged Jerusalem’s streets during the past month, spreading fear and havoc among Jerusalemites and encouraging debates about whether the violence augurs the start of a Third Intifada.

The latest, on Nov. 18, left five Israelis dead, four of them rabbis. Witnesses described seeing two men entering the synagogue during prayer, one armed with a gun and one armed with a knife, and then hearing shooting from inside. The incident culminated in a shootout outside the synagogue, where police officers shot and killed the terrorists. Four people were pronounced dead at the scene while another eight people were taken to two hospitals, four of them with serious wounds. Among the wounded was a Canadian citizen, Howard (Chaim) Rothman of Toronto. A police officer was later pronounced dead from wounds from the confrontation.

Avi Steinhartz, a first responder for the United Hatzalah emergency response organization who was on the scene, told The Media Line that his two young sons were in school across the street from the scene of the attack and that two of the victims, Moshe Twersky and Arye Kupinsky, were his study partners. Coincidentally, Steinhartz was also present at Jerusalem’s Ammunition Hill light rail stop in October when a Palestinian man rammed his car into a crowd getting off the train, killing a 22-year-old Ecuadorian woman and a 3-month-old baby.

The incident on Tuesday morning is the latest in a series of violent confrontations in Jerusalem during the past six weeks. With tension at the highest level it’s been in years, many are asking whether this marks the beginning of a new intifada. 

“I hate the word ‘intifada,’ it translates to ‘uprising,’ this is not an uprising, it is targeting innocent civilians,” said Mordecai Dzikansky, a retired New York Police Department detective and author of two books on terrorism. “This is definitely a concentrated effort which went from cell-oriented terrorism to lone-wolf terrorism, but they are both state-sponsored; the lone wolf is more dangerous because it’s more difficult to obtain information from them,” he said.

Israel Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld disagreed but said that terrorists were taking advantage of the situation because of the freedom the blue ID cards, which indicate that the holder is a Jerusalem resident, affords them. 

“Instead of being interested in coming in to work or going to a hospital, and because of the incitement by the Palestinian media and social networks, they’re taking advantage of the situation and that’s why we have terror,” he said. Earlier in the day, Rosenfeld had stated that over the last 24 to 48 hours, the Palestinian Authority and Palestinian media had been inciting violence.

Following the Nov. 18 morning attack, Jerusalem’s streets were noticeably quiet, many apparently afraid to venture into public places, the current venue of choice for attackers. Parents now are restricting children’s movements, while cafes and restaurants are already reporting a dearth of customers.

According to Dzikansky, all of these incidents are being carried out by people who work in the area and who are extremely familiar with routines in their neighborhoods, looking for the best time to commit an act of violence. 

“People should think twice about who they’re employing. You have to raise the level of awareness as to who is working for you. Every synagogue or place where large numbers of people congregate needs to be guarded,” Dzikansky warned. “For example, in our synagogue we have a rotation of people who stand guard. Every synagogue in the world should have at least one person who’s armed and trained,” he added.

But some Israelis fear that taking protection into their own hands could have unexpected consequences. A local moneychanger told The Media Line that many of his friends are licensed to carry guns but have put them in the vault because they fear being arrested themselves. Dzikansky disagrees. “There’s an expression in the NYPD: ‘I’d rather be judged by 12 than carried by six.’ ”

Dzikansky, who was involved in intelligence-sharing between the New York Police Department and Israel during the Second Intifada, said there needs to be a more aggressive approach — both governmental and nongovernmental — to combat the lone-wolf attacks.  

“There were periods of suicide bombings, hijackings. Right now, it’s the random attacks — which are the latest in terror — and you will see copycats. It happened in Antwerp, it happened with the policemen in New York; this is the latest rage,” he said.

Matty Goldstein, a first responder with ZAKA, a humanitarian terror-response organization, said he is sure the Israeli government “will do anything and everything” to ensure attacks like these don’t happen again. 

Adding roadblocks and reinforced checkpoints were among the measures suggested to buttress security in the city, something Rosenfeld said was already being done after the Nov. 18 attack. Also immediately after the attack, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu brought different security agencies together to discuss how to best combat the threat. 

 

“We’re setting up security checks and roadblocks and working with other intelligence organizations, so that they can assess and find the terrorists. They are also setting up police checkpoints in different neighborhoods, not just East Jerusalem,” Rosenfeld said. “As of this afternoon, the security assessment was to set up more police and volunteer units in the quieter neighborhoods around Jerusalem.” 

Jerusalem streets quiet after terror attack Read More »

So right, yet so wrong: The truth Sheldon Adelson told us

Leave a Comment / Opinion /

The media has covered casino magnate Sheldon Adelson’s address to the Israeli-American Council, a recently formed organization of Israelis who live in the United States, many of whom have truthfully become Israeli Americans.

When asked what to do about the land and what to do about the Arabs, Adelson said, “I don’t think the Bible says anything about democracy. … God talked about all the good things in life. … He didn’t talk about Israel remaining as a democratic state. Israel isn’t going to be a democratic state — so what?” 

The Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) outstanding outgoing director, Abe Foxman, courageously pounced on Adelson’s statement. It takes courage for the head of a Jewish organization to publicly dissent from one of the most powerful and one of the — if not the most — philanthropic Jews today. But to his credit, Foxman did not hesitate.

He said, “Sheldon Adelson’s comment suggesting that it’s not so important that Israel remain a democracy is disturbing on many levels … In fact, the founders of Israel got it exactly right when they emphasized the country being both a Jewish and democratic state. Any initiatives that move Israel away from either value would ill-serve the State and people of Israel.”

Foxman is right, but we must also concede that Adelson is right. 

The Bible says nothing serious about democracy, though it does have the phrase “acheri rabim l’hatatot, which can be roughly translated as majority rules. And the Torah relies on God’s sovereignty and Moses’ charismatic leadership. But Judaism is not only a biblical religion. 

Any student of Jewish history, even the most Orthodox among us, will recognize that rabbinic Judaism is distinctly different from biblical religion, even if it is its worthy successor. Midrash makes clear that Moses would not have recognized what Rabbi Akiva taught in his name. 

And Judaism has evolved since talmudic times. As Gerson Cohen has demonstrated, it was the genius of Judaism and of Jewish thinkers to acculturate into the societies around them, adapting ideas, patterns of thought, even values from the world around them and incorporating them into Judaism. Maimonides cannot be understood without Aristotle and Averroes, Philo without Plato, Saadiah Gaon’s Emunot v’Deot without understanding Greek philosophy and the entire Judeo-Arabic culture of his time. The Talmud itself grapples with, accepts and strenuously rejects parts of Greco-Roman culture.

That is how our tradition evolved, and that is one of the major secrets of our survival.

Democracy is a concept, whose origin is secular, on how to govern a population. Israel’s founding fathers made it a pillar of the nascent state. It shaped its Declaration of Independence. It is fully articulated in Israel’s basic laws, in its parliamentary procedures and in its Supreme Court. It is essential to Israel’s support in the West. 

I would argue that not only is democracy a value cherished by Jews, by now it has become a Jewish value.

We must, however, concede that Adelson is telling us a second truth that most of his supporters and many of his admirers would refuse to admit. He was candid, perhaps too candid. It is a truth of the left, rejected, fudged or simply ignored by the right.

Israel faces a stark choice. Israel can remain a Jewish state and a democratic state only if it cedes the major Arab population centers in Gaza, the West Bank, Judea and Samaria. The one-state solution for the lands between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea can be a Jewish state or a democratic state — or neither. It cannot be both Jewish and democratic.

Israel’s founding fathers understood that when they wrestled with the issue of partition in 1937 and when they founded the state in 1948. The question is whether their grandsons and granddaughters will accept that today.

Adelson’s point was reinforced by an opinion piece published in The New York Times by Israel’s minister of economics, Naftali Bennett, who offers the Palestinians a non-state that will neither control its borders, nor be allowed military control of its own borders, nor be allowed a military. Israel, he suggests, will be generous in building roads and offering economic opportunities and local self-government, but there is no mention in his piece about democracy, citizenship or even civil rights.

It is good that this discussion, which for so long has loomed just beneath the surface, comes out in the open. Those who advocate taking over the territories or even the status quo must confront the issue as to how Israel can remain a Jewish state and a democratic state. They may wish to follow Adelson and dismiss democracy as an alien non-Jewish value.

I am not alone in believing that democracy has been good to the Jews, is the least unjust system of government in history and that, by now, democracy has become an essential and sacred Jewish value.

Let the debate begin.

Michael Berenbaum is professor of Jewish studies and director of the Sigi Ziering Center for the Study of the Holocaust and Ethics at American Jewish University. Find his blog at jewishjournal.com/a_jew.

So right, yet so wrong: The truth Sheldon Adelson told us Read More »

Celebrating Judaism and Islam in America

Leave a Comment / Opinion /

What happens when Jewish and Muslim leaders set their minds to engage in dialogue, and then move beyond dialogue to social action, prayer and friendship? When we first met in February 2008, another question asked in good humor was, “What took so long for us to meet?”

 Six years ago, the Jewish Theological Seminary’s (JTS) Chancellor Arnold M. Eisen and Rabbi Burton L. Visotzky, director of the Milstein Center for Interreligious Dialogue of JTS, sat down with Dr. Sayyid Syeed and Dr. Mohamed Elsanousi of the Office of Interfaith and Community Alliances of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), to discuss plans for our future. We set an ambitious list of goals: matching 10 Conservative Jewish congregations with 10 mosques, surveying Conservative rabbis to see whether they were engaged in Muslim-Jewish dialogue, and developing a series of academic workshops to further Muslim-Jewish relations on campus and in the community.

We continued to talk throughout 2008, even as we matched congregations, discovered that more than 50 Conservative synagogues already had dialogue programs with the Muslim community, and planned the workshops we envisioned. With lead funding from the Carnegie Corp. of New York, we undertook a series of workshops on “Judaism and Islam in America.” The first of these was in fall 2010 at JTS, and the next at a partner institution, Hartford Seminary. We turned to Hartford, a Christian seminary, because it was already training Muslim leaders in its chaplaincy program, since there was no ordaining institution for imams in America. Hartford’s interfaith-relations program was then being run by Dr. Ingrid Mattson, then president of ISNA. She and Hartford’s President Heidi Hadsell rounded out the inner group to plan a project that answered the question that seemed to us so urgent: how can we take two similar American minority religious communities, Jews and Muslims, and get them to know one another?

It was as though the Quran (49:13) spoke to us: “O humanity! We created you from a single male and female, and made you into tribes and nations, that you might know one another.” Of course, this parallels the foundational rabbinic document, the Mishnah (Sanhedrin 4:5), which teaches: “Thus was humanity made from a single being … to promote peace among God’s creatures, that no one may say, my ancestor was greater than yours.” It was this tenet from both faiths — that we might come to know one another without presuming that one of us was better than the other — that drove and continues to drive the alliances and friendships we have forged for half a decade and more.

All in all, we held three workshops. The first two, at JTS and Hartford, yielded academic fruit; last month, Hartford Seminary published Volume 104 of the scholarly journal The Muslim World. For the first time in more than a century of publication, this special issue was dedicated to Judaism and Islam in America, containing articles by both Jews and Muslims. Two of us also did a one-day colloquium on Muslim and Jewish oral literature at Georgetown University. Scholars who were formerly wary of one another now eagerly traded footnotes. While the scholars wrote their articles, the fruits of our third workshop also blossomed. We met in fall 2012 in Northern Virginia and Washington, D.C. Jews and Muslims toured the White House together as a group, engaged in a briefing with the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships there, and discussed at length how to take the bonds we had forged from classroom to community.

To achieve our goals of broadening and strengthening ties among the various Jewish and Muslim communities, we oversaw four pilot projects on the Eastern seaboard in synagogues and mosques, in local community centers, and on college campuses. These added to the already lengthy list of programs for Jews and Muslims taking place across North America. In fact, in addition to our pilot programs, we collated a list of other dialogue and social-action programs that had been successful promoting Muslim-Jewish interaction. 

We commissioned a new book, “Sharing the Well: A Resource Guide for Jewish-Muslim Engagement,” edited by Kim Zeitman and Mohamed Elsanousi. “Sharing the Well” is designed to assist and enhance Jewish-Muslim interactions at the community level. It includes a guide to dialogue; 18 articles by Jewish and Muslim leaders on topics such as caring for others, family and heritage, and religious life; questions for discussion; the sampling of 24 successful Jewish-Muslim engagement programs from across America; and a glossary of Jewish and Muslim terms. The 150-page book will be available beginning in November 2015, as a free PDF download at www.jtsa.edu/sharingthewell. On that date, hard copies will also be available via order form.

It continues to be our hope that advancing the dialogue between Muslims and Jews in such an important way might also be an asset in helping build confidence toward a just solution in the Middle East. We do not expect to change decades of enmity overnight, but we do believe that building a strong alliance between the Muslim and Jewish communities for the purpose of fighting Islamophobia and anti-Semitism benefits us all, even as it also strengthens the fabric of the great patchwork quilt that is America.

Since we began the “Judaism and Islam in America” project, Jews have visited Muslim-majority countries, while Muslims have visited Holocaust sites in Europe and studied in Jerusalem. In the past half decade, we have moved from dialogue to action: working together to feed the hungry, providing free medical treatment to the uninsured and building housing for those in need. Sharing our stories with one another, asking after each other’s families, breaking bread together, jointly celebrating our holidays and expressing our condolences has become the daily round of what is now friendship. Each of us has been enriched by the other, better knowing our own religion and appreciating the beliefs and customs of the other. As the Quran (5:48) teaches, we “race with one another to do good works.”

Celebrating Judaism and Islam in America Read More »

Horrorism in the Middle East

Leave a Comment / Is Featured?, Mobile, Mobile-Homepage, News, Opinion, Rob Eshman /

“…there are only wrong choices, and it’s like I’m … I’m finally seeing it now for the first time: Nothing good can happen in this f—-d-up world we’ve made for ourselves.”

— Carrie Mathison, “Homeland,” Season 4, Episode 8, Nov. 16, 2014

 

You know who agrees with Carrie about the Middle East these days? Everyone. We sit here an ocean away and watch it go from bad to worse. 

There’s New York Times columnist Roger Cohen, who wrote this week, “What is unbearable, in fact, is the feeling, 13 years after 9/11, that America has been chasing its tail; that, in some whack-a-mole horror show, the quashing of a jihadi enclave here only spurs the sprouting of another there.”

There’s Tom Friedman, also writing for The Times, who all but threw up his hands in his last two columns. “In sum,” he wrote, “there are so many conflicting dreams and nightmares playing out among our Middle East allies in the war on ISIS that Freud would not have been able to keep them straight.”

There was the estimable Robert Satloff, in Politico: “It will likely take an even more dramatic brand of divine intervention to prevent a slew of worsening Mideast problems — renewed Israeli-Palestinian tensions, Islamic terrorism, Iranian nukes and so on — from landing squarely on the desk of the next U.S. president.”

And former diplomat Aaron David Miller, who wrote this week on CNN.com, “We’re stuck in a kind of Middle East Bermuda Triangle where messy outcomes are more likely than neat solutions, and where ambiguity and uncertainty will rule over clarity and stability for years to come.”

This week began with the execution of American hostage Peter Kassig, and before it was out, we witnessed the attack in a Jerusalem synagogue, which left (as of press time) five Israelis dead. 

These acts share a brutal, personal, senselessness that “terrorism” doesn’t quite begin to describe. A British journalist coined a better term: “horrorism.”

Horrorism combines terror with the purposeful depiction of as much personal human suffering as possible. Terrorism uses bombs, and airplanes; horrorism uses knives, fists and axes. The ISIS video, the aftermath of the bloody synagogue — there is nothing more frightening than what one pair of human hands can do to a fellow human.

In Israel, after the creation of a strong, vibrant nation state, we are back to Kishinev 1903, and the pogrom that inspired Theodor Herzl to push for a Jewish state. As the poet Hayyim Nahman Bialik wrote back then, “… the hatchet found them there.” And again it finds them, and again we mourn, “A place of sainted graves and martyr-stone.”

And that’s what makes great minds, starting with Carrie Mathison, despair. After all the involvement, money, strategy and grand plans, we are back to the Bronze Age, back to bloodlust and human sacrifice. What’s worse, as the political solutions recede, the religious aspects of these conflicts loom larger and larger. 

In Iraq and Syria, the religious war — a disaster we helped create — now seems entirely predictable. In times of chaos, people gravitate toward what the philosopher Robert Nozick calls “protective associations.” Kurds become more Kurd, Sunnis more Sunni, Shiites more Shiite. If a functioning state can’t offer protection and security, pre-existing identities will.  

“When the state collapsed,” legal and Islamic scholar Noah Feldman writes in “What We Owe Iraq,” “people had little choice but to find some marker of identity that they thought would have some chance of working for them. And these were the identities that were there. We didn’t create these identities —they already existed — it’s that we turned those identities into focal points for self-organization, by virtue of our failure to provide security. And we therefore made these ethnic/denominational identities much more important for Iraqi politics than they otherwise would have been.”

Speaking last month at Harvard Law School, Feldman (who will be a scholar-in-residence at Sinai Temple Dec. 4-6) said he doesn’t think ISIS will survive three years facing opposition from most of the Arab and Muslim world. But he doesn’t say that what will follow will be any less extreme.

In Israel, there’s a similar dynamic. Secular Palestinian leadership is almost an oxymoron. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas foments revolt and Jew-hatred on the one hand, then condemns, in the weakest possible way, attacks on innocent Israelis. Lacking strong secular leadership, young Palestinians from Gaza to East Jerusalem turn to their “protective associations” — religious leaders, the mosques, Hamas.

The police call them “lone wolf” attacks, but you can only have lone wolves when there is no alpha dog.  

Attacks in Jerusalem, the holy city, carry the import of holy war. Things can so easily spiral out of control, beyond the city limits, beyond Israel and into the rest of the world.

“The religious dimension of the conflict is very dangerous and explosive,” Shin Bet security services chief Yoram Cohen told members of a Knesset committee, according to Ha’aretz, “because it has implications for the Palestinians and for Muslims everywhere in the world. We have to do everything possible to instill calm.”

Instill calm. When he figures out how to do that, he should let the rest of the world know how.

Rob Eshman is publisher and editor-in-chief of TRIBE Media Corp./Jewish Journal. E-mail him at robe@jewishjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @foodaism.

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Libeskind:To Create is To Be

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People come on this earth with one single purpose, the very thing which gives meaning to their lives: to create, to prosper, and to achieve. What is one of the great examples of achievement if not that of man and woman’s ability to create massive structures upon this earth in contrast to the nature that surrounds him/her? That is the essence of everything and almost anything. It is for this reason why, I am happy to say, that I am grateful to men such as Daniel Libeskind who provide us with buildings that are not only a testament to success, but to humankind’s power.

To erect buildings as one man sees them is perhaps one of the greatest attributes of the human mind. The ability to think by abstract means, to conceive ideas, and then simply build them using the tools, and technology that have also come into existence through reason and rationality is something spectacular. When one looks at the work of Libeskind’s Jewish Museum of Berlin, it becomes obvious that labels are something of the past, the ideas of men who have been, can no longer be. The new, not for the sake of new, but rather for the sake of keeping one man’s integrity, is what is most important.

Libeskind, the Jewish American architect originally from Poland, is one of the very few men in architecture who command the respect of the few that know to appreciate not only the grandeur of his buildings but that of his vision. Namely one which does not take from others or builds upon the old, but rather fashions the new, in order to get rid of the old. If you look at every single one of his works there is only one style, that of Libeskind. Each building is different from all others and is instantly recognizable by its own character and its own flair-something which is exceptionally rare in architecture.

His Jewish Museum of Berlin is perhaps a perfect example of the beauty that stems from the mind and skill of individuals. An almost esoteric structure, it is a manifestation of the human soul which leaves its admirers in awe. The first question that I asked myself was “How could he create this?”, the second “How could anyone?”. Once I researched more of his buildings, it became obvious that, although not his greatest work, on its own it is a perfect mirror to the talent and skill of Libeskind, I dare say, one of the most important Jewish architects of our time.

He did not start out as a young architect as most of you would suspect, rather he made his way as a musician, namely he played the accordion, and in fact got so good that he toured with the famous Itzhack Perlman. In the 60’s he put the accordion down and got in the arts and found his own craft, something he truly loved and excelled in.

Yet I am not here to talk about the man. No. I am here to talk about his work which is the most pristine and best indicator of his own person. Amid all of his buildings, the one which I believe deserves the most praise is his “The Ascent at Roebling’s Bridge”, found in Kentucky. It is perhaps the embodiment of man’s attempt to reach for the sky, yet what is more interesting about it is that it is a residential building. The lucky few who live there understand its meaning, and above all its purpose. To create is to be. The tenants of “The Ascent” know that very well.

There are not many architects like Daniel Libeskind, which is a shame. For it is men such as him that show the capabilities of human reason. Capabilities which are meant to subdue nature.

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