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Jewish Journal

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July 7, 2016

Jewish groups condemn anti-Semitic rhetoric in 2016 race

Leave a Comment / Election 2016, Jewish Insider /

In light of Donald Trump’s Star of David “>doubled down on his justification for using what was perceived as anti-Semitic imagery in a tweet against Hillary Clinton. “It was a star. A star. Like, a star,” Trump said during a campaign rally in Cincinnati, Ohio. “It’s a star! Have you all seen this? It’s a star.”

The letter does not mention the presumptive Republican presidential nominee by name. However, it highlights past experiences of the Jewish community to illustrate the danger facing minority religious communities today as they continue to be targeted in the 2016 race.

“Now, more than ever, it is essential for the Jewish community to stand together to denounce hatred and bigotry,” ADL’s CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement. “We know all too well the dangers of unchecked racism and anti-Semitism and must never let it go unchallenged. To be clear, this is not about left or right or liberal or conservative. It is about common sense and core American values of pluralism and tolerance. We have the highest expectations of both presumptive nominees and their political parties.”

Scroll down for the full letter and list of signatories

Meanwhile, Bend the Arc Jewish Action, a Jewish social justice organization also “>petition urging the Republican Jewish Coalition to rescind its endorsement of Trump. The petition calls on Matt Brooks, RJC’s executive director, to retract the group’s endorsement of Trump until his campaign denounces and cuts all ties with white supremacists, including anti-Semites.

“This isn’t about a single tweet. This is about a deplorable pattern of racist behavior that is fueling Donald Trump’s bid for the White House,” said Stosh Cotler, CEO of Bend the Arc Jewish Action. “There should be no Jewish support for a presidential campaign that supports white supremacy and anti-Semitism. As long as Donald Trump remains a megaphone for hate, we’re calling on the Republican Jewish Coalition to stop backing his campaign.”

Read the full text of the letter below:

“We, the undersigned Jewish community organizations, stand together in denouncing racism and xenophobia in all circumstances. We share a belief that public figures, including those who aspire to hold elected office in service to people of all races and religions, have a responsibility to forcefully and unequivocally condemn these dangerous phenomena.

“The Jewish community knows all too well what can happen when particular religious or ethnic groups become the focus of invective. We have witnessed the dangerous acts that can follow verbal expressions of hate. Jews and members of other religious minorities have found safety in the United States, thanks to this nation’s commitment to religious freedom, civil rights, and refugee protection. Yet these values that are pillars of our nation’s strength cannot be taken for granted; rather, they must be renewed and protected in every generation.

“We are deeply concerned by suggestions that Muslim Americans should be targeted by law enforcement, simply because of their faith. We object to hurtful characterizations of entire ethnic groups as criminals. We are pained by anti-Semitic epithets hurled at Jewish Americans on social media.

“We are also disheartened that refugees, particularly Syrians and Muslims, have become targeted in recent months and years as subjects of xenophobia. These concerns are heightened by statements made in the wake of the tragedy in Orlando tying that act of horror to an entire faith tradition, rather than the vile actions of an evil individual. This inflammatory rhetoric does not make our communities safer—in fact, it exposes us to more violence and division. Policies targeted at restricting refugees are often steeped in suspicion, ignoring the many benefits refugees bring to our communities as well as overlooking the fact that refugees are the most thoroughly vetted individuals who enter the U.S.

“Judaism teaches us to see the value in every human being, as we are all created in the image of God. The normalization of hate speech cannot become a reality in the United States. It is vital that all people of goodwill stand in solidarity against bigotry and intolerance. Our Jewish values also teach us to “love the stranger” and welcome refugees and immigrants who arrive in the U.S. wanting the same things we all want—peace, safety, and opportunities for themselves and their children.

“We call on all Americans—in their communities and on the national stage—to refrain from and denounce all forms of hatred and extremism. We call on all Americans who support or endorse candidates for public office to loudly and clearly condemn any and all racist and xenophobic language and actions. Instead, we must demonstrate commitment to our proud American and Jewish values of religious freedom, civil rights, refugee protection, and equality for all.”

The full list of signers includes:

Anti-Defamation League

HIAS

Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism

Jewish Social Justice Roundtable

Ameinu

American Jewish World Service

AVODAH: The Jewish Service Corps

Bend the Arc: A Jewish Partnership for Justice

Central Conference of American Rabbis

Challah for Hunger

Hazon

Jewish Alliance for Law & Social Action

Jewish Community Action

Jewish Council for Public Affairs

Jewish Council on Urban Affairs

Jews United for Justice

Jews for Racial and Economic Justice

JOIN for Justice

Keshet

MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger

National Council of Jewish Women

New Israel Fund

Rabbinical Assembly

Reconstructionist Rabbinical College

Repair the World

T’ruah

Union for Reform Judaism

Workmen’s Circle

 

Jewish groups condemn anti-Semitic rhetoric in 2016 race Read More »

Jewish groups condemn racism, anti-Semitism in 2016 campaign

Leave a Comment / Election 2016, United States /

The Anti-Defamation League and 27 other Jewish social justice organizations penned a forceful open letter imploring political candidates to put an end to the racism, anti-Semitism and xenophobia they say has emerged in this year’s campaign.

Although the letter released Thursday does not mention a candidate by name, it comes during a week in which Donald Trump has fended off charges of sharing a tweet, perceived by some as anti-Semitic, that originated on a far-right internet bulletin board. The letter also alludes to affronts to Muslims, Syrian refugees and Mexicans, all of whom have been singled out by the presumptive Republican candidate during his presidential campaign.

“We are deeply concerned by suggestions that Muslim Americans should be targeted by law enforcement, simply because of their faith,” according to the letter. “We object to hurtful characterizations of entire ethnic groups as criminals. We are pained by anti-Semitic epithets hurled at Jewish Americans on social media.”

Organized by the Jewish Social Justice Roundtable, a coalition of  Jewish organizations, the open letter’s signers include HIAS, the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, Jewish Council for Public Affairs, National Council of Jewish Women, and groups representing the Conservative and Reconstuctionist denominations.

“We share a belief that public figures, including those who aspire to hold elected office in service to people of all races and religions, have a responsibility to forcefully and unequivocally condemn these dangerous phenomena,” the letter said.

The letter invokes the experiences of Jews to emphasize the danger of allowing prejudice to spread through the words of public figures.

“The Jewish community knows all too well what can happen when particular religious or ethnic groups become the focus of invective. We have witnessed the dangerous acts that can follow verbal expressions of hate,” it said.

The 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations among the signatories are not permitted to be directly involved with political activism nor show partisanship, although they may engage in advocacy on behalf of their principles.

“This letter is not about left or right, it’s about Jewish and American values,” Abby Levine, director of the Jewish Social Justice Roundtable, told JTA. “If any Jewish person in this country doesn’t understand, doesn’t at least acknowledge this concern and shock at what’s happening in our country, they are just not being honest about our community and our society.”

Jewish groups condemn racism, anti-Semitism in 2016 campaign Read More »

In what could be a first, Orthodox synagogue elects all-female board

Leave a Comment / United States /

An  Ohio congregation has become what is perhaps the first Orthodox synagogue to elect an all-female slate of officers.

At their annual meeting on June 26, the Oheb Zedek-Cedar Sinai Synagogue in Lyndhurst, Ohio elected five women to their board.

Sharon Weiss-Greenberg, executive director of the New York-based Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance, told the Cleveland Jewish News that to the best of her knowledge, there has never been an all-female board in the Orthodox community in the United States.

The Modern Orthodox synagogue elected its first female president, Murial Weber, in 2013. Weber will now serve as the temple’s treasurer while Arlene Holz Smith will take over as president. The others elected to the board are Alanna Cooper as vice president, Gloria Jacobson as vice president and Ellen Worthington as secretary.

“What drew me to Oheb Zedek-Cedar Sinai was the fact that it’s a place where we were able to balance real inclusivity with traditional Orthodoxy,” Smith said. “The environment created by Rabbi [Zachary] Truboff is one that welcomed, encouraged, nurtured and mentored our daughter, and he has created a home at Oheb Zedek-Cedar Sinai.”

Truboff was ordained at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, a liberal Orthodox seminary in New York. The Smiths’ daughter, Ramie, recently was ordained at Yeshivat Maharat in New York– the first yeshiva to ordain women as Orthodox Jewish clergy. Both institutions were founded by Rabbi Avi Weiss of Riverdale, New York, a long-time advocate for expanding women’s roles in Orthodox congregations.

In what could be a first, Orthodox synagogue elects all-female board Read More »

Meet a Namibian cyclist pedaling for a diverse Israeli team

Leave a Comment / Culture /

Growing up in Namibia, Dan Craven would bicycle long distances upon the only two paved roads in his hometown of Omaruru — 80 miles heading north to Otjiwarongo and 45 miles south to Karibib.

Cycling on what he calls the “tar roads” is how he fell in love with the sport; plus Craven acknowledges he wasn’t very good at soccer or rugby. He took to the road after seeing a poster promoting a triathlon, which encompasses bicycling, swimming and running.

While competing for the cycling team at South Africa’s Stellenbosch University, Craven first believed he could pedal for a living.

“I thought: Let’s try to make a go of it,” he said.

Craven, 33, has been cycling professionally for about a decade. Now he is plying his craft for an Israel-based international team, the Cycling Academy, that features not only Israelis but a diverse group including riders from Estonia, Mexico, Poland, Italy, the Czech Republic, Canada and the United States. On the 15-rider club, only the five Israelis are Jewish.

After being recruited by the Israeli team, Craven signed a contract this winter and already is one of its co-leaders.

“He’s very smart in the way he sees races,” said the Cycling Academy’s coach, Nicki Sorensen, Denmark’s former national champion who competed 10 times in the Tour de France, road cycling’s preeminent event. “He’s a guy who takes responsibility on behalf of some of these very young riders.”

Craven comes to the Cycling Academy after spending 2014 and 2015 with Team Europcar, in ’14 becoming the first Namibian to compete in and complete the Vuelta a Espana, a top European event. Earlier he had spent four years each with teams in Switzerland and England.

In 2012 he represented Namibia in the Olympics but crashed.

Craven is among the less than 10 percent of Namibians who are white, most with roots in the Netherlands and Germany. His great-great-great grandfather, John, moved from Yorkshire, England, to South Africa in 1840, a century and a half before Namibia gained independence  from South Africa.

As a younger boy in the coastal village of Swakopnund, his best friend was black; the boy’s parents were from Uganda. The two often played on the sand dunes or watched television.

It wasn’t until moving to Omaruru that “I suddenly became aware of racism and those differences,” Craven said.

Neither his homeland nor Israel are conventional road-cycling countries.

“Israel and Namibia don’t have a strong culture of cycling, so it’s easier to have an impact and make a bigger difference. It gives me more satisfaction,” said Craven, who lives in Spain but has been to Israel twice for team training. (The Cycling Academy has trained part of the year in Italy’s Tuscany region and in August will train in Colorado.)

“In countries like Italy and France, there’s a pathway to becoming a pro. I come from Namibia, with no pathway. By being part of the Israeli team, I’m creating a bit of a pathway, and also showing other countries that it’s possible.”

In Israel, Craven said, he enjoyed taking in the country’s landscape on rides, especially along the border with Egypt.

Asked about Israel’s diplomatic issues, Craven said he remains too uninformed to venture an opinion. But he is abundantly curious and said he constantly educates himself about the country by reading articles online.

Tellingly, Craven said, competitors are intrigued by Israel – or at least by the Israeli team, which is in just its second year of operation. Many approach him to inquire about opportunities to join the Cycling Academy club.

“They see that it’s organized,” said the bearded cyclist, a 6-footer. “This is a team they want to be on, and word spreads quite quickly.”

It’s a team with a pleasant mix of cultures and ages that projects openness and doesn’t talk about the politics of Israel. In group settings, English is the lingua franca to encourage inclusivity. (Besides the Israeli quintet, the academy includes the Boivin brothers from Quebec: Guillaume is a cyclist and Pierre handles logistics.)

Sorensen spoke to a JTA reporter sitting alongside while driving a support car a few yards behind his riders getting in a 100-mile workout on the streets of Wilmington and New Castle, Delaware, to prepare for an event in Philadelphia two days later. Every 30 minutes or so, the car stopped and the team’s Lithuanian mechanic hopped out to replace a cyclist’s flat tire. Several times over the five hours, a rider pulled alongside and grasped the front passenger’s window ledge, gliding as the mechanic leaned out to oil the gears. A push on the back sent the cyclist on his way.

Craven, who visits Namibia occasionally, likewise hopes to propel the Cycling Academy.

“This team is going to grow. It is going places,” he said.

As the team rode its sponsor-provided luxury bus – courtesy of the industry behemoth Cannondale Bicycle Corp. – back to its hotel after the training run, laughter erupted. The source: a just-made video clip showing one team member depositing a banana in the mouth of napping Israeli rider Aviv Yecheskel.

Roy Goldstein, a 23-year-old cyclist who joined the team in April, interrupted the interview with JTA to have a look at the video, then proceeded to talk about Craven’s knowledge and leadership.

Goldstein recalled ascending a hill in a Luxembourg race when Craven, riding alongside, suggested that he gradually decrease the pace. Easing up on the incline, in a stage the team couldn’t win anyway, would slow Goldstein’s heartbeat and conserve energy for the next stage, Craven promised.

The tip proved accurate when Goldstein applied it in Italy at another race.

“It gave me a sense of security,” Goldstein said, “knowing that I could depend on him at any time.”

Meet a Namibian cyclist pedaling for a diverse Israeli team Read More »

Laughter and smiles

Leave a Comment / Opinion /

Above all else, it is through his smile that I best remember Elie Wiesel from a decade in his classroom at Boston University.  For 10 years I merited to take part in his seminars which were always titled “Literature of Memory.” First I was a student, then an undergraduate assistant, then a teaching fellow and doctoral advisee (now I am back to student, as I will be for life).  We read literature by holocaust survivors and victims, we read world literature written by German soldiers, Muslim mystics, Jewish women, Chasidic masters, Talmudic masters, scholars of Christianity, Dostoevsky, and the book of Job; among others. We read books written by desperate and desolate writers who had gone on to end their own lives, some of them Professor Wiesel’s friends.

You might think the mood of these seminars was heavy, dark, and depressing.  There were certainly tense moments, moments of painful self-revelation and –discovery, and moments near the abyss of despair.  There were somber moments as he recalled his last phone call with Primo Levi, recounted his trip to the killing fields of Bosnia, returned from Yitzhak Rabin’s funeral.  There were painful moments, as a student learned what the crusaders in Europe did to Jews in their pathway and how different that was from the image of her Catholic high school football team’s mascot.  When through tears, a student searched for words to describe what it’s like to go through a white world in black skin.  When the Professor and another student, herself an Auschwitz survivor, exchanged knowing glances that the rest of us could not possibly understand.

But there were even more moments of open-heartedness, of profound collegiality and support, and genuine humanity.  Friendships were formed in that seminar, and others were deepened.  A marriage or two at least traces its origins to that seminar.  Respect was modeled and learned, and the ability to listen to the voice of another was taught and practices. The highest watermarks in the seminar of this Professor of the Humanities was his humanity as it showed through in his smiles and his laughter.

He once remarked in class that no one knows how to experience joy better than a survivor. They who lost everything know the depth of what it is to experience joy at a wedding or a bar mitzvah or other happy occasion. Our teacher took this to new heights and breadths, though. His joy at seeing a student come up with a novel insight into a text showed in the light in his eyes.  His joy at hearing someone share with shyness and trepidation a poem that they had written for the occasion of a first presentation of a last class showed in his empathetic smile, probably aware of his own shyness.  His delight in seeing a new mother who had given birth the week before reappear in class the following week occasioned a smile and a kindness that radiated from the depth of his soul. On a few occasions, he put a fist or a finger over his mouth to suppress what probably would have been a belly laugh if left unchecked.

Once a relative asked me how I could sit in his class week after week; wasn’t it the most depressing place to be. Whenever Professor Wiesel made the news, it was usually admonishing a president, calling the world’s attention to the plight of a persecuted minority, or crying out at the threat of more violence, more hatred, more killing, more indifference.  As a result, I have to say that Elie Wiesel’s public persona as represented in mainstream American media was incomplete.  While he had the stern countenance befitting his role as witness for humanity, conscience for the world, messenger from the flames; there was just so much more to him than the Jeremiad.

He loved poetry. He loved fiction.  He loved memoir. He loved sacred text, both his own and those of other faiths.  He loved sincere seekers, and he was bemused by insincere ones.  He loved a good story, and could tell tales with the best.  He once wrote that “G-d created man because he loves stories,” and asked us to put aside political correctness in pronouns to appreciate the ambiguity in the aphorism—was it G-d who loves stories, or man?

And like the truly generous soul that he was he delighted in sharing his passion for words and ideas with others.  He spent a good portion of the class going around asking people for their impressions , their reactions to what we’d read; a character’s thought, a plot twist, a weak resolution of a conflict.  He’d formulate a question and just go around the room, sometimes getting almost all of the 50 students in the seminar to put their thought out into the square, and to feel validated and worthwhile for having done it.

For someone who delighted in literature, and who delighted even more in introducing young minds to great works of literature, to say nothing of introducing them to each other, and most importantly introducing them to parts of themselves that they had not previously been aware of or ready to acknowledge; serving for 35 years as a Professor of the Humanities must have brought Elie Wiesel great satisfaction.

As far as I could tell, the smile on his lips, the laughter emanating  from his soul, and the light sparkling in his eyes was sufficient witness to all this.  Those of us who were privileged to see this eminently qualified man teaching Humanity will probably never forget the delight he took in his task.  I for one will be forever encouraged and uplifted by his smile and his laugh.

Laughter and smiles Read More »

Donald Trump can lay ‘Stargate’ to rest — assuming he wants to

Leave a Comment / Election 2016, United States /

Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign never recovered after he was caught on video telling a group of millionaires that 47 percent of Americans will always vote for Democrats because they don’t take “personal responsibility” for their lives and are “dependent upon government.”

The incident has become a case study not only in watching one’s words (and being nice to your waiters), but in spin control. Hammered by the media and the Democrats for sounding elitist and insulting half the country, Romney first blamed the listeners, saying they had misheard what he intended as innocuous demographic analysis. Later, as the transcripts of the video made clear that he said what everyone thought he said, Romney fell back on the classic dodge that his remarks had been taken “out of context.”

A lot went wrong for Romney that year, and the remarks weren’t the only reason independent voters felt that Romney cared more about Wall Street than Main Street. But some regard the incident as a classic case study in bungled PR. Lanny Davis, the Clinton White House lawyer and an author of a book on crisis management, has suggested what Romney ought to have said: “You know, that was a stupid mistake and I didn’t mean it – of course those 47 percent are composed of a variety of voters who have many reasons for not being for me not related to government, and I want to apologize to them for my mistake.”

Had Romney admitted his gaffe, wrote Davis, “the 47 percent issue would have gone away almost instantly.” Davis’ rule: “Tell it all, tell it early, tell it yourself.”

It’s probably safe to assume that Donald Trump hasn’t read Davis’ book. If anything, now that Trump is having a bit of a “47 percent issue” of his own, he seems to be following the Romney campaign’s (failed) strategy: “Deny you said it, blame the media, change the subject.”

The current brouhaha started when critics noticed how a tweet from Trump’s campaign lambasting Hillary Clinton as the “most corrupt candidate ever” featured a six-pointed star and a pile of money. Some critics, pundits and pols cried foul, arguing the image was anti-Semitic. Next, the millennial website Mic revealed the Twitter image had first shown up on message boards of the far-right, anti-Semitic alt-right movement — the same people who gave us the charming (((echo))) symbol to identify Jews.

Trump denied that the tweeted image was anti-Semitic, saying it was a “Sheriff’s Star.” Nevertheless, Trump’s people quickly removed the tweet and denied that their boss was an anti-Semite. Jared Kushner, Trump’s Jewish son-in-law and increasingly important campaign adviser, put out a statement defending his wife’s father: “My father-in-law is an incredibly loving and tolerant person who has embraced my family and our Judaism since I began dating my wife. I know that Donald does not at all subscribe to any racist or anti-Semitic thinking. I have personally seen him embrace people of all racial and religious backgrounds. The suggestion that he may be intolerant is not reflective of the Donald Trump I know.”

Kushner’s statement seems spot on – at least when it comes to the Jews. For all his vilification of undocumented workers from Mexico and calls for a ban on Muslim immigration, there’s not much evidence that Trump has a problem with Jews.

But Kushner’s statement also seems beside the point. The question isn’t whether Trump is anti-Semitic. Rather, how is it that the Trump campaign ended up tweeting out a meme already making the rounds in anti-Semitic circles? And now that the origin of the image is clear, and the image itself is being hailed by the likes of David Duke, why is Trump doubling down instead of walking it back?

The best-case scenario for the Trump campaign is that, indeed, either Trump or a member of his skeletal staff passed on an internet meme without researching where it came from or how it might be received — and Trump being Trump, he’s not willing to admit a mistake.

Alternately, and ominously, Trump or his staffers knew full well where the meme originated and simply didn’t care.

In either case, for those worried about emboldening white nationalists and other assorted haters, Kushner’s vouching for his father-in-law doesn’t count for much. The fear isn’t about what’s in Donald Trump’s heart but whether he is willing to speak out against the racists and anti-Semites, however marginal, seeking to make common cause with his campaign.

Trump could have put “Stargate” to rest had he made a Davis-like apology: “You know, that was a stupid mistake by my campaign and one that won’t be repeated. In our haste to engage with voters, we didn’t properly vet a tweet that unfortunately originated with some rather nasty people. Rest assured that the Trump campaign does not welcome the support of bigots of any stripe, and that we reject their hateful messages.”

Or course, if not a word of that statement sounds like Trump – and not a word of that statement sounds like Trump – that could be your answer. That Donald Trump never admits a mistake is a theme of his biography.

Trump isn’t the first politician — nor the only candidate in this campaign — who has trouble apologizing, or acknowledging a vulnerability. Jeff Greenfield recently wrote about how Hillary Clinton supported “traditional marriage” before eventually getting on board with gay marriage. Asked about her switch, Clinton “grew testy at the very suggestion that her evolution might be explained by political calculation,” Greenfield wrote.

“I think you’re trying to say I used to be opposed and now I’m in favor and I did it for political reasons, and that’s just flat wrong,” Clinton told Fresh Air’s Terry Gross, as if one of the most talented politicians of her generation was above political calculation.

But this controversy is about more than just the idea that being Trump means never having to say your sorry. Whether confronted with questions about support from Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan leader, or about the anti-Semitic internet trolls who torment Jews who write critically about Trump, the candidate demurs, denies or lashes out.

At the same time Trump was digging his heels in over the Star tweet, the Clinton camp was busy extinguishing a fire that most people hadn’t even gotten wind of. Soon after Elie Wiesel died last Saturday, the virulently anti-Israel writer Max Blumenthal put out a series of tweets essentially calling the Holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate a hypocrite and worse. Blumenthal has no connection to the Clinton campaign, although his father, Sidney, happens to be a longtime Clinton adviser. That was enough to prompt Hillary’s people to come out with a strongly worded condemnation of Max Blumenthal, calling his remarks “offensive, hateful, and patently absurd.”

That kind of disavowal plays wells with the Jews, who also responded positively when candidate Barack Obama in 2008 gave a long and impassioned rebuttal of his own pastor’s dubious views on the U.S.-Israel relationship.

Trump could go a long way toward setting aside the anti-Semitism chatter, if he took a cue from his Democratic rivals and gave a similar speech disavowing the haters — or at the very least stopped hanging out with them on Twitter.

Donald Trump can lay ‘Stargate’ to rest — assuming he wants to Read More »

Former Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon joins US think tank

Leave a Comment / United States /

Former Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon has found a new job at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy as its Rosenblatt Distinguished Visiting Fellow.

The Washington Institute, an independent and nonpartisan organization that provides research and recommendations for U.S. Middle East policy, will tap into Yaalon’s 37-year a career in the Israel Defense Forces and his policy expertise from his seven years in the Knesset, it announced in a news release Thursday.

Yaalon, who had previously held a post-military fellowship at the institute, will return to Washington, D.C., in August to focus on his writing and speaking on foreign policy and the strategic U.S.-Israel relationship.

Yaalon stepped down on May 20 when it came to light that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in negotiations with Avigdor Liberman to bring his nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party into the ruling coalition, giving Netanyahu a more stable majority. Liberman was named defense minister.

Last month Yaalon announced that he plans to challenge Netanyahu in the next elections.

“After more than four decades of military and public service, in and out of uniform, ‘Bogie’ Yaalon has unparalleled insights into the challenges and opportunities facing Israeli national security,” said Robert Satloff, the institute’s executive director, using Yaalon’s nickname.

“At a moment when Americans are debating the appropriate role for our country in the Middle East, we are pleased to welcome him back to The Washington Institute to provide an authoritative voice on these critical issues.”

In the release, Yaalon said he was “eager” to meet with current and emerging leaders and “discuss the vital issues on our bilateral agenda.”

 

Former Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon joins US think tank Read More »

Trump advisor: Jews can’t expect immediate condemnations on anti-Semitism

Leave a Comment / Election 2016, Jewish Insider, United States /

Donald Trump’s Jewish confidant and advisor says the Jewish community cannot expect the presumptive Republican presidential nominee to immediately condemn and denounce anti-Semitism as it occurs because Jews are not the only community in the United States.

“He condemned David Duke,” Jason Greenblatt said in an interview with the “>New York Times in May.

“He spoke to The New York Times, condemned Duke’s remarks, said very clearly anti-Semitism has no place in society,” Greenblatt asserted in the interview with the Jewish Press, an online publication. “I think his broad condemnation of anti-Semitism is even stronger than had he merely condemned irrelevant Twitter trolls.”

“I know that there’s been a lot of discourse in the Jewish community about how he hasn’t gone far enough to condemn some of his followers who are anti-Semitic. I think that’s very unfair criticism,” he added.

Trump has come under fire for a weekend tweet that was deemed anti-Semitic. A meme tweeted by the presumptive Republican presidential nominee’s account had a montage of Hillary Clinton with a Star of David inscribed and a pile of money in the background. The tweet was soon deleted and reposted, this time with a circle in the star’s place. Trump, speaking at a campaign rally in Cincinnati, Ohio on Wednesday, “>BuzzFeed News on Wednesday that it was “perplexing” that Trump’s campaign appears to be sourcing images from white nationalist sources. “I wish he would bring the same firmness to his rejection of anti-Semites and racists as he brings to members of the media and other candidates,” Greenblatt was quoted as saying. “I don’t understand why he’s courting the white nationalist vote.”

But according to Trump’s advisor, Jason Greenblatt, “People need to look at the whole campaign story and not a particular story, biased or unbiased, in a particular newspaper on a particular day.” Adding, “Having worked here for twenty years as a frum person, I can tell you that Donald has been enormously respectful of my being Shomer Shabbos. He has bent over backward to help me succeed in the company despite my being Shomer Shabbos.”

In an  Trump advisor: Jews can’t expect immediate condemnations on anti-Semitism Read More »

A response to ‘It’s no surprise why women leave Orthodoxy’

Leave a Comment / Israel /

Last week, Susan Esther Barnes wrote a blog about something she thought she overheard at a breakfast table at Bay Area Limmud. Below is a response to that blog, which has already been read by Barnes and is being posted with her knowledge. 

Last week the Los Angeles Jewish Journal published a blog, titled “It’s No Surprise Why Women Leave Orthodoxy,” by Susan Esther Barnes.  The blog describes an overheard informal conversation between a woman who “had left Orthodoxy” and a “Modern Orthodox rabbi” that took place at a breakfast table at the Limmud Bay Area Shabbat on the campus of Sonoma State University over the weekend of June 23-25.

Ms. Barnes wrote that the woman wanted to remain in Orthodox Judaism “but felt pushed out by the role and status of women,” in particular that, in orthodox shuls, women don’t lead services and they are separated from men by a mechitzah.  The article discussed several arguments in favor of the Orthodox status quo that were made by the “Modern Orthodox rabbi” and found them “weak”, “patently absurd”, “lame” and not “rooted in text or logic.”  Ms. Barnes also found the rabbi to be deficient for failing to ask “What could I say or do which would convince you to give us another try” and for failing “to acknowledge her pain or longing” or even inviting her back by saying “something like, ‘We would love for you to come back to us.’”

The article certainly grabbed my attention because there can be no doubt that I am the “Modern Orthodox rabbi” Ms. Barnes wrote about. 

There were only two orthodox rabbis at the Limmud and I was the only one with a leadership role. In addition, I knew I had a breakfast conversation like the one Ms. Barnes described.  The article troubled me because I wondered if I could have completely misunderstood the circumstances of the woman with whom I had that breakfast conversation . I contacted the woman by email and confirmed that I had correctly understood the following:  she has not “left Orthodoxy”; in fact, she regularly attends an Orthodox synagogue in Jerusalem and is quite knowledgeable about the basis in Orthodox Jewish law for the distinctions in ritual obligations of men and women. She even gave me permission to use her name – Hanna Jaffe. Her father was a respected orthodox rabbi in the U.K.  I don’t wish to discuss further my private conversation with Hanna; nor is there space here to discuss the various issues regarding the roles of women in Orthodox Judaism.  What I do wish to discuss is an interesting parallel between the challenge created for me by the article and the lessons of the parasha Shelach-Lecha (Numbers 13:1-15:41), which was the Torah reading for the week in which Ms. Barnes’ column appeared.

We will begin with a famous line in the movie, Duck Soup:  “Who you gonna believe, me or your own eyes?”  With all respect to the Marx Brothers, we will see that the Torah teaches that this a very serious question. 

In fact, the challenge of gaining accurate perceptions, and gaining an appropriate understanding of their significance,  is a fundamental challenge to all of us.  In the parasha, the Torah records the panicked reaction of the Jewish people upon hearing the report of their leaders that the Land of Israel was too dangerous to conquer.  The leaders’  failure was not that they did not report accurately what they saw and heard, but rather that they failed to convey  the broader context that was necessary to understand the significance of what they had seen and heard.  While on the one hand, the leaders accurately reported the dangers present in the Land, they and the Jewish people neglected to consider that, with the help of God  who had so recently delivered them from Egypt and from Pharaoh’s army, there was no danger in the Land that could not be overcome.  At its root, the failure was a lack of wisdom, the ability to understand  the true implications of the information one receives.

At the end of the parasha there is a seemingly unrelated brief discussion of the mitzvah of tzitzit, the ritual fringes that are attached to the tallis.  The Torah tells us that purpose of these fringes is to serve as a reminder of God’s commandments “so that you will not follow after your heart and eyes.”  In other words, the Torah, specifically its mitzvot, provides essential context, without which we can easily be lead astray by our limited understanding of the significance of what we see and what we hear.  Far from being unrelated to the leadership failure described at the beginning of the parasha, the Torah’s teaching about tzitzit generalizes from the failing of a particular set of Jewish leaders to a lesson applicable to Jews living at all times.  

The Torah teaches us that there was a very severe penalty for the leaders’ failing to assist the Jewish people in drawing correct conclusions about the Land of Israel, including 40 years wandering in the desert, with nearly the entire generation of the Exodus prohibited from entering the Land of Israel.   We know that, in our day, misunderstandings of all kinds wreak havoc among individuals, within families, within our community and throughout the world. 

We human beings are fallible.  Indeed another lesson of Shelach-Lecha is that the Torah recognizes that, even a unanimous decision of the 70 most knowledgeable Torah scholars of the Jewish people, could still be wrong.  In such a case, these scholars may receive forgiveness from God for their error. 

In summary, Shelach-Lecha teaches us to be very careful that we get our facts correct, to be very careful in our interpretation of the facts that we obtain, to be guided by the Torah in our interpretations, and to recognize that it is very difficult to both perceive facts accurately and to obtain the wisdom to reach appropriate conclusions.  We should see that we human beings are very fallible in such matters, and that just as we can seek God’s forgiveness, we should likewise be ready to  forgive those who reach incorrect conclusions based on misunderstandings.

How should these lessons be applied to the challenges created by the publication of Ms. Barnes’ blog?  Clearly I should give her the benefit of the doubt and assume that she would have described the overheard conversation very differently if she had been aware of the true facts and circumstances.  And I hope that she will give me the benefit of the doubt that I would have had a very different conversation with the woman if, in fact she had left Orthodoxy, did not know the Jewish law relevant to her concerns and was looking for a path to return to Orthodoxy.  Perhaps in these small ways we can repair some of the damage that has been caused to the Jewish people throughout the ages as a result of our very human limitations in our ability to perceive  the true facts and properly assess their meaning.

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Possible wreckage from EgyptAir crash washes up in Israel

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Debris apparently from the crash of EgyptAir MS804 was found on a beach north of Tel Aviv on Thursday, an official in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said.

Netanyahu, who was briefed about the discovery during a visit to Ethiopia, instructed Israeli authorities to hand over the material to Egypt, possibly as early as Friday, for further analysis, the official said.

The Airbus A320 plunged into the eastern Mediterranean en route from Paris to Cairo on May 19. All 66 people on board were killed. The cause of the crash remains unknown.

Last week, debris from the jet was brought to Cairo airport, where investigators will try to reassemble part of the frame to help establish what might have caused the disaster.

The Israeli official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said “parts of an airplane” were discovered on the seashore in Netanya, a Mediterranean resort town about 30 km (18 miles), north of Tel Aviv.

“They were collected and it turns out there is a very high probability that they are from the Egyptian plane,” the official said, without elaborating. “In accordance with international procedures, France, the aircraft's departure point, and Egypt, were informed.”

On Tuesday, sources on the crash investigation committee said audio from the flight deck voice recorder indicates an attempt to put out a fire on board the aircraft before it plunged into the Mediterranean.

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