Some photos of our graduates and other students, along with a video montage (click to enlarge).





Author of "Embracing Auschwitz" and "Mensch•Marks: Life Lessons of a Human Rabbi - Wisdom for Untethered Times." Winner of the Rockower Award, the highest honor in Jewish journalism and 2019 Religion News Association Award for Excellence in Commentary. Musings of a rabbi, journalist, father, husband, poodle-owner, Red Sox fan and self-proclaimed mensch, taken from essays, columns, sermons and thin air. Writes regularly in the New York Jewish Week and Times of Israel.
This month, the journal Sh'ma goes digital. This digital edition gives you all the features available in our print version plus faster delivery, live links, an ability to search and send copies of articles to friends and colleagues; you can flip through the magazine and personalize your reading options—all only a click away. Sh'ma chose this moment to go digital because the May issue focuses on Iran, which is much in the news these days as the U.S. and Israel try to figure out how to think about a potentially nuclear Iran, strategically and diplomatically.
This May issue of Sh'ma features a roundtable with historian Kenneth Stein and a number of Middle East foreign policy experts in which they explore the delicate nature of Middle East geopolitics. It also includes essays on Iran in the Middle East; the expressions of Islam practiced in Iran—the differences between Shi`a and Sunni Islam; Persian Jewish life in Los Angeles; the history and culture of Persian Jews; and some discussion of the condition of Iranian Jewish life today. While some argue that Jews continue to fare well, others insist that they enjoy at best second-class citizenship and are muzzled by a repressive regime.
Click here to access your digital issue.
Below are a few examples of what you’ll find inside the May issue of Sh'ma.
Iran.: A RoundtableIn a conversation with Daniel Levy, David Menashri, and Gary Sick, Kenneth Stein explores Iran as a regional player in Middle East policy; the domestic and foreign policy objectives that the Iranian government has held over the years; and finally, the contemporary issues that pertain to U.S. foreign relations.FULL STORY
The Ghost of Cyrus: Persian Potential for Reform in the Nuclear Age Marc Gopin - Over the past 25 years Gopin has developed relationships across the Middle East; in Syria, specifically, over the past five years. While he traveled as a peacemaker, he would emphasize his role as a professor and only reveal that he was a rabbi when it felt safe. FULL STORY”
Ipkha Mistabra” & the Iranian Question - Ruth Lande For thousands of years, the Jewish people have known strife, hardship, and persecution. For thousands of years, "Jewish diplomacy" has found innovative, creative, and "out-of-box" solutions for untold problems. Currently faced with complexity and challenge, the State of Israel and the Jewish people are once more called upon to demonstrate ingenuity and wisdom. FULL STORY
Memories Are the Cornerstone of Stories- Dora Levy Mossanen - My grandfather, Habib Levy, was a renowned historian of Iranian Jews; he left me with a legacy of fascinating familial, cultural, and historical events that continue to supply fodder for my stories. FULL STORY
So what links all of these celebrations and events? Each calls upon us to mark our significant passages in time and to make memory meaningful. Since we begin the book of Numbers tomorrow, let's put it in the form of an equation: 4+4+4 = Memory + Meaning.
This notion was expressed best in John Adam's famous letter to his wife Abigail of July 3, 1776: as recorded here. As we celebrate American and Israeli milestones this weekend, and mark family milestones as well, and then simply mark the passage of time from week to week and month to month, let us recall Adams's words:
The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more. You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not.
Missed opportunity, no doubt. But was it really a mistake? For a people called upon to judge someone by actions more than words, we're doing an awful lot of analysis of the words. The fact is, he was there, in the Jewish state, speaking of reconciliation between Christians, Moslems and Jews. What can be bad about that?
For another opinion, here is what "Myths and Facts" states:
MYTH
“The pope’s trip to Israel shows that issues between Israel and the Vatican have been resolved.”
FACT
The Catholic Church has had a difficult relationship with the Zionist idea since the early 20th century when Theodor Herzl sought the support of Pope Pius X for a Jewish homeland and was told by the pontiff that “the Jews did not acknowledge our Lord and thus we cannot recognize the Jewish people. Hence, if you go to Palestine, and if the Jewish people settle there, our churches and our priests will be ready to baptize you all.”269
In 1947, the Vatican voted in favor of UN General Assembly Resolution 181 to partition Palestine; however, it did not officially recognize Israel until 1993. Since then, the Catholic Church has taken strides to improve its relationship with the Jewish state, including signing a diplomatic treaty and exchanging ambassadors with Israel.270
In 2000, Pope John Paul II visited the Holy Land and Pope Benedict XVI’s trip to Israel was meant to follow a similar path to foster interfaith dialogue and improve Vatican-Israel relations. Unfortunately, a series of missteps by the pope have shown that past wounds are far from healed.
Pope Benedict XVI was born in Germany and has said he reluctantly became a member of the Hitler Youth during World War II (a Vatican spokesman denied this during the tour and had to issue a retraction after it was pointed out that Benedict admitted it in his autobiography). This personal background made his May 11, 2009, visit to Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial especially poignant. Though his address condemned Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism, many Israelis expected him to go further. Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, the Chairman of Yad Vashem, expressed his disappointment following the speech, “Something was missing. There was no mention of the Germans or the Nazis who participated in the butchery, nor a word of regret.” Though the pope referred to the millions of innocent victims, he did not specifically mention the 6 million Jewish victims.271
The role of the Catholic Church during the Holocaust has long been a contentious issue for Israel and the Vatican. At Yad Vashem, there is a plaque criticizing Pius XII, who was pope from 1939 to 1958, for not doing more to save the Jews of Europe during the Holocaust. The Vatican continues to limit access to archives that might shed further light on the actions of Pius. Furthermore, in 2008, Pope Benedict announced his intention to beatify Pius XII, a high religious honor of the Church that is the last step before sainthood.272 This decision angered some Jews as did his announcement in January 2009, that he was lifting the excommunication of Bishop Richard Williamson, a Holocaust denier who believes that Jews are bent on world domination.273
Israelis hoped that the pope’s visit to Israeli sites and meetings with Israeli officials would be accompanied by positive statements about Israel’s quest for peace and some recognition of the ongoing dangers it faces. Benedict, however, reserved his more political remarks for his tour of Palestinian areas. Speaking to a crowd in Bethlehem, for example, Pope Benedict XVI reasserted the policy of the Vatican on Palestinian statehood. While declaring their rights to a sovereign homeland, the pope lamented Palestinian losses suffered in Gaza. He told a crowd in Manger Square, “Please be assured of my solidarity with you in the immense work of rebuilding which now lies ahead and my prayers that the embargo will soon be lifted.” Though he urged Palestinian youth to resist the temptation to resort to terrorism, he did not condemn Hamas for its acts of terror against Israel that made the embargo on the Gaza Strip essential to halting weapons smugglers and provoked Operation Cast Lead.274
The Palestinians also took full advantage of the propaganda value of the pope’s appearances in the West Bank. Mahmoud Abbas, for example, used the pope’s speech in Bethlehem as an opportunity to criticize Israel’s security fence, labeling it an “apartheid wall”.275 Later, on a visit to a Palestinian refugee camp, the pontiff was photographed in front of one of the few sections of the fence that is actually a wall and lamented that it symbolized the “stalemate” in relations between Israel and the Palestinians. He expressed his wish that the wall would come down soon so that “the people of Palestine… will at last be able to enjoy the peace, freedom and stability that have eluded [them] for so long.”276
In addition to ignoring the Palestinian violence that killed more than 800 Israelis and prompted the building of the security barrier, the pope was also silent with regard to the ongoing persecution of Christians throughout the Middle East and especially within the Palestinian Authority. This was another missed opportunity for the pope to show concern for the plight of his followers.
The decision of Pope Benedict XVI to make a pilgrimage to Israel was a welcome one and did show the distance the Vatican has traveled in the century that has passed since Herzl’s visit to Rome. The acts of commission and omission during the pope’s trip indicated, however, that there is still some distance to go before Israel will have the respect it deserves from the Holy See.