Shabbat-O-Gram for March 7

A Day to Unplug

Tonight’s Shabbat Across America coincides with a new tradition, an annual National Day of Unplugging created by the think tank Reboot.  Read about the Day of Unplugging here and download your own unplug sign (examples below).  This is a perfect day to reconnect with real people, have an uninterrupted meal or read a book to your child. For lots of you, that will begin here tonight, with dinner and our Klezmer service.

Quick Updates

·         You can now call me by my Travoltafied name, Jorja Hazmaton.  And did you notice that not only was I spot-on in my prediction for best picture, but I even predicted correctly what the winners would say in their acceptance speech.

·         Next Thursday evening at 7:30 we are privileged to host one of the most articulate and influential leaders on the American Jewish scene, AJC Exec David Harris. Get here early.

·         Are you reading the MUST READ book of the year, Ari Shavit’s “My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel”? Read it,  take a look at this reader’s guide, and come to discuss it with me on Thurs., March 27 at 7:30.

·         Great stuff coming for Purim next week: Super family megillah reading carnival on Sunday morning and on Sat. night, in the spirit of the holiday, the megillah reading will be spiced by a Scotch (or nonalcoholic alternative) tasting led by our own Ron Zussman, and special speaker Glenn Dynner, author of “Yankel’s Tavern: Jews, Liquor and Life in the Kingdom of Poland.”

·         Click here to read Rosalea Fisher’s stirring d’var Torah delivered a couple of weeks ago marking her 50^th bat mitzvah anniversary.

·         Shabbat morning will be our next in a series of Learner’s Shabbats where we focus on a particular prayer.  This week we’ll take a close look at the Morning_Blessings (also see this introduction) along with our Torah reading in Leviticus, and how Judaism encourages us to develop an “attitude of gratitude.”

·         Reflecting on these waking-up prayers is perfect for a weekend when we (thank God!) return to Daylight Savings Time.  Can spring be far behind?   Speaking of which…

Saving Daylight

On Sunday, March 9, Hebrew school students across America will file into class, either more cantankerous and exhausted than ever - or an hour late. That's because, as it has for the past nine years, daylight savings time will begin on the second Sunday of March.

From 1986 - 2005, Americans sprung forward an hour on the first Sunday of April, but then the federal government decided that we needed one month more of DST. Even normally impetuous Israelis will be waiting until March 28 to spring forward. This year Americans are the ones jumping the gun, much to the chagrin of airline pilots, computer programmers, parish ministers and Hebrew school teachers, all of whom stand to suffer from this premature shift.

Advocates claim that we'll save up to 100,000 barrels of oil per day by being less reliant on light bulbs during working hours. But really, when's the last time we had a 9-to-5 workday? That's so 20th century! In an era of 24/7, with filled pre-dawn commuter trains and midnight teleconferences to Hong Kong, are we really saving anything? The shift was, I suspect, a bone thrown to environmentalists, buried in a 2005 energy bill granting tax breaks to Big Oil. Little did they know how this little, obscure add-on would wreak havoc on bar mitzvah schedules nationwide during the first few years of the early March experiment.  With receptions thrown off schedule, many Shabbat-observant relatives were forced to wait an ungodly extra hour for the sun to set in Syosset before making that mouthwatering pilgrimage to Leonards of Great Neck.

…As I age along with the rest of my Baby Boom lot, at no time in my life have I had a keener awareness of my growing need for daylight. I recently marked that peculiar rite of passage where I strategically placed a pair of reading glasses in every room of the house. Not long ago, for the first time ever, I didn’t grimace when a wedding videographer asked my permission to set up extra lighting for the ceremony. Not only did I give the OK to those intrusive, obnoxious beams, I positioned one over my right shoulder so I could read the fine print on the Ketubah. So I should be exulting that now there will be one more hour of light.

A recent birthday triggered this reflection: Perhaps this premature daylight savings has little to do with preserving energy and everything to do with saving daylight. I’ve always been a baby boom baby, born at the tail end of the postwar population explosion. While I am beginning to sense my mortality big-time, millions of older boomers must really be getting worried about their own darkening shadows. And these are precisely the people who now sit in Congress, the ones who voted to move up DST nine years ago. They voted to delay that moment each day when they have to reach for their glasses…

For the rest, see my Times of Israel op-ed, “Saving Daylight.”

Israel “Apartheid Week” – A Concerned College Student Asks

I hear from our college students all the time and this week received an email expressing concern about so called “Apartheid Week” activities on her campus. An op-ed in her college newspaper was particularly damning – and confusing. 

It so happens that Dan is interning at a noted Israeli think tank this semester, so I forwarded the article to him for his reaction.  Both he and I feel there are some clear untruths in it.  But what is most disturbing is need to deny Jews their historical connection to this land and the lack of a desire to live side by side with a Jewish state.  I know of many Jewish groups on campus who have reached out to Palestinians and have been rebuffed. 

I offer to our college students this page of talking points from the Jewish Federations of North America, that belie the great lie of Israeli apartheid.

The BDS movement has done a good job of focusing on Israel’s infractions (some true, some trumped, some outright lies) distracting from the bigger picture of Israel’s long-term security concerns and the short term insane asylum that is Israel’s neighborhood. 

But when I speak with troubled college student – and many older adults – it is important to be honest. I have long been seriously troubled by Israel’s settlement policies, as have many Israelis and, according to the Pew report, most American Jews.  It would be much easier to make the security argument for Israel if they weren’t continuing to create facts on the ground.  I do distinguish between far flung settlements and Jerusalem, along with those areas that will eventually become part of Israel under any peace plan.  These matters are discussed openly in Israel all the time. If you watch Israeli television all the time, as I do, you know that.  But American Jews have for too long been afraid to admit to Israel’s shortcomings, thereby leaving our kids unprepared to confront them on campus.

The new book by Ari Shavit, “My Promised Land,” covers this question with balance and skill.  I cannot recommend it more highly.  See the reader’s guide (and come here to discuss it on March 27).   Meanwhile, let’s hope the American efforts to produce an agreement bear fruit and that the Palestinians and Israelis will both say yes. 

One more thing: Despite the clear economic and diplomatic dangers posed to Israel by the BDS movement, expressed by Prime Minister Netanyahu this week at AIPAC as well as President Obama and Sec of State Kerry, I do not agree that this movement, insidious as it is, is a mortal threat to Israel.  In fact, I am thrilled that the Palestinians have chosen the path of non violence as their prime strategic path toward statehood.  That path has not been embraced by all parties, as this week’s Israel’s interception of a cargo ship bringing Iranian rockets to Gaza attests; but all the op-eds in student newspapers and peaceful protests at the security fences will not kill a single Israeli on a bus.  The more that this battle is being fought with words rather than weapons, the better off we all are. 

Birthright Israel's Bar Mitzvah: Some Reasons to Celebrate

This month has been set aside by Taglit- Birthright Israel as a celebration of its Bar Mitzvah year.  Over 150 congregations from 42 states  will be participating in Birthright Shabbats, including my own, this evening.  It is an anniversary worth celebrating, because nothing has changed the landscape of Jewish peoplehood over the past decade more than these free 10-day trips to Israel.  More than 300,000 young Jewish adults from 54 countries have experienced Birthright Israel, and studies show that the impact of on their life trajectories has been profound, particularly among those from less engaged Jewish backgrounds.  Birthright alums are much more connected to Israel than their counterparts, much more connected to the Jewish community and about twice as likely to marry other Jews and have Jewish children.

I’m about to perform my first Birthright wedding. No, the couple didn’t meet in Israel – they weren’t even there at the same time.  But each of them came back so Jewishly charged that they signed up for Jdate, and, when they met, Birthright was that common emotional experience that propelled their relationship forward.  They followed the Birthright formula – the best way to fall in love WITH Israel is to fall in love IN Israel.  Even though they were back on American soil, Jerusalem had captured their hearts.

There’s something magical in the Birthright Kool Aid. It’s “Spring Break” for Jews, a ten day hook up party; only it’s free, Cancun has been transported 6,000 miles east, the hook up is with a country, and it’s not for one night, it’s forever.  Israelis love to make fun of the program and they’ve transformed the prevailing stereotype of the American tourist from a fat, ugly middle aged guy with a dangling camera around his exposed paunch, to a doe-eyed, wealthy Birthright coed, naïve and unschooled, easy pickings for soldiers, tour guides and fund raisers.  But whatever Kool Aid the Birthrighters are drinking, they come home and rave to about it to their friends and parents, the waiting lists keep getting longer and the kids just keep on coming.  And their elders are following suit.  Tourism to Israel hit record levels in April, a month that is not prime time for college students to travel.  Older adults have caught the bug.

While the program has no doubt increased the connection between American Jews and Israel, a significant majority of American Jews still have never visited the Jewish state, 59 percent according to the recentAJC survey.  But still, at 300,000 and counting, Birthright has reversed one of the many downward demographic trends in American Jewish life and it is changing the culture in numerous other ways.

Some of the ripple effects include:

• A Jewish renaissance on college campuses. Hillel’s growth has been fueled by the Birthright phenomenon, which has enabled Jewish organizations to reach beyond the core activists to students who previously would never have wanted to identify actively as Jews.

• Israel advocacy on campus has never been more vibrant and diverse, and despite the efforts of the BDS and “Apartheid Week,” never more successful. The growing presence of both AIPAC and J-Street on campus corresponds to the increased size of Birthright’s footprint.

• The Startup Nation has birthed a Startup Culture.  Birthright Israel was the ultimate startup by a Jewish community that had become overly beaurocratized and cautious.  This partnership of mega donors, federations and Israel was unprecedented, and it worked.  As result, other startups have addressed a variety of pressing needs.  The results have been mixed but the entrepreneurial spirit has changed American Jewish life, weakening and decentralizing the federations while encouraging the private funders to take more risks in backing worthy projects.

• The partnership with Israel in strengthening Diaspora Jewry barely existed before Birthright, and from a philanthropic standpoint, the program reversed the roles that had existed since the founding of the state.  The money now flows both ways.  Israel recognizes that a thriving Diaspora is essential to its long term survival.  American Jews, meanwhile, have come to recognize that the Israel experience is the only way to ensure a thriving Diaspora.

• Great PR for Israel.  Young adults are getting the word out through their social networks that Israel is a great place to visit and an amazing country, period.  The trips have more than paid for themselves in hasbara value.  When I first spoke about the program to my teens thirteen years ago, they were floored that Israel cared enough about them to invest 70 million dollars in their future. What better PR can there be than that?

• It’s hard to measure the impact on synagogue affiliation thus far, but millennials have never been joiners.  I am seeing an increased interest in community life and Jewish learning among young professionals, however, and Birthright has become a prime tool for recruitment.

• Hummus sales have skyrocketed.    Blame it on Bar Rafaeli, Sacha Baron Cohen or the Zohan, but I think Birthright is the biggest reason why Israeli culture and cuisine have never been so popular on this side of the pond.

But by far the biggest impact of Birthright Israel is that it has proven, once and for all, that no Jew should ever be written off.  Back in 1999, the organizers of the program debated whether to focus on those still in high school or those over 18. I was one of those who felt that a highly subsidized high school trip was a far better investment than a 10 day college quickie.  Catch them before they leave the coop, I figured, so that their parents and rabbis can reinforce the message of peoplehood when the teens come home. Once they are in college, it’s too late to reel them in, I thought.

I was wrong.

As I look down the list of my hundred plus congregants who have been on these trips, there are several whom I’ve barely seen since their bar mitzvahs and I assumed might be lost to the Jewish people.  They are precisely the ones Birthright was created for, not those “core” Jews who have visited Israel often.

Those who opposed Birthright bemoaned the fact that cheap Israel trips are no panacea for assimilation.  They appealed for caution before wasting so much funding on “lost causes.”  They saw periphery Jews as a bad risk.  Such people would likely have advised Ben-Gurion to cut his losses, hold off on statehood and send it to committee.  Rabbi Yitz Greenberg says that a leader should aim to be at most 15 percent ahead of his people. I sense that in this case, the proponents of Birthright Israel were way ahead of the Jewish establishment, and right in step with the times.

The “outreach” vs. “inreach” debate is over.  Game, set and match.  Outreach wins.

Ten days is all it takes.

Birthright is the 21^st century version of the sage Hillel’s conversion program.  He accomplished it all while standing on one foot. But then he added, “go and study.”

The challenge, then, is one we face after any Bar Mitzvah.  We’ve got to keep them engaged and interested.  But Birthright Israel has given the Jewish community a precious gift – just when we thought they were gone for good, we’ve got another chance to reach out to them and welcome them home.  Ten days can ignite a flame.

All we’ve got to do is keep it burning.

First published on the Times of Israel website.

The Big Picture: A Cuddly Response to the Delegitimizers

While we may question much of what the Israeli government is doing, this video is a helpful reminder of the big picture, a needed response to the delegitimizers, as we continue to fight what Netanyhu has called the Soft War. And I've never seen such cuddly propagandists in my life!

CAMERA vs. the New York Times and "60 Minutes"

From CAMERA:

New York Times Plays Blame Game on Negotiations Impasse
Direct peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority have been frozen, and replaced with debate over which side is to blame for the impasse. The Palestinians insist Israel's settlement policy is the reason for the derailment of talks. Israel responds that, unlike the Palestinians, it wants direct talks to resume immediately, and that the issue of settlements, like other areas of dispute, can only be solved by way of peace talks. Meanwhile, the New York Times, which is expected to report this news in an impartial manner, has instead become a participant in the blame game.

The problem isn't so much that the Times isn't impartial, which CAMERA demonstrates convincingly (also with regard to the Washington Post, Time Magazine, and most significantly, CBS' "60 Minutes'" recent report on Jerusalem), the point is that many Jews (and of course others) buy this and do not read CAMERA's rebuttals. The ratings for that "60 Minutes" program were among the highest for the week. So simply to say it's biased and incorrect isn't enough. We also need to address those aspects of the report that have validity - if we are to maintain our own credibility as advocates for Israel.

The War to Delegitimize Israel

Three questions: So what is being done to combat the delegitimization of Israel on the world stage? What else is being done to attract Jewish college students to join that battle? And, where ELSE was Alan Dershowitz this past week?

All these questions are answered in this press release from CAMERA:

Now, more than ever, Israel finds itself in a battle for fair treatment on the world stage. CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America) has just concluded a two-day conference at Boston University that brought together international experts to articulate the enormous challenges of the moment and to formulate constructive action. The important event was co-sponsored by the Florence and Chafetz Hillel House at Boston University.

More than 1000 people attended the conference – all across America, as well as Australia, England, Canada, Argentina, Israel, and France. Over 200 of these were college students, from 13 U.S. states, Argentina and Canada.

Renowned figures from journalism, academia and other fields focused on the role of the media, NGO’s, the UN, academia and the mainline churches in threatening Israel’s legitimacy and offered strategies for reversing the situation; they also turned to urgent conditions in Europe and examined solutions there as well. Attendees participated in hands-on sessions dedicated to training and activism. Featured speakers additionally led special workshop sessions geared exclusively towards students and young adults.

"The goal of the conference," said CAMERA Executive Director Andrea Levin,"was to define the issues, raise awareness, and create an action agenda. It won't be easy to turn back the tide running against Israel, but it's impossible if people aren't clear about the prime sources of the campaign to delegitimize the Jewish state."

Read more about the conference here and see a student's perspective here.