Shabbat-O-Gram for June 16

 

See our complete spring and end-of-year album 

and our Cantor's Concert photo album 

Shabbat shalom!

This Shabbat we celebrate with the family of Jason Busch, who becomes bar mitzvah.  Also, join us this evening as Meira Rosenberg, a longtime TBE member, will talk about her journey to authoring her new young adult novel, Indiana Bamboo.  Mazal tov to Jason and Meira (and you can read the d'var Torah of last week's bat mitzvah, Sarah Eisenstein, here).

This evening we'll also be featuring some fabulous new musicians, Vladimir Katz and Efrat Shapira. (See Efrat on YouTube).  

Looking ahead to next week, on Pride Shabbat, we will feature Brian Gelfand and the long anticipated return of world famous violinist Alicia Svigals.

As we celebrate Pride Month at next week's service TBE member Elise Feldman will share some personal reflections about her journey.  Many of us have come to know Elise well through her involvement in our choir, Hevre young families group and her leadership in any number of areas.  We are grateful to have her here!

On a related topic...

Hiddush, a watchdog for religious freedom and equality in Israel, just released a fascinating new survey stating that support for same-sex marriage/civil unions in Israel has reached a - record high of 79% of the Jewish Israeli public. This reflects a consistent increase in public support for the official establishment of state recognized same-sex partnerships in Israel, which stood at 76% in 2016 and in previous years ranged from 60-65%. These findings arose from a Hiddush-commissioned survey conducted by the Rafi Smith Polling Institute.  And as you can see below, this support runs pretty much across the political spectrum, except among the Ultra Orthodox.

 

That's the good news.  The rest of the story, as Hiddush reports, is not so good:

Israel not only denies same-sex couples the right to marry, against the clear public will, but also denies hundreds of thousands of heterosexual couples the right to family because it granted exclusive monopoly over Jewish marriages to the Orthodox Rabbinate. This political reality also forces more than a million and a half additional citizens to marry in ceremonies that do not befit their beliefs and lifestyles. The data prove that the establishment of legal marriage for same-sex couples and religious freedom in general have practically become the public consensus of the Israeli Jewish population. The public's will has never been translated into legislation because all successive Israeli Governments, from both the left and the right, have instead traded away the public's freedom of marriage and divorce to the Orthodox parties in exchange for their political support.

Israel remains the only Western democracy in the world, which severely restricts the freedom of marriage. In fact, nearly ten percent of the population cannot marry at all. 42 countries now allow for marriage or legal registration of same-sex couples. In other words, the gap between Israel and the rest of the enlightened world in the arena of LGBTQ rights is only increasing. 

The gap between the Israeli public and Israeli government on the issue of civil marriage and religious freedom is growing.  Last month Hiddush released a survey showing that well over half of Jewish Israelis would prefer that the Chief Rabbinate not have a monopoly on performing weddings.

 

And that, in my mind, is further good news, for although this unfair situation has been around since the beginnings of the state, the public push for change is eventually going to force that change to happen, as it did here in the US with interracial and gay marriage.  Marital freedom in Israel is something that American Jews need to see as our issue too, since questions of personal status speak to our legitimacy as Jews and the core values of the Judaism we espouse.  And the fact that Haredi Jews, who represent only ten percent of the population, can impose their will on everyone else, is very troubling and inherently undemocratic.

These issues should matter to those who really care about the future of Israel. That's why I've invited Rabbi Uri Regev, executive director of Hiddush, to speak here this coming fall.

A Trip of Many Lifetimes

Exactly two weeks from now, Mara and I will lead a group of 22 from our TBE family in TBE's first-ever Jewish Heritage Tour of Central Europe.

Some aspire to take the "trip of a lifetime," but the significance of this one will span hundreds of lifetimes, as we look back upon central events of Jewish history, bearing witness to some of our greatest triumphs along with undoubtedly the greatest tragedy the world has ever seen.  

Elie Wiesel believed that when we hear the story of a witness, we too become witnesses, and through us the story lives on; a living scroll ever unfolding.  "Because I remember, I despair," Wiesel said. "Because I remember, I have the duty to reject despair." 

As I remarked on Yom Kippur, Wiesel's death last year was the end of an era - he was our Survivor in Chief, representing all the witnesses.  He was our prophet, and the prophet's voice has now been silenced. But he charged us with the responsibility of being witnesses in his stead.  That is why this congregational trip is so important.  This is not merely a tour of places like Warsaw, Krakow, Budapest, Prague and Berlin - although we'll have lots of opportunity to enjoy these glorious cities.  Make no mistake, this is a pilgrimage, to places where Jewish civilization thrived for a thousand years, and to Auschwitz, where human civilization nearly died in a thousand days.

Auschwitz was the epicenter of it all.  It is a place where all civilized human beings must go, to remember, and pray, and to take upon ourselves the mantle of witness, to pick up the gauntlet from Wiesel.  It is not a burden, but an honor to respond to that sacred calling.

Ultimately, this "trip of many lifetimes"will direct our attention less to the past than to the future. 

The Jew has an obligation to remember, but then to shed the shell of victim, the confining shell of resentment and anger and despair, and to transform the disaster into an embrace of life and a relentless pursuit of justice and dignity for every human being.  For a Jew is responsible not merely to be a witness, but to dream, to imagine a better future, despite the darkness that surrounds us.  Shimon Peres, who also died last year, said we should use our imagination more than our memory.  "Optimists and pessimists die the exact same death," he said, "but they live very different lives!"

The message of this trip is this: To be a Jew is to live acutely, relentlessly and compassionately, and to be moving forward while always glancing over our shoulder...to be a witness to the past and a beacon toward the future.  To cling to life and purpose with all our might.   And all the while to be totally and unabashedly human.

This trip will hardly be a downer: Along the way our group will encounter some true heroes to inspire us - like Mordechai Anielevicz and Janusz Korczak in Warsaw, Rabbi Moshe Isserles and Oscar Schindler in Krakow, along with TBE's own Eric Strom, Hannah Senesh and Raoul Wallenberg in Budapest,  the Maharal of Prague and the beautiful children of Terezin - and then, in the supreme irony, we will go to Berlin, where the destruction began but where an incomprehensible Jewish renaissance is taking place, and where a new spirit of reconciliation is taking root.

Oh and we're going to have lots of fun. Still, as witnesses, we'll represent this community, and one of our missions will be to bring the rest of you along with us through what we send back to you in real time.  So in early July look out for photos, videos and words from me and the others, testimony that will go far beyond a few random Trip Advisor ratings, as we embark on this trip of many lifetimes.

So much of our purpose in taking this journey is embedded in Emil Fackenheim's idea of a 614th commandment (quoted below), never to forget the Holocaust and to prevent Hitler from gaining a posthumous victory.  We have many reasons to bear witness, ranging from the particularistic (preserving the Jewish people) to the universal (to prevent genocide from happening anywhere).  No doubt, though, that Auschwitz has become sacred ground - a holy place that every Jew - and every civilized person - should visit.

What does the Voice of Auschwitz command?

           

Jews are forbidden to hand Hitler posthumous victories. They are commanded to survive as Jews, lest the Jewish people perish. They are commanded to remember the victims of Auschwitz lest their memory perish. They are forbidden to despair of man and his world, and to escape into either cynicism or otherworldliness, lest they cooperate in delivering the world over to the forces of Auschwitz. Finally, they are forbidden to despair of the God of Israel, lest Judaism perish. A secularist Jew cannot make himself believe by a mere act of will, nor can he be commanded to do so....And a religious Jew who has stayed with his God may be forced into new, possibly revolutionary relationships with Him. One possibility, however, is wholly unthinkable. A Jew may not respond to Hitler's attempt to destroy Judaism by himself cooperating in its destruction. In ancient times, the unthinkable Jewish sin was idolatry. Today, it is to respond to Hitler by doing his work.

          For a Jew hearing the commanding Voice of Auschwitz the duty to remember and to tell the tale is not negotiable. It is holy. The religious Jew still possesses this word. The secularist Jew is commanded to restore it. A secular holiness, as it were, has forced itself into his vocabulary...

          Jews after Auschwitz represent all humanity when they affirm their Jewishness and deny the Nazi denial... The commanding Voice of Auschwitz singles Jews out; Jewish survival is a commandment which brooks no compromise. It was this Voice which was heard by the Jews of Israel in May and June 1967 when they refused to lie down and be slaughtered...

          For after Auschwitz, Jewish life is more sacred than Jewish death, were it even for the sanctification of the divine Name. The left-wing secularist Israeli journalist Amos Kenan writes: "After the death camps, we are left only one supreme value: existence."

  

Five Rabbinic Suggestions for Father's Day

 

 

My father, Cantor Michal Hammerman, on the right, 

with his two cantorial brothers, Saul and Herman, 1971

While Jewish mothers usually get all the attention, this is the weekend to celebrate Jewish fathers.

 

1) A child should not stand or sit in a place where his father is accustomed to standing or sitting (Kiddishin 31b).  Some call this the "Archie Bunker Law."

 

 2) A child should not support his father's opponents in a scholarly dispute. In other words, they forbade "Patrilinial Dissent." (Sorry for that groan-inducing pun)

 

 3) The rabbis praised Duma, a heathen who refused to awaken his father, although he needed a key lying under his father's pillow in order to conclude a transaction that would have netted him a profit of 600,000 gold coins. One can imagine how proud Dama's father was of his son when he woke up...

 

4) The rabbis state firmly that a child is obligated to attend to the material needs of his parents while they are alive and to mourn for them properly when they die.

 

 5) One more suggestion not mentioned in the Talmud: on Father's Day, let your dad sleep nice and late!

 

-          Also, read how Jewish fathers are the opposite of TV dads.

 

-          Check out this historical survey of Jewish fathers.

 

-          Two favorite articles I've written about fatherhood, following the births of my two sons: "Birth Rite" and "Fathers and Sons"

 

-          The Forward asked for Six Word Memoirs about Jewish fathers. Here are a few of them:

 

Actor, scrap man, embellisher of of stories.
- Ilene Stein, 64, Riverside, Calif., about Max M. Fields

 

He lives generously. That's my inheritance.
- Paula Chaiken, 42, Kingston, Pa., about Gene Chaiken

 

Dad's matzo balls? Hard. Heart? Soft.
- Cheryl Levine, 48, Yellow Springs, Ohio, about Barry Levine

 

Dad, homework done, healthy. Don't worry!
- Debbie Wasserman Schultz, 46, congresswoman, Weston, Fla., about Larry Wasserman

 

Always making puns, always causing groans.   (See "Patrilineal Dissent," above)
- Julie Grossman, 26, North Bethesda, Md., about Garry Grossman

 

Sense of humor, debt-free educations.
- Alexandra Schmidt, 44, Niskayuna, N.Y. about John Lutch

 

Eating ice cream in underwear. 5 a.m.
- Rich Cohen, 45, author of "Israel is Real," Ridgefield, Conn., about Herb Cohen

 

Zayde shined my shoes and heart.
- Donna Erbs, 52, Portland, Ore., about Max Joffee

 

Waiter, I ordered the kosher lobster.
- Shira Kaiserman, 28, New York, about Ronald Kaiserman

 

Clean linen handkerchiefs comfort me still.
- Roberta Rosenberg, 58, Clarksville, Md., about Harry Rosenberg

 

Brimming bookshelves - bent, leant and shmoozed.
- Wayne Firestone, 49, president of the Genesis Prize Foundation, Rockville, Md., about Bruce Firestone

 

Mel Brooks movie marathon: perfect Shabbos.
- Casey Stein, 25, New York, about Alan Stein

 

Dude dug prunes, melbas and mama.
- Henry Greenspan, 65, Ann Arbor, Mich., about Albert Lewis Greenspan

 

Theirs - writer, scholar, lecturer. Mine - Aba. 

Shabbat Shalom and Happy Father's Day!

Rabbi Joshua Hammerman

Johannesburg, Jackson, Boston… And Jerusalem? The Jewish Week

Johannesburg, Jackson, Boston… And Jerusalem?

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Joshua Hammerman

Special To The Jewish Week

http://www.thejewishweek.com/editorial_opinion/opinion/johannesburg_jackson_boston_and_jerusalem

During a visit to South Africa last summer, I stopped at the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg, hoping to better understand how so despicable a system could dominate that country for nearly half a century, from 1948-1991, and why any comparisons to Israel are ridiculous. I came away humbled, wondering whether there might just be a little residue of apartheid in us all.

After visiting Johannesburg, I boarded a plane for the three-hour flight to Cape Town. Shortly after takeoff, I was reading some of the material I had bought at the museum and I noticed the guy next to me looking over my shoulder. He was a stocky, youthful 40-something, built like he could have played rugby, back in the day.

Abruptly, he asked me a question:

“Do you think I’m evil?”

So what was I supposed to respond? Uh … nice country you got here. How ‘bout them Springboks! No. I was a captive audience.

I told him (Bernard’s his name) I didn’t think he was evil. I thought that apartheid was evil and I was trying to understand it. I said that as an American I had nothing to crow about — in fact we had Jim Crow at the same time he had apartheid, and we had slavery. America has given the world lots of bad things, from the KKK to Watergate to Rick Perry’s hunting ranch.

I looked over but knew that would not make him feel better, because he was struggling with his past and I was not struggling with mine — though perhaps I should have been. I grew up in the Boston of the 1970s busing crisis, and I was part of a Jewish community that had fled its inner-city roots and shed its civil rights partnerships. The Boston of my youth was not all that different from the Jackson, Miss., depicted in the recent bestseller and hit film, “The Help.” And that America was not all that different the South Africa of Bernard’s youth. In all these places, racism infected all strata of society, from City Hall to the Ladies Auxiliary. It trickled from top to bottom, getting into the cracks and nooks and those tough to get at places, where we might tell the Help to give it another shot of Windex.

The disease of discrimination spreads from one generation to the next, until everyone buys into its toxic lies, even the victims. It plays itself out at the lunch tables of Woolworth’s and in the bathrooms and water fountains, or wherever someone displays a Confederate flag or tells an ethnic joke. Enough people stood up to the hatred to relegate Jim Crowe and apartheid to history’s dung heap. Boston is now a diverse, inclusive city. But the disease remains.

I came to realize that apartheid was little more than a virulent combination of the same toxic brew that still threatens us today: religious extremism and fear. In 1948, right-wing Afrikaner leaders played to the suspicions of a rising communism and blended that with a belief that white domination is God’s will.

The recent vandalism against mosques by Israeli Jewish extremists does not point to apartheid, but Israeli officials need to be especially vigilant or such hate crimes could easily lead Jerusalem to a moral place not too distant from Johannesburg and Jackson, where houses of worship were also set aflame.

In Jackson and Johannesburg, buses were segregated by race. In some parts of Israel, they are segregated by gender, as are banks, elevators, grocery stores, pizza parlors and a corner snack shop in Jerusalem’s Bukharian Quarter that has a side entrance with a sign marked “women only.”

But Mr. Netanyahu, tear down that sign!

Apartheid began with segregation. Any segregation, including excessive gender segregation, leads us down a slippery slope toward discrimination. I’m not calling for unisex bathrooms, but there is no religious basis for pizza with a mechitza and the constant harassment of females. Yes, it’s worse in Saudi Arabia and Iran. And yes, Israel’s human rights record is commendable, considering the fact that not long ago those currently segregated buses were being blown up.

Before my trip this summer, I had no idea just how intensely Nelson Mandela is loved, both by his own countrymen (including the Jews) and around the world. When you read his words of reconciliation and visit his tiny cell on Robben Island, you see how easily he could have succumbed to the hatred and the fear. He could have crushed his oppressors and driven them into exile; instead he embraced them, saying, “For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.”

When I posted on Facebook how Mandela is so loved, a rabbinic colleague replied, “Too bad he is anti-Israel.” Not true. Mandela has stated, “I cannot conceive of Israel withdrawing if Arab states do not recognize Israel, within secure borders.”

Think about how counterproductive it is to label as anti-Israel a person who has lived his entire life promoting human rights. That puts Israel on the wrong side of history. That’s why Israel and the U.S. couldn’t publicly defend Mubarak, no matter how beneficial he had been. They didn’t want to be perceived as swimming against a tide of freedom and inclusiveness.

I’m not sure what the right side of history is, but I know that Mandela is on it. The Jewish people have always been there too, as vanguards of justice and compassion. We invented the right side of history at the Red Sea and Sinai. The right side of history loves the stranger; it’s eight lanes apart from playing the victim and has no exit marked “fear.” It does not allow discrimination, hatred and religious extremism to rule. Johannesburg and Jackson have been struggling mightily to board the bus headed that way.

I pray that Israelis might board it too — and sit wherever they want.

Rabbi Joshua Hammerman is spiritual leader of Temple Beth-El in Stamford, Conn.

Israel's Social Justice Movement: Links and Videos

The recent flare up in Israel's south needs to be taken seriously - as Israel and others are doing - but let's call it what it is: an indication of the weakening power of the extremists. Hamas and its Syrian-Iranian allies thus far have been unable to sustain its plot to drag Israel into a sustained conflict in order to save Assad. Libya falls and Assad's noose continues to tighten. Israel's responses have been surgical and measured (like today's)rocket barrage.
Eventually, if handled correctly by Israel and other interested parties (meaning the Saudis, Europeans, Egypt - yes, Egypt - and the Americans, everyone who wants Assad to fall) this flare-up will die down can return to the big story of Israel's summer, the Social Justice Movement. Inspired by the popular uprisings in the Arab world, though completely different in focus and NOT calling for the fall of the government, this movement began with a simple Facebook protest over the cost of cottage cheese. It has since taken the country by storm, with the focus being affordable housing. It is felt by many, including myself, that what's happening now in Israel is something that American Jews can connect with - especially those who might have put support for Israel on their personal back burner. Read about it and judge for yourself.

These links have been provided by the New Israel Fund. See Social Justice protest catches fire.

Articles

Good intent of those in tents (16 August 2011)
Israel's version of the French Revolution: Liberty, fraternity, creativity (11 August 2011)
The Other Israelis (10 August 2011)
Liberal U.S. groups back Israel protesters (2 August 2011)
Netanyahu's time is up (1 August 2011)
The People Demand Social Justice? A Background of the Protest Movement (Fact Sheet in PDF) (1 August 2011)
The protest wave has changed the face of Israel's political map (31 July 2011)
Hysteria in overdrive (29 July 2011)
Tent City Revival (29 July 2011)
Adva's Shlomo Swirsky explores the link between Israel's settlement policies and the economic protest (29 July 2011)
Israel's Affordable Housing Protest Catches Fire (28 July 2011)
Haaretz editorial: Netanyahu, listen to the demonstrators (28 July 2011)
Jerusalem Post: Uri Savir - Israel’s Facebook generation (28 July 2011)
Washington Post: Housing protests galvanize young Israelis (26 July 2011)

Videos