Showing posts with label vayetze. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vayetze. Show all posts

Thursday, December 1, 2022

In This Moment: November 29, 75 Years On

The Shabbat Announcements are sponsored

by Danielle and Lael Shapiro in honor of their son,

Jonah, becoming a Bar Mitzvah.


In This Moment

Shabbat Shalom!


Mazal tov to Jonah Shapiro, who becomes Bar Mitzvah this Shabbat. Click here for the dvar Torah and video of our prior Bat Mitzvah, Sarah Gilbert.


I hope you had a nice holiday. We now plow ahead into the month of December, but before leaving November behind, we should note one important anniversary that passed this week. November 29 marked the 75th anniversary of the U.N. partition vote that paved the way for the birth of the State of Israel the following May. You can see Yediot's headline from Tuesday marking the anniversary (see full-size pdf here). In the blue and white it says, "Celebrating the historic date - 75 years for November 29." The date is so famous it needs no further explanation and in fact you'll find a street named for "Kaf-Tet (29) November" in Jerusalem. See on the left side of the front page Yediot's front page from Nov. 30, 1947, with the bold headline, "Hebrew (Jewish) State1 - 33 voted in favor, 13 opposed, 10 abstained." Below is that tally sheet in English, signed by Jewish leaders present. Click on it to see a packet detailing what led up to that dramatic vote and see part of how that drama unfolded just below the tally.

You can follow the six-month path from partition to statehood in this documentary. We need to learn more about November 29 and to recall these headlines because unfortunately the headlines out of Israel have been far more foreboding recently. With an increase in violence and the new government looking more xenophobic by the day, we're seeing headlines like:







  • Meir Kahane's "love and hate of his fellow Jews" Yossi Klein Halevi on what the election of a Kahanist might mean (podcast and transcript) - I used to make a distinction between what I would call the good Kahane and the bad Kahane. The good Kahane was the American Kahane, the Jewish Defense League, and it was all for the sake of protecting Jewish lives. And then there was the bad Kahane, who moved to Israel and became an apocalyptic racist, created his own insane version of Judaism. He was a kind of theologian who placed vengeance and hatred at the center of his theology. And Kahane moved from being a political ideologist to being a radical theologian. And so that was a bad Kahane. But the truth is that I see a direct link between the two Kahanes, and that was a man for whom any means was justified if you felt that your end was justified, whether it was using random violence, risking the lives of civilians, or whether it meant abandoning your own followers. And so, there was in Kahane and at the heart of what we call today Kahanism, a deeply immoral contempt for restraint for the norms that really are essential to a decent society. And I came to fear Meir Kahane and what he unleashed and what he was empowering in all of us, in me, validating rage and hatred, violence, and turning that into the litmus test for being a good Jew.


  • Who Is a Jew? If Israel’s Next Government Has Its Way, Not These People - (I share this article in its entirety at the bottom of this email because it impacts many in our congregation). Tens or perhaps even hundreds of thousands of Israelis have established roots in the country thanks to the “grandchild clause” in the Law of Return. Millions more stand to lose that right if the religious parties have their way. But they would not be the only victims of the proposed revisions to the Law of Return. Jews of choice would also lose out if they were converted by rabbis from the “wrong” (non-Orthodox) movements.

This is scary stuff, which must be taken seriously. This is a "Ford to N.Y., Drop Dead" moment, only Bibi is playing the role of Ford and American Jews are New York.


So it is good for us to look back at November 29, 1947, 75 years ago this week, and to learn this important lesson from it: The partition vote was headed for failure, but for some concerted last minute diplomacy. It was hard, real-world horse trading that got the job done, and an unshakable belief in the worthiness of their project. We need that now as well. Now is not the time to give up on Israel, but neither is it the time to be silent if we are concerned about the direction Israel is taking, or more accurately, the cliff it is veering toward. No less than Avigdor Liberman, hardly a friend of American Jewry, is pleading with us to make our voices heard.


That means activism... What we say matters.


Next week, I'll be attending (remotely) J-Street's National Conference. I've been a member of their rabbinic and cantorial cabinet (along with over 1,000 others, including four - count 'em four - Hammermans) for many years. If you look at the principles I've signed onto, they are hardly controversial. While I don't agree with some of J-Street's tactics and positions, I'm proud that we hosted Jeremy Ben Ami, J-Street' s leader, at a time when few synagogues were opening their doors to him (granted, the panel also included Alan Dershowitz - such pleasant memories of a dramatic night. You can watch the video and see for yourself).


There was a time, not long ago, when politicians and clergy were expected by some Jewish establishment leaders to avoid all mention of J-Street. In 2014 the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations decided to exclude them from the group. J-Street did not do itself any favors by opening itself up at times to voices representing extreme views, even if for the sake of honest dialogue. Although J-Street opposes BDS, I think their nuanced position lends itself to dangerous loopholes. Still, while my vision of a final status agreement might be somewhat to the right of theirs, in this case nuance is helpful, as it lends to fluidity and creative initiatives. There are new facts on the ground that need to be accounted for, principally the Abraham Accords. Let’s see how they account for them.


Often in the past, J-Street conferences have veered sharply to the left, just as AIPAC has veered to the right, but this year, with plenary topics like "Defending Our Democratic Values," the speakers list could not be more mainstream: Ruth Messinger, Rep. Jamie Raskin, Sen. Chris Von Hollen, writer Yossi Klein Halevi, singer Ahinoam Nini, and a host of respected rabbis and journalists will be appearing next week. Oh, and Secretary of State Blinken will appear.


The point is not that suddenly I feel compelled to tap into a J-Street conference. The point is that American Jewry is turning a corner right now, guided by those who love Israel so much that they will no longer be cowed into silence. And Israel's existential purpose as a safe harbor for the Jewish people has never felt so relevant, particularly in Russia and Ukraine - and right here in America. A former U.S. president just had dinner with two of the most vile, radical antisemites in this country. We are seeing emboldened neo-Nazis everywhere we turn, a dramatic rise in antisemitic acts primarily from that extreme right fringe, and with all this going on, Israel is signaling that it is about to metaphorically tell the vast majority of American, Ukrainian and Russian Jews to “drop dead.”


Two men were arrested in NYC last week with the intent of attacking a synagogue. One was wearing a Nazi armband, which makes me suspect that he wasn't coming from a BDS meeting to explore the fine points of intersectionality.


J Street won't stop Nazis, but anytime I can find a gathering of people who are moderate, who care about Jewish values like the love of neighbor, and who happen to love Israel to boot, sign me up.


Seventy five years ago this week, some brazen diplomats took matters into their own hands. The question for us now: What else can we do?

Recommended Reading


Three Favorite Parsha Packet Picks for Va-Yetze

Rock and Roll is Here to Stay - An exploration of the symbolism of the rock (that Jacob rolls) in Vayetze as well as Plymouth Rock and other famous foundation stones.


Also see these all-time Va-Yetze packets: The "Happy Holidays" Brouhaha and Jewish Law; a special packet for Human Rights Shabbat (Human Rights Day is Dec. 10) and last but not least, Jacob, Rachel, Laban...and Borat

Homeland and Diaspora: Then and Now : A Tale of Comings, Goings and Household Idols: How Israel (Jacob) became the first to leave Israel (the land) And the first to return. How his family assimilated into a “foreign” culture while maintaining their distinctiveness And what happens to Jews - and Israelis– here in America.

Parashat Va-Yetze: The Greatest (Soap Opera)_ Story Ever Told - With more tears than a season of "General Hospital." More deception than a decade of "Dallas." More kisses and embracing than "Sex in the City." And more kids than "The Waltons." As Jacob returns to the Old Country (The O.C.)... Featuring Jacob, Rachel, Leah and Laban...and one family's struggle for power and wholeness. And...how could Jacob not have known it was Leah? Or did he? See 18 possible explanations for the Jacob - Leah wedding night fiasco.

  • How COVID-19 Restrictions Affected Religious Groups Around the World in 2020 (Pew) Further evidence that religion tends to be more often the problem than the solution. And who does everyone gang up on to blame for a pandemic? Three guesses. The sources reported 39 countries (20% of the total number studied) in which private individuals or organizations linked the spread of the coronavirus to religious groups in 2020. This includes individuals or organizations that used hostile or inflammatory speech about particular religious groups. In more than half of these countries (23 out of the 39), such comments were made against Jews. In France, social media users shared antisemitic tropes with caricatures of a former Jewish health minister that depicted her poisoning a well – an insinuation that Jews were responsible for the pandemic. (This trope dates back to the 14th century, when Jews were accused of spreading the Black Plague by poisoning food and wells, and they were the victims of mass killings.) In the United Kingdom in 2020, antisemitic conspiracy theories spread online, claiming that Jews were in control of the global lockdowns and were using the pandemic to “steal everything.” In Morocco, a man was arrested for social media posts in which he accused a Jewish citizen and a foreign national of infecting many people with COVID-19.


So Spielberg wanted out and Michelle Williams wants in. Go figure!



  • Interfaith Marriage and Conservative Judaism (Rabbi Barry Leff) - A few years ago a Conservative rabbi was expelled for officiating at an intermarriage and writing about it in a Jewish newspaper. Several rabbis, including Rabbi Lewittes, have resigned from the Rabbinical Assembly, the association of Conservative rabbis, over this issue. Despite the harsh penalty, I’m sure there are Conservative rabbis who officiate at interfaith weddings, they just don’t go advertising it to the world. It is, of course, possible for rabbis to change the rule. We have changed many other rules that were in place for thousands of years, for example counting women in a minyan, or allowing women to serve as rabbis and as witnesses on Jewish legal documents, or conducting same sex weddings. The question is “should we?” I think there are two sides to that question. 1) Is it good for the Jews?; 2) Is it compelling enough to overturn two millennia of custom?







  • To Err is Human; to Disagree, Jewish (Sapir Journal) - We live in a time when words are called violence and differences of opinion are seen by one side as evidence of the moral degeneracy of the other. The wheel of inclusion has turned to exclusion, reminding us of the double meaning of “revolution.” The revolution of exclusion is here. The Jewish tradition powerfully addresses this dynamic. It teaches us how we can grow past and heal the cleavages rending our culture.


  • What the U.S. can learn from Germany about grappling with dark parts of its history (NPR) - See also MONUMENTS TO THE UNTHINKABLE: America still can’t figure out how to memorialize the sins of our history. What can we learn from Germany? (Atlantic) - Those are "stolpersteine," or "stumbling stones," which were first created by artist Gunter Demnig — whose father was a German soldier in World War II — in the 1990s and now number roughly 90,000 across 30 European countries. They are placed in front of the former homes of Holocaust victims and bear their names, birthdays, deportation date and the date and location of their death."It kind of catches you off guard ... The gleam of the sun sort of shines off of it, and you go look, and you look at it and then you look up at the house that it's sitting in front of, and it's this profound sense of intimacy," Smith says. "There is a constant set of reminders throughout Germany of what was done there." Importantly, Smith says, monuments and museums are not a panacea. The fact that Germany has them does not make it immune to those who would attempt to deny the past, he adds: The country is dealing with its own segment of right-wing extremist and neo-Nazi groups. "And so it's not fully protected from that simply because it puts memorials down," he explains. "But I think there is still something to be said for how ubiquitous and and omnipresent they are in that space, and how, for so many millions of people, they wake up and are encountering, on large scales and on tiny, intimate, singular scales, reminders of what was done — and what was done not that long ago."
  
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Friday, December 6, 2019

Shabbat O Gram for December 6: Absurdities and Atrocities, Ukraine's Jewish President, A Daughter's Tribute, Dair-y Ask? The Torah's most AWKWARD Moment, Shabbat-O-Gram



Shabbat-O-Gram 


 
I had the pleasure of welcoming our 7th graders to my office, 
as they planned next week's (mock) Brit Milah


Shabbat Shalom

Another busy weekend ahead here, along with the prospect of binge watching the new season of "The Marvelous Mrs Maisel." I caught the first episode last night, and cringed sympathetically along with Mrs. M as she tried to mouth the lyrics of "White Christmas." I've been there.

 A special mazal tov to Jonathan and Allison Ostroff, who will be given the Harvey Peltz Award at this Sunday's UJF Annual Meeting.  Much deserved!  Also, mazal tov to the other TBE members being honored or elected, including Tara Shapiro, Cathy Satz and Caryn Halbrecht.

At Friday night services, Beth Styles and I will welcome a large group of BBYO teens, and I've prepared a special teen-friendly dvar Torah for tonight (which older folks will like too).  


 

Shabbat-in-the-Round on Shabbat morning will also be co-led by myself and Beth Styles.  Join us at 9:30 for the freshest muffins in town, with our meditative, informal service beginning at 9:45, followed by lunch, where we'll be joined by our growing number of Shabbabimbam and Kids-in-the-Round families.  During the service, we'll focus in on the most awkward scene of the entire Torah, when Jacob thinks he's marrying Rachel but wakes up with Leah.  Really...what was he thinking?  Click here to preview the Parsha Packet


Dair-y Ask?

An interesting question was raised regarding the Havdalah / progressive dinners on Saturday night (an event that is sold out).  Since some of the dinners will be meat meals, is it OK to serve dairy appetizers at the synagogue before people head out for dinner?  Traditionally, one waits a substantial amount of time between meat and dairy meals, but the reverse is not usually required. In other words, if you have cheese first, it isn't necessary to wait hours before a steak dinner.  But some more stringent rabbis would say that it depends on how hard the cheese is, since harder cheese gets stuck in your teeth and remains there.  It's all very complicated.  Did you realize that rabbis also had to be certified dentists?  Did they floss back then? For those who are interested in the hows, whats and whys of waiting between meat and dairy, you can read more about it here.

It's complicated, but the separation of milk and meat is among Judaism's most important rituals, for several reasons:

1) It is one of the most visible features of a kosher home.
2) It is not easy (although there are short cuts and it's not necessary to go way beyond the requirements), and practices that require extra effort are the ones that cement lifelong bonds to a tradition (or, I suppose, spur rebellion from it).  
3) It links Jews geographically.
4) It links Jews to our grandparents and other ancestors, going back centuries.
5) The idea is that milk is the stuff of life and meat symbolizes death - and Judaism emphasizes the separation of life and death, and the triumph, ultimately, of life.

Here is a more general discussion packet on Kashrut, and some links to additional "How tos" and "Whats."  Ultimately we ask: Why Kosher? Louis Jacobs writes, "Unlike the ethical and moral precepts of Judaism, the dietary laws seem to defy human reasoning. Why should it matter to religion what a man eats and, if it does matter, why are these particular items of food singled out as forbidden?" Maimonides believes it was a matter of good health.  Nachmanides sees it is beneficial to the soul rather than the body.  The Torah sees these laws through the prism of holiness.

From my perspective, the "whys" boil down to identity, spiritual discipline, ethics and social connection.  Kashrut preserves Jewish identity as a contact point for Jews across the globe and across the ages. Culture, after all, is transmitted though the stomach.  Tastes and smells are deeply embedded in our childhood memories.  Kashrut enables us to eat ethically and not indiscriminately, focusing on the sanctity of life and the pain of the animal.  It turns eating from a basic biological instinct to a sacred activity.  

All that said, my decision regarding this weekend's program is that it is OK for us to be serving cheese here before sending people off to their meat meals, since the location is changing, which gives enough time to elapse between the appetizer and the meal.

To Give or Not to Give? (and where?)

 
Register for our JTS Beyond Dispute series, which starts a week from Tuesday.  Our first session will provide Jewish sources lending perspective on the question as to whether we should focus on Jewish causes in our volunteer and philanthropic efforts, or more universal causes.  This quandary came through to me this week in two articles that appeared in the NY Times - on consecutive pages; one on the devastating impact of climate change (see below) and the other about an anti-Semitic attack on Jewish graves in Alsace (see photo above).  Which should take precedence for us?  (Spoiler alert - for me, there is no clear line between "Jewish and non-Jewish" causes, especially in regards to hate crimes and the environment.)   Register online for the class.

 



A Daughter's Tribute

Over the holiday week, the family of TBE's Matthew Klein gathered at our cemetery for his unveiling, marking a transitional moment of their grieving process.  Matthew's daughter Samantha shared some lovely words on that occasion, and she has now published them on the website of "Modern Loss," co-founded by TBE's Gabi Birkner.  I've attached the link below, along with some of her introductory words.  I am so proud of Samantha for taking her pain and transforming it into a balm that can help to soothe others who are suffering.

The following is something I've been writing on and off for the past year and a half. Although I could keep re-writing it forever and ever (I break out my laptop to work on it whenever I hear a song or watch a movie or see an object that reminds me of my dad...which is pretty darn often), I decided today, the second anniversary of my father's passing, was the last day I would work on it and that it was time to get it out into the world and for my fingers and tear ducts to take a much needed break. It's not a masterpiece, but it'll do.


I'm sharing it with all of you because I'm hoping it can help and touch individuals who haven't necessarily lost someone close to them (knock on wood!), so that it reminds you to appreciate them while whomever it may be is still on this earth. I also hope it provides some sliver of hope and / or comfort for those who haven't yet dealt with their grief over the loss of a loved one, and happen upon this while not looking for it. Please feel free to share it with anyone who you think it would benefit.

Ukraine's Jewish President
If you have a chance, read the Atlantic's profile of Ukraine's President Zelensky, by Franklin Foer, a really important article, for lots of reasons, not the least of which being the underappreciated Jewish angle to this story. Ukraine is the only nation in that area to have seen a DECREASE in anti-Semitism since 2014, as opposed to Hungary, Poland, and other more Putin-friendly (and corrupt) nations. Ukraine is the place that brought us the Cossacks (read this backgrounder and weep) and the notorious Ukrainian prison guards at Treblinka, including Ivan the Terrible. It has a horrible history of Jew hatred. But part of their heroic response in standing up to Russia has been their willingness to stand up to their own history of anti-Semitism. America should unequivocally support these trends as we continue to defend Ukraine and the reforms of Zelensky's anti-corruption movement.  It would be naive to state that anti-Semitism has been wiped out in Ukraine.  But Foer's article describes an authentic national teshuvah taking place in the least likely of places.  

See a few excerpts below:
As I watched Zelensky rise from afar, I couldn't quite believe that Ukraine would elect a Jewish vaudevillian as its president. My grandmother came from western Ukraine, and I grew up hearing bitter stories about the anti-Semitism of her neighbors. When I first visited the country, in 2002, her voice rattled around my head. I decided against announcing my Jewishness to my translator, although I struggled to fabricate fresh reasons to refuse the pork he kept ordering for me. During one of our meals, he confirmed the wisdom of my reticence by noting confidingly, "Stalin was a bastard to Ukraine because he was a Jew." (Stalin was a bastard, but he was not a Jew.)...

In the past few years, nearly every European nation has witnessed a surge of anti-Semitism. Ukraine, still home to at least 50,000 Jews, is the miraculous exception to this trend. In 2017, the Pew Research Center found that only 5 percent of Ukrainians reject Jews as their fellow citizens-the lowest number among the countries surveyed in the region. Although vandalism of synagogues and cemeteries persists-and the country has a weakness for venerating 20th-century heroes who instigated pogroms-there hasn't been a single anti-Semitic assault reported in the country since August 2016. (If only New York City could say the same.) A researcher named Vyacheslav Likhachev told me that surveys show that Ukrainian parents would be pleased if their daughters married Jewish men, because Jews are identified with devotion to family.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine cemented this new philo-Semitism. The Kremlin's tactics didn't consist just of storm troopers and militias. Propaganda depicted Ukrainians as neo-Nazis. "There was a steady drumbeat from Russia that a fascist junta was taking over," according to Sam Sokol, the author of Putin's Hybrid War and the Jews. In the face of this slander, Ukrainians self-consciously set out to debunk the charge. "Anti-Semitism dropped sharply after the Russian invasion," Likhachev told me. Ultra-nationalist political parties, which the Russians portrayed as dominant, performed terribly in the subsequent elections. 

Absurdities and Atrocities

WATCH this viral video of Sacha Baron Cohen at the recent ADL "Never is Now" summit in New York.  He was the keynote speaker and his address is well worth 20 minutes of your time.  As 2020 approaches, we are seeing once again the massive injection of conspiracy theories and coordinated "fake news" attacks by operatives, foreign and domestic, on the platforms of social media.  Facebook, Google and Twitter, especially, need to take concerted action to protect our democracy.  We have become much more savvy but even the most savvy among us can easily fall victim to what he calls "the most sophisticated propaganda machine in history."  Below is the video link, along with some quotes from the address, which can be read in full at https://www.adl.org/news/article/sacha-baron-cohens-keynote-address-at-adls-2019-never-is-now-summit-on-anti-semitism



ADL International Leadership Award Presented to Sacha Baron Cohen at Never Is Now 2019
ADL International Leadership Award Presented to Sacha Baron Cohen at Never Is Now 2019
"Voltaire was right, "those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities."  And social media lets authoritarians push absurdities to billions of people."

Zuckerberg speaks of welcoming a "diversity of ideas," and last year he gave us an example. He said that he found posts denying the Holocaust "deeply offensive," but he didn't think Facebook should take them down "because I think there are things that different people get wrong."  At this very moment, there are still Holocaust deniers on Facebook, and Google still takes you to the most repulsive Holocaust denial sites with a simple click.  One of the heads of Google once told me, incredibly, that these sites just show "both sides" of the issue.  This is madness.  To quote Edward R. Murrow, one "cannot accept that there are, on every story, two equal and logical sides to an argument."  We have millions of pieces of evidence for the Holocaust-it is an historical fact.  And denying it is not some random opinion.  Those who deny the Holocaust aim to encourage another one.

Take the issue of political ads.  Fortunately, Twitter finally banned them, and Google is making changes, too.  But if you pay them, Facebook will run any "political" ad you want, even if it's a lie.  And they'll even help you micro-target those lies to their users for maximum effect.  Under this twisted logic, if Facebook were around in the 1930s, it would have allowed Hitler to post 30-second ads on his "solution" to the "Jewish problem."  So here's a good standard and practice: Facebook, start fact-checking political ads before you run them, stop micro-targeted lies immediately, and when the ads are false, give back the money and don't publish them.

Shabbat Shalom!

Rabbi Joshua Hammerman
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