Wednesday, November 11, 2015
Dear Reader,
With President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu seeming to bury the hatchet this week, we turn to the road ahead in U.S.-Israel relations. Staff writer Stewart Ain looks at the politics of more aid to Israel (reports say the country is looking for $5 billion, up from the current $3 billion in U.S. foreign aid.) Editor Gary Rosenblatt was in Washington to take in Netanyahu's speech before the federation movement's annual General Assembly; in that speech the prime minister received enthusiastic applause when he asserted that "Israel has no better friend than America, and America has no better friend than Israel."
National
The Politics Of Additional Aid For Israel
After Bibi-Obama meeting, local Jewish House members weigh in on the road ahead.
Stewart Ain
Staff Writer
President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu at the White House on Monday. Getty Images
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with President Obama Monday to “focus on how to go forward,” but some believe he should have also tried to make amends with Congressional Democrats — a view rejected by Rep. Steve Israel (D-Queens, L.I.).
“While the optics of the relationship may appear to be tense, the substance of the relationship between the U.S. and Israel — particularly on military and intelligence cooperation — has never been better,” he told The Jewish Week.
The congressman, the highest-ranking Jewish Democrat in the House, said that what really “counts is not the particular mood of a particular leader on a particular day; what counts is what is happening on the ground in Israel between the U.S. and Israeli counterparts — and in that there is no daylight.”
He was reacting to the comments of Seymour Reich, a former chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, who said Netanyahu “created a cleavage not only with the Democratic Party but with the American Jewish community” when he asked them in March to oppose the Iranian nuclear agreement Obama had negotiated.
“He put us on the spot,” Reich said of Netanyahu. “There was great tension and acrimony against those who supported the deal — not only against Democratic officeholders but others.”
But Rep. Israel said, “We need to start focusing on the positive instead of cleavages in the relationship.”
That relationship is so positive, he maintained, that he believes Congress will approve next year an enhanced security package for Israel that will increase American military aid from the current $3 billion annually. Israel reportedly is seeking $5 billion annually.
“I am quite optimistic that this package of security enhancements for Israel will pass on a bipartisan basis next year,” the congressman said. “This is going to be a test. There are many Republican members of Congress who will try to use Israel as a political football and exploit the differences between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu. Now with a new package of security enhancements for Israel we will see whether those members really care about the relationship and will vote for the package. Let them put their money where their mouths are.”
Strong Republican support for Israel — as evidenced by House Speaker John Boehner’s invitation to Netanyahu to address a joint meeting of Congress about his objections to the Iran deal — is expected to be continued by his successor, Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.
Ryan supported the imposition of restrictions on U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority and opposed a unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state. Despite the need for budget cuts, many observers don’t believe Republicans would block increased aid to Israel.
Although the current 10-year framework agreement with Israel for U.S. defense assistance does not expire until 2017, Obama said he wanted to begin renewal discussions now. Rep. Israel said he agrees with that approach, noting, “Some of the enhancements may require changes in Israel’s military infrastructure, as well as ramp-up time.”
After his meeting with Obama, Netanyahu told the American Enterprise Institute, a Conservative think tank, that Obama had told him U.S. military aid to Israel is “also a very solid investment for American security.”
“We’re an ally that doesn’t ask for any American troops,” Netanyahu was quoted as saying. “We never have and we don’t intend to. We can defend ourselves. We just want to have the tools. … You spend on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq a trillion and a half. So that’s five centuries’ worth of support for Israel.”
Netanyahu told Israeli reporters that he and Obama did not “focus on an exact sum, but I presented our needs.”
Israeli media reports said Obama agreed to increase the amount of military aid but did not cite a figure.
Rep. Israel said Congressional approval next year of an enhanced security package would also “be a signal to Iran that we have Israel’s back and that Iran shouldn’t play games.”
Rep. Nita Lowey (D-Westchester, Rockland) insisted in an email that “our bipartisan collective support for Israel has never been stronger, and our military and intelligence cooperation has never been closer. As the ranking member of the Appropriations Subcommittee on State and Foreign Operations, I will continue to do everything in my power to make sure Israel continues to receive our support and to strengthen the steadfast relationship between our two great countries.”
She added that the U.S.-Israel relationship “goes much deeper than any one policy issue.”
Rep. Eliot Engel (D-Westchester, Bronx) echoed those sentiments, saying in an email, “Support for Israel is bipartisan and always has been. Just look at the letter [Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed] Royce and I sent to President [Mahmoud] Abbas last week condemning Palestinian incitement: nearly 370 House members signed on. Presidents come and go. Prime ministers come and go. Even members of Congress come and go. But the U.S.-Israel relationship is unshakable, and support for Israel in Congress is strong and bipartisan.”
Aaron David Miller, a former U.S. peace negotiator and now vice president at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, agreed with Rep. Israel that Netanyahu has nothing to apologize for.
“The main goal of the visit was to turn the proverbial page, it was not a fundamental reset,” he said. “The Iran deal is done and there is no merit in opening it. Now is the time to demonstrate that the U.S.-Israeli relationship still functions.”
Miller acknowledged that “there are a lot of Democrats who are angry and who don’t like the prime minister’s policies when it comes to so many things.” But he questioned how relevant that is going to be “in an election year — Democrats and Republicans will be competing over who loves Israel more.”
Before Netanyahu arrived in the U.S., the Obama administration said a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians was unlikely before Obama left office and that efforts would be focused on managing the situation against a backdrop of five weeks of Palestinian terror attacks.
In a brief press availability with Netanyahu before their meeting, Obama affirmed Israel’s right to defend itself and made no mention of “increased [Israeli] settlements” as being the cause of the violence, a claim Secretary of State John Kerry had made last month.
Peter Joseph, chairman of the Israel Policy Forum, said he heard Netanyahu say repeatedly while here that he supports a two-state solution with a demilitarized Palestinian state that recognizes the Jewish state of Israel.
“I would like to see what steps Israel takes towards a two-state solution that would give the Palestinians some hope and that would be in accord with the expressed wishes of the U.S. and Israelis,” he said. “We have yet to see it.”
Israel’s Channel 2 reported that Netanyahu and Obama agreed to a series of practical steps (which it did not detail) that both Israel and the Palestinian Authority would take to calm tensions and end Palestinian violence that by the beginning of this week had killed 11 Israelis. Another 72 Palestinians were killed by Israeli gunfire, including 45 people who were reportedly attacking or attempting to attack Israelis with knives, guns and cars.
stewart@jewishweek.org
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Gary Rosenblatt
Bibi Soothes GA Crowd; Focus On Youth Continues
Prime minister signals reset with White House; millennials want a seat at the table.
Gary Rosenblatt
Editor And Publisher
Gary Rosenblatt
Washington, D.C. — The appearance of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was the headline of the annual General Assembly (GA) of the Jewish Federations of North America here this week. But it was what he and his Likud coalition represents to the various constituencies in his audience — rather than what he said in his 30-minute speech on Tuesday — that is the more intriguing story of this year’s conference.
One day after an apparently successful White House meeting with President Obama, with both men on their best behavior and focused more on future cooperation than past differences, Netanyahu received enthusiastic applause when he asserted that “Israel has no better friend than America, and America has no better friend than Israel.” He praised the U.S. for its “generous support” and made reference to his “wonderful discussion with President Obama on assistance.” The Israeli leader also reiterated his pledge made to Obama on Monday that he will continue to seek a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
That’s what the 3,000 delegates of lay and professional federation leaders — and surely most American Jews — wanted to hear. The past several years of increasingly sharp differences between Jerusalem and Washington, and specifically Obama and Netanyahu, over Mideast policy, most notably the Iran nuclear deal, have made Jews in this country uncomfortable. They want to see a reset of the two leaders’ relationship and a renewed effort on both sides to strengthen U.S.-Israel ties.
Netanyahu did not break new ground in expressing his appreciation for the Jewish federation system and for supporters of Israel. He did not speak of the Iran deal or of the month-long series of violent attacks by young Palestinians against individual Jews. Instead, he sought to assure this prominent cross-section of American Jews, many of whom take exception to the Orthodox control over issues of religious and personal status in Israel, by guaranteeing that “all Jews can feel at home in Israel — Reform, Orthodox and Conservative.”
Still, with the increasing numbers of millennials at the GA — one JFNA spokesman estimated that delegates under 35 numbered roughly 500, or 17 percent — there was also the inevitable tension between the younger set and their parents’ generation regarding attitudes toward Israel and Jewish life.
At one of several breakout sessions on millennials, a comment that it’s time for Israeli policies to be discussed and debated more openly received enthusiastic applause from the younger people in the room.
Jacob Abudaram, 22, a senior at the University of Michigan who was a panelist at the session, told me later that “even behind closed doors we’re often unable to have these discussions about Israel and how we choose to identify Jewishly.” He said he and many others of his generation feel deeply connected to Israel but believe Jerusalem should be taking the initiative in working toward peace with the Palestinians.
“Israel should be doing more, but it’s something of a taboo subject” at many American Jewish forums because the older generation believes it should show support by following Israel’s lead. Abudaram feels younger people should have “a seat at the table” in making communal decisions, even if they don’t have the wealth and generosity that their elders do.
“I’d like to see millennials and older Jews talking about issues of Jewish values, tradition and history — not just talking about the role of millennials,” he said.
Beth Cousens, the San Francisco-based head of the JFNA’s Jewish education and engagement office, helped plan a millennials session and took part in it. She said such discussions are ongoing and focus on integrating the different approaches of younger and older Jews in how they express their shared values of social justice and repairing the world. The millennials, she said, are less inclined to join existing organizations, preferring to “do things themselves.”
How this will play out in terms of millennials’ support for Israel and their assumption of positions of leadership in existing Jewish organizations remains to be seen, she said.
One observer noted that “the price we pay for engaging younger Jews is actually listening to what they have to say, even if we don’t agree with their views. And it’s well worth the effort.”
Call For ‘Cryo-Diplomacy’
While Netanyahu had little to say about next steps in the volatile Middle East, several American policy experts who spoke at the three-day conference agreed that while there is no hope for full peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority at this time, it is important to take small steps to preserve the goal of creating two states.
“Vacuums are always filled by the worst possible people,” asserted Ambassador Dennis Ross, the veteran Mideast policy planner. He suggested steps on the ground like a halt in new settlement building and Israel-Palestinian cooperation to tamp down the current violence.
David Makovsky, who was part of Secretary of State John Kerry’s team working toward peace talks last year, urged that there be no cutoff of funding for the Palestinian Authority because it would end vital Israel-Palestinian cooperation on security in the West Bank. He said that since three previous U.S. attempts to tackle all the final-status Israel-Palestinian issues at once failed, “it’s time to go for singles and doubles,” more modest efforts that address specific problems.
Ilan Goldenberg and Laura Blumenfeld, who also served on the Kerry team, agreed that the immediate goal should be preservation of the two-state solution. Blumenfeld called for “cryo-diplomacy, a way to freeze things in place so they don’t get worse.” Goldenberg suggested allowing Palestinians to worship at the Al-Aksa mosque on Fridays and calling on Palestinian leaders to tone down their vengeful rhetoric.
Storytelling
Has An Impact
The theme of this year’s GA was “Think Forward,” a somewhat generic concept that embodies the branding challenge for JFNA, which is not associated with a clear and specific mission. Rather, like the federations it is made up of, the umbrella group supports efforts to help Jews in Israel, America and around the world, dealing with a range of issues from health care to poverty to Jewish identity.
Several JFNA speakers asserted that the group “touches more Jewish lives on the planet” than any other.
One effective means of dramatizing JFNA’s reach was evident in the opening plenary on Sunday when several celebrities offered their personal Jewish narratives. Like most GAs, this one crammed in too many speakers who spoke too long. And there was no logical connection to their stories. But each on its own was powerful.
Three Jews in their 20s told of their experiences in drawing closer to their Jewish identity through Birthright Israel, the free 10-day trip for young Jews, and other Jewish programs; Rosalie Abella, the first Jewish female Supreme Court Justice in Canada, spoke of how her parents’ survival of the Holocaust set her on a path to seek justice; actress Debra Messing shared her experience of being discriminated against as the only Jew in her Rhode Island school and later expressing her Jewish values, after the success of the hit TV show “Will and Grace,” in speaking out on gay rights and AIDS issues.
David Gregory, the former host of NBC’s “Meet The Press” and author of the memoir “How’s Your Faith?” captivated the crowd when he offered a deeply personal and candid talk on his Jewish journey. Growing up in an interfaith family, he had only tenuous ties to his Judaism until well into adulthood.
He noted that his father, who was Jewish, died late last week and that he was flying out to his funeral in California the next day — as well as celebrating the bar mitzvah of his son next Shabbat. The painful experience of renewing fragile ties with his father in the last year brought “moments of holiness,” a tearful Gregory said. He encouraged his listeners to ask themselves what they believe, to “live inside the question,” and “make peace with people in your life you care about.”
Gary@jewishweek.orgElsewhere at the GA, Gary Rosenblatt reports on sessions with the all-important millennial demographic. One of those sessions suggested that young Jews are seeking a more open debate on Israeli policies, something they think has been missing in Jewish communal life.Gary Rosenblatt
Bibi Soothes GA Crowd; Focus On Youth Continues
Prime minister signals reset with White House; millennials want a seat at the table.
Gary Rosenblatt
Editor And Publisher
Gary Rosenblatt
Washington, D.C. — The appearance of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was the headline of the annual General Assembly (GA) of the Jewish Federations of North America here this week. But it was what he and his Likud coalition represents to the various constituencies in his audience — rather than what he said in his 30-minute speech on Tuesday — that is the more intriguing story of this year’s conference.
One day after an apparently successful White House meeting with President Obama, with both men on their best behavior and focused more on future cooperation than past differences, Netanyahu received enthusiastic applause when he asserted that “Israel has no better friend than America, and America has no better friend than Israel.” He praised the U.S. for its “generous support” and made reference to his “wonderful discussion with President Obama on assistance.” The Israeli leader also reiterated his pledge made to Obama on Monday that he will continue to seek a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
That’s what the 3,000 delegates of lay and professional federation leaders — and surely most American Jews — wanted to hear. The past several years of increasingly sharp differences between Jerusalem and Washington, and specifically Obama and Netanyahu, over Mideast policy, most notably the Iran nuclear deal, have made Jews in this country uncomfortable. They want to see a reset of the two leaders’ relationship and a renewed effort on both sides to strengthen U.S.-Israel ties.
Netanyahu did not break new ground in expressing his appreciation for the Jewish federation system and for supporters of Israel. He did not speak of the Iran deal or of the month-long series of violent attacks by young Palestinians against individual Jews. Instead, he sought to assure this prominent cross-section of American Jews, many of whom take exception to the Orthodox control over issues of religious and personal status in Israel, by guaranteeing that “all Jews can feel at home in Israel — Reform, Orthodox and Conservative.”
Still, with the increasing numbers of millennials at the GA — one JFNA spokesman estimated that delegates under 35 numbered roughly 500, or 17 percent — there was also the inevitable tension between the younger set and their parents’ generation regarding attitudes toward Israel and Jewish life.
At one of several breakout sessions on millennials, a comment that it’s time for Israeli policies to be discussed and debated more openly received enthusiastic applause from the younger people in the room.
Jacob Abudaram, 22, a senior at the University of Michigan who was a panelist at the session, told me later that “even behind closed doors we’re often unable to have these discussions about Israel and how we choose to identify Jewishly.” He said he and many others of his generation feel deeply connected to Israel but believe Jerusalem should be taking the initiative in working toward peace with the Palestinians.
“Israel should be doing more, but it’s something of a taboo subject” at many American Jewish forums because the older generation believes it should show support by following Israel’s lead. Abudaram feels younger people should have “a seat at the table” in making communal decisions, even if they don’t have the wealth and generosity that their elders do.
“I’d like to see millennials and older Jews talking about issues of Jewish values, tradition and history — not just talking about the role of millennials,” he said.
Beth Cousens, the San Francisco-based head of the JFNA’s Jewish education and engagement office, helped plan a millennials session and took part in it. She said such discussions are ongoing and focus on integrating the different approaches of younger and older Jews in how they express their shared values of social justice and repairing the world. The millennials, she said, are less inclined to join existing organizations, preferring to “do things themselves.”
How this will play out in terms of millennials’ support for Israel and their assumption of positions of leadership in existing Jewish organizations remains to be seen, she said.
One observer noted that “the price we pay for engaging younger Jews is actually listening to what they have to say, even if we don’t agree with their views. And it’s well worth the effort.”
Call For ‘Cryo-Diplomacy’
While Netanyahu had little to say about next steps in the volatile Middle East, several American policy experts who spoke at the three-day conference agreed that while there is no hope for full peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority at this time, it is important to take small steps to preserve the goal of creating two states.
“Vacuums are always filled by the worst possible people,” asserted Ambassador Dennis Ross, the veteran Mideast policy planner. He suggested steps on the ground like a halt in new settlement building and Israel-Palestinian cooperation to tamp down the current violence.
David Makovsky, who was part of Secretary of State John Kerry’s team working toward peace talks last year, urged that there be no cutoff of funding for the Palestinian Authority because it would end vital Israel-Palestinian cooperation on security in the West Bank. He said that since three previous U.S. attempts to tackle all the final-status Israel-Palestinian issues at once failed, “it’s time to go for singles and doubles,” more modest efforts that address specific problems.
Ilan Goldenberg and Laura Blumenfeld, who also served on the Kerry team, agreed that the immediate goal should be preservation of the two-state solution. Blumenfeld called for “cryo-diplomacy, a way to freeze things in place so they don’t get worse.” Goldenberg suggested allowing Palestinians to worship at the Al-Aksa mosque on Fridays and calling on Palestinian leaders to tone down their vengeful rhetoric.
Storytelling
Has An Impact
The theme of this year’s GA was “Think Forward,” a somewhat generic concept that embodies the branding challenge for JFNA, which is not associated with a clear and specific mission. Rather, like the federations it is made up of, the umbrella group supports efforts to help Jews in Israel, America and around the world, dealing with a range of issues from health care to poverty to Jewish identity.
Several JFNA speakers asserted that the group “touches more Jewish lives on the planet” than any other.
One effective means of dramatizing JFNA’s reach was evident in the opening plenary on Sunday when several celebrities offered their personal Jewish narratives. Like most GAs, this one crammed in too many speakers who spoke too long. And there was no logical connection to their stories. But each on its own was powerful.
Three Jews in their 20s told of their experiences in drawing closer to their Jewish identity through Birthright Israel, the free 10-day trip for young Jews, and other Jewish programs; Rosalie Abella, the first Jewish female Supreme Court Justice in Canada, spoke of how her parents’ survival of the Holocaust set her on a path to seek justice; actress Debra Messing shared her experience of being discriminated against as the only Jew in her Rhode Island school and later expressing her Jewish values, after the success of the hit TV show “Will and Grace,” in speaking out on gay rights and AIDS issues.
David Gregory, the former host of NBC’s “Meet The Press” and author of the memoir “How’s Your Faith?” captivated the crowd when he offered a deeply personal and candid talk on his Jewish journey. Growing up in an interfaith family, he had only tenuous ties to his Judaism until well into adulthood.
He noted that his father, who was Jewish, died late last week and that he was flying out to his funeral in California the next day — as well as celebrating the bar mitzvah of his son next Shabbat. The painful experience of renewing fragile ties with his father in the last year brought “moments of holiness,” a tearful Gregory said. He encouraged his listeners to ask themselves what they believe, to “live inside the question,” and “make peace with people in your life you care about.”
Gary@jewishweek.org
Also in this issue, staff writer Hannah Dreyfus reports on last weekend's Reform movement biennial in Orlando, which drew 5,000 people. As the Union for Reform Judaism broke new ground on a resolution affirming rights for transgender Jews, its leader, Rabbi Rick Jacobs, issued a warning that pursuing social justice by itself is not a winning formula for the movement.
National
URJ Head Warns Of Limits Of Tikkun Olam
Rabbi Rick Jacobs wades into debate over Jewish values at 5,000-strong Biennial.
Hannah Dreyfus
Staff Writer
Rabbi Rick Jacobs during his keynote address at URJ Biennial last week in Orlando. Courtesy of URJ
He hit them right at their strongest — and weakest — point.
All the social justice issues of the day were there on the agenda at last week’s Reform Biennial — the post-Ferguson race wars, climate change, immigration reform, gender equality. Tikkun olam was everywhere at the Orlando World Center Marriott in Orlando, Fla., as 5,000 Reform Jews gathered in a spirit of repairing the world; it is the glue that cements the faith of many Reform Jews.
But as his flock sat rapt, Rabbi Rick Jacobs, the leader of the Reform movement, Judaism’s largest denomination by a mile, delivered a pointed warning last Thursday night at his keynote address: tikkun olam divorced from tradition is doomed to fail.
“Social justice not grounded in text and ritual is ephemeral and unsustainable,” exhorted Rabbi Jacobs, as he paced the stage and gestured dramatically. “Like a bouquet of fresh flowers, it is destined to dry up and wither. It cannot be easily passed down to the next generation.”
The Biennial, the Reform movement’s largest gathering, this year attracted delegations from more than 500 congregations including 450 rabbis, 250 congregational presidents and 120 cantors. Rabbi Jacob’s keynote is usually a highlight of the Biennial, often setting the movement on a new path; last time around he articulated the concept of “audacious hospitality,” pushing the movement to be as welcoming as possible to those who might be considered outsiders. That philosophy reached a high-water mark in Orlando when the movement adopted what is believed to be the most far-reaching resolution on transgender rights of any major religious organization.
But this time around, Rabbi Jacobs cut to the heart of a debate in Jewish circles about the application of Jewish values.
Reform continuity, and the danger of “universalism at the expense of particularism,” in the words of Rabbi Jacobs, became a focus of the conference, even as breakout sessions focused heavily on the social justice issues of the day.
In recent years, the Reform movement, which once prided itself on a departure from traditional observance, or halacha, is slowly moving back towards the center. The new Reform High Holiday prayer book, or machzor, released earlier this year, includes significantly more Hebrew and traditional liturgy than versions past. The same holds true of the most recent Reform siddur, “Mishkan T’filah,” released in 2007 and used in URJ-affiliated congregations around the world. Morning and evening prayer services were held every day of the conference, and on Shabbat a kosher option was available. And while “classical” Reform rabbis sometimes shunned kipas, at this year’s conference they were seen generously sprinkled throughout the crowd, on male and female heads alike.
The Reform movement appears healthy — the 2013 Pew Center’s “Portrait of American Jewry” found that 35 percent of American Jews consider themselves Reform, more than Orthodox, Conservative and “Other” combined (Jews who don’t identify with any denomination make up the remainder). However, new findings from the 2014 Pew “Religious Landscape Study” leave room for concern. Results show that the U.S. public overall is becoming “less religious,” with Pew’s 2007 “Religious Landscape Study” finding that 83 percent of adults surveyed would describe themselves as religiously affiliated, compared with 77 percent in 2014. The growth in non-affiliation is driven largely by the millennial generation, those born between 1981 and 1996, according to the study.
A broad, humanitarian focus aids the movement’s popularity, said Rabbi Jacobs. While those who “claim a monopoly on Jewish authenticity” — the Orthodox — pay fastidious attention to kashrut, Shabbat observance and making sure there is no chametz on Passover, said Rabbi Jacobs, there is too little concern for more universal concerns, including income equality and the rights of Arab citizens in Israel.
“Prophet Amos railed against divorcing ritual observance from public and private ethics,” said Rabbi Jacob, quoting scripture to thundering applause from the crowd. “Our movement believes it is impossible to detach tikkun olam from serious Judaism — that sets us apart.”
Still, wooing the next generation of Reform Jews solely with a mission of social justice, a message that speaks to a demographic that is seeking meaning but is increasingly skeptical of organized religion, could come at a serious price.
“A vision of Judaism that stops there is dangerously limited,” said the lanky Rabbi Jacobs, a former dancer, as he strode across the stage during his keynote address. “Just as we cannot build and sustain our Jewish community on ritual and study, neither can we build and sustain our Jewish identity solely on being good citizens of the world.”
That tension was a recurrent theme in the breakout learning sessions over the course of the five-day Biennial, as educators exchanged challenges and successes regarding engaging the next generation of Reform Jews.
Allison Levin, a youth department volunteer at Congregation Beth Or in Maple Glen, Pa., co-led a session on innovative models of synagogue-based youth engagement. The 1,000-family Montgomery County synagogue has a thriving youth department, with 600 children from kindergarten through 12th grade. The key, she said, is re-establishing the synagogue as a “social center” for children and parents.
“It’s too common for parents to view synagogue as a temporary obligation for their kids, and then disappear after the bar or bat mitzvah,” she said. Creative programming for young children, including “Munchkin Minyan,” a prayer service for tots and their parents, has the potential for lasting power. “Parents are looking for community as much as their kids.”
April Baskin, URJ’s new vice president of “audacious hospitality,” the movement’s catchphrase to describe an aggressive new outreach initiative, gave several sessions over the course of the conference about embracing multiracial Jews. The conversation, which touched on racial profiling, police violence and the recent protests in Ferguson, Mo., blended the movement’s push for social consciousness with the prerogative of engaging new members.
“Jews of color are perpetual strangers in Judaism,” said Baskin during a session titled “I’m Not a Custodian, I’m a Congregant: Embracing Racial Diversity in the Synagogue.”
“Rarely does a Jew of color walk into any space and know they’ll be treated as a Jew, rather than as an outcast or even a source of danger,” she said.
Baskin, from a multiracial background herself, used a continuum to describe the experience of many Jews of color, who, according to studies, now make up about 10 percent of the Jewish population. The spectrum of self-identity ranged from “outcast” and “foreigner” to “visitor,” “token member” and finally, “member.”
“Ensuring that Jews of color feel comfortable in our holy spaces will advance our principles of inclusion and tikkun olam, and expand our membership,” said Baskin.
Similarly, in a resolution affirming the equality of transgender people and welcoming them into congregations, camps and other Reform Jewish institutions, the movement made clear its commitment to present-day issues of public concern. The resolution passed unanimously on the second day of the conference; it was the only item from the five-day conference to generate headlines in mainstream media.
“This is who we are as a movement,” said URJ Chairman Stephen Sacks. “We were the first movement to welcome gays and lesbians into our communities: this resolution is the next step.”
In a session called “Beyond Bathroom Signs,” Rabbi Erin Mason, director of the URJ’s Camp Newman in Santa Rosa, Calif., spoke about the camp’s decision to open its doors to transgender campers and counselors, a move it kept quiet for the past two years in order not to upset parents.
“Now that this resolution is passed, we can be open and proud of our decision,” said Rabbi Mason, who described the staff’s decision to accommodate one camper who preferred the pronouns “they/their/them” to any gender-specific pronouns.
“I’m really proud of the movement,” said Adam, 16, a leader in the Reform movement national youth group, the North American Federation of Temple Youth (NFTY), who asked us to only use his first name. “I think passing a resolution like this demonstrates a deep social consciousness and an understanding of what the younger generation cares about.”
In addition to the movement’s bid to win over young souls by taking a stance on contemporary issues, Danny Meyer, CEO of Union Square Hospitality Group (well known for the hamburger super-chain Shake Shack) and a panelist at the conference, gave some hard-won advice about truly successful “audacious hospitality.” (Meyer’s recent bestselling book, “Setting the Table,” discussed the power of hospitality to transform a business.)
“Success is 49 parts how good you are at what you do, and 51 parts how good you make people feel,” he said. Institutionalized religion makes the grave error of believing they have a captive audience, he said. “Don’t make the mistake of thinking young people need you,” he added, quipping that after this word of advice he would start to charge. “Hospitality is different than service. You have to give young people a reason to stay.”
That “reason to stay,” Rabbi Jacobs stressed, has to marry Jewish tradition with a deep caring for those outside the community, in a way that perhaps only Reform Jews can do.
editor@jewishweek.orgManaging editor Robert Goldblum reports on a first-of-its-kind partnership between a leading national organization, Clal, and the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. The goal: to train a cohort of rabbis to bring ivory tower ideas to Jews in the pews.
New York
Rabbis, Academics In New Partnership
In a first, Clal and UPenn team up to bring ivory tower ideas to Jews in the pews.
Robert Goldblum
Managing Editor
Scholar Eva Mroczek leads a session on prayer in ancient Israel. Courtesy of Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies
The ivory tower and the synagogue near you could hardly be more different.
In one, solitary postdoctoral fellows pore over ancient texts in search of often arcane, though potentially transformative, knowledge; for instance, the “emotional, embodied experience of prayer” in the Qumran community, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered.
In the other, a community of worshippers gathers (with less and less frequency these days), and while prayer is surely on the agenda, the more mundane pressures of modern life impinge: bar/bat mitzvah schedules, the building-fund campaign, how to integrate intermarried congregants; all of it can compromise the spiritual and meaning-making project of synagogue life.
In a potentially bold stroke, Rabbis Irwin Kula and Brad Hirschfield of Clal – the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, think they have a way to unite academia and the wider Jewish community. The goal: to bring the ideas uncovered by those postdoc fellows to Jews in the pews, and those beyond the synagogue. And in that way to “reimagine Judaism on the ground,” according to Rabbi Kula.
In what is believed to be a first-of-its-kind program, Clal is teaming up with the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania to train a cohort of multi-denominational rabbis to be “translators,” as Rabbi Kula calls them.
“We need to have them be bridges,” the rabbi told The Jewish Week on the eve of the program’s first session last week. “How can we take this serious research, this peer-reviewed research being done in Jewish studies programs, and figure out what difference it makes to the lived lives of people we deal with? How can we take this ‘private good’ that’s been living in the ivory tower, and make it a ‘public good?’”
The program’s playful acronym, LEAP, suggests the movement from the academy to the people: it stands for leverage, expand and popularize.
The guiding metaphor for the pilot program, Rabbi Kula explained, is drawn from medicine: the idea that basic science (discoveries in the lab) leads to applied science (getting those drugs and procedures to patients). “From bench to bedside” is how it’s described in the medical literature in what is referred to as “translational medicine.”
In Jewish life, the rabbi said, “we have all this high-end knowledge — the basic science — in the university. And millions of dollars are being spent on these Jewish studies programs.
“But we have no applied science,” he said, no one to take those ideas and that knowledge, translate it, make it accessible and communicate it beyond denominational lines to the Jewish community.
The program, then, is looking for a few good Deepak Chopras to bridge the disconnect.
“For us as a research institution,” said Anne Oravetz Albert, the Katz Center’s director of public programs, “we want the ideas coming out of the Katz Center to be put into terms that are accessible and useful. Our fellows will be doing the teaching and presenting their research, and the rabbis will be trying to figure out how that work can be turned into something meaningful to congregants.”
The first cohort of rabbis comes from a pool of more than 100 that Clal has trained in a program called Rabbis Without Borders. Thirteen, including Rabbis Kula and Hirschfield, met for two days last week at the Katz Center in Philadelphia for the first of three sessions of a yearlong course of study focusing on the inner life of Jews (the pilot runs for two years).
Two scholars at the Katz Center, Eva Mroczek and Rachel Werczberger, spoke about their research into “experiments in community building and prayer practice,” as Rabbi Hirschfield put it, one ancient and the other contemporary. Mroczek focused on the nature of prayer in the Qumran community, and Werczberger on the idea of “Jewish authenticity” as it applied to several Renewal/New Age-type communities in Israel that flourished in the early 2000s but eventually collapsed.
Rabbi Hirschfield was struck with the parallels between Jewish spiritual life more than 2,000 years ago and that life today. “People during the Dead Sea period were figuring out how to pray in the first-person singular. It’s one of the things secular Jews today deal with — the idea that spiritual life starts with me. Our ancestors were dealing with the very same thing.
“To tell people in our community that everyone can be a psalmist like David — that can unleash people’s hearts.”
In terms of the practical applications that might follow from the session on Qumran prayer, Rabbi Hirschfield mentioned a Reform rabbi who is in the midst of a search for a new cantor. “He said he now understands that the decision is not a musical one but rather one about prayer, about people’s needs for prayer. It will now be a different kind of search process — one that is based on learning how the Dead Sea sect of Jews prayed 2,100 years ago.”
For Joshua Davidson, senior rabbi at the Upper East Side’s Temple Emanu-El, the session on the intersection of New Age and traditional Judaism seemed to present possibilities. “The New Age rituals allow for a more personal interpretation of traditional liturgical rubrics,” he said. “It’s clear that in more traditional worship settings, it’s important to personalize the lessons of the liturgy, to personalize the communal and historical narrative to engage individual worshippers.”
While warning that “there are certain lines that shouldn’t be crossed,” Rabbi Davidson said, “If we are to engage our generation, and future generations, we have to be really open-minded how we go forward.”
Rabbi Tully Harcsztark, principal of the Modern Orthodox day school SAR, said he has “long been trying to figure out how academics and Jewish communal professionals could work together. Bringing these two groups together, for me, that’s the compelling part — bridging theory and practice.”
In terms of putting the academics’ insights into practice, he urged patience. “It’s too soon right now; these are not linear things. I think we have to spend some time at the meta level, to reflect on the process, dig deeper, build a shared vocabulary.”
For Ayelet Cohen, a former pulpit rabbi at Congregation Beth Simchat Torah in the West Village and now the director of the Center for Jewish Living at the JCC in Manhattan, the chance to meet with rabbinic colleagues across the denominations was “stimulating” and one that could lead to collaboration and innovation.
“The JCC is a wide-tent community organization, and while we don’t gather for prayer, I can imagine program platforms where we could integrate these ideas,” she said. She mentioned the JCC’s Shabbat dinner program and its night of learning for Shavuot.
Undergirding the LEAP program is Rabbi Kula’s subtle critique of Jewish establishment institutions, their approach to Jewish life and how they have framed the debate in the wake of recent Pew Research Center findings about Jewish attitudes and practice. The central narrative, post-Pew, the rabbi said, “is that we have a problem of erosion, of assimilation, of engagement. We invest in attachment programs. Birthright, for instance, is not about ideas but about attachment. We don’t care what the attachment does, and we never ask, does it actually help people flourish as human beings?
“Our claim is that we don’t have an identity problem, a group pride problem. What we have is a weakening of legacy institutions, like all of America. What we have is a serious R&D problem, an ideas and practice deficiency. The products and services and wisdom are themselves in need of reimagining.”
Asked if some of the rabbinic translations of the cutting-edge academic research might lead to a dumbing down, Rabbi Hirschfield dismissed the fear, saying, “Dumbing down is how people talk about popularization when they’re not controlling it.”
For the Katz Center’s director, Steven Weitzman, the program “isn’t just about the information our fellows are teaching. It’s to give rabbis an idea of how scholars think about Jewish culture today, or the inner life of Jews, or what constitutes authenticity in Judaism — the range of questions they bring to the table.
“Our hope,” he said, “is that it helps them to think in new ways about practical questions.”
robert@jewishweek.orgEnjoy the issue.
The Editors.
P.S. Our website is always there for you with breaking news and exclusive videos, blogs, opinion and advice columns, and more. Check it out.
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---------------------
BETWEEN THE LINES Gary Rosenblatt
Bibi Soothes GA Crowd; Focus On Youth Continues
Prime minister signals reset with White House; millennials want a seat at the table.
Gary Rosenblatt
Editor And Publisher
Gary Rosenblatt
Washington, D.C. — The appearance of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was the headline of the annual General Assembly (GA) of the Jewish Federations of North America here this week. But it was what he and his Likud coalition represents to the various constituencies in his audience — rather than what he said in his 30-minute speech on Tuesday — that is the more intriguing story of this year’s conference.
One day after an apparently successful White House meeting with President Obama, with both men on their best behavior and focused more on future cooperation than past differences, Netanyahu received enthusiastic applause when he asserted that “Israel has no better friend than America, and America has no better friend than Israel.” He praised the U.S. for its “generous support” and made reference to his “wonderful discussion with President Obama on assistance.” The Israeli leader also reiterated his pledge made to Obama on Monday that he will continue to seek a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
That’s what the 3,000 delegates of lay and professional federation leaders — and surely most American Jews — wanted to hear. The past several years of increasingly sharp differences between Jerusalem and Washington, and specifically Obama and Netanyahu, over Mideast policy, most notably the Iran nuclear deal, have made Jews in this country uncomfortable. They want to see a reset of the two leaders’ relationship and a renewed effort on both sides to strengthen U.S.-Israel ties.
Netanyahu did not break new ground in expressing his appreciation for the Jewish federation system and for supporters of Israel. He did not speak of the Iran deal or of the month-long series of violent attacks by young Palestinians against individual Jews. Instead, he sought to assure this prominent cross-section of American Jews, many of whom take exception to the Orthodox control over issues of religious and personal status in Israel, by guaranteeing that “all Jews can feel at home in Israel — Reform, Orthodox and Conservative.”
Still, with the increasing numbers of millennials at the GA — one JFNA spokesman estimated that delegates under 35 numbered roughly 500, or 17 percent — there was also the inevitable tension between the younger set and their parents’ generation regarding attitudes toward Israel and Jewish life.
At one of several breakout sessions on millennials, a comment that it’s time for Israeli policies to be discussed and debated more openly received enthusiastic applause from the younger people in the room.
Jacob Abudaram, 22, a senior at the University of Michigan who was a panelist at the session, told me later that “even behind closed doors we’re often unable to have these discussions about Israel and how we choose to identify Jewishly.” He said he and many others of his generation feel deeply connected to Israel but believe Jerusalem should be taking the initiative in working toward peace with the Palestinians.
“Israel should be doing more, but it’s something of a taboo subject” at many American Jewish forums because the older generation believes it should show support by following Israel’s lead. Abudaram feels younger people should have “a seat at the table” in making communal decisions, even if they don’t have the wealth and generosity that their elders do.
“I’d like to see millennials and older Jews talking about issues of Jewish values, tradition and history — not just talking about the role of millennials,” he said.
Beth Cousens, the San Francisco-based head of the JFNA’s Jewish education and engagement office, helped plan a millennials session and took part in it. She said such discussions are ongoing and focus on integrating the different approaches of younger and older Jews in how they express their shared values of social justice and repairing the world. The millennials, she said, are less inclined to join existing organizations, preferring to “do things themselves.”
How this will play out in terms of millennials’ support for Israel and their assumption of positions of leadership in existing Jewish organizations remains to be seen, she said.
One observer noted that “the price we pay for engaging younger Jews is actually listening to what they have to say, even if we don’t agree with their views. And it’s well worth the effort.”
Call For ‘Cryo-Diplomacy’
While Netanyahu had little to say about next steps in the volatile Middle East, several American policy experts who spoke at the three-day conference agreed that while there is no hope for full peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority at this time, it is important to take small steps to preserve the goal of creating two states.
“Vacuums are always filled by the worst possible people,” asserted Ambassador Dennis Ross, the veteran Mideast policy planner. He suggested steps on the ground like a halt in new settlement building and Israel-Palestinian cooperation to tamp down the current violence.
David Makovsky, who was part of Secretary of State John Kerry’s team working toward peace talks last year, urged that there be no cutoff of funding for the Palestinian Authority because it would end vital Israel-Palestinian cooperation on security in the West Bank. He said that since three previous U.S. attempts to tackle all the final-status Israel-Palestinian issues at once failed, “it’s time to go for singles and doubles,” more modest efforts that address specific problems.
Ilan Goldenberg and Laura Blumenfeld, who also served on the Kerry team, agreed that the immediate goal should be preservation of the two-state solution. Blumenfeld called for “cryo-diplomacy, a way to freeze things in place so they don’t get worse.” Goldenberg suggested allowing Palestinians to worship at the Al-Aksa mosque on Fridays and calling on Palestinian leaders to tone down their vengeful rhetoric.
Storytelling
Has An Impact
The theme of this year’s GA was “Think Forward,” a somewhat generic concept that embodies the branding challenge for JFNA, which is not associated with a clear and specific mission. Rather, like the federations it is made up of, the umbrella group supports efforts to help Jews in Israel, America and around the world, dealing with a range of issues from health care to poverty to Jewish identity.
Several JFNA speakers asserted that the group “touches more Jewish lives on the planet” than any other.
One effective means of dramatizing JFNA’s reach was evident in the opening plenary on Sunday when several celebrities offered their personal Jewish narratives. Like most GAs, this one crammed in too many speakers who spoke too long. And there was no logical connection to their stories. But each on its own was powerful.
Three Jews in their 20s told of their experiences in drawing closer to their Jewish identity through Birthright Israel, the free 10-day trip for young Jews, and other Jewish programs; Rosalie Abella, the first Jewish female Supreme Court Justice in Canada, spoke of how her parents’ survival of the Holocaust set her on a path to seek justice; actress Debra Messing shared her experience of being discriminated against as the only Jew in her Rhode Island school and later expressing her Jewish values, after the success of the hit TV show “Will and Grace,” in speaking out on gay rights and AIDS issues.
David Gregory, the former host of NBC’s “Meet The Press” and author of the memoir “How’s Your Faith?” captivated the crowd when he offered a deeply personal and candid talk on his Jewish journey. Growing up in an interfaith family, he had only tenuous ties to his Judaism until well into adulthood.
He noted that his father, who was Jewish, died late last week and that he was flying out to his funeral in California the next day — as well as celebrating the bar mitzvah of his son next Shabbat. The painful experience of renewing fragile ties with his father in the last year brought “moments of holiness,” a tearful Gregory said. He encouraged his listeners to ask themselves what they believe, to “live inside the question,” and “make peace with people in your life you care about.”
Gary@jewishweek.org
Read More
---------------------MUSINGS
Rabbi David Wolpe
How To Tell A True Jew
Upright kneeling: The Jewish posture in this world is supposed to be full, straight and proud. “Son of man, stand on your feet that I may speak to you,” begins God’s message to Ezekiel. Yet at the same time humility, acknowledging one’s smallness before the Creator, is Jewish. One needs both — upright kneeling.
Silent screaming: When Pharaoh’s daughter comes upon Moses the Torah says, “Behold — a child crying.” She saw him but did not hear him. Quiet for fear of those eager to fulfill Pharaoh’s decree to kill Jewish children, Moses cried silently. For generations Jews did not have the safety to cry out loud. They cried, but without sound — silent screaming.
Motionless dance: At moments, in study, in prayer, with another person, one feels great spiritual joy. The soul is in joyous motion. Yet it is not always possible or appropriate to physically express what one spiritually feels. Sitting without a movement, one may still be dancing — motionless dance.
I would not presume to say this is what the rabbi meant. But to me, this is what the rabbi means.
Rabbi David Wolpe is spiritual leader of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles. Follow him on Twitter: @RabbiWolpe. His latest book, “David: The Divided Heart” (Yale University Press), has recently been published.Read More
---------------------
Holiday season ice-skating inside the Houston Galleria mall. Wikimedia Commons
TRAVEL
Where Chanukah Is Really Big
Hilary Danailova
Travel Writer
_JWMG
Featured on NYBLUEPRINT
"Shut up Trump"
Maya Klausner
Editor
This afternoon highly valued Jewish Week staff writer and journalistic veteran Steve Lipman was quoted saying, "Shut up Trump."
Lipman, who didn't couch the heated comment in any specific context and was talking to no one in particular, except for perhaps an apparition of Donald Trump's perennially pouting visage, seems to have simply had enough.
Read More
---------------------
Israeli Doctor Learns The Grass Is Greener On The Other SideBETWEEN THE LINES Gary Rosenblatt
Bibi Soothes GA Crowd; Focus On Youth Continues
Prime minister signals reset with White House; millennials want a seat at the table.
Gary Rosenblatt
Editor And Publisher
Gary Rosenblatt
Washington, D.C. — The appearance of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was the headline of the annual General Assembly (GA) of the Jewish Federations of North America here this week. But it was what he and his Likud coalition represents to the various constituencies in his audience — rather than what he said in his 30-minute speech on Tuesday — that is the more intriguing story of this year’s conference.
One day after an apparently successful White House meeting with President Obama, with both men on their best behavior and focused more on future cooperation than past differences, Netanyahu received enthusiastic applause when he asserted that “Israel has no better friend than America, and America has no better friend than Israel.” He praised the U.S. for its “generous support” and made reference to his “wonderful discussion with President Obama on assistance.” The Israeli leader also reiterated his pledge made to Obama on Monday that he will continue to seek a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
That’s what the 3,000 delegates of lay and professional federation leaders — and surely most American Jews — wanted to hear. The past several years of increasingly sharp differences between Jerusalem and Washington, and specifically Obama and Netanyahu, over Mideast policy, most notably the Iran nuclear deal, have made Jews in this country uncomfortable. They want to see a reset of the two leaders’ relationship and a renewed effort on both sides to strengthen U.S.-Israel ties.
Netanyahu did not break new ground in expressing his appreciation for the Jewish federation system and for supporters of Israel. He did not speak of the Iran deal or of the month-long series of violent attacks by young Palestinians against individual Jews. Instead, he sought to assure this prominent cross-section of American Jews, many of whom take exception to the Orthodox control over issues of religious and personal status in Israel, by guaranteeing that “all Jews can feel at home in Israel — Reform, Orthodox and Conservative.”
Still, with the increasing numbers of millennials at the GA — one JFNA spokesman estimated that delegates under 35 numbered roughly 500, or 17 percent — there was also the inevitable tension between the younger set and their parents’ generation regarding attitudes toward Israel and Jewish life.
At one of several breakout sessions on millennials, a comment that it’s time for Israeli policies to be discussed and debated more openly received enthusiastic applause from the younger people in the room.
Jacob Abudaram, 22, a senior at the University of Michigan who was a panelist at the session, told me later that “even behind closed doors we’re often unable to have these discussions about Israel and how we choose to identify Jewishly.” He said he and many others of his generation feel deeply connected to Israel but believe Jerusalem should be taking the initiative in working toward peace with the Palestinians.
“Israel should be doing more, but it’s something of a taboo subject” at many American Jewish forums because the older generation believes it should show support by following Israel’s lead. Abudaram feels younger people should have “a seat at the table” in making communal decisions, even if they don’t have the wealth and generosity that their elders do.
“I’d like to see millennials and older Jews talking about issues of Jewish values, tradition and history — not just talking about the role of millennials,” he said.
Beth Cousens, the San Francisco-based head of the JFNA’s Jewish education and engagement office, helped plan a millennials session and took part in it. She said such discussions are ongoing and focus on integrating the different approaches of younger and older Jews in how they express their shared values of social justice and repairing the world. The millennials, she said, are less inclined to join existing organizations, preferring to “do things themselves.”
How this will play out in terms of millennials’ support for Israel and their assumption of positions of leadership in existing Jewish organizations remains to be seen, she said.
One observer noted that “the price we pay for engaging younger Jews is actually listening to what they have to say, even if we don’t agree with their views. And it’s well worth the effort.”
Call For ‘Cryo-Diplomacy’
While Netanyahu had little to say about next steps in the volatile Middle East, several American policy experts who spoke at the three-day conference agreed that while there is no hope for full peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority at this time, it is important to take small steps to preserve the goal of creating two states.
“Vacuums are always filled by the worst possible people,” asserted Ambassador Dennis Ross, the veteran Mideast policy planner. He suggested steps on the ground like a halt in new settlement building and Israel-Palestinian cooperation to tamp down the current violence.
David Makovsky, who was part of Secretary of State John Kerry’s team working toward peace talks last year, urged that there be no cutoff of funding for the Palestinian Authority because it would end vital Israel-Palestinian cooperation on security in the West Bank. He said that since three previous U.S. attempts to tackle all the final-status Israel-Palestinian issues at once failed, “it’s time to go for singles and doubles,” more modest efforts that address specific problems.
Ilan Goldenberg and Laura Blumenfeld, who also served on the Kerry team, agreed that the immediate goal should be preservation of the two-state solution. Blumenfeld called for “cryo-diplomacy, a way to freeze things in place so they don’t get worse.” Goldenberg suggested allowing Palestinians to worship at the Al-Aksa mosque on Fridays and calling on Palestinian leaders to tone down their vengeful rhetoric.
Storytelling
Has An Impact
The theme of this year’s GA was “Think Forward,” a somewhat generic concept that embodies the branding challenge for JFNA, which is not associated with a clear and specific mission. Rather, like the federations it is made up of, the umbrella group supports efforts to help Jews in Israel, America and around the world, dealing with a range of issues from health care to poverty to Jewish identity.
Several JFNA speakers asserted that the group “touches more Jewish lives on the planet” than any other.
One effective means of dramatizing JFNA’s reach was evident in the opening plenary on Sunday when several celebrities offered their personal Jewish narratives. Like most GAs, this one crammed in too many speakers who spoke too long. And there was no logical connection to their stories. But each on its own was powerful.
Three Jews in their 20s told of their experiences in drawing closer to their Jewish identity through Birthright Israel, the free 10-day trip for young Jews, and other Jewish programs; Rosalie Abella, the first Jewish female Supreme Court Justice in Canada, spoke of how her parents’ survival of the Holocaust set her on a path to seek justice; actress Debra Messing shared her experience of being discriminated against as the only Jew in her Rhode Island school and later expressing her Jewish values, after the success of the hit TV show “Will and Grace,” in speaking out on gay rights and AIDS issues.
David Gregory, the former host of NBC’s “Meet The Press” and author of the memoir “How’s Your Faith?” captivated the crowd when he offered a deeply personal and candid talk on his Jewish journey. Growing up in an interfaith family, he had only tenuous ties to his Judaism until well into adulthood.
He noted that his father, who was Jewish, died late last week and that he was flying out to his funeral in California the next day — as well as celebrating the bar mitzvah of his son next Shabbat. The painful experience of renewing fragile ties with his father in the last year brought “moments of holiness,” a tearful Gregory said. He encouraged his listeners to ask themselves what they believe, to “live inside the question,” and “make peace with people in your life you care about.”
Gary@jewishweek.org
Read More
---------------------MUSINGS
Rabbi David Wolpe
How To Tell A True Jew
In the words of Menachem Mendel of Vorki, the signs are 'upright kneeling, silent screaming and motionless dance.'
Rabbi David Wolpe
Menachem Mendel of Vorki said you could tell a true Jew by “upright kneeling, silent screaming and motionless dance.” Here is one possible take on that enigmatic phrase:Upright kneeling: The Jewish posture in this world is supposed to be full, straight and proud. “Son of man, stand on your feet that I may speak to you,” begins God’s message to Ezekiel. Yet at the same time humility, acknowledging one’s smallness before the Creator, is Jewish. One needs both — upright kneeling.
Silent screaming: When Pharaoh’s daughter comes upon Moses the Torah says, “Behold — a child crying.” She saw him but did not hear him. Quiet for fear of those eager to fulfill Pharaoh’s decree to kill Jewish children, Moses cried silently. For generations Jews did not have the safety to cry out loud. They cried, but without sound — silent screaming.
Motionless dance: At moments, in study, in prayer, with another person, one feels great spiritual joy. The soul is in joyous motion. Yet it is not always possible or appropriate to physically express what one spiritually feels. Sitting without a movement, one may still be dancing — motionless dance.
I would not presume to say this is what the rabbi meant. But to me, this is what the rabbi means.
Rabbi David Wolpe is spiritual leader of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles. Follow him on Twitter: @RabbiWolpe. His latest book, “David: The Divided Heart” (Yale University Press), has recently been published.Read More
---------------------
Holiday season ice-skating inside the Houston Galleria mall. Wikimedia Commons
TRAVEL
Where Chanukah Is Really Big
Hilary Danailova
Travel Writer
A little light is nice — but since everything is on a grander scale in Houston, winter truly is a festival of lights, thousands of them, for Chanukah and beyond. You’ll find them twinkling from the windows of houses; illuminating trees and streetlamps in the city’s many characteristic neighborhoods; the Ann and Stephen Kaufman Jewish Book & Arts Fair at the Evelyn Rubenstein Jewish Community Center, where 10,000 Houstonians annually attend two weeks of literary talks, films, performances, and other cultural programs. Only this weekend, alongside three films, you can catch a concert of Mediterranean folk music by the Berlin-Tel Aviv band Baladino; a culinary demonstration for “The Vilna Vegetarian Cookbook”; and an evening with New Yorker cartoonist Bruce Eric Kaplan exclusively for 20- and 30-somethings.
This kind of diversity reflects a city whose sprawl can be intimidating for the visitor — but which, once discovered, can be a surprisingly captivating place. Oggi and I most recently visited friends here; as always, I marveled at the sheer immensity of urban Houston, the endless highways and even more endless neighborhoods, wondering how our friends found their way home at night.
It helps to approach Houston from some kind of angle — whether social, arts-oriented (Houston has one the country’s most sophisticated theater and fine arts scenes), or Jewish. Here in the Bible Belt, Houstonian Jews are enthusiastically communal, and South Texan Jewry has flourished all the more due to a post-Katrina influx of Louisiana families.
At no time of year is this more evident than during Chanukah, when Houstonians celebrate by taking full advantage of the mild Southern winter. A spectacular fireworks show and a rock concert by the band 8th Day are the headlining events for Houston’s 20th anniversary City Hall menorah lighting, which as always is organized by Chabad. Many urban menorah lightings include latkes; Houston’s involves an entire Jewish food quarter, along with dozens of children’s activities and a live statue of Judah Maccabee.
The extremely active Chabad folks in Houston kick things off with a pre-Chanukah family party on Nov. 22, where locals can shop for gifts at a bazaar, nosh on holiday treats, and try their luck with raffles. But for many revelers in this sports-mad city, the Chanukah highlight is Chabad’s annual holiday basketball night, Hoops and Hanukkah with the Houston Rockets. This year’s event features a game against the Los Angeles Lakers on Dec. 12, with a menorah lighting beforehand and a dance crew entertaining the crowd with acrobatic antics.
The Reform Congregation Emanu El lies just west of the museum district, and hosts “Light the Lights,” a lively musical Chanukah celebration on Dec. 5. After a lighting of the menorah, Cantor Mark Perman will be joined by other musicians for a concert of Broadway Jewish songs, Chanukah music, and other tunes of the season. The following weekend, the temple holds one of the city’s many Chanukah latke suppers, open to the public.
For youngsters, the marvelously fun Children’s Museum of Houston is a favorite any time of year — but especially during the holidays. “Hands-on Chanukah” on Dec. 3 is a family party with cookie decorating, face painting, and a PJ Library concert. But there is plenty to do all season long, with a special interactive exhibit, “Seasons of Sharing,” spotlighting traditions around the world through Jan. 4.
Here in the Western world, shopping is a near-universal tradition. At the Houston Galleria, the largest mall in Texas (which is really saying something), December crowds shop in the glow of a giant menorah; the annual mall lighting, organized by Chabad, has become as much a part of December holiday-making as the Christmas tree.
Chanukah is not traditionally a holiday for Jewish travel — but the public Chanukah celebrations that have become popular in cities around the world reveal a lot about Jewish visibility, community and pride. Just as carolers on the library steps or twinkly red lights delight revelers of all faiths (or no faith), concerts of Jewish music, latke parties and public menorah lightings draw increasingly diverse audiences — illuminating, sometimes literally, the vibrancy of Jewish life.
“I love Chanukah. Chanukah is awesome,” enthused Rabbi Mendy Traxler, who as program director at Chabad Outreach of Houston is busily organizing events for his favorite winter festival. “It’s a holiday that speaks a message to the entire world. It’s about spreading light in the darkness, and I think we could all use a little of that right now.”
editor@jewishweek.org
---------------------_JWMG
Featured on NYBLUEPRINT
"Shut up Trump"
Maya Klausner
Editor
This afternoon highly valued Jewish Week staff writer and journalistic veteran Steve Lipman was quoted saying, "Shut up Trump."
Lipman, who didn't couch the heated comment in any specific context and was talking to no one in particular, except for perhaps an apparition of Donald Trump's perennially pouting visage, seems to have simply had enough.
Read More
---------------------
Wikimedia commons
Israeli doctor arrested in prescriptions for cannabis bust
JTA
This Week
An Israeli doctor was arrested on suspicion that he took bribes to write recommendations for patients to receive medical marijuana.
The 64-year-old anesthesiologist manages a department dealing with patient pain at a hospital in central Israel, according to police.
An alleged accomplice also was arrested and accused of bringing in the “patients” and cutting the deals. Ten other alleged accomplices also were arrested, according to police.
Patients must obtain a doctor’s recommendation to receive medical cannabis, which is then approved by the Health Ministry.
The doctor allegedly received more than $3,000 per recommendation for a few dozen patients, according to reports.
Over 22,000 Israelis are medically approved to use cannabis, about two-thirds for chronic pain and another nearly one-third for cancer treatments.
Rabbi Rick Jacobs during his keynote address at URJ Biennial last week in Orlando. Courtesy of URJ
He hit them right at their strongest — and weakest — point.
All the social justice issues of the day were there on the agenda at last week’s Reform Biennial — the post-Ferguson race wars, climate change, immigration reform, gender equality. Tikkun olam was everywhere at the Orlando World Center Marriott in Orlando, Fla., as 5,000 Reform Jews gathered in a spirit of repairing the world; it is the glue that cements the faith of many Reform Jews.
But as his flock sat rapt, Rabbi Rick Jacobs, the leader of the Reform movement, Judaism’s largest denomination by a mile, delivered a pointed warning last Thursday night at his keynote address: tikkun olam divorced from tradition is doomed to fail.
“Social justice not grounded in text and ritual is ephemeral and unsustainable,” exhorted Rabbi Jacobs, as he paced the stage and gestured dramatically. “Like a bouquet of fresh flowers, it is destined to dry up and wither. It cannot be easily passed down to the next generation.”
The Biennial, the Reform movement’s largest gathering, this year attracted delegations from more than 500 congregations including 450 rabbis, 250 congregational presidents and 120 cantors. Rabbi Jacob’s keynote is usually a highlight of the Biennial, often setting the movement on a new path; last time around he articulated the concept of “audacious hospitality,” pushing the movement to be as welcoming as possible to those who might be considered outsiders. That philosophy reached a high-water mark in Orlando when the movement adopted what is believed to be the most far-reaching resolution on transgender rights of any major religious organization.
But this time around, Rabbi Jacobs cut to the heart of a debate in Jewish circles about the application of Jewish values.
Reform continuity, and the danger of “universalism at the expense of particularism,” in the words of Rabbi Jacobs, became a focus of the conference, even as breakout sessions focused heavily on the social justice issues of the day.
In recent years, the Reform movement, which once prided itself on a departure from traditional observance, or halacha, is slowly moving back towards the center. The new Reform High Holiday prayer book, or machzor, released earlier this year, includes significantly more Hebrew and traditional liturgy than versions past. The same holds true of the most recent Reform siddur, “Mishkan T’filah,” released in 2007 and used in URJ-affiliated congregations around the world. Morning and evening prayer services were held every day of the conference, and on Shabbat a kosher option was available. And while “classical” Reform rabbis sometimes shunned kipas, at this year’s conference they were seen generously sprinkled throughout the crowd, on male and female heads alike.
The Reform movement appears healthy — the 2013 Pew Center’s “Portrait of American Jewry” found that 35 percent of American Jews consider themselves Reform, more than Orthodox, Conservative and “Other” combined (Jews who don’t identify with any denomination make up the remainder). However, new findings from the 2014 Pew “Religious Landscape Study” leave room for concern. Results show that the U.S. public overall is becoming “less religious,” with Pew’s 2007 “Religious Landscape Study” finding that 83 percent of adults surveyed would describe themselves as religiously affiliated, compared with 77 percent in 2014. The growth in non-affiliation is driven largely by the millennial generation, those born between 1981 and 1996, according to the study.
A broad, humanitarian focus aids the movement’s popularity, said Rabbi Jacobs. While those who “claim a monopoly on Jewish authenticity” — the Orthodox — pay fastidious attention to kashrut, Shabbat observance and making sure there is no chametz on Passover, said Rabbi Jacobs, there is too little concern for more universal concerns, including income equality and the rights of Arab citizens in Israel.
“Prophet Amos railed against divorcing ritual observance from public and private ethics,” said Rabbi Jacob, quoting scripture to thundering applause from the crowd. “Our movement believes it is impossible to detach tikkun olam from serious Judaism — that sets us apart.”
Still, wooing the next generation of Reform Jews solely with a mission of social justice, a message that speaks to a demographic that is seeking meaning but is increasingly skeptical of organized religion, could come at a serious price.
“A vision of Judaism that stops there is dangerously limited,” said the lanky Rabbi Jacobs, a former dancer, as he strode across the stage during his keynote address. “Just as we cannot build and sustain our Jewish community on ritual and study, neither can we build and sustain our Jewish identity solely on being good citizens of the world.”
That tension was a recurrent theme in the breakout learning sessions over the course of the five-day Biennial, as educators exchanged challenges and successes regarding engaging the next generation of Reform Jews.
Allison Levin, a youth department volunteer at Congregation Beth Or in Maple Glen, Pa., co-led a session on innovative models of synagogue-based youth engagement. The 1,000-family Montgomery County synagogue has a thriving youth department, with 600 children from kindergarten through 12th grade. The key, she said, is re-establishing the synagogue as a “social center” for children and parents.
“It’s too common for parents to view synagogue as a temporary obligation for their kids, and then disappear after the bar or bat mitzvah,” she said. Creative programming for young children, including “Munchkin Minyan,” a prayer service for tots and their parents, has the potential for lasting power. “Parents are looking for community as much as their kids.”
April Baskin, URJ’s new vice president of “audacious hospitality,” the movement’s catchphrase to describe an aggressive new outreach initiative, gave several sessions over the course of the conference about embracing multiracial Jews. The conversation, which touched on racial profiling, police violence and the recent protests in Ferguson, Mo., blended the movement’s push for social consciousness with the prerogative of engaging new members.
“Jews of color are perpetual strangers in Judaism,” said Baskin during a session titled “I’m Not a Custodian, I’m a Congregant: Embracing Racial Diversity in the Synagogue.”
“Rarely does a Jew of color walk into any space and know they’ll be treated as a Jew, rather than as an outcast or even a source of danger,” she said.
Baskin, from a multiracial background herself, used a continuum to describe the experience of many Jews of color, who, according to studies, now make up about 10 percent of the Jewish population. The spectrum of self-identity ranged from “outcast” and “foreigner” to “visitor,” “token member” and finally, “member.”
“Ensuring that Jews of color feel comfortable in our holy spaces will advance our principles of inclusion and tikkun olam, and expand our membership,” said Baskin.
Similarly, in a resolution affirming the equality of transgender people and welcoming them into congregations, camps and other Reform Jewish institutions, the movement made clear its commitment to present-day issues of public concern. The resolution passed unanimously on the second day of the conference; it was the only item from the five-day conference to generate headlines in mainstream media.
“This is who we are as a movement,” said URJ Chairman Stephen Sacks. “We were the first movement to welcome gays and lesbians into our communities: this resolution is the next step.”
In a session called “Beyond Bathroom Signs,” Rabbi Erin Mason, director of the URJ’s Camp Newman in Santa Rosa, Calif., spoke about the camp’s decision to open its doors to transgender campers and counselors, a move it kept quiet for the past two years in order not to upset parents.
“Now that this resolution is passed, we can be open and proud of our decision,” said Rabbi Mason, who described the staff’s decision to accommodate one camper who preferred the pronouns “they/their/them” to any gender-specific pronouns.
“I’m really proud of the movement,” said Adam, 16, a leader in the Reform movement national youth group, the North American Federation of Temple Youth (NFTY), who asked us to only use his first name. “I think passing a resolution like this demonstrates a deep social consciousness and an understanding of what the younger generation cares about.”
In addition to the movement’s bid to win over young souls by taking a stance on contemporary issues, Danny Meyer, CEO of Union Square Hospitality Group (well known for the hamburger super-chain Shake Shack) and a panelist at the conference, gave some hard-won advice about truly successful “audacious hospitality.” (Meyer’s recent bestselling book, “Setting the Table,” discussed the power of hospitality to transform a business.)
“Success is 49 parts how good you are at what you do, and 51 parts how good you make people feel,” he said. Institutionalized religion makes the grave error of believing they have a captive audience, he said. “Don’t make the mistake of thinking young people need you,” he added, quipping that after this word of advice he would start to charge. “Hospitality is different than service. You have to give young people a reason to stay.”
That “reason to stay,” Rabbi Jacobs stressed, has to marry Jewish tradition with a deep caring for those outside the community, in a way that perhaps only Reform Jews can do.
editor@jewishweek.org
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New York
Rabbis, Academics In New Partnership
In a first, Clal and UPenn team up to bring ivory tower ideas to Jews in the pews.
Robert Goldblum
Managing Editor
Scholar Eva Mroczek leads a session on prayer in ancient Israel. Courtesy of Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies
The ivory tower and the synagogue near you could hardly be more different.
In one, solitary postdoctoral fellows pore over ancient texts in search of often arcane, though potentially transformative, knowledge; for instance, the “emotional, embodied experience of prayer” in the Qumran community, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered.
In the other, a community of worshippers athers (with less and less frequency these days), and while prayer is surely on the agenda, the more mundane pressures of modern life impinge: bar/bat mitzvah schedules, the building-fund campaign, how to integrate intermarried congregants; all of it can compromise the spiritual and meaning-making project of synagogue life.
In a potentially bold stroke, Rabbis Irwin Kula and Brad Hirschfield of Clal – the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, think they have a way to unite academia and the wider Jewish community. The goal: to bring the ideas uncovered by those postdoc fellows to Jews in the pews, and those beyond the synagogue. And in that way to “reimagine Judaism on the ground,” according to Rabbi Kula.
In what is believed to be a first-of-its-kind program, Clal is teaming up with the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania to train a cohort of multi-denominational rabbis to be “translators,” as Rabbi Kula calls them.
“We need to have them be bridges,” the rabbi told The Jewish Week on the eve of the program’s first session last week. “How can we take this serious research, this peer-reviewed research being done in Jewish studies programs, and figure out what difference it makes to the lived lives of people we deal with? How can we take this ‘private good’ that’s been living in the ivory tower, and make it a ‘public good?’”
The program’s playful acronym, LEAP, suggests the movement from the academy to the people: it stands for leverage, expand and popularize.
The guiding metaphor for the pilot program, Rabbi Kula explained, is drawn from medicine: the idea that basic science (discoveries in the lab) leads to applied science (getting those drugs and procedures to patients). “From bench to bedside” is how it’s described in the medical literature in what is referred to as “translational medicine.”
In Jewish life, the rabbi said, “we have all this high-end knowledge — the basic science — in the university. And millions of dollars are being spent on these Jewish studies programs.
“But we have no applied science,” he said, no one to take those ideas and that knowledge, translate it, make it accessible and communicate it beyond denominational lines to the Jewish community.
The program, then, is looking for a few good Deepak Chopras to bridge the disconnect.
“For us as a research institution,” said Anne Oravetz Albert, the Katz Center’s director of public programs, “we want the ideas coming out of the Katz Center to be put into terms that are accessible and useful. Our fellows will be doing the teaching and presenting their research, and the rabbis will be trying to figure out how that work can be turned into something meaningful to congregants.”
The first cohort of rabbis comes from a pool of more than 100 that Clal has trained in a program called Rabbis Without Borders. Thirteen, including Rabbis Kula and Hirschfield, met for two days last week at the Katz Center in Philadelphia for the first of three sessions of a yearlong course of study focusing on the inner life of Jews (the pilot runs for two years).
Two scholars at the Katz Center, Eva Mroczek and Rachel Werczberger, spoke about their research into “experiments in community building and prayer practice,” as Rabbi Hirschfield put it, one ancient and the other contemporary. Mroczek focused on the nature of prayer in the Qumran community, and Werczberger on the idea of “Jewish authenticity” as it applied to several Renewal/New Age-type communities in Israel that flourished in the early 2000s but eventually collapsed.
Rabbi Hirschfield was struck with the parallels between Jewish spiritual life more than 2,000 years ago and that life today. “People during the Dead Sea period were figuring out how to pray in the first-person singular. It’s one of the things secular Jews today deal with — the idea that spiritual life starts with me. Our ancestors were dealing with the very same thing.
“To tell people in our community that everyone can be a psalmist like David — that can unleash people’s hearts.”
In terms of the practical applications that might follow from the session on Qumran prayer, Rabbi Hirschfield mentioned a Reform rabbi who is in the midst of a search for a new cantor. “He said he now understands that the decision is not a musical one but rather one about prayer, about people’s needs for prayer. It will now be a different kind of search process — one that is based on learning how the Dead Sea sect of Jews prayed 2,100 years ago.”
For Joshua Davidson, senior rabbi at the Upper East Side’s Temple Emanu-El, the session on the intersection of New Age and traditional Judaism seemed to present possibilities. “The New Age rituals allow for a more personal interpretation of traditional liturgical rubrics,” he said. “It’s clear that in more traditional worship settings, it’s important to personalize the lessons of the liturgy, to personalize the communal and historical narrative to engage individual worshippers.”
While warning that “there are certain lines that shouldn’t be crossed,” Rabbi Davidson said, “If we are to engage our generation, and future generations, we have to be really open-minded how we go forward.”
Rabbi Tully Harcsztark, principal of the Modern Orthodox day school SAR, said he has “long been trying to figure out how academics and Jewish communal professionals could work together. Bringing these two groups together, for me, that’s the compelling part — bridging theory and practice.”
In terms of putting the academics’ insights into practice, he urged patience. “It’s too soon right now; these are not linear things. I think we have to spend some time at the meta level, to reflect on the process, dig deeper, build a shared vocabulary.”
For Ayelet Cohen, a former pulpit rabbi at Congregation Beth Simchat Torah in the West Village and now the director of the Center for Jewish Living at the JCC in Manhattan, the chance to meet with rabbinic colleagues across the denominations was “stimulating” and one that could lead to collaboration and innovation.
“The JCC is a wide-tent community organization, and while we don’t gather for prayer, I can imagine program platforms where we could integrate these ideas,” she said. She mentioned the JCC’s Shabbat dinner program and its night of learning for Shavuot.
Undergirding the LEAP program is Rabbi Kula’s subtle critique of Jewish establishment institutions, their approach to Jewish life and how they have framed the debate in the wake of recent Pew Research Center findings about Jewish attitudes and practice. The central narrative, post-Pew, the rabbi said, “is that we have a problem of erosion, of assimilation, of engagement. We invest in attachment programs. Birthright, for instance, is not about ideas but about attachment. We don’t care what the attachment does, and we never ask, does it actually help people flourish as human beings?
“Our claim is that we don’t have an identity problem, a group pride problem. What we have is a weakening of legacy institutions, like all of America. What we have is a serious R&D problem, an ideas and practice deficiency. The products and services and wisdom are themselves in need of reimagining.”
Asked if some of the rabbinic translations of the cutting-edge academic research might lead to a dumbing down, Rabbi Hirschfield dismissed the fear, saying, “Dumbing down is how people talk about popularization when they’re not controlling it.”
For the Katz Center’s director, Steven Weitzman, the program “isn’t just about the information our fellows are teaching. It’s to give rabbis an idea of how scholars think about Jewish culture today, or the inner life of Jews, or what constitutes authenticity in Judaism — the range of questions they bring to the table.
“Our hope,” he said, “is that it helps them to think in new ways about practical questions.”
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National
The Politics Of Additional Aid For Israel
After Bibi-Obama meeting, local Jewish House members weigh in on the road ahead.
Stewart Ain
Staff Writer
President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu at the White House on Monday. Getty Images
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with President Obama Monday to “focus on how to go forward,” but some believe he should have also tried to make amends with Congressional Democrats — a view rejected by Rep. Steve Israel (D-Queens, L.I.).
“While the optics of the relationship may appear to be tense, the substance of the relationship between the U.S. and Israel — particularly on military and intelligence cooperation — has never been better,” he told The Jewish Week.
The congressman, the highest-ranking Jewish Democrat in the House, said that what really “counts is not the particular mood of a particular leader on a particular day; what counts is what is happening on the ground in Israel between the U.S. and Israeli counterparts — and in that there is no daylight.”
He was reacting to the comments of Seymour Reich, a former chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, who said Netanyahu “created a cleavage not only with the Democratic Party but with the American Jewish community” when he asked them in March to oppose the Iranian nuclear agreement Obama had negotiated.
“He put us on the spot,” Reich said of Netanyahu. “There was great tension and acrimony against those who supported the deal — not only against Democratic officeholders but others.”
But Rep. Israel said, “We need to start focusing on the positive instead of cleavages in the relationship.”
That relationship is so positive, he maintained, that he believes Congress will approve next year an enhanced security package for Israel that will increase American military aid from the current $3 billion annually. Israel reportedly is seeking $5 billion annually.
“I am quite optimistic that this package of security enhancements for Israel will pass on a bipartisan basis next year,” the congressman said. “This is going to be a test. There are many Republican members of Congress who will try to use Israel as a political football and exploit the differences between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu. Now with a new package of security enhancements for Israel we will see whether those members really care about the relationship and will vote for the package. Let them put their money where their mouths are.”
Strong Republican support for Israel — as evidenced by House Speaker John Boehner’s invitation to Netanyahu to address a joint meeting of Congress about his objections to the Iran deal — is expected to be continued by his successor, Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.
Ryan supported the imposition of restrictions on U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority and opposed a unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state. Despite the need for budget cuts, many observers don’t believe Republicans would block increased aid to Israel.
Although the current 10-year framework agreement with Israel for U.S. defense assistance does not expire until 2017, Obama said he wanted to begin renewal discussions now. Rep. Israel said he agrees with that approach, noting, “Some of the enhancements may require changes in Israel’s military infrastructure, as well as ramp-up time.”
After his meeting with Obama, Netanyahu told the American Enterprise Institute, a Conservative think tank, that Obama had told him U.S. military aid to Israel is “also a very solid investment for American security.”
“We’re an ally that doesn’t ask for any American troops,” Netanyahu was quoted as saying. “We never have and we don’t intend to. We can defend ourselves. We just want to have the tools. … You spend on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq a trillion and a half. So that’s five centuries’ worth of support for Israel.”
Netanyahu told Israeli reporters that he and Obama did not “focus on an exact sum, but I presented our needs.”
Israeli media reports said Obama agreed to increase the amount of military aid but did not cite a figure.
Rep. Israel said Congressional approval next year of an enhanced security package would also “be a signal to Iran that we have Israel’s back and that Iran shouldn’t play games.”
Rep. Nita Lowey (D-Westchester, Rockland) insisted in an email that “our bipartisan collective support for Israel has never been stronger, and our military and intelligence cooperation has never been closer. As the ranking member of the Appropriations Subcommittee on State and Foreign Operations, I will continue to do everything in my power to make sure Israel continues to receive our support and to strengthen the steadfast relationship between our two great countries.”
She added that the U.S.-Israel relationship “goes much deeper than any one policy issue.”
Rep. Eliot Engel (D-Westchester, Bronx) echoed those sentiments, saying in an email, “Support for Israel is bipartisan and always has been. Just look at the letter [Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed] Royce and I sent to President [Mahmoud] Abbas last week condemning Palestinian incitement: nearly 370 House members signed on. Presidents come and go. Prime ministers come and go. Even members of Congress come and go. But the U.S.-Israel relationship is unshakable, and support for Israel in Congress is strong and bipartisan.”
Aaron David Miller, a former U.S. peace negotiator and now vice president at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, agreed with Rep. Israel that Netanyahu has nothing to apologize for.
“The main goal of the visit was to turn the proverbial page, it was not a fundamental reset,” he said. “The Iran deal is done and there is no merit in opening it. Now is the time to demonstrate that the U.S.-Israeli relationship still functions.”
Miller acknowledged that “there are a lot of Democrats who are angry and who don’t like the prime minister’s policies when it comes to so many things.” But he questioned how relevant that is going to be “in an election year — Democrats and Republicans will be competing over who loves Israel more.”
Before Netanyahu arrived in the U.S., the Obama administration said a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians was unlikely before Obama left office and that efforts would be focused on managing the situation against a backdrop of five weeks of Palestinian terror attacks.
In a brief press availability with Netanyahu before their meeting, Obama affirmed Israel’s right to defend itself and made no mention of “increased [Israeli] settlements” as being the cause of the violence, a claim Secretary of State John Kerry had made last month.
Peter Joseph, chairman of the Israel Policy Forum, said he heard Netanyahu say repeatedly while here that he supports a two-state solution with a demilitarized Palestinian state that recognizes the Jewish state of Israel.
“I would like to see what steps Israel takes towards a two-state solution that would give the Palestinians some hope and that would be in accord with the expressed wishes of the U.S. and Israelis,” he said. “We have yet to see it.”
Israel’s Channel 2 reported that Netanyahu and Obama agreed to a series of practical steps (which it did not detail) that both Israel and the Palestinian Authority would take to calm tensions and end Palestinian violence that by the beginning of this week had killed 11 Israelis. Another 72 Palestinians were killed by Israeli gunfire, including 45 people who were reportedly attacking or attempting to attack Israelis with knives, guns and cars.
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Gary Rosenblatt
Bibi Soothes GA Crowd; Focus On Youth Continues
Prime minister signals reset with White House; millennials want a seat at the table.
Gary Rosenblatt
Editor And Publisher
Gary Rosenblatt
Washington, D.C. — The appearance of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was the headline of the annual General Assembly (GA) of the Jewish Federations of North America here this week. But it was what he and his Likud coalition represents to the various constituencies in his audience — rather than what he said in his 30-minute speech on Tuesday — that is the more intriguing story of this year’s conference.
One day after an apparently successful White House meeting with President Obama, with both men on their best behavior and focused more on future cooperation than past differences, Netanyahu received enthusiastic applause when he asserted that “Israel has no better friend than America, and America has no better friend than Israel.” He praised the U.S. for its “generous support” and made reference to his “wonderful discussion with President Obama on assistance.” The Israeli leader also reiterated his pledge made to Obama on Monday that he will continue to seek a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
That’s what the 3,000 delegates of lay and professional federation leaders — and surely most American Jews — wanted to hear. The past several years of increasingly sharp differences between Jerusalem and Washington, and specifically Obama and Netanyahu, over Mideast policy, most notably the Iran nuclear deal, have made Jews in this country uncomfortable. They want to see a reset of the two leaders’ relationship and a renewed effort on both sides to strengthen U.S.-Israel ties.
Netanyahu did not break new ground in expressing his appreciation for the Jewish federation system and for supporters of Israel. He did not speak of the Iran deal or of the month-long series of violent attacks by young Palestinians against individual Jews. Instead, he sought to assure this prominent cross-section of American Jews, many of whom take exception to the Orthodox control over issues of religious and personal status in Israel, by guaranteeing that “all Jews can feel at home in Israel — Reform, Orthodox and Conservative.”
Still, with the increasing numbers of millennials at the GA — one JFNA spokesman estimated that delegates under 35 numbered roughly 500, or 17 percent — there was also the inevitable tension between the younger set and their parents’ generation regarding attitudes toward Israel and Jewish life.
At one of several breakout sessions on millennials, a comment that it’s time for Israeli policies to be discussed and debated more openly received enthusiastic applause from the younger people in the room.
Jacob Abudaram, 22, a senior at the University of Michigan who was a panelist at the session, told me later that “even behind closed doors we’re often unable to have these discussions about Israel and how we choose to identify Jewishly.” He said he and many others of his generation feel deeply connected to Israel but believe Jerusalem should be taking the initiative in working toward peace with the Palestinians.
“Israel should be doing more, but it’s something of a taboo subject” at many American Jewish forums because the older generation believes it should show support by following Israel’s lead. Abudaram feels younger people should have “a seat at the table” in making communal decisions, even if they don’t have the wealth and generosity that their elders do.
“I’d like to see millennials and older Jews talking about issues of Jewish values, tradition and history — not just talking about the role of millennials,” he said.
Beth Cousens, the San Francisco-based head of the JFNA’s Jewish education and engagement office, helped plan a millennials session and took part in it. She said such discussions are ongoing and focus on integrating the different approaches of younger and older Jews in how they express their shared values of social justice and repairing the world. The millennials, she said, are less inclined to join existing organizations, preferring to “do things themselves.”
How this will play out in terms of millennials’ support for Israel and their assumption of positions of leadership in existing Jewish organizations remains to be seen, she said.
One observer noted that “the price we pay for engaging younger Jews is actually listening to what they have to say, even if we don’t agree with their views. And it’s well worth the effort.”
Call For ‘Cryo-Diplomacy’
While Netanyahu had little to say about next steps in the volatile Middle East, several American policy experts who spoke at the three-day conference agreed that while there is no hope for full peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority at this time, it is important to take small steps to preserve the goal of creating two states.
“Vacuums are always filled by the worst possible people,” asserted Ambassador Dennis Ross, the veteran Mideast policy planner. He suggested steps on the ground like a halt in new settlement building and Israel-Palestinian cooperation to tamp down the current violence.
David Makovsky, who was part of Secretary of State John Kerry’s team working toward peace talks last year, urged that there be no cutoff of funding for the Palestinian Authority because it would end vital Israel-Palestinian cooperation on security in the West Bank. He said that since three previous U.S. attempts to tackle all the final-status Israel-Palestinian issues at once failed, “it’s time to go for singles and doubles,” more modest efforts that address specific problems.
Ilan Goldenberg and Laura Blumenfeld, who also served on the Kerry team, agreed that the immediate goal should be preservation of the two-state solution. Blumenfeld called for “cryo-diplomacy, a way to freeze things in place so they don’t get worse.” Goldenberg suggested allowing Palestinians to worship at the Al-Aksa mosque on Fridays and calling on Palestinian leaders to tone down their vengeful rhetoric.
Storytelling
Has An Impact
The theme of this year’s GA was “Think Forward,” a somewhat generic concept that embodies the branding challenge for JFNA, which is not associated with a clear and specific mission. Rather, like the federations it is made up of, the umbrella group supports efforts to help Jews in Israel, America and around the world, dealing with a range of issues from health care to poverty to Jewish identity.
Several JFNA speakers asserted that the group “touches more Jewish lives on the planet” than any other.
One effective means of dramatizing JFNA’s reach was evident in the opening plenary on Sunday when several celebrities offered their personal Jewish narratives. Like most GAs, this one crammed in too many speakers who spoke too long. And there was no logical connection to their stories. But each on its own was powerful.
Three Jews in their 20s told of their experiences in drawing closer to their Jewish identity through Birthright Israel, the free 10-day trip for young Jews, and other Jewish programs; Rosalie Abella, the first Jewish female Supreme Court Justice in Canada, spoke of how her parents’ survival of the Holocaust set her on a path to seek justice; actress Debra Messing shared her experience of being discriminated against as the only Jew in her Rhode Island school and later expressing her Jewish values, after the success of the hit TV show “Will and Grace,” in speaking out on gay rights and AIDS issues.
David Gregory, the former host of NBC’s “Meet The Press” and author of the memoir “How’s Your Faith?” captivated the crowd when he offered a deeply personal and candid talk on his Jewish journey. Growing up in an interfaith family, he had only tenuous ties to his Judaism until well into adulthood.
He noted that his father, who was Jewish, died late last week and that he was flying out to his funeral in California the next day — as well as celebrating the bar mitzvah of his son next Shabbat. The painful experience of renewing fragile ties with his father in the last year brought “moments of holiness,” a tearful Gregory said. He encouraged his listeners to ask themselves what they believe, to “live inside the question,” and “make peace with people in your life you care about.”
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The Jewish Week
The 64-year-old anesthesiologist manages a department dealing with patient pain at a hospital in central Israel, according to police.
An alleged accomplice also was arrested and accused of bringing in the “patients” and cutting the deals. Ten other alleged accomplices also were arrested, according to police.
Patients must obtain a doctor’s recommendation to receive medical cannabis, which is then approved by the Health Ministry.
The doctor allegedly received more than $3,000 per recommendation for a few dozen patients, according to reports.
Over 22,000 Israelis are medically approved to use cannabis, about two-thirds for chronic pain and another nearly one-third for cancer treatments.
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TOP STORIES
Staff Writer
TOP STORIES
National
URJ Head Warns Of Limits Of Tikkun Olam
Rabbi Rick Jacobs wades into debate over Jewish values at 5,000-strong Biennial.
Hannah Dreyfus
Rabbi Rick Jacobs during his keynote address at URJ Biennial last week in Orlando. Courtesy of URJ
He hit them right at their strongest — and weakest — point.
All the social justice issues of the day were there on the agenda at last week’s Reform Biennial — the post-Ferguson race wars, climate change, immigration reform, gender equality. Tikkun olam was everywhere at the Orlando World Center Marriott in Orlando, Fla., as 5,000 Reform Jews gathered in a spirit of repairing the world; it is the glue that cements the faith of many Reform Jews.
But as his flock sat rapt, Rabbi Rick Jacobs, the leader of the Reform movement, Judaism’s largest denomination by a mile, delivered a pointed warning last Thursday night at his keynote address: tikkun olam divorced from tradition is doomed to fail.
“Social justice not grounded in text and ritual is ephemeral and unsustainable,” exhorted Rabbi Jacobs, as he paced the stage and gestured dramatically. “Like a bouquet of fresh flowers, it is destined to dry up and wither. It cannot be easily passed down to the next generation.”
The Biennial, the Reform movement’s largest gathering, this year attracted delegations from more than 500 congregations including 450 rabbis, 250 congregational presidents and 120 cantors. Rabbi Jacob’s keynote is usually a highlight of the Biennial, often setting the movement on a new path; last time around he articulated the concept of “audacious hospitality,” pushing the movement to be as welcoming as possible to those who might be considered outsiders. That philosophy reached a high-water mark in Orlando when the movement adopted what is believed to be the most far-reaching resolution on transgender rights of any major religious organization.
But this time around, Rabbi Jacobs cut to the heart of a debate in Jewish circles about the application of Jewish values.
Reform continuity, and the danger of “universalism at the expense of particularism,” in the words of Rabbi Jacobs, became a focus of the conference, even as breakout sessions focused heavily on the social justice issues of the day.
In recent years, the Reform movement, which once prided itself on a departure from traditional observance, or halacha, is slowly moving back towards the center. The new Reform High Holiday prayer book, or machzor, released earlier this year, includes significantly more Hebrew and traditional liturgy than versions past. The same holds true of the most recent Reform siddur, “Mishkan T’filah,” released in 2007 and used in URJ-affiliated congregations around the world. Morning and evening prayer services were held every day of the conference, and on Shabbat a kosher option was available. And while “classical” Reform rabbis sometimes shunned kipas, at this year’s conference they were seen generously sprinkled throughout the crowd, on male and female heads alike.
The Reform movement appears healthy — the 2013 Pew Center’s “Portrait of American Jewry” found that 35 percent of American Jews consider themselves Reform, more than Orthodox, Conservative and “Other” combined (Jews who don’t identify with any denomination make up the remainder). However, new findings from the 2014 Pew “Religious Landscape Study” leave room for concern. Results show that the U.S. public overall is becoming “less religious,” with Pew’s 2007 “Religious Landscape Study” finding that 83 percent of adults surveyed would describe themselves as religiously affiliated, compared with 77 percent in 2014. The growth in non-affiliation is driven largely by the millennial generation, those born between 1981 and 1996, according to the study.
A broad, humanitarian focus aids the movement’s popularity, said Rabbi Jacobs. While those who “claim a monopoly on Jewish authenticity” — the Orthodox — pay fastidious attention to kashrut, Shabbat observance and making sure there is no chametz on Passover, said Rabbi Jacobs, there is too little concern for more universal concerns, including income equality and the rights of Arab citizens in Israel.
“Prophet Amos railed against divorcing ritual observance from public and private ethics,” said Rabbi Jacob, quoting scripture to thundering applause from the crowd. “Our movement believes it is impossible to detach tikkun olam from serious Judaism — that sets us apart.”
Still, wooing the next generation of Reform Jews solely with a mission of social justice, a message that speaks to a demographic that is seeking meaning but is increasingly skeptical of organized religion, could come at a serious price.
“A vision of Judaism that stops there is dangerously limited,” said the lanky Rabbi Jacobs, a former dancer, as he strode across the stage during his keynote address. “Just as we cannot build and sustain our Jewish community on ritual and study, neither can we build and sustain our Jewish identity solely on being good citizens of the world.”
That tension was a recurrent theme in the breakout learning sessions over the course of the five-day Biennial, as educators exchanged challenges and successes regarding engaging the next generation of Reform Jews.
Allison Levin, a youth department volunteer at Congregation Beth Or in Maple Glen, Pa., co-led a session on innovative models of synagogue-based youth engagement. The 1,000-family Montgomery County synagogue has a thriving youth department, with 600 children from kindergarten through 12th grade. The key, she said, is re-establishing the synagogue as a “social center” for children and parents.
“It’s too common for parents to view synagogue as a temporary obligation for their kids, and then disappear after the bar or bat mitzvah,” she said. Creative programming for young children, including “Munchkin Minyan,” a prayer service for tots and their parents, has the potential for lasting power. “Parents are looking for community as much as their kids.”
April Baskin, URJ’s new vice president of “audacious hospitality,” the movement’s catchphrase to describe an aggressive new outreach initiative, gave several sessions over the course of the conference about embracing multiracial Jews. The conversation, which touched on racial profiling, police violence and the recent protests in Ferguson, Mo., blended the movement’s push for social consciousness with the prerogative of engaging new members.
“Jews of color are perpetual strangers in Judaism,” said Baskin during a session titled “I’m Not a Custodian, I’m a Congregant: Embracing Racial Diversity in the Synagogue.”
“Rarely does a Jew of color walk into any space and know they’ll be treated as a Jew, rather than as an outcast or even a source of danger,” she said.
Baskin, from a multiracial background herself, used a continuum to describe the experience of many Jews of color, who, according to studies, now make up about 10 percent of the Jewish population. The spectrum of self-identity ranged from “outcast” and “foreigner” to “visitor,” “token member” and finally, “member.”
“Ensuring that Jews of color feel comfortable in our holy spaces will advance our principles of inclusion and tikkun olam, and expand our membership,” said Baskin.
Similarly, in a resolution affirming the equality of transgender people and welcoming them into congregations, camps and other Reform Jewish institutions, the movement made clear its commitment to present-day issues of public concern. The resolution passed unanimously on the second day of the conference; it was the only item from the five-day conference to generate headlines in mainstream media.
“This is who we are as a movement,” said URJ Chairman Stephen Sacks. “We were the first movement to welcome gays and lesbians into our communities: this resolution is the next step.”
In a session called “Beyond Bathroom Signs,” Rabbi Erin Mason, director of the URJ’s Camp Newman in Santa Rosa, Calif., spoke about the camp’s decision to open its doors to transgender campers and counselors, a move it kept quiet for the past two years in order not to upset parents.
“Now that this resolution is passed, we can be open and proud of our decision,” said Rabbi Mason, who described the staff’s decision to accommodate one camper who preferred the pronouns “they/their/them” to any gender-specific pronouns.
“I’m really proud of the movement,” said Adam, 16, a leader in the Reform movement national youth group, the North American Federation of Temple Youth (NFTY), who asked us to only use his first name. “I think passing a resolution like this demonstrates a deep social consciousness and an understanding of what the younger generation cares about.”
In addition to the movement’s bid to win over young souls by taking a stance on contemporary issues, Danny Meyer, CEO of Union Square Hospitality Group (well known for the hamburger super-chain Shake Shack) and a panelist at the conference, gave some hard-won advice about truly successful “audacious hospitality.” (Meyer’s recent bestselling book, “Setting the Table,” discussed the power of hospitality to transform a business.)
“Success is 49 parts how good you are at what you do, and 51 parts how good you make people feel,” he said. Institutionalized religion makes the grave error of believing they have a captive audience, he said. “Don’t make the mistake of thinking young people need you,” he added, quipping that after this word of advice he would start to charge. “Hospitality is different than service. You have to give young people a reason to stay.”
That “reason to stay,” Rabbi Jacobs stressed, has to marry Jewish tradition with a deep caring for those outside the community, in a way that perhaps only Reform Jews can do.
editor@jewishweek.org
New York
Rabbis, Academics In New Partnership
In a first, Clal and UPenn team up to bring ivory tower ideas to Jews in the pews.
Robert Goldblum
Managing Editor
Scholar Eva Mroczek leads a session on prayer in ancient Israel. Courtesy of Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies
The ivory tower and the synagogue near you could hardly be more different.
In one, solitary postdoctoral fellows pore over ancient texts in search of often arcane, though potentially transformative, knowledge; for instance, the “emotional, embodied experience of prayer” in the Qumran community, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered.
In the other, a community of worshippers athers (with less and less frequency these days), and while prayer is surely on the agenda, the more mundane pressures of modern life impinge: bar/bat mitzvah schedules, the building-fund campaign, how to integrate intermarried congregants; all of it can compromise the spiritual and meaning-making project of synagogue life.
In a potentially bold stroke, Rabbis Irwin Kula and Brad Hirschfield of Clal – the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, think they have a way to unite academia and the wider Jewish community. The goal: to bring the ideas uncovered by those postdoc fellows to Jews in the pews, and those beyond the synagogue. And in that way to “reimagine Judaism on the ground,” according to Rabbi Kula.
In what is believed to be a first-of-its-kind program, Clal is teaming up with the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania to train a cohort of multi-denominational rabbis to be “translators,” as Rabbi Kula calls them.
“We need to have them be bridges,” the rabbi told The Jewish Week on the eve of the program’s first session last week. “How can we take this serious research, this peer-reviewed research being done in Jewish studies programs, and figure out what difference it makes to the lived lives of people we deal with? How can we take this ‘private good’ that’s been living in the ivory tower, and make it a ‘public good?’”
The program’s playful acronym, LEAP, suggests the movement from the academy to the people: it stands for leverage, expand and popularize.
The guiding metaphor for the pilot program, Rabbi Kula explained, is drawn from medicine: the idea that basic science (discoveries in the lab) leads to applied science (getting those drugs and procedures to patients). “From bench to bedside” is how it’s described in the medical literature in what is referred to as “translational medicine.”
In Jewish life, the rabbi said, “we have all this high-end knowledge — the basic science — in the university. And millions of dollars are being spent on these Jewish studies programs.
“But we have no applied science,” he said, no one to take those ideas and that knowledge, translate it, make it accessible and communicate it beyond denominational lines to the Jewish community.
The program, then, is looking for a few good Deepak Chopras to bridge the disconnect.
“For us as a research institution,” said Anne Oravetz Albert, the Katz Center’s director of public programs, “we want the ideas coming out of the Katz Center to be put into terms that are accessible and useful. Our fellows will be doing the teaching and presenting their research, and the rabbis will be trying to figure out how that work can be turned into something meaningful to congregants.”
The first cohort of rabbis comes from a pool of more than 100 that Clal has trained in a program called Rabbis Without Borders. Thirteen, including Rabbis Kula and Hirschfield, met for two days last week at the Katz Center in Philadelphia for the first of three sessions of a yearlong course of study focusing on the inner life of Jews (the pilot runs for two years).
Two scholars at the Katz Center, Eva Mroczek and Rachel Werczberger, spoke about their research into “experiments in community building and prayer practice,” as Rabbi Hirschfield put it, one ancient and the other contemporary. Mroczek focused on the nature of prayer in the Qumran community, and Werczberger on the idea of “Jewish authenticity” as it applied to several Renewal/New Age-type communities in Israel that flourished in the early 2000s but eventually collapsed.
Rabbi Hirschfield was struck with the parallels between Jewish spiritual life more than 2,000 years ago and that life today. “People during the Dead Sea period were figuring out how to pray in the first-person singular. It’s one of the things secular Jews today deal with — the idea that spiritual life starts with me. Our ancestors were dealing with the very same thing.
“To tell people in our community that everyone can be a psalmist like David — that can unleash people’s hearts.”
In terms of the practical applications that might follow from the session on Qumran prayer, Rabbi Hirschfield mentioned a Reform rabbi who is in the midst of a search for a new cantor. “He said he now understands that the decision is not a musical one but rather one about prayer, about people’s needs for prayer. It will now be a different kind of search process — one that is based on learning how the Dead Sea sect of Jews prayed 2,100 years ago.”
For Joshua Davidson, senior rabbi at the Upper East Side’s Temple Emanu-El, the session on the intersection of New Age and traditional Judaism seemed to present possibilities. “The New Age rituals allow for a more personal interpretation of traditional liturgical rubrics,” he said. “It’s clear that in more traditional worship settings, it’s important to personalize the lessons of the liturgy, to personalize the communal and historical narrative to engage individual worshippers.”
While warning that “there are certain lines that shouldn’t be crossed,” Rabbi Davidson said, “If we are to engage our generation, and future generations, we have to be really open-minded how we go forward.”
Rabbi Tully Harcsztark, principal of the Modern Orthodox day school SAR, said he has “long been trying to figure out how academics and Jewish communal professionals could work together. Bringing these two groups together, for me, that’s the compelling part — bridging theory and practice.”
In terms of putting the academics’ insights into practice, he urged patience. “It’s too soon right now; these are not linear things. I think we have to spend some time at the meta level, to reflect on the process, dig deeper, build a shared vocabulary.”
For Ayelet Cohen, a former pulpit rabbi at Congregation Beth Simchat Torah in the West Village and now the director of the Center for Jewish Living at the JCC in Manhattan, the chance to meet with rabbinic colleagues across the denominations was “stimulating” and one that could lead to collaboration and innovation.
“The JCC is a wide-tent community organization, and while we don’t gather for prayer, I can imagine program platforms where we could integrate these ideas,” she said. She mentioned the JCC’s Shabbat dinner program and its night of learning for Shavuot.
Undergirding the LEAP program is Rabbi Kula’s subtle critique of Jewish establishment institutions, their approach to Jewish life and how they have framed the debate in the wake of recent Pew Research Center findings about Jewish attitudes and practice. The central narrative, post-Pew, the rabbi said, “is that we have a problem of erosion, of assimilation, of engagement. We invest in attachment programs. Birthright, for instance, is not about ideas but about attachment. We don’t care what the attachment does, and we never ask, does it actually help people flourish as human beings?
“Our claim is that we don’t have an identity problem, a group pride problem. What we have is a weakening of legacy institutions, like all of America. What we have is a serious R&D problem, an ideas and practice deficiency. The products and services and wisdom are themselves in need of reimagining.”
Asked if some of the rabbinic translations of the cutting-edge academic research might lead to a dumbing down, Rabbi Hirschfield dismissed the fear, saying, “Dumbing down is how people talk about popularization when they’re not controlling it.”
For the Katz Center’s director, Steven Weitzman, the program “isn’t just about the information our fellows are teaching. It’s to give rabbis an idea of how scholars think about Jewish culture today, or the inner life of Jews, or what constitutes authenticity in Judaism — the range of questions they bring to the table.
“Our hope,” he said, “is that it helps them to think in new ways about practical questions.”
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National
The Politics Of Additional Aid For Israel
After Bibi-Obama meeting, local Jewish House members weigh in on the road ahead.
Stewart Ain
Staff Writer
President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu at the White House on Monday. Getty Images
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with President Obama Monday to “focus on how to go forward,” but some believe he should have also tried to make amends with Congressional Democrats — a view rejected by Rep. Steve Israel (D-Queens, L.I.).
“While the optics of the relationship may appear to be tense, the substance of the relationship between the U.S. and Israel — particularly on military and intelligence cooperation — has never been better,” he told The Jewish Week.
The congressman, the highest-ranking Jewish Democrat in the House, said that what really “counts is not the particular mood of a particular leader on a particular day; what counts is what is happening on the ground in Israel between the U.S. and Israeli counterparts — and in that there is no daylight.”
He was reacting to the comments of Seymour Reich, a former chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, who said Netanyahu “created a cleavage not only with the Democratic Party but with the American Jewish community” when he asked them in March to oppose the Iranian nuclear agreement Obama had negotiated.
“He put us on the spot,” Reich said of Netanyahu. “There was great tension and acrimony against those who supported the deal — not only against Democratic officeholders but others.”
But Rep. Israel said, “We need to start focusing on the positive instead of cleavages in the relationship.”
That relationship is so positive, he maintained, that he believes Congress will approve next year an enhanced security package for Israel that will increase American military aid from the current $3 billion annually. Israel reportedly is seeking $5 billion annually.
“I am quite optimistic that this package of security enhancements for Israel will pass on a bipartisan basis next year,” the congressman said. “This is going to be a test. There are many Republican members of Congress who will try to use Israel as a political football and exploit the differences between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu. Now with a new package of security enhancements for Israel we will see whether those members really care about the relationship and will vote for the package. Let them put their money where their mouths are.”
Strong Republican support for Israel — as evidenced by House Speaker John Boehner’s invitation to Netanyahu to address a joint meeting of Congress about his objections to the Iran deal — is expected to be continued by his successor, Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.
Ryan supported the imposition of restrictions on U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority and opposed a unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state. Despite the need for budget cuts, many observers don’t believe Republicans would block increased aid to Israel.
Although the current 10-year framework agreement with Israel for U.S. defense assistance does not expire until 2017, Obama said he wanted to begin renewal discussions now. Rep. Israel said he agrees with that approach, noting, “Some of the enhancements may require changes in Israel’s military infrastructure, as well as ramp-up time.”
After his meeting with Obama, Netanyahu told the American Enterprise Institute, a Conservative think tank, that Obama had told him U.S. military aid to Israel is “also a very solid investment for American security.”
“We’re an ally that doesn’t ask for any American troops,” Netanyahu was quoted as saying. “We never have and we don’t intend to. We can defend ourselves. We just want to have the tools. … You spend on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq a trillion and a half. So that’s five centuries’ worth of support for Israel.”
Netanyahu told Israeli reporters that he and Obama did not “focus on an exact sum, but I presented our needs.”
Israeli media reports said Obama agreed to increase the amount of military aid but did not cite a figure.
Rep. Israel said Congressional approval next year of an enhanced security package would also “be a signal to Iran that we have Israel’s back and that Iran shouldn’t play games.”
Rep. Nita Lowey (D-Westchester, Rockland) insisted in an email that “our bipartisan collective support for Israel has never been stronger, and our military and intelligence cooperation has never been closer. As the ranking member of the Appropriations Subcommittee on State and Foreign Operations, I will continue to do everything in my power to make sure Israel continues to receive our support and to strengthen the steadfast relationship between our two great countries.”
She added that the U.S.-Israel relationship “goes much deeper than any one policy issue.”
Rep. Eliot Engel (D-Westchester, Bronx) echoed those sentiments, saying in an email, “Support for Israel is bipartisan and always has been. Just look at the letter [Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed] Royce and I sent to President [Mahmoud] Abbas last week condemning Palestinian incitement: nearly 370 House members signed on. Presidents come and go. Prime ministers come and go. Even members of Congress come and go. But the U.S.-Israel relationship is unshakable, and support for Israel in Congress is strong and bipartisan.”
Aaron David Miller, a former U.S. peace negotiator and now vice president at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, agreed with Rep. Israel that Netanyahu has nothing to apologize for.
“The main goal of the visit was to turn the proverbial page, it was not a fundamental reset,” he said. “The Iran deal is done and there is no merit in opening it. Now is the time to demonstrate that the U.S.-Israeli relationship still functions.”
Miller acknowledged that “there are a lot of Democrats who are angry and who don’t like the prime minister’s policies when it comes to so many things.” But he questioned how relevant that is going to be “in an election year — Democrats and Republicans will be competing over who loves Israel more.”
Before Netanyahu arrived in the U.S., the Obama administration said a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians was unlikely before Obama left office and that efforts would be focused on managing the situation against a backdrop of five weeks of Palestinian terror attacks.
In a brief press availability with Netanyahu before their meeting, Obama affirmed Israel’s right to defend itself and made no mention of “increased [Israeli] settlements” as being the cause of the violence, a claim Secretary of State John Kerry had made last month.
Peter Joseph, chairman of the Israel Policy Forum, said he heard Netanyahu say repeatedly while here that he supports a two-state solution with a demilitarized Palestinian state that recognizes the Jewish state of Israel.
“I would like to see what steps Israel takes towards a two-state solution that would give the Palestinians some hope and that would be in accord with the expressed wishes of the U.S. and Israelis,” he said. “We have yet to see it.”
Israel’s Channel 2 reported that Netanyahu and Obama agreed to a series of practical steps (which it did not detail) that both Israel and the Palestinian Authority would take to calm tensions and end Palestinian violence that by the beginning of this week had killed 11 Israelis. Another 72 Palestinians were killed by Israeli gunfire, including 45 people who were reportedly attacking or attempting to attack Israelis with knives, guns and cars.
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Gary Rosenblatt
Bibi Soothes GA Crowd; Focus On Youth Continues
Prime minister signals reset with White House; millennials want a seat at the table.
Gary Rosenblatt
Editor And Publisher
Gary Rosenblatt
Washington, D.C. — The appearance of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was the headline of the annual General Assembly (GA) of the Jewish Federations of North America here this week. But it was what he and his Likud coalition represents to the various constituencies in his audience — rather than what he said in his 30-minute speech on Tuesday — that is the more intriguing story of this year’s conference.
One day after an apparently successful White House meeting with President Obama, with both men on their best behavior and focused more on future cooperation than past differences, Netanyahu received enthusiastic applause when he asserted that “Israel has no better friend than America, and America has no better friend than Israel.” He praised the U.S. for its “generous support” and made reference to his “wonderful discussion with President Obama on assistance.” The Israeli leader also reiterated his pledge made to Obama on Monday that he will continue to seek a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
That’s what the 3,000 delegates of lay and professional federation leaders — and surely most American Jews — wanted to hear. The past several years of increasingly sharp differences between Jerusalem and Washington, and specifically Obama and Netanyahu, over Mideast policy, most notably the Iran nuclear deal, have made Jews in this country uncomfortable. They want to see a reset of the two leaders’ relationship and a renewed effort on both sides to strengthen U.S.-Israel ties.
Netanyahu did not break new ground in expressing his appreciation for the Jewish federation system and for supporters of Israel. He did not speak of the Iran deal or of the month-long series of violent attacks by young Palestinians against individual Jews. Instead, he sought to assure this prominent cross-section of American Jews, many of whom take exception to the Orthodox control over issues of religious and personal status in Israel, by guaranteeing that “all Jews can feel at home in Israel — Reform, Orthodox and Conservative.”
Still, with the increasing numbers of millennials at the GA — one JFNA spokesman estimated that delegates under 35 numbered roughly 500, or 17 percent — there was also the inevitable tension between the younger set and their parents’ generation regarding attitudes toward Israel and Jewish life.
At one of several breakout sessions on millennials, a comment that it’s time for Israeli policies to be discussed and debated more openly received enthusiastic applause from the younger people in the room.
Jacob Abudaram, 22, a senior at the University of Michigan who was a panelist at the session, told me later that “even behind closed doors we’re often unable to have these discussions about Israel and how we choose to identify Jewishly.” He said he and many others of his generation feel deeply connected to Israel but believe Jerusalem should be taking the initiative in working toward peace with the Palestinians.
“Israel should be doing more, but it’s something of a taboo subject” at many American Jewish forums because the older generation believes it should show support by following Israel’s lead. Abudaram feels younger people should have “a seat at the table” in making communal decisions, even if they don’t have the wealth and generosity that their elders do.
“I’d like to see millennials and older Jews talking about issues of Jewish values, tradition and history — not just talking about the role of millennials,” he said.
Beth Cousens, the San Francisco-based head of the JFNA’s Jewish education and engagement office, helped plan a millennials session and took part in it. She said such discussions are ongoing and focus on integrating the different approaches of younger and older Jews in how they express their shared values of social justice and repairing the world. The millennials, she said, are less inclined to join existing organizations, preferring to “do things themselves.”
How this will play out in terms of millennials’ support for Israel and their assumption of positions of leadership in existing Jewish organizations remains to be seen, she said.
One observer noted that “the price we pay for engaging younger Jews is actually listening to what they have to say, even if we don’t agree with their views. And it’s well worth the effort.”
Call For ‘Cryo-Diplomacy’
While Netanyahu had little to say about next steps in the volatile Middle East, several American policy experts who spoke at the three-day conference agreed that while there is no hope for full peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority at this time, it is important to take small steps to preserve the goal of creating two states.
“Vacuums are always filled by the worst possible people,” asserted Ambassador Dennis Ross, the veteran Mideast policy planner. He suggested steps on the ground like a halt in new settlement building and Israel-Palestinian cooperation to tamp down the current violence.
David Makovsky, who was part of Secretary of State John Kerry’s team working toward peace talks last year, urged that there be no cutoff of funding for the Palestinian Authority because it would end vital Israel-Palestinian cooperation on security in the West Bank. He said that since three previous U.S. attempts to tackle all the final-status Israel-Palestinian issues at once failed, “it’s time to go for singles and doubles,” more modest efforts that address specific problems.
Ilan Goldenberg and Laura Blumenfeld, who also served on the Kerry team, agreed that the immediate goal should be preservation of the two-state solution. Blumenfeld called for “cryo-diplomacy, a way to freeze things in place so they don’t get worse.” Goldenberg suggested allowing Palestinians to worship at the Al-Aksa mosque on Fridays and calling on Palestinian leaders to tone down their vengeful rhetoric.
Storytelling
Has An Impact
The theme of this year’s GA was “Think Forward,” a somewhat generic concept that embodies the branding challenge for JFNA, which is not associated with a clear and specific mission. Rather, like the federations it is made up of, the umbrella group supports efforts to help Jews in Israel, America and around the world, dealing with a range of issues from health care to poverty to Jewish identity.
Several JFNA speakers asserted that the group “touches more Jewish lives on the planet” than any other.
One effective means of dramatizing JFNA’s reach was evident in the opening plenary on Sunday when several celebrities offered their personal Jewish narratives. Like most GAs, this one crammed in too many speakers who spoke too long. And there was no logical connection to their stories. But each on its own was powerful.
Three Jews in their 20s told of their experiences in drawing closer to their Jewish identity through Birthright Israel, the free 10-day trip for young Jews, and other Jewish programs; Rosalie Abella, the first Jewish female Supreme Court Justice in Canada, spoke of how her parents’ survival of the Holocaust set her on a path to seek justice; actress Debra Messing shared her experience of being discriminated against as the only Jew in her Rhode Island school and later expressing her Jewish values, after the success of the hit TV show “Will and Grace,” in speaking out on gay rights and AIDS issues.
David Gregory, the former host of NBC’s “Meet The Press” and author of the memoir “How’s Your Faith?” captivated the crowd when he offered a deeply personal and candid talk on his Jewish journey. Growing up in an interfaith family, he had only tenuous ties to his Judaism until well into adulthood.
He noted that his father, who was Jewish, died late last week and that he was flying out to his funeral in California the next day — as well as celebrating the bar mitzvah of his son next Shabbat. The painful experience of renewing fragile ties with his father in the last year brought “moments of holiness,” a tearful Gregory said. He encouraged his listeners to ask themselves what they believe, to “live inside the question,” and “make peace with people in your life you care about.”
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