Posts filed under ‘Jewish’
Case Study in a New Paradigm for Rabbinic Training
“His training looks more like the 21st century world that rabbis will live in in America.”
Paradigm is an overused word but in this case I think it fits. The fact that we talk about “ordaining” rabbis speak to the paradigmatic change in the rabbinate. Jewish tradition says nothing about rabbis being ordained. Quite the contrary, our tradition holds that rabbis have no more religious authority than any other Jew. But that we adopted this very Christian term, replacing s’micha… (literally laying of hands) speaks to a need for change.
Protestant seminaries abound. The Association for Theological Schools (ATS), the accrediting body for American seminaries, has nearly 300 member schools. Very few are denomination-specific and even those that are accept students of many flavors other than their own. Once a student finishes their studies (usually with an M.Div.) they are then ordained by their respective denomination. So why not rabbis?
http://ejewishphilanthropy.com/case-study-in-a-new-paradigm-for-rabbinic-training/
For many NY Jews, delis are the ‘secular version of the synagogue’
Times of Israel article, 5/16/16
We should worry about this! Not because it’s a New York phenomenon but because while many Jews identify themselves as “cultural” Jews, I posit that food and other cultural identities are actually ethnic identifications.
According to Rabbi Lawrence Hoffman, ethicity is “…a nostalgic yearning for Jewish folkways that once sustained us as a people apart, but can no longer do so – not, at least, without anti-Semitism to drive it. Ethnicity in this sense is doing what we think Jews have always done, whether they are really what Jews have always done or not, and whether or not they are even authentically Jewish; and doing them by social habit, just because we have grown up with them and feel good doing them. Jewish ethnicity is ‘doing what comes naturally,’ but with no transcendent purpose.”
To distinguish ethnicity from culture, Hoffman writes, “By Jewish culture, I mean the totality of wisdom, practices, folkways and so forth that constitute what we choose to remember of Jewish experience. That experience is simply too massive for anyone to remember it all, so every generation selects part of it (reinterpreting it as necessary), and leaves the rest behind. Leaving behind does not mean losing it forever, however. The parts of Jewish culture that do not get selected in any given generation remain in the cultural reservoir, as it were, to be recovered some day by others.”
And importantly, he contends that culture remains viable and important to Judaism because of, “ … the remarkable fact that Judaism demands study, and not just study of what is relevant, but study of everything Jewish.” I want to emphasize this – Judaism demands study… of everything Jewish.
I don’t think ethnicity or culture can sustain American Judaism in part because most Jews now have no identification with “the old country,” i.e. Eastern Europe. Ask most young Jews and they have no idea that bagels and rye bread are anything more than interesting foods. Add to that the lessening interest in Judaism as a distinct culture (again, Ashkenazik/Eastern European) and what’s left to tie Jews together?
As congregations shrink, cantors become rabbis – and work as both
Lots in this article – the changing role of cantors, the market forcing changes in rabbinical training, and ultimately “With society changing so rapidly, synagogues are desperate to find formulas that will keep them functioning… They want as many options as possible and don’t want rabbinical organizations — effectively labor unions — to dictate to them.” Rabbi Dana Evan Kaplan
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Rabbi Julie Jacobs, flanked by former NFL quarterback Sage Rosenfels, left, and musician Matisyahu, celebrating her rabbinical installation at Beth David Congregation in 2015. Previously the Miami synagogue’s cantor, she now works as both. (Courtesy of Beth David Congregation)
Why You Need to Embrace Relationship Based Engagement
reposted from a 5/21/12 guest blog for Darim’s Jew Point O’s series on networks, http://darimonline.org/blog/why-you-need-embrace-relationship-based-engagement
Synagogue 3000 just released a report entitled “Reform and Conservative Congregations: Different Strengths, Different Challenges.” The report could just as easily been entitled something like “Synagogues are Fading Into Obscurity,” but that would be a little too provocative. The data is clear; the institution best positioned to provide the full richness of Jewish life is becoming irrelevant for most American Jews. More disturbing is that our research shows some 70% of young Jewish adults, those between the ages of 23 and 39, have no connection to the established Jewish community (synagogues, Federation, JCC’s, etc.). While many in the Jewish world talk about Jewish continuity and protecting the future of American Judaism, most of the proposed solutions have had little effect. The good news is we’ve also learned that this majority of young Jews are very interested in Judaism, just not the way we’re offering it.
While most in the congregational world talk about outreach, Synagogue 3000 learned that this moniker has a negative connotation. Outreach says, albeit subtly, “I’m reaching out to you so you can come to me and have what I want to offer you.” The community, particularly those young, single Jews who are our potential future are saying, “no thanks.” Instead of outreach Synagogue 3000 changed the conversation to engagement. Learning from the church world and community organizing, Synagogue 3000 created Next Dor (dor is Hebrew for generation) – an engagement program. Participating synagogues agree to dedicate a staffer, most often a rabbi, whose primary job is to meet young Jews where they are – physically, spiritually, and emotionally. These engagement workers are charged with finding young Jews, be they in bars, coffee houses, local gyms, etc., and finding ways of engaging them in conversation to create relationships. Relationships create trust, which creates other relationships, which creates opportunity for real engaging conversations about life and what Judaism has to offer. One of the key points is that this engagement and these relationships are l’shma, for their own sake. Synagogue membership is not the goal – connecting Jews to Judaism is.
While the goal is engaging young Jews in Judaism, several of the Next Dor partner synagogues are discovering tangible benefits. Next Dor D.C., a project of Temple Micah was one of the first adopters. Rabbi Danny Zemel, a proponent of this engagement model before Next Dor existed, knew that Temple Micah needed to engage this unaffiliated and disaffected population. As a Next Dor pilot synagogue, Temple Micah hired Rabbi Esther Lederman as their engagement worker. A big part of Esther’s job is having one-on-one meetings with young Jews, usually in coffee shops. Now in its fourth year, Next Dor D.C. has gone from one-on-one meetings to regular Shabbat dinners at Esther’s home to annual free High Holy Day services for young adults, led by Esther and Michelle Citrin. The results – young Jewish adults are joining Temple Micah.
Some have dubbed this approach “relational Judaism” which seems something of an oxymoron. Judaism is at its essence (at least in my opinion) all about relationships. Unfortunately, congregations have focused on other things like supporting infrastructure, b’nai mitzvah training, and programming. More than the first two, the focus on programming is the irrelevance linchpin. Rather than engaging Jews in what’s important in their lives, synagogues program based on anecdotal information. When numbers fall the default synagogue response is to seek better programming rather than forming relationships with members, finding out what’s really important in their lives, and being responsive to their needs. Interestingly enough, while Synagogue 3000 envisioned the relational approach targeting young Jewish adults, the Next Dor communities are discovering it works with everyone.
Is your synagogue willing to form relationships with people who might not become members? Is your rabbi really willing to “be known” by synagogue members? What are your biggest obstacles to moving from a program-based community to relationship-based? Relationships, it’s all about the relationships!
Rabbi Aaron Spiegel is the CEO of Synagogue 3000. The report was the result of Synagogue 3000’s participation in FACT (Faith Communities Today), the largest and most comprehensive surveyor of faith communities in the United States.
Deploring vandalism, local Muslims tell Jews: “What happens to you happens to us”
http://www.heraldtimesonline.com/stories/2010/12/03/news.qp-5337667.sto?1291408818
By Dann Denny
331-4350 | ddenny@heraldt.com
12/3/2010
It was a tiny gathering — 11 people huddled around a table in a small room at the Beth Shalom synagogue — eating cookies, sipping hot tea and talking.
But the five Muslims who had come to express their support and solidarity Thursday afternoon to a Jewish community that’s been shaken by a half-dozen anti-Semitic acts of vandalism in recent days — and six members from the Beth Shalom congregation who agreed to meet with them — spoke with palpable passion.
“We are very moved and grateful to all of you for making this visit, but we’re not at all surprised,” said Beth Shalom member Madi Hirschland. “We know the Muslim community is one of great compassion.”
The visit was prompted by recent acts of vandalism targeting the Jewish community — including the tossing of eight Hebrew texts into toilets and several rock-throwing incidents at the Chabad House Jewish Student Center, Helene G. Simon Hillel Center and other Jewish facilities.
PREVIOUS:
Hanukkah begins amid anti-Semitic incidents; unity events planned Dec. 2, 2010
Editorial: Be relentless in pursuit Dec. 1, 2010
Windows broken at Jewish student centers; scriptures vandalized Nov. 30, 2010
For many Muslims, the acts conjured up memories of similar incidents aimed at Bloomington’s Muslim community. After someone threw a firebomb through a window of the Bloomington Islamic Center and set fire to a copy of the Quran in 2005 — and after local Muslims received death threats following the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 — Beth Shalom was one of several local faith congregations that reached out with supportive letters, visits, meals and vigils.
“We learned compassion from you,” said Muslim Abdul Sinno. “We think of you as wonderful neighbors. What happens to you happens to us.”
Yusuf Nur, one of the Muslims at the gathering, said it was unfortunate that it took a series of hateful incidents to prompt the meeting between members of the two faith traditions.
“We need to be more proactive and work together as people of faith to educate people,” he said. “These acts of hatred come from ignorance.”
Zaineb Istrabadi concurred, but wondered if some people could ever be enlightened. She said she recently received an e-mail asking her if it was true that a Muslim had to kill a non-Muslim in order to go to heaven.
“We’ve already done a lot of education and some people still don’t get it,” she said. “What’s been happening most recently is one or more persons in Bloomington going bananas.”
Beth Shalom member Deb Allmayer said in addition to education, “We need more opportunities to interact with one another. That helps erase the barriers.”
Hirschland said though she is deeply saddened by the recent incidents, the outpouring of support for the Jewish community from Muslims and Christians has been a refreshing antidote.
At one point in the meeting, Sinno asked the Jewish members in the group how the Muslim community could help Beth Shalom.
“You’ve already helped,” said Perry Metz. “You have touched us with your compassion and your presence here today. When something like this happens, you wonder, ‘Does anyone else care?’ You have given us your answer very clearly, and it means a lot to us.”
Nur said it’s imperative that tolerance be extended to everyone, regardless of their religious beliefs.
“Actually, we need to go beyond tolerance to acceptance and respect,” he said.
Paul Eisenberg, president of the Beth Shalom Congregation, could not attend the meeting because he and his family were on their way out of town to celebrate Hanukkah with relatives. But he heard about it.
“The meeting is very heartening,” he said. “There are many, many Jews and many, many Muslims in the U.S. and abroad who don’t get along, but in Bloomington we have a much different situation.”
Faiz Rahman, president of the Islamic Center, could not attend either, because of teaching commitments at Indiana University. But he was encouraged that the meeting took place.
“There is a view that Jews and Muslims are at each others’ throats, but in Bloomington that is certainly not the case,” he said. “This is our chance to show solidarity with the Jewish community that is being attacked, not because it’s politically correct, but because it’s the right thing to do. The members of the Jewish community are our neighbors and friends and colleagues.”
Rahman said it’s ironic that the recent acts aimed at hurting the Jewish community have in fact triggered an outpouring of support for that community.
“There’s always a silver lining to bad acts,” he said. “When bad things happen, good people show their spirit, and let others know they will not bow down to the forces of evil.”
Bloomington United calls for signs, blue Monday
Bloomington United, a grassroots campus and community partnership dedicated to promoting diversity and responding to incidents of hatred, is encouraging people to download two PDFs at the website iuhillel.org, print them out and display them in windows.
The first states “Bloomington United in Diversity” and the other is a menorah.
The group is also asking everyone to wear blue Monday in solidarity with the Jewish community.
Other acts of kindness: Two clergy offered to have members of their church stand watch during Friday night services at each of the local Jewish communities.
A Christian lit a Hanukkah menorah in her window and asked other non-Jewish friends to do the same.
A Christian couple living in the Beth Shalom neighborhood offered to help with security by driving by the synagogue throughout the day.
A member of the Muslim community asked that a group might light Hanukkah candles with Beth Shalom members.
Radio call-in show about incidents
Today’s WFIU Noon Edition, starting at 12:06 p.m. on 103.7 FM, will be a call-in show that will focus on the recent incidents aimed at the Jewish community.
The station also has other frequencies and streams over the Internet. See http://indianapublicmedia.org/radio.
Habits of anti-Judaism
If you’ve not followed the recent Presbyterian-Jewish debate, The Presbyterian Church USA (PCUSA) is proposing passing of a report by their Middle East Study Committee (MESC) which, in effect, vilifies Israel and its treatment of Palestinians (my opinion of course). What follows is the clearest, smartest, explanation of the issue by two scholars – Amy-Jill Levine (Jewish) and Ted A. Smith (Presbyterian). The original ran on The Christian Century’s website, http://christiancentury.org/article.lasso?id=8539.
Habits of anti-Judaism
Critiquing a PCUSA report on Israel/Palestine
by Ted A. Smith and Amy-Jill Levine
Old habits die hard. Despite numerous attempts by mainline Protestant denominations to promote historically informed studies of Judaism, repudiate supersessionist theologies and engage in conversations with Jews, the old habit of bearing false witness against Jewish neighbors lives on. In recent years this practice has thrived especially in mainline Protestant statements on the Middle East.
Congregations, denominations and councils have rightly advocated for Palestinians suffering because of Israeli policies. The injustice is real; the situation is urgent. But church statements too often slip from a laudable call for a just peace—a call with which a large and growing number of American Jews would agree—into false and negative depictions of Jews. This slippage contradicts the churches’ own theological convictions. It distorts Jewish teaching and history. And it can discourage both Palestinian Christians and their U.S. supporters from building alliances with Jews who share their commitments to peace and human rights.
Members of the churches that issue these statements frequently express sincere desires to avoid anti-Semitism. Supporters of problematic statements are rarely bigots; they are more likely people committed to justice who have also absorbed centuries-old patterns of Christian anti-Judaism. This false witness is more a matter of habit than of hate. It lives on through good intentions.
Good intentions are crucial resources for the work of breaking bad habits. But good intentions can become obstacles to change when they short-circuit serious conversation about the nature, history and impact of actions. Breaking habits requires bringing them to consciousness. And that requires attending to the gap between action and intention.
A report just issued by the Middle East Study Committee (MESC) of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) provides an important example of this gap between action and intention—and it presents a real opportunity to begin to learn better habits. The report will be considered this July at the denomination’s General Assembly in Minneapolis. The MESC was created at the 2008 General Assembly, which asked the moderator, Bruce Reyes-Chow, to work with his two immediate predecessors in appointing the committee’s nine members. The assembly charged the committee with preparing “a comprehensive study, with recommendations, that is focused on Israel/Palestine within the complex context of the Middle East.”
The study committee made several moves that demonstrate its desire to avoid some of the most common forms of false witness against Jews. For example, it notes that most Presbyterians reject supersessionist narratives in which “Christians have supplanted Jews” to become “the only legitimate heirs of God’s covenant with Abraham.” Signaling this rejection of supersessionism, the report speaks of “Older Testament” and “Newer Testament” in its biblical references. Such language is neither necessary nor sufficient for avoiding supersessionism, but it at least suggests a desire to proclaim a gospel that does not begin with God’s rejection of Jews.
Yet Christian false witness persists in the report despite its authors’ intentions. Habits have that kind of power. Below we name some of these habits and trace the dynamics by which they survive. We write as a Presbyterian and a Jew, as colleagues on a divinity school faculty and as teachers who continue to see the habits of false witness in the work of even our most talented and committed students. We know firsthand how deep-seated the habits can be and how quickly they can outrun our best intentions. We seek not to single out the Presbyterian report, but to illumine patterns that recur in many forms of Christian witness.
Echoes of past interpretations: The report’s opening biblical reflections make conspicuous efforts to avoid anti-Jewish exegesis. But the report pays scant critical attention to Christianity’s long history of anti-Jewish interpretations, and so echoes of these interpretations linger. Those echoes then become amplified by other sections of the report.
The report’s title, “Breaking Down the Walls,” echoes the celebration in Ephesians 2:11-22 of God’s overcoming of divisions between gentiles and Jews in Jesus Christ. The passage, which speaks of abolishing Torah and the formation of “one new humanity in the place of two,” has a long history of supersessionist deployment. There are other ways to read this passage, but the committee does not offer them. The report affirms that Jesus breaks down “the dividing wall of hostility between any two peoples or groups within God’s creation.” Read in the context of the full report, however, that vague affirmation takes on supersessionist content. The church is asked to consider a historical narrative that points indirectly to a single state—a new social body—in which a Palestinian majority displaces Jews. The report’s consistent lament that the time for a two-state solution is rapidly ending solidifies that impression. “Breaking down the walls” in order to form “one new humanity in the place of two” evokes old echoes of theological supersessionism and transposes them into a political key.
Such echoes also linger in the report’s treatment of the story of Jacob and Esau. Framing the story as an illustration of general “processes of human reconciliation,” the report explicitly refuses to identify Palestinians and Jews with one brother or the other. But it describes Jacob in ways that resonate with anti-Jewish stereotypes. He is “characteristically untrusting and wily.” He cannot accept forgiveness. And “in spite of his having seen ‘the face of God’ and received a new name, he had no experience of ‘new being,’ of ‘new creation.'”
The ambiguity of these associations takes on a more pernicious clarity when this retelling of the story of Jacob and Esau is compared to the report’s main historical narrative. The narrative describes the birthright of a peaceful, multicultural Palestine being appropriated by an influx of European Jews. It says that these Jews refused to assimilate, but preferred—like Jacob—to move ahead on their own. It says that Israel—like Jacob—has refused the offer of full reconciliation. While the biblical reflection suggests that Jacob might also be like Palestine, no part of the document suggests how this might be. Jacob/Israel becomes the guilty brother.
Such associations defy the report’s stated intentions. The failure to root them out allows them to resound and replay in later arguments.
Ambiguities about covenant: The report’s biblical section draws upon at least three different understandings of covenant and land. First, its analysis of the term Zion concludes that the church “fully transferred the locus of God’s concrete presence in the world of space and time from the place of Zion—that is, Jerusalem—to the person of Jesus, who had been crucified and raised from the dead just outside Jerusalem.” The covenant has been fulfilled, and its fulfillment involves a transcendence of place in the person of Jesus. Covenant no longer concerns land.
Consonant with this view, the report reaffirms a prior PCUSA statement that “the State of Israel is a geopolitical entity and is not to be validated theologically.” Thus Israel, having neither special sanction nor special obligations, should be judged by the same standards applied to any other nation.
But a second understanding of the land checks this approach. Appealing to a survey of Presbyterians and a collection of biblical texts that limit Israel’s claim to the land, the report states, “Most Presbyterians . . . hold that this promise [of offspring and land] is conditioned by concepts found elsewhere in the first five books of the Bible,” such as the idea that the gift of land is conditional upon Israel’s “adherence to justice.” Here God’s covenant with Israel did and does include provision of land. But that covenant also includes special obligations. And so the report insists that “Israeli Jews” must “fulfill their ‘land responsibilities'” and their “covenant obligation.” Israel is here not just another nation, but a nation held to a special standard. Its claim on the land is not unconditional, like the claims of other peoples upon the places where they live.
A third view of the land further complicates the report’s thinking. When it seeks to expand the Abrahamic covenant to include Palestinian Christians, it appeals to Paul’s view that in Jesus Christ God’s covenant with Abraham expands to include the church. But when the report expands the covenant to Palestinian Muslims, it argues that the covenant extends to all Abraham’s descendants. Thus the report offers different views on who is included in the Abrahamic covenant and how people come to be included. But in neither case does it mention special covenantal obligations. Again the report promotes a vision in which conditional Jewish claims to the land are surpassed by and then reformulated within the seemingly unconditional claims of other communities.
All three views draw upon old tropes of Christian anti-Judaism. The first describes the incarnation as a rejection of God’s covenant with Israel. The second singles Jews out as a people condemned to wander, a people without “natural” ties to land like other people. The third follows a narrative in which Jews are replaced by others.
The use of any of these tropes would be problematic. The problems increase when the report entangles these different strands of thought, with the only significant consistency supplied by political conclusions that stress unconditional Palestinian (Christian and Muslim) covenantal roles while minimizing and holding to special standards Israeli (Jewish) covenantal roles.
Comparative trauma and false stereotypes: The MESC report rightly refuses to engage in comparisons of suffering. It rejects attempts to compare the systematic murder of 6 million Jews (ha-Shoah) and the forcible displacement of 750,000 Palestinians (al-Nakba). Instead it argues that these two catastrophes should be regarded as parallel but incomparable “psycho-traumas.” But the report compromises this sound principle when it compares present-day suffering, calculating that the “ratio of all Israeli to Palestinian deaths [between 2000 and 2008] is 1 to 8.5 and for children it is 1 to 7.4.” Thus suffering is incomparable when comparison might speak on behalf of Israel, but quantifiable to a tenth of a life when it benefits Palestinian claims.
The report makes a further unhelpful comparison in tracing the effects of these traumas. It states, “This sense of historical victimization creates for some Israelis a compensatory reflex to choose power and armament; to reject the claims and critique of others; and the adoption of a philosophy that the ‘end justifies the means,’ even if that means the loss of human rights, life, and the dignity of others.” The summary of effects for Palestinians invites comparison: “The inexplicable pain of the Nakba creates for some Palestinians a sense of historical victimization, which creates a compensatory reflex to choose violence; to reject the claims and critique of others; and the adoption of a philosophy that the ‘end justifies the means.'”
Israelis have a “sense of victimization”; Palestinians have “inexplicable pain.” The Israeli psyche is so damaged that it leads to the “loss of human rights, life, and the dignity of others.” The Palestinian psyche appears better preserved. This comparison is neither social psychology nor pastoral counseling. It is at best unfortunate rhetoric—all the more unfortunate because it draws upon stereotypes of Jews as neurotic, legalistic, bellicose and xenophobic. Again the report’s rhetorical habits betray its best insights: traumas are wounds to be tended, not arguments to be deployed.
Narratives of replacement: The report’s longest section is a sprawling 68-page “Plea for Justice: A Historical Analysis,” written by a professor of bioethics and a professor of Old Testament. This study appears alongside a nine-page piece by a Reform rabbi titled “Notes from a Humanistic, Liberal Zionist: A Personal Perspective.” The two documents seem intended, despite the disparity in size, to balance one another.
They do not. “Plea,” which stresses a Palestinian perspective, was written by members of the MESC, and its arguments appear elsewhere in the report. “Notes” exerts no discernible influence on other parts of the report. Even the titles of the pieces suggest asymmetry: “Plea” makes a much stronger rhetorical claim on readers than some comparatively skimpy “Notes.”
The problem here is not simply imbalance. The problem is that neither document is rigorously historical. “Notes” is a collection of personal anecdotes. “Plea,” despite its length and footnotes, ignores violence against Jews in the region both before and after 1948 and so can be easily dismissed as partisan.
The lack of critical historiography in “Plea” also allows old narrative habits to structure the material. For example, “Plea” notes that between “the fourth and the seventh centuries C.E., the majority of those who lived in the Roman province of Palestine were Christians . . .” But it ignores the reasons for this shift, including Christian persecution of Jews, an influx of Christian immigrants and an imperially supported program of Christianization. Worse, it argues that “when Jerusalem was captured by the Persians in the seventh century of the Common Era, it was the Christians, not the Jews, who sang a lamentation over the Holy City.” Here, Christians replace Jews in lamenting Jerusalem, and this replacement then legitimates Christian claims to the land. The form of supersessionist narrative endures, even as the topic shifts from soteriology to politics.
Presentations of history always involve decisions about what data to present and how to present them. The canons of academic history—canons that “Plea” largely ignores—do not eliminate the necessity of such judgments. But they can check political interests, force reflection on inconvenient truths, create conditions for meaningful disagreement and disrupt too-familiar narrative forms. They can expose bad habits and serve as a tool for their reform.
Mischaracterizing Jews: The report begins with a series of letters to groups the committee believes have a stake in the report. One letter, addressed to “Our American Jewish Friends,” laments the difficulty of working with “organizations within the mainstream Jewish community.” This difficulty should be the occasion for dialogue, not an excuse for avoiding it. Moreover, the report does not name these “mainstream” groups. The open-ended designation has the effect of suggesting that most Jews do not care about Palestinian suffering.
Nor is it clear that the committee seriously attempted to engage with this Jewish “mainstream.” Its schedule of interviews included an associate director of the Religious Action Center for Reform Judaism, but no other representatives of U.S. rabbinic assemblies, let alone the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. The committee did meet with the American Jewish Committee’s representative in Israel, but he told the Jewish Week, “They listened to nothing.” Also missing is a conversation with Americans for Peace Now (APN), a “mainstream” Jewish organization and a member of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. APN was established to mobilize support for the Israeli peace movement, Shalom Achshav (Peace Now), and is the most prominent American Jewish Zionist organization working to achieve a comprehensive, just political settlement to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
The report silences some Jews by naming them as difficult. It silences other Jews by presuming to speak for them without having spoken to them. The report states that it is “hopeful as organizations like J Street, B’Tselem, Jewish Voice for Peace and others continue to raise the banner that being pro-Israel and being truly Jewish is not tantamount to complicity in the excesses of Israeli policy.” However, a J Street spokes person indicated that the committee did not consult her organization. She added that J Street had “serious disagreements” with the recommendations and deep concern that the report “consistently downplays Israel’s very real security concerns, appears to shrug off any Palestinian responsibility for resolving the ongoing conflict, and downplays the Israeli narrative throughout.”
The thinness of the committee’s consultation with Jews is especially striking when the report is compared to another Presbyterian document, “Christians and Jews: People of God.” This document followed eight meetings between PCUSA theologians and representatives of the National Council of Synagogues and four additional meetings of Presbyterian ministers and Conservative, Orthodox, Reform and Reconstructionist rabbis.
Erasing Israel: Breaking old habits is hard work. Guidelines can help. But guidelines become fault lines when they slip from being guides for transforming action into standards for justifying action.
A crucial guideline for Christians seeking to break habits of anti-Judaism is to criticize Israeli policies in the same ways they criticize the policies of other states—without calling the very existence of Israel into question. The report follows this guideline in its letter to American Jews: “We want to say to you in no uncertain terms,” it insists, “we support the existence of Israel within secure and recognized borders. No ‘but,’ no ‘let’s get this out of the way so we can say what we really want to say.'”
Having sworn off qualifications of its support for Israel’s existence, the report then offers them: “The phrase ‘the right of Israel to exist’ is a source of pain for some members of the 2009-2010 Middle East Study Committee, who are in solidarity with Palestinians who feel that the state of Israel has denied them their inalienable human rights.”
This frank acknowledgment helps interpret a series of notable silences. While the letter to American Jews affirms Israel as a “home for the Jewish people,” language about a “Jewish state” appears in no policy recommendation. Affirmation of Israel as any sort of state is absent from the letters to American Muslims, Palestinians and Christians in the Middle East. The recommendations do not call the General Assembly to reaffirm its commitment to Israel’s existence. And the recommendations—despite a promise in the summary of past GA positions—do not call “Palestinians and other Arabs to recognize Israel’s existence within secure borders.”
At two points the report insinuates the illegitimacy of Israel through connections to Nazi Germany. A committee member quotes an unnamed Israeli activist as saying that Israel “acts as a Nazi state.” By quoting an Israeli, the report draws the unfortunate connection even while exculpating itself of having made it.
The report also quotes Martin Niemöller’s famous litany: “First, they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a socialist. . . . They came for the Jews, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Jew.” Then it calls for human rights “not just for the Jew, but for every suffering victim in the world today, including the Palestinians.” When Palestinians become Jews in the quote, Israel becomes Nazi Germany. It is hard to see how such rhetoric attends to the “psycho-trauma” noted in the social analysis. And it is hard to see how it squares with the strong affirmation of Israel’s existence contained in the letter to American Jews.
Critics of Christian statements on Israel/Palestine have too often relied on premillennialist theologies or blanket charges of anti-Semitism that stop conversation before it can begin. The former exempt Israel from criticism because of divine favor; the latter exempt Israel from criticism because of human guilt. We have tried to avoid both gambits. We do not wish to muzzle Christian critics of Israeli policy. We have criticisms of our own. We rather seek to foster conversations that can consider Middle East politics without being overwhelmed by old habits of anti-Judaism.
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Ted A. Smith and Amy-Jill Levine teach at Vanderbilt Divinity School.
I believe…
Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day starts tonight. 6 million Jews, including 1.5 million children, murdered…
I believe in the sun even when it is not shining
I believe in love even when feeling it not
I believe in God, even when God is silent
anonymous
We Remember
For me, the most moving and meaningful part of the Yom Kippur liturgy is the martyology service – when we remember those from our community who died al Kiddish Hashem, for the sanctification of God’s name. There are so many.
A Chronicle (of modern history):
- 70 CE… the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and the Second Temple, killing thousands and sending the Jewish community into permanent exile
- 1096, 1146, 1189… the Crusades dessimate Jewish communities of Europe
- 1290… Jews are expelled from England
- 1306… Jews are expelled from France
- 1480… Jews are expelled from Spain
- 1597… Jews are expelled from Italy
- 1648… Chmielniski’s hordes massacre thousands of Polish Jews
- 1882… government instigated pogroms take place throughout Russia
- 1945… one-third of our people – six million Jews and five million other human beings – are slaughtered by the Nazis
Eternal God, as we recall all our departed and the blessings they bequeathed to us, we pray their souls be united with ours in the bond of life. May our faith, like theirs, be strong, our devotion to Torah unfaltering, our love for Zion constant, and our concern for Israel and humanity unceasing. For as we identify ourselves with the life, hopes and traditions of an eternal people, we ourselves take 0n an aspect of eternity. May we so live that when our years draw to a close, we too shall be remembered for good and for blessing. Amen.
from The Book of Remembrance, Congregation Beth-El Zedeck
Sanctuary
This essay was written for the 2009 Spirit & Place Festival, The original is at http://www.spiritandplace.org/spwebResources/pdf/Essay%20Spiegel.pdf
When considering this essay, I figured a rabbi should have religious places that hold special if not sacred value, so I thought of the synagogue of my childhood where I learned (or at least they tried to teach me) the rich traditions of Judaism. I thought of the shul where I davened (prayed) with my grandfather. I thought of the synagogues I have been privileged to serve. I thought of the myriad places in Israel that have historical and religious significance to Jews. And I thought of the synagogue where my children became bar and bat mitzvah.
And while all these places brought fond memories, none felt inspiring. I panicked. How could I write an essay on inspiring places when, while important and meaningful, none jumped out as truly inspiring? Then I realized all had a common trait that was inspiring—people. It wasn’t the synagogue of my childhood that was inspiring; it was Mr. Shapiro who taught me that learning Torah could move me to be a better person. It wasn’t davening in my grandfather’s shul that was inspiring; it was seeing my grandfather’s non-judgmental piety, in the face of so much personal tragedy, that inspired me. It wasn’t leading a congregation that inspired me; it was the privilege of being with people as they experienced the ups and downs of their lives that inspired me. It isn’t the synagogue where my children became full members of the Jewish community that is inspiring, it is their acceptance of their place in the community and the love of friends and family that inspired me.
Jewish tradition holds that there are only two things holy in a synagogue—the Torah and the people. The building, while important, is just a building. Crossing the threshold into the synagogue does not take one from the world of the profane into the world of the sacred any more than crossing the threshold of an office building. What’s really important are the people whom we seek to inspire and who, in turn, will inspire us.
When the second Temple was destroyed in 79 ACE, the community faced a conundrum. How could they maintain a sense of Judaism without this thing, this structure, as the central focus of their faith? In their inimitable wisdom, the rabbis transferred the power of the Beit Hamikdash, house of sanctuary or holiness, to the home—the Mikdash Me’at or little temple. Parents became the new priests and children their charges. While synagogues became and remain important, they are so primarily because they offer a place to congregate, to be together as a community.
In his book Shopping Malls and Other Sacred Places, Lutheran theologian Jon Pahl writes that new institutions have usurped churches, synagogues, temples, and mosques as our revered spaces. For me as a Jew, it’s not that these places compete with synagogues for our souls; it’s that we have forgotten how to be in community. Instead of seeking inspiration from one another, we search for it in experiences. Life has taught me that the experience of inspiration is not found merely in congregating with others, but in forming relationships. Martin Buber was clear that it is when we acknowledge the humanity of others in our relationships that we experience God. Judaism says that it is loyalty to the teachings of the Torah that is the measure of the faith of the Jew, and not loyalty to an institution.
Jewish spirituality centers on being inspired by others. Which is better: the focus on finding the spiritual in the synagogue or in life’s journey? I am not convinced that either is better, but that personal spiritual growth requires both. It is our tradition to explore the Divine in places other than the synagogue, especially in the home. The concept of Mikdash Me’at, the sanctuary of home, is a cornerstone of Jewish spiritual practice. However, it is also our tradition that prayer in a group is more powerful than alone. It is not happenstance that a quorum, minyan, is required to recite certain prayers, particularly those that are most personal. It is not that God hears better in groups, it is that we hear better in groups! Our connection to God is through our connection to each other. Therefore, the synagogue provides the space where the sacred can congregate, where people can come together with Torah and live the experience of Judaism. After all, what are we worshiping? It’s not the building, the chairs, the walls, or the aron ha’kodesh; we are worshiping our aliveness and our connection with the Divine.
Buber also said, “Next to being the children of God our greatest privilege is being the brothers of each other.” That inspires me!
sometimes how I feel…
One Shabbat morning, a mother went into the bedroom to wake her son and tell him it was time to get ready to go to the Shul (synagogue), to which he replied: “I’m not going.”
“Why not?” she asked.
“I’ll give you two good reasons,” he said. “One, they don’t like me”, and two, I don’t like them.”
His mother replied: “I’ll give YOU two good reasons why you MUST go to the Shul.
“ONE, you’re 54 years old,” and TWO, you’re the Rabbi”
Ma Hamatzav? (Was' Up?) 