Thoughts for Yom Ha Shoah

One week from tomorrow night Jews around the world will begin commemorating Yom Ha Shoah - Holocaust Remembrance Day. I will have the honor of hearing my father address the Five Towns Community event as he retells his story and the valuable lessons we can learn from that dark period of human history. While we commemorate the tragic events of 70 years ago it would do us much good to reflect on current events and realize that very little has changed. Today mass murder is happening before our eyes in Syria and the UN, the Arab League, the whole damn world actually, sits by impotent and unable to do anything to stop it. Geo-politics still trumps human rights.

Christians throughout the Arab world are being persecuted and the Arab Spring has not improved but has worsened their condition in those countries, as democratic hope is vanquished by extremist reality. All the while the primary focus of the enlightened intellectual class still seems to be an obsession with Israeli settlements and the condition of the occupied Palestinians. According to these folks we have to step aside and let the Arabs build there own type of free society - which they have proven via the Arab Spring is nothing more than extremism, killing and profoundly undemocratic institutions. Israel on the other hand must believe that Palestinians are eager to institute Jeffersonian Democracy and are prepared for peace, the behavior of their Arab brethren not withstanding.

There is an interesting and quite public debate going on about Jewish victimhood versus Jewish power. Peter Beinart's new book, the Crisis of Zionism has sparked fierce criticism for its call of a Jewish boycott of Jewish products made in the West Bank, in his eyes a way of using Jewish power to tame Israeli power. I like Beinart, an observant Jew and brilliant thinker, I even empathize with his sentiments. But Beinart is naive to believe that if we Jews just left the West Bank and ended the occupation that we would have peace. True, Jewish victimhood is not as relevant as it once was and Jewish power hasn't been this strong since the Hashmonaim era, but we are certainly not stupid. Our History of victimhood has taught us one thing, to be sure that we and only we insure our own security.

Is there a rational person out there who thinks Israel will ever enter into a deal with the Palestinians without first seeing proof through confidence building measures that they are ready and sincere about peaceful coexistence? Even a peacenik like me doesn't think its possible. Yet here we have to contend with Nobel Laureate Gunter Grass, the German writer who conveniently forgot to mention in his bio that he was a member of the Waffen SS, who wrote this in a poem last week about Israel:

"Why do I say only now,
Aged and with my last ink,
That the nuclear power of Israel endangers
The already fragile world peace?"

I can't think of anything more articulate to say to Grass than - shut the fuck up. Where were you Gunter, when Serbs were slaughtering Muslim men and raping their women just a few hours from your home? Where is your poem about the Rwandans who were ignored by you and the enlightened world while they were systematically executed by their own countrymen? What about Darfur? What about the Christians in Arab countries? What about a million other examples of brutality that make the Israeli occupation of the West Bank look like a kids party? Israel endangers world peace? Where in the world is there peace? 

I am a fierce self critic. There is so much that I would like to change about my own people and I've written about it plenty. But one thing I cannot abide and will not remain silent about, that is an attempt at moral equivalency between the Jews and her enemies. We are far from perfect but we show more humanity at our worst than the combined Arab world does at its best. Palestine does not exist as a state due to Jewish opposition, but because Palestine's Arab inhabitants show no sign of accepting the existence of Israel or of ever living in lasting peace. 

Beinart is correct, Jewish power seems more realistic today than Jewish victimhood. Yet we would have no power if we ignored or forgot that victimhood. We will no longer sustain any power if we forget that our power is derived from rising up after our victimhood and that frankly it comes only with divine intervention. Some people believe that God died in the ashes of the Shoah but He sure seemed to be alive in 1948 and even more so in 1967. This Yom Ha Shoah I will listen again to my father's story and his wisdom. I will vow never to forget what happened to him and those that did not survive. I will also remember that so long as the world holds the Jewish nation to standards it does not itself live by, Jews no matter how much perceived power they have will still be victims. 

This Passover, Let All Jews Be Free

As Jews around the world celebrate Passover, a holiday of redemption from bondage and the birth of the Jewish nation, I ponder the age-old question of who is a Jew? This is not a simple question and there is no correct answer, for as the joke goes where there are two Jews there are at least three opinions. Before we can even try to answer the who part of the question we have to answer the what. What is a Jew? Is a Jew a member of a race, religion or nation or all of the above?

I reflect on this issue because Passover, despite its traditions and nuanced observances is the ultimate “national” holiday. A tribe of 70 people immigrants to another land maintains its ethnic/tribal identity as it grows into a substantial minority and eventually is persecuted for it. Ultimately, this ethnic minority seeks and achieves its freedom, independence and return to their ancestral homeland.

On the other hand, this independence culminates in the nation accepting a religious mandate and embracing all of its laws. From that point on there is very little peaceful coexistence within the nation as different factions vie to define what exactly a Jew is. Judaism has a storied history of factionalism, religious differences, persecution and redemption. Throughout its history came fundamental changes that shook the foundations of its birth, like the end of animal sacrifice after the destruction of the Second Temple, until then the focal point of religious observance.

Yet one common denominator has been defining Judaism for over 2,000 years, hatred of Jews. For reasons I am little qualified to expand on, Jews have always been hated and persecuted by someone. In the modern era the Holocaust became the defining moment in Jewish history. The birth of the modern State of Israel is often cited as a result of it. President Obama was excoriated for alluding to the Holocaust/birth of Israel connection in an address to the Muslim world in Cairo shortly after he took office. Israel, he needed to be reminded, was a nation thousands of years before Muhammad’s birth.

Today though, it is the State of Israel that clouds up the question of who is a Jew. On the one hand the Law of Return grants anyone with one Jewish grandparent the right to automatic Israeli citizenship. On the other it endows the Orthodox Rabbinate with a monopoly over religion, primarily in the areas of conversions, marriages and death. Israel basically gives limited if any recognition to non-Orthodox denominations, egalitarian aspirations and anyone who dares claim a less stringent interpretation of Halacha, Jewish law. So the Russian immigrant with the Jewish grandfather can be drafted into the army and possibly die for the State of Israel, but if he wants to get married Jewishly in his adopted country he cannot unless he is converted by Orthodox law — something he may be unwilling or unable to do. That is just not right and no matter how deep one feels about Jewish preservation. This qualifies as an injustice that needs a remedy in a fair and balanced manner.

I can go on about coalition politics or about how the stringent rules governing who is a Jew is the only thing that will preserve true Judaism as it has for thousands of years. However, we all know that such declarations are ideological only, backed up by limited scholarship and are primarily useful for factions seeking to maintain power, whether in Israeli politics or maintaining Orthodox rabbinic hegemony over anything labeled “religious.” We need all the Jews we can get, “watered down” or not. Certainly, Jewish racial purity can always be worked out on a more personal basis and less so in the broad strokes of rabbinical fiat.

As I celebrate Passover with my family I will reflect on the redemption from bondage in Egypt, my father’s survival from Hitler’s atrocities, the birth of Israel and how far we still have to go to really being a unified independent nation. I will pray that all Jews be accepted equally in the nation of Israel and that this Passover will mark the beginning of our ultimate freedom.

Splitting the Difference

Some years ago as a student at Yeshiva University a relative set me up with a great summer job. I was the "Judaic Specialist" at a JCC run Ranch Camp in Colorado. Besides leading services on Shabbat I was also in charge of overseeing the kashrut at the camp. Not being an expert on the latter subject I had a list of rabbis who I could call at anytime with any questions. One day a shipment of food was being delivered and there was meat delivered from a company I never heard of and wanted to check if it was ok. The rabbi I usually called, a modern Orthodox rabbi and alumnus of my university was on vacation, so I went to the next name on the list. The rabbi I spoke to was from the more ultra Orthodox wing and when I mentioned the name of the company he began to give me a whole Talmudic dissertation as to why some people do and some don't eat from this company. While it was a most interesting story it did not answer the question of whether or not I could use the meat. So I went to the next rabbi on the list, also from the more right of center crowd and got a similar non answer. The last name on the list was of a Hassidic Rebbe from a renown family who happened to be a distant relative of mine. When I called him with the same question he did not hesitate in answering me. What he said and how he said it has stuck with me through all these years and for those of you who know "Chassidishe Torah" his was a classic answer. "The meat is definitely not traif (non-kosher). Personally, I wouldn't eat it and I suspect knowing your family that your father wouldn't eat it either. As for the rest of the camp if there are others there that are very strict in observance, perhaps suggest they eat something else. As for being able to say it is kosher, it 100% is." The bottom line the Rebbe told me was that when he rents the camp for retreats or any other facility for that matter, he kashers (makes kosher) the kitchen anyway. 

The point he made struck me so deep. This Rebbe was telling me that basically the only standards he goes by are his own, therefore for those who don't live by his very strict standards the food was definitely kosher. I retell this story because I wonder why Judaism as a whole just doesn't live by this standard in all aspects of Jewish life. I speak more specifically to religious standards as they are set in Israel by the ever more conservative and narrow minded Chief Rabbinate. 

Let's start with acceptance of other denominations of Judaism. Non-Orthodox denominations at best get a quasi recognition by the government of Israel. Non Orthodox denominations in essence are treated as a foreign invention and not part of what was covered in an agreement made between Israel's first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion and the religious parties. I remind everyone that Conservative and Reform Judaism has been in existence much longer than the modern State of Israel. Granted those movements were late in jumping on the Zionist bandwagon, but let's be honest, the last time Jews ruled in Zion the main form of worship was animal sacrifice so even Orthodoxy is a "foreign invention." 

The problem is much deeper, because the Rabbinate which is 100% Orthodox also has complete hegemony over conversions, marriages, burial, holy sites, the Sabbath, kashrut and various other aspects of life in Israel. The monopoly they have on religious life runs counter to the Law of Return which guarantees anyone with one Jewish grandparent the right to be become an Israeli citizen as a Jew, or at least until they want to get married or need to be buried, then all bets are off on the individual's Judaism. 

Perhaps the biggest insult of all is the fact that many of these citizens are Jewish enough to fight and sometimes die for Israel as members of the armed forces, many if not most of these rabbinic edicts are made by rabbis who never went to the army and don't allow their followers to either. Those in Israel that prefer to be married by a rabbi they know rather than a complete stranger sent by the Rabbinate must leave the country to do so. Their foreign civil marriage is then recognized by the State. A Conservative Jew, who makes Aliyah, spends years in Israel, pays taxes, joins the army and does various other things on behalf of the State cannot have his wife eulogize him at his funeral because it goes against the Chief Rabbinate's rules. 

Women, cannot conduct prayer services in a Minyan or Quorum at any of Israel's many holy sites. Special accommodations are made usually at distance insulting to those who wish to exercise their spiritual needs. Even then heads are buried in the sand as extremists throw rocks, garbage and excrement at the women. And now, new modern regulations are being forced on all like segregated bus lines and modesty patrol in certain neighborhoods. 

What we need is more Chassidishe Torah, where all sides get to split the difference. This group eats here, this group marries this way, this group worships this way and so on. Perhaps we can call it self policing. I am very fortunate to be marrying off my oldest child, a daughter. The young man she is marrying comes from a Conservative household. When they decided to get married we agreed that the ceremony would be Orthodox, the stricter tradition that my family adheres to. In other words, we worked it out. We didn't need rabbinic police or policy makers to tell us what to do or what to agree to. When I go out to eat, it is my decision where I go. If by my standards this deli is kosher enough then I eat there, if it's not I don't. 

Many point to assimilation as a reason for the strict standards insisted upon in Israel. I don't see assimilation being the biggest problem in a country where Purim is a national holiday, but frankly I'm no expert. It really comes down to religious coercion and the refusal to cede power. I am beginning to find the Satmars who are outwardly anti-Zionist, to be the most intellectually honest of the ultra Orthodox. At least they admit that no religious standards set by the State of Israel means anything to them. 

To put it another way, I just want to know when Israel will grow up. Judaism is strictly a religion to some, but to most  of us it is a complex consortium of things; a nation, a people, a shared history, values, ethics, philosophy and yes a religion too. Judaism has a big enough tent to welcome all who see Judaism through different prisms. It always has. Of course there were split offs and different movements throughout history but that exists in every nation and certainly in every religion. Israel cannot be a nation to all its people if she allows a minority to rule over major aspects of the majority's needs. It can't work, it doesn't work and it won't last. The question now is how to change it with the least amount of bloodshed. 

My message to Haredi enforcers is the same one I have for extremist Islam and far right Fundamentalist Christians. There comes a time where if God is worried about something he doesn't need you to die or kill for him, He will handle it himself. I love Israel and am a proud Zionist, I believe that the time has come to accept ALL JEWS - FOR REAL. I can't map out the process to changing but I can urge for the change to come - so can you. Chag Kasher V'sameach