The Absence of Derech Eretz

The Absence of Derech Eretz

By Sherwin Pomerantz

On Friday of last week Gideon Levy, a columnist and member of the editorial board of the generally left leaning Ha’aretz newspaper here in Israel was verbally and physically attacked while walking in the Carmel Market in Tel Aviv with Catrin, his companion.

According to the piece he wrote about the event in this morning’s paper someone came up behind both of them as they were walking, threatened to beat them up, called him a “leftist,” an “Israel hater,” and an “Arab lover” and then proceeded to spit in the face of both Gideon and Catrin.  According to Levy the attacker was from the religious community and spoke Hebrew with a decidedly Anglo accent.   

Now I am no big fan of Gideon Levy.  While he writes exceptionally well his political views and mine are clearly not in sync.  Nevertheless, there was certainly no excuse for someone, regardless of how much he disagrees with what Levy writes, to attack him and spit in his face. 

But why should we be surprised?  Two weeks ago, at the monthly women’s prayer service at the kotel, the western wall of the Temple, members of the Orthodox community who are against the legally-sanctioned presence of the Women of the Wall, as they call themselves, chose to not only hurl obscene epithets at women who only wanted to pray in the manner which suited them and the courts found acceptable, but also threw feces laden diapers and other obnoxious items at them as well.

And last Monday morning, Peggy Cidor, a columnist for the Jerusalem Post woke up to a knock on her door by the local police asking her to look at the insulting, derogatory and life threatening graffiti which had been spray painted on the walls of the hallway leading to her apartment.  Why?  Simply because she is a supporter of Women of the Wall.

Yet in spite of these types of attacks, and I have only named a few, the religious leadership here remains silent.  Peggy Cidor writes that she did get a letter of sincere concern from the Rabbi of the Western Wall, Shmuel Rabinovitch, but most of the letter was devoted to criticism of the Women of the Wall and their assumed disregard for the holiness of the place. 

The saddest part of all of this for me, as a traditionally observant Jew, is the realization that the concept of derech eretz is too often observed in the breach by the religious community especially when it comes to other Jews who disagree with them. 

While the literal meaning of the term is “the way of the land,” most people understand this to mean what Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch explained when, in 1851, he extended the concept to mean the need to maintain the social order.  It does no good, in my opinion, to make a point of rising when a revered sage enters the room if the next day one chooses to spit in the face of someone with whom he disagrees.

Rabbi Hirsch understood this when he said:  "Judaism is not a mere adjunct to life: it comprises all of life. To be a Jew is not a mere part, it is the sum total of our task in life. To be a Jew in the synagogue and the kitchen, in the field and the warehouse, in the office and the pulpit … with the needle and the graving-tool, with the pen and the chisel—that is what it means to be a Jew."

It is a lesson many of my more observant brethren should learn and practice in order to fulfill the good Lord’s expectation of us to be, first and foremost, righteous human beings.  

Jewish Leadership as Role Models

Jewish Leadership as Role Models

By Sherwin Pomerantz

I am sitting here reading the text of an open letter to the Board of Governors of Hebrew Union College from Rabbi Ellen Lippmann and I can feel my blood pressure rising.

Rabbi Lippmann urges the College to reconsider its requirement that all prospective rabbinical students sign an agreement that “any student engaged, married, or partnered/committed to a person who is not Jewish by birth or conversion will not be admitted or ordained.”  And her logic, of course, is the need for the Reform movement to be inclusive in all of its activities.

But she and others like her who have posited similar arguments over the last few months miss the point.  An individual Jew can and often does choose to live his/her life in the manner which has the most meaning to him or her.  Others may criticize the choices that are so made, but at the end of the day these are, indeed, individual choices and, like them or not, they need to be respected.

On the other hand, when it comes to people who elect to place themselves in a position of leadership within the Jewish community, their values need to reflect the highest principles of Jewish tradition concomitant with the principles of the organizations they lead.  American Jewry has been moving down this slippery slope for some time and the natural, I would say almost expected, result is that now there are those who even want to condone intermarriage by rabbis.  Can such people be so blind as not to be able to see the contradiction in terms when pursuing that goal?

For example, 40 years ago I was critical of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America  when they elected someone to head the Board of Overseers who was married to a non-Jew.  Sadly the powers that be at the time did not see any connection between personal life and community leadership.

When I still lived in Chicago I was once standing in a movie queue well after the end of the Sabbath when I saw three Conservative Rabbis and their wives leave the theater from the earlier show, which, of course, began before Shabbat ended.  When I raised this with the then president of the Rabbinical Assembly, the umbrella organization of Conservative Rabbis in America, I was told “Sherwin, you worry about the wrong things.”

The American Jewish community, even at that time, was already moving to a point where no demands on observance were made of people who chose to place themselves in the position of Jewish community leaders.  I recall once when I spoke at a south side Conservative congregation in Chicago and was introduced as the Regional President of the United Synagogue of America to which the MC added, “and he is also shomer Shabbat.”  Really?  Shouldn’t that have been an expectation of any lay leader in a movement that valued the observance of Shabbat?  But clearly it was not.

And now we come to the absurd position in American Jewish life where Reform Rabbis (for the moment as who knows which other movements will be pressured next on this topic) argue for giving the title of Rabbi even to someone who is married to a non-Jew. 

Rabbi Lippmann, of course, knows whereof she speaks.  She herself, the Rabbi of Congregation Kolot Chayeinu in Brooklyn is married to a non-Jewish woman who calls herself a “permanently lapsed Irish-Catholic.”  And here is the kicker, when Rabbi Lippmann writes:  “A rabbi is a role model, and there are many kinds of role models.  Intermarriage is a fact of American Jewish life.  We can do a better job of connecting intermarried Jews to synagogues, rabbis and Jewish life.  One way is to knowingly ordain intermarried rabbis.”

So there you have it.  Social acceptability of domestic situations now dictates religious law.  I guess the next step is that if 10% of a congregation is made up of convicted felons then we should also ordain convicted felons as Rabbis so that such people will feel “included.”  The ultimate end of this convoluted reasoning is, of course, the demise of Judaism as a value-based torah-influenced faith. But for the Reform movement in America, the genie may already be out of the bottle with the cork nowhere to be found.         

Israel at 65

Israel Ready for Retirement…..NOT!

By Sherwin Pomerantz

Tonight, throughout Israel, as we end the observance of Memorial Day for the Fallen, we begin the celebration of Israel’s 65^th year of independence.  Over 8 million people now living in a country where, just 65 years ago, there were but 800,000.

Aveinu Shebashamayim…Our Father in Heaven, Rock and Redeemer of Israel, bless the State of Israel, the first manifestation of the approach of our redemption.

With all its faults, and what country does not have them, Israel has defied all of the odds, providing an opportunity for the Jewish people to return home after 2,000 years of wandering in foreign lands and built a high-tech based society that clearly surpasses what anyone could have dreamed of on that day in May, 1948 when Ben Gurion read our declaration of independence.

Shield it with Your loving kindness, envelop it in Your peace, and bestow Your light and truth upon its leaders, ministers, and advisors, and grace them with Your good counsel.

In the face of enemies on all sides sworn to our destruction, with few natural resources, limited water supplies and with half the country a desert, we pulled ourselves up from our bootstraps, fought multiple wars to ensure our security and found a way to make it possible for the grandchildren of an immigrant society to be world leaders in just about every field of human creativity.  

Strengthen the hands of those who defend our holy land, grant them deliverance, and adorn them in a mantle of victory.

But we also paid a heavy price. 23,085 of our finest young people, fathers, mothers, daughters, sons, sisters, brothers, and friends, have died over the last 65 years in the name of securing the land of Israel for the people of Israel and all those who seek to live with us in peace.

Ordain peace in the land and grant its inhabitants eternal happiness. Lead them, swiftly and upright, to Your city Zion and to Jerusalem, the abode of Your Name, as is written in the Torah of Your servant Moses: “Even if your outcasts are at the ends of the world, from there the Lord your God will gather you, from there He will fetch you.

Today, 65 years later, for the first time in 2,000 years, a majority of the Jews of the world live in Israel, making the dream of returning to Zion, for which we prayed, and still pray, three times a day, a reality.

And the Lord your God will bring you to the land that your fathers possessed, and you shall possess it; and He will make you more prosperous and more numerous than your fathers.”

We have yet much more to do.  This country is not without its problems, our policies are not without their blemishes, our interactions with our neighbors are not perfect and our future remains under threat.  While we know that many of our brethren both here and abroad often find fault with how we function here, all of them need to also acknowledge what has been accomplished and understand that living abroad, they too have more reasons than not to be proud of what we have built here.

  

Draw our hearts together to revere and venerate Your name and to observe all the precepts of Your Torah, and send us quickly the Messiah son of David, agent of Your vindication, to redeem those who await Your deliverance.

Tomorrow morning during the daily prayers of our people, Hallel, songs of praise from the Book of Psalms will be recited (actually sung with great fervor).  For years there has been an argument among the rabbinic authorities as to whether to begin that recitation with a blessing or not.  Some who argue against doing so make the point that the blessing is only appropriate when the whole of the Jewish people experienced the miracle, whereas in 1948 only a portion of our people was affected.

I would say, with all due respect to the rabbis, that, indeed, all of the Jewish people experienced the miracle, whether or not they were living here and all of us continue to experience the miracle which is played out every day in every way in this special place.  So the blessing would seem most appropriate.

  

Manifest yourself in the splendor of Your boldness before the eyes of all inhabitants of Your world, and may everyone endowed with a soul affirm that the Lord, God of Israel, is king and his dominion is absolute. Amen forevermore.

Let us hope as we celebrate #65, that the miracle will continue, that all of us will be able to savor the joy of having our own land for many years to come and that all of us will come to understand that, indeed, we ourselves are part of this miracle.  Chag Atzmaut Sameach…..Happy Independence Day!

Jewish Life Without Jewish Standards

                                                Jewish Life Without Jewish Standards

By Sherwin Pomerantz

Over the last week or so there has been a flurry of commentary resulting from a piece penned by Daniel Kirzane, a Wexner Graduate Fellow and rabbinical student at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York City, where he also earned a master’s degree in Jewish education.

Last October he delivered a sermon at HUC-JIR entitled, “Open the Door: Our Reform Duty to Open HUC-JIR to Applicants and Students with Non-Jewish Partners.” His continued dialogue on this issue has appeared in Reform Judaism Magazine and is forthcoming in Sh’ma: A Journal of Jewish Ideas.  His basic thesis is that the Reform movement should relax its long standing position against admitting people into their rabbinic program when they are married to non-Jewish partners.

In his defense of his position he states:

Rabbis, cantors, and Jewish educators are “symbolic exemplars” of Jewish life. Thus, when we state requirements of entry into these roles, we state what’s most important to us. Sadly, we currently make this statement negatively. You cannot be a rabbi if you have a non-Jewish partner. Instead, let us declare our values positively by stating explicitly which qualities the Reform movement’s preeminent educational institution deems essential to professional Jewish leadership. Perhaps we should require our students to demonstrate (1) a mindful Shabbat practice, (2) an ethical dietary practice, and (3) a sustained commitment to social justice.

This is certainly a strangely illogical sequence of thoughts.  On the one hand he admits that the religious leaders of the community are “symbolic exemplars” of Jewish life.  As such, one would expect that independent of the choice any individual Jews makes regarding his or her significant other, if one chooses to be  a ”religious leader” within Judaism one needs to be an example of basic Jewish values.  So logic would dictate that the profession of rabbi, cantor, or Jewish educator, demands that such people see Jewish marriage as an imperative, for them. 

With an intermarriage rate in the US of over 50% clearly who one marries is not a critical factor for large segments of the Jewish community.  But if someone chooses religious leadership as a profession, it would seem that he or she should also value Jewish tradition by upholding such a basic value as Jewish marriage.

Critics of the non-Orthodox streams of Jewish observance will be quick to point out, of course, that this is a natural progression resulting from the relaxation of other rules and regulations which then allows people like Kirzane to reduce the importance of Jewish marriage to a lower place in the ranking of critical characteristics that contribute to our long term viability as a people.  And they may be right.  

No doubt, we also did our diaspora communities a major disservice as well when we, 40 years ago, began to elect intermarried lay people to positions of leadership in religious organizations. 

  

Nevertheless, if there are no red lines at all, even within Reform; if there really is nothing that cannot be breached in the name of modernity, then we are left with just a shell of a religion.   The Reform movement will be doing Judaism a disservice larger than their decision on patrilineal descent if they accede to this push to de-Judaize the institution of marriage as it applies to its religious leadership.      

It was Abraham Lincoln who said “Important principles may and must be inflexible.”  That is as true today as it was when he said it.   It is sad that the Kirzanes of the world don’t understand that.

 

Veni, Vidi, Vici….Obama Visits Israel

Veni, Vidi, Vici….Obama Visits Israel

By Sherwin Pomerantz

My readers are quite familiar with the fact that I did not think that Barack Obama should have been re-elected to a second term as President of the United States of America.  I felt that way before the election and retain that feeling because I do not think that his socialist tendencies are in the best interests of my birth country.  His record as CEO of the United States, if it were a company instead of a country, would make any Board of Directors anxious to replace him.

Having said that, he made a visit to Israel last week and, to use words similar to those uttered by Julius Caesar in 47 BCE, he came, he saw and he conquered.

During Obama’s visit here he said and did all the right things.  He approached Israel as the friendly country that it is, as the strategic partner that it is in this region and as the only bastion of democracy that this area has known for centuries.  From his cordial embrace of Prime Minister Netanyahu on landing here on Wednesday, to his meeting with President Peres, his outstanding speech to the students who gathered in Jerusalem on Thursday afternoon and his touching visit to Yad Vashem and the grave of former Prime Minister Rabin, he did everything flawlessly. 

His words to the students gathered on Thursday at the Jerusalem Convention Center were a skilled combination of good common sense and practical advice.  The only thing some of us here could possibly disagree with was whether or not a two state solution is, in fact, the best way to make peace with the Palestinians or if there is some other construct that would give us a greater sense of security and them a sense of peoplehood.  After all, pretty much everyone here agrees that some accommodation must be made if we are going to continue to thrive in this region and not become totally politically isolated.

In his remarks to the Palestinian leadership he was honest, direct and constructive as he pointed out the need for acceptance of reality on their part as well if we have any hope of moving forward together.

Sadly, there are always negative voices here on both sides of the border and while most of us basked in the warmth that the US president exuded, others found reason to doubt his sincerity, and continue to question his motives.  I feel sorry for those who are not able to extract even a shred of positive karma from the just-concluded visit.

Of course, the trip ended with the long awaited apology to Turkey for the miscalculations associated with the Mavi Marmara incident three years ago and the agreement on Israel’s part to pay compensation for the loss of life that resulted.  This was certainly a coup for Obama and it will be comforting, once again, to have full relations with Turkey restored.

Which all leads me to the conclusion that perhaps Obama is really an expert world leader in spite of my criticism of him as a President.  It just may be that, for him, the United States is simply too small a “theater” in which to operate and that he simply does better on the world stage where he can leverage his three redeeming qualities: (a) intelligence, (b) charisma, and (c) influence.  On the world stage he does not have to deal with the challenges of congressional politics and can paint with a much broader brush, a task he seems to do so well.

I am thankful he visited us (in spite of the havoc it cause here for two days of continual road closures) and hope that the side of the President that we saw here last week will be the one that continues to be dominant during the rest of his term. All of us will be the better for this if it turns out to be true.

Israel's Disappointing Political Process

 Israel’s Disappointing Political Process

By Sherwin Pomerantz

There are times, like today, when I really miss and envy the political process in my birth country, the United States of America.

Yesterday Israel swore in its 33^rd government since the country’s creation in 1948.  The new cabinet seems to me to be a clear reflection of what the voters here stated loud and clear on Election Day in January, to wit:

·         There is no better person in the country today than Benjamin Netanyahu to be the Prime Minister.

·         But there is disappointment in certain aspects of how he runs the country so let’s clip his wings a bit and not give him as strong a mandate as in the previous election.

·         It’s time for new blood in the Knesset, so let’s elect 43 of the 120 delegates who have never served before and have no allegiance to political kingmakers and see how they make out.

·         We are concerned about how best to deal with the fact that Israel has the highest percentage of any OECD country of people not in the work force who are eligible to be in the work force and we need to address that in order to remain economically stable.

·         Perhaps it is time for the government coalition not to include the religious parties and to at least begin to address the issue of separation of church and state.

This, of course, is my personal interpretation although the election of two brand new parties to the 2^nd (Yesh Atid) and 3^rd (Bayit HaYehudi) place positions as vote-getters along with the reduction in seats of the first place Likud-Beytenu faction would seem to support my position.

After weeks of coalition building today’s papers detail the members of a cabinet thankfully reduced in size from the last government (which saves those of us who are taxpayers millions of dollars).  One would think that the press and electorate would wish them well.

Ah, but this is Israel and the tradition here is exactly opposite from that of the US.  In the US there is a tradition, after an election, of people rallying together for the good and welfare of the community in order to move the public sector forward. Sadly, in Israel, the approach is exactly the opposite where the losers work hard to prove that those who voted the elected officials into office made a mistake.

Last Friday’s papers in the religious community, for example, blared out the headline “An Evil Government” once it was announced that the coalition had been formed and the religious parties would be in the opposition.

This morning’s Ha’aretz, in reviewing the new ministers, referred nastily to Rabbi Shai Peron, a member of the Yesh Atid party and the new Minister of Education as “one who used to run a yeshiva and will now be in charge of the entire educational system,” as if it should be clear to all of us that he will fail.  This, of course, is the same paper that four years ago praised the appointment of Yuval Steinitz as Minister of Finance even though he had no experience whatsoever in that discipline.

Finally, pretty much every news outlet is already predicting the fact that the new government will be unmanageable and will have a limited life.

How sad.  How sad that this country which has become the envy of the world (even of our enemies) when it comes to technological achievement cannot mature in the political sphere to the point where we applaud, support and encourage the success of a new government, regardless of our private disappointments.

Benjamin Franklin once said “Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain – and most fools do.”  That’s a lesson that our electorate needs to internalize for the ultimate good and welfare of the State of Israel, the fulfillment of God’s promise to those he brought out of Egypt so many years ago.

When Do We Give Up the Right to a Personal Opinion?

When Do We Give Up the Right to a Personal Opinion?

By Sherwin Pomerantz

In 1977 I was writing a weekly column for the now-defunct Chicago Jewish Post & Opinion.  It was a very personal assessment of the community at the time and, quite frankly, I loved doing it.  But that year I was elected Midwest Regional President of the United Synagogue of America, the umbrella organization of Conservative congregations in the US and Canada and everything changed.

My mentor at the time, now deceased, Rabbi Samuel Schafler, sat me down and told me in no uncertain terms that I could no longer speak as a private citizen.  As the elected head of a community body anything I would now say would reflect, for better or for worse, on the organization I represented.  Therefore, in his opinion, I had no choice but to stop writing the column, and I did so not only because of my respect for his opinion but because it was, indeed, the right thing to do.  I could no longer speak as a private citizen.

I was reminded of this last week when I saw the video clip and read the story about British MK George Galloway, who stormed out of an Oxford University debate on Israel when he found out that his counterpart was not just a British citizen of mosaic persuasion, but the son of Israelis living in England and, therefore, also a citizen of Israel.

What happened was that during Eylon Asian-Levy’s rebuttal to Galloway’s remarks, Asian-Levy used the term “we” when referring to Israel.  At that point Galloway interrupted and asked Asian-Levy whether he was also Israeli?  When he responded in the affirmative, Galloway and his wife immediately left the meeting saying:  “I refuse to debate with an Israeli, a supporter of the Apartheid state of Israel.  The reason is simple; No recognition, No normalization.  Just boycott, divestment and sanctions until the Apartheid state is defeated.”

And this from a member of the British parliament whose country’s official position is not only diplomatic recognition of Israel, but general support of its government and its right to be considered a member of the family of nations.  So then the question becomes, does an elected member of Parliament who has sworn allegiance to the country in whose legislature he serves, have the right to deny by his actions the stated policy of his government?  I think not.

But we have a similar situation in Israel.  MK Hanan Zoabi about whom I have written before was a demonstrator on the Mavi Marmara that sailed from Istanbul in May, 2010 to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza, in direct opposition to the policies of the government to which she had sworn allegiance.  More recently, during the recent installation of our newly seated Knesset, she chose to leave the room when the national anthem was sung in a show of disrespect to the country to which she had just minutes before sworn allegiance.  (I would not have had a problem had she chosen not to sing it, but walking out is a different kettle of fish, as it were.)

Our former Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, committed the same error when he addressed the United Nations two years ago and expressed an opinion that was diametrically opposed to that of the government he served at the time.   Such conduct is simply not acceptable.

Elected members of the legislature who, as part of the process of their being seated, are required in every country to swear allegiance to the country they serve and its elected leadership.  At that point their right to the expression of personal opinion becomes somewhat curtailed just as they then become eligible for some perks that come with such high office.  But these go hand in hand and people cannot accept one and reject the other.  Accepting the mantle of leadership demands a certain commitment to keeping one’s personal opinions somewhat subdued within the limits of parliamentary obligation.

Most of these people need to learn what Albert Einstein taught us.  If A equals success, then the formula is A = X+Y+Z where X is work, Y is play and Z is keeping your mouth shut.  If more of our leaders understood that we would probably all be better off.