Rabbi Jon's Website and Blog

This Chanukkah -- Many Ideas

I am still trying to keep on top of my many channels, between this blog and the Tov! podcast and Temple Beth Abraham's site and blog, not to mention social media. (Not complaining!) I haven't put a link here yet to the many thematic Chanukkah-related writings I've got, some of them reposts from prior years and some of them new, whether it's my own thoughts about courage or links to others. You can scroll through all of that here, for now just on Beth Abraham's site and I'll get them up here eventually too. Also related is my reflection on science and religion through the lens/light of Chanukkah via Sinai and Synapses.

Being an American Zionist

This is the text of a column i wrote in the New Hampshire Jewish Reporter for December 2021. I am posting this today on Yom Ha'atzmaut, Israel's Independence Day.

I have been a Zionist since I was a kid. I didn’t become an American Zionist, though, until I was 22. That was when I decided not to make aliyah and make my life in the State of Israel.

I was just back from a year in Israel as a college student. In Jerusalem, I was seeing myself a few years in the future as a Hebrew speaker, a soldier, a Masorti (Conservative) rabbi, a member of Oz V’shalom, the religious peace movement. I came home and couldn’t wait to go back.

Within a few weeks back on campus, immersed more than ever in my Hillel community, I realized how American I was feeling. I had the sudden realization that the only way I would fulfill my life was an American – an American Jew and probably an American rabbi. My great-grandparents came to America as a choice, and in flight from the czar’s tyranny. I was born American – but at the age of 22 I made my choice to be an American.

And my Zionism changed, from future Israeli to American Zionist.

I want to argue that an American Jewish Zionist is a Jew rooted in America. A first-class Zionist; not a consolation prize for not having the courage to make aliyah. A full partner in the project of Zionism. A partner with a specific and essential role that is obviously different from the role of Israelis.

My American Jewish Zionism is also a religious Jewish Zionism, and I realize that’s not the case for everyone reading. But I hope my concepts are useful regardless of whether that specific profile fits.

These are some of my fundamental tenets as an American Jewish Zionist. This thinking is hardly my own, and I owe more than anyone Rabbi Donniel Hartman, leader of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem.

Israel is the original and ongoing land of the Jewish people. The claim is religious and historical. It may be complicated in terms of Palestinians and their claim, but the claim still stands without compromise.

It’s a fascinating dimension of Jewish life for the past 2500 years that even during the times of a center in Eretz Yisrael, or a longing for it, there have been strong centers of Judaism outside the land. The fact that Jews like me affirmatively choose to live in America as members of Am Yisrael does not undermine Israel at all. One of our roles as American Zionists is to explain this to people around us – the uniqueness of Jewish peoplehood in Israel and America.

Zionism is a movement of moral and spiritual excellence. Rabbi Hartman put it this way in an address to the 2007 Reform movement biennial: “The birth of the State of Israel provided Judaism with an unprecedented opportunity of permeating and actively shaping all aspects of society. Whether in areas of political theory or economic policy, religious practice or ethical conduct, human rights or environmental care, hospitals or army bases, classrooms or courthouses - Israel is where Jewish values meet the road.”

American Jewish Zionists should see ourselves as partners in Zionist excellence. Rabbi Hartman made two points about this in his 2007 talk. First, American Jews have unique intellectual and cultural contributions to make to Israel. If Israel is a unique lab for Jewish values, the American Jewish experience has been a longer and better-established lab around issues of religious freedom, minority-majority relationships, and ideological pluralism.

It is because we are in America that Jewish thinkers and leaders have had to formulate a Torah of concern for human beings and not just for Jews. A Torah of responsibility for the whole earth and not just the Jewish community. It is because of America that totalitarianism and technology forced Jewish thinking to ask questions about the ethics of power and the limits on human innovation. In the past few decades, Israeli and American Jewish thinkers have indeed become thought partners and innovators around all of these issues.

Hence Rabbi Hartman’s second point about the role of American Jewish Zionists as partners. He charged each of us to find that aspect of Israel and the Israeli striving for moral excellence that inspires us. It could be climate, or bioethics, or human rights, or aging… chances are the answer is a moral passion you already have here. Learn about its unique Israeli shape. Connect to the people who drive it and work on it there. Join those projects and institutions in any way that’s available – by taking a role, by contributing or investing money, by advocacy.

It is as partners that we move from vicarious spectators, and from our own inferiority complex about not being Israeli, to an affirmative Jewish identity as American Zionists. Israel needs this kind of American Zionists. It’s a responsibility, and it’s work.

The responsibility and the work do not come without trouble. Indeed, Rabbi Hartman says what Israel and the Jewish people need from American Zionists often is for us to be “the troubled committed.” We need to feel issues that trouble Israelis as our own issues. Sometimes we need to be more troubled than many Israelis are, and bring that to them.

But commitment first, as American Zionists. The troubled-ness of the noncommitted, the non-Zionist, is not likely to make a difference on any contentious issue. Not in Israel and not here among the many people around us who purport to care about what happens in Israel but have no commitment to it.

Every year especially around Chanukkah and around the Fourth of July, I reflect on my decision to embrace America and American Zionism. And I resolve to do both of those better, with more follow-through and more clarity to myself and as a teacher. For those of us in New Hampshire who will always be American, consider becoming a truly American Zionist.

Ahavat Yisrael or Sin'at Chinam -- Learning From the Destruction of the Temple

This is the D'var Torah I gave on Saturday, July 17, Shabbat Chazon -- the Shabbat preceding the fast of Tisha B'Av, which commemorates the destruction of the two Temples in Jerusalem by the Babylonians and the Romans.

I want to tell you a story from the Talmud often taught at this time of year, around the fast of Tisha B’Av. But first I want you to take a minute and think about the Jewish person who is most unlike you as a Jew. The Jew or the Jewish group you find it hard to admire, or who is hardest for you to feel connected to as a fellow Jew.

Here is the story (Babylonian Talmud Gittin 55b):

Because of Kamtza and Bar Kamtza, Jerusalem was destroyed.

It happened this way: A certain man had a friend named Kamtza and an enemy called Bar Kamtza. He once made a party and said to his servant, “Go and bring Kamtza.” The servant went and brought Bar Kamtza.

When the man who gave the party found Bar Kamtza there he said, “See, you are my enemy; what are you doing here? Get out!” Said the other: “Since I am already here, let me stay, and I will pay you for whatever I eat and drink.”

Said the host: “Absolutely not.”

“Then let me give you half the cost of the party.”

The host refused.

“Then let me pay for the whole party.”

Still the host refused, and took him by the hand and threw him out.

Said Bar Kamtza, “Since the Rabbis were sitting there and did not stop him, this shows that they agreed with him. I will go and inform against them to the government.”

He went and said to the emperor, “The Jews are rebelling against you.”

Said the emperor, “How can I know that this is true?”

“Send them an offering,” said Bar Kamtza, “and see whether they will offer it on the altar.”

So he sent with him a fine calf. While on the way he made a blemish on its upper lip (or some say, on the white of its eye)—in a place where we Jews count it a blemish but they Romans do not.

The rabbis were inclined to offer it in order not to offend the government. Said Rabbi Zechariah ben Avkulas to them: “People will say that blemished animals are offered on the altar.” They then proposed to kill Bar Kamtza so that he should not go and inform against them, but Rabbi Zechariah ben Avkulas said to them, “Is one who makes a blemish on consecrated animals to be put to death?”

Rabbi Yochanan thereupon remarked: “Because of the scrupulousness of Rabbi Zechariah ben Avkulas our House has been destroyed, our Temple burnt, and we ourselves exiled from our land.”

This story from the Talmud is retold often around Tisha B’Av, part of the idea that the Second Temple was destroyed because of gratuitous hatred among Jews, sin’at chinam.

There is a lot here in the story and I’m not going to give you a complete analysis. But a few things stand out particularly to me this year:

• The names Kamtza and bar Kamtza, the host’s friend and his enemy, are almost the same. Among Jews, the people we like and the people not so much are really close together, sometimes in the same space and if not, then not entirely different from each other.
• This is a story about a Jewish party, a social gathering of people in the same place, that ends connected to the political world of the Romans – but it starts with the Jewish party.
• The story asks whether relations among us as Jews are governed culturally by us or by the general world. We know that Jews argue or don’t always get along – will this be played out Jewish-style or Roman-style?

The last issue is particularly worth our attention, always and especially this year. Jews argue and Jews don’t all get along always. Conflict is built into Torah and Talmud, and into Jewish culture. The good version of this is called machloket l’shem shamayim, disagreement and even division for the sake of Heaven. It goes hand in hand with Ahavat Yisrael, love of the Jewish people and love of Jews generally, beyond one’s own community and the Jews at your own Shabbes table or your own synagogue.

I do think what happened here is that a Jewish fight got turned into a Roman one, and the rabbis stood there and let it happen. They didn’t ask what Jewish ethics had to say about these two people in an uncomfortable situation, who maybe were enemies for a good reason. The rabbis got stuck on technical rituals questions and didn’t see the bigger human picture. So the Talmud here doesn’t blame the destruction of the Temple on the Romans; or on Bar Kamtza, the Jew who sold out Jews to the Romans; but on the rabbis who could have turned this around.

Bar Kamtza didn’t act well but we understand he was hurt. The rabbis didn’t act well because they didn’t put ritual and relationships together. And they got so focused on Bar Kamtza that they forget the Romans were a much worse enemy, a much bigger issue. The rabbis and Kamtza and bar Kamtza could have all gotten on the same side of that.

I’m very much feeling like our Jewish community’s conflicts today are being Romanized, so to speak. Americanized. And this story and the Tisha B’Av fast day are reminders to deal with our conflicts Jewishly. Ahavat Yisrael for me has always been about forcing myself to ask: Who is the Jew who is least like me, whom I have the hardest time feeling connected to. Then looking for a connection of friendship or admiration with someone in such a group. For me it’s a nice long list of Jews different from me who are hard for me. It’s charedi Jews, and West Bank settlers, and completely secular you-can’t- possibly-lure-me-into-shul-no-matter-how-good-the-music-or-food-or-your-sermon. I have to work at that. That’s not what modern day Romans do. Rather than get sucked in more to American-style conflict, I can find ways to love and connect that don’t sell out my integrity. I might even find something that my own Bar Kamtza and I both care about, a moral issue that we can work on together.

There is a tremendous example of Ahavat Yisrael that took place recently, from the new Israeli prime minister, Naftali Bennett. The speech he gave in the Knesset introducing the leaders in his new government was a like mashup of announcing the starting lineup for the Celtics at the Garden and a book club summary of Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals.

Prime Minister Bennett presented by name, with affection, the leader of each party in his government and the specific good each one was going to work on for Israel. More of these partners than not are ideologically opposed to him in some profound way.  I know this was politics, but he turned a moment of just enough votes in the Knesset to an expansive and generous and forward-looking, hopeful moment. It went even beyond Jews, as the new prime minister even gave a shout out for Mansour Abbas of the Arab Ra’am party.

Bennett did this while the country was hardly out of war with Gaza and just beyond fighting in the streets between Jews and Arabs. He did this with all the emotion in the air around former Prime Minister Netanyahu, and he did this while death threats were being made members of his political party and the new government. I would say you should read the speech, but it’s not soaring, it’s not a great read. It’s just the fact of it. Prime Minister Bennett found a way for Kamtza and Bar Kamtza to fight the Romans instead of each other. And the Romans are worth fighting together even if you’re not going to be actually friends. In my proudest, Jewish-egotistical way I would say only a Jew could have pulled this off.

So we might all learn from that. We should try to find a way to say something true and sincere and generous about Jews we’re not like. And as part of that, we have to love ourselves as Jews – you for your own Jewish life, us for our shul’s Jewish life. We have to do better at making sure that there are many good and admirable things that a Jew so different would say about us.

There is a cost to Ahavat Yisrael, to putting this much value on loving all other Jews. Whenever you set aside even for a minute an ideological debate, you are putting on hold a belief you hold because other people’s wellbeing depends on that core belief. There’s a cost, no doubt.

But Ahavat Yisrael is a model not for when to give up our principles, but for how to enlarge our world. For saying: there’s a person unlike me who isn’t only my opponent, who isn’t all the timeworking against what’s important to me, and who I hate to say might be a role model for me in some way.

When I think of the charedi community or the settlements, I know there’s a tight-knit quality and a commitment to taking care of each other that I want more of in our community and that I want to imitate. When I think of the most secular Jews I know, I often find an honesty, a straightforward path toward moral commitments, that I want to work at more.

We Jews have more history than anyone of suffering because of our divisions --  losing life and losing our land and losing each other. We also have more history than anyone of enduringbecause we figured out how to be divided. We are resilient because we’ve learned to be at the same party, as Kamtza and Bar Kamtza. Our divisions have not destroyed us; sometimes they have helped us grow. I know my own Judaism is stronger because of the Orthodoxy I reject in my own life, because of the Reform I reject in my own life, because of the Israeliness I chose not to pursue in my own life.

Who knows if this is the gift we’re supposed to find for our time. To find our Ahavat Yisrael, our love of Jews, and machloket l’shem shamayim, division focused around things that matter. Who knows, we could spread this out to the Romans, to the Americans. At least we can try not to be swept up on other people’s terms in the divisiveness of the moment.

So as we go into Tisha B’av, let’s each think about the Jew who pushes our buttons, whether that’s here locally or anywhere in the Jewish world. Find something to admire or like or chuckle about. Find an idea from them that challenges you in a good way, and be thankful and gracious. Imagine a party we can all be at together -- or at least a Kiddush after services.

Shabbat Shalom!

The Sacrifice of Yitzchak: Remembering Rabin on the Anniversary of His Assassination

October 29, 2020 is by the Jewish calendar the 25th anniversary of the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin z"l, by a Jewish religious extremist opposed to Rabin's peacemaking with the Palestinians. This is the D'var Torah I gave five years ago for Rabin's yahrzeit.

This is the week of the 20th yahrzeit for Yitzchak Rabin, the prime minister of Israel who was assassinated by a Jewish religious religious fanatic.  By the Jewish calendar it was last Sunday, and by the secular calendar next Wednesday.  His murder took place in the first hours of the week of פרשת וירא, this morning’s reading, and I will never forget one of the headlines in an Israeli paper the week of his funeral:  עקדת יצחק, the sacrifice of Yitzchak.

There is a particular story told about Yitzchak Rabin in all the biographies and memoirs from Israel’s War of Independence.  It was June of 1948, only about a month after the State of Israel officially came into being.  The Jews of Jerusalem were under siege, living truly near starvation, because the road from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem was cut off around its midpoint by the Arab Legion, which was holding a police fortress in a place called Latrun.  The Israelis had already tried several times to storm Latrun without success.  The fortress was on ground just high enough to see the plain around it, and the Israelis did not have enough troops to take it by overwhelming force.  The battles for Latrun had been some of the costliest in the war in terms of lives lost; many of the soldiers had been refugees from the Holocaust, just liberated from displaced persons camps, with almost no training and no language in common to hear instructions in battle.

As dire as the siege was in Jerusalem, there were Arab armies threatening Jewish areas all over the country.  The Israeli commanders felt they had to make choices about where to deploy their limited number of trained forces, and they knew that attacking Latrun again would be futile  But David Ben Gurion was obsessed with Latrun and had summoned his army leaders repeatedly to demand an attack on Latrun to open the road to Jerusalem.

The commanders responsible in early June for the area of the road to Jerusalem included Mickey Marcus, an American Jew and experienced solider who had come to volunteer.  Some of you may know him and this part of the war through the film “Cast a Giant Shadow”, where he was played by Kirk Douglas.  Also Yigal Allon, commander of the Palmach, the most elite and well-trained Jewish fighting group.  Yitzchak Rabin was the young commander of the Harel Brigade of the Palmach.  Ben Gurion summonded his commanders, and Alon and Marcus knew they would be asked to divert their scarce resources to Latrun, and when they would object they would be subject to Ben Gurion’s fury.

So they decided instead to sacrifice Yitzchak.  The 26-year-old Rabin went by himself to talk to Ben-Gurion, to present an alternative proposal.  By accident, one of Rabin’s underlings had discovered a way to go around Latrun, out of sight of the Arabs, and create a path for supplies to get to Jerusalem.   Rabin would propose that they pave a new supply route and avoid Latrun altogether.

When Rabin came to Ben Gurion, the prime minister lived up to his name, son of a lion cub, and flew into a two-hour rage.  Yitzchak was astounded as Ben Gurion at one point threatened to shoot his own commander, Yigal Allon, in the head, but Rabin stood his ground.  Where other times Ben Gurion had overruled a more senior commander and ordered an attack on Latrun, not this time.  The attack did not take place, the road was built, and the siege of Jerusalem came to an end just in the nick of time.

For people who knew Rabin or wrote later about his life, that confrontation with Ben Gurion exemplified a couple key things about the man.  His wife Leah wrote in her memoir that as a commander and a statesman, Yitzchak was fanatical about his goals and but always looking for the least costly way to achieve them.  He tried to minimize risk to soldiers in battle -- by doing his own detail work of intelligence and reconnaissance to outmaneuver his enemy, by considering creative alternatives, rather than relying on superior force alone which could lose more more lives.  After Ben Gurion, Rabin was probably the most detail-oriented and methodical prime minister Israel has ever had.

The confrontation with Ben-Gurion also showed how little Rabin was interested in ingratiating himself with anyone if those things put the mission at risk.  He didn’t care overly about the feelings of his peers or his superiors, but about the many people he knew less well, the men who served under him.  So Rabin didn’t bother to join Mapai, Ben Gurion’s political party, even though he would have advanced much faster if he had.  He had no hesitation when he was prime minister about cutting his own mentor, Yigal Allon, down to size when he disagreed with him.  

Later on, as Israel’s ambassador to the U.S. and then as prime minister, Rabin could be plenty sharp and critical.  He could seem detached.  But at the same time, and this was key -- as long as he could win he had no need to demonize the people who disagreed with him.

These were not the things we call people skills.  Rabin was not a jolly man, and in no way a glad-handing politician.  Leah reprints a letter she received when they were dating in the mid-1940s and Yitzchak was imprisoned by the British, and it was more like a business letter than a love letter.  Rabin was not beloved or revered, the way his peers like Moshe Dayan would be.  He didn’t unite his country when he was prime minister or when he signed the agreement with PLO on the White House lawn.  It seemed ridiculous to me when Bill Clinton called Rabin his friend.

Yet without the typical people skills, Rabin was able, at key times, to surprise people and earn their trust.  How could Rabin have possibly negotiated with the Palestinians?  For fifty years, he had not only defeated them in battle -- he had out-organized and outwitted and outsmarted them.  He had every reason to have contempt for them, as soliders and leaders, and therefore to doubt their ability to do the things they were promising -- but he chose to see them simply as opponents.  Just as in 1948, Rabin was willing to fight only the battle that was necessary, in the 1990s Rabin was clear about exactly how much he needed to be the PLO’s opponent and in what ways he could be their partner.

Rabin knew that in order to bring Israelis along with the peace process, he would have to teach through his example how to balance peace ahead with justice and grief looking back.  At first, he wasn’t going to go to the White House to sign the Oslo agreement, but eventually he figured out that if he didn’t, Israelis would write it off as a ridiculous dream cooked up by Shimon Peres.  Rabin managed every step so carefully, relating just as in 1948 not to his fellow leaders but to the average Israeli.  So he opened his speech at the White House by talking about Israeli families who would never stop grievning, he shook Arafat’s hand in the only way he could, politely but not enthusiastically.  

At the White House and in later ceremonies to sign agreements with Arafat, Rabin put on his non-Israeli-style suit and looked like an adult, and made Arafat look like a child who could not take off his costume.  Rabin made sure to have a working relationship with Arafat and to show that when they appeared together, but he was also carefuly not to portray to Israelis that he and Arafat were becoming friends.  He was perfect for the role; he wasn’t big for smiling or scolding, his natural face and voice were holding back even when he tried to do revolutionary things.

Rabin understood that leadership is not like other relationships.  He didn’t try to use on the people skills he didn’t have, because that’s not what leading his people is only about.  And Rabin could lead because he was aware that he was modeling a new way of being a Jew in a new world.  Not just modeling, but maybe inventing it as he went along.

In 1994, at an award ceremony honoring Israeli writers just a year after the White House handshake, Rabin said:  “These days we are in the midst of a battle without cannons in a war without fire, which may turn out to be perhaps one of the most significant and decisive battles in the annals of the Jewish people in recent generations.”  In that speech, he said:

Let us admit the truth: the atmosphere of siege, the hostility, and the war have elicited tremendous energies from us for almost five decades. Much of what has been achieved in the State of Israel in all areas is a direct or indirect outcome of the necessity to defend our existence, of the atmosphere of siege from which we are so glad to free ourselves these days. Ours was a productive unity, a healthy unity, standing shoulder to shoulder against the manifestations of enmity and facing a hostile world. Just between us, we have become accustomed to this lifestyle, and, already, we think we cannot do without it. Perhaps we have even come to love the pleasant warmth of power and the encircling siege.

And now? What are we to do now? What message should we deliver to our people these days? How should we avoid becoming entangled in delivering a double, and contradictory, message: are we on the brink of peace, or do we expect another war? How do we change the atmosphere that has characterized our state for generations? What should we choose – should we declaim again and again: "a state under siege," "the whole world is against us," "all the Arabs are the same"? Or perhaps we should bear a new message: "the new Middle East," "the peace of the brave," "nation shall not lift up sword against nation," "He who makes peace in heaven above..."?

How do we become accustomed to a world of new concepts, to a different culture, a different style, and at the same time not completely abandon the old world, just in case, God forbid, we might need it again? How do we maintain the invigorating rhythm of our lives, the Jewish mind, all those tremendous energies of ours, our unity – without the sword hanging over our heads?

This is the Rabin who was taken from us by his assassin. How do we become accustomed to a world of new concepts,.... and at the same time not completely abandon the old world, just in case, God forbid, we might need it again?  This is who the Jewish people lost on the 12th of Marcheshvan 5755.  Not necessarily the man who signed the Oslo agreement, which may well have stalled even had he lived.  We lost the man who fought wars until the moment he thought they were not necessary, and was prepared to fight them again if necessary.  We lost the one who hoped we might figure out how to live as Jews in the world we are in and not in the mythic worlds of dreamy peace or eternal Jew-hatred.  

Rabin’s assassin took the worst message from the Akedah -- that to be Jewish is to live as though you were always just escaping a knife at your throat; and that extreme atrocities are beloved to God.  That is a Judaism of no joy and no hope, an impossible Judaism -- and in the square 20 years ago a desecration of God’s name.

Yitzchak Rabin was the truer heir of the biblical Yitzchak.  He lived through the wars of survival and knew they were over for his people, and he didn’t pretend to know for sure what was next or how long it would take.

We would honor Yitzchak Rabin’s memory most if we could find a way as Jews of being comfortable with our power, and with taking responsibility for how we use it.  We would honor his legacy if we could take the proper measure of the threats to Israel, and to Jews, and fight them rather than our ghosts, and take satisfaction when we are defeating them  That is the true spirituality of Zionism.  To know the perfect place between the smile and the scold, to scowl appropriately while trying revolutionary things.

Yehi zichro baruch -- May Yitzchak’s memory be a blessing.

Why I Am Voting for Sen. Klobuchar This Tuesday

#thinkinparagraphs

For my NH undecided friends, and for people out there in states voting soon who haven’t picked a candidate:

I’m not registered as a member of a political party, but on Tuesday I am going to take a Democratic ballot and vote for Sen. Amy Klobuchar.

I didn’t decide finally until about a week ago. I’ve been thinking about a small number of candidates, some of whom aren’t in the race anymore and some of whom are. I just posted about how it is that I go about choosing whom to vote for in general, and hopefully this post will look like an application of what I wrote there.

I have heard Senator Klobuchar speak twice now in person. Apart from the policy proposals, which she shares with some of the other candidates, Sen. Klobuchar has a combination of intelligence, forcefulness joined to openness, and humor. She has a record of accomplishment on matters large and small, first in her (my!) home state of Minnesota and then as a Senator in Washington in the most challenging legislative environment in recent memory. She feels a connection to people whose lives are affected by what public policy has and has not done, and that connection seems rooted in her biography and the story of her family. She has a record of building coalitions beyond the Democratic Party. She projects in her words and her public manner the qualities of decency, dignity, and empathy that belong in the Oval Office.

One of the hardest things in the campaign is going to be battling with President Trump and talking about divisive issues and where division is coming from, while also staying connected to as many Americans as possible. Even without President Trump, the political environment would be polarized. Solutions in Congress to complex problems like health care and immigration reform have been elusive. I am looking for someone whose whole package of leadership skills and experience under fire gives her a fighting chance to detoxify our politics and also make an impact. Of the candidates remaining, Sen. Klobuchar strikes me as the one with the best chance to do all of that.

It also means something to me that she has the support of people in my community whose wisdom and fundamental values I know and trust such as Joe Foster, Helen Honorow, Bill Barry, and Rep. Latha Mangipudi.

For people in the Jewish community who wonder about issues of special concern to us, Senator Klobuchar has a record of supporting Israeli security as an American national interest, and being part of what has been and should be a bipartisan consensus on Israel’s right to self-defense and the desire for a negotiated two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She has spoken out against anti-Semitism in our society.

I like to think I am not voting for Sen. Klobuchar just because of the Minnesota connection (though it doesn't hurt!)

I have thought about Mayor Buttigieg, whom I admire particularly for his reflectiveness and his willingness to talk about faith and about moral dilemmas in leadership. I think it says a lot about him that after Harvard and other experiences he chose to go back and try to make a difference where he came from even though it’s a small city, not the center of the world. Executive governmental experience is very important to the job of president. I think Senator Klobuchar has more experience and mettle for the job at hand in all its dimensions today.

I admire Sen. Warren particularly for her work on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which was one of the most important actions with teeth that was created after the financial crisis. Exploitation in finance isn’t as easy to talk about as health care or education. The lessons Sen. Warren draws from her personal history are also compelling. What has put me off have been some of her attacks on people or groups who disagree with her. There is a way to disagree and to work strongly from one’s principles without mocking people or painting all opponents on an issue with the same brush, whether it’s a social issue or an economic one. Right now, we need a leader who is especially good at both winning and not-demonizing.

There is a lot of good in Vice President Biden’s record and his long experience, and also some bad policy judgment in that record. I admire the clarity of Sen. Sanders, and have been thinking more and more about his take on wealth and inequality and poverty than I have in a long time. I have in the past had less of a black-and-white approach about wealth (see my previous post, referring to philosopher John Rawls), but even if I agreed with Sen. Sanders, this is a moment when a politics that rebuilds the center is also necessary if we are really going to make headway on issues related to inequality (also see my previous post). Because of that, I haven’t done a lot of looking into his record or story.

If you’ve read some of my previous posts or blogs about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it won’t surprise you that I have issues with recent statements from both Sen. Sanders and Sen. Warren.

I thought briefly about taking the Republican ballot and voting for Governor Weld to make a statement about the president. But as I wrote in the other post, I do not vote for symbolism but to make an impact.

So I have made my choice. I will be voting for Senator Amy Klobuchar this Tuesday, after being undecided for longer than I can ever remember being. Good luck making your choice well, and see you at the polls.

Embracing Chanukkah

This was my column in the December 2019 bulletin for Temple Beth Abraham:

I love Chanukkah. I love the row of chanukkiot, the special menorahs, set up by the window for each member of the family. Just the simplicity of light and then a bit more light every day, with a bit of color, and before you know it the difference between one candle for each and eight. Hope, lights kindling more lights, a simple melody for blessings with voices of different ages.

What I have really come to love about Chanukkah is that the story itself is actually about having a holiday when other people are having another holiday. That’s not a new thing, an American thing, even a Judaism-and-Christianity thing. It’s way back at the beginning. Chanukkah, like Purim (stay tuned in a few months), is the festival about us.

The simplest Chanukkah story is about King Antiochus outlawing Judaism and defiling the Temple in Jerusalem, until a band of Jewish priest-warriors said no, fought a battle for four years, drove out the king’s forces and purified the Temple. A story of religious freedom instead of tyranny, and self-determination in our land, and miracle.

Around that story is another story, and it’s longer. It starts in the 300s B.C.E., with Alexander the Great. He led a military campaign through the Middle East and established an enormous empire from Europe to Persia to Africa, including the Land of Israel. His conquests also brought a culture, the Greek-infused Hellenism that changed the language people spoke as well as art, architecture, athletics and ideas.

Jews, both in and out of Judea, wrestled with what it meant to live in a Hellenistic world. In the century or so after Alexander the Great, the Jews in Egypt translated the Torah into Greek, a version that is known as the Septuagint. They didn’t speak or know very much Hebrew and needed a Torah in their own language.

One of my favorite ancient Jewish stories is a legend about the writing of the Septuagint. The Letter of Aristeas to Philocrates is a Jewish text that invents a different origin for the Greek version of the Torah. The Letter of Aristeas says that the Hellenistic emperor in Alexandria, Egypt, heard that there was a book he was missing for his great library of all the world’s wisdom: the Torah.

In order to complete his library, he would need it translated into Greek. So he sent for a group of seventy scholars to come down for Jerusalem, and he threw them a kosher banquet. This story, written by a Jew in Greek, even presents the scholars as though they were excellent Greek philosophers!

By the time of Antiochus and the Maccabees, a lot of Jews were wondering whether they needed Hebrew, or even Judaism (much of it's opening chapters are different than our version, another story). There was social pressure to become like other people. Even the Jerusalem priests took on Greek names, like we generally have English ones. There was a fierce debate within the Jews of the time about how much to integrate with others, and how much Hellenism to integrate into Judaism.

Sound familiar?

So while Antiochus was a madman and a tyrant, his rise was also the catalyst for getting all of this into the open. In fact, one of the oldest historical books we have about Chanukkah spends most of its time talking about these debates among Jews, about our relations with others and about how much Greek culture to bring into Jerusalem.

Even the date of the start of Chanukkah is connected to these themes. We celebrate beginning on the 25th of the month of Kislev in the Jewish calendar. The 25th of the final month of the solar year was, in the surrounding cultures, a pagan holiday already. Both Jews and later Christians took that festival of light period from others, and made it a symbol of our own lights. In the very act of claiming that day as our own, we remember that Jews of the time battling for their own culture.

The Hellenistic world that was Alexander the Great’s legacy is an analogy for our world, particularly for the Jewish community in America. So it’s absolutely right that we end up presenting ourselves to others, to the majority, at this time of year – explaining things, being ambassadors, talking about what connects us through the winter festivals and what is unique about us.

So embrace that. Be Chanukkah. Get ready when people ask you about Chanukkah and Judaism. Be ready with more than “Chanukkah isn’t our Christmas” -- your favorite thing about being Jewish, your favorite mitzvah or custom or story or idea. Your story of why and how you are Jewish in this modern-day version of a Hellenistic world.

Then you’ll be the candle that lights another candle. You can be a candle of pride that shines, and a candle that lights more understanding among other people who look at us, as we glow uniquely at this time of year.

Chag Urim Samayach – A Joyous Festival of Lights,
Rabbi Jon

Chanukkah Is About Today

Each year in the Temple Beth Abraham bulletin I tend to write about the same thing at this time of year. This is as good as I've done so far in articulating why Chanukkah is important, and why it is important for American Jews at this holiday season. This is my December column:

You’ve probably heard over and over that Chanukkah is a “minor” holy day. Something we make a big deal about especially in modern America – something especially for Jewish children in a Christmas-saturated environment.

It’s true, Chanukkah is no Passover. But in fact, it’s not a new thing, the question about how significant Chanukkah really is. In fact, the Jewish religious authorities in the time of the Talmud were anti-Chanukkah. At a time when Jews were under the thumb of Roman, Byzantine, and Sasanian emperors, the rabbis were none too keen on celebrating an uprising against imperial power. They managed to wrestle Chanukkah down to just a couple of paragraphs in the sprawling Talmud and left pretty much a story about divine light alone, the cruse of oil in the Temple that lasted eight days.

In fact, Chanukkah has always been about the relationship of Jews and Judaism to the majority culture, its values and its forces. That’s in fact what the original events were all about. So it’s worth taking an adult, “Judaism 201” look at the Chanukkah story.

The events of Chanukkah took place in the period of about 180-160 B.C.E. This was about 150 years after the conquests of Alexander the Great of Macedon, who brought the Land of Israel into the cultural and political world of Hellenism.

In many ways, Hellenism was the American culture of its time. There was a language, Greek, that spread to become a common language through much of Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. Hellenism was a dominant world culture. Its positive elements included philosophy, art, and international trade that linked people together and brought prosperity and material advancement. The negative side of Hellenism included a worship of the physical body and a focus on beauty and strength above other values – pagan values.

The Jews in the Land of Israel, as well as those in exile all around the Mediterranean Sea, were deeply influenced by Hellenism. Each regional Jewish community faced the question of how much to adapt to Hellenism, whether to assimilate completely in part, or whether to remain separate.

It wasn’t a one-way street. Because the Hellenists valued learning and culture in general, some non-Jews learned about Judaism and decided that it was a kind of pure philosophy, a truth without all the trappings of pagan gods and rituals. About a century after Alexander the Great, who himself had been a student of Aristotle, the Torah was translated into Greek.

There was corruption among the kohanim, the priestly leadership of the Jews at the Temple in Jerusalem. The Temple was not only a religious center, but a because of the gifts and offerings that people would bring. Ambitious people among the priests were vying for authority over the Temple. Some tried to curry favor with different imperial officials, by offering political support or outright bribes.

Just like today, the Land of Israel was situated geographically at a military and economic crossroads. Around the time of Chanukkah, in fact, the land changed hands. When Alexander died, his empire had been split in half, ruled from capitals in Egypt and in Syria. Initially the Egypt-based rulers controlled Judea, and they were on the whole tolerant of the Jews. But then the Seleucids, the “Syrian-Greeks” we know from the Chanukkah story, took over. Even then, the situation of the Jews did not change right away.

Then a new and crazy emperor, Antiochus IV, came to power in Syria. He believed that he was himself a god. He ordered the takeover of the Temple in Jerusalem and banned key Jewish practices. Some of the historical sources say that he took advantage of the weakness of both Jewish society and the officials beneath him. Others say that the Jewish assimilationists actively invited his intervention and his decrees.

The group we know as the Maccabees came to lead the revolt against Antiochus. They were themselves kohanim, but separate from the corrupt priests of Jerusalem. Their family name was Chashmonai; their patriarch was Matityahu (Mattathias) and his sons included Yehudah (Judah).

They believed in Jewish distinctiveness, but they also believed in some modern adaptation to Hellenism. So for instance, during their three-year revolt that begin in 165 B.C.E., they made certain decisions that were not so traditionally Jewish. They decided fighting on Shabbat was permitted in order to save lives. Their battle plan had some of the same features that the modern Israel Defense Forces would use in 1948 and 1967.

When they finally drove out Antiochus' forces, the Maccabees led both a traditional religious revival and a new approach to Jewish culture and power. They instituted a new annual festival, Chanukkah, but based it on the Sukkot festival that had gone unmarked in the Temple in the prior years. (That's initially why Chanukkah is eight days; the story of the oil came hundreds of years later.) They installed themselves as kings, even though they were not descendants of King David. Their leaders were known by both Hebrew and Greek names.

For me, celebrating Chanukkah reminds me that these issues of politics, value priorities, war, corruption based on money, and majority-minority relations are not new things. The candles remind me that light has to be shed on these matters, all the time.

The candles, against the darkness, are a symbol of the dedication and integrity it takes to keep our eyes open and to find and hold our moral center of gravity. The candles also remind me that Judaism could have been extinguished, could have burned out against all the political, military, economic, and cultural forces of that time. But it was not –Judaism bounced back, renewed and even began to reinvent itself.

So Chanukkah is not just a children’s story. And it resonates for us in America today for the same reasons it has resonated since the days of the Maccabees. Maybe it’s not Passover, but Chanukkah is hardly minor.

Chag Urim Same'ach – A Joyous Festival of Lights,
Rabbi Jon

Israel's 70th Anniversary

This was column in the bulletin of Temple Beth Abraham for April 2018. 

This spring, the State of Israel marks its 70^th anniversary. By the Hebrew calendar, it falls on April 18-19, and by the secular calendar, on May 14. We are looking forward to celebrating together on Sunday, May 13 at the synagogue. We have a remarkable program with architect Stephen Schwartz and 70,000 Lego ™ pieces, who will guide us to build a model of Jerusalem! There will be music with our New Hampshire sh’licha Noam Wolf, food and all kinds of fun.

And in the meantime, we welcome the Deputy Consul-General of Israel in New England, Matan Zamir, to join us for a lunchtime talk on Saturday, April 27.

We each have so much to celebrate this year, whether you are an Israeli, an American Jew with family in Israel, or simply a Jew. Israel’s reality has always been on two levels, which go back to the emergence of modern Zionism in the mid- to late-1800s.

First is simply the saving and protecting of Jewish lives. The Zionism of Pinsker and Herzl began as a response to anti-Semitism in Europe. It was an era of weakening or crumbling empires and autocracies, when nations were claiming their identities, and often Jews were left on the outside or actively targeted.

Starting literally the day after its independence in 1948, Israel began taking in Jewish refugees from Europe and the Middle East. One of the incredible Israeli stories is the integration of hundreds of thousands of Jews in the first decade of the state. Imagine a country doubling its size in a short time – building homes and infrastructure, trying to create a national culture, all under conditions of war and the shadow of the Shoah. Not everything was done perfectly, to say the least. But lives were saved in massive numbers.

In more recent times, the suddenly freed Jews of the former Soviet Union and the Jews of Ethiopia found safety in Israel. And now, the Zionism of Jewish survival continues as Israel defends itself, against terror groups and the threat of Iranian nuclear weapons.

Israel has also from the start been about even more than protection and survival. We celebrate the Zionism of Jewish excellence. Even in the 1800s, when the imperative of saving lives was front and center, Zionists dreamed of creating an ideal society and a new Jewish personality.

A. D. Gordon’s celebration of working the soil. The socialist vision of Syrkin and Borochov. The religious idealism of Rav Kook. The cultural renewal called for by Ahad Ha-am. Each generation has taken pushed these visions of Jewish cultural and spiritual and ethical excellence further and further.

As a result, Israel is a society of social and cultural creativity – and also a society of intense self-criticism. That too is part of the Zionism of moral excellence.

The Israel of Jewish excellence is the Arava Institute, leading the way in both environmental sustainability and Jewish-Arab coexistence. It’s the Shalom Hartman Institute, developing a modern Torah applying Jewish values to dilemmas of sovereignty and war.

It’s the Yerushalmit Movement, which started as a response to hate murders in and around Jerusalem, as people gathered weekly in Kikar Tziyon in the center of Jerusalem to talk across difference – religious and secular, Israeli Jew and Palestinian Arab, gay and straight.

Israel at 70 years old is not finished on either level. The matter of Jewish and Israeli survival, and the challenges of Zionist excellence, continue and they are not easy. Certainly the conflict between official state Orthodox Judaism and others is not resolved. Nor is seventy years of war, including more than fifty years of ruling Palestinians in the West Bank.

But celebrations are for celebrating!

This anniversary is an Israeli celebration and a Jewish celebration. A lot of times, we think about the overlap between our connection to Israel and supporting the Israel-America alliance as good for both countries. That’s part of my own advocacy work with AIPAC. But one thing that this anniversary is not: an American holiday.

I support the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel by the U.S. government and the long-overdue establishment of an embassy there. But to Prime Minister Netanyahu, and to the Jewish community here, I would say: This anniversary period has nothing to do with the United States, and it should not be shared or rented out for that purpose.

I hope the Israeli government will have the self-respect to say to President Trump: Dedicate the embassy in June or later. Israel’s anniversary is not an American celebration, though we welcome you to celebrate alongside us. This spiritual, existential, and peoplehood moment is ours, not yours.

I hope to see everyone together on May 13, as we build a physical Jerusalem and contemplate the ideal Jerusalem. Happy 70^th anniversary to the State of Israel!

L’shalom,
Rabbi Jon

Jerusalem and the U.S. Embassy

Here are some thoughts in response to President Trump's announcement yesterday about recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital and initiating the transfer of the U.S. embassy there from Tel Aviv. I'm thinking about this spiritually and emotionally as a Jew, as well as politically as an American and as a person tied to Israel.

All day yesterday, I felt like I was thinking about the Jerusalem announcement through clenched teeth. This felt wrong; we are taught to “lift Jerusalem above my highest joy.” Then in the evening two people asked me what I was thinking, right before the daily minyan (service). That helped me find my starting point. I thought about the first words of the opening psalm, Ashrei yoshvay vaytecha – “Happy are those who live in Your house.” One of the meanings of that house is the House of God, the Beit Hamikdash in ancient Jerusalem.

The meaning of that House in Jerusalem for me is in the second chapter of the book of the prophet Isaiah, which is almost the same in the fourth chapter of Micah:

“It shall be, at the end of days, that the mountain of the House of Adonai will be established as the highest of the mountains, and will be lifted up over hills, and all the nations will flow toward it in joy. Many peoples will come, and they will say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of Adonai, to the House of the God of Jacob, that God may teach us of God's ways and we may walk in God's paths.” For out of Zion shall come forth Torah (teaching), and the word of Adonai from Jerusalem. God will judge among nations, and set right many nations, so they will beat their swords into ploughshares and their swords into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, and they will not experience war any more.”

That is what Jerusalem and the holy mountain are all about. This vision, and many others related, are why Jerusalem is a holy city and such an important symbolic place in our world. Lose the vision, and there is no point in quarreling about the city.

Here is something that seems too obvious to have to say: Jerusalem is Israel's capital.

“Jerusalem” could mean two things. There is the core of Jerusalem – the Temple Mount and nearby, the oldest parts of the city where the holy sites of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity are. Then there is the modern city of Jerusalem, almost all of which is less than 150 years old. By now the modern city is on all sides of the Old City, not just east and west. Both “West Jerusalem” and most of “East Jerusalem” are that modern city. (See my column here for more detail.) The importance of those modern areas derives from being attached to the core. They aren't particularly holy in and of themselves. What exactly did President Trump recognize yesterday?

No one who accepts that there is an Israel denies that at least some part of this modern Jerusalem is part of Israel and always will be. It's in that modern Jerusalem that President Trump wants to put the embassy.

Everyone knows I am no fan of President Trump. But really, his statement and decision don't decide anything about the core of Jerusalem. He did not say, for instance, that all of ancient and modern Jerusalem should be under exclusive Israeli sovereignty. He left in place everything that has been standard peace-process policy. To be determined in negotiations: what exactly are the official boundaries of Jerusalem, what would the arrangements be in Jerusalem in the future if there were two states.

But he said the obvious and indisputable, that the capital of Israel is in Jerusalem.

People other than Israelis, and Jews generally, have strong ties and claims in Jerusalem. It is a holy space for them. It is a politically significant space for the Palestinians in particular. My own view is that there is room for both Israeli sovereignty and other sovereignty. It's not zero-sum, and recognizing Palestinian political claims in Jerusalem does not mean surrendering Israeli sovereignty by the Temple Mount. In fact, the current arrangement on the Temple Mount is built on Israeli sovereignty with Muslim/Jordanian administration from day to day. This is already a creative solution, which has held up for the past fifty years even during times of tension, and it has never been the obvious one. Israel rarely gets credit for this. Other creative solutions, for a time when the Palestinians have full sovereignty, are certainly possible.

No solution is ruled out by moving the American embassy somewhere in the area of pre-1967 Israeli Jerusalem.

I have to say that I was astounded, though not surprised, to see how much coverage was devoted yesterday evening on National Public Radio to the matter. So out of proportion. There are so many things going on in the country and the world that have more practical effect on people, in the short and long term, that never get this much attention.

There is a sneaky imbalance, especially in the media and in Europe and on some parts of the American left. Israel is not allowed to say that any part of Jerusalem is its capital. But the Palestinians are entitled to say as a starting point of all negotiations that the oldest parts of Jerusalem are their capital.

When Israel or any country moves to formalize the reality of Israeli sovereignty in the “undisputed” part of Jerusalem, “West Jerusalem” – it turns out that it's disputed after all. Today Hanan Ashrawi, a PLO leader, pulls that move in the New York Times today: “Since Israel was established in 1948, the United Nations and the United States, like most countries, have refused to recognize any country’s sovereignty over Jerusalem, a city holy to Muslims, Jews and Christians.” That's smoke and mirrors, meant to confuse people who don't know their history. There is no peace plan of any sort that has not envisioned Israel sovereignty in some of Jerusalem. Even the Saudi peace plan talked about the pre-1967 borders, where some of Jerusalem is part of Israel. And yet, anyone who says even this much is considered to be violating Palestinian national rights.

An imaginative Palestinian leader could have seized the high ground yesterday. She or he could have taken what the president actually said, and responded: “We welcome President Trump's recognition of our rights and role in Jerusalem, and his invitation to begin negotiations about Jerusalem and our statehood. Peace with Israel means sharing Jerusalem with the Israelis. Peace with Israel means sharing the intertwined holy sector. We reach out our hand to the Israelis, to negotiate an arrangement that recognizes the complexity of Jerusalem. When that is achieved, this is how Palestine will show its commitment to the peace and holiness that al-Quds represents: the very first foreign embassy we open as a sovereign state will be our embassy to Israel in its capital in Jerusalem.”

Instead, as one of my thoughtful colleagues pointed out yesterday, it is assumed ahead of time that Arabs react with violence, and violence is therefore not their responsibility in any way.

Now I absolutely believe that President Trump cares very little about Israelis and Palestinians, and was motivated by nothing other than his own political needs at the moment. The careless rollout of this policy puts American in danger, as our own State Department says, and this was a reckless way to do it that will cost lives.

I believe that Palestinians are justified in their fear that Prime Minister Netanyahu has no intention of making a shared Jerusalem possible. He is proposing expanding the definition of “Jerusalem” as a way of taking certain territory off the table for negotiations. The prime minister too could have seized the moral high ground, and made the kind of statement I imagined for a Palestinian leader: “We thank President Trump for acknowledging our eternal capital in Jerusalem. From that city, we as Israelis will show our commitment to all that Jerusalem, the City of Peace, represents. Our capital is already unlike any other capital in the world. We reach out our hand to the Palestinians to negotiate an arrangment that recognizes the complexity of Jerusalem. Together, we can fulfill the vision of Isaiah: 'My House will be a house of prayer for all peoples.'”

Next week is Channukah. The story begins with corruption and desecration in Jerusalem, and it ends with rededication, with miracle, with hope. All of it on the very ground we are talking about this week. We will retell that transformation for eight nights, and it should center us as we think about the conflict of our day. For Jews, Jerusalem is a site of holiness and awe and aspiration. That is why we claim it still, as a capital and more.

The U.S., The U.N., Sec. Kerry and Israel This Past Week

Last Friday, the UN Security Council approved a resolution declaring that Israeli communities in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are the primary impediments to peace between Israelis and Palestinians. It passed 14-0-1, with the United States abstaining rather than vetoing the resolution. Then yesterday, Secretary of State John Kerry delivered a long speech outlining his views of the conflict and focusing in great depth on how the Israeli occupation of the West Bank impairs an eventual two-state solution and imperils Israel's identity as a Jewish and democratic state.

It is hard to say something new about the conflict or to bring a new perspective for those who have thought about it and are knowledgeable. I am writing for a few reasons. One, whenever something this major happens that affects Israel and Jews, it is important to stand up, even to repeat things that I have said or written, or that others are also saying. Two, there are among the readers here people who could learn something new or be sparked to go and learn more. Third, even though what I am writing is interpretation and evaluation, rather than adding new facts, there is a value for people in hearing what things sound like from a particular perspective. I think if you know me, you know that even when I am in my own voice, I try to speak or write with respect for people who don't share my perspective.

It's important to start by reading the two documents themselves: UN Security Council Resolution 2334 and Secretary Kerry's speech at the State Department.

This has all been about the time and place of these statements, since there is nothing new in them. And my reaction is that the resolution and the speech are careless, ineffective, and to some degree insulting attempts to advance peace. I say this as a rabbi who declared on Rosh Hashanah 2014 from the pulpit that Palestinian life and freedom have become part of the Jewish story, and that I hope one day that we will see ourselves as Jews as among of the agents of Palestinian freedom.

Careless -- because the language of the UN resolution continues the trend of lumping together historic Jerusalem, including the Western Wall, with the small settlements in the middle of Palestinian areas that have no specific relation to Israeli security. The resolution enshrines the practice of BDS (boycott-divestment-sanctions), the primary tactic of western anti-Israel groups. Though the language distinguishes between economic boycotting of pre-1967 Israel and the territories, BDS groups claim for instance that all Israeli defense activities are intertwined with Palestinian suffering.

Ineffective -- because the moves only strengthen hard-liners on all sides – Israeli, Palestinian, BDS activists. Those are the only groups that have gained something this week. There is no group supporting a two-state solution, or some other imaginative solution, that is stronger because of the American acts and words than they were a week ago. There is no group in that category that has more resources, power, or influence so far as I can see. From a cost-benefit analysis, the U.S. moves are counterproductive.

And I say that the resolution, and Secretary Kerry's speech, are insulting, because of the particular haughty tone. I have been trying to put my finger on it, and what I came up with is that Secretary Kerry in particular sounds like a father or an older brother. President Obama has often spoken in a similar tone. Here's the experiment: Read Secretary Kerry's speech and imagine an American leader or diplomatic speaking in parallel terms about France, Great Britain, India, or even Russia. This sounds like family talk. You never hear an American leader rhapsodizing about his or her many experiences in France as preface to a policy speech, or invoking Churchill in the way that Secretary Kerry and President Obama speak about Shimon Peres. (This isn't a recent thing – President Clinton was the same about Prime Minister Rabin, and many American politicians on the right and to some extent on the left talk about Israel in this way.)

And so Secretary Kerry declared with indignation that Israel has to choose between being a Jewish state and a democracy... as though no Israeli has thought of this, and as though that is not the present debate within the State of Israel! At one point in his speech, he actually stated that most Israelis don't know what he knows about the extent of Israel's system of control in the West Bank. This is ludicrous.

The six principles that Secretary Kerry outlined for an Israeli-Palestinian peace are squarely within the consensus for those who do believe that Palestinians have national rights. They aren't new in any way either. If Secretary Kerry were serious about doing something to advance peace, he would also lay out thoughts just as meticulous and well-informed about the other obstacles to peace right now. Again, the fireworks here about Israel are in the way of an actual strategy for bringing peace closer.

I do realize that the familiar, family relationship of the United States and Israel of course is the source of the unique alliance, and that Israel benefits in many concrete and consequential ways. This is part of a broader theme about Jews' place in this country, which I plan to write and speak more about, especially after the inauguration at some point. 

Within my own Jewish world, I do believe that Zionism is about Jews' taking responsibility for our own power and decisions. The debate over the West Bank, which has intensified since Prime Minister Netanyahu's reelection, is a real one in Israel right now, even within the governing coalition. For those of us who are Jews not living in Israel, we have responsibilities both in solidarity with Israel and vis-a-vis the Palestinians who live under Jewish-majority jurisdiction. That's why I take the role of both fighting back against unfair and counterproductive moves against Israel, and facing the moral responsibilities of governing another people against their will. In the latter vein, I encourage you to follow Rabbi Donniel Hartman, an Orthodox-Zionist teacher in Jerusalem -- here are thoughts regarding this week.

If you are anywhere near us in New Hampshire, I urge you to come on Sunday morning, February 12, to a presentation about the Six-Day War by Michael Harris, cosponsored by the Southern New Hampshire Jewish Men's Club and Temple Beth Abraham's Lifelong Learning Committee. As we roll out more programs, toward the 50^th anniversary of the unification of Jerusalem, I hope you will both attend and help us plan. This is only the beginning of a year that will see both that anniversary, and the 100^th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, the first official international recognition of the idea of a “Jewish National Home.” We have much to learn and to do.

Chag urim sameach – may you all have a joyful rest of this holiday, filled with light in all ways.