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Jul 30, 2014
Major Israel Rally in San Francisco this Sunday, August 3, 12:00PM-2:00PM
Jul 29, 2014
A word about the current ripples of Jewish trauma.
A word about the current ripples of Jewish trauma. It's as if normal conversation ended weeks ago. The Three Weeks and the Nine Days and all their mournful customs began early, and every day sort of feels like Tisha Be'Av, each moment full loss and unanswerable questions. Jews are deeply vulnerable and have always been, but suddenly the language of the siddur begins to feel more relevant, if unsettling. If only prayer could feel detached from reality once more, if only we could again be forced to endure boring conversation, if only we could reclaim our hearts and re-enter the sacred everyday. Please God, return to us the capacity to imagine beyond the right now into tomorrow.
Why are there more Palestinian deaths than Israelis?
Someone I care deeply about just posed a question that might seem
obvious to some, but requires response, over and over and over. Why are
there more Palestinian deaths than Israelis? The "simple" answer is:
Hamas used more than 800,000 tons of cement and steel to build terror
tunnels into Israel instead of building shelters and hospitals and
schools and housing for Palestinians. Hamas has tried to kill thousands
of Israeli civilians, but Israel has dedicated itself to protecting its
own population (Iron Dome, every building having, by building code, a
bomb shelter). The disproportionate number of deaths in Gaza is based on
its leadership valuing terror over life. I hate that this is true.
in two weeks: "Overwhelmed by Argument: The Conversation I Want to Have Now" Convened by Josh Kornbluth
Overwhelmed by Argument:
The Conversation I Want to Have Now
Convened by Josh Kornbluth
2 evenings: Wednesday Aug. 13 & 20th, 7:30pm-9pm
Congregation Netivot Shalom, Berkeley
Class fee: $20 (no one turned away for lack of funds)
Registration is required – please register
with Daniel at office@netivotshalom.org.
We care, and because we care, we despair. Will there be any outcome for Israelis and Palestinians, for Israel and Palestine, in which both Peoples are acknowledged and respected? Where one group's national aspirations are not deemed unworthy? This is the conversation Josh wants to have, the conversation we believe we need. We need is as Jews. We need it as people. We need it as one People among many Peoples. Will there ever be a solution? We don't know. We worry. Everyone suffers when some suffer. And so someone who cares is convening a loving, respectful conversation with a very clear mandate: More hope, More dignity, More love.
Here are the rules for the conversation Josh invites us to share:
1) If your position is that Israel should cease to exist as the Jewish Homeland, that is not the conversation we are going to have.
2) If you believe Jews are better than Palestinians, that is not the conversation we are going to have.
3) If you believe that only Jews have the right to a state, that is not the conversation we are going to have.
4) If you believe Israel's concerns about security are imagined, that is not the conversation we are going to have.
The jumping-off-point for our conversations will be these two books:
My Promised Land, by Ari Shavit
The Crisis of Zionism, by Peter Beinart
To join Rabbi Creditor's email list, send a blank email to thetisch-subscribe@yahoogroups.com!
Jul 28, 2014
we haven't YET lost hope
Do We Stand With Israel?
Posted: 07/28/2014 3:17 pm
Rabbi Menachem Creditor
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-menachem-creditor/do-we-stand-with-israel_b_5627699.html
I've found, as a rabbi in a progressive American Jewish community, that our willingness to see the humanity in the face of "the other" far surpasses our historical willingness to see our own family's faces in the same way.
It's an interesting dilemma. Judaism is and has always been a dynamic blend of humanism and tribalism, a complicated and nuanced recipe of elements, alternatively (and sometimes simultaneously) affirming the universal and the particular.
How is this so? A few examples:
My synagogue's commitment to family doesn't stop us from participating in the SF Gay Pride Parade, though some of the event's content "varies wildly" from the way we define modesty. (The internal debates in the Queer community about whether Marriage is an ideal worth pursuing is an important part of this tension. This, of course, is a complex history within the LGBT community, but knowing how this came to be is not the same as accepting it as modest in Jewish terms.) Our Jewish commitment to inclusion, which is deep and real in our programming and ritual lives, demands that we stand, march, and celebrate at an event that should provoke thoughtful reflection, perhaps even a pause. We march, though we aren't the same.
My synagogue's commitment to standing up for Justice with our Muslim and Christian sisters and brothers, also deep and constant in our communal life, trumps our recognition that, for some of our fellow faith-travelers, Jews are damned or "less-than." Yes, there is more that connects us than that which divides us, but these truths must be acknowledged if we are to actually know each other. (My personal philosophy on these questions has been: We have enough to worry about in this world. I don't mind if they're wrong about the next one.) We march, though we aren't the same.
But when the topic of Israel comes up, it gets more complicated. Do we march for Israel, even when we disagree?
This isn't a piece designed to point to the terror of Hamas' assault on Israeli civilians. This piece isn't focused on the 160 children that died building the Hamas terror tunnels. Nor am I, at the moment, spending appropriate time speaking about the 1.8 million Palestinians in Gaza, 1,000+ of whom I and many in my synagogue said Kaddish this last Shabbat, as they have died because Hamas intentionally placed them in mortal danger. This isn't a piece that attempts to process the mega-terrorist attack scheduled for the coming Rosh haShannah, wherein thousands of Hamas terrorists from Gaza were to emerge from tunnels burrowed into Israel proper and slaughter innocents. This isn't even a piece struggling with the statement of my "opponent" in an NPR segment last week that "the missiles will end when the 1948 occupation ends."
This short essay is a call for action to the Jewish People.
I spoke to my community this last Shabbat, sharing with them that though we cry out in pain and grief, though we are assaulted physically and verbally in Belfast, Queens, Paris,Antwerp, Boston, Turkey, and Los Angeles (it seems the list grows every hour), despite my personal sense of betrayal by the draft ceasefire proposed by Secretary Kerry, despite my outrage at CNN for equating self-defense with unrepentant terrorism, despite all this, we are commanded to hope. We do not despair.
The worst sin a Jew can do is lose hope. It is engraved in our hearts as surely as the Shema: "Od Lo Avda Tikvateinu/We still have not lost hope." What an irrational national anthem we have! What people would codify how, despite it all, despite a world that has never been kind to the Jews, we haven't YET lost hope?! The answer is: This people. My People. Me.
We march, even when we disagree. Even though we're not all the same. Jews are black, brown, French, American, Algerian, Dutch, Yemenite, Sephardi, Ashkenazi, Likudniks, Meretzniks, Yesh Atidniks, Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Anarchists, Conservative, Haredi, Reform, Reconstructionist, and Conservative, in-married, inter-married, queer, not-queer, etc... (I know. I left you out, whoever you are. You're showing your Jewishness by airing your legitimate outrage.)
I hope you noticed that, in that list, I didn't use the word "Israeli." It has become easier, in many Jewish communities, to affirm the dignity of difference in the list I composed. We nod in affirmation to each of the labels I shared above. Do you hesitate a bit more when I include "Israeli?" I beg of you to reflect on this question.
Must we be the same in order to affirm worthiness, to stand as family, to see God's Face in another person's? In another Jew's?
Just this morning, someone commented one of too many Facebook posts that, my writing in defense of Israel makes me "a shameful human for perpetuating this kind of disgusting justification of violence... [placing me] neatly into the category of 'unquestioning and righteous' when it comes to Israel." Really? There are portions of every tradition that has had to grapple with power (every one of them) that addresses the ethics within war, where violence is terrible always and moral sometimes. The rightward turn which I see happening in Israeli politics is of major Jewish concern, one which deeply influences our use of power, the necessity of which has become painfully obvious, even to those of us who are reluctant to wield it. I affirm, as part of this important recognition, that this political question is also not the same as the IDF's necessary response to Hamas' terror.
To my growing number of critics, I ask: Do you believe my saying Kaddish for dead Gazans is only cover for my Zionism? Or can you imagine that my Zionism demands my grief for my children and for yours, even those who wish to hurt me? Do you believe that Israel's democracy is absent of Jewish and non-Jewish citizens' voices that agonize over the carnage being fomented and caused by Israel's impossible moral situation, responding somehow to Hamas' intentional sacrifice of Palestinian civilians as part of its violent strategy?
To my Progressive American Jewish colleagues and friends, I beg from my anguished soul: Please try to see an essential humanity in the eyes of our Israeli sisters and brothers, and march with me as we stand with them. The whole world is writhing. Our family needs us.
I've been overwhelmed to see some of what I've shared from my heart connected with so many others. I know that we are praying for all our children, all their children, knowing we will do what we must, and praying it is enough, though the unfolding of our current moment makes hope seem irrational. Jews have never seen reality as sufficient for giving up hope in the past, and we do not grant it that right today. We still haven't lost our hope.
It is time to stand as a family.
Support JNF’s emergency relief efforts in Israel!
Support
JNF’s emergency relief efforts in Israel!
Below is a report of JNF's actions in the crisis. You can support JNF's important work online at www.jnf.org.
Responding to the needs of the people of Israel during Operation Protective Edge, JNF has taken immediate and decisive action since July 8.
To date, U.S. donors have contributed more than $2.5 million to JNF designated for the above work, including JNF’s
Rabbis for Israel members, partners, and synagogues, who have contributed more than $150,000.
Additionally, JNF's Rabbis for Israel have mobilized:
• Four synagogues have committed to purchasing bomb shelters at $30K each,
• Five rabbis have joined Rabbis for Israel since the Emergency Campaign began,
• Dozens of congregations have begun JNF fundraising pages (JNF will help you do this),
• Rabbis across the country are making pulpit appeals for JNF,
• Many rabbis and congregants are now in Israel on JNF's Solidarity Mission, July 27 - 31.
Participants will meet Knesset Ministers, visit an Iron Dome battery, pack food and supplies for soldiers and deliver them to the front, pack food and supplies for firefighters and deliver them to Be'er Sheva, work with kids at the Sderot Indoor Recreation Center, meet with Nefesh B'Nefesh olim making aliyah in the midst of the crisis, meet with American high schoolers at JNF's Alexander Muss High School in Israel, and much more.
This is JNF in action. Please share with your congregants all that JNF is doing at this critical time. We hope you and your community will join our relief effort. If you would like pledge cards, a fundraising web page for your congregation, or to get involved in any other way, please email us at education@jnf.org. #JNFalwayswithIsrael.
Below is a report of JNF's actions in the crisis. You can support JNF's important work online at www.jnf.org.
Responding to the needs of the people of Israel during Operation Protective Edge, JNF has taken immediate and decisive action since July 8.
·
JNF
is delivering mobile bomb shelters to border communities in dire need
of safe rooms. Many of these Negev communities are under construction,
with families living in mobile homes while their permanent homes are
being built. These mobile homes are without safe rooms, and the needs
are growing as more communities come under fire.
·
JNF's
partner Nefesh B'Nefesh is providing food to soldiers on the border and
this week brought several hundred olim to Israel on a chartered
flight. Hamas sends rockets; JNF sends people to build a nation.
·
JNF
is providing fire trucks, equipment, and supplies to Israel's
firefighters, who are the first responders to rocket attacks, and who
are battling
blazes across the country caused by rockets.
·
JNF's
Secure Indoor Recreation Center in Sderot, the size of half a football
field, is providing round-the-clock respite for families and children
from throughout the area. JNF and the Mayor of Sderot have opened the
facility to all who need it, and have made it a place to call home for a
community without other options.
·
JNF's
partners Green Horizons and Tnuat Tarbut are bringing entertainment to
families and children in the Negev who cannot leave to go north.
Green Horizons is also providing programming for Bedouin children in
Segev Shalom, and soon in Hura and Rahat.
·
JNF's partner LOTEM is taking people with special needs from the south to safer and calmer places in the north.
·
JNF's
partner Aleh Negev, a special needs village in the south that has been
hit by multiple rockets, has brought in extra professionals to assist
its residents with severe disabilities cope with the crisis and stay
safe.
·
JNF's
partner, the Society for Preservation of Israel Heritage Sites, is
granting free admission to 60 heritage sites across Israel.
Additionally, JNF's Rabbis for Israel have mobilized:
• Four synagogues have committed to purchasing bomb shelters at $30K each,
• Five rabbis have joined Rabbis for Israel since the Emergency Campaign began,
• Dozens of congregations have begun JNF fundraising pages (JNF will help you do this),
• Rabbis across the country are making pulpit appeals for JNF,
• Many rabbis and congregants are now in Israel on JNF's Solidarity Mission, July 27 - 31.
Participants will meet Knesset Ministers, visit an Iron Dome battery, pack food and supplies for soldiers and deliver them to the front, pack food and supplies for firefighters and deliver them to Be'er Sheva, work with kids at the Sderot Indoor Recreation Center, meet with Nefesh B'Nefesh olim making aliyah in the midst of the crisis, meet with American high schoolers at JNF's Alexander Muss High School in Israel, and much more.
This is JNF in action. Please share with your congregants all that JNF is doing at this critical time. We hope you and your community will join our relief effort. If you would like pledge cards, a fundraising web page for your congregation, or to get involved in any other way, please email us at education@jnf.org. #JNFalwayswithIsrael.
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Aaron Parker
| Executive Director
Northern California and Pacific Northwest
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six must-read articles
- Noa (Achinoam Nini)'s "Open Letter to the Wind" (http://noa-the-singer.blogspot.co.il/2014/07/open-letter-to-wind.html)
- Rabbi Donniel Hartman's "The War in Gaza: What I Know and What I Do Not Know" (http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-war-in-gaza-what-i-know-and-what-i-do-not-know/)
- Etgar Keret's "Israel's Other War" (http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/israels-other-war)
- Naomi Chazan's "Tunnel Vision" (http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/tunnel-vision-2/).
- David Horovitz's "John Kerry: The Betrayal" (http://www.timesofisrael.com/john-kerry-the-betrayal/)
- Barak David's "Kerry's Cease-fire Draft Revealed" (http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.607379)
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