This commentary appears, in part, in the November 20, 2009 issue of the Cleveland Jewish News.
There is nothing like being with 3000 other Jews as their voices flow together singing; “HaTikvah”, “The Star Spangled Banner” and “Oh Canada”. So it was, in a uniquely American (the continent) and, singularly Jewish moment, that the Jewish Federations of North America opened its annual General Assembly (GA) in Washington DC for 2009/5770. For your writer this, my first GA, was a two-fold homecoming. One, because our own Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland saw fit to honor a relative newcomer with an invitation to represent his adopted hometown and, two, the Associated YM-YWHA’s (“New Yorkese” for JCC) and its camps were important places of my youth and of my first employment in the service of the Jewish People. But, in coming back, one never finds ‘home,’ however defined, to be the same as it was or as it was remembered – even the name can change. Just as we were getting used to the “UJC” (United Jewish Communities) moniker for our Federation’s umbrella organization, it has been rebranded as the “Jewish Federations of North America”. To date, the new acronym has not been selected. My preference is “JeFNA” or “J’FedNA” (but certainly not something cumbersome like JewFedNorA). Alas, the marketers are right; the new name is more descriptive although, after going through UJA and UJC perhaps we should be cautioned, by the loss of the word “United”?
With lay and professional leaders coming together for one of the important fora of Jewish life,the GA is a great place to ‘take the Jewish pulse’. Here, problems are discussed, solutions proposed, best practices displayed and ideas exchanged. As at any large convention, choices between competing sessions and exhaustion prevent any individual from taking in 100% of the offerings. Full disclosure: yours truly attended the plenary sessions and generally chose discussions related to Jewish Peoplehood presented in cooperation with the Jewish People’s Policy Planning Institute. President Obama was, understandably, called away to lead the mourning for the murder victims at Ft. Hood leaving the address by Prime Minister Netanyahu as the high point of the program. This is to take nothing away from the visionary lay and professional leaders of our communities. The overall theme, in English – “Anything is Possible” and in Hebrew – HaShamayim HaGvul (the Sky’s the Limit), reflected the challenges of a recessed economy along with the more endemic issues engendered by a rapidly changing Jewish landscape, particularly our sense of Peoplehood.
It was wise for the GA to highlight this broad and important issue because, without a sense of Peoplehood, belonging and Jewish attachment in current and upcoming generations, it will be increasingly difficult to maintain our communal and religious institutions. Social scientists like Professor Steven M. Cohen and others have well documented the challenges of assimilation, intermarriage, Jewish education and waning attachment to Israel. The thoughtful among them point out that while each stream of Jewish religious life, including the non-denominational expressions of Judaism, has its shortcomings; each brings to the table its own unique set of contributions and strengths. Cohen points out that the Federation based agencies such as the JCCs are also a movement within Jewish life, one whose impact is both broad and deep. Each of our streams and individual institutions struggle to find ‘the answer’ but meanwhile, the sociological dispersion of the Jews continues. In an article about the apparent reduction in Mayor Bloomberg’s voter support in the historically bloc voting Hasidic community (NY Times, Nov 16, 2009 pg A18), a 59 year old Satmar is quoted as saying, “The younger generation doesn’t rely on their leaders to guide them.” If the Jewish frame of reference is changing in our most insular of streams then, how much the more so does it apply to the rest of the community and how great is the challenge of maintaining Jewish Peoplehood when the ties that bind our generations are growing more diverse and difficult to define? Nevertheless, the message is: “Anything is Possible” and we have faced far worse.
Like all good learning experiences a GA raises many more questions than answers, including the most important question: What did you take home?
This GA reaffirmed the centrality of Jewish Peoplehood even as we may come to re-define “peoplehood” for a community whose fabric is stretched sociologically further and thinner than ever before. Even though Cleveland Jewry has pioneered new relationships between Federation, synagogues and schools – especially in the field of Jewish education - we have to ask ourselves the frightening question of whether our current institutional boundaries are leaving too many outside of the fold? Can the definitions and boundries with which we have become comfortable withstand a rigorous evaluation of their efficacy? Or can we, by taking a more communal based approach, create new streams of belonging that will actively expand our Peoplehood, including more and excluding less while preserving the integrity of our institutions and passing our united heritage to new generations?
Miracle Making
If the creation stories in last week’s parasha were not sufficiently implausible this week’s reading brings us the report of Noah’s Ark and asks us to stretch our belief even more.
For two thousand years the rabbis have advised us not to delve too deeply into the mysteries of creation. This admonition was not intended to cut off research or debate; there are too many rabbinic texts that speak about the mechanics of the universe for us to claim that they were uninterested in or afraid of the questions. However, it does ask us to direct our speculations away from interesting, but non-practical concerns, and toward the needs of the world in which we live. Besides, creation can be totally implausible since it is not a human achievement but is - at the core of Jewish belief - the willful act of the Creator God who is as inexplicable as the universe itself.
But that was last week. This week’s reading is very much focused on what we do in our world.
Noah’s story - one of the most popular, well known and reiterated biblical texts - achieves its universal appeal and has so many cross-cultural cognates because it is so very human. Here is Noah a man who: is imperfect but trying; has a wife who never speaks up; has grown children who work with him although, in the end, have limited respect for the old man; invents vineyards but succumbs to their product; but who is, throughout, striving to do the will of a God who he does not really know. Upon reflection, his achievement in building the ark and saving all the land based creatures (including people) is no more plausible a miracle than creation itself.
We dismiss creation as a mystery but agonize over the details of Noah’s marine architecture and questions like, where did he put the waste matter in the ark? The only difference between the stories is that we expect miracles of God but not of humans. But Noah did perform a miracle. He used the abilities and insights, with which The Creator blessed him, and built the ark. Then Noah joined his sons’ skills with what had to have been some considerable knowledge of the animals in order to save them all. What would have happened had he demurred? Perhaps there were others who did not answer or could not hear God’s call? Noah heard, responded, and partnered with God to create a miracle - to rescue creation!
Rabbi Steve Denker
The current Israeli operations against Hamas in Gaza is named – as was pointed out to me by our older son – “Operation Cast Lead,” a direct reference to Hayim Nachman Bialik’s famous poem “In Honor of Hanukkah.” In the poem, a teacher presents his student with a dreidel made of cast lead which at the time – right after the 1903 Kishinev pogroms – was the finest kind of dreidel for which a young Jewish child could hope. Did that shetl child dare hope for liberation in a Jewish state? We can barely speculate.
The child receiving the dreidel in Bialik’s poem likely interpreted the Hebrew letters on its four sides in Yiddish, assigning each a meaning as to how many coins or nuts to put into the pot or take out. If she were really bright she may have noticed that spinning the dreidel was pretty much the same as tossing a coin. At any moment one player may be up or down but in the long run the game still offered its players the same odds. Later on, the assigned value of the ‘nun, gimel, hey & shin’ may have been reinterpreted into something that sounded right in English or even Modern Hebrew but you still put in and took out based on how the top landed after any given spin. Cast lead has been replaced by wood, plastic or even a digital image, but not much has really changed – it is still like a coin toss.
If Bialik were alive he would see that in the Hanukkah just past we are no longer cowering in a shetl, but he might also point out that in many ways we are still spinning the same dreidel and tossing the same coins – even if the materials and delivery methods have changed. Never at a loss for textual imagery, Bialik might also have called upon the story of Joseph, the first positional Jew who lead us to survival by fronting for pharaoh and doing the king’s ‘dirty work’ in containing, dislocating and bankrupting the Egyptian peasantry in a time of famine. (Genesis 47) We survived, but slavery was still ahead.
Operation Cast Lead, similar to the story of the Hebrews in Egypt or a spin of the dreidel, will prove to be another necessary but repetitive coin toss because:
Tails we lose:
Even if militarily successful, our case is well made and Israel protects civilians as much as possible, we will lose in the court of international opinion. After Joseph, the pharaoh did not like the idea that his Hebrews were getting too strong. With very few exceptions, the world is still uncomfortable with Jews who can and do defend themselves. The dearth of statements opposing Hamas and the plethora of condemnations of Israel’s self-defense does not have to be recounted here.
Hiding behind the canard of “proportionality,” Israel is called to task for finally, after years, trying to put an end to terrorism with superior force. Would the world be better off if the weaponry available to Israel were put into the hands of Hamas? Should Israel limit its response to only sending crude missiles indiscriminately aimed at densely populated Gaza City? The last greatest example of proportionality may have been the inconclusive and costly standoff of trench warfare in WWI. Should, in the name of proportionality, the Allies have reduced their forces in Europe as Hitler’s war machine was dismembered? Should the U.S.’s response to 9/11 have been limited to military use of a few commercial airliners?
No matter when or how the bombing (or even a ground invasion) of Gaza ends Israel will not, in the strict sense of the term, ‘win’. Somehow the nearly daily rocket attacks that now can reach almost a million Israelis will be brought to a halt. Even if, by some miracle, Hamas is dislodged as the rulers of Gaza (and I don’t think this is likely to happen soon) there will still be elements albeit called by other names, that will remain committed to Israel’s destruction. Remember that Hamas’s attacks from Gaza are not aimed at territory conquered in 1967 but at land within Israel’s 1948 borders. When Hamas says ‘occupied land’ they mean all of Israel.
Heads they win:
Ibrahim al-Amine, board chairman of Al Akhbar, a Lebanese pro-Hezbollah newspaper, was quoted in the New York Times (Dec 31 2008 pg A10) as saying: “Israel would be satisfied with a compromise but the Arab regimes want to finish Hamas completely.” Like Joseph for the pharaoh, Israel is being allowed to do the dirty work. The rulers of some secular (although in no way democratic) Arab countries may be more threatened by Hamas than Israel. President Mubarak of Egypt has offered to open his border with Gaza only if the Palestinian Authority takes over. Like the pharaoh of Exodus, he is concerned about Egyptians, in this case the Muslim Brotherhood, linking up with his enemies and overpowering him. It is a reasonable fear should Israel stop keeping Hamas busy on their other borders Remember that Egypt could have had Gaza back if it wanted it.
Secular leaders in other Islamic countries are also walking a fine line between appeasement of the “street” and their own need to oppose militant Islamists. While they may have to make statements in support of Hamas or take some heat for seeming to cooperate with Israel on another level they are glad to have Israel as an unintentional ‘stand in’ against challengers to their own authority. Others, like the Saudis have been using the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the 60-year-old excuse as to why the unprivileged of their own countries have no freedom and only limited benefits from the great wealth their countries produce. They do not want to get caught in between Hamas and their customers (us) so it is in their interest to keep the pot ‘simmering’ without really boiling over.
Arab rulers win, maybe even along with Israel, because when Israel fights Hamas they can avoid doing battle against or openly opposing Hamas and its sponsors.
Keep spinning
There is no magic solution. I think that Operation Cast Lead will continue until Hamas is ready to suspend (because theologically they cannot ‘stop’) firing missiles at Israel because of their inability or the hope of a better deal from their fellow Muslims. As Mr. al-Amine predicts, Israel will just hope to stop the rockets and survive – until we have to spin the dreidel again.
Leave a comment; let me know what you think!
Rabbi Steve Denker
Grandpa died suddenly and without warning on November 2nd 1968. The presidential election that would bring Richard Nixon to the White House was three days away.
It was already a miserable year. The Vietnam War was raging with no end in sight as we all watched American cities burning on the television news. Issues of race relations were so hotly debated that almost 10 million people (13.5% of the voters) were about to cast their ballots for segregationist Governor George Wallace. Both Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Senator Robert Kennedy had been shot dead. Dr. Benjamin Spock, the kindly vicarious pediatrician to a generation, was under indictment for conspiracy to encourage violations of the draft laws and none of us knew if student deferments would still be available for next fall’s college semester. Senator Hubert H. Humphrey’s campaign, hobbled by his association with the Johnson administration and divisions within the Democratic Party was, in the final weeks, showing signs of catching on and catching up in the polls.
Grandma was distraught, the husband with whom she had shared almost every moment for almost 50 years was now gone. The morning after Grandpa died we found out that she could barely see. They had covered up her multiple vision problems; she already had heart disease and diabetes. Who knew if she would make it?
If the 40 year old memory serves; Grandpa was buried the following Monday, Election Day was the first full day of shiva. Now it is important to understand that my grandparents, who emigrated to the United States as small children and whose educations terminated upon graduation from the 8th grade at Lower East Side public schools, were the kind of Jews to whom Orthodoxy came naturally when they were inclined to be observant – which was not all that often. Like most Jews, they snuggled up to The Tradition when they needed its support, mainly around lifecycle events and especially around death.
Upon returning from the funeral Grandma realized she had forgotten to ask the rabbi (Orthodox of course) an important question. We got him on the phone for her. She sought a halakic ruling as to whether or not it was permissible to leave the house and break the shiva for the purpose of going out to vote. We will never know how the rabbi responded to this decidedly modern American question. What I do know is that on Election Day 1968, for the first time in my life, at the age of 17 (the voting age was 21) I entered and pulled the levers on a New York City voting machine. I was not committing fraud, nor did I violate any laws. I was simply the person Grandma chose to assist her when she left the shiva house in order to vote against Richard Nixon and lament that fact that Grandpa could not do so as well.
What made my grandmother so insistent on voting that year? She and my grandfather were fairly apolitical. They were not members of a labor union and if they participated in the Workmen’s Circle it was an attachment to Yiddish culture not socialism. I never heard them talk about civil rights or Vietnam, except to be concerned that I, their eldest grandson, might be drafted the following year. They had loved FDR and mourned Julius and Ethel Rosenberg but were committed minor capitalists, owners of a small business. They were “Sam and Rose the Tailors”! They were proud naturalized citizens; just old enough to remember their early lives in the shetl, recall the rigors of immigration and appreciate the opportunities that grew out of the tenements that were their first American homes.
Grandma left the house of mourning in order to vote because she remembered who Richard Nixon really was. She and her contemporaries were still reeling from, among other things, his 1950 California campaign for the US Senate against Rep. Helen Gahagan Douglas with its red baiting, innuendos about his opposition’s disloyalty and not so covert anti-Semitism. She saw voting in general and voting against demagoguery in particular as a mitzvah that took precedence over the Laws surrounding death and mourning. Grandma was not disrespecting Grandpa’s memory, she was honoring it.
Forty years later, almost to the day, several of the great grandchildren who she never knew are about to exercise the right that Grandma and her parents crossed an ocean to attain. We owe it to her, to all of our grandparents not only to vote, but to vote wisely. If the uneducated but hard working men and women of her generation could see through the hype, scare tactics and falsehoods of the 1968 election can we who are by and large more educated and secure do any less?
This is not a partisan statement. It is merely an admonition to today’s Jews saying that when we vote (and I presume you all will) that our choices should be based on facts and not fear, informed by policy preferences and not propaganda, influenced by information not innuendo.
Israel is not an issue this year. Both candidates and parties are committed to Israel’s survival – if only as a means to their own political health. Congress will remain squarely in Israel’s corner – that’s where the real help for Israel originates – and having Israel as a ‘football’ in US politics does not, in the long run, help her cause. There are, however, real differences in policy between Senator McCain and Senator Obama on critical questions like: taxs; economic recovery; energy; reproductive rights; medical care; foreign affairs and, as in 1968, a difficult, intractable and unprecedented war. Jews may and do differ on the approach to real issues such as these. Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative, we are required, maybe even commanded, to vote our considered, rational opinions.
In 1968 Grandma had a clear black and white choice. That day her side lost but by his second term the world knew that the vote I cast for her was right. This year it is not so easy. Putting aside all the pundits, propagandists and comedians there are no villains among the serious presidential and vice-presidential contenders; no commies, anti-Semites, anti-Americans or idiots. At issue is simply this: Which set of policy visions is your best bet for making the United States, in all respects, a stronger nation and healthier society that will be better for everyone, including the Jews. Is that a tough choice – well Grandma never told me it was going to be easy!
Happy Election Day!
Rabbi Steve Denker
