Michael Kress: December 2006 Archives

In addition to the worthy books Rabbis Grossman and Stern mentioned–and with particular appreciation for the selection of Etgar Keret’s The Nimrod Flipout, a fitting follow-up to the brilliant 2004 short-story collection The Bus Driver Who Wanted to Be God–I would add the recently published Torah Journeys: The Inner Path to the Promised Land by Rabbi Shefa Gold.

Rabbi Gold has been a long-time teacher and song-leader in the Jewish Renewal movement, and her recordings of Jewish chant have been a point of entry for many into the words of our sacred texts. Her first book, Torah Journeys, is an exploration of the weekly portion written from the perspective of spiritual growth and development, and contains some remarkable insights and practices that are both profound and accessible.

Also worth a mention is Rabbi Jill Hammer’s The Jewish Book of Days, a day-by-day exploration of the Jewish calendar with reflections based on traditional Jewish sources. Beautifully laid out, it can be a source of daily inspiration for Jews and non-Jews alike.

--Posted by Rabbi Joshua Waxman

In response to Rabbi Eliyahu Stern's blog post criticizing former President Jimmy Carter's new book, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," "God's Politics" guest blogger Jeff Halper, an Israeli peace activist, defended Carter's perspective on Israeli policies toward Palestinians and his use of the term "apartheid."

Read Virtual Talmud blogger Rabbi Susan Grossman's reply to Halper:

Commenting on Jimmy Carter's newest book, Jeff Halper says “apartheid” is "exactly what Israel is doing, from annexing its huge settlement blocs to imprisoning the Palestinians behind 26-foot concrete walls and electrified fences. I don't even see what the ‘controversy’ is about. Just go to the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem and open your eyes."

I have been to the West Bank and Gaza and have seen the security barrier with my own eyes, several times. I traveled with Israeli Defense Forces soldiers and with Rabbis for Human Rights, on whose advisory board I sit.

The electrified fences Halper refers do not deliver shocks to those who touch them, as one might infer from Halper's words. They do not harm anyone touching them. They are electrified with sensors which inform the army whenever someone tries to climb over them.

The walls comprise only short sections of the overall security barrier, most often to block Palestinian snipers from lethally shooting passengers in Israel proper driving in cars or putting their children to sleep in their bedrooms.

The barrier would not be necessary if Palestinians had in fact fulfilled the commitment they made to then-President Carter to renounce violence for negotiations. It is a shanda (a shame) that Carter, who could do so much good as an honest broker for peace in the region, sold out to become a lobbyist for the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who never could make the transition from terrorist to statesman and thus led his people to perdition instead of peace and statehood.

Now that chaos reigns in the territories, the situation is even worse.

The reality is that since the security barrier went up, deaths from terrorism are down in Israel. Simply put: The barrier makes it much more difficult for suicide bombers to get through to kill innocents.

It is true that the security barrier has created hardship for many Palestinians. It is also true that Israel's own courts have required the army to restructure the barrier to ease up some of those hardships. (That is not what would happen in an apartheid state.) But the bottom line is, if we are weighing hardship against loss of life, Judaism would come down on the side of saving lives.

As Alan Dershowitz points out in his fine article in The Boston Globe, if we really want to identify apartheid nations in the Middle East, we should look to the Arab nations that ban citizenship to non-Muslims. In contrast, Israel provides its Arab citizens with civil rights, electoral representation, and the full protection of the courts, which often support their causes.

There certainly are inequities in Israel, as there are here in the United States on race and class issues. But that is not the same thing as practicing apartheid. To imply Israel is doing so is simply slanderous. Worse, it actually undermines lasting peace by continuing to polarize the parties rather than bring them together.

Israel is not an ideal society, and the security barrier is far from the solution many of us, on the left or center, would prefer, let alone need, if there were a partner willing to commit to peace on the other side of the wall.

The cement slabs that are shown in the photo in Halper's blog post are from Abu Dis. They sit on a roadway. When I asked why, I was told it was because they could be set up without causing destruction to area homes and because they can be easily removed!

The hope is that they can be removed quickly, as soon as the threat of terrorism ends. But that will not be the case until enough Palestinian people in the territories decide they are better off living in peace next to a Jewish State that they are willing to elect leaders who will broker and enforce such a peace. Until then, good fences remain necessary to protect against bad, i.e., deadly, neighbors.

--Posted by Rabbi Susan Grossman

While I agree with Rabbis Waxman and Stern about the dangers of focusing too much on gifts, there is a positive aspect to Hanukkah that the comes from having become the Jewish-American antidote to Christmas cheer.

I also met with parents this past Sunday. Some were ambivalent about making a big to-do about Hanukkah, afraid that decorating the house, for example, was just a misplaced expression of Christmas envy. They were relieved when I let them know that decorations are really part of the mitzvah of Hanukkah, which is to publicize "the miracle."

What exactly that miracle was is subject to some disagreement: Was it that one cruse of oil miraculously lasted eight days (as the Talmud recounts) or was it the fact that the small, outnumbered and out armed Jewish guerrillas won against the well established Seleucid army (as the prayer book recounts)? Is the Talmud a metaphor or a history lesson? Perhaps it is both in a way.

The word "Hanukkah" means dedication. For me, it refers not only to the rededication of the repaired and purified Temple, but the Jews' dedication to their ancestral traditions, a dedication repeated throughout history. And that is the real miracle, and meaning, of this holiday.

It is a meaning we are to publicize, according to tradition, by placing our menorahs in our windows. (We can use an electric menorah for this purpose in order not to burn the curtains and instead place our candle or oil-burning menorahs in a safer location.) Today, we can also publicize the miracle of Hanukkah with flags and signs, blinking menorahs, and window decorations that announce we are proud to be Jewish at this time of year.

As I shared with my families, the real test, though, is how dedicated we remain to living our Jewish identity proudly and actively throughout the rest of the year. Perhaps the real miracle of Hanukkah can only be realized when we translate some of the excitement we feel about Hanukkah time to the rest of the Jewish year, such as for the next few holidays like Tu B'Shevat and Purim.

--Posted by Rabbi Susan Grossman

What should the role of religion be in politics?

There has been some recent, some might say puerile, interest in the religious observances of two Mormon politicians, Massachusetts Republican governor and presidential hopeful Mitt Romney and U.S. Senator Harry Reid (D-Nevada), who will become Senate Majority Leader in January.

The real questions that should be asked are how their personal beliefs shape their political platforms and perspectives.

As the first Catholic president, it was important for John F. Kennedy to show that he did not represent the Pope but rather the great and varied American people in his White House.

Joe Leiberman, not only the first Jewish vice presidential candidate but the first observant Jew to run for such a high national office, throughout his years in office has shown that being grounded in a personal faith commitment can help keep one's personal moral compass straight without imposing one's personal beliefs on others.

That seems to reflect the electorate's view as well, judging from a recent poll cited in the Dec. 3 edition of The New York Times by op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristof: While 90 percent of the respondents say they are willing to vote for a woman, African American, or a Jew, only 37 percent said they would vote for an atheist.

Rather than asking them about their Sabbath observances or what kind of underwear they wear, there are some religion-related questions we do need to pose to Mormon candidates: Are they dedicated to the separation of church and state? Can they reconcile themselves with defending the rights of people of other faiths (or no faith) to follow actions of personal choice that are contradictory to their own Mormon religious dictates? How does their understanding of religion shape their understanding of how contemporary events fit into world history (their theological history), particularly regarding the "End of Days" and the current Mid-East crisis?

Mormon politicians aren't the only ones who need to clarify their perspectives on such matters. It would have been helpful to have answers to these questions from the current President Bush when he was running for office.

Whenever I read about the current mess in Iraq, I can't help but wonder how much of it was due to incompetence, how much to oil shenanigans, and how much to a fundamentalist Christian End-of-Days mentality that keeps such books as the "Left Behind" series on the best-seller charts.

--Posted by Rabbi Susan Grossman