Rabbi Eliyahu Stern: December 2006 Archives

To be honest, I did not read too many Jewish books published in 2006, and of those I did read I was not blown away by any of them. Still, in my spare time I did manage to look at some of the books put out by the exciting new publishing initiative Nextbook.

While I love the Nextbook idea of making Jewish ideas and knowledge accessible to broader audiences, none of the books was much to write home about. I found Sherwin Nuland’s work on Maimonides and Robert Pinsky's book on King David to be solid but underwhelming and Rebbeca Goldstein’s effort on Spinoza to be at best only second best when read alongside Mathew Stewart’s brilliant work “The Courtier and the Heretic” on Spinoza’s relationship to Leibniz (see Alan Nadler’s very recently published review of both books in Commentary Magazine).

That said, if I was forced to pick my favorite Jewish book of the year (and to be honest I am not sure this book should be considered "Jewish") it would have to be Israeli writer Etgar Keret’s “The Nimrod Flipout.” What makes Keret’s work so noteworthy is that unlike his great predecessors Amos Oz and A.B. Yehoshua, Keret writes short stories on the most mundane and comical facets of life. The lightness that permeates his prose and narratives never, however, eclipses or destroys the pain, anguish, and depth of the human condition. His often funny and light-hearted tales contain within them powerful lessons about what it means to be human.

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."

Virtual Talmud's Rabbis Rabbi Joshua Waxman and Rabbi Susan Grossman
answered Halper. Now Rabbi Stern replies to Halper:

Mr. Halper: Enough with the lies and rhetoric.

Will you and your ilk once and for all respond to facts? Before you begin another rant, do your readers a favor: Just answer the questions raised in Alan Dershowitz's review. Since it seems you have not read the review, I will include it below. So before you answer me or Rabbi Waxman’s and Rabbi Grossman's excellent responses to your post, please just try–I know it might be hard, it actaully was so hard that Jimmy Carter himself has been unable to do it–but try to read and respond to the following:


“Mr. Carter emphasizes that 'Christian and Muslim Arabs had continued to live in this same land since Roman times,' but he ignores the fact that Jews have lived in Hebron, Tzfat, Jerusalem, and other cities for even longer. Nor does he discuss the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Jews from Arab countries since 1948.

“Mr. Carter repeatedly claims that the Palestinian Arabs have long supported a two-state solution and the Israelis have always opposed it. Yet he makes no mention of the fact that in 1938 the Peel Commission proposed a two-state solution, with Israel receiving a mere sliver of its ancient homeland and the Palestinians receiving the bulk of the land. The Jews accepted and the Palestinians rejected this proposal because Arab leaders cared more about there being no Jewish state on Muslim holy land than about having a Palestinian state of their own.

“He barely mentions Israel's acceptance, and the Palestinian rejection, of the United Nation's division of the mandate in 1948.

“He claims that in 1967 Israel launched a preemptive attack against Jordan. The fact is that Jordan attacked Israel first, Israel tried desperately to persuade Jordan to remain out of the war, and Israel counterattacked after the Jordanian army surrounded Jerusalem, firing missiles into the center of the city. Only then did Israel capture the West Bank, which it was willing to return in exchange for peace and recognition from Jordan.

“Mr. Carter repeatedly mentions Security Council Resolution 242, which called for return of captured territories in exchange for peace, recognition, and secure boundaries, but he ignores that Israel accepted and all the Arab nations and the Palestinians rejected this resolution. The Arabs met in Khartum and issued their three famous 'no's': 'No peace, no recognition, no negotiation.' But you wouldn't know that from reading the history according to Mr. Carter.
Mr. Carter faults Israel for its 'air strike that destroyed an Iraqi nuclear reactor' without mentioning that Iraq had threatened to attack Israel with nuclear weapons if Iraq succeeded in building a bomb.

“Mr. Carter faults Israel for its administration of Christian and Muslim religious sites, when in fact Israel is scrupulous about ensuring those of every religion the right to worship as they please—consistent, of course, with security needs. He fails to mention that between 1948 and 1967, when Jordan occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the Hashemites destroyed and desecrated Jewish religious sites and prevented Jews from praying at the Western Wall. He also never mentions Egypt's brutal occupation of Gaza between 1949 and 1967.

“Mr. Carter blames Israel, and exonerates Arafat, for the Palestinian refusal to accept statehood on 95% of the West Bank and all of Gaza pursuant to the Clinton-Barak offers at Camp David and Taba in 2000–2001. He accepts the Palestinian revisionist history, rejects the eyewitness accounts of President Clinton and Dennis Ross, and ignores Saudi Prince Bandar's accusation that Arafat's rejection of the proposal was "a crime" and that Arafat's account 'was not truthful' —except, apparently, to Mr. Carter. The fact that Mr. Carter chooses to believe Arafat over Mr. Clinton speaks volumes.”

On the surface, it would be hard to find any commonality between a group of long-bearded, black-hatted, cloistered members of the Orthodox Jewish, anti-Zionist group Neturei Karta and former President Jimmy Carter, a Nobel prize-winning Anglo-Saxon Protestant. But it seems that they share a penchant for inane publicity when it comes to Israel.

While Carter's new book is not half as despicable as these Jews' recent trip to Tehran, where they joined hands with Iranian President Ahmadinejad at his Holocaust denial conference, it is pathetic if for no reason other than its title, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid."

Alan Dershowitz has already written a lengthy review detailing the misinformation about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict espoused by Carter, but for me what took the cake was watching Carter a few nights ago on "Larry King Live." King pressed Carter about his views on Israel and his new book. Carter went on to say that both sides are to blame for the current crisis. King pushed back, asking him if that is so, why did he give his book the outlandish title "Palestine: Peace not Apartheid," to which the past president and Nobel prize-winner responded:

"You know, when I write a book of this kind, with admittedly a provocative title... to provoke debate and to provoke discussion."

How pathetic! I can understand why some struggling writer might need to be provocative, but a past president of the United States? A Nobel Prize winner? Give me a break!

Likewise, what on earth are members of Neturei Karta or any Jews doing in Tehran supporting a man who would wipe the Jewish people off the face of this earth!

Jimmy Carter has cheapened himself and his work. The Neturei Karta have not only cheapened themselves but, as some of my friends have said, they should perhaps as group be excommunicated. (There is great irony in the fact that there are many Orthodox Jews that still give more halakhic legitimacy to Neturei Karta members than they do to the Reform or Conservative movements.)

The rabbis of the Talmud liked to say that "wise people are those who are careful with their words." I would like to just say that Jimmy Carter and the Jews of Neturei Karta are simply unwise people in need of attention, but my gut tells me they are something much worse and dangerous.

A couple of weeks ago, Oprah gave each person in her audience $1,000. But as they say, nothing is free, and so the money came with some strings attached. The $1,000 had to be spent on someone other than the audience member who received the money and their family.

Oprah’s gift was giving people the ability to give gifts; to feel needed. The results were astounding. The audience followed the instructions set by Oprah, and one after the other came back saying how this experience made them realize how amazing an experience giving can be.

This time of year, people like to get all self-righteous about the corrosive aspects of American consumerism. Others use Christmas and Hanukkah as an opportunity to mock what they see as the gross materialism of religion in American life.

Something profound gets lost in all that self-righteousness: While conspicuous consumerism remains a problem for all Americans, it has nothing to do with the essence of gift-giving that surrounds Hanukkah and Christmas. More than anything, else the gift-giving promoted by both religions is not meant to be self-centered but rather to teach people the beauty of giving to others.

What Oprah highlighted was the smile that emerges on both faces when someone gives something to another person. Gift-giving can mean just as much to the giver as to the recipient. Giving gifts allow people to feel needed.

We tend to look down at the person running out of Target with more bags in his hand than he can hold. We say to ourselves, is Hanukkah just about a new Xbox or iPod? Isn’t it something more spiritual, more holy, more divine?

To be sure, as Rabbi Waxman points out, gift-giving on Hanukkah is what Jews might call a “minhag America”–a custom developed not thousands of years ago but one that came about through our experience in United States. Some Jews try to downplay giving gifts saying its really a Christian custom adopted by acculturated American Jews. Those curmudgeons should do themselves a favor and before they start wagging their fingers take a look not at the person opening up his/her gift but the grandparent or friend that gave them the gift and the smile shining on their face.

Gary Rosenblatt’s op-ed in the Jewish Week titled "The Next Great Jewish Idea" should read "The Next Great Jewish Band-Aid."

What is remarkable about the piece is that it contains not one idea. Instead of realizing that Jewish outreach and life is totally devoid of any powerful ideas and vision, Rosenblatt, who I consider a friend and deeply respect, continues the madness of confusing the word “idea” with public policy band-aid initiatives that try to make Jews more Jewish. A few of the more laughable initiatives he mentions are Rabbi Elliot Dorf’s suggestion that the Jewish demographic and intermarriage crises could be solved by convincing Jews to get married in graduate school.

Sure thing Rabbi Dorf, that’s really gonna fly in country whose average marriage age is only getting older and older. Besides, what would it even mean to encourage people to marry young? Should we give an extra $100 U.S. Savings Bond to every bar-mitzvah boy who chooses a bride at his bar-mitzvah celebration?

Another idea came from Dr. Bethamie Horowitz, research director of the Mandel Foundation, who for some reason asserted that “Jews don’t have to be cloistered” to live Jewish lives anymore, and that rather than ask “why be Jewish?” the question should be “why not be Jewish?” Hmmmmm. I think the Jewish Week should pay for Dr. Horowitz to go to New York City's West Side for a Shabbat and see if Jews need not live in cloistered environments.

Today there is no longer one story–such as God’s decree, Zionism, or refusing to give Hitler a posthumous victory–that provides a persuasive rationale for being Jewish. Instead of working toward developing a new cadre of intellectual and moral leadership, instead of trying to explain to young people why investing in Judaism is worthwhile, the Jewish community continues to promote programs and short-term gimmicks to bring more Jews into the fold.

The biggest problem with the whole article (by the way, I am not the only one who was laughing or crying at this piece. The fact about the myriad outreach initiatives being put on the table is that almost none of them have any real long-erm vision. None of them respect the decisions that young people are making. None of them deal with the most important question--Why be Jewish?

Finally, none of them are ideas. They are all programs, and programs are not the same as ideas. Ideas provide vision, direction, and long-term attachment. Programs are there to implement ideas, and when you don’t have ideas, all you have are short-term gimmicks.

Andrew Sullivan has raised the issue of Mitt Romney’s Mormon underwear. Sullivan, usually a very astute and articulate voice, goes a bit too far on this one.Rabbi Grossman is right on this one. Who really cares what undergarments Romney wears...