Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on June 27, 2024

Considered the Father of the Indian Nation, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi(1869 1948), akaBapu(a Gujarati endearment for father), was a lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist and political ethicist whose use of nonviolent resistance led the successful campaign for Indian independence from British rule and inspired worldwide movements for civil rights and freedom.

Assuming leadership of the Indian National Congress in 1921, Gandhi led nationwide campaigns for easing poverty, building religious and ethnic amity, ending untouchability and, above all, achieving self-rule. He famously began to live in a self-sufficient residential community, to eat simple food, and undertake long fasts as a means of both introspection and political protest. Bringing anti-colonial nationalism to the common Indians, he called for the British to quit India in 1942 and was imprisoned several times for many years in both South Africa and India. In August 1947, Britain granted independence, but the British Indian Empire was partitioned into two dominions, a Hindu-majority India and a Muslim-majority Pakistan, leading to extensive religious violence throughout the country.

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Gandhi visited Punjab and Bengal, the primary affected areas, attempting to alleviate misery and, in the months that followed, he famously undertook several hunger strikes to halt the religious violence, with his final fast beginning in Delhi at age 78 on January 12, 1948. He was murdered a few weeks later by a militant Hindu nationalist unhappy about Gandhis defense of both Pakistan and Indian Muslims.

Gandhis first job was with a Jewish law firm in Johannesburg and some of his closest friends and confidants, both in Johannesburg (1893 1914) and later in India, were Jews. Helauded the Jewish spirituality, high standards, and sense of community and, after visiting the synagogue in Johannesburg during Pesach, he expressed his culinary delight with the Jews unleavened cakes and wrote that you can almost say that I was keeping Passover with my Jewish friends.

He, in turn, was always held in high regard by the Jews. In 1931, he met with members of Bene Israel to discuss their participation in the nationalist movement, but he suggested that they join in support of the movement only after India won its independence from the British, urging them not to become involved in politics before then because they constitute such a small minority.

TheBene Israel, sometimes referred to as the Native Jew caste, are a community of Jews in India said to be the descendants of one of the Ten Lost Tribes that settled in India many centuries ago. Starting in the second half of the 18th century after learning about normative Sephardic Judaism, they migrated to cities throughout British India, primarily to Mumbai, where they opened their first synagogue in 1796 and became prominent within the British colonial government.

Exhibited here is the editorial on the front page of the February 1948 issue ofSchemathat was dedicated to mourning Gandhis loss. After waxing enthusiastic about the greatness indeed, the near deity status of the late Indian leader, the editorial addresses Gandhis contribution to the Jewish community:

What does the passing of this great saint and believer in the universality of true religion mean to our small community in India? Our debt to him is no less unquestionable. Apart from the general principles of morality on which he based his every thought and action and which afforded all communities including ourselves the protection of the rock-like foundations of the true freedom and self-expression, he gave concrete expression to his sympathy for our cause and our sufferings on numerous occasions and in no uncertain manner. We are proud and grateful to place on record that he had the greatest respect and admiration for the Jewish people and all they symbolized for he did not himself stand for what they had stood through centuries of persecution and suffering the eternal principles of justice and morality against the savage hand of tyranny, the belief that the spirit shall triumph over the sword.

Indeed, Gandhi sympathized with Jews and saw their plight as similar to that of many Indians:

My sympathies are all with the Jews. I have known them intimately in South Africa. Some of them became life-long companions. Through these friends I came to learn much of their age-long persecution. They have been the untouchables of Christianity. The parallel between their treatment by Christians and the treatment of untouchables by Hindus is very close. Religious sanction has been invoked in both cases for the justification of the inhuman treatment meted out to them. Apart from the friendships, therefore, there is the more common universal reason for my sympathy for the Jews

There the Indians occupied precisely the same place that the Jews occupy in Germany A fundamental clause in the Transvaal constitution was that there should be no equality between the whites and colored races including Asiatics. There, too, the Indians were consigned to ghettos described as locations. The other disabilities were almost of the same type as those of the Jews in Germany. The Indians, a mere handful, resorted to satyagraha [nonviolent resistance] without any backing from the world outside or the Indian Government

Gandhi expressed great sympathy for the historical persecution of the Jews. He called antisemitism a remnant of barbarism, supported the right of German Jews to be treated as equal citizens, and admired their centuries of refusal to turn violent. He urged the Jews to assert themselves wherever they happened to be, as citizens of that country first which is why he argued that the Jews should not attempt to form a homeland in historic Eretz Yisrael (see discussion below).

During a massive review of millions of its archival documents in 2019, the National Library of Israel unearthed a letter handwritten by Gandhi onSeptember 1, 1939 the very day that World War II broke out in Europe in which he sends Rosh Hashanah greetings to Avraham E. Shohet, a local Jewish Indian official:

You have my good wishes for your new year. How I wish the new year may mean an era of peace for your afflicted people.

Shohet was head of the Bombay Zionist Association (BZA), president of the Bombay branch ofKeren Hayesod, the Bombay city offices Zionist organization, and editor ofThe Jewish Advocate, the official publication of the BZA and the Jewish National Fund in India.

But did Gandhi deserve the veneration and affection of the worlds Jews? The answer to that question is far from black and white.

It is doubtful that most Jews would consider Gandhi a great friend, or even a moral person, when they learn that, notwithstanding his characterization of Hitler as the ultimate in evil and as a man with whom negotiation is impossible,his solution to the Holocaust was that Jews should happily accept their fate and proudly submit themselves to mass extermination . . . which he readily admitswould be the inevitable result of the Jews wielding peaceful resistance against the Nazis.

In a seminal letter he wrote from Segaon (a village in the Khargone district in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh where he established an ashram and settled) which he published as The Jewsin theNovember 26, 1938 issue of theHarijan newspaper Gandhi argues that the German persecution of the Jews seems to have no parallel in history; that the tyrants of old never went so mad as Hitler seems to have gone; and that he is doing it with religious zeal. He writes that If there ever could be a justifiable war in the name of and for humanity, a war against Germany, to prevent the wanton persecution of a whole race, would be completely justified.

However, because he does not believe in warunder any circumstances, he concludes that there can be no war against Germany, even for such a crime as is being committed against the Jews:

Can the Jews resist this organized and shameless persecution? Is there a way to preserve their self-respect, and not to feel helpless, neglected and forlorn? I submit there is. No person who hasfaithin a living G-d need feel helpless or forlorn.Tetragrammaton of the Jews is a G-d more personal than the G-d of the Christians, the Mussalmans or the Hindus, though as a matter of fact in essence, He is common to all and one without a second and beyond description. But as the Jews attribute personality to G-d and believe that He rules every action of theirs, they ought not to feel helpless. If I were a Jew and were born in Germany and earned my livelihood there, I would claim Germany as my home even as the tallest gentile German may, and challenge him to shoot me or cast me in the dungeon; I would refuse to be expelled or to submit to discriminating treatment. And for doing this, I should not wait for the fellow Jews to join me in civilresistancebut would have confidence that in the end the rest are bound to follow my example. If one Jew or all the Jews were to accept the prescription here offered, he or they cannot be worse off than now. And suffering voluntarily undergone will bring them an inner strength and joy which no number of resolutions of sympathy passed in the world outside Germany can. Indeed, even if Britain, France and America were to declare hostilities against Germany, they can bring no inner joy, no inner strength. The calculated violence of Hitler may even result in a general massacre of the Jews by way of his first answer to the declaration of such hostilities. But if the Jewish mind could be prepared for voluntary suffering, even the massacre I have imagined could be turned into a day of thanksgiving and joy that Tetragrammaton had wrought deliverance of the race even at the hands of the tyrant. For to the G-d fearing, death has no terror. It is a joyful sleep to be followed by a waking that would be all the more refreshing for the long sleep.

Gandhi even went so far as to send two conciliatory letters to Hitler, the first on July 23, 1939 and the second on December 24, 1940, in which he addressed the Fuhrer as a friend and wrote that he did not believe the German dictator was the monster that his opponents described. He raised the issue with Hitler of the Germans treatment of Poland and the Czechs with nary a mention of the Jews and he asked his closest friend, the Jewish Zionist Hermann Kallenbach (more on him later), to pray for Hitler.

Even after World War II, Gandhi essentially remained silent on the Holocaust and, most inconceivably, he spoke out against the wickedness of the trials of Nazi war criminals. In a June 1947 interview with his biographer, Louis Fischer, he said:

Hitler killed five million Jews [the correct number, of course, issixmillion Jews, but whats another million Jews more or less?]. It is the greatest crime of our time. But the Jews should have offered themselves to the butchers knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs It would have aroused the world and the people of Germany As it is they succumbed anyway in their millions.

Gandhi defenders argue that, in urging Jews to accept martyrdom during the Shoah, he was only being consistent with his core values of pacifism and peaceful resistance and that this was not fatalism but, rather, an assertion of will so strong that it would deny the Nazis a sense of ethical and moral superiority over their victims. This position has not only been characterized as passivity bordering on cowardice but, I would argue, a naivete that is stunning, dangerous, and disgusting. Moreover, as I discuss in more detail below, Gandhis views of the Jews, the Holocaust, and Eretz Yisrael exhibit a sharp and indisputable double standard that is the very antithesis of consistency

Perhaps the Jerusalem Post said it best: in an article titledRepudiating Gandhian Pacifism in the Face of Mass Murder in 2016, the Post summarized Gandhis philosophy regarding the Shoah as when some evil regime or group wants to attack and kill you, the worst thing you can do is try to run and hide to save your life. No matter how much Gandhi may have sympathized with the Jewish condition, he was oblivious to Jewish survival.

Thus, in a 1939 response to Gandhis 1938 article, Martin Buber, the renowned Austrian Jewish and Israeli philosopher who had madealiyahfrom Germany only a short time earlier, wrote what should have been obvious to any rational person, let alone to a national leader and internationally-respected philosopher like Gandhi:

The five years I myself spent under the present [Nazi] regime, I observed many instances of genuine satyagraha [nonviolent resistance] among the Jews, instances showing a strength of spirit in which there was no question of bartering their rights or of being bowed down, and where neither force nor cunning was used to escape the consequences of their behavior. Such actions, however, exerted apparently not the slightest influence on their opponents. All honor indeed to those who displayed such strength of soul! But I cannot recognize herein a watchword for the general behavior of German Jews that might seem suited to exert an influence on the oppressed or on the world. An effective stand in the form of non-violence may be taken against unfeeling human beings in the hope of gradually bringing them to their senses; but a diabolic universal steamroller cannot thus be withstood.

Moreover, Gandhi extended his opposition to Jewish self-defense against Nazi genocide by resolutely opposing their right to go to Eretz Yisrael, whether to establish a Jewish State there or even to simply save themselves from death at the hand of the Third Reich. He argued that the mere Jewish agitation for a national home would provide justification to the Nazis to expel them as if Hitler needed any additional excuses and that the Jews should engage only in non-violence against the Arabs and offer themselves to be shot or thrown into the Dead Sea without raising a little finger against them. In March 1921, he issued a statement supporting the proposition that Muslims must retain control over Eretz Yisrael.

In his 1938 article, Gandhi almost unbelievably writes:

Several letters have been received by me asking me to declare my views about the Arab-Jew question inPalestineand the persecution of the Jews in Germany. It is not without hesitation that I venture to offer my views on this very difficult question

[After expressing sympathy for the Jewish plight:] But my sympathy does not blind me to the requirements of justice. The cry for the national home for the Jews does not make much appeal to me. The sanction for it is sought in theBibleand the tenacity with which the Jews have hankered after return to Palestine. [But] why should they not, like other peoples of the earth, make that country their home where they are born and where they earn their livelihood?

Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French. It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs. What is going on in Palestine today cannot be justified by any moral code of conduct. The mandates have no sanction but that of the last war. Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as their national home.

The nobler course would be to insist on a just treatment of the Jews wherever they are born and bred. The Jews born in France are French. If the Jews have no home but Palestine, will they relish the idea of being forced to leave the other parts of the world in which they are settled? Or do they want a double home where they can remain at will? This cry for the national home affords a colorable justification for the German expulsion of the Jews.

Not surprisingly, in the wake of its October 7thbutchery, this quote has been resurrected by Hamas, and its supporters around the world who argue that Gandhi, the great statesman and man of peace, was clear that Palestine belongs to the Arabs and that the Jews are, at best, interlopers.

In his article, Gandhi concludes:

And now a word to the Jews in Palestine. I have no doubt that they are going about it in the wrong way. The Palestine of the Biblical conception is not a geographical tract. It is in their hearts. But if they must look to the Palestine of geography as their national home, it is wrong to enter it under the shadow of the British gun. A religious act cannot be performed with the aid of the bayonet or the bomb. They can settle in Palestine only by the goodwill of the Arabs. They should seek to convert the Arab heart. The same G-d rules the Arab heart who rules the Jewish heart. They can offer satyagraha in front of the Arabs and offer themselves to be shot or thrown into the Dead Sea without raising a little finger against them. They will find the world opinion in their favor in their religious aspiration. There are hundreds of ways of reasoning with the Arabs, if they will only discard the help of the British bayonet. As it is, they are co-shares with the British in despoiling a people who have done no wrong to them Let the Jews who claim to be the chosen race prove their title by choosing the way of non-violence for vindicating their position on earth.

Thus, argued Gandhi, the real Jerusalem was the spiritual one and, as such, Zionism was unnecessary and Jews could practice their faith in their native countries including, as we have seen, Nazi Germany.

In Bubers 1939 correspondence to Gandhi cited above, he noted that Arabs had themselves come to possess Eretz Yisrael surely by conquest and, in fact, a conquest by settlement, and he appealed to Gandhi to recognize the responsibility for violence and unrest that was shared by Palestinian Arabs, but Gandhi would not yield. Similarly, Moshe Shertok, as head of the Jewish Agency (later to become Prime Minster of Israel as Moshe Sharett), also asked Gandhi to raise his authoritative voice in favor of a Jewish autonomous government in Eretz Yisrael, but he refused.

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Moreover, A. E. Shohet,the leader of the Indian-Jewish community andGandhis good Jewish friend, reached out to Hermann Kallenbach, a wealthy Jewish Zionist architect and carpenter to whom Gandhi referred as his soulmate, to intervene with Gandhi on behalf of Zionism. In May 1910, Kallenbach had funded the establishment of Tolstoy Farm, the South African prototype for Gandhis ashram, where the two had lived together; Ghandi once wrote to him Your portrait (the only one) stands on the mantelpiece in my room . . . even if I wanted to dismiss you from my thoughts, I could not do it.

In March 1939, Kallenbach arranged for Shohet to interview Gandhi, which he did over the course of four days at Gandhis ashram. Shohet triedto convince him to support a Jewish home in Eretz Yisrael, but he emerged dispirited that Gandhi had adopted an Arab perspective of Zionism; as he wrote toEliahu Epstein (who, as Eliahu Elath, would later serve as Israels first Ambassador to the United States), the interview was discouraging because Gandhi proved inflexible and refused to see the Palestine question other than from the Muslim point of view.

How to explain Gandhis outrageous views on the Holocaust and Israel? It certainly wasnt due to antisemitism, since he lovedallpeople and peoples including, as we have seen, Nazis and terrorists and he often spoke out in support of Jews. Some authorities suggest that he adopted his views on Jews because heunderstood Judaism only through the lens of Christianity and that he reduced Judaism to a religion without considering its nationalistic character and, as such, he excluded Zionism from the Jewish identity. Moreover, his closest Jewish friends, including Kallenbach and Sonya Schlesin, were all universalists largely ignorant of rabbinical philosophy and law and post-Biblical rituals and customs; thus, for example, Gandhi condemned the Bibles eye for an eye rule for its inhumanity and violence, wholly unaware of the oral law teaching that the Biblically proscribed punishment was never meant to be interpreted literally but, rather, that the tortfeasor must compensate his victim through the payment of financial damages.

Another proffered explanation for Gandhis anti-Zionism was that, although he was well-informed about the special Jewish relationship with Eretz Yisrael from Kallenbach, Schlesin, and others, his pro-Arab bias and battle against British colonialism and imperialism trumped all other considerations so, unlike every other people, religion, and nationality, he chose to disregard Jewish singularity. Moreover, his desire to placate Hindus and Muslims and keep them united in India surely colored his attitude towards Zionism. In a manifestly undeniable double standard, he held Jews to the highest possible spiritual standard while judging the proud Arabs by the accepted canons of right and wrong.

Double standards seem to be the rule, rather than the exception, when it came Gandhis attitude to the Jews. As another example in what can only be characterized as a truly monstrous double standard he acknowledged that nonviolence was not possible for the Polish people in 1939 and praised their violent resistance to Hitler, at the same time he was telling the Jews to go peacefully and joyfully to death by their Nazi executioners. He was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize five times, but never won; yet, he continues to be admired by many Jewish leaders, including David Ben Gurion, who hung a photograph of only one person in his bedroom: Mahatma Gandhi.

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Gandhi's Anti-Zionism And The Absurdity Of His Pacifism During The Holocaust - The Jewish Press - JewishPress.com

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Posted By admin on June 27, 2024

Mona Golabek is a woman on a mission.

The word she has been spreading through her music and her mothers life story for the past two-plus decades is of a decidedly uplifting, emotive, and inspiring nature.

A couple of weeks ago, the Los Angeles-based Grammy-nominated classical pianist came to Israel at the behest of the ANU Museum in Tel Aviv to unveil her one-woman show, The Pianist of Willesden Lane, and to dispense free copies of the book she wrote about her mother, Lisa Jura.

We all have our own ways of coping with personal loss and final and irrevocable separation. Some manage better than others, either by dint of having a close loving support group at hand or being blessed with some innate strength and an indomitable will to live.

Jura had the latter, but she also had the immeasurable boon of music. Her talent at the piano was initially nurtured by her mother, Malka, and subsequently by her beloved teacher Prof. Isseles. That Jura was destined for great things appeared to have been on the cards.

But that was in 1930s Vienna, during the darkest of times for the Jura family, living in the Austrian capitals Second District, home to many Jews, my own mothers family included.

Jura left for England on the Kindertransport the British-sponsored rescue campaign with just one compact suitcase, as per the Nazis dictates for all the approximately 10,000 kinder (children) who made it out of Nazi-occupied Europe between December 1938 and the beginning of World War II. Malka heroically sent her then 14-year-old daughter away, to survival, with another precious gift.

You must promise me... that you will hold on to your music. Please promise me that, Malka told her distraught daughter at the Westbahnhof as Jura waited to board the train to London. When the teenager protested that she wouldnt be able to do that without her mother by her side, Malka insisted. Your music will help you through let it be your best friend, Liseleh. And remember that I love you.

The mother-daughter exchange, before they parted forever, appears in The Children of Willesden Lane, a book written by Golabek in conjunction with Lee Cohen, which has been translated into numerous languages, including Hebrew, Arabic, Polish, and German.

It also forms the basis for The Pianist of Willesden Lane, which Golabek recently performed at the ANU Museum and at a number of local schools.

The visit here was sponsored by the Koret Foundation, Charles Bronfman, and the Leon Levy Foundation, with the venture supported globally by the USC Shoah Foundation, which helps Golabek spread the word of her mothers story around the world. That generous underpinning also enables Golabek to offer free admission to the shows, as well as giving out copies of the book gratis.

The eponymous street is where Jura lived in London, in a hostel at number 243, run by a matronly figure named Mrs. Cohen, which housed 30 kinder. Jura kept her promise to her mother and stuck to her musical path.

That was helped by the fact that the hostel had an upright piano to which Jura had daily access. She played ferociously while the Luftwaffe pounded London during the Blitz, after the instrument had been relocated to the safety of the basement.

Golabek portrays her mother in the show, directed by Canadian pianist, actor, and playwright Hershey Felder, telling Juras tale as she tickles the ivories. That tallies with the way things worked out in reality. She told me stories of her life through the music, Golabek explains when we meet up in Jaffa. She said that each piece of music tells a story. Through the music she taught me, I learned the story of her life.

Against all odds, Jura succeeded in gaining entry to the prestigious Royal Academy of Music in London. After the war, after immigrating again, this time out of choice to the United States, she indeed became a concert pianist albeit only briefly and subsequently devoted her working hours to teaching others.

Her students included her two daughters, Mona and Rene. Today, Renes four children all play music. Lisa Juras genetic artistic legacy appears to be in robust joyous health.

Golabek is doing her utmost to do more than keep her mothers life story alive. The show is a carefully crafted vehicle aimed at inspiring thousands of children and adults all over the world to stick to their principles and morals, seek out the truth, and combat discrimination and hatred. That is facilitated through The Willesden Project launched by Golabeks fittingly named Hold On to Your Music Foundation.

The book subtitle reads Beyond the Kindertransport: A Memoir of Music, Love and Survival. Jura never let go of her music and she clearly survived, at least in a physical sense, although it is hard to know how the trauma of her enforced separation from her parents and the horrors she witnessed following the Anschluss and, in particular, on Kristallnacht affected her emotional well-being. But Jura, it seems, was made of sterner stuff. Both her sisters miraculously survived the war.

Golabek is pulling out all the stops to disseminate all that as far and wide as she possibly can. She is also trying to paint an evocative picture of her mothers trajectory from her happy childhood in pre-Nazi Vienna to the terror of life in the Nazi-infested Austrian capital, through the agony of being sent away to a foreign country on her own, eventually reuniting with her siblings, having a family with her husband, Polish-born Jewish French Resistance fighter Michel Golabek, and realizing her dream of a career in music.

Golabeks literary output includes a picture book, Hold On to Your Music, produced in tandem with Emil Sher and award-winning Italian illustrator Sonia Possentini.

I fought to have this illustrator so that I could have the grandeur and the beauty of Europe, Golabek notes. This is not a cartoon. We are creating incredible assets through my partnership with the Shoah Foundation, but I wanted the beauty of the old world, Vienna, to be captured.

You get that from the illustrated tome. The pictures also manage to convey Juras dogged determination to ply her maternally bequeathed musical course, the atmosphere in wartime Britain, and her eventual triumph at the grandly appointed Wigmore Hall concert venue in London.

The original book, for adults there are children-friendly versions, too came out in 2003. Nine years later, with Felders help, The Pianist of Willesden Lane took to the stage, premiering at the Geffen Playhouse in Golabeks hometown of Los Angeles. She took it on the road around the US, and in 2016 performed the show in London, her mothers first post-Kindertransport port of call. Thus far, she has given out hundreds of thousands of copies of her book all gratis and told her mothers incredible story to millions of people of all ages.

Folk who tread the boards generally get a sense of how the show went from the vibe in the audience. Golabek has an even more accurate barometer of how the work goes over, particularly to her younger spectators.

Every night when I get back to my hotel, I come back to boxes of letters from students here in Israel that have been left for me. I have to buy a new suitcase so I can take the letters back with me, she laughs.

I was privy to some specimens of the Israeli youngsters reactions to the book and the show. One called it an amazing and heartfelt book and said every page was better than the last. Another, Victoria, said the show was fabulous, adding I appreciate the fact that you came over to our school, in Israel, even with everything that is happening here. Well-deserved kudos indeed.

It seems there is a mutual appreciation relationship in full flow. The young people of Israel are the greatest, says Golabek. Their reaction to this story, and their messages of gratitude for someone to give them a message of hope and light in this dark time will forever be etched in my heart.

Of course, the best tales are told by those who have lived the storyline in person or caught it firsthand. That forms the core of The Pianist of Willesden Lane. Here I am, a little girl of five or six years old. My mothers teaching me the piano, Golabek recalls. That wasnt all the youngster got. The dream [of a career as a concert pianist] that was cut short for her; she wanted to pass that on to me. The power of music was so strong in her heart.

This wasnt just about getting a handle on the technicalities and mechanics of navigating ones way around the keyboard. Survivors have taken vicarious approaches to passing on their Holocaust baggage down the generational line. Some opened the emotional floodgates and swamped their offspring with their angst, while others found it all too much to deal with and kept their painful memories to themselves, even though, naturally, the scars found their way through the parental cracks.

Luckily, Golabek and Jura had music to soften the edges and serve as a safe conduit for passing on experiences that otherwise may have overly taxed the youngsters emotional capacity.

My mother told me the stories of her life while she taught me, while I played the piano, Golabek explains. She told me all her stories through the Beethoven, the Bach. She would tell me about the train ride [from Vienna to London]. She told me what happened at the train station [in Vienna] with my grandmother. Jura spared her young daughter no details, however emotionally graphic.

It was all related to the music, the most precious gift Malka had entrusted to Jura, which sustained her through the Blitz in London and the anguish of her loneliness and yearning for her family. Jura also ensured that the musical flame was kept burning brightly by the next generation.

When she put me to sleep at night, shed tell me: Remember when grandmother told me to hold on to my music. Tomorrow were going to work on the Beethoven.

Somehow, Jura imparted both the gravitas and the wonder of the gift Malka gave her in a manner that inspired Golabek rather than sending her off to sleep paralyzed with fear and with nightmares of Nazi brutality.

I loved my mother so much, and she said that in such a fantastic magical way. I perceived it to be an incredible story and adventure. She was going to England. She fell in love with a boy at the hostel named Aaron. Seems young Lisa Jura was something of a heartbreaker. She told me how every boy fell in love with her. She reminded me of that all the time, Golabek chuckles.

Golabek carries her mothers torch as high and proud as she can. She also fulfilled a dream that had evaded her mother. Juras favorite work was Griegs Piano Concerto. As a young girl, she had fantasized about performing it at the venerated Musikverein concert hall in Vienna as she passed by on a tram on her way to her piano lessons.

Golabek first got to perform the concerto in the US, happily, while her mother was still alive. That was not only a source of joy for Jura, but it also cemented Golabeks notion of writing the book and eventually creating the show.I woke up the next morning [after receiving the call to play the Grieg work in the States] with a dream in my heart, she recalls. The dream was to tell her story. I felt there were important messages. What do you hold on to in the darkest of times?

Clearly, Golabek is succeeding in that endeavor against numerous odds. Thats why these letters [from Israeli youngsters] are so meaningful. They say, Youve given us a message of what to hold on to.

It wasnt easy getting where she is today. I wasnt a writer, Golabek exclaims. I was just a pianist. But I had a dream, and I never gave up.

Like mother, like daughter.

For more information: holdontoyourmusic.org/history/

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The gift of music: A mother's message to her daughter fleeing the Holocaust - The Jerusalem Post

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Posted By admin on June 27, 2024

Moral framework vital

Re: A Poster Wont Help Students need moral instruction, not unconstitutional Ten Commandments signs, Tuesday editorial.

Thank you for your beautifully expressed editorial on the importance of moral education in our schools. You are very insightful. The absence of a clear framework of right and wrong leaves a vacuum in which people either drift aimlessly or are prey to all sorts of simplistic, irrational, manipulative dogmas.

It is frightening to see leaders rush to fill the vacuum with self-serving platitudes. Teaching a mature moral framework is not easy, but without it, we will flounder.

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Get smart opinions on the topics North Texans care about.

Elizabeth Walley, Mesquite

I question the third paragraph of this editorial. The writer states, At best, schools are neutral on issues of virtue. About which local public school are you speaking? I could show you many for which that statement is false!

If you put your education writers on that project, Im sure they would come back with some wonderful stories of amazing work being done in local public classrooms to encourage students to be people of character! And, yes, kindness does matter! It might be a platitude to you, but it is not to kids!

Lyn Abercrombie, Carrollton

Re: Evangelical world lacks accountability, by Benjamin J. Dueholm, Tuesday Opinion.

I appreciated this commentary. And regarding Dueholms thoughts in his op-ed on the previous page, I cant help but wonder if Dan Patrick should focus his efforts on creating a bill to require evangelical churches to post the Ten Commandments on their campuses.

Paul G. Hill, Garland

Re: Mans last act was coming out, Sunday Metro obituary.

Well, LGBTQ+ Pride Month is almost over. Did those of you who have been triggered make it OK? In all seriousness, I am both shocked and saddened that so many people continue to take issue with this.

I was reading the obituary of Edward Thomas Ryan, who was gay his entire life but never felt he could come out. So, he did it in his obituary.

This is why Pride Month exists, so people can be who they are. Sure, there are parties and parades, but for many of us, Pride Month is simply a reminder that we can be who we are and love who we love.

Ive heard more than a few people remark, Do you really need an entire month? My answer to that question is yes, why not? If the visibility of Pride Month causes one person to be who they are and live their best life, then I think that is far more important than others feeling uncomfortable for the month.

If you have an intense hatred for this month, I suggest you do a deep dive into why. Odds are, you may be struggling to accept who you really are. As Harvey Milk said: If every gay person were to come out only to his/her own family, friends, neighbors and fellow workers, within days, the entire state would discover that we are not the stereotypes generally assumed.

Josh Youngblood, Dallas

Recent attacks on innocent people in America and other parts of the world on the basis that they practice Judaism are wrong and must stop.

It is very important that people understand that the government of Israel is currently under the leadership of a small group, and it is unjust to link all Jews with Israels current policies.

Judaism is as diversified in religion and politics as are other religions, and Jews throughout the world have rushed to protest the recent actions of Israel.

Hindus await the return of Krishna, Muslims the Imam Mahdi, Buddhists Maitreya Buddha, Jews expect the Messiah and Christians await the return of Jesus.

Instead of fighting over which religion is superior, might we consider that the great being expected by all of these different religions is one and the same?

Now is the time to heal our wounds, to forgive and to extend the olive branch of peace to everyone, everywhere throughout the world, and to finally see humanity as one. Only then can we walk the path to peace.

Bob Arthur, Rowlett

Louisianas new law requiring schools to display the Ten Commandments in every classroom from kindergarten through public college should be seen as religious grooming an attempt to influence a students religious preference. Over the past few years, parents who have objected to public school resources on the basis of sexual grooming have been given the opportunity to opt out and choose alternative material for their child.

In Louisiana, Christian, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindi, Native American and atheist children will be forced to sit in a classroom with a large poster professing a biblical code of conduct that certainly has its place in a religious school, but not in a public school. Will there be opt-out classrooms for families who object to their children being subjected to religious grooming?

So far, Texas has not imposed a state mandate to follow in Louisianas footsteps. How long will it take before it does?

I hope our state government has the wisdom to respect the constitutional separation of church and state.

Marian Levinstein, Lantana

Re: Heres what to listen for during debate Wednesday news story.

This Politifact page should have been in the editorial section. The content was clearly not factual news but rather two reporters opinions. Obviously supportive of President Joe Biden and negative on Donald Trump, this piece should not be disguised as factual and should be moved to the editorial section. Opinions are welcome. Just dont present them as factual.

Jeff Borland, Irving

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Letters to the Editor The Ten Commandments, Pride Month, Judaism, religion in schools - The Dallas Morning News

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Ive been advocating for 15 years for Hebrew Union College to admit rabbinical students in interfaith relationships. As the founder of organizations that advocate for interfaith families Jewish engagement, I heard the voices of interfaith couples who wanted to feel that they could belong in Jewish settings and were discouraged by policies and statements that demeaned their relationships.

I have shared papers with the administrators stating their caseand privately lobbied HUC faculty members and administrators to adopt a policy based on the inclusion that liberal Judaism needs to thrive in a future that is already here.

HUCs long-awaited decision to do so is momentous. HUCs president, Andrew Rehfeld, should be congratulated for stewarding a policy change he describedas not easy, met by largely generational opposition.

While a major step forward, the messaging surrounding the decision does not express the fully inclusive attitude towards interfaith marriage that would encourage more interfaith families to engage Jewishly, in turn enabling liberal Judaism to thrive in the future.

HUCs decision acknowledges arguments that I and other proponents of inclusion have been making for years: that intermarried rabbis would be particularly inspiring role models to the interfaith couples whom they served, and that HUCs policy discriminated against any group with higher-than-average rates of interfaith marriage (including Jews of color, LGBTQ Jews and children of intermarried parents). Whats more, the policy restricted the pool of eligible students at a time of shrinking enrollment.

In the meantime, other seminaries were changing their polices: The Reconstructionist movement revoked its ban on rabbinic students who are intermarried or in committed relationships in 2015; Hebrew College welcomed students in interfaith relationships in 2023.

Unfortunately, in explaining the policy change, HUC missed a unique opportunity to express a positive and fully inclusive attitude towards interfaith marriage. The now-revoked policy followed a 2001 Central Conference of American Rabbis responsum (rabbinic decision) that says we do not condone interfaith marriage and that the ideal to which we rabbis strive is in-marriage. This amounts to an official statement by the association of Reform rabbis that interfaith marriage is disapproved and beloved partners from different faith backgrounds are undesirable. Why would interfaith couples want to be part of a community that views their marriage and one of the partners so negatively?

Instead of explicitly countering that viewpoint, HUCs main stated reason for the change is that many Jewish individuals with non-Jewish partners maintain a Jewish family and home in which Judaism exclusively is practiced and are deeply engaged with Jewish communal life and peoplehood. Thats similar to the way the Reconstructionists explained their decision back in 2015, saying that Jews with non-Jewish partners demonstrate commitment to Judaism in their communal, personal and family lives every day in many Jewish communities.

But the Reconstructionist explanation is different in two respects. The Reconstructionists went on to affirmatively say that the issue of Jews intermarrying is no longer something we want to police; we want to welcome Jews and the people who love us to join us in the very difficult project of bringing meaning, justice, and hope into our world. In contrast, Dr. Rehfeld was quoted by JTA as saying that Were not backing down from the statement that Jewish endogamy [in-marriage] is a value.

More important, instead of being enthusiastic, the explanation takes a crabbed approach, adding language about exclusively Jewish practice such that it comes across as, Well take you, but because were taking you we are adding requirements that youll have an exclusively Jewish home and raise exclusively Jewish children. As Susan Katz Miller, the longtime advocate for interfaith families, aptly writes, the decision seems based in fear, control, and frankly, despair. There is no trace of understanding of the benefits for rabbis, for their families, or for their communities of the joy of living in an interfaith family.

The requirement of exclusivity, if it is enforced, will lead to all sorts of definitional problems. Its not as simple as Rehfelds example of a couple going to shul on Saturday morning and celebrating mass on Sunday. As Katz Miller writes, parents can choose one formal religious affiliation for a child, but as anyone who is part of an interfaith family can attest, you cannot erase the religion and culture of a parent, or extended family, from the childs experience. They will attend a beloved grandparents funeral in another religious tradition, a cousins baptism, an aunts wedding. These are intimate and formative experiences in the life of an interfaith child.

Or, as Samira Mehta points out, it is a poor pastoral practice [to ask] couples to block out one half of their families heritage.

When Hebrew College changed their policy, they didnt say anything at all about interfaith marriage; they simply promulgated new standards for admission that did not refer to the previous ban. When I expressed disappointment at the silence, one faculty member told me that if they had had to say anything one way or the other about interfaith marriage, the policy change would never have been approved. So it may well be that HUCs statements about in-marriage as a value, and exclusive Jewish practice, had to be made in order to get the necessary buy-in for the policy change.

But in the near term, when the liberal Jewish community is beset by challenges, and needs more young people who are highly likely to be in interfaith relationships to engage, its more important than ever to convey an inclusive attitude.

Rabbi Rick Jacobs, head of the Union for Reform Judaism, is quoted by JTA as saying, Many of our best rabbis and cantors were raised in homes with only one formally Jewish parent. Many of our temple lay leaders are married to people who are not formally Jewish. The URJ could do much more to explicitly and affirmatively invite interfaith families to engage.And its past time for the CCAR to review and revoke its out-dated rulings like the responsum on intermarried rabbis, or its responsum that, despitethe fact that the vast majority of Reform rabbisperform interfaith marriages, still officially opposes rabbis officiating at such weddings. A formal process could establish new official opinions; at the least, they could attach language to no-longer-binding opinions explaining that they are out of date and not aligned with the movements current policies.

The decisions of HUC and the other liberal seminaries provide hope that in the longer run, with more rabbis who are the children of interfaith parents, or who are in interfaith relationships themselves, liberal Judaisms message will evolve so that all marriages are equally valued and that interfaith couples are invited to fully engage in Jewish life. Progress is happening, slowly but surely, and we can continue to do more to build that radically inclusive Jewish community.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of JTA or its parent company, 70 Faces Media.

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The Reform movement's decision to admit intermarried rabbis is good. Truly welcoming them would be great. - JTA News - Jewish Telegraphic Agency

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Posted By admin on June 27, 2024

Responding to the news that the High Court of Justice is set to rule this morning on a petition requiring the immediate military conscription of previously exempt yeshiva students, senior United Torah Judaism lawmaker Moshe Gafni preemptively slams the judicial system for anti-Haredi bias.

There has never been a ruling by the Supreme Court in favor of yeshiva students and in the interest of the ultra-Orthodox public, Gafni declares in a statement. There is not a single judge there who understands the value of studying the Torah and [yeshiva students] contribution to the people of Israel in all generations.

During a recent hearing on the issue, the justices appeared to have lost patience with the decades-long failure of successive governments to deal with the Haredi enlistment conundrum, indicating that it could rule for an immediate call-up a result that could imperil Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus coalition, which is dependent on the ultra-Orthodox parties support.

Netanyahus coalition is currently working to pass a bill to lower the current age of exemption for yeshiva students from 26 to 21 and very slowly increase the rate of ultra-Orthodox conscription. Speaking with The Times of Israel last week, one UTJ lawmaker said his party had lost its trust and its will to be a part of this coalition because Netanyahu had failed to come through for them.

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Ahead of ruling on drafting yeshiva students, Haredi MK preemptively slams court for bias - The Times of Israel

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As Isaac Bashevis Singer takes the microphone, he greets roaring applause in his Polish accent, ready with prepared remarks about his personal relationship with religion, philosophy and mysticism.

After he speaks, he reads a short story Shiddah and Kuziba about two demons who encounter humans for the first time, and answers questions from the audience about his life and research.

While the famed Yiddish writer died in 1991, new glimpses into his personality, thoughts and work revive him in the 21st century through brand new audio recordings released by 92NY.

Delivered at the 92nd Street Y on Nov. 19, 1975, Bashevis Singers talk, On Mysticism and the Modern Man, is one of more than 400 historical lectures given at 92NY that are now available through this archive of audio recordings.

Made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, 92NY has digitized conversations from the last 75 years, which the public can access for free through 92NYs website.

Throughout its 150-year history, 92NY has been a home for the intellectually curious, providing a platform for many of the great artists, scholars and thought leaders of the past century-and-a-half, Seth Pinsky, 92NYs chief executive officer, said in a press release. We hope that the Collection will be an invaluable contribution to humanities research and scholarship, foster public appreciation and create greater understanding of the humanities.

Along with Bashevis Singer, the recordings include lectures from major historical thinkers such as the feminist writer Betty Friedan on Transcending the War Between Sexes, and Mordecai Kaplan, the founder of Reconstructionist Judaism, on Judaism in the World Today (1951) and What Religion Can Learn from Psychology (1952).

More recents lectures are also available, including talks from the composer and director of the National Yiddish Theater Folksbiene, Zalmen Mlotek, as well as writers Jonathan Safran Foer and Gary Shteyngart.

The lectures span topics from Jewish life and philosophy to politics, psychology, science, art, dance, film, history, music and womens perspectives. In a press release, the Jewish cultural institution said they digitized more than 800 lectures in total.

92NYs lecture series, now called 92NY Talks, was established in 1930 and is one of Americas longest-running public lecture series, according to the press release.

92NY was founded in 1874 at the Young Mens Hebrew Association by a group of German Jews hoping to serve the social, intellectual and spiritual needs of the American Jewish community in New York. Long known as the 92nd Street Y, it adopted the 92NY moniker in 2022 in a rebranding.

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Hundreds of historic lectures from famous Jewish thinkers are now available at the 92NY's website - JTA News - Jewish Telegraphic Agency

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How long do I remain a Reform Jew if the institutions of Reform Judaism stray into territories that are untenable for me ideologically?

This past week, the Reform movements seminary, the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, decided to overturn a long-standing ban and barrier and ordain students who are in committed relationships with non-Jews. That decision was not surprising, given the growing tendency of the Reform movement to prioritize universalism over peoplehood and the needs of the individual over those of the larger community.

We, as a movement, have been justifiably embracing of interfaith families. But that does not mean the rabbi should be permitted to be in such a relationship. Rabbis hold a unique role in the community and ought to be models of Jewish commitment, reflecting the endogamous (in-married) custom and law of our people.

This decision by the HUC Board of Governors reflects a historic crisis in the Reform movement.

Judaism stands on a three-legged stool. If you remove one leg, the stool cannot stand. Those three legs are God, Torah, and Israel (the people and the land).

I recently came upon an expression used in a fundraising letter for the Union for Reform Judaism: Judaism your way. Its hard to imagine anything more antithetical to Judaism than Judaism your way. After all, it was in the first person plural that our ancestors stood at Sinai and said, We will do and we will hear! (Exodus 24:7). To live Jewishly is to be engaged with the Jewish people.

A product of the Reform movement and a practicing Reform rabbi for nearly thirty years, I owe the very basis of my Jewish education from childhood to graduate school and ordination to institutions in which Jewish history, theology, practice (both the dos and the donts), and Hebrew were all central. I learned that to be a Reform Jew meant to be an informed Jew, a proud Zionist, and someone seriously engaged with our Jewish community.

Judaism your way further demonstrated by HUCs decision regarding rabbinical students causes me to worry about the future of liberal Judaism: placing the ultra-individualism of American society above the essence of Jewishness.

Reform Judaism was founded to stem the tide of assimilation and to form a Judaism guided by Jewish law without always being beholden to it. Despite breaking from religious authority, Reform Judaism never rejected the importance of community and Jewish peoplehood. Although it gave the individual power to make informed choices, the goal was always to be connected to the Jewish people.

The movement has both suffered and excelled because of its emphasis on the individual. Yet today, this more explicit call replaces the communal with the individual and the individual is rarely expected to find ways to serve the community. Given the current crisis faced by half the worlds Jews living in our peoples homeland, this is precisely the moment to prioritize the needs of the communal over the individual and to return to the three-legged stool of Jewish life.

While visiting relatives in Israel recently, we discussed their granddaughters future army service. I was impressed that instead of entering the army for mandatory service immediately after high school, she, like many of her peers, had volunteered to serve the country in a social service capacity for a year and then begin her military conscription. For those who follow such a path, their total commitment to the country increases by three to five years, depending on gender and branch of service. Israeli teenagers assume that serving the state is part of life.

By contrast, we American Jews do not expect the next generation to consider how they will serve their community. Many of us who serve as Jewish professionals tend to spend more time worrying about providing Judaism your way than helping or even demanding that individual Jews work their way into normative Jewish life.

I grew up in an era of activism on behalf of oppressed Soviet Jewry. Counselors from my Reform summer camp who had moved to Israel were regarded as heroes. While I knew I was growing up in a Reform milieu, I also knew that being Jewish meant belonging to a people, feeling a connection to our ancestral land, and approaching Judaism with rigor and reflection.

But a shift has occurred in the past two decades. A few weeks ago, a younger colleague referred to me or at least to my ideas as antiquated. I have come to take that comment as a compliment.

We now live in an era in which many Jewish educators and rabbis highlight universal Jewish values and present them as the driving force of Jewish living or sometimes even as its only purpose. And so, biblical concepts like created in the image of God, love your neighbor as yourself, and justice, justice you shall pursue become the rallying cry for a form of Judaism that seeks to advance a progressive vision of society. It became commonplace to break Shabbat for an AIDS Walk or a solidarity march with Black Lives Matter. Given that progressive vision, permitting exogamy for rabbinical students becomes predictable.

Some years ago, I delivered a Rosh Hashanah sermon about the need to be better caretakers of the earth. Given that the Jewish New Year celebrates the birthday of the world, I thought it perfectly appropriate to draw connections between Jewish text and the wisdom of grounding our responsible actions in those words.

I would not give that sermon today, not because the earth doesnt need attention (see: Genesis 2) but because people are constantly hearing that message in their secular lives. Instead, Jews coming to temple need to explore the teachings of Torah, God, Zionism, and peoplehood. While I am not suggesting we abdicate our communal and universal obligations after all, they are part of the 613 mitzvot I urge Jews of all stripes to drill down to what keeps them Jewish, how they reinforce their connection to our people, and what can we do as individuals to uplift the whole.

Much the way the National Transportation Safety Board comes in after a train wreck to assess the cause and the damage, Reform Judaism needs to assess what happened to allow our movement to go off the rails. Today the Reform movements leaders will issue statements about a Supreme Court decision or a presidential executive order but say little if anything when antisemitic demonstrations threaten college campuses. In their silence, they fail to communicate to our congregations and youth let alone the world at large our commitment to Judaism, Zionism, and the Jewish State.

The Jewish people are a particular people with a universal message. Our universal message promotes caring about the other and extending love and kindness. Yet our particularity keeps us engaged and informed, loyal and dedicated to the rituals, ideas, beliefs, and practices that reflect our 3,000-year-old covenant with God and one another. The three legs of the Jewish stool are the anchors by which Jewish individuals and families find meaning and bring our heritage to life.

Part of the strength of the Jewish people is believing that each generation could be the last. The twentieth-century Jewish thinker Simon Rawidowicz called us the ever-dying people. Indeed, either because of forces from the outside or forces from within, we are seemingly forever on the verge of extinction. A sense of preeminent individualism, disengagement from the Jewish people beyond ones temple, and the notion that you can have Judaism your way including for clerical leaders all make for an increasingly thin Reform Judaism, let alone Judaism. I know that I am not alone among Reform Jewish professionals and lay people who share these concerns. Together, we recognize the imperative of embracing the particulars that define Judaism and making the Jewish people the centerpiece of our thinking and our behavior. Maybe we, Reform Jews, need to be a bit more antiquated. As long as we do, then a Reform Jew, I remain.

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The anguished dilemma of a Reform rabbi | Mark Cohn | The Blogs - The Times of Israel

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It doesnt take an expert in the field to know that, around the world,there is much disagreement on the subject of religion. But as explained in the UsefulCharts video above by Matt Baker,whose PhD in Religious Studies makes him an expert in the field, every source does agree on the fact that the four largest religions in the world are Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. These are the undisputed big four, Baker says, and theyve thus been the subjects of the various videos and charts hes made explaining their histories and characteristics. But in his area of expertise, he adds, it is often said that there are five major world religions.

The fifth major religion, as you may have already guessed, is Judaism, though its sixteen million adherents dont enter the same numerical league as the worlds 1.9 billion Muslims or 2.4 billion Christians. The Jewish faith punches well above its weight in respects like its age, and its being the parent religion to both Christianity and Islam. Coming in at 400 million believers is a religion, or category of religions, that to many readers may seem much less familiar than Judaism: Chinese folk religion, or as Baker calls it, Chinese Syncretism, referring to its mixture of different ideas and traditions.

You can get up to speed on Chinese Syncretism, as well as Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism, in the two-hour video at the top of the post, which compiles Bakers UsefulCharts explanations of those religions evolutions and all the intellectual, doctrinal, and cultural branches that have grown in the process. To Christianity, the biggest of the big four, Baker has devoted an entire series, presented in its entirety in the three-hour video just above. You may be able to describe the differences between Catholicism and Protestantism, but what about the differences between, say, the Syriac Catholic Church, the Evangelical Free Church of America, and theMekane Yesus Church of Ethiopia?

Baker can and does describe those differences, using his own family tree-style charts as a visual aid. Only one viewing may not be enough to gain a clear understanding of what separates each Christian denomination from every other. But it will certainly be enough to instill an understanding that, in an important sense, there is such thing as Christianity, singular; better, perhaps, to speak of the many and varied Christianities than have been practiced over the millennia. The same goes, in different ways, for the other major world religions, and if you zoom in far enough, even the minor ones turn out to be rich with their own complexities. But then, as Baker surely would agree, there are no minor religions at least if youre curious enough about them.

Related content:

An Animated Introduction to the Worlds Five Major Religions: Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity & Islam

180,000 Years of Religion Charted on a Histomap in 1943

A Visual Map of the Worlds Major Religions (and Non-Religions)

Animated Map Shows How the Five Major Religions Spread Across the World (3000 BC 2000 AD)

70,000+ Religious Texts Digitized by Princeton Theological Seminary, Letting You Immerse Yourself in the Curious Works of Great World Religions

Philosophy of Religion: A Free Online Course

Based in Seoul,ColinMarshallwrites and broadcasts on cities, language, and culture. His projects include the Substack newsletterBooks on Citiesand the bookThe Stateless City: a Walk through 21st-Century Los Angeles.Follow him on Twitter at@colinmarshallor onFacebook.

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World Religions Explained with Useful Charts: Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, Christianity & More - Open Culture

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When the war in Gaza began, hundreds of Israelis volunteered to tie tzitzit for soldiers going to reserve duty. Apparently, the 50,000 pairs of green dress tzitzit that the army had in storage were not enough to meet the demand from thousands of reservists who wanted to wear them when they went into service or battle.

But if you asked many of the non-kippah wearing soldiers who wanted to wear these tzitzit if they would formally identify as religious, the answer would be a clear no. There are also stories of soldiers unfamiliar with the blessing of Hagomel recited when one is saved from a dangerous situation asking their religious soldier mates to recite the blessing with them. Women who did not formally identify as religious are holding challah-baking parties both to feed and support the soldiers and many have also embraced lighting additional Shabbat candles on Friday evenings for the hostages in Gaza. Tel Aviv restaurateurs who prided themselves on not being kosher flipped over their restaurants to kosher so their cuisine could be delivered to the front lines.

These are just a few examples of a trend, since the war began, of a small segment of Israelis who would not call themselves religious taking on religious customs and mitzvot (though a December survey found that most do not feel closer to religion).

On the one hand, this should not be surprising; Israeli society is culturally connected to Judaism. The majority of secular Israeli Jews mark Shabbat in some way: for example, 69% have a special Friday night meal. Over 60% fast on Yom Kippur and over 92% give their sons a brit.

And yet, these stories of secular Israelis taking on religious customs stand in sharp contrast to the fierce divisions caused in society by the role of religion, including the ongoing legal battle around whether or not haredi, or ultra-Orthodox, Israelis should serve in the military (or how to find a gentle way for them to serve). This renaissance has not come from rules or guidelines set by the government through the state rabbinate, which has oversight on many matters of religion for the Jewish population, including marriage, divorce, adoption and conversion.

Many Israelis currently feel a disconnect with state rabbinic authorities, as most of its members are ultra-Orthodox, meaning they often do not serve in the army or have the life experiences of much of the rest of the population.

And the rabbinates processes can often be coercive and onerous. For example, a young man I know in the conversion process failed a recent hearing at a state rabbinical court because he was not able to recite by heart the entire long blessing said after meals (which most Jews read from a prayer book or their cell phone). Meanwhile, the court didnt give him any credit for going to great lengths to wrap tefillin everyday while serving in Gaza since the war began on Oct. 7, simply because they have no context for such an experience. They told him to come back to the court for another hearing in three months.

When I officiate a wedding, I must, by Israeli law, ask the bride for a receipt proving she went to a mikvah, or ritual bath, before the ceremony, as commanded by halacha, or religious law. Ideally, I wish this receipt were not required, and that I could just trust the bride to use her judgment; I believe it is enough for me to have spoken with the couple before the wedding about the importance of using the mikvah, and given them contact information for such a facility.

When religious authorities are not reflective and dont appreciate the experiences of the general population, or amcha, it affects how all of us view religion and how its institutions serve the people. In too many cases, rather than understanding and seeing non-Orthodox or non-formally religious populations as their equals, the state rabbinate sees them as a weak link in the chain of Judaism people who need to be told what to do, and how to do it.

This disconnect between the state system and society is why rates of marriages performed via the rabbinate or other religious authorities affiliated with the state are dropping.

It should be remembered that there is no Israeli legal requirement that soldiers wear tzitzit, or that families give their son a brit, or that Israeli Jews observe Shabbat or fast on Yom Kippur. What we should take away from this thriving of religious practices during these difficult times is how this interest in practice has emerged naturally. There has been the actualization of an idea quoted in the fourth chapter of Psalms: You freed me from distress a spiritual liberation that follows or accompanies trauma.

All of this is telling evidence that religion does better in the free marketplace of ideas, without being coercive. At the same time, both secular politicians and Jewish religious leaders have an obligation to create a context in which Judaism can be nurturing.

This idea is deeply rooted in our tradition, especially in Maimonides Mishneh Torah, the 12th- century work that seeks to describe all of Judaisms laws. In Laws of Kings and their Wars, Maimonides outlines three mitzvot that Israel is commanded to fulfill upon entering the Promised Land, including appointing a king and waging war to root out pure evil. In the third commandment upon entering the land to build Gods chosen house Maimonides choice of words is significant: Seek out His Presence and go there, he writes. Seek out highlights how spiritual or religious life is only effective when it comes from individuals, not from authorities forcing it upon the people.

This is what we see happening today: people seeking out Jewish practice and spirituality. The struggle to eliminate the obvious evil of Hamas is certainly part of the impetus pushing more people to embrace these customs. But just as Maimonidies outlined, it is only after setting out to destroy evil that the people of Israel will embark on building Gods chosen house, or a spiritual life.

As we hope and plan for better days, as the threats presented by Hamas and others eventually fade, leaders concerned with preserving Israels strong Jewish identity need to find a way for religious life to flourish without coercion. In practice, this means offering choices of different types of Jewish education along with more flexible and understanding paths for prayer, conversions and lifestyles. It also requires solving challenges within the religious framework.

One of my goals, and that of the Modern Orthodox institution I lead, is to help give people a more accessible and understanding experience with religion. That is why we discuss with the young generation how they feel about the current system, and instill values like the obligation to respect those different from themselves.

I dont need to compromise my halachic standards in order to be respectful of others. For example, I have never prayed in an egalitarian prayer space, yet I understand why it is important that, near the current formal Western Wall plaza, the most holy place we have, there be a separate agreed-upon area where men and women can pray together if they choose.

Maimonides and countless Jews for thousands of years were not able to live in the land of Israel, to form a government, to fight evil in the region much less build a spiritual epicenter here. Now, the spiritual epicenter in Israel is larger than it has been, even in the time of the Second Temple. This spiritual epicenter is essential to our survival, to maintaining our moral compass in the face of Hamas evil or our own personal challenges. And it will only happen without coercion, when religion is a welcomed choice.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of JTA or its parent company, 70 Faces Media.

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Posted By admin on June 27, 2024

Hebrew Union College, the Reform movements rabbinical seminary, will begin admitting and ordaining students who are in relationships with non-Jews, following a decision by its board to drop a longstanding ban on interfaith relationships for rabbinical students.

The decision brings the rules for rabbinical and cantorial students at HUC in line with norms across the Reform movement, where intermarriage is prevalent. It also means that within less than a decade, three of the largest Jewish seminaries in the United States will have all begun admitting students in interfaith relationships, with only the Conservative movements two seminaries continuing to bar them a significant shift from a once widespread Jewish communal rejection of intermarriage.

HUCs president, Andrew Rehfeld, said in an interview that the policy change which followed a series of discussions over 18 months reflected the schools educational values, as well as recent data undercutting the idea that intermarriage is a death knell for Jewish identity.

Were not backing down from the statement that Jewish endogamy is a value, Rehfeld said. But we are saying that a prohibition around Jewish exogamy is no longer rational because intermarriages can result in engaged Jewish couples.

To replace the intermarriage ban, HUC is adopting a new requirement that students with children pledge to raise them exclusively as Jews engaged with Jewish religious practice, education, and community.

The commitment is in line with what Reform rabbis are asked to require of couples they wed and reflects the movements stance on determining who is a Jew: While historically Judaism was largely conferred through conversion or matrilineal descent, for four decades, Reform Judaism has considered any child of one Jewish parent to be Jewish as long as they are raised with a positive and exclusive Jewish identity.

The change at HUC comes nearly a decade after the last time the school publicly reconsidered the policy barring rabbinical students from being in interfaith relationships. Since then, two other major seminaries have dropped their own requirements: Reconstructionist Rabbinical College did so in 2015 and the pluralistic Hebrew College followed suit last year amid increasing competition over a shrinking pool of aspiring rabbis.

Dwindling enrollment at HUC caused it to begin phasing out most operations at one of its four campuses, its original location in Cincinnati, in 2022. But Rehfeld said the admissions change was not a gambit to woo more applicants. He noted that neither RRC nor Hebrew College had expanded rapidly once they began admitting students in interfaith relationships.

This is a principled decision about the kind of leaders we should have in the institution, he said. For every student that were going to get because of this, we risk losing students who will not come to us because of this.

Andrew Rehfeld delivers his inaugural address as president of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion at the Plum Street Temple in Cincinnati, Ohio, Oct. 27, 2019. (Courtesy of HUC)

He also emphasized that the decisions timing was unrelated to Hebrew Colleges rule change last year and to the unexpected death in December of Rabbi David Ellenson, HUCs widely beloved former president, who was a staunch defender of the ban on interfaith relationships. Rehfeld said the process had begun in the fall of 2022, prior to the Hebrew College announcement. It had effectively concluded, he said, prior to a planned board meeting in October that was scuttled because of Hamas Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

In a position paper prepared for the October meeting, HUC Provost Andrea Weiss wrote, I believe our focus should be on our students, not their partners (if they have one), and urged the school to give its students tools to lead authentic, engaged, meaningful Jewish lives.

Rabbi Rick Jacobs, who heads the Union of Reform Judaism representing the movements nearly 900 congregations, said he did not expect the policy change to affect many applicants directly. But he said he believed many current students and congregations would strongly support it.

Many of our best rabbis and cantors were raised in homes with only one formally Jewish parent. Many of our temple lay leaders are married to people who are not formally Jewish, Jacobs said. I think its pretty clear at this moment in time that it is possible demonstrably more than possible to have a deeply committed Jewish family with only one partner who is formally Jewish.

For its critics, HUCs ban on intermarried rabbinical students had long been seen as out of step with the Reform movements values. Marriages between Jews and non-Jews are prohibited under traditional Jewish law, known as halacha. But the Reform movement, which emerged in the 19th century and is by far the largest denomination in the United States, has always regarded halacha as a cultural tradition and spiritual tool but not as binding law. In keeping with that outlook, HUC does not require students to keep kosher or observe Shabbat, making the requirement around relationships stand out.

Many people have called for change in the past. In 2007, a student named Yael Shmilovitz used her senior sermon, a rite attended by many members of the seminary community, to decry the policy and call for a broad embrace of intermarriage.

In 2012, Daniel Kirzane, now a pulpit rabbi in Chicago, likewise used his senior sermon to call for a policy change. It flies in the face of Reform values and reflects an obsolete and narrow-minded understanding of the Jewish community, Kirzane said about the ban. It shuts out those who should be brought in.

A chuppah at a Jewish wedding. More than 60% of American Jews who married in the last decade have married non-Jewish partners, according to a study from the Pew Research Center. (Photo: Scott Rocher via Flickr Commons)

The following year, Rabbi Ellen Lippmann, the leader of congregation Kolot Chayeinu in Brooklyn, wrote an open letter to HUCs board of governors urging the end of the rule, amid an open debate in which the requirement was affirmed. Lippman said she would have been barred from HUC had she not kept her relationship with a non-Jewish woman private because students were not allowed to have same-sex partners during her time at the school in the 1980s.

You must choose between an inclusive vision of Jewish leadership and an exclusive one, Lippmann wrote. Let your bold decisions to ordain women, lesbians, gay men and transgender rabbis show you the way.

And four years ago, an aspiring rabbinical student named Ezra Samuels, then a 20-year-old college student in a relationship with a non-Jewish man, ignited an outcry after writing about feeling crushed after learning about the rule while exploring how to become a rabbi in the denomination in which they were raised.

All my life, my community had told me that no matter who you are or who you love, you are equal in our community and according to the divine. But now it feels like Ive been betrayed, lied to, misled, Samuels wrote.

Some students have lied about or, like Lippmann, obscured their relationship status until they are ordained, at which point they are permitted to intermarry while working in the Reform movement. Rehfeld said he believed those who had lied had done so out of a principled objection to the policy. He noted that the ban meant they could not bring their whole selves to their studies and could not fully contribute to conversations around ministering to communities with many intermarried couples.

Others who were honest suffered because of it. Rehfeld recounted an applicant with a stellar resume including a stint in the armed forces and time working in Jewish education who was turned away after disclosing a relationship with a non-Jew and instead sought ordination elsewhere.

It was to me the most tangible way of showing that this policy is just not consistent with our values or the society in which we live, he said. We are losing great leaders of the Jewish people, for reasons that make no sense.

Rehfeld, who became president in 2018, emphasized that the decision was not easy and that there are members of the HUC community and the broader Reform movement who will be unhappy about the change. He said he thought dissatisfaction would be largely generational. Older Reform rabbis came of age at a time when intermarriage was widely feared within the movement, he said, while many younger ones are products of interfaith marriages themselves.

Rehfeld said he hoped that both camps would resist the urge to take the decision personally, especially cautioning against celebrations by those who have been waiting for this decision and who have decried the policy as discriminatory, language that he rejects.

I think thats the wrong comportment, he said. We need to be, in our comportment and in our reaction, respectful and not personalizing our disagreement.

Opposition to the policy change reflects longstanding concern among American Jewish leaders that high rates of intermarriage would endanger the future of Judaism by shrinking an already small Jewish population. Jewish leaders once assumed that Jews who intermarried, and their children, would not engage in Judaism or identify with the Jewish people.

At a 1991 conference of the Jewish federations, speakers likened intermarriage to the Holocaust. Even as organizations later adopted a less hostile posture, some sociologists posited that rising intermarriage rates signified an American Jewish demographic decline. (One of the most outspoken advocates of this view was Steven Cohen, who worked at HUC until 2018, when he resigned amid allegations of sexual misconduct.)

As data has piled up, however, there is mounting evidence that intermarriage does not mean the end of Jewish identity. The 2020 Pew survey of American Jews found that nearly three-quarters of non-Orthodox Jews who married in the previous decade did so to non-Jews and that most intermarried couples with children are raising those children Jewish. An additional 12% reported raising their kids partly Jewish.

The study did report that the Jewish identities of children raised by intermarried parents differed from those of children with two Jewish parents. The survey found that in-married Jewish couples raise their children Jewish at higher rates and more frequently with markers traditionally associated with Judaism. Advocates for embracing interfaith families say the gap can be explained in part by the tendency of Jewish institutions not to fully welcome such families.

For those advocates, HUCs policy change is likely to register as a powerful signal of inclusion. Still, Rehfeld said some expressions of interfaith partnership would remain out of bounds as the schools personalized admissions process continues to elicit conversations about how Judaism is experienced in applicants homes.

If you say, Well, on Saturday morning, we are in shul, and on Sunday morning, we go celebrate Mass, he said, we would say to you, Thank you, it sounds like the home and family life is not exclusively Jewish. Were not the place for you.

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Reform movement to ordain intermarried rabbis, ending longstanding ban - JTA News - Jewish Telegraphic Agency

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