Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on October 15, 2022

The Jews' Great Revolt against Rome in 66 C.E. led to one of the greatest catastrophes in Jewish life and, in retrospect, might well have been a terrible mistake.

No one could argue with the Jews for wanting to throw off Roman rule. Since the Romans had first occupied Israel in 63 B.C.E., their rule had grown more and more onerous. From almost the beginning of the Common Era, Judea was ruled by Roman procurators, whose chief responsibility was to collect and deliver an annual tax to the empire. Whatever the procurators raised beyond the quota assigned, they could keep. Not surprisingly, they often imposed confiscatory taxes. Equally infuriating to the Judeans, Rome took over the appointment of the High Priest (a turn of events that the ancient Jews appreciated as much as modern Catholics would have appreciated Mussolini appointing the popes). As a result, the High Priests, who represented the Jews before God on their most sacred occasions, increasingly came from the ranks of Jews who collaborated with Rome.

At the beginning of the Common Era, a new group arose among the Jews: the Zealots (in Hebrew, Ka-na-im). These anti-Roman rebels were active for more than six decades, and later instigated the Great Revolt. Their most basic belief was that all means were justified to attain political and religious liberty.

The Jews' anti-Roman feelings were seriously exacerbated during the reign of the half-crazed emperor Caligula, who in the year 39 declared himself to be a deity and ordered his statue to be set up at every temple in the Roman Empire. The Jews, alone in the empire, refused the command; they would not defile God's Temple with a statue of pagan Rome's newest deity.

Caligula threatened to destroy the Temple, so a delegation of Jews was sent to pacify him. To no avail. Caligula raged at them, "So you are the enemies of the gods, the only people who refuse to recognize my divinity." Only the emperor's sudden, violent death saved the Jews from wholesale massacre.

Caligula's action radicalized even the more moderate Jews. What assurance did they have, after all, that another Roman ruler would not arise and try to defile the Temple or destroy Judaism altogether? In addition, Caligula's sudden demise might also have been interpreted as confirming the Zealots' belief that God would fight alongside the Jews if only they would have the courage to confront Rome.

In the decades after Caligula's death, Jews found their religion subject to periodic gross indignities, Roman soldiers exposing themselves in the Temple on one occasion, and burning a Torah scroll on another.

Ultimately, the combination of financial exploitation, Romes unbridled contempt for Judaism, and the unabashed favoritism that the Romans extended to gentiles living in Israel brought about the revolt.

In the year 66, Florus, the last Roman procurator, stole vast quantities of silver from the Temple. The outraged Jewish masses rioted and wiped out the small Roman garrison stationed in Jerusalem. Cestius Gallus, the Roman ruler in neighboring Syria, sent in a larger force of soldiers. But the Jewish insurgents routed them as well.

This was a heartening victory that had a terrible consequence: Many Jews suddenly became convinced that they could defeat Rome, and the Zealots' ranks grew geometrically. Never again, however, did the Jews achieve so decisive a victory.

When the Romans returned, they had 60,000 heavily armed and highly professional troops. They launched their first attack against the Jewish state's most radicalized area, the Galilee in the north. The Romans vanquished the Galilee, and an estimated 100,000 Jews were killed or sold into slavery.

Throughout the Roman conquest of this territory, the Jewish leadership in Jerusalem did almost nothing to help their beleaguered brothers. They apparently had concludedtoo late, unfortunatelythat the revolt could not be won, and wanted to hold down Jewish deaths as much as possible.

The highly embittered refugees who succeeded in escaping the Galilean massacres fled to the last major Jewish strongholdJerusalem. There, they killed anyone in the Jewish leadership who was not as radical as they. Thus, all the more moderate Jewish leaders who headed the Jewish government at the revolt's beginning in 66 were dead by 68and not one died at the hands of a Roman. All were killed by fellow Jews.

The scene was now set for the revolt's final catastrophe. Outside Jerusalem, Roman troops prepared to besiege the city; inside the city, the Jews were engaged in a suicidal civil war. In later generations, the rabbis hyperbolically declared that the revolt's failure, and the Temple's destruction, was due not to Roman military superiority but to causeless hatred (sinat khinam) among the Jews (Yoma 9b). While the Romans would have won the war in any case, the Jewish civil war both hastened their victory and immensely increased the casualties. One horrendous example: In expectation of a Roman siege, Jerusalem's Jews had stockpiled a supply of dry food that could have fed the city for many years. But one of the warring Zealot factions burned the entire supply, apparently hoping that destroying this "security blanket" would compel everyone to participate in the revolt. The starvation resulting from this mad act caused suffering as great as any the Romans inflicted.

We do know that some great figures of ancient Israel opposed the revolt, most notably Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai. Since the Zealot leaders ordered the execution of anyone advocating surrender to Rome, Rabbi Yochanan arranged for his disciples to smuggle him out of Jerusalem, disguised as a corpse. Once safe, he personally surrendered to the Roman general Vespasian, who granted him concessions that allowed Jewish communal life to continue.

During the summer of 70, the Romans breached the walls of Jerusalem, and initiated an orgy of violence and destruction. Shortly thereafter, they destroyed the Second Temple. This was the final and most devastating Roman blow against Judea.

It is estimated that as many as one million Jews died in the Great Revolt against Rome. When people today speak of the almost two-thousand-year span of Jewish homelessness and exile, they are dating it from the failure of the revolt and the destruction of the Temple. Indeed, the Great Revolt of 66-70, followed some sixty years later by the Bar Kokhba revolt, were the greatest calamities in Jewish history prior to the Holocaust. In addition to the more than one million Jews killed, these failed rebellions led to the total loss of Jewish political authority in Israel until 1948. This loss in itself exacerbated the magnitude of later Jewish catastrophes, since it precluded Israel from being used as a refuge for the large numbers of Jews fleeing persecutions elsewhere.

Follow this link:

The Great Revolt (66 - 70 CE) - Jewish Virtual Library

Category: Judaism | Comments Off on The Great Revolt (66 – 70 CE) – Jewish Virtual Library
Tags:

Posted By admin on October 15, 2022

Emily Tamkins Bad Jews is in a sense two books in one. Its a sweeping explainerclearly written, and well-sourced with interviews and citations of respected historiansof American Jewish history. Its also an argument-driven case for Jewish pluralism.

From the title, I was anticipating a book about Jewish rebels. Gangsters, maybe, as with Bad Gays, or whoever the American equivalent is to Amy Winehouse.

(Nor is it bad in the sense of Bad Feminist, a book in which Roxane Gay advocated unachievable ideological purity.)

It is instead, more poignantly, about belonging: everyones someone elses bad Jewwhich, for the purposes of this book, means one who is insufficiently or dubiously Jewish.

It took me a while to figure this out. At first I thought the point of the book was that Jews are not a monolith, and that there are many ways to be Jewish, which, while true, didnt seem like a new or important enough point to merit a project of this magnitude. But its not that. Its about the ways that Jews have challenged one anothers membership in the group. Its not a protest against halakhic gatekeeping (and shes clear that religious-line-drawing is not her concern) so much as about the thing where Jewish conservatives see Jewish progressives as traitors.

For the authoran American journalist who spent part of her childhood in Torontothe question of authenticity is at once theoretical and personal. Shes an intermarried Jew, in a community fixated on getting Jews to marry in.

And yet, is she not part of a Jewish household?.

My husband joined a synagogue with me; lights Shabbat candles every week with me; hosts Passover seders with me; buys apples and honey for Rosh Hashanah; has his own menorah; watches movies about Jewish history and culture with me; goes to Jewish museums and memorials around the world with me; and agreed while we were still dating to raise our children Jewish.

Tamkin is also, she notes, the daughter of a convert to Judaism, one whose path to acceptance was not always smooth:

My mom quite literally changed my life by deciding to convert to Judaism and raise us as Jewish kids. She was often not treated warmly by members of the Jewish community. But Im not writing this for them. Im writing this for her. Mommy: Im sorry anybody ever made you feel less than. I hope you know that, to me, you are the best Jew a person can be, because you are the best person a person can be.

This sense of identity made her worried that I was not Jewish enough, or not the right kind of Jewish, to write a book on American Jewish history.

Bad Jews is a rejection of Jewishness as an exclusionary club. Tamkin argues against a vision of Jewish continuity that centres on in-marriage and suggests, as an alternative, embracing the vibrant Jewish organizing of, in particular, queer Jews and Jews of colour.

Shes less enthusiastic about Israel and Zionism, but rightly notes that American Jews of more recent refugee status, who may feel a bit less safe in the world, continue to see the urgency of a Jewish state.

To be a bad Jew, in Bad Jews, is to be someone banging on the door of Jewishness, asking to be let in, or at the very least, having your Jewishness questioned. But theres a different use of bad Jew that never comes up in the book. Its when Jews use the expression about themselves as a way of reassuring non-Jews that theyre not too Jewish. A bad Jew as double negative, that is, in situations where Jewishness is likely to be viewed as an impediment. As in, dont worry, I eat bacon, Im a bad Jew.

The internal conversation about belongingwhere the hoped-for situation is to be considered an authentic Jewcoexists with a broader society that frowns on Jewishness. Just as some Jews have wanted in, others have, for various reasons, wanted out.

Im thinking about the Curb Your Enthusiasm episode where Larry David thinks he comes from a small-town, all-American white Christian family. Or the trope in Holocaust stories of the Jew who survived by passing, because as luck would have it they didnt look Jewish. Jewishness is many things: a religion, a culture, an ethnicity, a people, a community. It is also, as the stories of converts from Judaism throughout history remind, a fate.

Though well-versed in the history of American antisemitism, Tamkins central preoccupation is with the Jews who want in and are pushed out. Theres another whole part of the diaspora Jewish experience thats about wanting out while knowing that there isnt one.

As with all history books, academic and general-audience, Bad Jews is at once about the time discussed and its own current moment. Tamkin uses Jewish person throughout, something I found strange until I remembered that in some circles Jew is thought to be a slur.

Everybody comes to a topic like this with their own idiosyncratic perspectives. Im an intermarried, non-observant, liberal Zionist Jew. (And a native New Yorker in Toronto, too.) As far as I know, all my ancestors were Jewish. A lot of what Tamkin writes about the Jewish communal obsession with intermarriage, and specifically with getting Jewish women to have Jewish babies, resonated with me. The parts about wanting in, not so much.

While Ive met plenty of people whove disapproved of my politics or life choices, I have never once worried if I was Jewish enough. Ive never had to want in. Though nor, clearly (hello!), do I want out.

Now you can tell Phoebe what you think: pbovy[@]thecjn.ca

If youre new to our new senior editor, you canread her introduction.

For the first alerts to future week-in-review columnssubscribe to The CJNs newsletter.

Visit link:

Wanting in, wanting out: Phoebe Maltz Bovy contemplates the soup of beliefs found in a new book called 'Bad Jews' - The Canadian Jewish News

Category: Judaism | Comments Off on Wanting in, wanting out: Phoebe Maltz Bovy contemplates the soup of beliefs found in a new book called ‘Bad Jews’ – The Canadian Jewish News
Tags:

Posted By admin on October 15, 2022

Tony and Olivier-winning OHenry Productions has announced a post-show conversation with Jewish faith leaders following the October 20 performance of This Beautiful Future. Written by Rita Kalnejais and directed by Jack Serio, This Beautiful Future is a story of young love set during World War II. The production, which opened on September 20, 2022, will conclude its run at the historic Cherry Lane Theatre (38 Commerce Street, Manhattan) on October 23, 2022.

On Thursday, October 20, This Beautiful Future lead producer, Oliver Roth, will be joined in conversation with Rabbi Deborah Goldberg of Congregation Rodeph Sholom in New York and Rabbi Zachary Plesent of Temple Israel in Westport, CT. Their discussion will focus on empathy in Judaism and how the themes of This Beautiful Future resonate with Jewish teachings and identity.

In This Beautiful Future, two teenagers caught in the middle of a war take shelter from a divided world. Elodie is French and 17. Otto, a German soldier, is 16. Safe from the debris outside, they meet secretly for one night. They talk, tease, and touch. They fall in love and fall through time. Kalnejais' kaleidoscopic play is a story of uncomplicated first love in a very complicated world. It seeks out tenderness amidst tragedy. Hope in the hopeless.

This Beautiful Future stars Francesca Carpanini, Angelina Fiordellisi, Tony nominee Austin Pendleton, and Uly Schlesinger in his New York stage debut.

The creative team for This Beautiful Future includes Frank J. Oliva (scenic design), Stacey Derosier (lighting design), Ricky Reynoso (costume design), Christopher Darbassie (sound design), Lacey Erb (projection designer), Ashley-Rose Galligan (production stage manager), Ryan Kane (assistant stage manager), Taylor Williams (casting), and Mott/Fischer Productions (general management). David Manella and Carol Kaplan at Loeb & Loeb LLP serve as Production Counsel.

Performances of This Beautiful Future run Tuesday through Saturday at 8pm with additional performances on Saturdays at 2pm and Sundays at 3pm and 7pm. The running time is 75 minutes with no intermission. Tickets, which start at $25, can be purchased online at http://www.thisbeautifulfuture.com.

Cherry Lane Theatre cares about the safety of its audiences, staff, and performers. Prior to entry, proof of full vaccination will be required. Masks will also be required during the entire performance of This Beautiful Future.

This Beautiful Future is produced by OHenry Productions in association with Eric Kuhn, Jonathan Demar, Christian Angermeyer, Burkhardt Jones Productions, Richard Mumby & Benj Pasek, and Seaview.

About the Participants

Rabbi Deborah Goldberg is the Assistant Rabbi at Congregation Rodeph Sholom on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. She was previously the rabinic intern at Congregation Beth Tikvah in Columbus, Ohio. Her year-long capstone project was a curriculum entitled, "Exploring Emotions in the Bible: A Curriculum for Jewish Teenagers" and she was honored with the Rabbi Morris H. Youngerman Memorial Prize for best sermon delivered during the academic year. Prior to enrolling at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Deborah worked as an Eisendrath Legislative Assistant at the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism in Washington, DC, and as the teen programs coordinator at the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs in Chicago. Raised in Chicagoland, she graduated with college honors from Washington University in St. Louis, where she studied history and political science.

Rabbi Zachary A. Plesent is the Assistant Rabbi at Temple Israel in Westport, Connecticut. He was ordained from the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York in 2021, and is originally from Larchmont, NY. Rabbi Plesent graduated from Indiana University in 2014, double majoring in Political Science and Jewish Studies. Before starting rabbinical school, he worked as a full-time educator and songleader at Central Synagogue in New York City. While in school, Rabbi Plesent served Jewish communities in Greenwich, CT, White Plains, NY, and Laramie, Wyoming. He was selected to participate in the Bonnie and Daniel Tisch Rabbinical Fellowship, and was the recipient of a Be Wise Entrepreneurial Fellowship. He was also a member of the New York Worship Working Group, a collective of faculty, rabbinical students, and cantorial students working together to reimagine and refocus various elements of prayer and worship on the HUC campus. All of these experiences helped him develop a deep passion for making Judaism relevant, modern, and exciting for all. When not at temple, Rabbi Plesent enjoys cooking new recipes, playing his guitar, and seeing live theater! Rabbi Plesent lives in Stamford with his fiance, Cantor Jenna Mark.

The rest is here:

THIS BEAUTIFUL FUTURE to Host Talkback with Jewish Faith Leaders This Month - Broadway World

Category: Judaism | Comments Off on THIS BEAUTIFUL FUTURE to Host Talkback with Jewish Faith Leaders This Month – Broadway World
Tags:

Posted By admin on October 15, 2022

Overview:

In the service of recapturing a mythical perfect past, humans have committed the most terrible evils.

The older I get, the more Ive come to believe that the Garden of Eden is the worst of the Bibles myths.

Its from this story that we get original sin, the wicked theology which claims that humans are intrinsically evil and deserve damnation just for being born. In the name of this belief, religious believers have inflicted incredible tortures on each other and themselves. Original sin has justified child abuse, forced conversion, holy war, oppression of women, and all manner of other crimes.

To be fair, Judaism doesnt interpret the story this way. Judaism has no such doctrine as original sin; its Christianity that put this spin on it. In the Jewish view, the Eden story is more like the other just-so stories dreamed up by ancient people to satisfy their curiosity. It tries to wrap answers to a variety of questionswhere did humans come from? why is farming such hard work? why is childbirth painful? why do snakes slither on their bellies?into one overarching myth.

Nevertheless, its the Christian interpretation that dominates our culture, and thats the one thats done the harm. The myth of the fall pervades our culture and subtly shapes our thinking. In its many versions and retellings, it teaches us to long for a golden age that never existed. Worse, its given us the idea that people of the present are weak or corrupt, and that restoration means turning back to the past, reclaiming a lost state of purity.

The idea that things used to be better in the past is, ironically, a very ancient belief. It was common in cultures that we now think of as shrouded in antiquity.

For instance, it was a widely held belief in the Roman era. The Romans were as fascinated with the past as we are, and they held that the legendary figures of their civilization had already figured out everything worth knowing:

in the ancient Roman world there was wide-ranging suspicion of any philosophy or religion that smacked of novelty. In the fields of philosophy and religion it was the old that was appreciated and respected, not the new.

Nothing new could be true. If it were true, why was it not known long ago? How could it be that no one until now has understood the truth? Not even Homer, Plato, or Aristotle?

This veneration of past thinkers meant that even obvious errors survived unchallenged for centuries. For example, Aristotle said that men have more teeth than women, a mistake thats very easy to disprove. As Bertrand Russell observed: although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives mouths.

Because Christianity arose in this world, it self-consciously traded on Judaisms antiquity. It didnt present itself as a new religion, but as the fulfillment of an already known and ancient religion. Christian apologists insisted that Jesus coming was foretold in prophecies written centuries earlier.

As a marketing strategy, this was wildly successful. However, it led directly to centuries of hate and bloodshed. Because Christianity located the source of its authority in Jewish scriptures, Jews who wouldnt convert were a threat to its legitimacy. When Christians gained political power, they tried to eradicate that threat by any means possible.

This backward-looking tendency exists within Judaism as well. Many strands of Judaism believe that more ancient rabbis, because they were closer to Gods original revelation, should always be trusted above more recent sources. Older rulings can be elaborated on, but can never be overturned by new knowledge. This has led to farcical situations like halachic infertilityJewish women whose obedience to purity laws makes it impossible for them to have childrenwhich arises because ancient clerics didnt know what ovulation was.

Pining for the past can be a harmless form of nostalgia. But when its weaponized by demagogues and turned into a political ideology, it can take us to dark places.

As Jason Stanley explains in How Fascism Works, an obsession with national decline and the promise of restoration is a common feature of fascist ideologies:

Fascist politics seeks to build on the idea of a mythical past, which it claims was destroyed with the advent of liberal cosmopolitanism or universal values such as equality. The mythical past which was glorious was characterized by uniformity religious, racial, cultural, linguistic or all of it. It calls for returning back to this state of glory and uniformity. In the process of glorifying the imagined past it justifies a patriarchal, authoritarian and hierarchical ideology in accordance with what it calls natural law.

For Mussolini, this was the Roman Empire. For Vladimir Putin, its the Soviet Union, which hes waging war on Ukraine to reassemble. In America, its Donald Trumps call to make America great again by deporting immigrants and restoring a Christian, white-dominated society.

Whatever the details, fascism is the Eden story translated into political ideology. The core story is always the same: Once, the world was pure and perfect, but then evil was allowed to creep in. The good people fell from that state of grace, resulting in corruption and suffering. But if we purge the evil from among us, we can get back to that ancestral paradise.

The antidote to these backward-looking ideologies is to recognize that our ancestors werent better, wiser or purer. They were human beings just like us. Moreover, they were human beings limited by the ignorance and error of their times.

That doesnt mean they were stupid. On the contrary, people of the past were just as clever and creative as we are. They had enormous stores of hard-won practical knowledge, essential for surviving in a hostile world. They had as much insight into the human condition as we do. They had great artists and writers who created timeless works of beauty.

However, they werent smarter than us, either. They didnt possess some trove of wisdom that weve lost. On the contrary, any reasonably educated person today knows more about the structure and laws of the universe than the greatest geniuses of antiquity. What knowledge the ancients did possess was painfully incomplete, shot through with false beliefs and superstition.

Just as people in the past were the same as people today, the past as a whole wasnt better than the present. There was no lost golden age, no vanished era of innocence, no Atlantis. Weve always been divided by the things that still divide us. Weve always had cruelty, ignorance and selfishness. Weve always had greedy rich, incompetent rulers, gullible masses, and rebels who chafed against the rules.

The biggest difference is that people today have benefited from centuries of moral progress. People of the past casually accepted levels of brutality and violence that would horrify us. They treated slavery as unproblematic, war as glorious sport, torture as entertainment, and hereditary monarchy as the ideal form of government. They saw it as normal that men should rule over women and that superior races and religions should conquer and wipe out savage ones.

The ideas we treat as cornerstones of societythat democracy with universal suffrage is the only legitimate form of government, that men and women are equal, that each person should be free to believe and speak as they wishwere impossibly radical notions for almost all of history. But although these values were resisted long and bitterly, theyve won out throughout much of the world, and were better for it.

The world is better now than it once was. And where moral progress is incomplete, the solution isnt to go backwards. Belief in a lost golden era is a mirage, luring us off the path we need to take into a maze of shadows and fog.

Its impossible to recapture something that never existed. When we try, we only bring ourselves to grief. We can create a better world, if we so choose; but it will only happen when we set aside the desire for an imaginary past.

Related

More here:

The myth of the lost golden age - OnlySky

Category: Judaism | Comments Off on The myth of the lost golden age – OnlySky
Tags:

Posted By admin on October 15, 2022

In its latest slap in the face to its Jewish cadets, the ever-religious-diversity-challenged Air Force Academy this year scheduled its Commandants Challenge, the most important training day of the semester, on October 5, perfectly timed to fall right smack on Yom Kippur, the most solemn of all Jewish holy days, forcing Jewish cadets to choose between their religion and joining their much-preferred Christian counterparts in a training day that the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) described as key to advancement within the academy.

As Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) founder and president Mikey Weinstein wrote last week in his post Air Force Academy Again Elevates Jesus and Trashes Jews, The United States Air Force Academys upper-level command structure clearly didnt care to expend the minimal milliseconds it would have taken to do its religious due diligence and deconflict this significant military training event from the solemn religious observances of its cadet population. Thereby it clearly excluded a segment of its student (cadet) population, causing nontrivial, humiliating pain and embarrassment.

Want an example of the kind of pain and embarrassment that this scheduling oversight, as the Academy is quite unconvincingly calling it, caused? Look no further than the following email from the parent of one Jewish cadetwho was not only forced to make the agonizing decision to miss Yom Kippur services, but was told by a senior cadet in her chain of command that the issue was her being Jewish, suggesting that she at least make an effort to try Christianity, inviting her to a Bible study, and telling her that she wouldnt be converting away from Judaism but rather that Christianity is just enlightened Judaism. In the words of her parent, this cadet was humiliated beyond description and was more despondent than wed ever heard her before.

From: (USAFA cadets parents E-mail Address withheld)Subject: Air Force Academy cadet says Christianity is enlightened JudaismDate: October 7, 2022 at 2:45:31 PM MDTTo: Mikey Weinstein

Hello Mr. Weinstein and all of the fighters at the MRFF.

I am the parent of an Air Force Academy cadet. We are a Jewish family and cannot thank all off you enough for all of the work you do every day to prevent Christian religious extremism and especially nationalism from afflicting our service members.

Our daughter just went through the difficult decision to not attend Yom Kippur services at USAFA because it fell on the Commandants Challenge day this week.

She is doing very well academically and athletically but her military performance rating needed improvement and she was afraid she would suffer there irreparably if she opted to go to Yom Kippur services and not participate in this Commandants Challenge day.

In making this decision something horrible happened to her.

She was asking a senior USAFA cadet in her chain of command for his advice as to what to do and he told her that the issue was her being Jewish. He suggested she at least make an effort to try Christianity and invited her to one of their cadet squadron twice-weekly bible studies which he apparently operates with others.

Our daughter was shocked and immediately told him that she had no interest in changing her Jewish faith. The senior cadet told her in reply that she shouldnt think of it as converting away from Judaism but rather that Christianity is just enlightened Judaism!

Our daughter was insulted and humiliated beyond description. This is USAFAs idea of Spiritual Fitness?

This person is in her direct chain of command at USAFA so she politely excused herself from the meeting and went back to her room. She called her dad and me shortly thereafter and was more despondent than wed ever heard her before.

We were naturally enraged. We asked our daughter to call you as we have signed up to be MRFF clients even before our daughter started at USAFA.

She was afraid of causing more trouble if she did so but approved of us contacting you on her behalf to make sure that the MRFF knew what had happened..

We dont want the MRFF to do anything other than knowing that matters of Christian religious bullying and antisemitism still happen all the time at USAFA.

Telling our daughter that Christianity is enlightened Judaism is but one outrageous example. We can only wonder what my grandparents would think of this as they were both Nazi holocaust survivors of the Dachau and Mathausen concentration camps.

Her father and I wanted Mr. Weinstein and the MRFF staffers to know that we so very much appreciate the public stand you all took on behalf of Jewish cadets and their families during this Yom Kippur scheduling mess with USAFAs Commandants Challenge.

USAFAs excuses as to how this happened are pathetic and only serve to further the aims of wrongful Christian proselytizing at the Academy.

(name of and location of USAFA cadets parent withheld)

To disprove the Air Force Academys feeble scheduling oversight claim, MRFF, on October 6, submitted a FOIA request to the Academy demanding: All internal documents or communications, electronic or otherwise, between any USAFA faculty or staff regarding concerns, warnings, and/or objections to the scheduling of the Commandant's Training Day and/or 'Commandant's Challenge' on October 5, 2022, a date which coincided with the Jewish high holy day of Yom Kippur.

While everybody will be talking about anti-Semitism for a few days right now because of Kanye Wests vile news-making tweet, we at MRFF talk about it, think about it, and fight it every single day, and will continue to do so until our military ceases to be the bastion of anti-Semitic Christian supremacy that it currently is.

Visit link:

USAFA cadet forced to choose between her religion and key training told the issue is being Jewish - Daily Kos

Category: Judaism | Comments Off on USAFA cadet forced to choose between her religion and key training told the issue is being Jewish – Daily Kos
Tags:

Posted By admin on October 15, 2022

On Oct. 5, the highest of holy days in Judaism, Yom Kippur, we prayed. It was a day of prayer, reflection and atonement for a clean slate.

Prayer is inclusive to all of us as humans. We all have the right to pray: For ourselves, for our loved ones, our friends and neighbors. There is a power in the sheer positivity of prayer, no matter whom the prayers energy is directed toward. This has an immediate extension to health and well-being as well, as asserted by numerous medical publications.

Over 85% of individuals confronting a major illness pray. Prayer is one of the most utilized alternative therapies in health care today.

Prayer is a positive force, reduces stress levels and reduces anxiety. Prayer is empowering, and healing.

Dr. Herbert Benson, a Harvard-based cardiovascular specialist, has developed the term, the relaxation response to illustrate the health benefits of prayer, which is a form of meditation. This relaxation response entails: decreased metabolism, lower blood pressure, lower pulse, slower brain waves, peace of mind and a more calm respiration cycle.

In closing, I will leave you with some powerful excerpts, and reflections taken from the Oct. 5 service, from Mishkan Hanefesh.

Teach us the language of healing.

May our moments of joy surpass our times of struggle.

May we taste the sweetness of each precious day.

May the work of our hands bring fulfillment.

Dr. Seth Levine writes about internal medicine for the Cleveland Jewish News. He is an internal medicine physician at the UH Internal Medicine Center in Independence.

Link:

The power of prayer - Cleveland Jewish News

Category: Judaism | Comments Off on The power of prayer – Cleveland Jewish News
Tags:

Posted By admin on October 15, 2022

Gabriel Rochelle| Path of the Spirit

Fish dont think about the water they live in. Its their environment. Birds dont think about the air they live in. Its their environment. People dont think about the air they breathe in. Its their environment. And yet

There is a way of understanding our human environment that is sacred and spiritual. The personal name of God in Judaism is not pronounced aloud for fear of getting it wrong, which would amount to blasphemy. It is but four letters of the Hebrew alphabet, one of which is duplicated, as you can see even in English transliteration. These are all vowels, breath-marks. The word is YHWH, and it is called the sacred tetragrammaton. Jewish teachers of past and present have, however, noted that the way these letters fall together emulates the act of inhaling and exhaling air, the very act of breathing itself. For the rabbis, our breathing takes place within the presence of God.

You dont have to accept the word God if it is a problem for you. But please contemplate that rabbinic notion that we are surrounded by and live within the realm and power of the sacred. Think about that as you breathe today. Without that breath we are bereft of life. Thats the message of the opening chapters of Genesis: God has given us the breath of life. We are living beings (Genesis 2:7). This is our fundamental connection to the holy. That connection can be known in this life before we run out of breath.

In Celtic prayers there is a form called the caim. People familiar with the great hymn called St. Patricks Breastplate, know the form because it is embedded in the hymn. The caim is a circling of oneself with the presence of God as known in Christ Jesus by Christians. Its a reminder of what the rabbis have taught us. Here are some of the words:

Christ with me,

Christ before me,

Christ behind me,

Christ in me,

Christ beneath me,

Christ above me,

Christ on my right,

Christ on my left

In the Orthodox Christian tradition, The Prayer of the Hours is said at the conclusion of the short services of psalms and liturgical hymns that mark different times during the day. The line that underscores the idea that we are surrounded by the presence of God is, compass us about with thy holy angels, that guarded and guided by their legions we may attain unity of the faith and the knowledge of thine unapproachable glory. Again, you dont have to buy into angels to get the sense of presence and sustenance this prayer conveys to mind and heart.

There is another twist to the tale. Where is the source of compassion, of feeling with others, if not in our shared humanity? And where is our shared humanity if not that we are all given the breath of life? Thats the basic truth. Then, if we are surrounded by and infused with the presence of God, so is everyone else. So are all living beings. That may mean more than the animals among whom we live but it certainly doesnt mean anything less than them. The presence of God is as challenging as the presence of other people in our lives. We cannot dismiss or ignore the presence oft he Holy even if we refuse to call it by the customary religious terms. In embracing others, we experience the embrace of the Holy; and in the embrace of the Holy we are prepared to be more open to the presence of others.

More Path of the Spirit:

Fr Gabriel Rochelle is retired priest of St. Anthony of the Desert Orthodox Church, Las Cruces. Contact him at gabrielcroch@aol.com.

See the rest here:

Path of the Spirit: Our environment witnesses to the sacred - Las Cruces Sun-News

Category: Judaism | Comments Off on Path of the Spirit: Our environment witnesses to the sacred – Las Cruces Sun-News
Tags:

Posted By admin on October 12, 2022

Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne has apologized on behalf of the university and pledged to act on recommendations of a task force report that identified efforts to limit admission of Jewish students in the 1950s.

Stanford will present the report of the Advisory Task Force on the History of Jewish Admissions and Experience at Stanford University at noon PDT Thursday, Oct. 13.View the livestream here.

In findings released Wednesday, a task force appointed by Tessier-Lavigne reported that Stanford administrators took steps to limit admissions of Jewish students in the 1950s and regularly misled parents and friends of applicants, alumni, outside investigators, and trustees who asked about such admissions practices.

The task force, consisting of faculty, staff, trustees, alumni, and students, also provided a number of recommendations both to address actions by past administrators and to support the universitys Jewish community today, especially in light of the panels findings.

In addition to calling on the university to acknowledge and apologize for the admissions practices and subsequent denials in the past, the task force recommended enhanced education and training to address biases; greater attention to Jewish religious observances in university scheduling, housing, and dining; enforcement of an Undergraduate Senate resolution on antisemitism; and clarification of the universitys relationship with Stanford Hillel.

In a university-wide communication, Tessier-Lavigne apologized on behalf of the university and pledged action on the recommendations.

This ugly component of Stanfords history, confirmed by this new report, is saddening and deeply troubling, Tessier-Lavigne wrote.

On behalf of Stanford University I wish to apologize to the Jewish community, and to our entire university community, both for the actions documented in this report to suppress the admission of Jewish students in the 1950s and for the universitys denials of those actions in the period that followed. These actions were wrong. They were damaging. And they were unacknowledged for too long. Today, we must work to do better, not only to atone for the wrongs of the past, but to ensure the supportive and bias-free experience for members of our Jewish community that we seek for all members of our Stanford community.

Tessier-Lavigne also announced the university will offer a webinar on the findings at noon PDT Thursday, Oct. 13. Professor Ari Y. Kelman, a social scientist and leading expert on Jewish life in America who chaired the task force, will present the task force report.

Tessier-Lavigne appointed the Advisory Task Force on the History of Jewish Admissions and Experience at Stanford University in January. The charge called on task force members to address lingering assertions, including a report in an online newsletter last year, about admissions quotas aimed at limiting Jewish applicants.

Admittedly, this is a difficult undertaking because the efforts to suppress the number of Jewish students at Stanford in the 1950s do not map easily onto contemporary expressions of antisemitism, the task force wrote. There are, however, continuities, and they provide an opportunity for the university to learn from its history and to inaugurate new directions for addressing some of the core concerns shared by both the past and the present.

The task force identified a group of administrators who participated in and/or were aware of efforts to limit admissions of Jewish students. They included Rixford K. Snyder, who was admissions director for 20 years. Snyder played a central role in efforts to limit the number of Jewish students at Stanford, the report states.

A crucial piece of the review was a university memo written in 1953 to then-President Wallace Sterling from his assistant, Fred Glover. The memos existence was first identified in the online newsletter last year and confirmed by the panel.

The memo focused on the number of Jewish students being admitted to Stanford. At the time, Stanford drew heavily from the West Coast, California in particular, for students. Glover listed two high schools in Los Angeles Beverly Hills and Fairfax whose student populations were from 95 to 98% Jewish, and said that accepting a few from those schools would be followed by a flood of Jewish applications the next year. Glover cited Snyders concern that more than one quarter of the applications from men are from Jewish boys during that admissions cycle.

Rix feels that this problem is loaded with dynamite and he wanted you to know about it, as he says that the situation forces him to disregard our stated policy of paying no attention to the race or religion of applicants, Glover wrote.

Subsequently, the report states, Snyder ended recruitment efforts at those schools and appears to have taken other steps that had more direct and measurable effects, visible only in a close analysis of the annual reports of the Registrars office.

Task force members examined Office of the Registrar records and found a sharp drop in the number of students enrolled at Stanford from those schools 87 enrolled during 1949-1952, but only 14 in 1952-55 that was not seen in any other public schools during the 1950s and 1960s. (The panel said existing records did not specify the number of Jewish students, and records indicating the number of applicants and acceptances from that period were not retained.)

The impact was immediate and striking, the report states.

Whether the university took similar actions with other schools is unclear. And the task force report notes that there was no evidence that the Stanford admissions director who followed Snyder employed a quota of any kind on anyone. But the task force said that Snyders actions had far-reaching effects and that suspicions and speculation about quotas among the Jewish community, in Southern California in particular, had significant repercussions.

Snyders actions, however limited they may have been, dissuaded some Jewish students from applying in the first place, task force members wrote. The impression of Stanfords restrictions outlived whatever actions Snyder had taken.

The report states that Snyder operated with the support, tacit and explicit, of others in the administration and his intentions with respect to Jewish applicants were not a secret among Stanfords leadership.

The university began receiving questions about an anti-Jewish bias as early as December 1954, just two admissions cycles after Glover wrote the memo. Over the years, inquiries came from a judge who was a Stanford alumnus, alumni, parents, trustees, and the Anti-Defamation League of Bnai Brith.

The university consistently denied the allegations, including this response from Sterling to an alumna: Stanford has no quotas of any kind, racial, religious or geographic. It follows, therefore, that there are no quotas for Catholics or Jews. Statements or rumors to the contrary are wholly false.

The recommendations of the task force focus on two categories: acknowledge and apologize and explore, educate, and enforce.

In Judaism, the process of (teshuva) implies both reflection on the past and the initiation of different action in the future, the panel wrote, referring to the foundational practice of the High Holy Day season. Thus, our recommendations begin with an acknowledgement of the universitys past misdeeds to build toward a better future for the whole Stanford community.

The task force called on the current university administration as reflected in Tessier-Lavignes letter to publicly acknowledge and apologize for actions to suppress Jewish admissions and mislead people who asked about them.

Recommendations for enhancing contemporary Jewish life on campus and the responses outlined by Tessier-Lavigne are:

The task force observed that the damage described in the report students unduly denied admission in the 1950s-60s, the tarnishing of the universitys reputation, and decades of denials cannot be undone. It also drew a link to other steps Stanford has taken to examine other aspects of the universitys history.

This report has endeavored to establish and clarify this historical narrative and, hopefully it has succeeded in clarifying the historical record, task force members wrote. With this effort, Stanfords leadership has demonstrated that it is prepared not just to meet the specifics of this particular case, but to do so within the larger historical context of the early 21st century.

See more here:
Stanford apologizes for admissions limits on Jewish students in the 1950s and pledges action on steps to enhance Jewish life on campus - Stanford...

Category: Anti-Defamation League | Comments Off on Stanford apologizes for admissions limits on Jewish students in the 1950s and pledges action on steps to enhance Jewish life on campus – Stanford…
Tags:

Posted By admin on October 12, 2022

(Illustration by Luca Di Bartolomeo)

Love and justice are not two. without inner change, there can be no outer change; without collective change, no change matters.Reverend angel Kyodo williams

As a professor at Princeton in 1949, Albert Einstein reflected on the place of human beings in the universe. In correspondence with a rabbi, he wrote that due to our limitations in our ability to experience the universe, our species is prone to a fundamental misunderstanding about our place in it. He wrote that the human experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the resta kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us.

Here, Einstein wrote of one of the most persistent and vexing problems of our species: the myth of separateness. Scholar and Director of the Center for Othering & Belonging john a. powell has taken this further, describing the four great separations of our time: separation of people from nature, separation of people from one another, separation of mind from body, and separation of people from institutions. We can track the expressions of these separations everywhere: authoritarianism, racial injustice, the climate crisis, disease, to name just a few. In the context of leadership, separation manifests as leadership by dominationthose with power and those without, and those trying to achieve power over others rather than finding power with others.

Overcoming this myth of separateness may be the test of our time for our species. We need leadership that is both bold and tender, leadership that radically welcomes the stranger while revolutionizing the systems that create the stranger in the first place. And we need our understanding of leadership to evolve, too. How might leadership be a practice that expands our moral imagination to include us all? And, lastly, how might we seed, protect and grow the spaces to practice this type of leadership?

Throughout this series, we have explored key inflection points in the lives of individuals doing the hard work of leading social change: from cultivating moral courage, to the sparks that ignite action, to transitioning in and out of roles in the service of a greater purpose. We see how individuals cultivate themselves and lead their organizations, and we see their impacts ripple into different domains.

Id like to close out the series calling on the idea of fractals in social change movements as a way to understand how massive societal transformations can occur through the idea of interconnection. I first encountered the concept in the book Emergent Strategy, by author and activist adrienne marie brown. They write, How we are at the small scale is how we are at the large scale what we practice at the small scale sets the patterns for the whole system. So too will the leadership skills we practice within our hearts shape our impact on organizations and the world.

As we have seen, doing the inner work to find moral courage can set leaders down the path of sustained leadership. Many of them have taken the time to examine who they are, what they need to flourish, and what we need to collectively flourish. For me, as a white woman in the United States, this has meant reckoning with the ways in which I am complicit in producing and reproducing injustice, especially along lines of race. As someone from New Jersey who spent most of their adult life in Atlanta, I had to interrogate the othering I did to other white peopleothering into good ones and bad ones, asleep ones and awake ones, Northern ones and Southern ones. What did I get from the idea that the racist white people were out there, elsewhere, but definitely not here, in me? In fact, it has been a liberating process (a journey that begins and never ends, as the adage goes) to explore, understand and ultimately figure out how to undo the ways in which I am so desperate to create others. When we pull the other closer, when we consider ourselves to be the same as those we are othering, we are afforded more pathways to a more just world.

While the story of our separation is pervasive, it is something we have the power to design our way out of. There are many examples of leaders countering this myth, like the Fellows in the Civil Society Fellowship. A partnership between the Anti-Defamation League and the Aspen Institute, the program creates community among civic leaders of diverse backgrounds and beliefs who counter the narrative that Americas social fabric is irrevocably torn. They are working collaboratively in community and solidarity to confront injustice and to bring together the stakeholders within systems to co-create solutions for change. They are humble in their roles as members of larger movements, recognize their interdependence with others, and create the conditions needed to sustain both themselves and the change they seek to bring forth. These leaders are embodying a new story based on the idea of our interconnection.

This series started with an examination of how people often needed to explore their souls, strengthen their internal navigation systems and chooseday-in and day-outto treat leadership as a practice, not position. The Aspen Institute has found our particular approach to this work through creating environments that foster deep introspection of ones values and actions in the company and trust of others doing the same. While it might seem contradictory, the work of interconnection starts from within.

Where does one go to cultivate this? We must look beyond leadership development as an education in technical skills, and instead focus our attention on elevating the ideas of interconnectedness, humility, and collective liberation.

In order to see a world in which the actions of good leaders are the fractals that scale up into just systems, we need to learn from and amplify the wisdom of others. Below, Ive started to synthesize learnings from friends and colleagues who are co-conspirators in the world we want to see.

Transformation is an invitation, not a coercion. If we accept that large-scale change requires more people involved over time, then we must find ways for more people to receive and accept the invitation.

What were asking is for people and institutions to participate in their own transformation, says Deena Hayes-Greene the Managing Director of theRacial Equity Institute and a Partner at The Groundwater Institute, organizations dedicated to creating racially equitable organizations and systems.

One way they create the conditions for opting in is through a multi-phased approach that helps people create shared language and uncover internalized narratives about inequity and injustice in their lives and organizations. They start by moving clients away from thinking of racism as something associated with personal bigotry and bias toward an understanding that is historical, cultural, and structural. The process is a catalytic experience that creates the conditions for deeper introspection, which in turn leads to more authentic action. By helping people rethink their systems, the ways racism is rooted in their institutions, and how it affects them personally, she helps create the conditions for cultures where all people can flourish.

Creating these conditions takes long-term focus and care. As we saw with KC Hardin and his organization, Esperanza, in Panama City, their success at its peak was based on a process that convinced gang members themselves to leave their collective identity as a gang behind, forgive their rivals, and take part in the formal economy. It required care for the whole person that permeated deeply, and in turn, resulted in deeply rooted conviction. The care they were shown was an invitation to transformation. And while this work is hard to scale and needs continued maintenance, showing care to others is a practice we can all do to create our sense of belonging to a greater whole.

As a social entrepreneur, and especially as a founder, it is all too easy to embrace the allure of the limelight. In many ways, our philanthropic and social sector ecosystems reward the man at the mic or sage on the stage type of charismatic individual. We know from novelist Chimamanda Adichie about the dangers of a single story, but what about the dangers of a single entrepreneur? Many philanthropists and investors deeply diligence a leader's ability to assure shareholders and persuade consumers; what if we put the same intention and attention to ensuring leaders build strong and inclusive leadership teams? What if we pressed for ego in the same way we press for sound financials?

As leaders practice self-awareness and moral courage, opportunities and incentives must be created to channel energy into empowering others to see change in the long run. Just as Rjane Woodroffe created systems at the Bulungula Incubator to shift power to the community and Jordan Kassalow shifted his focus to mobilizing groups of organizations towards a systemic approach, sustainability must come out of the we instead of the me.

What were trying to do is less an infiltration and more an invitation, says Dr. Katherine Wilkinson, leader of the All We Can Save Project, an organization that nurtures leaders in the climate community, like opening a door to something else and welcoming people in, which is something that the climate space has been woefully bad at. She suggests centeringthe whothe people, communities, and networks that make transformation possible in the climate movementrather than the whats (new renewable technologies, for example) and the hows (political advocacy campaigns, say). How do we create that sense of warmth? and nurture the relational web between us? I think thats how we stay in the work.

Here again, transformation is an invitation.

Organizations like the Rockwood Leadership Institute, the Schusterman Foundation, and the Aspen Global Leadership Network have found real value in cohort-based models of leadership development. At Aspen, we use text-based dialogues occuring around a seminar table of about 24 leaders as the unit of transformation. In small groups of leaders, people can be vulnerable, explore difficult topics away from public judgment, and create systems of nourishment over the long haul. As Brene Brown writes, People are hard to hate close up. Move in.

Each of these organizations prioritize the conditions for trust to flower and deep relationships to root. When we learn to love each other across lines of difference, working to create a more just society is just the rational next step.

In our fellowships at Aspen, we see that the sustained relationships developed by our fellows are a well of inspiration and counsel that they return to as they confront new and challenging situations. Because they are held in communityby peers that know their deepest heartsfellows have the strong lateral, cohort-based relationships outside of the organizations they're leading, to lead with more courage, clarity and conviction. In our most recent survey of the impact of the Aspen Global Leadership Network, 92 percent of our alumni reported that, because of their Fellowship experience, they lead their companies and organizations with values and greater clarity of purpose. Nearly 90 percent reported they took on risks or new challenges that they would not have pursued otherwise, including launching new social impact ventures, taking on leadership in the civic and public arenas, and using their platforms and voices for change. Through the years, we have seen fellows both support each other through personal and professional challenges as well as collaborate for greater impact.

These communities can look different depending on the context, but the lesson is that community is a key factor in the nourishment of leaders and the sustainability of their actions. Creating and connecting based on trust is how we scale the idea of our interconnectedness.

There was a moment when the COVID-19 pandemic began that many people thought it could be the great equalizersomething we could all share, that puts life-or-death stakes against realizing our interconnectedness. Imagine a world where we all acted out of our mutual care of one anothertaking steps to protect each other, while seeing the humanity in those that may have thoughtfully disagreed. Imagine the solidarity we could feel if we all stood with each other in lossthe loss of loved ones, loss of normalcy, and the loss of agency. Imagine the collective joy we might share if we also shared in one anothers grief and anguish. Imagine a world where leaders invigorated and restored our collective imagination of what binds us together rather than feeding the beasts that keep us apart.

Unfortunately, today, nothing could be further from those worlds. By any measure, we as a human species are more polarized, less free, and less equitable than when the pandemic began. Where justice could have emerged, injustice prevailed instead. Where a collective spirit might have emerged, the myth of the individualthe myth of our separatenessreigned. We have seen with startling clarity who is allowed to be alive in this world, for whose lives our systems are designed, and what needs to be transformedon the individual and systems levelfor us all to be able to live while we are alive.

How do we take these lessons and apply them to the urgency of our current context? From climate change to racial injustice, from polarization to the rise of authoritarianismthere is no shortage of crises that require immediate action. Crisis as a context, however, too often leads to rapid, short-term, inequitable decisions.

We must create the conditions for thoughtful, interdependent leaders to emerge and for their wisdom to be heard.

There is an unlimited need for containers and communities that bolster moral courage, worldwide. We are coming out of an era of the entrepreneura media, educational, and funding ecosystem that supported and strengthened the idea that a single entrepreneur can and should change the world. It is time to name this a relic of the past and instead adopt a more honest, humble perspective: social transformation takes all of us; transformation occurs in community; and saying yes to the challenge of leadership is significantly easier (and more fun) when we are held by a courageous community.

It is a tremendous task to swim against the tide, to lead in a way that defies an unjust system or goes against what is efficient in favor of what is life-giving. To lead from a wider frame or a deeper sense of heart, takes much more than skill. It takes a deep soul, a soft heart and a strong back. It takes a profound connection to one another. It takes us all.

Follow this link:
Leadership Development: Overcoming the Myth of Separateness - Stanford Social Innovation Review

Category: Anti-Defamation League | Comments Off on Leadership Development: Overcoming the Myth of Separateness – Stanford Social Innovation Review
Tags:

Posted By admin on October 12, 2022

In August 1999 fear plagued the nations Jewish community. The Bay Area was not immune. The summer saw arson attacks damage three Sacramento-area synagogues, an outbreak of hate-crime sniper shootings in the Midwest, then shootings that wounded five at the North Valley Jewish Community Center outside Los Angeles and killed a Filipino postal worker nearby. In the aftermath of those incidents, Jewish communal organizations across the country went on alert, some turning toward security firms for protection.

Those words were written in 2000, just over 20 years ago, but the climate of fear they conjure is familiar today. This year, the Anti-Defamation League published a report noting that antisemitic hate incidents were at an all-time high in 2021, while California Attorney General Rob Bontas office said hate crimes reported to the state increased 32.6 percent from 2020, and anti-Jewish hate crimes reached their highest level since 2012, the first year for which data is available.

In response, synagogues and other organizations have stepped up security, including doing active shooter training, turning to the San Francisco-based Federation for security assessments and applying for state and local funds for target hardening.

It feels like a new era to some an era in which emboldened white supremacists regularly strew antisemitic flyers in the East Bay, North Bay, San Francisco and beyond but its not the first time the Bay Area has faced violent antisemitism, nor is the resulting anxiety anything new.

While synagogues and Jewish spaces have been attacked as long as there have been Jews (the first time this paper reported on a bomb thrown into a synagogue was in 1919), the 1999 synagogue arsons in Sacramento bear an eerie resemblance to the white supremacist actions of today.

In June 1999, two men brothers from Shasta County set fire to three Sacramento-area synagogues. The brothers, who were white supremacists and Christian fundamentalists, also set an abortion clinic on fire and murdered two gay men before being arrested and convicted.

At 3:24 a.m. Friday, flames tore through the library of Sacramentos Congregation Bnai Israel, destroying 5,000 books and 300 videos on Jewish culture and history. Minutes later, arsonists struck Beth Shalom and Kenesset Israel Torah Center, although damage was not as extensive. Combined damages may top $1 million, we wrote about the synagogue attacks.

The following month, in July, we reported that police found the brothers had a hit list with the names of 32 prominent Bay Area Jews, including the editor and publisher of this paper at the time, Marc S. Klein. (There is something disconcerting about being on a list put together by two men already suspected of murder, Klein wrote in a column.)

In August 1999, a deadly attack occurred at the North Valley JCC in Los Angeles. The Bay Area was considering how to respond when we spoke to Rabbi Doug Kahn, at that time the executive director of the S.F-based JCRC.

Typically after an attack on Jews or Jewish organizations, agencies post armed guards, we wrote. But Kahn said the feedback from local boards indicates they are anguishing over whether its possible to be both armed and haimish. And agencies whose mission is to invite, include and involve are understandably reluctant to make visitors navigate a moat of electronic security to access services.

That same summer, a security expert named Furlishous Wyatt Jr. spoke to a group convened by the Anti-Defamation League about how synagogues could guard against malicious intruders:

Wyatt spoke disdainfully of the practice of propping a stairwell door open so that someone can smoke a cigarette. Remember that the convenience of one can lead to the detriment of many when dealing with security, he said.

By now, armed guards are common, as are video surveillance, alarms, solid doors and entryway lighting (smoke breaks, luckily, are largely a thing of the past). The Sacramento synagogues eventually moved on, with the help of an outpouring of financial and emotional support.

Both brothers convicted of the arson went to prison. One committed suicide while incarcerated; the other has a parole suitability hearing tentatively scheduled for December 2023, as per the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitations.

But the antisemitism and the fear it sets off like a match to kindling remain. In just the past few weeks, incidents have been reported across the Bay Area, including once again in Sacramento.

As a member of one of the torched congregations put it in 1999: Why do they still hate us so much?

Read more:
FROM THE ARCHIVE: Security has been on local Jews' minds for a long time J. - The Jewish News of Northern California

Category: Anti-Defamation League | Comments Off on FROM THE ARCHIVE: Security has been on local Jews’ minds for a long time J. – The Jewish News of Northern California
Tags: