Something's Not Kosher With the Rubashkin Case

i received the note below from a friend with a huge trail of people to whom it had been sent. i am always suspect of quotes such as the one stated below, or the notion that watching a clip on YouTube can affect social change, public policy or the outcome of the trial of anyone. I took the liberty of contacting Nathan Lewin to ask if the quote below was attributed to him. if it was, in my mind it would have a lot more weight. But it seemed suspect to me. Mr. Lewin replied that he had never said this and had not see the video until someone told him he was being quoted. he concurred with me, however, that It is an interesting video. the merits of the case are not clear to me personally though the video is compelling. As a former Soviet Jewry activist (you can watch my own YouTube clip from ABC News in 1988 though i make no representation that it will affect any social change http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKu_UyoAHtw) and Israel activist, among other things, i do believe in the value of grassroots activism even as simple as letter writing and phone calls. As the video suggests, it's probably worth writing such letters. it even occurred to me to go as high as the White House because politically, if Obama wants to prove he's not anti-Israel or anti-Jewish, while its unthinkable that he might release Jonathan Pollard, perhaps he'd intercede with clemency or a pardon for Rubashkin. but I am not a fan of spreading rumors and myths, even with what may be a valuable and compelling social objective. Lets evaluate the Rubashkin case on the merits, not on a made up quote of a prominent attorney and respected leader in the American Jewish community. to those compelled to write, pass this along with the endorsement of an American Israeli who has seen his days of public protests and quiet activism, and encourage people to write to elected officials as the video suggests. Write letters of support and encouragement to Mr. Rubashkin in jail as well. But lets do so with full integrity and not base it on a myth made up to appeal to the masses. if the case does not have the merits, even though the video has been seen by well more than 100,000 people, no amount of smoke and mirrors will make the cause righteous or the outcome just. Jonathan Feldstein No1abba@gmail.com http://jonathanfeldstein.blogspot.com Watch five of my fifteen minutes of fame at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKu_UyoAHtw BS"D Natt Lewin said if this video on youtube about rubashkin gets 100,000 views it will help sholom mordechai rubashkin very much. Send it to all your contacts. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1JCv4bYyWE Within less than an hour of sending the prior message about the Rubashkin YouTube piece and that Nat Lewin did not make the statement which was attributed to him, i received several e-mails back, all with the same theme. One from the west coast, someone up late, and several others locally. (see below for a sample) Allow me to clarify for the record and not respond to each individually. it seems that my previous message suggested that I supported the case against the Rubashkin sentencing. i certainly did not mean to suggest that i supported the case. rather i was trying to rebuke those who made up this story about Nat Lewin making such a statement and give them a constructive direction for their efforts that did not offend integrity of the readers, regardless of the merits of the case. One friend asked why would it make a difference what Nat Lewin thinks. My answer is that he is a noted and respected attorney who does take on cases that are generally rooted not only in upholding the law but things that are good for the Jewish community. If he had made such a statement, it would force me to look at the case in a different light. the opposite is also true and it was important to clarify the point. I generally agree that, as some suggested, unless there are extenuating circumstances if you do the crime you do the time. as a former (or more passive) activist, i always weighed how, when, where and under what circumstances it might be worth my being arrested for breaking a law or in a case of civil disobedience, but never thought of breaking the law and running or hiding from the legal outcome, or jail. In one case, knowing full well that a law I was considering violating carried with it a severe jail sentence and fine, i still decided to do it. (aren't you curious? you'll have to wait for the book.) I think the statute of limitations has passed so i can freely own up to it now because to be arrested for this twenty five years later, married with six kids, would definitely be an inconvenience. I have not followed the Rubashkin case. If he violated the law, he should pay the penalty according to the crime he committed. If a sentence is unjust, the US courts provide ways to appeal that. A Jew is obliged by Torah law to uphold the law of the land. if he did not do that, he's also guilty according to Jewish law. Either way, his actions are a brazen chilul hashem, a desecration of God's name. As compelling as the You Tube video was, looking at him in handcuffs, part of my response was embarrassment. the You Tube video is compelling, but i assume does not represent the merits of the case. I was taken however by the part about the sentence being not just a sentence against him, but also against his wife and kids. that may be true ultimately, but it reminds me of how i felt after my father died, wondering (inappropriately) what I HAD DONE to deserve the punishment of my father's death. its a shame that his family will have to go on without him, but this pulling of the heartstrings does not strengthen the case, it weakens it. Rubashkin should have considered the outcome of his actions before doing them, or even corrected the actions after he was engaged in them. as a neighbor of mine said, we should spend much more time trying to get Gilad Shalit home. Rubashkin in jail still gets to exercise and go outdoors, he gets three square (kosher) meals a day, and heat in the winter and a/c in the summer. He has the chance to do tshuva (repentance) for his actions against God and the Jewish community, and rehabilitate himself and have his sentence or incarceration shortened. His family will be able to visit him as well. he can even write a book or sell his story as a TV movie. I dont think that we should be heartless toward him and his family, but i am not convinced that the arrest and imprisonment of a Jew under all circumstances calls for our playing the pidyon shvuyim (redeeming captives) card. this case is weakened in my mind by the falsehood that is being spread that Nat Lewin made a statement he never made. I still do want the hot dogs however. And a package of soft and fluffy kosher hot dog rolls. Oh, and a jar or two of real deli mustard. Not the "spicy brown" fare that passes as the next best thing. that's like drinking blended whiskey, or putting CATSUP on a hot dog. Jonathan Feldstein No1abba@gmail.com http://jonathanfeldstein.blogspot.com Watch five of my fifteen minutes of fame at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKu_UyoAHtw some of the immediate responses i received are: You need to read Postville. Rubashkin is devil spawn. The entire Rubashkin affair has been a terrible chilul hashem and and absolute travisty. The fact that youtube support of any kind containing falsly atrtributed quotes is justthe tip of the iceberg. Thanks for sending the message out. I prefer this type of mail to those who claim thatthe US government is anti-semitic and a bunch of nazis in their treatment of this guy; who has done terrible things that no-one should be allowed to get away... Mr. Rubashkin has been convicted of multiple extremely serious crimes including bank fraud and money laundering, and has been charged with violations of child labor laws and more! Who supports this criminal? And why should we? If we, as the Orthodox community, do not stand up and scream that this sort of behavior is anti-Torah, unethical and immoral, then what right do we have to set ourselves up as G-d - fearing Jews? Rather than make efforts to help people like this, we ought to evict him and declare that he is not a true representative of the holy Jewish people. It is about time that we stop sheltering the crud, clean our cupboards and return to be honest, ethical and moral. not by reading the biased jewish media, but the mainstream one....& then, i beg u, think abt writing another email to yr lg email list, telling them that every time a jew is convicted of a crime, do we jews need to play the pidyon shvuin card or maybe, just maybe, there r jews who r real criminals & deserve the punishment that is meted out & we, the bystanders, shud uphold & respect the law of the land that dealt out the sentence? u touched on this theme a bit in yr email, but not strongly enuf imho. stop with the rubashkin case already! you do the crime, you serve the time. yes, life term is excessive. but rubaskin is a total CHILLUL and he deserves rot. i have gotten many emails this week - mostly from israelis. here, we are sick and tired of this. it has made the entire american jewish community ashamed. we are more angry than anything else. the best part of your email was the hotdogs...yes, i sorely miss them, too!

What Israel Needs is MORE Unemployment

Amid reports of political turmoil, trying to jumpstart the peace process, and the widening scope of growing corruption, an important news item was largely overlooked this week. Buried at the end of an article about the Israeli economy, I found a bit of good news. But had it been any more under reported, one could have blinked and missed it. “There were 197,600 unemployed people in March, down 0.5% from 198,500 in February. The unemployment rate in February remained steady at a preliminary 7.3% of the civilian labor force, after gradually declining since May last year when unemployment reached a high of 7.9%, ...” http://www.jpost.com/Business/BusinessNews/Article.aspx?id=174042 On the surface, this is very nice. It is a credit to the Prime Minister and Finance Minister, the Governor of the Bank of Israel, and I am sure others who deserve credit, and yet more who’d like to take credit. Best of all is that there are more people working, taking home a salary, paying taxes, and investing in the economy. By all measures that’s a good thing. However, I was puzzled as to why this was so under reported. Perhaps, though I am no economist, it’s because what Israel really needs in the long term is MORE unemployment. I am looking forward to thousands of Israelis losing their jobs. Outrageous? Crazy? Treasonous? Not really. Allow me to explain. In the early part of the previous decade, when Israel was subject to an unparalleled terrorist war, Israel’s economy suffered, as did its people. As a response to the trend of bus bombings, cafes turning into blood baths, malls turned into morgues, and pizzerias into slaughter houses, Israeli society undertook an “investment” that is simply not known in any other place in the world. In order to overcome a sense of fear, and instill a sense of security, the Israeli economy created tens of thousands of new jobs in one of the least glamorous but most important areas possible – security guards. Of course, Israel always had increased security at government offices, airports, military facilities and the like. But what changed then is something people living outside Israel cannot comprehend. Think about it. In most places in Israel, a person going about his or her day to day life will encounter multiple security personnel. These people first have to eyeball and profile a person coming their way, ask or assess if they have any weapons, wand them and check their bags, and only then let them enter. But where are they entering? A maximum security facility? The Knesset? A government building? An airport or major train station? No. Average Israelis find these security checks in the most mundane of places. For instance, in the course of an average week, I went to the mall and was checked going in to the parking lot AND going into the mall itself. Think about an average mall, how many entrances there are to the parking, and the building, and multiply that by full time coverage of one guard per entrance. People living in Atlanta, New Jersey, Toronto, Melbourne or any city in Europe could never comprehend much less tolerate this. On city buses, it’s common to see a young man or woman, armed, riding “shotgun.” They have to keep terrorists off the bus to let passengers arrive safely. I went to the bank. I was checked going in, not to prevent me from stealing money, but to prevent me from bringing in a bomb. I met a friend for coffee. Checked again. I drove to a lunch meeting nearby. I was checked entering the parking lot, and the restaurant. Dinner out? Getting “checked” happens when you go in, not when you want to pay the bill. I met with a hotel manager. At the entrance, “checking your bags” has a whole different meaning. I went to the post office to mail a package. Checked, checked, checked. I even had my car checked driving into the strip mall where I take my dry cleaning. Visiting a patient in the hospital one is checked at the parking lot, and at the entrance to the building. When I drop off my son at his pre-school, I greet the armed guard by name. When I pick up my other children from elementary school, another armed guard. This is not like in inner city American schools where violence and crime are rampant. It is just to keep the bad guys out, and the kids safe. I am reminded of my visits to the Soviet Union in the 80s. The USSR boasted that there was zero unemployment under its enlightened (now extinct) communist system. Of course this was another Soviet lie, but it was true that the government paid countless thousands (perhaps millions) to spy on one another. This Soviet over-employment served to give people work as well as to spy on its own citizens, not to protect the average citizen as we do in Israel. Underscoring the need for MORE unemployment, it’s quite clear that security guards are not Israel’s most glamorous career. Any random sample will find a disproportionate number of new immigrants among them, in what is sometimes a most dangerous job. Some are entirely uneducated. Others are decidedly overeducated. But work is work. Doing away with the need for this security-on-steroids and slashing a whole industry of security guards will do a great deal for the economy. Israelis will no longer have to absorb the cost of these guards as an expense passed along in virtually every service industry imaginable. The government and Israel’s free market economy will be challenged to create new industries to integrate the newly unemployed. It will require training and lots of work, but better that we should have a little growing pain in a country that no longer needs the “security” tens of thousands of guards, who can rather devote their efforts to building and contributing to the economy, instead of “just” keeping Israelis feeling safe enough to spend 12 shekels on a cup of coffee, taking their kids so school, or an outing to the mall. Israel has faced and overcome many challenges in its 62 years. Integrating tens of thousands of unemployed will be relatively small, but a challenge indeed. Yet for Israel to prosper to its fullest capability, doing away with the security guard industry will be a great achievement. Unfortunately, this depends largely on external factors over which Israel has little control. May Israel reach a point in my lifetime when security guards can turn their wands into plowshares, and where Israel’s most precious resource – its people – are able to contribute to the country and economy productively, rather than defensively.

Fund Raising Out of the Box

I read an article recently about the record sale of Andy Warhol’s painting “200 One Dollar Bills” for $43.76 million http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=aVVV8IsOLCOs which suggests that as bad as things are for many financially, that’s not the case for everyone to be sure. This reminded me of an amazing experience I had professionally a dozen or so years earlier, and how that relates to the need for non profits to be creative in general, but especially in the current environment; fund raising out of the box. Fund raisers, sit down. In a previous job, I had the opportunity to befriend an elderly couple, wealthy Holocaust survivors with no children or heirs. Oh, and they were art collectors. Not just nice pieces of art, but magnificent ones. This is the kind of relationship about which most fund raisers usually only dream. I don’t recall how I met them, but once I got to know them, we became good friends. When they were not feeling well, I’d bring them chicken soup and visit. They liked my visits, and eventually I’d make the occasion to bring my kids. Even though they lived full and rich lives, the void of not having children and grandchildren was palpable and they looked forward to our visits. Our relationship had a professional dimension to be sure, but over and above that we just became good friends. On one visit, I brought my kids and showed them one of their most special paintings. I asked the kids what it looked like and they all knew instantly, Moses receiving the Ten Commandments. Indeed, they were gazing at the original “Ten Commandments” by Marc Chagall. At one light moment, I told the couple that I didn’t want anything from them, but if they wanted to leave me the “Ten Commandments,” I wouldn’t mind. Paintings, sculptures and other collectables graced every room in their lavish home. Some by famous artists like Chagall whose names I knew. Others probably no less famous, just not known to me. I will never forget the two pieces of art that greeted visitors as they walked into the home. Side by side they had two original Andy Warhol portraits, of themselves. Yes, they had Andy Warhol paint their portraits. How cool was that! One day, I arrived at their home with a fresh new fund raising idea. The Israeli based non-profit institution I was working with had just announced a multi-million dollar project to build a new building. I brought the architectural renderings. As we sat and discussed the project and I did my best to sell them on it, I came up with an idea that they loved. In asking them to consider a significant naming opportunity, either the whole building itself, a wing, or the lobby, it occurred to me that as much as I thought it was cool to have Warhol portraits of them, when they were no longer alive with no heirs, while the art was original work by one of the most famous contemporary artists, I had a hard time imagining who would want these. So I blurted out my idea. “In addition to your donating millions of dollars for the building, why don’t you also donate the Warhols so that we can put them in the lobby and your images will forever accompany your names prominently in the new Jerusalem building.” This pushed all the right buttons and they were ready to do it immediately. Excited to the point of almost bursting at having all but secured a commitment for a million plus dollar donation, I raced back to my office to write this up for the people in Jerusalem to see in the morning. I was sure that they’d be thrilled that almost as quickly as the building project was announced, I had found them a major donor. We had not closed on which gift, but a major lead gift was a virtual sure thing. While they liked the project anyway, there was no doubt that the idea to display their Warhol portraits in perpetuity, in Jerusalem, was a clincher. Yet, when I woke up the next day, excited to get what I expected would be an enthusiastic response, I was shocked to see the immediate response was not one of mutual excitement, but pushback from the painting idea. E-mail is an imperfect means of communication so I was unsure that I was reading it right and I called. My call affirmed that I was reading their response right, that they did not see the merit and sense of this opportunity and offer. This began a protracted conversation that dragged on for far too long; all the while I was keeping the couple interested and stalling an answer, sure myself that this would be a sure thing. Eventually, the pushback became a roadblock, and a dead end. I don’t recall the reasons given why they wouldn’t entertain displaying the Warhol portraits, but in the end, I had to go back to the couple and try to put a positive face on this reversal of my idea. As happy as they were with my initial idea and proposal, they were upset and felt used rather than appreciated, and the deal never took place. While I did my best to maintain a relationship with the couple, especially following his death, this incident also gave me a clue that I was working with people in Israel who were unable to think outside the box. I took a new job where I really didn’t have anything to offer the widow. We kept in touch and eventually she died, and what could have been a multimillion dollar gift, and a likely bequest, in addition to two Warhol portraits, never materialized. I suspect that these portraits would never have sold for $43 million, but they were certainly valuable. In this case, neither the tangible value nor the leverage of using these for a major donation was appreciated. As much as the recent report of the record Warhol sale reminded me of this incident and the warm relationship that turned into a missed opportunity, it reminded me of one of the fundamentals of the fund raising business. Fund raising is about relationships. Offering a donor something meaningful that is focused on their personal interests is a much better way to make a deal than to pull something dry off the shelf and try to market it to them as what they want. That’s fund raising 101. This is all the more so in a period when the economy is suffering, when the fallout of many economic factors is still being felt, and when there are more people asking for more money than there are necessarily donors prepared to donate it. One needs the personal relationship to be sure, but also to be able to think outside the box and differentiate the philanthropic product in a way that the donor embraces it as their own, just like in this instance, but hopefully with better results.

Yom Haatzmaut Dayeinu

Living most of my life in the United States, I knew Israel’s independence was not something to take for granted, and indeed to be celebrated at every opportunity. Nevertheless, with the pace of life there not focused of Israeli holidays, the ability to celebrate and commemorate Israel’s independence sometimes conflicted with business meetings, kids’ activities and other day to day challenges. I remember my rabbi imploring us to attend annual community-wide Yom Haatzmaut celebrations, but also remember that even in the community in which I lived – one rich in opportunities to live a full Jewish life – the attendance at these events struck me as being far too low for a community of its size and commitment. Since making aliyah, I have seen something new. Even amid the differences within Israeli society, the fear that we are in a post-Zionist era, and overall challenges of life in Israel, celebrating Israel’s independence is done with a sense of pride, joy and such a level of spirit that is simply inspiring. Beginning at Passover, Israel starts to get decked out in blue and white leading up to Yom Haatzmaut. Highways are lined with flags. Kites fly bearing the blue and white. Small flags fit with a plastic clip are sold at major intersections for your car. In 2008 I adorned my car with 60 to the delight of many passers-by. Newspaper ads become patriotic and use the blue and white regularly, and the weekend papers have free inserts of Israeli flags. The Yom Haatzmaut celebration in my new community it is emotional. The past two years we have left with a lump in our throat from the feeling of pride and awe at being able to live in Israel, to raise our children here, and to build for the future. Fireworks are seen throughout the country, just as on July 4th in the US. Other than religious holidays when work is prohibited, Yom Haatzmaut may be the only day that no newspapers are printed. Family celebrations are varied, but many involve finding a patch of grass somewhere and setting up a portable bar-b-que to picnic into the night. We add Hallel to our prayers offering God special thanks for this milestone. But based on living most of my life in the Diaspora where it was often a challenge to carve out time to acknowledge, much less actually celebrate the holiday, it strikes me that there are no formal rituals associated with celebrating Israel’s independence. So I started wondering, what could be done after six decades to mark Israel’s independence in a way that is perhaps more universal, and even to facilitate a five minute pause in the life of someone overseas who wants to celebrate Israel’s independence, but for whom the pace of life is more about the daily grind rather than the festive nature we have in Israel. Thinking about the meaning of what we are celebrating, the message I hope my children will take with them forever, I realized that though the words of Hallel are meaningful, perhaps we needed something more contemporary. Building on an element of the Passover Seder, I came up with “Yom Haatzmaut Dayeinu.” IF God had only given us Herzl’s will to dream, and not given us the Zionist Congresses, it would have been enough. Dayeinu. IF God had only given us the Zionist Congresses and not given us the 1917 Balfour Declaration affirming the reestablishment of a Jewish home in the Land of Israel, it would have been enough. Dayeinu. IF God had only given us the Balfour Declaration and not created the spark for early waves of aliyah to dry the swamps, irrigate the Land and build our country, it would have been enough. Dayeinu. IF God had only given us the spark to ignite waves of early aliyah to build our country and not taken us out of the ashes of the Holocaust, it would have been enough. Dayeinu. IF God had only taken us out of the ashes of the Holocaust and not continued the ingathering of the exiles from the four corners of the earth, it would have been enough. Dayeinu. IF God had only continued the ingathering of the exiles and not given us the 1947 UN Partition Vote to create the State of Israel, it would have been enough. Dayeinu. IF God had only given us the 1947 UN Partition Vote and not enabled our victory in the War of Independence and our Declaration of Independence, it would have been enough. Dayeinu. IF God had only enabled our victory to establish and declare independence, and not restored Jewish sovereignty to the Land for the first time in 2000 years, it would have been enough. Dayeinu. IF God had only restored Jewish sovereignty to the Land and not built us a thriving democracy, it would have been enough. Dayeinu. IF God had only built our democracy and not helped us overcome our enemies’ attempts to destroy us in 1956, 1967, 1970, 1973, 1982, 2006 and even today, it would have been enough. Dayeinu. IF God had only helped us overcome our enemies’ attempts to destroy us and not returned the Jews of Ethiopia to their homeland, rescuing black Africans from slavery in Africa to freedom, it would have been enough. Dayeinu. IF God had only returned the Jews of Ethiopia to their homeland and not enabled the aliyah of hundreds of thousands of Jews from the former Soviet Union, it would have been enough. Dayeinu. IF God had only enabled the aliyah of Soviet Jews and not reunified our Holy City, Jerusalem, it would have been enough. Dayeinu. . IF God had reunified Jerusalem and not made Israel a world leader in medical, biotech and high tech fields – a modern light unto the nations - it would have been enough. Dayeinu. IF God had only made Israel a world leader in technology, and not continued to bless Israel with His promise to build Jewish life for eternity, it would have been enough. Dayeinu. So let us pause on this special day to remember these and many other miracles that God has done for Israel, and that we magnify every day just by living as Jews in our homeland. Dayeinu. Happy Independence Day Israel. Chag sameach. By Jonathan Feldstein, a new Israeli, celebrating the miracles of Israel in the Land of Israel.

The Kitniyot Konundrums - 5770

The following is an encore presentation of a timely and pressing issue of the gravest importance. When first written in 2009 and submitted as an entry to the blog of a major modern orthodox Jewish organization, the article first had to be approved by the “halacha department” as if the issues discussed were somehow in wild contradiction of accepted Jewish law. In the end, the article was not published. This year, allow me to share a more recent update as a preface: I am sitting across the table from a man after donating blood, drinking nauseatingly sweet juice and eating particularly bland cookies. I mentioned to him that I have accepted recent rabbinic rulings that it’s OK for Ashkenazi Jews like us eat Kitniyot on Pesach. He is horrified, as if I suggested killing someone. “Kitniyot are chametz. You can’t eat Kitniyot on Pesach,” he stammers. “No,” I retort. “Kitniyot are Kitniyot. It’s a tradition that’s important, but they are not chametz.” “No, they’re chametz. But you just can’t sell it like chametz.” “If you can’t sell it like chametz, maybe it’s because it’s not chametz.” “No, Kitniyot are chametz.” “So what you’re saying is that Sephardim who eat Kitniyot are eating chametz and violating the most fundamental law of Pesach.” “No. It’s their minhag. It’s OK for Sephardim.” “But if they’re chametz, how is that OK for anyone to eat them during Pesach?” … Who’s on first? I don’t ever recall thinking about kitniyot during Pesach in any substantial way while living in the US. I grew up there and made my first home there, and kashrut, particularly relating to Pesach, seemed to focus on the customs of Ashkenazim like myself which made up the majority of American Jewry and, therefore, dominated kosher and culinary things there. Since making aliyah, it seems that not only has a year not gone by without kitniyot being an issue about which I have had to think considerably, but one that seems to get more heated year by year and as preparations for Pesach get closer. For an understanding of what kitniyot are, please see http://www.kashrut.com/Passover/Kitniyot. There are many challenges and opinions surrounding the kitniyot question ranging from whether Ashkenazim can eat them at all, eat derivatives of products from kitniyot, eat things classified as kitniyot that have no historical bearing as kitniyot, following minhag avotaynu (our father’s customs), and not eating them at all. It’s eye opening to walk the aisles of grocery stores throughout Israel and see things like pasta, rice cakes, Doritos, chumus, popcorn, and a wide range of other things that are indeed kosher l’pesach. It’s challenging to shop for cookies, candy, oils, sauces, beverages, ice cream and many other things that may have traces of kitniyot, or things derived from kitniyot, that make consumption of these items for Ashkenazim an issue. Indeed, in the past years, we have eaten our share of kitniyot by mistake because it’s easy to let it slip by that generic kosher l’pesach cookies might be made from something that our ancestors in Poland did not eat. More confusing was the time when we were on an outing and got ice cream for the kids in a familiar yellow Magnum wrapper – checking that it was kosher l’pesach – but without thinking that there might be kitniyot that made this Pesach version of the yummy white chocolate ice cream so tasty. Last year, going out to lunch at a mall in Haifa became an exercise in frustration because every restaurant that was open and kosher l’pesach included kitniyot in their menu, or ingredients. That time, all the kids had to eat was the one ice cream that could be found without kitniyot. As complex as it is to shop and eat as an Ashkenazi who does not eat kitniyot, people are passionate about why they do or don’t. While my personal thinking has evolved, without getting into my practice, I’d like to share just a small sample of the opinions that have been presented on Anglo e-mail chat lists here. First, a conversation I initiated with a respected Rabbi in the US last year as the issue – or my awareness of it – came more to the surface. Dear Respected Rabbi, Recently, we were talking about the topic of eating kitniyot on Pesach. There seems to be a great deal of interest this year more than the past two that we've been here, a flood of e-mails and the like. I am passing along this e-mail from one of the Anglo lists and very much wonder what your thoughts are. Not that we're running to eat kitniyot, but the issue is interesting. As many things, I know there are two sides and it's not normally the role of a Rabbi outside Israel to make a psak on issues in Israel, but we're curious what you think. Yonatan Dear Yonatan, As you correctly noted I cannot issue a Psak Halacha for people residing in Israel. There is much merit to this argument (of eating kitniyot on Pesach). Others have said something very similar as well. The mainstream rabbinate will have to make that decision. Unfortunately, I don't think that it will be coming too quickly. Chag Sameach. Your Rav There are those who passionately disagree that there is any merit to this at all…. I am curious, all those Ashkenazi Jews who are so willing to eat kitniyot, are they also ready to change their nussach tefilah and get up for slichot all of Elul! There is a principle stated in Pirke Avot that one should not separate from the tzibur. The vast majority of orthodox Ashkenazi Rabbis today, and for very many generations in the past, don't permit eating kitniyot on Pesach, except under extraordinary circumstances. There is a very, very small minority who permit Ashkenazim to eat Kitniyot on Pesach. It seems to me that generally speaking, an Ashkenazi Jew should follow the vast majority of today's orthodox Ashkenazi Rabbis, and not eat Kitniyot on Pesach. As far as I am concerned, when (someone writes) that “…. (Rabbi) Hartman said…” and that “…already there is not a single family in the country without a Sephardi member..” is enough to invalidate his position. (The latter is just) not true. And others who feel just as passionately the other way… By separating themselves from the MAJORITY of Jews who live in Israel and who, just by chance happen to be Sephardic, it is Ashkenazi Jews who insist on keeping up their traditions at all costs, who are continuing to keep Am Yisrael from becoming one nation with one halacha. It is these Jews who separate themselves from the tzibur. This year we're going with the things that were added to the original gezera and didn't exist at the time- like soy, peanuts, humus, canola etc. Rice is a bit much at this point for us. I just found out that Moroccans don't eat rice, either, but definitely things have gotten too machmir and there's a rebellion. For us the real selling point was that if we're 'Eretz Yisraelis' and the minhag makom was to eat kitniyot and ideologically this is consistent with other things we do, then we're okay with it. Already the majority of Jews in Israel are Sephardi. It’s almost a certainty that at least one of my four girls will marry a man whose custom it is to eat kitniyot, and they will. By the time the grandchildren are married, there will be very little difference between Ashkenazi and Sephardi, and few families outside Mea Shearim and Bnai Berak who are 100% Ashkenazi. I like to see myself as a Zionist visionary, just starting to do something that will be done in the future anyway. Some are more confused with the issue as time passes… I used to give the Kitniyot Madness Award every year to the most lunatic new humra on kitniyot. One year it almost went to the rabbi who solemnly proclaimed a ban on tomatoes, eggplant and zucchini. Why? Because the seeds are edible. (Siddown, rabbi.) He lost out to the rabbi who proclaimed cottonseed oil to be kitniyot. I can think of several good reasons not to eat cottonseed oil ever but none of them has any connection whatever to Pesach. The only reason I can see to call cottonseed oil kitniyot is that kutnah sounds something like kitniyot. Now, I am told that products can no longer get a mehadrin hekhsher if they have cottonseed oil. Please tell me this is not true! Meanwhile, many of the same people who worry over every new humrah on kitniyot buy ordinary matzot and not matzo shemurah. We are told the ban was instituted to protect the integrity of the matzo and now there are people who are hamur on kitniyot and meykel on matzah. Does that make any sense? A few years ago, news went out the quinoa is not kitniyot because it was not known to the rabbanim at the time of the ban and we do not expand humrot by analogy. That may be true as a general rule but kitniyot is a madness way beyond that sort of nicety. That year, I did not find quinoa with a Pesach hekhsher. The next year, it appeared on the market, “Kasher lePesah l-okhlei kitniyot bilvad.” (Kosher for Pesach only for those who eat kitniyot.) As much as some passionately agree, and others passionately disagree, there are those who are passionately irreverent and must be using this as a mindless interlude from cleaning and cooking…. If we decide to eat kitniyot....are we also obligated to celebrate Mimouna? If that is the case...the deal is out...I can't think of having to cook an entire Mimouna festival after 8 days of cooking matza brei.... Just a warning -you might see me during Chag sitting in the plaza with bare legs munching on a rice cracker - please don't call security on me. The rabbinate is so corrupt I can get a psak for anything, if I ask the right person for the right amount of money. So why do I need to wait until someone issues a psak, because his brother in law just started a wholesale chick pea distribution business. I know an Ashkenazi man who, in order to please his Sephardic wife and in-laws, wants to finally (begin) eating kitniyot but he also wants to keep his great-great-grandmother's tradition of eating "non-gebrocht"... Question: Is there any way to do both: Eat "non-gebrocht" and eat kitniyot? And if there is no way to do both...do you know of any good marriage counselor who can give him advice as how to please his wife and (honor) his great-great great grandmother’s memory? Please note: he wants a marriage counselor who eats non-gebrocht if possible... When Mashiach comes, (bimeheyrah veyameinu) if he tells the Ashkenazim, “Well done, and bless you for your perseverance in kitniyot, and you can now actually eat kitniyot,” they will not do it. They might decide he didn’t really say that and what he said didn’t really mean that "and in any case, just to be on the safe side, we won’t do it.” And if he says to the Sephardim, “Continue to enjoy your kitniyot on Pesach but you may not grind it into flour,” they will say “But we never accepted the ban on kitniyot.” Chag sameach and may we need to keep ourselves busy with kitniyot issues rather than with security and defense issues, even though I doubt that this will be the case. As the last post suggested, there are many other more pressing issues this Pesach and in general. Nevertheless, the issue has become so widespread that even the far from religious oriented Forward published an article on it, “Pesach Kitniyot Rebels Roil Rabbis As Some Ashkenazim Follow New, Permissive Ruling” at http://forward.com/articles/104483 Perhaps the primary recent source that has aroused this debate is Rav David Bar-Hayim's Beit Din well-publicized psak permitting the consumption of kitniyot by all Jews living in Israel which can be found at www.machonshilo.org Finally, not to be outdone or leave people to think that kitniyot are the only potentially divisive issue during Pesach, last year Haaretz reported that “A 28-year-old yeshiva student was arrested late Sunday after undressing completely in a Tel Aviv supermarket with only a sock to cover his genitals, to protest the store's sale of chametz during Passover. The same student was arrested for pulling the same stunt last year, after the Jerusalem Magistrate's Court passed a controversial ruling which permitted the sale of chametz (foods Jewish law prohibits on Passover) in some businesses. The court ruled then that the matzot law, which prohibits the display of chametz, in public places during the holiday, does not apply to supermarkets, pizzerias and restaurants, as they are not considered "public." The student was detained for interrogation on suspicion of performing an indecent act in public. In his defense, he claimed that since chamez was sold on the premises, it could therefore not be legally recognized as a public place, and as such, there were no grounds to press charges against him.” Perhaps it’s obvious that the majority of recent Anglo olim here are Ashkenazim who are confronted with something in kitniyot that they never had to consider before, so these Anglo lists are probably more prone to this debate than Israeli society on the whole. What will be in the future? Will you eat in my home during Pesach? Will I eat in yours? Only time will tell. After all, yetziat mitzrayim took 40 years so I suppose we can give this a little time too. Chag sameach.

Let Freedom Reign

Our dinner at a very nice Jerusalem restaurant consisted of appetizers of fried and stuffed mushrooms, stuffed artichokes and spicy Moroccan fish. The main courses were steak, burgers and chicken. Dessert was halvah parfait and lemon tart, tea and coffee. And a very nice bottle of Israeli wine. On the surface, it was a nice evening out for two couples, friends whose relationship goes back more than two decades. Over dinner, as much as I enjoyed visiting and catching up with David and Anna, seeing photos of their kids and finding out what they are doing, and reciprocating about our family, talking about work and recent job changes, politics, and a little reminiscing of stories past, I couldn't help but recognize that this visit was worlds away from our first meeting. Thursday October 1, 1987, I had just landed in Moscow with a friend, Michael. This would be my second trip to the Soviet Union for the express purpose of visiting and helping Jewish refusenicks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refusenik), Jews who were brave enough to submit a formal application to leave the USSR, flagging themselves for all sorts of problems socially, legally, politically, and professionally. Despite optimism from perestroika and glasnost, the USSR was still an oppressive society where the cloud of fear and mistrust loomed as a huge as the vast reach of the Kremlin itself. This was especially the case for Soviet Jews whose struggle for freedom had ebbed and flowed along with the tide of international affairs, and who were definitely feeling the heel of the decades of oppression in spite of much publicized hopes. In all of 1987, fewer than 1000 Jews were given permission to leave the USSR. Most of them were long term refusenicks. My trip that October was initially intended to launch the process of marrying a woman my age whose family I had adopted some years earlier. After years of correspondence, I finally met the Steins 1985. I proposed marriage with the hopes of using that as leverage to get her and her family out of the USSR. That year, they were four among the lucky few who had already received permission to leave, and actually had left that summer, so my trip became about helping others. (See the following links for video and stories as background about this chapter of my life, the first from ABC News anchored by Ted Koppel March 25, 1988: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKu_UyoAHtw , and the second a research project about which I was the subject http://www.js.emory.edu/BLUMENTHAL/Kate.html) Back to Moscow 1987. We arrived two days before Yom Kippur for a seventeen day journey that would take us through Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev and Odessa, and encompass both Yom Kippur in Moscow, the first days of Sukkot in Leningrad and then back in Moscow for Simchat Torah which had become a celebrated outlet for Jews to express their Judaism, under careful watch of the KGB. Toting a new address book in which I had transcribed all my contacts, long before this could be done electronically, I opened it to look for the names of the refusenicks I was to contact, who had been entered among all my friends, family, and others, in code, so that the KGB would neither suspect me nor be able to identify who I was supposed to visit. We followed careful instructions as to which pay phones were believed to be relatively safe to use and not draw attention upon ourselves, or those we were calling, even though it was common belief that no call was really safe from KGB ears. Within hours we were off to meet the Lurie family, long term refusenicks whose matriarch had been allowed to emigrate, but the rest of the family had been refused. Anna, the oldest daughter, had recently married David, a young Jewish activist, and we became instant friends. Getting to know them I felt that David’s story sounded familiar, but wrote it off to my several prior years of involvement and activism. We went about the rest of our visit including being the first to see the legendary Ida Nudel hours after she received her permission to emigrate. Our audio tape of that visit and the accompanying photos showed her immediate transformation from an oppressed slave of the Soviet system to a free woman. We shared a taxi to the synagogue for Yom Kippur eve services, and she left the following week. With the exception of this euphoric experience, most of the rest of the visits with dozens of refusenicks we met were less upbeat. They were appreciative of our help and being there, but still felt the fear and oppression that existed, and they desperately yearned to be free. Our last night in the USSR was back in Moscow, both to be ready to leave on our flight home and to be there for the Simchat Torah experience. Thousands filled the street outside and hundreds, maybe thousands, more inside Moscow’s then only “functional” synagogue. Those outside either could not get inside, did not want to be branded as a potentially bigger troublemaker by actually entering the sanctuary, or were just having too much fun where they were. It was said that the scene outside the synagogue on Simchat Torah was like a big Jewish singles event, resulting in many matches being made. Based on the demographics, that was probably true. But the scene outside was also the meeting point of older Jews, married and not, those who had applied to leave, and those who just wanted a taste of Judaism. We bumped into several leaders of the refusenick movement there, a virtual who’s who of Moscow’s Jewish community. Drawn to some festive singing and guitar playing, we noticed our new, old friend, David, at the center of a circle, guitar in hand, leading in Hebrew songs, something that in and of itself could have been punished by trumped up charges and a prison sentence. But the Jews of Moscow felt just free enough that festival, as they had in the past, to push the envelope, just a little. For a few hours each year, Moscow’s Jews experienced a hint of freedom. Yet the KGB watched very closely and, when they were ready, gave the order to close down the festivities. As we walked from the Archipova St. Synagogue together with David and Anna, saying good bye but not knowing when we might see one another again, I started giving David things that we really didn’t need. Among them, my long wool coat that was keeping me warm in the cold Moscow pre-winter. Initially David refused, but I insisted. I told him to take it, and sell it on the black market if he needed money. He liked that idea as, rather than keeping the money himself, he’d use it to buy an amplifier for his guitar so that when they had clandestine festive Jewish gatherings full of song and dance, more people would be able to hear from further away. David and Anna were allowed to leave not long thereafter. By then, Daniel was born, and they had to leave their families behind initially, not knowing when they’d see them again, but also not knowing when there might be another chance to leave. Now that they were parents, it was all the more urgent that they be free, so they could raise a new generation of Jewish children in Israel, in freedom. After they made aliyah, they visited me in the US, and I’d visit them in Israel. Though we don’t make the opportunity to see one another often enough due to the complexities of life, kids, work, etc, at least today we have the freedom to do so as now we’re living only 45 minutes from one another. Some time after David and Anna were in Israel, I discovered why, when I had met them some years earlier, his story was familiar. It turns out that David was the subject of a 1982 article in Hadassah magazine, the very one my mother read to our family over dinner one night that had inspired me to become active. We learned that David and I share the same birthday, and that Anna’s birthday is the same as our wedding anniversary. Other than the nostalgia of dinner with David and Anna, our story, and reliving my past involvement in the Soviet Jewry movement, it is a story that is particularly relevant this season, on the eve of Passover, the festival of freedom, the celebration of the Jewish redemption from slavery in Egypt. Our tradition teaches that Jews must observe Passover, reliving the Exodus of thousands of years ago as if we, too, were slaves in Egypt. That’s a very hard to do today, unlike in my day when Jews were still largely enslaved in the USSR, Syria, and in other corners of the world. It’s hard to feel as if you ARE a slave leaving Egypt thousands of years ago, when the concept of a refusenick, modern Jewish persecution and enslavement, the idea of living in fear, and even a black market to deal in wool coats to sustain Jewish life is one that is completely foreign and unimaginable. Even the children of these brave Jews who resisted Soviet oppression and assimilation, those living in Israel as free and proud Jews integrated with my kids and the rest of Israeli society, don’t fully grasp the struggle their parents had to endure to bring them to a life of freedom in Israel. As we celebrate this festival of freedom and redemption, looking back on ancient history as if it were the present, it’s important to remember that freedom has a price, but that no matter the price, it is far less than the value. In addition to teaching us about suffering of generations past, Passover teaches us to appreciate our freedom, and never to take it for granted. May we be privileged to have the freedom to continue to recount our redemption as if we had been redeemed ourselves, never actually knowing what that was like. May we have the ability to celebrate festivals together with friends and family, as well as long overdue reunions, but be mindful not to take these for granted, even though we have the freedom to do so.

Some of My Best Friends are Christian Zionists

Now the tide has shifted. I am no historian, but I suspect that if there was ever any precedent for Christians loving Jews as Jews, and supporting Jewish independence and statehood in Israel as a pillar of their faith, it was an historical anomaly that was short lived, rather than the impact of a growing movement with hundreds of millions of devotees today. Last week I had one of the most inspiring and meaningful experiences of my life. I attended the “Night to Honor Israel” under the auspices of John Hagee Ministries and Christians United for Israel, in Jerusalem. Twenty four hours after the event, my hands were still hurting from all the clapping. This was not my first event like this. Over the years I have had the privilege to participate in several similar evenings entirely orchestrated by fervently Zionist Christians. My early exposure to, and participation in, these events filled me with a combination of emotions – shell shocked to see such vibrant, colorful and sincere expressions of love and support for Israel, but outside the Jewish framework in which I was raised and with which I was familiar. I also felt a sense of awe and appreciation that for the Christian organizers and participants, this was simply a biblically mandated imperative which they embrace and undertake with the sincerity and joy of living God’s word. It’s that simple. While the “Night to Honor Israel” last week was especially inspirational, meaningful and motivational, the first one I attended was smaller but equally unforgettable. At the “Bless Israel Rally” in 1988 or 1989, in Cleveland, Tennessee, I was invited and escorted by a wonderful friend, Doug Chatham, who exposed me to an array of such events. Even more, he gave me an early understanding and appreciation for the genuine and sincere love for Israel as a growing phenomenon in the Christian community. In the ensuing years, I have had the privilege to participate in many events with similar themes and objectives, organized by Christians United for Israel, Eagles Wings, the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, John Hagee Ministries, and others, and made genuine warm friendships through relationships established at these events. It is inspiring to celebrate support for Israel with 1000 people or more in any framework. I have attended countless Jewish rallies and parades like this, and of course living in Israel is the ultimate celebration of that. There’s something truly awesome and emotional in singing Israel’s anthem, Hatikvah, among hundreds, or thousands, of people. But when it is emotionally led by a Christian, among a sea of 1000 other Christian supporters of Israel, it is something uniquely so. One feels the palpable change in tide from a time, not that long ago, that the majority of Christians used their faith to persecute Jews, and even worse. Making this all the more unique is that the love for Jews and Israel expressed in these events is unconditional. It is the feeling of love like that which one feels from a parent. But with great respect for Judaism and humility, the love expressed is not that of a parent, but rather like that of a sibling, in this case a younger sibling, who looks up to the older sibling with respect and adoration. Christian Zionists today, and the growing relationships between Christians and Jews, are built on an underpinning of recognition of the proud Jewish roots as the foundation of their faith. Christian Zionists’ lives and faith are enriched by Judaism, not there to replace Judaism. Some who don’t know any better ascribe malicious intentions to these relationships. Some fellow Jews are threatened by these because of their own lack of faith, or knowledge of their own traditions. Some can’t get beyond differences politically, socially, and religiously, hanging an association between Jews and Christians on one divergent issue as compared to the wealth of issues and values that bring us together. Some can’t get beyond the thousands of years of Christian persecution of Jews and want nothing to do with “goyim,” used pejoratively, carrying with it thousands of years of fear and mistrust. The reality is that having a meaningful interaction, even close personal relationships, with Christians of faith who share a mutual belief and devotion to Israel, and the God of Israel, is uplifting. This year, I risked shaking up the relationship with my own wife over extending an invitation to friends from a church in Washington to visit our home. Under normal circumstances, she’d have been perfectly happy to open our home to any guests, in the finest spirit of our patriarch, Abraham. However, I dared to suggest that they visit us the day before Rosh Hashanah. Anyone who knows the pace of life in a Jewish home that is preparing for a major holiday knows that the house is in disarray, last minute errands need to be run, and cooking, cooking and more cooking abound. And then, cleaning up the mess. Comforted by the fact that my wife loves me, and that killing me on the eve of Rosh Hashanah would generally be a bad thing, I told her not to worry. After my friends left, I braced for another thing for which I’d need to ask forgiveness, fearing my wife’s response from inviting our Christian guests into my home, almost as much as our forefathers feared the pogroms often inspired by Christians which would cause their homes to be burned and looted. Ready for the hammer to fall, I was struck, rather, by my wife’s response. Meeting and getting to know these people, understanding their sincerity and devotion, appreciating the expense that each undertook to be in Israel, some not for the first time, left her with a sense of awe and appreciation as we went into the Days of Awe. Since then, my wife has recounted this experience as having helped to give her an extra special appreciation and sense of devotion in her Rosh Hashanah prayers. Rather than pissing her off, I helped her have a sense of the warmth of some of these relationships which I have been blessed to have for more than two decades. The Jewish principle of hakarat hatov, teaches us acknowledge kindness received from, or done by, another person. But more than just to acknowledge such kindness, hakarat comes from the word lehakir, to know or become familiar with. Rather than just remembering to say thank you to someone, hakarat hatov means to take time to recognize the benefit one has received from another. To that end, it’s not just a human value to say thank you, but a Jewish imperative. When someone expresses unconditional love for another as in this case, it’s our obligation to acknowledge that, to appreciate it, to say thank you. And taking it a step further, to offer a reciprocal embrace of such sincere love and support not only is proper, but makes us each stronger in our respective faith. On Easter 1945, which corresponded to the first days of Passover, three months after the liberation of Auschwitz and the end of WWII, several Jewish holocaust survivors who were neighbors of my grandmother and who had returned to their homes in search of other survivors were murdered by their Polish Catholic neighbors. The murderers threatened to finish the job the next day and kill the remaining twenty Jews in a town that, once, was almost half Jewish. There are more than enough reasons for fear and mistrust. However as the spring ushers in the respective Jewish and Christian holidays of Passover and Easter, let the renewal of this season serve as a harbinger of renewal of personal and interfaith relations between Jews and Christians, with the model like that of the thousands just with whom I have had the privilege to interact, to serve as a living example for the future.

February 26

Purim is the Jewish festival depicted and ordained in the Book of Esther. Including this year, in the past 17 years this celebration of Jewish good over Persian evil, fell on or within a day of, February 26 only three times. Most, I am sure, have no clue why one would even care. Haman said to King Achashvairosh, "There is a nation scattered and separated among the nations throughout your empire. Their laws are different than everyone else's, they do not obey the king's laws, and it does not pay for the king to tolerate their existence. "If it pleases the king, let a law be written that they be destroyed, and I will pay to the executors ten thousand silver Kikar-coins for the king's treasury." Esther, Chapter 3, 8-9 http://www.beingjewish.com/yomtov/purim/esther_intro.html Over the past several years, a new threat against the Jewish people in particular, and the West in general, has arisen from modern Persia embodied in Iran and its theocracy, and its president. Today’s Iranian threat against the Jewish people and the West is no less ruthless than the threat of the wicked Haman in ancient Persia, albeit that today's threat comes at the tip of a nuclear armed Shabab missile, or in a suitcase smuggled into any western mall or train station, not a hangman's noose as 2500 years ago. Yet the level of genocidal agitation is no less great, and their rants do not cease. http://www.jpost.com/IranianThreat/News/Article.aspx?id=169723 On February 26, 1993 I sat in naïve bliss, just two months from the birth of my first child. Like any first time parents, much of our energy was focused on preparing for this imminent arrival and to become parents for the first time. As I brewed my coffee that morning, nobody imagined the evil that was brewing for that day. Nobody could imagine it, except the terrorists who had hopes to destroy the World Trade Center as high as the buildings themselves. Their plans were foiled and the buildings remained standing, but six people were killed and some 150 injured. February 26 passed and life went on. It was a wakeup call, but like the rest of the world I probably remained ignorant or naïve, or both and, and like most, either did not comprehend that it was serious, or that the threat was what it was, or that this was not just an isolated incident of some angry Moslem men playing with explosive toys. The US and the world hit the collective snooze button. Whether the terrorists who planned and implemented the February 26, 1993 World Trade Center attack were trained and funded by Iran per se, they were and are ideological twins. For eight years the world sat by silently and ignorantly while other terrorists trained, learning how to fly but not land a plane, until the rude awakening the morning of September 11, 2001. This wakeup call was loud and jarring. We jumped out of bed, but I can’t help but feel that in reality, eight years since September 11, we’ve gotten back in bed, and covered our heads with a warm comforter of ignorance and naiveté once again. What’s so perverse is that those who would execute further terrorist attacks have made their intentions fully known. There are no secrets. We know that they are out to get us. Yet we sit back, rather complacently, removing shoes of old ladies at airports, and engaging a proxy war in Afghanistan and Iraq while places like Yemen and Iran heat up. Centuries ago the tables were turned on the evil Haman who ended up dying at the end of the noose which he had prepared for the righteous Mordechai. Today a new threat from Persia looms and we can only pray that those who threaten to carry out such an evil plot again will end up meeting the same fate as their ideological and geographical ancestor. But we can’t sit by and do nothing. We need to be sure that our governments are aware of the threat, are held accountable to act with unswerving strength, and are dedicated to our protection and defeating this new evil. Perhaps this year, amid the joy as we celebrate our victory from genocidal evil twenty five centuries ago, we can use the wakeup call from February 26 seventeen years ago to remind us that the same evil looms in this generation, and must be defeated today as it was then. Like Esther and Mordechai, we must devote ourselves to this, fast and pray, and take action, to be sure that it never happens again. In two months my daughter will turn seventeen. The world is a vastly different place since the two months before she was born. Not because the evil looming is unique, but because if we sleep through it again, we may doom ourselves to not waking up. As a parent, it’s my responsibility to look out for the welfare of her and her siblings so that seventeen years hence, they will have the ability to raise their children in a world that is safer, or at least not more dangerous and radioactive. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_World_Trade_Center_bombing http://www.amny.com/urbanite-1.812039/february-26-1993-1.819530 http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/26/newsid_2516000/2516469.stm

The Right Place at the Wrong Time

One of the hardest things about making aliyah from the US in an era when, and from a place where, Jewish life thrives and where it is not threatened, if not the hardest thing, is leaving behind friends and loved ones. Of course, as hard as it is, we also live in an era where technology enables families and friends to stay almost as close from 6000 miles away as if we were just down the street. Almost. I am always mindful of how much easier it is for us today in this regard as compared to others who made aliyah in previous generations. Like my grandparents, who made aliyah in the 1930s, not only not having regular let alone internet phones or Skype, not having e-mail with which to be in contact daily, and no airlines with frequent flyer programs and credit cards to accrue points toward free tickets, and literally not knowing when, or if, they would ever see their loved ones again. Knowing that missing friends and loved ones is expected makes us prepared, but does not make it any easier. Things that we'd have taken for granted by being able to spend time together, planned or impulsively, are now a distant but fond memory. Conversely, the infrequent opportunities to visit and celebrate milestones with friends and loved ones are occasions which we relish, and which we cannot take for granted. As much as a challenge as it is to move a family of eight anywhere at once, traveling internationally as a family is a virtual non-occurrence. Yet when given the opportunity to celebrate two family bat mitzvahs three months apart, it is a challenge for which we rise to the occasion. Planning and anticipating these trips are full of excitement equal to the resources needed to make them happen, as infrequent as this may be. In addition to missing most of the celebrations, we also miss opportunities to share the grief, or comfort a loss, with friends and loved ones, both because of distance as well as that these are never planned. The most recent trip that was planned months in advance for a joyous celebration turned into a case of our being at the right place at the wrong time, combining the joy of dancing at a family simcha with shedding tears at the funerals of two parents of two loved ones. As much as we looked forward to the celebration which was the purpose of the trip, we were glad to be able to be in the right place at the wrong time to mourn as well. A phone call to a mourner does provide comfort and, measured by the final episode of Seinfeld when discussing phone call etiquette, may be considered particularly meaningful to be sure to go out of the way to express condolences from 6000 miles, even by phone. But reaching out and touching someone by phone is not the same as reaching out and embracing them in person. For good or for bad, this is not the first case of our being in the right place at the wrong time. A trip in 2006 that was meant to be for another celebration, ironically of the granddaughter of one of the men whose funerals which we attended, ended up falling at the end of the 30 days of mourning following the death of my wife's mother. That same trip also saw my wife and our oldest and youngest children visiting with my mother, the day before she was hospitalized for what would be the last time, and I received the call to come at once because it was not expected that she'd be alive by the time my trans-Atlantic flight landed. Sometimes, being in the right place at the wrong time is in fact perfect timing. When my grandparents made aliyah, if there was news to share with, or from, those in the old country, the only means of doing so was by a letter. When my father was born, there was not only no realistic expectation of him meeting any of his relatives in Poland in any reasonable amount of time in the foreseeable future, but news of his birth likely took months to be transmitted. Just as news of the natural deaths of his cousins, uncles and aunts came as a shock albeit long after the fact, and long before the Nazis left nobody with whom to communicate. It’s unlikely to be likely that we'll be able to dance at and celebrate all the special occasions in person. Yet we'll look forward to relishing these, even from a distance. Whether we're there or not, mindful that the other side of the equation can come at any moment, it’s extra meaningful to be able to do so in person when possible. And if death and mourning are inevitable as they are anyway, it’s all the more meaningful to be able shed tears of sorrow, even if all that was planned was tears of joy. But sometimes the wrong time is just the wrong time. As I was packing our luggage into the snow covered car to take the family back to the airport for the flight home this week, my cell phone rang. “Steve died.” My good friend, colleague and mentor succumbed to a heart attack like the one that he survived several years ago, and on the anniversary of which I would always call or e-mail, a happy one indeed. But with a flight home in just a few hours, his was not a funeral which I would make. I won't get to mourn with or comfort Steve's family in person as I did with my sister in law on the loss of her mother, or our former neighbor on the loss of her father. But we did get to celebrate our niece's bat mitzvah, and look forward to the next one in a few months, and just hope that there are more happy milestones than sad ones, even if we miss them all. May Carol's, Jacob's and Steve's families all be comforted among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem, may their memories be for a blessing, and may they (and we) all have many more occasions to celebrate than mourn.

Water Under the Bridge

In 1817, Benjamin Franklin famously uttered the phrase, “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes." Had Franklin lived in Israel today, he might have added two certainties: water shortages and Syrian belligerency. Indeed, recent reports about both affirm this including the most recent saber rattling from Damascus, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1147473.html Israel’s water crisis is well known and something that weighs on the mind of Israelis across the spectrum. Water is about politics, religion, the environment, economy, agriculture, and impacts all sectors of Israeli society. It’s interesting to live in a place where Biblical traditions play out on a day to day basis with fervent prayers for rain in its season to fill our aquifers and provide abundance, and the reliance on the rain to sustain our lives. In an arid and largely desert land, while agriculture continues to be relevant, the simple fact of Israel’s population nearly doubling in the past two decades, coupled by many years of less than average rain leading Israel to one of its’ most severe droughts, water use and conservation play a role in every facet of our lives, from the price of produce to the length of our showers. In the past, Israel has dealt with the water situation in many new and innovative ways. Israel leads the world in reclaiming and recycling of grey and brackish water. Israel has given the world drip irrigation which brings just the amount of water a plant needs to thrive right to its roots. Israel has built and continues to build desalination plants which provide a growing amount of potable water, and Israel regularly practices cloud seeding to precipitate maximum precipitation. Israel has also proposed but not implemented vast international projects to supply water. Some have been shelved for political, diplomatic, and economic reasons, as well as what sometimes appears to be ineptitude. As much as Israel has built and continues to build desalination plants, wide criticism exists in our not having done this sooner, faster and to a greater extent. Plans have existed for decades to build a canal from the Mediterranean (and since formalizing peace with Jordan now the Red) Sea. This would serve four important purposes of 1. Providing a source for generating energy, 2. Desalinating water for use, 3. Creating tourism and industry along the way, and 4. Replenishing the Dead Sea which is rapidly drying out. Even Theodor Herzl envisioned this in his 1902 “Altneuland.” In better times, Israel even proposed importing water from Turkey, by pipeline or by tanker ships. But the water situation in Israel is deeply tied to politics and peace with our neighbors. As noted in a recent article (http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=167544), the 1994 peace treaty with Jordan obliges Israel to provide tens of millions of cubic meters of water to Jordan each year. Leading up to the 1967 Six Day War, Syria attempted to divert water from tributaries of the Yarmuk and Jordan Rivers which Israel considered belligerent, and to which it responded accordingly. Controlling and use of water resources in the Middle East is something that can both be part of the terms of establishing peace, and can be the trigger for a full fledged war. In this context, I was interested to read an article about how years of drought have impacted Syria, http://www.greenprophet.com/2009/11/08/13399/syria-drought. Since my first visit to Israel as a teen, I have been aware of the lack of water and how water has been a source of potential regional conflict. It was interesting to read that Syria, a much less developed and much more agrarian society with virtually no natural resources, was suffering as a result of years of drought. It made sense to me how over the past few years Israel has facilitated Druze farmers on the Golan Heights, who have had surpluses of their famous Golan apples partly by benefitting from using Israeli irrigation technologies, to export their apples to Syria. As if two streams coming together to form a river, in my mind, a number of issues flowed together to yield a possible source for conflict resolution, if not peace itself. At a minimum, there is a possibility to rehydrate the region if not bring peace. While there’s no sign that peace with Syria is in the offing, it is clear that if it were ever to come, one of the issues that will have to be resolved is water rights, especially because Israel’s peace treaty with Jordan requires it to provide vast quantities of water to the desert kingdom. Similarly, while in the past year, once very warm Israeli-Turkish relations have become more strained as if in a drought. At the same time, Syrian-Turkish relations which had been mired in conflict in the past, some of which as a result of water problems between them, have seen a new wave. In the past, Syria has long complained of Turkish plans to build a string of dams cross the Euphrates, depriving it of water on which its agriculture so heavily depends. So as the tide seems to have changed, perhaps a new way of thinking is in order. Maybe Turkey holds the key. Maybe a rapprochement between Turkey and Syria can be catalyst for the former to provide relief for a parched Syria. Maybe Turkey, long desiring to serve as an intermediary between Israel and Syria in making peace, can provide water guarantees that provide not just Syria, but Israel and Jordan as well, with an ample flow along the natural network of rivers that feed one another, oblivious to national borders and regional conflicts. Rather than being a thorn in the side of one another’s mutual distrust, perhaps Turkey can be the leverage for the resolution of a problem that will not go away on its own. An Israeli public burned over and over the past year by growing Turkish intransigence can be reassured that maybe Turkey’s interests are not as wildly anti-Israel as an objective observer might believe. Syria’s active participation in rehydrating the region would restore its centrality in the region as a player, not a pariah. Seeing water flow over the border between Israel and Syria would go a long way to repair decades of hate, rhetoric and threats which is all Israel has ever seen from its northern neighbor. This flow of water could energize life for Israel, Syria, Jordan and even the Palestinians, literally and figuratively, and lay a foundation for peace in its wake. There’s been more than enough hostility, and that’s been like swimming against the tide. Perhaps it’s time to let history be seen as water under the bridge and let water, the source for life, be part of the solution, not an ongoing part of the problem that yields conflict and death.