Categories
International Relations Israel Media Politics

Fidel Tells Ahmadinejad to Stop Slandering the Jews

A few years ago, it looked like Fidel Castro was going to make his grand exit from the land of the living. Instead, early this summer he emerged from his medically induced hiatus. Since his return, Castro has apparently been reading The Atlantic because he contacted Jeffrey Goldberg, a reporter at the magazine recently.

While Goldberg was on vacation a couple weeks ago, the head of the Cuban Interest Section in Washington (what would be the Cuban embassy if we had diplomatic relations with Cuba) called Goldberg’s cellphone with a message from Fidel Castro. He invited him to Havana to discuss Goldberg’s article on Iran and Israel.

Fidel told Goldberg that his article in The Atlantic confirmed “his view that Israel and America were moving precipitously and gratuitously toward confrontation with Iran.” Fidel “criticized Ahmadinejad for denying the Holocaust and explained why the Iranian government would better serve the cause of peace by acknowledging the ‘unique’ history of anti-Semitism and trying to understand why Israelis fear for their existence.”

Goldberg’s reflections on his face-to-face meeting with Castro is fascinating. Perhaps, if he’s feeling up to it, Castro should be brokering peace between the Palestinians and Israelis.

(c) Rabbi Jason Miller | http://blog.rabbijason.com | Twitter: @RabbiJason | facebook.com/rabbijasonmiller
Categories
Antisemitism Israel Media Middle East Politics

Time Not on Israel’s Side

As I prepare for the High Holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, like most rabbis I feel like time is not on my side. For Israel, however, as the Jewish nation engages in the latest round of a potential peace treaty with the Palestinians, Time is certainly not on her side — Time Magazine that is.

This week’s issue of Time Magazine has the bold headline proclaiming “Why Israel Doesn’t Care About Peace.” I’ve only read the online version of the article thus far (the online version is an abridged version of the cover story appearing in the September 13, 2010 issue). Overall, it seems that the article itself is fair to some extent, but let’s face it — most Americans are only going to see the cover. They’ll see the cover telling them that Israel doesn’t care about peace when they’re at the grocery store, pharmacy, library, bookstore, and airport. Most people won’t pick up the magazine to even read the thesis of the article.

Rabbi Daniel Gordis attacked Time Magazine’s choice of cover art in his Commentary Magazine editorial. Gordis writes that “The Web version of the story hardly even qualifies as journalism. It’s nothing more than a few sentences strung together, interspersed with links to a series of photographs. The printed version, at least, has a thesis, and it’s not a bad one. Its claim is that Israelis don’t discuss the peace process much (true), that they have low expectations (true), and that they don’t care (also true). And why do Israelis not care?”

The problem with the article as Gordis explains is that Time Magazine’s answer for why Israelis have despaired of peace is because they are more interested in money. Now, if that’s not a classic anti-semitic argument, I don’t know what is.

Unfortunately, those who read the article in Time will simply figure that Israelis don’t care about peace because they’re more concerned with their hi-tech companies, 401K’s, and real estate investments. They won’t know that the current peace negotiations were the Israeli prime minister’s idea and that the president of the Palestinian Authority had to be dragged to the bargaining table. They won’t read the thoughtful responses to the Time Magazine cover story by Danny Gordis or Bret Stevens in the Wall Street Journal. They won’t remember Israel’s successful peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan. Instead, they’ll see photos throughout the cover story of Israelis on a Tel Aviv beach smoking a hookah and silly quotes from real estate agents about how Israelis continue to buy homes despite the missiles falling.

I guess if Time’s going to resort to age old anti-Semitism against Israel, then the only way to “beat back Time” is to go satirical. I’ll leave that job to “The Onion,” which gets the best jab against Time Magazine with its fake news story about Time creating a new magazine for adult readers. Here’s the video:


TIME Announces New Version Of Magazine Aimed At Adults

(c) Rabbi Jason Miller | http://blog.rabbijason.com | Twitter: @RabbiJason | facebook.com/rabbijasonmiller
Categories
Conservative Judaism Israel Orthodox Judaism Politics

Kotel: You’re Looking at the Man in the Mirror

For me, there is something mystical about approaching the Kotel — the Western Wall in Jerusalem. While this remnant wasn’t even one of the walls of the Temple (it was a surrounding wall), I recognize how full those stones are with the history of the Jewish people.

However, for many Jews today approaching the Kotel and praying there is like, well, sort of like talking to a wall. The area has become so enmeshed in political turmoil that there are discussions among some colleagues of mine to simply omit the Kotel on tours of Jerusalem. While the Southern Wall has been excavated and turned into a beautiful plaza (thanks to the late Bill Davidson, the Detroit philanthropist) where the progressive movements of Judaism are entitled to hold prayer services, it still lacks the prominence of the Kotel itself.

It was just announced that a “solution” has been proposed and accepted to respond to the complaint by women worshipers at the Kotel that they are unable to look over into the men’s section. Ynetnews.com reports, “The Western Wall Heritage Foundation management has decided to replace the existing partition in the Western Wall plaza, which separates the women and men’s praying sections, because it does not allow the women worshipers to easily look over to the men’s section. The foundation received many requests by women who frequent the Wall, claiming that during special celebrations held at the Kotel, such as bar mitzvahs, they are finding it difficult to watch the events through the partition.”

One proposed solution was to use one-way mirrors along the partition so the women could see into the men’s section, but not the other way around. This idea was nixed when the rabbis at the Western Wall Heritage Foundation discovered that one-way mirrors lose their effectiveness when they are exposed to the sun, and become visible from both sides.

Perhaps we should recall what Professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz, the Orthodox scientist and philosopher, wrote about the Kotel. In a scathing letter to Ha’aretz regarding the Western Wall becoming an act of idolotry with people praying to stones and pushing notes through the cracks, Leibowitz wrote: “Here is my proposal. The square in front of the Kotel should be revamped as the largest discotheque in the State of Israel, named the Divine Disco. This will satisfy everybody.” Ha’aretz printed his letter under the title “DisKotel” (From Tom Segev’s book 1967).

(c) Rabbi Jason Miller | http://blog.rabbijason.com | Twitter: @RabbiJason | facebook.com/rabbijasonmiller
Categories
American Jews Basketball Celebrities Interfaith Israel Jewish Sports

Amar’e Stoudemire Thinks He’s Jewish… So Is He?

The wedding of the century, starring Chelsea Clinton and Marc Mezvinsky last Saturday evening, has raised several significant issues for the American Jewish community. Should interfaith weddings with all the Jewish components (chuppah, ketubah, glass smashing, rabbi, and even the unnecessary tallit on the groom) be embraced or rejected? What message is sent when a rabbi co-officiates with a Christian minister? Should rabbis of any denomination perform weddings on Shabbat?

But the question I have yet to hear has to do with Chelsea Clinton. After seeing the groom in a tallit and yarmulke, no one was questioning if he might leave his Judaism behind in this new marriage as Andrew Schiff (great-grandson of the philanthropist Jacob Schiff) did when he married Al and Tipper Gore’s daughter Karenna in 1997. Before the wedding there was some talk on the Web about whether Chelsea might choose to convert to Judaism (which didn’t happen), but never a of Marc Mezvinsky converting to Christianity. So, the question is: What if Chelsea now proclaims herself a Jewish woman without any formal conversion?

There are people out there (the number is probably growing) who were not born into the Jewish faith and have not formally converted, but do consider themselves Jewish. Now, I know that halakhically (according to Jewish law), these individuals are not Jewish, but they can attend just about any synagogue in the world without their status as a “member of the tribe” being questioned. And even if it is questioned, a thorough background check is unlikely. I don’t actually know if Chelsea will proclaim herself a Jew, but it would certainly make for interesting conversation.

And that brings us back to NBA basketball star Amar’e Stoudemire. The newly signed member of the New York Knicks is still traveling through Israel in search of his Jewish roots. So, is he or isn’t he?

As I reported last week, Amar’e was tweeting that he is enjoying Israel and learning Hebrew. When reports surfaced that he was trying to find out if he was actually Jewish, his agent Happy Walters clarified:

He’s not Jewish, it’s all getting blown a little bit out of proportion. His mother says there’s some Jewish blood on her side, but Amar’e is just a total student of history and had been planning a trip to Israel for awhile. Is it possible [that he’s Jewish]? Maybe. We’re going to do some research, but I don’t know where that will go.

But that didn’t end the buzz. Articles in the NY Times and Wall Street Journal both reported on his travels from Jerusalem to the Dead Sea and Eilat and then to Tel Aviv. Early Monday morning, Amar’e had a private shooting session with his personal coach at Nokia Arena with Maccabi Tel Aviv’s chairman of the board Shimon Mizrahi and team manager Gur Shelef observing his skills. Later that day, he met with former player Tal Brody and Mizrahi who invited him to return to Israel to play for Maccabi after his NBA career ends.

Joshua Mitnick writes in the WSJ article: “Sitting poolside at the five-star InterContinental David hotel Monday amid an oppressive Middle Eastern heat wave, the NBA power forward’s head was covered with a knitted white yarmulke, and his words were punctuated with Hebrew. The Jewish skullcap — most often associated with Orthodox Jews when worn outside a synagogue — is “to pay homage to God, Eloheem,” he said. “It’s like praying all day and showing your respect to the creator.”

After reading that I recalled a conversation I had with Amar’e back in 2003 (his rookie year with the Phoenix Suns) when I met him and teammate Joe Johnson at a moped rental location in Miami Beach. My dad and I wound up riding mopeds around South Beach with Stoudemire, Johnson and their friend. Amar’e asked what I did and I replied that I was a student training to become a rabbi. He told me that he’s studied the Torah and that he knew a few Hebrew words. He didn’t mention that he thought he was Jewish, but he showed me a Star of David tattoo that he had on his hand.

Perhaps the most insightful view into Stoudemire’s motivation for coming to Israel and whether he considers himself Jewish is the face-to-face interview conducted by an Israel Sports 5 reporter following Amare’s workout. Wearing a kippah, Stoudemire talks openly about his spirituality and how he’ll observe Jewish customs in the future including celebrating Shabbat, fasting on Yom Kippur, and keeping Passover.

The key point is that Stoudemire explains that Judaism to him is more about belief than actually being Jewish. He talks about his upbringing, love of Scripture study, and his visit to the Kotel (Western Wall) in Jerusalem.

So, if Amar’e Stoudemire considers himself Jewish, will he be embraced by a segment of the Jewish community that doesn’t care much of the technicality that he’s not actually Jewish? Does it matter?

Here’s the full video of Amar’e Stoudemire’s interview in Tel Aviv after working out his hotel gym:

(c) Rabbi Jason Miller | http://blog.rabbijason.com | Twitter: @RabbiJason | facebook.com/rabbijasonmiller
Categories
Celebrities Israel Jewish Jewish Law Life-Cycle Events Weddings

Israel, We Have a Problem

In the summer of 1998 I was a madrich (Hebrew for counselor) on the Michigan Teen Mission to Israel. This was the second teen Israel trip coordinated by the Metropolitan Detroit’s Jewish Federation. I helped lead a bus of Conservative Jewish teens from Congregation Shaarey Zedek and we traveled through Israel with a bus of teens from Adat Shalom Synagogue — another Detroit’s Conservative congregation.

One teen on the Adat Shalom bus was Hillary Rubin. I had been friends with her older sister Kim in high school and quickly recognized Hillary as Kim’s sister. I remember talking with Hillary at a Bedouin village in the Negev and immediately realizing that she was infatuated with Israel more than the other Jewish teens on the “mission.” So, it was no surprise when I learned a couple years ago via Facebook that Hillary made aliyah (immigration to Israel).

This morning I awoke to Hillary’s picture in a front page article on Haaretz.com — the Israeli newspaper’s online edition. Turns out she has gotten a first-hand experience of what many Israelis go through when they want to get married in an official Jewish ceremony in the Jewish state.

I know of many Israelis who board planes to nearby Cyprus to tie the knot so they don’t have to deal with the Israeli chief rabbinates (there are two: one Ashkenazi and one Sephardi). The Haaretz article explains that Hillary is, ironic enough, the great-niece of a prominent Zionist leader with a street in Israel named for him. Today, she and her husband, Craig Glaser, are finding it impossible to register for a Jewish wedding in the JEWISH state.

Letters from four Conservative rabbis and a Chabad rabbi are not sufficient to prove Hillary’s Jewishness. The daughter of divorced parents whose divorce was officiated by Conservative rabbis has probably complicated the situation. Her mother remarrying a Catholic man won’t help matters. But the ultimate insult is the Herzliya rabbinate’s demand that she provide ketubahs (wedding contracts) from her grandparents whose ketubahs were curiously not returned to them after they fled the Nazis during the Holocaust. Other relatives of her’s were gassed at Auschwitz so the death certificates never existed.

I can’t imagine this is what Theodor Herzl had in mind when he envisioned a Jewish nation. The great niece of Nahum Sokolow who lives in Herzliya (named for Herzl) cannot get married in Israel. This is a travesty. It seems that there is no longer one Judaism. The Judaism of the chief rabbinate(s) in Israel is just not my religion. They have corrupted it out of recognition.

So, in a week when all eyes in the Jewish community are on the high profile intermarriage of Hillary Clinton’s daughter Chelsea who is marrying the Jewish Mark Mezvinsky, I would recommend that Jews throughout the world turn their attention to this Hillary. She might not have the Secretary of State for a mom or a past U.S. president for a dad, but she’s become an example of everything wrong with the way Israel is handling religious matters. Something’s got to change.

(c) Rabbi Jason Miller | http://blog.rabbijason.com | Twitter: @RabbiJason | facebook.com/rabbijasonmiller
Categories
Conservative Judaism Israel Jewish Law Orthodox Judaism Reform Judaism Torah Women

Woman Arrested for Illegal Use of Torah

I work as the rabbi at a Jewish summer camp. We have eighty campers from Israel join us each summer. Many of these young campers, like most Israelis, are not familiar with liberal, alternative forms of religious expression in Judaism. In Israel, Judaism is black and white. You either do it or you don’t – secular or religious. Even the Israeli youth at camp who have heard of the Conservative and Reform movements still don’t really understand what it means to be a Conservative or Reform Jew.

This morning, a 12-year-old Israeli boy approached me and asked, “You’re not an Orthodox rabbi, right?” No, I responded wearing my cargo shorts, t-shirt, and shortly cropped hair with a knitted kippah. I told him that I’m a Conservative rabbi. He said that’s what he figured but he wasn’t sure. He then said something that caught me off guard. In Hebrew he asked, “That sefer Torah (Torah scroll) that you read from on Shabbat morning at services here at camp isn’t kosher, is it?”

I explained that the Torah is most certainly kosher, but I understood immediately where his doubt came from. I told him that our camp actually owns two kosher Torah scrolls and that this particular one we’ve been using this summer was on loan from a local synagogue. Based on the Judaism that he sees in his native Israel, he found it difficult to believe that a non-Orthodox rabbi could possess a valid Torah scroll.

In Israel today, the ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) establishment is calling the shots when it comes to religious law. Israelis like to boast that their country is the only true democracy in the Middle East, but when it comes to matters of religion, Israel is beginning to look more like one of those backward, primitive religious states in the Islamic world at which we roll our eyes.

Each month, on Rosh Chodesh (the beginning of the Jewish month), the Women of the Wall gather in Jerusalem for a women-only prayer service. These prayer meetings have been turned into a media circus ever since Nofrat Frankel was arrested for wearing a tallit (prayer shawl) a few months ago. Yesterday, Women of the Wall leader Rabbi Anat Hoffman was arrested for carrying a Torah scroll from the Western Wall women’s section to the Southern Wall area where the Chief Rabbinate and the police both agreed that women could read from the Torah.

My colleague, Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg, was part of this group and witnessed Anat’s arrest. She detailed the incident in a jewschool post. She writes:

We finished Hallel and began to proceed, according to the terms of the Israeli High Court (Bag”tz) decision, to Robinson’s Arch to read Torah, with the intent to preserve the continuity of the service by escorting the Torah in song. Now, it should be noted here that WoW has had a hard time lately getting the Sefer Torah into the Kotel area, even though Bag”tz permitted it in its ruling. I won’t reveal how they got it in this time around, but it took some maneuvering.

It is perfectly kosher, according to the Bag”tz ruling, to take the Sefer Torah out of its bag, as Anat did this morning, by the Kotel, to carry it to Robinson’s Arch. It is not permitted to read from the Torah in the women’s section, and we did not. We were singing and escorting the Torah, and things got more and more tense, with police trying to physically push Anat out of the women’s section and she (and those of us holding on to her) was trying to walk out, but at a more dignified pace. Eventually there was a skirmish involving the police trying to physically take the Torah out of her hands (we were now out of the women’s section and on our way over to Robinson’s Arch) and somewhere in all of that, they arrested her, and she was taken into custody (as was the Torah).

Many Conservative and Reform rabbis have written articles recently expressing the notion that the real enemy in Israel is us. Often the greatest threat is from within.

Just today, a law called the Rotem Bill is moving closer to final passage in the Knesset (Israel’s parliament). This law began as a proposal by the Yisrael Beitenu party to streamline conversion for Russian immigrants, but it has been twisted into an attack on non-Orthodox Jews. This bill will vest all authority for conversion in the hands of the Chief Rabbinate and guarantee that only a particular Orthodox approach to defining Judaism will become the guideline for determining who is recognized as a convert to Judaism. The Rotem Bill would overturn earlier protections for non-Orthodox converts and threaten the legitimacy of Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist and other converts to Judaism who wish to become citizens or be otherwise recognized by the state as Jewish.

I’m proud of my Jewish heritage and I feel blessed to be a rabbi. However, the notion that a woman can be arrested in Jerusalem, the capital of the Jewish homeland, for holding a Torah scroll is infuriating. I believe that it is healthy to have differing viewpoints and expressions of Judaism, but the ultra-Orthodox monopoly on religion in Israel must cease. The video footage (below) showing the police brutality toward the Women of the Wall is disgusting.

In a week on the ninth of Av, Jewish people around the world will fast for a full day in commemoration of the destruction of the temples that once stood in Jerusalem. Tradition teaches that the Temple fell in the year 70 CE on account of sinat chinam, the baseless hatred among Jews. The complete arrogance and disrespect shown by some Jewish people toward others in Israel demonstrates that 2,000 years later the lesson has yet to be learned.

(c) Rabbi Jason Miller | http://blog.rabbijason.com | Twitter: @RabbiJason | facebook.com/rabbijasonmiller
Categories
Celebrities Charity Israel Jewish Obituary Philanthropy

Leona Helmsley’s Gift to Disabled IDF Vets

When Leona Helmsley, the NYC hotel operator and real estate investor known as “The Queen of Mean,” died she was mostly talked about as a billionaire who donated a large portion of her fortune to her dog.

However, her Charitable Trust (The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust) has recently announced grants totaling more than $10.1 million to help fund three major projects in Israel, including one that has been very close to my heart since a trip to Israel in 2002.

In addition to multi-million dollar grants to the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center and the Weizmann Institute of Science, Helmsley’s trust also gave $2 million for the benefit of the Zahal Disabled Veterans Organization, which will help build a state-of-the-art center in Beersheva for rehabilitation and support services for disabled veterans and victims of terrorism. This grant also will help construct and equip the center in order to provide a supportive environment for rehabilitation and integration of disabled veterans and victims of terrorism in southern Israel. The center, whose total cost is $23.3 million, is scheduled to open in the fall of 2010.

My wife and I were vacationing at the Dead Sea in December 2002 when we met some new friends and became acquainted with Nechei Tzahal (Zahal Disabled Veterans Organization).

We met Yisrael Abayov, a successful architect from Tel Aviv, who shared his story of fighting for Israel in 1978 when he was hit with a bullet. It was a direct shot to his left temple leaving him disabled for the rest of his life. He was lucky to be alive. In addition to Yisrael, there were hundreds of men at our hotel who became severely disabled while fighting for Israel. Some, like Yisrael, can barely walk anymore, even with the aid of a cane or a walker. Others are amputees, missing an arm or a leg, and bound to a wheelchair for the rest of their lives. Others still, were not injured while on active duty, but rather suffered life-long disabilities from a terrorist explosion while waiting at a bus stop just trying to get back to the base after a weekend off. They were at the Dead Sea to find some temporary relief from their disabling pain through the therapeutic powers of the Dead Sea.

They come each year for two or three weeks, and most of the hotels are very accommodating to their needs, displaying a level of handicapped accessibility that is unmatched anywhere in the world. The Israeli Government pays for their much-deserved vacation, but if it is not taken by the end of the year, the opportunity is lost. Thus, many of them make their vacation to the Dead Sea at the end of every December; making the Dead Sea, in essence, the unofficial convention and reunion of Israel’s disabled veterans.

I spent an hour talking about politics and religion with a couple of veterans who were on the beach with their wives. One of these men, whose foot was blown off by a land mine in the Sinai Desert in 1956, explained that he and his wife had been coming to the Dead Sea for three decades and it is the only time he feels any relief from his injuries. When I remarked to the other veteran how nice it is that the Israeli government provides them with a complimentary vacation for a couple of weeks, he looked me in the eyes, put his hand on my shoulder, and said, “Trust me, we paid for it.”

I’m glad that in death, Leona Helmsley (born Lena Mindy Rosenthal) has been able to improve on her reputation. The woman who served a prison term, famously said that only the little people should pay taxes, and left the bulk of her $4 billion estate to her Maltese, has posthumously become philanthropic to some very important causes.

(c) Rabbi Jason Miller | http://blog.rabbijason.com | Twitter: @RabbiJason | facebook.com/rabbijasonmiller
Categories
Apple Israel Judaism and Technology Politics Web World Events

Even the Weather in Jerusalem Has Become Political

Cross-posted to Jewish Techs

The LA Times Babylon & Beyond blog reported on Sunday that Apple has reunified Jerusalem.

Has Steve Jobs become a United Nations peacekeeper? Did Apple release a new app that unites the holy city of Jerusalem during these tense times? Maybe you thought Jerusalem had already been reunified several decades ago.

Well, it turns out that even the weather in Jerusalem has been politicized. Yahoo, who runs the Apple iPhone Weather app with information gathered by Weather.com changed created two choices for viewing the weather in Jerusalem – East Jerusalem and West Jerusalem. This is different than the designations on Yahoo’s own site and on the Weather.com site.

Edmund Sanders reports from Jerusalem for the LA Times:

Right-leaning Israeli politicians like to refer to Jerusalem as their “undivided capital.” But iPhone users here and around the world found recently that the storied, disputed city had been split in two.

In the smart phone’s weather application, the listing for “Jerusalem” disappeared earlier this month and was replaced by “West Jerusalem” and “East Jerusalem.”

Both Israelis, who dominate the west part of the city, and Palestinians, the majority in the east, claim Jerusalem as their capital. Israel annexed East Jerusalem after the 1967 Middle East War, though Palestinians (and most of the international community) never accepted it.

The debate over how, or whether, to divide Jerusalem is still one of the thorniest issues in Mideast peace talks.

Perhaps frustrated with the lack of progress in the peace process, iPhone engineers apparently decided to impose their own mini-version of a two-state solution by partitioning the city and, in essence, forcing users to pick sides.

A similar change took place on Yahoo’s weather site, which gave users the option of checking the temperature in “Jerusalem, West Bank, Palestine” or “Jerusalem, Israel.”

Reaction was mixed. A few Israelis and Palestinians got a kick out of the option, even though temperature information and other data were identical for East and West Jerusalem.

But many Israelis, here and in the U.S., took deep offense and accused Apple, the company that makes the iPhone, of “political propaganda.”

One Jewish advocacy group, American Israeli Action Coalition, called the changes “extremely hurtful to the American Israeli community” and said they “smack of anti-Semitism.” Israel’s U.S. ambassador reportedly sent a letter of protest to Apple chief Steve Jobs and Yahoo chief Carol Bartz.

Well, it turns out that both Apple and Yahoo reversed their political decision and reunified Jerusalem.

The following statement was released: “The issue for the iPhone Weather app has been fully resolved. The fix was pushed to all production servers and verified…. This resolves both the issue with the default weather location Jerusalem as well as searches for “Jerusalem”, “East Jerusalem” and “West Jerusalem”. One note: Users who have already added the locations “West Jerusalem” or “East Jerusalem” on the Weather app will continue to see these names on the client until they remove these locations and add Jerusalem again.”

(c) Rabbi Jason Miller | http://blog.rabbijason.com | Twitter: @RabbiJason | facebook.com/rabbijasonmiller
Categories
American Jews Conservative Judaism Israel Orthodox Judaism Pluralism Politics Reform Judaism Religion World Events

Rahm Emanuel’s Son’s Bar Mitzvah & Religious Pluralism in Israel

As I was preparing to board a plane home at Israel’s Ben Gurion International Airport a few weeks ago, I followed the news reports that Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel’s son’s bar mitzvah would be moved outside of Jerusalem for security concerns. Rahm Emanuel and his Hollywood agent brother, Ari Emanuel, brought their families to Israel on vacation and for their respective son’s Jewish rite of passage. Apparently, protesters were heckling the Emanuel family’s delegation as they toured Jerusalem’s Old City because of the Obama Administration’s purported views on Middle East affairs.

Ultimately, Zach Emanuel’s bar mitzvah went ahead as planned at Robinson’s Arch, the archaeological site along the remaining Southern Wall of the Temple at which Conservative and Reform rabbis are allowed to officiate at bar and bat mitzvahs. The two cousins had their b’nai mitzvah on a Sunday, perhaps to confuse paparazzi, and it was officiated by each family’s rabbi –Rabbi Jack Moline, of Rahm Emanuel’s synagogue (Congregation Agudas Achim in Alexandria, Virginia) and Rabbi Kenneth Chasen, of the Reform Leo Baeck Temple in Los Angeles where Ari Emanuel’s family belongs.

Having recently spent the early dawn hours of Shavuot at Robinson’s Arch, known as the “Masorti Kotel” since the Masorti/Conservative Jews can pray there freely, I was thrilled to read the op-ed in the Jerusalem Post by Masorti Movement CEO Yizhar Hess about the Emanuel boys’ b’nai mitzvah and the lack of religious pluralism in Israel, especially at the Western Wall (Kotel).

Hess took the opportunity of this newsworthy double bar mitzvah to focus on the Ultra-Orthodox control of the Western Wall, including the plaza. He writes:

The [Emanuel] family stood together, prayed together. There was no mehitza [separation between the sexes]. Some women donned a tallit [prayer shawl]. There was an abundance of Judaism, an abundance of Zionism and an abundance of love.

It is sad that one cannot pray in the same way at the main Western Wall Plaza. For a decade now, the Masorti Movement has been facilitating prayers at the Masorti Kotel. This is a forced arrangement. The majority of the world’s Jews pray without a mehitza, but when they come to Jerusalem, to the most symbolic site for Jewish prayer, they are forbidden from praying together. The Kotel, whose holiness has enthused Jews from all over the world, has been transformed into a haredi synagogue.

The Masorti Movement has never relinquished its right to pray at the Kotel, but has agreed, in compromise and with great pain, to hold its prayers at the [Davidson] archeological park.

With all of Israel’s international struggles right now, one would hope that it would strive to solve this matter of domestic disharmony. Here’s hoping that when Rahm Emanuel returns to Jerusalem for his daughter’s bat mitzvah, the family will be allowed to mark this rite of passage at any part of the Kotel they choose — and be free from protesters and paparazzi.

(c) Rabbi Jason Miller | http://blog.rabbijason.com | Twitter: @RabbiJason | facebook.com/rabbijasonmiller
Categories
History Israel Media News Photography Technology

Fauxtographing the News: From Herzl to the Flotilla

Cross-posted at Jewish Techs

Photoshop might not have been around a century ago, but the altering of images to change history has been around for a very long time.

A couple weeks ago I ventured into the basement floor of the Steimatzky’s flagship bookstore in the Mamilla Mall in Jerusalem. The three-story store is located in the building that once belonged to the Stern family, who hosted Theodor Herzl on his one and only visit to Jerusalem and the basement is now a mini museum devoted to the founder of modern Zionism.

Looking at several photographs of Herzl with famous leaders in Jerusalem, my attention was directed to what looked like a Photoshopped photo from over 100 years ago. In the next display case, hung a series of photos that remind us that we can’t always trust photographs.

Here’s the story: On the morning of October 28, 1898 outside of the agricultural school at Mikve Israel, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, astride a white stallion and wearing a gold helmet, stopped for a moment on his way to Jerusalem. By the roadside stood Theodor Herzl, who considered the Kaiser’s recognition crucial for international approval of his plan to resettle the Jews in the land of Israel.

The original photograph of Herzl and the Kaiser was not acceptable as only Herzl’s left foot could be seen in the photo. Herzl, aware of the importance of the photo, ordered its reconstruction. A photo of Herzl was taken on the roof of the school and superimposed onto the photo after seating Kaiser Wilhelm II on the dark horse (instead of the original white stallion).

There are many examples of such photo manipulation. Time magazine’s website lists its choices for the Top Ten Doctored Photos and warns that “photographers have been manipulating imagery since the medium was invented”.

Doctored photos have been in the news lately following the Reuters scandal concerning its manipulation of photos from aboard the Mavi Marmara, one of the ships in the flotilla that tried to break the Israeli/Egyptian Gaza blockade last week.

Reuters is claiming that doctored photos that it published, which fail to show individuals aboard the Mavi Marmara holding weapons are the result of an “editing error.” According to the Israel Matzav blog, the agency has said the absence of the activists holding knives in the pictures it originally published to its wire was an editing error.

In a statement given to Journalism.co.uk they said, “Reuters is committed to accurate and impartial reporting. All images that pass over our wire follow a strict editorial evaluation and selection process. The images in question were made available in Istanbul, and following normal editorial practice were prepared for dissemination which included cropping at the edges.”

The uncropped images have now been reinstated as part of the agency’s package of images from the aid ship attack.

The moral of the story is that while a photo may tell a thousand words, you might want to take those words with a grain of salt.

(c) Rabbi Jason Miller | http://blog.rabbijason.com | Twitter: @RabbiJason | facebook.com/rabbijasonmiller