Category: Politics

Tweeting the Flotilla Attack

Post author By Rabbi Jason Miller
Post date May 31, 2010

Cross-posted at Jewish Techs

Peter Beinart’s essay “The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment” in The New York Review of Books argues that most of the mainstream American Jewish organizations have abandoned liberalism on the issues of the Middle East and are responsible for a generation of young Jews who hold no connection to Israel. He writes, “not only does the organized American Jewish community mostly avoid public criticism of the Israeli government, it tries to prevent others from leveling such criticism as well. In recent years, American Jewish organizations have waged a campaign to discredit the world’s most respected international human rights groups.”

Beinhart’s essay has of course drawn much criticism and debate within the American Jewish world, both from the right and the left.

Perhaps the best way to see the divide in the American Jewish community over Israel is to look at the dissemination of information and the debate on the Web today following the IDF raid of the Mavi Marmara and other ships in a flotilla traveling to Gaza.

Here’s what happened today: American Jews woke up this morning — a vacation day from work and school in commemoration of Memorial Day in the U.S. — to learn that Israeli commandos raided a Gaza aid flotilla, killing nine and injuring dozens of others. Since American Jews didn’t head to work this morning, there was no water cooler at which to debate the issues. Did the Israelis act in self-defense? Who struck first? Was the flotilla carrying humanitarian aid workers or political demonstrators? Did the men on the flotilla have guns and knives or was it a peaceful transport to Gaza? Were the IDF soldiers stabbed and beaten when they boarded the ship? Did the crew of the Gaza flotilla try to lynch the Israeli soldiers?

So, with no water cooler by which to stand, no office coffee to share, and no bus on which to commute, American Jews took the debate to Twitter. On the social media site users tweeted their latest discoveries from their choice online news networks. With links from Fox news, the Jerusalem Post, the New York Times, etc., Twitter users included hashtags featuring the newly popular term “flotilla” — from the Spanish, meaning a small fleet of ships — and voiced their opinion on the controversial event. Some pro-Israel tweets included the hashtag #freedomflotilla with the word “not” included parenthetically.

Some users of the microblogging service complained that Twitter apparently censored the #flotilla hashtag in discussions about the convoy deaths. Charles Arthur at the Guardian explained that Twitter didn’t censor the #flotilla hashtag. Rather, as #flotilla began trending, users started using the #freedomflotilla hashtag in its place. Also, as Mike Butcher at Techcrunch points out: “This surely was a case of anti-spam filtering [as] there had already been a “flotilla” story in the past week – the anniversary of Dunkirk (for non-Britons: a dramatic rescue during the second world war of British and French troops from the Dunkirk beaches by small craft). And Gaza is frequently topical. So Twitter’s anti-spam algorithms – that is, the machines – likely decided that this was a spam attack trying to piggyback on old hashtags, and pushed the “#flotilla” hashtag out of the trending topics.

In addition to Twitter, YouTube also figured as a prominent player in today’s Flotilla debates. Tweets sent readers to the YouTube site to view videos from both sides of the attack — there was footage taken by the Israel Defense Forces of the Mavi Marmara Passengers Attacking IDF Soldiers as well as video footage from Al Jazeera of Israeli troops storming the Gaza flotilla after the white flag was raised.

On this lazy Memorial Day Monday morning in the U.S., Americans had no where else to go other than the Web with their views on the situation in the Middle East. Perhaps this virtual debate over the flotilla attack is the best litmus test for Beinhart’s assertion of how American Jews connect (or don’t) with Israel.

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Glenn Beck Vs. Social Justice

Post author By Rabbi Jason Miller
Post date May 28, 2010

Reform Judaism might have been the first Jewish movement to embrace social justice in the 20th century, but the first decade of our current century has seen a vast increase in the importance of Tikkun Olam in the global Jewish community. There are few Jewish congregations in North America that have yet to embrace a coordinated social action initiative.

While there may be some rabbis who would prioritize the adherence to Jewish law, prayer, ritual, study, and worship above social justice work, there are not many rabbis who have the chutzpah to actually criticize synagogues or individuals for participating in such noble endeavors.

But that’s where Glenn Beck comes in. Back in March, the Fox News personality told his audience to leave churches and synagogues that pursue social justice as a value. I am not a regular viewer of Beck’s show, so when I heard this sound bite I thought I misheard him. But, no, he really said it.

Many church groups and Christian leaders fought back, but there was not a strong rebuttal from Jewish groups. Simon Greer, the President & CEO of Jewish Funds for Justice, wrote in the “On Faith” column on Newsweek’s website that Glenn Beck is “a con man and America is not buying it. I exhort you to stop bottling your ideological agenda and labeling it ‘theology.’ Americans deserve and demand better.”

Greer went on to tell Beck, “You’ve told us what not to look for in a house of worship. But now I ask you, sincerely, what kind of house of worship do you desire? On March 23, you said, ‘Make sure your church puts God first and politics and government last.’ The question then is, how do we put God first?”

In response to Greer’s column Beck retorted: “This is exactly the kind of talk that led to the death camps in Germany” and that Greer, “a Jew, of all people, should know that.”

Here’s my simple take on this: Social Justice is an essential component of any Jewish theology. As Jews, we should use our hearts to pursue prayer, our heads to pursue the study of Torah and to seek to understand God’s Law, and our hands to assist God in the repair of this broken world in which we share responsibility. The same holds true for all people of faith. Caring about our fellow human and seeking to help them is at the core of being part of a just society.

Glenn Beck? He’s just a crazy man saying ridiculous things to anyone who will tune in and listen. Part of our job in pursuing peace and justice is to publicize just how incredibly wrong and hurtful Glenn Beck’s words are to humanity.

We should be grateful not only for the sacred work that Jewish Funds for Justice is doing, but also for the mitzvah of tochecha (reproachment) that its leader Simon Greer has demonstrated.

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What Elena Kagan Can Teach Us About Judaism

Post author By Rabbi Jason Miller
Post date May 25, 2010

If Elena Kagan, President Barack Obama’s choice to fill the open seat on the Supreme Court, is confirmed there will be two Jewish female justices on the highest court in the U.S. and a full third of the bench will be Jewish for the first time in history. The rest of the justices are Catholic. A Supreme Court made up of six Catholics and three Jews will certainly be interesting.

But there is also a lot that the biography of Elena Kagan can teach us about Judaism today.

In a recent article in the NY Times, we learn that Kagan had the first bat mitzvah ceremony at Lincoln Square Synagogue, an Orthodox congregation on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. But what led up to that event, and Kagan’s Jewish identity in the decades since that event, shed much light on the post-denominational Jewish world of today and perhaps give us a glimpse of what is possible in the future.

Lincoln Square Synagogue started with a few Conservative Jewish families in the Lincoln Towers apartment complex in NYC. In 1964, Rabbi Shlomo Riskin was sent by Yeshiva University to lead High Holy Day services for this group (essentially a “chavurah.”) They took a liking to Rav Riskin, dropped the “Conservative” label from their name, and in 1970 formed Lincoln Square Synagogue.

The Times article goes on to explain that a women’s prayer group began at the synagogue in 1972 and when Elena Kagan was approaching her twelfth birthday, she requested to have a formal bat mitzvah. It would become the first bat mitzvah that Rabbi Riskin would officiate.

“We crafted a lovely service, but I don’t think I satisfied her completely,” said Rabbi Riskin, who left the synagogue in 1983 to move to Israel, where he is chief rabbi of Efrat, a West Bank settlement. “But she certainly raised my consciousness.”

Since then, bat mitzvahs have evolved at Lincoln Square. Today a girl can choose to lead the service and read from the Torah, as long as the ceremony is held during a women’s service in an annex of the synagogue. There cannot be more than nine men in attendance, and they must sit behind the mechitza. (“If there are 10 men” — known as a minyan — “that becomes a men’s service,” said Cantor Sherwood Goffin, who taught Ms. Kagan.)

Elena Kagan’s parents eventually left Lincoln Square Synagogue and joined West End Synagogue (now located next door to Lincoln Square), a Reconstructionist congregation. Today, Elena Kagan considers herself a Conservative Jew.

This means that the woman who is likely to soon be the newest Supreme Court justice was a member of an Orthodox synagogue that began as a Conservative “chavurah” with an Orthodox-trained rabbi who was willing to have women’s prayer groups, a glass see-through mechitzah (barrier between men and women), and organize a bat mitzvah ceremony at a time when most Conservative rabbis weren’t willing to do so. And from that synagogue, her family became Reconstructionists, and she eventually became Conservative (in her Jewish ideology, but not her political or judicial approach).

Modern American Judaism is at a cross-roads. It has become much more difficult to determine what it means to be a Reform, Reconstructionist, Conservative, or Orthodox Jew. On the one hand Orthodoxy has moved further away from center with increased strictures on everything from dietary laws to issues of family purity. But on the other hand, Orthodox rabbis like Riskin, Avi Weiss, Yitz Greenberg, Saul Berman, Dov Linzer, and Asher Lopatin (to name a few) are embracing an “open Orthodoxy” that sees challenging questions of Jewish law through a modern lens and allows for increased participation of women in the community.

Reform Judaism has moved quite far in the past half-century and many Reform Jews have found it possible to cling to traditional Judaism within a Reform setting. Conservative Judaism has shifted from a post-war period in which Jews had the Tradition but were in search of modernity and change. Today, Conservative Jews begin with secularism and are in search of Tradition (or at least their rabbis see the situation that way).

Elena Kagan’s emergence on the national scene should demonstrate the fluidity that exists in our Jewish world. We have become a community less about denominational structure and more about comfort. I write this from Israel where I spent this past Shabbat at Shira Chadasha, a congregation that calls itself Orthodox, but allows for a great deal of liturgical participation by women. At Shira Chadasha, one immediately gets the sense that many of the Jewsthere are post-denominational in the sense that they don’t worry about which camp or category they fit into. Rather, they are comfortable being a part of that community, whatever it’s called.

Thanks to the nomination of Elena Kagan for the Supreme Court, our American Jewish community can learn a little more about the direction in which we’re headed.

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Zayde Richard Goldstone, Not Judge Richard Goldstone

Post author By Rabbi Jason Miller
Post date April 15, 2010

There’s a concept in Judaism named “ma’aseh avot siman l’banim,” which roughly translates as “the deeds of the ancestors are a sign for the children.” Of course, this phrase can be used positively, but it’s most often used in a negative context.

I thought of this phrase recently when I read that Bernard Madoff’s daughter-in-law legally had her last name and her children’s last name changed from “Madoff.” Madoff’s grandchildren will forever be plagued by the actions of their grandfather – “ma’aseh avot siman l’banim.”

Now, it has been reported that Judge Richard Goldstone has been barred from attending a family simcha – his grandson’s bar mitzvah ceremony. The South African Goldstone was the head of a United Nations-appointed commission that investigated the Gaza war in the winter of 2008-09. The commission’s final report accused Israel and Hamas of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity.

The JTA reports that “Following negotiations between the South African Zionist Federation and the Beth Hamedrash Hagadol in Sandton, an affluent suburb of Johannesburg where the event is due to take place, an agreement was reached with the family that will keep Goldstone from attending the synagogue service early next month.”

I thought the Goldstone Commission’s report was a one-sided attack on Israel. In fact, I recall feeling so relieved when I spent an hour listening to former Ambassador Dore Gold refute the Goldstone Report point-by-point. However, on the issue of whether Judge Goldstone should be allowed to attend his grandson’s bar mitzvah, I find myself siding with the South African jurist.

The synagogue should recognize that in this case, they are not dealing with the author of a United Nations report that harshly criticized Israel’s actions. Rather, they are dealing with a zayde who wants to celebrate his grandson’s life-cycle milestone.

I’m sure the concept of “ma’aseh avot siman l’banim” will come to play in other aspects of the lives of Richard Goldstone’s family, but in this case this was not the correct decision.

Update: April 26, 2010

From JTA.org

Richard Goldstone will attend his grandson’s upcoming bar mitzvah in South Africa, following an agreement with local Jewish groups. The South African Jewish Board of Deputies brokered a deal between Goldstone and community organizations angry with Goldstone for his authorship of a U.N. report on Gaza war seen as grossly unfair to Israel. Under the agreement, Jewish groups agreed not to protest during the bar mitzvah celebrations and Goldstone agreed to meet with the leadership of South African Jewish communal organizations, according to an e-mail released late Friday by both Goldstone and the Board of Deputies. The meeting, to be hosted by the South African Zionist Federation, is set to discuss the Jewish community’s reaction to the Goldstone report, which accused Israel and Hamas of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity.

“My whole family feels joyful that we’ll be able to celebrate the bar mitzvah together,” Goldstone told JTA following the agreement.

The South African Jewish Board of Deputies said it “respectfully requests, in light of the agreement reached, that all parties immediately desist all public activities on this matter so that the young man’s bar mitzvah celebration can be returned to the privacy and dignity that it deserves.”

Goldstone originally had planned to skip his grandson’s bar mitzvah next month after the Zionist Federation threatened to protest Goldstone outside the synagogue.

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Our Tweeter in Washington

Post author By Rabbi Jason Miller
Post date March 29, 2010

Cross-posted to Jewish Techs

Much has already been made of the social media posting habits of William Daroff. Whether on Twitter or Facebook, the well-connected director of the Washington Office of The Jewish Federations of North America (and its VP for Public Policy) isn’t afraid to go public with his whereabouts, upcoming speaking engagements, or even his drinking buddies.

Earlier this month, the JTA’s Ron Kampeas dubbed Daroff “The Fastest Tweet in the Jewish Organizational World” and the Fundermentalist (AKA Jacob Berkman) tweeted about Daroff that “the JFNA’s crackberry head has a serious case of the twitters.”

Some in the Jewish Federation network may think that this Washington insider tweets too much, but others appreciate the bird’s eye view that Daroff provides. His embrace of social media and lack of restraint when it comes to providing his daily schedule may lead to more transparency in the Jewish communal world.

Keeping up with Mr. Daroff’s professional life — knowing which D.C. movers and shakers he’s wining and dining, and which cities are on his travel itinerary — is a glimpse into the life of a Federation executive that most never had. Letting the world (or at least anyone who follows the @daroff feed on Twitter) know when he’s in a meeting with Israeli leaders on Capitol Hill or at the White House Hanukkah party removes much of the guessing game about the Jewish community’s political access in Washington.

Of course, it’s easy to take the tell-all nature of Twitter too far. There have been times when Daroff’s Blackberry tapping fingers took him into TMI territory.

A friend of mine, who’s a Jewish communal professional, found himself drinking Scotch with Daroff at the hotel lobby bar at this year’s Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA) conference. (Single Malt Scotch is certainly one of Daroff’s own trending topics on his Twitter feed.) Before the first sip, the list of imbibers was tweeted around the Internet. Back at the office following the conference, a few eyebrows were raised following Daroff’s tweet and my friend had to explain to his colleagues that the bar tab wasn’t paid for with agency funds.

Adam Kredo, writing in the Washington Jewish Week, also noted the gray area in which Daroff navigates when he Tweets his opinion. This past Fall, Daroff tweeted that the left-leaning Israel group J-Street “stands with the Mullahs and the hard left at NIAC [National Iranian Action Council]” who are “opposed to sanctioning Iran.” That tweet might have gotten Daroff in some hot water, but as he aptly put it, “I have a cool job and get into cool places. You shouldn’t have to buy me a scotch in order to hear what I’m up to, and Twitter allows for that.”

Web 2.0, in addition to opening doors into new media, has also forced us to raise questions about the dissemination of professional and personal information. Is it appropriate for Jewish communal non-profit executives to divulge what they do when the workshops and plenary sessions come to an end at professional conferences? Is it unseemly for Jewish communal executives to fire off quick missives from their Blackberry before their communication department has a chance to review them? Is it wise for leaders of Jewish organizations, rabbis, day school heads, or foundation leaders to keep us up to date in 140 characters or less? Will social media help us gain a better perspective of what our Jewish communal leaders do on an average day?

My own sense is that William Daroff’s “tweeps” do in fact appreciate his candor. And with over 2,500 Twitter followers and about the same number of Facebook “friends,” he’s built quite an audience. Perhaps if more Jewish leaders follow Daroff’s lead and aren’t afraid to share their activities (and ideas) with the community-at-large, there will be more young Jews eager to connect to the organized Jewish community.

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Marriage Ref Middle East

Post author By Rabbi Jason Miller
Post date March 26, 2010

As tensions between the United States and Israel seem to intensify, it looks unlikely that President Barack Obama will be able to broker a peace agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians. So, I was thinking of who might be the best negotiator to sit down with Bibi Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas.

Jerry Seinfeld seems to have come up with a successful idea with his new TV show “The Marriage Ref” and that got me thinking…

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Jon Stewart on Bill O’Reilly

Post author By Rabbi Jason Miller
Post date March 9, 2010

This is a great clip of Jon Stewart being interviewed by Bill O’Reilly of Fox News. The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart rejects O’Reilly’s running mate offer by saying: “I’m not running with you… I’m not gonna be your VP because I know what that’s gonna be. I get one job, and that’s to light the White House menorah…not interested.”

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Honorable Menschen: Michigan’s Levin Brothers

Post author By Rabbi Jason Miller
Post date March 5, 2010

While living in New Jersey during rabbinical school, I attended a benefit dinner for the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) in which Senator Jon Corzine was honored. Prior to the event, questions were raised as to whether it was wise of JTS to honor a politician while he was serving in office. Honoring Corzine, the former Goldman Sachs Chairman and who after serving as senator became the governor of New Jersey, would bring in a lot of contributions to JTS, but it also upset several donors who saw this as the Seminary engaging in partisan politics.

Now the local region of the Seminary here in Michigan is honoring not one, but two politicians. And yet, there won’t be any objection to this event because of the reputations of the politicians who will be honored. In the Detroit Jewish community, Carl and Sandy Levin have earned their “Favorite Sons” status over a combined sixty-plus years in elected office. The Jewish Theological Seminary will honor the Levin brothers at a brunch on Sunday, April 18, 2010.

The Levin Brothers are making big news today, following yesterday’s decision of House Democrats to make Sandy Levin acting chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. Today’s Detroit Free Press reports that Sandy’s “ascension, taken with his younger brother Carl’s chairmanship of the Senate Armed Services Committee, creates what the Christian Science Monitor called ‘one of the most powerful brother acts in Washington since the Kennedys.’ The Office of the House Historian said there have been four instances of brothers serving as chairs of congressional committees at the same time but none since 1881. And there is no precedent for brothers chairing committees as powerful and prestigious as those headed by the Levins.”

A few months ago, PBS aired a documentary about the history of Jewish Detroit in which Sandy and Carl Levin were interviewed together about their beloved neighborhood in the City of Detroit. Their interview was a touching tribute to their upbringing and the city they love. Many described the scene not as two elected officials being interviewed by a documentary filmmaker, but as a couple of local Jewish grandfathers waxing nostalgic about their childhood and the old neighborhood.

I first got a sense of Carl Levin’s character when a good friend of mine worked on his re-election campaign as a fundraiser. I would hear her tell people that she works “with Carl” as opposed to “for Senator Levin.” However, that is precisely what the laid back senator wanted his staff to say. While he’s served in the Senate since 1979, there’s no ego there. Both Carl and Sandy are humble, well-respected men who can be aptly characterized by the term “mensch.” I’ve met both men on several occasions and have found them to be warm and friendly, without a hint of that “Inside-the-Beltway Braggadocio.”

Most people don’t know that in addition to all of his accolades and accomplishments in the Senate, Carl Levin also founded a synagogue. A February 11, 1977 article in the Detroit Jewish News reports that when the former synagogue building of Congregation Mogain Abraham in Detroit was about to be demolished, Carl Levin (Detroit Common Council President at the time) and three others salvaged relics from the 63-year-old building to be incorporated in the new synagogue they formed called Congregation T’chiyah. “When Levin became aware that the former synagogue of Mogain Abraham (now Mt. Olive Baptist Church) was to be demolished as part of the Medical Center Rehabilitation Project, he proposed that the group make a bid to the city, which had purchased the structure, for the interior fixtures… the bid was accepted.”

Years later, Carl Levin was walking in Detroit when he saw a pickup truck drive by with a stained-glass window in the back. He immediately recognized it as one of the windows from the synagogue, which was now a church. Even though, Congregation T’chiyah technically owned that stained-glass window, which had apparently been stolen out of the church, Carl stopped the truck and bought the stained-glass window from the man right there on the spot.

Today, I’m proud to be the part-time rabbi of Congregation T’chiyah; probably the only synagogue in the country to be founded by a U.S. Senator. I’m also honored that Sandy Levin’s family is active in the congregation, continuing the Levin legacy at Congregation T’chiyah that began over thirty-three years ago. I’ll be among the many who will come together next month to honor Sandy and Carl Levin, and to support the Jewish Theological Seminary.

With many politicians today, people seem to just be waiting for a scandal to occur. That is not the case with the Levin Brothers. Through their integrity and decades of hard work, they have actually made strides to give politics a good name. They are just two nice Jewish boys from Detroit who earned law degrees and set out to make a difference by legislating in Washington in a non-politics-as-usual way.

College Politics

Barack Obama at University of Michigan Commencement

Post author By Rabbi Jason Miller
Post date February 14, 2010

It was recently announced that President Barack Obama will speak at the University of Michigan commencement this Spring in Ann Arbor. As a Michigan State alum, I hope Obama’s theme is environmentalism and that he finishes his graduation speech with the words: “In conclusion, GO GREEN!!!”

When I graduated MSU in 1998, the commencement speaker was former NBA basketball player Greg Kelser (in photo), who now is a TV commentator alongside George Blaha for the Detroit Pistons. As a senior at Michigan State, Kelser along with Ervin “Magic” Johnson led the Spartans to the 1979 NCAA tournament championship, the first in the school’s history. The year after I graduated, Elie Wiesel addressed Michigan State’s graduating class.

Two years earlier, in 1996, I heard a wonderful commencement address at my wife’s graduation from MSU when White House press correspondent Helen Thomas spoke. The best commencement speech I ever heard at MSU was in the Spring following my freshman year in 1995 when President Bill Clinton delivered the address. I also enjoyed listening to the late NY Times columnist William Safire at my Jewish Theological Seminary commencement in 2004, a memory I blogged about following Mr. Safire’s death this past September.

Perhaps no commencement address, however, compares to Conan O’Brien’s commencement speech to the Havard Class of 2000.

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From Gilad Shalit to Omri Casspi

Post author By Rabbi Jason Miller
Post date February 12, 2010

Evangelical Pastor John Hagee’s organization Christians United for Israel holds huge pro-Israel events in cities across the United States called “A Night to Honor Israel.” The other night was a busy one for me, and I feel like it was my own little “Night to Honor Israel.”

My evening began at a screening of the documentary film “Family in Captivity” about the Shalit family’s campaign to pressure the Israeli government to be more aggressive in demanding their son’s release from Hamas terrorists. Israel Defense Forces soldier Gilad Shalit has been held in captivity for over three years after being abducted through the Kerem Shalom crossing in Israel.

The film is a gripping tale of a very low-key family, that runs a bed and breakfast in the beautiful Western Galilee settlement of Mitzpe Hila. I found the hour-long film difficult to watch at times. Even before becoming a father I struggled to watch movies in which children are kidnapped (e.g. Ransom). Now that I’m a father, I make it a point to avoid such movies. I made an exception for this documentary because the issue is so dire. Watching the film, I realized how important it is that people all over the world unite in demanding Gilad Shalit’s return from captivity.

The most distressing part of the film for me was the scene in which Gilad Shalit’s father, Noam, met with former United States President Jimmy Carter. I don’t often criticize U.S. presidents. In fact, I believe in the importance of showing respect to our nation’s presidents and yet I cannot refrain from expressing the angst I felt watching the way Jimmy Carter communicated with Noam Shalit. And I wasn’t alone. The entire theater booed after listening to Jimmy Carter speak with utter disrespect to a man fighting for his kidnapped son’s safe release.

Noam Shalit asks Carter if he was able to deliver his letter to his son’s captors. Chewing gum throughout the entire conversation, Carter doesn’t seem to have any empathy for Mr. Shalit. Carter can only describe the devastation he saw in Gaza. In a very self-aggrandizing way, he tells Gilad’s father that Hamas would only accept the letter from him. The former president comes off horribly in the film. Before seeing the film, I read an article in which Noam Shalit says that the fact that Carter is not considered pro-Israel could be beneficial in securing his son’s release.

I’m wondering how many Jewish people who accepted Carter’s recent apology for his anti-Israel rhetoric will see this film and have second thoughts about how genuine Carter’s apology was. In fact, many believe that the apology only came about because his grandson, Jason Carter, is considering a run for state senate, although Carter has denied a hidden agenda.

From the film, I headed over to a synagogue for the annual inter-congregational Men’s Club dinner. The speaker was Oakland County’s sheriff, Michael Bouchard. I thought the fact that Bouchard, a republican, recently declared himself a candidate for Michigan governor made him an odd choice for this non-political event. The sheriff spoke about his recent trip to Israel and the lessons he learned from the Israeli police. His speech centered on how Islamic terrorism must be curtailed. It was a speech one would expect a candidate for governor to deliver to a couple hundred Jewish men in an area that has the largest Arab population outside the Middle East.

I left the Men’s Club dinner and headed out to The Palace of Auburn Hills to watch the Detroit Pistons host the NBA’s first Israeli player. I actually cannot think of another major professional sport that has had an Israeli player. Omri Casspi came to Detroit for the first time and, like other NBA cities with Jewish communities, there was a large contingent of Israelis and Jewish fans in the audience to welcome him. Casspi is having a great rookie season for the Sacramento Kings. It was fun watching the fans waving large Israeli flags, which made it on to the jumbo video screens (“Palace Vision”) often throughout the game. I don’t remember the last time so many local fans cheered when an opposing player scored. The only downside was that the Pistons lost a hard fought game. I must admit that it was odd to watch an opposing player hit a three pointer over my favorite player (Rodney Stuckey) and I actually cheered (see photo).

A few days before his Detroit visit, Casspi scored 18 points against the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden’s Jewish Heritage Night. His welcome to NBA cities by Jewish fans has been great and that energy and excitement has been covered throughout the media including in the NY Times.

Here’s hoping Gilad Shalit will be released from captivity soon and be able to watch his fellow Israeli, Omri Casspi, play in an NBA game.