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Shefa's Rabbi Blog List
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Fwd: A Prayer in the Aftermath of a Devastating Storm
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Yizhar Hess, CEO of Masorti Israel, in HuffPost: "Was the Kotel Liberated?"
Yizhar Hess in HuffPost: "Was the Kotel Liberated?"
In December 1928, the British Mandate government outlawed the blowing of the shofarnext to the Western Wall (Kotel) following Arab complaints that it was an offense to the sanctity of Islam. Rabbi Kook, then the chief rabbi of Palestine, reacted immediately. He sent an urgent letter to the British High Commissioner, calling the British edict "an affront to religious freedom and conscience."
Jews never accepted the British edict. Every Yom Kippur, they found a volunteer to sound the shofar. In 1930, at the close of Yom Kippur, Beitar member Moshe Segal, who had concealed a shofar under his tallit, sounded a tekiyah g'dola (a long blast of the shofar) as the fast ended. British police arrested him and dragged him to the Kishleh (the Old City of Jerusalem's main police station, then and now).
A few days ago, and 82 years later, on Rosh Hodesh Heshvan, on the renovated grand plaza of the Western Wall -- under Israeli sovereignty since 1967 and freed of the yoke of foreign rule -- police dragged several women into custody for allegedly disturbing the sanctity of the holy site. One of them had led a group of Hadassah women in song and prayer while wrapped in a tallit. Apparently, the authorities thought her chanting of theShema to be too loud. The Shema prayer is the most central in all of Judaism and its words are ones we are all taught to sing with passion and strength.
Two other women were detained by police the next day for violating the "customary practices" of the site by wearing a tallit. They did not pray in the very spacious part of the Western Wall plaza allotted to the men, but in the smaller area designated for women. All three women are members of "Women of the Wall," an Israeli organization of women from all streams of Judaism who have been gathering together every Rosh Hodesh (first of the month) for over 20 years for one purpose only: to exercise their right to pray at the Western Wall.
From the point of view of most Jews in the world, Conservative and Reform Jews, a woman wrapped in a tallit is not unusual; it is Judaism. But of all places, here in the State of Israel, the Jewish state, women are hauled off by police for performing a Jewish ritual. And irony of ironies, the police station was the very same one to which British authorities took Moshe Segal in 1930.
Photographs from the first half of the 20th century show that before the Western Wall was under Israeli sovereignty, men and women prayed there standing together side by side. The area around the Wall was narrow and humble, but it belonged to everyone. My grandmother, Naomi-Zissel, who lived in the Old City as a child, told me of those days.
Following the Six Day War, administration of the Western Wall site was given to the Ministry of Religious Affairs. In the early years, a broader sense of community prevailed. If you look at photos of the plaza from the 1970s and compare them to contemporary ones, you can see that the barrier separating men and women has grown higher. Starting in the 1980s, women began to receive nasty looks if they were dressed "immodestly," and have even been obligated to wrap themselves in ragged scarves before being allowed to approach the stones of the Wall.
We must now admit to ourselves what has befallen us. The Western Wall was liberated, yet free religious access has been obliterated. The Wall has been captured lock, stock and barrel, hijacked by a group of extremists who represent a minority among the Jewish people, a minority in Israel as well as around the world. And there is also a High Commissioner, the "Rabbi" of the Western Wall, who has been free to institute greater stringencies and prohibitions, and raise the barriers separating men from women, all according to his will. Sadly, the government and the Israeli police, yielding to the political pressure of the ultra-Orthodox, enforce his directives.
In the ongoing process of segregation, the Western Wall has been transformed from a treasured national symbol to an ultra-Orthodox synagogue. Hadassah women can build hospitals in Israel, but they cannot pray or sing at this holy site. The arrest carried out by the police symbolizes to Diaspora Jewry how far the State of Israel has distanced itself from them. Projects such as Birthright and Masa attempt to educate Jewish youth from around the world that Israel is also their country, but this latest folly makes this all the more difficult. How sad. The State of Israel is the only democracy in the world where Jews do not enjoy full religious freedoms.
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Rosh Chodesh "Mar Cheshvan": A Response by an IDF soldier to Anat Hoffman's arrest
"It was awful," Hoffman told The Forward. "In the past when I was detained I had to have a policewoman come with me to the bathroom, but this was something different. This time they checked me naked, completely, without my underwear. They dragged me on the floor 15 meters; my arms are bruised. They put me in a cell without a bed, with three other prisoners, including a prostitute and a car thief. They threw the food through a little window in the door. I laid on the floor covered with my tallit. I'm a tough cookie, but I was just so miserable. And for what? I was with the Hadassah women saying Sh'ma Yisrael."
In a press statement, the group said that it remains "committed to their struggle to gain the right of all women to pray at the Kotel, each according to her own custom, with Torah, tallit and voices raised in song."
Israeli law, upheld by the Supreme Court, stipulates that it is forbidden to conduct a religious ceremony "contrary to accepted practice" at a holy site, or one that may "hurt the feelings of other worshipers."
Rosh Chodesh "Mar Cheshvan": A Response to Anat Hoffman's arrest
from Orly Tamir
I am a 20 year old female soldier serving in the IDF for a year now. After making Aliya with my family in August 2006, I could not wait to be a part of the army - organization - that protects my beloved country of Israel, day in and day out.
My mother, sister and Savta were at the Kotel last night along with Hadassah however due to my army duties I was not able to join. While hearing my Ima and sister tell me the stories from last night, I started to cry and cry. While this is an issue I have spoken about and thought about many times before, it simply never gets easier.
Now that I am part of the armed forces protecting this country that I call home, I feel that my love for israel, my zionism, is being taken for granted. THIS is not the country I wish to fight for- a country that arrests women for expressing feminism and zionism in the holiest place for the Jewish people.
I know that there is more to this wonderful country than that and yet I find myself finding more and more things that I would like to change than things I would like to keep.
I thank everyone from WOW for reminding me day after day that I am NOT crazy to belive in religious freedom - for reminding me what it means to be a fighter, a believer and a TRUE Zionist.
Monday, October 15, 2012
Rabbi Jack Moline and Rev. Clark Lobenstine in the Washington Post: "Anti-Jihad Metro ads: An interfaith response to hatred"
Anti-Jihad Metro ads: An interfaith response to hatred
By Jack Moline and Clark Lobenstine,
Rabbi Jack Moline of Agudas Achim Congregation in Alexandria is director of public policy for the Rabbinical Assembly. The Rev. Clark Lobenstine is executive director of the InterFaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington. Moline and Lobenstine are partnering with Shoulder-to-Shoulder, a national campaign of interfaith, faith-based and religious organizations dedicated to ending anti-Muslim sentiment, and are contributors to The Washington Post'slocal faith leader network .
We don't have to look far back into American history to see when the words "savage" and "civilized" were used to justify the oppression of various American communities. Among others, Catholic Americans, Jewish Americans, African Americans and Native Americans have been victims of this shameful slander. Ads placed infour local Metro stations last week borrow shamelessly from this rejected pattern of our past.
The ads, placed by Pamela Geller and the American Freedom Defense Initiative, read: "In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat Jihad." Riders who pass through the Glenmont, Tacoma Park, U Street and Georgia/Petworth stations are now confronted by this hateful language.
The ads do absolutely nothing to strengthen our nation as we work to unite and work for peace in the face of violence. Instead, they exploit very real concerns in order to cultivate mistrust of those who practice Islam. As such, these ads are an embarrassing example of hate speech. They rely solely on bigotry and ignorance to reduce a complex conflict to simplistic and simple-minded stereotypes. Hate speech cannot address the complexity of issues we face as a country. Rather, it deepens misconceptions and far too often promotes violence.
Standing shoulder-to-shoulder, faith leaders play an essential role in speaking out against hate, especially when it targets a fellow faith community. It falls on our shoulders to counter the misinformation about American Muslims that has become commonplace in media, in religious education and in our congregations.
Religious freedom is a foundational value in our Constitution. What the Constitution legislates, citizens have the responsibility to uphold. When anti-Muslim sentiment rises to a level that jeopardizes American Muslims' opportunity to practice their faith without fear of reprisal, it undermines the ability of other faith communities to depend on this essential American right. As citizens of faith, we must therefore adamantly defend the protectionsof those of different faiths.
American Muslims already face increasing rates of discrimination in government training materials, legislation aimed at religious law, zoning manipulation and attacks on persons and property. We are deeply concerned that the public display of this message, which dehumanizes Muslims and thereby validates violence against them, adds to a cumulative impact on our community and on our society. Misinformation becomes mainstream and provides fuel to deepen divisions between Americans.
Our nation has prided itself, since its founding, as a home for all to practice their faith without fear of prejudice or discrimination. We have no more to fear from American Muslims than from Americans of any faith or no faith at all. They are our neighbors. They proudly serve in our military and as doctors, school teachers and local first responders. We stand shoulder to shoulder with them, and they stand shoulder to shoulder with us.
The Constitution also guarantees free speech, which allows Ms. Geller and her colleagues at AFDI the right to insist that we return again to a society where exclusion and oppression can be justified by pitting the "civilized" against the "savage." But a right to hate speech does not make hate speech right. As you travel to work, shop for groceries or ride with your children to the monuments to our freedom, look with pride at the faces of American diversity and look away from the words that bring us shame.
Thursday, October 11, 2012
The Welfare of the Government: A Jewish Concern #register #vote! (& CA registration information)
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Thursday, October 4, 2012
Reflections from #Masorti UK on Hol Hamoed #Sukkot
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Wednesday, October 3, 2012
MERCAZ USA Sukkot E-letter 2012/5773
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