What am I thinking?

Isn't it great when you might be wrong?

2012-02-03T14:33:00.000-05:00

I have a particular interest in this story from today's Haaretz:

Jerusalem dig uncovers earliest evidence of local cultivation of etrogs - Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News

For a number of years it has bothered me that Rabbinic tradition says that the Torah refers to the etrog (citron fruit) specifically (in Vayikra 23) when it explains the mitzva of the four species on Sukkot. For example, Maimonides says:

ב "פרי עץ הדר" (ויקרא כג,מ) האמור בתורה, הוא אתרוג.
"The fruit of a beautiful tree" referred to in the Torah is the citron fruit.

The entire article is worth reading, but the part relevant to my problem is:

Most of the plants were wild, but in one layer of plaster, apparently from the Persian period (the era of the Jewish return from the Babylonian exile in 538 B.C.E. ) they found pollen from ornamental species and fruit trees, some of which came from distant lands.
The find that most excited the scholars was pollen from etrogs, or citrons, a fruit that originated in India. This is the earliest botanical evidence of citrons in the country.
Scholars believe the citron came here via Persia, and that its Hebrew name, etrog, preserves the Persian name for the fruit - turung. They also say royal cultivation of the exotic newcomer was a means of advertising the king's power and capabilities.
The garden at Ramat Rachel is also the first place in the country to yield evidence of the cultivation of myrtle and willow - two more of the four species used in Sukkot rituals.

See the problem? If etrogim, according to the evidence, only arrived in Israel during the second temple period, than the Torah couldn't have meant them hundreds of years before the first temple was built! This would mean that the Rabbis were in error. Admittedly, this would not amount to faith shaking heresy, just an interesting trivial point. But still. At least I thought it was interesting. I've basically assumed for years that the Rabbis were wrong.

BUT!

In fishing around after reading today's article, I found out something new. (for me) There is some evidence that the etrog had travelled to Egypt sometime before most assumed dates for the Exodus story. While no actual physical remains of etrogim have been found, images of what appear to be citrons on the walls of the Temple of Karnak have! Apparently they appear in the Akh-Menou hall from the time of Thutmose III, which would date it to the 15th century B.C.E. That would be well early enough for Moshe and his contemporaries to be familiar with them. There may even be images there of my favorite kind of Etrog, the many fingered Buddha's hand citron!

I know not everyone agrees, but I think these things are gorgeous.

So there is some circumstantial evidence that the Torah could possibly have meant the etrog, and that the Rabbinic tradition is true. Of course, there are still questions. For example, the hebrews would then have had to bring loads of them into Canaan, and there should be some evidence of that.

But its still nice to see that the answer to my question was not as simple as I had originally thought. I just love it when things are more complicated than I thought, and there is so much more to figure out! Now I just have to convince my high school students to share that attitude.

MNUnterberg

Great post from my brother-in-law

2012-01-30T10:20:00.002-05:00

You can see it on its page here, but here is the post:

The Religious Cost of Rejecting Feminism’s Core Moral Claim

by Yosef Kanefsky

Rav Moshe Feinstein was never known as a feminist. But he both understood and accepted feminism’s core moral claim.
In a remarkable 1976 responsum he wrote bluntly about what he perceived to be the effort to extend the women’s liberation movement from the political and social spheres into the religious. He opened by reasserting the fact that women are exempt from a particular well-known set of mitzvot, and that this exemption is rooted both in Divine wisdom, and in the practical wisdom of the rabbis, who deemed it unrealistic and unfair to expect that these mitzvot be observed by those who bear primary responsibility for the raising of children and the daily running of the household. Rav Moshe branded any effort to change this halachik exemption as being both futile and rebellious, even going so far as to say that were a woman to perform a mitzva from which she is exempt not out of religious desire rather in the effort to undermine the exemption, that this would not constitute a mitzva act at all.
But Rav Moshe didn’t end there. He concluded the responsum with a lengthy paragraph in which he demonstrated that he accepted the core of feminism’s moral claim, regarding it as consistent with classical Jewish teaching.
“… [the exemption] is not a result of the fact that women possess a lower spiritual rank than men. For with regard to holiness, they are equal…And with regard to the obligation to honor a spouse, we find that the obligation applies from husband to wife, and from wife to husband without any distinction… There is no degradation of women’s honor [in the tradition]…”
Equal holiness, worth, dignity, and humanity. This is the essence of the feminist moral claim.
In the lead article of the Summer 2002 issue of Tradition, Orthodox attorney Marc Stern challenged the mainstream Orthodox community over its habitual denunciations of feminism. First, on the grounds of intellectual dishonesty, as so much of the community has enthusiastically embraced many of feminism’s outcomes, including high educational standards for girls, hands-on involvement of fathers in raising their children, the expectation of equal pay for equal work, and the zero tolerance for sexual harassment in the workplace. He notes that none of his readers would want to see these developments rolled back. And then second, on the grounds that the resistance of feminism has exacted a religious price. In Stern’s words,
“In all too many communities shiurim for women are infantile outpourings of primitive and unreflective emotion, as if women were incapable of understanding anything more complex. Talented women have been lost to the Orthodox community [as a result]. The fight for equality has not yet been won, even within the realms of what is without question halachikly acceptable. How many shul have been built in the last generation that reflect a concern for… the ability of women to feel as if they are participants in the davening?”
Religious costs are indeed incurred through resisting feminism’s fundamental claim. To the costs Stern mentioned we also add the fact that many Orthodox rabbis still refuse to utilize the halachik pre-nuptial agreement intended to save women from becoming agunot, that women who do become agunot sometimes receive shoddy treatment at the hands of Dayanim and the members of their own communities. And the reality that in many day schools serving the mainstream Orthodox community boys and girls still do not enjoy the same Jewish studies curriculum. The rejection of feminism’s central claim comes at a religious cost.
The extreme manifestation of this of course is the zealous suppression of women in the public sphere that has become mainstream Haredi religious behavior. Their well-known policies of seating women in the back of the bus, eliminating women’s pictures from public view, and requiring that women not appear in public ceremonies even to accept their own governmental awards, do not stem from halachik analysis, rather from precisely the kind of repressive chauvinism that the feminist movement aimed to root out. The halachik analysis had already been done, again by Rav Moshe, who years ago had addressed a question posed by a man who feared taking the subway to work, where the crowded conditions invariably brought about physical contact with female commuters. Rav Moshe ruled that,
“There is no prohibition to come into contact with [women under these circumstances] since it is not done in an affectionate manner. Similarly there is no prohibition to sit next to a woman when there is no other place available. And if a particular man knows that this will bring about lustful thoughts … he needs to fight against these thoughts by distracting himself and thinking about words of Torah.”
What sort of mindset simply dismisses this kind of straightforward halachik thinking in favor of making women disappear? One that stems directly from the rejection of the basic moral claim that women possess the same humanity, dignity and stature as men, and that they are not simply objects that populate a male world. And what a price has been paid for this rejection. A disfigurement of Torah observance, and an international desecration of God’s name.
There will always be morally anchored movements and ideas that will emerge from outside our immediate four cubits. And as a religious communities, we will do much better by explicitly taking them in rather than by rejecting them. Taking them in doesn’t and shouldn’t mean surrendering all other religious values with which they may come into conflict. It means admitting them into the constellation of religious values that together determine normative religious behavior. The other important ideas out there now are democracy, and human egalitarianism – the recognition that all people of all types possess equal human dignity and worth. And these two are also facing resistance or rejection in various Orthodox quarters, with the costs already expressing themselves. Now, more than ever, we need to stand up unapologetically, and affirm with urgency the religious value of morally compelling ideas. The reward will be great.

MNUnterberg

Check it out. I just rated [Fresh Prince Of Mizrachi: Welcome Back] on the Day School Video Academy Awards. #JDSVA #jed21

2012-01-11T09:26:00.000-05:00

Voting starts tomorrow! Please vote so our school can win money! Check it out. I just rated [Fresh Prince Of Mizrachi: Welcome Back] on the Day School Video Academy Awards. #JDSVA #jed21

MNUnterberg

ALL things shining?

2012-01-10T13:20:00.001-05:00

Just for the record, I wrote a note to the authors of All Things Shining. I'm not really expecting a response, but I felt like making the point.

Dear Professors Dreyfus and Kelly,

I am writing to thank you for your book, All Things Shining. I had already listened to some of your courses through iTunes, and looked forward to reading the book. I was not disappointed. As a religious person, I gained appreciation and insight into much that is sacred through your work. I learned and benefited from every chapter. As I say, I am writing this note in appreciation.

I do have two quibbles. The development of Judaism certainly had no place in a broad survey like All Things Shining. Focusing on small subcultures (e.g. Jews or Gnostics) in Europe would have derailed the work. However, I do think it may misleading to refer to “Judeo-Christian Monotheism”, as your book frequently does. While their may be some truth to there being Judeo-Christian values, their theologies are extremely different.

More than that, your work claims that this Judeo-Christian Monotheism promotes a certain certainty about the world. (i.e. page 200) While both religions do make truth claims, Judaism as a religion generally eschews certainty. While its bible contains much more physis and poietic elements than the New Testament, I refer more specifically to Rabbinic Judaism. The Talmud which forms the backdrop of traditional Judaism reflects complexity, contradiction and questioning rather than certainty throughout its meandering course of law, legend and lore. It should not be necessary to bring cases or Rabbinic aphorisms to prove this. Judaism has never been catholic, and attempts to make it so have failed.

Again, this does not contradict the thesis of your work. I simply think that Jewish and Christian monotheisms are different philosophically in ways that make those references to the world view of “Judeo-Christian Monotheism” somewhat inaccurate.

My second concern regards your suggested course for finding the sacred in our lives. While I think it is fair to say that your approach differs from that Wallace’s characters, it may be just the approach (mis)used by Patrick Bateman in Ellis’ American Psycho. He does seem to combine his grasp of the wooshing physis with his poietic engagement through a refined aesthetic celebration of the culture around him. I may be missing something in your prescription, but it seems that if there are no ethics rooted in the sacred, then Bateman can embrace his sacred experiences in the way that you describe. There must be a way to correct for that.

Please regard these to points as minor. As a practitioner of complex, uncertain, multifaceted monotheism, I gained a great deal from your book. The Melville chapter, in particular, changed my way of looking at Moby Dick and its cultural claims. Thank you, again.

Respectfully,

Rabbi Michael Unterberg

MNUnterberg

Forward framing

2012-01-03T13:05:00.002-05:00

There were two unrelated articles in last week's Forward that told a chilling story when placed together. I'm sure that they weren't meant to be taken that way, but I couldn't miss the contrast.

The first regarded a survey of Jewish day school enrollment. Apparently the Avi Chai foundation has been compiling this data for a while, and the results are not cheery. While the decline in the last year is what Avi Chai calls "modest", the Forward's J.J. Goldberg noticed more disturbing information when looking back through 1998. Among his observations he says,

"Today’s total enrollment nationwide can therefore be estimated at roughly 242,000. About 14% are in non-Orthodox schools, 20% Modern Orthodox and 60% Haredi. In 1998, those numbers were 20% non-Orthodox, 26% Modern Orthodox and 47% Haredi... Satmar still accounts for about 10% of all day school enrollment. And it’s now about twice the size of Schechter.

Here, then, is the most important insight to be found in Avi Chai’s numbers: Day schooling isn’t catching on among non-Orthodox Jews, despite two decades and millions of dollars spent pushing the idea. The proposition that day schools are the answer to assimilation isn’t panning out.

Some argue that while day schools won’t change the masses, they’ll provide the leadership. Unfortunately, the vast majority of day school growth occurs within a population that shows no interest in engaging with the rest of the community."

It's hard to argue with Goldberg's logic, no matter how bleak a picture it paints. One wonders how these trends will continue with the looming day school tuition crisis growing, and no serious solutions being proposed by American Jewish leadership.
One could also wonder what percentage of Jewish youth are enrolled in day schools. But as Jonathan Sarna recently pointed out in the Wall Street Journal, the Jews of North America have become incapable of collecting meaningful survey data about themselves over the past decade. So here's our equation: 242,000 is what percentage of X? Show your work.

I was worried what this decade's survey would uncover. Certainly, the 2001 version had a lot of bad news. But now, American Jewish leadership can't even pull off a new survey! Is it worse to get a bad news update, or discover that you're incapable of even researching it? Its hard to work on building a future for American Jews when we cannot even asses the demographics, let alone their needs.

The other article described the anti-extremist movement in Beit Shemesh. It claims that members of the large American olim population comprise the leadership of the movement. In fact, they are perhaps the reason that it exits at all. Whereas in areas like Bnai Brak and Geula the secular and modern orthodox populations drifted away, in Beit Shemesh the Americans who recently put down roots have no intention of budging. And, many of them have had enough PR experience and "know-how" to do something about it.

"'They messed with the wrong crowd this time,' my friend Sara Eisen, a marketing executive and member of that community, told me. 'This time, the bullies came up against Americans.'”

I think that there is more to it than that. Israelis were inured to a Middle East style of coexistence between different cultures. Perhaps that's why people simply drifted out of increasingly charedi neighborhoods. But Americans (and certainly middle class Jewish Americans) have been raised with intolerance for intolerance. The horrific behavior of these "sikrikim" has raised the hackles of these Americans and the response has gone international.

There are many healthy aspects of American culture that are healthily spreading into Israeli life. Again, we know that the Nefesh B'Nefesh numbers are 2000-3000 a year, but we don't know what percentage this is. It is certainly a small one. I can't see how that could be a good thing for the Jewish people moving forward.

A recent Jerusalem Post blog discussed the common occurrence of native Israelis asking American olim, "Why would you move here?" Perhaps part of the reason is the picture framed by these two articles in The Forward. There is little hope for a healthy long term future for the American Jewish community. Those who want to contribute to a Jewish future are desperately needed in Israel for the particular contribution Americans can make there. I'll end simply by quoting the JPost blogger:

"Small as the numbers are, the aliyah of American Jews is proof that Zionism is a living, contemporary movement. Defined by the ability to see a better society and the desire to bring it about, we know why we're here. Our future might still be unseen -- i.e. how will the plot of life in Israel unfold? -- and though we may not have all the answers, we know with relative certainty that there is nothing 'post-' about us."

Translation from yiddish: Jews! The Key to Zion Is In Your Hands - Open the Gates! Keren HaYesod:1921

MNUnterberg

Follow the leader

2011-12-15T16:37:00.001-05:00

I had a bit of whiplash today between teaching the freshman Jewish History class and the senior Zionism one. And not just because of the student age difference.

The freshman course is on the second temple period, and the curriculum always gets us the the history of the Maccabee rebellion around Chanukah time. It is always cool to teach the actual history behind the story. The former is obviously much more messy and complicated than the latter. I always have to encourage my disillusioned students by saying things like, "Did you really want a holiday that could be entirely understood in kindergarden? Isn't it great to discover that there was more to it than you thought?"

One of the messier parts of the history is the all out civil war between the Hellenists and the traditionalists among the Jews. This is some rough stuff. Here is how it is described in I Maccabees:

44: [The pious Jews] organized an army, and struck down sinners in their anger and lawless men in their wrath; the survivors fled to the Gentiles for safety. 45: And Matityahu and his friends went about and tore down the altars; 46: they forcibly circumcised all the uncircumcised boys that they found within the borders of Israel. 47: They hunted down the arrogant men, and the work prospered in their hands. 48: They rescued the law out of the hands of the Gentiles and kings, and they never let the sinner gain the upper hand.

Yikes.

Its no wonder that the author refers to Pinchas and alludes to Moshe ("Who that is for the Lord come to me!") in order to defend the honor of the army of religious Jews we call the Maccabees. It is a pretty dark start to the revolt against the Greeks that finds brother killing brother in order to save the future of Jews and Judaism. This is pretty tough for 9th graders to digest. That Jews killing Jews is even a "break the glass" last resort, self defense scenario is rough stuff.

In the 12th grade we are studying Zionism and the State of Israel. As we are currently entering the period of the British Mandate, we are dealing with the split between the Revisionist and mainstream labor Zionists. Into this discussion I brought a quote from those days from Rav Avraham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook, who became the first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Palestine under the British. The piece I brought them is Rav Kook's articulation of the need of Jews with different outlooks to work together and strengthen each other. I relates to some previous posts, but I think the segment stands on its own as worth quoting. It may be his most important, most relavent, and most ignored statement of principles.

Three Factions
We now have three noteworthy factions among our people.

The first is Orthodoxy, as we are accustomed to call it. It champions the cause of the holy; it speaks with vigor, with zeal and with embitterment on behalf of the Torah and the mitzvot, of religious faith, and of everything sacred to the Jewish people.
The second is the new nationalism that battles for everything toward which the national spirit aspires. It embraces many of the characteristics of a nation seeking to renew its national existence after a long period of exile. It also seeks to include many elements deriving from the influence of the other nations, to the extent that it judges them desirable and appropriate for itself.
The third is liberalism, which was an advocate of the Enlightenment in the recent past and still has a following in many circles. It does not confine itself to the domain of the national but demands general human enlightenment, culture, morality and much more.

It is understandable that in a healthy setting there is a need for each of these three forces. We must always seek to reach this healthy state, where these forces will act in our lives jointly, in all their fullness and their goodness, in harmonious integration with nothing in excess or in diminution. The claims of the holy, of the nation, and of humanity will be joined together in a spiritual and practical love. Individuals and parties will be in agreement that each one is to recognize with goodwill the positive service of the other. This acknowledgement will then develop to a point where each one will recognize the positive role in every cause, that it is desirable, and that in order to pursue it for the general good of spiritual harmonization as well as the enhancement of the particular cause with which he himself is identified. He will go even further in recognizing a positive dimension in the negative aspect of every cause, within its proper delimitation. He will know that it is to the benefit of the very cause of which he is an advocate to be influenced to some extent by the negation, because by its challenge it sets his beloved cause within its proper sphere and saves it from the perilous detriment of excess and exaggeration…

If we shall examine the tension that we suffer in this generation we will know that only one course is open to us. Everyone, the individual or the community, must take to heart this admonition: that together with the need to defend the particular position to which one is attached by natural inclination, habit or training, one must know how to utilize the positions that have found a following among other people and their parties. Thus one will perfect oneself and one’s party, both through the positive aspects in the position of the others, and through the beneficial aspects in their negations, by safeguarding one’s own position against the defect of exaggeration which produces weakness and destruction. Thus we may hope to attain a way of life appropriate for a people of high stature…
Orot, pp. 70-72

They say that every generation gets the leaders that they deserve. This must apply to Cohanim also, be they Maccabim or chief Rabbis. It seems that that Jews in the second century B.C.E. needed Matityahu and Yehuda. In our time, we sure need Rav Kook. His vision of Jewish brotherhood and cooperation is needed desperately in our time.

If only those who claimed to follow him as a leader would heed his words.

Love, Marriage, and the Israeli Rabbinate » Main Feature » Jewish Ideas Daily

2011-11-28T12:38:00.000-05:00

I think that Fischer's piece ends on a harsh note, and it makes me sad. But he's so right. - Mike

Love, Marriage, and the Israeli Rabbinate » Main Feature » Jewish Ideas Daily

November 28, 2011
Love, Marriage, and the Israeli Rabbinate - The Chief Rabbinate - Jewish Ideas Daily
By Elli Fischer

The organization Tzohar is fighting for the right to perform its popular "alternative" weddings in Israel. A recent dispute with the Ministry of Religious Services was apparently resolved after a media war, frantic mediation, and a high-level Knesset meeting. Tzohar's victory lasted all of two days before the Chief Rabbinate decided to enforce a long-neglected and selectively applied regulation, again placing the future of Tzohar's program in jeopardy.

Founded as a body that would help unify the modern Jewish state, the rabbinate (Hebrew: rabbanut) has evolved into something else entirely.

Fairy Tale Merav Michaeli, Haaretz. Calling a Tzohar wedding an "alternative" shows how keenly some Israelis want to escape the rabbinate's authority.

Will Tzohar Declare War on the Rabbanut? Elli Fischer, On the Contrary. In the area of kashrut, the rabbinate is not transparent or accountable; but Tzohar may not have the will to mount a fundamental challenge.

Has the Chief Rabbinate Outlived Its Usefulness? Shlomo Riskin, Jerusalem Post. The rabbinate is unfriendly and inflexible—but it can be reformed.

Without the Rabbinate, I'll . . . Yair Ettinger, Haaretz. In addition to marriage, initiatives to sidestep the rabbinate also exist in the realms of divorce, conversion, and burial. The Chief Rabbinate responds to Haaretz's series here.

After Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's 1996 assassination, Tzohar was founded by a group of relatively open-minded, idealistic Religious Zionist Orthodox rabbis to bridge the growing divide between Israel's religious and secular populations. ("Tzohar" is a Hebrew word for window; the organization's motto is "a window between two worlds.")

Soon after its founding, Tzohar began the Wedding Project. Because Israeli law does not recognize, or "register," civil marriages performed within the country, the only recognized marriages between Jews that can take place in Israel are marriages approved by the Chief Rabbinate. But Israeli law does recognize civil marriages performed abroad, so Israeli couples were going to Cyprus to marry in civil ceremonies. Tzohar saw the trend as a sign of alienation from the institutionalized rabbinic bureaucracy, and the Wedding Project was designed to address this alienation. It did not advocate the recognition of non-Orthodox ceremonies but merely established four operating guidelines. A Tzohar rabbi would not accept payment for performing a wedding. He would meet with the bride and groom beforehand. He would schedule just one wedding per day—and arrive on time. That these guidelines were considered innovative speaks volumes about the prevailing situation under the rabbinate.

With these few rules, Tzohar transformed a soulless encounter with officialdom into a positive encounter with Jewish tradition. The Wedding Project became Tzohar's calling card. Despite the sharp criticism implied by the Wedding Project and its threat to the "gray income" that rabbis got from performing marriages, the rabbinate did not interfere with Tzohar's operations—at first.

Things began to change in 2003 with the election of Chief Rabbis Shlomo Amar and Yona Metzger and the achievement of ultra-Orthodox control of the Chief Rabbinate. Since then, the rabbinate has sought to enforce increasingly strict standards of Jewish law and keep non-official rabbis from providing religious services (and threatening the rabbinate's control of patronage). Tzohar has criticized the rabbinate for insisting on ultra-Orthodox standards, bureaucratizing religion, and driving people away from Judaism.

These tensions came to a head a few weeks ago. Under a loophole, an official municipal rabbi affiliated with Tzohar was deputizing other Tzohar rabbis to register weddings they perform around the country. The rabbinate, through the Ministry of Religious Services, closed the loophole. At that point, Tzohar shut down the Wedding Project and launched its media blitz, prophesying that thousands more Israelis would marry abroad in civil ceremonies, assimilate, and be lost to the Jewish people.

Why the alarm and doom-saying? The reason stems from Tzohar's view of the Chief Rabbinate. Tzohar's rank-and-file Religious Zionist rabbis see themselves as ideological and spiritual heirs of Abraham Isaac Kook, Israel's first Chief Rabbi, who played a central role in founding the Chief Rabbinate in 1921. Kook envisioned a rabbinate that would transcend politics, reach out to all Jews living in then-Palestine, and create a renaissance that was spiritual as well as national. Kook exhorted rabbis to "look for the positive in each faction" so as to "restore the honor of the rabbinate and expand its spiritual influence" over the "exhilarating national renaissance taking place in our day." Additionally, Kook's followers believe the instruments of Israel's sovereignty to be sacred inasmuch as they reflect the will of the Jewish people.

Yet even in 1921, when the community numbered just 75,000 Jews barely a generation away from traditional observance, Kook's vision was aspirational. Kook's successors continued to believe in an independent, apolitical rabbinate but were subject to the politics of the governing Labor Zionist coalition, including the National-Religious party. In 1960, Joseph B. Soloveitchik declined an invitation to be a candidate for Chief Rabbi, writing that "the Chief Rabbinate is really a government agency, so it is childish and naïve to think that the chief rabbi would be able to act independently."

Today, with Israel's current demographic challenges—including hundreds of thousands of citizens whose Jewish status is in question—and the intense pressures to end the Orthodox monopoly on matters of personal status, the implementation of Kook's vision seems even less likely. But Tzohar's rabbis, acknowledged even by their non-Orthodox critics to be sincere and idealistic (having briefly been a Tzohar fundraiser several years ago, I concur), continue to believe deeply in the importance of the rabbinate. Tzohar views the period before ultra-Orthodox control as a heyday in which the institution was beloved and apolitical, secular citizens happily submitted to the rabbinate's determinations, and chief rabbis were giants of Torah, sensitive to the needs of the people.

Ironically, the ultra-Orthodox have historically held the rabbinate in contempt and ascribed no religious significance to it; indeed, the current Ashkenazic chief rabbi, whose scholarly and spiritual credentials fall far short, to say the least, of his predecessors', was installed because of his professed allegiance to the ultra-Orthodox parties. Now that these parties control the rabbinate, they continue to view it as nothing more than the spoils of coalition politics, a place fit for political hacks. In treating it this way, they do grave harm to Judaism. But Tzohar watches helplessly, unwilling to advocate abolishing or privatizing the rabbinate or offering civil alternatives to it. Tzohar rabbis believe that if its rabbis were in power, they would be able to resist the temptations associated with controlling huge government budgets. They are convinced that a kinder, gentler rabbinate would prevent the development of non-Orthodox Judaism in Israel, but less obviously and violently. They think the problem lies with the people currently in power in the rabbinate, not the institution of the rabbinate itself.

For many Israelis, Tzohar is the spoonful of sugar that makes the bitter pill of dealing with the official rabbinate palatable. However, it seems clear that increasing numbers of them—including Orthodox Israelis—would prefer never to have to deal with it in the first place, even with Tzohar as a buffer: They would prefer, that is, to have the oppressive and despised rabbinate be removed altogether, whether because they do not share its values or its interpretations of Jewish law, or because they feel that moderns states should stay out of ecclesiastical business.

Yet Tzohar's rabbis, clinging to a nostalgic or imagined ideal of what the rabbinate might have been, refuse to address the sad reality of what it is. This is a group with the talent and stature to articulate a vision of what the Jewish state would look like without an official rabbinate. Instead, it spends its energy in a way that continues to enable its opponents, just so it can hold on to its pipe dream.

Elli Fischer, who lives in Israel, is a writer and translator and blogs at adderabbi.blogspot.com. He has rabbinical ordination from the Chief Rabbinate of Israel.

Israel Inside Trailer - YouTube

2011-11-23T11:53:00.000-05:00

Simon Deng advocates for Israel! He's so cool!

2011-11-17T12:40:00.001-05:00

Former Sudanese slave and friend of Fuchs Mizrachi School, Simon Deng, defended Israel at Durban III!

We owe a debt of gratitude to the David Project foe sending him our way.

"Simon Deng, the South Sudanese delegate at the recent Durban III conference on racism (in New York), shattered the hypocrisy of the anti-Israeli front one normally witnesses at such meetings. Mr. Deng pointed out that while the UN has spent years launching paper attacks against Israel, the body generally has ignored the Arab racists committing crimes against Black Africans far more heinous than those falsely alleged against Israel.

From 1955 to 2005, four million non-Arab Sudanese were murdered, seven million were ethnically cleansed, and hundreds of thousands, including Mr. Deng himself, were seized by Arab slave-merchants and sold into bondage to Sudanese and Egyptian Arab owners. Darfur was never a “tribal” conflict, as the UN long soft-pedaled it; it was Arab colonialist genocide against Black Africans. It took UN bodies 16 years to recognize what was afoot, and they did so then only at the behest of Jewish organizations in Israel and the United states.

One of the only Middle Eastern countries to which persecuted South Sudanese could escape was Israel, which, as Mr. Deng reminded his unappreciative audience, is a country with no colour bars: Black Muslims and Christians have found safety in Israel. Mr. Deng also emphasized the violent discrimination of Muslim countries against Coptic Christians (Egypt), other Christians (Iraq, Nigeria and Iran), the B’hai (Iran) and Hindus and Sikhs in Kashmir. Deng celebrated the fact that the South Sudanese president, Salva Kiir, has determined that his new country’s embassy in Israel will be in Jerusalem, “the eternal capital of the Jewish people.”

Mr. Deng’s admirable and timely exposé was ungenerously received by the usual claque of Arabs and their anti-Semitic fellow travelers, and has been under-publicized. But it has put a banana skin under the anti-Israel movement in the Third World, and undermined, or even exploded, the prolonged, self-hating infatuation of sub-Saharan Africans and African-Americans with militant forms of Islam."

Mizrachi staff wrestles with God's immanence (wrong parsha?)

2011-11-17T11:18:00.001-05:00

Forwarded conversation

Subject: Anthropopathism (yeah, that's right)
------------------------

From: Noam Shapiro
Date: Mon, Nov 14, 2011 at 3:36 PM
To: FMS Judaic Staff Meeting

Anyone know of a good source that indicates that God has emotions? (I know many pesukim indicate it. I mean a rishon who says point blank- God does have emotions, and its not a metaphor, like the Rambam would say)
Thanks

----------
From: Rabbi Aaron Bayer

I feel like kaballa, chassidut, midrash is where you need to go with this. I would check out RAMBAN on some of the psukim that rambam explains metaphorically. Also, check out Eish Kodesh

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From: Michael Unterberg

You may have the following problem:

Those who formulate the question philosophically will come to the same conclusion.
Those who are not philosophical will not formulate shittot in that manner. They will just discuss aggada and emotional language literally.

I'm inclined to agree with Aaron that those are the places to look, but it seems unlikely that you will find an articulated statement of belief. (that's what philosophers do)

That being the case, anyone with a philosophical bend can read mystical or literary sources (like kabbala and aggada) as metaphor anyway. So it puts you in a bit of a closed loop.

It is up to the reader to decide if the author intended those anthropopathic statements as literal or as a contribution to metaphorical religious literature. Hard to tell, frankly.

MNUnterberg

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From: Noam Shapiro

Well said, Michael. But here is my problem: how many of us really view notions of God's love and compassion, to name two emotions, only as metaphors which allow us to perceive and relate to God? I would venture to say that many people (me?) think/feel/believe that God truly loves. And to say that God doesn't but that He merely has acted in a way that we humans intrepret as manifesting love, (a la the Rambam) - what are you left with? Is this not at the end of the day just self-deception? (shhh. don't tell anyone- we dont really mean it when we talk about having a relationship with God, its just a facade that we use in order to have....a relationship with God?)
"Meyla" when it comes to God's physicality- I think its easier to say that "dibra torah kilshon bnei adam' and that it is figurative language. But to say that God's emotion is metaphorical...what are you left with then?

-Perplexed

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From: Barry Kislowicz

On your point about physicality Dr Brill used to say that it's almost impossible to pray effectively without having some image of God in your mind -

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From: Michael Unterberg

I think that it is a functional metaphor. By that I mean, a premise that may not bear scrutiny, but its needed to function. So, we use it as our narrative and live with the dissonance. I mean that as a healthy thing.

Examples:

God loves us.
I have the best Mom in the world.
Israel is the most beautiful country in the world.
MY kids should be models.
My school is the coolest.
I am confident that I can do anything.
"You can choose any career that makes you happy"
My team will win.
I am so good looking.
Etc.

There is a delicate balance here. And of course, dissonance can be unhealthy and lead to disaster. But we do need them. Its like peer pressure. It has a negative connotation, but actually is a healthy psych/social device that can be misused.

I recommend the book, "LIfe of Pi" by Yann Martel to see how I mean a functional story as a useful narrative.

On another note: Rav Kook talks about Avraham's immanent sense of God being needed earlier in history than Rambam's explication of the transcendent God. You can't have a relationship with the latter, and if we were aware of that first we could never be religious. He compares it to not know that the world spins for the first thousands of years of civilization. If we knew that from the beginning we would never have built tall structures or stand up straight. After we were well acclimated to the immanent sense of God we were ready for the knowledge of the philosopher's God. Both are paradoxically True, and we live in the tension.

I don't know if what I said was different than Rav Kook, complimentary or contradictory. I really don't, but I think its at least similar. Any thoughts?

Anyone mind if post either of these two? Names? No names? Is it shtika kehoda'ah?

MNUnterberg

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From: Noam Shapiro

You have my permission. But I want some of the royalties.

Mizrachi Staff debates "Rashi script"

2011-11-16T11:38:00.001-05:00

Forwarded conversation

Subject: The Tzadi Lamed Deal is Killer

From: Ari <arispiegler@gmail.com>

Date: Mon, Nov 14, 2011 at 5:33 PM

To: FMS Judaic Staff Meeting <fms-judaic-staff-meeting@googlegroups.com>

Check out this article about Rashi script:

http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4147876,00.html

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From: Adin Krohn <abkrohn@gmail.com>

I hear the issue. But I have two thoughts.

First, it's not that hard to learn. There are only a few letters that look significantly different. It can be taught easily in early grades, especially in Israel. Certainly "ktav agol" (script) is much harder. Yes, it is much more common, but that's not relevant to this particular point.

Second, what has to come first? If we want kids to be able to use a classic mikreot gedolot, not just torat chaim, then they have to be able to read ktav "Rashi". Certainly high level sefarim (although as new versions come out, more block print is being used), the Rema printed in Shulchan Aruch, etc. When we make it obsolete it will be obsolete. Until then, are we handicapping kids? Of course, if a kid will never read those books, then fine. But are we handicapping them in advance if we tell them they don't have to know it?

more thoughts?

Rabbi Adi Krohn

Yeshivat Yesodei HaTorah

050-744-6654

http://www.facebook.com/abkrohn

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From: Michael Unterberg <munterberg@gmail.com>

I am a big believer that since it isn't hard to learn, there is no need to bother little kids with it. Most kids that I know find the Rashi script an irritant at best. Why not just let the older learner figure it out in the 5 minutes it takes, and get used to it in a few hours. In the meantime, we are failing to attract large numbers of kids who choose not to be lifetime learners. There are many reasons for this, both due to our standard pedagogy and due to factors outside of school. (my guess is that the latter is the larger reason - which works against my argument)

What I am saying is that we should be very careful not to fall into old patterns of teaching. In 21st century pedagogy, it seems crucial to me that we teach to clear relevance as much as possible. To me, Rashi letters is a small symptom of a larger problem. In essence we bore and annoy a majority of kids for a minority that will need to use it when they get older. Again, it is the ease of learning it that turns me against teaching it to, let's say, 5th graders who will not need it.

Ironically, in the old country we used cheder as education for the masses, and only taught the relevant skills to those who went beyond. The democratization of learning has caused us to take (what I consider to be) strange steps in the skill teaching agenda we set for all students.

I know that this argument falls on deaf ears. I made a similar post on lookjed in 2005 in response to a question, and was soundly ignored. (you can see the post here) I find that this happens when one makes a progressive suggestion in Jewish educational circles. (i.e. my Steinsaltz argument) I find that when I articulate a case against the status quo, the responses in defense do not take my case point by point and argue them. The response is usually some form of argument that that status quo is too big and public to challenge, and we need to teach in line with the bigger system. Otherwise how will our students fit in and function when they encounter the broader status quo world?

Not to sound like a Mac commercial, but that argument would have placed out Eliezer Ben Yehuda, Nehama Leibovitz, Rav Yoel, Mordechai Breuer, Sara Shnerer, The Rav, Rav Chaim, etc. etc. If there is a better way to teach contemporary students, then its worth challenging the status quo and see what happens.

On the other hand, perhaps people nodding and walking away just means that I'm crazy, and that hasn't sunk in yet.

Sorry, for the long response. As you all know, this is a button on mine that gets pushed from time to time. The Rashi letter thing is a relatively minor issue. It concerns me as a symtom of what for me seems to be too high a level of fear to challenge the status quo.

Let's do what makes sense and let the status quo meet us when we succeed.

Anybody mind if I post this on my blog?

MNUnterberg

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From: Dara Unterberg <dunterberg@fuchsmizrachi.org>

AMEN!! I AGREE AND NOT BECAUSE I AM MARRIED TO HIM!!!!!!!!

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From: Aharon E. Wexler <aharonwex@gmail.com>

I agree with R' Michael. The real issue as educators is whether we are educating kids to be Talmidei Chachamim or to be well rounded balabatim. The Yeshiva system is based on the Volozhin system which directed itself to producing Talmidei Chachamim becuase Balabatim were produced by osmosis living in the shtetl. You went to Yeshiva to get something MORE than what your Shtetl could give you.

In the Western World no one is going to be a well rounded balabayit by osmosis and there is no one who has come up with a viable model of how to do this today. On the one hand we have 900 years of Gemara Rashi Tosfot as being the key to Jewish learning and a belief that Jewish learning is the key to everything else. But now I am not so sure anymore. I wonder what model can produce Jews who are dedicated to Judaism and make them, if God forbid need be, even die for their Judaism like our unlearned ancestors did before. JEwish history has shown that the unlearned masses were willing to die Al Kiddush Hashem more readily than many of the scholars. How do we instill that dedication in our youth?

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From: daniella robicsek <robicsed@gmail.com>

i agree with you too, michael. perhaps people haven't responded one way or another on the lookjed post because they bascially agree with you (or they don't have good arguements to the contrary). anyone who's tried to teach students who aren't enamored with tanach to begin with, should identify with your arguments. Ktav rashi seems like the lowest priority on the totem pole in the context of the much more significant issues that exist.

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From: Adin Krohn <abkrohn@gmail.com>

I hear what you are all saying. Of course I agree that because it is easy to acquire it can wait until later. And most if not all texts being used by kids who have to learn rashi script don't even have it themselves (such as a newer chumash with rashi, for example).

I guess my question starts with: what happens when a text that is only in ktav rashi is one that is deemed important enough to study? Do we avoid it or do we say "ktav rashi isn't that hard, let's teach the kids how to use it now"? How does the students' proficiency (or lack thereof) in reading it affect our curricular choices?

Maybe the answer is "a lot." i.e. why select books that make it harder for the student to read it. Do I care if a fifth grader can't access the kli yakar in the standard mikre'ot gedolot? Of course not.

But do I care if a girl in seminary can't look up a din in the Rema? I think I do. How motivated do I expect students to be to start to learn ktav rashi at that late stage? I guess you could say, "if a girl (or boy) doesn't care enough to learn ktav rashi, then I guess they don;t need ot be learning rema on their own."

Or at least we don't care enough about that dilemma to put ALL our fifth graders through the trouble of learning ktav rashi.

Maybe it is just a cost-benefit analysis where the pain of rashi script for all outweighs the gain of having some low percentage of students who want more advanced learning but are sufficiently unmotivated to be stopped by the obstacle of rashi script not have to be stopped. (did that make sense?)

I think we all agree now? Feel free to continue this...

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From: Rabbi Aaron Bayer <ABayer@fuchsmizrachi.org>

To put it another way you could suggest that it’s a question of access. Who has access to these texts? Ideally I would like everyone to have equal access to all texts but perhaps that is not worth the tradeoff.

I think that the most universal text that is still printed in rashi script even in the new mechon yerushalayim shulchan aruch and the newer mishna berura is the rema. That’s a pretty big deal. But perhaps the six letters that are different can be taught in 9th grade (the earliest age that I imagine most kids start learning shulchan aruch)

----------

From: Michael Unterberg <munterberg@gmail.com>

Teach it when you use it. That's my policy. Relevance uber alles.

MNUnterberg

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From: Noam Shapiro <noam.shapiro@gmail.com>

This discussion reminds me of the video lecture you sent out once, Michael- would you mind resending it? (About the guy discussing shifting paradigms in education) Not totally the same- but the idea of who the audience is in education ,as well as what the purpose is... would love to see it again.

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From: Michael Unterberg <munterberg@gmail.com>

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U

MNUnterberg

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From: Noam Shapiro <noam.shapiro@gmail.com>

Thanks man!

The Cosmic Lottery - GRS drasha from Lech Lecha

2011-11-08T11:54:00.000-05:00

A few people have asked for copies of the drasha that I gave this past Shabbat at Green Road Synagogue. Unfortunately, I don't write things up before I speak. But I think that I might like a copy too. Dara and I have largely based the Bible and Jewish History curricula at Fuchs Mizrachi on these ideas. So I will try to write it up as best as I can from memory. In addition to any differences of memory, my writing and speaking styles differ a bit.

The Cosmic Lottery

When I was a kid in school, my teachers used to make a big deal about how difficult the challenge of "lech lecha" was for Avraham. How hard would it be, the asked us to imagine, leaving your home, family and culture to move to a strange new land. What they left out, was that Avraham was already doing that anyway. He and his family were nomadic trader/shepherds, and were already moving from Mesopotamia to Israel. This was the initiative of Avraham's father, Terach, and appears in the text at the end of chapter 11, immediately preceding the lech lecha.

"And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran, his son's son, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram's wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there."

The basic route along the fertile crescent

Whenever you place the Divine command to Avraham, he is basically being asked to do something that he was doing with his father anyway. So why was this challenge so difficult?

Well, maybe it wasn't. Perhaps God is asking Avraham to be the kind of person that he already was, and do the kind of things he already did, but to now dedicate those things to Him. The greater challenges come later, including the ultimate test of the Akeda, the second "lech lecha". But for now, Avraham is simply taking who he is so far, and dedicating himself to God. The text says that he is 75, years old. The midrash tells us that he was already a great iconoclast, (literally!) challenging the prevailing world views of his age with his perspective of ethical monotheism. He does appear in the text to stand different from those around him in many ways. As he grows, even in his later years he demonstrates that kind of sustained subversion against his own ideas as well. He always challenges himself, which is undoubtably why he succeeds in his later tests from God.

And why is God choosing this man and this land and bringing them together? He says, "And I will bless them that bless thee, and him that curseth thee will I curse; and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed". So it has something to do with blessing all the families of the earth. Through the ages this has been explained to mean building a nation that will be a light to all others. This nation will create a great society of justice and righteousness that will be an example to all others. That is what they are being chosen for. In earlier chapters, God has tried to make covenants with Adam and Noah in order to build an ethical humanity. When this does not work out, God decides to make his covenants with Avraham to be the progenitor of this nation that will follow his example and exhibit his characteristics.

Now that we are three thousand and a something hundred years into that plan, it seems reasonable to take a step back and see how the mission is going. How have we done as the vanguard of civilization?

Well, a few centuries after Avraham those descendants end up founding a kingdom in that land. They have a nomadic herding tradition, and settle into agricultural life. They are also on the crossroads of the fertile crescent where Asia and Afica meet, between the two great world empires of Egypt and Mesopotamia. In this cross cultural environment, they do indeed embody the character of Avraham, creating a body of literature that changes the world. It posits ideas that were crazy in the in the Iron Age, when they were written. Among those ideas were concepts like monarchs under the law, the sacred value of every human life and peace as a virtue. It is nearly impossible for us to grasp how tiny and insignificant this kingdom was politically and demographically, precisely because the influence of these works is way out of proportion to the tiny people who generated them.

The First Jewish State

Although they lose their kingdom in 586 B.C.E. to the Babylonians, they continue to study and expound on their classic canon of sacred literature. In these works, the Jews delve into understand both the values and practices of the Bible. And while the values are probably more important, emphasis is placed on the explication of the laws, so that Torah can be lived and not just learned. In these works, they, like their forefather, constantly and consistently challenge the prevailing assumptions of their ages. They ask questions within their world and without, always thinking that things can and should be made better.

They spend centuries spread around the world in a variety of countries and cultures, constantly weighing values against each other, balancing tradition with progress. Defying all the laws of history, they maintain a coherent identity in exile, and eventually (astonishingly) return to reclaim their homeland and independence. There they continue to struggle like their forefathers, to create a culture of justice and bring values from the realm of ideas to reality. They continue to contribute to arts, culture and science all disproportionate to their numbers.

We may wonder that the pace is so slow, but the mission does seem to be ongoing. When we do wonder about the glacial pace, we can question wether it is because of our backsliding, or because God simply works at a scale that we simply can't appreciate. But the plan does seem to be in effect.

What does this mean for us? What are the consequences of being part of the .2% of the world's population who are part of this covenant? What is incumbent upon us as winners of this Cosmic Lottery, to be born into the nation destined to be the vanguard of civilization by dint of a contract with the Master of the Universe? What responsibilities fall to those proud few who constitute this amazing people?

I think it comes down to three things.

1) The first is the need to access the great works of our people. To have such an embarrassment of riches at our disposal and ignore it would be a crime. To live without drawing on three thousand years of inherited wisdom is living hand to mouth. To put it into simpler parlance, we should learn more Torah.

2) We should not only learn Judaism, we should live it. Just as with the first factor, we can certainly do better at our practice of halachah, and live more authentic Jewish lives. And if we can, we must.

3) We must do everything we can to move the mission forward. This means building a Jewish state that exemplifies the ideals of tzedek vemishpat, justice and righteousness, so that Jerusalem becomes the city on the hill that is the world's model.

Like our father Avraham, we must constantly challenge prevailing accepted views in search of deeper truth. And like him, this must be directed not only against society, but also within ourselves. His example is one of constant, dynamic growth.

Perhaps the most amazing thing about the story of God's plan in making this covenant with Avraham is that we get to write the next chapter. May we make our forefathers proud.

The Great Journey

All we are saying is, "Give mutual unilateral disengagement a chance!"

2011-11-03T16:12:00.001-04:00

I am really not kidding.

I noticed that I seemed to be in a minority this week. I've begun work at "Write on for Israel: The Next Generation", teaching Israel advocacy to adults. At one point another speaker was discussing the Palestinian statehood bid in the UN. In discussing it as a unilateral move, he asked the group to compare it with the success or failure of other unilateral declaration. The talked about American independence, the Confederacy and Israel's withdrawal from Gaza. The consensus seemed to be that the first worked because it was backed up in war, and that the other two were failures.

Man, I don't know. I still agree with Ariel Sharon, and believe that unilateral Gaza withdrawal was the right move. I'm not referring to how the residents of Gush Katiff were treated, that is a different issue. Let me begin to defend my thesis, by starting with a few of my assumptions. Next I'll lay out the case, and then I will defend it against possible objections.

A: Assumptions
1) Sometimes Israel has no good moves to make. It can only choose from bad ones. This is an important point. Sometimes when we criticize Israel for creating damage "A", we don't notice that they are solving problem "B" in the only way possible. Lazar Berman makes this argument well. So we may not be able to solve all the problems, but we should look for ways to at least manage the bad ones. By way of analogy, think of how doctors deal with chronic illnesses. There may be no cure, but you must manage what you can.

2) As I mentioned in two previous posts, I think that the space between what the Israeli left can concede and what Palestinian leadership can accept can't be bridged at this time. More importantly, so does Aaron David Miller. That means that peace is not a meaningful thing to pursue at this time. I think that in any case, the second Intifada eroded any fragile trust between Israelis and Palestinians that is the necessary foundation of a peace deal. So let's not even use the word for the foreseeable future. It raises an impossible goal that frustrates progress.

3) For moral and pragmatic reasons, the status quo of Israel being entangled in the military oversight of daily life in the West Bank is a disaster.

B: The Plan
What options does that leave? Once you take peace off the table, how can you move to a different future in the region? I think that Gadi Taub's approach makes the most sense. Mutual unilateral disengagement is what seems most plausible to me. (I know, the acronym is M.U.D., but I really am not kidding here. There is nothing modest in this proposal, so seek no irony)

There will have to be negotiation to set terms for this to work, but there will still be outstanding disagreements. (like the right of return) These will need international support to succeed. At best, they will lead to a cold peace/war between two separated people. Perhaps in a generation or two, this could lead to peoples that could begin to build cooperation and trust. But I don't think this status quo should go that long, and we may not be able to build the trust till we get there.

C: Objections
1) Thousands of rockets come to mind. Don't those rockets prove that unilateral disengagement from Gaza was a failure? Well here's the thing. That failure was due to Israel's lack of a deterrence policy. Post "Cast Lead", Israel has implemented such a policy to great effect in the north with Hizbullah and the South with Hamas. (although it may be even more about Islamic Jihad in the south according to Khaled Abu Toameh)

Are there still rockets? Some, of course. And while even one is not acceptable, I refer back to assumption #1 and point out that terrorism may only be manageable. We have stopped terrorists themselves from crossing that border into Jewish areas, though, and that is a great security success. Are they arming? Yup, but back to assumption #1.

2) Isn't "negotiated mutual unilateral disengagement" the same as a peace process? Yes and no. The similarities are obvious. But NMUD can be pursued with clarity and honesty in a way that the peace process can't. Setting a more realistic goal could possibly generate a healthier dialogue. Israel has reached armistice agreements with many hostile neighbors over the years, and this could be one. I wouldn't call an armistice with Syria "peace talks". But the did lead to reasonably quiet borders, stable coexistence and a maintainable status quo. We need that with the Palestinians. Take peace out of the equation, and there more be work to do and goals to accomplish.

However you evaluate Bibi's performance, he certainly makes a big deal about peace based on true facts. Well, the truth may just be that we can't bridge the gap to become good neighbors. Good fences may be the best we can do for now.

Sura in the lounge

2011-10-30T14:53:00.000-04:00

The 10th grade Jewish History curriculum has a unit on the Talmud, that focuses on the differences between the Mishna and the Gemara. Estee Fleischmann and I cam up with a little improv play a few years ago that we involved the class in.

Basically, the two teachers play Ravina and Rav Ashi. They are asking their students to brainstorm how the Torah she'beal peh should continue to be written. The former wants to just make a new document similat to the Mishan, and the latter disagrees. To make a long story short, they brainstorm with the students, who sort of reinvent the wheel in designing how the new structure should look and come up with the Gemara. The major insight is that while the Mishna recorded the product of discussions, the Gemara must record the process. This will create a work which must be learned and studied, and opposed to just read. Anyone who studies it becomes, over time, part of the oral tradition and a living carrier of the Torah.

Now, we also want to shtick it up. So you have to put out middle eastern food, smells and sounds to create atmosphere. When I put on the little play with the current 10th grade Jewish History teacher, Rabbi Ari Spiegler, we turned the student lunge into ancient Sura in order to have our discussion. My favorite prop was an old school oil lamp that I made from a kit. I mean, how cool is this thing? Just check out the video below, and let me know what you think.

Postscript:

Forwarded conversation
Subject: Article: Sura in the lounge
------------------------

From: N

nice- good stuff. btw- i really like the new layout design of your blog

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From: A

I love it-

Although, I kept expecting the carpet to catch on fire or something. If you want a video to go viral, it needs a bit more pizzazz.

Seriously though, how do the kids react? Do they get the point? Do you think it impacts how they feel about gemara in general?

Is the play full of really hard words and difficult syntax?

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From: Michael Unterberg
Thanks, N. Yeah, I like that the viewer can choose to alter it using the sidebar. Way interactive.

Apropos, A, since as you know, Fire is a Virus. (see link) Pizzazz, on the other hand, is a local restaurant. (nuch a link. nerd jokes abound)

The play is improv, so that avoids the annoying syntax. The kids like it. They are sitting on the floor on pillows and noshing, and their teachers are wearing robes. So that's fun. Many get the point, and have fun with it. Some don't and need more classroomy reinforcement. The idea is that this positive fun time will both help them remember it and give a good taam to it. That's harder to measure though. It should provide a reference point for Gemara teachers to provide occasional motivation, I would hope.

MNUnterberg

Good for Gordis

2011-10-28T09:31:00.000-04:00

So well said. Yashar Koach to Daniel Gordis.

A Rediscovered Abundance of Goodness | Daniel Gordis - Dispatches from an Anxious State

A Rediscovered Abundance of Goodness

Posted By Daniel Gordis On October 28, 2011 @ 2:40 am In Featured Articles,Uncategorized | 14 Comments

Mr. Prime Minister,
Before the Shalit deal fades entirely from view, many of us are hoping that you have noticed what you unwittingly unleashed. I don’t mean the next wave of terror or the terrible decisions that Israel must make before the next kidnapping. We knew about those even before last week. But last Tuesday, all of us – those opposed as well as those in favor (and there were persuasive arguments on both sides) – rediscovered something magnificent about this country. It would be tragic if we returned to business as usual without pausing to take note.
In addition to Gilad Shalit, we got one more thing in return that few of us could have expected; we got a reminder of the abundant goodness that still resides at the very core of this society. You could see it everywhere. Compare the speeches on our side, celebrating life and freedom, to the blood-thirsty Palestinian harangues calling for renewed terror and additional kidnappings. Compare the respectful restraint of our press to Shahira Amin’s immoral and abusive interview in Egypt. But more than anything, we saw this reservoir of goodness in the streets – in the people so moved that they could hide neither the tears in their eyes nor the lumps in their throats. We saw it in the throngs along the roads, people who wanted Shalit to know that they, too, celebrated his long overdue freedom. And we saw it in the hundreds of people in Mitzpe Hila who continued dancing long after he’d entered his house and closed the door.
We all felt it – it was innocent, pure and thoroughly decent. We were witness that day to an entire country believing in something again. Those young people outside the Shalit home were singing not only about Shalit, but about this land, this people, and about a future in which they still believe. Did you see them? Women and men, religious and secular, dancing with abandon in celebration of freedom? Did you hear them singing anachnu ma’aminim benei ma’aminim …. “We’re believers, the children of believes, and we have no one on whom to depend, other than our Father in heaven”? You didn’t miss it, did you? Hundreds of people of all walks of Israeli life, proclaiming without hesitation their belief in something bigger than themselves?
The reason that the trade was wildly popular, Mr. Prime Minister, wasn’t ultimately about Gilad Shalit. It was about Israel. About a country desperate to transcend the cynicism, that still wants to believe that it’s worth believing in. Shouldn’t we – and you – therefore ask ourselves what can we do next to justify people’s belief in this place? What will it take to make this a country that its citizens can love even when we’re not freeing a captive?
How about if we start by eradicating evil? Take but one example and deal with it. There’s a small but vicious group of kids living over the Green Line who bring inestimable shame on the Jewish people. They burn mosques, tear down olive trees and sow fear everywhere – all with the implicit support of their rabbis. And they make many young Israelis deeply ashamed of this entire enterprise. Last week, you showed us that you do know how to take decisive action. So do it again. Rein them in. Arrest them. Cut off funding to their yeshivot. If you show this generation of Israelis that your government stands for goodness even when that means making tough domestic decisions, you’ll unleash a wave of Zionist passion like we haven’t felt here for a generation. It wouldn’t be any harder to do than what you just did, and it would actually do even more good for Israel than getting one soldier back.
And beyond goodness, there’s also Jewishness. No, we shouldn’t make too much of that anachnu ma’aminim benei ma’aminim song, but admit – it’s not what you expect to see lots of secular people singing. Yet they did. Because this is a strange and wondrous country; not so deep down, even “non-religious” people aren’t “non-religious.” Just like their observant counterparts, they’re searching, struggling, yearning – and at moments like that, they know that the well from which they hope to draw their nourishment is a Jewish well.
That’s why it was wonderful that you quoted from Isaiah (the Haftarah for Parashat Bereishit) in your speech. It was your suggestion, I hope, that at its core, this society must be decent, but it must also be Jewish. You know what the main problem with the summer’s Social Justice protests was? It wasn’t the naïve embrace of high school socialism, or the utter incoherence of the demands. It was the fact that there was simply nothing Jewish about their vision for Israel. Dafni Leef and her comrades could have given the same vacuous speeches at Occupy Wall Street. Or in Sweden, for that matter. Those inane speeches were testimony to the failure of our educational systems and of Israel’s religious leadership. The Yoram Kaniuk affair and the court’s willingness to let him declare himself “without religion” is a reflection not on him, but on the appallingly uninteresting variety of Judaism that the State has come to represent. Can you – or anyone else – name even one single powerful idea that’s come from any of Israel’s Chief Rabbis in the past decade or two? Me, neither.
But lo and behold, it turns out that Israel’s young people still want to believe in something. We haven’t given them the tools to articulate it, but they still intuit that whatever we become, it’s got to be Jewish. So ride that wave, too, Mr. Prime Minister. What would it take to shape a country where the profundity at the core of Jewish tradition became once again the subject of discourse in our public square? Does Judaism in the twenty-first century suddenly have to become dull and backward, or can we restore the intellectual and moral excellence that once characterized it? Can you take this on, too? Appoint the right people? Build the right schools? Can you help make this a country encourages those young people now searching for Jewish moral moorings?
For or against, hardly a single one of us is not thrilled that Gilad Shalit is home. He deserved his life back. But so, too, does this country. Shalit, hopefully, will now get better and stronger with each passing day. Israel must do the same. It needs to get better – we need to be honest about the evils lurking in our midst, and we must exorcise them. And we must become stronger, which we can do only by engaging with the roots that brought us back home in the first place.
Can you do this? Many of us hope so. Because if this fails, it will in the long run have made no difference that Gilad Shalit came home. But if it succeeds, we might just come to see his liberation as the turning point in our collective return to believing in ourselves.

Article printed from Daniel Gordis – Dispatches from an Anxious State: http://danielgordis.org

URL to article: http://danielgordis.org/2011/10/28/a-rediscovered-abundance-of-goodness/

The Long Road Home

2011-10-25T09:18:00.002-04:00

In many ways, Gilad Shalit's journey home has barely begun.

Obviously, we all know that spending years of 19 to 24 in a Hamas bunker is going to leave terrible scars. There will be so many difficulties in his reentry into normal life, and many of them are so hard to anticipate.

Could he have known that he has become an international celebrity and front page news? He must have known that his family would be advocating for him. But what could prepare him for the public persona he now has? Celebrities often complain about the down sides of fame, although they worked hard to earn it. What if it is thrust on you through happenstance? It must create a Harry Potter like sense of confusion. Can he ever have the kind of privacy in public that we all enjoy?

Will he possibly feel guilt? Don't forget that other soldiers were killed during his capture. Will he fear running into families of the victims of the released terrorists? (I don't even want to consider future terrorist actions, God forbid, and what that would make him feel)

I was just watching an interview with the hero Dennis Fitch. It was for Errol Morris' "First Person", and it is riveting. He saved dozens of lives by landing an impossibly out of control plane. It is an amazing story. In the interview, he talks about meeting the mother of a young woman who didn't survive the crash. This mom walked up to him and said, "You killed my daughter!" The injustice of it gave him no consolation. Here was a hero made to feel guilt for what he could not control rather than what he accomplished.

Will Gilad fear such meetings? Will they happen? They could. And what positive accomplishments can he use to attempt to console himself?

I wonder who is even qualified to help Gilad through these times. Who has had an experience like his? Other prisoners of war in Israel may yield some aid and understanding.

I hope it goes as well as it possibly can.

Did the government do the right thing? Its too hard for me to say. Were the potential concerns of strategy and the abstract concerns of justice worth this young man's life? How does one decide?

I keep thinking about a scene from Frank Miller's 1986 graphic novel, "The Dark Knight Returns". The new commissioner asks the retiring Commissioner Gordon how he could have sanctioned a vigilante like Batman. The panels below are his response.

"You will," he answers.

A Powerful argument for the Jewish Renaissance: "Jerusalem & Babylon"

2011-10-10T16:08:00.000-04:00

Jerusalem & Babylon / In listing himself as 'without religion,' Kaniuk exhibits lack of imagination - Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News

Ahad Ha'am

Still the Long Now

2011-10-09T20:00:00.002-04:00

The op-ed below presents it in a nutshell. In the seemingly unbridgeable gap between the Israeli left's limit of compromise and Abbas' lies the impossibility of moving forward with any peace deal. See for yourself on the Haaretz website, or just read it below:

Published 12:56 07.10.11
Latest update 12:56 07.10.11

Open letter to Mahmoud Abbas for Yom Kippur

The two-state solution is running out of oxygen, if it is not implemented soon, it will die; it is time for Abbas to take the step Anwar Sadat took by coming to the Knesset, recognizing Israel as the Jewish people’s homeland.

By Carlo StrengerTags: Mahmoud Abbas Palestinian state Benjamin Netanyahu 1967 borders

Dear Mr. Abbas,

Generally I write to my fellow Jews and Israelis for our high holidays. For you Yom Kippur is, of course, not a day of reckoning, but I hope you will accept these words from an Israeli who has sponsored your cause for years with all his heart. I have done so no less for the sake for my country than for your country that has yet to come into being.

Because a State of Israel that oppresses another people is an affront to my Jewishness, and that of the majority of Jews worldwide for whom human rights are an inviolable value – precisely because our people has suffered immensely from bigotry and racism.

Given my sympathy for your cause, I hope you will listen to my call to you; you know, as well as anybody else, that the two-state solution is running out of oxygen. If it is not implemented soon, it will die.

You will not get a viable Palestinian state from Benjamin Netanyahu. It’s against his ideology. Your success depends on convincing Israelis that they must elect another government, and there is only one way you can do this.

In your speech at the UN you spoke to your own people. Now you must speak to Israelis. You must take the step Anwar Sadat took. You must come to the Knesset and tell Israelis that you recognize Israel as the Jewish people’s homeland.

Tell Israelis that the Palestinian people demand that their tragedy of 1948 be acknowledged and recognized, but that you do not demand physical return of refugees to Israel; that individual Palestinians can claim compensation for the loss of their homes, but that, as was the case in Europe after WWII, you recognize that physical return is no longer an option.

You certainly know that for at least a decade, seventy percent of Israelis have believed that two states for two people is the only way to peace, and that the same proportion thinks that in this generation there is no Palestinian partner for peace. The main reason is the second intifada. Less than two years ago you admitted that this uprising was the greatest mistake Palestinians ever made, and you are right - Israelis, ever since, have no longer trusted Palestinian intentions.

The other reason is that Israelis believe that for most Palestinians the two-state solution is but the first step in a two-stage process to abolish Israel as a Jewish state; that once Palestine is recognized along the 1967 borders, your people will continue to attack Israel physically and diplomatically; that you will insist that every Palestinian refugee around the world has the right to return to the lands and houses of their forefathers; that you will never accept Israel’s legitimacy as the homeland of the Jewish people.

As a result they ask, why take the security risks involved in implementing the two-state solution in which Tel Aviv and Ra'anana are within the range of Palestinian rocket attacks? And you know very well that this is not just a paranoid fear - the South of Israel has been shelled for years following Israel's withdrawal from Gaza.

I believe that Israel must take the security risk involved, that it has the military strength to deal with these risks if your Palestinian brethren decide to return to the path of violence. I believe that Israel must take this risk because this is the only way that Israel can remain the democratic homeland of the Jews; because a democratic Israel can only exist if Palestinians have their own state.

But here comes the crucial point. I know that the Palestinian right of return is firmly etched into your people’s ethos; that this right has been at the core of your people’s history, songs, books and stories.

You, Mr. Abbas, know that Israelis will never accept the right of return. This, for them, is a red line they will never cross. Today, the vast majority of Israelis were born here. In the last six decades, a vibrant culture has come into being here. They have nowhere to go – and they don’t want to go anywhere. This is their home, and they will fight for it without compromise.

This is not the just the view of people like Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman, for whom, as you know, I have little sympathy. It is the view of Tzipi Livni, of Shaul Mofaz and Shelly Yechimovich. You need to realize that it is even the view of the three remaining MKs of Meretz, Israel’s party most committed to liberal values.

You are faced with a terrible dilemma, Mr. Abbas. Your legitimacy as leader of the Palestinian people seems to depend on not renouncing the right of return. Your success in establishing a state for your people depends on convincing Israelis that you accept Israel as the homeland of the Jews.

It will also help you gain support from EU countries, who would be more inclined to support your bid for UN recognition if it were connected to recognition of Israel as the state of the Jewish people. You may remember that Spain, the country spearheading support for your UN bid, also just recognized Israel as a Jewish state – and you might take this as a lead for a fruitful line of action.

Mr. Abbas, I know that this proposal is very difficult for you to accept. I write to you on the eve of Yom Kippur, because my heart is weary and full of sorrow, because I see the two-state solution slipping away, and along with it the State of Israel as I had hoped to see it – and the State of Palestine that I believe your people deserves.

I hope you will find the strength to make this historic step. For the sake of your people, and mine.

Jobs' jobs

2011-10-06T15:24:00.002-04:00

A combination of Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Tony Stark and the Beatles. He changed technology, business, culture and formed the future with his vision. Apple is one of the few things left that brands America with images of success, innovation and elegance.

This is a fundamental element of what it takes to become a light unto the nations.

Who will be Israel's Steve Jobs?

The Long Now

2011-10-04T12:35:00.001-04:00

Have you wondered what Abbas is thinking?

His speech at the UN GA was his explanation of why after 63 years of post Nakba Palestinian suffering Israel must immediately be forced by the world to behave morally. It did not acknowledge any Israeli narrative or concerns, and restated his policy of demanding a stop to all building in the West Bank before he will resume negotiations.

Why would he do this? If he wants a state for his people, and a stop to settlement building, why would he not rush into negotiations? The Palestinians now have the momentum to push Israel into maximum concessions. This has got to be the perfect moment for him to aggressively negotiate in order to achieve his state.

Say what you want about Netanyahu, he acknowledged Palestinian (and Arab) concerns and aspirations in his speech. He called for immediate, vigorous negotiations to get to an end game. It is reasonable to ask if his government could hold together while pulling 100,000 Jews out of their homes after a signed agreement. Heck, its reasonable to ask if anyone could muster the political will from a majority within the Israeli population to support such self-inflicted trauma. And let's accept the, for now, the argument that Netanyahu has deliberately dragged his feet to stall the possibility of finding a deal.

The question is, who would he make it with? Abbas is making it impossible to have the discussion. And I am left wondering why he would make a choice like that. To a reasonable outsider, it would seem to not be in his best interest.

It is tempting to pull out Eban's "[they] never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity" quote. But that is a description, not an explanation. It is also tempting to think of your opponent as crazy and irrational and let it go at that. But its usually a strategic blunder to underestimate that way. Israel made that mistake in 73.

It is possible that Abbas is taking a rational gamble. Perhaps he has accepted the popular Arab narrative that the West is in decline. With Europe and America in dire economic straits, and protests in the streets of major cities, they see our hegemony coming to an end. If the 20th century saw the falls of Fascism and Communism, it is possible that the 21st will see the fall of capitalist Democracies. While praying to God that this will not be the case, it is certainly a real possibility.

It may be that Abbas et. al. are banking on this. A decline of the West leaves a desperately unprotected Israel. If this is so, then the PA is stalling in order to hold off until they can achieve their ultimate goal. Its a frightening thought.

Let me leave off with two videos, one downer and one upper. The first shows a Fatah official explaining what the ultimate goal of the PA really is. He is speaking in Arabic, so its worth paying attention:

The other is an argument in Arabic about their culture today. It is some little cause for optimism that media culture means things like this are broadcast there. Enjoy.

A Word Cloud of the current blog...

2011-09-27T12:57:00.000-04:00

The Fresh Prince of Mizrachi

2011-09-16T11:43:00.001-04:00

Do you have a lot of free time on your hands?

2011-05-26T13:52:00.002-04:00

Here is another e-mail thread discussing the current Bibi-Obama bruhaha. I've changed everyone's name but my own. I've also done a fair amount of editing. You may feel like reading it through, skimming it or ignoring it. Its up to you.

Unless you're Gabi. Gabi should read it. Just saying.

Forwarded conversation

Subject: "Elections have consequences #94,756" or "Is there really a difference between the Parties on Israel"?

------------------------

From: X

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110519/ap_on_re_us/us_obama_mideast_palestinians_1

This of course includes your current home

----------

From: Y

Why X, are you saying Obama wants Israel to go back to what famed (Labor Party) Israeli diplomat Abba Eban called “Auschwitz Lines”?

Shocked, I am. Shocked and surprised.

----------

From: Z

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-news-in-obamas-speech/2011/05/19/AF4dFN7G_story.html?nav=emailpage

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From: Michael Naftali Unterberg

Good for krauthammer! A few quibbles, but overall he approves of the speech and sees it as a continuation of W's policies. He is quite right.

By the way If you talk to people at the israeli embassy, they are less concerned with these ambiguities that he called attention to. The best way to understand these dynamics is to talk to the people in the middle of them, like embassy officials or aipac leaders. It's worth going to Washington and talking to the players if you have the opportunity. Gives you some healthy perspective I think.

Sent from my iPad

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From: Y

Actual question (not trying to make a point),

Why is bibi so pissed?

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

From: Michael Naftali Unterberg

----------

From: X

Why is Yossi Beilin so happy? (see NYT today) I think he called the speech unprecedented and new direction, etc.

----------

From: Z

It seemed to me that he was mocking of the fact Obama was so critical of the Bush doctrine and now has basically been forced to embrace it because facts on the ground have changed and he really has no choice. Its amazIng how the tone has changed now, didn't the left, Obama included, chastize Bush for the muslim world hating us because of Bushs policies?

Also Krauthammer is critical of the Israel/Palestinian portion of the speech as are most conservatives. Its a clear shift in US attitude/rhetoric - sounds more and more like Carter every day.

Subject: Re: "Elections have consequences #94,756" or "Is there really a difference between the Parties on Israel"?

----------

From: Michael Naftali Unterberg <munterberg@gmail.com>

Date: Fri, May 20, 2011 at 6:04 PM

To: "dehrenreich@gmail.com" <dehrenreich@gmail.com>

Bibi said why he was upset. He wanted clearer statements on borders, right of return and Hamas. He said he wants clearer statements on things we agree on. He got one out of three from Obama. Both agree that they agree on most of the substance.

Who cares about Beilin? Perhaps he sees Palestinian statehood coming closer. Sure sounds exaggerated to me.

I am more interested in substance than side choosing. If beilin wants to recast AmAan policy to suit his views, that's his right. I try to use as little bias as I can to understand things as they are. I find that to be a helpful tool.

Anyway, your argument is with krauthammer, not me. Although I do agree with his assessment.

Sent from my iPhone

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From: Y

This is very far from science, so side choosing is far from irrelevant. Substance in this area has a way of evaporating, so who obama batted his eyelashes at and who he cold shouldered matters as much as what words were spoken.

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From: X

Personally, I kind of think the Prime Minister of Israel's reaction is somewhat relevant. I find it to be a very helpful tool to gauging his reaction and understanding the significance of the Obama's speech

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From: Michael Naftali Unterberg

Who cares what’s bothering Krauthammer? If he is surprised at how much agreement there is with bush doctrine, I can't see where that's such a bad thing. And his quibbles with the israel part are fair.

I feel pretty assured that the ambiguities that concern him are not matters of great concern. Off the record the administration is quite open with the israelis that raising the settlements was a huge blunder, and krautheimer caught this and read into it properly. Having been aware of the administrations position, I was not surprised.

I also noticed that he never mentioned Auchwitz, Carter or any other panic points.

There are certainly hard and traumatic times ahead for the state of israel. Thats the matzav. If it feels better to blame AmAa for that matzav, I don't have a particular problem with that.

But i do think that blaming AmAa for israels problems is about as valid as blaming israel for AmAas problems in the middle east. And I'm sure you noticed that Obama isn't doing that. Didn't you?

Beilin is not prime minister. I thought Bibis points were fair and reasonable matters of concern, and was relieved that they were about messaging rather than substance. Weren't you?

Sent from my iPhone

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From: Y

Until something is signed, nuance matters, personal relationships between leaders matter. Read the histories of previous accords if you have any doubts. Plus, in foreign policy a president is kinglike, and who he likes or dislikes matters a great deal.

From: Michael Naftali Unterberg

Sure, but there are only a few details left after tabba in 2001, so there isn't that much wiggle room anyway. And hardly an Auschwitz senario.

Shabbat shalom! on my way to shul

Sent from my iPhone

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From: Z

Weren't you a critic of Bushs involvement in the Muslim world? Why are those policies suddenly ok now?

So basically we need to let Obama bully Israel into doing what he thinks is the right thing to do and predetermine the fate of the negotiations? No other President has been more one sided towards the Palestinian position - and in my humble opinion that should disturb anyone who cares about the safety and future of Israel

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From: Michael Naftali Unterberg

Nope.

And I disagree. As does aipac and the Israeli embassy

Shabbat shalom

Sent from my iPhone

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From: Z

Which spokesman of the Israeli embassy spoke to you. And told me they weren't upset with the speech. It seemd Bibbi was very upset, I would imagine he represents a fairly 'official' source of Israeli reaction, doesn't he?

----------

From: A

A selection of worthwhile reads on the latest Obama - Netanyahu clash:

Ynet, on some of the behind the scenes maneuvering before the speech (Hebrew - 2nd part in particular about Dennis Ross): http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4071781,00.html

Shmuel Rosner, former Ha'aretz Washington correspondent, on questions for the coming days: http://blogs.jpost.com/content/washington-questions-following-obama-netanyahu-meeting-0

Washington Post Editorial Board Opinion: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-blowup-with-israel/2011/05/20/AFwl827G_story.html

Rob Satloff, Director of the Washington Institute for Near East policy: http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC06.php?CID=1630

Ari Shavit, one of Israel's most respected columnists: http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/obama-s-speech-was-bad-for-middle-east-peace-1.363199

Yossi Klein Halevi, New Republic: http://www.tnr.com/article/world/88730/obama-middle-east-speech-netanyahu-israel

Alan Dershowitz: http://www.hudson-ny.org/2137/president-obama-mistake

Shavua tov,

----------

From: Michael Naftali Unterberg

Here is a really good summary of reactions.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/20/no-disrespect

Personally, I agree with jeff Goldberg and see the speech as pretty much an articulation of Clinton and bush's position. (although in his other piece, I think he's giving Netanyahu too hard a time, accusing him of hissy fits. I think he's doing what he needs to do, and kudos to Obama for sitting still while Bibi gave him a public lecture. The clip is worth viewing. I can't remember seeing a president allowing himself to be treated that way)

I think that Glenn Kessler makes a compelling case about shifting diplomatic language, but in the big picture still see things goldbergs way.

As catapano's piece makes clear, people read these things differently. Might I recommend to those who feel that their particular perception makes them a truer Zionist (or something) than those with a different perception, that this is a complicated matter. Do I need to explain this further? Basic Jewish and AmAan values, it seems to me, make this a rather obvious point. People can disagree about a speech and it's implications without losing their cred as a Jew or Zionist. I believe that further explication of this point should be beneath all readers of this email.

We are all concerned for israel as it heads into rocky waters. Neo-cons see the world as a struggle of good over evil. Progressives see humans as essentially good, and it is the work of civilization to create the structures that will make them their best. Both are important paradigms, yielding valuable insights that wise people should attend to.

The historical record finds proponents if both world views getting calls wrong. I remember Kristol and Will and others excoriating Reagan for reaching out to encourage glasnost and reduce our nuclear arsenal. They used analogies to Munich 1938. It was Reagan's genius to see outside of his usual paradigm in order to recognize a unique opportunity. Will and Kristol, et al ended up with egg on their face, and remained intelligent writers worth reading.

I, for one, certainly feel it should be beneath me to have to argue my Zionist Bona fides, sanity or personal IQ, simply because my politics differ with some else's. I can supply the names of the people I spoke to when I return to Cleveland. I'm bad with names and my notes are at home. Also, I voted for Bush/Cheney in 2004. Does that prove anything one way or the other? I think not. Although I disagreed with many of their policies, I always refused to be disrespectful to their administration, and told liberal friends that they should do the same.

I personally think that describing this, or any, AmAan administration as being anti Israel is a cruel injustice to a firm ally. AmAan interests will cause conflicts with israel, as they did for regean, ( eg. AWACS & bittburg) Clinton and both bushes. This issues today are existentially vital, and we can get carried away in our anger at AmAan policy. But both sides of the political spectrum, believe in deep support for israel and express this in far more than talk.

We Jews owe AmAa much, and should be respectful in how we talk about it's leaders. and to each other.

I trust that we agree on these points above all others. I am not calling out anyone for anything in particular. I am, however, sounding a note of caution for future submissions.

Sent from my iPad

----------

From: B

All,

I had the opportunity to listen to/watch Obama's entire speech. I don't know how realistic democracy is for all those countries in turmoil, in fact, its probably just wishful thinking, but i hope i'm wrong.

On the whole, I thought the speech was thoughtful, balanced, etc.

However, with regard to Israel, I was disturbed by his continued use of the word "occupation" and obviously his statement about the 1967 borders, which, in the context of the whole 50 minute speech, actually seemed completely unnecessary and totally out of place. There may be no naphka minah given the notion of land swaps in the context of prior deals, but why evoke it at all? Seemed like a misstep.

And I never have understood "occupation". That always upset me. Obama eats lunch every day on land previously settled/owned by the Pawnee and Piscataway Indians, until they were all slaughtered or forced to leave, but no one refers to Washington D.C. as "occupied territory."

Whatever.

Are people blowing all this way out of proportion? YES. It's a little ridiculous at this point. In fact, his speech to AIPAC, which I also listened to in its entirety, was very positive. He bent over backwards to show support and then went out of his way to qualify his remarks at the State Department regarding 1967 borders.

So where does all that leave us. I have no idea. I also read all the articles A sent out and the ones the rest of you sent out and they are all over the board trying to figure out whether the speech was good or bad and what it meant in total, etc.

Ultimately, my fear lies in Obama's true feelings regarding Israel and the Jews. They are too personal to be really known, and he's all over the map when he speaks publicly. He's very intelligent and thoughtful, but this goes deeper than that, and when push comes to shove, what he believes in his heart has to matter on some level.

Rabbi Granatstein has been giving doom and gloom speeches for months now, and this past shabbat spoke about how Obama dislikes Bibi in a severe way and visa-versa and that there is nothing we can do about it but pray.

I don't like to believe its all doom and gloom, because its worthless to think like that. And based on what I've read, the fight between Bibi and Obama has also been exaggerated.

Bottom line - no one has any idea what Obama really believes and the best we can do is pray that he does have our back.

Silver lining - this could cause housing prices to fall in the efrat, which would be good for Z in the short term and the rest of us long term :)

-------------

----------

From: A

This piece by Omri Ceren gets to the crux of the issue:

There have been a lot of arguments and counterarguments regarding President Obama’s statement that Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking should proceed using Israel’s 1949 armistice lines as a starting point. Some claim that the position reflects decades of U.S. policy. Others claim that it’s a break from past administrations but is consistent with this one’s peacemaking. Yet others claim that it goes beyond all previous AmAan stances, and that it represents a “borders first” approach that hasn’t been seen in the Oslo era. For each of these claims there are also arguments on both sides—given that the Obama speech stipulated this and not that—predicting what effect will be had on the peace process.

If only there was an objective way to evaluate how Obama’s demands on Israel are playing out in the context of Middle East diplomacy. Some way to check—again, objectively—whether as this morning there are more barriers or less barriers to the resumption of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Quantitatively, as it were.

Conveniently, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat has now released a statement, transforming Obama’s border guidelines into preconditions for renewed talks. Until recently the Palestinians had no problem negotiating without those preconditions. It was widely recognized that the Palestinians were trying to get to Obama’s position—a final status agreement structured around the 1949 lines plus land swaps—but that they would have to negotiate to it and make concessions along the way. Now Erekat is insisting that “there is no point talking about a peace process” unless Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu accepts the final Palestinian position as everyone’s starting position. Since that’s not going to happen under any circumstances—nor should it—we are again in a situation where President Obama’s de-facto advocacy for the Palestinian cause has made peace more difficult to achieve.

All of this nonsense was easy to explicitly predict. This film has played before. In 2009 the White House decided that construction in Israeli settlement blocs so eroded Palestinian trust that the poor dears were unable to negotiate. The Palestinians, who had for years been quite able to negotiate while that construction continued, were forced to follow President Obama’s lead and insist upon a settlement freeze as a new precondition. They couldn’t let the U.S. president out-Palestine the Palestinian president. Abbas would later complain that Obama’s settlement stance came from the White House and pushed the Palestinians out on a limb—before leaving them there. Three times.

At this point, I’m genuinely unsure whether the Palestinians are pleased with how Obama is tilting negotiations in their direction, or just kind of confused about what it is that he thinks he’s doing.

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From: Michael Naftali Unterberg

Good piece. Of course, erekat has been saying that for the last several weeks. Here's a good example. http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4069637,00.html

That guys a schmuck.

Solid points,B. In terms of occupation, Obama eats lunch on land where e everyone is a citizen with rights, including a right to vote, and on land that is legally US soil. Yehuda and shomron were never annexed and legally declared Israeli soil. There are 11 million people living between the meditaranian and the

Jordan river. 7 million are citizens of a state. 4 million are citizens of nothing.

This is not to say that the blame falls on israel for this problem. But it is a problem and I'm not sure why occupation isn't an accurate description. Israel runs military control of land that is not legally israel, and the majority of it's inhabitants hate israel. I'm not sure that "disputed" describes it better than occupied.

I didnt think that I was talking about nuance, and don't think it was my point at all. I think the nazis were wrong, if that is helpful.

Perhaps my point could be made clearer if I call attention to the Klien halevi piece that A sent. He claims that the Palestinian state is both an existential necessity and an existential threat to the state of israel. That being the case wouldn't you expect diverging opinions about such a knotty problem?

Some in this correspondence are hoping that this Gordian knot will remain tight, others are hoping it can be sliced open. And I'll bet both sides have feelings that go the other way as well.

So how about everyone drop the "my side is smarter and righter than your side" stuff. I prefer Bs style of " I liked this but not that, agree here but not there" style. Or As "I think this is the lay of the land" style. I find them preferable to the "my pundits and politicians represent truth and yours either do not comprehend reality or are evil."

I hope these clarifications are helpful.

I disagree with rabbi granastein. Successive American administrations have shown that the us can have little affect when the inertia is not coming from the players themselves. I'm not sure how much of a difference any of this will have. I think the real issues are between Netanyahu and Abbas. Obama is doing what he thinks is best to get them to work together, and Surprise! It isn't working.

I am still unimpressed with the administrations naiveté, although it does seem to be dwindling. This may be why Dennis Ross plays an ever growing roll in the white house. Buy I see no evidence of malicious intent, and plenty against it, so I bristle when people claim otherwise.

And I'm still amazed that Obama let Bibi lecture him on camera. Diplomatically, that's a powerful gesture. And I don't think he lied when he called us q great people, or when he said that AmAa is unswerving in its dedication to israels security.

Although I think this problem is so complex that his attempts will avail little, I am still amazed by the suspicion with which our president is regarded. When he disagrees with you, why assume that he is anti-goodness? We should bristle when people do that to our president. Wether we voted for him or not.

I guess I'm just unnuanced, but I assume the best of all our AmAan leaders, however profoundly I may disagree with particular positions. I was raised to believe that patriots do that as an AmAan value.

I fear for the coming months for israel. I think there are smart people trying their best in israel and AmAa to protect her. They are humans and will therefore make dumb mistakes. And as Bibi said, there is little room for error. Ultimately, only Hashem can help us, and only He knows what the right moves are. This may lack nuance, but I think it true. Other than these simple facts, I think we should all show some intellectual humility when expressing our opinions.

Sent from my iPhone

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From: Z

Rabbi G, who I do not always agree with when it comes to politics, pointed out that Obamas speech was fair. He, however pointed out the awful disdain that Obama has towards Netanyahu, which he is extremely worried about. He drew comparisons to Carters hatred towards Menachem Begin. He fears that the current presidents treatment of the democratically elected prime minister of the only democracy in the middle east is extremely dangerous especialy in light of Europes, already tough stance that has existed for a long time. He also mentioned Bush seniors relations with Shamir.

I think most of us on the conservative side of the map feel the same way. While I still believe the US is still Israel best ally, I am fearful of Obamas 'balanced' approach to a conflict that in my opinion is not one that should be dealt with a 'moral equivalency' of equal demands for both sides. Security and recognition of Israel should be first. Trying to force Israel to make concessions in negotiations, by declaring what the final borders should be before negotiations even started is in my opinion wrong and unproductive. With Fatah and Hamas reaching an agreement, the Presidents stance at this point in time is even more perplexing, its almost as if he is rewarding the palestinians for their deal with Hamas.

I had voted for Clinton his first term because of my disdain for Bush seniors treatment and attitude towards Israel, I frankly agree with Rabbi G's assesment of Obamas general attitude towards Israel and its leader.

I would also like to point out that some of the comments that we hear from you, Michael, often come out sounding very condesending. It almost feels like most of the time you think us conservatives are dumb and closed minded. I think some or most of us just respond in a similar vain when we read some of your e-mails. I apologize if I may come across accusing you of not caring for Israel, I have no doubt you love and care for the state of Israel the same or more then me. I simply see things in a different light then you and am concerned with the direction our President is and has taken since taking office. I think that forcing positions on sides in a negotiations is a terrible move. Also, I truly do not think any arab nation is close to coming to a real peaceful solution witgh Israel. That day will not come until the education and internal messaging that are dissemenated to the arab people changes from the current hate mongering towards Israel. And Even the Egyptian peace is in danger of collapsing now.

This is especially true with the palestinians. And rewarding them with 1967 borders I believe is dangerous, since it will then just give more opportunities for terrorists to be that much closer to executing their plans. I would have thought that the Oslo fiasco would have taught us that we really do not have a real partner for peace. I hope I am wrong, but fear I am not.

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From: Michael Unterberg

I apologize for sounding condescending, it was not my intention. I was trying to explain why those who do not share your paradigm deserve respect. (See the subject title of this e-mail for example) But again, this is the problem with doing these by e-mail, tone becomes hard to control and falls to the eye of the reader.

I disagree with Rabbi G. Brysynski is no Dennis Ross, and I don't think carter is Obama. Can you imagine carter televising being lectured to by BEgin? Unthinkable. By the way, the President's language on Hamas is still right on target, as far as I can tell. That's the one area he followed Natanyahu's request.

I do not see peace as a possibility for generations, and think that the word should be stricken from the conversation. I agree with Ariel Sharon that the status quo is more dangerous to Israel's future than separation, and think that should be achieved as quickly as possible. I think AmAan Jews make a mistake when they reduce the possibilities to war and peace.

I like Gadi Taub's term, "Mutual Unilateralism" as the only way to get two enemies to stop living together and sharing their lives.

I am not sure how "moral equivalency" applies here. That term refers to those dicussing the "cycle of violence", and who equate Tzahal with Hamas. I don't think I am guilty of moral equivalency if I believe that the status quo is unsustainable both for Israeli and Arabs and should be changed. 4 million people with ni citizenship in any state is a problem for both.

If we want to blame anyone, ultimately Rav Soloveitchik blames AmAan Jews. If there were millions of AmAan olim, then there would be no problem. We can't annex Yehuda and Shomron is there are 6 million Jews and 5 million Arabs, which are the current numbers. If amAan jews lived in Israel it would be 12 million Jews to 5 million arabs, and annexation could have happened years ago. It is hard for me not to think of the Rav's warnings from 1956 during these trying times.

Ultimately, Z, you and your family are part of the solution. We can certainly all agree on that.

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From: Z

Do you think the results of the seperation from Gaza were a success?

Do we not have a worse enemy in control of Gaza now as compared to pre-disengagement. Isn't Gaza getting mor arms by the day? Aren't there constant rockets coming out of Gaza towards Israel on a regular basis. How exactly has disengagement solved our problems in Gaza? Why would that model work any better in Yehudah and Shomron? And the 1967 borders means hardly any room between that line and the Ocean-that reality seems something Israel can never accept in my opinion.

The moral eqivelancy that I speak of is the fact that as a general norm, Liberals were are comfortable and encourage 'fainess' and equity in demaanding Israel give up land in order to get security. I believe that we should all demand security and recognition as the only precondition to negotiations, everything else should be determined by negotiations between the parties, but until those conditions are met Israels arm should not be twisted to give up anything.

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From: X

I have read dozens of articles and all those referenced in these emails by A and michael - and none sum up my thoughts and fears better than Bret Stephens in today's WSJ - among the most amazing pieces of this is how people see the same event differently. Here is Stephens:

The Anti American President: By BRET STEPHENS

Say what you will about President Obama's approach to Israel—or of his relationship with AmAan Jews—he sure has mastered the concept of chutzpah.

On Thursday at the State Department, the president gave his big speech on the Middle East, in which he invoked the claims of friendship to tell Israelis "the truth," which to his mind was that "the status quo is unsustainable, and Israel too must act boldly to advance a lasting peace." On Friday in the Oval Office, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered his version of the truth, which was that the 1967 border proposed by Mr. Obama as a basis for negotiating the outlines of a Palestinian state was a nonstarter.

Administration reaction to this reciprocal act of friendly truth-telling? "That was Bibi over the top," the New York Times quoted one senior U.S. official, using the prime minister's nickname. "That's not how you address the president of the United States."

Maybe so. Then again, it isn't often that this or any other U.S. president welcomes a foreign leader by sandbagging him with an adversarial policy speech a day before the visit. Remember when the Dalai Lama visited Mr. Obama last year? As a courtesy to Beijing, the president made sure to have the Tibetan spiritual leader exit by the door where the White House trash was piled up. And that was 11 months before Hu Jintao's state visit to the U.S.

When this president wants to make a show of his exquisite diplomatic sensitivity—burgers with Medvedev, bows to Abdullah, New Year's greetings to the mullahs—he knows how. And when he wants to show his contempt, he knows how, too.

The contempt was again on display Sunday, when Mr. Obama spoke to the Aipac policy conference in Washington. The speech was stocked with the perennial bromides about U.S.-Israeli friendship, which brought an anxious crowd to its feet a few times. As for the rest, it was a thin tissue of falsehoods, rhetorical legerdemain, telling omissions and self-contradictions. Let's count the ways.

For starters, it would be nice if the president could come clean about whether his line about the 1967 line—"mutually agreed swaps" and all—was pathbreaking and controversial, or no big deal. On Sunday, Mr. Obama congratulated himself for choosing the hard road to Mideast peace as he prepares for re-election, only to offer a few minutes later that "there was nothing particularly original in my proposal."

Associated Press

President Barack Obama arrives to speak at the AmAan Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) convention.

Yet assuming Mr. Obama knows what he's talking about, he knows that's untrue: No U.S. president has explicitly endorsed the '67 lines as the basis for negotiating a final border, which is why the University of Michigan's Juan Cole, not exactly a shill for the Israel lobby, called it "a major turning point."

Mr. Obama would also know that in 2009 Hillary Clinton had described this formula as "the Palestinian goal." Now it's Mr. Obama's goal as well, even as he insists that "no peace can be imposed."

Then there was Mr. Obama's use of his favorite professorial trope: "Let me repeat what I actually said." What followed was a rehearsal of what he supposedly said on Thursday.

But Mr. Obama's problem isn't, as he supposes, that people aren't paying close enough attention to him. On the contrary, they've noticed that on Thursday Mr. Obama called for Israel to make territorial concessions to some approximation of the '67 linesbefore an agreement is reached on the existential issues of refugees and Jerusalem. "Moving forward now on the basis of territory and security," he said, "provides a foundation to resolve these two issues in a way that is just and fair, and that respects the rights and aspirations of Israelis and Palestinians."

Mr. Obama neglected to mention these points on Sunday, hence the telling omission. But the essence of his proposal is that Israel should cede territory, put itself into a weaker position, and then hope for the best. This doesn't even amount to a land-for-peace formula.

That's not all. Mr. Obama got some applause Sunday by calling for a "non-militarized" Palestinian state. But how does that square with his comment, presumably applicable to a future Palestine, that "every state has a right to self-defense"? Mr. Obama was also cheered for his references to Israel as a "Jewish state." But why then obfuscate on the question of Palestinian refugees, whose political purpose over 63 years has been to destroy Israel as a Jewish state?

And then there was that line that "we will hold the Palestinians accountable for their actions and their rhetoric." Applause! But can Mr. Obama offer a single example of having done that as president, except perhaps at the level of a State Department press release?

What, then, would a pro-Israel president do? He would tell Palestinians that there is no right of return. He would make the reform of the Arab mindset toward Israel the centerpiece of his peace efforts. He would outline hard and specific consequences should Hamas join the government.

Such a vision could lay the groundwork for peace. What Mr. Obama offered is a formula for war, one that he will pursue in a second term. Assuming, of course, that he gets one.

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From: Michael Unterberg

And I take exception to this line: "What, then, would a pro-Israel president do?"

Again, the problem is not disagreeing, its saying that "either you agree with me or you're anti-Israel". (or is Stephens implying that Obama is completely Israel neutral?) I see his language in that sentence as angry, nasty and dismissive. Not to mention unhelpful and wrong headed. And if I disagree with Stephens assessment, am I not (according to him) pro-Israel?

By the way, Z, I do not retract my earlier apology. If I caused offense I am sorry. But I looked over what I wrote and I see compliments to Irving Kristol, George Will, calling Ronald Reagan a genius and praising the value of the neo-con perspective. I do not see how that portrays conservatives as "dumb and closed minded". I certainly do not see where I am more condescending than the subject title or Y's original response. I don't care that much, but it seems that if we are being cautious it should go both ways. If we are letting little jabs go, I am perfectly ok with that too. Let's just pick one standard.

I'd also like you to take into account that it is neither easy or fun to debate 5 people by yourself, while traveling with your family, on your iPhone. I simply refuse to be one of the progressive Orthodox Jews who is afraid to express himself for fear of being branded a traitor. Make no mistake, there is a silent minority bullied by harsh rhetoric. One of the reasons I dislike living in an Orthodox Jewish community is that it assumes not only ritual values are shared, but often assumes political perspectives should be homogeneous as well. I am offended by that. As are many who whisper about it when they feel they are safe to do so.

To be frank, I always wonder if I'm better off responding or not. Whatevs. Anyway, I don't mind being in the traitorous minority if it includes the Rav and Rav Aharon Lichtenstein.

In terms of gaza I believe in disengagement plus deterrence. It took till cast lead for the latter part which has word sort of. I think that's the best we can hope for. There is no bright shiny future ahead of us in the next few years, no matter what we do.

The debate is between those who think maintaining status quo is better, and those who disagree. NOT between those who are pro or anti Israel. The president included.

MNUnterberg

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From: B

Michael,

I liked your email, and found many points well taken.

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From: Y

I’ll respond more fully in a bit. First, I appreciate how difficult it is to argue against a group of people alone, I’ve done it myself and it’s no fun. I especially appreciate it given that I’ve often lamented (ask dave) that there are no liberal orthodox jews to talk politics with (who are smart enough, knowledgeable enough, and frankly frum enough to count as an engaged and philosophically committed orthodox jew). Please keep responding. I’ve read and appreciated (I know three times w that word) all your posts in this discussion. I can tell you that at least for me, I often try to start things off w an outrageous post just to bring you into the discussion. (If there’s a special code word, I’ll use that instead in the future.) More to say substantively, but I wanted to say this first.

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From: X

Maybe this is a semantic thing. Stephens is saying, a pro Israel President would have equated things by requiring the Palestinians to ..........[fill in the blank, give up on full return of refugees, denounce Hamas, etc.] just as he began by requiring Israel to cede territory. He didnt. President Bush who I think was a Pro Israel president did do these things by refusing to deal with Arafat and obviously had no patience or tolerance for Hamas.

The opposite of Pro Israel need not be anti Israel - it could be neutral. But I do not think the Israel case and the Palestinian case are equal. If the Palestinians somehow guaranteed peace without doubt and no more violent means - there could be peace tomorrow and I would be the first to advocate ceding territory and land swaps. Please dont unfairly accuse us of thinking you are a traitor or not pro Israel. I do not for a minute think Obama is anti Israel - but I also do not think he is pro Israel.

Also, nobody is calling you a traitor - God forbid - as Z rightly stated your love for Israel is unquestioned. We obviously differ on what is best for Israel. Some like Goldberg, see no change - People like Stephens see all kinds of problems and serious ones. Those that agree with stephens (like myself) are alarmed because we see Israel as threatened. You may feel like this is ultimately a good thing (despite some potential dangers)

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From: B

Separately, I am surprised that you like this article so much. Of all the things we read, i find this to be short and unhelpful.

I just read your most recent post, which address my main issue with the article - the title. I think that gives Obama far too much credit.

In the context of his overall speech at the State Department, i found his thoughts on the egypt, tunsia, etc. to be coming from a place of far more understanding that his statements about israel. Meaning, his attempt at democracy in those countries in only slightly less ridiculous than peace in Isarel, but at least he spoke intelligently about it.

With regard to Israel, when you juxtapose all the things he's said, I now truly believe he is lost. Again, no one knows what he believes in his heart, if anything, and that's a scary proposition, but only slightly less scary is the idea that he seems to be contradicting himself, backpedaling, and otherwise unsure of the right move.

Will all this prove to be disastrous? god willing it wont, but I see this more as a person who is trying to do something, and unsure of the best course of action.

If they go back to 67 borders with swaps or whatever, and war breaks out, Obama, because of his overt statement on the issue (which was unprecedented) will go down as one of the worst Presidents in history. Don't you agree? So I think he will do what he can to avoid that, while also trying to walk some ridiculously fine line to appease the growing hatred of Israel and the jews worldwide.

Could he have ignored the Israel issue altogether? I guess not, but that's where I don't know enough about politics or foreign policy to really claim to know anything on that issue.

Wishing I was with you in the Bellagio....B

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From: Michael Unterberg

Thanks, Y. Much appreciated. I really wasn't complaining about your post, just asking for the same leeway as you. I hope that was fair. By the way, I will argue again that those liberal democrats are out there. Their just afraid to talk.

Thanks, B!

X, to say that any AmAan administration is Israel neutral, (which I suggested in my earlier response) seems to me unfair. As Netanyahu said in his Aipac speech, support for Israel does not divide AmAans, it unites them. (see more relevant Netanyahu quotes below. We all agree that we should take what the PM says seriously.)

Here's the rub: I don't think its unfair to say you are critiquing my loyalty to Israel if you say that the position that I believe in is at best Israel neutral. Your defense is a reverse of the ad hominum fallacy. "I wasn't talking about you - just what you think and believe." I see what Obama is trying to do as a genuine positive attempt. (almost certainly doomed to failure) And I am not neutral.

I am not sure what it means to say that the Israel and Palestinian cases aren't equal. To me, Israel is more important. 4 million humans under Israeli control that are citizens of nothing is a threat to Israel as a Jewish Democracy in our homeland. The fact that many among that 4 million are active war criminals, and many more (if not most) of the rest support their crimes against our people only makes this challenge greater.

I happen to agree with the last three administrations and many (if not most) Israelis that this status quo poses an existential threat. The best solution is to allow Fayyadism a chance to run a (somewhat) democratic state. It will most probably fail and become a terrorist homeland. Tzahal will have to treat it as they treat Hizbolla and Hamas, with powerful deterrent force. This will go on until the Palestinians kill the terrorists and demand a stable future.

This is my outlook, my paradigm. It does not involve fair or unfair, reward or punishment. It takes the facts in and looks for the best solution. This is the third administration in a row telling the patient that an amputation is needed to save the life of the patient.

And here's the kicker: everything I am saying is arm chair general thinking by some dope in Cleveland which is all SO much easier said then done. The devil is in the details, and I have no idea of how this will work out.

But, if I may be so bold, doesn't that last paragraph apply to all of us? I mean that not to be condescending, and I'm obviously including myself. It is simply why I think intellectual humility makes sense when discussing complex issues. I m sure people feel this humility, I just wished that it was expressed more openly in the Orthodox Jewish world.

Anyway, here's some Bibi Aipac quotes. He's smart.

PM Bibi said last year: "I am confident that in pursuing these goals, we have the enduring friendship of the United States of AmAa, the greatest nation on earth. The AmAan people have always shown their courage, their generosity and their decency. Time and again, AmAa has stood by Israel's side against common enemies. From one President to the next, from one Congress to the next, AmAa's commitment to Israel's security has been unwavering.

In the last year, President Obama and the U.S. Congress have given meaning to that commitment by providing Israel with military assistance, by enabling joint military exercises and by working on joint missile defense. So too, Israel has been a staunch and steadfast ally of the United States.As Vice President Biden said, AmAa has no better friend in the community of nations than Israel."

This year: "My Friends,

Israel and AmAa have drawn from this deep wellspring of common values.

We have forged an enduring friendship not merely between our governments but between our peoples.

Support for Israel doesn’t divide AmAa.

It unites AmAa.

It unites the old and the young, liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans—and yes, Joe Leiberman, it even unites Independents—

This broad support for Israel is a source of great strength for my country.

Since Harry Truman, Israel has looked to AmAan Presidents to stand by its side to meet unfolding challenges of a changing world.

President Obama has spoken about his ironclad commitment to Israel’s security.

He rightly said that our security cooperation is unprecedented.

He spoke of that commitment not just in front of AIPAC, but in two speeches heard throughout the Arab world.

And President Obama has backed those words with deeds.

I know these are tough economic times.

So I want to thank the President and Congress for providing Israel with vital assistance so that Israel can defend itself by itself.

Thank you for supporting the Iron Dome missile-defense system.

A few weeks ago, Hamas terrorists in Gaza fired eight rockets at Ashkelon and Be’er Sheva.

The rockets never reached their targets.

Iron Dome intercepted them...

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From: A

Could all this have been avoided if the President had opted not to preempt Netanyahu?

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From: X

That was partly Stephens point - the speech itself was intentional

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From: Z

Michael, First, I definitely agree with your last paragraph, and am glad I am not the one making these difficult choices. I also want to point out that I am vehemently opposed to a lot of the idiocy that goes on in many modern/yeshivas orthodox communities, such as what I heard happened at YICG this pat Shabbat… Apparently Rabbi B started talking about Obama and someone screamed out ‘Yimach Shmo’ .. the Rabbi shrugged his shoulders and said ‘I didn’t say it…” That is simply not acceptable, disgusting and inappropriate – of course I didn’t expect Rabbi B to react any differently….

In regards to your point to X, it seems to me like you are arguing that we can disagree on the President’s position at all or for that matter on any topic we may disagree about. We obviously think the President is wrong as it relates to our belief system or political outlook and you think the opposite. I think we respect you enough that we do not assume you have any less care for the safety and security of Israel then we do, but at the same team we still do not agree with Obamas position. I do not believe in giving the current Palestinian regime any more chances to prove themselves by giving over any more land – we did this in Oslo through a mutual decision and we did it in the disengagement and I think we all can agree that both were failures. So I don’t see a need to bargain with more land that will in my (non army General) opinion risk Israels security further and lead to more military intervention and in turn lead to more international condemnation with another Goldstone – and then we are back at the same point again, but with less bargaining chips for the next time we are expected to make concessions. I do not think the President should dictate to Israel what they should do when it comes to its future you think he has a right to do so as you believe he has Israels best interest at heart – I am not convinced of that completely but I know you think he does and I can respect it without needing to agree with it.

Last point regarding those liberal democrats – I am the ‘pariah” amongst all our chevra here in Cleveland. I often complain to my wife that I feel like ‘my city has been taken over’ . All my Conservative friends left me here on my own. I am regarded as that ‘crazy’ Conservative here in Cleveland amongst a vast majority of my friends here that are Liberal Democrats. Its nice for me once in a while to be in a discussion like this where I am not the lone Conservative voice. So I guess I am saying I feel your pain J

From: Michael Unterberg [mailto:munterberg@gmail.com]

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From: Michael Naftali Unterberg

Ha! I hadn't thought of it that way, Z! I feel ya bro!

Sent from my iPad

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From: X

Maybe neutral is not a good word. As is painfully obvious I do not have time to write clearly. Maybe neutral is not a good word. I dont think Obama is anti-Israel but I also dont feel he has any warm feelings towards Israel and I agree with Stephens that Netanyahu was sandbagged "by an adversarial policy speech" that treated Israel differently than it did the Palestinians. I also think that Israel and the Palestians behave morally very differently than Israel. I think objectively, that the terror techniques used by the Palestinians should be the number one thing addressed and spoken about before Israel is called to do anything. That the PA has reconciled with Hamas should have elicited a response from Obama that said something like "Once the Palestinians have clearly rejected terrorism as a technique - and begin speaking in Arabic the way they speak in English - and Hamas changes their charter - then it will be time for Israel to make its painful concessions to 1967 territory with land swaps, etc. The fact that Israel is being asked to deal with the PA that has reconciled Hamas and that its supposedly moderate leader has said absolutely despicable things about Israel - is unacceptable - And then Obama gets up and says Israel should make territorial concessions to such an entity???? Its absurd and ass backwards. Contrast that with George Bush who said after the weapons boat was captured by Israel that he would not deal with Arafat anymore - to me, that is a pro Israel response (and a morally clear one at that)

As for your argument about questioning your loyalty - you are creating a straw man - I am not saying your position is Israel neutral. And i am not quite sure what else I could do to convince you I think you have Israel's best interest in mind. I just think you are fundamentally wrong about what is in her best interest. You may think its best for Israel to apply pressure, you may think its best to negotiate with whomever there is to negotiate with (I used to agree until I learned from Oslo and Gaza). You may think the demographic solution requires us to deal with PA/Hamas. I dont have a better answer, but we have been down your road before and it hasnt ended well. I said about GAza what you are now saying - let it fall to terror and then we could treat it like a hostile entity - been there done that - Israel didnt respond for years and when they did - they had to respond with their hands tied behind their back.

I appreciate your realpolitik approach - my problem with it is it was tried and failed with Oslo and Gaza. only now the stakes are bigger and the borders will be smaller.

I am all for intellectual humility - and I recognize its complicated with no good solutions. This whole debate started around Obama's remarks - which I found unhelpful to be publicly voiced, poorly phrased and poorly timed. I think either Obama would agree that his remarks were poorly stated (if they werent, why the firestorm and his need to clarify ad nausea um at AIPAC) or it was well planned indeed which I find even more disturbing and further bolsters my argument that we have had much better friends in the white house (Clinton and Bush)

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From: Z

Well said X.

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From: Michael Unterberg

I'm sorry if I created a straw man. In my defense the article that you said expressed your views was titled "The Anti-Israel President." I gave Stephens the benefit of the doubt that he didnt really mean it till he said "if Obama was pro-Israel" which I took as a confirmation that he meant the title literally. (although I did mention the possibility of being Israel neutral if you look back there) I then assumed, X, that position was included when you endorsed the article. That was an assumption, I suppose, and perhaps I should have asked for clarification. So I apologize, but think I came by my misimpression honestly. I also totally relate to your point about it being hard to write while travelling.

As for your position, I have a few issues where I disagree. Four points:

1) You must admit that we all remember past presidents in a bit of rosey light. Clinton HATED Netanyahu. After a Bibi harangue, Clinton turned to Aharon X Miller and said, (I believe I'm quoting here) "Who the f@#% does this guy think he is? Which one of us is the f@#%ing super power?" Yet I think you correctly identify him as a friend of Israel. He used to aggravate me with his cycle of violence BS rhetoric, and he pushed Netanyahu HARD. Remember Netanyahu packing his bags and storming out of camp X, only to be called by at the last minute? (Patrick Moynahan told his aide X Luchins that that was an act, and that AmAa and Israel always do that dance to sucker Arabs. This always makes me wonder) Clinton LOVED Rabin. In his autobiography he says something like that he loved Rabin more than any other man he ever met. He also pushed Netanyahu to hand over Hevron. And Hillary hugged Suha. Friendship is complicated. I do think we look at the Clinton administration as friends of Israel in hindsight, but there was plenty of complaining at the time. To quote Rush, "Plu ca change, plu c'est la meme chose". Or to quote Shlomo, there is nothing new under the sun.

2) Bush was definitely Israel's friend. I remember clapping when he blasted Arafat after the Karine-A debacle. But he didn't listen to Israel about either Palestinian elections, or that disturbing the Iran/Iraq equilibrium would endager Israel and the west. I think these two missteps, the second in particular, have placed our state in grave danger. Well meaning friends do that. And do you remember the cries of conservatives at Annapolis? Yikes. Check some out: http://www.ynetnews.com/home/0,7340,L-5095,00.html. I think Bush gets a free pass on this stuff like Obama gets a free pass from liberals on Libya or much of his anti-terror policy. This is the same type of inconsistency. Where are the anti-war protesters when there is a democratic president? And why are conservatives not crying that Bush wasnt Israel's friend for pushing Israel to give up the West Bank in a year back in 2007? Again, friendship is complicated. So it is always more productive to challenge particular policies than question an AmAan's commitment to Israel.

3) Your analysis of what is backwards and what is forwards does not account for what is probably the bigest game changer since Oslo, and that is Fayyadism. As we speak, major Nation States are building full fledge Palestinian embassies in preparation for the new state in September. The other Barak, Ehud, calls this a looming diplomatic tzunami, and I am inclined to agree. Certainly, ground has shifted under Israel. Many real politik thinkers see what Homer Simpson would call a crisitunnity (crisis/opportunity) here. Tzippi Livni argued at Aipac that September demands that we make sure we are behind the creation of a Palestinian State, ASAP. I've been disappointed with her opposition rhetoric, but she is from the Sharon camp and so her view is consistent. Imagine Israel keeping Tzahal in a declared foreign country. Barak and Livni seem to agree with Obama, in part because of the building success of Fayyadism. Your description left out the danger of this looming disaster.

Of course, the neo-con paradigm sees Fayydism as just another tactic of a mortal foe, and the progressive one sees it as the greenest of shoots in the Arab spring. And, as usual, I am too cautious to accept either approach. But I do think it needs to be dealt with. From a Sharon perspective, speeding up disengagement makes sense.

Mind you, the administration has really had Bibi's back on unilateral statehood and negotiating with Hamas. But the building pressure of Fayyadism is being ignored by Bibi, and I think that the sandbagging was to push him out of his inertia. Stupid move.

4) Again, I think Israel failed to offer deterrence for way too long after disengaging from gaza, a mistake they cannot afford to make again. I assume they wouldn't. Risks no matter which way you turn.

P.S. I'll add one more point, mostly to B. I never understand why its hard to "know what's in his heart". I think leaders say who they are and what they think. And their actions usually confirm it. Read and watch Bush or Clinton to see what is in their hearts. Or, for that matter, Hitler, Bin-Laden or Haniyah. Same for Obama. Read "Audacity", or his speech that pissed off the silly Nobel committee defending just war, and watch his anti-terror policy and support of Arab democracy speeches. I am wary (and weary) of all of the "who can know this man" talk. He is a person like Bush or Clinton, and can be understood both as well and as poorly.

I'll add this. He's an optimistic gambler. He thinks, like all progressives, that any change will help break bad status quos. Sometimes he ends up looking stupid because of this. The only examples that comes to mind at the moment is when he allowed the Office of the Commander in Chief to be belittled in failed attempts to get deals with Korea or the Olympics in Chicago. He seems to think that if he puts his shoulder to the grindstone a pushes things to change, they can be fixed in the ensuing chaos. Its a style that is maddening in its failures and its successes, and its in betweens. It sure paid off with Bin-Laden, but imagine if he had not been home or if the team failed! It would have been his Bay of Pigs. Damn we were lucky that time. (we were less lucky when Bush used a similar style in Iraq) Part of Obama's arrogance is that he thinks he is charmed enough to usually come out the winner. But then, find me a president who isn't arrogant.

Howard Kohr says this style, the pushy gambler, explains his approach to Israel/Palestine as well. Obama is a person, not a mystery. Like Bush and Clinton and everybody else.

William Daroff, former Bush advisor, tweeted this goldberg article that expresses it clearer than I did. Here is the tweet

William Daroff (@Daroff)

5/25/11 4:47 PM

Why #Palestinians Have Time on Their Side by @Goldberg3000 http://t.co/OUN3qPF(@BloombergNow) #Israel

Sent from my iPad

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From: X

I think this is alarmist because israel will not build in many areas that are essentially reserved for palestinians and their future state and could at any point pull a gaza on our terms. On the other hand israel could continue populating the gush and other parts of the shtachim that will further re-enforce Israeli majority. Goldberg speaks of entanglement, but no government is building up around Ramallah and shchem etc.

Sent from a mobile device

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From: Y

A liberal's view of bibi's speech (see below article). Very educational - in what it says about the author and his allies. This guy is NOT typical of a democratic politician, but is typical of actual philosophical liberals, who make up an important part of the base of the Democratic party. That doesn’t mean everything, but it doesn’t mean nothing. It’s important to understand where the two ideologies stand. The below article is from huffingtonpost.com (liberal); check out nationalreview.com for various love letters to Israel/bibi. I understand that he’s on israel’s side “saving it from itself”, but the tone is so nasty – Israel doesn’t need that kind of help. Look him up, if you doubt he’s a mainstream guy. This point is also relevant to our discussion in that I believe Obama is not just a democratic politician, but in his heart and philosophy, a liberal. No sin that, of course, but it has to inform his feelings toward Israel. And remember, Rosenberg (jewish) kind of likes Israel (maybe); many, many liberals far prefer the Palestinians, and not just the crazy ones, not by a longshot.

The reason I bring all this up, is because it informs my/our suppositions about Obama’s relationship to Israel, and his motives relative to it.

(Of course Truman was pro-israel; don’t know kennedy, but he was no liberal anyway; Clinton definitely had tiffs with bibi, but everyone knew he cared for jews and Israel; but carter and obama are foreign policy liberals [and liberals in general], and have no proven track record of warmth for Israel to counteract their philosophy.)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mj-rosenberg/congress-to-palestinians-_b_866565.html

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From: Michael Unterberg

No proven track record? And we're back to 2008. To lump Obama with extreme fp liberals you have to ignore:

1) His nobel speech

2) doubling down in Afganistan

3) Getting Bin-Laden

4) Continuing Bush's war on terror without changing methods much

5) Keeping Guantonimo

6) Opposing Palestinian Unilateralism

7) Relying on Clinton advisors in general and Ross in particular

8) selling bleeding age military tech to Israel, including the planes they would use in Iran

9) Inviting Bibi to lecture him on TV and speak to a joint session

10) Pounding the hell out of Lybia

11) His reported love for JSOC and its operations

12) The fact that liberals are always disappointed in him

etc., etc.

You can say that he doesn't believe in these things, but does them out of political necessity, but then why would that matter? Unless he is waiting to spring his liberal trap on day, but that veers to far into conspiracy theory for me.

A nasty silly op-ed that is mad at democrats and republicans both bears little light on this question. I could just as well argue that since Gingrich and BEck are mainstream, I think that Bush secretly thinks that the current administration endagers America as much as fascism and communism, and that the Egyptian coup was guided by communists working with jihadists to create a new caliphate. Or that the Ryan plan is social engineering. I would rather let the man himself have his say, then judge him by his words and deeds.

I think these arguments are tenuous, and are driven by the need to defend a paradigm. I have explained why my method of assessment is different.

And David, in terms of population entanglement, the map disagrees with you. 35% of Jews in Yehuda and Shomron already can't be drawn into Israel on a disengagement map, even on the most favorable terms to ISrael. And there are ALREADY built up Jewish homes around Rammalah, Shechem, etc. For one example, Itamar is practically a suburb of Shechem. Anyway, Goldberg's (and Sharon's) number problem looms. Even though it doesn't fit the paradigm.

Am I the only one who feels that we are far enough down the rabbit hole here? E-mails are all over the place. Should we drop it? Would you like to start a blog with various positions stated and defended? I know I can't keep up with doing this in a way that I find sufficiently articulate. I find it hard to communicate in sound bites, but I can't keep up writing meggilot. So, if I go silent, please don't take it as disrespect. I still think I'm better than all of you, and you are all completely wrong, and everyone should be just like me. (Just kidding, but who the heck is reading this far anyway?)

Anyway, thanks for a good one guys.

MNUnterberg

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From: Y

Your post deserves a longer response, but before I forget, amongst those 12 items on your list are some good points. (Number nine in particular, not so much, cause: a) Bibi just lectured, sans invitation, and b) Boehner invited Bibi to speak to congress, not obama; but that’s a quibble). I did read the whole post though, and speaking only for myself, I agree this has probably run its course.

Also, generally speaking, carter is a good example of someone who seems to have been one way in office due to political necessity and then another when he was unfettered by that position. I’m not necessarily arguing this is true of Obama, but even if I did, who cares what’s in his heart, if you’re right and his actions in office are mainstream? So I won’t argue that. More later (which I don’t know if you’ll read cause you’re done w this thread J, but I’ll write anyway).

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From: Michael Unterberg

Sounds good!

MNUnterberg

The Free Mind

2011-05-18T12:39:00.000-04:00

As the school year ends, I often think about what habits of thought I want my students to embrace. I just had about 10 free minutes, so I used them to look up a commencement speech given by David Foster Wallace at Kenyon College in 2005. Good move.

It came recommended by the wise and talented Sarah Glidden. Last Sunday, she spoke to our Write On For Israel students about the graphic novel that she wrote, describing her evolving understanding of Israel on a birthright trip. As usual, Amnon Ophir made another great call in bringing in a terrific speaker. She really role modeled intelligent conversation as a powerfully effective form of advocacy. After all, is there a better way to get people to see the complexity of the conflict in the Middle East than listening and speaking about it reasonably? She's way cool.

Anyway, one of the students asked her about her favorite quotes and authors, and she referred to David Foster Wallace. (of whom I know little) She quoted a story he told at the graduation mentioned above:

"There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, 'Morning, boys, how's the water?' And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, 'What the hell is water?'".

I found a full transcript of the speech, and found it to be rich and insightful thoughts about how we think. I also found an abridged version. (but I think the full one is worth it) While its sad that the mind that expressed these ideas eventually destroyed itself, I don't think that detracts from the value of their wisdom.

All you need to do is free up the 10 minutes to read it.

What more needs to be said?

2011-05-05T16:09:00.000-04:00

From today's coverage of President Obama's visit to Ground Zero to meet with rescue workers and families of 9/11 victims:

3:09 P.M. A Boy Gives Obama a Fist Bump, and a Prayer Card

Ozier Muhammad/The New York TimesChristopher Cannizzaro, 10, the son of a firefighter who died on Sept. 11, greets the president as his mother, Jackie Cannizzaro-Harkins, at right in white blazer, looks on.

Christopher Cannizzaro was just 10 months old when hijacked planes struck the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. His father, Brian Cannizzaro, a firefighter with Ladder Company 101 in Red Hook, Brooklyn, died in the destruction of the towers that day.

On Thursday afternoon, Christopher, now 10, was among the relatives of victims of 9/11 who met President Obama following the wreath-laying ceremony at ground zero. Christopher gave the president a fist-bump and handed him a prayer card with a picture of his father. The president put the card in his pocket.

"It means, like, the world to me," Christopher said of meeting the president. "He's a very nice person."

Christopher lives with his mother on Staten Island. He is a fifth-grader, but he did not look it on Thursday: He wore khakis, a blue blazer, a blue shirt, a red and blue striped tie and his favorite necklace, the one with a picture of his father dressed in firefighter gear.

Christopher's mother, Jackie Cannizzaro-Harkins, gave Mr. Obama a hug. She and her son were among a group of 9/11 families and elected officials who spoke with Mr. Obama at the memorial plaza following the ceremony. They stood for several minutes among the trees on the plaza, not far from the wreath on a wooden easel.

Christopher's interaction with the president lasted only a minute or two. "He was asking me about my dad," he said. "He asked about my necklace. He was just being so nice to me. He was being open with me. I was just truly honored to be here."

About Bin Laden's death, Christopher said: "I was sort of happy, but they could have did something a little less harsh. It meant a lot to know that what happened to my dad happened to him."

Mrs. Cannizzaro-Harkins said that of the many ceremonies that have been held at ground zero, this one was different. "It was hopeful," she said afterward. "It gave us a sense of closure." -- MANNY FERNANDEZ

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/05/live-blog-obama-visits-new-york/?hp