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Friday January 10, 2025 – י’ בטבת תשפ”ה

“Men and Women will still dance with Torah scrolls in the streets of the city of Holon on the way to their new sanctuary, and despite the opposition from Shas, we will declare that from Holon comes the Torah that there is more than one way to be Jewish!” ~MK Rabbi Gilad Kariv from the Knesset plenary (Monday, January 6, 2025).

This past week, I had the honor of joining hundreds of Reform rabbis in Southern California for two gatherings—one for the National Association of Retired Reform Rabbis (NAORRR)* and the second for the Pacific Area Reform Rabbis Convention (PARR). One of the things that made these gatherings so special was that we had the honor of hosting four Israeli Reform rabbis representing different communities throughout Israel.

We were joined by Rabbi Miriam Klimova from our Russian/Ukrainian-speaking congregation Shirat HaYam in Haifa, Rabbi Orit Rozenblit from Congregation Poteach She’arim in Kiryat Shmona – who has been displaced from her home since October 8, 2023, Rabbi Mira Regev Director of Content and Culture for the Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism, and Rabbi Galit Cohen-Kedem of Kehilat Kodesh V’Chol in Holon.

They brought ruach, and a unique and powerful message demonstrating the critical role that Reform rabbis play in Israel, especially the intense and exhausting work of pastoring to their communities after the massacre of October 7 and during times of war.

This past Sunday, Rabbi Cohen-Kedem awoke to devastating but not-so-shocking news. Now, we have all been accustomed to waking up to devastating and heartbreaking news as the 6:00 am Israeli news reports regularly announce the latest casualties of war. But this was devastating from a different point of view.

Fifteen years ago, Rabbi Galit Cohen-Kedem established Congregation Kodesh v’Chol to serve thousands of residents interested in liberal/Reform Judaism in Holon. The congregation has sought municipal land allocation for over a decade to finally build a synagogue, including a school and cultural center. They finally secured an agreement after overcoming numerous bureaucratic hurdles and court orders.

On Sunday, the congregation’s suspected fears came to fruition as she learned that the municipality was backtracking and revoking the land allocation for their Reform synagogue. The cancellation is purely political and, of course, does not address the needs of its residents.

In February of 2024, Shai Keinan was elected Mayor of Holon. A Prime Minister Netanyahu with ties to the Likud Party, Keinan came in with an anti-liberal agenda. Now, he is violating a court ruling by blocking the construction of a synagogue for the city’s Reform Jewish community. This blatant disregard for the law is driven by his election promise to the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, as he continues the discrimination against the liberal public in the city. It should come as no surprise as he has regularly used hate speech targeted towards Reform and liberal Jews, and has made up nonsensical excuses for the need to allocate the land differently.

Holon has approximately 100 Orthodox synagogues and countless Orthodox minyanim operating in public buildings, yet not a single egalitarian synagogue exists. City Hall must remember that municipal lands are public resources meant to serve all members of the community, including Holon’s pluralistic and democratic residents, who are growing in number. The Kodesh V’Chol congregation is serving the needs and interests of thousands of Holon’s residents.

Why is this such a big deal?

Holon is a city of 200,000 Jewish residents but has only one non-Orthodox option. But this is about something bigger. The story in Holon should be seen as a microcosm of the larger story of Israeli society. Even while Israel is fighting an existential war, and the members of the current coalition are using their elected positions to pass budgets and to make laws that inhibit liberal Judaism, this should be seen as an attack against anyone who doesn’t fall in line with Orthodoxy.  While so many of our Reform Jewish members in Israel fight on the front lines in this war, serve in reserves, volunteer, and make up a strong part of civil society, and so many members of our Movement abroad have done and are doing so much to support Israel during this time of serious crisis, the Mayor of Holon and members of the coalition are doing all that they can to reduce our presence and make us feel like we are not wanted as Jews in the Jewish State.

What Are We Going To Do?

As a Reform Jew living in North America, I am angered and frustrated by this development. If you are like me, you also probably feel angry, frustrated, and a little helpless. But don’t lose hope! There are things that you can do to express your solidarity with our Israeli Reform Movement. You can make a difference. Here are three things that you can do to help.

1. To support Kehilat Kodesh V’Chol in Holon we ask you to send a direct email and help flood the inbox of Mayor Keinan. Email Mayor Shai Keinan of Holon today and demand that he honor the agreement, reinstate the land allocation to Reform Congregation Kodesh v’Chol, and help build a pluralistic future for the city!
2. Get ready to vote in the World Zionist Congress Elections! This is your once-in-5-year opportunity to have your voices heard. From March 10-May 4, 2025, every Jewish person over 18 living in the United States (Canada will have its own election separately), will have the opportunity to cast your ballot for the “Vote Reform” slate to make sure that we as a Reform Movement have influence and can work to build congregations and show that there is, in fact, more than one way to be Jewish and religious in the Jewish State.

Register here and take our pledge to vote!

3. Share this video of MK Rabbi Gilad Kariv from the Knesset floor denouncing the decision to revoke the land allocation.

“Men and Women will still dance with Torah scrolls in the streets of the city of Holon on the way to their new sanctuary, and despite the opposition from Shas,
we will declare that from Holon comes the Torah that there is more than one way to be Jewish!”

As we mark Asarah B’Tevet (the 10th day of the Hebrew month of Tevet) – which commemorates the siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylonia in 588 BCE that ultimately culminated in the destruction of the First Temple and the Babylonian exile of the Jewish people – we must constantly be vigilant and wary of external enemies, but also to not back down over those who threaten our rights from within. Thank you for taking action and speaking up for Reform Jews in Israel! We need all of our Movement’s support for this effort, and only together will we prevail.

Shabbat Shalom.

* We extend a Mazal Tov to past ARZA Chair Rabbi Bennett Miller on being installed as NAORRR President.

Friday January 3, 2025 – ג’ טבת תשפ”ה

Two Sticks, One People

וְאַתָּ֣ה בֶן־אָדָ֗ם קַח־לְךָ֙ עֵ֣ץ אֶחָ֔ד וּכְתֹ֤ב עָלָיו֙ לִֽיהוּדָ֔ה וְלִבְנֵ֥י יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל חֲבֵרָ֑ו וּלְקַח֙ עֵ֣ץ אֶחָ֔ד וּכְת֣וֹב עָלָ֗יו לְיוֹסֵף֙ עֵ֣ץ אֶפְרַ֔יִם וְכׇל־בֵּ֥ית יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל חֲבֵרָֽו׃ וְקָרַ֨ב אֹתָ֜ם אֶחָ֧ד אֶל־אֶחָ֛ד לְךָ֖ לְעֵ֣ץ אֶחָ֑ד וְהָי֥וּ לַאֲחָדִ֖ים בְּיָדֶֽךָ׃ (יחזקאל

“And you, O mortal, take a stick and write on it, “Of Judah and the Israelites associated with him”; and take another stick and write on it, “Of Joseph—the stick of Ephraim—and all the House of Israel associated with him.” Bring them close to each other, so that they become one stick, joined together in your hand.” (Ezekiel 37:19-20)

Early this week, the Israeli Health Ministry released a jarring and difficult-to-digest report for the first time. All the news outlets that covered it included a trigger warning that the report contained “GRAPHIC CONTENT.” In the report, former hostages who were abducted on October 7, 2023, described in great and vivid detail the abuse they endured during their captivity prior to their release or rescue.

The report says that some hostages were kept for days in darkness, with their hands and feet bound, and received little food or water. They were beaten all over their bodies. Some had hair pulled out. Furthermore, the report described many cases of sexual violence, abuse, forced acts, denial of medical attention, beatings, starvation, and psychological abuse.

The report is tortuous to read, not only to read of the abuse endured by those who testified but reading the descriptions, one could not help but imagine the conditions of those still being held in captivity, now 455 days.

The report now confirms details of which many, of course, knew about and suspected to have occurred. Anyone who can read such a report and not conclude that the single most important thing to do right now is to bring the hostages home may have lost either their moral compass, their empathy, or both.

This week’s Haftarah reading from the Book of Ezekiel offers us an example of precisely what is needed at this moment. It should come as no surprise that in ancient times, we were a divided people in different camps. We know that prior to the Exile in Babylon (circa 586-536 BCE) during which the Prophet Ezekiel lived and prophesied, there were two Kingdoms, Yisrael and Yehuda. Furthermore, there were those from the Southern Kingdom who belonged to Beit David (the House of David) and those in the Northern Kingdom who were of Beit Yoseph/Ephraim (The House of Joseph, whose bones were brought from Egypt and buried in the Samarian city of Shechem). Ezekiel instructs them to graft onto one another, like a branch or wooden stick, with this symbolic act of actually writing on two distinct pieces the names of their “houses” and then grafting them together, commonly known as the “Two Sticks Prophecy.”

Ezekiel brings here an aspirational vision that did not come true even when our people returned from exile and rebuilt the Temple in Jerusalem circa 520 BCE. According to the prophet’s vision, Yisrael and Yehuda will indeed return to being Am Echad, one people. It is a critical lesson that we in the liberal camp often hear from our brothers and sisters in the more conservative camp. “For the sake of unity…” is an often-heard sentence beginning, with a request to do something such as ‘limit criticism of Israel or its government’, or a plea not to ‘air dirty laundry in public.’

But those calling for unity would benefit from their own advice and rhetoric. The actions of certain politicians this week baffled the Israeli public, leading themselves to a disturbing new low.

While many around the world were regaling with revelry, marking a new year on the Gregorian calendar and celebrating the transition from 2024 to 2025, Members of Knesset looked at their watches as the legislative session went on with no sign of breaking. A contentious vote on the State’s budget was protested by Minister Itamar Ben Gvir as, in his eyes, it didn’t give him enough power and control over the state’s security forces. At the same time, the ultra-Orthodox, yet again, made sure that their people would not be drafted despite a warning from the Attorney General, a Supreme Court decision against their continued exemption and an obvious drastic change in the country’s security and military needs during a 15-month-long war.

The most egregious acts were the contemptible treatment of hostage families and bereaved families of October 7^th victims. In one instance, Rafi Ben Shitrit, the father of Elroy, a soldier killed in battle at Nahal Oz during the October 7 attack, was addressing a Knesset committee imploring the Knesset and the government to establish an official state investigation into the failure that allowed the Hamas massacre. In the middle of Shitrit’s plea, Religious Zionism MK Simcha Rothman, the head of The Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee got up and walked out[1].  The pure callousness and utter disrespect for a bereaved parent crossed a holy redline in Israeli society. In another instance, Einav Zaungaker, whose son Matan is still held in captivity, was banned this week from even coming into the Knesset.

The hostage families are in no way suggesting that Israel should compromise its security, only that the government that did not prevent their being kidnapped also must take responsibility for bringing them all home.  So, we ask this week for the two divided camps (and yes, there are many more) to ‘graft’ onto one another, for Yehudah and Yisrael – Beit David and Beit Yosef – to join one another and truly become one people. To unite around our common need to do the basic and most urgent action of our time and redeem those in captivity.

Just seven verses before his vision of Two Sticks, Ezekiel ends his famous and haunting prophecy of the Vision of Dry Bones with the following prophecy:

לָכֵן֩ הִנָּבֵ֨א וְאָמַרְתָּ֜ אֲלֵיהֶ֗ם כֹּה־אָמַר֮ אֲדֹנָ֣י יֱהֹוִה֒ הִנֵּה֩ אֲנִ֨י פֹתֵ֜חַ אֶת־קִבְרֽוֹתֵיכֶ֗ם וְהַעֲלֵיתִ֥י אֶתְכֶ֛ם מִקִּבְרוֹתֵיכֶ֖ם עַמִּ֑י וְהֵבֵאתִ֥י אֶתְכֶ֖ם אֶל־אַדְמַ֥ת יִשְׂרָאֵֽל׃ (יחזקאל לז:יב)

Prophesy, therefore, and say to them: Thus said the Sovereign God: I am going to open your graves and lift you out of the graves, O My people, and bring you to the Land of Israel.”

May it be Your will that the current negotiations be fruitful, and may we be blessed with good news soon.

Shabbat Shalom.

[1] Incidentally, the session was set to address a proposed law that would allow for administrative detention, or detention without trial, of Arabs only.

I love the Hanukkah season—lights glowing in windows, the smell of fried latkes wafting through the air, and festive voices singing together. But this year, Hanukkah is about a lot of things. Most importantly, Hanukkah should be about reclaiming Zionism.

Zionism is threatened by those who oppose it as a concept and see it as inherently racist, and by those who distort it to fulfill a dangerous agenda and are themselves inherently racist. However, Hanukkah and Zionism go hand in hand. Hanukkah is essentially about celebrating the miracle of the military victory of the few against the many, as the Maccabees survived the onslaught of Antiochus and his brigades.

It is about reliving the miracle of believing that meager resources will last and our ability to do more with less.

It is about bringing light where there is darkness and spreading it far and wide.

Throughout Rabbinic tradition, Hanukkah was celebrated as a minor home holiday focused on the miracle of the jar of oil told to us in an apocryphal story in the Babylonian Talmud. Theodore Herzl’s secular Zionist movement helped to orchestrate this previously undramatic observance into an extensive public celebration of political liberation.

It was only with the rise of Zionism in the 19th century that the Maccabees were revived as Jewish heroes. At the second Zionist congress in 1898, Max Nordau urged the shaping of a new “muscular Jewry,” to master the Land of Israel. The Maccabees were lifted up as the prototypes of the new Jews and between the 1930s and 1960s, the Zionists revived annual Hanukkah processions in the streets to reclaim Jewish public space, as did the Maccabees. Menorahs were placed on many public buildings year-round. Olympic-style runners ran with a torch from the graves of the Maccabees near the central Israeli city of Modi’in to Jerusalem, where the President would use them to light the fledgling state’s Hanukkiah.

While the Zionists reclaimed the holiday of Hannukah, with your help, we, as Reform Zionists, can use Hanukkah to reclaim our Zionism. Zionism holds such meaning for many Jews around the world because it represents the triumph of Jewish sovereignty in the historical Jewish homeland for the first time since the Hasmoneans defeated the Greeks in the Hanukkah story and established their kingdom. In a sense, Hanukkah is the Jewish holiday most intimately connected to Israel and the Zionist dream because it mirrors the struggle to create the Jewish State and combines powerful political meaning in addition to its religious significance.

Our Zionism is about protecting the body of the Jewish People and the State of Israel, and it is also about its soul. It is about collective responsibility for our people, about creating a new Judaism in a Jewish State, and about now that we have power, exercising compassion and care for those who a vulnerable and powerless.

Our Zionism is about reminding the world that we have enemies who seek our destruction and that we still must live by our swords.

Our Zionism is about reigning in those who are only focused on a military victory and delusionally see this moment as a way to expand Israel’s borders.

Our Zionism is about bringing home the hostages, and fighting for their freedom.

Our Zionism is about fighting for justice and insisting on the value of the life of every human being.

If Theodor Herzl’s movement reclaimed Hanukkah, we will reclaim our Zionism through the same institutions he founded.

Join us this year as we return to the World Zionist Congress to raise our voices for freedom, Justice, equality, democracy, and peace.

Today, we ask for your support in helping us reclaim Zionism for our Reform Movement. Help us spread the light of authentic, welcoming, and accepting Judaism of people from diverse backgrounds.

As we light our third candle tonight, sing our songs, eat our latkes, and spin our dreidels, take a moment to lend your support to our efforts and help us bring a new light upon Zion.

Todah Rabah, Hag Urim Sameach, and Shabbat Shalom!

Friday December 20, 2024 – י״ט כִּסְלֵו

This week, we lost a giant in Israeli culture. On December 12, iconic Israeli singer and songwriter Corinne Allal breathed her last breath after a prolonged battle with cancer. Born in Tunisia in 1955, she immigrated to Israel at the age of 8. She began to make a name for herself in an army singing troupe, rising up with other Israeli stars like Yehudit Ravitz. Her voice was a raspy, Israeli grunge, slightly dark with a melancholy vibe. Her voice was not beautiful (in my opinion), but it was deeply soulful and so identified with Israeli culture. She began as a backup singer to amplify others’ voices and only broke through once she stopped being polite. She lived with her wife and two (now grown) sons in a Moshav and did not mince words (I once briefly shared a stage with her at a Yom Haatzmaut celebration for the Jewish community of Hong Kong, but that’s a story for another time) and always pushed boundaries (listen to a more extended and beautiful tribute to Corinne Allal in this week’s Promised Podcast).

There is one iconic song with which she is most associated. While she didn’t write the lyrics to Ein Li Eretz Acheret (“I have no other country”), her melody made this song a household Israeli standard at ceremonies and protests (listen here to one of her last performances of this song at Tel Aviv’s famous Barbie venue). The lyrics were written by the Israeli poet Ehud Manor in 1982 as a delayed reaction to his younger brother’s death during the Six-Day War. In time, it became the second and unofficial Israeli national anthem.

Those lyrics were central to the pro-democracy protest movement and took on an entirely different meaning post-October 7^th.

אין לי ארץ אחרת
גם אם אדמתי בוערת
Ein li eretz acheret gam im admati bo’eret
I have no other country, even if my land is burning.

I have always felt a little uncomfortable with Diaspora Jews and Israelis living abroad championing this song because, as it turns out, they do, in fact, have another country.  However, the song’s message also rings true for us, just like the biblical Joseph whose story we read over the next few weeks. Despite rising to prominence and power, Joseph never forgot his roots and used his influence to serve his family and his people, knowing that even posthumously, he would return home.

The question is, how do we raise Diaspora Jews to regard Israel as their Homeland as well? How do we help them understand the Jewish State as the project of the entire Jewish people, even if they don’t pay taxes there, serve in the army, or live there?

Since Israel is the homeland of the entirety of the Jewish people, then our role as Diaspora Jews ought to be to speak up on behalf of Israel in solidarity. Some say, however, that our support must be limited, that because we ‘have another Land,’ we should only speak out in support of Israel, in her defense, and in service of protecting her interests, and never in critique. However, one of the most piercing and powerful lines of the song boldly reminds us of the opposite:

לא אשתוק כי ארצי שינתה את פניה
Lo eshtok ki artzi shinta et paneha
I will not stay silent because my country changed her face.

How can we Diaspora Jews be silent as the country we love seems to have changed? This was the case at the beginning of 2023 when Prime Minister Netanyahu’s coalition embarked on an aggressive legislative agenda led by Minister Yariv Levin and MK Simcha Rothman to overhaul the justice system – what many felt was a serious and dangerous threat to Israel’s democratic character. And it is still the case now in the post-October 7 wartime reality in which we are living.

And, how can we be silent when it has become so very clear that what Israel does, for better and worse, directly affects us Jews around the world? The rise in antisemitism, anti-Zionism, and anti-Israel sentiment has been felt on American college and university campuses and in capitals around the world. Just as we are concerned about Israeli security, we and Israel must be concerned about our security. Though only Israelis have the right to make the decisions that will affect their lives, we Diaspora Jews have the right to share our ideas with our Israeli brothers and sisters. Thankfully, our Reform movement in Israel shares our fundamental liberal Jewish values about democracy, and we can support them. But we can never remain silent. It’s just not who we Jews are.

Over the past 14 months, it has felt necessary to speak both in defense of and in solidarity with Israel as it faces continual existential threats, has to justify its self-defense, and has experienced its unfair share of victim blaming. It has also felt necessary, in my view, to speak out in critique of Israeli government policies after a colossal intelligence failure, the seemingly increasing government reticence to prioritize the mitzvah of פדיון שבויים  (Redeeming the Captives), along with a growing movement to resettle the Gaza strip, and the renewed commitment by Justice Minister Yariv Levin to resume the judicial overhaul, claiming that now, having supposedly defeated our enemies, we can safely return to the “governmental coup” – my words, but not mine alone.

The next line of the song should serve as a mantra that every Jew and every Zionist should hold as a constant before our eyes:

לא אוותר לה אזכיר לה
Lo evater la Azkir la
I will not give up on her I will remind her.

Speaking up and raising one’s voice should not be stifled even though some will claim that it is somehow a threat, or somehow seen as a threat, to the higher aspiration of a particular notion of unity. Our message as Zionists is DON’T GIVE UP ON ISRAEL; fight for her. Fight for her right to be the only Jewish nation-state in the world and for Jews to be a free people in our Land. Fight for her ability to exist, to thrive, and not to have to live by the sword. And fight for her to live up to the values of Israel’s foundational document, the Megilat Haatzamut (Israel’s Declaration of Independence). Please don’t give up in the face of those who constantly defame and delegitimize Israel, those who unfairly criticize it, and those who judge it through unreasonable double standards.

And fight against an Israeli government that spouts racism, xenophobia, and an anti-democratic agenda. But don’t just fight against; fight for what we believe! Fight for equality, for justice, for democracy. As oxymoronic as it may sound, fight for peace, even when it seems remote and unlikely.

And fight together as a Reform Movement.

As Diaspora Jews, we will have a keen opportunity this coming Spring to raise our voices and to say that we are deeply and inextricably connected to Israel. We have an opportunity to say we will not be silent in our love and our advocacy, and we will not give up on Israel or on her behalf.

This spring, our movement will look to expand our power and influence, advocate for our values, and increase our support for the Reform Movement in Israel through the elections of the World Zionist Congress.  This is critically important because the WZC:

• Set policies that affect the status of Reform Jews in Israel and millions of Israelis
• Make decisions that influence hundreds of millions of dollars in spending
• Influence construction projects and, therefore the choice between settlement expansion or a path to peace, and ensuring investment in communities destroyed on October 7^th
• Is a key financial supporter of the Israeli Reform Movement and enables our Movement to grow and expand its reach.

What we advocate for in Israel will also strengthen our own Diaspora communities. This is a fight not just for Israel but for our own well-being. We may have another land/country, but we are one people, and our voices impact how we move around the world.

We need everyone to join us and echo Ehud Manor’s words, perpetuate Corinne Allal’s voice, and echo the call of so many Israelis who know they have no other country and that we won’t give up.

Join Us.

As we prepare to light our Hanukkiyot next week, let us recall that those lights are a symbol of the Maccabees who knew that they had no other land – even if it was burning, and they had to fight for independence and be the kind of Jews that they wanted to be. If they had given up, we might not be who we are today.

Now it’s our turn.

Shabbat Shalom and Hag Urim Sameach.