Categories
Israel

Reform Judaism in Israel: Great Strides, Great Challenges

Last month, I had the great privilege of worshiping and sharing Shabbat dinner with friends at Congregation Bavat Ayin in Rosh HaAyin, Israel and in the home of Rabbi Ayala and Avi Miron.

This visit was not my first. In the fall of 2016, ARZA World-Daat arranged for members of Congregation B’nai Israel to worship at Bavat Ayin, and enjoy home hospitality for Shabbat dinner, during our congregation’s Israel trip in the fall of 2016. We have continued our relationship in a program called Domim, which means, “similar,” a pairing of Reform congregations in Israel and North America. In the fall of 2017, on the first anniversary of our visit, donors from our congregation sponsored Bavat Ayin’s Selichot program; and I returned to Bavat Ayin in the summers of 2017 and 2018.

In the coming spring, I plan to make a grant from my discretionary fund to sponsor the congregation’s Jerusalem Day celebration, featuring the art of Michal Memit Vorka, who “immigrated to Israel at the tender age of two through Operation Moses.” On Jerusalem Day at Bavat Ayin, “She will introduce her art as well as her story, relate to her Jewish-Ethiopian traditions and discuss the challenges that Ethiopian-Jews are meeting in their encounter with Israeli society. Since 2004[,] Jerusalem Day has also been recognized as a Memorial Day for around 4,000 Ethiopian Jews who tragically perished on their way to Israel, while striving to fulfill their decades long dream to reach [Jerusalem].”[i]

I share these details because we in North America can get the impression that Reform Judaism in Israel consumes all of its energy fighting for its rights in the face of ultra-Orthodox, government-supported discrimination. Those struggles are important. However, the truth about our Israeli Reform partners is much more complex and inspiring. Despite all the challenges they face, the Israel Movement for Progressive and Reform Judaism has been growing by leaps and bounds. Just as important, my Israeli colleagues and their partners in lay leadership are laser-focused on creativity and deep meaning. For example, this year, I was privileged to worship from a pilot edition of our Israel Movement’s next prayer book, edited by Professor Dalia Marx and Dr. Alona Lisitsa of Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem. This prayer book is informed by the deep spirituality of our Movement in Israel and even by some of the stylistic innovations of our own American Reform prayer books.

While many people will tell you that Israeli Jews are either “religious,” meaning Orthodox, or “secular,” the reality is that “[Rabbi Gilad] Kariv, who heads the Israeli Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism,] likes to cite recent surveys that show as many as 12 to 13 percent of Israelis Jews identifying as either Reform or Conservative.”[ii] Perhaps more importantly, “In 2013 36% of Israeli Jews, or nearly 2 million individuals, reported that they had participated in one or more Reform or Conservative events.”[iii] While our Movement hoped to establish fifty congregations in Israel by 2020, its leader, Rabbi Gilad Gariv, celebrates that the goal was accomplished several years earlier.”[iv] Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion has ordained more than 100 rabbis at its Jerusalem campus, by far the largest number of non-Orthodox Jewish clergy in the Jewish State.

Laurence Wolf, who has studied the Reform Movement in Israel, has described participation in ways that will sound familiar to us: “While average attendance for Shabbat evening services is usually modest, … attendance for holidays…is high, as secular [sic] Jews seek more meaningful spiritual experiences. For example, in 2013 over 1000 people participated in Yom Kippur services at Yotzma in Modi’in, [a Jerusalem suburb,] many of them standing outside the small synagogue and participating in the service through loudspeakers in an expansive meadow.”[v]

While we most often hear about the struggle for egalitarian worship at Jerusalem’s Western Wall, which is important, marriage is a more significant flash-point for Israelis. Wolf writes, “Young people are increasingly resisting marriage ceremonies led by Orthodox rabbis. A 2015 survey found that 49% of all Jews (and 80% of secular Jews) did not want Orthodox marriage…17% [wanted] a Reform or Conservative marriage.”[vi] Despite the fact that Israeli law does not recognize the weddings they officiate, Reform rabbis were already officiating at more than 1000 weddings per year in Israel by 2013.[vii]

Funerals in military cemeteries were also at issue until a recent development. Imagine a grieving family, not at all Orthodox, being told that only an Orthodox rabbi may officiate at their loved one’s funeral. Often, these rabbis will not permit women and men to stand together at the funeral as families, allow women to offer a eulogy or even to say Kaddish for an immediate family member. And remember, we’re talking about military funerals, often for young people who have given their lives in the service of the country. Only last month did the Israel Defense Force relent and announce that Reform rabbis may officiate at funerals in Israel’s military cemeteries, a change precipitated by pressure from Israel’s High Court of Justice, thanks to Hiddush, an organization that agitates for religious liberty in the Jewish state.[viii]

As the Israeli Reform Movement’s reach and popularity have grown, its detractors have become more threatened by it. The Orthodox establishment is working harder than ever to curtail our Movement’s rights. The greatest damage would be done by diminishing the authority of Israel’s Supreme Court, as proposed by Prime Minister Netanyahu and his prospective coalition partners, including the ultra-Orthodox parties.

American Jews can make a difference. The representatives of our largest American Jewish organizations – Jewish Federations of North America, the Union for Reform Judaism, and AIPAC – can, often do, and must continue to insist on equal rights for all Israelis. This winter, we shall all have the opportunity to make our voices heard in World Zionist Organization elections, in which each and every adult Jew worldwide has the right to vote.

My synagogue, Congregation B’nai Israel in Little Rock, Arkansas celebrates that we are domim, similar, and partners of Congregation Bavat Ayin – like us, an isolated, middle-sized Reform congregation – and continue to contribute to that partnership. We can, and we must, remain strong, strengthening one another, across oceans, but very close to our hearts.

—
Rabbi Barry Block serves Congregation B’nai Israel in Little Rock, Arkansas. 

[i] Kehillat Bavat Ayin, “Recreating Torah: A Program for Jewish-cultural study,” undated document transmitted from Rabbi Ayala Miron to Rabbi Barry Block via email, July 15, 2019.
[ii] Judy Maltz, “The Reform Leader Running to Be Israel’s First non-Orthodox Rabbi in the Knesset,” Ha-aretz, August 8, 2019.
[iii] Laurence Wolf, “The Reform Movement in Israel: Past Present and Future,” The Joseph and Alma Gildenhorn Institute for Israel Studies, University of Maryland, July 6, 2015, p. 4.
[iv] Rabbi Gilad Kariv, speaking at CCAR-MARAM Yom Iyyun, July 8, 2019.
[v] Wolf, p. 5.
[vi] Ibid.
[vii] Ibid.
[viii] Anna Ahronheim and Ilanit Chernick, “IDF to Allow Reofrm Rabbis to Officiate at Military Funerals,” The Jerusalem Post, July 4, 2019.

Categories
News

In the Fight for Justice, We Have Cosmic Companionship

CCAR members and clergy from other faiths were in El Paso, Texas July 28-29th for two days in support of Moral Mondays at the Borderlands. We have invited them to share their experiences in a short series on RavBlog.

We squinted as we stepped down from the buses that brought us to the detention facility and ICE processing center. The sun was blazing and the temperature was near 100. We had landed in what looked like an extremely large, brown, barren field, but barbed wire and walls bordered it. We saw these signs:

RAC staffers had brought posters for us, and there were so many extra that we started offering them to our fellow marchers, some of whom wore crosses around their necks and scarves over their hair. There were smiles all around as the message from texts we all honor was given and received. As we began to march to the main gate of the detention facility, several of us fell into step directly behind the Reverend Barber, resplendent in his red robes, our own Rabbi Rick Jacobs, Imam Omar Suleiman and the other clergy leaders. (We so completely filled the spaces right behind their heads with our RAC signs – Do Justice, Love Mercy, March Proudly, Reform Jews Welcome Immigrants  – that, seeing photographs later, Rick said it looked like a URJ rally. That made us smile.)

Finally, we arrived at the main gate which had been closed and locked against our arrival. Some detainees inside had begun a hunger strike that day. Reverend Barber motioned all the clergy forward and, speaking into the intercom, trying to touch hearts within the walls, called on those inside with the power to do so to allow us in to minister to those who were suffering. There was no response. Rabbi Jacobs tried, then Imam Omar Suleiman, then Reverend Teresa Hord Owens and Reverend Dr. Robin Tanner.

Silence. For that day, at least, there was no touching of hearts, no opportunity for connection, at least not with the souls held captive inside. As a large contingent of police cars began to converge on the area, we stepped back and silently moved away. We did not come to fight with anyone. We did not seek “glory” in arrest. We came only to witness and, if given the chance, to offer solace. As Reverend Barber had taught us earlier that day: “We don’t come to be arrested, we come to arrest the attention of the nation.” — Reverend William Barber, July 2019

—
Rabbi Kim S. Geringer is an Adjunct instructor in Professional Development, Rabbinic Supervision at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.

Categories
Immigration Social Justice

Sunday Night’s Mass Meeting

CCAR members and clergy from other faiths were in El Paso, Texas July 28-29th for two days in support of Moral Mondays at the Borderlands. We have invited them to share their experiences in a short series on RavBlog.

As a mother of a young daughter, I cannot imagine being separated from her. I look at her and cannot fathom a situation in which she’s left alone, without any supervision – not one to watch her, to help her, to keep her safe, to love her. And yet, thousands of children are in that very situation. Not in some far away land but here, on our soil. Seeking refuge from the horrors of evil, families have been driven away from their homes, churches and communities and have come to America for refuge. As Jews we are taught to welcome the stranger, and to remember that we were once the refugee looking for safety and a home.

When Reverend Barber II put out the call to clergy of all faiths to join Repairers of the Breech in El Paso for Moral Monday, in order to protest this administration’s “policy” of separating families, of parents from their children, I felt compelled to attend.

Upon arrival, I entered a modest, old church and was met with hundreds of activists, clergy from all faiths and even media. There was an energy emenating from the pews, as people joined in singing songs about justice and faith. Each of the representatives from the faith communities shared brief words, one more powerful than the next. Rabbi Rick Jacobs was our representative who gave words of Torah to us all.

Of course, Reverend Barber II gave his homily, in which he passionately described the wretched conditions the families seeking refuge are currently enduring within the walls of detention centers. Little food, no showers, no running water! People drinking from toilets! Living in cages! Young children separated from their mothers! Private companies that own the Centers are actually making money off the backs of children. Where is the humanity!? I was and remain outraged that the American government is dehumanizing people, much like what was done to our People just a few decades ago.

Together as one community, we stood united in reflective prayer and inspirational song. We listened to Fernando, the Executive Director of the Border Network for Human Rights as he spoke about their work advocating for migrants at the border. He introduced us to two young men who had spent time in a Detention Center – they shared their stories of starvation, of thirst, of not being able to take a shower for weeks, and of wearing the same clothing for the duration of their stay. We then listened to a family whose patriarch was taken from them; his granddaughter at age nine asked why he was being treated like a criminal. Even she knew that this was unjust. It was difficult to listen to the stories shared, but important to hear.

As rabbis, we know that in the Torah scroll we are able to distill the word Ayd or Witness from the Shema. Indeed, during my experience in El Paso, I and others heard the call to serve as moral witnesses. When I returned home to Connecticut, I held my three year old and watched her sleep. She looked so peaceful, and so cared for. My heart continues to ache for the children who have no bed to lie in, have no mommy to care for them and feel anything but peaceful.

—
Rabbi Joui Hessel serves as the Associate Director for the Eastern Region for Recruitment and Admissions at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.

Categories
Immigration Social Justice

Sunday Morning: The Shelter

CCAR members and clergy from other faiths were in El Paso, Texas July 28-29th for two days in support of Moral Mondays at the Borderlands. We have invited them to share their experiences in a short series on RavBlog.

Often, at the beginning of the summer, I am invited to bless the boats alongside a priest as families (some from my congregation) make their seasonal maiden voyage on their private boats from Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, out to the Jamaica Bay or Atlantic Ocean. The priest makes his prayer as each boat passes in front of us. I offer the Priestly Blessing (sometimes in Hebrew for the Jewish boaters) and a Nisiyah tova or Tzetchem l’shalom as they go by.

That Sunday morning over a week ago in El Paso, families of a different sort “sailed” in front of me and my colleagues, as they passed by through the doors of a hidden shelter for asylum-seekers, following their release from a local detention center.

Thanks to Rabbi Sarah Reines’ preparation for our time in El Paso, we learned that we could volunteer at this temporary shelter for the “lucky” families, who possessed a phone number or a sponsor. They arrive at these “hidden” shelters for a few hours, perhaps even overnight, until they would get on a bus, or into a car, or on a plane, headed to somewhere in the US. A week later, a white supremacist gunned down 22 people in a nearby Walmart. Now I understand why the location of this shelter is secret.

I learned later, that the shelter is staffed entirely by volunteers and that the rent was $60K per month. The shelter had a large room of cots, a children’s playroom, a dining area, an office, rooms to interview families and to make the phone call, a Hygiene Room, and a clothing “store.”

My morning began in the Children’s Room where I stayed for a few minutes. The language barrier was a problem and well, I’m not a “natural” with small children. Since Cantor Jen Rueben had it down to an art, I moved to a room to sort used clothing into different sizes where I didn’t need to speak to anyone. The donated clothing was ratty, nonetheless, it was a change of clothes, something each family member needed. However, when a new busload of asylum-seekers arrived, I was transferred to the Hygiene Room, to disburse toiletries.

It wasn’t really a Hygiene Room, but rather, a Hygiene Closet, an un-air conditioned, two-doored closet. While there, in between families who passed through, my daughter happened to call me on my cell phone. I complained to her about the lack of air-conditioning in the “room.”  She asked me to repeat my complaint word for word back to her. Oh, right, I hadn’t left my town or homeland and walked 500 miles or exorbitantly paid someone to drive me to escape a dangerous situation. Rather, I was kvetching about the lack of air conditioning. Humility is one of the greatest gifts a child can bestow upon parents.

Three years of High School Spanish was for naught. A poster on the door with translations and our charade-game body movements helped Rabbi Kim Geringer and I manage the disbursement of toiletries. But like the story of Balaam and Balaak, every time I opened my mouth, Hebrew came out. Neither a curse, nor blessing, the brain cells dedicated to language had, sadly at that moment, been usurped by Hebrew. Again, another lesson in humility.

After an asylum-seeking family would complete a phone call with a Spanish translator to their sponsor or family member, to arrange for transportation to a home where they would await a hearing, they were sent to the Hygiene Room. Prior to entering the room, there was a box of stuffed animals. With delight, children picked out one stuffed animal and put it into a recyclable grocery bag, that contained the entirety of a family’s earthly possessions. Upon entering the Hygiene Room, where they would receive a large Ziplock worth of goods: diapers in all sizes (they were allotted four diapers), and if needed, a Ziplock bags of infant formula. They received one comb, toothbrushes, one razor, a tube of shaving cream, a bar of soap, one barrette, one hair tie and one headband. One small “travel-size” roll-on deodorant, one hair brush, a small tube of toothpaste, a few tampons or sanitary napkins, one lip balm, and one towel and one washcloth per family member. I invited the girls to select hair ties and barrettes. Alas, there was only one “Elsa” lip balm, which I gave to the first girl who entered the room with her mother. Who knows whether this young girl had even seen the film “Frozen.” Children I know have seen it multiple times.

But I was not there to learn about humility or gratitude. A secondary gain perhaps, but the point was to make this horrific, traumatic trek from Central America a little easier. I was there to volunteer. They did not arrive with suitcases. They arrived with a bag. We didn’t know their stories. We didn’t know their fears. Who knows whom they left behind, or what they left behind, or even where they were going? Which child who came through the “Hygiene Room” perhaps, had to drink water from a toilet? Were these reunited families or separated families? Were they wearing ankle “bracelets” that knew their every move? I do not know the answer to these questions.

We only saw the “lucky ones” who had been released from detention centers.

Nisia Tova and Tzetchem l’shalom, I wanted to say. It was on the tip of my tongue.

—
Rabbi Marjorie Slome serves the West End Temple in Neponsit, New York.

Categories
Death Healing

I Never Knew

I never knew. 

I never knew what this felt like. 
I really never knew. 

27 years as a rabbi, caring for others and yet,
I never knew. 

After all those sermons about death and dying, about loss and living on, 
I never knew. 

Through the innumerable condolence calls, leading countless shiva minyanim, in fact
I never knew. 

Over years of checking in on others, 
In late night calls and texts 
Just so they would know 
They were not alone, 
That we hadn’t forgotten, Still
I never knew. 

Even after officiating at funeral after funeral after funeral, 
Until the losses piled up so high that 
They became part of the cycle of life 
Yet each one representing a precious moment of memory, a unique life, 
For some reason
I never knew. 

Yes
He was old
And yes 
He was ill
And yes 
He was ready
And yet, still

While my loss is no greater, and 
My pain is no sharper, while
My sadness is no deeper
Than those of countless others. 
Still

This sadness, this sorrow
Is like no other
Because although I have counseled many others
Through the valley of the shadow of death, 
Nonetheless 

Nonetheless
Today this death is mine

And I am starting to realize:
The emptiness of loss
The sadness of what isn’t anymore
The foreverness of it all. 

You see
My dad is dead. 
And what is that like? 

I think 
I wish 
I never knew.

—
Rabbi Paul Kipnes serves Congregation Or Ami in Calabasas, CA.

Categories
Books Healing Prayer

Psalm 27:4 In God’s (Not Yet Perfect) House

I wrote the draft of what would come to be a Reflection for Focus in my book, Opening Your Heart with Psalm 27, “In God’s [Not Yet Perfect] House” on October 4, 2017, a few mornings after country music fans were murdered at the Route 91 Harvest Festival.  The reality of what seemed unbelievable was becoming incomprehensibly comprehensible and I reflected on the Psalmist’s affirmation, and deepest desire, to live in God’s house.  It was hard that morning to feel like we were living in God’s house—where such hatred was possible. 

It was chol hamo’ed sukkot and the fragility of the world felt all too real.  In the weeks that followed, as I edited this piece, my goal was to capture that moment in time, and allow it to reflect the timelessness of the psalm, to help us see hope and find courage, to make God’s house a holy place.  What I never imagined is that what I wrote would be relevant, over and over again, in just two years, not because it brought illumination to Psalm 27:4 in a new way, but because we would bear witness, again and again, to mass shootings, in public places—in synagogues and mosques, in school and shopping malls, and now in the mid-western city of Dayton and the Texas border city of El Paso.  The scenes of bloodshed are horrifically similar, the calls for political action and the lack of it are also despairingly alike, and our urgent questions of faith remain too.   

Psalm 27:4 In God’s [Not Yet Perfect] House

One thing have I sought from Adonai—how I long for it:
That I may live in the House of Adonai all the days of my life;
That I may look upon the sweetness of Adonai,
And spend time in the Palace;

The boots scoot, the hats ride high, the beer flows,
guitars twang, harmony rings loud.
Here in God’s country house
the story is always bittersweet:
love then loss, pain then healing,
doubt then faith, then doubt again.

This is God’s house, but is God home?
Some say, no.
Thousands plan to party while one has other plans.
Ten minutes of sheer terror.
Shots. Bullets. Blood. Final breath.
Fear. Horror. The dread of death.

This is God’s house, but is God home?
Some say, maybe.
He uses his body as a human shield.
She grasps a stranger’s hand
while the life force ceases.
They hold each other and move silently toward the exit.

This is God’s house, but is God home?
I say, yes.
This house of God, where we live,
where we gamble
with our money, with our values,
with our own lives and the lives of others,
is not yet perfect.

But God is always home.
Rescuers. First responders.
Kind people with holy instincts
doing God’s work,
singing melodies of courage,
in God’s not yet perfect house

—
In honor of those who survived and in memory of those who were murdered at the Route 91 Harvest Festival, Las Vegas, October 1, 2017, between Yom Kippur and Sukkot 5778.

Rabbi Debra J. Robbins has served Temple Emanu-El in Dallas since 1991 and currently works closely with the Social Justice and Adult Jewish Learning Councils, the Pastoral Care department, a variety of Worship initiatives, and teaches classes for adults. She is the author of Opening Your Heart with Psalm 27: A Spiritual Practice for the Jewish New Year, published by CCAR Press.

Categories
Books Gun Control Healing Prayer spirituality

Esa Einai: I Lift My Eyes

We must carry the pain of this world, feel its weight, its sadness, and its burden.

We live as one humanity, in one world, one community, and our neighbors are kind and beautiful and they are callous and indifferent and they are hateful and evil. 

So, choose, what kind of neighbor do you want to be? And we choose to wake up the apathetic soul. And we choose not to look away from the glare of cruelty. 

Who are we, for God’s sake? Who have we become? 

Today, August 6, is my brother’s birthday. After his sudden and tragic death, I wrote this prayer. I offer it to all who are suffering: 

Esa Einai: I Lift My Eyes
For Neil Dion Schwartz 1958-2002

I am searching for words
For the words that describe,
Make sense, or at least comfort.
Words that summon me from the depths
Of my solitude. 

In the night, there is darkness.
Restless attempts to sleep,
Twisting, turning into the shadows.
As I seek a comfortable pose
I bring my knees to my chest
Folding my dreams in half;
Will the crease ever come out? 

And in the day there are
Silent attempts to find hope.
Twisting, turning toward the light
As I look for direction, a path, a way. 

It is not easy to find the way.
And so,
I lift my eyes to the mountains
Heaven lays her head upon the mountaintop
And I begin to climb. 

What is the source of my help?
I climb and gaze upon the vistas.
More mountains, more horizons
Never-ending moments where heaven meets earth,
Never-ending possibilities to meet the Divine. 

Lift me, carry me, offer me courage.
Help me understand life’s sharpest paradox:
That to live is tragic and wonderful,
Painful and awesome, dark and filled with light. 

I lift my eyes to the summit
And as I climb I find my help
In the turning and twisting it takes toAscend.
I have found a path and it is worn and charted
By all those who are summoned from solitude.
I take their lead.
And I know that in the most essential way
I am being carried up the mountain.
And even now,
Dear God, even now
I am not alone. 

From The Bridge to Forgiveness: Stories and Prayers for Finding God and Restoring Wholeness. Republished in Amen: Seeking Presence with Prayer, Poetry, and Mindfulness Practice, CCAR Press, Coming in December 2019.

—
Rabbi Karyn Kedar, Senior Rabbi of Congregation B’nai Jehoshua Beth Elohim in Deerfield, IL, is widely recognized as an inspiring leader who guides people in their spiritual and personal growth. She is the author of many books, including Omer: A Counting from CCAR Press, and Amen: Seeking Presence with Prayer, Poetry, and Mindfulness Practice, coming in December 2019.

Categories
Immigration Social Justice

Is Seeing Believing or Believing Seeing?

Recently, I read a report from the Rand Corporation entitled, “Truth Decay: An Initial Exploration of the Diminishing role of Facts and analysis in American Public Life” written by Jennifer Kavanaugh and Michael D. Rich in which the researchers rediscovered that, “…national political and civil discourse in the United States has been characterized by “Truth Decay,” defined as a set of four interrelated trends: an increasing disagreement about facts and analytical interpretations of facts and data; a blurring of the line between opinion and fact; an increase in the relative volume, and resulting influence, of opinion and personal experience over fact; and lowered trust in formerly respected sources of factual information. The most damaging consequences of Truth Decay include the erosion of civil discourse, political paralysis, alienation and disengagement of individuals from political and civic institutions, and uncertainty over national policy.”  While this should surprise no one, it lead to wonder how much decay was really going on with me as it relates to the most pressing issues of our day.  How much do I “know” and how much do I “believe” or want to believe about what is happening all around me.

This concern has surfaced most acutely as it relates to the immigration and asylum seeker policies unfolding in our country and prominently felt in my current home state of Texas. I saw the reports of families separated; I watched in pain and horror of overcrowded detention centers, children sleeping on floors, frantic parents, crying children.  I listened to analyses trying to explain away what I saw, and trying to emphasize what I saw, sometimes in the same news program.  I absorbed the politician’s spin ono both sides of the aisle.  I talked to immigration attorneys and asylum seeker support service providers.  I spoke with a close friend who works for the Department of Homeland Security who works on the border who told me flat out, “don’t believe what you see or hear because it’s all wrong.”  Apart from the irony of insisting I believe him over everything else, part of me knew what he was really saying was, “you gotta see this yourself.”

So when the invitation came from Repairers of the Breach, the Rev. Dr. William Barber’s organization, to join with Rabbi Rick Jacobs,  my friend and colleague Imam Omar Suleiman and others to bear witness to this issue in El Paso last Sunday and Monday, I knew I had no choice but to go and see for myself and this was the time to be a part of the testimony of this great stain on the soul of our country; that there is, in the words of Kohelet, “…a time for tearing and a time for sewing; a time for silence and a time for speaking…” and that time is now.

Upon arriving in El Paso and connecting with URJ and RAC staff, clergy, and congregants from our movement from as far away as New York and Boston, it became clear that this was not just a press conference and an opportunity to march in the Texas heat, but to add a moral voice to a policy problem that will become a defining moment in American history.  We gathered to learn about non-violent direct action – a euphemism for civil disobedience that might result in arrest.  This dominated the conversation for the next couple of hours; will you get arrested?  What does your arrest mean in light of this issue?  Does it matter?  Is being arrested more about you or about the moment and movement?  After the training were honored to hear from a number of powerful and important people.  Dr. Barber Spoke.  Imam Suleiman spoke.  Rabbi Jacobs spoke, as did a few other of our leaders.  But the most powerful witnessing that first night came from people directly affected by the immigration and asylum problems.  There were asylum seekers from Guatemala sharing their ridiculously dangerous and lengthy journey; asylum seekers sent back to Mexico to wait; people who were separated from their parents and children.  It was heartbreaking to hear their firsthand accounts.  It was liberating to hear their words without commentary, derision or spin.  It was maddening to know this is happening in our country, in my state, right in front of me.

The next day was the day we would make our way through the heat to the detention center.  We learned that non-violent direct action and getting arrested would make the work of the local support systems for immigrants and seekers more difficult.  Instead the hundreds assembled would march to the entrance of the detention center and as clergy gathered toward the front, make numerous demands; to pastor to those detained, the end of inhumane conditions at the detention centers, end of family separations, end to the wait in Mexico asylum process.  Of course we were not let in, but as Dr. Barber said, “We condemn and call evil and unjust the caging of people, the making people drink from toilets, the refusal to even give them a toothbrush. You’re holding angels in this place. But you will not hold them forever. We join them now, and not only do we bring condemnation, but we bring hope. It doesn’t have to be this way. America, turn around. America, repent. America, stop. America, change your ways.”

Seeing is believing and indeed I do believe I saw.

—
Rabbi Andrew Marc Paley serves Temple Shalom in Dallas, Texas.

Categories
Immigration Social Justice

Silence is Not an Option

“Somebody’s hurting our people and it’s gone on far too long, and we won’t be silent anymore…”

Songs of protest such as this permeated the two days in El Paso this week when faith leaders and people of conscience, including several rabbinic colleagues and cantors, came together in support of Moral Mondays at the Borderlands. Hundreds from across the country answered the call from Reverend William Barber II, Rabbi Rick Jacobs, Imam Omar Suleiman and other leading clergy to come witness and peacefully protest the inhumane, immoral, and unjust detention and caging of individuals seeking asylum and refuge in our country, adults and children, countless of whom are still separated from parents (the practice tragically persists according to news outlets on 7/31).

A spirited assembly Sunday evening illustrated the incredible diversity of the group who made the journey; participants reflected every religious tradition, race, ethnicity, sexual identity, and gender orientation. The powerful evening was marked by song, impassioned charges from leading clergy and organizers, the testimonies of former refugees now working with the Border Network for Human Rights to support individuals presently detained, among other memorable moments.

When we came together again Monday morning, Reverend Barber delivered a stirring message in which he tenderly described the love and care with which he attends to the needs of his German Shepherd puppies – providing them special food and treats, bathing them, giving them constant affection and attention. Then with a dramatic shift in tone, Barber thundered the painful and tragic reality that in our country at present, we treat our dogs better than we do fellow human beings, individuals seeking refuge in the hopes of a new home and life.  Minutes after departing the church, we reassembled in a large lot in view of the El Paso DHS detention center.  Protest signs in hand, we marched alongside the street en route to the center, the repeated honking of passersby indicating their support, until we reached the closed gates of the detention center.  There, Rick Jacobs and others prayerfully requested that clergy be allowed to enter the grounds to offer spiritual and pastoral support to the detainees. Unsurprisingly, the pleas went unheard by the Border Patrol agents, but with numerous media outlets covering and recording our presence, we still departed the grounds feeling confident about the impact of our collective voices and presence.  We departed the formal protest appreciating fully that for justice to be realized, our ongoing efforts to bring national attention to the crisis of inhumanity at our border must continue.

Since returning home to Atlanta, a few questions and observations about the time in El Paso have persisted. Among them is one glaring recognition – likely evident in video footage and photos of the gathering – that some of our justice efforts will result in a dais shared with individuals and/or organizations whose virulent views about Israel, for example, are antithetical to everything we believe and hold dear. Though not a new challenge or realization, the situation at the border reminds us yet again that there are times when our abiding need to confront serious and unconscionable injustice necessitates the capacity to set aside deep-seated conflicts regarding one matter in order to marshal energy and efforts for the sake of another cause.

For several participants, the trip to El Paso also raised questions about how to measure the efficacy of such actions. Acknowledging the not-insignificant investment of time and financial resources needed to participate, it begs the question as to whether there might be better or more impactful uses of both. For example, would directing the same dollars to the campaign of a candidate who could potentially help to legislate change be a better use of limited resources? No doubt this question invites debate, but I think it is honestly a bit of a conundrum, with an answers that will likely vary, even for the same individual.  Each of us must determine whether investing financial resources in potential, systemic change or utilizing those same dollars to enable one’s physical and emotional presence in a place of brokenness and pain holds sway. Obviously both can make a profound and lasting difference in people’s lives, bringing into sharp focus yet again why the efforts of the RAC and other agencies that facilitate both expressions of support simultaneously are so critical.

The desperate plight of fellow human beings, adults and children currently held in deplorable detention centers in the name of our country, is urgently calling us to action. The ICE raids evoking terror in cities throughout the south, adding to the trauma of separating parents from children, calls us to action. The current policy mandating that all who are seeking asylum remain in Mexico, in violent communities where their lives are endangered, calls us to action. And the fact that we are part of a faith tradition and sacred spiritual heritage which commands us – more often than any other mitzvah — to care for the stranger…the migrant, the refugee, the asylum seeker, and the immigrant in our midst, calls us to action.  The need for action and justice is undeniable, because “Somebody’s hurting our people and it’s gone on far too long, and we won’t – we simply can’t – be silent anymore!”

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Rabbi Ron Segal serves Temple Sinai in Atlanta, Georgia. He is also the President of the Central Conference of American Rabbis.

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Convention

How Inviting Is Baltimore? Baltimore CCAR Rabbis Welcome You to Come to Convention 2020 and See For Yourself

Forbes listed Baltimore as one of the “Coolest Cities to Visit.”  Nothing earth shattering has changed since that 2018 notice.  There has been a lot of focus on the outstanding quality of Baltimore’s medical centers and universities; on our noteworthy and sometimes quirky art museums, our start-ups and our rush of millennials.  There is a lot of good to enjoy and experience in Baltimore.

Oh, we assume you have heard about our challenges. Those have gotten a lot airtime of late.  Baltimore shares similar issues with so many American urban centers, regarding challenges in public education, equal access to health care, racial and economic disparities, and more.  Our great city is struggling to get a handle on violence, even as it trends down in so much of our country.  Yup, our current mayor stepped in when his predecessor resigned under a cloud.   And yes, we are on our fifth police commissioner in as many years.

We know this sounds like a strange list when talking about how inviting our city is.  However, Baltimore is inviting precisely because everything in the first paragraph is true and because our city is actively working to face up to the realities in the second paragraph.

An explosion of social change efforts confronts our challenges here.  Consider these home-grown Baltimore initiatives, in their own words:

  • The Elijah Cummings Youth Program in Israel is an elite two-year leadership fellowship for high school students in Baltimore.  They gain first-hand cross-cultural knowledge and skill.
  • Thread engages underperforming high school students confronting significant barriers outside of the classroom by providing each one with a family of committed volunteers and increased access to community resources.
  • Center for Urban Families connects fathers to their children, creating opportunities for economic and financial security through work, and providing access to other key interventions and supportive services.
  • Baltimore Cease Fire By agreeing to sacred weekends without murder, and by receiving the resources needed to help us avoid violent encounters, we all will eventually agree to honor the sacredness of EVERY day and put an end to murder.

These organizations and so many more are working to address challenges of economic disparity, healthcare access, educational opportunities, police-community relationships, and so much more. Baltimore has these kinds of initiatives, just as your community does as well.

As the month of Av approaches, Lamentations’ initial cry of “Alas, Lonely sits the city” recalls words that Stephen Mitchell places in the mouth of Rabbi Elazar.  “Only words of lament of the destruction of Jerusalem remain. Why shouldn’t they be given to all the other cities as well?” (Congregation, Edited by David Rosenberg, 1987, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Inc, p.385) As words are spoken about a city with challenges, let us consider the words of that city and the actions of its citizens.  Let Baltimore be defined primarily by Baltimore and its own efforts at improvement and progress, imperfect as they may be.

How inviting is Baltimore? Quite inviting… inviting of visitors, of innovation, and of hope.

Join us for CCAR Convention 2020 in Baltimore, March 22 – 25, 2020. Click here to learn more.

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This blog was written by several Baltimore Area CCAR Rabbis.