Friday, April 23, 2010
[The following, by Zvi Koenigsberg, is a response to Charles Radin's piece in The Jewish Advocate below (Greetings From the Teapot). Zvi's original piece that started it all is here: Guest Post: Politics From the Pulpit - Say Hello to the New (Israel Fund) Rabbi.]
Upon reading Charlie Radin's article in the Advocate, it struck me that, on each and every point, he and I were looking at the same phenomenon and coming to diametrically opposed conclusions. In short, we live in different realities. It would be tiresome to list all these points, so I will limit myself to commenting on a few points.
Charlie writes that my charges about the content of Emma's sermon at KI are at "wild variance" with what Emma actually said. Thus, according to Charlie, there was no reason to strongly disagree, certainly not to comment in print.
Actually, Charlie's claim is in "wild variance" with what Rabbi Hamilton told me on the subject, that many people told the Rabbi that they were very upset by the sermon...and that one person even walked out in protest. KI rarely, if ever, experiences a reaction like this.
Charlie defines "hard Right" as "those who believe there is no one to talk to on the other [Palestinian] side". So by Charlie's definition, Prof. Shlomo Avineri is hard Right, since he made this very statement numerous times in recent articles. But, Avineri is former Director-General of the Foreign Ministry, and commonly acknowledged to be Israel's most respected political scientist. No one with a rudimentary knowledge of Israel would ever describe him as "Far Right". Again, Charlie lives in an alternate reality.
As for Charlie's sympathy for Goldstone, I would remind him that turning the other cheek is a Christian, not a Jewish, trait.
There isn't enough room here to document all the attacks on Jews in Hebron, beginning with the massacre of 1929. I do not, under any circumstances, condone the random attacks on Arabs that Charlie mentioned. But, anyone with a shred of intellectual honesty and knowledge of the history of Hebron, knows that these attacks represent the classic case of "man bites dog", the exception and not the rule. The norm is the long bloody list of brutal Islamic terror.
But Charlie is glossing over, and does not dare mention, the real issue here: the outspoken support that KI's newest clergy member gives to her political affiliations: The New Israel Fund, Breaking the Silence and J Street, which is the reason I posted in the first place. And, that she insists that it is her prerogative to USE THE PULPIT AT KI TO ADVANCE THESE POLITICAL BELIEFS.
Unlike me, Charlie has "no skin in the game". For him, this is an exercise in political correctness. For me, this is the existential struggle of my children and grandchildren. Two of many examples:
Charlie boasts that as a Boston Globe reporter he denied the Arab claims of a "Jenin massacre". Does he think he deserves a medal of honor for telling the truth?!? And what do the twenty-three members of my son, Eyal's, brigade, who died in that battle, deserve?!?
My eldest granddaughter, Arava, will be celebrating her Bat-Mitzvah in a few months. Eight years ago, a Hamas terrorist armed with an M-16 ran towards her kindergarten intent on slaughtering the "Zionist enemy", my granddaughter and her 4 year old classmates. Thankfully, the local grocer stopped him with a bullet.
Enough said.
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Kehillath Israel, Brookline: Koenigsberg Responds.
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[The following is a guest post by Zvi Koenigsberg.] On April 13th, I posted an entry on Solomonia decrying the fact that Congregation Kehillath Israel (KI) had just hired a very left-leaning, agenda-driven, assistant rabbi. I used very strong terminolo... Read More
I must take issue with Zvi's comment to the effect that Charlie Radin "has no skin in the game." While I wholeheartedly agree with Zvi's overall assessment of the highly politicized appointment of Emma Kippley-Ogman, we should refrain from personal invective based on whose children are serving in the IDF. I'm sure that Charlie cares deeply about Jewish lives - as he does for Arab lives.
On the other hand, I am puzzled by Charlie's injection of the Goldstone Report and the current "Bar Mitzvah" flap. I'm delighted that he has "problems" with that report. Is one of those problems the fact that much of the trumped up charges against the IDF emanated from New Israel Fund affiliates? We didn't read about that in his column. And of course, that indirectly involves Rabbi Emma.
From what I've read, the central issue is Ms. Kippley-Ogman's deep association with The New Israel Fund and its alliances with intensely anti-Israel affiliates like Adalah. As a NIF operative, Ms. Kippley Ogman wrote the following on the subject of Jewish "cruelty" towards Arabs' through Israeli water policies:
"In a reversal of our own story, here we play Avimelech, filling in wells and poisoning them, hoping to exile families from their land."
Even speaking metaphorically - and inaccurately, I might add - the idea of a "Rabbi" reviving the medieval blood libel of "poisoning the wells" - beggars the imagination.
Moreover, by attempting to tar Im Tirtzu by quoting a (purported) flyer that noted the dangers of visceral anti-Israel Jews,
Charlie validates the group's motives. Are there no Avraham Burgs, Avi Shlaims, Ilan Pappes, Ian Lusticks, Norman Finkelsteins, Noam Chomskys, Neve Gordons (the list goes on and on) giving aid and comfort to those who would eliminate Israel? Should we ignore these ill-intentioned- dare I say- traitors in our midst? Yes, Virginia, there are traitors in the world. And the Jewish people has a surfeit of them.
Charlie, wake up and smell the danger.
In your Advocate piece, you could have recounted the Knesset investigation of the New Israel Fund, whose affiliates provided the Goldstone Report with (spurious) accounts of IDF "war crimes." You could have mentioned the current scandal of another serious breach of military security by a Haaretz reporter - but you chose instead to highlight the viciousness of South African "Zionists" who - horror of horrors - might have demonstrated their disapproval of a man who conducted a kangaroo court for his fellow Jews and whose report has kindled global Jew hatred.
You might also have informed the readers of the warm welcome you extended to Leonard Fein and his band of NIF zealots at KI a year ago. I attended that event and was aghast that no one, including yourself, took a moment to address the existential issue of the moment - namely, Iran's nuclear ambitions and its threat to wipe Israel off the map. The entire evening was designed to condemn Israel for its inequities towards its Arab citizens.
Finally, as for your equating Jewish "outrages" with Arab "outrages" in Hebron, look to the body count. I don't buy your algebra. Yes, some obnoxious Jews live in Hebron and have behaved abominably. But not all of them. Jews returned to Hebron in 1968 after a forty year exile kindled by a massacre inspired by Arab leaders in 1929 (odd that you and Ms. Kippley Ogman omitted that minor incident, but dredged up the Baruch Goldstein atrocity, an act of a deranged individual as opposed to the premeditated, political massacre of 1929 before Israel even existed.) The Left's greatest disappointment was the fact that the Goldstein never recurred on a regular basis. But when convenient, they drag it back, hoping to incriminate anyone who disagrees with them.
On the other hand, dozens of Jews have been killed in Hebron since the "handshake" of 1993, including the deliberate murder of an infant, Shulhevit Pass. Hebron is the home of the Qawasameh clan, Hamas killers, who have been responsible for the murders of scores of Jewish civilians. Graffiti and taking pot shots at water heaters are a lot different than planned murder, Charlie.
I will side with Zvi on this one. The appointment of Ms. Kippley-Ogman is a vote for The New Israel Fund and its phony "human rights" agenda.
I have been following this thread, and am especially concerned that this new Rabbi will he taking responsibility in the Hebrew school where she will have influence over kids. The KI is apparently going to support the development of a generation of useful idiots.
Solomonia readers who don't want to support this agenda are welcome to come daven at Or Yisrael in Newton!
Sane Jews who oppose this fake "rabbi", can leave KI and start their own shul,
or, better, work to oppose her and her "progressively" destructive ideology.
I hope the latter is adopted.
Charlie is a dope.
Staying in a left drifting congregation is pointless (as it is has been with left drifting churches such as Obama's "Israel-is-a-terrorist-state" United Church of Christ).
Reply to Eli and Eddie:
...or come down the street, to 1566 Beacon St., and join us at Temple Beth Zion! Reb Moshe Waldoks runs a wonderful service, and his comedic past is very much in evidence -- as is Rav Claudia's background (and boundless energy) in Hebrew-school work.
In re Hebron: when I studied history in an Israeli high school, the Hebron massacre of 1929 was referred to, not in isolation, but as a follow-up to the smaller murderous rampages that took place in 1920 and 1921. Nor was the 1929 massacre limited to Hebron, although it did empty Hebron of Jews for the first time in hundreds of years.
respectfully,
Daniel in Brookline
Daniel - Go to TBZ to find a more pro-Israel shul than KI? You've got to be kidding me!
He's kidding. (Or Yisrael looks interesting, though.)
Nappy wishes he were kidding. Sounds like he's a member and likes it there. Different strokes for different folks.
Some people look for qualities in their rabbi such as scholarship, a cetain gravitas and menschlichkeit. Daniel seems to favor a clown with a lot of shtick and a very disturbing sense of what constitutes appropriate relationships with congregants. There's no accounting for tastes, is there.
Waldoks (or "Reb Moshe," as he likes to be known) may be a funny guy, but he has no sechel; he sings Kumbaya and wants to have interfaith dialogue with the Ikhtwan, the Muslim Brotherhood leadership of Menino's mosque. If Nappy lived in Brookline, Temple Sinai and the new TBZ are two shuls that Nappy wouldn't be caught dead in.
But for folkswho like a funny rabbi and a hippy-dippy, new-agey Jewish renewal approach to Judaism but who don't think very deeply or carefully, Reb Moshe's TBZ may be just the ticket.
So Nappy, Which shul(s) would you recommend in the Boston area?
That would depend on what you're looking for. Some people are very happy at TBZ and T. Sinai, which, it should be noted, are very different from each other. It's good to live in a place where there are choices.
Nappy leans Left-Wing Modern Orthodox and needs a shul in walking distance, so that limits Nappy's choices. Someone else will gravitate toward other streams of Judaism and may not have those same constraints for traveling to services.
However, Nappy will not affiliate with a congregation that doesn't have a strong sense of Jewish peoplehood, of being part of Klal Yisrael, or with a congregation that doesn't identify itself as strongly Zionist. Nappy would be very conflicted about being counted in a minyan with Neturei Karta, on the one hand, or Michael Lerner and Tikkunistas, on the other.
The crack about "those are the shuls Nappy wouldn't be caught dead in" is, of course, a reference to the old joke about a Jew who is finally rescued after being stranded on an island for many years. He takes the people who've come ashore for him on a tour and shows them the two synagogues he's built, the one he goes to and the one he wouldn't be caught dead in. Face it: we're a fractious lot.