Rabbi Jonathan's Blog

Martin Luther King Concert - Added January 27, 2010 This is worth writing about. On Monday afternoon, January 18 – Martin Luther King Day – I stood on the stage of the Pointe of Praise Family Life Center in Kingston and looked out on a crowd of over 600 people. (And who knows how many others wanted to attend and could not get a ticket!) The audience was a mosaic of Jews and Christians, black and white, all ages, shapes and sizes. With me on the stage were another 50 or 60 people reflecting the same mixture: a combined choir of the Woodstock Jewish Congregation and the New Progressive Baptist Church, the church’s pastor G. Modele Clarke and his wife Evelyn, the Pointe of Praise Pastor J.B. Childs, the WJC’s youth choir, Bill and Livia Vanaver, the Vanaver Caravan’s Youth Dance Company, Cantor Bob Cohen, and my dear and gifted friends Kim and Reggie Harris. And even Pete Seeger, 90 years old, straight and tall, picking his banjo and getting everyone to sing together. When we had initially approached Pete, he had said he would only do two songs. But just before he went on after the intermission, he politely asked if he could do three songs instead! Onstage, he reported to everyone that he had performed in two benefits the day before, and that this was his second performance of the day today. More power to you, Pete! (Cantor Bob Cohen, whose folk music pedigree goes back to Greenwich Village in the early 60’s, caught up with Pete after the show. Bob reports: “When I saw Pete backstage later I reminded him that I had driven him around Mississippi back in the Freedom Summer of 1964. “Oh," he said, "that was a long time ago." I agreed. "How're are you doing, Pete?" said I. "Well,” he replied, “I've lost 50% of my hearing, and 50% of my memory, but I'm doing OK.") Last spring, several congregants and I gathered to discuss ways that the WJC could contribute to the welfare of the broader community in the mid-Hudson valley. Our Tikkun Olam Task Force was born. (Tikkun Olam means “Repairing the World”.) We took up one initiative immediately, helping to stock and to staff the Good Neighbor Food Pantry in Woodstock. That effort has been very successful and we plan to continue to handle the work of the Food Pantry every January and July, in rotation with other houses of worship in Woodstock. Another idea was less formed – I had for many years been wondering how to connect with the local African American community, and proposed that we explore ways to make that connection. This past November, an opportunity presented itself. Reggie Harris called to tell me that he and Kim had some openings in their calendar and were wondering if we could set up a performance. As many of you know, a few years ago I recorded an album with African American singers and songwriters Kim and Reggie Harris. The album is titled “Let My People Go: A Jewish and African American Celebration of Freedom”. The music and narration explores the relationship that our two communities share with the story of the Exodus from Egypt, and recalls the strong alliances that Jews and Blacks developed during the Civil Rights Movement. Kim and Reggie and I are always seeking venues in which our stories, our music and our friendship can inspire people to reach across boundaries and make common cause for human dignity and justice. To my surprise, Kim and Reggie did not have a booking for Martin Luther King Day. I called Pastor Modele Clarke. Pastor Clarke was acquainted with Kim and Reggie, and he and I had met on several occasions and had discussed the possibility of cooperating on a project. As Pastor of the New Progressive Baptist Church in Kingston, Rev. Clarke had grown frustrated as he watched some members of his church as they returned from prison terms. When these folks were released from prison, they were given $40 or $50 dollars and a bus ticket to Kingston. If they had no family to take them in, they were immediately forced back on the street. The rate of recidivism was enormous. How were these people possibly going to rehabilitate themselves without some real support? And so Save Them Now was born. Save Them Now provides safe, sober housing and job training for its residents. After three years, Save Them Now has helped some 300 individuals, but the organization has no paid staff and was behind in rent. It struggles to find a permanent home; every time a possible location is found, the neighbors put up resistance. Modele and I agreed that we would hold a Martin Luther King Day fundraising concert for Save Them Now. Perri Ardman of our Tikkun Olam Task Force then stepped forward to coordinate the project. Perri brought passion and dedication to the task – we could not have done it without her. Many other volunteers, as well as the WJC staff, stepped forward willingly, and one task after another was handled with skill. The Save Them Now Board jumped right in, and Pastor J.B. Childs offered the beautiful sanctuary at Pointe of Praise church. In fact, this entire event was conceived, organized, publicized and executed in the space of about 6 weeks, with winter vacation thrown into the mix. It was amazing to watch everything come together. And what a day we had! The singing and the energy in the Pointe of Praise sanctuary were spectacular. The concert raised about $12,000 for Save Them Now, and not incidentally gave the organization a huge dose of positive publicity as well. For me, the greatest harvest of this entire undertaking is the relationships and friendships that were formed. Our WJC choir and the New Progressive Church choir rehearsed and sang together, joyfully learned each other’s songs, and want to sing together some more. I got to know my clergy colleagues Pastor Jim Childs and Pastor J.B. Childs of the Pointe of Praise and Pastor Modele Clarke of the New Pro Baptist Church. I have new friends. They are open hearted, skillful, genuine and devoted leaders and servants of their communities; I can’t believe it took me so many years to make their acquaintance. The old Woodstock/Kingston divide has been bridged. Our Jewish community has found a way to join forces with the Kingston African American community. And countless paths crossed at the concert, with audience members seeing friends and acquaintances from all the corners of our lives, joining together to honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and to keep the dream alive. It’s a great beginning. We are already imagining what we might do next.
Hiking the Israel Trail - Added Sep 16, 2009

Walking is an intimate relationship with the land. A sightseeing tour is wonderful and rich, and so much can be learned, but one is still insulated by wheels and glass and a plan. Walking covers much less ground, but gives one a chance to merge with one’s surroundings in a full-bodied experience. This was, at least, my experience walking with my brother for three days on the Israel Trail.

The early Zionists were in love with the land, literally the soil and the rocks of Israel. Connecting with the land was a central theme of Zionist ideology. Many early Zionists believed that the centuries-old Jewish condition of exile and homelessness had stunted and warped the Jewish soul. The cure lay in a return to the land, and a simultaneous reclaiming of the Jewish body, so long neglected, and the ancient Jewish homeland, so long left behind. These Jews were anything but religious – they rejected religion and Jewish religiosity in particular as a condition of exile. Yet they embraced the reclaiming of the land with their own labor with religious fervor. And so a familiar image of the Zionist has him or her walking the land of Israel with a map in one hand and a Bible in the other, identifying plants and flowers and ancient ruins mentioned in the Bible, learning the terrain like a lover passionately exploring the flesh of his beloved.

To this day hiking the land is a favored Israeli pastime. Many Israelis take great pleasure in knowing the history of a locale and being able to identify the flora and fauna. This is a direct outgrowth of Zionist culture. In recent decades the Society for Protection of Nature in Israel has marked off more and more trails around the country. The most ambitious of these trails is the Israel Trail. It winds up and down the length of the country some 580 miles, from the wellsprings of the Jordan River in the northern Galilee all the way down to Eilat and the Red Sea. A subculture has sprung up in Israel of Israel Trail hikers. Websites list places to get water and to sleep the night, and most importantly “Malachim” (Angels), individuals who live near the trail who are happy to take you in and give you a bed and a shower, and maybe even a meal. My brother Dan loves to hike and has been hiking the Israel trail in sections when he has a free weekend. Danny proposed that I join him for a 60-mile stretch of the trail that he had yet to undertake. Though I didn’t have exactly the right shoes with me, I jumped at the chance. Here is an account of my observations and highlights. I think it provides an interesting cross-section of Israel that I could not have otherwise experienced.

February 12: Kibbutz Beit Guvrin to Kibbutz Dvir

I met Danny at the Tel Aviv train station. He was carrying two backpacks, one of which he had kindly packed and supplied for me. We took the train south to Kiryat Gat in the northern Negev, and then found a taxi to take us to Kibbutz Beit Guvrin, which is pretty much in the middle of nowhere. But the Israel Trail passes right by the kibbutz, and on the kibbutz some of those Israel Trail Malachim (angels) offer a free bed to hikers.

These particular angels are a group of young people who have finished High School and are doing a Mechina, or preparatory year before entering the army. The “mechina” concept has been growing in Israel in recent years. I believe it began with religious young people who wanted to study in Yeshiva for a year before their army service. It has since spread to many less religious Israelis as well. They gather at various locations around the country for a year of communal living, service and learning. The kibbutz we were entering leases space to one of these programs. Danny and I walked into their common room as some 30 18-year olds were enjoying their dinner. They welcomed us warmly, with an exuberance particular to a bunch of young people living for the first time on their own. One of them asked if we were twins, as my newly grown beard makes me even more of a match for my brother. They invited us to a lecture they were having later that evening on civics and the Israeli electoral system, but we opted for an early bedtime. We would need to get an early start to meet Dan’s always-ambitious hiking goals the next day.

Before dawn the next morning Dan and I hoisted on our packs and began walking. Our first obstacle was the locked gate of the kibbutz. I managed to scramble over the gate, pleased with my middle-aged agility, and Dan followed suit. (We later realized that there was a button we could have pushed instead, which would have been a lot simpler!)

Our first steps took us past the Beit Guvrin National Park, an area with many archaeological sites dating back well over two millennia. I had visited Beit Guvrin with one of our synagogue tours several years ago, and we participated in a “Dig for a Day”, descending into the hewn limestone caves of the area and sifting the earth for pottery shards and other treasures. Archaeology is like a treasure hunt, and occasionally you strike gold. A remarkable find had just been made at Beit Guvrin by another group of tourists: they had found fragments of an inscribed tablet from 178 B.C.E., the period just before the Maccabean Revolt. The royal inscription described the activities of Emperor Seleucis IV. Three years later he would be assassinated and was succeeded by Antiochus IV, the Antiochus of the Chanukah story. In Israel you sometimes get to actually touch our ancient past.

As the day brightened the trail took us along several miles of dirt road passing fields and vineyards. This was the region in which all the seriocomic exploits of the biblical Samson against the Philistines take place. In one episode of revenge, Samson catches 300 foxes and ties pairs of them together by the tail, then attaches a torch between them and sets them running loose among the Philistine fields, setting the grain on fire. As Dan and I walked among the wheat fields we didn’t spot any foxes, but we did see antelope in the early morning light. It was a beautiful walk.

In the expansive vineyards of the modern farming community of Lachish I saw a few unpicked hanging bunches of withered grapes left over from the previous year’s harvest. A Biblical verse came to mind: “When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap all the way to the edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest. You shall not pick your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen fruit of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the stranger” (Leviticus 19:9-10). Even though I wasn’t literally carrying a Bible in one hand and a map in the other, I nevertheless was engrossed by the Biblical verses that kept popping into my mind as I walked the land.

A little ways down the trail we encountered a young hiker who did have a Bible in his hand. We had stopped to take a break at the base of an ancient “tel”, or hill that bore the accumulated remains of the Biblical city of Lachish. The hiker’s name was Daniel, and he was clambering up the side of the hill to get a look at the excavations on top. (We had considered climbing up and taking a look, but at our age and with a long day ahead neither of us was too enthusiastic about climbing!)

Tel Lachish, by the way, was one of the main fortress cities of the Kingdom of Judah in Biblical times, and is mentioned frequently in the latter books of the Bible. Jeremiah relates the conquest of Lachish by King Nebuchadnezzar and his army from Babylonia. The Babylonians then besieged Jerusalem, and ultimately destroyed it in 586 B.C.E. The modern archaeological dig at Lachish produced one of the most dramatic physical confirmations of that Biblical account: pottery shards inscribed with correspondence from a Judean commander of an outpost to his commanding officer in Lachish: “…we are watching for the signal fires of Lachish, according to all the indications which my lord gave, for we cannot see [the signal fire of] Azekah…”

Back in the present, the young hiker Daniel joined us and he and I struck up a conversation. Daniel was hiking the southern half of the Israel Trail solo from Jerusalem down to Eilat. As I had guessed, Daniel was a Christian, on his own spiritual pilgrimage in the Holy Land. He was sweet and sincere, a seeker, and his story was interesting. Daniel had grown up homesteading with his parents and siblings in a log cabin in remote Montana. Homeschooled and homespun, he had felt called to come to Israel, and had been here for some time studying Biblical Greek and Hebrew. He was on his way to India to work with the poor. He asked me if I was a believer, too, which was his code for Christian. I told him that I was indeed a believer, but of the Jewish flavor, and that I was even a rabbi. This put us in a position to have the inevitable discussion about faith. It is a conversation I typically try to avoid with fundamentalist Christians, because I do not find these exchanges to be particularly fruitful, but Daniel was clearly open for discussion, and we had a lot of time to kill on the trail!

And so, warning him that I was not a believer in the traditional sense, I explained that I just couldn’t see how the Creator of all would have placed the Truth in just one Book, or one Culture, or one Place or one Savior. If the Creator made a world of infinite variety, and a human species of countless languages and cultures, then the Creator must love variety. It seemed to me that it was a human mistake to think that any single tradition had the sole claim on God’s word, including both Judaism and Christianity! In fact, the battle between Christians and Jews for God’s love seemed to me like the longest running sibling rivalry in history, a “Dad loves me best!” argument of epic proportions, and I suspected that God was pulling His figurative hair out over His children’s misguided understanding of Divine Love. My conviction was that we humans were true witnesses to the reality of God when we treated others with love, mercy, and kindness, not when we persuaded others that they should agree with us.

Daniel was open to my point of view, and we continued talking. Our reverie was broken however when we encountered Highway 6 coursing through the desert, a superhighway so new that our trail maps didn’t include its route. A long detour ensued to the nearest highway bridge and then we relocated the path.

I should mention that my brother Dan was of course still with us, maintaining his astonishing pace as we marched along behind trying to keep him in sight. Dan is not much of a talker. Truly, I spent most of the three days trying to keep up with my older brother, a position with which I was deeply familiar.

The day was getting unseasonably warm, and we had left the fertile valleys for the huge open fields of the Northern Negev. Our view westward extended toward the Mediterranean, and had the day not been hazy perhaps we could have seen the sea, and the coastal plain and the Gaza Strip as well. Had the war still been on I’m sure we would have been able to see the plumes of smoke from explosions. It is a small country. We arrived at a roadside stand and campground serving cold drinks, and rested. Young Daniel was going to stay awhile, so we bid him farewell and set out. We had a long slog ahead of us through the midday heat if we were to get to our projected destination that evening. We were each carrying 6 liters of water, and drinking constantly. Locations to refill our water bottles were not numerous, and required advance planning, which was why we carried so much. We settled into a rhythm and walked for several hours. The fields of the northern Negev through which we walked were all plowed and sown with wheat, thousands of acres. But the fields were a uniform brown. These fields rely on the winter rains for irrigation, and this winter had been dangerously dry. So instead of miles of green winter wheat waving in the breeze, we only saw bare earth. And instead of the wildflowers that grace the desert most years at this season, there was virtually no color. It was distressing, and a water crisis looms in the region for this coming summer, as reservoirs remain dangerously low. (After our hike there were significant heavy rains, alleviating some of the most immediate concerns about drought.)

This was certainly a part of Israel I had never expected to visit, let alone walk through. For a good while we followed an old railroad bed that ran straight as an arrow. The bed was the remains of the railroad that had been built by the Ottoman Turks in the 19th century, before their empire crumbled and Palestine was lost to the British. We came to the ruins of an impressive arched railroad bridge, and then the trail veered off.

The monotony of the landscape was next broken by the sight of horsemen on a nearby rise. Whooping and hollering, they careened across the plowed fields at a full gallop. We wondered what they were up to, and after several passes we found out. An antelope raced down the draw just a few meters away from us, and on its heels were hunting dogs bounding at full speed, followed in short order by the galloping horsemen. It was a hunt, almost certainly illegal, as the antelope are a protected species in Israel.

But these Bedouin were hunting here long before the rolling land was plowed and long before endangered species legislation, and so they continue with their hunts.

The semi-nomadic Bedouin and their flocks have been wandering this arid landscape for thousands of years. Almost 4,000 years ago Abraham and Sarah set out across the Fertile Crescent with their flocks and herds, arrived in this very region, dug wells and pitched their tents. The Bedouin carry on these traditions. Like many indigenous nomadic peoples however, the Bedouins are facing extreme pressure to settle down. Open land grows ever scarcer, and with access to modern health care Bedouin birthrates and hence populations have skyrocketed, stretching traditional resources even more thinly. These pressures combine to make the fate of the Bedouin a burgeoning social problem in Israel. We would hike past several of their impoverished shantytowns in the days to come.

The day was getting late and I was moving very slowly by now. Dan had to wait periodically for me to catch up. We had been planning to sleep on the ground in our sleeping bags, but a kibbutz was visible up ahead. I begged for a bed to sleep on. We entered the kibbutz and lo and behold, a Trail Angel lives there. She maintains a room that is set aside for hikers, with a hot shower! Danny graciously heated up our dehydrated dinners, and then I lay down, unable to do anything else. Dan estimated that we had walked about 25 miles. Honestly, I cannot remember ever walking that far in one day in my entire life, but I guess there is a first for everything!

February 13: Kibbutz Dvir to Beit Ya’aran

I slept for 12 hours and my muscles had a chance to recover. Early the next morning, before sunrise, we were off on the next leg of our journey. I noted gratefully that I felt surprisingly good. As we walked briskly in the cool morning air, the landscape slowly became hillier and less cultivated. We were heading east and approaching the “Green Line”, the armistice line that existed between Israel and Jordan from 1948 until the Six Day War of 1967, at which time Israel conquered the area of Jordan known as the West Bank. That West Bank, along with the Gaza Strip, are generally understood to be the territory of a future Palestinian state, and the Green Line is the theoretical future boundary of that state. Until recently there was no physical demarcation of the Green Line, other than at checkpoints on the main roads. Several years ago however, in response to repeated suicide bombing attacks within Israel the Israeli government began constructing a security barrier, in some places a fence and in others a wall. The goal was to prevent further bombing infiltrations into Israel. The security barrier follows the Green Line in some sections, while in others it veers into West Bank territory. It does so in order to encompass Israeli towns and villages known as “settlements” that have been built on the far side of the Green Line since Israel took control of that land in 1967. Where completed the new “Security Fence” has become a de facto border between Israel and the Palestinian territories. It has successfully deterred suicide bombers since its construction, but it has also increased the isolation of the Palestinians and their sense of being held captive in their own homes. This is so especially where the wall veers across the Green Line in order to protect Israeli settlements, carving the landscape into jigsaw puzzle shapes. I favor the security barrier, as it appears to have prevented the loss of many lives, but I seriously doubt the wisdom and value of the gerrymandered boundary in many of the places where it crosses the Green Line and takes in pieces of the West Bank.

In the sparsely populated area in which we were hiking the security fence hews to the Green Line, and for a good stretch the Israel Trail runs parallel to it. Here it is an imposing-looking mass of fencing and barbed wire. The Palestinians who used to walk to their jobs inside Israel as factory and construction workers can no longer do so, and their economic situation has deteriorated badly. As we walked near the fence the silence was broken by the sound of racing engines. A beat-up car came bouncing down the dry riverbed ahead of us and sped onto the pavement nearby. Another car pulled alongside and after a brief exchange they both raced away. We turned to see an Israeli Border Police jeep now round the bend, but when the policeman saw that the car he was chasing was out of sight he turned his jeep around and headed back up the wadi. Perhaps he had radioed ahead. In any case, my brother and I speculated that these cars were smugglers, not terrorists; there was something very laissez faire about the whole chase. A short while later we were surprised once again when a teenage Arab boy appeared like a wraith walking across the field ahead of us, heading towards the fence. The boy was wearing a typical t-shirt with a logo and track pants, and he was carrying a plastic shopping bag filled with merchandise. As our paths crossed he muttered “shalom” to us in heavily accented Hebrew, and continued on his way. Dan suspected that the boy was probably employed illegally in Israel and was going home for Shabbat. As I scanned the Security Fence, it was difficult to see how this lad would breach it, but he was certainly heading in that direction. Whatever the case, Dan and I both felt that we were walking through a strange no-man’s-land in this barren region.

Soon we would need to refill our water bottles. The map indicated that we were approaching a tiny village with the odd name of Sansana. Perhaps we could find water there; beyond that we knew nothing about the place. The trail climbed into a pine forest, and the patchy shade brought some small relief. As we neared Sansana we heard the sounds of adults talking and children playing. To our surprise, Sansana was a religious Jewish community. This was Saturday morning, the Shabbat, and services had just ended. The entire community was mingling together outside the synagogue. Much of the crowd was in the courtyard of the synagogue sipping soda and eating cookies. Some of the men sat under a veranda discussing Torah, and children were running and playing everywhere. It was a delightful scene.

I am not a strictly observant Jew, and for me a hike with my brother is a wonderful way to spend an occasional Sabbath. But two sweaty guys lugging backpacks are not a picture of Sabbath peace to the more observant. As we entered the village some people eyed us uncertainly, but then one man came over to us and wished us Shabbat Shalom. We explained our need for water, and he offered to take us to his house.

In my understanding of Jewish law and tradition, certain commandments take precedence over others. Hospitality is at the top of the list, or, as the Talmud describes it, hospitality is one of those commandments with no upper limit or expiration date. This gentleman understood those Jewish priorities and was willing to disturb his Shabbat to serve two strangers. I was touched by his kindness. Shlomo (I think that was his name) walked us up to his family’s home, a rundown trailer, or caravan as mobile homes are called in Israel. The little trailer was crammed and overflowing with clothes, toys, dishes – it was a mess. But Shlomo didn’t hesitate to bring us inside, shove some items aside on the table, and set down the sweetest, sickliest looking green mint flavored soda I had ever tasted for us to enjoy. He then rummaged in the cabinet and found a box of Whoppers chocolate malted milk balls, which his sister had recently brought back from a visit the States as a gift for Shlomo’s children.

Shlomo explained to us that Sansana was a Modern Orthodox community of about 100 families celebrating its tenth anniversary. The residents were all professionals and tradespeople who were looking for a nice location and quality of life in which to raise their children. They tended to commute to Beersheva to work, and then return home to this remote hilltop at the end of the day. For ten years the residents had been living in these temporary dwellings, but just around the corner from Shlomo’s caravan the first real houses were nearing completion. I remember well how when Dan and Roberta moved to Israel 30 years ago, they and their small children also lived in temporary digs, waiting many years for their new community in the Galilee to be constructed. Here in Sansana, I hope Shlomo and his family get their permanent home soon.

Shlomo was of course curious about us, and he asked my profession. This presented a problem for me: if I told him that I am a rabbi, it would likely seem absurd and offensive to my Orthodox host. In his worldview, how could a rabbi be violating the Sabbath, lugging a backpack instead of attending synagogue? I instead explained to him that I am a teacher of Judaism, bringing American Jews closer to their heritage. In this way I hoped Shlomo and I might find common ground as Jews, and a pleasant conversation did indeed ensue.

Refreshed and restocked with water, Dan and I continued on our way, hampered only by the occasional mint-flavored belch. By now, tired though I was, I was curious about the next unanticipated encounter that might come our way. We descended from the Sansana forest and continued eastward in the broad open flats, eyeing the next forested set of hills several kilometers away. The map told us that we were looking at the Yatir Forest, and that in the heart of that forest was our next Trail Angel, where we hoped to spend the night.

But before we could reach that green vision the day got hotter and the hills once again got steeper. It appears that the Israel Trail blazers had a sadistic streak, sending us up to the top of every hill they could find. I paced myself carefully and watched the ground in front of me. Only armored creatures braved this midday heat: beetles, land snails, and the occasional tortoise with head and limbs retracted sitting in the middle of the trail. Lugging my backpack along, I told the tortoise: “I have my house on my back, too, but it isn’t protecting me right now!” To the rhythm of my footsteps I sang a Hebrew song that my kids had been learning in ulpan – I sang it hundreds of times.

As the afternoon began to wane we finally entered Yatir Forest. One of the great accomplishments of Zionism over the last century has been the reforestation of huge tracts of barren land within Israel’s territory. By the late 19th century most of the native forests had long disappeared and much topsoil had subsequently washed away, leaving a traditionally rocky landscape even rockier. I understand that the Ottoman Turks had denuded much of the remaining forest in search of railroad ties for their rail system.

The Jewish National Fund has since planted millions of trees, and there are hundreds of new forests all over Israel. These new forests are primarily pine trees, chosen for their rapid growth and low water needs. The monoculture of the pine forests has left them susceptible to blight and insect infestations, but the JNF has been learning from its mistakes and continuing to refine its planting practices.

The JNF forests marvelously enhance the landscape of Israel and the quality of life. Here in the northern Negev, these new forests were greening a barren landscape that may never have had any tree cover at all. As Dan and I walked through several forests, I noticed that some groves “took” better than others. I joked to myself that some of the forests looked like bad hair transplants – thin rows of struggling saplings casting little shade. Other more successful areas were lush and shady, creating microclimates under their boughs filled with songbirds and grasses.

Yatir Forest is the largest forest in Israel, planted entirely by hand. It is a National Recreation Area, with trails and picnic areas and lookouts, but because of its remote location it doesn’t seem to be heavily trafficked. Dan and I entered the forest gratefully and began a gradual and lengthy climb. My blisters had popped and my feet were killing me, but the scenery was gorgeous. I was reflecting on the verdant forest and on the barrenness that it had replaced when we turned a bend and came upon the stone ruins of a former village. My romantic reverie was shattered; nothing about Israel is as straightforward as it might first appear. The land has been inhabited for so long, somebody was always here first. These were the ruins of an Arab village. The villagers probably either fled or were forced out during the Israeli War of Independence in 1948, and the village was subsequently destroyed. The village looked ancient; the building stones were formidably large. How long had people dwelt here? Was this perhaps one of the many villages mentioned in the Talmud once inhabited by Jews, and later by Moslems or Christians? I was enveloped by a familiar sadness, knowing that so many lives had been dislocated or lost in the desperate scramble to create a nation and safe haven for the Jewish People. So it is.

Our destination was a compound called Beit Haya’aran: The Forester’s House. Beit Haya’aran perches on top of a hill. It’s fire tower takes in a commanding view of the entire Yatir Forest and of the plains of the Negev extending southward. Beit Haya’aran was nicely appointed, with an amphitheater, a dining hall (closed for the day, unfortunately), and plaques thanking the Canadian Jewish community for funding. There was also a dedicated guest room for Israel Trail hikers, which had a bottle of ice-cold Coca Cola in the refrigerator! Dan passed on the soda, so I said a quick prayer of thanks, and drained the bottle. We then met the forester himself, the forest ranger who staffs that lookout and manages the place. To my initial surprise, he was a religious Moslem man, with a full beard and head covering. It appeared he had a fairly solitary job, but he pleasantly helped us get settled.

Our veranda held a commanding view of the plains of the Negev, and as the daylight waned the lights of Beersheva began to flicker in the distance. It was gorgeous. I could barely move. Meanwhile, Dan gave a call on his cell phone to Effi Stenzler. Effi is Dan’s new mechutan, meaning that Dan’s son Eitan is married to Effi’s daughter Shir. Effi is also a macher, meaning a big shot; he is the head of the Jewish National Fund, a quasi-governmental position that places Effi in charge of a huge amount of public land in Israel, including Yatir Forest. Dan was calling him to thank him for the place to stay, and to report on how lovely Beit Ya’aran was.

If there are six degrees of separation in most parts of the world, there is perhaps only one degree of separation in Israel. That evening Dan also checked in with his wife Roberta. Roberta told Dan that their son Nati had flown a helicopter rescue for an injured hiker that day. (Nati is a helicopter rescue pilot in the Israeli Air Force.) That was interesting to learn, but of course I thought no more of it. However, meanwhile in a valley outside of Jerusalem, my family had been taking a hike with some friends. There was some unexpected excitement on the trail. When I returned home the next day Nomi reported to me that she, Ellen and Timna had met an injured hiker and that our friends had offered assistance, but the injured person’s companion had already contacted the emergency rescue service. A helicopter then began to circle. Nomi showed me a great photograph she had taken of the helicopter overhead. Since Dan had relayed to me Roberta’s report, I knew who the pilot of that helicopter was: cousin Nati!

February 14: Beit Haya’aran to Arad

I didn’t sleep as well as I had the previous night. Two scrawny dogs howled incessantly outside our window. As the sky lightened and Dan and I got ready for our final push, I went outside to retrieve my shoes and shirt, which I had hung out to dry. The dogs had chewed off part of my shoelace, and torn gaping holes in my shirt. Oh, well. But it turned out we were not saying goodbye to these dogs. They did not belong to the fire ranger, as we had thought. They were homeless wanderers, and as we set out on the trail, these two dogs became our steadfast companions for the day. Not that we encouraged them, but they were looking for company, I guess.

Our trail now climbed steadily higher, through beautiful forest. The higher altitude meant cooler air, and in places under the tree canopy thick grass flourished and wild flowers blossomed, despite the arid landscape beyond the forests’ edge. As we ascended, the man-made forest abruptly ended and it felt as though we had climbed above the tree line. In fact we were only about 2,500 feet high, but a brisk wind encouraged us to put on our jackets for the first time on the trip.

The trail now followed the ascending ridge, but it did not feel like a mountain trail. The trail was wide and orderly, with lines of stones on either side. Dan and I realized that we were walking on the remains of a Roman road! Much had washed away in the intervening millennia, but the outline of the road was clear, the paving stones sometimes apparent, as well as the gutters and the curb. The great road builders of the Roman Empire saw fit to place a road even in this remote region. Perhaps it was a road that came northward toward Jerusalem from the Nabatean spice caravan routes. Perhaps its commanding views meant that this was a garrison road, designed for military purposes. Perhaps it was a route for King Herod to take to his desert fortress of Masada.

We paused for a break at the highest point of the trail. Next we would begin our descent into the final leg of our hike, and we wanted to savor the view. To our west was the Yatir forest, and much of the route we had traveled. To our south spread the endless Negev. To our east lay our destination of the desert town of Arad, not yet in sight. And to our north extended the entire massif of the Judean and Hebron Hills.

The view to the north captivated me. As I have expressed, Israel is a very small country; the area known as the West Bank, or Judea and Samaria, or the Occupied Territories, or Palestine (each name reflecting a different political position) is smaller still. From my perch within Israel proper I could see the entire southern half of this region. I could see the large city of Hebron, and beyond I could see landmarks near Jerusalem, though not Jerusalem itself. I could see where the hills dropped off into the Jordan Valley to the east, and into the coastal plain to the west (where our trek had begun).

In my mind’s eye, I could also see thousands of years of Jewish history, influenced by the striking geography of this land. When Abraham first wandered here, he sojourned in the hill country of Hebron, and purchased a cave there for an ancestral burying site. Isaac too wandered this spine of hills, down to the oasis of Beersheva at its southern base. Jacob settled in the northern reaches of the hill country, near the ancient city of Shechem, or later called Nablus. Centuries later, when Joshua led the tribes of Israel in conquest, these hills were their prize. The Book of Joshua tells us that the twelve tribes also battled for the more fertile coastal lands, but were unable to secure them, for there lived the powerful Philistines, who possessed chariots. The chariots ruled the lowlands, but could not traverse the rocky highlands. And so the battles continued for generations, the Israelites living in the mountains of Judea and Samaria, at times subject to and at times shaking off the domination of the Philistines. At the peak of Israelite power, King David united the tribes into one kingdom, and made Jerusalem their capital. But the coastal plain never became an integral part of Israel’s territory. The fertile plains resisted conquest. The touchstones of ancient Jewish history all take place in the hill country, with Jerusalem at its center.

Thousands of years later, the topography of the land remains unchanged, but the pattern of Jewish settlement has ironically been reversed. The main Jewish population centers of our time are in the coastal plain (with the crucial addition of Jerusalem and its environs). But with the exception of Jerusalem and its environs, the remainder of the hill country is primarily inhabited by Israel’s contemporary rivals, the Palestinians. To understand the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, one must understand this: the hilly massif that I was looking over is generally agreed to be the territory that the Israelis will need to give up in order to make peace with the Palestinians. Yet those very hills are also the true heartland of the Bible and the location of many of the Jewish People’s holiest and ancient sites. Many Jews understandably do not want to relinquish this claim. And yet, if we do not share the land the alternatives appear grim and cruel.

Mercifully, I was not required to solve the conflict, only to keep walking. We hoisted our packs and descended on the Roman road. At the base of the mountain a gigantic, noisy, very modern stone quarry swallowed up the ancient Roman way, and our path veered off eastward. We entered the bleakest landscape we had yet encountered. The earth was packed hard, and virtually the only color was provided by the assorted plastic trash that blew across the waste. A stiff, continual wind battered our legs with sheets of dust and sand. Periodically we would pass a Bedouin settlement, shacks with tin roofs and tarps strung around, seemingly deserted except for many dogs. The two dogs that had chewed my shoelace the night before were amazingly still with us, even though we had given them neither food nor water. Our canine companions drew the attention of many of the resident dogs, and Dan and I trudged along with rocks in hand, hurling them at any animals that came threateningly close. It was a bleak scene, compounded by my increasingly bruised feet. But we were nearing our destination, and I certainly was not going to quit now.

Our next landmark was the ruin of the ancient Canaanite city of Arad, now an archaeological site. Dan and I huddled in the lee of the small visitor center and ate the last of our salami and bread. The modern city of Arad was finally visible in the sand-blown distance, and I girded myself for our final push. The barren landscape was incongruously punctuated now with neat orchards of fruit trees and fields of grain. Our goal was the Arad municipal park, which beckoned to us with waving greenery. I could now barely walk, and willed myself forward. But the park disappointed: no amount of plantings could hold back the ferocious sapping wind.

I had to stop. Even pride could no longer keep me going. The trail now paralleled the main road, and I could hitch a ride or take a bus the remaining several kilometers. Dan of course was going to walk into town, so we pulled out our cell phones and agreed to rendezvous in the main square. I was left alone at the side of the road. Well, not quite alone: one of the dogs was still with me! Amazed by his fortitude, I decided to finally offer him some food, whatever remained in my pack. But to my consternation the dog would just sniff and reject whatever I tossed his way.

A bus soon arrived. I hobbled aboard and collapsed into the first seat, bidding a silent farewell to my erstwhile companion. Within minutes I had gratefully arrived in the center of Arad. I sat down on a bench, peeled off my shoes and gingerly put on my flip-flops. (I won’t sicken you with a description of my feet – they have since healed.) I sipped a cool drink and looked around while I waited for my brother to arrive.

Arad is a very interesting place. It was founded in 1962 as part of David Ben-Gurion’s vision to populate the Negev, and it is the most prosperous of the desert development towns that string across the southern part of Israel. Arad is home to an incredible variety of ethnic and cultural groups. The storefronts around me were filled with Hebrew, Russian, and English lettering. Passing before me in quick succession were Russians, Bedouin, ultra-Orthodox Jews with coat-tails flapping, Ethiopian Jews, North African Jews, Eastern European Jews, Black Hebrews (a sect of African-Americans from Chicago with their own unique take on their destiny, worthy of a separate essay), and a significant number of very dark-skinned Africans, presumably among the many foreign workers who have moved to Israel over the past couple of decades. Arad’s central square offered a microcosm of contemporary Israel, an outrageous ingathering of Jews from seventy lands, along with many others from near and far. Somehow, through sheer determination or stubbornness or God’s grace, Israel happens. Arad was a great place to end my journey.

Navigating toward each other by cell phone in that uniquely modern way, Dan and I made visual contact and greeted one another. We cleaned the garbage out of our packs, checked the bus schedule and bought falafel. And it was time to go. We needed different busses, as Dan was heading back to his office in Tel Aviv and I was going back to my temporary home in Jerusalem. We hugged quickly and climbed aboard our respective vehicles. It was only mid-afternoon. I had actually walked almost 60 miles in less than three days. I could barely move, but I was already daydreaming about which piece of the Israel Trail I would get to hike the next time.

Berlin - April 20, 2009

Dear Friends,

I am writing from the picturesque little German village of Furstenburg, which sits across a beautiful lake from the site of the Ravensbruck concentration camp. Our group just returned to our hotel from Ravensbruck, which is now a memorial site and education center. We were given a tour of the site by Laura Radosh. Laura is the daughter of WJC member Alice Radosh, who organized this extraordinary trip. Laura and her partner Zilke live in Berlin and one of their professional activities is working and teaching at the Ravensbruck site. I have never visited a concentration camp before, and the debasement and horror of the camp’s history take my breath away and leave me at a loss for words. In the center of anything I might write tonight there is a void, a place of numb silence.

Our trip has traced the Nazi machinery from its bureaucratic office buildings in Berlin to the tidy suburban train station where 50,000 Jews were transported to their deaths and now to one of the concentration camps where the SS calculated how little food an average slave laborer could subsist on in order to work for approximately three months before dying of starvation.

It appears that human beings are capable of convincing themselves that any behavior is acceptable if their ideology supports it and their leaders enforce it. This of course is not news, but tracking the footprints of evil demands that I bear anew some sort of witness.

Since the fall of the Third Reich Germany has built the first stable democracy in its long history, and clearly strives to remember its horrific past and to build social institutions that will withstand the resurgence of intolerance. But for me as a Jew, and I know I can speak for the rest of our group, even as we enjoy modern, exciting Berlin we sense the dread of the recent past barely concealed under our footsteps.

Here in Furstenburg during the war one could see the smoke from the crematorium chimney rising clearly across the lake. The ashes of the victims were sold to the local farmers as fertilizer. Siemens Electronics built a factory next to the camp to take advantage of the free labor. Nearly everyone in Germany was complicit, whether enthusiastically, passively, or under duress.

From our extraordinary guides we have received an intensive course in the causes and progression of Nazi rule and terror. But despite my deepened understanding of the history, and I have learned a great deal, my mind still rebels against the outcome, still demands that it can not be. Yet here in Germany, it was.

This evening we ate dinner in the youth hostel just outside the memorial. Ravensbruck was a women’s concentration camp, and the youth hostel occupies the houses where the female guards once lived. We are here to take part in the annual Liberation Day ceremonies. Joining us at dinner were elderly survivors of the camp and their families, from Poland, France, Germany and elsewhere. Following dinner we walked across the huge site of the former camp to one of the few remaining buildings. It is the former textile factory in which the prisoners worked. There we joined several hundred people for a concert by Ars Choralis, the Ulster County Chorus who provided the incentive for our trip. Perhaps some beautiful music could cleanse some of the dreadful energy from this place. Perhaps profound good intention and skilled musicianship could offer some small redemption to this hell on earth. The Mendelssohn Concerto in A Minor uplifted the room. An excerpt from Leonard Bernstein’s Mass moved me deeply. The Choir’s prayerful and heartfelt songs paid homage to the survivors and to the victims of this camp.

Until tonight I had felt too overwhelmed to write to you about my experiences thus far during this trip. But as the chorus and orchestra played the last notes of a Chopin Etude tonight, I felt my own words returning in this small way that I share with you now. Ars Choralis’ music somehow strengthened me or cleansed me or harmonized within me. I am very grateful.

This has been a painful but invaluable pilgrimage. I left for Europe during Passover, and my mind has been filled with analogies between Pharaoh’s dehumanizing, murderous treatment of the Hebrew slaves and the Nazis’ systematic dehumanization, enslavement and extermination of Jews and millions of others in our own time. The story of Passover has much to teach us about the dynamics of human oppression and repression. I will return to Woodstock on Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, and this tour has certainly been the most visceral and intensive remembrance of the Holocaust that I have ever experienced. If all goes well, I will be at the WJC this Tuesday evening for the Ulster County Yom HaShoah commemoration. I have much more to share and look forward to offering a fuller report in the weeks to come.

L’hitraot (see you soon) and Shalom,

Rabbi Jonathan

Israel Journal - February 22, 2009

This will be my final dispatch from Israel, as we will be flying back to New York late tonight. I have so much more to report than I have the time right now to relay to you, but I wanted to send one last entry before I leave Israel. I hope to write some more after I return to Woodstock.

This trip has met all of my hopes for my family and myself. We have been immersed in Hebrew studies, attended concerts and cultural events, inevitably become involved in politics, hiked and swum, and made new friends and renewed old friendships. Most of all, we have lived here in Israel: learned the busses, navigated the outdoor markets, shopped at the mall, ordered in Hebrew at our favorite restaurants, prayed in synagogue, visited museums and gone to the movies, and hunted for the best playgrounds. Everything one does here in Israel is touched by the political situation: we arrived just in time for a war, and all conversations revolved around that conflict; we then witnessed an election campaign, in which the main subject is inevitably and completely, war and peace. And yet at the same time life is so much more than politics: our friend Rani is considering a mid-life switch to rabbinical studies; Eliav performs flamenco guitar and has a 2 year old son; 20 year old Halleli's army assignment is teaching illiterate Bedouin how to read and write. Each individual life is simultaneously swept along by larger events and is a world unto itself.

Our time here has been immeasurably rich.

This has not been a trip during which we sought contact with Israeli Arabs or Palestinians. Another time, I hope. We have had interesting everyday contact: A Bedouin man recognized my sister-in-law Roberta as we strolled with her near her house. Roberta had taught his sons years earlier when they attended the regional school in which she worked. We ate our picnic next to an Arab family whose small children were happy to smile in our direction. Yet I have also been re-introduced to the Palestinian narrative by the memoir of Sari Nusseibeh, entitled Once Upon a Country. Nusseibeh is an exceptional and frequently lonely voice in the Palestinian world. His family's roots in Jerusalem go back many hundreds of years, and at the same time he is a Western-educated intellectual who is the President of Al-Quds University in East Jerusalem. Nusseibeh is a worldly, moderate and tolerant man who understands both sides of the conflict and who has risked his life many times for his moderation. He deserves to be listened to, and I intend to keep reading.

On the Israeli side, the main topic is whether Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been tapped to form the next government, will put together a center-right coalition or an extreme right wing government. I must say, my liberal-leaning friends in Israel are appalled that Bibi (as he is known) has managed to reach the top of the heap again here. They seem to view him with undisguised disgust. But there is nothing to do but wish him success in leading this country, and hope that the more moderate coalition emerges that might nudge the situation toward more talk and less war.

It has been raining in Jerusalem (and around the country). This is good news, as the national water supply is at its lowest level in memory. But it hasn't just been raining; the skies have been filled with lightning and booming thunder and torrential rain and hail. It has been very dramatic, and may it continue.

Yesterday during these storms we attended the monthly service organized by Rabbi Amy Klein, a Reconstructionist rabbi who lives in Israel and coordinates activities for Reconstructionist rabbinical students studying in Israel. We announced the New Moon of Adar, arriving in a couple of days. As the tradition teaches, with the arrival of Adar mirth increases: Purim is 2 weeks away! Thank God for holidays, to engage us, to distract us, to delight us, to instruct us. I'll be celebrating Purim in Woodstock this year.

But wasn't it just Tu B'shvat? Here is a piece about Tu B'shvat that I wrote down last week:

The Best Tu B'shvat Ever

This past Monday was the full moon of the Hebrew month of Shvat, the holiday of Tu B'shvat, the New Year for Trees. It is a holiday that originated in the Land of Israel in ancient times to mark the beginning of the blossoming season, and the beginning of the "fiscal year" for fruit trees. Sure enough, the almond trees are blooming outside our window and all over Israel, and a new warmth and fragrance is in the air. Growing up in the wintry Northeast, I celebrated Tu B'shvat by eating raisins and gnawing on dried carob pods from Israel, and of course by buying trees to plant in Israel. In Woodstock, we celebrate the unseen sap beginning to rise in our wintry woods, but no fruit trees are budding.

Here in Israel, you know Tu B'shvat is coming because of the displays of dried fruits and nuts at the entrance to every supermarket, and by the temporary stalls set up in the corridors of the ultramodern Jerusalem Mall. A special supplement appeared in the weekend newspaper describing all the Tu B'shvat activities around the country. As a practicing Jew, it is such a pleasure for me to have even this little holiday permeating the air. I am accustomed to having to remind everyone that Tu B'shvat is coming, but here in Israel I am the one constantly being reminded, and I love it.

But best of all was the invitation we received to celebrate. Our landlady Gabriella invited us out to her family's house to plant fruit tree saplings on Tu B'shvat. Gabriella is an American-born Israeli who married a Yemenite Israeli named Nissim Shizaf. Gabriella is a free spirit, but after their daughters were born she and Nissim moved back to be near Nissim's family at Giv'at Ye'arim. Giv'at Ye'arim is a moshav (communal village) perched on a hilltop in the picturesque Jerusalem hills, a few miles west of the city. As we drove into the moshav, which though showing signs of gentrification is still quite handmade looking and agriculturally based, I noticed unusual street names: "Al Canfei Nesharim" ("On Eagles' Wings") and "Marbad Hakesamim" (Magic Carpet). It dawned on me that these were the central phrases in the famous airlift of the Jews of Yemen to Israel in 1949-1950. We were on a Yemenite moshav.

Shortly following the Israeli War of Independence, the new Israeli government arranged for the mass airlift of the ancient Jewish community of Yemen. The airlift was named Operation Magic Carpet. Israel's fledgling air force sent cargo planes down to Yemen. The Yemenite Jews were a preindustrial community, with almost no experience of modern technology. As they watched the transport planes arrive, the story is told, some of the Jews thought that this was the fulfillment of the prophecy in Exodus, when God declared "I did lift you up on eagle's wings and brought you back to me". The great eagles had arrived to bring them finally to the Promised Land.

Gabriella explained to me that after the Yemenites arrived in Israel, they spent time living in an absorption camp. Then some number of them were driven to this hilltop and dropped off. The new settlers built this village from scratch. Nissim is the youngest of ten, and lives next door to his mother and many of his siblings. Gabriella explained that at Passover, 84 (!) immediate family members get together in her mother-in-law's house. Nissim rushed home from the nursery with saplings in the back of his car, and we each got to plant a fruit tree in their yard on Tu B'shvat and say the Shehechianu blessing. Nissim then rushed off to his job running the sound system at a concert hall in Jerusalem, and we stayed to talk and eat and enjoy. Nomi played the Hebrew version of Duck, Duck, Goose with Gabriella's children and their cousins. Gabriella took us walking. She picked some Yemenite etrogs for us from their orchard. They are a staple of the Yemenite diet, quite less bitter than the etrogs we are accustomed to. She showed us the grove of khat bushes next door - khat is the traditional stimulant of the Yemenites, and they chew the khat leaves religiously. We ate malawah, the traditional Yemenite fried bread. It was the best Tu B'shvat ever.

Hiking the Israel Trail

My highlight of my time here in Israel was a 3-day backpacking trip that I took last weekend with my brother Dan. Danny is an avid hiker, and is in the process of hiking sections of the Israel Trail until he has completed the entire Trail. The Israel Trail was laid out in recent years by dedicated hikers, and it covers the entire length of Israel North to South, twisting and turning to take in the most dramatic hikes. In all the Israel Trail is about 580 miles long. The section Danny planned to do is a 60-mile stretch from Beit Guvrin in the coastal plain to the desert town of Arad in the Judean Desert on the way toward the Dead Sea. My brother maintains a superhuman pace and the hike was grueling - my feet are still sore - but walking the land gives a perspective that no bus tour or car ride can replicate. I think we actually walked 25 miles on the first day! I slept 12 hours that night. In a part of the country that I have never visited and that I expected to be boring my brother and I were fascinated by details large and small: the tortoise resting on the trail in midday heat; Bedouin horsemen chasing an antelope; beautiful forests flourishing among the bare hills, every tree planted by human hands; hiking on an ancient Roman road along a ridge. The hike was thrilling and exhausting, and I have much more to report, but for now I will just offer this taste. Suffice to say that I am hooked, and plan to join the subculture of Israel Trail walkers when I am here on future trips.

One More Israel Story

My nephew Nati flies a rescue helicopter in the Israeli Air Force. One trip I had really wanted to make but hadn't managed to get to was to Nati's base, where he had offered to show us around. While I was hiking with my brother Dan he checked in on his cell phone with his wife Roberta. Roberta told him that Nati had flown a helicopter rescue for an injured hiker that day. I thought no more of it. When I returned home to Jerusalem Nomi described to me the hike that she, Ellen and Timna had been taken on by some of our Israeli friends in a valley near Jerusalem that Shabbat while I was away. She told me that they met an injured hiker and that our friends had offered assistance, but the woman had already contacted the emergency rescue service. Nomi showed me her photographs and arrived at a great picture of a helicopter overhead. I exclaimed "Nati was flying that helicopter!" and indeed he was. So, even though I did not get to take my kids to their cousin's base and see his helicopter, they got to see him anyway!

We'll be taking the coming week to recover from jet lag and get resettled before I return to the synagogue and the girls return to school, and I'll be back at work on March 2.

Look forward to seeing you then-

Rabbi Jonathan Kligler

Israel Journal - February 12, 2009

Reflections on the Elections

I was waiting for the Israeli elections to take place before writing again, hoping that the results might shed some clarity on the political situation here for my report. Well, here on the morning after the results are in, and they are murky. No party emerged with a commanding enough plurality to claim the unqualified mantle of leadership. Now the intense jockeying and horse-trading begins to try to form a coalition, with the inevitable result that whoever succeeds in forming a government will be faced with a contentious and probably fragile coalition. The absentee ballots have not yet been counted, so the final results might change, but as of now out of the 120 total Knesset seats the centrist Kadima Party headed by Tzipi Livni has 28 seats and the right wing Likud Party headed by Benjamin Netanyahu has 27. The once-dominant Labor Party headed by Ehud Barak has shrunk to 13 seats, while the big story of the election is the surging ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu Party headed by Russian immigrant Avigdor Lieberman, which garnered 15 seats.

Lieberman is a canny demagogue who knows how to appeal to the public’s most xenophobic impulses with carefully worded slogans. Lieberman’s base are the Russian immigrants, many of whom are accustomed to and expect their politicians to be strongmen and authoritarian, but he has skillfully extended his reach to others in the electorate who are looking for black-and-white solutions. In the wake of the recent Gaza war the mood of the general electorate is defiant and nationalism is running high. Anger against the Arab citizens of Israel is also flaring, at least partly because during the war many Israeli Arabs engaged in protests against the war. Lieberman capitalized on these protests with his party’s slogan: “No Loyalty, No Citizenship”. He demands something that is at first blush simple and appealing: in order to participate as a citizen in the Israeli democracy, you must take an oath of loyalty to the state. If Israeli Arabs are siding with Israel’s enemy, they should not be permitted to vote (and by extension do not have the rights of citizenship).

Lieberman has his foil in Ahmad Tibi. Tibi is a Palestinian Israeli (as many Israeli Arabs refer to themselves) who is an MK (Member of Knesset) representing the most extreme of the three Arab parties in the Knesset. (WAIT A MINUTE, some of you might be saying at this point, THERE ARE ARABS IN THE KNESSET? Yes, all Israeli citizens can vote, and there will be at least 11 Israeli Arab MK’s in the new Knesset.) Ahmad Tibi was an advisor to Yasser Arafat prior to serving in the Knesset. Tibi has openly visited and endorsed leaders of Middle Eastern countries that oppose and condemn Israel. Is Tibi a traitor? How far can the Israeli democratic system stretch to affirm freedom of speech? Are some Israeli Arabs a “fifth column” in Israel?

In a pre-election furor, Lieberman led the charge in the Knesset to have the Israeli-Arab parties banned from the election due to treasonous behavior. As expected, the Israeli High Court overturned the Knesset’s vote and the Israeli-Arab parties participated. But Avigdor Lieberman’s popularity surged. As a result of these skillful moves, Lieberman’s vaulted his party Yisrael Beitenu (Israel is our Home) into a probable kingmaker in the new Knesset.

In my gut I understand Lieberman’s appeal – in high school I also thought Meir Kahane was cool. (Kahane created the Jewish Defense League, which promoted Jewish pride and self-defense in New York in the 60’s. He then moved to Israel and became the leader of the ultra-nationalist (and ultra-racist) Kach party. His party was eventually banned and Kahane was assassinated.) Lieberman is also extremely popular among Israeli High School students. But, and I hope I am not offending High School students, Israel and its internal and international relations cannot be reduced to black-and-white politics. It is almost all shades of grey.

Despite my revulsion at Lieberman’s classic use of democratic lingo to undermine a democratic society, and to feed on anger and resentment to gain support, the underlying question of the status of Arab citizens in Israel remains. It has been a long and strange ride for the Arab residents of Israel. After the Israeli War of Independence, when the armistice lines were set, Arab residents of the former British Mandate Palestine found themselves largely displaced, with families and clans divided on either side of the new boundaries. The fledgling and vulnerable new Israeli government faced many dangers and porous boundaries, and the Arab residents of Israel were placed under martial law for the first 18 years of the State. Slowly the Israeli Arabs were integrated into citizenship in the State, but their status was always hyphenated. Could they be trusted to support a Jewish democracy? Was May 5, 1948 Independence Day for Israeli Arabs, or was it the Naqba, the Catastrophe, as the day became known in Palestinian circles? On the one hand, Arab citizens of Israel have a higher standard of living, better healthcare and much greater access to higher education that their counterparts in surrounding Arab lands, not to mention genuine representation in government. On the other hand, they have had to endure a second-class status in this primarily Jewish country, with generally second-class services provided to their communities. This is all compounded by the Palestinian national consciousness that emerged in the wake of the creation of Israel. With some exceptions*, every Arab Israeli on some level asks themselves, am I an Israeli or a Palestinian?

*Several Arab or Moslem groups in Israel solved this dilemma by declaring loyalty to the State of Israel: The Druze, who comprise their own religious entity, the shepherding Bedouin, who feel no love for their agrarian Palestinian Arab neighbors, and the Circassians, Moslems from the Caucasus region who came to Palestine during the Ottoman times. These groups join the Israeli Army and eschew any connection to Palestinian nationalism.

This brings me back to a larger challenge that Israeli society faces. There are many powerful constituencies in Israel that do not necessarily share aligning visions of a democratic society. During the early decades of the State a reigning ideal of a Jewish state with a social-democratic society held the large center of Israeli public life. Today that is no longer true, and that is reflected in the results of yesterday’s elections. There is no clear winner. Except for the galvanizing influence of war against a common enemy, it is not clear that the center can really hold. The Israeli public voted for parties that hold dramatically divergent views of what Israel should be. The ultra-orthodox parties pursue a vision of theocracy, and avoid army service. The Israeli Arab parties question whether to sing the Israeli national anthem. The ultra-nationalist parties (Lieberman’s is not the only one) espouse a thinly veiled fascism. The West Bank settlers’ movement will block any effort at territorial compromise. Even some of the incoming MK’s on the Likud list publicly trumpet their intolerance as a virtue. Compounding this fracturing of the “civil contract” of Israeli public life is the profound disaffection and distrust (much of it well-earned) with which the Israeli public holds its political leadership. There does not appear to be any Israeli leader today who can muster the personal authority or the national support to boldly alter the current smoldering status quo with the Palestinians. Will anyone be able to put together an effective coalition in the next few weeks?

As I join the Israeli chorus of doomsayers, I need to balance the picture with some genuine positive observations, and some absurdity as well. Election day was a model of functioning democracy. The schools were closed and set up as polling places, and in the school across from our apartment all was calm and organized. Despite a day of driving rain and hail, turnout was good. The election coverage that I caught on television was freewheeling; the coverage on Israeli Channel 2 actually alternated between the real coverage and irreverent satire from the cast of Israel’s leading comedy news show. I appreciate how raucous the media are here. There was even a video of actors impersonating all the former Prime Ministers, dead and alive, as a rock band singing something like “It’s all downhill from here”. Anyway, it was both jaw-dropping bad taste and very funny.

Another bit of comic relief was provided by one of the fringe parties running for Knesset. Basically anyone can present a slate and a platform and run for Knesset, and there were 33 parties listed, most of which did not meet the minimum threshold of votes needed to gain a seat. It has been proposed that if the threshold were much higher than it is now, there would be fewer small parties in the Knesset because voters would try to apply their votes more judiciously. This might create larger and fewer parties that could form more stable coalitions. But back to the comedy. The Green Leaf Party’s platform is the legalization of marijuana. In their television spots they discussed the benefits of getting high, including that it relaxes people and would therefore promote peace. A breakaway from the Green Leaf Party was (I kid you not) the Green Leaf and Holocaust Survivors’ Party. Their ad defies description.

Even as I detail the shortcomings of Israel’s governmental system, I marvel at the high functioning infrastructure of this little nation. When I lived here in the 1980’s I dreaded going to the bank or the post office. I could literally stand in line for half an hour and just as I reached the window it would slam shut for the 3-hour afternoon siesta. In contrast, when I needed to pick up a package at the post office the other day, I scanned my slip in front of an outdoor kiosk, the machinery inside whirred and hummed and a door opened automatically revealing my parcel. I wanted to see it do it again! With frenetic energy and determination Israel has built itself into a first-world nation: roads and tunnels, cell phones and fiber optic networks, airports and light rail. Israel’s technology and transportation infrastructure to my eyes has certainly surpassed the United States’. Somehow this nation with its rather dysfunctional governance has succeeded to build itself up, and it is a wonder to behold.

I have much more to report, but it will have to wait a few days. I am off on a computer-less overnight hike with my brother. Dan is an avid hiker and is completing the several-hundred-mile long “Israel Trail” in sections during his weekends. We’ll be covering a section between Kiryat Gat and Arad, in the south. I’m glad I brought good walking shoes!

Shalom to one and all,

Rabbi Jonathan Kligler

Israel Journal - January 29, 2009

I love being here in Israel, especially Jerusalem. The air is fresh and clear, cool but not cold, and I breathe it in deeply. There is a bakery across the street from us, and the fragrance of warm pastry wafts around the neighborhood. My pleasure is certainly enhanced by the fact that I am on sabbatical and get to lead a less pressured life for a while! As I walk home with groceries or sit and reflect, I am keenly aware of my spacious schedule here, and breathe out my gratitude frequently. I hope everyone reading this is blessed with similar moments and opportunities.

My pleasure is compounded by the simple fact of being in Israel, a place that I love and in which I feel deeply at home. Certainly there are many reasons that contribute to my "special relationship" with this country: my father's origins here; my knowledge of Hebrew; my comfort at being in a culture that primarily follows the rhythms of Jewish life; and so much more. I am so happy to be here.

Yesterday, for example…

Yesterday I had to travel to Tel Aviv to pick up my camera. I had dropped it and it needed repair, and the authorized dealer was in Tel Aviv. As I walked through the famous open air market Machane Yehuda on my way to the central bus station, I happily took in the sights and sounds: the colorful produce, the trays full of olives and nuts and dried fruit, the bakeries, the fresh cheese stores and the butcher shops, and the calls of the vendors. One fellow in particular made me smile. To sell his fruit he cheerfully bellowed his own new lyrics to familiar old religious melodies. Instead of "Mi Pi El" (From the Mouth of God) came "Metukim" (Sweet! These strawberries are sweet!).

I then walked along the main street, Jaffa Road, which is a colossal mess as they lay tracks for a new light rail system. An election is coming up in Israel in two weeks, and election posters are everywhere. Israel's parliamentary system allows any number of parties to compete, and the horse race is on. I scanned the sides of the buses as I walked. First, a poster for the Green Party: a baby, with the caption "If he could vote…" I don't know if this approach will win them much support in the current wartime climate in Israel. Then, a shocking (to my American eyes) poster for the Shas Party, which caters to the religious Jews of North African origin: their ageless and strange leader Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef, with his customary sunglasses and turban, accompanied by the famous battle cry of the Maccabees, "Whoever is with God, come with me!" The line between democracy and theocracy blurs dangerously on the right flank of Israeli politics.

At the new and efficient Central Bus Station (I still remember the old one!) I went through the metal detector and look for my bus to Tel Aviv. It was my lucky day. I climbed onto the bus, arrived in Tel Aviv in less than an hour, and located the bus to Bialik Street, which left as soon as I step on board. I explained to the bus driver that I had only an address and little idea where I was going. After a few moments the driver indicated that I should get off at the next stop, which was literally in front of the camera store. As I stepped off the bus I happily said to the driver "Yesh Elohim!" – "There is a God!" and we smiled.

Back in Jerusalem, I was walking back from the bus station when I heard someone call my name. It was Barya Schachter, whom I have known since he was a little boy. Barya is the youngest child of my beloved teacher Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi. When I lived near his family in Philadelphia during my years in rabbinical school, I befriended little Barya and we had a sweet connection. Barya was walking with his young wife (whose name I cannot remember) and their little girl Tzedakah was asleep in the stroller. We shared an enthusiastic greeting. I was careful not to offer my hand to his wife, since they are clearly very orthodox. Barya wears what I will call the "Orthodox Hippie" uniform: Big white kippah, scruffy clothes, peyes and tzitizit. He works as a healer. Barya's card lists reflexology, Jewish Reiki, therapeutic massage, and healing prayer. His practice is called "Refuah Shlaymah" – "Complete Healing". I wished him well.

When I returned home, our downstairs neighbor graciously invited us to tea. This evening Timna and I engaged in intense discussion as she studies and begins to sort out the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Another good, full day.

Loading Boxes for Gaza

The ceasefire with Hamas indeed arrived in time for the Obama inauguration, and is holding more or less. I encourage all who are interested in remaining informed to utilize the many reputable news sources that are on the Internet. I have gotten hooked on Haaretz.com as my main Israeli source of news and opinion http://www.haaretz.com. (I also check the Jerusalem Post and other Israeli sources, and I have even been scanning Arab news sources to get an idea of what they are broadcasting. The Internet is a mind-boggling resource.) Haaretz is a leading Israeli newspaper, left-leaning, that does not shy away from printing a wide spectrum of opinion in its pages. As usual, the ever-present debate inside my own head is well mirrored in the open debate in the Israeli press. The situation is terribly complex, urgent and pressing, and I do not know precisely which path might ultimately lead to the most prosperous, just and peaceful outcome for Israel and her Palestinian neighbors. Maybe George Mitchell will make some progress. I certainly wish him well. I tend to share the fairly pessimistic assessment that Tom Friedman expressed a few days ago http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/25/opinion/25friedman.html?_r=1 and yet there is no excuse not to keep trying. So we will.

A few days ago my friend Melila called me and asked if I could help load boxes of clothes, blankets, mattresses, dried milk, flour and similar items onto a big truck heading for the Gaza Strip…right now. Nomi and I happened to be at the lending library just a few minutes walk away, so we headed over to the Youth Center where everything had been stored. A dozen or so young adults were loading a big moving van. Melila put Nomi to work coloring in hand-made Hebrew posters that said (roughly) "The Fellowship for Lighting a Candle of Love and Friendship". I helped carry boxes. I learned that as soon as the ceasefire was declared these young Israeli organizers had put out a call for material assistance to residents of Gaza. They had been literally overwhelmed by donations and had to ask people to stop bringing donations. They were filling 7 moving vans that would be entering Gaza the next day. This outpouring was matched in other parts of Israel. The newspaper reported about the efforts of a female college student in Sderot of all places (the very town that has borne the brunt of Hamas missiles over the past 8 years) who had organized donations for the residents of Gaza and had filled 10 trucks that would be transferring basic goods to Gaza.

Melila explained that all of this organizing was happening below the radar and without waiting for government action. She said that many Israelis, even as they supported the military campaign to silence Hamas' rockets, also felt desperately badly over the plight of innocent Gazans. Melila was not at all sure that this gesture of support would make much of a difference in Gaza, but it was clear to her that these Israelis needed to do this, for their own souls. Melila's friend Lee was the lead organizer. Lee has negotiated the convoluted terrain of Israeli and Palestinian bureaucracy for years in order to organize joint Israeli-Palestinian efforts for dialogue. Lee said that getting clearance for these trucks to enter Gaza and reach the hands of reputable NGO's for distribution made all her previous organizing seem like a walk in the park. You can watch a short video of this undertaking at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-ndnHnn0CU&feature=channel_page I feel fortunate to be witness to these gestures of common humanity.

Watching the Inauguration

Speaking of common humanity, thanks to modern technology my family and I were able to join the millions of people on the Mall in Washington D.C. witnessing the inauguration of Barack Obama. We went to Rabbi Miriam's apartment and gathered around the television to watch the inauguration. It was 6:30 pm in Israel. I certainly was uplifted by the proceedings. It seemed to me that everything that is good about American society was on display at this historic moment, from our capacity for a peaceful transition of power to the words and images that conveyed an embrace of the true ethnic and religious spectrum of the American people. I'm stirred by the potential in this moment for Obama to lead our country with a new tone and in a new direction. I was particularly amazed by the phenomenon of President Obama's televised remarks to the Arab and Moslem world. Here is a dark-skinned man with an Arabic name who is now President of the United States, and he is telling the Moslem world that he and the nation he leads are reaching out a hand to those who would welcome the overture. I am sure it is making many heads spin in the Arab and greater Moslem world. I find it a wondrous moment to be witnessing, and I am eager to see what happens next.

Shabbat in the Galilee

This past Friday we rented a car and drove 2 hours north to visit my brother's family for Shabbat. All four of Danny and Roberta's children made the effort to join us from their various busy lives, and brought their partners, too. It was delightful. Nati and Sefi, the two youngest kids, are both helicopter pilots in the Israeli Air Force. Nati pilots a big search and rescue chopper, and Sefi is training as an attack helicopter pilot. Had Sefi, who is 20, been finished with his training, he would almost certainly have flown many missions in the war in Gaza. It is shocking to contemplate, really. We asked Sefi if he and his fellow pilots were being schooled in the ethics of warfare. He told us that ethical decision-making was an important part of their training. The pilots have strict guidelines to follow about when to possibly endanger civilians, but they are also given much autonomy to make these decisions. He explained that compared to ground forces, who are typically very frightened in the heat of battle, pilots had more time to think and assess before reacting, and are therefore given more responsibility. At the same time, Sefi said that the pilots were encouraged to keep an emotional distance from the targets of their attacks – they are soldiers, of course, and in order to be able to kill an enemy they must suspend their sympathies.

The costs of war extend to every horizon, for fighters and innocents on all sides. At the same time, the army has been a profound training ground for all of my brother's kids, and they have emerged as responsible and thoughtful adults, ready to contribute to their society. They do not express bloodlust, but rather an eagerness to serve. May God preserve their bodies and their souls; may they live responsibly and love fully.

I asked my brother how he felt about the war in Gaza (and I hope I represent him accurately here). I deeply respect his and his wife Roberta's opinions, and their perspective on life in Israel strongly informs my own. Dan said that, given the circumstances, the war had been necessary, but that in his opinion it also represented the failure of Israeli decision making over the past 40 years in relation to the Palestinians and the occupied territories. Although it was completely within Israel's rights and interests to execute this war, Dan was sad. He felt that as a result of the brutal tactics Israel had employed, Israel could no longer claim to hew to a higher moral code, and while that in no way made Israel less legitimate than any other nation, it also made it no better. Israel was now "just another country", and for a Zionist like my brother who moved to Israel 30 years ago with high ideals, that is a sad development.

The Israeli Elections

The almond trees are blossoming in Israel, including outside the window of our apartment in Jerusalem, and that means we have entered the month of Shevat. The almond trees are the earliest sign of spring. (I have heard how bitter the winter is in the Hudson Valley!) Soon it will be Tu B'Shvat, the New Year for Trees. And the day after that will be Election Day in Israel.

I would think that the recent war in Gaza should have strengthened the hand of the current leadership, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni of the Kadima Party and Defense Minister Ehud Barak of the Labor Party, as they compete to become the next Prime Minister. Hamas appears to be crying "uncle" even as it blusters to the media, and despite the intense international criticism of the IDF's tactics in the recent conflict, public opinion in Israel views the outcome positively. Yet Kadima and Labor are declining in the polls, while the more extreme right wing parties are gaining. Benjamin Netanyahu of Likud currently stands to become the next Prime Minister. Russian immigrant Avigdor Lieberman of the ultra-nationalist (and overtly racist, in my opinion) Yisrael Beiteinu Party is making gains, as is the religious party Shas. I don't understand the Israeli mindset well enough to understand why the elections might result in this move to the right. I do know that political leaders in Israel are currently viewed with intense cynicism and distrust, and there is currently no counterpart in Israel that can galvanize a large section of the electorate in the way that Obama succeeded in our own recent elections. A right wing coalition government in Israel will make George Mitchell's job of bringing the combatants to the negotiating table even more daunting. We will know who won on February 10.

So there it is again, the contrasts of life in Israel: On February 9 we will celebrate the blossoming and fragrant fruit trees, and on February 10 this flawed but functioning democracy will go to the polls and cast a vote colored by war.

But along with the season, hope springs eternal.

Israel Journal - January 13, 2009

Even as the war in Gaza and southern Israel continues, and the tension and preoccupation of Israeli society with the war is ever-present, this entry will begin with some vignettes from my family’s relatively carefree and very stimulating life this past week. My wife and daughters are immersed in intensive Hebrew studies, and that is the focus of our energies, along with learning our way around, exploring Jerusalem and stocking our kitchen. I’ll address the larger political situation further on.

One Degree of Separation

Rabbi Miriam contacted me just before I left the States to invite me to join her in a performance/presentation at a major educational conference in which she was participating. She could even offer to pay me! The conference was entitled “Multiple Identities in Jewish Education”, and the participants were from all over the US and Israel. Rabbi Miriam and one of the other Mandel Fellows, Amichai Lau-Lavie, were collaborating on a program that would show how to teach Torah through drama, music and group improvisation, and they needed some musical support. Rabbi Miriam said that the educational conference was happening somewhere up north. I guessed that it was at Oranim Teacher’s College, and I explained to Rabbi Miriam that my sister-in-law Roberta, who runs a program at Oranim College, was on the steering committee of this conference. And so it goes.

By the way, Amichal Lau-Lavie is the talented creator of Storahtelling, an innovative and wonderful approach to Torah interpretation. Amichai, who is no longer Orthodox, is the nephew of the former Chief Rabbi of Israel Yisrael Lau, next to whom I stood last summer when he officiated at my nephew’s wedding. Amichai and his uncle live in separate worlds now, but, as I have said, in Israel all these worlds intersect somehow, sometimes gracefully, sometimes colliding.

The performance was quite moving and thought provoking and received very enthusiastic feedback. Rabbi Miriam was terrific, as usual.

Oranim College is a very interesting place. It is perched precipitously on a side of a hill in the little town of Tivon, looking out at a dramatic view of the Carmel mountain ridge. I believe that Roberta told me that 40% of the students at Oranim are Israeli Arabs, and the rest Israeli Jews, all studying to become educators. It is a fully integrated campus, as Muslim women with head coverings take classes with every other Israeli population group: Russian and Ethiopian immigrants and native-born Israelis of all backgrounds. It is certainly striking that this level of integration in higher education can be maintained in Israel while hatred and resentment are running so high due to the war in Gaza. I consider places like Oranim to be among the finest expressions of Israel’s (however flawed) functioning liberal democracy.

The International Community Center for Youth (ICCY)

We have the good fortune of living next door to a wonderful community center that just reopened after major renovations funded by the Jewish community of Canada. The breadth of activities in the ICCY is stunning. In the space of several days I attended four very different events there:

-Shira Chadasha, a unique modern orthodox congregation that I will describe below, meets there every Shabbat.

-In that same assembly hall I peeked in on the bi-weekly “Boogie BaMoshava”, the no-alcohol dance party where Jerusalem’s young alternative crowd gathers. There was an incredible percussionist accompanied by a guy on the didgeridoo. I plan to go dancing next time, even if I am the oldest person there!

-Another night was the monthly community sing, a glorious combination of Israeli Golden Oldies that I knew, newer Hebrew pop songs that everyone else knew, and a healthy dose of the Beatles. Everyone sat on the floor and sang, raising money for children in Ashkelon, one of the Israeli cities that is being shelled by Hamas. There is clearly a sense of Israelis pulling together during wartime. War certainly has that particular power to unite a people, at least for a period of time.

-On Friday mornings the Community Center hosts a crafts fair/flea market, and my family and I wandered over there and went on a happy shopping spree for clothing we had neglected to bring with us. (We didn’t bring enough warm clothes for the Jerusalem winter. Although it is balmy here compared to Woodstock, it’s still chilly!)

Shabbat in Jerusalem

There are many synagogues to choose from within walking distance of our apartment. On Friday evening I attended a fairly new and, for Israel, radical minyan called Navah Tehillah. Their service is filled with meditation, chanting and singing, guitars and cello, and dancing to Lecha Dodi. Most of the men wear yarmulkes of some sort, but there are some men without head covering. I know this doesn’t sound unusual to the Woodstock Jewish Congregation, but in Israel it is still unheard of. And the rabbi is an Israeli woman, Ruth Gan-Kagan, who came to the States for some years to study with Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, and was ordained by him. Rabbi Gan-Kagan represents the vanguard of an emerging trend in Israel: the search by secular Israelis for spiritual Jewish expression that is not Orthodox. 20 years ago when I would describe my style of religious leadership to Israelis I would typically get a response ranging from puzzlement to condemnation: “That’s not Judaism!” Today I will just as likely be met with genuine curiosity. As you may know, the Orthodox have a near-monopoly in Israel on Jewish religious expression. The Reform and Conservative movements in Israel have made some modest but real inroads, but they themselves are very conventional in their approach. Meanwhile an entire generation of Israeli seekers has traveled the world, especially India, searching for spiritual expression in their lives. When they return to Israel, they are ripe to learn that un-Orthodox approaches to Judaism really do exist. Rabbi Gan-Kagan is reaching out to these Jews. My kids got bored as the service went very long, but I was fascinated.

On Saturday morning I went to the ICCY (mentioned above - a two minute walk from our apartment!) to a very different congregational experiment, radical in its own right. Kehillat Shira Chadasha is a modern orthodox congregation that is stretching the bounds of women’s participation to the limits that Jewish Orthodoxy will allow. While a mechitza (a curtain) extends the length of the room, separating the men and the women, the Torah reading table straddles the divide, and women lead large portions of the service. When it is time for the D’var Torah, the curtain is pulled aside and everyone listens together. The place was packed and the singing was magnificent. Even though I find the mechitza unnecessary, I still felt comfortable and happy to be there, uplifted by the energy emanating from both sides of the curtain.

Both of these synagogue experiments – orthodox and un-orthodox - are the result of American Jewish influence. It is ironic, but Jews have more freedom of religious expression in the US than in Israel, and Jews bring that innovative style from the United States to Israel. It is an important contribution that we American Jews can make here.

Our first Shabbat here, my family took a beautiful walk to the Israel Museum, the national museum. On the way we passed the Monastery of the Cross, a church compound dating back to the 5^th century reputed to be the location of the tree that was felled that became Jesus’ cross. Next to the monastery was a very large Israeli Scouts compound, with many loud children playing cooperation games and preparing campfires. Up at the top of the hill, the museum was undergoing massive renovations and the galleries were closed, but we did visit the Shrine of the Book, which houses some of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and we explored an amazing scale model of Jerusalem in the time of the Second Temple (1^st century C.E.). When Shabbat ended Jerusalem came back to life, and Timna, Ellen and Rabbi Miriam went to the Jerusalem Mall (of course there’s a mall!) to see some formulaic Hollywood comedy. Nomi and I watched “Wall-E” at home.

This past Shabbat we went to the Jerusalem Zoo, a truly world-class affair built (based on all the plaques posted around the grounds) by very generous donations from the American Jewish Community. If you come to Israel with kids, visit this zoo.

We also had Shabbat dinner with our friend Melila Hellner and her husband Dror. Some of you may remember Melila because she was our guest scholar at the WJC a couple of years ago. Melila is a gifted scholar of Jewish mysticism and an activist whose primary activism work these days is bringing young Jews and Palestinians together for deep encounters. Her husband Dror is a fanciful and fabulous sculptor.

I mention this dinner because it gave us a glimpse of some of the conversations Israelis are having with each other right now. Almost every conversation is about the war, and as one might expect, these conversations can be heated. Melila and Dror had invited a good friend named Shmulik to dinner as well. Shmulik is secular, a vegan, and a leftist. He teaches at the social work school in Sderot, the Israeli town near the Gaza strip that has been the most frequent target of Hamas missiles over the past several years. The day before Shmulik had participated in a rally against the war in Tel Aviv. I would have expected Melila and Dror, bohemian peacenik types, to support Shmulik in his public protest. But to my surprise they weren’t so sure: a major peace rally in Israel might send the message to Hamas that Israel’s collective resolve was wavering. As much as Melila and Dror are ambivalent about the war and genuinely anguished about the innocent dead in Gaza, they also feel at a loss for an alternative in dealing with Hamas. This is a sentiment I have heard from other Israeli friends. (Of course, it is also not difficult to find other Israelis who feel no sympathy for the Gazans.) In a word, it is a complicated and tragic mess, but most Israelis see no other option. The conversation around the dinner table was passionate; in Israel the personal is always political, the mundane always laced with existential tension. Yet there was much laughter and pleasure in each other’s company as well.

[NOTE: I just read an article by Ethan Bronner in today’s New York Times that I think accurately describes the mood in Israel, and reflects my own perceptions exactly. You can read the article at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/13/world/middleeast/13israel.html?hp ]

The Current War

I could write pages of my thoughts, feelings and opinions about the war in Gaza: the larger geo-political ramifications, the moral considerations, the fate of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the nature of Hamas, the tragedy of this war and nonetheless perhaps its necessity as well. Maybe I will pour out my thoughts at some point. At present I will say that I am hopeful that a cease-fire might be in the offing soon: Hamas is severely weakened, international pressure is rising every day, the hands-off policy of the Bush administration will be over in a week, and the Israeli public may be ready for a cease-fire. I hope the conflict will die down leaving Hamas in tatters, and Israelis and Gazans free from the threat of bombs. I hope a message will have been sent to Iran making it clear that they endanger themselves when they threaten Israel. I hope an agreement can be reached that allows and supports the residents of the Gaza strip to rebuild their lives and homes and to enjoy a free flow of goods and services. My hopes are modest; I wish I could dream of peace across the Middle East, but for many years now I have only been able to hope for more talk and less killing, no final peace agreement but merely relative quiet, in which ordinary people can live their lives. May it come to pass.

Israel Journal - 12/29/08

The Delta terminal at JFK felt to me like a third world airport: doors closed due to construction, low ceilings, no signage, no clear lines, chaos, overheated, slow-moving disinterested ticket attendants, very poor security. We finished our water because liquids are not allowed past the security check. A young orthodox man was ahead of us carrying at least two car seats, a child-proofing gate, a huge stroller, and several other carry-ons, some of which could not fit through the x-ray machine. Once we were through security, we had planned to buy some dinner. It was 9:05pm and the food court was closed save for Sbarro’s, with dozens of people in line. We settled for snacks and my Diet Coke. I filled our water bottle at a water fountain. Then, at our gate, we had to go through security again. The same young Orthodox man cut in front of us, with the same results. Finally, as we approached the x-ray machine and metal detector, we learned that we could not bring that fresh bottle of water onto the plane, and that we had to show the receipt for my diet coke. I fortunately located the receipt crumpled in my pocket. I found this entire airport experience shocking, and a confirmation of Tom Friedman’s column the day before describing his contrasting experiences leaving Hong Kong’s ultra-modern airport and arriving back in the US. I couldn’t wait to get to the pleasant and aesthetically stunning Ben Gurion airport in Israel. Even the Delta 767 we flew on felt old.

Our apartment is delightful. It is located in the German Colony. The German Colony was so named because a group of German settlers built homes here beginning in 1878. They were known as Templars, a messianic group who came to the Holy Land in order to hasten the Second Coming. Apparently their charismatic founder had a change of heart some time after arrival, and instead adopted a humanistic philosophy dedicated to ameliorating poverty and suffering. They built their colony in an area known as Emek Refaim, the Valley of the Giants, so named from Biblical times. Settlement in Jerusalem was, with a few exceptions, entirely within the walls of the Old City, with gates that could be shut at night to prevent intruders. By 1878 a few new small neighborhoods had been built outside the city walls. The German settlers are long gone, their memory contained in the nearby cemetery and in the German phrases engraved above the entranceways of their lovely stone houses with red tile roofs. These houses give this little enclave it’s own lovely character. It has become the trendiest neighborhood in Jerusalem, with cafes and bookstores lining Emek Refaim Street. While our apartment is fortunately on a quiet side street, a very short walk puts us in proximity of everything from sushi to falafel, Ben and Jerry’s to gelato. After all my years of driving around Ulster County to get to anything, I am thrilled to be in a city neighborhood for a while!

Timed with our arrival, Israel began a huge military offensive in the Gaza Strip, after missiles fired by Hamas operatives from Gaza killed an Israeli civilian and wounded a number of others. I have always found it almost impossible to explain to Americans, but these horrible events do not directly impact my family here in Jerusalem. I have specifically refrained from talking about it with our 8-year-old daughter, who is busy discovering playgrounds in her new neighborhood. I am in no hurry to have her learn about the dark side of life here. Our teenager has already been initiated into current events, and wishes to absorb as much as she can of Israeli life and politics, so she is actively pursuing a full dose. For now I will leave the political commentary to the experts and pundits, and just describe my family’s experience. Maybe I’ll wade into those waters when I feel less jet-lagged!

12/30/08

While the newspaper headlines continued to blare the intense and distressing news from the Gaza area, our day’s highlight was attending an impressive flamenco performance at a theater called The Lab, which occupies a former industrial space near the old train station in Jerusalem. Such is the ongoing paradox of life within Israel that a major military offensive coexists with the pleasures of ongoing cultural life. The reason we went to the performance is that I have known the guitarist, Eliav Uval, since he was a baby. Eliav is the grandson of Paul and Lillian Steinfeld of Fleishmanns. Paul and Lillian have known me since I was a small child, and so these bonds go far back in our families.

We had dinner with Rabbi Miriam tonight, before the show. We were all thrilled to see her, and passed along all the greetings that people in Woodstock sent with us for her. She is busy with her fellowship, doing research, writing papers, and working on her educational project, which I will report on in the future, but we all intend to spend as much time together as possible. Rabbi Miriam is definitely enjoying being in Israel.

I’ll tell you a typical Israel story. This past Sunday evening we have arrived at Ben Gurion Airport and collected our bags. I am trying to acquire a cell phone at a store in the terminal. We have been traveling for at least 18 hours. I step away from the counter for a moment to discuss which plan to purchase with Ellen. When I step back towards the counter another customer berates me with biting sarcasm for cutting in line ahead of him: “Go ahead! We’re in Israel! Why should you be any different?” (Cutting in line in Israel is a national contact sport.) I parry with an equally sarcastic flourish and we glare at each other as I step to the counter. Fortunately, I cool down in time to go over to him and apologize and we laugh and say “Welcome to Israel!” Incident over. While having dinner in a restaurant with Rabbi Miriam this evening, she jumps out of her chair to give a big hug to someone…the guy I had words with in the airport! He is an old friend of hers, and he has come to Israel to attend a wedding. We recognize each other and smile and laugh, and Rabbi Miriam asks us how we know each other…

It turns out that Rabbi Miriam will be attending the same wedding, and she tells me that the bride is an old friend of WJC’s own Warren Soiffer. Jewish geography can be fun.

I will repeat that the disconnect between these joyful experiences and the realities of the suffering of so many Israelis and Palestinians nearby is as jarring and bizarre as it sounds. And yet at the same time it only varies in degree from the glaring contrasts of well being and suffering that describe the human situation in general, including in the United States. We also continue to enjoy life even as we become aware of our entire planet in peril. Somehow I try to live within that impossible tension, wobbling between various levels of denial and awareness, indignation and despair, walking Reb Nachman’s narrow bridge trying not to look down too often. I pray for a cease-fire between Hamas and Israel, tomorrow if not sooner.

To be continued,

Rabbi Jonathan

Remarks upon receiving the “Keter Shem Tov”, the “Crown of a Good Name”

November 8, 2008 /11 Heshvan 5769

I have a favorite story that you may have heard me tell before. The story goes like this – I heard Pete Seeger tell it:

Two maggots are living happily in a pile of manure. One day their lives are disrupted when a shovel scoops up part of the pile and them along with it. As they are carried along, they are jostled and fall off. One maggot lands in a nice big dog turd on the sidewalk, and the other lands deep in a crack in the pavement. The maggot in the manure eats and grows shiny and sleek and fat, while the other maggot is terrified, unable to climb out of the abyss. With nothing to eat, this maggot gets emaciated and wan. One day, the maggot in the manure remembers his friend and decides to take a stroll and find out what happened to him. Well, as he crawls along the sidewalk, he happens to peer down into the crack. He spots the other maggot and says, “Hey brother, is that you down there? I hardly recognized you, you look so miserable. What happened?” “Well, I don’t know” said the other, “I was on that shovel with you and the next thing I knew I had landed down here. It’s miserable. I can’t get out, I can’t find anything to eat. But you, brother! You look fantastic, so sleek and fat! How did you get that way?” To which the fat maggot replied “Brains and perseverance, brother, brains and perseverance!”

I am the maggot that landed in the good stuff! (I hope you’ll take that in the right way!) I appreciate the brains and perseverance that the Kadosh Baruch Hu granted me, but I have learned some humility over these years. I am one of the luckiest people alive. First my parents: I could not have become your rabbi without their moral and financial support. Wouldn’t have happened. And then, I did have the brains to know a compatible and wonderful community when I saw one, but all the good fertilizer was already here – I just had to tend this garden with you, and watch us grow. I am not going to be falsely humble – I am aware of my gifts and am thrilled to have the inner resources that I have – but I am one fortunate grub!

As it happens, today is the 25^th yahrzeit, the 25^th anniversary of the passing of Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan. Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan was one of the great Jewish thinkers and teachers of the 20^th century, and the formulator of the approach to Judaism known as Reconstructionism, the approach in which I was trained. It is appropriate for me tonight to thank Rabbi Kaplan, and to bless his memory. Without his defining presence in American Jewish life, I suspect I would not be here celebrating with you tonight. My father David Kligler of blessed memory’s enthusiasm for Jewish religious life was sparked by the Reconstructionist synagogue that he and my mother joined some 50 years ago. Then some 30 years later I found my spiritual base at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College – no other rabbinical school spoke to me the way RRC did. It offers a combination of intellectual rigor and spiritual openness unique in the Jewish world, and a direct offspring of Kaplan’s philosophy. I am also eternally grateful for Rabbi Kaplan’s daughter Judith and her husband Rabbi Ira Eisenstein of blessed memory. Some of us here remember Judy and Ira. They retired to Woodstock, and during my first seven years here they adopted me and my family, nurtured us and mentored me. So, I profoundly honor the memory of Mordecai Kaplan, who passed away this day in 1983 at the age of 101.

One of Kaplan’s central teachings is that American Jews live in two civilizations, our own Jewish civilization and the larger American civilization. Our task in the modern era is to consciously adopt and adapt the best, most forward thinking attributes of both civilizations, so that Judaism can continue to evolve and develop. The key attribute of American civilization that Kaplan promoted was democracy, and this has been a remarkable week in the evolving story of American democracy. An initial sublime idea “that all men are created equal” was severely limited by the social and conceptual limitations of the 18^th century. Those who did not own property were excluded, Blacks were enslaved and women were dismissed and disenfranchised. But the sublime idea took root, and through great struggle continued to grow and force its way into the sunlight. And this week, an African American was elected president of the United States, and a peaceful transition of power has begun. This is American civilization at its finest manifestation. I would note the coincidence that 40 years ago, on the night before he was murdered, the reverend Martin Luther King compared himself to Moses and declared:

“Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop.And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!”

40 years later, 40 being the Torah’s symbolic number for a full generation, with the election of Barack Obama we as Americans have attained one aspect of our modern prophet Martin Luther King’s dream. And we as Jews can take pride that King found his inspiration in the story of our own ancestors’ Exodus from slavery. This is what Rabbi Kaplan meant when he taught us to take the best of both civilizations.

There is yet another remarkable coincidence that I must share with you: today, this Shabbat that just ended, is the 40^th anniversary of my Bar Mitzvah. In that tumultuous year of 1968 I became Bar Mitzvah on Shabbat Lech Lecha at Bet Am Shalom in White Plains, New York. Today is, in fact, my Hebrew birthdate, the 11th of Cheshvan. And we are having a party! None of us were aware of this confluence when we scrambled through the calendar to find a date for this event. So first I must note that this just may be too many coincidences to be a coincidence. Let’s hear it for the enduring mystery of life, and for, as my grandfather Joseph Schupper liked to say, “the great puppeteer”. And, in honor of this anniversary, I get to make a speech. So now I would like to offer some “thank you’s”.

My mom Deborah Krasnow is here tonight. Mom, may we share many more simchas in good health. I would owe you a debt that could never be repaid for the infinite care and love you have given me, except that you have made it clear that I don’t owe you anything. Your love has been truly unconditional, informed by total commitment, devotion and hard-earned wisdom. So I can only say that I am enjoying the attempt to be a similar kind of parent to my girls. I know that is compliment enough for you.

I wish to remember my father David Kligler with gratitude and love. Both of my parents bequeathed to me good brains, big hearts, the desire to do right, and a love of Judaism, Israel and the Jewish people. I got my singing voice from my father. I particularly remember my dad, who generally had trouble enjoying himself, at the Kiddush lunch after the service of my or one of my brothers Bar Mitzvahs. Dad was beaming, and dancing with my mom. I rarely saw him so happy and relaxed, but it was fulfilling for him to watch his boys grow up. This is a particularly poignant birthday for me in that regard, for in turning 53 I have reached the age of my father when he died. I am acutely aware of this passage, and give thanks that I can, God-willing, look forward to a much longer life than my father had.

I give thanks for the incredible good fortune that my stepfather, Herb Krasnow, entered our lives more than 25 years ago. Thanks to Herb, I have had continued to have a father. Herb is an inspiring example of what it means to be a mature man, generous, steadfast, thoughtful, supportive, and kind. Following Herb’s example, I feel that I can finally say: today, I am a man.

It is beyond wonderful that my family’s lifelong friends Bill and Sylvia Wolff are here tonight. Bill and Sylvia have known me and supported me my entire life. And cantor William Wolff was my Bar Mitzvah tutor. I don’t know if I thanked you back then, Bill! Now is my opportunity. I would like you all to know that almost all of the melodies that I sing on the High Holidays and that you now sing with me were taught to me over the years by Bill Wolff.

I express my greatest gratitude to my wife Ellen. Ellen missed my Bar Mitzvah, but as my partner in life, Ellen has allowed me, with significant personal sacrifice on her part, to have everything I truly most wanted in this life: meaningful work, and the opportunity to raise a family. Ellen, I hope I can continue to support you to fulfill your dreams as you have supported me.

I thank the organizers of this evening: Patricia Mitchell, Geri Brodsky, Karen Tashman, and all the others who made this evening possible. I also want to acknowledge our Board of Directors who lead our congregation with care and wisdom and have provided me with the ongoing support I need to fulfill my role. I am blessed with a professional staff who are great at what they do, committed to the mission of our synagogue, and full of love and care: Karen Tashman, Zoe Zak, Julie Makowsky, Sandy Armstrong, Sharon Hoferer, and all of our wonderful Family School teachers. And I thank all of you, who are sharing with us the holy work of this Jewish community, the Congregation of a Full Heart.

There is one more anniversary I must alert us to this evening: Tomorrow is the 70^th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the great and awful state-sponsored pogrom that marked the beginning of the end for European Jewry under Nazi control. I have always felt that a central purpose of my work is to help to reweave into whole and beautiful cloth the tatters of Jewish community that remained in the wake of the Holocaust, and I have been blessed with the opportunity to do that with you. Allow me to repeat a paragraph I shared with you recently on Yom Kippur.

“Where Judaism had appeared lifeless or of little value to many of us, a painful, grudging obligation, over these past 2 decades our holy community has redeemed and rediscovered Judaism, and brought it back into our lives. Most beautifully, as we have allowed Judaism to guide us, Judaism has begun to redeem us, and to guide us on the path. In the process we have introduced hundreds of children to Judaism, and we have created a place of healing for Jews of all backgrounds. The tears shed by hundreds of individuals over the years in our sanctuary have been tears of homecoming, of release, of joy. Despite all the terrors of anti Semitism, despite all the hateful messages that circulate about our people, despite the fear-driven defensiveness and desperation that too often characterize Jewish communities, our congregation is committed to the deep truth that it is good to be a Jew. Despite it all, we not only choose to keep our tradition alive, but to reclaim its joyous song, which the fires of history, oppression and human hatred cannot quench.”

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to be your rabbi.

This evening I am honored to be the first recipient of Kehillat Lev Shalem’s “Keter Shem Tov”, which means “the crown of a good name”. The title “keter shem tov” originates in the Mishnah in the section Pirkei Avot, the Wisdom of the Sages. Here is the full citation:

“Rabbi Shimon omer shlosha ktarim hen: keter torah v’cheter kehuna, v’cheter malchut. V’cheter shem tov oleh al gabeihen. Rabbi Shimon said: There are three crowns: the crown of Torah, the crown of priesthood and the crown of kingship. But the crown of a good name surpasses them all.”

Rabbi Shimon teaches: whatever honors or power or status one might accumulate or attain in life, their value ultimately means nothing without one’s reputation and good name. This is emes, truth. And, I have learned, nowhere is this truer than in the contemporary rabbinate. My authority as your rabbi does not stem from any control or power I hold over your lives. In the Orthodox world, there is agreement that the decision of your rabbi is final. For better or worse, the Orthodox rav is granted power and authority. Not so in our slice of life: my decisions are not binding over you – I wear no crown of authority. What have I got to lead with? No rulings, no decrees, just my self: how I present my self to the world, how I interact with all of you, how I live. Since I am as imperfect as the next guy, I can’t pretend to be a flawless moral exemplar. So what have I got? I have learned, through many missteps and much soul searching, that what I have is my good name. My reputation as a real human being, who tries to practice what he preaches, owns up to his mistakes, and loves the best he can. It is on this foundation of profound honesty that I base my life and my work, and to the degree that I do this well I earn your respect and your loyalty as your rabbi. In this way, serving as your rabbi has served me and my own growth as a human being: not with ego gratification at how good I am (though it is really nice to be good at what I do, and I truly appreciate all of the heartfelt and genuine strokes I receive for my work), but with the enforced opportunity, every day, to treat everyone I meet the way I would like to be treated, to earn the crown of a good name by living as righteously as I can. I am grateful for the opportunity that my role as your spiritual leader gives me to be my best self every day, and I thank you for honoring me with the crown of a good name. May we all grow together in strength, awareness and love.

September 4, 2008

Dear Friends,

This past Sunday was the new moon of Elul, the month that precedes and leads up to Rosh Hashanah and the High Holy Days. Elul is traditionally the month of inner preparation for the Days of Awe. It is a time for Cheshbon Nefesh (self-assessment) and Teshuvah (making amends, addressing loose ends in our lives, repairing relationships. Our goal is to enter the New Year having set in order as much as we are able, so that our consciences and our hearts can be as clear and as open as possible. Teshuvah means return, and ideally for us this is a time of returning, returning to our deepest convictions, returning to the Jewish community, and returning to face the mystery of our existence - which our tradition calls YHVH, the Source of Life - with humility and awe.

To assist with our preparations, I am offering four study and discussion sessions during Elul devoted to the themes of this season, and I invite you to join me for any or all of them. The first three sessions will meet during the regular Thursday time: Thursday, September 4, 11, and 18 from 12:15 pm – 2:00 pm. The final session will be on Sunday, September 21 from 10:00 am – 12:00 pm. I hope that some of you whose schedule cannot accommodate the weekday time will be able to join me for the Sunday session. (I plan to have other occasional Sunday morning classes throughout the year.) Also, on Saturday evening, September 20 from 10:30 pm – midnight is our Selichot ceremony, a ritual of preparation for Rosh Hashanah that we have adapted into a very personal and powerful time of reflection.

While on the subject of teaching, I have really been enjoying the teachings that I have been offering at our Friday evening Shabbat services, and thought I might entice some of you to join us on a Friday evening for a stimulating and restorative evening. Here’s what we addressed the past few weeks: On my mentor (and former member of the WJC) Rabbi Ira Eisenstein’s yahrzeit I reviewed the history of the Reconstructionist movement and the educational philosophy of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, which Ira founded. The next week I spoke on the topic of “Healing the Jewish Self”, summarizing the workshop that Rabbi Miriam and I had led at the Omega Institute that week. The following week I shared some of the teachings of Rabbi Moshe Cordovero, a sixteenth century mystic whose yahrzeit fell on that Shabbat. Rabbi Cordovero’s words were amazingly evocative and felt like they could have been written yesterday. Using a comprehensive Jewish historical calendar for inspiration, the next week I learned was the anniversary of the Barcelona Disputation in 1263, and this became an opportunity to teach about the relationship between the Church and the Jews in the Middle Ages, the form of debate between Christians and Jews that was known as the disputation, and the particular success of the rabbinic luminary Nachmanides in besting his Christian adversaries in this well-documented episode.

Sometimes the calendar will list the topic at hand that evening, but most of the time I don’t know well ahead of time, because for better or worse I am an improviser at heart. So it will be potluck. But I can promise that it will be stimulating and that you will learn something. Also, others in our congregation will occasionally be sharing teachings and writings. Last week Jerry Gillman read one of his original midrashim on Abraham and Sarah. This week Michael Stoller offered a teaching.

Do remember that our Friday evening services begin at 7:30 pm, except for the first Friday of each month when we begin at 5:45 pm. This coming Friday, September 5 we begin at 5:45 pm with a dairy/vegetarian potluck dinner. Our theme this evening is outreach, and we are especially asking you to invite a friend or acquaintance who you would like to introduce to our community. Zoe Zak and I will be teaching and leading some wonderful Shabbat melodies, and Julie Makowsky will be providing children’s programming as well. Please RSVP at 679-2218 x0 so that we can set enough places, and come enjoy a sweet Shabbat with new and old friends.

Shalom to you and your loved ones,

Rabbi Jonathan Kligler

June 27, 2008

Dear Friends,

Were I to describe every moving event that has taken place at our synagogue this month I might have to take up many pages. I will restrain myself and only tell you about several. Before I launch in, I would like to remind you that noted author Rodger Kamenetz is our guest speaker at services this Friday at 7:30 pm, that our new art gallery, Gallery Lev Shalem, opens with the art of Durga Bernhard following services on Saturday morning, and that our huge yard sale is this coming Sunday and Monday (just another weekend of joy, prayer, art, intellectual stimulation, community, and fundraising at the Woodstock Jewish Congregation!)

Our Exquisite New Ark

Last year we received a wonderful offer from Michael and Sandra Mandel. In honor of their son Glenn’s upcoming Bar Mitzvah, the Mandels pledged the funds to create a new, custom-made ark to house our Torah scrolls. A task force was formed at the synagogue to ask for proposals and to choose a craftsman and a design. The number and quality of the proposals we received was impressive, and testified to the high quality of craftspeople and artists in our region. We ultimately chose the proposal of Stephen Robin, a fine woodworker with 40 years experience whose workshop was just a mile and a half down the road from the synagogue. Stephen and his coworkers came through with flying colors. The ark was dedicated at the joint Bar Mitzvah of Glenn Mandel and Salem Hoffman on June 7, 2008. Almost everyone who enters the sanctuary and sees the new ark for the first time pauses, draws in a breath, and exclaims in wonder. For me, the beautiful cherry and walnut woods, the elegantly curved and contoured woodwork, the carefully considered dimensions, and the gentle light filtering from behind add up to a deeply satisfying experience. Our new ark uplifts and helps complete our sanctuary. Come see for yourselves! I want to thank the Mandels for their generosity, our task force of Laurie Schwartz, Karen Levine, Bill Weissman, Kari Feuer, Ellen Triebwasser, Karen Martin and Patricia Mitchell for their hard work and good judgment, and Stephen Robin and his crew for their exquisite craftsmanship. Our communal life has been greatly enhanced with the addition of our new Holy Ark.

A Torah Fragment from the Streets of Berlin

Ruth Samuels Hirsch offered to donate a precious family heirloom to the WJC. It is a framed fragment of parchment from a Torah scroll, a torn column of text that has been in her family since 1938. Here is what Ruth wrote to me:

“Kristallnacht was a pogrom in Nazi Germany November 9th-10th, 1938. During the rampage of Kristallnacht more than 1,000 Synagogues were destroyed, tens of thousands of Jewish homes and businesses were ransacked. It marked the beginning of the systematic eradication of Jewish - and other - people in Germany.
I, we cannot imagine, or can barely imagine with horror what these experiences, these sounds and sights were like. And what bravery it took for the refugees from Germany to build new lives. My mother, Edith Kahn Hirsch left Germany in 1939 with her brother, Ed, nee Dieter Kahn, and my grandmother, Bertha Strauss Kahn Bruchfeld, newly widowed. They were able to leave thanks to an affidavit from Norbert Kahn. He signed affidavits saying he would support them in the U.S. until such time as they could support themselves. What a commitment! This scrap of Torah is one artifact that my mother had. She said it was on the street after Kristallnacht.”

We now possess this remnant of Torah scooped up from the streets of Germany and hustled to safety along with the remnant of Jews who escaped the Nazi death machine. Ruth’s family treasure will hang in our synagogue as a witness and testament to the ongoing life of the Jewish People.

There is one more facet of this story that I must tell: we decided that the most fitting time to formally welcome Ruth’s gift would be during Shavuot, the Festival of the Giving of the Torah. During our Shavuot learning and festivities on June 8 I was holding the Torah fragment and scanning it, trying to piece together from the torn sentences what section of Torah I was holding. To my amazement, I discovered that it is the section from Deuteronomy that explains how we are to celebrate Shavuot! Yet another “Holy Coincidence” to sustain my intimations that our lives are linked by invisible lines of connection. What a joy!

A Very Quick Trip to Israel

My nephew Eitan and his fiancé Shir scheduled their wedding for this past June 3. My family couldn’t join me because of school and finals, and I had many commitments, too, but I wouldn’t miss it. So I flew to Israel on Sunday night, went directly to the Dan Keysaria hotel on the Mediterranean coast, and returned on Wednesday night, for a mind- and body-bending 3-day trip. To my surprise, though of course tiring, the trip was a complete joy. I would like to share just a couple of scenarios from the wedding.

Israeli weddings tend to be large. There were 800 people at this one. Shir’s father is a man named Effi Stenzler, and he is the Director of Keren Kayemet L’Yisrael (The Jewish National Fund). The JNF is a quasi-governmental organization that controls all of Israel’s water and forest resources, and much of Israel’s land. You may know about it, because of the well-known little blue pushke, or charity box, that many of you may remember dropping coins into to support the effort to build up the Land of Israel. After the ceremony, when it was my brother Dan’s turn to make a little speech, he stood with his new machatin (in-law) Effi, and said: “This feels unreal, a sort-of Zionist fantasy come true. When I was a boy in New York, I would put my coins in the little blue JNF box. Now, my son is married to the daughter of the man who holds the blue box!”

Effi holds a prominent government-appointed position, so there were a significant number of government ministers and Members of Knesset in attendance. The former chief rabbi of Israel, Rabbi Yisrael Lau, officiated. I was invited under the chuppah to sing one of the Sheva Brachot, the wedding blessings, which was very sweet. Afterwards I found myself standing next to Shaul Mofaz, current Transport Minister and former Minister of Defense and head of the Israel Defense Forces. He was just a person, a few years older than me. He and Effi had been in the paratroopers together, which is where many of Israel’s future leaders meet each other and are groomed for leadership.

I mention Shaul Mofaz because when I returned to the States 2 days later, I read the following in the paper: “’If Iran continues with its program for developing nuclear weapons, we will attack it. The sanctions are ineffective,’ Transport Minister Shaul Mofaz told the mass-circulation Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper.” According to analysts, Mofaz’s comments were the main reason that the price of a barrel of oil jumped $11 a barrel that day, and the Dow Jones Average dropped 400 points! I was flabbergasted. The comments of one government official to a Hebrew language newspaper in Israel can cause the entire global market to shudder. It is difficult to fathom how truly interconnected we have become around the globe. And like it or not, Israel sits on one of the main nerve centers of our global civilization. It is so odd that a tiny country with 7 million inhabitants should occupy such an outsized place of importance, but so it is. (It is even odder for me that I was standing next to the guy who caused all the markets to hiccough the next day. I lost some money on the market because of him! I should have told him to tone it down!)

I share this story because it is another useful snapshot of Israel. It is a country that matters too much. It is a country in which everybody knows everybody, where you are always just one or two degrees removed from all the other folks you meet, including the powerful ones. It is a country positively brimming with life, but also always courting death. Like it or not, that is the reality of Israel. Most of the time, I like it. Or, as my mother commented in her refreshing, no-bull manner at some point during the festivities: “I love being Jewish, except when I hate it.” We all laughed – it sure beats crying.

It was a great wedding.

Praying (and working) for a world filled with more understanding and less violence,

Shalom,

Rabbi Jonathan Kligler

May 30, 2008

Dear Friends,

I want to let you know a bit about what has been happening and what is coming up at our congregation.

I am still reflecting on our beautiful Lag B’omer picnic and farewell service for Rabbi Miriam that took place this past Friday. The weather was wonderfully cooperative, and a whole crowd of us scattered across our synagogue’s green grass, eating and playing games and roasting marshmallows. Then we moved in to our sanctuary, and Rabbi Miriam and our Family School students led a beautiful service to welcome Shabbat, and we honored all of our students and teachers and especially Rabbi Miriam. We finished by eating ice cream sundaes and distributing our fabulous new Woodstock Jewish Congregation t-shirts to our students and teachers. (The t-shirts are now for sale at the synagogue - $12/kids, $15/adults.) The entire event was yet another confirmation for me that we chose the right name for our community when we called ourselves the Congregation of a Full Heart.

Here are some upcoming activities that I would like you to be aware of:

Mitzvah Project Fair, Sunday, June 1, 1:00 pm – 5:00 pm

Every Bar/Bat Mitzvah student in our program creates a “Mitzvah Project” as part of their year’s requirements. The Mitzvah Project can be focused on study, on tzedakah, or on service, and each student is encouraged to choose a project that is personally meaningful. Three of our students will be presenting their Mitzvah Projects this Sunday, and I hope you will be able to participate.

Anna Weissman will be showing and selling painting by her late grandmother Sara Weissman. All proceeds will benefit our WJC Playground Fund. You can preview some of Sara Weissman’s painting at <http://s307.photobucket.com/albums/nn281/billfromthelake/>

Adam Rejto will be holding a silent auction to raise funds for the Center for Discovery, a residential treatment center for the severely disabled. Adam’s Mitzvah Project is in memory of his brother Julian, who was loved and cared for at the Center of Discovery until his recent passing.

Leah Ostrander will be holding a bake sale to raise funds for Nkosi’s Haven, an inspiring South African organization that cares for mothers and children with HIV/AIDS.

Dedicating Our New Ark, Saturday, June 7, 3:00 pm

In addition to our regular Shabbat morning service, we will be having a special Mincha (afternoon) service to celebrate the B’nai Mitzvah of Salem Hoffman and Glenn Mandel, and to dedicate the beautiful new ark donated by the Mandel family in honor of this occasion. Please join us if you can.

Celebrate Shavuot, Sunday June 8, 6:00 pm – 11:00 pm (and on…)

Please join us as we celebrate Shavuot, the Festival of The Receiving of the Torah, and the Festival of First Fruits. We begin at 6:00 pm with our Shavuot potluck Festival Dinner (Please bring a dairy/vegetarian dish to share).

At 7:30 pm, Yitzhak Buxbaum and Carole Forman will present “A Shavuot Tikkun of Tales: Storytelling at Sinai”. In Judaism, storytelling is a sacred activity. In the telling, the story becomes a living reality - not an intellectual event, but one that strives for joy, the "holy shiver" that speaks to the soul. Yitzhak and Carole will tell, and we will all discuss, tales that are really about us. How can we grow spiritually? How can we reach the fulfillment that we dream about?

Yitzhak will also invest our own Ellen Triebwasser with the title of Maggid, or spiritual storyteller. Ellen recently completed Yitzhak’s extended training to become a Maggid.

Following the storytelling Ruth Hirschis going to present us with a framed fragment of a Torah scroll that has been in her family since Kristallnacht,the horrible pogrom of November 9 & 10, 1938 that marked the beginning of the end for Jews under Nazi rule. Ruth’s mother Edith Kahn Hirsch found the scrap of parchment lying on the street after Kristallnacht, and brought it with her to the United States when she managed to leave Germany in 1939.

Those who wish will then spend the night at the synagogue, fulfilling the practice of an all-night vigil in preparation for receiving the Torah. At 5:00 am, we will hold a sunrise service. The morning prayers are known as Shacharit, which means “dawn”, and are meant to be prayed at sunrise. Join us this morning as our prayers coincide and crescendo with the symphony of daybreak.

It is customary to recite yizkor on the final day of Festivals. Join us on Tuesday, June 10 at 10:00 am for a brief service of remembrance.

On a personal note, this coming Sunday I am off to Israel for the briefest trip I have ever taken – 3 days! I will be attending my nephew Eitan’s wedding. I understand that Eitan and his fiancé Shir will be having an average size Israeli wedding, about 600 people. I’ll send out a report when I return.

In the meantime, enjoy the springtime, and I hope to see you soon.

Shalom,

Rabbi Jonathan Kligler

April 14, 2008

Dear Friends,

Two topics: our Community Passover Seder, and a P.S. on our trip to Israel.

Community Seder

It has come to my attention that some folks are not planning to come to our Community Passover Seder because it costs more than they can afford. I want to encourage you in every way I can to come. The Haggadah insists that we should invite everyone to join us at our Passover Seder, and we take that injunction seriously. We have received a generous donation specifically to underwrite the cost for anyone who is not able to pay the full fee, and we are extending our deadline for reservations until the end of Thursday, April 10. (That’s tomorrow. The caterers absolutely need a count by Friday so that they can order their supplies.) All you need to do is call me (679-2218), leave a message if I am not here, or email me (rabbijonathan@wjcshul.org), and let me know what you are able to pay and how many are coming. That’s it, confidential and no questions asked. The caterer gets paid in full, and everybody who wants to gets to come!

And what a Seder we have. Kim Harris is joining us again this year to lead the Seder with me. Kim and her husband Reggie and I recorded a wonderful CD called “Let My People Go: A Jewish and African American Celebration of Freedom” (available at the synagogue or through our website, www.wjcshul.org). As many of you know, Kim and Reggie and I merge the Jewish music of the Seder with African American freedom music that draws on the story of the Exodus from Egypt. Whenever Kim is around expect to be roused in song and moved with storytelling and teaching. Kim is in fact currently working on her doctorate at Union Theological Seminary, with a focus on Passover as a template for “freedom feasts”.

Do join us for this uplifting Seder!

P.S. On our Israel trip

After I sent my dispatch on our trip to Israel a few days ago, I realized that there was one more very personal experience that I wanted to share with you.

In the far north of Israel lies the beautiful Hula Valley, bounded by the Golan Heights on the East, and the escarpment of the mountains of the Upper Galilee on the west. When the early Zionist pioneers arrived in this region in the early 20th century, the Hula Valley was mostly a swamp, or wetland as we now call it, and malarial mosquitoes beset the settlers. My grandfather, Professor Israel Jacob Kligler, had relatively recently received a doctorate in Bacteriology and Hygiene at N.Y.U. (one of the first Jews to reach this milestone at N.Y.U., I have been told). He was a Zionist who moved to Palestine in 1920, and made his mission the eradication of malaria and other infectious diseases in the Land of Israel. He set up a lab in Rosh Pina, near the Hula Valley, and spent his time wandering the Hula collecting mosquitoes and working on potential treatments. (In 1925 he was invited to help found the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and created the department of Bacteriology there.) My grandfather died tragically young in 1944, before he could witness the founding of his beloved Israel, but he left a strong legacy of contributions to the Zionist enterprise.

In 1968, I traveled to Israel with my family for the first time. I was 12. As part of our journey, we traveled up the mountainside above the Hula Valley with a representative of the Jewish National Fund, who guided us along a dirt road to a spot with a gorgeous and commanding view of the Valley and all the mountains beyond. There we dedicated a monument and a forest grove in memory of Israel Jacob Kligler. I still have the photograph of us all kneeling around the little saplings we had just planted.

The last time I visited that grove was over 20 years ago, and I thought I might take our WJC group to see it as part of our itinerary last month. But alas, the bus couldn’t take the dirt road, and the grove was too far in to ask our group to walk. So our guide encouraged me to at least go myself, and as he took to group to another overlook, I trotted up the path. The air was cool and clear, the late afternoon sun slanted over me, and the scent of the spring flowers everywhere was indescribably delicious. The view of the valley (including the bird sanctuary – in time the Israelis realized that by draining the entire wetland they had destroyed important habitat and degraded the topsoil, so they have begun re-flooding parts of the valley) and the mountains beyond was exhilarating. A deer leapt out in front of me on the path and bounded away. It occurred to me that I was on the mountainside that bears the ancient name of Harei Naftali, the mountains of the tribe of Naftali, and that Naftali since ancient times has been symbolized by a deer. I could not remember exactly how far along the grove was, but I knew I would get there eventually. And I did. The monument was intact and in good shape. It read “In Memory of Professor Israel Jacob Kligler, Hebrew University, who fought the scourge of malaria, 1920-1944”. The trees of the grove were immense. It had been 40 years since I planted those saplings with my mom and dad and brothers, and now those saplings were a towering, mature forest, overlooking the verdant valley where my grandfather had labored on behalf of the Jewish People. I paid my silent respects, and trotted on up the hill to rejoin our group. I will be returning to this spot, with my family, and with some of you too, I hope.

Shalom,

Rabbi Jonathan

ATTENTION! Your login will expire in the next five minutes due to inactivity. Please click the link below to refresh your login.

Refresh my login