Q&A with Rabbi Ira Youdovin

There is much being said about the up-coming World Zionist Congress, and why Reform Jews from across the globe should be interested.  To address these, we’ve invited a true expert to guide us through the material.

Rabbi Ira Youdovin forty years ago headed the team that created ARZA—Association of Reform Zionists of America, served as its first executive director and, together with its president, Rabbi Roland B. Gittelsohn, led Reform Zionism’s first delegation to the World Zionist Congress.

When we contacted Rabbi Youdovin he mused that the questions being asked were largely the same he was called upon to answer in the mid-1970’s.

As you read Rabbi Youdovin’s comments, please remember to post here additional questions as well as your own take on the issues that he is raising.

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The World Zionist Congress: Why should Reform Jews be interested? 

The next World Zionist Congress will be held in October, 2015.  More than 500 delegates from Israel and the Diaspora will gather in Jerusalem to discuss key issues confronting Israel, Zionism and world Jewry, and to determine allocations made by the World Zionist Organization, the WZC’s parent body.  These decisions are determined by vote of the delegates, who reflect a wide diversity of ideological and religious perspectives.

If you care about the Reform Movement in Israel, if you support egalitarian prayer, if you believe in freedom of religion, the right of Reform rabbis to conduct marriage, divorce, burial and conversion, if you believe that women should have equal status, here is your chance to make a difference. Your vote in determining who represents your region is your voice in determining what happens at the Congress.

 

What are the origins of the World Zionist Congress? 

Theodor Herzl convened the first World Zionist Congress (WZC) in Basel, Switzerland (1897).  An assimilated Viennese Jew covering the Dreyfus trial for a local newspaper, Herzl saw the anti-Semitism manifest in the trumped-up charges against a Jewish captain in the French army as a harbinger of a fate that awaited Jews everywhere in Europe.  His response was to embrace the need to create a national homeland where Jews would be safe and free. The WZC was the first institutional step toward achieving this goal.  Foremost among the resolutions adopted by the Congress was one that defined the movement: “Zionism seeks to establish a home for the Jewish people in Palestine secured under public law.”

Approximately two hundred delegates  from seventeen countries attended.  Sixty-nine were representatives from various Zionist societies.  The remainder were individual invitees. In attendance were ten non­-Jews who were expected to abstain from voting. Seventeen women attended.  While women participated in the discussions, they did not then have voting rights.  Those were granted the following year, at the Second Zionist Congress

Herzl called the WZC “the Parliament of the Jewish People.”

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Excerpts From the Address of the President of the Central Conference of American Rabbis

Excerpts from the address of the president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, Rabbi Richard Block, to the CCAR Convention, Chicago, March 31, 2014. 

[In discussing Israel] criticism and attachment are not necessarily incompatible….. 

There are aspects of Israel I find annoying, demoralizing, even horrifying. I support ARZA, IRAC, IMPJ, and the World Union, and I urge you, especially, to promote and campaign actively for the ARZA slate in the forthcoming WZO elections, because our Movement’s funding in Israel depends on it, and because there are things about Israeli law and society that absolutely must change. However, these feelings are manifestations of my bond with Israel, not impediments to it, and they are overwhelmed by the pride I feel at what is admirable, exemplary, even miraculous about the Jewish state. When I have a quarrel with Israel, it is a lover’s quarrel.

But while criticism and attachment can surely co-exist, there are proper and improper times, places, and ways to critique others, if we want our admonitions to be heard and to do more good than harm. The Torah commands, “Reprove your neighbor, but incur no guilt because of him.” Rashi explains: Rebuke him, but do not shame him publically. Going further, the Talmud likens those who embarrass others in public to shedders of blood.

Israel needs a many things, but one thing it does not need is more public criticism, which is ubiquitous. Some is legitimate, but lacks context. Much of it is exaggerated, unfair, uninformed, or plainly wrong. Increasingly, it lurches from offensive to anti-Semitic, rationalizing the shortcomings of Israel’s adversaries and ignoring the worst abuses of others, focusing exclusively and obsessively on the Jewish State.  

…. I choose, instead, to heed the CCAR’s Centenary Platform on Reform Judaism & Zionism, which lists “political support” as the first of “our obligations to Israel.” I elect to make common cause with others who believe that Israel’s security depends on broad bipartisan political support for the US-Israel alliance, regardless which party controls Congress, the White House, and the Knesset. 

…I am not suggesting we pretend Israel is perfect, ignore the complex moral challenges it faces, disregard its occasional failures or excesses in the exercise of power, or encourage unquestioning approval of whatever its government does. Ardent support for Israel does not permit us to deny that Palestinians, too, have rights that deserve acknowledgment and suffer hardships no one would willingly bear. 

Where Israel is concerned, rabbis have a primary duty: to nurture ahavat Yisrael – love for, identification with, and attachment, loyalty and commitment to the Jewish state, its imperfections notwithstanding. The highest and best use of our pulpits and voices is not to focus on Israel’s flaws, but on its virtues, to rebut distortions, oversimplifications, and falsehoods, to provide context and perspective, to inoculate those who will study on campuses rife with anti-Israel hostility and to support them once they get there. It is to acquaint people with Israel the vibrant democracy, that guarantees freedom of speech, press, religion and assembly, where relentless self-scrutiny is the national pastime, and women, Arabs, religious minorities and gay and lesbian persons enjoy rights, protections, and opportunities unknown elsewhere in the region and most other places, the Israel that has sent humanitarian aid and emergency relief missions to more than 140 countries and provided medical care to more than 700 Syrians wounded in a genocide to the world seems mainly indifferent, the Israel that rescued tens of thousands of Ethiopian Jews, the only time in history that white people took black people out of Africa to free them, rather than enslave them, the Israel whose arts and culture are as rich as its geography is various and its beauty is breathtaking, the Israel whose myriad innovations in science, medicine, and technology are contributing so much to humanity, the Israel that is infinitely more than the sum of its conflicts.

It is also the Israel of my favorite poet, Yehuda Amichai, who wrote HaMakom SheBo Anu Tzodkim: The Place Where We Are Right.

From the place where we are right
Flowers will never grow
In the spring.

The place where we are right
Is hard and trampled
Like a yard.

But doubts and loves
Dig up the world
Like a mole, a plow.

And a whisper will be heard in the place
Where the ruined
House once stood.

A Great Family Reunion Made Possible by Zionism

Long before “diversity” became a buzzword, I was captivated by the fact that there are many different kinds of Jews. As the midrash says of humanity, so it can be said of Jews: though we were all stamped from the same mold, no two of us are alike—and that is a blessing!

My first exotic Jewish encounter was as a teenager when a group from my Reform congregation in Chappaqua, New York, spent a weekend with the Lubavitcher chasidim in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Though it was obvious from the outset that our hosts were hoping to recruit us to join their sect, my friends and I were neither disturbed nor moved by their efforts. We were there to enjoy an adventure in Jewish cultural anthropology, and it never dawned on us that we might leave our Jewish world to join theirs. We were perfectly happy being Reform Jewish teens—active in our synagogue, loving NFTY, and enjoying the pleasures of the secular world.

Nevertheless, I was profoundly moved by that visit to Crown Heights. I wanted to learn as much as I could about their customs and beliefs, from the way they dressed to their relationship with their Rebbe (who was still alive at that time). And my interest was not dispassionate. It was not like visiting a museum to learn about other civilizations. Despite our differences, I felt an immediate kinship with the people we met, a deep visceral feeling that these were my brothers and sisters, and I wanted to embrace them as my own, albeit on my own terms.

What I did not realize at the time was how that experience had opened a pathway in my Jewish consciousness. I had been infected with a bug called ahavat Yisrael, love for our fellow Jews. That value happens to be a core teaching of the Lubavitchers, but I don’t recall them making mention of it during our visit. What moved me was simply the encounter with another branch of my extended Jewish family.

A few years later, during college, I made my first aliyah to Israel. I spent a year studying at The Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and it was there that my Jewish horizons truly were expanded. Who knew there were so many different kinds of Jews! I met Jews from every part of the globe: dark-skinned Jews from Yemen, Iraq, and Morocco; Spanish-speaking Jews from South America; Jews with British, Australian, and Russian accents; Orthodox Jews, socialist Jews, Chasidic Jews of all kinds; Jews of every political persuasion, from Peace Now to Gush Emunim settlers, and everything in between. They differed in their appearance, language, culture, attitudes, and beliefs and practices. I had come from a world where Jews were united by religion. In Israel, it wasn’t clear that there was any unity at all. But there was!

We Jews, in all our glorious diversity, are a people, a nation, a family—and we share a home. I felt this immediately upon my arrival in Israel, and this feeling has never left me. Like the four children of the haggadah, no matter what questions we ask, we have a place at the table. Even those who reject our faith are welcome, alongside those who embrace our faith but reject our State.

This is the great gift that Zionism has given to Jews of every persuasion. It has brought us together as one colorful, contentious family—Am Yisrael, the Jewish People. By making it possible for Jews to return to our homeland, we have experienced a great family reunion at which we get to eat and drink, argue and love—together!

As we celebrate Israel’s 66th birthday this Yom Ha’atzma’ut, I pray that every Jew will embrace the spirit of Jewish pluralism that recognizes and celebrates the fact that we are one people united in all our resplendent diversity—a free people with a place we all can call home.

Chag Ha’atzma’ut sameach!

 

Rabbi Arnold S. Gluck is the Senior Rabbi at Temple Beth El in Hillsborough, NJ.  

Big Thoughts over Brunch in Baka

Pre-Shabbat in Jerusalem is digestion time. On Friday mornings in my neighborhood of Baka, the main avenue teems with voracious brunch-devourers eager to squish a weekend’s worth of consumption into one extended meal. As Shabbat preparations commence and stores rush to fulfill orders for 30 hours of commercial hiatus (shops close here!), unemployed students like me seize the moment to click out of Morfix¹ and into Israel. Digestion for me is 25 percent brunch and 75 percent psychology. While I scoop labne (Israeli yogurt) onto scrambled eggs and conquer the ziggurat of cucumbers and tomatoes shoveled generously onto my plate, I try to make sense of the previous week’s Jewish, academic, and social intensity.

Having lived in New York City since the age of 17, with time spent in Berlin, Madrid, Paris and Washington, DC for academic and professional pursuits, I became convinced that Manhattan was the definition of urban vibrancy. But after 10 months in Jerusalem, I must admit that the Big Apple has a contender. The Jerusalem week is like a pitching machine that spits out obligations and opportunities at a fervent pace – and the unrelenting force of serious questions pushes this wired New Yorker into new realms of exhaustion.

In Manhattan, career and partnership are my major concerns. After I decided to pursue the rabbinate, and fell in love with my now-fiancé, I felt as if my scores were in – I had passed – and could move from being interrogated into the role of interrogator. I was comfortable, but somewhat despondent. Had I peaked by age 27? Was I to exchange my cloak of youthful mystery and dynamism for a pair of safe and static orthotics? Thankfully, in Israel, this option is off the table.

Even the minor moments in Jerusalem demand big thinking. My cab driver doesn’t care where I’m going – (we decide that before I open the door) – but he wants to know how it is possible to live as a “real Jew” outside of Israel. My lunch conversations at school revolve around questions of whether maintaining a Jewish demographic majority can harmonize with democratic values. And on my walks to school, I’m enmeshed in an internal debate over the values and drawbacks of secular vs. day school education for my fiancé’s and my future children. Cruise control is a luxury that Jerusalem cannot afford, and therefore one is accountable for every moment. My cab driver seems to have the same privileges as my grandmother, asking questions that that no one else would think of asking me.

I did not acclimate to this audacious atmosphere with ease. I was a case study in defensiveness. At first, I was a tourist in denial, then a frustrated resident, followed by a bruised family member, and now, after almost a year, I am an empowered-but-struggling advocate. To thrive in Israel, you have to read and ruminate, listen and linger. During my first few months here, I spent Fridays buried in The New York Times and catching up on missed seasons of Mad Men. I used my only time off to do a system update on my New York self, consistently avoiding the incipient Jewish-Jerusalem identity that was blooming despite me.

When winter break arrived and I finally made time for Amos Oz’s A Tale of Love and Darkness, an insatiable appetite for Israeli literature was born, and with it, a willingness to check my New York loyalties at the door in order to give this miracle of a Jewish State a chance. Oz’s autobiographical novel opened a window to the birth of the Jewish state through the eyes of a brilliant and sensitive young Jerusalemite whose life converged with many of Israel’s founding intellectual elites.

In David Grossman’s To the End of the Land, I met Ora, a woman with a desperate love and concern for her soldier son who attempts to evade wartime fate by hiking the National Israel Trail. The sensory discovery of her connection to Eretz Yisrael has guided my own trips to the Galilee where much of her journey takes place.

Noted historian Anita Shapira illuminates the multi-faceted constellation of modern Israeli identity, among which journalist Ari Shavit and fiction writer Etgar Keret shine brightly through their individual encounters with modern Israel, real and imagined. This outpouring of hearts in turmoil is complex and critical, daring and deep, and the more I read, the more I identify with these authors’ participation in the task of Am Yisrael – to build a Jewish and democratic state that reckons honestly with the promise and pitfalls of power.

As I write this I am studying Parashat M’tzorah, which presents a treatise on categories of purity and impurity. With elaborate and time-consuming instructions for cleansing the tainted, we learn that transition between these categories is not lurching, but laborious. So, too, has been my transition from inexperienced tourist to implicated ally. I did not slaughter any turtledoves (Lev 14:22), but the journey between these two identities has demanded the sacrifice of that tender naivety that allowed me to look away from Israel toward iTunes and other distractions. I’m hooked now. I fell in love.

Once again, I’ve conquered my vegetable ziggurat, my eggs have gotten cold and the labne has made its way from my plate to my sleeves. The café is closing for Shabbat and another 30 hours of urban rest is descending upon us. I thank God for the blessing of a city that demands so much and reciprocates by shutting down and backing off. I need Saturdays to snuggle up with my Israeli authors and continue this incredible journey. For the more I read, the better I love, and the deeper this imperfect Jewish miracle plants itself into the landscape of my soul.

1. Online Hebrew-English Dictionary
2. Amos Oz. In the Land of Israel, 33.

Juliana Schnur is a first-year rabbinical student at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Jerusalem and a Wexner Graduate Fellow. 

Re-printed from the UREJ Ten Minutes of Torah, April 16, 2014

Information about the World Zionist Congress Elections and ARZENU

Make your voice heard, make a difference
If you care about the Reform Movement in Israel, if you support egalitarian prayer, if you believe in freedom of religion, the right of Reform rabbis to conduct marriage, divorce, burial and conversion, if you believe that women should have equal status, here is your chance to make a difference. Join the ARZENU Reform Zionist group in your country and vote in the World Zionist Congress elections. This is the best way for you to directly influence and impact the future of the Reform Movement in Israel and of the Jewish people around the globe.

What is the World Zionist Organization?
Established in 1897, the World Zionist Organization (WZO) is often called the “Parliament of the Jewish people.” It was convened by Theodor Herzl in Basel and since its inception its goal was to unite the Jewish people and bring about the establishment of the Jewish state. The World Zionist Organization is a global organization supported by Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael (the Jewish National Fund), the Jewish Agency for Israel, Keren Hayesod (United Jewish Appeal) and the Government of Israel.

There are three types of membership in the World Zionist Organization:

1. International Zionist political parties which compete in elections for their representation, such as the Orthodox, Conservative, Reform (ARZENU), Reconstructionists, World Likud, Meretz, Shas, etc.
2. International Jewish organizations which have fixed representation and do not compete in elections (the World Union for Progressive Judaism, World Mizrachi, Hadassah, WIZO, B’nai Brith, Maccabi, and others)
3. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, Israeli political parties have been represented in the WZO based on their relative strength in the Israeli Knesset elections (Likud, Labor, Shas, Meretz, Israel Beiteinu, etc.).

Every five years the WZO convenes a Congress whose representation is determined by democratic elections amongst the international Zionist political parties. Between congresses the Zionist General Council (the Vaad Hapoel) convenes annually for discussions on pressing matters on the agenda of the Jewish people. Participation in one election is effective for five full years!

Representation in the World Zionist Congress elections
The next World Zionist Organization elections will be held worldwide in 2015. Israeli citizens are represented in the elections through political parties in Israel; world Jews are represented through international Zionist political parties to which they belong.

Out of 30 countries represented in the WZO, the Reform Movement has constituent ARZENU organizations in 14 countries. ARZENU is the umbrella organization for all Reform Zionist organizations worldwide.

Member organizations of ARZENU are: ARZA U.S., ARZA Canada, ARZA Australia, ARZA Netherlands, ARZENU South Africa, ARZENU Germany, ARZENU Spain, ARZENU Hungary, ARZENU Switzerland, ARZENU France, Pro Zion in Britain and Austria, Jason ARZENU Argentina, and Chazit Mitkademet in Brazil.

Why are the elections important?
As with the Israel Knesset elections, whoever wins the most votes receives the most important positions and control of budgets, and so it is with the World Zionist Congress elections.

How is this manifested?
Today the Reform Movement in Israel receives allocations of $4.5 to $5 million per annum from the Jewish Agency, Keren Kaymeth LeIsrael (JNF) and Keren Hayesod.

And how does this work? For example the WZO is a 50% owner of the Jewish Agency and therefore appoints 50% of the representatives to the Board of the Jewish Agency. Thus it can strongly impact who will be the chairman of the Agency or the agenda and priorities of the Agency. The same is applicable to the other organizations. In other words, the WZO plays an important role in making decisions on who is appointed to key positions in these organizations. Simply put: whoever has the largest number of representatives in Congress will set goals and have access to the centers of power and money.

For example: On behalf of the Reform Movement in Israel ARZENU uses its power to impact the Jewish Agency budget allocation for religious streams: ARZENU tries to prevent or limit the size of budget cuts to the streams and has largely been successful.

Who are our partners?
Following the last elections to the World Zionist Congress, ARZENU established a Joint Faction with the World Labor Zionist Movement and Meretz Olami (the political arms abroad of these Israeli Knesset parties). This Joint Faction allows us to influence the Knesset and Israeli society. For example, when we fought against the Rotem conversion law we cooperated with the above parties to influence the legislative process.

Another recent example: At the Zionist General Council meetings held in early November 2013, the Joint Faction, spearheaded by ARZENU, was able to pass three resolutions calling on the Israeli government to implement the establishment of egalitarian prayer at the Wall, to pass a marriage and civil divorce law and to prosecute Israelis who incite racism.

The bottom line – what can I do?
Every member country in the WZO has an allocation of delegates based on the Jewish population of that country. For example, the U.S. has 145 delegates at the World Zionist Congress (out of 500 delegates in total). Every 5 years an election is held within each country to determine the composition of the delegates. If you participate in this process, and vote for your ARZENU constituent organization, you make an immediate difference to the future of the Reform Movement.

At a date to be announced – probably towards the beginning of 2015 – all international Zionist political parties will go to the polls. According to the results obtained in these elections each Zionist political party will receive its allocation of delegates to the Congress.

In the last elections, ARZA US gained 56 representatives (out of 145). The entire ARZENU political party received 83 delegates worldwide out of 500. By joining forces with its faction partners, ARZENU became the leader of the largest faction in the WZO with a combined total of 159 representatives. The goal this time is to increase our representation and in order to achieve this we need everyone who participated in the past to do so again and to encourage even more people to register and vote this time.

Who can vote?
Anyone who is Jewish, is over the age of 18 and who signs the “Jerusalem Program.” In addition representatives to the Congress must make a modest annual contribution to UJA/Keren Hayesod and to the JNF-KKL.

The “Jerusalem Program” is the shared vision of all organizations and institutions of WZO and includes amongst its principles:

• Unity of the Jewish people and the connection to Israel
• A democratic and egalitarian state according to the vision of the prophets
• Aliyah and settlement in Israel
• The centrality of Israel to the Jewish world
• Dissemination of Jewish culture and education
• Hebrew language
• Fighting anti-Semitism

If Israel and the above issues are important to you, please register as a member of ARZENU in your country and vote in the elections. For further details on how to do this please contact Dalya Levy, Executive Director, ARZENU, +972-54-644-2427, dalya@arzenu.org.il

It’s Time To Talk About Israel

To my fellow Jewish millennials, it’s time we talk about Israel. Not as the Birthright State or as Iran’s biggest enemy or the place with that city with the great beaches, but rather as a State we can call our own. I’m ready to start the conversation and I hope you’ll join me, because it’s wrong that so many of us think the State of Israel has no relevance in our day-to-day lives.

To suggest that there is no Jewish need for the State of Israel in 2014/5774 is akin to saying that the synagogue is irrelevant in Jewish life. For many, neither the synagogue nor Israel is a meaningful outlet for expressing or participating in their personal Judaism, but that makes neither irrelevant. Such a worldview is a personal approach to Judaism that is a consequence of the Jewish community’s past inability to think creatively about engagement. In no way should a disinterest in Israel or a synagogue automatically diminish the value of Judaism to the individual, but it does change the concept of where one goes to express their Judaism, and how they do it once there.
Both Israel and the synagogue, as collectives of individuals, have the unique and unfettered ability to create a Jewish collage that not only lifts up each of the individuals, but also those who surround them – their community. They both allow us to “do Judaism” on a macro level. The Jewish commitment to tikkun olam, as only one example, can be magnified tremendously when we act as communities, not as individuals. Many would correctly argue that you can participate in tikkun olam outside of a Jewish community, but it can only be the actions of our community and its leadership that show we care and we “do” because we are Jewish. Yes, an individual can do good regardless of their status within the Jewish community, but is it not their Jewish upbringing and Jewish values that – even in the smallest part – guide them to do good? It must be, for the vast majority of Jews do acts of righteousness because it is the Jewish thing to do, not because it is “the thing” to do. Israel, as our State, is one of the few places where a person can go in order to act Jewishly and with intent among a community of other Jews. This magnifies and multiplies the products of our action, and we must use this power as an opportunity to do right.

Israel, as a State, also presents us with the opportunity to share the international stage with nations of other faiths and values. At first glance this might appear meaningless, but nations are uniquely positioned to lead their people to act in accordance with a certain set of values. For one, Israel’s standing peace treaties with both Egypt and Jordan demonstrate that the political divides in the Middle East are not founded on religious differences between Jews and Muslims, despite what extremists on either side might preach. These treaties provide us with inspiration to pursue common ground in our own communities, in order that we might find peace globally. Along the same lines, when the Jewish State chooses to intervene in any situation in the global arena, it does so in the name of Judaism. This, too, is a tremendous right and responsibility, and one that, when taken with good intention, serves to lift up the Jewish people as a righteous group. In short, there is both an opportunity and a responsibility for the State to lead the Jewish people. Simultaneously, however, it falls on the Jewish people to ensure that those who represent us and act on our behalf in the name of the State are acting with the best intent, and that their actions demonstrate the Jewish values which we hold most dear.

If only one thing is agreed upon, it must be that too often, the politics of Israel’s relations, both domestic and foreign, cloud our understanding of the critical role the State plays in our peoples’ ability to not only survive, but thrive. When we are able to appreciate the State for what in can offer – as opposed to what it does – and when we advocate and insist that the State must live up to the highest of Jewish standards, we have limitless potential to strengthen both our communities and ourselves as Jews.

Isaac Nuell currently serves as the Religious Action Center’s Manager of Congregational Social Action.

A Guide to the Relationship Between the World Zionist Organization and ARZA Australia

Steve Denenberg is the Executive Director at the Union for Progressive Judaism in Sydney, Australia.