As the Jewish holiday Shavuot approaches, we commemorate the giving of the Torah as a set of legal and moral requirements. Many of the laws and precepts of the Torah apply to both Jews and non-Jews, and this is especially true as to the ethical requirements of honesty with one’s neighbors. As constituents in Congressional District 3, we can’t help but reflect on the approaching holiday and to conclude that the lawless and unethical Rep. George Santos cannot be permitted to continue to sit in a seat of power.
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AN OPEN LETTER TO THE JEWISH FEDERATIONS OF NORTH AMERICA AND THE ATTENDEES OF THE 2023 GENERAL ASSEMBLY by UnXeptable
To the Jewish Federations of North America and the 2023 General Assembly Attendees,
It is with both deep pain and tremendous hope that we write this letter.
The actions taken since January by the current Israeli government and its plans, should they come to fruition, would lead to the end of Israel as a democratic state and as a homeland for all Jews. While never a perfect democracy, Israel has always maintained a strong judicial branch with a democratic structure and checks and balances that have provided equality and protection to all of its citizens. Painfully, we see how Netanyahu’s government, without broad consensus, is attempting to void the power of the judicial branch in order to promote legislation that would jeopardize civil and human rights. This legislation would put at risk women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, religious and ethnic minority rights within Israel, the rights of Palestinians in the occupied territories, the right to pray as non-Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem’s holiest site, and even the right to make Aliyah.
Civil Disobedience: A Passover Story by Ayala Emmett
The Midwives started it. The Book of Genesis recounts that the midwives refused Pharaoh’s edict to kill the Hebrew baby boys. A birthing mother followed them. She saw her baby son and used the word, good, tov, recalling God’s word in creation. God saw creation and “it was good.” The word good gave the mother strength to disobey the Pharaoh; she put her baby on the Nile where high ranking women bathed. What did a mother/all mothers hope when the life of their children is threatened? That people would see a child/all children created in God’s image. It was the daughter of Pharaoh, the third in the story to act in civil disobedience. She adopted the Hebrew-forbidden-baby and named him Moses. The women’s disobedience was how Moses came to lead a slave revolt – Let My People Go.
Up From Slavery by Peter Eisenstadt
When Israel was in Egypt land. It has never been easy when two peoples live in the same country. It’s very difficult to share a county. Especially when one of the peoples thinks they are the superior one, and the thinks the other inferior. Or thinks that they are the masters, and the other people are their slaves, without rights, and that their lives can be trifled with, or ended, with impunity, without repercussions. The Egyptians wanted to end the situation by ending the existence of the Israelites. The Israelites only wanted to get out of Egypt. No one thought it possible to live together as equals.
The Plague of Plastic by Deborah Kornfeld
We are standing at a strange time in history. We are witnessing plagues of Biblical dimensions; floods, fires, diseases, infestations and climate changes- real life consequences of human impact on the environment. In the Exodus story in Sh’mot, it took taking the life of Pharaoh’s first-born child for the Israelites to be liberated from Egypt. Can we confront these modern plagues in a positive way and impact on the toll they are taking on humans and the environment?
We invite a young family to our house for Shabbat lunch. The cholent is bubbling and the table set with our Shabbat china. There is a little girl in the family and when she sees the table she innocently asks “What are those?” pointing to the china. I tell her that those dishes are my special Shabbat china. She asks a second question “do you mean that other people have eaten off of them?” Suddenly my china has developed a “yuck” factor. Kashrut blended with a new hygienic sense has made my grandmother’s china a little disgusting.
May I Ask You To Give One Sign To My Son? By Matia Kam
Thursday morning. The day of disruption. Demonstrations for democracy and the judicial system are starting in the early morning. At the morning demonstration in Givatayim there are students, teachers, parents, grandmothers, and grandfathers. And so many young people. On that morning I came to the rally with signs from the ethics of Torah, Deuteronomy 16:
“… And you shall judge the people with justice.”
“You shall not skew a judgment, you shall not exercise favor and you shall not take bribes…”
“Justice, justice you shall pursue – that you may thrive and inherit the land…”
“May I ask you to give one sign to my son? I want to take a picture of him with the sign and the verses you have.” A young mother turns to me. And adds, “Would you also want to be in the photograph?” I am delighted. A cute boy, the age of my grandchildren. Came to demonstrate with mom and friends.
A few people come close to read my post. Others nod from a distance. One not-so-young woman steps aside. I’m looking to get out of the crowds, cautious despite the mask and the open air and stand next to the mother handing her one of my signs. I smile at her. She raises her tearful face and tells me: “I’m from a house where my mother was secular but my father was religious. We had a traditional house with the consent of both parents. My father passed away some time ago, and before he died, he asked: ‘Take care of our country. May there be no destruction of a Third Temple.’ I promised him,” she tells me crying, “and now I see the third destruction already…”. Someone else comes up to us. An acquaintance of mine from previous protests. The tearful woman is a little embarrassed, wiping her eyes and saying: “It’s good that you came up with these verses. It’s important that people know what a Jewish state is,” I hug her. She touches my heart. Then she adds: “You probably remember that verse about the corrupt ministers who are mentioned in the Bible.” I begin to quote, and she joins: “Your rulers are corrupt and friends of thieves all love bribes and greedy for gifts” (Isaiah 1:23). And she takes out a handkerchief, “That’s what my dad meant. This is our third destruction.” With my hand on her shoulder, I try to encourage her: “Do you see all those who come to demonstrate here, and all the millions who have come and come all over the country for three months to all the demonstrations? All of us together – the whole nation together – will prevent the destruction. Since the establishment of the state, the good people have won the wars. True, the wars were tough, the price was heavy – but we succeeded. So we will also win this war. And we will remove the bad government from our good land.”
The demands for social justice, equality, fair trial, the prohibition of injustice and bribery are not contemporary slogans, and have not been formulated by one party or another. These are fundamental and explicit requirements in Jewish tradition – directly from the Torah. The oldest – and also the most topical. Ethics of the Torah. This is the Torah that the people of Israel received at Mount Sinai, with the Ten Commandments. This is the Torah that for more than two thousand years has been read every Shabbat in the synagogue (or at home). This is the Torah on which we grew up at home, in schools, in the youth movements of the young State of Israel. This is the moral of the Torah woven through the great prophets – Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, which we read in our synagogues – in the haftarah on Shabbat and festivals. And on Yom Kippur!
These prophetic values are etched in Israel’s Declaration of Independence: “The State of Israel… will be founded on the foundations of freedom, justice and peace in the light of the vision of the prophets of Israel… Israel will uphold complete equality of social and political rights for all its citizens regardless of religion, race or sex.” And this declaration is the state of Israel that is fighting for its soul – and fighting its greatest battle: for its identity and its very existence as a Jewish-democratic state.
We will not stand idly by. It is about our soul and very existence. We are standing together, center, left and right voters, secular and religious, Druze and Bedouins and others. We are all together – in favor of a Jewish and democratic State of Israel. Together with all of you in the US and around the world standing up for Tzedek.
Judaism and democracy are one and the same!
Gadi Gvrayhu, Chairman of Tag Meir speaking to thousands in front of the president’s house in Jerusalem
Shavua tov, Jerusalem,
Thank you for inviting me to speak on behalf of the Tag Meir Forum.
We formed Tag Meir eleven years ago in order to fight hate crimes, racism, incitement, terror, and acts of revenge. We go on solidarity visits and, to our sorrow, also to consolation visits to mourners on all sides.
Last Monday, our representatives attended the ever so sad funerals of Hallel and Yagel Yaniv, z”l, who were murdered in Hurawa by despicable people. On Tuesday, we went to Har Brakha to console the Yaniv family for this horrific murder, and on Wednesday, we went on a solidarity visit to Huwara after the rampage of hundreds of Jews in the village, in which scores of homes and hundreds of vehicles were set ablaze. We saw there on the main road of the village homes that were set afire through the piling up of tires in their doorways. There was very little distance between what we saw in Huwara and the murder of the Dawabshe family in the village of Duma, which we also saw.
This was supposed to be about Tag Meir’s solidarity visit to Hawara. In a way, it still is by Naomi Schlagman
Tag Meir, committed to eradicating racism and violence in Israel, organized a solidarity visit to Hawara on March 2nd, two days after a large group of settlers marauded through the streets of the West Bank village following the shooting murder of two Israeli brothers. A prominent and altruistic member of the village was killed during the rampage. When I asked Gadi Gvaryahu, the founder and Chairman of Tag Meir, to put me in touch with people who had joined their solidarity visit to Hawara, one name he sent me was ג׳סי בורק.
An Urgent Plea To American Jews by Matia Kam
On behalf of the very many troubled Israelis – whose numbers are growing daily – we are calling on American Jews to support us in our fight for democracy and the judicial in this existential moment in our history. We are facing the worst ever crisis since the founding of Israel 75 year ago.
President Herzog warned that the legislation being prepared for readings in the Knesset’s Constitution, Law and Justice Committee “is wrong, predatory and dismantles our democratic foundations.”
For us it is no longer a political right-left dispute – this is a judicial, moral and ethical crisis that threatens the very foundation and identity of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. As Rabbi Lichtenstein emphasized last night at a rally in Jerusalem – Justice is a fundamental Jewish value. Tzedek, Tzedek you shall pursue.
Enemies: An Antisemitism Story By Naomi Schlagm
On Sunday, February 26th I participated in a rally in support of Israelis who are protesting to keep the state Jewish and democratic. The rally was sponsored by unXeptable, which calls itself, “a grassroots movement launched by Israel expats in support of a democratic Israel.” Two of my adult children and their families also attended this event.
My daughter, who lived in Israel for several years, is part of a local Israeli expat WhatsApp group. Someone posted about the event on this group, and another member must have driven by the rally, after which she posted a response (in Hebrew) along with a photo. “These are the ‘love’ signs for the State of Israel. A boy with a kipah calling the State of Israel racist, and a man with a sign calling Israel a dictatorship. This is self-flagellation. This is what our enemies need to see.”