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.
Monthly Archives: April 2023
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.