Category Archives: Current Events

Christian Support for Israel

Posted on May 6, 2010 | 6 comments

Should Jews in Israel – people or institutions – accept charitable donations from Christians ?

This controversy has roiled many religious Israelis, and even provoked a public conference during Pesach that answered this question in the negative – and vehemently so. What is the background, and what are the issues ?

There are many Christian groups, primarily but not exclusively evangelicals, that are among the most enthusiastic financial and political supporters of the State of Israel. One in particular, the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, was founded 27 years by Orthodox Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, and that organization has donated well over $100,000,000 (that’s one hundred million dollars) to the Jewish poor in Israel, and were especially instrumental in facilitating the aliya and resettlement of hundreds of thousands of Jews from the former Soviet Union. The IFCJ stepped in when assistance was desperately needed – winter coats and blankets, food for the hungry, etc. He has come under withering attack, which he –dedicated to building bridges between Jews and Christians – has borne quite well. But what exactly should be controversial about Christians helping the Jewish poor ?

Many of the opponents , including Rabbis for whom I have great respect, argue that it is a desecration of G-d’s name to accept charity from non-Jews. In that contention, they are not wrong, and would that we could provide assistance to all Jewish poor. But such considerations do not inhibit many Jewish poor in America from accepting welfare, food stamps, and all sorts of government assistance (even as I wish it would). So Chilul Hashem (desecration of G-d’s name) in this context seems to be a bit elastic.

The more prevalent reason, often articulated, is the fear that Christian evangelicals will use their contacts in Israel in order to proselytize, and that it reflects a certain Christian eschatological view that requires that all Jews be in Israel for the Second Coming to take place. Each argument needs to be analyzed separately.

Israeli law bans proselytizing, even if it is rarely enforced, and when enforced, has few consequences. It reflects the obvious point that Israel is the Jewish State, and that proselytizing, despite being part of the Christian faith (depending on denomination), is a disrespectful act in the Jewish state. Certainly, to my knowledge, IFCJ has never been involved in missionary work, nor have most of the Christian organizations that involved in Israeli charitable endeavors.

Naturally, I oppose any attempts to convert Jews (as I do any attempts to convert Christians to other faiths, including Judaism) but I hasten to add that I have never been troubled by missionaries. In my spirited youth, I used to debate them on street corners and through correspondence. The bottom line is: we should be able to compete in the marketplace of ideas. If we do not reach fragile Jews with the message of Torah, we have only ourselves to blame. We have a most wonderful product that all thinking Jews should explore. And if our failures are exacerbated by our inability to provide financial or emotional support to these wayward Jews, and Christians step into that breach, the fault is, again, ours. The happy, intelligent, educated Jew who feels a part of the Jewish community is not in any danger from missionaries.

What of the Christian belief that utilizes support for Israel in order to advance a distinctly Christian eschatological agenda ? I don’t believe this is the case. I have spoken to evangelicals – leaders and laymen – and to a person they have rooted their support for Israel and love for Jews in the Bible’s admonition (Isaac’s blessing to Jacob) “those who curse you will be cursed, and those who bless you will be blessed.” The latter is powerful motivation indeed, and has been the catalyst not only for the substantial financial support provided Israel but also for the political support. Many see America’s prosperity as predicated on its support for Jews and Israel and – especially recently – fear America’s decline and financial woes are traceable to its wavering support for Israel. And, of those Christians who await the Second Coming and support Israel accordingly, so be it. I don’t share that belief, but they are certainly entitled to it. The poor who benefit likely could care less what is in the hearts of these eschatologists. Overt friendship is more meaningful than a covert conviction.

Today, evangelical Christians are the leading supporters of Israel in the United States, (frankly) shaming Jews both in the depth and consistency of their support. They can muster 40,000,000 (that’s forty million) e-mails within hours, and influence policy, while Jewish organizations meet, and talk, and discuss, and brainstorm, and strategize, and then issue a watered-down apologia. (Case in point: in April 2002, President Bush ordered – ordered ! – Prime Minister Sharon to remove Israeli tanks from Jenin and withdraw Israeli forces after the first few days of Operation Defensive Shield. He was quite adamant about it, but then, two days later, nothing. Silence from the White House. What changed ? Forty million e-mails (count ‘em) from Christian evangelicals calling on the President to support Israel’s right of self-defense as Israel sees fit.) Time and again, American policy towards Israel these days is driven by evangelicals and not – as we think – by Jews, whose support for Israel is often tepid and unreliable, who lack the raw numbers of Christians to make a political difference, and who are knee-jerk Democrats and therefore often irrelevant to the process.

Most Jews, sad to say, do not believe in the divine origin of the Bible, and so they do not accept that the Jewish people are in the land of Israel by divine right. The leading advocates of the biblical right to the land of Israel for the Jewish people are Orthodox Jews and Christian evangelicals. That is why the commitments of both those communities are unswerving, and occasionally necessitate challenging and emboldening even the government of Israel. That friendship and that support are, therefore, unconditional, and that is not a common experience for Jews or Israelis.

A people with few friends should embrace all those who offer friendship, and not assume improper motivation. Of course, part of the discomfort is justified, a legacy of two millennia of Christian outrages against Jews – violence, mass murder, forced conversion, persecution, economic deprivation, and the like. But it is important that we not trap ourselves in a 19^th or 15^th century paradigm. Christians have changed; while there are still pockets of Jew hatred, the average Christian – in America, and in much of the world outside of Europe – harbors no innate enmity towards Jews. Christian tourists flock to Israel because it is the Jewish state. Most Christians seek to support Israel for positive and virtuous reasons, and it ill-behooves us to interpret that as sinister. And, perhaps most importantly, Jews and Christians today share a common enemy – radical Islam, which has a rabid hatred of Jews but also an open contempt for Christianity. Bear in mind that Jews and Christians lived as second-class citizens in the Muslim world (Coptic Christians in Egypt even today, to name one group). It would be most advantageous if Jews fought today’s battle together with our natural allies, rather than re-fought the battles of the 11^th and 12^th centuries.

When the Temple stood, non-Jews brought offerings as well, in accordance with Jewish law. We long for the day when “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations,” when all nations will flock to Jerusalem, from which the word of G-d emanates. We should guard against illegal proselytizing, to be sure, but I prefer to believe that the assistance and support Israel receives from Christians is a harbinger of that awesome day when the kingdom of G-d on earth will be recognized by all mankind.

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Posted in Contemporary Life, Current Events, Israel, Jewish History

Arizona Iced Tea Party

Posted on April 29, 2010 | 3 comments

The imbroglio in Arizona over its new and controversial anti-immigration law is a classic instance where politics has trumped law and common sense, inevitably engendering the current strife.

On the surface, the anti-immigration bill seems innocuous enough, merely the precise restatement of an existing federal statute that permits the verification of the immigrant status of any individual and their deportation upon arrest. That federal law has been in existence for a quarter-century, and basically unenforced by a series of pusillanimous politicians pandering to the Hispanic vote, the theory being that Hispanic-Americans favor widespread immigration – even illegal – of other Hispanics, regardless of their effect on the society.

And the effect – in states like Arizona, New Mexico, California and even New York – has been dramatic and mostly deleterious to the common weal. The federal government, nominally in charge of immigration matters through its constituent ICE (Immigrations and Customs Enforcement), has long refused – for the most part – to control the Southern border with Mexico, most of which is not even secured by a fence. Thousands pour in across the border monthly. In one infamous case, two Border Patrol agents were arrested and incarcerated for shooting at an illegal who was fleeing after selling drugs. The illegals bring with them crime – mostly drugs and scattered violence – and usually escape punishment. They drive without licenses or insurance, work without paying taxes, can be deported after arrest – simply to return on the next convoy.

Certainly, many come to America only to seek a better life – but they mock the country’s laws and those who abided by them and came legally, waiting their turn and gaining the appropriate sponsors. As egregious, the federal government – not content to ignore its own laws – mandates that the states pay for free health care, public education and social services for these individuals. As they largely do not pay taxes, they receive far more in benefits than they pay into the system – and have brought many states to the brink of bankruptcy, and California (fiscal gimmicks aside) over the brink. These are not refugees fleeing persecution – but they are soaking up the limited resources of the state and depleting the budget that should be used for the benefit of the tax-paying citizens. No wonder Arizonans were outraged, so outraged that illegal immigration is now a …misdemeanor in Arizona.

So if the law is already on the books, why the leftist outrage against Arizona ? Why the calls for a boycott ? What could possibly be a cogent argument against mere enforcement of a law designed to protect the country ?

One approach – typical of the left and other non-thinkers – has been to label the law’s advocates “racists,” as if that needs no elaboration. Calling someone a “racist” (or its equivalents, “sexist,” “bigot,” “homophobe,” xenophobe”) has become a substitute for argument and reasoned discourse. To be accused of “racism” is an accusation that needs no evidence and cannot be disproved, and even taints the accused for life regardless of its merits. Analogously, the tea-party movement is now regularly subjected to the “racism” accusation because it is composed mainly of white people. (Of course, since 97% of blacks voted for President Obama – certainly having nothing to do with his race – the pool of non-whites who will publicly oppose his policies is relatively miniscule, a point apparently “lost” on these critics.)

But each crime committed by an illegal – each mugging, each burglary, each drunk-driving, each homicide – further intensifies the strong feelings of the citizenry against them, and leaves good people with only three options: accept the status quo (non-enforcement by the federal government of its own laws), vigilante actions by individuals taking the law into their own hands, or passing a state law and empowering state law enforcement to crack down. They have chosen, rightly, the third option.

The courts have not helped by prohibiting the police, in many jurisdictions, from even inquiring as to someone’s immigration status – even after arrest – bizarre, unless one realizes the power of the immigration lobby and the pathetic fear of the politicians that they will lose votes. It is strange, no doubt, that those most affected by the rise of illegal immigration are those legal immigrants or unskilled workers whose jobs are being taken by the illegals. Some Hispanics have caught on to this; most blacks have yet to catch on. Illegal immigration harms their economic interests; but the politics of the matter and the cries of their racial-huckstering-leaders overwhelm their reason.

The second argument raised against the bill also employs a phrase that is today, unthinkingly, fighting words in America: “racial profiling.” Indeed, the bill seems to profile based on race, giving law enforcement the right to detain for questioning anyone if there is “reasonable suspicion” that they are here illegally. Of course, how does such a “reasonable suspicion” arise – how does an illegal look ? Head down, furtive glances, dashing eyes, shifty feet ? Clearly, it targets Hispanics, and the law might not pass constitutional muster on that basis. But should it ?

I have long questioned the reasonableness of laws, policies, or court decisions that are designed – in the first instance – to protect the criminals and the guilty (personal note: I am a former criminal defense attorney). I am fully aware of the regulations on illegal stops, searches and seizures, the Exclusionary Rule, and all the other safeguards dictated by the Supreme Court (Mapp, Gideon, Miranda and all the others). But does it make any sense ? In a saner time, Justice Cardozo (and YU’s Law School was named for him!) said: “Should the criminal go free because the constable has blundered?” By all means, penalize police officers who are abusive and themselves criminals. But we all forfeit certain rights for the greater good (most New Jerseyans cannot carry a firearm in public, and it is nearly impossible to be licensed for it). I cannot drive at 100 mph despite my superior driving skills. Do I object to having cameras in public places, monitored at some central location for the protection of the citizenry – like the ACLU objects, again and again ? No ! Why would I – I am not committing any crimes. Only the criminals – and their lobbyists – would object.

If I was lurking in a strange neighborhood, looking like I didn’t belong, would I object to being asked for my identification ? Why would I ? I am probably just lost. Racial profiling was banned several years ago in New Jersey because minorities were being stopped disproportionately – and disproportionately found to be in possession of contraband ! So, what exactly is the objection ? Criminals usually fit a certain profile. We don’t object to invasive searches at the airport, even if they are unnecessary for most passengers. But we should object, for racial profiling works (of course the Israelis do it). Of course, airport security should be more focused on 25 year-olds named Ahmed than 75 year-old named Agnes; that is common sense. But common sense is in shorter and shorter supply. “Racial profiling” has become, illogically, malum in se, inherently evil. But if the majority of illegals in a certain geographical area are of a certain race or ethnicity, why shouldn’t they get greater scrutiny ? That makes sense, and if a small number of legal residents are mistakenly asked to show their drivers’ licenses for identification – so what ? It is a small inconvenience for the sake of a greater good. We are asked to show ID for a variety of innocuous acts – cashing a check, using a credit card, entering a government building – although, curiously but typically, not when it comes to voting – another hidden cost of the illegal invasion. We shouldn’t make a federal case – literally – out of a small inconvenience that ultimately benefits the inconvenienced.

Already in America, the majority of citizens have the votes that demand that the minority support them. The welfare state is becoming stifling and oppressive. The citizens of Arizona – a little heavy-handed, to be sure, but left no real option – have risen up, whites and some blacks and Hispanics, to try to salvage their polity. They are being savaged by people with an agenda that threatens our way of life, and being made pariahs. They have said “enough,” and they are right.

Jews have long benefited from America’s immigration policies – more than in any other country in the exile, and even considering the barriers erected in the 1920s and 1930s. We know what it is like to be an immigrant, to seek a better life on these shores, and so it is hard to oppose others who seek the same advantages. So we should support legal immigration – especially of those who come to give and not just to take – and join with what seems to be a majority of rational Americans in lending our support to the beleaguered citizens of Arizona. Buy Arizona Iced Tea (actually, a New York company). Build a fence, patrol it daily, arrest and deport all illegals.

Otherwise, undoubtedly, Muslim terrorists will learn the easy access to America from its porous southern border – if they haven’t already – and we will have only ourselves to blame.

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Posted in Contemporary Life, Current Events

A Look in the Mirror

Posted on April 25, 2010 | Comments Off

When the findings of the National Jewish Population Survey (2000-2001) were released, it unleashed a torrent of controversy, clamor, and the customary competing conclusions. Some of the basic and tragic information assembled has already been widely disseminated: the shrinking Jewish population in the United States (estimated at 5.2 million self-proclaimed Jews, with the real Jewish population probably closer to 4 million), the rise in intermarriage (today 47% of Jews who marry actually marry a non-Jew), and the steady erosion of Jewish commitment to Torah, mitzvot, and support of Israel.

The above was duly publicized, if also somewhat sugar-coated in its distribution (e.g., “a smaller rate of increase in intermarriage”was held to be good news). What was not widely disseminated were the specific findings relating to Orthodox Jews in America. The results are fascinating, eye-opening, exhilarating, and depressing at the same time. In short: Orthodox Jews are thriving, the Jewish people generally are suffering – and so Orthodox Jews are suffering too.

A note about methodology: A wag once said “figures lie, and liars can figure”. One can take any set of statistics and interpret them any which way. I have always maintained that these surveys grossly undercount the number of Orthodox Jews, because we are concentrated in a very small geographical area. More American Jews today live in the southern and western parts of America, but 2/3 of Orthodox Jews live in the Northeast – hence the plethora of kosher pizza stores nearby. Certainly drawing conclusions about the habits and beliefs of millions of people from a sample of 4500 respondents is a daunting task, but spreading those questionnaires across the country will of necessity diminish the Orthodox population – thousands of whom can reside in one apartment building in Brooklyn.

And – perhaps the most subtle flaw – the responses were all voluntary and reflect the self-definition of the respondents. I.e., those who are Jews are those who say they are Jews, like those who are Orthodox are those who say they are Orthodox. Thus, these anomalies were generated: 22% of self-proclaimed Orthodox Jews said they carry or spend money on Shabbat, and 16% of self-proclaimed Orthodox Jews – according to the survey – claimed they do not keep kosher even at home. One wonders by what definition they construe themselves as Orthodox.

Nonetheless, accepting the statistics as given, the results are still rather noteworthy. Approximately 10% of American Jews are Orthodox (their count), but – contrary to the Hollywood stereotype of the Orthodox as the “old pious man with a white beard” – we are in fact the youngest of the ‘denominations’. We have the lowest percentage of elderly (over 65), and the highest percentage of youth (until age 17). We are so youthful, that fully 40% of all Jewish children are Orthodox. While the general Jewish population has fallen below reproduction rates (1.89 children per family), the Orthodox ranks are swelling.

This is surely no surprise to us, as we have witnessed the growing need for new yeshivot, shuls, and mikvaot. It also bodes well for the future of Torah, notwithstanding the impossibility of predicting political or social trends in America.

What does not surprise is our secret: a passionate commitment to living a Jewish life – including Torah study, mitzva observance, synagogue attendance, and, of course, Jewish education. More than 95% of Orthodox youth today receive a Torah education – perhaps the highest rate in Jewish history. Relative to the other ‘denominations’, we have the highest percentage of synagogue membership and attendance, fulfillment of basic commandments, and maintenance of Jewish institutions. For those who still maintain that the “Israel connection” will per se secure Jewish identity, the results are also sobering: roughly 75% of Orthodox Jews have visited Israel, whereas only 30% of non-Orthodox Jews have visited Israel. Apparently, commitment to Torah is the foundation on which an intense identification with Israel is forged – not vice versa.

Even the 47% intermarriage rate for Jews is somewhat misleading. The numbers are that low only because of the low rate of Orthodox intermarriage (currently 6-7%). If we factor out the Orthodox population, we come to the very sad conclusion that the intermarriage rate far exceeds 60% – meaning that most non-Orthodox Jews, when they marry, will marry non-Jews.

Factoring out the Orthodox population elsewhere in the survey exposes some dire findings. For example, 21% of all Jews keep kosher at home, but without the Orthodox, that percentage probably falls to only 15%. That means that, numerically, more Muslims in America keep kosher than Jews. Or, only 52% of all Jews “regard being Jewish as very important”; without the Orthodox population, that percentage falls well below 50% – meaning that, to our sorrow, most American Jews do not consider being Jewish very important at all. A few more decades along these lines and we will not need surveys to tell us the fate of American Jewry.

What conclusions do we draw from all this ? Certainly, gloating over our successes is as unseemly as self-flagellation is unwarranted. We need not apologize for our achievements, earned through the sacrifices made by our parents and grandparents in an America much less friendly to Torah observance. And we are all hurt when Klal Yisrael is in a free fall, our numbers dwindle to record low levels, and Jewish ignorance soars to record heights. The greatest enemies of American Jews today are apathy and indifference, not Arabs, Muslims, Christians or neo-Nazis with spray paint. And we cannot impose commitment and responsibility on those who are unaffiliated and uninterested in Judaism. But we can and should always project the beauty of the Torah life, so those with open minds can look at us and perhaps realize “how fortunate is our lot, and how pleasant is our destiny”. We can redeem souls on an individual basis, one by one.

We also should not trivialize the contributions of any Jew – whether in the realm of Torah study, support for Israel, Jewish philanthropy, or any expression of identification with the Jewish people, however marginal or slight. Great oak trees grow from small acorns, and every Jew is ultimately judged only by the Judge of Judges, and not by his fellow Jews.

So where are we ten years later, anticipating the next such survey ? Likely, the Orthodox community has grown, the affiliated community has shrunk, the number of “Jews according to halacha” has fallen with many non-halachic Jews counted as Jews and integrated into the non-affiliated community, andwith the rate of intermarriage stagnant or in slight decline. (It is difficult to consider the marriage of two Jews – both children of non-Jewish mothers – an intermarriage, even if both can be recorded as Jews.) Support for Israel will have declined correspondingly, and Orthodox Jews will naturally have assumed a greater leadership role in general Jewish organizational life. So what do we gain from these surveys ?

Surely the paramount message is something we have known since the dawn of our history: Torah works ! Rav Saadiah Gaon stated almost 11 centuries ago that “our people is a people only by virtue of the Torah”. There are no guarantees in life, but we do come close to one verity: those who wish to have Jewish children and grandchildren, those for whom Jewish life has meaning and the existence of a Jewish people has value, and those who seek to be part of the great destiny of the Jewish people must embrace and cherish the Torah, its ideals, practices and values.

Those who do will overwhelmingly be in the vanguard of the Army of Hashem as we wage the struggles ahead to return Jews to our faith, vanquish the forces of hatred arrayed against us, and enjoy the spiritual pleasures of the coming redemption, speedily and in our days.

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Posted in Contemporary Life, Current Events, Machshava/Jewish Thought

Random Thoughts, Part I

Posted on April 11, 2010 | 1 comment

One of the most astonishing and ignored developments of the new health reform laws, an expansion of government that is intrusive, exorbitantly expensive, and can’t possibly fulfill its promises without bankrupting the government or its citizens through confiscatory taxation, is the extension of parents’ insurance coverage to their children under the age of 26. It sounds great. It also reflects one of society’s great vices – the flight from personal responsibility. Shouldn’t a 26-year-old be able to stand on his two feet, and not look to mommy and daddy for his health care ? And since the age of responsibility has been dutifully lowered, should we then raise the drinking and voting age also to 26 ? If the children are not old enough or responsible enough to get their own health insurance, are they old enough to drink or vote ? Big government infantilizes the population, of all ages. This is just the most blatant example.

Notice also how it applies only to unmarried children under the age of 26, which is an obvious disincentive to young people to marry. Couples living together without the benefit of marriage now benefit from this clause, and those who marry young – like our children – are thereby penalized. This is an obvious burden on marriage. This inhibits and even punishes morality – another “unintended consequence” of this legislative overreach. I have always refused to officiate at a wedding when the couple declined to acquire a civil marriage license, but this “marriage penalty” might cause me, and other Rabbis, to re-consider. Dina d’malchuta dina must be morally based, and reflect a law that applies equally to all citizens. This “encouragement” of non-marriage flies in the face of traditional American public policy that always endorsed marriage as the bedrock of stable society.

Good decision by PM Netanyahu in deciding to stay away from next week’s DC summit on nuclear security. Israel has little to gain and much to lose if forced to shift away from its longstanding policy of nuclear ambiguity. With a hostile US President, it suits Israeli leaders to keep as far from DC for as long as possible.

Is the new Israeli spy scandal really that shocking ? An aspiring reporter (in Israel, that generally means a far-leftist), doing her army service in the Central Command transferred thousands of classified documents to a reporter for Haaretz, who has since fled the country. The most sensitive information apparently led to certain operations being abandoned, but what most electrified the left were documents that showed that the “policy” of avoiding killing terrorists in the field was not being dutifully followed. So the media elites have rallied around these traitors as if they are Daniel Ellsberg uncovering the Pentagon Papers, because they really believe that peace is just one election away, and Israel is an unjust, criminal occupying entity with no right to exist. Add to this travesty Haaretz’ associate editor castigating the family of slain IDF Major Eliraz Peretz hy”d as “jihadist fascists” – because they live in Eli – and it is not hard to see why they would support spies, or anything else that weakens the IDF or Israel’s standing in the world. Hmmm… Israel actually wants to kill terrorists ! The horror, the inhumanity of it all !

Michigan Congressman Bart Stupak is now retiring from Congress, weeks after disappointing longtime pro-life supporters and his Catholic heritage by endorsing Obamacare under the fig leaf of an Executive Order “prohibiting” federal funding for abortions. (An Executive Order can easily be reversed, or even overruled by the courts.) Did the Democrats offer a quid pro quo to all those congressmen who walked the plank with them ? If so, look for Stupak, a year or so from now, to be nominated as US Ambassador to some former Eastern Bloc country, as payoff. And he won’t be the only one so “rewarded.”

I’m off to Israel this week…

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Posted in Contemporary Life, Current Events, Israel