Rabbinical Assembly Speakers

Last month I blogged about Rep. Tom Lantos, the only Holocaust survivor ever elected to Congress, when he announced his retirement as a result of his being diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus. Tom Lantos passed away this morning in Bethesda naval hospital. He was 80-years-old. I feel fortunate to have had the chance to meet Rep. Lantos this past March at the AIPAC Policy Conference in D.C.

Tom Lantos was a real mentsch and an important voice for human rights in Congress, even if he would never have been allowed to speak at a Rabbinical Assembly convention. Since Tom Lantos was married to a non-Jewish woman (in photo), he would have been forbidden from addressing the Rabbinical Assembly during its annual convention. As a dues-paying member of the Conservative Movement's Rabbinical Assembly, I was surprised this week to learn of this policy.

A JTA article explains the little known RA policy prohibiting intermarried Jews from being speakers at the RA Convention. Therefore, the article states, it was difficult for the RA to maintain a balance between speakers on the right and left of the political aisle at this week's convention in D.C. So, while Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts is speaking at the Convention, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer (married to a non-Jew) will not be allowed to. The policy even applies to non-Jews who have married Jews making Democratic Party Chair Howard Dean and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid ineligible. Each of these men are married to Jewish women (to be fair, Reid's wife converted from Judaism to Mormonism so I'm not sure why he's still blacklisted).

I can understand the RA choosing not to invite intermarried speakers to address the Convention if they are only going to promote intermarriage as a virtuous decision, but I don't believe that choice has to be crafted into a written policy. I wonder if the RA asks all speakers at the Convention to disclose the religion of their spouse when they are invited to speak.

This policy would preclude a lot of politicians, business leaders, authors, and entertainers from speaking at RA conventions. For instance, Christina Aguilera would not be able to perform at an RA Convention (I'd pay to see that!) or speak about what it is like raising her son in the Jewish tradition (married to the Jewish Jordan Bratman, the couple's son recently had his bris). This policy would also prohibit Jon Stewart from speaking at the RA Convention since he married Tracey McShane, a non-Jewish woman.

As the Conservative Movement tries to reach out to interfaith families through edud (insiration and encouragement), it would be helpful for Conservative rabbis to hear from couples who are living in interfaith relationships. However, under this policy it would be impossible for speakers like Jim Keen, an outspoken gentile father committed to raising Jewish children, to be allowed to speak at an RA convention.

Rabbi Bradley Artson, dean of the Ziegler rabbinical school in Los Angeles, said "It's the right priority, but the policy isn't the right policy for the goal."

My sense is that this policy will soon be reversed. It is possible for the Rabbinical Assembly and Conservative Judaism to stand firmly against intermarriage without barring speakers who happen to be married to members of another religion.

eCamp Israel

I recently learned about a new program that merges three areas I am passionate about --Jewish camping, Israel, and technology. Israel has always embraced high technology and modern communication. Part of what has made the almost sixty-year-old nation's economy flourish in the past two decades has been the success of its hi-tech sector. Now a new summer camping initiative is making the hi-tech experience available to Jewish youth who are interested in spending a summer in Israel and also interested in technology.

eCamp Israel is a technology summer camp based in Israel and open to American Jewish youth. As a member of the rabbinic cabinet of United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism's Project Reconnect, I was asked to look into the feasibility of including eCamp Israel as one of United Synagogue Youth's summer options in Israel. USY sends hundreds of teens to Israel each summer, and this program would allow some of those teens to specialize in a hi-tech track while in Israel.

I am very impressed with this new program. eCamp's mission is to "help young people realize their highest potential, discover their talents, and reach for their dreams". Their cutting-edge e-workshops will allow each individual camper to express their creativity, and the youth participants will work on their own projects in a collaborative environment (open-space computer lab).

eCamp, located in a residential educational institution near Caesarea, will not be a "computer camp" where kids sit in front of a computer all day. Rather, the camp will encourage the campers to go outdoors to do the normal summer camp activities like sports, swimming, and nature exploration. The camp will motivate campers to create a better world through the Jewish value of Tikkun Olam (repairing the world) with each camper receiving a certificate for 5 hours of community service per session.

eCampers will meet with entrepreneurs including the founder of ICQ, now the originator behind the AOL Instant Messenger, visit leading Israeli research centers such as Intel, Microsoft, Google, Motorola, and train in the Israeli Air Force’s flight simulator. Participants will have experience theoretical developments by visiting leading academic centers such as the Technion and Weizmann Institute. Shai Agassi, a hero in Israel’s technology world and the founder of Project Better Place, will be eCamp’s Chief Scientist. When I spoke with Nir Kouris, co-CEO of ecamp and an Israeli entrepreneur, he explained that "As one of the global centers of technological innovation, it is time Israel gives back some of our know-how and share it with children from around the world."

The idea of an International Technology Summer Camp in Israel is brilliant. Jewish youth already flock to Israel in droves each summer and many of them have to put their technology interests on hold during that time. So, while most Jewish youth won't be able to use Instant Messenger while they travel in Israel this summer, the campers at eCamp Israel will be introduced to the hi-tech gurus who developed the infrastructure to run Instant Messenger. This program will open the gates for Jewish youth to the #1 success story of Israel – Technology Innovation.

eCamp is just one more piece of great news in the world of Jewish camping. Recently, the Jim Joseph Foundation and Foundation for Jewish Camping announced a $8.4 million partnership grant to create a Specialty Camping Incubator. The Incubator will create four Jewish specialty camps based on skills such as athletics, computers, and arts according to the successful model already established for Jewish camping.

It is truly remarkable to see the innovations taking place in the field of Jewish camping. It makes me want to be a kid again!

Mitzvah Children

There was a time when the Conservative Movement's law committee (the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards) did not publish its teshuvot (Jewish legal responsa). Twenty-five Conservative rabbis would sit in a room debating and eventually voting on matters of modern Jewish law, and the only people who would be able to read their decisions were other Conservative rabbis.

Today, the teshuvot of the law committee are available for public consumption on the Rabbinical Assembly's website. So when the CJLS passes what could be considered a controversial paper, one would think there would be much discussion about it. (Certainly no CJLS decision has garnered as much attention as the December 2006 teshuvot concerning homosexuality.)

However, a recent teshuva on a delicate matter co-authored by Rabbi Kassel Abelson and Rabbi Elliot Dorff, and passed by an overwhelming majority of the committee, has received little attention. The paper, titled "Mitzvah Children," was passed on December 12, 2007 and until today I had not seen any articles published about it.

The essense of Rabbis Abelson and Dorff's argument is that Jewish couples who are able to reproduce more than two children should do so, and Conservative rabbis should counsel couples in this manner during pre-maritial sessions.

In yesterday's Jerusalem Post, Rabbi Reuven Hammer (a CJLS member who voted in favor of the teshuva) wrote:

How many children should a Jewish couple have? Although that may seem like a strange question and one that impinges on the private and most intimate life of a couple, it has been addressed by Jewish law in the past and is now the subject of a new teshuva (responsum) issued recently by the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of the International Rabbinical Assembly of which I am pleased to be a member. Jewish law (Halacha) has dealt with this because the very first mitzva found in the Torah is: "And God blessed them; and God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and replenish it...'" (Genesis 1:28). It should be noted that this is not phrased in the Torah as a command in a negative sense and certainly not as a punishment, but as a blessing. To understand how to fulfill this mitzva the sages discussed and debated it. Who is responsible to fulfill it? How many children and of what sex are required? Without going into details, suffice it to say that the traditional answer has been that the mitzva is fulfilled when a couple has had two children, one boy and one girl. The Talmud, however, determined that two children are the minimum, but that Jews should continue to have as many children as they can (B. Yevamot 62b), and Maimonides codified this as law.

Even though the authors of the "Mitzvah Children" paper did a very good job explaining their position while remaining sensitive to those couples unable to reproduce or unable to reproduce beyond one or two children, many will still take exception to rabbis imparting their beliefs on such a personal matter (even though the Torah and Jewish law codes certainly enter this arena).

Rabbis Abelson and Dorff propose that Jewish couples who can have children and do not suffer from specific physical, mental or other problems preventing it should have one or more additional children beyond the two required by Jewish law. These children would be called "mitzvah children" as they would assure future Jewish existence.

Rabbi Elliot Dorff (right), rector of the American Jewish University in Los Angeles, has been preaching this idea for many years. During my second year of rabbinical school he was on faculty at the Jewish Theological Seminary and spoke to my class about his views. While he was sensitive with his language, he nevertheless offended several of my classmates -- specifically the single women over a certain age -- when he argued that Jewish couples should start having children in their early 20's and have more than just two offspring. As he does in the teshuva, Rabbi Dorff surmised that it was the responsibilty of the Jewish grandparents (as well as the larger Jewish community) to help financially support these children and their Jewish education. His theory was that Jewish women are putting off starting a family until after their prime childbearing years because of their desire to fulfill their academic and professional aspirations first.

The Holocaust also factors into his belief. As he writes in the teshuva:

The world's Jewish community has not recovered numerically from the devastating losses during the Nazi era. Demographic studies point to a Jewish birthrate that will not maintain the Jewish population in the United States, with serious implications for the future of the American Jewish community, the Jewish people as a whole, and Judaism itself. It is essential that we encourage fertile Jewish couples to have at least two children in compliance with the early Halacha, and one or more additional children, who are mitzva children in the additional sense that they help the Jewish people replace those lost in the Holocaust and maintain our numbers now. Adopting children, converting them to Judaism, if necessary, and raising them as Jews helps in this effort as well.

This all makes good sense to me, but I maintain that the reaction will be mixed among Jewish couples. Everyone cares about the future vitality of the Jewish people, but among modern Jews I believe the response will be that rabbis should stay out of the personal family planning decisions of couples. And for that reason, the "Mitzvah Children" teshuva is a gutsy position paper.

Indie Minyans

I am hesitant to write anything about the recent press that indie minyans has gotten because as kol raash gadol recently wrote on Jewschool for their Picks for Best of 2007: "Blinding Flash of the Obvious Finally Reaching the Mainstream Radar Years After Everybody Else Got the Memo: Indie minyanim."

But since the New York Times recently wrote about the subject ("Challenging Tradition, Young Jews Worship on Their Terms") and the online journal Zeek dedicated an entire issue to indie minyans, I thought I would weigh in.

The success of independent minyans really shouldn't be news because their success was inevitable. Indie minyans are an obvious recipe for success:

1) Gather a bunch of young, single professional Jews in a large metropolitan area (New York City, Chicago, LA, DC, or Boston).

2) Mix in some young Jewish grad students along with some young married Jewish couples.

3) Send out an e-mail about an "informal gathering" (read: spirited prayer service that won't remind you of your grandfather's shul) to take place in someone's apartment on Friday before dinner or Saturday morning around 10 AM.

3.5) Allow the e-mail to go viral and with some word-of-mouth dozens of young Jewish men and women will flock to the get-together.

4) After several months of these get-togethers, select a larger location to rent and this will turn into another start-up independent Shabbat prayer group.

This is basically how the popular Kehilat Hadar traces its roots. I realized what an independent minyan was while sitting in Rabbi Ethan Tucker and Ariela Migdal's Manhattan apartment (a few floors above our own apartment at the time) on a Shabbat morning in April 2001. I was invited to the minyan and asked to schlepp four of my folding chairs up eight flights of stairs. Little did I know at the time that the three minyan founders, including Tucker and his Harvard buddy Elie Kaunfer (right), were on to something. With sixty young Jews packed into an Upper West Side apartment davening (praying) like they were at Camp Ramah, a new type of synagogue community was forming.

The next gathering was held in a larger apartment -- the home of my JTS rabbinical school classmate Dr. Len Sharzer. Len was the oldest student in my class but was not the oldest individual at the minyan that morning. That distinction was held by the late Marcia Lieberman, mother of Senator Joe Lieberman. Joe and Hadassah Lieberman were in town for the graduation of their daughter-in-law (Ethan Tucker's wife Ariela Migdal) and attended the minyan that morning. I was honored to have the aliyah right after the distinguished senator from Connecticut.

From there the Hadar Minyan grew and grew with almost 200 in attendance for a Tisha B'Av service in Central Park. Hadar Minyan became Kehilat Hadar, and when Elie Kaunfer was ordained as a rabbi he created Mechon Hadar which has given birth to Yeshivat Hadar and the Minyan Project. The Yeshiva is a a full-time, community open to men and women looking to engage in intensive Torah study, prayer and social action. The Minyan Project promotes education, consulting and networking for independent prayer communities.

At the 2004 UJC General Assembly held in Cleveland, I attended a session in which Elie Kaunfer was one of the panelists. His response to what Gen X'ers were looking for in a spiritual community was fresh and innovative, yet also full of unknowns for the future. The indie minyans were gaining in popularity, but still no one could speculate what would happen when the indie minyannaires needed a true spiritual leader in their lives -- a rabbi. A chavurah-like environment seems fine when you're single or newly married, but when your oldest kid is celebrating her bat mitzvah it is helpful to have a rabbi. As the indie minyannaires get older my guess is that they will join established congregations that employ salaried clergy. However, they will greatly influence the way these synagogues and temples carry out their mission. Simply stated, they won't settle for the way things have always been done in their grandfather's shul.

In addition to how the members of indie minyans will come to change established congregations in the near future, another question is how rabbis may come to be welcomed into the indie minyans in some form of leadership role. This issue was taken up on a Jewschool post by Yehudit Bracha in September 2006: What IS the role of the rabbi in the independent minyan movement?

A great example of a dynamic rabbi in an emergent congregation is Rabbi Andy Bachman (left), the founder Brooklyn Jews and once executive director of Reboot. Andy is now the rabbi of Beth Elohim in Brooklyn (a Reform congregation in Park Slope). He recently posted an especially thought-provoking blog post about creating a transparent pulpit. My classmate, Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum, also became the rabbi of an emergent spiritual community when she founded Kavanah in Seattle a few years ago. And the dynamic Rabbi Sharon Brous has been wildly successful with Ikar-LA, the emergent spiritual community she created in 2004.

These rabbis are serving their congregations in new and innovative ways. They are leading their communities with much different leadership styles than rabbis who led in generations past. Because of their leadership, their congregations function differently and their congregants come to view synagogue life much differently. These emergent spiritual communities have Facebook pages, blogs, and only communicate to the membership via e-mail. These rabbis will answer a congregant's question with SMS on their Blackberry. They even buy their Torah scrolls on eBay. These are the shuls of the future.

I must give my colleague Rabbi Elie Kaunfer a lot of credit. It would have been quite the accomplishment had he only co-created Hadar, however, he has taken it many steps further by forcing us to consider how independent minyanim will change the future of community building, communal prayer, rabbinic leadership, affiliation, and synagogue structure. Working with Synagogue 3000, he surveyed individuals about the role of "emergent spiritual communities" in the future of Judaism.

The introduction to the survey states:

Over the past few years, we have seen an important new phenomenon in Jewish life: the creation of dozens of independent minyanim, spiritual communities, alternative worship services, and emergent congregations. This rich array adds diverse opportunities for worship, learning, social justice work, community-building and spiritual expression.

We knew very little about the thousands of people associated with these new endeavors. Who are they? What are their concerns? How do they feel about the communities they're creating, joining, and building? Why do they participate?

To answer these questions, the S3K Synagogue Studies Institute, in collaboration with Mechon Hadar, conducted a survey designed by the prominent sociologist Steven M. Cohen in partnership with Rabbi Elie Kaunfer and Shawn Landres. Our goal was to find out more about the participants, members, partners, and "acquaintances" of these new spiritual communities. The results of this work is the first ever portrait of the interests, values, and concerns of a critical innovative turn in American Judaism.

The report about the new movement of independent minyanim, "EMERGENT JEWISH COMMUNITIES and their Participants", was published this past Fall and should be required reading for every rabbi and future rabbi, synagogue and temple board members, and anyone interested in the future of Judaism. In fact, anyone with a vested interest in organized religion should study this report.

Bottom line? Independent Minyans are necessary. They are serving a purpose for a whole generation of spiritually undernourished Jews. They are quickly changing how Jewish spiritual communities operate and serve their members. However, just as online banking and ATM's are wonderful, they have not replaced traditional banking institutions or the humans who work there. The chavurah movement of the 1970's did not replace rabbis and neither will the independent minyan movement at the beginning of the 21st Century. Rabbis will always be needed in Jewish life, we will just have to adapt our roles to modern times.

Links about Independent Minyans:

Synagogue 3000 and Hadar Report on Emergent Spiritual Communities

Attracting Young People to Jewish Life: Lessons Learned from Kehilat Hadar

Andy Bachman reacts to the NY Times article on Indie Minyans

The Minyan without a Binyan (Temple Bored Authority)

What Defines the New Minyan Movement (Jeremy Burton)

Judaism Without Synagogues (JewByChoice)

Tribeca Hebrew: The Hebrew School With the 'Anti-Establishment Vibe'

What Independent Minyanim Teach Us About the Next Generation of Jewish Communities (Ethan Tucker)

Esther Kustanowitz looks for her perfect shul

JDate Rabbis

Like most rabbis I read a lot of sermons that other rabbis have delivered. After this past Yom Kippur someone sent me a particularly good sermon that was rather risky. Rabbi Donald Weber even prefaced his Yom Kippur sermon by admitting that it would be a gutsy sermon to give. The rabbi of Temple Rodeph Torah in Marlboro, New Jersey told his Reform congregation that in over twenty-five years (and over 100 High Holy Day sermons) he never spoke about interfaith marriage from the pulpit as it was considered to be the "third rail of the Reform rabbinate -- you touch it and you die."

In Rabbi Weber's well-crafted sermon about interfaith marriage, he chooses his words carefully and explains that he does not want to hurt anyone with his remarks. The chidush (new idea) of his sermon was that he came up with a way to help curb the rising rates of intermarriage within his congregation. He announced in his sermon (MP3 version) that he and his wife, Shira Stern, would personally pay out of their own pocket for a six-month membership ($149) to JDate for any young singles in his congregation who asked. In his sermon, he told the single Jews in the pews that the survival of American Judaism in its current form depends on their decisions.

Rabbi Webber's JDate generosity made national news. Six weeks after he delivered his Yom Kippur sermon at Temple Rodeph Torah, USA Today published an article about his idea to promote marrying within the Jewish faith through JDate.com.

In the January 21, 2008 issue of Newsweek magazine it was reported that Rabbi Weber and his wife have paid for 24 six-month subscriptions from their own personal funds. Two other rabbis, Rabbi Kenneth Emert of New Jersey and Rabbi Michael Cahana of Oregon, have begun funding the six-month JDate subscriptions for their single congregants from their rabbinic discretionary funds. The Newsweek article states that two rabbis have also negotiated a bulk rate discount for rabbis who want to buy membership accounts for their congregants (this was also covered in the JTA blog).

The rabbis say they felt compelled to act because of the gradual dilution of the faith through marriage. Almost half of American Jews marry non-Jews, a rate of exodus that has more than tripled since 1970. "This is about creating an opportunity," says Cahana. Sometimes even Cupid needs a nudge.

JDate certainly works. Almost half of the weddings I have officiated have been for couples who met on JDate (including one eHarmony wedding). If a Jewish couple didn't meet in high school or college, I have come to assume they met each other on JDate. It will be interesting to see how many weddings Rabbi Donald Weber performs from the individuals who received a free JDate subscription from him. If every rabbi provides free subscriptions I am certain the intermarriage statistics will change positively.

Celebrity Birthright

I realized the importance of having young adult Jews visit Israel when I led a Taglit-Birthright Israel trip in December 2004. By and large, the students from the University of Michigan and Harvard who traveled with me to Israel became more engaged in Jewish communal life and several became more observant of Jewish traditions. With close to 150,000 participants between 18 and 26 having traveled to Israel with Birthright, it is an impressive program that has proven successful of its stated mission.

Several Jewish celebrities have been birthright israel participants as well. A week ago I read about a NASCAR driver who traveled to Israel with Birthright. The JTA recently interviewed Soprano star Jamie-Lynn Sigler (left), who is currently in Israel on a birthright israel trip.

"Everyone assumes I'm Italian," says Jamie Lynn Sigler, 26, with a sigh, pausing over her hummus lunch at the open-air market in Jaffa, one of the stops on her birthright israel tour. "Even kids on the trip keep asking, 'Are you Jewish?' "

Sigler, who played the daughter [Medow Soprano] of Mafia kingpin Tony Soprano on the acclaimed HBO show "The Sopranos," grew up in a Jewish home in Jericho, N.Y., going to Hebrew school and having a bat mitzvah.

Her father's family immigrated to America from Greece and Poland. Her mother, who is Puerto Rican, converted to Judaism. But it was only touring in Israel, during her recent visit to the country, that she said she felt a true spiritual and emotional connection to her roots.

"It's one of the most beautiful, inspiring places I've ever been to," Sigler said. "I now have a greater understanding and motivation about preserving my Jewishness."

Among the highlights she noted were riding camels in the desert, dining on roast lamb in a Bedouin tent and exploring the back alleys of Jerusalem's Old City. Sigler said she was especially moved during her visits to the Western Wall, where she was surprised by her tears, and to Yad Vashem, where the Holocaust and its history suddenly felt deeply personal.

"I started to think, 'What if I was there, what if I had been ripped away from my family?' " she told JTA.

Sigler said Israel had been a fairly abstract concept before the trip, with her images limited to the coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict portrayed in the media. [Her] group was accompanied part of the time by a small group of Israeli soldiers. Through them, Sigler said she heard about a much different life than the one she and her friends lead in America. She was taken by their sacrifices and the pride they have in their country and history.

"It's so different but so inspiring to be part of that," said Sigler, her face dominated by a pair of large designer sunglasses. "I would want to move here and join the army" too.

I met Jamie-Lynn Sigler in the summer of 2003 when she was filming scenes at the Soprano house in North Caldwell, New Jersey -- only a couple miles from my home at the time. She was very sweet and personable, even offering to wish my wife congratulations on the upcoming birth of our first baby (right).

I think it would be a fun idea to promote birthright israel trips that included Jewish celebrities on the trip. There would be a long waiting list to go on "Superbad Birthright" with Jonah Hill (real name: Jonah Hill Feldstein) or "Birthright Musical" with Ashley Tisdale. Of course, the celebrities would get to participate for free, but none of the other participants could complain about that being unfair since everyone goes on birthright israel for free!

Tom Lantos

I met California Rep. Tom Lantos at the AIPAC Policy Conference this year. Rep. Lantos introduced Sen. Hillary Clinton before she spoke at her candidate's reception at the policy conference, where I took the photo at right.

Tom Lantos announced today that he will retire from office and not seek re-election following his being diagnosed with cancer. The JTA article states that in "his 27 years in the U.S. Congress, Rep. Tom Lantos had two constituencies -- California's 12th District, encompassing parts of San Francisco and its suburbs, and the ghosts of the Jews who perished in his native Europe."

The 80-year-old Lantos was diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus. He is the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the House and is known as "the only Holocaust survivor elected to Congress." Tom Lantos has been a strong advocate for humanitarian rights during his long career in politics. He has been a strong supporter of Israel and a voice of conscience on the situation in Darfur.

I pray for a refuah shleyma (speedy recovery) for Tom Lantos. His career as a U.S. Representative has been an honorable one.

Evangelical Zionists

"I had them at Shalom."

These words are attributed to Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein as he was on his way back to Chicago in a rented compact Chevy with author Zev Chafets after Eckstein addressed a group of Christian Zionists at the Family Christian Center in Munster, Indiana.

I've read every book that Zev Chafets has written. Zev's books are hard to put down -- they are witty, provocative, and informative. I've known Zev Chafets my whole life. He is a family friend who was once married to my mother's best friend. His most recent book, however, I read not because of the author but rather because of the subject matter that intrigued me.

A couple years ago when I was directing the monthly Synaplex program for Adat Shalom Synagogue in suburban Detroit I needed to find an interesting speaker to follow Shabbat dinner. I put in a phone call to Zev in New York who graciously accepted my invitation to come to Adat Shalom (he is a native Detroiter who grew up in Pontiac). He told me he would talk about his current project -- Christian Zionists and the Judeo-Evangelical Alliance. It was December 2005 and Zev was about to travel to Israel with a group of Evangelicals as part of his research for A Match Made in Heaven, his new book (a chapter in the book is Zev's travelogue from his Christian pilgrimage).

Zev spoke brilliantly at Adat Shalom about the phenomenon that is the passionate love that Evangelical Christians feel for the State of Israel (and how they back this up with their charitable commitments to Israel). I hadn't previously given much thought to Christian Zionism, but like most Jews at the time I was fairly skeptical about the motivations behind Christian support of Israel. Following Zev's talk, my interest was piqued. Over the course of the ensuing two years, I read as much as I could about Christian Zionism, I invited Pastor Glenn Plummer (Fellowship of Israel and Black America) to address my synagogue in Ohio, I was captivated by an emotionally charged speech by Pastor John Hagee at the AIPAC Policy Conference, I dialogued with Israeli tour guides Linda Olmert and Danny Ehrlich of Keshet Israel about their experiences guiding Christians through Israel, and most recently I completed Zev's book.

Zev devotes an entire chapter to an individual who has committed his life to reaching out to Christian Zionists for the sake of Israel and Israelis. He characterizes Yechiel Eckstein as an Orthodox rabbi who "had become a televangelist." Eckstein, who runs the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, has raised millions of dollars from evangelical Christians and given that money away to Jewish charities. Zev spends much time with Eckstein -- both on the road and at his headquarters in Chicago -- and provides the reader with an in-depth perspective about Eckstein's background and the motivation for his work.

One thing is clear in Zev's evaluation of Eckstein (right), his popularity among Christians is unmatched among Jews. Eckstein has long had detractors in the major American Jewish organizations, especially the Anti-Defamation League where Eckstein got his professional start. In Zev's book, he quotes ADL executive director Abe Foxman "as accusing Eckstein of selling the dignity of the Jewish people by pandering to Christians."

Israel's political leaders have long appreciated and recognized the importance of Christian tourism in Israel (a point made several times by Zev in his book). Further, following John Hagee's well received AIPAC speech in March, strong supporters of Israel among the Jewish community have learned how vital and reassuring the genuine Christian support of Israel is. And a major development this week may change the way the Jewish community views Christian Zionism.

The JTA reports that "thousands of evangelical Christian donors now have a powerful seat at the table of the Jewish Agency for Israel, the vanguard of the Zionist movement. The Jewish Agency announced last week it has forged a 'strategic partnership' with the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, an organization that depends primarily on conservative Christian donors to raise tens of millions of dollars per year to help Israel and impoverished Jews in the Diaspora."

In exchange for an annual $15 million contribution to the Jewish Agency, Yechiel Eckstein will be given a seat on the Jewish Agency's highest governing committee. The article addresses the Jewish community's ambivalence about financial support from evangelical Christians, stating, "the fear being that some might be motivated at least in part by the belief that the Apocalypse and the return of Jesus can take place only once Jews move back to the Holy Land." [complete JTA article]

Perhaps this news will give Zev Chafets cause to pen a new epilogue to the paperback edition of A Match Made in Heaven: American Jews, Christian Zionists, and One Man's Exploration of the Weird and Wonderful Judeo-Evangelical Alliance. It is a wonderful book and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in Israel and the Christian support of the Jewish state. Hopefully, Zev Chafets will alleviate the concerns and cynicism the American Jewish community has about Christian support of Israel. As Zev eloquently puts it, the evangelical Christian Zionists in America are "not the enemy. They are the enemy of the enemy, and they want to be accepted and appreciated. In return they are offering a wartime alliance and full partnership in a Judeo-Christian America. It is an offer the Jews of America should consider while it is still on the table." Well said.

Jewish Traverse City

A few months ago, I received an odd e-mail from the brother of a high school classmate. He explained that his synagogue in Traverse City, Michigan had found itself without a rabbi. He asked if I could help. My first response was, "There are Jews living in Traverse City?"

That initial e-mail message turned into several back-and-forth messages until we finally settled on a Shabbat that I could visit the congregation as a guest rabbi. There is something very special about small town Jewish communities in remote areas. The Jewish men and women living in the Northern Michigan town of Traverse City might not be active synagogue-goers or Jewish communal leaders if they lived in a more densely populated Jewish community. Like Congregation Beit Kodesh in Livonia, Michigan (the small synagogue I consult as Rabbinic Advisor), I was very impressed with the close-knit, do-it-yourself atmosphere I found at Congregation Ahavat Shalom in Traverse City. I found a similar positive "small shul" atmosphere as well at Sha'are Shalom, the fledgling congregation I led in Leesburg, Virginia during rabbinical school. Without the presence of a rabbi, lay people truly rise to the occasion and do what needs to be done.

Unlike larger congregations where the members might take it for granted that there are a plethora of Torah scrolls in the ark when they arrive at services, at Ahavat Shalom this past Friday evening I met synagogue president Fred Goldenberg as he walked into the Unitarian Universalist church carrying a large white duffel bag with the Torah inside. As soon as we started talking it occurred to me that the game of "Jewish Geography" can still be played no matter how far "Up North" one is in Michigan (Fred's son David went to college with me and was involved in Hillel).

A nice story about this Northern Michigan congregation and how they celebrate Hanukkah, featuring the Goldenbergs (at right) and our hosts Jay and Rachel Starr, was published in the Traverse City Record-Eagle. I hope this congregation, and other small Jewish communities in remote areas like this, persevere and go from strength to strength.

Hanukkah Ham

Everyone is talking about the faux pas at Balducci's, the "food lover's market" in New York City. Last week, blogger Nancy Kay Shapiro saw that Balducci's had labeled its hams with pricing signs advertising "Delicious for Chanukah" and returned the next day with her camera in hand. Just about every newspaper in the country picked up the story leading the Greenwich Village gourmet food store to issue an apology on its website.

Personally, I think this is a forgivable error by a store employee who didn't know better and not an offensive act toward the Jewish people during Hanukkah as some are labeling it. I can't imagine any Jews were actually misled by this erroneous signage and ate treif on Hanukkah as a result.

In fact, I'm sure erroneous labeling like this happens quite often and religious groups should laugh about it rather than taking offense. Here are some of my examples:

Nothing says Easter like a hot Knish!

Ramadan: It's all about the lox and shmear!


Celebrate the Sabbath with a bottle of vodka for your favorite Mormon!