November 17, 2011 | 10:35 pm

An Orthodox Gay Wedding?

Posted by Rav Yosef Kanefsky

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As has been widely reported, Rabbi Steve Greenberg performed a Jewish wedding ceremony for Yoni Bock and Ron Kaplan last week, a ceremony being referred to in at least one press account as “the first Orthodox gay wedding”.  This description derives from the fact that Rabbi Greenberg’s ordination is from YU, and that he has always identified himself as being Orthodox. I know the latter to be true not second-hand, but through the friendship that he and I have maintained over many years, dating back to our years at Yeshiva.

This wedding ceremony raises a serious question for the part of the Modern Orthodox community in which I live. The question is not about whether we should recognize the ceremony as being religiously significant. We obviously do not and cannot.  The formal religious partnering of two men or two women is unalterably contrary to both the law and the spirit of the Torah and the Halacha, and an Orthodox gay marriage ceremony is as hopeless a misnomer as an Orthodox intermarriage is. How we assess the religious significance of the ceremony is clear-cut and simple.

The question that it raises rather, is whether we should continue to publicly speak about Orthodoxy and homosexuality in the nuanced way that we have been speaking about it over the past several years. I hope that you are by now familiar with the “Statement of Principles” http://statementofprinciplesnya.blogspot.com/ in which many Modern Orthodox rabbis and teachers affirmed the importance of being inclusive of, and sensitive to the challenges of gays and lesbians within the Orthodox community, even as we recognize that Halacha views same-sex sexual interactions as prohibited.  This is indeed a highly-nuanced position. So much so, that our shul hosted a major event last summer whose purpose was to explore what exactly this all means in real life. (And we were pleased to have Rabbi Greenberg participate in that discussion.) But when I read about the wedding, I wondered to myself whether our nuanced approach had unwittingly contributed to the erosion of the halachik standard, whether we had created the impression that the values of sensitivity and inclusion must ultimately trump the law. I asked myself whether with regard to this issue, nuanced discussion simply couldn’t be heard. 

As I thought the whole matter through, I came to the conclusion that despite these legitimate questions, our nuanced public discussion must go on. The essential premise of the discussion, that the religious prohibition on homosexual sex must not be turned into a justification for demeaning, embarrassing or harassing gays and lesbians, is still as true as ever. The central idea that gays and lesbians who desire to daven and perform mitzvot should be welcomed into the community of davening and mitzvot, still makes sound religious sense. I do think that last week’s wedding compels us to think more – and to talk more explicitly - about the point at which inclusion begins to send a misleading message. And I do think that we must take even greater care now to not be naïve in our deliberations. But I also believe that any decision to abandon our nuanced discussion would be a decision to abandon many cherished members of our community. It is our responsibility to them to carefully forge ahead.

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November 8, 2011 | 2:58 pm

Putting the “J” Back In Orthodoxy

Posted by Rav Yosef Kanefsky

“Shall the Judge of all the earth not do justice?”

By humbly but firmly addressing this remarkable question to God, our father Avraham installed justice as a primary Jewish value. Everything, even the Divine intention, needs to be measured by the yardstick of justice. One can see the influence of Avraham’s position manifest in a variety of decisions later rendered by the Sages. The Torah rules, for example, that the “rebellious son” is to be judged, and ultimately executed, based upon his projected future malfeasance (“nidon al shem sofo”). One imagines that the Sages’ conclusions that this law was intended for academic but not practical purposes, was motivated by the fact that by normative legal standards, it is unjust to punish someone for sins he has not yet committed. (In the Midrash, God Himself explains His decision to save the young Ishmael from dying of thirst, in exactly this way.) Similarly, the Sages’ insistence that all of the Biblical “eye for an eye” legislation must be read non-literally, explicitly derives from the inherent injustice of the literal application (Who’s to say that the victim’s eye and the perpetrators eye are of equal value?)

The primacy of justice as a religious value is in great evidence in the writings of the prophets of course, chief among them Isaiah, who declares the sacrificial rituals in the Temple to be of no value (or worse) as long as the widow and the orphan cannot find justice in that society. “Zion will be redeemed through justice”, Isaiah declares. Justice is a primary value, and its absence calls the value of our other forms of religious devotion in sharp question.

It has struck me recently though that while, as an Orthodox community, we are able to speak with clarity and passion about Torah and Mitzvot, about Hesed (kindness), and Tzniut (modesty / humility), we just don’t talk a lot about justice. We seem to feel uncomfortable around the term, associating it with center-left politics and with liberal forms of Judaism. Our shuls tend not to have social justice activities, and our schools, even when providing instruction in texts such as Parshat Mishpatim or Bava Metzia, focus entirely on conveying information, rather than on analyzing the material for how they are wrangling with questions of justice.  Perhaps we even fear that there is something dangerous or subversive about raising the issue of justice when we are engaged in the study of God’s law. How would we, for example, discuss with today’s fifth graders, the justice of a master not being liable when he mortally strikes his slave, as long as the slave did not succumb to his injury within the first 24 hours? The Torah’s explanation that “he (the slave) is the master’s property” probably would not suffice all by itself.

Our demotion of justice from being a first-tier value has not come without consequences for us. It has, for example, warped our communal conversation about Shalom Rubashkin, as at the same time that we decry the injustice of his sentencing, we have still not developed the language with which to describe the injustices he visited upon the workers in his factory. It hampers our ability to fully confront the phenomenon of agunot, as our conversation is often limited only to the halachik details of the laws of divorce or to the fruitless game of he said / she said, because the plain and open cry of “injustice!” doesn’t seem to have sufficient currency to sway Orthodox public opinion. (Calling out the injustice cannot alone solve the problem of course, but it would go a long way toward shaming people into compliance.)

On the occasions that we have in fact assigned justice its proper place, we have achieved important things. The prevalence in Modern Orthodox circles of daughters reciting kaddish for parents, and of daughters marking their Bat Mitzvah in their shuls – each being practices which were met with considerable objection at first -  is the result of the simple triumph of justice. Justice, one of our basic religious values.

Let’s learn again how to use this powerful word. Let’s take the example of our father Avraham. And let us bring closer the day when Zion will be redeemed through justice.

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November 3, 2011 | 2:58 pm

Mocked by Kim Kardashian.  You, Me, All of Us.

Posted by Rav Yosef Kanefsky

A few months ago, I was sitting in the car with my 18 year old son, as Kim Kardashian’s name was mentioned on the radio. “Who is that guy?” I asked (though for the life of me I can’t explain what male name I thought Kim was a diminutive of.) After one very long incredulous teenage stare, I at least learned that she’s not a guy.

Over the last few days I couldn’t miss the news that Kim got married and then filed for divorce in the space of 72 days. I realize that it may all be part of her reality show, and that maybe I shouldn’t be taking the whole thing too seriously. But for the sake of an institution that a lot of us believe in deeply – the institution of marriage – I believe it’s worth speaking up.

Whenever I work with couples as they plan their marriages, we talk about the rewards of marriage, but even more so about the covenant of marriage. Because it is a covenant. That’s what it is. To marry is to undertake the most sublime set of commitments that we will ever pledge to another human being. And people not prepared to do this, truly have no moral business getting married.

Dr. Erich Fromm said it best in his classic book “The Art of Loving”, whose central thesis is that nobody can passively “be in love” for very long. If we plan to love someone long-term, we have to be committed to engaging continuously in the activity of “loving” that person. For Fromm, this involves sacred commitments to continuously demonstrating “care, responsibility, respect, and knowledge.”  His elaboration on the element of “knowledge” is especially striking. “To respect a person is not possible without knowing him; care and responsibility would be blind if there were not guided by knowledge…. The knowledge which is an aspect of love, is possible only when I can transcend the concern for myself, and see the other person in his own terms. I may know, for instance, that a person is angry… but when I know him more deeply I know that he is anxious and worried, that he feels lonely…”

Not surprisingly our own literature sounds many similar themes. In his “Lonely Man of Faith”, Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik writes that the point of the Adam and Eve story is that a person who wants to overcome loneliness can do so only through a gesture of sacrifice. Adam literally gives part of himself to another, and as a result is able to establish with Eve, “a new kind of fellowship [where] not only hands are joined, but experiences as well, [where] one hears the rhythmic beat of hearts starved for existential companionship and all-embracing sympathy…” This is the marriage. Profound both in its transformative power and in the mutual commitment it demands. And it is ridiculed by a marriage that lasts 72 days.

Even the sexual dimension of marriage is about the covenant. Commenting on the verse “and he shall cleave to is wife and they shall become one flesh,” the Netziv of Volozhin wrote, “ it is only the active effort of cleaving between husband and wife (i.e. sexual intimacy) that brings them closer together such that they become one”.  Marital sexuality is purposeful. It requires kavannah, in the same way that prayer does.  For it preserves and deepens the covenant.

Whenever someone publicly mocks and diminishes the institution of marriage, the great majority of us who understand that marriage is our most scared covenant must respond. By calling out the offenders for what they’ve done, by insuring that our children understand what marriage really is, and by re-affirming our personal commitments to our covenanted partner.

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October 27, 2011 | 11:09 am

Simchat Torah and the World Series

Posted by Rav Yosef Kanefsky

It’s gets to me every year. I well up with tears the minute we begin reading B’raishit on Simchat Torah morning. I’ve always insisted, even when they were very young and having a grand time running around shul, that my kids be inside with a chumash open at that moment. I’m tearing up as I write this, just thinking about it.

I have never fully understood why I have this reaction. I had thought it had something to do with the way that the continuous cycle of Torah reading symbolized the continuity of Jewish life from one generation to the next. And maybe this is indeed part of the reason I react to it as I do.

But a new revelation struck me when, of all things, I was contemplating the long off-season that will follow the conclusion of the world series later this week. (With embarrassment, I admit that I’m a hopeless baseball junkie.) What a contrast with Simchat Torah! If we could, we would read straight from the last word of Dvarim to the first word of Braishit, without even taking a breath in between. Were if not for the logistical need to lift and wrap the first Sefer Torah before opening the second, we’d go straight from one to the other without stopping at all. Because even after a whole year of Torah reading we are not tired. We do not want or need an off-season. Torah is our life and the length of our days. It’s our breath, our pulse. There is no moment that captures our burning love for Torah the way that starting B’raishit seconds after completing Dvarim does. It’s the most romantic moment of the Jewish year. Pass the tissues!

Professional athletes work hard, and I do not begrudge them their off-season. But every Fall, I realize anew what a privilege it is to be a member of a people so in love that we want to be forever on.

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October 24, 2011 | 4:00 pm

Purim vs. Halloween

Posted by Rabbi Hyim Shafner

The leaves fall and the air turns crisp and an underlying feeling of fear and foreboding enters our neighborhoods.  Graves pop us in front yards along with skeletons and the like, bringing death out of its boundaries and into our domains.  Parents, many Jewish parents included, will encourage their children to dress up in frightful costumes along with the superhero of the moment and go door to door exclaiming- “trick or treat”, that is, in its classic intention and indeed its plain meaning: Give me some candy or I will play a trick on you.  In larger cities this might mean throwing eggs at your home (as when I lived in New York City) or draping toilet paper all around. 

I have often thought about this Halloween activity in contrast to the Jewish custom described in the Biblical Book of Esther (9:22) of mishloach manot, sending food to neighbors and friends on the holiday of Purim.  Purim commemorates the day in 356 BCE when Queen Ester saved the Jewish people from the genocidal tyrant Haman who set out to kill, and almost succeeded in killing, every last Jew in the Persian empire, the then known world.  The purpose of sending food to others on the day of Purim is to develop a sense of camaraderie and family with others.  We all eat of each other’s food and thus express our trust and familiality to each other.  In the Purim custom, one sends food that one cooked through a messenger, usually one’s child, to someone else for the holiday.  It must be fit to be a small meal consisting of at least two kinds of foods. 

True, we also dress up on Purim, often as the characters from the Book of Esther, some nice and some not so nice but ultimately the difference between this practice of mishloach manot and that of trick or treating is stark.  Purim foods must be delivered in daylight, and must be sent to someone, whereas Halloween treats are taken from others in the dark while personifying the dead and celebrating the scary.

Though many join me in decrying Halloween as a holiday that teaches bad character and pagan ideals, others will say Rabbi Shafner is overreacting; kids just do it to have fun and get candy.  Perhaps.  But I think that everything we do and everything we teach our children to do subtly communicates values.  Dressing them up, often in scary costumes and sending them to the homes of people they do not know to get candy smacks of bad character development.  Who is to say that such things do not have a subtle effect on who we are as a society.  Such practice inculcates taking and even, albeit subtly, glorifies threatening.

This Halloween if you are Jewish I encourage you to give your child a treat and tell them Halloween is not a Jewish holiday.  Wait for Purim when you can give food to others in celebration of Jewish unity, instead of taking it from people in quai-pagan celebration.  If you are not Jewish I also encourage you to forgo the ritual of going door to door at night, risking errant cars and needles in apples, and instead to spend the night as a family.  If Halloween is an important religious holiday for you then ask yourself what activities your religion would advocate your substituting for trick or treating.  Perhaps spend the evening reading the bible and talking together, or volunteering with the needy, training ourselves to give rather than take.

Together may we help to build a society founded on the value that the best way of getting is to give.

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October 7, 2011 | 6:14 am

Kavvanot (Points to Consider) For A Meaningful Yom Kippur Prayer – 5772

Posted by Rabbi Barry Gelman

This guide will be placed in each Machzor at my shul. Feel free to print it out and use it on Yom Kippur. May we all be inscribed in the book of life.

Kavvanot (Points to Consider) For A Meaningful Yom Kippur Prayer – 5772

The Yom Kippur davening is challenging in that it is very busy ,full of choreography and very long.

Some find it difficult to focus and create moments of quiet introspection.

The Yom Kippur Mussaf is an amalgam of prayers with High Holiday themes as well as recreations of the Temple service, mourning dirges and the account of the Ten Martyrs.

Use this guide during the silent Mussaf Amidah or the repetition of the Mussaf Amidah to help you focus on the prayer themes.

Instead of talking to your neighbor when the service starts to feel too heavy, use this sheet to redirect your thoughts.

Do not feel rushed to keep up. It is more important to internalize the prayers.

What Life Teaches about Judaism     (Rabbi Jonathan Sacks)

Never compromise your principles because of others. Don’t compromise on kashrut or any other Jewish practice because you happen to find yourself among non-Jews or non-religious Jews. Non-Jews respect Jews who respect Judaism. They are embarrassed by Jews who are embarrassed by Judaism.
Ask Yourself: How can I strengthen my Jewish commitments?

Never look down on others. Never think that being Jewish means looking down on gentiles. It doesn’t. Never think that being a religious Jew entitles you to look down on non- religious Jews. It doesn’t. The greatest Jew, Moses, was also, according to the Torah, “the humblest person on the face of the earth”. Humility does not mean self-abasement. True humility is the ability to see good in others without worrying about yourself.
Ask Yourself: How can I exhibit Jewish and personal pride without crossing the line of haughtiness?

Never stop learning. I once met a woman who was 103 and yet who still seemed youthful. What, I asked her, was her secret? She replied, “Never be afraid to learn something new”. Then I realized that learning is the true test of age. If you are willing to learn, you can be 103 and still young. If you aren’t, you can be 23 and already old.
Ask Yourself: Do I learn enough? Is my Judaism young? If not, how can I fix it? (Hint: Ask Rabbi Gelman)

Never be impatient with the details of Jewish life. God lives in the details. Judaism is about the poetry of the ordinary, the things we would otherwise take for granted. Jewish law is the sacred choreography of everyday life.
Ask Yourself: Do I make every Jewish moment count? Do I reflect when I pray? Am I mindful when I perform a Mitzvah? If the answer to any of these is no, seek ways to slow down so as not to let Judaism get erased in the hustle and bustle of life

How To Pray when one is not suffering – Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel (Man’s Quest For God)

But there is a wider voluntary entrance to prayer than sorrow and despair – the opening of our thoughts to God. We cannot make Him visible to us, but we can make ourselves visible to Him…The trees stand like guards of the Everlasting, the flowers like signposts of His goodness – only we have failed to be testimonies to His presence…How could we have lived in the shadow of greatness and defied it?  To pray is to take notice of the wonder, to regain a sense of the mystery that animates all beings, the Divine margin in all attainments. Prayer is our humble answer to the inconceivable surprise of living.

Faith In The Jewish People – Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik

“Let me confess; sometimes, in bed at night, when I cannot sleep, and my mind wonders, I am assailed by sober thoughts and overtaken by worry concerning the Jews in Eretz Yisrael (Israel) and the fate of Diaspora Jewry. As far as the Diaspora is concerned, it seems to us that despite all of our great efforts, despite the growth of the yeshivas and the flowering of a wonderful religious youth, we are a very small portion of the Jewish population of America….And doubt gnaws away : will we be swept away by these strong waves of assimilation which rage around us in America….Such a view, in my opinion, strikes a blow and wounds our faith in Knesset Yisrael (the Assembly of Israel) which we are commanded to keep….[Regarding] the spiritually estranged Jew, [to] Jews who have deserted, assimilated and have become extremely alienated from other Jews and Judaism. Even regarding these, we have a standing assurance that “if any of you be driven out unto the outmost ends of the horizon, from thence will the Lord thy God gather you.” Every prediction of “spiritual extinction” and complete assimilation” is contrary to faith in Knesset Yisrael, which s the same faith in the advent of the Messiah, a foundation stone of Judaism…” A Jew who has lost faith in Knessset Yisrael, even though he may personally sanctify and purify himself by being strict in his observance of the precepts…such a Jews is incorrigible and totally unfit to join in the Day of Atonement which encompasses the whole of Knesset Yisrael, in all its components and all its generations.”

Ask Yourself:

Do I identify with Rabbi Soloveitchik’s initial concern for the spiritual fate of the Jewish people? If so, what bothers me about the current situation and how can I make it better? If not, what are the positive elements of the current state of Jewish religiosity that are encouraging? How can I make them even better?
What is the best recipe for Jewish spiritual survival? Name three elements of a Jewish life that are indispensable to achieve that goal.
Rabbi Solovetichik ultimately “regains” his faith in the survival of the Jewish people. Ask yourself: Who do I think will ultimately be those who will survive and remain part of Knesset Yisrael? Am I part of that group?

Don’t Let A Good Sin Go To Waste   Rabbi Barry Gelman

Sounds like strange advice. Let me explain. According to Rabbi Solovetichik there are two kinds of Teshuva (return). One type of Teshuva calls for a complete obliteration of the past. “Certain situations leave no choice but the annihilation of evil and for completely uprooting it. If one takes pity and lets evil remain, one inexorably pays at a later date an awesome price…Repentance of the individual can also be the kind that requires a clean break, with all of man’s sins and evil deeds falling away into an abyss, fulfilling the prophecy, “An thou will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea” (Micah 7:19). Many have experienced this feeling or the desire to erase parts of our life. We feel nothing good can come out of those particular experiences or memories. We may be so successful at this that we really cannot remember the event even if asked about it or reminded of it. This type of Teshuva is useful and necessary in certain situations.

There is another type of Teshuva. says Rabbi Soloveitchik: “…there is another way – not by annihilating evil but by rectifying and elevating it. This repentance does not entail making a clean break with the past or obliterating memories. It allows man, at one and the same time, to continue to identify with the past and still to return to God in repentance.”

Rabbi Chaim Navon, in his book Ne’echaz B’Svach, offers an analogy of two people who were in a car accident. One of them may decide never to get back on the road, while the other becomes a driving teacher in order to rain a new generation of careful drivers. They had the same experience – but the affect of that experience differed greatly between them.

The person who swore off driving had a dead past – a past that set up the future.

The person who became a driving instructor has a live past – a past that is defined by the future. This person’s past is defined by decisions of the present.

Ask Yourself:

What past sins can I use to make myself a better person?
What are some strategies I can use to avoid compounding sin by making sure I use past mistakes to create better future?
Talking it over with my spouse/friend / rabbi
Studying more about this idea of repentance (ask Rabbi Gelman for further reading)
Spend time after a sin to think about how to redirect it

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September 20, 2011 | 10:38 pm

Rosh Hashanah: A day of insight not atonement

Posted by Rabbi Hyim Shafner

What is the difference between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur?  We often refer to both as days of judgment, yet they seem as different as night and day.  Rosh Hashanah is a Yom Tov, a joyous holiday, on which we eat and drink and have simcha, joy.  In contrast, on Yom Kippur we are filled with awe and perhaps anxiety, asceticism, and standing for long periods of time, almost the opposite of the Yom Tov of Rosh Hashanah. 

The Rambam, Maimonides, writes that the shofar (ram’s horn) is like an alarm that wakes us from the everydayness of the year, the wasting of time, the banal passage of day in and day out.  The sound of the shofar shocks us into evaluation, into reflection upon the rest of the year. 

But if Rosh Hashanah is such a day of reckoning, why not say vidoy, confession, on Rosh Hashanah as we do on Yom Kippur?  Indeed according to the halacha, Jewish law, there can be no tishuvah, no repentance, without all of its steps, one of which is verbal confession before God. 

Rosh Hashanah, according to the Talmud is the main Day of Judgment.  Yom Kippur is a kind of last resort for those not forgiven on Rosh Hashanah.  As the Talmud says, “On Rosh Hashanah all pass in judgment like sheep…the righteous are judged for life, the wicked for death and the judgments of others are suspended until Yom Kippur.” Then why is Rosh Hashanah a holiday filled with food and drink?  Why not have Yom Kippur on the first of Tishrey (the Hebrew date upon which Rosh Hashanah falls) and be done with the process of judgment? 

Perhaps Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are fundamentally different and necessary modes of doing tishuvah (repentance and return).  We see this I think from Maimonides.  According to Maimonides Rosh Hashanah with its shofar sound is not a day of achieving atonement, of the steps of repentance, but of waking up, of coming to terms with life.  Rosh Hashanah lacks the four steps of tishuvah, one of which is formalized confession, yet it is indeed a day of judgment. 

There are two stages to tishuvah one which is achieved on Rosh Hashanah and one on Yom Kippur.  One is not complete without the other.  If we had only Yom Kippur, we would go through the formalized steps of repentance, regretting our sin, stopping it, asking and receiving forgiveness, verbal confession, and becoming someone who will not do it again.  But this would be an incomplete tishuvah.  This would be a tishuvah, though real and transformative with regard to each sin itself, of formality.  The tzadik, the completely righteous person, who has no sins to speak of does not require Yom Kippur and is, according to the Talmud forgiven on Rosh Hashanah, but the righteous individual still does require Rosh Hashanah.  Why?

The tishuvah of Rosh Hashanah is not atonement for individual sins but an essential day of waking and reckoning, of evaluation and insight, which even the person who has not sinned must undergo.  As Maimonides points out, this day with the sound of the shofar, and not Yom Kippur with its atonement, conditions the rest of our year, makes us see the rest of our year as one in which every moment is significant, one in which every moment is a test of making choices, of being at a spiritual crossroads. 

Before we can engage in the formalities of the tishivah process of Yom Kippur, we must experience the more global life changing insights of Rosh Hashanah.  To do tishuvah on all of our sins, to feel regret for each of them, ask forgiveness, confess them and not do them again is not enough.  The New Year must be a time of whole life insight and existential transformation.  Such is the call of the Shofar.

My blessings for a New Year of insight, light and transformation,
Rabbi Hyim Shafner

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August 26, 2011 | 8:55 am

Tie School Funding To Israel Education – Rabbi Barry Gelman

Posted by Rabbi Barry Gelman

Having just read this article asking whether building more Jewish museum is the best use of our resources, I began thinking again about two dilemmas facing Jewish communities across the United States.

Decreased concern and knowledge about the State of Israel on the part of Jews in their teens, twenties and thirties.
Day School tuition crisis (i.e. families cannot afford to send their children to Day Schools)
These problems are related to each other.

Let’s start with Israel.

Concern for and support of the State of Israel is related to what people know about Israel. What people know about the State of Israel and their attitudes towards the State of Israel, by and large, is related to their Jewish educational experiences.

Schools should be incentivized to teach about the State of Israel and urge their students to support the State of Israel. I am not suggestion that schools teach that everything that the State of Israel does is right, but their should be a general attitude pervading schools that the State of Israel represents the cumulative aspirations of the Jewish people. Furthermore, it should be taught that Jewish art, learning, and religious and cultural expression can only be fully expressed in Israel.

Once these ideas are firmly established, then the debates about policy, religious coercion, etc, can be entered into. First, however, the positive connection to Israel must be established. It is perfectly acceptable, even necessary for young people to know that they can voice their opinion when it comes to the State of Israel. Those voices are only valuable when they come from those committed to the overall endeavor to begin with.  No doubt certain realities of Israel will disappoint students, but with a firm foundation as to why Israel matters, the students will at least engage in those areas of Israeli life that inspire them.

It is like a family. There are aspects of everyone’s family that are less thnn pleasant, but because the value of the family is a given, there is engagement and rarely a decision to cut off ties because of those unpleasant realities. This can work for American students vis-à-vis Israel, if the relationship with Israel is strengthened.

How does this tie into the tuition crisis? Easy, Incentives. Jewish philanthropy from private individuals as well as Federations can be contingent on the existence of Israel programing at schools.  Schools that are willing to dedicate significant time to teaching the importance of Israel get a bigger piece of the funding pie. This strategy plays directly into the hands of the Federations in that graduates of those schools who were worthy of the additional funding will no doubt become future donors to Federations soliciting money for Israel.

Trips to Israel are nice. Israel advocacy programs are valuable. None of these attempts to re-engage our youth with Israel will have a large-scale effect to swing the pendulum back. The day schools are the battlefield.

This is a simple formula. People who know about Israel will support Israel, even as they debate the issues.

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