Opinion

April 26, 2011

The Zionism of Rabbi Richard Jacobs – A Model for Our Times

by Rabbi David Ellenson, Rabbi Naamah Kelman and Rabbi Michael Marmur

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In the current issue of The Jewish Journal, there is an advertisement taken out by “Reform Jews who want the Reform Movement to stand with Israel.” This advertisement asserts that Rabbi Richard Jacobs, the President-designate of the Union for Reform Judaism, “does not represent the pro-Israel policies cherished by Reform Jews.” We vehemently disagree with this distorted caricature of Rabbi Jacobs and his attitudes toward Israel. 

During this past week, as we celebrated the Passover holiday, our people noted the Ten Plagues that God inflicted upon the Egyptians as we began our journey from slavery to freedom. However, the attack upon Rabbi Jacobs reminds us that Leviticus 13:31 mentions an oft-forgotten “eleventh plague,” nega’ ha-netek. Literally, this term denotes the plague of separation. In context the phrase relates to a scalp condition, but it seems that in recent years “the plague of separation” has spread not to those who oppress us, but to the Jewish people ourselves.

The most recent attack upon Rabbi Jacobs indicates that we are too often separated from one another — by culture, predilection, politics, ideology and more. Our fears may unite us (hence our constant appeal to the specter of anti-Semitism and Israel’s precarious security situation to bolster our flagging sense of cohesion), but often it appears we are divided by our hopes and our dreams.

It is a source of particular grief that Israel seems to have become a touchstone of alienation rather than a watchword of unity. We are divided about so many things in relationship to Israel, and there is in particular a low threshold of tolerance in too many sectors of the Jewish community for diversity of opinion regarding the State of Israel.
The current advertisement means that a handful of Reform Jews have now joined previously Right-leaning critics who in recent weeks have challenged the Zionist credentials of Rabbi Jacobs. The claim is that Rabbi Jacobs’ involvement with groups promoting human rights and social improvement aligns him with crazed extremists. Here are five reasons why such a canard needs to be refuted with vigor:

1. If American Jews related to Israel the way Rabbi Jacobs and his family do, nega’ ha-netek would be in retreat. He cares deeply about the country, has strong relationships with many Israelis, encourages bilateral encounters and programs in his synagogue and through his work in the larger Jewish community, studies in Israel and even owns property in Jerusalem. He comes to Israel several times every year, and spends every summer studying sources with curiosity and profundity at the Shalom Hartman Institute. He is a passionate Zionist, who devotes time and love to the State of Israel. By any dispassionate standard, Rabbi Jacobs is part of the solution to the challenges confronting American Jewish engagement with and support of Israel, not part of the problem.

2. By setting the battle lines in the way they are currently doing, Rabbi Jacobs’ critics are sailing in very dangerous waters. They argue that any demurral from the current party line of Israel’s government is disloyal. If this position prevails, the plague of separation will reach epidemic proportions. The old parliamentary notion of “His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition” is an important idea.

3. Let us also face facts. A significant number of North American Jews of a liberal disposition under the age of 40 are less and less likely to make Israel a central part of their lives. Yet, a small and highly influential committed core is swimming against the tide, and developing meaningful models for engagement for this cohort with Israel at this dramatic and uncertain time is a necessity for all of us who love and support the Jewish State. In Rabbi Jacobs’ example of encounter with Israel, in his willingness to confront complexity and face up to unpalatable realities, in his infectious enthusiasm and immense charm, he is a model for such younger Jews. To vilify him is to alienate them still further.

4. The fact that those who have assaulted Rabbi Jacobs’ integrity have wrapped themselves in the flag of Zionist purity is particularly galling. Since its inception, the Zionist movement has provided a forum for a range of opinions. If these self- appointed purists try to bar a great congregational rabbi whose views represent the mainstream of the American Jewish community and the Reform Jewish Movement from the fold of the True Believers, who wins? The campaign to discredit the work of the New Israel Fund (which hundreds of Zionist rabbis support) shows all the symptoms of separation plague — self-righteous certainty, disregard for nuance, allergy to reason and a strong appetite for the whiff of a witch-hunt. Support for Israel is not the exclusive property of one party or another.

5. Anyone who knows Rabbi Jacobs will tell you that he is a mature and wise man. He cares. He learns. He is a mensch. He is the farthest from a fanatic one can possibly imagine. In fact, Rabbi Jacobs lives his life striving for balance, humanity and depth. In the struggle against the plague of separation, he is staffing the ER.

Lovers of Israel with a range of political commitments should welcome with enthusiasm that the mantle of leadership of the Reform Movement will go to a man who cares deeply about Jewish learning, Jewish creativity and Jewish unity. They should decry tawdry attempts to sully the integrity of a good man. Rabbi Jacobs is a model of constructive engagement. At a time of rampant confusion and galloping alienation, the tactics of witch-hunting and demagoguery are not what we need. The leadership epitomized by Rabbi Richard Jacobs is.

Rabbi David Ellenson is President of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR). Rabbi Naamah Kelman is dean of the Jerusalem campus of HUC-JIR. Rabbi Michael Marmur, who resides in Jerusalem, is vice president for academic affairs at HUC-JIR. 

A version of this article appeared in print.

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Zionism is the movement for material, political, and spiritual restoration of the Jewish/Israelite nation in their eternal ancestral homeland. That’s it in 21 words (actually less).

I’m not familiar with Jacobs, but if it takes 1000 words to explain him, I call it a diversion. Either he supports the Zionist viewpoint and program or we are talking about some other definition of Zionism. It’s like the slogan for J Street, ‘pro-Israel and pro-peace’, something it turns out nobody is so stupid as to believe.

Recently, the organization’s adviser and co-founder Daniel Levy asserted with uncommon bluntness that Israel’s very founding was “an act that was wrong”.

Comment by Ben Plonie on 4/26/11 at 9:11 pm

This Op-ed does not even attempt to refute the facts of the JADL ad.  J Street and the many groups supported by the New Israel Fund masquerade as supporters of Israel but act as adversaries.The opinion piece is an illustration of the disconnect between American Jews and the leadership of too many of our Jewish organizations.

Comment by David B. Goldenson on 4/27/11 at 3:30 pm

Not having seen the ad, only the op-ed, with which I totally agree, my response is to the prioor commentors, both of whom distort the position of J-Street and New Israel Fund.  They are entitled to disagree with both those exemplary organizations, but they are not entitled to lashon hara or other incivility.  Goldenson as least has the courage to use his name rather than mask his foul mouth under a clear pseudonym as did “ben plonie.”  But Goldenson is wrong, among other things, about the op-ed not refuting the infamous ad, since it clearly shows Rabbi Jacobs’ commitment and attachement to Israel.  For shame, ad signers.  For shame, DBG and “BP.”

Comment by Laurence Kaufman on 4/27/11 at 6:12 pm

My thing is ideas, Laurence, not chatter and gossip. That’s the basis of our relationship, and its limit as far as I am concerned; it does not require my long-form birth certificate. How about engaging those ideas instead of just sneering, posturing, lying and perpetrating lashon hara upon me and Goldenson? You’re the phony here, not me.

Comment by Ben Plonie on 4/27/11 at 7:45 pm

Zionism is a positive program; ideologically and philosophically simple and morally clear. No Zionists support the NIF or J Street, and they support no Zionists or Zionist priorities. They exist to funnel vast foreign anti-Israel funding to enemies of Israel, domestic and foreign under a false flag; phony enough for you?. ‘nega’ ha-netek’ is just more of the same; mumbo-jumbo aimed at the ignorant to make it look like anti-Zionism is really a very Jewish value.

Comment by Ben Plonie on 4/27/11 at 7:47 pm

Here is the fuller description from Omri Ceren (real name)

Once you’ve embraced the anti-Israel version of Middle East history – where the revival of the Jewish State was an ethically injudicious colonialist overreaction to the Holocaust rather than a centuries-old legally-codified international movement – you can’t then forcefully insist that Jews have an ethical right to live securely in the Holy Land. Because those two things mean the opposite of each other.

No wonder J Street wants to redefine “pro-Israel” to justify their rhetorically creepy “we beat up Israelis for their own good, and it hurts us more than it hurts them” campaign.

Comment by Ben Plonie on 4/27/11 at 7:49 pm

As an Israeli, born and raised in Israel after a long career in the IDF, I really don’t see the reasoning on those who attack commited reform jews and leaders who agree on the commen target - but beg to differ on the right path to getting there. We look for Rabbi Richard Jacobs, a commited zionist reform to take office and lead the URJ through ARZA to asist us in connecting more and more israelis to the Tikun Olam of ISRAEL. Behazlacha!

Comment by Yaron Shavit Chair of the Israel Reform movment (I on 4/27/11 at 11:24 pm

Bayit Hasheni was destroyed because of sinat chinam.

Comment by Laurence Kaufman on 4/28/11 at 5:54 am

Laurence
Do you think I don’t notice you changing the subject? With you sinat chinam and lashon hara is a one way street. The reform movement traditionally has no problem ignoring, ridiculing, maligning, betraying and demonizing dedicated sincere hardworking national Zionists, activists for Jewish causes, Orthodox rabbis and communities and the billion plus Jews of history who lived and died by a relentless love of a Jewish Eretz Yisrael; where is the love, where is the unity?

You have a lot of personal and communal teshuvah and tikkun to do, better get started.

Comment by Ben Plonie on 4/28/11 at 8:16 am

As for the right path, it is the straightest and shortest. By living a Jewish life in the Jewish homeland (all of it or as much as possible), we repair the world. Laughing at and criticizing ourselves, dwelling on complexity and uncertainty and eroding foreign support and self-interest etc. are fodder for therapy, not a way of life. Judaism is not ‘Need a homeland? Here - take ours!’

It can certainly wait until Israel is no longer under an existential threat. When Mashiach arrives will be fine.

Comment by Ben Plonie on 4/28/11 at 8:18 am

Laurence: As an secular/unaffiliated Jew who is very involved in our community, I can’t count the many times I have been personally outraged by the offensive way so many Reform Jews and some Rabbis have been expressing themselves about Orthodox Jews, Republicans, and Christians. Roll your eyes sanctimoniously all you want about Leshon Hara, but this is the ugly truth. Preach to others about Tikkun Olam, but Tikkun Olam is really about your own soul.

Comment by Truth Teller on 5/03/11 at 12:25 pm

Not everybody knows that the founders of J Street were public relations professionals with the Arab oil states as their clients. I wouldn’t be surprised if ‘Laurence’ is working the Internet to spin all references J Street etc. positively.

Comment by Ben Plonie on 5/03/11 at 4:57 pm

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