Los Angeles Master Chorale

Rabbi Shmuley Home

Rabbi Shmuley

November 9, 2009 | 10:22 am

The British Dare to Determine Who is a Jew

Posted by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

Every once in a while, a story comes along so jolting that it is scarcely believable. One such story appeared in The New York Times, of all places, this past Sunday, about how the Jews’ Free School in London has been ordered to admit a child whose mother had a non-orthodox conversion after the child’s parents sued.

I will not enter here into the ongoing and bitter divide in England between orthodox and progressive Jews. It was a battle that I witnessed and worked hard to mend through countless essays and public forums over the 11 years that I lived in the United Kingdom. Less so will I address here the very pressing questions of Jewish status as determined by conversion on the part of Judaism’s three major branches. I am a passionately orthodox Jew who is equally passionate about Jewish unity. Our divisions must indeed be addressed and healed. But this shocking story in Britain raises something far more pressing that is of equal concern to orthodox and non-orthodox alike.

What is mind-boggling is that a British court of appeals, which ruled against the school, said that the Jewish community’s ancient tradition of deciding Jewishness through parenthood is ethnically based, discriminatory, and therefore unlawful.

“The requirement that if a pupil is to qualify for admission his mother must be Jewish, whether by descent or conversion, is a test of ethnicity which contravenes the Race Relations Act,” the court said. Whether the reasons were “benign or malignant, theological or supremacist makes it no less and no more unlawful.” In an astonishing ruling, the court said that if the child practiced Judaism, then he is Jewish. But to base the decision on his parents was an unlawful emphasis on ethnicity, rather than on religious faith. One can immediately understand the implications for Jews who are not at all observant. Presumably the British government would not consider them Jews.

Now, let’s put aside for a moment the unbelievable infringement of government on the affairs of a religion and focus instead on the court’s rationale. If you are living in Britain, you become a citizen automatically if your parents are British. Even if you don’t behave particularly British, or hate the country of your birth, the UK cannot take away your passport. Likewise, if you’re an American living abroad, your children automatically acquire American citizenship. I should know because six of my nine children were born in Britain, and even though only one of their parents was American, and was living in Europe to boot, they automatically became Americans.

Even if you never celebrated the Fourth of July or have ever heard of Abraham Lincoln, you and your children are as American as George Washington himself. So is it really that difficult for British judges to understand that peoplehood is conveyed through a parent? The Jews are first and foremost a people and only secondarily a faith. We were the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob before we received the Torah at Mt. Sinai and began practicing Judaism’s tenets.

Peoplehood comes first and is completely independent of any kind of religious affirmation. Jewishness is not something that can be lost and it is not something that can be renounced. In this sense, Judaism is radically different from Christianity, which requires a conscious act of affirmation.

While there cannot be atheist Christians, there are plenty of atheist Jews. I am gobsmacked that a British court is challenging this. In my 11 years living in Britain, I never heard anything so outrageous. This ruling constitutes a legal assault on the very integrity of the Jewish religion as practiced in Britain and is a watershed moment in modern Jewish history. And with all the recent stories of British academics seeking to bar their Israeli counterparts from conferences and the rise of anti-Semitic incidents in the British Isles, it will only further cement world opinion that Britain is a country that is becoming hostile to Jews.

Being a people does not make us a homogenous ethic group. There are black Jews and white Jews, European Jews and Asian Jews. Converts of every ethnicity can of course join us at any time. But in so doing they are not adopting a faith but a people. They do not become merely practitioners of the Jewish fait but part of the Jewish family. A convert is transformed from an outsider into a Jewish brother or sister. But the process must of course have standards. To be a British citizen is not an arbitrary act. It takes approximately 10 years of residency. Likewise, my Australian wife’s naturalization as an American citizen took many years of residency and required passing a test of American knowledge. Now just imagine how absurd it would be if the United States told Britain to alter its residency requirements, or vice versa, and you can begin to understand the chutzpa of British judges trying to alter the identity requirements of a three-and-half thousand year faith that is the precursor of Christianity.

Next week, my organization This World: The Values Network will sponsor the first-ever conference on Jewish values. It will feature some of the world’s leading Jewish personalities, including Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, Yeshiva University President Richard Joel, Alan Dershowitz, Dennis Prager, Michael Steinhardt, AIPAC president David Victor and Marianne Williamson. Among of our religion’s principle values are community and peoplehood. For thousands of years, dispersed throughout the world, Jews have always looked out for one another. You could turn up in any city, and, regardless of level of observance, you would be invited to someone’s home for the Sabbath and made to feel like family, even though just moments before you were a complete stranger. In light of this outrageous British legal challenge to this time-honored principle of Jewish peoplehood, we will be adding an entire plenary devoted to explicating the special Jewish value of identity and peoplehood and hope that it will assist British Jewry in knowing that they are not alone in this critical battle.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach is founder of This World: The Values Network. To register for The Jewish Values Conference, taking place in NYC on Nov. 17 and 18, go to www.thisworld.us.

14 Comments — Leave your comment

Share this post: del.icio.us Favicondel.icio.us Digg FaviconDigg Facebook FaviconFacebook Google FaviconGoogle Reddit FaviconReddit StumbleUpon FaviconStumbleUpon Technorati FaviconTechnorati YahooMyWeb FaviconYahooMyWeb

  • The British Dare to Determine Who is a Jew

    Yes, Shmuley, G-d forbid an arbitrary court should decide who is a Jew. Me? I’d take my chances with the English courts before I would with the Chief Rabbinate in Israel. At least the former won’t retroactively declare a conversion void after a decade. Also, the Orthodox redefinition of the ...

    By Jon on 2009 11 11

  • J Street’s Attacks on Aipac in the NY Times

    Yo Blo, Look at the carnage JEWS did: The Jewish Role in the Bolshevik Revolution As one looks back at history and sees the many wars and revolutions that took place, it seems as if a HIDDEN HAND is guiding all this carnage. And if one looks at Europe & America today, that same HIDDEN HAND is ...

    By Gerald Goldberg on 2009 10 03

  • Elie Wiesel, Mehmet Oz, and Cory Booker Join Me to Discuss Values (and Jon Gosselin listens in)

    I believe, a sincere desire to correct the many mistakes he has made as he has been carried away with fame, as have so many others in our ...

    By HGH For Sale on 2009 11 07

October 19, 2009 | 9:48 am

Elie Wiesel, Mehmet Oz, and Cory Booker Join Me to Discuss Values (and Jon Gosselin listens in)

Posted by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

Last night our organization, This World: The Values Network, hosted a fascinating discussion entitled, “Values to Heal America” featuring Prof. Elie Wiesel, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Dr. Mehmet Oz, America’s doctor, and Mayor Cory Booker of Newark.

What an event it turned out to be! Truly, one of the finest dialogues I have ever been involved with. I structured the evening by presenting to the panelists with the seven greatest social ills that I believe are plaguing America. I then offered a Jewish-values based solution to each and asked the panelists to react. We dealt with depression, the terror threat and foreign wars, broken families, materialism and greed, the growing gap between rich and poor, and other pressing concerns.

To have three guests, each of whom is a world-leader in their field, was spectacular and I strongly encourage each of you to go on our websites and watch the full program. The questions from the audience were equally riveting.

John Gosselin, from Jon and Kate Plus 8, joined us in the audience and asked the panelists what were the most important values by which to raise good kids. We alighted upon respect (Oz), setting a good moral example (Booker), and teaching them to love learning (Prof Wiesel). I spoke to Jon publicly about the need to use fame and celebrity to highlight a cause larger than oneself, without which fame can become a curse. He was very receptive and I commend him for having the courage to get up in front of everyone and ask his question. His family clearly needs healing and I have been speaking to him about changes he must make in his life. Again, he is always very receptive. There is much good in him and he has, I believe, a sincere desire to correct the many mistakes he has made as he has been carried away with fame, as have so many others in our culture.

Indeed, the obsession with celebrity was one of the most interesting parts of the conversation and Mehmet Oz said that his wife Lisa, as well as raising four children, keep him grounded amid his own skyrocketing celebrity.

But the greatest treat for all of us was hearing Elie Wiesel, a living legend, share his inspirational wisdom with us. Prof. Wiesel has lectured to my organizations now for twenty years. Each time it is memorable, uplifting, and historic. There is none like him.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach is the founder of This World: The Values Network. He has just published ‘The Michael Jackson Tapes: A Tragic Icon Reveals His Soul in Intimate Conversation.” www.shmuley.com.

3 Comments — Leave your comment

October 19, 2009 | 7:43 am

How Rabbis Can Become Relevant

Posted by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

Speaking at a Rabbinical Conference in the American South this week, I made myself instantly unpopular by pointing out how irrelevant we Rabbis have become. How many parents push their kids to be Rabbis? Sure. If the kid flunked science and math. Perhaps. But to choose it over law or a job at Goldman Sachs?

And how many people turn to a Rabbi aside from the obvious life-cycle events like Bar Mitzvahs and weddings, or, more ominously, during tragedies like illness and funerals. And to the extent that we Rabbis are becoming more popular with our communities it seems to be precisely when we act as though we’re not Rabbis but just one of the boys. How often have I heard friends tell me, “We have the coolest new Rabbi. We call him by his first name. He plays poker and basketball with us. He’s amazing.” All of this is, of course, quite kosher. But this kind of popularity is hardly the stuff of leadership.

And if we’re becoming less relevant in the Jewish community, we never had any real relevance outside our community to begin with. While evangelical pastors like Rick Warren have an appeal well beyond Christians, Rabbis remain almost completely unknown in the United States beyond their Synagogues. Not that popularity or renown is any kind of meaningful barometer of success. It’s not. But as a gauge of the degree to which Rabbis are impacting the mainstream culture, it’s clear that we remain mostly marginalized.

And it’s our own fault. We have relegated ourselves to mainstream irrelevance by allowing ourselves to mostly become synagogue quarterbacks and ritual rule-givers. The Rabbi is the man who runs the Synagogue service. He makes announcements like, “Will the Congregation please rise” and “Please turn to page 250.” He is the person you come to with questions like “What time do Kol Nidrei services begin” and “Are my tefillin still kosher?” Now, let’s not trivialize these absolutely vital functions of the communal Rabbi. Let us also, of course, never trivialize the importance of every person whom Rabbis affect, comfort, and inspire, each of whom, according to our Talmud, is an entire universe. But let us also not pretend that any of these functions will ever bring Rabbis or Judaism to have a mainstream impact on a culture crying out for redemption.

What could change all this? A radical transformation in how Rabbis view themselves and how they are viewed by their communities. The principal purpose of a Rabbi is not to present a leather-bound Bible to a Bar Mitzvah boy or even to eulogize a righteous grandmother upon her passing. Rather, the Rabbi’s main objective is to serve as a guide for life to his congregants. Simply put, as a supreme repository of the splendid wisdom contained in Judaism, as Rabbi is the ultimate lifecoach.

The Rabbi once was, and should again be, the main person you come to when you want advice as to how to make your marriage passionate, how to learn to talk to your teenage kids, how to wean yourself off materialism and greed, and how to learn to become a deeper and wiser person. But when these question pop into our heads the personalities we turn to are Oprah, Deepak Chopra, Dr. Phil, and Marianne Williamson.

But aren’t rabbis wise? Are they not students of an ancient tradition that kept families intact and communities whole for generations? Are we not the teachers who can best explain how Joseph learned to forgive his brothers and are we not the heirs of Hillel who practiced patience even through the most outrageous provocations? So why are we teaching so little of this? We Rabbis ought to have owned the self-help revolution that had millions searching for mastery over their lives.

This past Sunday night I was joined on a panel by Elie Wiesel, Dr. Mehmet Oz, and Mayor Cory Booker to discuss Jewish values that can heal America. Each of the panelists spoke with great eloquence. Joining in the audience of over 1000 was John Gosselin from TLC’s ‘Jon and Kate Plus Eight’ whose life has become a tabloid parody but who is now searching for redemptive purpose and asked a very important question about values he can employ, as a single father, to raise healthy children. Mayor Booker said ‘Be a moral example to your children.’ Dr. Oz said he must teach his children to always show others respect. And Prof. Wiesel, eloquent as always, said education was key and his children must love learning. I advised him to wean his children off the attention that comes from TV viewers and substitute it instead with the kind of unconditional love that can only come from focused parenting. But the significance of the exchange was that a man whose family has been significantly damaged by the all-American obsession with celebrity is searching for meaning within the well of Jewish values.

About a year ago I had a meeting with a television executive about a family values program. I was warned ahead of time that although the executive was Jewish he was extremely secular and I should be careful not to bring up religion. Yet, as soon as I walked in he asked me, “Do you watch Joel Osteen?” I said that I did, on occasion, and found him to be an effective and inspiring communicator.

As I walked out it occurred to me that his question was somewhat tragic. Not because the Jewish executive watched a Christian pastor to receive spiritual uplift. Rather, the tragedy lay in the fact that Osteen mostly quotes from the Hebrew Bible as opposed to the New Testament. His sermons focus on the Jewish patriarchs, Moses, King David, Jeremiah, and Isaiah for guidance. What he doesn’t do is announce ‘Will the congregation please rise’ or content himself with quarterbacking a service. Rather, he provides guidance for life. And he does it from our Torah. Surely we Rabbis who devote our lives to its mastery can recapture our historical occupation of sharing its wisdom with those who seek to lead lives of moral grandeur and spiritual purpose.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach is the founder of This World: The Values Network. He has just published ‘The Michael Jackson Tapes: A Tragic Icon Reveals His Soul in Intimate Conversation.” www.shmuley.com.

0 Comments — Leave your comment

September 30, 2009 | 1:31 pm

J Street’s Attacks on Aipac in the NY Times

Posted by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

If J Street, the new left-wing Israel lobby, wants to be taken seriously by mainstream American Jewry, then I would suggest they immediately stop the patronizing argument that all those who disagree with them are ossified Jewish knuckledraggers who see an anti-Semite behind every corner. The New York Times Magazine feature on J Street this past Sunday, which raised the group from near obscurity to high visibility, may have been off in its quotations of its director Jeremy Ben-Ami. But if accurate they represent a nauseating and patronizing position of breathtaking condescension toward ideological opponents that can only sow deep divisions within the Jewish community.

Here are some choice morsels.

On why most of the pro-Israel lobbying groups, whom J Street has come to ‘balance,’ support a hard-line against terror, Ben Ami says that they see “Israel as the place you can always count on when they come to get you.” Ben-Ami added further that these groups stifle dissent because they argue that “we’re still on too-shaky ground to permit public disagreement.” In Ben-Ami’s opinion Aipac is run by paranoid schizophrenics who fear another holocaust striking at any moment.

On Israel’s recent offensive against Hamas in Gaza, which J Street strongly criticized, the Times relates, “Ben-Ami… acknowledges that moments of crisis for Israel tap into the ancestral impulses… ‘There’s their grandmother’s voice in their ear; it’s the emotional side and the communal history, and it’s the fear of not wanting in some way to be responsible for the next great tragedy that will befall the Jewish people.’”

Get it. If you support Israel’s right to defend itself against missiles raining down on its kindergartens and nursing homes it’s not because you believe in a country’s legitimate right to defend itself against attack but because you’re reptilian Jewish brain has still not gotten over your great-grandmother being disemboweled by Chemielnitzki.

Talk about delegitimizing the other side. And all this from a man who started J Street because right-wing Jews stifle debate!

Is this the way to conduct an honest discussion about Israel’s future, by painting those with whom you disagree as a bunch of loons who see Nazis about to storm Brooklyn?

The truth, of course, is that many people, myself included, who support the organizations that J Street seeks to demonize –  AIPAC, the ADL, the ZOA, and others – do so not because we fear the imminent mass extinction of all Jews but because we seek to prevent the cold-blooded murder of even one Jew. In the year 2009 there is no reason that we should have to put up with any anti-Semitic or anti-Israel prejudice, even if it doesn’t lead to gas chambers. Israel shouldn’t have to tolerate any bombs going off in its midst, even if they kill only a handful of Jews. And we support Israel not because it’s the final bunker when the skinheads finally conquer Miami Beach but because, like all proud Americans, we love freedom and democracy and we’re thrilled that the Jewish state is the bastion of those precious values in a region that utterly repudiates them.

I am not one to get easily offended, but reading Ben-Ami’s words, in the New York Times of all places, borders on the anti-Semitic. His caricature of leaders of major Jewish organizations – heroes like Malcolm Hoenlein, Howard Kohr, and Morton Klein – as mistrustful cranks who seek to hijack American foreign policy is deeply troubling, as is his contention that Jews who believe that a tough military posture, after all the terror Israel has experienced in response to two decades of land-for-peace-deals, are paranoid brutes stuck in the past.

I am prepared to accord Ben-Ami the benefit of the doubt, that his left-wing posture on Israel and his strong support of President Obama’s pressure on its government stems from a sincere desire to bring peace to the Jewish state. Ben-Ami is the scion of Israeli patriots and while I strongly disagree with his politics I do not question the nobility of his motivation. Will he not afford me the same benefit of the doubt?

And I would ask Ben-Ami to at least be consistent. On the subject of Israel talking with Hamas, the Times reported that although the United States classifies the group as a terrorist organization, “J Street takes the cautious view that while we should not speak directly with officials, we should engage through intermediaries with the goal of finding interlocutors willing to live in peace with Israel.” But surely Ben-Ami should then, at the very least, publicly advocate that the United States do the same with Al Qaida. Rather than hunt them down in Afghanistan we should be reaching out to them through the Swiss.

I am not here to attack J Street but to make a point. We need many voices in the Jewish community and if J Street feels that left-wing Jews were not being heard in the halls of Congress then by all means let it be remedied by the establishment of an alternative lobby. That’s what democracy is all about. But J Street’s cheap tactics of creating its name by attacking Aipac, the ADL, and the ZOA is shameful. There is room in our community for many voices without creating a civil war. We can be a community of one heart even if we are not of one mind.

Finally, amid Ben-Ami’s cutting words about how we who are disturbed by Obama’s unrelenting pressure on Israel are just a bunch of unreasonable fossils, will he really overlook those whose stated intention is indeed the destruction of Israel, like Hamas, Hezbollah, and Ahmedenijad? Would he argue that the Iranian President’s bark is worse than his bite even as he slaughters his own protesting countrymen in the streets?

No doubt just seventy years after the start of World War II there are still Jews who have not forgotten that when dictators say they want to wipe a nation off the map, and build weapons with that very capability, they ought to be taken seriously. As the great baseball legend Yogi Berra once said, “Just because your paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.”

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, founder of This World: The Values Network, has just published his newest book ‘The Blessing of Enough: Rejecting Material Greed, Embracing Spiritual Hunger,’ a man selection of the Sony EBook Store. www.shmuley.com.

6 Comments — Leave your comment

About this Blog

Blog Home
About the Blogger(s)
Contact

RSS


Blog Archive