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November 20, 2008 | 5:34 pm

Rabbi Kanefsky named to Forward 50

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

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Rabbi Yosef Kanefsky learned last fall the danger of voicing a political opinion last fall when he wrote a column for The Jewish Journal that said Israel should be free to determine the fate of Jerusalem without having to kowtow to Diaspora Jews who demand the city remain undivided.

“To be sure, I would be horrified and sick if the worst-case division-of-Jerusalem scenario were to materialize. The possibility that the Kotel, the Jewish Quarter or the Temple Mount would return to their former states of Arab sovereignty is unfathomable to me, and I suspect to nearly everyone inside the Israeli government,” he wrote.

“At the same time though,” he continued, “to insist that the government not talk about Jerusalem at all [including the possibility, for example, of Palestinian sovereignty over Arab neighborhoods] is to insist that Israel come to the negotiating table telling a dishonest story—a story in which our side has made no mistakes and no miscalculations, a story in which there is no moral ambiguity in the way we have chosen to rule the people we conquered, a story in which we don’t owe anything to anyone.”

Nauseated or not, by simply suggesting that American Jews should butt out Kanefsky had broken an Orthodox taboo and the damage had been done.

“We heard sales, er, give-aways of the Journal spiked—in Gaza,” Robert Avrech wrote on his blog Seraphic Secret. “As we said, we’d like nothing better than to ignore Kanefsky, an arch leftie crank in Pico Robertson area, who leads a Romper Room congregation, but naturally the story was gleefully snapped up by the Los Angeles Times, a paper that would like nothing better than to see Israel disappear from the map. And of course, all the usual leftist Conservative, and Reform suspects jumped in to greet their lone Orthodox colleague to the Official Neville Chamberlain Appeasement Club. One of these characters labels Kanefsky a—get this—visionary.”

Well, last week The Forward agreed with that visionary label and named Kanefsky to its list of 50-most influential Jews, which includes a handful of Angelenos.

“A former associate rabbi at the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, a New York congregation led by maverick Orthodox Rabbi Avi Weiss, Kanefsky has long taken positions at odds with the Orthodox establishment,” The Forward stated. “He has allowed women to read from the Torah in their own single-sex services. As a past president of the Board of Rabbis of Southern California, he is far more engaged with the non-Orthodox Jewish world than most of his peers. But his nontraditional approach seems to be helping his cause: Over the past year, Kanefsky’s congregation of 300 families has grown by more than 10%.”

I e-mailed Kanefsky Monday but didn’t hear back. Based on previous conversations and the pain his op-ed caused some in his congregation, I imagine he has mixed feelings about the honor.

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Rabbi Kanefsky is confused. Avrech is right. A rabbi must necessarily have a political position, but must be a leader, not a politician. A leader is principled at the cost of popularity; a politician is the reverse. It is ironic when politicians are called ‘the leadership’. it is no honor for an Orthodox person to get a pat on the head from non-Orthodox and anti-Orthodox institutions, it implies that they can be relied upon to stick to their kosher food and their candles, and not be uppity on real-world issues. It represents more of an assult on the concept of Orthodoxy than of unity. The Forward is such an anti-orthodox instituition, and only the edgiest Orthoxdox figures dealing with the tamest topics in the most liberal way make it past the thought police.

The Jewish idea in full is holistic. It is the Torah in action. it involves the personal, communal and national, the ritual, the pragmatic and the interactive.

The idea of an Orthodox political opinion on ceding the Jewish sovereignty of Jerusalem is an oxymoron. It is the same as an Orthodox opinion on violating the Sabbath, eating pork, making circumcision optional, accepting patrilineal descent, or institutionalizing same-sex relationships as ‘marriages’. For an Orthodox rabbi, it is no less than a holder of a public office violating his or her oath to defend and protect the Constitution. That is not necessarily the same as taking positions at odd with the Jewish establishment. A Jewish case can be made for some of those.

To call halacha a ‘taboo’ is to call it a meaningless superstition. Many people and most Jews do think that, but no rabbi calling himself ‘Orthodox’ can, or he is severing the root of his authority to state anything Jewish at all. He is not needed for general moral lessons, we have Dr. Phil for that. The only currency a rabbi has is Jewish principle and precedent.

Kanefsky is wrong on the treatment of Arabs by israel, which ios better than the Israeli treatment of the Orthodox. Any mistakes and miscalculations are all by the hands of the secular politicians in Israel, which the Orthodox including him have [no obligation t carry water for. if it can be shown that ‘we’ owe anybody anything, the answer is to pay our obligations but never, never, never cede Jerusalem, which nobody has a mandate for in the face of all Jews of all time and in all places who have held fast to the Torah. In the orthodox view, a Jew is a jew. In principle, there are no ‘Diaspora Jews’ except in their own minds, of which Kanefsky is obviously one. Either we are all Diaspora Jews or none of us are.

Comment by Ben Plonie on 11/20/08 at 11:15 pm

Ben Plonie, maybe you are the confused one. Suggesting that politicians should have the right to bring Jerusalem to the table in order to get permanent peace in a volatile region is hardly the same as advocating desecrating the Shabbat or eating pork! Your argument makes no sense at all. The rabbi is simply being open to an option that could provide a sustainable peace even if it’s not something even he would want to see happen. Don’t bash on The Forward if you don’t agree with the opinions of the Jews they choose for their list. They all appear to be succesful and prominent members of society.

Comment by Reality on 11/20/08 at 11:45 pm

Ouch! I am confused and make no sense at all. Oh, wow, you are indeed a mighty rhetorical warrior. Your post is a bundle of irrelevant misconceptions, including the handle ‘Reality’.

Comment by Ben Plonie on 11/23/08 at 12:48 am

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