Dear TBZ Community,
Last Shabbat, TBZ welcomed NIF’s Israel Director Mickey Gitzin at services and kiddush. For me, personally, his visit was incredibly inspiring. As I shared after he spoke during Shabbat services, I have been feeling incredibly pessimistic about what is happening in Israel. Hearing Mickey reminded me that this historic moment is one of great opportunity for Israel to become the nation written into the Israeli Declaration of Independence. A nation that “will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel.” You can watch the talk during services here, starting at 2:02 (the talk during kiddush was not streamed or recorded).
This Shabbat is Rosh Chodesh Iyyar, the beginning of the month when we celebrate Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israel’s Independence Day. This year, Yom Ha’atzmaut, on April 26, will celebrate 75 years since Israel’s birth. How do we celebrate this year?
We celebrate by standing up, by not giving up the fight for a democratic Israel. I will listen to the words that Mickey shared with us as a reminder that in this historic moment we have a chance to recreate the State of Israel.
We celebrate by raising our voice, as American Jews, standing up against leaders who promote bigotry, hatred, violence, and injustice in the name of a distortion of Judaism that thinks of specific Jews as superior and treats progressive Jews, women, LGBTQ+, Arabs, Palestinians, and other minorities unjustly.
We celebrate by reminding the mainstream American Jewish community that our voice matters and is very important. I especially want to bring your attention to An Open Letter to the Jewish Federations of North America and the Attendees of the 2023 General Assembly that UnXeptable (a grassroots organization started by Israelis living in San Francisco, in support of democracy in Israel) wrote in response to JFNA’s invitation to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Member of Knesset Simcha Rothman, Chair of the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, to speak from the main stage at the General Assembly.
Rabbi Art Green, in an opinion piece he wrote for The Times of Israel today, welcomed the leaders of the Federations to the GA in Israel. He wrote to them that, as they arrive in Israel, they will witness the best of Israel, the “tremendous strength of Israel’s civil society and its treasuring of freedom and democratic values. Those are Jewish values at their best, as we American Jews understand them: fairness under the law, protection of minorities, identifying with the oppressed, freedom of speech and expression.” But Rabbi Green also told the leaders of the American Jewish communities that they will “be forced to look into the face of the worst of Israel: a growing distortion of Judaism that sees Jews as superior to others, as lone masters and overlords in a land in which others live as well, as entitled to privilege over non-Jewish citizens of the state.”
Mickey said on Shabbat:
“This is where we are: In a way in the worst of all times of the State of Israel, but on the other hand the greatest time of history we are living history and I’m here to ask you to be our partners, not more and not less, because there is so much that we can do together.”
This year I might, as I usually do, wear white and blue and celebrate Israel, but what I will do is celebrate the opportunity of this historic time. And I will recommit myself to speaking up, to standing for democracy, and not shying away from the conversation and the protest. I hope you join me.
Here are two opportunities to join events:
May this new month bring blessings and hope.
May this Shabbat bring renewal and blessings to all of you and your loved ones.
May we find strength, courage, and patience, and open our hearts with generosity.
May all those who are ill find healing. And may we have a joyful, sweet, and peaceful Shabbat.
Shabbat Shalom
Rav Claudia