Archived Opinion

Examine the mitzvah of Ahavat Yisrael

In his book “The Everyday Torah,” Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson reminds us, “Rabbi Yitzhak Elhanan points out that what makes a Torah scroll ritually temimah (perfect) is that it isn’t missing a single letter. If the scroll omits even one Hebrew letter it is pasul ( ritually unfit). So too if a single Jew is excluded from the community, then the entire community is, as it were, pasul.”
We sometimes treat fellow Jews badly and then write them off. We sometimes demonize them in print or in public because we disagree with them on an issue or don’t like their politics or personality, without realizing that we are hurting the entire Jewish community. In the month of Elul let us hope to examine the mitzvah of Ahavat Yisrael (love of all Jews) as seriously as we take other mandates of Jewish values and Torah tradition.

Steve Israelite
Lee’s Summit, Missouri

Israel and Diaspora disagreements getting out of hand

The July 19th issue of The Chronicle had two articles that I found of interest. One was about the continuing conflict over the Western Wall in Jerusalem. Members of the Reform movement are shown confronting police and security guards. The other piece by Rabbi Dianna Fersko was an appeal to liberal Jews to embrace Tisha b’Av due to increased anti-Semitism. She appeals to us not only to be cognizant of past tribulations but to be more responsive to the anti- Semitism of today.
Our family quarrels are becoming so intense that they are getting out of hand. Yes, I do relate to Israel as our family. Why? Where else can we look to be a haven for Jews anywhere in the world? It has been only 70 years since we got our state back. In my lifetime, no less. May we never see Israel and Diaspora become adversaries.
Americans are not Israelis. Israelis are not Americans. Remember, only 5 percent of Israelis are Reform or Conservative Jews.
So why am I so concerned about these conflicts? Memory is the answer. I remember that our country severely limited immigration of Jews from 1924 to 1952. During that period 6 million Jews were murdered because of the inaction that amounted to complicity by the countries of the world. Remember the rejection of the SS St. Louis? A substantial number on board were then killed in concentration camps. Then there was the failure of conferences in Evian and Bermuda. The War Refugee Board of the USA was established after millions of Jews were already slaughtered. I remember the Greek ship Struma with 782 Jews aboard who were denied permission to land. The ship was towed out to sea while the ship’s engine was being prepared. It was sunk by a German submarine. All aboard were lost except one teenager. I remember Britain’s refusal to allow Holocaust survivors to enter Palestine. I remember that Holocaust survivors languished in DP camps that existed from 1945 to 1952.
Americans make Aliyah in small numbers and do so out of conviction. Others emigrate to Israel to find a safe haven. For example many Jews from France and the UK are emigrating today. Almost 1.3 million made Aliyah from Russia and the former USSR. Amazing!
Let’s not bash Israel because of any disagreements we may have. Let us be constructive in our criticism. We need each other.
Sol Koenigsberg
Overland Park, Kansas

As rabbis in our respective Missouri cities we see our shared struggles against injustice as central to both living out our Jewish values and being exemplars of those values for our congregants and Jewish communities. Amongst those Jewish values we hold as being paramount is the mitzvah/commandment prohibiting oppression of the stranger, which evolves into the positive commandment to love the stranger. Standing up with and for immigrants, asylum seekers, DACA recipients and migrants is all about love for the stranger.
We were proud to stand with over 40 rabbis, cantors and Jewish activists from across the country who convened in San Diego and crossed the border to visit migrant shelters in Tijuana, Mexico, last week. The delegation was led by T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, HIAS (a Jewish refugee organization) and Jewish Family Service of San Diego. This followed a day of protest and non-violent resistance in San Diego to the administration’s Operation Streamline program; a program that goes even further in denying asylum seekers and other immigrants their legal due process, a legal right for immigrants that has been the established law of our land for decades. We were allies to the Latino organization Mijente who led the protest.
We witnessed firsthand asylum seekers in the migrant shelters. These people have been victimized by the United States, which has shut its doors on these courageous families fleeing violence and persecution. We were told the story of a woman deported out of the United States and torn away from her three children. Distraught, she desperately tried to find news of her youngest son, only to learn he had committed suicide due to being separated from his mother. This is just one of the way too many devastating stories we were witness to that has resulted from the United States unjust and heartless immigration policy.
While this experience was and is heartbreaking for us, we felt compelled to bear direct witness to these real stories at our borders. These stories can and must be a catalyst toward action for us and our Jewish communities; action that will not cease until immigrants, asylum seekers, migrants and refugees are afforded a life of decency, dignity and stability, and a life without fear for themselves or their children.
“For we were strangers in the land of Egypt.” Our Torah unequivocally places us, the children of Israel, as the stranger in the human story. We must know and love the stranger like they are our own because the stranger is us. When immigrant children are torn away from their parents by ICE in an act of government sanctioned kidnapping, the children are not their children but our children. We do and must see these kids as our kids.
The practical response to this command to love is the radical hospitality shown by Abraham and Sarah to the visitors approaching their tent. Many of us are here because our people needed the same open tent to save us and give our children a future. We can open our tents and become sanctuaries and support systems for the many families seeking asylum as we work toward a more humane immigration system.
This moment in human history, the history of our country and in Jewish history is no less than a test of who we are as Jews. Particularly as we approach the solemn day of Tisha b’Av (begins the evening of July 21), we ask ourselves whether or not our action (or inaction) will place us in galut, in a state of moral exile, or, will we be closer to G-d’s realm; to be holy as G-d is holy. We are holy when we follow G-d’s will to love the stranger because G-d loves the stranger. (Deuteronomy 10:18-19).
We urge all in our respective Jewish communities, in Kansas City and St. Louis, to fight for these strangers, members of Latino and other immigrant communities who love their children as we love our own. Connect to local efforts that work for immigrant justice and support the work of HIAS and T’ruah, who so admirably represent the best of our Jewish values. May we all love these immigrant strangers, so they are strangers no more.

Rabbi Doug Alpert is rabbi of Congregation Kol Ami, which holds services in Kansas City, Missouri. Rabbi Susan Talve is the founding rabbi of Central Reform Congregation, the only Jewish congregation located within the city limits of St. Louis, Missouri.

I have only a few memories of my grandmother, Anna, whom I called Bubbe.
Anna came to the United States from Poland in 1904. She entered through Ellis Island and went straight to Kansas City, Missouri, where she joined other immediate family members — the Wolf family — who had already settled there.
She met my grandfather-to-be, Mendel Karol, within a couple of years after her arrival. They married in 1907. They had four sons, my father being the youngest.
Anna ran a dry goods store from 1908 until 1939. One of my relatives often spoke about my grandmother’s engaging personality in greeting the public and in maintaining relationships with family and friends. 
Anna was a well-documented resident, with her entry into the country chronicled at Ellis Island and her residency noted in the national census and in city directories. It seems that, for her, and for many other immigrants, there was not much of a push to formally naturalize as an American citizen, although my grandfather had done so in the mid-1920s. 
Yet a major change in American life came when the United States Congress passed the Immigration Act of 1924. This piece of legislation set quotas restricting the annual entry of potential immigrants, especially from countries in Europe, to 2 percent of what the population was in 1890 of American residents from those particular countries. One consular authority of the time characterized Jews and other groups as “undesirable” in a report that supported the legislation, although the bill had to be based on countries of origin rather than ethnic or religious identity.
Had my grandparents arrived on American shores later than 1924, it is likely they would have been sent back home.
Still, my grandmother continued her life as a seemingly content resident, that is, until 1940.  
That’s when the United States Congress passed the Alien Registration Act, which required all “aliens” to register between August and December of that year. One purpose of that piece of legislation was to prohibit certain “subversive activities.” The Act required residents who were not yet citizens to report at a local post office for an interview and to be fingerprinted. 
My grandmother’s registration form, which I found among family papers, was likely filled out by my father, who may have accompanied my bubbe to the post office for her interview.  
A very quiet life in a midwestern city was almost upended. It is likely that her change in status, from contributing community member (who belonged only to a “Jewish Mothers Club”) to being seen as a potential pariah, motivated my grandmother to apply for naturalization. She became a citizen in late 1941.
After studying the documents related to the Karols’ journey to citizenship, I came to appreciate, even more, all those people who seek to become contributing members of our communities, whether they are seeking new opportunity or are fleeing violence or persecution.
My grandmother’s story, and many others I believe, relates directly to what Father Gabriel Rochelle wrote in the June 22 edition of the Las Cruces Bulletin. He noted that faith values point to “inclusion of the tired and the poor, those who are exiled or seeking refuge in one way or another, those looking to make a better life for their children.”
So, I say to my grandmother: Thanks, Bubbe, for your journey, and for your influence on my parents and my early life. You taught me to be warm and welcoming, like you. You are one of the people who helped to make me a proud American.

Rabbi Larry Karol is a native of Kansas City, Missouri. Currently the rabbi of Temple Beth-El in Las Cruces, New Mexico, he grew up as a member of The Temple, Congregation B’nai Jehudah, where he became a Bar Mitzvah and was confirmed.

The old order has passed. I have lived a long life, at age 87 with age 90 just over the horizon. Much has changed in my lifetime, most for the better, some for the worse. Typically, at this stage of the game, it is normal to mourn more for the past than to glory in the present. And I do mourn for the past.
I do not recognize today’s world. Was it necessary to destroy what was good in society while making the old order better? Here in the Diaspora, our Jewish world is shrinking. Support for Israel is eroding. Even worse than that, Judaism is eroding. The intermarriage rate for non-Orthodox is a little more than 70 percent, according to a 2013 Pew survey. Do the math. At that rate, the children of millennials will be just about the last generation of a meaningful number of Jews in America.
For at least the past two generations, hand-wringing over this problem has produced nothing. To me, the root cause seems simple, and I certainly have no magic-wand solution. Save for the Orthodox, Judaism is no longer a faith. It is mainly an ethnicity, with synagogues and temples acting more as community centers than places of worship. Without faith, is there really much of a point to the continued existence of Judaism? We want our children and grandchildren to marry Jewish. I am not Orthodox, but it pains me deeply to see the Jewish people vanishing.
If for no other reason, it is a tragedy not just for Jews but for the world to watch this phenomenon unfold. Jews constitute only 0.2 percent of the world’s population, but we have produced over 22 percent of Nobel Prize winners. That is 11,250 percent more than the statistical expectation (Wikipedia). The Jewish population produces geniuses far, far beyond any possible explanation other than that it is a unique gene pool. For it to vanish is a terrible loss for the entire human race.
But just because there now appears to be nothing that can stop this erosion, we still are here, now, and must do what we can in the hope that something will occur tomorrow to change the arc of history. American Jewish support for Israel is eroding. Many of the college students are targeted and constantly harassed in the classrooms by groups like Students For Justice (SFJ) and like-minded faculty members that sponsor BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement) and hate-filled “Israel Apartheid Week.” Unfortunately, these groups are having impact on our children.
Pro-Israel Jews on campus are finally seizing the initiative and starting to fight back. We need to vigorously support them. To get their message out undergraduates at the University of Minnesota launched Students Supporting Israel (SSI). Columbia University students launched “Hebrew Liberation Week” during Israel Apartheid Week this year. To emphasize their point, they wore blue and white kaffiyehs blazoned with Stars of David to symbolize the Jewish connection to Israel. At UCLA they hosted a panel, “Indigenous People Unite,” to provide a platform for Kurdish, Armenian and Jewish students to share their history and aspirations. They have proposed their own resolutions to student government at six universities with four passing. One called for increasing Israel study abroad and three calling for adopting the U.S. State Department definition of anti-Semitism.
These are not the only ones. We must vigorously help them push back against the biased culture in which they find themselves. For example, if your alma mater is complicit in promoting anti-Israel bias, write them that you will no longer provide financial support. It is my hope that these Jewish kids on campus who are encountering first-hand the sort of bias and hatred that we experienced in our time, and are fighting back against it, will come to regard their heritage as worth preserving.
My husband and I are committed to our Jewish heritage and faith. All three of our daughters married Jewish men. All our grandchildren became Bar and Bat Mitzvah. Most went to Israel. Yet it looks like few of our grandchildren will have Jewish mates. So how can Jewish grandparents transmit family traditions and heritage to their interfaith grandchildren and great-grandchildren without alienating the non-Jewish spouse? With great difficulty, admittedly. You can only state firmly and honestly who you are and what you believe. Be sure you ask the non-Jewish spouse permission to share your Jewish heritage with your grandchildren.
Will it make a difference? Only marginally, for sure, but right now it’s about all we can do. A close relationship with your grandchild or great-grandchild will make it possible to bring Jewish tradition and heritage to life for that child. We can serve as role models. We can encourage our grandchildren to attend Jewish schools, Jewish camps, Birthright and to spend time in Israel. Enroll children under age 7 in PJ library where they will receive Jewish books and tapes. Remember, if your own commitment to your Jewish heritage doesn’t ring true, you will not have much chance to share your love for Judaism with your grandchild.
Long ago I cast off my rose-colored glasses. Only about 20 percent of children of interfaith marriages are being raised Jewish (2013 Pew Study of American Jews). Today almost every Jewish family has an interfaith marriage. We can still encourage these children to identify with Judaism. At the very least, this will help these children find more meaning in life.

Sunie Levin, M.Ed., is an educator and the author of two grandparenting books and three books for boomers and seniors. B’nai B’rith Women commissioned her to write ‘Mingled Roots: A Guide For Grandparents of Interfaith Grandchildren.’ UAHC Press republished the book and it is being used in seminars today throughout the country.

Everyone needs to see ‘For Liberty — American Jewish Experience’

The exhibition at the World War 1 Museum titled “For Liberty — American Jewish Experience” is a gift not only to the Jewish community, but to those of any persuasion.
At a time of worldwide anti-Semitism, racism and anti-immigration, we can describe in single words what the mostly immigrant Jewish community was and endured at that time.
There were hardships, sacrifice, resiliency, creativity, generosity, incredible bravery, and most of all heartfelt love and appreciation for their new country.
They gave their sons and daughters to this war in numbers far larger than their population. Many fought against their birth country and even against their own families.
My father Sgt. William Shemin was a first-generation American. His parents were immigrants from Russia. He received our nation’s highest military award, the Medal of Honor, as one of four Jewish recipients in World War 1.
Please come to this magnificent museum to see not only his story but the major contributions of our Jewish community in so many ways.
A resounding thank you to the Kansas City Jewish community that had the foresight to tell this story and to the World War 1 Museum staff that understood this, then mounted such a spectacular display.

Elsie Shemin-Roth
St. Louis, Missouri

Don’t let hatred win
I am becoming more and more concerned about the personal attacks and character assassinations occurring on Facebook. The entire world is seeing this. We 2gs (second generation, children of Holocaust survivors) also need to realize that the neo-Nazis and anti-Semites are having a field day watching Jew fight Jew. We are not only Democrats and Republicans, we are Americans.
We are in the middle of the three weeks that will soon culminate with Tisha b’Av, the 9th of Av (designated as a time of mourning over the destruction of the Holy Temple and the exile).We are told that both temples were destroyed because of sinat chinum, hatred of each other. If you dislike our president vote him out. If you like him help to get him re-elected. All this hated on the Internet will not accomplish either. It has truly gotten out of hand. Here’s my best advice: If someone attacks you with horrible comments, delete those comments. Don’t have an ongoing thread of insults.

Rabbi Dr. Bernhard Rosenberg
Edison, New Jersey

Esther Koontz and the ACLU v. Kansas

The Mennonite plaintiff and anti-Semite, Esther Koontz, should not be employed as a mathematics training consultant or teacher by the state of Kansas! (See page 1, July 5) Her lawsuit against the state of Kansas, in her effort to defend the BDS movement of her church, netted her an award approaching $50,000. It was filed in conjunction with our local ACLU chapter.
Our Kansas education system is already underfunded because of a Republican anti-education budget philosophy. Does Esther Kuntz have our students’ best interests at heart? Apparently not. She is a hater and an avowed BDS supporter. Her anti-Israel platform represents a not so subtle form of anti-Semitism. Unfortunately the ACLU also appears to be obstructive toward the underfunded Kansas education effort. And finally, where is the principle of “separation of church and state” as it pertains to this issue?

Dr. Richard S Gilman
Overland Park, Kansas

Many years ago I watched a video about Israel. The part that remains with me is a scene where a young bearded man with a flowing caftan meets an Israeli secular Jew in the hallway of a government office. The young bearded gentleman approaches the secular Jew. As he comes nearer to him, the other retreats. Then the unthinkable happens. The bearded man begins to chase after the secular one, with the latter running for his life. Finally he raises up his hands in defeat, as the scared secular Jew runs out to the street. The bearded man shouts after him, but I only wanted to give you a hug!

Independence Day is marked by patriotic displays of parades and festivities to honor our nation. We celebrate what American colonists did by joining together to fight against the injustices of their government. We recall that people, who strived together to solve serious problems in American history, created our nation.
Since the attacks on September 11, 2001, top political officials have argued that immigrant groups pose threats to America. These arguments have influenced my thinking, especially on a holiday that salutes rights and freedoms. The injustices against immigrants put my sense of security at risk as a citizen. I was an immigrant to this land; I believed that I belonged here. I have come to fear, however, that my naturalization certificate does not provide me the same security as a native born American.
I have only to watch the news videos to see everyday people fleeing from wars and the repressive regimes of their homelands. In their homelands, water supplies are cut, food-producing soil is left untilled while instead IED (improvised explosive device) bombs are planted into the ground, and citizens find themselves on the wrong side of the people in power. Stripped of the essentials of life and any semblance of safety, citizens grab their meager belongings and start on uncertain paths away from chaos. I worry that countries that can help turn their backs on these everyday people driven by hopelessness.
When people seek safety in America, proponents of immigrants cite various reasons to take them in. New arrivals are willing to take work needs to be done, such as harvesting crops, washing dishes in restaurants, laboring on construction sites and working in meatpacking plants, all at low pay. They argue that American born workers don’t want the same available low paying jobs. For some potential American workers, sadly, being addicted to narcotic drugs keeps them out of the job market.
Critics use the same work characteristics of the new arrivals to keep them out. They argue that newcomers are unmotivated to work. They blame the new arrivals for taking jobs they believe are intended for American born workers. If the critics would accept any new arrivals, they believe only highly skilled workers should be allowed in. Both the proponents and the critics, ironically, point to the new arrivals’ work characteristics. We are a stuck society, with two opposing views on immigration and no solutions. Perhaps by reframing the issue in a third way we can identify workable solutions.
Senator Corey Booker’s interpretation of the Justice Department’s position on “law and order” may be a place to start. He stated that the current Justice Department is targeting the poor and minority groups — essentially attacking the vulnerable. Immigrants, consequently, are viewed as the enemy. What if they are not the enemy? How can we determine what is really happening in society?
A broader context is needed to understand the pattern of behavior that makes the new arrivals likely targets. The broader context can be viewed by using a wider lens to observe groups functioning within society. Groups like conservative voters and like-minded lawmakers often join forces to willfully identify a vulnerable group as the problem and they justify dehumanizing the branded group. The new arrivals are degraded with punishing laws, which restrict their civil rights and liberties. The attacks on new arrivals, however, are not based on their work characteristics.
I believe that the lawmakers’ focus is misdirected away from real problems. Think about it; what equitable policies are being discussed to aid the millions of displaced people? What policies are being considered to bring peace to war ravaged places to make them safe for their own citizens? Some “policy makers” who are opposed to the new arrivals pay no attention to these real problems; instead they use knee jerk reactions to target the new arrivals.
We celebrate Independence Day to honor the colonists who emigrated from Great Britain and fought against the injustices of their government. On this holiday, let us reflect on the actions we citizens can take to hold our lawmakers accountable for solving the real problems of immigration. Real problems are being ignored while new arrivals are being falsely attacked. Let’s put a stop to this unfair situation. New arrivals are everyday people who seek out living in a free land in exchange for working hard, abiding by its laws, paying taxes and being recognized for who they are — good residents. Only by working together, as American colonists did before us, can we be a nation that wins against social injustices.

Mary Greenberg, Ph.D., serves on the State of Kansas Holocaust Commission. Her speaking engagements on preventing anti-Semitism, and the link between anti-Semitism and leadership are based on her research that advances the study of the Jewish people in the Diaspora.