I had the great pleasure to participate in the Beutel Seminar in Israel for 10 days in January. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the program, it is an education/ enrichment seminar sponsored by the Saltz Education Center of the World Union for Progressive Judaism.  Reform and Progressive Jews from throughout the world can apply to the program which is held in the first quarter every year in Israel. For participants, the cost is subsidized by a generous sustaining gift from Austin and Nani Beutel of Toronto; the program is only one example of their enormous philanthropic support of World Progressive Judaism.

I am a veteran of numerous earlier trips to Israel so I was not sure what to expect.  Suffice it to say that the experience far exceeded any expectation I had beforehand.  The group consisted of eighteen individuals from eleven different countries; in addition to the U.S. and Canada, there were participants from: Israel, Brazil, the UK, Germany, Poland, Australia, Singapore, India and South Africa. It was a very diverse group—what we all shared was an interest in Reform/Progressive Judaism, some congregational experience, and a love of and interest in Eretz Yisrael.

It is not easy to characterize the content of the program. It included study, prayer, travel, some presentations, and much interactive engagement. Most mornings (in Jerusalem), we started with a combination of study and worship led by Rabbi Levi Weiman-Kelman of Congregation Kol Haneshama in Jerusalem. We had one Shabbat in Jerusalem at Hebrew Union College (in a service led by North American HUC students) and another at Kibbutz Yahel in the Negev. We visited the City of David and had engaging presentations about the history of the Old City. We rode around Jerusalem to understand the contours of the security fence; the Jewish and Arab neighborhoods; visited Mt. Herzl and Yad Vashem. We explored religious/ ethnic conflict issues with a panel of young people, which included settlement Jews and young Muslims. In Tel Aviv, we visited the Museum of the Jewish People and Independence Hall and spent time hearing about the exciting growth and programming at Beit Daniel, the Reform community in Tel Aviv. And finally, we spent two days at Kibbutz Yahel in the Negev where we celebrated our second Shabbat—and visited the cutting edge environmentally-attuned Kibbutz Lotan.

But I do a grave disservice to this program if it sounds like a travelogue. Many of you readers have likely had wonderful travel experiences in Israel as have I. What I gained from this program was a more refined sense of K’lal Yisrael Arevim Zeh l’Zeh—All Israel stands one for the other. A group of diverse individuals of different ages and prior life experience spent ten intensive days together in Israel and formed a community of Jews, whom I suspect will now be lifetime friends and colleagues. We became a true community. Those of us who focus so much time on building community in our synagogues would do well to study the Beutel model not to mention some of the innovative ways the Israel Reform Movement is reaching out to the secular population and growing so significantly.

Also, the mix of travel, education, dialogue, and study enabled us all to understand better the complex issues facing Israel as well as our developing Progressive Movement in Israel.  The Saltz Center hopes to build upon the success of the Beutel Seminar (this was the 10^th Anniversary) to offer programs to congregations and other groups from North America or elsewhere. I certainly intend to encourage our North American Movement to consider additional opportunities to utilize the Saltz resources for study, meetings and programming on Israel and World Jewry issues. For those of you to whom the Beutel program sounds inviting, you should consider applying to the 2013 program. You will not regret it.   Or you might wish to tailor a program for a congregational or community-wide trip to Israel; I am certain that the Saltz faculty would be pleased to brainstorm with you. Please let me know if I can introduce any of you to the director and others at Saltz. You can reach me at james.cherney@gmail.com.

Jim Cherney is a member of Temple Sholom of Chicago

Yet more than six decades after the establishment of the State of Israel that has indeed afforded Jews who settled here freedom from persecution  – and even provided psychological and physical support for their sisters and brothers abroad – some of its Jewish citizens have taken to imitating anti-Semitic violence by trying to turn others into pariahs. Like synagogues in the Diaspora, churches and mosques in Israel are nowadays not infrequent targets of acts that damage their property and endanger people’s lives.

This week’s casualty is the Baptist church in downtown Jerusalem. The graffiti the vandals left behind on its walls made outrageously offensive comments about Jesus. Three cars parked outside were torched, two of which belonged to Jewish residents in neighbouring buildings and the third to a church worker.

The vandals signed off as tag m’chir (price tag), purporting to have acted on behalf of those who say that their terrorist acts are in retaliation to what they perceive to be restrictions on the settlers in the territories. How the Baptists in downtown Jerusalem would seek to restrain settlement expansion isn’t immediately obvious. It’s, therefore, reasonable to assume that the “explanation” is no more than a scandalous excuse for criminal behaviour, a tragic counterpart to anti-Semitism to which the forbears of the perpetrators themselves may have been once subjected.

Though it’s important to take note of this deplorable incident as an affront to everything Judaism stands for and that Jews have experienced, we must bear in mind that that’s not how Israelis normally behave. The pastor of the church said in a television interview that in this, as in previous incidents of a similar kind, he has had good cooperation from the police. He also told the interviewer that his church enjoys excellent relations with all its neighbours, particularly with Har El, Israel’s first Reform synagogue, which backs on to the property.

Nevertheless, we must not ignore the bitter truth that incidents of this kind – normally directed more against mosques than churches – have increased of late. Not many days ago a bilingual school for Jews and Arabs has also been vandalized. Palestinian villages are frequently harassed and attacked by settlers. Other incidents could be cited.

The reason for the increase in Jewish violence is to be sought in the radicalization of the settler movement. The reference to the price tag in the church attack illustrates it. Those who warned that the settlements would not only complicate the peace process but, even more significantly, damage the very soul of Israel have been proven right.

When Jews no longer heed the teaching to be good to “the other” because “you were strangers in the land of Egypt,” Jewish values are being trampled. The fact that it’s being done in the name of the love of Israel adds to the irony and the bitterness. Even though it’s not in our power to change things, we must not yield to the understandable temptation to sweep such incidents under the PR carpet.

Originally published by Rabbi Dow Marmur on February 22, 2012

All stories that teach a lesson are “true,”but some are also factual.This story is true and factual…Based on an event that occurred in 1999

Although my role as Program Chair of the International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultations (IJCIC) placed several responsibilities on my shoulders, my wife had one very important mission for me on my most recent trip to the Vatican. A co-worker and her husband were about to have a baby, and since they were devout Catholics, my wife thought it appropriate for me to purchase a rosary for the new child while I was in Vatican City. Her instructions were explicit – buy just one rosary.

I broke away from my meeting to spend some time looking through the religious shops that encircle St. Peter’s Square – many of which have been owned and run by Jews for centuries. I stopped near a street dealer to examine the many kinds of rosaries, and explained to the seller that I needed to buy just one for a child about to be born. We haggled over the price over one I had selected – a beautiful little rosary made of crystal beads enclosed in a gold and cloisonné box. Finally the seller announced that he would sell me three for the price of two. I asked him to throw in a snow-globe which depicted the Vatican on one side and the Coliseum on the other side to add to my wife’s collection of these collectibles. The three rosaries and the snow-globe were placed in a blue plastic bag, and off I went to the audience with Pope John Paul II, whom I first met in 1990 at a meeting of IJCIC at the Vatican and again, in 1995, when the Pope traveled to New York City.

At the conclusion of the audience we were told that the Pope would bless any religious articles that people had with them. I raised my blue plastic bag, and now possessed three “blessed” rosaries and one “blessed” snow-globe. They were then placed in my back-pack and off I went to more meetings.

It was time to return home and I boarded the plane for the eight plus hour trip home. I took my seat and found myself seated next to a gentleman about my age. We struck up a conversation and discussed where in the world we had lived; we discussed our travels; we shared our interest in snow-skiing and water skiing. He described his work and I spoke of my former life in theater and music (I try to avoid talking about my life as a rabbi when on a plane – often describing myself as a teacher or professor or counselor). Our conversation turned to our children. I talked about my three children and he spoke of his oldest son. Then I could see his face turn ashen as his voice, pitched lower and softer, told me about his two year-old son who had died on last New Year’s Day.

I tried to get him to talk about it and asked him questions about how he and his wife had dealt with the tragedy, and to whom did they turn for solace. He described himself as being raised a Catholic – his wife was a Methodist. He asked me what I did and I told him that I was a rabbi. I also told him about the Jewish concept of “beshert” – that things are foreordained, ‘in the cards.’ We both agreed that perhaps our sitting together was “beshert.” We spent a great amount of time speaking of faith and hope, of doubt and pain. In some small way, I hope that I was helpful. After a while our conversion lightened up, we worked a cross-word puzzle together (although I was in a “brain-freeze” – still reeling from our impromptu counseling session). We napped and ate as our plane approached JFK.

As our plane was getting closer to New York, I offered that it was my hope and prayer for him and his family that this New Year be a better year for them. He agreed, and said that he was hopeful as he had just learned that his wife was pregnant and that this New Year might find them with a new child – a daughter.

I asked him if he remembered the word that I had taught him – “beshert.” I then told him the story of my assignment to purchase one rosary and that I came away with three. I asked him if he would take one of the rosaries as a gift to his new daughter. “Just remember,” I told him, “this was a rosary given to your daughter by a rabbi and blessed by the Pope.” Tears welled in our eyes and he thanked me. We shook hands as we deplaned and I gave him my card. “Please let me know when your daughter is born,” I said as we parted ways.

Upon my return home, I remembered that the following evening was Shabbat, and I still had a sermon to deliver. I opened the Torah to that week’s Torah portion, looking for inspiration. “Vayetze” – the story of Jacob’s flight from his brother, and decision to sleep for the night. He then dreams of a ladder that links heaven and earth with angels going up and down on it. Upon arising he pronounces eight of the most important words in the whole Torah, “Achayn yesh Adonai b’makom ha’zeh, vanochi lo yadati, Behold, God is surely in this place, and I really didn’t know it!”

I had traveled from New York to the Vatican and back, but it was on the plane that I had another opportunity to find God.

A Postscript – I preached this story on Friday evening at Stephen Wise Free Synagogue. The following Monday I was scheduled to deliver the holiday sermon at St. Luke’s – Roosevelt Medical Center’s Advent Festival Service. I jettisoned the prepared text that I had written and told this story. At the end of the service, the one question I heard over and over was, “So, who will receive the third rosary?” To which my answer was, and is, “I will wait for God to let me know.”

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