Submitted Comments RSS Feed Comments by Arthur Waskoiw
Posted in: Foxman blasts J Street on Palin, questions its 'pro-Israel' slogan
I should have made clear --- the Goldstone report ALSO provided serious evidence that Hamas had committed war crimes and called for Hamas as well to convene an independent investigation. Goldstone specifically demanded and received an expansion of the original Commission mandate, which focused on Israel only, and said he would do this job only if it included a clear-eyed look at both warring parties. --- Rabbi Arthur Waskow
Posted in: Foxman blasts J Street on Palin, questions its 'pro-Israel' slogan
Mr."Anti-Defamation" knows perfectly well how to defame people he doesn;t agree with. To say "Israel determines its own security" is both false and unethical. No state can "determine its own security:" if it is violating international law, using disproortionate force to defend itself, etc. Not the USA , not the nascent Palestinian state, not Syria, not the USSR, not Israel. The Goldstone report brings serious evidence that israel went over the legal and moral line in its attack on Gaza, the report urged Israel to convene its own independent judicial investigation. Why Not?? Rabbi Arthur Waskow The Shalom Center www.theshalomcenter.org
Posted in: Ruth Brin, Reform liturgist, dies
Ruth Brin, whom I knew and deeply admired, was a Reconstructionist Jew, not a Reform Jew. She was part of the Recon movement practically her whole life, and her daughter Deborah is a Recon rabbi. Her liturgical poems were so good that they appeared not only in Recon but Reform and Conservative siddurim, but that doesn't change who she was. I hope JTA will correct this egregious mistake. --- Good shabbos and good yontif, Rabbi Arthur Waskow.
Posted in: Obama appeals to rabbis to help pass health care reform
Once upon a time there was a President who used the phrases "economic royalists" and "malefactors of great wealth" to describe the Wall Street greedies who opposed policies the country deserately needed. Once upon a time thre was a President who dem=nopunced BY NAME the right-wing Congressmen who tried tostall the New Deal -- "Mahtin, Bahton, & Fish!" He saved caapialism by denouncing the greed of capitalists. Now we have a President who turns tail when the provision for a publlc option that he himself originally said was the only way to keep the insurance companies honest is attacked. Already two months agp when he was asked in a press conference whether he would veto a health bill that came to him without a public option, when he said he would not. i knew then it would come to this -- What's the use of asking us rabbis to fight for a bill he won;t fight for himself? Of cpurse we need to fight. But we need to be fighting DESPITE this president's weak knees, not for his periodic kneeling exercises. What needs to happen now is a direct campaign to keep the House pf Representatives standing up to the insurance companies, the senate, AND the President. If the mangled health care bill is passed with no public option, the windfall for Big Insurance and Big Pharma will outdo even their treasure hunt in the Bush Medicare windfall. Why? How? Because the bill requires practically everybody to buy insurance, and the public will have no way of keeping down what the insurance companies charge all those new and old customers. Another gravy train like Bush's medicare drug plan --- on our money. The companies get paid to support lousy care, with private companies refusing payment whenever they decide to boost corporate profits. If progressive members of the House of Representatives who understand this stand firm, no matter what the Senate does, no matter what the White House does -- then no bill can pass without a public option Better to fight this out, since at least two-thirds of the public supports a real public option. Please write your Member of the House right away with a simple, serious, straight-out message: No public option, no bill! You can tell your Congressperson exactly that: Please click here - http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/602/t/4180/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=27788 If the President won't defend what's true & just, we have to. Shalom, Rabbi Arthur Waskow The Shalom Center www.shalomctr.org
Posted in: Mary Robinson: "You Just Don't Understand!"
Kampeas somehow avoids mentioning that Robinson in her CBS interview specifically says that she fought against the "Zionism is racism" resolution at Durban and that it was removed before the end of the conference. That doesn;t seem to me in the least obtuse. It seems to me rather that Kampeas is being opaque -- -- by accident? Deliberately? How could he have possibly left that out? Her attacker on CBS thinks the Durban conference was a joke even if it had not included an attack on Zionism. Why would a serious attempt to address the world problem of racism be a joke?? Except of course for someone who doesn't think racism itself is important. The worst things he could think to say about her is that she kept a useless conference from being worse, and that she was not as great a figure in world history as Mandela. . Is that why Kampeas has expressed so much animus against her? And against Obama for naming her? Did Jack Kemp compare in history to Mandelka? Why wasn't there criticism of Obama for naming Kemp? Something is rotten in the journalistic cheese here. Rabbi Arthur Waskow The Shalom Center www.shalomctr.org
Posted in: On Iran and North Korea
Has it occurred to anyone that Jewish tradition views the "redemption of captives" as one of the highest commitments of a Jewish community? That if it takes the sale of a Sefer Torah to pay the ransom of a Jewish captive, the community is OBLIGATED to selll the Torah Scroll?! All it took in this case was Bill Clinton on an airplane. i notice that for Dore Gold had no eyes, ears, heart, or soul for the suffering that the two women would undergo during 12 years of hard labor for a violation of North Korean law that (considering where and how they were arrested) they probably did violate. The sentence was a disgustingly draconic punishment. But did human feeling, compassion, even cross his blood-brain barrier? What vile decline in Jewish value-system! Thank God Obama and the Clintons still have rachmanes as a value and the redemption of captives as a commitment, and may God keep Dore Gold from ever again representing the Jewish people! Rabbi Arthur Waskow The Shalom Center www.shalomctr.org
Posted in: Oxfam just made Obama's Mary Robinson headache that much bigger [UPDATED]
Eden's article of course is tendentious and has already reached the conclusion that there is something wrong with Oxfam's rejecting Ahava's head. Ahava is stealing the raw materials for its cosmetics from the Palestinian people. Its head does not deserve to be honored by an organization that cares about the poor of the wprld.. If "Ahava" -- what a name!! only in Sholom Aleichem could we find a thief called "Love" -- -- were located in the real state of Israel, THEN Oxfam's doubts would be out of line. As for the legal situation: The ICJ applies international law fairly & sensibly. It ruled, for example, that is Israel had built the Separation Wall along the Green Line, not hugely into PalestiniaN turf, it would probably be legal. And it doesn't take the ICJ to discover that the settlements are illegal. Neither the US norany other state recognizes israel's land grabs on the West bank & EastT Jerusalem. Obama';s "true feelings" abt Israel are that the real Israel is legitimate and decent, and the settlements unacceptable. An excellent position. Most American Jews agree, though not the official "leaders" of the various AJCs etc. -- Rabbi Arthur Waskow The Shalom Center www.shalomctr.org
Posted in: Obama in Cairo: See conflict through eyes of the other
As a broad overview, the speech was excellent, and iI am glad it included such subtle remarks as saying that all states in the region should accept the regimen of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. That seems to back up a previous State Dept remark that Israel should join the NPT regimen and subject its nuclear weapons to that process. I wish the President had been more specific about insisting on an an immediate and unconditional freeze on Israeli settlements in the occupied territories, an end to home demolitions in East Jerusalem, and an end to the blockade of civilian products from entering Gaza. These were all present in coded language, but according to his own standard that we should be saying in public what diplomats are saying in private, i think it would have been better to say them in unmistakable language. Only in that way can the President build a strong public opinion in the US behind his peace campaign -- and that support is crucial for him to succeed. -- Shalom, salaam, peace -- Rabbi Arthur Waskow The Shalom Center www.shalomctr.org
Posted in: Groups silent in face of Obama calls for settlement freeze
Dear chevra, It is a VITAL interest of the United States to achieve a decent, just, and stable peace between a secure israel, a secure, viable, and independent Palestine, all Arab states, and Iran. To achieve that will also make Israel secure in a way no military conquests, occupations, or blockades can do. It will also free Israel to pursue its special relationship with the world-wide Jewish people while becoming a fully democratic society as welL To protect vital American interests, it ios the obligation of the US President to use all diplomatic and economic means to achieve that end. To protect Israel and its vision of a crerative Jewish society, the Jewish people would be wise beyond measure to affirm and support that goal through action, not just wordiness. That means both the President and the American Jewish community should insist that Israel freeze absolutely all settlement and settler numbers now, just as Secretary of State Clinton said, with no exceptions; should end the blockade on all civilian goods for Gaza; should stop demolishing Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem. -- and should quickly move toward a region-wide peace conference with full American support to insist on a region-wide peace agreement. The Shalom center is proud to join with J Street, Brit Tzedek, Americans for Peace Now, Israel Policy Forum, Meretz USA, Tikkun, and other groups to be silent no more and instead to press forward this policy. All polls show that a large majority of real live American Jews support this policy, even if the dead hands of some "official" Jewish institutions do not. Anyone who wants to work toward this goal should get in touch with any one of these life-committed pro-Israel,pro-peace organizations. Shalom, Rabbi Arthur Waskow The Shalom Center www.shalomctr.org/node/1507
RSS Feed Breaking News
Updated 02/10/12 @ 11:08AM EST
- French President Nicolas Sarkozy said that the solution to the Iran crisis is "never military."
- The publication of a 2010 photograph showing U.S. soldiers with a logo resembling a Nazi symbol was greeted with condemnations by Jewish groups.
- A poll showed that nearly half of likely voters believed the United States should use military force to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.
- Rabbi Gunther Plaut, a major figure in Reform Judaism, died in Toronto.
- The application for a proposed Hebrew-language charter school was accepted by the District of Columbia Public Charter School board.
- Sarkozy: Iran solution should be non-military
- Marines’ SS photo condemned by Jewish groups
- Poll: Half of U.S. voters back strike on nuclear Iran
- German city of Wurzburg brings back its long-lost Jews
- Reform leader Rabbi Gunther Plaut dies
- D.C. Hebrew-language charter school accepted for review
- Op-Ed: Kick the reaction addiction on campus
- Berman moves to grant investor visas to Israelis
Posted in: From Ground Zero to the "Ground Zero mosque" (video)
08/18/10 10:56 PM
I don't think I've ever read so many false statements in such a short space in my life. 1) Imam Rauf is a Sufi, utterly different from Wahhabists. His wife, Daisy Khan, a devout Muslim does not wear a head scarf. Try reading his book, What's Right with islam, instead of making up falsehoods about them. (2) The NYC JCRC and the Jewish Council on Public Affairs have said publicly that the Cordoba folks (Rauf & Khan) have had years of warm and helpful relations with the Jewish community. (3) The Park51 center cannot possibly "tower over" Ground Zero. There are much larger buildings between its site & Ground Zero. You can't see either one from the other place. 4) Islam did NOT replace So;omon's Temple, nor Herod's temple, with the Dome of the Rock. They had both been destroyed long long before -- centuries before -- and the space was wild and waste. jewish law forbade & forbids any Jew from going up there for fear of unwittingly walking into the space of the Holy of Holies. 5) Cordoba was the city where Rambam (Maimonides) studied and began to wriote (mostly in Arabic) his commentaries on Torah. It was at the heart of Andalus, the time & place of the Golden Age of Jewish history when Jews, Christians, & Muslims dialogues, enjoyed life together, wrote poetruy some of which is still in our siddurim today. Check out Ibn Gabirol, fior example. And Jews were respected -- Samuel HaNagid, for instance, was prime minister to the Muslim king of Granada and led its armies to victory. Cordoba is asymbol of interfaith sharing.\, not domination. What all these letters share is hatred and fear of all Muslims. These letters smell of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, now turned into a crazed hatred of Muslims instead of Jews. -- Rabbi Arthur Waskow The Shalom Center www.theshalomcenter.org