The Charlotte Jewish News - November 1998 - Page 2
In My Opinion.
••
By Amy Krakovitz Montoni
Today I am thinking about
names. It’s all because I have the
simcha of planning No. 1 Son’s
Bar Mitzvah, which is scheduled
for next spring. This is actually
my sister’s fault because she
already has me worried about who
is going to be called for which
aliyah.
That, of course, got me thinking
about names because when you
are called to read from the Torah,
everyone in the synagogue gets to
hear your name and your father’s
name (or your mother’s name).
That in turn made me confront
again how much I don’t like my
Hebrew name.
My Hebrew name is Esther.
Now, Esther in and of itself is not
a really bad name. It’s okay. It’s
even okay in English. But the
great cosmic joke of it is the mid
dle name that my parents decided
to give me to go along with Esther.
Laugh if you will, but they had the
audacity to name me Esther
Malkah.
Apparently, the ancestor my
mother chose to name me after
managed to get through life as
Queen Esther, but it was a little
tougher for me in Hebrew school,
especially around the time of
Purim. Every time we heard the
venerated name during the reading
of the Megillah, my classmates
would whisper, “That’s you,
Esther! You’re the queen!” Read
that sarcastically. Oh, yuck!
Well, the permanent scars of
many years of Purim spent hiding
from the Megillah will have to be
the subject of my February opin
ion, as Purim comes on March 1st
this year. But I am here to contin
ue talking about names. And how
I’m going to hide from my name
during my son’s Bar Mitzvah. I
think I’ll just ask that when they
say my name, that they skip the
“Malkah.”
Now, my son’s name is another
matter. This is a name you can be
proud of. He, too, has the name of
a famous person, as did my father.
My son is Shneur 2^1man. Okay,
so he’s Shneur Zalman Ben Esther
(Malkah). But being named for a
famous rabbi is quite an honor.
Frankly, I don’t know how my
family came about getting that
name. My father’s family is from
the area in the Ukraine near
Lyady. They never were clear
about what town they were from,
but if you look at our last name,
you might guess Karkovice.
That’s my guess anyway.
I always wondered if I could
live up to my namesake: could I
ever be as brave? Would I ever
even have such an opportunity
(she got her chance b^ause she
was so beautiful)? I don’t know.
And for my son, too, it’s a burden
to be named after such a great
man. I see much potential in him,
but then I’m his mother. I look for
ward to his Bar Mitzvah with both
anticipation and anxiety. Stay
tuned. You’ve not heard the last of
the mother’s trials and tribulations
in planning a Bar Mitzvah. ^
Treif and Hot
By Meir Salomon, Managing
Editor, Viewpoint Magazine,
National Council of Young Israel
Answering someone else’s
phone is generally a simple matter
of taking messages. It is neither
interesting nor rewarding. It can,
however, on the rarest of occa
sions offer access to someone you
may have wanted to speak with
but would not otherwise have had
the opportunity. And that’s exactly
what happened when in early
August I was answering the
phones for Rabbi Pesach Lerner,
the Executive Vice President of
the National Council of Young
Israel.
Because the National Council
tackles a surprising number of
controversial issues, we get calls
from a surprising number of con
troversial people. As the new man
aging editor of Viewpoint
Magazine, I am familiar with the
issues that the office confronts and
ca;> state that this is not done for
the notoriety, but simply because
it’s the right thing to do. This
desire to be involved in “doing the
right thing,” led me, after graduat
ing from college, to my first job as
Assistant Regional Director in
New England for the Anti-
Defamation League.
Ostensibly, the ADL’s mission
is to champion and to protect the
rights of any Jew facing anti-
Semitism and persecution, and to
fight every battle indifferent to its
popularity or to its political rami
fications. Inspired and inspiring
sentiments! Unfortunately these
words contrast starkly with my
recollection of events in my first
(and only) year working for them.
The year was 1986 and two
headline issues were demanding
responses from the major Jewish
organizations. These issues caused
heated staff meetings at the ADL
New England Regional office.
Though separate issues occurring
on different continents, they
shared one basic concept; the
treatment of Jews. They also cul
minated in two of the most memo
rable phone calls of my life.
Each year our ADL office
focused particular attention on one
legal project, in addition to our
usual caseload. I urged that we
should continue to champion the
issue of Soviet Jews, pressuring
Premier Gorbachev, to fulfill his
promises that the new Glasnost
would permit free emigration for
the millions of Jews desperate to
flee the Soviet Union. The
region’s legal director countered,
arguing that we had already
addressed this issue and that
apartheid was the now “hot” topic.
My argument, with the eventual
support of the regional director.
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prevailed. We subsequently had a
phone hookup to the office of the
mayor of Moscow - a man named
Boris Yeltsin.
In the second case, my argu
ments not only were rejected but
were met with sharp criticism bor
dering on contempt. This issue, a
political timebomb, raised the
issue all good American Jews fear-
the question of “dual loyalty.”
This case was a strong visceral test
of how a Jewish citizen of the
United States relates to himself as
an American and as a Jew. It
proved, moreover, to be most
telling as a litmus test for
American Jewish organizations. It
was easy for the ADL and the
other “major” American Jewish
organizations to scream their
indignation at the “evil empire of
the Soviet Union.” What did it
cost them politically? Didn’t
everybody criticize Russia on
human rights? But to criticize the
US government and possibly suf
fer exile to the political “gulag” of
unanswered calls to the corridors
of power- that price was too high
for a spy, regardless of his motiva
tion. ITie issue is still hot, still treif
to many and as anyone with even
the most rudimentary knowledge
of Kashruth is aware, treif and
“hot” make for a uniquely conta
minating combination and should
be avoided and discarded. And
this was exactly the view taken by
the ADL (and most of the other
(Continued on page 7)
Religious Freedom Fight
Must Be Waged on Many
Fronts
By Franklin M. Fisher
In the seemingly endless strug^
gle over the conversion issue in
Israel, the current impasse offers
an opportunity to step back and
look at some of the larger issues
involved in making Israel safe for
Jewish diversity. Most of the
attention in this country has been
focused on the efforts of the
Conservative and Reform move
ments in Israel to achieve official
recognition and legitimacy. Such
standing is a prerequisite for the
creation of a dynamic stream of
modem Judaism that can appeal to
the majority of Israeli Jews, who
are now called “‘secular” for want
of a viable alternative to the
Orthodoxy that they do not or can
not embrace. But achieving real
religious freedom in the Jewish
State involves challenges both
more fundamental and more com
plex than this. They lie at the heart
of Israel’s efforts to define its val
ues for the next century.
Following the American model,
the non-Orthodox movements
have been concentrating their
efforts on the legal front, seeking
points of leverage in existing
Israeli law to challenge the denial
of their legitimacy by the
Orthodox rabbinate and, hence, by
agencies of the Israeli govern
ment. These efforts have brought
some important - if tenuous - vic
tories, most notably the 1995
Supreme Court ruling that, in the
absence of explicit legislation to
the contrary, the state must regis
ter as Jews people converted in
Israel by Conservative and
Reform rabbis. It was, in fact, to
overturn this victory (won by the
Reform Movement’s Israel
Religious Action Center and the
Association for Civil Rights in
Israel) that the Orthodox parties
launched their campaign to enact
the conversion bill. The bill would
close the legal loophole by confer
ring on Orthodox rabbis, de jure,
the monopoly over conversion
they have long exercised de facto.
The firestorm of protest from
North American Jewry has made it
unlikely that the conversion bill
will be enacted any time soon. But
neither will the Israeli religious
establishment relinquish its posi
tion of power and exclusivity.
Those changes will not be easy to
achieve and will require an effort
that extends well beyond the capa
bilities of the non-Orthodox
movements.
In addition to strengthening the
legal foundations for religious
freedom, those seeking to foster
tolerance and pluralism are work
ing to redress egregious inequities
in public resource allocations - for
schools, housing, and social ser
vices - that heavily favor
Orthodox Israelis and reinforce
their political influence. As they
enable the ultra-Orthodox parties
to deliver generous services to
their followers, these subventions
fuel a self-perpetuating cycle by
enhancing their political strength
and hence their ability to extract
an ever-larger share of public
resources. Several national organi
zations monitor these trends and
seek to channel widespread but
unfocused discontent into effec
tive advocacy for more equitable
distribution of resources, includ
ing state support for non-
Orthodox synagogues, schools,
and yeshivot.
More fundamentally, though,
religious freedom cannot be
achieved in a vacuum; it is indi
visible from the other hallmarks of
liberal democracy: respect for
individual rights, equality of
opportunity for all, freedom of
cultural expression, safeguards for
the rights of minorities. Since the
Rabin assassination, there have
appeared many worrisome signs
that such values are in trouble in
Israel. These include surveys
revealing widespread racist and
intolerant attitudes on the part of
Israeli high school students and
open contempt by some ultra-
Orthodox leaders for Israel’s
Supreme Court and the rule of law
of which it is the prime symbol.
Meanwhile, the current govern
ment has slashed budgets for
democracy education in Israel’s
schools. In such an environment, it
is hardly surprising that equality
for non-Orthodox movements is
not a high priority for most
Israelis.
Thus the struggle for religious
pluralism and tolerance must be
waged on many fronts. In building
their synagogues, schools, and
other institutions in Israel, the
Conservative and Reform move
ments play an important role in
this fight, but not an exclusive
one. A host of civic and religious
advocacy organizations are work
ing alongside the movements to
strengthen democratic values.
Only in an Israel that fully
respects diversity and equality can
a progressive, innovative, and
eg^itarian Judaism hope to take
root and flourish. O
Franklin M. Fisher is professor
of economics at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology and
President of the New Israel Fund.
Article deadline for December issue
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