The Top Jewish Stories of 2010
Rabbi Deborah Wechsler
Maybe you are like this too, but at the beginning of the year I always think that I will remember the important things. Even as they happen, I imagine that they are so critical that they will stay with me. But somehow, I get to December and I am hard pressed to think back to the most important moments. Or I remember things but I am not sure which year they happened. Does that ever happen to you?
The Top ten lists that pop up everywhere at this time of year are made for people like me. People with great affinity for memory but who nonetheless have faulty memories. Cute, kitschy reminders of all that the year has wrought good and bad.
The Top movie of 2010? Toy Story 3.
Top album of 2010? Kanye West, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
Top Book of 2010? Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
Top Apology of 2010? Tiger Woods
Top Gadget of 2010? The iPad
Top Sports Moment of 2010? Baseball’s imperfect game
See that’s the thing about these kinds of superlatives, we think they are going to be “fluffy” or silly and yet they end up reflecting the wistfulness, relief, struggle, exultation, shame and all the other human emotions that we have felt this past year. To that end, I bring you the Top Jewish stories of 2010 as determined in a totally biased and unfair manner by yours truly. This year however, through the magic of social networking and our new website, I made this a collaborative process by inviting you through my blog to submit your own choices for this entirely subjective list. The Clinton Mezvinsky wedding, the debate over the building of a mosque at Ground Zero, the increasing debate over what it means to be Jewish and a Zionist, and the rare experience of an Israeli call for help after the fatal Carmel forest fires.
It has been an interesting year for the Jewish people and for people of faith. As Jews we have dared to enter public debate on a number of national and international issues. And we have done so in a way that is markedly different than before.
One of the watershed moments in American Jewish life happened this past year. A nice Jewish boy married a smart, beautiful non-Jewish girl and forever changed the way America thinks about Jews and the way Jews think about America. When Chelsea Clinton married Marc Mezvinsky, under a huppah, with Tallit and kippah, blessed a rabbi, breaking a glass at the end Judaism went mainstream. The reality that a Jewish boy could marry into the family of a sitting head of state and a former president, that this formidable American family would be lifted on chairs, albeit by the secret service, and declare to the world by the kind of wedding they had that they intend to live a life that is in some way informed by and engaged in Judaism will likely be seen in years to come as a significant moment in the history of the Jews in America.
I know it is not without its complications, but this one wedding shows us in microcosm an entire generation of young Jews who embrace their Judaism but in ways that we never imagined at an earlier time in our history.
The other important story in which Jews in America found a voice in our country was as part of the discussion over the building of a mosque at Ground Zero. Jews and Muslims have often found ourselves on similar sides of issues in the United States. But on this issue the Jewish community was divided, publicly divided. On one side the organized Jewish community came out against building the Cordoba House near Ground Zero, the ADL publicly opposed its construction. They likened it to the desire for Carmelite nuns to build a nunnery at Auschwitz in the 1980s, that despite good intentions, it was not the best place for a nunnery. On the other side was much of the grass roots Jewish community who came out publicly in the media in support of the First Amendment and religious freedom for all Americans, including Muslims.
Here at Chizuk Amuno you may remember it being raised at our Yom Kippur Ask the Rabbi when Rabbi Shulman responded similarly to the majority of congregational rabbis across America that as Jews we know what it is to be denied the right to worship freely and build our own houses of worship.
What was significant about this story was that the Jewish voice was sought and relied upon in the national debate. That the voice was bifurcated is yet another example of how the Jewish presence in America has reached a new era when the old myth of the monolith of “the Jews” no longer applies.
The year 2010 saw a number of important concerns in the realm of Israel diaspora relations: the building or halting of settlements, the call by some Israeli rabbis not to rent to non-Jews, and the international criticism of Israel following the flotilla raid. If relationships and opinions of American Jews were bifurcated around the first two important Jewish stories of 2010, then how much the more so, al achat kamak ve kama as we say have been those relationships and opinions regarding Israel. Israel has had an exceedingly difficult year on the world stage. This year we have been reminded how difficult it is to have a nuanced and sophisticated relationship with Israel. As a community we no longer take for granted that our children will have the same kind of unequivocally supportive and benevolent associations with Israel that we have. As a rabbi, one of my great concerns is that we are raising a generations of Jew show do not feel that their destiny is tied to that of medinat Yisrael. I am not worried about how to educate the next generation of Jews who will support Israel, I am worried about how to shape a generation of Jews who cares deeply about Israel.
When we look back at the most important concerns in the realm of Israel diapsora relationships we see that they were moments when Israel was often called to task on the international stage for her actions. What is significant about these stories is how we as American Jews must now expect to be constantly challenged by how to navigate this seminal relationship. And I do mean seminal. If Israel is in our DNA as I believe it is then now more than ever we must develop a way to lovingly support Israel, to care about Israel and to also hold fast to our deeply held values. If this means speaking out on the Rotem conversion bill which would have given the Israel chief rabbinate exclusive authority over matters of personal status, nullifying those of Conservative and Reform rabbis, then that too must be part of our ethical imperative in our relationship with Israel.
The last story of the year to highlight this morning is Israel’s rare call for international assistance during the fatal Carmel mountain forest fires. For more than six decades Israel has been responding to the world’s cries for help. Whether it was sending search and rescue teams to Haiti following a devastating earthquake, or granting safe haven to refugees from countries like Vietnam, Bosnia and Kosovo. Over 140 countries including the Palestinian Authority, have been helped by the State of Israel’s humanitarian efforts. Earlier this month Israel was in the unusual situation of having to ask for foreign assistance with a natural disaster of its own. 18 countries, including Arab and Muslim countries, including the PA and obviously the United States sent equipment and personnel to help battle the deadly blaze.
What was significant about the fire was several things, one is the undoing of decades of planting. We who spent our childhood putting our pennies into blue and white boxes that rusted with age weep for the atzei hayyim the living trees that occupy only 7 precious forested percent of the land of Israel. As the year comes to a close we must promise that as we are reminded in the book of Kohelet there is a time to uproot and a time to plant, now is the time to plant. The second significant lesson is the power in asking for help. In identifying that which you most desperately need, asking for it, and being blessed when you receive it. It was a transformative moment for the State of Israel and despite all the recriminations about preparedness the reality that we were in need of help and we received it from friends and enemies alike will be a moment long remembered.
2010 has been quite a year - for the world, for our nation, for our community and city and families. As we prepare to say farewell to it next week, we pray that this new year 2011 brings with it seeds of peace and songs of joy. In the words of the Psalmist – be erev yalin bechi, u la voker rinah. We pray that the weeping of the night ends and morning brings joy for us and for humanity everywhere. Amen. Shabbat Shalom.
