Peace Parsha: Transforming Guilt into Peace


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Rabbi Justin Goldstein was ordained in 2011 by the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at the American Jewish University in Los Angeles, is a 2012-2013 Rabbis Without Borders Fellow and has served Congregation Beth Israel in Asheville NC since 2014.

Often dismissed as irrelevant or boring, Parashat Tzav details some of the ritual procedures for the sacrificial offerings which were made in the Mishkan - the portable sanctuary the Children of Israel carried in the wilderness - and, eventually, offered in the Temple. Among others, there are three types of offerings specified in this week’s Torah portion which I would like to focus on.

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"I felt sick watching Trump at AIPAC. Not for what he said - his speech was entirely predictable - and not for the fact that AIPAC gave him a platform. I felt sick because I was watching the natural culmination of decades in which AIPAC has successfully defined the terms of the "acceptable" narrative about Israel in U.S. politics and campaigns."

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Published March 22, 2016

Look on AIPAC’s Works, American Jews

For more than a decade I have been invited regularly to speak on Capitol Hill, on campuses, in synagogues, on policy panels, to foreign diplomats and to the media. On these occasions I speak, as an advocate for Israel and Israeli-Palestinian peace, about the issues on the ground in Israel-Palestine and their connection to U.S. foreign policy. And on these occasions I talk openly and critically about AIPAC, just as for years my organization has publicly challenged AIPAC’s legislative agenda at every turn.

I talk about AIPAC not because I hold any personal animus against the organization and its supporters, or because I believe in some right-wing conspiracy. I know there are good people working at and supporting AIPAC. And I know from experience - most recently with the successful Iran nuclear deal - that AIPAC is by no means omnipotent.

I also know, however, that for decades AIPAC has been actively promoting a Middle East agenda that is anathema to the values of most American Jews, to the real interests of Israel, and to peace. And I know well, from personal experience working in Washington and around the country, the enormous power AIPAC brings to bear on American Jews, members of Congress, and the U.S. political system to see its agenda enacted. That is why I cannot talk about U.S. policy and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict without talking about AIPAC.

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Peace Now Settlement Watch: Government declares another 596 dunams as state land

News from Peace Now's (Israel) Settlement Watch:

The Palestinian News agency Ma'an reported yesterday that the Civil Administration issued a new order determining state land boundaries in the settlement of Eli. 
The order is a result of the work of the Civil Administration's Blue Line Team which works to correct inaccurate state land declarations made during the 1980s. According to the new order, 2,781 dunams of the lands of the villages Lubban al Sharqiya, Karyut and Al-Sawiya are now considered state lands, 596 dunams of which were not considered state lands according to the old declaration. Additionally, 590 dunams were detracted from the old declaration.
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News Nosh 03.22.16

APN's daily news review from Israel
Tuesday March 22, 2016
 
Quote of the day:
“You see how more and more Israelis are being tempted to this way of looking at the conflict of abandoning their attempt to achieve some political, rational solution and rather they are more and more prone to fanaticism and fundamentalism.
--In an interview with EuroNews, Israeli author David Grossman, called the so-called cultural loyalty bill being promoted by Culture Minister Miri Regev “fascist,” supported labeling settlement products and blamed the government for the radicalization of Israeli society. 

You Must Be Kidding: 
A 17-year-old Israeli stabbed to death a man riding his bicycle in Afula two months ago, because he thought the man was someone with whom he had a feud over money. The youth was indicted for murder Monday. Attorney Menachem Eyal, the lawyer of the family of the victim: “I don’t understand the issue of mistaken identity. You just jump on a man and stab him? Criminal terror is raging in the streets because people decide to take the law into their own hands.”
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Yossi Alpher is an independent security analyst. He is the former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, a former senior official with the Mossad, and a former IDF intelligence officer. Views and positions expressed here are those of the writer, and do not necessarily represent APN's views and policy positions.

This week, Alpher discusses what he missed last week (along with every other analyst and commentator) in assuming that Russia would stay firmly in place and not predicting the subsequent Russian military withdrawal; is this good for Israel or the US; what the connection is between the Kurds of northern Syria and a recently-deceased (2006) Vermont-based Jewish anarchist ecologist philosopher named Murray Bookchin; whether Turkish concerns regarding the death of Israelis in Saturday’s ISIS suicide bombing in Istanbul facilitate Turkish-Israeli political reconciliation; and why Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi was not allowed by Israel to visit the Palestinian Authority a week ago, what Israel chose to reveal in the aftermath about its relations with Indonesia, and what this tells us about Israel’s current approach to such clandestine ties.

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News Nosh 03.21.16

APN's daily news review from Israel
Monday March 21, 2016
 
Quote of the day:
"The brouhaha that envelops Trump wherever he goes has turned the AIPAC Conference into the Trump Conference."
--Haaretz's US commentator, Chemi Shalev, laments that Donald Trump's speech at AIPAC "has eclipsed any serious discussion of one of the most turbulent years in the organization’s history." 
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On Purim 2016: "Not in every hour does a miracle happen."

Purim 2016

Purim is upon us. Most Jews who celebrate Purim remember it as the story of the evil Haman who bribed the buffoonish King Ahaseurus to kill all the Jews in the Persian kingdom as a result of his rivalry with the Jewish courtier Mordecai. The Jews managed to depose Haman, and convinced Ahaseurus to let them fight back and slaughter those who would have stood against them.

DonateThe key to understanding the story is a statement by a fourth century Babylonian rabbi who lived centuries after the story might have happened, in the place that it was supposed to have happened—Persia. That rabbi, Rava, added one observance to those listed in the Esther scroll itself (feasting, exchanging gifts, supporting the poor and reading the story): “A person is obligated to get drunk on Purim until he cannot tell the difference between ‘blessed is Mordecai’ and ‘cursed is Haman’.” This is a very specific obligation. There is a specific goal here.

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News Nosh 03.20.16

APN's daily news review from Israel
Sunday March 20, 2016
 
Quote of the day:
"This year, we brought fewer toy rifles and pistols; people are afraid of their children walking around with these things.”
--Toy store owners in Jerusalem decided to limit the sale of toy guns and knives for the Purim Holiday.

You Must Be Kidding: 
"The orange ISIS prisoner costume sold like crazy. It also has a collar of blood. It's really a hit. The costume is designed for adults, but there were also parents who bought it for their children."
--Eliran Ben David, who works at an Israeli store that imports costumes and accessories, noted the demand in Israel for an unusual Purim costume.
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APN and Peace Now in the News: March 12,2016 - March 18, 2016

News Nosh 03.18.16

APN's daily news review from Israel
Friday March 18, 2016
 
Quote of the day:
“We have a leader who is fighting only one battle: the battle for his own political survival. In the name of this battle, he is bringing us to a bi-national state and the end of the Zionist dream...I do not want us to become an apartheid state. I do not want to control another three million Arabs."
--Former Mossad chief Meir Dagan, who died yesterday, was considered remarkable in his vocal opposition to the leadership of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu for his obsession with Iran and for not moving towards a two-state solution. These words are from a speech he gave a year ago before elections.

You Must Be Kidding: 
“You get to the village and there you look for a house. You break a glass door or a window and pour the gasoline inside, or simply light the Molotov cocktail and throw it in...In order to prevent the residents from escaping, you can leave burning tires in the entrance to the house.”
--From the Jewish terror manual, "Kingdom of Evil," written by Moshe Orbach, who was sentenced yesterday to two years in prison. Orbach was arrested in July 2015 and indicted on July 30th, 2015. The following day, Jewish right-wing extremists made an arson attack on the Dawabsheh family home in Duma, killing the parents and their baby. 
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