Bad Rabbi Media

"One of my Palestinian friends said, Everybody’s pro-Hamas right now. Cause they did something! On an internal level, hamas’ bid to take over leadership of the Palestinian struggle is very strong. On the other hand, I have another Palestinian friend saying, what do you mean — Hamas is a disaster for our people. It’s always been a disaster for our people. We’re all sitting around not working for a month now..."

Whenever anything happens in Israel, the person I want to hear from the most is Rabbi Shaul Judelman, Israeli resident of the West Bank town Tekoa, coexistence activist and co-founder/co-director of the non-profit Roots-Shorashim-Judur. That's why he is BAD RABBI's first 3rd-time guest, and why I'm so excited to stop typing right now and get this episode up so you can listen to it already. I basically just dumped out all of my current observations, anxieties, analyses, and critiques on the (metaphorical) table in front of Shaul and asked him to poke, prod, add, subtract, organize, and shed his own considerable light on it. We didn't agree about everything, but imo it would be silly not to take everything he sees and says very seriously.

Here are some salient excerpts from our conversation:

"Society is overflowing with purpose. Because it’s The Home. The Home has been shattered... So there’s this incredible sense of unity...The army failed us. The government is inept in many ways. In general we’ve been on a long slide of losing faith in our national institutions that are supposed to take care of us. But the Israeli society has just stepped up in the most emotive, amazing way, to take care of each other...

"[Prior to 10/7,] the reservists were threatening not to serve. The pilots were threatening not to fly. The leaders on both sides were just fanning all they vitriol. So it looked pretty bad. So when the attack came, I imagine Iran and hezbollah thought we were a society that was falling apart. But we were already enlisted. You had 300,000 people who were already enlisted to show up every Saturday night to fight for the Israeli they believed in. For the values they believe in. For the home they want to live in...By the next day [i.e. 10/8], the big protest movement had organized a control room and were evacuating people under fire from all the border towns, setting up places for people to go, already doing the food package in...it was a matter of sending out a WhatsApp on the channel. Because the network was there...the army at the end of the day turned to them for inspiration."

Why is Bibi still in office?

"The entire north of the country is worries about hiznollah commandos storming in through a tunnel...That day of reckoning is going to come. But the sense of right now, the most important thing to do is that our people in the south can’t go home until Hamas is out of power, until their ability to fight is done. Until that’s done, there’s a big swath of our country that is empty. And we owe it to those people who we’ve already failed to give them the security that they can live their lives within the established borders of the state of Israel."

"Imagine you’re a Palestinian committed to peace, and your Israeli partner says, 'I think we have to hit Gaza, we have to hit Hamas, I don’t see another way out.' The cost of that, whet it means on the Palestinian civilian life is tremendous and how can you possibly say that. But I think that most Israelis have come to that feeling."

"On the Israeli side, people were triggered by Palestinians saying, I don’t think any children were killed, Hamas only attacks military targets, your media is lying to you. And you have someone in our WhatsApp group who just buried her niece."

"For a lot of people, the question of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is, who is the victim? & both sides have a pretty good case. But if you’re a Palestinian and you’ve been watching the world ignore you more and more, and looking at Occupation get worse, and Israel doing this, and the world's not paying attention, and all of a sudden the world is coming out and saying that the Israelis are the victim?...[And at the same time,] if you’re going to look at what happened on Oct 7, and you’re NOT able say that Israelis are the victim??...

"So right there is a very challenging moment.

"People hold onto their victimhood, because they’re some kind of weird thought in the world that whoever is the victim is right. And it’s really a very detrimental perspective on the world. Because it just leads people to claim victimhood."

Friends, I can't tell you enough how excited I am to share my most recent Bad Rabbi Media interview with Nick Bryant -- intrepid investigative journalist, author (The Franklin Scandal), interviewer (The Nick Bryant Podcast), and most recently, Director of epsteinjustice.com -- an organization dedicated to pursuing accountability for the scores of victims abused and traumatized by Jeffrey Epstein's government-backed child-trafficking ring. Nick has been investigating and uncovering similar operations, in which children are pandered to social and political elites, who are then permanently compromised by blackmail photographs, for over two decades.

In addition to meticulously documenting these unconscionable case studies, Bryant has moved into activsim as the Director of epsteinjustice.com. "We're mobilizing people...we're not going to have another opportunity like this in our lifetime." With a now 37,000 strong petition, the backing of six Epstein victims and 42 anti-trafficking/anti-exploitation organizations, epsteinjustice.com seeks to establish a Truth & Reconciliation commission that calls to account all of the abusers to whom he pandered children through his extensive network of elite pedophiles and their protectors. "We need to make the perps accountable, and we have to make the government accountable...Why is the government aiding and abetting child-trafficking?"

Bryant understands that the task ahead, while clear, is far from simple. "There are 100 senators, a total of 535 federal legislators--and not one of them has called for an investigation of Jeffrey Epstein. It's a bipartisan thing: the Epstein cover-up has gone ghrough Bush 2, Obama, Trump, and now Biden...both sides of the aisle are guilty." For Bryant, there is only one logical conclusion: "It's really up to us to clean this up now...I believe something can be done, and I belive this is the time. Every American knows theres something seriously wrong with Epstein. And our government and media are depending on us to be apathetic."

Poetry, right?

I don't know about you but I'm feeling like I could use some poetry right about now. To that end! Right before the High Holidays started I had a conversation with one of my favorite Jewish writers, poet and translator Atar Hadari. The episode was slated for release on Monday 10/9, and of course intervening world events made it nearly impossible to think about poetry, much less listen to it read aloud, much less claim a moment of open-ended reflection to contemplate, assimilate, absorb.

But at this point, I feel like we could all use a bit of poetry in our lives.

And Atar's new book Gethsemane transports readers to a setting that is chronologically remote but cluturally ever-present: Israel during the time of Jesus, the people and events narrated in the New Testament. Atar does us the honor of reading three poems I requested from Gethsemane . From wildly illuminating and entertaining angles, the poems explore some of the fundamental differences between Judaism and Christianity as communal spiritual value systems -- and does so from a place of profound empathy, sensitivity, and understanding.

Jewish characters, some of whose names still reverberate into our modern "Judeo-Christian" culture, some 'background characters' whose names were never known, observe the events of Jesus's life with emotions we are not used to associating them, given the New Testament's flat characterization of them as either stone-hearted legalists or zealous converts. In the landscape of Gethsemane, ancient Israelites view Jesus with a wide range of attitudes: curiosity, bemusement, annoyance, pity, indignation, indifference, respect. (“There are many kings of Israel that come off a lot worse than Jesus does.")

They wonder things like, How did Jesus make a living? How is this a paying gig?

Through these homey, local voices, a value system emerges organically that pokes and prods at some of the fundamental premises of the New Testament's theological challenge to Judaism. Miracles, in this view, are both freely acknowledged and deprioritized. And taking responsibility for a commmnity's 'mundane' spiritual needs -- via the Temple rituals so mocked in New Testament, via adherence to the legal minutae of Jewish Law -- is the highest stature a person can attain.

"They *needed* the money lenders...it’s just a whole system of commerce they doesn’t work without money lenders...it’s like, Jesus went and threw all the clerks out of city hall. 'Well that’s great Jesus, but how am I going to pay my taxes!'"

Since arriving at Central Synagogue almost two decades ago, Rabbi Angela Buchdal has transformed it into a sui generis experience of communal prayer: backed by a professional band and musical director, her own professionally trained singing voice, and a crew of clerical colleagues with similarly formidable vocal skills, not only is Central’s building packed, their livestream boasts an endless scroll of remote participants from around the country and across the world.

This has all happened at a time when in general, Jews are exiting Jewish institutions and rejecting traditional forms of worship. Plummeting synagogue membership is an ongoing topic of concerned conversation in the fora of organized Jewish leadership, and as Rabbi Buchdal points out, the same trends hold true across Christian denominations.

So I wanted to know how she did it!

The short answer is, she a) went against the grain by leaning into – and deeply investing in – the worship service itself; b) demanded the service adhere to the highest standards of aesthetic excellence and spiritual authenticity, thereby c) consistently creating a tangibly elevated spiritual experience for/with participants.

“People have certain standards for what they expect. As a synagogue that's in New York, our people are going to Lincoln Center, and they're going to Broadway shows, and they're seeing the highest level of artistry and craft and beauty. I'm competing for my people's time against them. And when they come, I want the level of their worship experience to invoke the same kind of beauty and aesthetic excellence that they are used to hearing. It shouldn't be that their secular life is at this level, and their religious life is down here. Shouldn't we be investing as much or more in our worship as anything else. God is worth it, and our tradition is worth it, and I think we can create that model. This is why our belief in the worthiness of it is where the real work is -- it's about self-dignity.

“So collected the best musicians--and not just the best musicians, it's a team of regulars who knows the music inside and out. They never play the same thing exactly the same each week, they are doing a midrash [personal interpretation] on the prayer every time. And they are responding to the energy in the room in the same way that I am. So I would say that my job as a cantor is to be an energy-worker: it's like, how do you feel the energy of this community, and how do you channel it in some way? You have to be in the moment and present.”

Ultimately, for Rabbi Buchdal, the prayer is meant to serve as a vehicle for experiences of awe that can in turn lead to transcendence: which in turn, hold the potential to transform our lives for the better. Certain ingredients must be consistently present in order to catalyze this alchemy of inner and outer perception, the inner and outer self.

“I think the most important thing is that we are all authentically praying. And that includes my musicians by the way. I feel so sad when I hear rabbis say, 'My synagogue would not be the place I pray if I had the option. It's not a worshipful experience for me.' I'm thinking to myself, Well then what hope do we ever have?? For me, I look forward to Shabbat every week; it changes my entire mood.

“That's what it's supposed to do: the ritual itself is transcendent, and pulls you out of your everyday. And that is what we're trying to create: it's really an experience of awe.”

I was pretty rapt listening to Jordan Mann articulate the Jewish Liberation Fund’s (JLF) vision for a progressive Jewish future – and not only because “power,” “systemic strategies,” and “structural change” are my love language. Jordan’s personal connection to the work, both the crackling passion he brings to it and the personal journey that brought him there – from his childhood as the son of a Jewish father and black mother in “very white and conservative” central Illinois (“The reform synagogue would have evangelical Christians come in to teach us about Muslims”), to working with college students in a stint with Hillel (“Doing Purim&Dragons with Jewish college students at Hillel helped my clarify my own Jewishness more than any synagogue”), to running 90-100 miles/week (!) as a professional track athlete – made the time fly and left me with a whole new basket of questions for the next time we speak.

SERIES!

JLF is currently holding a political education series that still has one remaining installment. What We Need to Win centers three progressive Jewish funders, asking them: Why is values-aligned funding important for you and your movement?

The fourth and final session, about the critical yet underdiscussed role of collective giving and funding in movement-building, is upcoming—Thursday Sept 7. Hope to see you there!

*****

“I wish that wearing this kippah around didn’t mean I was right wing on Israel. I wish that wearing this kippah around signaled that I was someone who would be someone who would be showing up at a Black Lives Matter rally. Or someone cares about making sure that we have a higher minimum wage.”

*****

“For us the Jewish future we believe in is one where all ppl are free from different forms of oppression. Whether it’s identity based, whether it’s economic oppression. Making sure that we have a world where the Jewish philanthropy ppl do is about not just making sure Jewish ppl are safe, but making sure the Jewish people are safe in solidarity with other safe ppl, in community with them, fighting for them — willing so stand beside just about everyone in the fight for a just world.”

*****

“What kind of Judaism is one that’s just all about fear of annihilation? Celebrating through marching in the street for an increase in the minimum wage, or fair pay for care workers, or environmental Justice, reproductive rights: that’s a really compelling vision of Judaism for me. If Judaism means that, I think there would be a lot more people who would be a lot more excited about it than I’d we were just talking about annihilation.”