March 28, 2020 “When a ruler sins…” Vayikra 4:22

A prayer of thanks for the governors, like Ohio’s Mike DeWine, showing such courage and leadership in this frightening crisis. While the feds were ignoring the urgency or even profiting from it, Govs. DeWine, Cuomo, Newsom, etc., cancelled school, non-essential work, and public events, mobilized resources, and “told it like it is.” Though the President publicly disputes assessments of Dr. Fauci, the esteemed head of the Ntl. Inst. of Infectious Diseases, our Governor appears committed to credible communication. Hazak v’Baruch to our clergy, providing internet-streamed prayer minyans and classes while dealing with sick congregants, funerals, etc. A meshaberach for brave medical professionals and for generous citizens working the hunger centers, social service agencies, and homeless shelters. And teachers distributing school supplies in the inner city and who, everywhere, are reaching out to kids to maintain their intellectual growth. The teachers’ union provides guidance to anybody on online learning. And finally, to the wonderful people employed by our Jewish agencies and Federation. How much more meaningful now are our gifts as our most vulnerable struggle to cope. A safe and peaceful Shabbat to all!

March 21, 2020 “The 7^th shall be a day of complete rest for you”     Vayakhel  35:2
Covid-19. This extraordinary and existential interruption is a sabbath in our lives, disrupting routines, forcing new priorities. Before the pandemic subsides, we may find ourselves and our neighbors as vulnerable and destitute as our forebears in the wilderness. This moment calls for healthcare – for all, even those uninsured or undocumented – and not just for their sake, but also to protect ourselves. It’s a time to embrace and support those habituated to and, now, those suddenly new to impoverishment and food insecurity with our charity and with expansion and new insight into safety-net programs that, in the past, provoked our cynicism. Let us bolster our prayers for healing with compassion, grace, and, of course, with vigilance. Shabbat Shalom!

March 14, 2020 “Give atonement so there will not be a plague”    Ki Sisa 30:12

Criminal justice reform has gone mainstream with Democrats anxious to truly reflect the 8^th Amendment and Republicans tired of paying for mass incarceration. The bi-partisan First Step bill took an historic, albeit modest, “first step”, retroactively equating crack and powdered cocaine and improving women prisoner protections. It doesn’t, however, address jailing currently 450,000 thousand, practically none of whom are flight risks, almost all of whom can’t afford bail imposed by antiquated rules and a racist system. Nor does it commute excessive sentences, nor provide for re-absorption, prison education, or mental health. On the other hand, supporters or contributors to Donald Trump earn clemency: his biographer (mail fraud), an Illinois governor (bribery), three war criminals who disgraced their services, a Cheney aide who exposed a CIA agent, a far-right conspiracy theorist (illegal political contribution scheme), armed occupiers of a federal wildlife refuge, a Fox contributor, a disgraced Republican Congressman, a lobbyist, and a convicted NFL owner. Atonement? Quid quo pro!

March 7, 2020 “Merry with wine, King Ahashuerus ordered Queen Vashti to display herself to his banquet guests”   Book of Esther 10-11

Powerful men are enabled to project their power illegally, but with immunity. Even the tragic fate handed Vashti for her refusal to be exploited is merely a Biblical subtext to Esther’s courageous entrapment of Haman. Non-disclosure agreements, access to media, professional control, etc., all permitted Weinstein, Cosby, Trump, Clinton, Strauss, Lauer and untold less famous others to freely foist their depravity upon women as best exemplified by Trump’s famous Access Hollywood recorded boast that his celebrity allows him to grab women’s genitals with total absence of accountability. It’s not just sexual imposition, however. Trump’s sly manipulation has corrupted the very definition of “truth” and, with the collaboration of Fox News, he has been able to seize the narrative whether misrepresenting immigrants, climate change, critical regulation, or providing immunity to his rich friends and acolytes. Unchecked power has no limits.

February 28, 2020 “…take for me a portion from every man”    Terumah 25:2

Two years after Trump and his Republican corporate toadies promised their enormous corporate tax cuts would generate dramatic growth and expanded manufacturing, the chief effects (according to non-partisan data) has been a punishing (for our children!) trillion-dollar deficit. Since the tax cut, job growth is actually lower than the last years of the Obama administration. Business capital expenditures are dramatically down, manufacturing indexes are seriously reduced, foreign earnings repatriation is curtailed, and overall tax revenues are significantly decreased, refuting (again) the laughably discredited “Laffer effect.” What is UP, besides income inequality, are corporate dividends and stock buy-backs proving once again the lie of “trickle-down”. The tax cuts merely rewarded wealth. Not exactly the Biblical model.

February 21, 2020 “For a poor person who cries out to Me … I am compassionate”    Mishpatim 22:26

Parsha Mishpatim is a divine canon for relations among people that is best characterized in aggregate as a guide to living compassionately. It is a code of humane conduct as applied in employment, in treatment of the most vulnerable – women, immigrants and the poor, in judicial ethics, in business, and in criminal justice. In our society, the cynicism spreading in these pursuits is a stain Jews especially must resist. Though It may be tempting to slander organized labor who defend the rights and dignity of workers, to disparage the poor as lazy or “entitled”, to deplore the uneducated as apathetic, and to portray immigrants as criminals and opportunists, here we learn to solve the complex issues in our society by extending a sympathetic hand to the most indigent and exposed and pulling them up. We’re commanded so. 

February 14, 2020 “Men of truth …shall judge the people”       Yisro 18:21-22

Politics is a strange parody of governance where lust for power, vanity, and hubris coalesce into deceit and evasion. Into his turgid universe, the President has seduced not just his enthusiastic Congressional sycophants, but a large slice of middle America whose frustrations and fears have left them vulnerable to manipulation by a master hustler wholly on-message with his minions. What distinguishes his opponents – and, sadly, hinders them is their utter candor in promoting policies that solve problems without exploiting tribal fears nor resorting to vague promises or ridicule. Note: The giving of the Ten Commandments did not prevent worship of a golden calf. Let us pray that, despite the principled opposition, the powerful champions of artifice won’t sentence a generation to wander in their swampy wilderness. 

February 7, 2020 “The Children of Israel were armed when they went…”  Beshalach 13:18

Rashi teaches that “armed” – “chamusheem” – can be understood as “chomesh” or “5”, implying thus that actually only 1/5 of the Israelites left Egypt. How is it that, even after witnessing the signs and plagues and, despite their slavery, 80% of the Jews stayed loyal to the tyrant Pharaoh? And how ironic, today, despite his corruption, his coddling of White Supremacist anti-Semites, his wholesale capitulation to corporate influence, to the fossil fuel lobby, and to polluters, and his dismantling of the healthcare safety net, that anyone with Jewish values can still venerate Donald Trump? His meaningless gestures of Israel support, more than offset by his surrender of the Kurdish buffer zone to Hezbollah allies, this would-be Pharaoh deserves not a single Jewish follower.

January 31, 2020 “…Hashem shall bring you to the land”           Bo 13:5

Redemption is a powerful theme in Judaism. Though the sages of the Talmud forbid calculation of the time of redemption, Messianism has nevertheless aroused the Jewish people many times in the last 2,000 years and almost always with disappointment and unintended consequences. That a certain manifest destiny justifies the persistent Israeli occupation and settlement of Judea and Samaria is an allusion to Messianism that often underlies the narratives that have been dominating mainstream American Jewish support for Israel as well as official Israeli politics. Zionism has always been about a pluralistic Jewish homeland, not Jewish expansionism. Moshiach will come, we are taught, as a result of good deeds. Annexation, intransigence, and punishment are roads neither to a secure peace nor to redemption. 

January 24, 2020 “…the entire land of Egypt was destroyed.”    Va’eria 8:20

Australians, despite Rupert Murdoch’s virtual press monopoly there, have figured out that News Corp./Fox is little more than a lunatic propaganda mill dishonestly downplaying the devastation of bushfires ravaging the country and misrepresenting its cause as serial arson rather than climate change. The counterfeit Fox pantomime precisely hews to the Murdoch dogma and, because he actually directs the Republican agenda, many American Jews “do not hearken” (6:12) to acknowledging the fraud that is “balanced” Fox news. Murdoch’s cunning strategy of slandering dissenters from his gospel, inciting fear, deriding social justice and democratic values, and inflating Trump, his U.S avatar, has found willing dupes in the American Jewish community who greedily guzzle his Kool-Aid. Not so, finally, in Australia where subscribers and advertisers alike and even scion James Murdoch are calling out Fox for its journalistic treachery. 

January 17, 2020 “…they will not heed my voice”     Shemot 4:1

The overwhelming majority of retired IDF Generals and their Intelligence equivalents comprise the Commanders for Israel’s Security (EnCis.org.il). The CIS, certain that Israel jeopardizes security with her hawkish status quo, makes urgent recommendations for Gaza and the West Bank for promoting economic development and wider Palestinian Authority civil /security administration, even in Gaza. Also, for enlarging West Bank areas of Palestinian control to reduce infuriating, gratuitous IDF barriers to travel and to allow the PA to consolidate its moderating control over widely dispersed, struggling and radicalizing Arab villages. The generals insist that these compromises will not reduce security and can generate PA willingness to stop anti-Israel incitement and to strengthen planning and civil governance. Hearken to these Israeli heroes in search of peace – at least as much as the politicians in search of votes.

January 10, 2020 “…he bent his shoulder to bear and became an indentured servant”  Vayechi 49:15

Trump proposes to offset half of his increases in his bloated defense budget with cuts to SNAP (Food Stamps) that reduce benefits, limit relief for the working poor, and withhold participation from 4 million people. His $1.4 Trillion tax windfall for corporations, which, contrary to his promises, neither increased business spending nor repatriated foreign earnings, has him searching for savings that won’t penalize the Republican Donor Class, but that, ironically, will punish his unwaveringly fervid rural base as well as tens of thousands of Jews including the 20% of Cleveland Jews who live in poverty. Dramatically cutting SNAP, which primarily supports the elderly, the working poor, the disabled, and single-parent families, will make millions more destitute and will exacerbate the intolerable scourge of food insecurity that plagues our communities – the parts of our communities to which we seem oblivious. 

January 3, 2020 “Joseph gave his brothers the best of the land”                Vayigash 47:11

Jews in America have transformed from illiterate slum-dwelling immigrants to enjoying, today, the “best of the land”. Our journey profited from our vigorous Jewish and family values and our fixations on education and advancement. It was aided as well, despite eruptions of anti-Semitic sentiment, by our ability to assimilate into the general culture, to escape the oppression of slum neighborhoods, and to finance our own generous social service culture. Racial minorities, however, have had none of these advantages, trapped by redlining in the inner-city, by job discrimination, and by all of the social ills these conditions perpetuate. We Jews are justly proud of our gains, but let’s not permit that to engender the conceit that, because we did it, those so less empowered than us are deficient. By advocating for our downtrodden brothers for housing equity, social services, improved school resources, day care, early education and college tuition, we can make the “best of the land” reachable for all. L’Shana Tova!

December 27, 2019 “And Pharaoh said to Joseph, ‘I am Pharaoh’.”   Mikeitz 41:44

The miracle of Chanukah devolved through generations of Hasmonean rule into a corrupt plutocracy until, finally, Herod, a dissolute and narcissistic tyrant placed his sycophants even in the Holy Temple. These elites then bowed to a succession of Roman governors leading, ultimately, to a popular revolt and, sadly, to the destruction of Jerusalem. Today, the disparity in wealth between the few and the many has again reached historical proportions and the vanity of today’s ruling elites bears some dark resemblance to Herodian history, even down to our dissolute and narcissistic current President. At this time of giving, however, let’s remember the 90% – the workers, the teachers, the single mothers, the neglected poor, the students, those trapped in crime-infested neighborhoods and the working poor. The effect of our influential Jewish community, acting with less cynicism and, instead, with compassion for those who toil for our benefit will be miraculous. Happy Chanukah!

December 20, 2019 “They hated him and could not speak with him peacefully” Vayeishev 37:4

The incomprehensible impeachment proceedings that rely solely on the President’s albeit illegitimate 8-minute coercion of the Ukrainian president failed to energize even the Democratic base, much less the all-important Moderates so essential in Presidential elections. In fact, the hearings embody a narrow partisan attack that ironically repulses a skeptical populace. Ironic, indeed, is how those Democrats ignored 36 months of corruption, cupidity, emoluments, and executive overstep not to mention the fraudulent business practices, serial defalcations, promiscuity, money-laundering, and fabrications that epitomize Pres. Trump’s adult life. Impeaching him Constitutionally is a vain and hopeless enterprise. Leading a public and piercing impeachment of this President in the Public Square, however, was and is the responsibility of the Democratic Party and they have almost comically failed to do it. 

December 13, 2019 “Rescue me, please, from the hand of my brother”         Vayishlach 32:12

It has been frequently said that President Trump’s extraordinary decision last week to overrule the Navy disciplinary regimen and grant clemency and pardons to Navy Seals accused and convicted of war crimes by their comrade-in-arms undermines military discipline. More importantly, however, it debases a military code that honors rules of engagement, that compels witnesses of violations of that code to come forward, and that sets an ethical benchmark for the nations of the world. In 1973, 73 Israeli prisoners of war were murdered in cold blood by their Syrian captors. Hafez Assad, at least as far as anybody knows, did not hold the killers accountable. In the Korean War, North Korea and its Chinese patrons routinely murdered American prisoners of war. What strange precedents for our President to aspire to.

December 6, 2019 “The families of the earth shall bless themselves by you”    Vayeitzei 28:14

Pride in America’s role as a peacemaker, as a source of economic stability, a mediator, a steward of security, and a sponsor of democracy has always served as a guide for our leaders and as a foundation for patriotism among our youth. As we shrink from international leadership, embolden foreign autocrats, disrupt markets, coerce our neighbors and allies, and disavow our promises, we not only sow chaos around the world; we also breed cynicism and apathy at home. Worse, this international detachment seeps into the domestic consciousness and permits a cynical coddling of political and economic elites and an apathy about essentials such as public education, food security, health care, and economic mobility. If we ignore what we, as Americans, were raised to revere, the world we once illuminated will suffer, but we, too, will become a wretched and divided society. 

November 29, 2019 “Why should I be bereaved of both of you on the same day” 27:45 Toldos

On the same day the House Intelligence Committee concluded hearings that confirmed Donald Trump has abased our diplomacy to promote his own re-election, Binyamin Netanyahu found himself indicted for bribery. Both of them find it convenient to deflect suspicion from themselves by demonizing as biased and devious the security and law enforcement institutions that have initiated investigations of them. Faith in the judiciary, the police, FBI, CIA, etc., is the foundation of the rule of law and attacking the dedicated men and women who risk life and limb to keep us safe and defend us from foreign hostility is devious and contemptible. Whether or not Trump’s mischief warrants impeachment or Bibi’s cupidity is a crime, their loathsome attacks on public institutions is unforgivable. 

November 22, 2019 “Abraham purchased he field within its boundaries in the presence of all Chayei” Sarah 23:18

Mike Pompeo’s artful explanation for asserting the legality of settlements in the occupied territories was to refer to it as confirming Pres. Reagan’s views ignores Reagan’s relentless hostility to Menachim Begin and Israel’s policies. Reagan, who declared that the settlements did not violate international law, nevertheless, repeatedly demanded a settlement freeze, infuriated Prime Minister Shamir with his unilateral outreach to Yasser Arafat, and threatened an arms embargo to force Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon. Barak Obama, himself, vetoed a UN resolution defining the settlements as illegal.  Impeachment or Bibi’s cupidity is a crime, their loathsome attacks on our public institutions is unforgivable. 

November 15, 2019 “….keep the way of Hashem with charity and justice”   Vayeira 18:19

All of the bickering over immigration and impeachment and the Democratic primaries have tended to thrust into the background issues critical to a large cohort of our citizens. In a time of plenty, poverty still infests our urban centers and rural America. Our elderly, single-parent families, chronically unemployed, mentally ill, and working poor neighbors suffer food insecurity, homelessness, deteriorating schools and lack of access to health care. While tax reductions for corporations, increased defense spending and expanded Medicare utilization generated a deficit approaching a trillion dollars, our frugal leaders targeted the Affordable Care Act and imposed new restrictions on access to Medicaid, food stamps, and college loan forgiveness. Add to that the wars on public education and on community policing and we find ourselves in a society where the privileged flourish and too many or the rest of us continue to suffer. For that, Ezekiel taught, Sodom was destroyed.

November 8, 2019 “And the one who curses you I shall curse”     Lech Lecha 12:3

Democrats, in 2016, foolishly and fatally permitted the Republicans to exploit the deceitful, counterfeit slander of “Benghazi” and today they’re improbably failing to exploit genuine mischief of, for instance, the swiftly released and deported Russian spy Maria Butina whose infiltration and coercion of Republican elites and the NRA abetted Russia’s pro-Trump election interference. Similarly, Dems are failing to exploit Trump’s betrayal of our Kurdish allies, abandoning eastern Syria to Russian hegemony and emboldening Hezbollah in Syria. Democrats, while seeming to disregard Trump’s hyperbolical characterizations of them as “scum”, etc., rarely utilize truly ingenuous depictions of Trump as “liar”, “groper”, “deadbeat” and “Putin’s puppy” almost as if endorsing his vile conduct. Benghazi? How about “Butina” or “Betrayal”? 

November 1, 2019 “And God saw the earth and behold it was corrupted” Noach  6:12

The Climate Change-denying Trump Administration has proposed logging of Alaska’s coastal Tongass Forest, the last intact temperate rainforest in the world, threatening pristine water sources and climate stability. Surprise? Previously Trump endorsed the massively polluting open-pit Pebble and Donlin gold/copper mines and natural gas pipeline and port, all on the headwaters of Alaska’s Bristol Bay, the world’s largest sockeye salmon fishery. Add to that his recompense to Big Coal and Big Oil, offering them national monuments lands for mining and drilling, waiving coal ash and water pollution regulations; and revoking the Clean Power Plan. He has withdrawn from the Paris Climate Agreement, revoked sea level rise restrictions in Federal construction, and virtually halted EPA criminal prosecutions.  Time to build an ark?  China/NBA Kaepernick-compulsory patriotism, protest as long as you don’t offend me with your form of protest.

October 25, 2019 “And Adam begat sons and daughters”   B’reishit 5:4

And Trump begat Treas; Secy. Mnuchin, whose bank, bought from FDIC for $0.00 and re-sold for $7B, rapaciously foreclosed on thousands of homeowners, who begat Interior Secy. Ross, Big Coal executive and The Face of mining in national monuments, who begat climate-change denying EPA Chief Scott Pruitt, who resigned under pressure of 14 different GAO investigations for conflicts of interest and spending for personal benefit, who begat his climate-change denying EPA successor former Murray Coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler, who begat HHS Secy. Tom Price who resigned when the HHS Inspector General demanded he repay hundreds of thousands of dollars of wasteful personal expenditures, who begat Consumer Financial Protection Bureau director Mike Mulvaney who discontinued its enforcement, who begat Paul Manafort, who begat William Barr, who begat Rudy Giuliani, who all begat foreign interference in our elections. Hoshana!

October 18, 2019 “Punishment for the nations that will not observe”  Succot Haftorah 14:19

America has a history of supporting democracy and embracing independence. Though at times somewhat misguided (Viet Nam,Central America, Iraq and The Arab Spring), we proudly supported Japan, and Germany, a free Hungary, Polish independence, the Soviet republics, and democracy in Cuba, Venezuela, Cambodia, and Philippines. We passed the East European Democracy Act under Reagan and, in bi-partisan unity, banned political assassination, intimidation, and detention. President Trump turns history on its head by embracing despots in Poland, Hungary, Philippines, Turkey (how’s that working?), and Egypt, and his bromances with Kim Jong-Un and Putin disgrace us. And now, plumping for deposed, corrupt pro-Soviet former Ukrainian bureaucrats while slandering her anti-corruption champions, endorsing Soviet occupation of Syria by abandoning our Kurdish allies to Turkish butchery, and disavowing Hong Kong’s lovers of freedom, Trump has glitteringly burnished his anti-democracy laurels.

October 11, 2019 “Their wine is the bitterness of cobras”     Ha’Azinu  32:33

Anyone who digests alt-right and Republican messaging from Breitbart and the Fox network as if it were actual news affirms the peculiar psychological device these outlets pursue by which those with particular beliefs will trust even implausible statements that nevertheless affirm those beliefs. Similarly, Jews, flattered by Trump’s pro-Israel gestures, are ignoring his withdrawal of military support for the mostly Kurdish Free Syria fighters, a Trump act of obeisance to Russia that will bring about a Turkish military incursion to destroy them. Putting Israel’s security at risk by strengthening Assad and permitting Turkish occupation of Syria must not be concealed behind Trump’s political gestures and nationalistic rhetoric. Time to change the channel!

October 4, 2019 Forgive us, pardon us, and grant us atonement….  Yom Kippur liturgy

Even some Republicans are squeamish about Trump treasonously bartering U.S. security in eastern Europe to coerce the Ukrainian president to fabricate a political ambush. What they’re not squeamish about is the other rampant corruption in the Trump milieu: Ex-lobbyists in cabinet positions in blatant conflict of interest, bureaucrats’ disgraceful excesses in travel, furnishings, and expenses, EPA debasement benefiting Big Coal and Big Oil donors, flagrant violation of Constitutional emolument articles to enrich Trump resorts and hotels, and, of course, Trump’s persistent slander of those who fail his solipsism benchmark or who oppose him. May we all find absolution in 2020.  May you, our readers, all be inscribed and sealed for a good year.

September 27, 2019 Rosh Hoshanah

Our recipes for correcting the excesses of the Political Class and the inequalities in our society are pungent by design, but aspire to the sweetness of Jewish values epitomized by justice, compassion, and dignity for all. May your New Year have just the right amount of spice and sweetness.  L’Shana Tova!

September 20, 2019 “Let not the hired person call out to Hashem against you” Deut. 24:15

The UAW strike against GM over wages, forfeited benefits, permanent “temporary” workers and security recalls 40-years of successful corporate promotion and lobbying to smear and crush unions and to diffuse employees’ challenges. Unionized employees are 1/3 the percentage of 50 years ago and Forbes magazine notes how middle class wealth declined with union representation. Because of the tenacity of organized labor retirement, hospitalization, paid time off, and job safety became routine and it is the consequence of the decline in unionization that so many young people today, many burdened with college loans, work longer hours for the same pay, forego retirement benefits, tolerate healthcare hopelessly saddled with deductibles, and often find themselves in outsourced jobs with little sustainability.  Not more competitive, more predatory.

September 13, 2019 ” When you harvest, the gleanings shall be for the stranger, the widow and the orphan” Ki Teitzei  24:19

We who are the fortunate inheritors of fossil fuel prosperity ought to show compassion to the victims of climate change, so many of whom are casualties of the hurricanes that have ravaged our Caribbean neighbors. We have reaped AND we have gleaned for so many years with little care for how these places are impacted. We are so generous to our own, to our synagogues, Federations, colleges, etc. We’re commanded also to remember the stranger. Today, in the Bahamas where 70,000 are homeless and destruction reigns, the need for our help is profound – just the gleanings, of course. But, please: At least the gleanings. And let us – please – not continue to ignore the threat of global warming: “You shall not contaminate your Land” 21:23

September 6, 2019 “If a matter of judgement is hidden from you, rise up!” Shoftim 17:18

Fake News? Yes, the Fox jesters and their social media and talk radio alt-right collaborators churn out phony narratives, from the Clinton child abuse pizza parlor to the Seth Rich murder conspiracy, and plenty more, but what’s more troubling is the willingness of their naïve followers to accept lies about CNN, Mexicans, climate change, welfare queens, white victimhood, our security agencies, gun confiscation, and marshalling of tax cuts for the wealthy. Meanwhile, de-funding civics and social studies in schools, replacing newspaper journalism with targeted internet provocateurs, and the determination of the political/corporate elite to promote these fabrications entrench them.  We can define depravity as an urgency to accept the outrageous claims of those who have seduced you and the political-broadcast devil’s pact of the right is one big Foxy mama!

August 30, 2019 “Not by bread alone does man live”        Devarim 8:3

Jobs. “Jobs” is the great and artful deflection the Republicans and this callous President have used for years to manipulate their base and to slyly justify innumerable policies aimed to absolve corporate polluters, permit competition-stifling mergers, restrict legal immigration, attack the rights of employees to organize, commercialize public lands for Big Ag and Big Oil, neutralize consumer protections, preserve an impoverishing minimum wage, fatten corporate elites with tax cuts, and beggar public education. “The 1%” and “The 10%” continue to prosper while the jobs upon which most of us rely are less and less adequate for our college loans, medical care deductibles, retirements, and the cartel-like pricing in travel, media/communications, health care, and college tuition. How about a little more bread for the rest of you?   “Jobs” should not be just a Republican political slogan.

August 23, 2019 “You shall teach your children”                       Eikev 11:19

The for-profit university industry has notoriously defrauded mostly poor young people, often post-military, and minority students, seducing them with tuition loans and empty promises of jobs and quality education, and burdening them with debt. As a condition for keeping their student loan authority, an appalled President Obama compelled these institutions to submit to independent accreditation – which they spectacularly failed. Trump’s Secy. of Education, the notorious Betsy DeVos, has now reversed independent accreditation requirements, dismantled investigations of the abusive “schools”, killed rules that enabled defrauded students to contest their debts, and brazenly hired a herd of industry executives and lobbyists to run enforcement and administration of these programs. As Trump and Republican candidates enjoy millions of the industry’s campaign dollars, you may ask: Who epitomized this fraud? None other than Trump University!

August 16, 2019 “Surely a wise and discerning people is this great nation”   V’eschanan 4:6

The “Start-up Nation” hasn’t quite trickled down to all Israelis. Half the Arab population and nearly half of the “Ultra-Orthodox” live below 50% of median income. 26% of single-parent households, 20% of elderly, and 20% of all families are impoverished, half of those representing the “working poor”, 10% of Jewish households in Israel, leaving Israel behind Mexico, Chile and Turkey. As Knesset Minister Itzak Schmuli (Zionist Union) said, “for 40 houses in Amona, the entire government gets on its feet, but for 2,000,000 poor people, nobody says a word.” In Israel, as in America, “jobs” is not the issue; opportunity is the issue. As is  terminating the political class’ obsession with preserving its own political dominance, with tax cuts for the powerful, and with corporate ascendency. Education, food security, and economic disparity are, surprisingly, urgent matters for too many Israelis left behind.

August 9, 2019 “You girded on every man his weapons”   Devarim  1:41

Sunday, the local newspapers front page depicted camouflaged white man-boys crawling with their assault weapons, pretending to be soldiers of fortune.  The same day, 2 more white man-boys with their M-16s slaughtered 2 dozen of their neighbors in Dayton and El Paso, the 124th and 125th American man-boy mass-murderers so far this year, all feeling valorized by the Right’s legitimization of political hate and by the NRA – the advocacy voice for arming white man-boys. A Supreme Court of supposed grown-ups elevates this infantile compulsion to religious 2nd Amendment sanctity. And a Cleveland Jewish Federation taskforce, now re-considering its gun policies, includes some of our own white man-boys, terrified that we’re coming to seize their guns. Israelis fear terrorists. Here, we must fear a flock of pathetic manipulated political sheep, desperate to prove their manhood.

August 2, 2019 ” A man shall not desecrate his word ”     Matot 30:3  

Promises, promises. Candidate Trump promised to bring back coal mining jobs, but only a paltry 1,500 jobs have resulted from $2B in coal subsidies and regulatory relief. For his first 30 months, 500K manufacturing jobs were added, 20% less than under the last 30 months of the Obama administration. His promised repatriation of corporate foreign earnings is at only 5.5% of those earnings. His promises of a new health care program, an infrastructure program, de-nuclearization of North Korea, and his promised Chinese trade capitulation have all been empty. And his empty promise to “drain the swamp”, in retrospect, might actually be a joke if the collection of influence peddlers, lobbyists, wife-beaters, and sycophants now running most of the government weren’t so dangerous.

July 26, 2019 “This is the offering you shall make”  Pinchas 28:3

It’s 18 months since the massive tax cut. Result:  Wage growth for the 2^nd quarter 2019 was less than the three months prior to the Trump election. The promised repatriation of foreign earnings is still a mere 5.5% of foreign earnings. Growth in GDP in the first two quarters of 2019 does not even exceed that of the last two quarters of 2017.  Gross business investment is up merely 1% since 1Q 2018 – though corporations did use their enormous tax savings for $1 Trillion in stock buybacks. Most personal tax rate reductions were offset by a loss of deductions. In fact, the chief consequence, as described by the Congressional Research Service, has been a $1 Trillion deficit this year, a 66% increase over 2017, and a windfall for the Republican Donor Class. 

July 19, 2019 ” …come now and curse this people for me ”   Balak 22:6

In 2008, Republicans attacked Barak Obama because his pastor, Jeremiah Wright, condemned the U.S. for terrorism against Viet Nam, Iraq and American Blacks and for deceit in justifying invasions of Iraq and Viet Nam. Donald Trump, however, who somehow found “very fine people” among the neo-Nazis brownshirting through Charlottesville chanting “Jews will not replace us”, hasn’t heard a peep of opprobrium from those Republicans about his Social Media Summit last week in OUR White House, his freak show of internet trolls, white supremacists, anti-Semites (including vile Sebastian Gorko, member-in-good-standing of anti-Semitic Magyar Garda), and of Trump’s Dark Web sycophants, all proudly legitimized by a President marshalling hate to animate his base.  Do we Jews hear echoes of Germany, Poland, Moab…?

July 12, 2019 “his contamination is still upon him”    Chukat 19:13

Treasury Department fines Donald Trump’s Taj Mahal Casino $10 Million for money laundering. Laundering whose money? Russian mafia and oligarchs. Trump’s business recovery from multiple bankruptcies expedited by foreign investors and condo purchasers. Who? Russians. Trump deletes Republican platform language supporting Ukraine defenses. Who benefits? Russia. Donald Trump attempts to block the investigation of Russian election interference. Trump proposes to withdraw remaining U.S. troops in Syria protecting Kurds. Who benefits? Russian client Bashar Assad. Trump attacks NATO. Who benefits? Russia. Trump encourages breakup of European Union. Who benefits? Russia. Trump withdraws from Iran agreement. Who benefits? Russian oil. Coincidence or is something rotten here? 

July 5, 2019 “They gathered together against Moses and Aaron” Korach 16:3

When last week the partisan Supreme Court permitted state legislatures their anti-democratic computerized gerrymandering, the justices completed their repudiation of voting rights enshrined in the 14th and 15th Amendments of the Constitution. In addition to the current decision, Citizens United, Shelby v. Holder, Husted v A Phillip Randolph Inst., Crawford v Marion County, and Abbot v Perez, together decree the justices’ new definition of democracy: Unlimited corporate and dark money contaminating elections, nullification of 1965 Voting Rights Act protections, imposition of discriminatory ID voting requirements, and  sanctioning of racially-discriminatory and political gerrymandering. It’s a partisan revolution.

June 28, 2019 “They spread an evil report about the land” Shellach 13:32

This week we’ll read about the spies’ fake news in the Wilderness of Zin. Jews recall the libels that have justified exclusion, discrimination, and violence against them, but too many of us are nevertheless willing to overlook the libels and lies of our leaders and of their broadcast and digital sycophants. Bibi, facing credible indictment for bribes, and Trump, whom, despite his denials, the Mueller report clearly accuses of lies and obstruction, both resort to extremist political activity to mobilize their bases and deflect from their corruption. Peace and security in Israel has never and will never emerge out of confrontation. And that’s the truth!

June 21, 2019 “The people were looking to complain” B’Haloscha 11:1

A recent New Yorker cover depicted Mitch McConnel, Bill Barr, and Lindsay Graham kneeling and polishing a diffident President’s shoes. The free trade Republicans now obsequiously endorse his tariff wars. The puritan Republicans who impeached Clinton over his sordid affair embrace a self-proclaiming misogynist and serial adulterer. The virtuous Republicans who excoriated Obama for saying you could keep your healthcare plan, now absolve their bleach blond leader to whom PolitiFact attributes 10,000 li (where did he get the time?). And the party of the leader of the free world endorse his jingoism that could turn the … Gulf of Oman of into a bottleneck of disabled oil tankers or worse…
At what point should we launch a complaint or two.

June 14, 2019 “He shall give the bitter … waters to the woman to drink” Nasso  5:14

Even the most rigorous Orthodox Jewish organizations will permit abortion under certain extreme circumstances and virtually all other Jewish organizations have condemned the recent Alabama diktat.  Most also condemn other attacks on Women’s rights to make decisions about their own bodies and on women’s health organizations. It is a canard to describe pro-choice advocates as “pro-abortion” because nobody really is. The Right has arrogantly reduced this merely to a political issue. Judaism clearly holds the mother’s health as controlling in these difficult decisions and Judaism’s compassion and respect for pregnant women and concern for their health is truly “Pro-Life”.  

June 7, 2019 Take a census of the Children of Israel            Bamidbar 1:2

The concurrence in Israel with the U.S. of accusations of a corrupt executive, “witch hunts”, border walls, partisanship, and attacks on the free press extends also to Israeli society where the Ntl. Insurance Inst. reports poverty encompasses 31% of children, 20% of elderly, 45% of “ultra-orthodox”, and nearly 20% of post-1990 olim. Similarly, issues of income inequality, homelessness, deteriorating public education, and racism torment Israelis as they do many Americans. Start-Up Nation and the U.S. have both prioritized business growth, but at significant cost to social services, education, and community. God counted us out of his love for each one of us. Then again: Who’s counting? 

May 31, 2019 “Reject my statues and I will appoint terror over you” Bechukosai 26:16

Cambodia – 1975-79

Iraq – 1986-89

Somalia – 1988-91

Rwanda – 1994

Bosnia – 1994-95

Chechnya – 1999-2009

Darfur – 2003-now

Sri Lanka – 2006-09

Syria – 2014-17

Myanmar – 2016-17

Yemen – 2016-now

NEVER AGAIN???

May 24, 2019 “If thy brother be waxen poor, you shall uphold him” Behar 25:35

Food Stamps (SNAP) are often criticized in racial terms, frequently disparaging those dependent upon them as profiteers. In fact, only 26% of SNAP recipients are Black and, other than impoverished elderly, disabled, and children (80% of SNAP households), the majority of SNAP recipients are actually working poor and the great majority receive the benefit for no more than 9 months. For Jews, confronting poverty with compassion and generosity is a commandment, not an option. The cynicism and meanness of the Right towards the poor is an idolatry of a non-existent social resiliency, a conceit that ignores the crippling poverty virtually every SNAP recipient endures.

May 17, 2019 “Ye shall have one law for strangers as for the homeborn”  Emor 24:22

Despite the mulish fealty of its faithful, the Trump Presidency has been a bonanza primarily for the rich, rewarding but mere crumbs to its devotees. A trillion dollar tax cut to corporations that triggered huge stock buybacks while tickling down just a few more jobs, a tariff war that punishes consumers and farmers disproportionately, a huge military windfall to arms and military aircraft producers with corresponding cuts to consumer protection, to Medicaid (severely impacting our Federation agencies), to environmental protection and corporate oversight, opposition to college loan relief and a war against public education. Two different outcomes – a bounty for the swamp and the remnant for the rest of us. 

May 10, 2019 “With Righteousness shall you judge your fellow”     Kedoshim 19:15

The new “J’accuse” is to denounce Democrats as “Socialists”, some referencing their own bitter lives under Russian “Socialism”, who worry that Liberals are leading us towards a Cuba- or Venezuela-like catastrophe. While the most consistent Soviet lie was to proclaim its Socialist bonifides, the USSR was never socialist. It was and is fascist kleptocracy. How its victims, even now, in America, still cohere to this Soviet “Socialist” yarn testifies to its Orwellian resilience and, perhaps, to the gullibility that Soviet culture, even here, still engenders. Banishment, expropriation, collectivization, despoiling the land, and the piracy inherent to the apparatchik enterprise never bore any resemblance to Socialism. When American Jewish advocacy rescued our Russian comrades, most of them relied on Food Stamps, Medicaid, HIAS, and a host of other “socialist” services. If Social Security, Medicare, childcare, public education, pre-school, food security, healthcare for all, consumer protections and conservation define “socialism”, being so labelled isn’t so bad. “Woe to those who issue repressive decrees”   Isaiah 10:1

May 3, 2019 “Where I will bring you, shun the doings of whence you came”  Achare Mot 18:3

“Fair and Balanced” is a slogan so drenched in irony that its hubris gets overlooked. Rupert Murdoch, an Australian naturalized solely to qualify for U.S. broadcast media ownership, has brilliantly and gluttonously seized on anger and latent tribalism in America with his divisive and deceptive promotion of Republican propaganda and his derogation of minorities, environmental regulation, and the American moral leadership that has inspired 75 years of prosperity, international peace, trade stability and nuclear disarmament. That Jews with a dialectical tradition can interpret Fox as “news” and “information” has Orwellian implications with appalling historical precedent.

April 26, 2019 “They have eyes, but cannot see”   Hallel – Psalm 135

To those celebrating the Special Prosecutor’s report as if it exonerated the President, please note that it clearly documents his relentless laboring to obstruct and thwart the investigation, from firing the FBI Director to urging his underlings to terminate the Prosecutor to maligning the investigators. And it plainly declares that he colluded with liars, cheaters, low-lives, porn stars, industry lobbyists and foreign agents from before his nomination to the present. While it didn’t require a Mueller Report to reveal the level of corruption and deception infecting this White House, the report documents much of it for all to see; all but those whose willingness to cleave to this wreckage to fulfill their own ambitions makes them accessories. 

April 19, 2019 “Pour out your wrath upon the nations that do not acknowledge you” (Haggadah)

Hearing Rep. Ilhan Omar invoke historically anti-semitic tropes summons memory of fear, hostility, and disgust directed at Jews in the early years of the last century by popular commentators, politicians and academics. This organized dehumanization and demonization of our vulnerable minority (as well as Asians and Italians) culminated in the 1924 Immigration Act the goal of which was to preserve America’s “ethnic homogeneity” and consequently permitted the Nazi liquidation of countless Jews prohibited from immigration to the U.S. Whatever ones’ immigration politics, for Jews, dehumanization of central American emigrants desperate for a better life invokes the worst aspects of anti-semitic xenophobia. Similarly, when our legitimate concern for Israeli security provokes us to dehumanize Palestinians, to justify their cantonization, and to contemn their national and communal aspirations, it recalls our own historic humiliations. On Pesach, we are reminded that once we, too, were strangers in the land of Egypt. Chag Sameach!

April 12, 2019 “The Kohen shall command…the house not be contaminated” Metzorah 14:36

The Republicans and Trump have been as tough on the environment as on journalism, only more effectively. Repealing laws that hold mining companies accountable for polluting water supplies, weakening restrictions against coal-ash pollution of rivers and rolling back power plant mercury emission limits, they have reciprocated to the Kochs, Murrays and their other coal baron patrons. Similarly, opening over 2 million acres, over half of National Monument lands in Utah, to mining, removing bans on carcinogenic pesticides (Chlorpyrifos) and TCE – a dangerous industrial solvent, and proposing rule changes that would restrict EPA access to various environmental impact studies all coincide with putting recent industry trade association executives in charge of EPA toxic chemical regulation and clean air research – as if conflict of interest is the new normal. The Kohen is instructed to disassemble stone by stone a hopelessly contaminated house. Let’s not give the Republican donor class the keys to our house. 

April 5, 2019 “The Kohen shall declare it contaminated”   Tazria 13:25

Despite politicians’ festering annexation plan and their indifference to the tzaaras of anti-Israel sentiment, the real Israel patriots are mapping out a path to security and peace. The Commanders for Israel’s Security consists of the overwhelming majority of retired IDF generals and their equivalents in the security services. The generals are united in the conviction that a two-state agreement is essential to Israel’s security. They are against mere “threat containment” and have proposed 1) a fair and prudent Area C construction compromise with Palestinians, 2) a Gaza strategy based upon a rehab program and regional cooperation, and 3) approaching a 2-state solution in a way that restores credibility to Israel’s commitment to peace and undermines BDS and other hostile initiatives. The politicians are for themselves. The generals, in war and in peace, are defending the Zionist mission.

March 29, 2019 “Every creeping creature…is an abomination”    Shemini 11:41

March 22, 2019 “Do not think that you will escape the fate of all the Jews by being in the king’s palace” Megillah 4:13

The Megillah describes a tyrant who today seems strangely familiar. We read how Ahashuerus, a debauched, self-absorbed misogynist, surrounded by a wicked vizier and corrupt advisors impulsively issues decrees, especially one, based upon a lie, that condemns a conveniently vulnerable minority, the Jews, provokes his base to attack them and endorses their annihilation. And, in the strangest coincidence of all, the tyrant has a familial Jewish connection that miraculously mobilizes the rescission of his decree. The Megillah’s condemnation of Ahashuerus and Haman isn’t just a narrative about the intersection of politics and morality, whether in America or ancient Persia. It is a lesson for Jews, even if it takes the courage of Esther to fulfill it, that faith in something greater than a pathetic charmer is ultimately what protects us and for cleaving to our moral code when corruption and meanness surround us.