Hello Temple Sinai,  this time from Jerusalem where I have come to study with over 100 other rabbis for 10 days at the Shalom Hartman Institute (more on that later).  I am so grateful that I am able to come to learn and dive deep into texts, especially after the year we’ve had. 

I landed in Tel Aviv, to rebound from jetlag, and to see my dear friend Linda Lovitch, who will be coming to speak and do an advocacy and media training for our community in September.  Linda and I worked together back in the mid-1980s on hasbara, or Israel advocacy, at an education center called Kiryat Moriah in Jerusalem. There we worked with Jewish campus leaders from all over the English-speaking world on how to organize and defend Israel against what were already vicious antisemitic attacks and protests, particularly in South Africa.  While this past year has risen to an entirely new level on American campuses, Linda and I know too well that this isn’t new, and it was already very bad in some parts of the world 40 years ago.  Linda stayed in Israel and had her family here. Her career has been as an actor (she played Alexis Carrington on the Israeli version of Dynasty) and she has trained decades of Israeli diplomats on Israel advocacy and messaging.   Most recently, she has worked with the survivors of the kibbutzim near Gaza that were attacked on October 7, helping them to shape their stories that they share with people here in Israel and abroad.   She will be sharing her experiences and expertise with us when she comes.   More on that closer to the time, but hold the dates of September 20-22.  

I was also very happy to have a meal or two at the LGBT Pride Center café here in Tel Aviv.  Given the virulent antisemitism coming from the activist flank of the queer community these days, including Burlington’s Pride Center demanding that its Jewish co-chairs resign for no reason other than their Jewishness, it was so nice to be at a center that included Jews and Palestinians, lesbian moms and trans-families, all in a lovely café on a park that is where Tel Avivians come to bring their children and their dogs to play.   

Here in Jerusalem, I’m staying a lovely Airbnb in the German Colony, very near where I’ll be studying, and near Netanyahu’s residents where there are protests almost daily.   I chose place with a piano so I can also work on a Prokofiev piece I’ve been wanting to learn.   Here’s a picture of my mirpeset (porch/balcony) and my street to give you a feel for the beauty of Jerusalem in summer.  

The Shalom Hartman Institute is one of the premier Jewish institutions in Israel and the US.  It was founded by Rabbi David Hartman, an Orthodox rabbi who harshly rejected Reform and Conservative Judaism in his youth, but had a transformation and came to be one of the great advocates for the diversity of modern Judaism.  The Hartman Institutes Rabbinic Torah Seminar (fondly referred to as “summer camp for rabbis”) is one of the very few places where Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, Reconstructionist, and other types of rabbis study text together and learn from one another.  The co-presidents are Rabbi Donniel Hartman, son of the founder, and Dr. Yehuda Kurtzer, one of the smartest people I have ever met.  You might check out his podcast called “Identity/Crisis” which is one of the most thoughtful, probing discussions of Jewish ideas and issues I know of.  Other teachers include luminaries like Prof. Israel Knoll (one of the most well respected scholars of the Hebrew Bible), Dr. Micah Goodman (public intellectual and author of Catch-67 was part of our book group at Sinai after October 7), Rachel Korazin (an brilliant professor of Israeli literature who did a class last year with Ohavi Zedek and Sinai on Israel poetry), and Tal Becker (International Human Rights lawyer, and one of the chief negotiators of the Oslo Accords, the Abraham Accords, and who defended Israel in from of the International Court of Justice).  I look forward to bringing what I learn back to Burlington and our community. 

Tonight, I attended a small gathering of about 30 Israeli and American rabbis and educators to talk about how we can bring American Jews and Israelis together, or yachad in Hebrew.  It took place at the old Shaarei Tzedek Hospital, the first hospital built outside the Old City back in 1902.  The painted ceiling of the reception area is still there.   We went around sharing moments of surprising connection and togetherness (yachad moments) that we had experienced since October 7.  It was simultaneously heartbreaking and inspiring.  The last person spoke about hearing a song he had listened to often in dark times in his life, but that he had unexpectedly heard at one of the big gatherings after the massacre.  He talked about how it captured both the inability of people to hear one another in the protests that gripped Israel before October 7, but that after, it also captured something about the limits of words.  One of the writers of the song expressed this about its meaning, “the inability of people to communicate with each other, and not particularly internationally but especially emotionally so that what you see around you is people who are unable to love each other."  That person was Art Garfunkel, and the song was Simon and Garfunkel’s Sound of Silence.     

Shalom from Jerusalem.

David