Author: jpf_24rvpl

There is a sura (chapter) in the Qur’an in which God speaks to humankind in regard to our own creation, the purpose of our own being: “We created you from a single pair of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that you may know each other….”

A Muslim colleague pointed to the first part of that verse and, speaking primarily of immigrant Muslims, said with a weary smile, “I have so much trouble getting them to look at the second part of the verse, ‘that you may know each other.’ They look at the first part and say, ‘You see, we have to stay together, to be a tribe.’”

I am struck by the beauty of the verse, a beauty that depends on both parts being taken together as two parts of a whole. In relation to each other, the two parts of the verse illustrate the dynamic tension between the universal and the particular. We are indeed meant to celebrate our own uniqueness, whether as individuals, nations, tribes, religions, etc.; but we are not meant to stay there, only among ourselves.

God calls us to reach out, to share, to celebrate each other’s uniqueness, creating the wholeness among people that God can only envision and encourage. Making it our own and fulfilling God’s vision depends on us.

There is a similar tension that emerges from one of the most beautiful and familiar verses in the Torah: “And you shall love your neighbor as yourself” — v’ahavta l’rey’a’cha ka’mocha. As with the sura from the Qur’an, it seems amazing that anyone would not see the beauty and the wholeness of that verse, or that in reading it, eviscerate the simple words of its power and fullness.

Inhering in the three Hebrew words of the verse is the entire tension between the universal and the particular, whose fine-tuning depends on us in order to produce harmonious sound. The importance of the particular, whether of individual or group, is rooted in the third word, ka’mocha — “as yourself” — which is understood to mean, “as you love yourself.” I cannot truly love another if I don’t love myself; I cannot love all people if I don’t love and attach to my own people.

A key question emerges from the same word: “Who is the neighbor I am to love?” Our answer to that question determines whether we are in tune or out of tune with all of the players in God’s symphony, whether our way of being in relation to others produces dissonance or harmony.

Of holy days at week’s end, Ismail had invited me to come to hear his Friday sermon. It was an extremely moving experience, sitting at the back of the humble room filled with Muslims at prayer. Ismail spoke passionately of the essential link between means and ends, whether in our personal or collective lives, emphasizing that all of our ways in life must be “unblemished and legal.”

At the end of the prayers, he welcomed me so warmly, asking worshipers to be sure to say hello. Quite a number of people came up to me, exchanging greetings, inviting me to come again, “Salaam aleikum, aleikum salaam.” Among those who greeted me was a young man who startled me, asking in Hebrew if I spoke Hebrew. When I responded yes, he told me in excellent Hebrew that he was from Saudi Arabia and had learned Hebrew at Brandeis. Our hands clasped, he said, “L’hitra’ot,” see you again.

The string of connection was finely tuned, hearing myself in the voice of the other, nations and tribes that we may know each other, the neighbor I am to love.

Being a pacifist sometimes seems like swimming against the Pacific Ocean (I live in Seattle). When I was about to turn 18 my local draft board ordered me to register for the draft. I complied, not giving it much thought. But once I stepped inside my local draft board I knew I couldn’t be part of the military.

I can’t put my finger on why I felt that way. It was late 1962 and there was not much happening that would have educated me. However, as the years have rolled by I honestly think it had nothing to do with my political feelings, but was based entirely on my Jewish upbringing and education.

There were other Jewish 18-year-olds who didn’t feel the way I felt. So why was I so adamant against even signing my name to the bottom of a blank form? And why was I so sure that I was only going to fill out the Conscientious Objection form and apply for a CO classification?

My feelings have not changed over the years. At times I feel like a fish out of water in relation to the mass culture around me. When Memorial Day (formerly known as Decoration Day) is celebrated on the last Monday in May, there are parades with speeches and military bands, all to give thanks for those who have served our country in the military.

But the truth is that I and many other Conscientious Objectors also served the country by giving two years of our lives doing our CO service. In lieu of being in the military I worked two years for a non-profit organization at a home for children with learning difficulties. In our militarized culture there seems to be little mention of the COs who have served time in prison, have done meaningful work in mental hospitals, and have actually been part of the military as medical personnel. We should have a day dedicated to these people as well. Their contributions have been admirable.

However, there is a saving grace for all of us: the Jewish Peace Fellowship. Since I was 20 I have found like-minded people in the JPF. On one of my first trips to New York City, I attended a JPF board meeting and met Rabbi Isidor Hoffman. He was one of the three founders of the JPF in 1941 and for many years the Hillel rabbi at Columbia University. Later he and I walked across town on 59th Street in Manhattan, and I will never forget that day. We spoke of peace issues that were central to both of us, and he was unswerving in his beliefs and how he looked at the world. He helped me to secure a better understanding of why I felt so alienated at age 18 and why the views of the JPF are the true values of Judaism.

P.S. As I write this, the Utah State Senate is considering a measure that would declare the .45-caliber handgun (Browning M1911) as the official state firearm. This would be the first time any state has declared an official state gun. Is this the message we should be sending to our young people, or to the rest of the world for that matter?

On a lovely, mild summer evening a bare year before the fall of the The Wall, I found myself sitting in a Munich coffee house with a young journalist. [Rest of content, properly formatted with paragraphs and removing duplicate ‘the’]…

Pacifism and feminism have been considered antithetical ideas. An historian, Bernice Carroll, of the University of Illinois, at the meetings of the American Historical Association last winter, discussed the subject by saying that today’s activists were confronted with the old question of “whether to sacrifice pacifism for feminism or feminism for pacifism.”

Yet nonviolence and feminism are defined as sister aspirations by the Gathering of Women in the Nonviolent Movement, sponsored jointly by the International Fellowship of Reconciliation and the War Resisters’ International. The initial statement of the Gathering pointed out that there are “links between feminism and nonviolence — we are feminists because we are nonviolent and vice versa — but there is a generally hostile attitude in the women’s movement towards ‘declared nonviolence’ . . . Acting nonviolently does not mean losing our newfound strength or returning to a position of weakness. On the contrary, it means discovering our own new and liberating ways of working which do not imitate traditional male structures: small groups, coordinated autonomy, respect for and caring about each individual (not just their politics.)”

If the goal of feminism is a life-oriented world in which women’s sensitivity and nurturing interests become acceptable attributes of both sexes, the attitudes of nonviolence and pacifism (not passivism), are basic values for a non-exploitative society in which neither sex dominates and aggression is no longer a survival skill.

Pacifism is not spineless acceptance of whatever will be, but practice of the nonviolent method of combating evil and misplaced force. In its essence, pacifism is a nonviolent way of life which recognizes the religious truth that means and ends are the same.

Feminism to me is a logical and meaningful extension of my concerns as a pacifist and a believer in nonviolence. Pacifism for me has been clarified and enriched by feminist understanding. If the potential of women is to be realized, then true equality will be needed. If the potential of individuals is to be realized, then violence — as organized into war, institutionalized in society and practiced in private — will also have to end.

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I often find myself explaining Jewish pacifism to nonpacifist Jews and to non-Jewish pacifists. Most of them wonder how the religion of the Jewish people could possibly embrace pacifism. Of course I have to explain to nonpacifists that pacifism is not “passive-ism” and that pacifism takes many forms.

I discovered last year that outside of our JPF membership it is not easy to find someone willing to come out as both a Jew and a pacifist. We were looking for a celebrity to head up a major fund-raising effort for our fiftieth anniversary. Despite having some contacts in Hollywood, the music industry, the worlds of literature, journalism and theater, we were not able to find such a person.

There is a discussion recorded in the Talmud, one of many examples of a kind of scholarly one-upmanship among the rabbis. A group of them were trying to see who could come up with the biblical passage which most succinctly summarized Judaism. Rabbi Akiva cited “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Every human being carries the potential of the entire world. When the first couple was created they were said to be “in the divine image.” This means that every human being is in the Divine Image — not just saintly people, not just Jews, not just ordinary people, but all people.

One God means one humanity and nothing less. This crushing responsibility is the reason for our belief in the human power to change and why tshuvah is so important. There are always reasons one can find to use physical force or go to war. To do so, however, represents personal, moral, political and diplomatic failure.

Peacemaking, whether between individuals or nations, is hard work and often unpleasant, but again and again Jewish ethics requires us to pursue not conflict but peace. “Seek peace and pursue it” is based on the most basic Jewish ideas about who and what we are — as human beings and as Jews. Surely that is the basis for Jewish pacifism.

It is very special for me to be here on this occasion [of the Abraham Joshua Heschel Award ceremony] which is honoring my father and my mother for the work they accomplished, for the home they created, for the values they always stood for.

I want to say a few words about my father. The first thing, of course, that we might ask is: What does it mean to create peace? Obviously, it means a commitment to certain principles — you have to stand for something. But it also means creating a certain kind of people, people with certain kinds of human qualities.

And that, I think, was the central message of my father’s work. My father asked, ‘What kinds of qualities does it take inside of us and our souls to create a world of peace?’; and he asked, ‘How can we shape ourselves to bring about a world of peace? What kinds of people do we have to be?’ And for my father, the central qualities were compassion and empathy.

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The Jewish Peace Fellowship’s Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel Award is presented to an individual or organization that has made exceptional contributions to peace and justice in the Jewish tradition.

We are pleased to announce that Albert Vorspan is the recipient this year of our Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel Award. The quest for peace among nations and social justice at home and abroad has been a lifelong pursuit for Albert Vorspan.

Al — as everybody calls him —Vorspan has been one of the most consistent and influential voices within and outside organized American Jewish life. Born in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1924, he served as director of the Commission on Social Action of Reform Judaism, as well as senior vice president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (now the Union for Reform Judaism).

Above all, he was and remains a vital and prophetic voice of faith and reason within American Jewry’s Reform Movement, and also played a huge role in emphasizing ethical concerns and moral behavior to generations of Jews, both religious and secular.

Al Vorspan has never been shy about publicly expressing his concerns about crucial public issues even in the face of criticism by some in the organized Jewish community. In 1966, for example, he condemned American involvement in Vietnam, drawing the wrath of the war’s supporters. In The New York Times Magazine, in 1988, he criticized Israeli government policies following the first Palestinian Intifada, writing, ‘Whether we accept it or not, every night’s television news confirms it: Israelis now seem the oppressors, Palestinians the victims,’ a sentiment which did not endear him to some in the Jewish community.

His book, Jewish Dimensions of Social Justice: Tough Moral Choices of Our Time (co-authored with David Saperstein), has been a voice of prophetic Judaism. Another of his books, Giants of Justice, deals with contributions to social justice by such Jewish luminaries as Louis Brandeis, Albert Einstein, Stephen Wise, Louis Marshall, Henrietta Szold, David Dubinsky, Abraham Cronbach and Herbert Lehman.

The Jewish Peace Fellowship is proud to present this year’s Heschel Award to Albert Vorspan.

Since the 1930s scholars, scientists, journalists and ordinary folk have wondered why the Nazis could have committed so many ghastly crimes against innocent people and children. At times a few helpful insights arise from the killers themselves…[content continues as provided, but with consistent formatting and paragraph breaks]…In an anti-climax El-Hai relates Kelley’s stormy and intellectually restless postwar life, which ended sadly when he took a leaf from Goering and swallowed a cyanide pill.

There is a new normal in America: our government may shut down, but our wars continue. Congress may not be able to pass a budget, but the US military can still launch commando raids in Libya and Somalia, the Afghan war can still be prosecuted, Italy can be garrisoned by American troops (putting the “empire” back in Rome), Africa can be used as an imperial playground, and the military-industrial complex can still dominate the world’s arms trade.

In the halls of Congress and the Pentagon, it’s business as usual, if your definition of “business” is the power and profits you get from constantly preparing for and prosecuting wars around the world. “War is a racket,” General Smedley Butler famously declared in 1935, and even now it’s hard to disagree with a man who had two Congressional Medals of Honor to his credit and was intimately familiar with American imperialism.

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Just remember: In the grand bargain that is war, it’s their product and their profit. And that’s no bargain for America, or for that matter for the world.