- The Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association first endorsed this
position in 1993 and expanded it in 1997 by publishing the first formal
Jewish liturgy for same.
- Moses. As it says in Exodus 4:10: "But Moses said to the Lord, 'Please
O Lord, I have never been a man of words…I am slow of speech and of
tongue.'" In his article, "The Stuttering Rabbi," Rabbi Marc Glickman
comments: "I would like to think that God chose Moses to become the
leader of the Israelites, not despite his imperfection of speech,
but precisely because of it. As a stutterer, Moses cherished words
because they came to him with difficulty. As a stutterer, Moses knew
what it was like to come up against a block and go on anyway -- an
important trait for any leader."
- Author Rabbi Lawrence Kushner writes: "Throughout Jewish history,
the yearning to experience and comprehend the unity within all creation
has found myriad expressions: from Sinai and the psalms of the Hebrew
Bible to the teachings of mainstream mystical talmudic sages like
Rabbi Akiba. It exploded again with the appearance of the Zohar in
thirteenth-century Spain and with Rabbi Isaac Luria of Safed three
hundred years later. It reappeared in the Hasidic revival of the eighteenth
century and continues all the way up to the nascent spiritual revival
of our own day."
- "You are to rise before the elderly and show deference (or respect)
for the old." Rabbi Judy Shanks also recommends Danny Siegel's translation:
"You shall rise before your elders and allow the beauty, glory, and
majesty of their faces to emerge."
- In a Reform responsa on this question, Rabbi Solomon Freehof wrote,
in part: "…children [who seek nursing home placement over the parent's
objection] must be sure of their motives. If they are sure that their
motives are not selfish, but for the good of the parent, then it is
their duty to reason with him until he consents, if only reluctantly."
He concluded that "gentle persuasion" is the appropriate response
to the parent's strenuous objection.
The great Jewish philosopher and legalist Moses Maimonides took
a similar position eight centuries earlier: "One whose father or
mother has become mentally impaired should try to treat them according
to their mental ability with pity for them. But if he cannot stand
it, because they have become too deranged, he should leave them
and go, directing others to treat them appropriately" (Silchot Mamrim
6:10).
In cases of mental derangement, according to Jewish law, the child
must arrange for others to care for the parent; abandonment of the
parent is not an option. By analogy, Jewish law permits nursing
home placement because, as Rabbi Ruth Langer, former assistant professor
of Jewish Studies at Boston College, explains, "the child's attempts
to provide care will result only in a deterioration of the relationship,
causing the child to manifest a lack of honor or reverence to the
parent…. Thus, although the decision to place a parent in a nursing
home…can never be easy, Judaism does teach that there are times
when it is fully appropriate and should not be approached with
a sense of guilt" (Aging and the Aged in Jewish Law, Essays and
Responsa).
- Deborah Lipstadt. Under British law, the defendant in a libel suit
is required to prove her case; hence, the Holocaust itself was on
trial. The case, which began in April 2000, was decided in Lipstadt's
favor. The judge found that she was "substantially justified" when
she described David Irving as "one of the most dangerous spokespersons
for Holocaust denial." Lipstadt's book, Denying the Holocaust:
The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory, has been chosen by the
UAHC as a Significant Jewish Book.
- Irving Berlin. In Stephen J. Whitfield's book, In Search of American
Jewish Culture, he expounds on whether certain Jewish contributions
to American music, art, and literature constitute an "American Jewish
culture." .
- The play involved the collaboration of Adam Stone, a deaf teenager
who had signed his bar mitzvah at Congregation Beth Am in San Diego.
Adam plays Micah, a 12-year-old deaf boy who promises his dying grandfather
that he will become a bar mitzvah. He performed the play entirely
in American sign language. The play has been shown at numerous Jewish
venues, and a segment about the production appeared on the TV show
"48 Hours."
- In her book, Jacob H. Schiff: A Study in American Jewish Leadership,
historian Naomi Cohen shows how many of the Jewish organizations we
take for granted today were planned, directed, and largely funded
by the multimillionaire investment banker. Schiff, who was born in
Frankfurt, Germany, fought on many fronts in his advocacy of Jewish
rights. He pressed his case with presidents for the abrogation of
trade relations with czarist Russia, against the passage of restrictive
immigration laws, and for Jewish rights in Poland and other Eastern
European countries after World War I. With a few associates in the
American Jewish Committee, he handled diplomatic matters, dealt with
foreign governments, and sometimes led campaigns to galvanize public
support. He was the force behind dozens of institutions, such as the
Educational Alliance and the Henry Street Settlement. Although he
himself was a Reform Jew, he helped found the Conservative Jewish
Theological Seminary as a place to train English-speaking rabbis for
the more traditional immigrant Jews and their children. "Aside from
his accomplishments," says Reform Judaism literary editor and
book reviewer Bonny Fetterman, "the remarkable thing about Schiff's
leadership is that basic attitudes about Jewish responsibility for
other Jews, at home and around the world, only took root in America
through his example."
- Maimonides, in The Law of Repentance 2:3. Author Rabbi Harold
Schulweis points out that for two and a half decades, the Catholic
Church has called for a reconstruction of the Church's relationship
to Judaism and the Jewish people. The traditional "displacement theology"
of the Church that viewed Christianity as a faith that supersedes
Judaism has been replaced with a positive appreciation of the relevance
and vitality of Judaism. Its adherents are addressed by the Pope as
"our dearly beloved brothers" and "our elder brothers." Rabbi Schulweis
proclaims: "A theological revolution has taken place before our eyes,
and we must not lose the opportunity to seize hold of the new promise."
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