Chuck’s Schumer’s Profile in Courage Moment

By Douglas J. Workman

Dear Senator Schumer:

            I write to you in desperation.  Somehow I believe that the fate of the Iran Agreement will come down to you.  As the foremost defender of the State of Israel among the Democratic United States Senators, your opinion will matter much much more than just your one vote.  You represent the most Jewish State in the United States.  More than one in four American Jews resides in New York.  And if you take into account Jews like me who grew up in New York and moved elsewhere, I suspect that number is closer to one in two.  Your Democratic colleagues will be looking to you for guidance.  A vote by you in favor of the Agreement will provide cover to virtually every other Democratic Congressman.  They will be able to tell their constituents that the leading Democratic supporter of Israel and a Jew supported this deal.  How could they then vote against their President and Senator Schumer?  On the other hand, if you vote against this Agreement, you will be making your mark in both the history of the United States and the Jewish people.

            You are about to have the opportunity to live a Profile in Courage moment.  As I am sure you are aware, Profiles in Courage was a Pulitzer Prize book published in 1957, ostensibly written by then Senator John F. Kennedy.  The book profiles eight United States Senators who defied the opinions of their party to do what they felt was right.  There is no denying that the Senators suffered political consequences as a result of their actions as you might be by going against a Democratic President who can play political hardball and even put the Agreement in front of the United Nations Security Council before you and your colleagues have an opportunity to vote on it. 

            I call to your attention the case of Senator Edmund G. Ross from Kansas, which is Chapter Six from Profiles in Courage.  Senator Ross cast the deciding vote against the impeachment proceedings against President Andrew Johnson. The proceedings began because doctrinaire “Radical Republicans,” then in control of the Senate, passed the Tenure of Office Act to prevent a president from firing cabinet members without Senate consent. This was done to try to prevent Johnson from firing Secretary of War Edwin Stanton.  When Johnson fired Stanton, impeachment proceedings ensued.  The House quickly voted to impeach, which brought the impeachment trial to the Senate.  Much like you may be with the Iran Agreement, Senator Ross cast the deciding vote against convicting President Johnson.  While Senator Ross agreed with the Reconstruction policies of the Radical Republicans, he knew that removing the President based on partisan disagreement was wrong.

            Although Ross suffered personally from his vote, history has vindicated his actions as being both courageous and righteous.  You have it within you to take the same type of actions as being in the best interests of both the United States and the State of Israel.

            If the history of the Jewish people has taught us anything, it is to believe genocidal maniacs when they threaten the Jewish people.  Although President Obama believes that the Mullahs of Iran can be both rational and anti-Semitic as he stated in his interview with Jeffrey Goldberg, you have to know better.

            The President explained that the purpose of the Agreement was to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, which was his justification for not including releasing American hostages as part of the deal.  Yet the embargo on conventional weapons will be lifted on the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism.  Iran was arming Hezbollah and Hamas before the embargo.  What do you expect will happen afterwards?  And who do you think those arms will be used against?

            The major purpose of Zionism is for the Jewish people to no longer be dependent on the whims of foreign powers.  Thankfully there exists the State of Israel to protect the Jewish people.  Israel can and should do whatever is necessary to safeguard its citizens.

            But you also have something you can do and that is stand up in front of the American people and reject this deal, which will at least give some credence to the next Administration to abrogate it.

            History has a tendency to repeat itself.  Look back to the Bible and the Book of Esther and you will find the Jews of Iran threatened by an anti-Semitic evildoer.  When asked to risk her life to aid the Jewish people, Esther initially balked.  Her cousin Mordecai put her in her place.  "Do not imagine to yourself that you will escape in the king's house from among all the Jews.  If you remain silent at this time, relief and rescue will arise for the Jews from elsewhere and you and your father's household will perish; and who knows whether at a time like this you came into being for just this purpose?”

            This is your moment; you will only have one opportunity to get this right and history is going to judge you for your actions.  Will you be like the American Jewish leaders of the 1930’s and 1940’s who refused to pressure President Roosevelt on behalf of their Jewish brethren or will you do the right thing and vote against the Agreement?

Sincerely,

Doug Workman

Doug Workman is a lawyer in Los Angeles and member of Valley Beth Shalom.  He has written in the Jewish Journal on a number of occasions.

This first appeared in http://www.jewishjournal.com/opinion/article/chucks_schumers_profile_in_courage_moment 

My Unataneh Tokef Moments

            On Rosh Hashanah, it is written and Yom Kippur, it is sealed; who shall live, who shall die.  But repentance, prayer and charity avert the severity of the decree.  If you apply a literal reading to this most famous of High Holiday prayers, you cannot help but conclude that it is medieval gobbledygook.  Our destinies for the next year are predetermined by God, but repentance, prayer and acts of charity will somehow mitigate that predetermined destiny.  What does that mean?  If someone dies, would a few more ducats in a Tzedakah box have allowed that person to live another year?  Would a few more times at Shul reciting some prayer by rote have altered the outcome?

            Ours is a tradition that begs for interpretation.  And for this prayer to be meaningful to me, I needed to put a spin on it, which is almost directly contrary to its literal meaning.  I have learned from humanistic, rational and compassionate teachers to interpret the prayer as an acknowledgement of the inevitability of death; that every living creature must at some point die.  And if human mortality becomes a foundational element of the prayer, then the emphasis on repentance, prayer and charity become the choices you make with the finite time that you may have on this planet.

Perhaps our choices should include more acts of caring for those less fortunate; let’s call that Tzedakah.  Maybe we should be more forgiving of others and of ourselves and sincerely work at making ourselves into better people; let’s call that one Teshuvah.  Finally, if we take some time, perhaps each week, to acknowledge the orderliness of creation and of a creator that has taught humanity morality, compassion and justice; let’s call that one Tefillah.  Now there’s an interpretation of what is otherwise a problematic prayer in which I can believe.

            And yet, I have also literally experienced moments of life and death, triumph and tragedy all on Rosh Hashanah. 

            Who shall die:  It was Rosh Hashanah 1990 and I flew in from Los Angeles to New York to spend the holiday with my father and brother.  My father cooked the dinner for the first night, which was attended by my father, my brother, a co-worker of my brother’s.  After dinner, Dad made a point of saying that since he had done the cooking; he was retiring to the den to relax, while we did the clean-up.  The three of us schmoozed while we cleaned the dishes and put away the food.  After we were done, I went downstairs to the den to check on my father.  I discovered him lying on the floor unconscious; I quickly made a 911 call and waited outside for the ambulance to arrive while my brother held my father.  He regained consciousness by the time the paramedics arrived; Dad argued with both the paramedics and us about not wanting to go to the hospital.  I pleaded with my father to no avail.  Finally, I phoned his twin brother to see whether someone of his own age and experiences could better persuade him to take care of himself than his sons.  Fortunately my uncle was hosting his own son, a physician, who explained to my dad that losing consciousness was a result of lack of oxygen to the brain and that someone had to figure out what the cause of that might be.  After that explanation, Dad allowed us to drive him to the emergency room.  The hospital wanted to keep him overnight for observation, but had no rooms available.  Dad had no desire to spend the night on a gurney bed in the ER.  We let him come home only after we extracted a promise from him to go back the next morning.  That was only the beginning of a very long and difficult evening as my father fell and collapsed multiple times with my brother reviving him each time. 

The reason that my dad was vehemently opposed to going to the hospital is that he witnessed his spouse, my mother (z’l) go into the hospital for cancer treatment eight years prior and never emerge.  My dad knew something was seriously wrong and where this all was heading.  By the way, I never did make it to Shul that Rosh Hashanah as I spent the entire holiday in the hospital with my dad.  My father died in that same hospital 54 days later, never having left the hospital during that time period.

            Who shall live:  Fast forward to Rosh Hashanah 1997.  My wife Brenda was pregnant with our second child, who was due to be born five days after Rosh Hashanah by a C Section, which was scheduled two weeks earlier than the actual due date.  Rosh Hashanah began that year on a Wednesday evening and Brenda wanted to prepare a festive holiday dinner for the family.  I argued with her to no avail that Hashem would give her a pass this year.  So she went off to to purchase a huge roast beef.

            In the course of dinner preparation, I received a phone call at work from Brenda indicating that she was not feeling too well.  I asked whether she had called her obstetrician, which she had.  Brenda was instructed to drink a half glass of wine and relax.  I, of course, was anything but relaxed as I rushed home from work to join my wife.  By the time I came home, she was still not feeling too great.  However we had a soon to be 2 ½ year older sister in the house and no one to watch her while we went to the hospital.  So I had to call a friend of mine who was sitting down to Rosh Hashanah dinner with his own family and ask him to leave his family dinner to pick up my daughter and take care of her.  While we waited for him to arrive, I wrapped up the roast beef and put two slices of cheese on some bread for my dinner to eat on the drive to the hospital.

            We arrived at the hospital about the same time as the obstetrician who was the only non-Jew in a medical practice group which except for her consisted of all Jews.  The first words that I spoke to the obstetrician were expressions of gratitude that she was not of the Jewish faith.  The doctor examined Brenda and quickly came to the conclusion that if the birth were vaginal, she would be sending Brenda home because labor had not progressed far enough.  She also mentioned that given that Brenda was going to give birth by C Section in a few days and that both doctor and patient were already at the hospital that she was willing to perform the C Section that night if Brenda wanted it.  I remembered seeing two obstetricians in the operating room for my older daughter, Judy’s birth, because a C Section is still surgery.  I asked the doctor about who would be assisting her in the operation.  Maria said that she had called the least religious in her practice group, but he still was in no mood to interrupt his own Rosh Hashanah.  Maria said that a surgical resident would be more than adequate assistance. 

            Next I did what any guy would do at this time, which was shut up and let my wife decide what she wanted to do.  She opted for having the baby that night.  I had a kippa on under my surgical garb and witnessed the birth of our daughter Lindsay at 10:44 PM on the first night of Rosh Hashanah.  With a sense of circularity, our daughter Lindsay was named for the same person who collapsed on Rosh Hashanah seven years earlier, my father, Leonard (z’l).

            Despite my view that Unataneh Tokef is a bunch of medieval gobbledygook, I have witnessed during the days of awe and judgment, life’s highest highs and lowest lows.  Most of life is lived somewhere in between great triumph and horrible tragedy.  The birth of my child and the death of my father are in my thoughts each and every Rosh Hashanah, making every High Holiday since those events somewhat anti-climactic.  

However, if I am going to live, I still want to make my life have some meaning and value.  In that regard, Teshuvah, Tefillah and Tzedukkah can certainly help improve the quality of my life and that is what I will focus on for each Rosh Hashanah going forward.  I will still take my Rabbis’ teachings over those of medieval Jews.  L'shanah tovah.

Written September 4, 2014

© 2014 by Douglas J. Workman

Obama’s Sit Down with Thomas Friedman

Last Friday, President Obama sat down for an interview with NY Times columnist Thomas Friedman about foreign affairs.  Although the topics were broader than the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, the topic was broached.  When asked about whether he should be more vigorous in pressuring Prime Minister Netanyahu and Abu Mazen to strike a land for peace deal, the President answered that it has to start with Abbas and Netanyahu.  Pointing out that Bibi’s poll numbers are better than Obama’s, the President does not believe that Bibi will make peace without internal pressure forcing him to make necessary compromises.  Abu Mazen according to the President has a different problem; he is too weak to make peace.  In other words, while Bibi is too popular, Abbas is not popular enough

.

In Obama’s world, Bibi needs societal pressure to take on the settler movement and make the necessary hard compromises that are against his natural inclinations.  Obama continues to focus on settlements in the territories as the key issue.  It is as if he has completely ignored Operation Protective Edge and most of the last six years he has been President.

According to Obama, Abbas is just too weak to make peace.  But what does that mean?  Just for a moment, consider the assumption that Abbas is prepared to accept the legitimacy of Israel being the homeland of the Jewish people and is willing to live in peace in a Palestinian state side-by-side with Israel and that refugees will be repatriated only in a Palestinian state.  I am totally aware of the lack of realism regarding these assumptions but let this argument play out.  Abbas is weak because his positions are not reflective of the society that he represents.  His solution has not been accepted by the Palestinian street; he is out ahead of Palestinian public opinion. 

How does one establish one’s bona fides in Palestinian society as a leader?  The best way to do so seems to be to murder Israelis.  Recent polling data indicates that less than 30% of the Palestinians support a two-state solution.  Mainstream Palestinian society is still not prepared to accept the permanence of the State of Israel and live in peace alongside of it. So in the world according to Obama, Bibi is to push his society place their trust in a 79 year-old leader in the 9^th year of his 4-year term whose views do not reflect those of his society when the significant likelihood is that Abbas’ successor will have dramatically different views about a Palestinian state.  And all of this is ignoring the possibility of rocket fire from the Judean hills down into the coastal plain and shutting off Ben Gurion Airport and Israel’s connection to the outside world. 

Then we move on to Bibi.  I wish our constitutional law scholar President had bothered read or re-read James Madison and Federalist 10 about the nature of democracies and representative governments.  It might have given him a better understanding of Israeli politics.  Madison’s problem with pure democracy was the combination of people with similar economic or social interests into a tyranny of the majority, which he described as the violence and damage caused by factions.  Madison posed two possible solutions to the problem of factions, eliminate its causes or control its effects.  In a free society, the elimination of factions is impossible because interest groups are inherent to liberty.  Only a totalitarian society can eliminate the cause of factions, such as the one in Gaza. 

Madison’s solution was a representative government, a government in which the many elect the few who govern. A pure democracy is incapable of controlling conflicts between factions because the views of the largest faction control, and there is no way to protect weak factions against the actions of an obnoxious individual or a strong majority.  Madison’s belief was that the elected representatives would represent the best of society and be able to govern with wisdom and discernment.  I cannot say that that portion of Madison’s analysis is applicable to the Knesset, but Madison’s solution still works.

With broad coalitions necessary to achieve power, compromises must be made to establish a majority coalition and in the process take into account all the disparate views of the factions forming the coalition.  That’s where Federalist 10 speaks directly to Israeli politics.  In order to form a government, Bibi has put together a disparate coalition that includes Tzipi Livni, Avigdor Lieberman and Naftali Bennett, which in the aggregate is reflective of the views of the a broad spectrum of Israeli society, constituting the vast majority.  There is ambivalence in Israeli society, which sees both the necessity of a Palestinian state combined with the utter impracticality of having one, given the impact of such a state on the ability of Israelis to live in peace and without fear of rocket fire or terrorist attacks.  Even though Operation Protective Edge has increased Bibi’s popularity, Bibi is nevertheless reflective of that societal ambivalence.  The left has not convinced the Israeli public that its policies are a viable alternative.  On the other hand, neither has the hard right convinced the public of the benefits of their policies either.  That sort of gets you to Bibi by default.

Netanyahu’s views are reflective of those of his society; Abu Mazen’s are not.  So why is it that Netanyahu has to be pressured when Palestinian society, according to President Obama is not prepared to make peace?  The rational move would be to influence the views of the Palestinians so that Abbas’ views are not dismissed on the Palestinian street and isn’t that where the President should be directing his energies?

Written August 12, 2014

© 2014 by Douglas J. Workman

HAS ISRAEL BECOME A LEFT-RIGHT ISSUE?

About a decade ago, my rabbi was promoting congregational AIPAC involvement.  His argument went that AIPAC was not necessary for our local liberal Jewish Congressman, who was a member of our synagogue.  If he ever did anything anti-Israel, the rabbi always had the option of reporting that fact to the Congressman’s mother.  However, he stated that AIPAC was necessary to make Israel’s case to the Congressman from northeast Louisiana, in other words, the Congressman for the folks from Duck Dynasty.  Ten years later, it seems that the pro Israel lobby needs to change its focus from the Congressman in northeast Louisiana to the one south-central Los Angeles.

In a recent CNN/ORC survey taken from July 18 to July 20, 2014, Americans had a favorable view of Israel, 60%-36%, which would appear promising.  When the data is broken down, there is some cause for concern.  Republicans viewed Israel favorably by a margin of 67%-31% and Independents 63%-35%.  Democrats, however, only viewed Israel favorably by a margin of 49%-48%.  In asking about the justification for Operation Protective Edge, Republicans viewed Israel as justified by a margin of 73%-19%, Independents 56%-36% and Democrats 45%-42%.  Looking at the data, Republicans and Independents are strong supporters of Israel; Democrats not so much.  The trend is alarming.  The key question is why?  What has happened to cause the gradual movement of Democrats from the pro-Israel camp?  There are of course, notable Democrats strongly supportive of Israel from Chuck Schumer to Alan Dershowitz, but if they are not the minority within their own party, they may well soon be. 

I have come up with four reasons to explain the polling data.  The first is moral relativism.  Since World War II, Democrats have never been comfortable in framing issues as good vs. evil.  They had trouble with the Cold War and Ronald Reagan’s Evil Empire or George W. Bush’s Axis of Evil.  The fact that there would no need for Operation Protective Edge if Hamas did not fire thousands of rockets into Israel in an attempt (albeit ineffective) to murder as many innocent Jews as possible seems to be lost on certain Democrats.  To frame the issue as Hamas = evil and Israel = good is not a major intellectual breakthrough.  You just need to have a moral compass that finds indiscriminate murder as evil.  Democrats have no problem labeling Republican domestic policies as immoral, such as with the war on women, but their morality seems to go astray as soon as it is applied to the international arena.

The second reason is President Obama.  As the ostensible leader of the Party, the President’s opinions on Israel matter a great deal.  Despite Republican claims to the contrary, Obama is not inherently anti-Israel.  He has approved Iron Dome funding and presided over unprecedented levels of security cooperation between the United States and Israel.  On the other hand, the President is not instinctively pro-Israel either.  One only has to look at his administration’s recent involvement in the cease fire negotiations regarding Operation Protective Edge, which the Israeli security cabinet described as a “betrayal.”  This is not a new issue for the President; Obama has been dogged since he first ran for President about whether he is supportive for Israel in his gut; i.e., the kishkes test.

The third reason is what I call the “Jimmy Carter” issue.  This issue stems from the Democrats being hardwired to support the underdog.  In that framework, all they see is a powerful western colonial Israel oppressing an indigenous third world Palestine.  However in framing the issue as such, Caterites consistently fail to understand the history of the conflict, how the United Nations voted to partition what was then Palestine into a Jewish State and an Arab one, how the partition resolution was accepted by the Jewish community and rejected by the Arabs, who then assembled the armies of five nations to launch a war with the avowed aim of driving the Jews out of Palestine.  The fact that they failed is now described as the “Nakba” or catastrophe.  Carter sees this issue in terms of South African apartheid, which is evident by his book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.”  Despite Carter’s support for Hamas and his being absolutely and completely wrong about Israel, there appears to be an audience for him within the confines of the Democrat party.

The fourth reason is Jewish Democrats themselves.  J Street is a lobbying group that portrays itself as “Pro-Israel, Pro-Peace.”  What they have done successfully is peel off liberal Jews from AIPAC and other pro-Israel organizations.  You can find Israelis with views similar to J Street; you would not even call them hard left.  The difference is that J Street uses its influence on US policy towards Israel, while Israeli leftists, whose children serve in the IDF, use their influence on the democratically elected government of Israel, who is responsible for the safety and well-being of its citizens.  There is debate within the Jewish community about the “Pro-Israel” component of J Street, but you cannot debate that J Street has made it acceptable within the Jewish community to lobby the United States government to apply pressure on Israel.  It is not a giant step to conclude that they have not done as good job within the liberal community of making the case for Israel as they have in making the case for pressuring Israel.

How can we change the Democrats outlook towards Israel?  The data does not say that they are anti-Israel, but the trend is worth noting.  The exploration of solutions will have to be addressed in another column.

Written July 28, 2014

© 2014 – Douglas J. Workman