The Purest Democracy

Eloquently Voiced by a Rabbi’s Sermon on Iwo Jima

Memorial Day Weekend in DC was a holiday filled with flags, wreaths, speeches, and concerts. This past Sunday and Monday, veterans came wearing caps, T-shirts and parts of uniforms from “their wars.” At the Nurse’s Memorial, a special sisterhood collected. Women in their 60’s wearing floppy hats covered with pins and badges greeted each other with warm and knowing hugs. The line to file by names on the Vietnam Memorial snaked slowly. At the Korean memorial hulking figures slogged through a bitter Korean winter and walls of faces stared back from the granite, faces as young as the day they served. Vets of the “Greatest Generation” visited the WWII Memorial: its two 43-foot tall pavilions proclaimed American victory on the Atlantic and Pacific fronts—on land, at sea, and in the air. And all the while, reverberating through DC was the sound of Rolling Thunder’s 6,000 motorcyclists; here to remember the M.I.A.s and POW’s, and this year, to protest care in VA hospitals.

Across the bridge lies Arlington National Cemetery and adjacent to it stands the Marine Corps Memorial, aka the Iwo Jima Memorial, with its iconic image of Marines raising the American flag. Inscribed at its base is Admiral Nimitz’s tribute to the men who fought there:   "Uncommon Valor Was A Common Virtue."

Iwo Jima was one of the bloodiest battles of the Pacific Theater, and a young rabbi from New York, Lieutenant Roland Bertram Gittelsohn, was the only Jewish Navy chaplain to land there with the Fifth Division. Charged with ministering to Jewish (approximately 1,500) and Gentile (approximately 70,000) troops, he leapt from foxhole to foxhole in the heat of battle, earning three ribbons for bravery. After five torturous weeks, and 26,000 Marine casualties, the fighting ended.

There was to be a non-denominational ceremony to dedicate the Marine Cemetery. Division Chaplain Warren Cuthriell, a Protestant minister, asked Rabbi Gittelsohn to deliver the memorial sermon. Chaplin Cuthriell wanted all the fallen Marines, black and white, Protestant, Catholic and Jewish honored in a single ceremony.  That was not to be. The majority of Christian chaplains objected to having a rabbi preach over predominantly Christian graves and threatened to boycott the ceremony.  The Catholic Chaplains could not participate with non-Catholics, be they Jewish or Christian. 

Not wanting the service boycotted, and not wanting to tarnish Chaplain Cuthriell’s reputation, Rabbi Gittelsohn declined the invitation. So, instead of one unifying ceremony, there were three. Even in death, there was division.

Rabbi Gittelsohn gave the address that he had written for the non-denominational service to a gathering of Jewish servicemen.  Two Protestant ministers attended.  They were so moved by Rabbi Gittelsohn’s words, that they asked for the onionskin copy of the original speech that they reproduced in the thousands and gave to the troops.  Many of these Marines, in turn, mailed the sermon home, where it was picked up by the wire services and subsequently read and heard around the world.  It has been said that this poignant speech is second only to Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, as a eulogy to the fallen. 

I have chosen several of the most moving passages to share with you and hope that you will find time to read the complete address at some later date.  Here are the words of 35-year-old Rabbi Ronald Bertram Gittelsohn, spoken at Iwo Jima.

 “THIS IS PERHAPS THE GRIMMEST, and surely the holiest task we have faced since D-Day. Here before us lie the bodies of comrades and friends. Men who until yesterday or last week laughed with us, joked with us, trained with us. Men who were on the same ships with us, and went over the sides with us, as we prepared to hit the beaches of this island. Men who fought with us and feared with us. Somewhere in this plot of ground there may lie the individual who could have discovered the cure for cancer. Under one of these Christian crosses, or beneath a Jewish Star of David, there may rest now an individual who was destined to be a great prophet to find the way, perhaps, for all to live in plenty, with poverty and hardship for none. Now they lie here silently in this sacred soil, and we gather to consecrate this earth in their memory.

Here lie men who loved America because their ancestors’ generations ago helped in her founding. And other men who loved her with equal passion because they themselves or their own fathers escaped from oppression to her blessed shores. Here lie officers and men, Negroes and Whites, rich men and poor, together. Here are Protestants, Catholics, and Jews together. Here no man prefers another because of his faith or despises him because of his color. Here there are no quotas of how many from each group are admitted or allowed. Among these men there is no discrimination. No prejudices. No hatred. Theirs is the highest and purest democracy.

Whosoever of us lifts his hand in hate against a brother, or who thinks himself superior to those who happen to be in the minority, makes of this ceremony and the bloody sacrifice it commemorates, an empty, hollow mockery. To this then, as our solemn sacred duty, do we the living now dedicate ourselves: To the right of Protestants, Catholics, and Jews, of White men and Negroes alike, to enjoy the democracy for which all of them have here paid the price...

We here solemnly swear this shall not be in vain. Out of this and from the suffering and sorrow of those who mourn this, will come, we promise, the birth of a new freedom for the sons of men everywhere.”

I wish these words were carved on a monument in Washington or be found at every memorial that honors military service.  I wish it could be posted at the gates of every U.S. military cemetery. Rabbi Gittelsohn’s words should be part of every civics class, and memorized by generations along with Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and Patrick Henry’s “Give me Liberty or Give me Death” speech, and perhaps, be part of the swearing in of each new American Citizen.

Sometimes, we just need to be reminded of what the sacrifice was for.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Rose

Yom Yerushalayim – Jerusalem Unification Day

 Forty-Seven Years Ago A Great Miracle Happened There

Once you reach a certain age, and trust me, that age will come, you develop a heightened awareness of how things have changed in your lifetime. The time isn’t so far in front of you when you will catch yourself saying, “when I was a kid” or “back in the day.” Should you try to share the information, you may be met with an eager audience, or a blank stare.

Three things of note have changed in my lifetime.  In 1972 I passed over the Berlin Wall from West Berlin to Communist East Berlin. It was an “Oz-like” experience in reverse. In the original film, Kansas is filmed in black and white and Oz in Technicolor. But in this case, I entered the checkpoint from Technicolor, modern, rebuilt West Berlin and exited into Soviet era black and white and gray.  And now, The Berlin Wall is gone.  Germany is unified.  There is no Communism. And the era has passed to a footnote in history.

In 1967 Hong Kong belonged to Great Britain. Today, it belongs to China.  In 1967 I visited Hong Kong, but as a US citizen, I couldn’t visit China.  The US didn’t have diplomatic or trade relations with China.  Today, Americans travel freely in China and the Communism of Chairman Mao is ancient history. All I could do back then was peer into Communist China from the Territory of Kowloon.

As a Jew, however, there is one significant event that stands out above all others.  That would be the Reunification of Jerusalem during the Six Day War in June of 1967.  On the second day of the war, Israeli forces gained control of the Western Wall of the Temple and the Temple Mount once again.  It had been in Jordanian hands since 1948, and Jews had been unable to pray there. The single most recognizable image of the day is the iconic photograph of six Israeli paratroopers looking up, standing next to the massive stones of the Kotel.

In 1968, I had the opportunity to travel to Jerusalem. The Western Wall, the Kotel, had not yet been turned into a tourist plaza. Although the Old City didn’t look exactly “biblical” it certainly resembled a drawing from the Ottoman Period.  Destruction and neglect were everywhere, yet there was quiet excitement in the air as we passed over the rubble of the wall that had separated East and West Jerusalem.

Although Yom Yerushalayim, which will be observed in Israel this Wednesday, May 28th, is not a religious holiday, it is certainly a day of religious and political significance to Jews all over the world.  Jews have faced east to Jerusalem in prayer since time immemorial. We have yearned for a return to Jerusalem.  Jerusalem is woven into our texts, our prayers, and repeatedly spoken of by our prophets and sages. “Next Year in Jerusalem” has always been the ending of our Passover Seder.

Throughout my thirty-year teaching career, I tell the story of Jerusalem as often as possible, to each class of students.  My story always begins the same way. “When I was a little girl, I couldn’t visit Jerusalem or pray at the Western Wall.”  I’m always met with an incredulous stare, as if I was talking about outer space.  “But WHY?” Children always asked, “but why?” because they could not imagine the State of Israel without Jerusalem.  In their minds, it had always been there and always would be.  They have only known a world with Jerusalem as a holy, Jewish and accessible place.

We must safeguard Jerusalem, so that future generations will have access to her. We want to ensure that our children and our children’s children will never have to say, “When I was a kid, we used to be able to pray in Jerusalem, but no more.”

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Rose

Finally a New High-Tech Solution to Help Israeli Fire Officials Predict Fires, As Hundreds of Thousands Celebrate Lag b’Omer with Bonfires

 “Based on traffic reports, congestion, weather and wind conditions, the level of moisture in the ground in each part of the country, and incidents that are phoned in, we know how many firefighters we will need to deploy in Meron or in central Tel Aviv, and whether they need to be deployed right at the site or can be held back in case of emergency. When you have a lot of people and a lot of bonfires, you know something bad is likely to happen, but with Matash, we can determine more closely where that bad thing might take place, and be ready for it.” Times of Israel

Bonfires.  We’re not talking “fire pits” in the backyard.  We are talking about flames leaping around an impressive stack of wood, lighting up the night.  In the town of Meron, hundreds of thousands of ultra-Orthodox families will camp near the tomb of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai on Mt. Meron and light bonfires.  In Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and cities and towns throughout Israel, children will scavenge wood from construction sites and set their bonfires ablaze.  Soldiers throughout the state will build them with wood, pride and camaraderie.

Fire as a symbol goes back to the earliest roots of our religion.  God spoke to Moses from within a burning bush.  We were instructed to keep a fire burning at all times on the altar of the Tabernacle in the desert. The lamp in the Holy of Holies was to be lit at all times, a tradition we carry on even today with a Ner Tamid above our Ark.  The Israelites were led through the Wilderness by a pillar of fire.  And fire is a symbol of passion, hence the phrase “Aish HaTorah” “Flame of the Torah.”  Jews have died a martyr’s death wrapped in Torah scrolls and burned at the stake.  Whole communities have been locked in synagogues and set ablaze. At Yad Veshem’s Hall of Remembrance The Eternal Flame, burning from a base fashioned like a broken bronze goblet continuously illuminates the smooth stones on which are engraved the names of concentration camps.

What drives so many Jews to celebrate this minor holiday regardless of their religious or secular affiliations? Perhaps the flame meets a need for a symbol to which Jews in every generation can attach their own significance, but which brings with it a feeling of unity.

Now, more than ever, as Jews we need to find a common ground, a common torch in which to place that flame. In both the State of Israel and the U.S. our Jewish brethren have become diverse, fragmented, antagonistic, even hostile. Having defeated our external foes, we fight amongst ourselves, even as our own survival is at stake.  In Israel, the Jewish State, Jew is pitted against Jew in a struggle for both religious and political power.  In America, Jews no longer even make a show of unity. The cohesion of the immigrant experience that bound us together has been lost, as well as the ability to put aside differences to bring about and sustain the newborn State of Israel.  Today, when polled on our Jewish Affiliation, too often we check the box that says, “none.”

If we are to survive as a people, a nation, a religion, an ethnicity, or however we chose to define ourselves, we must find a way to rekindle and sustain the flame at the core of Jewish peoplehood. As we observe Lag B’Omer, each Jew should take the time to look within the flames and rekindle within their own heart, the spark that will ignite, once again, unity among the Jewish People.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Rose

MOTHERS DAY – YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE JEWISH, BUT IT WOULDN’T HURT!

To prepare for Mothers Day, I cranked up the old Victrola and listened to “My Yiddishe Momma.”  Well, actually it was a Neil Sedaka CD, but it could have been any version of this oft recorded sentimental ode to Jewish Motherhood. Recordings run the gamut from the Yiddish version by Cantor Yossele Rosenblatt, to Sophie Tucker, Connie Francis and Tom Jones in English. From Charles Aznavour, in French to Ray Charles on “The Nanny.”  Here is one verse, from the English version: 

How few were her pleasures
She never cared for fashion styles
Her jewels and her treasures
She found them in her baby's smiles
Oh I know that I owe what I am today
To that dear little lady who's gone away
To that wonderful Yiddishe momme
momme, momme of mine

Trust me, this is tame compared to the Yiddish version that talks about her going through “fire and water” for her children.

Jewish mothers have gotten a bum wrap thanks to Jewish-American books, plays and movies written by, you guessed it, Jews with mothers. It is a uniquely American sentiment… it didn’t exist in “the old country” where survival often depended on that strong woman’s intellect and tenacity. 

It is my sincere hope that the era of Jewish Mother bashing is coming to a close and that the Jewish Mother stereotype, along with that of the Jewish Princess and Domineering Jewish Wife can finally be put to rest.  It is interesting to note that the word “stereotype” had its beginning in the world of printing.  It was a process developed in France that enabled printers to create a plate that could be used to get the exact same image over and over again. It is also where we get the word cliché, which was the sound the machine made as the paper went through. Our modern stereotypes are just as inflexible

In 2013, six out of twelve Nobel laureates were Jewish. Since the prize was first awarded in 1901 approximately 193 of 855 honors (22%) have been Jewish.  Note: Jews currently make up less than 0.2% of the global population.  What did they all have in common? A high I.Q. no doubt, and Jewish mothers!

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had a Jewish mother.  Her mom scrimped and saved and searched for bargains to put money away for Ruth’s education. Her mom died during Ruth’s senior year of high school, but not before her mom had inculcated her with an amazing value system.

Pianist and conductor Leonard Bernstein had a Jewish mother.  She put her foot down and told little Lenny that he couldn’t play baseball with the other kids because he might hurt his hands.  Good call Mrs. Bernstein.

Violinist Yitzhak Perlman’s mother might be called a ‘helicopter mom’ today.  She “hovered over” her son while he recovered from childhood polio, and insisted in raising him so that he did not feel “handicapped” even though he could only walk with crutches. When he won a chance to play on the Ed Sullivan show at age 13, she came with him from their home in Israel. They were poor and his mother couldn’t speak English.  They lived on sardines in New York… but Itzhak got a scholarship to Julliard, and things worked out nicely.

I might go on and on about Jewish Mothers in anticipation of Mothers Day, but for an amazing sound bite this week.  You might have heard part of it on the radio, or on TV, or have seen it on the Internet.  It is a moving tribute to one man’s love and respect for his mother, and speaks to the universal theme of maternal self-sacrifice. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house, or in the newsroom or on the Internet when NBA player Kevin Durant, the 25-year-old Oklahoma City Thunder power forward, received his first Most Valuable Player Award.  After thanking each and every person who had made his success possible, he turned to thank his mother with these words:

 “You kept us off the street; put clothes on our backs, food on the table. When you didn't eat, you made sure we ate. You went to sleep hungry. You sacrificed for us. You're the real MVP."

He sobbed as he spoke.  Kevin makes over $30 million a year, and the MVP award might have gone to his head.  But instead, this very fine young man had prefaced his words by saying to those around him,

 "When something good happens to you, I don't know about you guys, but I tend to look back to what brought me here. (to his mom) You woke me up in the middle of the night in the summer times, making me run up a hill, making me do push-ups, screaming at me from the sidelines at my games at 8 or 9 years old. “

Kevin’s heartfelt tribute to his mother, Wanda Pratt, went way past the biblical commandment to honor and respect one’s mother. As for Wanda Pratt, she certainly sounds like a self-sacrificing mother who would have done anything to build her child’s self esteem and help her child succeed. Oy, such a Jewish Mother! 

This Mothers Day, we acknowledge all our moms, and those “mom figures” in our lives that have taken over the role at various moments. Motherhood. It’s a difficult job, but someone’s gotta do it!

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Rose

KAROL WOJTYLA – BEFORE HE WAS A SAINT, HE WAS A MENSCH!

Talk about the “fast track to Sainthood! Pope John Paul II died in 2005. The Vatican waived the traditional five-year waiting period and started the paperwork ASAP and last week, only nine years after his death, he was pronounced Saint Pope John Paul II by the current pope!

It was “touch and go” there for a bit. You see it takes two confirmed miracles to start on the road to canonization. The Vatican’s definition of a miracle is the reversal of a medical condition that is sudden, complete, permanent and inexplicable.

He was fine on miracle number one, the total cure of a French nun suffering from Parkinson’s. However finding that second miracle was proving tricky. Then, this past July, another miracle came to light when a woman in Costa Rica, who was on death’s door with a brain aneurism, made a complete recovery after praying to the deceased Pope John Paul. Her recovery was vetted by Vatican physicians and BINGO!  Welcome St. Pope John Paul II!

I’m glad it all worked out in the end, because I have always been extremely fond of Pope John Paul II. I only wish I could have been on the nominating committee to help find those “miracles.”  Sure, I’m a rabbi in a small town in Virginia, and I’ve only spent a brief time in a convent, (an Episcopal convent, at that) but I would have gladly told them that in MY book, he was a “saint” and an “angel” and most importantly, a MENSCH long before he put on the White Mitre and moved to Vatican City.  He was already a MENSCH as the young man Karol Wojtyla, a young seminarian in Poland,

How many acts of MENSCH-HOOD did this man of God do?  According to research done by B’nai B’rith, there are a number of accounts of the young Polish priest intervening on behalf of Jews in Poland during the war and they believe that we will probably never know the extent of his decency and courage.  But for now, let me share two brief accounts which, though not the kind of miracles that count toward Sainthood, they are DEFINITELY the kind of ethical and morally decisive actions for which we, as members of the Jewish faith, can do no less than confer MENSCH-HOOD.

A 14-year-old Jewish girl named Edith Zierer, having just escaped from a Nazi labor camp, collapsed on a railway platform while Wojtyla was at the station. No one attended to her. Everyone ignored her. But he picked her up and carried her to the train, gave her food, and stayed with her until they reached Krakow where she had family.  She didn’t see him again until he became Pope John Paul II.  Edith credited the then future Pope with saving her life.

In 1942 the future Pope rescued a two-year-old Jewish boy by giving him to a gentile couple to be hidden.  The boy’s parents had died during the Holocaust, and after the war, the Catholic couple came to Wojtyla to baptize the boy.  He refused, (as he had refused other such requests) stating that the boy should be raised in the faith of his parents. He then arranged for the child to be sent to America where he could be raised by Jewish relatives.

Where did this deep-seated goodness come from?  Where did this kindness towards Jews come from at a time when it would have been so easy to turn away? What allowed his moral and ethical maturity to shine forth in one so young at the darkest of times?

Perhaps we can find the answer in the words of The Pirkei Avot, “Sayings of the Fathers,” a tractate of Mishna that deals specifically with matters of ethical behavior. The Hebrew, found in Pirke Avot 2:6 states: B’makom sh’ayn anasheem, heesh-ta dahl eesh. “ Where there are no men (persons) of character strive to be a man (person) of character.”  We are more familiar with the “Yinglish” version of this… “Where there are no MENSCHES, strive to be a MENSCH!”

Once, a long time ago, the young Karol Wojytola had a close circle of Jewish friends.  He witnessed, first hand, the ever-tightening noose around the necks of the Jews.  He saw people murdered in the street.  He understood the danger and yet, his actions and deeds proved that he was a Mensch.

He continued to “strive” towards Mensch-hood throughout his life, as he rose to higher and higher positions in the Church, and once he reached the pinnacle of Papal Power, he became the first Pope to address the ugly shadow that had hung over Catholic-Jewish relations since the war years, when Pope Pius XII was the Bishop of Rome. The healing process and apologies were very public and very sincere and included a pilgrimage to Israel and Yad VaShem,  (The Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem) accompanied by his Jewish childhood friend Jerzy Kluger with whom he was reunited in 1965.

As I said earlier, no one at the Vatican consulted me about either Miracles or Mensch-hood.  However, I would like to put in a good word for another “Saint-on-hold “ – Mother Theresa.

She was in “mensch-mode” from 1948 until her death in 1997.  Don’t take my word for it, for being a “Total Mensch” they gave her the Nobel Peace Prize. So, while the Vatican is still looking for that “second miracle” we can give her the Pirke Avot Award, for being a person of character in a world, and at a time when there are just not enough Mensches.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Rabbi Rose