Posted on 04/05/2008 6:05:35 PM PDT by Salem
Rabbi Eric Yoffie, President of the Union for Reform Judaism, seems to think Israel has too many allies in America. In particular, he believes that Israel can do without the support of evangelical Christians, and especially Pastor John Hagee, founder of Christians United for Israel.
At a convention of reform rabbis in Cincinnati this week, Yoffie lowered the boom on Hagee and urged Jews to no longer attend Hagee's series of "Nights for Israel", which have helped raise tens of millions of dollars for the Jewish state, and strengthened the connection between Jews and Evangelicals around the country.
A weekend golf game?
In fact under what circumstance can Rabbi Yoffee excommunicate anyone from anything?
Well, it doesn't technically fall into motzi shem ra because there are elements of truth in what you say but it does in that there are gross generalizations that group all Reform Jews into a class and disparage us.
As for me personally, What makes my blood boil is folks that accuse me of all sorts of things in a public forum without having a clue, which is clearly motzi shem ra. Rather than telling me what should make my blood boil, perhaps you can read other posts in the thread and find what actually does make my blood boil.
I take a tact of gentle persuasion rather than outright confrontation, don't mistake this for whimpering. Its just attempting to show the light.
Now as for the statement you made that brought this response.. don't you think that its just a bit of bizarre reasoning? How else would I come up with the term to encourage you not to make this mistake.
You err in mistaking sarcasm as a personal attack.
Why don’t you chill down a notch or two?
I get that from the following thats got to leave a mark remarks that were elicited by the kind Christians who see fit to join in your request for me to leave Free Republic.
What part of
I doubt that you, or Yoffie, have ever studied the laws of Lashon Ha-ra.
isn't a personal attack? Or,
You sound like Yoffie, calling everyone who disagrees with you a "bigot."
I wasn't defending Yoffie, I was being extremely offended by your characterization of Reform Jews, which though a notch down from others here feeds bigotry and disparages a great number of Jews as a monlithic group and feeds antisemitism.
Its like tarring all Orthodox Jews for the actions of Neturei Karta. It is wrong and wrong headed.
I personally have no control over Rabbi Yoffie, what he says or does. You know as well as I do, that more Reform Jews agree with Rabbi Yoffie than me for a number of reasons, but I find the synthesis of rationality, exploration and a deep connection to God to be well worth any pain that I encur in having to write letter after letter of protest to the URJ. And having to confront our head Rabbi whom I truly deeply admire when I just can't live with something he says. Thats the breaks. You deal or you walk. But this is my home and my family and I won't accept you or anybody running them down unfairly.
SO TAKE YOUR MARK and JAM IT.
Characterization of Reform Jews how? As agreeing with Eric Yoffie's hateful remarks? And then you said:
more Reform Jews agree with Rabbi Yoffie than me
Its like tarring all Orthodox Jews for the actions of Neturei Karta. It is wrong and wrong headed.
Except that Neturei Karta is marginalized by the overwhelming majority of Othodox Jews, whereas Eric Yoffie is the leader and spokesman for Reform Jewry and, as you said, most members agree with him.
Q.E.D.
But this is my home and my family and I won't accept you or anybody running them down unfairly.
Alouette does not think dalight and her family are bad people. When I speak of Reform Jews I'm thinking of members of my own family, not yours. BTW I don't think my family are bad people either, just misguided, wrong-thinking liberals.
And having to confront our head Rabbi whom I truly deeply admire when I just can't live with something he says. Thats the breaks. You deal or you walk.
Well, I left the temple that my family belonged to for 3 generations, and never looked back. Also my family went through another upheaval when we left one Orthodox denomination for a different one and incurred the wratch of some members of the community. So you see, it is doable.
When I hear stories of the "bad" old days I just shake my head. But, I have never experienced anything other than my own Temple and I have only been going a scant number of years.
These folks are my family because I can count on them even when we just look at each other and shake our heads about each other's politics. They used to crack on Republican's during study group.. but not any more, because they know I will chime in if politics comes up and I can more than hold my ground.
So we stick to talking about God and the Torah and thats fine by me.
This thread is about Eric Yoffie, not about dalight.
If you want to talk about Rabbi Yoffie, then you should talk about him and not say that I am ignorant, or too childish to play on Free Republic. When you say things like that, then its getting personal and I have a right to respond.
You just don't like it when someone points out your transgression. You say, insult is sarcasm. You say don't take it personally, but what you never get around to saying is "I am sorry."
You made a rational point about Rabbi Yoffie just making things worse which I agreed with, and for me.. I plan to attend the next Hagee event that I can, because I think he is taking alot of arrows for being courageous.
Past that, trashing Yoffie and the rest of the Reform movement with all sorts of hate and contempt is just as pointless as Rabbi Yoffie's folly.
May I point out again that Yoffie is YOUR LEADER, not just some whacked-out shmuck who happens by coincidence to belong to a temple, but whose views are shunned by the mainstream.
Eric Yoffie is the Jeremiah Wright of Judaism. He deserves to be trashed and ridiculed and treated with the utmost contempt.
As far as I can recall, there is a wide gulf between Rabbi Yoffie and Jeramiah Wright. Both in substance and objectionable content of speech. Though I find many of his positions objectionable, and wrong headed. He is no where near in a class with Rev. Wright and saying this is a slander.
Bill Clinton was my president for 8 years and I had to live through that too. Its in the nature of organizations that elect leaders, they elect who is popular and not always who you specifically like. You know that each Jewish congregation is led by their Rabbi. We don't have any Pope or anything like that at this time. Rabbi Yoffie is the Head of the Union of Reform Judiasm which is a central coordinating body that pools the resources of the congregations and provides a means for the movement as a whole to come to a consensus and provide a cohesive experience for all of our members.
Rabbi Yoffie as a leader has certain authority but so much less than any Head Rabbi of any congregation for that congregation. If Rabbi Yoffie said jump we all would just look down the bridge of our noses and shake our heads.
The movement as a whole is heading in the right direction despite making stupid and sometimes nearly unforgivable mistakes along the way. I have a minority position but in our congregation the minority is respected. This is the Jewish way.
Relax. No one was questioning your patriotism. Furthermore, the "that's going to leave a mark" comments by some of the other FReepers concerning Alouette's comments to you, and me forwarding them, were certainly far a field of Alouette's and my intent.
Alouette's comment still stands. Evangelical Christianity and Orthodox Judaism are the hegemon at Free Republic. Your defense of your views in the context of your Reform experience is admirable; nonetheless trying to divorce yourself from Eric Yoffie's attacks on Hagee as a "extremist" and his, oh, I dunno, 2 million plus supporters (quoting our local paper's article on Hagee and Eric Yoffie today) and Eric Yoffie's rank liberalism is only setting yourself up to be offended again.
Eric Yoffie represents ideas. That he is not repudiated by those who give him his position and influence implies the majority supports him, as Alouette pointed out, and as you conceded. The ideas he promotes in opposition to Hagee and Conservative/Orthodox Jews are getting Jews in Israel killed, and have been for many years. They will continue to get Jews killed, especially if they give any more to those who simply want to murder them. I have studied to some depth the philosophies and worldviews of WWII era European Jewry and the same moral sickness which permeated that generation, and led the men, especially the men, to quietly acquiesce to that wholesale slaughter of themselves and their families is eerily similar to the same ideas Eric Yoffie also promotes.
You want to stay there, perhaps to "agitate from within"? Fine. Who knows, maybe you'll have some type of impact. Nevertheless, I am pretty confident there is another congregation that would better reflect your caliber of character.
Still, I have friends in Israel, today. Alouette has much, much more invested in Israel, in her family. Liberal, rich Jews living in America under the umbrella of the protection of our military, cultural institutions, and Constitutional freedoms, lecturing Jews in Israel living in places like Sderot and the territories under daily threat (while their government drags their feet defending them) and their supporters in Hagee, Colonel Jim Hutchens and the Evangelical Christian horde behind them as "extremist," or "misguided" so they can score some political points while Jews are dying at the hands of Islamic killers, is truly offensive and rightly condemned in the severest terms.
Sorry to offend, FRiend, but you are right in the way.
*shrug*
If you feel this reflects poorly somehow on my Christianity, I'll be the first to admit I'm the worst one in America. It is instructive to remember Jesus Christ entered the Temple with a whip and, to put it mildly, kicked a** on the Eric Yoffies of the day in defense of the same eternal principles.
I hope you take this in the spirit intended. The Evangelical Christian/Orthodox Jewish community at Free Republic will certainly continue to seek to wield our hegemony here with less abandon.
I’m glad you’re a patriot, and thank you for your service. But my comment was with regard to Alouette’s response, not what you said. You may note that in that post I neither agreed nor disagreed with her. I do, of course, but was merely commenting on Alouette’s reply. You chose to pull me into what apparrantly was an existing argument with her.
I’m as patriotic as they come, but as Christians (imperfect but forgiven) we MUST support Israel. If you don’t believe that, your complaint is with the Almighty, not me.
*disclaimer* I am posting without benefit of caffiene.
Look, If I was a Catholic person, I wouldn't get a vote on who was Pope, and just because the guy was heading in the wrong direction, I don't expect I would be any more inclined to leave my faith because of it. As far as I know, we rank and file in the Reform Movement don't get a vote in who is the Chairman of the Reform Movement, but if we did, I don't suppose that anyone else would be in his position.
Simply put, I am not accountable for him as I have no ability to modify his actions other than what I do in the way of protesting through appropriate channels when I believe he or any other URJ official has made a mistake. Politically, the Reform Movement is lost in the wilderness, but thankfully, in the business that they actually are in, they are very much heading in the right direction. You don't see this when you are just paying attention to politics.
Orthodox Judaism represents only 20% of the Jews in the United States and a smaller percentage World Wide. Orthodox views on Israel come in all forms from complete support to attending Holocaust Denial conferences in Iran. Many Orthodox are completely opposed to the current state of Israel because they see it as a sham run by atheists, drawing the Christians to look forward to Revelation and the demise of our whole community. But, thankfully, this group is a minority. The damage they do is almost inconceivable though.
I will not tolerate Reform Judaism being trashed just because I am in the minority here any more than I will tolerate Republicans or Conservatives being trashed at Temple. I don't care that I am in the minority, one day God willing, perhaps this will change, but it won't change a wit by my hiding from opposition. Reform Judaism places the responsibility for one's beliefs and actions on the individual and not the Rabbi. In this, we are much like the Protestant Movement in the Christian Church. A Reform Rabbi is a teacher, and a guide. They are not judges. We do not practice excommunication, though folks who are disruptive in an extreme sense are asked to consider their actions or leave if they cannot be civil. Our minimum standard for acceptance in the Congregation is very low, you can not believe in God and be a full member, but the Prayers and Services will be about God and our relationship with God and if you hate that.. its going to be uncomfortable.
The real turning point in the Reform Movement occurred when confronted by the Humanist Movement's request to join Reform. This was a bridge too far, and marked the outer boundary of Reform Practice.
A recent survey reported that 51% of all American Jews don't believe in God. This is no small thing, I know in my own life, I spent 48 years of being unwilling to accept that God could exist and allow the Holocaust. This is the tragedy of my lifetime, not the Holocaust, but its imprint on my soul. My whole family was wiped out except for the two cousin's who immigrated to the US in the 1920's and one family in Moscow. Thats it. We have the pictures, handsome young men in their Polish Army uniforms, so proud of their service. Daughters, Mothers, Grandma's and all.. gone. It is searing. But, when I became a religious Jew, I no longer worried about the Holocaust, or that it proved anything except for the mysterious way of God's influence on the events of this world, but as to the possibility that this great country of America is being slowly turned so that a new Holocaust can occur, this is shocking but it is a distinct possibility. American Jews have to face the fact that Germany was a very fine place before the Holocaust and in the space of a decade, it became a killing machine.
Nevertheless, my take on my fellow Reform Jews is that there are no more caring and genuinely nice people on the face of this earth if you just consider the regular attenders. The folks I don't know, its because I never see them. But about 50% of our congregation gets through the doors about once per week and thats pretty good. Reform has a long way to go yet, but it isn't going to get there any faster with folks throwing spit balls at them from the right. Instead, folks just remember who acts like a jerk and decide to keep to the folks who don't.
Rabbi Eric Yoffie is one Rabbi. We are like herding cats, and unless our Rabbi agrees with him.. he could say the moon was made of green cheese and it would take years for us to hear about it, and we would immediately dismiss it as silly. He represents the URJ though to the rest of the world and people take their impressions from what he says and does. And in this he represents more or less a fair majority of the Reform Congregation on most things. In terms of politics and some other topics, I can't find much to agree with him or many others who feel the same. I have said this over and over. But, Reform Jews have minds of their own, and we don't cleave to an orthodoxy, we insist as the Missourian says, "Show me." Its not a "yes, sir!" environment. Most folks believe as they do because thats what their parents believed. The sins of the Conservatives prior to WWII come home to roost as Conservatives were all for appeasing Hitler, and minding our own business. We call these folks Paleo-conservatives now a days and all you have to do is look to Pat Buchanan to find these same values.
In that Free Republic is a haven for Paleo types, it can be a hostile and often nearly Luddite bunch of folks who seem to hate more and think less about what comes next. Rabbi Yoffie will go at some point and probably another equally odious URJ Chairman will be elected, but perhaps not. We will see.
nonetheless trying to divorce yourself from Eric Yoffie's attacks on Hagee as a "extremist" and his, oh, I dunno, 2 million plus supporters (quoting our local paper's article on Hagee and Eric Yoffie today) and Eric Yoffie's rank liberalism is only setting yourself up to be offended again.
Its not my day to mind Rabbi Yoffie. I like Rev. Hagee and I wonder who is charging him with being anti-Catholic. I wonder what he has said and done to give people that impression, other than the natural positioning that Protestants end up being forced to do against the more orthodox Roman Catholic sect.
The ideas he promotes in opposition to Hagee and Conservative/Orthodox Jews are getting Jews in Israel killed, and have been for many years. They will continue to get Jews killed, especially if they give any more to those who simply want to murder them. I have studied to some depth the philosophies and worldviews of WWII era European Jewry and the same moral sickness which permeated that generation, and led the men, especially the men, to quietly acquiesce to that wholesale slaughter of themselves and their families is eerily similar to the same ideas Eric Yoffie also promotes.
This is both wrong and patently unfair. And, frankly fairly disgusting. Nearly outrageously disgusting. You are saying that the Tutsi men, especially the men quietly acquiesced to their wholesale slaughter by the Hutu militias. They only had machetes, not the military and the police and the surrounding community helping them. Yet in the space of less than a few months, almost a million people were slaughtered. No where to go, no one to help and a perverse killing machine called the police and the army bent on your death and you say.. well.. real men could have stood up to them. You know where you can put that noise. But, this is all products of the sin committed by Alouette and some fellow Orthodox travelers here which is why I confront her with it. Giving you permission to label some Jews as "bad" and others as "good." Then you happily trash folks that you politically disagree with as being the same as the corrupt Temple Priests and blame Jewish men for not being able to resist Germans without guns.
German Jews had begun to see themselves as German's first, and they couldn't conceive that their friends and neighbors would turn against them, until it was too late. The rest, Polish, Russian, and other Jews were used to the Pogroms which blew over but this one didn't because of the spectacular focus of Hitlers plan on their extermination even at the cost of the outcome of the war. Many German and Austrian Jews were not religious, owing to the prevailing philosophies of the day, and many accepted Socialism and Communism as the way of creating a society that valued human dignity. But, in this, both Hitler and Stalin were all to happy to accommodate, it was not just the Jews but the whole of society that agreed with these thoughts. But, after the Russian revolution, many feared the Bolsheviks and this fear was used to justify hatred of Jews in Germany. But old hatreds were also there as well, that were enough to get folks to turn aside, not that you had alot of choice. The Brown Shirts and the SS were very effective. You might want to read a bit of Robert Johnson's history of the Jews if you haven't already
But, even as God may have had reason to forsake the German Jews, the Polish and Russian and many of the other Jews killed were Orthodox and very devout, and its a disgrace to say that they deserved anything other than happy full lives. God permitted this, because of his own reasons, and Jews have attempted to accept and understand this trial and horror ever since.
Nevertheless, I am pretty confident there is another congregation that would better reflect your caliber of character.
Thank goodness I get to pick my own congregation. I like where I am thank you very much. I picked em.. and thought for sure they would toss me out on my ear when the got the measure of me.. and what I believe, and this just didn't happen. Instead, I am on the Brotherhood board, I do all I can as I can, and am certain that they have helped me save my daughter when she was ever so lost. They have been a blessing and religiously, I fit right in and I have never been happier in my life. Everyone is asking for her JROTC photos, which is the other organization that has been a blessing. And we are loved without reference to these things we disagree about.
Sorry to offend, FRiend, but you are right in the way.
If I am in your way, then you face a formidable road block
If you feel this reflects poorly somehow on my Christianity, I'll be the first to admit I'm the worst one in America. It is instructive to remember Jesus Christ entered the Temple with a whip and, to put it mildly, kicked a** on the Eric Yoffies of the day in defense of the same eternal principles.
Well, here is where we come to some really sloppy understandings. First, The Temple Priests around the time of the beginning Common Era were appointed by King Herod, puppet of Rome. He was appointed by Rome as an alternative to the corrupt Priestly line of the Maccabees, who started their service with zeal and ended on a far lower note. Herod rebuilt the Temple to a high level of Grandeur but this was accompanied by the very probable inclusion of Roman symbols in its design and adornments. Not a situation that one likes to have occur. Nevertheless, to equate Rabbi Yoffie with these Priests is offensive as well. I am going to post a link to Rabbi Yoffies remarks so you can read what he actually said. I believe he is wrong on many points but his case is not outside the bounds of reason if he has his facts right. Rev. Hagee says he is reacting to second hand descriptions of his discussions of Catholics, and this should be easily verified. Yoffie is unlikely to accept Rev. Hagee's view of Islam. Hagee's view is much easier to defend, but it comes with implications that many folks are not ready to even begin to deal with because like many challenges Islam has created, the fact that a religion may actually be beyond redemption is too much for Jews to accept, for they fear with great cause, that they would be the next be consumed by this line of reasoning. It has happened to many times already, to believe different.
Yep. But, even moreso, he is concerned that by supporting Hagee, folks are going to be tarred the way that Obama is being tarred for supporting Jeremiah Wright. It comes down to is it a fact that Hagee is an over the top anti-catholic bigot or not. I don't know, but as Richard Baehr says Yoffie has made himself susceptible to being discounted as just being a willing player in the "Echo Chamber" that is looking for a counter balance to Jeremiah Wright. If Yoffie is just repeating a slander he has heard rather than working from certain knowledge of Hagee's transgressions against Catholics, then this is lamentable in the extreme and he should be called to task for it.
But this is truely pointless because, Jeremiah Wright isn't Obama's problem. Jeremiah Wright has made it possible to understand Barak and Michelle Obama's remarks and actions in the frame the fact that he won't wear a flag or place his hand on his heart for the pledge of allegiance, and Michelle thinks America is a cruel place and advises young people to not seek professional careers. The whole picture all of the sudden makes sense so Yoffie puts his foot in it again.
Christian Zionism? Is it good for North American Jews and good for Israel?
I disagree with several things in the speech passionately, but this is reasoned discourse subject to contradiction and proof and not something that you just trash folks for saying. Richard Baehr perhaps has Rabbi Yoffie's range, but its not as clear cut as he makes it out to be.
You said some things in your post of a very personal nature about your past that I would really like to ask you about in private. Although you might be thinking I'm not worth any more of your time at this point, it would be helpful.
Can we salvage this? 
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