Op-Ed! (No. 1)

Moses Receiving the Ten Commandments at Yosemite (!)
West Window of Congregation Sherith Israel (Reform), San Francisco

After my last letter to the editor of the “J” (you can read about it at What’s (Not) Missing From the “J” (No. 5)), I decided to do something chutzpadik (“nervy” in Yiddish). I wrote the Editor of the “J,” Sue Fishkoff, suggested that her readers might find what I have to say of interest and that she should run some op-eds that I was prepared to write. (In a manner not entirely unknown to my family, friends and a certain type of trial lawyer, I also shared with her my opinion that I was a lot more interesting than the usual fare in the “J”). To her credit, she did not hold this against me. She accepted and the result was my first op ed in the “J,” entitled When it comes to religious practice, mishegas is relative. Since the Jweekly.com website runs a little slow at times, here is an alternate location to download the piece.

[For readers unfamiliar with the word, “mishigas” is Yiddish for “crazy,” in the sense of something being nuts or misguided. People afflicted with mishigas are described as “meshugge.” The word derives from the Hebrew word “mishuga,” although in Hebrew the meaning can extend to outright insanity.]

Writing an op-ed is a bit different than what I’ve been putting up on the blog. There is a 750 word limit to contend with (but what an improvement over the 200 word limit for letters to the Editor!). I’m also writing for a different audience and there is also the matter of actually having an editor, although the only major visible change was to the title. My original piece, written for the blog, was entitled Mishigas Is (Very Much) In the Eye Of The Beholder. It’s longer, and a bit edgier, so if the piece in the “J” interested you, you might give the blog piece a try, too.

Sue and I did agree to one big change in the “J” piece. My original draft wanted to poke some harmless fun at the “relentless political correctness” of the Reform Movement, but I did not feel right about keeping that in the piece. I just don’t know the ins and outs of the Reform Movement well enough to feel comfortable teasing them. Sue agreed and suggested, aptly, that this represented a bit of “mishigas” all by itself.

But I have since realized that there was definitely a fine example of Reform “mishigas” I could have used if the “J” had spotted me a few more words and if I had remembered it at the time.

I wonder how many of my readers are aware that there was a time when a substantial part of the leadership of the Reform Movement declared that America (and for some of them California and the American West) constituted the “Promised Land” and not the land of Israel. I’m not kidding.  (Any doubts on the subject should be set to rest by looking at that amazing stained glass window shown at the start of this piece.)

In particular, I suspect that many of my friends who are members of Congregation Emanuel in San Francisco would be shocked to learn that Rabbi Irving Reichert, of what was then called Temple Emanuel, was among the leading American anti-Zionists and a prominent, if not dominant, member of the American Council for Judaism, the national anti-Zionist umbrella group. I found a fine article discussing this aspect of local Jewish history, by Kate Shvetsky, entitled, San Francisco Jewish Elite: America’s Leading Anti-Zionists. (FoundSF.org, which is where I found the article, looks like a pretty interesting resource for San Francisco history and is worth checking out.)

Rabbi Reichert’s principal opponent in the local Jewish community was my late uncle, Rabbi Saul E. White, who was generally regarded as the most prominent pro-Zionist advocate both within the local rabbinate and the Jewish community at large. Fred Rosenbaum, of Lehrhaus Judaica, spoke about this aspect of Rabbi White’s rabbinate back in 2003 and you can find his remarks, I am very pleased to say, in the “J.” Here’s the title and the link: Rabbi Saul White pierced armor of S.F.’s assimilationist mentality.  (If you have trouble accessing the piece directly, you can access it through this link.)

It’s actually a little ironic that this piece made it to the “J.” As Fred Rosenbaum pointed out in his remarks, the “J” (then known as the San Francisco Jewish Community Bulletin) was purchased in the 1940s by prominent anti-Zionists who took no time at all in cutting Rabbi White off from publishing op-ed pieces. But at the end of the day, of course, Israel was established and Rabbi Reichert was kicked upstairs to become rabbi emeritus. His successor, the late Rabbi Alvin Fine, was an ardent Zionist and so ended an era.

It’s actually a little scary to contemplate the notion that Zionism, within the mainstream Jewish community, at least, was controversial back in the 40’s, but that’s the case. The American Council for Judaism still exists (they even have a website), and it is again a reminder that once upon a time, Reform Judaism and Zionism simply did not mix. Happily things have changed although the brave new world of San Francisco Jewry in the 21st Century has its own mishigas when it comes to Zionism. Perhaps I will be writing about in the “J,” or, if not, here. As I said, there is no lack of mishigas; frankly the supply is almost endless.