O pinion
Has Israel Let You Down? Its Minister of Diaspora Affairs
Wants You to Talk About It Over The High Holidays
BY NACHMAN SHAI
TO THE RABBIS and
religious leaders putting the
finishing touches to your High
Holiday sermons, I’d like to
make a suggestion: Use this
Jewish New Year to talk about
Israel from the pulpit.

And not just Israel. Talk
about the bonds between us, as a
Jewish people, about our shared
past and imagined future. Talk
about the challenges, but also
the opportunities.

Share with your congregants
that we in Israel are slowly
but surely taking responsibility
for our side of the relationship
in a way that you have never
seen, that we realize we have
disappointed you and are doing
teshuvah, repentance, with a
sincere desire to make things
right in the future. Share with
them that this new government
is committed to bringing back
a Kotel Compromise — that
is, formalizing an egalitarian
prayer section at the Western
Wall. It is committed to
learning and understanding
how our actions impact your
communities. Tell them that
we believe in you and that we
are ready for both your critique
and your ideas.

Most importantly, share
with your communities that
Israel desires to be your
partner, to not let our politics
or diverse identities serve as
barriers to our fundamental
belief that we are a people with
a common fate and destiny.

I know this message might
not be easy to convey. I’ve
lived long enough to see how
Israel has turned from a point
of pride to tension. And it’s
understandable. Generations
built their Judaism around
the ideal of Israel and the
promise of peace as the focal
point of Jewish identity and
Zionist hope. So when Israel
disappoints, organized Jewish
frameworks can also disap-
point, intensifying political
divides within communities,
especially among the rising
generation. So why would a
rabbi waste his or her precious
annual moment with a quiet
audience on a subject that
increasingly causes more
controversy than connection?
I believe the answer is
simple. Despite the very signif-
icant challenges that stand
between us, the truth is that
we need each other, and I am
convinced ultimately want to be
in relationship with each other.

The last year highlighted
just how intertwined we are as
a people, when Israel’s summer
military operation in Gaza led
not only to a frightening rise
in antisemitism, but significant
stress and frustration within
communities. It is becoming
increasingly imperative for
us to work together to ensure
ongoing safety, security and
communal cohesion.

We also still have the ability
to bring out the best in each
other. Israel needs your clarity
and backbone to empower us to
make the bold decisions that will
ensure our continuity as both a
Jewish and democratic state. We
need your justice-minded values
to assure Israelis that moving
toward two states for two peoples
is the only solution, both for
our security and our soul. We
have room to be inspired by your
models of pluralism and diver-
sity, and of organized Jewish
communal life within our own
religious practice.

On the other end, Israel
continues to be the proud
manifestation of the Jewish
people’s 2,000-year-old-dream.

Israel — the state, the land
and its people — with all of
its complexities, deserves to
remain a central component
of Jewish identity-building and
experiences around the world.

Finally, you and I have
a mutual mission to elevate
not only our own people, but
the entire world through the
development of shared projects
on climate change, as well as
biomedical and technological
innovation. But before we can make
progress toward true peace,
revitalized pluralism in Israel
and the next great global initia-
tive, we must begin with a basic
conversation about peoplehood
— who we are, what are our
common values and language.

You have the opportunity to
lead your communities with
these questions.

As Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan
wrote, “The individual Jew
who regards this world as the
scene of salvation depends
upon the Jewish people to
help [them] achieve it. For that
reason, [they] must be able
to feel that in investing the
best part of [themselves] in
the Jewish people, [they are]
investing in something that
has a worthwhile future, and
thereby achieving an earthly
immortality.” From the pulpit, let us
wrestle with these ideas and
imagine this worthwhile future
together. l
Nachman Shai is Israel’s Minister of
Diaspora Affairs.

The Real Danger of That Atheist Harvard Chaplain
BY MOSHE PHILLIPS
THE NEWS MEDIA had
a field day recently with the
man-bites-dog story of the
self-proclaimed atheist who
was recently named chief
20 SEPTEMBER 9, 2021
chaplain at Harvard University.

After nearly 400 years of
having chief chaplains who
believe in God, Harvard has
gone in a surprising new direc-
tion. Not only that, but the new
head chaplain, Greg Epstein,
is Jewish and a graduate of
the rabbinical ordination
program at something called
the International Institute for
Secular Humanistic Judaism.

Undoubtedly, some parents
of Jewish students at Harvard
will be troubled at the prospect
of their sons or daughters
coming under the influence
of a passionate advocate of
atheism. Active rejection of the
most basic concept in Judaism
— belief in God — is pretty
fringe stuff in the eyes of most
American Jews.

The problem is not that Greg
Epstein is an atheist; that’s
his business. The problem is
that he presents himself as a
rabbi, even though his core
belief system is rejected by
every Jewish religious denom-
ination of note — Orthodox,
Conservative, Reform and
Reconstructionist. The power of the “rabbi”
title is that it confers Jewish
legitimacy and respectability
on whatever the rabbi, even
a self-proclaimed one, says.

JEWISH EXPONENT
Jewish students at Harvard who
don’t know better will hear that
“the rabbi” said something,
and assume that what he said
represents Judaism, not just
a tiny fringe element on the
Jewish spectrum.

Whether Greg Epstein will
influence Jewish students’
religious beliefs remains to
be seen. It could be argued
that these students are more
likely to be influenced by
their professors, whom they
often perceive as experts and
authority figures.

But where Epstein’s influ-
ence may well be felt even
more strongly, I fear, is on
Jewish students’ perceptions
of Israel, the Holocaust and
antisemitism. Because he is Jewish, and
because of the power of his
new position, Epstein will have
significant new platforms from
which to share his views on
Jewish issues — at campus
events, in the news media and
well beyond. And Epstein’s
views on Jewish issues are
disturbingly extreme.

A Tweet from Epstein on
April 28 employed the ugly term
“Jewish supremacists” to demean
Jewish nationalists who were
marching in Jerusalem. That slur
was coined by neo-Nazis and
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM