A major reason this blog went on hiatus for awhile was my service for almost 3 years as President of my synagogue. While I am no longer President, I still get to participate in the United Synagogue President's list serve as long as I am the immediate past president. Recently, a sitting president in another city posed a question about practices of who gets to sit in the sanctuary during the High Holidays (hereafter, HIHOs) and who sits in the added seats in the opened up extra room in the back. Many congregations use seating in the sanctuary up front as a perk for fundraising, for new members or big donors. Others have open seating. There are a variety of practices and I offered my two cents. Apparently some folks found my response not only informative but somewhat entertaining so here it is for anyone else who may benefit.
One of my frustrations with the HIHO season is that many people seem to be more concerned with the location for parking their butts than with the content of what is in their hearts or what is coming out of their mouths.
Due to long-term decline of membership we now have everyone sitting in the sanctuary. When we used to open the walls and have additional seating, we used to charge extra for sitting in the sanctuary. We ran into a situation where many people would not pay to sit in the sanctuary because they did not want to pay or because they believed on principle that one should not pay for a particular seat. In any case, we had lots of seats filled up in the back and half the sanctuary empty. It was absurd because we were paying to rent chairs when we had built in seats in which no one was sitting.
The Rabbi would become upset at having so many people so far away and even after being invited to move up, people would not move which would make the Rabbi more upset. This is one of the reasons that I pushed to abolish extra fees for sitting in the sanctuary and to make the seating open. We now have it such that all sanctuary seats are open except those who in the past paid for rights for HIHO seats for life as long as they were members - those are reserved. By the way, in the first year that we did this, if I recall correctly, HIHO appeal revenue actually went up by more than the amount that we stopped collecting for "seat licensing."
For those congregations that would like to try continue to get revenue from leasing particular seats but avoid upsetting the rabbi that the sanctuary is half empty, I recommend that there be no extra charge for sitting in the sanctuary but that there be an extra charge for the privilege of sitting in the back.
If you would really like to simplify the whole seating system, try following the seating arrangements that existed in the Temples in Jerusalem. The Talmud records that in the Temple Court, there was only one chair. That chair was reserved for the king while everyone else was standing (except when they were bowing and prostrating). To transfer this arrangement into the modern setting, HIHO services would be held in a room with just one chair and that would be reserved for the congregation President.
Saba Yeshayah - סבא ישעיה Israel News and Views - a blog about Israel and issues in the Jewish world.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Is settlement freeze meant to force Jews in Judea/Samaria to accept Arab-Palestinian state?
In the tense back-and-forth between Israel, the US and the Palestinian authority over extending the recently expired settlement freeze, there is a subtle and unspoken pressure being applied to the Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria (commonly referred to as settlers). The widespread expectation is that if an agreement is reached for creation of a Palestinian State in the West Bank that there will be adjustments to the 1949 armistice line (Green Line) so that the major settlement blocs in which the bulk of the Jews in Judea and Samaria reside will formally become part of Israel.
The settlement freeze essentially holds these larger communities hostage and sets up a wedge between these communities and the smaller communities outside of those blocs and could divide their supporters throughout Israel. With a freeze or pressure for it, these larger communities are barred from new construction that is required to accommodate new residents and natural population growth even though pretty much everyone expects these towns will be part of Israel in any end scenario. Once a border between Israel and a future Arab-Palestinian state is negotiated, the freeze could be lifted on those communities which will be part of Israel and they can resume construction for more residents. Meanwhile, those Jewish-populated communities that are outside Israel's border would be on the bloc to be evacuated and destroyed (since it is the longstanding Arab-Palestinian position that their future state will be Jew-free).
So the residents in communities such as Maaleh Adumim, Gush Etzion, Givat Zeev, perhaps Ariel and others face a dilemma. Do they stand with their compatriots in more outlying communities and continue to oppose creation of an Arab-Palestinian state in the heart of the historic land of Israel that would pose a threat to the heart of Israel's population centers, and thus face continued strangulation of their communities' ability to grow? Or, do they acquiesce to the demands for creating an Arab-Palestinian state and end the limbo in which their communities are placed while essentially throwing residents of more outlying communities "under the bus" and accept the dangers that an Arab-Palestinian state that will likely be taken over by Hamas will pose?
The stakes and implications in this dilemma are large and its a potentially strong but quiet lever that the United States may be wielding to force Israel to accept the American policy of establishing an Arab-Palestinian state. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's right-leaning coalition is composed of parties that draw much support from the settlers and their allies throughout Israel. The settler population is not uniform in its religious and ideological outlook but if they are split apart by the wedge of the settlement freeze, Israel's right-leaning nationalist camp would be divided and resistance to creation of an Arab-Palestinian state and its attendant dangers could be greatly weakened. Or, at least that may be the calculation of those who demand a freeze while negotiations take place.
The settlement freeze essentially holds these larger communities hostage and sets up a wedge between these communities and the smaller communities outside of those blocs and could divide their supporters throughout Israel. With a freeze or pressure for it, these larger communities are barred from new construction that is required to accommodate new residents and natural population growth even though pretty much everyone expects these towns will be part of Israel in any end scenario. Once a border between Israel and a future Arab-Palestinian state is negotiated, the freeze could be lifted on those communities which will be part of Israel and they can resume construction for more residents. Meanwhile, those Jewish-populated communities that are outside Israel's border would be on the bloc to be evacuated and destroyed (since it is the longstanding Arab-Palestinian position that their future state will be Jew-free).
So the residents in communities such as Maaleh Adumim, Gush Etzion, Givat Zeev, perhaps Ariel and others face a dilemma. Do they stand with their compatriots in more outlying communities and continue to oppose creation of an Arab-Palestinian state in the heart of the historic land of Israel that would pose a threat to the heart of Israel's population centers, and thus face continued strangulation of their communities' ability to grow? Or, do they acquiesce to the demands for creating an Arab-Palestinian state and end the limbo in which their communities are placed while essentially throwing residents of more outlying communities "under the bus" and accept the dangers that an Arab-Palestinian state that will likely be taken over by Hamas will pose?
The stakes and implications in this dilemma are large and its a potentially strong but quiet lever that the United States may be wielding to force Israel to accept the American policy of establishing an Arab-Palestinian state. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's right-leaning coalition is composed of parties that draw much support from the settlers and their allies throughout Israel. The settler population is not uniform in its religious and ideological outlook but if they are split apart by the wedge of the settlement freeze, Israel's right-leaning nationalist camp would be divided and resistance to creation of an Arab-Palestinian state and its attendant dangers could be greatly weakened. Or, at least that may be the calculation of those who demand a freeze while negotiations take place.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Israel will be forced to act alone if it doubts American resolve to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons
Some of you may recall my Saba Yeshayah blog in another location and that it is inspired by a verse - Isaiah 62:1 (Yeshayah in Hebrew). I had not been able to post to it much because much of time was taken up with being president of my synagogue. Now, however, my nearly three years of service is complete and with this coming Shabbat being when we read the haftarah containing Isaiah 62:1, it seems a good time to relaunch this blog - now on Blogger which is easier for me to use.
Now to return to a topic that has come up frequently before, the threat of Iran developing nuclear weapons. There is a detailed article in The Atlantic going into the calculus Israel is facing as Iran continues its drive to obtain nuclear weapons and whether it should or can rely on American and Western efforts to stop Iran through sanctions. One of the issues in the article is that one of the founding purposes of the State of Israel was to prevent another Holocaust. By having strong military power, Israel is supposed to be able to prevent a repetition of the Holocaust when the Jewish people had no such power of their own. There are those who would argue that assuming, as is widely believed, that Israel already has a formidable nuclear arsenal, it can deter a nuclear Iran from attacking. This view is analogous to the mutually assured destruction (MAD) doctrine that kept the peace between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
The problem is that there is a big difference in these scenarios. In the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union were both vast continent-spanning powers whose leaders accepted that the other side could inflict comparable damage. In an Iran-Israel nuclear scenario however, there is a very different situation. Even if Israel is assumed to have a much larger nuclear arsenal than Iran, Israel's margin of safety is much smaller. Israel is a tiny country - about the size of New Jersey. The bulk of Israel's population is concentrated in the narrow central waist of the country. One or two nuclear warheads detonated in Israel's center could destroy most of its population. In a 2001 speech former Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani noted that Muslim nuclear powers could destroy Israel with nuclear weapons while Israel's nuclear arsenal would only cause damage in Muslim lands. Recall that Rafsanjani was viewed as a "moderate" in the 2009 Iranian presidential election dispute. Rafsanjani's statement is based on military and geographic reality. If the Iranian leadership is willing to sacrifice large parts of its population and to see major damage to its country in exchange for destroying Israel, then Iran cannot be deterred. If that is the likely scenario and if the Obama Administration will not act decisively before Iran can obtain its own nuclear weapons, Israel will have no choice but to try to eliminate this threat on its own.
Now to return to a topic that has come up frequently before, the threat of Iran developing nuclear weapons. There is a detailed article in The Atlantic going into the calculus Israel is facing as Iran continues its drive to obtain nuclear weapons and whether it should or can rely on American and Western efforts to stop Iran through sanctions. One of the issues in the article is that one of the founding purposes of the State of Israel was to prevent another Holocaust. By having strong military power, Israel is supposed to be able to prevent a repetition of the Holocaust when the Jewish people had no such power of their own. There are those who would argue that assuming, as is widely believed, that Israel already has a formidable nuclear arsenal, it can deter a nuclear Iran from attacking. This view is analogous to the mutually assured destruction (MAD) doctrine that kept the peace between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
The problem is that there is a big difference in these scenarios. In the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union were both vast continent-spanning powers whose leaders accepted that the other side could inflict comparable damage. In an Iran-Israel nuclear scenario however, there is a very different situation. Even if Israel is assumed to have a much larger nuclear arsenal than Iran, Israel's margin of safety is much smaller. Israel is a tiny country - about the size of New Jersey. The bulk of Israel's population is concentrated in the narrow central waist of the country. One or two nuclear warheads detonated in Israel's center could destroy most of its population. In a 2001 speech former Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani noted that Muslim nuclear powers could destroy Israel with nuclear weapons while Israel's nuclear arsenal would only cause damage in Muslim lands. Recall that Rafsanjani was viewed as a "moderate" in the 2009 Iranian presidential election dispute. Rafsanjani's statement is based on military and geographic reality. If the Iranian leadership is willing to sacrifice large parts of its population and to see major damage to its country in exchange for destroying Israel, then Iran cannot be deterred. If that is the likely scenario and if the Obama Administration will not act decisively before Iran can obtain its own nuclear weapons, Israel will have no choice but to try to eliminate this threat on its own.
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