A Peace Pole for Our Garden

One of the newest additions to our marvelous little garden is a peace pole, with a prayer for peace written in Hebrew, English, Spanish, and French. 

On the English side, the words read, "May Peace Prevail on Earth," a message central to our faith, and a prayer that for all of humanity.

If you haven't yet been to visit the Adas Emuno garden, located on the far side of our religious school building, well, what are you waiting for?

Our next session of Poetry in the Garden will take place on Sunday evening, July 20th, at 7 PM. You can come just to listen, or to take turns reading poems. Bring your favorite works by Jewish poets, your own original poems, or any other poems you would like to read. In the event of inclement weather, we will meet in the religious school building. Poetry in the Garden is free and open to the public.

The Secular Jew Who Transformed Judaism

In case you missed, an article written by our own Rabbi Schwartz was published in the Summer 2014 issue of Reform Judaism magazine. You can read the article, The Secular Jew Who Transformed Judaism, online by clicking on the title, and take a look at the entire magazine issue online via issuu.com. But we know you also want us to post the article here, so here goes:

The recent Pew Research Report found that an astounding one third of all U.S. Jews under the age of 30 call themselves Jews of no religion. If that seems problematic to us today, the very thought that one could be Jewish without Judaism was inconceivable to our ancestors. All that changed on July 27, 1656, the day the leaders of Talmud Torah, the Portuguese Jewish Community of Amsterdam, excommunicated 24-year-old philosopher Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677).

Although the writ of excommunication did not specify Spinoza’s “abominable heresies,” we know from his later published works that he denied almost every major tenet of traditional Jewish belief, including that God created and controls the world, that God makes ethical demands on us, that the Torah is the revelation of God’s will, and that Jews are God’s chosen people. He also dared to criticize religion—all religion—for propagating untruths and fostering dogma and superstitions that had led to great evils perpetrated in the name of God.

Spinoza’s faith was the faith in reason. Reason alone, he asserted, could uncover truth, herald the building of an enlightened and tolerant society, and serve as the path to personal spiritual fulfillment. “I call him free who is led solely by reason,” Spinoza wrote, adding that “The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free.” He considered the perfection of reason to be our most meaningful task. “In this alone,” he said, “man’s highest happiness, or blessedness consists.”

While Spinoza’s excommunication isolated him from his family and friends, it did not cause him to repent or his ideas to wither. Rather, he went on to publish his magnum opus, Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (1670), as well as Ethics (1675), earning him the reputation of being the most brilliant and controversial philosopher of his age.

Even though he never again had contact with the Jewish community, Spinoza did not renounce his Jewishness. He declined all overtures to convert to Christianity and continued to study traditional Jewish thought—if only to refute it. His home library was full of Jewish books. He studied Hebrew in order to be able to read the Torah in the original language, and was said to be working on a book of Hebrew grammar at the time of his death.

In short, in being the first great Jewish philosopher to adopt an ideology of pure reason, to the utter exclusion of revelation, Spinoza also became the archetype of the secular Jew. And, as a secular Jew, he offered ideas that have profoundly impacted Jewish thought and belief ever since.

While the founders of Reform Judaism rejected Spinoza’s most radical notions about God, they nevertheless rooted Reform Judaism in Spinoza’s idea that “[we must] make a fresh examination of Scripture with a free and unprejudiced mind.” Reform Movement pioneer Rabbi Abraham Geiger (1810–1874), for example, echoed Spinoza in insisting that “the treatment of the historical content of the Bible…must be subject to all laws which may be termed the science of history.” Reform theologian Kaufmann Kohler (1843–1926), former president of the Hebrew Union College, acknowledged that “systematic critical investigation of the Bible began with Baruch Spinoza.”

Spinoza’s assertion that the Bible should be critically examined from the viewpoint of the “science of history” also influenced Reform Judaism’s major platforms of beliefs and principles through the 19th and 20th centuries. The Pittsburgh Platform of 1885 asserted: “We hold that the modern discoveries of scientific research in the domains of nature and history are not antagonistic to the doctrines of Judaism.” A half century later, the Columbus Platform (1937) proclaimed: “The new discoveries of science…do not conflict with the essential spirit of religion.” The San Francisco Platform of 1976 declared: “Scholarship needs to be conducted by modern, critical methods.”

Spinoza’s influence would extend to the Zionist enterprise as well.

In the years before Israel’s statehood, Zionists seized upon Spinoza’s teachings, beginning with his oft-quoted assertion that “given the opportunity…[the Jewish people] may establish once more their independent state.” The early European Zionist Moses Hess wrote that “Spinoza conceived Judaism to be grounded in nationalism, and held that the restoration of the Jewish kingdom depends entirely upon the will and courage of the Jewish people.”

Spinoza also taught that “the true aim of government is liberty.” He asserted: “The ultimate aim of government is not to rule, or restrain by fear, nor to exact obedience, but to free every man from fear so that he may live in all possible security…” (“That in a Free State Every Man May Think What He Likes, and Say What He Thinks”).

Indeed, the Zionists found in Spinoza a secular saint who championed reason and science, separation of synagogue and state in opposition to rabbinic authority, secular Jewish identity, and a system of governance that found expression in Israel’s Declaration of Independence (1948), which guarantees “freedom of religion, conscience, language, education, and culture.”

The Zionist love affair with Spinoza was in full evidence in late 1953, five years after Israel’s birth and three years in advance of the 300th anniversary of the philosopher’s excommunication, when Israel’s first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion published “Let Us Amend the Injustice” in the Hebrew daily Davar. Calling Spinoza “the deepest, most original thinker to emerge [from our people] from the end of the Bible to the birth of Einstein,” he urged Hebrew University to publish Spinoza’s collected works in Hebrew. He also queried the chief rabbis as to whether Spinoza’s banishment still applied, saying that the free citizens of modern Israel could no longer accept it. The widely read article was hotly debated, underscoring the gulf that had emerged between the secular and religious factions in Israel.

In many ways all of us are “Spinoza’s children,” for Spinoza’s ideas changed the Jewish worldview. Even though he himself was anti-religious, he helped lay the groundwork for a modern Judaism that integrates reason with faith and honors freedom of thought and practice. He inspired the notion of a secular Jewish identity and championed democratic ideals that played a role in the Zionists’ conception of the fledgling Jewish state.

In his day Spinoza was cast out of the Jewish community for his dissenting views on religion. Today, with one of three Jews under 30 calling themselves Jews of no religion, we marginalize secular Jews at our own peril.

Interested in reading up on Spinoza?

And let's not forget about these fine books:

It can truly be said that Enlightenment begins with Spinoza!

The Black March: A Book Review

Adas Emuno congregant Ludwik Kowalski has contributed the following book review for publication here on our congregational blog:

The Black March: The Personal Story of an SS Man

The Black March, a memoir-like book, written by SS officer Peter Neumann, is certainly worth reading. It describes the process of education of an obedient servant of a totalitarian regime, and his subsequent activities during WWII.

The first diary event (March 11, 1938) describes the ceremony of swearing in of six hundred Hitler Jugend members. Seventeen-year-old Neumann, like all of them, promised to be faithful, "in all circumstances and unto death, to our Fuhrer-Chancellor Adolf Hitler." He subsequently became a Nazi party member and an SS captain, fighting the Red Army.

At the end of the book (April 13, 1945) Neumann refers to this "faithful unto death" commitment in a completely different situation. He and his childhood friend Michael are surrounded by an advancing Red Army unit. The wounded friend, unable to escape, begs, "Don't leave me... to them. Promise." By satisfying this last wish Peter is faithful to his SS friend, not to Adolph Hitler.

Describing the Nazi high school system Peter wrote that they had eight hours of political instruction each week, two of them devoted to racial theory. He quotes from one of the lectures: "You have heard about the difficult economic conditions in the postwar period. You have heard of this great influx of Jews from the East or Middle East, flinging themselves upon the body of Germany like jackals upon a wounded animal. You’ve been told about the great industrial power of the Jews, their control of the banks, their combinations to crush German trade. In Mein Kampf the Fuhrer has said the mixing of races is unacceptable. The nation must keep its strength and its blood intact if it is to conquer.”

But Peter's sweetheart Brigitta (whom he met in 1939) was Jewish. He knew this before becoming a party member. This did not prevent him from visiting Brigitta in 1943, during a short leave from the front. At the time she, like other German Jews, was forced to wear the identifying yellow star. This fact makes Peter very unusual. Equally unusual was his father, a German Communist, before 1933. How many children of former Communists became SS officers? But this is not all. Lena, Peter's sister, married an officer serving in the Fuhrer's personal bodyguard unit. How many children of former Communists married such officers?

These situations were not typical. But horrors of war situations are described very realistically. The book deals with important sociological issues of totalitarianism, such as indoctrination of youth, cruelty, faithfulness to ideologies of ruling parties, cult of supreme leaders, Hitler and Stalin, during WWII, etc., etc. Why did I buy this book? I wanted to compare the Communist brainwashing system, with which I am familiar,* with the Nazi system. What did they have in common and how did they differ? Personal histories are worth reading because they help us to understand events described by professional historians and sociologists.

At the end of the book the reader is left to speculate about what happened to Peter after the war ended and how he adjusted to life in post-Nazi Germany. Perhaps such questions will be answered by his associates, or his younger relatives.

—Ludwik Kowalski, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus, Montclair State University.

*See my 2009 book Tyranny to Freedom: Diary of a Former Stalinist.

P.S. My book is also freely available online at <http://csam.montclair.edu/~kowalski/life/intro.html>.

Gabi Capote's Confirmation Speech

On June 6th, Congregation Adas Emuno celebrated the Festival on Shavuot with a Confirmation ceremony featuring this year's confirmands, Gabi Capote, Ethan Irby, and Rianna Rosenberg, who read from the Ten Commandments and the Book of Ruth, along with the other members of our religious school's confirmation class.

Gabi Capote was kind enough to share her confirmation speech with us, and we are pleased in turn to share it with you here on our congregational blog:

Confirmation

I can’t believe we finally completing our Hebrew school career. I remember kindergarten class with Rianna and Ethan like it was just last Sunday. We have learned so much throughout our years in Hebrew school, from the Hebrew alphabet, all the way up to learning the right thing to do in a situation. I am proud of all the hard work that my classmates and I have completed.

One major accomplishment that we have all made was our Bar and Bat Mitzvahs. Each of us was able to become a son or daughter of God in our own special way. We were not forced to do it, or at least I know I wasn’t, but we chose to make the commitment and exceed our expectations as a Hebrew school student.

Each year we were able to learn more, think more, and sing more. As our singing of the Hebrew prayers progressed, we were able to help the younger kids learn them as well, which is all a part of being a Jew; helping others, and helping the community.

Being a Jew is not only about helping others when people are looking, but also helping when no one else is around. I can safely say that growing up in this Jewish community, all of us, my classmates and I, have learned that factor of life, and much more.

Eager to learn more, after becoming a Bar or Bat Mitzvah, my classmates and I all chose to take confirmation class. Each year was a little different, from when we talked about different topics, and spoke our mind, to debating about juicy events. Each class was a new experience that we will cherish in our memories.

We all make up part of that class, and we are each a piece of the whole. Although our formal education in Judaism is complete, it does not mean that the religious part of our lives is over. There is always more to learn, and the spiritual part will always be present in us as we grow.

Thank you to all of our teachers throughout the years and the best of luck to all my classmates as we move on to encounter our journey as young Jewish citizens.

And with that, we offer our congratulations, once again, to Gabi, Ethan, and Rianna, on their confirmation last month!

The State of the Congregation

From the pages of Kadima, the newsletter of Congregation Adas Emuno:

A Message From Our President

Dr. Lance Strate

The State of the Congregation

President's Report Delivered at the 

Annual Congregational Meeting 

June 26, 2014

I said it last year in my first report as president of Adas Emuno, and I am pleased to be able to say it once again this year: The state of our congregation is strong.

Now, having said that, I don't mean to imply that it is the strongest it could be, and I don't mean to deny that we have faced and continue to face some serious challenges. What I do mean to say, however, is that Adas Emuno is still going strong, we have every reason to be not only hopeful, but downright optimistic about our future, and we, all of us, officers, trustees, clergy, and members of the congregation, should feel good about our accomplishments, should give ourselves the credit we all deserve for getting our congregation back on track and keeping it there.

Of course, we should also strive to do better. We must strive to do better. That is one of the major differences between Judaism and eastern religions. We don't just sit back and accept things for what they are. We say to ourselves, to others, to the world, we can make things better. We have to make things better. That's what we are here for. That is the spirit of tikkun olam.

I want to begin by noting that our congregation has truly been blessed to have a spiritual leader of the caliber of Rabbi Barry Schwartz. Over the past three years he has become not only the face of Adas Emuno, but its heart and its soul as well. We are indeed fortunate to have an individual of his energy, dedication, learning, intelligence, spirituality, and talent to guide our community.

I should also note that Rabbi Schwartz has been exceedingly helpful working with our cantorial and b’nai mitzvah tutoring staff over the past three years. While we are grateful for the contributions of each of those individuals: Student Cantor Alison Lopatin followed by Cantorial Soloist Nancy Beller-­Kreiger and b’nai mitzvah tutor, Cantor Estelle Epstein, we must acknowledge that this fluctuating arrangement did present challenges, not only due to the lack of continuity, but also in that the duties normally handled by one person were divided up, based on individual skill sets and availability. I would, however, like to especially thank Estelle Epstein, a cantor from the Conservative tradition, for doing a wonderful job as our b’nai mitzvah tutor this year, and for filling in as cantor for some of our b'nai mitzvah ceremonies.

The challenge we faced with our cantorial position is that our budget does not allow for us to hire an ordained cantor as well as an ordained rabbi, even with both of them working part time. And while we can afford a student cantor, there are more congregations that want to take advantage of what is, essentially, a paid internship, than there are student cantors. So every year that we enter the student pool at the Hebrew Union College (HUC-­JIR) we are in danger of being shut out, and put in the unpleasant situation of having to compete with other congregations. There is also the issue of continuity, whereby some of our b'nai mitzvah students might start out working with one cantor, and finish up with another. This is not an ideal situation and it is not one we wish to perpetuate.

We faced an even more serious problem this past year regarding our religious school. While significant progress was made in regards to the academic component of our school, resulting in our students being better prepared for their b'nai mitvah ceremonies, and receiving a better education overall, there was serious concern about the atmosphere and morale at the school. Finding a way to meet the challenge became the board's highest priority during the fall and winter months. We determined that the best way to get an individual of the highest possible quality, to establish continuity from year to year and a connection between school and shul, would be to combine the roles of religious school director and cantor in one person. As Rabbi Schwartz explained to us, this type of position, referred to as a Cantor-­Educator, has become increasingly more common in congregations in recent years. Combining these roles allows us to create a more attractive part time position with a salary that is appropriate for an ordained cantor. We put in the time and we put in the effort, and I am pleased to say that we were able to find an excellent candidate for that position, an individual of great musical talent and educational experience, who was officially ordained as a cantor by the Academy of Jewish Religion last month. Sandy Horowitz will be officially joining us in July. You can read more about her on ourcongregational blog, and you will all get a chance to meet her at her first Shabbat service with us on Friday, July 18th. I am confident that with Sandy's arrival, we all will agree that we have arrived at a wonderful new chapter in the long history of our congregation.

I want to thank our Ritual Committee Chair, Virginia Gitter, for all of the work she has put in over the past year. And I especially want to acknowledge our Religious School Committee Co­Chairs, the Vice­-Presidents Michael Raskin and Elka Oliver, for their heroic efforts in managing all of the problems and concerns of the past year, and the transition to the school's new leadership, as well conducting the search and interviews for two replacement teachers over the past month. I also want to thank all of the board members and congregants who helped us with the search process for our Cantor-­Educator. Several challenges remain, especially in bringing in new children for our school to fill the youngest grades, and I want to acknowledge Doris White, who is leading a task force to deal with this effort, in conjunction with our religious school committee co-­chairs. We also need new supervision for our temple youth group.

Another set of challenges that we have been facing has to do with technology, something that we don't normally associate with religious observance and education. But our website template is no longer current, and this important interface for our congregation has been in need of a makeover in a number of ways. At the same time, behind the scenes, our database software is old, minimally functional, and otherwise problematic. To meet this challenge, we conducted a search of available information technology services, and found an affordable and effective option in ShulCloud. We are in the process of transferring over our website and data, and once we make the transition, we will not only have an improved website, but be able to use electronic billing, email Yahrzeit anniversaries, email messages with formatting and attachments, allow members to edit their personal information (e.g., address, telephone, email, etc.), and more. I would like to see us make the transition that many other organizations have to reduce the amount of physical mailings of newsletters, announcements, etc., both to save us money and provide a greener alternative. We would of course, continue physical mailings for anyone who desires them. I want to thank Mark Rosenberg for his work as a liaison with ShulCloud, and in helping to make the transition, and Howard Goldstein for all of his work on the website and his labor on the transition to our new systems, and for his service as trustee these past years. When everything is ready to roll out, we will let our membership know, and hopefully it will all work out better than the healthcare websites did for our federal government.

While I'm on the subject of our online communications, let me mention that our congregational blog continues to be updated fairly regularly, mostly by me, and I would welcome any contributions that congregants would care to offer, be it essays or short commentaries, reports on trips, reviews, poetry or other forms of creative writing with a Jewish theme, art, photographs, videos, etc. And this seems like the appropriate point at which to thank Virginia Gitter for all of her work on publicity for our congregation, and for editing Kadima, our newsletter, in addition to serving as Recording Secretary for the past two years. I also want to acknowledge Lauren Rowland's artistic contributions, including the creation of different versions of our logo for various purposes. She has also started the process of setting up an online store for us where we will make available various items to purchase, such as t-­shirts and mugs, with the lovely Adas Emuno logo (you'll hear more about that in the near future). In addition to selling our own items and Judaica designed by others online, I want to remind you that you can make your Amazon.com purchases through the portal on our blog and website, and thereby send a percentage of the profits to us.

As I mentioned in my letter to the congregation this past February, we also concluded an extended review and revision of our congregation's By-­Laws, led by trustees Norm Rosen and Fred Friedman. While this is hardly the most glamorous or engaging project, it was long overdue and much needed. Simply put, it is only right that the congregation as an organization act in accordance with its by-­laws, and if that isn't happening, either we need to change what we're doing, or we need to change the by­laws. And as I said in my letter, our By-­Laws affect how our congregation is administered and operated, and in fact make it possible for our congregation to be administered and operated. And in keeping with the democratic principles we all believe in, it is vital that our congregation be governed in accordance with the will of its membership. To this end, a special meeting of the congregation was held on March 20th, and the revised By-Laws (which were sent in the February mailing along with my letter) were approved by the membership. We also opened a discussion on the one issue that we deferred regarding the By-­Laws, concerning the rights and privileges of non­-Jewish members (neither Jewish by birth or conversion) of the congregation. The discussion was open and quite helpful, and we want to continue to hear your views on the subject at our annual meeting, and over the course of the coming year, with the goal of possibly amending that portion of our By-­Laws at next year's annual meeting.

And as I indicated in my letter, there has been quite a bit happening behind the scenes this past year. We have answered a variety of challenges, some anticipated and some not, and we have worked on some problems that needed to be addressed for quite some time.

At this point, I want to note that we remain healthy financially, with a balanced budget, as we continue to benefit from donations. Religious school tuition remains a loss leader, and rightfully so, as our school is so very precious to Adas Emuno. We are asking members to pay their dues earlier than we have in the past, or at the very least to make a commitment to do so, while never turning away anyone in need. This has not been a particularly good year for fundraising, in contrast to previous years, and we need to put more effort into events like the Talent Show from last year, and other fundraising initiatives, in the coming year. Still and all, we are doing fine financially, and I especially want to credit our Treasurer, Michael Fishbein, our Financial Secretary, Mark Rosenberg, and our Finance Committee member Doris White, for their work in this area.

All of the congregations in this area are facing demographic challenges, as the Jewish population here is decreasing, and we will have to do our best to meet those challenges. The good news is that the current situation underscores the strength of our congregation's model, as opposed to many other Reform temples, insofar as we are small, flexible, and not burdened by a high overhead regarding facilities and personnel. What we offer is not a country club (you can get that over at the JCC on the Palisades), but what people really need: community, intimacy, spirituality, education, and a center for social action.

Speaking of social action, I want to express my profound appreciation for Annette DeMarco's continued leadership as Social Action Chair. She has re­established our social action program over the past few years, and with the help of others, including Trustee Marilyn Katz, we have been fully engaged in tzedakah and tikkun olam, and this is essential to our mission as a congregation.

Some problems regarding the state of our cemetery in North Arlington came to our attention over the past year. Again, this is a problem that the board immediately set out to address by examining the exact state of our section, determining where there are problems (and discovering that they were not nearly as severe as had been reported in an article in the Bergen Record), and taking steps to remedy them. In doing so, we are fulfilling our responsibility to the generations that came before us, and also managing a resource that others may avail themselves of in the future. Thank you to Norm Rosen and Fred Friedman again, for leading the Cemetery Committee.

We continue to offer a variety of adult education programs, thanks in no small part to our Adult Education Committee chairs, again, Norm Rosen and Fred Friedman. We also have had wonderful musical events, including the return of Eugene Marlowe's Heritage Ensemble and the Yale a capella group, Magevet, thanks to the Edward M. Cramer Music Fund. Rabbi Schwartz's Shabbat morning Torah study group has been extremely popular and well attended. Doris White and I just started a monthly poetry reading that, weather permitting, is held in our lovely garden, maintained and improved upon by Fred Cohen, Michael Cohen, Rabbi Schwartz, and other Adas Emuno volunteers. On the subject of buildings and grounds, Michael Fishbein deserves our continued gratitude for all of the effort he puts in, inside and outside, and I also want to acknowledge the assistance of Virginia Gitter and Michael Raskin.

Our sanctuary, social hall, and religious school building are very important for us, but at the end of the day, Adas Emuno is not a set of buildings, it is a community of people. Adas Emuno are us, the congregation is the membership, plain and simple. I want to thank our membership committee chair, Michael Raskin, for his work in this area. As a small congregation, membership has always been our greatest challenge, maintaining enough members to continue to survive, and yet not growing so big that we lose the distinctive character that makes our temple different from every other temple. We need to continue to work on bringing new members in, to insure our survival into the future. And as the demographic challenges increase, we need to do better than we have been, in getting the word out, and in bringing new members in. One of my goals for the coming year is to undertake a full review of all of our membership materials, our letter and membership form, and the way we represent ourselves online. This can be helpful, but more important is for all of us to engage in interpersonal contact, networking, to attract new members. It takes a congregation to keep a congregation going.

It is not only the number of members that we have to be mindful of, but also their level of participation. As part of the revisions to the By-­Laws, we have expanded the size of the Board of Trustees to 18, a number of some significance in our tradition. We need more members to get involved, to serve on the Board, and to serve on our committees. Some of the responsibility lies with the membership, as more people need to step up. But some of the responsibility lies with us, the leadership, as trustees and committee chairs need to do more to encourage participation. We all have to do better at this. And as the saying goes, many hands make light work. I do want to say thank you and welcome aboard to our new board members; I look forward to working with you, and I hope you find the experience one that is fulfilling and meaningful.

The old Yiddish saying, man plans, God laughs, comes to mind when I look back at my goals for the past two years. But as the First Law of Thermodynamics tells us, the amount of energy available in any system is constant, and therefore limited. In dealing with the challenges of the past year, I have not had the chance to make good on some of my goals, and I hope to be able to do so now in my second term as president. One is to do more active listening to our membership, which we did do with our special meeting, but which we, the officers and trustees, need to put more effort into. Another is to establish a Sesquicentennial Committee, charged with taking up the question of the future of our congregation. This would include planning for the future, setting up a Sesquicentennial Fund, and simply asking and trying to answer questions like, where do we want to be in 2021? What are our long term goals, aside from simply surviving? In addition to these goals, I would also like to set up an investment committee, which also would play a role in the future of our congregation.

By way of a conclusion, I would reiterate that we were faced with a number of challenges over the past year, we have met those challenges head on, and I believe we are very much the better for it. We are truly blessed with a wonderful congregation, and it is up to us, together, to show our appreciation for the blessing that is Adas Emuno, by acknowledging our accomplishments, solving our problems, taking care of the great gift that is our shul, always striving to make it better, and insuring that it will survive and continue to be a gift for the generations to come.

Happy Fourth of July!

With the Fourth of July falling on a Friday, we can expect a Shabbat evening filled with fireworks, and we don't mean only of the spiritual variety.

For this reason, tonight's services will be held at an earlier time, 6:00 PM rather than 7:30 PM. And if weather permits, we will hold our services outside, in our garden (next to our religious school building).

And to get into the true spirit of 1776, in a Jewish way, here is a short video entitled Jews In America; The American Revolution:




 
And here is the substantial write-up on YouTube by John G. Fox:

The American Revolution gave birth to a nation with a constitution that embraced to an unprecedented degree religious freedom and liberal ideals of democratic equality. The new federal government of the U.S. was to be utterly blind to differences of religion, allowing all to vote and to hold public office. Jews had never experienced anything like it in all their 1,700 years of Diaspora life.

Previously, the Jews of North America had been sojourners—tolerated, even welcomed, in some places, but not in others. The revolution, however, had changed the social and political landscape. Jews had overwhelmingly supported the cause of independence and had fought alongside other patriots. They were partners in the new enterprise and they took pride of ownership in the new republic. Public awareness of Jewish participation in the revolution also helped win acceptance of the Jews as a part of the fabric of America.

Although the struggle for political rights at the state level would take several decades, American Jews now felt entitled to rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution and stepped forward openly to fight for them. This new sense of pride and self-assurance was already evident in the 1790s, during the debates between Federalists and Jeffersonian Republicans, when Jews openly defended themselves against the occasionally bigoted attacks of Federalist writers. 

Jews were eager to join in the political life of the nation and to be seen as completely American. They marched in parades celebrating the ratification of the U.S. Constitution. They had been part of Freemasonry, a movement to which many of America's founding fathers also belonged, since its inception in America. They served in public office at the municipal, state, and federal levels, except in a few states that still required a religious test for public office. There were some who resented the Jews, but almost every religious group in America had its enemies. By the 1820s, American Jews, although still extremely few in number, felt that they were as American as any other social or religious group. What is more, a large number of other Americans agreed with them. 

While the Jews of Colonial America supported the fight against British tyranny, one name stands out from all the rest: Haym Salomon. Here now is the Haym Salomon Doc Promo 2014 created by the the Jewish War Veterans, Department of California, on their effort to produce a documentary about the Jewish hero of the Revolutionary War:






 
And while we're on the subject, here's an interesting video entitled The Jew Who Saved America -- Who Was Haym Solomon?. Most of the video is an explanation of the symbols found on the dollar bill and the Great Seal of the United States, but there is a tribute there to Haym Salomon that will leave you never looking at our currency and Seal the same way again. The video ends with a patriotic song that is only fitting for our American Independence Day:






 

And finally, it is only fitting that we include here the text of the letter sent by George Washington to the Hebrew Congregation at Newport, dated August 18, 1790:

Gentlemen:

While I received with much satisfaction your address replete with expressions of esteem, I rejoice in the opportunity of assuring you that I shall always retain grateful remembrance of the cordial welcome I experienced on my visit to Newport from all classes of citizens.

The reflection on the days of difficulty and danger which are past is rendered the more sweet from a consciousness that they are succeeded by days of uncommon prosperity and security.

If we have wisdom to make the best use of the advantages with which we are now favored, we cannot fail, under the just administration of a good government, to become a great and happy people.

The citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy—a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship.

It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights, for, happily, the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.

It would be inconsistent with the frankness of my character not to avow that I am pleased with your favorable opinion of my administration and fervent wishes for my felicity.

May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants—while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid.

May the father of all mercies scatter light, and not darkness, upon our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in His own due time and way everlastingly happy.

G. Washington

And in that Spirit of 1776, 

we wish you and yours 

a very happy Fourth of July, 

and Shabbat Shalom!

The Rabbi's Top 10 Rabbis

We have time for another of Rabbi Schwartz's Top 10 lists from his online column for the Times of Israel. This one is The Rabbi’s Top 10 Rabbis, and it starts out like this:

Memories of Akiba and Bar Yochai this past week during Lag B’omer set me to thinking about the greatest in Jewish history. Here’s my top 10 in terms of enduring legacy (up to the 19th century). I’m not sure if any since then would crack the list; it may be too soon to tell.

And here now is the Rabbi's top 10 rabbinical list:

1. Hillel: Beloved sage, compassionate spirit and legal innovator. 

2. Ben Zakkai: Revered sage and establishment of Yavneh key to post-destruction survival.

3. Akiba: Brilliant mind, compelling life story, and martyr.

4. Sa’adia Gaon: First great philosophic mind of medieval period.

5. Maimonides: “From Moses to Moses, none like Moses.”

6. Nachmanides: Great debater, commentator, and defender of the faith.

7. Rashi: Prince among the commentators.

8. Joseph Karo: His code, Shulchan Aruch, second only to Maimonides Mishneh Torah.

9. Isaac Luria: First among equals in Safed Kabbalistic circles.

10. Ba’al Shem Tov: Founder of the Chasidic movement and anti-establishment leader.

And here are our previous postings of Rabbi Schwartz's top ten lists:

The Rabbi’s Top Ten: The Best of Everything Jewish

The Rabbi’s Top 10 Jewish Foods

The Rabbi’s Top 10 Jewish Modern Events

The Rabbi's Top Ten Israeli History Events

The Rabbi’s Top 10 Zionists


Of course, you don't have to be a rabbi to make a top 10 list, so please feel free to share your own with us here on the Congregation Adas Emuno blog.