Mail.Liberal-Judaism

• MadBikers@aol.com

• John Sherwood <rabjms@earthlink.net>
• johanna <rebiljo@voyager.net>

• PDZ99@aol.com

• Awaskow@aol.com

From: MadBikers@aol.com
Date: Thu May 31 19:32:51 US/Pacific 2001
Subject: Re: Homophobe

>>To call me a homophobe, as MadBikers does, is completely incorrect.  I have
>>no irrational fear of homosexuals.

>>this means that any traditional Jew (Orthodox, conservative traditional etc)
>>who accepts the halachic prohibition on homosexual behavior is a homophobe.

A homophobe is not only a person that fears homosexuals. It's also a person
that disapproves and/or dislikes homosexuals. It was made quite apparent in
the message that you neither approve of nor like homosexuals.

As for Orthodox judaism, although I fully understand Orthodox halacha, having
been born and raised an Orthodox jew, it's my belief, based on my first-hand
experience, that although Orthodox judaism defends and supports its anti-gay
policy, based on a highly controversial Torah interpretation, that it's still
homophobic to treat homosexuals with the lack of respect, decency and civility
on account of their sexual preference.

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From: John Sherwood <rabjms@earthlink.net>
Date: Thu May 31 19:33:56 US/Pacific 2001
Subject: Homosexuality in Reform literature

My very astute friend and colleague, Rabbi Eric Simon wrote, "Serious
question: should polygamists have the same rights, too?  If not, why not?  I
have yet to hear a decent answer to this."

I have not heard one either.  Let's try this one.  My response is that
monogamous gay relationships elevate the partners in the same way that
monogamous straight relationships elevate the partners.

He further wrote, "With all due respect, it seems like you are proud to be a
Reform rabbi because the movement is an activist liberal movement."

I would phrase that differently.  It is an activist movement for social
justice. Ever since the time of the pre-exilic Prophets activism has been a
Jewish stance.  In addition, that attitude is only one reason for me to be
proud to be a reform Jew.

Here is more of my "Reform pride".  I begin with the premise that rather than
people being here to serve the needs of religion, religion is here to serve
the needs of people.  Reform Judaism meets my needs. It gives me the
opportunity to shape my own Judaism, basing it on my own response to the
Jewish past, my own interpretation in the present, and the excitement of being
able to pass it on to the future of my children and grandchildren.

I am not limited by halachah.  I see it as a wonderful creative process
by which the rabbis of the Talmudic period were able to create an
intellectual bloodless revolution, destroying the authority of the
priesthood, and enabling Judaism to become a religion that was portable,
and not merely one that was restricted to a limited geographic area.  It
is a part of the warp and woof of the tapestry of Jewish history, and
enabled subsequent intellectual revolutions within Judaism to occur.  I am
a Reform Jew because its intellectual voice calls me to be creative and
imaginative in my practice, and its prophetic voice calls me to do battle
for social justice.

He further writes, "More importantly, if the above is what is good about the
Reform movement, then wouldn't the message to my children be: "marry a
liberal"?  What's the point of marrying a Jew?"

I do believe that the above two paragraphs are an appropriate response.

Shalom,

Rabbi John M. Sherwood

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From: johanna <rebiljo@voyager.net>
Date: Thu May 31 19:38:13 US/Pacific 2001
Subject: Re: Homosexuality in Reform literature

> Mordechai notes:
>
> IE halachic Judaism is by definition a phobia, a mental illness. 
> Halachic Judaism is morally corrupt to be attacked just like the KKK or
> Nazism.  A quite dangerous stance for Jews.

I'm sorry, but this is a rediculous argument.  First of all, not all halachic
Jews are homophobic.  I suggest Michael read the article on Orthodox gays in a
recent Moment magazine.  Secondly, there's a pretty big jump equating
homophobia with mental illness unless it includes the murder of the target
victim, as does (historically) the KKK or Nazism.

So, yes, if Michael is advocating halachic Jews murder gays (and I am NOT
saying he is), then it is in the same catagory as the aformentioned
organizations.  But it is not, and we all know that.

Eric wrote:

> With all due respect, it seems like you are proud to be a Reform rabbi
> because the movement is an activist liberal movement.

> Is that all there is to be proud of in the Reform movement?  Should
> politically conservative Jews find a different movement?

> More importantly, if the above is what is good about the Reform movement,
> then wouldn't the message to my children be: "marry a liberal"?  What's the
> point of marrying a Jew?

This is a very interesting question.  My favorite rabbi once gave a sermon
"Can a good Jew be a Republican?"  It was 20 years ago and a more innocent
time.  But the principal is that liberal Jews feel that Torah MANDATES them to
hold their liberal ideas just as much as conservatives believe that Torah
mandates that they hold the ideas they do. It is a matter, as Patricia Zake
pointed out, of interpretation.

Yet, it would seem that politically liberal Jews seem to have more in common
with politically Liberal Christians than with politically conservative
Jews. (Politically and religiously liberal and conservative lables are not
always uniform, of course.  One can be politically liberal and religiously
conservative and vice versa.)  There does seem to be a similarity of mindset.

So, the question about marrying that Eric asks is quite valid.  And, in fact,
many liberal Jews do marry other liberals.  Sometimes they are Jewish,
sometimes they are not.  If we're all fortunate, the non-Jewish partner
converts.

In my own case, I found a man of similar liberal persuasion who saw the
holiness that I did (and, it would seem as Rabbi Sherman and others do) in our
liberal values and we embrace them as Jews. Our politicaly liberal views are
an outgrowth and a fulfillment of our religious ideals.

Here is my question: I see holiness in the support of gay rights because their
is holiness in promoting all basic human rights.  I also see holiness in the
loving relationships of my gay friends.  Where is the holiness in repugnance?
For those who find gay people repugnant, is it the behavior you hate, or the
individual who performs that behavior?

JOhanna SMith

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From: PDZ99@aol.com
Date: Thu May 31 19:36:35 US/Pacific 2001
Subject: Re: IBM and the Holocaust

Bernard Rotmil wrote re: IBM and the Holocaust "Besides being unanimously
rejected by all major newspapers these accusations betray a lack of knowledge
of the key punch technology which were beginning to enter the business
mainstream at the time and it conveys a naive conception of the policies and
practices of the Nazi death machine."

I have all due respect for your survivor status, and I'm sure that the
Holocaust experience for you, was as you say, but please note, Mr. Black's
parents are Poland survivors--his mother escaped from a "boxcar in route to
Treblinka" ....[His] father had already run away from a guarded line of
Jews..." Upon visiting the Holocaust museum and viewing the IBM Hollerith
machine with his parents, Mr. Black says "my parents could only express
confusion.  But I had other questions.  The Nazis had my parents' names.
How?"

If you read the book you will find, as I'm sure you already know, that Hitler
was obsessed with organization.  He also was in complete control and obsessed
with finding the Jew.  He didn't have committees making decisions--he made the
decisions and they were carried out.  He did manage to establish the centers
that comprised "trays and trays of punched cards."  He also had the
"considerable manpower to keypunch" and the necessary checks and balances to
verify the data.  The centers ran full-time.  You don't need to assume these
facts.  They are documented in the book.

When you state that the tabulators were just entering the business main
stream, you are not conveying the reality of the situation.  The original
technology was invented by Herbert Hollerith, a German who worked for the US
Census Bureau.  In 1890, Hollerith won a US Census contest for the best
tabulating machine in existence.  So the technology, by the time it landed on
Hitler's desk in the 1930s, was no longer new and crude.  Couple that
knowledge with the fact that the cards and the technology were customized for
Hitler's needs, and you get quite a different machine than that used in the
United States.

Please note that Mr. Black never says that IBM caused the Holocaust, and if
people take up a lawsuit based on that assumption, then they don't have a
case.  They were right in dropping it!

What Mr. Black does say is that the Holocaust would have happened without IBM,
but the death toll would have been considerably less.  There is no denying
that we were betrayed by friends and neighbors, but it is also true that the
census data betrayed us.

I think Mr. Black brings to light much of the behind-the-scenes dealings of
which not even a survivor would be aware, unless they had done the research.
He connects over 20,000 documents to support his case, which if you read the
book, you will find quite credible.

Respectfully,
Patricia Zake 

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From: Awaskow@aol.com
Date: Thu May 31 19:35:07 US/Pacific 2001
Subject: Re: Polygamy

Eric Simon writes:

> Serious question: should polygamists have the same rights, too?  If not, why
> not?

> I have yet to hear a decent answer to this -- most, in fact, are too scared
> to confront it.  (Rabbi Waskow was the only one to venture an answer to me,
> which amounted to: "polygamy is too far out of society's norm."  If so, we
> see that Jewish values are not values themselves, but simply follow the
> values of liberal society.)

This is a very peculiar way to phrase my views. The answer was not mine, but
seem to be what Rabbenu Gershom, the Light of the Exile, had in mind 1,000
years ago when he forbade polygamy in the Jewish communities that lived in
Christian lands where it was denigrated, but left it standing among Jewish
communities in Muslim lands (where it continued into our own era).

In and of itself, polygyny does not violate halakha.  And from a purely
halakhic standpoint, I can't think of any halakhic reason why Jews would
support civil laws forbidding it.

Shalom,
Arthur

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"It is not our task as liberal Jews to complain about the Orthodox attitude or to be bullied by it, but rather to choose our legitimate path according to the inner logic and development of liberal Judaism" (Rabbi Walter Jacob)

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