Uncategorized
Picking a new rabbi? A new novel about a church shows how
(JTA) — About a decade ago, I served on my synagogue’s rabbinic search committee. Normally I am allergic to any activity at which minutes will be taken, but it was a great experience, thanks to the care and intelligence that my fellow committee members brought to the process. Flush with satisfaction for a job well done and probably a little full of ourselves, we even imagined other synagogues might learn from our example. We spoke about putting together a seminar, or perhaps a how-to book.
No one, I recall, suggested turning the experience into a novel.
That’s why I’m not Michelle Huneven, who this year published a novel about a church’s search for a new minister. I’ve been recommending it to anyone who wants to understand shul politics, or wants reassurance that Jews are just like everybody else, no more and no less.
“Search” is narrated by Dana, a 50-something restaurant critic, former seminarian and once-active congregant at a Unitarian Universalist church in Arroyo, California, who is recruited to the search committee when the current pastor announces plans to retire. The book tracks the search process from in-house focus groups to Skype interviews with applicants to the finalists’ “candidating week” — what you and I might call “auditions.”
Despite an unlikely premise for a mainstream novel, ”Search” is a smart, funny and enlightening book about contemporary religion, especially of the liberal, undogmatic variety that is typical of Unitarian Universalism and, well, much of non-Orthodox Judaism. It’s a worthy companion to “The New Rabbi,” Stephen Fried’s 2002 nonfiction book about a Philadelphia-area synagogue and its own search.
Huneven captures the impossible nature of a clergy person’s job, and especially the unrealistic expectation of congregations that want their spiritual leader to be all things to all people. Trying to narrow down what they are looking for, members of the search committee call out qualifications:
“‘Sermons with more spiritual depth and intellectual content,’ said Charlotte.
“‘Someone with an efficient, organized management style,’ said Belinda.”
Wonders Dana: “Who didn’t want a warm presence with a progressive social conscience, the management skills of a corporate CEO, and the work-life boundaries of a New Age life coach?”
As the Conservative movement’s Rabbinical Assembly warns in its manual for search committees, searches founder “not because of a dearth of qualified candidates but because the congregation’s expectations of rabbinic candidates is unrealistic.”
Regular synagogue-goers will recognize the tensions in the novel between the older members and the newcomers, between boomers and millennials, between theists and humanists. At one point, the assistant minister remembers when a midweek service led by a student intern began attracting a core of people who weren’t showing up on Sundays.
“You can’t have two congregations, no matter how small one is,” she explains. “It sets up a potential schism.”
Clergy searches are fraught because nearly every congregant regards themself as the rabbi’s boss. On the flip side, members grow attached to longtime rabbis, even when they outlast their changing congregations. In “Search,” the senior minister has been with the church for eight years, but remains under the shadow of his beloved predecessor, who had served for 28 years. (I was married by the “new rabbi” at my wife’s family’s synagogue, who at that point had been on the job for about 20 years.)
“Search” isn’t a satire, exactly, but Huneven has fun with the political and social winds that are blowing through liberal denominations. Some of the congregants are set on hiring a woman after almost four decades of male leadership. “But we can’t say that explicitly,” Dana warns. Another character is angling to be the head of the national church association, “though it’s not such a clear shot for straight white guys these days,” says a church consultant.
Unitarian Universalist, or UU, churches are also staunchly secular, which means the clergy don’t have to express a belief in God, let alone Jesus or a strict theology. That brings with it the paradox of choice: “Our ministers can be gay, trans, Buddhist, atheist, any race, or same-sex adoptive parents with mixed-race families. You name it,” says a member of the committee. “That’s the future. Everybody’s in.”
I would guess that a lot of liberal synagogues would love to be as open and diverse as that, but bump up against the reality that, despite a growing number of Jews by choice and Jews of color, synagogues tend to be white, upper-middle-class and heteronormative. As for theology, rare is the synagogue that doesn’t want its rabbi to “have been inspired to serve God,” as the R.A. handbook puts it; on the other hand, search committees disagree about how much theology and “God talk” they want from the bima.
And yet, even the most secular UU church or most liberal synagogue pursues the sacred in the ways they gather, worship, mourn and serve the community. As the squabbles intensify in “Search,” one older member of the committee laments that they’ve lost sight of their goal: how the search for a new clergyperson is a “a sacred task that will grow us spiritually.”
During my time on the search committee, I saw the sausage-making of synagogue life. Compromise is always hard. Even the most thorough, transparent search process is bound to disappoint someone.
And “Search” the novel can be, at times, as tedious as a real-life rabbinic search, as characters deliberate over candidates at painstaking length. But Huneven understands that holiness is not just a matter of reading from a prayer book or studying from a text, but lives in the way people create communities and choose their leaders. It’s a messy process, but if you do it in good faith and in a spirit of humility, you might end up with a pretty great rabbi.
—
The post Picking a new rabbi? A new novel about a church shows how appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
JD Vance praises Tucker Carlson-Mike Huckabee interview as ‘a really good conversation’
(JTA) — Vice President JD Vance has weighed in on the Tucker Carlson-Mike Huckabee interview that has ignited widespread antisemitism allegations as well as a diplomatic row with Arab states, calling it “a really good conversation that’s going to be necessary for the right.”
Vance made the comments to the Washington Post, which published them Friday morning. He said he had not seen the entire interview, which was more than two hours long, but had viewed “clips here and there.”
Vance is a longtime ally of Carlson, a leading far-right figure who has stirred a rift among conservatives by platforming antisemites, at times promoting antisemitic conspiracy theories himself and increasingly campaigning against Israel. (Carlson says he is not antisemitic.)
Vance’s refusal to criticize Carlson or seek to end the rift has increasingly alarmed Jewish conservatives. To the Washington Post, he reiterated what he said before when asked about Carlson and the antisemitism rift — that he believes the Republican Party should be an open marketplace of ideas.
He said he was pleased that the right has stoked “a real exchange of ideas,” even when it includes “the people that I find annoying on our side,” whom he did not specify. That exchange, he said, was also essential for electoral success.
“If you think of the Trump coalition in 2024 — and the way that I put it is, you had Joe Rogan, Mark Levin, Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson and JD Vance and a coalition of people — but to do that, you have to be willing to tolerate debate and disagreement,” Vance said. “And I just think that it’s a good thing.”
Vance is seen as likely to run for president in 2028.
The post JD Vance praises Tucker Carlson-Mike Huckabee interview as ‘a really good conversation’ appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Amid Iran tensions, Huckabee tells US embassy staff in Israel they should leave ‘TODAY’ if they wish
(JTA) — Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee has told U.S. government employees and their families that they may leave the country and should do so expediently, amid mounting signs of a possible U.S. attack on Iran.
Huckabee emailed embassy staff on Friday morning saying that if they want to leave, they should do so “TODAY,” according to a letter first reported by The New York Times. He noted that commercial flights could become scarce and urged them to accept passage to any country before returning to Washington, D.C.
“There is no need to panic, but for those desiring to leave, it’s important to make plans to depart sooner rather than later,” he wrote.
The letter comes a day after U.S.-Iran talks in Geneva ended without public breakthroughs. Iranian officials, as well as the Omani mediators, said additional conversations were planned for next week; the United States did not comment. Steve Witkoff and Jared Kusher, two Jewish advisors to President Donald Trump who successfully brokered a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war last year, are leading the U.S. delegation.
Trump has been threatening to attack Iran for weeks over its nuclear program and has built up U.S. military forces in the Middle East to levels not seen in decades. In recent days, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance have both said military intervention could be needed while saying the president continued to prefer diplomacy.
Vance’s comments were particularly notable because he typically opposes U.S. intervention overseas. He told the Washington Post in comments published Friday morning that there was “no chance” that the United States would get involved in an extended Middle East campaign.
Iran has said it would consider Israel a valid target in the event of a U.S. attack. Last year, Iranian missiles killed more than two dozen people in Israel during a 12-day war initiated by Israeli strikes on Iran’s military program. Now, Israelis have been living in limbo for weeks while waiting to learn whether a new war, expected to be more destructive, will begin.
In the past, when expecting Iranian retaliation, the embassy has warned staff against leaving population centers in Israel. Now, the Department of State has updated its Jerusalem embassy website to reflect “the authorized departure of non-emergency U.S. government personnel and family members of U.S. government personnel to leave Israel,” setting a status that means flights will be paid for by the U.S. government.
While El Al, Israel’s national carrier, does not fly during Shabbat, other airlines typically do run some flights to and from Ben Gurion Airport on Friday nights and Saturdays. Many of those are budget European airlines that have only recently resumed flying to Israel after last year’s Iran war; some airlines, including KLM, have already suspended Israel flights in anticipation of another conflict.
The post Amid Iran tensions, Huckabee tells US embassy staff in Israel they should leave ‘TODAY’ if they wish appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Pro-Palestinian activist Nerdeen Kiswani sues Betar USA, alleging far-right Zionist group violated her civil rights
(JTA) — The founder of radical pro-Palestinian group Within Our Lifetime has sued the right-wing militant Zionist group Betar USA, alleging that it violated her civil rights by putting out social media “bounties” on her and harassing her with beepers.
Nerdeen Kiswani announced she had filed the lawsuit Wednesday evening, She accused the revamped historic Revisionist Zionist group of violating the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, which makes conspiring against an ethnic minority a federal crime.
The lawsuit comes more than a month after Betar USA agreed to cease its operations in New York following a settlement with the state’s attorney general — which Kiswani’s lawsuit notes. The office of AG Letitia James found that Betar USA had engaged in a “campaign of violence, harassment, and intimidation against Arab, Muslim, and Jewish New Yorkers.”
“For years, Betar USA stalked & harassed me even offering $1,800 for someone to hand me a beeper while I was pregnant,” Kiswani wrote on X. “Last month, the NY AG found they engaged in bias-motivated harassment and threats. Still they faced no real consequences. So I’m filing a lawsuit.” She included a crowdfunding link for the suit, which has raised $4,000 in the first 16 hours.
In a statement, Betar USA called Kiswani a “terror supporter” and called the suit “an attack on Zionism itself” that “represents a serious danger to American and diaspora Jewry.” In a follow-up post on X, the group also said it welcomed a deposition against Kiswani and Within Our Lifetime, adding, “Let’s see where the money is coming from and how much you’ve cost NYC.”
Kiswani, an ethnic Palestinian born in Jordan who came to the United States as a refugee at 1 year old, has sparked outrage and accusations of antisemitism in New York and beyond with her pro-Palestinian activism and aggressive attitude toward Zionists.
“We don’t want zionists in Palestine, NYC, our schools, on the train, ANYWHERE,” she tweeted after a man was arrested for allegedly calling to eject Zionists from a subway car.
Within Our Lifetime originated as a branch of Students for Justice in Palestine before splintering off from the national group, accusing SJP of being insufficiently radical. Since then, Kiswani’s group has protested at exhibits honoring the victims of the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks; university Hillels; synagogues holding Israel real-estate events; and gatherings where speakers have praised Hamas and/or where Jews have been assaulted.
Kiswani’s prominence and activities within the pro-Palestinian movement have led to clashes with many ardent pro-Israel activists. In recent weeks a tweet of hers also prompted far-right Jewish pro-Israel Rep. Randy Fine, of Florida, to make disparaging remarks about Muslims that have led to rising Democratic calls for his censure.
But it’s Betar USA, whose members engage in similarly radical activity on the pro-Israel side, that is now facing a direct lawsuit from Kiswani. Her attorneys said Betar and its leadership, including founder Ronn Torossian and former executive director Ross Glick, had “conspired” against her “by subjecting her to a coordinated and sustained campaign of racial violence, and interference with her rights to use public accommodations to intrastate travel.”
Kiswani’s suit hones in on several of Betar USA’s common rhetoric, including the group’s use of beepers as a meme, a reference to Israel’s 2024 pager operation against Hezbollah militants in Lebanon. The suit also says Betar members “privately and publicly agreed to track Ms. Kiswani’s whereabouts, follow her, and threaten, intimidate, and attempt to assault her.”
In tweets directed at Kiswani that are still visible, Betar USA threatened to “denaturalize” the activist (after she criticized New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s condemnation of pro-Hamas chants at protests) and wrote, “We will send many more of you to meet Allah” (in reference to Kiswani calling for “the abolition of Israel by any means necessary”).
Responding to the lawsuit, Betar USA spokesperson Jonathan Levy called the group “a mainstream Zionist movement that has played a central role in Jewish and Israeli history.” Betar traces its lineage back to Ze’ev Jabotinsky, the pre-state Revisionist Zionist revolutionary, and has insisted its actions are in line with mainstream Zionist and Israeli viewpoints.
Levy added, “Calling Betar a terror group akin to the KKK is the same accusations we’ve heard calling the IDF a criminal army and labeling Zionism as genocide.”
Glick did not mention the suit when speaking to a Jewish Telegraphic Agency reporter at a different New York protest Wednesday evening before Kiswani’s lawsuit went public. He disparaged the AG’s settlement as “a lot of lies,” adding, “My position and Betar’s position is, look, we were reborn for self-defensive reasons, we weren’t on the offense.”
The Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 was also successfully used, by a group of progressive Jewish attorneys, to prosecute the neo-Nazi marchers in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017. That case’s legal victory earned broad praise for finding a creative way to hold hateful actions to account without violating First Amendment rights.
Joseph Strauss contributed reporting.
The post Pro-Palestinian activist Nerdeen Kiswani sues Betar USA, alleging far-right Zionist group violated her civil rights appeared first on The Forward.