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Rabbi David Ellenson dies; former president of Reform seminary and widely admired mentor was 76
(JTA) — Rabbi David Ellenson, who served for 12 years as president of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and mentored a generation of rabbis and scholars as a historian, adviser and confidant, died Thursday morning at age 76.
The cause was a heart ailment, according to a spokesperson for the Reform movement flagship.
A renowned scholar in his own right — whose interests ranged from the origins and development of Orthodox Judaism in Germany to the relationship between religion and state in Israel — he was known and admired among such a wide circle of colleagues and students that the New York Jewish Week tagged him “everyone’s favorite rabbi” when he stepped down as president of HUC-JIR in 2013.
“It is impossible to overstate David’s importance to the Jewish People, Reform Judaism and to Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in particular,” Andrew Rehfeld, the current president of HUC-JIR, said in a statement. “His scholarship and depth of knowledge were world-renowned, and his humility, warmth, generosity of spirit, and deep concern for each individual inspired all of us who had the privilege to know him. I feel blessed to have had him as a friend and mentor and will miss him dearly.”
A raft of tributes flowed in upon news of Ellenson’s passing, which came as a shock even to those who knew him well. He had attended an event celebrating another rabbi just the day before his death.
“He was one of the kindest people I ever knew,” wrote Yehuda Kurtzer, president of the Shalom Hartman Institute, where Ellenson taught rabbis in its summer programs and recently joined its research center in New York as a senior fellow. “This is no small thing in general but is downright extraordinary for a person whose life was in leadership and lived in public.”
Rabbi Rachael Klein Miller, associate rabbi of Temple Emanu-El in Atlanta, wrote that she came into the rabbinate inspired by Ellenson’s writings in Jewish ethics, although “through my time at HUC I was much more inspired by the genuine kindness and engaging teachings of this Reform Movement giant.”
Even rabbis who weren’t ordained at HUC or didn’t know him well wrote of his influence and example. Rabbi Tali Adler, who is on the faculty of New York’s Hadar Institute, said she had never met Ellenson but that over the summer he had taken a few of her classes online and sent her a handwritten note thanking her. “There was no reason he had to take his time to find out how to reach me and write to me personally,” she wrote. “No reason but the exceptional kindness and love of Torah that everyone who speaks and writes about him knew so well.”
As president of HUC-JIR, Ellenson made a year of study in Israel for rabbinical students a priority, even during the violent second intifada. He also shepherded the institution — which had campuses in Cincinnati, Los Angeles and New York — during the financial crisis of 2008 and ’09. In 2009 HUC-JIR considered closing two of its three U.S. campuses but staved off such moves until 2022, when its board of governors decided to close the rabbinic program in Cincinnati and enroll all rabbinical students at HUC’s campuses in New York and Los Angeles.
Under Ellenson’s stewardship, HUC-JIR expanded the role of women on its board of governors and regional boards of advisors, according to the school. During his tenure, HUC-JIR expanded professional leadership through a variety of fellowships, and introduced new distance learning initiatives.
He also led efforts among Reform and Conservative Jewish leaders to ease the Israeli Orthodox rabbinate’s grip on religious ritual in Israel and expand acceptance and funding for non-Orthodox movements there.
Rabbis David Ellenson, left, and Eugene Borowitz, the influential Reform theologian, in 2009, on the occasion of the latter’s 85th birthday. (Courtesy of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion)
In 2018 he returned as interim president after his successor, Rabbi Aaron Panken, died in a plane crash. At the time, Ellenson had just concluded a tenure as director of the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies at Brandeis University, a position he held starting in 2015. At Brandeis he also served as a visiting professor in the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies.
Rehfeld was appointed president in 2019, and Ellenson became chancellor-emeritus.
David Ellenson was born in 1947 and grew up in an Orthodox family in Newport News, Virginia. At a tribute dinner in 2014, Skip Vichness, a lifelong friend and former board chair of the Foundation for Jewish Camp, recalled growing up a few blocks away from Ellenson and how the two skinny kids played for the local JCC basketball team. When the team won the local championship, said Vichness, the headline in the southern town’s daily newspaper read: “Upset Of The Year: Jews Win.”
Growing up in the small community, Ellenson recalled in a podcast interview in 2018, he observed “the tensions between what I would call a commitment to Jewish tradition and Jewish identity on the one hand, and a desire to participate fully in the larger world on the other.” He came to the conclusion that Reform Judaism, which does not accept that Torah is the literal word of God, appealed to him as “an ongoing narrative where each generation of Jews writes a different story in which they attempt to capture what it is they feel that God commands in their age.”
Ellenson received a bachelor’s degree at the College of William and Mary in 1969 and a master’s degree in religious studies at the University of Virginia in 1972.
He received his Ph.D. in 1981 from Columbia University, where the eminent Israeli historian Jacob Katz guided him to the study of modern responsa — rabbinic opinions that applied Jewish law to changing social conditions. Having embraced the liberal Reform movement, and after undertaking an unusually intense program of study, he was ordained as a rabbi by HUC-JIR in 1977.
Prior to his appointment as president in 2001, he spent some 30 years at HUC-JIR as a student and faculty member.
“My soul is bound to this institution and to the holy mission that animates it,” he wrote in 2013. “It has been the greatest privilege to devote my life to this school.”
In decades of scholarship, Ellenson invariably focused on the conflicts and possibilities for reconciliation “Between Jewish Tradition and Modernity,” the title of a book of essays collected in his honor in 2014.
One of the most enduring questions he posed in his scholarship, wrote David N. Meyers in his introduction to the volume, was “whether to err on the side of leniency in order to allow for a larger and more inclusive Jewish community or to hold fast to established exclusionary norms.”
In 2011, in an interview he gave soon after becoming HUC’s president, he spoke about applying his scholarly interests to the challenges of reaching Jews on the “fringes” of Jewish life.
“The challenge of our age — at least in America — is that Jews are accepted to such a degree that, unless we respond with compelling initiatives, Jews will disappear in even larger numbers in what is, after all, a voluntaristic society in which we are highly acculturated and overwhelmingly accepted,” he said.
For two decades, Ellenson served as head of the Louchheim School of Judaic Studies at the University of Southern California under the aegis of HUC-JIR. He also served as a visiting professor at both UCLA and the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, the Conservative movement flagship.
In 2015, New York University appointed him as distinguished visiting professor in the Skirball Department of Judaic Studies.
Ellenson wrote or edited seven books and over 300 articles and reviews. His book, “After Emancipation: Jewish Religious Responses to Modernity,” won the National Jewish Book Award in Jewish Thought in 2005. “Rabbi Esriel Hildesheimer and the Creation of a Modern Jewish Orthodoxy (1990) and “Pledges of Jewish Allegiance: Conversion, Law, and Policymaking in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Orthodox Responsa” (2012) were nominated for book awards by the Jewish Book Council.
Ellenson is survived by his wife, Rabbi Jacqueline Koch Ellenson; his children Ruth Andrew Ellenson, Rabbi Micah Ellenson, Nomi Ellenson May, Rafi Ellenson, a Hebrew College rabbinical student, and Hannah Miriam Ellenson, a rabbinical student at HUC; and four grandchildren.
He is also survived by the countless friends he attracted and nurtured, a hallmark of his leadership.
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The post Rabbi David Ellenson dies; former president of Reform seminary and widely admired mentor was 76 appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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It Is Time for Qatar to Choose a Side: The United States or Terror Groups
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets with Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani in Doha, Qatar, October 24, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Nathan Howard/Pool
For the sake of peace and stability in the Middle East, it is vital that the United States drastically change its relations with Qatar. Qatar has long played a double game, seeking good relations with the United States while maintaining ties — if not support — for its adversaries. That pattern appears to be repeating itself again, with competing reports about whether the leadership of the terrorist group Hamas will continue to be welcome to live in Doha.,
It is vital that the United States convince Qatar to play it straight, and cut off political and financial support for Hamas while increasing accountability.
Earlier this month, Biden administration officials claimed that Qatar was evicting Hamas from the country. But, just days later, the Qatari Foreign Ministry strongly denied those reports. Instead, Qatar said it was suspending its role as a mediator in hostage and ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas.
Yet, an Arab diplomat told The Times of Israel that last week senior Hamas officials left Qatar for Turkey, a NATO ally that also risks running afoul of Washington if it provides safe harbor to terrorists.
Amid this confusion, it is not clear what exactly is taking place: has Qatar actually expelled Hamas’ leadership, but is denying it to save face publicly? Would Doha welcome these officials back if they agree to negotiate? Which Hamas members, if any, still reside in Qatar?
Whatever is happening behind the scenes, the ambiguity of the current situation is representative of Qatar’s broader strategy to play all sides and keep everyone guessing regarding its loyalties and interests. Thus, while it hosts, and helps pay for, the largest US military base in the Middle East at al Udeid, Qatar has also provided a haven and financial support to radical groups, terrorist organizations, and American adversaries such as the Taliban, Hamas, and the Muslim Brotherhood, while maintaining good relations with Iran.
Doha portrays its refusal to choose sides as a strategic asset, not only for itself but for others as well. For example, Qatari officials have claimed that allowing Hamas officials to reside on its territory is a selfless investment in diplomacy. Qatari Defense Minister Khalid bin Mohammed al-Attiyah explained that Hamas officials would remain in Doha “not because we want Hamas to stay in Qatar, but because we want to facilitate the negotiations with the parties through the organization’s office.”
Yet, there is good reason to be skeptical of these claims of Qatari neutrality and magnanimity.
Qatar has provided Hamas officials safe harbor since the terrorist group relocated its headquarters there from Damascus, Syria, in 2012. In the following 12 years, and before Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack, there were three major conflicts between Israel and Hamas — in 2012, 2014, and 2021. Each time, the resulting ceasefire was negotiated principally by Egypt, not Qatar.
Immediately after Hamas’ October 7 attack, the Qatari Foreign Ministry issued a statement that placed all of the blame for the violence on Israel, failed to condemn Hamas, and called for restraint on both sides.
Other Qatari actions are more complicated to judge. Doha sent, and Israel allowed, billions of dollars in into Gaza, reportedly as suitcases filled with cash. The money was supposed to rebuild Gaza, improve economic conditions for Gazans, and thereby placate Hamas. In effect, however, the funds were used by Hamas to prepare for the October 7 attack, including building hundreds of miles of tunnels. Even if the intentions were good, without any accountability, Qatari generosity only strengthened Hamas.
Nor has Qatar’s tolerance of Hamas provided any results since October 7. Despite Doha hosting multiple rounds of negotiations, there has been no agreement for a ceasefire in Gaza or hostage release in nearly a year. Nor have Qatar’s previous public threats to downgrade its relations with Hamas failed to achieve results. Despite Qatari and Egyptian officials informing Hamas leaders in June that they faced arrest, sanctions ,and eviction from Doha if they did not agree to a ceasefire, the terrorist group’s then-leaders Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar — both of whom have since been eliminated — refused President Biden’s proposal along with many other offers.
It is now past time for Doha to shift its approach and take a clear side: against Hamas. As Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged in June, “if you want a ceasefire, press Hamas to say yes. If you want to alleviate the terrible suffering of Palestinians in Gaza, press Hamas to say yes. If you want to get all the hostages home, press Hamas to say yes.”
The United States is right to demand not only that Qatar expel Hamas’ leaders, but that it do so clearly and publicly. Only such an unambiguous rejection of Hamas and the loss of the haven Qatar provides might pressure Hamas sufficiently to finally accept a deal.
Qatar cannot continue playing both sides. Terrorists that kill Americans should not freely reside in US-partner nations. The United States should use every play in the book to convince them. One substantive step would be for US assets currently deployed at the Al Udeid airbase to be relocated to better-aligned US partners, such as Israel, the United Arab Emirates, or other Arab nations that are not harboring Hamas and catering to our enemies.
Qatar, Turkey, and any other nation that would provide safe haven to Hamas should understand that if it cannot side with the United States against terrorism, the United States will not side with it, and the consequences will be significant.
Lieutenant General Raymond V. Mason, USA (ret.) is the former Deputy Chief of Staff for Logistics, G4 Army Staff. Vice Admiral Herman A. Shelanski, USN (ret.) is the former Naval Inspector General. Both were participants on the Jewish Institute for National Security of America’s (JINSA) 2019 Generals and Admirals Program.
The post It Is Time for Qatar to Choose a Side: The United States or Terror Groups first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Amsterdam Mayor Lambasted for Saying She Regrets Calling Violent Attacks Against Israeli Soccer Fans a ‘Pogrom’
Mayor of Amsterdam Femke Halsema attends a press conference following the violence targeting fans of an Israeli soccer team, in Amsterdam, Netherlands, Nov. 8, 2024. Photo: Reuters/Piroschka Van De Wouw
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar castigated Amsterdam’s Mayor Femke Halsema on Monday after the latter said she should not have used the word “pogrom” to describe the violent, antisemitic attacks that took place earlier this month against Israeli soccer fans in the Dutch capital.
At a press conference on Nov. 8, after the premeditated and coordinated attack, Halsema said, “Boys on scooters crisscrossed the city in search of Israeli football fans; it was a hit and run. I understand very well that this brings back the memory of pogroms.”
During her appearance on the Dutch state broadcaster NPO’s “News Hour” program on Sunday, Halsema was asked if she would use the term “pogrom” again to describe the incident. In her reply, the mayor explained that her use of the word in connection to the violent attacks has been wrongly politicized.
“First, let me say that the words ‘Jew hunt’ have been used,” she said. “People were going ‘Jew hunting’; they asked for passports. That night and early morning I spoke to many Jewish Amsterdammers on the phone, with a lot of emotions. And what I primarily wanted to express was the sadness and fear among Jewish Amsterdammers.”
“But I have to say that in the days after, I saw how the word ‘pogrom’ became very political and turned into propaganda,” Halsema added. “The Israeli government, speaking about a ‘Palestinian pogrom in the streets of Amsterdam.’ In the political class, the word pogrom is mainly used to discriminate against Moroccan Amsterdammers and Muslims. Those were not my intentions. And that’s not what I wanted.”
When asked a second time to give a clear answer as to whether she would describe the attacks during the late hours of Nov. 7 and early hours of Nov. 8 as a “pogrom,” Halsema said, “No.”
“If I had known that it would be used this way, politically and as propaganda, I don’t want anything to do with that,” she explained. “I find that nobody benefited from this. I never made a direct comparison but said that I could imagine the feeling. And I wanted to express sadness. But I am not an instrument in a national and international political battle.”
Saar said Haselma’s comments on Sunday were “utterly unacceptable.”
“The failure that occurred on that night must not be compounded by a further grave failure: a cover-up,” he wrote on Monday in a post on X. “Hundreds of Israeli fans who came to watch a football match were pursued and attacked, targeted by a mob asking for their passports to check if they were citizens of the Jewish state. There is no other word for this than a pogrom. The application of the term ‘pogrom’ was not an Israeli invention. It was used by Dutch politicians who recognized the severity and antisemitic nature of the incident. We will never again accept the persecution of Jews on the soil of Europe or anywhere else!”
Saar noted that other Dutch politicians have also described the attack as a “pogrom,” including hard-right Dutch political leader Geert Wilders, as well asChris Stoffer and Caroline van der Plas, both of whom are members of the Dutch House of Representatives.
During the late hours of Nov. 7, after a UEFA Europa League soccer match between Maccabi Tel Aviv and the Dutch team Ajax in Amsterdam, fans of the Israeli team were chased with rocks, sticks and knives, assaulted, and run over by cars in various parts of the city by anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian gangs of men. Some attackers also tormented their victims by forcing them to say pro-Palestinian slogans like “Free Palestine” in order to avoid further abuse.
The attacks continued into the early hours of Nov. 8 and a number of the victims were hospitalized for injuries sustained during the attack. Dutch police said over the weekend that they have identified 45 suspects in connection to the attack, some of whom have already been arrested and arraigned.
Haselma said on Sunday that for two hours after the soccer game, between 12.30 am and 2.30 am, violent incidents suddenly spread throughout Amsterdam, not only targeting soccer fans. She additionally explained that she was taken aback by how swiftly Israel condemned the attack.
“We were completely caught off guard by Israel because at 3 am, [Israeli] Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu gave a press conference about what happened in Amsterdam while we were still gathering the facts,” she noted.
Ahead of the Nov. 7 soccer match, some Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from Israel who were visiting Amsterdam for the game provoked locals in the Dutch city by chanting racist anti-Arab slogans and removing at least two Palestinian flags from what appeared to be residential buildings the night before the match.
Following the next day’s attacks — perpetrated by what Haselma had called “antisemitic hit-and-run squads” — Israeli President Isaac Herzog spoke with King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands, according to a readout from Herzog’s office.
Herzog said the “events echoed dark and grim times for the Jewish people and must be unequivocally condemned.”
The king expressed “deep horror and shock” over the attack and, according to the statement, told Herzog: “We failed the Jewish community of the Netherlands during World War II, and last night we failed again.”
The post Amsterdam Mayor Lambasted for Saying She Regrets Calling Violent Attacks Against Israeli Soccer Fans a ‘Pogrom’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US Envoy Says End to Israel-Hezbollah War ‘Within Our Grasp’
US special envoy Amos Hochstein speaks to the media after meeting with Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, in Beirut, Lebanon, Nov. 19, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani
A senior US mediator said on Tuesday there was a “real opportunity” to end the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah and that gaps were narrowing, signaling progress in Washington’s efforts to clinch a ceasefire.
White House envoy Amos Hochstein spoke in Beirut following talks with Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, a day after the Lebanese government and Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorist organization agreed to a US ceasefire proposal, with some comments on the content.
“I came back because we have a real opportunity to bring this conflict to an end,” Hochstein told a press conference after the meeting. “It is now within our grasp. As the window is now, I hope the coming days yield a resolute decision.”
Hochstein’s mission marks a last-ditch attempt by the outgoing US administration to clinch a ceasefire in Lebanon as diplomacy to end the war in Gaza appears totally adrift.
Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen said on Tuesday “there are talks regarding an arrangement with Lebanon” but reiterated that Israel would agree only if all its demands were met, including pushing Hezbollah away from the border.
The diplomatic efforts coincide with an intensification of the war, with Israel stepping up its strikes on Beirut’s Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs and striking three times in the capital itself in the last three days.
The conflict spiraled into all-out war in September when Israel went on the offensive, pounding wide areas of Lebanon with airstrikes, sending troops into the south, and killing many Hezbollah commanders including leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Hochstein has tried to broker a ceasefire several times over the last year.
Hezbollah has endorsed its long-time ally Berri as Lebanon’s negotiator. Hochstein flew to Beirut overnight after Lebanon delivered its written response to a US ceasefire proposal which Berri received last week from the US ambassador.
Israel launched its offensive after almost a year of cross-border hostilities with Hezbollah, which opened fire in solidarity with its Palestinian ally Hamas after the group’s Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel led to the start of the Gaza war. Hezbollah, which wields significant influence in Lebanon, has been firing barrages of rockets, missiles, and drones at neighboring northern Israel almost daily since last October, forcing tens of thousands of Israels to flee their homes.
Israel‘s declared goal is to dismantle Hezbollah‘s capabilities and secure the return of the Israelis evacuated from the north.
An Israeli strike killed two people in the Chiyah district of Beirut’s southern suburbs, the Lebanese health ministry said.
At least 35 projectiles were fired into Israel from Lebanon on Tuesday, some of which were intercepted, according to Israeli military statements. The Israeli air force also intercepted two drones flown into Israel from Lebanon, the military said.
Cohen, speaking at a conference on Tuesday, said Israel would “make an arrangement only if all our demands are met.”
He said this meant pushing back Hezbollah, ensuring it cannot return and regain strength, Israelis being able to return safely to the north, and Israeli forces having “full freedom of action, not just in the event of an attack, but in the event they [Hezbollah] try to restore their strength.”
Lebanon has rejected Israel being granted freedom of action. Berri said last week the US proposal did not mention this.
Israel‘s campaign in Lebanon has uprooted more than 1 million people in the last eight weeks.
UN RESOLUTION
World powers say a ceasefire must be based on UN Security Council Resolution 1701 which ended a 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah. Its terms require Hezbollah to move weapons and fighters north of the Litani River, about 30 km (20 miles) north of the Israeli border.
Ali Hassan Khalil, a top Berri aide, told Reuters on Monday that Lebanon had presented its comments on the US proposal “in a positive atmosphere.”
“All the comments that we presented affirm the precise adherence to Resolution 1701 with all its provisions,” he said, declining to give details.
Israel‘s campaign has killed 3,481 people in Lebanon since hostilities began, most since late September, Lebanese authorities say. The figures do not distinguish between combatants and civilians.
Hezbollah strikes have killed 43 civilians in northern Israel and the Golan Heights, while 73 soldiers have been killed in strikes in northern Israel and the Golan Heights and in combat in southern Lebanon, according to Israeli figures.
The post US Envoy Says End to Israel-Hezbollah War ‘Within Our Grasp’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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