JustASC

Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer is the kind of teacher you wish you had for all your classes. Lively, avuncular, engaging, he can make a lot of constitutional legal theory go down easily in witty and enlightening chunks. He packed the Jewish Theological Seminary last night for a talk based on his latest book, Making Our Democracy Work, A Judge’s View. (I came an hour early and was still relegated to one of two overflow rooms. On the plus side, the video gave me a close-up view I wouldn’t have had in the main hall.)

The first half of the talk was his justification for the court’s role in American law-making. He spoke movingly of a few key moments when the court’s authority was challenged and even ignored, including by the federal government itself, as when Andrew Jackson ignored a court decision and drove the Cherokee nation out of Georgia. But Breyer finds the American story infinitely more inspiring than disheartening, Remembering how Ike sent members of  the 101st Airborne into Little Rock, Breyer said “I still get kind of a shiver” when he thinks about it.

The second half of the lecture, on the Constitution as a “flexible, living document,” was red meat for the rabbis and scholars at the Seminary and the Conservative movement, whose official history is called Tradition and Change. Clearly Breyer’s book is meant as a challenge to Scalia and the “originalists” on the Court. He understands their impulse to keep decisions free of judge’s subjective impulses. Breyer’s approach is not to ask what founding fathers would do in a particular case. Instead, he asks what values underlie the Constitution, and applies these to changing circumstances. Times may change, the law may change, but “you’re taking a value that doesn’t change.”

(That’s essentially the m.o. of the Conservative movement. I imagine, however, that there might have been some rabbinic firebrands in the room who are restless over the pace of change within their movement and impatient with Breyer’s somewhat deliberate approach to jurisprudence.)

If there was something missing from the evening it was any acknowledgement of Breyer’s own Judaism and how it may or may not have shaped his own legal thinking and career. Moderator Ariela Dubler of Columbia Law School didn’t bring this up in the short q and a that followed the talk.   

“Patriotism” has come to mean football-field size flags, Navy flyovers, and country-western songs, but I never felt as patriotic as I did in listening to Breyer. In a small aside he mentioned that he had recently hosted a delegation of law students from Tunisia, explaining to them how America came to respect and enforce even the court’s most unpopular decisions. (“You can turn on the television and see what’s happening in countries who decide their major problems in the streets and with guns,” he said.) Sometimes you need a reminder that for all the polarization and hard feeling in this country, there remains respect for the law.

I was Googling the Israeli filmmaker Ami Drozd and received the following message with my results:

The word “ami” has been filtered from the search because Google SafeSearch is active.

Police nab a teen in two of the Nothern Jersey synagogue attacks:

Police arrested a Lodi teen in the firebombing of a Rutherford synagogue and an arson at a Paramus temple, Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli announced Tuesday.

Anthony M. Graziano, 19, was charged with nine counts of attempted murder and one count each of bias intimidation and aggravated arson in connection with the Rutherford incident. He was also charged with aggravated arson, arson and bias intimidation in the Paramus incident, Molinelli said.

As I wrote last week, if in our fear of anti-Semitism we ignore all the “signs of Jewish acceptance and privilege, we end up handing tremendous power to a malicious teen with a spray can” — or in this case, a book of matches.

Wow, is all I can say:

The owner and publisher of the Atlanta Jewish Times has resigned his position and is seeking a buyer in the wake of his speculation that Israel would consider assassinating President Obama.

Andrew Adler, in an email obtained by JTA, announced Monday that he is “relinquishing all day-to-day activities effective immediately” following the publishing of an opinion column he wrote saying that President Obama’s assassination was among Israel’s options in heading off a nuclear Iran.

-snip-

In a Jan. 13 column, Adler, who is the paper’s owner and publisher, outlined what he said were three possible responses by Israel to Iran’s acquiring a nuclear weapon: a pre-emptive strike against Hamas and Hezbollah, terrorist groups that he said would be emboldened by a nuclear Iran; a direct strike on Iran; and “three, give the go-ahead for U.S.-based Mossad agents to take out a president deemed unfriendly to Israel in order for the current vice president to take his place, and forcefully dictate that the United States policy includes its helping the Jewish state obliterate its enemies.”

I don’t know Mr. Adler or anything about him. I do remember when the Atlanta paper was a good one, especially when it was partnered with a then healthy Baltimore Jewish Times, but that was years ago. I also know that the Jewish conversation over Obama, Iran, and just about any other topic you can imagine has been poisoned of late by a number of extreme voices who often go unchecked by the mainstream. I am glad to see a number of groups — including the ADL, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, and the American Jewish Commitee,  rise up to denounce this kind of obscenity.

My colleague and Jewish sports blogger extraordinaire Ron Kaplan wonders what a Jewish Tim Tebow might do as a signature gesture on the sidelines. Flash the kohane‘s split finger salute? Shuckle back and forth?

I think we ought to take our clues from American Sign Language. Imagine the seismic impact it would have if Ryan Braun were to do the following every time he got on base:

Last night we posted an oped by a regular contributor in support of the Second Amendment, and it’s already gotten almost 30 comments from gun proponents (that’s huge for us). This happened before, when we profiled a “Gun Rabbi“ who teaches marksmanship.

Last week we had a similar flood of comments from folks who wouldn’t normally visit our site, responding to an article debating the Armenian genocide.

The solution to our financial woes is obvious: We’re changing our name to “Armenian Gun News.”

A self-described “deeply secular Jew” admits that “he had absolutely zero interest in ever visiting” Israel, regarding it “less like a country than a politically iffy burden.” Nevertheless, he takes a friend’s advice and spends six days in Jerusalem. There, amid the winding streets and spiritual mall of the Old City and the hip bars and restaurants of West Jerusalem, he finds “exactly the kind of place where I feel comfortable.”

It sounds exactly like the testimony of a kid on a Birthright Israel trip, right? Instead, it is a travel article in the New York Times by Matt Gross. 

So of course, Jewish readers, including one prominent Jewish leader, reacted with their typical restraint and generosity of spirit.

“This is the only travel article I have ever read anywhere by anybody, that left me angry,” reads one comment. “Mr. Gross protests way too much about his flight from Judaism.”

“Such a sad cliche- the Jew who will run off into the arms of every other culture except his own and swears- swears!- that he has not internalized anti-Semitism and turned it into self-hate,” writes another.

David Harris, executive director of the American Jewish Committee, writes that he is disappointed but not surprised that the Times  “would find a travel writer on Jerusalem who brings some heavy-duty baggage to the topic.” And he insists (or at least pretends) that he doesn’t understand why a certain type of Jew would be conflicted about visiting Israel:

[F[or Gross, I repeat, "Israel felt less like a country than a politically iffy burden." Does Israel somehow make his life uncomfortable as "a deeply secular Jew," while those pesky Israelis endlessly deal with the messy demands of sovereignty and neighbors who aren't always ready, even after 63 years, to recognize the Jewish state's right to exist? Would his self-image and place in the world be enhanced if only Israel closed up shop?

Funny how no other country awakens in him such feelings.

That is putting a whole lot of words in Gross’ mouth. But really, is it really so “funny” that a deeply secular Jew would be conflicted about visiting a country that places on its Jewish visitors so many demands of history and identity?  As I wrote a few years back in response to a similarly ambivalent essay, some Jewish liberals have a hard time thinking about Israel not because they are lazy or self-hating, but precisely (davke, as the Israelis say) because the subject is so fraught. You don’t need a psychologist to tell you that the things we have the most trouble dealing with are those that hit closest to home.

Harris has to know this. But he refuses to welcome Gross’ journey to Israel and his mostly positive takeaways (and note, in the comments and elsewhere, that Gross is also criticized for being too soft on Israel and the occupation!), or wish him luck on his future joruneys. Instead, Harris presumes to tell him and other conflicted Jews what they ought to feel about Israel and their Jewish identity.

Writes Harris:

Actually, I was hoping for a happy ending after that kind of set-up — some realization that, as a first-time visitor, Gross had forged a bond with Israel, that would outlast his stay.

What I find so disappointing about Harris’ response is that it violates the first rule of advocacy and outreach to disengaged or unaffiliated Jews: start where they are.  Harris could have welcomed Gross’ article as an essay by a deracinated Jew who, after only six (!) days in Israel managed to overcome some of his internal conflicts. Instead, he treats him as a lost cause who didn’t feel the “twinkle” after his short visit. 

Harris could have welcomed the Times article for speaking directly to exactly the kind of traveler who considers Israel a land of blood and conflict or a New Jersey-sized synagogue. For these kinds of readers, the article offers an alternative image of Israel as a fascinating historical destination and a place of “frozen-yogurt parlors and focaccerias,” “underground” bars, and restaurants where you can have your “mind blown by a platter of seared veal sweetbreads with artichokes, cherry tomatoes and cauliflower cream.”

Isn’t this exactly the kind of article Israeli officials envisioned when they launched their “Brand Israel” p.r. campaign — marketing an Israel beyond the conflict? Does Harris think that message would have been more credible had it been written by someone without Gross’ “heavy psychological baggage”?

Yes, Gross’ lack of curiosity about the Jewish state annoyed me. But he went, and he enjoyed it — enough to tell other people about it and recommend that they go too. Let’s call that a victory, not a “shame.”

I’m getting calls from friends asking, as one put it in an e-mail, “What the hell is going on in New Jersey?”

Yesterday’s firebomb attack on a synagogue in Rutherford is the most serious yet of a series of recent attacks that included last Tuesday’s arson at Congregation K’hal Adath Jeshurun in Paramus, and spray paint vandalism attacks on synagogues in Maywood and Hackensack in December.

Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli said “there was no evidence directly linking” the Rutherford attack to the others.

This is very scary stuff, but it shouldn’t be paralyzing.   There’s a tendency to look at these attacks and see them as the snakehead of some larger movement or trend, when it usually turns out to be a disturbed male with a spray can and a sociopathic disorder. (See here  and here.)

 Local politicans, prosecutors, and defense groups are taking this very seriously, and Jewish institutions are beefing up their security drills, as well they should. 

But I think if we immediately jump to the notion that  “the Shoa started with a swastika” (and it didn’t: It started with centuries of cultural anti-Semitism, a devastating depression, and a fantastically charismatic and opportunistic political movement), we give too much power to lone-wolf maniacs. Let’s catch these guys, but let’s cool it with the “it can happen here” talk.

There is a huge response (for us, anyway) to an oped on the NJJN site by Mark Meirowitz, a lawyer arguing that Israel should not inject itself into the debate over whether or not the Turks committed genocide against the Armenians in the early 20th century. Most of the commenters disagree, to put it mildly.

I regret that we didn’t mention in the paper the author’s involvement in Turkish-American affairs, which he makes quite clear on his own web site and which we discussed in a profile of him last October.  If I had remembered, or remembered to ask, I certainly would have asked him to include that fact in the interest of full disclosure.

Rep. Steve Rothman (D-NJ) calls on FBI to investigate recent attacks on synagogues in Northern NJ, including yesterday’s attempted fire-bombing of a shul in East Rutherford:

The Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) must investigate this latest attack and the disturbing trend of hate crimes against New Jersey synagogues over the past month. I have contacted the offices of FBI Director, Robert S. Mueller III, and US Attorney for the District of New Jersey, Paul J. Fishman, to demand immediate action.

This is not Damascus or Baghdad. Residential communities, like those here in New Jersey, should never be attacked.

You mean it’s okay in Damascus or Baghdad?