Richard L. Tackett

Every once and while, the folks at Thousands Standing Around (aka Transportation Security Administration) stumble onto something peachy.

When is subjecting an elderly, wheelchair-bound man to an invasive body search a welcome development?  Answer: when it’s guys like this.

Cheers, Henry!  Enjoy the police state that you helped to create.

President Reagan, operating under the assumption that humor counted as political philosophy, once told a joke about a thrice-married lady searching for a wedding dress. It’s a tad risqué, but quite worth repeating because it actually betrays a fundamental truth (though not the one Reagan intended).

It goes something like this:

A woman walks into a bridal shop and is promptly met by the attendant.

“Good afternoon, ma’am…how may I assist you?”

“I’m getting married to my fourth husband, and would like to purchase a wedding dress.”

“Congratulations! Is there a particular style you’d prefer?”

“Yes, a long, white one!”

The attendant momentarily grimaces, and politely admonishes the bride-to-be.

“Well…ma’am…we usually reserve white dresses for first-time brides…ones who are…you know…pure…”

The lady becomes quite put-off by this rebuff, then counters:

“I assure you, young lady, that I’m as pure as the wind driven snow. Though married three times, there was no consummation.”

Rendered curious by her protests, the attendant decides to push the issue.

“So, what about your first husband?”

“Oh, he was such a wonderful man. But he had a weak heart, and he collapsed and died at the wedding reception.”

“And the second?”

“We got into a heated argument at the hotel, annulled the marriage, and never saw each other again.”

“And the third?”

“He was a Democrat. And every night for four years, he’d sit on the edge of the bed and tell me how good it was going to be….”

Those with a jaded sense of humor understand the moral of the story: the promises of the mythological third husband never came around. But with all due respect to the Gipper, I think he misidentified the political loyalties of that feckless third groom.

I grew up as a Reagan Republican, thinking the erstwhile governor of California was the greatest thing since the microwave. I wore Bush/Quayle buttons in the eighth grade. During the 1992 election, as an 18 year old in Little Rock, Arkansas, I took pride in the fact that I was one of a handful of my fellow classmates who resisted Slick Willie and braved hours in line at a local Baptist church to cast my ballot for Papa Bush. Ever the devil’s advocate, I stood up for Dubya during the 2000 election crises when just about everyone at the Vanderbilt Divinity School wanted to see him disappear. In 2004, I voted for his reelection as I was preparing for my first deployment to Bush II’s Great Iraqi Adventure. In 2008, I didn’t hesitate to vote for The Maverick and The Hockey Mom.

Indeed, the fortunes of the GOP in the last thirty years owe heavily to the loyalists like me. We counted on fiscal restraint, Goldwaterism, security, and all the talking point rubbish sold by the likes of Limbaugh, Hannity & Associates. Somehow, no matter how defective “our guys” were, they paled in comparison to horrors awaiting us if the Other Guys got the helm.

And what have we gotten in exchange for our fealty? Reagan quadrupled the national debt and expanded the federal government. Papa Bush pulled out the credit card and spent even more. Junior outdid daddy. Add to this the invasion of Grenada, invasion of Panama, two Iraqi wars, and a debacle called Afghanistan. Add to this a Department of Education expanded by Republican votes, the erosion of civil liberties, trashing of habeus corpus, airport sexual assault (under the rubric of the TSA), exorbitant prescription drug coverage, bank bailouts, Savings & Loan fiascos, Jack Abramoff, etc.

The GOP is obviously cognizant of the problem. Thoughtful Republicans toss around statements about the party “losing its way.” Others admit that they came to Washington to change things, only to have Washington change them. And the party handlers simply repackage the fraud with slick sounding titles to assuage the Red State masses that the Old Religion has not died. We were sold the Reagan Revolution, A Thousand Points of Light, Compassionate Conservatism, and the Contract With America. We were told that change was only an election away, Ron Paul was a kook, and the other party was the Antichrist writ large.

Conservative Republicans want limited government? Sure, as long as it doesn’t affect the Pentagon budget. As long as it doesn’t affect the banks. As long as it doesn’t shut down Guantanamo animal cages. As long as it doesn’t mean real fiscal sanity. As long as it doesn’t stop drone-facilitated assassinations of American citizens. As long as it doesn’t stop the bewildering “War on Drugs.” As long as it doesn’t stop perpetual military adventurism.

It would appear that those in search of authentic, principled approaches to limited government would do well to look here. And those looking for a credible Presidential candidate should consider this guy.

As for me, when time comes round to cast my November ballot, my thoughts will turn to that pitiful third husband sitting on the edge of the bed. It turns out that he wasn’t a Democrat after all.

He’s a Republican.

Do yourself (and this country) a huge favor: file for divorce.

Former Congressman Bob Barr comments on Troy Davis, executed last night by the state of Georgia:

Davis was convicted in 1991 of the 1989 murder of Savannah police officer Mark MacPhail. But there was no physical evidence brought to trial to support his conviction: No murder weapon, no DNA evidence, no surveillance tapes…Nine so-called eyewitnesses testified in the trial, and it was on the basis of their testimony that Davis was sentenced to death. Seven of those witnesses, however, have since recanted or materially changed their stories. The jury, for instance, relied on two people who did not witness the crime but who testified that Davis had confessed to the shooting; both have since said they were lying…With the witness recantations and the absence of hard evidence, the U.S. Supreme Court took the extraordinary step of ordering a lower court to conduct an evidentiary hearing in the case.

I’ve long harbored suspicions about death penalty opponents, especially regarding the almost celebrity-like status they seem to accord death row inmates guilty of the most odious of offenses.  But there comes a time when enough is enough, and even though I feel the death penalty should remain a legal possibility, the evidence threshold in this country is frighteningly low.  Whether Davis was complicit in the crime for which he was executed, I don’t know.

What I do know is that I’d rather risk letting a murderer enjoy a life of metal toilets in a tiny jail cell rather than kill an innocent human being.

One particularly nasty fruit of budget deficit rhetoric is a nauseating disclaimer, and it goes something like this: “yes, we need to cut spending, but just don’t touch X, Y, or Z” (replace X, Y, and Z with your favorite pet project, entitlement package, etc).  Aside from the obvious self-serving nature of such talk, this is simply contemptible for citizens of a country with a $14 trillion dollar national debt that will only continue to pile on the red ink for the foreseeable future.

More fertilizer was thrown to the fan when the ultimate sacred cow eventually reached the chopping block: military retirements.

Garnering considerable angst among members of the armed forces was a recently floated proposal to transition military retirees away from the traditional, 20 year vested pension and move towards a voluntary contribution, 401k style plan.  The logic: it would save money in the long haul and give some benefits to those who don’t pull off 20 years.

The response was instant and overwhelmingly negative, so much so that the plan was disavowed by every savvy politician.  But it’s reappeared via Barack Obama’s budget proposal.

The document calls for the creation of a commission similar to the controversial 2005 Base Realignment and Closure commission to look at broad reforms to the retirement system. In particular, it takes aim at the idea that troops must remain in the military for 20 years to receive any retirement benefits, giving “generous benefits to the relatively few members who stay.”… The move comes just weeks after officials from the Defense Business Board outlined similar plans to changing how military retirees are paid, abandoning the 20-year service target…In that proposal, the board recommended a 401(k) style plan which would allow partial payout for troops who served as little as 10 years. Officials said the move was designed both to provide a more equitable distribution of retirement funds and save money long term.

Predictably, the expected “calm downs” quickly followed the apoplexy:

But veterans groups blasted the proposal, in part because they believe changes would reduce the benefits for those currently on track to retire after 20 years or more…The new White House plan notes that “any major military retirement reforms should include grandfathering provisions that ensure that the country does not break faith with military personnel now serving, including those serving in Afghanistan and Iraq.”

I must confess a personal interest in this issue: I just celebrated my 15^th anniversary of military service, and the knowledge that a financial delicacy could be locked in place only five years from now has added no small motivation to my Army tenure.  But I am disappointed at the borderline histrionic reactions, not to mention the unsolicited emails (both in my personal and government accounts) urging me to pop off a whiny letter to my congressmen telling him to keep his hands off my retirement.  Western Europe societies are tearing themselves apart precisely because their governments (e.g. UK, France, Greece)overpromised benefits but cannot deliver.

American states like New Jersey got the clue and are facing up to the debt mammoth.   It now falls to the American public, as John Boehner would say, to lock arms and jump off the ship together.  So, yes, I’ll take a change in my retirement if everything else in the budget is fair game.  So long as a taboo atmosphere is allowed to cloud over budget talks, we have only one assured outcome: U.S. bankruptcy.

And, to the special interest group that got a hold of my contact information, one final request:  please, stop sending those damn e-mails.

Reacting to the all but defunct Israel-Palestinian negotiations, the Israeli advocacy group J Street, in a March press release, urged President Obama to seize the initiative and breathe new life into a process that is verging on the moribund:

With shocking speed, the status quo has started to crumble across the Middle East. That wave of change is headed inevitably to the borders of Israel. Violence is heating up, Hamas and Fatah are talking reconciliation, and a September vote looms at the UN on Palestinian statehood.  President Obama needs a proactive strategy to avert a crisis or violent conflict on the Israeli-Palestinian front. It is time for a Presidential visit to Israel.  We urge the President to go to Jerusalem in the coming months with a new diplomatic initiative that leads to a two-state solution and averts a September UN vote that will cause even deeper international isolation for Israel without solving the conflict.

With the (overdue) demise of Osama bin Laden creating an unexpected opening for Obama, the President is now empowered with needed dose of momentum vis a vis Middle Eastern affairs.  But OBL’s death obscured a fact that has probably escaped the attention of most Americans: the dreaded “reconciliation” between Hamas and Fatah, referenced by J Street’s March communiqué, has happened.  Conventional wisdom has it that the peace process is essentially screwed at this point, as Hamas emphatically does not share Fatah’s willingness to bargain with Israel:   

Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, said on Wednesday that Abbas could not hope to forge a peace deal with Israel if he pursued a reconciliation accord with Hamas.  “The Palestinian Authority must choose either peace with Israel or peace with Hamas. There is no possibility for peace with both,” he said.

But, not all voices are quite as glum.  Citing a Ha’aretz article that itself references internal Israeli policy wonks, it appears that possibilities for a magic act still present themselves:

An internal, confidential Foreign Ministry report advises that the creation of a Fatah-Hamas unity government in the Palestinian Authority would offer Israel a strategic opportunity. The views expressed in the paper are clearly counter to those expressed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu since the reconciliation reached last week by the Palestinian factions. The reconciliation document is expected to be signed in Cairo today…Instead of counseling blanket opposition to a Palestinian unity government the authors of the report recommend that Israel adopt a “constructive approach that would sharpen the dilemma on the Palestinian side” regarding the aims of such a government and Hamas’ unwillingness to recognize Israel.

The major sticking point in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations has been precisely the schism between Fatah and Hamas, the former governing the West Bank and the latter the Gaza Strip.  A final settlement and border agreement has always been hampered by the fact that one party, Hamas, doesn’t give a damn about recognizing Israel and is responsible for the incessant rocket attacks on southern Israeli towns.  By entering into a possible unity government, the Palestinian leadership may have put themselves into a diplomatic pickle: Israel now has one negotiating partner and, with enough finesse, can leverage public opinion to force a deal.

That’s where President Obama comes in.  He should heed J Street’s advice and plan a visit to Israel, with Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, and E.U. representatives in tow.  Upon arrival, Obama announces a dare to the Arab world: grant citizenship to your Palestinian residents and disband the refugee camps.  Using already existing funds from U.S. foreign aid to Israel and neighboring countries (with donations from the Gulf oil states), the U.S./E.U. will begin construction of multiple settlements on the 1967 border.  They will be of size, quality and scope as equivalent Israeli settlements on the West Bank and will be immediately annexed by the future Palestinian state once a peace agreement is finally enacted (they would be part of a land swap enabling Israeli retention of major settlements like Ma’ale Adumim and Gush Etzion ).

Palestinian refugees would be allowed to take up residence in these settlements, relocate to the West Bank proper, or remain in their host Arab countries where they’ve been granted full citizenship.  With proper investigation and verification, some Palestinians with bona fide ties to land within Israel proper, but who lost their land as a direct result of Israeli-Jewish action in 1948, could be allowed settlement and Israeli citizenship (I’m not talking about their children, children’s children, those who resettled due to Arab pressure, etc).  Palestinians not eligible for or availing themselves of these options receive compensation.

With the refugee proposal as a kick start, Bill Clinton heads the U.S. negotiating team and reintroduces the political settlement that almost came to fruition over a decade ago: an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip (pending the fine-tuning of borders based on land swaps mentioned above).  Jerusalem is appropriately carved out to give Palestinian control over Arab neighborhoods while Israel retains Jewish ones (as well as the Jewish section of the Old City).

In exchange, Obama makes clear that world expects the following items: complete Arab recognition of the State of Israel with reciprocal peace treaties, an end to all economic sanctions, an end to campaigns of vilification (e.g. official Arab television programming demonizing Jews or references to Israel as the “Zionist Entity”), an end to any government support for rejectionist elements within their borders, and renunciation of any further territorial or diplomatic claims against the Jewish state.

It’s time for the Arab world to put up or shut up, and Barack Obama may very well be the one who has the gravitas to throw down the gauntlet.

Excepting perhaps for Lindsay Lohan’s courtroom appearances and Jersey Shore, few things in American culture have proved as banal and uninspiring as the 2012 Republican presidential candidates.  Whether the dramatis personae still occupy the ranks of not-yet-official-but-I’m-leaning-towards-it rung (peppered with purely coincidental jaunts to New Hampshire) or have actually inched forward with that lovely institution known as the “exploratory committee,” it seems that the initial slate is starting to crystallize. 

And what are we to make of them?  One is a former governor who, albeit a decent guy and Mr. Southern Gentleman of Fox News, largely owes his political break to the indictment of his predecessor in the Whitewater scandal.  Then there’s the former Massachusetts governor, whose only consistent trait is his copiously-moussed hairdo and masterpiece healthcare deal that provokes blushing in right-wing orbits.  Finally, this motley crew is rounded out by a former House speaker with enough baggage to clog an airport conveyer belt while another splits her time between speech gigs and cheesy Alaska movies.

Levity has been added, for good measure, by The Donald. In his ever prudential and nuanced way, he’s dispatched a team of investigators to Hawaii to uncover the “truth” about the president’s birth certificate while simultaneously advocating seizure of Iraqi oil fields.

Peachy, huh?

There is consolation in the midst of the doldrums, with rumors that Ron Paul is leaning towards a bid.  And until tonight, he was the only candidate who could keep me in the Republican fold when the primaries finally roll around.  I say until tonight because another Republican with an authentic sense of genuine, non-neo conservatism has apparently thrown his hat in the ring: former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson.

He’s the Chris Christie of the southwest, a businessman-triathlete turned statesmen who whipped the New Mexico political establishment into shape:

As Governor of New Mexico, Johnson was known for his common-sense business approach to governing. He eliminated New Mexico’s budget deficit, cut the rate of growth in state government in half and privatized half of the state prisons…Johnson also shifted state Medicaid to managed care (which led to better healthcare by creating a statewide healthcare network that previously did not exist and which saved money) and reduced state employees by over 1000, with no firings. During his term, New Mexico experienced the longest period without a tax increase in the state’s history…While in office, Governor Johnson vetoed 750 bills (which is about equal to all the combined vetoes of the other 49 Governors in the country at the time ) and thousands of line item vetoed bills.

Further sweetening the pot is his genuine commitment to a pro-liberty outlook, not to mention his affinity for Ron Paul’s principled stand against the military adventurism that has so soaked the GOP for the last 30 years.  Niall Stanage of Salon.com elaborates:

“[T]he rising wing, the heartbeat, really, of the Republican Party right now is this rising libertarian element — the campaign for liberty.” By this, he means the movement centered around Ron Paul. On foreign policy, Johnson’s views are straight out of Paul’ s rhetorical armory. He asserts that “our security is not being threatened” in either Iraq or Afghanistan. In fact, he argues, America’s “actions have actually had a reverse impact on our security. We have made enemies out of tens of millions of individuals that maybe we wouldn’t have made otherwise.” 

There’s no shortage of commentators who’ve drawn parallels between Johnson and Paul, with the usual train of thought centering on the notion that the former could be the 2012 reincarnation of the latter (see here, here and here).  Why, I ask, can’t we have both?

Yes, it could be the way the Republican Party finally gets its mojo back.  Johnson and Paul could both enter the primaries with the tacit agreement that, if either wins the nomination, the other will be put on the ticket as the veep.  You’d have a powerhouse ticket the likes of which have not been seen since another southwestern politician named Barry Goldwater electrified the masses with his fiery nomination in 1964.  Only this time, the Left will not be able to paint Johnson or Paul as warmongers bent on thermonuclear exchanges: Johnson and Paul are anti-war and are intent on bringing troops home now (in marked contrast to the GOP party bosses who seem to think the Iraq war is the greatest thing since canned beer).

The mix couldn’t be sexier: one is an accomplished businessman and governor with a clear track record of reigning in excess government.  The other is a seasoned congressional stalwart of libertarian conservatism (with a huge and enthusiastic donor base, I might add.)   Adding garnish to the entree is that fact that, unlike most of the neoconservative war addicts, Ron Paul actually has a military record.     

Governor Johnson…Congressman Paul…how about it?

I’m keeping my fingers crossed…

Assessing President Obama’s political clout vis a vis this week’s tax deal, Andrew Sullivan observes:

My sense is that, just like Reagan, his entire record will be viewed soon through the prism of restored economic growth. Just like Reagan, he has now goosed the economy to bolster his re-election chances; which in turn shifts the debate to his own party’s advantage…If he can grab the debt question by the horns in his State of the Union – and reframe it, a la Bowles-Simpson, through tax reform and simplification – he will re-emerge as a formidable force.

When the 2009 elections tilted towards the GOP and brought in the likes of Chris Christie, I seriously entertained the idea that Obama would “pull a Clinton” and take a gander at the so-called “Triangulation Strategy” that worked so well for Bubba: move toward the center, co-opt the Republican congress, and win reelection.  But as the tone in the White House went unchanged (and in some cases grew more defiant), I started reassessing that theory.

That is, until this week.  Like Sullivan, I think Obama may very well have taken his first step towards a 2012 victory (provided certain qualifiers are in place).  Tony Blankley seems to share similar sentiments on a possible replay of the Clintonesque rightward gambit:

The president needs to think very hard. If he believes the best bet for the economy (and his re-election) is a full Reaganite embrace of free markets and low taxes, then he should switch comprehensively to such policies and rhetoric. He will get GOP support and such policies will become law…If he still believes in his liberal class war policies, then he might as well do what his left wants him to: attack, attack, attack the GOP and hope the economy gets better by intervention of providence or some other miraculous method.

So what does Obama do next?  For starters, he needs to carrot and stick the left wing base of his party.  He can do this by picking token fights with the Republicans on peripheral topics (i.e. virtually any social issue) while letting the House Dems know, in private, that he can pretty much get his legislation passed without their lock step approval.  With the loss of the House and a watered-down majority in the Senate, Obama may very well have the leverage to pull off the Clinton strategy by peeling off moderates like Joseph Lieberman to join Senate Republicans while cutting deals with GOP confreres in the House.

If the economy shows concrete signs of recovery with dropping unemployment and healthier GDP numbers, Obama could conceivably drain enough independent votes from Republican coffers in “iffy” venues like Ohio and Florida.  The hard Left will come home, and the electoral pick-ups in the contested states could mean Chief Justice John Roberts gets a second chance to administer Obama the oath of office.

Bottom line: most religious Jews will be snarfing down turkey and the works tomorrow.  I say most because the topic of Thanksgiving is not without controversy among halachic experts.  One of those experts viewing the holiday askance was the legendary Moshe Feinstein, perhaps the most quoted Orthodox rabbi of the last century.

At issue is the possible impropriety of Jews taking part in a decidedly non-Jewish festival, with the pious falling out on both sides.  Is it chukas ha’goyim or an innocuous expression of fraternity with our fellow countrymen?  Harry Maryles presents a thoughtful discussion of the issue, and finds in favor of the latter opinion.

On the lighter side, Jewish comedian Heshy Fried has weighed in with a guest column by fellow traveler Duby Litvin.  Litvin looks at Jewish approaches to Thanksgiving and divides American Jews into five basic camps.  Take a look and see where you fit (warning: not for the uptight or humorless).

Litvin wraps up her take on the Pilgrim feast:

And that pretty much sums up my analysis of Jews and Thanksgiving. On a slightly serious note, (just a slight one ) I think it’s time we all realize what the day of Thanksgiving is truly about. The point of Thanksgiving is a day to recognize and acknowledge that which HaShem has given us – this beautiful and plentiful country of America. A country that allows us to be as frum (or not) as we wish. A country that allows us to vent and bitch as we wish and a country that allows us to wear our peyos as long as we want. Our ancestors would never be able to say the same thing – and for that – there’s nothing “past nisht” about having a meal to acknowledge this gift. (now, if we can only not get ourselves blown up by those darn terrorists )

Nicely put.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Embroiled in a counterinsurgency that grows gloomier by the hour, and having frittered away billions of dollars (not to mention over 4000 precious souls) in a war whose rationale could best be described as tenuous, the United States was rudely reminded yesterday on what a real foreign policy nightmare could look like.  With news that North Korean artillery salvos struck Yeonpyeong Island, financial markets were left roiling as the Dow Jones industrial average took a hit and world leaders scrambled to cough up a response.  With South Korea as a strategic partner in one of the longest U.S. alliances and home to over 28,000 American service members, imagining the horror of a second Korean War is a macabre but necessary mental exercise.

And it wouldn’t look pretty.  Should Pyongyang get the first strike, the human catastrophe would dwarf anything in recent military memory:  hundreds of North Korean SCUD missiles lobbed at the South, hundreds of thousands of artillery shells falling each hour, nerve gas hitting Seoul, Japan (and possibly the U.S. west coast) targeted by long-range weaponry, and casualties in the millions.  To further compound the horror, a single North Korean nuclear strike would likely kill or seriously wound upwards of 300,000 South Koreans.

The silver lining, if you’re jaded enough to phrase it that way, would be that the good guys would eventually win out.  While North Korea would be able to inflict nightmarish conditions in the initial phases of a second war, the U.S. and South Korea would stage a hell of a comeback.  And the dilapidated condition of the North Korea’s military would go a long way in paving the way for a Washington-Seoul triumph.  One Canadian observer notes:

North Korea’s weapons are a long way from being state-of-the-art. Its air force is a flying scrapyard: around 400 Russian MiG-17, MiG-19 and Mig-21 fighters or their Chinese equivalents (all designs that first flew in the 1950s or 60s), and only three dozen relatively modern Mig-29s that are reserved for the air defence of Pyongyang. It also has around 200 ground attack aircraft, most of them equally antiquated… No modern army can survive without air cover: the ability of aircraft to kill ground targets with high accuracy and in large numbers had grown a hundredfold since the Second World War. The South Korean and U.S. Air Forces have around 600 modern military aircraft available in South Korea, and the U.S. can reinforce that number almost without limit in very short order.

Faced with those conditions, the likely strategy would have South Korea holding the homeland with the United States taking the fight to the North.  ROK soldiers would focus on stopping the North’s infantry while the U.S. would liquidate Pyongyang’s army and finish off the regime.  In the end, the war would be a disaster, writes Gwynne Dyer, “but mainly for the North.”

North Korea’s leaders are perfectly cognizant of these analyses, rendering the latest provocation (as well as the sinking of the South Korean Cheonan in March) all the more baffling.  Yet Pyongyang pulls out the violence card whenever it wants the world to take heed to its wish list: diplomatic clout, a peace treaty with Washington, increased economic aid, and the like.  And we are all too happy, it seems, to indulge the North Korean regime with coddling.  Witness Jimmy Carter’s 1994 love feast with Kim Il-Sung or, more recently, Bill Clinton’s retrieval of two American journalists imprisoned by the North on trumped up charges.

This all obscures the equally odious, but less discussed, problem that North Korea poses for a conscionable world: its appalling human rights record.  While our focus is on intrigue and international ramifications of this or that skirmish, the fact remains that the North maintains a repressive domestic scene reminiscent of Nazi or Stalinist tyranny:

The North Korean state’s control over the citizenry is maintained through a system of detention facilities, political penal labor prisons, and slave labor prison camps, modeled on the Soviet gulag system. The political penal labor colonies, or kwan li-so, hold between 150,000 and 200,000 individuals and their families (up to three generations) who have been seized by officers of the National Security Agency for alleged political transgressions… The rate of death in these camps is also reportedly high, due to unsafe conditions, overwork, and lack of nourishment. The police also run detention facilities where unsuccessful refugees, economic migrants, and others are kept and often tortured.

 Amnesty International likewise paints a bleak picture of life in the North, where the well-known food shortages have been aggravated by governmental ineptitude.  Citizens have been forced to subsist on “wild foods” like grass, seaweed, mushrooms and stalks.  In multiple cases, those ingesting these “alternatives” are stricken with severe gastrointestinal illness.

A full-scale, shooting war between the U.S. and North Korea may not be in the offing.  But this latest provocation should be the catalyst for a reevaluation of American policy on the Korean peninsula, as the one currently in place has proved a colossal failure.  The genocide and human misery so justifiably highlighted in Darfur or East Timor may very well pale in comparison to the hell that the government of Kim Jong-Il has inflicted on its own population.

Concrete proposals for a new approach to North Korea are in place, but it now falls to elected leadership to put those ideas to work.  The United States, rightly or wrongly, has been criticized for its unilateralism and diplomatic hubris over the last decade.  Perhaps our overbearing tendencies can now be put to good use in northeast Asia.  And it’s high time for us to put the power and prestige of our republic to work on behalf of the victims of what perhaps will be remembered as one of the greatest human rights disasters in modern history.

Part of last month’s visit to Chicago was my own personal goal to eat my way out of the city.  The Windy City proved equal to the task, and my quest for good, kosher noshing led me to Ken’s Diner.  Located in Skokie, the de facto epicenter of Chicagoland Jewish life, Ken’s serves up an assortment of delectable fast-food entrees in a decidedly Happy Days environment.

Those who frequent kosher restaurants are used to the Judaica-themed advertisements and handbills often found on the premises.  You’ll find everything posted from Hebrew language lessons, synagogue events, job openings (or job searches), and the like.  But after wolfing down my burger and fries, one flier caught my attention: a Skokie shul was hosting a talk by Sara Hurwitz, the first woman to received Orthodox Jewish ordination.

Ordination?  Okay, that depends on who you ask and how you phrase the question.

Ms Hurwitz, a South African native, recently completed an intensive program of study leading to the mastery of classic Jewish legal texts.  The venue for this endeavor was Yeshivat Maharat, an institution dedicated to the empowerment of women to assume leadership positions within the Jewish community:

Yeshivat Maharat accepts women as students who self-identify as Orthodox and want to serve the Jewish community in a spiritual leadership position. YM has an Open Orthodox philosophy. This includes a religious worldview rejecting the approach of relying on a small group of scholars to decide all social and political matters; a belief that all knowledge is part of a sacred world so secular culture and knowledge should be embraced; open support for the modern State of Israel; expanded roles for women; pluralism and the importance of political activism. Yeshivat Maharat admits students of any race, color, national, and ethnic origin.

After finishing the program and participating in a widely-covered conferral ceremony, Ms Hurwitz took her place on the rabbinic staff at the Bronx-based Hebrew Institute of Riverdale. While carrying out her day-to-day responsibilities in teaching, counseling and other pastoral tasks, her promotion within the Orthodox Jewish “hierarchy” touched off a whirlwind in the Jewish world.  For their part, Orthodox Jewish feminists were clearly delighted as were their fellow travelers (both female and male).

Others weren’t so thrilled.  Agudath Israel, a decidedly right-wing institution within the spectrum of American Orthodoxy, pulled no punches: “These developments represent a radical and dangerous departure from Jewish tradition,” Agudath declared “and must be condemned in the strongest terms.”  Clearly wishing to up the ante, Agudath took things a step further by stating “[a]ny congregation with a woman in a rabbinical position of any sort cannot be considered Orthodox.”  A Teaneck, NJ based rabbi was equally livid as he opined that “[t]hose who seek to infiltrate the Torah with the three pillars of modern Western life—feminism, egalitarianism, and humanism—corrupt the Torah, cheapen the word of G-d.”

A not-so-small detail in this whole saga is what precise title Sara Hurwitz would use.  Originally, the honorific maharat would denote the newly-conferred authority that Hurwitz earned through her demonstrated proficiency:

In early 2009, she completed the same coursework and exams required of male rabbinic candidates. The idea of ordaining a woman rabbi is highly controversial in Orthodox communities, so the title “maharat” was created on her behalf. It was derived from the acronym for “manhiga,” “hilchatit,” “ruchanit” and “toranit,” loosely translating to mean a leader in religious law and spiritual matters. The term, however, did not catch on.

Not only did the title “not catch on,” it backfired:

“[M]aharat” was unclear, and in some cases it was used disrespectfully. It was also problematic because outside of the Hebrew Institute, no one knew what it meant. Hurwitz explains, “It became difficult to function as a rabbi and do rabbinic duties. When I walked into a funeral home, it was easier to say ‘rabbi’ than explain what a maharat is and go through the whole discussion.”

Wanting to jettison the cumbersome maharat while choosing a title befitting the unique circumstances, it was decided that the title rabba would be substituted.  While the latter term is obviously clear and bereft of the former’s puzzling etymology, it, not surprisingly, added fuel to the fire that had already started.  After all, what word does rabba sound like?

The whole fracas over Sara Hurwitz’ journey points to a bigger friction: the conflict between the American Orthodox Jewish establishment and the man behind all of this: Rabbi Avi Weiss.

An Orthodox rabbi, Weiss has forged a new breed of traditional Judaism that invigorates some and frightens others.  It’s a Judaism that is at once very traditional: strict Shabbos observance, prayer three times a day, and adherence to the whole corpus of Jewish dietary laws (kashrus).  It also embraces a militant activism that one does not normally associate with religious Jews who stereotypically spend all their waking moments in synagogues praying and poring over religious texts.  New York Magazine explains:

Though described by his congregants as soft-spoken and gentle, he has, over the past three decades, built a career out of confrontation. He is known for his unrelenting political activism, championing causes from Soviet Jewry to clemency for Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard. Few can keep track of the number of times he’s been arrested, threatened, and lambasted. Within the Orthodox community, Weiss has been equally disruptive, agitating for what he calls an “open Orthodoxy,” which he believes can be inclusive without breaching the tradition’s stringent parameters…In 1989, during a controversy over a convent at the site of Auschwitz, Weiss climbed the fence in protest, and was beaten by Polish workers and dragged out by police. He repeatedly faulted Mayor David Dinkins for doing too little to protect Jews during the Crown Heights conflagration, at one point carrying a coffin to Gracie Mansion. He shouted down President Carter at a Queens synagogue; chased accused Nazi war criminal Kurt Waldheim around the world; and held up a sign next to David Duke’s face that read nazi of the ’90s.

Outside of high profile political involvement, Weiss has been particularly interested in expanding the roles of women within contemporary Orthodox Jewish practice.  As such, he has been open to innovations in liturgy that raise the eyebrows of more traditionalist brethren.  He was an early endorser of women’s tefillah groups, allowing females to conduct prayer services otherwise reserved to men (excepting those prayers that absolutely cannot be conducted without a minyan of 10 Jewish adult males).  Further incensing critics, Weiss allowed women to lead the traditional, Friday night Kabbalat Shabbat service at his Riverdale congregation.  

Enter Sara Hurwitz, whose ordination and installation on the HIR’s rabbinic team has proved no small source of frustration for Weiss’ critics.  After an apparent agreement with the Rabbinical Council of America (the most prominent Modern Orthodox institution in North America, of which Weiss is a member), Hurwitz will apparently retain the title of rabba while Weiss will stand down on issuing such titles to future graduates of Yeshivat Maharat.  Accompanying that truce has been a slight lowering of the temperature on the whole Avi Weiss issue.

In my own congregation, both the rabbi and assistant rabbi are protégés of Rabbi Weiss.  Both are thoroughly dedicated to Torah Judaism and are uncompromising when it comes to matters of Jewish law and practice.  Thus, I think readers will understand my reluctance to share in the Avi Weiss trashing that seems to be in vogue.  At the same time, the prospect for a rupture within the Orthodox community cannot be dismissed or taken lightly.

When all is said and done, a rapprochement between Weiss and his critics is the only acceptable outcome.  For all of his open and prolific detractors, the activist rabbi has his quiet supporters in the very congregations and institutions whose leaders generally view the Riverdale Rabbi in a negative light (how else is Ms Hurwitz getting invitations to do the lecture circuit?).  Avi Weiss’ rabbinical school, Yeshivat Chovevei Torah  is producing new, young rabbis who are quickly snatched up by Orthodox congregations eager for an infusion of fresh blood and new ideas among their clerical leadership.  Would it be wise, for Weiss’ institutional critics, to prolong this battle as his students gobble up more and more Orthodox pulpits?

At the same time, is it to Rabbi Weiss’ advantage to maintain the status quo of less-than-harmonious relations with mainstream Orthodox bodies?  Organizations like the Rabbinical Council of America carry enormous clout, and the ability for Weiss to extend the reach of his enormous personal and congregational talent beyond the confines of Riverdale will be hampered by continued strife.

Under no circumstances do I imagine myself qualified to propose even the outline of a permanent solution, whether to the particulars of Sara Hurwitz’s role at HIR or Rabbi Weiss’ other halachic positions.  The intricacies of the weekly Torah portion, as well as elementary Hebrew, are more than enough to occupy my Jewish learning.

In the meantime, however, I will surely make a return trip to Skokie.  Ken’s Diner has some awesome burgers…