Rabbi Carl M. Perkins
Cantor Jamie Gloth 
Arlene Bryer, President

A Summer of Exploration

July 8, 2019 | 5 Tammuz 5779
Dear Friends,

I hope you are well, and that you are looking forward to getting away during the summer —at least for a few days—for some rest, relaxation and rejuvenation.

I myself am currently in Israel studying at the Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. Each summer, the Institute hosts a rabbinic seminar, and I am currently one of several hundred rabbis here for ten days of stimulating learning and discussion. 

This year, the theme is nationalism . As we all know, nationalism has become increasingly influential in national and international politics all over the world. Nationalist parties are gaining in strength throughout Europe, and so-called white nationalism is gaining strength throughout the world, even in America. (I never thought I’d write a sentence like that.)

On the other hand, is nationalism necessarily intrinsically a bad thing? Yoram Hazony, an Israeli political scientist, argues in “The Virtue of Nationalism,” that it is not.
In fact, he says, at its best nationalism inspires loyalty and self-sacrifice, and it nurtures individual differences among nations, which are good things. Professor Hazony is one of the scholars who will address us at the Institute. I’m glad he will. One of the questions I hope he will address is how healthy nationalism can be disentangled from the racism and xenophobia with which it is often associated.

Speaking of xenophobia, antisemitism has also gained strength during the past few years. Note that that word can be spelled in a number of ways. I’ve chosen to spell it the way Professor Deborah Lipstadt, the Holocaust scholar and author of "Antisemitism: Here and Now,” chooses to spell it. (She explains that choice early in the book.) 
I am delighted that Dr. Lipstadt will also be addressing us at the Institute. She is an articulate, powerful speaker on a topic that should concern all of us.

Finally, how can a group of rabbis gather in Jerusalem and not focus on the great internal and foreign policy challenges Israel faces in seeking peace with her neighbors? Micah Goodman, an impassioned scholar and speaker, addresses this in his recently translated best-selling book, "Catch ‘67," in which he cogently explains how and why Israelis now find themselves in two highly divergent political camps, with seemingly so little in common. 
Micah Goodman doesn’t throw his hands up in frustration. Instead, he argues that there are concrete steps that Israel can—-and should—take today, that would ease the impact of Israel’s military presence in the West Bank and around the Gaza Strip yet not compromise its security. I recently heard Micah give a spirited and trenchant talk at the Jewish Review of Books Conference in New York City in May; I look forward to hearing him again in Jerusalem next week.

Following the rabbinic seminar at the Hartman Institute, I hope to travel to Lithuania on an educational seminar with a group of Israelis.

Jewish life, learning, and literature flourished in Lithuania from the 18th century through the early part of the 20th century. We hope to visit, among other places, Ponevezh (spelled "Panevezys" on the map above), once the site of a great yeshiva (which was fortunately transplanted to Israel in 1944), and the great city of Vilna (known in Lithuanian as Vilnius) where it is said that the Jewish community was so literate that Jews could do their shopping not just in Yiddish (the Jewish vernacular) but in Hebrew (the language of the Bible and the siddur , whose vocabulary and grammar were known well only by scholars). 

Unfortunately, Jewish life in each and every one of the places we will visit ended brutally and catastrophically. So books on the Holocaust have also, unfortunately, been on my reading list during the past few weeks. Among these is “The Holocaust of Bullets” by Patrick Desbois, a French Catholic priest who, on his own, heroically pursued the documentation of massacres committed against Jews throughout Eastern Europe.
I look forward to returning to Temple Aliyah at the beginning of August, and to sharing my experiences with all of you then or thereafter. My first Shabbat back in the shul is August 3rd. I hope I will see some of you then. In the meantime, take care, be well, and ... 

Shalom, u’l’hitraot (see you soon),
Rabbi Carl M. Perkins