Machberes: Inside The Chassidish And Yeshivish World
By Rabbi Gershon Tannenbaum
The Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim 419:61) clearly tells us to celebrate on rosh chodesh with a more elaborate meal. The Rabbinical Alliance of America—Igud Harabbonim, established in 1942, has embraced that directive as an opportunity for its member rabbis to convene and fulfill that mandate, further enhancing the ceremonial meal by incorporating a Torah conference and organizational meeting.
The ongoing Torah conferences series conducted by the Igud, presently in its 23rd year, represent a continuing source of da’as Torah, where prominent member rabbis of note deliver in-depth lectures to assembled scholars and convene to discuss and resolve contemporary issues of Torah observance. Every rosh chodesh, a member rabbi hosts a conference at his synagogue or institution.
On Wednesday morning of Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan 5776 (October 14, 2015), the Igud Harabbonim held its rosh chodesh Torah conference at the Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center, located in the East Flatbush section of Brooklyn, near Crown Heights.
It was founded in 1925 as a chronic-care facility to serve the Jewish community living there at that time. The large Chaim Albert Synagogue serves as its Jewish chapel, with more than 3,000 memorial plaques today, together with its towering stained-glass-window masterpieces. As the immediate community evolved and diversified, Kingsbrook expanded its services and programs to meet the needs of the culturally diverse communities that it now serves. In recent years, as Jewish Crown Heights expands, its minyan has regenerated and has grown considerably.
The assembled member rabbis were addressed by Rabbi Kalman Sodden, Rabbi Shamaryahu Shulman, and this writer as Igud director. Rabbi Shulman is the Igud honorary president, and Rabbi Sodden was appointed to lead the shul in 1968.
During the animated discussions, the White House’s criticism of Israel’s security forces in face of the increased terrorist attacks was reviewed. The United States is a champion, though imperfect, of human rights. However, the history of the United States reveals that it often acted in its own defense without regard to any other consideration. This is unveiled when studying Native American (Indian) history as well as the history of Japanese Americans.
European settlement, in increasing numbers, in the New World began in the 1600s. From that time through the 1800s, the total population of Native Americans declined dramatically. Historians maintain that epidemic European diseases to which Native Americans had a lack of immunity was their undoing. Though difficult to estimate the number of Native Americans living at that time in what is today the United States of America, estimates range from a low of 2Â million to a high of 18Â million. The Native American population within the present-day United States had declined to just 600,000 in 1800, and to just 250,000 in 1900. Chicken pox and measles, endemic but rarely fatal among Europeans, often proved deadly to Native Americans.
At times, diseases were deliberately spread among Native Americans in what is known today as biological warfare. A well-known example occurred in 1763, when Sir Jeffrey Amherst, commander-in-chief of the forces of the British Army, wrote praising the use of smallpox-infected blankets to “extirpate” the Indian race. Blankets infected with smallpox were given to Native Americans.
In 1830, the U.S. Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, authorizing the government to relocate Native Americans from their homelands within established states to lands west of the Mississippi River, accommodating European-American expansion. This resulted in the ethnic cleansing of many tribes, with the brutal, forced marches coming to be known as the Trail of Tears. Native Americans–man, woman, or child–off the reservation were deemed legitimate targets of the United States cavalry. Native American history is a long list of massacres.
In the 1800s, the incessant westward expansion of European settlement in the United States forced large numbers of Native Americans to flee further west, often at the point of rifles and cannons. Native Americans believed this forced relocation illegal, given the Treaty of Hopewell of 1785. Under President Andrew Jackson (1767—1845), who served as president from 1829 to 1837, the United States Congress passed the Indian Removal Act of 1830, giving authorization to the president to conclude treaties with Native Americans to move them from east of the Mississippi River to lands west of the river.
The Indians did not have a written language. They did not know how to read or write their own languages. Needless to emphasize, they did not read or write English, the language of such treaties. They signed their names with an “X.” The territories to which they were moved were inhospitable to farming, causing many to die of hunger.
As many as 100,000 Native Americans were forcibly relocated to the West as a result of the Indian Removal Policy of 1830. The relocation was supposed to be voluntary and some Native Americans remained in the East. Overwhelmingly, great pressure was put on Native American leaders to sign removal treaties. The most egregious violation, the Trail of Tears, 1838—1839, was the gunpoint removal to Indian Territory of the Cherokee men, women, and children, by President Jackson.
In 2009, ages after the expulsion and annihilation, an “apology to Native Peoples of the United States” was included in the defense appropriations act, professing that the United States “apologizes on behalf of the people of the United States to all Native Peoples for the many instances of violence, maltreatment, and neglect inflicted on Native Peoples by citizens of the United States.”
Executive Order 9066, signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942, after the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, allowed authorized military commanders to designate “military areas” at their discretion, “from which any or all persons may be excluded.” This order was used to removed 120,000 Japanese Americans from the West Coast and place them in internment camps for the duration of World War II. Sixty-two percent were citizens of the United States, and the rest were legal immigrants. No terrorist act or any other anti-American crime was committed by any of the interned. On the contrary, sons of Japanese Americans, as well as sons of Japanese immigrants, served honorably and with distinction in our armed forces. Nevertheless, for security reasons, internment camps were populated by Japanese Americans virtually without resistance and without force.
In 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. On September 27, 1992, the Civil Liberties Act Amendments of 1992 was signed into law by President George H. W. Bush. He issued another formal apology from the U.S. government on December 7, 1991, on the 50th Anniversary of the Pearl Harbor Attack, saying:
“In remembering, it is important to come to grips with the past. No nation can fully understand itself or find its place in the world if it does not look with clear eyes at all the glories and disgraces of its past. We in the United States acknowledge such an injustice in our history. The internment of Americans of Japanese ancestry was a great injustice, and it will never be repeated.”
The United States, Great Britain, and Spain, in 1815, resolved to eradicate piracy, which at that time threatened and impeded the commercial growth of nations. Tenaciously, over the span of several years, every last pirate ship was chased down and sunk, and its crew wiped out. Piracy has virtually ceased to exist since then.
Facing unacceptable challenges of terrorism, the State of Israel must resort to whatever actions are necessary to protect its citizenry. Once terrorism and the threat of terrorism are eliminated, the government of Israel may choose to graciously “apologize” for its life-sustaining decision to use extreme measures.
The Igud Harabbonim unreservedly supports the government of Israel in taking all necessary measures that will ensure that life in the Holy Land flourishes without the threat of terrorism. Our heartfelt prayers continue for those murdered al kiddush Hashem and for those wounded. May Heaven grant them a refuah sheleimah b’meheirah–a full and speedy recovery. Amen!
Rabbi Gershon Tannenbaum is the rav of B’nai Israel of Linden Heights in Boro Park and director of the Rabbinical Alliance of America. He can be contacted at yeshiva613@aol.com.
