Word: rabbi
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...Religion is what drives the man," says Rabbi Barry Freundel, Lieberman's spiritual adviser in Washington. "His religious values shape the way he functions as a Senator." But if Lieberman possesses the tragic sense that's one of Judaism's hard-earned cultural gifts to Western civilization, he has managed to subordinate it to an all-American contentment. "I grew up in a multiethnic, multiracial, multireligious community, and I was lucky," Lieberman told TIME last week. "I cannot remember a single instance of anti-Semitism in my youth. That undoubtedly is why I'm so optimistic about the country...
...identity may explain why commentators have had such a hard time pinning Lieberman down ideologically. Within hours, Gore was said variously to be moving towards the center with his selection and to be placating his party's left-wing base. The senator's record has inspired very different interpretations. Rabbi Michael Lerner, the editor of Tikkun magazine, groused that Lieberman was "bad for the Jews and bad for America" because of his conservative stances on school vouchers and Social Security and his hawkish enthusiasm for the military. And Lieberman is unquestionably conservative--for an ethnic Jew. Meanwhile, some Orthodox Jews...
Nobody but a rabbi would have dared describe the 6 million Jews murdered in the Holocaust as the reincarnated souls of Jewish sinners. Ultra-Orthodox Rabbi Ovadia Yosef did just that last weekend, bringing down a rain of criticism. But although his controversial remarks speak to the theological dilemma the Holocaust poses for ultra-Orthodox Jews, they are also an eloquent comment on the depth of tribal enmity among the citizens of the Jewish state. Iraqi-born Rabbi Yosef is also the spiritual leader of Israel's third largest party, Shas, an ultra-Orthodox party representing Sephardic Jews, who immigrated...
...Sephardim, it continues to suffer their ire. Shas recently bolted Prime Minister Ehud Barak's coalition, and last week helped defeat his nominee for president - the ur-Ashkenazi Shimon Peres - instead electing an Iranian-born legislator from the opposition. But the contempt for European Jewry implied by Rabbi Yosef's depiction of Holocaust victims signals a new low, and the fact that it came as part of a sermon castigating Barak's peacemaking efforts and characterizing all Arabs as "cursed evildoers" will only fuel the controversy...
...Rabbi Yosef appeared to recant Monday, telling Israeli TV that his comments had been intended as a theological explanation of the Holocaust, but that he believed that all 6 million killed "were holy and pure and complete saints." But the impact of his original remarks won't be that easily reversed. The Holocaust remains the single defining event in Israel's conception of its nationhood, with the Yad Vashem museum the obligatory starting point for any visiting head of state. Against that backdrop, the rabbi's remarks are a telling sign of the depth of division Israel will confront even...