Excommunication

Although certainly an archaic idea, excommunication has a very valid foundation to it. You do something that causes the community so much harm, so much disgrace, that the only choice it has is to force you to leave. They do not want to associate with you anymore, because in doing so, you bring them shame.

I bring this topic up because perhaps Bernard Madoff should be excommunicated. If you have not already heard, Bernard Madoff is accused of running the biggest financial scam in history, with the effects costing upwards of $45 billion. I don't know much about business so I cannot explain exactly how it has happened, but in essence, he has been taking money from people, putting it into a fund, and then paying people out with that money. There has been no growth, and the company is worth very little in actual dollars. Now, with the financial crisis, people have been asking for their money back and it is simply not there. He has been scamming individuals, corporations and charities out of billions of dollars.

He has known that he is doing it. It is not simply a mistake. I do not believe that you can reach the number of $45 billion and not realize what has been going on. His greed was vast and wide spread and he targeted a wide variety of people for their money, including Holocaust Survivors. When I first saw this story break on the news, and found out that, amongst other things, he sits on the Treasury Board of Yeshiva University, I felt sick. What are people going to think when one of the biggest financial scams in history is perpetrated by a Jew? Does that help our cause? As the Jerusalem Post recently said, the Jewish community is bracing for the impact that this news will have on the world.

With regard to Israel, I always say that Israel cannot act like it is just another country. Its not. Its the Jewish State. We should have higher expectations of it than of other country's,  and it is a valid point that people around the world enjoy watching Israel get it wrong because then they don't feel as bad for doing things wrong either. The Western world afterall is based on Mosaic Law, with the 10 Commandments as the foundation of modern society. When the people who gave the world the 10 Commandments get it wrong, then its ok for others to do something wrong once in a while as well.

The same should be applied to Jews. We are a tiny percentage of the world's population. We have given the world so many things, and take so much pride in our vibrant history, culture and heritage. There is plenty of anti-Semitism in the world today, and it hurts us terribly when we hear stereotypes expressed, about money and banking, and things like that. So, when we are in positions like that, we as Jews much necessarily be careful about what we do. It is simply the way the world is, and if we are going to tell people to live by our example, then we must set a good example from the get go. 

I just quickly looked up Excommunication on Wikipedia, the Hebrew term for which is Cherem. There is a list from Talmudic Times of what would be a good enough excuse to excommunicate someone from the community, and I found this:

#14 Causing others to profane the name of G-d

How could this apply to Mr. Madoff? He is an openly Jewish man, sits on the board of many charities and trusts, and has himself been entrusted with much money. Not all the money he has been 'taking care of' has been Jewish, and it is certain that some Jewish stereotypes will be spouted as a result of this. In a sense, this is a source of shame to the Jewish community, and although obviously very few people in our community would act like this, generalizations have swept the world in many ways, and to ressurrect old stereotypes is not difficult. It would be very easy to see this as making other profane the name of G-d. (I understand that in context in Talmudic times it was more likely that this applied to making fellow Jews profane the name of G-d, but am using it in a different context here). 

The Jerusalem Post also said that the Jewish community is bracing for the impact of this story because "at least $600 million in Jewish charitable donations have been wiped out." We are a community that relies on charity and on the goodness of our fellow Jews, and for him to consciously accept donations knowing that there is no possible way for this to work out, is, in a word, disgraceful.

I am obviously angry about this, and it disappoints me as someone who has a abnormal amount of hope in mankind and especially in the Jewish community. I know that there are not many people like this, but it pains me when I see someone do something like this, that has the potential to harm our community. I know we will get through it, I know the lost money will be made up somewhere else, but when this happens, people lose a critical sense of trust. Trust is one of the most difficult things to get back once it is lost, and for this reason and others, I think that people must look at this in a serious way.

Jews should be proud not just because of our religion, but because of our history, and particularly our community. Hopefully things like this will not have any serious detrimental effect on the community, and most important, I hope people will learn from his mistakes. 

In the meantime, people bringing shame like that to the community should have no part in it. 

Please see http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1047173.html 

Human Rights Day

December 10 is an important day on the calendar that is not always given the attention it deserves. 

On December 10, 1901, the first Nobel Prizes were awarded. Alfred Nobel, the man behind the prize, is the inventor of dynamite. In 1888, a newspaper mistakingly printed an obituary for Nobel, thinking that he had died. He read this obituary and realized that he would be remembered forever as the inventor of a substance that could cause much harm to mankind if used in the wrong way. As a result, when he actually passed away in 1896, his will explicitly stated that his estate would be used to set a prize system to award those who excelled in the fields of chemistry, physics, physiology, literature and peace. He passed away December 10, 1896, and five years later, the first Nobel Prizes were handed out. Today, the Nobel Prize is the most distinguished prize anyone can receive, and according to his will, "It is my expressed wish that in awarding the prizes no consideration whatever shall be given to the nationality of the candidates, so that the most worthy shall receive the prize, whether he be Scandinavian or not."

For the last 107 years, Nobel Prizes have been awarded to the greatest minds of our times, and they have ensured that people are acknowledged when they do something beneficial for mankind.

On December 10, 1978, 40 years ago today, Anwar Sadat, the President of Egypt, and Menachem Begin, the Prime Minister of Israel, were both awarded Nobel Prizes for making peace with each other. Egypt was the first Arab country to make peace with Israel, and both these heroic men significantly altered the direction of the Arab-Israeli conflict. 

What the focus of this entry is meant to be about, is human rights, the responsibility to protect, and overall universal brotherhood, and today should be the day when we focus on these themes as fellow human beings.

1948 was a particularly important year for the Human Rights movement. 

On December 9, 1948, the young United Nations ratified the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Raphael Lemkin, the man who coined the term 'genocide' was a lawyer who had devoted his life to making people aware of the issue of genocide. His family in Poland had been slaughtered during the Holocaust, and he spent the years of World War Two in America, and Washington, speaking out against what was occurring in Europe. He knew what the Nazis were doing to the people of Europe, and he told Franklin Roosevelt about what was occurring, but was ignored.

Three years after the war had ended, his goal had finally been recognized, and the United Nations signed into existence the Genocide Convention. This Convention was designed to prevent genocide, to prevent incitement to genocide, and to ensure that the message of 'NEVER AGAIN' was inscribed into the consciousness of the entire world.

The very next day, December 10, 1948, the United Nations ratified the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a document outlining in the most basic language, that every human has rights. The drafters of the Universal Declaration expected that human rights would no longer be an issue decided by the ruling regime. They took the issue of human rights to be a global concern, and together with the Genocide Convention, attempted to ensure the the future would not look anything like the past. 

Today is December 10. 

Often, when people look back at history, they are told to understand history in order that it will not be repeated. As the adage goes, those who ignore history are bound to repeat it, and this invokes images of war, the Holocaust, other genocides, and human rights abuses which we have vowed to prevent. However, it is imperative than a reflection on our collective history does not only raise images of the dead, or make us think about all that was bad in a previous world. There was so much good that once existed, and there were people who risked everything to ensure that future generations would not take their mistakes for granted. 

It is for this reason that when we look back at history, we remember today those who stood for peace, human rights, and the general improvement of the world. Today I believe we must remember and try to emulate the actions of Eleanor Roosevelt and Rene Cassin, the primary drafters of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Nobel Peace Prize Laureates. We must emulate the actions of Menachem Begin, Anwar Sadat, who put aside personal histories in order to better the future of their people. We must honour those today who received awards from the United Nations, on today, Human Rights Day. 

Six people were awarded Human Rights Prizes from the UN today:

- Louise Arbour - Former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights

- Benazir Bhutto (posthumously)-  Advocate for democracy and human rights and former Prime Minster of Pakistan, assassinated in 2007.

- Ramsey Clark- Former US Attorney General and veteran human rights defender

- Dr. Carolyn Gomes- Director and co-Founder of the premier human rights and advocacy group in Jamaica

- Dr. Denis Mukwege- Operates the General Referral Hospital in Panzi, Congo, and has operated on countless women who have been abused throughout the continuing civil war in the region. 

- Sister Dorothy Stang (posthumously)- Defended the rights of the poor, landless and indigenous populations in Brazil for nearly 40 years, and was murdered in 2005. 

At the Nobel Prize Ceremony in Oslo today, the former President of Finland, Martti Ahtisaari, received the Nobel Peace Prize "for his important efforts, on several continents and over more than three decades, to resolve international conflicts." He has dedicated his life to peace in various parts of the world, and one need only listen to his speech from today's ceremony to understand why he deserved to win this prize. 

Today, 60 years after the signing of the Genocide Convention and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we have seen progress. Unfortunately, as is too often the case, we have not seen enough. Since the signing of the Genocide Convention, we have had a genocide in Bosnia, in Cambodia, in Rwanda and in Darfur. We have witnessed countless abuses of human rights, and the world stays silent. We have seen incitement to genocide, which is not tried by the International Criminal Court, and we have seen far too many stay silent on these issues, lest they speak out and therefore bring upon themselves the necessity to act. 

It is time, after 60 years, that we embrace the lessons that we can learn by looking back on history and those brave people who drafted that history for us. It is time that we move forward in a peaceful way, and ensure that every person on this planet is ensured the rights that were guaranteed to them 60 years ago today. It is not enough for us to reflect, then shrug our shoulders and walk on. We have a responsiblity to protect. We need a common conscience in order to ensure the safety of those who cannot protect themselves. We need to make our future better so that 60 years from today, we can truly see the results that Eleanor Roosevelt and Rene Cassin aspired for. 

What we have today is just not good enough. Let us mark this Human Rights Day with a vow that Never Again means Never Again, that every human does have rights, and that we will work tirelessly in our efforts to ensure that the responsiblity to protect does not simply get passed on to the next generation. It is up to us to act, and fulfill the dreams of our predecessors.