By Donald H. Harrison
POWAY, California – As the aroma of kosher hot dogs and hamburgers wafted from the barbecues on the parking lot of Ner Tamid Synagogue in the early evening of July 4th, Rabbi Nadav Caine and congregational president Mitchell Freedman, each in turn, contemplated how American ideals reflect those articulated in Jewish scripture.
“The first people who ever came up with the idea of not having a king and being ruled by God as citizens was us,” said the rabbi. “Then we decided we wanted a king and God didn’t like it at all, so we had to backtrack for quite a while.” He added that his favorite Haftarah reading is the one in which the Prophet Samuel cautions the people of Israel not to have a king like other peoples, but, alas, they insisted otherwise, leading to the anointment of Saul.
Wanting a king and believing that a human can solve our problems is a natural thing to do, but is a form of idolatry, a sin for which Jews regularly repent in prayer, Caine said.
“I also think on this 4th of July that the Founding Fathers were incredibly wise about mutual toleration and freedom for all religions,” Caine
said. “I think they were ahead of their time.”
Freedman, an attorney and “alternative history author” who serves as president of the Conservative congregation, recalled that the early American presidents were quite friendly to the Jewish people. He recalled George Washington’s famous letter to the Jewish congregation in Newport, Rhode Island, in which the first U.S. President echoed the phrase “to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance” and also recalled that John Adams “was very much enamored with the Hebrew people.”
The United States has been “one of the most hospitable places for Jews in the history of western culture for the last 2,000 years,” said Freedman.
Every year since the synagogue was formed in 2005, there has been a 4th of July party because the synagogue parking lot, atop a hill overlooking Pomerado Road, has a spectacular view of the fireworks, Freedman said. “But in terms of symbolism, we really want to make sure that the people remember to cherish the freedoms that we have in this country and as Jews, especially, the freedom to be Jews.”
Freedman, son of a civics and history teacher, wrote a novel about Bobby Kennedy, A Disturbance of Fate, in which he imagined that Kennedy had
not been assassinated in 1968 by Sirhan Sirhan and instead was elected as President of the United States. “What I talk about in the book was that Bobby Kennedy was the last politician in this country who knew how to hold together what we call ‘The New Deal Coalition’ which is basically a working class coalition and be able to bring in what we used to call ‘minorities,’ which are African Americans, Latinos and women. And trying to hold that group together in a class-based analysis had very different impacts on what would happen if he became President as opposed to Richard Nixon.
“One of the more interesting trends that occurred under ‘Bobby Kennedy’s presidency’ that I didn’t quite foresee when I first started the book was the failure of the counter-culture to become permanently imprinted inside the country. And so people actually did more Fourth of July parades in he 1970s than what we saw in our time.”
I asked the alternative historian what he believed would have happened if the British, not the Americans, had prevailed in the Revolutionary War. He said he agreed with the thesis that there might have evolved one North American entity, like Canada, that eventually would have passed from British control to independent status. “So William and Kate might have visited the U.S. first?” I asked. That was a possibility, he responded. Another possibility was that a king or queen of England might have been born in the colonies.
As Freedman speculated, musician Yochanan Winston played Hebraic and popular American melodies on a variety of amplified wind instruments. Dressed in red kippah and blue starred tie, Winston’s clothing reflected the theme of American and Jewish symbiosis. This was seen in the dress of some of the congregants as well. Gerry Burstain, for example, wore a T-shirt bearing an image of Uncle Sam and a legend where the shirt was manufactured. It was made in the U.S.A., another legend of the shirt proclaimed. But Burstain also wore a cap with an Israeli flag. This was not as incongruous as it seemed, insisted Burstain, a former president of the congregation who had been raised in Petach Tikvah, Israel. “The two countries are so close–many of us think of Israel as the 51st American state,” he declared.
Some children allowed their faces and hands to become the canvases for the dual themes of American patriotism and Judaism, in particcular my grandson, Shor, 10, who had a blue Star of Dvid painted on one forearm and the American flag painted on the other. As for his face he drew a brown werewolf design, for no particular reason except that “I like wolves.” Little brother Sky, 4, chose a snake pattern for his forearm, apparently for the same reason that Shor chose the wolf design. This does not bode well for Grandma Nancy, who is something of an ophidiophobe. Come to think of it, I don’t like snakes much either — except for those that appeared with the slogan “Don’t Tread on Me” on early Revolutionary War flags.
As Sky –watched over by his great-grandfather Sam Zeiden—went by, Freedman was prompted to comment that Ner Tamid Synagogue is in the process of starting up its own preschool, having purchased for approximately $75,000 three large building modules that previously had been leased on its grounds by Cornerstone Christian Preschool, which has decided to expand elsewhere. Congregational members Joan and Paul Schauder
were the lead donors making the preschool possible, Freedman said.
“The modules are very large and have all the accoutrements needed for a preschool built in, like little bathrooms,” Freedman said.
The congregation now has 165 member families, and “we anticipate growing by a net of 20 families this year,” Freedman said.
He ascribed his optimism to Rabbi Caine, who had been serving the congregation part-time while a student, having become recently ordained and
hired by Ner Tamid as full-time rabbi.
(click underlined phrase for a sample of the fireworks at Ner Tamid)
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted at donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com