"Loving the Stranger is hard"
(We must exercise due care)
Reading time: 8 minutes (if you get past the paywall)
Dear Rabbi Jacobs:
By Pi Day (3.14.25), I would appreciate a replacement document of the Bar Mitzvah WRT certificate my mother discarded, which will attest that I am a Jew.
This will allow me to vote in the WZC election. I know anyone can self-attest.
Is there anything you need from me to make this happen?
To paraphrase the DL XIV, you can hardly call this beggar an obstacle to kindness and generosity.
I am not angry, just profoundly disappointed in a man who buried my father and claims to be a family friend.
More importantly, in these times, it is necessary to speak without fear to leaders, even the Reform Movement's President, as I always have known I can and as I always did to his mentor—even as a teenager.
In honor of the anniversary of Socrates' death sentence two days ago in 399 BC, let me ask the questions:
Does your unrelenting gossip, or tolerance of it, weaken or anneal (strengthen) you any more than the disparity between your talk and actions?
"Loving the stranger is hard," wrote Abigail Pogrebin, whether she is from the outside or the inside. Do you agree?
the stranger with service dog
You stated on MSNBC, in an interview on the screen next to Reverend Sharpton, that your immigration lawsuit to protect the sanctity of sanctuary is:
"100%.... This lawsuit...Sometimes, we have to raise our voices in advocacy.......We understand what it means to be people who do God's work and care for the most vulnerable people in our society...We gotta stand with people who are being assaulted," [2] "People have a vision of America where we have respect for one another.... doesn't just preach it... that's the America we love.....let's walk the walk."
You cannot cherry-pick who you stand with using their public appeal as a metric. Moses and Aaron, you recall, took everyone with them, down to every animal. Let’s assume there were a few the brothers did not like in the people who crossed the sea.
I cannot remember a time in the last few decades when your words did not match your actions.
Leaders are alongside us; yours are not. You are not.
If you want to "walk the walk," first, look inside your fold.
Is it incumbent on any of us to shed light?
Understood. The words, that is. But, you don't stand next to your people who are being assaulted--either by feral antisemites or by the gossips within. You are dancing around it
Or do I understand? Never in eons have we wanted to be led by people so desirous of self-aggrandizement and deaf to the smaller voices among us. We want people who will stand next to us.
However, what to do if you dislike the victim?
What if the victims disagree with you in public?
What if the assailant is a feral antisemite and maybe also "a man of faith."
If you are not alongside us, then not so much, Rabbi Jacobs.
Your lawsuit is worthy of an amicus brief. Let the President's lawyers scribe it, but the discrepancy between your words and actions weakens your public portrayal of caring for the vulnerable.
Gossip. Words mismatching actions.
Now, it cascades.
So, let me lower the bar:
I would appreciate replacement documents for my discarded Bar Mitzvah certificate (and the unissued wedding certificate) by Pi Day (3.14.25).
This seems doable to this Wharton MBA with sub-par executive functions by Rabbis Blake and Paskoff.
Am I mistaken?
With my recent diagnosis, my destiny is even more uncertain than the rest of ours. So, I would like documentation that I am a Jew.
In the interim, Mom, mark your calendar--You may reconsider which WZC Delegate slate you want to vote for in March.
You may misconstrue this letter and others with the word "attack." This is not an attack. I have asked you nicely for two simple documents and your silence can be construed for retaliation to my opposition to having gossips represent the Reform Zionist Movement in the WZC 2025 election
This is a spirited defense aimed at annealing us because our ship still leaks at the water line. It points out contradictions in your words and deeds.
If no Reform Rabbi or lay leader within your earshot is unwilling to give you this advice, then I am confident you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool or a sycophant to advise you that keeping gossip in leadership are actions remotely disguised as being within the realm of wisdom and that their presence strengthens the destiny of our People.
"However, it was never going to be me," said a courageous lawyer to his boss this week “
I recall saying nearly the same thing to Saul Steinberg about his idiot brother in 1987. That did not work out well for me or Saul. Neither did surrounding himself with sycophants, gossip, and a stupid brother; my prediction of Saul's bankruptcy just took five years longer than my bet with his General Counsel, whom I sat with at Saul's funeral at Central.
Never in eons have we wanted to be led by people so desirous of self-aggrandizement and deaf to the smaller voices among us. We want people who will stand next to us.
What strikes me pointedly and poignantly is knowing I am facing serious cardiac surgery is the silence from the Rabbinate, even to my request for a Bar Mitzvah certificate from WRT.
The unavoidable conclusion is that you desire my demise, which implies that you know I am telling the truth, that my withheld evidence is persuasive, and that my concerns about gossip are likely not the first time you have heard them about our leadership team.
You may get your wish, depending on Wednesday's test. "It's not a zero," my lawyer friend agrees.
Still, I need a replacement Bar Mitzvah (October 4, 1968-Simchat Torah) and wedding certificate, and I deem months-long silence is a refusal, not just inept executive functions in Lancaster and Scarsdale.
One might even conclude that treating an autistic congregant with silence is an intentional and cruel tactic.
However, I prefer the explanation of stupidity over malice, as when the troopers in Charles Schreyvogel's painting below, "On the Skirmish Line," got off their horse to fight the Comanches, here, which inspired a poem.
Still, “Refuah Shlemah,” to me.
Not even a simple letter from WRT, your "alma mater," replacing the Bar mitzvah Mom discarded, seems to be within reach of your kindness, just sophomoric silence. Silence is not unintentional. Is it?
Adults who act like children should expect similar treatments. "Tit for tat" seems within the realm of your tactics, but I think we agree that I have exhausted the theory of silence.
American Jews are not trusted because Israelis think we are children and they know too many of us are gossips, and we slander each other behind each other's backs.
Interestingly, they agree that American Jewish men are worse gossips than women. It is a common trope in Tel Aviv. If you do not know this, then we know a different circle of Israeli men.
For years, this has been my family's discussion topic on both sides of the ocean.
Ironically, my mother was also the target of gossip, and I find those disparaging comments to be the bar of disqualification for a leader of our Movement, as well as by a Member of Central, which I tolerated for a decade.
More ironically, growing up in the home of a sphinx married to a gossip, having been targeted by malicious gossip from our leadership, sensitized me to slander and gossip, the same issue that compounds our harmful relationship with many Israeli leaders on the spectrum, who also know we will not send our sons and daughters to bleed with theirs.
You know much of this, but unfortunately, you won't endorse, repeat, or act on it broadly because you believe our numbers give the Reform Movement its power. You also think some of our leaders, "on the whole," deserve a "free pass."
Or, possibly, you know our weakness, and you choose to mask it.
JNF-KKL leadership disagrees with your reach for influence lies in WZC delegates. See their letter to me, which is attached. My confidential response confirms their attorney's statement.
So, your WZC Delegate slate: "Have at it."
Still, the slate highlights our major weakness: Yentas, like Mom, including one of my college classmates.
I don't see Rabbi Kolin on the Delegate List, but it's a start. I can only hope Rabbi Kolin took her knowledge of her exposed emails about me seriously. I have not received an apology. It was my opposition to Whitney Tilson's cash bail legislation, whose candidacy for NYC Mayor is supported by my former colleague Bill A., perhaps the most innovative and voluble hedge fund manager alive, that triggered Rabbi Kolin's disparaging texts and emails about me, which are not of public record. Bill A., and Whitney Tilson, two intelligent Central members, have also chosen not to be WZC Delegates.
I am making these comments because I still have high expectations of you and am confident you could meet them.
A leader's first obligation is to the people, not their self-aggrandizement. Replacing my Bar Mitzvah certificate would be a mitzvah.
Declining is confirmation.
You can signal that American Jews are trustworthy by removing all gossip and gossip from our leadership and at least considering sending more of our sons and daughters to the IDF.
Not having admissible paper documentation about other gossip may not diminish the possibility of future public exposure. My integrity and my father's distaste for evil talk and reciprocating it impede that. Central ought to preserve all of its emails and text messages on the computers and phones it pays for. Human ears have memory, too.
You have now tested the limits of my integrity.
Shabbat Shalom
(((Walter Kass)))
"Toute vérité n'est pas bonne à dire."
"Tâchez de garder toujours un morceau de ciel au-dessus de votre vie"
"I am not going anywhere, but I gotta get going."
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2. July 23, 2024: Assault video
©Philippe du Col, 2025.