I wwas spending my five free minutes on Facebook when I saw my younger daughter’s posting. “Seriously? This is embarrassing…” She was referring to the July 14 article in the Forward, “Donald Trump Taps Ivanka’s Rabbi Haskel Lookstein for GOP Convention.”
Our daughter had attended Ramaz High School, also known as the Joseph H. Lookstein Upper School, named after Rabbi Haskel Lookstein’s father. Our family had chosen the school for our younger daughter, based on the principles which were recounted in our first visit there. They were a place, they said, that stood for “K’vod Habriyut,” or respect for the dignity of each individual. They encouraged their students not only to pursue academic excellence, but also “midot,” good character. Their goal, they said, was for their students to become “menschen” individuals who knew the difference between right and wrong and would stand up, despite obstacles, for what was right.
Checking on the website just now, I see they currently claim to foster “intellectual honesty, a spirit of objectivity, respect for diversity of views, as well as the equality and dignity of all people.”
And so it is particularly painful to see that the man who had been our daughter’s high school principal, the respected Rabbi Haskel Lookstein, has agreed to give the invocation at the upcoming Republican National Convention. Yes, I know that he is the rabbi for Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner. And yes, I know that he was the rabbi who supervised the conversion process for Ivanka. I am glad if they have developed a close and meaningful spiritual relationship.
But I feel both shock and shame that this incredibly intelligent Jewish leader would choose to promote a candidate whose major speeches are filled with one of the cardinal transgressions of Judaism, that is promoting causeless hatred, known in Hebrew as “sinat chinam.” Trump’s own words portray an attitude towards women, minorities, Muslims, the disabled and immigrants which show flagrant disdain and contempt, certainly not the respect and dignity that Rabbi Lookstein himself has taught as the aspiration of Judaism.
If Nechama Liss-Levinson has paid any attention to Torah and to the siddur (Jewish prayer book), she would know that there’s nothing Donald Trump has said that is more shocking and divisive than what the Jewish tradition has long taken for granted (such as that women cannot be witnesses, the falseness of non-Jewish religions, that Jews are God’s Chosen People, etc).
Higher education (outside of vocational training and the natural sciences) tends to develop traits in the Jewess such as hysteria that would be better repressed. Sad!
Western civilization started going downhill once women were given the right to vote.
