By Michael Regenstreif
I spent much of the day, January 8, glued to the non-stop cable news coverage of the terrible mass shooting in Tucson, Arizona. A seemingly deranged young man walked up to U.S. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who was hosting a routine meet-and-greet for constituents outside a supermarket, shot her in the head at point-blank range and then opened fire on the crowd around her.
Six people, including a respected federal court judge and a nine-year-old girl, recently elected to her student council and eager to meet her congresswoman, were killed in the senseless rampage. Another 14 were wounded, most seriously among them Giffords who miraculously survived the bullet that passed through her brain (as well as the “confirmation” of her death by CNN).
In the five days that have passed between the shooting and the writing of these words, Giffords has remained in critical condition, but her doctors have been encouraged by her “remarkable progress” and remain optimistic about her recovery.
On that first day, there did not seem to be any reporting of the fact that Giffords, the great-granddaughter of a Lithuanian rabbi, is Jewish or that she has credited Jewish values for shaping her approach to political life.
In 2006, just before being elected to the U.S. House of Representatives for the first time, Giffords wrote an article for the Arizona Jewish Post in which she said, “Growing up, my family’s Jewish roots and tradition played an important role in shaping my values. The women in my family served as strong role models for me as a girl. In my family, if you want to get something done, you take it to the women relatives!
“Like my grandmother, I am a lifetime member of Hadassah and now a member of Congregation Chaverim.”
In the article, Giffords also wrote about her strong commitment to Israel and about the state legislation she sponsored in Arizona on behalf of Holocaust survivors. Elsewhere, she has referred to Jewish values helping to shape her compassionate stands on health care and immigrants’ rights, difficult issues in a conservative border state like Arizona.
Giffords was moved, said Rabbi Stephanie Aaron of Tucson’s Congregation Chaverim, “by the notion of tzedek, tzedek, tirdof – the Jewish pursuit of justice.”
Well before the shooting, Giffords had emerged as an outspoken voice of moderation, civility and toned-down rhetoric on the American political scene. Political figures in her country, and in ours, would do well to follow Giffords’ lead in helping to restore civility to political discourse.
I’m sure I’ll get no arguments from anyone in wishing R’fuah Shlema to Gabrielle Giffords.
Debbie Friedman
Just hours after the shooting, Giffords’ synagogue, Tucson’s Congregation Chaverim, held a prayer service for her and the other victims at which they sang “Mi Shebeirach,” Debbie Friedman’s translation and musical setting of a prayer for healing.
Ironically and sadly, Friedman, a major figure in Jewish music since the 1970s, died the next morning following hospitalization for pneumonia. She was just 59 years old.
Friedman, who was influenced by folksingers like Joan Baez and Peter, Paul and Mary, was largely responsible for bringing participatory song to synagogue worship, particularly to many congregations in the Reform and Reconstructionist movements. She was also a singer, songwriter and guitarist with 20 albums and thousands of concerts to her credit.
In 2007, Friedman became an instructor at the School of Sacred Music at the Reform Movement’s Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.
“Her gifts were not always accepted with grace by the [Jewish] musical establishment, but the Jewish community voted with their voices and made her songs part of the mainstream of Jewish worship,” Rabbi Daniel Freelander, senior vice-president of the Union for Reform Judaism, told JTA at the time of her appointment to the school.
AHAVA and the Bay
Earlier this month, Hudson Bay Company (HBC) stores across Canada removed Israeli-made AHAVA beauty products from their stores. AHAVA products are made from mud and minerals from the Dead Sea and have been a particular target of the anti-Israel BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) movement. BDS activists were quick to claim the disappearance of AHAVA products as a major victory. It seems, however, that their celebrations were a tad premature. The next day, HBC CEO Bonnie Brooks categorically stated that the line of AHAVA products was discontinued because of several years of declining sales. She said the line was being “reformulated and redesigned” and that the new AHAVA products would be relaunched at HBC stores in mid-spring.
“HBC neither subscribes to nor endorses politically motivated boycotts of merchandise from countries with whom Canada has open and established trading relationships, including Israel,” wrote Brooks in her statement.
