|
LULAV OF THE YEAR AWARD 5783
Ritchie Torres
Once a year, the eyes of the whole world turn to Hollywood...and a distinguished movie star opens an envelope...and announces the name of the best actor of the year....and the audience goes wild with excitement as the movie star hugs those that are sitting near him, and then, to tumultuous applause, climbs up to the stage and receives the Oscar.
And once a year, the eyes of the whole world turn to Hollywood…and a famous television star tears open an envelope and reads the name of the best actress of the year in a television program and the audience goes wild as an excited actress hugs the people sitting near her and then comes up on the stage to receive an Emmy.
And once a year, the eyes of the whole world turn to Congregation Shaarei Shamayim on Sukkot, and before a congregation that listens with bated breath...I announce the “Lulav of the Year Award.” What is the “Lulav Of The Year Award?” (With thanks to Rabbi Jack Reimer for the thought.) And why does it have that name?
It’s the award that I give to a person who has shown outstanding courage on behalf of the Jewish people. Why do I call it “The Lulav of the Year Award”? Because while a Shofar you can hide in your pocket, if you want to, and a tallis, you can carry in a bag, even a plain brown paper bag, and no one will know what you have inside…but a lulav you can’t hide. A lulav sticks out and stands tall.
The Jerusalem Talmud tells us that in ancient times, the residents of Jerusalem would take a lulav with them wherever they went on Sukkot. It was a strong affirmation of who they were, for a lulav can’t be hidden. The Midrash teaches us that a lulav is symbolic of the spine. And therefore, it is an appropriate symbol to give to a person who has had the spine to stand up tall for the Jewish people and do what he believes is right.
And now the envelope, please…and the winner is…Ritchie Torres! Who is Ritchie Torres? No, he’s not a baseball player for the NY Yankees—but he is from the Bronx. Torres is a 34-year-old Afro-Latino congressman. He grew up in public housing—the son of a single mother who worked minimum wage jobs. 10 years ago, he was elected to be a NYC Councilman—becoming the Bronx’s 1st openly gay elected official.
He joined the Progressive Caucus, backed Senator Bernie Sanders, and celebrated left-wing firebrand Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. 2 years later, he joined AOC as a member of the House of Representatives.
So far, so woke—and not my brand of politics. But the Lulav of the Year award is beyond politics. Again, it’s given to a person who has shown outstanding courage on behalf of the Jewish people—and Torres has. We all know how anti-Israel and antisemitic the Progressive Caucus led by AOC and her “Squad” has become. They have called for resolutions calling Israel’s founding “catastrophic.” Rep. Rashida Tlaib said a couple of weeks ago, “You cannot call yourselves progressive while supporting Israel’s “apartheid government!”
But Torres, on the other hand—even in the face of severe criticism and pressure—is an unapologetic and outspoken supporter of the Jewish state. He is sure to be re-elected in November in his Bronx district—one of America’s poorest and most Democratic.
Telegenic, youthful, and widely recognized as a rising star. Columnist Bret Stephens labelled him, “the most singular political talent of his generation.” Elected with 90% of the vote, he will now have even more support as the heavily Jewish neighborhood of Riverdale has been added to his district. But Torres’ backing for Israel happened many years before when it had little political upside, prompting Chaskel Bennett, a member of the board of Agudath Israel, to say: “He isn’t Jewish, has no sizable Jewish constituency and yet is one of the most outspoken po-Israel voices in Congress.”
Torres’ explanation is simple: he refuses to compromise his principles and he sees no contradiction between being on the left and being a supporter of Israel. “The notion that you cannot be both progressive and pro-Israel is a vicious lie,” he told the Jewish Insider. His support for the Jewish state, Torres added, was “not despite my progressive values, but because of my progressive values!”
Nor does Torres engage in the linguistic gymnastics, beloved of some fair-weather friends of Israel who say you can be anti-Zionist, support the BDS movement (Boycott, Divest and Sanction Israel), and not be antisemitic. “The act of singling out Israel, as BDS has done, is the definition of discrimination,” he suggests, while also labelling the BDS movement, “an insidious form of antisemitism.” Anti-Zionism, he argues following the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., is “a form of antisemitism.”
Torres revels in pointing out the absurdities and hypocrisies of the anti-Israel left. With his dark humor—after he visited in Israel in 2015—he confronted demonstrators who appeared at City Hall accusing him of “pinkwashing” apartheid. Turning to an activist in a “Queers for Palestine” T-shirt, Torres asked: “Does the opposite exist, are there Palestinians for queers?” He later said, “It was partly a joke but partly a serious observation…I found it utterly baffling that you had LGBT activists doing the bidding of Hamas, which is a terrorist organization that executes LGBT people.”
5 months after his arrival in Washington, Torres’ pro-Israel credentials faced their 1st test as Hamas launched over 1,000 rockets into Israel. While Bernie Sanders and The Squad raged against Israel’s defensive response and demanded the Biden administration stop military aid to Israel, Torres refused to buckle.
Even his mother questioned whether he was doing the right thing after reading tweets that called her son a supporter of genocide, ethnic cleansing and apartheid. He described that moment as “wrenching.”
Torres has acknowledged the toll this stance has taken on him and his family: “There’s no topic on which I face more hatred and harassment than on the subject of Israel.” Nevertheless, he publicly went on the offensive: I have an unwavering commitment to both the sovereignty and security of Israel as a Jewish state… [Israel has] the inherent right of self-defense, a right that every state, including our own, takes for granted. Why should Israel be an exception to the rule? Why should Israel be held to a deadly double standard in a moment of terror?... [There is] the social media lie that deceptively reframes the terrorism of Hamas as self-defense and deceptively reframes the self-defense of Israel as terrorism…We cannot allow ourselves to be silenced by an overbearing Twitter mob, dominated by the extremes of American politics!
All I can say about that is, “Wow!” Whether you agree with his politics or not, Ritchie Torres deserves our Lulav of the Year Award because he had and has the courage to stand up for the Jewish people with the truth, and not give in to those who would bring down the Jewish State. Congratulations and Kol HaKavod!!! Ritchie Torres, we need more people like you in this world. Amen!
|
