WASHINGTON – About a year and half ago, I participated in a fact-finding mission to Israel sponsored by the Inter-Agency Task Force on Israeli Arabs (IATF). Established in 2006 as a consortium of some of the major organizations in American Jewish life — including the Joint Distribution Committee, the Conference of Presidents, Jewish Federations of North America, the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee — the IATF is committed to raising awareness of the circumstances of the 20 percent of Israel’s citizens who are Arab.

The issue was not new to me. A large part of my rabbinate has been devoted to advancing human and civil rights at home and abroad. Because I love Israel deeply, I was long concerned that issues of human and civil rights were raised only by progressive organizations, both in Israel and abroad. It was long overdue for the Jewish communal establishment to understand why the rights of Israeli Arabs should be a priority for anyone concerned with Israel’s future.

When Rabbi Shmuley Boteach approached me to read the manuscript of his newly published book “Kosher Jesus,” I was reticent and even a bit cautious, given the massive and diverse audience of people likely to be affected by his unique perspective on the subject of Jesus. Having now read the book, however, I can say that I was pleasantly surprised to find that his approach resolved many outstanding questions that I myself have struggled with in my religious studies, particularly as they relate to Christianity and its impact on Judaism throughout history.

Still, I felt the need to interrogate Boteach further in order to discover what his intentions had been for penning this latest work on a conspicuously controversial topic. As it turns out, his earliest efforts to uncover the real facts regarding the origin of Christianity stemmed from his exasperation by the treatment unsuspecting Jews received from Christian missionaries who would target them in an attempt to convert yet another Jew to Christianity. So alarmed was Boteach at the pervasiveness of this kind of missionary work that, as a young scholar learning in yeshivah, he was often memorizing long passages of the New Testament in his Hebrew Bible classes. After all, how could he counter the words of others if he had no real knowledge of what they were saying and why they were saying it?

In 1948, two social scientists published the first scholarly study of religious group voting patterns in the United States. According to the authors, Catholics, Jews, and Baptists identified as Democrats by margins of two to one or better. Five denominations that we would classify as mainline Protestants were Republican by equally lopsided ratios. Although the authors did not report on black Protestants, most of whom were still forbidden to vote by Jim Crow laws, data collected at the time showed African-Americans evenly split in loyalty between the two parties.

Sixty years later, the exit polls from 2008 show that almost nothing is the same. Baptists have swung across the spectrum; they and their fellow Evangelical Protestants now constitute the single most pro-Republican religious bloc. Catholics and African-Americans have traded places, the former now divided almost evenly between Democrats and Republicans, and the latter overwhelmingly favoring Democratic candidates. Once the core of the Republican vote, the shrinking body of mainline Protestants increasingly sits out elections or, while still identifying as Republican, tends to favor Democrats by small margins.

With Iran threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz — practically guaranteeing a rise in world oil prices — we must remember that oil, as precious as that commodity is, actually is a side issue in this deadly serious stand-off.

Our major concern should not be what we pay for gas at our local station, but what Iran is doing, and intends to do, with its nuclear capability.

By all accounts, the “Islamic republic” (an absurd designation for what actually is an autocratic theocracy) has not yet developed a nuclear weapons program. To argue that we should not be in any hurry to worry, however, as some have done, is misguided at best. The United States and Israel especially have cause to be concerned, because the rhetoric of the Iran leadership targets each equally.

Cold War wisdom — the notion that having a bomb will actually force its owners to be more responsible — is irrelevant in this age of extremism. The radicals who lead the Iranian government have not shown restraint thus far, and there is no reason to believe they will change their tune once they get the bomb (with a nod to satirist/songwriter Tom Lehrer, who, in a more innocent time, wrote a funny song about nuclear weapons, that included the verse, “Egypt wants to get one, too, just to use on You-Know-Who.” Substitute Iran for Egypt and there is nothing funny here at all).

Still, it is not clear what to do, or even what is being done.

Here at home, the administration claims to be committed to the gradual imposition of sanctions, yet it may have secretly approached Iran seeking to resolve differences via direct talks, something the White House vehemently denies and Iran ecstatically proclaims. In Israel, the prime minister offers hope that upgraded sanctions can succeed if the West is serious about following through, while a deputy expresses disappointment in the sanctions program outlined by Washington.

It is not surprising that the United States and Israel disagree on tactics. Not only does Israel live in the neighborhood, and therefore has greater reason to fear attack from Iran, but the Jewish state has a large stake in re-establishing deterrence in the Arab world (especially in view of recent “failures,” such as the 2006 war with Hezbollah).

Israel has taken preemptive action before — the country’s 2007 attack on Syria’s al-Kibar nuclear facility being a case in point. Interestingly, Israel did not brag about the attack, nor did Syria retaliate, or call for international condemnation. This suggests, of course, that Israel had good reason to take the action it did.

What about now? Should we assume that Israel has information we lack? Should we support the “take it slow” position best illustrated by President John F. Kennedy’s response to the Cuban missile crisis?

Clearly, the issues are complex and the stakes are high. Let us hope that our leaders — putting aside all political considerations — can find a solution before our options become even more limited.

During Chanukah, we asked readers whether they kept a fire extinguisher nearby when they lit their candles. Fully 80 percent of those who responded said no.

Even allowing for the fact that the survey question was not “scientific” and that the “survey sample” was probably quite small, 80 percent is an amazingly high number and, in this case, a frightening one.

Fire extinguishers are ugly-looking devices, to be sure. They do not fit with most people’s ideas of home décor. They make people uncomfortable just to see them around.

They do save lives, however, and that is all that matters.

The recent firebomb attack on Congregation Beth El in Rutherford proves the point (although we would have preferred a different kind of proof). Rabbi Nosson Schuman and his family thankfully avoided serious injury in part because there was a fire extinguisher handy. “The carpet was on fire… [but] I was able to get to the fire extinguisher and put it out,” he told The Jewish Standard in an interview.

Could you say the same? Do you even know where the fire extinguishers are in your home?

We urge you all to have fire extinguishers handy throughout your homes, and to make certain that (a) you know how to use the devices and (b) that the devices actually are working properly.

Thank you for setting the record straight on President Obama’s record on Israel (Jan. 6). Unfortunately, it seems that whenever he has chosen not to march lockstep with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he has found himself and his administration subject to specious claims of hostility toward Israel. I have heard pulpit rabbis digress from the parsha of the week and instead, twist the president’s speeches and quote phrases out of context in order to make it appear, incorrectly, as if the president advocates a return to pre-1967 borders without negotiated adjustments. As you point out, this administrations’ record, notably in the areas of arms sales and intelligence, has been friendlier to Israel than any of its predecessors.

I have often wondered about the source(s) of this antipathy toward this president. During my travels to Israel, where American notions of political correctness have not yet fully taken root, it was obvious to me that there is a racist element to the animus. But why those feelings of Obama-enmity are shared by many traditional American Jews remains less clear. Whatever the source, those feelings are not based upon facts.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach’s article, “Rise of our own radical right,” resonates deeply with those who see hypocrisy in hiding behind rote performance of ritual, as a means of expiating their inability to measure up to the Jewish standards of what it means to practice the extension of dignity, tolerance, and respect “between a man and his friend.”

In a slanderous op-ed, Rabbi Shammai Englemayer attributes quotes to the Lubavitcher rebbe that are out of context and twisted. The irony is that the position Englemayer attributes to the rebbe is the exact diametric opposite of what the rebbe spoke, taught, and preached about the Holocaust throughout his 40-plus years of leadership.

In his writings and discussions on the subject, which can be found in many sources, including Sefer HaSichos 5751 Vol.1 p. 233, Sichos Kodesh 5751 vol 2 p 173, where the rebbe said it’s a desecration to the memories of the kedoshim to say that the Shoah came as a punishment to Jews, in every one of these sources, in every one of his talks, the rebbe rejected all theological explanations for the Holocaust. What greater conceit, the rebbe would say, and what greater heartlessness can there be than to give a “reason” for the death and torture of millions of innocent men, women and children? Can we presume to assume that an explanation small enough to fit inside the finite bounds of human reason can explain a horror of such magnitude? We can only concede that there are things that lie beyond the finite ken of the human mind. The rebbe would say: It is not my task to justify God on this. Only God Himself can answer for what He allowed to happen. And the only answer we will accept, said the rebbe, is the immediate and complete Redemption that will forever banish evil from the face of the earth and bring to light the intrinsic goodness and perfection of God’s creation.

The quote Englemeyer attributes to the rebbe is regarding our understanding of evil in this world as a whole, it was NOT an explanation of the Holocaust and most certainly not a reference to the kedoshim who perished there.

When a Jewish leader in Israel spoke about sin causing the holocaust, the rebbe literally shouted at a public address about the amazing chutzpah one has in blaming the victims and giving a theological response to something that is unfathomable and unexplainable by man.

It was the rebbe who dedicated his life and his leadership to reaching out to every Jew, regardless of religious observance. It was the rebbe who said that just as Hitler, may his name be erased, searched out every Jew in hate, we must search out every Jew in love.

Did Englemayer reach out to one Chabad representative in Bergen County or nationally before writing about and attributing a false statement to the rebbe? No.

Furthermore, had Englemeyer cared to investigate, he may have discovered that like millions of his generation, the Lubavitcher rebbe was personally touched by the Holocaust. His younger brother, Dov Ber, was shot to death and thrown into a mass grave, as were tens of thousands of other Jews in a series of massacres conducted by the Germans shortly after their occupation of Dnepropetrovsk in the fall of 1941. A beloved grandmother and other family members were also killed. The rebbe’s wife lost her younger sister Sheina, who perished in Treblinka together with her husband and their adopted son.

Does the call for Jewish unity that Englemayer proclaims in the same issue not apply to anyone to the right of him religiously? To those to his right he can lie, distort and falsely attribute quotes to fit his preformed opinions? Whatever happened to journalism 101, or a better question, what ever happened to plain old Ahavas Yisroel and “judging everyone favorably” as per Ethics of our Fathers 1:6.

Perhaps a little more journalistic integrity would be in order for our community paper.

Rabbi Ephraim Simon

Rabbi Yitzchok Gershovitz

Rabbi Avrohom Bergstein

Rabbi Mendy Lewis

Rabbi Micheol Goldin

Rabbi Moshe Grossbaum

Rabbi Dov Drizin

Rabbi Yosef Orenstein

Rabbi Yossi Katz

Rabbi Mordechai Shain

Rabbi Meir Konikov

Rabbi Chanoch Kaplan

Rabbi Moshe Schapiro

[Shammai Engelmayer responds: The quotes attributed to the late Chabad-Lubavitch leader, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, are a matter of public record (they originally appeared in a Kfar Chabad publication), as is Schneerson’s defense of his position, from which I also quoted. As the Holocaust historian Yehuda Bauer noted, the letter was dated Aug. 28, 1980, and was written on Schneerson’s personal stationary. It “contains a number of corrections in his own handwriting, and is signed by him,” Bauer wrote. “In it, the rebbe confirms everything in the published text.”]