Civil Disobedience, A LOVE STORY Once the bane of John Silber, he has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. She is a rabbi who defied the law by wearing a prayer shawl at Jerusalem’s Western Wall. Yes, they met outside Howard Zinn’s office. By Susan Seligson 34 BOSTONIA Summer 2014 He wants to be presi- harvest solar energy Rabbi Susan Silverman and dent. She wants Jeru- in Israel. His wife, daughters Hallel salem to become the Susan Silverman, is an (in profile, at left) and adoption capital of activist rabbi, author, Ashira defy the world. and adoption advocate. tradition and law by donning They are taking Both turn up regularly prayer shawls Is rael by storm. Yosef on lists of “Most at the Western Wall. Yosef “Captain Sunshine” Inflfluential Jews,” Abramowitz Abramowitz is a long- from the Jerusalem (facing page) at Israel’s first time human rights Post, which wedged commercial solar activist, a three-time Abramowitz (CAS’86) field near Eilat. Nobel Peace Prize between Natan nominee, and a global Sharansky and Jon social entrepreneur Stewart one year, to the who was the fi rst Jewish Forwardd, which to commercially dubbed Silverman a Photographs by Rina Castelnuovo Summer 2014 BOSTONIA 35 “We make girls and import boys,” says Silverman, pictured here with Abramowitz and three of their children, Zamir (from left), Ashira, and Adar. prophetess.” Although Silverman from Newton, Mass., to Kibbutz fundamentalism, modern versus old, (CAS’85) has put herself out there— Ketura in the Negev before settling Arab versus Jew, Jerusalem embodies there was that New York Times photo in Jerusalem, are observant Jews and one of Silverman’s favorite expressions: of her being hauled off to jail for don- fervent Zionists unafraid to challenge “If you’re addicted to meaning, Israel is ning prayer shawls at the Western religious orthodoxy and Israeli recal- like pure heroin.” Wall—her famous sibling Sarah has citrance. In an age of cynics, they are propelled “Rabbi Susan” to a level unabashed idealists. Where everybody knows your Name of international recognition that “Our family motto,” says Silverman, prompted Silverman to call herself “is, ‘Don’t be a schmuck.’” “Rabbi Kardashian.” If turning up It’s September in the Holy City. IN ISRAEL the two are on Jewrotica.org’s list of the world’s The nights grow cooler and the High becoming household names. At 50, “sexiest rabbis” intensifies that Holy Days spill into the lighthearted Abramowitz is president and CEO of spotlight—one of the criteria was weeklong Festival of Sukkot. If one the global energy company Energiya “badassery”—then why not use it to were to take Judaism’s heartbeat, the Global Capital, which is developing trumpet your message, says Silverman. stethoscope would best be placed on solar energy in Africa, Latin America, In April she shared the podium with this soulful, simmering metropolis. and Eastern Europe. The company her comedian sister and longtime “I love this city’s immediacy,” says just inaugurated its first commercial partner-in-crime at Tina Brown’s 51-year-old Silverman, who never solar field in Rwanda. He is also Women in the World Summit. expected to make aliyah, the Hebrew cofounder of Arava Power, an eight- Ask 11-year-old Ashira what’s in- term for Jews returning to their year-old company that built Israel’s teresting about her family and she’ll spiritual homeland, when the family first commercial solar field—18,500 tell you: “Everything!” Ashira is one first came to Israel for what was to photovoltaic cells over 20 acres—at the of the couple’s five children. The rau- be a year’s sabbatical. Etched with edge of Kibbutz Ketura. The kibbutz cous, high-profile family, who migrated the battle lines of secularism versus is near the southern city of Eilat, and 36 BOSTONIA Summer 2014 the company hopes to soon supply 80 thorn in Silber’s side—their battle A Precocious Firebrand and a percent of the city’s power. Free Spirit Converge of wits immortalized in a 1986 US In April Arava Power launched five Supreme Court rulingg (Abramowitz new solar fields, all larger than Ketura. v. Boston University) supporting In May Abramowitz announced his THE SUN is fading Abramowitz’s right to hang an anti- bid for the Israeli presidency, in the into the eve of Yom Kippur, and apartheid banner from his dormitory hope of modernizing and lending around a family table long enough to window. (At the time BU had $22.3 political and cultural muscle to the accommodate a procession of visitors, million invested in South Africa.) mostly ceremonial post. Historically the Abramowitz-Silvermans (except Silber “was my nemesis,” says a reward for decades of public service, for daughter Aliza, who is studying Abramowitz, whose bold acts of defi- the position has been held since 2007 at the Berklee College of Music) dive ance, along with Silber’s description of by former two-term prime minister into platters of salad and pasta before them as “temper tantrums,” dominated Shimon Peres, who is now 90. the looming daylong fast. Everything the headlines of the Daily Free Press Silverman is becoming increasing - is interesting. Beside the traditional and often spilled onto the pages of the ly well known as an adoption advo- challah sits a plate of injera, the spongy Boston Globe and the national press. cate (her website, JustAdopt.net, flatbread of Ethiopia, birthplace of “He just wanted to get rid of me.” was recently launched with a three- Susan and Yosef’s sons Adar, and “Yosef didn’t fit into any box,” Zamir, a hearing- recalls his College of Arts & Sciences impaired child Judaic studies professor and friend they adopted Hillel Levine. “He was a smart kid at age four. In from Newton here on a scholarship, Abramowitz says he is grateful to Boston Israel Zamir and he turned the place upside down.” University for jump-starting “a lifetime of received cochlear For Abramowitz the BU years offered beating up governments for good causes.” implants, and an education he came to be grateful as Susan rounds for, jump-starting, he says, “a lifetime up the kids for of beating up governments for good hankie video of her being handed her the walk to shul she reminds her son causes.” He’s been arrested twice; infant son Adar in an Addis Ababa or- to “put on your ears.” In the spirit in 1985 he was arrested outside the phanage) as well as for the protests and of atonement and starting the New Soviet Embassy in Washington, D.C., arrest as part of Women of the Wall, a Year with a clear conscience, they on behalf of refusenik Boris Lifshitz, group that has fought since 1988 for take turns naming the previous year’s a young engineering student from the right of women to wear a prayer wrongs. The children and teenagers Leningrad who was allowed to attend shawl (tallit) and bring a Torah scroll share regrets about their obstinacy or BU after a student group led by Abram- and pray beside men at the Old City’s not fully appreciating their parents. owitz helped raise thousands for his Western Wall. Abramowitz, who the Jerusalem Post tuition. Abramowitz was convicted, After three years at Ketura, the named “one of 50 most influential a conviction later overturned in a family settled into a light-soaked Jews in the world” three years running US Supreme Court ruling. Two years duplex in Jerusalem’s prosperous for his accomplishments as Arava later, protesting on behalf of Ethiopian Baka neighborhood, where the Power CEO and who is one of CNN’s Jewry at the World Zionist Congress streets are named for the 12 ancient 6 most prominent green pioneers outside the Jerusalem Convention tribes of Israel. Here Silverman and worldwide, apologizes to his family for Center, he was beaten and arrested by Abramowitz, their children leaning in, his difficulty in prying free from the Israeli border police. (He was released routinely join an ongoing repertory demands of his work. Silverman softly without charge.) of journalists, rabbis, politicians, says, “I’m sorry I’m so spacey.” Silverman found the young Abram- and scholars to debate the state of Silverman and Abramowitz owitz to be “a totally original charac- the world over cast-iron pans of converged at BU in the mid-1980s, ter.” Hailing from a liberal, secular shakshouka at the local Café Itzik. when Abramowitz founded and led family that was its own lonely Borscht Their passions can be burdensome an antiapartheid and South Africa Belt in a white-bread suburb of Man- and exhausting; where most people divestiture movement. Those were chester, N.H., Silverman was a free see cloudless skies as a reprieve, tumultuous years on campus, as spirit. The oldest of four sisters, she Abramowitz sees an inexcusable students, faculty, and labor unions and her siblings were eliciting gasps squandering of potential kilowatts. clashed with the administration of the from Republicans with a rendition While most of us react to media late President John Silber (Hon.’95). of Rocky Horror’s “Time Warp” at images of war orphans with impotent Abramowitz was a precocious fire- a local pub while Abramowitz was heartache, Silverman has written a brand, a child of activists whose spending a high school year tending theological manifesto rallying fellow Zionism was solidified during the livestock on a kibbutz. She jokes that Jews to welcome those orphans into family’s three-year stint in Israel. she majored in “smoking and drinking” their families. He proved to be an unrelenting at BU—psychology, actually—while Summer 2014 BOSTONIA 37 Abramowitz designed his own major Sarah’s sister on Comedy Central’s candidate for the Knesset (he joined in Jewish public policy.