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 ’s . 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 ,” 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. The Program. Sarah, the unsuccessful ticket as a favor to a But since childhood Silverman had who famously managed to use the politically like-minded Israeli friend). also felt a pull to embrace her faith. word “vagina” repeatedly in her speech For three years Abramowitz was In Abramowitz, who was chair of the at niece Aliza’s bat mitzvah, is also a president of the Union of Councils for World Union of Jewish Students and serious and outspoken supporter of her Soviet Jews, and he was the keynote an activist for the rights of Soviet Jews, sister and brother-in-law’s causes. She speaker at Russia’s 2004 national she found someone who followed paid tribute to the couple early in her human rights convention. He helped his own compass, a man for whom career in one of her few appearances to establish the Ethiopian Atid Ehad Judaism was synonymous with social on Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend party in Israel and worked to bring justice. Both protégés of the late his- Update.” “My sister Susie just got solar energy to Israeli Bedouins. torian and social activist Howard Zinn, married, and they took each other’s There’s more. With a master’s from a CAS professor emeritus of political names,” Sarah announced. “So now the Columbia School of Journalism, science, they showed up for the same she’s Susan Silverman-Abramowitz. the young journalist single-handedly rallies and sat together bleary-eyed at But they’re thinking of shortening it took down the leadership of the Jewish to just…Jews.” National Fund (JNF)—yes, the one For all his Jewish children everywhere collect defiance, pennies for—after uncovering its Abramowitz creative financing. These revelations Silverman and Abramowitz ran for Jerusalem appears be- resulted from a freelance assignment City Council on a progressive ticket. The party mused and Abramowitz, who had been an editor at pulled less than one percent of the vote. slightly dishev- Moment magazine, took on reluctantly eled, his milkich because he needed the cash, but ended complexion for- up costing him more than he was paid. a four-day vigil against BU’s South ever cowering under the Middle In typical Abramowitz fashion, he Africa investments outside Silber’s Eastern sun he has labored so hard threw himself into the story, hiring office. Abramowitz says he first spoke to harness. His nature is forgiving. private investigators and paying for to Silverman when she was coming out “He never wishes anyone ill,” says travel out of his own pocket. (The of Zinn’s office and he was on his way his wife. And from former colleague JNF has since become a vigorous in. “I asked, ‘When do you graduate?’ Palestinian-Israeli engineer Tareq supporter of the Arava Institute of and she said, ‘Next week,’ and I said, Abuhamed, “I’ve never seen him get Environmental Studies, an educational ‘Well, have a nice life.’” angry.” This isn’t necessarily seen as center and alternative energy think Their actual first date is a matter of a virtue. Amir Cohen, at the time the tank based at Ketura, which Abramo- dispute. An occasionally rocky decade chief operating officer of Abramowitz’s witz went on to cofound.) and many geographical separations pre-Israel, multimillion-dollar media Silverman earned a master’s at later, when they decided to marry—the company, Jewish Family & Life, was Harvard and was ordained at Hebrew ceremony was performed by Levine, an quoted in a 2006 Jewish Week article Union College–Jewish Institute of ordained rabbi who has since presided as saying that Abramowitz “is almost Religion in New York City. She is over the bar and bat mitzvahs of several oblivious to bad news. His half glass is one of a handful of women rabbis of the couple’s children—Abramowitz always completely full. If he believes in in Jerusalem. Last October she and declared that their future together was Jewish peoplehood, he cannot imagine Abramowitz ran for the Jerusalem destiny. Silverman’s take was, she says, why this is not the thing everyone is City Council on a progressive, “We’re so devoted to each other that fully committed to.” mostly female ticket dubbed Ometz we’ll thumb our noses at destiny.” One of Abramowitz’s forearms Lev, Hebrew for “courage of heart.” “We’re complete opposites,” says is obscured by a rainbow of rubber Founded by former Jerusalem deputy Silverman. bracelets honoring various causes, and mayor Naomi Tsur, the newly hatched his résumé is similarly multihued. The party promotes environmental Shortening Their Name former journalist, editor, and internet responsibility, diversity, and equality to Just...Jews entrepreneur has amassed, Zeliglike, a for women. Its platform reads like string of right place, right time credits. a mission statement for Silverman These include winning the free speech and Abramowitz, whose 19-year-old TALL, athletically built, and ruling while at BU, engineering a daughter, Hallel, worked 12-hour days prone to swearing, Silverman rails gathering of thousands of Jews “left for the campaign while on a gap year against injustice in a honey-coated behind” in Ethiopia, being the last between graduating high school and voice nearly identical to that of her person to see Lubavitcher Grand Rebbe mandatory service in the Israeli army. sister Sarah, who lives in Los Angeles Menachem Schneerson—considered by The party fared miserably a month near middle sisters Jodyne, a writer his followers to be the messiah—alive, later, with less than one percent of and producer, and Laura, who played and immigrating to Israel already a the vote, which went largely to the

38 BOSTONIA Summer 2014 She laments being “spacey”; he finds it hard to put his work aside. But the Abramowitz- Silverman home is full of laughter and the aroma of kosher vegetarian meals.

ultraorthodox, or Haredi, Jews, who Abramowitz “crumpling in the desert battle the cynicism, the politics, and in their modest dress and unbending heat” and assuming that the kibbutz the entrenched interests and push ways hold sway in the Holy City. The had, at the very least, solar-powered air forward” to establish a solar power Haredi’s fundamentalism and some conditioners. Abramowitz (a journalist, industry in Israel, says Cohen. Five of their tactics—like hurling stones at not an engineer) did some quick years later, after the resistance of 23 Women of the Wall protestors—render research and learned that his family separate agencies, the 49.5-megawatt Silverman apoplectic. had joined 150 others under some of Ketura Sun rose, the only solar field the highest levels of solar radiation in the world with a mezuzah. (It also Battling cynicism, politics, on the planet. From then on, no one functions as a sundial.) Unfolding at and entrenched interests could tell him that a solar field, which the edge of the kibbutz like a Goliath- would initially use more power than sized deck of cards, Ketura Sun is ex- it would generate, was a pipe dream. pected to offset approximately 125,000 MICHAEL Cohen, a “People said, ‘You are a naïve American metric tons of carbon dioxide. And as Vermont rabbi and director of strategic kibbutznik. If it was a good idea, Cohen observes, “it wasn’t just about partnerships for Friends of the Arava someone would’ve done it already,’” energy—it was about peace. Arava Institute, the supporting American Abramowitz recalls. “I said, ‘We’re teamed with Palestinians and Israeli arm of the nonprofit environmental in the middle of the desert. It makes Bedouins.” Arava is now a $20 billion group, was among the founding faculty complete sense to me.’” industry, and Ketura Sun is one of of the institute at Kibbutz Ketura In 2006, with office space donat- six Arava-run solar fields, three on in the mid-’90s, when Abramowitz ed by Arava Institute, Abramowitz other kibbutzim in the south near brought his young family back to live teamed with American investor David Ketura and two in the northern in the community where he’d spent a Rosenblatt and longtime Ketura mem- Negev near Beersheba. year two decades earlier. Cohen recalls ber Ed Hofland to “do the impossible: Abramowitz’s success with Arava

Summer 2014 BOSTONIA 39 Silverman and Abramowitz are well known in Jerusalem’s comfortable Baka neighborhood, a progressive counterpoint to the city’s exclusively orthodox enclaves.

has thrust him into the headlines of more realistic pitch in 2021, said that Every time ambassadors would come to H’aaretzz and the conservative Jeru- if the Knesset “decides they don’t want present their credentials, I’d ask about salem Postt, which report on his string the brand equity of the presidency to the carbon footprints of their country of honors, most recently the Bonei Zion be an aging politician…they know who and what’s being done to reduce them. Prize, awarded by Nefesh B’Nefesh, or to call.” And I’d ask about human rights for Jewish Souls United, a nonprofit that Even with the seven-year wait for minorities in their countries.” promotes aliyah from North America the next Knesset vote, Abramowitz “And ours,” Silverman adds. and the United Kingdom. It’s given would be Israel’s youngest president “Yes,” he says. “And ours.” to six Israelis from English-speaking since the nation’s birth in 1948. “We’re countries who “enca psulate the spirit a young, vibrant, innovative country A Tactic Passed Down from of modern-day Zionism” by making a that has a lot to offer the world,” he activist Howard Zinn significant contribution to the state says. “Wouldn’t it be amazing if the of Israel. Abramowitz was cited for president mirrored that?” Although his entrepreneurs hip and technology. the presidency would require him to SILVERMAN In February the Jerusalem Postt ran step down from his executive roles, he has a terrible sense of direction, an a story under the headline “Captain wants it so badly that he can, well, taste inconvenient manifestation of her Sunshine mulling presidential run,” it. “First of all, the president’s house spaciness that forces her to backtrack with a photo of Abramowitz standing would be vegetarian,” Abramowitz along the cobbled byways of the Old with an arm thrown affectionately says. “We would have pluralistic Friday City on her way to the Western Wall, over the shoul der of Peres as Susan night services that would be televised. or Kotel. It has been a site for Jewish and Sarah Silverman look on. In the I’d create a Jewish Peace Corps–style prayer and pilgrimage dating back article, Abramowitz, who concedes program and export sustainable food as far as the fourth century. In the he is mostly testing the waters for a and energy technologies to Africa. past year Silverman has become a

40 BOSTONIA Summer 2014 prominent voice for Women of the do you change the world?’” she recalls. Reform synagogue in Germantown, Wall. At one point Silverman and “He’d take a bite and then flash this Md., doubling its congregation. But a companion dodge a raucous bar Howard Zinn sunshine smile and say, the job was so all-consuming that mitzvah procession, a kind of Semitic ‘One person at a time.’” one day she heard herself rushing her second-line parade with blaring horns Abramowitz first tore a page toddler past some flowers the child had and balloons in the blue-and-white from Zinn’s book when he resisted, stopped to smell. “I actually told my colors of Israel. Passing through by peaceful means, the University’s daughter there was no time to smell the the security gate, where she faces a efforts to remove that now-iconic roses,” says Silverman, and she decided soldier’s scrutiny for her Women of antiapartheid banner. “Susan and I then and there to phase out of the job. the Wall T-shirt, she collides with went to Hillel House and got big poster These days, she says, “I have no another bar mitzvah, and frowns. At boards and made huge signs that said, pulpit, but it means that everything the Wall, all of the women—young girls, DIVEST, which were promptly re- I do represents the Jewish people in grandmothers, mothers—are on one moved by Buildings and Grounds,” some way.” She recently finished and is side of a wooden barrier, teetering on Abramowitz recalls. “So we hung shopping publishers for a book called plastic chairs and craning their necks another one, and when B&G came to Casting Lots: How Raising My Children to glimpse the jubilation of the men in my door, I put on my prayer shawl and Helped Me Find Godd, a theology on their unrestricted area. Silverman is tefillin and just stood in the doorway adoption that is also a manifesto. As praying with my Levine observes, “It’s the most anti- eyes closed. This Nazi policy—a vision where values poor guy didn’t matter more than blood.” Her web- know what to do, site JustAdopt.net is a play on words: Silverman postponed a flight to the United so he just left. It “Just Do It, and Justice,” she says. States, linked arms with her daughter at the was unbelievable. Adoption resources abound online, Western Wall, and got arrested instead. I’d won a little but Silverman sees her mission as battle using a coaxing people to consider interna- tactic Zinn was tional adoption, through stories, incensed. The right of women to pray, preaching.” When Silber tried to evict videos, and slideshows of adoptive marry, and mourn freely, she says, “is Abramowitz from his dorm, the case families like hers. “It’s to inspire not negotiable.” caught the attention of a BU School people,” she says, and to correct what In February 2012 Hallel asked to of Law student named Steve Masters she sees as pervasive misconceptions go with her mother to Rosh Chodesh, (LAW’86), who presented the case to about international adoption. “the head of the month,” or new moon, the American Civil Liberties Union. Silverman, Abramowitz, and in- when women protesters gather to don With Zinn’s help, the law firm Hill & creasingly, their children are not shy tallit and pray at the Wall. Silverman Barlow represented Abramowitz pro about saying they want to change the was booked on a flight to the United bono, leading to the Supreme Court’s world. But many of the barriers they States that morning, but at the urging free speech ruling in his favor. face are homegrown: the Orthodox of her daughter and her husband, she At BU Abramowitz also caught grip on Israel’s government, its resis- rescheduled, and arms linked with the attention of Nobel Laureate Elie tance to renewable energy. Yet in spite her daughter, got arrested instead. Wiesel (Hon.’74), BU’s Andrew W. of its problems, Israel is a perfect fit (In May 2013 an Israeli judge ruled Mellon Professor in the Humanities, for Abramowitz and Silverman, who that a 2003 Supreme Court ruling who despite his close relationship take a page from David Ben-Gurion, prohibiting women from carrying with Silber became a supporter and Israel’s first prime minister and one a Torah or wearing tallit at the friend. “I was always scared to go see of Abramowitz’s heroes, who said, women’s section of the Wall had been him because I never thought I was “In Israel, in order to be a realist you misinterpreted, which put an end to ready,” Abramowitz says of Wiesel. must believe in miracles.” the arrests there.) Hallel had learned “But when this whole thing was heat- They revere what they call the the civil disobedience tactic of going ing up, I finally walked into his office, country’s organic lifestyle for people limp, passed down through her mother and Martha, his assistant, said, ‘It’s of their values. “And considering the from Zinn, and she used it as the police about time.’” Wiesel, says Abramo- saga of the Jewish people, who were dragged her off. (Although the Zinns witz, “gave me chazakah,” Hebrew able to reemerge into history with were not observant Jews, Howard’s for strength. Years later, Wiesel would power and ingenuity after 2,000 wife, Rosalyn, referred to Silverman write the introduction to Jewish Fam- years of exile, is so inspiring,” says as “our rabbi.”) In awe of Zinn after ily and Life: Traditions, Holidays, and Abramowitz, “but I don’t believe in taking his lecture class as a BU junior, Values for Today’s Parents and Chil- resting on our laurels. A friend of mine Silverman began going to see the dren, a book coauthored by Silverman asks, how can Israel become a platform popular professor at his office. “He’d and Abramowitz. for solving global issues, and that’s sit there eating his roast beef sandwich, In the 1990s, Silverman served two what’s exciting to me. I feel privileged and I’d ask him questions like, ‘How years at Congregation Or Chadash, a to be part of this story.” p

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