Please indulge the diary of one Jew about another Jew on this day. I must note the passing of Rabbi Arnold Jacob Wolf, who died suddenly on Tuesday at the age of 84.
There is no figure in organized religion I admired more than Arnie Wolf.
The obituaries below give a taste of his remarkable life, full of the politics and people (including Martin Luther King and Barack Obama) that make remembering his life highly relevant in this forum. It is a life full of accomplishments. There's another one too small to make the obituaries, but I'll mention it anyway: I am proud to say that when I was bar mitzvahed (at the age of 13, and not 83 like Rabbi Wolf was just last year), it was by Arnold Jacob Wolf.
I am glad that when the end came, it came suddenly after a long and rich life. Below the fold, read what happened during that life.
Read the linked obituaries in full; there's much worth discovering about Rabbi Wolf's life and views. I'll quote a few highlights. First, from the Chicago Sun-Times:
He fought for civil rights, marched with Martin Luther King, Jr., criticized Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians and supported his neighbor, now President-elect Barack Obama, in his earliest political campaigns....
In 1957 he founded the experimental Congregation Solel in Highland Park, which his family said was a "pioneering Reform synagogue which combined religious traditionalism with political activism." King and members of the Chicago Seven all spoke at the temple during the 1960s. Rabbi Wolf traveled to Alabama to march in Selma with King; he later brought temple members to Washington D.C. to lobby against the Vietnam War. His activism got notice: In 1967, FBI agents attended and recorded one of his anti-war sermons, family members said....
He received a Brotherhood Award for his civil rights work from the National Council of Christians and Jews in 1962. However, when the same group later gave a humanitarian award to then President Ronald Reagan, Rabbi Wolf returned his award, saying, "If Ronald Reagan is a humanitarian, then I’m not."
From the Chicago Tribune:
Secular issues were fair game for temple talks, and through the 1960s Rabbi Wolf marched in Selma, Ala., for civil rights and traveled to Washington to protest the Vietnam War.
"The core teaching of Torah for him had to do with justice, and one sometimes had to speak about that in ways that people didn't care to hear," said Rabbi Laurence Edwards, who grew up in Congregation Solel and now serves Congregation Or Chadash in Edgewater. "He was unfazed by criticism. He said what he thought."
Returning to Chicago and joining KAM Isaiah Israel, his most recent political activity was his support for President-elect Barack Obama, whose home is across the street from the congregation's synagogue.
Like many Reform Jews, Rabbi Wolf did not receive his bar mitzvah at 13. Instead, he went through the ceremonial ritual at 83, 13 years after passing the Biblical life span of "three score and 10."
"My father would say, 'Life starts at 70,' " [his son] Jonathan said.
If you do a Google search for Arnold Jacob Wolf, a link you will see is an essay he wrote earlier this year entitled "My Neighbor Barack." At a time when Barack Obama was coming under fire because of controversial footage of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Rabbi Wolf defended Obama, writing that of course Obama could disagree with Wright -- Wolf knew members of his own congregation frequently disagreed with him. (Indeed, one of the things that made Rabbi Wolf so valuable to me was his willingness to provoke and raise discussions that often led to civil, yet vigorous debate.)
Barack Obama is brilliant and open-hearted; he is wiser and more thoughtful than his former minister. He offers what America, Israel, and the Jewish community need: a US President willing to ask hard questions, and grapple with difficult answers.
I am very proud to be his neighbor. I hope someday to visit him in the White House.
Like Studs Terkel, Bernie Mac, Odetta Holmes, and Barack Obama's grandmother, Arnie Wolf died too soon to make that White House visit. He did, however, live to see his neighbor win the presidency. I am glad for that fact, and for many other facts relating to the rich life of Rabbi Arnold Jacob Wolf.