Annual Birthday Dinner
Dr. Analía Bortz
Rabbi at Congregation Or Hadash, Sandy Springs, GA
“Churchill and the Jews”
Sunday December 4, 2016
5-8PM
Cash Bar at 5PM Dinner at 6PM
McCormick and Schmick’s
600 Ashwood Pkwy, Dunwoody, GA
Dr. Bortz will speak on the topic of "Churchill And the Jews", a topic explored by author Martin Gilbert in his 2007 book on the subject.
In a quote from a Churchill speech delivered in 1921, He said,
"We owe to the Jews in the Christian revelation a system of ethics, which, even if it were entirely separated from the supernatural, would be incomparably the most precious possession of mankind, worth in fact the fruits of all other wisdom and learning put together. On that system and by that faith there has been built out of the wreck of the Roman Empire the whole of our existing civilization."
In contrast to most of his upper-class contemporaries, who often eschewed social contact with Jews, Churchill grew up widely acquainted with them. His father, Lord Randolph Churchill, exceptionally for an aristocrat, maintained close friendships with various Jewish figures. Coupled with his voracious reading, this led Churchill to arrive at an early appreciation of the extraordinary role of Jews in history, particularly as a progenitor and agent of Western civilization, a conviction that imbued his attitude toward Zionism in the present. This, rather than Jewish historical and religious attachment to the land of Israel, which Churchill also came to value, was the prime mover in Churchill’s Zionist sympathies.
Dr. Bortz will expand on this topic which represents a significant aspect of Winston's life and attitudes.
Rabbi Analia was ordained in 1994 at the Seminario Rabinico LatinoAmericano, Marshall T. Meyer as the First Woman Rabbi in Latin America. Dr. Bortz is a Medical Doctor with postdoctoral studies in Bioethics.