Rabbi David Forman - Baruch Dayan Emet

David Forman, 65, a Reform rabbi and founder of Rabbis for Human Rights -- a far-left organization that increasingly acted contrary to Forman's own priority of defending the human rights of Jews before (or at least alongside) everyone else's -- died May 3 in Dallas while awaiting a liver-transplant. He made aliyah in 1972. Rare is the leftist or the Reform rabbi who challenged his own as profoundly as did Forman, or who so profoundly challenged the rest of us. Steve Lipman has an appreciation of Forman in our upcoming issue. Here's a piece, "Scapegoatism - American Jewish Style," that the rabbi wrote, just a few weeks ago, in the Jerusalem Post where he was a frequent contributor. It is a perfect companion piece to what Daniel Gordis had to say about the rejection of Israel by leftist Jewish students at Brandeis who are demanding that the university rescind its invitation to Ambassador Michael Oren to speak at the Bradeis graduation.