RABBI EMANUEL ROSE, right, is embraced by Thomas M. Lauderdale of Pink Martini after the rabbi’s stirring remarks in support of the Occupy movement at the This Land Is Our Land rally at Pioneer Courthouse Square Oct. 28.

PAUL HAIST, Jewish Review

Rose stirs Occupy rally

Rose sees corporate heartlessness, pit of despair

By PAUL HAIST, Jewish Review

article created on: 2011-11-01T00:00:00

Among the 11 invited speakers who addressed the This Land Is Our Land rally in support of Occupy Portland Oct. 28 at Pioneer Courthouse Square, an event that featured Portland’s internationally acclaimed cocktail band Pink Martini with vocalist Storm Large, there were two politicians, three Christian preachers, one imam, two community activists, a labor leader and two rabbis.

The rabbis were Emanuel Rose, emeritus rabbi at Congregation Beth Israel, and Michael Cahana, the current spiritual leader at CBI.

The square was packed shoulder to shoulder for the noon to 1:30 p.m. event that ran long. A spokesman for Pioneer Courthouse Square management put the crowd at between 3,000 and 3,500.

The event was billed as a free concert/super rally and community sing-along in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street and Occupy Portland. It began with Storm Large leading the crowd in what became for many a visibly heart-wrenching version—tears came to their eyes—of the Woody Guthrie classic “This Land is Your Land.”

Rabbi Rose was the first speaker to address the rally.

“There is something seriously wrong in our country,” he said. “We are a fractured nation, a disheartened nation.”

He characterized the Occupy movement as more than a passing diversion.

“We must let our leaders know that this is not a temporary expression of frustration, but that it is a serious rage within us, which will not go away.”

Recognized over his decades-long career in Portland as an articulate and impassioned spokesman and leader on behalf of human rights, Rose added pointedly, “We have been sidelined by an increasingly powerful corporate structure, not just politicians, by cruel and selfish financial institutions.”

He accused some politicians of being “bought and owned through an unbridled lobbying system.”

Rose did not question Supreme Court decisions conferring on corporations the rights and privileges of a natural person, but he found fault in the consequences of those decisions.

“A corporation is a person, alright, but a person without a heart,” he said “There is a heartlessness which has arisen in our country…and this heartlessness has driven us to the pit of despair and all but destroyed the hopeful and optimistic spirit in us.”

The rabbi counseled restraint for the participants of the Occupy movement.

“We must organize this national outpouring in an effective way, a civil and law-abiding way,” he said.

And then, “We have had enough. We the people have had it with all the institutions that have endangered our beloved country.”

Rabbi Cahana likened modern times to a time in biblical history.

“This is not the first time the world has been ruled by greed and corruption,” he said.

It happened before, “and God brought a flood.”

Cahana told the crowd, “You are the flood. We can change the world.”

The other speakers at the event were Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), Oregon AFL-CIO President Tom Chamberlain, Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), the Rev. Lynne Smouse Lopez of Ainsworth United Church of Christ, the Very Rev. Bill Lupfer of Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, community activist and author Kathleen Saadat, Imam Mikal Shabazz of the Oregon Islamic Chaplains Organization and the Rev. Bill Sinkford of the First Unitarian Church.