Molly Ivins, the cranky, irascible, cynical, liberal and brilliantly funny author and columnist died Wednesday at the age of 62, during her third bout with breast cancer. Texan to her bones, and salty in speech and manner, she will be sorely missed for her unreserved skewering of the deserving.
She was unflappable and witty, reminding us always that we are the American people, and this country is ours - to fix and to to insistthat our leaders be called to account. She left the world a better place, and not only that, but a funnier one.
I suppose God needs a laugh now and then, too.
Thanks to everyone who’s donated thus far to get ShulShopper up and running. I’m really touched and honored by your support.
We’ve still got a ways to go before meeting our mark, so please, if you have cash to spare and you want to help get a kick-ass project off the ground, donate to Matzat today.
With only a few minutes to post, this is just a first look at the survey. The key findings (as defined by its author, Steven M. Cohen) are outlined below. The full press release and study are here.
I’ll leave a fuller rant to BZ, since he’s so good at it, but will note with exasperation that respondents’s observance levels were ranked “very high, high, moderate, and low” depending on their answers to questions about their prayer, Shabbat, Tisha b’Av (?!), etc. ritual practices. As is typical, the questions about “observance” failed to ask anything about respondents’ tzedakah practices or any other mitzvah that is bein adam lachavero. Why do we persist in measuring observance (a bit of an absurd endeavor to begin with) solely by ritual practice? A mitzvah is a mitzvah. And it is no more or less quantifiable to ask about respondents’ charitable giving practices, for example, than about their observance of Tisha b’Av.
I also find the enormous gender gap fascinating: 60% of men surveyed were in favor of gay ordination vs. 86% of women).
More to come…
5,583 responses were received; 4,861 from invitees, and 722 who responded to a public access website.
Major findings include:
Large majority favors gay and lesbian rabbis and cantors:
* Rabbis are largely in favor (65% in favor to 28% opposed, with others unsure), as are the cantors by a similar margin (67% to 27%), while lay leaders split 68% to 22%.
* JTS students also favor admitting gay and lesbian rabbinical students: (58% to 32% for the rabbinical students; 58% to 21% for the cantorial students, and 70% to 21% for all other JTS students.
* Among Conservative educators, executive directors, and other professionals are in favor (76% to 16%), while lay leaders split 68% to 22%, and students, USY and others (largely public access respondents) divide 70% to 20%.
Substantial variation by country, gender, age, and observance. Support for gay ordination is:
* Higher in the US than Canada, Israel, or elsewhere in the world.
* Higher among women than among men.
* Higher among younger people than among older people (among those 25 and over).
* Higher among the less observant than among the more observant.
Gender Gap:
* Men divide on the issue of gay rabbis and cantors 60% in favor to 33% opposed.
* Women are more heavily pro-acceptance, by a margin of 86% to 10%.
The survey also found that large majorities of respondents are united on the centrality of halakhah to Conservative Judaism, support of women as clergy, and opposition to both patrilineal descent and rabbis officiating at mixed marriages. These areas provide the basis for shaping consensus and direction in the future.
Britney Spears debuted a new darker, nappier haircolor on Monday night as she and boyfriend Isaac Cohen left the Chateau Marmont. Homegirl was also rocking a gigantic Star of David necklace, I’m guessing as an homage to her boy’s heritage.
The once crowned prince of The New Historians, Morris is in no small way responsible for the advent of post-Zionism — a movement which Nobel Prize Laureate Robert J. Aumann said at last week’s Herzliya Conference is an even greater threat to the continued existence of the Jewish state than Iranian nuclear capabilities.
With rhetoric like that being chucked around, it of course makes perfect sense that Morris — seeing that the post-Zionist trip leads nowhere other than to marginalization and disenfranchisement — would do a 180 and come out all David Horowitz in order to win back the favor of American and Israeli money-power. Post-Zionism is a dead end for an Israeli academic: There’s no honor in being a “useful idiot.” There’s no money in it either. Not in the Jewish community at least. And shit, who wants to be in league with the likes of Ilan Pappé and Norman Finkelstein? I sure as hell don’t.
Thus Morris made his foray back into the good graces of “the dominant paradigm” in the beginnings of this decade, most notably recanting his supposed sins in a 2004 Haaretz interview, claiming ‘Hey, you got me all wrong! I don’t think Israeli ethnic cleansing went far enough!’
His latest act of crowd pleasing was a January 6 op-ed in Die Welt, called “The second Holocaust will not be like the first,” which Zionist hysterics jumped all over, proclaiming, ‘See, see, even the crazy Lefties think we should nuke Iran!’ And thus Morris has served his purpose, no longer a “useful idiot” for the powerless, but a “useful idiot” for those in whose hands rests the fate of humanity.
In an era in which mainstream American Jewish organizations have been hijacked by right-wing partisans, and in which the most visible American Jewish politician holds views that are out of line with those of the vast majority of American Jews (not to mention most Americans), it’s time the community saluted Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold, a politician whose convictions are actually consistent with some of the greatest values held by American Jews.
Despite the usual Administration attacks charging that stopping this war means betraying our troops, Senator Feingold has courageously taken steps to block funding for a troop increase — or, to put it another way, to take the keys away from the drunk determined to drive our nation’s security off a cliff.
This is what Senator Feingold said today at a Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing he is leading on “Exercising Congress’s Constitutional Power to End a War”:
In the United States of America, the people are sovereign, not the President. It is Congress’s responsibility to challenge an administration that persists in a war that is misguided and that the country opposes. We cannot simply wring our hands and complain about the Administration’s policy. We cannot just pass resolutions saying “your policy is mistaken.” And we can’t stand idly by and tell ourselves that it’s the President’s job to fix the mess he made. It’s our job to fix the mess, and if we don’t do so we are abdicating our responsibilities.
Tomorrow, I will introduce legislation that will prohibit the use of funds to continue the deployment of U.S. forces in Iraq six months after enactment. By prohibiting funds after a specific deadline, Congress can force the President to bring our forces out of Iraq and out of harm’s way.
This legislation will allow the President adequate time to redeploy our troops safely from Iraq, and it will make specific exceptions for a limited number of U.S. troops who must remain in Iraq to conduct targeted counter-terrorism and training missions and protect U.S. personnel. It will not hurt our troops in any way — they will continue receiving their equipment, training and salaries. It will simply prevent the President from continuing to deploy them to Iraq. By passing this bill, we can finally focus on repairing our military and countering the full range of threats that we face around the world.
JTS announced yesterday that Rabbi Danny Nevins, one of the authors of the “Dorff teshuvah” on homosexuality, has been appointed Dean of the Rabbinical School, to begin in July 2007. Thoughts?
A shout-out to JTS Chancellor-elect Arnie Eisen for at least trying to bring some transparency to JTS around this decision. JTS faculty, students, and staff are often among the last to know when JTS (or other Conservative institutions) have made an important decision. This time, students received a heads-up email from Eisen about Nevins’ appointment that said he wanted to make them aware of the press release that would go out later that day. Unfortunately, and unsurprisingly, JTS flubbed the execution: Arnie’s email went out at 10:16 and the official press release went out at 10:22. Not Arnie’s fault, since he’s surely not sending out his own administrative emails these days, and certainly a sign of progress on the openness front. But JTS might want to aim for more than six minute’s notice in the future.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Sherry S. Kirschenbaum
(212) 678-8953 (office); (973) 650-6018 (mobile); or email. kirschenbaum {at} jtsa(.)edu
New York, NY, January 29, 2007 — The Jewish Theological Seminary
announced today that Rabbi Daniel Nevins has been named the next Dean
of The Rabbinical School. The Jewish Theological Seminary is the
academic and spiritual center of Conservative Judaism worldwide.
Rabbi Nevins, who will assume his post on July 1, 2007, succeeds Rabbi
William Lebeau, who joined JTS as Vice Chancellor for Rabbinic
Development in 1988. Since then, he has served twice as Dean of The
Rabbinical School, from 1993-1999, and most recently from June 2004
until the present.
Rabbi Nevins is currently the Senior Rabbi of Adat Shalom Synagogue in
Farmington Hills, Michigan, where he previously served as Assistant
Rabbi. A 1994 graduate of The Rabbinical School, he received an MA in
Hebrew Letters from JTS in 1991 and a BA, magna cum laude, from
Harvard College in 1989, from where he also received an MA in history.
A native of New Jersey, Rabbi Nevins studied at Yeshivat HaMivtar in
Jerusalem, and was the recipient of the prestigious Wexner Foundation
Graduate Fellowship.
The Hadassah Brandeis Institute has launched a new e-zine for Jewish women: 614.
The Society for Preservation of Hebrew Books has launched an amazing online resource of out-of-print seforim [religious texts] in PDF format. Check out HebrewBooks.org.
Dick Cheney’s Halliburton stock options rose 3,281% last year. After peaking at a worth of $12,000,000 in October, they are now holding at about $8,000,000. So glad this war’s going well for somebody!
Our anonymous friend who raised a ruckus with his or her initial post on the then-still undecided CJLS decision on ordaining gay rabbis returns again with a follow up:
Last month I shared with Jewschool my pride at the steps being taken to include Gays in our Movement and the frustration I felt by those who seemed to be less than open to this.
Much has happened since that posting. The Law Committee that makes decisions of Halacha for the Movement opened the door to the ordination of Gays and to rabbis performing commitment ceremonies. This makes me proud.
One Tshuva (rabbinic responsa), also accepted, suggested that Change Therapy (also called Reparative Therapy) might be effective. Shame on the author and on those who voted for this antiquated idea.
We understand that the Ziegler School (University of Judaism) is already open to Gay applicants. The word is that JTS will soon follow suit. It seems that students, the rabbis, Conservative Movement activits, are being surveyed on a range of issues relating to our feelings concerning Gay inclusion. For this I am proud.
Last week our school (Machon Schechter- were we spend a year of study) invited us to hear from rabbis who held widely divergent views. The idea seems to be that this will help the school settle on a policy regarding ordination in Israel. For this I am proud.
Three people were killed and two others were critically wounded Monday morning in an suicide bombing attack that rocket a shopping area located in Eilat’s Izidor neighborhood.
Police confirmed that a suicide bomber blew himself up in a bakery situated outside a shopping center, but no group has claimed responsibility for the attack.
In the spirit of Parshat Bo and its subsequent Torah portions, here’s a resurrected jam by a rather obscure soul musician, Darondo, who’s been making an incremental comeback with last year’s release of the appropriately titled (at least, for these circumstances), “Let My People Go.”
Jew It Yourself seeks, first and foremost, to provide the greater Jewish community with entirely free tools and resources conducive to independent Jewish learning and community organizing. It further aims to assist established Jewish communities by offering these same tools and resources, which we believe will reinvigorate constituents’ interest in and commitment to Jewish life by empowering them to take an active role in their local Jewish community.
What is ShulShopper?
Our proof-of-concept, ShulShopper, is an introduction to the overall model for Jew It Yourself, and will demonstrate several of Jew It Yourself’s key concepts.
Set to launch in early February, ShulShopper is a tool which allows individuals to locate congregations (synagogues and independent minyanim) in their local area and to rate and review those congregations.
A man can’t get a break. Okay, a man occasionally gets a break, but they’re few and far between. Let me give it to you straight:
I’m in desperate need of finishing funds for the production of ShulShopper, the first component of Jew It Yourself set to launch in just under two weeks. I need your help to get the site up and running.
For more than two years now, I have tried to raise funds to build Jew It Yourself. Indeed, I have applied to nearly two dozen organizations, and though many took a sincere interest in the project, only one gave funds to support it.
Since embarking upon the wild ride that has been Jewschool, I have tried my best to examine the issues facing the Jewish community and to creatively and actively address them, whether dealing in issues of Jewish identity and affiliation, or of our relationship to Israel. While neither my analysis nor my solutions have resonated with everyone, in these last four years I have found camaraderie and solidarity in hundreds of Jewish people, of all backgrounds and ages, with whom we together collectively share an understanding of, and vision for the Jewish community.
By and large, those with whom I have spoken, whether Jewish professionals or simple am haaretz, have told me that that which I am trying to accomplish with Jew It Yourself, if it’s not the direction that the overall Jewish community is going in, it is certainly the direction in which they would like their Judaism to be going.
I have been offered letters of support from dozens of pioneering Jewish organizations; built a board of directors and an advisory committee consisting of some of today’s greatest Jewish thinkers and innovators — all of whom are committed to this vision; and I have personally committed myself (even to the verge of my own financial detriment) to bringing, not my vision alone, but our communal vision to life.
I’m tired of trying to convince stiff-necked wealthy eccentrics to support this project. They clearly aren’t interested. They’d rather hold focus groups masquerading as young Jewish leadership initiatives and outsource our ideas to disinterested businessmen who are motivated more by their own profit than the fulfillment of our vision.
If you believe in Jew It Yourself — what it represents and what it will do for your Jewish life — I need your money. We’re at the point where you have to be willing to commit more than your ideological allegiance alone. You have to commit the fruits of your labor. And while a kickdown of $10 or so is greatly appreciated, I’m talking about real money: 10% tithings and the like.
We are on the brink. ShulShopper is 9/10ths complete and once it launches and gains both popularity and visibility, it is a surefire funding candidate (whereas federations and foundations alike will be fighting over who gets to attach themselves to it, as per Schopenhauer’s “Three Stages of Truth”). But I need private donors right now. I need your support.
I’m doing this for you. Really, honestly, sincerely, with everything I have in me. But I need your help to get it done. Don’t email me the name of another foundation to try. Give me $1000.
The producer of an all-Israeli porn flick is under attack from rabbis who say his use of a food-certification symbol ain’t kosher.
Yesterday, Tight Fit Productions of Van Nuys, Calif., the purveyors of “Assraelis,” which was shot entirely in Israel with all-local talent, and in Hebrew (with, uh, English subtitles), received a cease-and-desist order letter from a lawyer representing Rabbi Yehuda Rosenbaum of KOF-K Kosher Certification, a New Jersey company that puts its stamp of approval on Kosher goods. Tight Fit’s DVD-cover claim of Israeli authenticity is accompanied by a Hebrew letter normally reserved for rabbi-ordained meats, grains, and other foodstuffs.
KOF-K’s lawyer says that Tight Fit is using the symbol “illegally” in violation of State and Federal Law, and plans to sue “if the situation is not rectified as quickly as possible.” Oren Cohen, the owner of Tight Fit, finds the action “funny,” but will modify the cover art before the film’s release next week — to satisfy what he calls the “very nice” rabbis.
No word from Cohen, who himself does not observe the Kashrut, on whether, despite their Kosher claims, meat and milk products were mixed during the making of “Assraelis.”
Jew It Yourself seeks, first and foremost, to provide the greater Jewish community with entirely free tools and resources conducive to independent Jewish learning and community organizing. It further aims to assist established Jewish communities by offering these same tools and resources, which we believe will reinvigorate constituents’ interest in and commitment to Jewish life by empowering them to take an active role in their local Jewish community.
TMZ reports,