by LastTrumpet · Thursday, May 31st, 2007
From The Jewish Week:
Take Lynn and Gideon, for example. She says she grew up “tangentially” Jewish. “It was an ethnicity, like being Italian,” Lynn describes. Her family belonged to a Conservative synagogue that they attended on Yom Kippur only and as she puts it, “even that was considered an ordeal.” Gideon, on the other hand, grew up Orthodox, and went to an Orthodox day school.
So what kind of married home do they have now? “Post-denominational,” says Lynn, which means taking their practice from various traditions. “I’ve learned a lot while Gideon takes his education for granted,” Lynn explains, “so what we do or don’t do is really up to me.” Now they have Shabbat dinner together every Friday night and keep their home kosher, but not to the letter. “We have a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy,” Lynn says.
But these aren’t just issues for Orthodox-Reform marriages. Even when a couple comes from the same Jewish denomination on paper, they can have a chasm between them. Ayala was raised on the observant end of the Conservative movement while her husband was raised at the other extreme. Ayala explained that her husband only “realizes now what a sacrifice and what a commitment” he made when, for example, he agreed to keep a kosher home.
In love and marriage among the Jews, then, even what’s kosher is a recipe for delicate compromise. But it’s heartening to see the spice and variety of Jewish life emerge from all the choices made by so many Jewish couples.
My fiance and I were both raised in the Reform movement, but we tend to have a rather different outlook on certain aspects Judaism and Jewish life. Finding a balance is a challenging process, yet one with great rewards. Just as it face-to-face encounters can help us with difficult geo-political divides, I can only hope that as this trend continues, perhaps we will be able to bridge some of the denominational boundaries of Jewish life, one marriage at a time.
Full story.
by Mobius · Wednesday, May 30th, 2007
I’m at Isabella Freedman for the summer, interning for Elat Chayyim. So guess what I don’t have time to do for the next three months? Blogging! I’ll do my best to stay on top of things, but chances are I won’t have much opportunity to write. So get used to more Mishegaas posts like this. Hopefully Jewschool’s other contributors will see this as an opportunity to step up their game as I take more of a backseat in this operation.
by Mordy · Wednesday, May 30th, 2007
How disappointing. In the midst of Hitchen’s new book, the NY Times best seller god is not Great, (specifically on page 55), I read the following line with dismay:
Orthodox Jews conduct congress by means of a hole in the sheet, and subject their women to ritual baths to cleanse the stain of menstruation.
What makes this so disappointing is that so much of the book is well-written, articulate and compellingly argued. I’m not an atheist. In fact, I associate myself with the religion he claims has sex through a sheet hole. Yet until this point, I read with interest and an open mind. So it’s a shame that Hitchens had to eradicate all of his credibility by putting in a false, cheap shot. Particularly, it makes it difficult to trust him when he takes hits on other religions.
Hitchens, next time use a fact checker.
by Kol Ra'ash Gadol · Tuesday, May 29th, 2007
I was tempted to title: “Israeli man wrestles leopard in underwear,” but I restrained myself.
Not a sideshow, underwear pervert or advertisement gimmick:
according to the AP,
A man clad only in underwear and a T-shirt wrestled a wild leopard to the floor and pinned it for 20 minutes after the cat leapt through a window of his home and hopped into bed with his sleeping family.
“This kind of thing doesn’t happen every day,” said 49-year-old Arthur Du Mosch, a nature guide. “I don’t know why I did it. I wasn’t thinking, I just acted….Du Mosch’s pet cat was in the bed with him at the time, along with his young daughter who had been frightened by a mosquito in her own room….He said he took it all in stride, “but the kids were excited.
Du Mosch lives in Kibbutz Sde Boker in the Negev desert.
Full story here
Hattip to Boingboing
by shamirpower · Tuesday, May 29th, 2007
Anyone else mystified with the recent Reebok campaign using Exodus 3:14 which is God’s answer to Moses’ inquiry of God’s true name?
by YehuditBrachah · Tuesday, May 29th, 2007
I began to do serious Jewish learning six years ago. I grew up Reform and failed by the Hebrew School system, and discovered Jewish learning through a fellowship at my college Hillel. When that fellowship ended, I was looking for somewhere else I could continue to learn and ask questions. I wanted to immerse myself in Jewish learning and to understand the laws of Shabbat, to learn Jewish texts, to learn how to daven.
That’s when I found Lishma.
It’s sort of the secret missing link in the collection of programs that many of the young progressive Jewish professional types go through along the way. No Bronfman program or Jews in the Woods, Lishma nonetheless has had a profound impact on many up and coming Jewish leaders. Learning all day long in the Beit Midrash at Camp Ramah Ojai (CA), davenning 3x a day, guest speakers, chevruta discussion, excellent teachers, and nice group housing by an orange grove separate from camp cabins. Lishma is a joint program of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies (Conservative) and Camp Ramah.
Here’s the blurb:
LISHMA is an extraordinary Jewish learning experience– a 4-week,intensive summer yeshiva for young adult Jews (18-26) located at Camp Ramah in California. Lishmaniks live among the orange groves in the beautiful LISHMA house, learn traditional Jewish prayer, study daily with renowned Talmud scholar from Bar Ilan University, Aaron Amit, engage in weekly social action projects , and hear lectures from prominent rabbis and scholars throughout the summer. Lishmaniks also enjoy the recreation facilities of Camp Ramah, including an Olympic sized pool, tennis and basketball courts, art, ceramics, hiking and more. Other highlights include a weekend camping trip to the Channel Islands, as well as ongoing spiritual mentoring with LISHMA Directors Lizzi Heydemann and Jordan Gerson, both students at the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies. This summer’s dates are June 17-July 16, 2007.
Check out our website at http://www.ramah.org/lishma and download the application. The application deadline is May 31st.
LISHMA is the perfect experience for the interested beginner, for someone with text study background, or for someone considering rabbinical school or a career in Jewish education. For more information write to lishma {at} ramah(.)org, or call 314-324-8124
If you want to take some time to do some good learning and you’re maybe at the beginning side of this stage of your Jewish journey, check it out. Deadline for applications has been extended until May 31.
by LastTrumpet · Tuesday, May 29th, 2007
L.E.D. Kippah
From Bangitout:
Introducing the LED Kippa scrolling digital message kippa, which can display a neon message on the yarmulke. Forget copyright infringement Nike & Sponge Bob Dugma’s - this yarmulke will rely on your wit rather than a half-assed Shrek design. Of course, kids will be able to display curse words directly on their kippa, which hopefully this will rid the Jewish world of kids wearing their kippa on their forehead (in order to hide the profanities for only those behind them.) Not sure if these are muksa (sounds like it) But check them out here: http://www.ledkippah.com/
Full story.
by Mobius · Monday, May 28th, 2007
Baruch dayan emes. Rabbi David Zeller passed away just before Shavuot. Eulogies and whatnot at rebshlomo.org.
by Mobius · Monday, May 28th, 2007
Shmuel Nelson is arguably the most popular musician among religious American olim living in the Jerusalem area. His band, Eden MiQedem, which performs an eclectic mix of Middle Eastern music and psychedelic rock, has played at roughly every wedding I’ve ever attended in Israel — and not because they’re necessarily a wedding band, but because they’re just so generally awesome that everyone in the Nahlaot/Bat Ayin/Moshav chevre demands them at their wedding.
Now, I now, saying that a bunch of Orthodox hippies love these guys isn’t much of a selling point for some of you out there, but believe me, Eden MiQedem is phenomenal.
I’m actually sitting on an interview I did with Shmuel, shortly before I left Jerusalem, which I keep intending to make part of our first ever Jewschool podcast, but since recording it, I’ve been continually sidetracked and unable to do so. Regardless, you may recall his version of “Yedid Nefesh” which I included in this past year’s Jewschool Chanukah mixtape.
At any rate, Shmuel is coming ’round this way next week and will be performing on the Upper West Side at Triad. Support an independent Jewish artist and, in the process, catch some live, bad-ass, Middle Eastern rock music that’ll keep you movin’ through the night. You won’t be disappointed.
Eden MiQedem
Wednesday, June 6th @ 9:00 PM
Triad, 158 West 72nd Street (b/t Broadway & Columbus)
$10 admission (cash) plus 2 drink minimum
by Mobius · Friday, May 25th, 2007
Ariel Sharon and Congressman Tom Lantos
It’s hard to be mad at Tom Lantos.
First of all, he’s a dyed-in-the-wool progressive. As Wikipedia notes,
Lantos is a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and has repeatedly called for reforms to the nation’s health-care system, reduction of the national budget deficit and the national debt, repeal of the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001, and has opposed Social Security privatization efforts. He supports gay marriage rights and marijuana for medical use, is a strong proponent of gun control and is adamantly pro-choice.
Lantos is a well-known advocate on behalf of the environment, receiving consistently high ratings from the League of Conservation Voters and other environmental organizations for his legislative record
“One of us! One of us!”
But what makes Lantos even more admirable and worthy of my respect is the fact that he risked his own life for the sake of his fellow Jews as a member of the Hungarian Underground resistance, and despite being captured and brutally beaten by the Nazis, he survived the war and lived on to become the first-and-only Shoah survivor in the U.S. Congress.
Lantos has credibility, as far as I’m concerned. His experience lends authority and weight to his voice. Which is why I’m so troubled by Mr. Lantos’ proposed resolution [PDF], “Relating to the 40th anniversary of the reunification of the City of Jerusalem,” which upholds The Official Zionist Narrative™ as the capital-T “Truth” and as the final word on the status of Jerusalem as “the eternal, undivided capital” of Israel.
More »
by Kung Fu Jew · Friday, May 25th, 2007
Bodies — legal and illegal — is the theme of the latest issue of New Voices magazine, the only national magazine by and for Jewish college students.
This month’s features look at the endangered state of women’s health at Stern College of Yeshiva University and the story of outlaw Jews involved in the Jewish mob. Continue reading to learn about Harvard students starving for workers’ better wages, obscure Jewish teachings on fingernail hygiene, a sex-panic in 1920s Boston, and a handful of other topics.
Also, a big welcome to Liz Alpern and Joshua Nathan-Kazis as the incoming director and editor for 2007 - 2009. Kudos to Ilana Sichel and Sarah Braunstein as they conclude two years at the Jewish Student Press Service — the magazine looks more beautiful than it ever did, covers the edgy news that Jewish students want to read, and the organization has once again survived through another debacle of speaking truth to power (read all about it in The Nation).
New Voices is free free free — subscribe here. Under two years out of university? Then become a contributor here. Want your synagogue’s students to receive it for free, too? Rock on.
by sarah · Friday, May 25th, 2007
This little story is interesting because I used to love to shop at Zara. They had neat sweaters, cheap shoes and black pants that made my booty look kind of okay. (And when you live in New York you’re not allowed to wear anything besides black pants, so that worked out great.)
It seems Zara’s Israeli stores were selling some similarly black, similarly booty-enhancing clothing to the frum community in Israel without disclosing a few shatnez violations…doh.
The Spanish clothing empire took out a series of adverts in Israeli newspapers to apologise for the error, which it said happened after a mistake in one of its factories. The suit contained a combination of cotton and linen which some rabbinical authorities class as an “unnatural” blend, known as shatnez to ultra-Orthodox Jews.
In a statement, the company said: “Zara regrets this mistake and would like to reassure its clients in Israel and particularly Orthodox Jews that it will do everything possible to prevent it happening again.” Zara has also promised to refund the cost of scientific checks for shatnez, which Orthodox Jews routinely carry out when they buy clothes. They return those which test positive.
I am going to ask my Orthodox friends if they have any extra shatnez testing kits lyng around, because I have no time for ironing linen clothes anyway and if they sneak that crap into my cotton I want nothing to do with them either.
Fashion chain Zara apologises for selling ‘non-kosher’ clothing (The Independent via Jezebel)
by YehuditBrachah · Wednesday, May 23rd, 2007
Shavuot in Jerusalem is a wild night. It’s like a pub crawl, but with Torah. Each place you go has a different flavor: maybe you’ll start out with some neo-Chassidic talk on cleaving to God and then walk to your next stop at a Freudian exploration of the parasha with Dr. Aviva Zornberg, after which maybe you drop in on a discussion on Jewish law.
This year, I started at the Shalom Hartman Institute, which was founded by Rabbi David Hartman. For those who don’t know Rabbi David Hartman, he is a real gadol in Jewish philosophy, pluralism, and Israel-Diaspora relations. He’s also not afraid to push the envelope. So I was delighted to hear the second half of his lecture on the meaning of Shabbat, in which he was looking at the Shabbat of the land of the Sabbatical and Jubilee years. (What can I say, I was eating dinner with friends and had some sheva brachot to celebrate with the new couple–can’t cut that short!)
He was talking about how the Torah’s laws on the Sabbatical and Jubilee years didn’t quite play out right. The main element of them is letting the land go fallow for one year out of seven, giving it a Shabbat of its own. There was also an economic aspect: the Jubilee year included the remission of debts, return of land to original owners, and freeing of slaves. The laws can be seen as preventing the accumulation of wealth into only a small number of hands.
The Talmud presents a discussion of the laws in which the rabbis notice that people are not lending to the poor before the Sabbatical year — in effect, the laws are doing the opposite of their intention, keeping the poor starving instead of enabling them to eat. Therefore, Rabbi Hillel of blessed memory instituted the prosbol, basically making these laws inapplicable so that people would continue to lend to the poor even when approaching a Jubilee year. In other words, Hillel makes a blanket proclamation that laws from the Torah are no longer in effect in order to accomplish what seems to be the spirit of the law.
Rabbi Hartman concluded by giving a table-pounding speech about the need to do this today in the context of agunot, women whose husbands have left them but refuse to give them a get (a Jewish writ of divorce) that they need in order to remarry. This is a really hot topic in Orthodoxy today, because there are thousands of women at the mercy of their deadbeat husbands, who refuse to give them a get either trying to extort money from them or simply because they have disappeared and can’t be found to issue the get. Rabbi Hartman said this is a time like that of the Jubilee year when we need to look at the spirit of the law and ask, “Did God really want one group of Jews to be exploiting another group and keeping them powerless? No.”
It was really electrifying. I was totally with him. But I turned to fellow rabbinical student Danya and said, “Okay. This is great stuff. So when is he going to start ordaining women?” She nodded knowingly.
Maybe ten minutes later, Rabbi Hartman was walking past us out of the auditorium. “Now’s your chance to ask him your question,” Danya said. I made sheepish excuses, so instead she marched up to him.
“Rabbi Hartman, I really enjoyed your drash, especially what you were saying about agunot. So, I just wanted to know, what do you think about ordaining women?”
“No problem,” Rabbi Hartman said immediately. “Absolutely.”
Which leaves me still wondering: when the Hartman rabbinical program that is rumored to be in the works does actually start up, do I get to come and learn?
by aaronf · Tuesday, May 22nd, 2007
I thought cholent was just the Yiddish word for “leftovers.” I didn’t realize it was a religious fault line.
According to an article in JPost, the Shulchan Aruch instructs us to eat cholent on Shabbat lest we be taken for Karaites, who apparently spurn … cholent.
But my best takeaway was that Karaites reject the divinity of the oral law and, most interestingly, believe we should all read the Torah and decide for ourselves what it means. Karaites are apparently encouraged to “consult with as many people as possible where there is a question of uncertainty. One can take the advice of a hacham (an especially learned member of the community), but that advice is not binding and the hacham has to be able to prove his view from the Torah.”
Isn’t this what Jews mostly do anyway? When rabbis (to our stunned amazement) disagree on interpretation, don’t we just go with whom/whatever makes most sense to us?
The article quotes one learned Karaite as saying: “Rabbinic Judaism has taken the responsibility away from the individual and given it to the rabbis. But you can’t say on Judgment Day that the rabbi told me this or that - the responsibility is on the individual. Every person’s decisions are on his head and that’s why each person should read and try to understand the Torah.”
Isn’t this what all Jews are supposed to do? We all live, more than less, by the Karaite motto “search well in the scripture and do not rely on anyone else’s opinion.”
To me the Karaites are just another bunch of Jews proving Rabbi Friedheim’s adage, ‘There is only one kind of Judaism, Orthodox. There’s only one kind of Jew, Reform.”
by Mobius · Tuesday, May 22nd, 2007
Mazal tov to Modular Moods‘ DJ Handler and his lovely bride Nina on the occasion of their wedding! And props to Erez (Mr. Handler) for sending us this redonkulous video of hasidic b-boys breakin’ to Frank London and Y-Love at his wedding party…
by BZ · Monday, May 21st, 2007
I already mentioned briefly that the Chicago area has completely taken over the leadership of American Reform Judaism’s professional organizations. Now it’s a cover story in the Chicago Jewish News:
For the next four years at least, the Chicago area is the center of power in the world of the American Reform rabbinate.
Rabbi Peter S. Knobel, spiritual leader of Beth Emet the Free Synagogue in Evanston, was recently installed as president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the national organization of Reform rabbis, believed to be the oldest and largest rabbinic association in the world.
At the same time Rabbi Ellen Dreyfus, of B’nai Yehuda Beth Sholom in Homewood, was installed as vice president.
Knobel will serve two years, then Dreyfus will take over as president.
As long as records have been kept for the 118-year-old organization, this is the first time the two top leaders have been from the same city.
[...]
In addition to the two rabbinic leaders, two more Chicago-era individuals head national Reform movement organizations this year. Lori Sagarin, director of congregational learning at Temple Beth Israel in Skokie, is the president of NATE, National Association of Temple Educators. And Edward Alpert, executive director or Am Shalom in Glencoe, is the president-elect of NATA, National Association of Temple Administrators.
But this article is relevant for more than just Windy City boosterism (not that there’s anything wrong with that). Here are the key paragraphs:
In broad strokes, [Rabbi Dreyfus] says, she sees a clear division between the Orthodox and the non-Orthodox streams, but within the non-Orthodox stream, “the question is how we define the differences between Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist Judaism. That’s one of the challenges Peter (Knobel) wants the movement to think about-are there differences that we can really articulate, and do they really matter?”
In the case of young people, she believes the answer is no. “I see a growing post-denominationalism” in a younger generation, she says. “The movement labels are totally irrelevant. How are we going to reach out as a movement to young people who have no interest in movements? that’s another challenge.”
One answer, she says, may lie in the chavurah (informal fellowship group) movement-her eldest son, among many others, identifies with it. “His cohort are less interested in institutional synagogues as they are in studying, celebrating, creating community. At this point we don’t know what will happen to them when they settle down and have children, but we don’t want to lose the best and the brightest because we have become irrelevant,” she says.
This message contrasts sharply with URJ president Rabbi Eric Yoffie’s statements railing against “postdenominationalism”. Rabbi Dreyfus’s message is one that I (and other Reform movement expats) have been waiting for years to hear from the official institutions of the Reform movement: a recognition that we have created meaningful Jewish lives outside the Reform institutions without abandoning our progressive Jewish values (i.e. the reason we’re not there isn’t because we’re not interested in Judaism), and an acknowledgement that we are missed and that our absence highlights an area where the movement falls short. Acknowledging the problem is the first step towards solving it, so the message we’re hearing from the new leadership portends good things for the future.
by BZ · Monday, May 21st, 2007
(Introduction.)
Today: War. The end?
601. “You must not go back that way again.” (Deuteronomy 17:16) = don’t live in Egypt
602. “When you approach a town to attack it, you shall offer it terms of peace.” (Deuteronomy 20:10)
603. “You shall never concern yourself with their welfare or benefit as long as you live.” (Deuteronomy 23:7) = the nations of Ammon and Moab
604. “When in your war against a city you have to besiege it a long time in order to capture it, you must not destroy its trees, wielding the ax against them.” (Deuteronomy 20:19) = trees that yield food
605. “There shall be an area for you outside the camp, where you may relieve yourself.” (Deuteronomy 23:13)
606. “With your gear you shall have a spike, and when you have squatted you shall dig a hole with it and cover up your excrement.” (Deuteronomy 23:14)
607. “Before you join battle, the priest shall come forward and address the troops.” (Deuteronomy 20:2) = anoint a priest to talk to the troops
608. “When a man takes a bride … he shall be exempt one year [from military service] for the sake of his household, to give happiness to the woman he has married.” (Deuteronomy 24:5) = and likewise one who builds a house or plants a vineyard
609. “…he shall not go out with the army or be assigned to it for any purpose.” (Deuteronomy 24:5) = the cases in #608
610. “Do not stand in dread of them, for Adonai your God is in your midst, a great and awesome God.” (Deuteronomy 7:21) = don’t be afraid and retreat in time of war
611. “When you take the field against your enemies, and Adonai your God delivers them into your power and you take some of them captive, and you see among the captives a beautiful woman and you desire her…” (Deuteronomy 21:10-13)
612. “You must not sell her for money.” (Deuteronomy 21:14) = the captive in #611
613. “Since you had your will of her, you must not enslave her.” (Deuteronomy 21:14) = the captive in #611
***
And that’s it. That’s all she wrote. Not the way I would have wanted things to end. But maybe that’s appropriate. This list certainly raises questions, more than most of the lists have, and I’m starting to think that the whole list is really 613 questions, and I don’t have answers to all of them. And maybe the way to commit to receiving Torah is to keep raising those questions.
On the other hand, perhaps the atrocities of war aren’t the best way to welcome the holiday. So for now, in anticipation of revelation, I’m going to loop back around to the beginning.
***
1. The First Commandment — “I am Adonai your God” (Exodus 20:2).
***
Chag sameiach!
by aaronf · Monday, May 21st, 2007
Rudy Giuliani says he’s never heard the claim that the US was attacked on 9/11 because we’d attacked Iraq. Guess he didn’t read Bin Laden’s 1996 “Declaration of War” against the US. Back then old UBL said:
“The youths hold you responsible for all of the killings and evictions of the Muslims and the violation of the sanctities, carried out by your Zionist brothers in Lebanon; you openly supplied them with arms and finance. More than 600,000 Iraqi children have died due to lack of food and medicine and as a result of the unjustifiable aggression (sanction) imposed on Iraq and its nation. The children of Iraq are our children. You, the USA, together with the Saudi regime are responsible for the shedding of the blood of these innocent children.
If Muslims did to us what we did/do to them, it would spawn American Mujahideen, like in the Reagan-era flick, Red Dawn.
