by LastTrumpet [➚] · Wednesday, June 13th, 2007
From the Forward:
Name five contemporary Jewish theologians saying something interesting about Jewish belief who had not already published a major work by 1990.
Stumped? So am I.
Over the past few months, I have asked my theologically minded colleagues this question, and the responses have been disheartening.
…
The Jewish world is bifurcated between producers of Jewish esoterica and Jewish popularizers, communal leaders and academics, but not both. Our generation has precluded the possibility that administration, scholarship and religious vision are compatible, if not mutually dependent, elements of Jewish leadership.
There are many reasons for the dearth of theological thinking, but there is one reason that is particularly worrisome: Maybe there are no fresh Jewish theological voices because Jews are no longer interested in listening.
We are so focused on Israel, antisemitism and intermarriage that we have come to ignore the linchpin for all discussions on Jewish continuity — namely, a compelling case for Jewish belief.
This past month, Jews observed the festival of Shavuot, celebrating the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai. Do we believe that Mount Sinai really happened? Do we believe that the Torah continues to command us, shape us and bind us as a people? How can a Jew stand simultaneously at the base of Sinai and firmly in modernity?
These are difficult questions and there are no easy answers, but a Jewish community that does not ask them will not get very far in its journey. It is incumbent upon every generation to formulate a theology that makes Judaism compelling to the Jews of its age.
The time is ours. Nevertheless, the question remains: Is anyone interested in being part of the conversation?
Full story.
I know those of you writing and reading for this fine blog are thinking about the big questions – I’m of the opinion that the conversation is being played out in the blogosphere, here and elsewhere (If you haven’t been reading Mobius’ journals from Elat Chayyim, not would be a good time to start. Also, the Westheimer/Kurtzman conversation over at Jewcy).
We may not be the kind of institutional theologians whose disappearance is lamented in this article, but that may come in part from what is sometimes a certain anti-institutional sentiment. Or, we may not be too fond of our institutional options. Or, our institutions may be our blogs. Thoughts?
by Mobius [➚] · Wednesday, June 13th, 2007
by BZ [➚] · Wednesday, June 13th, 2007
Israel has had two elections in two days, and the winners include no new faces.
Yesterday in the runoff for the Labor Party leadership, former Prime Minister Ehud Barak (1999-2001) won a narrow victory over Ami Ayalon. Barak, a former IDF chief of staff, is likely to become the new Minister of Defense, replacing Amir Peretz. In the event that Bibi Netanyahu remains the leader of the Likud, and that the Kadima party doesn’t last through another election, the next election could be a rematch of the 1999 election. (It’s not clear when that next election will be, because even though Ehud Olmert has had approval ratings around 2-3%, his status in office seems to be stable, due to mutual assured destruction: even though no one likes Olmert, no one wants new elections right now, because the left prefers Olmert to Netanyahu and the right prefers Olmert to Barak.)
Today the Knesset elected former Prime Minister Shimon Peres (1984-86, 1995-96) to the mostly ceremonial office of President. This is a milestone for Peres: it is the first time in his political career spanning half a century that he has won an election! (Peres became Prime Minister in 1984 under a power-sharing agreement with the Likud, and in 1995 upon the death of Yitzchak Rabin. Peres lost the presidential election in 2000 to the now-disgraced Moshe Katsav.)
by Mobius [➚] · Tuesday, June 12th, 2007
The Israeli-Palestinian Comedy Tour (which I co-produced last time around, and which features Jewschool & Radical Torah contributor Aaron Freeman) is back in Israel for their second run, this time with twice as many dates and locations. For the low-down, peep this excellent video, also shot by one of the event’s co-producers. They’ll be at Kol HaNeshamah motzei Shabbat to wrap up their tour, so if you didn’t get to see ‘em last time around, don’t miss out.
If you’re not in the holy land, but you’re nonetheless obsessed with it, head down to DC for the Brit Tzedek V’Shalom annual conference, also beginning this motzei Shabbat. I’ll be speaking on the opening panel, “Organizing in the American Jewish Community: Unique Challenges and Opportunities,” with Hadar Susskind of the JCPA and Debbie Stillman of the NCJW.
by Mobius [➚] · Monday, June 11th, 2007
JTA briefing and full story.
I just threw up in my mouth a little… Actually for real.
by Kung Fu Jew [➚] · Sunday, June 10th, 2007
Exciting news!
Senators Dianne Feinstein (CA) and Richard Lugar (IN), along with 7 other original cosponsors, have just introduced S.Res.224, a bi-partisan pro-peace, pro-Israel resolution that calls for active U.S. engagement to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  Please urge your Senators to cosponsor S.Res.224 today — click here to sign Brit Tzedek v’Shalom’s action alert!
S.Res.224 represents a sharp departure from the usual language in resolutions about Israel and the Palestinians and more closely echoes the pro-peace, pro-Israel positions shared by Brit Tzedek and the vast majority of American Jews. The resolution states clearly that resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is “in the vital interests of the United States, Israel, and the Palestinian people.” It further asserts that “armed force alone will not solve the Israeli-Palestinian dispute,” and that “achieving Israeli-Palestinian peace could have significant impacts on security and stability in the region.” Sign on.
More »
by Mobius [➚] · Sunday, June 10th, 2007
Bradley Burston (lately my favorite author commenting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict) writes,
Forty years ago this week, just when it seemed that it would take nothing short of a miracle for Israel to survive the coming war, the betting here was that the miracle bank had run dry. Amid the pre-emptive grave-digging and the fraught goodbyes, this was a constricted, panic-choked, border-phobic gas chamber of a country – literally, the ghetto to end all ghettos.
When the miracle came, few stopped to recall the real motto of this nation: Be careful what you pray for.
From this distance, one could conclude that while the Jewish state survived the war, Judaism as we knew it – Orthodox Judaism in particular – did not. Rabbinic Orthodoxy, the Jewish people’s sworn bulwark against change, would never be the same.
1967 was the war that would persuade rabbis that they could be generals – even, or especially, if they lived in Brooklyn. The taste of power being what it is, many rabbis would soon conclude that government – and occupation – were much too important to be left to elected officials.
If absolute occupation corrupts absolutely, no group would be more corrupted by Israel’s presence in the territories than rightist rabbis.
Read on…
by Mobius [➚] · Sunday, June 10th, 2007
This is me eating my hat. Why? Because I keep my word.
It tastes awful, by the way.
The AP reports (in full):
A boy playing with matches burned down the synagogue of an anti-Israel Orthodox Jewish group, not Zionist opponents, police said Friday.
The 15-year-old boy was charged with criminal mischief and referred to Family Court in the April 1 fire that wrecked the Congregation Bais Yehudi synagogue, about 40 miles north of New York City, said Ramapo police Sgt. John Lynch.
Some synagogue members had claimed the blaze was set by Zionists opposed to their anti-Israel views. Members of the group, Neturei Karta, routinely burn the Israeli flag, heckle marchers in Israel Day parades and pray for the end of the Jewish state. A few members prompted outrage when they traveled to Iran to participate in a Holocaust-denial conference.
But Lynch said the fire was caused by the boy “recklessly throwing matches around.â€
No one was injured in the fire, which gutted the building.
Source.
by Mobius [➚] · Sunday, June 10th, 2007
Can I just kvell for a minute over how much I love the Forward?
Greatest. Jewish. Newspaper. Ever.
This weekend’s issue is devoted almost entirely to the scandal over at the WJC, with Nathanial Popper delivering hard-hitting investigative journalism into the endless corruption that — despite even recent public scrutiny — continues unabated.
Popper reports:
While the upcoming elections for the leadership of the World Jewish Congress came about after the organization was criticized for lacking transparency, a number of newly released documents suggest that the elections are being shaped by a series of secretive backroom deals.
The most surprising result of the recent jockeying came May 30 when the front-runner, cosmetics heir Ronald Lauder, announced that he was forming a joint ticket with Matthew Bronfman, son of the current president, Edgar Bronfman. The partnership was a shock, in part because the elder Bronfman had earlier, in The New York Times, called Lauder unfit for the job while Lauder levied a similar charge against the younger Bronfman in the New York Post earlier this year.
Popper identifies the involvement of ousted WJC official Isi Leibler in coordinating with Lauder to subvert the liberal Bronfman’s leadership in order to install a right-winger at the helm of the WJC’s leadership. He also reveals the involvement of Stephen Herbits, Bronfman’s right-hand man at the WJC, who has been working to hammer out the details of the Lauder-Bronfman ticket.
In the process of his investigation, Popper also discovered another particularly interesting bit of news: Malcolm Hoenlein, head of the Conference of Presidents, received a $50,000 payoff from Ronald Lauder under dubious circumstances.
JJ Goldberg has apparently had enough. An op-ed in the very same issue reads:
Insiders have been complaining for years, often in fearful whispers, about the steadily rising importance of wealth as the chief criterion of leadership in the Jewish community in the past generation. Money speaks, and all others cower. Organizations pack their boards with wealthy donors to fund their growing bureaucracies, and then trim their agendas carefully to avoid losing the donations. The wealthiest, impatient with anything resembling process, create their own organizations to pursue their personal visions, such as they are, without the annoyance of hearing differing opinions. Rabbis and scholars hire themselves out as courtiers to the mega-donors, hoping they will spend their money wisely before they get bored and walk away.
We have not begun to calculate the corrosive effect of all these dollars — on the personal lives of the scholars who serve at the barons’ pleasure and whim; on the tawdry politics and public life of the Jewish community in this country and in Israel; on the public image of the Jewish people in the eyes of an ever more skeptical world.
We think nobody notices, but they do. Worse, most of us have stopped bothering to think about it at all, and no wonder. The mud-wrestling of the mega-donors at the World Jewish Congress is a tragedy for the Jewish people, but it is also a warning sign. All the recruitment strategies and leadership training institutes in the world cannot replace integrity and vision as the raw stuff of a people’s future.
But the Forward doesn’t stop at criticizing, as so many often do. They also pose an alternative, inviting Einat Wilf, a young Israeli politician (affiliated with Labor) currently running for the WJC presidency, to contribute an op-ed calling for the very same reforms I myself have demanded in recent posts here on Jewschool.
The Jewish world, at least in its official presentation, is governed by structures that were a product of the 20th century. These structures were remarkably effective in serving the Jewish people throughout that century — especially in its second half — rebuilding a thriving Jewish life and establishing a national center in the State of Israel.
But these structures are beginning to crack under the pressure, drifting away from the people and especially the new generation they are intended to serve. The World Jewish Congress is in danger of descending into irrelevance in a storm of bitter infighting and accusations.
There is, however, a new generation of younger Jewish activists that is prepared to do what it takes to transform it into the most relevant and innovative Jewish institution.
[...]
When the president of the WJC meets with world leaders, he or she claims to speak on behalf of the Jewish people. The continued ability of future presidents to do this rests on the WJC doing more to truly represent the Jewish people as a whole. To thrive in the future, the WJC should give more substance to the “W†and the “C†of its name: It must become more “World†and more “Congress.â€
I’ve asked Wilf, who’ll be in the US this week, to engage in a dialogue with our readers here on Jewschool. I’ll keep you posted as to whether or not it pans out…
by YehuditBrachah [➚] · Friday, June 8th, 2007
I walked into HaTav HaShmini, a record store on Rechov Shammai, for my last purchases in Jerusalem before catching my Nesher to the airport to return to Boston. I had a short list of recommendations from LastTrumpet of Jewy hippie music to pick up, and I wanted to listen to whatever was good. (Unlike in the States, in Israel they still let you listen to the music before you buy it.)
I flipped through the Jewish music section, picked out a couple of disks, listened to some, put some back. I found a disc called something like music of the kabbalah, which turned out to be an overly Orientalized cantorial selection of kabbalistic poetry, most of it liturgical. I had bought a disc by Ein Od Milvado during a clothing excursion to the Bat Ayin store (I know, I know, but they have the best selection of clothing for my style and body type), so I was looking through some other of his discs. I saw a disc put out by the Bat Ayin community and was really curious what would be on such a thing. (The first song was a strange ballad to Bat Ayin…) There were some other religious CDs too. The guy at the counter, a large guy with curly Jew hair and a scraggly beard and mustache, politely switched discs for me; I must have listened to like 5 or 6. Finally, I selected the three I wanted and handed them over to purchase.
The guy at the counter looked at what I’d chosen and said, “You know what you’d really like? There’s this album Orange Days? that’s really good; it has all the best Chassidic singers. You should listen to it.” He gestured to a dreadlocked dude to get the CD.
Dreadlocked dude got me the disc and set it down in front of me while counter guy rang someone else up.
“Yamim Ktumim: Shirim shel Tikvah v’Emunah” was the title. (“Orange Days: Songs of Hope and Faith.”) The album cover was black and orange, with a huge photograph of young religious people marching in a line with instruments somewhere in Gush Katif. Against the disengagement. It was an album memorializing the fight against the disengagement.
WHAT? What kind of demographic had I unintentionally projected by my music choices and clothing? Where did I go wrong and appear to be a right wing fanatic? I mean I guess the Bat Ayin album might have falsely incriminated me, but really, why are religious hippies in Israel predominantly right-wingers? What IS that? Why can’t I have hippie religious experience without right wing politics? What do I even mean by hippie anymore.
OR… In other words, I realized my naivite. How could I blame counter guy for his assumption? Up til a certain point, I am apparently okay patronizing stores that support settlements, hanging out at Nachlaot gatherings and minyanim with people who wish that all Arabs would be shot, considering learning at a place closely tied with Yeshivat Bat Ayin, buying music by right-wingers because it’s good, but somehow buying an album called “Yamim Ktumim” was just one step over the line. Visiting Bat Ayin or another settlement is one step over the line.
(It’s an intriguing step over the line though, like buying designer clothes or renting an SUV on a vacation or not recycling. There’s something naughty and thrilling in stepping to the other side for a little while.)
The counter guy took the CD and started unwrapping it to put it in the CD player for me to listen to it.
“Ah, no. No thanks, I don’t want to listen to it,” I said.
“You sure?” I nodded my head. He shrugged, clearly bewildered. “Okay,” and rang me up.
by Jewish Robot [➚] · Friday, June 8th, 2007
by Mobius [➚] · Thursday, June 7th, 2007
Haaretz reports:
Avraham Burg, former Knesset speaker and former head of the Jewish Agency says “to define the State of Israel as a Jewish state is the key to its end. A Jewish state is explosive. It’s dynamite.” In an interview in Haaretz Weekend Magazine, he said that he is in favor of abrogating the Law of Return and calls on everyone who can to obtain a foreign passport.
Burg, who was interviewed on the occasion of the publication of his book “Defeating Hitler” said “the strategic mistake of Zionism was to annul the alternatives. Israeliness has only body; it doesn’t have soul.”
Full story. (c/o David G.)
by Mordy [➚] · Thursday, June 7th, 2007
As any daily comics fan knows (and I know, there are precious few of us), there’s one Jewish daily comic: Edge City. It’s not always funny, but you can always count on it for instant cultural/religious identity fixes. The family celebrates Shabbos, Passover, and the wonders of chicken soup. Anyway, writer Terry LaBan has an interview up on comicbookresources where he discusses the strip, and his fixation on the Jewish religion (surprise, surprise, he’s Jewish himself).
We feel a certain impetus to put out a more positive and interesting picture of Jewish life than we usually see. While Jews are often depicted in the media, it’s usually in the form of dated and mildly-offensive stereotypes, and we hardly ever see Jewish rituals portrayed as anything but tiresome and embarrassing. This isn’t a result of anti-Semitism — most of this stuff is written by Jews. But it’s not what we experience.
by Y-Love [➚] · Tuesday, June 5th, 2007
The Los Angeles Times today features an article entitled “Clashing Values Alter A City’s Face”, the latest commentary on the changing demographics of Jerusalem.
Secular and “less devout” residents are moving out, black hats are moving in.
However, as I show on thisisbabylon.net, such assessments, and especially vis-a-vis the sentiments of the secular people leaving the city, overlook another major fact.
The haredi community itself is fragmenting, and a radicalized public is beginning to take form against the will of the haredi leadership, and often, against the will of the majority of the haredi community itself.
Many of the things mentioned in the LA Times piece are unique to ultra-heimish places like Brooklyn’s Williamsburg or Meah Shearim. And their eschewing of entertainment and recreational activities enjoyed by other Torah-observant Jews works beautifully for those in such a traditional framework.
Except now, increasingly, all haredim are supposed to fit into these paradigms. And the “four cubits of halacha” begins to shrink to a painfully restrictive (and quite monolithic and Ashkenazi) square inch.
Full article.
by Mordy [➚] · Monday, June 4th, 2007
Have a hankering for gorgeous jewelry that represents your Jewish identity but isn’t the ubiquitous Star of David? My mother, Maita Shinefield, the co-owner of Emunah Designs, recently launched their website. And though the website says: “Our customer is a woman who experiences true living, and she shares her joy and passion with everyone she touches,” I wear one of Emunah Design’s necklaces 24/7.
by Kol Ra'ash Gadol [➚] · Monday, June 4th, 2007
There is a story told about Rabbi Israel Lipkin of Salant, better known as Rabbi Israel Salanter. One day he was washing his hands before a meal, when his guests noticed that he was not immersing his hands in the water in the way preferred by Jewish law. His guests asked him why he was using so little water in his washing.
He answered, “I did not draw the water for washing myself. My servant, that peasant girl there, must go out to the well and break the ice, hauling back the heavy pails of water on her shoulders. The more water I use, the more work there is for her. I do not want my piety to rest on the shoulders of her suffering.”
Rabbi Salanter, founder of the mussar movement, used domestic labor in his home, as do many of us. And yet unlike many of us, he was able to see his servant as more than a means for him to carry out his own desires, but as a person whose labor contributed to the household, and whose sufferings must be considered.
I wonder what percent of the Jewish community in the United States make use of domestic workers? I would think quite a few – certainly enough so that a major Jewish magazine ran an -admittedly appalling- issue on Jewish girls and their African American nannies. But the truthis these days, it is difficult to manage a middle class- that is to say, two career- household without some assistance.
Certainly there is nothing shameful in either being or hiring domestic labor.
What is shameful, rather, is how domestic workers continually fall off the radar screen when we talk about social policy. Domestic workers have been excluded from most federal and state labor laws, including the National Labor Relations Act. To be clear, they are unable to organize for safe working conditions, decent pay, and the things that “professionals” take for granted, but are out of reach for so many American workers.
Partially, this is a result of the fact that domestic workers are largely women. In our still patriarchal society, the work that women do still often fails to register as work, let alone as meaningful or important – and is remunerated in accordance with such attitudes. It is to most men, and many women, simply the backdrop against which the world revolves – nevermind that without someone doing this work, their own lives would grind to a halt, and their work would be out of reach while they had to deal with the necessities of daily home life. “Women’s work” has been largely invisible since the industrial revolution.
There is, of course, another factor in the invisibility of domestic labor. Many domestic workers are not just women, but are immigrants as well -Kapow! double whammy! And Jews historically were part of several waves of immigration in which we were the bottom of that ladder, and we were part of the labor movements that changed America, giving us safer working conditions, decent wages – and a chance for our children.
Judaism is explicit that there is one law for everyone – what is fair law for Jews is what we should also be dealing out to those among us who are not Jews. In fact, the talmud states that one who acquires for himself a servant, acquires a master –
the tosafot clarify this point in the talmud (Kiddushin 20a), saying: There is a problem – why ‘a master?’ It is sufficient for him to be like his master. One can say it is like in the talmud yerushalmi that sometimes the master has only one pillow. If he sleeps on it himself, the master has not fulfilled ‘he is happy with you.’ (Deut 15:16) If he does not sleep on it, is he not going to hand it to his servant? This is a great cruelty. Therefore he needs to hand it to his servant and the servant is a master to himself.
The Torah classifies workers with those who are the most vulnerable in society: the widow, the orphan… these are classes protected by God, Who, when they cry out, takes vengeance for them, and for whom God lays responsibilty at our doorstep; Jewish law spells out in great detail what the Jewish obligation to the worker is – and it is extensive.
The famously cranky Kotsker rebbe also has something to say about washing hands: he commented on the talmud, tractate Eruvin (21b), “When Solomon ordained the laws of ‘eruv and the washing of hands, a bat kol (heavenly voice) proclaimed: My son, if your heart will be wise, my heart will rejoice, also mine (Proverbs 23:15); and furthermore it says in scripture: My son, be wise, and make my heart glad, that I may answer him that taunts me (Prov. 27:2).
The Kotsker commented: King Solomon instituted many other practices as well; what makes these two special?
The answer lies in their connection. The Hebrew ‘eruv, is from the root meaning ‘to include,’ ‘to be involved.’ washing the hands symbolizes holiness; separation from the mundane. This is the great wisdom beneath this concept: to be involved and yet to maintain clean hands – that is indeed laudable.” (trans. Rabbi Ephraim, And Nothing But The Truth: According To The Rebbe of Kotsk)
Even the salanter rebbe, the leader of the mussar movement, had domestic laborers in his household; but he saw them. He treated them well, and he made sure that they were recognized as humansdeserving of fair treatment. Today, many of us in the Jewish community are wealthy enough to have help in our homes -we must be careful to be sure that we honor the people who help our lives run smoothly- as we honor ourselves; to ensure that they are able to make a wage they can live on, and in safe working conditions.
Support the Domestic Workers Union (DWU) and the Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights.
In Washington, D.C., join JUFJ, and work with them for Domestic Workers rights.
In New York, go to the town hall meeting to see Saltyfemme’s post and work for the bill:
Thursday, 6/7, 6:30pm
Location: Judson Memorial Church, 55 Washington Square South
To RSVP and find out more, contact: danielle@jfrej.org, 212-647-8966 ext. 11
Everywhere else, raise a ruckus and ask why your state hasn’t passed a bill like this yet!
by biz [➚] · Monday, June 4th, 2007
This whole week Socalled, is playing shows in Boston, DC, NYC, LA, & SF to celebrate the release of his new album entitled Ghettoblaster. We’ve been working up to this album for a loooooong time, and we are psyched that its finally on its way to you.
Socalled builds hip-hop out of old Klezmer records and puts on the kind of show Al Pacino would go see nightly at the Babylon Club. He’s been with JDub since 2005′s Socalled Seder: The Hip Hop Haggadah, and we really, truly, love his music. He’s an accordion wielding, MPC pounding, rhyme twisting Klezmer hip hop maestro. His sophomore album, Ghettoblaster, features a vast pallette of over 40 guests including Theodore Bikel, 92 year old Bikinis and Bongos legend Irving Fields, underground hip-hopper C Rayz Walz, Gospel singer Doris Glaspie, hot shot producer Gonzales, and James’ Brown brass master Fred Wesley.
In New York, he’ll be joined by the very special Tim Fite who puts on the best show you’ve ever seen ever, as well as live t-shirt silkscreening and group comic making (comic frames on the walls, lots of pens, lots of fun). In LA, he’ll be joined by Wax Tailor – cinematic French hip-hop at it’s best.
2 FREE MP3s:
“You Are Never Alone”
“(These Are The) Good Old Days”
If you happen to live in Detroit or Chicago, the mighty Balkan Beat Box head your way this weekend with shows at the Detroit Festival of the Arts June 10th and Empty Bottle June 11th supporting their new kick ass, 4 STAR SPIN-awarded(!) album, Nu Med.
Socalled Ghettoblaster tour
Tue June 5 – Boston @ Great Scott
Wed June 6 – DC @ DC9
Thu June 7 – NYC @ Knitting Factory
Sat June 9 – LA @ Echo
Sun June 10 – SF @ Hemlock Tavern
by Kung Fu Jew [➚] · Monday, June 4th, 2007
Too funny:
Diplomats denied treif
(JTA) Israel turned down a request by some of its ambassadors abroad asking to hold official functions in non-kosher restaurants.
Ma’ariv reported Monday that dozens of envoys had complained to Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni that the kosher eateries available in the countries where they are posted are not of a standard appropriate for official diplomatic business. But their appeal for flexibility in the protocol was quashed by Trade Minister Eli Yishai, a representative of the Orthodox Shas Party in Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s coalition government.
“Keeping kosher has preserved the people of Israel,” Yishai told Livni.
Alternate headlines:
- Israeli foreign ministry lifeline for kosher restaurateurs worldwide
- Kosher delis cramping ministry’s style
- Ahmadinejad not swayed by seductive Reuben sandwich
- Israeli palettes imprisoned for preservation of peoplehood
- Shas minister squashes sausage, shrimp, foreign relations
- Coalition-style democracy once again not the best idea
Oops, maybe that last one wasn’t a joke.
(X-posted to The Jew & The Carrot)
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