According to a JTA “breaking news” story, a recent poll by the ADL ( which, IMO makes it immediately suspect, but for what agenda exactly at this point is unclear) of Israeli teens show that they do not believe that a second Holocaust could happen. However, 30 percent (of 500 teens, not exactly a huge sample) think Israel is “under a serious threat of destruction.” Another 52 percent say “Israel is under a certain threat of destruction.”
And so this means…that the ADL asks leading questions to teens…?
Orthodox Rabbis Irving “Yitz” Greenberg and Haskell Lookstein have begun a drive asking Rabbis to sign a statement asking Jews not to attend the Olympic Games in China. JTA reports that more than 175 Jewish leaders, including the heads of the Reform and Conservative movements, have signed the appeal. Rabbis Greenberg and Lookstein, began circulating the petition, timed to be released before Yom Hashoah commemorations Thursday, after they learned that Beijing had set up a kosher kitchen to accommodate Jewish tourists.
“We are deeply troubled by China’s support for the genocidal government of Sudan; its mistreatment of the people of Tibet; its denial of basic rights to its own citizens; and its provision of missiles to Iran and Syria, and friendship for Hamas,” the statement says. “Having endured the bitter experience of abandonment by our presumed allies during the Holocaust, we feel a particular obligation to speak out against injustice and persecution today.”
Between 1 and 2 am on Tuesday, April 29, I stood guard at an orphanage run by the Islamic Charitable Society in Hebron. An order for closure was put on the orphanage, to go into effect yesterday; the military has visited the site three times already, and have said that anyone (Palestinian) still in the building starting April 28 could be arrested and held for five years in prison.
Standing guard consisted of sitting near the door with my laptop, playing a computer game, with music coming out of the the headphones around my neck; about four or five times, I paused what I was doing to mute the music, and listened more closely to the sounds of the Hebron night, which never amounted to anything much. There were plenty of night dangers to imagine in the wind which blew through the courtyard, islamic prayer flags flapping against the building.
It’s not necessarily funny, but it is a President talking about Israel-Palestine relations to a Jew.
As to Stewart’s question — I’ve always wondered the same thing. It doesn’t get the Palestinians anything to unilaterally declare a Palestinian state (i.e., the occupation won’t end) but why the hell not?
I give them full points for consistency. Of course, it doesn’t solve the problems of the use of resources to produce meat. It also raises all kinds of questions (and to be honest, although I’ve occasionally had a burger, the idea of meat produced by humans creeps me out especially knowing all the really awful stuff behind and alongside Genetically modified food- which currently is mostly herbiferous).
But of course, the really great questions have already been asked by Jewish Star Trek fans, who pondered the matter via the replicator: Could one eat a kosher cheeseburger? Who would be qualified to supervise the meat, since in theory there might still be animals around that people schechted? Would it be kosher to eat pork produced this way? How about human flesh? The questions are endless.
If it was liver, do you still have to broil it within an inch of destruction?
PETA: You have challenged us; now we challenge you to answer these question for us!
Ed Koch, the irascible former mayor of New York City, has purchased a burial plot in Trinity Church, the only uptown cemetery still accepting burials. According to the Times (of course!) Says Koch, “The idea of leaving Manhattan permanently irritates me.â€
The Times reports:
Mr. Koch also said he had ordered a tombstone to “adorn my grave upon my death, which I hope won’t be for another 8 to 10 years.â€
Carved on the tombstone is the most important prayer in Judaism, “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One,†in English, Hebrew and a transliteration, and the last words of the journalist Daniel Pearl before he was murdered by Islamic terrorists: “My father is Jewish; my mother is Jewish; I am Jewish.â€
…I called a number of rabbis to see if this was doable,†he said. “I was going to do it anyway, but it would be nice if it were doable traditionally.â€
He said he had been advised to request that the gate nearest his plot be inscribed as “the gate for the Jews,†and the cemetery agreed.
He was also instructed to have rails installed around his plot, so he ordered them.
Being buried in Manhattan, Mr. Koch said, would also make it easier for former constituents to visit.
“I’m extending an open invitation,†he said.
Although the plot is non-denominational, I am very struck by this irony, of someone declaring his Jewishness by… buying a burial plot in a churchyard, and then declaring it “the Gate of the Jews.”
He is spending a lot of money on a place where his remains will be, but I wonder, what could that money have done for the Jewish community.
Speaking more generally, I have often been struck when doing funerals, by how odd it is that people who aren’t particularly interested in being active in the Jewish community while alive want to be buried by a rabbi, after it can’t make much of difference any more. There’s some odd niggle that I can’t quite put my finger on about people who want to be Jews in their deepest moments, but who don’t do Jewish. On this day of gevurah in gevurah, it seems to me that we need to be asking how to make our American Jewish sisters and brothers think about being Jewish as something which is more than a -meaningful, perhaps, but only a – hobby, something to be done for one’s own satisfaction, at one’s own convenience, but not to interfere with the business of life.
Perhaps some of you out there in blogoland can get at that niggle better than I.
This is not rosy-eyed, kumbaya-singing wishful dreaming — when an unperterable enemy offers a ceasefire, do you turn it down and say “You started it!”? But what is so infinitely frustrating is that by accepting this offer, Israel doesn’t lose anything. There’s no substantial “taking a chance”. Every effort via blockade to halt the rockets and prevent rearmament has erstwhile failed, so lifting the blockade is hardly a sacrafice. Either Hamas’ rockets continue or Israel allows them to gain some diplomatic trustworthiness. Should Hamas fail to follow through, then, fine, Israel can reneg on the deal too. But to turn it down? Stupidity.
The only point in turning it down is if Israel doesn’t want to negotiate at all. Because she does…Right? I find this dogged beleif that Israel is the persistent peace-seeker a bunch of bunk. After all, this is repeat behavior.
I just read a fewexcerpts from Shut Up, I’m Talking: And Other Diplomacy Lessons I Learned in the Israeli Government and it can’t help but confirm my fears that Israel and her government — being the respective sizes of New York City’s population and it’s governance — often accomplish and hinder more by accident than by design. Considering the Israeli government frequently doesn’t know when the Israeli government is building settlements (either now or then), I find that fits with my understanding just perfectly.
And while I don’t mean to be so negative, particularly in a season of celebration for Israel’s 60th b-day, it’s no time to put on some rosy-tinted blindfold. Sderot, I’m sure, is really glad to hear that Israel has flushed this really dumb deal.
They’re not threatening any more: this month, two Toronto-area “traditional Conservative” congregations have voted to leave the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. (Another four voted to remain in the USCJ, while others have votes scheduled for the next few weeks/months.)
[T]he Conservative movement’s shift to the left – including the 2006 decision by the movement’s Jewish Theological Seminary to accept openly gay rabbinical students – stands in contrast to the attitudes of Toronto’s typically more traditional congregations. Of the synagogues [who have voted or will be voting], for example, only Beit Rayim is fully egalitarian.
What about the youth whose groups are now no longer affiliated with USY? Some of these synagogues will “hopefully” be working together “provide quality, innovative youth programming.” Unfortunate, because one of the draws of USY (BBYO, NIFTY, NCSY, etc.) is meeting new people from other cities.
Yesterday afternoon, as Passover came to a close for many of us, I had the opportunity to be part of a “Ba’al Shem Tov Meal”, a Jewish ritual very different from what I’m used to. My friend ML is a 10th- or 12th-generation direct descendant of Reb Yisrael Ba’al Shem Tov, itinerant mystic and 17th-century founder of Hasidism, and as such, has inherited a unique practice which has been observed in her family meticulously and without fail each year: They cook exactly 31 matza balls, with one larger than the others, and sit around to hear the recitation (in Yiddish or in partial English translation) of the story of Reb YBST’s attempt to bring the Mashiach by travelling to Israel to meet The Ohr HaChaim, Rav Chaim IbnAttar, with whom he believed he shared King David’s reincarnated soul.
So about twenty of us friends of ML sat around her studio apartment, munching on Matza Lasagna, salads, and 31 matza balls sponsored by Moishe House Silver Spring, and listened to ML read her cousin’s recently completed translation of the entire story. It was good times, and there was a lot of joking about the historicity of the improbable tale, but what struck me more than the fun, the lively company, or the food, was the devotion and persistence with which this Passover custom had been passed down through the generations. Its power was such that ML, one of my most cynical friends, could not imagine letting the last day of Pesach pass without making a Ba’al Shem Tov Meal of her own, complete with all 31 matza balls, and an (irreverant but) attentive audience.
For the past 260 years her extended family members have gathered in their homes yearly to keep this story going, and despite its different variants (was the daughter named Udel or Adel? Was Reb Yisrael attacked by ghouls or pirates?)Â the tale is remarkably cohesive. It seems like Reb YBST was successful when he started this practice so long ago. If you could make sure your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren were telling a story about your life more than two centuries from now, what story would you want them to tell? And how would you see to it that they did?
An extremely-truncated version of the story told at the Ba’al Shem Tov Meal can be found here.
Day 6 Yesod of Chesed JTA reports on a “new” “trend” (goodness, how many scare quotes do I need for this post?). Once again, the Jewish press gets on the bandwagon a little late., since Moishe house has been doing this for a while now. But what is new and interesting bout these new kvutzot is that they are affiliated with the Zionist youth movements, Habonim-Dror and Hashomer Hatzair (there appear to be three of these altogether currently, one with Habonim Dror and two with Hashomer Hatzair, two in NY and one in Toronto).
Setting up these collectives in North America represents an overhaul of the Zionist youth movement ideal. Whereas in the past these movements functioned more or less like farm teams, preparing young American Jews to settle in Israel, aliyah is no longer the goal.
“Judaism has always been a global reality,†says Jane Manwelyan, 25, of Kvutzat Orev. “Zionism is the collective potential of the Jewish people. Israel is just one of the physical representations of that, certainly not the only one.â€
Rather than a physical destination, Israel “is central to our idea of Jewish peoplehood,†says Gil Browdy, 25, of the Habonim kvutza.
He notes that the Israeli kibbutz movement still isn’t sure what to make of the North American upstarts.
“It’s a tension,†Beran acknowledges.
But these young urban pioneers wanted to stay at home, to help revitalize Jewish life in the Diaspora, become involved in community-based activism and build good lives for themselves based on the values with which they grew up, even after they age out of their youth movements.
Since I’ve been scolded lately for drinking the hateorade, I’ll just say that I like it. I think that it’s a fine idea, I’m glad that Moishe house isn’t the only ones doing it, and I hope the idea spreads, not only to sinlge 20somethings, but I can’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be a good idea for a way to revitalize Jewish communities of all ages, mixed ages, and with or without kids. Oh wait, someone’s done that too (I know the article doesn’t say so, but although being Jewish is by no means required, there are quite a few Jews living there).
Week one, Day 7
Malchut of Chesed
Rabbi Jill Jacobs, over on Jspot, opines that the seder table seems to have gotten rather cluttered. She notes the dozens of emails calling her attention to the various political agendas that yell “me, me” at pesach and offer an assortment of candles, glasses, fruit, and so on to add to those items part of our regular ritual/ More »
Here is a recounting of a seder in Mali complete with lettuce hanging from trees, torrential rains, mango-based charoset, and several haggadot shipped from the united states. Jess and Ari, our seder-leading beacons of light, can make just about anything accessible to anyone by identifying the core themes and creating gateways while staying true to the source. It’s really amazing.
It is fairly well known that, in Israel, many recognize and observe seven days of pesach and a single seder whereas, outside of Israel, many recognize 8 days of pesach and two seders as proper observance.
Where did the extra day come from?
A piece over at my jewish learning does a good job explaining:
The Jewish calendar is lunar. Over 2,000 years ago, a council of rabbis from the Sanhedrin, the ancient legislative and judicial body, held special sessions in Jerusalem at the end of each lunar month to receive witnesses to the first sliver of the new moon. Because a lunar cycle is approximately 29 days long, it was no mystery when the new moon should appear, but the Sanhedrin still declared months and holidays only on the basis of these witnesses. …
Once the sighting was legitimated, the rabbis declared the next day Rosh Hodesh, the beginning of the new month. Originally, beacon fires would be set on mountaintops to spread the word to distant Jewish communities already living in far away places such as Egypt and Babylon. Watchers on faraway hills set their beacon fires as soon as they saw them, continuing the relay “until one could behold the whole of the Diaspora before him like a mass of fire” (Mishnah Rosh Hashanah 2:4)… Celebrating festivals for an extra day would ensure that, regardless of whatever confusion reigned about the exact start of the new month, at least one day of their celebration would be on the correct day.
Okay, that makes sense but we started to switch to a rule-based fixed-arithmetic lunisolar calendar system after the destruction of the second temple. That made the days designed to prevent error obsolete since everyone everywhere in the world used the same system and derived the days similarly. It no longer mattered how close one was to the Sanhedrin so why keep the extra days?
At the end of Beitzah 4b that issue is addressed. “Now that we know the fixed new month, what’s the reason for doing two days?” The answer there is hizaharu b’minhag avoteichem (be careful about your ancestors’ minhag), because in the future there might be a decree preventing us from keeping the calendar…And we can even agree on the value of minhag avoteinu (see Beitzah 4b), and you can follow the minhag of your ancestors who kept 2 days, while I’ll follow the minhag of my ancestors who have been Reform for at least five generations.
The other common answer is given by a Rabbi from Aish here:
So why was a second day Yom Tov added? In order to make a distinction, to add to the Jewish awareness that one is living in the Diaspora and does not claim permanent residence in the Holy Land.
BZ’s answer to Minhag Avoteinu is compelling as is the issue that there has ceased to be a consistent mihag in the diaspora. The Reform, Renewal, Reconstructionist, and Conservative movements have all offered decisions permitting the use of a 7-day pesach. Here is some CCAR (Reform) analysis. The Cons and Recon movements both provide flexibility for local congregations but the result is that a majority of American Jews, and nearly all Israeli Jews fall under a 7-day authority. Many have been in such a situation for generations.
Now to respond to the idea that we should have an extra seder to remember we aren’t in Israel…
Was anyone really confused? In case you were here are ten ways to conclude you are in the US rather than in Israel that have nothing to do with extra days of passover.
10:The falafel is overpriced and underspiced.
9: Municipal services are transparent and efficient.
8: Sunday is for football not school.
7: Teacher strikes are generally limited to a few days, max.
6: People talk slowly and get uncomfortable with interruptions (supreme court excepted).
5: Holocaust jokes are rare and usually generate discomfort.
4: People have difficulty making political and religious assumptions based on the type of kippah a person is wearing. Many can’t remember the word and use “beanie” or “skull cap” instead.
3: Though people talk about God non-stop in government there aren’t religious parties associated with single religious approached.
2: Nation’s founders where individual rather than collective farmers.
1: Look around. No occupations and settlements for miles in any direction? You probably aren’t in Israel.*
We’re all (by now) familiar with the story of the Orange on the seder plate. Not only the famous midrash (note I am not calling it fact) of Susannah Heschel and the man who claimed women should not be Jewish leaders, but also the misty origins of said story in the a woman telling lesbians that female homosexuality is a minor sin, like putting bread on the seder plate. Nevermind why the relentless deconstruction of this midrash is an example of why modern midrash sucks (I’ll talk about that some other time).
Instead, take a look at a post by Mel of Stirrup Queens and Sperm Count Jesters. Normally her blog is about infertility and its side issues from the perspective of an observant Jew. In this post, she writes about Thomas Beatie, the pregnant man and how putting an apple on the seder plate, for her, revived the original facts of the orange midrash…
representing reproductive rights for all people because truthfully, just as the changed story of Heschel’s speech has a man shouting about women belonging on the bimah as much as an orange belongs on the seder plate, empty symbolic gestures do not have a space at my table. It is apples and oranges; I am taking back the fruit. If I believe in reproductive rights for myself–and believe me, I want my reproductive rights well-covered–I need to believe in reproductive rights for all who act out of love or my shouting for myself becomes merely symbolic, self-serving, meaningless.
Mother Jones, in August 2006, ran a survey of fertility clinic directors. Only 59% believed everyone has a right to a child. 48% said they would likely turn away a gay couple seeking a surrogate. 20% would turn away a single woman. 17% would turn away a lesbian couple. If you want reproductive rights for yourself–and I’m fairly certain that no fertility clinic director would wish to be told that they cannot or must have a child–we should be concerned about others. Because I’m not just talking about those experiencing infertility who need to utilize assisted conception when I speak about reproductive rights–every single person on this earth should be in control of whether or not they reproduce or parent. Put an apple on the seder plate for that.
A few times a year I represent our union pension fund’s shareholder proposals at public companies. Basically, you attend the annual shareholder meeting at a shmancy hotel and explain why shareholders should vote for your proposal. There is a stable of reporters, a slew of investment types, and lots of refreshments. Our proposals generally have to do with good corporate governance and controlling crazy executive compensation.
I was at Textron‘s annual meeting yesterday to present a proposal to keep the company from paying executives’ income and special taxes. These meetings usually have a grand spread of food. In the most upscale hotel in the state, next to all the elegant pastries, smartly shaped butter figurines, and sparkling waters was a silver platter of matzah. I guess it was a shoutout to all the Jewish shareholders but boy was it an odd juxtaposition. Any ideas about what motivates such a move or who eats matzah during a pesach meeting?
Here is a nice article describing what I was doing there. (you can even see a picture of zt looking businessy).
Netzach of Chesed William Shatner doing the Exodus story. Yes, I think that qualifies for a post about endurance in mercy, if only in the lack thereof. OTOH, maybe it’s fabulous. A new movie coming out too … about crashing a Shivah.
I’m a little behind on my fun blog reads, due to travel and Shabbat and Pesach, but if you haven’t yet seen this conversation, it’s great.
An interview with Ann VanderMeet (bat/bar mitzvah teacher; editor of of Weird Tales, co-editor of New Weirdand Steampunk) on which imaginary or fantastical animals would be kosher.
ET – A: “…..?†EM: “It had cloven hooves.†A: “It’s a humanoid.†EM: “It looked like a pile of dung. It seemed to chew cud. Would any alien be automatically un-kosher?†A: “I guess it really depends on the alien–like a plant?†EM: “An alien that comes down to Earth.†A: “No, because they wouldn’t be considered an animal.†EM: “What if they looked just like a cow, but with a brain?†A: “Cows have brains.†EM: “Arggh!†A: “But cows don’t travel to other planets using their brains.†EM: “My point exactly!†A: “Anything intelligent is not kosher.â€
Mermaid – A: “No, for the obvious reasons.†EM: “What if you marry one? Is that kosher? Will a rabbi marry you?†A: “Kosher is a term about eating, not about sex.†EM: “I’m not talking about sex–I’m talking about marriage!†A: “If the mermaid is Jewish, the rabbi will probably marry you. But only if you’re Jewish too. But you’ll definitely have to find the right rabbi…â€
Mongolian Death Worm – A: “No, because you cannot eat anything that crawls on its belly.†EM: “Does that mean an injured kosher animal that is crawling along isn’t kosher any more?†A: “Yes, because you can’t eat an animal that’s been injured or is sick.†EM: “It’s a wonder you haven’t all starved to death.â€
The full list can be found here. There’s also a great deal of comments/discussion over at Boing Boing.
I’m in the mountains now; I’ll see if I can find a sasquatch to snack on…
Just a warning: I doubt I’ll actually succeed at this. Even just actually getting every night counted isn’t the easiest task, so actually having something to say, is going to be tough. But I’m going to give it a try, especially since there’s no requirement that I actually succeed at doing it every night… like tonight, I’m going to make up for starting late, with days 1, 2 & 3, since I couldn’t very well blog the first day on chag, and the second day was a little complicated with late sunset and all that. So, we’ll start tonight, and hopefully continue.
So: Omer night #1
Week Chesed, day chesed
Since the first day of Omer occurs on the day of a seder, I thought I write about Geraldine Brooks’ new book People of the Book. This is a wonderful book about the history – fictional in detail, although well researched in broad outlines, as she says in the afterword, ” While some of the facts are true to the haggadah’s known history, most of the plot and all of the characters are imaginary.”- of the famous Sarajevo Haggadah.
Towards todays’ omer topic chesed of chesed, the book gazes at the interrelationships – complicated, painful, loving and hating between Jews, Christians and Muslims, and also between parents and children, in all their difficulty and complexity, and acknowledging that sometimes there are no happy endings. Setting aside the fine writing, the well-drawn characters and the plot (who among us could not love a story -a mystery- about a book?) the doubling of the story makes for fine reading, and the ending is hopeful, mirroring the real history of the book, which of course includes the survival of a people, and the bravery of a Muslim librarian in saving the book of a people not his own- well, depending on how you look at it- and perhaps of a Catholic priest who saved it from destruction as well.
Like many American Jews in their twenties, Gregory Levey was looking into internships while studying at law school. Unlike most, he fell into the job of speechwriter for the Israeli Prime Minister. The result? A surreal and absurdist memoir, Shut Up, I’m Talking: And Other Diplomacy Lessons I learned In The Israeli Government”. Very Short List gave it the best Venn diagram in the world — a combination of Catch 22, The Daily Show and David Sedaris. The book was released today; Greg will be reading and signing copies tonight in New York at 7 PM at Borders on Park and 57th. You can check out an excerpt from the book here.
Disclaimer: I’m a friend of Greg’s. But you all knew I was a whore. (Disclaimer #2: I’m not using the term “whore” in a sexist or gender-politics sense, Jewschoolers.)
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