Police on Monday afternoon arrested a 27-year-old yeshiva student for undressing in a Bat Yam supermarket, wearing only a sock to cover his genitals, to protest a recent controversial court ruling which permitted the sale of chametz in some businesses.
…
Eyewitnesses stated the 27-year-old had the inscription “this is not public” scrawled on his abdomen. He claimed that since chamez was sold on the premises, it could therefore not be legally recognized as a public place, and as such, there were no grounds to press charges against him.
And what’s with the photo that goes with the article? Are we to infer that this is the guy in a trench coat before flashing? Does anyone even wear coats like that in Jerusalem in April?
A guide to whether imaginary animals are kosher or not:
Dragon – A: “No reptiles or amphibians.” EM: “No exceptions? What about if it chews its cud?” A: “Shut up.”
Encantado (dolphin-human shapeshifter) – EM: ‘Surely it’s kosher when it’s a dolphin.” A: “A dolphin is a mammal just like you. It has no scales, even though it has fins. Besides, what if it starts changing while you’re eating it?”
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€
Headless Mule (fire-spewing, headless, spectral mule) – A: “No, because the mule itself, even if it weren’t fire-breathing, isn’t kosher. The fire doesn’t cleanse it.†EM: “But it’s self-cooking!â€
An article in The Jewish Week about a new Haggadah for men only has really got me confused. Here is an admittedly simplistic timeline of the last 35 years.
Judaism is seen as being too male centered, with commentaries on the Torah written by males for males and women excluded from various rituals.
Reform Judaism takes note and goes completely egalitarian – ordaining its first female Rabbi in 1972.
Over the next 30 years male participation in Reform Judaism drops drastically – going from 400 Brotherhoods with 40,000 members to 250 Brotherhoods with 20,000 members and dropping to only 20 -25 percent of Hebrew Union College Rabbinical student body.
Since “much of the new spirituality in Judaism feels effeminate to men”, in 2008, Reform Judaism attempts to woo men back by putting out a collection of commentaries on the Torah by male Rabbis about male topics.
In a further attempt to deal with the imbalance Reform Judaism then puts out a Haggadah exclusively for males and 25 Brotherhoods around the country buy these Haggadahs and conduct a MALE ONLY SEDER (even female Cantor’s excluded)!
So apparently men have different needs then women after all! They need their own space, agendas and perspective in order to connect to spirituality. Can you see why this would be confusing?
[Blessings for a wonderful Yom Tov to all - male and female! May we all be worthy of connecting to the spiritual emanations of global, national and personal redemption available to us through the mitzvot of Pesach.]
The Summer Institute is a week of learning and teaching with 300+ of your closest friends from across North America (and a few other places too). To quote BZ, “if a multigenerational Jewish community were inclusive of educated laypeople, respectful of individuals with or without families, and open to experimentation, would it be a place for 20-and-30-something Jews like [me/you/us]? Yes.”
And financial aid is available!
This year the National Havurah Committee‘s Summer Institute has a significant amount of financial aidavailable! We are committed to making the Institute affordable for people of all ages and backgrounds, and encourage people to apply regardless of need level, through reduced fees and travel grants.
But please apply soon – the deadline for the first round of scholarships and travel grants is May 1. After May 1, less aid will be available and assistance will be based on available funds. Click here for more information about financial aid.
In addition, our amazing Everett Fellowship program has a May 12 deadline for applications. Anyone ages 22-32 can apply for Everett Fellowships, which are for “young adults who have demonstrated their potential to be advocates for Jewish causes and who are actively engaged in defining their post-college participation in the Jewish community.” It includes free tuition and room and board. More information can be found here.
As always, you can find the full Institute brochure available for download on the website.
We encourage people to register as soon as possible to ensure a place in the courses of their choosing.
Can’t wait to see you in August!
[Photos are of the 2005, 2006, and 2007 Everett Fellows.]
Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Rabbi Peter Stein
Over the last few years, I have come to understand that the laws, teachings and exhortations of the Bible can be summed up in one central idea: What the Bible is trying to teach us is how to build a sustainable society. Specifically, it is trying to teach us how to build a society that is economically, ecologically, socially and spiritually sustainable.
These four criteria are the lens through which we must view everything we do. They are the measure by which we must evaluate every choice we make, whether it is a personal decision, such as where to settle or how to eat; a decision at work, such as what kind of product to market; or a political decision such as land use, taxation or trade policy. Everything is subject to the test of sustainability.
When evaluating a decision by these measures, we must ask many hard questions. I would like to suggest just a few in each area.
When considering if a choice is economically sustainable, we must ask basic questions about propriety and scale and responsibility, the most basic of which is ‘Can I afford this?’ or ‘Can our society afford this?’ We must ask: ‘Will this decision create greater equality or greater inequality?’ ‘Does this choice strengthen the essential connections between ownership, profit and responsibility or does it further abstract these notions, severing these essential connections?’ And most importantly we must ask: ‘How much is enough?’
When considering if a choice is ecologically sustainable, we must first remember the intimate and essential connections between all parts of God’s Creation. Then we must ask: ‘Will this decision lead to greater health for human communities and the natural surroundings on which they depend or will it destroy their health?’ ‘Can this decision be repeated on an on-going basis without degrading the soil, plants, animals, air and water?’ ‘Will this decision deplete the abundance God has blessed us with or enhance it?’
Social sustainability addresses some of the most emotionally and politically charged issues we know, most of which our society is not prepared to deal with. We must ask: ‘Will this decision increase segregation by race and class, or will it reduce it?’ ‘Will it create communities in which people of different racial, ethnic and economic backgrounds live together in close proximity and relate as neighbors and equals?’ ‘Will this choice create opportunities for reconciliation and sharing and trust, or will it promote division, fear and distrust?’
Finally, we must inquire if our choices are spiritually sustainable. This is the most difficult of the four to conceptualize, but I think it can be explained in two ways. On the one hand, it is the sum-total of the other three. If our decisions are not economically, ecologically and socially sustainable, they will not be spiritually sustainable. If we make decisions that perpetuate economic injustice, degrade God’s Creation or provoke social tensions, there is no way that we will be on good terms with God or ourselves.
But spiritual sustainability is more than just the sum of the other three. It has its own meaning and its own set of questions. When considering if a choice is spiritually sustainable, we would ask such questions as: ‘Is it beautiful?’ – for the soul needs beauty to survive and flourish. ‘Will this increase my material needs and dependencies or reduce them? – for a spirit reliant on ever more material goods will never be satisfied. ‘Is it meaningful?’ – for if we spend our time doing things that are void and worthless, we will not feel good about ourselves. And finally: ‘Is it humble?’ – for while we were meant to create and aspire and achieve, if we do so without bounds of humility and propriety, we will suffer despair when we one day, unexpectedly, reach our bounds.
These are the questions we must ask.
And we must be very clear about their implications: if we do not choose what is sustainable, then we have chosen what is unsustainable, and what is unsustainable, by definition, will not last. These questions will be hard and they may make us uncomfortable. They may call into question many of the comforts and material standards to which we have grown accustomed. We may not like the answers we find to these questions. But they are the right and necessary questions.
Rabbi Stein can be reached at peterdstein-at-yahoo-dot-com. Cross Posted on Radical Torah
Just off the Boston showing of Peices, Suzana Berger now directs A State of Innocence by Naomi Wallace, showing twice this weekend at the Women Center Stage’s First Annual Short Plays Fest in Manhattan.
For those who missed Pieces‘ Boston showing, Zohar Tirosh plays herself as an 18-year-old Israeli American who joins the IDF just in time for the rise and fall of the Rabin/Olso/Second Intifada era. For American audiences, this play helps us understand what it’s like to feel the pressure to join, the resistance to authority, the scares of friends fighting in the armed forces, and ultimately the hope and disappointment of the then-peace process. Now in her 30s, Zohar (with Berger’s direction)Â pitches the play to recapture some of the lost hope of that time, and convincingly so. Especially powerful since it played alternating nights with the Rachel Corrie play.
Berger’s next short play, A State of Innocence, takes place “in the ruins of the Rafah zoo, where a Palestinian mother, an Israeli soldier, and an architect enter a world where the usual rules do not apply.” I would encourage those with a flair for theater and no chametz to clean up before the first seder, to check out this play.
So, here’s a different source for a news story on this blog. HaTzofeh, the national religious newspaper in Israel, reports on extensive abuse of the few remaining Jews in Yemen. The newspaper reports that recently many Jews have been attacked, including the Rabbi of the community whose home was recently destroyed. The article also mentions ongoing human rights abuse, including forced conversions, and a law that makes marrying a Jew punishable by death. Strangest though, the article reports that the only organization working to help these Jews is Satmar. The flat-hatted chassidim want them to emigrate, not to Israel of course, but to the UK and America.
Yikes. That’s scary stuff, happening to our own brothers and sisters, and I had no idea. I don’t know what to do to stop this, but the first step must be making sure that people know. It’s a shame that I heard about it first from a religious rag which I usually only read for laughs.
Update: I found a Christian Science Monitor article about the abuse.
For those of you who don’t know how this works: this is political money. This is not tax-deductible. This is not charity. This is meeting head-to-head the wallets of the forces of right-wing ugliness. The goal the first year is $1.5 million. This is, quite honestly, peanuts compared to AIPAC’s $100 million endowment. But speaking truth to power is not for the weak of hope and a million bucks goes a long, long way.
On New Israel Fund’s Yom Haatzmaut season line up: instigator Bernard Avishai, satirist Sayed Kashua, NIF’s first International Town Hall web cast, and a benefit dinner celebrating out going NIF chairman Peter Edelman, featuring Seymour Hersch Calvin Trillin of The New Yorker and friends.
I highly have to recommend Sayed Kashua — writer and producer for the Israeli sitcom Arab Labor, Haaretz columnist, and author of two books of great Israeli fiction – at the JCC in Manhattan on May 16. A full Shabbat dinner, a little irreverent humor about being brown and Israeli, and the folks of New Israel Fund’s New Generations plus the JCC’s Other Israel Festival. RSVP here, $36 $28. A sample of Sayed’s satire posted here.
It always frustrated me that tfillin is translated as “phylacteries” because it doesn’t help in the slightest to explain what they are or their function. What the hell is a phylactery? So while joking over this phenomenon in the office this morning, of course someone said look it up — and the wikipedia result floored me:
Phylactery, an amulet to protect the wearer from harm, enclosing magical text, herbs, or relics.
Wtf? That’s even less helpful in describing what they are! The other two definitions on wikipedia are sci-fi fantasy fiction and videogame references. I can blame the Greeks only for the first one.
Newsweek has once again decided to inform us who the most important rabbis in the US are. They’ve added a whole extra woman this time. And here, the magazine tells us, are the most important rabbanim in the pulpit. Anybody wonder why they don’t write a similar list for the Episcopal church or Protestantism or American Islam or (etc)?
Apropos of the above item, this op-ed by Shifra Bronznick about the still-persistent glass ceiling in the Jewish world is very worth reading.
Also kinda apropos of the above item, and my post from a few weeks back, Rabbi Jill Jacobs has whipped up a t-shirt that she’s selling for charity. More on that here.
Only vaguely related to the above item, some Canadian shuls are threatening to split from the Conservative movement. How big is the proverbial big tent, and/or how big should it be? Article here.
Having pretty much nothing to do with the above item, here’s a nifty Aramaic Family Tree, for those of you who geek that way. But as a teacher of mine pointed out, there are a few of ours missing–Zohar, Yerushalmi, Onkelos, etc.
A few weeks ago on The Jew and the Carrot, I wondered if biofuels were actually the green mitzvah they were touted to be — an ethical alternative to greenhouse gas-belching fossil fuels — or if they were a mitzvah ha’ba b’aveirah, a “mitzvah” coming out of a sin, the sin of unchecked environmental havoc due to biofuels’ “non-toxic” by-products.
The new waves of global food riots, though, have made me much more concerned, and much more wary of entrenching myself in the pro-biofuel camp.
The 2007 “tortilla riots” in Mexico, where some 75,000 Mexicans protested the rising cost of tortillas in Mexico City, followed an astronomical increase in the price of corn — some 400% in a three month span. The cause for the price hike lay north of the border, farmers planting “industrial corn” to be processed into ethanol, replacing the lower-priced food staple relied upon by millions of Mexicans.
Cooking oil is also turning into the world’s “other” oil problem. In Mumbai, India, residents are forced “to ration every drop” of cooking oil, with the price of palm oil having risen 70 percent in the past year. One store in Chongqing, China saw three people killed in a stampede when it offered a “limited promotion” on cooking oil. Half of the increase in worldwide demand for vegetable oils, the New York Times says, is because of biofuel demand. More »
This recent Times article about the burgeoning kosher industry really makes me nuts. Like those complaining in this piece from 1992, paying huge mark-ups for the ever increasing list of kosher certified products is seriously pulling on everyone’s purse strings. Well, this Shamir has some advice for you this Passover – and for year round – STOP BUYING SO MUCH PACKAGED AND PROCESSED FOODS! Did you hear that?
Raw fruits and vegetables are KOSHER FOR PASSOVER AND KOSHER YEAR ROUND. Give ‘em a good wash and ta da – you have kosher food. While you may still need to get your basics – matzah, cooking oil, vinegar, sugar, salt, pepper- with a certified heksher, anyone can make delicious, nutritious meals simply with items from the produce isle of ANY GROCERY STORE.
Whether you’re looking to save money, reduce packaging, or just eat something that’s good for you, this Shamir has a challenge for you: this Passover, try eating at least one meal per day out of purely fresh ingredients. It’s easier than you think!
Okay, I bet you’re asking: but what about PROTEIN? First of all, fruits and vegetables actually contain protein. Some K for P suggestions with high protein content include asparagus, cauliflower, broccoli, walnuts, almonds, and spinach. My personal favorites are pumpkin seeds and quinoa. Second, you can always supplement your amazing raw meal with dairy, eggs, fish or meat if those are a part of your regular diet anyway.
So, friends – quit your bitchin’ about the high expense the pareve ice cream and passover cereal – and take a simple stroll down the produce isle. And leave some comments on how it’s going!
This year’s Boston Marathon, traditionally held on Patriots’ Day (the third Monday in April), will be on the second day of Pesach. The Associated Press reports on Rabbi Jonah Pesner and other Pesach-observant marathon runners, and how they are reconciling the Pesach diet and the marathon diet.
Passover begins just two days before the April 21 marathon, and the holiday’s strict dietary rules mean Jewish runners can’t eat bread and pasta, the normal staples in the days before the big race.
Besides matzoh, which is unleavened bread, Pesner plans to pound down foods such as potatoes during a rare “carb-load seder” the night before the race.
Pesner never considered breaking the dietary rules for the sake of the race, which he is running with his wife for an autism charity.
“For me, running the marathon is a very spiritual quest,” he said.
Jews On First has the details. You may remember Indian River as the area of Delaware from which the Dobriches, a Jewish family, fled to escape the non-stop harassment, antisemitic abuse, and Christian bigotry which began when they complained about the district-sanctioned proselytizing by teachers and school officials.
The story has been proceeding through varying levels of ugliness for a few years. Just a few months ago there was that elementary school teacher who told her class that Barack Obama was a Muslim, and therefore “different” and “scary”. Or the mob of 800 that turned out to jeer & silence advocates of pluralism at an IRSD board meeting in 2006.
Hopefully, this lawsuit settlement – which includes not only monetary damages paid to the victims of the harassment but new, constitutional, policies on what religious expression is and is not allowed in a public school - will eventually protect the religious minorities of southeastern Delaware from more violations of their and their childrens’ constitutional rights. (see Jews On First for the text of the new policies, it’s a fascinating read) But before the happy dances can begin in Indian River, there needs to be a sea change in the local culture. And there needs to be eagle-eyed vigilance to make sure these new policies are followed.
I was astonished when this story first broke a few years ago, that these kind of First Amendment and civil rights violations could happen in the beach towns of what I considered the diverse and enlightened Mid-Atlantic, but a friend from Wilmington, DE insisted that she wasn’t surprised. The reaches below the C & D Canal (containing most of Delaware’s area and a tiny fraction of its population) are known to the Wilmingtonians to their north as “The Slower Lower”, a region less defined by its historical stature as the First State or by its consumer-pleasing lack of sales tax, and more by its residents’ apparent difficulty with remembering which side of the Civil War they were on. (That would be the winning side).
So is it possible to introduce a culture of respect for diversity by fiat? What is needed to make it stick?
If you have ever dreamed of opening a nonprofit, Jewish specialty camp, now is your chance! The Foundation for Jewish Camp is proud to announce its newest initiative: The Specialty Camps Incubator.
Through an $8.4 million grant from the Jim Joseph Foundation, the Specialty Camps Incubator will provide consulting and financial support over five years to four entrepreneurs, organizations or camp professionals as they develop and open their new camps in non-traditional settings such as school or college campuses. The Incubator will launch in November 2008.
Recent studies estimate that there are hundreds of thousands of Jewish children between the ages of 11-16 in the United States who are currently not attending Jewish summer camp, but are increasingly attracted to secular specialty summer programs. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to provide an exciting Jewish alternative.
What are you waiting for? Your great idea could be the “hottest” new Jewish specialty camp, and the Foundation for Jewish Camp is ready to help!
Your Letter of Intent is due by May 1st, so apply today.
Find out more about the Incubator and the application process at www.jewishcamping.org/incubator. Please email incubator-at-jewishcamping-dot-org with any questions.
This year the 
For those who missed Pieces‘ Boston showing, Zohar Tirosh plays herself as an 18-year-old Israeli American who joins the IDF just in time for the rise and fall of the Rabin/Olso/Second Intifada era. For American audiences, this play helps us understand what it’s like to feel the pressure to join, the resistance to authority, the scares of friends fighting in the armed forces, and ultimately the hope and disappointment of the then-peace process. Now in her 30s, Zohar (with Berger’s direction)Â pitches the play to recapture some of the lost hope of that time, and convincingly so. Especially powerful since it played alternating nights with the Rachel Corrie play.
follow us on Twitter
follow us on Facebook
subscribe to our email