Wanna “Che Herzl” T-shirt? Just surf your way over to Jewlicious and you’ll find it along with all kinds of other swag designed especially for those aspiring to be the coolest of the cool Jews.
Yep, I did a double take when I saw this one. I know there all too many leftists who are appalled at the sight of Che Guervara turned into a pop T-Shirt icon, but what on on earth are we supposed to make of Che Herzl?
Beyond Jewlicious’ shallow hipster-frumster chic, this image raises some interesting assumptions about the very meaning of Zionism itself. Indeed, there are many who fancy Zionism as the “national liberation movement of the Jewish people.” This concept was made especially famous by Chaim Herzog during his remarks in response to the UN’s “Zionism is Racism” resolution in 1975:
Zionism is the name of the national movement of the Jewish people and is the modern expression of the ancient Jewish heritage. The Zionist ideal, as set out in the Bible, has been, and is, an integral part of the Jewish religion. Zionism is to the Jewish people what the liberation movements of Africa and Asia have been to their own people.
While I understand the substance of Herzog’s argument, I have to confess that this particular defense of the Zionist enterprise has always rung a little hollow for me. First of all, I’m not sure it’s all that accurate to describe Zionism as a national liberation movement – certainly not as we’ve come to understand this concept post WW II.
While its hard for us to admit, Zionism is the product of ideologies (i.e. 19th century European ethno-nationalism) that have fallen pretty far out of favor today. That’s why it feels like Herzog’s comparison of Zionism to the liberation movements of Africa and Asia is more than a little spurious. After all, those movements were uprisings of indigenous peoples against centuries of colonial oppression. By contrast, Zionism sought to create an ethnic Jewish presence in Palestine and ended up doing so at the expense of its current inhabitants.
Not surprisingly, Che himself considered Zionism “reactionary” (according to biographer Jon Lee Anderson). I know he’d be rolling in his unmarked grave if he knew that his face adorned the shirts of clueless American teenagers; I can only imagine the cartwheels he’d be doing upon learning that his image had now become fused with Theodor Herzl’s.
Anyhow, I’m not sure that reconceiving Zionism as a proto-national liberation movement is even all that compelling any more. Now that we’ve witnessed the post-modern travails of decolonized nations, we’re learning that “national liberation” might not necessarily be all that it’s cracked up to be. I’m not sure I have any good answers (certainly not one that would fit on a T-Shirt); I suppose I’m just suggesting it’s worth challenging the romanticizing of nationalism in all its various guises.
So I’m currently in Israel for the first time in around a decade and am actually enjoying re-acclimating myself to Jerusalem and the society here. The other night I went to a bar frequented by American olim, where they speak English to one another and listen to bands playing music from the likes of the Grateful Dead. I was speaking to a new friend who works for Nefesh b’Nefesh about the phenomenon of American olim binding together and not shedding their American cultural norms. For those who don’t know, Nefesh b’Nefesh is an organization that helps Americans move to Israel. I do not know the details at this point, but a decade ago (when I was interested in aliyah) people could get a decent amount of money to make the move from America to Israel. Well, now you can get a decent amount of money to make the move from America to, well, the American deep south…
Matthew and Michelle Reed, along with their 2-year-old son and newborn baby boy, are the first of what could be a stream of people to move to Dothan under a program that offers Jewish families as much as $50,000 to relocate and get involved with the city’s only synagogue, Temple Emanu-El
My personal favorite was this quote:
The couple heard about the relocation program through family members in Alabama and applied in September because Matt Reed was finishing a stint with the Army at Fort Bragg, N.C. They moved to Dothan after he left the service on Feb. 1.
“We always wanted to raise our kids Jewish, but we didn’t want to do it in North Carolina,” said Michelle Reed, 26.
So you picked Alabama!?! Truth be told, the mother of the family has roots in Dothan, Alabama–but still… It’s gotta make people think about the old adage, “I wouldn’t do that even if somebody paid me.” Personally, I’m uncomfortable with the notion of Jews getting paid to move places, even Israel, simply because they’re Jewish. In times of severe economic crisis the world over, $50k would seem better used elsewhere than to tempt a Jewish family to move to Dothan, Alabama.
This week I am embarking on one of the most awkward aspects of my job- tabling for Birthright. At its worst, I feel like a kid wandering around the cafeteria, wondering where to sit, and at its best, surrounded by people who stop by to say hello, I feel like the most popular kid in school.
Yesterday, as I arranged my colorful poster board with pictures of my smiling students riding camels, smearing Dead Sea mud all over each other, and looking with amazement out over Jerusalem, I noticed that the student group who had been sitting there before I showed up was the International Socialist Organization. I looked around for someone who could appreciate the irony of this with me, but found no one. Then, with trepidation and shame, I looked around for the Socialists, and with relief, also found none.
This semester, much of my work has been about Israel. Some of it has been pro-active, creating programming for left leaning students who are nervous about entering what they believe to be a right wing environment. A lot of it has also been reactive, which makes me feel like I’m throwing myself in front of a speedily moving train (not to be melodramatic or anything).
Part of the tightrope I walk in supporting my progressive students around Israel requires that I demonstrate my own lefty credentials: feminist activism, an organizing fellowship after college, years spent working on a campus where shoes are considered superfluous. I have to build trust, which is difficult when on the Left, Zionism, a movement I also align myself with, is most often seen as “racist, imperialist, insert incendiary political adjective here: ___________.” More »
by Kung Fu Jew [➚] · Wednesday, February 25th, 2009
Chillul Who? posted a summary of Gershom Gorenberg’s presentation at DC’s Sixth & I Synagogue but here is the full presentation in video. It’s really worth your own viewing. I saw Gorenberg in NYC a few weeks ago and felt he was a gust of fresh air — someone who lived Israel politics in a world of well-researched history free of the ongoing myths about Israel and the conflict. Personally, the man is a luminary for being something simple: a well-researched journalist.
A survey, co-authored by Caryn Aviv (of Mosaic and the University of Denver) and Steven M. Cohen (of Jewschool fame) found that “[f]ew synagogues actively welcome gay and lesbian Jews.”
width=”180″ align=”right” />The new transdenominational synagogue survey on LGBT inclusion and diversity, which questioned 1,221 North American rabbis, synagogue directors and board presidents, found that 73 percent of respondents believe their congregations do a good or excellent job of welcoming gay and lesbian Jews. Nearly a quarter, mostly Orthodox, said they were minimally welcoming.
By contrast, only 33 percent of rabbis said their congregations held programs or events related to gay people. The most popular “program” was marriage equality, eclipsing events like gay pride Shabbat and gay and lesbian havurah groups.
“There’s a lot of goodwill in the American Jewish community, but there’s not a lot of action,” said Caryn Aviv, a Jewish studies scholar at the University of Denver and co-author of the study with Dr. Steven Cohen, a research professor of Jewish social policy at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.
I attend services at independent minyanim (which I’m guessing were not polled in this survey). And, while they are certainly gay friendly, I wouldn’t say any of them are “actively welcoming.” The minyamin I was a part of in other cities weren’t either, nor were the synagogues before that (some were, in fact, actively unwelcoming).
If you have a position of leadership in your Jewish community, be it a minyan, shul, or social group, I would urge you plan a program that explicitly deals with LGBT issues – make it an educational or advocacy event, or just a social event for the LGBT in your community. See if it makes a difference for those who attend.
And, because it’s annoying:
While 73 percent of non-Orthodox congregations had rabbis who officiated at same-sex weddings or commitment ceremonies, the same was not true for interfaith marriages. According to the survey, 40 percent of rabbis of Reform, Renewal, Reconstructionist and unaffiliated congregations do not officiate at interfaith weddings.
Why are same-sex marriages always compared to interfaith marriages? One has nothing to do with the other. Two separate halakhic issues. (Two separate secular/civil/legal isssues – one is legal, one is illegal (in most US states).) Is interfaith marriage suppose to be a litmus test of how “progressive” a rabbi is, and thus a good metre by which to measure if they’d also officiate over same-sex marriages? Bah.
The 58th Annual National Jewish Book Awards, will be held on March 5th at the Center for Jewish History in New York City at 7:30pm. The winners come in 16 flavors of categories, so anyone with an interest ought to find something to like.
The Jewish Book of the Year Award will go to The Torah: A Women’s Commentary
by Dr. Tamara Cohn Eskenazi and Rabbi Andrea L. Weiss
from URJ Press and Women of Reform Judaism
We here at Jewschool can kvell a little, too. Two of our editors appear in one of the finalists:
In the category of Women’s Studies New Jewish Feminism: Probing the Past, Forging the Future
edited by Rabbi Elyse Goldstein
from Jewish Lights Publishing
Rabbis Danya Ruttenburg and Alana Suskin both contributed to this book.
I’m more than a little bummed that Waltz with Bashir did not win the Oscar. Not that I’ve seen the film that won, but it’s a break from the typical Jewish films up for Oscars which are always about the Holocaust. Seriously, it’s time to find another good-vs-evil setting in which we can inspire ourselves that We Westerners did a Good Job.
But Bradley Burston on Haaretz goes too far – and make a huge bumble along the way. Not only does he say that Hollywood prefers its Jews as perpetually victimized innocents (convenient as that is to most Jews’ self-narrative, barfitty barf barf) but he misquotes Kate Winslet as exploiting the preference for an Oscar. Check this clip via YouTube, which you can also hear used onNPR in a segement about Holocaust obsession in film:
Whoa! But hang on a minute. Bradley Burston has not done his homework. Apparently this clip of Winslet was on the HBO show Extra and she’s satirizing herself and her lack of Oscar trophies despite thrice-over nominations — and three years ago at that. More »
With LimmudLA as the jumping off point, Get Religion has waded into the Jewish culture scene, by asking if Michelle Citrin’s “Rosh Hashanah Girl” video counts as “CJM, ‘Contemporary Jewish Music.’” The author’s missed the point so many times in this post, I can hardly keep track. It’s contemporary, it’s Jewish, and it’s music. So what part of “CJM” is it missing? I don’t think something has to be deeper or explicitly spiritual to be CJM. (And, fo’ real, who uses the term ‘CJM’?)
But that’s not the focus of the post.
He’s disappointed that opposing views weren’t included in an LA Times articleabout LimmudLA. He claims that LimmudLA is all about “flexidoxy”, borrowing a term form an article he wrote back in 2001. He doesn’t seem to understand that there can be pluralistic, trans-denominational Jewish settings that welcome people regardless of affiliation, and attempt to offer something for people from every/no denomination.
I found it interesting that the Los Angeles Times piece didn’t include any Jewish voices — right or left — that were uncomfortable with the LimmudLA approach. At the same time, it’s clear that the doctrinal differences are right there up front in this conference, with the only question being whether people are truly allowed to agree to disagree. There is that “God” thing, after all.
Um, what? I admit I haven’t been to LimmudLA, but I have been to LimmudNY a few times. The whole idea is pluralism, “Jews of all stripes.” Chances are, those who disagree with a pluralistic Jewish space won’t attend Limmud in the first place. But at an event that makes strives to be inclusive to all, I had great conversations, learned with and from, and prayed beside Jews from a wide variety of backgrounds and practices. It was lovely. There are thousands of Jews going to Limmuds every year around the globe, and I’m guessing some would identify with a “right or left” voice. (Is this a linear model of denominations? Do I also have to argue with the author about why and how this is inaccurate?)
Bottom line, I enjoy reading the Get Religion blog. But I don’t understand why we should be disappointed that the LA Times didn’t try harder to find conflict, which clearly wasn’t there. (If you were at LimmudLA, I’d love to hear about it. Please tell us about it in the comments!)
The CCAR will install Rabbi Ellen Weinberg Dreyfus of Homewood, IL as their new president at its 120th convention in Jerusalem next week. A few notable significances here:
Out here in Chicago-land, we’re kvelling that another hometown rav is stepping up. (Outgoing prez Rabbi Peter Knobel hails from Evanston, IL).
It’s also worth mentioning, as the JTA points out, that with Rabbi Dreyfus’ ascension, three of the four main American rabbinical associations will have women at the helm: the RA recently named Rabbi Julie Schonfeld as its new executive vice president and Rabbi Toba Spitzer is the current president of the RRA (soon to be replaced by Rabbi Yael Ridberg in March.)
“Waltz With Bashir” has been racking up the prizes. In addition to a slew of international awards, it was awarded Best Picture by the National Society of Film Ciritics, Best Foreign Film at the Golden Globes, and it seems to have the inside track on the same award at the Oscars this Sunday night. But as “Bashir” amasses its acclaim, some observers are frankly critiquing the film against Israel’s painful present-day reality.
In a recent Nation article, Israeli author Liel Liebovitz wonders why the Israeli public has so thoroughly embraced this fiercely anti-war statement (enough to vote it as their third-favorite Israeli film of all time) while ignoring its “harrowing lessons” through its strong support of their government’s military actions against Gaza.
Liebovitz concludes that “Bashir’s” popularity not withstanding, Israel is sadly disregarding director Ari Folman’s powerfully moral vision – particularly in light of the recent elections:
Israel of today is not Ari Folman’s. It is Avigdor Lieberman’s and Benjamin Netanyahu’s, the country of the countless men and women crying out for revenge. As we root for Waltz with Bashir, if we want to truly honor that film’s message, let us never forget that. Otherwise, all we have is just a pretty animated film.
(We) are reminded of the psychologist’s comment near the start of the film: “We don’t go to places we don’t want to. Memory takes us where we want to go.” Perhaps this explains how at the same time that Gaza was being decimated, Israel heaped acclaim and awards on Waltz with Bashir; in addition to numerous international awards, the film scooped up six awards at the Israeli Film Academy. Indeed, the same Israelis who flocked to see the film gave their enthusiastic approval to Operation Cast Lead in Gaza. According to a poll released on 14 January by Tel Aviv University, a staggering 94 percent of Israeli Jews supported or strongly supported the operation.
As a Palestinian viewer, however, Antoun goes even farther than Liebovitz: she faults the film for rendering Palestinians essentially invisible:
There is nothing interesting or new in the depiction of Palestinians — they have no names, they don’t speak, they are anonymous. But they are not simply faceless victims. Instead, the victims in the story that Waltz with Bashir tells are Israeli soldiers. Their anguish, their questioning, their confusion, their pain — it is this that is intended to pull us…We don’t see Palestinian facial expressions; only a lingering on dead, anonymous faces. So while Palestinians are never fully human, Israelis are, and indeed are humanized through the course of the film.
Among other things, I think these reviews illuminate the painful difficulties inherent in making an anti-war statement while the war is still raging. A sad anecdote: a congregant recently told me that when she saw the film a screaming match erupted in the audience after it ended. Apparently someone screamed “That’s Gaza!” to which another responded “Shut up!” and on it went…
by Kung Fu Jew [➚] · Thursday, February 19th, 2009
Let me reiterate why I bother to post stuff like this. Or this.
It’s a selective reading of news, I know, to pick out the parts of our community most shameful for public review, as if there were nothing else redeemable about Jews, Judaism, Jewish culture or Israel. Even though here on Jewschool it should go without saying that, though we question the assumptions and priorities of Jewish life as we see it, we do this because we are engaged and care deeply about Jews, Judaism, Jewish culture, and Israel. But I’ll explain a little more.
There are compelling realpolitik and pragmatic reasons for discussing our dirty laundry in public. Not only do Israel’s true-to-life detractors feed off these events, making it important to distance ourselves from said events and to understand how we are perceived by others. But it’s also impossible to do otherwise these days. And it’s important to shake off their fence-sitting the Jews who politely demure from facing our own culpability regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Posting these things is pushing something clearly indefensible forward and saying, “Our shit too stinks.”
Those realpolitik and pragmatic reasons are not under discussion right now.
My love of Israel is not for its materialistic and militarized culture, its marvelous multicultural hype, and certainly not its fried chickpea patties. I am not wowed by its Nobel prizes trophies, its environmental inventions, the number of universities it hosts, its place as the only gay-friendly military in the Middle East. There is nothing impressive to me about those factoids used to lure young Jews into pride. Mine is real, thank you very much. More »
Though this shteeblehopper has been busy hopping around the world lately, and not having as much time to blog as she would like, she was pleased to see these two recent posts on places with plenty of singing in NYC.
Peer through our chapel door on any given Friday night, and you’ll probably see nine or 10 people standing around an old wooden shtender (reader’s lectern), co-leading the Kabbalat Shabbat service with gusto. You’ll see two 20-somethings (a guy in jeans and a woman who is head of our social action committee); two women in their 40s, singing while their hungry families wait for them at home; an empty-nester couple in their 60s; a new guy whom nobody seems to know; and—a fairly new phenomenon—an infant or two, bouncing in a Baby Bjorn as mom or dad bangs along on the shtender to the rhythms of Carlebach’s Lecha Dodi.
…
“In order to make something more than the sum of its parts you have to have people close, for the same reason that an orchestra sits close together,” Weisenberg said. “I see the congregation as being a giant Jewish orchestra. It changes its composition every week and frequently has a different conductor. There’s a certain amount of discipline in an orchestra. Is it time to be quiet? Time to be loud? And you’d never have people in a true orchestra talking to each other and ignoring the conductor.”
….
“At the beginning of every service, the leader should request that at least six people come up to support him or her,” Weisenberg said. “What’s most important is that they’re physically there, and trying. Kabbalat Shabbat is a flexible service in a number of ways, and a good training ground for leadership. Of course, it’s helpful if you have people who know what they’re doing. But it’s equally helpful if you don’t. The service begins with the invitation to the community: L’chu n’rannena l’Adonai – Come, let us sing together to God.” At other times during the service, we make no noise at all.
by Kung Fu Jew [➚] · Wednesday, February 18th, 2009
Another fantastically hilarious and utterly sinful example of the Israeli sense of humor at work. Someone took a scene from a film about Hitler and imposed Hebrew subtitles ranting about the lack of parking spaces in Tel Aviv. It was then translated into English (below). A Holocaust survivors group had demanded that YouTube take it down due to offensiveness. They might as well demand that Israelis not make Holocaust jokes. Who, you all know, tell the very best/worst Holocaust jokes in the world.
by chillul Who? [➚] · Wednesday, February 18th, 2009
The Avodah/AJWS Partnership, along with a host of other Jewish org.s and media, wants you to be at the Contemporary Jewish Museum this sunday for an afternoon of workshops, learning, and and performance designed to inform, inspire, and energize.
Inside the Activists’ Studio
Sunday, February 22, 2009 Contemporary Jewish Museum
736 Mission St, SF
3:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. Registration begins at 2:30 p.m.
Panel discussion with: Ahri Golden, Founder of Thin Air Media Ari Derfel, Founder of Back to Earth Organic Catering and Outdoor Adventures Joanna Levitt, Co-Director of the International Accountability Project Josh Becker, Founder and Board Chair, Full Circle Fund
Moderated by: Adrienne Fitch-Frankel, Co-Host of Terra Verde, the weekly environmental radio program on KPFA, and Fair Trade Campaign Director at Global Exchange
Live Performance:
Excerpt from the critically acclaimed theatre play Angry White Black Boy by Dan Wolf, adapted from the novel by Adam Mansbach.
Skills-share workshops with: Cole Krawitz, Communications Consultant and Founder of JVoices.com Dan Wolf, Actor, Writer, MC of Felonius and Program Manager of The Hub at JCCSF Joanna Levitt, Co-Director of the International Accountability Project Samantha Witman, Co-existence Educator Julie Dorf, Consultant, Horizons Foundation and Senior Advisor for Council of Global Equality Naomi Starkman, Food Policy Media Consultant, Former Director of Communications and Policy of Slow Food Nation, and Co-Founder of Civil Eats Zelig Golden, Staff Attorney, Center for Food Safety and Co-Chair of the 2008 Hazon Food Conference
by Shalom Rav [➚] · Wednesday, February 18th, 2009
Some rare good news in the quest for compassionate immigration reform out here in Illinois:
Thanks to the unanimous passage of the Access to Religious Ministry Act in both state houses this past December, detained immigrants will now have the same access to clergy as those imprisoned for other crimes. Up until now, undocumented immigrants awaiting deportation in Illinois jails have been restricted to clergy visits of two hours or less per month.
In addition to representing a clear victory for freedom of religion, this new access will help us shine a brighter light on conditions in ICE detention facilities. The law is scheduled to go into effect in June and The Trib has just reported that volunteer lay-clergy training began yesterday in Chicago. Major kudos to bill-sponsor Sen. Iris Martinez and the inspirational, indefatigable Sisters of Mercy (above) who led the fight for the passage of the bill.
by HatamSoferet [➚] · Wednesday, February 18th, 2009
I went to see the Valmadonna Trust Library on display at Sotheby’s. (Article and slide show of exhibition, courtesy of the New York Times.)
The display looked like a permanent exhibition, with stencilling on the walls and fancy lighting and all sorts. I was surprised at just how posh it all looked; I suppose this is good advertising if you are trying to sell something for forty million dollars. Interestingly, it didn’t smell like a library (books, leather, dust) or like a museum (clean, dusted, polished), but like a school art room – poster paint, paper, glue. More »
Go’alitzia: a combination of the words “coalition” and “disgust” in Hebrew, coined by Yitzhak Rabin to express the compromises that come with Knesset coalition-making.
…you want to see a real pop-culture breakthrough for the Jewish people?
Rachael Ray’s latest cookbook has a chapter of Kosher recipes. Not only that, but this is one of the features advertised on the front cover of the book and on the interior cover flaps.
Now, I know Rachael Ray’s not for everyone. I’m a fan from way back, before she went off the cutesy-pie deep end with her Yumm-o aesthetic. And I’ll admit, the Big Orange Book is a little hard to read as every recipe is dripping with her cloying baby-talk jargon. But if you can see past the EVOO! and the gratuitous celebrity name-dropping, the recipes are great. And even though only one chapter is advertised as kosher, there’s also a vegetarian chapter, and lots of great recipes in the other sections that are either already kosher or easily adaptable. And her holiday chapter even includes a Pesach menu!
Okay, I know, this isn’t world-changing or life-altering news. And some of her kosher tips make me want to vomit (eg, “Make sure you use kosher chicken sausage and not the kind that comes in pork casing!”) but she’s made the effort because we’ve made the effort. Ray reports that she gets bundles of mail from readers and viewers asking for kosher adaptations of her recipes, and this is her way of responding and thanking a loyal segment of her audience.
So, thank you Rachael Ray, and I look forward to a super-duper Shabbat and a yumm-o Pesach!
PS – Apparently, the mutual love affair between the Yids and the Yumm-o exists online as well. RachaelRay.com lists this Favorite Hanukkah Recipes article as one of the top five viewed on the site.
width=”180″ align=”right” />The new transdenominational synagogue survey on LGBT inclusion and diversity, which questioned 1,221 North American rabbis, synagogue directors and board presidents, found that 73 percent of respondents believe their congregations do a good or excellent job of welcoming gay and lesbian Jews. Nearly a quarter, mostly Orthodox, said they were minimally welcoming.
With LimmudLA as the jumping off point, 
Though this shteeblehopper has been busy hopping around the world lately, and not having as much time to blog as she would like, she was pleased to see these two recent posts on places with plenty of singing in NYC. 
Some rare good news in the quest for compassionate immigration reform out here in Illinois:
Now, I know Rachael Ray’s not for everyone. I’m a fan from way back, before she went off the cutesy-pie deep end with her Yumm-o aesthetic. And I’ll admit, the Big Orange Book is a little hard to read as every recipe is dripping with her cloying baby-talk jargon. But if you can see past the EVOO! and the gratuitous celebrity name-dropping, the recipes are great. And even though only one chapter is advertised as kosher, there’s also a vegetarian chapter, and lots of great recipes in the other sections that are either already kosher or easily adaptable. And her holiday chapter even includes a Pesach menu!
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