Boston’s Federation, Combined Jewish Philanthropies, recently completed a year-long strategic planning process. One of the most palpable new programs to arise in the wake of the strategic plan is an ambitious new website-to-be, JewishBoston.com. The website aims to be a major hub for Jewish communal life in the Greater Boston area, centralizing information from over 500 Jewish organizations and making that information usable to the casual consumer. God bless the folks attempting that project, I sure wouldn’t want that kind of pressure!
The people behind the website have put a lot of effort into community outreach, holding focus groups and open feedback sessions as the plans coalesced. Today, thanks to Twitter, I learned that the Jewish Boston website is live — sort of. While it doesn’t yet feature any of the bells and whistles planned for its proper launch, the folks putting it all together are using the domain for a blog about the process of creating such a gigantic undertaking. So right now, JewishBoston.com is the address for “Building JewishBoston.com – a blog about the development of JewishBoston.com.”
This probably won’t be of interest to many, but for those of us who deal with how Jewish communities communicate and organize information, it’s a fascinating glimpse behind the curtain.
Periodically people tinker with the street signs in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv; I hadn’t seen these particular ones before (from TA) and thought they were cute, so I figured I’d share. The full set can be found here.
Last night, my Motzei Shabbos plans took me to the cinema, where I saw Julie & Julia. For those of you living outside the world of popular culture, this is a film based on a book based on a blog. The blog was started in late 2002 – just around the time I stopped blogging my first time around – right around the moment when blogging jumped from being a niche phenomenon to a zeitgeist. (Coincidentally, Jewschool launched in December 2002, just a few months later.)
There’s a moment in the film in which Julie’s husband, despairing at the state of their marriage (crumbling under the weight of her cooking/blogging project), asks Julie why she blogs, why this has become so important to her. Julie’s answer had a lot to do with a search for individual identity and voice at a moment in her life when she risked dissolving into her bland, repetitive workaday existence. Last night, listening to this conversation on the big screen, I found myself reflecting on the same question relative to this here blog that you’re reading.
It just so happens that it was the second time in two days that the question had come up for me. On Friday, I had coffee with Ally Berenson, program director of Gesher City Boston. There were two purposes to this meeting. Ally and I were in USY together, so it’s always a pleasure to see each other and catch up. Since we both work in the Jewish community, we inevitably have a lot to talk about, but since I work primarily with teenagers and she works primarily with the 21-35 crowd, our professional lives don’t intersect as often as I might like. However, at the last Jewschool powwow (about a dozen of the editors & contributors got together for a real-life in-person meeting last month), Team Jewschool talked about exploring potential connections Jewschool could and should be making with other organizations out there in the Jewish world. I immediately thought of GesherCity. Now before all you bleeding edge anti-establishment hipsters vomit all over your netbooks, let me explain… More »
It’s now about 12:30 a.m. Around two hours ago, I was in a bowling alley in Asbury Park, N.J. watching a self-proclaimed “Nice Jewish Girl Gone Bad” take most of her clothes off, toss a pack of bacon into the crowd that had just finished being rubbed suggestively on her ass, and then take off a final layer of clothing, only to reveal her boobs, which were covered in nothing but pasties with more strips of bacon dangling from them.
So, I was meditating tonight upon a mighty Jew. His name was Sholem Schwartzbard. He assassinated Symon Petliura, the man who led the fight for Ukrainian independence in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution of 1917. Symon Petliura was a Kuban Cossack.
These remarks were part of the invited opening to a recent phone call on health care with President Obama for American rabbis.
When one starts from a worldview in which God is active in the workings of the world, it is quite possible to understand illness and physical weaknesses as God’s judgment on the ailing person, so that any intervention is a challenge to the workings of God’s will. This viewpoint has been voiced by some Jewish thinkers, from the sages of the classical rabbinic tradition, through the great bible commentators of the medieval period, and beyond. In other contexts, and in numerous sources, however, saving a life is considered to be one of the highest commandments in Judaism, so much so that almost every other commandment can be violated to further this end. This quite different perspective – one that validates medical expertise and makes the practice of healing a religious obligation – has also been present in Jewish tradition from its earliest expressions.
Two verses in particular from the Torah serve as the core foundation for what has become the normative Jewish view on healing and access to healthcare. Exodus 21:19 discusses a case in which one person has injured another in an altercation. The Torah rules that the assailant must see to it that the victim receives necessary medical attention: ”he shall certainly heal him.” In context, the obvious meaning is that the assailant must pay the victim’s medical costs, but the rabbis derive additional meaning from the doubling of the verb in Hebrew.
Thus we read in the Talmud, Berakhot 60a and Bava Kama 85a: “It was taught in the school of Rabbi Ishmael: ‘he shall certainly heal him’ – from this source, the healer is given permission to heal.” As Nachmanides noted in his 13th century work, Torat ha-Adam, “this is to say that it is not forbidden because of the concern that the doctor might inadvertently err; also, people should not say ‘the Holy One has struck (the ill person) and is the One to heal.’” Nachmanides continues, “it is a commandment to heal, and is in the category of saving a life.” More »
Palestinian PM Salam Fayyad yesterday presented a 38-page plan for a Palestinian state, laying an infrastructure within two years: ending economic dependence on Israel and foreign aid, curbing domestic spending, creating tax benefits for foreign investment and “not in lieu of the peace process, but to reinforce it.” Read the plan with your own eyes here (PDF).
And he no less begins the document with this inspiring vision of coexistance:
We look forward to continued regional and international support to establish Palestine as an independent, democratic, progressive, and modern Arab state, with full sovereignty over its territory in the West Bank and Gaza, on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital. Palestine will be a peace-loving state that rejects violence, commits to co-existence with its neighbors, and builds bridges of cooperation with the international community. It will be a symbol of peace, tolerance and prosperity in this troubled area of the world.
And it’s about freakin’ time. Long have the anti-peace voices pointed to a lack of “democratic tradition” or “capacity for self-rule” as reason against a Palestinian state or persuing negotiations. While much of that is bupkiss to begin with, it behooved the PA to produce a vision like this a long time ago. That left defenders of equal rights for both peoples and peace advocates without a meaningful reply. Until now.
On the upside, it could be fortuitous that this document wasn’t produced until the advent of Salam Fayyad. Fayyad is a University of Texas-trained PhD in economics who spent much of his career at the IMF before returning home to earn a sterling reputation as an independent voice. His bold moves include (gasp) cutting political hirees by some 31,000 from the public payroll, pulling Fatah militias off the streets in exchange for Israeli amnesty, and making PA finances transparent. Without someone like Fayyad, this move could indeed be seen as rhetorical.
But despite Fayyad’s trustworthiness and Israeli grumping about long-awaited self-governance, how did Israel’s far-right government react to this exciting news? More »
The Israel Hayom newspaper reports that the Kiryat Yam City call-in-center has been receiving several weird calls over the past few weeks all from local residents claiming they have seen a mermaid on the Kiryat Yam beach.
An alleged mermaid, said to resemble a cross between a fish and a young girl, only appears at sunset. It performs a few tricks for onlookers before disappearing for the night.
One of the first people to see the mermaid, Shlomo Cohen, said, “I was with friends when suddenly we saw a woman laying on the sand in a weird way. At first I thought she was just another sunbather, but when we approached she jumped into the water and disappeared. We were all in shock because we saw she had a tail.”
The sightings apparently began several months ago.
(NY Daily News has another version of Shlomo Cohen’s experience.)
The town, near Haifa, took the sightings seriously and has offered up a $1 million prize to whomever can offer proof that mermaids are living off its shores. The story should end there, right? We should all just roll our eyes and be amazed that folks think this is real. (Or maybe you’re a believer and are now planning a trip to Israel to go swim with Ariel.) Either way, the story should end there.
But no. Kiryat Yam is being sued by the Mermaid Medical Association, based out of Brooklyn, NY. I’ll let Gothamist take it from here:
The MMA isn’t at all worried that Kiryat Yam is probably like the government scientists who tried to take Daryl Hannah away from Tom Hanks, however. Nope, they’re actually suing the town for defamation, because they exist in order to defend the rights of mermaids worldwide. We really hope this does end up in International court, just so we can all read transcripts in which Kiryat Yam is berated by some Brooklynites for “badly and outrageously damaging the legendary mermaid legacy.”
Mermaids and their supporters are nothing if not fair, however, and have given the town 10 days to rescind the reward. Alas, town officials are playing hardball, and say they will “appeal to the organization which sent the letter and suggest that it join the search for the mermaid in order to perpetuate and preserve it.” Exactly, why are these two groups fighting when we’re thisclose to proving the existence of a mythical magical sea creature? Round up the unicorns and let’s go! But first, read more about past sightings (and hoaxes) here.
Obama promotes ethnic cleansing.
Settlements no impediment to peace.
Stunned to learn this new information? Well, don’t worry, rush right over the the Israel Project (supported by the usual suspects: ADL and AIPAC, who respectively announced in an ad that “The problem isn’t settlements, it’s Arab rejection,” and wrote a letter praising Netanyahu for taking “concrete measures” to advance peace), which as reported in the Guardian:
says that those who back the removal of the settlements should be told they are supporting ethnic cleansing and antisemitism. The guide offers what it describes as “the best settlement argument”.
“The idea that anywhere that you have Palestinians there can’t be Jews, that some areas have to be Jew-free, is a racist idea. We don’t say that we have to cleanse out Arabs from Israel. They are citizens of Israel. They enjoy equal rights. We cannot see why it is that peace requires that any Palestinian area would require a kind of ethnic cleansing to remove all Jews,” the guide says.
I completely agree, but am rather surprised that an organization such as this would consider taking down the separation wall and integrating Palestinians into the beautiful Jewish settlement communities that have things like running water, electricity, sewage treatment, swimming pools, gardens and the like. Still, never let it be said that I opposed a good idea no matter where it came from. I fully support them in their quest for integration. Let the integration begin. More »
These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the ADONAI ELOHIM made the earth and the heaven. (Genesis 12:15)
Why does the creation begin with the Divine Name as the Creator and end with two Names, ADONAI ELOHIM when concluding the creation story? The Midrash explains: This may be compared to a king who had some empty glasses. The King wondered: “If I pour hot water into them, they will burst; if, however, I pour cold water, they will contract (and shatter).”
What then did the king do? He poured in a mixture of hot and cold water so the glasses would remain whole. So, said the Holy One: “If I create the world on the basis of mercy alone, its sins will be oppressive; on the basis of judgment alone, how would the world be able to exist? I will create it with justice and mercy together and then, maybe, it will be able to endure!” (Midrash Genesis Rabbah)
Ever since Scotland’s Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill announced the release of convicted Pan Am bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi this past Thursday, I’ve been thinking a great deal about the precarious balance between justice and mercy.
As you are no doubt aware by now, Scotland went ahead and freed the terminally ill Megrahi on “compassionate grounds” over the furious objections of the American government. Whatever your opinion of this incident, you have to admit it has made for some pretty fascinating reading. I can’t say I ever recall reading so much about the ethics of compassion vs. justice in the op-ed pages before.
The United States was right to complain to British and Scottish authorities, who now have a great deal of explaining and investigation to do in order to demonstrate the integrity of their handling of the entire matter. At the very least, Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill, who granted al-Megrahi release on compassionate grounds, ought to lose his job. Probably he is not the only one.
Flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 killing 259 aboard the 747 passenger jet and 11 people on the ground. Libya and its leader, Moammar Gadhafi were blamed and, ultimately, Libya gave up al-Megrahi. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison.
This gives us the first reason why the release was wrong. The man was sentenced to life. He served eight years. MacAskill ordered the release on compassionate grounds because the prisoner had terminal prostate cancer. People die in prison all the time, which is, in theory, what phrase life in prison means. Even compassion has its limits and it is warranted in this case only for the victims’ families, the victims themselves having been denied it by their murderers.
MacAskill could have washed his hands of this issue and simply had a terminally ill man spend the few remaining days of his life in a Greenock prison cell. Few, beyond the masters of the British petroleum industry, would have demurred. Certainly not Downing Street, whose haunted incumbent would have been praying for such a verdict, and certainly not America whose default position on justice is: “When in doubt, hang them from the neck… especially if they are poor, black and uneducated.” In the Arab world, there would have been desultory protests but nothing more. Baghdad, Helmand, Kabul and the West Bank are of far more pressing concern than the final resting place of a man they all wished to forget.
But this unprepossessing minister of justice sought to ignore all the serried interests of the global supermen. Instead, he found refuge in the fundamental principles of a judicial system that has served Scotland soundly for more than 400 years. For 16 years now, our statutes have given us leave to release from prison anyone who is deemed by competent medical authority to have three months or less to live. It was a concession rooted in compassion, pity and forgiveness. Few in the United Kingdom have ever taken issue with it. It is a good and just law. MacAskill simply applied it.
Regardless of what we might think about MacAskill’s judgment (I’m personally struggling with this myself), I don’t think it is fair or accurate to claim that his actions were politically motivated. Based upon everything I’ve read so far, it seems to me that he simply acted upon what he considered to be values of compassion and decency. When was the last time we could say that about the actions of a politician?
PS: Couldn’t help but notice that Megrahi was freed on Rosh Hodesh Elul. (I’m not sayin’, I’m just sayin’…)
Boker tov, everyone! I am spending the weekend at NERUSY Encampment, with upwards of 150 Jewish teenagers at Camp Ramah of New England in scenic Palmer, MA. I have made it to at least a piece of Encampment nearly every year since 1992 (save a couple of years when I lived on the west coast), and despite my general drift away from Conservative Judaism, I still feel like New England Region United Synagogue Youth is an important spiritual home for me.
One of my favorite aspects of Encampment is tefillot - prayer. These kids are together for a full week, davening three times a day, so there’s a lot of opportunity for learning and connecting to prayer. Because most other USY conventions take place over Shabbat, our week at camp is one of only a few opportunities to explore prayer in fun ways that might not be appropriate for Shabbat. With this in mind, I volunteered to offer “YouTube Shacharit” this morning, inspired by this poist.
The YouTube videos on the other side of the cut here don’t replace the service, they augment it. Think of them as teaching tools or kavvanot, intentions to help us focus our minds on the prayers at hand. Or as just fun ways to take a different look at some familiar prayers. More »
Just a reminder that religious fundamentalism isn’t only a problem for villagers in the mountains of Pakistan, or for women on city busses in Jerusalem.
Posted by Ed Brayton at Scienceblogs.com, an account from a U.S. Army Captain about religious persecution by high-ranking Evangelical Christians in the United States military:
…As a Platoon Leader serving in Iraq, my Squad Leaders and I were ordered to attend a mission briefing with the Battalion Command Team’s security squad. The briefing concluded with a Soldier being ordered to lead the group in prayer. I was disturbed because I knew that there were Soldiers on this team who did not share the specific, sectarian Christian religious beliefs being expressed. I was standing at the edge of the formation, and chose to quietly walk away. I was later counseled by my Commander and informed that the Battalion Command Team had heard of the incident and recommended I be relieved from my duties as Platoon Leader. My Commander explained that, by not bowing my head in blatantly Christian prayer with the others, I was sending a message that I “want my Soldiers to die.” These words penetrated my core. What leader can imagine a worse accusation? Who wouldn’t doubt herself or himself when confronted with this message? The threat of being relieved was completely overshadowed and, again, I was an outsider, incapable of leadership because I refused this unconstitutional perversion of Christianity synonymous with the Command. Could I not, would I not be an effective combat ready officer/leader/warrior without first very publicly and repeatedly demonstrating my singular loyalty to Jesus Christ? Could I not lead brave military women and men into combat for my country without being an avowed fundamentalist Christian? I stopped practicing my own religion; I disassociated myself from Soldiers who were similarly persecuted; I lost hope…
Read the full story here. Note both the ubiquity of sectarian religious pressure during the Captain’s military service, as well as the way he was betrayed by the supposedly confidential system for reporting issues like these. For those who have been paying attention to this particular trend in recent American history, this isn’t surprising.
Mikey Weinstein, who forwarded the story to Brayton, is the head of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. Their work can be supported by donation, by contacting your elected officials, and by spreading the word about this trend of military ‘steeplejacking’. It’s a problem not just for us religious minorities, but for non-fundamentalist Christians as well, and for everyone to whom the First Amendment is important. We can all imagine the danger of a military dominated by “C Street“-style Christianist crusaders.
“The idea of being overflowing history makes possible existents both involved in being and personal, called upon to answer at their trial and consequently already adult—but, for that very reason, existents that can speak rather than lending their lips to an anonymous utterance of history.” (p.23)
Levinas is making the following claim. History is often perceived as a narrative. Moreover since Marx and Hegel, for different reasons, history is seen as an explanatory tool of events. (Hence, the overused saying: history will prove me right (or wrong).) In this understanding, each moment is only a bit of history and it only makes sense once we get to the end. It is only in the arc of the historical narrative that each individual moment has significance. This is the claim that Levinas is denying.
“Being,” that is the whole infinite realm of existing which in and of itself does not have a narrative, Levinas writes, overwhelms “history.” When we grant “each instant its full signification in that instant”—that is, when we allow each moment of existing to have its own significance without having to be part of a narrative—the historical narrative is undone. This is a good thing. When it is the historical narrative which grants significance to the individual, the individual is melded into the collective and does not have a specific and unique personhood. When, on the other hand, each moment is allowed to flower in its own specificity, in its own relationship with being, then each person achieves a unique identity, an adult identity—that is an identity as a person with a name who is responsible (and should be held responsible) for their choices and their interactions with other persons.
Now, here is the kicker. As a result of the deconstruction of the (Hegelian? Marxist?) narrative arc of history by the significance that individual moments have, people are able to speak as individuals rather than “lending their lips to an anonymous utterance of history”—i.e. merely being in the chorus line of this or that “world-historical” movement.
As my hevruta and I were learning today, it struck me that this was one of Zionism’s claims—that any individual’s actions are only significant in relation to the national narrative. That each moment only has significance when understood through the lens of the “ends” of history. That the return to Zion was/is the return to history. In this Levinasian sense this is all true. Zionism was/is another call for the Jewish people to “lend their lips to an anonymous utterance of history.” On the other hand, as Levinas continues, “Peace is produced as this aptitude for speech.” The ability to speak as an individual and unique person undermines the collective utterance and allows the engagement with another person as a face to face encounter rather than a historical narrative to historical narrative encounter.
In the last year or so, I’ve noticed some radical reconfiguring of my own views on inclusivity and exclusivity in Jewish community and Jewish tradition. I’ve become much more conscious of the ways we speak about Jews of multiple heritages, Jews born into other faiths, etc.
From the time I was a kid (I’m going to guess the seventh grade, when we spent a year of Hebrew School learning about the Holocaust), I have been very uncomfortable by any reference to Jews as a race. (“That’s how Hitler defined us!” I was trained to think.) But I never really thought about the concept of “Jewish Blood” as anything other than metaphor until BatyaD objected to the phrase in a comment on this blog.
Her comment got me thinking about the way we speak of converts. There’s a somewhat accepted, conventional (dare I say “traditional?”) narrative of the “Jewish soul” that many people use to conceptualize conversion into the Jewish faith. Somehow, the idea that converts were born Jewish but just didn’t know it yet is supposed to make someone feel more comfortable about including them in the Jewish people. This bothers me. If someone finds that the teachings of Judaism feel like the appropriate framework for her life, and wants to cast her lot in with the Jewish people, I don’t know what benefit there is to say “it was predestined.” Jews, to the best of my understanding, don’t believe in predestination anyway.
But there’s another problem with this creepy Jewish soul business. Often, the self-same proponents of “they were born Jewish but just didn’t know it” (guess God makes mistakes?) are those insisting that if you’re born Jewish, you’re always Jewish no matter whether you renounce Judaism or take on some other religion or no religion or what have you. This, to me, feels hypocritical. I don’t see how we can accept the idea of people converting into Judaism while denying the possibility of people earnestly and honestly leaving Judaism for another path. Either souls can get born into the “wrong” religion or not. Either people can determine appropriate frameworks for their own lives or not.
I know I’m largely (but not entirely) preaching to the choir here, but I had to get this off my chest. I feel better already.
Today, New Israel Fund released rabbinical resources for the High Holy Days, from Israeli social justice activists fighting for religious pluralism, protecting Israel’s environment, empowering women, minorities and migrant workers, and safeguarding civil rights. Read it at www.nif.org/YamimNoraim, selected quotes below the fold.
You may not be looking for the promised land, but you might find it anyway / Under one of those old familiar names / Like New Orleans, Detroit City, Dallas, Pittsburg P.A., New York City, Kansas City, Atlanta, Chicago, and L.A.
-James Brown, Living in America
“We have to be all those difficult things like cheerful and kind and curious and patient, and we’ve got to study and think and work hard, all of us, in all our different worlds, and then we’ll build…”
“And then what?” said her Dæmon sleepily “build what?”
“The Republic of Heaven.”
-Phillip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass
People grapple with how to make something larger than themselves significant in a personal context all the time. Obviously, religion is no exception. And when one tries to extrude one’s own understanding of a concept such as religion onto others, the consequences are disastrous.
That being said, I personally have found it extremely productive to learn more about other people’s approaches to difficult concepts. I struggle to maintain a balance of originality (i.e. not adopting someone else’s viewpoints) and applicability (not becoming so caught up in my own opinions that I become insular and self-centered) in my opinions. I talk to experts, I weigh their opinions, and I try to form my own based on a hopefully well-informed view of the situation.
So it was when I started wearing tzitzit and covering my head after freshman year. I spent time with some Modern Orthodox Jews, I talked to some more Reconstructionist-ish rabbis, I talked to friends and family, and I spent time just thinking about it myself. I ultimately came to the conclusion that it was something I wanted to do, to help provide me with the sense of constant responsibility and Jewishness that I felt I had been missing.
I knew then that that wasn’t at all a final step in my religious deliberations, but I’ve definitely gone in some directions since then that I didn’t anticipate. One in particular seemed to me a good topic for a post; my recent attendance of the weekly Quaker meetings in Northampton. My father was raised Quaker, although his family was Jewish by blood, so the RSoF was always on my radar in a vague sort of sense. I knew that Quakers worshipped in silence, and that one stands up and just speaks if one has something to say. I suppose I had thought a bit about the theological implications of this form of worship, but not extensively. So, about a month ago, I went to a meeting.
I have quite a few Quaker friends, so I had a bit of an insider view on the community from the beginning; I could sort of see it through their perspectives. There were not that many people at the first meeting I went to, owing to a annual meeting elsewhere in the area that drew a lot of regular members, but it was still very interesting. There were a couple “messages” given over the one-hour period. One woman spoke about a trip she took to Austria, and an experience she had in a small village where no one spoke English. She had a hard time understanding the local dialect, but she did know that everyone was very friendly, because whenever anyone passed anyone on the street, they would greet each other familiarly. It took her a while to figure out that what they were saying was Gruss Gott, which translates as “Greet G*d”.
The format of Quaker meetings can be taken in a lot of different directions. Some of my friends informed me that there’s a name for when too many people are giving messages at a meeting. They call it “popcorn”. So there’s a subtle stigma towards talking too much. But my perception was that that’s not because they don’t encourage thought. It’s that they encourage room for thought. The format of the meeting is deeply rooted in the Quaker belief that G@d is within everyone. The meeting is designed to provide space for you to clear your thoughts and share them if you feel that it’s appropriate.
My father remembers the meetings feeling very oppressive as a child. I can see how this would be true. A woman I talked to last Sunday told me about the childcare service the Northampton Friends’ Society provides; they bring the kids in for only the last ten minutes. Clearly, it would be difficult for a lot of kids to sit in silence for an hour. Even for adults, it’s difficult in some ways. But I’m continually surprised at how subtly natural it feels to just be with people. I find it refreshing. As much as I like to think that I’m unflappable, that I’m capable of forming rational opinions and coming to valid conclusions under even the most pressing and stressful of circumstances, I’m not; I’m only human. And since we live in a not-exclusively-Jewish community, my family has sacrificed any kind of Saturday Shabbat worship, instead focusing on being together Friday night. Thus, Quaker meeting on Sunday mornings is ironically enough my Sabbath.
I was taught in dayschool (before I dropped out) and then Hebrew school (before I dropped out of that too) that Go_Od is everywhere. The Friends’ Society embodies that fully and faithfully.
Like the progressive Judaism that I have tried to form for myself, Quaker meeting embraces the notion of humanity, rather than denying it. Instead of condemning personal flaws and limits of ability, it recognizes them and calls on me to work within those constraints to fashion something useful and beautiful.
Last night, my 
LiveScience 
But I never really thought about the concept of “Jewish Blood” as anything other than metaphor until 
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