First thing this afternoon at the JStreet conference there was a town-hall plenary session, within which there was space for dialogue among participants, and questions about important policy issues. Interestingly, it seemed to give an equal platform to Jeremy Ben-Ami, representing JStreet, and to Rabbi Eric Yoffie of the Union for Reform Judaism. All of Rabbi Yoffie’s comments did not concur with my understanding of JStreet’s political leanings. For example, “The day after the withdrawal Gaza should have become the Singapore of the Middle East.” This was not the tight message control I had come to expect from the emails I’ve been receiving from JStreet this past year.
After each of them spoke questions were posed for discussion. If you didn’t already know, the questions that were officially posed would have made it clear that JStreet is on the defensive against attacks from the right and not the left (not that there aren’t critiques from the left). For starters, how does a “pro-peace” group reconcile itself to the need for self-defense? “Pro-peace” is not pacifist, but I’m sure plenty of people would like to confuse the two in order to paint JStreet as naive. Next. More »
My favorite siddur these days is the Koren Sacks Siddur. Busting ArtScroll’s liturgical monopoly for the first time in a long time, Israeli siddur and Tanach publisher Koren combined the elegant layout and typefaces created by Eliyahu Koren with the clear, concise English commentary and instruction of the British Sacks siddur to create the Hebrew-English Koren Sacks Siddur. The siddur came out this summer and quickly shook up the exciting world of Orthodox American liturgy.
One of the OU’s perennial complaints about the ArtScroll family of siddurim is their refusal to quote or cite modern sources. The OU has long sought to create a siddur that includes the commentary and teachings of the giant of Modern Orthodoxy, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik. Koren loves it and is already working on creating this siddur, which they call the Mesorat HaRav Koren Siddur.
I think I know what J Street needs to be. I was having a conversation with Moises Salinas, the Vice President of Meretz USA, following a phenomenal presentation (by Ron Skolnik, Aziz abu Sarah, Ralph Hexter, Susannah Heschel and Elizabeth Wendt) on the deeply problematic and unhelpful nature of the BDS movement, and he used a term that really struck me: “the radical center.” That’s it, I thought, that’s what we need to be. J Street needs to be the radical center. The “radical center.” Isn’t that a contradiction?
Yes, it is. And that is the beauty of it. Allow me to break this down:
What is the center? The center is nuance, the center is complexity, the center is tolerance for a diversity of views, the center incorporates elements from both the left and the right, the center rejects the paradigms of right and wrong, the center opposes simplification.
What is radicalism? Radicalism is conviction, radicalism is dedication to a cause which is believed in which an overflow soul, radicalism is the burn of passion, the drive of action.
What is often wrong with the center? The center can be a lack of conviction, the idea that they are right and they are right, so we can’t really take a position. Center can be the perversion of nuance; its use not as a guiding beacon, but as a impediment for action.
What is often wrong with radicalism? Radicalism can be narrow, radicalism can blind, radicalism can alienate, polarize, extremicize, radicalism can be a tool for making oneself feel good by avoiding the complexities that confuse and frustrate and hurt.
So. J Street needs to combine the positive elements of both, to adopt centrist politics that buy into neither the simplifications the radical right or the radical left, but also positions that are forged with conviction, stances that are taken strongly. J Street needs simultaneously to be open, broad, thoughtful and to be willing to take strong, radical stances within those guidelines.
Confusing? It should be. If J Street falls into simplicity, if J Street becomes easy to understand and to categorize, then J Street fails. We need to be the contradiction of the radical center.
As Billy Wimsatt said, maybe J Street’s message should be: “Don’t be meshugganahs.” Let’s do it, team, let’s be nuanced centrist radicalist non-meshuganahs.
Last week was parashas Noach, which had a lot of great fodder: the flood, Noah’s drunken nakedness and the curse of Canaan, all of those descendants, and the tower of Babel.
So when it came to picking a tune for Shir HaMa’alos, the Song of Ascents (Psalm 126), which is sung as the introduction to Birkas ha’Mazon, the blessing of the meal (grace after the meal), dlevy and I each started signing a different tune. I was forcing the words to unsuccessfully mesh with The Ants Go Marching, in honour of those pairs of animals on the ark, of course, but stopped to spare our ears. (Please note that my version wasn’t as militaristic or creepy as the versions found on youtube.)
But what happens this week with Lekh Lekha? What tune would you use to reference Abram’s Sarai is my sister trick? Hagar and Ishmael? Bris milah, the covenant of circumcision? Leave your parasha-related tunes in the comments.
The hotel and facilities are beautiful and ample. The conference is well-planned and executed. But the battle between attendees and meeting rooms proved to be no contest: overflow crowds for the morning sessions were the rule. Queues formed for the upcoming sessions, not just in the hope of gaining a seat, but getting into the room at all. The rooms were full beyond standing room. Standers lined the rooms. People sat on the floor anywhere they could; sometimes, even behind the speakers’ table. The most frequently overheard question: “Can you believe how packed this is?”
The session on the American Left and Israel overflowed the room and the topic. More »
Last week, I was on my way to a healthcare rally when I bumped into some Larouche-ies. You’ve probably seen them yourself. They are out with a disturbing Obama-Hitler Mashup:
As I walked by, a late teens/early 20s scraggly white dude says “Hey, you like the mustache?”
After thinking about it for a second and trying to calm down I said:
Well, it’s sort of a good news/bad news situation for you. On the one hand, it’s bad news that your comparison is ridiculous, offensive, and wrongheaded. On the other hand it’s good news for you that Obama isn’t much like Hitler, since, if he was, you’d be in a concentration camp for drawing the comparison.
In retrospect, I think that’s a good response but not a great one.
Later I thought of some other alternatives:
Glib–I don’t see the connection. What does Obama have in common with Charlie Chaplin?
Serious–Frankly, I don’t. It is needlessly provocative and creates an unnecessary hurdle in your being taken seriously. If you have a good argument, make it.
Identity Political–Most of my family was killed by Hitler and I find this both disgraceful and insulting to their memory. If you wish to be sensationalist, please exploit your own history rather than mine.
Not sure any of these hits the right notes. What would you have said?
New York City’s underground fashion’s latest darling, bad-boy wild child Levi Okunov, is dressing women up as Torahs.
Now, I’m not the smartest person in the world. Sometimes it takes me a while to fully get an idea. I need time to process so I can fully appreciate the impact of a situation or an event. But not with this. This I got right away. Just not in the way you think.
Okay, it’s interesting – sort of. As for his actual auto-didactic fashion designs, nothing special there. It’s a bit of a simplistic rebellion, and therefore boring. And empowering the Torah as a focus of fetish (in the religious or veneration-of-the-animal sense) is not new, as Michaelson’s article pointed out. Neither is heresy new – nor necessarily offensive or threatening. “Heresy”, after all, is just a Greek word for “choice”. More »
Editor’s note: The following is a post from guest blogger Moriel Rothman blogging live from the first annual JStreet Conference.
Finally.
I am at here at the beginning of the J Street U segment of the J Street conference, and after only the first evening, the feeling I have is “finally.”
When I tried to explain to my friends back at Middlebury College what J Street is, I found that I had trouble summarizing and classifying what J Street is: Finally.
However, for my friends back home, I will try, based on what I’ve felt during these first fews hours.
J Street is an organization that supports Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish State.
J Street is an organization that desires peace and justice for Israelis and Palestinians.
J Street is complexity, and it is nuance.
J Street is a voice that is made up of many different voices, that speaks in English and in Hebrew and in Arabic.
J Street is pulsing with energy, glowing with nervous excitement.
J Street is a chance for change, and the challenging the tired paradigms of narrowness and of “good and bad.”
Or, that’s how I see J Street, at least. I am thrilled to be here, to be a part of this, to help J Street move forward, and to grow. I am here to work for peace in a way that combines the complexities of who I am and what I believe.
The J Street U opening program has just finished. Technically, this program begins and ends a day earlier than the regular J Street conference, so our individual programming takes place throughout the day tomorrow. In the evening, we join the conference, and go through their programming on Monday. We then have the option of our own advocacy session on Capitol Hill, or staying in the regular conference for Tuesday and going to their advocacy session on Wednesday. I’ve elected to take this option, and so, it turns out, has one of our guest bloggers, Moriel Rothman, whom I bumped into at the beginning of the opening program. We turn out to have a lot in common (such as us both beatboxing), and we’re spending some time talking about how to cover the events here meaningfully as we go through the program.
Tonight has been very constructive. I’m looking forward to crashing at the hostel a few blocks away where a lot of us are staying. Tomorrow’s an even busier day.
There’s a palpable sense of excitement in the air. But people are surprisingly level-headed. No one’s flying off the handle with radicalism or unfounded idealistic dreams of changing the world right away. But there’s real hope here. We heard some speakers talk about the role college campuses play in the shaping and realization of U.S. Middle Eastern policy; it’s empowering to have people address you like that. So tomorrow, when we actually make good on these ideas, and have real discussions with real facts, it’s going to come home – we have a job to do, and we’re here to learn how to do it.
I’ll continue to tweet the student and regular conferences.
Just read Rabbi Daniel Gordis’ recent op-ed in the Jerusalem Post – and am still recovering from the decidedly patronizing way he analyzed the gulf between the American Jewish community and Israel – or as he termed it, American Jewry’s “growing abandonment of Israel.”
So I’ve been falling down on the Shabos Zmiros job pretty hardcore these last few months, but I’m back! I’ve still been storing up videos and songs, awaiting the right time to re-institute the Shabos Zmiros weekly feature here at Jewschool.
This week I bring you Australian klezpunk in the form of YIDCORE! It’s not bad, as far as punk goes. Here’s their current music video for “They Tried to Kill Us, We Survive, Lets Eat!”
It gets better! Yidcore came to my attention because of this piece at Shemspeed over the summer, in which they had a tiny little interview with the lead singer ahead of their show at Limmud Oz. After they brief interview, the video continues with a spot-on punk cover of Yerushalayim shel Zahav and then the fastest rendition of Dayeinu that I’ve ever wanted to end.
Ta’anit Tzedek has just uploaded a transcipt of its recent rabbical conference call with Judge Richard Goldstone. As I wrote in my last post, you need to read it. Goldstone addresses a variety of critical issues, including how his mission conducted its investigation, the report’s suggestion that there were intentional IDF attacks on Gazan civilian targets, whether or not he’s backing away from its findings, how he felt about his experience as a Zionist and a South African, and much more.
Click below for a cleaned up, very slightly edited version. You can also listen to an audio file of the entire interview here.
Editor’s Note: The following is the third winner of four recent entries by individual who will be heading to Washington, D.C. at the end of the month for JStreet’s first national conference: Driving Change, Securing Peace. The following post was written by Rabbi Ezra Weinberg of New York City. Yashar Koach – and see you in DC! To everyone else: there’s still time to sign up – and if you can’t come, check back here for live blogging by our contest winners as well as some of your favorite Jewschoolers.
I was asked earlier this week what I thought of Jay Michaelson’s article in last week’s Forward entitled, “How I’m losing my Love for Israel.” Having read and mulled it over several times, the only words I could think of in response were “disheartening.” It has never been a lonelier time to support Israel as a peace-builder, in words alone, let alone though actions. Those of us devoted to bridging the ever growing gap between a Zionist identity and builders of a just world for all inhabitants often seem like the shrinking minority. Michaelson speaks frankly about the polarization effect this middle space has left him. All his reason for despair are justifiable. His loss of love for Israel stings precisely because of this familiar identification with that experience of being yanked apart living by opposing forces: in this case the “Israel bashers” versus the “Israel no-question askers.” For one to honestly care about the welfare of both Israelis and Palestinians takes courage and an unusual amount of risk. And the pressure to choose sides or to disengage completely is mounting. More »
I’m not the first blogger out there to say “Yes!” to Reform and “No!” to the URJ. I’ve learned a lot about how to do this and about how to articulate it from BZ, who blogs at Mah Rabu (his personal, often highly technically-worded blog) and at Jewschool.
One of BZ’s long-time trains of thought (and by extension, mine) is the problem of liberal Jews letting those to their religious right define them. BZ’s new op-ed in The Forward, Reframing Liberal Judaism, addresses the upcoming URJ biennial and USCJ biennial on the topic of terminology and definition in the liberal Jewish world.
And I couldn’t have said it better myself. The best part:
[...] religiously liberal Jews (Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist, nondenominational, etc.) frequently suffer from a deficiency in framing when talking about their Jewish ideologies and practices. Consciously or unconsciously, liberal Jews often invoke frames that implicitly establish Orthodox Judaism as normative and set up their own forms of Judaism in comparison with Orthodoxy.
The remedy is clear: For liberal Judaism to thrive, it must develop frames to see itself as authentic on its own terms. Orthodox Jews aren’t doing anything wrong by viewing Judaism through Orthodox frames, but we as liberal Jews are missing an opportunity by failing to see Judaism through our own liberal Jewish values.
This framing problem manifests itself in subtle ways. When we refer to Jews of other denominations as “more religious” or “more observant,” we undermine our own standards of religious observance, and judge ourselves on a scale external to our own Judaism.
Consider this phrase: “I’m not shomer Shabbat: Every week I light candles after sundown and then drive to synagogue.” The speaker obviously observes Shabbat but is allowing someone else to define what Shabbat observance means.
Furthermore, one version of this frame (problematic even for Orthodox Jews) equates “religious observance” solely with ritual observance. That’s how convicted felon Jack Abramoff can be labeled as an “observant Jew” despite violating many of the Torah’s ethical commandments.
Perhaps the most interesting part of this to me is that BZ is the person The Forward turned to. In advance of the biggest meetings of the two mammoth conglomerations that dominate liberal Jewry in America, that The Forward has gone to someone whose public persona is so defined by having turned his back on the liberal Jewish “Man” is fascinating.
Back in January, we posted about the contest to come up with Hebrew names for the planets Uranus and Neptune, as part of the International Year of Astronomy. Some of you may have submitted entries. The finalists have now been announced!!!
The two contenders for the planet hereunto known as Uranus are:
Oron – “The name means ‘little light’ , and it hints at the faint light of the planet as seen from Earth due to its great distance from the sun. The name Oron sounds similar to the foreign name [Uranus] and helps in remembering it.”
Shahak – “The proposal follows the meaning of the name Uranus, the name of the god of heaven. In Hebrew tradition there is no parallel name for the god of heaven (besides the name of the Supreme God). The word ‘shehakim’, in rabbinic literature, indicates one of the seven firmaments, and is also found in our Hebrew, and thus the singular form Shahak is appropriate as a proper name for the planet.”
And for Neptune:
Rahav – “The proposal follows the meaning of the name Neptune – the name of the god of the sea. The name parallel to it in Jewish tradition is Rahav – the name of the master of the sea. Thus, for example, the Babylonian Talmud explains the verse [JPS translation: 'By His power He stilled the sea; By His skill He struck down Rahab'] (Job 26:12) as describing the victory of the master of the sea. The name Rahav bears mythological connotations like the Latin name.”
Tarshish – “This is the name of one of the stones of the breastplate [Exodus 28:20] whose Aramaic translation (Onkelos) is ‘the color of the sea’ (among other opinions) — and this is also Neptune’s color as seen from Earth — bluish-green. ‘Tarshish’ is also connected to the sea in its other biblical use: the name of a place on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, whose identification is not certain (recall the flight of Jonah the prophet to Tarshish). And on the phrase ‘the ships of Tarshish’, Rashi says ‘Tarshish – name of a sea’. In rabbinic literature and in liturgical poetry ‘Tarshish’ is a synonym for sea, and also a name of angels. Thus the name Tarshish combines the connection to the sea (like the Latin name) and the mythological foundation (angels).”
I was one of 25 entrants (including an 8th-grade class in Netanya) who submitted “Shahak” for Uranus, and congratulations to ADDeRabbi, one of 15 people who submitted “Rahav” for Neptune!
So the next step is voting! The vote is being conducted online. Unfortunately for those of us outside Israel, the ballot asks for a te’udat zehut (ID number), so only Israeli citizens can vote. If you’re eligible, vote!!! The fate of two planets is in your hands. The winners will be announced in December at the conclusion of the International Year of Astronomy.
This is a guest post by Naomi Goldenson.
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