Gerti Deutsch (1908-1979) Austrian Born London Bred Photographer. Her photos of small village life in the Tyrol Mountains are incredible.
The London Jewish Chronicle article about the “Gran with a Camera”
א גוטן שבת אויף אײך און אויף כל ישראלֹ
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Recently, while perusing back copies of the German newspaper Der Zeit, I came across a November 1990 interview with famed Italian mountaineer Reinhold Messner, which, nearly two decades later, remains as sublimely absurd as ever. 
Taking this entirely out of context (because it is far more fun this way), here is an excerpt of the interview with a gem of a quote:
Gibt es Erfahrungen, die Sie noch machen wollen?
MESSNER: Ich bin noch nie abgestürzt. Also das fehlt mir. Ich bin 1980 auf dem Mount Everest in eine Spalte gefallen. Aber die war nur acht Meter tief. Ich wäre auch gern einmal eingesperrt. Mich würde interessieren, wie ich reagiere, wenn ich eine lange Zeit im Kerker verbringen müßte. Aber dazu müßte ich ein Verbrechen begehen. Ich könnte Sie zum Beispiel erschießen.
Haben Sie einen Revolver?
MESSNER: Nein.
Außerdem wäre Ihre mutwillig herbeigeführte Verhaftung eine Erfahrung, die nicht viel zählt.
MESSNER: Das ist wahr. Es ist etwas anderes, ob ich freiwillig oder ungewollt leide. Ich habe mir meine Leiden immer selbst ausgesucht. Ich bin nie in einem KZ gewesen. Das wäre noch eine Wunscherfahrung. Ich möchte wissen, wie lange ich durchhalten und wie selbstsüchtig oder brutal ich mich den Mithäftlingen gegenüber verhalten würde.
In other words, Messner expresses his morbid curiosity and interest in experiencing the horrors of a concentration camp: as the ultimate test of physical endurance and moral fortitude. This reality television show practically writes itself…
Oh wait. Larry David has already taken care of that.
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Max Blumenthal visited this past weekend’s intensely noxious Israel rally organized by far-right and religious nationalist Jewish orgs in New York. Cheers and accusations of “Obama is a Muslim” and a non-citizen, that Rahm Emmanuel is a “self-hater” and others like him “kapos,” and that “Binyamin Netanyahu is the leader of the free world” make this footage surreal. Unlike some of Blumenthal’s past visual indictments, however, these words were spoken aplenty by the organizers at the podium.
According to the NY Jewish Week, NY Representative Anthony Weiner sought a moment at the podium, but was denied by organizers lest he defend the Obama administration too much. State assemblyman Dov Hinkind castigated mainstream Jewish groups for their perceived silence. Fliers were distributed supporting the Prime Ministerial candidacy of Likud’s Moshe Feiglin, advocate of ethnically cleansing the Palestinians. In attendance were the Republican Jewish Coalition, the Hudson Institute, World Committee for the Land of Israel, the Jerusalem Reclamation Project, the Zionist Organization of America, Z Street, Americans for a Safe Israel, Christians United for Israel, and Manhigut Yehudit, the latter of which calls for a Jewish theocracy.
The seven-minute clip ends with a quote from my favorite religious commentator on Israel, Yeshayahu Liebowitz, “Religious nationalism is to religion what National Socialism is to socialism.”
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The World of the Text
At first glance, this week’s parsha, filled as it is with laws concerning priests and temple offerings, has very little to say to most of us. But still, here it is, troubling our Saturday morning: ‘Emor. It does follow on quite neatly from last week’s reading of K’doshim–Israel, the kingdom of priests and holy people, has special laws setting it aside from the nations, and the kohanim, the priests of priests, have further laws setting them aside from the rest of Israel. Seems simple, right? Israel is holy as God is holy, and the kohanim are double-plus holy–the ideal, the pinnacle of human existence.
Except that the ideal human apparently can’t be ‘blemished’ (Lev. 21:16-23). And the ideal human can’t marry a woman who isn’t a virgin–which is troubling not even so much for what it says about sexuality, but for what it says about women, who are an accessory to ideal humanity without ever being in the running for it ourselves. We don’t really get to say or do much; we’re mant to just hang around being pure for the sake of the men in our lives (see especially Lev. 21:9–’When the daughter of a priest defiles herself through harlotry, it is her father whom she defiles’–and that’s the closest the text actually gets to talking to, rather than about, the women in question). These laws are disturbing to our modern sensibilities–sensibilities informed, in no small part, by values we’ve derived from a few millennia of Torah study.
So what do we do?
We could, of course, just ignore the beginning of ‘Emor, skip ahead to chapter 23, which details all the appointed festivals. And while we’re at it, we might as well skip the very end of the parsha, too, about stoning blasphemers, which also puts us into uncomfortable territory. That leaves us with a chapter and a half that safely avoid telling us anything we didn’t already know. It’s familiar. Comforting, even.
The problem here is that Torah isn’t meant to be comforting. ‘Study’ isn’t just repeating stuff you already know over and over again. Torah is challenging, and study–learning–means stepping outside your comfort zone, into the world of the text, and struggling to understand that world on its own terms.
I don’t mean that we should read what Emor has to say about disability as though we were still living back in 500 BCE. Nor should we shuffle it off to the side with a muttered apology about how ‘that was then, this is now’–or a lengthy apologia about how the parsha actually improves the treatment of ‘blemished’ people relative to the time at which it was written (though, please, follow that link because it’s a fantastic commentary on the history of interpretation of this bit of Torah). Both of these statements are true, of course, especially with relation to this parsha. But they’re both statements that help us to disengage, to avoid an argument with the text.
When I sat down to write this, I thought I’d end up saying something very pretty about mishpatim (commandments whose purpose can be logically understood) and chukkim (commandments to which a divine ‘Because I said so, that’s why’ is implicitly affixed), and how we tie ourselves up in knots, sometimes, trying to turn the latter into the former–trying to invent logic where there really isn’t much to be found. But even that seems, now, a bit too much like an easy answer: ‘Oh, the Torah isn’t saying that women aren’t human, or that disabled people are bad.It’s just saying they don’t get to serve God in the same way, because God said so. No point in getting worked up about it.’
This is Torah. We’re supposed to get worked up about it. If the uncomfortable bits of ‘Emor do nothing else, they’re a divine tap on the shoulder: ‘Hey, you. Pay attention! Do you REALLY believe I just said that?’
Sometimes, eventually, ‘No’ is the most honest–and faithful–answer we can give.
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Well, I agreed with Hershel Schachter, rosh yeshiva of Yeshiva University, last week, but unsurprisingly, this didn’t last long. Cross-Currents reports that, at this week’s Rabbinical Council of America convention, Schachter taught a class on why women could not be ordained, and said that ordaining women was a yeihareig ve’al ya’avor (i.e., in the category of violations that Jews are commanded to die rather than transgress), “because the Conservative movement had made egalitarianism a key plank in its platform”.
First of all, if Cross-Currents is reporting his statement accurately, Schachter is wrong on the facts, and giving the Conservative movement much more credit than it deserves. The Conservative movement has always been timid about egalitarianism, treating it as a leniency rather than as a principle, and certainly not as “a key plank in its platform”. There are still a number of non-egalitarian Conservative congregations, and the movement doesn’t seem to have a problem with this.
But let’s look at the general principle that Schachter propounds, that any key plank of the Conservative movement’s platform becomes a yeihareig ve’al ya’avor for Torah Jews. One of the things that Emet Ve’Emunah, the Conservative movement’s “Statement of Principles”, actually does say is “Conservative Judaism affirms the critical importance of belief in God”. Therefore, anyone following Schachter’s opinion must conclude that it is strictly forbidden to believe in God, and that this prohibition is so serious that it is better to die than to violate it. Yes, some (presumably left-wing fringe) Orthodox Jews and congregations still believe in God, but we can assume that they will fall into line soon.
I can see the scene now: Schachter and his students giving up their lives al kiddush [REDACTED], having their skin flayed with iron combs as they say with their last breaths, “Hear O Israel: There is no God!”
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Pregistration for J Street’s 2011 conference is now open. The theme for this one, which will take place at the Washington Convention Center from February 26th-March 1st, is “Giving Voice To Our Values.”
Preregistering is free, and allows you to receive information about early registration specials. Whether you made it to the last one or not, you should definitely think about coming this time around. Who knows, maybe you’ll even meet one of us Jewschoolers?
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In the final session of the Independent Minyan Conference Shai Held (philosopher in chief of Mechon/Kehilat/Yeshivat Hadar, the sponsor/organizer of said conference) gave a rousing defense of a Torah which was imbued with service and was at its core egalitarian—and that this was the Torah that was embraced by the independent minyan movement. It was a great vort, which I would easily sign on to. (He also taught a wonderful piece from Reb Nachman on Friday night, and he taught it wonderfully.) Shai’s remarks however left me wondering why there were so many non-egalitarian independent minyanim (“partnership minyanim” and non-partnership modern orthodox minyanim) represented at the conference. This was only one of the interesting anomalies of the conference.
More »
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I just wanted to share with the entire world that I am reading a Yiddish novel from 1868. In its Hakdoma, there is a reference to the heroism and cruelty of the Haitian Revolution. The Haitian Revolution, which established Haiti as a free country for former African slaves, was on the minds of modernizing Eastern European Jews. Whaaaaaaaat?
Fancy That.
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I followed links from The Beat to Fantagraphics back to PLOG (The Presspop Blog) just so I can share with you this image of the vinyl sample of the forthcoming Presspop statuette of Jewish beatnik poet Allen Ginsberg.
I desperately want one for my new office.
(I was a totally good kid in high school, but the one time I ever skipped school was to attend one of Ginsberg’s final poetry readings.)
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If you know any politically/socially progressive Israeli musicians under the age of 30 whose music deals with issues of peace, justice, humanity, coexistence, etc., please have them check out mideastunes.com and email info@mideastunes.com to get themselves listed. (Hat tip to Mobius.)
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(Crossposted to Mah Rabu.)
I got back today from Mechon Hadar’s Third Independent Minyan Conference in New York, where I was representing Segulah. The conference included leaders of independent minyanim around the world (including several Jewschoolers), and there’s a lot more to say about it, but for the moment, I’ll just blog on a tangential matter:
Yesterday afternoon, the conference events took place in Kehilat Hadar‘s usual space at the Second Presbyterian Church. During mincha yesterday, we started hearing the church organ from upstairs. At first it was just background noise, but then I listened more carefully and thought “Wait a minute, I’ve heard that before.”
They were playing a Christian hymn called “The God of Abraham Praise”, whose story I had learned about in a class at the 2008 NHC Summer Institute. The melody was written around 1770 for the Hebrew poem “Yigdal” by Myer Lyon (Leoni), hazzan at the Great Synagogue in London. The Methodist preacher Thomas Olivers was inspired by this melody and wrote very different words to it, and centuries later, they’re still playing it in New York. This Yigdal melody continues to be well-known in the Jewish world. (Until I learned its story, I had no idea that it went back so far; I figured it was just one of those shul tunes from the early- to mid-20th century.) Except that Jews tend to sing it much much faster.
Listen below and then imagine it 3 or 4 times faster, and see if you recognize it!
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If the ecstatic poetry of Psalms and Song of Songs were being written today, it would sound like this.
I like a lot the stuff that’s happening in the burgeoning world of Jewish hip-hop. I like Y-Love, Matisyahu, Socalled and many others of that ilk, but I caught myself wondering recently about the absence of Jewish folk rock or indie rock, genre of music Jews of my generation listen to a lot of . We listen to it. We make it (check out my cousin’s band–no explicitly Jewish content–but he and his band mate met at Ramah). And finally I found the answer to my question: The Wailing Wall.
The Wailing Wall – Bones Become Rainbows:
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The Wailing Wall is NYC multi-instrumentalist Jesse Rifkin and the music is breathtaking. It’s at once familiar and yet totally unique. This guy is Bob Dylan, the Decemberists, Kirtan Rabbi and The Psalmist all rolled into one. It’s completely eclectic, full of energizing swells of melody, percussion and lyrics. If the ecstatic poetry of Psalms and Song of Songs were being written today, it would sound like this. At the same time, the music has dark, reflective moments more akin to Ecclesiastes. I’ll leave the obligatory Simon and Garfunkel comparison up to you, but it wouldn’t be a bad comparison.
In the words of JDub Records’ press info:
Still hungry and skeptical after 11 years of Orthodox day school education, and questioning his belief in a benevolent higher power, Jesse turned to the strains of Sufi Qawwali music, Hindu Kirtan chanting, Renaissance and Baroque church music. Looking back, perhaps this wasn’t a turn so much as a return:
“My parents first met in a Siddha Yoga ashram in California where they both spent years following a guru named Swami Muktananda…[and] I grew up meditating and chanting with them. So throughout my childhood, there was an awareness of both Jewish and Hindu liturgical traditions,” says Jesse.
Bones Become Rainbows, the track embedded above is so engrossing, I’ve had it looping for the entire time I’ve been writing this post. It begins with a series of rhythms and percussion instruments coming in layers and spurts. And the lyrics might as well be from a classical piyut: “There is no easy answer for the breath in my love, but it’s your name I recite in each song that I’ve sung.”
The entire album has been blowing my mind all day. You should get it. Shavua tov.
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Looks like Judge Goldstone will be going to his grandson’s Bar Mitzvah after all:
Last week, Warren Goldstein, the chief rabbi of South Africa and a persistent critic of the report, wrote in the newspaper Business Day that the judge should be allowed to attend the bar mitzvah because every synagogue “should welcome in a tolerant and nonjudgmental way all who seek to enter and join in our service and pray to God.”
But Rabbi Goldstein also renewed his criticism of the judge, saying his report “has unfairly done enormous damage to the reputation and safety of the State of Israel and her citizens.”
He [Goldstone] added that Rabbi Goldstein’s “rhetoric” about tolerance “simply does not coincide with how my family and I have been treated.”
That just about covers it. It takes a pretty despicable lowlife to uninvite someone from their grandson’s Bar Mitzvah because of political differences. Rabbi Goldstein does not deserve to be a community leader.
One more thing. They didn’t just invite him back. They effectively “reached an agreement.”
A day earlier, the South African Jewish Board of Deputies, which represents most of the country’s synagogues, issued a statement that outlined something like a quid pro quo: a promise of no protests on the bar mitzvah boy’s big day, in exchange for a meeting between the judge and leaders of the South African Zionist Federation and other Jewish organizations.
Disgusting. They actually felt the need to make political deals to preserve their image. Couldn’t have their constituents believing they were bighearted people willing to put aside political differences to celebrate together, or anything radical like that.
Last note: I can’t wait to see what comes out of that meeting. If Goldstone’s past encounters with his detractors are any measure, the SA Zionist Federation is going to be subject to a pretty thorough in-person fisking.
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Who is holy? How does one become holy? The pursuit and attainment of holiness is the central preoccupation of this week’s double portion.
Not only people, but animals are holy (see Ex. 13.2) and even clothes can be designated as holy (Ex. 28:2). The spaces we inhabit are endowed with a sacred ‘priestly’ quality (see Num. 35:1-34). Consider the way in which a firstborn calf is not to be used for common work, but rather is set aside and consecrated to God. Similarly, the utensils and vessels (Ex. 25:29) used in the Temple were to serve sacred Temple-related purposes only, and the priests’ garments are to be worn only during sacral service. This is the first component of holiness: acknowledgement of a possible material-spiritual union—the belief that material objects and creatures of flesh and blood can, in fact, be imbued with or take on aspects of sanctity that elevate them above the merely mundane.
The second component of holiness as spelled out by this week’s portion is the rejection of all actions and objects that contain properties which oppose holiness–all which is “evil” or “base.” The pursuit of righteousness and attainment of holiness can be accomplished only through the active eschewal and, when necessary, banishment of evil. This theme figures prominently in this week’s double portion, as we are repeatedly told what not to do (and consequently what to do to those who commit these transgressions). The righteous figure is defined by her/his distance from iniquity, as so aptly captured in images of the first Psalm. Thus we see the converse relationship between the first, positive component of holiness and the second, negative component of holiness working together to achieve an idealized, if perhaps unattainable, balance. This daunting task is only further complicated by the divine imperative expressed in Lev. 20:7.
“Be Holy as I am Holy” (Lev. 20:7). With this command, God charges us with the impossible. “As I am Holy”: how can we know how God is holy—let alone imitate this holiness ourselves? Without diving into a bottomless ocean of apophatic conjecturing, the answer actually seems to hover in its very construction. The void in our knowledge of divine sanctity (“As I am holy”), our essential incomprehension of the divine, signals the insuperable distance between God and creation. It is through this striving in imitatio dei that a mortal elevates his material being toward an existence enveloped by holiness. Of course the fundamental impossibility of this proposition cannot be resolved so easily.
In Acharei-Mot Kedoshim the stakes of this relationship (the holy/profane binary) are significantly raised. Whereas in the Ten Commandments, we are told how to act and how not to act, without any attached penalty or reward (the one exception is the 5th commandment, which quickly alludes to a reward). In Acharei-Mot Kedoshim, on the other hand, the prohibition against a rather prodigious litany of possible sinful deeds (Lev. 20:10-11) is punctuated with grave reminders of their devastating consequences (ranging from banishment from the community to immediate death penalty). Importantly, the incentive to eschew evil is, at first, not stated as emphatically in the negative: before the invocation of penalty, we are given concrete positive motivation to act properly (see for example, Lev. 18:5). Many of the regulations found in Leviticus 18 resurface almost verbatim in Leviticus 20, but this time in a slightly more impersonal form. Leviticus 18 addresses the listener directly (“the nakedness of your brother,” etc.), whereas Leviticus 20 tends to revert to the “Ish, ish” construction, roughly equivalent to “if one were to…” Perhaps this gesture also formally represents a ‘divine separation’: the enactment of distance in the face of repeated sin.
Is holiness then merely a matter of pursuing the good and resisting the evil? If we return to the opening of Acharei Mot, we find that even according to the text’s own logic, the world is not that simple. Acharei-Mot picks up where parashat Shmini leaves off, with the untimely demise of Nadav and Avihu, two of Aaron’s sons. Nadav and Avihu died while performing their priestly duties. The text cryptically refers to their offering up an “aysh zarah,” a strange fire. Beyond that, we know little of the circumstances of their deaths. While for many of the commentators, the Nadav and Avihu incident gives way to a field day of apologetics, we must remember that the text itself only hints at wrongdoing, and a minor infraction at that. How are we to understand the suffering of ostensibly well-intentioned, if not exceedingly righteous, people? The very beginning of Acharei-Mot Kedoshim seems to defy flagrantly the otherwise axiomatic quality of divine reward and punishment clearly established throughout the rest of the double-portion. The lack of rationale for their deaths provided back in Parashat Shmini (Lev. 10) is unsettling, and within eight verses, everyone is summoned back to work, business as usual, only to be continued at the outset of Acharei Mot.
In a rare glimpse of emotional interiority, the text describes Aaron as “silent” upon learning of Nadav and Avihu’s deaths (Lev. 10:3). It is entirely possible Nadav and Avihu’s intentions were only good. Aaron, the highest priest of a “nation of priests” finds himself at a loss for words. What can one actually say, after all, in the face of such seemingly random tragedy? So too, in attempting to decipher the Divine and grasp the staggering injustices of our times, we may find ourselves at a loss for words. We may never find those elusive words, but it is upon us to resume the work and discover meaning in its continuing mystery. This is holiness.
(One must imagine Sisyphus happy)
Shabbat shalom.
And this is what is not holy (or at least that from which Leviticus 20 attempts to safeguard us):
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We’d like to believe that a new restaurant in DC, Star and Shamrock, was inspired by dlevy and my innovations in progressive kashrus (read: let’s deep fry!) and brave experimentation with organic spray food.
We’d also like to think that we could have come up with this idea ourselves. (And, seriously, we did. We just weren’t thinking big enough. Next time, we won’t limit our culinary cleverness to our kitchen – we’ll strive to open a restaurant!)
So what the heck am I talking about? I’ll let DCist tell you about it:
Think deli with an occasional sprinkle of Irish/Jewish fusion sprinkled in.
There’s a fried food-heavy appetizer menu, featuring fried kosher pigs in a blanket, fried pickles, fried chicken livers, fried matzo balls, and latkes all priced at $5.
The matzo balls are cut in half, griddled and served with sautéed onions and “au jew” instead of au jus. The balls stand well enough on their own with a slightly crisped exterior – not too hard, not too fluffy – especially when you combine a bite with the caramelized onion. Dip a forkful in the “au jew,” a salty chicken consommé, and you get a more traditional matzo ball soup taste experience.
…This Irish/deli-themed bar is far from a kosher joint with bacon included in a number of menu options. Not to mention the nods to an Irish kitchen are few and far between. There’s Shepherd’s Pie, Irish Potato & Cheddar Soup, and a McTuna Melt with Irish cheddar. There’s also The Clogger, a disgusting (or delicious! -ed.) sounding sub made with beef brisket, provolone, bacon, gravy, garlic butter, and mayo.
Ireland is more appropriately channeled via several Irish whiskeys, including selections from Jams, Knappogue Castle, Yyrconnell, Killbeggan, Connemara, Greenore, Clontarf, as well as several standards. And naturally you can choose from Guinness, Harp, and Kilkenny Cream Ale on tap. The rest of the beer list is heavy on Brooklyn Brewery, Coney Island, and He’brew bottles. If you’re in the mood for rye, their list is lengthier than most, but doesn’t feature any stand outs.
There were no ballads or klezmer tunes playing in the background on our visit, though there is a small stage to host the occasional Irish band. There’s not a wall full of “Guinness is Good for You” or too much baloney about all the craic you’ll have (though there is Jewish Bologna on pumpernickel for $6.50). But perhaps that lack of manufactured flair makes for a more authentic Irish tavern experience in the end. That and a menu full of Jewish kitsch.
Folks in the DC area, let us know what you think of the knew eatery.
Tip o’ the nib to JMG.
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Tevel B’tzedek is on the ground supporting communities and even running a school in the Petitionville refugee camp. Below are some selections from recent blog posts from our friends over at Repair the World:
There are thousands of children in the camp, but only one school, run by volunteers from the Israeli non-profit Tevel b’Tzedek, and funded by IsraAID, an umbrella organization of Israeli groups working in the developing world. I founded Tevel b’Tzedek, which has been working with poor and marginalized communities in Nepal for the past three years through its service learning programs that combine volunteering with the study of poverty, Jewish social justice values and globalization. The nine Israeli and US Jewish volunteers of “Tevel” have been here for the past two months. As I walk through the camp with them, they seem to know everyone, from the children to the U.S. Marines providing camp security. There is an amazingly unlikely moment as we climb the steep hill towards the school—we meet a group of Nepali UN soldiers, and the Tevel Nepal graduates chat with them in Nepali—it seems like the harbinger of a new world.
…
My job is to figure out what to do next. With the rains and then typhoons coming, the camp is not safe, especially for those on the bottom of steep hills. The camp will empty out over the next few months. Should we go to work in the next phase of semi-permanent camps? Should we move to one of the villages, where we can also use Israel’s agriculture expertise to boost food production, a major priority in Haiti even before the earthquake?
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Connecticut, One of the 13 Original Colonies.
I grew up in Connecticut, in a part of Connecticut that was heavily working class with some ironic mixture of aristocracy and decaying housing projects. It was also not a particularly Jewish place, but being in the tri-state area, it possessed a medium sized Jewish community. I was raised in a town with a small Jewish population, and went to shul in the larger, exceptionally poor city to the immediate southeast. When I read this article about allegations against the East Haven Police Department, I remember and identify with the diseased kind of racist-garbage corruption among the police and town government, which stands accused of police bias, brutality and violence against its burgeoning Hispanic population. As I think more and more, I see my own upbringing in this news and remember odd moments in which racial prejudice, growing ethnic diversity, and the heavy presence of white ethnics, like the Irish, Italians and Greeks, always smashed into my Jewishness. I always felt that my Jewish self, how I understood its history and all that shiz, was really fired in a kiln of bigotry and national resentment. Mix recent, Latino immigration with the generations of working-class blacks and white ethnics that had been working CT land for generations, and you get people sweating. How did the Jews fit into the history of this working-class New England town? Did Jewish tradition, or even ritual life, have express anything about the the material conditions of my upbringing? I just think today of all the Jewish kids who are experiencing something like East Haven up close, and to hear their voices. We are still dwelling most deeply in Bovel.
To read about recent accusations of Police Bias in East Haven, CT, read the NYTimes article here.
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Three Boston-area Jewish professionals-cum-independent-documentarians are working on an hour-long documentary about Birthright Israel… and they need YOUR HELP!
The project is called Mifgash: Encountering Jewish Identity in the 21st Century, and the filmmakers are about $800 away from their $10,000 goal. If you’ve ever wanted to see your name in the credits of a film, this could be your chance, for as little as $36. For a grand, you can become an Associate Producer. If you’re interested in chipping in, check out their page on Kickstarter.
From the trailer, the film seems like a Birthright lovefest, so I’m curious to see if the final project includes the voices of Birthright’s critics. Then again, the trailer also features at least one image of tefillin and no drunken hookups, so one wonders how much the film will really reflect the Birthright experience.
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