Today I saw a clump of folks on Broadway wearing t shirts that said “Columbia University Class of 2014.” I watched them, trying not to be creepy, wondering reflexively if any of them were Jewish. This is the first time in eight years that I won’t be spending a very hot, potentially rainy August morning behind a table welcoming incoming Jewish students and their parents to a college campus. Among other things, it has forced me to rethink my entire concept of what an autumn could look like.
It’s these folks that the Jewish community’s so concerned with-what will happen to their identity? How will college affect it? Will they hate Israel? Will they even interface with their Judaism? Who will they become? It can make being a Jewish professional and/or a Jewish student leader an existential crisis laden experience. I’m not proposing that we stop fussing over these questions, but in my dog-eared book of Jewish Things to Worry About, at the top of the list is the fate of progressive Jewish students in Hillel.
Keeping and growing progressive Jewish college students isn’t all about Israel, and yet, it is. The way Hillel approaches campus debate on Israel, conducts the conversation and makes room for it within its buildings, its offices and its meetings, is sending a message about who is welcome within it in general. There’s an enormous difference between creating a JStreet U chapter in your Hillel for the sake of diversity and having no staff member present who models progressive values and will make sure the student leaders of said group feel not only heard, but respected as Jews who care about Jewish community. You can say you welcome everyone, but if your staff consists solely of straight, right wing, upper middle class people, you don’t.
A memo to like minded Jewish folks in the class of 2014, wherever you may be: Don’t wait for permission or approval to make change. This business of Judaism is yours for the taking.
My pregnant wife sitting at home, I stood in the grocery store aisle with two bottles of grape juice in my hand–in the one hand I had the bottle of Kedem grape juice (I usually buy the organic, but they were all out) and in the other hand, a bottle of organic Santa Cruz 100% Concord Grape juice. I didn’t know what to do. My wife and I are dedicated to maintaining an organic diet. Some consumers choose organic products only when available; we choose to ONLY purchase organic products, if there’s not an organic option, we don’t get it. But here it was, Friday afternoon, too late to run around to more stores to look for organic juice that had a hekhsher. What to do… Can I, a soon to be rabbi ordained by the Conservative Movement, say kiddush on juice without a hekhsher? It’s not something I had ever done before… would I be willing to start? I was.
Unlike some, I have read and learned quite a bit about stam yeinam. Literally meaning ‘their wine,’ it refers to the practice of maintaining that when it comes to grape products, only Jewish hands may be a part of the production from start to finish. Dating back to Talmudic times, this practice was solidified, codified and reinforced by the work of the Tosafot (Franco-German medieval Talmudic commentators specifically interested in halakhic legal theory). In theory, the practice has two reasons, as far as my research has shown me. 1) There was the fear that wine purchased for kiddush could have been used or dedicated for avodah zarah (idol worship), and 2) that in certain areas blood was used as a purifier (the salts would act to separate out impurities in the wine). So today, in 2010, when there is no more avodah zarah as it was meant by the Talmud and there is hardly a winery in the world that would use blood as a purifier, what do we do with this tradition? (Hebrew readers who are interested in this topic should DEFINITELY check out Hayim Soloveitchik’s book on the topic titled “יינם”) More »
When I was growing up, we drank tea. Lipton, with milk and sugar, two bags sometimes. I haven’t craved it in years, having thrown it over in college for coffee, or in emergencies, green tea, caffeinated. My mother and grandmother subsisted on it. That, and political arguments. The two of them poured over the nightly news, local politics, every headline in the paper, and always asked me what I thought. This was how I learned to use my voice, and ultimately, about feminism.
Today, August 26th, is Equality Day, otherwise known as the 90th anniversary of women’s suffrage in the United States. I’m cynical about voting. I’m skeptical that the system will ever really prove to be a source of justice. I was wrong, recently, with the overturning of Prop 8, but I’m also leery of getting too confident. My mother worried, and so she voted, and I went into the voting booth with her, and at home, on television, we watched the map change colors.
We know that Jews vote, that 77% of the Jewish vote went to electing Barack Obama in 2008, and the argument over the Israel lobby and how much power it may and may not have and exert. Jewish women vote and are politically organized. But we also know that in the Jewish community, men still hold the power. We take the right to vote for granted, and wrongly so, and in some cases, we remain complacent about the role of women in Jewish communal life.
Equality Day is an opportunity for us not only to reflect on political power and civil rights, but how much agency we have as Jewish women in our communities. Do we hold leadership positions, and if so, are we the token women in those positions? Do we feel safe being out at work and in Jewish spaces? Are we valued for our intellect and Jewish knowledge, or for our potential to create more Jewish babies? Do we feel empowered to reach our professional and spiritual potential? In short, are we able to live our values?
We can do better, and we know it. Let’s not be complacent. There is nothing in this world that should be taken for granted.
Sometimes I’m so flabbergasted by the news that I can’t even formulate articulate comments of my own.
To wit, this, from Ynet (I have bolded my favorite line of the piece):
The Western Wall Heritage Foundation management has decided to replace the existing partition in the Western Wall plaza, which separates between the women and men’s praying sections, because it does not allow the women worshipers to easily look over to the men’s section.
The foundation received many requests by women who frequent the Wall, claiming that during special celebrations held at the Kotel, such as bar mitzvahs, they are finding it difficult to watch the events through the partition, which is made of iron with small openings, each only a few centimeters wide.
The decision to change the partition was received a long time ago by the foundation management, but was not implemented because they were unable to find a suitable replacement.
One of the solutions suggested by the Western Wall administration was to place one-way mirrors that will enable women to look into the men’s section, similar to the partitions currently in place at the Western Wall tunnels.
After inspecting the area, the administration realized the one-way mirrors lose their effectiveness when they are exposed to the sun, and become visible from both sides.
As a result, the administration decided to examine several other options, including shading the partitions in a manner that will not harm their esthetic look.
Addressing the subject this week, Western Wall Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovich said he was making every effort to replace the partitions in a way that will accommodate the women worshippers on the one hand, and not offend the men worshippers on the other hand. Rabbi Rabinovich noted that he supported the idea of replacing the partitions with one-way mirrors.
“I am advancing the matter due to the obvious need to resolve the existing partition problem. We, the Western Wall administration, will do whatever is needed to enable women who come to the Kotel to watch the daily celebrations, out of a genuine will to improve the visiting experience,” he said.
Who says popular culture can’t teach us something valuable about tshuvah, repentance?
As a way to kick off her new-ish release Forgiveness, Sarah McLachlan is launching a forgiveness contest. That’s right, this month, you can enter Sarah McLachlan’s Forgiveness Contest by sending in a postcard that somehow conveys the theme of forgiveness. The deadline, curiously enough, is September 8. Begin the new year with a bang (and maybe even an autographed copy of Laws of Illusion, a tote bag, and a pair of SMcL tickets too). Should you feel compelled to enter, here are the rules.
Your life is a mess. You’re tired of the routine, you’re constantly craving more of what you’ve already attained, and you find true satisfaction in nothing and in no one. Well here’s the quick fix: 1. Plan an expensive get-away. 2. No, actually, scratch that—plan three expensive get-aways. 3. But it’s not just the location that’s getting to you. You’re also sick of your significant other. So dump the schlub, give no real reason for your decision to break-up, and then… 4. Swear with almost-compelling adamancy that you’re not looking to be in a relationship— 5. then sleep with a string of people who look nearly indistinguishable from your former sig-o. The key here is that they all must be young, virile, and totally whipped. 6. All the while, make sure not to deny yourself any culinary pleasure. 7. Gleefully declare your independence from weight concerns, as you claim to gourmandize your way around the world, eat more—while still fitting magically into your ever-expanding wardrobe of size 2 sartorial splendor. 8. Seek counsel from at least two oppressed Third World women who are visibly ‘ethnically Other.’ 9. But in the end, make sure that it is you who gives them advice. After all, what are you if not the paragon of discipline, self-control, and loving-kindness? 10. Find yourself…in the arms of a ruggedly handsome Brazilian.
Summarized (in case we’ve lost you already): Eat without gaining weight, pray without believing, and love without…well, loving. In case you have not sacrificed 133 minutes of your life watching the film adaptation of Elizabeth Gilbert’s best-selling Eat Pray Love (which I have not read), the 10 rules outlined above will help you attain enlightenment, according to the film’s impeccable logic. Writing a review of this film, pointing to its almost laughably offensive hypocrisy and disturbingly classist, racist, and sexist messages, is like shooting fish in a barrel, and many have beat me to this task already. Instead, I want to reflect on the larger trends that this film and the book upon which it is based represent and how we can use Judaism to deal with some of these cosmic issues that the EPL cult supposedly tackles and resolves.
In this month of Elul, leading up the earlier-than-usual battery of Jewish holidays this year, we are charged with the task of intensive cheshbon nefesh, a kind of introspective reflection on our actions over the past year. In the current climate of crassly classist and gender-coded self-help quick-fixes, traditional Judaism offers us a much-needed antidote to the kind of ‘me first’ mentality of NSA new-agey spirituality that this film so strikingly emblematizes. EPL has to be one of the least Jewish films out there: despite the protagonist Liz’s insensitive and exploitative treatment of most of the other characters in the film, never once does our well-fed world-traveler express any genuine remorse for her cavalier treatment and attitude towards others. Perhaps most notable in Liz’s string of careless actions towards others is her bizarrely under-explained, sudden, seemingly arbitrary abandonment of her spouse at the very outset of the film. While classically “Jewish guilt” can be stretched to unhealthy limits, at the very least it affirms that which is most essentially human about us—our ability to feel, our ability to be accountable to others.
In Avot d’Rabbi Natan, chapter 41, we are told that we should regard even the slightest wrong we commit against another with utmost seriousness; whereas we should not dwell on the good deeds we have performed for others. This is a near 180 reversal of the EPL approach which dangerously conflates boundless personal enlightenment with boundless self-entitlement. In the EPL film, protagonist Liz Gilbert’s single outward act of kindness to others –the scene in which she ‘selflessly’ emails her friends, appealing to them for donations to help a natural healer and her daughter build a house in Bali—is piously prefaced by Gilbert’s self-righteous declaration that this request comes in lieu of her annual birthday celebration. The dramatic montage that follows of her friends receiving the email appeal signals to us that this Liz’s ultimate moment of enlightenment; this is her defining moment of ‘giving,’ Beyond the obviously paternalistic quality of the rich-white-woman-saves-the-struggling-natives, this scene smacks of the kind of crass, self-congratulatory armchair philanthropy that lulls people into self-righteous complacency: ‘I’ve written the check; I am now absolved of further responsibility towards my fellow humans.’
Real loving-kindness involves a long-term investment in the sanctity of the Other. And no, not just that supposedly ‘significant Other’—rather, the acknowledgement of all other people as significant, and the realization that we must invest in them not only materially, but also personally. The way to grow with others is to take responsibility by being present in their lives. What Liz lacks is a sense of rootedness, the sense of unity upon which community is based. All of Gilbert’s globetrotting points to an inability and lack of desire to commit to other human beings and forge authentic relationships.
Again, it is entirely unclear what exactly propels Liz to leave her husband at the outset of the film—all we’re told is that ‘things can’t continue this way,’ although we see nothing particularly alarming onscreen. In fact, what we see is all fairly typical and benign; Liz and her adoring husband are engaging in light banter. All we know is that Liz cannot handle her life as it is any longer. What present-day in-vogue spirituality misses is the point that one can actually discover boundless meaning in the routine of real, mundane life. Patience and forbearance might be considered passé, but it’s the real deal.
Case in point: even the National Geographic-quality cinematography, with its wide lens doting lovingly on EPL’s glamorously sun-soaked characters and sweeping, exotic landscapes and, bursting with exuberantly lush colour, still fails to make us love the film or the figures portrayed therein. In this film, everything—and everyone—is relegated to the status of ambient scenery…a Potemkin village populated by poorly developed stereotypes. Despite a good chunk of the film taking place in India and Indonesia, we are basically spared any unpleasant and ‘unpalatable’ scenes of actual poverty and suffering.
It’s 133 minutes of tantalizing culinary, spiritual, and pseudo-sexual foreplay. Nothing ever really materializes, except for the sheer ubiquity of the material forces driving the ‘action’ (if you can even call it that). Set against only the most breathtaking of landscapes, we watch Robert’s character shamelessly indulging in an endless parade of epicurean delights, nearly interchangeable, conventionally attractive young men, and more generally, snorting up the cocaine of petty affirmation through the regurgitation of self-help platitudes. EPL, with its ‘money and men can cure all’ approach is panglossian at best, and is inhumanely narcissistic at worst. In this past week’s Parasha, Parashat Ki Tetse, we read towards the beginning of the portion of the sin of gluttony (Deut. 21:20-21); a gluttonous son technically qualifies for death by stoning. Indeed, death by stoning would have made the film considerably more interesting.
One of the more amusing points of the film, which is replete with instances of consoling consumption and too many delightful moments of conspicuous product-placement to mention, is when Liz seeks “whatever” (let’s just call it that, since her Self seems like a lost cause) at an Ashram, and is told she can purchase a “silence” tag at the bookstore. Even the choice to remain silent must be purchased! Indeed, instead of appealing the Master of the Universe, we are advised to whip out our MasterCard.
Interestingly, God is never really mentioned in the film. Only at one point, when Liz first decides to “pray,” does she sort of address ‘God,’ but, like everything else in the film, “God” here functions ornamentally, much in the same way as all of her beaus blend into the landscape as figures she uses instrumentally, solely for the purpose of her immediate personal edification and comfort. Clearly, Liz’s ‘prayer’ is more a signifying act than a genuine appeal or promise for anything. Indeed, that very brief ‘prayer’ scene typifies today’s NSA spirituality.
According to an April 2010 article in USA Today, a whopping 72% of the members of generation Y in the U.S. self-identify as “more spiritual than religious”: a diffuse, general sense of “spirituality” seems to prevail among the younger generation. Exactly what such figures mean is an interesting question. Perhaps young people, jaded by the perceived hypocrisy of societal institutions involved in questionable military adventures abroad and failed economic and social policies at home, wish to avoid the stuffiness of institutional structure as they seek personal meaning. This avoidance of established institutions, while perhaps explainable, is, nevertheless, regrettable. While more structured and specifically religious forms of meaning-making can be stifling, this is not the time to abandon all forms of committed/practice-oriented devotion. If anything, the young have the potential to infuse these older traditions with a new, updated kind of meaning and help build a form of worship and practice that is better attuned to the needs and desires of today’s meaning seeker. But practice-based, community-oriented religion has received an unnecessarily bad rap these days.
Don’t get me wrong—spirituality is a beautiful thing in its genuine form. But every intention needs a structure—a calendar and a location—and most importantly, a community. As social animals, even the seemingly solitary act of self-improvement relies heavily on our interaction with others. Admittedly, at a certain point, it is difficult to draw a line separating ‘religion’ and spirituality.’ Ideally the two converge to create the ultimate meaningful devotional experience. In a way, the two share many of the same potential dangers: exploitative leadership, false promises, extortion of money, and so on. But in today’s cult of “take time for You,” these dangers seem to proliferate with the false comfort of ‘all you can eat’ spirituality that cuts you off from any real sense of empathy, participation and activism.
Is Javier Bardem holding a banana? Really??
Getting back to the film for a moment though: even in her supposedly most vulnerable moments in the film, there is something decidedly smug about Liz’s spiritual odyssey, which culminates in a neatly-resolved scene where she pursues a relationship with yet another attractive man. Having found ‘love’ (or at least lust), Liz’s journey comes to a eminently photogenic close. As we move through the month of Elul, it is critical for us to keep in mind that true seeking never finishes in a Hollywood ending, but rather, is more challenging and also more beautiful and infinitely more subtle.
As we reflect on the past year and plan how we can create more genuine religious (or spiritual, if you like) experiences in the year to come, remember the words of André Gide who said, “”Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.”
I’m constantly amazed at the sheer creativity that shows up, looking for a handout, on Kickstarter.com, the fundraising web site I used to finance the first printing of The Comic Torah. (In case you’re wondering, the book is at the printer’s, waiting to be bound.)
Three new projects with a Jewish angle. A Jewish cartoonist whose humor shaped two generations of Jews. A Palestinian art project with Israeli collaboration. And an iPhone app for one of New York’s most Jewish neighborhoods.
Like most of their Kickstarter peers, offer ample rewards and thanks for two-figure donors. So check them out.
For the past several years, two U.S. Army posts in Virginia, Fort Eustis and Fort Lee, have been putting on a series of what are called Commanding General’s Spiritual Fitness Concerts. As I’ve written in a number of other posts, “spiritual fitness” is just the military’s new term for promoting religion, particularly evangelical Christianity. And this concert series is no different.
On May 13, 2010, about eighty soldiers, stationed at Fort Eustis while attending a training course, were punished for opting out of attending one of these Christian concerts. The headliner at this concert was a Christian rock band called BarlowGirl, a band that describes itself as taking “an aggressive, almost warrior-like stance when it comes to spreading the gospel and serving God.”…
The Commanding General’s Spiritual Fitness Concert Series was the brainchild of Maj. Gen. James E. Chambers, who, according to an article on the Army.mil website, “was reborn as a Christian” at the age of sixteen. …In the Army.mil article, Maj. Gen. Chambers was quoted as saying, “The idea is not to be a proponent for any one religion. It’s to have a mix of different performers with different religious backgrounds.” But there has been no “mix of different performers with different religious backgrounds” at these concerts. Every one of them has had evangelical Christian performers, who typically not only perform their music but give their Christian testimony and read from the Bible in between songs.
Another problem with these concerts, besides the issues like soldiers being punished for choosing not to attend them, is that they are run by the commanders, and not the chaplains’ offices. It is absolutely permissible for a chaplain’s office to put on a Christian concert. It is not permissible for the command to put on a Christian concert, or any other religious event. Having a religious concert series that is actually called and promoted as a Commanding General’s Concert Series is completely over the top.
Shaul Magid thinks that it is and he says so in an insightful and sure to be provocative piece just published over at Zeek. Here’s the zinger:
I’d like to suggest that what is at issue for many American Jews is not the constitutionality of Park 51 or even the Islamophobia the 9/11 attacks may have engendered. It is, rather, that the Islamophobia resulting from 9/11 (an event that was not an attack on the Jews) fills a vacuum for a Jewish community that has defined itself through the meme of persecution, a vacuum left by the diminution of the Holocaust as the key to Jewish identity.
His argument is disturbing though persuasive (at least to me).
Read the whole piece here. Then come back and discuss.
Let’s just say that I contemplated every possible way to avoid blogging about the Israeli Soldier Facebook Photo Incident. The fact that I now am is the result of the fact that, like a lot of other people, I can’t stop thinking about it.
Here’s what’s holding my brain hostage: Is this really so surprising? Do we actually think that Jews aren’t capable of this sort of thing? The answer, of course, is yes.
There’s another level here, though, and that’s the one where we find it unbelievable that a Jewish woman would never do something like this, not even a Jewish woman socialized in a military culture, who’s served with the IDF in the Occupied Territories. Jewish women are supposed to be strong, but according to the stereotype that we’ve constructed for ourselves with the help of assimilation, that strength is directed at growing and supporting Jewish families. The idea of Jewish women being physically violent is still an anomaly to American Jews, so it’s even more unthinkable that the Jewish state could be simultaneously defended and endangered by a young woman in a uniform with a pretty smile.
The mainstream American Jewish community remains in denial/ignorance about the reality of Israel as a military society, namely that its Jewish majority actually doesn’t prevent it from behaving like a military society. This is because Jews are, in case the memo was not gotten, human. And humans, especially those accustomed to being powerless and who are now in the position of occupier, are inclined to behave badly. If we keep refusing with this truth and the fallout from it, we will continue to see the results as they imprint themselves on not only our Facebook feeds, but the moral history of our people.
Lawrence Bush’s daily Jewdayo email reminds us that
Marxist revolutionary Leon Trotsky (Lev Davidovich Bronstein) was fatally wounded by an assassin in Mexico on this date in 1940. After years of activism and imprisonment, Trotsky helped to lead the 1917 Bolshevik revolution and was the founder and commander of the Red Army, which was victorious in the civil war that followed the revolution. After the death of V.I. Lenin, Trotsky lost a lengthy power struggle with Joseph Stalin and ended up in exile, pursued by Stalin’s agents, one of whom finally buried an ice axe in his head. Trotsky founded the Fourth International in 1938 as an international communist alternative to Stalin’s Comintern. By then Trotsky was the world’s best-known leftwing critic of Stalinism and had his name invoked by the Soviet dictator throughout the Moscow Trials and other purges as the shadowy source of treachery and sabotage.
“I have followed too closely all the stages of the degeneration of the revolution . . . I have sought too stubbornly and meticulously the explanation for these phenomena in objective conditions for me to concentrate my thoughts and feelings on one specific person. . . I have never rated Stalin so highly as to be able to hate him.” —Leon Trotsky
Celebrate the Yarzheit with David Ives’ comic meditation on what it means to take 36 hours to die after being stabbed in the head with an icepick.
We’ve written many times about the struggles of the Conservative Movement to find its place in 21st Century Jewish North America. Sometimes, they’ve even listened to us. (After I wrote this post, I got a phone call from one of the higher-ups to further discuss my criticisms and solicit my feedback.) So, I am actually sort of optimistic about the usefulness of a new endeavor the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism (the movement’s synagogue organization) is embarking on: soliciting feedback via email.
Do you have ideas about what the movement should do next? Want to make sure the programs that positively influenced your life don’t get short shifted? Feel strongly that something is dead weight and should be cut? The movement wants to know, positives and negatives. E-mail your thoughts to 4tomorrow@uscj.org. I don’t know who’s on the other side of that inbox, but my sources on the inside seem pretty convinced that the feedback received through this initiative will actually be thought about as the movement plans next steps.
With one month to go until Yom Kippur, The Shalom Center and Jewish Currents have teamed up to create a video celebrating 10 contemporary martyrs who were killed in the past 50 years “because they were affirming profound Jewish values of peace, justice, truth, and healing of the Earth.”
Mazal tov to Prof. Elon Lindenstrauss of Hebrew University and Princeton University, who just became the first Israeli to win the Fields Medal! The Fields Medal, awarded this week in India at the International Congress of Mathematicians, is often called the Nobel Prize of mathematics (there is no Nobel in math), but unlike the Nobel Prizes, it is only awarded every 4 years, and only to people age 40 and under.
Lindenstrauss won the prize “for his results on measure rigidity in ergodic theory, and their applications to number theory”. “Er-WHAT-ic theory?”, you may ask. The official release explains:
This post came our way courtesy of Alan Jay Sufrin, singer/guitarist/bassist/keyboardist for the band Stereo Sinai. He’s also the official shofar blower at Congregation Anshe Shalom in Chicago this year (and is tremendously excited about it). Here he is with his newest instrument in the recording booth.
So, here we go.
It’s the Hebrew month of Elul, during which it’s a custom to sound the shofar every day. The blog HearingShofar (which, amazingly, is a year-round blog about shofars) just reprinted a page from the comic Teen Titans #45, from 1976, in which Malcom “Mal” Duncan, DC Comics’ first black superhero, is attacked by a shadowy figure who promises to kill him. Then, randomly, he receives a magical ram’s horn from the angel Gabriel.
According to HearingShofar:
[T]he tale seems kind of goyish. But hey, Superman was invented by several Jews and much has been written postulating how Jewish legends and archetypes influenced the creation of his character. And we are instructed to sound shofar in times of crisis, just like Mal is.
Which reminds me of a joke that my friend tells way too much — as illustrated by the illimitable comic artist Mat Tonti. What do pirates say to each other on Rosh Hashanah?
This is a guest post by Rebez. For reasons of privacy, names of participants have been left out.
Even before the dancing began, one could sense this wedding was going to push boundaries. The seating arrangement for the huppah was a tri-chitza. Looking out from the huppah, on the right was a small woman’s section, on the left was a men’s section, and in the middle with 80% of the participants was mixed seating. No signs for the different sections, just implicit understanding. It was assumed that you would know which section you belonged in. And dividing each of the three sections was a looming thick movable wall also known as the mehitza.
I’ve never seen this mechitza’s equal. The mehitza was a solid structure of four metal bars with a connecting crossbar and a piece of colored hanging plexiglass that was both opaque at eye level and translucent everywhere else. The metal bars were shaped like a swing-set with the glass divider hanging down as the swing. Approximately 10 feet long and 9 feet high. An intimidating presence.
By the time the dancing began, the room was transformed from a tri-chitza huppah space to a dance hall with one barrier in the middle. As soon as the Chattan and Kallah were introduced and the dancing ensued, they parted ways to opposite sides. The separate dancing began.
There are many ways to create intentional separated dancing space at a simcha. You can have a physical barrier. You can also have no barrier and still have separate dancing. You can have a tri-chitza. And then you can do what this wedding did, although I’m not sure something like this can be planned. More »
Yesterday, Dan Sieradski, known as Mobius and founder of Jewschool, and Ris Golden married in a warehouse-turned-shul in Brooklyn amidst a niggun-chanting crowd sporting every head covering from black hats to rainbow kippot. Settler cousins and anti-occupation activists danced together, along with half the Jewish media conspiracy. And tweeted well-wishes poured in like milk and honey. There, tradition and innovation mixed — with a dash of rave — in a fashion unexpected and wholly expected.
Mobius is a man an unbridled passions, who never let lie an act of unjustice, a constant crusader. But yesterday, he was serene and beaming, bashful and gleeful, as he stood before his bride and best friend, Ris, to complete the marriage before faith and family that they already sealed in New York state court weeks before. Ris’ serenity and sweetness embued everyone with confidence, joy, and levity. The spirit of her father, who passed only weeks before, could be felt hovering over the processions, proudly and bittersweetly. Standing together like yin and yang, as their community escorted every step with niggunim and boisterous cheers, one felt that a little tikkun had healed in the heart of the world.
(This can be confusing though. It’s called the Ground Zero Mosque by people using it as en election wedge issue and by those who buy into their rhetoric. The institution itself, once its built will be called Cordoba House. Park 51 refers to the projects future address and refers to the organization that is raising the funds for construction Cordoba House.)
After their twitter, @Park51, was mentioned in a big article, they’ve been doing quite a lot of back-and-forth with fairly hostile Twitter users. And they’re kicking ass. So here’s a roundup of some of my favorites.
annahandzlik: But Imam Rauf wants more Sharia compliance in the US. He has been open about that. Who are you? #whereisthesharia?
stoning in Iran (regularly), gays executed (Iran & Saudi Arabia), blasphemy law (Pakistan & Muslim world), genocide (Sudan). #mmmk
Park51: we can’t answer for all Muslims or other countries or practice of law overseas
annahandzlik: if u can’t speak for entire world, then what is your version of Sharia law? If we’re supposed to be compliant we need to see it.
Park51: Insults aside, I asked you for clarification on your blanket statements several times. Waiting………..
—–
JordanSekulow (works for the American Center for Law and Justice, which is suing to stop the project): I encourage you to read the lawsuit, here’s the direct link bit.ly/afME66 (can’t make it any easier for you)
Park51: Oy vey, for the fifth time we read it. In 140 char and from you, why are you doing it?
Park51′s twitter has also been kindly informing people who @reply them, but won’t return Park51′s responses that “twitter is about conversations.” And on one occasion, they told one antagonist to get a real profile pic because they look like a bot without one.
to ONLY purchase organic products, if there’s not an organic option, we don’t get it. But here it was, Friday afternoon, too late to run around to more stores to look for organic juice that had a hekhsher. What to do… Can I, a soon to be rabbi ordained by the Conservative Movement, say kiddush on juice without a hekhsher? It’s not something I had ever done before… would I be willing to start? I was.
Sometimes I’m so flabbergasted by the news that I can’t even formulate articulate comments of my own. 
Forgiveness Contest by sending in a postcard that somehow conveys the theme of forgiveness. The deadline, curiously enough, is September 8. Begin the new year with a bang (and maybe even an autographed copy of Laws of Illusion, a tote bag, and a pair of SMcL tickets too). Should you feel compelled to enter, 
emblematizes. EPL has to be one of the least Jewish films out there: despite the protagonist Liz’s insensitive and exploitative treatment of most of the other characters in the film, never once does our well-fed world-traveler express any genuine remorse for her cavalier treatment and attitude towards others. Perhaps most notable in Liz’s string of careless actions towards others is her bizarrely under-explained, sudden, seemingly arbitrary abandonment of her spouse at the very outset of the film. While classically “Jewish guilt” can be stretched to unhealthy limits, at the very least it affirms that which is most essentially human about us—our ability to feel, our ability to be accountable to others.
ever really materializes, except for the sheer ubiquity of the material forces driving the ‘action’ (if you can even call it that). Set against only the most breathtaking of landscapes, we watch Robert’s character shamelessly indulging in an endless parade of epicurean delights, nearly interchangeable, conventionally attractive young men, and more generally, snorting up the cocaine of petty affirmation through the regurgitation of self-help platitudes. EPL, with its ‘money and men can cure all’ approach is panglossian at best, and is inhumanely narcissistic at worst. In this past week’s Parasha, Parashat Ki Tetse, we read towards the beginning of the portion of the sin of gluttony (Deut. 21:20-21); a gluttonous son technically qualifies for death by stoning. Indeed, death by stoning would have made the film considerably more interesting.
failed economic and social policies at home, wish to avoid the stuffiness of institutional structure as they seek personal meaning. This avoidance of established institutions, while perhaps explainable, is, nevertheless, regrettable. While more structured and specifically religious forms of meaning-making can be stifling, this is not the time to abandon all forms of committed/practice-oriented devotion. If anything, the young have the potential to infuse these older traditions with a new, updated kind of meaning and help build a form of worship and practice that is better attuned to the needs and desires of today’s meaning seeker. But practice-based, community-oriented religion has received an unnecessarily bad rap these days.
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