A curious piece in Haaretz: Apparently, some scientists have researched the link between genetics and liberal politics. If you have this gene, and also were a particularly social person in childhood and adolescence, you might have voted for Obama or performed some similar behavior. It would be interesting to see the results if this study were performed in the American Jewish community. Somebody fund it.
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(Full disclosure – I’m currently a student in a joint Pardes/Hebrew College MA program)
So, R’ Daniel Landes, Pardes Rosh Yeshiva, published this review of R’ Art Green’s new book, Radical Judaism. I’m not going to excerpt it, because you should just go read the whole thing.
Here’s a leaked response from R’ Green:
To the editor:
Rabbi Daniel Landes’ da’ mah she-tashiv (“Know what to answer the heretic”) approach to my Radical Judaism, protecting innocents from “the dangers lurking in the rhetoric that Green and like-minded thinkers employ,” represents a theological bankruptcy lurking in traditional Jewish circles. The forces of religion fought two great battles in the twentieth century, one against evolution and the other, taken more seriously by Jews, against Biblical criticism. It lost them both, quite decisively. These defeats, plus the Holocaust, are real parts of the baggage that any intellectually honest Jewish theology must confront. My book is an attempt to create a viable Judaism in the face of those realities. Landes may choose to live in a closed circle that pretends these uncomfortable facts do not exist, continuing to play by the old theological rules. For Jews living outside those circles, such an approach does not work. He should know; many of his students are among them. More »
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Of late, for a variety of reasons, I haven’t gone to my Chicago shul much. Between indie-minyans and leading services for the Jewish elderly, there’s not been much occasion for me to enter the institutions into which I purportedly refuse to set foot…
Still its scary to learn of the plot this week by getting emails from them about these bomb threats.
Mr. Al-Quesadilla, please dont’ bomb the the shul that I don’t set foot in. If its not going to be there for future generations of Jooz to use, I want it to be because of my principled stand, or at least the one I am purported to take (until I too have kids), rather than a due to your clumsy but scary terrorism attempt.
At the very least, I would prefer the aleph-bet soup Jooish defense organizations to exploit this event by soliciting funds in the name of defending Jooz from the very real turbaned boogey-men under our beds and laser printers. That way even more of us can be turned off by heavy-handed scare tactics (like we haven’t had enough of that with the elections…). It is not without irony that I hear the whir of printer drums warming up to spit out millions of fear-filled solicitation letters.
Now, I have to write a paper for Stephen Cohen and my printer is running low. Can anyone send me a spare a toner cartridge?
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Debuted last night at the American Jewish World Service benefit in New York City. Mazel tov to AJWS for their excellent work fighting poverty across the globe. A great event — and a great video!
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…to discuss the legal, medical and ethical ins and outs of Proposition 19–California’s ballot measure to
legalize the recreational use of marijuana. And it was pretty fascinating.
The panel discussion was held at a Reform Synagogue in Beverly Hills and involved a distinguished and well-informed group of experts including former LA County Prosector Sheldon Lodmer (who was involved in landmark cases such as the Manson murder trials and was the prosecutor in the Deep Throat case), Allison Margolin (an LA attorney who focuses her legal work on defending clients in marijuana related cases), Bernadine Fried (the founder and manager of two LA sober living facilities) and Rabbi Elliot Dorff (the rector of the American Jewish University and world renowned ethicist and theologian, and the chair of Committee on Laws and Standards of the Conservative Movement).
Many topics were discussed directly related to Prop 19 and some under the general category of drug use/abuse, civil society and the Jewish perspective on healthy living. Mr. Lodmer was the only panelist who was outspoken in his opposition to Prop 19 not only because of its implications, but also because of what he referred to as the fact that it is “written poorly.” Since this is a Jewish blog, I want to focus on Rabbi Dorff’s perspectives and open the comment field to our reader’s responses (especially those who may be voting next week in CA).
More »
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If you’re not bored with it by now, if against all odds, you’re still following developments in the Jewish Community Heroes campaign from the Jewish Federations of North America, you may have noticed that none of the finalists are women.
Former Limmud NY Executive Director Ruthie Warshenbrot (full disclosure: when she was at Limmud NY, she was my boss for a year and a half) definitely noticed. She and Shannon Sarna from the Bronfman Foundation have an article at eJewish Philanthropy today about it:
More than half of the 2010 Slingshot organizations are headed by women.
More than half of the 2009 Avi Chai Fellows (“the Jewish genius grant”) award winners are women. More than half of the current Joshua Venture Fellows are women.
And over 70% of Jewish professionals are women.
The number of women finalists in the Jewish Federations of North America’s recent Jewish Community Heroes campaign: Zero.
The Jewish Heroes project fails to accurately reflect the landscape of the Jewish community’s best and brightest. When the vast majority of professionals working to enrich the Jewish community are women, how should it come to pass that not a single women is counted among our top five heroes?
[...]
Read the rest of their article here.
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Questions I wish I could answer better:
1. What does the decline of COEJL and the rise of HAZON say about the dynamics in Jewish organizational life? Who is in a position to exploit those dynamics to push for more change at a faster pace, in fields other than the environment?
2. How will the rise of J Street affect the dynamics within JCRC’s, federations, synagogue Israel committees, Hillel and other places where Israel advocacy is a driving force but not the formal heart of the mission? Does anyone have a snapshot of what should or will be different than today?
3. How will the rising acceptance of LGBTQ Jews in the Jewish community mainstream affect the Orthodox/non-Orthodox divide?
4. Is there a chance that money spent on engaging less connected younger Jews will decided upon BY representatives of the target group instead of by older consultants and veteran communal agency staff members?
5. Is the rising generation of new leadership successfully mimicking the norms of the older generations, or demanding change as a condition of future engagement despite the short term consequence of not being promoted?
Just wondering.
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Rabbi Sharon Brous of IKAR narrates a video by the makers of The Great Schelp that prompts you and us to counter the politics of fear. Says Mik Moore on the Huffington Post as Jewish FundS for Justice launches Al Tirah:
With many Americans stressed and stretched by economic uncertainty, political leaders and media personalities are stoking our fears of outsiders, the perpetual “other,” and whatever election-time boogiemen they can conceive. The use of fear to drive voters to the polls or away from the polls is nothing new.
I often hear the trope that Germany — like America now — was an open and “civilized” society before nationalist and xenophobic powers whipped the country into an anti-Semitic, anti-gay, anti-foreigner froth. “It can happen anywhere,” the bubbes warn us. The great swath of Jewish defense organizations were established to bulwark against the potential of the Goldene Medina from stumbling upon that same slippery slope.
It is then a wonder why the organized Jewish community has raised only pithy condemnations of the rising tide of fear-based politics in the last year. Some have even participated in the xenophobia by casting blame upon Park 51 for choosing downtown Manhattan as location for a Muslim community center. If only fear-mongering weren’t part and parcel of the fundraising strategies of too many major Jewish institutions already.
Thus the torch has been taken up by the nascent Jewish social justice sector to declare, in Rabbi Brous’ words, Al tirah! Do not fear. Mentioned more times in the Torah than any other edict, 122 times, al tirah is a command billowing from the depths of Judaism’s core belief in the inherent goodness of every human being. And it is a reminder from the most hopeless moments in Jewish history, al tirah, every generation found hope to conquer evil.
I am a perpetual optimist. I believe there is no true evil in the hearts of human beings, only yetzer ha-ra — greed and selfishness. Fear is but an unchecked stampede of selfishness and greed. Counter the politics of fear with generosity and understanding. Any time your uncle sends another chain email calling Obama a Muslim, email back this video with the message, al tirah, do not fear. It is affirmative, but it is also a rejection, a permission to stand firm. With all the fear boiling from right-wing partisans seeking greater power, we have an obligation to stand firm, reject their fear, and protect America’s best principles.
My blessings upon Jewish FundS for Justice for their work and this video — may it reach 1 million views!
Fan the Al-Tirah monsters on Facebook. And in addition to Jewish FundS for Justice’s presence at the Rally to Restore Sanity, you can join J Street DC, New Israel Fund and others too. Name them below if you know more good orgs to go with.
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Remember that time when I said rich people should give me money so I can continue my Jewish education.
It turns out that anyone, regardless of how much money they have, can help me out with this. I applied for a blogging scholarship. Yes, it seems there are people who will give me a big pile of money just because I blog.
So if you like my blogging here, you can vote for me and help get me some dough by clicking here to vote for me.
UPDATE: Here is the essay I wrote for the contest: More »
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Here at Jewschool, we’ve been talking smack about the “Anti”-Defamation League, and justifiably so. So it’s only fair that we also give them credit when they come out on the good side.
Today, the ADL filed an amicus brief in Perry v. Schwarzenegger, the case in which California’s Proposition 8 (prohibiting same-sex marriage) was ruled unconstitutional in federal district court, which has been appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and will be argued on December 6. The ADL’s brief is in support of upholding the lower court’s decision. It focuses on a specific argument that I hadn’t heard before (and I’ve been following the case fairly closely): California currently has marriage exclusively for opposite-sex couples and domestic partnership exclusively for same-sex couples. California citizens in domestic partnerships have to indicate “domestic partner” as their marital status when filling out forms (and can’t mark “married” or “single”), and are therefore required to disclose their sexual orientation in all sorts of irrelevant circumstances, violating their right to privacy. Furthermore, “the segregated system required by Proposition 8 and the disclosure of sexual orientation that results from that system are particularly damaging because gays and lesbians are subject to invidious discrimination and violence based on their homosexuality.”
Kudos to the ADL for standing up against defamation!
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In case anyone has been engaged by or even slightly interested in my recent wrestlings with kashrut, I do appreciate it. If you think I’m being a self involved apikorus, that’s fine too.
Update: Today I ate a sandwich consisting of non kosher products, it was delicious, and so far, I’m still alive. I was really afraid of what would happen when I put said sandwich in my mouth-would I freak out? Would I instantaneously regret my decision? Would I be able to sleep that night? The answers seem to be no, no, and probably not, but I’m an insomniac, anyway.
What led up to the eating of the sandwich were several very long and circuitous conversations with myself and others, and finally deciding that just because I ate this sandwich today did not mean I would eat it, or even something similar to it, tomorrow. I will not conduct my life in absolutes, which, to be honest, is the way I’d conceived of kashrut up until now: If I don’t keep kosher, I’m not Jewish anymore, and if I’m not Jewish, what am I?
I also realized something rather obvious: this whole argument I’m having with myself is not about Judaism. It’s about food and my relationship to it, and kashrut was a way to control what I ate. It’s about Jewish identity, certainly, in that Judaism was/is the filter through which I do/did that, but in the end, I realized that it was about controlling my body. Kashrut equals boundaries, assertion, discipline. No kashrut equals gluttony, a culinary free for all, lack of control…fat.
Recently, a friend of mine and I were talking about how it feels to know that, as not skinny ladies, other women were evaluating us based on what we put in our mouths, to have our food choices judged via someone’s internal (or external, in the form of“I hope that’s not your dinner!” ) conversation. How can she eat what she’s eating? Is she going to go to the gym later? What if I look like that someday? I know that these conversations happen because I’ve had them with myself and other people. At least I’m not as big as her, at least I have some self control…
I’m not arguing that there aren’t good reasons for keeping kosher, or trying to assert that kashrut is the cause of or leads to disordered eating or is innately oppressive to women. I’m not even saying that I’m done keeping kosher. This is very likely a blip in my blah blah Jewish journey blah blah. But right now, I can’t construct a good reason to place the boundaries of kashrut around me. Halacha isn’t enough anymore. “Because that’s what Jews do” isn’t either, because it’s what some Jews do, it isn’t all encompassing, this isn’t everything that you are. Of course, there is a part of me that feels guilty, like a quitter. And then there’s the part of me that says, “Shut up. It’s just a sandwich.”
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An-sky, left, with his Deadbeat Dad.
Luckily, we are not lacking information about Reb An-sky, due to a wondrous new book by Stanford professor Gabriella Safran. Her Wandering Soul: The Dybbuk’s Creator, S. An-sky is an intrepid look at the life of a Jew who hasn’t been matched since. The book begins by painting the picture of two Jewish boys growing up in the same city, but from opposite sides of the tracks. An-sky came from humble beginnings, running around the city of Vitebsk, Vaysrusland with comrade and spoiled rich kid Khayim Zhitlovsky, another rogue Jewish cultural theorist. They eventually both became Jewish Wild Men.
An-sky grew up in a tavern watching peasants drink themselves into puky oblivion, and later claimed that it legitimized his ironic, complex ethnographic expeditions into the Pale of Settlement to collect the folklore of Galician Jews. He ended up creating studies of Jewish culture and memoirs o that stand alone as ecrypted codes of Ashkenazi DNA. He was a witness to a violent, immoral, cold and incredibly creative time in Golus, yet he is not fully appreciated by all the bearded and bodiced Judeophiles in the Manhattan or Jerusalem camps. It’s just a small tragedy of our current cultural moment, when our youth think Jewish culture is synonymous with an advisory board, rich patrons and a web presence.
Anyways, Check out the book.
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Tickets are on sale now for The Other Film Festival, an outstanding collection of film, television and art reflecting the diversity of Israelis and the realities of life for its minority population. The festival is happening November 11-21, with viewings at various locations in Manhattan, including the JCC in Manhattan, Cinema Village, and Alpine Cinema.
Of particular note: The US premiere of “Blood Relations,” a documentary by Noa Ben Hagai about a family secret, disappearance, and a series of unpredictable events. The screening and the q/a session following it with producer Edna Kowarsky are presented by B’Tselem and JStreet NYC.
You can get tickets, event information, a full list of the films and more here.
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(Crossposted to Mah Rabu.)
Back in February, we blogged about how Segulah‘s and other Mid-Atlantic Jewish communities’ Shabbat plans were affected by what some called “Snowmageddon”. It turns out that that snowy Shabbat has had more profound impacts on one family. Go and read Washington lawyer Viva Hammer’s inspiring story about it, published in the Jerusalem Post.
Two lessons of this story (beyond the explicitly stated ones) include:
1) When we build communities, they can have powerful effects on individuals beyond what anyone expects.
2) It’s always a good idea not to be intimidated by the snow, and to let life (and Shabbat) go on.
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Yesterday, Slingshot announced this year’s honourees. 50 “innovative” Jewish nonprofits are included in their annual guide. Great and worthy organisations (including my place of employment)!
And, for the first time, one of the fifty was a Canadian nonprofit: Makom.
a joyous, grassroots, downtown community, building traditional and progressive Jewish life in Toronto. Makom creates an inclusive and diverse space, committed to Jewish questioning and learning, arts and culture, spirited prayer and ritual, and social and environmental activism. Makom is bringing back vital, multi-faceted and creative Jewish life to a place where it once thrived. This vibrant new community is based in the Kiever Synagogue, a beautiful, historic synagogue in Kensington Market, Toronto’s old Jewish neighbourhood.
Congratulations to them (and, really, I mean it – many of us at Jewschool are friends with some of their organisers).
But this announcement spurred a bit of a discussion amongst us bloggers. Is an indie minyan in Toronto really “innovative”? Is this really the most innovative thing Canada has to offer? Is it really an indie minyan if they have a “rabbi and spiritual leader”?
The parametres for Slingshot are (really, really boiling it down here) “innovative nonprofit.” Most of the indie minyanim and havuros that I know of back home (says the Canadian living in the US) are not registered/incorporated as nonprofits, so they don’t make the cut. Should we be surprised that Canada’s only recognized-by-Slingshot organisation is in Toronto? Toronto has the largest Jewish community in Canada and most American organisations/funders overlook the other cities/communities entirely. So, no, it’s not surprising that a winner (of an American competition) would come from Toronto. (Begrudgingly admits the Vancouverite.)
What other Canadian communities could have been included in TWJ’s not-Slingshot guide? Here are just a few cool organisations happening north of the border:
Obviously this list isn’t comprehensive or exhaustive. (Though, unlike Slingshot, it includes at least a couple organisations in “fly-over country.”) And, obviously, some of these organisations wouldn’t meet Slingshot’s criteria for many reasons. But it doesn’t matter. They make my list.
Do you know of other orgs in Canada that should be included or noted? Leave a comment. (And if you know of other organizations (look at my American spelling!) in the US that could have made Slingshot’s guide (or your personal guide), let us know in the comments too.)
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Salon reports that on Tuesday, the Working Group Against the Trafficking of Women pulled a stunt in Tel Aviv intended to jolt people out of their stupor about sex trafficking in Israel, and ultimately to get enough signatures to push forward a measure that would criminalize johns.
Although here in the states, I’m generally inclined to avoid clipboard holders (I’m perfectly capable of finding my own petitions to sign, thank you, and generally opposed to giving out my name and address to random people on the street whom I have no idea if they really represent the organization they state), this would probably grab my attention:
Activists lined up seven women like merchandise in the window of a shop in Tel Aviv’s Dizengoff Center mall. A sign above them read, “Women for sale according to personal taste.” Haaretz reports that some “were made up to appear as if they had been beaten, and all had price tags that listed details such as age, weight, dimensions, and country of birth.”
It hasn’t been a secret for some time now that sex trafficking in Israel is an enormous problem. Way back in 2005, a report was issued by The Parliamentary Inquiry Committee, headed by Knesset member Zehava Galon of the left-wing Yahad party, which commissioned the report in an effort to combat the sex trade in Israel. Findings showed that some 3,000 and 5,000 women were smuggled to Israel annually and sold into the prostitution industry for about $8-10,000 American dollars, where they are constantly subjected to violence and abuse. Two years before that Israel passed a law that would allow the state to confiscate the profits of traffickers, but watchdog groups say it is rarely enforced.
This law would be different. In 1999, Sweden took the same approach advocated by this new measure, and criminalized johns; trafficking has since been significantly reduced. A report in July of this year, published by the government of Sweden evaluated the law’s first ten years and how it has actually worked in practice. It states,
street prostitution has been cut in half; there is no evidence that the reduction in street prostitution has led to an increase in prostitution elsewhere, whether indoors or on the Internet; the bill provides increased services for women to exit prostitution; fewer men state that they purchase sexual services; and the ban has had a chilling effect on traffickers who find Sweden an unattractive market to sell women and children for sex. Following initial criticism of the law, police now confirm it works well and has had a deterrent effect on other organizers and promoters of prostitution. Sweden appears to be the only country in Europe where prostitution and sex trafficking has not increased.
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Crossposted to The Reform Shuckle and New Voices.
I have a friend, X. X college graduate. X wants to do a variety of Jewish learning and then go to a rabbinical school. X also has what basically amounts to no money.
X also works for a Jewish non-profit that has a wealthy executive director.
We were just chatting and I asked if X minded telling me how X plans on paying for X’s education. After first saying, “A lot of prayer,” X told me about a few options and then said…
…that X is hoping the rich executive director, who likes X a lot, will be willing to invest in X.
Which got me thinking. Rich Jews should invest in young, not rich Jews.
We have Jewish start-up organization investment stuff going. But we don’t have individuals investing in individuals.
Bikkurim is an organization that invests in organizations. Joshua Venture is an organization that invests in individuals who have specific projects that they’re already working on (I think).
But I think rich Jews should just invest in young Jews who need more money to get more education so they can be better at stuff. Or something.
I’m kind of kidding. Kind of. But also, if you wanna invest in me, that would be cool.
Or you could invest in X. If you want me to set you up with X, I can do that too.
Think about it.
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The Hazon Food Conference is the only place where farmers and rabbis, nutritionists andchefs, vegans and omnivores come together to explore the dynamic interplay of food, Jewis
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The Hazon Food Conference East: Program Highlights:
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The Hazon Food Conference West: Program Highlights:
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Register before October 31st and you’ll be entered into a draw to win a copy of Sue Fishkoff’s new book, “Kosher Nation: Why More and More of America’s Food Answers to a Higher Authority.” This fascinating book chronicles the growth of the kosher industry in America in the last century — and the last chapter features the Hazon Food Conference and the New Jewish Food Movement! |
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 Questions?Renna Khuner-Haber (Food Conference – West) - renna@hazon.org Anna Hanau (Food Conference – East) - anna@hazon.org |
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 Hazon creates healthy and sustainable communitiesin the Jewish world and beyond. 125 Maiden Lane, Suite 8B, New York, NY 10038 (212) 644-2332 |
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