In response to a petition launched by the Jewish Alliance for Change calling on the Jewish National Fund to immediately halt their participation in the dispossension of Bedouin unrecognized villages in Israel’s economically impoverished Negev region, JNF’s CEO Russell Robinson responded with fiery indignation (full text below).
Jewschool founder Mobius juxaposes the statement over video of the recent demolition of Bedouin village al Araqib for a JNF forest. As aluminum huts crumble, Robinson claims JNF’s Blueprint Negev benefits some tens of thousands of Bedouin in and around select recognized towns. And as phalanxes of policemen shove the poorest of Israeli families from their homes (read: tents), Robinson charges further, “The NGOs and individuals who signed onto this petition did not contribute to the advancement of the quality of life of these residents; rather they seem to spend their time petitioning against those who are.” A heavy charge indeed if the leading signatories are the NGOs providing services to Bedouin that the government does not.
It takes a concerted stretch of humanitarian values to displace people for plants. Or perhaps more correctly, it’s painful rending of the Jewish people’s historical experience to prioritize Jews over non-Jews in a state claiming to be a Western democracy of the highest ethical standard. The JNF has seen only a few small donations by yours truly — which long ago stopped for this very reason. The welfare of Bedouin is important to me after my short time teaching in a Bedouin summer school in 2004.
Dan Sieradski, who revolutionizes the Jewish world on just about a weekly basis, has a massive new project planned. It’s called Jew It Yourself, and it’s a great crowd-sourced Jewish learning opportunity. Eventually, the site’s going to be full of videos of different people — of all Jewish stripes and subdivisions — showing how to do Jewish rituals, both traditional rituals and rituals we make up ourselves.
Eventually, Sieradski plans on having videos for all sorts of Jewish rituals on the site. But he figured the best place to start his work is where it stops — with rituals related to Shabbat.
Here’s the deal:
To enter, make a short video (under 5 minutes long) with “do it yourself” instructions for practicing a Jewish ritual, making a Jewish craft, or cooking Jewish food that is specifically connected to Shabbat, the Jewish Day of Rest.
To encourage the world to chip in, JIY is sweetening the deal the old-fashioned way — with bribery. You can win a Flip Ultra HD video camera, a $50 iTunes/Amazon gift certificate, and a bunch of CDs and t-shirts. All of which are valid reasons to enter a contest, but we still say the best reason is the old-fashioned reason, the reason Jews are best at — because you know how to do something better than other people.
Today the Fox published an oped in the JTA calling on us to fight anti-Muslim bigotry. I don’t know if this is an honest change of heart, or just too little too late in the wake of his opposition to the Cordoba House.
Reading the statement, I could not help thinking that the distinction he wants to make between “good” Islam and “bad” Islam parallels the common distinction between Jews and Zionists, a distinction which is often read as disingenuous and antisemitic.
So, will the ADL go back to its mission fighting bigotry rather than acting as a shill for Israel (see the flap over the Armenian Genocide), or is the Fox still trying to play both sides?
Those following along at home know that dlevy and I like to cook. (What, you mean you’re not still dreaming of our Deep-fried Tofutti Cuties? Don’t tell me you forgot about our pancakes too?)
Well, we’ve been at it again. And by “we’ve” I mean “I’ve.” With dlevy’s encouragement, of course.
It all started on Friday when my housemate dlevy, tweeted:
I WANT THIS INSIDE OF ME! RT @mwecker Scary yet oddly enticing! RT @WendyRosenfield: 1st, OMFG. 2nd, who’s in? is.gd/fRvFq
I was oddly mesmerised and horrified by this cake monstrosity. Clearly, I had no choice. Forget the fact that I had planned down to the very last minute until shabbos, and did not have time to bake, essentially, two cakes and two pies before sunset. Forget that our shabbos meals were to be fleishig and this monstrosity would only be milhig. Next thing I knew, I was offering to figure out how to bake it myself in our kitchen.
I dashed to the grocery store on my way home from work, bought the essentials, and somehow, b’ezras haShem!, managed to whip up two cake batters, two pies, drop said pies into two 10″ round cake pans, fill ‘em up with the batters, and bake them – all within an hour. ‘Twas truly a shabbos miracle!
Then there was the frosting. It had to be butter cream. My icing, which I used to hold the two cakes (“layers”) together failed. (Though, it turns out, the bottom vanilla layer absorbed that rum icing in a tasty way.) So motzei shabbos I was off to the store to buy (gasp!) pre-made icing. Yeah, I admit it. (Though I never will again.) Iced, the cake was ready to go.
Now here’s where this post takes a turn: I’m going to tell all you curious yidden out there NOT TO ATTEMPT THIS AT HOME. Read that as a warning. Take it to heart. Because, you see, that one small piece I tried? I got about halfway through it before feeling… ill isn’t a strong enough word. And I’m pretty sure my teeth all instantly rotted before jumping out of my mouth.
Bottom line? While most of our adventures in progressive kashrus are great, tasty fun, this one is a punch in the gut. Leave it for the goyyim.
Jack Wertheimer and his team of sociologists and researchers have just released an incredibly informative report (PDF) examining the demographics, experiences, and work of young Jewish leaders, stemming from hundreds of interviews and thousands of survey responses. Notably, it avoids characterizing all activities undertaken by such people as necessarily “anti-establishment,” while delving far more deeply into the actual views they hold than any such study or article I’ve seen before. It covers just about every aspect of Jewish life, sorting Jewish organizational endeavors into three categories: protective, progressive, and expressive. The report files most older established organizations (AIPAC, AJC, ADL, etc.) under the “protective” category: they exist to protect some component of Jewishness (or Israel). Progressive organizations are those focused on causes such as environmentalism or social service, and expressive organizations are those specifically oriented toward new methods of Jewish expression.
It’s also notable that the report spends a fair amount of time analyzing how “establishment” organizations have been extremely important in actually creating these leaders: many have gone to day school and Jewish camps, and newer cutting-edge Jewish organizations are to a great extend funded and supported by older ones.
This dynamic receives less attention within the Jewish community than it should, in my view with important consequences. New organizations are often responses to perceived deficiencies in the existing system, not necessarily attempts to reject it out of hand. So even while older Jews and establishment organizations fund the newer ones, Jews at large often perceive the two as diametrically opposed. This isn’t to say “there’s more unity in the Jewish community than you think” (I hate the “we actually all agree” argument – it’s stupid to try to sugarcoat internal divisions), just that young Jews get a bad rap as being uninterested in anything establishment. The flip side, which the report also covers, is that young Jews need to be less reactionary in distancing themselves from the establishment.
Check out the full report for more in-depth analysis of current trends in Jewish organizations and communities.
P.S. I used the word “establishment” six times in this post. Actually, now it’s seven. Anyone have an idea for a better word? I’m a bit tired of it.
Neat collaborative effort here. Check in with your local organization to see how you can get invovled!
In recognition of the importance of this year’s midterm elections, five members of the Jewish Social Justice Roundtable (JSJR) are joining forces to launch the Roundtable’s first major initiative: Define America 2010 (www.defineamerica2010.com/jewish/).
This collaboration is the first national coordinated voter outreach effort of its kind from the Jewish community. Working across lines of race and faith, the Roundtable’s Define America 2010 initiative will give people opportunities to register voters, talk to people about the issues they care about, and turn out to vote. More »
All of this had me re-reading all of HP. Re-reading it, combined with my slightly unsatisfactoryrecent experiences in a couple of different New York City prayer communities had me giving serious consideration to a big new project. I’ve also been thinking about less than a year from now when my NJ chavurah is not going to be an option for me every week.
HP paints such a perfect picture for me. The only place I’ve ever been (not that I don’t know of others) that lives up to BZ’s vision of Stage 3 pluralism is Kol Zimrah. KZ meets once a month and only on Friday nights. But I want what is on offer at KZ every Friday night. And then I want it again in the morning. And I want it in a daily minyan. And I want it on holidays. This is a tall order.
So this week, I began starting to think toward creating one more element of this.
For some, like me, what draws them to KZ is the pluralism. I like the singing, but I like the ideas more. However, most of the people who come are probably more drawn in by the singing and spirited atmosphere. The spirited singing is thanks to two liturgical developments. First, we can thank some Medieval Kabbalists for giving us Kabbalat Shabbat. And second, we can thank Shlomo Carelbach for giving us some great tunes to make Kabbalat Shabbat a fun, engaging prayer experience. In essence, KZ without a Carelbach Kabbalat Shabbat would be a shell of itself.
So maybe what we need to create is the same kind of big singing, big fun prayer experience on Shabbat morning.
Luckily, much like Kabbalat Shabbat, we have hefty section of psalms to sing in the morning too! P’sukei D’zimrah usually gets shafted in shul. Most people don’t even show up until its over. It’s also long, so if we actually sang all of it, we wouldn’t be done with services until it’s time for Minchah.
We’ve got tunes for all of these psalms, but some may not work for the kind of spirited experience I’m talking about here. Especially if Carlebach (or Carlebach-esque) music is what is needed, we’re in trouble. For Psalm 150 and for 92 and a few others, we’ve got no problem.
But for some pslams, this will take some work. I chatted with Russ, our chazan (OK, our JTS student chazan, but he’s our chazan) at Chavurat Lamdeinu here in Jersey, about it this morning. I’m a bit melodically-challenged sometimes, so the obvious hadn’t occurred to me. Russ pointed out that Carlebach (and others) have a gazillion nigunim out there that could be laid on top of some of these psalms. This will take some work, but it’s doable.
Of course, as others have pointed out to me as I’ve rambled about this idea off and on this week, there are also some significant practical challenges here. Getting a minyan together on a Shabbat morning is harder than on a Shabbat evening because you need a Torah. You also need people to read Torah. This stuff is infinitely surmountable, but it’s there nonetheless.
The biggest challenge would be time. At its fullest, by my count, P’sukei D’zimrah includes 16 full psalms, the entire Song of the Sea, two prayers and a whole host of ancillary biblical passages. This is a more than twice as much material as Kabbalat Shabbat, which only has 8 psalms and a few extra piyutim/songs (usually between one and three songs, though it depends on who you talk to).
So there would probably need to be cuts. Personally, I’d probably start with the ancillary biblical passages, but I wouldn’t want to make these decisions alone anyway.
There would also have to be some discussion of how to do the rest of the service, with very careful attention paid to the requirements of Stage 3. Issues like the number of aliyot and the triennial cycle would certainly be up for discussion. Other parts of the service would need discussion too, such as the Amidah, where a Heiche Kedushah (leader does Amidah aloud through the Kedushah, everyone continues silently on their own, no leader’s repetition after) would probably merit discussion. And Birkot Hashacar etc, despite being a favorite of mine, would probably be right out because that can all be done at home before arriving or individually by people who arrive early.
That’s about as far as my thinking on this has taken me so far. Thoughts, anyone? Who’s with me?
On a lighter note, Jewish women in Hollywood are still a topic of discussion. In a recent Slate article Rachel Shukert gushes over the show madmen for its portrayal of… Jewish women.
On a technical level, this comes as no surprise—there is certainly no shortage of beautiful actresses who happen to be Jewish: Mila Kunis, Rachel Weisz, Mélanie Laurent, Hollywood ur-Jewess Natalie Portman (whose name I can never hear without a preface of “why can’t you be more like …”). But they rarely, if ever, play explicitly Jewish characters—sainted Holocaust victims notwithstanding. Hollywood’s repulsion isn’t directed toward actual Jewish women, but toward its image of the “Jewish Woman” who even in 2010 is still consistently portrayed as bossy, obnoxious, pushy, materialistic, shrewish, gauche, and impossible to please: Mrs. Ari on Entourage, Susie Greene from Curb Your Enthusiasm, Jill Zarin from The Real Housewives of New York (a real person playing a fictional character playing a real person). Real Jewish women can laugh at these depictions, but they can sting, too, not least because they are so often manufactured and promulgated by Jewish men: our brothers and our cousins and our dads. I mean, is that what they really think of us?
The National Havurah Committee is now accepting course proposals for the 2011 NHC Summer Institute! The Institute will be August 1-7, 2011, at Franklin Pierce University in Rindge, New Hampshire. It is a week of Jewish learning and living in a pluralistic and multigenerational community comprised of people from grassroots Jewish communities across the continent.
We’re looking for proposals for four-session courses, whether connected to this year’s Institute theme “Y’hi shalom b’cheileich – May there be peace within your walls”, or on any other topic of interest. Teachers whose courses are accepted receive free registration, room, and board for the week, and get to participate fully in the Institute when they’re not teaching.
At the Institute, every teacher is a student and every student is a teacher. As someone who is a teacher in real life and has taught Institute courses, I have found teaching at Institute to be one of my most rewarding teaching experiences, thanks to the productive contributions of everyone in the class. Teachers at Institute include people who work professionally in the field they’re teaching about, as well as people pursuing an “extracurricular” interest who are excited to study something in depth and share it with others.
So there’s a new Jewish parenting blog in town. It’s called Kveller, and those folks in charge are encouraging us to think of it as “not your parents’ parenting blog.” Not that your parents necessarily have a blog (or know what a blog is)…but you get the idea.
As my usual, responsible self, my first blog post was about keeping my kids up till 2 in the morning. Which I thought was pretty (a) embarrassing and (b) destructive, but Sarah said that I should reprint it here. So, here it is. Don’t take it as representative of everything on Kveller, but think of it as one dish on a very varied menu. Come check out the main course.
**
By 11:30 P.M., I was almost wiped. Two hours of carrying a kid on your shoulders, and she starts to feel a lot heavier than that six-pack-sized newborn that your wife delivered only two years ago.
When is it ok to let your kid stay up all night?
You’re tired. You want to go to sleep. You remember fishing her out of her cot at 7 a.m. that morning, she couldn’t possibly have weighed as heavy as she does now, and how does she manage to go this long with only having one nap? You would kill for a nap.
An hour later, she is still going strong. It’s nearly one in the morning, we’re just sitting down to dinner at the house of people we just met, I’m trying to remember their names at the same time as I’m trying not to fall asleep in the far-too-comfortable chairs in their dining room…and my daughter is having an all-out Lego war in the living room with the family’s son.
I swear: This isn’t like us. Our kids are usually in bed by 7:oo. On most nights, we are responsible people.
If you’ve got an opinion on Israel or the not-Ground-Zero not-mosque, head over to The Forward / Berman Jewish Policy Archive survey Facebook page and make it known! As these types of polls go, it’s actually quite good (although not, as one of our contributors lamented on an email thread, illustrated by Eli Valley. Next year in Jerusalem, maybe).
I personally am particularly interested to see how the opinions on Park51 fall among Jews, especially those who describe themselves on the survey as having “followed the issue closely.” We’ll see…
Yesterday, I posted my letter to the editor of the New Jersey Jewish Standard, chastising them for what I believe I said was pusillanimous journalism. If you haven’t been following this, they printed an announcement of a gay wedding last week. This week, under pressure from a cabal of Orthodox rabbis, they apologized to the Orthodox for community for the “pain and consternation” it caused them.
We ran the wedding announcement because we felt, as a community newspaper, that it was our job to serve the entire community — something we have been doing for 80 years. We did not expect the heated response we got, and — in truth — we believe now that we may have acted too quickly in issuing the follow-up statement, responding only to one segment of the community.We are now having meetings with local rabbis and community leaders. We will also be printing, in the paper and online, many of the letters that have been pouring in since our statement was published.The issue clearly demands debate and serious consideration, which we will do our best to encourage.
James Janoff, Publisher
NJ Jewish Standard
Good. In keeping with journalistic angle on this story, here’s what they should do next: For better or for worse, in this story, NJJS isn’t reporting on the news, it’s making the news. Because of that, they’ll need to report on this. It’s a hard thing to do right, but sometimes, especially in a small community, you have to report on yourself. When I was Editor in Chief of The Acorn here at Drew University last year, we had to do just that.
NJJS will have to do the same and they’ll be better off for it. They’ve stumbled into a great story here, actually. The follow-up articles in the coming weeks, if they pull this off right, can be examples of journalism of the highest order.
The angrier impulse within me wants agree with Bethany Shondark Murphy, a commenter on the NJJS Facebook page, who said:
A deaf, dumb and blind person living on Mars could’ve seen how both sides of this issue would explode in outrage. They did not have a coherent policy when publishing the announcement or deciding to publish their “retraction” of sorts. They went into this without thinking of a coherent policy and are acting surprised that people made their opinions known, loudly. It’s poor judgment that they didn’t think of a policy before bumbling into the snakepit.
But the time for that is over now. They made their mistake and they’re going to correct it.
And here’s a follow-up thought for the Orthodox bullies who initiated this balagan: Stick you heads in the sand if you want, but here in NJ, we have civil unions for gay couples. If you don’t like it, you can either ignore it or move. What you can’t do is force the newspaper, whose job it is to report on the things that are happening here in reality, to stick their heads in the sand. You don’t have to like everything in the paper, but you do have recognize that their job is to show you the reality of your community. And in Bergen County, as in the rest of NJ, gay civil unions are the reality.
In the end, kol hakavod to NJJS for recognizing their mistake and rectifying it. And kol hakavod to NJJS for stopping the apologies in their tracks. Journalists don’t apologize, but they do correct.
In September 2001, I was living in Boston, forty seconds out of college, trying to be an adult. I heard about the attack on the World Trade Center while listening to NPR on the air mattress I slept on for an entire year.
My friends and I were decidedly radical, we worked hard at it (most of us still do). On the same day as the attacks, we crowded together in an auditorium at Brandeis for a teach-in on what has happened and the implications of it. We imagined World War III. In that moment, it seemed very possible.
A few weeks later, I was on a crowded train at rush hour. There were still rumors;“they” would attack Boston, Cleveland, anywhere that was accessible and unprepared. I wanted to run back to college. Instead, I watched a man with light brown skin get onto my T car, and proceeded to freak out. I actually got off the train. I waited for the next one, and as I stood there, I thought about how sometimes you just know you’ll be thinking about a certain thing for the rest of your life, like the moment you no longer recognize yourself. I actually got off the train because I’d decided in a moment of absolute, random terror, that that passenger was Arab, and that he might blow us all up.
I did the same thing a few years later in Jerusalem, on a particularly packed bus into the center of town. I supposed that sort of thing happens often in Jerusalem, although maybe less so now, along with things that are much worse. After I got off that bus, I took a long, sweaty walk. I hated myself that day, but ultimately, of course, hating yourself, feeling guilty is nothing if not completely unproductive.
What I remember in retrospect was how hotly, how effectively my fear and adrenaline concentrated, like gasoline, and completely overran my ability to be rational, clear thinking and not knee-jerkily racist. Fear can turn you into a lot of things. People who spend their time capitalizing on fear, on perpetuating it, know this.
Islamophobia was gaining momentum long before September 11th. The Jewish community has been injecting it in various shades into curricula, shul sermons, Kiddush conversations, Israel education, but it isn’t that simple. We are certainly very culpable in its perpetuation, but we aren’t alone. An insidious concoction of our own desire to assimilate, the debasement of Islam and the Arab world in the media, and the creation of a climate of fear as to the nature of the Koran is at work. The thing is, knowing that, dissecting it from all its angles is valuable, but ultimately, not so helpful on the ground. What we need is a different arsenal, which comes from dismantling the fear and hate that lives inside all of us.
This just in by anti-trust lawyer and professor Barak D. Richman :
The inescapable conclusion is that the [Conservative movement's Rabbinical Assembly]’s practices are illegal, and have been for a long time. Why have these illegal practices persisted? The history of the Sherman Act reveals that concentrated power can be difficult to dislodge. This inflexibility also reveals a systemic tragedy within Conservatism, whose history includes efforts by centralized powers to resist valuable innovations that spread across America.
Richman said his cursory investigation of Reform, Orthodox and Reconstructionist hiring practices could also be illegal. Discuss.
Your editorial of apology is an example of journalism of lowest, most cowardly order. Journalists publish corrections when they get the facts wrong–but we never apologize for it. Worse than that, you did not even apologize for factual inaccuracy. Instead, you apologized for offending someone. Get over it. We are journalists. Sometimes people get mad at us.
But I should hope that if you continue in this groveling manner, you at least have the decency to do so with some consistency. And if you do that, I have a prediction for you: Next week, you will be apologizing to the wider Jewish community for jumping at the snap of some Orthodox bullies’ fingers. You will be forced to apologize to unaffiliated, non-denominational, Reform, Reconstructionist and Conservative Jews for forgetting that they are the vast majority of the community.
Despite your otherwise pusillanimous handling of this journalistic catastrophe, you somehow managed the chutzpah to apologize for the “pain and consternation” you caused a few noisy homophobic readers. When can we expect your apology to the gay community for the pain and consternation you have no doubt caused them? And when can we expect you to stop running photographs of women? Some Jews find that offensive too, I hear.
Sincerely praying for the return of your journalistic chutzpah,
David A.M. Wilensky,
Features Editor, The Acorn, Drew University, Madison, NJ
I’ll save you the click. The link is to a statement signed by the paper’s editor, Rebecca Kaplan Boroson, saying the following:
We set off a firestorm last week by publishing a same-sex couple’s announcement of their intent to marry. Given the tenor of the times, we did not expect the volume of comments we have received, many of them against our decision to run the announcement, but many supportive as well.
A group of rabbis has reached out to us and conveyed the deep sensitivities within the traditional/Orthodox community to this issue. Our subsequent discussions with representatives from that community have made us aware that publication of the announcement caused pain and consternation, and we apologize for any pain we may have caused.
The Jewish Standard has always striven to draw the community together, rather than drive its many segments apart. We have decided, therefore, since this is such a divisive issue, not to run such announcements in the future.
Disclaimer
The views in opinion pieces and letters do not necessarily reflect the views of The Jewish Standard. The comments posted on this Website are solely the opinions of the posters. Libelous or obscene comments will be removed.
This is outrageous on many levels, and I’m sure I don’t need to go into them in detail here. But seriously? The decision is bad enough, but to apologize to “members of the traditional/Orthodox community” for “any pain we may have caused”? (And to implicate the entire “traditional/Orthodox community” in this decision is unfair and damaging to many people in that community as well.)
Did they miss the memo about all the gay kids committing suicide because of the way society shits on them? Including one right in their backyard? These things don’t happen in a vacuum.
But if there is a happy ending (or, hopefully, a happy middle) to this story, it’s the inspiring way GLBT Jews and allies sprang into action across the internet today. My Facebook feed was overwhelmed with people posting outraged comments and committing to write to the paper. I posted a message about my outrage on the paper’s Facebook page, and dozens of others followed suit. Disappointed messages have been tweeted at the paper’s Twitter account all day. And although you wouldn’t know it, because no one has been approving comments on the original article’s webpage all day, I know dozens of people have been leaving messages there.
Ten artists were selected to showcase their visual art on Israeli social justice issues at this year’s New Generations Benefit on Thursday, October 21st, including Anisa Ashkar, Natan Dvir, Yael Frank, Hannah Fluk, Tanya Habjouqa, Itamar Jobani, Gil Lavi, Ahikam Seri, Ilan Spira and others soon to be announced!
Join fellow fans of a better Israel fighting for civil, human and social rights for all citizens of Israel. To meet the artists, buy your tickets or get involved, click here.
Author and feminist powerhouse Jaclyn Friedman is currently on a delegation with the Nobel Women’s Initiative, traveling around Israel, Gaza and the West Bank, meeting women on both sides of the conflict involved in peacemaking work.
Jaclyn wrote from Ramallah:
Once again, I find myself strangely hopeful, despite the odds. Not because I think it will be easy to achieve any of what needs to be done. But because if these women, living in these circumstances, can find the strength to be hopeful enough to keep working to create the communities and lives they deserve, it would be a grand betrayal for me to not hope and work alongside them.
And, happily, there are plenty of places for us to hear what they’re talking about: Here‘s the Nobel Women’s Initiative blog with all the participants’ reflections on what’s happening; here‘s Jaclyn’s travel accounts at Feministing; here‘s a liveblog of a conversation with Palestinian and Israeli women peace activists in Nazareth. And she’ll be liveblogging her dinner with the International Women’s Commission starting at 12:15 EST TODAY, so ch-ch-check it out.
encouraging us to think of it as “not your parents’ parenting blog.” Not that your parents necessarily have a blog (or know what a blog is)…but you get the idea.
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