I don’t really feel like writing this post. Instead of taking the bait and responding to Margot Lurie’s latest hit piece on independent minyanim, my time would be better spent on actually organizing an independent minyan. If you’re in the DC area this weekend, you’re all invited to Segulah on Shabbat morning. We’ll be meeting in the Tifereth Israel building, 7701 16th St NW (entrance on Juniper St), Washington DC, starting at 9:30 am. (Yes, we rent space from a synagogue, and no, that’s not a secret.)
But I’m taking the bait anyway, because I guess someone has to.
But before I do that, a number of people have asked me if I was going to respond to Noam Neusner’s oped in the Forward. (It seems to be Crap-On-Independent-Minyanim Month in the Jewish press.) The answer is that I already responded 4 years ago. And that’s all I have to say about that. (I would think that Neusner, as a former Bush speechwriter, would understand that independent minyanim aren’t taking away synagogues’ share of the pie, but are making the pie higher.)
Back to the story. Margot Lurie wrote a fanciful review of Empowered Judaism by Elie Kaunfer, in the Jewish Review of Books. I took it apart last fortnight right here on this blog. The review also got attention in other parts of the world, including from Shmuel Rosner on the Jerusalem Post website. Rosner then ran a letter from Kaunfer, correcting Lurie’s fabrication about “organized community money”. Then this week, Rosner did an interview with Lurie, asking some followup questions. (I don’t know whether either Rosner or Lurie has read my original fisk; neither of them reference it directly, though they both refer in general to criticism.)
In this interview, Lurie once again conjures up straw men, and then defeats them. She criticizes independent minyanim for failing to live up to goals that they never claimed to have in the first place.
Leave the country. Become overwhelmed by the contents of Google Reader whenever you check it. Mark every article “as read.” When you return home, blame your exhaustion, panic and confusion on jetlag. Continue to ignore the news.
Vow to attack things as a means of coping. Start with Google Reader. Notice that the word “Egypt” is popping up a lot. (Also: “rape,” “definition,” “abortion,” and “Congress.”) Feel exhausted.
Pretend to ignore the news, but skim the headlines. When people ask you what you think about the Egypt situation, tell them “it’s complicated.” Because you always say this about politics in the Middle East, they believe you.
Worry about how all this will affect Israel. Dislike this impulse of yours. Consider what the ramifications of this question mean for all of your politics. Decide, after a long walk and some talking to yourself, that it’s okay to have this impulse and to engage with it. It’s part of what makes you who you are.
Stop reading the headlines again as you get more panicked about the rest of your life. Ponder the idea that being politically informed is something enjoyed by people with money and security.
Download the Fresh Air podcast featuring Terry Gross’s interview with Thanassis Cambanis on Hezbollah, Egypt and Israel. Listen to it as you take yet another crazy walk around the city. Be comforted by Terry’s voice and how she sometimes forgets to ask a question.
As President Obama said today, the arc of history is long but it bends towards justice. However, there are some places where justice is taking longer than in others. While we celebrate one step in the Egyptian people’s march toward freedom and democracy, we cannot forget that there are other struggles for justice that are not yet won. In the US, the recession has provided corporations with an excuse to try to roll back hard won gains that workers have made. The Hyatt Hotel chain (run by the Chicago Pritzker family, close to the Obama administration and generous to the Jewish community) is using supposed recession losses to try to roll back health benefits, deny raises and outsource jobs.
Last night there were actions at several Hyatt Hotels to draw attention to the fact that the workers were working without a contract for two years; that hotel worker injuries are unacceptable high—at one Los Angeles hotel, the Hyatt Andaz in West Hollywood, the 2009 injury rate was twenty percent higher than the industry rate statewide; that though the tourist industry is the face of Los Angeles in many ways, the people who work in that industry are made invisible.
I was asked to speak to the hundreds of workers and community members who gathered at the Hyatt Century Plaza. Here is the Torah that I shared:
God introduces Godself at Sinai by saying: I am the Lord your God who has taken you out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. (Exodus 20:2) How are we to enact in our lives this commandment? In what way is this a commandment? The fourth century Babylonian Sage, Rav, one of the the founders of the Academies in Babylonia, says that this verse teaches us that a worker can go back on a labor contract even in the middle of the day, before the work is done. In other words. The way we enact the fact that God is the God who took us out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, is by drawing a sharp, clear line between wage labor and slave labor. The way we enact the fact that God is the God who took us out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, is by struggling for economic justice, by standing with workers against the corporations who would abuse them.
When Moses first brought God’s demands to Pharoah: “Let my people go that they may worship me.” Pharoah brushed Moses off with “Who is God?” When the Israelites foremen came to plead to Pharaoh for better working conditions, Pharaoh ignored them saying: “You are shirkers, therefore you make these demands.” Those of us who stand with the workers (and perhaps especially the workers who have not yet won the right for union representation) against the corporations, stand as Moses before Pharaoh demanding that justice be done. We also know, as Moses might not have known yet, that though Pharaoh thought he was all-powerful, justice was more powerful. In Egypt then, in Egypt today, and in the struggle for economic and social justice everywhere.
An amazing time for the Egyptian people, for the Middle East, and for the power of the people. My Egyptian friends and colleagues tell me they are beaming, crying, celebrating. May this advent mean that we retire the tagline “the only democracy in the Middle East” speedily.
(Will you be in San Francisco for this? Email us and cover it!)
4th Annual Bay Area Inside the Activists’ Studio
Sunday, February 27 at 10:30 am
Contemporary Jewish Museum, 736 Mission Street, San Francisco
Join us to learn from and be energized by local Jewish change-makers and to celebrate the multitude of ways we are working to create a more just world! This signature annual event features skill-building social change workshops, catered lunch, panel discussion with local change-makers, networking opportunities, and a who’s who of local Jewish social change organizations.
Panelists: Sasha T. Goldberg, Associate Director and Director of Student Programming at Nehirim.
Seth Linden, Founding Director, Tutorpedia.
Workshops: The Game of Life 2.0: Identity, Power and Privilege
Giving Loving Rebuke
Community Organizing for Economic Justice
And more! (Lists in formation and subject to change, stay tuned for more details!)
P.S. If you’re in the NYC area, sign up for Justice and Jewish Thought — a study group series on radical Jewish thought.
Part of the belief in democracy is that it is by nature a moderating force (one can even see this with Hezbollah in Lebanon). We cannot support democratic change contingent on what democracy will bring; even if it may not serve our interests in the short run, it’s still the best alternative human beings have come up with. In this case, one can certainly understand Netanyahu’s concern; Mubarak is “the devil he knows.” But it’s often the case that autocratic rulers are easier to deal with since they typically answer to no one. Yet, while they appear more stable in the short run, more dictatorships have been overthrown by democratic movements than the other way around. And when that uprising comes, supporting a dictator against the populace is not the best role for an elected leader.
Jerusalem’s problem is also Jerusalem’s opportunity. It can have a role to play in this transition that may impact what most hope will be a democratic Egypt, and the Arab street is watching closely. Israel’s problem, even according to some of its supporters, is that it has never had a long-term plan in regard to the Palestinians, leading to actions that are largely reactive and myopic. Perhaps these events can convince Israel that it has to act and not simply react, for it will soon no longer be the “the only democracy in the Middle East.”
So with our eyes wide open, it is important to assert that Israel’s vision of its future cannot be premised upon an eternity of Arab authoritarianism and an eternity of Palestinian statelessness. Such a vision is wrong, and it will not work. It is painful, for someone who admires the Jewish state for its democratic character, to see it emerge as an enemy of democratization. Jews should not rely on Pharaohs.
One interesting side effect of the situation in Egypt has been to force defenders of Israel (I use this to mean anyone who doesn’t solely blame Israel for the perpetuation of the conflict) to decide where their sympathies lie: with people struggling for democracy against their own Pharoah, or with Netanyahu’s initial position of support for the Mubarak regime, which he’s since walked back (like the US). Israel is now coming into the phase of its nationhood where it has to grapple with the real issues that calling yourself a democracy brings – namely, supporting democracy in other places (something that modern democracies have in general been pretty bad at). This is to say nothing of the profoundly undemocratic nature of the occupation, but the situation in Egypt is a lot more visible, and poses more immediate diplomatic questions to the Israeli leadership.
Sometimes I come across videos on YouTube that I simply can’t resist sharing with you all here.
Today, I present Steve Lawrence & Eydie Gorme singing the hits of Israel:
I wish I had grown up in a time when this is what Zionism sounded like. I wonder if we’ll achieve a time when Zionism can once again sound like this. May it come speedily and in our time.
Having now dug out of the Chicago storm code-named Blizzaster, I’m hearing some interesting stories emerging beyond the spontaneous Parking Lot formed on Lake Shore Drive. So much parking so close to the lake is a miracle unto itself, but what about the snow?
“It’s a happy occasion that the snow cannot deter. The snow does not change anything,” said Bernie Finkel, of Evanston, the bride’s grandfather. “There is thought in the Jewish religion about luck: the dew in the spring at Passover, the rain in the fall during Sukkot. And now I am saying snowfall is lucky too. This is a special time. There should be a special time to pray for snow.”
By now, most of us are pretty tired of snow. But Finkel (who hosts a local Jewish radio program) raises an interesting point. It is truly a wonder to get such an amount of snow. Surely we should acknowledge HaShem’s hand in such an event, yes? What would the text be for a Prayer for Snow (or its speedy removal)? I wanna hear it. Make it snow!
So some of us have been waiting to see our favourite recent addition to the Texas rabbi-ing scene* (yeah, such a thing exists) on the Daily Show for a week now. Seems there’s something happening in Egypt that kept bumping the segment?
John Oliver was in Texas to investigate a clash between the Christians and Jews, Republican style:
The Knesset is voting next week on whether to investigate Israeli human rights groups for disloyalty to the state, and here’s something you can do alongside Israeli peers to show that Jews outside Israel oppose this dismantling of democracy: tell the Israeli Ministers’ what you think directly on their Facebook pages.
And before I hear complaints about “interfering in Israeli politics,” I’d like to remind people that America interferes in Israeli affairs in a hundred ways, from sending $3 billion in military aid, to the $1 billion in federation funds propping up 90% of their nonprofit sector, to the 60% of Israeli political party funds raised here also. At the invitation of Shalom Achshav in Israel, I’m participating in an activity in which I would participate if it were any country in the world.
Finally, after so many years, Federations are working to complete the Ethiopian Aliyah. JFNA has announced at $5.5 Million Dollar campaign to fund bring 7800 Ethiopian Olim, many of whom have been waiting for close to a decade, to Israel. This is a considerably more modest effort than the last, more ambitious effort to raise $100 Million in 2005, which did not meet its goals. If they only needed $5.5 Million, why has it take so long? In the world of Federation funding, this is chump change.
Of course, the concern once they arrive is, where and how will they be absorbed? I’m thrilled they are finally coming home, but over 1,000 Olim are still stuck in centers years after their arrival. How will the Israeli government handle seven times that? Will there be a balance to integrate them into Israeli society, housing and community? Or will they retain their unique culture only due to segregation?
“We must not make the mistakes of yesterday – Ethiopian olim should be helped to get permanent housing and integrate in Israeli society” Natan Sharansky, Nov. 16 2010
I know everyone wishes that we’d just stop talking about thisalready and technically, what I’m about to mention isn’t strictly a Jewish matter, but there was an interesting link on BoingBoing this morning regarding reporting on the sexuality of, let us say, well-known figures (since the person mentioned there isn’t precisely what one might think of as a celebrity).
The point being made is that it’s not quite as simple as whether or not one’s sexuality is a private matter – rather that by agreeing to not discuss it, “the press” is actually enforcing the idea that gay sexuality is bad, that the very hint of a partner of the same sex is akin to pornography and is a discussion of sex, rather than simply talking about normal and natural parts of an individual’s life – and in fact, in my opinion, that’s exactly how the conversation about Debbie Friedman shook out: dlevy expressed sadness that she hadn’t been able to live her life in a way that everyone else (straight) does, where she talked about her family (partner) held hands in public, etc, and everyone else started screaming about how she has the right to keep her sex life private and who cares as long as she doesn’t scare the horses in the street,which was precisely missing the point. The original post is here, but IMO BoingBoing sums it up clearly and nicely.
Then, Birthright said they never approved it in the first place.
So is Birthright telling the real story? Or is J Street U?
According to a new in-depth analysis of the situation from New Voices (full disclosure: I helped edit the piece), the whole picture is more complicated than it initially appears.
Richard Allen, a member of the JCC, is peddling small-minded paranoia in calling the Other Israel Film Festival a participant in the boycott, divestment and sanctions (“BDS”) movement and has called on the board to McCarthyize their community.
Allen is joined by Democratic consultant Hank Sheinkopf, who told the paper, “At this time when Israel’s very life may be at stake it’s especially important not to patronize anyone who doesn’t stand with the State of Israel. … Stop claiming you are a Jewish community center, because there is no place there for centrist people.”
This is preposterous. The hysteria behind such a claim would be funny if the merits of this case weren’t downright offensive. Liberal-minded members of the community need to put this laughable accusation where it belongs: the garbage bin. The JCC in Manhattan, under the leadership of Rabbi Joy Levitt, is one of — if not the — most pluralistic institutions in the New York Jewish community. It hosts thoughtful, intelligent, quality programs satisfying so much of the communal spectrum.
On the same night, the welcoming rooms of that building hosted a Shabbat dinner of the Other Israel Film Festival (no event of which Mr. Allen ever attended) and the annual dinner of CAMERA. At the OIFF dinner, two Israeli Arab TV stars spoke eloquently against efforts like Mr. Allen’s — from the Palestinian side. The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel contacted all the filmmakers, producers and actors flying in from Israel to boycott the Other Israel Film Festival. Panelist Mira Awad, Arab pop singer-songwriter, answered the question about why she still came, and she did so with inspirational personal authority:
The 21st-century independent minyan phenomenon has inspired many newspaper articles. However, the published “serious” writing (with the appropriate academic or intellectual credentials) on this topic is still far more limited, leading to founder effects, with a few mutations being propagated over and over. For example, Riv-Ellen Prell’s article in Zeek, comparing two generations of independent Jewish communities, is often cited as an authority. While Prell literally wrote the book on an older generation of havurot with an ethnographic study, there is no evidence that she did any primary research on the newer minyanim, or has even been to one; her main source of information on these communities seems to be the roundtable of minyan leaders that appeared in the same issue of Zeek. Yet that article is what there is. In the quantitative realm, the 2007 National Spiritual Communities Study gathered lots of valuable data on independent minyanim, but the report (and/or initial media stories about it) also originated some misleading conclusions that won’t go away. Rabbi Elie Kaunfer’s book Empowered Judaism isn’t the entire story, but there is absolutely no question that Kaunfer knows his subject, and it’s now out there as a real live book.
Margot Lurie’s recent review of Empowered Judaism contains many of the lazy smears about independent minyanim that we’ve been hearing for years (citing such sources as “one parent of a minyan-goer” and “a friend of mine”). Under other conditions, the best thing to do might be to ignore it. But this review is published in the Jewish Review of Books, which gives it the intellectual cachet to place it into the small pond of “serious” writing on this subject. So this review needs to be fisked in the bud before it becomes the next authoritative voice on independent minyanim.
Within 48 hours of our announcement that J Street U was facilitating its first Birthright trip, “Explore Israel: Progressive Zionism and Social Justice,” over 100 students had signed up expressing interest in participating.
Despite their initial approval for a trip that would provide such an experience, Birthright’s leadership has now decided that it is inappropriate for J Street U to organize a trip because we are politically oriented, according to Israel Experience. Nonetheless, comparable organizations with different politics than ours participate and help organize trips every year. For instance, AIPAC’s “Capital to Capital” Birthright trip is designed for Jewish political activists who are “significantly involved in the American political process.”
So, in Birthright’s universe, there is one set of rules for those they agree with and another set secret rules for those they don’t agree with.
It’s pretty disturbing to see Birthright abandoning their mission like this. If their purpose is to get as many young Jews to Israel as they can, how can they possibly explain cancelling a trip that registered 100 people in the first two days following the trip’s announcement?
Those of us who stand with the workers (and perhaps especially the workers who have not yet won the right for union representation) against the corporations, stand as Moses before Pharaoh demanding that justice be done. We also know, as Moses might not have known yet, that though Pharaoh thought he was all-powerful, justice was more powerful. In Egypt then, in Egypt today, and in the struggle for economic and social justice everywhere. 
Having now dug out of the Chicago storm code-named Blizzaster, I’m hearing some interesting stories emerging beyond the spontaneous Parking Lot formed on Lake Shore Drive. So much parking so close to the lake is a miracle unto itself, but what about the snow?
Last week, 
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