So says Larry Derfner – he was canned for a blog post he wrote (now removed) titled “The awful, necessary truth about Palestinian terror.” Apparently, a lot of Jerusalem Post subscribers cancelled their subscriptions after reading his post.
Shame on them.
I’m taking the easy way out by blaming a large group of people that I have no control over (I tend to like making arguments about things I can actually have an effect on) but this is just one more instance of a trend in “civilized” communities the world over – Israel & the Jewish community at large being no exception. Reading something you consider disagreeable or even abominable in a publication you subscribe to is generally a bad reason to unsubscribe from that publication. Media organizations exist to challenge the way we think about the world, and rejecting any opinion that doesn’t fit with our existing notion of how the world works completely undermines that purpose.
Derfner makes a really solid point here:
By skewing my words so badly, today’s Post column, the Web commentaries and what the Post will publish on page one tomorrow portray a writer announcing that he wants Israelis to get killed, instead of one who’s trying to stop that from happening.
Putting myself in the position of those who cancelled their subscriptions, I can understand being shocked by what Derfner wrote (although I haven’t read the original column). He doesn’t seem ashamed of that. But saying that he wants Israelis killed is the last refuge of a scoundrel. After all these years, we shouldn’t have to keep saying that just because someone disagrees with you doesn’t mean they want civilians exploded, children shot, or puppies killed. Seriously, folks.
How many more of these “X was fired from her/his position at Important Newspaper after writing a column criticizing Netanyahu/settlers/terrorists/the flotilla/etc.” stories am I going to write? Cutting down the number of smart journalists writing about Israel-Palestine is going to help exactly no one.
Eli Ungar-Sargon of Cut fame, whose blogging here at Jewschool has generated some interesting conversations, is off and running on his next project—a documentary film about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As part of that project he surveyed both Israelis and Palestinians about their attitudes towards the other (i.e. Israelis about Arabs and Palestinians about Jews). The interviews with Palestinians have not been completely translated yet, and so the data is not ready, however, the data about Israelis is ready. Its not surprising, though its not pretty. At the same time, the data and interviews do not seem to support the screaming headline that the piece was given in Electronic Intifada where it was published. Here is the video:
I posted about the Jewish Futures Competition a few weeks ago. It asks how Jewish life, living and learning will change as we move to a society in which individuals are not only consumers of information and culture, but also producers of their own and others’ experiences. I think the question has it wrong. There never was such a divide between Jewish consumers and producers.
If you tried to picture the upbringing of a Jewish producer, it wouldn’t be mine. My formal Jewish education consisted of synagogue supplemental school, one year of Jewish Summer camp, and one college class. I have been an active participant in Jewish programming wherever I’ve lived. Does this make me a Jewish consumer?
I was elected to a synagogue board of directors at the age of 26. How did someone in the famously non-joining age group get on a synagogue board? They asked me to serve, and I said yes. When I moved to a new city, I helped start parent-led Shabbat services for preschoolers in my new synagogue, using the approach, designed by my previous community. Now that I have a child entering kindergarten, I’ve been working with several other families and Jewish professionals to organize a 4-5 day per week Jewish afterschool program that will provide robust Jewish learning (mixed in with a lot of play time) during hours when many children are already in supervised afterschool programs. More than fifty families in our community have already expressed interest in this program.
So when did I switch from a consumer to a producer? The answer is the same as it has always been. A Jewish consumer is someone who hasn’t (yet) found the motivation and outlet to produce. If you chose to be involved in a Jewish community you are a producer. You don’t need any title or degree to lead prayer. The lifeblood of Jewish organizations from Federations to minimally structured minyanim are the volunteers who step forward to inspire and organize.
So, what inspired the original question? Most Jewish producers have been hyper-local. Our synagogue walls are filled with plaques honoring our predecessors, whose devotion, ideas, and energy created these communities. Sadly, few people outside their own communities would recognize these names. Technology is shrinking the barriers that kept local voices local and expanding the types of communities that are possible. A good idea, adapted by one community, can spread well beyond the word of mouth of the members of that community. What looks like more consumers becoming producers is really local producers starting to grasp the possibilities of a larger network.
So, take my collaborators’ efforts to create an aftercare program as an example. We’ve identified and compiled detailed information from similar establishedandemergingprogramsacross the country in just a few months. We’ve gotten advice from Jewish educators working across the country and down the block. People I’ve never met are writing to me offering to help or asking about potential jobs.
Personally, I’ve gone from the biography above to a commentator and published author on Jewish institutions and education in half a year.
Even though individuals can do more, institutions still matter. To launch our aftercare program, we’re collaborating with threelocalsynagogues who have offered classroom space and we’re trying to collaborate with others. People inside and outside the professional Jewish world have given us their time and money. Our local Partnership for Jewish Life & Learning is giving us advice and a small grant for our preparatory year. Programs like ours can’t succeed in a vaccuum.
What does this mean for the future? The increasing number of voices bringing innovation to national Jewish living and learning is a good thing. Good ideas don’t all need to come from our Federations, academic programs, and other Jewish institutions, but our institutions will need to adapt. They must figure out where centeralized support is needed and where networks of local producers can do things better and cheaper on their own. This will require the broader Jewish community to significantly re-evaluate the ways we distribute and share resources and to better understand the technology tools that are strengthening our producers. I can’t tell you the best way to do all this, but I look forward to being part of what happens next.
(So, apparently there’s a hurricane coming? Read this while hoarding canned goods.)
Oh, jdeal. How charming is your play on the stereotype that Jews are cheap. How clever you are to leap onto the Groupon/Living Social phenomenon. How sexist and small minded are your advertisements.
Let’s examine some evidence, shall we? First, there’s this excerpt from a jdeal for Always for You Flowers:
“Calling all significant others: Whether you’ve stayed out too late with the boys, insulted her cooking or forgotten her birthday (a shonde!), a bouquet of flowers may be just what you need to make amends.”
As my friend pointed out, what we can extrapolate from this is:
“1. Only men buy flowers for women.
2. Women do the cooking.
3. Women are crazyyyy. “
4. (my addition): Women are materialistic and can be easily manipulated by pretty things.
Here’s another one, for a Father’s Day massage:
“Strange that it’s the women who always seem to be running to the spa when it’s the men who have to move the new wardrobe, assemble the do-it-yourself furniture, and carry the entire family’s bags to the car for the shlep to the mountains.”
It IS strange that women seem to be running to the spa when they’re also busy raising all the children, isn’t it? Women are so freaking lazy! And indulgent! Dudes have to do everything, including impregnate ladies and benefit from male privilege.What’s really super charming about both of these ads is that they’re a great example of how sexism hurts everyone by pushing men and women into narrow boxes via limiting concepts of gender, and how committed Jewish communities are to continuing the perpetuation of those roles, even when they’re trying to save you some cash.
In dismissing the essays collected in Elliot Cosgrove’s Jewish Theology in Our Time, Gil Student attacks my essay in particular, “Living and Dreaming with God,” as purportedly lacking in traditional content. He implies that I am at once ignorant of, and indifferent to, traditional Jewish theological sources. But his treatment of my essay only reveals his own confusions and his indulgence in ungenerous, caricatured readings. More »
This guest post is by Matthew Arbeit Lowe. Matthew teaches theology and philosophy at Prozdor Hebrew High School. He is also the founder of the Moishe Kavod House “Fabrengen” club, an egalitarian monthly gathering for teaching, singing, and drinking. He blogs regularly at theemptythrone.blogspot.com.
Before critiquing Judaism: Religion of Reason by Rabbi Moshe Ben-Chaim,the founder of Mesorah Heritage Foundation (mesorah.org), I should say that I am unfit to write this review. Despite my various degrees in philosophy, Judaism, and religion, I’ll admit that my command of Hebrew (all kinds) and Aramaic is severely lacking, and so (by his own rules) I cannot “open a Talmud and explain Tosfos and Rashi.” (295) If I cannot read Tosfos and Rashi then I can’t read Talmud; and if I can’t read Talmud then I can’t read Torah; thus I have no traditionalist basis for critiquing Rabbi Ben-Chaim’s interpretations in the book. Similarly, some of my objections to his interpretations are based on my belief in science; but here too I must admit my inadequacy, since “we cannot talk about any science without years of study.” (256) With that warning out of the way, here I go… More »
As I have also written, while there are many great things about day schools, any education system that focuses primarily on them is leaving a huge number of children behind. His additional plea for more, better, and openly accessible data is wonderful. It could benefit many education modalities with relatively modest costs. Dr. Saxe is involved in the development of JData. It is an aggregator of basic Jewish school information like costs/student. I’m a bit underwhelmed with the types of questions that can currently be asked there, but that’s partially due to the limited number of schools that have submitted information. If we want to see what’s possible, encourage any schools with which you’re connected to submit their information.
In any survey, there’s a balance between asking so many questions that people don’t answer any, but I wish they had a few more. The existing questions focus on size/budget/denomination issues rather than teaching formats & hours of education. How those interact will tell us a lot more about what is or is not cost effective. Anyone have thoughts on other information that schools could easily submit that would be helpful?
By only major critique of the piece is that he assumes that more engaged families with the most highly motivated children chose day school and discussions about other education options are discussions about less engaged families. I don’t think this is accurate. In my own community, there is only a modest connection between Judaic engagement and whether they send their children to a Jewish day school or elsewhere. When I talk about my Jewish aftercare creation efforts with families who have children in synagogue supplemental schools, many are very engaged and want more Jewish education for their children. My program isn’t right for all of them and they didn’t chose day schools (or day schools didn’t chose them) for a wide variety of reasons. As a commenter on his post, Ruth, notes, “…Jewish teens attending supplementary Jewish high schools… are some of the most dedicated, enthusiastic, and academically talented young people I encounter on a regular basis.” Conversely, there are some Jewish day school families where most of their commitment to Jewish practice ends at the classroom door.
The relationship between education choices and engagement is complex. Education programs can also alter engagement in positive and negative ways. We need to seriously figure out what does or does not work and share the information beyond the world of academic journals. We need more data and I strongly support Dr. Saxe’s sentiments in this regard.
Thumbs up to the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism for their Project Reconnect, which seeks “to reinvolve, reinvigorate, and reconnect the very many Jewish adults who were touched by the Conservative movement’s programs for teenagers, college students and young adults.”
And a double thumbs up for its Come Home for the Holidays initiative, which offers free High Holiday tickets to young adults who grew up in the Conservative movement. It’s great to see Conservative Judaism taking outreach seriously.
But a thumbs down for their gratuitous use of Hebrew jargon.
Anat Hoffman, head of the 22-year-old Women of the Wall, tells the Chatauqua Institute about the legal and political battles for equality of women at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. Find the intro by Daisy Kahn here, along with the other 6 parts of her speech.
Among the contributions of Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu to the Israel-Palestinian peace process was introducing the demand, as a precondition for resuming peace talks, that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
The Palestinians rejected this pre-condition; explanations of the Palestinian position can be found in a May Foreign Policy article, and from a 2009 piece in Palestine Monitor by one Abu Yusef (no relation) which provides a pithy summary of the problem with Netanyahu’s proposal:
“recognizing Israel as a Jewish state means giving up the right of return
prior to sitting down at the negotiating table. Though this right may
some day be surrendered or altered in the final status agreements
establishing a Palestinian state, giving it up prior to negotiations
severely weakens the Palestinian negotiating team by limiting the amount of tools at their disposal.”
But fear not, lovers of the Jewish State of Israel, because while the Palestinians haven’t been willing to declare Israel as a Jewish state, Capitol Hill has been eager to.
Yesterday, one congressman released this statement:
My condolences go out to the families and friends of the Israelis who were murdered in Southern Israel today and to all of the people of the Jewish State of Israel. (emphasis added.)
That struck me as an odd locution. But it turns out that it is increasingly common on Capitol Hill. A Google search shows it used about 46 times at house.gov. All but two come after Netanyahu first raised the issue.
Martha, my friend from a well-loved past life, went on a Birthright trip this past June. We met up on her way through New York from Boston to JFK. She was anxious about her impending adventure, anticipating propaganda and a space closed to multiple and alternative narratives. “Ask your questions,” I said, as we waited for her airport shuttle near the Sbarro’s on 34th street, getting drizzled on from above by what we both hoped was an air conditioner. “Don’t pressure yourself to feel a certain way.’ Then she got in the van, and I got on the subway. In the time Martha and I had known each other, we’d talked about Israel a lot, I’d told her my experience with Birthright (at this point, I’d been once or twice and had yet to staff a trip, now I’ve been five times and staffed three trips), we’d evaluated what we perceived to be its merits and challenges, and I suggested a trip provider for her, the one she was about to travel with. For the sake of our relationship and the next 10 days of her life, I hoped she was going down a path that would be right for her. Since she came back, we’ve been talking a lot, mainly about how hard it is to return and process things like politics, identity, and Zionism when the experience is still so raw, and what it means to be in relationship with a place that makes you crazy.
Martha: Why does no one talk about how amazingly difficult the first week back is? Everyone I’ve talked to from my group is having a hard time. None of us are sleeping well and we’re all waking up in the middle of the night confused.
Me: I told someone once when I came back that it’s like losing your luggage, except your luggage is your brain and your heart. It’s interesting that you’re not explicitly prepped for how emotional the reentry can be. I never want to make people feel like they’re not feeling the “right” things in Israel, or about it, so maybe that’s why I’ve never talked about it when I staffed. I mean, I talk about how I feel, but I don’t want to create pressure for others to feel that way, but perhaps that’s not possible. Do you think your shock/adjustment stuff has to do with your politics being influenced? Or is it largely emotional?
Martha: The political is emotional. For other people it might be more just about emotions, but everyone goes on Birthright for different reasons and for me it was in large part because I wanted to understand the politics better. That has meant that for me a lot of what I am processing is political. I had a pretty good feeling that the trip would influence my spirituality and Jewish identity and I was able to think about it ahead of time — not that those haven’t also been an adjustment, but they didn’t surprise me. I went into the trip wanting to be open to letting my spiritual and cultural identity get shaped. I think the trip is designed to create emotional response and even though I had my guard up and was trying to keep a critical lens, it did affect me emotionally, though I didn’t start to realize that until we were in Jerusalem at the end of the trip. Still, I don’t think I cried as much as other people and I don’t think I cried as much as I would have if I wasn’t trying to be so analytical .
Me: Do you think this is a culture shock? How is it different from the way you’ve felt after returning from other places?
Martha: I don’t feel culture shock about Israel in the same way. I’ve traveled a lot and I know what culture shock feels like for me, but this is completely different. What I’m feeling now is more confusion, like how can I love somewhere that’s so messed up, but still so amazing and beautiful? I loved the places I saw and the people I met. How do I integrate Israel’s policies with my own very liberal politics? How can I support Israel while also condemning some of its government’s policies? What does it mean to support Israel and be a liberal American? How can I learn more about Israeli politics and history when everything I can find is contradictory? What does this experience mean for my spiritual identity and cultural identity? Should I just join go and join J date?
Me: Okay, I have to ask about your relationship to Zionism.
Martha: Has it changed? I’m not sure. When I was in college my very wise Hillel director {that well loved past life I mentioned above was when I was the Jewish Campus Life Lady at Oberlin, M’s alma mater} told me that Zionism doesn’t mean that Palestine shouldn’t exist, it just means Israel should. I still think that. I wanted to be able to go on Birthright and learn without changing who I am and what I care about. I don’t support everything the IDF is doing, but based on conversations I had with people, I understand more about why they feel it is necessary. But as a fairly (uber?) liberal, my Facebook friends are more likely to post statuses in support of the Flotilla than they are about the housing crisis in Israel. (Our interview took place before the housing protests had reached the pitch of the past few weeks and before they’d breached the ears and eyes of the American media.) It’s not like I’m uncritical of Israel’s government and policies now, but to a certain extent I feel like I can now discuss things better. I think that’s one of the biggest tangibles out of the experience; while I don’t necessarily support the politics and policies, I can better understand why they exist and I’m better prepared to admit that I don’t know everything and that there’s nothing black and white about the entire situation. This is the case with everything I’ve been processing, not just Zionism. I actually think that my relationship to Zionism has been one of the easiest piece of the trip to process because it hasn’t really changed.
Me: You and I have talked about our difference in experiences with the Israelis on the trip, I’ve said that I haven’t really felt that closeness with the soldiers on the trips I’ve staffed. I usually attribute that to being a staff member, and also, how freaked out I am about how bad my Hebrew is. Talk about why you think it was different for you.
Martha: I think there are two pieces to that. First off, I barely knew any Hebrew before the trip and didn’t set any expectations for myself about learning any. Given my past experiences with people whose dominant language isn’t one I speak, I’m also pretty comfortable figuring out ways to make things work linguistically. Our Israelis’ English was impeccable though, and they were really good about giving us recaps and then including us when they would occasionally would switch to Hebrew. The second part is that our Israelis were incredible and just like the Birthright information says, having them with us was a highlight of the trip. They became fully-integrated into the group and after they left the bus felt much emptier. I miss them and wish it was as easy to make plans to see them as it is with the American group members. My trip was also 25+, so most of the Israelis were students or graduates and no longer involved with the IDF. I don’t know if perhaps being in more similar places in life may have also made it easier to get to know each other.
It’s now been two months since her trip, and we continue to process. As a friend of ours said, “Welcome to the Israel-Fucks-You-Up-Club.” (We have very smart friends.) Martha had planned stay in Israel after the trip was over, to travel around the country and to the West Bank, but because of plane schedules, she couldn’t. “When I realized I wasn’t going to be able to stay, I practically broke down,” she told me. Every day there’s something in the news, it seems, and the intellectual, emotional and political work of being engaged with Israel is relentless. exhausting and complicated, to say the least. Martha said, “It’s easier for me to focus on the political situation, because it’s more external. The spiritual and the identity pieces are a lot harder to figure out because they take soul searching and an internalized focus. “
Here are two spectacular opportunities to get involved with justice work through Jews United For Justice, DC’s local Jewish social justice organization.
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Are you age ~25-35 and interested in learning about Jewish social justice activism? The Jeremiah Fellowship is a transformative 9-month program combining a thoughtful exploration of progressive Judaism with training in effective social justice activism and education on local DC justice issues. Fellows gather on alternating Wednesday nights for skills training, conversation about Jewish values, and intimate conversations with each other and with local activists, organizers, scholars, and rabbis. In the words of one of last year’s Fellows, Jeremiah “was beyond awesome. Transformative! Inspiring! Young D.C.-area Jews interested in social justice: apply!”
Read more about the program here and download an application here. Applications are due Monday, August 22, although earlier applications are encouraged.
Can’t apply yourself this year? Invite your friends and colleagues and pass the word on!
Email jeremiah at jufj.org or call 202-408-1423 x2 with any questions.
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Are you age 21-26 and looking for a full-time job in DC? Come work with Jews United for Justice and help make the Washington region more equal and just by organizing the Jewish community to support workers’ rights, immigrant rights, and key safety net programs that benefit the most vulnerable in our community. This unique opportunity is offered through AVODAH: The Jewish Service Corps, and combines stipended full-time work with group living and weekly opportunities to learn about ways to make change in the world and the Jewish connection to social justice. Candidates must be able to start in DC by August 28 to participate in AVODAH orientation.
After making “social justice” his sworn enemy in America, Glenn Beck is now turning to help the Jews purge these “Marxist code words” from the land of his Lord and Savior too. Beck on Israel’s largest citizen mobilization in a generation: “They are a group of Leftists that want to take down Netanyahu’s government and receive housing and food for free.”
American-funded tabloid Yisrael Hayom reported that Beck’s rally to restore courage in Jerusalem will feature American right-wing heavyweights:
Among others taking part in the event will be actors John Voigt and Chuck Norris, Senators Joe Lieberman, Orrin Hatch and Jim DeMint, and two Republican presidential nomination candidates. Also arriving will be a group of Congressmen including Eric Cantor, the highest ranking Jewish member of the House of Representatives.
This week of my summer is made possible by Amherst, Massachusetts, cats, and Netflix. For a while in my queue has been a documentary called Lord, Save Us From Your Followers,directed by Dan Merchant, who wears a jumpsuit covered with bumper-stickers throughout the entire 104 minutes. The focus of the film is America’s “Culture Wars,” and Merchant, himself an Evangelical Christian, travels around the country gently challenging people to respond to his various bumper stickers, as well as asking folks what they think about Christianity. The film’s tagline is : “If you were to meet ten average Americans on the street, nine of them would say they believe in God. So why is the Gospel of Love dividing America?” Without totally ruining things, because you should see the film, Merchant’s theory is that Christians percieve themeselves differently than how they are actually perceived, and proceeds to sniff out why that might be true.
At the end of the film, Merchant profiles a Portland, Oregon project called Operation Nightwatch, which addresses the needs of Portland’s homeless community. In addition to providing food, medical care, and other basic resources to folks, people can also socialize and build important relationships. St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church houses the project, and also offers Bible study and services. Folks involved tell Merchant that they would love for the people they’re helping to find Jesus, but in the meantime, they’re making changes and forming relationships.
Like any direct service project, there are problems with this, but there was a scene in this sequence that hit me particularly hard, and it featured one of the homeless folks having their feet and hair washed by a church volunteer. (No, the biblical significance of feet washing did not escape me.) My instinct was to try to remember if I could recall any Jews or Jewish organizations doing work like this. I’m not talking about direct service, or about helping the homeless, but rather, the level of intimacy that comes with physical contact.
There’s an anecdote in Rabbi Jill Jacobs’ new book in which a religious school teacher asks if there’s a place to just drop off the sandwiches the children have made for the homeless, because their parents don’t want them to have any actual contact with homeless people. Washing someone’s hair and feet is an act that requires confrontation with people we are afraid of, people we’re supposed to avoid. Why aren’t we collectively educating Jews about what it means to really have a relationship with someone?
Have we absorbed and internalized whiteness to such a degree that we think we’re above building relationships in such direct, unflinching ways? In Merchant’s film, it is white Christian men, the ultimate power base, at the helm of these projects. What would it take to change our own paradigm towards one of intimacy, mutual vulnerability, rather than what’s safe for us but keeps others at arm’s length?
This amazing post was written by a friend of Jewschool.
You may know Oliver and Abigail, the Social Justice Tourists. They swoop into a deprived area, get their hands dirty for a week, and then fly home feeling all good about themselves.
This is a post about spiritual tourism and the Ninth of Av. More »
I’m going to try something a bit new here and take a close look at the data analyses from a single study. I chose this particular study, The Impact and Lessons of Taglit‐Birthright Israel by Saxe et al, because someone asked my opinion about it and I thought it did some things very well. I think the data supports some interesting findings, although it includes some all-to-common misinterpretations of statistical results. I want to say at the outset that, although I have some critiques of this study, topics worth studying rarely give easily interpretable results. The authors make a positive contribution to the discussion. I’m also impressed that Taglit-Birthright Israel has worked to include data collection and analysis as part of their mission. Their data collection and fairly frequent publications are what make quantitative discussion of Birthright Israel possible.
The primary goal of this specific study was to examine whether participation in Taglit-Birthright Israel affected attitudes towards in-marriage vs intermarriage (and later marriage rates) and views on raising children as Jews regardless of the spouse’s religion. This examination of actual marriage rates is now possible because the 2001-2004 cohort of Birthright attendees now have a sufficient population of participants who’ve married to run statistical analyses on their marriage choices. Most of the examinations of attitudes come from surveys conducted 3 months before and 3 months after 2008 Birthright trips.
The article’s starts with a nuanced discussion that puts concerns that intermarriage will destroy Judaism in the context of existing research. I was surprised to learn that 15.4% of the 2001-2004 applicants to Birthright Israel had a non-Jewish parent while 24% of the 2008 applicants had a non-Jewish parent. That large of a jump in just a few years means that Birthright is increasingly attracting children who doomsayers consider lost to Judaism. More »
I love review copies-I love when they arrive in the mail, I love having them in my hands, and I love the smell of new book. I wish they made an air freshener with that smell, and a shampoo and a soap, because I would buy a lot of them.
Recently, I got a review copy of Rabbi Jill Jacobs’ latest book, Where Justice Dwells: A Hands On Guide to Doing Justice in Your Jewish Community. (Jewish Lights 2011) It’s arrived at a particularly salient time for me, as I wonder what’s tying me to this Jewish thing, and how I can have a connection to something without knowing what the fabric of that connection is.
Jacobs’ book is many things-a manual for organizers, a resource for folks looking for relevant Jewish texts, beyond what Jacobs calls the “Tzedek Tzedek tirdof (Justice, justice shall you pursue) Syndrome of using a short, well known verse to claim legitimacy for a position, and a place to access insights about the relationship of Jews to power, poverty and change.
This is not a book that coddles. This is a book for those who are serious about building and infusing a culture of social justice into their Jewish lives, institutional and otherwise. If you’re looking to feel good about taking part in that last Mitzvah Day at your shul, be prepared. Jacobs challenges and dissects not only the concept of one day service projects, but also direct service work, advocacy, text study and community organizing, asserting that in order to make change, these vehicles must be employed together.
Jacobs confronts and dismantles the concept the idea that there are Jewish and non Jewish issues (as well as political and non political ones), and that somehow, we might be exempt from dealing with that which we consider to be outside Jewish community purview. Insularity is not only impossible, it’s dangerous.
My favorite chapter in the book is ’Partnerships and Power,’ which offers an essential and compelling analysis of the value that comes with working with folks of various ethnic, religious, socio-economic and racial identities (to name a few) in a manner that transcends the beneficiary-recipient model-” white and upper middle class people as experts and donors, and low-income people and people of color as needy and passive.”
Gd knows the American Jewish community needs a reality check when it comes to power, and here it is in this chapter. Jacobs cites the gap between “Jewish self perception and the ways in which other communities view the Jewish community,” as well the cycle that leads to Jews having some access to power, resulting in our becoming a target of anti Semitism and realizing that those above will not protect us. If we are to form meaningful partnerships, it’s vital, Jacobs argues, that we engage with partners when anti Semitic tropes emerge, such as those around money, and do the work of confronting our own assumptions while holding others accountable.
There’s much in this book I’m not mentioning-the splendid attention Jacobs pays to story telling as a tool for organizing, the guidelines and questions for consideration that help one locate themselves in this work, the discussions on community investment, Jacobs’ call to lead ”intergrated” Jewish lives, where we see social justice as a part of our spiritual practice, and her imperative for us to commit authentically to places and revisit and reconceptualize doykayt- hereness, investment in one’s home.
Read this book. Copy the forms (the publisher says you can!) and use them. Dog ear the pages and warp them with attention. Seriously.
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