More than anyone in recent memory, Matthew Hess is testing the old adage that there’s no such thing as bad publicity. After Nancy Appel of the Anti-Defamation League released a statement condemning his comic Foreskin Man for its “grotesque anti-Semitic imagery,” many prominent intactivists felt the need to distance themselves from him and his organization MGMBill.org. Moreover, the furor over Foreskin Man undoubtedly contributed to the pressure that ultimately shut down the ballot initiative in Santa Monica. Over the past month, many people have been asking me whether Matthew Hess is an anti-Semite. I don’t know the man, so I decided to contact him and ask him some questions. Below are his unedited responses: More »
On June 16 the California legislature passed SB 104—the Fair Treatment for Farmworkers Act. The United Farm Workers have been organizing a series of actions to urge Governor Brown to sign the bill. On
Martin Sheen and the Mayor at the start of the march at City Hall
Friday there was a march from City Hall to the Ronald Reagan State Office Building where the governor’s offices are, followed by a press conference at which Mayor Antonio Villaraigrossa, Martin Sheen, two farmworkers, Angelica Salas, the Executive Director of CHIRLA and I and two other members of the clergy spoke. This is what I said:
Two summers ago many of us were gathered not far from here at a memorial gathering for 15 farm workers who had died in the fields because of a lack of shade or water or breaks, but mainly because of a failure to recognize that every single person is created in the image of God. It is two years later and we are finally on the verge of taking a large step forward towards rectifying all the wrongs that result from not recognizing that the workers who toil in the fields and pick our food are created in the image of God.
When the greatest of all Jewish philosophers, Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, called Maimonides, needed to answer the question: What is the greatest perfection of all? He said it is knowing God. What, he continued, does it mean to know God? Does it mean to know that God is one? Does it mean to know that God is of a completely different nature from people? No, he said. Knowing God means understanding that God’s purpose is to create justice on this earth. The one who truly knows God, therefore, is the one who works to create a just society. Justice comes from recognizing that every other human being is created in the image of God and therefore I have an obligation to hear their cries when they are vulnerable, and to work to allow them the means to live in dignity; to support themselves from hard work; to organize to better themselves; to treat them as people created in the image of God—because that is what they are.
This is not charity. This is not a gift. This is my obligation, our obligation as people who want to do justice, who want to live in a just society, who want to hear the word of God.
The Bible tells us:
20 You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.
21 You shall not ill-treat any widow or orphan.
22 If you do mistreat them, I will heed their outcry as soon as they cry out to Me,
23 and My anger shall blaze forth and I will put you to the sword, and your own wives shall become widows and your children orphans.
In the thirteenth century Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman commented on this:
[God] says “you shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him” and think that he has no one to save him from your hands, for you know that you were strangers in the land of Egypt and I saw the manner in which the Egyptians oppressed you and I wreaked vengeance upon them, for I see “the tears of the oppressed with none to comfort them; and the power of their oppressors—with none to comfort them.” (Ecclesiastes 4:1) I, however, save all people from those stronger than them (cf. Psalms 35:10). So, too, “you shall not ill-treat any widow or orphan,” (Exodus 22:21) for I will hear their cries, for all these people do not have faith in themselves, but they can have faith in Me.
Rabbi Aryeh Cohen speaking at the end of the march.
The Pharaohs always think that their strength and power, their profits and political contributions will win in the end. We are here today to say that, in the end, righteousness will win, justice will win. If we don’t fulfill our obligations towards these workers and towards all workers, salvation might come from another quarter but we run the risk of ending up as the detritus strewn on the side of the road towards redemption.
Governor Brown, sign the FAIR TREATMENT FOR FARM WORKERS ACT.
To sign the petition asking Gov. Brown to sign the act go here.
So this time of the year we are all asking ourselves the great question: how can I get my car cleaned and not support the exploitative practices of most carwashes? Well, if you are in the Los Angeles area there is an answer. Temple Beth Am (with support from CLUE LA and cheering from Shtibl) is sponsoring a Car Wash for Justice. This is a chance to clean your car before Pesach and, at the same time, support carwashers who were locked out and fired from the Marina Car Wash (for organizing activities).
When: April 10, 9am-noon
Where: Temple Beth Am parking lot
1039 S. La Cienega Blvd
Los Angeles Ca 90035
Car Wash includes: * Waterless Hand Wash * Interior Vacuum * Windows * Tires/Rims
Suggested Donation: Wash: $15 Wax (wash included): $35
Interior Detail (this is L.A.): $100 Compact Car $130 SUV/Truck
After you watch the video you should read the whole issue—which is about metaphor in all its religious and linguistic complexity. (Okay, some of its complexity.) For JSers keeping count, Danya Ruttenberg has a piece in the issue, as do I.
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.
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.”
In yesterday’s NYT, Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize winning economist and voice of conscience, stated very clearly the current divide in American politics.
One side of American politics considers the modern welfare state — a private-enterprise economy, but one in which society’s winners are taxed to pay for a social safety net — morally superior to the capitalism red in tooth and claw we had before the New Deal. It’s only right, this side believes, for the affluent to help the less fortunate.
The other side believes that people have a right to keep what they earn, and that taxing them to support others, no matter how needy, amounts to theft. That’s what lies behind the modern right’s fondness for violent rhetoric: many activists on the right really do see taxes and regulation as tyrannical impositions on their liberty.
Unfortunately, this is a very old debate, and its not only between Democrats and Republicans. This is the argument of the Sodomites who, according to the prophet Ezekiel, hoarded their resources and refused to allow outsiders in. The Rabbis saw Sodom as the epitome of small minded, harmful greed—greed that eventually leads to its own destruction.
Since the New Deal was passed, when America seemed to recognize its responsibility to its needy citizens as part of its political obligations, the forces of ownership and greed have been pushing back. The politics of Sodom have been gaining ground. Todays “radical” policies, as Krugman points out, are policies that Republicans proposed three decades ago. It is time then, it seems to me, for a primer on the politics of Sodom.
In Pirkei Avot the rabbis said (5:10):
There are four [character] types:
One who says “What is mine is mine, and what is yours is yours”…this is the character of Sodom.
“What is mine is yours, and what is yours is mine,” this is an ignorant person.
“What is mine is yours, and what is yours is yours,” this is a righteous person
“What is mine is mine, and what is yours is mine,” this is an evil person.
Why is the one who says “What is mine is mine, and what is yours is yours” a Sodomite? The Bible supplies the answer. The prophet Ezekiel (16:49) describes Sodom as follows: “Only this was the sin of your sister Sodom: arrogance! She and her daughters had plenty of bread and untroubled tranquility, yet she did not support the poor and the needy.” Sodom was punished for hoarding rather than distributing her resources. For the Sages, the apparently legal justification that ownership is the ultimate basis for the distribution of resources was insidious. That is, according to the Rabbis, there is more to collective life than asserting that what is mine is mine.
by Aryeh Cohen [➚] · Thursday, December 23rd, 2010
From Gershom Gorenberg over at South Jerusalem:
At 10:03 on Monday morning, Osama Rusrus phoned from Beit Umar in the West Bank with wonderful news: His wife Sunya and daughter Dalal had crossed through the checkpoint into Jerusalem, on their way to Alyn Hospital.
It took nearly two months of wrangling with the Israeli authorities, especially the agency that never signs its name, and it was touch and go till the last moment.
Before I tell the story, let me note that this is just an early chapter. The next chapter is getting Dalal the full treatment she needs at Alyn, in order to allow her to live as fully as a girl with brain damage can. Right now she is unable to walk, has use of one hand, and has a vocabulary of one word. Treatment, according to Dr. Eliezer Be’eri of Alyn Hospital, will allow her “to develop to her potential, whatever that is” and enjoy a greater quality of life. It will require a lot of money. If you want to help, read on, or just go here.
Be’eri met with Osama and his daughter Dalal in October to give an initial assessment of her condition and of whether Alyn could help her. Dalal is three-and-a-half years old and has suffered since birth from brain damage that has drastically slowed her development. (An account of that meeting is here.) Neither Osama nor his wife Sunya were able to enter Jerusalem, so Be’eri performed that initial examination on the patio of the Everest Hotel outside Beit Jalla in the West Bank.
Be’eri’s assessment was that Dalal not only could benefit from treatment, but needed to begin quickly. He arranged for a multi-disciplinary examination at Alyn, and made sure it was scheduled as “urgent.” With Alyn’s letter, Osama requested a permit to enter Jerusalem.
Shaul Magid has an interesting discussion of Art Green’s new book Radical Judaismtogether with the reviews of the book, asking the question: “What does it all mean?” Here’s the punch-line:
These three reviews illustrate three levels of anxiety Jews feel about their theological future. The anxiety is not really about Green’s proposal as much as the realization that something must be done to create a theologically-relevant Judaism and no one really knows what to do. Mirsky’s questions about “survival” and the ever-present threat of the dissolution of the particular are well-placed and Green and others need to address them seriously. Wolpe’s anxiety about syncretism and the un-Jewishness of contemporary Radical Judaism is an instantiation of what I have called the paranoia of assimilation. If Judaism cannot learn to live with this syncretism, that is, with the normalization of un-Jewishness in its Judaism, it may be doomed. In America, Jews have learned to live comfortably with non-Jews in productive and mutually respectful ways. The next step may be learning to make the borders of Judaism more permeable. Landes seems to be threatened by everything that stands outside his own imaginative “Judaism.”
But you should read the whole thing here then come back and comment.
A Guest blog by Rob Kutner. Rob was a writer on The Daily Show and is currently writing for Conan on TBS
We can probably all agree Pharaoh’s vision of the seven fat/lean cows/corns is the most memorable dream about agricultural policy in history. But Pharaoh’s own recounting of the cow dream reveals one of the themes animating this week’s parsha.
In describing how the lean cows ate the fat cows (Gen. 41:21), Pharaoh adds an extra nuance not found in the original description of that dream: “v’lo noda ki va’oo el kirbenah u’mareyhen ra” – “You couldn’t tell that [the lean cows] had swallowed [the fat cows], they [still] looked bad.”
In other words, perhaps ravenous consumption doesn’t always cure what ails us.
That idea also comes at us in a different way through looking at the curious titling of the parsha. In the midst of a sea of Vav-parshiyot (Vayetze, Vayishlach, Vayesheve, and next week’s Vayigash), suggesting a continuous flow of events, Miketz (or, “on the edge/end”), suggests a radical break.
Rashi finds an analogue in “Miketz sheva shanim” (“at the end of seven years”) (Deuteronomy 15:1), when the Shmitta year would go into effect, and all debts would be cancelled.
The Shmitta was a time when all “receiving” of money stopped – another check on the notion of continuous consumption.
It’s also taught (see e.g. Rashi to Genesis 35:29) that, at this pivotal moment in the Joseph/Egypt narrative, when Pharaoh has the dream that ends up springing Joseph from prison and into Egyptian royalty, Isaac died. Quite a holiday card that year from the Jacob Family.
But in Kabbalistic terms, Isaac (with his life of acquisition and preservation) represents the Desire to Receive, whereas hospitable Abraham represents the Desire to Give – and Joseph is the kav emtzai (“middle column”) that balances the two.
However, before Joseph can come to play that pivotal role, his Desire to Receive must come to an end. The Zohar says that is the end that the word “Miketz” refers to.
And indeed, Joseph’s life can be seen as one of struggling between the desires to give and receive. As a youth, he publicly anounced his dreams of receiving adulation from others. As a servant in Potiphar’s house, he nobly refused to take his master’s wife. But after interpreting the Cupbearer’s dream, he still asked a price: Having the Cupbearer bring his case before Pharaoh.
Now, however, Joseph comes before Pharaoh and simply interprets, with no desire to receive anything – even describing his role in the process as “Biladi” (“without me”).
Joseph has finally become a person of pure giving. Even his machinations against his brothers take on this form: He sends their money back with them, literally unable to take anything. When he has them dine with him, he gives Benjamin five times the food he gives everyone else.
Paradoxically, the moment he renounces receiving is the moment Joseph begins receiving everything: freedom from captivity, career, power, wife and children, his own brothers and father back, and the opportunity to save the world (as he knew it) from starvation.
It’s a good lesson for us. Remember the place Joseph was in when he made this radical ketz: imprisoned, cast out by his family, abandoned by even the Cupbearer who’d been his one way out, two long years prior. Joseph’s response: set desire aside in full and dedicate yourself fully to giving.
How often do we feel imprisoned: in our careers, in our personal relationships, in traffic. What if we could seize hold of that moment by looking the Universe in the eye and daring to find something to give? A smile, to the jerk cutting you off in traffic; an unsolicited and undeserved compliment to your tormentor at the office; even “giving in” to a loved one with whom you’ve had a sustained argument. Begin the day with a token contribution to some kind of tzedakah, a nickel in the pushke, and end it with 5 minutes of time given to another or another’s cause. Just try it for one day, and at the very least, you’ll be reminded of your very real freedom to fashion yourself.
This isn’t turning the other cheek. It’s turning the tide of nonstop taking that our society, if not our world, seems to be built upon.
Nowhere is this more evident than in December – when the consumption parade of Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Even Further in Debt to China Tuesday, etc. beats our holiday of tiny beautiful miracles into a one-upsmanship of gift-giving.
So why not turn back the tide a little this Hanukkah? Change night 8 from a night of gifts to one of giving? Donate the intended presents to the needy or ailing. Hold a family discussion on a cause important to all, and make a plan to spend time together working on it between now and next year.
Obviously, we’ll never completely eliminate the desire to receive. It’s in part what makes us human. But by working a little harder at giving, we can make a “ketz” – an end – to desire’s crushing grip over us. And just possibly, like Joseph, a beginning of much greater things.
So Howard Jacobson at the New York Times has weighed in with this year’s compulsory whining about how lame Hanukkah is. The “new” twist is complaining about dreidel—and the fact that “Hasmonean” is a funny word.
Those Hasmoneans, for example …. The Maccabees are fair enough: they sound Jewish. Scottish Jewish but still Jewish. There was a sports and social club called the Maccabi round the corner from where I was brought up in North Manchester, and as a boy I imagined the Maccabees as stocky, short-legged, hairy men like the all-conquering Maccabi table tennis team. But “Hasmoneans” rang and rings no bells.
Then, to see this lameness and raise it one more unit of vapidity (there’s gotta be a scientific measure of vapidity), Marc Tracy at Tablet rags on the dreidel game
Oh, and raise your hand if you’ve ever actually made your dreidel out of clay? I thought so.
and uses the Jacobson piece as his prooftext.
Lets hear it for Jewish though and opinion (and the newspaper of record).
(Hat tip to the Seforim Blog, which had a niece piece about dreidel with, you know, history, facts and stuff… I know–boring.)
This essay by Rabbi Yehuda Gilad one of the ramim or teachers at Yeshivat Maale Gilboa might actually be a significant development in the slow motion and excruciating implosion of the Israeli Rabbinate. Here’s the punch line:
As important as issues such as kashrut, Shabbat and religious services are, there is currently no Jewish communal matter that comes close to approaching the significance of this challenge upon which our future here as a Jewish state rests. We must admit and say honestly, the current Chief Rabbinate (with all due respect to the many fine individuals who make up its ranks), as an institution, has neither the desire nor the ability to cope with this challenge. Unfortunately, it buries its head in the sand, and even kowtows to the Chareidi community, which is ambivalent at best, and antagonistic at worst to the very state the Rabbinate is meant to serve.
Despite the pain and difficulty involved in breaking with this institution that we had great dreams for, I hereby call upon the lay people and the Rabbis of the religious-Zionist community to say openly what many of us have already felt in our hearts for some time. The Chief Rabbinate has run its course.
by Aryeh Cohen [➚] · Thursday, November 11th, 2010
War is evil. It is incumbent upon us always to remember the victims of the institution of war and our culpability in the very fact that wars are still fought.
These are the American soldiers who died since the beginning of the month. Their average age is 24 and a half years old. They are not heroes. They are dead. Today we should remember them-they fought and died because we sent them to fight.
Spc. Jonathan M. Curtis, 24, of Belmont, Mass. died Nov. 1 in Kandahar, Afghanista.
Pfc. Andrew N. Meari, 21, of Plainfield, Ill. died Nov. 1 in Kandahar, Afghanistan.
Sgt. 1st Class Todd M. Harris, 37, of Tucson, Ariz., died Nov. 3 in Badghis province, Afghanistan.
Spc. James C. Young, 25, of Rochester, Ill., died Nov. 3 in Kandahar province, Afghanistan.
1st Lt. James R. Zimmerman, 25, of Aroostook, Maine, died Nov. 2 while conducting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.
Spc. Blake D. Whipple, 21, of Williamsville, N.Y., died Nov. 5 in Ghazni province, Afghanistan.
Sgt. Michael F. Paranzino, 22, of Middletown, R.I., died Nov. 5 in Kandahar, Afghanistan.
Lance Cpl. Brandon W. Pearson, 21, of Arvada, Colo. died Nov. 4 while conducting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.
Lance Cpl. Matthew J. Broehm, 22, of Flagstaff, Ariz. died Nov. 4 while conducting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.
Pfc. Shane M. Reifert, 23, of Cottrellville, Mich., died Nov. 6 in Kunar province, Afghanistan.
Staff Sgt. Jordan B. Emrick, 26, of Hoyleton, Ill., died Nov. 5 while conducting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.
Lance Cpl. Randy R. Braggs, 21, of Sierra Vista, Ariz., died Nov. 6 while conducting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.
Sgt. Aaron B. Cruttenden, 25, of Mesa, Ariz. died Nov. 7 in Kunar province, Afghanistan.
Spc. Dale J. Kridlo, 33, Hughestown, Pa. died Nov. 7 in Kunar province, Afghanistan.
Spc. Andrew L. Hutchins, 20, of New Portland, Maine, died Nov. 8 at Khost province, Afghanistan.
Spc. Anthony Vargas, 27, of Reading, Pa., died Nov. 8 in Nangarhar province, Afghanistan.
2nd Lt. Robert M. Kelly, 29, of Tallahassee, Fla., died Nov. 9 while conducting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.
Sgt. Jason J. McCluskey, 26, of McAlester, Okla., died Nov. 4 at Zarghun Shahr, Mohammad Agha district, Afghanistan.
Lance Cpl. Dakota R. Huse, 19, of Greenwood, La., died Nov. 9 while conducting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.
The wonderful Israeli poet Ruhama Weiss captures in this poem, I think, the deep sadness and the deeper responsibility of this moment. Its from her book Shmirah. When I read it, it touched me very deeply and I thought “This is part of what I mean when I say u’netanehtokef.” This is my translation (with the permission of the author):
Things that I hope that you don’t yet know for my child
That there is someone in the world who wants to kill you.
That there is not much to do about it.
That it is not wholly accurate that there will always be someplace to escape to.
That I was approximately your age when I discovered that home does not really provide protection.
What helps me fall asleep.
That you might not reach my age.
That you might kill children.
That what we saw today on the television was not a joke.
That the history that I know does not succeed in calming me down.
That you have no idea how scary it can be.
Julie Weise, Shtibl member and smart person, has written an important piece about the anti-14th amendmentagitation–looking at countries (Germany, Israel, Japan) who don’t grant citizenship on the basis of being born in their territory. Her bottom line:
We can already see the future of our nation if it renounces birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants, and it isn’t pretty. Dragging economies, new forms of fraud, a disenfranchised underclass, children deported to places they have never even visited — countries that do not have birthright citizenship have experienced these problems and more, and have been forced to reconsider their practices. Germany, Israel and Japan are just three of those countries, and their experiences have much to teach us.
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. 
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