by chillul Who? [➚] · Wednesday, February 18th, 2009
The Avodah/AJWS Partnership, along with a host of other Jewish org.s and media, wants you to be at the Contemporary Jewish Museum this sunday for an afternoon of workshops, learning, and and performance designed to inform, inspire, and energize.
Inside the Activists’ Studio
Sunday, February 22, 2009 Contemporary Jewish Museum
736 Mission St, SF
3:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. Registration begins at 2:30 p.m.
Panel discussion with: Ahri Golden, Founder of Thin Air Media Ari Derfel, Founder of Back to Earth Organic Catering and Outdoor Adventures Joanna Levitt, Co-Director of the International Accountability Project Josh Becker, Founder and Board Chair, Full Circle Fund
Moderated by: Adrienne Fitch-Frankel, Co-Host of Terra Verde, the weekly environmental radio program on KPFA, and Fair Trade Campaign Director at Global Exchange
Live Performance:
Excerpt from the critically acclaimed theatre play Angry White Black Boy by Dan Wolf, adapted from the novel by Adam Mansbach.
Skills-share workshops with: Cole Krawitz, Communications Consultant and Founder of JVoices.com Dan Wolf, Actor, Writer, MC of Felonius and Program Manager of The Hub at JCCSF Joanna Levitt, Co-Director of the International Accountability Project Samantha Witman, Co-existence Educator Julie Dorf, Consultant, Horizons Foundation and Senior Advisor for Council of Global Equality Naomi Starkman, Food Policy Media Consultant, Former Director of Communications and Policy of Slow Food Nation, and Co-Founder of Civil Eats Zelig Golden, Staff Attorney, Center for Food Safety and Co-Chair of the 2008 Hazon Food Conference
This past Tuesday evening I had the immense pleasure of attending Gershom Gorenberg’s talk at the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue in Washington, DC: “What We Talk About When We Talk About Israel”.
About seventy-five people were in there, mostly from the older generations and with the kind of focused interest that could only come from voraciously consuming news reports and commentary on Israel, from being fans of Gershom’s blog www.southjerusalem.com/, or both.
Gorenberg, a journalist and investigative historian, as well as an American-born Jewish Israeli, ranged across a number of topics. He mentioned the recent violence in and around Aza, 1967 Israeli government decision-making, anecdotes from his Israeli life, and the kinds of documents he uncovered while researching his book The Accidental Empire about Israel’s settlement project on lands conquered in the Six Day War. And during his time behind a small podium looking a lot more “charming uncle” and a lot less “love guru”-ish than you might expect from his online headshot, he even took some chuckle-worthy swipes at the last American administration, beginning his remarks: “It’s great to be speaking here in liberated Washington…”
Interestingly, many of his insights were psychological in nature. In short form, here are a few tidbits from his talk that stuck with me:
++ Few on either side of the Israeli/Palestinian divide seem to understand that their opponents will react the same way as anyone else would under attack: through increased militarism and solidarity. Israel’s actions strengthens Hamas, just as Hamas’s actions strengthen the Israeli right-wing (Likud and beyond).
++ The Zionist project was to create a Jewish state, which would be a democracy, on the full historic Jewish homeland. Two of these three things are currently feasible. Which would you drop?
++ The meaning and importance of having a ”Jewish state” is based in experiencing living as a majority: the feeling of being at home, where the external trappings of life/culture correspond to the internal/family ones. Of being unexceptional and ‘in tune’.
++ The one-state solution will not work because nationalism won’t go away for the forseeable future. At best, Canaan/”Israstine” would end up a basketcase like Belgium – at worst, a bloodbath like Bosnia or Lebanon.
++ Israel and the Jewish Diaspora are meant to have a symbiotic relationship: they share the cultural/societal benefits/discoveries of building/improving a Jewish-majority society, and we share the reminder of what it’s like to be an “other”/a minority — “Do not oppress the stranger. Remember that you were strangers in Egypt”.
++ Besides for the military-strategic and nationalistic reasons for not abandoning the Territories soon after 1967, it is likely that many top Israeli decision-makers, who had grown up in British Mandatory Palestine, were psychologically unwilling to cut apart again the seamless landscape they’d grown up in until 1948.
++ There is a dissonance between what we know (the Jewish people are weak, scattered, hated, and lost) and reality (the Jewish people are strong, linked, and more powerful and accepted than in thousands of years): this dissonance is reflected in two recent alternate-setting novels, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon, and The Plot Against America by Philip Roth. We relate more to the imagined Jews of a shaky Alaskan exile or of a Nazi-sympathizing USA than to ourselves.
++ Immediately after the Six-Day War, Israeli government legal experts warned of the possibilities of engendering an apartheid situation in the Territories. One explained how holding onto them without extending full citizenship to the residents was inappropriate in ”the current era of decolonialization”. It’s the same arguments over and over for the past 40 years.
++ Every other political/social question in Israel takes backseat to the Israeli-Arab conflict. The only times controversies like religion-state issues get full attention is during times when it seems like peace in on the way, like the early Oslo days.
++ Jews in the Diaspora constantly worry about saying things that are heard every day in Israeli media criticizing the Israeli government. Perhaps it is because we know that we disagree out of love for Israel, and we can’t assume the non-Jews around us have the same motivation.
++ The Jewish settlers in the West Bank who are least likely to move quietly back into Israel proper are also the least likely to live peaceably under Palestinian soveriegnty, no matter how functional.
++ Arguing for 400 years and not coming to a decision is okay in the Talmud. But when you’re running your own country, “choosing to not make a decision”, like Israel did about the Territories, is not an acceptable outcome.
The questions after the talk were interesting and diverse in topic, but the most interesting to me, and the most challenging by far, was the final one. A man (fluent in Hebrew — possibly Israeli?) towards the back wondered “where was the space for the Palestinian voice” in Gershom’s many references to “the [non-dysfunctional, democratic, Jewish, prosperous, meaningful] Israel we want to build”. (Emphasis mine.) He didn’t answer the question satisfactorily, perhaps because we were out of time. Or perhaps because it’s a deep, dangerous question about the moral limits of the idea of the nation-state and he didn’t want to go there. Anyway, it was a fascinating and entertaining evening. Check out his writings.
What follows is from a joint press release by the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs and the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago, “under the aegis of JCUA’s Jewish Muslim Community Building Initiative.” The JMCBI was created in late 2001 in response to increasing hate crimes against Muslims subsequent to the September 11th attacks. It has since grown into a project with a long-term, consistent focus on improving Muslim-Jewish understanding and respect.
(and you thought New York and Boston were the only places folks reacted to the violence in and around Aza by getting together to speak out for *peace*)
Joint Statement: Chicago Muslims and Jews Speak with One Voice on
Peace and Justice
We are representatives of Chicago’s Jewish and Muslim communities who have come together with shared values grounded in our respective faith traditions, in light of the recent events in the Middle East and the tragic loss of innocent life, to reaffirm our friendship and our mutual commitment to the preciousness of human life.
The Jewish and Muslim communities have lived peacefully side by side in Chicago for many years. Our respective communities have worked together in partnership to fight injustice, racism, poverty, and indifference.
From this position of solidarity and renewed friendship:
• We condemn anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.
• We affirm the preciousness of human life and the safety and security of the people in Gaza and Israel. The life of a Palestinian child and the life of an Israeli child are equally precious.
• We condemn wanton violence, human suffering, and targeting of innocent civilians.
• We pray for a Middle East where Israelis and Palestinians are safe from all forms of violence.
• We pray for continued friendship, and the growth and development in our understanding of one another.
• We pray for an end to the conditions that produce hopelessness.
• We commit to communicating and listening to each other throughout these difficult times.
• We commit to respecting each other even when we disagree.
• We commit to our ongoing relationship, not contingent upon agreement.
• We commit to supporting each other and protecting each other from hate and aggression.
• We embrace the message of hope, peace, and justice for all our communities.
We urge that as our respective communities gather for demonstrations, that the language and symbolism in our signs and chants, while protected by our precious right of freedom speech, do not cross lines and demonize the “other” or incorporate elements of anti-Semitism or Islamophobia.
We believe that these times must serve as a reminder for all of us, individually and institutionally, to redouble our efforts to build bridges with people of all faiths, races, and classes. Only then, will we stand—in all our diversity of opinions—as a united front against hatred, injustice and brutality, locally and abroad. Finally, we pray that our respective communities will be inspired to exemplify the Prophetic values of justice, compassion and courage in working together to bring a lasting peace to our community here and to our sacred region of the world.
Progressive Jews across the country are energized for the change arriving in just a few days in Washington, and the Avodah/AJWS Partnership (a league of superheroes if there ever was one) is organizing gatherings in three cities with local Jewish social justice groups.
Join a discussion on the new opportunities and challenges that face our tikun olam campaigns & causes, experience a special havdala service, watch the Inauguration Day events on a big screen, or just celebrate with your friends, family, and compatriots who are working to make the world a better place. See you at the celebrations!
If you’re in DC..
”Cashing in on the Change: Inauguration Celebration” (Avodah/AJWS, Jews United for Justice, Tikkun Leil Shabbat)
Time: Saturday, January 17th 2008 Place: The Theatre at Mt. Vernon Methodist Church. A map is here. RSVP: Click here.
We’re kicking off the night with a powerful Havdalah service led by Tikkun Leil Shabbat, to be followed by a panel and discussion about what the future may hold with a few Jewish Justice All-stars, including:
+ Ronit Avni, founder of Just Vision, which supports Israeli and Palestinian non-violent civic peace builders through media and education.
+ Ben Brandzel, formerly of MoveOn.org and now an online organizing consultant for progressive organizations such as SEIU and Avaaz.org.
+ Saul Garlick, founder of Student Movement for Real Change, supporting young people in their work for sustainable international development.
If you’re in NYC..
”INAUGURATION CELEBRATION!” (AJWS/AVODAH, the AJWS/AVODAH NY City Team, the New Israel Fund’s New Generations, the Young Leaders of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society)
At this Inauguration Celebration, we will:
+ Watch footage of President Barack Obama’s swearing in and his inaugural address, as well as other highlights from the inauguration festivities.
+ Party with our change-making friends in the Jewish social justice community and beyond.
+ Set our intentions for holding the new president accountable to his change-making agenda!
Mostly, we will celebrate new beginnings, together and in community. Time: Tuesday, January 20th @ 7pm Location: Sounds of Brazil (commonly known as SOB’s) Address: 204 Varick Street in Manhattan Cost: Free! To register (requested): Click here.
The event is being presented in collaboration with SOB’s Party for Change, the info for which can be found here.
Next week a new administration will take office, and in the first 100 days President-elect Barack Obama will begin laying out his plan. In this historic political moment, what’s YOUR vision for change and what will you do to help make it a reality?
Join:
+ Ben Winig, Municipal Attorney and Jewish Vote Deputy Director for Obama Campaign, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (who will be arriving from the Inauguration)
+ Sarah Church, Program Director, Progressive Jewish Alliance + Rabbi Lee Bycel, Western Region Executive Director, American Jewish World Service …and a community of socially-conscious Jewish folks for a night of reflecting, strategizing, connecting and taking action. Whether this year’s election countdown had you phone banking, door knocking, or just glued to CNN, take time to reexamine your role in your community, your country and your world.
REFLECT on the elections ~~ DREAM BIG about your vision for a more equitable world ~~ CONNECT with people and projects that are working to create a more socially just and caring society ~~ ACT in new ways big and small that promote tikkun olam ~~ BUILD a movement of social change makers working on critical issues, from prison reform to climate change!
Time: January 22, 2009. 7-9 pm Place: The Women’s Building, 3543 18th Street, SF. RSVP and questions to mayatrabin@gmail.com.
Dan set it up, now all that’s needed is people to broadcast the message…
On Sunday, January 11, a coalition of New York-based Jewish and Zionist organizations will be holding a mass demonstration outside of the Israeli consulate on 42nd Street and 2nd Avenue in unreserved support of Israel’s military action in the Gaza Strip. AIPAC, the ADL and several other groups will join forces to proclaim in the name of American Jewry that it is Israel’s right and responsibility to decimate Hamas, even at the cost of hundreds of civilian Palestinian lives and thousands more injured.
Also on Sunday, a mass demonstration by pro-Palestinian activists will transpire in Times Square, where protesters will condemn Israel’s actions in Gaza and — in all probability — justify Hamas’ attacks on Israeli civilians as a legitimate response to Israel’s blockade of Gaza, its multiple violations of the 2008 ceasefire agreement, and the international community’s failure to adequately address these matters.
Both of these groups will likely demonize one another — the Jews decrying the Palestinians and the pro-Palestinian activists maligning the Jews — each engaging in gross displays of hatred, and advocating not in favor of peace, but in one side’s victory over the other.
I wish to propose a third way: A counterdemonstration to both the pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian demonstrations. That is, I wish to propose a pro-peace demonstration.
I invite individuals who favor an immediate ceasefire, oppose the occupation, support the two state solution, and who believe in the rights of both Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace and security to join in action against those who justify violence and hatred on either side, and against those who claim a monopoly on representing our voices in this matter.
I wish to see not just a contingent waving Israeli flags and another waving Palestinian flags, but also a contingent waving Israeli and Palestinian flags together, carrying peace signs and banners with slogans like, “Fighting for peace is like f*cking for virginity” and “Peace cannot be achieved militarily.”
I call on all organizations — Jewish, Arab and otherwise — which advocate in favor of peace, dialogue and coexistence to join in this action by encouraging their constituents to come out in full-force. (If your organization is interested in cosponsoring this event please be in contact.)
Those who truly believe in peace should and must make a showing and demonstrate that there are significant number of us who differ from both sides in their responses to this latest round of violence.
We have been granted permission by the NYPD to assemble south of the consulate on 2nd Avenue near 41st Street from 11AM-1PM. I hope to see you there.
Yesterday I received a sensationalistic email from a local anti-war organization here in Maryland — one of an umbrella of groups I respected working on everything from verified voting to climate change — pushing a call from ANSWER Coalition for a Day of Action in Washington, DC to “Free Gaza”. When I wrote back pointing out that Hamas is no more the hero than the Israeli Gov’t, and that shouldn’t a group founded to oppose the Iraq War stick to its own message, I received about six paragraphs of Hamas cheerleading without a shred of pretense at objectivity, topped with patronizing advice to watch “foreign media” to educate myself.
After a short back-and-forth, the organizational director who was emailing me said he agreed with my contention that the situation was too complicated and that both Jews and Palestinians had too much righteousness, crime, and trauma for there to be any kind of clear heroes and villains; but he claimed that the Free Gaza Action (backed by two-state-rejectionists Al Awda and not a single Jewish peace group) was the ‘only game in town’. So I thank Dan for proving this guy wrong.
Land of chessed, land of blasphemy. What a free society will do to your children…
If you will it, it is no dream. How a young American writer penned a scandalous, riveting underground novel that single-handedly inspired the invention of Muslim punk rock.
Hanan Arzay, 15, is a daughter of Muslim immigrants from Morocco who lives in East Islip, N.Y. In the months after the Sept. 11 attacks, pedestrians threw eggs and coffee cups at the van that transported her to a Muslim school, she said, and one person threw a wine bottle, shattering the van’s window.
At school, her Koran teacher threw chalk at her for requesting literal translations of the holy book, Ms. Arzay said. After she was expelled from two Muslim schools, her uncle gave her “The Taqwacores.”
“This book is my lifeline,” Ms. Arzay said. “It saved my faith.”
Something about this story makes me think “Lower East Side yiddish culture, circa 1920″, and while I’m not into the idea of a band called “Vote Hezbollah”, it’s interesting to see similar processes of culture, immigration, religion, and rebellion across time.
Hashem yishmor on my poor hand… If I’d have known the Velveteen Rabbi was sending up a transcript, I could have saved 20 sheets of paper and an ache my wrist hasn’t felt since high school!
Remember the persistent media meme during the U.S. elections, how Israelis supported McCain by a three-to-one margin, how if Israel were the 51st State it would glow a deep and bloody red?
Lisa Goldman at On The Face provides some… um… actual numbers about Israeli opinion. Apparently the networks were oversampling the Nationalist-Religious sector – which despite making up a good portion of the American expat-oleh community, is still not representative of Israeli political leanings on the whole.
With all the grace of the Menendez Brothers begging the mercy of the court as orphans, the infamous Rubashkin clan (“The largest corporate suppliers of the desecration of God’s name in America, with the lowest prices around! Ten chilulei-hashem for 20 bucks. But for you? $19.95!”) and their cronies are at it again.
Voila: The “War On Kosher” petition site. My family’s neighborhood in Brooklyn had been coated in big black flyers with the WOK website’s address when I went home for Thanksgiving & Shabbos last week. The signs blared “Lo ta’amod al dam achicha” — Don’t stand by as your brother’s blood is spilled, and “Ve’ahavta lere’acha kamocha” — Love your neighbor as yourself. What a treat, I thought - usually one would have to go all the way across the borough to Satmar-cum-hipster Williamsburg for that kind of irony!
I’m sort of astonished to discover that there are still Jews out there who missed the three-ring circus of scandal at Agriprocessors/Rubashkins, who are moved by the following appeal (extracted from the email jungle by our Jewschool secret agents):
An open letter from:
Hindy Light (Rubashkin)
Imagine if I were to tell you that there was a well to do family that was going through a financial crisis. That they were on the verge of losing everything they worked their whole lives for c’v. That within the next few days a judge could decide to take away their business, their homes….c’v. Imagine if I were to tell you that a family that once lived a life of comfort was now collecting funds to pay for their father’s legal fees. Imagine if I were to tell you that there were tens of families who are about to lose their livelihood and become sudden paupers. Wouldn’t you be horrified and do everything you can to help them? Well now – STOP IMAGINING!
This is happening right now! Right in front of your eyes. Not to any family. It’s happening to MY family and as jews it is happening to yours as well!
I am begging each and every one of you to go to www.waronkosher.com and sign the petition. But please don’t just sign it. Send it out as a chain email. Let’s use our ability to help someone in need. This petition can only help if there are at least 15,000 signatures – YOU can make it happen. Please SPREAD the word!
May we hear besuros tovos [CW?: good news] now!
Hindy Light (Rubashkin)
I’m sorry, Hindy, but you broke it, you buy it. If La Famiglia Rubashkin can no longer afford their rock-and-roll lifestyle, it’s not my problem. They wouldn’t be in this position if they had actually followed the Choshen Mishpat & the Federal Law codes and built their “kosher” fleish empire on honor, honesty, and service instead of on fraud, abuse, and greed.
An internet posting that references Middle-Eastern violence and politics draws over 110 comments, not a single one (yet) is racist / ranty / threatening / sociopathic.
Is it possible that someone out there still has a sense of humor?
I think the organized Jewish community needs another lesson from the LOLcats…
Best responses to date..
“Arracat no wants peace talks. he wants a piece of tuna instead”
“Iz kitteh a terrerrist? Oar a freedum fyter?” “depends on Ur purrspective”
“Kitteh is chairmans of teh PLO (PissedOff Lolcat Organization)”
“Yassir Arracat shuuda gambled on Camp David. Then, he mite hab had teh hole libing room, instead ov juss a fuglee sofa. Bebeh steps, kitteh, bebeh steps.”
“I can has ’67 borders and rite ov return?” “no but U can haz sofa from ’67, sayz likud cat to arracat” “I doan want teh rite to return to teh ’67 sofa.”
It’s time to get your tickets for BamatMabat’s newest show. BamatMabat –Â the experimental Jerusalem theater company founded this year by Talia Weiss and my good friend DeDe — will be presenting “Doubt, a Parable” early next month. You’ll want to act fast, considering how many of their past shows (including the one-page play festival “Teudat Zehut”, and Eve Ensler’s “A Memory, a Monologue, a Rant and a Prayer”)Â have sold out…
BamatMabat Theater Company invites you to come see “Doubt, a Parable,” a brilliant and powerful drama in which a Catholic school principal takes matters into her own hands when she suspects a young priest of improper relations with one of the male students.
The Pulitzer and Tony-award winning play deals with themes of conviction vs. uncertainty in exploring how a religious community deals with clergy abuse.
Starring Erin Maidan Greenberg, Shimshon Stu Siegel, Shira Katz and Rachel Beitsch.
Directed by DeDe Jacobs Komisar and Jose Portuondo.
Dates and times: Tuesday June 3, 8 pm
Thursday June 5, 8 pm
Tuesday June 10, 8 pm
Thursday June 12, 8 pm
You can follow our co-blogger Chorus of Apes and go all Nakba on us. You can go all “neo-Zionist” instead and lose yourself in congratulatory paroxysms of pride and militaristic extremism. See here for example. Or finally, you can waffle and prevaricate between the other two alternatives, watching any tribal joy you once felt drain out through myriad cuts of national guilt and historical revision.
The last option seems most popular in progressive Jewish circles these days. My roommates objected to my proposal for a Yom Ha-Atzma’ut House Party by saying they wanted to avoid propaganda or the appearance of it. “Maybe we should have something about the nakba too.” “We don’t want to look right wing.” “How about we go to a Brit Tzedek talk instead.” Something about Independence Day made us uncomfortable.
Yom Ha-atzma’ut looks a little funny these days. Between the alliance of Electronic Intifada and Kahane Chai to forever tarnish the word “Zionism,” and the casual abuse of patriotism by fear-mongering Republicans in the US, the idea of “national pride” has become suspect. Every 60th Birthday congratulation needs a “but..”, and every praise of the Jewish State re-born in the Jewish Homeland comes with a “however..” We’re cynical and jaded, and don’t want to buy into anything that smacks of conservative forces or creeping 21st century totalitarianism.
So we want to kill the myth of the Third Comonwealth, scuff the shine on the Zionist dream, give us nothing-but-the-facts-ma’am and add another social justice cause to the bottom of the list.
But I’m thinking that Yom Ha-atzma’ut is not something to do half-assed. Righteous foundation myths and tribal pride aren’t just kids’ stories: they’re the moral stories that give us our ideals.
Remember (if you’re American) when you first learned what really happened when the Pilgrims hit Plymouth rock. When that cartoon fantasy of harmony and shared wealth dissolved into the broken treaties of the colonists, and the cold hard earth they dug into to rob Native graves. I think that a large part of that sting, that rage, (that righteous indignation, if you will) was the disappointment that the reality did not live up to the myth.
People we’d been taught to honor had let us down. The founding parents of institutions we’d be taught to respect and identify with had behaved in despicable ways. Which is sort of ironic, I guess. Or at least depressing.
But the real, glorious irony is that the myths never did let us down. These lies are the tales that taught us what to believe in. The myths are the prosecutor’s finger. When we hear about Israeli crimes and mistakes, whether during the War of Indepedence or today, it’s the myths that shout loudest “this was wrong. This must be remedied.” It’s the Declaration of Indepedence which was never fulfilled which kicks us in the gut and demands more effort on our part.
Our myths are our moral foundation, and I believe, something to celebrate whole-heartedly. So this is a (slightly belated) Yom Ha-Atzma’ut Same’ach from me to you, with no ifs, ands, or buts. Happy Independence Day. Make the dream a reality.
Check these pieces out, because it’s Yom ha-Shoah, and it’s May Day, and maybe your thoughts, hands, and memories are starting to get all a-jumbled.
Lawrence Bush staggers through every emotion I’ve ever felt about Yom ha-Shoah. 10 paragraphs of hope, despair, resolve, empathy, and what-ifs. The series of realizations, like descending stairs, when you see those horrendous pictures of what happened, and think about it happening to you, until you remember that something very like it is happening to other people right this second. It’s a quick read, but parse it slowly. jewishcurrents.blogspot.com/2008/05/never-say-never-again.html
Right in the middle he mentioned Zog Nit Kein Mol, the Partisans’ anthem, sending me across the internet from broken link to wikipedia stub, sifting for lyrics, background, a recording in any format. Eventually I found a clip of Paul Robeson singing it, and Ross Altman’s “Paul Robeson and the Jews” column in FolkWorks magazine. (www.folkworks.org/content/view/35453/3176/) There’s a little too much tooting of our own shofar in Altman’s essay for me, but there’s also a great mad tour towards its end leaping from the Partisans to the HUAC blacklist to ol’ Joe Hill, “labor’s martyred troubadour”.
Yesterday afternoon, as Passover came to a close for many of us, I had the opportunity to be part of a “Ba’al Shem Tov Meal”, a Jewish ritual very different from what I’m used to. My friend ML is a 10th- or 12th-generation direct descendant of Reb Yisrael Ba’al Shem Tov, itinerant mystic and 17th-century founder of Hasidism, and as such, has inherited a unique practice which has been observed in her family meticulously and without fail each year: They cook exactly 31 matza balls, with one larger than the others, and sit around to hear the recitation (in Yiddish or in partial English translation) of the story of Reb YBST’s attempt to bring the Mashiach by travelling to Israel to meet The Ohr HaChaim, Rav Chaim IbnAttar, with whom he believed he shared King David’s reincarnated soul.
So about twenty of us friends of ML sat around her studio apartment, munching on Matza Lasagna, salads, and 31 matza balls sponsored by Moishe House Silver Spring, and listened to ML read her cousin’s recently completed translation of the entire story. It was good times, and there was a lot of joking about the historicity of the improbable tale, but what struck me more than the fun, the lively company, or the food, was the devotion and persistence with which this Passover custom had been passed down through the generations. Its power was such that ML, one of my most cynical friends, could not imagine letting the last day of Pesach pass without making a Ba’al Shem Tov Meal of her own, complete with all 31 matza balls, and an (irreverant but) attentive audience.
For the past 260 years her extended family members have gathered in their homes yearly to keep this story going, and despite its different variants (was the daughter named Udel or Adel? Was Reb Yisrael attacked by ghouls or pirates?)Â the tale is remarkably cohesive. It seems like Reb YBST was successful when he started this practice so long ago. If you could make sure your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren were telling a story about your life more than two centuries from now, what story would you want them to tell? And how would you see to it that they did?
An extremely-truncated version of the story told at the Ba’al Shem Tov Meal can be found here.
Jews On First has the details. You may remember Indian River as the area of Delaware from which the Dobriches, a Jewish family, fled to escape the non-stop harassment, antisemitic abuse, and Christian bigotry which began when they complained about the district-sanctioned proselytizing by teachers and school officials.
The story has been proceeding through varying levels of ugliness for a few years. Just a few months ago there was that elementary school teacher who told her class that Barack Obama was a Muslim, and therefore “different” and “scary”. Or the mob of 800 that turned out to jeer & silence advocates of pluralism at an IRSD board meeting in 2006.
Hopefully, this lawsuit settlement – which includes not only monetary damages paid to the victims of the harassment but new, constitutional, policies on what religious expression is and is not allowed in a public school - will eventually protect the religious minorities of southeastern Delaware from more violations of their and their childrens’ constitutional rights. (see Jews On First for the text of the new policies, it’s a fascinating read) But before the happy dances can begin in Indian River, there needs to be a sea change in the local culture. And there needs to be eagle-eyed vigilance to make sure these new policies are followed.
I was astonished when this story first broke a few years ago, that these kind of First Amendment and civil rights violations could happen in the beach towns of what I considered the diverse and enlightened Mid-Atlantic, but a friend from Wilmington, DE insisted that she wasn’t surprised. The reaches below the C & D Canal (containing most of Delaware’s area and a tiny fraction of its population) are known to the Wilmingtonians to their north as “The Slower Lower”, a region less defined by its historical stature as the First State or by its consumer-pleasing lack of sales tax, and more by its residents’ apparent difficulty with remembering which side of the Civil War they were on. (That would be the winning side).
So is it possible to introduce a culture of respect for diversity by fiat? What is needed to make it stick?
In what may be the most effective awareness-raising campaign and the best embodiment of the Jewish value of “kol Yisrael arevim zeh bazeh”* to ever come across my G-mail ticker, Appalachian Voices and Michael Gross have set up www.ilovemountains.org/ , the End Mountaintop RemovalAction and Resource Center.
It’s a good site to check out in order to see for yourself the devastating human and environmental impacts of strip mining for coal in Appalachia. You can view Google Earth imagery in the National Memorial for the Mountains and read up on current news from the mountain towns of West Virginia, Kentucky, Virginia, and from the regulatory agencies in Washington, DC.
Its most impressive feature, however, which reminded me of the Hebrew proverb I quoted above, is the “My Connection” page. You enter your zipcode. You pick your energy supplier. They tell you if your power company uses Appalachian coal from mountaintop removal mines. Then, with another click, you can send an email to your power company telling them to stop supporting mountaintop removal.
That’s what we call using our power of interconnectedness for good.
* “All Israelites are responsible for one another” – I think it’s obvious that the reasons this is true, when dealing with Jewish community issues, are equally applicable to all human beings, when dealing with global issues.
I had an acquaintance in college, a man whose parents had moved to America from Bangladesh, an observant Muslim with whom I would spend late nights discussing religion and watching the mountain fog coalesce. We lost touch after he moved off-campus and later graduated, but I still remember one comment he made to me after I did my best to explain to him what a “machloket” is and how the halachic system accomodates (or otherwise deals with) disagreements in matters of law.
He was impressed, and complained about the Muslim student group on campus, saying the form of Islam espoused there was too strict and particularistic. Muslims from Bangladesh, he said, don’t practice the religion the same way as Muslims from Arabia, and the Arab students in charge were intolerant of that diversity. He and other non-Arab Muslims were told that their clothing was “un-Islamic” and their observances were faulty. He objected, saying, “I’m not Arab. I shouldn’t have to follow Arab cultural norms to be a good Muslim.”
Apparently, policy clashes between conservative and liberal Muslim students, and between Muslim students with different traditions, are common on college campuses. Sound familiar? But unlike in the Jewish community where Hillels have a set policy of pluralism dictated from on high by philanthropists and “Jewish professionals”, according to this article by the New York Times’ gloriously-named Neil MacFarquhar each franchise Muslim Students Association chapter (there are more than 200 in the US) sets its own rules as to what food/clothes/events/philosophies are acceptable. Depending on where you go to school, your local MSA may alternately scandalize traditional parents or Imams, and shun students who aren’t “Muslim enough”.
The reporter, who apparently attended last weekend’s MSA West Conference in San Jose, got some good anecdotes, including community reaction to the sexes mingling at a barbecue, a potential member driven away because he wore a Budweiser t-shirt, liberal Yale vs. Wahhabist UC-Irvine, and the kinds of sermons given by Imams who visit college campuses.
I’m wondering what can we learn from this article, and what those of us still in school can learn from our Muslim fellow students. And what can we teach them? Keeping in mind the extensive similarities and deep differences between Judaism & Islam and between the Jewish community & the Muslim community, there’s got to be some productive knowledge to be gleaned. What do you think it could be?
This past Tuesday evening I had the immense pleasure of attending Gershom Gorenberg’s talk at the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue in Washington, DC: “What We Talk About When We Talk About Israel”.
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