After years of trying to attract foreign [read: Asian] workers to Israel, the country seems to be reversing policy… at least when it comes to Asian restaurants. Today’s Ha’aretzreports that in an attempt to create more jobs for native Israelis, Israel’s government plans to decrease the number of work permits it issues to Asian chefs by about 50% next year and then stop issuing the permits altogether the following year. In response, Asian restaurants across Israel have declared a “spring roll strike,” to be followed by sushi and noodle strikes in coming weeks. Israeli Ministry of Industry, Trade, and Labor lawyer Shoshana Strauss was quoted in Ha’aretz with the brilliant line, “Everyone can make Chinese food it’s not impossible to learn.”
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. On a purely culinary level this is absurd. Israel’s Asian food already tends toward the awful. So awful, in fact, that senior Chinese Embassy official Xuan Chan broke with diplomatic protocol a few years ago and publicly called Israeli Chinese restaurants “disgusting.” (Thai, Chinese, and to a lesser extent Japanese food in Israel seems to mean sauteed meat and veggies or noodles with either a fluorescent pink or yellow sugary sauce dumped on top. Sushi is definitely better, but could be better.) If Asian chefs are currently cooking in Israel’s Asian restaurants– which I’m skeptical about, at least in half of the Asian places I’ve been to– they’re cooking to perceived local tastes, not to Asian standards. I’m doubtful that Israeli chefs would do better. I’m also somewhat skeptical that there are 900 (the number of Asian chef permits currently issued by the government) Israelis who’d be thrilled to jump into an Asian cooking job retraining program, should the government dream one up, which is also highly unlikely, but who knows.
Anyone else want to comment on Israeli labor policy vis-a-vis foreign and Palestinian workers?
Asian restaurants across the country went on a one-day spring roll strike on Tuesday in protest over government plans to rid kitchens of foreign chefs, and said sushi and noodles would be the next items off the menu.
The restaurants are angry at the state’s plans to purge Japanese, Chinese and Thai eateries of Asian cooks and replace them with Israelis as part of a broader program to cut the number of foreigners working in Israel.
The Ethnic Restaurant Organization said the country’s 300 Asian restaurants refused to serve spring or egg rolls – among their most popular dishes – on Tuesday, and planned a follow-up strike in two weeks for sushi and noodles.
“Today there is no egg roll and in two weeks time there will be no sushi and noodles,” Arnon Volosky, head of the organization, told Reuters.
Well more than a week before his visit, Bush was creating waves in the Holy City. Main streets near my home have been sporting American flags alternating with Israeli and Jerusalem city flags. For the last two days, we’ve all been startled by huge transport helicopters flying very low over the city in formations of threes, making a racket and causing a bit of panic in the uninformed. (Word on the street is that they’re practicing for Bush’s arrival.) Two days ago I had to take a crazy jigsaw puzzle of a cab ride because there were a bunch of streets that were already closed. Fine, whatever, not a huge deal. Then I read this about Bush’s visit in today’s Ha’aretz:
The operation, dubbed “Clear Skies,” will cost Israel $25,000 for every hour Bush is in the country.
That feels unconscionable. This country kept its high school students out of school for two months because it balked at paying teachers a living wage, still refuses to pay its university teachers a decent wage, hasn’t yet fully made good on its financial and other promises to evacuees from Gaza, and continues to let its poor, its elderly, and its Holocaust survivors languish without proper financial and medical assistance. And somehow there’s enough money to spend $25,000 an hour on George Bush.
Bush’s visit story here, and a video here. (Best line in the video comes from a chef at the King David hotel where Bush is staying: “You want to show up and do your best, but the man likes hambugers, what can you do?“)
British singer Lauren Rose has released a modern version of traditional Jewish song “Hava Nagila,” and gambling pundits have even given odds on the song to take the top spot in the U.K. Christmas pop charts.
According the British newspaper The Sun, bookmaker William Hill has given 17-year-old Lauren Rose a 16-1 shot at having Britain’s best-selling song on December 25.
The Sun also reports that Lauren’s father, Mark Goldberg, has quit his job as boss of Bromley Football Club to manage his daughter’s music career.
Lauren’s version of “Hava Nagila” is not the first by contemporary acts from both the pop and classical worlds. The list of musicians to perform the song includes Bob Dylan, Neil Diamond, Harry Belafonte, Julie Andrews, Ben Folds and violinist and conductor Andre Rieu.
The song, whose title translates as “Let Us Rejoice,” is de rigueur at Jewish celebrations, and is widely attributed to Abraham Zvi Idelsohn, who is believed to have penned the song at the close of World War One.
“Baby, just be free…
Now’s the time to do it,
Now’s the time to lose it…”
This three-part series will explore the what, why and how of tzedakah: the religious imperative to make a difference.
Rabbi Brent Chaim Spodek of Congregation B’nai Jeshurun will facilitate this series on what Judaism says about philanthropy and social justice as a religious path and the challenges of identifying our values and putting our money where our hearts and minds are.
The first two classes will address the ethical and spiritual issues relating to tzedakah. The final class will have more of a practical focus. It will be taught by a financial expert who will provide advice and tips for how people starting out in NYC can put together a realistic budget for social change.
This program is brought to you by AVODAH, AJWS, and Congregation B’nai Jeshurun.
Date: January 15th, 22nd, and 29th
Time: 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm
Place: Upper West Side – details provided upon registration
Check out one of the latest commercials from YES, one of Israel’s internet/communications companies. I’ll leave the commentary to you, dear readers.
FYI, someone with better ears than I have says the lyrics are:
Oy Vey, the toevah is here
He said Oy Vey
Now the detail’s so clear
YES brought HD
Groise Tate (Father in Heaven) please help
It’s a broch this HD on YES
Gevald it’s Sodom and Gemorah
HDTV- it’s against the Torah
HDTV- oy voi voi voi
Now the shiksas look well
You will all go to hell
Or in Hebrew “yishmor HaKel” (God save us)
One year ago today, the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards (CJLS) began its final deliberations on whether or not to ordain openly gay and lesbian rabbis. On December 6 the CJLS approved three teshuvot (rabbinic responsa): the Dorff, Nevins, Reisner teshuvah (which passed by a majority of 13 votes and permitted gay ordination), the Roth teshuvah (which also passed by a majority of 13 votes and prohibited ordination), and the Levy teshuvah (which was passed by 6 votes and was not only anti-ordination in its underlying attitude but was also considered offensive by many for its references– among other things– to the potential of reparative therapy.) Several months later, then JTS Chancellor-elect Arnie Eisen declared that the JTSrabbinical and cantorial schools would now accept openly gay and lesbian rabbis.
In reflecting back on the turmoil of that time, I came across a statement made by Rabbi Joel Roth during discussions on the first day of the CJLS meeting. I had forgotten all about it, but it’s particularly interesting in light of the fact that a pro-ordination teshuvah actually received a majority of votes. Did he truly mean what he said? Was it just a political strategy to get the papers off the table? How would he react now to his words? To wit:
Rabbi Roth began by (in his own words) “begging” the law committee to move the discussion out of the realm of whether or not the papers under consideration were takanot. He claimed that there was a different consideration that was “more important to me.” Numbers of votes, he said, were what mattered. “Takanot or not, what matters is whether the decisions have enough support to validate them in any but the most formalistic of ways… To [change halachah] on the basis of so small a number of votes would do a disservice to the halakhic process, the decisions themselves, the institutions, and the Conservative Movement.” Rabbi Roth acknowledged that change was coming eventually anyway, but said “It won’t help the view of the permissive papers to be validated by so few votes…. Their legitimacy will be impugned by the paucity of the number of those who vote in favor.†Rabbi Roth consequently made several appeals to the authors of the “permissive papers” (“I plead, implore, beseech the authors…”) to withdraw their papers if they believed that– as he strongly suggested they would– they would receive a very small minority of votes.
Of course Rabbi Joel Roth cares deeply about the halachic issues as he sees them and participated in the arguments on technical/halachic grounds as well. But I still find his emphasis and his words (which were written down with general permission at the CJLS meeting) intensely surprising. It also goes without saying that I’m thrilled he was wrong.
To paraphrase someone who commented on this article on Ha’aretz’s website: with all of the poverty and other assorted tzuris in Jerusalem, this is what the municipality is spending its money on?!
Jerusalem municipality to erect sukkah made entirely of candy
By Haaretz Staff
The Jerusalem municipality and the Ariel municipal company are planning to build a sukkah made entirely of candy to mark the Jewish holiday of Sukkot later this week.
The sukkah will be built in Jerusalem’s Safra Square and will be named “HaSukkah-Rya”, a play on words meaning hard candy.
Two tons of candy and candy-shaped ornaments will be used in the construction of the 1,000 square meter sukkah. The lighting will be in the shape of candy and the walls will be covered with candy and bubble gum. Various sweets will be offered to guests free of charge.
The sukkah will be open to visitors starting on Wednesday. Cultural events and other attractions will be held in the sukkah throughout the holiday.
Again, not my title. It’s the name of Jewish Women Watching’s new Sukkot project. Generally I’m an amused JWW fan, but I have mixed feelings about this campaign that I’m having some trouble articulating. I completely agree with the underlying idea, which is that the mainstream Jewish community needs to push itself to consider a broader range of issues and approaches to justice work, even– and especially–when those things challenge the status quo. But calling those issues and approaches “treyf,” even to make the point that the mainstream community often won’t touch them, seems somehow counterproductive. It might actually reinforce the misguided notion that working to rid our communities of entrenched sexism and homophobia is a radical fringe idea or that some communities aren’t already working against gentrification and for affordable housing for all.
So what do you think? (And it would be lovely if we could limit the nastygrams on the subject of Palestinian human rights, please.)
September 24, 2007/ 12 Tishrei 5768 – Jewish Women Watching, the anonymous collective of feminist rabble rousers, will be appearing in sukkot around the country in the upcoming week. In addition to a surprise personal appearance at the JCC sukkah (details below), thousands of Jews received Sukkot decorations from the renegade group.
Unlike the uninspired plastic fruit and paper chains that normally adorn the sukkah, JWW’s decorations consist of postcards urging the Jewish community to take their social activism one step further. Each postcard juxtaposes a social justice issue that is considered “kosher” in the organized Jewish community with one that is considered “treyf”. For example, while fighting anti-Semitism is encouraged, fighting racism, sexism, and homophobia does not get the same stamp of approval.
In two other postcards, JWW critiques the focus on band-aid solutions versus more sustainable projects. The underlying question of these cards is: “If we really want no one to go hungry, then shouldn’t we be doing more than mitzvah day?” The most inflammatory card points out the Jewish community’s extraordinary focus on human rights abuses against Darfurians while ignoring human rights abuses against Palestinians. In all of these cases, the group demands that the Jewish Community “embrace the treyf,” that is, devote resources and attention to issues that are considered treyf as well as those already stamped kosher.
That’s not my title. That was the subject line of an email I just received from JOFA condemning the new ArtScroll women’s siddur. Appended to the email is a review of the siddur and a letter that JOFA has sent to modern Orthodox day schools and other religious institutions. The letter declares that JOFA has “come to the realization that this siddur is inappropriate for a modern Orthodox institution or one that sees its role as encouraging women’s participation in prayer.â€
It’s good to see a Jewish organization, particularly one that identifies as Orthodox, speaking out against ArtScroll’s tendency to present a single view as the only way to do things and the way things have always been done all the way back to Sinai. (Old joke: Why did the chicken cross the road? Because Artscroll told it to.) I get upset when I look around at egalitarian minyanim full of liberal Jews davening mostly from ArtScroll siddurim. I do understand that lots of people like ArtScroll because of its clear explanations and translations (which are more honest/literal in most cases than, say, Sim Shalom). But those clear explanations of practice are heavily biased toward certain viewpoints, and reductionist to the max. It drives me crazy to hear people telling each other what “the halachah” is based on what they’ve read in ArtScroll. (My upsetness is directed at ArtScroll, not the people using the siddur. The liberal world is in desperate need of a usable, well-translated, well-explained, well-footnoted, well-laid out siddur.)
ArtScroll’s perspective also irritates JOFA reviewer Jennifer Stern Breger. Excerpts from her review:
In general, the siddur ignores positions (many of them very mainstream) that run counter to the editors’ own positions and viewpoints. There is a range of halakhically acceptable positions on many aspects of tefillah, but the editors do not include them.
Every time Mourners Kaddish appears, rather than saying that there are different opinions, the notes say clearly, “Although reciting Kaddish is a comfort for the soul of the departed, even silent recitation by a woman is generally frowned upon.†For Birkat Hamazon, the notes say, “The accepted custom is for a woman never to lead zimmun even if only women are present.†In the text of Birkat Hagomel, the note says, “according to the prevalent custom, a woman does not say the Bircas Hagomel,†and in the background note, “The primary reason given for women not saying Bircas Hagomel is that it is immodest for women to take any part in a mitzvah that is typically performed in public.  Regarding havdalah it states, “It is preferablefor a woman to hear havdalah from a man rather than make her own havdalah.â€
In general the siddur takes the mother of young children as the norm, and the stress is on the least that a woman can get away with. Not only does the note for ma’ariv say, “For women, maariv is an optional service. If you choose to say maariv, it would be best to precede its recitation with the words “bli neder†without a commitment, to indicate that you are not accepting its recitation as an ongoing obligationâ€â€¦ While it concedes that women have a special connection to the Shmoneh Esrei because of Hannah, it does not quote the mishna that says clearly that women are obligated in tefillah— i.e., the amidah—rather saying that it is considered highest priority at shaharit and minhah when family obligations allow.
FYI, although neither the New York Times nor the Washington Post mentioned it in their stories today, JTA reports that Michael Mukasey, Bush’s nominee for Attorney General, is an Orthodox Jew. If appointed, he will be the second Jewish Attorney General in American history. It’s nice, on several levels, that this fact was considered irrelevant to the hard news in the mainstream press.
JTA writes:
Mukasey’s Jewishness became an issue when a defendant in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing filed a motion to remove the judge, arguing that his allegiances to fellow Jews and Israel would create a bias against Muslim defendants. The motion was dismissed as “utterly irrelevant.”
Mukasey’s wife, Susan, is a former headmistress of the Ramaz Lower School, an Orthodox Jewish school in New York City.
On Sukkot, many of us invite ushpizin — honored guests, both living and dead — into our sukkah. During this period of vicious anti-immigrant rhetoric and raids, too often immigrants are viewed with suspicion rather than treated like guests to be honored.
We hope that you will join with individuals and institutions across the United States in extending a welcome to the immigrants who care for our children and aging relatives, work in our synagogues and schools, and add to the cultural and economic life of our communities. On Sukkot, when we remember the experience of being gerim — sojourners without a permanent home — we commit ourselves to helping others to find permanent homes for their own families.
To help us build sukkot that demonstrate our desire to welcome immigrant communities, the Jewish Task force for Comprehensive Immigration Reform has created a special poster. We hope that you will place this poster in your personal or institutional sukkot as a sign of your commitment to making America a safe place for immigrants.
This poster is available for purchase at www.cafepress.com/jewishjustice. Three sizes are available, in prices ranging from $6 to $18. Order soon to ensure delivery before the holiday begins next week. Click here to read the poster’s text.
For more information about immigration and Jewish perspectives on immigration, please visit our online resource center . There, you will find immigration fact sheets, time lines, text studies and divrei torah.
Best wishes for a wonderful and meaningful Sukkot.
It looks like JNF has reversed course. Kudos to them for admitting a mistake.
From: Anita Jacobs
Date: Sep 17, 2007 8:26 AM
Subject: JNF will remove playboy auction item
To: Anita Jacobs
Thank you for your concern regarding the auction of more than 100
items including the Playboy Mansion golf tournament item at a local
New York JNF event.
JNF more often than not gets things right, but of course sometimes we
don’t. Clearly this is a case of poor judgment.
The item in question was donated by local New York lay leaders who
were only trying to help raise money. If JNF could reverse its course
we would, but since we can’t, we apologize for accepting the donation
and have removed the item from the list.
Happy 5768 from Jerusalem!
To mark the new year, Madonna’s back in the holy land. Apparently she celebrated Rosh Hashanah by rocking out at a kabbalah conference in Tel Aviv on the second day of chag, and then met with Shimon Peres Saturday night. Sigh.
As someone with very mixed feelings about day schools, I’m always interested in hearing about creative, serious Jewish education alternatives for pre-college kids. (Anyone know the fate of the New Haven public school/Yale/Jewish studies program?)
Along those lines, South Florida appears set to become the location of America’s first Jewish charter school. This article is definitely intriguing, but the school still sounds a bit sketchy. If the article is correct, the school has hired as its head an Orthodox rabbi whose only educational qualification is having run a yeshiva and who is promoting the school through Chabad channels. Maintaining strict church-state separation becomes increasingly tricky in situations like this, with many quoted in the article raising fears that such a school will ultimately harm the Jews through weakened church-state barriers. On the other hand, school officials say they won’t be teaching “Judaism,” but rather Jewish history and culture, and Hebrew.
What do you think?
Ben Gamla’s charter was approved in March, but the school was still the hot topic at a July 24 school board meeting that drew a standing room-only crowd. Supporters of the school say it could serve as a national model for providing families with a financially accessible option at a time when the overwhelming majority of non-Orthodox households are opting not to send their children to Jewish day schools.
Some critics, on the other hand, worry that the school’s main contribution will be to serve as a road map for religious communities seeking to lower the wall separating church and state.
“In other countries, we Jews were forced to support religious institutions of the dominant religions,” said Rabbi Allan Tuffs of Temple Beth El, a Reform congregation in Hollywood. “The Jewish community has succeeded in America largely thanks to the principle of separation of church and state.”
“But with charter schools like Ben Gamla, we are opening the door for public money to be used to support all sorts of religious ideologies across America,” Tuffs warned. “What will we say to the imam down the street who says he wants to teach Arabic within an Islamic cultural setting? Or the fundamentalist Christian group that wants to start a school to teach Christian culture?”
I’m thinking that this is good for the Jews. And possibly a sign of the warm personal and intellectual ties between JTS Chancellor-Elect Arnie Eisen and several of the heads of America’s other rabbinical schools.
(FYI, I’m not the least bit interested in any prospective kvetchings about how this is just one more sign of the Conservative Movement’s “becoming Reform.” Cross-denominational interaction increases learning and broadens perspectives. Period. Hebrew College, RRC, YCT, and YU should also be included in this effort.)
The Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation is launching an inter-denominational fellowship with Reform and Conservative seminaries.
Foundation chair Lynn Schusterman announced the project with the Reform Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute for Religion and the Conservative Jewish Theological Seminary of America on Thursday during her graduation address at HUC-JIR in New York City, where she received an honorary doctorate.
The Hevruta Fellowship, which will be open to eight students and will start next fall, is a five-year program for students from the seminaries to work, study and lead programs together based on the shared values of the Reform and Conservative movements. It will be the first time students from the two seminaries have been involved in a sustained collaborative educational program.
The fellowship will pay tuition and provide a stipend for living expenses during the students’ third and fourth years of rabbinical studies. The foundation will spend approximately $2.5 million over the first five years of the program.
There’ll be awesome classes, davening to blow the roof off, hikes, song sessions, a Jewish book swap, organic farming lessons, Talmud study, yoga, and a post-Shabbat klezmer jam. And it’s supposed to be 70 degrees on Saturday. What more could a funky Jew(ess) want?
(because when the truth gets inconvenient, the Jews … respond with menschlich integrity?)
by Jo:
The usualsuspects haven’t said this yet, so I’m going to say it: Jewish communities should participate in their local Step it Up rally for climate action on Shabbat Shmini (April 14).
Step it Up is going to be the largest citizen action focused on global warming in American history. People who have seen An Inconvenient Truth, who took the lessons of Katrina to heart, who are tired of driving cars with shitty mileage and who are frightened of the kind of world their children and grandchildren are growing into, are organizing locally. Communities have come forward to hold more than a thousand actions in all fifty states. Every action will be saying the same thing: “Step It Up, Congress! Cut Carbon 80% or more by 2050.†These actions are planned for all over. If you live in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Boston, DC, Philly, New Haven, Baltimore, Albany, Cleveland, Atlanta, Chicago, San Francisco or just about anywhere else in the USA, there’s a Step it Up action on Shabbat Shmini in your neighborhood.
But why should we as Jews turn out for this on a Shabbes afternoon? What do our Jewish commitments and values have to say in the face of the climate crisis? For me, Judaism is a way of being fully human. And when fully human people make a big mess that will foul things up for everyone, fully human people stay and clean up. We’ve been spewing tons of heat-trapping greenhouse gases into our atmosphere, and it’s now clear that dire refugee situations, food scarcity, and disease will result down the road if we let these emissions irrevocably alter the climate. Naturally, a fully human people would conclude, we’ll have to work together and make big changes together to curb the crisis.
(because when the truth gets inconvenient, the Jews … respond with menschlich integrity?)
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