First of all, let’s just set aside for a moment the ridiculousness of mentioning Islamic extremists in every other breath – really, I have to say (I never thought I’d defend Beck in any way whatsoever) that really, his comments weren’t about Reform Jews being terrorists. While his comments were completely inane, his point was that Reform Jews are primarily a political organization rather than a religious one. How many ways this is a stupid comment leaves me gasping, but it’s not what most people seem to have taken it as – i.e. a claim that Reform Jews are terrorists.
However, the level of stupidity remains pretty high: More »
A while back I wrote about Kabbalah Vodka. Made with ‘real Christian babies,’ each bottle featured a glass sculpture in the bottle. Odd, but at least creative.
Now comes L’Chaim Vodka. I’ve worked in the liquor industry, and this one leaves me scratching my head. Forget for a minute that unadulterated spirits don’t even need a hechsher…
“Nestled between Jerusalem, Nazareth, Tel Aviv, and Haifa, you will find Or Akiva. It is within these scenic hilled terraces and river channels that we draw our natural spring water and ingredients to produce the highest quality vodka product in all of Israel. We invite you to enjoy the taste and celebrate.”
There are quality Vodka products made in Israel? Huh. Is this for realz? Is it Jewsploitation? I can’t tell. Its website makes no attempt to extoll the virtues of the product, preferring instead to extoll the virtues of its creator. A true exploitative product would boast of multiple distillations using the grains of matzah meal, water sourced from the same pure rain as Mikvahs and being filtered 5 times through the beards of Gedolim…
“It’s pure ingredients and distillation process and recipe is based on a formula handed down through several generations of European and Russian Jews, resulting in a slightly spicy flavor profile with vanilla aromas., L’chaim sources its own spring water shunning any filtering and de-mineralization treatments.”
From what I know, vodka is not supposed to have a flavor profile… or an aroma… And the product is being made not by Russian Jews but a man named Mizraji… I’m not sure what to make of this- it might be truly great. At least it looks sorta sexy. The nightlife, that frosted bottle. Mmmm… But I’m not losing objectivity here.
I can say this for sure: we at Jewschool will not know for certain until we’ve tried it. At least twice. We will not rest until we get to the bottom… of a bottle… We call on the makers of LChaim Vodka to offer proof (100 proof to be exact) of their product’s quality and eagerly await a case for uh, critical purposes…
This one is so bizarre I’m not sure if it’s disturbing or a very sly bit of tongue in cheek marketing. But since it’s Purim and we’re all going to be Adloyada tonight, this seemed appropriate. And if you’re just an Russian Oligarch who needs to get your drink on, this one’s for you too.
The hottest craze in Russian vodka is the brand “Kabbalah” which sarcastically touts being made with Christian children. Each bottle features a glass baby figurine that’s either flipping you off, picking its nose, or crying. And the babies look just a little bit like Putin. Each flavor is tagged with the name of one of the Kabbalistic sephirot, a pentagram, and a neck-hanger with a phrase in Hebrew.
Reportedly this is a super-premium wheat vodka made with water infused with Gold, Silver and Platinum ions. Naturally it raises questions of blood-libels, Jewish alchemy, cultural appropriation, latent Russian anti-Semitism, and who the hell is behind all this…
It’s a joke, right? A bit of whimsy on the aforementioned issues? At 10,000 rubles a bottle (about $330), the joke’s apparently on us…
World Vision Report notes this week that the economic recession here in the US has had an unexpected effect – less funding of kollel in Israel. And the result? well, someone’s gotta pay for those 72 pack of diapers. Women who have not worked are going out ot work. They are learning skills which they can turn towards business while their husbands remain in kollel “with a clean heart” studying.
They are learning from women who dress like they do, in places approved by their rabbis.
They are going out to work and saying that they feel needed, that they take pride in their work.
I suppose I don’t need to say….it’ s hard to get women to give up those manufacturing jobs once the men get home from the war and want them back. Oh, oops, wrong country.
But, you know… what are you going to do with all those women, once they think that they matter too….
Marx was right about one thing… equality is all about money.
BTW, I’m going to say… the slideshow only has a few pictures of hareidi women working (although a few of them are of the photographer mentioned in the audio article). Not all that interesting if you’re familiar with the ultra-orthodox of Israel in any way.
ylove passed on a link to a fascinating article about the future of in-vitro meat, that is, meat grown in a test-tube:
It starts with cells—it could be a stem cell or something called a myoblast, a precursor to muscle. You proliferate these cells in a kind of nutritious soup that’s filled with vitamins and amino acids and salts and sugar. This is the biochemical equivalent of blood. In order for the cells to grow into tissues, they need this medium. And, it turns out, the most promising approach to producing this medium is to use microalgae, which are photosynthetic organisms even more efficient than plants. We recently funded some research at Oxford University to examine how meat cultured with this medium compares to conventional meat in terms of energy impact, and the study showed that it uses 90 percent less land and water, all while producing 80 percent fewer greenhouse emissions.
Development is being spearheaded by a non-profit whose goal is reducing the resource footprint of the world’s appetite for meat.
Growing hamburgers in vats solves some halachic problems: No tzaar baalei hayim, cruelty to animals, as in endemic in contemporary factory farming. No need to hire rabbis to oversee the slaughter.
But it raises other questions.
Does meat cloned from a cow’s stem cell count as ever min hachai — meat (ultimately) from a live animal, which is prohibited to be eaten? Can a tissue culture be said to chew its cud if it has no cud, or to have cloven hoofs if it has no hooves? Could it conceivable be parve and permitted to be served with milk?
Ten years from now, McDonald’s may boast that its serves low-carbon, cruelty-free in vitro burgers. As Jews, should we eat them?
What are some of the cutting edge, creative ways 5W might represent Birthright? Let’s look back on some of their past clients and tactics and see if we can figure it out!
Well, I’m sure he’ll come up with something. He’s a PR genius! Any alum who want to share their excitement about Birthright’s latest hire, drop them a line!
The Jewish Labor Committee – JLC – a national organization that promotes labor and related social justice causes within the Jewish community and Jewish issues within organized labor – has been working both nationally and locally to support the Employees Free Choice Act (EFCA). Hundreds of people across the country have signed onto the JLC’s petition {you can add your name here}.
In Philadelphia, the traditionally secular organization has organized something distinctive: a rabbinic appeal to Senator Arlen Specter. JLC Philadelphia Director Rosalind Spigel has enlisted 25 local rabbis plus rabbinical students to sign an open letter urging Pennsylvania’s newly minted Democratic senior senator to put Jewish values to work and help safeguard the rights of employees who wish to secure union representation.{Additional signatories are of course welcome – see here.} Congress is currently considering the Employee Free Choice Act. While Sen. Specter previously supported the legislation, most recently he indicated a disinclination to support this legislation.
On Tuesday, June 9, a rabbinic delegation of the Philadelphia JLC is meeting Senator Arlen Specter to urge his support for the Employee Free Choice Act. That day also marks the official launch of the website of Rabbis for Workers’ Choice. The rabbis who wrote Specter urging him to stand with working families will hold a short ceremony to reinforce their message at his Philadelphia office. More »
As we reported last week, a group of 25 large Conservative synagogues calling themselves HaYom: The Coalition for the Transformation of Conservative Judaism has formed to pressure the USCJ [the congregational arm of the movement] into becoming a “synagogue organization that truly speaks to the needs of our congregations and community on every level, both here and in Israel.” Their founding and subsequent announcements were signed by the rabbis and presidents of 25 large Conservative synagogues. As we learn in their latest dispatch, these shuls were chosen “based upon the size of their dues obligation in order to create a climate in which the leaders of the USCJ would come to the table quickly and begin a dialogue.” We also learn that the shuls collectively contributed $25,000 to the new coalition. In other words, these are the shuls with the money, and therefore the power.
As fascinating as all of this might be to Conservative movement watchers, I found something else more interesting (and irritating, and unsurprising). Here’s the list of signatories to the new coalition (rabbi followed by president/s). What do you notice?
Rabbi Richard Camras Barry Wolfe
Rabbi Mark Cooper Barry Bearg Peter Drucker
Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove Steven M. Friedman
Rabbi Menachem Creditor Jeff Rosenbloom
Rabbi Alexander Davis Marshall Lehman
Rabbi Ed Feinstein Andrew Hyman
Rabbi Wayne Franklin Nathan Beraha
Rabbi Baruch Frydman Kohl
Rabbi Bill Gershon Hylton Jonas
Rabbi Felipe Goodman David Steinberg
Rabbi Bill Hamilton Noah Roffman
Rabbi David Kalender Edward Weiss
Rabbi Joseph Krakoff Brian Hermelin
Rabbi Harold Kravitz Judy Cook
Rabbi Alan Lucas Susan Zelman
Rabbi Jack Moline Evelina Moulder
Rabbi Joel Rembaum Diane Shapiro
Rabbi David Rosen Stuart Wilson
Rabbi Phil Scheim Carrie Orfus Gelkopf
Rabbi Michael Siegel Jay Goodgold
Rabbi Alan Silverstein Bill Lipsey
Rabbi Barry Starr Arthur Spar
Rabbi David Steinhardt Roger Leavy Fred Weiss
Rabbi Gordon Tucker Mark Zeichner
Rabbi Steve Weiss Dick Myers
Rabbi Irvin Wise Nina Paul
Rabbi David Wolpe Kurt Smalberg
Rabbi David Glanzberg-Krainin Fred Wolfson
Hazzan Jacob Ben Zion Mendelson
Hazzan Alberto Mizrahi
Hazzan David Propis
Number of men? 54. Number of women? 6. Number of rabbis who are women? 0.
If we take this list as even somewhat representative, even (or especially) just representative of large, American Conservative synagogues, women appear to make up a mere 10% of the top synagogue leadership and 0% of the clergy.
These are the rabbis and synagogues that pull the purse strings, get the PR, and wield power in the movement, such that congregations have any power in the Conservative movement anyway. And women appear to be largely absent from that scene.
It’s not, as some will say, simply because women have only been ordained in the Conservative movement since 1985 and therefore haven’t made their way to the “top” congregations yet. What are the barriers to women’s election/appointment to the presidencies of large synagogues? Grump.
by Aryeh Cohen [➚] · Wednesday, February 4th, 2009
Reaction to the Obama administration’s expected salary cap of $500,000 for CEOs of corporations getting bailout money:
“That is pretty draconian — $500,000 is not a lot of money, particularly if there is no bonus,” said James F. Reda, founder and managing director of James F. Reda & Associates, a compensation consulting firm. “And you know these companies that are in trouble are not going to pay much of an annual dividend.”
An initiative of the Edmond de Rothschild Foundation, the Ariane de Rothschild Fellows Program: Dialogue & Social Entrepreneurship is a new, innovative program designed young leaders with an interest in social entrepreneurship and in fostering a culture of mutual respect and dialogue among Jewish and Muslim communities.
Delivered in partnership with Columbia Business School and Cambridge University, this 2-week program blends three educational components:
- An innovative and action-driven social entrepreneurship program
- Training in cross-cultural dialogue and leadership
- Exposure to state-of-the-art scholarship
Benefits of the program
Learn how to be a successful agent of change
Understand the leadership role and its impact on others
Use specific tools, frameworks and diagnostics to identify personal and organizational issues and challenges
Gain knowledge in management, negotiations, accounting, finance, marketing, governance and other fields of business
Become more skilled in building a successful social enterprise
Learn to appreciate and apply cross-cultural dialogue
Experience scholarship and debates across and within participants’ respective communities
Build a deep and far-reaching network
Application Criteria
Acceptance to the program is by application only. Selected Fellows will be invited to the program in New York City in July 2009, inclusive of travel, lodging and some meals. Application criteria include:
* young leaders who are interested in fostering a culture of mutual respect and dialogue among Jewish and Muslim communities and demonstrate their interest in and commitment to sustainable civic engagement
* residence in the US, UK, and/or France, or operation of their venture from these countries.
* young leaders who are interested in developing their social entrepreneurship skills
There will be no specific sector focus.
Applications must be submitted electronically through the Columbia Business School Executive Education Web site by January 30, 2009. The final selection process will be completed by April 30, 2009. Applicants are strongly encouraged to speak with the local program representative in their country about this opportunity during the application process.
On a prior post this week, commenter balabusta linked us to a video from the NYT that I’m sorry to say I had missed. The video is disheartening in that it reveals quite a bit that generally has been missing from the whole Agri commentary on the Jewish side of the question. It’s not only our outrage at the workers being treated unfairly by Agri at this point (not to mention being abused, as is clear from the variety of investigations) but the very fact that the racial component is being ignored, but even more clearly that the illegal immigrants are actually being railroaded into pleading guilty for crimes which are almost certainly Agri’s.
While everyone following this story along with us here at Jewschool from the beginning, now years ago, can see that we nearly qualify at apoplectic at the combination of injustice and chillul hashem that’s being done, listening to the words of this translator, who in all his years has not been moved to speak out -until now- makes me sad and angry all over again.
It’s too early for the boycott to be called off. The workers are being charged with social security fraud and aggravated identity theft, the court is using the greater charge to browbeat the workers into pleading guilty for the lesser charge. If they refuse to plead guilty, they are told, instead of five months in prison and then deportation (forever, with no chance to return legally) they will have 6-8months in prison, with the possibility of two years more if they lose. Most of them are the sole economic support for their families and thus are choosing to plead guilty, despite the fact that many of them – according to the translator- clearly have no idea what a social security number is or what it’s used for (and are apparently ashamed of looking ignorant about it, most cannot read or write, and when asked what the number is say they don’t know, the factory people put it there.
In other words, of the crimes of social security fraud and aggravatedidentity theft, it is Agri who should be on trial, not the workers. If Agri wants their boycott lifted, some signs of tshuvah are in order. Confession (to God and to the victim(s), Apology, Restitution and Failure to Repeat the offense when given another chance. In order for us to even think about taking them seriously, they need to admit publicly that it is they, Agri, who are behind these offenses and not allow people who are innocent of these crimes to be tried and deported for them. The workers may be guilty of illegally entering the country, but they are almost certainly not guilty of what they are being accused. There are no signs of tshuvah yet from Rubashkin. Thus we should not be revoking the boycott.
I can’t even begin to say how disgusted I remain with this whole episode, how much harm the American Jewish community’s consumption of excess amounts of meat has done to other people, and that Agri will allow their workers to take the fall for them… well, it’s despicable.
Check out jcarrot for a fascinating interview with a former Agriprocessors mashgiach. It’s very openminded and worth reading; although peculiar in its breeziness – I don’t know how else to say it. read for yourselves.
One of the cool things about working for a magazine like Jewish Currents is that for the editors and readers of Currents, radical Jewish history isn’t just history, it’s a part of their lives. The editorial board of Currents is still run as a collective (of which I’m now a member), and the magazine has always been a vehicle for the voices of its readers, rather than a platform for the editorial board. If we covered labor and union issues, it was because a great part of our readership was union members- teachers, civil servants, wall paper hangers as well as union organizers and labor agitators.
Henry Foner fits into many of those aforementioned categories. He’s been a high school teacher, union organizer (Joint Board, Fur, Leather and Machine Workers Union), Jewish Currents editorial board member and writer, as well as a victim of the New York State communist purges of the early 1940s.
Tomorrow, Wednesday, June 11, at 6 pm, Henry Foner will be honored for his decades of service, as well as his achievements as a songwriter and bard of the organized labor world. Taking place at the Workmen’s Circle (45 East 33rd St) we will also be celebrating a new exhibit on the Labor Arts website called “Play it Again, Sam”: The Lost Chords of the Labor and Progressive Movements.
Henry Foner and his colleagues young and old will be performing songs like “Shoot the Strudel to me Yudel”, “Capitalist Boss” and “Song of the Pennies and Selling Union.”
Here’s a wonderful bio of Henry from Tamiment Library, after the jump
A new internet startup called G.ho.st (pronounced like the spook, and an acronym for “Global Hosted Operating System”) offering “free web-based virtual computing for every human being” wants to give users a free,way to access their desktop and files from any computer with an Internet connection. To do so, g.ho.st uses services like Google Docs, Zoho and Flickr.
It has a Palestinian office in Ramallah, with about 35 software developers, and a smaller Israeli team in the Israeli town of Modiin. The CEO, Dr. Zvi Schreiber, said “he wanted to create G.ho.st after seeing the power of software running on the Web. He said he thought it was time to merge his technological and commercial ambitions with his social ones and create a business with Palestinians.”
G.ho.st also has a philanthropic component: a foundation that aims to establish community computer centers in Ramallah and in mixed Jewish-Arab towns in Israel. The foundation is headed by Noa Rothman, the granddaughter of Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli prime minister slain in 1995.
“It’s the first time I met Palestinians of my generation face to face,†said Ms. Rothman, 31, of her work with G.ho.st. She said she was moved by how easily everyone got along. “It shows how on the people-to-people level you can really get things done.â€
Investors have put $2.5 million into the company so far, a modest amount. Employing Palestinians means the money goes farther; salaries for Palestinian programmers are about a third of what they are in Israel.
But Dr. Schreiber, who initially teamed up with Tareq Maayah, a Palestinian businessman, to start the Ramallah office, insists this is not just another example of outsourcing.
“We are one team, employed by the same company, and everyone has shares in the company,†he said.
JTA breaking news: The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the right to sue employers for retaliating against employees bringing bias complaints. Lots of Jewish organizations signed on as friends for this one.
It’s a pretty important ruling, but I wonder how this works together with the inability to bring suit for employment discrimination after 180 days (e.g. you discover after five years, that you, a woman, make less than any of your male co-workers…but can’t sue because your first paycheck is more than 180 days into the past). Just curious, anyone find this kinda odd?
Reported in Vos Is Neias, Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld, of Ohev Sholom the National Synagogue in Washington, D.C., has called for the Vaad Harabonim of Washington to temporarily suspend Rubashkin’s meat in the stores and caterers that it supervises. So far the Vaad has not responded; it will be interesting to see if they do. Why? A quick view at the comments section might be edifying: Rabbi Herzfeld is dismissed as “a talmid of ‘Rabbi’ Avi Weiss;” apparently in some circles that’s enough to have your smichah be questionable.
But more than that, Rabbi Herzfeld, despite his innovative programming, energy and, let’s face it, success in reviving a dying shul, has not won him the kudos of the local Orthodox leadership. Aside from a minor scrap over his shul taking the name “the National Synagogue,” Rabbi Herzfeld has also put himself outside the pale by becoming the first Orthodox rabbi in DC to join the Washington Board of rabbis and sit down at the table with non-Orthodox rabbis and call them colleagues.
I’d like to think that instead of him being tarred with yet another reason to keep him on the outside of his Orthodox colleagues’ circles, this would be an opportunity for them to show some leadership on this issue, and also offer the opportunity for them to show some spine over politics. Rabbi Herzfeld isn’t the only rabbi out there -Orthodox or Conservative- who is working on trying to get some movement happening, but I do hope that he might help the DC area to move on this matter more effectively.
In other Rubashkin’s news, the CEO of Rubashkin, Sholom Rubashkin, will resign as head of Agriprocessors Inc. after a search for a new CEO is completed
My bad, the Conservative movement has come out with a new statement that, um, well, I’m not sure exactly what it suggests: I think it says that I might perhaps maybe consider taking into account the halachot on obligations to workers, treatment of other human beings, dina d’malchuta dina and the like and consider maybe perhaps possibly not buying Rubashkin’s. If I want to.
In a joint statement released Thursday evening, the movement’s Rabbinical Association and the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism declared themselves “shocked and appalled†at working conditions at AgriProcessors, which is under federal investigation for employing illegal aliens. The groups asked their members “to evaluate whether it is appropriate to consume Rubashkin products until this situation is addressed.â€
Well, I am being a little harsh.
I had such high hopes for Hekhsher Tzedek, and even though we haven’t really seen much on that happen in the last year and a half I still do. I just really want to see the Conservative movement stand up and do something to show their seriousness. Of course, specific rabbis are absolutely taking stands on this, including advising their congregants not to buy Rubashkin’s brands and not allowing it in their synagogues. And this is true for both Conservative and Orthodox rabbis.
So maybe the truth is that the boycott will have to be, for the institutions, puk chazei; go out and see – that the movement will have to be grassroots, led by local leaders who really deserve the name by showing their communities what it means to take a serious moral stand on something. It may simply be that institutions aren’t really set up to make moral stands.
So perhaps it’s time for the leaders of movements simply to follow. So I’m going to echo Josh Frankel‘s excellent suggestions (Please read for yourself) and repeat this part myself: don’t buy from Rubashkin brands until they straighten up their act. I want to see them put standards in place to protect their workers: find a way to make legal all those people whom they’ve brought in illegally, since they deliberately sought out illegal workers so that they could be treated with less care and paid less; unionize their entire operation – no arguments; fire the abusers and replace them with people who receive training in the ethical halachot and to understand that if it isn’t all followed the meat is no good – and this should absolutely include the mashgichim.
When they’ve done tshuvah (repented) by apologizing to both their consumers and their employees, made reparation to their employees, and fixed the problems that led to the abuse in the first place, then we should forgive them and go back to buying from them. But not until then.
Here is the full text of the Conservative movement’s statement: More »
This one is so bizarre I’m not sure if it’s disturbing or a very sly bit of tongue in cheek marketing. But since it’s Purim and we’re all going to be Adloyada tonight, this seemed appropriate. And if you’re just an Russian Oligarch who needs to get your drink on, this one’s for you too.
Actually this isn’t so much the thing itself that’s weird as the place selling it: apparently 
5WPR, headed by the uber-cool Alpha Dog of the PR World, 
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