I am all for the use of Jews and Jewish holidays for humorous promotional purposes. This year I attempted this with my Rosh haShanah greeting.
Sometimes I even think it’s cool when Judaism, or a particular Jew, is used for commercial purposes - as Matisyahu is in the Kenneth Cole commercial.
In both of these cases Judaism is used as a way of communicating something important - like taking life and art seriously or the ability to laugh at ourselves once in a while.
I like Rush. I respect the fact that they’ve consistently made some really good music for many years. But I think VH1’s Rush special billed as “Rush haShanah” was completely off the mark.
If I made the Rosh - Rush pun in a shiur (class) I was giving I would be accused of not only having gone to the Rabbinical School of Incredibly Bad Puns for my Smicha (Rabbinic Degree) but of having flunked out.
There’s NOTHING clever about a pun that uses two words that sound alike but have nothing to do with each other. Example of a good pun: When you dream in colour, it’s a pigment of your imagination. Pigment which sounds like figment is clever because it relates to the subject of the statement. Rush has nothing whatsoever to do with the hebrew word Rosh (meaning head).
Was there some point to this that I’m oblivious to? Some redeeming factor? If I suggested that 7-11 should have a Slurpy sale called “Slush haShanah” - would anyone actually think it was a good marketing idea? Apparently Rolling Stone Magazine whose article referred to this as an “awesomely clever pun” would. This mischaracterization was no doubt what caused Mr. Mike Fink to comment (on the afore-linked article) that “rock and roll is not the only way the Jew destroyed Western civilization”. (No, Mr. Fink, it is NOT the only way - but it IS the most fun way don’t you fink?)
I know what you’re thinking right now. You are thinking two things. 1. “Dude, you ARE missing the point - the special aired ON Rosh haShanah; the date is the connection that makes the pun work.” and 2. “Lighten up - it was just a silly marketing ploy. It’s not like a case of wife or death (an expression sometimes used to punnily define a shotgun wedding).”
OK, you’re right, I’m taking a deep breath, smiling and relaxing and assuming the “final nun” position from Aleph-Bet Yoga. I suppose it could be cool to have a Ween show on Halloween called “Hallowed Ween” or a special performance on Broadway called “Rent on Lent” but neither of those Holidays claim to be the day when the entire world; Jews Christians, Muslims, non-believers and even Zoroastrians are all standing in Judgement before The Creator - something which I suspect may not have come across to viewers of the VH1 special…
So listen Mr./Mrs. VH1 marketing person whoever you might be; Zeit mir moichel (please forgive me) but let’s leave Rosh HaShanah puns to us Rabbis shall we? Your idea lacked geometry as it was pointless. You missed the true meaning of Rosh HaShana; it was just too pasteurized. You know what? I think you should consider switching careers and maybe writing a gossip column for a newspaper - a job more befitting someone with your great sense of rumor.
10. Pay $600 or more for one-time tickets to services in a glitzy synagogue where you never go any other time of year. Feel awkward when there’s a bowl for cash next to the bathroom attendant. Wonder why you can’t see the organ player or choir.
9. Attend a niggun-rich alternative service in a simple chapel of an old Conservative synagogue for only $125.
8. Work you ass off because you are a rabbi or struggling grad student - make thousands of dollars, but sacrifice your soul.
7. Be psyched that as a congress person with a Jewish sounding last name, you get a day off.
6. Attend free services:
- with Ohel Ayalah in Manhattan or Brooklyn
- at a church in the village or in Brooklyn
5. Gather with friends in an apartment for a mini lay-lead service and potluck dinner.
4. Bring apples and honey to a bar in Williamsburg.
3. Be a part of Jewish ritual theater with Storahtelling and Tribeca Hebrew on the 45th floor of 7 World Trade Center for New York’s Highest High Holidays.
2. Pay $10 to hear Sway Machinery’s multi-media performance Hidden Melodies Revealed.
1. Enjoy the holiday in your home community with family and friends. No tickets. No meshugas. Plenty of round challahs.
So, nu, Jewschoolers - how did you spend the holiday? Any of this apply to you? What are your plans for Yom Kippur?
Over at Mixed Multitudes, Matthue Roth has an interview with The Sway Machinery leader Jeremiah Lockwood in advance of his Rosh Hashanah concert experiences, Hidden Melodies Revealed: A Secret Celebration of Rosh Hashanah. They’re taking place Monday and Tuesday night (Yes, ON Rosh Hashanah) at Le Poisson Rouge in NYC. Here he’s describing a story he wrote which was animated for the events by Six Points Fellow and New York Times Illustrator Andrea Dezso:
I wanted to open the part of a person that sheds tears, and shows pain… It’s especially relevant to this time in history, where we’re all juggling several worlds at the same time. It’s exactly what I’m trying to do with the Sway Machinery. It’s what I’m trying to do with Rosh Hashanah.
Jeremiah plays guitar with Balkan Beat Box, and The Sway Machinery includes Brian Chase of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Jordan and Stuart from Antibalas. According to SPIN, Sway sounds like an “eclectic afro-beat, blues, and Jewish-cantorial melange.” Like many new Jewish music projects, you really do need to hear it to believe it. Check out this MP3 of P’Sach Lanu Sha’ar and decide what you make of it for yourself.
Hidden Melodies Revealed is made possible through the Six Points Fellowship for Emerging Jewish Artists, of which Jeremiah is a member of the inaugural cohort. If you don’t have holiday plans, you really should get your butt to this event. Can’t make it to the events? JDub just released an EP available from itunes, amazon, emusic, and the JDub webstore.
Coincidentally, at yesterday’s NIForum, the New Israel Fund’s annul symposium of sorts, Maya Sabatello of B’Tselem laid out the impact of her organization’s project. The effect has been enormous, she explained. Started to counteract the “compassion fatique” which plagues the Israeli public, the single largest responses by Israeli society were two Shooting Back footages.
Settler curses Fida' Abu 'Ayesha in the Tel Rumeida, Hebron, 2006.
The most recent footage of settler rioting has not been posted online. All the same, it’s contributed to the mounting denunciations of the settlers by the government.
Sabatello presented alongside the Executive Director of Witness, an global human rights org which started the YouTube of human rights, and Eliezer Yaari, the director of New Israel Fund’s Israel operations.
More on the NIForum in clenchner’s posts on JVoices here and here.
Oh man, if it weren’t bad enough that the Jewish blogosphere too frequently contains steaming piles of right-wing ugliness, then Netanyahu’s visit to the purported first Jewish bloggers summit in Jerusalem just drives it all home for me. But in the same week, Jewschool posted a ton about a summit we support greatly, the Havurah Institute. Why?
As a humorous first interlude, whoever wrote the article knows dick about blogging in a hilarious way. Apparently, the Israel-Diaspora divide is exacerbated by different blogging platforms! Israelis and Arabs use Tapuz and Diaspora Jews use WordPress — it was a make aliyah call to Tapuz! Leave behind your wimpy and yeshivish WordPress for the sun-bronzed, muscular kibbutznik of LiveJournal! Come home, my sons, come home. Netanyahu said it, I swear. That and somehow the author thinks we all read Heeb to “keep up with the banter.” Whaaaat?
But short of the writing, the article is troubling and elucidating:
Netanyahu got a “storming applause” from “Jewlicious, West Bank Mama, Israpundit, and the like” at a conference organized by aliyah agencyNefesh B’Nefesh, which is not surprising. This of course is the Netanyahu who dismantled the social safety net of Israel, pushing through Knesset the odious (and thankfully repealed) welfare-to-work “Wisconsin Plan”. The Netanyahu against whom an 8-seat party composed of pissed off pensioners was created out of thin air in the same elections that created Kadima. Netanyahu who represents the Greater Israel schemers and the all-military-all-the-time cheerleaders. He’s the head of Israel’s largest right-wing party. And the Jewish blogosphere loves him. Isn’t that a shame? [Editor's post-note: Haaretz also picked up on the right-wing selection; Nefesh B'Nefesh disputes bias claim.]
Where’s the summit of the Jewish blogosphere which supports social justice within Israel, and not punitive programs against Israel’s own poor? And the Jbloggers who find more to be concerned about in the world than Israel’s aliyah rate? Maybe some Jbloggers who think that Israel’s society might benefit from an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?
Essentially, where were the Jewschoolers hanging out? Easy: last week a bunch of us were at the Havurah Institute. More »
Much of my recent Jewschool absence can be accounted for by the upcoming national tour of my band, The Shondes.
The Shondes released The Red Sea earlier this year, and are very excited to come to a city near you. The tour itinerary is below - please be in touch if we’re coming to your neck of the woods or pass along to your rocknroll-loving friends across the country!
For more updated info and dates being added, visit: www.myspace.com/theshondes. [Details below the fold.]
The Democratic National Convention will include an interfaith service, bringing together leaders from the Christian, Muslim and Jewish communities. There will be four rabbis present for the service: Rabbi David Saperstein, of the RAC, will be reciting an invocation, as noted in the previous post on Jewschool by KRG. Rabbi Marc Shneier, founder of the Foundation of Ethnic Understanding Rabbi Amy Schwartzman, a DC area Reform rabbi Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, Executive Vice President of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America.
I’m just saying, we make up about 2.5% of the population of the US, and of that 2.5%, what percentage goes to synagogue or relates to someone they call “rabbi”? It’s got to be small. I don’t know how many people are going to be addressing this interfaith event that is commencing the Democratic National Convention, but isn’t it a bit Jew heavy? And is it even representative of your average American Jew? I don’t know what I think about this. Others have thoughts?
At the aforementionedclass on the Encyclopedia Judaica at this week’s NHC Summer Institute, we have looked at a number of articles, but this text from the Chaim Weizmann article stands out as fabulously awful.
There were times when Weizmann was seized with a poignant concern for Israel’s inner quality; but whenever he fell into doubts and regrets he looked through his window at Rehovot upon the verdant rolling plains and rich orange groves surrounding the scientific laboratories established under his inspiration. On a clear day his gaze would go as far as the Judean Hills. The landscape in between was dotted with villages and townships indicative of the new impetus given to Jewish national vitality. And then a deep contentment would come upon him, and his mind would become serene, as befitted a man who to a degree unshared by any figure in contemporary history had seen an improbable vision translated, largely through his own effort, into vibrant and solid reality.
(Wikipedia haters should note that this paragraph wouldn’t last for an hour on Wikipedia.)
(The article is signed by “A. EB.” That could be anyone!)
This morning at one of the shacharit options, I was exposed to a subgenre of Jewish liturgical music that I didn’t even know existed: Reconstructionist camp music. I was already familiar with Reform camp music and Conservative camp music, so I guess it was only a matter of time until this developed too.
At the competition between D’ror Yikra and Yah Ribon, Yah Ribon emerged as the undisputed victor, winning by a score of 13 melodies to 10. It’s possible that the people in attendance could have come up with more Yah Ribon melodies, but we had run out of time; however, our knowledge of D’ror Yikra melodies had been exhausted. (The rule was that the melody had to have been written for those words, or be commonly used for those words previous to this workshop. So “Sloop John B” is in, but throwing in your favorite Lecha Dodi melody on the fly is out.)
At last night’s “boogie”, the tepid response to “Yom Shishi” made it clear that few North Americans still remember Israeli ’80s pop. However, Hadag Nachash and the Time Warp retain their popularity.
One of my favourite moments of the week so far was the barefoot boogie-style dance last night. And though there are some communities who gasp that various activities could “lead to mixed dancing” - as if that were the most horrible thing - I thoroughly enjoyed our various genders dancing together.
And one of the best sights? All the tzitzis swirling as we danced about, hanging off the bodies of men and women alike. ::fans self::
Today brought new topics to my brain. Ari Weisbard changed the topic of his workshop on the fly and we addressed whether/how one might add a social justice dimension to the NHC outside the Institute. We didn’t succeed in figuring out if it is a good idea or not (Ari might not agree). In the meantime, we discussed the pros and cons of tzedakah collectives, with one participant describing the successes in the Fabrengan tzedakah collective that’s been around a long time. We raised other topics such as co-housing for seniors, but were brought back to what one person described as social justice issues inside the Institute itself. Two issues raised were our meager (my word) formal programming about Israel, and “the minyan issue”.
A word of explanation about that one, in the hopes of not starting a conversation on this list. For many years, egalitarian davening was the single “halacha” of the NHC. No mechitza minyanim were sanctioned scheduled events on the program and no sefer Torah was provided by the NHC for any non-egal services. And, now it seems to be on the table. This is, in some ways, the 800 pound gorilla in the room, since no one discusses it publicly… and that was deemed to be a social justice issue that this participant raised for the community as a whole to confront. Again. So, we’ll see how this plays out by the same time next year.
And then on to the class on post-feminism, where we spent the time on varying aspects of the work-life balance. What a change from the conversations on this topic that I’m used to being part of, where one party is usually arguing that the women’s movement has caused the crisis confronting Jewish institutions now that there are fewer women available for the truly low paying jobs in Hebrew schools, secretarial positions etc. This conversation was three-generational and there was great wisdom from women who are now retired from full-time work, as well as from women just entering the workforce. The second half of the class focused on Jewish communal concerns around this issue, for all people not only for women with children. We spent a fair amount of time so far in the class trying to understand whether or not this can be defined as a feminist issue.
As Anne has asked, I’m going to write a bit about the conversations about gender at ‘tute. And there are so many, it’s hard for me to keep them, uh, straight in my mind.
Anne mentioned a class we’re both taking, and the conversations “about sex, gender and non-binary aspects of gender.” The conversation started with a long-since discarded and retracted article on intersex. The question was posed: does feminism include working beyond/outside the gender binary? And, if so, what might this look like in our Jewish communities?
The responses ranged from knee-jerk but typical of second wave feminism (no!) to confused (talking about gay men) to poignant, intelligent, and at times painful. It was wonderful to hear the older generations not getting the whole transgender and/or intersex thing - not from a place of ignorance or lack of knowledge or compassion, but from “I’m me, and you’re you, and what does it matter if he wants to wear frilly dresses, or she wants to be a tomboy? Why do we have to change our bodies? Why can’t we all just be?” Having had many of these conversations before - amongst friends, in academic settings, as an activist and advocate for queer and trans youth - I tried to sit back and watch the learning process.
But where I thought the class fell short was in addressing that second question. The conversation was not brought back to the Jewish context. My fellow havurahniks were left pondering transgender and intersex people in the theoretical greater society, world, but not in our communities. Not here at Summer Institute (where there is a visible, but small, group of transpeople this year), not in our Jewish communities at home. And I think it’s a conversation that needs to happen.
Interestingly, and perhaps this says something about how far this community still has to go, at tonight’s program, “Intergenerational Conversation on Gender in Judaism,” the facilitators ask the large group of us to end by offering ideas and suggestions for dealing with bringing gender challenges and issues (ranging from needs for gender balance in Jewish education to lack of equivalent life-cycle events for our children to gendered hiring processes in our Jewish institutions to including transpeople) to our Jewish communities, and how to deal with them there… And that was the flattest, least articulated part of the conversation.
My afternoon course is “Infinity and God” with Matt Goldfield. Today, in the first day of the course, we read “The Book of Sand” by Jorge Luis Borges, the beginning of Spinoza’s Ethics (in which God is defined as “substance consisting of infinite attributes, each one of which expresses eternal and infinite essence”), and an excerpt from The Thirteen Petalled Rose by Adin Steinsaltz. Then we showed that the set of natural numbers has the same cardinality (size) as the set of even natural numbers. (Even though even natural numbers are a subset of the natural numbers!!! So crazy!!!)
More tomorrow. But now I’ll have a simpler answer the next time anyone asks me the difference between Havurah and Renewal: There are no math proofs at Renewal gatherings.
I’m taking a course at the Summer Institute, co-taught by Martha Ackelsberg and Judith Plaskow, on “The Unfinished Revolution: Jewish Feminism in a ‘Post-Feminist’ Age.” Today was the first class, and we spent much of the morning brainstorming as a group. First, what accomplishments had Jewish feminism made, and then what issues still had to be addressed.
Our class, large by Summer Institute standards at just over 20 people, ranged from 20-somethings to 60- (70? 80?) somethings, from across the US (coughand Canadacough), representing different sexual orientations… and though mostly women, included a few of us guys as well. (I’m happy to add that anne and YehuditBrachah are also in this class.)
What I found interesting was that we so easily agreed on what was considered an accomplishment. And then rattled off so many accomplishments that we ran out of room on the chalkboard. Accomplishments ranged from regendered language for G!d and prayer to having notices posted in women’s washrooms of Jewish buildings offering help for victims of abuse to female rabbis to increased/higher learning in all denominations of Judaism for women to Women Of The Wall to….
Where we became a little more stumped was when we paused, perhaps on a tangent, to discuss why people eschew the term “feminism” (or “feminist”). “I’m not a feminist but…” But? What makes people say this? What is it about the term or the concept that makes people want to stay away? If we’re able to answer this question, might the answer be different in a Jewish setting? I would be curious to see what you, O Jewschool Readers, have to say.
Meanwhile, I’ve taught the first day of my course, taught my workshop, and am very much enjoying the sunshine that has reappeared here in New Hampshire. Time to relax outside!
I see that anne has posted commentary on this class as well; looks like we posted within a minute of each other. I’m leaving this up anyway, in hopes that her extra details might add background to the questions I’m hoping will be discussed in this post.
There’s a saying in New England: If you don’t like the weather wait five minutes. So true, with the gorgeous sunshine mixed with two rounds of drenching rain - and the day isn’t over yet.
I led a small text study this morning after breakfast with an aggadah from Sefer HaAggadah about a heretic asking Rabbi Akiva about who created the world. I would never have imagined that the group would find such depth and meaning in a one paragraph tale. That’s one of the aspects of this institute that I really like. The group will mine the depths of a text until the meanings appear.
David Seidenberg led a workshop called “22 Foundations for a Sustainable Civilization from the Sources of Judaism”. One of them, from the Torah, led to an insight I hadn’t experienced. Derived from Numbers 20:7-13, every aspect of creation participates in life. No thing is “dead”. Spirit is indivisible from what is physical. That led to the understanding that the word nefesh doesn’t always refer to something that is alive. I had never understood nefesh to mean anything other than a living person, but was reminded that Nefesh adam asher yamut (the nefesh of a man who is dead) is the phrase for a corpse. Nefesh chaya refers to a living soul. Of course there are implications for those who believe in an afterlife… The other 21 items in the foundation came from Torah, philosphy, kabbalah, halacha, chasidut, and some theological considerations, as he put it.
My morning course is The Unfinished Revolution: Jewish Feminism in a “Post-Feminist” Age, led by Martha Ackelsberg and Judith Plaskow. As a long-time member of the New York Havurah with them, and being with them in NHC settings, it was like the continuation of a long conversation that’s been evolving over the past 30 years - only with 20 other people in the room. It’s more mixed a group than I expected - four men, half a dozen women in their 20s and early 30s, a woman in her early 80s and a few in their 70s with the rest of the participants being baby boomer women. Two of the women are rabbis and one is a senior rabbinical student - a few in the Jewish communal world, and the rest of us earning a living in the secular world. We generated an impressive list of accomplishments in the past forty years of the Jewish women’s movement, including: ordination of women rabbis and cantors, the opening of advanced Jewish study to women - even in the Orthodox world, the normalization of ritual roles for women, rosh chodesh groups, acknowledgement of domestic violence and alcoholism in Jewish families, women in major leadership roles in organizations (the exception being major Federations), liturgical changes to some extent, greater acceptance of feminine imagery and aspects of God, changing tables in synagogues’ men’s rooms, women on the Conservative Movement’s Law Committee, Jewish women scholars, women’s philanthropy and a bunch more. Many of these are on a continuum of progress. It took well over 20 minutes to list them and Martha ran out of room on the large blackboard in the room. Most of the list seems to revolve around religious activity, and the group acknowledged that women have been the change agents who have challenged the status quo. Tomorrow we progress to the work remaining - we generated a short list to continue: Not relegating women to support roles in synagogue maintenance (kiddush, etc), closing the salary gap in professional clergy positions, raising the level of respect for childraising and perhaps making halachic changes in male requirements that would enable men to do this, redefining authority, destigmatizing the language of feminisim, and more. What a huge agenda for a four day course.
My afternoon class with Rabbi Jill Jacobs and Guy Austrian is “It Goes Without Saying… Power Passivity and Social Change”. Here too, an ambitious agenda for a class. We discussed types of power we encounter each day in our lives (bosses-subordinates, teacher-student, professional-volunteer, rabbi-congregants, people with big voices, people with lots of money…) and we listed some arenas in which we find them (school, workplace, universities, congregations, home…) We began discussing the nature of power - how we might define it and we got as far as distinguishing between “power over” (positional) and “power with” (relational).
Ending the loooong day of cerebral activity was a delightful workshop with Zach Teutsch leading us in a conversation “Getting Jewed: Towards a more positive and just relationship with money”. We explored feelings about money and being able to verbally communicate it to others - this proved to be quite a powerful experience for one participant who spoke about a positive experience she’d had while trying to fundraise for an organization. I’ll leave more about this workshop to Zach’s report which he said he’d post to this blog soon.
The 2008 Summer Institute of the National Havurah Committee opened this afternoon at Franklin Pierce University in Rindge, NH. At the orientation this afternoon we were told that over 370 people would be in attendance for a week of study, workshops and fun. More than ever in the 30 years of the institute, there is a balance of age cohorts, with many people between 22-35 and many over 50, with a nice sized children’s program. Several of the attendees are over 80! And, 83 workshops will be presented over the course of the week. More about this as the week progresses and I get to some of them.
This evening’s program featured each of the two Poretsky Artists in Residence: Heather Stolz presented a session entitled Quilting Our Jewish Journeys while Bear Bergman presented Monday Night in Westerbork (which I attended), a creative one-person play set along the plotlines of the theater group at the Westerbork concentration camp. This presentation was entertaining, serious, engaging and thoughtful. At the end, I had an interesting conversation with the recent high school graduate I sat next to and we agreed that the play introduced new information to us.
As is traditional at the first night of the institute, an ice cream dessert tempted a few dozen folks who were hanging out jamming and gabbing. Being “of a certain age” I begged off the late night singing and jamming that was just beginning at 10:30 and am about to crash. More tomorrow from lovely Rindge, NH, as classes and workshops start kicking in.
This is the beauty of sport: as soon as you start running you forget everything and remember that we are all the same. Unfortunately, politics is not in the hands of the regular people and the athletes.
Uzi Dann, writing in Ha’aretz, snarkily dismissed Blatt’s gesture, pointing out that an Iranian swimmer has already refused to compete against an Israeli and that certainly no Iranian would ever deign to shake Blatt’s hand if he was the coach of the Israeli team. Oh pleeeeze: is it possible to simply savor this exquisite moment without Scrooging it up with sour grapes? Given the often unbearable political tensions in our world, I’d say we should welcome every instance in which someone extends a hand in the spirit of simple humanity…
