I’m afraid I’m not up for much tonight, but it is Week four, day one,
Chesed of Netzach.
IN the meantime, here is a review on Salon of what looks to be an interesting book: “A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World,” by journalist Tony Horwitz
Start with this. Ponce de Léon went to Florida to find not a fountain of youth but the same things that drew every Spanish invader: gold and slaves. (He found neither.) The first Protestant refuge in North America wasn’t Plymouth but La Caroline, a fort built on the Florida coast in 1564 by the above-mentioned Huguenots. A year later, their slaughterer Menéndez held what was possibly America’s first Thanksgiving dinner, well attended by local Indians.
On and on it goes: a hemorrhaging of certainty. The first European child born in North America? Not Virginia Dare but, more likely, a Viking boy named Snorri, born circa 1000 A.D. in what the Norse liked to call Vinland. The true founding father of New England? Not Bradford, not Standish, but John Smith, who gave the region its name and actively promoted its colonization.
And what about those flat-earthers who thought Columbus would tumble off the world’s edge? You can blame that little fiction on Washington Irving. The Greeks had long ago figured out the world was round, and for more than 700 years, even the Catholic Church had accepted it. The only thing Spaniards were still debating in 1492 was the distance to Asia. In this, as in so many other matters, Columbus was mistaken.
In the Times Online, appears a lengthy review by Geoffrey Wheatcroft of no fewer than 6 books on Israeli and her history: Jacqueline Rose’s THE LAST RESISTANCE, Colin Shindler’s THE TRIUMPH OF MILITARY ZIONISM: Nationalism and the origins of the Israeli Right, David Goldberg’s THE DIVIDED SELF: Israel and the Jewish psyche today, Victoria Clark’s ALLIES FOR ARMAGEDDON:The rise of Christian Zionism, Yakov M. Rabkin’s A THREAT FROM WITHIN: A century of Jewish opposition to Zionism, and Jimmy Carter’s PALESTINE: Peace not apartheid
The review is long and rangy, starting and ending with a focus on the complicated and largely unknown major Israeli historical figure Jabotinsky. As he says in the review,
But the conflict in the Holy Land is still more dissonant in this regard. It is the single most bitterly contentious communal struggle on earth today (something which itself casts an ironical light on the aspiration of the first Zionists to “answer the Jewish question†by “normalizing†the Jews and removing them from the pages of history); it must receive more media coverage than India, which has a population a hundred times greater; it inflames acute passions. And yet it sometimes seems that the more strongly people feel, the less they actually know about the story of Zionism. Maybe it should be a requirement for anyone who wishes to hold forth on the subject to write first a few lines each on Ahad Ha’am, Max Nordau, George Antonius – or Vladimir Jabotinsky.
If not many Europeans or Americans know who “Jabo†was, Israelis certainly do. He remains the most charismatic, fascinating and controversial figure in the history of Zionism, and in the state to whose creation he devoted his life, but which he never saw. Born in 1880 in Odessa, he was converted to the Zionist cause as a young man by tsarist persecution, became a tireless publicist and organizer, and helped to create the Jewish Legion which fought with the British against Turkey during the First World War. In the 1920s he broke away to found the uniformed youth group Betar, and then the militantly nationalistic right-wing brand of Zionism he called Revisionism, in opposition to Chaim Weizmann and the general Zionists, and to David Ben Gurion and the Labour Zionists of the Yishuv, the Jewish settlement in Palestine.
From Betar would grow the Irgun Zvei Leumi, which waged an armed campaign against the British and the Arabs – in British and Arab eyes, a terrorist campaign – in the ten years before Israel was born. When Jabotinsky died in American exile in 1940, he had not seen the murderous horror that engulfed the European Jews, the creation of the Jewish state, or the legacy of his own movement. The Irgun evolved into the right-wing Herut party, which was not merely excluded from office but veritably anathematized in Israel for the first quarter-century the state existed after 1948, but which, now in the guise of Likud, took power at last in 1977 under the old Irgun leader Menachem Begin – and which descends to the present administration.
If you’re able to get to Tel Aviv tomorrow (Sunday) or Haifa next weekend, you ought to check out “South Coast.” I caught tonight’s screening at the Jerusalem Cinematheque and really got into it.
A feature length documentary, it explores the 25ish year history of hip hop in Brighton, England, comparing it to the scenes in the US (”east coast” and “west coast” America lend to the film’s “south coast” England title), London, and other parts of Europe. Listen to good music, watch some amazing break-dancing, see local writers and graffiti artists, and throw in a tonne of archival footage and interviews, and you too will be an expert on the south coast hip hop scene.
Thanks to the Hebrew subtitles, you can also chalk it up to an, um, educational viewing: learn new slang that you might otherwise miss out on. Learn the hip hop culture jargon - dis haters, curse, bboy and pop, and scratch - b’ivrit. (If only I’d brought a notepad!)
Okay, no one really thinks so. For one thing, Hoffman’s been dead a while, and Sacha Baron Cohen is still alive and kicking. Also he appears, as a general rule to be adequately groomed. But this just in:
In Spielberg’s new movie on the trial of the Chicago seven, Baron Cohen will play Abbie Hoffman. A rather more serious film than Baron Cohen’s incredibly strange, and disputedly funny (some say yes, others not so much) Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, The Trial of the Chicago Seven is about the famous dust-ups resulting from protesters of the 1968 Democratic party convention (not “Democrat party convention,” as the TimesOnline refers to it, incorrectly)
The Trial of the Chicago Seven follows protesters who disrupted the 1968 Democrat party convention with an anti-Vietnam-war “carnival†that turned nasty. Demonstrators threw bricks, police responded with tear gas and the centre of Chicago was engulfed in flames. Curfews only escalated the violence.
After the clashes, independent investigators blamed eight police officers and eight protesters including Hoffman, who had already disrupted the New York Stock Exchange with showers of fake money.
The police were not charged but the protesters were accused of inciting a riot. One was jailed for contempt, leaving the seven to fight the charges.
It was, said the late writer Norman Mailer, who testified for the seven, a noisy televised clash between the old order and the burgeoning counterculture.
Hoffman and four others were found guilty of attempting to incite a riot while crossing state lines, but the convictions were overturned and none served any jail time.
Hoffman, of course, was well-known as a prankster who used his somewhat outre pranks as a form of protest against the Vietnam war. That, I’m sure is the attraction for Baron Cohen, but he also had a much longer history as well. He had been active in the SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) and later a leader of the Yippie movement. Hoffman was also somewhat of a tragic figure, as he committed suicide at 52 , having somewhat earlier been diagnosed as bipolar.
I think it will be very interesting to see Baron Cohen’s take on Hoffman. Note to Baron Cohen: What could you change with your comedy if you put your mind to it?
How did I miss this?? Last month, Israel was caught red-handed propping up Ahmadinejad’s regime! America demanded that Israel respect international sanctions against Iran and Israel, shamefacedly, crowed that it would of course cease immediately. Apparently, Israel is the world’s largest importer of pistachio nuts whereas Iran is the world’s largest exporter, and Israel’s imports from Turkey were revealed to be funneled through from — you guessed it — the Jew-haters of Tehran. Dun dun dun!
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.
This Shamir has been spending some of her vacation chillin’ out at Camp JRF, a beautiful community of a few hundred Reconstructionist Jews of all ages smack in the middle of the Poconos (northwest Pennsylvania).
Personally, I enjoy the variety of tunes at davening and people here enjoy sports in a way that works for me — not too competitive, and welcoming to people who are new to a particular game. The mountains are spectacular and the hidden waterfall in the woods is breathtaking. Since Reconstructionist Jews rarely get to frolic solely with their own kind, it’s clear that this place is a haven for many. Further, the feeling of community grows stronger every day — this is truly a camp full of love.
And, lest you think that such a liberal camp be lax or cheap on food, I was quite impressed at their kosher kitchen, as well as their regular vegan offerings.
So you can imagine my surprise when I noticed that the (silver) Havdallah set (no, not some cheesy wooden campy-model) was both stored and transported in a KFC bucket:
Nu? I was only somewhat calmed when it was pointed out to me that this is in fact an inside joke; apparently the Colonel holds a striking resemblance to Mordecai Kaplan, the key founder of Reconstructionist Judaism. You be the judge:
[Editor's Note] I happen to think that Heschel looks waaaaay more like the Colonel. –Mobius
Wow, Kurt Waldheim- that name takes me back to sixth grade. I hoped assumed he was burning in a hell he theoretically believed in dead already. Check out this story about his life. Best parts: the writer of the obit refers to Waldheim’s lying about his service in the Nazi officer corps as his ”economy with the truth.” Also, during his tenure as Austrian president he was unwelcome in most parts of the world and he took virtually no official state trips to other countries- except to the Vatican (twice) and unspecified “Arab countries.”
Name five contemporary Jewish theologians saying something interesting about Jewish belief who had not already published a major work by 1990.
Stumped? So am I.
Over the past few months, I have asked my theologically minded colleagues this question, and the responses have been disheartening.
…
The Jewish world is bifurcated between producers of Jewish esoterica and Jewish popularizers, communal leaders and academics, but not both. Our generation has precluded the possibility that administration, scholarship and religious vision are compatible, if not mutually dependent, elements of Jewish leadership.
There are many reasons for the dearth of theological thinking, but there is one reason that is particularly worrisome: Maybe there are no fresh Jewish theological voices because Jews are no longer interested in listening.
We are so focused on Israel, antisemitism and intermarriage that we have come to ignore the linchpin for all discussions on Jewish continuity — namely, a compelling case for Jewish belief.
This past month, Jews observed the festival of Shavuot, celebrating the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai. Do we believe that Mount Sinai really happened? Do we believe that the Torah continues to command us, shape us and bind us as a people? How can a Jew stand simultaneously at the base of Sinai and firmly in modernity?
These are difficult questions and there are no easy answers, but a Jewish community that does not ask them will not get very far in its journey. It is incumbent upon every generation to formulate a theology that makes Judaism compelling to the Jews of its age.
The time is ours. Nevertheless, the question remains: Is anyone interested in being part of the conversation?
I know those of you writing and reading for this fine blog are thinking about the big questions - I’m of the opinion that the conversation is being played out in the blogosphere, here and elsewhere (If you haven’t been reading Mobius’ journals from Elat Chayyim, not would be a good time to start. Also, the Westheimer/Kurtzman conversation over at Jewcy).
We may not be the kind of institutional theologians whose disappearance is lamented in this article, but that may come in part from what is sometimes a certain anti-institutional sentiment. Or, we may not be too fond of our institutional options. Or, our institutions may be our blogs. Thoughts?
Jewish Women’s Archive is launching a new feature:This Day of American Jewish Heritage. The feature was created in honor of the 2nd annual celebration of Jewish American Heritage Month this May. This Day of American Jewish Heritage will connect every day in May to significant moments in American Jewish history, for example: the ordination of women rabbis, and the creation of a 21st century progressive mikveh (ritual bath).
Each entry in the daily feature includes dates and accompanying descriptions encompassing the range of achievements of American Jewish women historically and up through today, and also highlights significant developments in American Jewish life.
In addition to offering the content on their own website, www.jwa.org, JWA is also offering it as a feed that can be posted on any website. Sites will be able to offer daily headlines that would link back to JWA’s website for the full exposition of each entry, or to host the entire content for This Day of Jewish American Heritage. JWA is providing code (iFrame) for displaying this feature.
Since its first issue in 1945, COMMENTARY has published hundreds of articles about Jews and Judaism. As one would expect, they cover just about every important aspect of the topic. But there is a lacuna, and not one involving some obscure bit of Judaica. COMMENTARY has never published a systematic discussion of one of the most obvious topics of all: the extravagant overrepresentation of Jews, relative to their numbers, in the top ranks of the arts, sciences, law, medicine, finance, entrepreneurship, and the media.
The article begins with a historical perspective, making a case that post-haskalah (enlightenment), Jewish involvement and accomplishment in the brainy parts, namely arts and sciences (notice we’re not very good at sports) of the broader society has been vastly disproportionate to our meager numbers (”our” not including Murray, who isn’t Jewish).
I recently read the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and it seems a fitting time to look at it again and think about the reality of slavery, the strategems of the master, and the way of the slave mindset. It is a must-read for every American and every Jew…
Here are some excerpts that are worth thinking about as we get ready for the Pesach seder.
***
The more I read, the more I was led to abhor and detest my enslavers. I could regard them in no other light than a band of successful robbers, who had left their homes, and gone to Africa, and stolen us from our homes, and in a strange land reduced us to slavery. I loathed them as being the meanest as well as the most wicked of men. As I read and contemplated the subject, behold! that very incontentment which Master Hugh had predicted would follow my learning to read had already come to torment and sting my soul to unutterable anguish. As I writhed under it, I would at times feel that learning to read had been a curse rather than a blessing. It had given me a view of my wretched condition, without the remedy. It opened my eyes to the horrible pit, but to no ladder upon which to get out.
In moments of agony, I envied my fellow-slaves for their stupidity. I have often wished myself a beast. I preferred the condition of the meanest reptile to my own. Any thing, no matter what, to get rid of thinking! It was this everlasting thinking of my condition that tormented me. There was no getting rid of it. It was pressed upon me by every object within sight or hearing, animate or inanimate. The silver trump of freedom had roused my soul to eternal wakefulness. Freedom now appeared, to disappear no more forever. It was heard in every sound, and seen in every thing. It was ever present to torment me with a sense of my wretched condition. I saw nothing without seeing it, I heard nothing without hearing it, and felt nothing without feeling it. It looked from every star, it smiled in every calm, breathed in every wind, and moved in every storm.
This is the one bit of labor history that many Jews have actually heard of. Unfortunately, in these debased days* few Jews, let alone the general population, really has much knowledge of Jewish labor history, and why the labor movement was so incredibly important - and why revitalizing it, and fighting the cynical pro-business interests of this administration and its appointees to the NLRB, is so essential for the future of workers in the USA today.
Think the conditions that sparked the success of the labor movement -and its necessity- are “the past?”
Even today, sweatshops have not disappeared in the United States. They keep attracting workers in desperate need of employment and illegal immigrants, who may be anxious to avoid involvement with governmental agencies. Recent studies conducted by the U.S. Department of Labor found that 67% of Los Angeles garment factories and 63% of New York garment factories violate minimum wage and overtime laws. Ninety-eight percent of Los Angeles garment factories have workplace health and safety problems serious enough to lead to severe injuries or death.
from here (…just because I’m lazy. If you want more statistics on this, they’re everywhere. Don’t like garment factories? Restaurants, mines, chain stores - like - Wal-Mart. If you like a good scandal, try meat packing plants and slaughterhouses - including kosher ones, to our shame. îæòæò)
On March 25, 1911, 146 young immigrant workers died in a tragic fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York’s Greenwich Village . Within minutes, the fire spread to consume the building’s upper three stories. Firefighters who arrived at the scene were unable to rescue those workers trapped inside because the doors were locked and their ladders could not reach the factory floor. This tragedy galvanized a city to fight for labor reform and safety in the workplace.
Beginning days after the tragedy, the United Hebrew Trades [now the United Hebrew Trades - New York Jewish Labor Committee] marked the event with a memorial at the site. Each year, the UHT joins with UNITEHERE! [the union whose predecessor union had been organizing workers at factories such as the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in the period of the fire] the New York City Fire Department, New York City public schools and others, to commemorate the lives of those who died.
Join us this year as we honor them and continue our fight for workers’ rights to safe working conditions.
WHEN Monday, March 26, 2007 — 12 noon - 1:00 p.m.
WHERE Corner of Washington Place & Greene Street - just east of Washington Square Park
UNITE HERE! Contact: Ed Vargas 212.265.7000
hat-tip to Arieh Lebowitz at the Jewish Labor Committee
I’ve always loved “top 50/100/whatever” lists. I made an attempt in High School to watch all 100 of AFI’s top movies. My senior English class spent time critiquing VH1’s top 100 rock songs. I can’t say I expected to see, in Newsweek no less, a list of America’s top 50 most influential Rabbis. This particular list provides a great deal of food for thought - what might it say about the current state of American Judaism? What defines one as an American Rabbi?
Last fall, Sony Pictures CEO and Chairman Michael Lynton got together with his good friends and fellow power brokers Gary Ginsberg, of Newscorp., and Jay Sanderson, of JTN Productions and started working on a list of the 50 most influential rabbis in America. They had a scoring system: Are the rabbis known nationally/internationally? (20 points.) Do they have a media presence? (10 points.) Are they leaders within their communities? (10 points.) Are they considered leaders in Judaism or their movements? (10 points.) Size of their constituency? (10 points.) Do they have political/social influence? (20 points.) Have they made an impact on Judaism in their career? (10 points.) Have they made a “greater” impact? (10 points.) This system, though helpful, is far from scientific; the men revised and rejiggered their list for months, and all three concede that the result is subjective.
So…. criticisms? Your dream team? Let the comment-fest begin!
For the sake of peace among men, so that no one could say to another, “My father was greater than your father†… to proclaim the greatness of the Holy One, blessed be He, for when a human being strikes many coins from one mould, they all resemble one another, but the supreme King of kings, the Holy One, blessed be He, fashioned every man in the stamp of the first man, and yet not one of them resembles his fellow. (Mishnah, Sanhedrin 4:5)
Racism isn’t always easy to spot. But on one day in 1960 in South Africa, racism showed its ugliest of heads in the form of the Sharpeville Massacre.
In South Africa of the 1950s, “pass laws” were the law of the land, stating, among other things:
Pass laws required that Africans had to carry identity documents with them at all times. These books had to contain stamps providing official proof that that the person in question had permission to be in a town at that time. Initially only men were forced to carry these books, but soon law also compelled women to carry the dreaded documents.
According to Section 10 (1a-d) of the 1954 Native Urban Areas Act Africans could only stay in an urban area for more than 12 hours if they:
a) Had been born there and had lived there ever since.
b) Had worked there for ten years under one employer, or had lived there for 15 years without breaking any law (including pass laws)
c) Were the child or wife of a man permitted to live in the urban area on the conditions of (a) or (b) mentioned above.
d) Signed a contract to migrate from a rural reserve to a specific job for a limited period of time in an urban area after which they must return home.
Contract workers’ families were not allowed to join them in an urban area.
On March 21, 1960, members of the Pan Africanist Congress, beating out their brethren at the African National Congress by 10 days, scheduled a protest against the racist pass laws. Their peaceful protest — which was to have as its climax handing the passes in in a show of defiance — was met by South African police opening fire on approximately 300 demonstrators and killing 69 of them. The day would, almost 35 years later, be declared the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination by the United Nations, and Human Rights Day in South Africa.
This year’s International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has as its theme “Racism and Discrimination – Obstacles to Development†according to the press release, and the UN ends its release with an exhortation:
The United Nations, through its lawmaking, human rights monitoring and awareness-raising roles, has an important part to play in the fight against racial discrimination. But each and every one of us must also make a stand: we must disavow discriminatory and intolerant acts in our personal lives and speak out forcefully against them in the public sphere.
Let us mark this International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination by recommitting ourselves to the equality of all human beings, and by resolving to make every effort to realize this simple, yet powerful, ideal.
The Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association will formally elect a fantastic Rabbi to steer itself at its March convention. R. Toba Spitzer is a talented darshan (homiltecist), a caring visionary, and a true progressive. Oh yeah, and a musical composer. None of these is the reason her appointment is going to get ink in the next week or two. The JTA story has a different angle:
The Reconstructionist movement tapped a lesbian rabbi to head its Rabbinical Association. Rabbi Toba Spitzer of West Newton, Mass., is to be formally elected at the movement’s March 11-14 convention.
…Spitzer’s election continues the Reconstructionist movement’s trailblazing tradition on gay and lesbian issues. In 1984, Reconstructionism became the first American Jewish movement to ordain gay rabbis, a move since followed by the Reform movement in 1990 and possibly by the Conservative movement in the coming months.
Mazal tov to Toba and the RRA. Here’s to hoping other rabbinical associations follow suit!
Update: Mik Moore just posted on the same story. He correctly points out that Rabbi Spitzer is a leader in the Congregational-Based Organizing Movement, an important Jewish Funds for Justice Program.
Genre:PeaceMaker is a role-playing game with a high level view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is not a first-person shooter.A Positive Message: The goal of the player as the leader is to establish a stable resolution to the conflict and win the Nobel Prize before his or her term in office ends. The difficulty level can range from calm to violent.
Play Both Perspectives: the player takes on the role of either the Israeli Prime Minister or the Palestinian President. After playing as one of the leaders, the player should then play the other side, this provides a unique perspective.
Playing the News: The player must react to in-game events, from diplomatic negotiations to military attacks or suicide bombs. These events such as an Israeli military operation in Jenin or a Palestinian suicide bomb in Jerusalem are represented using real news footage and images.
Other Actors: There are eight internal and external “actors” such as Hamas, the Israeli/Palestinian public, the US, the UN or the Arab world. Every action will immediately affect all stakeholders. They might act on their own interest and damage the player’s efforts.
The Path to Peace: While the game starts as a zero-sum game, the key to success is to gain momentum and create a win-win scenario.
Available for download for $20. I started a game. It’s hard.
A feature length documentary, it explores the 25ish year history of hip hop in Brighton, England, comparing it to the scenes in the US (”east coast” and “west coast” America lend to the film’s “south coast” England title), London, and other parts of Europe. Listen to good music, watch some amazing break-dancing, see local writers and graffiti artists, and throw in a tonne of archival footage and interviews, and you too will be an expert on the south coast hip hop scene.
Conservative author 
I recently read the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and it seems a fitting time to look at it again and think about the reality of slavery, the strategems of the master, and the way of the slave mindset. It is a must-read for every American and every Jew…
This is the one bit of labor history that many Jews have actually heard of. Unfortunately, in these debased days* few Jews, let alone the general population, really has much knowledge of Jewish labor history, and why the labor movement was so incredibly important - and why revitalizing it, and fighting the cynical pro-business interests of this administration and its appointees to the NLRB, is so essential for the future of workers in the USA today.
