by Kol Ra'ash Gadol · Saturday, May 10th, 2008
Week Three, Day seven
Malchut of Tiferet
Week Three, Day six
Yesod of Tiferet
This past weekend, Be’chol Lashon (In Every Tongue), a project of the Institute for Jewish and Community Research sponsored a conference in San Francisco of Jews and Jewish identified ethnic groups from around the world. Many of these groups are not formally Jewish, the descendants of anusim and xuetas. Some are Jews officially, although not always accepted with open arms by the so-called “mainstream,” such as the Ethiopian Jews, or the Abayudaya. And then there are the Jewish communites whose faces and color don’t fall within the stereotypes of what a Jew looks like - as if there was any such thing: the Jews of India, Jews who are of color who converted, or whose parents did.
“The Jewish community keeps talking about the crisis of intermarriage and the crisis of declining numbers, but meanwhile you’ve got people with Jewish heritage, spiritual seekers, Jewish communities of historical significance, and the Jewish community is doing nothing to help them,” says Gary Tobin, the institute’s president and a longtime advocate of greater openness to those outside the Ashkenazi mainstream.
According to institute research, at least 20 percent of American Jews are racially and ethnically diverse. But old stereotypes about what “real Jews” look like persist, Tobin says.
“Instead of worrying about people being ‘lost’ to intermarriage,” he wonders, “why aren’t we extending our ideological borders to include all these people who are so interested in joining us?”
Personally, I think it would be completely fabulous if the descendants of the anusim made a formal return, and the Ibo and Lemba formally converted. Welcome! Join the party!
And of course, for those that are us, we should move mountains to bring them close and help them.
On a humorous note:
Safed’s Chief Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu wrote in an article … “it turns out that Olmert is more corrupt than we thought.”
“So what shall we do? Elect another prime minister without faith? Another one without credibility? Another one without values?…when will we wake up and realize that we need a prime minister with a kippa?”
“We need a prime minister who acts based on genuine faith and values.
Um. Hey, I’m a rabbi myself, and I even occasionally wear a kippah (rather than a hat), but I’m just not quite sure this would solve the problem. Especially since I’m pretty sure that Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu wasn’t promoting say, Rabbi Andy Sacks, or R. David Golinkin, as a solution to the problem.
I dunno. I could be wrong. PM Sacks, has a kind of a nice ring to it….
Yeah, okay. A PM with a kippah. That would definitely solve all our problems. No more corruption. (Anyone want to do a quick google on rabbi, Israel, corruption charges?)
by Kol Ra'ash Gadol · Wednesday, May 7th, 2008
Week Three, Day Four
Netzach of Tiferet
A new Gallup poll shows that Barack Obama would do nearly as well as Hillary Clinton among Jewish voters in November.
According to the poll, Clinton would win 66 percent of the Jewish vote versus 27 percent for John McCain in a general-election matchup. Obama would do nearly as well, winning 61 percent to McCain’s 32 percent.
But, still, I just can’t get all the way on the bandwagon. It’s not that I don’t like Obama, but I’m still not convinced that he’s all so much greater than Hil. but that’s not all of it, really. Rebecca Traister said it very well ( and was referenced in this week’s Nation in an article about how Clinton’s using race really is troubling) some time ago in noting how there’s more than just a whiff of real misogyny in the gleeful bandwagoning of Obama.
I’m not inclined to vote for Clinton just because she’s a woman (nor, I must admit, for Obama because he’s African American; I still mourn for Edwards), but I can’t just quite move on from the underlying weirdness of the way so many of my progressive friends -the male ones mostly- talk about Clinton. Usually it’s not in such stark terms as the crazy righties do, they aren’t buying the Hilary toilet plungers or anything, but there is that underlying discomfort which itself is something that they are uncomfortable with, but instead of addressing that problem, it can be disguised by some genuine problems with her policies and campaign style.
Traister nails a lot of it head on:
O’Brien said, “With straight white male progressive friends, I feel something that makes me viscerally angry and afraid — the viciousness of the rebuttals to the suggestion that [Obama's and Clinton's] policies are roughly equal or that Clinton’s have some benefits to them, the outright dismissal of any support of her, the impossibility of having a nuanced conversation … The whole ‘Hillary Clinton is a monster’ theme is so virulent.”
Alex Seggerman, a 24-year-old art history Ph.D. student at Yale and an Obama voter, said, “I don’t think anyone in my peer group, including my parents and my friends, would be comfortable saying, ‘I’m not ready for a woman president.’ They would be ostracized. Saying, ‘She’s had plastic surgery’ or ‘Her attitude is off-putting’ are fine. But these are really expressions of some deeper issues with the fact that she’s a woman.”
…Valenti continued, “Because their friends were not being specifically sexist, or saying something that was tangibly misogynistic, they were having a hard time talking about the sexism of it.” Valenti confirmed that this “Feminine Mystique”-y problem that has no name was familiar to her. “I spoke to a guy friend who said, ‘You’re being ridiculous. I’m not not voting for her because she’s a woman; I’m not voting for her because she’s a bitch!’ He could not see the connection between the two things at all.” Valenti said he explained away his comment by declaring, “I mean ‘a bitch’ in the sense that she’s not good on this or that issue.”
I don’t like the whole oppression olympics. I don’t like it when Jews do it, and I don’t like it among any other groups, either, but I’m definitely not alone in wondering why there’s no real answers -other than the sort of nutty first wave “you must vote with your ovaries”- to how we can end the divide and conquer between the race and gender camps, without having one side or the other have to continue to suffer along with the same old crap.
IN the meantime, since we still live in a world where things like this are firsts, let’s be proud of them.JTA reports on Alysa Stanton-Ogulnick, who reportedly will become the the first black female Reform rabbi next May, when she is ordained at the Cincinnati campus of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.
Glad ta meetcha.
Enjoy.
by Kol Ra'ash Gadol · Sunday, May 4th, 2008
Day 15,
Week Three: Tiferet
Day One: Chesed (Chesed of Tiferet)
(Two weeks and one day of the Omer)
JTA notes the upcoming ordination of the marvelous and lovely person Gershom Sizomu.
Why is this interesting to JTA? Gershom Sizomu will become the first officially ordained rabbi of Uganda’s Abayudaya Jews. He will be ordained in a few days at American Jewish University (formerly University of Judaism) from the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies (as will our very own equally fabulous Danya Ruttenberg!).
Sizomu, inherits the spiritual leadership of his community, through his father and grandfather.
Some 1,000 Abayudaya Jews live in five Ugandan villages. …Most Abayudaya Jews converted in 2004, and hundreds of the children now attend the Hadassah School, where they learn Hebrew and Jewish studies along with a general curriculum.
At the end of May, Sizomu will return with his wife and three children to Uganda to reassume leadership of the Abayudaya.”
By the way, he also has a lovely accent. And a nice singing voice which is featured (as is his wife’s) on the Grammy award winning nominated Abayudaya: Music from the Jewish People of Uganda from the Smithsonian’s Folkways records.
And many blessings upon Danya as well.
by Josh Frankel · Friday, May 2nd, 2008
Just when you thought the conversion mess couldn’t get any worse - the good folk in Israel drop another bomb. The Jerusalem Post reports that the High Rabbinical Court has ruled to invalidate, retroactively, all of the conversions performed by Rabbi Chaim Druckman since 1999.
Get this straight, Rabbi Chaim Druckman isn’t a reform, conservative, or heck even some strange liberal YCT guy. Rabbi Chaim Druckman is a major Rosh Yeshiva, a recognized halakhic scholar, and at times has been in charge of the national religious education system in Israel. His only offense apparently - he wears a knitted yarmulke. 
This isn’t a little thing. Rabbi Druckman isn’t just a private rabbi in a little synagogue. He was the head of the official, government conversion authority. This means that thousands of people’s conversions have been effectively invalidated. Also, this isn’t just a question of whether your local synagogue will let you enroll your kids in day school. This means that thousands of people are no longer Jewish, their kids are no longer Jewish, they are no longer married, they can not get married, they can no longer be buried in ordinary cemetaries, and can no longer go to religious schools. They have been placed as second class citizens. All apparently because one woman, more than fifteen years after she converted was no longer shomeret shabbat - according to the ideals of this rabbinic court. Do you understand how inane that is? This ruling basically says, that if one day, decades, marriages, and children after you convert, you happen to tear a piece of toilet paper on shabbat once not only are you no longer Jewish, but everyone your rabbi ever converted is no longer Jewish!
This is beyond absurd. Such a position threatens every conversion. Hey, why stop there? Perhaps your misbehavior could undermine your mother’s or your grandmother’s conversion. That fundamental principle of, “A Jew, even if he sins, is still a Jew” - gone. Hey, Moshe got angry and hit that rock. He sinned. Guess he never converted at Mount Sinai either. And if he didn’t, well I’ll let you figure that one out.
Perhaps I should stop here, but one last little fear. Ever since the RCA kowtowed to the Israel establishment, they’ve been promising that everything they do will only affect the future, and past conversions will not be doubted. Good luck with that now. If Rabbi Druckman’s sruggy invalidated his conversions, there are plenty of Orthodox rabbis who don’t wear velvet either.
Update: I found a copy of the original teshuva here. (Hat tip to Rabbi Jeff Fox) I plan on posting some more details soon, but it is important to realize that the original reporters did get one thing wrong. Her husband is not being forbidden to marry. Quite to the contrary, the previous beit din had issued an injunction on his getting married until this mess was settled. But, since the court decided he was never married in the first place, he is now free to do as he wills.
by Kol Ra'ash Gadol · Monday, April 28th, 2008
Week two, day two:
Gevurah of Gevurah
Ed Koch, the irascible former mayor of New York City, has purchased a burial plot in Trinity Church, the only uptown cemetery still accepting burials. According to the Times (of course!) Says Koch, “The idea of leaving Manhattan permanently irritates me.”
The Times reports:
Mr. Koch also said he had ordered a tombstone to “adorn my grave upon my death, which I hope won’t be for another 8 to 10 years.”
Carved on the tombstone is the most important prayer in Judaism, “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One,” in English, Hebrew and a transliteration, and the last words of the journalist Daniel Pearl before he was murdered by Islamic terrorists: “My father is Jewish; my mother is Jewish; I am Jewish.”
…I called a number of rabbis to see if this was doable,” he said. “I was going to do it anyway, but it would be nice if it were doable traditionally.”
He said he had been advised to request that the gate nearest his plot be inscribed as “the gate for the Jews,” and the cemetery agreed.
He was also instructed to have rails installed around his plot, so he ordered them.
Being buried in Manhattan, Mr. Koch said, would also make it easier for former constituents to visit.
“I’m extending an open invitation,” he said.
Although the plot is non-denominational, I am very struck by this irony, of someone declaring his Jewishness by… buying a burial plot in a churchyard, and then declaring it “the Gate of the Jews.”
He is spending a lot of money on a place where his remains will be, but I wonder, what could that money have done for the Jewish community.
Speaking more generally, I have often been struck when doing funerals, by how odd it is that people who aren’t particularly interested in being active in the Jewish community while alive want to be buried by a rabbi, after it can’t make much of difference any more. There’s some odd niggle that I can’t quite put my finger on about people who want to be Jews in their deepest moments, but who don’t do Jewish. On this day of gevurah in gevurah, it seems to me that we need to be asking how to make our American Jewish sisters and brothers think about being Jewish as something which is more than a -meaningful, perhaps, but only a - hobby, something to be done for one’s own satisfaction, at one’s own convenience, but not to interfere with the business of life.
Perhaps some of you out there in blogoland can get at that niggle better than I.
by shamirpower · Thursday, April 10th, 2008
If you have ever dreamed of opening a nonprofit, Jewish specialty camp, now is your chance! The Foundation for Jewish Camp is proud to announce its newest initiative: The Specialty Camps Incubator.
Through an $8.4 million grant from the Jim Joseph Foundation, the Specialty Camps Incubator will provide consulting and financial support over five years to four entrepreneurs, organizations or camp professionals as they develop and open their new camps in non-traditional settings such as school or college campuses. The Incubator will launch in November 2008.
Recent studies estimate that there are hundreds of thousands of Jewish children between the ages of 11-16 in the United States who are currently not attending Jewish summer camp, but are increasingly attracted to secular specialty summer programs. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to provide an exciting Jewish alternative.
What are you waiting for? Your great idea could be the “hottest” new Jewish specialty camp, and the Foundation for Jewish Camp is ready to help!
Your Letter of Intent is due by May 1st, so apply today.
Find out more about the Incubator and the application process at www.jewishcamping.org/incubator. Please email incubator-at-jewishcamping-dot-org with any questions.
by Eli · Sunday, April 6th, 2008
Honor Killings. Hayv Kahraman. Iraq/Italy/Sweden/USA. Kahraman’s work, inspired by Asian motifs, explores minority discourse in the Middle East and Kurdish and gender identity in a region wracked by war.
An extremely complicated policy of religious conservatism and cultural experimentation coexists in Dubai, where wealth allows the multinational population a unique ability to explore, experience and purchase postmodernity in a region long known for its old-fashioned ways. Hayv Kahraman, a Kurdish Iraqi artist living in the US, is currently showing her work in Dubai and Turkey.
Whatever you think about the 37 billion dollar economy in Dubai, the cultural flowering taking place in the Gulf is breathtaking. With galleries and museums sprouting by the day, the gilded emirate is becoming the place where young Middle Eatern artists show, and sell, their work. Jewschool will be introducing the work of artists working in the Middle East in the coming months. In an effort to expose our readers to contemporary Near Eastern visual culture we hope we can be a springboard for new Jewish imaging as well.
by Chorus of Apes · Sunday, April 6th, 2008
Listen to Avraham Burg talk about how Israel is like baklava.
More specifically, he explains how the notion that Israel is a Jewish democratic state is like baklava. When you first taste it, its feels sweet, but after a few minutes, things get sticky, and you are left with a lump in your stomach.
Burg says a lot more than that. The interview is 90 mins long. He talks about love conquering hate, the place of the holocaust in the Israeli psyche, the place of minorities in Israel, and the end of the zionist myth.
Its well worth a listen.
(link courtesy of JTA)
by feygele · Monday, March 31st, 2008
The government of Israel is partnering with Jewish community organizations in Toronto to improve Israel’s image and to get Canadians thinking of the country outside “the narrow prism of the Arab-Israeli conflict.”Ido Aharoni, founder of the ministry’s Brand Israel concept said the ministry has conducted market research over the past few years that showed “Israel is viewed solely through the narrow prism of the Arab-Israeli conflict… Israel’s personality is 90 per cent dominated by conflict-related images and some religious connotations,” he said. “Those of us who know the brand intimately are disturbed by the divergence of brand and the perception.”
Federation spokesperson Howard English said his organization and other federated communities across the country are committed to supporting the branding initiative and mobilizing the Jewish community behind the effort. [source]
From my temporary station in the US, I heard the same spin coming from an AIPAC sponsored-speaker this weekend. Yes, there’s war, the speaker acknowledged, but why aren’t we praising Israel’s contribution to technology, alternative power sources, and films? (”Such a small fraction of a percentage of the world speaks our language, but yet our films win awards at all of the film festivals! Everyone should be seeing our films!”) Why is this the wrong approach? Why does this idea of rebranding, marketing Israel as “more than violence!” irk me? Because Israel’s military policies and human rights abuses should not be ignored just because some Israelis are also really good at developing computer chips. If anything, as the Jewish nation, Israel should be held to higher standards than secular nations, or nations of other religions.
And what about the other issue: not all Jews share the same views (ideologically, politically, religiously) of Israel. And yet Federations are supposed to (at least in theory), represent and support all Jews. If Canada’s Federations follow suit, as English suggests, won’t we just continue to further alienate those among us who already feel out of place in our communities? Any time a national organisation, or network of organisations, makes a statement saying “All of Us will do X, Y, and Z,” it makes me nervous - and makes me realise just how far removed those organisations are from the communities and people they’re supposed to be serving.
by Kol Ra'ash Gadol · Sunday, March 2nd, 2008
Because I am personally opposed to ever agreeing with anyone, I find myself, often, embroiled in interesting discussions with all sorts of folks. Over at JCarrot, I am having an interesting comments thread with Ben Murane (our own KFJ) about (I think) the difference between who is Jewish, and what is Jewish. The difficult part of this, of course, is that it’s not a completely separate question.
Who one is affects what one does, and the reverse, as well.
I recall a famous quote by (the eminently quotable) Kurt Vonnegut, Jr:
“To be is to do”–Socrates.
“To do is to be”–Jean-Paul Sartre.
“Do be do be do”–Frank Sinatra.
Er, I’m getting off-topic here. Anyhow, so Over at the NYT , there is what is apparently another discussion of the ongoing rift caused by the stringent versus loose approach to answering the question of “who is a Jew.”
The question for me is pretty fraught: I do believe that being this exclusive is ultimately untenable -but at the same time, there does need to be a certain level of internal definition of who gets to be considered “in.”
The question remaining, of course, as to who is in enough, or how in they have to be, in order to make such determinations.
That’s why I’m less interested in talking about who is Jewish, than what is Jewish. If one can agree on the latter, at least in broad terms, than the former can be fixed in almost any case.
Professionally, of course, I have dedicated myself to a particular kind of Judaism, and I do think that meaning inheres in Judaism in particular acts, practices and disciplines, and that there is a teleological reason for doing these practices. This doesn’t invalidate other kinds of doing, but it does mean that not all doing can be accepted as within the boundaries of Judaism. And in truth, I can’t really believe that anyone truly believes that anything goes. No matter how loose your boundaries are, there must be some, otherwise names become meaningless. If everything is “within” then one simply ceases to be - in simply a logical sense.
Anyhow, I invite others to pop in on the conversation, here or there.
by AYK · Sunday, March 2nd, 2008
Last week the Pew Forum of Religion and Public Life released its “US Religious Landscape Survey.” It’s quite awesome, as it maps out the myriad religious communities in the United States — by region, by income, education, marriage and reproductive patterns, age, gender, ethnicity, and, well, just about everything short of sock color. So, if you want to know how Jews measure up next to other Americans, I recommend checking it out. For those of you who prefer bullet points:
1. 28% of Americans now identify with a faith tradition that they were not born into.
2. 16.1% of Americans do not identify with any faith tradition (Easily the group with the largest growth).
3. The percentage of Jews converting out of Judaism exceeds the percentage of people becoming Jews by choice.
This isn’t about bean-counting, but it does tell an important part of the story for American Jews — Jews may be different, but Jews are not exceptional. At least no more exceptional than any of the other religious communities in America.
by LastTrumpet · Monday, February 25th, 2008
My beard is a constant source of conversation (especially with my mother). So when I saw an article in Commentary titled “Why Beards?” you can bet my interest was peaked. In the article, Meir Soloveichik examines the Jewish beard, from its biblical origins to modern America.
Wherever we look, writes Kass, “we see in Egypt the rejection of [bodily] change and the denial of death.” Shaving was a key element in this rejection. “No shaggy outlines or blemishes mar the perfectly smooth look. What appears to be an unveiling [of the human face] is actually also a veiling of age and disorder.” With this in mind, it begins to seem no accident at all that the Hebrew Bible, which steadily sets itself against pagan practices of every kind, should have positively enjoined the opposite practice—that is, the wearing of beards—thus visibly and deliberately repudiating the false blessing of eternal youthfulness and underscoring the fact of our eventual and inevitable mortality.
More »
by BZ · Wednesday, February 20th, 2008
Pluralism is one of the most significant trends in 21st-century Jewish life. Hillel is creating pluralistic Jewish communities on college campuses during many Jews’ formative years, and producing a generation of leaders committed to Jewish pluralism. The Limmud franchise is spreading to new cities every year. The National Havurah Committee is experiencing a boom led by a new generation. New communities are sprouting up outside of the institutional movements, and many of them are committed in one way or another to pluralism. Even decidedly non-pluralistic organizations like Chabad and Aish are using pluralistic rhetoric as a marketing tool.
But what is Jewish pluralism really about? Mah Rabu’s Hilchot Pluralism series examines the theory and practice of creating pluralistic Jewish communities, but focuses entirely on the “how”, not on the “why”. Hilchot Pluralism takes it for granted that the reader is interested in creating a pluralistic community (why else would s/he be reading it?), and doesn’t address the question of why pluralism would be desirable (other than bringing up some situations in which pluralism isn’t desirable or isn’t possible).
A new article in the Columbia Current starts to ask these other questions. Dov Friedman looks at different philosophical approaches to Jewish pluralism.
For those who believe that law is fundamentally correct and that other conceptions of Judaism are incorrect, their theology precludes them from creating and joining in communal practices that deviate from their understanding of Jewish law.
Alternatively, those who believe that Judaism houses an infinite number of truths are always at risk of losing a coherent foundation upon which to build their community; they may build a pluralist community, but what would tie such a community together? It would have nothing to rally around except pluralism itself—making pluralism the end instead of a means to a more harmonious community.
For those who believe in the value of pluralism, it is an ominous reality to be faced either with traditionalism that may stamp out pluralism, or with pluralism that may stamp out tradition. In order to understand what a fully “pluralist” perspective entails, we must examine the ways in which the term is used.
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by Kung Fu Jew · Tuesday, February 19th, 2008
Want to be eligible to win a $500 American Airlines travel voucher?
A group of NYU Wagner students are surveying young Jews as part of our capstone project, and they need your help!
Please visit www.youngjewsandtheworld.com and complete our short, simple survey. Also, please forward this link to the survey to your friends, their friends, and your family. We want to reach as broad a sample as possible.
To learn more about NYU Wagner, and the capstone project in particular, visit www.wagner.nyu.edu/capstone
Thank you in advance for your help!
by Kol Ra'ash Gadol · Sunday, February 17th, 2008
Recent postings on the uterus problem (see here) have been right to question the tshuvah that recently was issued from the bowels of the CJLS. I’m sorry that I got scooped on this because it’s a long standing argument that I have been having with my teachers (whom I respect very much, despite our disagreements) for years now. First of all, here is the URL for the actual tshuvah. I recommend reading it.
Secondly, I want to give kudos to Rabbi Jill Jacobs’ and Rabbi Jason Miller’s comments on the post at jspot. Both of them note that there need to be more social supports put in place for people to have children, Rabbi Jacobs noting:
–Would rabbinical students be more willing to have kids while in grad school if the rabbinical schools offered on-site child care?
–Would it be easier for Jewish women professionals (and men) to participate in professional conferences (such as the RA, from which I just returned, and where I bumped into a few poor women trying to nurse on the floor of the bathroom), if these conferences offered nursing rooms, child care, or other accommodations? (a shout out to the Wexner Foundation for being a leader in this regard)
–Would Jewish women professionals be able more easily to “have it all” if more Jewish institutions offered flex time, family health insurance, on-site child care, and paid for child care when the mom or dad is on the road?
And Rabbi Miller adding:
— not just for the women. As a 26-year-old rabbinical student whose wife was working full-time, I often felt the challenge of sitting in a class while bottle-feeding my baby son. An on-site day-care facility at JTS would have been an important resource.
He also on his own blog made some comments.
(Although I do want to note that I can’t imagine why any women were nursing on the floor of the bathroom, since the hotel in question is luxurious to the point of ridiculousness, and the WC had an anteroom with, I’m told, quite comfortable chairs and, I’m told by a nursing friend, the heat turned way up so that it was a perfectly comfortable place to strip down and nurse if necessary. Of course, the very luxuriousness of the hotel was apparently rather a sore point amongst the many, many Conservative rabbis who lack large convention stipends or, indeed, any, such as those who aren’t pulpit rabbis, or who are, but whose pulpits are more modest, say, under 500 members. A sore point indeed).
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by YehuditBrachah · Monday, January 28th, 2008
Samantha Shapiro of the NYTimes Magazine takes the Hartman decision to ordain women as Orthodox rabbis to the pages of The Slate. (If you’ve never seen the words “achudus ha’am” and “ahavas yisrael” in a mainstream pub, here’s a chance. Also a particularly amusing cartoon of a lady rabbi.) Basically, she, like Rabbi Haviva Ner-David, questions whether this will really make a difference for Orthodox women seeking to be rabbis.
On women becoming non-rabbi spiritual leaders and law-decisors:
These strides are significant, but there’s a question of the trajectory of these quasi-rabbinic roles. A man in any of these women’s positions could expect after a few years of service to be promoted to main rabbi. It’s fairly unlikely, however, that these women’s careers will advance much further. Without an accepted orthodox rabbinic ordination, there is nowhere to be promoted to.
And, on these women’s ability to even remain within the Orthodox movement:
Women who believe so passionately in the divinity of the Torah and its laws that they want to remain in the Orthodox community have to do a difficult dance. If they get rabbinic ordination through Hartman or other institutions, they are likely to move themselves outside of the norms of their communities and not really be able to influence them as a rabbi would—and if they don’t, well, they’re still not rabbis.
Full article here.
by YehuditBrachah · Monday, January 28th, 2008
On New Year’s Day, I was driving back from celebrating with friends at a little cabin in the woods. It was already into the evening when I and my driving buddy hit Connecticut. Temperatures were dropping rapidly, especially from New York state heading north. While driving over a bridge, my car hit a patch of black ice, wobbled, and then headed into a terrifying skid that took us 360 degrees around, over two highway lanes, headlights of the car behind us in our eyes, highway rails glimmering in the peripheral, screaming, until we stopped abruptly facing forward in the righthand lane. Thank God no one was hurt, and no car damage, mostly due to the fact that there were miraculously no cars driving right near us excepting the truck behind us.
We pulled gingerly off the highway and stopped at the next side street. I put my head down on the wheel and said, “Baruch Hashem, baruch Hashem, baruch Hashem,” over and over, like an incantation. As sure as I knew the feel of the seat below me I knew I had been given a miracle.
The following Shabbat, I wanted to bentch gomel, the blessing one who has survived a life-threatening experience (such as illness, pregnancy, or traveling long distances) makes after an aliyah during Torah service following their recovery. The catch was that I was visiting my sister. She and I were both raised in a Reform congregation and both have since come far from it — I to my neo-Chassidic, renewal, traditional, feminist enclave and rabbinic path, and she with an Orthodox husband and part of the Orthodox community of Pittsburgh. Usually, when I visit her, I make an exception to my acting principle that mechitzot = trayfe for my davenning so we can all be together. However, this Shabbat, I would not have been able to have an aliyah to bentch gomel at her shul, and so she and I went to the Conservative shul near her.
Now, I honestly don’t spend a lot of time in synagogues, but especially not in smaller cities since I’ve always lived in big cities. In the winter, when presumably the cold keeps people from trudging out to services on Shabbat, this shul combines their library minyan with their regular congregation and has one combined service–albeit still only around 40 people by Torah reading.
The gabbai came up to us when we got there to welcome us and wish us Shabbat shalom, at which point I mentioned that I would like to bentch gomel. He was really sweet about it, asked if I was all right, and set about getting me an aliyah. Someone would come and let me know which it was, he said. My sister and I found siddurim, chumashim, and took our seats. A few minutes later, the other gabbai came over and told me that I would have the fifth aliyah.
He also handed me one of those lacey doilies old ladies wear in shul and a bobby pin. More »
by Kung Fu Jew · Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008
(X-posted from Judaism Without Borders.)
I just got off the phone with a leftist student group who wanted to partner on the Israel-Palestine project I’m coordinating. They were ready to sponsor events on their campus, publicize it widely, etc. They’ve enthusiastically done it before. But when I told her that they couldn’t be seen associating with us, my poor heart ached as I heard the disappointment in her voice. She managed to not sound upset, but considering I’ve never met this person before, I feel like I’ve just betrayed a friend.
Reputation means everything. Breira was a 70s era Jewish peace group which aired to America the occupation opponents in Israel and even accompanied them to meet with Palestinian leadership…and quickly was accused of being non-Jewish posers or self-haters, and imploded. New Jewish Agenda of the 80s was another Jewish dove group which failed to cope with membership in the Jewish community when when “member” was defined by the arch-conservatives, and it collapsed from within. For both of those groups, their former leadership now quietly sits on the boards of present dove orgs, albeit after learning a costly lesson.
The lesson is simple as it is unfair. As much as we Jewish peace and coexistence activists want to partner with Arabs and peace-seeking goyyim, the cases where we can do so without being accused of treason are sparse. This is the reason in the early days of Brit Tzedek, the organization made the decision that to do it’s work inside the Jewish community, it had to play nice with the OJC, to pick its allies with care. Other organizations also make the same sacrifices on a regular basis. Those that weren’t careful, died. Or even worse, gained the title of the “irrelevant left.”
Reputation is all that we have sometimes in this work. It’s sad that to know that if I say “Such and such activist is kipah-wearing” or “served in the IDF” or “goes to shul” or “works in the OJC” suddenly gives that person a credibility boost. That credibility is built on stereotypes as flimsy and repugnant as any other. Yet we use them and even buy into them in order to open doors.
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