Last night, I heard Prof. Jonathan Sarna give a lecture on Democratization in American Jewry in the years following the Revolutionary War. He explained, using a couple of fascinating examples, that in that period of time you start to see the waning of the authority of the synagogue, and the Jewish community more generally: break-away shuls, a Kohein marrying a widowed convert against the wishes of the shul leadership, and a learned individual finding halachic solution to issues involving the excommunication of intermarried Jews, against the wishes of the kahal.
During Q&A, someone asked about the relationships of the break-away shuls to the organizations from which they departed. Prof. Sarna explained that, in time, exterior threats would cause these groups to come together. I’ve heard a similar explanation about the relationship of the Hasidim to the Mitnagdim after the haskalah. The modern example given was an Orthodox Rabbi sitting on the bimah of a Conservative shul in Boston during Cast Lead, claiming that differences between them needed to be put aside when Israel was threatened.
I understood his point, but the example made me cringe. I remember there being some level of objection from within the Jewish community, even during Cast Lead, and it pains me that the best example for the uniting of Jewish community is around a mythic threat to Israel (which is not to say that I approve of rockets, either). It being erev Yom Yerushalayim, I’m also reminded of the mythic existential threat from ’67, but I digress.
We’ve done an OK job of covering a number of recent cases of civil rights problems in Israel (here, here, here). Over at Zeek, Moshe Yaroni sums things up beautifully:
Israeli democracy is under siege, and it’s no less stark than that. For years, the peace groups in Israel have been warning that occupation cannot co-exist with democracy without one eventually strangling the other. It is no longer a theoretical argument. More »
There are two bills in the Knesset that, to my mind, may begin to expose the cracks in the relationship between Israel and Diaspora Jewry. The first is the bill about conversation, about which there’s been ample coverage of late.
The official statement put out by the Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist movements reads:
The bill threatens to alter the Law of Return and consolidate conversion power into the hands of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel. Both of these results could have devastating effects on the relationship between Israeli and Diaspora Jewry and thus on the broader unity of the Jewish people. Such concentration of power in favor of Ultra-Orthodox Jewry effectively negates the roles of the non-Orthodox movements both within Israel and abroad, sending the message that only the Orthodox have a place within our Homeland.
As I wrote yesterday, liberal Jews already have less religious freedom than the Orthodox in Israel (why the Reform movement doesn’t make the work of Anat Hoffman a central pillar of its Israel education baffles me and is a subject for another post). Here we have a bill that, if passed, would make it clear to the world what Rabbanut-and-therefore-government of Israel thinks of liberal Jewry, in Israel or abroad. I think in many cases, liberal Jews, out of either ignorance or ideology, support policies in Israel which go against their beliefs about human rights and democracy (not to mention against the way that they practice their Judaism), and I almost cynically hope that this bill will increase the cognitive dissonance amongst the general public.
The recently posted NYTimes Article about East Haven, CT Police smacks some childhood memories back into my head.
I grew up in Connecticut, in a part of Connecticut that was heavily working class with some ironic mixture of aristocracy and decaying housing projects. It was also not a particularly Jewish place, but being in the tri-state area, it possessed a medium sized Jewish community. I was raised in a town with a small Jewish population, and went to shul in the larger, exceptionally poor city to the immediate southeast. When I read this article about allegations against the East Haven Police Department, I remember and identify with the diseased kind of racist-garbage corruption among the police and town government, which stands accused of police bias, brutality and violence against its burgeoning Hispanic population. As I think more and more, I see my own upbringing in this news and remember odd moments in which racial prejudice, growing ethnic diversity, and the heavy presence of white ethnics, like the Irish, Italians and Greeks, always smashed into my Jewishness. I always felt that my Jewish self, how I understood its history and all that shiz, was really fired in a kiln of bigotry and national resentment. Mix recent, Latino immigration with the generations of working-class blacks and white ethnics that had been working CT land for generations, and you get people sweating. How did the Jews fit into the history of this working-class New England town? Did Jewish tradition, or even ritual life, have express anything about the the material conditions of my upbringing? I just think today of all the Jewish kids who are experiencing something like East Haven up close, and to hear their voices. We are still dwelling most deeply in Bovel.
To read about recent accusations of Police Bias in East Haven, CT, read the NYTimes article here.
C'mon, the Polish Carpathians are at least as beautiful as the Judean Hills!
The recent Forward article entitled “Why Poland’s Jews Mourn Their President” seems to be answering the elephant-sized question that many have been silently asking themselves: Why are so many Jewish organizations (including March of the Living) and The State of Israel voicing such an outpouring of solidarity and sympathy for Poles in a time of their most terrible loss? Could it be an indication that Jewish communities and organizations are finally looking at the Poles as more than the ambivalent caretakers of their most sacred graveyard? Is it simply a sign that the established Jewish community can reach out their hands even to those they perceive as perpetrators of a most grave crime?
Kaczynski’s politics were not more popular among Poland’s Jewish community of 8,000 than among Poles at large. But the Jews had real reason to mourn a leader who had shown sympathy and support both to them and to the State of Israel, from the day when, soon after winning the 2005 presidential election, he compared himself to Ariel Sharon.
Indeed, there are analogies between the political philosophies of the two. Both were conservative leaders with strong nationalist feelings and were at the helm of countries they considered threatened by neighbors. (Kaczynski took a dim view not only of the past, but also of the present policies of Germany and Russia.) Both were impatient with what they considered liberal indifference to their respective national traditions and values. And both strongly believed in the fundamental role of the state as the nation’s most valuable institution. Both tended to look at what they believed history’s judgment would be, rather than at public opinion polls.
Kaczynski was far from being the only conservative European politician in power today. Yet it would be difficult to imagine any other European leader comparing himself to Sharon; the public-opinion fallout would be devastating. But Kaczynski had no such qualms. To him, the Israeli prime minister was an inspiration, and Israel a friendly state. Much of Polish public opinion tended to agree with him. No criticism followed his Sharon remarks.
That’s right, a top Polish politician was into THE BULLDOZER. In this intricate web of official condolence calls and mixed feelings, Gebert articulates too well that the contemporary Polish-Jewish relationship can be understood through the perceived political affinities between two right-wing nationalists who became intensely unpopular during their lifetimes. It goes to show that as Jewish cultural revival continues throughout the Polish lands, the elite descendants of Polish Jewry living in America and Israel largely see their relationship to Poland through a Zionist, not Ashkenazi, lens. This seems to imply that, at least on an official level, the development of Polish-Jewish reconciliation has largely been achieved through the work of politicians, not through the work of grassroots activists who spend so much time investing in a future for Jewish culture and memory in Poland. I never would have thought that March of the Living, an organization that has been repeatedly criticized for portraying Poland as a bloody, smoldering launching pad for the Zionist future, would require a moment of silence for victims of the crash as it toured its participants through Auschwitz. Do our leaders really feel sympathy for the Poles, or are we just trying to maintain alliances in a Europe increasingly critical of Israeli policy? A mixture of both?
Gebert continues:
His (Kaczynski’s) Jewish sympathies earned him the scorn of antisemitic extremists, who accused him of being Jewish himself (his “true” name supposedly was Kalkstein); somehow, his brother escaped being thus tainted. Rydzyk brutally attacked the Polish president during a lecture in 2007, accusing him of giving in to Jews, both by allocating land for the museum and supposedly ignoring the alleged threat of Jewish reparation demands. In contrast with his brother, Lech Kaczynski never granted the fundamentalist station an interview. But he had to pay the price for tolerating Jarosław’s alliances. At the funeral last year of Marek Edelman, deputy commander of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising and a hero to the president, Kaczynski stood in silence and alone: The family refused him the right to speak, as Edelman had bitterly criticized the twin brothers’ policies…
…Alive, Kaczynski was a divisive and increasingly unpopular figure because of his authoritarian views, with approval ratings recently as low as 32%. But his tragic death has transformed him into a national icon, with all of Poland united in mourning. Polish Jews shared that pain with all other Polish citizens: A memorial service held in Warsaw’s only synagogue was packed full the day after the plane crash.
This is a guest post by Adam Davis, founder of Kippot for Hope. Jewschooler David A.M. Wilensky bought his mom’s significant other a kippah from Kippot for Hope for Chanukah and he loves it.
Did you know that there is a thriving community of almost a thousand African Jews living in Uganda?
After spending an incredible seder night with them last year, I set up Kippot for Hope—a non-profit initiative which aims to improve the communities living conditions by selling the handmade colourful kippot, beautifully crocheted by the women of the community.
In the remote hills of eastern Uganda, in the shadow of the Mount Elgon, live a small community of Africans who are also practising Jews. My wife, Genevieve, and I, currently living in Uganda’s capital, Kampala, asked the community leader if we could join their Seder. He was most welcoming and so we set out on the six hour bus ride to Mbale.
On the journey we read more about the community and their history. In 1919, a Christian Ugandan leader called came to believe the customs and laws in the Old Testament were quite true. When he was told that it is the Jews that observe such laws he explained “Then we will be Jewish”. These people became known as The Abayudaya (“The People of Judaea”) and the population grew to over 3,000. During the Idi Amin era, most of the population were forced to convert to either Christianity or Islam although 300 members remained committed to Judaism and worshipped in secret. Today there are almost a thousand Jews of the Abauudaya, divided into six smaller communities spread across 100 miles in the hills overlooking Mbale.
When we finally reached the community, we were greeted by small Ugandan children, the boys all wearing kippot, with shouts of “Shalom Shalom”. As the sun set on the distant horizon in a stunning display of oranges and crimsons, the entire community made their way to the synagogue for the Seder. More »
Many USAers have already filled out their census forms. Or are at least thinking about it. Or have at least taken the form and added it to their pile of mail to be dealt with later. (Seriously, fill it out and send it back. It’s good for you, your community, your neighbourhood, your city, your state… And I hear it gives you whiter teeth and shinier hair.)
The buzz around the Jewish community, at least if I’m to take various listservs I’m on as representative of the larger American Jewish community, is what to do about “race” and Jews. Of the 29 races listed, none represent Jews (or Arabs). Jews aren’t sure how to fill this out. The problem, really, is that the US government is asking for “race,” not ethnicity, not nationality, not heritage… It’s not surprising that Jews aren’t listed as a race – we’re not a race. Arguments can, and have, been made for Jews as ethnicity, as culture, and certainly as religion, but as a racial group? No. So some people are writing in “Jewish” next to “other” in race. But is that accurate? And does the government need to know, or should it know, how many Jews live within its borders anyway?
By contrast, Canada does the census differently when it comes to Jews. First, it should be noted that the Canadian census does have a section on religion, unlike the US census. Canada’s census asks folks to check off their religion, with a dozen options, then a fill in the blank for others. Years ago, Jews (rabbis, academics, the establishment) were consulted on how to count the Jews. It was decided that Jewish would appear twice: under “religion” and under “ethnicity.” (You can choose more than one ethnicity, I believe.) You’re considered Jewish, according to the census, and with the agreement of the above-mentioned experts who were consulted, if you: check Jewish for religion but not for ethnicity; Jewish for religion and ethnicity; Jewish for ethnicity but don’t put a religion; Jewish for ethnicity and put a religion that one doesn’t have to convert to to follow (like Buddhism). You would not be counted as Jewish if, say, you checked Jewish for ethnicity but put Catholic for religion. The Canadian census does not ask for race. As noted, we’re asked about ethnicity. But it’s not left with one question. Instead of “race,” there are two questions, I believe (it’s been 9 years – cut me some slack!): “ethnicity of origin,” from which you can check from a list or add in an “other”; and then a separate question on if you consider yourself a “visible minority,” with various options to check for that, along with a fill in the blank “other.” The Canadian census happens in years ending in 1 (with a smaller census, fewer questions, happening in years ending in 6). So we’ll see what it yields next year.
Both countries have separation of religion and state. So why does one ask explicitly about religion (including Jews) while the other doesn’t? I’m guessing that, in part, it has to do with Canadians trusting that the religion information is being collected to see how diverse we are, and not to be used for some Evil Reason. Which is the same reason we’re asked about ethnicity or income or number of people in a family or household. It’s just another measure of diversity. But it’s also helpful for provinces like Quebec, where Jewish (and other religious) day schools are subsidized by the province. Or for those provinces that accept rulings from a beis din (or from Islamic sharia councils) for certain legal matters. Yes, these are still both within the Canadian definition of “separation of church and state,” because all religions are weighed equally. Catholic schools in Quebec are subsidized alongside Jewish and Muslim. Acknowledging that most Western law is heavily Christian-centric, the government allows for Jewish and Muslim legal systems to hold weight as well. Separate from state while allowing for religious pluralism. By contrast, my sense of “separation of church and state” in the US is that Christians need the reminder, and that other religious groups aren’t really considered at all by the state. The two outlooks yield very different results, and different reasons for separation.
I don’t think it’s a problem to ask about religion or ethnicity. I don’t think it’s a problem to fill out those answers either. (I also support the right of individuals to leave questions blank on a census.) But I’m curious: what do other countries do? Does your country count the Jews?
Awhile back, I was introduced to a really great online resource for Jews by choice aptly named JewsByChoice.org. It was certainly a great website and I imagine a good resource for those who encountered it. For one reason or another the project was put on hold, now it’s back and better than ever.
Incorporating aspects of community blogs and social networking, JewsByChoice.org is an incredibly useful and dynamic website which provides a space for an online community dedicated to Jews by choice to network and share experiences, in addition to providing a vibrant potential for online learning and the sharing of knowledge and information. Regular visitors and contributors to the site come from a very large spectrum of Jewish observance and familiarity.
The website intends to target a trans-denominational audience, and while it is also intended for those in our community who are Jews by choice, it also has an active, and can only assume passive, readership from those of us who are Jews by birth.
In its own words…
JewsByChoice.org is a Trans-denominational grassroots, peer run, blog and online resource, providing Jews by choice (as well as other interested parties) with opportunities for exploring, discussing and engaging with Jewish Identity, Tradition, Culture and Religious Observance.
Our core mission activities include:
Technology: Harnessing the Internet and Web 2.0 technologies in order to provide Jews by choice with improved online opportunities for: social networking, community building and learning; as a means of facilitating greater Jewish literacy and engagement.
Discussion: Providing a forum for dialogue and discussion where Jews by choice from across the denominational spectrum can (respectfully) discuss and exchange ideas with one another on a variety of Jewish topics.
Engagement: Creating opportunities for Jews by choice to deepen their understanding, connection and commitment to Jewish religion, culture and community.
Advocacy: Empowering Jews by choice to better identify and address issues which act as barriers to their engagement and integration into Jewish life and Community.
In my opinion, the most productive way to encourage inclusiveness and acceptance on a genuine and integral level for all denominations and flavors of Jewish lifestyle, belief, practice, observance and thought involves striving to understand the perspectives and experiences of individual people who walk in all of these different forms of Jewish identity. The type of online community which JewsByChoice.org is creating provides the opportunity for people to connect as individuals and share information and knowledge by utilizing technology and relying upon the motivation of any person who chooses to join the community for their contribution.
I highly recommend jumping over to the site, registering with them and surfing around, start a blog, join some groups and share your thoughts. It’s really a fabulous resource that I hope continues to be utilized and continues to grow.
I learned of Arnold Foster by reading his obituary, which arrived through the wire about a day ago.
The JTA reports:
Arnold Foster, an attorney who had a nearly 60-year career at the Anti-Defamation League, has died.
Foster fought against anti-Semitism and extremism, and advocated for civil rights and the State of Israel. He was 97 when he died Sunday night.
In 1938 he organized a team of lawyers to serve as the volunteer legal arm of the Anti-Defamation League. He joined the staff of ADL in 1940, and as associate national director was primarily responsible for building ADL’s law department and civil rights program. In January 1946 he was appointed general counsel, a position he held until 2003, though he retired from the ADL in 1979.
I don’t know anything about Arnold Foster. I don’t know whether he was on the right or the left, whether he was a shomer mitzvos, an atheist, or both. What I do know is that the ADL of 1938 was a very different organization than it is today, and working for it would have been a step towards fully participating in global politics and identity formation. In Foster’s universe, Jews were being gassed in Poland, demoralized in Algiers and rapidly assimilating into the white American mainstream. Reading this obituary, I wonder to myself about the wisdom of a man like this and the opinions he took to the grave. Would I have agreed with them? Would he have been able to articulate how his experiences informed his work?
What we do learn from Foster’s obituary is the origin of his name:
Born Arnold Fastenberg in Brooklyn, Foster was a graduate of St. John’s University in Queens and its law school. He changed his name at the suggestion of a director when acting at a local playhouse during law school.
A Thespian!
“May the Almighty comfort you among the other mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.”
Reading it I was encouraged, sympathetic even. I wish more Orthodox Rabbis, especially Haredim and especially Israeli Haredim, gave as much thought and voice to such sentiments. I wish more of our progressive friends did likewise in the other direction.
The Western Wall, like the Jewish nation, has both visible and hidden dimensions. It seems like a public and open place, but in reality – as anyone who has touched its stones will attest – it is a place of intimacy: intimacy between a Jew and his past, intimacy between man and his God. This intimacy is created during the wondrous moment when a man leans his head on the cool stones of the Western Wall and feels in the depths of his heart that he has returned home.
There’s just one problem here; women sadly appear to be forgotten or omitted. That’s a shame since that attitude is precisely what got us to this point. Thus what is clearly a heartfelt plea against Sinat Chinam and for inclusiveness from the Orthodox, even if it doesn’t mention the non-Orthodox outright, misses the point.
Yes, Rabbi, more unites us than divides us. Except when what unites us is the Western Wall and what divides at it are a mechitza and equal treatment.
We indeed are all brothers- except our sisters, who continue to receive insulting treatment at the Wall for exercising precisely what you describe as an ideal.
It is a place of intimacy: not just intimacy between a Jew and his past, but and Jew and hers as well. It is a place of intimacy between men AND women and our God.
Rabbi, I laud your words and pray that all Jews can come to the Wall and experience this intimacy at Har HaBayit. Until all men AND women can lean their heads on those cool shamir-carved stones and freely pour out their souls to Hashem, it will not feel like a home to far too many of our sisters, wives and mothers than either you or I desire.
And unless those who advocate otherwise heed your words, “ein m’nachem lah.”
The Jewish Literary Salon in Krakow, Poland - one of the many complex Jewish projects in contemporary Poland
In Dan Sieradski’s recent web project 31 Days, 31 Ideas, cartoonist and rootsman thinker EliValley suggests that the American Jewish community create “Birthright Diaspora.” Awkwardly conceived as a 10-day immersion in a Jewish diasporic site, the manifesto suggests that by creating a program in which Israeli and American Jews visit “global” Jewish communities located far from their own, their Jewish identities will transform into something better. Valley writes:
It’s time to expand our notions of positive Jewish identity and at long last move beyond an ideology that fretfully masquerades self-hatred as Jewish empowerment. By digging through centuries of global Jewish life, Birthright Diaspora will help transform Jewish self-awareness and break the dichotomy of “hero” and “victim” that has handicapped internal Jewish intellectual inquiry for decades. The goal is not merely widespread immersion experiences in global Jewish communities but a renewed understanding of Diaspora as a Birthright that forms the roots of Jewish consciousness. If implemented effectively, Birthright Diaspora can lead to an existential transformation in the way Jews and Israelis view themselves and the world.
It is a heartfelt manifesto, and what it lacks in theoretical precision it regains in passion. For many years now, there has been an emphasis on the next big “program” that will contribute to the strengthening of what we have come to call Jewish Identity and Community. Various ideological camps, including Jewschool, have claimed that by funding the notion of “global Jewish Peoplehood,” Jewish identity and community will bz’h undergo the type of “existential transformation” that Valley describes.
I am confident that longing for this type of existential transformation is a red herring, or even more troubling, a fantasy of our own power. By denying the reality that the Jewish Diaspora has geographically contracted and remained intact, our cultural activists continue to accept a model of a “shackled” community that pivots off a vague notion that, as Valley writes, “in the Jewish world, the interconnectivity often manifests itself through ripples emanating from the perceived center of Jewish life in Jerusalem.” More »
In recent days, the hype about the building of a new progressive Orthodox town in Israel has many people noticing. Led by Rabbi Asher Lopatin, the town currently being built will be named Carmit.
“I want to build a new type of religious Zionist,” said Lopatin, who believes that both Jews and Palestinians should be able to live where they want, be it Tel Aviv or Hebron. “I’m not talking about how many square kilometers can we touch, but how many people can we touch.”
It’s a noble and brilliant idea articulated with a precise slap. Jews and Palestinians should be able to live wherever they want? Niiiice. It’s not the amount of land, but the amount of hearts? Awww.
Settlement is an intensely political act burdened with the weight of our heritage and our future. Like in all Israel, Negev Palestinians have poorer but vibrant communities that aim to imbue their children with an identity and a vision of the future. Even if we set aside the troubled history of Bedouins in the modern State of Israel, the reality that Carmit abuts Al-Masadiyya and Hura, a series of townships of 10,000 Palestinians, stirs me a bit. How are the needs of Bedouins, who already suffered through forced settlement, met by the expansion of Jewish settlement? How are unrecognized villages, less than a 10 minute drive from Carmit’s cement foundation and without electricity or meaningful political representation, affected by the plan to increase Jewish settlement between Arad and Beer Sheva? How does a new, progressive Zionist community led by an American rabbi plan to confront the types of social and moral challenges that arise when you arrive in al-Naqab with a dishwasher, a prius and loads of seforim? According to Carmit’s wikipedia page, it will “include a community center with various amenities such as an Olympic size pool and gym facilities.” Will these facilities be open to all citizens in the Negev?
An article from way back in 2002 that details the lives of Bedouins only a few minutes drive from Carmit.
The website of Bustan, an organization working to promote sustainable development in the Negev.
An interesting article from a Palestinian perspective on the historical narrative of Bedouins in Israel.
Moni Ovadia was born to a Jewish family in Bulgaria in 1946. His family eventually emigrated to Milan, Italy. Today Moni Ovadia is a deliciously peculiar Jewish artist working in the Italian theater. As the ‘Ndrangheta and African migrants lock in battle in the south, Ovadia is serving up European non-Jews a cabaret that satiates contemporary Europe’s adrenal interest in displays of Jewishness. As a seasoned cultural shtadlan, Moni Ovadia is a kind of Jew that exists nowhere else but in today’s Europe. Pulled in between his Jewishness and adaptation to a streetscape with few Jews, Ovadia finds a voice as one of Europe’s Jewish culture-icons, a living Jew in a land of dead ones.
A young refugee from Chervenkov‘s Bulgaria, Ovadia grew up in a Milan where refugee camps had to be set up for Jews fleeing post-war Austria. As a naturalized Italian Jewish youth, Ovadia was fully aware of how post-war Europe spawned all sorts of peculiar fascinations with pre-war Jewish life. Ovadia himself “discovered” Yiddishkayt in the 1970s, delving deeply into the music and folklore of 19th century Eastern European Jews. From there he began to perform this newfound Ashkenaziness with a clever, bizarre critique of contemporary European culture’s relationship to the Jew. As Vered Zaykovsky reports in recent article in Eretz Acheret:
“Look”, he says to me, “people in the West are now complaining about the Jew with the weapons, the Jew that shoots and then slips away, but the other Jew, I tell them – you murdered that Jew! So you got what you wanted! If you would have left that Jew alone, he would have remained the way he was, he was better off the way he was… That Jew, the pale, scrawny Jew with the big nose, the Nazi-propaganda Jew, he was destroyed due to a lack of understanding, no one really knew him and everyone told ugly lies about him. He was too fine a person for this world.”
At the same time, Ovadia represents his people, providing Europeans the opportunity to see those they once dehumanized as dynamic and full human beings filled with creative energy and religious fervor.
“One day”, says Ovadia, “the wife of the Chabad rabbi of Milan called me. ‘I wouldn’t change one iota of this show’, she told me. ‘This is by no means an Orthodox play, but it helped the people who work with our school to better understand us. In just two hours, this show accomplished what we have not been able to accomplish in two months: it clarifies who we are, where we came from, why and how.’”
In a sense, the European context allows for Jewish cultural activism like Ovadia’s to reach a wide non-Jewish audience, something to which so many of our young artists strive. Eretz Acheret, an Israeli publication available in Hebrew and English, has some new, amazing reportage and essay regarding European Jewish affairs. The diversity and competency is a breath of fresh air in a Jewish media culture that fails to raise promote the vanguard. Bless up to Shlonsky.
It is no secret to those of us who live much (or most or even too much) of our Judaism online that there needs to be a fundamental change in the way we understand community and peoplehood in North America.
It is also not surprising that people often overreact—in both directions—saying that we must come back to the synagogue-old-world model and abandon this new-fangled-interwebs or that we should move to some new idea that uses a bunch of hyphens and words like “post” and “neo” or “proto” all strung together and pretends to be meaningful.
But like everything, there needs to be a balance. And there needs to be a way for those who are coming out of the old-world model to integrate the new with what they already know.
Almost Rabbi Melissa Zalkin Stollman, a friend of mine and rabbinic student at HUC in New York, has published her thesis online to address peoplehood and identity (and a few other things) through the lens of the “new” Judaism at the same time as asking these questions from a Reform Jewish perspective. The site looks at peoplehood, ritual, resources, media and music, and (of course) sports a blog.
This kinds of sums it up; from the introduction:
In today’s world, the Internet is the first stop for people of all ages when they need to find answers or community, even when it comes to Judaism. My 36-year old brother brought this home for me this past December when I asked if he needed me to email and sing the Chanukah blessings to him. He responded, “No thank you, I got them on Google through my new Droid phone.” If that doesn’t sum up where Judaism is today, then I don’t know what does. He used his cell phone to find his answer instead of using it to call his sister, the almost-rabbi. Who needs a synagogue when you have a Smartphone?
If you are interested check out Envisioning Jewish Peoplehood. While I do find it interesting, I do not agree with everything presented, but I suppose that is part of the point.
Are you a Jewschool reader in Poland? If you are, Jewschool would love to hear from you! A member of Jewschool’s editorial board will be in Krakow this June-July for the Jewish Culture Festival and in Warsaw, Chmielnik, and Szczebrzeszyn for conferences, speaking gigs and collaborations. Want to help expand the trip, spread the love of Jewschool, and build Polish-American solidarity along the way? Get in touch by clicking Contact Us!
This week’s parasha, Yitro, is a classic. A righteous father-in law dropping solid leadership advice. The Big 10 Commandments. Psychedelic prophecy. My highlight though is the following verse. I like it so much because, for me, it’s like the Jewish people’s theological mission statement in 17 words. Let’s me try and break it down. First, the verse:
ועתה אם שמוע תשמעו בקלי ושמרתם את בריתי והייתם לי סגלה מכל העמים כי לי כל הארץ
“And now, if you hear my voice and keep my covenant, you will be for me a treasure from among the nations, for all the world belongs to me. Exodus, 19:5″ Now, the breakdown.
Be Here Now
“ועתה And now”
Our purpose on this earth as Jews is happening in this very moment. It’s not sealed in history, and it’s not waiting for us in a next world. It’s happening now, and it’s real.
The Search for God
“אם שמוע תשמעו בקלי If you hear my voice”
Implicit in these words is that God is speaking. It’s our job to try and tune in and hear. It might come obviously, in flames and smoke, or it might come still and small, in the cries of the poor and the sick, in a silent cave, in the question of a child. But it’s there. Waiting.
The Power of Relationship
“ושמרתם את בריתי And keep my covenant”
The primacy of relationships, to God, parents, family, and strangers, and more are an absolute fundamental to Judaism. Our relationship to God is a primary model of that. We have many covenants with God, covenants about land, about justice, about how we treat others, how we treat ourselves. What I believe was so revolutionary about Judaism is not that there is a single force in the world responsible for its creation, but that every human being can be in relationship with that force. You, yes you, can be in relationship with the creator of the universe! How sweet is that!? But there’s expectations that come with it. Of course, we understand those expectations and that relationship differently. I believe that relationship, and those expectations, are expressed to the Jewish people through Torah.
Love and Destiny
“והייתם לי סגלה מכל העמים- And you will be for me a treasure among all the nations”
Ah, here we get to the stickiest one to our enlightened post-modern ears. Particularism! Ethno-centrism! Racism!
This is how it works for me. Let me know in comments if you feel differently…
Tobaron Waxman is the winner of The Jewish Museum’s first-ever Audience Award, selected from nearly sixty international artists. Votes were gathered from visitors to the exhibition in person and online, between September 13, 2009 and January 11, 2010. Waxman was selected for his provocative installation Opshernish, 2000/2009. The piece examines the construction of gender in Judaism by recreating and condensing a multi-part performance installation.
The following are the artist’s own words as shared with Jewschool’s editors: More »
One of the last members of the Auschwitz women’s orchestra has got a new crew: Esther Bejarano is now dropping beats with the Cologne-based rap group Microphone Mafia.
Many USAers have already filled out their census forms. Or are at least thinking about it. Or have at least taken the form and added it to their pile of mail to be dealt with later. (Seriously, fill it out and send it back. It’s good for you, your community, your neighbourhood, your city, your state… And I hear it gives you whiter teeth and shinier hair.)
It was decided that Jewish would appear twice: under “religion” and under “ethnicity.” (You can choose more than one ethnicity, I believe.) You’re considered Jewish, according to the census, and with the agreement of the above-mentioned experts who were consulted, if you: check Jewish for religion but not for ethnicity; Jewish for religion and ethnicity; Jewish for ethnicity but don’t put a religion; Jewish for ethnicity and put a religion that one doesn’t have to convert to to follow (like Buddhism). You would not be counted as Jewish if, say, you checked Jewish for ethnicity but put Catholic for religion. The Canadian census does not ask for race. As noted, we’re asked about ethnicity. But it’s not left with one question. Instead of “race,” there are two questions, I believe (it’s been 9 years – cut me some slack!): “ethnicity of origin,” from which you can check from a list or add in an “other”; and then a separate question on if you consider yourself a “visible minority,” with various options to check for that, along with a fill in the blank “other.” The Canadian census happens in years ending in 1 (with a smaller census, fewer questions, happening in years ending in 6). So we’ll see what it yields next year. 
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