by Kol Ra'ash Gadol · Wednesday, May 14th, 2008
Week Four, day Four
Netzach of Netzach
Over a year ago, Akiba Hebrew Academy, the country’s oldest day school, changed a long standing policy, and decided that it would accept a $5million gift on condition that it change its name to the Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy in honor of the older brother of the donor, who died in a plane crash at age 27. But here’s the turn of the screw: the donor was Leonard Barrack, the newly elected board chair of the Philadelphia federation.
When alumni attempted to object to this change in policy, they were ignored, when they turned to the local Jewish paper, the Jewish Exponent, it turned them down and even contacted school representatives.
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by Kol Ra'ash Gadol · Tuesday, May 13th, 2008
The Wall Street Journal reports that the Alliance Defense Fund, a Scottsdale, Ariz., conservative legal-advocacy group is attempting to provoke a new legal challenge to the rule that requires nonprofits to refrain from intervening in political campaigns. To be clear, it is llegal for nonprofits, including churches and synagogues, to endorse or publicly oppose political candidates or to intervene in candidates’ elections, although they are free to take sides on issues.
Alliance fund staff hopes 40 or 50 houses of worship will take part in the action, including clerics from liberal-leaning congregations. About 80 ministers have expressed interest, including one Catholic priest, says Erik Stanley, the Alliance’s senior legal counsel.
“The government should not be telling the church what it should or should not be saying,” says the Rev. Steve Riggle, senior pastor of Grace Community Church in Houston, who hopes to take part in the Alliance effort. Mr. Riggle says he told his congregation from the pulpit, before the Texas primary in March, that he was supporting former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee for president. “As a pastor, a private citizen, I can speak for myself. The IRS cannot quench my voice,” he says.
In recent years, attempts by members of Congress to change the law have failed. “Tax exemption is a benefit, and it comes with conditions,” says Rob Boston, a spokesman for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a nonprofit that has filed more than a dozen complaints in the past year with the IRS, accusing nonprofits of tax-code violations. “So if any pastor out there feels he is gagged or can’t speak on partisan politics…forgo the tax exemption and say what you want.”
Personally, I think this is a crock. The “Alliance” is attempting to get some liberl clergy involved with it’s attempt to overturn this rule, but the rule is there for a good reason; to prevent the kind of nonsense we see in Israel with rabbis giving out amulets to vote for this one, or cursing people who vote for that one, and telling people who they must vote for or be booted. It’s not like if your minister/rabbi/preacher/ priest has an opinion on the candidate it’s likely to be a big secret (although I did once have a conversation with a rabbi who told me that their congregation couldn’t guess who they would vote for. They were proud of it, I thought it a sign that that person never engaged in real advocacy; IMO a problem if you actually believe in the words you read in our texts), which is, IMO okay. I think that clergy should have opinions - and I don’t limit it to those whose opinions agree with mine (although if they don’t they’re wrong, of course)- and act on them, but I don’t want to see the pulpit devolve into an opportunity to socially coerce the votes of their followers . As we all know, there are clergy who may not be perfect out there, and I’m just as happy for them not to abuse the privilege.
by Kol Ra'ash Gadol · Sunday, May 11th, 2008
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.
by zt · Friday, April 25th, 2008
It is fairly well known that, in Israel, many recognize and observe seven days of pesach and a single seder whereas, outside of Israel, many recognize 8 days of pesach and two seders as proper observance.
Where did the extra day come from?
A piece over at my jewish learning does a good job explaining:
The Jewish calendar is lunar. Over 2,000 years ago, a council of rabbis from the Sanhedrin, the ancient legislative and judicial body, held special sessions in Jerusalem at the end of each lunar month to receive witnesses to the first sliver of the new moon. Because a lunar cycle is approximately 29 days long, it was no mystery when the new moon should appear, but the Sanhedrin still declared months and holidays only on the basis of these witnesses. …
Once the sighting was legitimated, the rabbis declared the next day Rosh Hodesh, the beginning of the new month. Originally, beacon fires would be set on mountaintops to spread the word to distant Jewish communities already living in far away places such as Egypt and Babylon. Watchers on faraway hills set their beacon fires as soon as they saw them, continuing the relay “until one could behold the whole of the Diaspora before him like a mass of fire” (Mishnah Rosh Hashanah 2:4)… Celebrating festivals for an extra day would ensure that, regardless of whatever confusion reigned about the exact start of the new month, at least one day of their celebration would be on the correct day.
Okay, that makes sense but we started to switch to a rule-based fixed-arithmetic lunisolar calendar system after the destruction of the second temple. That made the days designed to prevent error obsolete since everyone everywhere in the world used the same system and derived the days similarly. It no longer mattered how close one was to the Sanhedrin so why keep the extra days?
There are two major answers.
Our own BZ’s:
At the end of Beitzah 4b that issue is addressed. “Now that we know the fixed new month, what’s the reason for doing two days?” The answer there is hizaharu b’minhag avoteichem (be careful about your ancestors’ minhag), because in the future there might be a decree preventing us from keeping the calendar…And we can even agree on the value of minhag avoteinu (see Beitzah 4b), and you can follow the minhag of your ancestors who kept 2 days, while I’ll follow the minhag of my ancestors who have been Reform for at least five generations.
The other common answer is given by a Rabbi from Aish here:
So why was a second day Yom Tov added? In order to make a distinction, to add to the Jewish awareness that one is living in the Diaspora and does not claim permanent residence in the Holy Land.
BZ’s answer to Minhag Avoteinu is compelling as is the issue that there has ceased to be a consistent mihag in the diaspora. The Reform, Renewal, Reconstructionist, and Conservative movements have all offered decisions permitting the use of a 7-day pesach. Here is some CCAR (Reform) analysis. The Cons and Recon movements both provide flexibility for local congregations but the result is that a majority of American Jews, and nearly all Israeli Jews fall under a 7-day authority. Many have been in such a situation for generations.
Now to respond to the idea that we should have an extra seder to remember we aren’t in Israel…
Was anyone really confused? In case you were here are ten ways to conclude you are in the US rather than in Israel that have nothing to do with extra days of passover.
10:The falafel is overpriced and underspiced.
9: Municipal services are transparent and efficient.
8: Sunday is for football not school.
7: Teacher strikes are generally limited to a few days, max.
6: People talk slowly and get uncomfortable with interruptions (supreme court excepted).
5: Holocaust jokes are rare and usually generate discomfort.
4: People have difficulty making political and religious assumptions based on the type of kippah a person is wearing. Many can’t remember the word and use “beanie” or “skull cap” instead.
3: Though people talk about God non-stop in government there aren’t religious parties associated with single religious approached.
2: Nation’s founders where individual rather than collective farmers.
1: Look around. No occupations and settlements for miles in any direction? You probably aren’t in Israel.*
*If you are, time for new bifocals.
by BZ · Sunday, April 13th, 2008
This year’s Boston Marathon, traditionally held on Patriots’ Day (the third Monday in April), will be on the second day of Pesach. The Associated Press reports on Rabbi Jonah Pesner and other Pesach-observant marathon runners, and how they are reconciling the Pesach diet and the marathon diet.
Passover begins just two days before the April 21 marathon, and the holiday’s strict dietary rules mean Jewish runners can’t eat bread and pasta, the normal staples in the days before the big race.
Besides matzoh, which is unleavened bread, Pesner plans to pound down foods such as potatoes during a rare “carb-load seder” the night before the race.
Pesner never considered breaking the dietary rules for the sake of the race, which he is running with his wife for an autism charity.
“For me, running the marathon is a very spiritual quest,” he said.
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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 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 biz · Friday, February 15th, 2008
Warning: President’s Day is being hijacked by patriots from other countries. and lovers of foreign cultures. luckily for us, this means more interesting shows, events, and projects and less Uncle Sam costumes…
Fri: Soulico w/Onili in Chicago; birthright’s Israelity tour in SD
Sat: JDub celebrates a patriotic holiday weekend with Middle Eastern mash ups, Israeli DJs, and good old American hip hop as SOULICO returns from Tel Aviv for a Brooklyn Loft Party w/Onili, Sneakas & Mazi; Israelity rolls through LA
Sun: Israelity goes Vegas
Mon: Soulico in Austin @ Beauty Bar
Tues: Dan Safer and his troupe, Witness Relocation, perform works-in-progress from his Six Points Fellowship Project, Haggadah, at the Center for Jewish History. They won’t know what hit them…
Wed: Jeremiah Lockwood performs new works-in-progress from his Six Points Fellowship project, Hidden Melodies Revealed, solo in NYC.
Thurs: Golem at the Parrish in Austin!
Fri: Golem at the Warehouse Live in Houston!
what else you got?
by Kung Fu Jew · Monday, February 11th, 2008
The central message of Breaking the Silence is “it can’t be done differently.”
A humane occupation is not possible in the experiences of these soldiers and if someone is committed to the settlement project, wherein a small number of Jews live amidst and must be protected from a greater number of Palestinians, then the result will be these ugly pictures.
Said veteran Arnon Degani, 25, today in a guided tour to a half dozen UPenn Hillel students, “It’s a slippery slope. You begin doing everything by the book. But then you realize that you can get away with everything. And that’s when enforcing curfew or guarding a checkpoint turns into abuse. You have so much power for an 18 year old. Shooting your gun becomes the most exciting part of the day.”
A very agitated participant, brought in by his son today, confronted Arnon on whether the territories were safer for Israeli citizens as occupied. Claiming the Arabs would kill all the Jews if Israel ended the occupation, he clearly represented a mainstream American Jewish understanding of the conflict.
Arnon said, “If you believe the occupation is necessary for Israel’s security, then you must accept that all of this will continue to happen. For all of the world to see. All of this must happen if we are to keep the settlements. And that’s fine if you think that. But if you think the settlements are for Israel’s security, then you legitimize settlers are military targets by terrorists. They are no longer civilians. I am there to protect civilians from attacks. That’s my job.”
To me, the most enlightening testimonies given by the soldiers are those which explain the realities of military operations.
“How can you tell if a detainee is a terrorist?” asked on student.
“Easy,” Arnon replied. “You radio the secret service and they tell you. You have the man’s ID. There are two kinds of detainees: terrorists and everybody else. I do everything necessary to capture terrorists. But I’m talking about what I have to do to civilians. I know these people are not terrorists. And far more numerous than terrorists. And yet I have to humiliate them to keep order. Every day. It can’t be done differently.”
This is what occupation looks like — not just the Occupation, but occupation in general. This bears an important relevance to Americans rightly concerned about Iraq today. And the message Breaking the Silence is bringing to the States is not how to end the occupation or even whether it should be.
This exhibit poses the question directly to you, asking, “This is what occupation looks like. It can’t be done differently. Are you willing to pay this price?” And the answer is up to you.
(X-posted to Breaking the Silence’s exhibit video blog.)
by Kol Ra'ash Gadol · Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008
Today is the 35th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade.
These years have not been easy years, and certainly for many of them, we have had to spend our energy trying to fight those who would overturn it. But it is a struggle we must continue with. To go back to the days before Roe v. Wade would be a disaster: in the dark days in which abortions were outlawed in most states, women died, regularly, of botched abortions. I don’t suppose it’s news to anyone that that’s the case, but just in case, let’s review a current case: Nicaragua.
Since Nicaragua outlawed abortions once again in 2006, we know of - for certain- over 100 women who have died. Keep in mind those are the ones who were reported, who made news; we will probably never know how many women really.
Over at Human Rights Watch, check out their report, from which I quote:
A medical doctor at a large public hospital in Managua, however, testified to one case:
Here [at this hospital] we have had women who have died.… For example, [name withheld] came here and had an ultrasound. It was clear that she needed a therapeutic abortion. No one wanted to carry out the abortion because the fetus was still alive. The woman was here two days without treatment until she expulsed the fetus on her own. And by then she was already in septic shock and died five days later. That was in March 2007.
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by BZ · Tuesday, January 15th, 2008
Once again, we are delighted to announce the courses for the 2008 National Havurah Committee Summer Institute! The Institute will be August 11-17 at Franklin Pierce University in New Hampshire. Every teacher is a student, and every student is a teacher.
Morning:
Afternoon:
- S. Bear Bergman (Poretsky Artist-In-Residence) - Storytelling, Diaspora, and Survival
- Julia Appel - The Art and Spirit of Prayer Leading
- Mitch Chanin - Controversy for the Sake of Heaven: Facilitating constructive dialogue across political differences about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and other controversial issues
- Stephen Eisdorfer - Law and The Law
- Shelly Fredman - The Soul’s Search for Meaning—Creating a Personal Theology
- Bob Freedman - What Words Can Do!
- Bob Goldenberg - What is oral about “Oral Torah”?
- Matthew Goldfield - Infinity and God
- Jill Jacobs and Guy Izhak Austrian - It Goes Without Saying: Power, Passivity, and Social Change
- Eleni Litt - Line, Color, Form: The Shape of Torah and the Kabbalah of Color
- Benjamin Maron - Beyond the Binary: the “Other” Genders in the Mishna and Contemporary Judaism
- Adele Reinhartz - Diversity and Rupture: The “Parting of the Ways” between Judaism and Christianity
- Aviva Richman - The Vagina Monologues Meet the Talmud
- Micha’el Rosenberg - Do We Mourn for the Dead, or for the Living? The Case of Suicide in Halacha
See you in August!
by Kol Ra'ash Gadol · Tuesday, January 8th, 2008
As usual, Failed Messiah has scooped an interesting tidbit on Rubashkin. Seems that a few days ago, NLRB heard an appeal from Rubashkin and found against them that if one’s employees vote to unionize, one cannot claim that undocumented aliens are prohibited from unionizing because they do not qualify as “employees” protected by the National Labor Relations Act, and thus refuse to bargain with them or recognize the vote.
Since the NLRB under the recent administrations has acted more and more partisanly - i.e. finding almost uniformly against labor, or handing out slaps on the wrists so light the companies have to scratch after because the contact tickles, I can only say, the case must have been unbelievably chutzpadik, which a few words from Circuit Judge Tatel seems to confirm, “Because the company’s argument ignores both the Act’s plain language and binding Supreme Court precedent, we deny its petition for review.…”
See FM for more: good work, dude!
Every day in every way, Rubashkin finds new ways to improve! Congrats on your award for Worst Ongoing Scandal; it’s nothing if not well deserved!
by Rooftopper Rav · Tuesday, January 8th, 2008
Well more than a week before his visit, Bush was creating waves in the Holy City. Main streets near my home have been sporting American flags alternating with Israeli and Jerusalem city flags. For the last two days, we’ve all been startled by huge transport helicopters flying very low over the city in formations of threes, making a racket and causing a bit of panic in the uninformed. (Word on the street is that they’re practicing for Bush’s arrival.) Two days ago I had to take a crazy jigsaw puzzle of a cab ride because there were a bunch of streets that were already closed. Fine, whatever, not a huge deal. Then I read this about Bush’s visit in today’s Ha’aretz:
The operation, dubbed “Clear Skies,” will cost Israel $25,000 for every hour Bush is in the country.
That feels unconscionable. This country kept its high school students out of school for two months because it balked at paying teachers a living wage, still refuses to pay its university teachers a decent wage, hasn’t yet fully made good on its financial and other promises to evacuees from Gaza, and continues to let its poor, its elderly, and its Holocaust survivors languish without proper financial and medical assistance. And somehow there’s enough money to spend $25,000 an hour on George Bush.
On the bright side, it seems that Bush’s visit may have at least temporarily delayed Israel’s moving its West Bank police headquarters into the currently empty and deeply controversial E1 area, a move that would effectively put an end to the possibility of territorial contiguity for the Palestinians.
Bush’s visit story here, and a video here. (Best line in the video comes from a chef at the King David hotel where Bush is staying: “You want to show up and do your best, but the man likes hambugers, what can you do?“)
by feygele · Sunday, January 6th, 2008
Hillel recently released a guide for including LGBTQ students in its campus activities. The guide, downloadable as a pdf, and the press release are available in full here.
At 186-pages, it’s lengthy and fairly comprehensive, touching on topics from the history of the American LGBTQ movements, to resources for coming out, to queer and Jewish content for programming. The guide also includes a glossary of commonly used queer/LGBTQ-related terms.
My concern, however, is that the length will actually be a barrier. Those Hillel staff who aren’t interested in stepping outside the box, or making an effort to include these students in their programming, will be quick to dismiss a document of this length. (I mean, heck, it took me over two weeks since I saw the press release to read it - and I’m interested!) Maybe I’m just jaded by incredibly negative Hillel experiences, but I think this guide is largely “preaching to the choir.”
“Hillel is opening the doors for all Jewish students, of all sexual orientations and gender identities,” says Hillel President Wayne L. Firestone. “The resource guide provides Hillel directors with practical recommendations for welcoming this important population into our Hillels.”
To take off the cynical hat, I hope that Hillel staff are given more than just this guide - that they’re provided with additional resources for understanding what they read, having their questions answered, and ensuring that they do, in fact, make their local Hillel an open and welcoming place for LGBTQ students.
by feygele · Sunday, January 6th, 2008
BZ already linked to one, but that’s just not enough! A big shout out to this month’s Zeek, which includes four articles on indie minyans.
Check them all out!
by Kung Fu Jew · Saturday, January 5th, 2008
The Levy Economics Institute of Bard College published a working paper which reexamines the annual AJC opinion surveys for the past seven years. It’s a thorough fisking of sorts of the information the AJC pumps out regarding peace proposal opinions. Even with caveats to the study’s limits, Perlmann has some interesting data to report.
Highlights:
– The AJC surveys have been limited to people to identify as Jewish religiously.
– No socioeconomic or demographic factors dramatically affect any opinions on the West Bank…
– …Except orthodoxy. Orthodox Jews reject by 93% varying compromises around peace. For the other 9/10ths of American Jewry, denomination accounts for very little differences in opinion.
– Within the non-Orthodox denominations, opinion is divided in even thirds: accept all compromises, accept all but Jerusalem, and accept nothing.
– The older you are, the more you are emotionally attached to Israel…
– …Yet, the older you are, the more ready you are to compromise on return of the West Bank.
– 51% who report Jewishness as being “very important” do not report a “very close” attachment to Israel. American Jews appear able to separate their feelings for Jewish religion from the Jewish state. Gasp!
– New York City (or other metro area) Jews aren’t any more conservative than Jews in other places, once you remove the Orthodox contingent.
– Emotional attachment to Israel, in non-Orthodox respondants, does not correlate with rejection of peace proposals.
More »
by BZ · Friday, January 4th, 2008
As we reported a few months ago, Jen Taylor Friedman recently became the first known woman to write a sefer Torah. However, she will certainly not be the last. This week’s Forward has a feature on Rabbi Linda Motzkin of Saratoga Springs NY, who is working on a sefer Torah that she is not only writing, but creating from start to finish.
After finding a rabbi who would teach her, however, Motzkin noted an even more daunting challenge: How to acquire the basic materials, if the vendors refuse to knowingly sell to a woman?
Motzkin, who refused to obtain the tools of her holy trade under a pretense, turned instead to her own backyard, drawing on the townspeople and the environs of Saratoga to fashion her own materials.
Motzkin makes her own parchment out of deerskin, bounty given to her by local hunters, fashions quills from reeds or bird feathers, and ritually immerses herself in a neighbor’s pond. The ink she uses was a gift from her teacher, but she is working with a congregant to brew her own.
Obligatory plug: Rabbi Kevin Hale’s summer 2003 mezuzah-writing class, which the article mentions as the place where Rabbi Motzkin got her start at soferut, took place, of course, at the NHC Summer Institute! I had the privilege of being in this class too, though unlike Rabbi Motzkin, I didn’t actually do anything with it afterwards.
Another unusual and significant element of this story is that Rabbi Motzkin is not only a woman but a Reform rabbi. Every liberal Jewish community with a permanent home has one or more sifrei Torah, but the vast majority of these are purchased from the Orthodox world, since liberal Jewish soferim/soferot are few and far between. As more and more liberal Jews learn these essential skills, the liberal Jewish world can become more self-sufficient.
As Rabbi Ethan Tucker writes in Zeek:
A critical aspect of communal empowerment is a sense of self-sufficiency and a feeling that one does not need to turn to other Jews in otherwise secluded communities with whom one has no relationship in order to preserve the basics of Jewish life. We all cook and bake. Why shouldn’t every community be making its own matzot? We all know people who can write beautifully. Why shouldn’t they learn to write our sacred texts? Not only is the empowered community richer, it is also more self-confident, as it knows that its self-sufficiency entitles it to a place at the table with any other Jewish community in the world and throughout history.
Kein yehi ratzon.
by Kol Ra'ash Gadol · Thursday, January 3rd, 2008
Earlier this week, we posted a little American trouble for the Lubavitch (or perhaps it’s the end of the trouble, hard to know how to frame it).
Now, there’s more. Apparently this is their fifteen minutes. Or something.
First, England’s Jewish Chronicle notes that England’s Lubavitch movement is in some serious economic trouble: apparently because of pouring an enormous amount of money into a new club for young Jews that they opened this year. Apparently nearly all the donations they received this year went into said club, “including ‘almost all’ of this year’s £750,000 yield,” leaving them £1.5 million (that’s 2,959,951 dollars American) in debt - and of course, they’ve had to close the club, in addition to leaving their teachers unpaid since April (although donors have now stepped in to pay the teachers’ wages).
In Israel, though, they’ve got different problems. Or, perhaps it’s the same problems that they’ve got here. Apparently it’s just gotten out that there may be problems with the beliefs of some Lubavitchers regarding their former (or not) rebbe. The Jerusalem Post reports that a former FSU immigrant who was not Jewish , but was eligible under the law of return, had become interested in converting and studied in a meshichist Jerusalem ChABAD yeshiva.
About two weeks ago, he appeared before a beit din (rabbinic court) for his conversion. He had nearly finished, when one of the rabbis asked him if he believed that the rebbe was the messiah. He answered yes, that that was what he had been taught, and the court refused to convert him.
The JPost says, ”
… a source in the State Conversion Authority said that at least two leading religious Zionist rabbis ruled that messianic Chabad was beyond the pale of normative Jewish belief.
“They [messianic Chabad Hassidim] attribute to him supernatural powers years after he passed away. That is not Judaism. It’s something else.”
Chief Sephardi Rabbi Shlomo Amar will be asked to decide this weighty theological question and in the process pass judgment on thousands of members of the messianic stream within Chabad Hassidism who believe that Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who passed away in 1994, is the messiah.
This according to the article; I have heard an (unsubstantiated as of yet) rumour that, in fact, Rabbi Amar has ruled against the conversion applicant, and thus, essentially declared meshichist Lubavitch treif. I am curious as to what effect will this have on ChABAD: Is this a recognition that some beliefs are outside the pale, even if the holder of said beliefs has the outer appearance of Orthodox praxis? What effect will this have on the yeshivot that are still er, offering this perspective, either in Israel or the USA?
By the way, speaking of treif, Rubashkin (who is owned by the ChABAD Lubavitch Rubashkin family just to be on topic), has apparently had its teudat kashrut yanked by KAJ (HT to Failedmessiah)
