… Bennett Epstein [a Manhattan trial lawyer]… recently asked New York federal judge Kimba Wood to grant him a day’s reprieve in a criminal trial to attend the bris of his grandson. Epstein’s daughter has not yet given birth — so he doesn’t yet know the sex of the baby. But Epstein wanted to give Judge Wood ample notice to consider his request, given that his daughter’s due date is Dec. 3, smack in the middle of the scheduled trial.
So Epstein was stuck in the slightly awkward position of asking Judge Wood for a day off if, in fact, the baby turns out to be a boy. If it’s a girl, well, no bris, no day off needed.
Wrote Epstein, in this letter filed with the court on Thursday:
Should the child be a girl, not much will happen in the way of public celebration. Some may even be disappointed, but will do their best to conceal this by saying, “as long as it’s a healthy baby.” . . . However, should the baby be a boy, then hoo hah! Hordes of friends and family will arrive . . . for the joyous celebration . . . known as the bris. . . . My presence at the bris is not strictly commanded, although my absence will never be forgotten by those that matter.
Judge Wood, in a note written at the bottom of the letter, granted the request. But she did Epstein one better. Wrote Wood:
Mr. Epstein will be permitted to attend the bris, in the joyous event that a son is born. But the Court would like to balance the scales. If a daughter is born, there will be a public celebration in Court, with readings from poetry celebrating girls and women.
We say, well done Judge Wood!
How did Epstein respond to the answer? “It was wonderful,” he told the LB on Friday. “It struck the perfect chord.” Epstein said he appreciated being granted some time off to celebrate, given the burden such a request places on a court. “As a lawyer, you don’t want to make a habit of asking for things like this,” he said. “You’re really asking for a disruption of the court’s time. So I’m very grateful.”
And on the topic of having to ask a noted female judge for time off to celebrate the birth of a boy, but not a girl, Epstein minced no words:
“Look, the Jewish religion is sexist. It just is. But I didn’t make the rules!”
Crossposted to The Reform Shuckle. More liturgical minutiae from the first meeting of Shir Chadash here.
We were planning on heading out to the Kane Street Synagogue on Friday night, but a last-minute email from Jewschooler Kung Fu Jew had us heading out into unfamiliar territory–Crown Heights–for the first ever meeting of Shir Chadash, a new egal minyan. I called KFJ to ask for details. He didn’t have many. He didn’t know if musical instruments would be allowed. (He didn’t even know if my ballpoint would be allowed–luckily, no one seemed to mind.)
For future reference, my answer to the question, “Do you want to go to the first meeting of a new egal minyan?” is always yes.
A perfect storm of Jewschoolers, former leaders of Kol Zimrah and some former leaders of at least one DC minyan are now living way the hell out on the far reaches of the 2 and the 3. For a long time, folks have been talking about starting a new traditional egalitarian minyan for the area.
Finally, last week, after a lot of talk, one guy–Brian Immerman, a fourth-year Reform rabbinical student and a former teacher of mine–decided to just go for it. He e-mailed some people and by the middle of Lecha Dodi, about 20 Jews were in his living room to daven.
My notes on the first meeting of Shir Chadash: More »
All of this had me re-reading all of HP. Re-reading it, combined with my slightly unsatisfactoryrecent experiences in a couple of different New York City prayer communities had me giving serious consideration to a big new project. I’ve also been thinking about less than a year from now when my NJ chavurah is not going to be an option for me every week.
HP paints such a perfect picture for me. The only place I’ve ever been (not that I don’t know of others) that lives up to BZ’s vision of Stage 3 pluralism is Kol Zimrah. KZ meets once a month and only on Friday nights. But I want what is on offer at KZ every Friday night. And then I want it again in the morning. And I want it in a daily minyan. And I want it on holidays. This is a tall order.
So this week, I began starting to think toward creating one more element of this.
For some, like me, what draws them to KZ is the pluralism. I like the singing, but I like the ideas more. However, most of the people who come are probably more drawn in by the singing and spirited atmosphere. The spirited singing is thanks to two liturgical developments. First, we can thank some Medieval Kabbalists for giving us Kabbalat Shabbat. And second, we can thank Shlomo Carelbach for giving us some great tunes to make Kabbalat Shabbat a fun, engaging prayer experience. In essence, KZ without a Carelbach Kabbalat Shabbat would be a shell of itself.
So maybe what we need to create is the same kind of big singing, big fun prayer experience on Shabbat morning.
Luckily, much like Kabbalat Shabbat, we have hefty section of psalms to sing in the morning too! P’sukei D’zimrah usually gets shafted in shul. Most people don’t even show up until its over. It’s also long, so if we actually sang all of it, we wouldn’t be done with services until it’s time for Minchah.
We’ve got tunes for all of these psalms, but some may not work for the kind of spirited experience I’m talking about here. Especially if Carlebach (or Carlebach-esque) music is what is needed, we’re in trouble. For Psalm 150 and for 92 and a few others, we’ve got no problem.
But for some pslams, this will take some work. I chatted with Russ, our chazan (OK, our JTS student chazan, but he’s our chazan) at Chavurat Lamdeinu here in Jersey, about it this morning. I’m a bit melodically-challenged sometimes, so the obvious hadn’t occurred to me. Russ pointed out that Carlebach (and others) have a gazillion nigunim out there that could be laid on top of some of these psalms. This will take some work, but it’s doable.
Of course, as others have pointed out to me as I’ve rambled about this idea off and on this week, there are also some significant practical challenges here. Getting a minyan together on a Shabbat morning is harder than on a Shabbat evening because you need a Torah. You also need people to read Torah. This stuff is infinitely surmountable, but it’s there nonetheless.
The biggest challenge would be time. At its fullest, by my count, P’sukei D’zimrah includes 16 full psalms, the entire Song of the Sea, two prayers and a whole host of ancillary biblical passages. This is a more than twice as much material as Kabbalat Shabbat, which only has 8 psalms and a few extra piyutim/songs (usually between one and three songs, though it depends on who you talk to).
So there would probably need to be cuts. Personally, I’d probably start with the ancillary biblical passages, but I wouldn’t want to make these decisions alone anyway.
There would also have to be some discussion of how to do the rest of the service, with very careful attention paid to the requirements of Stage 3. Issues like the number of aliyot and the triennial cycle would certainly be up for discussion. Other parts of the service would need discussion too, such as the Amidah, where a Heiche Kedushah (leader does Amidah aloud through the Kedushah, everyone continues silently on their own, no leader’s repetition after) would probably merit discussion. And Birkot Hashacar etc, despite being a favorite of mine, would probably be right out because that can all be done at home before arriving or individually by people who arrive early.
That’s about as far as my thinking on this has taken me so far. Thoughts, anyone? Who’s with me?
But BJ is a whole other story. I have a whole list of regular complaints about BJ (it’s a meat market, etc), but Simchat Torah had me more miffed than usual. I’m often told that on the evening of Simchat Torah, BJ is the place to be. So I went.
Far beyond my usual complaints, it was a night club, complete with Israeli bouncers at all entrances and exits. The only thing to distinguish the gyrating mass of Jews from night club was the sprinkling of people dancing with sifrei Torah.
For me, events like this are a spectator sport. I felt most comfortable when the dancing was over and the Torah reading began. During the dancing hakafot, I stood off to the side, sporadically annotating my siddur and chatting with the many friends I was running into. It all reminded me a lot of summer camp. I was always that kid standing off to the side during Israeli dancing, grotesquely fascinated, but utterly unwilling to join in.
Amid all of this, there’s a piano playing, rabbis are singing loudly into microphones. Everything sounds beautiful.
Except for one thing. Four of five times during each half-hour dance hakafah, one rabbi or another would shout over the music into the microphone, “No pictures, please!” People were indeed taking pictures–with flash!–of the rotating clod of Jews. To me, far more distracting than the odd flash here and there were the announcements admonishing us all to stop taking pictures.
But I can understand it. The flashes distract. One person I chatted with said the flashes were more distracting to her than the announcements. Fine. The microphones enhanced the dancing worship, while the flashes detract. I get it.
But more than anything else, I was amused by the notion of shouting into a microphone to tell people not to take pictures. There’s something halachically hilarious about it.
And then some rather officious woman in fanny pack decided that my note-taking was a problem and told me to stop.
So now we come back to my original point: If your communal standards are non-standard, do us all a favor and have some signs made.
If there will be amplification, mixed dancing, totally nonreligious Jewish high school students, at least two well-known Orthodox rabbis (that I spotted), admonishments over the mics not to take pictures, My Number One Fan, a handful of Jewschoolers (hey guys!), etc., there’s no way to know what’s appropriate.
In a Conservative shul, in a Reform shul, in and Orthodox shul it is, with the occasional exception, pretty easy for someone as ritually literate as I am to know what it’s acceptable to do and not do.
So, fanny pack lady, despite the look of disgust on your face, it was perfectly non-obvious that what I was doing was wrong in any way.
If I can’t write in your shul, please have a sign made to go along with your no cell phones sign. How else is anyone to know what is appropriate? (Or, dare I say, allowed?)
Well, I have a hard time figuring out how they could meet the requirements (for some of them anyway), but really, who cares? It’s not like I could afford any of them anyway, or even find a place to put them. And they’re lovely.
Enjoy the Jewish equivalent of a unicorn chaser, here.
So, too, is a thicket of rules. The Talmud demands that a sukkah have at least two and a half walls, a roof that allows indwellers to see the stars and feel the rain but nevertheless stay mostly in the shade. The roof must be made of uprooted organic material—twigs or fronds, say—but no food or utensils (no chopstick thatching allowed). Mystifyingly, the rabbis of yore explicitly permitted the carcass of an elephant to be used as one of the walls. (No contestants took advantage of that option, sensing perhaps that the Department of Buildings or peta might not concur.) Neither the DOB nor the Parks Department had a problem with Kyle May and Scott Abrahams’s proposal for a cedar trunk supported on glass walls. The competition’s rabbinic consultant worried that the log might be too solid, though, and required that it be perforated.
The best entries play on a childlike desire to duck inside a mini-structure in search of fantasy. The most alluringly over-the-top, Blo Puff, by the Brooklyn-based team called Bittertang, looks like some soft, curvaceous organism that encloses a walk-in pouch saturated with the smell of eucalyptus. The most theatrically intricate and least hutlike finalist is Repetition Meets Difference, by the German architect Matthias Karch. In this multilayered helix, lengths of wood are knotted together in a system of joinery that can make any structure infinitely extendable. As a secular urban pavilion it would be an ornament, but it is also a showy riff on a holiday about humility, a tour de force of engineering where none is needed.
Eight more states – DE, HI, MD, MA, NH, NY, RI, WI – have primary elections this week. (Hawaii’s is on Yom Kippur – DOHT!) Have you fallen into the trap of praying for peace and prosperity but haven’t checked your local polling location?
Rock the Mitzvote reminds you to get off your tuchas and get out there. Use their free High Holidays e-card to encourage everyone you know in these 8 states to hit the polls – let’s pray with our feet, people!
Editor’s Note: The following is a guest post from Gavriel Meir-Levi who heads up Jewish Outreach for the Mark Levine State Senate Campaign for District 31 which runs along the Hudson River from the Upper West Side to North Riverdale. He worked on the 2008 Obama Campaign and is currently exploring the intersection of Democracy and Technology.
Tu B’Av with the Orthodox Avante Garde
One of the most interesting things about running Jewish Outreach for a state senate campaign has been re-discovering all of the technicolored streams within waves within movements of Jewish observance and identity that run from the Upper West Side to Washington Heights to Riverdale; Modern Orthodox meets Open Orthodox meets YU Orthodox meets Black Hat Orthodox meets Non-Traditional Chassidic meets Liberal Conservative Halachic meets Non-Pluralistic Egalitarian meets Zionist Traditional Reform meets Post-Zionist Israeli meets Meta-Judeao Eco-Zionist meets Activist Atheist.
Did I miss anyone? It’s impossible I did not, and even if somehow a complete list were compiled, no doubt crashing the Jewschool server in the process (not to mention our own heads), we would need but to wait a few minutes for a new movement to emerge from within the Brownian Motion of contemporary Judaism.
It was just such an emergence that my friend Mark Levine who is running for State Senate witnessed for the first time at the Bangitout Tu B’Av party in Riverside Park, the emergence of the Avante Garde Orthodox. Somewhat ironically, the Orthodox communities have been most welcoming of my candidate (who founded the Barack Obama Democratic Club of Upper Manhattan) even though many of them have deep misgivings about President Obama. Intuitively the expectation was that the more liberal communities who are Jewishly closer to Mark’s level of observance and practice would be his strongest supporters, his “natural base” in political parlance. And yet the enthusiasm of the Avante Garde Orthodox has been astonishing to behold, even though they were far more interested in each other than in anything Mark had to say on Tu B’Av.
Despite their misgivings about Obama and progressive causes (of which many Mark supports) the Avante Garde Orthodox may be closer to Obama than they realize, albeit not in the strictly political sense. Many of them may have suffered through overbearingly Ultra-Orthodox childhoods and day school experiences during which year after year they were told, “No, you can’t!” Well, they are now discovering that as young adults living on the Upper West Side oh yes they can! Yes they can stay up all night flirting on Tu B’Av, yes they can appreciate a Broadway show, yes they can become active politically and yes they can figure out their own unique contribution to the multi-faceted multi-colored movements within contemporary Judaism.
Job Opening: JFSJ Director of Leadership Initiatives
Jewish Funds for Justice seeks an energetic and motivated Director of Leadership Initiatives to drive all aspects of the Selah Leadership Program, from developing strategy to managing execution. The Selah Leadership Program is a collaboration between the Nathan Cummings Foundation and Jewish Funds for Justice, in partnership with the Rockwood Leadership Program. Selah is the first leadership training designed specifically for Jewish social justice leaders working in secular and Jewish organizations. Since its founding in 2004, Selah has trained more than 200 leaders from 165 organizations. This is an excellent position for someone interested and experienced in the transformative leadership, social justice and non-profit sectors. Candidates should have 5+years of leadership development experience and enjoy working collaboratively.
But some legal experts question whether the measure will meet the requirements of the New York State Constitution, which has stricter prohibitions.
Critics have also raised questions about the timing of Paterson’s action. He inserted it in his budget plans last January, just nine days after he collected $140,000 at a fundraising dinner held in his honor at Kiryas Joel, an upstate village established by the Satmar Hasidic sect. Akiva Klein, who is a powerful businessman and a board member of the Uta Mesivta of Kiryas Joel, a rabbinical school with 1,300 students, chaired the dinner. Paterson was planning to run for re-election at that point, though since announced that he will not.
“I wonder if that proposition would have been presented if the governor had not announced his campaign plans that early on,” said Francis Clark, a spokesperson for the New York Public Interest Research Group, a good government organization. “It’s hardly a shocker and not the first time an elected official used their role in government to set himself up for reelection.”
Join Habitus editor Joshua Ellison for a conversation with celebrated author André Aciman.
Together we will explore a provocative question: Is New York the Diaspora? With its enormous Jewish population, its creativity and culture, and its unparalleled array of options for Jewish living, should we really think of New York City as part of the Jewish Diaspora; or is it just another kind of homeland?
André Aciman has chronicled a life’s journey across continents and has also emerged as one of contemporary New York’s most astute literary observers. He writes: “New York is my home precisely because it is a place from which I can begin to be elsewhere…a shadow city.” We will talk to André about being a stranger at home in New York, about the place of the city in his recent work, and what it means to be a Jew here.
André Aciman is the author of Out of Egypt and, more recently, Call Me By Your Name and Eight White Nights. He is a Distinguished Professor in Comparative Literature at the Graduate Center of New York.
Everyone agrees that there was a wave of independent Jewish prayer communities founded in the 1970s, and another wave founded after 2000, with some but not nearly as many founded in between. And manyattemptshave been made to draw distinctions between these two waves, but they all fail in one way or another to capture the entire data set, whether it’s the use of the word “minyan” vs. “havurah”, liturgical choices, the way the chairs are set up, or membership vs. no membership.
But I think I’ve come up with a distinction between the two principal waves of independent Jewish communities that is 100% airtight so far (though maybe you know of an exception). There are a number of minyanim, old and new, that are called “[name of city/neighborhood] Minyan”. The test for whether such a minyan is part of the older or the newer generation is whether people use a definite article when using the name of the minyan in sentence.
[UPDATE: To clarify, this hypothesis is intended to apply only to minyanim whose names fit the pattern “[name of city/neighborhood] Minyan”, not to other minyanim.]
Compare:
“I’m going to the Highland Park Minyan this Shabbat.”
“I’m going to DC Minyan this Shabbat.”
More examples:
Founded in the 1970s: the Highland Park Minyan, the West Side Minyan, the Newton Centre Minyan
Founded after 2000: DC Minyan, Cambridge Minyan, Mission Minyan
(Do you know of further examples that either support or disprove this hypothesis?)
Note that even for the minyanim that usually get a definite article, “the” isn’t part of the name. It’s not an integral article as in “I’m going to a The Newton Centre Minyan event * “. This is just a question of how the name of the minyan (which does not itself contain an article) is treated grammatically, like “Ukraine” vs. “the Ukraine”.
My sources in Highland Park, New Jersey, report that a new independent minyan is in formation there. So I suggested that, in keeping with contemporary trends, they call it “Highland Park Minyan”, to avoid confusion with the Highland Park Minyan.
Today I was introduced to this video, which is by a lovely person who works with me. Mazal tov, Stacy, on your delightfully rhymed spoof!
I think it’s fantastic. The matching track suits! The poodles! The fancy cars! It’s a lovely portrayal of my home, Jew York.
I bet you’re offended by her video, because of some of the salacious lyrics and imagery, and her statement about who is a Jew. Feel free to snark in the comments, and definitely share it with your friends.
It may seem a little early for a Sukot post, but the deadline is fast approaching to enter your bizarre modern version of the sukah in the Sukkah City: NYC 2010 exhibition. Apparently, if your design is selected, you get to build a weird sukah in Union Square.
Their elevator pitch:
12 radically temporary structures will be built in Union Square Park in New York City. Funded by us. Designed and built by you.
Register by July 1, enter by August 1, installed September 19-21.
Hoping to challenge not only New Yorkers’ notions about sukkahs but also the world’s, Joshua Foer has launched Sukkah City for this coming Sukkot. From September 19–21, a dozen experimental sukkahs will be constructed in Union Square Park, created by what Foer anticipates will be a mix of the world’s foremost architects and artists, though the competition is open to anyone, goyim included. “The idea is to take this ancient architectural identity and reinvent it and really see what we can do with it, to really push the boundaries,” Foer said.
For millennia, sukkahs have looked about the same. Three walls of varying dimensions and orientations with a roof made of organic matter—palm fronds, sugarcane, or cornhusks are among the common foliage—where more sky is visible than roof. A place of hospitality and reflection, it exists for just eight days. And it is within these relatively strict yet open-ended constraints that Foer and his partner on the project, critic Thomas de Monchaux, hope entrants will explore.
“Design is the search for constraints, so I think our expectation is that different designers will zero in on different aspects of the sukkah to produce something we’ve never seen before,” de Monchaux said. “We’re really hoping for a radicalized reaction to each of the constraints, though if someone wants to take them all on, we welcome that, too.”
Check out their slick site here. There, you can read about all of the laws of the sukah. Most are halachic. One is municipal:
There is no maximum area, except in NYC where any structure larger than 19 x 8 feet is not considered temporary by DOB.
PS. Did you know that you can use a whale or an elephant as one side of your sukah?
It is fashionable in the Reform Movement world that I grew up in to adhere to Israeli/Sephardic pronunciations of Hebrew. So on Shabbat morning, we would wear a tallit, rather than wearing a tallis on Shabbos. We put the emphasis in the last syllable, not the first. We prayed to Adonai, not Adonoy. Etc.
The first time I can recall noticing a difference was at my cousins’ Conservative shul in St. Louis, where I noticed that Kaddish suddenly sounded wildly different. It sounded like a pit of hissing snakes, as scores of T sounds became S sounds.
Eventually, I came to hold two things be true: One, that the Ashkenazi way that my grandparents pronounced everything sounded silly, and two, that there was an ideological reason to go for the T’s. I became convinced during my four month stay in Israel during high school that the existence of Israel was a sign that the main stage of Jewish history was once again the land of Israel. I thought that Jewish history now only happened in Israel and the rest of us out here in the Diaspora were just a sideshow. Not that I wanted to make Aliyah, but I had some persuasive teachers while I was abroad.
And then came college. And New York. I became disenchanted with Israel and my Zionist fervor became Zionist frustration and defeatism. And after spending a considerable amount of time around New York Jews from non-Reform backgrounds, I found a foreign and distasteful couple of words in my mouth. I found myself recently saying wishing people “Good Shabbos” and complaining when I got to shul, rather than synagogue or temple, that I had left my tallis at home.
But I guess that’s all in line with who I am in relation to Israel and the Diaspora these days. I don’t buy that Jewish history has returned exclusively to Israel. Rather, it has stagnated and become an inbred clot in Israel.
I’m more free to be the Jew I want to be in Texas or New Jersey than I will ever be in Israel.
Now that the Winter Olympics are done, what are you going to watch? Try the Matzo Ball Olympics, a short video I made for Manischewitz. It’s a teaser for a longer mini-mockumentary I produced about Manny Schevitz, a beleaguered Matzo Ball Olympian.
Thirty restaurants signed on that is. Thirty kosher business owners who have stepped up, allowed for us to ensure that they are treating their workers according to basic ethical to ethical standards, and been awarded the Tav. Ethical kashrut is real folks. Uri L’Tzedek has gone from having 7 businesses in Manhattan when we launched less than a year ago to 30 across the nation today. This is real grassroots change happening in the Jewish community. If you’re in New York, come support and celebrate with author and Rabbi Joseph Teluskin, Dyonna Ginsburg of B’Maaglei Tzedek in Israel, and assorted other rockstars.
Wednesday March 10th
7:00-8:30 P.M
At Cafe 76 – the JCC
(76th & Amsterdam – 1st floor).
Dinner and suggested donation is $18.
Last night I went to Storahtelling‘s Bloody Esther Purim event. If you’re not familiar with Storahtelling, founded in 1999 by Executive Director Amichai Lau-Lavie, they’re a ritual theatre company. Their shtick is bringing “translations” of ancient Jewish texts to life by renewing the words through modern interpretation. Today, Storahtelling works around the world with people of all ages, training educators and producing shows that add modern meaning to ancient texts. Additionally, Storahtelling began 5770 by establishing residency at the 14th Street Y, where they have monthly performances for kids of all ages, including StorahStage – educational programming for 2-5 year olds.
I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect at their Purim shpiel, but my limited expectations were surpassed. As Hadassah, a drag queen, emceed the shpiel and narrated the megillas Esther-based story, the characters, in all their glory, and with new attitudes, came to life on stage. The
audience at City Winery had a great time and soaked up every minute of the performance.
Highlights, according to the people sitting around me:
The angel of dead Vashti, dancing around stage in lingerie and angel’s wings made at least a few peoples’ dreams come true.
Chester the court jester cuddling up to Hadassah… and his loin cloth’s meandering over the course of the night.
The enchanting Galeet Dardashti, a Middle Eastern musician, who read the megillah with such an incredibly powerful and beautiful voice.
Esther deciding that she didn’t just want to save the Jews, she wanted to personally kill Haman (and Mordechai, and the king).
Jewschool’s SBB‘s opening the show, bringing the Amalek massacre to life by screaming and running through the venue with a red-splattered white sheet, where she nearly knocked over a waitress with about 20 glasses of wine.
If you’re in the New York City area, I highly recommend checking out their other upcoming events.
If I were going to be in New York City on July 14, which sadly, I’m not, I’d go to this event being held by awesome lit journal 
Additionally, Storahtelling began 5770 by establishing residency at the 
The enchanting 
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