The Ethiopian holiday of Sigd has been formally added to the list of Israeli state holidays. Sigd falls on the 29th of Cheshvan and is observed by fasting, reciting psalms, and “prayers for the rebuilding of the Temple and giving thanks for the right to return to the Holy Land.” The fast is broken midday with dancing, food and celebration and a “seder of sorts.” It commemorates the acceptance of Torah and parallels the holiday of Shavuot, falling on the 50th day after Yom Kippur as Shavuot does after Pesach. According to Wikipedia,
however the Kessim have also maintained a tradition of the holiday arising some time in the 15th Century CE as a result of the persecution of Christian Amhara kings. The Kessim retreated into the wilderness in order to appeal to God for His mercy. Additionally they sought to unify the Beta-Israel and prevent them from abandoning the Haymanot (laws and traditions of Beta Israel) under persecution. So they looked toward the Book of Nehemiah and were inspired by Ezra’s bringing of the “book of the law of Moses” before the assembly of Israel after it had been lost to them due to Babylonian exile. Traditionally in commemoration of the appeals made by the Kessim and consequent mass gathering, the Beta Israel would make pilgrimages to Midraro, Hoharoa, or Wusta Tsegai (possibly marking locations of resting places from Christian persecution) every year to reaffirm themselves as a religious community.
According to YNet, all sorts of folks backed the motion - maybe they were all relieved to vote for something pleasant and positive for a change, or perhaps just to find something they could agree abuot- brought before the House by Knesset Member Uri Ariel (National Union-National Religious Party) and widely backed by Shas, Meretz, Labor and Likud. Whee!
The motion passed its Knesset readings, effectively becoming a holiday by law. Its main ceremony will be funded by the Prime Minister’s Office; the holiday’s history, traditions and ceremonies will be included in the educational system’s curriculum and going to work during the holiday will be optional.
So, can someone give me a tutorial? I think this sounds like a great new holiday, and it’s about time that the Beta Israel got to contribute a holiday to the rest of the Jewish community.
Nice photo exhibit from Arutz Sheva (image above taken from there) and to balance it, a little article from NACOEJ, with a nice image of Beta Israel women at the Sigd
ynet reports on the new Masorti campaign to get Israelis to marry according to halakha.. but not according to the Orthodox.
Israeli couples are increasingly uninterested in getting married according to the established Israeli system, with Orthodoxy monopolizing all legal lifecycle events, and going through a demeaning and complicated process in order to get married. Twenty percent -or more- of Israelis each year choose to live together as couples outside the framework of the Office of the Chief Rabbinate, either by not participating in any wedding ceremony or by going through a civil ceremony in Cyprus or elsewhere.
The Masorti campaign aims to bring Jewish couples in Israel back to tradition by showing them that it is possible to have a halakhic wedding which is not only according to Jewish law, but also includes personal touches, and can be more egalitarian… and doesn’t need to include demeaning lectures to the couple about their personal lives.
The campaign includes print ads and commercials on radio and Internet sites that direct readers and listeners to a well-put-together website, and has generated significant interest. In the first three days there were more than 25,000 unique hits on the website.
Of course, this has po’d the Establishment:
According to the Masorti press release
The Chairman of Shas in the Knesset, Yaakov Margi, petitioned the Israel Broadcasting Authority to ban the Masorti campaign from the airwaves. In a letter to Mordechai Sklar, IBA’s general director, MK Yaakov Margi charged that the Masorti movement “knowingly misleads and perpetrates a campaign of fraud.†He further claimed to be writing on behalf of “those who are spiritually lost and would not want to find themselves ending up in unseemly places.â€
MK Ophir Pines-Paz (Labor) responded in his own letter to the IBA that Masorti “faithfully combines tradition and progress†and suggested the Shas letter should be buried as “a foolish attempt at censorship.â€
Day 6 Yesod of Chesed JTA reports on a “new” “trend” (goodness, how many scare quotes do I need for this post?). Once again, the Jewish press gets on the bandwagon a little late., since Moishe house has been doing this for a while now. But what is new and interesting bout these new kvutzot is that they are affiliated with the Zionist youth movements, Habonim-Dror and Hashomer Hatzair (there appear to be three of these altogether currently, one with Habonim Dror and two with Hashomer Hatzair, two in NY and one in Toronto).
Setting up these collectives in North America represents an overhaul of the Zionist youth movement ideal. Whereas in the past these movements functioned more or less like farm teams, preparing young American Jews to settle in Israel, aliyah is no longer the goal.
“Judaism has always been a global reality,†says Jane Manwelyan, 25, of Kvutzat Orev. “Zionism is the collective potential of the Jewish people. Israel is just one of the physical representations of that, certainly not the only one.â€
Rather than a physical destination, Israel “is central to our idea of Jewish peoplehood,†says Gil Browdy, 25, of the Habonim kvutza.
He notes that the Israeli kibbutz movement still isn’t sure what to make of the North American upstarts.
“It’s a tension,†Beran acknowledges.
But these young urban pioneers wanted to stay at home, to help revitalize Jewish life in the Diaspora, become involved in community-based activism and build good lives for themselves based on the values with which they grew up, even after they age out of their youth movements.
Since I’ve been scolded lately for drinking the hateorade, I’ll just say that I like it. I think that it’s a fine idea, I’m glad that Moishe house isn’t the only ones doing it, and I hope the idea spreads, not only to sinlge 20somethings, but I can’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be a good idea for a way to revitalize Jewish communities of all ages, mixed ages, and with or without kids. Oh wait, someone’s done that too (I know the article doesn’t say so, but although being Jewish is by no means required, there are quite a few Jews living there).
Week one, Day 7
Malchut of Chesed
Rabbi Jill Jacobs, over on Jspot, opines that the seder table seems to have gotten rather cluttered. She notes the dozens of emails calling her attention to the various political agendas that yell “me, me” at pesach and offer an assortment of candles, glasses, fruit, and so on to add to those items part of our regular ritual/ More »
Here is a recounting of a seder in Mali complete with lettuce hanging from trees, torrential rains, mango-based charoset, and several haggadot shipped from the united states. Jess and Ari, our seder-leading beacons of light, can make just about anything accessible to anyone by identifying the core themes and creating gateways while staying true to the source. It’s really amazing.
One (solar) year from today, Wednesday, April 8, 2009, is birkat ha-chamah, the blessing for the sun that is said only once every 28 years!
Why every 28 years?
The short version: It’s based on bad science, but it’s still cool to have something like this that only happens a few times per lifetime. We should brainstorm about how to take advantage of this opportunity!
On New Year’s Day, I was driving back from celebrating with friends at a little cabin in the woods. It was already into the evening when I and my driving buddy hit Connecticut. Temperatures were dropping rapidly, especially from New York state heading north. While driving over a bridge, my car hit a patch of black ice, wobbled, and then headed into a terrifying skid that took us 360 degrees around, over two highway lanes, headlights of the car behind us in our eyes, highway rails glimmering in the peripheral, screaming, until we stopped abruptly facing forward in the righthand lane. Thank God no one was hurt, and no car damage, mostly due to the fact that there were miraculously no cars driving right near us excepting the truck behind us.
We pulled gingerly off the highway and stopped at the next side street. I put my head down on the wheel and said, “Baruch Hashem, baruch Hashem, baruch Hashem,” over and over, like an incantation. As sure as I knew the feel of the seat below me I knew I had been given a miracle.
The following Shabbat, I wanted to bentch gomel, the blessing one who has survived a life-threatening experience (such as illness, pregnancy, or traveling long distances) makes after an aliyah during Torah service following their recovery. The catch was that I was visiting my sister. She and I were both raised in a Reform congregation and both have since come far from it — I to my neo-Chassidic, renewal, traditional, feminist enclave and rabbinic path, and she with an Orthodox husband and part of the Orthodox community of Pittsburgh. Usually, when I visit her, I make an exception to my acting principle that mechitzot = trayfe for my davenning so we can all be together. However, this Shabbat, I would not have been able to have an aliyah to bentch gomel at her shul, and so she and I went to the Conservative shul near her.
Now, I honestly don’t spend a lot of time in synagogues, but especially not in smaller cities since I’ve always lived in big cities. In the winter, when presumably the cold keeps people from trudging out to services on Shabbat, this shul combines their library minyan with their regular congregation and has one combined service–albeit still only around 40 people by Torah reading.
The gabbai came up to us when we got there to welcome us and wish us Shabbat shalom, at which point I mentioned that I would like to bentch gomel. He was really sweet about it, asked if I was all right, and set about getting me an aliyah. Someone would come and let me know which it was, he said. My sister and I found siddurim, chumashim, and took our seats. A few minutes later, the other gabbai came over and told me that I would have the fifth aliyah.
He also handed me one of those lacey doilies old ladies wear in shul and a bobby pin. More »
Seeing Bob Dylan at a prayer service isn’t all that rare. Hearing a Bob Marley tune played on guitar while a minyan sings the Shema prayer is.
Marley and Dylan tunes are just as likely to be part of the nusach at “Jam Davening” as those of Shlomo Carlebach and Debbie Friedman. The monthly prayer group at the Davidson School of Jewish Education of the Jewish Theological Seminary is part guided meditation, part sing-along, part traditional prayer and part dorm-room musical jam that includes instruments ranging from guitars to didgeridos.
Participants say the result is invigorating and deeply spiritual.
Perhaps this is a new development in the Conservative movement, however I’ve heard the Bob Marley Mi Chamocha for at least 10 years now in the Reform movement. Also, based on my experience, it’s not uncommon in the indie-minyan/chavura world for tunes to be adapted from popular music. Chassidic Niggunim were occasionally adapted from Russian drinking songs - I heard a great teaching once about redeeming those melodies by putting them to holy use.
While I think it’s cool that this is happening at JTS, I wish the author had done a bit more research - this is hardly new, although it is good to see it spread.
Starting to think about your summer plans? Here are two suggestions:
National Havurah Committee Summer Institute
If you were thinking about submitting a course proposal to teach during this summer’s Institute, they are due tomorrow (11/26). You get to attend the Institute for free as a teacher, minus your NHC membership dues ($40). If you are an artist, applications to be one of two Poretsky Artists in Residence are due December 4. Stay tuned for Everett Fellowship information once it becomes available later in the winter, allowing 20s and 30s Jewish leaders to attend for majorly discounted cost. August 11-17, 2008 at Franklin Pierce College, Rindge NH.
Yeshivat Hadar
If you want to spend some time in serious text and spiritual study this summer, there’s no place better in my opinion than Yeshivat Hadar. They’ve just opened application for this coming summer. Now entering its second year, the program is from June 1 – July 26, 2008 and boasts some of the greatest young minds of the traditional egalitarian world — Shoshana Cohen, Rabbi Shai Held, Rabbi Amy Kalmanofsky, Rabbi Elie Kaunfer, Sara Labaton, and Rabbi Ethan Tucker. Courses ranges from Talmud to Rashi to Halachah to Midrash, liturgy skills to Chassidut. Participants are subsidized, so you could actually afford to do it. This is the perfect program if you’re looking to finally make some headway in your text skills, to skip a preparatory year of rabbinical school or prepare for PhD work that involves Jewish texts, or simply to spend eight weeks for their own sake immersed in study. They are having an intro evening of learning in New York City on January 16, 7-9 pm, at West End Synagogue, 190 Amsterdam Ave, which will be the site of the program.
Over at Nextbook, one woman’s musings about the role of The Jewish Catalog (the first, need you ask?) in her life and on her parents’ shelf.
I like the way she describes the ubiquitous nature of The Jewish Catalog.
““On the ‘hip’ level,†she told me recently, “we were probably down in the negative range.â€
But some things were, perhaps, unavoidable then, like inane news about Lindsay Lohan is today. By the time I was born in 1975, our house was punctuated with little emblems of the era; these shone for me like beacons. Despite my parents’ heavy Neil Diamond predilection, for instance, some Joan Baez and Simon and Garfunkel albums seemed to have fallen from a planet of fairies into our living room. My parents had chunky macramé plant hangers and trippy Marimekko hangings on the wall. And on their bookshelf was an oversized red volume called The Jewish Catalog.
The Jewish Catalog, a 320-page tome first published in 1973, was not necessarily a hippie artifact. But it had a profound effect on me growing up that I associated with hippie culture, subtly signaling that Judaism, like life, was a sort of groovy pursuit to be embarked upon however you wished.”
I had a similarly surprising experience while searching through my bubbie’s shelves a few years ago for a siddur; I found two copies of Gates of Repentance with High Holiday tickets from 1973 and, you guessed it, an original copy of The Jewish Catalog. My bubbie was even farther from the world of happy hippies and their handmade kippot; she was the one yelling at my mother to be in by 11pm when she was in college and at my father to cut his hair and get a job.
About integrating past experience with Judaism with a do-it-yourself spirit:
“Most of their friends had copies of The Jewish Catalog, and for my mother, it was a user-friendly guide to a Jewish life she had never actually lived. Suddenly making Shabbat dinners, she mined it for recipes and information on the order of blessings. Celebrating holidays other than Passover and Rosh Hashanah, she consulted it for instructions on how to, say, decorate a sukkah. For my yeshiva-educated father, who was well acquainted with much of the information contained in the Catalog, it was meaningful in a different way. Like many kids who grew up Orthodox in the generation following the Holocaust, he’d grown up thinking Judaism was a strict, dour affair, but the catalog was evidence to him that in fact it could be fun. Together, my parents used it to help craft an earnest, positive Jewish household. And when I discovered it on their bookshelf, The Jewish Catalog let me believe that somewhere out there beyond the cut lawns and latticework sidewalks of suburban Chicago was an even greater Jewish fantasy world where everyone really did sit around crocheting yarmulkes and sewing needlepoint challah covers, and they looked really happy doing it. Jews looking happy being Jewish. Amazing.”
What will our generation of thinkers and innovators’ contribution to this spirit be? Will it be a book? Will it be havurot that last? Will it be our blogs? And can this maybe move from fantasy to reality (or has it already done so)?
Just in case anyone missed it, it seems that Moshe and Sholom Rubashkin were arrested last week, believe it or not, NOT for violations at their AgriProcessors slaughterhouses, but after being indicted by a federal grand jury on charges stemming from incidents at a closed textile plant they own.
The U.S. attorney in Philadelphia charged Moshe Rubashkin with leaving hazardous waste at the Montex textile plant in Allentown, Pa., and charged his son Sholom with misleading an investigation into a fire at the plant, according to the Forward. …The current charge is that he left drums of hazardous waste in the mill after it closed in 2001. A fire broke out there in 2005 that allegedly was exacerbated by the hazardous waste.
Granted, this is technically not a kosher slaughter house story, but it seems to me that what we’re looking at now is a matter of time. The JTA artcle refers to him as a “community leader” in Crown Heights, so it is unsurprising to me that the community continues to support him and make him out to be a victim, but this is now clearly a matter of someone who engages in unethical practices across the board. He had even served 15 months in prison for writing bad checks from the Montex plant.
There is nothing good in supporting someone in their criminal and unethical behavior, Jew or not; and if the commandments of our law aren’t enough to separate ourselves from such behavior, then surely we should be considering that someone who engages in these kinds of practices considers themselves better than others, and is not going to be limited by practicing on non-Jews. After all, as Failed Messiah points out in his excellent ongiong expose of this saga, the last major problem at AgriProcessors was the Rubashkins’ failure to follow food-safety procedures, including safeguards against Mad Cow disease - at lest five incidents of this, where food safety inspectors asked cows to be removed, only to find out later that they were slaughtered anyway. In other words, they don’t care if their customers get sick and die. So much for loving your fellow.
On this, erev Yom Kippur, Rabbis for Human Rights has posted their yearly vidui. I think maybe I ought to add to mine:
For the stories I couldn’t find the energy to post because they were so depressing, and for the stories I posted, but couldn’t bring myself to comment on;
For the posts that I failed to blog because someone out there knows who I am and I have to work, and for perhaps being occasionally too quick on the trigger
For my own cowardice, and for the failure to look truth in the eye….
You can find the following, as well as a Hebrew version which for some reason I couldn’t copy to the blog here.
Vidui 5768
The vidui (recounting of our sins) during the High Holidays is intended to make us feel uncomfortable,
to confront us with the wrongs we have done. This vidui relates to our society today, to the way in
which we treat the unemployed and disadvantaged, immigrants, migrant workers, single mothers,
the elderly, the exploited women, the Arab citizens of the State and the Palestinians, and those we
disagree with politically. Each one of us is guilty of some of these sins; collectively, we are guilty of
them all.
For the sin which we have sinned against you by the closing of borders To Sudanese refugees fleeing for their lives.
And for the sin which we have sinned against you by the closing of borders, As Gazans killed each other and languished with a minimum of
supplies. More »
Well, maybe not for ruining it but certainly for injecting a sour note.
In a response to my post earlier today about Yidcore’s new “shteller” (position) you wrote; “That’s all fine. What, however, do you think about Obadiah Shoher’s criticism pf Rosh Hashanah as a holiday that has nothing to do with New Year?
Nikol, Nikol, Nikol. I’m not really sure what your comment has to do with my post other than the fact that the topic is Rosh haShanah. But think. Do we really need to spend our time paying attention to what far right doomsday prophets are saying about Rosh haShanah? I think not but I sensed that you were upset and followed your link despite myself and that’s where the sour note entered my day.
Obadiah Shoher’s post about Rosh haShanah is so offensively ignorant that if he didn’t seem to be a radical supporter of Israel I would think he was an Anti-Semite. His post even includes the prerequisite Anti-Semitic cartoon! But you’d be proud of me Nikol. I made up my mind not to let this get to me and I’ve decided instead to have some fun with his post!
I propose a little game. I put together a list of 9 quotes from his post that are blatant and completely ignorant errors. The rules are as follows: Read his post. As you’re reading come up with a mental list of errors. Then compare your list to mine and if we agree then you win!
On Sukkot, many of us invite ushpizin — honored guests, both living and dead — into our sukkah. During this period of vicious anti-immigrant rhetoric and raids, too often immigrants are viewed with suspicion rather than treated like guests to be honored.
We hope that you will join with individuals and institutions across the United States in extending a welcome to the immigrants who care for our children and aging relatives, work in our synagogues and schools, and add to the cultural and economic life of our communities. On Sukkot, when we remember the experience of being gerim — sojourners without a permanent home — we commit ourselves to helping others to find permanent homes for their own families.
To help us build sukkot that demonstrate our desire to welcome immigrant communities, the Jewish Task force for Comprehensive Immigration Reform has created a special poster. We hope that you will place this poster in your personal or institutional sukkot as a sign of your commitment to making America a safe place for immigrants.
This poster is available for purchase at www.cafepress.com/jewishjustice. Three sizes are available, in prices ranging from $6 to $18. Order soon to ensure delivery before the holiday begins next week. Click here to read the poster’s text.
For more information about immigration and Jewish perspectives on immigration, please visit our online resource center . There, you will find immigration fact sheets, time lines, text studies and divrei torah.
Best wishes for a wonderful and meaningful Sukkot.
Looking for another fulfilling aspect to add to your sukkot repertoire? You’re in luck, because Ari Johnson, who you might know from such projects as Jews in the Woods and Moishe/Kavod House Boston, is organizing a great new initiative combining celebrating sukkot and social action.
Sukkot hearkens back to a time when Jews were harvesting and had substantially less protection from the elements in their lives, an era when natural disasters and disease threatened. In this present day, many Jews no longer feel the insecurity our ancestors did, but we can all help fight disease and help people who sleep in sukkot, not as a spiritual choice/obligation but as a necessity.
In Mali, and many other places, due to the heat of the rainy season it is important to sleep where the outside breezes cool people down. However, those same places have ample mosquitoes many of which carry malaria and are especially prevalent during that season. Without nets people die of an alarmingly preventable disease. Ari thought to link our sleeping in sukkot with theirs and the Sukkathon is a project where folks will (safely) sleep in sukkot to raise money to buy mosquito nets for places where so doing is unsafe. Sukkathons being organized in communities in Toronto, Providence, Waltham, Worcester, Newton, New Haven, and Philly thus far, will you be the next to step up?
This Jewish Week article, which LastTrumpet already posted, is making my head explode for all kinds of different reasons. So I’m posting a line-by-line fisking of the article, to attempt to enumerate all the things wrong with it, though I’m probably just scratching the surface. Unlike previous articles I’ve done this for, where the problems were primarily with the frames invoked by the reporter, this article has at least five distinct categories of things wrong with it:
Destructive framing by the Jewish Week reporter (inappropriate for a paper supposedly committed to objective journalism)
Self-destructive framing by Reform movement personnel quoted in the article (inappropriate for an organization supposedly committed to Reform Judaism)
The Jewish Week reporter creating a narrative unsupported by the facts
Problematic attitudes and policies by Reform movement personnel
Poor tactics by Reform movement personnel demonstrating a complete ignorance of adolescent psychology
I am particularly disturbed because I have writtennumerousapologetics for Reform Judaism (as I understand it), defending it from ideas that I believe to be misconceptions, and now official voices of the Reform movement are making statements that affirm all of those ideas.
David Kelsey hasbeenposting about how OU/NCSY is pursuing an agenda of recruiting liberal Jewish teenagers to Orthodoxy. When I read articles like this, sometimes I wonder whether URJ/NFTY is stealthily doing the same thing. Maybe they’re not doing it on purpose, but if they were, it’s hard to imagine how they could be doing it more effectively than what they’re doing now: getting kids excited about Judaism, and then when the kids explore different options to build Jewish identities for themselves, responding with frames that affirm Orthodoxy as the standard against which all Jewish movements are defined. Every time a NFTY or UAHC/URJ camp alum ends up in the Orthodox world, it is viewed as an isolated incident (Rabbi Yoffie says “Some people may want to go and become either Conservative or Orthodox. So be it.â€), but the numbers are so great that it is time for the Reform movement to do some cheshbon hanefesh about this systemic phenomenon. I have already considered some of the sociological causes in “Profile of an ‘Unaffiliated’ Jew”, and this post points out some of the ideological causes. More »
Warwick, N.Y. — The sun was setting at the Reform movement’s teen leadership camp in this picturesque upstate town, and in the dying light of a sweet summer day it was time for the evening prayer service.
In the lakeside pavilion that serves as Kutz Camp’s synagogue, the visiting musician who led the evening service on the Fourth of July, a Wednesday, set the prayers to an easy-listening jazz sound.
It was a musical style, played on an electric keyboard, that almost none of the campers connected with, many said later. But some took their displeasure a step further, doing something unprecedented that night at Kutz that speaks volumes about a generation of Reform teens that is staking a new claim to Jewish ritual and tradition and posing a challenge for movement leaders.
As the musician played a jazzy version of the Barchu, a couple of campers got up and walked out. Over the next several minutes, other pairs of high school-age campers, one after another, got up and quietly left. It took awhile for the adults in the room to realize what was happening, but some 40 campers in all, about a quarter of those in attendance, spontaneously got up and left the service. The service was too untraditional, they later said, offensively so.
Turns out, it was their own spiritual Independence Day.
According to Reuters, a new study from researchers at McGill University, published in The Journal of Sexual Medicine, have revealed what lots of people have known all along: circumcision has no effect on sexual sensation.
There’s lots of things I could say here, but the truth is, this study doesn’t much matter. For those who are determined to stop circumcision, this won’t make any difference - they’ll go on touting the flawed studies they’ve been using (one big problem that I noted a while back with those studies- they relied on men circumcised as adults, and also several of them on men who were unhappy with their circumcisions. Um, durr) and for those who are commanded to circumcise, well as they ought, they’ll go on circumcisiing. Because in the end, that’s the reason one does it. Not because it’s healthier for their sexual partners, or because it lowers the (relatively miniscule anyway) risk of penile cancer. Circumcision for Muslims and Jews is because God commanded it. That’s it. Move along now.
