by Eli · Friday, August 8th, 2008
Bohdan Khmelnytsky with Tuhaj Bej at Lviv painted by Jan Matejko, 1885
As Shabbos descends and Tisha b’Av arrives thereafter, Jews in golus and eretz yisroel will commemorate the destruction of the beys hamikdesh with a 24 hour fast and the recitation of Eicha, the Book of Lamentations and kinnos, liturgical poems that lament tragedies that occurred throughout our history.
One of these tragedies, the Gezeyres Takh Vetat, the Evil Decrees of 1648-1649, is a fascinating example of how Yiddish-speaking Jews understood themselves, the non-Jews who lived around them, antisemitism and how they intertwined. (The term is derived from the Hebrew dates of the tragedy, 5408 and 5409). Here’s an abridged rundown of what went down:
In 1648, the Ukrainian lands were part of the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth. While most of this land was owned by wealthy Catholic nobility, the people who worked it were mainly Eastern Orthodox Ukrainian peasants. The Polish nobility heavily taxed the peasants working their land. About 1/3 of Eastern European Jews lived on Ukrainian land during this time. In the regional cities, there was a ethnic mix of Jews, Poles and other groups, and in southern Ukraine, Christian Cossacks and Muslim Tatars mingled in the Ottoman borderlands. With the economy booming, the Cossacks protected the interests of the nobility by fighting Tatars, who often plundered peasant communities and lived off the spoils.
Some Jews made a living off collecting taxes from peasants on behalf of Polish nobility. Consequently, they were often perceived by the Ukrainian peasants and their Cossack protectors as part of the landowner’s oppressive system.
Before 1648, Ukrainian peasants and Cossacks had rebelled against the nobility many times, destroying Jewish and non-Jewish communities as they made their way from Ukraine to Poland, but now a large scale uprising had begun and forces lead by Bohdan Khmel’nyts’kyi moved towards Lithuania and central Poland, murdering many Jews and razing their towns as they fought Polish forces. In many Jewish communities, organized defense forces were created.
According to scholarship on the event, there is no evidence that there was a plan to specifically murder Jews, nor is there any exact accounting of the number of casualties. What is clear is that Jews who commemorate the event understood it in spiritual ways relevant to Tisha b’Av. More »
by BZ · Thursday, August 7th, 2008
A few years ago I was getting Hebrew handouts copied at Foxy Copy (92nd & Broadway), and without my asking for anything special, they did something complicated to the machine to get the staple to come out on the top right corner, rather than the top left.
I was impressed at the time, but today’s experience beats that by far.
Today I was at Global Copy (Broadway between 97th and 98th) to drop off the handouts for my Institute workshops, and they said “Do any of these need genizah if we make a mistake?”
“No, but thanks for asking!”
by BZ · Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008
Sefer Ha-Aggadah (The Book of Legends), the collection of thousands of stories from the Talmud and rabbinic literature compiled by the Hebrew poet Hayim Nachman Bialik and the editor/publisher Yehoshua Ravnitsky, was first published in 1908, and is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. In celebration, people around the world will be reading and discussing Sefer Ha-Aggadah from start to finish, beginning in just a few weeks and completing it in two years.
Everyone is invited to participate! All you have to do is obtain a copy of Sefer Ha-Aggadah in Hebrew or English, and follow along each day with the schedule. It’s about a page or two each day. You can join the email list to keep up with administrative announcements.
We’ll be discussing each day’s reading on the blog, Sefer Ha-Bloggadah. We have an amazing and diverse team of bloggers (including a number of Jewschool contributors) who will be blogging each day, and all are invited to join the discussion in the comments. In addition to the blog, in-person discussion groups are being organized in some cities, and you’re invited to organize one in your area.
The Sefer Ha-Aggadah project will formally kick off on Shabbat afternoon, August 16 (Tu Be’Av), at the National Havurah Committee Summer Institute, and then the schedule begins on Monday, August 25.
We look forward to creating Torah with you!
by chillul Who? · Monday, April 28th, 2008
Yesterday afternoon, as Passover came to a close for many of us, I had the opportunity to be part of a “Ba’al Shem Tov Meal”, a Jewish ritual very different from what I’m used to. My friend ML is a 10th- or 12th-generation direct descendant of Reb Yisrael Ba’al Shem Tov, itinerant mystic and 17th-century founder of Hasidism, and as such, has inherited a unique practice which has been observed in her family meticulously and without fail each year: They cook exactly 31 matza balls, with one larger than the others, and sit around to hear the recitation (in Yiddish or in partial English translation) of the story of Reb YBST’s attempt to bring the Mashiach by travelling to Israel to meet The Ohr HaChaim, Rav Chaim IbnAttar, with whom he believed he shared King David’s reincarnated soul.
So about twenty of us friends of ML sat around her studio apartment, munching on Matza Lasagna, salads, and 31 matza balls sponsored by Moishe House Silver Spring, and listened to ML read her cousin’s recently completed translation of the entire story. It was good times, and there was a lot of joking about the historicity of the improbable tale, but what struck me more than the fun, the lively company, or the food, was the devotion and persistence with which this Passover custom had been passed down through the generations. Its power was such that ML, one of my most cynical friends, could not imagine letting the last day of Pesach pass without making a Ba’al Shem Tov Meal of her own, complete with all 31 matza balls, and an (irreverant but) attentive audience.
For the past 260 years her extended family members have gathered in their homes yearly to keep this story going, and despite its different variants (was the daughter named Udel or Adel? Was Reb Yisrael attacked by ghouls or pirates?)Â the tale is remarkably cohesive. It seems like Reb YBST was successful when he started this practice so long ago. If you could make sure your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren were telling a story about your life more than two centuries from now, what story would you want them to tell? And how would you see to it that they did?
An extremely-truncated version of the story told at the Ba’al Shem Tov Meal can be found here.
by masthead · Monday, March 31st, 2008
Some stories have been floating around the media with varying levels of accuracy, but Jewschool has obtained the full (or fuller) story from reliable sources. The real story here isn’t about gay and lesbian rabbis in the Conservative movement (that was last year’s story); it’s about the lengths to which people and institutions will go out of fear, demonizing their own students and losing all perspective.
The story begins a year ago this week, when the Jewish Theological Seminary announced that it would begin admitting openly gay and lesbian students to its rabbinical and cantorial schools. (The American Jewish University, formerly the University of Judaism, is now also admitting gay and lesbian students.) One year later, to mark the anniversary, JTS held a program on Wednesday called Hazak Hazak V’nithazek: Celebrating Strength Through Inclusion, a full day of study, conversation, and celebration.
Several JTS students studying this year at Machon Schechter (the Conservative rabbinical school in Jerusalem where American Conservative rabbinical students are required to spend a year) wanted to participate in the celebration going on in New York in some way, and since they couldn’t attend physically, they organized a small parallel event in Israel. According to email invitations sent to the Conservative Yeshiva and other rabbinical students in Jerusalem, the students invited Yonatan Gher, former Director of Communications for the Masorti (Israeli Conservative) movement, incoming director of the Jerusalem Open House, and a member of Masorti congregations his whole life (and recently profiled in the New York Times because he and his partner are having a child via a surrogate mother in India), to speak over lunch about his personal experiences as a member of a GLBT family in the Masorti movement.
More »
by Aliza · Thursday, March 13th, 2008
The two photos above, shot by Dotan Greenvald, are part of the Breaking the Silence exhibit, supported by your very own Jewschool, which remains open for guided tours at Harvard Hillel in Boston through through March 16th. My recent visit to the exhibit was intense, eye opening, and almost magical in its ability to cut through all of the rhetoric and illustrate humanity.
These photos, like much of the exhibit, seek to demonstrate the realities experienced by many IDF soldiers serving at checkpoints, on patrols and fulfilling other tasks in the Occupied Territories, as told through the narratives of soldiers giving tours of the photo exhibit, and testimonials available at the exhibit and online.
All of the photos were from the personal collections of soldiers who served in the territories- they took pictures as part of their daily life, and to document their experiences serving their country. According to my guide at the exhibit, Oded Naaman, a former IDF soldier affiliated with Breaking the Silence, one of the behaviors mastered quickly by soldiers serving in the territories, is the practice of pointing one’s gun ahead of one’s body before moving in any direction, in order to “show presence” and be ready for danger. Greenvald, who is the other former IDF soldier who has been giving tours of the exhibit in Boston, was interested in capturing some of the nuance of this behavior–the degree to which one ends up viewing everything through the scope of his weapon. In the first shot, he views an innocent thirteen year old boy tending pigeons on his roof in the West-Casba. Juxtaposed with this, he photographed two of his friends talking, also through the lens of his gun, with his nigh-vision scope. Oded explained the quickness and ease with which humans adapt to the many behaviors necessary for these soldiers carrying out the work of the occupation–such as pointing your gun at children and your friends.
This is one of several visual memories which stand out as ideas and feelings which can never be captured in a policy briefing paper, newspaper editorial or email. They are the very real experiences happening each to day to adolescents barely old enough to vote, in whose hands the day-to-day necessities of the occupation are held.
When we [rightfully] consider the lives of innocent Israelis killed in bombings or innocent Palestinian children killed by IDF fire, this exhibit asks us also to consider the toll that the occupation takes on those who carry out its essential functions, and the effect these experiences have on Israeli society more broadly. For those in the Boston area, I highly recommend a visit to glimpse the images and hear the stories of the occupying soldiers.
by Danya · Sunday, February 10th, 2008
An interesting project has been initiated by a group of Israeli students to bring more world attention to the captured Israeli soldiers Ron Arad, Gilad Shalit, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev. The imagery is simple, and powerful: It documents people waiting at an airport with a blank sign.
The folks behind MissingThem.net write,
the contrast between relatives waiting for their beloved ones and meeting them, and between you, the one that stands and wait for someone you know wouldn’t come in the next flight and won’t get to meet his family is shocking. by documenting it and putting it to a designated site (and later on create more out of it) we hope that masses of photos and people participating will bring to a change in the situation
please, whenever you are in an airport and have few minutes, wait for them with an empty sign, document yourselves and send it to us at: info AT missingthem.net thank you
Check out the photos and the site.
by Kung Fu Jew · Friday, November 30th, 2007
After damn near two years of planning, fundraising and designing (and re-planning, re-funding and re-designing) the improved New Voices web site is up! Archives, comments, free subscriptions, and all — welcome to the 21st century, Jewish Student Press Service. If you’re not familiar with the sordid history of JSPS/New Voices and it’s thorn-in-the-side approach to Jewish campus life, then read editor Josh Nathan-Kazis’ enemies list below…
The November/December 2007 issue of New Voices is online now at newvoices.org. Highlights include:
A Quiet Freshman’s Secret Past, by Arielle Reich. One year ago, Sam fled his isolated Satmar upbringing for the secular world. This fall, he’s starting college. And you thought your first year was tough.
A Student-Run Shabbaton Falters, by Ashley Bagan. Once the vanguard of the post-denominational movement, Jews in the Woods has fallen on hard times. Will it be a casualty of its own success?
The Best Years of our Lives, by Marissa Brostoff. Harvard sociologist Nathan Glazer reflects on his time as editor of Avukah Student Action, a Jewish student newspaper of the World War II era.
My Enemies List, by Josh Nathan-Kazis. Hillel’s domination of Jewish campus life is dangerous for Jewish students, and the Jewish community as a whole. Here’s why.
Plus, a homelessness protest in Jerusalem (see cover image), a Jewish American Girl doll, Reb Schneerson skips the Acid Test, an original comic, reviews, and more.
You can subscribe to the print edition of the only national, independent student magazine for free. Enjoy!
by Kung Fu Jew · Monday, October 8th, 2007
Deliberate faith and faith led unconsciously are not equally valued in Jewish tradition, said best by the parable of the little boy who couldn’t even read the Yom Kippur prayers on an eve of God’s severe judgment over his village. “I do not know which prayers to say, Lord, so here, I give you the whole book!” The boy’s sincere effort annuls Heaven’s decree above the practiced prayers of the town’s learned men. This is the point I make.
These thoughts come from putting up my Sukkah last week. Twice. I walked a couple blocks to “Sukkah Depot” in Crown Heights and surveyed the typical Lubavitch pre-holiday bustle. Sukkah kits of all varieties were selling like hot cakes. But it seemed to me that buying a kit was the easy way out — did Moses have a kit? Surely the wandering Israelites MADE kits but it sure as hell wasn’t PVC piping and water-proof tent fabric. I opted for the wood planks. More »
by LastTrumpet · Monday, April 9th, 2007
Conservative author Charles Murray begins his piece “Jewish Genius” in Commentary thusly:
Since its first issue in 1945, COMMENTARY has published hundreds of articles about Jews and Judaism. As one would expect, they cover just about every important aspect of the topic. But there is a lacuna, and not one involving some obscure bit of Judaica. COMMENTARY has never published a systematic discussion of one of the most obvious topics of all: the extravagant overrepresentation of Jews, relative to their numbers, in the top ranks of the arts, sciences, law, medicine, finance, entrepreneurship, and the media.
The article begins with a historical perspective, making a case that post-haskalah (enlightenment), Jewish involvement and accomplishment in the brainy parts, namely arts and sciences (notice we’re not very good at sports) of the broader society has been vastly disproportionate to our meager numbers (”our” not including Murray, who isn’t Jewish).
More »
by The Town Crier · Thursday, July 20th, 2006
Via AP:
The guest list was slashed and the venue hastily changed, but Shlomi Boskila and Maya Lugasi got married anyway, defying the threat of rocket attacks Thursday with a wedding in an underground bomb shelter.
Nine days of attacks by Hezbollah guerrillas have forced many in northern Israel to spend their days in reinforced bunkers.
“This shows Hezbollah and (its leader Hassan) Nasrallah that not even 20,000 missiles can destroy the happiness of the bride and groom,” said Boskila, the 29-year-old new husband.
Almost 75 people, at least half of them reporters, packed the 15-square-yard shelter. Most of the guests stood up because of the lack of space for seats.
by Cole Krawitz · Thursday, July 20th, 2006
Since there’s been mention of The New Jewish Agenda in a recent thread on anti-semitism on the left workshop, it seemed apropos to announce the recent launch of a fabulous new resource and website researched and developed by Emily Nepon on the history of The New Jewish Agenda.
A little bit about Nepon and why this site:
I’m a queer feminist Jewish activist of the generation born in the (late) 1970s. I first learned about New Jewish Agenda in lesbian-feminist Jewish books and magazines including Bridges Journal and the writings of women like Melanie Kaye-Kantrowitz, Irena Klepfisz, and Elly Bulkin. I learned that from 1980-1992, New Jewish Agenda was a national, multi-issue, and grassroots organization, a rare format for progressive Jewish organizing. Moved by that teaser about my community’s political history, I looked for a book or a good long article about New Jewish Agenda. Jews tend to value history and storytelling so highly that you can usually find multiple Jewish opinions about everything under the sun, so I assumed that I’d be able to savor a wealth of resources. Not so! I found almost nothing, and my curiosity was further sparked by the strange lack of record.
I’m working to document New Jewish Agenda’s history because I want to learn from the history of activists who came before me, because I don’t want to reinvent the wheel, and because I want the benefit of their strategic experiments. In a more personal way, my excitement for the interviews and research about this group comes from a place of hunger for a community like the one that NJA created. Digging through archive boxes, listening to the interviews I’ve done, and reaching out to others who were involved in the group makes me feel part of something exciting that I didn’t get a chance to join in the 1980s. I’m researching NJA for the same reasons many became members: the opportunity to feel less isolated as a progressive Jew, to connect with a more diverse community of Jewish activists, to gain insight into strategies for activism infused with spiritual meaning, to feel part of a powerful legacy and hopeful future.
The site is filled with amazing content on the founding of the organization, their campaigns, controversies, what led to the organization closing its doors, and interviews with former members, as well as message boards for the many, many former NJA members to post their oral/written histories about their involvement to keep this history alive, along with the archives Nepon used from the Tamiment Archives in NYU’s Bobst Library.
This really is an amazing resource filled with rich history that will benefit us for years to come so thank you to fabulous archivist and radical activist Emily Nepon for helping us build our history to know more of where we come from to build where we are going in the future–especially needed in these political times.
by matthue · Wednesday, May 17th, 2006
So, last night in Meron…
Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, the dude who hid out from the Romans in a cave for 13 years, promised great things to anyone who came to his tomb on Lag b’Omer — as long as they were happy. Very happy. I don’t know what feeling exactly that stirs up in the pit of *your* stomach, but man, was mine churning — and I mean that in a good way. Me and half a million of my closest friends came to eat massive amounts of food, build bonfires, cram into a tomb and pray. And I — not the biggest fan of people generally, and specifically egotistical people who push other people out of the way — was loving every minute of it. Like, where else would you see a huge, marshmellow-stomached Israeli guy throw a 98-pound Hasid with a beard down to his pupik out of the way so that he could throw himself, sobbing, onto a grave? I know it sounds horrible — and sometimes it was — but there was also something so beautiful about it. Five seconds later, they were chatting each other up like old friends, pumping each other’s hands and laughing about the Lag b’Omers of years past.
While outside, these old Moroccan women heaped out massive ladles of rice and vegetables and chicken, giving them to strangers like their own children. I have never seen so much free food in my life.
Okay, so. We got on the bus, and the typical bus riot was happening — if you’ve ever been in an Israeli bus station, you know what I mean. “Lines” are not something that people in Israel are so interested in. Especially in Meron. These tough old ladies started pounding on the bus, shaking it, almost toppling it over. The driver finally gave in, opened the rear door, and it was scary for a moment. No one was sure what was going to happen. Then the crowds rushed in. Somewhere along the line, my wife and I realized that our suitcase was on the bus, and we had to store it under. I started down the stairs. Bad idea, right? The mob didn’t stop. These two little ladies burst on, one pushed half a dozen garden gnome-size kids in ahead of her, and, as I was halfway down the bus stairs, this 80-year-old Orthodox lady ran straight at me. My stomach was at ground zero.
And this is me, right? The only Orthodox person on the bus who wasn’t in black and white, me with my t-shirt and jeans and this crowd just asking for bloodshed. So what could I do? Right before she hit, I screamed out, “HEY! I’M RELIGIOUS, I DON’T TOUCH WOMEN!”
There was a moment of silence.
Then the entire bus — old Hasidic ladies, stony-faced rabbis, and all — started laughing.
And that’s how I saved my little Orthodox tush.
