by chaneld1621 [➚] · Wednesday, December 7th, 2011
This piece was orginally posted at the Pursue Blog. (www.pursueaction.org)
by Erika Davis 
How do you make giving meaningful? Tzedakah, the Jewish commitment to righteous giving, is something that most people are familiar with. Tzedakah boxes are things of childhood memory for many Jews, except me. I tithed. Growing up with a Baptist mother, a Methodist father and educated in Catholic schools, the idea of giving charity was not lost on me. I can remember my mother reaching into her pocket book every Sunday morning to fish out crisp dollar bills for my sister and I to put in the collection plate that was passed around. I don’t remember what it felt like to put that money in the shiny gold plate, because it wasn’t my money.
Fast forward two decades and now I’m a Jewish woman with a giant student loan balance. The promise I made in the mikveh comes with the responsibility to give funds according to our Jewish tradition. Student loan payments aside, the idea of giving money rather than time sometimes seems like a cop out. Why get your hands dirty helping the poor when you can write a check and not think about the people in need? Just giving money rather than time and energy seems like a way of avoiding the situation by throwing money at it. More »
by Dan Ab [➚] · Tuesday, November 29th, 2011
The Forward just published Conservatives Grapple With Gay Wedding Rite. In an effort to create a typical news article conflict, it misses the bigger picture. Three Conservative rabbis were tasked to create a standard ritual for gay weddings. They tried to hew as closely as possible to the typical non-egalitarian ceremony with the goal of minimizing the differences between homo and heterosexual marriage rituals. While a valiant goal, many of the top decision makers in the Conservative movement (the other members of the Committee on Jewish Laws & Standards of the Rabbinical Assembly), thought the text didn’t work and asked the drafting group to make more radical changes to the text with the goal of a more egalitarian ritual. The only critique in the article that wasn’t from a Conservative rabbi is a quote from Jay Michaelson. I read a comment of Michaelson on Facebook where he said he was more supportive of this effort than his quote that ended up in the Forward article portrayed.
The draft text and suggested revisions are not publicly available so I can’t directly critique them. Still, we can discuss why this effort matters.
There are some great examples of couples doing intense study to create their own ceremonies. BZ has a great series on this. More and more resources are out there. For example, there is Danya’s Alternatives to Kiddusin.
There are still unnecessary barriers for people who want to use these rituals. Here’s the example from my heterosexual wedding (predating both BZ’s and Danya’s writings). We used a non-standard & more egalitarian Ketubah text. While the text was available, we couldn’t walk into most Judaica stores & buy an beautiful ketubah with this text pre-printed. We wouldn’t have even known this text existed if we didn’t have friends who adapted it for their own wedding. To use the text, we needed to contact the author, a total stranger named Aryeh Cohen, to get an electronic version of the text that the ketubah scribe could lay out and then hand inscribe. Even this modest change to a more egalitarian ketubah text required added effort and additional costs. Our discussions regarding variations on the ceremony didn’t go much beyond rings, who walks around who, and whether the object of value should be a ring or a banana.
While finding a wider range of rituals is slightly easier now, egalitarian hetero or homosexual wedding rituals that are rooted in Jewish history and tradition are still an elite decision for those who decide the extra work is worth it.
Conservative Rabbis and other Conservative leaders have long officiated at weddings using a variety of rituals. Some were performing gay commitment ceremonies or weddings before the Committee on Jewish Law & Standards (CJLS) said it was ok and more have done so afterwards. Still, officiants are all piecing together new ritual based on the work of others and their own research and innovations.
Perhaps someone else will correct me, but I think this is the first attempt by a major Jewish organization to create a single, standardized ritual for homosexual weddings. Standardized ritual can remove barriers. A CJLS approved ketubah text for gay weddings will be pre-printed in beautiful ketobot by more suppliers with non-fancy verisions sitting in more synagogue rabbis’ cabinets. New wedding rituals will be in Rabbis’ manuals next to guidance for other lifecycle events. If the new rituals end up being firmly anchored in Jewish texts and traditions, egalitarian, and flexibly gendered, they will see usage in heterosexual weddings whether or not that was the CJLS intention.
While standardization can sometimes decrease innovation, I think it is the opposite in this case. People who want to innovate wedding rituals will still do that. A new standard text just shifts the starting point, with an easily found and hopefully well documented and researched text.
by chaneld1621 [➚] · Saturday, November 19th, 2011
The Promise is a 4 part BBC miniseries portraying, in the words of producer David Aukin, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict “as it is seen through British eyes.” Each episode is divided between the point of view of Erin, a young woman from Leeds spending the summer in modern day Israel/Palestine, and the flashbacks of her grandfather, Len, a soldier in 1945 British Mandate Palestine. The first episode was shown Wednesday, November 16th at the JCC in Manhattan as part of the Other Israel Film Festival.
I’m sure Claire Foy, who plays Erin, gets this all the time, but she looks like a cross between of Rory Gilmore and that Kirsten Stewart person from the Twilight movies. Moving on. The episode begins with Erin’s discovery of her grandfather’s diary, kept during the British Mandate, in his apartment. Her mother tells her to throw it away, but Erin keeps it, and after informing her mother that she’s going to Israel for the summer with her friend Eliza, who’s beginning her army service, she begins reading it on the plane, starting with his account of liberating Bergen Belsen. Then we see a lot of black and white footage from the camp. Or rather, the audience did. I kept my head down and scribbled. “I wish everyone could see what I’ve seen,” writes Len.
Eliza, Erin’s friend, has dual Israeli/UK citizenship, and her parents live in Caesaria, in a crazy house with glass everything and a giant pool. They take a walk on the beach wearing white and drinking wine and the whole thing makes me think of folks who own houses in the Hamptons or Martha’s Vineyard. “It’s like paradise,” Erin tells Eliza. “It’s not what I expected.” “You thought we lived in bomb shelters,” Eliza says. Cue a montage of Eliza and Erin cavorting in the streets of what looks like Tel Aviv-shopping, sitting in cafes, Erin gawking at the sight of a soldier’s gun, and then, in a night club, where Erin passes out and has a seizure.
Meanwhile, in British Mandate Palestine (BMP), Len is told by an army commander that “These Jews see returning to be this place as the fulfillment of the promise of Gd,” but that the Arabs see things differently. The goal of the army is to get both parties to live together peacefully, “like the meat in a sandwich.” (The creepiest simile ever used to refer to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict?)
A moving scene follows of Jews jumping from an arriving ship into the water, and being greeted and pulled to shore by British soldiers. There’s a woman with a skeletal face, her wet hair clinging to her head, slogging towards land. The camera lingers on her for a minute too long, or maybe I just imagine that. We learn that there is a quota on Jews entering the country, and when Len tries to smuggle a woman through, he’s reprimanded.
Erin and Eliza, clad in her IDF uniform, drive to her army base to begin training. The front entrance is blocked by Peace Now protestors. As they drive to the other entrance, Eliza tells Erin that her brother is one of them. “I know you think it’s idyllic, but it’s total bullshit,” she says, admitting that she’s terrified of being the army. Erin proposes that if she really can’t take it, she’ll bail her out and they’ll run for the border. (Things I would love to see happen in a future episode.)
BMP: Len is in some kind of swanky club, with other soldiers and ladies and lots of alcohol, and he meets Clara, prompting me to worry that we’re going to see some sex really soon. (Spoiler: we do not.) Clara tells him that this is all propaganda, that she and many other women are being paid to entertain soldiers, and that “100,000 soldiers equals 100,000 opportunities,” and that he’ll undoubtedly write letters home to his family telling them about how well he’s being treated by the Jews of Palestine.
Len has a look of perpetual torture, which only gets worse when he’s ordered to attend a rally against the Jewish quotas, a project that Clara and her father are involved in, in civilian clothes. “Be a Jew for a day,” his commander tells him, urging him to get information on any insurgency the Jews might be planning. Clara, in the meantime, confesses to him that her mother met another man while in the concentration camp. “Not every concentration camp story has an unhappy ending,” she says.
Bon Iver. Bikini. Swimming pool. Erin floats around on a raft until she’s surprised by Eliza’s “insane” brother, Paul, who’s visiting his parents. Erin tells him about her grandfather, Paul tells her that his grandfather fought in the Irgun. Over dinner, things get a little American-Jewish community when we learn that Paul is an anti Zionist who believes Israel is a military dictatorship. Fight with parents about the occupation ensues. Eliza shows up in her IDF uniform and gun. Everyone stares. Later, Eliza tells Erin that once, Paul was very hard core about the army, before he went to Hebron.
BMP: Len attends the anti quota rally, and a man is killed whom the British believe to be an instigator. Later, some of his friends are killed in a shooting. It’s unclear who’s responsible, but in a move that I can only regard as insanely ironic, the remaining solidiers break into an Arab home in pursuit of the actual shooters. Clara’s father tells Len that he’s no longer welcome in their home, even after Len assures him that he’s on their side. “We may be stateless,” says her father, “but we are not stupid.” In the stairwell, Clara and Len embrace secretly.
That’s the end of the flashbacks. Erin and Paul travel to Ramle so she can see the graves of Len’s friends, and she freaks out when she sees the graves of two who aren’t dead in the journal yet. And then we’re in Paul’s car driving into the Territories. “I thought it was dangerous,” Erin says. “You’d rather be back by the pool?” Paul says, and she doesn’t answer. In Nablus, Paul speaks at a Combatants for Peace meeting, along with Omar, a former member of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. Erin watches, enraptured. She’s surprised to learn later that Omar is an Israeli Arab, and watches, horrified and confused, as Omar is stripped searched and detained at a checkpoint after confronting a solidier about his treatment of a Palestinian woman. “Welcome to Israel,” Paul says, as they drive away from the checkpoint after Omar has asked them to leave him there. “Isn’t it to stop the terrorists?” Erin wonders. Paul responds by showing her the separation barrier and explains that the goal of the checkpoints and the barrier is to force Palestinians off their land and into such a state of despair that they leave all together. He yells a lot. Erin looks confused and scared.
At the entrance to a cafe, a bewildered Erin gets searched by a security guard. She and Paul drink beer. She says she loves it in Israel, he says it’s because she lives in the safe world of his parents, who, he admits, are lovely people. He tells Erin that when he was little, his father took him to a border and pointed out the difference between Jewish and Arab land. “Look what they’re done with the land in 2000 years and look what we’ve done in 50,” his father said. Paul: “He was telling me that they aren’t as deserving as we are.”
On the way out of the cafe, Erin’s glance lingers on a couple coming in. Paul realizes that he’s left his wallet inside when they get to the car and tells Erin to wait. And then there’s a explosion in the cafe. End of episode one.
Are you still reading? Good. After the episode, there was a q/a in the Speakeasy cafe with Liel Leibovitz and producer David Aukin. The idea of the series began with a letter from a solidier who served in Palestine during the British Mandate, which inspired Aukin to portray the conflict through a British perspective. The series was shot on location in Israel/Palestine and the crew represented a cross section of Israeli society, which, according to Aukin, resulted in very real tensions and arguments.
In response to an audience member’s question about the source and prevalence of Britain’s anti-Israel boycotts, Aukin said, “There is no memory in the current British narrative about the Mandate. It doesn’t exist anymore. If anything, this film is anti-British. What we’re dealing with now are the seeds of what the British left behind.”
In case you’re wondering what happened at the end of episode one of The Promise, you can see the second episode this coming Monday, November 21, at the JCC in Manhattan at 7 pm. Episodes three and four will be show on Wednesdays, November 23-December 7th. For more information, visit www.jccmanhattan.org/cat-content.aspx?catID=2928&progID=24759.
by zt [➚] · Wednesday, November 16th, 2011
This is a guest post from Staci Akselrod, a student at Hampshire College:
Join us for the Queer Jews and Allies Conference at Hampshire College, in Amherst, MA, on Sunday December 4th! This free, day-long conference will offer workshops, panels, plays, and more, addressing the unique experiences of queer Jewish identities as they weave among spirituality, sexuality, secular culture, gender identity and expression, political perspectives and movements, and religious traditions. This event welcomes all queer, gay, trans*, lesbian, and bisexual Jews and allies to learn, network, and create community in a safe, respectful, and accountable space. Kosher lunch and dinner will be provided for registered participants.
To see a workshops, our keynote, sponsors, and a schedule please go to our website here:
www.hampshire.edu/queer-jews-and-allies-conference.htm
Register for the conference:
www.surveymonkey.com/s/queerjewsandalliesregistration
Contact us:
queerjewsandallies@hampshire.edu
Accessibility notes
The conference will be primarily located within a wheelchair-accessible building. The food served at the conference will be kosher dairy and kosher vegan, and the conference schedule has been timed to best utilize the PVTA bus system.
by chaneld1621 [➚] · Sunday, November 13th, 2011
Two weeks ago, the American-born Israeli journalist, author and commentator Gershom Gorenberg spoke at an event hosted by
Mechon Hadar and moderated by Rabbi Shai Held entitled,
“How It Broke, How to Fix It: The Crisis of Israeli Democracy.” Gorenberg said, “I’ve seen enough changes happen that weren’t supposed to happen. Politics is not geology. Change happens.” Beside me, a friend whispered, “He is so hopeful.” Gorenberg’s most recent book is
The Unmaking of Israel. He is also the author of
The Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the Settlements, 1967-1977, The End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount, the co-author of The Jerusalem Report’s 1996 biography of Yitzhak Rabin,
Shalom Friend, and the editor of
Seventy Facets: A Commentary on the Torah from the Pages from the Jerusalem Report. He is a senior correspondent for The American Prospect and has written for The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times Magazine, The New Republic, Mother Jones and in Hebrew for Ha’aretz. He blogs at
southjerusalem.com/gershom-gorenberg/ and lives in Jerusalem.
“Israeli school children do not know where their country starts and ends on a map,” Gorenberg said. “You can interpret the facts however you want, but you still have to have the facts. I don’t want to see Israel unraveling…we can’t ignore the rising role of the Right in the army and the power of settlers.” According to Gorenberg, there are three things necessary to restablish Israeli democracy: The separation of synagogue and state, the graduation from being a national liberation movement to one that takes care of its citizens, and an end to the occupation.
“The social justice marches in September have shaken Israeli politics,” said Gorenberg. “I was a bad prophet, I thought it wasn’t possible.” It’s unclear, however, who’s going to come out of this as a leader. “The fact that I can’t name who the next prime minister will be is not a reason to give up hope…Giving up hope is a luxury, only the people who aren’t in the situation every day can afford to give up hope.”
There were some particularly striking moments during Gorenberg’s talk. The first is the story of a night he spent in the settlement of Yitzhar, located in the West Bank south of the city of Nablus, while interviewing folks living there. In the morning, he was faced with the decision of whether to daven in the settlement shul. “People are saying the same words, but it’s not my religion. They’re not going to mean the same thing.” said Gorenberg, who identifies as “a left-wing, skeptical Orthodox Zionist Jew.” Ultimately, he did decide to pray in the shul, because “I’m not going to give them the pleasure of ceasing to be religious because of their twisted interpretation of Judaism.”
The second moment came with an audience question-What can American Jews do for Israel? (The q/a, by the way, was handled extremely well-index cards were passed around the room and the questions were vetted by Held.) Gorenberg cited Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech in which he declared, “It’s 1938 and Iran is Germany,” which Gorenberg described as “anti Zionist,” in that it portrays Israel as perpetual victim, and dismisses the strength and power it has gained since its inception. “American Jews need to give up idea of a besieged Zionism, but then the question becomes, if we can’t relate to a beleaguered Israel, how do we relate to Israel?” Israel, offered Gorenberg, is suffering from a collective PTSD. “How do you put an entire nation on the couch?” American Jews remind Israelis what it means to actually be living as a minority and what the diaspora experience is. If American Jews want to support Israel, suggests Gorenberg, they should support institutions that work for equal rights for minorities in the country.
Gorenberg also talked about taking part in a recent social justice march in Jerusalem that traveled down Bezalel street through the neighborhood of Nachlaot. “Suddenly, it was 28 years earlier,” he said, recalling another march in 1983 with Peace Now that traveled the same route. During that march, people hurled objects at the marches from the balconies. On the recent march, there was no violence. “Circumstances will force people to change.”
“All the alternatives (to peace) are awful,” concluded Gorenberg, who earlier in the evening said that the words “one state solution” do not go together, “but Israelis don’t have to buy into the Palestinian narrative and vice versa to have a peace agreement.”
by zt [➚] · Tuesday, November 8th, 2011
This is a guest post from former and future Jewschool contributor Brant Rosen whose personal blog can be found here.
On November 15, Palestinian activists will attempt to board segregated Israeli settler public transport headed to occupied East Jerusalem in an act of civil disobedience inspired by the Freedom Riders of the US Civil Rights Movement.
Fifty years after the US Freedom Riders staged mixed-race bus rides through the roads of the segregated American South, Palestinian Freedom Riders will be asserting their right for liberty and dignity by disrupting the military regime of the Occupation through peaceful civil disobedience. Organizers say this ride to demand liberty, equality, and access to Jerusalem is the first of many to come.
More »
by Aryeh Cohen [➚] · Sunday, October 30th, 2011
Photo credit: Jeffrey H. Campagna
x-posted to Justice in the City
One young man in Zuccoti Park in New York, part of the Occupy Wall Street encampment, holds up a sign which boldly declares: “We’re here, we’re unclear, get used to it.” This tongue in cheek message gets to the heart of what is uncomfortable for many in the media and the chattering class about the Occupy movement (OWS and its many many offshoots in all major American cities and many cities around the world). There is an expected, almost ritual nature to American political discourse. There are critiques, followed by demands, supported by emotional anecdotes and statistics, followed by the suggestion of legislative remedies. The chattering class then gets to work vetting these remedies on two levels. First, and most important, is the “horse race” analysis. The political climate will not allow this or the votes are there but only if the opposing party will compromise on this. And so on and so forth. Somewhere farther down, or on the inside pages, the wonks get to work dissecting the numbers. Within a week at most (usually a news cycle), its all old news. Nothing has changed. Perhaps a catch phrase has been added to the stump speech of this or that candidate.
It is very frustrating when a large group of Americans peacefully assemble to air their grievances without participating in these tried and true rituals. When they do not attempt to position themselves behind a candidate or leverage a powerful constituency, but, rather display their disaffection without feeling the need to issue bullet points which any politician or pundit could easily digest and regurgitate. And then they stick around. For a long time. And they do not feel the pressure of the news cycle to make decisions or appoint telegenic spokespeople. They just put up tents, hold long meetings which need to reach a consensus for a decision, put themselves in danger by reclaiming public space and using non-violence as a trigger and a weapon to reveal the repressive reflexes of the financial and political elites. It is maddening. More »
by zt [➚] · Friday, October 7th, 2011
In addition to the initial event in NYC there are also Occupy Wall Street solidarity Kol Nidrei services going on in Philadelphia, Boston, and DC. Spread the word to interested parties you might know in any of those cities!
by David A.M. Wilensky [➚] · Thursday, October 6th, 2011
As I said yesterday, there will be Kol Nidrei at Zuccotti Park among the Occupy Wall Street folks tomorrow night. By way of an update on the logistics, here is a message that went out to everyone who has RSVPed to the Facebook event (all links and strikethroughs inserted by me):
Thank you for joining us for Kol Nidrei at Occupy Wall Street
Friday night, Oct 7 @7PM
Zuccotti Park (Broadway & Liberty St.)
Exact location TBA
Look for signs
For your convenience, some notes:
It will be a traditional egalitarian service (Hebrew language with some English readings and an unseparated mixed-gender community, with both men & women leading prayers).
Our wonderful volunteer leaders are Avi Fox Rosen (Storahtelling), Sarah Wolf (JTS), and Getzel Davis (Hebrew College), who are being assisted in preparations by Yosef Goldman (JTS) and Rabbi Ezra Weinberg (RRC). Affiliation is for identification purposes only.
If possible, please bring your own Yom Kippur machzor. If you do not have a machzor, we will have ~100, graciously loaned to us by The Rabbinical Assembly for Conservative Judaism. If you prefer, you can download and print this PDF: d.1ski.me/3V2m263m460P1m0R3l0K. Save some trees by printing two-up, double sided. It is an Orthodox translation, as that was the only free one available online.
We could still use help getting a Torah and perhaps a folding card table to put it on.
No pre-fast meal is officially planned, but feel free to coordinate with others in the comments on the event.
No Saturday services are planned. If you will be in the area of Lower Manhattan, you are welcome to attend services at Battery Park Synagogue. Otherwise, CBST has welcomed all participants to join them for services at the Javitz Convention Center. There are also free services at the Brooklyn Lycaeum in Park Slope.
Expect another update that will repeat much of this information.
G’mar chatimah tova!
UPDATES:
A Torah has been secured, though I believe there is still a need for a folding table.
Someone I have just met on Facebook called Nomi Raye is trying to coordinate a pre-fast meal that sounds like it will involved trying to bring a bus down near the park and cooking vegan food in it. She’s looking for help coordinating that.
Another option (a better one, in my opinion) for printing out a service booklet for yourself is the PDF of the Kol Nidrei service from the new Conservative machzor available over here.
Leave a comment on the post if you’re coming! I’ll be wearing a big boring white and black talit and the jacket I’m wearing in the picture below.
However, I will not be wearing that sweater and my hair is a little shorter. And I will not have that odd green device with me.
by chaneld1621 [➚] · Monday, September 19th, 2011
Back in May, I was part of a Jewish Women’s Archive project which involved tweeting articles from Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia to mark Jewish American Heritage Month. This week, September 19 to 25, is round 2 of that project, in observance of Rosh Hashanah. I’ll be tweeting an entry a day (@chaneldubofsky) from the Encyclopedia-I started today with anarchist Lucy Fox Robins Lang-with the intention of addressing each of these three questions:
1. Who do you choose to inspire and guide you through the New Year?
2. Who do you choose to inspire and guide your community through the New Year?
3. Who do you choose to inspire and guide the world through the New Year?
The goal of the project is to acquaint folks of the roles of Jewish women in American history, to generate conversation about gender and Judaism, and to contemplate these lives and works as we move into the New Year.
You can participate in the #jwapedia campaign by tweeting a link to the Encyclopedia using the hashtag #jwapedia, and follow the campaign at Twitter starting today, September 19th , by searching for #jwapedia or following JWA at @jwaonline.
by Ari Hart [➚] · Friday, September 16th, 2011
Join us at Uri L’Tzedek’s Domestic Violence Awareness Conference, on Sunday, September 18th from 10:00am-4pm at Lincoln Square Synagogue (200 Amsterdam Avenue, NY ) to learn what Jewish tradition teaches and how to combat domestic violence in the Jewish community! Through education and activism we can stop domestic violence in our communities.
Guest speakers include many experts in the field, such as Blu Greenberg, the Founding President of the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance (JOFA), Shana Frydman, LCSW Director, Family Violence Services at MET Council, Sandra E. Rapoport, Author of Biblical Seductions and Jeremy Stern, the Executive Director of the Organization for the Resolution of Agunot (ORA), among others. Other partnering organizations include, Project SARAH, JOFA, Jewish Women’s Foundation of New York (JWFNY), Jewish Women International (JWI) and OHEL. Register today at Eventbrite!
by chaneld1621 [➚] · Monday, September 12th, 2011
For some reason, www.koshersextoys.net/ isn’t loading right now, which means either people are so excited about its mere existence that they’re flooding the internet in a sex toy frenzy, or it was all a beautiful, sexy, frum dream.
It’s back up! (Insert tehillim joke here.) KosherSexToys really wants you to be married to use their stuff (“Our website – while obviously only for married adults – contains no crude or indecent pictures or text. We believe that only two people belong in the bedroom – and bringing pictures of others in can only harm a marriage.”). According to the “About Us” section,”You will never see something on this site that will make you blush. When we need to use descriptive terms for our products, we use clinical and clean language; product pictures do not contain models; and our lingerie are photographed alone, not on a mannequin.”
As someone who, in spite of all her sex positive blather, is kind of a prude in real life, I appreciate the sentiment, but going to a sex toy website can still be uncomfortable, regardless of product descriptions and pictures. There is plenty avoidance of certain language on the site, by the way, like “tantalize body parts not reached by main shaft.”
Here’s a product description for the Vibrating Stimulator:
“The vibrating extension is on a flexible arm, allowing you to move and place it exactly where you want! This gives you ultimate control and the obvious benefits that come along with that. The top of the shaft also has heart shaped nubs and head for extra sensations against the body of the user.”
I like how the user is just “the user,” by the way, and not “the woman,”even though it’s assumed, I’m sure, that the user is using it on her lady parts. I would not argue that KosherSexToys is a queer friendly operation.
On the website, you’re warned against comparison shopping, because the product names have been changed for reasons of tznius. I tried anyway, and visited the Babeland site searching for similar vibrators. Here’s what I found:
Rabbit Habit at Babeland: $90.00
Vibrating Stimulator at KosherSexToys: $29.99
Obviously, the experience of shopping at Babeland is very different and for a separate audience, but seriously? These vibrators are CHEAP. Get one for a friend!
The site also sells dildos, lube, anal beads, handcuffs, and soon, lingerie. You can get your sex questions answered by Dr. David S. Ribner, a sex therapist and rabbi with YU ordination.
In spite of all the stuff to find infuriating about KosherSexToys.net- the need for a spell checker, the lack of clinical language, the emphasis on heterosexual marriage-it’s pretty great that this exists. It’s an important move towards more sex positive Jewish relationships and communities.
by zt [➚] · Sunday, September 11th, 2011
(Note: this post was first published in 2009)
Every once in a while, someone finds a creative way to use an ancient text or practice to see something in the present more profoundly. When done well, this elevates the present through a thoughtful link to longstanding traditions. It’s rare, usually attempts are stilted or out-of-place. But occasionally it works and when it does, it outweighs dozens of awkward non-synergies.
A few years ago Irwin Kula made just such a creative linking. A book had recently come out relating the last messages of 9/11 victims and he set those voicemails to Eicha trope.
It is among the most haunting presentations I have ever encountered. For me, contemplating mortality is a very important spiritual exercise. I try to listen to this recording on 9/11 and tisha b’av. Give it a listen, but be forewarned, this is really really heavy stuff.
If you do listen, take a moment to realize the blessings in your life and their profound fleetingness. Apologies you have been waiting to make, things you have been waiting to say, love you have been waiting to express, injustices you have been scared to confront…enough waiting. Don’t lament, act. We are here but for a very brief time.
by Ari Hart [➚] · Thursday, September 8th, 2011
For most Americans, Sept. 11, 2001 was a day we can never forget. Where we were when we heard, the images on TV, the fear in the voices of our loved ones, the horrible loss of life: every time the anniversary rolls around, we encounter our own traumatic experiences.
However, as the event moves further into the past, and a new generation of Americans who don’t remember 9/11 grows up, we begin to ask ourselves a series of questions: How should we come together to remember 9/11? What parts of 9/11 should we remember? Is there anything we should forget? How should we memorialize 9/11 for future generations who do not remember that day?
This week’s Torah portion, Ki Teitze (“When you go” in Hebrew), concludes with a command to remember the actions of a nation of archetypal terrorists: the attack of Amalek. Amalek waged a war of terror on the children of Israel as they fled slavery in Egypt. They did not attack the soldiers. They attacked the weak and tired stragglers at the back of the camp. Like today’s terrorists, their goal was to incite fear and panic by inflicting as much harm on innocent civilians as possible. While the mainstream Jewish view is that the nation of Amalek does not exist physically today (see Talmud Bavli, Berakhot 28a), the Torah contains three specific actions to take when remembering this trauma:
- Remember (zachor) what Amalek did to you on your journey, after you left Egypt…
- You shall erase out the memory of Amalek from under heaven.
- Do not forget! (Deuteronomy 25: 17-18)
Let’s begin with zachor, which means “remember.” The Ramban, a classic medieval commentator, teaches that zachor must happen through the mouth. The trauma must be transformed into speech, into a told story. Telling the story contextualizes the tragedy within our personal and national narratives. If we do not tell the story, the event stays both meaningless and all powerful. Telling the story is a critical step toward healing.
After being told to remember, we are told to erase the memory of Amalek from under the heavens. How can we remember and erase a memory at the same time? A close reading of the biblical text offers an insight into specifically what is to be remembered, and what is to be forgotten. “Remember what Amalek did to you,” followed by “erase the memory of Amalek from under the heavens.” This suggests we are to remember our experiences (where we were when we heard, the images of the falling towers, the names of those who were lost), but we do not remember the enemy itself: we aren’t to dwell on the sick strategies of the murderers, their story, glorify them through conspiracy theories or turn them into martyrs. Remember what happened — to us.
I’m reminded of President Obama’s decision to not release the photos of Osama bin Laden’s body. Though many clamored for them, releasing the photos would have served as rallying points for those who emulate bin Laden, strengthening the evil forces he channeled.
I’d like to suggest another way of erasing the memory of evil: do not become it. The hatred and nihilism that was released into the world on 9/11 can exist in each of us. When you feel it rising up inside you, in ways big or small, note it and then do whatever you can to erase it from under the heavens. Evil’s most precious victory is not military or political — it is the corruption of the good.
The final guidance the Torah offers is lo tishkach – don’t forget. Remember … and don’t forget? The Ramban again offers insight when he writes that zachor, remember, happens with the mouth through speech, but lo tishkach, don’t forget, happens with the heart. According to the Ramban, telling the story with only cognitive awareness is insufficient — we must experience the loss. For some, like those who lost loved ones, there’s no way to avoid the heart when remembering tragedy: there is no day, anniversary or not, when they do not feel the pain. Others fortunate to not experience that constant pain must find ways to connect to the memory in both our heads and our hearts. This ensures that we don’t just learn from trauma on an intellectual level but that we internalize the lessons into our hearts and will, transforming how we act in the world.
Remember. Erase. Don’t forget. These three ancient, seemingly strange and contradictory ways of memorializing trauma in a collective consciousness offer profound insights into how to respond to trauma. On this 10th anniversary of 9/11, may we find ways to do all three, telling our stories to bring healing, erasing evil around and within us, and integrating the trauma’s unique truths into our fullest selves.
by Dan Ab [➚] · Saturday, August 27th, 2011
I posted about the Jewish Futures Competition a few weeks ago. It asks how Jewish life, living and learning will change as we move to a society in which individuals are not only consumers of information and culture, but also producers of their own and others’ experiences. I think the question has it wrong. There never was such a divide between Jewish consumers and producers.
If you tried to picture the upbringing of a Jewish producer, it wouldn’t be mine. My formal Jewish education consisted of synagogue supplemental school, one year of Jewish Summer camp, and one college class. I have been an active participant in Jewish programming wherever I’ve lived. Does this make me a Jewish consumer?
I was elected to a synagogue board of directors at the age of 26. How did someone in the famously non-joining age group get on a synagogue board? They asked me to serve, and I said yes. When I moved to a new city, I helped start parent-led Shabbat services for preschoolers in my new synagogue, using the approach, designed by my previous community. Now that I have a child entering kindergarten, I’ve been working with several other families and Jewish professionals to organize a 4-5 day per week Jewish afterschool program that will provide robust Jewish learning (mixed in with a lot of play time) during hours when many children are already in supervised afterschool programs. More than fifty families in our community have already expressed interest in this program.
So when did I switch from a consumer to a producer? The answer is the same as it has always been. A Jewish consumer is someone who hasn’t (yet) found the motivation and outlet to produce. If you chose to be involved in a Jewish community you are a producer. You don’t need any title or degree to lead prayer. The lifeblood of Jewish organizations from Federations to minimally structured minyanim are the volunteers who step forward to inspire and organize.
So, what inspired the original question? Most Jewish producers have been hyper-local. Our synagogue walls are filled with plaques honoring our predecessors, whose devotion, ideas, and energy created these communities. Sadly, few people outside their own communities would recognize these names. Technology is shrinking the barriers that kept local voices local and expanding the types of communities that are possible. A good idea, adapted by one community, can spread well beyond the word of mouth of the members of that community. What looks like more consumers becoming producers is really local producers starting to grasp the possibilities of a larger network.
So, take my collaborators’ efforts to create an aftercare program as an example. We’ve identified and compiled detailed information from similar established and emerging programs across the country in just a few months. We’ve gotten advice from Jewish educators working across the country and down the block. People I’ve never met are writing to me offering to help or asking about potential jobs.
Personally, I’ve gone from the biography above to a commentator and published author on Jewish institutions and education in half a year.
Even though individuals can do more, institutions still matter. To launch our aftercare program, we’re collaborating with three local synagogues who have offered classroom space and we’re trying to collaborate with others. People inside and outside the professional Jewish world have given us their time and money. Our local Partnership for Jewish Life & Learning is giving us advice and a small grant for our preparatory year. Programs like ours can’t succeed in a vaccuum.
What does this mean for the future? The increasing number of voices bringing innovation to national Jewish living and learning is a good thing. Good ideas don’t all need to come from our Federations, academic programs, and other Jewish institutions, but our institutions will need to adapt. They must figure out where centeralized support is needed and where networks of local producers can do things better and cheaper on their own. This will require the broader Jewish community to significantly re-evaluate the ways we distribute and share resources and to better understand the technology tools that are strengthening our producers. I can’t tell you the best way to do all this, but I look forward to being part of what happens next.
by chaneld1621 [➚] · Friday, August 26th, 2011
(So, apparently there’s a hurricane coming? Read this while hoarding canned goods.)
Oh, jdeal. How charming is your play on the stereotype that Jews are cheap. How clever you are to leap onto the Groupon/Living Social phenomenon. How sexist and small minded are your advertisements.
Let’s examine some evidence, shall we? First, there’s this excerpt from a jdeal for Always for You Flowers:
“Calling all significant others: Whether you’ve stayed out too late with the boys, insulted her cooking or forgotten her birthday (a shonde!), a bouquet of flowers may be just what you need to make amends.”
As my friend pointed out, what we can extrapolate from this is:
“1. Only men buy flowers for women.
2. Women do the cooking.
3. Women are crazyyyy. “
4. (my addition): Women are materialistic and can be easily manipulated by pretty things.
Here’s another one, for a Father’s Day massage:
“Strange that it’s the women who always seem to be running to the spa when it’s the men who have to move the new wardrobe, assemble the do-it-yourself furniture, and carry the entire family’s bags to the car for the shlep to the mountains.”
It IS strange that women seem to be running to the spa when they’re also busy raising all the children, isn’t it? Women are so freaking lazy! And indulgent! Dudes have to do everything, including impregnate ladies and benefit from male privilege.What’s really super charming about both of these ads is that they’re a great example of how sexism hurts everyone by pushing men and women into narrow boxes via limiting concepts of gender, and how committed Jewish communities are to continuing the perpetuation of those roles, even when they’re trying to save you some cash.
by chaneld1621 [➚] · Tuesday, August 9th, 2011
I love review copies-I love when they arrive in the mail, I love having them in my hands, and I love the smell of new book. I wish they made an air freshener with that smell, and a shampoo and a soap, because I would buy a lot of them.
Recently, I got a review copy of Rabbi Jill Jacobs’ latest book, Where Justice Dwells: A Hands On Guide to Doing Justice in Your Jewish Community. (Jewish Lights 2011) It’s arrived at a particularly salient time for me, as I wonder what’s tying me to this Jewish thing, and how I can have a connection to something without knowing what the fabric of that connection is.
Jacobs’ book is many things-a manual for organizers, a resource for folks looking for relevant Jewish texts, beyond what Jacobs calls the “Tzedek Tzedek tirdof (Justice, justice shall you pursue) Syndrome of using a short, well known verse to claim legitimacy for a position, and a place to access insights about the relationship of Jews to power, poverty and change.
This is not a book that coddles. This is a book for those who are serious about building and infusing a culture of social justice into their Jewish lives, institutional and otherwise. If you’re looking to feel good about taking part in that last Mitzvah Day at your shul, be prepared. Jacobs challenges and dissects not only the concept of one day service projects, but also direct service work, advocacy, text study and community organizing, asserting that in order to make change, these vehicles must be employed together.
Jacobs confronts and dismantles the concept the idea that there are Jewish and non Jewish issues (as well as political and non political ones), and that somehow, we might be exempt from dealing with that which we consider to be outside Jewish community purview. Insularity is not only impossible, it’s dangerous.
My favorite chapter in the book is ’Partnerships and Power,’ which offers an essential and compelling analysis of the value that comes with working with folks of various ethnic, religious, socio-economic and racial identities (to name a few) in a manner that transcends the beneficiary-recipient model-” white and upper middle class people as experts and donors, and low-income people and people of color as needy and passive.”
Gd knows the American Jewish community needs a reality check when it comes to power, and here it is in this chapter. Jacobs cites the gap between “Jewish self perception and the ways in which other communities view the Jewish community,” as well the cycle that leads to Jews having some access to power, resulting in our becoming a target of anti Semitism and realizing that those above will not protect us. If we are to form meaningful partnerships, it’s vital, Jacobs argues, that we engage with partners when anti Semitic tropes emerge, such as those around money, and do the work of confronting our own assumptions while holding others accountable.
There’s much in this book I’m not mentioning-the splendid attention Jacobs pays to story telling as a tool for organizing, the guidelines and questions for consideration that help one locate themselves in this work, the discussions on community investment, Jacobs’ call to lead ”intergrated” Jewish lives, where we see social justice as a part of our spiritual practice, and her imperative for us to commit authentically to places and revisit and reconceptualize doykayt- hereness, investment in one’s home.
Read this book. Copy the forms (the publisher says you can!) and use them. Dog ear the pages and warp them with attention. Seriously.
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