Not to get too overwrought, but here’s my blog post in response to a Zionist Organization of America press release in response to my JTA op-ed in response to their JTA op-ed. Throughout the press release, notice how many of my points are avoided by going on an ad hominem rampage against me.
NEW YORK, May 1 – David Wilensky’s op-ed on “the correct use of Title VI” (Apr. 27, 2012) was an amateurish attempt to condemn an important new legal tool for Jewish students who are now protected from anti-Semitic harassment, intimidation and discrimination under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. He claims that the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) – which spearheaded the effort to achieve this civil rights protection – is misusing Title VI “to stifle legitimate discourse” and as a “bludgeon” to advance “far-right political viewpoints.” These ridiculous charges are baseless. Wilensky cites no evidence for his claims, merely engaging in silly name-calling.
I don’t know where they got “‘the correct use of Title VI’” from, but it doesn’t appear anywhere on the version of it on the JTA website. Given that they got the date wrong by about week (it was published on 4/18, not 4/27), I’m gonna guess that the mystery phrasing and the incorrect date were taken from the publication date and headline that accompanied my op-ed in one of the local Jewish papers that runs JTA material on about a one-week delay. (I could take a cheap shot at the ZOA for being so web incompetent that they don’t have a Google alert set up for the name of their own organization, but that would be “silly name-calling.”)
Speaking of which, can anyone point me to the part of my op-ed where I engage in “name-calling” of any sort — “silly” or otherwise? (Rest assured, when I do engage in name-calling I take it quite seriously.)
As for my writing being “amateurish,” I guess the “-ish” suffix lends that some validity as an opinion. As it turns out, I make my living doing this writing thing so I’m technically the opposite of an amateur. I hasten to point out that Klein and Tuchman are the amateurs here. I don’t know much about Tuchman, but she’s lawyer. Klein on the other hand is a well-known pillar of the professional reactionary community. I don’t think much of this screed, but since I’m no professional paranoia-peddler, I’ll refrain from passing judgement on its level of amateurishness. More »
I wrote recently about how certain Jewish organizations need to stop talking shit about Occupy and instead capitalize (you’ll pardon the pun) on the shared history of Jews and revolutions for social and economic justice in order to engage young Jews. Today, certain Jewish organizations, would be another in a long line of excellent opportunities to do that, as thousands of people take the streets for International Workers’ Day.
I’m not going to rehash the history of Jews in the labor movement, or point out the irony of right wing Jews trying to distance themselves from Occupy in light of that history. May Day demands that we remove ourselves from the daily practice of exploiting of ourselves.s. We won’t work, we won’t use the bank, we won’t go to school, or at least, we won’t do these things in the way we normally do them, and we’re asking everyone to take the streets, instead of asking others to do what we would not. We’ll gather together in public space, celebrating the possibility of a different world, while refusing to participate, for at least today, in the one that’s broken. Sound familiar?
Of course, there will be many, many ruckuses, as there should be on the way to fighting back. See you in the streets! More »
This is a guest post by David Kelsey. David is a former baal teshuvah who left ultra-Orthodoxy after witnessing the dark side of Jewish fundamentalism. He is a proud fourth generation secular Jew who has written about the recruitment techniques of kiruv organizations and their Liberal backers on Jewschool before, especially NCSY and the Jewish Student Union (JSU).
The Washington Post has shamefully printed an advertorial for Aish HaTorah in DC without even marking it as such.
In September, Aish will launch a new Sunday School program for children ages 5-13, encouraging diversity, and imbuing the vibrancy, relevance and joy of Jewish life, regardless of background or affiliation.
In fact, despite Rabbi Buxbaum’s denunciation of “labels and sects,” Aish promotes a specific brand of black hat Judaism, which includes contempt not only for secular and Liberal Judaism, but even Modern Orthodoxy. More »
This is the second of a three-post series from Jewish Voice for Peace volunteer youth activist members on the ground at the United Methodist general conference leading up to the divestment vote. The second post is from Rae Abileah. -ed.
On Tuesday morning just as the sun rose over the Keys, I touched down in Tampa, Florida to join a team of volunteers and organizers working to support a United Methodist resolution for church divestment from three companies that profit from the Israeli Occupation: Caterpillar, Motorola Solutions, and Hewlett-Packard. Walking into the Tampa Convention Center only hours later, I asked myself, “What am I, a Jew, doing at this conference, and can I make a difference?” 72 hours later, I know exactly why I’m here. More »
It wasn’t over when the Germans Bombed Pearl Harbor, but it is for the Gamma Chapter of AEPi at Penn. The oft quoted words of Animal House’s Brutus hang in the air as, in the wake of serious hazing infractions, the chapter voted to return its charter to the National Headquarters and go Pseudo greek, whatever that means. After being put on double secret probation, the fraternity chapter, which had a 98 year history on campus and was one of its consistenly highest achieving academically, the University had enough.
Yes, they are bastions of male objectification of the female, yes, a source of aggravation and lack of academic seriousness, yes they throw great parties (and sometimes bad ones) but they’re not all bad, and they’ve come a long way since the Animal house era and even the 1990′s. That’s especially true for AEPi, which is nationally, engaging in leadership training for college men (that phrasing does sound parochial I admit), partnering with Hillels and raising significant funds for important charities. It shouldn’t be painted with the saime brush as those undergrands at Penn. In fact, the fraternity has posted very public statements on its website and its President Andy Borans was quoted as having exerted pressure to close the chapters.
I respect that. For the Gamma and Zeta Deuteron Chapters of AEPi, yes, it is indeed over. For now…
esponda
Peggy Olsen is shacking up with datingone. Roger Sterling married and is now divorcing one. Don Draper slept with not just one but two. The agency hired one, fired one, and now has hired another.
JEWS! In this season’s premiere, we met Michael Ginsberg, annoying up and comer hired as a copywriter for SCDP because Roger Sterling thinks a new account news a Jew. When Ginsberg arrives home, his immigrant Tateh bentches his son on his getting a new job (dovbear tried dissecting this). Its not the first Jew we’ve met on the show (I always thought Harry Crane might be ‘passing’ after uttering Ganef and Tsuris) but its the first outright Jewish moment since season one.
Happy 64th Birthday State of Israel, with all your triumphs and tragedies, accomplishments and faults, diversity and difficulties, defense of the Jewish people and the attendant imperfections.
This is the first of a three-post series from Jewish Voice for Peace volunteer youth activist members on the ground at the United Methodist general conference leading up to the divestment vote. The first post is from Ariel Vegosen. -ed.
As a young Jewish person the words “Tampa, Florida” immediately make me think of bubbes and zadies, clear water, manatees, and a lack of good bagels. This week Tampa is taking on a whole new meaning for me as I join United Methodists at their General Conference in Tampa. You might be wondering what’s a nice Jewish girl like me doing at the United Methodist General Conference?
For many years United Methodist resolutions have called for an end to the Israeli occupation and a sharing of the city of Jerusalem, which along with being a holy city to Jews, is also a holy city to Christians and Muslims. Despite these resolutions, the United Methodist boards and agencies hold stock in companies sustaining the occupation including Caterpillar, Motorola, and Hewlett-Packard. At the 2012 10-day conference in Tampa the United Methodists are voting on a resolution that would divest the church from these companies. I am here as a Jewish ally to support divestment and to support my Methodist brothers and sisters as they make this important and historic decision. More »
The Jewish educator’s love-in and conference, resurrected and reinvigorated, now known as NewCAJE holds its 3rd annual conferences this year August 5-8th at Montclair State University in New Jersey, two commuter train stops from Manhattan. I attended the inaugural “newCAJE” a couple years back in Boston and had a wonderful experience.
NewCAJE3will bring together Jewish educators from North America and Israel to learn and share the new and innovative ideas in Jewish education, network with each other and celebrate the field of Jewish education.
Your residential registration includes access to the hundreds of workshops led by our colleagues and experts in the field, the inspiring evening programs, 3 nights in a brand new residence hall and meals provided by Foremost Kosher Caterers.
Note that there is once again a special Young Professional Cohort track for those who are youthful and available… for Post-Conference activities… get your mind out of the guttter! Limited slots are available for commuters (for those who call New York or New Jersey home). Visit www.newcaje.org for more information on how to register for the entire conference or for day passes to the pre and post conference intensive sessions. Early registration (by May 18) saves you up to $110 on fees!
If you’re planning to go, leave a note in the comments as we’ll try to plan a meetup.
Following Earth Day it seemed appropriate to share that Academy-ward winning actor Russell Crowe will star in director Darren Aronofsky’s (Black Swan) feature film about the biblical boat builder, Noah. The film will be released spring 2014. Crowe’s depiction of Jewish detective Richie Roberts in American Gangster keeps coming to mind, how he was such an everyman. Now he’ll get to be an ish tzaddik tamim haya b’dorotav(A righteous man in his generation). Exciting. Hunky. Noah. I can’t wait for the musical. I wanna hear Crowe say, “I’m on a boat!”
The news comes on the heels of the quite public demise of another epic on The Maccabees following a biblical meltdown by esrt-while anti Semite Mel Gibson toward his scriptwriter Joe Ezterhaus, who brought us quality films like Showgirls.
“The news prompted the “Basic Instinct” writer to allege in a letter posted by the Wrap that Gibson, who was to produce and possibly direct the film, never wanted to make it because, as Eszterhas said of Gibson, “You hate Jews.”
I have to admit musician Gotye’s hit “Somebody That I Used to Know” has been stuck in my head for a week. And it’s inspired a host of covers and parodies. Below is a tongue in cheek cover of a cover in Hebrew. In it, Roi Lavi and the Good Guys reproduce a six-on-one-guitar cover of the song by Walk Off the Earth. Original videos below the fold.
Following is a guest post by Rabbi Rebecca Lillian, current resident of Malmo, Sweden.
In early March, when I was asked to write a column about Jewish life in Malmö, I began like this: Google “Jews in Malmö.” Most of the results will be about the rise in anti-Semitism, the hostility between Muslims and Jews, the anti-Semitic rants of the mayor, and the number of Jews who are fleeing Sweden’s third largest city.
Six weeks later, you can skip the Google search. The Jewish media have their eye on Malmö, thanks to the most recent spewing of idiotic, anti-Semitic rants by mayor Ilmar Reepalu. This time, he tried to claim that the Jewish community of Malmö had allowed itself to be infiltrated by the white supremacist Sweden Democrat party in order to attack Muslims. When confronted, Reepalu admitted that his accusation was baseless. Dominos have begun to fall since then. The leader of his Social Democrat party scolded the mayor, and word has it that Reeplu might even be open to hearing from Jewish citizens. It remains unclear whether there will be any real impact on Reeplalu’s mayorship.
Yet, although Malmö’s Jews do face anti-Semitism from some hateful, even violent neighbors as well as from the mayor, things have changed since 2010, when the Forward published an article titled, “For Jews, Swedish City is a Place to Move Away From.” In fact, last month I used that title as a foil, declaring Malmö to be a delightful place to move to. The Jewish community here is undergoing a true renaissance and, on this Yom Hashoah, many members look toward the future with hope.
When recently asked if he detects any Antisemitism among the House Republican caucus, Rep. Eric Cantor answered by not answering, rambling on about the continuing struggle to improve “religious and racial matters” in this country.
“We’ve continued to provide, ya know, equal treatment to everybody,” Cantor remarked. Best of all was his uncomfortable silence when pressed yet again to comment specifically upon his colleagues in the House. See for yourself:
If you work for a Jewish organization, you’ve probably experienced the phenomenon of food being everywhere. Sometimes it’s gross, sometimes it doesn’t belong to you, but it’s pretty ubiquitous. With this infusion of nutrients come statements such as the following (overheard), in reaction to delicious baked goods:
“Oh, no, that’s so bad. I can’t eat that.”
“I’d have to do to the gym if I ate that.”
“I can’t believe you walked past it! You have so much willpower!”
It saddens, but doesn’t surprise me, that it was all women making these comments. It also doesn’t surprise me that people think of food as having moral value-it’s good or it’s bad, it’s not something that nourishes you or that you should enjoy, that you give to others so they can enjoy it too.What we really mean when we say, “That food is bad,” is “I am a bad person for eating it.” If we eat food that we enjoy (or if we eat, period), we should immediately torture ourselves emotionally and/or physically, and make sure everyone around us knows that we’re doing so, and in turn, make sure that those people feel a certain way about their own eating and exercise habits.
Diet culture is relentless and misogynist, and it affects us in ways we aren’t even aware of. (I’m holding back here, folks. I’m not getting into the crazy, exploitative, capitalist that is the diet industry. See how I did that?) Maybe you’re not trying to trigger people when talking about the 5 pounds you’d like to lose, but people hear that shit. It creates body hatred and it erodes relationships between women (who, let’s face it, are a lot of the population working in Jewish organizations in a certain capacity).
There’s a certain tension between culture, Jewish and American, and food. In spite of our bodies being real bodies, we’re bombarded with the ideal that is impossible to achieve. We know that Jewish women are living with eating disorders, that the statistics are on the rise, and that many cases are unreported. Part of Jewish (or any other ethnic group’s) assimilation into American culture means adopting the ideals of the physical body. I often think of dieting and diet culture as a shiny red ball thrown at women as if to say, “Look over there!” As in, think about how to be this specific, empty version of perfect, put your energy into getting skinny at all costs, instead of channeling it into redistributing power. (And by the way, diet talk doesn’t only affect women, it affects everyone.)
I’m proposing that Jewish organizations adopt a “No Diet Talk” policy, with the aim of moving towards a different culture around food and bodies in our organizational spaces. This doesn’t mean you can’t commiserate about your diet behind closed doors with a trusted colleague. It doesn’t mean that you can’t be on a diet. It does mean that when there’s food to be enjoyed, you let people enjoy it without talking about how you are on the quest to lose weight. You don’t comment on other people’s food choices, (“Are you really going to eat that?”) or talk about how much you go to the gym, or how much you need to.
This does mean that policing ourselves. It’s likely that we don’t even realize how much we talk about diet and weight until we don’t do it anymore. Saying,“You look great! Did you lose weight?” is so common, it’s practically small talk. We can do better.
In other news I'm topping the charts over at the Forward: The hed on my piece is 'What Would You Call Me?'
Right. So I wrote this op-ed for the Forward about how I underwent a Conservative conversion because I go to a Conservative shul these days, but I came from a patrilineal Reform background and so forth. And in it I suggested that it’s time for the Conservative movement to start accepting patrilineal descent.
Then the internet discharged platoon after platoon of Jew-baiting Jewish commenters with all kinds of nonsense on their minds. There were also some thoughtful comments and a ton of kind emails from friends and acquaintances.
Here’s one of the emails:
I so wanted to comment on your Forward article, but I simply could not wade into the aggravating mess of Jews baiting each other.
So for his benefit and yours, I waded neck-deep into the muck to pluck out the best of the comments — not only at forward.com, but on Facebook and twitter as well. And I’ll respond to a few too.
[I started writing this post yesterday so there are probably even more comments now that I haven't even looked at.]
JTA has published a new op-ed by me, a response to a piece by some Zionist Organization of America honchos published by JTA earlier this week:
Op-Ed: Title VI should be used only on true hatemongers, not political opponents
By David A.M. Wilensky
NEW YORK (JTA) – In the eyes of the Zionist Organization of America, the most depraved enemies of the Jewish people are obnoxious college campus loudmouths. As the editor of New Voices, a national magazine by and for Jewish college students, I have a different perspective.
The ZOA led the campaign to have discrimination against Jewish students recognized as a violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, originally passed in 1964 to remedy racial discrimination in programs that receive federal funding. But in its charge to circle the Jewish communal wagons, the ZOA has overreached.
ZOA President Morton Klein and Susan Tuchman, director of the group’s Center for Law and Justice, wrote in a JTA Op-Ed that Jewish college students today face “harassment and discrimination at schools receiving federal funding.” The ZOA pitched a six-year fit about it, which the group credits with this triumph: “The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, or OCR, finally clarified in October 2010 that Jewish students finally would be afforded the same protection” that other minorities have under Title VI.
The ZOA campaign capitalizes on and needlessly exacerbates the Jewish community’s already unwarranted paranoia about what’s happening to our young men and women on campus. As a member of the class of 2011 and as the editor of New Voices, I can say with confidence that there’s never been a better time to walk the halls and lawns of American academia as a Jew.
[...]
If you’re so inclined you can read the rest of it over here at JTA.
And if you’re not tickled by the fact that the ad below appears on the same page as my op-ed, you’re probably dead inside.
Attend the NHC Summer Institute as an Everett Fellow! Application Deadline – May 2nd
Imagine late-night singing and philosophical discussions under the stars; engrossing Jewish learning; opportunities to participate in a variety of services, arts experiences, Shabbat celebrations, and outdoor activities; meeting a group of dynamic, thoughtful, energetic Jewish young adults as well as community members of all ages at a weeklong institute. Sounds fantastic, right?
The NHC (National Havurah Committee) Summer Institute is now accepting applications for its Everett Fellows Program! Fellows participate in the full Summer Institute programming and in four workshops designed specifically for them. As a Fellow, you receive a scholarship for tuition, room, and board, and are expected to pay only for registration and dues ($120) for the full week (August 6-12).
To apply for an Everett Fellowship, you must be 22 through 32 years of age, interested in exploring Havurah Judaism, and willing to participate fully in the Summer Institute. Preference is given to first time Institute attendees. The application can be found here. — it’s just four questions. Please see our website for more information or call the NHC office at 215-248-1335. The application deadline is May 2.
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