No life partners allowed: Does that mean Romy would have to leave Michelle home?Last week both the Forward and the Jewish Week reported on a scandal at Yeshiva of Flatbush, a prestigious Modern Orthodox school. In December the school hosted a ten-year reunion for the class of 1997, but openly gay graduates were sent a letter explaining that they couldn’t bring their partners to the reunion. Specifically, the letter said:

The Director of our Alumni Association forwarded your request to bring your partner with you to the 10th anniversary reunion this coming Saturday night. As previously stated to you, we welcome your attendance and look forward to your participation. However, your partner cannot attend.

The policy of the school and that is enforced is that only graduates and their spouses (engagements are recognized) are invited. We cannot acknowledge or define your partner relationship as one that falls under this policy. We kindly ask you to respect and follow our Yeshivah’s policy and attend the reunion without your partner. 

Some gay graduates chose not to attend. Others created a Facebook group called "Open Flatbush Reunions - End Censorship and Alumni Profiling" which now has over 330 members, including, according to the Jewish Week “a Nobel Prize winner who attended the school over six decades ago and a former principal of the school, Rabbi Alan Stadtmauer, who resigned from his position in 2004 as he came to terms with being gay himself.”

The best response I’ve seen so far is on Jewschool, where a gay alum of the Yeshiva of Flatbush writes about why and how the school is being hypocritical. My favorite passage:

Until this particular issue came up however, everyone was welcome at the high school reunion. There was no “tsitsiss check” or religious litmus test, no approved favorite movie or banned political opinion. People showed up, they brought guests, they shmoozed and ate and re-connected with their classmates. It didn’t matter what you named your kids. And it didn’t matter what halacha you may have broken in your life. Nobody asked you to testify as to which hashgacha certified your existence as kosher.

So when Mr. Eisenberg, the administrator, claims that “there are standards of halacha that guide the Orthodox community. All of our graduates are welcome to attend our reunion but only those involved in recognized halachic relationships may register to attend as a couple,” I don’t buy it. The standards of halacha that guide the Orthodox community surely exist — but they cover a lot more than the gender of who you date and marry. Modesty rules. Ethical business rules. Rules for sabbath observance. Sexual practices of heterosexual couples.

Continue reading...

I’ve been reading Memories of a Catholic Girlhood by Mary McCarthy, and my favorite part so far is in the introduction, when she writes:No Shit: Patron Saint of Dentistry

I am not sorry to have been a Catholic, first of all for the practical reasons. It gave me a certain knowledge of Latin language and of the saints and their stories which not everyone is lucky enough to have. Latin, when I came to study it was easy for me and attractive, too, like an old friend, as for the saints, it is extremely useful to know them and the manner of their matyrdom when you are looking at Italian painting, to know, for instance, that a tooth is the emblem for Saint Apollonia, patron of dentistry, and that Saint Agnes is shown with a lamb, always, and Saint Catherine of Alexandria with a wheel…Having to learn a little theology as an adult in order to understand a poem of Donne or Crashaw is like being taught the Bible as Great Literature in a college humanities course, it does not stick to the ribs.

It’s true, I think, that learning the Bible and other religious lore early on sets you up to have a deeper understanding of all kinds of things, from art to poetry to linguistics. I think my literary analysis skills were honed in my high school Bible classes, where we carefully dissembled every sentence, sought out all kinds of interpretations and learned to understand something in multiple layers. Plus, I’m always the first in my grad school classes to pick up on Biblical references (which are really important in pretty much any text written before 1920).

I’ve been thinking about this stuff in connection with the big Flying Spaghetti Monster uproar. In case you’re not up to date with your flying spaghetti lore, here’s how CNN explains the whole thing:

When some of the world's leading religious scholars gather in San Diego this weekend, pasta will be on the intellectual menu. They'll be talking about a satirical pseudo-deity called the Flying Spaghetti Monster, whose growing pop culture fame gets laughs but also raises serious questions about the essence of religion.

FSM: Don't Mess With Pasta

The appearance of the Flying Spaghetti Monster on the agenda of the American Academy of Religion's annual meeting gives a kind of scholarly imprimatur to a phenomenon that first emerged in 2005, during the debate in Kansas over whether intelligent design should be taught in public school sciences classes.

Supporters of intelligent design hold that the order and complexity of the universe is so great that science alone cannot explain it. The concept's critics see it as faith masquerading as science.

An Oregon State physics graduate named Bobby Henderson stepped into the debate by sending a letter to the Kansas School Board. With tongue in cheek, he purported to speak for 10 million followers of a being called the Flying Spaghetti Monster -- and demanded equal time for their views.
"We have evidence that a Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe. None of us, of course, were around to see it, but we have written accounts of it," Henderson wrote. As for scientific evidence to the contrary, "what our scientist does not realize is that every time he makes a measurement, the Flying Spaghetti Monster is there changing the results with His Noodly Appendage."

Full Story

These guys are waging a war against intelligent design, which I fully support (the war against it, not intelligent design itself) but I think they’re missing an opportunity to do some serious iconography. I mean, there should be certain saints that show up only with a certain kind of pasta (rigatoni for some, elbo for another, and angel hair for the highest order of saint).

The thing is, FSM is useful for mocking religious education in a certain way, but at the end of the day FSM doesn’t teach Latin. There are some important skills we get from a religious education, and I think in an honest discussion we own up to that.

I’ve already told you to make your reservations for Limmud NY because it’s going to be off the hook, but if you’ve waited you’ve got until December 28th to get the reduced rate.  Limmud NY has sold out every year in the past, so make sure to make your reservations before you’re shut out of all the rocking and rolling (and learning).

Limmud NY Rocks So Hard: It will blow your purple hair/fauxhawk/payis/sheitl back, for sure.

Girls Write Now: Show a little love, eh?According to the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP), low literacy ability leads to low grades and low achievement levels—which can and usually does then ultimately lead to a high drop-out rate. In the same report, it is noted that of high school seniors, way less than half read at a level required to comprehend a school textbook. The focus of curriculum being on standard testing in the US at the moment allows students little time to explore artistic and literary pursuits, and so writing programs are just not available to students. In a 2000 SCANS Report, research showed students with access to music, theater and creative writing all performed better than students without.

So, recently, when I learned about a truly wonderful organization that is doing some really incredible work in this area, I knew I'd found an organization I wanted to support. Meet Girls Write Now, an organization that "provides a safe and supportive environment where girls can expand their natural writing talents, develop independent creative voices, and build confidence in making healthy choices in school, career and life." Sounds great, right? Wait, wait, it gets even better!

Girls Write Now "provides at-risk New York City high school girls with emerging writing talent an opportunity to be custom-matched with a professional woman writer who serves as her personal mentor and writing coach, meeting with her weekly for the duration of an entire school year, and for up to four years. GWN also enrolls each student in a vibrant writing community — all mentees and mentors gather monthly for genre-based group writing workshops conducted at our offices within Teachers & Writers Collaborative in midtown Manhattan. The year is punctuated by three annual readings, college and career prep seminars, field trips to cultural events, and endless opportunities for scholarships and publication. The magic of the program is reflected in a solid nine-year track record, a 75-percent member retention rate, a 100-percent college acceptance rate, an annual anthology of original writing, and the seven-genre portfolios each student emerges equipped with each season. Founded in 1998, GWN was the first organization to ever present this combination of powerful services, and it continues to be the only program of its kind in the eastern United States."

Helping Others: To Do Their Best Girls Write Now has, in addition to mentoring sessions, writing workshops, a reading series, a Life Adventure series of writing and performance workshops, support for students parsing through the rigors of college admissions, events and activities, and scholarships and contests, but they created Girls Write Forever, a program that helps give supporters so many options to ensure the good work of Girls Write Now can continue into the future. (Now, if I can just figure out where they sell those great t-shirts!)

To support this organization with a donation or an in-kind donation please click here. To volunteer, here, and for litty girls in New York City, click here. And, if you find yourself in New York on January 18th, and you do roll on Shabbes, by all means, get yourself to the Winter Pair Reading and see your ten bucks doing a lot of good.

We talk a lot about tzedakah, naturally, and usually give links of places where you can donate. But, of course, we shouldn't overlook the many other, and just as important, ways to give that aren't necessarily just a matter of writing a check. Sometimes, giving can mean rolling up your sleeves and helping, being present, lending a hand, collecting and donating items, or just living simpler, more conscious lives.

Riders!: On your mark, get set... Enter Hazon (Hebrew for "vision"), an organization started in 1999 with this vision:

"Our vision is to create a healthier and more sustainable Jewish community-- as a step towards a healthier and more sustainable world for all. Our vision is of a renewed Jewish community: one that is rooted in Jewish tradition, engaged with the world around us, radically inclusive, passionate and creative... and that recognizes that there are shivim panim l'torah - seventy ways to understand the Torah... and ultimately to live Hazon's theme-quote: Torah is a commentary on the world and the world is a commentary on the Torah..."

How are they living this wonderful, but very ambitious ideal? Through programs such as different food/health programs to educate members of our community to make smarter, healthier food choices and to consider the benefits of local and organic food as well as bike rides to raise money for various project-causes such as Cycling for Peace and environmental bike rides in various cities. You sigh up, do a little fundraising and voila. Challenging yourself, improving your fitness, educating yourself and helping to heal the world with these events, some even with a zero-carbon footprint. Check out their "People of The Bike" the Jewish environmental bike ride in NY, the Arava/Hazon bike ride in Israel, and the many other ways on their website for you to do something very positive on two wheels.

Digging deeper into their website, you'll also notice their volunteer page, listing specific types of volunteers they could use a hand from. But, like any nonprofit, they can use our dollars, too.

Not following in Sally Priesand's footsteps: Orthodox women are being ordained, but only as rabbi-educators Last week the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem announced a new ordination program that would ordain Orthodox women as rabbis. Huzzah! Or not. Hartman isn’t willing to say that it’s accrediting these women to be pulpit rabbis. Instead, the title of rabbi means that “the male and female students will be ordained by some of the institute’s rabbis, and will then be prepared to assume the role of “rabbi-educators” - not pulpit rabbis in North American community day schools.”

The difference between a “rabbi-educator” and a pulpit rabbi isn’t a potato potahto thing. Jewess sums it up: “But [rabbi-educator], as treated by the Hartman Institute program, is more akin to Doctor for a Ph.D. than for an M.D. Just as one wouldn’t trust one’s English professor to take out one’s tonsils, one isn’t meant to trust these rabbi-educators with decisions about Jewish law.”

It’s generally acknowledged that we need as many good Jewish educators as we can get our hands on, and in that case, one has to ask who cares if they’re “rabbi-educators” or rabbis or just smart people? But giving an Orthodox woman the title rabbi and then telling her she can’t make decisions about Jewish law—even though she just got a degree for her knowledge of Jewish law--is a sneaky way of not getting too political.

As this Slate article reminds us, there are already Orthodox women rabbis, and Orthodox women leading Orthodox congregations. They just don’t get a lot of respect, and have to put up with a lot of flack from the Orthodox right. So basically, the Hartman institute is not breaking any new ground. When YU starts ordaining women I’ll kick up my heels and do a little dance (behind a mechitza, of course). In the meantime, a greater number of good Jewish educators (rabbis or not) is worth a l’chaim or two.

Spertus: Brand-spankin'-new facility for a really great organization.Here in Chicago, the community is rather chatty about the new Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies opening a new $55M facility on Michigan Avenue. This building is, I have to admit, really quite stunning and Friday, it opens to the public, finally. For those of you not familiar with Spertus, allow me to introduce you. It started in 1924 as Chicago's College of Jewish Studies and currently boasts a 15,000-piece collection of Jewish art and artifacts, a library and graduate school. The new ten-floor building adds a Wolfgang Puck kosher cafe (as you know already because you read it over on Jewcy's Pickled blog), areas to rent for events (someone please hold a simcha there and invite me, please, please, please), a 400-seat theater, a really fantastic Judaica gift shop, and a children's center is set of open in a few months. It's a lot. And, it's really great. It's not a terrible idea, either, to get yourself on the mailing list of events, as I can personally attest to how wonderful their lectures and other public events are.

And, if you happen to be in Chicago with kids on Christmas Day, when everything is closed but movie theaters and Chinese restaurants, Spertus can save the day with family events all day long featuring the music of Rav Shmuel, a chess tournament, and all sorts of crafts and activities. No need for reservations and it's totally free (thought they encourage you to bring a few nonperishables for their EZRA food drive). Not too shabby.

So, if you are here in Chicago, or plan to be sometime soon, hit the website, plan your visit, and, maybe just maybe, I'll see you there.

Betcha don't know what today is! Why, it's Purim of the Curtains, of course. Doy.

No, I'm serious.

Uh: Purim of what?!?!?!First called "Purim Vorhang" and celebrated in the middle of winter (on 22 Tevet), this Purim happened a few hundred years ago in the large Jewish Bohemian Ghetto in Prague. Like the Purim we are perhaps a bit more familiar with, it, too, commemorates the rather awe-some saving of Jews from their enemies. Here's the scoop, from Gershon Kranzler of Chabad:

Rudolph of Wenceslav, the governor of Bohemia, was one of those who resented the rise of Jewish fortunes during the reign of Ferdinand II. He considered it a personal affront when a man like the wealthy Jacob Schmieles of the Prague Ghetto was knighted and bore the noble title of Bassevi of Truenberg. But there was little he could do to the Jews of Prague, which in those days counted more than 1,000 people, many of them rich and influential merchants and bankers. For the memory and influence of Chief Rabbi Judah Loew, famous as the “Maharal,” was still felt among Jews and non-Jews. Thus, despite all efforts, the governor was not able to provoke any riots or pogroms of major proportion. But one day in the winter of 5383 (1623) Providence really seemed to play into his hands.

Among the treasure of his palace were heavy gold brocade curtains, artfully woven by a famous medieval master weaver from Brussels. They were considered invaluable, and the governor was responsible for them to the crown. All through the spring, summer and fall, till the middle of winter, they were stored away so that the sun and dust would not harm their precious texture. December came and Chamberlain Hradek, next to Rudolph of Wenceslav the mightiest man in all of Bohemia, gave orders to have all the velvet and brocade curtains and the Persian carpet taken out of storage to prepare the palace for the festival season. Everything proceeded in proper order, for each piece of the precious ornaments and furnishings had been carefully recorded and systematically stored away. At the bottom of the list were the famous gold brocade curtains of the stateroom. As usual they had been placed in the huge iron chest in the cellar that held the most valuable articles of the palace.

So, you can see where this is all going. Hradek went to the cellar to make sure the servants handles his curtains carefully and ka-blammo, they were gone. The governor hears about it and orders and investigation, all the servants deny having anything to do with it. Hradek says something about maybe we should all go check in those shops that the Jews keep, you know they're always stealing, blah blah. So, the search is on, through all the shops in the Ghetto, and they find the curtains with Enoch Altschul. Enoch is taken and beaten and brought before The Man. Enoch says that he can't admit why the curtains are in his house because he gave his word to a member of that very court that he'd not tell. Mysterious. Noble. More beating and torture. Finally, Enoch is told that by dawn if he doesn't spill the beans, his whole family will be hanged and the Ghetto will be stormed and destroyed. Not good. But, Enoch is a righteous man and did give his word so he wrestles with this. He sits in his jail cell all night and begs for divine intervention. He sleeps a bit finally and wakes suddenly, seeing, or thinking he's seeing, Rabbi Judah Loew who tells him everything will work out.

Czech Shul: In your face, playah hatahs.So, Enoch keeps his cool, even as he is being led out to his own execution.With only minutes to spare, Hradek finally confesses that he stole the curtains to pay his gambling debts, pawned them to Enoch promising kind treatment to all Jews in the Ghetto if he kept the transaction secret but that he'd also had a vision of the Rabbi overnight and knew he had to come clean.

To commemorate the miracle, Enoch Altschul asked the Jews of Prague to celebrate on 22 Tevet. Which brings us up to today. Shehechiyanu.

(While Tamar's at Jewish learning conference Limmud, she'll be bringing us regular updates.)

This morning at Limmud I went to shacharit (one of about four women at the egal service, and the only chick under forty, which again makes my blood boil) and then saw another amazing movie, “Out of Faith” about a Holocaust survivor, and her struggle to deal with her grandchildren marrying non-Jews. Weirdly, I know the grandmother and one of the grandchildren in question and much of the film was shot in the neighborhood where I grew up. It was a fascinating and gut wrenching film, and I of course got all teary at the end (deep down, I’m a total marshmellow). Definitely a must watch for anyone with survivor grandparents.
Elaine Welbel: of 'Out of Faith'

After lunch I went to Niles Goldstein’s session about “Gonzo” Judaism. I was all excited about this session, because it was billed as a look at how to return to the counter-cultural, rebel roots of Judaism, but honestly, I walked away fairly disappointed. As far as I can tell Goldstein doesn’t have much of a concrete message or instructions for people who sign on to his thinking. The one thing he told us to do was to turn Judaism back into an
“open tent” religion, so that when we see new people in our community we welcome them, encourage them to participate more and feel like they’re a part of the group. I’m all for welcoming people (inviting people over for Shabbat meals is one of my favorite pastimes) but I just don’t think that’s enough. We need more than just hospitality, and Goldstein didn’t seem willing to call out specific organizations or groups that are causing problems and need to be given some punk attitude. I agree with his general ideals, but I’d like a little more specificity, I think.

In addition to going to sessions I’ve done plenty of schmoozing and networking (the check-in table is the best place to pick up guys and Shabbat lunch invitations, in case you were wondering), and last night did some whiskey drinking with my friends from Yeshivat Hadar. Shabbat promises to be more of the same. Have a Shabbat shalom!

Okay: So this soldier is actually Canadian. Sue me.An exhibit opened in West Hartford, CT this week honoring Jewish veterans of WWII at the George J. Sherman and Lottie K. Sherman
Museum of Jewish Civilization at the University of Hartford. Over 500,000 Jews served in the U.S. armed forces during WWII, and can be credited with such contributions as rebuilding synagogues, conducting weekday and Shabbat services, and assisting a reconstruction of the Talmud for Army issue:

"From two sets of Talmud brought from New York...a special Army edition of 500 sets were made in 1948. They are the only sets to include the English language, in a preface dedicating it to the U.S. Army for its "major role in the rescue of the Jewish people from total annihilation."

The return of the Jewish GIs to the U.S. directly influenced a
dissolution of the bigotry against Jews that had been prevalent
nationwide, and opened doors that had previously been shut or barely
opened. Jews, previously subject to quotas at many colleges and
universities, attended schools en masse under the GI Bill.

"Seeing Jewish GIs seizing the opportunity to fight for their country,
there's something entirely empowering about that," Patt said. "It's
only after the destruction of European Jewry that U.S. Jewry rises to a
position of prominence on the world stage."

Superior Court Judge Referee Jerry Wagner, featured in the exhibit, agrees.

"America at the time of World War II was a country of considerable
bigotry. There were openly anti-Semitic senators in Congress," Wagner
said. "I'm convinced one of the greatest forces for changing that was
the influence of Jewish vets coming back."

(Hartford Courant.com)

The exhibit is on display through February 24th and contains portraits of the 24 local veterans (then and now) and various items they each donated to the exhibit. The exhibit was primarily sponsored by family of Navy veteran
Jack Rosenblit (A"H), who passed in 2006 and whose portrait is featured on the exhibit catalog. "He was so
proud to be in the Navy and so proud to be an American GI," Rosenblit's
widow, Elka, said to the Hartford Courant. "This is my way of celebrating his life."

Related link: Jewish Historical Society of Greater Hartford.

Related reads: Ours to Fight For: American Jewish Voices from the Second World War and G.I. Jews: How World War II Changed a Generation.

Disguised As Clark Kent: Jews, Comics and the Creation of the Superhero BooksI went into Disguised As Clark Kent thinking it would be about the same book as Up, Up And Oy Vey!: How Jewish History, Culture, and Values Shaped the Comic Book Superhero by Simcha Weinstein (Oy Vey is jokier and with more Biblical parallels tossed in), but, despite having nearly the same title and subject, Disguised, I have to admit, is really the leader on the topic with greater contemporary historical detail and wonderful captured social and emotional subtleties. At least in my humble little opinion, it seems to be about Jews first, particularly the immigrant Jewish psyche, and comics we drew second.

A large number of the creators of the most famous superheroes were of Jewish background, secular, religious, or both. Disguised as Clark Kent explores how the Jewish consciousness of these individuals impacted the content of the comics and contributed to making characters such as Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, and Wonder Woman into the most familiar popular-culture icons of all time... Fingeroth... reflects on the phenomenon of the heavily Jewish elements that, consciously or not, went into the creation of the superhero.

Well-researched, filled with interesting history and interviews, Disguised As Clark Kent:

centers on questions of Jewish identity, which is historically about the push and pull toward and away from that very identity. One sees this immediately and most famously in Superman by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the superhero "disguised as Clark Kent, mild-mannered reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper." It is also a large part of Bill Finger and Bob Kane's Batman, Will Eisner's Spirit, Joe Simon and Jack Kirby's Captain America.

Disguised As Clark Kent was released this fall by Continuum International Publishing Group and is available on Amazon, Alibris, Powell's and the like.

Everybody get together: Try to love one another right now.So, here in Chicago, the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs is doing some great work as part of their Jewish-Muslim Community-Building Initiative that I wanted to tell you about super-fast before Shabbes.

Jewish-Muslim text study will be held on Thursday January 24th at 6pm at Bourgeois Pig Cafe in Chicago. In the recent email I was forwarded about this event, I read, "Torah? Qur'ran? What are the differences? What are the similarities? At our first monthly text discussion, we will exchange ideas, thoughts and stories from our separate yet bound traditions. This evening's focus will be on Abraham/Ibrahim. Future texts, as well as locations, will be decided by the group.This group will meet monthly." Hit this link to send the required RSVP.

Cafe Finjan (Finjan, a word in both Arabic and Hebrew, is a metal pot for brewing coffee in the traditional Middle Eastern style, not only in the home, but also on a campfire, with friends gathered around for warmth) will be held Thursday February 7th from 7-9pm at Mercury Cafe in Chicago. The event description reads: "Jewish-Muslim arts exchanges -- an evening of Muslim and Jewish poetry, storytelling and song in an intimate coffee-house setting.  Come join new and old friends for a night of comedy, music, song, and spoken word.CAFÉ FINJAN is a series of interfaith arts exchanges, begun in 2004 by the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs as part of its Jewish-Muslim Community-Building Initiative. The series establishes points of contact, and nurtures a greater understanding between Jews and Muslims of Chicago while creating spaces for Chicagoland Jews, Muslims, and others of diverse backgrounds to come together and give voice to their identity and experience as part of a larger community." RSVP here.

Also, Cafe Finjan is looking for performers of any sort (writers, poets, singers, songwriters, dancers, essayists, storytellers, etc.) for their events. Just email and include your name, phone, email, details of your performance and the community (Jewish or Muslim) with which you identify yourself for a five-minute time space.

But, don't stop there.  Hit their website for information on all sorts of events, including something called Chocolate for Change, which, well, sounds rather interesting...

This week we read the story of Noah, and then we read about the Tower of Babel. You may recall the end of the story in Genesis 11:Is It Me: Or does the Tower of Babel look a lot like the Leaning Tower of Piza?

6And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.
7Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.
8So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.
9Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.

So we’re all scattered around speaking different languages. Actually, though, language diversity is shrinking every day. Some estimates say that over 90% of the languages spoken today will die out by the end of century. It may not sound like such a travesty, but if you think about all of the hard data that it’s in any languages, as well as the nuance and cadences that’s so important and different in every language, it’s a really depressing statistic. Most of the languages that are dying these days are languages and dialects spoken by small rural groups. In Australia, scientists are struggling to work with Aboriginal people to identify various species of birds and insects that have long been named in Aboriginal languages, but are not yet scientifically classified.

I come from a family of linguists, and we’re serious about recording and learning endangered languages. These languages, by the way, include both Yiddish and Ladino.

To find out more about endangered languages, and to donate money to linguists and social scientists who work to preserve dying languages, check out the Society for Endangered Languages (fyi, some of the site is in German) and the Foundation for Endangered Languages. I also recommend Spoken Here: Travels Among Threatened Languages by Mark Abley, with an awesome chapter on the Yiddish revival, and the National Geographic Enduring Voices project.

Note to self: Build modern day Tower of Babel→save Ladino?

(While Tamar's at Jewish learning conference Limmud NY, she's bringing us regular updates.)

Robert Sugarman, who chairs the Religious Freedom Task Force of the Anti-Defamation League, gave a session discussing how religion is taking a bigger and bigger role in elections and on the Supreme Court. This isn’t news to most of us, and I’m getting to the point where I nod and sigh when I hear another story about how Huckabee told everyone how much he loves Jesus. But Sugarman pointed out that religion is becoming so central to political campaigns and personas that candidates have to make statements saying that they’re all for religious freedom for all faiths. No one seems to be standing up for the rights of those who don’t believe in God, though. Sugarman brought examples of both Romney and Huckabee saying things that seemed to in some way condemn atheists.
God (any God): is the only option

It took a few hours for this to sink in, but when I really thought about it, it was terrifying. Of course it’s imperative to me that I always be allowed to keep Shabbat and observe various mitzvoth, but I think my Jewish atheist friends deserve to have their rights protected, too. If they want to go to a mall on Saturday mornings, or eat ham all day long, even if I’m not crazy about it, they need to always have the right to do that.

Continue reading...

I'm thrilled to announce that the application for Yeshivat Hadar is now available online!

I was a Hadar fellow this past summer and can tell you that it was a truly enlightening and educational experience. Aside from an amazing cohort and phenomenal faculty, the guest speakers alone were enough to make the summer worth it. I encourage everyone who's eligible to apply, and I'm happy to talk about specifics with anyone who's interested and has questions.

Deep Thoughts: brought to you by the Fellow at Yeshivat Hadar

In the meantime...

Mechon Hadar is excited to announce that it is now accepting applications for the summer 2008 session of Yeshivat Hadar.

Yeshivat Hadar is animated by two central goals:

-To foster a community of students who engage in intensive Torah study, prayer and action.
-To offer a passionate vision of traditional Jewish life as a spiritual path.

Yeshivat Hadar offers 36 fellows an intensive program in the heart of Manhattan's Upper West Side. The 8-week experience (June 1 – July 26, 2008) will combine traditional text study, egalitarian prayer and social action with a special focus on personal religious growth. Yeshivat Hadar will create a community of learning which will include seminars, havruta (paired learning), elective classes and time for independent study. Students will complete the program equipped with greater textual competence and broader knowledge of the Jewish tradition as a whole. Students will commit to bringing lessons from their summer experience to their local community.

In recognition of the intense time and energy commitment required by the fellowship, Yeshivat Hadar is pleased to offer a generous stipend, intended to cover the cost of tuition and living expenses. Participation in the program is a selective process, and prospective students must complete a full application, as well as a reference, by February 1, 2008. Finalists will be interviewed, and fellows will be notified in mid-March.

For those in the New York area, we invite you to join us for an evening of learning with us on January 16th, 7-9 pm, at West End Synagogue, 190 Amsterdam Ave (near 69th Street), which will once again host the yeshivah in 2008.

For more information (including student qualifications and a tentative schedule with course descriptions), and for the full application, please visit www.yeshivathadar.org. For any questions, feel free to email us at info@mechonhadar.org.

Sincerely,

The Yeshivat Hadar Faculty:

Shoshana Cohen
Rabbi Shai Held
Rabbi Amy Kalmanofsky
Rabbi Elie Kaunfer
Sara Labaton
Rabbi Ethan Tucker

People think I'm a mah-jongg maven and I have no idea why. I recently was given a mah-jongg set. It's old and the case is falling apart, but I love it. Problem? I don't know how the effin' eff to play mah-jongg. Another time, I was given some rad mah-jongg jewelry like this. I think the mah-jongg jewelry is cool, some of it cute and kitschy, but I'd feel like a fraud wearing any of it without actually knowing how to play.

Serendipitously, I received an email tip this morning (hat tip) about this very serious (har) young man's quest for mah-jongg fulfillment.

Challah for Hunger: Creative loafing.Tonight, I was hanging out with a couple of friends, talking about this and that and a conversation about poaching pears turned into a conversation about baking which turned into a conversation about a particular challah recipe, which turned into the discovery that only a couple of degrees of separation stood between me and this organization: Challah for Hunger. I headed home, Googled it up, and, well, that pretty much brings us up to right now.

In an incredible stroke of luck, it being Social Justice Tuesday and all, the very first sentence seen upon entering the site is: "Challah for Hunger is a national organization centered around activism and social justice." Blammo. It continues, "With our weekly challah sales, we raise money and awareness for the victims of the genocide in the Sudan. Challah for Hunger has sent more than $20,000 to relief organizations and thousands of letters to Washington, urging elected officials to take action. We also work to inspire others, both on our campuses and around the world, to take a stand against genocide."

At the moment, there aren't too many chapters of this organization, but the site provides tons of information for starting your very own chapter. You can of course support their efforts by purchasing your challah from a chapter near you, as well, and if you take a little time and write a letter to an elected official or media outlet about Darfur, they'll give you a discount. Looking for inspiration? They have a sample letter available and links that point you to places to get a little more information or to find other ways to help the crisis in Darfur.

Smooth move, Halle Berry. Whatevs. Not the end of the world. It was a dumb thing to say, but, her blurt-first-think-later comment does bring up a point than really can't be emphasized enough because most of us have been guilty of it once or twice. We like to think it's a thing non-Jews say, but we do it to ourselves all the time. Whatever am I talking about? I'm talking about saying someone "looks" Jewish.

Jewish People: Doing Shabbes. What's the big deal?

It always bugs me when I hear it. One a reality-tv show not long ago, a man said he hoped to meet a "Jewish-looking" woman to date. And, of course, I had to talk back to the television C'mon, dude! Shame on you! What the fuck does that mean?, knowing full well what he meant. If you're like me, it stings the ears a bit because not only does it say we all look alike, but it somehow discounts the Jewishness of anyone who isn't Ashkenazim.

I say all of this knowing I'm walking dangerously close to launching a race v. religion battle discussion. If you ask me, we're a peoplehood; Jewish is a soul-identity in my thinking. But, that's not where I'm going. I'm talking about race issues within Judaism and tweaking our word choices to make sure we include all Jews. I'm talking about how a friend of mine gets her feelings hurt when people look at her blonde hair and tell her to her face she looks like a shiksa and can't possibly be Jewish. About how people tell me I'm tall for a Jew. How a friend of mine who is Japanese-American and Jewish has people (Jewish and non) argue with him and tell him it's impossible that he is Japanese and Jewish when he "looks more Japanese than Jewish"... or how a friend of mine who is African-American and orthodox gets, similar, but even stranger comments and questions. (The Jewish Press ran a story that brought some of her "adventures in disbelief" to mind back in January.) Oy. These tiny little ideas floating around escape in tiny comments that make our words exclusionary and suggests these ideas, actually, aren't so tiny at all, but are rather large and problematic.

Jews: We're everywhere!

Quickly, let's review (though I think this info is slightly out of date) JewFAQ's very brief rundown on the difference between Ashkenazim, Sephardim and Mizrachim. Then, let's review further sub-divisions based on our specific personal regional diaspora spots, or hit this Judaism by Country list. Here is a really great resource, a very short, but information-packed rundown on the world's Jewish population. (By the by, other sites you might want on your radar are The American Sephardi Federation and Justice for Jews.)

I know, I know, but it bears repeating. Refreshers never killed anyone. And, yes, it's an Ashkenazim majority of worldwide Jewry at the moment, but we really have to chose our words to include all the members of our peoplehood.

Dude looks like a lady: You don't have to cross-dress to study the Torah anymore, yay.

On TV, women dish endless midrashim on the guys in their lives their idiosyncrasies in the bedroom, their chest hair and what to do about it. Me? I’m more a Talmud gal.

What’s a Talmud gal? We’re women who are more interested in using our minds to think than using our minds to speculate. We sit with hard ideas, and crack at them until we can suck the meat from the nut. We have well-trained minds, seasoned from years in the academy and neo-yeshivot where we are welcomed, where Yentls of the 21^st century can show up with blown-out hair and well-moisturized skin. We plunge into the page, tearing at the sugya. We wrestle with Rav, plunge with Papa and shimmy with Shimon.

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            As a Jewish environmental educator, I get to experiment with many different practices that are foreign to mainstream suburban Judaism.  During Sukkot we had a Simchat Beit Hashove’ah ceremony, which is a crazy Jewish rain dance with fire juggling, music and flaming old underwear.  In services, we regularly get kids to do physical stretching with their morning blessings in accordance with the Talmudic guidelines for waking up.  My favorite practice out of all we do is hitbodedut, the chassidic practice of going out into the woods and being alone with G!d. 

            Every week during an hour and a half of electives, I lead a group of eleven year olds off into the woods to practice hitbodedut.   We hike quickly up the mountain until we are out of sight of anything manmade. Then we scream.  We scream until there is no air left in our lungs.  This isn’t explicitly part of the practice, but its fun, congeals us as a group and helps to get people’s airways open and ready to talk to G!d.

            At this point, I teach the instructions for hitbodedut as they were first described by Rebbe Nachman, a chassidic Rebbe from the eighteenth century.  He writes that everyone should,

make a habit of praying to God from the depths of your heart. Use whatever language you know best. Ask God to make you worthy of truly serving Him. This is the essence of prayer. 

Rabbi Nachman's Wisdom #229

            I tell them that they will have half an hour to go off into the woods and speak to G!d out loud and without pausing.   I tell them that they can say whatever they want, as long as it is honest, and directed to G!d.  They can bless. They can thank. They can ask for things.  They can even talk with G!d about their atheism or how they feel self conscious standing out in the middle of the woods talking to themselves.  It doesn’t matter as long as they speak from their heart.  Whatever comes up and is addressed to G!d is perfectly kosher.  The final instruction I give them before sending them off is to repeat the mantra “rebono shel olam,” or “master of the world” if they cannot figure out what to say at any point. 

            After a half an hour or personal time with G!d, I call people back with a shofar and so we can share briefly about our experience.  Every time I have ever debriefed a session of hitbodedut, I am always amazed that each person has had a profound experience.  They all leave with insights into life, G!d or nature. Personally, doing hitbodedut every week for the past few months has been deepened my own connection with G!d and given me insight into what comes next for me in life. 

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Jewish Book Council: Next year, my books are totally going to be in the running for this. Uh, hello? Anyone?The Jewish Book Council, who is behind the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, has announced this year's five finalists for said prize, basing their selections on a "demonstration of a fresh vision and evidence of future potential to further contribute to the Jewish literary community. The prize honors an emerging author in the field of Jewish literature who has written a book of exceptional literary merit that stimulates an interest in themes of Jewish concern."

This year, the prize of $100,000 will be awarded to a writer of non-fiction, with the winner to be announced at a spring awards ceremony, at which point, the identities of the contest judges will also be revealed. So, while we're waiting to hear the winner, we might as well read the finalists and start a betting pool:

Ilana M. Blumberg for Houses of Study: A Jewish Woman Among Books (University of Nebraska Press)

Eric L. Goldstein for The Price of Whiteness: Jews, Race and American Identity (Princeton University Press)

Lucette Lagnado for The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit: My Family's Exodus from Old Cairo to the New World (Ecco)

Michael Makovsky for Churchill's Promised Land: Zionism and Statecraft (Yale University Press)

Haim Watzman for A Crack in the Earth: A Journey Up Israel's Rift Valley (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

So it’s the end of the first evening of Limmud, the Jewish learning festival, and not much happened so far except the buses from Manhattan getting fantastically lost on the way here. I went to Maariv (I will restrain myself from letting loose a major diatribe on why it unacceptable that I was the only woman at Maariv), grabbed a bag lunch and went to a showing of a documentary called Jericho’s Echo about the punk scene in Israel. Not the best documentary I’ve ever seen on a technical level, but it was fascinating all the same.

How Awesome/Scary: is this?They had tons of teenage punks talking about being politically active, and getting involved in the peace movement, and then they had all of the people who had gone through the army, and were almost inevitably more right wing and jaded. Depressing, and so interesting. Also, now I really want to go to Israel just to see Useless ID and Ha Pussy Shel Lucy.

Oh man, when I was in college, it was never, ever, not once, as cool as this: Last week, Mike Reiss, a writer and producer for The Simpsons gave a lecture at Penn State entitled, "The
Simpsons and Other Gentiles I Have Known" as sponsored by the school's Jewish Studies Program, Penn State Hillel and the departments of Telecom and Media studies. (Oh, to be a mouse in the corner!)

Today I Am A Clown: Krusty the Clown becomes a Bar Mitzvah.The Hillel director, Aaron Kaufman, has already heard Reiss speak twice before and brought him to Penn to speak in order to "increase the understanding of what it means to be Jewish, and to discuss the large pop culture element of being Jewish in the United States," the Collegiate Online reports. Despite the lecture title, Reiss began by talking about his experience growing up as one of the only Jewish kids in a small town. "I'm Jew ... ish," he said. "By that I mean I would never eat a ham sandwich... in a synagogue... on Yom Kippur... if anyone was watching."

He went on to mention the writing staff of The Simpsons "is fifty percent Jewish", and pointed out that three of the six cast members are also Jewish, including the voices of Reverend Lovejoy (Christian), Apu (Hindu) and Ned Flanders (Uber-Christian)-- the three voices done by Hank Azaria and Harry Schearer. Becoming a Bar Mitzvah on the show, Krusty's voice? Not Jewish. (Oh, and speaking of Harry Schearer! He and his wife, Judith Owen, are doing well sayeth the Boston Herald in their new show that just opened at the Jewish Theater of New England in Newton, Mass.)

Not much news in the way of what aspects of Jewish pop culture he specifically addressed. I assume he's glad nobody is toning down a Jewcy last name so much anymore before taking a crack at the entertainment industry, but I'd love to hear what he said. I'm immensely fascinated by the recent waves of hip-to-be-Yid I keep seeing and hearing about in the last couple of years. Really. Like want-to-get-a-grant-and-write-a-book-about-it fascinating. And, so I'm always curious what everyone else is thinking about it, though, it's not a quick conversation to just have. Sociological, cultural, blah blah blah. There's a lot to it.

Anyway. Another post for another day. It's almost Shabbes, so Shabbat Shalom to all.

PS, on the subject of popular culture, this guy is convinced his TiVo is Goy McGoyerson. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Israeli Sex Trade: Hooters, teachers for brides-to-be, lesbian parents and, uh, vaginoplasty. Discuss.What about news of a Hooters in Israel? (I can't help but to wonder if there has ever been a battle of altering the uniform to conform to religious modesty mandates? I mean, if a woman is a qualified applicant, or say she is an employee who then decides to become more.. covered... wouldn't the company legally have to give her wiggle room? I wonder if that's ever come up for them? Sure, working at hooters probably wouldn't be on your list of things to do if you were concerned with such matters, but again, what if someone was already working at such a place and then decided...? yes, yes, modestly is more than just attire, it's situational and behavioral, too, but I just wonder. Anyway: Hooters. Covering. Discuss.) What are our thoughts on JOFA's class teaching teachers of brides-to-be about sex? Of course, you caught Knesset Committee for Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Affairs chairman Michael Nudelman being called upon to do something for immigrants pushed into the sex trade, too. A lesbian couple is getting recognized as co-mama and co-mama, while the IDF Rabbi is pissed about women in combat. Uh, and some Israeli physicians are interested in bringing the labiaplasty and vaginoplasty to Eretz Yisroel. Ew, ouch and ew.

Cunning Linguists: That's "cunning Yiddish linguist" to you.This week, some interesting ideas were raised and discussed in the comments section of Matthue Roth's post which gave us a round-up of Limmud UK. In the post, Roth writes, "Former Speaker of the Knesset Avrum Berg's assertion, while reading I.B. Singer's Nobel address, that Yiddish is a language without words for violence. That, he says, should be our model for building a Jewish state and a model for its future -- with all the corollaries that come with that. (After our session, I pointed out to him that one of the first Yiddish phrases I learned was potch in the tuchus. He said it didn't count.)"

Out of the six that were posted in response to Roth as of this late hour I'm writing, the comment that really stuck out to me was Portnoy's original comment, the very first comment, a comment in direct response to this particular item on Roth's bullet-pointed Limmud UK summary list. Portnoy wrote:

"This is a load of crap. Yiddish has numerous words and expressions for violence which range from the ever-mild barnes (noogies) to aroysnemen a mashkante af emetsn (to hold someone down and beat the shit out of them, - literally, to take out a mortgage on someone), not to mention all the variants that deal with nase arbet (murder, or, literally, wet-work). The notion that Yiddish doesn't have words for violence is also illogical, since as the victims of violence Yiddish speakers would, at least, have words for what was done to them. But Yiddish speakers also did unto others as was done unto them and a significant lexicon exists for it. Just because milquetoasty Avrum Burg is a frayer for buying into the fantasy that Yiddish speakers are passive, doesn't mean you have to be. His comment may be a nice platitude, but it's not based in reality. It's Yiddish disinformation."

Yiddish social-lingual structures and dynamics? Yes please. The lingual nerd in me enjoyed this comment immensely, to be sure, as it conjured up all sorts of linguistic essays I've long wanted to delve into writing (or try writing, in any case). But surely such rumors, extracted from either nothing or from tiny threads of misunderstanding, surely they exist around other languages, too? You bet. Like the notion that the Irish have no word for sex (Hat tip to Tamar for uncovering this fabulous article that only gets better and better as it continues.) and the many other fascinating articles (if you geek out on such things, too) on Language Log like John McCain's assertion that Eskimos have no word for robins, or the 46 Somali Words for Camel-- which includes this beautiful line about assumptions, "...hackneyed rhetoric and banality of thought... the unmotivated assumption that cultural interest always translates instantly into multiplication of vocabulary..." Not that that line as anything to do, per se, with the comment of the week, my original jumping off point, but it's a good line in any case. On that same thread, please let the record show that I can't actually decide if I love "Yiddish misinformation" or "milquetoasty Avrum Burg" better.

This day in 1974 marks the death of Oskar Schindler, who was honored with a tree planting in 1967 at the Yad Vashem memorial as a Righteous Among The Nations, an honor bestowed by Israel to non-Jews who worked to save Jewish lives during the Shoah at great personal risk. At last count, about a year ago, nearly 20,000 people have been given such an honor. Schindler was the only former Nazi party member to ever receive such a recognition at Yad Vashem. Um, duh.

Yad Vashem: Some righteous trees for some righteous folks.

Yad Vashem is an extremely worthwhile organization to support with significant genealogical research and memorial work being done, especially their searchable database. Really, if you have not ever, do take a moment and click through and search your surname, and other surnames in your family. Stunning. Chilling.

Yad Vashem, in addition to collecting donated personal artifacts and written and video testimony, has been working to develop The Lexicon of the Righteous Among The Nations, an encyclopedia to eventually include biographical stories of all persons deignated Righteous as well as Yad Vashem magazine. Also, Yad Vashem offers the International Institute for Holocaust Research, which often has an open call for papers to be presented at various conferences within the facility, and information on ongoing research projects.

So, until you find yourself in Israel next to pay a visit to Yad Vashem for yourself (if you have not already), stay in touch and check their on-line exhibitions page often for updates. And lastly, be sure to stop by the American and Canadian chapters of the Yad Vashem Society (or just about any country you happen to be living) to stay up-to-date on events and projects.

A Very Abridged List of Further Exploration: Yad Vashem: Moshe Safdie: The Architecture of Memory, The Children We Remember: Photographs from the Archives of Yad Vashem by Chana Byers Abells, Where Light and Shadows Meet: A Memoir by Schindler, Rosenberg & Koch, I Will Plant You A Lilac Tree: A Memior of a Schindler's List Survivor by Laura Hillman, and A Voice In The Chorus: Memories of a Teenager Saved By Schindler by Abraham Zuckerman.

(While Tamar's at Jewish learning conference Limmud NY, she's bringing us regular updates.)

After lighting Shabbat candles on Friday night I opened the door to the “traditional egalitarian” service, saw a