For the second time in the past year, I tracked down Natalie Portman at a public appearance in New York City and asked her about connections between her Jewish faith and her vegan diet. After the world's most famous Jewish vegan took the topic in a different direction in April, I asked her a much more direct question as part of The New York Times' Arts & Leisure Weekend on Saturday night.

While performing my journalistic duty as a Jewish-vegan blogger, I learned several fascinating things. First, Natalie loves the name "heebnvegan." (I somehow managed to maintain my composure when she said this.) Second, she apparently remembers our initial encounter. Third, she sees her decision not to take animals' lives for food as the core of her Judaism. Finally, she thinks vegetarian food in Israel and California is excellent, but unlike the world's second-most famous Jewish vegan, she finds New York vegetarian food disappointing.

Below is a transcript of our conversation during the Q&A portion of the event.

Continue reading...

The Passover/Exodus Narrative: a universal tale of freedomPassover is a time of asking questions, and I have a few. This year, though, the furor that surrounded Barack Obama’s pastor, Jeremiah Wright, and his sermons that dared to suggest that this Christian nation may actually be earning God’s wrath and damnation for some of its behavior, reminded me of an issue I’d first encountered in South Africa: The idea that the Passover/Exodus narrative of the Hebrews’ flight from Pharaoh and slavery doesn’t belong exclusively to any tribe, but is a universal tale of freedom into which suffering people everywhere are able to insert themselves. And also that even if your forebears were victims of injustice, you’re quite capable of being a perpetrator of injustice.

I think the Rev. Wright furor offered many white Americans an introduction they found shocking to the reality that the black Church in America has always connected viscerally to the liberation narrative of the Biblical people of Israel, making that narrative their own as a source of succor for their own struggles and trials. Martin Luther King, remember, spoke of going to the top of the mountain and seeing the promised land, knowing that he might not make it there. In other words, casting himself as Moses. And it’s an ongoing, vibrant tradition that gives the African American church its special vitality.

The ability of oppressed people to find themselves in the Exodus narrative of liberation is, of course, precisely the point of that narrative. The problem in Egypt wasn’t simply that it was the Jews who lived in slavery; the problem was was slavery itself. And the antidote to slavery advocated in the Torah (the five Books of Moses) — human community constituted on the basis of law and justice rather than political authority claimed on divine grounds — is a universal one; it applies, absolutely equally, to everyone, and everyone is invited, as Moses did, to challenge authorities that offer anything less.

The God of Abraham, proclaimed as the one true god, is obviously everyone’s god; he’s not a tribal fetish; he’s been invoked precisely to challenge the sort of tribal fetish deities that the Egyptians had used to rationalize their system of oppression. So, the Passover/Exodus narrative has powerful resonance to all people of the Abrahamic faiths (and possibly others) who may find themselves confronting oppression.

But those who feel threatened by others' demands for justice -- oppressors who cloak their own abuses of others in pieties of Christian soldierhood or the Star of David as the brand icon of an occupation -- get very uncomfortable when they realize that others see them as inheritors, not of the righteousness of the Biblical Hebrews' flight to freedom, but of Pharaoh's attempts to suppress the Israelites.

But throughout the Old Testament, the Jewish prophets are warning the Israelites to take nothing for granted. The mantle of righteousness cannot be inherited genetically (surely, the God of Abraham is not a racist who judges people by their DNA) or claimed simply through vigorous prayer and observance of ritual; it must be earned in one’s conduct in relation to others. Thus Hillel’s famous definition of Judaism while standing on one foot: “That which is hateful unto yourself, do not do unto others; all the rest is commentary.” In other words, it is only via the decency of your behavior in the world that you can be a good Jew.

Jews who commit injustices against others would be unequivocally condemned by the Jewish prophets, just as those who drop bombs on others or sentence them to death are plainly deluded when they claim to be guided by the inspirational example of Jesus. That, I think, is the essence of what Reverend Wright was saying in those passages that caused so much controversy — that God would damn, not bless, an America that committed injustices. To which I’d add, in line with Rami Khouri’s profound challenge to Israeli journalists at the height of the last Lebanon war, an injustice committed under a flag bearing the Star of David would be fiercely condemned by the Biblical Jewish prophets.

It was easy to see how little our Jewish genetic lineage did to make us really Jewish in the South Africa of my youth, where every Passover, we sat around seder tables singing, in a barely understood Hebrew, of the days when we were slaves, while the black women who lived in our backyards under a domestic labor system not that far removed from slavery, carried in steaming tureens of matzoh ball soup and tzimmes. We may have convinced ourselves that our DNA entitled us to claim this story as our own, but it was abundantly clear that in the South African context, most Jews had thrown in their lot with Pharoah, while the Israelites were working in their kitchens.

The mantle of justice associated with the Torah prophets, it seemed to me later, was nobody’s birthright; it had to be earned.

As a young activist heading out into the townships every weekend to meetings where communities were planning to resist eviction or burying those who had fallen in the fight against the regime, I was intrigued to hear the preachers and ordinary people couch their own struggles firmly in the narratives of the Exodus.

But around my own seder tables, the descendants of Pharoah’s slaves paid scant attention to the plight of those in their kitchens. They were discussing real estate and accounting scams — and, of course, how long it might be before “the schwartzes” (yiddish for “blacks”) would rise up and spoil the party.

If Hillel was right (and I believe he was) that Judaism is less about rituals and the minutiae of halachic law than it is about the ethical treatment of others, I can safely say that I learned very little of Judaism in the more than 200 hours of family Seders I sat through in South Africa. In keeping with thousands of years of tradition, we always kept a chair empty and a glass full in case the Prophet Elijah showed up. Looking back, I shudder to think what he would have made of the spectacle had he actually accepted the invitation.

I suspect he’d have dragged us over the coals in language not unlike that used by Reverend Wright. A friend once told me that his father, an Anglican priest, believed that whereas Christians had to work their way into heaven, Jews were basically on the guest list; our entry to Paradise was assured, by virtue of the fact that we’d been born Jewish. I thought that was a remarkably silly idea. Not only that; it’s remarkably dangerous, too, because it rationalizes moral laziness and injustice and violence committed in the name of a false righteousness. Unfortunately, I suspect, my friend’s father’s belief that as Jews, we are genetic entitlement to God’s favor, is all too widespread. Passover, and the universal tale of oppression and freedom it celebrates, is a good opportunity to burst that bubble.

[Cross-posted from Rootless Cosmopolitan]

Today we read about two strange phenomena in foreign travel – “slum tourism” andThe men of Munich: Would they make good tour guides? “counter-terrorism tourism.” Slum tourism, as it’s called in the Times, gives do-gooders and adventure-minded tourists the chance to visit impoverished neighborhoods in places like Brazil and India, offering them a more “real” perspective on life in other countries. "Counter-terrorism tours," however, as described by Slate, are aimed at police officers who come to Israel to see the country’s strategies for fighting terrorists firsthand.

While both of these travel trends raise ethical questions, they also evoke a reluctant sense of admiration at the business brains behind the tours, and their ability to capitalize on taboo subjects with a “when life gives you lemons” mentality. There’s something about the counter-terrorism tours that seems uniquely Israeli: Who else would see the business potential in even the grimmest circumstances? From a detached perspective, it’s difficult to deny the marketing genius behind these tours. As the article in Slate succinctly notes, “What can a country do when its tourist industry is eclipsed by terrorism? The answer, it seems, is to market terrorism to tourists.”

But the ethical questions still remain, shedding light on the issues at the core of both tours. They share the same basic premise: Outsiders viewing frightening situations in a brief and controlled way, then returning to their safe, comfortable lives. While slum tourism at least claims to offer some kind of improvement or humanitarian aid in exchange for its presence in the neighborhoods, counter-terrorism tours exploit a culture of violence without asking any of the obvious questions. How successful are Israel’s counter-terrorism efforts, really? What are the consequences of prolonged violence? What does this mean for people like the citizens of Sderot, for whom violence is an ever-present aspect of their lives? Ultimately, ignoring these questions trivializes the plights of those affected by terrorism and war, and turns their suffering into a commodity.

Ugh. It took me exactly two weeks of searching for JDaters of the Week before I had an ethical crisis. Who am I to rain down judgment upon the good people of JDate just because they call themselves things like "Portnoy4U" and adamantly refuse to proofread? If someone dug up my long-retired Nerve profile and mocked it on the Internet, I’d be pretty devastated. (And it’s SO mockable – I’m pretty sure I actually compared myself to Natalie Portman in Garden State. In public. In order to impress boys.)

The feedback I’ve gotten about the column didn’t help much. Readers like it, but my friends and family all seemed ambivalent at best. This weekend a rabbi I know told me he thought it was un-Jewish. “Like lashon hara?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “A lot worse.”

The truth is that the column doesn’t have to be cruel. As it happens, the whole time I was scouring the site last week, my mock JDate profile (you need one to check out the goods) was getting IM’d by a totally cute, totally interesting, totally un-douchey-seeming Manhattan boy. I kept ignoring him, caught up in my quest to find the most ridiculous profiles on the site, but maybe I should have just featured him. Maybe one of you would have sent him a message, and a lovely shidduch would have been made.

So this week, I’m taking a new approach, mitigating the negativity a bit with a three-pronged format. I’m picking one profile that’s good, one profile that, um, needs work, and one profile that represents the most fascinating tribe on JDate—the non-Jews.

The JDate matrix: Welcome to the desert of the realThe good: He’s a twin! He has five little sisters! He says his family life has giving him “Mideast-peace-summit -level negotiating skills and Barack Obama-esque motivational speaking” abilities! You will seriously never be able to have a fight with this guy—no matter how hard you try.

The bad: “Sometimes I feel that I am Neo” is a totally understandable sentiment. We all get a little Keanu sometimes. But it’s generally a good idea to save that kind of revelation for the second date.

The non-Jewish: He recently shattered his knee in a motorcycle crash and quotes Courtney Love on his profile. He says he majored in keg stands and freely admits that he looks like a serial killer in his photo. And I bet that every time a Jewish organization releases a study about the perils of intermarriage, his profile gets another thousand hits.

Previously:
The Guy Who Volunteered
Jerry Seinfeld Meets James Bond

Yesterday in the comments to my post about virginity and the fifteenth of Av someone calling themselves Soccer suggested that I “leave HAdar and go study at a yeshiva with Jewish values!”
When you Google Jewish Values: you get a lot of pictures of people looking triumphant
I don’t know anything about Soccer, and I don’t actually care. I wouldn’t have graced his/her hater comment with a link except that it amused me that Hadar was being called out for Jewish values. One might have a problem with Hadar halachically, but the truth is that Hadar does in fact consider itself obligated by halacha, it simply chooses to interpret halacha in a way somewhat different from how Rav Ovadia Yosef, for instance, might poskin. The core value is the same, though, right?
But Jewish law can’t be the only Jewish value, and I bet there are plenty of people who would argue that Jewish laws are completely irrelevant to Jewish values, so where do we go for more ethical direction?

Is it a Jewish value to be Zionist? What do Jewish values say about abortion? Ecology? Women’s rights? Slavery? War? Genocide?

If you were under the impression that any of those are questions answered simply, I think you’re way off base. As far as I know there are conflicting understandings and opinions regarding all of these issues, with people weighing in from around the world and throughout time. Luckily or unluckily the Torah doesn’t say anything that definitely requires you to recycle, or forbids a man from beating his wife. We take a few comments that may or may not seem relevant and extrapolate from them grand and impressive doctrines on, say, slavery and halacha, and how the Torah views slavery as repugnant and an insult to human dignity. But then we’re stuck with the fact that according to the Torah, it’s perfectly acceptable for a Jewish man to own slaves. Even Jewish slaves are allowed, though not encouraged. But today, if you wanted to go to Thailand and buy some girl to be your housemaid, I doubt your rabbi would be on board with the proposal. He’d likely say something about how it doesn’t jive with Jewish values and then lecture you on the mitzvah to rescue the captives.

Today, morality has been pretty much codified by humanistic terms, and most Jews, even Orthodox Jews, live according to a lot of rules and ethical guidelines that are never or rarely explicit in any Jewish texts. Technically, for instance, halacha allows a person to cheat a non-Jew out of money, but I don’t see many contemporary responsa urging Jews to pad their pockets with money they didn’t get fairly, and I can’t imagine any rabbi I know advising someone in business to go through with a shady deal just to make a mint at the expense of a Baptist coworker.

I guess my point here is the same as it was when I wrote about Jewish delis the other day. I wish people would be more specific when they used the word Jewish. It’s becoming something we just clip to whatever’s convenient, never considering whether it will be a good idea to call something with little or no connection to Judaism ‘Jewish.’

Peter Singer is routinely described as "the most influential living philosopher" and occasionally as "the most dangerous man in the world," so it's with much giddiness that we introduce him for a second time as a contributor to Jewcy. The background: Jewcy Senior Editor Joey Kurtzman recently paid enthusiastic tribute to his own $1000 contribution to the anti-poverty campaign Idol Gives Back, and railed against the expectation that charity should be given quietly and anonymously. Joey claimed this was "destructive nonsense" and "insufferable twaddl

Ethics: Why ask a rabbi, when you’ve got a readership of millions?This week, as I was trying to read the NYTimes Magazine (while my son ate the rest of the paper around me), I noticed that someone had written this letter to the Ethicist:

My wife’s sister and her husband keep kosher, so we have a special pot for their visits. Recently my wife caught me using the pot for my traif soup. She insists we must buy another pot, but I say as long as my in-laws believe it’s kosher, they won’t violate their faith by using it. Would I be unethical to keep this secret or simply cheap? — Paul Kramer, Montclair, N.J.

Now, from an ethical standpoint (according to Laurel) this is a no-brainer. What kind of person would knowingly trayf up a dish someone else needed to eat out of, and then be too cheap to replace it? I have no problem calling Paul Kramer a sleazy-cheapo.

But from a religious standpoint, I wasn’t sure what the answer would be. It’s an interesting question. I remember once I asked a rabbi about what happens when a Jew accidentally eats a bug in some kosher potato salad at a picnic (bugs aren’t kosher). And I was told that if—to the best of the frumster’s knowledge—the potato salad was kosher, said frumster is in the clear.

So it would stand to reason that this Paul Kramer fella, while a sleazy-cheapo, is actually protecting his in-laws from knowing transgression… sort of. Though he himself is a big fat liar of course.

The Ethicist’s response?

Religious laws, like secular ethics, often distinguish between knowing and unknowing transgressions. Menachem Genack, an Orthodox rabbi, confirms that this is so for Kashrut, Jewish dietary codes. Biblical law punishes deliberate violations more severely than inadvertent errors… This would ameliorate but not obviate your in-laws’ misdeed.

Which leaves us to ask about the difference between “ameliorate” and “obviate” I guess. But Paul Kramer, you’re still a sleazy-cheapo. And I bet your wife was PISSED when she saw this letter!

Who needs a plate of carcass?Some stuff I hope we can all agree on: Thoughtfully-prepared, fresh food is great! Cupcakes are delish! There’s a natural order to the earth! Some moral imperative exists as to how we use natural resources! And the happier all living creatures are in general, the nicer life is for everyone!

I hereby nominate Isa Chandra Moskowitz as our very own (punk/vegan/Jewish) Julia Child. (Or maybe I retroactively nominate Julia Child as the pre-evolved Isa Chandra Moskowitz.)

At any rate, Isa makes me proud to be a vegetarian Jew, and if you haven’t visited her over at the Post Punk Kitchen, you’re missing out on some seriously animal-, air-, land-, sea-, bio-ethical-, humanity-, Torah-, colon- friendly grub.

Peter SingerPeter Singer has made a career out of demanding that ordinary people take responsibility for the great power they wield. In a groundbreaking 1972 essay, Singer argued that when middle- and upper-middle-class people fail to donate their money to prevent children in the developing world from starving to death, they are guilty of a moral atrocity. Singer himself gives 20% of his Princeton professor salary to nonprofits, principally Oxfam. To lead an even minimally moral life, he argues, ...