• Urban Outfitters is in trouble with Jews again, this time for selling a t-shirt with a Palestinian boy on it holding an AK-47 over the word ‘victimized.’ The shirt also has a Palestinian flag on it, a map of the territories, and a dove. This Shirt: only slightly inflammatory, right?Designed by the Fresh Jive label and selling on the website for $25, the shirt was taken down quickly, and Stacey Strober, Urban Outfitter's Store Operations Manager, has said that it wasn’t intended to provoke controversy or intentionally offend.

• A new British census has found that the UK’s Jewish population is growing for the first time in ages. The UK is home to the world’s fifth largest Jewish population, but since 1950 the numbers have been shrinking fairly quickly. Since 2005, though, the numbers spiked, likely due to the big families in the growing ultra-Orthodox community.

• Also in the UK a boycott of Israeli universities and academics is gaining momentum, as University and College Union, with over 120,000 members voted to “consider the moral and political implications of education links with Israeli institutions” because of Israeli treatment of the Palestinians. Jewish institutions are in an uproar over the boycott (again), but the language of the motion is careful to state that criticism of Israel and Israeli policy are “not, as such, anti-Semitic.” Oh, well, in that case…
  

• In the central Israeli town of Or Yehuda Christian missionaries distributed hundreds of copies of the New Testament, which were promptly collected by local yeshiva students, and set fire in a lot close to the synagogue. It’s not clear if many students were present at the book burning—reports in Maariv said they were, and Deputy Mayor Uzi Aharon said they weren’t—but the community is having to do some back peddling now so as not to look like they think book burning is a good solution to religious disputes.

• In Germany, a Muslim man was sentenced to 3 ½ years in prison for stabbing an Orthodox rabbi in the stomach. The Muslim man, Sajed Aziz, had claimed self- defense, and said that the rabbi, Zalman Gurevitch, had grabbed him by the collar. Aziz then took out a 3 inch long knife used it on Gurevitch’s abdomen, and called the rabbi a “Jewish pig.” A German judge found that Aziz could not be guilty of manslaughter, because it’s not clear he intended to kill Gurevitch, but a conviction of serious bodily injury is enough to keep him locked up for a while.

• An Australian politician is in hot water after referring to her colleague as a “greedy fucking Jew” in emails that recently became public.

• Tensions are high in Crown Heights again as conflicts between the black and Jewish communities flare up. NYPD is making its presence more obvious in the area after a Jewish teenager was mugged and beaten up by a group of black teens, and black children threw rocks in the windows of a school bus carrying Hasidic toddlers. Meanwhile, a Jewish man is wanted for questions in regards to the assault of a black man who is the son of a police officer.

• In Nizhny Novgorod, Russia several teenagers were caught on tape desecrating a Jewish grave and a Holocaust monument, but have yet to be apprehended.

• A Jewish family has built a mosque for a small village in Cambodia. Alan Lightman, author of the best-selling novel Einstein’s Dreams, his wife Jean Greenblatt Lightman and their daughter Elyse have started a charity called the Harpswell Foundation to help children and young women in developing countries. The money from the mosque, though, came out of Lightman’s own pocket after the men of the town, Tramoung Chrum, requested it. The villagers follow Imam-San, a small Islamic sect that incorporates Buddhism, Hinduism and animism.

• In Bahrain, a Jewish woman has been named as the Ambassador to US. Bahrain and the US are close allies, but Bahrain, an Arab country, doesn’t have diplomatic relations with Israel. The woman, Houda Nonoo, is the head of Bahrain Human Rights watch, and is one of only about 50 Jews in all of Bahrain.

• The hoopoe has been chosen as Israel’s national bird after an election process that lasted for more than six months. The hoopoe is mentioned in the Torah and the Talmud, and is traditionally associated with King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Other national bird hopefuls were the night owl, red falcon, spur-winged plover, griffon vulture, finch, kingfisher, warbler, and the honey-sucker. (To see them all, check out Jewcy's gallery of contenders.)

• AgriProcessors is looking for a new CEO after being busted for hiring illegal immigrants, mistreating workers, sexual harassment, withholding overtime pay, and a slew of other bad deeds. The current CEO is Sholom Rubashkin, son of founder Aaron Rubashkin. Aaron announced last week that he was starting the search, “The company has begun the search for a new permanent chief executive officer. We have engaged a team of industry experts to help us identify and secure a new leader who can help us meet the needs of Agriprocessors today and in the future.” Meanwhile, former workers from the AgriProcessors plant speak out.

• Philanthropist Michael Steinhardt is throwing his clout behind an effort to get a publicly funded Hebrew-language charter school in New York. Steinhardt’s foundation intends to submit an application to the New York City Department of Education and the New York State Board of Regents to get the Hebrew Language Academy Charter School off the ground. A similar venture succeeded in Florida, where the Ben Gamla Hebrew Charter School opened in August.

The Naked Chef: not a fan of shechitaNaked Chef Jamie Oliver is working on some PETA style exposes that would condemn shechita, the kosher slaughtering process, and the Jewish community in Britain is freaking out. I've received this email from a number of friends at home and abroad in the past few days:

It has become apparent that Jamie Oliver and Channel Four are in the process of filming a new series about food production. This time, Jamie will be focussing on ritual animal slaughter.

Jamie Oliver's next series is set to be an examination of shechita, the method of ritual slaughter used by Jews and Muslims. Reports suggest that Oliver will condemn the practice as barbaric, and argue that animal rights must take precedence over religious sensibilities. It is thought that the programme will show animals being slaughtered under Jewish and Muslim auspices, with footage showing great pain and suffering, rather than it being a painless method, as its supporters have claimed.

Although all the details are not yet clear, it appears that Oliver will actually be undergoing full training to become a Shochet, or Kosher slaughterer. Channel Four then intend to show in graphic detail the slaughter of a cow involving Oliver cutting through the jugular vein. Obviously, the spilled blood will make the practice appear cruel and inhumane without taking into account the skill and precise work of a real Shochet.

If shown, the programme will be a shocking attack on religious freedom in Britain, and an example of gross anti-Semitism. Shechita is a humane method of slaughter, and, more importantly, the Jewish community has the right to continue to practice its ancient traditions. If the idea of banning shechita gains popular approval (and Oliver certainly has the capacity to do this, following his recent campaign on the welfare of battery hens) other Jewish practices such as circumcision are sure to soon be under threat. We have to mobilise now, to prevent this programme from being aired, and safeguard religious freedom in the UK.

Signing this petition will send a clear message to Channel Four – together we can stop this show and preserve our rights.
Sign the online petition

The tone of this email is a bit more hysterical than I think it needs to be. If shechita really looks awful, can’t we consider the possibility that it is awful? And though I would never condone anything that could have detrimental effects on the UK's Jewish community, it sounds like Oliver is going to do his best to portray things as accurately as he can. If it really isn’t inhumane, then the Jewish community needs to figure out a way to make that clear. And if shechita is being carried out in an inhumane fashion, then the community needs to put a stop to it.

Update: Turns out it was all a hoax on the part of those British pranksters Jewdas!

For the third week running the Shabbat lunch I attended ended up focusing on Noah Feldman’s Orthodox Paradox article from the Times magazine. Besides the fact that this is getting old, I’m pretty frustrated that no one really seems to be engaging with the issue at hand, i.e. that the Jewish community treats people who are intermarried like crap, no matter their interest in staying in the community.

Let’s just skip over the part where people actually get intermarried, okay? They’re going to do it, you’re going to be mad, blah blah blah, move on. I’m not saying it’s okay or good, I’m just saying, it’s going to happen. At that point, once those people have made the choice, ignoring, insulting or generally treating them poorly is a really bad idea. It merely propagates the assimilation problem. If we tell people that one choice is enough to excommunicate them, then can we blame them for not sending their kids to Hebrew school, having regular Shabbat dinners, or even joining a JCC?

Out Ya Go Little Christopher: no bar mitzvah for you!
I’m not a fan of intermarriage, but I don’t see it as the end of the world, perhaps because I know so many people who are the products of intermarriages, and who subsequently decided they were interested and invested in Judaism, and wanted to be involved in the community. Sadly, many of them faced conflict in their families because their parents didn’t want them going back to a community that had rejected the interfaith marriage. And can you blame the parents for being so angry? Would you want your kids embracing a community that had made it well known they wanted you to scram?

This is especially frustrating because I can’t leave the house these days without hearing someone else bemoaning the assimilation of the Jewish community, or whining about how young Jews aren’t affiliating and how can we reel them back in? I think the reason synagogues and federations aren’t seeing lots of young Jews who want to be involved is because children of interfaith couples feel out of place at lots of synagogues, and they’re more comfortable being irreverent and ironic. That sentiment is much better served by the places like Jewcy and Heeb, and I think it’s because we engage with everyone, not just the middle class families from solidly eastern European backgrounds.

I don’t know how to solve the intermarriage problem, and I would concede that it’s pretty problematic. But I just can’t sit around and say, “Well, intermarriage is a boundary our community has set, and we just can’t condone that kind of behavior so these people can’t be offended when we don’t include them.” You can’t tell people when they can’t be offended. It doesn’t work that way, and it never has. We can set boundaries all we want, but at some point we have to recognize that we’re pushing people away. And in these times of serious discussion about what the future of Judaism will look like, do we want to exclude thousands of couple who have shown by the nature of their decision to be together, that they’re willing to make compromises? I don’t, and I won’t.

A few years ago I went to England for a semester of study at Christ Church College, Oxford. I was incredibly excited for the trip until I realized I would be arriving around noon on the eve of Sukkot. I had a few hours to land, get to the flat where I was going to be living, and then find somewhere to eat for the three days of Shabbat and holiday that started at sundown.
The Jewish Chaplains in Oxford: they will hook you up
Luckily, I realized this would be a problem months before I left thanks to HebCal, a website that lets you look up the dates of Jewish holidays for any year from 1 CE to 9999. It will also give you candle lighting times for Shabbat and holidays, and you can format it to tell you what parsha it is, and what the Hebrew date is, too. Anyway, when I realized I was going to be in a time crunch, and I’d need a place to eat for my first few days I googled “Jewish Oxford” and was directed to the Jsoc (Jewish Society) of Oxford website, which gave me the names of some people in town. I e-mailed the Jewish chaplain, and he immediately responded, inviting me to eat every meal for three days at his family’s house. So just a few hours after clearing immigration I was sitting in a sukkah with a table full of other students and guests. By the end of the first chag I had a whole slew of British friends, and within a month I was kissing a British boy, gabbing to a British best friend, and had no interaction with any Americans outside of my flat. It was, as they say in England, brilliant.

I’ve had similar experiences in Ireland, Vienna, Nashville, and Iowa City. Basically, I’ve found that if you make the effort to seek out other Jews before you even make the trip you can set yourself up with a full package of friends and helpers before you even arrive. Instead of waiting to magically meet people who you want to be friends with, let some rabbi do the leg work. Even if you don’t end up being lifelong buddies with the people from your new community, they’re helpful resources for everything from where to buy the best produce, to how to pay your electricity bill. Case in point: when I was hit by a car in Oxford, it was the Jewish chaplain and his wife who took care of me and checked up on me when I was recovering. Without them I would have been at the mercy of my American roommates.

Frankly, if it ends up being a point of spiritual growth that’s an ancillary benefit to me. Jews are my network, and even when they piss me off, or make me cry, or generally frustrate me, it’s great to always have someone who will make me chicken soup when I’m sick, and can give me the name of a reliable mechanic when I get into a fender bender. And you never know—you might make a lifelong friend. I spent yesterday with a handsome Englishman named Jeremy, who I met at the table of the Jewish chaplain in Oxford during that first weekend in town several years back.

Loyal and talented Jewcy contributor and Faithhacker scribe Laurel Snyder posts in “The ‘New’ Jewish Antisemitism” an endorsement of the progressive rabbi of the Jewish community, Michael Lerner, and his crusade to highlight the “silencing of debate about Israeli policy” exposed in a recent publicity blitz that includes prime time television spots and well-placed newspaper editorials. Some silence.

Laurel’s endorsement – and those like it – only helps to further marginalize the Jewish religious left by perpetuating Lerner’s lousy leadership. Progressive politics in the Jewish community deserves a new representative.

The justifiably-loathed Smarm King has made a cottage industry out of co-opting the fable of censorship in defense of his politics. Carrying with him the lessons learned during his 60’s anti-war days, Lerner understands that one of the best ways to engender support for a cause – or, say, transform pious, well-meaning peaceniks into unquestioning apparatchiks – is to evoke a Big Brother-like opposition sinisterly suppressing the truth. That such a thing doesn’t exist isn’t important; what matters is that it remains an effective tool of persuasion.

The fact is debate about Israel is not being silenced on college campuses or anywhere else. On the contrary, there is no country more openly criticized, supported, or argued about than Israel.

What campus could Laurel or Lerner be referring to that suppresses debate because of their Zionist agenda? I suspect the healthy handful of institutions that stir up campaigns for Israeli divestment on a near-annual basis are not among them. Nor could they possibly be referring to the field of Middle East Studies such as it is, peopled by tenured leftists and pervaded by an attitude that one would be hard-pressed to describe as pro-Israel (see Martin Kramer’s Ivory Towers on Sand: The Failure of Middle East Studies in America).

And really, how is any debate of any kind silenced these days? It’s not possible -- especially with the young demographic in question, who are expertly skilled in exploiting all the new forms of participatory media to vent and dialogue and find information of any and all persuasions.

Frankly, I’m amazed Lerner still has any credibility at all after being busted some years back for pseudonymously penning a few self-congratulatory letters to his own barely-read magazine, Tikkun. His letters included exquisitely swaying rhetoric, such as: "Your editorial stand said publicly what many of us are feeling privately but dare not say."

Always the fearless prophet willing to speak the forbidden to the shadowy, censorious force of hawkish barbarians, so what if Lerner fibs a little here and there. So what if the Rabbi tends to make things up when it comes to popularizing and pushing his own agenda. The level to which Lerner will stoop isn’t as surprising as the failure of his imagination to create new and original fabrications over the years. The man sticks with what works.

I will say, Laurel, that while the debate about Israeli policy is certainly not being silenced, it is marked by a uniquely dysfunctional quality that says more about the strange relationship between American Jews and Israel than it does about Israel’s political behavior.

After all, what could be more strange than the fact that when you muddle through all the rhetoric and hype, the majority of American Jews and Israelis are in general agreement; we agree we want Israel to survive; we agree any eventual reconciliation between the two peoples necessitates a Palestinian state and even what the general parameters of what that state will look like; we agree that Israel’s action are, at times, unnecessarily forceful and have too often violated human rights. So many of us agree on so much that the extreme polarization of the debate seems strange.

I tend to agree with Jeffrey Goldberg who says that American Jews view Israel as “a place of myth and hope and fantasy and crushing disappointment and embarrassment and pride, but it's not a real country populated by real people…” For that reason, Israel lends itself to serving as proxy for all the other real disagreements – religious, cultural, and otherwise – that the American Jewish community is confronting right now.

That’s a whole lot of layers of obfuscation and the one thing we need more of right now is brutal and unblinking candor. We don’t need more tribal sentinels reflexively branding the mark of “self-hater” on every perceived dissenter and we don’t need indignant leftists masquerading as kumbaya-singing spiritual leaders who view their criticism of Israel as radical.

In his book, The Left Hand of God, Lerner rightly complains that the “Left's hostility to religion is one of the main reasons people who otherwise might be involved with progressive politics get turned off."

No, Mr. Lerner, it’s your hostility to truth that keeps me away. It's time to stop endorsing the Rabbi; it only encourages him to keep making things up.