Unless you are a fan of Tex-Mex, truck with balls, scorching heat, and museums commemorating George W. Bush, there are very few reasons to spend the summer in southeast Texas. But I happen to be here visiting someone, and so I’ve taken the opportunity to sit in on his Texas A&M University class on contemporary world literature, where the focus is literature and terrorism.

For today, we read Yasmina Khadra’s The Attack (2007). Khadra (his real name is Mohammed Moulessehoul) is a former Algerian army officer turned novelist, and this novel, despite its unsophisticated writing style, does a pretty good job of getting college students to think and talk about terrorism in an unfiltered way. The only problem is that the book is so severely biased against Israelis and Jews that one wonders how unfiltered the discussion can truly be.

The storyline goes something like this: Arab-Israeli surgeon is called to the hospital where he learns his wife has been killed in a restaurant bombing. He later finds out that his wife was in fact the suicide bomber. The rest of the book, with all of its undeveloped plot threads, is about his attempts to uncover her secret life and come to grips with what he sees as her betrayal of him. The important thing to note is that it’s not that he needs to come to grips with what his wife has done to innocent men, women, and children in a crowded restaurant, but with what he sees as her personal betrayal of him.How to Spot a Jew: Is this the lesson Khadra wants to teach?

A bit self-absorbed, no?

It’s not that the novel doesn’t tell a good story or address timely issues. It definitely kept me reading, but perhaps that was also because of the all but latent anti-Semitism that kept jumping out at me. Like many people, I tend to like to stare at things that repulse me. Although I run the risk of sounding like an anti-Semitic ambulance chaser, it is difficult not to read between the lines when nearly every time Khadra’s narrator introduces a new Jewish character, he refers to his “unattractive nostrils” or depicts him looking down his “nose” at the narrator. Or, in the absence of the description of a character’s unflattering nose, he depicts them as fat, selfish, and always gobbling things up.

Those nasty Jews—always gobbling things up and looking down their unattractive noses at everyone else. I’m not quite sure how the reviewers who suggested this book depicts both sides of the Arab/Israeli conflict missed this aspect of the book. But I’m sure it’s not the author’s main point.

The main point, actually, seems to be one long, whining “what about me?” Once you sift through the rambling prose, the narrator seems to say little more than: “Why didn’t my wife think about the trouble her suicide bombing would cause me? Why do Israeli Jews stop me at checkpoints because of the way I look? Why do the Jews keep talking about their problems when it’s really the Arabs who’ve suffered?”

The narrator visits an old Israeli Jew who goes on and on and on about surviving the Holocaust, only to say, finally, “I talk too much . . . I’ll never understand why the survivors of a tragedy feel compelled to make people believe they’re more to be pitied than the ones who didn’t make it.”

Take that, you blabbering large-nosed Jewish survivor. It’s MY turn to suffer, the narrator seems to say. Everybody wants to talk about their suffering.

The point the author makes seems to be the question of why Jews are still talking about the Holocaust when Palestinians are being subjected to the same kind of evils in Israel. But the problem isn’t that the author draws attention (justifiably) to Palestinian pain. The problem is in the comparison.

Suffering is suffering. It does no good to compare one group of people’s suffering to another, or to minimize one in favor of another. I cannot blame the Palestinian boy who sees his family home bulldozed by Israeli soldiers and vows to take revenge any less than I blame the Holocaust survivor for finding it impossible to stop talking about his experience.The Prosthetic Pregnancy: A must-have for all female suicide bombers.

They have both earned the right to hate. And we are all responsible for acknowledging both perspectives. But even the right to such hate does not justify a lashing out that takes innocent lives, though this novel seems to suggest otherwise in its villainization of Israeli Jews.

The narrator says, “All too aware of the stereotypes that mark me out in the public square, I strive to overcome them, one by one, by doing the best I can do and putting up with the incivilities of my Jewish comrades.” Words of wisdom from the narrator who can’t stop himself from seeing Jews only through negative stereotypes. (Then again, note above my own heinous Texas stereotyping.)

But the person teaching the literature class tells me that while the narrator is indeed despicable when it comes to Jewish stereotyping, we are also supposed to see in him a critique of male Arab culture. The narrator’s preoccupation with his male ego and his anger over his wife’s betrayal of him on a personal level may reveal (from the author’s point of view) some of the problems of Arab male-female relationships. Indeed, at one point he goes nuts thinking that his wife may have cheated on him with another man, and suggests that such an act is worse than the suicide bombing.

The narrator, my friend suggests, cannot escape from the stereotypical Arab masculinity that forces him to see Jews with big noses and gluttonous appetites, and to see women as his private property. But sometimes he has a breakthrough: “Every Jew in Palestine is a bit of an Arab, and no Arab in Israel can deny that he’s a little Jewish.”

It’s unclear what we’re supposed to think in regard to this character. I find him to be pathetic, self-absorbed, and downright despicable. But students in the class tended to be more sympathetic toward him. And I guess that is the danger of this novel—if the author meant to critique Arab culture’s own biases, it’s not altogether clear. My fear is that this novel does more to reinforce negative stereotypes than critique them.

According to NPR, one Christian woman went looking for a way to add a little spark to her waning marriage “without compromising her Christian beliefs.” The result was the creation of this website, which sells all sorts of sex toys and other “intimate” products, but only for married couples.

And, apparently, the people who run this site are doing it out of the goodness of their hearts, and not because they actually need to use any of these products: " Wilson says she and her husband are blessed with good health, but that God has shown them that other couples might need help from a particular toy." I give to you all things holy: including the Jelly Rabbit.

That is very good to know. So how do they know which products to include?

"We pray about things before we add them to our site," she says. "We live our lives very openly in front of Jesus, so we just kind of pray for direction about which way he would have us go, and I have to be honest with you — he's really surprised us. ... Almost our whole entire 'special order' page has come about from that."

Of course I clicked on the “special order” page. Wouldn’t you be curious about which products Jesus “surprised” the couple with? She says their site steers clear of certain types of sexual activity that they believe are unholy. Hmmm . . .

I’m not married, and so technically I shouldn’t be browsing this site that exists for “married couples” only. But it was difficult not to be curious about what constitutes “sin-free” sex toys as opposed to . . . well, that’s just it—as opposed to what? Sinful sex toys?

What I discovered, however, is that apparently any sex toy can be “sin-free” as long as it’s used by a married couple. It’s unclear whether the pleasure device retains its “sin-free” status if enjoyed by a married individual by him or herself. But since we all know that masturbation leads to blindness, one imagines that it’s best not even to experiment with this idea.

I'm not slamming the site. So many religions—or at least the more orthodox manifestations of various religions—define themselves more or less on what they do not do, as opposed to what they do, in fact, do. In other words, it’s not uncommon to hear a religious mother say, to a child who has questioned an unquestionable tenet of the said faith, something along the lines of, “We’re Christians. We don’t engage in premarital sex,” or, “We’re Jews. We don’t eat pork, and we don’t drive over Shabbas.”

If only we defined ourselves according to our actions, rather than our inactions: “We’re Christians/Jews/Muslims. That means we love our neighbors.”

But, back to this scandalous Christian sex toy site. Maybe, I mean to say, this site is a positive thing. Maybe it’s positive because it’s as if they’re saying, “We’re Christians. We have good sex,” instead of, “We’re Christians. We don’t have certain kinds of sex and you shouldn’t either.”

What I can’t quite figure out is this: Are they using Jesus to sell sex? Or, are they using sex to sell Jesus? Is this a really creative attempt to proselytize? Either way, I’m sure it’s a win-win situation—as long as you’re married, that is.

According to an article over at the Forward, Ms Magazine has refused to run an advertisement (pictured below) that features images of Israel’s top female political leaders, and the American Jewish Congress is pissed off about this.This is Israel: And it makes Ms. Magazine uncomfortable.

The ad was submitted by the American Jewish Congress to Ms. Magazine, and spotlighted photographs of Dorit Beinisch, president of Israel’s Supreme Court; Tzipi Livni, Israel’s foreign minister, and Dalia Itzik, speaker of the Knesset, over the text, “This is Israel.”

According to the AJCongress, Ms. initially approved the ad but then reversed course, saying that the ad would “set off a firestorm.”

Says AJCongress President Richard Gordon:

“Since there is nothing about the ad itself that is offensive, it is obviously the nationality of the women pictured that the management of Ms. fears their readership would find objectionable. For a publication that holds itself out to be in the forefront of the women’s movement, this is nothing short of disgusting and despicable.”

But according to Ms. Magazine’s executive editor, Kathy Spillar, it's not "the women’s nationality but their party affiliation that was the problem. Two of the featured officials, Itzik and Livni, are both members of the Kadima political party," and thus, Spillar said, "the ad would leave Ms. Magazine open to the charge of political favoritism."

The AJCongress created the ad to highlight the fact that women now occupy leading positions in Israel’s executive, legislative and political branches. In response, a Ms. representative said that “we would love to have an ad from you on women’s empowerment, or reproductive freedom, but not on this,” according to the AJCongress.

But, for me, this is the kicker:

“Not only could the ad be seen as favoring certain political parties within Israel over other parties, but also with its slogan, ‘This is Israel,’ the ad implied that women in Israel hold equal positions of power with men,” she said. “Israel, like every other country, has far to go to reach equality for women.”

Oh, no, god forbid that a feminist magazine recognize the fact that women in Israel have more opportunities than women in surrounding countries. That wouldn't be fair to Saudi Arabia.

Now, I don't think anyone is going to argue that the equality gap between men and women has completely closed in any nation. But it's hard to deny that there are some countries that have done a much better job of narrowing this gap than others. In particular, I can think of many countries in the same region as Israel (i.e., again, Saudi Arabia, where women can't even drive cars) that have done virtually nothing to rectify this situation. In my opinion, the position of women in Israel is one of the best in the world (comparatively), and the fact that women can hold positions of political influence in Israel should be celebrated by a feminist magazine, especially when considered in contrast to other countries in the Middle and Near East.

I don't know that I agree with the political ideologies of all three of these Israeli women, but I do appreciate the fact that they have been given the opportunity, as women, to hold these positions of power, and I think that is something worth celebrating (or, at least, acknowledging). But the only thing worth acknowledging here is the ease with which Ms. Magazine is able to flaunt its own political and ideological biases at the expense of their own cause.

This semester I taught a college-level Bible as Literature class, and it has been quite the ride, to say the least. Out of 30 students, I would say that at least 25 of them come from conservative Christian backgrounds, which means they view me—and all of my claims about midrash and an evolving biblical text—with more than an inkling of suspicion, despite my own unapparent but sordid, long-lost background in the world of Evangelicals.

On the first day of class, four or five students approached me, and one said, “So, we really need to know: are you Jewish, or are you Christian? We need to know so that we can decide whether we are going to stay in this class.”

And now, my suspicions kicked in. They had been talking about me, and had somehow elected a leader, their own little makeshift Moses, to rise up from among them and ask the loaded question. I was the Egyptian, about to be struck down and buried in the sand. I was sweating on the inside, unperturbed on the outside. In my imagination: this could have been me.

The implied question seemed to be, “Are you going to regurgitate all of the ideas about the bible that have been communicated to me since birth by my conservative Christian community? If not, I’m out of here.”

It’s a literature class, not a theology class, which means that how, or rather if, I define myself is none of their business. But I felt compelled to answer.

My initial inclination was to say “Jewish,” but then I thought, why make it so easy? “I’m both,” I responded, “and neither. If that sounds interesting to you, then you’ll want to stay in this class. If not, I believe there’s a Catholic teaching one of the other sections, and there’s also a Reform Jew teaching a section. Plenty of diversity. The choice is up to you.”

Moses seemed satisfied: “Okay.”

I knew I would never see them again. But I was wrong. I was also impressed—they all came back, and they, along with all of the other students, have been amazing, despite their initial difficulty with reading the bible as literature, and not as theology.

Of course, it has taken some longer than others to shed the tell-tale signs of religious indoctrination. Last week, one young woman, a great student, asked me earnestly if the confusing reference to both God and God’s messenger in the story of Moses’s encounter with the burning bush was a reference to “the trinity.”

In a way, I didn’t mind, because it revealed that she was reading closely and interpreting the text from her own perspective and position. And it was a question—an attempt to understand—rather than an authoritative statement. She was searching for a way to make it mean something to her, and I think I can respect that. I wonder if we might even call it midrash.

A midrashic impulse is what keeps Torah alive. I myself have a slightly unnatural obsession with midrash and anything that feels midrashic, and so I’m happy when I see my students starting to think along these lines. I derive curious pleasure from listening to them during class discussions, as they “turn it and turn it,” much like the rabbinic admonition.

Do they know they are being Talmudic?

But I got a little surprise last week, when Brandon Kleiber, one of my students, turned in his weekly response essay. It wasn’t exactly an essay. In fact, he completely disregarded my instructions, and decided instead to re-tell the story of Abraham’s binding of Isaac. It made me laugh so hard that I had to share it (with his permission), and give him an A. I only wish I had discovered this little gem in time to post it during the Days of Awe . . .

Enjoy. (And, note how he has even incorporated the Hebrew emphatic—“drink, yes, drink”—into his “midrash.”)

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I always knew there were two Norman Finkelsteins.

But I was not quite positive about which was which until last week, when this Norman Finkelstein came to Purdue University to give a talk and to read some of his poetry. Yes, I said poetry. This Norman Finkelstein is a poet--and a good one, at that.Norman Finkelstein: ProvocateurNorman Finkelstein: Poet

After the lecture, I was fortunate enough to join the poet Finkelstein and another professor for coffee and a lively discussion. Somehow, I also managed to score a free copy of Finkelstein's newest book of poetry, Passing Over, which is a gem.

Below are a couple of exquisite excerpts from two of the poems.

From "inscription of the body on the text":

Something I know of bodies and something of texts, / how lines are inscribed and how they curve, / how they mingle freely and how they are forbidden, / how they articulate their wonted and unwonted fires.

And, from "Elegy":

Let the Angel of Death stay in his dressing room / forever redoing his makeup, / and let our hopes flourish falsely into flowers / for our lovers, who will laugh and throw them away.

Let the old world remake itself / into a sequence of lights. / There will be crowns in the sky and we will look up amused, / for we were told that the past / could be cleansed of all its imperfections. / Yes, we will laugh and turn the switch; / the lights will be extinguished and we will embrace in the dark, / thinking, before we give up on thinking, this is how it was meant to be.

The other Norman Finkelstein, the political theorist of the recent DePaul tenure scandal (and the subject of recent Jewcy discussions), does not write poetry. Both Finkelsteins, however, do publish books and articles on Jewish-American culture--though one is more politically-inclined, while the other relegates his critiques to the world of the literary, metaphorical, and poetic.

It is funny, though, no?

I wonder if, somewhere, there is also another Alan Dershowitz.

I have always been a fan of Hannah Arendt.

I have not always, however, been a fan of the "banality of evil" argument. I get it--we are all capable of evil. I agree with that. But when applied to the "logic" of the Holocaust, I think the argument becomes problematic and potentially even transgressive. By saying that anyone could have been capable of the atrocities committed by Nazis and their sympathizers during World War II, we also, whether we intend it or not, minimize the extent to which each individual is responsible for his or her own behavior. We cut the perpetrators a bit of slack by implicitly suggesting that they only did what anyone else would've been equally capable of.

My point: okay, yeah, maybe it could've been anybody, but it wasn't. Each person who contributed in any way to the destruction of Jews and others during the Holocaust is individually responsible. The "it could have been anybody" argument is dangerous because it lessens the degree to which we are all responsible for our actions. And this goes for any genocide or act of violence--not just the Holocaust.Just Another Beautiful Day: In Auschwitz.

But then . . . there are times when I want to re-think this position.

Today there's a piece in the NYT about a letter received by a young archivist at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. The letter, written by a former US Army Intelligence officer, contained photographs of Auschwitz he had found 60 years ago in Germany.

It's not uncommon for someone to send old photos from the Holocaust to the museum, but these particular pictures depict something that is not often seen.

. . . a scrapbook of sorts of the lives of Auschwitz's senior SS officers that was maintained by Karl Hocker, the adjutant to the camp commandant. Rather than showing the men performing their death camp duties, the photos depicted, among other things, a horde of SS men singing cheerily to the accompaniment of an accordianist, Hocker lighting the camp's Christmas tree, a cadre of young SS women frolicking and officers relaxing, some with tunics shed, for a smoking break. . . . The album also contains photos of Josef Mengele, the camp doctor notorious for participating in the selections of arriving prisoners and cruel medical experiments. These are the first authenticated pictures of Mengele at Auschwitz . . .

Museum curators have avoided describing the album as something like "monsters at play" or "killers at their leisure." Ms. Cohen said the photos were instructive in that they showed the murderers were, in some sense, people who also behaved as ordinary human beings. "In their self-image, they were good men, good comrades, even civilized," she said.

I still don't like the "banality of evil" argument, but needless to say, these kinds of pictures give it a lot more credibility.

I highly suggest watching the slideshow here (turn your speakers on for the audio) -- it's only around two minutes long.

I recently returned “home” to Indiana from spending the summer at Cornell’s School of Criticism and Theory. Basically, SCT is like the ultimate nerd camp, where young intellectuals (mostly professors and advanced PhD students) attend seminars and lectures—on literary theory, philosophy, political theory, postcolonialism, and everything in between—all day, everyday, and with a smile. Fortunately, evenings were devoted to reclaiming our cool-ness by going out to all the Ithaca, NY hotspots and drowning our livers in whatever libations the all-too-eager-to-close-at-1am bartenders would pour us (seriously, last call was at 12:30!).My Liver: Is floating somewhere at the bottom of this martini I consumed in Ithaca.

But what does any of this have to do with Jews? Nothing. And, everything, it seems.

In addition to the public lectures and colloquia that all participants (approx. 60) attended, we were each enrolled in one of four seminars that we attended twice a week. I chose a seminar led by Eric Cheyfitz called “What is a Just Society?” On the last day of the seminar, we were asked to fill out evaluation forms. One participant in my seminar, a lusty Latina, was openly angry, groaning and mumbling as she filled out her form. Later, as a few of us sat outside, I overheard her complaining that there was no diversity at SCT—that all of the seminar leaders and public speakers were white, that there was no minority representation. The few people around her seemed to agree.

Leave it to me to infiltrate myself into a conversation where I am not wanted. “Uh, what about Gayatri Spivak?” I said. Spivak, a heavy-hitter in the world of literary theory, and a South Asian woman, had given a public lecture that was rather bizarre, and in which she relayed too much information about her physical ailments before demanding—ahem, requesting—that the air conditioner be turned off. We were all sweating in sync by the end of her talk. A regular diva, that one. I hope to emulate her one day."Token Minority"?: Or great sage of the hour? Gayatri Spivak sits surrounded by students. I am off, in the distance, as far away as possible, my back to the camera, wearing an ugly multi-colored shirt.

In response, one participant did one of those half-laugh, half-snort things, and said, “Spivak was the token minority.” I was confused. And I was confused because I had counted at least two or three speakers who were Jewish. And Jewish is a minority, right? White Anglo-Saxon Protestants are not minorities. But Jews are minorities. Right?

Apparently not.

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A friend just emailed me the following excerpt from a New York Times piece called "Behind the Masks" by Thomas L. Friedman:

Why were both the Hamas and Fatah fighters wearing ski masks? (And where do you buy a ski mask in Gaza?) These masks are worn by fighters who wish to shield themselves from the gaze of their parents, friends and neighbors, for there was surely an element of shame that Palestinian brothers were killing brothers, throwing each other off rooftops and dragging each other from hospital beds. The mask both protects you against shame and liberates you to kill your brothers - and their children. In our society, it's usually only burglars, rapists or Ku Klux Klansmen who wear masks. The mask literally says: "I don't play by the rules."

Appropriately, Emmanuel Levinas happens to say that the face, literally, says "Thou shalt not kill." For Levinas, face and discourse are tied. "The face speaks," he says. The covering of the face, then, shuts down the possibility for discourse and dialogue. This Masked Man Says: I don't play by the rules. But Catherine Zeta Jones doesn't seem to mind.

How fitting that Hamas would wear masks.

The face is also what calls us into ethical responsibility, and so it follows that any move to cover the face, particularly in the context of an act of violence, is a shirking of the infinite responsibility to which we are called.

I recently did a presentation (at the North American Levinas Society conference) on one of Krzysztof Kieslowski's films--A Short Film About Killing. In the film's murder scene, in which a transient youth randomly kills a taxi cab driver, the killer stops in mid-murder to cover the face of his victim with a shirt so that he does not have to answer its gaze. It's the most intense moment of the film--even more intense than the actual murder, which takes twelve minutes, the longest in cinematic history.

But Hamas and random murders are extreme examples of the significance of the face. On a more basic, day-to-day level, I think about the way our behavior differs when we can see someone's face, as opposed to when we cannot. To Kill, or Not to Kill?: The Face answers the question.

On the road, for instance, it is easy to be impolite to other drivers--to cut them off, curse at them, make obscene hand gestures, refuse to let someone into your lane -- simply because all we're looking at is a vehicle as opposed to the person driving the vehicle: a person with a face.

On the other hand, when pushing a shopping cart in a grocery store, even the rudest and most aggressive drivers tend to be much more polite. It's rare, for example, to see shoppers cutting each other off with their carts and waving their middle fingers.

The reason for this is obvious: when you have to look someone in the face you are confronted with your own responsibility to behave decently and to recognize your own humanity in the face of another human being.

And then there are metaphorical masks . . . such as anonymous commenters who keep their identity veiled precisely so they can launch verbal assaults for which they don't have to take responsibility. I've heard of such things.

But aside from all of the philosophical musings about masks, faces, and concealed identities, aren't masks just creepy? I much prefer the days when villians stretched women's pantyhose over their faces to distort their features -- now that's classy.

In an essay in this summer's Dissent (published online in advance of the print version), superstar American philosopher Martha Nussbaum speaks out against Britain's 120,000-strong University and College Union vote yesterday to endorse a motion to boycott Israeli universities. Though local branches will decide whether to support the endorsement, British academics are also called on to condemn the "complicity of Israeli academics in the occupation."

Nussbaum, wisely, doesn't get into the specific details regarding boycotts of Israeli individuals and institutions:

There are three reasons for this silence. First, I believe that philosophers should be pursuing philosophical principles—defensible general principles that can be applied to a wide range of cases. We cannot easily tell whether our principles are good ones by looking at a single case only, without inquiring as to whether the principles we propose could be applied to all similar cases.

Made "uneasy" by the single-minded emphasis on Israel, she also points out the irony of the situation --Americans really should not talk about boycotts of countries across the globe without considering our own policies and actions that "are not above moral scrutiny."

Nussbaum rightly identifies that there is a gross double standard when it comes to the world's critiques of Israel and all things Israeli. But what strikes me as especially disturbing is that few people seem to be pointing out the startling imbalances in the arguments of some of the countries (or their institutions) that are most vehemently opposed to Israel. The Naked Truth: Picture a Double Standard

Come on, people -- yesterday the emperor may have been only scantily clad, but today he is naked and about to run his ass through your living room. Thank G-d we have Nussbaum to call it like it is.

Nor should we fail to investigate relevantly comparable cases concerning other nations. For example, one might consider possible responses to the genocide of Muslim civilians in the Indian state of Gujarat in the year 2002, a pogrom organized by the state government, carried out by its agents, and given aid and comfort by the national government of that time (no longer in power). I am disturbed by the world’s failure to consider such relevantly similar cases. I have heard not a whisper about boycotting Indian academic institutions and individuals, and I have also, more surprisingly, heard nothing about the case in favor of an international boycott of U.S. academic institutions and individuals. I am not sure that there is anything to be said in favor of a boycott of Israeli scholars and institutions that could not be said, and possibly with stronger justification, for similar actions toward the United States and especially India and/or the state of Gujarat.

The breakdown of impartiality in the case of the boycott of Israeli institutions is as clear as day.Let Me Break it Down for You, Says Nussbaum: Six Alternatives to Boycotting

By failing to consider all the possible applications of our principles, if we applied them impartially, we are failing to deliberate well about the choice of principles. For a world in which there was a boycott of all U.S., Indian, and Israeli scholars, and no doubt many others as well, let us say those of China, South Korea, Saudi Arabia (on grounds of sexism), and Pakistan (on the same grounds, though there has been a bit of progress lately) would be quite different from the world in which only scholars from one small nation were being boycotted, and this difference seems relevant to the choice of principles.

What's great about Nussbaum's piece is that she doesn't simply rail on and on about the problems with the boycott without offering a solution. In fact, she offers six alternatives to the boycott:

1. Censure

Censure is the public condemnation of an institution, usually by another institution. Thus, for example, a professional association might censure an academic institution that violates the rights of scholars. Censure takes various forms, but the usual form is some sort of widely disseminated public statement that the institution in question has engaged in such and such wrongful action. Professional associations have also censured governments, or government policies, such as the Iraq War.

2. Organized Public Condemnation

Sometimes organized movements carry on campaigns to alert the public to the wrongful actions of an institution. Most of the international consumer protest movement against the apparel industry has taken this form. Thus, movement members will try to circulate documents to customers of the retail outlets where objects made by child labor are being sold and will try to make customers aware of the behavior of the corporation in question. The customers themselves can then choose whether to buy from the retail chain or not. This sort of public condemnation is very different from a boycott of the retail outlets, because it allows the individual consumer to choose and does not directly threaten the livelihood of workers.

3. Organized Public Condemnation of an Individual or IndividualsMartin Heidegger: Would be publicly condemned by Nussbaum.

When it is believed that certain individuals bear particular culpability for the wrongs in question, then it is possible to work for the condemnation of those individuals. Thus, if Martin Heidegger had been invited to the University of Chicago, I would have been one of the ones conducting a public protest of his appearance and trying to inform other people about his record of collaboration with the Nazi regime. Again, in the approach I am considering, there would have been no attempt to prevent people from going to hear Heidegger: the emphasis would have been on informing, persuading, and promoting personal choice.

4. Failure to Reward

Some modes of interaction are part of the give and take of daily scholarly business; others imply approval of an institution or individual. Without going so far as to censure the institution or individual, people might decide (whether singly or in some organized way) that this individual does not deserve special honors. The debate resulting in Margaret Thatcher’s being denied an honorary degree from Oxford University fits in this category. By conferring an honorary degree, a university makes a strong statement about its own values. Harshness to the poor and the ruin of the national medical system, not to mention then-Prime Minister Thatcher’s assault on basic scientific research, were values that the Oxford faculty believed that it could not endorse.

5. Helping the Harmed

Usually, when wrong has been done, some people have suffered, and one response would be to focus on helping those who have been harmed. Thus, many scholars concerned about the Gujarat genocide put aside their other engagements and went to help the victims find shelter, take down their eyewitness testimony, help them file complaints, and so on. Others occupied themselves in defending scholars who had been threatened with violence by the Hindu right, publicizing their situation and protesting it.

I wonder if number 5 should have been the first line of defense in this boycott alternative lineup.

6. Being Vigilant on Behalf of the Truth

Often, people who commit wrongs shade the truth in their public statements, and one thing that it is extremely important for scholars to do is to combat falsehoods and incomplete truths. Here again, the case of the Hindu right is instructive. It has its own cherished but quite false view of ancient and medieval history, according to which Hindus are always peaceful and Muslims are always villains. When they put this version of history into textbooks for public schools in India, there was a tremendous outpouring of scholarship showing exactly what was and is wrong with it. After the election of 2004, those textbooks were withdrawn, and the field of combat shifted to the United States, where the Hindu diaspora community is very involved with the Hindu right.

Nussbaum goes on to discuss boycotts, those "blunt instruments," at length. She concludes:

As for the academic boycott, it is a poor choice of strategies, and some of the justifications offered for it are downright alarming. Economic boycotts are occasionally valuable. Symbolic boycotts, I believe, are rarely valuable by comparison with the alternatives I have mentioned, and the boycott in this case seems to me very weakly grounded.

She's right, of course (in my mind), and this kind of protest against boycotts in general might be the most effective way to go about rectifying the situation. But . . . I still can't help but think that the root of the problem -- many countries' deep-seated hatred of Israel -- is not going to go away any time soon . . .

In his review of Michael Chabon's new novel The Yiddish Policemen's Union and Nathan Englander's The Ministry of Special Cases, William Deresiewicz says of the state of American Judaism:

My own experience tells me that American Judaism has long been beset by a deep sense of banality and inauthenticity. To the usual self-contempt of the liberal middle class is added the feeling that genuine Jewish life is always elsewhere: in Israel or the shtetl, among the immigrant generation or the ultra-Orthodox. Jewish culture as lived by the non-Orthodox tends to feel bland and thin even to its practitioners--the last, worn coins of a princely inheritance. (To those who have fled Orthodox backgrounds, like Englander and myself, that very different milieu tends to feel, for all its traditionalism, spiritually dead.) The most visible of the current generation of self-consciously Jewish novelists appear to be avoiding their own experience because their own experience just seems too boring. What is there to say about it? Better to write about a time or place where there was more at stake.

These comments come in the context of Deresiewicz's remarks on the state of Jewish American literature, namely that the work of newer, younger Jewish American writers has little to do with Jewish experience. Or, if it does explore Jewishness in some form, it is someone else's Jewishness, so to speak.

The seeming omission of Jewish authenticity from the work of these contemporary writers, Deresiewicz seems to suggest, is a casualty of Jews' successful assimilation into mainstream American culture. Jews and Jewishness are no longer exotic enough to warrant writing from one's own personal and cultural experience. And so we have this phenomenon of Jewish writers reaching back into the experiences of their grandparents or others to whom they are not even related -- searching for a use-able past because the present is . . . not useful? Wake Me Up: The Jewish American Novel

The question, however, is whether this is actually a problem -- do such novels betray a loss of Jewish identity or experience as a result of assimilation? Or, through efforts to access Jewish culture and heritage through the eyes of others, do they demonstrate that Jewishness is not lost in assimilation? Of Chabon's novel Deresiewicz writes:

The Yiddish Policemen's Union is about no Jews who have ever lived, but it is one of the best novels in English about what it means to be a Jew, and how it feels.

But,

the book is so good not despite taking place in an imaginary world but because of it. Chabon has gotten into trouble before when he's tried to re-create a historical situation he hasn't experienced himself. Kavalier & Clay, which lists more than forty consulted sources in its "author's note," never succeeds in making its world seem more than secondhand. This is obviously a minority view--the book was a huge bestseller--but never for one minute did I believe its characters were fully real. The materials may all have been there, painstakingly assembled, but as with the golem who appears in its pages, the magic formula was missing that would quicken them to life.

Deresiewicz is not impressed with Englander's writing at all, though he finds numerous strengths in his new novel -- the problem is that, for Deresiewicz, there is nothing particularly "Jewish" about the novel.

I half wonder why Englander felt the need to make his characters Jewish at all, especially since, given their estrangement from both the Jewish community and Jewish tradition, there's so very little that's Jewish about them. As for Chabon, it is telling that the rich complexity of Jewish meanings he manages to develop in an invented Jewish Alaska he has not thus far shown any faith in being able to locate in contemporary Jewish America. His novel is a stunning act of imagination, but it underscores all too clearly the extent to which American Jewish experience, insofar as it possesses the kind of density necessary for it to function as a substrate for fiction, is receding, precisely, into the realm of the imaginary.

This is frighteningly bleak. But while Deresiewicz has written an amazing review essay, in his mention of numerous contemporary Jewish writers he omits authors like Pearl Abraham, Allegra Goodman, and others who do in fact write specifically about the Jewish experience, from their own experience.

I don't think Deresiewicz's gloomy predictions about the state of Jewish American literature are wrong (though they do scream Irving Howe, who, in 1976, falsely predicted the impending death of Jewish American literature) --  but if there are fewer Jewish writers penning about their own Jewish experiences, there are now also far fewer scholars and professors who are working and writing in the field of Jewish American literature.

It feels like a dying discipline, which also does not bode well for the future of Jewish American literature -- if there are no critics to critique, and overall there are far fewer people who actually read books, the future of literature by American Jews is little more than, as Deresiewicz suggests, a golem that will never be awakened to life. 

Yesterday a friend forwarded me an email she had received from her Catholic mother, who had originally received the email from her friend, who is "an older Jewish woman," I'm told.

Apparently, the "older Jewish woman" thought that the older Catholic woman would enjoy some Jewish haiku. Hmmm . . .

So, naturally, this email was passed on to me, though I don't recall advertising my love of haiku recently -- one of those things I try to keep secret. Jewish Haiku Rocks: Says this Japanese rabbi.

The email begins: "As great fans of haiku, I thought you might enjoy. . ." 

Really? Are there really people out there who are great fans of haiku?

Haiku is a poetic form and a type of poetry from the Japanese culture. Haiku combines form, content, and language in a meaningful, yet compact form.

But it turns out . . .

While most Jewish haiku are humorous, the first part of the Shema, one of Judaism's most important prayers, also follows the syllable pattern and the scansion of the haiku:

She-ma Yis-ra-el,
A-do-nai E-lo-hei-nu,
A-do-nai E-chad.

So here are some of the haiku (yes, apparently "haiku" is plural) that I received in my email inbox. Some are funny, but there a couple that I just don't get, and that I spent too much time re-reading, waiting for some kind of epiphany. And then, there are one or two that feel borderline anti-Semitic, though I'm probably being too sensitive.

Lacking fins or tail
the gefilte fish swims with
great difficulty.

*****
Beyond Valium,
peace is knowing one's child
is an internist.
    
*****
On Passover we
opened door for Elijah.
Now our cat is gone.
                   
*****

Her lips near my ear,
Aunt Sadie whispers the name
of her friend's disease.

*****
Today I am a man.
Tomorrow I will return
to the seventh grade.

*****
Jews on safari --
map, compass, elephant gun,
hard sucking candies.
       
*****
Seven-foot Jews in
the NBA slam-dunking!
My alarm clock rings.

*****
Is one Nobel Prize
so much to ask from a child
after all I've done?

I don't understand the one about Jews on safari, in particular. I don't get the hard sucking candies. I asked six other people if they understand the whole hard sucking candies thing. Negative.

But if after reading this you are really into haiku, and you want to know how to haiku, you can go here. It's interesting, though, that Jewish haiku seems to be all the rage. Why not Italian haiku? Or Catholic haiku? And I would be down with a little bit of African American haiku. Cool . . .

As indicated by this article in today's Jerusalem Post, the verdict is not out on whether Jews (both in and outside of Israel) should embrace the Evangelical community's growing support for Israel. But with the fairly recent establishment of Knesset's Christian Allies Caucus, a cross-party parliamentary caucus that works with Christian friends of Israel all over the world, even the State of Israel itself is, for better or worse, warming up to the possibility that Jews and Israel could benefit from the support of a group as large and loud as the Evangelicals.Looking For an Apocalypse Now: John Hagee's wildly successful fundraising efforts.

The increasingly influential parliamentary lobby, which is made up of 12 Knesset members from seven political parties across the political spectrum, has come to epitomize Israel's newfound interest in garnering the support of the Christian world, especially the largely pro-Israel Evangelicals.

In some ways it's simply an issue of whether or not the ends justify the means. Do we overlook Evangelicals' literalist readings of the bible that see Jews and Israel as tools to usher in Armageddon in order to benefit from their support in the meantime? Should we close our eyes to their tenacious tendency to want to proselytize others? I'm just not sure what the answer is.

[Likud MK Gilad] Erdan said an alliance between Jews and Christians was absolutely critical in the war against Islamic extremism.

"If there is a chance to overcome the forces of Islamic extremism, it is by making them see that they have no chance of success, through an increasingly flourishing relationship between Christians and Jews," he said.

With the Evangelicals," continues Erdan, "we have common, shared Bible-based beliefs, and there is no need to convince them at the core." Right -- many shared beliefs, except when it comes to that whole thing about the Messiah. But that's neither here nor there.Waiting For Armageddon: It Will Happen Right About Here

Of course, it's impossible to have this conversation without referring to John Hagee (who recently said that the Jews are to blame for the Holocaust), an influential evangelical leader from Texas who founded the national lobbying group "Christians United for Israel."

Hagee's fundraising events have, to date, raised more than $10 million for charitable causes in Israel. Now, this can't be a bad thing, right? According to an article in The Forward:

The funds sometimes flow directly into the coffers of the Jewish federations. This past summer, when philanthropic efforts were focused on raising wartime aid for Israel’s embattled northern region, $1 million of the money raised in San Antonio was donated to the Jewish Federation of Greater Houston for the Israel Emergency Campaign.

Another $3 million went to an orphanage in the Galilee, and $1 million was donated to Nefesh B’Nefesh, an Israeli not-for-profit organization that helps Jews settle in Israel. Hagee and his wife, Diana, were recognized by the national body of federations, United Jewish Communities, as “honorary chairs” of the $350 million emergency campaign.

I think this is awesome. Charity is charity, right? But one wonders what the trade-off here will be -- not to mention the creepy presence of Jerry Falwell on the board of Hagee's organization.

Critics complain that Hagee’s hawkish, biblically based views on Israel do not serve the Jewish state, and that his conservative domestic agenda — including opposition to gay marriage, abortion and immigration — is squarely at odds with the liberal views of most American Jews.

“I don’t like that they would not like to see Israel trade land for peace, because in my view that’s a very important formula,” said Rabbi Jonathan Biatch of Temple Beth El in Madison, Wis. “The real bottom line is the fact that this organization would like to exacerbate tensions in the Middle East so it will lead to Armageddon.”

And, on a final note . . .

“To get in bed with the hard Christian right on Israel is a dangerous path,” said Daniel Sokatch, executive director of the Los Angeles-based Progressive Jewish Alliance. “This is a hard-driving, extremely smart and successful movement to essentially recast the U.S. as a Christian nation, and if Jews don’t think that empowering that group in American foreign policy isn’t part and parcel of empowering that group on domestic policy, they’re wrong.”

My roommate is my newest blogging muse. She delights in feeding me information that I can turn into blog posts. And I, in turn, take great joy in accepting her great ideas and passing them off as my own.

So, a few nights ago she came downstairs with her Smithsonian magazine in hand to show me an article on Thomas Edison and the evolution of the lightbulb. Apparently, incandescent bulbs are for bad people who don't care about the earth. But compact flourescent light (CFL) bulbs (they're the ones that look like squigly, corkskrew things) are, at least for now, the bulb-of-choice for those who are "environmentally conscious." No Mercury Rising: The lesser of two evils.

For those of you who are concerned: No, I do not often commune with others to discuss the technological advancement of light-emitting sources, though my friend and I have been known to argue about the syntactical nuances of a two-syllable word for an ungodly amount of time. On a good night, though, we realize how nerdy we are and quickly shift to a discussion of whether skinny jeans and high-waisted pants are really a good look for anyone.

She thought I would find the article amusing, though, because it highlighted a nationwide campaign launched by the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life called "How Many Jews Does it Take to Change a Lightbulb?" The campaign is geared toward getting Jewish communities to be more environmentally aware.

It's an attempt at proselytization, so to speak -- urging incandescent-bulb-using Jews (and others) to convert to the CFL bulb belief system. It's a cool idea, and very tikkun olam, which I am ALL about.

All good stuff. The problem? I am not "environmentally conscious," it seems. You either are, or you aren't. Yes, I should be. But I'm not.

My roommate, however, is the recycler extraordinairre, queen of the environmentally aware. I, on the other hand, drink a bottle of water every day, and when I am done I throw it in the trash.

I am environmentally challenged. I gripe when my roommate's gigantic box of "stuff to be recycled" takes up too much space in our office. I snarl when she goes through the house trading out my incandescent bulbs for her CFL bulbs. I recoil at countless empty catfood tins in the sink, awaiting their journey into her recycling bag.

And yet, I feel guilty . . .

But she drives an SUV, and I do not. It's a trade-off. And I do charity work when I can, so it must even out, right?

And here's my loophole: apparently (according to the Smithsonian piece), these CFL bulbs have mercury issues, which means you don't want them anywhere near the kitchen where food is being prepared -- if the light were to somehow get bumped, you would end up with a dusting of mercury all over your kitchen counter. That's great -- save the environment, kill the individual, slowly, over time. Death by mercury poisoning, but I've saved the planet.

But then I read this:

Our message is as easy as changing a light bulb: If you could conserve energy and help stop global warming in one simple step, wouldn't you? CFLs use up to 75% less energy than incandescent light bulbs, while lasting approximately eight times longer. This means less production of greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution, and toxic waste. The average CFL will save its owner at least $55 in energy costs over the lifetime of the bulb! Your CFL will pay for itself in energy savings within two to three months (based on a 5-hour/day use and average electricity costs.) If every U.S. household replaced one bulb with a CFL, it would have the same impact as removing 1.3 million cars from the road.

So the ethical dilemma is not a new one: Do I do what will benefit me and my family, or do I take the high road and change out my bulbs in order to remove 1.3 million cars from the road?

This afternoon I ran into a friend of mine, and we somehow got into a discussion about something I said in yesterday's post -- about how I am troubled by the idea that something needs to be "Christianized" in order to be universalized. Although I can see how it works as a metaphor, I'm not convinced that there isn't an underlying creepiness to it regardless of whether or not the idea is meant to be taken literally.

My friend had a different take on it. He thinks of Christianity as being a way of life that is open and accessible to all people, Jew or Gentile. For him, the metaphor seems to work because if we take Christianity at its word (great pun, huh?), it is a gesture of openness and inclusion.The Real Axis of Evil: When Religions Collide, uh, I mean Co-exist, uh, I mean, Exist.

Now I'm going to be difficult. I have a problem with the fact that this "openness" hinges on the recipient being a full-on believer in JC as the Messiah, in a literalist kind of way: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life" (John 3:16).

So, the offer is universal, but if you don't accept the offer on its precise terms, you get shut out, ultimately fried in the Lake of Fire if we also take the apocalyptic book of Revalation at its word.

It's a piece of Halloween candy with a tiny little razor blade lodged into it. Don't bite too hard.

But the question, then, at some point, becomes whether religion itself is the razor blade lodged into our collective consciousness -- whether it's not just Christianity that is a potential problem, but all religion. Well, it's not really my question, but I'm going to raise it anyway.

Today I read an entry over at a blog I like -- the post has to do with a panel this past Sunday at the LA Times Book Festival on Religion and Society, moderated by novelist Thane Rosenbaum and "dominated by [author of God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything] Christopher Hitchens' personality, if not by his anti-religious argument."

I was not lucky enough to see this panel, but it sounds like it got pretty heated.

During the question and answer session, after one man was shouted down by the panel for asking an apparently-forbidden question (I couldn't hear it), another man stood and asked (I'm paraphrasing): "Yeah, let's take a moment to bring science back into this if we can. We live in a world where, thanks to the advances of scientific understanding, our species has mollified (sic?) itself sixfold, and yet more Americans expect to be raptured than believe in evolution." I didn't really listen to the end of his question, because it seemed a softball that any of the men on the panel would've been happy to reshape in their own words. "Here, here!--Science!" Yawn.

I'm guessing that the bad man asked a question pertaining to religion.

And, says my fellow twenty-something blogger:

Even if I'm totally alone in my generation, I want to say this: intellectuals between 40-60 (boomers and their younger cousins) seem increasingly willing to blame religion as the sole source of the world's problems -- this from the generation who blamed capitalism as the sole source of the world's problems right up until they made their fortunes in the stock market and bought a yacht or a new set of golf clubs. Christopher Hitchens, in particular, explicitly argued that religion (not just radical religion) is always and everywhere a source of trouble. Hitchens even suggested that religion effectively teaches radical solipsism, and that the ontologies of the major world religions all teach people to believe that they are somehow cosmically important. Imagine: the Baby Boomers calling other people self-centered!

But I thought we had successfully transitioned into the Post-Secular era, where all of that "God is dead" nonsense has undergone its own tragic death, where people of all belief systems are re-visiting the notions of ritual and religion and re-claiming [some aspects of] their religious heritage. Maybe it's just the young'uns....God May Be Dead: But the Church of GW is alive and well.

It seems to me that Hitchens, and others like him, are falling into their own trap of either-or, extremist thinking. Is that not also a "religion" of sorts, one that is potentially evil? How about a little middle ground?

The author of the blog entry above breaks this down in a couple of cool ways, one of which offers a not-so-literal reading of a biblical (Christian) passage that I won't take the time to quote here.

This reading would certainly seem too radical for many a Christian; it's true, I have effectively "reduced" the Bible to less-than-literal meaning. But if I believe it, this is still religion, it seems to me -- and I cannot see how it is one of the fundamental causes of evil in the world.

So, religion -- what we gonna do 'bout it?

Eric J. Sundquist, mega rockstar of American literary criticism, was recently awarded a Mellon Foundation award worth $1.5 million over three years, for his ongoing study of the impact of the Holocaust on American literature.

Sundquist, an English professor at UCLA, is a non-Jewish scholar who has done some of the most kick-ass work in the fields of Holocaust studies and multicultural American literature. He was first recognized for his work on the role of black writers and culture in American literature, and his most recent work, Strangers in the Land: Blacks, Jews, Post-Holocaust America, expands some of these initial cutting-edge ideas.

For someone who works in the humanities, it doesn't get any more prestigious -- or validating -- than getting one of these ritzy little Mellon awards, and I think it's pretty cool that one of this year's prizes (there are only four) went to a project on the Holocaust.

On the negative flip side, I've heard some people remark that "we" need to stop talking about the Holocaust -- get over it, move on. It's funny, though, that nobody says that about the Civil War, or about the legacy of slavery in the US. Nobody tries to shut Toni Morrison up.

Nobody tells black people living in the South to "get over it." But it seems that it's not cool to talk about the Holocaust unless Oprah touches it with her magic wand.

In a study that is far more than ivory-tower research, Eric J. Sundquist argues that English-language books -- original, in translation or adapted as film scripts -- are largely responsible for "Americanizing" and universalizing the Holocaust in the world's consciousness.

It's Mine, Mine, All Mine: Who owns the language of suffering and survival? (Elie Wiesel and Oprah Winfrey at Auschwitz)Part of his project will also examine the role that works of American writers, "far removed from the crematoria of the Final Solution," have played in shaping what we view as Holocaust literature. I'm guessing that he'll look at the works of Second Generation survivors as well as more controversial works written by both Jews and non-Jews who have no "direct" link to the Holocaust.

Sundquist believes that the very act of translation has helped to transform the Holocaust from a specific Jewish tragedy into a more "Christianized," and therefore universal, experience. This, I'm not sure I like the sound of -- I'm creeped out by the idea that a "Christianized" experience is a more universal experience.

And I'm not sure I buy into the idea that the Holocaust (or any other collective tragedy for that matter) needs to be universalized. And if it does, is that not simply an indication of our own self-centeredness? Our solipsistic desire to make everything our own? Every tragedy is unique and ineffable -- why try to change that?

And yet, it's clear that Sundquist is not unaware of how tricky it can be to start "Christianizing" or "universalizing" the Holocaust:

Perhaps the most intriguing part of Sundquist's analysis is how the literary vocabulary of the Holocaust has been adapted and taken over by other victimized people.

Japanese American writers have used the imagery of Nazis against Jews to describe their internment in U.S. "concentration camps," as well as the "holocaust" of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Native American authors have drawn similar literary analogies in recording the slaughter of their people by white settlers, but the most striking impact has been on African American writings.

In black literature, Sundquist said, "the organizing example was the biblical Exodus, but since World War II, this has been overshadowed by the Holocaust as the main paradigm." One striking example is Toni Morrison's "Beloved," which implicitly likens the African slave trade to the Shoah in her epigraph, "To the 60 million."

Turning to a current cultural phenomenon, the well publicized visit of Oprah Winfrey and Wiesel to Auschwitz, Sundquist observed that "it was not only well done, but Oprah knew it would resonate with her audience, attuned to the language of suffering and survival."

One unedifying aspect of the literary cross-fertilization has been a kind of "My Holocaust was worse than your Holocaust" competition, or, as one writer put it, a "Victimization Olympics."

Which reminds me -- last week I blogged about Tova Reich's novel My Holocaust, a satire on the way people have appropriated the suffering of the Holocaust for their own ends. Or, to put it more succinctly, the "literary cross-fertilization" has resulted in some nasty inbreeding. I fear, though, that we now move toward capitalizing on critiques of this cross-fertilization.

I get a weekly email from the Forward, which I do not open unless I am somehow enticed or titillated by the subject line. Today's looked like this:

Al Jazeera's Jews * Zion's Mafia * Dr. Ruth's Advice

Hmm, I thought to myself. Is that all one topic?

No, it was actually three separate issues, but I couldn't help but appreciate the unlikely pairing of the three, all of which were actually interesting.

I learned three things, each more provocative than the next:

1.) Al Jazeera apparently has "no problem with Jews." And it seems that several top employees at the network's English operation are Jewish.

Some participants at the third-annual forum of the Arab satellite network Al Jazeera were sorry they didn’t bring matzo with them — had they known how many fellow Jews were attending the media conference, they would have made a Passover Seder.

That would've been interesting to see on Al Jazeera.

Al Jazeera has been harshly criticized in the West for providing airtime to terrorists like Osama bin Laden, but it notes that American networks borrowed that material. It was also the first Arabic network to give Israelis air time. “Al Jazeera was seriously attacked by Arabs — Islamist, nationalist, and even governments like Saudi Arabia — for inviting Israeli journalists and government officials to present their point of view,” Atwan said.

Oh, okay. I'm convinced.

2.) According to a new book called Blood and Volume: Inside New York's Israeli Mafia, you can be a "gangster with a soul." And, of his girlfriend, Honey Tesman, the Brandeis-educated daughter of a successful Long Island laundry-plant owner, Israeli mafioso Ron Gonen says:

“She’s my disco Jewish queen . . . Smart like a wiz, gorgeous, speaks beautiful Hebrew, and she’s a fighter — it’s what I love about her.”

I want to be someone's disco Jewish queen when I grow up.You Will Be My Jewish Disco Queen!: Former drug dealer Ron Gonen pushes his weight around.

3.) Dr. Ruth can provide more than just sex tips. The Forward is bringing back its Bintel Brief column:

Started in 1906 by the Forward’s legendary editor Abraham Cahan, the Bintel Brief — literally “a Bundle of Letters” — dispensed advice on life, love, family, faith, work and why, contrary to popular superstition, having a spouse with a dimpled chin won’t lead you to an early grave.

And to kick it all off, they're bringing in Dr. Ruth, who has been spending less of her time teaching women how to perform oral sex, and more of it teaching a class at Princeton University on the Jewish family. I can't wait to read the Bintel Brief in the Forward -- I'm so excited!

I used to live in Irvine, California, which is a relatively nice place that is also one of the cleanest and safest cities in the US. But I had a bizarre experience one day. I walked out to the dumpster in my complex to throw my garbage away, and saw a very small Asian man hanging out inside the dumpster -- there he was, just lounging on top of the garbage that nearly overflowed from the giant container. Dumpster Diving: Everyone's doing it.

At first I thought he was homeless, and that he had taken up residency inside the dumpster, and it felt very awkward to be throwing my trash out in someone's home. But then I noticed that he seemed to be well-dressed. He even greeted me, not in English, but in a way that made me feel as if he knew me, and so I threw my trash in (as far from where he was sitting as I could), smiled, and said, "Hey, nice to see you!" as if it were completely normal to find someone sitting inside my dumpster.

Later that week, the same thing happened, except this time it was a very small Asian woman sitting inside the dumpster, going through garbage. I tossed in my trash, which consisted, on this occasion, of some discarded notebooks and lots of papers and old bills.

Before I walked away, she crawled over to my rubbish and began going through my papers. She was excited to find the old notebooks, and I saw her put them into her canvas collection bag.

I was mad. It felt creepy to have someone going through my papers even if I considered them trash. It was my trash. The next day, I happened to look out my window and notice the same man and woman coming out of the apartment across from me. Howdy Neighbor!: There they go again.

They were my neighbors. They weren't homeless or "needy" -- not if they were living in a fairly nice complex. My neighbors were dumpster divers. To make matters worse, the woman was wearing a hat that I had thrown out.

Okay, fine, what's the big deal? It just feels weird! My neighbors shouldn't be going through my trash, carrying my discarded notebooks, and wearing my old trashy hats.

But perhaps they were on to something.

An article in the Guardian today talks about an electrician who was working at Francis Bacon's studio in west London 30 years ago and noticed the artist dumping rubbish. This guy persuaded Bacon to let him keep these few discarded paintings, diaries, photos, and other odds and ends. He kept it all, and last night, it was auctioned off as the "Robertson collection" (named after the electrician) for insane amounts of money.

According to Mr Ewbank [of Ewbank Fine Art Auctioneers and Valuers]: "This stuff is a little bit of history. If it weren't here, it would be gone for ever. We have a little bit of extra insight into him." Does he have qualms about selling paintings that were rejected, indeed deliberately mutilated, by the artist? "The best judges of art are not the artists themselves," he said. "The fact that these paintings were discarded does not mean that they are not of value. And he did say he regretted destroying so much of his work."

Dumpster Diving: Francis Bacon's London studio as reconstructed for an exhibit in Dublin.Does this feel wrong to anyone but me? I guess it's true that Bacon essentially gave Robertson his trash, but does the wiley electrician really have a right to capitalize off of a dead-artist's trash? Then again, there's the Kafka dilemma -- Kafka asked Max Brod to burn all of his manuscripts after his death. Brod, of course, did not honor his wishes, and for that we are grateful. But is this appreciation merely an indication of our own greedy and narcissistic impulses?

One of the things I have always loved about Judaism is its dynamic, evolving nature—rich with tradition, but always cognizant of how important it is that the tradition be made relevant to our contemporary era. The existence of Midrash and Talmud, for example, remind us that there are gaps and silences in the Hebrew bible to which we must respond.

 The sages have said, “Turn it and turn it, for everything is contained in it,” and an article in Lilith’s “Navigating Sexuality” section proves that, indeed, everything is in Torah—even the possibility of blessings to be recited before and after sex-change operations or other moments of transition from one identity to another. Crazy, huh?

When we take steps, physically or spiritually, to more fully manifest our gender identities, we are fulfilling the commandment “to partner with God in completing the work of creation.”

 The article, of course, mentions the Midrash (I think it’s Rashi, but my Artscroll is forever disappearing) that says, in an attempt to make sense of the two conflicting creation accounts in the first two chapters of Genesis, that the first human being was an androgynous being. After the blessing, before the blessing: Ru Paul as a drag queen, and as himself. 

To be recited before the moment of transition: 

Barukh Ata Adonai Eloheinu Melekh Ha-Olam, Ha’Ma’avir L’Ovrim. Blessed are You, Eternal One, our God, Ruler of Time and Space, the Transforming One to those who transition/transform/cross over.

 To be recited after the transition: 

Barukh Ata Adonai Eloheinu Melekh Ha-Olam Sh’asani B’tzalmo v’kirtzonah. Blessed are You, Eternal One, our God, Ruler of Time and Space, Who has made me in His image and according to Her will. 

Barukh Ata Adonai Eloheinu Melekh Ha-Olam Sh’hechianu,v’kiyimanu, m’gigiyanu, la-zman hazeh. Blessed are You, Eternal One, our God, Ruler of Time and Space, Who has kept us alive and sustained us and helped us to arrive at this moment.

 Now, truly, I think this is great. But the bad person inside of me wonders if it’s really worth the drag queen’s time to recite this blessing every time (s)he gets all fancied up. I actually went to a Halloween party last year as a drag queen wearing a giant, platinum-blonde wig. It was very complicated -- woman pretending to be man pretending to be woman. It was a great costume, though people kept asking me if I was supposed to be Christina Aguilera or Gwen Stefani.

And, this is kind of gross, but I stumbled on this blog about a sex-change operation done on a cat by a veterinarian, pictures and all. There’s got to be a blessing for this as well . . .

My dissertation advisor -- we'll call him Dr. S from Purdue University -- just arrived this afternoon in Boca Raton for the Jewish American literature symposium. And so, of course, after the last session of presentations, I decided to join him and a group of scholars for cocktails.

If you've never had cocktails with a group of academics, you're either in for a real treat or you're going to be bored out of your mind. Fortunately, my experience today was the former. After the first round of cocktails, Dr. S and a scholar from Penn State decided to have a "joke-off,&q