“Oh, and wear something bordering on appropriate,” my mother says into the phone, an hour before my cousin’s wedding.

“Hrmm,” I say noncommittally, reaching deep into my closet for an item that to the untrained eye might appear an elaborate doily. I’ve only worn this dress once before, to another Orthodox Jewish wedding.

I hadn’t planned it that way when I bought it. Or maybe I had. Orthodox Jewish functions are the only events that compel me to dress like a stripper on a cigarette break.

I don my doily with pleasure, feeling revolutionary. A sartorial Che Guevara. I’ve come a long way since the days when the best I could do was a jean skirt that showed some shin. At the New Jersey day schools I attended for my first 18 years of life, girls studied family purity while the boys wrangled with the Talmud, and the dress code was taken several times more seriously than college admissions; skirts had to reach mid-calf, sleeves had to cover the biceps, and even exposed collar-bones were risqué. If a student showed up to class in an outfit that didn’t meet the guidelines, she’d be forced to change into the tznius (modesty) skirt the administration kept on hand for such contingencies. I was rarely that contingency.

But the further I travel from the fold, the more compelled I am to flash the rabbis. It’s as though I’m trying to say, look at me and know the path I’ve chosen, know there’s a reason you haven’t seen me in ten years and it’s not because I moved to the Upper West Side. I am different. I am lost to your world.

I am an idiot.

I realize this as soon as I get to the decked-out hotel ballroom filled with dark-suited men and women in wigs, and remember why I’d buried this dress so deep in my closet. It was to prevent my third or fourth reprisal of precisely this moment, when I realize I am not about to pull off the grand moral heist I’ve envisioned. No one is going to look at me and find that the unquestioned truths they arrived with have been replaced with Kant’s categorical imperative.

I stick close to the edges of the endless tables of food, trying to blend in with the linens. This is where my mother finds me.

“Hey there nakadika shiksa,” she says. Nakadika. Naked. Naked gentile chick. Thanks for nothing, lady.

She’s dressed in a suit that veers so sternly away from sexy it’s in danger of qualifying as luggage. She’s overdoing it. Modesty does not come naturally to her either. Orthodoxy itself never came naturally to her, and she finally made her ragged break with the role of good Jewish wife around the time I was shucking the guise of good Jewish daughter. Unlike me, though, she has no urge to suggest to the faithful that they’d need special rabbinical permission just to hear what she did last Friday night.

She’s grinning. “I wonder what you would have worn if I hadn’t called to warn you.” She knows my lofty ideal of inscribing an ethical treatise on fishnets.

“Think I’m having an impact?”

“Oh, without a doubt.”

“Well, I’m not embarrassed,” I tell her and discover it’s true.

I used to come back to the fold and feel pricked by the dual familiarity and remoteness of it. It was returning from exile and knowing I couldn’t stay. Now my lack of embarrassment indicates the other emotions I’ve shed, and it’s this disrobing that makes me feel truly nakadika.

If I really don’t mind that I’m as out of place here as an I Heart Ahmadinejad T-shirt at a sisterhood luncheon, then there must be nothing left in me of the girl I was for the first 18 years of my life. That was a girl whose favorite stories were bible stories, who prayed with such meticulous slowness that the other kids complained, who rejoiced when the high school principal caved to radical feminist forces (my mother) and let the girls dip into the boys-only domain of the Talmud, experimentally, for one semester. Several hours ago all I wanted was to show that I’ve crossed a treacherous gulf, that I live on a high and windswept place inconceivable to the likes of my fellow guests, where on Saturdays we read the Book Review instead of the haftorah and we speak of morality without believing in sin. Now I’m sad to find it may be true. It’s one thing to reject your past; it’s another thing to find you’ve finally let it go.

Then I catch a magnificently bearded fellow gazing through the fruit display at my cleavage. I glance down, blanching at just how much is showing, and know that I haven’t entirely abandoned home yet, just as it hasn’t entirely abandoned me. After all, if that conflicted and rebelliously believing girl is not still in me, then who put on this outfit?

I’ll know I’ve finally left my past when I start to dress like I haven’t.

I recently read a posting about a Creative Writing Seminar for Jewish women in Jerusalem; I love to write...I'm a Jewish woman...why not? I took a vacation day, showed up with my notebook and several deliciously colorful pens, and walked in the door of a Beit HaKerem hotel that I'd never heard of. What did I see? A combination of things, really. Long skirts, sheitels, head coverings, tanakhs, babies and closed-toe shoes. My tight, green army pants didn't quite match the chosen attire of these Jewish women, and judging by the stares—not unfriendly stares, mind you—I'm guessing that I wasn't the only one cognizant of my misunderstanding about what defines a Jewish Woman—in this case, at least.Jewish Women Creative Writing Seminar: is this really what I signed up for?

I'd stumbled upon a large group of ultra-Orthodox, English-speaking female writers in Jerusalem. They're a larger community than I would have imagined and they write short stories, memoirs, novels, articles and poems that are mostly related to Orthodoxy and/or Torah. Everyone was friendly, especially when I changed into a long-sleeved shirt and pants that could be confused for a skirt. Still, the woman next to me whispered (out of concern) during a session, "Do you know what Tisha B'Av is?"

The content of the workshop was mostly irrelevant to me—however, what was interesting about this seminar was beyond the Creative Writing content.

I wondered, what had compelled these women to write in the first place? My preconceived notions about this group of ultra-Orthodox women had rendered me shocked that they were seeking to express themselves and that it wasn't causing a stir within the community. These women had stories to tell. I spent much of my day listening to them. Why did they write? How did this fit into their busy schedule of being a wife, child-rearing, Shabbat dinners, etc.?

One woman, we'll call her Rachel*, told me that writing was a way for her to maintain modesty, but to simultaneously prove to the world that she had something to contribute beyond washing her floors. She explained that she lives a beautiful life of Torah and family, but that it was nearly impossible for her to incorporate her own voice into these dear passions of hers; she feels like a robot. She describes her writing as an attempt to express the male crafted, text defined role of a woman with a woman's voice. She tries to highlight the tenderness, compassion, and strength that is required of the women in her community, because as she sees it, their G-d given blessings are too often generalized.

Another woman, Miriam, has already published three books and is working on her fourth. Her third book, she says, will enable her be financially independent to the extent that she and her newborn baby can leave her abusive husband and start anew. At the outset, she saw writing as employment that was easy to hide from her husband. Now, she sees it as a vehicle for expression. She never publishes her real name or the location of her religious community in Jerusalem, and so she speaks liberally (given the parameters of the publishers) about the physical violence in her home. Her strong belief in G-d and living a "Torah life" help her articulate her struggle in terms that other religious women can understand and empathize with. She feels that the secular writing about abuse fails to help ultra-Orthodox women that suffer from similar issues, because they feel as though they need advice and solace from within their uniquely religious communities. Write On, Sister!: writing can be an outlet for Israeli Orthodox women

Chava has been trying to get a book published for four years. Several manuscripts later, she's attending the seminar hoping to get some advice that she hasn't heard before. The problem with her previous manuscripts? Apparently, they don't speak of Torah strongly enough to be considered relevant to religious publishing companies and their clients. She explains that she is a woman of Torah, but that she is disgusted by the forced ignorance of the Orthodox regarding issues that they define as secular, such as eating disorders, sexual orientation and financial strife. She says that she'll continue to fight the publishing companies, but that if need be, she'll ultimately attempt to appeal to secular publishers (which the organizers of the seminar had referred to several times as "inappropriate for the frum world") at the risk of being the object of contempt in her community.

I spoke to almost half of the 120 participants, and not one of them told me that they were at the seminar simply because they loved to write. Given their stories, I'd venture to call them activists and feminists within a community that lives in the past, which seems to make them even more exceptional. They've found each other, and they've found a way to be ideologically innovative and creative within the bounds of a society that prefers their voices to be meek and modest.

Had they not been confused about the definition of a "Jewish woman," I may never have stumbled upon such an empowering group of women.

*All of the names in this article have been changed.

Rabbi Leib Tropper: says who's who IN JUNE 2006, ultra-Orthodox Rabbi Leib Tropper nullified a conversion over a year after supervising it himself. He decided that the convert, whom we will call “Sarah,” had become a Jew under “false Pretext [sic].” Rabbi Tropper informed Sarah’s husband, “Avraham,” that his wife’s conversion had been registered as nullified with the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, and that the child produced by their marriage would not be regarded as Jewish, either. Finally, Rabbi Tropper declared that it was “forbidden” for Avraham to be married to Sarah. “Even if she decides to become observant,” Rabbi Tropper wrote via email, “she will need a new conversion,” and the couple would require a “new halachic marriage.”

What happens if despite a rabbi’s best due diligence, a convert to Orthodox Judaism doesn't keep Jewish law for the long haul? If that convert begins eating cheeseburgers and driving on Shabbat? Does the conversion remain valid? Is a convert 100% Jewish no matter what? Historically, a lapsed convert was still considered a Jew unless those lapses were immediate to the conversion, public, and intentional. The convert had to know what he was about to do was wrong, and then had to do it anyway. (Before the 19th century and the advent of ultra-Orthodoxy, according to Zvi Zohar, an Israeli scholar who studies this issue, there is no evidence a rabbi ever revoked a conversion for any reason.)

Times have changed. That’s because haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Jews like Leib Tropper, founder and director of Eternal Jewish Family—an organization dedicated to converting non-Jewish spouses of intermarried Jews—represent the most rapidly growing demographic in Judaism. Tropper also founded and runs a yeshiva in Monsey, New York, and travels regularly to Israel, where he frequents the halls of haredi power and hobnobs with its leaders. People like him are the Jewish future. They’re at the center of a seemingly irrevocable schism between Orthodoxy and every other denomination of Judaism. They're determined to restrict and to monitor all Orthodox conversions as part of their spiritual war against non-haredi Judaism, and they want nothing less than ultimately to define who is a Jew.

Tropper did not revoke Sarah’s conversion because she bowed down to idols, accepted Jesus as her Lord and Savior, or identified with the atheist philosophies of Christopher Hitchens. She didn’t renounce any universally accepted tenet of Judaism. Sarah’s conversion was ruled invalid because she did what many Modern Orthodox women do every day: get dressed and go out of the house. Sarah’s conversion was reversed because Tropper heard that she had worn pants, and occasionally—only when shopping outside the Jewish neighborhood—she had left her hair uncovered.

Sarah and Avraham live hundreds of miles from Tropper, who is based in the ultra-Orthodox enclave of Monsey, New York. How did Tropper find out about Sarah’s clothing? Easy: Her husband told him.

A “baal teshuva,” Avraham was as new to ultra-Orthodoxy as Sarah was to Judaism. Like many people who become Orthodox as adults, he had questions. Orthodox Jewish law mandates how to put on and tie one’s shoes; when, how, and even if to have sex; what and when to eat, and hundreds of other daily minutiae. Was it a major transgression for Sarah occasionally not to cover her hair? What about wearing pants?

Avraham didn’t know, so he asked Tropper, who said that her behavior showed a flagrant disregard for Judaism, and that she was taking Jewish law lightly. He questioned Sarah’s original intent in converting, and contacted her for an explanation. Shocked that her husband had gone behind her back, Sarah refused to talk, and Tropper revoked her conversion.

In an email to Avraham, Tropper wrote, “We must keep our word. [Sarah] ACCEPTED on herself to OBSERVE ALL of the torah & rabbinical commanments [sic]. She never did. You know that & you told me that.”

These: could get your conversion revoked IN LEXINGTON, KENTUCKY, Tropper wreaked havoc on another family of seekers. Leah Bourne's maternal grandmother was Jewish, so according to Jewish law she was as well, but she hadn’t been raised that way. Her husband Peter wasn’t Jewish at all. After marrying and having children, the Bournes became involved with a Reform synagogue, but they wanted more. Along with their 16-year-old son Jonathan, they attended an EJF information seminar in their town.

Raised in the Bible Belt, the Bournes were attracted to Tropper’s Jewish fundamentalism. They invested in the expensive process of koshering their home, kept the Sabbath, and studied Torah. They were a model family—so much so that EJF featured them in its promotional video. Tropper even convinced Jonathan, then a junior in high school, to forsake his senior year and enroll at Kol Yaakov, Topper’s Monsey-based yeshiva for Baal Teshuva students.

Though at first his parents didn't agree with their son missing his senior year of high school, Tropper assured them that Jonathan would be able to learn Torah and get his GED at the same time. As they delved deeper into ultra-Orthodoxy, the Bournes were intrigued by the idea of their son becoming a learned Jew, and perhaps even a rabbi.

Jonathan moved to Monsey, where he spent his days studying. Peter, meanwhile, worked toward converting by learning Torah over the phone with a Monsey rabbi. Peter’s teacher happened to work at Tropper’s yeshiva, and kept the proud father informed about Jonathan’s progress. The reports were very good: Jonathan was a diligent, budding scholar.

Tropper promised the Bourne family that he’d send a rabbi to open a synagogue and build a mikvah in Lexington. Having an Orthodox synagogue and mikvah in their town was essential because EJF will not authorize conversions for people who live in areas without an acceptable Orthodox infrastructure. Unable to relocate, the Bournes depended on Tropper’s guarantees.

Eventually, Leah and Peter traveled to Monsey for an EJF seminar. Leah, who has an architecture degree, was shocked by what she found. In her words, Kol Yaakov was “unfit for human habitation.” It was dirty, unkempt, and unsafe. She saw students living in overcrowded basement rooms without egress windows or other safe exits.

According to Leah, “What pathetic stuff they had down in that basement to serve as a kitchen and dining room were disgustingly filthy, neglected, and inadequate for the number of boys living there.…They were not provided with breakfast (except maybe some day-old or stale pastries from a local bakery) or lunch, and for dinner they were divided up and sent around to other people’s homes every night—not just for Shabbat.”

Leah was amazed that in light of all this, Tropper had helped find Jonathan a black hat and suit. “Clearly, the clothes were far more important to Tropper than making sure they had food.”

Hungry?: eat your hat Just as Sarah’s clothes were more important to Tropper than the radical life change she’d made in embracing Orthodox Judaism, and just as her uncovered hair was more important to Tropper than her relationship with her husband, Jonathan Bourne’s black hat was prioritized over his health, his personal safety—and his education. There was no GED program available at Kol Yaakov, and when Jonathan began to ask questions, Tropper’s response was to chastise him for not finding an outside program to enroll in.

As Peter was completing the requirements for his conversion, Tropper presented the family with a major setback: There would be no synagogue or mikvah in Lexington. Peter was instructed to abandon his job and future pension, and move his family to Monsey. When Tropper’s nebulous offers to help Peter find a job there weren’t enough to quell the Bournes’ anger and disappointment, Tropper—who refused to comment for this story—expelled Jonathan from Kol Yaakov without notice, dumping him on the street.

IN ISRAEL, THE ONLY government recognized conversions are Orthodox. Last year, Israeli Rabbi Avraham Atia—a government-empowered haredi rabbinic judge based in Ashdod—retroactively annulled a woman’s conversion to Judaism that had been performed by Conversion Authority head Rabbi Haim Druckman fifteen years before. The nine-page legal decision by Atia could be understood to invalidate thousands of conversions performed by Druckman, a Religious Zionist rabbi, and the rabbis with whom he’s worked over the years.

This reading of Rabbi Atia’s ruling was adopted by the Chief Rabbinate’s High Rabbinic Court, which heard the Atia case on appeal. In a fifty-five page ruling released in early May of this year, the lead rabbinic judge—another haredi rabbi, Avraham Sherman—ruled every conversion performed by Rabbi Druckman from 1999 onward invalid. Thousands of converts and their children are now deemed “goyyim,” their marriages void, their relationships with their spouses now “illicit.”

While Israel’s Modern Orthodox and National Religious rabbis invested their energy, time, and money into settling the West Bank and creating an ever-greater Israel, haredim used their resources to become the dominant Orthodox political force in the country—even as they remain ambivalent about the validity of a Jewish state. They took control of the country’s Chief Rabbinate and its entire bureaucracy, whose authority they now wield as a weapon to attack and delegitimize more moderate Orthodox rabbis in Israel and abroad.

America’s largest rabbinic group, the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA) which represents “Centrist” and Modern Orthodox rabbis, was negotiating with Israel’s Chief Rabbinate over the conversion issue when we spoke with its executive vice president, Rabbi Basil Herring, in January. The Chief Rabbinate wanted the RCA to set up formal “conversion courts” with American judges approved by the Chief Rabbinate, who would first travel to Israel to be “trained” by the Chief Rabbinate to “properly” supervise conversions. Herring described the RCA’s relationship with Israel’s Chief Rabbinate as “very warm and positive.” “And that includes [the subject of] conversion,” Rabbi Herring emphasized.

He was unwilling to comment on specific cases that might disturb that idyll—such as Rabbi Atia’s conversion revocation—because, he claimed, he was not privy to the specific details of the case.

But privy he would soon be. This spring, the RCA reached an agreement (labeled “capitulation” by critics, including at least one former RCA president) with Israel’s Chief Rabbinate ensuring that American conversions will be much stricter from now on, and will be done only through formal, pre-approved “conversion courts." On May 6, the RCA reacted with outrage to the High Rabbinic Court’s revocation of thousands of Modern Orthodox conversions:

“T]he RCA finds it necessary to state for the record that in our view the ruling itself, as well as the language and tone thereof, are entirely beyond the pale of acceptable halachic practice, violate numerous Torah laws regarding converts and their families, create a massive desecration of God's name, insult outstanding rabbinic leaders and halachic scholars in Israel, and are a reprehensible cause of widespread conflict and animosity within the Jewish people in Israel and beyond. The RCA is appalled that such a ruling has been issued…

The RCA also claimed it had been “assured” by Sephardic Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar, the haredi president of the rabbinic court system, that the High Rabbinic Court ruling “directly countermanded his instructions and policies” and had “no legal standing at this time.” Reports in the Israeli media noted that Rabbi Amar was “trying” to annul the ruling.

How Many Kids: do you have? On May 11, the Jerusalem Post reported that many of Israel’s marriage registrars—all Orthodox—are refusing to register marriages of converts until Amar clarifies the status of Sherman’s ruling. In a country without civil marriage and with no other recognized Jewish options, this leaves converts in a limbo that could continue indefinitely. Amar says he wants to have the Chief Rabbinate's governing council discuss the issue, but the council is not seated. Therefore, Amar plans to wait for elections to the council to be held. His spokesman claims to be unsure how long this might take.

HAREDIM SEE ULTRA-ORTHODOXY as the only true Judaism. They don’t view non-Orthodox Judaism as a theological threat, because in their minds Reform, Conservative, and post-denominational Jews are only a few years from irrelevance. In the US, for every 1.36 children a Reform Jewish couple have, haredim have 6.72, and Modern Orthodox have 3.39.

Although they still have Modern Orthodoxy to contend with, the reality is that haredim now control Israel’s Chief Rabbinate and rabbinic courts. They provide teachers for Modern Orthodox day schools, dominate Jewish outreach, and serve as rabbis in Modern Orthodox synagogues.

Through control of the conversion process, haredim can determine who is a Jew, who is an Orthodox rabbi, and therefore what traditional Judaism is. The pawns in this haredi power play are the thousands of Orthodox Jewish converts who, just like Sarah, woke up one day to find they are no longer Jewish, their marriages are null and void, and their children are forbidden to marry Jews.

Jewish Orthodox Feminists: do exist!Orthodoxy is an easy target when we’re criticizing societies where women are treated poorly, given fewer rights, and are relegated to lives in the kitchen and nursery. Walking into an Orthodox synagogue and seeing a mechitza dividing the men and women can seem like a throwback to the days of Jim Crow, and when we hear about ultra-Orthodox women wearing burka-like garments, it’s hard not to jump to conclusions about the kind of society that would endorse such behaviors.

The truth is much more complicated. Though it has taken Orthodoxy a staggeringly long time to come to terms with even the most basic feminist ideals, all kinds of feminism are alive and well in the Orthodox world.

• The Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance provides lists of minyans where women participate in various forms, directions for life cycle events, advocates for agunot (women whose husbands won’t grant them Jewish divorces), and access to articles and databases to address a wide range of issues, from whether first-born women should fast the day before Pesach, to alternative readings of traditional texts.

• Education for Orthodox Jewish girls has come a long way: Until fairly recently there were some communities where women were not even allowed to learn Torah directly from a book, but in the past fifty years, education for Jewish girls has taken great strides, and schools like the Drisha Institute and Midreshet Lindenbaum allow women to study Talmud and pursue Torah learning with the same vigor as at the best yeshivot for men.

• Scholars like Tamar Ross and Haviva Ner-David are writing books that break open the stereotypes cast on Orthodoxy and feminism. There’s still plenty of apologist bullshit going on—you can always find some rabbi who wants to explain that women aren’t allowed to do x because they’re already on a higher spiritual plane, so it’s just not necessary—but increasingly, women are breaking out of the shtetl mold and finding new paths and ways to compromise tradition and modernity.
  

Golda Meir: not a champion for women's rights Meanwhile, the secular Israeli world isn’t quite as gender egalitarian as we like to think. We tend to regard kibbutzim as a kind of precursor to feminism, with women out in the fields working alongside men, and we love to brag about things like Israeli women spending time in the army, Golda Meir having been the first women Prime Minister of Israel decades before a female President was considered possible in the US, and Women’s rights always being a cornerstone of Israeli politics. In fact, according to an article at MyJewishLearning, even on socialist kibbutzim, women generally ended up back in stereotypical roles, working in kitchens and childcare because they were seen as too weak for heavy agricultural labor.

• Though Golda Meir was a political lioness, she was not known for working on behalf of women’s rights, and few women have been able to follow in her footsteps to rise to the top of Israeli political parties.

• The number of women in the Knesset is still very low relative to female political representation in other Western countries.

• Israeli cultural capitol still nudges women back into the home and towards traditional child-rearing roles, though slow improvements are being made.

• Women in the Israeli army complain of sexual harassment, and of being given unimportant jobs where they languish for their two years of service.

Despite these sobering facts, there is some good news: The President of the Israeli Supreme Court is a woman, and women are well-represented and protected in Israeli legislation. There’s still plenty of work to be done on both ends of the spectrum, and it’s not always as clear cut as you might think.

Previously: Haman Wore a Three-Cornered Hat?

Anorexia: still a problem under a long skirt and thick tightsYou might not guess it, but Orthodox women are hiding something under those long skirts and thick tights: Eating disorders. Anorexia and bulimia are generally associated with mainstream media and the pop culture that promotes super-thin figures, but eating disorders are problematic even in the Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox Jewish worlds. Girls (and increasingly boys, too) in these communities aren’t necessarily modeling themselves on celebrities, but they are trying to live up to to societal expectations for beauty and thinness. In a community where couples get engaged after only a handful of dates, it’s no wonder that undue emphasis is often put on the physical.

A Forward article about the phenomenon of eating disorders in the frum community contains a disturbing revelation about matchmaking:

Very often, young men looking for brides in the Orthodox community call a girl’s parents and ask for her dress size. “If it is anything over an eight, forget it,” Abraham Twerski said. Twerski, founder of a drug-and-alcohol treatment center in Pennsylvania, wrote a book about eating disorders called “The Thin You Within You.” “Girls have become probably even more body-image conscious in the Orthodox community than in the general population,” he said.

Wanting to predict what a young woman’s figure will be when she turns 40 or 50, some men go as far as asking what the size of the potential bride’s mother is. This obsession with physical appearance has led to an increase in eating disorders among middle-aged women.

In a response to this apparent epidemic, the Orthodox Union is producing a documentary titled Dying To Be Thin, about anorexia and bulimia within the Orthodox community. Many of the already available resources in this area focus more on media influences, which is less relevant for girls raised in homes without televisions, so the O.U. has committed to developing its own film for distribution to schools and synagogues affiliated with the O.U. in the United States, Canada and maybe Israel.

The Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance has a wonderful page of links to articles, books, and programs dedicated to eating disorders in the Orthodox world, but as was recently pointed out in a post on Dov Baer Forever, much of what’s being discussed has to do with very young, single women, but married and middle-aged women are also susceptible to anorexia and bulimia, and are likely to pass their eating disorders on to their daughters.

There are all kinds of kinky things going on in Orthodox bedrooms (see Calm Kallahs and the Frumsex messageboards for proof) but no one is having sex through a hole in the sheet.
Talit Katan: not lingerie

This rumor seems to have come from people looking at Orthodox Jews and their hardcore commitment to modesty and assuming that even during sex they’d insist on keeping everything covered up. But in fact, according to halacha you’re not allowed to have sex wearing any clothes at all, or anything that serves as a barrier between you and your partner (condoms are out).

Specifically, the hole-in-the-sheet things may have come from people seeing Jews in religious neighborhoods hanging their "talitot katan" out to dry. This poncho-like garment is about two feet by four feet, has a fringe on each corner, and a hole in the center for the wearer's head, and it looks somewhat like a small sheet with a hole. So, if you have a dirty mind, you might look at it and assume it’s some kind of uber-modest lingerie. But it’s not.

Actually, the rabbis have a pretty laissez fair attitude about what we do in bed, with the basic rule being that ejaculation has to happen inside the vagina (though some rabbis are even lenient about that).

Check out Snopes, and WorldNetDaily for more on this myth.

Previously: Blood Libel

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

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

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

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

A while back Soccer suggested I write about the Young Israel decision to ban converts and women from being presidents of their congregations. They also prohibited any of the shuls under their umbrella from having women’s tefillah groups, or even women-only megillah readings. And they have new legislation saying that all rabbis hired for Young Israel shuls have to be approved by the National Council, which has been seen as a way to screen for rabbis ordained at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, who are apparently not frum enough for Young Israel.
Young Israel: totally disconnected
Normally, I wouldn’t pay much attention to any of this. I don’t go to a YI shul, nor does any of their rhetoric carry much weight for me under the best of conditions, so if they want to be sexist, and elitist and frummer-than-thou that’s really none of my business.

But then I read a really great post on another blog about how the National Council of Young Israel has become obsolete and it pretty much convinced me. Here’s the post:

How bad does the National Council of Young Israel suck?

 

This month's YU magazine has a pretty damning article on the NCYI. Basically, NCYI member shuls are fed up with the NCYI for the following reasons:

• NCYI's overall move to the 'right'
• New legislation saying that NCYI must approve shul Rabbis (aimed at YCT)
• Ban against women and converts being shul presidents (repugnant says one pres)
• Ban against women's tefilah groups and even women's megilah lainings
• They offer nothing of value to their members
• They exist to expand their own power and prestige
• They 'lock in' member shuls by threatening to take hold of all their assets if they leave

I belong to a NCYI shul, and I can validate that my shul has most of the above issues with NCYI. In fact, at repeated conversations over multiple Shabbatim, everyone I spoke to agreed we should leave NCYI. Also I read the NCYI Viewpoint magazine every issue, it's always the same junk – endless pictures of Lerner or Moztofsky meeting with some notable or another. A complete waste of time.

I went to the NCYI site to see which services they offer, because I personally haven't seen anything useful from them. According to their site:

“Did you know that the Department of Synagogue Services of the National Council of Young Israel can be a tremendous resource to your synagogue? Here are some of the types of programs and services available to our Young Israel branches:”

Sounds great! So what is the list?

1. Branch Consultations
2. The Suggestion Box
3. NCYI Program Bank
4. Synagogue Lay Leadership Day
5. Sisterhood Services Day
6. Shabbat Shalom Yerushalayim

So let's go through these one by one and see if there's anything useful in there.

Branch Consultations
Broken link, nothing there.

The Suggestion Box
This is a series of short articles about how to do fund raising. Ssince all the articles are freely available on the web to anyone, I don't see how joining the NCYI is much of a benefit here.

Program Bank
'This one looks useful – a catalog of programming options, but the list is pathetic, e.g. a Barbeque-a-thon. Wow! I could never have thought of that on my own. Another example – 'Rubber Duck Races to pay synagogue bills'. Wow, I really would never have thought of that. And then there's the Pre-Pesach Stress Buster Program, where they suggest that the shul sends women to a spa for a few hours.

Why not give the women of the community some time off to escape and recharge by arranging for a few hours in a spa? Schedule an evening close to Pesach that your synagogue can take over a spa for women only: offer an evening of total relaxation. In addition, have a speaker discuss reducing stress during stressful times.

Yes, it really is that stupid.

Any synagogue worth it's salt can figure out programming ideas, surely. At least ideas of this pathetic caliber. And what kind of programming materials will the NCYI send out for the stress buster program?! I'm friendly with our programming director, maybe I should ask her to ask NCYI about this.

Synagogue Lay Leadership Day
Broken link. Sounds boring anyway.

Sisterhood Services Day
Ditto

Shabbat Shalom Yerushalayim
This is a special weekend around Yom Yerushalayim to impress on people the importance of Yerushalayim. I've never seen this, though my shul does it's own Yom Yerushalayim thing. Anyway, the web site says:

“By targeting every Orthodox synagogue in America, "Shabbat Shalom Yerushalayim" brings together Jews from across the United States through local synagogue programming.”

So if they target every OJ shul in the US, how is this a benefit of belonging to NCYI?

And that's it.

Based on their web site and my own experience, I have to agree with the YU article. The NCYI provides nothing for it's members except for the name. And going forward, that name might just be an embarrassment.

 

Far be it from me to tell NCYI how to run their organization that I never really liked to begin with, but when you’ve become irrelevant to your membership, and actively distance yourself from anything labeled “modern” how do you expect to retain any kind of standing in the Jewish world?

If FaithHacker is a guide to practical spirituality, it seems like Young Israel has become a home for impractical and disconnected spirituality.

Nosson Zand, more popularly known by his hip-hop and Internet handle Niz, is a bona fide Orthodox hip-hop phenomenon -- you know, along with Ta-Shma and Y-Love and (me, I guess?). Besides the questionable and debated Jewish appropriation of hip-hop culture, we can argue that Eminem and one of the Fat Boys did the same thing and save that for another blog post. The fact remains, some of these young gentlemen (and I wish I didn't have to say "gentlemen"; the only Orthodox female M.C. I know is the Bay Area's fabulous Rebbitzin Queen Esther, who has been working on her album for, what, 11 years?!) are on top of their game, both lyrically and deliverically -- they're dropping some pretty impressive stuff.

But Niz has Eminemed (or Fiddy'd?) his game once again, and not in a half-assed way: he's playing the starring role in Song of David, a movie about a yeshiva boy who, after being turned off from yeshiva, immerses himself in hip-hop culture. That's about all I've gleaned so far from the summary and preview, which you can find on the movie's website.

I have to be honest -- I'm skeptical. These things often don't get made in the Orthodox world unless you've cleaned the emotion right out of it. But I've also heard great things from Niz, and I trust his talent, and I'm pretty excited to see this movie. And you know I'm gonna let you know about it.

From my Chasidic mother-in-law comes this slightly inflammatory, slightly funny mockup of the KosherPhone -- this, mind you, coming from a country where 95% of the entire Jewish population lives within two very specific neighborhoods of two cities. In other words, their image of Orthodox Jews is informed more by "Gray's Anatomy" than by ever seeing an actual Orthodox Jew....then again, I suppose that's true for most of America, too. (Nonetheless: ozzie ozzie ozzie!)

"Chasers" is Oz's equivalent to the Daily Show and the State, rolled into one. For kicks, they dress up like Bin Laden and try to get served in military base cafeterias. If you'd like to skip the uncomfortably inherent anti-Semitism in the beginning ("cost for calling Palestinians: death!") and get straight to the rabbis with strap-ons, skip to about 0:51.

And as you do, remember this: I got this from my mother-in-law.

Jason Zengerle has a really worthwhile piece posted at TNR online (subscription required, I think) in which he details the growing number of converts to the Orthodox Church in the US, a large number of which are former Evangelicals. He charts a general disillusionment with the materialism, politics, and anti-intellectualism of the Evangelical church that has a lot of younger believers turning to the Orthodox Church: 

 This is an appealing idea, particularly to younger Orthodox converts who view evangelicalism as corrupted by the generation born right after World War II. "Baby boomers had an overweening confidence that our creativity and spontaneity was fascinating and rich," says Frederica Mathewes-Greene, a one-time charismatic Episcopalian who's now a prominent Orthodox speaker and author. "The following generation sees it as not all that rich. They find the decades of the rock band onstage performing songs kind of shallow. They're looking past their parents for something earlier."

 In the past year, two friends of mine, both from reform (if that) Jewish families, have graduated rabbinical school and, to the confusion and chagrin of their parents, become conservative rabbis. Along with Zengerle's article, I think this too hints at a nascent conservatism in my generation that is not so much political as it is private and personal. It's not necessarily at odds with political liberalism, though I think that's because one aspect of it is a disillusionment, if not a disgust, with political promises (which is often then realized as a sort of reactionarily willed ignorance). Zengerle writes of one young convert:

 But it wasn't just the foreignness of the Orthodox Church; it was its bigness that appealed to DeRenzo, as well. Indeed, as she continued to talk, it became clear that, as an evangelical, she had felt very small and alone. It was a surprising sentiment to hear from someone about the evangelical movement. After all, ever since the rise of the Moral Majority, American evangelicals have arguably been the most politically powerful religious group in the country. But perhaps the most telling revelation of the Orthodox conversion trend is that this political power has not translated into a sense of spiritual power--or belonging. For these converts, it seems, the Orthodox Church has solved the unbearable lightness of being evangelical. "When I was in [an evangelical church], I was thinking, This is great, I love this,'" DeRenzo said. "But I thought, and I don't mean to be morbid, but eventually some day this pastor is going to die or I'm going to move away, so if this is the only place in the world where the truth is, that's tragic." DeRenzo paused and looked around the sanctuary at the icons and the candles. She went on, "Coming to the Orthodox Church means that I am in communion with that church no matter where I am in the world, that I can go into that church wherever I am and have the same liturgy and celebrate the same way. I'll be in communion with other people. And that is so huge. That hugeness is so exciting."

 In truth, I think that the thirst for this "hugeness" is much more evident in the careerism, obsession with dating and marriage, and general "life plans"--which evoke an undynamic and conformist conservatism more in tune with the political Evangelical brand--that mark my generation than in any sort of general turn towards a deeper, more meaningful, more individual religious experience rooted in the authority of tradition. Still, it has me rethinking my initial contempt for my ex-hebrew school buddies turned conservative rabbis, though also wondering whether their new conservatism (which lets them wear NY Yankee yarmulkes) shouldn't be considered next to the more drastic, and, arguably, subversive, turns towards Orthodoxy. 

I just saw Tamar's "Orthodox Rabbis, I Will Beat Your Ass" post. Awesome post, Tamar. For reals.

But you should know that the boys get the Shabbos Dinner Ambush, too. When I'm in Jerusalem IJoin Me For Shabbos, and I Will Eat Your Brain: Orthodox Rabbis don't mess around over dinner sometimes have Heritage House hook me up for shabbat dinner with a family of foaming-at-the-mouth Orthonutz. I always enjoy it--even the inevitable your-background-is-shit-and-your-beliefs-are-shit shpiel, and the way it ends with the demand that I accept the literal truth--LITERAL, DAMMIT!--of revelation at Sinai.

This often includes a tangent-rant about how the so-called "rabbis" of the Reform and Conservative movements are godless, crypto-goyish liars who don't believe a word of the Sinai story, but disguise their atheism behind lots of waffly blather. Alas, there’s truth to this, and I think it may be part of the reason why people have trouble defending themselves against the ambush.

When a young seeker asks “rabbi, do you believe revelation at Sinai really happened?”, they should get an honest answer. And for many non-Orthodox rabbis, the honest answer is “No, I think the whole story is horseshit. It’s either totally fabricated, or based on some event that has been so embellished and inflated that it’s effectively pure fiction. But—like lots of other fables—it communicates some valuable ideas.” These rabbis need to let their testes/ovaries swing free and learn how to say this in less than 30,000 words.

So I’m not surprised if people who’ve attended Jewish day school don’t know how to defend their theological choices (btw, I attended a Conservative Jewish day school for a few years). You can’t teach students to defend a position if you’re not willing to tell them explicitly what that position is.

But to be honest, even if you got more help from Jewish day school, would it really matter? There’s no way to “defend” a metaphorical reading of scripture against someone who thinks that the Toyrah is the immaculate, unsullied word of Hashem. You’re starting from irreconcilable premises. You can explain to them in exquisite detail how the logic unfolds from your own conceptual starting points, but they’ll still regard the whole worldview as a polluted, Hellenized abomination, the product of Israel’s recent mass whoredom with the daughters of Moab.

It’s interesting to have that conversation a couple times, but then it gets repetitive. So now, to keep the Shabbos ambush interesting, I just make up lots of crazy shit and see how they respond. Last time at Heritage House I told the guy that my family was descended from followers of Shabtai Tzvi (the 17th century false messiah who turned world Jewry upside down), and that we were still very angry, and our faith too shaken to come back to Judaism. The guy kept saying “Come on! That was awful, but it was a long time ago!” Hysterical! An ultra-orthodox Sinai-monger telling me get over all that ancient 17th century history already!

Another time I incessantly expressed bewildered amazement at the parallels between Sinai and the Pentecost event in the Christian Testament, as though every word he said was inexplicably but undeniably stoking my interest in Jesus. That brought the Sinai discussion to an unusually fast close (an awkward one, yes, but we moved on to other topics, it's not like he kicked me out). So actually, that's my recommendation to anyone who dislikes the Shabbos ambush. If Jewish day school didn't prepare you, and you find yourself close tears, just drop the J-bomb on him until he staggers off into different territory.

IDF: The beard gets in the way.Today at Haaretz, an Op-Ed on the Tal Law. And in case you don’t know, the Tal Law is:

a special exemption to the required military service in the Israel Defense Forces. It is provided only for Israelis meeting very specific criteria; Haredi men and women born in the Land of Israel (Eretz Yisrael) that have lived there up until their 18th birthday. To qualify women must be married no later than a certain age, and men must continue to study in a yeshiva until the age of 21.

I find this an interesting subject, not because I want to talk about whether or not enforced military service is good, or because I want to know what you think of the IDF in general… but because my gut reaction to the Tal Law is negative, although my support of American Conscientious Objectors is strong. Which makes me wonder what the difference is…

Am I just put off by the black hats? Why does this bug me?

In thinking it over, I’ve arrived at (of course) a few questions instead of answers. But mainly, I’m curious about WHY these particular people are exempt. That seems to be at the crux of the issue for me.

And this article explains the logic by saying that they:

…hoped the opportunity would encourage members of the ultra-Orthodox community to joint the workforce. At the time, former justice Zvi Tal admitted that the arrangement is unjust, but said the plan would be implemented for five years as a social experiment.

Hmmm. Is that it? Really? I was thinking it had something to do with the value of the work these guys were doing in Yeshiva… or their staunch religious opposition to the military… or maybe just the courtship of an orthodox voting block.

But UNJUST? This seems super lame to me. If this is the case, and they’ve admitted as much, how can they stand behind it?

See, when you’re (for example) a Quaker in the US, and so you get out of service, it’s because the very basis of your faith is in opposition to the military (in theory). Which I can understand. But the TAL Law doesn’t extend to an entire theological branch of Judaism. It’s based on enrollment in a Yeshiva. Which doesn’t make sense to me.

More than that, I can’t help thinking that it’s funny… I mean, if it’s wrong for these very holy Jews to fight, shouldn’t we all be aspiring to the same kind of religiosity (in their eyes)? Do they think everyone should quit fighting?

Help me out, folks? Educate me!

It's always a proud day in Orthodox child rearing when the combination of ritual purity and that Jewish disposition towards obsessive compulsion kick in.

My Lil' Tzaddik used to enjoy getting his hands messy. Nothing made him happier than plunging his hands into paint or the food on his plate in front of him and letting the mess ooze through his fingers.

Recently, however, he has gotten very machmir about Netillas Yadayim. Sure he is only two and a half years-old, but whenever he gets even the slightest amount of shmutz on his hands he cries out "Dirteee!" and runs over to the sink in the midst of a meal, grabs his washing cup, and washes his hands again. Perhaps it is his exposure to another boy in his class who is extremely finicky about exposure to dirt or being messy, but my son has now also adopted this predilection for washing his hands.

Lil' Tzaddik plays with two washing cups in the tub each night and it is not uncommon for him to even sit on the couch while holding one in his lap.

Courtesy of A Simple Jew.

In our ongoing effort to alienate the left and lower the highbrow, here's another New Left Review piece ($$) by Gadi Algazi on Israeli corporate expansion into the West Bank. An IT company called Matrix has set up (sweat?)shop in the Modi'in Illit settlement where -- leaving aside the dispossession of Palestinians caught between the Green Line and Sharon's "Protection Wall" -- orthodox Jewish women practice a form of indentured servitude. Money quote:

The state indeed sustains Matrix’s venture in Modi‘in Illit: not only are the workers’ wages subsidized by the government for at least five years, but the colonial project continues to put at the disposal of the developers, contractors and high-tech firms the cheap, stolen land of the local farmers, as well as the public resources, policemen and soldiers necessary to secure it—and a captive and disciplined workforce. A much-publicized feature of Matrix’s ‘offshoring at home’ operation in Modi‘in Illit is the company’s use of ultra-orthodox women’s labour. At the Talpiot software development centre there the rules of Kashruth are observed, and there are separate kitchens for women and men. There is also a ‘pumping room’ for women to nurse their babies—since, while working for Matrix, they are also breeding for Israel. ‘Although many are mothers of six, they miss fewer days of work than a mother of two in Tel Aviv’, an Imagestore project director in Modi‘in Illit told a journalist. ‘These women have no issues. They just work. No smoking or coffee breaks, chatting on the phone, or looking for vacation deals in Turkey. Breaks are only for eating, or pumping breast milk in a special room. Some women can pop home, breast-feed and come back.’

Not sure how I feel about the phrasing of "breeding for Israel," but I mean, come the fuck on: a whole room for pumping breast milk? What's wrong with these demanding chicks? Can't they squirt and code simultaneously? Sheesh! Where's "Think different" strategizing when you really need it?

Actually, haredi hackers are nothing new (the hegemony is another story.) Check out this old Salon article on how the Talmud was the first "hypertext."