Early yesterday, Jonathan Martin filed a report on the McCain campaign's growingJohn And Cindy in 2000: When the press was still their base frustration with what they feel are double standards in the way the media are covering John McCain versus the way they're covering Barack Obama. Is there a precise antonym of 'serendipity'? Because something tells me there won't be too many more Sedona cookouts for the "base" if articles like this Mail on Sunday piece --- complete with Shymalanian Ross Perot cameo! --- migrate across the pond and proliferate :

When Carol was discharged from hospital after six months of life-saving surgery, the prognosis was bleak. In order to save her legs, surgeons had been forced to cut away huge sections of shattered bone, taking with it her tall, willowy figure. She was confined to a wheelchair and was forced to use a catheter.

Through sheer hard work, Carol learned to walk again. But when John McCain came home from Vietnam, she had gained a lot of weight and bore little resemblance to her old self.

Today, she stands at just 5ft4in and still walks awkwardly, with a pronounced limp. Her body is held together by screws and metal plates and, at 70, her face is worn by wrinkles that speak of decades of silent suffering...

'My marriage ended because John McCain didn’t want to be 40, he wanted to be 25. You know that happens...it just does' [Carol McCain said].

Some of McCain’s acquaintances are less forgiving, however. They portray the politician as a self-centred womaniser who effectively abandoned his crippled wife to 'play the field'. They accuse him of finally settling on Cindy, a former rodeo beauty queen, for financial reasons.

McCain was then earning little more than £25,000 a year as a naval officer, while his new father-in-law, Jim Hensley, was a multi-millionaire who had impeccable political connections.

It gets more unflattering from there. For the record, I'm not endorsing this; dumpster-diving is a poor substitute for journalism. The point, though, is that angrily lashing out at the press, as the Martin piece suggests is the McCain camp's strategy, is just going to lead to a negative feedback cycle in which only McCain stands to lose. You'd think their savvy new communications expert, Michael Goldfarb, would know that. If the McCainiacs don't want to face a spiral of hostility, leading questions, and sensationalism from the media, the solution is fairly straightforward: They can work with the Obama campaign to apply bipartisan pressure to keep coverage clean and focused on issues (good on both sides for shutting ABC out of future debates, by the way; the way to deter future McCarthyite spectacles like the Philadelphia debate is to punish the parties responsible).

Alternatively, they can try to overcome deplorable, barely-sourced snooping into McCain's private life, by paying Michael Goldfarb $X more than he's worth (where X = his total salary) to win over hardline militarists who supported Hillary Clinton by regaling them with tales of McCain's fondness for ABBA. Whatever works.

Rabbi Dr. Marvin Hier: #1 Most Influential American RabbiNewsweek came out with its second annual list of Top 50 Influential American rabbis, and this year started a list of the Top 25 Pulpit Rabbis. But alongside the lists, it printed an op-ed by Lisa Miller called "Is Your Rabbi Hot or Not?" that summarizes some of the criticism of the first list, and explains that the list of pulpit rabbis is a way of recognizing not just Madonna’s puppetmaster and the heads of various movements, but also rabbis who are particularly good at inspiring their congregants, nurturing growing communities, and are exceptional leaders.

Miller was right when she speculated that the response to the list would cause storms to rival the ten plagues. Rabbi Jill Jacobs is already on record at Jspot complaining about how few women made it onto the lists (3/50 and 4/25).

Miller and the three guys who put together the list, (Gary Ginsberg, an executive at NewsCorp.; Michael Lynton, chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures, and Jay Sanderson, CEO of JTN Productions) claim their intent is to inspire the public, and help people find rabbis who are doing transformational work. It’s a nice thought, but ranking rabbis is different than ranking local sushi bars. For one thing, it’s telling that there are only 25 Top Pulpit Rabbis, but 50 Influential Rabbis. Pulpit rabbis seem to be inherently less important than rabbis who run major foundations or movements, even though the impact of a pulpit rabbi on your average Jew is much greater than the work of the guy who runs, say, Chabad.

And beyond that, what’s the point, really of ranking them? Maybe listing fifty rabbis with great influence in American society would be interesting, but keeping track of who drops from number 23 to 29 is perhaps not a productive way of dealing with a bunch of high maintenance power brokers. And what we certainly do not need in the American Jewish community is more animosity between movements and machers in the major communities.

Want Out of the Fast of the Firstborn?: crash a wedding and chow down This year, the fast of the firstborn, Taanit Bechorot, falls on Thursday, April 17th. Should you be fasting? Here’s the lowdown:

1. What It's All About: Remember the tenth plague, death of the firstborn sons? Recollect how the Jews marked their houses with the blood of a pascal lamb, so God would know not to kill Jewish firstborn sons? Taanit Bechorot is a sunrise to sunset fast specifically for firstborn children (we’ll get to the daughter/son issue in a minute) to commemorate how they were saved from being slaughtered in the plague.
2. When to Abstain: Usually, the fast falls on the day before Passover starts, but because Passover starts on a Saturday night this year, and we’re only allowed to fast on Shabbat for Yom Kippur, Taanit Bechorot is pushed to Thursday.
3. Loopholes: The Rabbis knew that the day before Passover wasn’t a great time to be asking people to not eat (everyone deserves a pre-Passover donut fix, right?) so there are a number of suggested ways to get out of fasting. For instance, you generally can’t fast if you attend certain ceremonies that require festive meals, such as a bris, a wedding, a bar or bat mitzvah, or a siyum. Firstborns are encouraged to go to such ceremonies so they won't have to fast.
   
4. Equal Opportunity Fasting: Are firstborn women obligated to fast on Taanit Bechorot? As you might expect, there’s some controversy around this question. Some authorities say that only firstborn men should fast. If a child is too young to fast, his father fasts for him, and if the father is a first born and has to be fasting already, the mother fasts for the child. But there are many communities where women are considered to be obligated as well. This is based mostly on a Midrash that says that Bitya, Pharoah’s eldest daughter, was saved because of the merit of Moses. This implies that other Egyptian women weren’t saved, so the miracle applies to women as well.
5. Insatiable Appetite for Fasting Knowledge?: For more background on Taanit Bechorot, check out MyJewishLearning, or Daily Halacha. For more on the debate about whether women are obligated, check out a JOFA article called “Women and the Fast of the Firstborn.”

With Eliot Spitzer out as New York's Governor and David Paterson now being portrayed as the sole righteous man in Sodom, America is busy getting to know a new character: Ashley Alexandra “Kristen” Dupre, the high-end call girl who Spitzer was caught employing. Seriously, if this press doesn’t boost her fledgling music career nothing will.

This week’s Spitzer news came as a pretty big shock. But over at Jspot, Rabbi Jill Jacobs is making an interesting point: Haven’t we heard this story before?Look Out, Fellas!: she's putting a spell on you

We’re not just talking boy meets girl, boy gets elected to public office, boy gets caught with a stripper narratives here. Rather, we’re talking about women getting to know men of status in the biblical sense, donning disguises and “playing the harlot” in order to make personal gains. Rabbi Jacobs puts it best: “A young woman, with no parents in the picture, conceals her identity and sleeps with a powerful man in the hopes of moving up in the world, or at least of saving herself from ruin. Must be almost Purim."

The more you think about it, the more familiar and less modern the story becomes: Tamar, veiled and waiting for Judah on the side of the road in order to produce offspring, Yael luring the Canaanite general into her tent so that she could give him milk and stab him in the brain, even Ruth, who got all dolled up and uncovered Boaz’s “feet” so that she and her mom-in-law wouldn’t starve to death. A nice, girl next door type from New Jersey named Ashley becoming the vixen temptress Kristen in order to make ends meet is not that far off from these types of tales.

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.

With the release of the first issue of Jewish Living magazine came a phone call to me from a reporter at the Palm Beach Post. Jewish Living is a new Martha-esque lifestyle ‘zine for the Jewish homemaker, and the reporter thought that as editor of the website Modern Jewish Mom I could give him the dish on this new "trend" of marketing to hip, Jewish moms.

I told him it's not so new, the idea of making it hip to be Jewish. From Heeb and Jewcy to Rabbis Daughters and ChosenCouture, (I even threw some credit to Madonna and Demi), hip and Jewish is here to stay. As the young women who onceThe Lifecycle of Hip: From Challah Back t-shirts to Jewish Living magazine wore "Challah Back" boy beaters now become mothers, websites and magazines will follow.

But that wasn't what he wanted to hear.

"Wouldn't it be smart for Bloomingdale's to advertise in JewishLiving? After all, aren't Jewish women their primary customers?"

"Non-Jewish women shop at Bloomingdales, too. And Bloomie's and their ilk can reach a Jewish AND non-Jewish audience by advertising in mainstream magazines. JewishLiving readers probably won't be interested in ads for Maneschewitz, though."

He kept pushing. I knew what he wanted. For me to say we're a bunch of materialistic JAPs who love nothing more than to shop. That we're more likely to be found in Saks than in shul. That reaching a niche market of wealthy, young Jewish women is an advertisers dream. So why would advertisers need to bother with shiksas when they have JewishLiving?

The more he pushed for me to tell him the differences between Jewish and non-Jewish women, the more I realized how slight those differences are. Today, being Jewish is part of our identity, but not our entire identity. We want tradition to be relevant and valuable while fitting with our modern lifestyles. Gone are the days when we will stay home all Friday to make Shabbes.

Are we highly educated? Yes. More so than our mothers, but only because of the sacrifices our mothers made so we could go to college and grad school. Are we wealthy? Yes, Jewish households in America are wealthier on average than non-Jewish households, but overall there's a heck of a lot more disposable income and college degrees among non-Jewish women than Jewish ones. Do we look different? Not so much, anymore. Do we dress differently? I almost started talking about the whole "goyishka" way of dressing when I remembered some Lily Pulitzer pieces in my closet!

For magazines like Jewish Living, and websites like mine, talking to modern Jewish moms means taking into account who we are as a generation. We're more jaded than our mothers. We don't kowtow to the rabbi simply because he is the rabbi. We juggle insane schedules, and tradition better damn well make sense if we're going to give it our time. So speak to us intelligently and thoughtfully and don't patronize us.

So, would mainstream advertisers be smart to advertise in JewishLiving? Absolutely. Because it would show support for the Jewish community. Because it would prove that they understand that when Rachael Ray tells her audience that her Christmas buffet casserole made of leftover ham, turkey, cheese and creamed corn would work just as beautifully for Hanukkah, it's offensive. Because last year's December issue of Family Circle didn't even mention that there were other holidays besides Christmas being prepared for in homes. Because mainstream lifestyle resources are not adequately addressing the needs of the Jewish family and so we've stepped in and met the need ourselves.

But not because you think we're a generation of JAPs who can't stay out of Bloomingdales.

A user called Daphne posted a comment -- encouraged by me after an earlier email she sent to Jewcy -- asking why the female representation is nil on our new politics blog:

The Cabal looks excellent--I'm looking forward to reading it!

Scanning the list of contributors, however, I noticed that all ten of the Cabal bloggers are male. I wouldn't bring this up if you had a group of only three bloggers, or maybe even five, but a line-up of ten contributors starts to imply a representative sample of contemporary ideas relating to Judaism, the Middle East, and politics. To not include a single female voice in this mix seems odd, at best.

The gender-balance situation looks even stranger when you consider the fact that the writers for Faithhacker and Pickled, about religion and food, are female, and the writers for The Daily Shvitz and now The Cabal, about politics, are male.

Gender-related stereotypes are ingrained and hard to overcome. I'd love to see Jewcy work towards changing the status quo, instead of reinforcing outdated ideas.

This is something that's been bugging me ever since I created our roster of poli-bloggers and tried them out on the Shvitz. Full disclosure: I hire people whom I read regularly and with enjoyment. But there are so many blind spots in my bookmarks that I'm enlisting your help to find a few good women to add to the ideological eclecticism of The Cabal.

Name names, people! Who would you like to see here? 

Michael recently pointed out how the Iraqi working class are going to get cut out of the forthcoming deal over Iraq's oil, while rich Iraqi and American corporations benefit.

This is, of course, not a surprise. Iraq's women were cut out of a vast number of rights way back in 2003, and it appears to me, for the foreseeable future as well, because under the "realistic" method of reconstruction -- which I call the build-on-the-fly method -- it was better for the US to concede women's rights for the sake of "stability." As such, the US consented to a horrible version of the Shariah to be placed as part of Iraqi law, making one question our commitment to "freedom."

Here is an Iraqi feminist explaining how the new constitution turned women into second class citizens in a Shariah system.

YANAR MOHAMMED: It has made it very clear under the first chapter of the main principles that the Sharia will be the main source, actually, the exact word is the base source of legislation, and any article that contradicts with Islamic Sharia cannot be passed under this constitution. So, we are speaking here about a whole family law that will be based on Sharia, in the time that our previous family law was more progressive. It had a big number of amendments to it. It was one of the best in the Middle East, and it gave women some kind of independence, while under this new family law that will be totally based on Islamic Sharia, women's rights in marriage, in divorce, in custody and even in access to work and education will be in the hands of the males.

In other words, we are not allowed to independence. We are not allowed to decisions in our lives, and we not speaking here about only appearances of wearing veil or not veil, but we are speaking about women having choices in their lives. We have lost those, and it is by constitution now. There is no other way to it, because no article that contradicts with Islamic Sharia will be allowed in the family law, and there isn't much elaboration about following the international conventions of ending the discrimination against women to prioritize them over religion. It says very clearly the priority is that the laws will not contradict with Islamic Sharia. So, there you go, all of the women are second-rate citizens in Iraq. There's another point, Amy.

Of course, X years from now, after we've left, and after there is a modicum of peace in Iraq, when all these Shariah laws are imposed on women, people like me and those bleeding heart liberals at amnesty will bitch and moan about "America's fault" when pro-stoning legislation is being debated in Iraq, and then we'll get called anti-American. Meanwhile, a whole cottage industry of right-wing pundits will be talking about Islam's inherent patriarchy and American absolution will be had by everyone but those who are being victimized.

In the comments of an earlier post we discussed how something went amiss from 1935 to today which led to the empowerement of illiberal Muslims all across the world. I suggested that our foreign policy had something to do with that. Now that I have shown you exactly how it is happening even today, do you believe?

Claudia CoganIn his notorious Vanity Fair piece, Why Women Aren't Funny, Christopher Hitchens says that, of the few good female comics, most are "hefty or dykey, or Jewish, or some combo of the three."

I figured I'd use my last day on the blogging job to bring you more comedy coverage. Here is a hi-larious interview with Claudia Cogan. I'm not sure if Hitchens has Claudia's number ... but she definitely ain't hefty.

Jen: Claudia, I remember a joke from your performance at Pete's Candy Store about people thinking you're Jewish when you're not. Can you run that by me again?

Claudia: I ran into an old friend of mine. It had been a while and she asked, "How was your Passover?" And I answered truthfully: "Well, it sucked because I'm not Jewish."

Everyone thinks I'm Jewish. I got a Hannukah card from a man I've known my entire life so I called him up. "Dad, you know I'm not Jewish."

Continue reading...

First of all, pretty much everything you learned about goddesses from The Da Vinci Code is wrong. You probably knew that, because you probably watched one of those Discovery channel Breaking the Da Vinci Code specials, but in case it wasn’t totally clear, or in case you’d like to learn a little about goddesses and their effects on Judaism and Jewish culture, there’s a much better (though less suspenseful) book about the topic called In the Wake of the Goddesses: Women, Culture and the Biblical Transformation of Pagan Myth by the late Tikva Frymer-Kensky of the University of Chicago.

One thing Frymer’s book doesn’t do, sadly, is tell you how to BE a goddess. Perhaps she assumes you’re rocking the goddess vibe already, or perhaps she thinks all those Glamour articles about how this new eye shadow trick will make you “look like a goddess” are stupid, but regardless it’s clear she wasn’t familiar with Sajani Shakya, a ten year old girl from Nepal who is worshipped as a goddess. Really.

Being a living goddess has its advantages for 10-year-old girl

The Little Goddess: lucky girl

In Nepal, Sajani is a living goddess, one of about a dozen such goddesses in her homeland who are considered earthly manifestations of the Hindu goddess Kali.
Sajani arrived in Washington on June 11 to help promote a British documentary about the living goddesses of the Katmandu Valley and to see a bit of the United States. She is the first of the Nepalese living goddesses to come to the U.S. because the girls live mostly in seclusion.

What does a young goddess do in Washington? Unlike some visitors, Sajani had no plans to ask anyone for anything. Instead, she planned to go on a private tour of the White House with an interpreter. She hoped also to go to the zoo, perhaps ride a roller coaster, visit a Hindu temple and, in places like the school, learn how others live and show them, however shyly, something of her little-known world.
"There's nothing I don't like about being a goddess," Sajani said through an interpreter. Then, thinking about her typical day, when she has to rise early for her family and others to pray to her, she added, "It was difficult when I was younger to get up at 4 to bathe for the morning prayers."

The goddesses of Katmandu are chosen when they are about 2 years old from a Buddhist caste, though they represent a Hindu deity, an example, Whitaker said, of the harmony between the two religions in Nepal.

The king of Nepal has traditionally sought the blessings of the three main goddesses. Hindu and Buddhist priests pick the living goddesses after consulting a horoscope and then finding a girl who meets "the 32 perfections," Whitaker said, from skin "of golden color" to a body "like a banyan tree."

Devotees believe that the goddess Kali inhabits the girls, though they do not exhibit unusual behavior, and then the goddess leaves them when they reach puberty. After that, the girls retire with a small pension. They are free to work and marry.
"The idea of virginal, premenstrual purity, it does seem like a contradiction with worshipping a feminine divine," said Rachel McDermott, associate professor in the department of Asian and Middle Eastern cultures at Barnard College, "but in all this, there is the devotion to purity."

People go to the goddesses to touch their feet as they are carried through the streets. They give them money as offerings, which in Sajani's case goes to support her family. They visit Sajani in the goddess house, where she sits on a small ornate throne, to ask for a better job, better health, a measure of happiness.

Full story

Okay, so you probably missed the boat if you wanted to become a goddess (unless you’re a 2 year old Tibetan girl, in which case, good luck!) but you can still pray like a goddess if you’re so inclined. Much of Jewish liturgy is written in the masculine form, essentially referring to God as a man. I have to be honest and say that as a feminist this doesn’t offend me in the slightest, but I understand how it’s frustrating for others, and I’m happy to direct you over to a website run by a woman named Judith Laura. At Laura’s website you’ll find almost the entire Shabbat daytime services converted over to feminine language. Baruch Ata Adonai becomes Brucha At Yah and so on. It’s fascinating, and at least worth a look. Check it out here.
There Are All Kinds of Goddesses: But naked goddesses are the best kind
And if you’re like me and sitting around having people worship you doesn’t seem like much fun, and you’re not inspired by feminized forms of God’s name, you might want to get yourself a copy of Kiss My Tiara: How to Rule the World as a SmartMouth Goddess by Susan Jane Gilman. It’s the kind of book that makes you laugh and think and get angry and have great ideas and want to change the world. And really, what else is there for a goddess to do?

Who knew that nearly 2 years after Israel pulled up stakes in that troublesome stretch of land, leaving Palestinians to their own misery, that any Jews continue to live in the Gaza Strip? It turns out that there is one last Jewess named "Nina," who does advocacy work for human rights NGOs in the Gaza Strip. Good intentions aside, it seems like a fool's errand to me.

She lives in a "bourgeois section" of Gaza City which probably means that the sound of RPG's and mortar fire is drowned out by the half an hour a day of television the sporadic jolts of electricity allow. With kidnappings of Westerners rapidly becoming the most popular sport in the Gaza Strip, outstripping suicide bombing and honor killings as de rigueur for those hoping to earn their radical stripes, let's hope that she keeps her head and does not reveal the secret that she comes from a Zionist family.

Daniel Pearl's noble reporting in Pakistan could never erase the fact that his great-grandfather Chaim Pearl was a founder of the town of Bnei Brak in Israel.

Haven't we had enough martyrs over the last 5,000 years?

I want to call everyone’s attention to a recent JTA editorial by Edgar M. Bronfman on the need for changes in the synagogue. When I saw the title, “Synagogues must experiment to remain vital in Jewish life,” I got all excited because I, like many of us out there, get bored sitting in shul for hours and end up showing up at 10 to cut into the drudgery.

But reading on a little bit, I got confused by some of his suggestions:

In the world of Orthodoxy, why wouldn’t a rabbi experiment with some forms of gender equality? Even within the limitations of Orthodox Jewish law, why wouldn’t a rabbi try to propose that instead of a minyan of 10 men, there should be one of 10 men and 10 women?

Um, excuse me? Has he been in any Orthodox shul outside of New York recently?  In my shul, we have a minyan signup sheet because attendance is so low, and still on most days the only names on the sheet are those of the rabbi and the cantor. If we can’t get 10 people to show up, what makes Mr. Bronfman think we can get 20?

He goes on with another suggestion, and here’s where I really get steamed up:

Why wouldn’t a rabbi in a Reform congregation experiment with dispensing of the Torah reading as it is done now, ask the congregants to read the parshah before the service begins, and then have a discussion involving any congregant who wants to be involved? Perhaps the same rabbi would refrain from giving a sermon to allow time to thoroughly discuss the Torah reading.

Come on now. Get rid of Torah reading altogether, but only possibly get rid of the sermon? And, based on his later observations that people don’t want to spend that much time in shul, how many people does he think are actually going to read the parshah at home? A discussion with one congregant isn’t a service, it’s a tutorial.

I agree we need to change, but these types of changes lead to one thing, which even Mr. Bronfman hints at in his editorial.

The Evangelical churches burgeoning across the country prove that if done properly, congregational life can be meaningful and relevant to the lives of people and a source of communal identification. 

I’ve never attended an Evangelical service, but from what I’ve heard, they basically consist of singing some Gospels and listening to the preacher. If we eliminate the davening and torah reading from shul, we’re eliminating some of the very things that separate us from the other religions. If we sell Judaism to young people by saying, ‘our services are just like the Church’s,’ then soon the only reason they’ll have to choose shul over church is a preference for sleeping in on Sundays.

Continue reading...

The Mirror Has Two Faces: I'm not the only one with two selves.For the last week, I have been asking myself the same question countless times per day: What would Secret Rebecca do?

Secret Rebecca was born out of my inability to see myself on the cover of the New York Times Book Review, or waking up in a $10-million-dollar house in Malibu, or leading my 10-child brood—half birthed, half acquired—through the more complicated harmonies in the Sound of Music score.

The Secret requires constant positive visualization, but when I’m sitting on my couch watching Sex and the City on demand with an empty bag of baked Cheetos (come on, they’re baked!), it’s hard to pretend I’m a skinny person who has eschewed TV for the meditative, life-affirming power of a saltwater fish tank.

Secret Rebecca is that person.

Secret Rebecca looks like me, except she’s thin and her hair is less frizzy. She loves waking up at 6 am for yoga and she thinks that if fruit and ice cream had equal nutritional values, everyone would choose fruit because it really does taste better. Secret Rebecca is not creatively paralyzed—neither by fear of failure, or success—and so she manages to churn out one excellent book a year. She’s not delusional—she knows she’s no Phillipa Roth—but she sees no reason she shouldn’t be able to earn a living by writing quality trade paperbacks. So many dumb people do! But Secret Rebecca doesn’t think of them as dumb people. Why waste time and energy harboring negative emotions? Secret Rebecca thinks, Good for them! They’re following their bliss! They’re doing the best with what they’ve got! Unlike Rebecca, who thinks, if I had just a little less obsessive self-awareness I could have published ten books by now and bought myself a nice little pad overlooking the Barnes and Noble on Astor Place from which I could drop water balloons on all the entitled double-stroller-pushers attending chick lit signings with their nannies. Secret Rebecca moonlights as a chick-lit writer under a pen name, just for fun. She donates all the proceeds to an anonymous send-a-nanny-to-college fund.

Continue reading...

The Dianetics Picture Book: Grab your crayons and self-actualize!Years ago I interviewed an actress for a beauty story—an actress who happened to be a Scientologist. She was delightful: warm, funny, smart, and, of course, gorgeous. And she looked preternaturally young for her age. When I asked her what her anti-aging secret was, she brought her teacup down from her lips and, gazing deep into my eyes, she said, “I believe I am going to stay young, and so I do. It’s part of my religion.”

I don’t know if she performed some Jedi mind trick on me or what, but at that moment, I wanted to be a Scientologist. In fact, I let her tell me about it for the next 45 minutes. She managed to convince me—temporarily—that L. Ron had discovered the Way to self-actualization (“There are Jewish Scientologists, you know…”). At the end of our conversation, she ran into the back wing of her Brentwood mansion and came back with two huge adult-size coloring books—one on Dianetics, and one on Scientology. A surge of power pulsed through my arms as I accepted the books—I felt like Harrison Ford at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. I zoomed out of her driveway toward my hotel so I could lock my doors and read—OK, color—the books.

Of course I didn’t believe that what was inside them could make me look like a movie star—even if I became a believer, that would require years of auditing and some trips to the Celebrity Centre. I was freaking out because I had top secret information! In my possession were books that usually cost serious cash, books that were carefully kept out of naysayers’ hands. The information in these books had convinced some of the world’s richest, most successful people to believe in aliens.

So now you want to know what those coloring books said. Admit it: you’re feeling a little bit of nervous anticipation. (Got to Amazon if you really want to know; they’re available there for $13.95, much to my chagrin.) Now you understand how I felt when an Amazon box appeared in front of my door, holding a copy of The Secret.

Continue reading...

The Jewish Housewife: Does no "work"A few months back, I got to thinking about work.  About Shabbat, and how we're all supposed to rest. About how our religion is VERY specific in its prohibition of labor on Saturday...

 But our definition of what work is... bugs me. A lot.  39 Melachot?  WTF?

I don't know why I never got around to ranting about this back when it crossed my mind, but the issue resurfaced yesterday, popped into my head as I was cleaning my house (finally!) and so I'm ranting now. Thank goodness it's never too late to rant.

Unlike a lot of people I know, the contempory extension of "work" as defined long long ago... is not a problem for me.  Of course, it seems silly to root our definition of labor in a long-gone temple.  It makes little sense to me that one is supposed to keep from lighting lights, and hence can't open the freezer door to get a friggin ice cube.  But I'm usually okay with random and arbitrary rules. I'm okay with anachronism. 

I'm not going to observe a rule like that anyway, so what do I care if someone else wants to drink warm soda?

What DOES bother me a lot is that it seems like the work that women (traditionally) do does NOT count as "work."   Childcare, basic housekeeping, picking up...

And if that's not bad enbough...  there's this handy stipulation (which I don't fully understand) that the "home" is a kind of free zone, and in traditional families, "home" is the domain of women... so...

If on Shabbat you carry a feather outside the private area into the public, you've "worked" but if you move a piano from the first floor to the second floor you have not "worked." Thus, it is not work as we understand it in English and use it most often.

  Which means, I guess,  that hubby can't go out and mow the lawn... but wifey is totally allowed to fix hubby a nice meal (so long as she doesn't turn on the stove), clean up the table after dinner, get the kids into jammies, etc.  Hubby gets to sit and read his Torah, and rest... and wifey gets to enjoy hubby's enjoyment, surrounding by a bazillion kids. 

 All this after cooking all DAY friday so she wouldn't have to turn on the stove.  Because she can't "work".  Lucky wifey.

This chaps my hide.

So I want to issue a little challenge.  I'm calling it the "Second Shabbat Challenge".

Basically, in homes that observe the tradional celebration of Shabbat... we need to create a second Shabbat. A special chunk of time, a day of rest set aside for the ladies.  Because while the way we observe Shabbat may be beyond religious reproach... there's no halachic reason you can't create a whole new secular day of rest, to show your wife you appreciate her.

See, if wifey is going to make you a nice dinner while you sit and read... you should cook HER dinner on Sunday. Maybe you should take the kids to the park so SHE can read the fucking Torah for a minute.

Just a thought.

Wake me up when women aren't assessed first and foremost for their outward appearance. I caught a clip of "Regis & Kelly" while watching the late night news. The pregnant-by-Tom Brady (it's so trendy, there's a whole genre of them now) actress Bridget Moynahan has been interviewed that morning on the talk show and was bragging about how she could still fit into her favorite pair of jeans even after X months of being pregnant. She was there to plug that awful ABC melodrama she's on that's been renewed after ratings fell so low this Fall that they were forced to go on hiatus. Will ABC ever be able to repay the debt of shelving "Twin Peaks" after only one season?

Back to Moynahan and her pregnancy glow. I couldn't help but be concerned that I didn't even know why the actress was on the show since all the only thing being discussed in the short clip provided by the news station was how beautiful she was. Of course, the news anchors smiling with their vaseline coated teeth was distracting as well, but then, they too were gushing with pride about Bridget's appearance. Local hometown girl pride aside (Bridget was born in Western, MA), even I felt a bit like gagging.

And then I read this piece produced by the IJWC (International Jewish Women's Council) about putting a stop to low female self-esteem and how young girls have such idealized notions of beauty that low self esteem is inevitable. The jargon is nothing new, mind you. It was simply ironic that I came across the piece just after the Brady-Moynahan gag reflex set in. And because seeing a picture these days of Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, Nicole Ritchie, or Paris Hilton for that matter, doesn't exactly equate with "idealized." More like, run from stardom/"fake beauty" as fast as you can so that you never end up like them. If anything then, the paparazzi has helped bring these stars down to a level that not only humanizes them, but actually makes them less appealing.

I'm not encouraging the paparazzi to stalk stars. Simply stating that the need to celebrate Dove's Real Beauty campaign, as ICJW is doing, is just as superficial in its own way. It's simply emulating a different cult of beauty and one that falls more in line with the women who promote it. We shouldn't have to look to beauty campaigns to find "real" beauty.

You'll have by now heard that at its 51st session on March 9, the UN Commission on the Status of Women condemned exactly one state for human rights abuses: Israel.

Anne Bayefsky at NRO mordantly observes:

The same week the commission focused specifically only on the state of Israel, 33 Muslim women engaging in peaceful protest outside a courthouse in Tehran were abruptly arrested on charges of “endangering national security.” Their goal? To put an end to polygamy and to child-custody laws that strip mothers in Iran of the right to raise and protect their own children. On March 8 — International Women’s Day — 700 women’s-rights activists again gathered in front of the parliament building in Tehran, demanding fair trials for the women jailed a few days earlier. Iranian security forces and ranks of baton-wielding police once more descended on the women, driving them back with physical force, verbal obscenities, and threats of more to come.

In Saudi Arabia, during the first week of March, a 19-year-old girl who was kidnapped at knifepoint, gang-raped, and then beaten by her brother for having “allowed” herself to become the victim of a rape has been sentenced to 90 lashes. Her crime? Meeting a young man who was not a family member. Indeed, one of her judges told this young woman she was lucky to have not gotten jail time.

And Gene at Harry's Place strikes the same chord:

Number of resolutions criticizing Israel (pdf) for its treatment of Palestinian women approved by the UN Commission on the Status of Women at its 51st session: 1

Number of resolutions criticizing the Palestinian Authority for the situation of Palestinian women: 0

Number of resolutions criticizing Iran for beating and imprisoning women's rights demonstrators or approving the stoning to death of alleged female adulterers: 0

Number of resolutions criticizing Saudi Arabia for prohibiting women from driving, traveling unaccompanied by male relatives or voting in municipal elections: 0

Number of resolutions criticizing Sudan for supporting the Janjaweed militia, which engages in mass rape of women in Darfur: 0

Number of resolutions criticizing any country other than Israel for anything: 0

Number of countries with worse women's rights records than Israel: Substantially >0

The resolution singling out Israel was approved by a vote of 40 to 2. The US and Canada opposed it.

All of which can be summed up by the late, great Patrick Moynihan's famous law: Complaints about human rights violations bear an inverse proportion to the actual violations committed.

In open societies like those of the United States and Israel, scrutiny of inexcusable acts is as easy as breathing. We hear about sweat shop labor conditions, instances of rape, institutional racism, torture, and murder all the time in these countries. But in countries where information is the exclusive commodity of the state -- North Korea, prewar Iraq, Hamas-controlled Palestine -- nary a peep is heard about how awful are day-to-day conditions for the entire populace, let alone one demographic of it. Palestine is now ruled by a party that may be split into a "pragmatic" foreign policy wing and a messianic domestic-military one, but that party's founding charter still defines women as chattel. Why the UN's unwillingness to take such a statement of purpose seriously?

What would be the reaction to, say, a policeman who ignored somebody with an expressed interest in commiting murder in favor of shadowing an outwardly ethical person who might one day succumb to the act himself? How long would he patrol the streets, do you think?

Yet another reason to rethink the clever idea that came together at Dumbarton Oaks.

I don’t know why, but I’ve always had a perverse interest in nuns. In The Sound of Music my favorite scenes are the ones in the convent, and my favorite song is How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria? I once read a mystery series about a former nun turned detective, and whenever nuns are on TV I get really excited. I know that by definition nuns are tres uncool, but I just find them really interesting. Mainly, I think, because I know that I couldn’t pull off the vows of poverty, chastity, enclosure and obedience for more than five minutes (especially not obedience), and it amazes me that anyone really can.
Nuns Are Cool: And They Like to Have Fun, too
Last year I heard an interview with Kenneth Briggs, who wrote a book called Double Crossed: Uncovering the Catholic Church’s Betrayal of American Nuns in which he talked about why the population of nuns in America shrunk from 185,000 in 1965 to less than 70,000 today. One of the things he points out is that when nuns wanted to make reforms that were sanctioned by Vatican II, they were often shouted down by bishops, priests, and even the Vatican. Women who were prevented from exerting their influence, and so, it seems, the idea of joining a convent became less attractive.

Yesterday the Chicago Tribune published an article about a 33-year-old woman who’s joined the Poor Clare Colettine nuns in Cleveland. There’s lots of discussion of the hardships and trials of being a nun, and of course Sister Christina explains that it’s all really fulfilling and she’s very content with her life, but the whole time I was reading the article I kept thinking about the frum women I know, and how similar their lives can be to the life of a nun.

If you think about it, most ultra-Orthodox women live in poverty, or something very close to poverty, they’re secluded from the secular world, and they’re taught to be obedient. They’re not, of course, chaste. Many of them have more than ten children, but they’re chaste until marriage, and then sex is carefully regulated by the calendar. What’s interesting to me is that while the number of nuns in this country is declining greatly, the number of Orthodox women seems to be growing at a breakneck pace.
Doesn't This Snood: Look Kind of Like a Habit?
Thinking about nuns in comparison to the Ultra-Orthodox women I knew from the neighborhood where I grew up, I have a new respect for both groups. If you’ve ever spent time with either nuns or be-snooded mommies of eleven you know they share an unbreakable earnesty and intensity for all things religious. It can be intimidating, but even when you disagree with them (and I think it’s clear that I disagree with both groups on a number of matters) it’s hard not to appreciate just how incredible their lives are.

Sadly, it’s hard to imagine a place for irreverent and inappropriate me in a convent or in Boro Park. I wonder if there’s a middle ground for people like me…

Since Laurel and I are hanging out together at the AWP conference today, I thought it would be appropriate to give some fiction recommendations for spiritual reading. Or as my high school English teacher liked to say, “Things to make you go hmmmmm…”

The Wholeness of a Broken Heart by Katie Singer – A book about four generations of Jewish women, Judaism ends up being the background that all the women learn to deal with. I admit I first picked it up because of the awesome title, and it did not disappoint.
The Gilded Chamber: Who doesn't like a novel set in a harem?
The Chosen by Chaim Potok – If for some reason you haven’t read this classic, please go pick it up now. Besides all kinds of insight into Hassidism and the trials and joys of the Orthodox community it’s fantastically well written. The first time I read it I was twelve and I immediately thought, “I’m an apikoros!” And I was all proud and shit. The movie is pretty good, too.

The Genizah at the House of Shepher by Tamar Yellin – I decided to like this book even before I read it because it was written by someone named Tamar, but I wasn’t disappointed. It’s the story of family that’s trying to hold its own religious history while competing with religious zealots, it does the whole back and forth in time thing without being annoying. A good thing to read when you’re trying to figure out how important it is to be Jewish when you don’t feel like being religious.

The Red Tent by Anita Diamant and The Gilded Chamber by Rebecca Kohn – You’ve probably already read the Red Tent, which is a fictionalized account of the story of Dina. The Gilded Chamber is the same kind of thing with the story of Esther. Both are fun and fascinating and make you think about Biblical women in all kinds of news ways. (And hey guys, one of my best guy friends read the Red Tent last year and told me he was expecting to hate it but he LOVED it. He swore me to secrecy, though, because he’s a pussy. But you’re not a pussy, are you? I thought not. Now get reading.)

The Dyke and the Dybbuk by Ellen Galford – I read this book when I was about fifteen, and I would read about ten pages and then put the book down, laugh and say, “Wow!” I was kind of a dork when I was fifteen. Anyway, the Kirkus review calls it “A fun, feisty, feminist romp through Jewish folklore as an ancient spirit returns to haunt a modern-day London lesbian.” A fun thing to read on those days you need to think about spirituality outside of religiosity.

The First Desire by Nancy Reisman – Full Disclosure: Nancy’s my fiction professor these days. She’s also a fantastic writer and doesn’t, to my knowledge, read this blog, so I’m not kissing up. This is the story of a Jewish family in Buffalo, New York in first half of the 20th century. Without being obvious about it, it examines the way Jews were treated by others, and the way Jews treated outsiders. A good examination of “the community.”

That should be enough to get you to the library. Anyone else have recommendations?

Never underestimate herThe Sunday New York Times included a piece, "The Racial Politics of Speaking Well," about why white people should avoid referring to black people as "articulate" or "well-spoken": "With the ballooning size of the black middle and upper class, qualities in blacks like intelligence, eloquence—the mere ability to string sentences together with tenses intact—must at some point become as unremarkable to whites as they are to blacks." Odd, then, that many women still go about referring to themselves, their mothers and sisters, and other heroines as "strong." (Once, in a laugh-or-cry moment, I even saw an emaciated homeless woman wearing a T-shirt with the slogan: "Never Underestimate the Power of THIS Woman!") It's another characteristic that, if not exactly a given, can't be claimed without implying that its opposite is the norm.

"Strong woman" need not always be an irritating cliché, though. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, for instance, is a reminder of how few of us, male or female, deserve the epithet "strong." Imagine saying this in The New York Times when you are already the target of innumerable death threats:

Q. Have you seen any ideology coming from within Islam that gives young Muslims a sense of purpose without the overlay of militancy?

A. They have no alternative message. There is no active missionary work among the youth telling them, do not become jihadis. They do not use media means as much as the jihadis. They simply — they’re reactive and they don’t seem to be able to compete with the jihadis. And every time there is a debate between a real jihadi and, say, what we have decided to call moderate Muslims, the jihadis win. Because they come with the Koran and quotes from the Koran. The come with quotes from the Hadith and the Sunnah, and the traditions of the prophet. And every assertion they make, whether it is that women should be veiled, or Jews should be killed, or Americans are our enemies, or any of that, they win. Because what they have to say is so consistent with what is written in the Koran and the Hadith. And what the moderates fail to do is to say, listen, that’s all in there, but that wasn’t meant for this context. And we have moved on. We can change the Koran, we can change the Hadith. That’s what’s missing.

Plenty of people (that is, people who don't already want to disembowel her) have bones to pick with Hirsi Ali. She has been called an "Enlightment Fundamentalist." Her book's influence will be limited, because many will read it primarily for the satisfaction of agreement. Nevertheless, it will have the unintended benefit of humbling us, perhaps even embarrassing us, with its evidence that for all of our debate and dilation, we do little we can be proud of.

Sound harsh? It's February, and that means that on campuses across America self-styled "strong women" will stage productions of the Vagina Monologues. "Gender roles" will be explored, though in a way that won't horrify or even surprise many involved. I can promise, having witnessed this orgy of self-congratulation time and time again, that the plight of women like Hirsi Ali will be nothing but a dutiful footnote, if it's mentioned at all. But the world that wants her dead is encroaching on ours, and the difference between play-acting at courage and putting it to the test will be made clearer and clearer.

I Heart Buying StuffHells yeah, it’s all coming together today. The front page of Thursday Styles brings it on home in the lead story about chain-boutique owner Stefani Greenfield, her business partner Uzi Ben-Abraham, and their ideal customer, Tarynne Goldenberg! (Love the double-“n” “e”, btw! Verrrry classy!)

What do all of these folks have in common (with Cindy Chupak, too)? Hint: it’s not just a fabulous wardrobe!

Jewish American Princess Syndrome is fairly understandable in its social, political, cultural context. Of course there would be a generation of American Jews who were unbelievably excited and overwhelmed by its own capability for material transcendence! Of course they would place enormous value in things and things and more things! Of course they would get their noses broken and scraped out, their hair dyed and straightened and thinned, their nails done and redone, their wardrobes obsessively flushed every season, their oh-so-Jewy body-hair waxed clear away!

Right, so a generation of spoiled little Brenda Patimkins resulted. The safety and prosperity and equal-opportunity-ness of America, replete with its near-religious reverence for the Almighty dollar, equals materialistic frenzy. But this giddy semitic shamelessness about assimilating, about owning and having and buying and having and having and having was supposed to time out about, oh, forty years ago.

Yet we now find ourselves one, two, even three generations removed from said JAP heydey, the organic Jewish American Princess zietgiest, and JAPiness remains ever present, blossoming, spreading its wings to encompass persistent generations of brainless mallrats of every vague cultural Jewish persuasion. (Just ask my sister-in-law!)

And you know what? There is absolutely no excuse for JAPiness in the 21st century. None.

Amazing irony points, however, to Ms. Greenfield, whose comments about her new flagship store inadvertently echo Herzl:

“We need a home to show the world who we really are.”

I’ve been called a self-hating Jew shockingly often this past year. But reading today’s Style section it hit me! Let it be said: I’m not a self-hater; I’m an other-hater. I like myself. It’s those horrid JAPs at Intermix I can’t stand.

The Christian Party .. Father's .. Manifesto (or something), a wholesome, Christian, God-fearing organization, has been hard at work organizing the cold hard facts to finally show the world an unbiased, fair, statistics-oriented view of reality through the eyes of troglodytic white men.

I was linked to it through this groundbreaking article which explains why women (specifically black, but they'll take what they can get) drivers need to be taken off the road. Its irrefutable evidence is backed by witty, eye-opening headlines such as "AMERICAN NIGGERS TRIPLE OUR FATAL ACCIDENT RATE"

Other highlights include scientific proof that Jews are stupider than everyone else (...which just goes to show you don't have to be smart to control the media!). Here's a sampling: "How can we possibly explain the LOW low test scores of New Jersey when blacks make up only 14% to 18% of the students there? What other than jews can explain the difference?"

A good question! While you're there, be sure to take their quick, five-minute poll on exiling the blacks. Now that's classy.

Salon’s Broadsheet (you’ll have to go through an ad) eviscerates Christopher Hitchen’s essay in this month’s Vanity Fair about why women aren’t funny.  It’s not worth adding to their arguments—or Feministing’s, or Echnide’s—because a) they’ve more than gotten the job done and b) the entire piece is so obviously, patently about provocation that I feel a little guilty even drawing attention to it.  

But!  If you read this and thought “But I’m a woman, and I’m funny,” and if you happen to be a member of the tribe, then you should be aware that Hitch thinks you’re an exception.  To wit:

In any case, my argument doesn't say that there are no decent women comedians. There are more terrible female comedians than there are terrible male comedians, but there are some impressive ladies out there. Most of them, though, when you come to review the situation, are hefty or dykey or Jewish, or some combo of the three. When Roseanne stands up and tells biker jokes and invites people who don't dig her shtick to suck her dick—know what I am saying? And the Sapphic faction may have its own reasons for wanting what I want—the sweet surrender of female laughter. While Jewish humor, boiling as it is with angst and self-deprecation, is almost masculine by definition.

What's curious about this is that his entire argument rests on the idea that women, being the wombier sex, are too close to the seriousness of reproduction to appreciate a good joke.  Does that mean that Jewishness -- with its angst and self-deprecation, two qualities never associated with any women -- somehow negates being a messy, reproducing female?  Because if so, ladies, than perhaps there's a cheaper alternative to Seasonale. 

(Weak joke?  Sorry, I was distracted by my fallopian tubes.)