German Ritual Baths

Walk through most German cities today and you don’t have to look too hard to find commemorations of pre-Holocaust Jewish life – they're in the sidewalks, on plaques, and in memorials here and there. And yet it can still be hard to imagine an observant Jewish community in Germany before the war – not to mention way before the war. One thing aiding our imaginations are the Jewish ritual baths that are being restored all around the country.

Some of these mikvaot are remnants of medieval synagogues — which can make their contemporary appearance that much more jarring. In Cologne, for instance, a hyper-modern glass pyramid protects the mikveh’s excavation site right in front of the City Hall.

Thanks to the literal depth of some of Germany’s old mikvaot – Cologne’s is nearly 50 feet underground, and is reachable only by descending 79 steps – they’ve survived remarkably unscathed. Peering into their depths is like looking through a portal to another world, and the experience is powerful — and surreal.

Traditions and Preparations for a Jewish Wedding

Customary rituals and practices of Jewish weddings are almost no different from their Christian counterparts including those of other religions and culture. Although variations may exist and are conspicuous, they are basically similar in intent.

Just like any other religion and culture, there are traditions and customs that must be adhered to before a Jewish wedding. Some of these customs are based on the cultural heritage of the Jews but are still observed today regardless if some of them are thousands of years old albeit with minor modifications.
The following are some common customs before a Jewish Wedding:
The Engagement (Tena’im)

In Jewish law and custom, engagement carries a radically different meaning than the intention to marry because a Jewish engagement contract (Tena’im) also involves the undertaking of substantial legal and social consequences. The engagement ritual is officiated at the groom’s table where he signs the engagement contract (in Aramaic) which is afterwards given to a prominent Rabbi or close friend to read publicly. After the public reading, the mothers of both bride and groom perform the ritual of breaking a china plate as a symbol announcing to one and all that the engagement agreement is completed to the satisfaction of all parties concerned.

The Te’naim is a legally binding agreement between the bride and groom’s parents that contains the pertinent information like the date and financial arrangements of the wedding. The practice of entering into such an agreement goes as far back as the 300 C.E. in order to do away with unsystematic wedding preparations and avoid misinterpretations that may lead to disagreements and awkward relationships not only between the couple but also between their families. The practice is mainly observed by the Orthodox Jewish community.

Aside from the Tena’im, other rituals and customs of a Jewish marriage are the giving of the ring (Eirusin) which signifies that the future bride cannot marry someone else even if they are not yet legally husband and wife; the bride’s acceptance of the ring (Qiddushin) and finally, sharing a home and consummating the marriage (Nissuin). The maximum allowable period for this is one year to prevent men from performing eirusin without committing to nisuin. When the allowable period has lapsed, Jewish courts can compel the man to support his bride. In the 12th century, the custom has evolved into the performance of eirusin in the morning followed by wedding celebrations with nisuin subsequently being performed before sunset. Modern day Jewish wedding rituals and customs are now done all in the span of one day due to business and work commitments and the changing times.


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Fagin the Jew

The antihero of Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist is the "villainous-looking and sinister" Jewish moneylender, Fagin. Fagin is referred to as "the Jew" 257 times throughout the first two-thirds of the novel, often in the context of him doing something nasty, salivating over his gold, or beating poor Oliver.

While working on the final third of the novel, however, Dickens forged a friendship that would change the course of his writing—or at least, that is, his writing about Jews. He bought a house from a Jewish couple he would later befriend, and the wife, Eliza Davis, wrote to him reprimanding him over Fagin's character, saying he'd "encouraged a vile prejudice against the despised Hebrew." Dickens eventually agreed, and excised every inclusion of the word "Jew" from the book's final 13 chapters. In a public reading of Oliver, he omitted every stereotypical description of Fagin, and in his later novel Our Mutual Friend, he created several Jewish characters, all of them sympathetic.

Despite Dickens’s stab at reform, the legacy of Fagin endures. In 2003, Will Eisner published a book, Fagin the Jew, which wrestles with the figure; and last year, a historian claimed that the real-life model for Fagin wasn't Jewish at all, but--just as disastrously--was black.

Women As Role Models

The Shulhan Arukh, the Code of Jewish Law, specifies that while the Hanukkah lights are burning, no one is to engage in work, especially women. Why women? There are two famous stories of Hanukkah that have brought special merit to the valorous role of women in the holiday.Judith Hanukkah

 

Judith and Holofernes

Two stories related to Hanukkah focus on the heroic efforts of women.

The Apocrypha is a collection of books from the biblical period which were not chosen to be part of the Jewish Bible (but were accepted in the Catholic collection). In addition to the First and Second Books of Maccabees, the Apocrypha contains the Book of Judith, a book preserved in the Greek but not in the Hebrew Bible. It tells the story of a beautiful Jewish woman by the name of Judith, who single-handedly saved the Jewish town of Bethulia….

The story goes like this. An evil general, Holofernes, lays siege to the town. All seems lost until Judith tells the elders of the town that she has a plan to defeat the enemy. They dismiss her offer as foolish and prepare to surrender to Holofernes. Judith tries once more to convince the elders that she can save them, and this time they reluctantly agree to allow her to leave the camp for one day.

Judith prepares herself for her bold scheme. She dresses provocatively and prepares a sack containing food and wine. She approaches the enemy camp and is immediately captured and brought to Holofernes. He is very impressed with her beauty and her prediction that he will capture Bethulia. She suggests they go to his tent alone and celebrate.

Once in Holofernes' tent, Judith feeds him the salty cheese she has brought with her. Holofernes becomes quite thirsty and drinks large quantities of wine until he falls asleep, drunk. Judith takes Holofernes' sword and cuts off his head. She covers the body with a blanket, puts the head in a sack, and returns through the sleeping camp to Bethulia.

The elders cannot believe that Judith has returned safely. She reveals the severed head of Holofernes and the elders place it on the walls of the city. Meanwhile, the enemy soldiers awake and discover the decapitated body of their leader. In the distance, they see Holofernes' head hanging from the walls of Bethulia. They decide that if a Jewish woman could be so ruthless, they do not want to fight Jewish men in battle, and so the army retreats and the city of Bethulia is saved.

A midrash (in Hebrew) dealing with a variation of the Judith story was read on the Shabbat or Shabbatot of Hanukkah during the Middle Ages. Dated sometime after the 10th century CE, the midrash is remarkably similar to the narrative of the Greek version.

Artist and critic Beth Haber notes that the story of Judith has inspired a long list of artistic representations, ranging from the rather violent depictions of the beheading of Holofernes by Andrea Mantegna to the stone sculptures of Judith on the north portal wall of the Chartres Cathedral. Michelangelo himself painted figures of Judith and her maid on the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Elisabetta Sirani and Fede Galizia used Judith as subject, while Caravaggio's famous painting is far more sympathetic to Holofernes than to Judith. A series of six paintings by Artemisia Gentileschi runs the gamut from the violence of the act itself to the resolve and determination in its aftermath. In addition, the Judith story also inspired a number of religious epics in many European countries, as well as musical oratorios by famous and not-so-famous composers.

 

Hannah and Her Sons

Another story of heroism involving a woman is associated with Hanukkah. The story of Hannah and her seven sons is recorded in the Second Book of Maccabees 7:1-41. [Hannah is a name from Rabbinic midrash; the Second Book of Maccabees refers to her as "the mother."] Unlike the militant story of Judith, Hannah's story is a tale of martyrdom.

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All About Chanuka

During the period of the Second Temple, the Greeks issued drastic and evil decrees against the Jews forbidding them to study the Torah or to observe its mitzvoth. They violated their daughters and desecrated the holiness of the Temple. The Greeks were determined to destroy our belief in G-d.

The sons of the Hasmonean High priest rebelled against them and eventually defeated the great Greek army, saving the Jews from the oppressive decrees and restoring the purity to the holy Temple. The Jewish kingdom of Israel was re-established under the rule of the Hasmoneans and lasted for more than two hundred years.

After prevailing over their enemies, they entered the defiled Temple to purify it and found only one small jar of oil that had the intact seal of the High Priest. All the other jars of oil were defiled by the Greeks. This was on the twenty-fifth of Kislev. Although the oil in the single jar was sufficient for only one day, yet when they lighted the menorah in the Temple it lasted for eight days until they were able to extract pure olive oil.

The sages of that generation decreed that the eight days beginning on the twenty-fifth of Kislev be set aside as days of rejoicing and thanksgiving. Each night for eight days candles are lit at sundown to proclaim and recall that miracle.

The name Hanukkah comes from the Hebrew word 'chanu' meaning 'they rested' and the Hebrew date '25' pronounced in Hebrew 'ka' because on the twenty-fifth of Kislev the Jews rested from their enemies.

Another reason is to remember the dedication and consecration (from the Hebrew word 'chanech') of the Temple which was purified from our enemies. Therefore it is important to celebrate by eating a bit better and to be joyous during this time. It is traditionally a time to get together with our friends and families, eat together, sing together, and re-tell the story of Chanukah, that it not be forgotten, but it be forever engraved in our hearts. Fasting is not permitted during this time. Charity should be given out liberally.

Work is permitted during the eight days but women customarily refrain for working while the Hanukkah lights are burning and we should not permit them to disregard this tradition. The actual practice of women refraining from work lasts only for the first thirty minutes, since that is the minimum time for the candle to be lit. The reason for this custom is two fold. First, the wicked Greeks decreed that a young bride must cohabit with the governor before her marriage and secondly is that women were actively involved in the final deliverance from the oppressor. The daughter of Yochanan, the high priest, was a very attractive young lady. The cruel ruler requested her to be with him. She accepted his request and prepared for him dishes of cheese which caused him to be thirsty. She then gave him wine which intoxicated him. When he fell asleep she cut off his head and brought it to Jerusalem. When the Greek armies saw their king was dead, they panicked and fled. From this comes the custom of eating dairy dishes on Hanukah.

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The Hanukkah Story

What really happened with those Maccabees

A long, long time ago (in 168 BCE, to be exact), King Antiochus IV ruled over ancient Israel. Not being a fan of variety, he demanded that if you didn't pray to the Greek gods and share in his same culture, you would be in trouble.

This was a problem for the Jews, who still wanted to partake in Jewish traditions like studying Torah and celebrating Shabbat. This made some of the Jewish people so angry that they decided to disobey the king. Preist Mattathias and his sons were joined by other Jews to fight back against King Antiochus IV. One son, Judah, a.k.a. Judah the Maccabee, stepped into the spotlight, leading all of his fellow fighters, the Maccabees, in an attempt to save their Jewish heritage. Even as the king's soldiers rode in on elephants to attack, the Maccabees stayed strong and drove them right out of Jerusalem.

Upon their victory, the Maccabees cleaned up the Temple and decided to light a menorah, an oil-burning lamp. As the story goes, they only had enough oil to burn for one day, but miraculously, the oil lasted for eight days and eight nights. That is why we celebrate Hanukkah for eight days, lighting another candle in the menorah each night to remember this miracle and the triumph of the Jews.

With all this talk of oil, eating dishes like latkes and jelly donuts are the perfect way to celebrate Hanukkah. You can also check out how to make your own menorah and the rules of playing dreidel.

Jesus in Yiddish

In the late 19th and early 20th century Protestant Christians made a concerted effort to convert American Jews. Key to this mission was translating the New Testament into Yiddish, the community’s lingua franca. But for Henry Einspruch, the author of the first complete Yiddish translation, the motivation was as much literary as religious. Einspruch, a Jewish-born Polish convert who eventually became a Protestant minister, was a writer and editor steeped in Yiddish literature.

Einspruch's translation, not published until 1941, gives Der Bris Khodeshe a distinctive Jewish flavor. At the Last Supper, Jesus and his disciples munch on matzah and, in the Book of Revelation, seven shofars are blown instead of seven horns. Even the volume’s illustrations seem designed to appeal to Jews. In one, an old man with a long white beard, a tallit, and a yarmulke reads a book by candlelight. The image places the New Testament in the familiar context of scholars studying ancient texts late into the night.

Der Bris Khodeshe was appreciated in the Yiddish literary world despite its author’s mission. Meylekh Ravitsh, a Yiddish writer in Mexico City, praised the translation and encouraged Jews to read it. "The New Testament [is] one of the most important books in the world. How, then, can we Jews afford to ignore it?" And with details like matzah-munching disciples and shofars ringing in the air, why would they want to?

How to Talk About the Birds, the Bees & the Holocaust with Your Kids

By Avital Norman Nathman 

As a parent, I’m fully aware that I have a slew of difficult, but necessary, conversations with my son ahead of me. We’ve already tackled one of the toughest: Where do babies come from? Despite reading a variety of parenting books and blogs, I still wasn’t sure how I would handle it when the time came, but at 3.5, when my son started asking questions, I found it was actually pretty easy.

Using anatomically correct language for body parts and a story about how it takes an egg and some seeds to grow a baby, I was able to explain the process at an age-appropriate level (with minimal giggling on my part!), and provided enough information to answer his questions. Since then we’ve revisited the topic a few times when he thinks bits of my explanation through and has had follow up questions. We’ve had these conversations during bath time, while stuck in the car on long road trips, and yes, even once at the dinner table. What I thought would be a tricky conversation fraught with lots of “um…” and “er…” turned out to be pretty easy in the grand scheme of things.

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A WikiHow on How to Celebrate Hanukkah

Although often referred to as Jewish Christmas, the holiday of Hanukkah is actually much older than Christmas, and a completely different holiday. Hanukkah begins at sundown on different civil dates depending on how the Jewish calendar comes out; in 2012 it begins on the evening of December 8th. Come, grab a dreidel and learn how this minor holiday which celebrates a military victory has become so important in recent years. 

• Learn about the holiday
• Get a Hannukiah
• Play dreidel
• Give small tokens to children
• Eat the foods cooked in oil
• Practice tikkun olam

  

Click here for an explanation of these topics.

Recently Discovered: The Afghan Geniza

The road between the Afghani cities of Ghazni and Bamiyan is fraught with danger. The Kabul-Kandahar highway that makes up most of the journey was improved and reopened in 2003, but in the last several years travelers on this road have been targets for Taliban, insurgents, and bandits of all stripes. A recent article in Afghanistan Today reports that hundreds of people are kidnapped and attacked on this route every year.

The road was also dangerous, so it seems, in the Middle Ages. A cache of Jewish documents was recently discovered in Afghanistan, and among its contents is a trader's letter written in Judeo-Persian; like Yiddish, this Jewish language sounds similar to the standard Persian spoken in Iran and Afghanistan today, but is written in the Hebrew script. In the still-unpublished letter, the author, a trader in Ghazni, complains to his brother that he is far from his wife and family in Bamiyan. Despite the relative closeness of the two cities, for the author a journey was out of the question. "I am not a man of traveling and absence from home," he writes, expressing his grief at the absence of his loved one: "My heart is occupied with her, for I know she is in distress."

This trader's letter is just one of the documents that have the potential to shed new light on the history of medieval Afghanistan and its Jewish community. The documents include not only letters, but contracts, poetry, theology, biblical interpretation, and more. While the vast majority of the documents are as yet unavailable to scholars, experts who have seen the texts, such as Shaul Shaked of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, are certain that the documents can be dated between the ninth and the early thirteenth century, when the Mongol invasion devastated the region's Jewish communities.

 Most scholars agree that the history of the Afghani Jewish community goes back to the seventh or eighth centuries. Beginning as a community of traders, like our letter writer, who traveled as far as China and India along the branches of the Silk Route, with time Jews settled permanently in cities like Kabul, Ghur, and Herat. As indicated by their knowledge of Persian, Afghani Jews seem to have spread east from Iran, where, by the time the new documents were written, Jews had lived for over one thousand years.

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Hava Nagila at the Olympics

At the 2012 Summer Olympics, Jewish gymnast Aly Raisman brought “Hava Nagila” to a global audience when she performed her gold medal winning floor routine to the song.

But Raisman was not the first to tumble to this classic tune in major competition. There have been at least four gymnasts, all non-Jews, before her who have used “Hava Nagila” in their routines.

Why would gymnasts with no connection to Judaism choose to perform to “Hava Nagila“?

First, the gymnasts who’ve used the tune mostly hail from countries with strong Eastern European folk traditions. The tune, which originated in the Ukraine, fits in well with other locally grown music.

Also, gymnasts have only 90 seconds on the mat and “Hava” helps performers quickly connect with audiences.

It’s not just gymnasts that have used the clap-happy track. A pair of Israeli ice dancers, Roman and Alexandra Zaretsky, used it during the Olympics in 2010. Unfortunately, their performance did not earn them any medals.

So “Hava Nagila,” while popular with crowds, doesn’t automatically win over judges. After all, they don’t hand out gold medals for music selection alone.

Modern Rituals for Birth, Conception, Infertility

Updated rituals for the most amazing--and most difficult--moments in life

Having a child is certainly up there among life’s miraculous and awe-inspiring experiences. Some women have wondered why it doesn’t have a Jewish ritual associated with it. And so in response, some women have been creating new rituals that use traditional images and texts to reflect their experiences of childbirth.

Rituals for giving birth

Conception

Deciding to have children can be a difficult and exciting time. Here are some meditations and prayers for couples trying to conceive, whether they've just decided to start trying, or are preparing for artificial insemination.
 

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Sukkot

Sukkot, a Hebrew word meaning "booths" or "huts," refers to the Jewish festival of giving thanks for the fall harvest, as well as the commemoration of the forty years of Jewish wandering in the desert after Sinai.

Sukkot is celebrated five days after Yom Kippur on the 15th of Tishrei and is marked by several distinct traditions. One tradition, which takes the commandment to "dwell in booths" literally, is to build a sukkah, a booth or hut. A sukkah is often erected by Jews during this festival, and it is common practice for some to eat and even live in these temporary dwellings during Sukkot. Read more about the history and customs of Sukkot.