Throwing Out the Ten Commandments—the Ones That Once Sat Atop My Cake

I found a memento from my bar mitzvah in my parents’ house. Was it finally time to let go of the past, or was it worth keeping?

By Leonard Felson for Tablet Magazine
I was cleaning out my parents’ house for the last time: the two-story stucco structure my father built in Northern California in the early 1960s, where I’d grown up, where my mother had died four years ago, and where my father finally left 18 months later when he moved into a retirement community. Dad had taken some furniture, books, kitchenware, and framed photographs to Baywood Court—“retirement redefined,” said the sign welcoming visitors to the semi-independent-living complex—but he’d left plenty behind: beds, carpets, desks, an out-of-tune upright piano. Now that we’d decided to sell the house, my father and my two younger brothers and I were going through what remained, deciding what was worth keeping, and what was junk.

But sometimes such a distinction isn’t so clear.

In the otherwise empty refrigerator, I found an odd heirloom: the three-inch-by-four-inch confectionery replica of the Ten Commandments that adorned my bar mitzvah cake 48 years ago. My mother had hoarded it in the butter compartment, and even after her death, it lived on. My brother Howard stuck a Post-it note on the fridge door: “Len’s bar mitzvah cake decoration in refrigerator (since 1965)! Do not disconnect without moving it to another refrigerator, please!”

On the last day in the house, as I stood alone looking into the fridge, I faced a dilemma. Those Ten Commandments had meant something to my mother, and I felt tugged to honor her; I could transfer them to my dad’s new kitchen, or I could schlep them on the plane back to the East Coast and keep them in my own fridge. Or I could do what no one in my family ever considered: throw them out.

 Continue reading.

In Tel Aviv, Israel’s ‘Sin City,’ an Unexpected Religious Revival Takes Root

Synagogues are full and kosher restaurants abound as liberal immigrants, Orthodox singles, and secular Jews come together

By Suzanne Selengut on Mosaic Magazine

On a typical Friday evening on Tel Aviv’s Ben Yehuda Street, this city known for its vibrant nightlife is in weekend mode. Beachgoers walk home as the sun goes down, sandy and tanned, clutching towels and flip-flops. Elegant couples head out for drinks and dinner. Singles gather at pubs and start to make their late-night plans for the biggest club night of the week.

But nearby, at the same time, a very different scene kicks into gear—one that most people don’t associate with Tel Aviv. Synagogues in the center of the city fill up with young professionals. On Frishman Street, just minutes from the beach, a red carpet fit for a Hollywood awards show marks the entrance to The Tel Aviv International Synagogue. Inside the sanctuary, about a hundred well-heeled men and women sing and clap in a scene reminiscent of synagogues on New York City’s Upper West Side. After services, the young rabbi welcomes everyone in a mix of Hebrew and English and invites them for refreshments in the courtyard, where single men and women flirt over glasses of kosher Cava and assorted pastries. Afterward, some head to friends’ homes for a traditional Friday night meal, while others hit their favorite restaurants or bars.

Welcome to the new Tel Aviv, where religious devotion mixes easily with the city’s predominantly secular ethos. Although Israel has become well-known for its religious-secular divide, with few active streams of liberal Judaism, Tel Aviv—long the defiantly secular counterpart to religious Jerusalem—is a study in how this culture may be changing. Attendance at synagogues and religious events in Tel Aviv has been growing for the past few years, and kosher restaurants are on the rise.

Part of this reflects an influx of immigrants, mostly Orthodox and Conservative/traditional, who have instilled a distinctly Diaspora-style, synagogue-based model of community to the scene. Part is also due to more Shabbat-observant Israeli singles moving to Tel Aviv from other cities, in search of a more liberal lifestyle. But part, too, is due to some increased interest in religious activities among Israel’s secular Jews.

Today, the city boasts dozens of active synagogues, social, civic, and religious organizations. Those who get involved in the city’s religious life are primarily single young professionals—a mix of immigrants and native Israelis, traditional Jews of all streams, and some who define themselves as secular.

 Continue reading.

What Is This Thing Called Law?

The Jewish legal tradition and its discontents

By Joshua Berman for Mosaic

The headline-making issues facing American Jews and Judaism are all too obvious from the statistics gathered in the latest Pew report: climbing rates of out-marriage, growing numbers of Jews with no interest whatsoever in Judaism, a noticeable distancing from Israel. Only among the religiously observant, it seems, is the continuity of a vibrant Jewish life secured.

But whatever partial comfort is to be had from this last finding, it would be wrong to conclude that Jews who remain deeply immersed in the practice of Judaism and highly affiliated with Jewish institutions are without troubles of their own. To the contrary: in Israel as well as in the Diaspora, these communities are embroiled in fierce internal debates over any number of contemporary issues—the public role of women in synagogue life; the requirements for conversion to Judaism; and others—that threaten their own cohesiveness and future vitality.

The debates themselves reflect an ongoing tension—indeed, an age-old tension—between the impulse for traditionalism and the counter-impulse for adaptation and change in the light of shifting circumstances. For many tradition-minded Jews, the issue comes down to one of halakhah, which is to say religious law and its proper interpretation. Spirituality, community, personal growth, views of the future and of the past: all are mediated through the scrupulous practice of halakhah, the “portable homeland” of the observant Jew for more than two millennia. In addressing these and other issues, such Jews turn reflexively to see how the Jewish legal tradition has addressed similar issues in the past, and how past legislation informs the religious decisions they make today.

But (with apologies to Cole Porter) what is this thing called Jewish law, and what is the Jewish legal tradition?

In invoking law, or in equating halakhah with law, observant Jews tend to have in mind a specific view of what law is and how it operates. That view is captured in phrases like “uphold the law,” “comply with the law,” “the letter of the law,” “against the law.” All of these usages share a basic assumption: namely, that the law in question is a written formulation and is to be found in a law code.

Continue reading.

The Surprisingly Wide World of Hasidic Fashion

Have you ever noticed the difference between one Hasid's hat and another?

Michael Levin hadn't either—until he moved to Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in 2007 and met his new neighbors. Levin, who was raised secular, was fascinated by the astounding 19th-century stylings of the Hasidic community, and set out to both understand and capture the atypical dress code.

"I'd simply never seen anything like it," said Levin. "I had no idea of the magnitude and reality of a Hasid as a living, breathing entity."

Six years later he published Jews of Today, a masterful collection of drawings that explores the "nuances and contradictions of Hasidic ritual dress." The drawings range from realistic to fantastical, and showcase the various sartorial proclivities of the South Williamsburg Hasidic community in which Levin is based. The illustrations are accompanied by Levin's explanations, which attempt to explain elements of Hasidic culture.

So if you ever visit Williamsburg and walk through one of the largest Satmar communities in the world, be sure to bring a copy of what Levin describes as "the world's only illustrated primer on Hasidic dress."

- Zachary Solomon for Jewniverse

The 3 Most Important Jewish Words

If you've never heard the Yiddish/Hebrew phrase, "kein ayin hara," get ready to meet your new favorite saying. Literally, these words translate as "no evil eye." Together, they function as a Jewish "knock on wood."

The origin of the phrase is the superstition that talking about one's good fortune attracts the attention of the evil eye, which loves to mess things up.

Uses for this phrase are many:

"My daughter's more beautiful every day! Kein ayin hara."

"It looks like we've avoided the bed bug infestation happening upstairs! Kein ayin hara."

Despite its undeniable utility, the phrase hasn't yet achieved the mainstream success of "schlep," "putz," or "kvetch."

Perhaps the secret to bringing "kein ayin hara" into the spotlight is educating the masses about its pleasurable postscript: a glorious spitting that sounds like "pu pu pu." According to Jewish grandmothers everywhere, this action provides additional protection against the evil eye. It also makes saying "kein ayin hara" extra fun.

So next time you're thinking about knocking on wood, it might be worth saying "kein ayin hara—pu pu pu!" instead. Because who needs a crucifix when you can just spit in Yiddish?

- Elizabeth Alpern for Jewniverse

Fight for Chained Wives Goes Online

By Talia Lavin for The Jewish Daily Forward

The websites look like those of political prisoners.

Under the caption “Free Tamar Now!” there is a close-up photo of demonstrators with signs and megaphones. “Stop the abuse,” one sign reads.

But FreeTamar.org and the Free Gital Facebook group seek emancipation not from literal bars or chains. Rather, they seek liberation for agunot — so-called chained women being denied religious writs of divorce from their husbands.

Under Jewish law, divorces are not final until the husband gives his wife the writ, known as a get. If a husband refuses, the woman cannot remarry; any intimate relationship with another man is considered adultery. Children born from such a relationship are considered mamzers, a category of illegitimacy under Jewish law that carries severe restrictions.

Under Jewish law, women chained to recalcitrant husbands have little recourse, and the problem of agunot long has plagued the Jewish community. In one recent case that garnered broad media attention, the FBI arrested several men in New York who allegedly kidnapped and tortured recalcitrant husbands — for fees of tens of thousands of dollars.

A more common and increasingly popular tactic agunot advocates are adopting to try to compel recalcitrant husbands to relent and grant their wives gets is the public shaming campaign.

Gital Doderson, 25, of Lakewood, N.J., brought her divorce fight to the front page of the New York Post on Tuesday. After three years of pursuing but failing to obtain a get from her husband, Dodelson wrote, “I’ve decided to go public with my story after exhausting every other possible means. The Orthodox are fiercely private, but I am willing to air my dirty laundry if it means I can finally get on with my life.”

The Organization for the Resolution of Agunot, known as ORA, is at the forefront of a campaign to harness public remonstrance as a means to thwart recalcitrant husbands.

Using the slogan “Get-refusal is a form of domestic abuse,” ORA, in cooperation with Yeshiva University, has organized rallies outside the homes of recalcitrant husbands like Albert Srour and Ephraim Ohana. Their website features a “Recalcitrant Husbands” page that prominently displays the images of husbands who refuse gets to their wives.

When Aharon Friedman, an aide to U.S. Representative Dave Camp, refused his wife, Tamar, a get, ORA took out a billboard ad on the DC Metro, with his face emblazoned against a demand to “Give a get now!”

“If and when we’ve exhausted all amicable means of resolving the situation, we will try to get him ostracized, and publicize his name,” Rabbi Jeremy Stern, executive director of ORA, told JTA.

The jury (or beit din) is still out on whether this tactic will prove more effective than other attempts to sway recalcitrant husbands. What is certain is that the spate of recent media coverage about agunot is drawing broad attention to a problem more often contained within certain segments of the Jewish community.

Fun and Quirky Thanksgivukkah Gift Guide

By Maggie Goldman
Thanksgiving isn’t traditionally known as a gift-giving holiday, but on Thanksgivukkah, all the rules change! It’s customary (although certainly not required) to exchange presents on Hanukkah, which means that this Nov. 28, American Jewish families will have until nightfall to turn their tryptophan-induced exhaustion into gift-induced excitement.

Can’t figure out what to get for your loved ones? We’ve got a few quirky ideas for you!

Schlep Tote

If you’ve got to lug stuff around, you might as well do it in style—in Jewish style, that is! This 38-centimeter by 15-inch canvas bag comes in black, white and hot pink. You can even have your giftee’s name or other personalized text printed on the back at no additional cost. (Barbara Shaw Gifts, $25)


Padded Matroyshka-Print iPad Case

Harken back to the Old Country while staying decidedly modern and fun with this handmade gadget case made of a colorful nesting doll print. (XSBaggageandCo, $32)



Continue for more gift ideas.

How Praying Together Can Offer Hope—Even When Prayers Aren’t Answered

Every night, I took part in a prayer group to help a sick child and her family. But I’m the one who ended up transformed.

By Rebecca Wolf for Tablet Magazine

When my daughter’s classmate Hannah was diagnosed with cancer and started chemotherapy, all the parents of fifth-graders in our Jewish day school banded together to try to help her family. One mother offered to organize a carpool to take Hannah’s siblings to their after-school activities if her parents were still busy at the hospital; another said she’d arrange delivery of home-cooked dinners; someone else would pick up basic necessities like toilet paper and milk.

Hannah’s family politely refused. “What would help the most,” they said, “is for you to pray.” Hannah’s aunt organized a nightly conference call where she would lead a recitation of psalms for as long as Hannah needed them.

Although I have been a religious person all my life, their request made me nervous. What seemed daunting wasn’t the prospect of extracting myself from my children’s homework and bedtime routines for 15 minutes each night, but rather that someone thought my prayers could make a difference. It was so much easier for me to commit to cooking lasagna than to praying with fervor.

***

My complicated feelings about prayer began when I was 12. I came home from school one September day to find the phone ringing incessantly. My mother was on the line, calling to say that her father—my Zayde—had suffered a massive heart attack. He was in the ICU and things looked bad. “What should I do?” I asked my mother. “Just pray!” she shouted, and slammed down the phone. I locked myself in my room. Despite being enrolled in religious day school, I couldn’t think of anything to say. “Please God,” I whispered, “Don’t let Zayde die.” An hour later my mother called back to say he was dead. For years I felt plagued by guilt that if I had just prayed a bit harder, things might have been different.

As an adult, I now recognize that sometimes our prayers are answered and sometimes they are not, regardless of how intensely we pray. I believe in God and pray every morning, mostly to acknowledge there is a higher power above me. Most of the time, though, I mumble the words without much regard for their meaning. I tend to focus harder on my prayers when something is wrong than when everything is going well, even though I’m unsure my piety (or lack thereof) actually affects the outcome. In Hannah’s situation, however, what I felt about prayer wasn’t really the point; if her family believed that it could save her, who was I to argue?

Continue reading.

Celebrating Thanksgivukkah, a Once-in-a-Lifetime Holiday

By Kate Bigam; Reprinted from ReformJudaism.org

Start basting your turkey and spinning your dreidels, because for the first and only time in our lives, Thanksgivukkah is coming! This November 28th, when American Jews gather around the Thanksgiving table to talk about the things we appreciate and to dig into elaborate feasts, we’ll have another holiday to celebrate, too: Hanukkah.

This year, Thanksgiving and Hanukkah will overlap, producing an anomalistic hybrid holiday that’s come to be known as Thanksgivukkah. There are conflicting reports about whether it’s happened before and when it will happen again, but most mathematicians and calendar experts seem to think this is the first occurence. Although the holidays would’ve overlapped in 1861, President Abraham Lincoln didn’t formally establish the holiday of Thanksgiving until two years later, in 1863, which means that 2013/5774 will mark the first Thanksgivukkah in history.

Just how rare is this holiday? Some reports say Thanksgivukkah will happen again in 2070; others, like Jewish physicist and calendar expert Jonathan Mizrahi, say it won’t repeat itself until 79811. Either way, it’s safe to say that for most of us, Thanksgivukkah is, indeed, a once-in-a-lifetime event.

Now let’s address the big, practical question: How do we celebrate this once-in-a-lifetime holiday?

Glad you asked! Our recipes, ecards, and other resources will help you make this the Thanksgivukkah the best yet – er, the only one yet (and ever). Of course, we know that food is a major part of Jewish holidays and secular American holidays, and because this hybrid holiday has plenty to offer in the way of creative cuisine, many (most!) of our resources focus on food.

Ready to start planning your celebration? Start here:

Continue reading.

Is United Synagogue’s House ‘On Fire?’

Middle movement grapples with a way forward at centennial convention.

Stewart Ain for The Jewish Week

Baltimore — United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism was marking its 100th birthday, but while recent survey findings about the movement were sobering, the spirit of the convention itself, dubbed “The Conversation of the Century,” was upbeat in focusing more on the future than the past.

United Synagogue has seen its membership plummet in recent years, necessitating a change in leadership and a total overhaul of the organization. The discussions at the conference were wide ranging, and sacred cows came up for debate.

“Our house is on fire,” Rabbi Edward Feinstein of Valley Beth Shalom in Encino, Calif., told a session on conversion, citing the recently released Pew Research Center’s survey of American Jewry.

“If you don’t read anything else in the Pew report, [it is that] we have maybe 10 years left. In the next 10 years you will see a rapid collapse of synagogues and the national organizations that support them. The Pew report is an atomic weapon. There are so many details of that report that they make your hair curl. If we continue what we are doing, our house will burn down.

“What I’m missing at ‘The Conversation’ is a little bit of screaming,” he added, “so I wanted to scream a little bit. At least someone here should.”

The Pew survey showed that only 18 percent of American Jews identify as Conservative, down from 39 percent in 1990, was not included in the program. Organizers said the study, announced on Oct. 7, was released too late. But participants mentioned it in many sessions. (See accompanying story on page TK.)

“Who are the 70 percent of non-Orthodox Jews who are intermarrying?” asked Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann of Chicago on the centennial convention’s sidelines, quoting a figure from the survey.

Continue reading.

Israel Has a Marriage Problem. One American-Born Lawyer Is Trying To Solve It.

Susan Weiss started out trying to win divorce cases, but now her mission is pushing Israel’s Orthodox rabbinate to change its ways

By Batya Ungar-Sargon

Israel has a marriage problem. In April, Hiddush, an Israeli nonprofit, published a “Freedom of Marriage World Map,” which graded countries based on the level of freedom each grants its citizens with regard to personal status. Israel was the only Western country that received a grade of 0, putting it in the company of Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan.

This data point shocks because it is in conflict with the many other freedoms enjoyed by citizens of Israel. In contrast with areas such as freedom of speech and political opposition, when it comes to marriage and divorce, Judaism is established as the state religion in a very real way, and the rabbinate maintains a monopoly over family law that even the country’s Supreme Court ratifies. The failure to separate church and state in Israel in this one crucial arena has resulted in the imposition on all Israeli citizens—religious or not—of Orthodox Jewish law.

Many of the women who get caught up in the rabbinic court processes are not themselves religious. If you want a divorce, the rabbinic court is the only institution that can grant it. Furthermore, in Orthodox Jewish law and thus Israeli law, a marriage cannot be dissolved from without, as a civil marriage can be. Should a husband decide he doesn’t want to grant his wife a Jewish divorce—or get—no one can force him to; indeed, a forced divorce or get meuseh, as it is called, is invalid in the eyes of the Israeli rabbinate. No civil alternative is available to Israeli citizens.

A woman whose husband refuses her a divorce is known as an agunah—a chained woman. Should she seek a civil divorce in another country and thereupon remarry, even in a civil ceremony, her remarriage would not be recognized by the state of Israel, and her children would be considered mamzerim—bastards—and unable to marry other Jews, according to Jewish law—and, therefore, according to Israeli civil law. (Wives can also veto divorces, but men can override their wives by securing signatures from 100 rabbis; there are few chained men.)

Continue reading.

Sholem Aleichem Created Tevye—and the Modern American Jewish Sense of Tradition

In an excerpt from Nextbook Press’s new biography, the Yiddish master’s funeral at Carnegie Hall begins to shape a legacy

By Jeremy Dauber for Tablet

In his new biography The Worlds of Sholem Aleichem, Jeremy Dauber recounts the extraordinary life and career of the man who was dubbed “the Jewish Mark Twain,” a writer who created Tevye—the enduring character at the center of Fiddler on the Roof. Sholem Aleichem’s reputation continued to grow after his death in 1916, as Dauber describes in the following excerpt.

Arrangements had to be made.
It would have to be a public funeral, there was no doubt of that; and the Lower East Side had seen its share of those. Both respected figures like the Yiddish newspaper publisher Kasriel Sarasohn and the Yiddish playwright Jacob Gordin and less respected ones like the Jewish gang leader Jack Zelig had been accompanied to their eternal rest by crowds and spectacle. (And at least once, during the funeral of the Orthodox rabbi Jacob Joseph in 1902, by a riot; an outbreak of violence that started when workers tossed bits of iron out of factory windows at procession members led to two hundred riot police “slashing this way and that with their sticks…shoving roughly against men and women alike.”) But the question transcended simple logistics and security: How do you bury, in the words of one of his eulogists, “the Jewish people in microcosm”?

First, the family decided, you needed an arrangements committee, and they asked Judah Magnes, the head of the New York Kehillah, to head it up. Though the Kehillah didn’t always succeed at its stated goal of unifying New York’s Jewish communal affairs, Magnes was still probably one of the few individuals who could draw together the multitudinous constituencies bridged by Sholem Aleichem’s appeal. Some backstage political struggles notwithstanding, Magnes and the rest of the committee—all friends or associates of Sholem Aleichem’s, as well as committed Zioinists—would produce a smashing success, a national pageant.

The committee’s first decision was to invite over a hundred Yiddish writers to watch over the body in fourteen consecutive three-hour sessions as it lay in state for two days at 968 Kelly Street. Twenty-five thousand people, alerted by black-bordered extra editions of the Yiddish papers, stood in lines stretching for blocks waiting to pay their respects. That Monday, May 15, 1916, three Pereyaslav landsmen, Jews from his hometown, purified and prepared the body. Everything was done strictly according to tradition, though few if any of the writers were traditional—a fitting tribute to Sholem Aleichem, whose own behavior was less traditional than his sensibility.

Continue reading.

Celebrating Thanksgivukkah, a Once-in-a-Lifetime Holiday

By Kate Bigam; Reprinted from ReformJudaism.org

Start basting your turkey and spinning your dreidels, because for the first and only time in our lives, Thanksgivukkah is coming! This November 28th, when American Jews gather around the Thanksgiving table to talk about the things we appreciate and to dig into elaborate feasts, we’ll have another holiday to celebrate, too: Hanukkah.

This year, Thanksgiving and Hanukkah will overlap, producing an anomalistic hybrid holiday that’s come to be known as Thanksgivukkah. There are conflicting reports about whether it’s happened before and when it will happen again, but most mathematicians and calendar experts seem to think this is the first occurence. Although the holidays would’ve overlapped in 1861, President Abraham Lincoln didn’t formally establish the holiday of Thanksgiving until two years later, in 1863, which means that 2013/5774 will mark the first Thanksgivukkah in history.

Just how rare is this holiday? Some reports say Thanksgivukkah will happen again in 2070; others, like Jewish physicist and calendar expert Jonathan Mizrahi, say it won’t repeat itself until 79811. Either way, it’s safe to say that for most of us, Thanksgivukkah is, indeed, a once-in-a-lifetime event.

Now let’s address the big, practical question: How do we celebrate this once-in-a-lifetime holiday?

Glad you asked! Our recipes, ecards, and other resources will help you make this the Thanksgivukkah the best yet – er, the only one yet (and ever). Of course, we know that food is a major part of Jewish holidays and secular American holidays, and because this hybrid holiday has plenty to offer in the way of creative cuisine, many (most!) of our resources focus on food.

Ready to start planning your celebration? Start here:

Continue reading.

‘Homeland’ and ‘24’ Creator Howard Gordon on Terror, Tyranny, and TV as Art

The man behind post-Sept. 11 TV opens up about his background, what goes on in writers rooms, and what he’s working on now

By Alana Newhouse and Liel Leibovitz for Tablet

The most surprising thing about meeting Howard Gordon in person is how calm he is—you would expect the writer and producer behind such shows as 24 and Homeland to radiate just a touch of the existential anxiety his work so potently explores. But on a recent afternoon in TriBeCa, New York, the poet of ticking time bombs and countdown clocks—who had just come from having pizza and a CitiBike ride with his wife, Cami—was thoughtful and laid back as he discussed his path from Long Island to Hollywood fame.

Which, on second thought, isn’t surprising at all: For all of their quivering, mad energy, Gordon’s shows are always much deeper than their surface suggests, concealing profound philosophical and moral questions beneath their suspenseful and fast-paced veneer. In 24, he explored the ever-shifting position of America in a post-Sept. 11 world, which meant looking at everything from torture to political corruption. Homeland went even further, with greater psychological nuance and with America’s foreign policy in the Middle East constantly serving as a bold, dramatic backdrop. And so, when Gordon talked to us about his love for Saul Bellow—that other great American chronicler of power and its limitations, mortality, lust, community, and redemption—it seemed only natural.

As Homeland returns for its third season, we talked to Gordon about mastering the structure of TV storytelling, taking and ignoring criticism, and what it means to be an American. What follows is a lightly edited transcript of our conversation.

***

Alana Newhouse: What is it you’re doing in New York tonight? Giving out some award?

Howard Gordon: I’m being honored by the Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation, at the Museum of Jewish Heritage. My mother is a docent there.

AN: I didn’t know you were actively involved in Jewish causes. What’s your connection?

 Continue reading.

Helène Aylon’s Journey From Rebbetzin to Internationally Acclaimed Feminist Artist

The irreverent 82-year-old left Orthodox Borough Park long ago. But she’s still wrestling with the rituals of her past.

By Vox Tablet

Helène Aylon grew up in Borough Park, Brooklyn, in a tight-knit world of Orthodox families. From early on, she was a bit of a rebel, but that didn’t stop her from following the path prescribed for her. At 18, she married a rabbi, and they had two children. Then, when she was just 25, her husband fell ill; she was a widow by 30.

This was in 1960. The assumption then was that a woman in her position would marry her husband’s brother. Instead, Aylon became an artist. Her work, as she explains in a memoir published last year and titled Whatever Is Contained Must Be Released: My Jewish Orthodox Girlhood, My Life as a Feminist Artist, engaged with the liberation movements of her time—women from patriarchy, the colonized from colonizer, the earth from nuclear devastation—until she tackled the ultimate liberation: that of God from man. Now, at 82, Aylon looks back at a remarkable career. Her work has been shown at the Whitney Museum in New York, the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, and throughout the world. In fact, there’s something of an Aylon revival right now; her work is on view at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, as part of the group show called “Beyond Belief: 100 Years of the Spiritual in Modern Art,” and she’s included in “The Seventh Day: Revisiting Shabbat,” at Hebrew Union College in New York. She’s also giving readings from her memoir this fall, at the Jewish Museum in New York and elsewhere.

This past spring, Julie Burstein visited Aylon at her loft in lower Manhattan to talk about her Orthodox upbringing, her evolution as a feminist artist, and her enduring (if sometimes fraught) relationship with her mother, who died in 1998 at the age of 100. Burstein is an independent radio producer and the author of Spark: How Creativity Works.

Click here to listen to the Podcast.

Look for the Beauty in Life

109 year old Holocaust survivor Alice Herz-Sommer

 

Rare golden treasure found in Jerusalem

Two bundles containing 36 gold coins from Byzantine era, gold and silver jewelry, gold medallion with menorah uncovered during Hebrew University excavations at foot of Temple Mount

Aryeh Savir, Tazpit for YNet

During excavations at the foot of the Temple Mount, which were conducted this summer, Hebrew University of Jerusalem archaeologist Dr. Eilat Mazar discovered two bundles of treasure containing 36 gold coins, gold and silver jewelry, and a gold medallion with the menorah (Temple candelabrum) symbol etched into it.

Also etched into the 10-centimeter (4-inch) medallion are a shofar (ram’s horn) and a Torah scroll.

Mazar, a third-generation archaeologist working at the Hebrew University’s Institute of Archaeology, directs excavations on the City of David’s summit and at the Temple Mount’s southern wall, the Ophel area.

Calling the find "a breathtaking, once-in-a-lifetime discovery," Dr. Mazar said: "We have been making significant finds from the First Temple Period in this area, a much earlier time in Jerusalem’s history, so discovering a golden seven-branched Menorah from the seventh century CE at the foot of the Temple Mount was a complete surprise."
The discovery was unearthed just five days into Mazar’s latest phase of the Ophel excavations, and can be dated to the late Byzantine period (early seventh century CE). The gold treasure was discovered in a ruined Byzantine public structure, a mere 50 meters (164 feet) from the Temple Mount’s southern wall.

The menorah, a candelabrum with seven branches that was used in the Temple, the national symbol of the State of Israel, reflects the historical presence of Jews in the area. The position of the items as they were discovered indicates that one bundle was carefully hidden underground while the second bundle was apparently abandoned in haste and scattered across the floor.


Continue reading.

The Kapporot Ceremony

It is customary to perform the kaparot (symbolic "atonement") rite in preparation for Yom Kippur.

The rite consists of taking a chicken and waving it over one's head three times while reciting the appropriate text. The fowl is then slaughtered in accordance with halachic procedure and its monetary worth given to the poor, or, as is more popular today, the chicken itself is donated to a charitable cause.

We ask of G‑d that if we were destined to be the recipients of harsh decrees in the new year, may they be transferred to this chicken in the merit of this mitzvah of charity.

In most Jewish communities, kaparot is an organized event at a designated location. Live chickens are made available for purchase, ritual slaughterers are present, and the slaughtered birds are donated to a charitable organization. Speak to your rabbi to find out whether and where kaparot is being organized in your area.

The Details

The Timing

Kaparot can be done any time during the Ten Days of Repentance (i.e. between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur), but the ideal time is on the day preceding Yom Kippur during the early pre-dawn hours, for a "thread of Divine kindness" prevails during those hours.

The Chicken

Several reasons have been suggested for the choice of a chicken to perform the kaparot rite: 1) In Aramaic, a rooster is known as a gever. In Hebrew, a gever is a man. Thus we take a gever to atone for a gever. 2) A chicken is a commonly found fowl and relatively inexpensive. 3) It is not a species that was eligible for offering as a sacrifice in the Holy Temple. This precludes the possibility that someone should erroneously conclude that the kaparot is a sacrifice.

 Continue reading.

The Google Glass Goes Jewish

It seems like Jewish apps have existed as long as the smartphone. Your iPhone can teach you to bake challah, take you to the Western Wall, and even say the prayer after meals.

But now, thanks to tech startup Rusty Brick Studios, you won't even need to turn on your phone. That is, if you get a hold of the crazy new gadget Google Glass, and you download—you got it—JewGlass.

For those who've managed to lay claim on the elusive Google Glass, JewGlass can tell you the exact times for prayer, and keep reminding you, incessantly, until you get yourself to the nearest synagogue (don't worry; it will guide you) and take out your prayerbook (which it will provide).

On their website, you can see visualizations of JewGlass's use—all in the framework of a strange, clip-art-style board meeting. On one hand, we wonder whether anyone would actually use JewGlass in a meeting, let alone praying the entire service while sitting in that meeting. On the other hand, well, there are plenty of less inspiring things you could be reading at a meeting than Jewish prayers.

- Matthue Roth for Jewniverse

Healing for the Holidays

By Ina Albert for JewishMag.com
There is a Jewish holiday that is not practiced very much—especially in the Northwest where the Jewish population is small and dispersed over the mountains and the plains. It is celebrated Saturday night before the High Holy Days begin with the New Year—Rosh Hashanah—the birthday of the world.
It is called Selichot, which means forgiveness, and is a preparation.

On that Saturday night, each person is supposed to prepare for the holidays by looking deeply into our soul, study the ways in which we have measured up or missed the mark during the year, atone for misdeeds, ask forgiveness of those we have wronged and set new goals of behavior for the coming year.

This year, I decided that I would take this holiday seriously and that the proper way to prepare was to hold a Healing for the Holidays workshop at the synagogue at which my rabbi husband was leading services. The synagogue in Bozeman, Montana had never recognized Selichot — let alone make a big deal out of getting spiritually and emotionally ready for the holidays — other than making sure that the shopping and cooking were done.

The healing I proposed had to do with getting in touch with healthy habits and their impact on our emotional and spiritual well-being. We spent time doing experiential exercises that connected our breath with restoring our energy, centering ourselves, and relieving stress. We experienced drinking water consciously by tasting small sips. We took time to eat slowly, chewing our food and savoring the flavor. We studied our own flexibility by doing some simple Pilates exercises. We talked about self-critical thought viruses and the damage they do to our self-image. Then we enumerated the qualities we liked about ourselves. And finally, we journaled about our feelings.

Research confirms that if you write about what you feel, you’ll feel better. To most of us that is self-evident. But science has now demonstrated that writing about our emotions around significant life events can lower blood pressure, relieve stress, strengthen our immune systems, reduce pain and suffering and speed the healing process.

So we journaled—and we cried together. The catalyst was drawing the floor plan of the house in which we grew up. We made note of the objects that took our attention as we mentally toured our homes, and wrote about what we recalled: the dog that was killed by a car, the Raggedy Ann that was clutched during childhood asthma attacks, the treasured bicycle that was stolen — all of it reappeared with the intensity that surrounded the original incidents. Stress released as smiles of relief spread over our faces.

They we were ready to be conscious and alive for the holidays. Now we were truly ready to experience Jewish soul food.

Java’s Last Shul and the World’s Tallest Menorah

 Until recently, the city of Surabaya, on the Indonesian island of Java, had one synagogue. But now it has none, and nobody's quite sure why.

Surabaya's tiny Jewish population descends from Iraqi Jews, who in 1939 erected the Dutch-style Beth Shalom Synagogue. Though the building was a designated heritage site, in 2009, extremist Muslim demonstrators managed to seal it off to protest Israeli activity in the Gaza strip.

Four years later, in May 2013, Surabayans awoke to find that the building had been mysteriously demolished. One clue may be that the building had recently been sold, but it remains unclear whether the demolition was authorized, or if guerrilla Muslim hardliners were responsible. In the words of the director of the Surabaya Heritage Society: "It should have been protected."

The last vestiges of Indonesia's Jewish community are in Manado, Sulawesi, which is home to a synagogue, and what is possibly the world's tallest menorah.

- Elizabeth Michaelson

Rosh HaShanah Food Customs

Rosh HaShanah (ראש השנה) is the Jewish New Year. Over the centuries it has become associated with many food customs, for instance, eating sweet food to symbolize our hopes for a "Sweet New Year."

Honey (Apples and Honey)

Biblical texts often mention "honey" as the sweetener of choice though some historians believe that the honey referenced in the Bible was actually a sort of fruit paste. Real honey was, of course, available but much more difficult to acquire! Honey represented good living and wealth. The Land of Israel is often called the land of "milk and honey" in the Bible.

On the first night of Rosh Hashanah, we dip challah into honey and say the blessing over the challah. Then we dip apple slices into honey and say a prayer asking God for a sweet year. Slices of apple dipped in honey are often served to Jewish children – either at home or in religious school - as a special Rosh HaShanah snack.

Round Challah
After apples and honey, round loaves of challah are the most recognizable food symbol of Rosh HaShanah. Challah is a kind of braided egg bread that is traditionally served by Jews on Shabbat. During Rosh HaShanah, however, the loaves are shaped into spirals or rounds symbolizing the continuity of Creation. Sometimes raisins or honey are added to the recipe in order to make the resulting loaves extra sweet. (Click here to learn more about challah shapes and meanings.)

Honey Cake
Continue reading.
 

The Meaning of "Elul"

by Rabbi Debra Orenstein

Over the years, rabbis have played with the letters of the word “Elul,” to infer messages about the purpose and essence of this holy time. Below are some popular “derivations” of the name for this month, with commentary about the messages behind the acronyms.

ELUL is an acronym for Ani Ledodi Vedodi Li, I am for My beloved and My beloved is for me (Song of Songs 6:3). At other times, God, the divine Beloved, reaches out to us (see, for example, Song of Songs 2:16). During Elul, however, we must initiate the relationship. It all starts with the ani, the I. We must see ourselves for who we are, for who we have and haven’t yet been, and for who we might become.

Thus, introspection is something we do for God, as well as for ourselves. Elul is a time for developing intimacy with God.

ELUL is an acronym for Ish Lereyehu Umatanot La’evyonim, Each one to his neighbor, and gifts to the poor (Esther 9:22). This verse describes the celebration at the time of Queen Esther, when the Jews were spared. Foodstuffs were sent to neighbors and friends, and gifts, to the poor. Those exchanges remain Purim practices to this day. Nehemiah 8:10 speaks of Jews sending gifts of food (the same phrase “shilchu manot” is used) to one another at the time of the New Year, as well. Some Hasidic groups maintain the custom of sending gifts of food during Elul.

Elul is a time for improving our relationships. We reach out to those we know – and to those we don’t know. We acknowledge that we share community with and responsibility for the poor. As we repent, we develop compassion for the sins of others. This is borne out in the numerical equivalents of the words “Ish” (one) and “Lereyehu” (to his neighbor). A person and his or her neighbor both amount to the same thing: a human in need of – and able to offer –lovingkindness.

ELUL is an acronym for Inah Leyado Vesamti Lach. Deliver into his hand, I shall establish for you (Exodus 21:13). The context of this phrase is a description of the cities of refuge. If someone commits manslaughter, s/he is protected from revenge by the victim’s family. Even the worst act – the taking of a life – deserves a fair trial. In Torah, someone who has killed another human being unintentionally must be helped to obtain shelter and, eventually, pardon.

Thus, Rabbi Simon Jacobson calls Elul “a refuge in time.” Elul provides a haven for all sins and sinners.

Continue reading.

Jewish Ethics and Gun Control: Swords, Dogs, and Stumbling Blocks

By Ronald Pies for The Jewish Magazine

“A Jew dare not live with absolute certainty, not only because certainty is the hallmark of the fanatic...but also because doubt is good for the human soul...”—Rabbi Emanuel Rackman

Most Talmudically-literate Jews know of the famous rivalry between those two eminent rabbis of the early 1st century CE, Hillel and Shammai. In matters ranging from ritual practice to foreign policy, the opposing opinions voiced by their respective schools have been debated for two millennia. It is intriguing to imagine a modern-day debate between Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai on one of the most bitterly-contested issues facing our country today: that of “gun control”. Would these two sages be able to shed light on an issue that generates such intense heat, these days? It would be a challenge, even for such luminaries.

Indeed, the term “gun control” itself is hotly contested, with some preferring the more innocuous term, “firearms regulation.” And while the image of Jews brandishing semi-automatic rifles may seem incongruous, or even repugnant, to many in the Jewish community, some American Jews see any restrictions on gun sales or possession as an existential threat to Jews and non-Jews alike.

As Rabbi Mark Katz recently observed,

“For every organization like the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, which aggressively advocates for strict gun control, there are others like Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, who call gun control “code words for disarming innocent people.” Both camps, of course, claim that Judaism is on their side.”

Indeed, the debate is often roiled by references to Hitler’s Germany, and claims that the extermination of the Jews would have been averted, or at least attenuated, if European Jews had been well-armed. It is easy to understand the animosity that often arises between these two rival “schools”--and hard to envision a Solomonic resolution of the controversy.

As a psychiatric physician and bioethicist, I have my own views on the matter of firearms regulation, but it is not my intention here to attack or defend any one position. Rather, I want to examine some of the ethical issues raised by each side of the debate, through the lens of Talmudic and rabbinic teachings. As we’ll see, the rebbeim of the Talmud do not provide unequivocal answers to many questions in the debate over gun control, nor do our modern-day rabbis speak with one voice on this matter—no surprise there! And yet, I would suggest that rabbinic and halakhic (Jewish legal) principles can shed much-needed light on this debate, and that as Jews, we can reach some tentative conclusions. But before delving too deeply into the ancient texts, I’d like to frame both sides of the argument in very broad terms, invoking the “voices” of our contemporary opposing camps.

 Continue reading.

Rare Second Temple Era Ritual Purity Pool Discovered in Jerusalem

The Birth of the Crock-Pot

While you may be familiar with the gloppy yet delicious Shabbat afternoon stew that is cholent, you may not know about the word's French etymology, nor the fact that we have a Jewish inventor to thank for the appliance that allows us to slowly cook our meat-and-bean-potato stew. Though you probably aren't surprised.

That inventor is Irving Naxon, whose 200 patents include none other than the forerunner of the Crock-Pot. Naxon's daughter, Lenore, has said that her father "constantly had ideas. He had the gene of figuring out how to do something."

Why figure out how to slowly heat stew? Because after learning of his shtetl-born mother's Herculean efforts to make cholent, Naxon was inspired to create a self-contained slow-heating element for home cooks.

Naxon created what he called the Naxon Beanery, a cooker named both after himself and the food he intended it for—beans. He sold it primarily to coffee shops and luncheonettes. In 1970, a rival company appropriately called Rival bought the rights to the appliance and reintroduced it to the world as the one and only Crock-Pot.

Shabbos would never smell the same.

- Jessica Young

Get Detective: Meet the Elusive, Intrepid P.I. Who Frees Chained Jewish Women

He’s the expert who specializes in finding ‘disappeared’ husbands—men who leave their wives without Jewish divorces, or hope 

By Batya Ungar-Sargon for Tablet Magazine

 

It was a sticky, overcast afternoon in April. The sky seemed to be debating, like an undecided groom, between revealing a glamorous sun and unleashing a ruinous rain. I waited in a rental car outside one of those generic American hotels on the outskirts of one of those charming Southern towns for my contact to emerge.

I spotted him as he came through the sliding doors of his hotel. From the car he was all chest-length gray beard, wafting to one side as he strode purposefully toward me, his solid build swallowed up in a black suit and white shirt. Black New Balance sneakers and a black cap completed the look. As he got closer, though, I could see that the beard was sparse on his face, revealing smooth olive skin, high cheekbones, wide-set, almond-shaped eyes almost orange in color and completely opaque.

He got in the car and beamed at me. “So, now you’re going to see what I’m up against here,” he said. “I’ve really entered the lion’s den.” He spoke English flawlessly, with a strange accent not incompatible with nativity in some English-speaking country. His Hebrew and Yiddish were equally flawless.

I drove down one street, then another. He peered alternately through his window and through the windshield. The houses we passed were set close to the street with wrap-around porches, painted in pastels. The streets were tree-lined and almost completely deserted, though it was 5:00 in the afternoon. The clouds continued to roil overhead.

“I want you to understand,” he said. “This thing is not going to get solved here and now. But you will have an understanding of what we’re doing.” He paused. I nodded eagerly, a bobbing-head dog someone accidentally placed in the driver’s seat. He seemed to have a dangerous gift of turning strangers into accomplices.

Continue reading.

The Last Jewish Waiter

David Manheim, a 38-year-old waiter at New York's famous Katz's Deli, hates his job. Really hates his job. And he's always wanted his own talk show. So on April 20th, he merged his only love with his only hate and launched The Last Jewish Waiter.

On TLJW Manheim chronicles his fascination with, and somewhat amusing contempt for, his customers, especially when they go against his best advice and order the iconic roast beef sandwich. But TLJW does more than insult roast beef. Part written commentary, part professional-quality videos, part photography, and part outside contributions (like a patron's cartoon mocking Manheim mocking her)—TLJW immortalizes the experience of the last Jewish waiter…without discussing what happened to all of the others.
That experience sees Manheim, as he tells the camera, "abus[ing] [his] customers as often as [he] can." He taunts one, saying, 'You can't always get what you want," and goes all-out NSFW on many others. Perhaps surprisingly, his antics are generally well received.
Lamenting his job, Manheim says, "I'll be here tomorrow, and the day after that." We sure hope so, as we need something to smile about after looking at Katz's sandwich prices.

- Jessica Young

Dude, Where’s My Chutzpah?

Sporting a blue t-shirt emblazoned with a Star of David, Jessie Kahnweiler walks across a bridge with a guy who's also dressed as a Super Jew. They've been flitting about LA bestowing fortune on average citizens—culminating in a goofy scene in which their light sabers magically spark some guy's cigarette.

Welcome to Dude, Where's My Chutzpah, Kahnweiler's comedic web series about her quest to discover Judaism. The premise is simple: Jessie's bubbie died and left her money, under one condition: that she must "live Jewish" for one year. But Jessie doesn't know what this means, and she flounders, trying everything from buying hummus to hawking kosher pickles to waxing her mustache.

It's not until Super Jew teaches Jessie about tikkun olam that Judaism starts making sense to her. But when Jessie turns to share her enthusiasm and finds him missing, she starts to wonder if Super Jew was never there in the first place. Perhaps she had her own connection to the faith all along.

Is Jessie going to find an authentic Jewish identity on the way to scoring her inheritance? We'll probably have to wait till the end of the season to find out.

- Jenny Levison

First Jewess in Space

Stereotypes of Jewish women abound—overbearing Jewish mothers, JAPs, wizened bubbes from the old country—but nothing pokes holes in these stereotypes like Judith Resnik: engineer, astronaut, and first Jewish woman in space.

Resnik, the daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants, was working on her PhD in engineering when she was recruited by Star Trek star Nichelle Nichols to enter into NASA's space program. Six years later she became the first Jewish woman in space (and only the second Jew in space) on the maiden voyage of the Discovery in 1984. Resnik had the puff of dark curly locks most associated with Jewish women, and in iconic photos from that mission, her hair floats weightlessly around her head like a liberated Semitic halo.
But Resnik's story has a tragic ending. She was one of the astronauts aboard the doomed Challenger, which exploded shortly after launch, killing all aboard, on January 28th, 1986. Transcripts of the final minutes before the Challenger exploded have recently been released, so now you can read Resnik's last words, before—in the words of John Gillespie Magee that Reagan immortalized on that sad day—she "slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God."

- Tamar Fox

How to Re-Establish a Vodka Empire

Until finding his grandmother Maroussia Zorokovich's diaries, Daniel Edelstyn didn't know much about his family history. But as soon as he delved into the handwritten pages, he grew intrigued by Maroussia's descriptions of the family's sugar factory and set out on a journey to the remote Ukrainian village in which she was born.

What he finds is a shuttered factory and, to his surprise, a distillery his family once operated. After toasts with the locals, Edelstyn decides to import their vodka to his native U.K.—and to make a film based on his experience, aptly titled How to Re-Establish a Vodka Empire.

Stop-motion animation and silent reenactments dramatize selections from Maroussia's diary and draw parallels between her journey and Edelstyn's. Early in the film, Edelstyn markets the vodka by staging a struggle between his grandfather and a Bolshevik at a spirits conference. "You can't just use the iconography of Soviet Russia to sell vodka," a consultant advises him afterward. By the film's end, Edelstyn has refined his approach—and names his vodka Zorokovich, after his grandmother.

- Leah Falk

To stay afloat, shuls merging across denominational divide

The Jews of Corpus Christi knew a decade ago they had to act fast to save their two synagogues.

With at most 1,000 Jews left in the Texas town and only 60 families making up its membership, the 60-year-old Conservative synagogue was in shaky financial shape. So in 2005, B’nai Israel Synagogue merged with Temple Beth El, a Reform shul, to form Congregation Beth Israel, combining customs and sharing sacred spaces to preserve Jewish life in an area that saw its heyday around World War II.

The combined synagogue, and a small but growing number of others like it, makes a concerted effort to be inclusive despite denominational differences in liturgy and theology. Friday night services are tailored to Reform-minded members, while Saturday morning is conducted in the more traditional Conservative style, according to Kenneth Roseman, Beth Israel’s Reform-ordained rabbi.

Families marking a bar or bat mitzvah can choose which day and denomination they want for their celebration. Members even used furnishings from the old Conservative synagogue in a small chapel and put up some of the old building’s stained glass in the new congregation’s social hall.
“It’s not perfect,” said Roseman, “but it works.”

Across the country, scores of synagogues have overcome denominational differences to merge formally, share space or otherwise collaborate, often due to financial hardships wrought by shrinking Jewish populations. Shifting demographics and a challenging economic environment have led synagogues to consider remedies that previously were unthinkable, said Rabbi David Fine, the rabbinic director of the Union for Reform Judaism’s small congregations network.

“Many congregations worked hard for years to distinguish themselves,” Fine said. “It wasn’t so much ‘who are we’ but ‘who are we not?’– looking at the other place across town. Now it’s more ‘what do we have in common?’ ”
That kind of thinking was evident in the merger of the Reform Temple Beth El with Congregation Eilat, a Conservative synagogue in Southern California that was struggling with a significantly reduced membership. In 2010, the congregations merged formally with about 80 percent of Eilat’s 120 families joining the 650-family Beth El. Eilat members were granted board positions, one of Beth El’s kitchens was brought up to Conservative kosher standards and differences on issues such as music on Shabbat and patrilineal descent were followed in each denomination’s services.

Today, the congregation’s three rabbis — two Reform and one Conservative — run educational programming for the congregation at large and, on the High Holidays, deliver sermons to both the Reform and Conservative services.

“I think the success of it is measured by the fact that the lines are totally blurred now,” Welland said. “We’re one congregation; we’re one community.”

Maharat Hired At DC Shul, With Help From JOFA Leader

One of the first three graduates of Yeshiva Maharat will serve in a clergy position at an Orthodox congregation in Washington, D.C., thanks to a grant from a board member of the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance.

Ruth Balinsky Friedman, who will earn the title maharat at the yeshiva’s graduation on June 16th, will join the staff of Congregation Ohev Shalom – The National Synagogue, working with Rabbi Shmuel Hertzfeld.

Maharat is an acronym for Manhiga Hilkhatit Rukhanit Toranit, one who is teacher of Jewish law and spirituality. Friedman’s position will be partially underwritten by Zelda R. Stern, a JOFA leader and philanthropist. In a statement, JOFA said the grant would allow Friedman to serve “as a full member of the clergy,” beginning in August.

“She’ll be teaching and guiding and working with people of all ages, helping our congregation become closer to Hashem,” Rabbi Hertzfeld told The Jewish Week. “Everything will be in accordance with interpretation of Halacha.”

Last week, the Orthodox Rabbinical Council of America released a statement welcoming greater halachic study and participation in religious life by women but declaring that women as clergy is “a violation of our mesorah,” or tradition.

In response, Rabbi Hertzfeld said “They never called me to ask what she is doing. If they did, I would say everything is in accordance with mesorah.”
He said Friedman as maharat could have a role at events such as weddings or funerals, as permitted by halacha, but could not lead prayer services. “We are not egalitarian,” he said.

Continue reading.

Meet Nigeria's Jews

If you thought the wonders of the Internet were best characterized by videos of cats on treadmills and Words With Friends, consider the experience of Shmuel Tikvah ben Yaacov. The web introduced him to his heritage.

Shmuel, an Igbo (pronounced Ebo) from Southeastern Nigeria, grew up understanding that he was Jewish, but he knew little religious and cultural history. (Tradition has it that the Igbo are descendants of Gad, founder of one of the lost tribes of Israel.) But when the Internet came to Nigeria, Shmuel began researching, and what he learned convinced him of his Jewish heritage and inspired him to help build the country's small Jewish community.

Writer/director Jeff L. Lieberman's Re-Emerging: The Jews of Nigeria is a fascinating portrait of a group that, until recently, had little contact with Jewish communities around the world. Despite a lack of resources and the Israeli government's disinclination to recognize the Igbo as Jews, Shmuel and his fellow community members are committed. And after a visit from a sympathetic American rabbi, Shmuel reveals his dream: to attend the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. Despite the visa difficulties that ensue, Shmuel is determined to become a rabbi: "The community here needs my service."

The New ‘Morethodox’ Rabbi

Asher Lopatin succeeds Avi Weiss at an influential seminary, offering a pluralistic version of Orthodoxy

Avi Weiss has always been known as an unapologetic revolutionary. As a young Orthodox rabbi in the 1960s and ’70s, he was instrumental in helping build the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry, a movement predicated on the idea that established Jewish institutions were doing too little to help their brethren behind the Iron Curtain. In 1985, he led a group of Jews in a guerrilla Shabbat service at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, a historic and intentionally symbolic episode organized in protest of President Reagan’s visit to a war cemetery at Bitburg, where members of the SS were buried, during a state visit to Germany. Four years later, months before the collapse of communism across Eastern Europe, Weiss and six others were physically attacked after they scaled the walls of a Carmelite convent that had been built at Auschwitz and conducted an impromptu Torah study session in objection to the Catholic presence at the site of so much Jewish death. Weiss’ arrest record is legendary and stretches from New York to Oslo, Norway, where he was detained in 1994 while demonstrating against Yasser Arafat’s receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize.

In 1999, Weiss broke with Yeshiva University, his intellectual home and the headquarters of Modern Orthodoxy, to start his own rabbinic seminary in the Riverdale neighborhood of the Bronx, Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, under the banner of what Weiss termed Open Orthodoxy: the view that stringent observance of Jewish religious law in the modern world should co-exist with ideological flexibility on a range of questions, particularly concerning the role of women and Jewish denominational pluralism. Four years ago, Weiss took his rebellion one step further and founded Yeshivat Maharat, a women’s seminary, headed by his protégé Sara Hurwitz, the first American Orthodox woman to be ordained.

In January 2010, Weiss caused the biggest uproar of his career by changing Hurwitz’s title from maharat—an acronym for the Hebrew phrase denoting a teacher of Jewish law and spirituality—to the far more straightforward rabba, the feminized version of rabbi. The move drew an immediate outcry, including a statement from the Agudath Israel, a leading central authority of American Ultra-Orthodoxy, declaring that Weiss could no longer be considered part of the Orthodox fold: “These developments represent a radical and dangerous departure from Jewish tradition and the mesoras haTorah and must be condemned in the strongest terms.”

Continue reading. 

The Imaginarium Atop the Warsaw Ghetto

You enter a modern glass building and descend into a forest of sorts—"a space of historical imagination." You wander those woods, modeled after those encountered by early Jewish merchants when they first came to Poland. Later you find yourself lost on a bustling prewar street, which may lead you to a concert of contemporary, folk-infused Jewish music.

If you happen to be at the grand opening of The Museum of the History of Polish Jews this may describe your experience. Today marks the 70th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, and the Polish capital has scheduled the day's momentous ribbon-cutting in its honor.

NYU Professor Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett created the museum's core exhibit—an interactive, multimedia gallery that weaves 1000 years of history, culture, and religion from source materials such as drawings, photographs, films, and everyday objects.

The museum, which has been in the works for 2 decades and is located on the site of the former ghetto, tells a new story of Polish and Jewish history—not necessarily a good story and not necessarily bad, but a story that links the two histories right up through today.

Palestine’s First Jewish Feminist

When Pesha Dzimitrovsky, the daughter of an Orthodox rabbi in British Palestine, turned 15 in 1921, her schooling was over—or would have been, had she remained in Jerusalem. So her parents shipped her off to boarding school in Weimar-Republic Frankfurt. The move would be her first step in a lifetime of country-hopping and flouting gender expectations.

"Pesha's Journey," a small but powerful exhibit up through the end of May at the University of Michigan's Frankel Center, draws from Pesha's worldly, energetic life, in the form of love letters, newspaper clippings that track the fate of Europe's Jews, and her husband Benno's photos. The couple left Frankfurt for New York just before Hitler was elected Chancellor.

In these artifacts, Pesha details her reading of Schiller and Ibsen, discusses "modern marriage" with her husband-to-be, and supports a court decision allowing the sale of contraceptives. In a photograph taken before she left Palestine, Pesha's gaze is so serious and direct we can't help but wonder how her life—and her country—might have been different had she stayed.