DovBear's News

All you need is love: Avrohom Birnbaum edition

2013-08-03T21:45:00.001-07:00

You may remember Avrohom Birnbaum edition from the angry, hate-filled screed he published against Gil Student a few monthes ago. Well, he's back. In his new Yated article, (see it after the jump with a fisking) Birnbaum is now claiming that all of the other Jewish sects owe his own personal sect a huge debt of gratitude.

After all the Haredim (aka God's special guys) run the best chesed organizations. Or at least the seven or eight chesed organizations he lists. Fine. Haredim spend a lot of time helping other Jews. Haredim and non-haredim alike. We admit it.

But who are their funders?

Who pays their bills?

Who keeps the chesed machine humming?

I don't know the answer, but doesn't it seem likely that the bills are being paid, not by Haredi Jews who tend to be underemployed, but by MO Jews and Haredi-lite Jews? (Haredi-lite Jews are MO Jews who wear hats and daven sfard.)

Doesn't that count for anything?

And I would like to tell Birboum something else: The hatred and resentment flows both ways. You may think that MO Jews can't stand Haredim, but its inarguable that Haredi Jews consider the MO Jews, their Rabbis, and their institututions to be illigitimate and unworthy of respect.

The top Haredi Rabbi of the last 50 years is revered as Rav Moshe and beloved by all. The top MO Rabbi of the last fifty years is disdained as J.B and you find punk kids on Twitter who are proud of the fact that R. Aaron Kotler allegedly used to disrespect him. That counts for something, too.

Torah Tots

2013-08-03T19:29:00.001-07:00

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Catholic Culture : Latest Headlines : Pope mourns death of Roman Jewish leader

2011-01-24T14:30:00.000-08:00

Catholic Culture : Latest Headlines : Pope mourns death of Roman Jewish leader: "Pope Benedict XVI has sent a message of condolence to the Jewish community of Rome upon the death of Tullia Zevi, the former president of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities, who died on January 22 at the age of 91.

The Pope recalled Zevi—who was a noted author and journalist as well as a Jewish community leader—for “her exalted moral profile and authoritative contribution to the development of values of democracy, peace and freedom in Italian society, and to sincere and profound dialogue between Jews and Christians.”"

Search for more information about [topic] at 4torah.com.

Echoes of the 30s as rabbi warns German Jews not to wear identifiable religious symbols after spate of neo-Nazi attacks

2011-01-06T10:07:00.000-08:00

Echoes of the 30s as rabbi warns German Jews not to wear identifiable religious symbols after spate of neo-Nazi attacks
By Allan Hall
Last updated at 5:07 PM on 6th January 2011
The Daily Mail

Jews living near the German capital Berlin are being warned not to wear items of clothing that identify their religion as fears of neo-Nazi attacks rise.

Sixty five years after the end of World War Two and the Holocaust, a leading rabbi in the state of Brandenburg is urging Jews not to wear yarmulkes (skullcaps), traditional long coats, hats or other 'identifying symbols'.

Brandenburg, the state which surrounds Berlin, is a hotbed of neo-Nazi activity and its new chief rabbi Shaul Nekrich said its streets are no longer safe for Jews.

'I think the state has a problem with anti-Semitism,' he said. 'Even if I haven't been here for very long... I hear the stories from the communities.

'They are wary of being recognised as Jews on the streets.'

Formerly from Russia, Rabbi Nekrich said he had been accosted on a train in Brandenburg by drunks three years ago.

'I'm not saying that they were neo-Nazis,' he told a Berlin newspaper. 'But they had very short hair.

'I had started to read a prayer book when one of the men approached me, asked if it was written in Hebrew and then threw it on the ground.

'I got out at the next station and took at taxi the rest of the way home.

'As a Jew it is dangerous to wear things that identify you as such unless you are well versed in martial arts.'

The rabbi said he had not reported the incident because 'it makes no sense'.

In the six areas where he is responsible for teaching there are some 1,300 Jews.

After reunification Brandenburg became the fulcrum of neo-Nazi activity in Germany.

Skinheads invaded campsites, chased black people to their deaths, firebombed refugee asylums and marched in menacing groups flying the imperial battle flags of the Kaiser.

Towns like Bernau or Schwedt gained a reputation as 'brown towns' - after the brown shirts that the original Nazis wore during their rise to power - and tourist guides declared whole sections of the state 'no-go areas' for foreigners.

Brandenburg has led initiatives aimed at reducing the support for neo-Nazis in the state.

Antje Grabley, a spokesman for the state's Culture Ministry, said: 'The state government is doing everything it can to ensure that Jewish life again belongs to everyday life in Brandenburg.'

Ms Grabley said that a 2009 study showed anti-Semitic tendencies in the state were the lowest in Germany.

The State Office of Criminal Investigation said the total number of crimes motivated by anti-Semitism had also dropped in 2009 and 2010.

One of the most shocking crimes in the state occurred in 1999 when a baying mob of neo-Nazis chased 28-year-old Algerian asylum seeker Farid Guendoul through the streets of Guben.

They ended up pushing him through a plate glass window and gave Nazi salutes as he bled to death in 15 minutes.

First black female rabbi to leave congregation

2011-01-06T10:05:00.001-08:00

First black female rabbi to leave congregation
January 6, 2011
(JTA) -- The first African-American female rabbi will leave her congregation this summer.

Rabbi Alysa Stanton's contract with Congregation Bayt Shalom in Greenville, S.C., was not renewed, the Forward reported Thursday.

"We felt Rabbi Stanton has brought a lot of gifts to the congregation, but we felt she wasn’t a good fit for the direction we’re going,” board president Samantha Pilot told the Forward. “I can tell you with certainty that race -- I never heard that come up once during her tenure or now. It’s a non-issue."

Bayt Shalom is a small Conservative congregation that also is affiliated with the Reform movement.

Stanton said she will serve out her contract, which expires at the end of July.

Stanton, 47, a convert and mother to an adopted teenage daughter, was ordained at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in June 2009, and took up her full-time pulpit shortly thereafter.

The former Pentecostal Christian converted 20 years ago while in college. She is a trained psychotherapist who specializes in trauma and grief.

Monsey Rabbi Visits Virginia

2011-01-06T10:04:00.000-08:00

Leading Rabbis from Monsey, NY visit VA
January 6th, 2011 9:32 am ET
By Joseph Kolakowski, Richmond Examiner

This past Tuesday, January 4, 2011, Richmond had the distinct and rare honor to host Rabbi Moshe Green, Dean of the Yeshivah of Monsey, in Monsey, NY, one of the leading Ultra-Orthodox Rabbis in the US today. It is extremely rare for Rabbi Green to leave Monsey, or to leave NY at all, particularly since he has suffered two strokes and uses a wheelchair, and this was a tremendous blessing to the community. Despite his physical disabilities and ailments, Rabbi Green delivers a highly advanced Talmudic lecture daily in his Yeshivah (rabbinical seminary) in Monsey, NY. Rabbi Green was accompanied by his son Rabbi Abraham Green and his grandson Rabbi Jacob Flohr. The were driven by car from Monsey to Baltimore, MD, where they slept for a few hours, and continued in the pre-dawn hours to Virginia, where they participated in the daily 7:15 am prayer service at the Yeshiva of Virginia in the Near West End of Richmond. After the prayer service, Rabbi Chaim Ozer Chait, the Dean of the Yeshiva of Virginia and a former resident of Monsey, NY, introduced Rabbi Green, and Rabbi Green spoke a few words of inspiration based on the Book of Exodus from the Bible, which is the current Torah portion in Synagogues around the world. He spoke of the Israelite's freedom from Egypt leading to their service to God, and compared it to the freedom that servitude to God through Torah study and observance gives us from our own egos and desires. It was particularly noteworthy that Rabbi Green delivered his words in English, because his main language in New York is Yiddish. A video of Rabbi Green's words can be found here. He then gave individual blessings to the students and local rabbis who were present.

After breakfast, Rabbi Green was joined by Rabbi Simchah Shorr, Rosh Yeshivah of Yeshivas Ohr Somayach in Monsey, and Rabbi Jacob Joseph Moskowitz, a scion of the illustrious Shotzer Hasidic Dynasty and Rosh Yeshivah of Yeshivas Ner HaTorah in Monsey, who arrived by airplane together with Rabbi Chaim Hersh Freund and Rabbi Hershel Friedman, who are prominent activists who work in prison outreach. They then continued together Hopewell, VA, for the main purpose of their visit, which was to give spiritual encouragement to the Jewish inmate community at the Petersburg Federal Prison in Hopewell, VA. Among the inmates is a prominent Hasidic Rabbi from the Monsey community.

The Rabbis were accompanied by Rabbi Joseph Kolakowski, who is the Rabbi of the Nachalei Emunah Hasidic Institute of Richmond, VA, and also provides Rabbinical services to Congregation Kol Emes/Young Israel of Richmond, as well as to the Petersburg Federal Prison.

The Rabbis spent several hours with the Jewish inmates in the chapel of the prison. One of the inmates described the horrors of prison life, stating that not only is the body in prison but so is every level of his soul. As their visit ended, the Rabbis engaged in a Hasidic dance singing the words from the daily liturgy ממצרים גאלתנו ומבית עבדים פדיתנו "The Lord our God helped us out from Egypt and redeemed us from slavery", referring both to the Torah reading from Exodus and the hope that those wrongfully imprisoned should be freed. As the rabbis left, the inmates began to cry, and the rabbis wished their blessings.

After the visit, the Rabbis returned immediately to Monsey. Rabbi Friedman, who was one of the visiting rabbis, offered an interview on the popular Yiddish News Hotline "Kol Mevaser". The number for Kol Mevaser is 212-444-1100. To hear the interview, one presses 3 then 1 then 386#.

All in all, the visit was a tremendous source of inspiration both to the local community who benefited from Rabbi Green's visit and to the inmates.

New trendy non-kosher menus inspired by Jewish canon

2011-01-06T09:34:00.000-08:00

Nikki Cascone, 38 years old, opened Octavia's Porch in the East Village and Michael Psilakis, 42, launched Fish Tag on the Upper West Side within days of each other. Both chefs are borrowing from the Jewish canon without going kosher. They've modernized kreplach and smoked fish, giving buzz to Bubbe's best.

Pictures and more after the jump
—Melanie Grayce West

Wall Street Journal

January 6, 2011

Octavia's Porch

View Full Image

Joe Kohen The Wall Street Journal

Matzo-ball soup from Octavia's Porch

The concept: A global bistro adapted to Jewish culture. "Maybe people have been a little bit afraid to do Jewish food unless they went deli," said Ms. Cascone.

On the menu: Challah, "schmears," chicken liver salad, brisket and latkes. Gefilte fish, which the chef compares to fish mousse, gets a good dose of lime and fresh horseradish. Kreplach, traditionally placed in soup, are here prepared in a pan with onions and garlic and served with a sweet soy sauce.

View Full Image

Joe Kohen The Wall Street Journal

Kreplach from Octavia's Porch

To drink: A pickle martini and a boozy egg cream.

The cool factor: "Making chicken liver salad cool is a challenge," said Ms. Cascone. "I couldn't sell it in my last restaurant and now I can't keep it in stock here. I guess I just had to add red grapes, celery and matzo."

Local influences: Russ & Daughters and Second Avenue Deli. Putting the restaurant close to the Lower East Side was a "no brainer," she said. "It was important for the integrity."

Rabbi Tendler: Rabbis don't have the necessary background to understand brain-stem death

2011-01-05T07:19:00.000-08:00

YU ethics expert censures rabbis over brain-stem death
By JONAH MANDEL
05/01/2011
Rabbi Dr. Tendler determined that brain-stem death constitutes halachic death; "our rabbis don't have the necessary background to understand it."

Scientific ignorance can be dangerous, especially when people with inadequate knowledge are faced with and decide upon questions that demand expertise.

So how is it that some rabbis, who are great Torah scholars but not necessarily medical experts, claim to overrule science in determining the moment of a person’s death, regarding questions of organ donation? A conference at the Bar-Ilan University on Tuesday, part of its Nitzozot study series, dealt with case studies in Jewish bioethical decision-making: brain-death and advanced genetic management.

In the early 1990, Rabbi Dr. Moshe D. Tendler – a biology professor and Jewish medical ethics expert at the Yeshiva University, and rosh yeshiva at the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary – developed for the Rabbinical Council of America a health care proxy that determined that brain-stem death constituted halachic death. A few months ago, a special committee of the RCA, composed of members who do not have the scientific credentials of Tendler, backed away from its previous stance.

“We underestimate the effort needed to understand the advances in biomedicine, people who are trained – doctors, etc. – have trouble keeping up with the field,” Tendler told The Jerusalem Post at the end of the conference. “Our rabbis enter the field at its most advanced stage, without the background necessary to understand it.

“The idea that greatness in Torah is adequate to make up with this deficit in education, is erroneous. Lo bashamaim hi – the Torah is down on the earth. Therefore, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein waited two years before he could answer the question [on whether brain-stem death qualifies as death],” Tendler said of his late father-in-law, the supreme rabbinic authority for Orthodox Jewry of North America and one of the greatest halachic adjudicators of the generation.

“During this time, in addition to info I provided him, he had personal contact with leaders in the scientific field,” Tendler noted.

“After seeing patient after patient who were brain dead, and the protocol according to which the death was determined, [Feinstein] was confident to say that breathing by machine was no evidence of life, nor was a beating heart.

“Death occurs in three stages,” Tendler continued. “There is organismal death, in which an organism no longer functions – that is brain-stem death. There is then organ death – but after the organism [the body in this case] dies, the organs stay alive for a period of time, enabling transplants. The third stage is cellular death – putrefaction. In Halacha, we are required to bury our dead early, to prevent desecration.

“Removing an organ [from someone organismically dead] to enable another person to live is not desecrating; rather, [it is] honoring the dead,” Tendler said.

Regarding the recent case of Avi Cohen, Tendler mused that “when people die, they all become haredim.”

The unobservant soccer star’s family decided to not donate his organs, despite a green light to do so from Chief Sephardi Rabbi Shlomo Amar. What swayed the family’s initial intention to live up to Cohen’s will, evident in his bearing an ADI organ donor card, were threats from a former soccer player turned haredi and his rabbi – that they would be murdering the father if they donated his organs.

Chicago Schedules Marathon for Day after Yom Kippur

2011-01-05T07:16:00.000-08:00

Jewish runners: Will you run the Chicago Marathon?
Julie Deirdoff
Chicago Tribune
January 4, 2011

Some Jewish runners are concerned that the 2011 Bank of America Chicago Marathon will conflict with Yom Kippur, Chicago Tribune reporter William Lee wrote in "Hurdle arises for Jewish marathon runners."

The annual 26.2-mile run is scheduled for Oct. 9, the day after The Jewish Day of Atonement, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar. Yom Kippur "requires worshippers to fast, abstaining from food and drink for a 25-hour period, and observant runners will only be able to break the fast the night before the marathon," Lee wrote.

Experts gave conflicting views on whether it's safe to run a marathon after prolonged fasting. According to Lee's piece, Dr. Sara Brown, a sports physician in Lincoln Park, said fasting runners should sit out the marathon, adding that long runs after fasting can be dangerous.

"That's what I would recommend to anybody that would be observing the holiday," Brown said. "I wouldn't recommend running 26 miles the next day."

However, Chicago marathon Race Director Dr. George Chiampas said some runners who fast can run the next day and that a 24-hour fast would not harm the body enough to be dangerous if a runner has the proper nutrients.

"If they've done it in the past, and they feel they can get back to baseline, that should suffice," Chiampas said. "It's not a generalization for every runner.

NYC Sanit. dept. dumped tons of snow on Jewish cemetery

2011-01-05T07:13:00.000-08:00

Sanit. dept. dumped tons of snow on Jewish cemetery
POSTED BY EMUNA STAFF ON JANUARY - 4 - 2011

Even the dead can't escape the ineptitude of the city's Sanitation Department.

Sanit crews dumped tons of dirty snow from the Chirstmas weekend blizzard into the city’s biggest Jewish cemetery, toppling 21 gravestones and wrecking an iron fence.

"It’s jarring, and it’s an emotional thing," said Yana Zhuravel, a lawyer whose grandparents’ headstones in

Washington Cemetery in Midwood, Brooklyn, were among those knocked over.

"Clearly, nobody came with the intention of doing this, I’m sure," said Zhuravel. "But when an accident happens of this caliber, you expect some form of accountability."

"We were devastated," said cemetery manager Marisa Tarantino.

Workers believe the snow was dumped sometime over the New Year’s holiday, Tarantino said.

The cemtery is closed Saturday. Workers noticed the knocked-over gravestones when the cemetery opened at 8 a.m. Sunday, Tarantino said.

Sanitation officials sent an employee to look into the matter, and the cemetery plans to file a claim with the city.

Some people who heard of the devastation stopped by the cemetery yesterday to check on their relatives’ gravestones.

"Ours is good," said Oscar Daych, 76, whose mother-in-law is buried there. "But this is unbelieveable. It’s terrible. We don’t know what to say."

The snow clearing crews also buried several cars parked next to the cemetery on Bay Parkway.
One man said he had left his car several hundred feet away, and that the city apparently towed it to a spot next to the cemetery, where trucks dumped snow on top of it.

Jerusalem boxing club unites Jews and Arabs in and out of the ring

2011-01-05T07:10:00.000-08:00

Jerusalem boxing club unites Jews and Arabs in and out of the ring
By Joel Greenberg
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 4, 2011; 12:48 PM

JERUSALEM - In a converted bomb shelter in a low-income Jewish neighborhood, Ismail Jaafari, a Palestinian boxer from across town, bobbed and weaved in the ring, trading punches with an Israeli opponent.

They were sparring at a local boxing club that is something of an anomaly in this ethnically divided city: a place where both Jews and Arabs pursue a shared passion. Palestinians from East Jerusalem have earned their boxing credentials at the club, training with Russian-speaking Jewish immigrants, bearded yeshiva students and settlers from the West Bank.

Presiding over it all is Gershon Luxemburg, an immigrant from the former Soviet Union who learned boxing as a boy to repel anti-Semitic assaults and later became a champion boxer in Uzbekistan and several times Israel's light heavyweight champion.

An unabashed nationalist who was jailed more than 20 years ago on charges of stockpiling arms, allegedly for attacks on Arabs, Luxemburg, 66, now preaches tolerance. He accepts all comers to his club, which he says is meant to provide a healthy outlet for youths in troubled neighborhoods.

On a recent evening, Jaafari led a warm-up session, jogging around the gym, trailed by aspiring boxers who ranged in age from young boys to a man in his 60s, and also included two young women. Luxemburg, who shares coaching duties with his brother Eli, a former Soviet champion, barked orders as the boxers went through their paces.

"Before I started coaching, I thought the Arabs were an obstacle for us in this country and that we couldn't live together," Luxemburg said. "But it's hard to believe what sports has done, how it has brought people here together; they've become friends, helping each other out, inviting each other over."

Jaafari, a 36-year-old truck driver, said he had trained at the club for 13 years under Luxemburg's tutelage. "We're more than friends," Jaafari said. "He's like my father."

After Palestinian bombing attacks in Jerusalem, Jaafari recalled, he would stay away from the club to avoid awkward encounters with Israeli club members. Luxemburg would call him, insisting that he show up. "He would tell me: 'Who cares about the political situation outside! We're here, and you're like family.' "

Ramzi Srour, an 18-year-old Palestinian from East Jerusalem who has trained at the club for eight years, said that the conflict on the streets never disrupted the atmosphere in the boxing gym. "Down in the club, we don't pay attention to the problems upstairs," he said. "This is sports, and we're like brothers."

Luxemburg, who in his day job works as a building superintendent, has taken his Jewish and Arab club members on road trips together to boxing matches, cooking them food and taking them on sightseeing trips. "There were people here who had never even met an Arab, and only saw them on TV throwing stones," Luxemburg said. "Suddenly they're sitting together, talking to one another as human beings."

Urged by Luxemburg to create an alternative to street life for youngsters in his own community, Jaafari opened a boxing and karate club in his East Jerusalem neighborhood, and its members regularly travel to the Jewish side of town for sparring matches in Luxemburg's gym. Boxers trained by Jaafari have taken top places in Palestinian championships in the West Bank, and one traveled to Jordan as a member of a national squad.

Jaafari, who has competed in Israeli championships, said that "sports crosses borders." "Politics is a dirty business that should be put aside," he added. "We get along fine."

For the Israeli boxers in Luxemburg's club, the presence of the Palestinians is completely unremarkable.

"They're my friends," said Yotam Mirzai, who lives in the Israeli settlement town of Maaleh Adumim in the West Bank, near Jerusalem. "In the ring we're all just people, and in competitions it doesn't matter where you're from."

The distinction between the political and the personal, Luxemburg says, is the key. He recalled how, at the height of Israeli-Palestinian violence several years ago, he would regularly bring clothes, food and money to a Palestinian from the West Bank who had worked for him but could not reach his job because of Israeli border closures.

"There are enemies, and there are friends," he said. "Whoever comes at you with a weapon should get what he deserves, but a friend is a friend. There's war, and then there's life, and we can manage."

Greenberg is a special correspondent.

Aharon Friedman: Give Tamar a Get

2011-01-03T19:06:00.001-08:00

Religious Divorce Dispute Leads to Secular Protest
By MARK OPPENHEIMER
January 3, 2011
New York Times

This should have been a good New Year’s for Aharon Friedman, a 34-year-old tax counsel for the Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee. He spent time with his 3-year-old daughter, and could have been thinking about the influence he will have starting Wednesday, when his boss, Representative Dave Camp of Michigan, becomes chairman of the powerful tax-writing committee.

Instead, Mr. Friedman, an Orthodox Jew, finds himself scrutinized in the Jewish press, condemned by important rabbis, and attacked in a YouTube video showing about 200 people protesting outside his Silver Spring, Md., apartment on Dec. 19. They were angered by Mr. Friedman’s refusal to give his wife, Tamar Epstein, 27, a Jewish decree of divorce, known as a get.

The Friedman case has become emblematic of a torturous issue in which only a husband can “give” a get. While Jewish communities have historically pressured obstinate husbands to give gets, this was a very rare case of seeking to shame the husband in the secular world.

Holding signs saying, “Do the right thing” and “Free your wife,” the crowd included religious women with their heads covered, men in skullcaps and a rabbi with a bullhorn who shouted, “Withholding a get is abusive.”

Another rabbi took the unusual step of writing to Mr. Friedman’s employer, asking that he lean on Mr. Friedman to grant the Jewish divorce.

Mr. Friedman and Ms. Epstein have been civilly divorced since April and share custody of their daughter, but they are still married according to Jewish law. And without a get neither he nor Ms. Epstein can remarry within the faith. She is considered an agunah, or chained woman.

Although the majority of men in Jewish divorces grant their wives a get with little fuss, the husbands who refuse — it is estimated there are several hundred agunot in the United States today — can provoke a clash between religious folkways and secular divorce law.

Usually these conflicts are resolved quietly, within the religious community. But Ms. Epstein’s frustrated supporters took to the streets.

Like most marriages that end badly, this one began hopefully. On April 23, 2006, Aharon Friedman of Brooklyn married Tamar Epstein, seven years his junior, of suburban Philadelphia. The next year, they had a daughter.

According to court records and interviews with Ms. Epstein, her lawyer and Mr. Friedman, who refused to be quoted publicly, Ms. Epstein said in March 2008 that she wanted a divorce. Her husband said he hoped to reconcile but the next month, she moved with their daughter to her parents’ home in suburban Philadelphia.

Both parties wanted their divorce resolved by a beit din, a Jewish court. But both also availed themselves of civil court: Mr. Friedman to get an emergency order to have his daughter returned to Maryland (it was denied), and Ms. Epstein, thereafter, in a countersuit for divorce. Both have since filed numerous other civil motions in a messy case.

An Orthodox rabbinic court in Baltimore still had not ruled when a Maryland civil court heard the case, in June 2009. It issued its custody order two months later, and in April 2010, the divorce became final.

All parties have said that Mr. Friedman is angry about the custody order, which grants him three weekends a month with his daughter, two of them in Philadelphia, beginning at 6 p.m. on Fridays. As a religious Jew, Mr. Friedman will not drive from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday — so he cannot see his daughter until Sunday.

The custody order is “a joke,” said Yisroel Belsky, a prominent Brooklyn rabbi. “The court decided in a bullheaded way not to respect the Shabbos,” or Sabbath, he said in a interview.

And the Rabbinical Council of Greater Washington issued a statement saying that the parties had not yet exhausted the rabbinical courts, suggesting it was premature to blame Mr. Friedman for withholding the get.

But other rabbis have argued that it is Jewish custom to give a get once divorce terms have been settled, and with no possibility of reconciliation.

“Even if one party acts wrongly to the other, it is never correct either for the husband to withhold a get or for the wife to refuse a get when a marriage is clearly over,” writes Rabbi Jonathan Reiss, who is not involved in this dispute.

Ms. Epstein eventually sought help from the Organization for the Resolution of Agunot, or ORA, an Orthodox group in New York. The group organized the Dec. 19 rally outside Mr. Friedman’s apartment. After videos were posted on the Internet, Washington Jewish Week ran an editorial with the headline “Unchain This Woman.”

Ms. Epstein, still living with her parents and working as a nurse, said: “It’s been over two and a half years since we separated, all I want is to be able to move on and rebuild my life for my sake and my daughter’s sake. And I’ve been held hostage.”

On Dec. 20, Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld of Washington, who supports Ms. Epstein, wrote to Jon Traub, the Republican staff director of the Ways and Means Committee, accusing Mr. Friedman of “psychological terrorism.” Rabbi Herzfeld urged Mr. Traub to “tell Aharon to give the get immediately,” and warned that “it is appropriate to also rally in the vicinity of Aharon’s work place.”

Rabbi Herzfeld said Mr. Traub told him, in a phone call, that this was not a matter for the Ways and Means Committee.

But for Ms. Epstein’s supporters, this is a matter for everyone.

Rabbi Herzfeld told The New York Times, “I don’t think the Messiah can come, as long as there is one agunah in the world.”

Gangsta rapper Shyne, now an Orthodox Jew, plans comeback

2011-01-03T12:23:00.001-08:00

Gangsta rapper Shyne, now an Orthodox Jew, plans comeback
BY DINA KRAFT, JTA
January 3, 2011

It was early on during his difficult, isolated years in prison that the former gangsta rapper known as Shyne decided to formally take on the laws of Judaism as his own.

Shyne, who legally changed his name in prison from Jamaal Barrows to Moses Levi—Moses is one of his favorite biblical heroes, and Levi is for the Levites who were musicians during Temple times—remembers the initial skepticism he encountered from prison rabbis at New York’s Rikers Island, where he was first incarcerated, and the other prison rabbis that would follow.

“In prison culture, everyone is trying to make a scam, everyone is a con artist, so who is this dark-skinned guy they wondered? Does he just want the Jewish food?” asks Levi, now cloaked in the black garb of a Chasidic Jew and living in Jerusalem.

“A guy with payes? Maybe they might believe him,” he tells JTA, laughing.

Levi, 32, a former protegee of the hip-hop mogul Sean Combs (aka P Diddy), found himself drawn to Judaism ever since hearing Old Testament stories from his grandmother as a boy. He was with Combs and then-girlfriend Jennifer Lopez, the singer and movie star, the night of a 1999 shooting at a Manhattan nightclub that left three injured and resulted in a trial that became a media circus.

Combs was acquitted, but Levi was found guilty of opening fire in the nightclub. In 2001 he was sentenced to 10 years in prison. After serving nearly nine years he was released last year.

Levi credits Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, one of his attorneys, with helping him gain access in prison to prayer books and other religious items like a tallit and tefillin.

Now, as he walks through the alleyways of Jerusalem’s Old City on his way to the Western Wall, he clutches a worn prayer book whose maroon leather cover was torn off by prison officials for security purposes.

Adhering to an Orthodox approach to Judaism made the most sense to him, said Levi, who is studying with several haredi Orthodox rabbis from some of the most stringent yeshivas in Jerusalem. A few months ago, Levi said, he underwent a type of conversion called a “giyur l’chumra”—a conversion usually for those who likely are Jewish but undergo conversion “just to be on the safe side.”

“I’m looking for a connection to Hashem,” Levi says, using the Hebrew name for God. “I am not trying to weaken it. I want to know what is done, then I can decide if I’m up to it. What did Moses do? What do the sages say to do?”

Levi feels like he’s returning to the fold. His days are spent in study and prayer. Reminders of his newly acquired Jewish education come out in his rapid fire, Brooklyn-accented speech smattered with Hebrew words and Talmudic and biblical references.

Levi is an anomaly in more ways than one.

His father is a prosperous lawyer who currently is the prime minister of Belize, in Central America. When Levi was a child, his mother took him from Belize to the United States. They settled in New York, where she worked as a house cleaner to support them.

But Levi soon was enamored with life on the streets, becoming a gang member. He was in and out of trouble, and at the age of 13 he was sent away to a juvenile center. By 15 he had been shot.

These days, after spending time in prison, adopting Judaism and moving to Israel for a few months, Levi is talking about a musical comeback.

He plans to release two albums this spring that are part of a joint venture with Def Jam Records, the major hip-hop label. Gone is some of the harsher and misogynist language of his previous two albums, one of which came out while he was in jail. While not explicitly religious, the lyrics do have a spiritual bent.

In Jerusalem, where Levi says he plans to stay for the next few months, he appears nonplussed by the second glances he attracts. But as a black man in the clothes of a haredi—complete with long black wool coat, fedora, knickers and black ribbed socks—Levi indeed stands out.

At the Western Wall plaza he encounters a group of young, religious Ethiopian Israelis. Levi’s great-grandmother was Ethiopian, and he thinks she may have been Jewish. Exploring his possible Ethiopian Jewish heritage intrigues him.

Levi plans to travel to Ethiopia in the spring, and says he’d like to help fund a yeshiva for Ethiopian immigrants in the town of Beit Shemesh, near Jerusalem.

“The Israelites won’t be whole and Messiah won’t come until all the tribes are connected to Hashem,” Levi says, referring to the Ethiopian Jews as a lost tribe—an originally Jewish community cut off from the rest of the Jewish world for generations.

Levi finishes his evening prayers at the Western Wall before paying a visit to the protest tent next to the prime minister’s residence that calls for the immediate release of Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier who has been held captive by Hamas in Gaza for more than four years.

Noam Shalit, the captured soldier’s father, is in the tent, and Levi is anxious to speak with him.

“I know what it’s like to suffer and not be with your family, and heaven knows what kind of pain and torture they are doing to him,” Levi says after the two shake hands and sit down. He adds, “All we can do is pray.”

“We need more than prayers,” a polite but terse Noam Shalit replies.

From the Shalit tent, Levi heads out into a chilly Jerusalem night to meet with one of the rabbis with whom he studies regularly.

Every day, he says, the tenets of Judaism help him become closer to the kind of person he strives to be.

“The bottom line is not to be a Chasid,” he says. “Some people can dress up and look the part, but sometimes they don’t behave that way and the person you never expect turns out to be the mensch. Right?”

Journey into Morocco's past at the New York Center for Jewish History

2011-01-03T09:59:00.000-08:00

Journey inro Morocco's past at the New York Center for Jewish History
Sunday, 2 January 2011 12:41
by Norman L. Greene
Morocco Board News

New York / Morocco Board News- Sometimes a museum exhibit invites us to inquire further and uncover a body of knowledge that was always there, that others have studied for decades (if not centuries), and that changes the way we look at things. The small but well-designed museum exhibit, Looking Back: The Jews of Morocco held at the Center for Jewish History in New York City, running through April 18, 2011, is one of these “inviting” museum exhibits.

Taken together with the masterful and lyrical opening night keynote address by University of Oklahoma Professor Norman A. Stillman introducing it on October 14, 2010, the exhibit is recommended for all who are interested in the subject of Jews in Morocco or the Sephardic Jewish experience in North Africa.[1] This article will give an overview of the event and add context with supplemental sources.

The museum provides a selective history of the Jews in Morocco from their arrival in Morocco around 586 B.C.E. (the period of the destruction of the First Temple) to the present. A series of panels covers their experience and contributions from the earliest Jewish settlements in pre-Islamic times, through the arrival of Arab populations and thereafter, and through the era of the French protectorate (commencing in 1912) and World War II; Moroccan independence in 1956; and the mass Jewish emigration from Morocco.

A key theme of the exhibit is the integration of Jews into Moroccan society. The first panel entitled “Introduction of Moroccan Jewry” notes that “Jews settled among the Berber population [in Morocco] in the pre-Islamic period, and some Berber tribes are said to have converted to Judaism.” Another adds: “A symbiotic relationship between Berbers and Jews was rich and enduring over the centuries. Conversant in Berber dialects, Jews dressed like Berbers, practiced saint worship like them, and participated in … [their] celebrations.”[2] According to a separate essay by Yaelle Azagury, “[i]n some regions of the Atlas Mountains, Jews lived so close to traditional Arab tribes that one could hardly tell the difference: They looked like Arabs, spoke only Arabic, and possessed a limited awareness of the modern world.”[3] To the same effect, Professor Daniel Schroeter observed in another source that in “Berber-speaking regions, Jews were usually bilingual, speaking Berber with their Muslim neighbors, and Judeo-Arabic at home. In a few of the most isolated communities of the High Atlas, some Jewish communities spoke Berber only.”[4]

An early panel notes that “[i]n small towns and villages, Moroccan Jews” were “merchants, traders and peddlers” and “craftsmen” and filled “an important economic niche in society.” According to Professor Schroeter, the “role of Moroccan Jews as merchants made them the primary intermediaries between Morocco and Europe.”[5] Many Jews came to Morocco after their expulsion from Spain in 1492 along with Muslims, and the exhibit features a statement by a Turkish Sultan to the effect that Spain’s loss of “its” Jews impoverished Spain and enriched Turkey where many Jews emigrated (in addition to Morocco).[6] The implication is that this proposition is equally applicable to Morocco upon the Jews’ expulsion from Spain and their arrival in Morocco. “From the Sa’adian period of the sixteenth century, and continuing in the Alawid period (beginning in the seventeenth century), the majority of Moroccans conducting trade with Europe were Jews.”[7]

In his keynote address, Professor Stillman sounds the same theme, observing that Jews were well integrated in the country, settling in tiny villages and even in “Berber hinterlands” where they spoke Berber as well as major towns and cities. There was even a Judeo-Berber Hagadah. He added that Jews were “everywhere” and “they were part of the stones of the soil,” referencing their long history there. (He distinguished Morocco from Egypt, for instance, where Jews came in recent times and from someplace else.)

To the same effect, author and Sefrou native Driss Benmhend observed that the “town [of Sefrou] was a melting pot of culture as Jewish Berber Moroccans and Algerians had been settling there for many centuries. Before most Jewish Moroccans left the country when the French departed during the [nineteen] sixties and seventies, a third of Sefrou’s population was Jewish.”[8] In his comprehensive website, Visiting Jewish Morocco, Rick Gold noted that Sefrou “was known as Little Jerusalem due to its high percentage of Jews and its well-developed religious life.”[9] Tim Resch, President of Friends of Morocco, added that he “was privileged to be a Peace Corps volunteer in the 1970s in Ouezzane, Morocco bordering the Rif Mountains and the Gharb plain.” “I saw first-hand the cultural mix defining Morocco, seeing Amazigh (Berber), Arab, Muslim, Jew, Christian, French and Spanish influences in daily life.” “The blend of languages, beliefs, culture and cuisine was a challenge to understand but attempting to understand the component parts was an enjoyable intellectual journey for me and my Moroccan friends.”[10]

According to the exhibit, “it was [historically] the personal obligation of the Sultan to protect the Jews; a failure to do so would underscore the weakness of the state itself.[11] Rick Gold notes that “Jews and Arabs lived a symbiotic existence until the middle of the twentieth century. Moroccan kings protected the Jews from harm and helped some of them develop the wealth that sustained the monarchy for many years.”[12] In the 19th through the mid-20th centuries, however, according to the exhibit, Jews experienced sporadic episodes of anti-Semitism, although anti-Semitism was not Moroccan state policy. The most notorious example occurred during World War II, when discrimination was imposed against Moroccan Jews by the French Vichy government, over Moroccan royal opposition.[13] As Professor Stillman wrote, Sultan (and later King) Mohammed V “demonstrated his personal distaste for Vichy’s anti-Semitic laws;” “expressed his view that the French-imposed statutes were illegal and that in his eyes all of his subjects, Jews and Muslims alike, were equal;” and assured Moroccan Jewish leaders “that he himself would never lay a hand ‘upon either their persons or their property.’”[14] Professor Stillman also said in his keynote address that there was documentary evidence that the Sultan withheld his seal from some French-imposed discriminatory legislation; and the seal would have been customary had he approved it. The Sultan’s withholding of the seal, he said, was “itself an act of heroism” and “worthy of” Jewish gratitude.

Similarly, historian Robert Satloff wrote that the Sultan provided “vital moral support to the Jews of Morocco” in the face of French oppression of Jews, despite the fact that Morocco was a French protectorate during the war; [15] that “Moroccan Jewish lore celebrates Sultan Muhammad V as a savior, one of the finest, fairest, and most tolerant rulers Jews had ever known;” and “[h]is reputation has taken on mythic proportions….”[16] “Thanks to testimonies, archives, memoirs, and sometimes, sheer serendipity,” Robert Satloff observed, “we are privileged to know the names of some of those Arabs who helped save Jews from pain, injury, and perhaps death. The most famous was Sultan Muhammad V of Morocco….”[17] The exhibit does not evaluate the effectiveness of Moroccan resistance to fascist oppression or, specifically, in blunting the impact of the Vichy laws. These laws disturbingly continued in place in Morocco – with the acquiescence of the Allies – during a period of over four months after the Allies liberated Morocco from Vichy.[18]

The exhibit references King Mohammed VI as continuing this supportive tradition, among other things, by quoting the King as stating “that the German destruction of the Jews ‘was one of the most tragic chapters of modern history,’” and he “has endorsed a program aimed at educating Muslims on this [holocaust] history.” The King’s stance is contrasted in the exhibit and otherwise to that of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who has dismissed the Holocaust.[19]

The exhibit indicates that Jews feared for their future after Moroccan independence in 1956, noting selected anti-Jewish pronouncements in the nationalist press and among fundamentalist Muslim leaders and tensions related to the establishment of Israel. According to Professor Stillman, although there were efforts made by King Mohammed V to reassure the Jewish community, other events and trends undermined the confidence of most Jews regarding their future in Morocco.[20]

Morocco’s policy preventing Jewish emigration might have also led them to consider themselves singled out and vulnerable. The exhibit includes a 1957 letter from a Moroccan Jew to the Rabbi of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in New York (referenced in the letter as a “Portuguese Spanish Synagogue”) expressing anxiety and seeking help, specifically “assurance of our security and freedom” from the King of Morocco who was expected to be in the United States around the time of the letter, and objecting to emigration and travel restrictions that Moroccan Jews were facing in leaving Morocco.[21]

The exhibit does not take a position on whether on balance the conditions facing the Jews in Morocco were sufficient to explain their decision to emigrate, bringing a pre-emigration population of Jews in Morocco from nearly 300,000 to a post-emigration population of under 4000. Rick Gold’s website does provide a number of explanations.[22] But he cautions that “the explanations given for the departure of Moroccan Jews sometimes depend on the purpose of the person giving the explanat[23] “One might be attempting to make the conditions in Morocco at the time of emigration look better than they were in order to achieve one purpose or even worse than they were in order to achieve another.”[24]

The exhibit does not describe what circumstances Moroccan Jews faced in Israel – the destiny of many Moroccan Jews -- after they emigrated there. Nonetheless, other sources, including author Fatima-Zahra Belkady, indicate that their adjustment to life in Israel was not easy.[25] Challenges resulted from various obstacles, including language differences, lack of political power and employment, and the difficulties of fitting in as a North African as opposed to being a European Jew.[26]

The exhibit notes that the exodus of Jews led to their cultural diminishment in Morocco – for example, the loss of established Jewish institutions, including schools, synagogues and media, because of the lack of Jews to operate and patronize them. Mostapha Saout of McLean, VA, a community outreach specialist, noted the difference in Morocco after the emigration of Moroccan Jews to Israel and elsewhere. "Moroccan Jews were an integral part of Moroccan society for centuries, and their departure left an enormous void. It is like losing part of your heritage,” he said.[27] “Given their centuries of integration into Moroccan society and their contributions, how could it be otherwise?"[28] Professor Aomar Boum quotes Ibrahim Nouhi, a resident of Southern Morocco, that when the Morocccan Jews left, “we, as a nation, lost a very dynamic social group which could have contributed to our young nation state.”[29]

As for the current influence of Jews in Morocco, the exhibit states that “[d]espite their current small numbers, Jews continue to play a notable (if small) role. The King retains a Jewish cabinet minister,” Jews are represented by a “small number in politics and culture,” and “schools and Jewish synagogues receive government financial support.” As for the ongoing relationship between the Moroccan Jews living outside Morocco and Morocco itself, Fatima-Zahra Belkady observed that Moroccan Jews living in Israel retain many important customs from Morocco, including striking similarities in their weddings. Among other things, she noted, their weddings have included such things as the henna ritual and common dances, music and rhythms, and food (although some food names have changed); and they are proud of their Moroccan customs.[30] According to author Oumama Aouad Lahrech, the bond between Moroccans Jews living abroad and Morocco is “remarkable” and reflective of a “fundamentally happy common history, despite the recent travails.”[31]

Conclusion

Looking Back introduces an important subject which extends not only to Jews in Morocco, but also to Jews in Arab lands and Sephardic Jews generally. As in my case, it may lead visitors to explore this body of knowledge in greater depth and uncover past, present and future links between Moroccan Jews and their country of origin and thus inspire further scholarship, and, in the final analysis, enhance cultural and interfaith understanding.

January 2, 2011
Copyright © Norman L. Greene (2011
Norman Greene, is an attorney residing in New York, N.Y., he is planning a conference on Morocco on rule of law and related themes. His previous work on Morocco includes Norman L. Greene, Provocative, Fast-Moving Conference Held in Washington on Women’s Empowerment in Morocco, March 23, 2010, available at http://www.moroccoboard.com/news/34-news-release/949-provocative-fast-moving-conference-held-in-washington-on-womens-empowerment-in-morocco Special acknowledgements to Fatima-Zahra Belkady (including for reviewing an earlier draft of this article), Professor Aomar Boum, Rick Gold, Tim Resch, Mostapha Saout, and Professor Norman Stillman for their helpful conversations and to many others for their inspiration and support over the years. With respect to all these people, see SYLVIA BROWNRIGG, THE MORALITY TALE 76-77 (2008) (quoting a character to say, “The universe doesn't make mistakes. People come into your life for a reason, even if it doesn't all work out perfectly.”)

[1] The event is presented by the American Sephardi Foundation under the patronage of the Kingdom of Morocco. Professor Stillman’s presentation is available at http://www.americansephardifederation.org/jewish_life_in_morocco.html.

[2] The panel references Mordechai Nisan, Ph.D. Dr. Nisan is a Professor of Middle East Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Berbers are also referenced as Amazigh, pl. Imazighen.

[3] Yaelle Azagury, A Jewish Moroccan Childhood, in Women Writing Africa: The Northern Region (Fatima Sadiqi, Moha Ennaji, et al., eds.), 2009, p. 389.

[4]Daniel J. Schroeter, Jewish Communities in Morocco: History and Identity, in Daniel J. Schroeter, Ami Bouganim, Oumama Aouad Lahrech, Harvey E. Goldberg, and Moshe Idel, Morocco: Jews and Art in a Muslim Land (2000), p. 39.

[5] Daniel J. Schroeter, Jewish Communities in Morocco: History and Identity, in Daniel J. Schroeter, Ami Bouganim, Oumama Aouad Lahrech, Harvey E. Goldberg, and Moshe Idel, Morocco: Jews and Art in a Muslim Land (2000), p. 39.

[6] The exhibit panel quotes Turkish (Ottoman) Sultan Bayezid II (1481-1512).

[7] Daniel J. Schroeter, Jewish Communities in Morocco: History and Identity, in Daniel J. Schroeter, Ami Bouganim, Oumama Aouad Lahrech, Harvey E. Goldberg, and Moshe Idel, Morocco: Jews and Art in a Muslim Land (2000), p. 39.

[8] Driss Benmhend, What Happened in Sefrou, available at http://www.moroccoboard.com/viewpoint/43-driss-benmhend/125-what-happened-in-sefrou (2007). Sefrou is a Middle Atlas town about 28 kilometers southeast of Fez in central Morocco. Id. See also Driss Benmhend, The Amazigh Revival in Morocco, available at http://www.wafin.com/driss.phtml.

[9] Rick Gold, Visiting Jewish Morocco, Sefrou, available at http://rickgold.home.mindspring.com/page24.html

[10] Source: Tim Resch, December 17, 2010. Mr. Resch added that Ouezzane is “an ancient holy city for Sufi Muslims…and Jews make pilgrimages there to venerate the tomb of several marabouts (Moroccan saints).

[11] The exhibit quotes Professor Daniel Schroeter, who is separately identified as the exhibit’s “consulting scholar,” and who is frequently cited in this article as well.

[12] Rick Gold, Visiting Jewish Morocco, available at http://rickgold.home.mindspring.com/index.htm http://rickgold.home.mindspring.com/index.htm (last visited November 14, 2010). Although not addressed in the exhibit, in the pre-colonial period in Morocco, Jewish equality in Morocco was restricted, according to Abdellah Hammoudi, Master and Disciple: The Cultural Foundations of Moroccan Authoritarianism, (1997), p. 60 (“The law of dhimma maintained a clear separation between Jews and Muslims, sanctioning the Jews’ subordination and limiting their legal and political capacity. But many important economic, political and social ties crossed the line between Jews and Muslims.”) (footnote omitted).

[13] See Rick Gold, Visiting Jewish Morocco, What factors triggered the massive emigration of Moroccan Jews?, available at http://rickgold.home.mindspring.com/Emigration/emigration3.htm. (“Morocco’s experience under Vichy France from 1940-42 convinced Jews that the Sultan could not protect them, even if he wanted to.”)

[14] Norman A. Stillman, Jews of Arab Lands in Modern Times, pp. 128-29 (1991, 2003).

[15] Robert Satloff, Among the Righteous: Lost Stories from the Holocaust’s Long Reach Into Arab Lands (2006), p. 110. The book details heroic stories as well as troubling examples of complicity with fascists in North Africa in oppressing Jews. It is an account of the effect of the Holocaust in North Africa generally, not Morocco in particular.

[16] Robert Satloff, Among the Righteous: Lost Stories from the Holocaust’s Long Reach Into Arab Lands (2006), p. 111.

[17] Robert Satloff, Among the Righteous: Lost Stories from the Holocaust’s Long Reach Into Arab Lands (2006), p. 109.

[18] Norman A. Stillman, Jews of Arab Lands in Modern Times, pp. 133-137 (1991, 2003). See also Robert Satloff, Among the Righteous: Lost Stories from the Holocaust’s Long Reach Into Arab Lands (2006), pp. 37-38.

[19] See also Associated Press, Morocco’s Holocaust recognition rare in Islam, July 25, 2009, available at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32147263/ns/world_news-mideastn_africa/

[20] Norman A. Stillman, Jews of Arab Lands in Modern Times, pp. 172-3 (1991, 2003).

[21] The letter states in part:
We cannot leave Morocco unless to have a special permit from the authorities, and this permit is not so easy to be obtained. Other Jews can never have a passport and those which abtain [sic] it, cannot leave the country.

[22] See Rick Gold, Visiting Jewish Morocco, What factors triggered the massive emigration of Moroccan Jews?, available at http://rickgold.home.mindspring.com/Emigration/emigration3.htm.

[23] Interview of Rick Gold by author, November 23, 2010.

[24] Interview of Rick Gold by author, November 23, 2010.

[25] With respect to North African Jewish emigrants to Israel, see Fatima-Zahra Belkady, Maybe the Ends Do Justify the Means: The Problem of Mizrahim Integration (2009), p. 3 (unpublished paper). Ms. Belkady is presently a graduate student at New York University in political science specializing in security and conflict resolution in the Middle East-North African region and particularly Morocco.

[26] See the recent film Where Are You Going Moshe (2007), described at http://www.telefilm.gc.ca/en/catalogues/production/ou-vas-tu-moshe-finemachiyamoshe (last visited November 14, 2010), recently showed in New York City at the Moroccan Film Festival sponsored by the High Atlas Foundation in October 2010. The film referenced, among other things, unemployment problems experienced by Moroccan emigrants in Israel and discrimination directed to non-European Jews upon their arrival in Israel. See also Norman A. Stillman, Jews of Arab Lands in Modern Times, p. 167 (1991, 2003) (mentioning prejudice against North African Jews).

[27] Interview of Mostapha Saout by author, November 19, 2010.

[28] Interview of Mostapha Saout by author, November 19, 2010.

[29]Aomar Boum, “From Little Jerusalems” to the Promised Land: Zionism, Moroccan nationalism, and rural Jewish emigration, The Journal of North African Studies, 15:1, 53 (2010).

[30] Interview of Fatima-Zahra Belkady by author (December 1, 2010).

[31] Oumama Aouad Lahrech in Esther and I: From Shore to Shore in Daniel J. Schroeter, Ami Bouganim, Oumama Aouad Lahrech, Harvey E. Goldberg, and Moshe Idel, Morocco: Jews and Art in a Muslim Land (2000), p. 81.

Interview with Rabbi of the Sana'a Jews of Yemen

2011-01-03T09:51:00.000-08:00

Interview with Rabbi of the Sana'a Jews of Yemen
The once large Jewish community of Yemen numbers a mere few hundred today
The Media Line
Written by Felice Friedson
Published Monday, January 03, 2011

SANA’A, Yemen -- By most estimates, only several hundred Jews remain in Yemen today, split into two communities that have little to do with each other. An enclave numbering fewer than 100 Jews is located in Sana’a, Yemen’s capital city. Its residents, the remainder of the community of Sa’ada, were forced to leave their homes by the Houthis, who in 2004, began a rebellion against the government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, whom they claimed was “an ally of the Americans and the Jews.” Sana’a Jews, who claim their property was confiscated by the Houthis, live in a closed compound under the protection of the government. They are funded and influenced in religious observance by Satmar Hasidim.

The Media Line’s Felice Friedson interviewed Rabbi Yahe Yousif Mousa, the spiritual leader of the Sana’a community, in Yemen’s capital.

The Media Line: How many Jews are there today in Yemen?

Rabbi: There are many Jews, around 400 people.

TML: What happened in the last few years? There used to be 50,000 and now the number has reached 400.

Rabbi: There are people who traveled away from Yemen, some live in America; the U.K.; Israel and around the world. There are people who emigrated in search of a livelihood just like Muslims who left the country for economic reasons.

TML: Why are you here?

Rabbi: I am here, and will stay here, and will never give up on my nation, regardless of the circumstances. The nation is dear to me.

TML: Do you feel that you have been treated well? Your community is gated. Is this protecting you or making you a target?

Rabbi: Definitely. We live with Muslims as part of Yemeni society. Yemeni society is one, regardless of religion. Religion is for God, but the nation is for all. The President, may God save him, is interested in the entire population and assists everyone. And he protects us, definitely.

TML: How can you practice Judaism if you're only 400 people? Where is it going to be in a decade as a community?

Rabbi: There are people in our community who marry (Jews) in the Rayda community. There are those who travel abroad to work and return. We can never leave our nation.

TML: You told me earlier that you believe thousands of Jews will return to Yemen. Were you serious? Do you really believe that?

Rabbi: Certainly. God willing, they will return. God decides everything.

TML: What kind of Judaism are you practicing? Do you teach your children Arabic or Hebrew? What happens on a daily basis?

Rabbi: Our children study in schools with Muslims under the order of the president. They study Arabic, English and Hebrew; and I, myself, am a certified teacher in Yemen and teach Hebrew. I teach in the Hebrew school.

TML: What school is that, where you teach?

Rabbi: Al-Mustaqbal (future) School.

TML: Who attends the school?

Rabbi: There are about 26 Jewish students, from elementary to high school, out of a total of 900 students.

TML: Does everyone learn Hebrew?

Rabbi: Yes, there are Muslims who learn Hebrew too. Education is important for everyone; it is their right.

TML: Where did you learn Hebrew?

Rabbi: I learned from my father here in Yemen, and also completed my studies in England and in the United States.

TML: Where in the U.S.?

Rabbi: In New York, with the Satmar Hassidim. Also in London, in the Solsky community.

TML: Are there other teachers in the Jewish community?

Rabbi: Yes, there are two teachers – a man and a woman.

TML: How many synagogues are there?

Rabbi: There is not synagogue at the moment, so we pray at home in the living room.
We have a vacation, because god created all creatures in six days and rested on the seventh day. We worship god then. All men come and pray in the living room.

TML: And the women?

Rabbi: They pray as well, but elsewhere.

TML: Are you restricted in your performance of religious practices?

Rabbi: We practice all our religious practices with full liberty. The President sees to this.

TML: Who is trained to circumcise the babies?

Rabbi: Yes, we have everything.

TML: How many Rabbis are there in the community?

Rabbi: There's me, here in Sana'a, and others in Rayda. My father is the great Rabbi, but he is partially paralyzed as a result of a stroke.

TML: As its rabbi, you are the focal point of the community. How are you going to pass on the traditions?

Rabbi: In Reida there are more Jews than here. There are around 320 there, and some emigrated from the country, I hope they return. Only Sana'a and Reida have communities. Every community practices separately.

TML: Do you have Arab friends?

Rabbi: Yes, all my friends are Arabs.

TML: Do they visit you at home?

Rabbi: Yes, and I come to theirs. There is no difference or racism. We visit them on holidays and weddings, and they also share happy and sad events with us.

TML: Do you observe the laws of kashrut – kosher?

Rabbi: Yes, I do. We prepare the food and slaughter the animals ourselves. I slaughter the animals, and I also marry the people.

TML: What will happen when you can no longer do it?

Rabbi: There are now other people who are studying, and preparing for that event.

TML: How many children do you have? And how many wives?

Rabbi: I have only one wife, but my father had two. I have five children: 3 girls and 2 boys. Shama'a, Maryam, Sa'id, Nabila and Mousa. The eldest girl is 14. An Arab proverb says that a woman is like fire, so one is enough.

TML: Do others in the Jewish community have more than one wife?

Rabbi: Some have two.

TML: At what age to girls get married?

Rabbi: Now we don't marry girls before the age of 18.

TML: Do they go to university? Do they work?

Rabbi: Definitely. They will finish their university education.

TML: Will they then work?

Rabbi: Of course. The nation educated them, so they should return the favor. Without education we cannot fulfill the simplest needs.

TML: Israel spends millions of dollars to bring Jews from all over the world.

Rabbi: Of course, they trade in people the way men trade in livestock.

TML: Do you speak to family members in Israel and the United States?

Rabbi: I have friends all over the world.

TML: Do foreign Jews come to visit you here?

Rabbi: We marry Jews from abroad, but no one will leave this country regardless the circumstances.

TML: What do Jews work at?

Rabbi: Before, they used to work as silversmiths, in wood, in metal, and agriculture. But now we don't have the equipment to practice our profession. We ask American NGOs to help us financially to provide us with the equipment we need for our profession as silversmiths.

TML: Why didn’t you approach Jewish organizations?

Rabbi: I direct an appeal from here to all organizations, not necessarily Jewish. Many people promise to help, but we see nothing of this. Without the help of God and the president, we would have already died of hunger. No one supports us and we have no work. Earlier we had all this in Sana’a, before the Huthis came and stole our homes, cars, and belongings. We left with the clothes on our skin.

TML: I asked you earlier about living in a guarded area. Aren’t you and your neighbors more of a target living under those conditions: guarded and not free to come and go?

Rabbi: We believe in God and the protection of the Yemeni government.

TML: Are you a Yemeni, or a Jew, or both?

Rabbi: I am a Yemeni. The most ancient religion here was Judaism.

TML: How long has your family lived in Yemen?

Rabbi: Hundreds of years.

TML: I wish you continued growth and I hope you receive the help you need.

Rabbi: I would like to thank the president for allowing this interview

The modern trials of the ancient Samaritans

2011-01-03T09:48:00.000-08:00

The modern trials of the ancient Samaritans

By Helena Merriman

BBC News, Nablus
3 January 2011 Last updated at 05:36 ET

The Samaritan community has lived in the Middle East for thousands of years - but they are having to find new ways to secure their future, Helena Merriman reports from the West Bank.

On 8 November 2001, during the second intifada (uprising), Joseph Cohen, a 56-year-old Samaritan, was driving home from the Palestinian town of Nablus.

"When I was almost home, I came across two Palestinian boys and they shot me," he says. "The blood ran from me like water."
He lost control of his car and drove into an Israeli roadblock. The Israeli soldiers shouted at him to stop.

"But I couldn't stop the car. And so they also shot me."

There are probably few people in the world who have been shot by both Palestinians and Israelis within minutes of each other.

But, as Mr Cohen says, "this is a short story of our problem."'Between two fires'

Mr Cohen is a priest from the ancient religious sect of the Samaritans. He lives on Mount Gerizim in the West Bank.

It is the Samaritans' holiest place, where their temple once stood and where they say Abraham came to sacrifice Isaac.

In the fifth century, there were more than a million Samaritans.

Now, after years of persecution and forced conversions, there are just over 700 of them left.

They say they are the descendants of the ancient Israelites and they celebrate many of the same festivals as Jews - for example Sukkot, when they commemorate the 40 years that the Israelites spent in the desert.

The Samaritans split from Judaism around 2,000 years ago, but because they speak ancient Hebrew and pray in synagogues, they are often mistaken for Jews.

For those Samaritans living in the West Bank, this can be problematic.

"The Palestinians know we live with Arabic people, but inside their mind, they think we're Jewish," Mr Cohen says.

"And because we also speak Arabic, the Jewish people think we're Arab.

"So we have a big problem - we're between two fires."Delivery service

For hundreds of years, the Samaritans have been caught between warring groups.

Before, they would take sides, but now they are trying a new approach - neutrality.

They are building good relations with their Palestinian and Jewish neighbours and are unique in the region for having both Israeli and Palestinian identity papers.

This means they can travel between Israel and the West Bank with ease.

Some entrepreneurial Samaritans are now using their unique status to offer a delivery service to businessmen in the West Bank town of Nablus, just a few miles away from Mount Gerizim.

Many Palestinian businessmen there export goods to towns in Israel, but because they have to go through Israeli checkpoints, deliveries can be slow.

An exporter of car parts to Nazareth and Haifa, Ibrahim, pays the Samaritans to take some of his goods to Israel.

"The Samaritan drivers help us because they can take goods to Israel in one day," he tells me at his shop.

"If you want a Samaritan driver, you call them, they take the goods in their cars and return back to Nablus without the checkpoints."Struggle to survive

While many Samaritans are benefiting from this unique role in the region, some still fear extinction.

In the 1920s their numbers dropped to just over 100 and it was predicted that they would die out.

The community was struggling with birth defects because of their tradition of marrying other Samaritans, and they were not open to new converts.

But some now say that to survive, they must open up to outsiders.

Mr Cohen tells me that since there are many more men than women, they have to look outside their own community to find potential wives.

Some Samaritans have been using the internet to find brides from other countries, and he introduces me to Alexandra from the Ukraine, who converted to the Samaritan faith and married his cousin.

More recently, an American woman has made history by becoming the first person to convert to the Samaritan faith without marrying in.

Originally from Michigan, Sharon Sullivan now lives with her four children within the Samaritan community.

She says it is sad that more people do not know about this ancient religious sect.

"The good Samaritan story is about a Samaritan who is caring for someone not of their own religion," she says.

"And although the title has been used by so many organisations, the people themselves are unknown."

To address this, Ms Sullivan and Benyamin Tsedaka, a Samaritan historian, have spent the past seven years working on an English translation of the Samaritan Torah - one of the world's most ancient religious texts.

"The more people that know about the Samaritans, the better," she says.

"This will give them security for their future."

Podcast: The Guardian (UK) reviews the Jewish highs and lows of 2010

2011-01-02T09:17:00.000-08:00

Sounds Jewish: December 2010
Jason Solomons is joined by Jonathan Freedland as he reviews the Jewish highs and lows of 2010

The Guardian's Jonathan Freedland joins Jason Solomons to look back at a year in which Jewish people took centre stage politically and culturally. Listen to it here.

Read highlights below.

Ed Miliband became the first Jewish leader of the Labour party and, as well as telling the story of the flight of his father and grandfather from Belgium in 1940 at September's party conference, he finally used the J-word in public.

We ask, with Howard Jacobson's The Finkler Question winning the Booker Prize, have Jews found their place in British culture? And if so, why did so many in the media – with the honourable exception of Sounds Jewish – avoid the novel's theme of British anti-Zionism.

In 2010 Israel was less in the news than it had been in previous years -May's attack on the Gaza aid flotilla aside. Is this because diaspora communities are finding their own way rather than seeing themselves as satellites of Israel?

Also in May, BNP leader Nick Griffin was soundly beaten to the Barking seat in the general election by Labour MP Margaret Hodge. Was this an example of Jewish people showing others the way forward in defeating fascism? And is anyone really buying the pro-Israel stance of the BNP and other British far-right groups? It seems not.

David Baddiel's film The Infidel, released in April and starring Omid Djalili, was surely the first example of a British Jewish/Muslim film, and was generally well received. So why, judging by its takings at the box office, didn't more Jews and Muslims go to see it?

And we relive the visit of irrepressible comedy duo Ronna and Beverly, who told Jason that Mad Men's Don Draper smells of scotch and testicles "but in a good way".

Sounds Jewish is produced in association with the Jewish Community Centre for London

Did the human race start in Israel?

2011-01-02T09:12:00.000-08:00

The chosen people
Might the human race have started in Israel?
Sunday, January 02, 2011
By Jack Kelly, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Archeologists digging in a cave in central Israel said Monday they've found teeth 400,000 years old they think belonged to a Homo sapiens.

If they're right, then modern man is roughly twice as old as previously thought and didn't originate in Africa, as contemporary scientific theory postulates. The oldest Homo sapiens remains found in Africa are about 200,000 years old.

Teeth are often unreliable indicators of origin, Sir Paul Mellars of Cambridge University told the Associated Press. He thinks these belong to a Neanderthal. Both Homo sapiens and Neanderthals are thought to have descended from a common ancestor in Africa about 700,000 years ago.

If man did originate in what is now Israel, could that be one reason the God of the Torah made the Jews his chosen people?

We know tooth guy wasn't Jewish. Abraham, the father of the Jewish race, didn't come to the region from Ur in what is now Iraq until about 4,000 years ago.

God didn't choose the Jews because they were powerful or numerous. Ancient Israel was to the great powers of its time what Costa Rica is to the United States or China today.

Nor did he choose this "stubborn, stiff-necked" people because they were virtuous, or obedient. So why?

Most theologians think God chose the Jews to honor Abraham, apparently the world's first (post-flood) monotheist.

I don't doubt that. But I don't think it escaped God's notice that Israel was smack dab in the center of the ancient world. You couldn't get to Assyria or Babylon or Persia from Egypt without going through Israel. If God wanted to tell his story through history, what better way to do it than through a small nation in the middle of the action?

If Israel were also where human beings began, it would be all the more fitting. Geography must have been a consideration because God told Abraham to go there.

Being God's chosen people hasn't been a picnic for the Jews. They've been reviled and persecuted virtually everywhere.

The first noteworthy instance of anti-Semitism was when Haman, prime minister to King Ahasuerus (Xerxes), who reigned from 486 to 465 BC, plotted to kill all the Jews in the Persian empire, which then included Israel.

Haman had a reason for his beef. He was a descendant of Agag, king of the Amalekites, a people nearly wiped out by King David (1010-970 BC).

But for most, anti-Semitism makes no sense. Ancient Israel was, and modern Israel is, a small nation, more oppressed than oppressor. There are no Jews among history's great tyrants and mass murderers. Jewish aggression, such as it was, stopped with King David 3,000 years ago.

Despite the prejudices and, frequently, legal barriers against them, virtually everywhere Jews have lived they've been over-represented in science, medicine, business, the arts. Twenty-two percent of recipients of the Nobel Prize since 1901 have been Jewish.

Jews are under-represented on welfare rolls and among violent criminals. Compared to most other ethnic groups, they've been model citizens.

The term "anti-Semitism" also makes no sense, because the people today who hate Jews most, the Arabs, also are Semites (children of Shem). The term was coined by the 19th-century German journalist Wilhelm Marr, who wanted a more gussied-up name for his prejudice than Judenhass (Jew hate).

Anti-Semitism is popular these days in tony left-wing circles in Europe and America. Tiny Israel, alone among the nations of the world, is condemned for having the temerity to defend herself.

Prime Minister Golda Meir (1969-1974) was asked once how Israel has managed to prevail despite the huge numerical advantage of her foes.

"There's the natural way and the miraculous way," she responded. "The natural way is that God sends a miracle and we win. And the miraculous way is that somehow we do it by ourselves."

The most remarkable thing about the Jews is that 2,000 years after having been scattered to the four winds, they still exist as a distinct people, while all the great empires mentioned in the Bible have long since passed into history. I doubt this could have happened without divine protection.

So if I were an anti-Semite, I would worry more than they do about peeving the Almighty.

Jack Kelly is a columnist for the Post-Gazette and The (Toledo) Blade (jkelly@post-gazette.com, 412 263-1476). More articles by this author
First published on January 2, 2011 at 12:00 am

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11002/1114675-373.stm#ixzz19tm9vM39

The appeal of Orthodoxy to young, secular-born Jews

2010-12-31T07:04:00.000-08:00

The appeal of Orthodoxy to young, secular-born Jews
ARI ALTSTEDTER
From Globe and Mail
Published Wednesday, Dec. 29, 2010 11:06PM EST
Last updated Thursday, Dec. 30, 2010 7:47AM EST
432 comments

As Canadian youth continue their march toward secularism, with the majority of religious communities aging and shrinking, a small but steady trickle of secular Jewish youth have been heading in the opposite direction.

In what one scholar says is a movement of “tens of thousands of people” worldwide in the past two decades, Jewish youth raised in secular homes have been adopting Jewish Orthodoxy, one of the more demanding religious practices.

Becoming Orthodox means more than just giving up bacon. From bans against driving and using electrical or electronic devices on the Sabbath, to dietary laws so strict that very few grocers, restaurants or butchers can meet their requirements, to a daily routine permeated by prayer and ritual observance, adopting Orthodoxy is more than an embrace of faith, it is a dramatic change in lifestyle.

Ezra Krybus made that change. He grew up in a secular Jewish home in Toronto where only the most important holidays were observed, and then only loosely, as a matter of tradition rather than faith. But near the end of his film degree at York University an Orthodox rabbi moved into his neighbourhood and began inviting him to the synagogue, and to Orthodox homes for the Sabbath meal.

“One thing that really struck me was the amount of passion these people had,” Mr. Krybus said. “And they were doing all kinds of things that I didn’t know what they were doing, or why they were doing them. But they had such a passion that had such a truth behind it.”

Mr. Krybus was hooked. By 25, he had committed to Orthodoxy and now, five years later, he visits the synagogue most days, has a wife, a two-year-old son and a bushy beard.

Ever since Orthodox Judaism experienced a revival in the 1970s there has been a steady stream of secular Jewish youth embracing it. According to Charles Shahar, a Montreal demographer who specializes in Canadian Jewry, the Canadian Orthodox population now doubles every 20 years.

This can largely be explained by the fact that procreation is one of Orthodoxy’s many religious duties. But in a 2005 survey of Toronto’s Jewish community, the largest in Canada, Mr. Shahar found 4.2 per cent had committed to Orthodoxy from a less-observant lifestyle. Mr. Shahar said this is probably just scratching the surface, considering the number who move to Israel, or to communities in the United States.

The presence of Orthodox outreach groups on university campuses, which operate a little like missionaries, and programs that provide Jewish youth free trips to Israel have helped spark an interest in Judaism.

But beyond providing answers to life’s great questions, those who become Orthodox say that an important draw are the answers it provides to more mundane questions, like how to spend a Saturday afternoon.

Tzvi Freeman, who left the secular world 36 years ago and is now a rabbi, said that the same religious duties that make Orthodoxy seem so restrictive help foster a tight-knit community. The prohibition against driving on Saturday seems like a major inconvenience, but forcing an entire community to pound the pavement one day a week helps people to get to know their neighbours.

“I had a niece of mine come to visit and she wanted to walk on the streets just for that,” Mr. Freeman said. “She said, ‘Where else do you see such a thing?’ Everybody’s walking, and walks together, and they say Shabbat shalom [Good Sabbath] to each other. And you feel a sense of community.”

Religious duty reinforces families in a similar way. The demand to ring in the Sabbath on Friday nights through prayer, candle-lighting ceremonies and symbolic bread-breaking turns a family meal into a religious obligation.

“The fact that families are very close and very large and have meals together frequently is really a big attraction,” said Sarah Bunin Benor, an American sociologist who studies secular Jews who become Orthodox, known among the religious community as ba’alei teshuva, or “those who return” in Hebrew.

According to Ms. Bunin Benor, the restrictions and rituals provide something some people crave.

“It says this is how you have to live, this is how you have to schedule your day and your week, and this is how you have to dress and this is how you have to eat,” she said. “And for people who feel kind of lost, I think that is a real useful change. And not just people who feel lost but people who like structure.”

Far from feeling restricted, Mr. Krybus said carefully following the religious rules – like the prohibition against using electronics on the Sabbath – helps create a sense of inner peace.

He said he appreciates “the liberty that you feel turning off your cellphone and saying, ‘Even if the most important person in the world is going to call me right now, I’m not available, it’s Shabbat.’”

Of course, not everyone finds that liberation in restriction. Mr. Shahar’s 2005 survey found the number of people leaving Orthodoxy far outnumbers those coming in.

Nonetheless, for those who have embraced Orthodoxy there is something attractive about all the prohibitions, beards, black hats and lack of bacon.

Cholent Traditions From Around the Globe

2010-12-29T20:00:00.000-08:00

Cholent Traditions From Around the Globe
By Elizabeth Alpern
December 29, 2010, 11:36am

Nowhere do form and function meet so well as in a warm bowl of cholent. The hearty Sabbath stew known by an endless array of names and flavors in Jewish communities around the world is essentially an outgrowth of two seemingly opposing forces: The Jewish laws prohibiting cooking on the Sabbath and the encouragement offered by the rabbis in the Talmud to have a hot lunch on Saturday afternoon. These dishes cook sleepily at low temperatures from Friday afternoon onward, coming together brilliantly right on time for post-synagogue feasting.

Cholent has even been somewhat in vogue of late, with Saveur and the New York Times recently publishing updated recipes for the Eastern European varieties.

The word cholent, probably stemming from the Old French term chald/chalt meaning warm, and lent, or slow, refers to the Eastern European version of this dish. Its origins date back to the Talmudic period and possibly before, most likely becoming common in Medieval France, inspired by the French dish cassoulet. Many Jews who were expelled from France in the 14th century fled to Germany where the term for the stew was morphed into the Yiddish, cholent. Today, the Ashenazic variety of the dish generally contains potatoes, barley, meat, beans and some salt and pepper for flavor.

Like most Jewish foods, slow cooking Sabbath stews riff on local ingredients and cooking styles while remaining within the boundaries of Jewish dietary and holiday practices. In the Sephardic tradition, adafina (the name stems from the Arabic word for buried, invoking the Mishnaic phrase “bury the hot food”) can be made sweet or savory, featuring honey or harissa and always chickpeas, eggs, beans and meat.

Italian hamin, shows off the brightness of Tuscany, integrating sage, white beans and swiss chard alongside chicken meatballs, onions and garlic. Hamin is another Sephardic name for the stew, and the word derives from the Hebrew word ham for hot.

Italian Jews also make stracotto, a beef stew or pot roast with wine and tomatoes that is eaten both as a shabbos lunch and as a Friday night dinner. Celeste Pavoncello Pipenro, 53, of Rome recalls eating stracotto throughout her life, “I remember Grandmother Celeste cooking stracotto in a special crock pot that she used just for this dish. It was very important to her to cook the stracotto in the crockpot. Also, my father Marco cooks the stracotto quite often, he puts some chocolate in with the meat just to add a different flavor.”

Iraqi Jews have their own take on Sabbath slow cooking. In “Mama Nezima’s Jewish-Iraqi Cuisine” cookbook, Rivka Goldman writes, “No Jewish Iraqi Sabbath table is complete without tebit.” Also spelled taybit and taybeet, the dish is more chicken and rice dish than stew (though cookbook author Claudia Roden mentions a stew variation in her “Book of Jewish Food”), it functions similarly to a slow cooking item to be eaten for Shabbat lunch. Composed of chicken stuffed with meat or rice, spiced with cardamom, nutmeg, cinnamon, pepper and paprika and surrounded by rice, the true beauty of tebit is in its unmolding. Roden describes the process by saying, “At lunchtime on Saturday, the steaming pot was placed in cold water to help unstick the rice from the sides and turned out like a large cake with the chicken inside.” Hint: the crusty bits of rice that cling to the top are considered the favored part.

In the Ethiopian tradition are wots, stews that function as the national dish of the country. Sanbat wot refer to stews made especially for the Sabbath by Ethiopian Jews. While these stews are at the center of daily Ethiopian meals, “Even those who cannot afford it make a special effort to have a little chicken or meat in their Sabbath wots,” to elevate their Shabbat meals, according to Gil Marks in his “Encyclopedia of Jewish Food.” Always served with the spongy sourdough bread injera, wots are also often characterized by berbere, a notoriously spicy Ethiopian chili sauce.

Whether or not Shabbat observance is part of your tradition, the eclectic and endless variations of this nap-inducing ancient Jewish tradition are a perfect way to fill cold bellies during the winter months. Below, two recipes from the cholent universe.

Italian Sabbath Stew (Hamin)
Reprinted with permission from “The Encyclopedia of Jewish Food” by Gil Marks
6 to 8 servings
Meatballs:
1 pound ground chicken breast
½ cup fresh bread crumbs or matzah meal
1 large egg
About ¾ teaspoon salt
About ½ teaspoon ground white or black pepper
1 clove garlic, mashed, or pinch of ground nutmeg (optional)
Greens:
2 pounds fresh chard or spinach
3 tbsp olive or vegetable oil
1 medium onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
Hamin:
3 tablespoons olive or vegetable oil
3 medium yellow onions, sliced
4 fresh sage leaves or 1 teaspoon dried sage
1 ½ pounds beef or veal marrow or neck bones
2 to 3 pounds beef chuck, whole or cut into 2-inch cubes
2 cups dried white beans
2 to 3 cloves garlic, minced
About 3 teaspoons table salt or 4 teaspoons kosher salt
About ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
About 2 quarts water
1) To make the meatballs: combine all the meatball ingredients and form into ½ inch balls.
2) To make the greens, separate the chard leaves from the stems. Cut the tender stems into 1 inch pieces. In a large saucepan, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and sauté until soft and translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the chard and sauté until wilted. Top with the meatballs, cover, reduce heat to low and sauté until the chard is tender and the meatballs are cooked, about 20 minutes. Let cool, then refrigerate until shortly before using.
3) To make the hamin: In a large heavy pot heat the oil over medium heat. Add the onions and sage and sauté until golden, about 15 minutes. In the order given, add the bones, beef, beans, salt and pepper, and enough water to cover. Bring to a boil, cover and simmer over medium low heat or bake in a 375 degree oven until the beans are nearly soft, about 1 ½ hours.
4) Add more water if necessary. Cover the pot tightly. Put on a blech (metal tray) over low heat or in a 200 degree oven and cook for at least 6 hours or overnight.
5) Shortly before serving, stir the meatballs and the greens into the hamin and let sit until heated through.
Chicken Stuffed with Meat
Reprinted with permission from “Mama Nezima’s Jewish- Iraqi Cuisine” by Rivka Goldman
10 servings
1 3-pound chicken, skin removed
Stuffing:
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon ground cardamom
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
¼ teaspoon ground white pepper
¼ teaspoon ground hot paprika
2 teaspoons vegetable oil
1 small onion, chopped
½ pound lean ground beef or ground chicken breast
1 cup cooked rice
1 large tomato, chopped
Sauce:
1 teaspoons vegetable oil
1 small onion, chopped
1 (8-ounce) can tomato sauce
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon garlic powder
Juice of 1 large lemon
1 ½ cups rice
1) Preheat oven to 200 degrees. Combine the salt, cardamom, nutmeg, cinnamon, black pepper, white pepper and paprika in a bowl.
2) Heat the vegetable oil in a pan over high heat, add the onion. Reduce heat to medium. Stir in the meat and half the spices, and cook for 5 minutes. Stir in the rice and tomato, for 1 minute, and remove from heat.
3) Stuff the chicken with the meat mixture. Sprinkle the remaining half of the spices over the chicken, and place the stuffed chicken in a roasting pan.
4) Heat the vegetable oil in a pot over high heat and add the onion. Reduce heat to medium and stir in the tomato sauce and 4 cups of water. Add the salt, garlic powder, lemon juice, and rice ad remove from heat.
5) Pout the rice mixture around the chicken. Cover with aluminum oil and bake for 8 hours or overnight at 200 degrees.

How the Chinese use the Talmud

2010-12-29T19:57:00.000-08:00

Selling the Talmud as a Business Guide
In China, notions of Jewish business acumen lead to a publishing boom—and stereotyping.
Newsweek

Jewish visitors to China often receive a snap greeting when they reveal their religion: “Very smart, very clever, and very good at business,” the Chinese person says. Last year’s Google Zeitgeist China rankings listed “why are Jews excellent?” in fourth place in the “why” questions category, just behind “why should I enter the party” and above “why should I get married?” (Google didn’t publish a "why" category in Mandarin this year.) And the apparent affection for Jewishness has led to a surprising trend in publishing over the last few years: books purporting to reveal the business secrets of the Talmud that capitalize on the widespread impression among Chinese that attributes of Judaism lead to success in the financial arts.

Titles such as Crack the Talmud: 101 Jewish Business Rules, The Illustrated Jewish Wisdom Book, and Know All of the Money-Making Stories of the Talmud share the shelves with stories of Warren Buffet and Bill Gates. There’s even a Talmud hotel in Taiwan inspired by “the Talmud’s concept of success” that features a copy of the book Talmud Business Success Bible in every room. With the increasing interest in business education in China, and a rise in sales of self-help literature, the production of business guides to the Talmud has exploded. The guides are like the Chinese equivalents of books such as Sun Tzu and the Art of Business.
Han Bing, the (pseudonymous) author of Crack the Talmud, says a series on the “Jewish Bible” by a prominent publisher made him realize that “ancient Jews and today’s Chinese face a lot of the same problems,” such as immigration and isolation. The business rules he lists include such unsurprising—and universal—exhortations as “tell a customer about defects,” “help more people,” and “a partnership based on emotions is not dependable.” No statistics are available on the sales of this sliver of the book market. But while the guides haven’t reached the heights of books such as Jewish Family Education, which claims to have sold more than 1 million copies, they currently are “very popular” and a “hot topic,” says Wang Jian, associate dean of the Center of Jewish Studies in Shanghai, a research institution that focuses on Jewish culture and history, and Israel. The Talmud “has become a handbook for doing business and seeking fortunes,” Wang says.

The Chinese perception of Jews as expert moneymakers does not have the religion-based antagonism that often accompanies the same stereotype elsewhere in the world, and probably had its start in the mid-19th century, when investors began flocking to China. Many of the first foreign real-estate tycoons, such as Silas Hardoon and the scions of the Sassoon family, were Jewish. Michael Kadoorie—who hails from a wealthy Jewish family that dates its China connection back to 19th-century Shanghai, and who’s made his fortune in power generators and hotels—currently ranks as the richest non-Chinese in greater China, with an estimated net worth of $5 billion.

The admiration for Judaism stems from a history that goes beyond business. About half of the dozen or so Westerners active in Mao Zedong’s China were Jewish, and that also led to increased interest in Jewish culture among Chinese intellectuals, says Xu Xin, professor of Jewish studies at Nanjing University. That’s resulted in mostly glowing portrayals of certain Jewish individuals in the official Chinese press. They included Sidney Rittenberg, the first American citizen to join the Chinese Communist Party, and journalist Israel Epstein, who interviewed Mao at length and whose funeral was attended by China’s President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao. Rittenberg, who spent 16 years in solitary confinement in China, made the transition from party ideologue to consultant upon his release, and now operates the successful Rittenberg & Associates, which trades off his personal relationships with communist leaders and has advised companies including Microsoft, Hughes Aircraft, and Levi Strauss.

Non-Chinese experts on Judaism are quick to point out that the Talmud is not a business manual. While the Talmud mentions contract law, zoning, and problems involved with charging interest, it’s not a get-rich-quick guide, says Rabbi Eliezer Diamond, associate professor of Talmud and rabbinics at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. “I’ve heard a couple of [Chinese] people say that Jews are smart because of the Talmud. But they don’t seem to know what it is. I think they see it as some sort of secret intelligence book,” added Rabbi Nussin Rodin, a Beijing-based emissary of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement. “I once got a letter from someone in China saying, I’m very interested in making money so I’d like to know what you teach at your courses about how to make money,” says Diamond. “Of course, there aren’t too many people in the Jewish Theological Seminary pulling in the big bucks.”

The notion of the Talmud as a book full of business secrets for others to search for is not entirely benign. Two of the books feature the quote “No one can defeat the Jews, unless they’ve read our holy book the Talmud” on their cover, spuriously attributed to financier George Soros. “There are anti-Semites throughout the world who will say they want a Jewish lawyer, because Jews are good lawyers,” says Diamond. Han Bing says he has never met a Jew and cautioned NEWSWEEK that he’s not sure if he’s gotten his portrayal right. But he nevertheless states that “Jews understand that money itself is neither good nor bad.” He sees his book as “bringing some light into the dark room of Chinese businesses.” At the same time, he complains that no businessman has ever contacted him to say how the book may have changed him. “There’s just too many of these books out there,” he acknowledges.

Double Marker: A Gay Jew in the Navy

2010-12-29T19:53:00.000-08:00

Double Marker: A Gay Jew in the Navy
Ex-Sailor Recalls a Time When Honesty Led to Discharge
By Karen Loew
Published December 29, 2010, issue of January 07, 2011.
The Forward

Will the law allow return, Korrie Xavier wonders, for gay former military service members like her, who left the service only because they had to?

Just five years after her bat mitzvah, Xavier joined the Navy as a seaman recruit. She was trained to maintain and fire weapons systems on the USS Boxer, an amphibious assault ship based in San Diego. She liked the structure, the camaraderie, and sailing to ports from southeast Asia to Abu Dhabi. Barely in her 20s, the Michigan native became the nerve center of Jewish shipboard life — all while hiding her sexuality under her Navy uniform blues.

“I loved being out to sea — in the middle of the night, when you’d hang off the fantail, and just listen to the water. It was incredibly calming, and you could see all the stars in the world,” she said. And she loved that it was possible to feel alone in a floating village of 3,000 people.

But the stress of lying wore on her, and four years into a six-year commitment, she wrote a letter to her captain: “For the last few years, I’ve been willing to compromise myself.… I realize now that there is no honor or pride in serving an institution that is so obviously ashamed of me.” Within months she was discharged, as the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell law required for service members who acknowledged their homosexuality.

As Xavier, 32, reflects on the decade between her exit from the Navy in early 2001 and the new law’s signing on December 22, she prepares to visit her sister, who pursued another law of return and lives in a settlement outside Jerusalem with her husband and new baby.

“It was certainly easier having being Jewish as what kept me different, rather than being queer,” she told the Forward as the DADT law was set to change. Authorities like the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network expect that gay former service members, who have been prohibited from re-enlisting in any branch of the military, will soon be allowed to do so if they’re otherwise eligible. In light of these changes, Xavier’s experience has a special poignancy and provides a window into a time when being both gay and Jewish in the military was a double marker of difference.

It’s estimated that there are about 10,000 Jews serving in the active duty military. As one of them, Xavier served as Jewish lay leader on her ship, running Shabbat services — sometimes for herself alone, sometimes with two or three others — holiday observances, and the like.
“It was in boot camp that I really appreciated Shabbos,” said Xavier of her initial days as a recruit at Naval Station Great Lakes in Illinois at the end of 1996. “You didn’t know which way was up six days a week. But on Shabbos I got to go to shul and relax.”

These days Xavier is looking forward to receiving her bachelor’s degree in sociology from Wellesley College. She lives in the Boston area with her wife of two years, who is a doctor of psychology. Though her wife is not Jewish, the couple was married by a rabbi in a Jewish ceremony, and Xavier (née Bayer) identifies as an “agnostic Jew.” As a child of intermarriage — her mother used to be Lutheran and her father is Jewish — she galvanized her family to attend Congregation Shir Tikvah in Troy, Mich., when she was young. She studied Hebrew, had a bat mitzvah one year late, and her sister and mother eventually had a joint bat mitzvah at ages 26 and 52, respectively.

Although Xavier’s family and schoolmates had guessed she was gay since girlhood, she says she didn’t realize it until she was already a service member.

“I had no conflicts about my Judaism and being queer, and I wasn’t worried about my parents, but [I realized] I can now get kicked out of the military,” she recalled thinking at the time.
There were far more lesbians than Jews in the service, it seemed to Xavier, but it was still hard to be a woman — “There is that reputation, that you’re either a dyke or a whore,” she said — and the lesbians tended to find each other. Speaking in code about Ani DiFranco albums or softball games seemed to work, as did referring to off-hours spent in San Diego’s gay neighborhood of Hillcrest. But those things also held the threat of backfiring: of outing oneself to the wrong person at the wrong time. And yet, she was able to come out to close colleagues in her division, feeling comfortable with one-on-one talks. Having a butch identity, a shaved head and an interest in women helped her feel like “one of the guys,” though all joking would stop in front of a superior.

That closeness and trust also came to a halt on weekends, when straight men and lesbians headed to different bars — and the women came back with no stories to tell. “I had to be straight all week long,” she said. “We would go be gay — you could take that cloak off for at least a little bit.” Even her parents felt closeted; they couldn’t talk proudly and openly about their gay daughter in the Navy.

Her Judaism came to provide an important outlet. “I think it was a way of keeping my individualism while in the military,” said Xavier, who got a hamsa tattooed on her arm while serving (“to me it’s the hand of God that wards off the evil eye”), in addition to tattoos of the tree of life and a Star of David wrapped in barbed wire with the Sh’ma written around it.
Since enforcement of DADT began 16 years ago, an estimated 14,000 service members have been discharged because of their sexuality. As the repeal is implemented over the coming months, gays may be able to re-enlist — but Xavier isn’t sure she wants to return. She doesn’t agree with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, for one thing. “Politically I have such issues with the military, and at the same time I miss it,” she said. “I don’t think I would re-enlist. I think the part of me that wants to re-enlist is the little boy who wants to watch war movies. But there is something about that shared experience, to me, that is appealing.”

Contact Karen Loew at loew@forward.com

Read more: http://www.forward.com/articles/134316/#ixzz19YzA8pp4

Limmud: a great Jewish alternative to Christmas

2010-12-29T19:48:00.000-08:00

Limmud: a great Jewish alternative to Christmas
Somewhere between a retreat and a festival, the Limmud conference shows how Judaism can remain creative and vibrant

Keith Kahn-Harris
guardian.co.uk,
Wednesday 29 December 2010 16.56 GMT

For the diaspora Jew, what to do over Christmas can be a taxing question. It's almost impossible to ignore the festival completely and it's a wonderful opportunity for rest and relaxation with family and friends. But how to avoid being compromised by the Christian connotations?

For a truly Jewish alternative to Christmas, the Limmud conference is as good as it gets. Taking place every year between Christmas and new year, this year's festive season sees Limmud's 30th anniversary conference, held at the University of Warwick. As much of UK stumbles tipsily between leftover turkey and the sales, 2,500 Jews of all ages from the UK and throughout the Jewish world will gather for a frenetic five-day festival of learning and playing.

Limmud is hard to describe: it's a cross between a retreat, an adult education institute, the Hay Festival, the Edinburgh Fringe, with a touch of Burning Man thrown in. It is best understood as a unique model of how to build a short-lived community. Limmud is based around participation: it is run almost entirely by volunteers and it provides the space for people to contribute in whatever way they can. Within reason, anyone can lead a session at Limmud and although there are some invited speakers and performers, there are few divisions between presenters and audience – there is no green room, everyone eats the same food and titles are not given on name badges.

This democratic, participatory structure results in an incredibly diverse programme. Sessions run from early morning to late at night and at any one time there may be up to 30 sessions going on concurrently. These can include everything from intensive Jewish text study sessions, to discussions and debates on contemporary Jewish issues, to lectures on Israeli current events, to interfaith dialogue sessions, to films, theatre, comedy and music – all with a Jewish theme. The heavy Jewish emphasis is leavened with DJ sessions, pub quizzes and this year a Strictly Come Dancing competition. Then there is the socialising and partying, which while it is rarely alcohol fuelled (there is a bar but Jews tend not to be big drinkers) is no less energetic for that.

Part of Limmud's strength is its diversity. There is a creche, children's and teenage programmes and the event is truly intergenerational. Just as importantly, Limmud works strenuously to avoid the denominational conflicts that scar the Jewish world. The food is kosher and space is provided for those who wish to conduct services, but there is no compunction to practice or believe in any way. Anyone can offer a session but no one is forced to listen to anything. Limmud is one of the few spaces in which leaders of organisations as diverse as the rightwing Zionist NGO Monitor and the leftist Israeli Breaking The Silence can both offer their points of view. Orthodox, reform and secular Jews can and do participate equally. It is true that UK Orthodox rabbinic participation is low, due to official disapproval from some Orthodox rabbinic authorities, but prominent Orthodox rabbis from outside the UK do attend.

It is no exaggeration to argue that over its 30-year existence, Limmud has changed the UK Jewish community. It has created an appetite for Jewish learning and Jewish arts and culture that has had knock-on effects throughout the community. It has nurtured and empowered a generation of young activists that are not satisfied with the self-satisfied anti-intellectualism and philistinism that Anglo-Jewry has often been known for. These activists are impatient with the disabling divisions perpetuated by Jewish denominations and community leaders.

Over the last few years, Limmud has outgrown its winter conference: there are now day Limmuds in various UK communities, a summer Limmud Fest with a more relaxed vibe and Limmud conferences in 20 countries. Limmud is in short, a Jewish good-news story, a demonstration that Judaism – however it is defined – can remain creative and vibrant.

The Limmud model needs to become well known outside the Jewish world, not as a form of boasting but as a demonstration of what is possible: it is possible to motivate large numbers of people to study, it is possible to empower ordinary people to do extraordinary things, it is possible to create a harmonious space in a divided community. Limmud has to break out of its Christmas seclusion and show how the wider world can benefit from a Jewish experiment.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2010

Bible discovery reveals links with Jewish scholars

2010-12-29T19:45:00.000-08:00

Bible discovery reveals links with Jewish scholars
Experts at Cambridge University have made a major discovery about the history of the Bible.

Researchers have been studying ancient biblical manuscripts in the University Library, and have found that a version of the Bible written in Greek was used by Jewish people for centuries longer than originally thought.

The documents, known as the Cairo Genizah manuscripts, were discovered in an old synagogue in Egypt and were brought to Cambridge at the end of the 19th century.
They have now been brought together digitally and posted online, enabling scholars worldwide to analyse them for the first time.

Prof Nicholas de Lange, professor of Hebrew and Jewish Studies atCambridge University, has been leading a three-year study into the ancient fragments.

He said: “The translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek is said to be one of the most lasting achievements of the Jewish civilization – without it, Christianity might not have spread as quickly and as successfully as it did.

“It was thought that the Jews, for some reason, gave up using Greek translations and chose to use the original Hebrew for public reading in synagogue and for private study, until modern times when pressure to use the vernacular led to its introduction in many synagogues.”

Prof de Lange’s research has discovered that some of the manuscripts contain passages from the Bible in Greek, written in Hebrew letters. The fragments date from 1,000 years after the original translation into Greek - showing that use of the Greek text was still alive in Greek-speaking synagogues in the Byzantine Empire, the Greek-speaking eastern part of theRoman Empire.

Prof de Lange said the research offered a rare glimpse of Byzantine Jewish life and culture, and also illustrated the cross-fertilisation between Jewish and Christian biblical scholars in the Middle Ages.

He said: “This is a very exciting discovery for me because it confirms a hunch I had when studying Genizah fragments 30 years ago.” chris.elliott@cambridge-news.co.uk

Letter urges Israeli girls to avoid dating Arabs

2010-12-29T19:35:00.000-08:00

Letter urges Israeli girls to avoid dating Arabs
From Shira Medding, CNN
December 29, 2010 2:53 p.m. EST

Jerusalem (CNN) -- A letter from about 30 prominent rabbis' wives was causing a stir in Israel Wednesday because it urges Israeli girls not to date Arabs.

The open letter comes three weeks after the uproar caused by another letter, which was written by 50 state-appointed rabbis and told Jews not to rent or sell property to non-Jews.

The latest missive, which was published by some websites and news outlets, says Arab men act polite around Jewish girls and "act as if they really care about you," but it says that's a ruse. The men, it says, even change their Arab names to Hebrew forms like Yossi and Ami in order to get close to the girls.

"This behavior is temporary," the letter says. "As soon as you are in their hands, in their villages under their control, everything becomes different. You can ask dozens of girls who have been there. They will tell you it is all an act.

"As soon as you arrive at the village, your life will never be the same. The attention will be replaced with curses, beatings, and humiliations. Even if you want to leave the village it will be much harder. They won't let you, they will chase you, they won't let you come back."

It urges Jewish girls not to go out with non-Jews or work in places that employ non-Jews.

"Your grandmothers never dreamt that their descendants would do something that will take the next generations of her family out of the Jewish people," it says.

The letter was initiated by the head of Lehava, an extreme right-wing group that says it aims to prevent the "assimilation of the Jewish people" and works at "saving Jewish girls from Arab villages."

"It's known that girls who go out with Arabs are beaten, these girls are in danger. ... There is a violent social trend and everyone ignores it," said the head of the group, Anat Gopstein, in a radio interview Wednesday morning.

The head of Israel's Reform movement, Rabbi Gilad Kariv, harshly condemned the letter and said, "Israeli society is falling into a deep, dark pit of racism and xenophobia," according to spokeswoman Yuli Goren.

More than 30 female rabbis from the Reform movement published a counter-letter harshly condemning the one released Wednesday, Goren said. Kariv also called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Justice Minister Yaacov Neeman to speak out against it.

Among the rabbis' wives who signed the letter is Nitzchia Yossef, the daughter-in-law of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the spiritual leader of the ultra-orthodox Shas political party. Esther Lior, the wife of extreme right-wing Rabbi Dov Lior, was another signatory.

Rabbi Yosef was one of the authors of the letter written earlier this month that urged Jews not to sell or rent property to non-Jews. It prompted widespread condemnation from politicians, human rights groups and leading rabbis in both Israel and the United States.

The letter, which was distributed to synagogues and published in some religious newspapers, had warned that those who defied the religious ruling should be ostracized. It said if one apartment is taken by a non-Jew, it devalues all the neighbors' apartments.

More than 800 rabbis from around the world signed a petition against the letter, saying "statements like these do great damage to our efforts to encourage people to love and support Israel."

The petition said "the attempt to root discriminatory policies based on religion or ethnicity in Torah is a painful distortion of our tradition. Am Yisrael (the Jewish people) knows the sting of discrimination, and we still bear the scars of hatred. When those who represent the official rabbinic leadership of the state of Israel express such positions, we are distressed by this ... desecration of God's name."

Nearly 1.5 million Arab residents live inside Israel, making up 23% of the population.
A poll published Tuesday by the Hebrew University in Jerusalem showed that 48% of Israelis oppose the call to avoid renting or selling property to Arabs.