On The Contrary

Writings and Talks on Religion and State in Israel

noreply@blogger.com (Elli Fischer) — Thu, 26 Jul 2018 08:58:00 -0400

Israel's Marriage Law and its Role in the Formation of an Israeli Citizenry (unpublished research paper)

Different Lenses: How Israeli and American Jews Misunderstand One Another (audio lecture)

Iran is Not Here! On the Haiyoun Episode (TOI)

Blacklists and Bureaucrats; Resistance and the Rabbinate (Lehrhaus)

Why I defy the Israeli Chief Rabbinate [Follow-up exchange: Halakha and State] (JRB)

Rabbi Riskin's Missed Opportunity for Religious Privatization (Mida; Hebrew version)

An Ironic Observation on Freedom of Religion at Israel's Holiest Site (TOI)

The Myth of the Conversion Crisis (Mida; Hebrew Version)

Perversion of the Priesthood: The Decline and Fall of the House of Eli (Book chapter)

Why Rabbi Goren Matters: The Legacy of the Langers (Mida)

Elazar Stern's Conversion Bill: Bad for Religion, Bad for the State, Bad at Math (Mida; Hebrew version)

The Barkan Wine Controversy: Ugly Precedent or Healthy Sign? (NYJW)

Interview with Israel's Channel 2 News

The Israeli Rabbinate: The Origin Story (Moment)

Love, Marriage, and the Israeli Chief Rabbinate (Jewish Ideas Daily)

Regime Change, Realpolitik, and the Rabbanut (NYJW)

Orthodox Rabbis for Civil Marriage in Israel (NYJW)

A Jewish Holiday and a Civic Dilemma (IJN/ TOI)

New Publication in honor of my son becoming a bar mitzvah

noreply@blogger.com (Elli Fischer) — Thu, 15 Jun 2017 16:56:00 -0400

My older son will become a bar mitzvah on Sunday, and he will mark the occasion with a siyum on all 6 orders of the Mishnah. In honor of the occasion, we have published a booklet containing Masekhet Kinim and three commentaries on it:

A Tosafist commentary (possibly R. Samson of Sens [=Rash MiShantz])
A short commentary by R. Yitzhak Aizik of Komarno
Moshe Koppel's mathematical commentary.

Here is the title page:

If you would like to download the entire booklet, you can request access at this link.

Praying at the Grave of Franz Rosenzweig

noreply@blogger.com (Elli Fischer) — Fri, 7 Oct 2016 05:59:00 -0400

This past February, I had the chance to visit the grave of Franz Rosenzweig in Frankfurt--not a pilgrimage site, but a place I was drawn to nonetheless. A week later, I was invited to join the editorial board of a project named for his adult education initiative, The Lehrhaus.

Fast forward a few months, and the site is ready to launch. To mark the launch, which coincides with the Yamim Nora'im, I imagine a prayer that I might have recited at Rosenzweig's grave.

Read about it here: http://www.thelehrhaus.com/commentary-short-articles/grave-franz-rosenzweig

On “Hard” and “Soft” Charisma in Jewish Education: Toward a Taxonomy of Risk

noreply@blogger.com (Elli Fischer) — Thu, 23 Jun 2016 11:30:00 -0400

Meir Pogrow is but the latest in a long list of charismatic rabbis and Jewish educators who fell from grace when the world finally learned how they manipulated students emotionally in order to take advantage of them sexually—a list that includes Baruch Lanner, Motti Elon, Marc Gafni, and others.

Obtaining sexual favors certainly ranks as one of the worst misuses of charisma, but it is not the only misuse. In 2006, Paul Shaviv first posted the draft (in a series of comments on a post by Gil Student, later posted in full on several blogs; now in book form) of an essay profiling “Pied Piper” educators.

Among the dangers he points out are:

A charismatic teacher will deeply affect and influence some students, but will almost always leave a trail of emotional wreckage in his/her wake.
The emotional dependency and entanglement between teacher and student leads to boundaries being crossed.
The teacher becomes party to knowledge about students and their families that reinforces the teacher’s view that they are the only teachers who ‘really’ are reaching the students. The teacher, however, is neither a trained counselor nor a social worker. That knowledge becomes power.
A really charismatic teacher can end up running a ‘school within a school’.
The teacher will often employ techniques (and texts) which take students to the extremes of emotion or logic, and will then triumphantly show them how they are holding they key to resolution (‘At this moment, you have agreed that life has no meaning -- but here is the answer’).
The moment [the students] realize that they are not [protégés] (sometimes when the teacher ‘moves on to the next’), deep emotions come into play.
Many charismatic teachers will lavish attention on a student or group of students as long as the student(s) do things the teacher’s way, or accept every piece of advice or ‘philosophy’ or Torah uncritically. The moment the student shows independence or objectivity, they are dropped.
As soon as they are disillusioned or dropped, they are written out of the teacher’s story. Often such students, very hurt, leave the school.

Perhaps the most fundamental point in Shaviv’s critique is: “The problem is that at core, these are not educational relationships.” Charisma in general is a deeply problematic and risky trait in a teacher of Torah, as, by definition, the student is attracted more to the charm and personality of the teacher than to the material that is being taught.

The unfortunate reality is that each of the offenders mentioned above used deeply problematic methods long before there was any general awareness of the sexual aspect of their predations. This point was articulated well by Shayna Goldberg:

This is the real issue that has plagued my mind for so long. The fact that this man was never, ever fit to be an educator. The fact that knowing all the Torah in the world does not on its own make you trustworthy enough to be given a classroom’s worth of young, impressionable souls. The fact that long before anyone suspected inappropriate sexual behavior, it was glaringly clear that this person employed all kinds of unhealthy teaching methods in order to cultivate relationships with students. And the fact that no one but a few innocent teenage girls seemed to notice.

She concludes:

I hope that in the wake of this scandal, we don’t just talk about one outed, sick educator and then move on as if everything were okay. Let us not get so distracted by the outrageous details that we forget what was so grossly inexcusable about his conduct as a teacher, even had he never touched anyone….

Let’s talk about it.

Indeed, let us talk about the role of charisma in our educational system. Let us discuss whether there is such a thing as “good” or “safe” charisma (I am skeptical, but realize that I’m still in the minority); how a school, parents, and/or students can learn to recognize subtle warning signs; and—to paraphrase Rabbi Noam Stein of the Akiva School in Detroit—whether and how young charismatic teachers can be trained to use their talents in an educationally safe and sound manner.

There are three or four basic categories of charismatic teacher. The first is comprised of cases where the teacher has clearly crossed a line into psychological, physical, and/or sexual abuse, as in the cases mentioned at the beginning of this column. The second category is one where certainly no crime or abuse has taken place, but the techniques used by the teacher are unhealthy and unsound.

The third category is teachers who use charisma to manipulate students, but to positive effect. I am skeptical about the existence of this category, but many students of Rabbi Aharon Bina would vehemently contend that he fits this category, and that, indeed, he changed their lives for the better by breaking them down and building them back up. There is no doubt that R. Bina’s methods cause considerable damage as well. Is it possible to fashion a situation in which all such collateral damage will be eliminated? Perhaps, but I am skeptical.

The final category is “soft charisma,” a term I first heard in the name of Rabbi Menachem Schrader, the founding director of OU-JLIC (and thus my former boss), and which he uses to describe the educators he seeks for his program. He explained that, as opposed to “hard charisma,” in the case of “soft charisma,” the educator never becomes more central to the experience than the Torah that s/he is teaching.

In 2010, in the wake of the Motti Elon scandal, Rabbi Aryeh Klapper of the Center for Modern Torah Leadership explained why this distinction is so crucial: the Torah develops the self. Hard charisma effaces the students’ sense of self and replaces it with the teacher’s “self.” The difference between soft and hard charisma is thus the difference between developing the student’s sense of self—and distorting it.

The problem is that is it not always easy to differentiate hard and soft charisma. Building off of R. Klapper’s essay, the following is a preliminary taxonomy for identifying charisma and its dangerous manifestations. It goes without saying that teachers and students, and especially administrators and parents, must be vigilant even about “soft” forms of charisma, lest boundaries be crossed. “Failing” one of these tests should not automatically brand the teacher as a dangerous charismatic, but failure of multiple tests should raise red flags.

Charismatic energy is easily transformed into eros, so any sort of physical contact or seclusion is a breach that warrants dismissal for a first or (at most) second offense.
Does the teacher seek to persuade the student to see value in what the teacher values, or to persuade the student to see value only in what the teacher values?
Is the teacher replacing the student’s friends?
Has the student begun to imitate the teacher’s idiosyncratic practices and mannerisms?
Is the student able to restate the teacher’s views in his own words and defend them without falling back on “but my teacher said”?
What is the ratio of content to unmoored emotion in a teacher’s “inspirational” talks? Can the talks or lessons be quantified in terms of thinking, textual, or interpersonal skills, or only (or mostly) in terms of emotion and inspiration?
How does the teacher respond to a student who questions, challenges, or rejects his/her assertions?
How has the student’s relationship with his/her parents changed since s/he first came under the teacher’s influence?

Charisma is attractive and even tempting. It sometimes seems as though a life of virtue, or spirit, or value is immediately attainable, but, to quote a great rabbi (who had a great deal of soft charisma), “There are no shortcuts. Ein patentim.” Education is a long and arduous process, and the voice of God is not in the earthquake, the great gust, or the fire, but in the still, small voice.

"Ha-Isha Rabba" - A Purim Gemara for 5776

noreply@blogger.com (Elli Fischer) — Thu, 24 Mar 2016 04:05:00 -0400

This was fun to put together with some really clever minds.

Gemara Purim 5776 האשה רבה by Elli Schorr

ICYMI: A conversation about Jewish Presence on the Temple Mount

noreply@blogger.com (Elli Fischer) — Sat, 31 Oct 2015 14:01:00 -0400

Over the past week, I had the privilege of hosting a conversation with Rabbi Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer, Rabbi Yehudah Glick, and Professor Shaul Magid on my TOI blog, using the ReplyAll platform.

The conversation is now closed. I am reposting it below.

The Brilliance of Bibi's Big Lie: A Dramatization

noreply@blogger.com (Elli Fischer) — Thu, 22 Oct 2015 07:07:00 -0400

Scene: Bibi’s office. In attendance are Prime Minister Netanyahu and everyone who would be played by a main character in an Israeli version of "The WestWing" (which would be called "The Aquarium"): media advisers, speechwriters, PR gurus, pollsters, etc.

Bibi: We’re three weeks into this new uprising and the world media narrative is all about how Palestinian violence is terrible but understandable given the Occupation™. We need to show that the occupation is the result of violence, not the other way around. How do we do it?

Speechwriter: We tell the truth. The truth is on our side. Their leaders lie about Jewish connection to holy sites. They lie about Ashkenazic Jews coming here as colonialist occupiers. They lie about and deny the Holocaust. About poisoning the wells. About defiling the Temple Mount with our filthy feet. They say Jesus was a Palestinian. Let them bury themselves with lies. We need to stay on message with the truth. Haters will hate.

Bibi: Who do you think you’re talking to? When I was Ambassador to the UN, I used to give these history lessons all the time. I was Mr. Context. Mr. Nuance. But it doesn’t work. Not anymore. Their lies are now presented as a side of the story, one that we have to refute.

Media Adviser: Correct. The news cycle is fast and fickle. Media outlets need click-bait. Truth, especially complicated truth, doesn’t attract eyeballs. Forget about history lessons.

Speechwriter: So we lose the media and keep the truth. Let’s stay on the high ground.

Pollster: What high ground? The media is a real battlefield today. World leaders are constrained by public opinion. If you can win public opinion, it gives your allies much more freedom and shackles your opponents. Look at Obama. There was only a certain amount of leeway he had to act against us, because American public opinion is on our side. In contrast, Sisi can’t say what he really thinks of us because public opinion is so poisoned against us.

Bibi: Agreed. But what are our options? There are a dozen groups who exist to call out the lies and inaccuracies of the media against Israel. CAMERA, HonestReporting, CIFWatch, etc. How many editions of Myths and Facts have been published? But they’re playing defense. Our enemies still control the discourse. We need to stop getting bogged down in arguments within their frame of reference. How can we play offense?

PR Guru: Talk about the Mufti.

Media Adviser: Who?

Bibi: Hajj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. He was behind the Arab uprisings in 1920-21, he was behind the massacres in 1929, and he was behind the Arab Revolt in the 1930s, which closed the door to immigration to Mandatory Palestine just before World War II. He was behind the Farhud in Baghdad in 1941. Then he fled to Germany, where he was a guest of Hitler for the rest of the war.

PR Guru: A very bad dude, and a Palestinian founding father. If we can draw attention to him, it totally undermines the narrative that violence is the result of the occupation. He was hobnobbing with Hitler before there was a State of Israel.

Pollster: Still, too much information for the average consumer of the news. Dates, numbers, all just bugs crawling across a screen.

Media Adviser: Any pictures?

PR Guru: Yeah. There’s one of him with Hitler. There’s one of him with other high-ranking Nazis. No shortage.

Bibi: That’s the angle. We need to get that picture out there. A leading Palestinian cozying up to Hitler before there was a State of Israel.

Media Adviser: Not so simple. What are we supposed to do, send a photo of the Mufti and Hitler to all the newspapers? He’s old news. He needs to be in today’s news.

Speechwriter: What if we drop his name in a speech in English? It’ll make the newspapers.

Media Adviser: Maybe the Israeli and Jewish media. Everyone else will just ignore it or bury it. There’s no meat. Nothing to really capture the world’s attention.

PR Guru: We need to overstate the case. We need to tell a lie that will provoke reaction, that will get everyone to “set the record straight” about the Mufti.

Pollster: But it needs to be sticky. We need people to remember in a month that the Mufti is a really bad dude, but there’s disagreement about just how bad. That’s got to be the residue that’s left over in people’s minds.

Media Adviser: Especially if that picture gets out. People will remember that he had something to do with Hitler, even if they don’t remember what.

PR Guru: Great. We’re in agreement. What’s the lie that we tell?

Bibi: We tell them that the Mufti convinced Hitler to kill the Jews.

Speechwriter: With all due respect, Mr. Prime Minister, that’s insane. You will be a laughingstock. Everyone will say you’re a liar or an idiot.

Pollster: They’ll spin it against you. They’ll say that you absolved Hitler from the crime of murdering six million Jews. That you trivialize or deny the Holocaust.

Media Adviser: The memes will be flying around the internet.

Bibi: What’s a meme?

Media Adviser: Something like this.

Bibi: That’s pretty funny.

Media Adviser: Hilarious. But you will be the butt of thousands of these jokes.

Bibi: As you said, though, the news cycle is quick. I can take a round of jokes at my expense. I can clarify that Hitler is to blame for the actual killing. But what are the strategic implications? What will we lose, what will we gain?

Pollster: You won’t lose much in the polls. Haters will hate, and I don’t think you’ll lose much support. They’ll say it was a stupid gaffe and move on.

Media Adviser: It will change the discourse on the violence. People will remember, if nothing else, that Palestinian violence and opposition to the Jewish state predates any occupation. It will put the Palestinian leadership on the defensive for the first time I can remember.

Bibi: And what about my credibility? This is a major strategic shift we’re talking about. It means no one will ever trust us again.

Speechwriter: And the Holocaust... I mean, falsifying Holocaust history is dangerous.

Bibi: I'm not talking about school curricula. I'm talking about what to say to the media. What you tell the media is not what you tell your kids. I'm not advocating a complete abandonment of the truth.

Speechwriter: I'm not comfortable with this.

Pollster: There’s a risk. No question. On the other hand, you’d be amazed at the degree to which supporters overlook the flaws of their favored candidates and magnify the flaws in the ones they don’t like. It’s crazy. You’d think they’d realize by now that the vast majority of politicians are borderline sociopathic. But no.

PR Guru: Look, everything you say is filtered through the media anyway, and they’re understandably not credible. People pick their news sources based on what they want to hear. If someone looks to the media, any media, for truth, they get what they deserve. And that’s the overwhelming majority of people. All we’re doing is getting the media to tell the lie that we want them to tell instead of the one that they would tell otherwise.

Media Adviser: Look, if we tell the truth, they respond with lies. If we lie, they'll respond with truth or lies. We can still respond to their lies with truth, but honestly, nobody knows the difference anymore, anyway. And there’s also the truthiness factor.

Bibi: The what?

Media Advisor: Truthiness. The quality of feeling true even if it isn’t. The word comes from Colbert, the American comedian, but it’s basically driving American politics right now. Take Trump. His overall message resonates with people, and they don’t care about details, accuracy, reasonability, etc.

Speechwriter: That blathering idiot?

Media Adviser: That blathering idiot is a juggernaut who might be the next POTUS. If you read the Dilbert Blog, you’d also know that he’s a genius.

Bibi: I don’t want to be compared to Trump.

PR Guru: You won’t be. He’s an extreme case. But there’s value in taking notes from a master. He absolutely dominates coverage of the 2016 elections.

Bibi: Okay. And what about our relationship with the PA? Long-term damage?

Speechwriter: Actually, it can advance your overall vision. You’ve said time and again that peace can only come with mutual recognition of each other's claim to the land, and that any two state solution has to acknowledge that Israel is the state that embodies the self-determination of the Jewish people, just as the Palestinian state will be the nation-state of the Palestinian people. A major obstacle to that is this notion that we’re foreign occupiers with no connection to the land. Attention to the Mufti will help marginalize that narrative, which, after all, was propagated by a Nazi.

Bibi: Interesting. I like it. When’s my next scheduled major English speech?

Media Adviser: World Zionist Congress on Tuesday, October 22.

Bibi: Draft the speech. Plant the bombshell in it. Then, gentlemen, we will sit back and watch as the whole world acquaints itself with the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.

A Note on the Khazar-origin Theory of Hungarian Jewry

noreply@blogger.com (Elli Fischer) — Mon, 12 Oct 2015 05:51:00 -0400

An advantage of davening in a minyan in a local yeshiva is that you never know what seforim might turn up or what you might find in them.

This past Shabbat I found a copy of Mateh Levi (it's a bit different from the standard printed volume; much fewer responsa). This book, which is mainly about writing Gittin but also contains responsa on all sorts of issues, was written by R. Dr. Mordechai (Markus) Halevi Horovitz, a Hungarian rav who eventually became the rabbi of general (i.e., non-secessionist) Orthodox community in Frankfurt (or Vrankvurt, as it is spelled in this book). That is, he was a rival and critic of RSR Hirsch.

As you can see from the stamp, this particular volume, printed in 1891, belonged to the library of the Berlin Jewish community. There are actually stamps indicating that it was checked out of that library several times in the early 1920s. It eventually found its way to the yeshiva high school in Modiin, where I peruse it on Shabbat.

The first responsum begins with a question from R. Asher Grossberg of Eszlar.

R. Asher begins the query by reintroducing himself, reminding R. Horowitz that they studied together in Ujhely (a major Hungarian yeshiva) and met again at the famed Jewish Congress that took place in the winter of 1868-9. He also mentions that R. Horovitz was then working on a treatise to prove that Hungarian Jews are descendants of the Khazars.

That may be surprising, so a bit of background. When the Dual Monarchy was established in 1867, Hungarians became a minority within their own kingdom. To help alleviate that, they extended full civil rights to the Jews, on condition that the Jews would declare "Magyar" (=Hungarian) as their nationality. The Jews, by and large, saw the opportunity and went along with it. Some, like R. Akiva Yosef Schlesinger, were strongly opposed, maintaining that this is a betrayal of Jewish nationhood (he was a Haredi and a Zionist, by any definition of either). Eventually, it became popular to claim that Hungarian Jews were descendants of the Khazars who migrated westward along with the other Hungarian tribes in the Middle Ages - that is, that Hungarian Jews are indeed as Hungarian as any Hungarian.

It is surprising to me that such theories were being propounded by respected rabbanim so soon after the process of Magyarization began.

To dispel doubt: I do not believe that Hungarian Jews, or any other Jews, are the descendants of the Khazars, nor do I believe that there was ever a mass conversion of Khazars to Judaism.

Ritvas on Eidus and Briskers on Gittin...

noreply@blogger.com (Elli Fischer) — Fri, 4 Sep 2015 09:33:00 -0400

Ritvas on Eidus and Briskers on Gittin,
Threats, bans, and cherems, both oral and written
Trashing the arguments each rabbi brings
These are a few of my favorite things...

Cream colored parchment for writs of divorces

Snow jobs and flame wars and broadsides remorseless

High moral ground to which ev’ryone clings

These are a few of my favorite things

Girls in white dresses who might still be married
Rabbis who don't speak their minds cuz they're harried
Comment threads spurred on by violent mood swings
These are a few of my favorite things.

It’s our mission

It’s tradition

Though it seems arcane

I have expertise in my favorite things

So women can be unchained.

My Writings on Religion and State

noreply@blogger.com (Elli Fischer) — Thu, 16 Jul 2015 13:20:00 -0400

I've been getting a lot of questions about my views on religion and state in Israel since this past Saturday night, when Israel's Channel 2 News interviewed me for a story on Orthodox rabbis who officiate at weddings not under Rabbanut auspices (and TOI followed up with an article that makes it look far riskier than it is). I've also been asked to write a manifesto of sorts on my religion-state views; someone's even talking about a book project.

Either way, here is a list of articles and blog posts that I've written on the subject over the past 8-9 years for various outlets. Meanwhile, I'll get working on that manifsto:

Jewish Review of Books
Why I defy the Israeli Chief Rabbinate
https://jewishreviewofbooks.com/articles/1917/why-i-defy-the-israeli-chief-rabbinate/

Halakha and State: An Exchange
https://jewishreviewofbooks.com/articles/2056/halakha-and-state-an-exchange/

Mida

The Riskin Opportunity for Religious Privatization
http://mida.org.il/2015/06/25/the-riskin-opportunity-for-religious-privatization/

(Hebrew version)

The Myth of the Conversion Crisis
http://mida.org.il/2015/05/22/there-is-no-conversion-crisis/

Why Rabbi Goren Matters: The Legacy of the Langers
http://mida.org.il/2015/02/06/rav-goren-matters-legacy-langers/

Elazar Stern's Conversion Bill: Bad for Religion, Bad for the State, Bad at Math
http://mida.org.il/2014/04/07/elazar-sterns-jewish-conversion-bill-bad-for-the-state-bad-for-religion-bad-at-math/

(Hebrew version)

Moment

The Israeli Rabbinate: The Origin Story
http://www.momentmag.com/opinion-the-israeli-rabbinate-the-origin-story/

Jerusalem Post

Got Kosher Milk?
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-Ed-Contributors/Got-kosher-milk

Jewish Ideas Daily

Love, Marriage, and the Israeli Chief Rabbinate
http://www.jewishideasdaily.com/1012/features/love-marriage-and-the-israeli-rabbinate/

Tal Tales
http://www.jewishideasdaily.com/4619/features/tal-tales/

Yair Lapid's Religion
http://www.jewishideasdaily.com/5979/features/yair-lapids-religion/

New York Jewish Week

God's Gatekeepers: Signs of Progress?
http://www.thejewishweek.com/editorial-opinion/opinion/gods-gatekeepers-signs-progress

Does the US now have a Chief Rabbinate?

http://www.thejewishweek.com/editorial-opinion/opinion/does-us-now-have-chief-rabbinate

Regime Change, Realpolitik, and the Rabbanut
http://www.thejewishweek.com/editorial-opinion/opinion/regime-change-realpolitik-and-rabbanut

Middle Class Rising? (not about religion and state per se, but touches on it)
http://www.thejewishweek.com/special-sections/israel-now/middle-class-rising

Not all Orthodox Rabbis Oppose Civil Marriage in Israel
http://www.thejewishweek.com/editorial-opinion/opinion/not-all-orthodox-rabbis-oppose-civil-marriage-israel

A Gaon in Every Sense (an obit for Rav Ovadia)
http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/israel-news/gaon-every-sense

Intermountain Jewish News (cross-posted to TOI)
A Jewish Holiday and a Civic Dilemma
http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/a-jewish-holiday-and-a-civic-dilemma/

Book Chapter

Perversion of the Priesthood: The Decline and Fall of the House of Eli
https://www.academia.edu/12394669/Perversion_of_the_Priesthood_The_Decline_and_Fall_of_the_House_of_Eli_in_the_Talmud

TOI Blog Posts

Why Israelis don't Realize that Martin Luther King Jr. was Religious
http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/why-israelis-have-trouble-realizing-that-mlk-was-religious/

A Pilot Plan for Reorganizing the Rabbinate
http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/a-pilot-plan-for-reorganizing-the-rabbinate/

Buying Haredi: A Win-Win
http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/buying-haredi-a-win-win/

Bourekas are not Burkas
http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/bourekas-are-not-burkas/

Same-sex Unions and Intermarriage: Against as a Jew, For as a Citizen
http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/same-sex-unions-and-intermarriage-against-as-a-jew-for-as-a-citizen/

An Ironic Observation on Freedom of Religion at Israel's Holiest Site
http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/an-ironic-observation-on-freedom-of-religion-at-judaisms-holiest-site/

Personal Blog Posts

Will Tzohar Declare War on the Rabbanut?
http://adderabbi.blogspot.co.il/2007/09/will-tzohar-declare-war-on-rabbanut.html

A Modern-day Korach?
http://adderabbi.blogspot.co.il/2010/06/modern-day-korach.html

On Tzohar Rabbis Accepting Pay to Officiate Weddings
http://adderabbi.blogspot.co.il/2009/07/on-tzohar-rabbis-accepting-pay-for.html

The High Court's Decision on Heter Mechira
http://adderabbi.blogspot.co.il/2007/10/regarding-high-court-decision-regarding.html

Conversion Collision Course
http://adderabbi.blogspot.co.il/2007/10/conversion-collision-course.html

Be-zot yavo Aharon el ha-kodesh

noreply@blogger.com (Elli Fischer) — Tue, 28 Apr 2015 16:06:00 -0400

[A devar Torah on Acharei Mot-Kedoshim (last week's/this week's parsha depending where you stand) and a thought about R. Lichtenstein zt"l]

Acharei Mot opens with a prohibition against entering the sanctuary whenever one wishes--"al yavo be-khol et el ha-kodesh"--and recalls the death of Nadav and Avihu, who perished as a result of coming ‘too close’ to God. The Torah then describes the special Yom Kippur offerings. Following that is the prohibition of shechutei chutz, bringing sacrifices outside the precincts of the Temple, which the Torah explicitly compares to foreign worship, here called ‘zivchei se’irim’.
These two prohibitions are antithetical. The first prohibits too much proximity to God, the second, too much distance. The first is rooted in a lack of boundaries between man and God, over-familiarity, unbridled and unrestrained love. It threatens to burn man up, to eradicate his ego and subsume it in the infinite. To function in this world, man must keep his distance from God.
The second prohibition is explicitly compared to idolatry. It expresses overwhelming reverence, a sense that God is absolutely unapproachable, that there is no way to bridge the gap between us and Him.
Taken together, these two prohibitions strike a balance. We are not to come to close to God, nor may we run too far away. We must operate in the space between too much love and too much reverence. We can live because we avoid those extremes.
In between these two prohibitions, the Torah describes the Yom Kippur service. On Yom Kippur we have the exceptions to these two prohibitions. On one hand, the high priest performs a service in the sanctuary itself. On the other hand, a goat--the "se'ir la-Azazel," the "scapegoat"--is taken outside the Temple precincts and hurled off of a desert cliff. This is the only sacrifice brought outside the Temple.
How are we to understand these Yom Kippur exceptions? Reb Tzadok has a wonderful piece (Dover Tzedek pp. 98-99) in which he describes a state of consciousness that lies beyond good and evil. It is attainable only rarely, but when it is attained, there are no limits or boundaries on how one approaches God. Extreme love and extreme reverence are acceptable.
There is another possibility: that Yom Kippur represents a much more difficult and heightened balance. Extreme proximity to God is warranted, but only when balanced by extreme distance. Extreme love must be countered by extreme awe. The two must be commensurate, or the hazards of each on its own still applies. This is very different from the paramount, year-round reality in which we remain balanced by eschewing the extremes of ahava and yir'ah. This is a balance achieved, rather, by experiencing those extremes in tandem.
This type of balance is rare and difficult. It is a tightrope with no safety net. Only on the holiest day of the year is the feat performed.
We have been privileged to see how Rav Lichtenstein zt"l held together passions that we did not think could coexist. Like the spectators who lined up to see the high priest perform his sacred duty, we must have no pretensions of being able to accomplish this service, but we can bear witness to the fact that it is indeed possible in this world and appreciate the fact that we were able to behold such a marvel.
אשרי עין ראתה כל אלה

A Free Verse Hebrew Translation of U2's "Still Haven't Found what I'm Looking For"

noreply@blogger.com (Elli Fischer) — Thu, 5 Feb 2015 01:10:00 -0500

"חיפשתיו ולא מצאתיו"
מאת: בונו
תרגום חפשי: אלי פישר

על הרים ועל גבעות
תוך כרמים ושדות
ביקשתי
את שאהבה נפשי

ברחובות ובשווקים
ובחומות הערים
ביקשתי
את שאהבה נפשי

אמנם ביקשתיו, לא מצאתיו
אמנם ביקשתיו, לא מצאתיו

שפתותיך דבש נוטפות
אצבעותיך לי רופאות
כרשפי אש כשלהבת
ועזה כמוות

שוחחתי עם מלאכי עליון
אחזתי בידי השטן
בחום ליל ויום
בקור אבן דום

אמנם ביקשתיו, לא מצאתיו
אמנם ביקשתיו, לא מצאתיו

הנה ימים באים
ונתאחדו כל הצבעים
ארוץ לא איעף
ולא איגע

למוסרי אכן פתחת
ובעול כלימתי נשאת
ואני מאמין
באמונה שלמה

אכן ביקשתיו, ולא מצאתיו
אמנם ביקשתיו, לא מצאתיו

A Memory Jog on R. Barry Freundel, the RCA, and the Rabbanut

noreply@blogger.com (Elli Fischer) — Wed, 22 Oct 2014 18:25:00 -0400

Jogging my memory by reviewing the whole history of the Rabbanut-RCA crisis that led to the revamping of the conversion system, I came across something significant (I collected the best posts from that era under the label "best of giyur")

In June 2006, Rabbi Barry Freundel and Rabbi Heshy Billet traveled to Israel on behalf of the RCA to meet and negotiate with the Rabbanut on conversion policy. There were some people close with Rav Elyashiv, notably R. Nachum Eisenstein and his Vaad Haolami Leinyonei Giyur, who wanted to make sure the negotiations failed so that the RCA is not recognized and so that a new initiative, the EJF, would be the address for conversions in the US.

To that end, they whispered some terrible things about Rabbi Freundel in the ears of Rabbanut officials. What is the worst thing they found to say about him, this group of rabbis with an interest in completely ruining Barry Freundel's reputation?

That his shul has a women's prayer group, even against the ruling of his rebbi, R. Hershel Schachter.
There are some important takeaways:

The man was 54 years old and had a squeaky-clean reputation. Not everyone loved him, but nobody had any dirt on him. There was nothing. [UPDATE: It seems that there was some bad behavior at the beginning of the 2000s, maybe earlier; this doesn't detract from the main point - that his reputation was squeaky clean.]
He enjoyed enough respect amongst his colleagues that he was selected to lead the negotiations with the Rabbanut.
The initial reports about bad and bizarre behavior - which certainly pointed to control issues but were not sexual in nature - would have been addressed within the context of a lifetime of exemplary behavior [by reputation if not fact]. I still think that I would have responded to his treatment of prospective converts as cheap or slave labor more harshly and removed him from conversion on that basis, but I understand why colleagues familiar with his reputation would have given him the benefit of the doubt and simply asked him to desist.
I do not claim to know how truly dark is the heart of any man, and I can't claim that I would resist the temptations of power if I had them. The moral of the story - the moral that I will keep coming back to, again and again - is that no person can be entrusted by our community with that much power over over another person.

Conversation on Learning and Teaching Hebrew

noreply@blogger.com (Elli Fischer) — Wed, 22 Oct 2014 07:25:00 -0400

For the next week, I will be participating in a conversation on Learning and Teaching Hebrew, hosted by the Consortium for Applied Studies in Jewish Education.
It's using the really cool ReplyAll platform.
Follow along below:

Rav Asher Weiss on OCD

noreply@blogger.com (Elli Fischer) — Fri, 12 Sep 2014 03:29:00 -0400

About two weeks ago, I posted on facebook a summary of R. Asher Weiss's responsum on OCD. I wrote:

Responsum #134 is quite possibly one of the greatest responsa I've ever read (I don't claim great expertise, but I've read quite a few and find it to be one of the most enjoyable forms of Jewish learning).

It is addressed to a talmid chakham who suffers from OCD, who has been instructed by doctors to never repeat words during davening even if he thinks he mispronounced them (a practice I call "shmonging"). He asks R. Asher whether a) he should listen to them and b) assuming he should listen to them, should he take measures to minimize the problems that may result from possibly improper recitation of berakhot (for example, never eating a k'dei svi'a of bread so that he never has a Torah obligation to bentch).

The responsum is divided into three parts. In the first, R. Asher establishes that the correspondent should listen to the doctors even if it means neglecting positive mitzvot. In the second, he cautions against trying to minimize such halakhic problems, as the constant search to obviate halakhic dilemmas will merely feed his obsessiveness, when the whole point of the exercise is to help him learn to live with it. In the third section, R. Asher allows that if the correspondent is concerned with occasions that he is responsible for others' mitzvot, he should let another do it instead. For example, his wife should make Kiddush for everyone in the family. And if there are guests, he should overcome his shame and ask one of the guests to make Kiddush. After all, he would not be ashamed to ask for assistance if he were missing a limb; this form of disability is no different.

I recommend reading it inside. The humanity and understanding that shine through in this responsum are simply breathtaking. R. Asher never tells his correspondent that he is "wrong" for thinking that his speech acts are insufficient. And yet, even as he gives the patient the validation he craves, he shapes and works within those constraints just as a therapist would, even encouraging him to move ever so slightly out of his comfort zone (don't be ashamed of your illness; have your wife make Kiddush for you). It answers the halakhic question, but more importantly it answers the person asking it (think the iconic scene in "Patch Adams."

Just amazing.

It got a lot of "likes" for a responsum summary, or so it seemed to me.
Last night after Rav Asher's shiur, I was shmoozing with a fellow attendee when Rav Asher walked by to join his ride. He said hello and continued, but a couple of seconds later he turned around and came back. He said to me: "You're Fischer, right? Elli Fischer?"
I answered in the affirmative.
"You wrote something about my teshuva? Someone send me something you wrote."
Gulp. I became terrified and began to hem and haw.
He said: "No, no. It's okay. I liked it very much. You were right."
And then he thanked me for promoting him.
A couple of takeaways:
1) Someone follows me on facebook and reports to Rav Asher. That's somewhat frightening. You know who you are.
2) I hope that's all he's seen from my feed.
3) There's probably a "mussar haskel" in there, but I refuse to learn anything from this.
One last thing: Rav Aryeh Leibowitz has a 17-minute "Ten Minute Halacha" on this responsum. Worth a listen.

A Tribute to R. Lichtenstein

noreply@blogger.com (Elli Fischer) — Thu, 1 May 2014 06:25:00 -0400

Mosaic (the successor of Jewish Ideas Daily) has published an article which is my tribute to Moreinu Harav Lichtenstein.

I wrote the last part first. Last year, at the event celebrating Rav Aharon's 80th birthday, I and many others who I spoke to afterward had real religious experiences that it took some time to digest. A few weeks later, I wrote an essay that I distributed to some friends, attempting to unpack. The concluding, personal element of the Mosaic piece is a distillation of that essay, which follows a sorry attempt to introduce Rav Aharon to a general audience.

Below are some paragraphs from the original essay that didn't appear in the Mosaic piece:

There is an important double entendre in the title of By His Light, a book adaptation of Rabbi Dr. Aharon Lichtenstein's thoughts on values and character development. The (intentional) ambiguity lies in the fact that R. Aharon himself is offering his thoughts on what it means to walk by God's light, which in turn allows us to develop our religious personalities through the light that R. Aharon sheds. For R. Aharon, the antecedent for "His" is God Himself, whereas for the rest of us, the antecedent is R. Aharon.

Then came the Friday morning of Rav Aharon’s birthday celebration. It was Rosh Hodesh, the first day of a new Jewish month. In those months, this semi-holiday was in fact the one date each month when the Old City of Jerusalem was once again wracked by the type of sectarian strife that ripped it to shreds once before. Factions and counter-factions fought over control of Judaism’s sacred precincts. In an earlier age, the Talmud tells us, the great sage Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakai slipped out of besieged Jerusalem and petitioned the Roman general-cum-emperor Vespasian to be allowed to establish an enclave for the rabbis at Yavneh, outside the riven and doomed Jerusalem. That morning, Alon Shvut felt like Yavneh.

I felt secure that Rav Aharon’s effect on my faith was not diluted or confused by any personal charm or magnetism, as I have spent several years cultivating a visceral and – to my mind – healthy allergy to charisma, especially the rabbinic variety. There was no argument or proof that I heard at that event that could have had any profound effect on my convictions. Most of my mental energy during the hour of Rav Aharon’s lecture was spent trying (largely unsuccessfully) to decipher his difficult language. As always, his high register and conceptual complexity, combined with the fact that he spoke in my second language (Hebrew) and has somewhat slurred speech that has not improved with age, made it quadruply challenging to follow along.

A final note to those who arrived at this blog via the link at the end of the Mosaic article: this blog is largely defunct. I use it mainly to redirect some traffic toward articles I've published elsewhere. If you want to follow along, I recommend my Facebook and Twitter feeds.

Pre-Pesach Update

noreply@blogger.com (Elli Fischer) — Mon, 14 Apr 2014 08:54:00 -0400

In my last dispatch, I mentioned that Pesha and I would be scholars-in-residence on a Danube River cruise for Pesach. It was not meant to be. The cruise was cancelled several months ago, and we will be with my parents and sisters and all their families for the Seder. We are very much looking forward.

Since the last dispatch, I have begun writing regularly for several more newspapers and media outlets. I now have a monthly column at the Denver-based Intermountain Jewish News, and I have retained the right to publish those columns elsewhere after they appear at IJN, and all the articles are posted on my blog at the Times of Israel. In these articles, I criticize how hyperactive but bright students are addressed in Jewish day schools, reflect on why Vienna became the birthplace of Zionism, add a dimension to my Commentary review of My Promised Land, and critique Israel’s proposed “Nazi Law” by digging up some old articles in which Ben-Gurion and Jabotinsky compare each other to Hitler. These articles have already been syndicated in Baltimore Jewish Life, The Lakewood Scoop, and The Jewish Link of Bergen County. If you are interested in syndicating my column in your local Jewish paper, please let me know.

Although I have rarely been accused of representing the establishment, I found myself defending the RCA in a series of articles that appeared in the Jewish Week. The initial article praised the RCA for its handling of the controversy surrounding Rabbi Avi Weiss and Israel’s Chief Rabbinate. That article was in turn criticized by Dov Zakheim and Steven Bayme in the same paper, which then gave me the opportunity to publish a rejoinder

The debates about religion and state in Israel proceed apace, and I recently had the opportunity to post my fullest treatment yet of this fraught topic. The context is a critique of a bill that purports to systematize the issue of religious conversion in Israel. The article appeared in Mida, and is currently being translated into Hebrew for that site. This will be my first foray into the Hebrew-speaking world on this issue. In addition, I recently rewrote my critique of religious institutionalization through the lens of the first chapters of the Book of Shmuel and the Talmud’s treatment of them. This article will appear in a forthcoming volume, which I am currently editing, honoring the memory of Marc Weinberg z”l. I have posted it online but have set up a paywall (just $1; if you’re interested in previewing it, email me).

The OU’s magazine, Jewish Action, recently had a special section on English-speaking olim and their impact in Israel. I contributed a short piece on life in Modiin and a short profile of Rav Aharon Lichtenstein’s impact on broader Israeli culture. I was also commissioned to profile filmmaker Joseph Cedar, but that piece did not end up in the magazine. I posted it here.

A couple of other odds and ends include this translation of an interview between Rabbi Prof. Alan Brill and Rabbi Dr. Yehuda Brandes and this translation of an article on Mishna Sukkah by Rabbi Dr. Avie Walfish (see his stuff on Pesachim, too). A few months ago, I was interviewed by Nachum Segal about the English biography of Rav Yehuda Amital; the interview is archived here. A Facebook conversation about the history of Orthodox blogging, in which many of the most popular bloggers from a decade ago participated, was a lot of fun, too. Are we already getting nostalgic about the early years of blogging?

Before returning to Pesach, we must give Purim its due. This year was more productive than most on the Purim front, as I returned to work on our community Purim shpiel after a hiatus of several years. All of the clips can be viewed here, but my favorite is our lampoon of the Beit Shemesh elections, and particularly the concluding parody of “House of the Rising Sun.” I also posted a “news” item about controversies within Eastern Orthodoxy in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In honor of the wedding of Dov and Esther Malka Karoll at the beginning of Adar II, a few of us wrote a קרולץ, a series of brief poems to be recited before each of the sheva berakhot. Good times.

Returning to Pesach, the recently-published Peninei Halakha: Laws of Pesah by R. Eliezer Melamed has been getting some good press and some excellent reviews. R. Eli Fink’s comments are here, and other reviews appear here and here. I was interviewed by Nachum Segal about this book as well. We posted a sample chapter (on kitniyot) last year, here. Speaking of kitniyot, my original contribution this year to the Pesach conversation has been a blog post on a theory of the origins of the kitniyot custom. I relate it to the shift to a three-field crop rotation in medieval Germany and northern France. Curious? Read the whole thing here.

Best wishes for a chag kasher ve-same’ach,

My Profile of Joseph Cedar - and More

noreply@blogger.com (Elli Fischer) — Wed, 9 Apr 2014 17:15:00 -0400

The most recent issue of Jewish Action features a large section on English-speaking olim to Israel. It profiles several communities and several olim who have had an impact on broader Israeli society. I was asked to write about being an oleh in Modiin, and was also asked to write two of the personal profiles. One - my profile of Rav Lichtenstein (scroll down)- was published. I also profiled filmmaker Joseph Cedar, but unfortunately the profile was ultimately left out, mainly because he simply does not consider himself an oleh. I really enjoyed my conversation with him, anyway. The editor has permitted me to post my profile of Cedar else here, so here it is:

Filmmaker Joseph Cedar has won awards and acclaim in Israel, Europe, and the United States, and has twice been a finalist for the Best Foreign Film Oscar. Yet the day before the Academy Awards, a Shabbat, he walked several miles to a media event and addressed the crowd from a seat to which a microphone had been affixed beforehand, while his fellow panelists used hand-held microphones. This might make him seem like an American Orthodox dream come true, yet Cedar himself often wonders if the same avenues would have been open to him had his parents not made aliyah in 1973, when he was five. He looks at American Orthodoxy and sees that it has largely given up on attempting this balancing act, either by leaving the religion to assimilate and pursue ambitions, or by withdrawing from the broader cultural and professional world into a more exclusivist religious environment. He credits his sense of balance to his parents and the environment they chose to raise their family: “Their move to Israel meant I grew up with a values system that turned out to be superior to the one I would have adopted had they not made aliyah.”

Cedar does not consider himself an oleh. Aliyah, implies choice, and, as he puts it, “Nobody asked me.” He does not even consider himself American-Israeli, as his social milieu growing up in Jerusalem’s Bayit Vegan neighborhood was almost entirely Hebrew-speaking. As Joseph and his five younger siblings grew up, even his parents’ home became Israeli. Yet American and world culture remained part and parcel of the home. “My parents exposed me to everything,” Joseph recalls, “not just American culture. The soundtrack of our house consisted of Broadway musicals, an American art form, but there were other things as well.”

Though he envisions a primarily Israeli audience when he makes his films, he acknowledges that this exposure, plus the additional years Joseph spent living in the US – as a student at NYU and when his father, a renowned molecular biologist, was on sabbatical – helped him consider a broader audience. His first two films (“Time of Favor”, 2000, and “Campfire”, 2004) explore aspects of the religious Zionist culture in which he was raised. They were acclaimed in Israel, but registered mild interest outside. His third film (“Beaufort”, 2007) examined the futility of Israel’s military presence in Lebanon. It won awards at major international film festivals. “Footnote” (2011), Cedar’s most acclaimed film, to date, is set in Hebrew University’s Talmud department and depicts the petty rivalries, competing theories, and sense of futility that characterize arcane academic disciplines. It won the award for best screenplay at Cannes and, like “Beaufort”, was an Oscar finalist.

Cedar made aliyah young enough to become a full-fledged, unhyphenated Israeli, a home-grown insider, but one who has been enriched by the culture, values, and religious sensibilities of his parents’ home. In this vein, he reminds us that the most profound way that Anglo olim make a difference in Israel is through their children and unborn generations who will be part of the Jewish future in the Jewish state.

A Unified Theory of Kitniyot

noreply@blogger.com (Elli Fischer) — Thu, 3 Apr 2014 08:01:00 -0400

The Ashkenazic custom to refrain from kitniyot developed out of agricultural and climatic conditions and developments that were particular to those communities. It is not the result of some sort of communal neurosis.

That's the gist of the brand-spanking-new theory of kitniyot that I just posted at the Times of Israel.
Enjoy, and please consider sharing that post with all those grumpy Ashkenazim and all those who think this custom is nonsensical.
Hag kasher ve-same'ah.

Perverting the Priesthood

noreply@blogger.com (Elli Fischer) — Mon, 10 Feb 2014 09:36:00 -0500

Some of my early blog posts address the tension - discernible in the biblical text as well as the Talmud's interpretation of that text - between Hana and Eli. It has now taken the form of a full-blown essay, one that will hopefully someday be a chapter in my book that will explore the interaction between Halakha and Aggada in various talmudic passages. A lot of the material got its start on this blog.

This new essay is something of an experiment. I am charging $1 to download the essay. My hope is that the price will offset some of the time I put into writing it. My preference is to write about the things that fascinate and intrigue me, and hopefully this will create some momentum for me to continue to do so without having to tailor my writing to the needs of a particular publication (though I will continue to do that as well).

Please consider spending the dollar. I think you will find it well-spent. Please also do not download and then distribute the essay unless you pay for each copy you send. Thanks - and enjoy!

Perverting the Priesthood by Elli Fischer

Books, Articles, a Commentary Review, and Pesach and Summer Plans

noreply@blogger.com (Elli Fischer) — Thu, 9 Jan 2014 13:53:00 -0500

It has been a while since my last update, but there’s lots to tell. We’ve got books, articles, and travel plans.

Let’s start with the travel plans. If you don’t have Pesach plans yet, please consider joining the Fischers on a riverboat cruise along the Danube River, where Pesha and I will be scholars in residence. In addition to shi’urim on Pesach themes, we will be discussing some fascinating aspects of Austro-Hungarian Jewish history. Check out a list of some of our topics. If you decide to join us, please mention my name in your application. We will also be in the US this summer, for the first time since 2011. If you are interested in bringing one or both of us in as a scholar-in-residence during July or August, please let me know.

I haven’t written a book (yet), but I’ve had a hand in a few that have come out recently. During the summer, Rabbi Benny Lau’s Jeremiah: the Fate of a Prophet appeared, and next week, Rabbi Eliezer Melamed’s Peninei Halakha: Laws of Pesah is scheduled for publication. Both are published by Koren/Maggid, and I edited both volumes. In the case of Rav Melamed’s work, it is the first of a projected 15 (!) volume series. Two volumes on the Laws of Shabbat and two volumes on the Laws of Prayer (one specifically geared toward women; sponsorships are available, so please be in touch if you are interested) will appear in the near future.

A copy of Prof. Moshe Halbertal’s Maimonides: Life and Thought should be arriving in by mailbox any day. I had a small hand in this volume as well, having translated a chapter that originally appeared in Hebrew. I look forward to sinking my teeth into the rest of the volume.

Last but not least, The Iranian Talmud by my brother-in-law Shai Secunda is hot off the press. He and I have collaborated on articles, but this one’s all his (though he graciously mentions me as a “valued interlocutor” in the acknowledgments). We are absolutely thrilled for him!

There have been quite a few opportunities for me to write articles lately, with more on the way. A few months ago, New York’s Jewish Week gave me the opportunity to express some thoughts on Rav Ovadia Yosef upon the occasion of his passing (there has also been some interest in translating R. Benny Lau’s book on R. Ovadia; once again, there are sponsorship opportunities. Contact me if you are interested). More recently, the same publication gratified my penchant for pot-stirring by publishing my article on get-withholding, in which I buck conventional wisdom. The backlash has been milder than expected, at least for now.

The most recent issue of Jewish Action has a section on “out of town” communities. They asked me to write an article on building a college campus community. It’s a short piece, but I managed to make some points while also sneaking in some veiled cynicism.

Most recently, I reviewed Ari Shavit’s My Promised Land for Commentary. It is very exciting for me to be published in such a venerable and well-regarded magazine. Hopefully this is not the last time. The review is paywalled, but one blogger posted a fairly extensive excerpt.

A few articles I translated have appeared as well: some of R. Dr. Avie Walfish’s recently posted material on Mishna Mo’ed and an important article by R. Eliezer Melamed on domestic partnerships and Jewish marriage in Israel. You may have also noticed that the Jordan Valley has been in the news a lot lately, in context of the ongoing negotiations between Israel and the PA. I’ve been helping my sister, Elana Diner, with her blog about life in the Jordan Valley called “(Jordan) Valley Girl.” Check it out!

It’s Tu Bi-Shvat in less than a week. To help you prepare, take a look at an article I wrote last year and a Tu Bi-Shvat “Haggadah” that I compiled a few years ago, which divides the “Seder” by time period.

Enjoy!

Maran zt"l

noreply@blogger.com (Elli Fischer) — Wed, 9 Oct 2013 14:10:00 -0400

If the present torrent of articles and retrospectives about Maran Ovadia Yosef continues for another year, we will still not have anything close to a full picture of the man. They will still be writing about him in a thousand years.

Some of the articles have been excellent. Some less so. Most at least granted that his enduring greatness was in the realm of Torah and halakha, and while they did not ignore his notorious outbursts, they saw it as part of a much greater whole. My own attempt to capture what I can in 800 words will appear in this week's Jewish Week. As an organizing device, I look at three distinct meanings of the term "ga'on" and apply each of them to Maran.

The crush of people at the levaya was suffocating, the eulogizers were barely audible from where I was, cell service in Ge'ulah was not quite ready for half a million people, many of whom were taking pictures, etc. Yet I am glad I could go and I'm glad my son Rafi (9) was able to come with me. It was a lesson in kevod ha-Torah that we may never see the likes of again. That is why I wanted my son to be there with me.

Last I spoke to Rav Benny Lau, we were trying to convince a publisher to commit to a translation of R. Benny's biblio-biography of Rav Ovadia, Mi-Maran ad Maran. The publisher's concern is that there will not be much of an audience in English. I'm considering launching a kickstarter campaign to raise the money for the project. Would you buy the book? Would you contribute to the campaign?

Ironic Orthodoxy and Other Notes on the Pew Study

noreply@blogger.com (Elli Fischer) — Fri, 4 Oct 2013 07:14:00 -0400

Several years ago, I posited the existence of an emerging group that I called "Ironic Orthodox." I characterized this group as being quite comfortable within Orthodoxy, but largely non-ideological, even skeptical of systematic ideologies. Later, I posited that this group tends to welcome non-observant Jews into their communities without judging and without a hidden kiruv agenda. I noted that this could be discerned a little bit among members of my generation (I was born in 1976) but to a greater degree among those who came of age after the turn of the millennium. That is, my wife and I noticed that this type of attitude was more typical of our students than our peers.

I think the data contained in the new Pew study bears this out. This has to be qualified by a caveat. Whereas the overall snapshot of American Judaism is large enough to be statistically meaningful, once we start looking at cross sections like Modern Orthodox Jews between the ages of 30 and 49, the sample sizes become much, much smaller and their predictive value wanes significantly. Only 154 Modern Orthodox Jews (the segment I'm most interested in, for obvious reasons) TOTAL were surveyed, further divided into 4 age cohorts. Unsurprisingly, the largest margins of error pertain to the Orthodox (p. 119 of the study). Some of the results simply scream "small sample size." So I'm taking a lot of these observations with a grain of salt, especially when broken down by age cohort.

If you haven't yet seen Alan Brill's observations on the study, that's the place to start. A good part of his discussion centers on the graph about Orthodox retention rates:

A lot of hay is being made from the increase in retention rates (though some are simply looking at Orthodoxy's 48% retention rate as a static figure). From 22% retention among the Jews of the Silent Generation to 83% among GenY/Z. As the survey (and BZ) notes, it's possible that this doesn't reflect a generational shift but a steady attrition rate from Orthodoxy throughout life. And yet, I find it difficult to believe that 19% of dropouts from Orthodoxy leave after they turn 65.

The more significant data comes from what lies below the top line (and hopefully Pew will give us the tools to drill down even more specifically). Forget about the % of dropouts and look at where they went. Specifically, look at whether they joined another denomination, or became "non" (non-denominational, non-religious, or non-Jewish). Among those age 65+, a solid majority (58%) joined another denomination. 19% went "non." In subsequent generations, you have something of an ebb and flow with regard to becoming "non" - 32% of Boomers, 26% of GenXers, and 16% of Millennials. I can't really explain the spike in conversion out of Judaism amongst ex-Orthodox Boomers or the spike in non-denominational affiliation among ex-Orthodox GenXers (when nobody left Judaism completely, apparently). It's strange and non-linear, and I suspect that it is statistical noise.

When it comes to joining other denominations, though, the decline is linear and consistent. And astounding. From 58% among the Silents to 28% of Boomers to 17% of GenXers to 1% of Millennials. You want to know why the ranks of Conservative Judaism are shrinking, it's because they are no longer picking up Orthodox dropouts in any significant numbers. This passes the eye-test as well. I was a college campus rabbi at the school that gets more day school grads than any other outside of New York. I know plenty of Orthodox dropouts, and very few of them joined other denominations.

Orthodox retention does not necessarily imply greater observance among young Orthodox Jews. Rather, as I speculated in the aforementioned posts, Orthodox Jews who leave observance are remaining, by and large, within the Orthodox orbit. They are the analogue of the Israeli datlashim who, as the saying goes, "want their kids to be ex-Orthodox like them."

We would thus expect that younger Orthodox-raised Jews, though more likely to remain Orthodox, are less religiously observant than their parents. Unfortunately, there were very few specific questions about religious practice, and what we have is not segmented by age and denomination (hopefully they'll publish tools to rectify that), so it is impossible to prove my hypothesis. The closest we get is 17% of Modern Orthodox saying they do not keep a kosher home (that is well beyond "eat fish out" Orthodoxy) and 19% handling money. [While it's a neat theory, I do not accept BZ's contention that this jarring statistic about money on Shabbat is the result of misunderstanding the question, which contained a double negative. 19% of Modern Orthodox answered the question thus, and Modern Orthodoxy is the best-educated segment of the Jewish population according to the survey.]

This increase in Orthodox non-observance is not an anomaly. Outside of the US, Canada, and perhaps Argentina, Orthodoxy is the default expression of Judaism, and a wide spectrum of observance is tolerated and expected. It was the norm in the US as well until the post-WWII migration to suburbia. I believe we are witnessing the beginning of a shift back to an American Orthodoxy that tolerates non-observance. It does not bode well for other denominations.

Some other notes on the study:

Modern Orthodoxy has emerged as an elitist movement. It accounts for 3% of American Judaism, but it is the best-educated and has the highest percentage of high-income earners. Its adherents are most likely to understand that Judaism is BOTH ethnicity AND religion (a more sophisticated and correct understanding of the reality). No group puts more of a premium on ethical life, intellectual curiosity, Israel, or community. In the aggregate, Modern Orthodox espouses more "essentials" of Jewish identity than any other segment, and it is not even that close. It is clear that a multiplicity of emphases and core values is characteristic of Modern Orthodoxy (p. 57). As we know, it is hard to balance so many essential values. So you might expect this segment to be small but high-achieving. This, of course, is a double-edged sword.
There were a few cases where the question and the analysis are incompatible. For example, there was a series of questions to the effect of, "Are you still Jewish if you X?" In the analysis, it was posited as "is being Jewish compatible with X?" These questions only make sense if you presume Judaism to be a religion, not an ethnic/national/cultural identity. Obviously belief in Jesus is incompatible with being Jewish in the religious sense, but one who believes in Jesus can still be a Jew. These questions are thus simply restatements of the question about whether Judaism is a religion or a culture.
Thus, Ultra-Orthodoxy, the segment most likely to view Judaism solely as a religion, deviates from everyone else when it comes to "work on Shabbat" being incompatible with being Jewish. Ultra-Orthodox seem to be most willing to consider someone non-Jewish for a particular belief or practice. Interestingly, Ultra-Orthodoxy has highest % of those who say being critical of Israel is incompatible with being Jewish. (Ultra-Orthodoxy and Reform have a similar % on that question, as do Modern Orthodoxy and Conservative). That said, the two segments of Orthodox Jews are most likely to think that believing Jesus is the Messiah is compatible with being Jewish. So even within Ultra-Orthodoxy you have a significant number who believe that a Jew is a Jew is a Jew (Yisrael af al pi she-chata).
Another confusion exists where a question asks about denominational identification, but the results and analysis speak of affiliation. Identification and affiliation are very different things. As BZ points out, there are lots of people who identify as Reform Jews who do not affiliate with Reform institutions. I would contend that there are also significant numbers of people who affiliate with Orthodox institutions who do not consider themselves Orthodox Jews. In fact, the term Orthodox is an exonym, as internally we talk about "frum" and "Shomer Shabbos." That is, orthodoxy does not view itself as a denomination (and I suspect that some of the non-denominational "just Jews" in the survey are frum). There's a lot more to say about identity vs. affiliation (particularly, I can affiliate without pigeonholing my "identity"). Perhaps another time, when I can convince someone to pay me for writing about it.
Jews of no religion are consistently called secular and cultural Jews. These categories exist, but I think that most of these folk are ethnic Jews. Ethnicity implies both culture and lineage, and is a good descriptor of what many American Jews are.
Time for a fast break of interesting tidbits gleaned from the study:

Only MO truly believes that the Israeli government is making sincere peace overtures.
There are an estimated 5.7 million halakhic Jews in the US, of whom 4.4 million identify as Jewish.
On a related note, there are twice as many out-converts as in-converts. Such is the life of a minority culture.
Among Jews age 50 and under, Orthodox and Conservative are virtually neck and neck in terms of numbers. Among Jews over 50, there are three times as many Conservative Jews as there are Orthodox Jews.
The growth of Orthodoxy is attributable almost entirely to the growth of Ultra-Orthodoxy.
Only 1% of Jews in their 20s are Modern Orthodoxy.That doesn't make sense. Small sample size, I suppose.
More Christians than Conservative Jews believe that God gave Israel to the Jewish people. It's close, though. Reform is not close.
College attendance doesn't significantly correlate with attitudes toward Israel. So much for that myth.
For Modern Orthodox, the most widely accepted essentials of Jewish identity are, in descending order: Ethical life, Israel, Jewish law, Holocaust, community, justice/equality, intellectual curiosity, food, sense of humor.
For Ultra-Orthodox: Jewish law, ethical life, community, Holocaust, food, justice/equality, Israel, humor, intellectual curiosity. The biggest difference is that Ultra Orthodoxy bumps Israel down and bumps food up.
2/3 of Ultra Orthodox say they can converse in Hebrew. Not buying it.
Orthodoxy outpaces others in terms of donations, memberships, Hebrew literacy, education, etc. No surprises there.
In favor of accepting homosexuality: Ultra Orthodox: 20%, Modern Orthodox: 50%, Conservative: 80%. Those numbers work out pretty neatly.
81% of Modern Orthodox Jews attend religious services at least monthly, as opposed to 71% of Ultra Orthodox Jews. That's because, as every frum Jew knows, Ultra Orthodox women tend not to go to shul.
Roughly the same percentage of Modern Orthodox, Ultra Orthodox, and Reform Jews attended non-Jewish religious services last year. But when it comes to Christmas trees, 4% of Orthodox have them, (really?) and 30% of Reform.
More Jews by religion (43%) thnk humor is important than Jews of no religion. Is it possible they were joking?

May a Woman get an Aliyah on Simchat Torah?

noreply@blogger.com (Elli Fischer) — Mon, 23 Sep 2013 19:41:00 -0400

Here is a responsum I wrote on the topic (in Hebrew). I will try to translate it before Simchat Torah.

תשובה בענין עליות לנשים ביום שמחת תורה by Elli Fischer

R. Amital and the Yom Kippur War

noreply@blogger.com (Elli Fischer) — Thu, 12 Sep 2013 09:29:00 -0400

The OU has posted an excerpt of By Faith Alone pertaining to the Yom Kippur War. For some reason, most of the discussion about this war on the occasion of its 40th anniversary will follow the Gregorian date. Perhaps this is for the best, as it will not distract us from the holidays. There is no reason, however, not to contemplate the responses of men like Rav Amital.