Elms in the Yard

Twenty thousand brothers

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 31 Jul 2014 10:32:00 +0000

This song was written by Ariel Horovitz (the son of Naomi Shemer, one of Israel’s best-known and best-loved songwriters) in memory of Nissim Sean Carmeli, a lone soldier from Texas who fell in Gaza during Operation Protective Edge. Fearing that his funeral would be sparsely attended, thousands of people who had not known him answered calls made over social media to attend his funeral, which took place late at night in Haifa.

Twenty thousand people, with you at their head —
twenty thousand people are walking behind you, Sean,
in silence, carrying flowers:
two sisters, twenty thousand brothers.

The soccer fans
who came wearing scarves in the team colors,
and a young woman holding a flag
who doesn’t know why she’s crying so much
when she’d never even known you.

Twenty thousand people...

They came to thank you and to say goodbye,
to say that there’s no such thing as a lone soldier
or a nation that dwells alone
as long as in Texas, Haifa and Gush Etzion
there are people like you.

Twenty thousand people...

May the One who makes peace on high
make peace for us in the autumn
that you will not live to see, Sean,
and that’s why they’ve come here, from elderly to infants,
from Haifa, from Gush Etzion.

Twenty thousand people...

Twenty thousand people, with you at their head —
twenty thousand people are walking behind you, Sean,
silently, carrying flowers:
two sisters, twenty thousand brothers,

Twenty thousand brothers.

Rabbi Akiva and the kaddish: What I wish we'd been taught

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 12 Jun 2014 14:20:00 +0000

Most of us have heard or read the midrash that explains the Jewish custom of saying kaddish on behalf of the departed. (The story, with quite a bit of background, is here. Please read it first, and then come back to this page.)

There are several versions of the story, spanning several centuries. While they have minor variations, they agree on one thing: that since the kaddish has the power to redeem souls from punishment after death — in this case, a punishment that is both terrible and earned — we are obligated to recite it on behalf of our departed loved ones. But I think that the story contains other important messages that deserve a closer look.

When Rabbi Akiva asks the deceased man (whose name is given variously as Ukba and even as Akiva, the rabbi’s own name) why he is being punished so severely, the man confesses that in life, he was a corrupt tax collector who committed serious crimes including theft, rape and murder.

One might imagine a typical response to the man’s confession: “Well then, this is your just punishment. You did the crime; now you must do the time.” A gentler response might be: “I am sorry for your suffering, but it comes from God, and where God has decreed, what can a mortal do?”

But Rabbi Akiva’s response is entirely different. He focuses on one thing only: rescuing the deceased man from his suffering. He appears to forget his confession as soon as he hears it, seeing the deceased man only as a suffering soul in need of rescue. (Perhaps Rabbi Akiva, who famously opposed the death penalty in the Jewish high court, feels that the man has suffered enough, or that his punishment exceeds his crime.) When the man tells him that his only hope of salvation lies with his son — and since he died before his wife gave birth, he does not even know whether he has a son, or any child at all — Rabbi Akiva sets out to find the boy without even knowing whether he exists.

When he finds the boy living shunned and neglected in his father’s village, he takes a father’s responsibility for him. He has the boy circumcised — the townspeople’s rejection of him was so total that they had not bothered to perform even this basic commandment — and begins raising him. (The story does not make it clear whether his mother was still alive. It tells us that the townspeople loathed her as well, but does not tell us why. Was she Bonnie to her husband’s Clyde, or did she suffer from guilt by association?)

Things appear to go well until the rabbi tries to teach the boy Torah. Then he hits a wall. As the story tells us, the boy cannot learn; his heart is closed to Torah.

This is hardly surprising. The boy has been an outcast from infancy, made to pay for crimes committed by the parents he never knew. He has never known love or friendship. Now this stranger has appeared out of the blue with demands and expectations: Be circumcised. Sit up straight. Sit down and study. What does this fellow want from him, anyway? After everything he has been through in his short life, how can he be anything but suspicious?

But then there is a shift. As I imagine it, the rabbi has been preparing the boy’s food day after day and eating with him. One day, something changes: the rabbi continues to prepare the boy’s food, but waits until nightfall to eat. The boy can’t help but notice this, and after several weeks, he finally asks the rabbi what’s going on.

At first (as I imagine it), the rabbi demurs. He does not want to call attention to himself. But as the days go by and the boy keeps insisting, he tells him the truth: “I’m fasting to ask God to help you learn. It is important to me. You are important to me.”

The boy is stunned. No one has ever taken an interest in him before. Never has anyone shown him the least bit of caring, done him even the smallest favor. And now this stranger who appeared in his life out of nowhere is fasting for his sake, every single day, from dawn to dusk. Forty days. Leaving out Shabbat, that’s almost seven weeks.

He realizes that the rabbi’s interest in him is sincere. Rabbi Akiva earns his trust, and his heart opens.

A brief digression. Imagine Albert Einstein (who had learning difficulties as a child; his teachers wrote him off as a lost cause as early as second grade) working out the theory of relativity and receiving the Nobel Prize... and then dropping everything to search in a remote village for a despised and neglected orphan boy, the son of notorious criminals, and teach him how to read and write.

In this story, that’s exactly what Rabbi Akiva does.

Rabbi Akiva knew what it was to be a despised and rejected outsider. The descendant of converts to Judaism, a shepherd by trade, he remained illiterate until he was forty and began studying only in middle age. At first the children laughed to see the big man hunched on the small benches of their classroom, laboriously copying the alphabet onto a slate. But Akiva persevered, working his way up class by class until he became the foremost scholar of his day. Eventually he was so respected that the deans of the academies — the universities of the time — would not make a move without him.

But he never forgot what his earlier life had been like or how the community’s rejection had hurt him. Later on, when he was a respected scholar, he recalled that as a young man he had hated scholars so much that he had wanted to bite their limbs as a donkey bit — hard enough to crush bone.

The story also shows Rabbi Akiva’s exemplary leadership. We can imagine that when he reached the village, he was disappointed, even appalled, by the villagers’ treatment of the boy. But he doesn’t scold or preach. He doesn’t call a meeting in the synagogue and lecture the inhabitants about judging favorably or caring for those less fortunate. He simply lives in their midst and shows by example. Once the boy is under the personal care of the country’s most prominent and revered scholar, the villagers dare not show him anything but respect.

I imagine that their respect is grudging at first. The villagers, who had suffered from the depredations of the boy’s father (and possibly of his mother as well), may even resent the loss of their scapegoat. But “mi-tokh she-lo lishma ba lishma” — doing the right thing for the wrong reason eventually leads to doing it for the right reason. In time, the villagers treat the boy kindly on their own, not just because he has a revered and beloved protector. By the time he stands up in the synagogue to lead the short prayer that frees his father’s soul from its punishment, he is no longer a hated outcast, but a full member of the community.

In my opinion, it is the boy’s acceptance into the community that frees the father’s soul from torment. The prayer he recites, to which the congregation responds, is not the final goal. The final goal is his integration. The prayer in the synagogue is only the proof of it.

One might also interpret the father’s punishment, terrible as it is, as the anguish that he suffered over the legacy he had left his son. Outcasts make outlaws (as happened to Jephthah and King David in early manhood). Once the man had entered the World of Truth, he realized that the victims of his crimes were not the only ones he had harmed. He had also condemned his unborn son to follow in his footsteps as an outcast, outlaw and criminal. That knowledge, unconscious as it may have been (when he met Rabbi Akiva in the cemetery, he did not know whether he had any offspring), caused him terrible suffering, and he could not rest until he had found a way to undo the damage he had done.

But what are we taught about this story? None of the above... only that it is important to say kaddish for our loved ones who have gone before. Yes, it is important, for a host of reasons. Yet I still could wish that the other aspects of this story were taught as well.

Five minutes

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 13 May 2014 21:31:00 +0000

(The core of this story is true, though I have changed some details to protect privacy.)

She was a well-known artist and art critic whose articles were published in a monthly journal. In high demand as a speaker and judge, she traveled frequently to art shows, conferences and competitions all over the world. I was a freelance copy editor employed by the journal she wrote for. Since she wasn’t a native English-speaker, the journal sent me her articles to edit for publication. Over time, we developed a good professional relationship.

One day, when I had been editing her work for several years, she sent me an email. “I’ve written a poem,” she wrote. “It’s in English and I think it’s good, but as you know, English is not my native language. It’s on my website. Would you take a look at it and edit it for publication?”

I asked, “Is your poem for the art journal?”

“No,” she answered. “It’s just for me, until I decide where I want to send it.”

She hadn’t mentioned payment. I sent back an email telling her my rate. She didn’t reply.

She emailed me again a few months later.

“I’ve been invited to judge an art show abroad next month,” she wrote, “and I need to send the organizers a bio. Here it is. Please take a look at it and check it for mistakes.”

She had included her bio in the body of the email. I could tell at a glance that it needed quite a bit of editing, but I was extremely busy with work and didn’t know when I would be able to get to it, and I told her so.

I didn’t tell her how surprising I found her tone. She had written to me almost as if I were her own employee rather than a freelancer for the journal we both worked for.

Later in the week, she sent me another email. “Have you had a chance to look at my bio yet?” she asked.

“I’m still swamped with work,” I answered. “I’m not sure when I’ll have time for it.” My workload was still extremely heavy and my deadlines tighter than usual.

“Just read it over and check it for mistakes,” she wrote back. “I need it in a hurry. It’ll only take you five minutes.”

I reread that line several times to be sure I’d really seen it. Then I took a deep breath.

I wanted to write back: It will probably take me five minutes just to read the text. But all right — let’s assume that in those five minutes, I read it and find all the mistakes. What then? Would you expect me to send the bio back to you with the mistakes pointed out — and nothing more? After all, that’s what you asked me to do: “Just read it over and check it for mistakes.” In five minutes. Right?

Of course not. You would expect me to correct the mistakes and edit the text to accommodate the corrections, and polish it until it was fit for the program of one of the most prestigious art competitions in the world. That is not something that can be tossed off in five minutes. It is serious work. Even for a brief bio, it takes time, and it takes effort.

Yet when you say “It’ll only take you five minutes,” what you’re really saying is that to you, editing is not serious work at all. In fact, what you’re saying — even as you need your bio edited in a hurry, and never mentioned payment or even asked it as a favor — is that to you, editing is worthless.

If you needed to call in a plumber or electrician for a repair and the job turned out to be brief, would you insist on not paying because the work had taken only a few minutes?

But I didn’t write any of that. I took another deep breath, got up and made myself a cup of tea. Then I sat back down at the keyboard and wrote: This is a serious editing job. It requires close reading, concentration and rewriting, and it’s going to take longer than five minutes.

All right then, she wrote back. Forget it. Thanks anyway.

Later on, I realized I could have handled it a bit differently. I could have — should have, actually — told her my editing rate as I had done the previous time, when she asked me to edit her poem. But I hadn’t done that. Chalk it up to being utterly swamped with work. Or maybe I’d hoped that she’d learned the previous time that editing, like any skill, takes time and effort and has value.

More than 60 years later, mystery solved

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 07 May 2014 06:50:00 +0000

In Mount Herzl’s military cemetery was a grave with a tombstone that bore the name “Yisrael Mir,” with little information besides. The man buried in that grave had been killed in the War of Independence, and had lain underneath that name for more than 60 years.

Thanks to the persistence of a local tour guide, the man’s real identity was found last year. He was Ya’akov Maman, a recent immigrant from Morocco.

The story (in Hebrew) is here.

The English version (my translation) is below the jump.

Identity of fallen soldier of 1948 buried as “Yisrael Mir” found: Ya’akov Maman of Fez, Morocco

By Dana Weiss and Matan Hetzroni, Channel Two News

April 30, 2013

The answers have arrived. The man buried on Mount Herzl under the name Yisrael Mir has turned out to be Ya’akov Maman, originally of Fez, Morocco, a soldier of the Israeli army whose burial place had been listed as unknown for more than 60 years.

In recent years, when no documents attesting to the existence of Yisrael Mir were found in the military or state archives, army officials conducted an investigation together with members of Maman’s family.

Yesterday, the family was notified that researchers from the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Israel found that the DNA sample taken from the bones in the grave matched the sample taken from Ami, one of Ya’akov Maman’s siblings. The tests, which proved conclusive just before army officials had been about to send the samples to the United States, reduced by one the number of Israeli soldiers whose burial place is unknown. A new funeral will be held and a new tombstone will be placed upon the grave. Our television program Ulpan Shishi (Friday Studio) reported the story earlier this month.

The process of discovering the true identity of the man buried as Yisrael Mir began eight years ago when tour guide Elyada Bar-Shaul came across the grave by chance. Since then, Bar-Shaul researched, almost obsessively, the story of the unknown soldier who had died in battle in 1948. “I went to the writers and found that we had encountered this name,” he said. “Somebody mentioned that he had been a rank-and-file soldier who had murmured something before he died. Some people said he murmured, in Yiddish or Polish, the number that was on his arm. Others said that he might have been saying ‘Shema Yisrael,’ and that was how he got the name.”

The mystery took root among the tour guides of Mount Herzl. During every tour, they would visit the grave that had turned into a legend. Poems were written about the forgotten Holocaust survivor, and candles were lit to commemorate the man who had survived the destruction in Europe only to die fighting to open the road to Jerusalem. The grave received many visitors who saw themselves as Yisrael’s family, replacing the one that had not survived. But the riddle of Yisrael Mir remained unsolved until a teacher of Israel studies contacted the army’s Department for the Location of Missing Soldiers.

“We went to the army’s archives and opened the file for ‘Mir, Yisrael.’ We saw that the information that was missing on the grave were also missing in the file. We went over the list of all the soldiers in the battalion to see whether he had enlisted,” said Lt. Col. Gabi Elmishali, the head of the Department for the Location of Missing Soldiers. “We went to the Israel State Archives to see whether he had been born here and find his birth certificate. We checked to see whether he had immigrated here. There was no record of the name Mir, Yisrael anywhere. But what we have is his medical record. The physician who examined his body wrote that he had been struck in the abdomen by a shell.”

Until they found the document that had been filled out by the army physician, there had been no record of any man named Yisrael Mir. But one more hint remained hidden among the yellowing pages in the meager file that bore the name. It was a small scrap of paper that bore no date or signature, but only two lines of text that read: “See Maman, Ya’akov, who went missing the same day.”

Ya’akov Maman, born in 1928 in Fez, Morocco, was the seventh of ten children. At the age of 18, he joined the Bnei Yehuda movement and tried to immigrate to Israel. He went on foot to Algiers, where he boarded a clandestine immigration ship. The British captured the ship and sent him to a detention camp in Cyprus. He arrived in Israel just before independence was declared, enlisted immediately in the Palmah and was sent to the Harel Brigade at Ma’aleh ha-Hamisha.

The day after Ya’akov arrived, the brigade headquarters at Ma’aleh ha-Hamisha came under shelling, and he was critically wounded in the abdomen. His family was told that he had died of his wounds and that his burial site was unknown.

Sixty-three years passed. Then, on the eve of Memorial Day two years ago, Ya’akov’s brother Ami came across an article about the Department of Missing Soldiers’s successes in locating the burial sites of soldiers who had fallen in the War of Independence. Ami and his wife Tzippora wrote to the department, asking for its help in locating Ya’akov’s remains and bringing them to proper burial. They did not know that their letter had arrived only two days before department officials were to examine the link between Yisrael Mir and Ya’akov Maman.

“We can see that the Harel Brigade was very precise in its reports, since it listed exactly who had been wounded, and who had been critically wounded, that day. The one who had been critically wounded that day was Ya’akov Maman,” said Lt. Col. Elmishali. This contradicted the official account the family had been given: that Ya’akov Maman had been buried on the battlefield where he had died. It also led the researchers to another document stating that Maman had been taken to Hadassah Hospital — the same hospital where Yisrael Mir had been pronounced dead a day later from the same wound, sustained in the same battle. The more deeply the investigation went, the stronger grew the feeling that the riddle could have been solved long ago.

Although Ami lived long enough to give a DNA blood sample, he died before the bureaucratic obstacles to opening the grave and sending bone samples to the laboratory had been surmounted. But before he died, he lit a memorial torch at Kibbutz Ma’aleh ha-Hamisha, where they had not waited for the test results and had already replaced the name Yisrael Mir with that of Ya’akov Maman on the monument to the fallen.

”Meir Yisrael was the rabbi of the Jewish community of Fez. I reached the conclusion that when the doctor asked Ya’akov for his name, Ya’akov answered a different question: whom to notify in Fez. And it’s logical that it would have been Rabbi Meir Yisrael,” said Tzippora, widow of Ami, who was the brother of Ya’akov Maman.

Barukh dayyan ha-emet

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 24 Mar 2014 00:14:00 +0000

Dr. Nechama Ben-Eliahu, 1935–2014.

Activist, marine biologist, researcher, musician,

long-time board member of the Jerusalem Biblical Zoo,

Worthy Citizen of Jerusalem...

... and dear and beloved friend.

Here is Nechama’s obituary from In Jerusalem, the local supplement of the Jerusalem Post:

The women's Megilla reading at the First Station

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 17 Mar 2014 18:29:00 +0000

This morning, I went to the women’s Megillah reading at The First Station in southern Jerusalem. It was great. The readers were amazing, and the audience was far larger than the organizers had anticipated. They asked for more chairs, which were provided, and even so, more people kept arriving. Some sat on the floor, others stood, and everybody listened.

Shortly after I arrived, a table was brought and the Scroll of Esther prepared for reading.

The reading began...

... and the audience listened and followed along.

People followed the reading closely, as is customary. One woman used a booklet with the text:

Another used what looked like a text used in schools:

Several people brought kosher scrolls of their own.

Some used technology to follow the reading.

Parents and children followed the reading together.

Lots of people were in costume. Here’s a farmer with a penchant for photography:

This young man is wearing a frankfurter on his head.

An elephant in the room:

A sweet little tiger:

The sound was heavenly, even though the guy in charge was a bit of a devil. Maybe he just needed a cup of coffee....

After the reading, I caught a bus home. Like all the buses around the country, it wished us all a happy Purim:

More thoughts on Purim

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 13 Mar 2014 09:47:00 +0000

As Purim approaches, I think about how Esther risked her life to save the Jewish people. I also think about how, although she succeeded and survived, she lived out the rest of her life trapped in a marriage she had never sought and could not leave.

I think of the other women forced to “audition” for the position of Ahasuerus's queen. They, too, were trapped and imprisoned: even after the king rejected them, they were not free to leave the palace and go back to their former lives. They were stuck in the harem for the rest of their days.

I think of Vashti, too.

Yes, I know the awful stories about Vashti in the midrash. I didn't believe them when I first read them, and I don't believe them now. Maybe Vashti really was a vain, horrible woman who abused her high position and her servants. Maybe she was a good and decent queen. Or maybe, like the hundreds of other women in the harem, she was trying to survive the intrigues rampant there only to be manipulated into a situation where she was damned if she did and damned if she didn't. What would have happened to her if she had obeyed her husband's order and appeared before the men at his drunk-fest? Might not Ahasuerus, that champion of logic and consistency, have taken her to task once he sobered up, and perhaps even deposed her, for having compromised the royal dignity by obeying him?

The text doesn't tell us one way or the other. All we know about Vashti from the text is that she refused to obey the king's order to appear before him and his drunken buddies so he could brag to them about how hot she was — and that she was deposed for it.

The poet and writer Frances E. W. Harper (1825–1911) also thought of Vashti. Here is a link to “Vashti,” the poem she wrote about the deposed queen.

Here is a link to information about Harper herself.

A vet visit in the Hebrew month of Adar

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 04 Feb 2014 20:31:00 +0000

So I’m at the vet’s, and he’s giving my cat his annual exam. Weighing, shots, a look at his teeth, the works. Then he starts petting my cat. At first he’s all smiles, but then he gets all quiet.

A moment later, I realize why. There’s no purr. Just... click. Click. Click.

The vet turns to me with a serious expression. “Over-petting,” he says, shaking his head. “You’ve been over-petting your cat, haven’t you? How long has it been since you heard him purr?”

My mouth drops open. Yes, it’s been a few days, come to think of it... and I’d been wondering where those odd-sounding clicks were coming from. “Over-petting?” I ask. “There’s such a thing?”

My vet sighs, as if this is the twentieth time he’s had to explain it that morning. “You’ve petted your cat so much his purr-box has gone out of alignment. I’m going to have to realign it.” He signals to the tech, who holds my cat gently in place, and gets to work. A second later, he’s petting my cat again, and a rich, deep purr fills the air.

He hands me a small bottle of oil. “Three drops every morning,” he tells me. “Let the cat lick them off your finger. Then you can pet him as much as you like. But he’s got to have the oil every day. Oh, and five drops if you’re planning on giving him tummy rubs.”

We settle up the bill, and that concludes my visit to the vet in Adar... the Jewish month of narrischkeit, nonsense and silly stories.

Art, education and a long life

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 12 Jan 2014 10:18:00 +0000

In the summer of 1985, artist and educator Temima Gezari returned to Cejwin Camps to restore the mural she had painted there in 1935.

The video of the mural’s rededication in 1985 was filmed by Jeff Young. In my opinion, it is worth watching even for people who never went to Cejwin — it is a snapshot of American Jewish history of the time.

Watch and listen to Temima Gezari and be amazed. This incredible lady was climbing on ladders and doing painting and restoration work at the age of 79! (She went on to live for 24 more years, dying on March 5, 2009, aged 104.)

When Cejwin Camps closed in the 1990s, Temima's mural was moved to the Yemin Orde Youth Village in Israel, where it remains today after having survived the Carmel fire of 2010.

Talk about a long, productive and full life. How many artists get to restore art that they created half a century earlier?

Here is Temima Gezari’s article at Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia. Here is her Wikipedia entry.

When bad behavior is kosher

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 08:55:00 +0000

(This post originally ran on January 12, 2005.)

“What you’re doing is a sin! If you read the Torah here, God will never forgive you!” The woman’s soft European accent contrasted with the stridency of her tone as she leaned closer to us and added, “When you stand before God eventually and seek forgiveness for your deeds on earth, He will not grant it. Do you understand what I am saying? He will not forgive you!”

I asked her, with a trace of humor, “Are you God, then?”

“Yes!” she shot back, carried away by her own momentum. Catching herself, she tried to amend her answer, but I turned away, not knowing whether to giggle or sigh. I had heard enough.

Jewish tradition speaks of a merciful, compassionate God Who is close to us all our lives and especially near in time of trouble. Yet as the woman in the dark snood continued her warnings of terrible divine punishment I sadly realized that she was describing God as no better than the most vindictive of human beings. And as she and the others continued to shout at us, I also reflected that people who would ordinarily never dream of indulging in bad behavior find it all too easy to do so where women—particularly women who do not stay in their place—are concerned.

My prayer group, Women of the Wall, has been holding women-only prayer services in the women’s section of the Western Wall every Rosh Hodeshthe start of the Hebrew monthsince December 1988. Contrary to an oft-cited misconception, we are not members of the Reform movement. (I confess that charge has always stumped me. Why on earth would the Reform movement, which holds mixed prayer services as a matter of course, need to promote women-only ones?) Nor do we pray as a minyan (a quorum of ten men). We define ourselves as a women’s tefilla [prayer] group, of which there are dozens in Israel and throughout the world, and modify our prayer service accordingly. (A number of such groups have rabbinical support and meet in established Orthodox synagogues.) Contrary to what our opponents would like to believe, the majority of our core members are religiously observantin fact, the group was founded in large part by an Orthodox woman from Brooklyn.

In 2004, Women of the Wall held two prayer services that included a Torah reading in the women’s section of the Western Wall. In contrast to the group’s tumultuous beginnings, these services were completely calm and peaceful. I remember how some of us wept with joy, feeling that our long journey was finally over, that after nearly fifteen years of struggle women could finally pray as a group and read the Torah freely and without disturbance at our holiest accessible site. But at the end of our service a womana respected teacher in her communityapproached us to express her pain and sorrow over our Torah reading. I felt confused. How could a person who considered herself religious feel pain over Jewish women reading from the Torah? And what, I wondered, did this teacher feel about the pain of women who, for centuries, had been denied the opportunity to learn their own scriptures?

Yet, saddened as I was by her attitude, I had to admit that at least this woman had behaved with civility and courtesy. Many others who have disagreed with us over the years do not feel bound by manners at all, to say nothing of the very religious law and tradition they claim to champion.

In June 2004, as we arrived at the women’s section of the Western Wall to begin the morning service, a long-time opponent of our group approached us. Carrying printed sheets of text in her hand, she tried to persuade us to study the laws of minhag ma-makom [local custom] with her instead of worshipping. When we refused she tried to steal our Torah scroll, which was a gift to us from Jewish women abroad.

In December 1988, opponents of Women of the Wall physically threw the Torah scroll the women had brought with them. A member of the group who was pregnant at the time caught the scroll on her abdomen rather than allow it to be desecrated by falling. Perhaps our opponents believed that a Torah scroll in women’s possession is not truly a Torah scroll and therefore unworthy of the great respect normally accorded such a sacred object. Perhaps this opponent of ours held a similar opinion regarding the theft she was attempting to commit.

If our opponent’s respect for the Torah scroll was lacking, so was her respect for her fellow human beings. As we defended our Torah scroll, she kept shoving one of our members, who was carrying her infant son, even as the young mother begged her to stop for the baby’s sake. Our opponent, who surely regards herself as a devoutly religious woman, ignored the pleas of my colleague, who finally sent the baby away with one of her older children for his own safety.

This woman then began to incite other women present at the Wall, who bombarded us with shouts and taunts. One woman tapped her hand to her lips over and over, hooting in the same way that my classmates and I used to imitate “Indians” when we were small. At one point a red-bearded man stood on a chair in front of usin the women’s section!and worked himself up into an inarticulate, hysterical harangue that went on for several minutes. Meanwhile, our opponent retired to a protected spotaway from the rioters she had incited as well as any police who might arrest themto survey her handiwork from a distance.

We realized right away that the disturbance was a calculated move on our opponent’s part or on the part of whoever had sent her. A governmental delay in carrying out a ruling by Israel’s High Court of Justice had temporarily enabled our group to read from a Torah scroll legally in the women’s section of the Western Wall. The two peaceful Torah readings we subsequently held there must have worried our opponent, or those who had sent her, so much that she came all the way from the coastal city where she livesapproximately two hours from Jerusalem by carto create a disturbance rather than allow us to hold a third one.

As we continued to pray, one of the rioting women slapped one of our members across the face. Another threw a stone. As they shouted and chanted childish slogans, at one point dragging chairs along the ground to drown out the sound of our praying (did they think they would be able to keep God from hearing us?), I couldn’t help imagining a classroom full of unruly first-graders. Apparently the women our opponent incited have no tools beyond that level to deal with ideas different from their ownand besides, the looks on their faces showed how much they were enjoying letting their hair down, so to speak.

It was probably the most fun they’d had in years.

* * * *

Some time ago a local columnist published an article about Women of the Wall, filled with the usual prejudice we’ve sadly come to expect from our opponents. In it, he referred to us as “media darlings.” I found this ironic since most of the time the Israeli media, who have no idea who we are or what we’re about, are usually anything but sympathetic. For example, some time after the disturbance our opponent incited, the Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv ran an article describing her as “defender of the simple women,” implying that she had protected the innocent women worshippers at the Western Wall from a bunch of deviously clever interlopers seeking to impose their foreign ways. But the truth is that she did not defend those women at all. On the contrary: she used them. These “simple women” still hold the mistaken belief that Jewish women may not touch a Torah scroll. This highly educated woman, who knows perfectly well that this is not accurate, did not bother to disabuse them. Instead, she exploited their lack of knowledge for her ownor perhaps others’reasons.

But what really confused me was the columnist’s description of how members of Women of the Wall supposedly stood behind the fence at the rear of the men’s section and shouted the morning prayers at the top of their lungs, with the specific intention of disturbing the men. I was there that day, and we did no such thing. Unlike our opponents, we respect all worshippers at the Western Wall, and we would never engage in such atrocious behavior. Why would the columnist write such a thing, then?

I would like to believe that he thought he was telling the truth, that perhaps he encountered a particularly ill-mannered group that day and chose to believe, based on his own prejudices and failure to check his facts, that it was Women of the Wall. Though I would rather believe that than the alternativethat he slandered us for his own purposesI have difficulty doing so.

Here’s why. Several years ago this columnist founded a group to oppose Women of the Wall. This group sponsored a short film supposedly showing how dangerous our group is to Jewish tradition. I watched this film and was shocked at the lengths to which it went to portray us negatively. At one point it focused on a woman with an unusual hairstyle whom I have never seen with our group. The intended message was, plainly, “Look at the kind of freaks this group attracts. Do you want weirdos like this praying next to you at the Kotel?” At another point the film used misleading editing to give the impression that members of our group wear tefillin at the Western Wall. (The film’s intended audience cannot abide the idea of women wearing tefillin anywhere, and they would certainly be infuriated to see women wearing them at the Western Wall.) Yet we have never worn tefillin there as a group; when we meet at the Western Wall for prayers, those of us who have taken on the mitzvah of tefillin fulfill it elsewhere. But the film did not see fit to make this distinction. It had an agenda to promote, so the facts didn’t matter.

More recently, another opponent of our group wrote a predictably scurrilous attack on us, but from a new angle. Since high-level Jewish study is now available to women (and halakhic sources are readily available on the Internet), these days our opponents are more cautious about asserting that what we do is a violation of Jewish law. Now they say that although our actions may be technically permitted, our motives are impure. This article went even farther, asserting that our group is, knowingly or not, an arm of various movements inimical to traditional Judaism and that the sincere Jews in our group are being manipulated by sinister anti-Jewish forces.

(Well, at least the author admitted that members of Women of the Wall can be sincere Jews. That’s a first.)

As a friend of mine once observed wryly: “If you don’t have facts, there’s always innuendo.” To which I would add: If you don’t have facts, you can always make some up to suit your purpose. As far as I know, none of these columnists has ever bothered to contact a single one of us, yet they claim to have intimate knowledge of our motives. So where are they getting their information from?

* * * *

Our opponent did not come to our next prayer service. For various reasons beyond the scope of this piece, she didn’t know where or when we would be meeting. (For a time, neither did we.) Learning that a filmmaker had captured her bad behavior on camera probably put a damper on her enthusiasm as well. Shortly before our next service, she called one of our members to apologize for that behaviorand in the same phone call asked that all her appearances be edited out of the film.

During our service I rejoiced in the quiet around us, unbroken by any disturbance. Then I noticed a woman regarding us with a sour expression. She listened as one of our members gave a talk on the weekly Torah portion and then approached another member, muttering, “She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

“You can speak here too if you have something pertinent to say,” my colleague offered. “Just bear in mind that everything this woman is saying has a basis in Jewish sources.”

“That doesn’t matter,” the woman said. “I don’t like it.”

And there it is. It doesn’t matter that Jewish law allows women to pray as a group and read from a Torah scroll. It makes no difference that the learned ones among usand in dozens of women’s tefilla groups throughout the worldcan cite chapter and verse to prove it. Some people would simply rather not be bothered with the facts. They don’t like what we’re doing; it makes them feel uncomfortableand so they believe that this gives them the right to behave in ways that would earn them censure and perhaps even arrest under almost any other circumstances.

I don’t like it. My grandmother never felt the need to do that. (Oh, really? Did you ever ask her? I think you might be surprised.) It’s unfamiliar to me. It makes me feel uncomfortable. Therefore I may steal, shove, shout, slap, stone and slander. Love my neighbor? Judge my fellow human being favorably? Tell the truth? Pursue justice? Only when I agree with you; not otherwise.

This is the attitude of people who claim to be defending Jewish tradition.

It would be funny if it weren’t so sad.

Put on the brakes

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 09:20:00 +0000

I posted the following on the Facebook page of Women for the Wall.

* * *

W4W leaders and members, please listen.

Communicating over the Internet is like taking a joyride in a powerful automobile. The ability to reach hundreds, even thousands, of people with just a few keystrokes and clicks can be compared to the surge of power under the hood and the freedom of the road. They can be delightful. They can also be addicting, and they can, and often do, cloud judgment.

The rhetoric on this page is becoming increasingly vicious and full of hate. Likening WOW to Amalek, saying that their motive is to destroy Judaism, wishing a divinely-administered death on WOW’s members — this is inflammatory speech, and to allow it on this page, in the name of protecting Judaism, is irresponsible, to say the least.

I would like to believe that the admins of this page simply don't realize how dangerous this rhetoric is. The alternative — that they realize it and are letting it happen — is far worse.

Please. Step back. Think. W4W leaders, please take a good look at the rhetoric on this page and consider whether this is the kind of speech you want representing you and your cause.

I ask you with all my heart: show leadership. Take control, take responsibility, put on the brakes. Because joyrides like this can land people in the hospital — or, God forbid, in the morgue.

* * *

End quote.

W4W names Rebbetzin Tziporah Heller, Rebbetzin Baila Berger of the Ahavat Yisrael Project, Rabbanit Melamed of Yeshivat Beit El and Sarah Yoheved Rigler as supporters of their cause, specifically of the gathering they are planning at the Western Wall this coming Rosh Hodesh (Sunday morning). Other W4W supporters include Jonathan Rosenblum and Rabbi Avi Shafran.

I don’t know any of them personally or whether any of them is on Facebook. But I want to believe that however much they may dislike the idea of women wearing tallit and tefillin (which Jewish law allows), however much they may disagree with Women of the Wall, they would never condone the vicious and inflammatory rhetoric that is on W4W’s page.

I’m not allowing comments to this post, and I’m sure I don’t need to explain why.

A show of force

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 11 May 2013 19:45:00 +0000

I wasn’t at the Western Wall on Friday morning, but from the photos I have seen so far and everything I’ve read about the incident before and after, I believe that the W4W’s intention was to organize not a prayer rally, but a show of force.

I believe that the organizers knew perfectly well that there would be violence. (If they claim they did not, they are being naive at best.) And yet they insisted on bringing out the seminary girls to block the women’s section of the Kotel. I believe they put those young girls in harm’s way.

If I were a parent of one of those seminary girls, after seeing the photos of the incident yesterday morning, I would be giving the W4W organizers a piece of my mind. And I would keep my daughter home from the next one.

As for calling such a gathering a prayer rally for Jewish unity, I have only one word for that:

Orwell.

(Here are some photos from last Friday morning at the Western Wall. Pay particular attention to the last few.)

Hissing the difference

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 09 May 2013 12:34:00 +0000

A frying pan is heated red-hot as part of the kashering process

One Shabbat many years ago, I was walking through the Haredi neighborhood of Geula on my way home from a meal. As I crossed a street, the sound of a hiss suddenly pierced the afternoon quiet.

Startled, I turned to see where the hiss was coming from. There was no one in the immediate area except myself and a teenage girl with a baby carriage. As I stood there, uncertain whether to approach, the girl glared at me and hissed again. Perplexed by her hostile behavior, I walked on.

A similar incident happened some years later. There’s a place in Geula where people can take their kitchen utensils to be kashered — made fit for use in a kosher kitchen — every Friday. When a friend of mine relocated a few years ago, she gave me some high-quality pots and pans as a parting gift. I took them there for kashering one hot Friday morning and watched the process, which took some time and was fascinating.

When the work was finished and it was time to go, I turned to the young woman on line next to me and said, “Shabbat shalom.” She didn’t seem to hear me, so I smiled and said it again. She frowned at me and turned away.

That seemed to be a replay of the hissing incident from years before, and again, I was perplexed. I hadn’t broken any of the rules. In the first incident, I’d been dressed modestly, and in the second, I’d come there on a hot Friday morning to have my kitchen utensils kashered. I’d never met either girl before in my life. So why did they behave toward me with such hostility?

Eventually, I figured it out. I had broken a rule — the most important rule of all. I wasn’t a member of their tribe. Although I’m Jewish and observant, I wasn’t one of them. I was an outsider, a foreigner. A threat.

As far as these girls were concerned — said their behavior — I did not belong in their neighborhood, not even if I went there for a reason connected with strict Jewish observance. It didn’t matter how much of my body I covered or how many kitchen utensils I brought to be boiled or blow-torched. I was committing the worst crime of all. I was different.

In a letter to the editor of the New York Times, the well-known psychologist and author Dr. Phyllis Chesler wrote: “Often, envy of a girl’s beauty or brains, but just as often, the slightest difference (whether someone is new, an immigrant from another country, or school) will be seized upon by a female clique and treated as a high crime, an opportunity to tribally bond with one another — and as permission to torment the chosen outsider” (emphasis mine). Dr. Chesler’s statement seems to apply in both instances I’ve just described.

Her statement also seems to apply to the recent controversy over Women of the Wall. It seems that to some of WOW’s opponents, if a woman wears a tallit and tefillin when she prays, if she reads from a Torah scroll as part of the service, if she doesn’t accept restrictions on female behavior that aren’t even part of religious law, then it doesn’t matter matter how learned, sincere or devout she may be. She’s an outsider. She’s different. She’s a threat.

In these politically-correct times, it’s not acceptable to admit to feeling hostility toward a person or group just because they’re different. So the opponents need a more compelling reason: they have to make the different person or group into the enemy.

These women are not harmless, WOW’s opponents say. Their motives are ulterior, impure. They’re too political. They have an agenda. They care about publicity, not prayer. They look down on us. They want to take something valuable away from us. And because they are a threat to Judaism, we’re exempt from the commandment to judge them favorably.

It appears that the current opposition to WOW is being led by women who want to create positive change in the Haredi community from within. But in conservative communities, change — indeed, anything less than full conformity — is seen as threatening and carries negative social consequences. Also, such communities often see women who join them later in life as “less than,” if not as downright suspect, because of the foreign, “impure” ideas and influences they were exposed to earlier in their lives. So what better way for women in this situation, who want to work for change or who don’t conform entirely, to show their bona-fides than to bash a common enemy — in this case, the nasty feminists?

What I’ve written above may seem extreme to some. But unfortunately, it’s what I see among some of WOW’s current opponents... and it’s nothing new in the Jewish world. Consider the case of the hasidim against the mitnagdim, with mutual accusations and excommunications that went on for centuries.

Consider also the case of Sarah Schenirer. Seeing the rising rate of assimilation among young Jewish women in Poland, this Jewish seamstress from Cracow founded a kindergarten for girls in 1917 that grew into the Bais Ya’akov educational movement. Schenirer’s idea to found Jewish schools for girls was so radical for her time that she was almost put into herem — the most severe sanction the Jewish community can impose — for her work. Even after her schools received approval from religious authorities, some parents still forbade their daughters from playing with girls who attended them.

Today, most religious Jews regard Sarah Schenirer as a heroine.

“Every truth passes through three stages before it is recognized,” goes the quote attributed to Schopenhauer. “In the first it is ridiculed, in the second it is opposed, in the third it is regarded as self-evident.” I take comfort in that sentence, no matter who wrote it. I look forward to the day when women’s prayer groups, whether affiliated with WOW or not, routinely hold prayer services, with tallit and a sefer Torah, in the women’s section of the Western Wall with as much fanfare as daily afternoon prayers at the local synagogue. I hope that by then, the idea that anyone ever opposed such services will seem a historical curiosity, as odd and distant as the fact that women in Western countries were once denied the right to vote.

Some recent photos

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 19:24:00 +0000

It’s raining. Unseasonable rain, I guess, but I’m not complaining, since the long, hot summer is around the corner. If this is the rain’s last hurrah until late fall, then, as Shakespeare famously said, let it come down.

In the meantime, here are a few photos.

Woodpeckers are camera-shy, so I was pretty happy to get this shot:

Woodpecker yoga?

More photos after the jump.

This moth landed upside-down in two different places.

The view from Ramot:

A local synagogue dressed up for Independence Day:

Ms. Sunbird:

Goin’ my way?

Two juvenile sunbirds:

One of the young sunbirds:

Mr. Parakeet eats an olive:

Guest Post: Irena Sendler and Life in a Jar

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 18:56:00 +0000

Although Holocaust Remembrance Day has passed this year, some memorial projects continue to run year-round. One such project is Life in a Jar, which commemorates the courage of a Polish woman who has become known as the “female Oskar Schindler.”

Irena Sendler (1910–2008) was a young Polish social worker when the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939. She helped Jews who were trying to evade the Nazis to find hiding places. Together with a group of friends she joined the Zegota, an underground organization dedicated to helping the Jews. When the Warsaw ghetto was created in 1940, she obtained false papers that identified her as a nurse so that she would be able to enter the ghetto as a “health worker.”

Sendler brought food and medications into the ghetto and managed to smuggle children out when she left each day. The children were often drugged and stuffed into suitcases, bags, toolboxes and even coffins. Together with other Zegota members, Sendler identified sewer pipes and underground passages that she could use to bring the children out of the ghetto. While most of the children were orphans, many of them had living parents. Sendler “talked the mothers out of their children,” convincing the parents that their children would be able to survive only if they left the ghetto.

Sendler recorded all of the names of the children that she rescued on tissue paper, together with their hiding places – convents, orphanages and with individual Polish families. She put the papers into jars and buried the jars in her friend’s garden. Sendler hoped that after the war, she would be able to reunite the children with their families or, at the very least, with the Jewish community.

In 1943, Sendler was captured by the Nazis. Imprisoned, tortured and sentenced to death, she never revealed any information about “her” children. Zegota comrades succeeded in securing her release and she lived out the rest of the war in hiding. Sendler, together with her comrades in the Polish underground, rescued about 2,500 Jewish children.

The story of Irena Sendler would have been lost to history had it not been for a few high school students from Kansas who, together with the LMC and funding from a Jewish education reformer, launched an awareness campaign of Irena’s story.

For Passover: Song of the Four Brothers by Naomi Shemer

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 16 Mar 2013 20:37:00 +0000

I first heard this song many years ago and loved it. It’s a whimsical take by Naomi Shemer (1930–2004), one of Israel’s leading songwriters, on the famous parable of the Four Sons in the Passover Haggadah.

But first, a little background. The four sons are mentioned in the Haggadah – the book of study, prayer and praise that we recite every year at the Passover seder. Here’s the text, in my translation:

The Torah refers to four sons: One wise, one wicked, one mild and one who does not know how to ask a question. What does the wise son say? “What are the testimonials, statutes and laws that the Lord our God commanded you?” You should teach him about the laws of Passover, [everything including the rule] that one may eat nothing for the rest of the night after eating the afikoman [the Passover offering].

What does the wicked son say? “What does all this work mean to you?” To you, he says, and not to him. By excluding himself from the community, he has denied a basic principle of Judaism. You should give him a sharp retort: “It is because of what God did for me when I left Egypt.” For me, you should say, and not for him; had he been there, he would not have been redeemed.

What does the mild son say? “What is this?” You should answer him: “With a strong hand God took me out of Egypt, from the house of servitude.”

As for the one who does not know how to ask, you should begin the discussion [by telling him the story], as the Torah says: “And you shall tell your child on that day, saying: ‘It is because of what God did for me when I left Egypt.’”

An enormous amount of commentary has been written about these four sons. Some say they are types of people – for example, mature, cynical (or alienated), passive, and lacking in Jewish background. Others say they are aspects of our own selves. Still others say that the text is not about the sons themselves, but about how to teach: different students require different techniques. There are dozens of interpretations out there, and they’re still being written.

But that’s for another discussion. In the song by Naomi Shemer, the four sons are four brothers who go out of the Haggadah to seek their fortune – in this case, wives. Each one finds a wife who matches his own character, and at the end, there’s a sweet surprise.

Song of the Four Brothers
by Naomi Shemer

On a bright and lovely day,
Out of the Haggadah
Came the wise son, the mild son and the terribly wicked son,
And the one who knew not how to ask.

And when the four brothers
Set out on the road
Right away, from all directions
Came flowers and blessings.

The wise son met a wise woman.
The mild son loved a mild woman.
And the wicked son got, for a wife,
A woman who was horribly wicked.

And the one who knew not how to ask
Found the loveliest woman of all.
He put his hand in hers
And went back with her into the Haggadah.

Where did fate lead
Each of the four brothers?
In this song of ours, my friends,
One mustn’t ask too many questions!

The Hebrew lyrics can be found here.

Catch my guest post at A Mother in Israel

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 10:34:00 +0000

A while back, A Mother in Israel asked me to write a guest post for her blog about conditions for women at the Western Wall.

I did, and now the post is up. Thank you, Mom in Israel!

Herman Wouk and the locusts

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 10:26:00 +0000

A long time ago, I read Herman Wouk’s book This Is My God, an explanation of Jewish thought and practice written more than half a century ago, but still relevant today. When the locusts arrived recently in the south of Israel, the following paragraph from Wouk’s book, in the section containing notes at the back, surfaced in my memory:

On the eating of insects, the Bible law specifically permits grasshoppers of a certain variety. The grasshopper was widely eaten in the ancient Near East, and it still is. The locusts devour the crops; all the protein and carbohydrate are in them; the people recover their food supply by roasting or pickling the creatures and eating them. A brilliant short novel by David Garnett, The Grasshoppers Come, is built on the edibility of the locust. In Jewish common law the exact definition of the edible varieties of grasshopper became obscure, and so these insects passed under the general ban. But in some settlements of the Near East the knowledge of the distinguishing marks of the edible locust survives. I recently heard of a Yemenite medical student in a United States university, devoutly orthodox, who attended a laboratory class where locusts were being dissected. He told the instructor, a Jewish biologist, that the creatures were of an edible variety; and he pointed to a distinguishing mark, the Hebrew letter hes [het in modern Israeli pronunciation – RSJ] clearly marked on the insect’s abdomen. He proceeded to prove that they were edible and kosher (as least so far as he was concerned) by eating a few. I asked a rabbinic authority whether this conduct was acceptable. Perfectly, the answer was; based on the Talmud rule, “He has a continuous tradition from his fathers.” I gather that if I caught a grasshopper with a hes on its abdomen it would not be an available morsel for me, since I have no such tradition. I submit to this deprivation with fortitude.

Don’t you just love that last sentence? I do. For me, the above paragraph is a distillation of the clarity, depth and humor of Wouk’s book. I think I’ll read it again.

Found a grave

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 06:11:00 +0000

My guest post, The Lost (and Found) Grave of Joan Winters, is up at Robert Avrech’s excellent blog, Seraphic Secret. Thank you, Robert, for allowing me to post on your blog!

Some recent photos

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 22 Dec 2012 18:24:00 +0000

Here are some recent photos from some of my forays around and about:

Palm trees at twilight:

Drama in the sky:

Spidey on her web:

More photos after the jump.

Somewhere in the city, a soldier is home on weekend leave:

Oranges on the tree:

Myrtle berries:

A water meter in the rain (does it measure the rain, too?):

Clouds over Jerusalem:

Letters, bolts and shadows: the sign at the new Kaffit café:

The refurbished windmill at Mishkenot Sha’ananim:

Branches and the moon:

And we can’t end without a cat photo. A study in creamy orange and white:

Holidays in Tzfat

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 22 Dec 2012 17:58:00 +0000

For my readers, here’s a guest post about the city of Safed (in Hebrew, Tzfat). When I was there long ago, I took photos in non-digital format that I hope to scan and share online soon.

A story from Tzfat that I heard long ago from the person it happened to follows the next section.

* * *

The ancient, mystical city of Tzfat – in English, Safed – holds a great deal of fascination with its narrow alleyways, ancient synagogues and stone houses with blue-painted doors and gates. Although most Israelis perceive Tzfat as a religious city, more and more secular Israelis are choosing to go there for day trips, Shabbat or holiday experiences and special events.

During the recent holiday seasons – Sukkot and Hanukkah – more Israeli tourists expressed interest in visiting Tzfat. Thousands of people came to the city, either as part of organized groups or on their own, to see the traditional holiday customs as practiced by the various communities there. The visitors were fascinated by Jewish traditions that they had heard about but don’t generally observe, or observe to different degrees, in Tel Aviv, Haifa or even Jerusalem. While Orthodox communities exist in all of these areas, in Tzfat people can see these traditions up close as they walk along the narrow streets of the Old Jewish Quarter.

Although reasons vary for Tzfat’s new popularity among non-observant Israelis, one oft-cited explanation is the openness and accessibility of Tzfat’s residents. The inhabitants of the Old City are generally a friendly and talkative group. Many will go out of their way to greet a family or tour group as they walk along the street. It's not unusual to see secular Israelis engaged in intense dialogue with outwardly religious Tzfat residents as they discuss the practices and beliefs of Orthodox Judaism in an open atmosphere of mutual interest and respectful communication.

Many Tzfat residents open their homes to visitors as well, allowing the tourists to make a personal connection with a local family. While local organizations and tour groups advertise Sukkot tours or Hanukkah candlelighting tours that offer a broad historical and educational view of the city’s customs, the highlights of these tours occur when the groups run into local residents and get into lively discussions about Jewish observance – or any other topic under the sun.

It is this openness – together with all there is to see, do and learn – that attracts more Israelis to come sightseeing in Tzfat.

* * *

Rahel again. I can attest to the openness of many of Tzfat’s residents. For good measure, here’s a story I heard long ago from the resident it happened to.

Like Jerusalem’s Old City, Tzfat’s Old City has no room for cars on its narrow streets. The residents park in a central parking lot some distance away from their homes. Most of the cars spend Shabbat in the parking lot... or, at least, that’s where they’re supposed to be.

One day long ago, my acquaintance was walking along a street in Tzfat when a fellow resident accosted him angrily and said, “So-and-so, you’re a fraud!”

Taken aback, my acquaintance asked him what he meant.

“You claim to be an observant Jew,” the other man said, “but you’re not. I spent last Shabbat in Rosh Pina, and as I was walking down the street, I saw you driving your car!”

“You may have seen my car in Rosh Pina, but I wasn’t driving it,” said my acquaintance. “I was here with my wife and children.”

Suddenly his eyes widened. “You know, when I go to get my car on Sunday mornings, it often seems that it’s in a different spot from where I left it on Friday afternoon. I’d better check this out.”

The following Friday afternoon, my acquaintance staked out the parking lot. Watching from his vantage point, unseen by anyone else, he witnessed several youths approach his car, hot-wire it and drive it off. A few hours later, they returned, parked the car in a different spot in the parking lot, and left.

The next week, my acquaintance began a new custom every Friday afternoon: raising the hood of his car, removing the spark-plug wires, and taking them home for Shabbat.

But isn’t that something? The kids borrowed his car every week – and brought it back!

Menorah of Courage

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 11:38:00 +0000

This post originally ran on May 4, 2005.

There is a famous photograph of a Hanukkah menorah in a window opposite the town hall of Kiel in Germany. The year is 1933, and the building that the menorah faces is decorated with a Nazi flag. The photograph always makes me think of David and Goliath, except that here, David did not dispatch the enemy with one blow. Instead, it was Goliath who attacked—with unparalleled cruelty and viciousness—and David who survived, after bleeding almost to death.

I saw the photograph for the first time in A Different Light, a book about Hanukkah. Soon after I got it, I read it from beginning to end and discovered the photograph, which made a strong impression on me.

Several months after I received the book, I spent Shabbat with friends of mine in a town near Jerusalem. At lunch, a woman at the table asked: “Has anyone ever seen the menorah at the home of the M. family? It appears in a famous photograph”—and she proceeded to describe the very same picture I had seen in the book. I couldn’t believe my ears. The M. family lived on the same street where I was staying, only a few houses away from my friends’ home.

After Shabbat I went to the M. family’s home and asked to see the menorah. The family graciously allowed me to look at it, touch it and hold it, and they told me its story.

The menorah had belonged to the town rabbi, a direct ancestor of the M. family. At approximately the time the photograph was taken, the rabbi denounced the Nazis from his pulpit. Understanding the danger he was in, his congregants begged him to get out of Germany, and although he resisted at first, in the end they persuaded him. He immigrated to pre-state Palestine together with his family, who brought the menorah with them.

When I got home later that night, I e-mailed the author of the book. “You’ll never believe what I just saw and held,” I wrote. The author put me in touch with an archivist at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, and in turn I put her in touch with the M. family. The story of the menorah and the rabbi who defied the Nazis from his windowsill and from his pulpit is now properly archived in the museum.

Recently the M. family was blessed with a grandchild. As he grows up, he will learn the story of his courageous ancestor and the menorah he brought from darkness to light.

RIP, Jean Craighead George

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 13:47:00 +0000

I never had the honor of meeting Jean Craighead George, the well-known naturalist and writer, although we corresponded briefly after she published her book, The Cats of Roxville Station. She was a strong advocate of animal rescue, having raised hundreds of animals throughout her life.

Years ago, I was given a copy of her book, How to Talk to Your Cat. A slim volume, it is filled with anecdotes and scientific information not only about communication among cats and between cats and humans, but also about communication in the animal, bird and insect world.

The most striking story in the book – and one of my favorites – is about a cat named Danny, who belonged to Mrs. George’s friend. Here it is:

The cat Danny was not fed for the two days that my friend Joan Gordon was delayed out of town. He had a door through which he could come and go to his hunting grounds, where he often caught mice, and Joan was not overly concerned about him. He was, after all, a cat, capable and independent, the perfect predator. Joan had left him on his own before.

As she came up the path to the house, she smiled to hear Danny meowing his chirruping welcome. Eagerly she opened the door.

“Hello, Danny, old fellow. I’m glad to see you. Hello.” The hefty, ruddy tabby cat looked right at her face and chirruped again. His fur was pressed lightly to his body, his whiskers were bowed forward, his pupils were dilated with pleasure, his tail was held straight up like a flag pole, and he danced on his toes: an altogether exuberant greeting, perhaps best translated as “Hello, hello, hello, hello.”

But something amiss caught Joan’s attention. A kitchen chair had been knocked over, by Danny no doubt, and one leg had jammed his door closed. The cat had not eaten after all.

With great concern Joan dropped her coat and suitcase, opened a can of food, and put it on the floor.

But Danny did not eat.

Hungry as he must have been, he ran to Joan and repeated the redundant greeting. Next he rubbed Joan’s ankles with his head, then with his flank, and then snaked his tail over her shins, all the while purring. He arched his back toward her hand, asking to be petted. She obliged and then again urged food on him.

Danny ignored the food and went on with his cat talk. He rose on his hind legs and arched his shoulders and neck toward Joan’s hand, asking more forcefully this time to be petted again. When Joan stroked him, he purred like a motorcycle. Finally Danny turned to the food, only to take one bite and return to repeat the entire exuberant, sensual, deeply felt, and minutes-long “Welcome-home” routine again.

Joan called me that night, incredulous. Danny, she now knew, put her before a can of food.

Here is Mrs. George’s biography, from her website. Here is a tribute to her that ran in the New York Times.

Rest in peace, Mrs. George. Thank you for sharing your love of animals, and your knowledge of them – gathered over almost a century – with us.

Jewish Music in Early America

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 15:23:00 +0000

(This is a guest post on a subject dear to my heart: Jewish music. Courtesy of the Milken Archive of Jewish Music. Enjoy!)

The study of Jewish America can take many directions. Some of America's earliest immigrants were Jewish refugees who, fleeing the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisition, made their way to the New World. Throughout the succeeding decades and centuries new waves of Jewish immigrants continued to arrive. Each new wave of American Jews influenced the country's history while, at the same time, America impacted on the Jewish American Experience.

One way that historians learn more about the way that Jewish life has evolved in America is through studying the community's music. Music offers a model that allows researchers to study the development and changes that have occurred in the American Jewish community, ever since the first Jews arrived in the American colonies in 1654.

Historians trace Jewish life in America to early refugees who had been living in Recife, Brazil but were forced to flee when the Inquisition accompanied the Spanish and Portuguese conquerors to South America. Early Jewish communities were established in places as far-flung as Charleston, South Carolina; New York City; Newport, Rhode Island; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Savannah, Georgia and Richmond, Virginia.

These settlers were termed "Western Sepharadim." For many years their own Jewish liturgies had been banned by the Inquisition and their worship had been devoid of innate community music. Once they were in America they were allowed to practice their religion freely and they began to incorporate North African and Mediterranean practices and musical traditions into their prayers. These new tunes included various western innovations including modal approaches and adapted nasal vocal timbres. Today synagogues such as the Shearith Israel Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in New York, which was established by early Jewish settlers. includes these Western Sephardic musical models in their services.

The American Jewish community, along with the musical traditions that were featured in their services, took a new turn when German Jewish immigrants began to arrive in American in the 19th century. The earliest German Jews integrated into the established Sepharadic synagogues and adapted to the musical traditions of the American Sepharadim. When large waves of Eastern European immigrants began to arrive in America in the 1880s they established their own synagogues where they incorporated their Ashkanazi traditions and music. Over time, the Ashkanazi population grew to become larger than the old Western Sephardic community and Ashkanazi liturgy became better known and accepted in American Jewish life.

Many aspects of today's American Jewish life can be understood by delving into the history of Jewish music in America. Recently the album Jewish Voices in the New World was released by Jewish philanthropist Lowell Milken and his Archive, containing recordings of these early Jewish American melodies.

Attack of the bug

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 15 Sep 2012 20:55:00 +0000

As I was heading home from work last Tuesday evening, a wave of dizziness hit me so hard that I clutched the wall of a building for support.

When I recovered, I looked around surreptitiously, terribly embarrassed. Had anybody seen me do that? I sincerely hoped not. I didn’t want anyone to think I was drunk.

And then I felt it. I can’t really describe it, but it’s the feeling I’ve come to recognize as my temperature going up... and up... and up.

I wonder what the thermometer’s going to tell me when I get home, I thought to myself.

What it told me was 102.1 degrees Fahrenheit.

Wonderful.

I emailed in sick to work and went straight to bed, hoping that a night and a day of solid rest would do the trick.

No such luck.

My doctor doesn’t have office hours on Wednesdays. So by late Wednesday afternoon, when I realized I needed medical attention, my dear friend and neighbor, N., went with me to the local branch of Terem, the emergency clinic.

The waiting room was empty when we arrived. I barely had time to get settled in my seat when I was called for the intake process.

After various tests, including a whole blood count, and an examination by one of the physicians on duty, I was given my diagnosis: viral infection. The treatment: painkillers to keep the fever down.

N. and I went to the nearby pharmacy, where I bought the meds. Then we went home, and I went to bed... but not to sleep.

Weird images kept popping through my head. A recent project kept popping up on a screen in my mind. Words and headings and HTML code jumbled in front of my eyes as I tried to sort them out, then watched helplessly as the job grew exponentially. Under other circumstances, it might have been amusing, even entertaining. Here, it was just more stress... and true sleep never came that night.

I got some sleep the next day and tried to eat. I say “tried” because I realized that my body just didn’t want food. In fact, the thought of food made my gorge rise just a little. But I forced myself to eat and drink, knowing that if I didn’t, I would just get worse.

And get worse I did. By the next evening – Thursday – N. and I were back at Terem, where I got an infusion of fluids.

Back home a few hours later, I had another sleepless night.

In the morning, I finally read the information sheet that came with the pain meds I had been given... and the list of possible side effects was ghastly. And guess what – they included “vision or hearing disturbances; seeing/hearing strange things.”

Great.

Friday was a little better. N. picked up some oranges and lemons for me so that I could make homemade drinks to keep up my electrolytes. (Recipes on request.) I made a few, got them down and felt much better.

On Shabbat, I drank much more than I ate. And I rested. Boy, did I rest. My friend L. came to visit me, and N. and I spent time together, too. At one point, I asked N. if I could sample some of her cola (in a separate glass, of course!). I hardly ever drink cola – but this time, when I did, my foggy brain seemed to clear. Coincidence or caffeine?

Then she offered me a small ice-cream pop. I hardly ever eat ice-cream pops, even though I am fond of them, but this time I decided to say yes. It was delicious.

So my body was starting to accept food without a struggle, and my brain was clearing – both good signs.

So what’s going on now? I still have a fever, but it’s much lower than it was, and I feel better than I’ve felt in days.

Here’s hoping for continued improvement.

But I’m still curious: what on earth is this bug?

And when is it finally going to go away?