1) There are certain literature classes which are problematic in that they teach material which is pornographic, how can this problem be solved?
2) How can we make YU more like yeshiva in Israel? Can we ban ladies from the campus or ask them to be more tzniut?
3) Does Cardozo’s showing of the “Vagina Monologues” [...] contradict Torah UMadda? [...]
4) Does the president think that we need more co-ed events?
5) Does the president have any personal thoughts to share on the cardinals coming into the BM? How did it feel to part of such a historic moment?
6) What can YU do to try to create a more vibrant community in the Heights?
Okay, you've got the first opportunity to ask any question of the YU president in a public forum...are these the questions you ask? I hope not.
posted by Steven I. Weiss |
11:38 PM |
poll published in the Jewish Chronicle today found 47 per cent of people were unable to agree with the statement: "A British Jew would make an equally acceptable prime minister as a member of any other faith."
According to the ICM poll, 18 per cent of the 1,007 people surveyed disagreed. Of those, 11 per cent disagreed strongly. Another 28 per cent were either neutral or "don't knows". The survey also found that 15 per cent of people, or about one in seven, believed the scale of the Holocaust had been exaggerated. The poll found 20 per cent of people did not think that Jews made a positive contribution to political, social and cultural life, while 18 per cent believed that Jews had too much influence in Britain.
And what's the response?
The findings were greeted by some MPs with horror. But Jewish leaders insisted relations between their community and the rest of British society remained good, and said that a Jewish prime minister would be quickly accepted.
Why is it that Jewish leaders are feeling the need to act more and more like court Jews? First we let France get away with its anti-religious suppression, and now Britons are off the hook for being blatantly antisemitic (forget "moderately antisemitic," as the JPost is willing to report; what would that mean, anyway?). All of this is condemnable, and needs be condemned.
Of course, while I'm on this rant, the London Jewish Chronicle should have at least some free content on its site.
(Thanks to Ephraim for e-mailing the link)
posted by Steven I. Weiss |
12:34 PM |
As correctly predicted on Wednesday, the European Commission just announced the date of its summit on anti-Semitism. It will be held on February 19 in Brussels. The agenda will be coming out sometime next week, stay tuned...
Via Jarvis, there's now a movement in France to ban beards from classrooms (bandanas too, apparently, but I've got no clue what the religious application of that would be, short of a more lenient version of headscarves). Just because Frenchmen lack the testosterone to actually grow beards, they've gotta take it out on the Norelco-ly challenged.
These people are insane, and they're preparing the next incarnation of Sovietism.
He posits plausible motives underlying the visit and subsequent conference, suggests that such meetings will be more common in the future, and concludes that:
Oh, they will maintain, Rabbi Soloveitchik's strict
rules against "theological dialogue". They will not
discuss incarnation, or transubstination. But
Orthodox Jews do not discuss theological issues. When
was the last time the Orthodox Forum had a theological
topic? Halakha is never about "theology" as Modern
Orthodoxy frame it. And they will talk and talk and
talk. But never about "theology". So the letter of
Rabbi Soloveitchik's article is maintained.
Oh, and for those who follow this sort of thing, it now appears obvious that Rabbi Gary Bretton-Granatoor will soon be named Eugene Korn's successor at the ADL. Good luck to him...
And for those interested in the whole list, there are some 230 stories in the past two days...
He takes Deah vDibbur to task for its article on Haredim fighting with the Misrad Hachinuch on the issue of secular subject core curricula for Haredi schools.
Yuter's sparkling satire aside, I am also amused by the aggrieved tone in the article - it doesn't say secular subjects are bad and we don't want them (which would be a reasonable, albeit wrong, position). Rather, it maintains that Haredi schools actually give their kids BETTER educations than the secular and dati leumi schools in Israel.
One relevant story: I recall being awoken at 4:30 AM in NY one bein hazmanim by a friendly phone call from an Israeli Haredi chavrusa of mine from Kol Torah - I didn't question him at the time, but in the end, I discovered that he had no idea that there was a time difference between NY and Israel. Amazing. And he was no idiot - he was a fairly impressive masmid, and knew quite a bit, even by Israeli Yeshiva Bachur standards.
Sounds like a wildly successful educational system to me.
Check the article out for some truly mind-blowing polemic....
Wedding of ???? ???? (, OK) & ???? ???? (, WY)
Thursday, January 22, 2004
Many of you are familiar with the tendency of people to post engagements or marriages to OnlySimchas.com with only portions of the betrothed's names.
A one-minute perusal shows examples here, here, and here. This phenomenon is quirky at best, disturbing at worst.
Check out the satire while it's still up.
posted by Steven I. Weiss |
1:04 PM |
Way, way back in the middle of 2003, a blogger named Instaconfused (nee Adi J. Neuman) showed up and intrigued us...then he went off to BT-Yeshiva-Land, and we were afraid we'd lost him forever. Sure enough, he sent in an e-mail today saying that he's got a new blog, Home Beis; it's a bit sparse for now, but I'm sure he'll populate it well.
Adi Neuman first popped up on our radar with a response to our call for Matrix/Zionism contest entries (His Matrix name was "Aurora"). Later in May, he wrote "An open letter to the followers of Leo Strauss," begging, "Oh please, recruit me into your elite conspiracy."
He disappeared for a while, then showed up again in late June, with dispatches from what I termed "Ba'al Teshuva Fat Camp." He kept up the dispatches for much of the summer months, and then he wrote about his BT experience for Jewsweek in August. His blogging tailed off, and Instaconfused soon went dark.
Now he's back. Read him religiously.
Instapundit posted on Tuesday links to two stories of antisemitic violence in Europe.
The first was a desecration of a Holocaust memorial. Such a thing is always a crime against basic human decency, though unless such incidents would tend to be more frequent than in years past, I don't know that it should stand out to Jews as a huge problem: vandalism of any memorial is probably inevitable, and Holocaust memorials in rural areas would seem particularly prone. I guess the best response to this act is to post what is being memorialized:
Up to about 1800 people were imprisoned at Hinterbruehl between August 1944 and April 1945, mainly political enemies of the Nazi regime from several parts of Europe.
The inmates were forced to work building airplanes in an underground factory there, Nussbaumer said.
When the Russians advanced there in 1945, the Nazis planned to move the inmates to Austria's most notorious concentration camp, Mauthausen.
Some 1840 tried to escape, but were caught, and most were shot to death.
Another 51 in the camp's infirmary were killed either with petrol injections into the heart or by strangulation.
The second story that was posted is more complicated. It's of violence in Strasbourg, France, in which a schoolbus was firebombed in pre-dawn hours,
24 hours after unidentified assailants pelted a nearby synagogue with stones during the night, they said. There was no sign who was behind the two incidents.
A local Jewish leader linked the two attacks to marches on Saturday protesting against a planned ban on Islamic veils in school led by an anti-Zionist Muslim leader from Strasbourg.
"What I notice in both cases is the context and the timing in connection with last Saturday's protest where violently anti-Semitic speeches were given," said Pierre Levy, regional representative of the CRIF umbrella group of French Jewish organisations.
Jewish groups say attacks on Jewish property have been rare in Strasbourg but anti-Semitic insults are common.
The Jewish human rights group Simon Wiesenthal Centre and the Paris daily Le Monde on Monday both denounced Mohamed Latreche, organiser of the pro-headscarf protests, for a fiery speech he gave at the Paris demonstration. In his speech, Latreche denounced Jews and assailed Zionism as apartheid.
This story is fraught with the complication that Levy and the organized J-comm has been approving of the headscarf/yarmulke/big cross ban, a near-sighted and wrong-headed move on their part. This is a move by the Jewish community to help repress religious expression, one that will likely lead to further ostracization and subsequent radicalization of the relatively moderate Muslims who were at least sending their kids to public school in the first place; now, many of those girls' parents have an excuse to keep them home. The way to open up ghettos is by being less repressive, not more so. Welfare reform and the concommitant programs have shown quite dramatically in recent years how integration through a proper and open social policy by the government can lead to healthy integration.
As a side note, the hottie is from Strasbourg, though she's coming to the States now or sometime soon, so I don't know if she's there at the moment.
posted by Steven I. Weiss |
11:02 AM |
In the Curiosity Killed the Cat Dept:
I was fascinated and appalled by one of the attack-YU comments from a new fireballer poster on one of Steve's posts (the comment permalink is here):
"Btw, why not pick up on the 'beautiful' story of how Howard Dean, who was the leading contender for the Democratic nomination for President met his lovely JEWISH wife. Where YOU ask? At the Albert Einstein Medical school! Part of 'Yeshiva' University. What a light unto the nations! Assimilating and 'educating' our jewish brethren!"
So while most of this fellow's post was clearly asinine, this part (while just as patently absurd) piqued my curiosity (and not just b/c I'm in Einstein, and have not, to the best of my knowledge, started shacking up with any of my non-Jewish classmates), since it is a criticism I haven't heard before amidst all the cries of "kofer!" "JB!" "Gay club!" and "Nudes in art class!". Generally, shrill demagogues don't make their own stuff up. So what want to know, especially from the more yeshivish among you, is whether the whole Howard Dean intermarrying in AECOM thing is a new critcism of YU that any of you have heard in the past year following his ascendency into the public eye.
Are we now perceived as the exclusive shadchanim of the erstwhile putative Democratic nominee? Will Dr. Dean join Rabbi Lamm and Mordechai Levovitz in the yeshivish pantheon of YU no-goodniks?
posted by Anonymous |
10:32 AM |
So the whole Shalavim thing mas generated one of the most overwhelming responses in Protocols history (my post here, My follow up here, and Steven's posting of R' Waxman from Shalavim's letter here, plus all comments, if you have the time and stomach for that many).
But the story doesn't end there. Lots of people have referenced the R' Waxman letter, asking me what I thought of his email to alumni about Protocols.
As luck would have it, I was actually in contact with R' Waxman via email where we both clarified our positions somewhat.
Nevertheless, I've noticed that some of the comments on the site have been somewhat trenchant (or worse) in their criticism of him per se, and I feel like publishing his letter (with his express permission) would go a long way to show that Shalavim already takes the issues raised on this blog seriously.
I had sent him a letter more or less recapitulating my position in my follow-up post, and he responded with this:
Dear Shmuli,
First of all I want to express my sincere appreciation for the email that you sent to me which I found to be constructive and indeed clarify some of the issues.
I do believe that there was a significant amount of miscommunication involved here. As you wrote, I'm sure that there are areas in which we view things differently, including issues relating to the questions posted, however I did not intend to make a blanket dismissal of any form of criticism directed towards myself or Yeshivat Shaalvim.
I realize that I may have erred by finishing off my email to the students of Shaalvim cynically, however this was my natural response to the frivolous, mocking, antagonistic tone of many points posted, including your introduction,"From the department of unmitigated stupidity:".
For criticism to be productive and achieve its goal of refining ideas and cultivating progress there is a basic requirement of sincerity, intellectual honesty, and level headedness that must be present.
I don't know whether or not you will believe me, however the suggestion that I made to our talmidim that they see your website did in fact stem from my belief that it is important for them to contemplate the issues that you raised. We are in fact so interested in clarifying these issues that already a month ago we began planning a Yom Iyun in N.Y. during February with ramim from Shaalvim and mechanchim in the U.S. on what the street calls "Flipping Out" related issues.
It would be my pleasure to meet with you in person and exchange ideas on some of these issues during my visit to th U.S.
B'Vracha,
Ari Waxman
P.S. You have my permission to publicize this letter if you wish to do so.
I found this email to be both constructive and heartening, and I thank R' Waxman publicly for taking the time out to respond to me. However, I do acknowledge his criticism of my cynicism and sarcastic tone - sins I'm often guilty of. I can't commit to a wholesale revamping of my writing style (it's so much FUN, after all), but I do hope to more judiciously use such techniques in the future.
Chakira blogs the speeches by R' Lamm and R' Charlop on the cardinals' visit in near-real-time.
A few notes on R' Lamm:
1) For a man who's known to be very worried about details, what does he mean when he says we've seen changes in the Church in the last twenty years? Vatican II was '62-'65.
2) " Rav Lamm admits to having been racist when he was a child. It took him a lot of wrenching change to get rid of this racism. Times changed and we need to change." It takes a lot of courage for a person to say that; most people who grew up in a racist age don't (at least the prominent ones).
3) "Let?s talk about politics. The Catholic Church is enormously powerful. Yet, they are under pressure and looking for friends. They need friends. They are very much afraid of Islam, and are in danger from Muslim fundamentalism. They are also very afraid of secularism. The J Community is in need of friends, Israel needs friends. We are afraid of Islam and secularism, too. So our concerns overlap." He's always phrased his position on Islam rather inartfully, which is a shame.
4) Some of the people take the attitude that the Jews need no one else. ?Am levado yishkon? is not a Halacha, it?s a descriptive statement. If we take every description as a mitzvah than childbirth must be painful. After all, the pasuk describes it that way. Relevant to our prescriptive/descriptive dialogues in the comments.
5) "Shoel Umaishiv was asked if the Jews could buy a church to build a shul. Shoel Umaishiv brings rama who says its muttar to daven there. Then he brings the BT in Megilla where it tells us that, one day, Jews will teach Torah in the colosieums of Rome. Therefore, we see all places of foreign worship will become shuls anyway, so theres no reason to assur Jews from davening there." Interesting case of descriptive becoming prescriptive.
6) "The major forces of the conservative Catholicism have already framed a new resolution against anti-Semitism. So the encounter was a kiddush Hashem." ALSO: A post-factum question/answer session.
While I have much to say on both subjects, I will refrain on the former, because they will be announcing the date of the seminar on anti-Semitism shortly, and the story will likely resuscitate itself once again.
I have two funny lines and one story to relay from my two days with the Catholic Cardinals and will try and post some more thoughts over the next couple of days.
The scene in the Beis Medrash was wrapping up and the Catholic delegation was on its way out when an old friend came up to me and said, "Wow, Pinky, I cannot believe this. I mean how incredible is it that they are doing this today? Don't they know it is the first day of seder? Imagine what this means to the new students. They are going to think this happens here everyday here. I just cannot believe that on the first day of seder they actually bought Rabbi Lamm to the Beis Medrash."
Harsh, but funny.
That kinda reminded me of the pilot episode of South Park where the kids get involved in a major dispute between Jesus and Santa Clause. At the end of the clip, the kids marvel to one another, "Wow, and to think that today we actually met, the one, the only Brian Boitano."
After returning to the Museum of Jewish Heritage with the delegations from a memorial at Ground Zero, the winds in the Battery were a raging swirl rivaled only by the infamous Belfer Wind Tunnel. Suddenly, a gust whisked the Yarmulke straight off the head of one of the Cardinals. Upon returning it to him, I nodded off his apology, smiled and said, "Don't worry, it happens to me all the time." Hearing this, a member of the Jewish delegation quipped, "Yeah, that's why the Chief Rabbi of France wants everyone to wear baseball caps."
Finally, Cardinal Barbarain of Lyon, France seemed to enter the area where the Jewish group was davening Mincha and Maariv each of the Conference's two days. He would look around for a few moments, bow his head and silently speak. On the second day, he was asked curiously what he was doing.
He explained that seeing religious men sincerely engaged in prayer, saying praise and making requests of G-d, moved him to offer words of prayer himself. So, he stood in the corner, spoke words of praise and concluded each prayer by asking G-d that the prayers of his friends be accepted.
There's a massive Ha'aretz article on Israeli blogging (Thanks, Ephraim). They don't seem to mention a single blog that Protocols or any of the Israeli blogs we read have regularly linked to; either that's evidence of a disconnect between the Israeli blogs we read and popular Israeli blogging culture, or the article just focuses on blogs that aren't all that popular. I'd be more surprised if the former were the case.
A few commenters have recently been picking at the mocking of R' Soloveitchik or R' Lamm by those to the right (and occasionally on the left). This story struck a chord with me.
In 2001, I assembled an album of YU bands that I went to sell at all the Florida Pesach resorts, which have varying degrees of yeshivishness. At the most "black" resort, where sales were pretty cold, one kid came up to me after mincha and this dialogue took place. Some context: Rabbi Yosef Dov ("Dov Ber," "Joseph Ber") Soloveitchik passed away ten years ago; his brother, Rabbi Aharon Soloveichik (different spelling), was still learning at YU, though he's since passed away, as well.
Him: Nu, you go to YU?
Me: Yeah.
Him: How's Dov Ber doing?
Me (shocked): Who? Him: You know, Dov Ber. How's he doing?
Me: I'm sorry, I don't know who you're talking about.
Him: J.B., Dov Ber, you know.
Me: No, I don't know.
Him: You, know, what's his name, Soloveitchik...
Me: You mean Rav Aharon?
Him: Yeah, Rav Aharon.
Me: He's doing fine, thanks.
It was pretty shocking to me that the attempts at insult were continuing to play out so well that the kids repeating them didn't even know they were speaking about a dead man.
UPDATE: A point I mention in the comments, below, is how often I hear from people who are on both sides of the equation that many contemporary gedolei torah attended Rav Soloveitchik's funeral, while he'd gone to those of their parents/teachers. I've heard this used repeatedly in the past by moderns to place shame on those who didn't attend, and by ultras to place shame on R' Soloveitchik. Both sides seem to be pretty adamant about keeping this fact well-known.
One thing I forgot to add to an earlier post was how that nutcase Mordechai Friedman went to town on Soloveitchik using the same argument, which was pretty hilarious in that context.
posted by Steven I. Weiss |
2:43 PM |
This was a newsflash on JTA this afternoon (I apologize for the lack of a link, but I don't think you can't link to newsflashes):
"An Israeli rabbi crafted a prayer to help Jews overcome guilt for viewing Internet porn. According to Yediot Achronot, the prayer, created by Shlomo Eliahu, the chief rabbi of Safed, reads: ?Please God, help me cleanse the computer of viruses and evil photographs that disturb and ruin my work, so that I shall be able to cleanse myself.? Eliahu said the prayer is a response to requests he has received from Orthodox Jews, concerned that Internet pornography is endangering their family relationships. Eliahu suggests Jews use the prayer each time they use the Internet, in case pornography comes on their screen inadvertently. "
Amen. Kein Yehi Ratzon.
[Stories on the prayer can be found here, here, here, and sundry other places at the moment here.It appears that no article has a non-ellipsized version of the prayer, so what's above is the best we've got -- SIW]
The hard left has every reason to despise Tom Friedman. He can bring himself to praise the Bush administration from time to time; he's pro-Israel; he's an optimist about progress in the Middle East that can accommodate the Jewish state. But this diatribe from Cynthia Cotts at the Village Voice is particularly vicious. She's offended that Friedman is ... religious. A recent prize was donated to ... a synagogue! The horror...
[...]
What on earth does this have to do with anything? All it amounts to is an attempt to dismiss or undermine Friedman's views because he's a religious Jew. Some on the left really are bigots, aren't they?
UDATE: Radosh fisks Cotts. I'm interested to know what his "nice chat" with Cotts consisted of, if this is what she spent her time thinking about at the luncheon.
posted by Steven I. Weiss |
9:43 AM |
Rumor is that tonight's Wednesday night Sichas Mussar in the YU Beis Medrash will be delivered by Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm on the topic of the Cardinals' visit this week. Confirmation?
An unprecedented 13-member panel of the Israeli Supreme Court heard argument on a petition to overturn a controversial law banning Palestinians who marry Israelis from obtaining Israeli citizenship. Parties and amici curiae from all points on the political spectrum were present, leading to pointed and sometimes heated argument.
During the argument, Chief Justice Aharon Barak hinted at a compromise resolution under which the court would refrain from striking down the law but prohibit the Knesset from re-enacting it after its expiration date. This would be a politically expedient move for the court, which has been accused by the right of pushing the envelope of Israel's unwritten constitution. I suspect that the court will ultimately adopt this strategy in a 9-4 or 8-5 decision, with several judges on the majority expressing a preference for overturning the law outright but concurring in the result. This wouldn't be as satisfying as a clear ruling in the petitioners' favor, but it would effectively take a bad law off the books and conserve the court's authority for future civil rights cases.
Without getting into the politics here, doesn't this kind of legal horse-trading sound very contradictory to an appropriate idea of separation of powers? Is there precedent for a move like this, in Israel or elsewhere?
posted by Steven I. Weiss |
5:17 PM |
A reader wrote in to say that he recently spent a Shabbos with some Lakewood people, where he had conversations with a number of yeshiva students, including one who referred to Grama as his "rebbe." He says:
1) basically it seems that the word going around lakewood is that the money for the kollel is gone
2) they blame "lamm", say he sent the book to congress
3) "lamm" hates/jealous of lakewood
4) "lamm" is a moser
The reader adds that he, "was very upset," and that "it sounded like motzi shem ra/lashon hara to me, but obviously they didn't think it applied to someone like 'lamm.'" Obviously, this shouldn't be taken as representative; it's just an insight into what some people are saying and how they choose to say it. As I've said before, standards of truth in the frum community generally (including Modern Orthodox) are extremely lacking; whether it's more or less than in the world generally, I haven't a clue, but Torah Jews have a religious exhortation regarding these matters.
I'll also add that I had a conversation with another reader who was in Lakewood telling me that the local students had a lot to say about the article, and would I talk to them, to which I responded in the affirmative. He called me later that day saying he had a guy with him who wanted to explain to me how the article would spread antisemitism, and I said that I wasn't interested in having such a conversation over the phone, that he was free to send me a letter; I added that if he wanted to talk about nearly anything else relating to the story, I'd be open to that.
This is of a piece with a lot of the response the articles have received from the yeshiva world and in a very explicit fashion from the Agudah, and that I've received from other circles as well.
To be absolutely frank, there is little, if anything, relating to the articles' potential to spread antisemitism that we're not aware of; moreso, there is likely nothing that a Torah education contributes to this understanding. For some reason, a lot of people who give the "frummer than thou" attitude seem to think that they've got unique insights regarding antisemitism that I and the others who've been reporting the story don't. Even if I were to grant that those adopting such a position know more about Torah, it'd be ridiculous to say that such Torah knowledge gives them special insight into the way that antisemitism develops.
posted by Steven I. Weiss |
4:21 PM |
Rabbi Sholom Carmy sent in the following e-mail to a listserv run by AishDas, and said I could post it here. It's in response to a criticism of Rabbis Blau, Lamm and Charlop in reference to their quotes in the ForwardBeis Yitzchok article, asking:
Since when did the ecumenical agenda that RYBS strongly dissaproved of in Confrontation now become a basis for what a RIETS Torah Journal should publish?
R' Carmy wrote:
About 20 years ago a friend of mine wrote a technical Torah article in which he discussed, among other things, the application of retziha with regard to a non-Jew. The article was accepted in a prestigious Hebrew Torah journal. At this point my friend had qualms about the danger of chillul haShem. He asked my opinion. Since the "ner Elokim was not yet extinguished" I suggested that we present R. Soloveitchik with the question.
The Rav strongly urged that the article should NOT be published. He held (I am trying to hew as closely as I can to his phrasing) that it is morally and prudentially wrong to treat these questions in an "objective" manner, where every view recorded in the sources is accorded equivalent weight, and discussed in a detached manner and so forth.
This is what he had to say about an article that mentioned these matters only peripherally, as part of a larger discussion. Regarding an article or book that advocated such positions, rather than merely giving them a place in an objective halakhic context, it is an obvious kal va-homer.
I am stating this simply to record the Rav's views. I have not seen the article(s) under debate.
I'm planning on writing a bit about your recent Tom Friedman shul piece for an upcoming article for Jewsweek Magazine. I'm hoping that you can answer a few questions:
1) Did you attend the luncheon?
2) Why don't you consider Tom Friedman and A.M. Rosenthal part of the left wing?
3) What is "especially freighted about giving journalism award money to a religious library"?
4) Why do you think it "is probably not the case at Friedman's library of choice" that "readers of every political and religious persuasion can find material to inform their opinions"? Further, why do you think it is the case that such people can find such material at Marshall's prep school?
5) You write that Friedman, "has exhorted moderate Jews to be as passionate as extremists." To what are you referring?
6) You write, "Friedman's religious beliefs are relevant." Relevant to what?
7) You write "In a New York Times column published shortly before Yom Kippur 1997, Friedman called on moderate U.S. Jews to give money to Israel 'in a very targeted way,' so that it would not end up in the hands of 'ultra-Orthodox elements.'" Are you asserting that there is something wrong with Friedman's exhortation?
Thanks!
UPDATE: Cotts responds, "Thanks for sending me your questions. My answer is 'no comment.'"
posted by Steven I. Weiss |
1:55 PM |
A reader e-mails in a report from a viewing of The Passion's trailer:
I saw the trailer for “The Passion of the Christ” before watching “Big Fish” at the AMC Century City 14 in Los Angeles this Saturday night. For your non-LA readers, the Century 14 is on the LA/Beverly Hills border and is the most “industry” cineplex in town. It’s just up the street from the Fox studio lot, across the street from HBO’s West Coast headquarters. The surrounding areas are pretty heavily Jewish. I even saw a knit kippa in the concession line.
The theatre was packed and people seemed in a good mood. The trailer came up for “The Passion of the Christ” and the place went very quiet. There were certainly more than a few groans and sighs in the crowd. I know I groaned when I saw the shot of the angry crowds yelling and throwing things. One thing is for sure, when the trailer was over, nobody said anything to anyone else about it. Not one “That looks good” or “Oy, what a bomb”. It was as if it hadn’t run at all. Maybe that was just wishful thinking by the crowd.
We had a lot of discussion of the actual content of the trailer back in July.
posted by Steven I. Weiss |
1:21 PM |
Gothamist notes this New York Post story on Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz's attempt to get a sign reading "Leaving Brooklyn: Oy Vey!" where travelers would be exiting the borough. He'd already attempted a sign that read "Leaving Brooklyn...Fuhgeddaboutit." Markowitz, who probably beats me in the "lacking discretion" department, is known for being pretty flamboyant, something that bears true when you see him in person. According to the NYP Markowitz had previously installed signs reading, "Welcome to Brooklyn: How Sweet it is!" and "Believe the Hype!"
Last year, Markowitz wanted a sign reading, "Leaving Brooklyn: Fuhgeddaboudit" on a Staten Island-bound ramp of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, but the DOT rejected it.
Markowitz eventually installed the sign on land controlled by the state-run Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
The "Fuhgeddaboudit" sign angered some motorists, who saw it as an anti-Italian stereotype.
Then one such driver asked the Jewish borough president how he would feel if there were a sign reading, "Leaving Brooklyn: Oy Vey!"
Markowitz said he told the man, "How would I feel? That's the best idea I ever heard!"
So, shortly after Thanksgiving, Markowitz asked permission to place the "Oy Vey" sign in predominantly Jewish Williamsburg.
To paraphrase Markowitz: "Another chance to engage in a not-really-humorous reference to a pseudo-culture surrounding the exploitation of a system of beliefs and practices for popular consumption in easy-to-swallow soundbites? Sign me up!"
Still, though, it's not offensive, just stupid...unless you ask a Yiddish professor:
"It just reaffirms that stereotype of Jews as people who fret about everything and say, 'Oy vey! Oy vey!' no matter what happens," said Audrey Kupferberg, a Yiddish expert who teaches at SUNY Albany.
Academics have no sense of humor.
Anyway, as reader Jonathan points out, this is now a national story, having hit CNN via the AP. Showing no remorse in Yidsploitation, the AP gets to the heart of the matter right off the bat:
NEW YORK (AP) -- "Oy vey" was too meshugga for the city Transportation Department.
Meanwhile:
While the "Fuhgeddaboudit!" sign was criticized by some as an anti-Italian slur, [DOT spokesman] Cocola said any concern that the "Oy Vey" sign might offend Brooklyn's large Jewish community was not part of the agency's decision.
What a relief.
posted by Steven I. Weiss |
12:33 PM |
"Fuck the Nazis, Says Churchill's Parrot" Charlie, the former prime minister's old pet, is still around at 104 years old and will occasionally repeat the phrases, "Fuck Hitler," and "Fuck the Nazis," in Churchill's accent, as the bird was taught. (via Jarvis)
Having not grown up in New York, and not having had a television in New York until this summer, and not having watched much other than the Food Network, New York 1 and C-SPAN during these past six months, I'd never seen the Jewish public access shows here. I'd flipped past them once in a while, but never had the patience to stop on those channels. The Food Network starts broadcasting at 9:30 and, having seen all the relevant news a few times this morning after waking up way too early, I caught the 7:00 showing of "Judaism: The Series," starring Rabbi Mordechai Friedman. Apparently the guy's got a heavy history, having been under investigation for allegedly making death threats to Senator Joseph Lieberman.
I tuned in just in time to see him perform an excommunication on "the antisemitic Abe Foxman." He recited some incantation (I didn't pay attention when he said it, so don't have the actual words), then blew out a candle ostensibly representing Foxman, then announced, "You see, his neshoma has left him."
As a guest on the show, Friedman had some guy named Heshy, who was instructed to give out his phone number (917-468-4840), and gave us a bewildering number of prophecies: The World Trade Center was attacked for two main reasons, one of which was the growing movement for gay marriage. I forget the other reason. He also shared with us a number of insights regarding what the liberals are doing to break down our society, mostly relating to homosexuals. There are two reasons, Heshy declared, why the blackout happened: because of the Reform Movement's primary presence in Cincinnati and because Ohio was the first state to move towards gay marriage.
I don't know if Heshy is a regular guest or not, but he certainly should be. His deadpan is a perfect contrast to Friedman's spontaneous shouting. In one example, Heshy mumbled about how the liberals who are destroying the world would have liked to see Saddam Hussein remain in power, and now they would like to see him tried by an international court, but now he is destined to face trial in Iraq, where his own people will give him justice; Friedman interjects with a thrust of his forefinger, "Arab justice!" How true.
Outside of New York, we only have Jews for Jesus and the occasional Chabadnik on public access. What a richly-detailed tapestry of insanity New York's television viewers have woven.
UPDATE: Homepage of the American Board of Rabbis, Friedman's organization.
Blessed art thou, oh Lord, our God, Ruler of the World, who hath:
Separated between holy and mundane, between light and dark, between Israel and other nations, between the Seventh Day and the Six Days of Creation.
Blessed art thou, oh Lord, who has separated between holy and mundane.
So here's my shot at a Havdalah for Friedman and Safire:
Blessed art thou, oh Times, our God, Ruler of the World, who hath:
Separated between us and those dimwits who have to do actual reporting, between Monday/Wednesday and Sunday/Thursday, between college drop-outs and masters from Oxford, between real facts and all the stuff we like to write about.
Blessed art thou, oh Times, our God, who hath separated between us and those dimwits who have to do actual reporting.
So there wasn't just a meeting of Cardinals and Jewish leaders today. In a surreal turn of events, they visited YU first. In a scene far more remarkable than last year's visit to YU by 14 French Churchmen, the main Bais (fresh back from vacation on the first day of the zman) witnessed 10 Cardinals (in regalia - black robes, red trim) wander in and shmooze in learning with bemused guys trying to get ready for shiur.
1) Rabbi Blau's joking remark to me about one poor guy who had just made it to YU from ToMo - it was his first day in the place and sure enough, just as they warned him back in Yeshiva, a dozen galachim wander in and start shteiging.
2) One Rosh Hayeshiva, who shall remain nameless, joked to me that the cardinals probably would want to talk to Dani Stein. Of course he walked in not three minutes later. Left soon after. Probably thought they were after him.
3) Cardinal Lustiger had made his third trip to the Bais in 18 months. That's more than some YU guys....
Anyone who was there want to contribute impressions?
NYT: Prayer Amid the Office Machines.
Summarizing it for you:
-Jews daven mostly in law firms and corporate offices, while Muslims gather in restaurants and non-profits, though Conservative and Reform Jews tend to prefer synagogues. Christians are accomodated by churches.
-GoDaven.com is the listing resource of choice.
-Jewish and Catholic leaders convene at World Symposium of Catholic Cardinals and Jewish Leaders; Museum of Jewish Heritage, 36 Battery Place.
-Activists opposed to Israeli policy in the occupied territories hold march ``for the right to nonviolent protest in Israel/Palestine''; 39th Street and Broadway, marching to Union Square.
The Hebrew Institute of Riverdale's MLK Day program seems to be pretty solid; it touches on the new Black/Jew alliance to fight anti-Semitism with a march to the recently-vandalized kosher restaurant, The Corner Cafe.
MLK Day has been, in my experience, the American holiday most commonly dismissed by Jewish schools/institutions (at least Orthodox ones), and owing to the complete non-recognition some give to this holiday as opposed to all of the others, their actions speak pretty loudly and very offensively. What makes Labor Day a more necessary observance than MLK day? I don't know, but Yeshiva University does. Hebrew Theological College does a half-day on Labor Day and, if memory serves, doesn't acknowledge MLK day in any fashion. The list goes on and on, I'm sure.
I spent most of my youth in Atlanta, where going to the birthplace of Martin Luther King, Jr. was a regular feature of relatives' trips to town and all aspects of his life and the civil rights movement were a major part of the day schools' curricula (especially in the schools that were more catch-all and not explicitly frum). It was quite surprising, in heading north, to find so little recognition of the civil rights movement in the Orthodox J-comm.
As to those org's that are recognizing the day:
The OU has a short message from R' Weinreb, as well as links to the "I Have A Dream" speech and a document on "Martin Luther King Jr. On Zionism" in .pdf.
The Jewish Theological Seminary has no classes (it's noted even though it's still part of winter break for the school), but doesn't seem to have any special messages prepared for the event.
I can't find a calendar at Hebrew Union College's website.
Meantime, Beliefnet is hosting an essay by Coretta Scott King on, "How Prayer Fueled the Civil Rights Movement," as well as a host of additional content/resources in the sidebar there.
Here's a listing of religion-related MLK events in NYC from the daybook:
Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion hosts interfaith ceremony to celebrate the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.; Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Chuck Schumer also expected; Trinity Baptist Church, 808 E. 224th St., Bronx.
Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion hosts interfaith ceremony to celebrate the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.; Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Chuck Schumer also expected; Trinity Baptist Church, 808 E. 224th St., Bronx.
Anti-war activists remember Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy with prayer vigil, procession, vigil; starts in Bryant Park, 42nd Street and Sixth Avenue.
Interfaith network of religious communities from the Upper West Side and Upper East Side participate in second annual ``Live the Dream'' Walk for Peace; Holy Name Church, West 96th Street at Amsterdam Avenue.
Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition host Martin Luther King Jr. commemorative event; site of the Kingsbridge Armory, intersection of Jerome Avenue and Kingsbridge Road, Bronx.
Council Majority Leader Joel Rivera and The Coalition for Jewish Concerns - Amcha lead a ``Unity Walk'' through streets of Riverdale in response to recent spate of anti-Semitic and pro-terror graffiti; begins at the Riverdale Monument, 239th Street and the Henry Hudson Parkway, and proceeds to the Corner Cafe, 3552 Johnson Ave., Riverdale.
ALSO: Please post what your local Jewish org/shul/school did to commemorate the day.
posted by Steven I. Weiss |
3:51 PM |
Daniel Radosh also noted that Tom Friedman said that he and Bill Safire are starting a shul; Radosh wonders what the services would be there, as do I.
Can we come up with our own version of The Williamsburg Prayer?
EuroTrash e-mails a pointer to Jewish peace activists getting hate mail. Ooooh, I'm shaking in my boots; no, really, I am, because I and most writers/politicians/communal workers have received similar letters and if the Guardian's taking it so seriously, assumedly we should as well. Fiddle-faddle as a substitute for real journalism: tasty, but not very healthy.
But what really takes this story into the realm of complete unreality is that it's novelist Naomi Ragen making all the noise; yes, that Naomi Ragen who complained so loudly but so ridiculously about Richard Joel's association with Chaim Seidler-Feller and Edgar Bronfmann's supposed anti-Israelism that it didn't even merit a post on Protocols.
Eurotrash also noted Daniel Radosh's finding of the Self-Hating Israel-Threatening (SHIT) List. Fun.
Meantime, even at their worst, the most these radicals tend to be able to muster is getting beyond their internet campaigns to making phone calls plaguing people supporting anti-Semites.
But the whole thing is made foolish by the fact that a large part of the constituencies of Leftist groups send tons of hate mail too. This is news?
Sure, Israeli Ambassador Zvi Mazel vandalized a piece of Swedish artwork, but it's not like that was government policy or anything. Oh, wait, it kind of is.
There seems to be a lot of confusion about what actually occurred relating to this and other artwork both before and after the exhibit. I'll have more on this later.
(Thanks, Yuter)
"The State of Israel needs to let Yasir Arafat the murderer rot in prison, and never let him marry. Arafat is unworthy of associating with cultured members of a democracy, which he wished to destroy. There is no reason in the world for a hated murderer such as Arafat to have children."
Okay, you got me, I switched in the name Yasir Arafat for Yigal Amir. But Cabel, as other Labor Party members, has a history of supporting the effort to bring Arafat and other thugs into "associat[ion] with cultured members of a democracy, which he tried to destroy." Just pointing out that disconnect.
On the general news front, it's always odd when someone wants to marry a murderer, but it seems to happen pretty often. That they met while she was still married and that she's now divorced her husband in order to marry Amir speaks to either her insanity or her husband being just about the worst you could come across.
(Thanks, Jontal)
posted by Steven I. Weiss |
5:40 PM |
We're the only Jewish blog linked at this site. I don't know if we should be proud or scared.
Crying Wolf? The Jewish Press runs an editorial this week basically taking the New York Daily News to task for writing an editorial that they say didn't utilize enough "precision" to "avoid any misunderstanding." Here's what the Daily News wrote (from Nexis):
The state politician who helped force Mayor Bloomberg into imposing a record 18.5% property tax hike on New Yorkers now seems determined to shrivel Bloomberg's plan for $400 rebates by nitpicking it to death.
Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver has taken it upon himself to wonder whether it would be better to send this or that taxpayer this or that share of the money Bloomberg wants to refund. Don't be fooled by Silver's musings. When an Albany leader goes into this-or-that mode, he's staging a hit as effectively as Michael Corleone took out his enemies at the end of "The Godfather."
Trust us. Homeowners and all you who own co-ops or condos must watch Silver carefully, lest the idea of sending you $400 checks, as Bloomberg wants, winds up in a shallow, unmarked grave beside a Thruway off-ramp up north somewhere.
Why would Silver contemplate such treachery? For starters, he carries as much water for the municipal labor unions as a Poland Spring truck. Sending $250 million back to the taxpayers means the unions will have that much less to grab for in their stalled contract negotiations. On top of that, as a Democrat out of the lower East Side, Silver's congenitally incapable of letting Bloomberg hit one out of the park with the voters.
If those seem rather trivial motivations for denying New Yorkers that which they are owed, remember that Silver has a track record of inexplicably betraying taxpayers. In 1999, he stabbed them in the back by okaying a repeal of the tax the city collected from suburban commuters. That one move blew a half-billion-dollar hole in the municipal budget of then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani and forced his successor to scrounge for spare change and tax hikes.
It's an odd editorial, I certainly grant that, but to claim that this even skirts the idea of antisemitism is ridiculous. The JP writes:
We wonder exactly what The News meant? As far as we are aware, the "Lower East Side" is not known for a particularly virulent brand of anti-Republican animus.
Isn't the fact that they've not elected a single Republican any time recently evidence enough? Or, certainly, the fact that they've consistently re-elected Silver, the Democratic leader of the State Assembly, without any significant contest certainly speaks volumes.
The JP continues:
And somehow, the phrase "out of the Lower East Side," seems to connote more than just coming up the political ranks or merely representing a particular area in the halls of government. Further, when one checks the dictionary for entries on the word "congenital" one finds such definitions as hereditary, inborn and inherited.
Okay, the specific term "congenitally incapable" has been used in at least dozens of articles this year to refer to politics, according to a Nexis search, and quite often in reference to Democrats, including in a recent syndicated column by the neo-conservative Jew Charles Krauthammer. I don't see the term "congenitally incapable" referring to a guy like Silver and think "Whoa, racial differences between Jews and non-Jews: antisemitism." But then again, I'm not of a mind that Grama's reference to Jews and non-Jews as "different species" was simply "inartful." Perhaps when you are it kind of taints your perception. Moreso, the "Lower East Side" is known for a lot more -- especially these days -- than its Jewish heritage; making a claim based on that is a pretty specious way to go about developing an argument.
Playing the "watch your step, you may be walking into a bucket of antisemitism" game with this editorial is classic boy-crying-wolf, and doesn't serve to do any good at all.
On the other hand, note this praiseworthy editorial praising Colin Powell. I agree with just about every word.
posted by Steven I. Weiss |
4:51 PM |
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