Should Democrats Be Less Racist Than Everyone Else? September 23, 2008

The underlying tone to the reaction to the new AP/Yahoo! News poll seems to say so.

“One-third of white Democrats harbor negative views of black people”, the article led, and went on to detail the findings of the poll, some of which, granted, were quite ugly:

One-third of white Democrats harbor negative views of black people, calling them “lazy,” “violent” and responsible for their own troubles, a new poll has found…Given a choice of several positive and negative adjectives that might describe blacks, 20 percent of all whites said the word ‘violent’ strongly applied.

Among other words, 22 percent agreed with “boastful,” 29 percent “complaining,” 13 percent “lazy” and 11 percent “irresponsible.”

When asked about positive adjectives, whites were more likely to stay on the fence than give a strongly positive assessment.

Among white Democrats, one-third cited a negative adjective and, of those, 58 percent said they planned to back Obama.

The articles goes on to contrast the 70% backing that Obama enjoys from the Democratic party with McCain’s 85% backing from the Republican party.

Should Democrats be so much different than everyone else? The Washington Post/ABC News poll a few months ago gave the figure of “roughly 3 in 10 Americans” harboring racist views, a figure which is in line with the above “one-third”.

Perhaps it’s an “inconvenient truth”, but the Democratic Party has as much house-cleaning to do of its racist views as anyone else. While we lefties are always on the side of the downtrodden and championing the rights of the oppressed, we can’t consider ourselves perfect, nor can we be considered perfect by others. I, at a minimum, would hope that the Democrats who do harbor anti-black views would allow themselves this election to be ruled by intellect and not by racist gut reactions, that their minds would overpower their ethnocentric hearts: a vote for McCain is a vote for America as a 2nd world country, a continuation of the worst policies in a generation, and an extension to the military activities which already strain our budgets. It is a vote for a vice-president who wants rape victims to have their assailants’ babies against their wills, and a vote for tax cuts for the rich which leave the majority of Americans out of their benefits. I would hope that all Democrats, regardless of color, think of this. I would hope that Democrats seriously weigh the decision to vote McCain this Election Day.

And “but it was either this or a black guy” is the saddest excuse one could invent for doing so.

Anti-Jewish and Anti-Muslim Attitudes Linked September 17, 2008

It’s like I keep saying time and time again.

People who have virulent issues with Muslims are, more often than not, harboring those same issues when it comes to Jews.

People who hate Muslims are just more likely to hate Jews — and vice-versa. The International Herald Tribune proves what I’ve been saying for a while now. In today’s article, “Anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim attitudes rise in Europe”, journalist Brian Knowlton shows how two of Europe’s prejudices are “rising in tandem”:

Anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim attitudes have been rising nearly in tandem in several European countries, apparently reflecting concerns over immigration, globalization and economic ills, according to a new international survey.

Anti-Jewish feelings were particularly strong in Spain, Poland and Russia - with negativity up significantly since 2006, according to the Pew Research Center’s polling. Anti-Muslim views were also strong in those three countries, as well as in Germany and France.

“There is a clear relationship between anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim attitudes,” said the report from Pew (PDF), released Wednesday. “Publics that view Jews unfavorably also tend to see Muslims in a negative light.”

The survey also gauged anti-Semitism in Muslim countries (”96 percent” of people have unfavorable views of Jews in Jordan), as well as support for terrorism and suicide bombing. Hamas has Regarding suicide bombing, for example, whereas 74% of respondents in Lebanon in 2002 said the tactic was “always or sometimes justified”, that number has “plummeted” to 32%.

In Spain, the number of people holding unfavorable views of Jews more than doubled in three years, from 21% in 2005 to 46% today. Over the same period, Spanish views of Muslims went from 37% to 52% unfavorable, including a brief period in 2006 when unfavorable opinion topped 60%.

In America, anti-Jewish sentiment is shared by 9% of the population. 23% of Americans view Muslims unfavorably.

The Pew Center notes some aspects of the link between anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim sentiments:

A notable parallel between anti-Muslim and anti-Jewish opinion in Western Europe is that both sentiments are most prevalent among the same groups of people. Older people and those with less education are more anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim than are younger people or those with more education. Looking at combined data from France, Germany and Spain - the three Western European countries where unfavorable opinions of Jews are most common - people ages 50 and older express more negative views of both Jews and Muslims than do those younger than 50. Similarly, Europeans who have not attended college are consistently more likely than those who have to hold unfavorable opinions of both groups.

There are some political parallels too. Anti-Muslim and anti-Jewish opinions are most prevalent among Europeans on the political right. For example, among respondents from France, Germany and Spain who place themselves on the political right, 56% express a negative view of Muslims, compared with 42% of those on the left and 45% of those in the center. Similarly, 34% of people on the political right have a negative opinion of Jews, compared with 28% of those on the left and 26% of centrists.

Jews and Muslims are in the same boat. Denying this makes the entire boat sink. We are both religious minorities, religious minorities who live on the edge of persecution far too often. Combatting anti-Semitism must go in tandem with combatting Islamophobia, otherwise, both communities will end up suffering from the prejudices — and almost undoubtedly pointing fingers in the wrong directions when trying to determine the cause of their plight.

Terrorized by Modesty Patrols September 16, 2008

I had to post this woman’s story, this woman known only as “M” from Ma’alot Dafna, who was terrorized by her neighborhood va’ad ha’tznius/modesty patrol:

Shaking as she recalled her brutal beating at the hands of Jewish ultra-Orthodox vigilantes, a 28-year-old Jerusalem woman who would only identify herself as M. said she feared for her life.

Two weeks ago police arrested two alleged members of a modesty patrol accused of brutally beating M.

The gang allegedly gagged her, hit her, kicked her and said she would be killed if she did not move out of the ultra-Orthodox Maalot Dafna neighbourhood.

“They beat me up, tied me up and threatened to kill me,” M. said, holding back her tears. “Who will prevent them from killing me?”

Neighbours had complained of what they called the divorcee’s “indecent” lifestyle, which in such neighbourhoods can mean anything from wearing trousers to meeting men in private.

(If this is the same story as the one reported by Ha’aretz two weeks ago, this was a case done “for family honor” out of suspicion of inappropriate relations with married men — not specifically under the auspices of the modesty committee — and involved being beaten by seven men, one of whom “sat on her head to prevent her from seeing what was going on and also to prevent her from fighting back.” Two cell phones were also removed from her apartments, presumably to check callers’ identities.)

Ma’alot Dafna is the neighborhood in Jerusalem which houses my alma mater, Yeshivat Ohr Somayach. It is a mixed Ashenazi/Sephardi neighborhood, almost exclusively Orthodox, and is bordered by Ramat Eshkol, a changing neighborhood becoming increasingly charedi. A far cry from a secluded enclave like Me’ah Shearim — where an electronics store was torched for selling MP4 players capable of “indecent movie” viewing — Ma’alot Dafna is traversed by everything from IDF soldiers to Israeli public high school students to rabbis.

And now you have this.

Is there anywhere in Jewish Law that we find an accommodation for beating a woman and threatening her life to the point of hysteria? What was the purpose of this? Rarely does someone emerge from assault thinking “I have to repent for my sins”, by far a more common reaction would be “get these people the hell away from me”. Must religious standards be spread by terror?

Modesty patrols, according to Kol Charedi radio, have become increasingly violent as of late — to “excess” according to its head. Ignoring the blatant understatement, what justification could there possibly be for this? And, now that their actions, joined by so many co-conspirators, have been picked up and publicized by media outlets from Agence France-Presse to Islam Online, can we consider their actions to be anything other than a chillul Hashem, a desecration of G-d’s Name?

Terrorism is not Judaism! (Man, that sounds familiar.)

Mordechai ben David on the Music Ban: “One Sick Dude in B’nei Brak”

Mordechai Ben David shared his opinions on the new rabbinical music ban with Chabad’s Mendy Pellin after the Chabad telethon, and this is what he had to say:

I don’t think more need to be said about this. You heard it from the Jewish music pioneer himself. With a hat tip to my boy Life-of-Rubin.

More on the Rabbinical Music Ban September 12, 2008

In this interview with the BBC, Rabbi Efraim Luft of B’nei Brak gives more insight into the workings of the new tyrannical ban on multiple types of modern music:

What Rabbi Luft objects to so vehemently is not just contemporary, western music - rock, rap or pop - but the use of modern instruments and beats in the tunes of orthodox singers like Lipa Schmeltzer.

“The main part of the music should be the melody. Percussion should be secondary. They should not bend notes electronically and should not use instruments like electric guitars, bass guitars or saxophones in Jewish music,” he says.

No electric guitars. No bass guitars. No saxophones. (How a saxophone is treif, but the endless cacophony of trumpets in every mainstream Jewish album is kosher, is beyond me.)

It is a broad charge, but the rabbi is convinced that in the last 25 years music has gradually eroded moral standing in society.

Saying that music is “powerful”, he says the “purpose of modern music - its influences - is to distract young people and change good characters into bad”. The Rabbi says such music, even Jewish rock music, “where the dangerous beat plays more of a part than the melody, has no place in a society where people are trying to keep their moral standards high.”

The PDF is just pitiful. The saxophone can not be used as it was known as the “devil’s flute” in the 1920’s, and all sounds which promote a “disrespectful or indecent feeling” — which includes, according to the text, “distortion and note bending” are also forbidden. The use of “swing” in the singing (what does this even mean?) is disallowed. The text says “all forms of modern popular music” are forbidden, including “rock, pop, rap and trance.”

What good could possibly come about if this tyrannical thing is accepted into k’lal Yisra’el wholly? Some group of smug ba’alei batim are going to sit back and think “we won” as their children sneak off to listen to WPLJ? Do they really think kids are going to start liking what I have heard termed “shiny shoe music” — mainstream Orthodox Jewish music — out of the blue just because of some edict of rabbis who have never met them?

I have seen Hasidic faces light up to the sound of Lipa coming over the speakers in the way that I have yet to see most rabbis duplicate. So many Orthodox Jews go through life depressed, ekeing out existence based on “what one has to do.” Here we have a kosher type of leisure — which up until recently was “not m’kabel tumah” in the eyes of da’as Torah — which could be a pro-Torah, G-dly escape, but no. Now vocalists have to watch to enunciate their words, now virtually every musical stimulus which could have provided inspiration is patently treif.

I can not imagine this horrible legislation having any value or positive outcome. I wish we could ignore such shtuss but the reality is, this is the future of the Jewish Nation we are talking about, and I, for one, think it to be a horrible tragedy that in a few years, a kid could be thrown out of yeshiva simply for saying “yo” in a Shabbos song.

Another Rabbinical Music Ban: “Rap is Disgusting” September 9, 2008

The newly convened Committee for Jewish Music, created to address the “non-Jewish influences” on Jewish music in the Jewish world today, has officially come out and banned all urban music, as well as other “foreign pop”:

Musicians who use rock, rap, reggae and trance influences will not receive rabbinic approval for their CDs, nor will they be allowed to play in wedding halls under haredi kosher food supervision, according to a new, detailed list of guidelines drafted with rabbinical backing that differentiates between “kosher” and “treif” music.

The guidelines, which are still being formulated, also ban “2-4 beats and other rock and disco beats;” the “improper” use of electric bass, guitars and saxophones; and singing words from holy sources in a disrespectful, frivolous manner.

So now all rock, hiphop, disco, “Michael Jackson-style” (rabotai, you’re really dating yourselves with that one), and electronic music is assur. And since “all 2/4 beats” are included, this throws out not only reggae, but reggaeton, salsa, calypso, and Latin. Add in the “improper usage of” electric bass and saxophones, and jazz and fusion are also out.

And, let’s not ignore the gigantic Congolese elephant in the room:

“Michael Jackson-style music has no place in our community,” says Mordechai Bloi, a senior member of the Guardians of Sanctity and Education, an organization based in Bnei Brak that enforces what it sees as normative haredi behavior.

“We might be able to adopt Bach or Beethoven, music with class, but not goyishe African music and beats. We haredim want to protect ourselves from what we see as negative foreign influences.

Nothing but plain old racism, a charge I’m sure that Bloi himself would probably deny while standing in front of a non-white face. After all, what kind of logic would permit one of Hitler’s favorite composers (who he identified himself with), but forbid “goyishe African music” — which, depending on the region, may be actually made by Jews? (Then again, perhaps he wouldn’t consider Ethiopian Jews to be Jewish.) African music has no class? African beats have no “class”? What is class, then, but European origin? And what can be more intrinsically goyish than “Germanic ancestry” that Hitler himself praised?

And, the piece de resistance:

[Rabbi Efraim Luft of Bnei Brak] admitted that listening to all the discs on the market would be a formidable challenge.

“The main aim is to focus on new songs before they get to the recording studio So far there have only been two cases in which discs have been banned by rabbis, said Luft. “There are certain types of music, such as rap and reggae, that are disgusting and have no place in our community.”

This thinly-veiled jab at Matisyahu (and me) shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is not about any violation (real or perceived) of Yoreh Deah 178 (the section of the Code of Jewish Law which deals with non-Jewish items/influences), this is an opinion. And let’s be brutally honest — R’ Elyashiv is assuredly not sitting and listening to hours of CDs — this is an opinion of a non-Gadol, delivered to a codifier of Jewish Law by an infathomable network of gabbaim (and/or hearsay). An opinion tainted by racism and fear — fear of not only the straw-man threat of losing Jewish souls to his invented goyish bogeyman, but also the age-old dilemma of being caught on the wrong side of “too old”:

Luft has already issued a list of “kosher” and “non-kosher” bands and musicians. He said that dozens of yeshiva heads have agreed to refuse to come to the wedding of a student who hires a non-kosher band. Halls with haredi kashrut supervision who host non-kosher bands run the risk of losing their supervision, and hence their clientele. Companies that help promote haredi concerts expose themselves to the danger of a consumer boycott.

Luft said that music is just part of a much larger problem in haredi society.

“We see that the same people who are involved in the treif pop scene are also the ones in the unapproved news media, in the so-called religious radio stations, in film and in advertising,” said Luft. “All of these things come together to demoralize haredi society and to lower the spiritual level of our youth.

“This is an issue that people over 30 understand very well what I am talking about and those under 30 have more difficulty understanding,” Luft continued. “This music is pushing into our community a generation gap similar to one created by the rock music of the ’50s in the US. The whole idea is that there are types of music that have no place with respectable people. Respectable people listen to decent music and immoral people listen to indecent music, and it does not make sense that a community that has high moral standards should be listening to this type of music.”

Anyone literate or with a memory lasting longer than the fire on a matchstick knows that this has happened before. Once upon a time it was Avraham Fried who was introducing the newfangled trends, before that it was Mordechai ben David and Shlomo Carlebach. Today, for the first time in American history, frum Jews have been shown to be viable commodities in mainstream media and this has the self-styled “old guard” shaking in their mud-covered boots. On a purely quantitative level, more people will see a Matisyahu DVD in one year than will attend most rabbis’ classes in their lifetimes (whether for good or for bad) — to not even attempt to harness this unprecedented exposure for holy purposes is virtually to deny the Torah’s universality. Who could have the audacity to say, “to hear the word of G-d you must come to Brooklyn and sit in my beit midrash?” Is a mitzvah inspired by a Matisyahu concert any less pleasing to G-d than a mitzvah whose beginning is on 13th Avenue?

King Solomon asks rhetorically in Ecclesiastes, “What gain, therefore, is there…in toiling for the wind?” Is there any action more futile, any more “toiling for the wind”, than creating a ban that exists only for the sake of invalidating itself? I can tell you personally that there are yeshiva kids right now at prominent Brooklyn yeshivas who are listening to my music, a student of a prominent Rebbe here showed me just today that he “is still rocking the Y-LOVE sticker” on his car. The other night a group of yeshiva kids passed me on Avenue J — with one of them slyly shouting me out, “Y-Love!” as he rode by on his bicycle, careful not to let his friends hear that he knew me. Dozens of kids at Jewish schools have downloaded my ringtones. Kids who feel their Rosh Yeshiva would not approve of hiphop already know how to keep their musical tastes on the DL. These Pyrrhic attempts of zealots to recreate Poland will have no impact on them.

Who will be impacted by this racist ban of no value? The “good kids”. The “good kids” from “good families” who used to be able to channel their creative energies and passions for urban/digital music in good ways will now be left devoid of a kosher alternative.

Do you know how many Emails I get on MySpace saying “hi, I’m MC Moshe, this is my brother DJ Chaim, this is our new hiphop track about Shabbos”? Would these kids have gotten the same inspiration to write a track extolling the virtues of the Sabbath after listening to Soulja Boy? T.I.? What will Moshe-leh be doing in class — when he’s not being paid enough attention — next year? Will he be becoming “MC Moshe” writing about how much he loves Shabbos? Or will he be wondering how to spell “bitch” and daydreaming about the “bling” he wishes he had? Is it not easy to sit and adjudicate about such things theoretically from Bnei Brak?

A quick message to the ban-happy chevra intent on forbidding everything short of oxygen: this is your garbage disposal speaking. The souls you are throwing away will eventually end up at one of my events. Or Matis’ events. Or a Shemspeed event. Or a JDub event.

And we will be actively trying to undo the damage that you are doing right now. We will be explaining to them why Judaism is still for them, and why it is the G-d-given medium of connection that the Torah says it is, and not the oppressive backwards culture you are trying to make it into. We will be telling them why the Torah is relevant in 2008, and not trying to recreate 1800.

And maybe we’ll help some of them come back, and help keep some of them from leaving.

And with G-d’s help, you’ll get to thank us later.

Merchandising Ad Absurdum September 2, 2008

Don’t get me wrong — I fully support and intend to vote for Obama. I loved his speech, I feel the same feeling of inspiration and hope at his words as millions of Americans. I have advocated his campaign in any forum in which I have been given voice. I am blue through and through, a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat for life.

But even I am beginning to think that this election has gone too far with the merchandising.

In every other presidential campaign, most Americans were content to wear a T-shirt showing which candidate they support. Perhaps a button or two. Maybe a baseball cap for die-hard campaign supporters or campaign workers. The 2008 election has taken this to an entirely new level.

This is far past Obama T-shirts and “gear”, now we have Obama earrings and necklaces. Obama greeting cards and stationery, throw pillows, and coasters. Obama wall clocks, Air Force One sneakers, and Obama socks to match. Plush “Obamakins” dolls and talking Obama action figures.

Kids are getting Obama tattoos, this season saw Obama-inspired Versace men’s fashion lines, now there’s Obama perfume for women (”has an appealing freshness and youthful energy, it is complimented by a strong dose of determination”, comes with 1oz. “Veep Biden frangrance”) and Obama license plate frames. And you can track it all on your Obama wristwatch.

Obama condoms, anyone?

I understand that this is a result of Obama’s appeal with the creative class but there’s got to be a limit. I wonder how many people wearing Obama sneakers know about Obama’s plan to reduce foreign oil dependency, or if Obama perfume wafts around women who know about Obama’s plans for veterans or seniors. I fear that this election is just going to be drowned in consumerism and that election day will become the newest hyper-commercialized holiday.

I guess, at the end of the day, if it brings change to the White House, whatever gets people out of their houses to vote in November is a good thing. But I would hope that Obama’s voters, if asked on the way to vote as to why they were voting for Barack, would have some sort of issue-based reason, and not just break out into song:

I love this song. But it’s not why I’m voting for Obama. And it, or the clothes, the gear, the home decor, the pet apparel, or the condoms shouldn’t be why anyone else does either.