King Without A Crown (or a Yellow Flag) July 27, 2007

King Without A Crown (or a Yellow Flag)

So this week’s New York jewish Week chronicles the fall-out over Matisyahu’s revelation that he “no longer identifies” with “the Lubavitch sect” of Chassidus. The revelation, to quote the Jewish Week, “lit up” the Orthodox blogosphere.

Well I wouldn’t call the frum blogosphere “lit up” but there is definitely spirited dialogue.

Rabbi Levi Brackman — a rabbi who I have continuously held in extremely high esteem since I began reading his (often the sole) frum perspectives on YNet — voices his regret for ever having backed Matis:

His lyrics no longer really reflect deep Jewish spirituality and his behavior on stage is becoming increasingly secular. Now that he has publicly distanced himself from Chabad/Lubavitch I am admitting that I was wrong to ever promote Matisyahu. It is my hope that he keeps his faith and does not go off the deep end and thus take others with him.

In his “Life of Rubin” blog, Chaim Rubin, blogging from Crown Heights, writes in his abrasively titled piece “Matisyahu No Longer Lubavitch. Enjoys Jay-Z and Sipping Wine” that he finds Matisyahu’s re-affiliation “alarming” and opines:

It makes it even worse when you hear how irresponsibly he speaks. We don’t want our kids listening to Jay Z and sipping wine to relax. Thats not how a frum yid should act….I think Shluchim might need to reconsider how involved they get with him or his shows. I think we have to worry about what he could still say or do…I really hope that Matisyahu does well. Both phy$ically and spiritually. I hope and wish him well, but I’m officially OFF the Matisyahu fan club train…because of his comments and his attitude. He may be doing a lot of good for the non religious world and maybe even the goyish world. But for the Frum world I’m afraid that he can only do harm.

First let me preface everything by saying that I have nothing but the highest levels of respect for Rabbi Brackman, and I love to read Life of Rubin.Perhaps there’s a kabbalistic term for the emotional source of all these blog posts. Perhaps we could call it “Olam ha’Overreaction.” As Yossi B (future hiphop stage name?) writes on his blog ChaBlog-Lubavitch, Matisyahu is being misunderstood and overly criticized, and Yossi blasts Rav Brackman’s equating Matisyahu with a “secular Jewish” musician saying:

You know, [you’re] right. Bob Dylan and Matisyahu are pretty much the same. One barely licked the edge of Torah his entire life, and one says Chitas and Davens every day, but no, your right he is like every other secular Jewish singer. Matisyahu is not made for your little kids in your house, and I hope you don’t have a problem with your teenage ones listening to him because that’s just… odd….I think you need to ask yourself who is the good Jew in this situation. No disrespect intended.

I think this entire argument is symptomatic of a far deeper and far more insidious cause — a cause affecting all of us trying to break into the mainstream with our beards and jackets. Matisyahu, as far as I know, hasn’t changed very much. Isn’t he still “very religious”, isn’t he still singing “treif wine clouds the heart”?I think this is symptomatic of a breakdown in understanding between those religious Jews who were raised religious (FFB) and ba’alei tshuva/converts. For FFB Jews, much of this soul-searching process does not happen — my father was Yekkish (German Jew), my grandfather was a Yekke, I went to Yekkishe yeshivos, I pray at a Yekkishe shul, so I’ll be Yekkish until the Next World. The most dramatic paradigm shift is for girls who get married, when they switch from “minhag X” to “minhag Y”. Those of us who are religious by choice, however, have no such pre-fab outlooks, we are constantly re-evaluating, constantly re-examining ourselves and seeing whether or not we feel “at home” anymore.

Matisyahu is going through no more than any other ba’al teshuva or convert goes through. The first few years after making the transition to Torah are often marked by a lot of soul-searching. The BT/convert often examines themselves vis-a-vis their beit din/rabbi, vis-a-vis their yeshiva, their shul — everything can come into and out of question. And to the untrained FFB eye, this can often look far more earth-shattering than it is: Matisyahu, unlike Mr. Rubin said in a comment to Rabbi Brackman’s blog, never said “Chassidus makes me feel boxed in”. Only that he didn’t want to be boxed in to Chabad. (Word on the street is that he’s gravitating towards Breslov, actually.)

Also, what bothers me is that the main issue Mr. Rubin raises is external to halacha, and external to the Shulchan Aruch: sipping wine before a show is, flatly, “not how a frum yid should act. Yidden drink wine at a Simcha, or a spiritual gathering…[w]e don’t just causally drink wine to relax while listening to goyish rap music.” Was this wine treif? Can anyone pick up the Shulchan Aruch and point to any line and say “it is evident that Matisyahu violated this law”?

No, it is only the extra-halachic concern which Mr. Rubin says constitutes the “lifestyle” which no religious person “wants their children to be exposed to.” This wine could have been consumed after recitation of 80 Tehillim, and said “wine” may have been about 3 fluid ounces, but no matter. Matis “can only do harm” now.

Matisyahu is a frum Jew. A Jew who I’m sure respects the concept of da’as Torah. However, these nebulous “a frum Yid just does not do X” can be traumatizing — because they make Torah Judaism much harder than it is delineated to be in Halacha. The bar feels as if it gets higher and higher — and much of this is solely due to our communities. My rav says, for instance, that music’s permissibility (not including lyrical content) is only determined by the emotions it evokes — listening to radio-clean gangsta rap would be assur for the person it angers or makes belligerent, not for the person for whom it is calming and gets one into a G-dly mindset. (For instance, listening to System of a Down makes me extremely G-d-aware.)

Such extra-halachic guidelines can be traumatizing to someone who is religious by choice because they’re not written anywhere — these are things which “you just know” or “you just do/don’t do”. Things which are not taught in any class, which should just be “inferred”. This extra-halachic criticism is often heaped on those of us who enter the mainstream (non-Jewish) media world — because we have to conduct ourselves slightly differently than our shtetl-centered counterparts.

And, one is behooved to look at the big picture — by listening to said Jay-Z song (which could have been perfectly edited — dan l’kaf zechut!) and sipping said (Baron Herzog? Zakon?) wine, he was chilled out enough to turn on potentially thousands of people to the light of Torah, the light of G-d. An extra-halachic, culturally imposed guideline — not even a Rabbinical injunction — somehow invalidates this? (Granted, if the commenter on life-of-rubin is true, there may have been some Sabbath violation involved in his Alaska show. That’s a real issue. Not this.) I agree with Yossi, if that’s why one forbids their children to listen to lines like “there are many names for One G-d”, that is takeh odd.

I don’t know Mr. Rubin’s background, but one thing I’m almost certain of — he’s misunderstanding Matis. Matis is not “frei-ing out”, he has merely chosen a different chassidus, a different path of being ultra-Orthodox. And if Matisyahu is helping far-flung people get in touch with the Divine Light, and turning on Jews to their spiritual heritage, I think the Rebbe ztvk”l would give him a hearty “bracha v’hatzlacha” (”Blessings and success!”).

After all, “the Messiah comes” when the “fountains of Torah spring forth” to unforeseen places — and who’s doing a better job of helping that along, a guy sipping kosher wine before performing to thousands, or one angry father who forbids his children from hearing Torah-driven music?

UK Study: Majority of Jews to Be Ultra-Orthodox By 2050 July 23, 2007

The University of Manchester (UK) released today it’s findings on World Jewry.

Basically, the future face of world Jewry — or at least European and American Jewish populations — will have a beard and a head-covering.

The Charedi Orthodox Jewish population is increasing far faster than its secular counterpart, and by 2050, the majority of the European and American Jews could be charedi:

Ultra-orthodox British and American Jews are set to outnumber their more secular counterparts by the second half of this century according to research by a University of Manchester academic.Historian Dr Yaakov Wise says the increase in religious British Jewry - recognisable by their traditional dress - is now outstripping the decline in the overall Jewish population which has been shrinking by one to two per cent each year since the 1950s.

European ultra-orthodox Jewry is expanding more rapidly than at any time since before World War Two. Almost three out of every four British Jewish births, he says are ultra- orthodox who now account for 45,500 out of a total UK Jewish population of around 275,000 or 17 per cent.

According to Dr Wise and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Professor Sergio Della Pergola, Israel is experiencing similar changes. Dr Wise said: “If current trends continue there is going to be a profound cultural and political change among British and American Jews - and it’s already well on the way.”…

“Approximately half of all the Jewish under fives in Greater Manchester are Ultra-orthodox. And in Greater London the Ultra-orthodox now account for 18 per cent of the Jewish population, up from less than 10 per cent in the early 1990s.”

He added: “My work and that of Professor Sergio Della Pergola reveal a similar picture in Israel. By the year 2020, the Ultra-orthodox population of Israel will double to one million and make up 17 per cent of the total population.”

“A recent Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics report also found that a third of all Jewish pupils will be studying at haredi schools by 2012, prompting emergency meetings at the Education Ministry.”

In America too, where the Jewish population is stable or declining, Ultra-Orthodox Jewish numbers are growing rapidly. Professor Joshua Comenetz from The University of Florida says the Ultra-orthodox population doubles every 20 years, which he says may make the Jewish community not only more religiously observant but more politically conservative.

(Emergency meetings? Please.)OK, first of all, I pray that G-d allows me to have a hand in separating those two distinct terms: “religiously observant” and “politically conservative” are, especially in America, not the same thing, and may even be diametrically opposed. The current Right Wing regime in America violates Scriptural tenets routinely. And fellow Jewschool blogger Josh Frankel turned me on to the fact that Torah Law written before Roe v. Wade was often unflinchingly pro-choice, whereas after Roe v. Wade, “moral majority”-type language began to push its way into halachic responsa. (His findings are noted in a to-be-released research paper.)

But this, I feel, is going to underscore the fact that — if by virtue of no other reason than sheer numbers — the haredi population is becoming much more diverse and much less monolithic. “Ultra-Orthodoxy” will look very different in 2050. By 2050, I will surely not be the only charedi Orthodox hiphopper — perhaps we will see Jewish hiphop charts routinely posted in Jewish bookstores. Matisyahu will certainly be old hat.

By 2050, perhaps all yeshivos will be online and have broadband access. Perhaps ShalomTV will expand into a number of networks and we will have Torah-friendly TV programming available in all observant homes.

And G-d willing, Moshiach will have long since come.

Perhaps by 2050 we will even have a new category: “mega-Orthodox”, to distinguish from the progressive ultra-Orthodox people beginning to get more of a voice. Perhaps the ultra-reactionary elements will split off and form more groups determined to make their world into a perfect replica of 1650 (instead of the current status quo of 1850).

But regardless, with expansion inevitably comes change, and I think as these “under 5s” grow up, their world will change rapidly with them. And they’re going to view all of it through the lens of Torah.

Ken yirbu.

Netanya Forbids Sale of Pork July 18, 2007

Kol ha’kavod, Netanya! One love, nothing but love, and hi-fives all around.

The Netanya City council passed a by-law yesterday forbidding the sale of pork within city limits. YNet brings us the story:

The Netanya City Council approved a bylaw prohibiting the sale of pork in the city on Tuesday. Those opposing the law called it “religious coercion and violation of the dominant status-quo in the city”.The bylaw was passed despite the legal council’s opinion that it would not be approved by the Interior Ministry or the High Court of Justice due to the fact that before such a decision is reached a poll must be taken among the population in areas where non-kosher meat vendors may choose to set up shop.

Netanya Mayor Miriam Fierberg urged also Israeli MKs to legislate a law to completely prohibit the sale of pork products in Israel.

Some 70 stores specializing in pork products can be found in Netanya’s city center, and most of their customers are immigrants from the former Soviet Union.

Again, this is not religious coercion. Religious coercion is forcibly saying, “stop eating pork”. This is saying, “order your pork wherever, you’re just not buying it in Netanya.”And let us not forget that a large percentage — and in recent years, a slight majority — of the immigrants coming in from the Soviet Union are not Jewish. One non-Jewish Russian IDF soldier was even found to be a Neo-Nazi, and Israeli neo-Nazi activity is on the rise.

Fifty percent of Netanya’s City Council members are religious or traditional, which led to the passing of the bill, with only three out of 25 council members opposing it; one council member abstained.

Do the math. 13 religious members means 12 non-religious. Eight non-religious council members voted for this bill. Why is this? They obviously didn’t see it as “religious coercion”.When a country calls itself “the Jewish state” and you move there, you might think you would pay just a little respect to Judaism. No one is asking for strict kosher supervision, no one is mandating even the Scripturally ordained separations between meat and dairy. All the Netanya city council is saying is that someone must go elsewhere to buy their pork chops.

While I can’t see Israeli MKs lining up to pass an all-out ban on pork products in Israel, Ms. Fierberg’s sentiments are coming from the right place. She wants to see at least some semblance of Judaism transposed onto “the Jewish state”. And the reason I can’t see it happening is, to me, quite lamentable — you simply can not force people to respect the faith of their ancestors. You simply can not compel people to believe that G-d cares about them in their daily lives, down to what they ingest. You simply can’t.

The chiloni (non-religious — “secular”, as I found when I was there, is actually a bit of a misnomer with many) Israeli is becoming increasingly detached from Judaism. Much of this is because of corruption in the Rabbinate, much of this is because of a breakdown in (or downright absence of) dialogue between religious and non-religious communities. And you have outreach organizations working round-the-clock to try to fix these rifts. And, G-d willing, the problems with the religious communities will be repaired at some point, and we will see people making religious decisions based on what they are turned on to, not what they are turned off from.

But you have to draw the line somewhere. Somewhere there has to be someone saying, “if we have a star of David on our flag, and Hebrew as our language, we’ve got to have some Judaism over here.”

And if the line can’t be drawn at pornography, can it at least be drawn at pork?

A Sea of Neocon Hate, Literally July 16, 2007

“I lie on the beach with Hillary-Ann, a chatty, scatty 35-year-old Californian designer. As she explains the perils of Republican dating, my mind drifts, watching the gentle tide. When I hear her say, ” Of course, we need to execute some of these people,” I wake up. Who do we need to execute? She runs her fingers through the sand lazily. “A few of these prominent liberals who are trying to demoralise the country,” she says. “Just take a couple of these anti-war people off to the gas chamber for treason to show, if you try to bring down America at a time of war, that’s what you’ll get.” — from “Ship of Fools” by Johann Hari

Johann Hari, writing for The Independent (UK) gives us a startling insight into many of the neocon minds which are lamentably in vogue in the Capitol Hill circuit these days. Mr. Hari went aboard the National Review cruise, and the conversations he was unfortunate/fortunate enough to overhear were brimming with racism, xenophobia, and Islamophobia so virulent that it should make any progressive person shudder.

I am travelling on a bright white cruise ship with two restaurants, five bars, a casino – and 500 readers of the National Review. Here, the Iraq war has been “an amazing success”. Global warming is not happening. The solitary black person claims, “If the Ku Klux Klan supports equal rights, then God bless them.” And I have nowhere to run.From time to time, National Review – the bible of American conservatism – organises a cruise for its readers. I paid $1,200 to join them. The rules I imposed on myself were simple: If any of the conservative cruisers asked who I was, I answered honestly, telling them I was a journalist. Mostly, I just tried to blend in – and find out what American conservatives say when they think the rest of us aren’t listening….

I’d really like to repost the article in its entirety — it’s that worth reading. Larisa Alexandrovna, at her blog At-Largely also finds some wonderful quotes.I would be remiss if I didn’t quote the following:

Ward Connerly is the only black person in the National Review posse, a 67-year-old Louisiana-born businessman, best known for leading conservative campaigns against affirmative action for black people. Earlier, I heard him saying the Republican Party has been “too preoccupied with… not ticking off the blacks”, and a cooing white couple wandered away smiling, “If he can say it, we can say it.” What must it be like to be a black man shilling for a magazine that declared at the height of the civil rights movement that black people “tend to revert to savagery”, and should be given the vote only “when they stop eating each other”?I drag him into the bar, where he declines alcohol. He tells me plainly about his childhood – his mother died when he was four, and he was raised by his grandparents – but he never really becomes animated until I ask him if it is true he once said, “If the KKK supports equal rights, then God bless them.” He leans forward, his palms open. There are, he says, ” those who condemn the Klan based on their past without seeing the human side of it, because they don’t want to be in the wrong, politically correct camp, you know… Members of the Ku Klux Klan are human beings, American citizens – they go to a place to eat, nobody asks them ‘Are you a Klansmember?’, before we serve you here. They go to buy groceries, nobody asks, ‘Are you a Klansmember?’ They go to vote for Governor, nobody asks ‘Do you know that that person is a Klansmember?’ Only in the context of race do they ask that. And I’m supposed to instantly say, ‘Oh my God, they are Klansmen? Geez, I don’t want their support.’”

This empathy for Klansmen first bubbled into the public domain this year when Connerly was leading an anti-affirmative action campaign in Michigan. The KKK came out in support of him – and he didn’t decline it. I ask if he really thinks it is possible the KKK made this move because they have become converted to the cause of racial equality. “I think that the reasoning that a Klan member goes through is – blacks are getting benefits that I’m not getting. It’s reverse discrimination. To me it’s all discrimination. But the Klansmen is going through the reasoning that this is benefiting blacks, they are getting things that I don’t get… A white man doesn’t have a chance in this country.”

He becomes incredibly impassioned imagining how they feel, ventriloquising them with a shaking fist – “The Mexicans are getting these benefits, the coloureds or niggers, whatever they are saying, are getting these benefits, and I as a white man am losing my country.”

But when I ask him to empathise with the black victims of Hurricane Katrina, he offers none of this vim. No, all Katrina showed was “the dysfunctionality that is evident in many black neighbourhoods,” he says flatly, and that has to be “tackled by black people, not the government. ” Ward, do you ever worry you are siding with people who would have denied you a vote – or would hang you by a rope from a tree?

Disgusting.

An Anti-Hindu Rant In the Senate? July 12, 2007

Obviously I’m uncompromisingly monotheistic. I recognize the supremacy and primacy of the Torah, and of G-d. The Torah is very unwavering, no form of alien worship of any other powers is allowed.

But, on the other hand, we do, after all live in America, a country with freedom of religious expression.

So then, what in the hell is this?

From The Hill.com:

Protesters interrupt first ever Senate prayer by HinduFor the first time in its history, the Senate Thursday opened a session with a prayer by a Hindu. Protesters interrupted the proceedings on two separate occasions and were arrested.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) invited Rajan Zed from the Hindu Temple of Northern Nevada in Reno.

Before Zed could begin speaking, protesters attempted to drown out his speech. Sen. Bob Casey Jr. (D-Pa.), who presided over the Senate at the time, had to ask the Sergeant at Arms to restore order before Zed could commence, and once again during his speech after another protester shouted, citing the Ten Commandments, “You shall have no other gods before you.” The guest chaplain appeared rattled by the cries, but remained composed and continued his prayer.

Zed chanted from Sanskrit holy texts, including portions of the Vedas, Upanishads, and the Bhagavad Gita. He prayed, additionally, for the senators to serve wisely and selflessly. Zed concluded with a prayer to comfort the family of former first lady Lady Bird Johnson, who died Wednesday.

The opening prayer is normally given by the Senate chaplain, Barry C. Black, a Seventh-Day Adventist, but senators are permitted to invite guest chaplains from their home state.

The Senate Chaplain’s office confirmed that Zed was the first Hindu in history to lead the Senate’s opening prayer. In 2000, Venkatachalpathi Samuldrala performed the first Hindu opening prayers for the House of Representatives.

Do these protesters NOT want freedom of religious expression for all citizens? And this is not going on in a vacuum: From Harvard Professors to Pat Robertson, various people have gone on anti-Hindu tirades in public. Pat Robertson called Hinduism “demonic” and Jeffrey Long, Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania, said that “though it is less well-known in this country, anti-Hindu bigotry is every bit as ugly and dangerous as anti-Semitism or racism.” Vinay Vallabh of the Executive Council of the Hindu American Foundation (HAF) noted that websites promoting religious hatred and intolerance towards Hindus and Hinduism are proliferating, and in the HAF’s report, noted:

According to statistics provided in the report, “demonic” and “satanic” are the terms most commonly used today to describe Hinduism by numerous anti-Hindu websites easily accessible on the Internet. “The proliferation of websites promoting religious hatred is an unfortunate consequence of the universality of access to the internet,” said Vinay Vallabh, lead author of the report, and member of the Foundation’s Executive Council.“We must vigorously identify, condemn and counter those who use the Internet to espouse chauvinism and bigotry over the principles of pluralism and tolerance.”

Are we going to see a rise in Hinduphobia, too? What, we don’t have enough prejudices rampant in America?

Where’s all that GOP Morality? July 6, 2007

From the Washington Post “Media Notes” blog, a collection of right-wing inability to, in short, “keep it in their pants”.

Now, on the one hand, this is another irrelevant hum-drum expose of “look at what this candidate did years ago”, collections of things with no bearings on the politicians’ actual ability to perform their jobs. However, what I find particularly disturbing is how the article begins:

Does the Republican Party have a zipper problem?And if so, how much will voters care?

Now that Larry Flynt has claimed David Vitter as his latest quarry, there’s plenty of chatter about whether one too many family-values champions of the GOP has been caught not quite walking the walk.

Let’s stipulate right up front: There’s been no shortage of Democratic politicians caught doing something with women not their wives….But the Mark Foley scandal put the hypocrisy question on full display. The ex-congressman was, you may recall, co-chair of the caucus on exploited children even as he was sending nasty IMs to young men in the House page program. Newt, of course, was doing it with a House aide while demanding Clinton’s impeachment over Monica. And the reason that Hustler was happy to out Vitter for playing speed-dial with the D.C. Madam’s operation is that the Republican senator from Louisiana was an outspoken proponent of the sanctity of marriage and other moral causes.

Who votes for “outspoken proponents” of an issue? Those people who care about that issue. And everyone knows, in the South, when you are an outspoken proponent of morality, chances are you’re not quoting Confucius to back up your points. Chances are you’re not pulling out books from “ethicists.”Chances are, you’re clutching a Bible, or are speaking to people who are (or who will when they get home). Chances are, some Scripture has gotten mentioned as a proof.

A 2004 press release from David Vitter shows the candidate calling himself “a U.S. Senator who will stand up for Louisiana values”, and as one angry blogger notes, bringing his proof from a 2004 Time Magazine piece, Vitter owes much of his political life to a 1999 adultery scandal in which then-Representative Bob Livingston resigned, vacating the House seat.

I am all for people accepting repentance of a public figure as valid. But when you’re someone like Vitter or Newt, branding yourself as the “moral compass”, and you know that you’re doing something completely against Scripture (I mean, things which are written literally right there in black and white IN the 10 Commandments, “do not commit adultery”), calling out other people on their sins (for instance, women who have abortions, which, according to Evangelicals, is a sin) is a horrible move.

I think the GOP would be well served by a positive moral campaign. Instead of concentrating on what other “liberal” people are doing wrong, why not concentrate on what could be done right, for a change. Advocate charitable donation. Advocate child welfare. Advocate morality without condemning.

Otherwise, your house gets shown — by Larry Flynt of all people — to be made of glass, and you will come to regret all the stones you’ve thrown.

This is the wing that we Orthodox Jews are supposed to align ourselves with?

Who are you to judge? June 27, 2007

An interesting sociological phenomenon detailed on Ynet.

When it comes to women’s modesty and laws of gender separation, many of my progressive brethren (and sistren) react with a “mixture of pity and contempt”. On the one hand, the covered woman “must be” uncomfortable wearing “so many” layers of clothing. On the other hand, they “must be” victims of an oppressive patriarchal society dictating how they can and can not dress. The tznua/modest woman is often forced to justify herself on two levels: “yes I am comfortable” and “yes I am dressing this way voluntarily.”

A piece on Ynet sparked my interest with regard to this:

She was walking in front of me in a crowded Jaffa street, covered in black from head to toe: Shoes, socks, pants, a long dress on top, gloves (!) and of course – a veil, which revealed only a pair of black eyes.

It was steaming hot outside – over 30 degrees Celsius and terribly humid, and I immediately felt sorry for the poor woman. How hot she must be, I thought, how sweaty, how miserable it was to go through the scalding Mediterranean summer like this. And then feminist thoughts began running through my head – “How can women be oppressed this way? What a humiliation! Why doesn’t she rebel against this? What a pity she’s unaware of all the things she is missing out on in the world,” etc. I practically couldn’t take my eyes off of her.

Unfortunately this is the attitude many people take towards niqabi women. They must be stifled, and stifling, in those oh-so-hot and oh-so-oppressive veils. But then, for columnist Efrat Shapira-Rosenberg, came the flipside.

While I was busy with my progressive thoughts, I noticed that the girl walking beside me was staring at me, and I was mortified when I recognized the look in her eyes. She was looking at me in the same way I was looking at the woman in front of me. Over 30 degrees Celsius and terribly humid, she was wearing shorts and a tank top, while I was wearing a head scarf, two shirts worn one on top of the other in order to cover my arms, a long (and hot) jeans skirt, etc.”How hot she must be,” she was probably thinking, “How sweaty she must be, how miserable it is to go through the Mediterranean summer like this…” and this is before feminist thoughts began running through her head - “How can women be oppressed this way? What a humiliation! Why doesn’t she rebel against this? What a pity she’s unaware of all the things she is missing out on in the world.” She practically could not take her eyes off of me.

I’m going to go a bit further than Ms. Shapira-Rosenberg.
Anyone familiar with the Orthodox world knows — and this author is no exception — the number of converts is growing. The number of people “returning to Judaism” (chozrei b’tshuva) is growing.

As is the number of “reverts” to Islam.

The veiled “uncomfortable” woman walking down the street in her veils and head coverings in 2007 may very well have been walking down the street in the tank top in 1997. She realized that by covering up, she was elevating herself spiritually. She realized that she was doing herself a favor by bringing herself more in line with the Divine Will (as codified in halacha/Jewish Law or shari’a/Islamic law) and not by revealing more and more skin - pushing the lines of civil statutes and regulations.

What newly religious women who decide to cover up are doing is not making themselves oppressed or uncomfortable, on the contrary, they are giving themselves a sense of inner pride and beauty that they never had before.

These women should be praised — certainly not pitied. In my opinion, the mindset of “pity and contempt” has its roots in the media.

Paris Hilton and Lindsey Lohan and Britney — these women represent that which millions of girls diet and fast to achieve: the unabashed party girl who can do “whatever she pleases”. Revealing 90% of one’s epidermis, saying whatever, whenever, wherever (Shakira lyrics anyone?): this for some reason represents the pinnacle of the exercise of free choice.

Except that Britney lost her mind.
Paris Hilton is in jail.
Lindsey Lohan — wasn’t she getting high?

And the niqabi and the tznua walk along, silently elevating themselves and unaffected by these paradigms. They remain largely un-anorexic, and, when asked, report a very high level of personal satisfaction.

Ken yirbu and may women who become religious and seek their own spiritual fulfillment in defiance of societal “norms” be appreciated for being what they are.

Strong, independent women, revolutionary — and in the deepest sense of the word, quite feminist.

Child Pornography Reporting Legislation Rejected in California June 19, 2007

Should tech support guys have to report any underage illicit content they find to authorities?
From Recordnet.com:

Legislation to require computer technicians to report any pornographic images of children they may stumble on while fixing a machine was rejected today by the Senate Public Safety Committee.Sponsored by Assemblywoman Cathleen Galgiani, D-Stockton, the bill would have extended existing law requiring film developers to report kiddie porn to computers; with the decline in film use as digital photography becomes the mainstream, Galgiani says it only makes sense.

Arkansas, Michigan, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina and South Dakota already require computer techs to report illegal photos or movies, and Connecticut is also debating the issue.

After Public Safety Committee Chairwoman Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles, said she opposed the bill, two of her Democratic colleagues chose not to vote on it, and the measure died 2-1-2. Sen. Dave Cogdill, a Modesto Republican who represents much of San Joaquin County, was one of the two “aye” votes.

A similar bill died in Senate Public Safety last year.

Galgiani’s bill had passed the Assembly 73-0 last month.

Israeli Supermarket Goes Kosher June 18, 2007

Russian-Israeli billionaire Arkady Gaydamak has reportedly bought the Israeli Tiv Taam supermarket chain for an undisclosed sum, and is doing what some consider the unthinkable: he’s making the entire chain kosher.

From the New Zealand Herald:

With robust insouciance for the sensitivities of all three great monotheistic religions, Hermina Schlinger eyed with satisfaction her large purchase of pork frankfurters at the checkout counter of Rishon Letzion’s Tiv Taam supermarket in Rishon Letzion just south of Tel Aviv this week and declared, “There it is: the Last Supper”.What Schlinger, 60, was referring to was the weekend announcement by the Russian-born billionaire Arkady Gaidamak that he has bought the entire Tiv Taam supermarket company and he proposes to make its famous food counters kosher from now on.

No more highly convenient - if defiantly non-religious - opening on Shabbat. No more ham, salami, shellfish, pork sausages and all the other non-kosher food - that has brought Schlinger and tens of thousands of her Israeli fellow shoppers to the 24-store chain over the past 15 years.

The shock waves sent through Israel by Gaidamak’s purchase and plans are underlined by the urban myths it has already generated. Schlinger, whose origins are Romanian Jewish, is from Tel Aviv and confesses to being “very angry” about the impending transformation of her favourite supermarket chain.

With all due respect to my elder Mrs. Schlinger, I have only two phrases to offer as my reaction to this story.Either “you’re damn skippy” or “it’s about damn time”.

Gaidamak was not at Rishon Letzion to hear these complaints. But he flatly gave his answer, in an interview to Army Radio on Sunday. “I believe that in a Jewish state,” he declared, “in which there is a large Muslim minority, selling pork is a provocation.”

You see, whereas this is being decried as if it were coercion, this is one of the “downsides” to living in a capitalistic “democratic” society. Every corporate entity is free to do what it wants, and Gaydamak’s holdings company is no exception. With his own free choice, and without coercion, he decided to bring one of the largest supermarket chains in Israel in line with Judaism. It is only fitting for one of the largest supermarkets in the only country called “the Jewish State” to serve kosher food, and in fact it’s axiomatic.Pork will still be legal, no one has criminalized shellfish, and indeed, anyone is free to open their own ham- and sausage-laden deli counter. The, as Time Magazine reported, “Jerusalem delicatessen counters brimming with bacon, pork chops and pate of wild boar” (chalila) will still be there, just not under the name “Tiv Taam”. No one has made any serious run to criminalize pork in Israel since the 90s.

Columnist Uri Orbach calls those who oppose the move fundamentalist secularists. I am inclined to agree with this — no one is forcing anyone to buy anything. One can order pork online, have it imported, buy it from “mom-and-pop” stores, or raise one’s own pigs. This is not religious coercion, this is an attempt to make Tiv Taam more inline with “Jewish tradition” as Gaydamak says, and as Uri Orbach says:

The fact that an ideological group of Jews makes a living by producing and marketing pork, is horrifying. The children’s studies, the dining hall, the extra-curricular activities, the cultural events, the assembly hall and the lawns – were all obtained through the same thing - pork.

The people of Aristobulus, while sieging the Temple Mount, sent in a pig as a sacrifice instead of the kosher beasts they used to send till then. Following the shock aroused by the act, it was said, “Damned be the man who raises pigs in the Land of Israel.”…Even if it’s unpractical to use state laws to ban the production of pig meat, surely the national heritage and Jewish instincts should arouse the necessary repulsion.

Former Knesset Speaker Avraham Burg raised eyebrows and sparked controversy when he said that Israel should not define itself as a Jewish state. But his detractors — as well as those who oppose the Gaydamak venture — should realize: the word “Jewish” has a meaning, a tradition, a history. To not recognize this fact renders the “Jewishness” of Israel to no more than a blue star on a piece of white cloth.If you don’t want Israel to be Jewish, stop calling it such.

Tiv Taam. Kosher l’mehadrin. Ken yirbu.

UPDATE: Unfortunately, Arkady Gaydamak is not going to buy the chain. But it would have been a huge kiddush Hashem (literally, sanctification of the Divine Name) if he would have.

Modern-Day Slavery: China June 14, 2007

“So the Egyptians enslaved the children of Israel with back breaking labor. And they embittered their lives with hard labor, with clay and with bricks.” - Exodus 1:13-14

“So, on that day, Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters of the people and their officers, saying, ‘You shall not continue to give straw to the people to make the bricks like yesterday and the day before yesterday. Let them go and gather straw for themselves. But the number of bricks they have been making yesterday and the day before yesterday you shall impose upon them; you shall not reduce it…Let the labor fall heavy upon the men and let them work at it, and let them not talk about false matters.’” - Exodus 5:6-9
From MSNBC:
Police in central China have rescued 217 people, including 29 children, who had been forced by human traffickers into effective slavery at brick kilns, state media reported on Thursday…

On Wednesday, the People’s Daily newspaper reported on its Web site that at least 1,000 children in Henan had been kidnapped near train and bus stations and sold to work as slaves at brickworks in neighboring Shanxi province. Children as young as 8 were forced to work up to 14-hour days, and were often subject to beatings and given little food, the report said…

Yang Aizhi, a 46-year-old mother, whose son went missing on March 8, was one of the people who had alerted the public, Xinhua said, after she heard that her son had escaped from a kiln in Shanxi during her search of more than 100 kilns in the province.

“When the children were too tired to push carts, they were whipped by taskmasters,” Xinhua quoted Yang as saying, adding that she had still not found her son.
” And the L-rd said to Moses, ‘Now you will see what I will do… I heard the moans of the children of Israel, whom the Egyptians are holding in bondage, and I remembered My covenant.
Therefore, say to the children of Israel, “I am the L-rd, and I will take you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will save you from their labor…”‘ - Exodus 6:1,5-6

About 120 people were detained in a crackdown after more than 35,000 police from Henan province who were sent to make checks at 7,500 kilns, the official Xinhua news agency said.

“We must do everything we can to fight human trafficking and rescue those held captive,” it quoted Qin Yuhai, a Henan vice governor and the province’s police chief, as saying.

Last week, state media reported the rescue of 31 people, forced to work for a year as slaves at a brickworks run by the son of a local Communist Party official in Shanxi.

Among them, eight were so traumatized that they were only able to remember their names, and one laborer was beaten to death with a hammer for not working hard enough.

Government attention follows an online petition drive started by parents of kidnapped children.

State-run media on Wednesday reported that the online campaign included parents forming teams that rescued 40 children recently.

According to the petition, 400 fathers of missing boys from the central province of Henan had banded together to find their sons at kilns hidden deep in the mountains of neighboring Shanxi province. It added that boys were sold for $65 each to kilns.

“Our children’s safety is everything, but who will help us? With governments on both sides passing the responsibility, where can we go for help?” the petition said.

Reports on the petition were carried on numerous Web sites, including one run by the ruling Communist Party’s official People’s Daily newspaper. Some carried photographs and television images appearing to show boys working in the kilns and parents rescuing children.
Perhaps not an open miracle, but salvation for these children nonetheless.

If China starts finding hemoglobin in municipal water supplies, I, for one, will be completely nonplussed.

Jewish Law Says WHAT? June 11, 2007

In this past week’s Jewish Press, an anonymous Op-Ed piece decries the tzedek hechsher being advocated by the Conservative Movement.

The Conservative movement has long proclaimed its fealty to Torah and mitzvot and the authenticity of Conservative dogma as an expression of halacha. Yet its wanton revisionism has been such that the Conservative claim to halachic legitimacy has been recognized only within its own ranks – and even then not universally. And movement leaders have long chafed at the rejection.So it should not come as a surprise that the Conservative movement would try to burnish its credentials by establishing a halachicniche of its own by way of a “hechsher tzedek.”

I’m right there with you. Textual fundamentalism vis-a-vis the Shulchan Aruch is observance par excellence. I stand with all who see halacha as a Divinely mandated set of legislation to guide each of us on our path to G-d.

The principal advocate for this effort is Rabbi Morris Allen of Beth Jacob Congregation in Mendota Heights, Minnesota….To Rabbi Allen, wrote JTA’s Sue Fishkoff, this means “paying attention not only to what kinds of foods are consumed and how the food is prepared…but also but also how those who produce the food are treated: Are they paid appropriately? Are their working conditions safe? Is their dignity as human beings respected?”

“The new label,” wrote Ms. Fishkoff, “isn’t intended to replace existing kosher certification, which is under Orthodox supervision, but it constitutes a broader definition of kosher food that incorporates ideas of social justice from the Torah and Talmud.”

In other words, according to Rabbi Allen it is no longer sufficient for kosher certification to be granted solely on the basis of proper Jewish methods of inspecting and slaughtering animals.

When was kashrus only about “proper Jewish methods of…slaughtering animals”? At a minimum, Rabbi Moshe Weiner of the Kosher Information and Service of Boro Park and Flatbush, two communities which could under no circumstances be described as “lax” in their observance, already stated that “kashrus certification could not (and must not) be awarded to a food-producing establishment that does not meet all of its required civic and legal obligations.”Furthermore, we have already seen one hechsher be removed for extra-culinary infractions, such as having alcoholic beverages and music too close together.

I have only one question for Mr. Jewish-Press-Editorial-Board — why can’t Hooters in Tel Aviv get a hechsher, then? Were one to import Beit Yosef Glatt meat (one of the highest standards in the world for slaughtering) and clean the kitchen of any remnants of dairy or dairy utensils, would we see — just by virtue of having fulfilled the Divine obligations to separate meat and dairy and to have properly slaughtered meat — kosher certification on a place with half-naked servers?

Yet Mr. Editorial-Board continues, and places his foot squarely into his esophagus with this next line, which I hope “did not come out as intended”:

Moreover, this effort will serve to dilute the place of halacha. Working conditions are fundamentally matters of economics, sociology and labor negotiations. Are issues such as minimum wage, vacation, sick leave and health coverage properly viewed as matters of halacha? Are they on the same level of halachic application as shechita, mixing meat and dairy, soaking and salting, etc.?

The entire 7th chapter of the Talmud Tractate Bava Metzia is entitled ‘He who hires workers’. (ha’socher es ha’poalim) and begins with a Mishnah — the Oral Law transmitted on Mt. Sinai by G-d Himself — which talks about proper work hours for employees. The words of the Mishnah are codified into law in the Code of Jewish Law (Choshen Mishpat 331).Hours are “working conditions”.

Granted, no one would suggest full EEOC or Dept. of Labor audits, and also granted, American Labor Law contains minutiae and legal considerations which are external to Torah. Yet, even so, Rav Weiner said that a kashrus certification requires that one fulfill ALL of their civic obligations, which would include OSHA safety regulations as well as labor laws.

But to, with one fell swoop, doom an entire chapter of the Talmud to invalidity is unconscionable. What makes Yoreh Deah (the volume of the Code of Jewish Law dealing with food and forbidden mixtures) more valid than Choshen Mishpat?

I don’t think the “Editorial Board” realizes the far-reaching implications of what they are saying. For instance, Chiquita Brands International was forced to pay a $25 million fine for the actions of its Colombian subsidiary from which it divested in 2004.

The agreement ended a lengthy Justice Department investigation into the company’s financial dealings with right-wing paramilitaries and leftist rebels the U.S. government deems terrorist groups.Prosecutors say the Cincinnati-based company agreed to pay about $1.7 million between 1997 and 2004 to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, known as AUC for its Spanish initials.

The AUC was responsible for over 1,300 murders in 2000 alone. Were he in charge of the kashrus certification, could the author of this Jewish Press piece feel content sleeping, knowing that he checked the bananas for bugs and forbidden waxes, but 1,300 people died in the time period it took to achieve the certification?The author of said piece needs to wake up and smell the corruption. There is such a thing as mesayei’a l’ovrei aveirah. We are not supposed to assist sinners in committing sins. Exploiting one’s workers or leaving a blood-trail behind one’s product is patently sinful. (And if one of the workers is Jewish, it’s also a question of standing idly by one’s brother’s blood, forbidden explicity in Scripture in Leviticus).

Everything matters. And to restrict kosher certification exclusively to what goes on in the kitchen is an egregious violation of, not the nebulous “spirit of the law”, but of codified case law in the Code of Jewish Law.

It’s either halacha — the whole halacha — or kosher Hooters. And I invite the anonymous op-ed writer to make his or her choice.

Are Today’s Rabbinical Leaders… June 7, 2007

…the erev rav, the “mixed multitude” who left Egypt and were responsible for the Golden Calf — the worst national show of idolatry in the history of the nation of Israel?

Is this a true statement?

“Before the coming of the Mashiach most of the Rabbanim will be from the Erev Rav etc. Because Israel in themselves are holy, but the Erev Rav work only for their own benefit as we can clearly see that the Rabbanim and the Chassidim and many regular Jews of the generation are, due to our many sins, mostly from the Erev Rav and want to rule over the public, and all their actions are only for their own sake, to acquire honor and money, and one should therefore only join with those who truly serve, who sacrifice themselves to Hashem not in order to receive any benefit”.

The organization Mishpat Tzedek seems to think so.And their site, while not wholly on the same page with me (for instance, his views on family court and feminism are drastically different than mine), definitely has a revolutionary spirit worth checking into. The site contains stingingly critical PDFs which decry much of the goings-on today’s generation of Orthodox Jews.

At a minimum, Mishpat Tzedek and I have three things in common.

We’re both fed up. We both love Hashem and His Torah (as codified through halacha/Jewish Law, the practical manifestation of His Will), and we both know that, if the long-awaited Redemption is to come now, we’re going to need to get it together.