You Say Bujew, I Say Jubu
Monday, June 25, 2007

Mrs. Feiler Faster reports that I've bastardized the spellings of the bastardized Jewish-Asian conglomerates of Jews. Any thoughts on Hinjew v. Hinju or Bujew v. Jubu? Is this kind of thing standardized?

Labels: Judaism

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The Last Jew of Kabul
Friday, June 22, 2007

Radio Free Europe:

More than 200 Jewish families of Afghan descent live in the New York City borough of Queens -- the largest group of Afghan Jews outside of Israel. In Afghanistan, meanwhile, there is officially only one Jew left, Zebolan Simanto, a 45-year old caretaker of a synagogue in Kabul.

The focal point for Afghan Jews in New York is the congregation Anshei Shalom, which is also a spiritual home to Jews from Iraq, Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Russia, Syria, Uzbekistan, and Yemen.

Binyamin Pinchasi, a jeweler by trade, was born and raised in Israel. He has never been to Afghanistan, but both of his parents grew up in Kabul. They still have fond memories of growing up in the Afghan capital more than 50 years ago.

"We never had persecution in Afghanistan. And the government was very helpful to us."

Pinchasi, who appears to be in his early 30s and speaks a little Dari -- which along with Pashto is one of Afghanistan's two main languages -- says he feels a spiritual connection to the country, though only a faint one.

"Some connection yes, a little bit," he said. "I think if we go to visit there, we're going to feel some more."

Like most congregants at Anshei Shalom, Pinchasi helps support Simanto, the last Jew in Kabul. This year -- like every year -- they sent Simanto a package for Passover on April 1 that was nearly 27 kilograms of grape juice, matzo and oil -- all kosher -- that cost $650 to ship to Kabul.

Labels: Judaism, Middle East

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Germany v. Israel
Thursday, June 7, 2007

An interesting debate has broken out in Germany over whether Israel should encourage German Jews to migrate or leave them be to replant the Jewish community depleted because of the Holocaust. I'm with the Germans here. The Diaspora is good for Judaism and good for Israel.

The leaders of Germany's Jewish community have warned Prime Minister Ehud Olmert they would request the German government's help in preventing Israel from encouraging Jews settled in Germany to immigrate to Israel.

Stephan J. Kramer, who heads the Central Council of Jews in Germany, sent the warning following Israel's decision last week to extend the jurisdiction of Nativ , the government body in charge of promoting immigration from the Former Soviet Union to Israel. Nativ and the Jewish Agency will cooperate in running ulpans (Hebrew courses) and other educational programs in Germany, which is home to some 200,000 Russian-speaking Jews who moved there from the Former Soviet Union in recent years.

Labels: Europe, Judaism, Middle East

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Fire on the Mountain
Thursday, May 24, 2007

From the AP: Fire heavily damaged a synagogue Thursday, and police said they suspect arson.

The blaze struck on the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, which celebrates Moses' receiving of the Torah from God.

Police did not give a motive, but there have been incidents of anti-Semitism in Geneva recently, including graffiti scrawled on another Jewish house of worship.

The blaze broke out at 5 a.m. in the Hekhal Haness Synagogue in Geneva's Malagnou neighborhood. About 40 firefighters responded and had the fire under control an hour later, police spokesman Philippe Cosandey said. No one was hurt.

Cosandey said investigators suspect arson because there appeared to be several sources for the flames.

Labels: Europe, Judaism

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The Holocaust at Virginia Tech
Thursday, May 3, 2007

I got this circulated email from some activist friends in the Jewish community:

Most of you have heard about the Holocaust survivor who gave his life to protect his students from the mentally ill student at Virginia Tech.

Sign the petition to rename Norris Hall To Librescu Hall (in memory of Dr. Liviu Librescu.)

http://www.petitiononline.com/04172007/petition.html

Labels: Judaism

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"Judaism and Zionism Are Not One"
Tuesday, May 1, 2007

One of the chapters in WHERE GOD WAS BORN that gets the biggest reaction is the one on the time Mrs. Feiler Faster and I spent in the Jewish Community in Iran. "Jews in Iran?" many say. Yes. The Jewish community in Iran is the largest in the Middle East outside of Israel -- 35,000 people. The CSM checks in:

Iran's Jews are buffeted by inflammatory rhetoric from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad about "wiping Israel off the map" and denying the Holocaust, and a politically charged environment that often equates all Jews with Israel and routinely witnesses the burning of the "enemy" flag.

But despite what appears to be a dwindling minority under constant threat of persecution, Iranian Jews say they live in relative freedom in the Islamic Republic, remain loyal to the land of their birth, and are striving to separate politics from religion.

They caution against comparing Iran's official and visceral opposition to the creation of Israel and Zionism with the regime's acceptance of Jews and Judaism itself.

"If you think Judaism and Zionism are one, it is like thinking Islam and the Taliban are the same, and they are not," says Ciamak Moresadegh, chairman of the Tehran Jewish Committee. "We have common problems with Iranian Muslims. If a war were to start, we would also be a target. When a missile lands, it does not ask if you are a Muslim or a Jew. It lands."

Labels: Judaism, Middle East

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"Dispel Every Shadow": Vatican Revisits Antisemitism
Monday, April 30, 2007

News that should make both Jews and Catholics happy: The Vatican is planning to revisit its groundbreaking but controversial 1965 document Nostra Aetate that first took some responsibility for anti-Semitism. As pioneering as it was, many Jews were dissatisfied. Now, the Vatican seems to agree.

The need to step up the fight against anti-Semitism will be a key issue for the world's Roman Catholic bishops at a meeting at the Vatican next year.

An entire section of a preparatory document released by the Vatican on Friday is devoted to the Church's relationship with Jews, noting the "close associations of the two in faith" and calling for efforts "to overcome every form of anti-Semitism."

The 60-page document, which was approved by Pope Benedict XVI, outlines the suggested topics and includes a questionnaire to be answered by local bishops.

After asking if priority is given to dialogue with the Jews, the questionnaire calls on bishops to investigate the use of biblical texts to "ferment attitudes of anti-Semitism."

'"Much has already been done, but everything must be done to dispel every shadow," the

synod's general-secretary, Bishop Nikola Eterovic said.

Labels: Interfaith Relations, Judaism

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Michael Chabon: Bad for Michael Chabon?

Writing is rewriting. The old adage takes on new meaning with Michael Chabon's new book. The WSJ reports on the near-death catastrophe of Chabon's first book since his Pulitzer.

"I shudder now when I think that I would have published the old draft," says Mr. Chabon, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay." Instead, after consultations with his editor, he spent about eight months reworking the entire book -- a murder mystery set in a fictional Yiddish-speaking Jewish homeland in Alaska. He added a flashback structure and pared down the language into a hard-boiled, Yiddish-inflected patois. "I felt like I had to invent a whole new dialect of English to finish it," he says.

Next week, after five years, four drafts, two trips to Alaska and a title change, "The Yiddish Policemen's Union," will arrive in stores. While long gestation periods and multiple drafts aren't unusual in the publishing industry, the time and effort expended on behalf of Mr. Chabon's vision are illustrations of the book's importance to HarperCollins, which won it in a four-way, seven-figure auction in 2002, when it was little more than a one-and-a-half-page proposal. Now the company has again bet big, printing 200,000 copies of the finished product, Mr. Chabon's first full-length adult novel since winning the Pulitzer in 2001. "The stakes are high," says Jonathan Burnham, HarperCollins's publisher, "for Michael and all of us."

Everything about this story makes me happy, especially that Michael (whom I met briefly and had dinner with more than a decade ago but have had no contact with since) is willing to discuss this process openly. It makes me admire him even more, and I deeply admire Kavalier & Klay (even with the overwrought last third). I hope writing teachers teach this article in their schools and I hope the many writers out there who contact me will listen to the honesty in this piece. Old adages aside, one adage I preach a lot is that a writer has to learn to be a good reader of his own material. Maybe this self-honesty (even his point about being defensive at first) is why Michael Chabon is a great writer.

Labels: Books, Judaism

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Michael Chabon: Bad for the Jews?
Wednesday, April 25, 2007

I can't improve on this GalleyCast post, and can't improve on its headline for sure (which I've borrowed/lifted/stolen-with-attribution above). I can make it relevant to Feiler Faster by pointing out that my brother predicted that the new Chabon novel would be a #1 NYT bestseller.

Kyle Smith becomes the first commentator (as far as I know) to play the "Bad Jew" card against Michael Chabon for making the antagonists in his new novel, The Yiddish Policemen's Union, "a gangsterish extreme sect of Hasidim" who commit violence against other Jews to fulfill their ultra-Zionist agenda.

At its core, Smith's broadside against the novel is of a piece with Wendy Shalit's 2005 attack on Jewish writers who failed, in her eyes, to depict the Orthodox with sufficient admiration. The Post being a far cry from the NYTBR, though, the tone isn't quite so elevated, as in a comment upon the film rights: "With Chabon's take on Jews as the central element in endless struggle, maybe Mel Gibson would like to direct." Har de har har. (Of course, I'm biased, as I think the novel in question is pegged to be one of this year's strongest award contenders.)

Labels: Judaism

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Gays and "Goldilocks" Judaism
Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Michael Medved offers a surprisingly hate-filled and ahistorical attack on the de facto admission of homosexual rabbis into Conservative Judaism.

Religious liberals in Christian as well as Jewish denominations call it hypocritical to focus on biblical definitions of marriage or sanctions against homosexuality, while readily disregarding so many other rules from Scripture. Despite Old Testament references, they note, most people don't marry multiple wives today, or employ slave-like indentured servants in our homes, or avoid eating shellfish. But the Bible merely permitted polygamy and indentured servitude in certain circumstances, never commanding those practices for everyone. In Jewish law, male-female marriage, on the other hand, is a mitzvah — an obligation, a commandment. And to this day, Conservative Judaism still doesn't sanction shrimp.

As recently as 1992, the committee of leading Conservative legal scholars found that Jewish law clearly prohibited same-sex commitment ceremonies and admitting homosexuals to rabbinical seminaries, but public pressure — not some startling discovery of ancient text — forced adjustment to 21st century trends. Arnold Eisen, chancellor-elect of The Jewish Theological Seminary, declared: "The decision to ordain gay and lesbian clergy at JTS is in keeping with the longstanding commitment of the Jewish tradition to pluralism.

Pluralism means that we recognize more than one way to be a good Conservative Jew, more than one way of walking authentically in the path of our tradition."

In other words, he now embraces moral relativism in its modern-day "let's not be judgmental" garb and abandons the traditional role of religion to command or at least suggest clear standards for human behavior and intimate relationships. Jonathan Sarna, professor of American Jewish history at Brandeis University, justified this new direction by suggesting that Conservative Judaism couldn't survive without it. "A movement that wants to attract a younger generation of disaffected Jews had no choice but to make this decision," he told The New York Times.

Recent history in both the Jewish and Christian communities suggests he's wrong: Disaffected young people seldom flock to watered-down versions of religious faith that lack continuity or integrity. The rapidly growing denominations are those that make demands on potential adherents and advance clear standards of right and wrong. That's why Evangelical and Pentecostal Christianity has grown while "mainline" Protestant denominations have dwindled, and why traditionalist Catholicism boasts more worldwide vitality than liberal strains of the church. Meanwhile, Mormons uphold multiple restrictions (giving up alcohol, coffee, tobacco, among other things) and yet constitute one of the fastest-growing creeds in the USA.

In Judaism, the same dynamic applies: with tepid, uncertain versions of the faith fighting a losing battle to maintain the affiliation of their young people, while the unaffiliated explore enthusiastic, traditionalist sects. No movement in Judaism has experienced anything like the explosive recent growth of the Hassidic organization, Chabad, with its 3,300 community centers miraculously appearing nearly everywhere and transforming the face of American Judaism. The Conservative movement has been losing influence during the past 40 years not because of its unbending adherence to outmoded rituals but because of its confusion, contradictions and gradual disregard of tradition.

Labels: Judaism

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Truth Check: The Holocaust and British Schools
Tuesday, April 17, 2007

A worldwide furor has erupted in response to a British study that concluded that some teachers are not teaching mandated courses in the Holocaust because they offend Muslim students. The Crusades are in the same boat, apparently. You can read an editorial about the controversy in India and one in Texas. Or you can check my inbox. Last night I received this "In Memoriam."

In Memoriam

Recently this week, the UK removed The Holocaust from its school curriculum because it "offended" the Moslem population which claims it never occurred. This is a frightening portent of the fear that is gripping the world and how easily each country is giving into it. It is now more than 60 years after the Second World War in Europe ended. This e-mail is being sent as a memorial chain, in memory of the six million Jews, 20 million Russians, 10 million Christians and 1,900 Catholic priests who were murdered, massacred, raped, burned, starved and humiliated with the German and Russia peoples looking the other way! Now, more than ever, with Iran , among others, claiming the Holocaust to be "a myth," it is imperative to make sure the world never forgets. This e-mail is intended to reach 40 million people worldwide! Join us and be a link in the memorial chain and help us distribute it around the world. Please send this e-mail to 10 people you know and ask them to continue the memorial chain.

But wait. It turns out the opening sentence of this In Memoriam is dead wrong. The govt did not remove the Holocaust from the curriculum. A government report said that some schools are dropping it. But even that is dodgy, as their case is built on scant evidence involving one school in particular. Even the Holocaust watchdog group in Britain says the problem is not widespread. Here's a quote from the Jerusalem Post:

The study examined "emotive and controversial" history teaching in schools. Researchers gave an example of a high school in the north of England that dropped the Holocaust as a subject of study.

The report went on to say that in another department at the school, the Holocaust is taught despite anti-Semitic sentiment among pupils. The same department, however, avoids teaching the Crusades for fear of "Muslim rage" since their "balanced treatment of the topic would have challenged what was taught in some local mosques."

The report said some schools are using history "as a vehicle for promoting political correctness."

A different school found itself "strongly challenged by some Christian parents for their treatment of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the history of the State of Israel that did not accord with the teachings of their denomination," according to The Daily Mail report.

Karen Pollock, chief executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust, said: "It is our understanding that this is not representative of the majority of schools in the UK and that the case in question was just one example brought to light by the Historical Association. However, this does not detract from the seriousness of the situation and highlights that more sufficient monitoring of how Holocaust education is taught in schools is needed.

I don't think it minimizes the significance of the Holocaust to report that yet again a number of hyper-sensitive Jewish groups are misrepresenting a study to suit their own purposes.

Update: The emailer today sent along this note: The article I forwarded to you last evening was a gross exaggeration of a much less significant incident in the British school system. I’ll try to be more selective (and suspicious) in the future… Good for him.

Labels: Judaism

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Casey Kasem Does Rabbis
Friday, April 13, 2007

I'm catching up on a few issues that I missed while traveling the last few weeks. Nothing like a Top 50 list -- in this case, Rabbis in America -- to stir up a bit of controversy. The list, published in Newsweek Online and compiled from a few influential Jews in L.A., is here. One complaint I received in my email box from Letty Pogrebin, mentions that the list includes not enough women. You can read a bit about the controversy here and here and here. I know a number of these rabbis, and was thrilled to see Bruce Lustig, with whom I've done a lot of interfaith work, in the Top 10, but I have to agree with a number of bloggers who say that it's so idiosyncratic to be virtually meaningless. But it sure is fun.

1. Marvin Hier (Orthodox)

Hier is one phone call away from almost every world leader, journalist and Hollywood studio head. He is the dean and founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the Museum of Tolerance and Moriah Films.

2. Yehuda Krinsky (Lubavitch)

Krinsky has truly built a shul on every corner and brought the Chabad movement mainstream prominence. He is the leader of Chabad and its CEO.

3. Uri D. Herscher (Reform)

Herscher has built arguably America’s most culturally relevant Jewish institution and his passion has already touched hundreds of thousands of Jews and non-Jews of all ages. He is the founding president and CEO of the Skirball Cultural Center.

4. Yehuda Berg (Orthodox)

Berg has made wearing the red string a popular phenomenon in America and around the world and turned on everyone from Madonna to club-hopping young Jews to the power of the Kabbalah. He is an author and spiritual adviser at the Kabbalah Centre.

5. Harold Kushner (Conservative)

Kushner has written nine inspirational books including the international best seller that helped millions grapple with "When Bad Things Happen to Good People." He is one of America’s truly gifted speakers and teachers.

6. David Ellenson (Reform)

Ellenson is a trailblazer committed to bringing this generation’s Reform Jewish rabbis and teachers closer to traditional Judaism. He is the president of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.

7. Robert Wexler (Conservative)

Wexler has re-envisioned Jewish education and created the largest Jewish continuing-education program in America while building a premier rabbinical school and liberal arts college. He is the president of the University of Judaism.

8. Irwin Kula (Conservative)

Kula is committed to “taking Jewish public” and reshaping America’s spiritual landscape. He is the copresident of CLAL, a public television host and the author of "Yearnings: Embracing the Sacred Messiness of Life."

9. Shmuley Boteach (Orthodox)

Boteach has been called “the most famous rabbi in America” and his 17 books, TLC television series and celebrity friends help make that case. His book "Kosher Sex " introduced this Hasidic rabbi as a cultural phenomena.

10. M. Bruce Lustig (Reform)

Each year on Yom Kippur, Lustig has an audience that even the president of the United States would envy. He is the rabbi of Washington Hebrew Congregation, the largest congregation in Washington, D.C.

Labels: Judaism

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Is the K-word the new N-word?
Wednesday, April 4, 2007

As we know, some blacks have a made a political statement out of turning the N-word from an insult into a badge of honor. Now at least one Jew is trying to do the same with the K-word. (Seems this is still very loaded. I considered spelling out the K-word and N-word in the headline to this post but Mrs. Feiler Faster went, well, ballistic.) Here's part of the story from the Hollywood Reporter:

Labels: Judaism

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Seder in Berlin
Monday, April 2, 2007

I'll be celebrating Passover this week with my in-laws in Boston. Whether you're observing the holiday, or not, you may be interested in this story about having a seder in Berlin. Here's an excerpt:

Our haggadah dates from 1945, when it was printed "for the members of the Armed Forces of the United States," as its cover proclaims, sponsored by something called the New York National Jewish Welfare Board. According to the flyleaf, it's one of 260,000 copies, printed (with increasing urgency) between 1943 and 1945. When our haggadah was crisp and new, Germany was falling, and Allies were liberating concentration camps, peopled with the dead and nearly dead. Bringing "freedom" to such places is almost bitterly laughable: even if your body survives, who would ever feel free of such memories?

We bought this haggadah during the year we lived in East Berlin, to celebrate our very first seder among Germans and Americans. An odd mission for me, a German-American ex-Catholic and for my husband Seth, an American Jew of remarkable laxness, both of us atheists. Our Jewish credentials are an unorthodox American mix: ten years living in New York, some Hebrew school, a growing if miscellaneous bookshelf of Jewish-American writers. And our plan in holding a seder in Germany, I realize now, was just as all-American: artlessly simple to start, mind-bogglingly ambitious to complete.

We wanted to start our own Jewish tradition: to teach our German friends something about Judaism that does not revolve around grainy documentary footage and the inescapable guilt of their grandparents. And most audaciously, to bring a little levity to this experiment: fewer bombs, more humor, even if it's clouded by the gallows. Modern Germans rub up against Jewish culture constantly as a culture of crisis, of national shame and of pervasive memorial. What really jarred me was how little contact they seemed to have with actual Jews. What about ongoing Jewish life, beyond its attempted annihilation in the past?

Labels: Judaism

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Is Pot Kosher For Passover?
Friday, March 30, 2007

Apparently not. But the pro-marijuana party of Jerusalem argues it therefore must be kosher the rest of the year ...

Marijuana is not kosher for Passover, a pro-cannabis advocacy group says, advising Jews who observe the week-long holiday's special dietary laws to take a break from smoking the weed.

The Green Leaf Party announced on Wednesday that products of the cannibis plant have been grouped by rabbis within a family of foods such as peas, beans and lentils that is off-limits to Jews of European descent during Passover.

The Green Leaf Party, which has made several unsuccessful attempts to win election to parliament on a platform urging marijuana's legalisation, said it was issuing its advisory as a service to Jews who don't want to break ritual law.

But it said the rabbinical ban for the holiday beginning at sunset on Monday, during which many Jews eat matzos, or unleavened bread, could be a blessing in disguise.

"Logic dictates that if the rabbis say cannabis is non-kosher for Passover, it is apparently kosher during the rest of the year," Michelle Levin, a spokesperson for the party, told the YNet news website.

Labels: Judaism

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Jews: The New Episcopolians
Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Following up on another story we've been following here on Feiler Faster, the main Conservative Jewish seminary announced on Monday that they would begin admitting homosexuals, dissolving another major difference between the Conservative and Reform movements.

The seminary considered the flagship institution of Conservative Judaism said Monday it will start accepting gay and lesbian applicants, after scholars who guide the movement lifted the ban on gay ordination.

Arnold Eisen, incoming chancellor for the Jewish Theological Seminary, said the decision was made after extensive discussion with faculty and students, a survey on views of the issue within the movement and a meeting of the school's trustees.

"The larger issue has been how we can remain true to our tradition in general and to halakah (Jewish law) in particular while staying fully responsive to and immersed in our society and culture," Eisen said in a statement distributed to the school community and its supporters.

The Conservative branch holds the middle ground in American Judaism, adhering to tradition while allowing some change for modern circumstances.

The larger and more liberal Reform Jewish movement, as well as the smaller Reconstructionist wing, allow gays to become rabbis; the Orthodox branch bars gays and women from ordination.

In December, the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards voted to allow the seminaries to decide on their own whether to admit openly gay students. However, their decision also left leeway for synagogues to reject gay and lesbian clergy if the congregations believe that same-sex relationships violate Scripture.

Yet another step toward what I believe will be the end of the tripartite division among American Jews in my lifetime.

Labels: Judaism

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Obama: God for the Jews?
Friday, March 23, 2007

As I have written here (and here) in the last few weeks, I think the blogosphere can be great for a number of things, as we just saw when the Net quickly cobbled together all the critiques of the new Jesus documentary into a unified whole. But the blogosphere can also create faux controversies where there is no underlying reason. That's the case, I believe, with the mini-hullabaloo over Obama and the Jews. As best I can tell (and please, someone, correct me if I'm wrong), the flap started when Ben Smith of Politico (who recently apologized for getting the Edwards story completely wrong) published a piece suggesting that Jews at the recent AIPAC meeting, meaning highly politicized, Israel-right-or-wrongers, feel a "real, if kind of inchoate, skepticism" about the Illinois senator.

From that, bloggers across the spectrum sprung into action to explain this purported problem, offering everything from his perceived Islamic sensitivity, his appeasement of the Palestinians, to the fact that he's black. Here's how Andrew Sullivan summarized the situation.

I don't get the hostility from some American Jews (although the "cynicism" line in his AIPAC speech was lame). Neither does Matt Yglesias. MetaDC has an explanation (hint: JesseJackson). Beth Gottfried thinks the criticism reflects Obama's increasing appeal to Jewish Americans.

The reason Andrew does not get the hostility is it may not be there. The only sources Smith uses to build his case are E.J. Kessler, a NY Post editor, and Morton Klein, the president of the hyper pro-Israel Zionist Organization of America. Memo to Mr. Smith: The New York Post and ZOA hardly speak for the majority of Jews in America, most of whom are Reform, liberal, pro-Israel, for sure, but also queasy about the failure of Israel to tackle the settlement issue in a substantive way, and frustrated the Olmert launched a hasty war in Lebanon last summer that he could not finish successfully.

As for Obama, he comes out of a church and a political culture in Chicago that have been supportive to Jesse Jackson and Louis Farrakhan. He has spoken favorably about Palestinian rights in the past and had his picture taken with Edward Said. But on his policy statements in recent years, he has shown a willingness to criticize the Palestinians and Israelis (as well as speak to the Iranians), a position that may not please the Israel right-or-wrong crowd but that is objectively smart about the region. Based on my contacts and conversations in the Jewish community in recent months, I would not say any hesitation about Obama stems from his positions on the Middle East, but on the larger issue of his lack of experience. In this regard, Obama's problem is not with the Jews; it's with the country.

Labels: Judaism, Politics in America

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Why On This Night Do We Drink Coke?
Friday, March 16, 2007

Every year, Coke turns back the clock and makes a special, Kosher-for-Passover Coke (look for the yellow top) made with sugar rather than corn syrup. Egullet has a wonderful review:

In April of 1985, the Coca-Cola company announced that it was re-formulating its flagship carbonated drink, which to the horror of Coke fans everywhere, included a switchover to high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). Soon, the rest of the soft drink industry followed suit, and the classic taste of cane sugar-based sodas became practically extinct. Today, only a few small boutique soft drink companies still make sodas with refined cane sugar (or sucrose, made from sugar beets) a costly ingredient when compared with HFCS — but true carbonated beverage connoisseurs know and can tell the difference, as corn syrup has a characteristically cloying sweetness when compared to refined sugar. For nostalgic Coca-Cola lovers, unless you live in a foreign country that classic taste is but a distant memory.

Every late March and early April, for the two to three weeks leading up to the celebration of the Jewish Passover holiday season in the United States, Coke fans living in major metropolitan areas with large Jewish populations get their Real Thing, if only for that brief fleeting period. According to Jewish law, nothing made with chametz (any of a number of proscribed cereals and grains, including corn) during passover may be consumed — so in order not to lose sales from observant Jews during that eight day period, a small number of Coca-Cola bottlers make a limited batch of the original Coke formulation, using refined sugar. Needless to say, stocks run out quickly and fans of Passover Coke have been known to travel many miles seeking out supermarkets with remaining caches.

Passover Coke products (and Passover Pepsi) in 2-Liter bottles can be distinguished by their yellow caps, inscribed either with just the “OU-P” symbol and/or the words Kosher L’Pesach in Hebrew. The canned variety is rare and is known to be produced only by a scant few bottling companies in the United States – if you can find any, be sure to snap it up.

Labels: Judaism

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Obama's Jewish Problem
Thursday, March 15, 2007

Does Obama have a Jewish problem? Can't say I've picked up on anything in my travels. But here's an entry from Politico.com.

It's a hard thing to pin down, Barack Obama's Jewish problem. But in the halls of the AIPAC Policy Conference yesterday, there was no denying that the members of the pro-Israel group -- largely Democrats, though they tilt right -- feel a real, if kind of inchoate, skepticism about the Illinois senator.

Now, an Iowa Democrat and AIPAC member, David Adelman, has written Obama a letter asking for clarification of Obama's remark to the Des Moines register that "nobody is suffering more than the Palestinian people," a statement Adelman writes he found "deeply troubling."

Adelman, a Des Moines lawyer, said he had helped Mark Warner briefly, but is currently undecided among the 2008 contenders.

But his letter brings to the surface a sentiment that's been circulating largely on private email lists and in chatter about a posting on the pro-Palestinian blog Electronic Intifada, which claimed (with little evidence) that Obama was once on the Palestinian side. Several AIPAC attendees told me that while Obama is "saying the right things," they don't think his heart is in it. (A high bar, perhaps.) The sentiment is nowhere near universal in the pro-Israel, or Jewish, communities, but concern is pretty widespread.

Labels: Judaism

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"Most of My Chinese Friends Are Jewish"
Wednesday, March 14, 2007

The NYT on the first wave of Chinese adopted girls having Bat Mitzvot:

Fu Qian, renamed Cecelia Nealon-Shapiro at 3 months, was one of the first Chinese children — most of them girls — taken in by American families after China opened its doors to international adoption in the early 1990s. Now, at 13, she is one of the first to complete the rite of passage into Jewish womanhood known as bat mitzvah.

She will not be the last. Across the country, many Jewish girls like her will be studying their Torah portions, struggling to master the plaintive singsong of Hebrew liturgy and trying to decide whether to wear Ann Taylor or a traditional Chinese outfit to the after-party.

There are plenty of American Jews, of course, who do not “look Jewish.” And grappling with identity is something all adopted children do, not just Chinese Jews.

But seldom is the juxtaposition of homeland and new home, of faith and background, so stark. And nothing brings out the contrasts like a bat mitzvah, as formal a declaration of identity as any 13-year-old can be called upon to make. The contradictions show up in ways both playful — yin-and-yang yarmulkes, kiddush cups disguised as papier-mâché dragons, kosher lo mein and veal ribs at the buffet — and profound.

Yet for Cece, as everyone calls Cecelia, and for many of the girls like her, the odd thing about the whole experience is that it’s not much odder than it is for any 13-year-old.

“I knew that when I came to this age I was going to have to do it, so it was sort of natural,” she said a few days before the ceremony at Congregation Rodeph Sholom, a Reform synagogue on West 83rd Street where she has been a familiar face since her days in the Little Twos program. Besides, she said with a shrug, “Most of my Chinese friends are Jewish.”

Labels: Judaism

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"A Jewish School Where Half the Students Are Muslim"
Tuesday, March 13, 2007

I sent an American friend who is heading off to Britain with her Scotish husband and three kids for three weeks a link to the news about Churchill that broke out over the weekend. She sent me a link to this amazing article, "a nice contrast to the piece on Churchill and the Jews."

It's infant prize day at King David School, a state primary in Moseley, Birmingham. The children sit cross-legged on the floor, their parents fiddling with their video cameras. The head, Steve Langford, is wearing a Sesame Street tie.

A typical end-of-term school event, then. But at King David there's a twist that gives it a claim to be one of the most extraordinary schools in the country: King David is a strictly Jewish school. Judaism is the only religion taught. There's a synagogue on site. The children learn modern Hebrew - Ivrit - the language of Israel. And they celebrate Israeli independence day.

But half the 247 pupils at the 40-year-old local authority-supported school are Muslim, and apparently the Muslim parents go through all sorts of hoops, including moving into the school's catchment area, to get their children into King David to learn Hebrew, wave Israeli flags on independence day and hang out with the people some would have us believe that they hate more than anyone in the world.

The Muslim parents, mostly devout and many of the women wearing the hijab, say they love the ethos of the school, and even the kosher school lunches, which are suitable because halal and kosher dietary rules are virtually identical. The school is also respectful to Islam, setting aside a prayer room for the children and supplying Muslim teachers during Ramadan. At Eid, the Muslim children are wished Eid Mubarak in assembly, and all year round, if they wish, can wear a kufi (hat). Amazingly, dozens of the Muslim children choose instead to wear the Jewish kipah.

Labels: Interfaith Relations, Islam, Judaism

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The Two Views of Anti-Semitism

Stanley Fish has been musing about modern anti-Semitism over at the NYT blogs page. (You have to be a subscriber to read.) He addresses a fundamental disconnect: Jews are doing better than ever but haven't given up their underlying sense of fear.

By all the available evidence, formal and informal, precariousness does not mark the situation of the Jewish community today, at least not in this country. Whether the measure is education, wealth, ownership of property, influence in the corridors of power, prominence in the professions, or accomplishments in the arts, Jews in the United States are visible and successful to a degree that is remarkable given their relatively small numbers (around 2 percent of the population). Yet as Professor Charles Small of Yale University reports, “Increasingly, Jewish communities around the world feel under threat,” and there are some Jews in this country who share this feeling, not because they are themselves threatened (although that does occasionally happen), but because they fear – in the spirit of Sinclair Lewis’s “It Can’t Happen Here” or Philip Roth’s “The Plot Against America” – that what is happening elsewhere may soon happen here.

Why should they think that? Part of the answer is to be found in the relationship between three words – Israel, Iraq and anti-Semitism. Much of the world has been opposed to the Iraq war from its beginning, and now after four years 70 percent of Americans share the world’s opinion. Some who deplore the war believe that those who got us into it and cheered it on did so, at least in part, out of a desire to improve Israel’s position in the Middle East. Those who hold this view (and of course there are other analyses of the war’s origins) fear that the same people – with names like Wolfowitz, Pearle, Feith, Abrams, Kristol, Kagan, Krauthammer, Wurmser, Libby and Lieberman – are pushing for a strike against Iran, arguably a greater threat to Israel than Iraq ever was. Why, they ask, should our foreign policy be held hostage to the interests of a small country that is perfectly capable of defending itself and is guilty of treating the Palestinians, whose land it appropriated, in ways that are undemocratic and even, in the opinion of many, criminal?

After reviewing the other view of anti-Semitism, he concludes his summary:

So there you have two stories: anti-Semitism is on the rise and it’s time to get out those “Never Again” signs. Or, it’s not anti-Semitism in the old virulent sense, but a rational, if problematic, response by Middle East actors and their supporters in the West to what they see as “an oppressive occupying force”; don’t take it personally. I understand this second story, and appreciate its nuance, but I can’t bring myself to accept it, if only because I believe that the viral version of anti-Semitism is always capable of regaining its full and deadly form even when it is apparently dormant or weakened. All it needs is a pretext, and any pretext will do. If the Israeli-Palestinian conflict didn’t exist, it would attach itself to something else; but it does exist, and anti-Semitism couldn’t be happier.

I have to say that I'm more sympathetic to the second approach than Stanley Fish is.

Labels: Judaism

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Churchill: "Jews Are Unwittingly Inviting Persecution"
Sunday, March 11, 2007

News broke over the weekend of a discovery at my old graduate alma mater, Cambridge, that is sure to explode into a huge international story. In many ways the story is familiar: An old-school British diplomat has some negative things to say about the Jews. Shocking. But when that diplomat is a young Winston Churchill, watch the reaction ricochet around the world. The details are worth running in whole here, as reported in The Scotsman.

WINSTON Churchill suggested the Jewish people were "partly responsible for the antagonism from which they suffer", according to a document made public for the first time.

A historian at Cambridge University has uncovered the article written by Churchill in 1937, three years before he became prime minister.

Entitled 'How The Jews Can Combat Persecution' - by the Rt Hon Winston Churchill, it never saw the light of day after Churchill's private office stepped in to say publication would be "inadvisable".

The document lay buried in the university's Churchill archive for more than 60 years until historian Dr Richard Toye unearthed it while researching a new biography of the wartime leader. There is a suggestion the article was ghostwritten for Churchill.

But Toye said: "If it was ghostwritten, Churchill was apparently happy to put his name to this article in 1937. Like many of today's politicians, he was happy to endorse the sentiments contained in articles that were written for him."

Those sentiments include a complaint that cheap Jewish labour was "taking employment from English people" - a foreshadowing of today's arguments about the influx of immigrants to Britain.

The piece begins with reference to persecution of Jews over the centuries and refers to a new wave of anti-Semitism.

"It would be easy to ascribe it to the wickedness of the persecutors, but that does not fit all the facts," it reads.

"It exists even in lands, like Great Britain and the United States, where Jew and Gentile are equal in the eyes of the law, and where large numbers of Jews have found, not only asylum, but opportunity.

"These facts must be faced in any analysis of anti-Semitism. They should be pondered especially by the Jews themselves. For it may be that, unwittingly, they are inviting persecution - that they have been partly responsible for the antagonism from which they suffer."

The article goes on: "The central fact which dominates the relations of Jew and non-Jew is that the Jew is 'different'. He looks different. He thinks differently. He has a different tradition and background. He refuses to be absorbed."

Elsewhere, the article is sympathetic towards Jewish people and it is clear Churchill disapproves of their persecution.

He writes: "In fact, the Jew is as a rule a good citizen. He is sober, industrious, law-abiding. He identifies himself - up to a point - with the country in which he lives. He is ready, if need be, to fight and to die for it. Jewish soldiers served in the armies both of the Allies and of the Central Powers during the Great War. Twelve thousand of them died for Germany."

And Churchill ends by urging the British people to stand up for the Jews.

"The Jews are suffering from persecutions as cruel, as relentless and as vindictive as any in their long history," he writes.

"There is no virtue in a tame acquiescence in evil. To protest against cruelty and wrong, and to strive to end them, is the mark of a man. And when the victim of oppression is a brother in blood and faith, to attempt his succour becomes a sacred duty."

Labels: Judaism

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Nazi Tourism
Monday, March 5, 2007

You've heard of eco-tourism. How about Nazi tourism? The City of Vienna is in New York this week pitching itself as a honeymoon spot for Jews, highlighting a decades-long campaign to make Jews feel welcome in a city long associated with Hitler and the Holocaust.

The tour also touts Vienna's successes in urban renewal, waste management and attracting innovative industries. But at its heart are the amends it has made for its Nazi past – paying out reparations, returning stolen property, and helping to set up a “Jewish Welcome Service” that over the past 27 years has funded hundreds of visits by Austrian Jews who fled the Nazis.

Austrian authorities have paid for the rebuilding of synagogues, Jewish schools, memorials and other institutions serving the capital's 7,000 Jews.

“Everything is OK. I feel good here,” said Raphael Chai Malkov, who moved to Vienna from Israel in 1989 and owns a kosher bakery and grocery. “I hope it will stay this way.”

Three of the 12 planned events deal with Jewish themes – a visit to a Brooklyn Hassidic community by representatives of Vienna's Jews; a discussion of “Contemporary Jewish Vienna,” and a showing of “Zorro's Bar Mitzvah,” a documentary about four Austrian Jewish youths preparing for their religious coming-of-age ceremony.

BTW, here's what Variety says of the film: Vet documaker Ruth Beckermann blends healthy irony with bemused respect in "Zorro's Bar Mitzvah," which follows four youngsters in Austria as they celebrate becoming full members of the Jewish community at age 13. Film smoothly challenges the unstated taboo of portraying well-off German-speaking Jews whose children are thriving and have no qualms about expressing their Jewish identities. Intimate, communicative lensing and keen editing suggest an all-media career for Jewish and non-Jewish auds alike.

To learn more about the film, click here.

Labels: Europe, Judaism

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The Only Jewish Blogger in Savannah
Wednesday, February 21, 2007

I'm on my way to Savannah for the weekend. With that in mind, Arnie Belzer is an old friend and the rabbi of my hometown congregation, Mickve Israel, in Savannah, the third-oldest congregation in the country. He and I were exchanging emails this week and he sent me a link to a self-described "only Jewish blogger in Savannah," who had attended a Judaism 101 class that he taught recently. Twelve hours. Several hundred people. Very few Jews, it turns out.

"A few innacuracies," Arnie reported of this post by at yoyenta.com, "but mostly right on!"

My eyes did their usual wandering around the room with its classic nave structure and breathtaking stained glass with inscriptions from the 1800’s, but was distracted by the sound of pens scratching on paper. I saw that some people were listening very attentively and taking notes. I had my pen out, too, of course; I’m always scribbling stuff to collect for this blog, and perhaps one day, a book. Since when do Jews listen to the rabbi, let alone write it down? I thought. Could it be that I am not the only Jewish blogger in Savannah? Then it dawned on me: These people weren’t Jews.

It seems the rabbi’s Judaism 101 talk is immensely popular among Christians looking to find out more about our religion, for various reasons, some earnest, some scary. Not that there weren’t a good number of congregants there, too; I recognized several senior Yentas from my weekly lunch with my mother-in-law. The rabbi, who I’ve always liked a lot but many find to be a little showy for the third oldest congregation in the country, unapologetically framed religion in marketing terms, and admitted that Judaism has pretty lame PR: We don’t seek converts, we don’t believe in original sin and we don’t promise eternal salvation.

I started to get down with the basic explanations of Judaism, learning what I must’ve slept through in Hebrew school. Did you know that Reform Judaism was developed in the 19th-century South in keeping with the Protestant aesthetic so popular in America at the time? Or that the Southern Baptists fund Jews for Jesus? (Rabbi B. invoked meshuggeneh pundit Dennis Prager when one of the non-Jews asked why one couldn’t be a Jew for Jesus: “It’s like being a vegetarian for meat.”)

The piece includes at least one questionable joke by Rabbi Belzer that YoYenta finds funny. You be the judge: A Liberal Protestant, a Catholic and a Jew are discussing when life begins. The Liberal Protestant says: “At birth.” The Catholic disagrees: “At conception.” The Jew trumps them all: “When the kids leave for college and the dog dies.”

Labels: Judaism

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The Last Jews of Cairo
Monday, February 19, 2007

One of my favorite scenes in WHERE GOD WAS BORN came in a meeting in Iraq with a man who called himself The Last Rabbi of Baghdad. He was interesting, funny, and quite emotional -- plus he wanted me to introduce him to a Jewish woman in America. After 2600 years, the Jews had abandoned a place where Judaism, in many ways, was born.

I thought of that when a friend sent me this link to a story about the Last Jews of Cairo. The photos are amazing and the story is quite well-written. The pull-out quote reads: "On the eve of Ramadan, in the center of the Arab world, we found ourselves – two agnostic Jews with no interest in or ties to the Jewish community back home – [scrambling] to join in prayer and worship with the remaining Jews of Cairo."

Labels: Judaism, Middle East

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Are the Jews Responsible For Anti-Semitism?
Friday, February 16, 2007

How's this for a topic likely to get the blood boiling: Is the blood libel true? The AP:

An Italian-Israeli historian has angered fellow Jews by taking on a subject that has long haunted his people: alleged anti-Christian hatred he says fueled medieval accusations that Jews killed Christians in ritual murders.

Ariel Toaff's book, just released in Italy, shocked the country's small Jewish community — in part because he is the son of Elio Toaff, the chief rabbi who welcomed Pope John Paul II to Rome's synagogue two decades ago in a historic visit that helped ease Catholic-Jewish relations after centuries of tensions.

The author, who teaches medieval and Renaissance history at Bar-Ilan University outside Tel Aviv, Israel, delves into the charge that Jews ad